Another gem from Techcomm.
There were red faces in the Ordnance Survey office when its English surveyors returned from compiling a list of house names in mid- and north Wales. The results contained an unusually high number of properties called “Gwyliwch rhag y ci” or “Caewch y git,” better known in English as “Beware of the Dog” or “Shut the Gate.”
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 07, 2006 2 comments
Tuesday, June 06, 2006 1 comment
66(0)6
Today is June 6, 2006, considered the Day of the Beast by some (6/6/6, geddit?). JohnB on the Techcomm list dredged up some information that might be... uh, handy.
My personal favorite is 666F.
660 Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000 Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666 Number of the Millibeast
/ 666 Beast Common Denominator
(-666) ^ (1/2) Imaginary number of the Beast
1010011010 Binary of the Beast
1-666 Area code of the Beast
00666 Zip code of the Beast
Phillips 666 Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666 Highway of the Beast
666 F Oven temperature for Roast Beast
666 mg Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
666i BMW of the Beast
668 Next-door neighbor of the Beast
766 Upstairs neighbor of the Beast
333 The semi-Christ
My personal favorite is 666F.
660 Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000 Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666 Number of the Millibeast
/ 666 Beast Common Denominator
(-666) ^ (1/2) Imaginary number of the Beast
1010011010 Binary of the Beast
1-666 Area code of the Beast
00666 Zip code of the Beast
Phillips 666 Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666 Highway of the Beast
666 F Oven temperature for Roast Beast
666 mg Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
666i BMW of the Beast
668 Next-door neighbor of the Beast
766 Upstairs neighbor of the Beast
333 The semi-Christ
Sunday, May 21, 2006 1 comment
Sunday humor
A new pastor was visiting his parishioners. At one house it seemed obvious that someone was at home, but no answer came to his repeated knocks at the door. Therefore, he took out one of his cards and wrote: “Revelation 3:20” on the back of it and stuck it in the door. (“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”)
When the offering was processed the following Sunday, he found that his card had been returned. Added to it was this cryptic message: “Genesis 3:10.” He opened his Bible to check out the citation and found: “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid, for I was naked.”
When the offering was processed the following Sunday, he found that his card had been returned. Added to it was this cryptic message: “Genesis 3:10.” He opened his Bible to check out the citation and found: “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid, for I was naked.”
Quotable quotes about Word
Another gem dug up in my email clean-out
As technical writers go, I’m relatively lucky. In my 20-odd (and I do mean odd) year career, I’ve only in the last couple of months ran into overload situations that had me working weekends as well as overtime (it’s not uncommon from what I’ve heard from other people). But I’m even more lucky because I haven’t had to use Microsoft Word as a serious writing tool for almost 10 years now. Before that, Word (up to Word 7.0/95) was a decent word processor, not terribly solid (especially for documents longer than 50 pages) but easy to customize, very scriptable and mostly predictable. Being a button-pusher by nature, I was able to find and then avoid the sharp corners and rough edges and get work done.
For people who live in their word processors, Word97 marked a major turn — downward. Corrupted files, always a possibility, became more frequent. Auto-numbering went straight to #3|| and skipped the handbasket. Preference changes would spontaneously change themselves back. Fortunately, about the time Word97 (and Word98 for Macs) landed on the world with a wet plop, I changed jobs and went to work at a FrameMaker shop. Frame isn’t the most feature-laden product in the world, but it is extremely predictable and very stable. The only way to lose significant work to a FrameMaker crash is to start typing in a new document without saving it before it crashes. Anyway, all the things I started hearing from Word users at that point made me less than motivated to go back.
Nothing I’ve heard has suggested the problems are being fixed. In fact, I’ve repeatedly asked a Microsoft program manager who works on Office file formats whether the next version of Word will fix the autonumbering problems that have been around since '98. No response. (Funny how the search function at Microsoft’s blogs.msdn.com couldn’t turn up its own blog address but Google could, by the way.)
So here’s a few quotable quotes about Word that I’ve collected from the Techcomm list....
“First thing I realized about trying to do documentation in Word is that I had to lower my expectations.” — B.A.
“Only entirely random actions, bizarre incantations and forceful oaths can make Word do what you want it to (especially when it comes to numbering).” — M.B.
“Nothing will work in Word if you're wearing the wrong kind of shoes or whatever.” — B.A.
“It's a known Word bug.” — a cast of millions
This profanity-laden rant is also notable, not only for expressing the frustration so many of us have with Word, but for being the only piece of writing I’ve ever seen that manages to use that much profanity and stay coherent.
And finally:
Word does (mostly) well for most people, who don’t need more than 10%–20% of the functionality it offers. It’s those of us who live and die by our word-processing skills who run into trouble with it, because we need to push it to the limit just to stay caught up. And pushing Word makes it tip over, quickly.
As technical writers go, I’m relatively lucky. In my 20-odd (and I do mean odd) year career, I’ve only in the last couple of months ran into overload situations that had me working weekends as well as overtime (it’s not uncommon from what I’ve heard from other people). But I’m even more lucky because I haven’t had to use Microsoft Word as a serious writing tool for almost 10 years now. Before that, Word (up to Word 7.0/95) was a decent word processor, not terribly solid (especially for documents longer than 50 pages) but easy to customize, very scriptable and mostly predictable. Being a button-pusher by nature, I was able to find and then avoid the sharp corners and rough edges and get work done.
For people who live in their word processors, Word97 marked a major turn — downward. Corrupted files, always a possibility, became more frequent. Auto-numbering went straight to #3|| and skipped the handbasket. Preference changes would spontaneously change themselves back. Fortunately, about the time Word97 (and Word98 for Macs) landed on the world with a wet plop, I changed jobs and went to work at a FrameMaker shop. Frame isn’t the most feature-laden product in the world, but it is extremely predictable and very stable. The only way to lose significant work to a FrameMaker crash is to start typing in a new document without saving it before it crashes. Anyway, all the things I started hearing from Word users at that point made me less than motivated to go back.
Nothing I’ve heard has suggested the problems are being fixed. In fact, I’ve repeatedly asked a Microsoft program manager who works on Office file formats whether the next version of Word will fix the autonumbering problems that have been around since '98. No response. (Funny how the search function at Microsoft’s blogs.msdn.com couldn’t turn up its own blog address but Google could, by the way.)
So here’s a few quotable quotes about Word that I’ve collected from the Techcomm list....
“First thing I realized about trying to do documentation in Word is that I had to lower my expectations.” — B.A.
“Only entirely random actions, bizarre incantations and forceful oaths can make Word do what you want it to (especially when it comes to numbering).” — M.B.
“Nothing will work in Word if you're wearing the wrong kind of shoes or whatever.” — B.A.
“It's a known Word bug.” — a cast of millions
This profanity-laden rant is also notable, not only for expressing the frustration so many of us have with Word, but for being the only piece of writing I’ve ever seen that manages to use that much profanity and stay coherent.
And finally:
When I first started using Microsoft Word professionally, about 10 years ago, someone told me that the only thing to do to get it to work as you thought it should was to sacrifice a small goat during the correct phase of the moon.
I ran a Google search today on ‘+"Microsoft Word" +"sacrifice" +"goat"’ and got 650 hits, so clearly this belief is now widespread. (OK, so some of the hits were about obscure religions rather than tech writing, but my point is still valid.)— D.F.
Word does (mostly) well for most people, who don’t need more than 10%–20% of the functionality it offers. It’s those of us who live and die by our word-processing skills who run into trouble with it, because we need to push it to the limit just to stay caught up. And pushing Word makes it tip over, quickly.
Saturday, May 20, 2006 No comments
Message from God
Saw this in an email a while back.
One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the evil that was going on. He decided to send an angel down to Earth to check it out.
So He called on a female angel and sent her to Earth for a time. When she returned she told God, “Yes it is bad on Earth. 95% of the people are bad and 5% are good.”
He thought for a moment and said “Maybe I had better send down a male angel to get both points of view.” So God called a male angel and sent him to Earth for a time. When the male angel returned he went to God and told Him “Yes, the Earth is in decline. 95% of the people are bad and 5% are good.”
God decided to E-mail the 5% that were good and encourage them a little, something to help them keep going.
Do you know what that E-mail said?
*
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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*
Oh! You didn't get one either huh?
One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the evil that was going on. He decided to send an angel down to Earth to check it out.
So He called on a female angel and sent her to Earth for a time. When she returned she told God, “Yes it is bad on Earth. 95% of the people are bad and 5% are good.”
He thought for a moment and said “Maybe I had better send down a male angel to get both points of view.” So God called a male angel and sent him to Earth for a time. When the male angel returned he went to God and told Him “Yes, the Earth is in decline. 95% of the people are bad and 5% are good.”
God decided to E-mail the 5% that were good and encourage them a little, something to help them keep going.
Do you know what that E-mail said?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Oh! You didn't get one either huh?
Friday, May 05, 2006 No comments
Keith Richards, Indestructo Man!
I hope I’m this active when I’m 62. Sheesh. You got to wonder: what the hey was he doing up in a tree?
A comedian once said that after a nuclear war, the only thing left would be bugs and Keith — if all the drugs he’s taken didn’t kill him, nothing else could.
A comedian once said that after a nuclear war, the only thing left would be bugs and Keith — if all the drugs he’s taken didn’t kill him, nothing else could.
Monday, May 01, 2006 2 comments
Monday, January 30, 2006 No comments
Daughter Dearest, Zombie Queen
If you need a zombie queen for your next horror movie, I have just the girl for you...
Need I say more?
Need I say more?
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 No comments
The World’s Shortest Fairy Tale
Received in email, cleaned up slightly.
Actually, the shortest fairy tale goes, “Once upon a time they lived happily ever after. The end.” But I like this one better; it has a moral.
Once upon a time, a prince asked a beautiful damsel for her hand in marriage.
She replied, “NO!”
And the prince spent much time hunting, fishing, and golfing; he drank beer and farted whenever he pleased, and lived happily ever after.
Actually, the shortest fairy tale goes, “Once upon a time they lived happily ever after. The end.” But I like this one better; it has a moral.
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