“A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults.” -Louis Nizer

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.” -Stephen Bishop

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” -Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” -Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” -Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” -William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” -Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” -Moses Hadas

“His ears made him look like a taxicab with both doors open.” -Howard Hughes (about Clark Gable)

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.” -Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” -Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.” - Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” -Jack E. Leonard

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” -Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” -Groucho Marx

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” -Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” -Thomas Brackett Reed

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.” -James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” -Charles, Count Talleyrand

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” -Mark Twain

“A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.” -Mark Twain

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” -Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” -Mae West

“She is a peacock in everything but beauty.” -Oscar Wilde

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” -Oscar Wilde

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” -Oscar Wilde

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” -Billy Wilder

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” -Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

Two centuries ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave.

The Jews realized that they had no choice. They selected Rabbi Moishe to represent them. Since Moishe spoke only Yiddish, and the Pope only Italian, it was concluded that this would be a silent debate.

The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”

An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said: “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that god was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that god absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?”

Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe. “Rabbi, what happened?” they asked. “Well,” said Moishe, “First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here.”

“And then?” asked a woman.

“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine.”

Video of a LOSAT (line-of-sight anti-tank) weapons test. A KEM (kinetic energy missile) is launched from a humvee.

Video of a Navy jet flying by the deck of an aircraft carrier.

In-flight video of an Air Force C-130 discharging flares.

Tactical video of an Air Force AC-130 gunship in action. Warning: not for the faint of heart; this is combat video.

• You consider Starbucks a food group.
• You schedule conference calls on your mobile phone while you know you’re gonna be stuck in traffic.
• You hear an electric beeping, 90% of everyone in sight reaches for their belts.
• You find the words “conventional oven” archaic.
• Cleaning up the dining area means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
• Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
• Keeping up with sports entails adding ESPN’s home page to your bookmarks.
• You have a “to-do list” that includes entries for lunch and bathroom breaks and they are usually the ones that never get crossed off.
• You have actually faxed your Christmas list to your parents.
• Pick up lines now include a reference to liquid assets and capital gains.
• You consider 2nd day Air Delivery and Inner-office Mail painfully slow.
• You assume any question about whether to valet park or not is rhetorical.
• You refer to your dining room table as the flat filing cabinet.
• Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.
• Your grocery list has been on your refrigerator so long some of the products don’t even exist anymore.
• You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process.
• You get all excited when it’s Saturday so you can wear sweats to work.
• You refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables.
• You find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.
• You normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.
• You think that “progressing an action plan” and “calendarizing a project” are acceptable English phrases.
• You know the people at the airport hotels better than your next door neighbors.
• You ask your friends to “think out of the box” when making Friday night plans.
• You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.
• You think a “half-day” means leaving at 5 o’clock.

1. You’re right; we’re billing way too much for this.
2. Bet you I can go a week without saying “synergy” or “value-added.”
3. How about paying us based on the success of the project?
4. This whole strategy is based on a Harvard business case I read.
5. Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do.
6. I don’t know enough to speak intelligently about that.
7. Implementation? I only care about writing long reports.
8. I can’t take the credit. It was Ed in your marketing department.
9. The problem is, you have too much work for too few people.
10. Everything looks okay to me.

In the beginning was the plan.

And then came the assumptions.

And the Assumptions were without form.

And the Plan was without substance.

And darkness was upon the face of the workers.

And they spoke among themselves, saying: “It’s a crock of &%$# and it stinketh!”

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said: “It’s a pail of dung, and none may abide the odor thereof!”

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying: “It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide its strength.”

And the Managers went unto their Directors saying: “It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength.”

And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another: “It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.”

And the Directors went unto the Vice-President, saying unto him: “It promotes growth, and it is very powerful.”

And the Vice-President went unto the President, saying unto him: “This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of the company, with powerful effects.”

And the President looked upon the Plan, and saw that it was good.

And the Plan became policy.

The end.

Imagine if instead of cryptic, geeky test strings, your computer produced error messages in haiku…

Your file is quite large
and might be very useful,
but now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
cannot be located, but
endless others exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask far too much.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.

With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
“My Novel” not found.

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao, until
You bring fresh toner.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Stay the patient course;
Of little worth is your ire;
The network is down.

A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.

Yesterday it worked;
Today it is not working:
Windows is like that.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
but we never will.

Having been erased,
the document you’re seeking
must now be retyped.

Rather than a beep
or a rude error message,
these words: “File not found.”

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.