Techie Humor

MSD firmly believes that every person needs the occasional laugh and that every professional situation can benefit from a little humor. While we ALWAYS take our job and our responsibilities to our clients very seriously, we never take ourselves TOO seriously. We understand that having a sense of humor and enjoying a laugh on the job helps us (and our clients) keep the right attitude for achieving maximum success. A POSITIVE ATTITUDE BRINGS ABOUT A POSITIVE PRODUCT. And, technical documentation doesn't have to give you a headache.

Thus we submit the following "HUMOR" for your reading enjoyment. If you have a joke, anecdote, or humorous story that is relevant to the technology community and you would like to share it with the rest of us, we would love to hear from you. E-mail them to: . And please let us know the source so we can give them their due credit. ENJOY!


( UPDATED DAILY)

http://www.ToadToons.com


See the "Sound Bites" collection by Toad at: http://www.toadtoons.com
All "Sound Bites" cartoons are © 2003 Mike Hall.



Mostly Business by Ted Goff

Today's Cartoon!

All cartoons are © 2003 Ted Goff.




Here are some phrases you might find handy at your next Friday afternoon meeting:

* Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
* The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
* I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
* Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
* I have plenty of talent and wisdom. I just don't give a damn.
* I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
* I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
* I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
* I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
* Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
* How about never? Is never good for you?
* I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
* You sound reasonable. It's time to up my medication.
* I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
* I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
* I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
* Who me? I just wander from room to room.
* It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
* At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
* You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
* I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
* Someday, we'll look back at this, laugh nervously and change the subject.



How to Resolve Office Conflicts


  

You know you work in the '90's when...

21. Cleaning up the dining area means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.

20. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have email addresses.

19. Keeping up with sports entails adding ESPN's homepage to your bookmarks.

18. You have a "to do list" that includes entries for lunch and bathroom breaks and they are usually the ones that never get crossed off.

17. You have actually faxed your Christmas list to your parents.

16. Pick up lines now include a reference to liquid assets and capital gains.

15. You consider 2nd day Air Delivery and Inner-office Mail painfully slow.

14. You assume any question about whether to valet park or not is rhetorical.

13. You refer to your dining room table as the flat filing cabinet.

12. Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.

11. Your grocery list has been on your refrigerator so long some of the products don't even exist anymore.

10. You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process.

9. You get all excited when it's Saturday so you can wear sweats to work.

8. You refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables.

7. You find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.

6. You normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.

5. You think that "progressing an action plan" and "calendarizing a project" are acceptable English phrases.

4. You know the people at the airport hotels better than your next door neighbors.

3. You ask your friends to "think out of the box" when making Friday night plans.

2. You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.

And, the number one sign you work in the nineties...

1. You think a "half-day" means leaving at 5 o'clock.



Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked a young Engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The Engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."

The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?"

The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"

And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it."


The Top 20 Reasons Dogs Don't Use Computers

20. Can't stick their heads out of Windows '95.

19. Fetch command not available on all platforms.

18. Hard to read the monitor with your head cocked to one side.

17. Too difficult to "mark" every website they visit.

16. Can't help attacking the screen when they hear "You've Got Mail."

15. Fire hydrant icon simply frustrating.

14. Involuntary tail wagging is dead giveaway they're browsing www.pethouse.com instead of working.

13. Keep bruising noses trying to catch that MPEG frisbee.

12. Not at all fooled by Chuckwagon Screen Saver.

11. Still trying to come up with an "emoticon" that signifies tail-wagging.

10. Oh, but they WILL... with the introduction of the Microsoft Opposable Thumb.

9. Three words: Carpal Paw Syndrome

8. 'Cause dogs ain't GEEKS! Now, cats, on the other hand...

7. Barking in next cube keeps activating YOUR voice recognition software.

6. SmellU-SmellMe still in beta test.

5. SIT and STAY were hard enough, GREP and AWK are out of the question!

4. Saliva-coated mouse gets mighty difficult to manuever.

3. Annoyed by lack of newsgroup, alt.pictures.master's.leg.

2. Butt-sniffing more direct and less deceiving than online chat rooms.

and the Number 1 Reason Dogs Don't Use Computers...

1. TrO{gO DsA[M,bN HyAqR4tDc TgrOo TgYPmE WeIjTyH P;AzWqS,. *
   (* 1. Too Damn Hard To Type With Paws.)

If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades,

1. You would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V8 and

2. It would have a top speed of 10,000 miles/hour (160,000km/hr)

3. Or you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds (14 kilos)

4. It would get 1,000 miles to the gallon of gas.

5. In either case, the sticker of the new car would be less than $50.00.


>>GM responded, if Microsoft built Cars then...<<

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.

2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this and drive on.

3. Occasionally, your car would stop and fail to restart, and you'd have to reinstall the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.

4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car95 or a CarNT. But then you'd have to buy more seats.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as fast, twice as easy to drive--but would only run on 5 percent of the roads.

6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.

7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say, "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

Please Immediately Scan Your Computer for the Following Viruses:

AT&T VIRUS:
Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

MCI VIRUS:
Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus.

PAUL REVERE VIRUS:
This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack: Once, if by LAN; twice, if by C:

POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS:
Never identifies itself as a "virus", but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism".

RIGHT-TO-LIFE VIRUS:
Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless of how young it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives.

TED TURNER VIRUS:
Colorizes your monochrome monitor.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER VIRUS:
Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.

GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS:
Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

NEW WORLD ORDER VIRUS:
Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really mad just thinking about it.

FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS:
Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.

GALLUP VIRUS:
Sixty percent of the PC's infected will lose 30 percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error).

TEXAS VIRUS:
Makes sure that it is bigger than any other file.

ADAM AND EVE VIRUS:
Takes a couple bytes out of your Apple.

CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS:
The computer locks up, and the screen splits in half with the same message appearing on each side of the screen. The message says that the blame for the gridlock is caused by the other side.

AIRLINE LUGGAGE VIRUS:
You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

FREUDIAN VIRUS:
Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own motherboard.

PBS VIRUS:
Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money.

ELVIS VIRUS:
Your computer gets fat, slow, and lazy, then self destructs; only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.

NIKE VIRUS:
Just does it.

SEARS VIRUS:
Your data won't appear unless you buy new cables, power supply, and a set of shocks.

JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS:
Your programs can never be found again.

KEVORKIAN VIRUS:
Helps your computer shut down as an act of mercy.

STAR TREK VIRUS:
Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

HEALTH CARE VIRUS:
Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500.

GEORGE BUSH VIRUS:
It starts by boldly stating, "Read my docs...no new files!" on the screen. It proceeds to fill up all the free space on your hard drive with new files, then blames it on the Congressional virus.

WHAT IF DR. SEUSS DID TECHNICAL WRITING?

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted
as a very last resort, and the address of the memory makes your floppy
disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the
double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is
corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash, then your situation's hopeless
and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house, says the network is
connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel
on another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the
hall, and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so
your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, then you may as well
reboot and go out with a bang, 'cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's
gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, and the
microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk, then you have to flash
your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM. Quickly turn off the
computer and be sure to tell your mom.

It seems 3 guys were travelling in a car together, an industrial quality control expert, a hardware engineer, and a software engineer. As they were going down a VERY steep hill, they realized the brakes were out and they faced certain death.

The QC expert said, "no problem, we'll put together a work group, study the problem, make a fishbone diagram and come up with suggestions about how to solve this problem."

The hardware engineer said, "That'll take too much time, we'll DIE!! I think I can dismantle the ignition system, find out the problem and cross wire the brake system so we can stop the car."

The software engineer just said, ­What's the big deal? Instead of getting upset, why don't we just push the car back up the hill and see if it happens again?"

A Programmer and an Engineer were sitting next to each other on an airplane. The Programmer leans over to the Engineer and asks if he wants to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to sleep so he politely declines, turns away and tries to sleep. The Programmer persists and explains that it's a real easy game. He explains, "I ask a question and if you don't know the answer you pay me $5. Then you ask a question and if I don't know the answer I'll pay you $5." Again the Engineer politely declines and tries to sleep.

The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "O.K., if you don't know the answer you pay me $5 and if I don't know the answer I pay you $50!" Now, that got the Engineer's attention, so he agrees to the game. The Programmer asks the first question, "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" Then Engineer doesn't say a word and just hands the Programmer $5.

Now, its the Engineer's turn. He asks the Programmer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?" The Programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the Engineer and hands the Engineer $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 turns away and tries to return to sleep.

The Programmer, a little miffed, asks, "Well what's the answer to the question?" Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the Programmer, turns away and returns to sleep.


You might be an ENGINEER if...

-If you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.
-If you enjoy pain.
-If you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
-If you chuckle whenever anyone says "centrifugal force."
-If you've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
-If when you look in a mirror, you see an engineering major.
-If it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
-If you frequently whistle the theme song to "MacGyver."
-If you always do homework on Friday nights.
-If you know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
-If you think in "math".
-If you've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.
-If you hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function.
-If you have a pet named after a scientist.
-If you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.
-If the Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schroedinger's Cat experiment.
-If you can translate English into Binary.
-If you can't remember what's behind the door in the science building which says "Exit".
-If you have to bring a jacket with you, in the middle of summer, because there's a wind-chill factor in the lab.
-If you are completely addicted to caffeine.
-If you avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to the eventual heat-death of the universe.
-If you consider ANY non-science course "easy".
-If when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.
-If the "fun" center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
-If you'll assume that a "horse" is a "sphere" in order to make the math easier.
-If you understood more than five of these indicators.
-If you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door.
-If you think it might be a neat idea to send this message to all of your friends in the form of e-mail.








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Meta-Systems Documentation, Inc.
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