Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers.
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
		-- Mark Twain
Good day for overcoming obstacles.  Try a steeplechase.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less
than half of you half as well as you deserve.
		-- J. R. R. Tolkien
The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered
rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen
bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim,
'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
		-- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
Don't worry so loud, your roommate can't think.
Q:	What do monsters eat?
A:	Things.

Q:	What do monsters drink?
A:	Coke.  (Because Things go better with Coke.)
Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you.
"Good afternoon, madam.  How may I help you?"

"Good afternoon.  I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please."

"A--?  Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady.  I
mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I
say they have a right to.  But I think... I might... Let's have a look
down here.  I might have just the thing for you.  Yes, here we are!
Look at that, isn't it neat?  Now that is a FrintArms product as well,
but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call
them.  Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't
spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a
tonne of iron around with you.  We do a range of matching accessories,
including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster.  Wish I
got to do the fitting for that!  Ha -- just my little joke.  And
there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun,
charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster
with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your
next battery.  Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free
lessons at your local gun club or range.  Or there's the *special*
presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two*
charged batteries and a night-sight, too.  Here, feel that -- don't
worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat?  Feel how light it is?
Smooth, see?  No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and*
beautifully balanced.  And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's
no recoil.  Because it's shooting light, you see?  Beautiful gun,
beautiful gun; my wife has one.  Really.  That's not a line, she
really has.  Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free
charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special
offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for
one-forty-nine."

"I'll take the special."

"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice.  Now, do--?"

"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three
six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a
Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding
rounds, not the signalers.  I assume the night-sight on this toy is
compatible?"

"Aah... yes,  And how does madam wish to pay?"

She slapped her credit card on the counter.  "Eventually."

		-- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background"
You will have good luck and overcome many hardships.
Stay away from flying saucers today.
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first
half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and
pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who
hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice
for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time
during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it
but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
		-- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
Many pages make a thick book.
A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon.

Buy the negatives at any price.
Good day to let down old friends who need help.
A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)
	-- by Charles Dickens

	A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just
	like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean
	lady who knits.

Crime and Punishment LITE(tm)
	-- by Fyodor Dostoevski

	A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later
	feels guilty and apologizes.

The Odyssey LITE(tm)
	-- by Homer

	After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home.
The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference
between a mermaid and a seal.
		-- Mark Twain
Let me take you a button-hole lower.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"
You will be married within a year, and divorced within two.
Q:	"What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic
	existentialist?"
A:	"Is there a dog?"
Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"
A is for Apple.
		-- Hester Pryne
Q:	How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Two.  One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb
	itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
	reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
	maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
Be careful!  Is it classified?
There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
Never laugh at live dragons.
		-- Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"]
You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat.
Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
		-- Mark Twain
"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying.  The
absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me
Deadpan Allie and lie.
		-- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"
You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed.
If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure.
Let him choose out of my files, his projects to accomplish.
		-- Shakespeare, "Coriolanus"
Q:	Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A:	Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
	Oh, right, *of course*!
Let him choose out of my files, his projects to accomplish.
		-- Shakespeare, "Coriolanus"
Q:	What do you call the scratches that you get when a female
	sheep bites you?
A:	Ewe nicks.
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
		-- J.R.R. Tolkien
There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted
armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
		-- Ernest Hemingway
Long life is in store for you.
Stay away from flying saucers today.
You will step on the night soil of many countries.
Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.
Q:	How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Two.  One to assure everyone that everything possible is being
	done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet.
Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.
		-- J.R.R. Tolkien
Give your very best today.  Heaven knows it's little enough.
Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live
in eucalyptus trees.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
		-- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer-Night's Dream"
The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
		-- Mark Twain
Q:	How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying?
A:	When his lips move.
Are you a turtle?
You are going to have a new love affair.
You will gain money by a speculation or lottery.
Q:	How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A:	Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
You have many friends and very few living enemies.
You will triumph over your enemy.
You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy.
Go to a movie tonight.  Darkness becomes you.
Q:	What is printed on the bottom of beer bottles in Minnesota?
A:	Open other end.
Q:	What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an attorney?
A:	An offer you can't understand.
Q:	How do you keep a moron in suspense?
Time to be aggressive.  Go after a tattooed Virgo.
You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that
you're growing into.
Q:	Why did the chicken cross the road?
A:	To see his friend Gregory peck.

Q:	Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A:	To get to the other slide.
Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals.
Q:	How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
	of the way.
It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done.
You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
this sort of trash.
Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you.
Q:	Are we not men?
A:	We are Vaxen.
Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession.
You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy
officials have gone by.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause.
You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery.
The time is right to make new friends.
Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks.
Break into jail and claim police brutality.
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
You're almost as happy as you think you are.
Stop!  There was first a game of blindman's buff.  Of course there was.
And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes
in his boots.  My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and
Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.  The
way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage
on the credulity of human nature.
Caution: Keep out of reach of children.
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god.  He preferred
to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.  He never
claimed to be a god.  But then, he never claimed not to be a god.  Circum-
stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.
Silence, though, could.  It was in the days of the rains that their prayers
went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of
prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri,
goddess of the Night.  The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through
the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the
Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze
rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique...
		-- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
Q:	What is the sound of one cat napping?
A:	Mu.
No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large.
		-- Mark Twain
Give him an evasive answer.
Q:	Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A:	Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
	Oh, right, *of course*!
So this is it.  We're going to die.
October 12, the Discovery.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss
it.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Snow Day -- stay home.
There's small choice in rotten apples.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"
At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement,
especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously
-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being
in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after fact and reason.
		-- John Keats
Must I hold a candle to my shames?
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"
"What's this?  Trix?  Aunt!  Trix?  You?  You're after the prize!  What
is it?"  He picked up the box and studied the back.  "A glow-in-the-dark
squid!  Have you got it out of there yet?"  He tilted the box, angling the
little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling
them onto the table top.  "Here it is!"  He hauled out a little cream-colored,
glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic.
		-- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin"
Q:	How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Five.  One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
		experience.  (Actually, Californians don't screw in
		light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)

Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
		those Californians trying to share the experience.
Q:	How do you know when you're in the <ethnic> section of Vermont?
A:	The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles.
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
Someone is speaking well of you.

How unusual!
Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow.
Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your
life in such a mess.
Q:	How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	That's proprietary information.  Answer available from AT&T on payment
	of license fee (binary only).
Advancement in position.
You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body.
Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.
		-- Mark Twain
