Mark Twain - Report from the Recording Angel

What is the giving up of life, to a noble soul, or to ten thousand noble souls, compared with the giving up of fifteen dollars out of the greedy grip of the meanest white man that ever lived on the face of the earth?

Richard Wilson - Farewell Party (1958)

There was a Japanese here, bowing with a smile whenever anyone glanced at him, still guilty of World War II.

College Humour - Um, Actually

- Pat Cassels, do you have a Roth IRA?
- No, all my money is in Star Trek collectibles.

The Ridiculous 6

For breakfast my baby bakes my biscuits,
At lunchtime she puts honey in my tea,
For supper she butters up my corn cob,
And for dessert she gives that pudding to me.

My baby knows my eggs are over easy,
She lets me cut her coffee with my cream,
I've got a hankering for some cherry pie,
My baby always licks the ladle clean.

Mark Twain - Punch, Brothers, Punch!

Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a sixcent fare,
A pink trip slip for a threecent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

CHORUS

Punch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island

"Thanky, George," replied the sea-cook. "You always was brisk for business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I'm pleased to see. Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! "Deposed" — that's it, is it? Very pretty wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your hand o' write, George? Why, you was gettin' quite a leadin' man in this here crew. You'll be cap'n next, I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will you? This pipe don't draw."

Quiet Aunt Zelda

Quiet Aunt Zelda
Willie Skips Exams
Every Dog Cares
Run From Vicky To Get Betty
Young Harry Never Uses Joe’s Money
I'm King Comma
Oh Lloyd Stop
Please

Robert Sheckley - The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton

Crompton's response was formed by this insight. He said, "Thanks, Sue, I'd really love to do that some other time. But no I've got to get myself sorted out first."

"That's what all the Heavy Cases say," Sue said sadly. "Oh well. Here comes your Two-Hour Friend."

A tall thin black man was approaching. He had a cheerful face and a great head of wiry hair.

"My what?" Crompton asked.

"It is well known," Sue said, "that a Friend is just exactly what a person with heavy psychological difficulties arriving all shook up in a strange place most needs."

"I don't understand."

"So the Aion Foundation provides a Friend for each incoming guest. The job is on a volunteer basis, but only for two hours at a time since being friends with a person you have nothing in common with and care nothing about is difficult and taxing work."

"Hi," the black man said. "I'm Javi, I come from Fiji."

Mark Twain - Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.

And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly,
By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.

Robert Sheckley - Journey Of Joenes

At first light, the frenzied movements of the crowds began again, and people pushed and shoved each other in their haste to get somewhere and do something. Joenes wanted to learn the reason for all of this, so he picked a man out of the crowd and stopped him.

"Sir," Joenes said, "could you spare a moment of your valuable time and tell a stranger something about the great and purposeful vitality I see all around me?"

The man said, "Whattsamatter, you some kind of nut?" And he hurried off.

But the next man Joenes stopped gave the question careful thought, and said, "You call it vitality, huh?"

"So it appears," Joenes said, glancing at the restless crowds surging around them. "By the way, my name is Joenes."

"Mine's Watts," the man said, "as in Watts the matter?" In answer to your question, I'll tell you that what you see is not vitality. It's panic."

"But what are they in a panic about?" Joenes asked.

"To put it in a nutshell," Watts said, "they're afraid if they stop hurrying and pushing, somebody will find out they're dead. It's a very serious matter being found dead, because then they can fire you from your job, foreclose all your bills, raise your apartment rental, and carry you squirming to your grave."

Fredric Brown - Pi In The Sky

Then having denied himself the supreme pleasure long enough, he turned his eyes up to the silent sky, and there it was. The four hundred and sixty-eight brightest stars, spelling out: USE SNIVELY’S SOAP.
For just a second did his satisfaction last. Then his face began to turn an apoplectic purple. "My heavens!" said Mr. Sniveley. "It’s spelled wrong!" His face grew more purple still, and then, as a tree falls, he fell backward through the window.
An ambulance rushed the fallen magnate to the nearest hospital, but he was pronounced dead — of apoplexy — upon entrance.
But misspelled or not, the eternal stars held their positions as of that midnight. The aberrant motion had stopped, and again the stars were fixed. Fixed to spell — SNIVELY’S SOAP.

There is one fact remaining which is painful to consider, since it casts a deep reflection upon the basic intelligence of the human race. It is proof, though, that the president’s executive order was justified, despite scientific protest.
That fact is as humiliating as it is enlightening. During the two months and eight days during which the Sniveler machine was in operation, sales of Sniveley Soap increased nine-hundred-twenty per cent.

Maurice Moss - IT crowd

Women, eh?
What are they? Who knows?
Can't live with them, can't find them... sometimes.
What's going on in their little heads?
Don't ask me, I'm not a flippin' women psychiatrist.
But I have learned one or two things from conversations with my mother.

Robert Sheckley - Journey Of Joenes

Joenes found this reply scarcely credible. He said "Mr. Watts, these people do not look dead. And in actual fact, all exaggeration aside, they are NOT dead, are they?"

"I never put exaggeration aside," Watts told him. "But since you're a stranger I'll try to explain a little more. To begin with, death is merely a matter of definition. Once the definition was very simple: you were dead when you stopped moving for a long time. But now the scientists have examined this antiquated notion more carefully and have done considerable research on the entire subject. They have found that you can be dead in all important respects and still go on walking and talking."

Robert Sheckley - Specialist

Human - specialist - Pusher - he entered fully into the Crew, merged with them, threw mental arms around the shoulders of Thinker and Talker.
Suddenly, the Ship shot forward at eight times the speed of light. It continued to accelerate.

Robert Sheckley - Morning After

He was Walter Hill Piersen, 32, unmarried, unemployed, unwanted. He had taken a job when he was eighteen, to please his parents. But he had given it up after a week, because it bored him and interfered with his sleep. He had considered marriage once, but the responsibilities of a wife and family appalled him. He was almost thirty-three, thin, flabby-muscled, and pallid. He had never done anything of the slightest importance to himself or to anyone else, and he never would.

Henry Kuttner - Nothing But Gingerbread Left

And, a little while later-days or weeks, it doesn't matter - Goebbels is going to walk into a big room, and there he's going to see Adolf Hitler goose-stepping around and yelling:
LEFT!
LEFT!
LEFT a wife and SEVenteen children in
STARVing condition with NOTHing but gingerbread
LEFT!

Snatch

- Bookies got blagged last night.
- Blagged? Speak English. This country spawned the language, and nobody seems to speak it.

Seth McFarlane - Roast of Donald Trump

"Tonight we honor a self-made millionaire. He started with nothing, worked hard, and made a fortune. That man is Fred Trump, Donald's dad."

William,Tenn - Errand Boy

"...I wanted to see the ragged but determined newsboys rising steadily to riches. I wanted to see the great, arrogant robber barons like yourself - perhaps, I thought, I might even come across a real economic royalist! And I might get involved in some great intrigue, some market manipulation where millions of small investors are closed down and lose their last shred of - what is it again? - margin?"
"Yeah, they lose all their margin. Where did you sink this - this chrondromos?"
...
"Sorry, kid. The last time. How would you like to be in on a really big deal? Before you go back, you might like to see me get control of an international trust. I've been planning it for some time - one of the biggest bull markets. Wall Street has never seen my secret gilt-edged because I have a broker planted in Chicago futures. I'll hurry it along and do it today, just so you can see how we robber barons operate. The only thing is, this trendicle deal will make it sure-fire and I'll be able to do the whole thing much faster. What a spectacle! Hundreds of banks failing, I get a corner on synthetic rubber, the gold standard crashes, small investors frozen and down to their bottom margin! You'll see it all. And if you get the trendicle for me, why I'd let you handle the capitalization."

Slow console performance in Ubuntu

The console on Ubuntu 10.04 server is painfully slow under virtual machine. The solution is to disable the frame buffer. Just append "blacklist vga16fb" to the end of the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf, save and reboot. (To prevent gdm from loading replace "quiet splash" to "text" in the /etc/default/grub and run update-grub.)