Freebsd Fortunes

        "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly.  "In the past
year strange and fearful wonders I have seen.  Fields sown with barley
reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their
artichoke hearts.  There has been a hot day in December and a blue
moon.  Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon
Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen.  The earth splits and the
entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots.  The face of the
sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips."

        "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.

        "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made
good copy."
                -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"

        WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:

Firings will continue until morale improves.

        We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle
Haggard song at a French restaurant. ...
        I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of
her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile.  There had been a fight.  I
had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls.  Everyone
told him, "You ride the bull, senor.  You do not fight it."  But he was
lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull.  And then he
fought me.  And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing
what men must do. ...
        "Stop the car," the girl said.  There was a look of terrible
sadness in her eyes.  She knew about the woman of the tollway.  I knew
not how.  I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a
quiet and peace I will never forget.
        "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the
tollway belle's for thee."
        The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was
a lie.  Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I
poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.
                -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
                   Competition

        "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
teenager asked her mother.
        "Encouragement, dear," she replied.

        "What's that thing?"
        "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in
computer repair.  Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what
it does.  We call it a two-by-four."
                -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"

        When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
clarified your attitude toward him.  You have given a definite answer
to a definite problem.  For better or worse you have acted decisively.
        In a way, the next move is up to him.
                -- R. A. Lafferty

        "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in
deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me
when I was young!"
        "Why, what did she tell you?"
        "I don't know, I didn't listen!"
                -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

        YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF
                      PAPER SHUFFLING!

Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says:  "Before I took this course I used to be
a lowly bit twiddler.  Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel
really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."

Mr. MARC had this to say:  "Ten short days ago all I could look forward
to was a dead-end job as a engineer.  Now I have a promising future and
make really big Zorkmids."

MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when
you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.

                SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!

        You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
                -- Sherlock Holmes

        Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that
bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a
chance to kill you.  This is called a "circuit".  The most common home
electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit
breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires
until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can
damage your carpet.  The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change
your fuses regularly.
        Another common problem is that the lights flicker.  This
sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more
often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case
you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking.  If you're not
sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a
fine documentary film based on an actual book.  Or call in a licensed
electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession,
such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette
table, etc.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"