Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!looking!watmath!maytag!watserv1!looking!funny-request From: funny-request@looking.on.ca Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny Subject: The "true news" digest Nov/90 (8 of 8) Keywords: various, true Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 90 08:25:05 GMT Lines: 204 Approved: funny@looking.on.ca Here comes the "true news" digest. This is a collection of various submitted items of "found humour." True (or supposedly true) stories, cute sayings or quotes seen or overheard, that sort of thing. These were judged not quite appropriate for an individual posting, so they are collected here. This is posted in several parts ------------------------------------ From: garm@midway.uchicago.edu (Robert Garmong) Subject: U of C gets another Nobel Sign in a cafe on the U of C campus: Merton Miller special: Free Hamburger, Fries, and Soft Drink With each Nobel Prize ------------------------------------ From: gdk@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Gary Koerzendorfer) Subject: Bad bite Heard on KGO radio, in San Francisco: "At yesterday's Columbus Day fair, a woman was bitten by a dog in the entertainment area." ------------------------------------ From: TALIESYN@morekypr.UUCP Subject: Sign in window / crippled children / true A friend of mine saw the following sign in a Hardee's where they were having a pumpkin sale to benefit crippled children: "Buy a pumpkin to help cripple children." Yes, that's right.... No mistake was made while copying that line. ------------------------------------ Subject: Trick or Treat From: eliot@dg-rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot) Kids sometimes mis-hear things, and perceive phrases as being some other phrase they already know. This phenomena led to my two year old kid going up to people's doors last night and announcing "Christmas tree!" ------------------------------------ Subject: Deadly politics From: farnum@sequoia.berkeley.edu (Charlie Farnum) Quoted from Martin Snapp's election results in the Oakland Tribune: Politician with the most staying power: Judge Frank Ogden of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who was re-elected with 91 percent of the votes, despite the fact that he died three months ago. Moral: In Chicago, dead people vote. In Oklahoma, they get elected. ------------------------------------ From: bloom-debbie@yale.arpa (Debbie Bloom) Subject: Computations Joke This was told by my math professor the other day: I was at the bank and the teller informed me that since the computers were down, she would have to do the computations the "old-fashioned way." She then proceeded to take out her pocket calculator. So much for multiplication tables. ------------------------------------ From: frk@frksyv.UUCP (Frank Korzeniewski) Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore Organization: Frank Korzeniewski, Consulting Several years back I was working at a HMO and we had a lot of 8080 micros using ADM3A dumb terminals. These terminals were so dumb that all they had were upper case character sets. Eventually, upper managment was talked into upgrading them to the ROM's with upper and lower case characters. Well, one day we received this big three foot square box from the terminal manufacturer. Everyone was puzzled as to what they could be sending us. The person with the order said he had asked for 30 lower case options. The ADM3A terminal has an upper and lower clamshell like case. When the box was opened we found they had sent us 30 lower halfs to the terminal case. ------------------------------------ From: wilk@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Michael Wilk) Subject: Nothing left? This is true: Kinney Shoes has a new slogan that appears on their advertising posters. It reads, "We only sell the right shoe." ------------------------------------ From: Unknown TREE BARK WITH A BITE North Korean scientists using X-ray techniques to examine more than half a million trees discovered some 9000 slogans from the 1930s and 1940s engraved on them, lauding Kim Il Sung, now North Korea's president, and his son, Kim Jong Il. ------------------------------------ From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) Subject: Why even try? Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl. A new video store opened near me, so I joined and rented some movies. This place does everything on paper: they wrote me a receipt with the names of my movies, and I got a copy, and they kept a copy. When I went to return the movies, they laboriously searched through a stack of handwritten receipts until they found mine, and checked off my movies. Being the computer kind of guy that I am, I pointed out that they should sort the receipt pile by membership number, making the search much quicker. "Why?" asked the clerk. "People don't come in the store in membership number order." Sigh... ------------------------------------ From: mcdonald@bmerh475.bnr.ca (Richard McDonald) This is a story which circulates around martial arts clubs, and is called "true". Like many apocryphal stories, it probably is related to something true, and that's good enough. Master xxx, an old, traditional master in Karate was visiting a North American club while on tour from Japan. He's a very conservitave, "old school", Japanese gentleman. His English is very poor, and he mainly speaks through the host club's instructor, who is also Japanese. Master xxx, host, and club members go out for dinner. After the meal, Master xxx orders tea (North American style). Soon, a small pot of hot water and a tea bag arrive. Master xxx looks at the tea bag until host explains that is, in fact, the tea. Fine. Master xxx picks up the tea bag and prepares to rip it open, to allow the tea to spill into the hot water. No, Master, says the host. This is the American way to make tea. See, the bag is porous, and you just place it directly in the water. Master xxx thinks that's very clever and does so. A few minutes later he takes a sip. BLECH!! (Strong and bitter compared to his tastes.) Host says "many North Americans take some sugar in their tea; perhaps you'd care to try that?" and hands Master the bowl filled with little sugar packets. Master takes one of the paper sugar envelopes, looks at it, remembers the tea bag episode, and drops the envelope, whole, into the tea. ------------------------------------ From: ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) Subject: English one-pound notes (True.) The English one-pound note has been out of circulation for a couple of years now, replaced by a gold-coloured coin. The note went through several designs; this story refers to the last of them. Try to get hold of an English one-pound note. If you turn the note over, there is an engraving of Sir Isaac Newton and a copy of a diagram from his great book describing the motion of planets. As you would expect, the diagram shows a planet (P) whose path is an ellipse, at one focus of which is the sun (S). However, the engravers draw the Sun at the centre (C) of the ellipse instead of at a focus. Nobody who had looked at the diagram for which Newton was renowned had understood what it meant. ------------------------------------ From: FHD@tamcba.UUCP (H. Alan Montgomery) Subject: How could anyone be so uninformed? [Overheard in the hall outside my office. Four guys bitching about getting sick at a party.] So Floyd got mad about getting sick and called the meat counter at the store where he got it. He said to the man, "Do you have any more toxic meat?" The meat cutter did not even pause, and said, "I don't know, let me check." Then he put down the phone and called out in a voice heard by everyone in the store, "HEY! Frank, do we have any more toxic meat?!" -- Edited by Brad Templeton. MAIL your jokes (jokes ONLY) to funny@looking.ON.CA Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Jokes ABOUT major current events should be sent to topical@looking.on.ca Anything that is not a joke submission goes to funny-request@looking.on.ca