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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (14961)	6/12/2000 5:59:00 PM
From: Guardian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 62552

> The Pluperfect Virus > By Bob Hirschfeld > Special to The Washington Post > Sunday, May 2, 1999; Page B1 > >A new computer virus is spreading throughout the Internet, and it is far >more insidious than the recent Chernobyl menace. Named Strunkenwhite >after >the authors of a classic guide to good writing, it returns e-mail >messages >that have grammatical or spelling errors. > >It is deadly accurate in its detection abilities, unlike the dubious >spell >checkers that come with word processing programs. > >The virus is causing something akin to panic throughout corporate >America, >which has become used to the typos, misspellings, missing words and >mangled >syntax so acceptable in cyberspace. > >The CEO of LoseItAll.com, an Internet startup, said the virus has >rendered >him helpless. "Each time I tried to send one particular e-mail this >morning, >I got back this error message: 'Your dependent clause preceding your >independent clause must be set off by commas, but one must not >precede the conjunction.' I threw my laptop across the room." >A top executive at a telecommunications and long-distance company, >10-10-10-10-10-10-123, said: "This morning, the same damned e-mail >kept coming back to me with a pesky notation claiming I needed to use >a pronoun's >possessive case before a gerund. With the number of e-mails I crank out >each >day, who has time for proper grammar? Whoever created this virus should >have >their programming fingers broken." > >A broker at Begg, Barow and Steele said he couldn't return to the "bad, >old" >days when he had to send paper memos in proper English. He speculated >that the hacker who created Strunkenwhite was a "disgruntled English >major who couldn't make it on a trading floor. When you're buying and >selling on margin, I don't think it's anybody's business if I write >that 'i meetinged through the morning, then cinched the deal on the >cel phone while bareling down the xway.' " > >If Strunkenwhite makes e-mailing impossible, it could mean the end to >a communication revolution once hailed as a significant timesaver. A >study of >1,254 office workers in Leonia, N.J., found that e-mail increased >employees' productivity by 1.8 hours a day because they took less >time to formulate their thoughts. (The same study also found that >they lost 2.2 hours of productivity because they were e-mailing so >many jokes to their spouses, parents and stockbrokers.) > >Strunkenwhite is particularly difficult to detect because it doesn't come >as >an e-mail attachment (which requires the recipient to open it before >it becomes active). Instead, it is disguised within the text of an >e-mail entitled "Congratulations on your pay raise." The message asks >the recipient to "click here to find out about how your raise effects >your pension." The use of "effects" rather than the grammatically >correct "affects" appears to be an inside joke from Strunkenwhite's >mischievous creator. > >The virus also has left government e-mail systems in disarray. Officials >at >the Office of Management and Budget can no longer transmit electronic >versions of federal regulations because their highly technical >language seems to run afoul of Strunkenwhite's dictum that "vigorous >writing is concise." The White House speechwriting office reported >that it had received the same message, along with a caution to avoid >phrases such as "the truth is ... " and "in fact ...." > >Home computer users also are reporting snafus, although an e-mailer who >used >the word "snafu" said she had come to regret it. > >The virus can have an even more devastating impact if it infects an >entire >network. A cable news operation was forced to shut down its computer >system >for several hours when it discovered that Strunkenwhite had somehow >infiltrated its TelePrompTer software, delaying newscasts and leaving >news anchors nearly tongue-tied as they wrestled with proper sentence >structure. > >There is concern among law enforcement officials that Strunkenwhite is a >harbinger of the increasingly sophisticated methods hackers are using >to exploit the vulnerability of business's reliance on computers. >"This is one of the most complex and invasive examples of computer >code we have ever encountered. We just can't imagine what kind of >devious mind would want to tamper with e-mails to create this burden >on communications," said an FBI agent who insisted on speaking via >the telephone out of concern that trying to e-mail his comments could >leave him tied up for hours. > >Meanwhile, bookstores and online booksellers reported a surge in orders >for >Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style."

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (14961)	6/17/2000 10:55:00 PM
From: John Messbauer	Respond to of 62552

There was an Englishman and his wife sitting next to a drunk in a bar. Suddenly the drunk stands up and yells, "ATTENTION ALL!" and farts loudly. The wife is extremely embarrassed, and the Englishman looks at the drunk and says, "Excuse me, you just farted before my wife!" The drunks replies, "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was her turn." ------------------------------------------------------------ A blond calls her husband at work one day and asks him, "Can you help me when you get home?" "Sure," he replies. "What's the problem?" "Well, I started a really hard puzzle and I can't even find the edge pieces." "Look on the box," he said. "There's always a picture of what the puzzle is." "It's a big rooster," she said. The husband arrives home and tells his blond wife, "Okay, put the corn flakes back in the box." ------------------------------------------------------------ A guy fresh out of gift ideas, bought his mother-in-law a large plot in an expensive cemetery. On her next birthday, he bought her nothing. She was quick to comment loud and long on his thoughtlessness. "Well, you didn't use the gift I gave you last year." ------------------------------------------------------------ She yelled at her husband, "You're gonna be really sorry! I'm going to LEAVE you!" He responded, "Make up your mind! Which one is it gonna be?"