More General Humour

Quick Reference

• Adolf's Goofs
• Heaven is Hotter than Hell
• Telemarketeers
• FBI in Waco
• PC games vs. Whales: Solution!
• Translating Southern US to English
• Monk Gloats over Yoga Championship

The following began life as a Top Ten list of "Mistakes Made by Adolf Hitler." it was passed around during a lecture in a political science class of mine and soon grew to over 100 entries. I have culled out the stupid and/or truly offensive ones, as well as any that said nasty things about any particular nationality (read, the French.) You'll have to excuse the fact that some of them are rather obscure, but that's what happens when you get a bunch of political scientists in the same room. Without further ado, I give you...

Top 59 Mistakes Made by Adolf Hitler

1. Land War in Asia
2. Changed name from highly catchy 'Schickelgruber' to boring 'Hitler'
3. Leaving his little mustache: not growing a friendly Abe Lincoln beard to instill trust among subjects
4. Not buying lifts for his shoes
5. Failure to exploit Me 262 Messerschmidt
6. Failure to exploit Eva Braun
7. Chose swastika as party symbol rather than the daisy
8. Chose Josef Goebels rather than Marlene Dietrich to promote Nazi image
9. Chose "Deutschland Uber Alles" over "Let's All Be There" as party slogan
10. Lost the Ark to Indiana Jones
11. Chose unfashionable blacks and browns rather than trendy plaids and stripes as uniform colors for SS and SA
12. Referring to Stalin as "that old Georgian fat back"
13. Indiscriminate use of V-2 rockets for public fireworks displays
14. Free beer in munitions plants
15. Lisp never corrected
16. Bad toupe
17. Refused to undergo nostril reduction surgery
18. Failed to conquer strategically important Comoros Islands
19. Fell asleep in staff meetings
20. Chose Italy as ally
21. Land War in Asia
22. Got involved with a Sicilian when death was on the line
23. Made pass at Eleanor Roosevelt during 1936 Olympics
24. Built heliport on top of new Reichstag building which looked remarkably like a bullseye from the air
25. Always got Churchill out of bed for conference calls
26. Never had fireside mass rallies
27. Told Einstein he had a stupid name
28. Used SS instead of LAPD
29. Admired Napoleon's strategy
30. Strong fondness for saurkraut and beans made General Staff avoid him constantly
31. In last days, chose to hide in bunker rather than ask U.S. for a little country place in Hawaii
32. Nightmare involving Pillsbury Doughboy haunted him constantly with war advice
33. Major theme in speeches -- "liebensraum, or "living room" -- widely misperceived as call for domestic architectural reform
34. Failed to revoke Rudolph Hess's pilot licence.
35. Pissed off Jesse Owens at 1936 Olympics
36. Didn't put his brother Billy in the concentration camps. When word got out that Billy was just a beer guzzling fat guy in a small town in Bavaria who grew peanuts it was bad P.R. for Der Fuhrer
37. Breast feeding for too long
38. Passed up Finish "tanks for snowshoes" offer before invasion of USSR
39. Drank to much at Beer Hall Putsch
40. Spent jail time planning how to conquer the world instead of his own escape.
41. Forgot to write "Dear Joey" letter to Stalin before invasion of Poland
42. Blew nose on Operation Barbarossa maps, forcing extemporaneous invasion of Soviet Union
43. Took no steps to keep Neville Chamberline in power
44. Chose the Tirpitz for that weekend of love with Eva in the Fjords
45. Frequently mistaken for Charlie Chaplin due to mustache; undermined credibility (as when he threatened to invade Poland, everyone waited for the punchline)
46. Came off as poor loser when "Triumph of the Will" failed to win Oscar for "best Foreign Documentary" -- "You don't like me" speech undermined image.
47. Used to make prank calls to FDR asking if he had "Prince Albert in a can"
48. Forgot correct interpretation of Nietzche; caused much embarrassment when he used to cite philosophical support for his concept of the "Oberdude"
49. Got drunk on schnapps and suggested Tojo attack the U.S. saying, "The U.S. only has twenty times your industrial power, what are you, a wimp?"
50. Listened to too much Wagner and not enough Peter, Paul and Mary
51. Spent too much on screwdrivers and toilet seats
52. Tried to play football with Axis Lucy who pulled the ball away at the last second
53. Failed to encourage tourism
54. Being born
55. Never did the honorable thing with Eva Braun
56. Alienated Chamberline at Munich by sticking an "Invade me" sign on his back
57. Kept Colonel Klink in command
58. Churchill mistakenly thought "Deutschland Uber Alles" was a veiled threat
59. Used same astrologer as the Reagans

-from "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972

Some additional "games" one can play with telemarketers:

• If you recognize they are telemarketers before you have spoken, pretend your are an answering machine with a message along these lines. "Thank you for calling CMTCC, Citizens for Making Telemarketing a Capital Crime. We now have the support of about 25% of the legislature. Soon we will be able to execute those worthless, money grubbing dregs, making the earth a better place to live. Please send your tax deductible contribution to ...."
• See how many times you can put them on hold. First make sure you get the name of the person you are talking to, because sooner or later they will hang up. Then if they call you again, you can express your righteous indignation at being hung up on, and let them know you were going to buy/contribute, but given the rudeness of .... you have decided not to. They key to this one is make the time they have to hold fairly short. After 30 seconds or so tell them you have to turn down the stove and put them on hold for 45 secs. On returning, ask them to start their pitch again. Every time you return have them restart their pitch. Some good excuses for putting them on hold for a short while: the kids are fighting, the pet needs to go in/out, the baby is into ?, someone is at the door, you have a call on another line, ...
• If you have an answering machine, turn it on so they can here you are recording the call. Make sure you get the person's name, and the company's name and address. Then inform them something like this. "Under state law I am hereby notifying you that you (you as an individual and the company) are prohibited from calling this number (xxx-xxxx) to solicit ever again. If you or the company calls again, you personally and the company will be liable for penalties up to $10,000. Is this clear?" Just something to hopefully make them nervous. (Actually Virginia came pretty close to passing a law like this. Unfortunately, the telemarketing lobby bribed our legislature into killing the bill. Maybe next year ...)
• After they have gone through their entire sales pitch, tell them how interested you are. But first, you want to talk to them about .... Then launch into a pitch for them to contribute to some charity that sounds quasi-legit but is really just for your personnel benefit. If they do not contribute, then hang up in righteous indignation that they are such uncaring human beings. If they will, give then a address to send the contribution to, thank them, and hang up before they have a chance to change the subject back to what they called you about.
• After they have given their entire sales pitch, say you are interested but first you need the telemarketer's personnel home phone number. When they ask why tell them that they have your personel home number so before you complete the deal, you want to be on even ground with them and you need their number. If they don't give it to you, yup, you guessed it, hangup in righteous indignation. If they do, say you will call back to order/contribute. Then do so at some reasonable hour, in case they have given you a phony number. But if it is a correct number, post it on the net.
  Not so anyone would harrass this person, ;) but so all of us would have the opportunity to contact this person about whatever it is that is being telemarketed. And since so many of us are night owls, we will be calling at a time convenient to us, like 4 am. ;)

Dr. J. Archer Harris Dept of Computer Science
arch@hub.cs.jmu.edu James Madison University
(703) 568 - 6847 Harrisonburg, VA 22807

These are some memos found in the trash behind the primary building of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Incompetents) in Washington, D.C. They're probably classified information, and possession of them on your computer system no doubt is considered a federal offense. Enjoy!

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: This small Wacko cult isn't giving in. Do you have any instructions?
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Try playing "Feelings" over and over again 24 hours a day. That should get the point across.
The Director

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, playing "Feelings" over and over again 24 hours a day has succeeded only in convincing the Wacko folks that the end of the world is at hand. They're a bit less cooperative now. Any more suggestions?
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Add searchlights at night. And add to the playlist something by The Partridge Family.
Still The Director

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: They like the Partridge Family.
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Sickos.
STD

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: We're getting bored out here. Can we go in now?
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Not until we've wiped their reputation a bit. Notify the reporters about Koresh's sexual abuse of young, baby frogs.
The Director and Producer

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: We have no substantiated reports of sexual abuse of young, baby frogs.
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Do you have a point?
The Brilliant

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From:ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: Unsubstantiated rumors of baby frog abuse will not withstand scrutiny.
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: What scrutiny are you expecting, agent? Who's going to stand up for a cult leader who's abused baby frogs?
Better than Brilliant

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: We've had a tiny accident at the compound.
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: How tiny?
Better than Brilliant, but slighty Worried

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: It kind of like, burned down. Sort of. Sir.
Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Notify the press the cultists committed mass suicide by burning down their compound.
Brilliant, Almost Godlike

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: We haven't gathered any evidence at all yet, let alone of a mass suicide.
Pretty Good Agent 2x3276

To: ATF Agent 2x3276

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Agent: Do you have a point? Try to remain more formal in your memos.
The BAG Director

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: ATF Agent 2x3276
Sir: No sir, thank you sir.
Agent 2x3276

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: President Billy Bob Clinton
Will: What the hell are you folks doing over there?
Bill

To: President William Clinton

From: FBI Director William Sessions
Sir: Just doing our best to maintain law and order on a cult of baby-frog-abusing Partridge Family fans, sir.
Director Sessions

To: FBI Director William Sessions

From: President Billy Bob Clinton
Will: Oh. Okay.
Mr. Bill

To: Members of the Press

From:President William Clinton
Dear Members of the Press:
The FBI has informed me of a tiny error they've made. I take full reponsibility. It wasn't my fault.
The President

From: franklig@helium.gas.organpipe.uug.arizona.edu (Gregory C Franklin )

In <1993Oct8.121833.20107@ugle.unit.no>
   jtm@alkymi.unit.no (Jan Tore Markussen) writes:
| Same goes for all americans that worries about Norwegians hunting whales.
| Whining about how cute whales are, how intelligent they are, etc.
| What about american death-sentences? Whales are more worth than humanlifes?
| Why isn't Greenpeace and the gang yelling at the government of the USA?
| Maybe it's not enough money in saving of humanbeings.....?
| Just a thought.......

COMING SOON! (*)

"Thar She Blows!" By MacKrelSoft

Have you ever wondered just how rewarding life on the open sea would be?

Have you ever wanted to make your living from one of mankind's last frontiers?

Or do you just enjoy bloody, chaotic destruction of endangered species?

If you answered "You bet yer ass, Bob!" to any of the above questions, then "Thar She Blows!" is for you!

Inspired by the valiant efforts of modern-day heroes "Greenpeace" to stave off the valiant efforts of modern-day villians hunting whales (****), "Thar She Blows!" is a full-featured (***) naval action/adventure/simulation!

Roam the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, watching for your enemy - or prey - to appear, then GO AND GET 'EM!

Fully-open-ended-game system! Limitless play, just by sailing around our highly detailed, fractally-generated oceanscape!

• Play as the nature loving Greenpeace person who goes from encounter to encounter blasting the shit out of 3 or 4 randomly generated evil-whalers.
• Play as the righteous-defending-your-way-of-life-whaler who goes from encounter to encounter blasting the shit out of 3 or 4 randomly generated evil-greenpeacers.
• Play as the whale! who goes from encounter to encounter ramming the shit out of 3 to 4 randomly generated evil-whalers and simultaneously dodge the misfired shots of the well-intentioned greenpeace members!
• We don't force you down any one particular style of play! Intricate plot mechanics which allow you to advance the story line by blasting/ramming the shit out of 3 or 4 randomly generated greenpeacers/evil-whalers (depending on the character picked!) at various times. You never KNEW how populated our planet's oceans were!
• And brand new in the next release (*)... personalized arch-foes!! Now you can blast/ram the shit out of the SAME 3 or 4 randomly generated opponents over and over, yet they continue to narrowly escape your grasp..

Watch for it SOON(*)... "Thar She Blows!" Only 99.95(***).

(*) At some undefined future date which we are not even going to try to guess at

(**) Will not work on ALL machines (and rumored to have compatability problems with OS/2, but we're working on it!)

(***) Speech pak, Joystick support pak, Mouse support pak, Keyboard support pak, VGA graphics support pak, and modem support pak are all sold separately. See your local retailer for details.

(****) Actually inspired by the posting quoted at the top.

This is the 1st time I've ever thought I needed a disclaimer, so I'm a little new, but:
This posting does not necessarily represent the views of Applicon, Inc., and should in no way be thought of as doing so. I'm a renegade.

BARD - verb. Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow."

Usage: "My brother bard my pickup truck."

JAWJUH - noun. A highly flammable state just north of Florida.

Usage: "My brother from Jawjah bard my pickup truck."

MUNTS - noun. A calendar division.

Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck, and I aint herd from him in munts."

IGNERT - adjective. Not smart. See "Auburn Alumni."

Usage: "Them N-C-TWO-A boys sure are ignert!"

RANCH - noun. A tool.

Usage: "I think I left my ranch in the back of that pickup truck my brother from Jawjuh bard a few munts ago."

ALL - noun. A petroleum-based lubricant.

Usage: "I sure hope my brother from Jawjuh puts all in my pickup truck."

FAR - noun. A conflagration.

Usage: "If my brother from Jawjuh doesn't change the all in my pickup truck, that things gonna catch far."

BAHS - noun. A supervisor.

Usage: "If you don't stop reading these Southern words and git back to work, your bahs is gonna far you!"

TAR - noun. A rubber wheel.

Usage: "Gee, I hope that brother of mine from Jawjuh doesn't git a flat tar in my pickup truck."

TIRE - noun. A tall monument.

Usage: "Lord willing and the creeks don't rise, I sure do hope to see that Eiffel Tire in Paris sometime."

HOT - noun. A blood-pumping organ.

HOD - adverb. Not easy.

Usage: "A broken hot is hod to fix."

RETARD - Verb. To stop working.

Usage: "My granpaw retard at age 65."

TARRED - adverb. Exhausted.

Usage: "I just flew in from Hot-lanta, and boy my arms are tarred."

RATS - noun. Entitled power or privilege.

Usage: "We Southerners are willing to fight for out rats."

LOT - adjective. Luminescent.

Usage: "I dream of Jeanie in the lot-brown hair."

FARN - adjective. Not local.

Usage: "I cudnt unnerstand a wurd he sed ... must be from some farn country."

DID - adjective. Not alive.

Usage: "He's did, Jim."

EAR - noun. A colorless, odorless gas (unless you are in LA).

Usage: "He can't breathe ... give 'em some ear!"

BOB WAR - noun. A sharp, twisted cable.

Usage: "Boy, stay away from that bob war fence."

JU-HERE - a question.

Usage: "Juhere that former Dallas Cowboys' coach Jimmy Johnson recently toured the University of Alabama?"

HAZE - a contraction.

Usage: "Is Bubba smart?" "Nah ... haze ignert."

SEED - verb, past tense.

VIEW - contraction: verb and pronoun.

Usage: "I ain't never seed New York City ... view?"

HEAVY DEW - phrase. A request for action.

Usage: "Kin I heavy dew me a favor?"

GUMMIT - Noun. An often-closed bureaucratic institution.

Usage: "Great ... ANOTHER gummit shutdown!"

"I am the serenest!" he says

LHASA, TIBET - Employing the brash style that first brought him to prominence, SriDhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6.

"I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Sri Dhananjai Bikram-I am the greatest monk of all time!"

Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor, second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta.

The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily."

Bikram got off to a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm blissful! You blissful?! I'm blissful!" to the other yogis.

Bikram, 33, burst onto the international yoga scene with a gold-mandala performance at the 1994 Bhutan Invitational. At that competition he premiered his aggressive style, at one point in the flexibility event sticking his middle toes out at the other yogis. While no prohibition exists against such behavior, according to Yoga League Commissioner Swami Prabhupada, such behavior is generally considered "unBuddhalike."

"I don't care what the critics say," Bikram said. "Sri Bikram is just gonna go out there and do Sri Bikram's own yoga thing."

Before the Bhutan meet, Bikram had never placed better than fourth. Many said he had forsaken rigorous training for the celebrity status accorded by his Bhutan win, endorsing Nike's new line of prayer mats and supposedly dating the Hindu goddess Shakti. But his performance this week will regain for him the number one computer ranking and earn him new respect, as well as for his coach Mahananda Vasti, the controversial guru some have called Bikram's "guru."

"My special training diet for Bikram of one super-charged, carbo-loaded grain of rice per day was essential to his win," Vasti said.

The defeated Gupta denied that Bikram's taunting was a factor in his inability to attain TC. "I just wasn't myself today," Gupta commented. "I wasn't any self today. I was an egoless particle of the universal no-soul."

In the second event, flexibility, Bikram maintained the lead by supporting himself on his index fingers for the entire 15 minutes while touching the back of his skull to his lower spine. The feat was matched by Gupta, who first used the position at the 1990 Tokyo Zen-Off.

"That's my meditative position of spiritual ecstasy, not his," remarked Gupta. "He stole my thunder."

Bikram denied the charge, saying, "Gupta's been talking like that ever since he was a 3rd century Egyptian slave-owner."

Nevertheless, a strong showing by Gupta in the third event, the shotput, placed him within a lotus petal of the lead at the competition's halfway point.

But event number four, the contemplation of unanswerable riddles known as koans, proved the key to victory for Bikram.

The koan had long been thought the weak point of his spiritual arsenal, but his response to today's riddle - "Show me the face you had before you were born - "was reportedly "extremely illuminative," according to Commissioner Prabhupada.

While koan answers are kept secret from the public for fear of exposing the uninitiated multitudes to the terror of universal truth, insiders claim his answer had Prabhupada and the two other judges "highly enlightened."

With the event victory, Bikram built himself a nearly insurmountable lead, one he sustained through the yak-milk churn and breathing events to come away with the upset victory.