• You wake up at 4 O'clock in the morning to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on the way back to bed.
• You turn off your computer and get an awful empty feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

IMPORTANT! READ THIS BEFORE USING YOUR NEW DEVICE

Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to:

PLEASE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?!?

We're sorry. We just get a little crazy sometimes because we're always getting back "defective" merchandise where it turns out that the consumer inadvertently bathed the device in acid for six days. So, in writing these instructions, we naturally tend to assume that your skull is filled with dead insects, but we mean nothing by it.

OK? Now let's talk about:

1. UNPACKING THE DEVICE The device is encased in foam to protect it from the Shipping People, who like nothing more than to jab spears into outgoing boxes.

   PLEASE INSPECT THE CONTENTS CAREFULLY FOR GASHES OR IDA MAE BARKER'S ENGAGEMENT RING, WHICH SHE LOST LAST WEEK, AND SHE THINKS MAYBE IT WAS WHILE SHE WAS PACKING DEVICES.

   Ida Mae really wants that ring back, because it is her only proof of engagement, and her fiance, Stuart, is now seriously considering backing out on the whole thing in as much as he had consumed most of a bottle of Jim Beam in Quality Control when he decided to pop the question. It is not without irony that Ida Mae's last name is "Barker", if you get our drift.

   WARNING: DO NOT EVER AS LONG AS YOU LIVE THROW AWAY THE BOX OR ANY OF THE PIECES OF STYROFOAM, EVEN THE LITTLE ONES SHAPED LIKE PEANUTS. If you attempt to return the device to the store, and you are missing one single peanut, the store personnel will laugh in the chilling manner exhibited by Joseph Stalin just after he enslaved Eastern Europe.

   Besides the device, the box should contain:

   • Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
   • A little plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Ingredients:

• 532.35 cm3 gluten
• 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
• 4.9 cm3 refined halite
• 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride

NT Chicken
Will cross the road in June; no, in August. September for sure.

OS/2 Chicken
It tried to cross the road several times, and finally gave up.

Win 95 Chicken

10. New seats would require everyone to have the same butt size.

9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft Gas.

8. The U.S. government would get subsidies from an automaker—a first.

7. The oil, alternator, gas, and engine warning lights would be replaced by a single 'General Car Fault' warning light.

At the first bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
See if they can do it again.

At the second bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Ask them how they did it ... and
See if they can do it again.

I have a spelling checker, it came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue miss steaks aye can knot see.

Eye ran this poem threw it. Your sure real glad two no.
Its very polished in its weigh, my checker tolled me sew.

The Assembly Language Programmer leaps tall buildings in a single bound, is more powerful than a Cray XMP, has one wait state, is faster than a speeding bullet, walks on water, and gives policy to God.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Ann Landers wouldn't print this. I have nowhere else to turn. I have to get the word out. Warn other parents. I must be rambling on. Let me try and explain.
It's about my son, Billy. He's always been a good, normal 10 year old boy. Well, last spring we sat down after dinner to select a summer camp for Billy.

NEW YORK - People for Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing.

"Somebody left a glass of milk next to the keyboard. Reaction?"

Optimist: The glass is half full.

Pessimist: The glass is half empty.

Futurist: The milk's in the wrong half of the glass.

Engineer: The glass is twice as large as needed for the amount of milk you have.

1. Murphy Never Would Have Used One
2. Murphy Would Have Loved Them

Bove's Theorem
The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.

Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.

DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.

DOS Air: Passengers walk out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, then jump off when it hits the ground. They grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, jump off.

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If IBM made toasters...
They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

C: You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."

If you have any of the following symptoms, you may be a victim of technology...

• Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breath of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the fist page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What's the shortcut for Undo?