Freebsd Fortunes 3

Gentlemen,
        Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach
to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying
with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and
thence by dispatch to our headquarters.
        We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all
manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds me accountable.
I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer.
Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable
exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.
        Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted
for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been a hideous
confusion as the the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry
regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain.  This reprehensible carelessness
may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are war with France, a
fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.
        This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of
my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I may better understand
why I am dragging an army over these barren plains.  I construe that perforce it
must be one of two alternative duties, as given below.  I shall pursue either
one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both:
        1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit
of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance:
        2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.
                -- Duke of Wellington, to the British Foreign Office,
                   London, 1812

Genuine happiness is when a wife sees a double chin on her husband's
old girl friend.

George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of
his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note:
        "Bring a friend, if you have one."

Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he
had a previous engagement.  He also attached the following:
        "Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one."

George Orwell was an optimist.

George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
                -- Ashley Cooper

George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address.  "Let
me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration.
        "Okay," agreed Sam.  "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway."
        At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet
and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address.
No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog.
George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!"  Then he looked at
the dog.  The dog looked back.  No sound.  "Come on, boy, do your stuff."
Nothing.  A disappointed George took his dog and went home.
        "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George
yelled at the dog.  "Do you realize how much money you lost me?"
        "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog.  "Think of the odds we're
gonna get on Labor Day."

(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, "Only
one man ever understood me."  He fell silent for a while and then added,
"And he didn't understand me."

Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
        1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
        2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
        3) The energy required to change either one of these states
           will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
           much as to make the task totally impossible.

Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.

Get GUMMed
----------

The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April 1, 2076
(check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above the ground
directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps.  Members will grep each other by the
hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered chroots in pipes, chown with
forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek nice zombie processes, strip, and
sleep, but not, we hope, od.  Three days will be devoted to discussion of the
ramifications of whodo.  Two seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown
of all the user-friendly features of Unix.  Seminars include "Everything You
Know is Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
"cc C?  Si!  Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats.  No Reader Service No. is necessary because all
GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we could tell
them.
                -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June 1984