HUMOR Digest - 17 Aug 1997 to 18 Aug 1997
There are 5 messages totalling 168 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Wisdom Doesn't Always Come w/Age <adult humor>
  2. HUMOR - They were all in on it!
  3. One For Sandbox Set
  4. Fire ants
  5. Golden Jubilee Celebrations <clean>

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Date:    Sun, 17 Aug 1997 07:01:04 -0400
From:    Jim Moore Jr <jimjr@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Wisdom Doesn't Always Come w/Age <adult humor>

*   Shortly after a new police commissioner took office, the local
  "house of pleasure" was raided and the girls were lined up outside
  for questioning and transport to the Police Station.
    A little old lady chanced to walk by, and noticing the "line-up"
  asked what was happening.  As a joke, one of the chicks told her
  they were standing in line for free lollipops.
    A few minutes later, a constable approached the elderly woman
  and asked, "Aren't you a little bit old for this ?"
    "Officer," she cackled, "as long as they keep making them, I'll
  keep sucking them."
                                - - - - -

*   During the wedding reception in the family mansion, the bride's
  Grandfather slipped her a $500 bill which she concealed in her
  glove, since he told her to keep it for "mad money".
    By tradition, the couple spent their first night together in the
  historic house.  The bride's Grandmother saw her sneaking down the
  stairs later that night, and asked where she was going.
    "I left my gloves in the library, Grand-MaMa, and it's important
  that I have them."
    "Oh you youngsters !" the Grandmother sighed. "You march yourself
  right back upstairs and grab hold of that thing with your bare hands,
  just as I did your Grandfather's."
                                - - - - -

*   "The attractive man I met last night insists he just wants to be
  friends." the girl told her maiden Aunt.  "Now I know what to do
  with a lover, but, what the heck do I do with a 'friend' ?"
    The wise old lady smiled and said, "The same as with your lover
  dearie, only not quite so often."
                                - - - - -

*   The newly wed seniors were having sexual problems. The counselor
  thought it might be due to the fact that the woman was taller.  He
  suggested special shoes with build-up heels to help the man's ego.
    The next month, he asked if things had improved in their love
  life with the shoes.
    "Well yes..." the woman replied, "but those shoes get the sheets
  so dirty."


www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/6293

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Date:    Sun, 17 Aug 1997 10:41:06 -0600
From:    Les Pourciau at UMem <POURCIAU@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: HUMOR - They were all in on it!

A few weeks ago in a tabloid newspaper in the United Stated, there was
quite a long article about an Asian family that had managed to cheat the
welfare system in a big way. They had several good incomes, but were
collecting welfare payments on 4 children, etc., etc. The reporter had
absolutely no self control, and wrote that "Ha Dang, the father, and
the whole Dang family were involved."

NOTE: "Dang," in American English slang, is a euphemism for "damned."

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Date:    Sun, 17 Aug 1997 12:03:16 -0400
From:    Craig Ehrlich <CDEhrlich@AOL.COM>
Subject: One For Sandbox Set

Why did the child cross the playground?

To get to the other slide!

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Date:    Sun, 17 Aug 1997 18:49:05 GMT
From:    "Aditya, the Hindu Skeptic" <aditya@SMART1.NET>
Subject: Fire ants

Terry Richey with Timberline Strategies in Santa Fe sends out an "annual
report" to his friends and clients every year.  One of his reports has
a series of short stories bound into a book he calls "the accidental,
observations on the nature of business creativity."

"Accidentals are," he states, "the points where we can most effortlessly
choose to move from ordered thinking to creative thinking.  They are
the delicate bridges to new ideas and insights.  Listening to
accidentals separates the simply well-run from the brilliant business."

Our favorite story from Terry's little book is #3 fire ants, excerpted
below:

The Santa Fe Institute leads the scientific world in exploring the
emerging new science of complexity.  The organization hosts a series
of lectures each year for the non-scientist on topics of study at the
Institute.  As part of the series, Deborah Gordan, an Institute fellow
from Stanford University gives a lecture on her work with fire ants.

I sit in the darkened auditorium expecting to learn more about this
new science.  Instead, Deborah and her fire ants become an accidental
that significantly changes my approach to business.

Fire ants are the tiny red type that live in the desert.  Deborah
spent a year observing the activity of one mound of these ants.  She
found that the ants coming out of the mound had four different jobs:
cleaning (keeping the top of the mound clear of clutter), gathering
(going on missions and returning with food), and security (fighting
off threats).  Each ant specializes in one of the jobs and she
confirmed this by painting a tiny color dot on the back of each.
Over 50,000 dots!  Yellow dotted cleaners always cleaned.  Gathers
could be seen in teams with their green dots moving away fom the
next.

Then Deborah introduced obstacles, frustrations and threats to the
orderly world of the fire ants which she calls "perturbations."  She
began by placing a stick across one of their trails.  Later she added
intruding insects, fire, and even lack of water.  Fire ants responded
to the perturbations by changing jobs as needed.  When a stick was in
the path, security ants joined the maintenance ants to clear it.
When there was a shortage of water, cleaner ants left the nest with
the gatherers to search a wider area.  An ant that specialized in
cleaning somehow knew it was needed at another task and adapted.

In fact, this is the phenomena that Deborah came to study: complex
adaptive behavior, one of the foundations of the new science of
complexity.  She and her fellow researchers are learning how
systems self-organize and adapt to change.  Many of the principles
of adaptive behavior correlate whether the system is the commodity
exchange, the bloodstream or ant colonies. (Even marketing departments
and management teams!)

Deborah Gordon was an accidental.  I could not have expected to
enrich my consulting practice by attending a lecture on ants.  (If
I had been thinking more linearly, I would have gone to hear a lecture
by Tom Peters.)  But in fact, that night began a cascade of insights
that would provide me with new tools and new approaches to my work.
And a greater respect for accidentals.


www.rt66.com/overlook.

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Date:    Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:20:04 -0400
From:    Chalapathi Rao Poduri <chaps@TC4HQ.CMC.STPH.NET>
Subject: Golden Jubilee Celebrations <clean>

        A 50% discount on the 50th year of Independence sure does
        sound like a slick offer,right?A software company which
        launched it's new vernacular package recently had it's
        sales rep. complaining "Thank God,it's not the 100th year!!"

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End of HUMOR Digest - 17 Aug 1997 to 18 Aug 1997
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