More Humor
Bad Company
Can you imagine working at the following Company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:
*29 have been accused of spousal abuse
*7 have been arrested for fraud
*19 have been accused of writing bad checks
*117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
*3 have been arrested for assault
*71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
*14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
*8 have been arrested for shoplifting
*21 are current defendants in lawsuits
*In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving
Can you guess which organization this is?
It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.
Knowledge you can't live without
Pearls melt in vinegar.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to Test Telex/two communications)
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
"I am" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. (And "I do" is the longest sentence!! :-) )
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts - Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but th last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games
(MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom. this works in Mt. Dew also!
Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating
The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
From: ROBERT ALLEN CONNER <RCON@mediaone.net>
1. In my very early days as a cub draftsman, in Charleston, WV, while working for Irving Bowman And Assoc. we had a new Post Office project in the office. The draftsman working on the elevations, very nicely rendered in pencil on velum, decided to draw a Russian Flag on the flagpole...HA HA...good laff however it kinda got forgotten ( this was at the height of the cold war, about 1958 ). The project was finished and finally the tracings were shipped to Washington.....When the defication hit the rotary ocisilator...To save face the draftsman had to fly to Washington, at his own expense, with an eraser and shield to remove it and appoligise.
2. Another time while working for Martens and Son, in Charleston, ( Walter sr. was one of the early Presidents of the NCARB ) we had a church project. Just before issuing it for construction, several changes were made to the plans, one was to enlarge the Foyer, which took in part of the toilet in an adjacent office...all of the drawings were changed except for one!!!Construction had been started, footings in etc. when the plumber called...DO YOU REALLY WANT A WATER CLOSET IN THE FOYER! ! IT WAS STILL CALLED FOR ON THE PLUMBING DRAWINGS...
3. Then there was the bank job that had the detail and notes in the Money Vault..... " 24" x 24" access panel for future use by Architect " ...Walter really got off on that one!!!
I heard a drafter once placed a tennis shoe on a stair stringer once. Lead Architect was not happy.
Also, Another Architect had in spec general conditions that a oversized
chair and box of cigars were to be maintained on project site, in the trailer,
for Architect's project visits. Just to see who (not many) read the spec.
From: "David Porter" <dpa-arch@gate.net>
The former dean at the University of Maryland's School of Architecture did a project that had the typical north arrow shown on the typical site plan. He got a call from the job site asking what color he wanted the north arrow to be painted on the site.
From: "Kent R Abraham" <abraham@laser.net>
We have had for years, in all seriousness, a clause in the specifications under "Field Engineering", the following clause:
"b. If the Contractor reads this paragraph before the beginning of field operations, he shall contact the Architect, who will buy dinner for the Contractor at a restaurant of his choice."
This has, on at least one occasion, served as acceptable proof that the Contractor did not, in fact, read the Specification! In almost 15 years using this clause, I've bought ONE dinner.
From: Allen McCree <amccree@juno.com>
Subject: DBUG> OT> A little HUMOR ! ! ! !
1. In the days of ink-on-vellum, we had a highly-skilled mechanical drafter who would draw a tiny bird hidden somewhere in the maze of each of his 36X42 sheets of hospital HVAC ductwork
2. William Sidney Porter(O.Henry) worked as drafter in the Texas General Land Office 1883-88 in Austin. He did the same thing on his maps, some of which can still be seen today in the archives over there.
Euro-English
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased with the 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl will be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to oza kombinations of letas.
After ziz fifz yer ve vil have a rali sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu anderstand ech oza. Ze drem of an united urop vil finali kum tru!
From: "Larry Gray" <largray@hiwaay.net>
Way back there, when I worked in a house plans shop, my coworker knocked over the cup of coffee he (foolishly) had sitting on the upper right corner of his drafting table. He frantically grabbed scales, triangles, lead holders, just anything that came to hand, and built a "fence" to keep the rivulets of coffee from getting onto his drawing while I made a mad dash to the restroom for paper towels. He actually managed to prevent even so much as a drop of coffee from getting onto his drawing (which as I recall was quite far along).
After he got all his drafting tools dried off and the mess straightened away, he sat back in his chair and muttered, "Whew, that was a close one" and picked up his brush to knock the eraser crumbs off his drawing ...
... and absolutely ruined it ...
... because the brush's bristles were completely saturated ...
Larry Gray