______ __
/ ____/___ _____/ /___ ______ ___
/ /_ / __ \/ ___/ __/ / / / __ \/ _ \
/ __/ / /_/ / / / /_/ /_/ / / / / __/
/_/ \____/_/ \__/\__,_/_/ /_/\___/
"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers
That your lectures bore people to death.
Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year --
Don't you think that you should save your breath?"
"I have answered three questions and that is enough,"
Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
to get her attention.
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread.
-- Anatole France
... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
along.
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
Why do you find that funny?
-- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350, University of Washington
Yow! Am I having fun yet?
-- Zippy the Pinhead
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026 Michael J. Chappell Contact me at:
mcsuper5@freeshell.org
