Fred's Collection

FW: Little Johnny

2007-04-19T17:36:00.001+08:00

From: penpals-and-friends@googlegroups.com [mailto:penpals-and-friends@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of unicorn
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 3:03 PM
Subject: Little Johnny

Little Johnny

Click here to joint the group

Little Johnny was busy doing his homework. As his mother approached she heard:

"One and one, the son-of-a-bitch is two."

"Two and two, the son-of-a-bitch is four."

"Three and three... "

His mother interrupted, asking where he had learned this way of doing math. Little Johnny remarked that his teacher Ms. Margo taught him.

His mother was rather upset and told him to stop the homework. The next day she stormed into Little Johnny's classroom and confronted Ms. Margo. Little Johnny's mother told Ms. Margo about Little Johnny's different way of doing math, and his claims that Ms. Margo taught it that way to the class.

The teacher was flabbergasted. She said that she couldn't understand why Little Johnny had said what he did. Then suddenly, Ms Margo exclaimed, "Oh, I know, here in school we say, one and one, the sum-of-which is two."

***********

Love more cool mails " click here to joint the group "

--
metallic unicorn
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "penpals and friends" group.
To post to this group, send email to penpals-and-friends@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to penpals-and-friends-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.fr/group/penpals-and-friends?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

FW: just a few lessons

2007-04-09T15:23:00.001+08:00

Going for an interview, read this first ...just a few lessons

Story I
E: Do u have a boyfriend?
C: I have.
E: Is he working Locally?
C: No. He is working Overseas.
E: Sorry, my company cannot employ u!
C: Why?
E: U will not be able to settle down here permanently. And my Company don't want to

pay extra expenses on the Overseas calls just because of u.

Story II
E: Any girl friends?
C: No.
E: So far chased any before?
C: Have, but not successful.
E: Ever think of getting a job first then start looking for a girlfriend?
C: Career is first priority. Currently didn't want to consider This personal issue.
E: Sorry, my company cannot employ u.
C: Why?
E: You are lacking of P.R skills and confidence!!

Story III
E: Any girlfriends?
C: Yes.
E: Is she pretty?
C: Not quite.
E: Sorry, my company cannot employ you.
C: Why? Will this affect your company's reputation?
E: No, it does not affect the company's reputation but because My company

is dealing with arts, our company requested an artist.

Story IV
E: Any girlfriends?
C: Yes.
E: Is she pretty?
C: Yes.
E: Is she your first lover?
C: Yes.
E: Sorry, we can't employ you because you lack of fighting spirit.

Story V
E: Any girlfriends?
C: Yes.
E: Is she your first lover?
C: No. Have a few already.
E: Sorry, my company cannot employ you because you are a "grasshoper"! (Job hoper lah!)

Story VI
E: Any boyfriends?
C: Yes.
E: Is he rich?
C: No.
E: Then sorry, my company cannot employ you because our

Company is dealing with money and you will seduce.

Story VII
E: Any boyfriends?
C: Yes.
E: Is he rich ?
C: Yes, very rich.He owns a company.
E: Sorry, we cannot employ you because your boyfriend don't Even want to employ you, neither do we!
C: But,...... there is no position in his company.
E: Then,..... what is your qualification?
C: Secretary!
E: Sorry, we still cannot employ you because your prettiness Will affect our managers' working spirits.
C: But,...... I am not pretty at all.
E: It is even worse because my managers will not be interested In you!! /color]

FW: Enthusiastic Salesman

2007-04-09T05:41:00.001+08:00

Enthusiastic Salesman

Click here to joint the group

A new vacuum cleaner salesman knocked on the door on the first house of the street. A tall lady answered the door.

Before she could speak, the enthusiastic salesman barged into the living room and opened a big black plastic bag and poured all the cow droppings onto the carpet.

" Madam, if I could not clean this up with the use of this new powerful vacuum cleaner, I will EAT all this s...!" exclaimed the eager salesman.

"Do you need chilli sauce or ketchup with that?" asked the lady.

The bewildered salesman asked, " Why, madam?"

"There's no electricity in the house..." said the lady

**********

MORAL: Gather All resources be4 working on any project...!!!

**********

Love more cool mails " click here to joint the group "

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION--interesting

2007-04-04T14:26:00.000+08:00

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION
Click here to joint the group

Jack and Max are walking from religious service . Jack wonders whether it would be all right to smoke while praying.

Max replies, "Why don't you ask the Priest?"

So Jack goes up to the Priest and asks, " Father, may I smoke while I pray?"

The Priest replies, "No, my son, you may not! That's utter disrespect to our religion."

Jack goes back to his friend and tells him what the good Priest told him.

Max says, "I'm not surprised. You asked the wrong question. Let me try."

And so Max goes up to the Priest and asks, "Father, may I pray while I smoke ?"

To which the Priest eagerly replies, "By all means, my son. By all means. You can always pray whenever you want to."

**********

Moral of the story is ... The reply you get depends on the question you ask.

**********

For example, if you want a vacation when still working on a project don't ask for the holiday;

Ask: "Can I keep working on this project while I'm on vacation?"

**********

This is how business is done!! Tricky~~

2006-09-25T11:31:00.000+08:00

Father : I want you to marry a girl of my choice Son : "I will choose my own bride!" Father: "But the girl is Bill Gates's daughter." Son : "Well, in that case...ok" Next Father approaches Bill Gates. Father: "I have a husband for your daughter." Bill Gates: "But my daughter is too young to marry!" Father: "But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank." Bill Gates: "Ah, in that case...ok" Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank. Father: "I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president." President: "But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!" Father: "But this young man is Bill Gates's son-in-law." President: "Ah, in that case...ok" This is how business is done!!

Interesting Jokes...

2006-09-25T11:13:00.000+08:00

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : What is the chemical formula for water?
PAPPU : "HIJKLMNO! "!!
TEACHER : What are you talking about?
PAPPU : Yesterday you said it's H to O !
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : PAPPU, go to the map and find North America.
PAPPU : Here it is!
TEACHER : Correct. Now, class, who discovered America?
CLASS : PAPPU!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : PAPPU, how do you spell "crocodile"?
PAPPU : "K-R-O-K-O-D-A-I-L"
TEACHER : No, that's wrong
PAPPU : Maybe it's wrong, but you asked me how I spell it!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : PAPPU, give me a sentence starting with "I".
PAPPU : I is...
TEACHER : No, PAPPU. Always say, "I am."
PAPPU : All right... "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : "Can anybody give an example of "COINCIDENCE?"
PAPPU : "Sir, my Mother and Father got married on the same day, same time."
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : "George Washington not only chopped down his father's Cherry tree,
but also admitted doing it. Now do you know why his father didn't punish
him?"
PAPPU : "Because George still had the axe in his hand?"
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
PAPPU : Daddy, have you ever been to Egypt?
FATHER : No. Why do you ask that?
PAPPU: Well, where did you get THIS mummy then?
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : What a pair of strange socks you are wearing, one is green and one is blue with red spots !
PAPPU: Yes it's really strange. I've got another pair just like that at home.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : Now, PAPPU, tell me frankly do you say prayers before eating ?
PAPPU: No sir, I don't have to, my mom is a good cook.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : PAPPU, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his ?
PAPPU: No, teacher, it's the same dog !
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
TEACHER : What do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
PAPPU: A teacher

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The new looking~

2006-09-13T13:16:00.000+08:00

Well... upgrade the system from Blogger to Blogger in Beta

seems like everything works just fine, but I got to go back to the troop later and I'll need to wait till my next break for doing all of the stuffs....

hope people watching this blog will feel great and be in a good mood all the times...

Thanks~

Ways to Propose... sounds amazing~~

2006-09-04T15:17:00.000+08:00

Hi,

Here are some of the tips that can be used for your proposing styles on the valentine's day . Here it is nearing and so also are the techniques!!!

1. (Take a look at the tag on the girl's shirt, jacket, etc.); She would say ; "What are you doing ?" Respond, Oh, just checking to see if you were 'made in Heaven'.

2. (Walk up behind girl and point fingers shaped like gun into her back) you're under arrest! ; (For what?) For stealing my heart..

3. Are your legs tired? ( girl: Why?) because you have been running through my mind all day!

4. Can you give me directions to your heart? I've seemed to have lost myself in your eyes..

5. Hi, my name is Chance, Do I have one?

6. (Pick up a flower and walk over to girl.)I was just showing this flower how beautiful you are.

7. Is it hot in here or is it just you?

8. Walk up to a gal and say: Are you from Greece? She answers 'No'. Oh, I thought all the gods were from Greece...

9. I could be born in your eye, run down your cheek, and & die on your lips.

10. Did you know they changed the alphabets order? They put U and I together.

11. Are you lost? 'cause it's so strange to see an angel so far from heaven.

12. Do you believe in love at first sight, or do I have to walk by you again?

13. What's that in your eye? Oh...it's a sparkle.

14. Do you have a map? I just got lost in your eyes.

15. You can forget about going to heaven because it's a sin to look that good.

16. If I had eleven roses and you, I'd have a dozen.

Don't blame me if it doesnt work...All the best.

Swaps

Joke-- Confessions of Kid

2006-09-04T08:37:00.000+08:00

Little Bobby came into the kitchen where his mother was making dinner.

His birthday was coming up and he thought this was a good time to tell his mother what he wanted.
"Mom, I want a bike for my birthday." Little Bobby was a bit of a troublemaker.
He had gotten into trouble at school and at home. Bobby's mother asked him if he thought he deserved to get a bike for his birthday. Little Bobby, of course, thought he did.

Bobby's mother wanted Bobby to reflect on his behavior over the last year.
"Go to your room, Bobby, and think about how you have behaved this year.

Then write a letter to God and tell him why you deserve a bike for your birthday." Little Bobby stomped up the steps to his room and sat down to write God a letter.

Letter 1

Dear God,
I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one.
Your friend,
Bobby

Bobby knew that this wasn't true. He had not been a very good boy this year, so he tore up the letter and started over.

Letter 2

Dear God,
This is your friend Bobby. I have been a good boy this year and I would like a red bike for my birthday.
Thank you.
Your friend Bobby

Bobby knew that this wasn't true either. So, he tore up the letter and started again.

Letter 3

I have been an "OK" boy this year. I still would really like a bike for my birthday. Bobby knew he could not send this letter to God either. So, Bobby wrote a fourth letter.

Letter 4

I know I haven't been a good boy this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good boy if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please!
Thank you,
Bobby

Bobby knew, even if it was true, this letter was not going to get him a bike.

Now, Bobby was very upset. He went downstairs and told his mom that he wanted to go to church. Bobby's mother thought her plan had worked, as Bobby looked very sad. "Just be home in time for dinner" Bobby's mother told him.

Bobby walked down the street to the church on the corner. Little Bobby went into the church and up to the altar. He looked around to see if anyone was there. Bobby bent down and picked up a statue of the Mary. He slipped the statue under his shirt and ran out of the church, down the street, into the house, and up to his room. He shut the door to his room and sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Bobby began to write his letter to God.

Letter 5

God,
I'VE KIDNAPPED YOUR MAMA. IF YOU WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN, SEND THE BIKE!!!!!!!!!!

Importance of having Breakfast:

2006-09-03T17:55:00.000+08:00

Importance of having Breakfast:

Breakfast can help prevent strokes, heart attack and sudden death. Advice on not to skip breakfast! Tips for healthyliving..For those who always skip breakfast, you should start kicking that habit now!!

You've heard many times that "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Now, recent research confirms that one of the worst practices you can develop may be avoiding breakfast.
Why?

Because the frequency of heart attack, sudden death, and stroke peaks between 6:00a.m. and noon , with the highest incidence being between 8: 00a.m. and 10:00a.m.What mechanism within the body could account for this significant jump in sudden death in the early morning hours? :-(
We may have an answer .
Platelet, tiny elements in the blood that keep us from bleeding to Death if we get a cut, can clump together inside our arteries due to cholesterol or laque buildup in the artery lining. It is in the morning hours that platelets become the most activated and tend to form these internal blood clots at the greatest frequency.
However, eating even a very light breakfast prevents the morning platelet activation that is associated with heart attacks and strokes . :-)
Studies performed at Memorial University in St.Johns , Newfoundland found that eating a light, very low-fat breakfast was critical in modifying the morning platelet activation. Subjects in the study consumed either low-fat or fat-free yogurt, orange juice, fruit, and a source of protein coming from yogurt or fat-free milk.
S o if you skip breakfast, it's important that you change this practice immediately in light of this research.Develop a simple plan to eat cereal, such as oatmeal or Bran Flakes ,along with six ounces of grape juice or orange juice , and perhaps a piece of fruit .
This simple plan will keep your platelets from sticking together, keep blood clots from forming, and perhaps head off a potential heart attack or stroke.
So never ever skip breakfast :-)

Interesting Math Formulas By Yahoo Group

2006-09-03T17:08:00.000+08:00

MATHEMATICS
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

OFFICE ARITHMETIC
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

LONGEVITY
Married men live longer than single men, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

MEMORY
Any married man should forget his mistakes, there's no use in two people remembering the same thing.

APPEARANCE
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.

Marketing

2006-08-08T10:19:00.000+08:00

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and say, "I am very rich. Marry me!"
That's Direct Marketing

You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl.
One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says,
"He's very rich. Marry him."
That's Advertising.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and get her telephone number.
The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm very rich. Marry me."
That's Telemarketing.

You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl.
You get up and straighten your tie; you walk up to her and pour her a drink.
You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm very rich "Will you marry
Me?"
That's Public Relations.

You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl.
She walks up to you and says, "You are very rich..."
That's Brand Recognition.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and say, "I'm rich. Marry me"
She gives you a nice hard slap on your face.
That's Customer Feedback

A Story that touches your heart ! by Yahoo Group

2006-07-09T07:43:00.000+08:00

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door...

Son: "Daddy, may I ask you a question"

Daddy: "Yeah sure, what it is?"

Son: "Dad, how much do you make an hour"

Daddy: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?"

Son: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?"

Daddy: "I make Rs. 500 an hour"

"Oh", the little boy replied, with his head down.

Looking up, he said, "Dad, may I please borrow Rs. 300?"

The father was furious, "if the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or other nonsense, then march yourself to your room and go to bed. Think why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior"

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions.

How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:

"May be there was something he really needed to buy with that Rs. 300 and he really didn't ask for money very often!"

The man went to the door of little boy's room and opened the door. "Are you asleep, son?" He asked. "No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy.

"I've been thinking, may be I was too hard on you earlier", said the man, "It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the Rs.300 you asked for"

The little boy sat straight up, smiling "oh thank you dad!" He yelled.

Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled some crippled up notes. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at his father.

"Why do you want money if you already had some?" the father grumbled.

"Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied. "Daddy I have Rs. 500 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you"

Thoughtful! by Yahoo Group

2006-07-08T23:30:00.000+08:00

Thoughtful!

people are Lonely by Yahoo Group

2006-07-08T23:16:00.000+08:00

True, I think it make sense.

Men and Women (From Yahoo Group)

2006-06-20T19:30:00.000+08:00

Men:
1. All men are extremely busy.
2. Although they are so busy, they still have time for women.
3. Although they have time for women, they don't really care for them.
4. Alghough they don't really care for them, they always have one around.
5. Although they always have one around them, they always try their Luck with others.
6. Although they try their luck with others, they get really pissed off if the women leaves them.
7. Although the women leaves them they still don't learn from their Mistakes and still try their luck with others.

Women:
1. The most important thing for a woman is financial security.
2. Although this is so important, they still go out and buy expensive clothes.
3. Although they always buy expensive clothes, they never have something to wear.
4. Although they never have something to wear, they always dress Beautifully.
5. Although they always dress beautifully, their clothes are always just "An old rag".
6. Although their clothes are always "just an old rag", they still expect you to compliment them.
7. Although they expect you to compliment them, when you do, they don't Believe you.

Joke --- Forehead

2006-04-29T07:42:00.000+08:00

Forehead

A husband is at home watching a cricket match when his wife interrupts: "Honey, could you fix the light in the hallway? It's been flickering for weeks now."

He looks at her and says angrily. "Fix the light? Now does it look like I have Electrician printed on my forehead? I don't think so."

"Well then, could you fix the fridge door? It won't close right." To which he replied - "Fix the fridge door? Does it look like I have fridge technician written on my forehead? I don't think so."

"Fine," she says "Then you could at least fix the steps to the front door? They're about to break."

"I'm not a darn carpenter and I don't want to fix the steps," he says. "Does it look like I have carpenter written on my forehead? Don't think so. I've had enough of you. I'm going to the bar!!!"

So he goes to the bar and drinks for a couple of hours. He starts feeling guilty about the way he treated his wife, and decides to go home and help out.

As he walks into the house he notices the steps are already fixed. As he enters the house, he sees the hall light is working. As he goes to get a beer, he notices the fridge door is fixed.

"Honey, how'd all this get fixed?"

She said, "Well, when you left I sat outside and cried, just then a nice young man asked me what was wrong, and I told him. He offered to do all the repairs, and all I had to do was either going to bed with him or bake a cake."

He said, "So what kind of cake did you bake him?"

She replied, "Hellooooo.... Do you see Monginis Bakery written on my forehead?"

Joke --- Don't use mobile inside Toilet

2006-04-28T19:51:00.000+08:00

Don't use mobile inside Toilet

I was barely sitting down when i heard a vioce from the other stall saying :
"Hi, how are you?"

I'm not the type to start a conversation in the men's restroom
But i don't know what got into me, so i answered, somewhat
embarrassed, "Doin just fine!"

And the other guy says: "So what are you up to?"

What kind of quesion is that? At that point, I'm thinking this
is too bizarre so i say: "Uhhh, I'm like you, just travelling!"

At this point im just trying to get out as fast as i can when i hear i
hear another question. "Can I come over?"

Ok, this question is just too weird for me but i figured i could
just be polite and end the conversation. i tell him, "No.......
I'm a little busy right now!!!"

Then i hear guy say nervously....

Listen. i'll have to call you back. There's is an idiot in the
other stall who keeps answering all my questions!!!"

Children From Yahoo Group

2006-04-21T23:15:00.000+08:00

CHILDREN

You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 telling them to sit down and shut-up. Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children. Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like clearing the driveway before it has stopped snowing.

There is only one pretty child in the world
and every mother has it. - Chinese Proverb.

Mothers of teens know why animals eat their young.

I asked Mom if I was a gifted child...
she said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.

Children are natural mimics, who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.

We child proofed our home 3 years ago
and they're still getting in!

Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.

inspirational thoughts From Google Group

2006-04-21T23:09:00.000+08:00

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1 WE CANNOT HOLD A TORCH TO ANOTHER MAN'S PATH WITHOUT BRIGHTENING OUR OWN

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2 EDUCATION IS NOT PREPARATION FOR LIFE. EDUCATION IS LIFE ITSELF

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3 PAIN IS INEVITABLE. SUFFERING IS OPTIONAL.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4 IF U DON'T HEAR OPPORTUNITY KNOCKING, FIND ANOTHER DOOR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5 WHEN IT IS DARK ENOUGH , YOU CAN SEE THE STARS.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

6 NEVER LOOK DOWN ON ANYBODY UNLESS YOU ARE HELPING THEM UP.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

7 NOTHING IS SO STRONG AS GENTELNESS, AND NOTHING IS SO GENTLE AS TRUE STRENGTH.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

8 HATEFUL PEOPLE THINK GOD IS ON THEIR SIDE BUT LOVING PEOPLE ALWAYS TRY TO BE ON GOD'S SIDE.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

9 FROM WHAT WE GET WE CAN MAKE A LIVING. WHAT WE GIVE HOWEVER MAKES A LIFE.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

10 A MAN HAS MADE ATLEAST A START ON DISCOVERING THE MEANING OF HUMAN LIFE WHEN HE PLANTS SHADE TREES UNDER WHICH HE KNOWS FULL WELL HE WILL NEVER SIT.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

source

How to screw up an interview From Google Group by Gary

2006-04-06T23:39:00.000+08:00

How to screw up an interview

We've all been interviewed for jobs. And, we've all spent most of those interviews thinking about what not to do. Don't bite your nails. Don't fidget. Don't interrupt. Don't belch. If we did any of the dont's, we knew we'd disqualify ourselves instantly. But some job applicants go light years beyond this. We surveyed top personnel executives of 100 major American corporations and asked for stories of unusual behavior by job applicants. The lowlights:

"... stretched out on the floor to fill out the job application."

"She wore a Walkman and said she could listen to me and the music at the same time."

"A balding candidate abruptly excused himself. Returned to office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece."

"... asked to see interviewer's resume to see if the personnel executive was qualified to judge the candidate."

"... announced she hadn't had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and french fries in the interviewer's office - wiping the ketchup on her sleeve"

"Stated that, if he were hired, he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm."

"Interrupted to phone his therapist for advice on answering specific interview questions."

"When I asked him about his hobbies, he stood up and started tap dancing around my office."

"At the end of the interview, while I stood there dumbstruck, went through my purse, took out a brush, brushed his hair, and left."

"... pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped a flash picture of me. Said he collected photos of everyone who interviewed him."

"Said he wasn't interested because the position paid too much."

"While I was on a long-distance phone call, the applicant took out a copy of Penthouse, and looked through the photos only, stopping longest at the centerfold."

"During the interview, an alarm clock went off from the candidate's brief case. He took it out, shut it off, apologized and said he had to leave for another interview."

"A telephone call came in for the job applicant. It was from his wife. His side of the conversation went like this: "Which company? When do I start? What's the salary?" I said, "I assume you're not interested in conducting the interview any further." He promptly responded, "I am as long as you'll pay me more." I didn't hire him, but later found out there was no other job offer. It was a scam to get a higher offer."

"His attache [case] opened when he picked it up and the contents spilled, revealing ladies' undergarments and assorted makeup and perfume."

"Candidate said he really didn't want to get a job, but the unemployment office needed proof that he was looking for one."

"... asked who the lovely babe was, pointing to the picture on my desk. When I said it was my wife, he asked if she was home now and wanted my phone number. I called security."

"Pointing to a black case he carried into my office, he said that if he was not hired, the bomb would go off. Disbelieving, I began to state why he would never be hired and that I was going to call the police. He then reached down to the case, flipped a switch and ran. No one was injured, but I did need to get a new desk."

WOMEN AND GOD - JOKE FOR 1ST APRIL :-) From::::: www.krh.in :::::

2006-04-06T21:31:00.000+08:00

A middle aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.

While on the operating table she had a near death experience.

Seeing God She asked "Is my time up?" God said, "No, you have another 43 years, 2 months and 8 days to live." Upon recovery,

the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a Facelift, liposuction, and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and change her hair color.

Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it. After her last operation, she was released from the hospital. While crossing the street on her way home,

she was killed by an ambulance. Arriving in front of God, she demanded, "I thought you said I had another 40 years? Why didn't you pull me from out of the

path of the ambulance?"

(You'll love this!!!)

God replied,

I didn't recognize you."

--

::::: www.krh.in :::::

5 Interviewing Tips To Get That Job! From www.krh.in

2006-04-06T21:27:00.000+08:00

Tip#1

Be Confident
"Your first impression is your only impression."
Nothing is worse than a limp handshake, slumped shoulders, poor eye contact or poor communication skills. A potential employer can tell immediately if you are the man or woman for this job by your body language. Although aggressiveness is a turn-off, being passive gives the indication that you are not sure of yourself or your qualifications. Keep eye contact when answering questions or when the interviewer is speaking directly to you. Smile occasionally to show your interest and enthusiasm. Keeping a steady gaze on the interviewer can be disturbing to an interviewer. Look away occasionally. Lean forward to show that you are interested in what the interviewer is saying. Speak in a concise and clear voice. If you have problems annunciating certain words, don't try to use them on an interview. If this is difficult for you, practice with a mirror and pay attention to your facial expressions.read more tip at : http://online-articles.org/careers-employment/site-map.php

Other interview killers:
-Slouching in a chair
-Crossing your arms
-Playing with your hair or jewelry
-Leaning back in chair

Tip# 2

Act As If
"You are what you believe."
Act as if you had the job. What would you do if you had this position? How would you act? How would a person in this position act and speak? What are your responsibilities in this position? What is a typical day like for you in this job? Change your attitude towards yourself and your strengths. If you start thinking that you won't get the job, you will do small unnoticeable things to sabotage your chances. .read more tip at : http://online-articles.org/careers-employment/site-map.php

Tip#3

Know The Company
"Know your business."
I once sat on a couple of interviews where the interviewees did not do any research on the company. This sends a message that you are looking for any job, not this specific job. Once you're interview is scheduled, get on the net and start finding out everything you can about the company. A good place to start is www.hoovers.com., which gives you industry information, top competitors, names of CEO, etc. If you'd like to know what current or former employees have to say about the company, try www.wwetfeet.com. Beware of disgruntled postings. Call the company headquarters and ask for the marketing department to get specific information. Weave your research into the interview by stating. "I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, which mentioned that your company is thinking about XYZ." This lets the interviewer know that you have taken the time to know more about the company. You can ask questions about something you read, but don't challenge them or you'll come across as a know-it-all.read more tip at : http://online-articles.org/careers-employment/site-map.php

Tip# 4

Be Prepared
"Know what to say."
Most interviewers ask the same standard questions about your strengths, weaknesses, former employers, work history. If you are being interviewed by several people, this might be a good cop, bad cop situation. Pay attention to who is playing bad cop, they are looking for signs of weakness and dishonesty. To be well prepared, before the interview, write out all your accomplishments, both personal and professional. List your strengths and weaknesses. Be honest, it's easier to remember the truth than it is a lie. Extra Tip: Write out situations in which you have demonstrated: leadership skills, determination, stress management, creativity, and flexibility. Be prepared to answer the question: "Why do you want this job?" If you're not sure, reevaluate your decision. If you arrive a few minutes early, review what you wrote in the waiting room before the interview. Great list of interview questions: Tested Interview Questions. read more tip at : http://online-articles.org/careers-employment/site-map.php

Tip#5

Ask For The Job
"You get what you ask for."
The most important step in the interviewing process is one most people miss. ASK FOR THE JOB! Most interviewers are waiting for that closure. If you have done everything exceptionally well during the interviewing process, but have not asked for the job, you've just wasted an interview. Asking for the job shows the potential employer that you are assertive, confident and right for the job. It might feel uncomfortable, but this is your only chance to ask for something you really want. Make sure your voice is firm and you make eye contact. Think of it as your closing argument, you've got to win over the jury. You should also ask the interviewer if he or she thinks you are right for the job. Even if they tell you something unpleasant, think of it as a lesson learned. However, do yourself a favor and ask for the job. You deserve it!read more tip at : http://online-articles.org/careers-employment/site-map.php

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

::::: www.krh.in :::::

American History From Google Group by Gary

2006-04-06T21:24:00.000+08:00

American History

Here's a little part of US history which makes you sit up and go h-m-m-m-m-m-m-m............

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners
Both were succeeded by Southerners.

Both successors were named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are comprised of fifteen letters.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named "Kennedy".
Kennedy was shot in a car called "Lincoln".

Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the kicker....

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

How to Get a Date - Tips From www.krh.in

2006-04-06T21:15:00.000+08:00

Step #1- The first impression. Before you approach a girl or women, you need to know a few obvious formalities. Be clean - be sure you are wearing attractive cologne, clean clothes, and fresh breath. Woman notice the smallest details, so bad breath or B.O . will be one of the first impressions of you and you don't want that. Depending on what kind of girl you want to go after, you should always wear clean, fitting clothes; stains or overlarge clothes are a indication of what kind of lifestyle you live and you want to give her the best impression possible. Right before you approach her, you should put your confident but not cocky and witty but not corny cap on because that is the next thing that girls will be attracted to after your looks.read more : http://online-articles.org/dating/site-map.php

Step #2-The Actual Date. Be a gentleman, open the door for her, take her coat and be considerate. This will be an indication to her that you care about her and that you know how to treat a woman. Take her out somewhere where both of you enjoy going. Having the same common interests is important in a relationship because you will be able to hold a conversation on a topic you and her agree on. This way you will avoid fights.

If you are taking her out somewhere to eat, split the price in half between the two of you since this is your first date. By doing this, she will realize that she is an equal to you. If she is one that is very 'high class', pay the bill but next time offer to split the bill because if you don't, she might think of you as 'the supplier'. Try to hold conversation and let her talk about herself. read more at http://online-articles.org/dating/site-map.php

Ask questions about her career, school or personality, woman love to talk about themselves, simply because they know themselves the best! Don't mumble, make sure to speak clearly because that might be a sign of an insecurity. If you guys have a conversation where both you of enjoy it, it is a sure way to make plans for your next date. Which brings me to my next point.

Step #3- Conclusion of the date. If she is smiling and giving good body language, you might be in for a next date. If you guys were different and different opinioned, it might be a sign to look for another girl. Ask her directly if she would like to go out with you again and if she is making excuses, she isn't interested, but if she responds positively, get her number and plan a next date.read more at http://online-articles.org/dating/site-map.php . Good Luck !

"LUNCH WITH GOD!"....A Very Cute Story..... From www.krh.in

2006-04-06T20:22:00.000+08:00

A little boy wanted to meet God.

He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of root beer and he started his journey.

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an old woman. She was sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons.

The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her a Twinkie.

She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a root beer. Again, she smiled at him. The boy was delighted!

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman, and gave her a hug.

She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.

She asked him, "What did you do today that made you look so happy?" He replied, "I had lunch with God." But before his mother could respond, he added, "You know what? She's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!"

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home. Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and asked, "Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?" She replied, "I ate Twinkies in the park with God." However, before her son responded,

she added, "You know, he's much younger than I expected." Too often we underestimate the power of a touch,! ! a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Remember,

we don't know what God will look like. People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Embrace all equally!

Some of the things people do to computers is downright painful From Google Group by Gary

2006-04-06T18:33:00.000+08:00

Hardware Abuse

Some of the things people do to computers is downright painful.

Recently, I got a call from someone who turned off his computer whenever he found himself somewhere in Windows he didn't want to be. "I just turn it off when I don't like where I am," he said. Wonder of all wonders, scandisk found a score of lost allocation units and bad sectors.

Customer: "Hi, I was wondering if you could fix my laptop. It's under warranty."
Tech Support: "What seems to be the trouble with it?"
Customer: "My wife got mad and threw it in the pool."

An man purchased a laptop from me. He called about a week later and said that it would no longer boot up. He brought it in, and I discovered that sixteen nicely drilled holes were in the bottom of the case. I asked him about it, and he said the machine was too hot sitting on his lap, so he had drilled these "air holes."

"Could that be the problem?" he asked.

One day a customer called complaining that he just received his computer, but it won't turn on. When he first pushed the power button, the screen flashed and then everything died.

I couldn't do much over the phone, so I went to the customer's office. It was plugged in, everything was hooked up ok, but, sure enough, it refused to turn on. I decided to take it back and promised to deliver a new one as soon as possible. But when I went to pick it up, I couldn't.

Fearful of thieves, the man had fired some 24 inch bolts straight through the box, through the hard drive, motherboard, everything, locking it to his desk.

"Oh," he said, "I thought it was just the TV part that was important. Will my warranty cover this?"

While I was at college (back in the days of Archimedes computers), I often helped to teach new users the ropes while the teacher concentrated elsewhere. This one sweet girl was very new, and I didn't mind that she had no concept of the mouse, the screen, and whatnot -- she soon got good enough that I could leave her to do some task and help someone else. Pretty soon, however, she was tugging on my chair, and when I went to see what was going on, she said, "My bracelet is stuck in there."

Eh?

It was wedged into the floppy disk slot. Why? Apparently, the bracelet was annoying her when she typed, so she took it off. She found a small slot on the computer with a happy little door on it and just went ahead and shoved it in. Tech support had to rescue it by taking the thing apart.

I used to work technical support and account services for a cellular phone company. One day an individual working for a construction company called and asked why we disconnected his service. I informed him that his service was fine and that his account was current, at which time I was informed that we had to have shut off his account because he couldn't power his phone on.

I began asking the usual questions, beginning with the model phone he was using. This often is a huge key to figuring out what the problem is, and it just so happened that he had the most problematic phone we had released due to its emergency yellow and black colors, looking vaguely like one of those water resistant portable cassette players.

We tried plugging it in, switching the battery, but it still wouldn't turn on. I asked him if it had been dropped or damaged before it stopped working. The answer was no.

I asked him if it had been exposed to water, and the answer was, "What does that matter? I have your waterproof model!"

I was sure I had struck the heart of the issue. It turned out that he was showing it off to his work buddies by throwing the "waterproof" phone into a bucket of water while he was joking around on the phone with the foreman.

I informed him that the phone was not actually waterproof, and that he would have to purchase a new phone due to the fact that our insurance policy did not cover damage from intentional misuse.

He explained that he heard a rumor that if you dry the phone out and replace the battery, they will sometimes continue working. This is sometimes true, so I asked him if the phone had been thoroughly dried.

The answer was yes -- he had put the phone into his clothes dryer with a load of laundry, which we then confirmed as the reason the face plate had broken off. He wanted an insurance replacement for his face plate, and I again informed him that our insurance policy did not cover damage from intentional misuse.

When my sister and I were both living in the dorms at college, she would frequently come to me for tech support.

Her: "Hey, can you look at my laptop? It's having a problem."
Me: "Yeah, what's the problem?"
Her: "Every time I try to type a letter, three show up, and none of them are the letter I hit."

I went to check it out. Sure enough, the problem occurred exactly as she stated it. As I was trying to think what the cause might be, I looked down and noticed a noodle under the enter key.

Me: "There's a noodle in here. How did that get there?"
Her: "Oh, I spilled soup on my keyboard. Does that make a difference?"

We got a tech support call from one of our customers saying that she couldn't get the tape out of the drive following the nightly backup run. After getting nowhere on the phone, we eventually sent someone out to have a look at it. It was one of the old QIC tapes, the ones that have a hefty metal plate down one side that physically prevents you from putting them in the wrong way around. Our fearless customer was not to be deterred, however. When she couldn't push the tape in (because it was the wrong way around), she tried forcing it in, but to no avail. Then she resorted to getting a spoon and using it as a lever to force the tape into the drive. Not surprisingly, it wouldn't come out the following morning. She needed a new tape drive.

A customer had bought a computer from us about a year ago and a Voodoo 3 card just yesterday. He took it home and tried to install it but couldn't, so he brought them both in this morning. He ranted and raved, etc. He had reboxed the Voodoo 3, expecting a replacement, so we took the computer and the Voodoo 3 in the back and told him we would fit it for free. When we opened the box for the Voodoo 3, it was in a terrible state. The bit of metal that attaches the card to the case was taken off, and a wee heatsink had been scraped off the chip with a screwdriver. I reglued the sink and reattached the backplate. So we opened the machine, and tried to fit the card. Ack. Card is AGP, computer has exactly zero AGP slots. So we went back to the front.

Me: "Sir, your computer has no AGP slots, and this is an AGP video card."
Customer: "Yeah, but the card fit perfectly into the little white slot."
Me: "Which white slot?"
Guy: "There's five of them -- little white ones. There's a spare one."
Me: "The PCI slot? Uhh...it shouldn't...let me check."

Sure enough, if you remove the heatsink and backplate, turn the card around, and really hammer it into the only free PCI slot, it will just fit snugly next to the hard disk.

We explained that the AGP card was completely destroyed and he had voided the warranty on it by hacking away at it with a screwdriver. The usual mad customer vs. techie exchange ensued, but he eventually backed down and bought the PCI version instead...and got us to fit it.

Customer: "Can it damage a mouse to be thrown at a wall?"

One of our customers bought a scanner with a SCSI card. It wasn't connecting, so she brought it in. It turned out she had pried off one of the blank plates covering an empty ISA slot, then shoved the card through the hole and turned on the system.

I was on a tech support call yesterday, and one of our stores had a crashed server with a bad motherboard. They did not want to transfer the hard drives over to the new server we were going to send them, so I said, ok, mail the hard drives to me, and we would put them in the new server.

So I got the package this morning, and to my surprise I found...the circuit boards from the hard drives. They took the boards off the hard drives and send them to me.

Grinning, I called the store and asked them to send me "the rest" of the hard drives. I have never ever ever heard of this happening. Now how the heck am I going to find out which hard drive goes with which circuit board, and will there be any way to get them working again?

Recently, my uncle managed to talk my grandmother into getting herself a computer to replace WebTV, which she had used for two years. Not a day after receiving her computer, she called me to ask for some help setting it up, saying she had done everything right but couldn't get it to work. I asked her if it was turned on -- she said it turned on just fine, but she couldn't see a picture.

I asked her to check her monitor connections and make sure they were in tight.

Me: "Are the cords to the monitor plugged in tight?"

Her: "They should be in tight. I glued 'em there."

Me: "You...glued them there?"

I decided I'd need to pay her a visit and see the damage for myself. Upon arriving to her house, she led me to the area where she had set her computer up. Immediately, I saw the problem. She was attempting to use her TV set as her monitor. I explained to her that she needed a proper computer monitor before she could do anything.

"The man at the store said I could use my TV just like WebTV," she said. "Why should I spend two hundred dollars on another TV just to use the computer??"

I looked at the back of the television and, sure enough, over each one of the connectors, she had hot glued one of the computer attachments -- including the modem line and her speaker cord.

"He tried to sell me one of those tiny TV things to sit on the computer, but I told him I had a perfectly good 20 inch one at home, and he said it would work fine!"

It took a bit of doing to convince her that the salesman had probably thought she had meant she had a 20 inch monitor at home. As I spent the next twenty minutes scraping glue off of the back of her television, she called the store and demanded to know why the salespeople had told her she could use a television with her computer.

In the end, I concluded that while the television and monitor cable could probably be saved, she would need a new modem cable and speaker cord.

I worked at a photo lab in New Mexico. Part of my job was outputing digital files to a film recorder. Everyone there was friendly, except for one woman who never seemed to like me. After a few months I asked my boss about it. He told me that before I got there, they had tried to train her to do the digital output. They even paid for her to go to a class to learn about computers. She was the only student in the class who managed to get a floppy stuck in the drive upside down and backwards. The teacher had to disassemble the machine to get the disk out. She told him she had to pound it with the heal of her hand to get the disk to go in. After that, the photo lab decided she probably wasn't the one for that position. She always resented the fact that I had 'her' job.

My mother was visiting one time when I was online. I remarked to her that the computer was running a little slow today. Her solution? Oil it. You can imagine how I wince every time I think of it.

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) bought a brand new Toshiba laptop computer last year since his "old" one was a model from the year before. He worked in the computer services office on campus here at our university. He decided one night that to impress his co-workers he would make his new laptop more decorative. He bought a can of emerald green Krylon spray paint and sprayed his entire computer (screen, mouse, keyboard, casing, and all) with it. He was shocked to find that his computer wouldn't work afterwards and decided the paint must be at fault. So the next day he bought a can of Goo Gone and a bottle of paint thinner and poured them both on his computer, then rinsed it off in the sink.

Again, he was shocked when his computer wouldn't work. He was even more shocked when Circuit City told him they wouldn't refund his money or exchange his computer for a new one.

I once had a customer whose cdrom drive wasn't working -- I suspect the reason was old or missing drivers, but the customer had tried to fix the problem himself. He thought the problem was that the CD had to sit tightly in the tray, so she took a paper clip, put it through the center hole of the CD, and fastened it to the drive tray. When he tried to use the drive that way, he was greeted with grinding noises caused by the disintegrating drive mechanism.

My mom had some problems with her system and figured she'd get a new modem. After she installed it, there were more problems than before. It turned out the modem was an ISA modem, and she somehow managed to put it into a PCI slot. How, I have no idea.

Once I was asked to help a friend with her modem troubles. Apparently (and I don't pretend to understand this) the company she works for has a modem hookup that is so slow that her PC's 56K modem cannot connect to it, so her husband installed the company-supplied Viking external modem. I've long since learned not to question user-logic, so I just check the back of the system to locate the modem and plug the phone line into it. For some reason, the slot the modem is occupying is too small for the phone jack to plug in to. Naturally I take off the cover and take a look. To my utter horror, this PCI modem had been "uninstalled" by being pulled out of the slot -- still screwed in, mind you -- and tilted upward so it rested on the top of the PCI slot. Why? The woman's husband insisted that Windows 98 would crash if you had more than one modem installed.

A customer came into the store one day to return an internal modem, which he had purchased a few days earlier. He complained that it would not work. I took the modem out of the package and could scarcely believe my eyes.

The card had been filed down to about half its original size.

Tech Support: "Why has this card been filed?"
Customer: "The modem didn't fit in the slot, so I had to file it till it would fit."

One day, I had gotten a call from a customer who was having a problem with his internal modem; the system was not detecting it. We went through several diagnoses over the phone, and finally he said something that made me pause.

Me: "Sir, wait a second. Let me see if I just heard you correctly. Did you just say you were inserting and removing the modem while the system was up and running?"
Customer: "Well, yeah, I did it both ways."
Me: "Sir, I recommend that you do NOT do that. You could seriously damage your hardware."
Customer: "Well, that's what I thought Plug and Play meant!"

Ten years ago, I was working for a company selling computerized cash registers. A customer called in to help me with a cash register that didn't connect to the back office computer.

Me: "So, can you tell me the settings of the DIP switches on the cash register?"
Customer: "DIP switch?"
Me: "Oh, sorry, the small switches located on the backside."
Customer: "Eeeerrr...there are no switches there."
Me: "Oh, yes, there are. Right next to the power cord."
Customer: "No. There are no switches. Not any more!"
Me: (puzzled) "Huh? Not any more? What do you mean?"
Customer: "Well, you know, my collegue told me that these switches might actually be what caused the problem, so I removed them."
Me: "REMOVED THEM??"
Customer: "Yeah, you know, removed them. With a chisel."

I used to be a technician on the U.S.S. Ranger, an aircraft carrier, just before the Gulf War. A new commanding officer had just come on board, and, in preparation for our excursion out to Iraq, he ordered that we go through all our spaces and ensure that everything was secured in place, so that if we hit rough seas, or hit something explosive, there wouldn't be debris flying everywhere. Fairly standard routine.

About two days later, the Ranger's marine detachment called my shop and said, "Our computer is broken." So I head down to the detachment office to take a look. These PCs were the old Zenith Z-248 desktop models, secured with four zillion screws and weighing in at what seemed like half a ton. Our marines had taken the order to secure things pretty seriously, because they had done it with two half inch lag bolts. They had drilled straight through the case, the mother board, the bottom of the case, and the desk it was sitting on, to drop the lag bolts in place.

They couldn't figure out what was wrong, but they knew that it wasn't going anywhere.

Fact: Boston Computer Museum sells chocolate bars shaped like floppy disks.

Fact: Three year old kids see daddy boot his computer using a floppy to play games.

Fact: Computers are warm inside...even some quite expensive computers.

I don't want to talk about it.

Customer: "My Mac has a box on the screen."
Tech Support: "What does it say?"
Customer: "Sorry, a system error occurred. '/Netscape Navigator/Bus Error'. I think that my toddler shoved a toy bus into the computer."

A user brought in a rather dirty Sony VAIO system to get a new power supply. The thing was dirty and beat up. He set it on the counter, and the side panel popped right open, and the thing was grubby inside. We saw one little tiny bug scurry out of it, and we killed it.

The system was brought in back to the garage, to clean it out. The thing was crawling with bugs -- there were over twenty inside this thing, including cockroaches and others I didn't even recognize. We doused everything with antiseptic and killed as many as we could. Then we popped in the new power supply. Just as we brought it out front, one last roach crawled from underneath the old supply and scurried into the new one, making it his home.

When we told the user about the amount of bugs (and charging him a little extra for our trouble), he said, "Well, I'm not surprised. We had this thing out by our kitchen." Egads.

About a year ago, I was called out to do field service. When I got to the lady's house and was let in, the first thing I noticed was the smell of gunpowder. The second, the double barreled 12-gauge shotgun lying on the couch. Third, the big gaping hole in the side of her computer. (It was one of those Macs where the CPU and monitor are in the same housing.)

I looked at her. She was a little grey haired woman, around 60 or so. Had she? Not possible. Still, I had to ask.

Me: "Did you shoot...?"
Customer: "Yes, I got a little mad at it. They told me I couldn't hurt it, but I think they were wrong. Can you salvage anything?"

I mumbled something about not being a Mac tech and told her I would send one out as soon as I could. Then I burned rubber out of there.

About a month later, my boss called me in; he had the woman on hold. She had apparently complained that I was not competent and that I had lied when I said I would send out a competent Mac tech -- or perhaps I just hadn't been able to find anyone competent working for us. I filled him in. He paused for a second, picked up the phone, and said, "Ma'am? Did you put a shotshell into your computer? ... Uh huh...I'm sorry, ma'am, we really can't...well, no.... I'll try to send one out.... Nice doing business with you...." He hung up, looked at me, and said, "You think any of our Mac techs will go?" I shook my head. "Me neither."

We heard from her again last week, when my boss told me that the woman had called up to cuss me out, saying not only was I a "young whippersnapper" but also a liar, since one of our competitors had fixed her computer just fine, even fixing the little scratches and stuff on the monitor glass. That sounded fishy, so I went over and talked with the techs. After a case of canned drinks and a few bags of junk food, I wormed the whole story out of them. Apparently, about the only salvagable part was the hard drive (which the buckshot had missed), so they took it out, went out and bought a whole new computer, slapped the hard drive in, and presented it to the lady as her repaired computer -- of course charging her an arm and a leg.

Customer: "About time too. Are you a real person?"
Tech Support: "Yes sir, how can I help you?"
Customer: "I moved some stuff I don't use to the trash and deleted the trash, and now I'm getting all sorts of %&*#ing errors. What are you going to do about it? You've got an accent, haven't you?"
Tech Support: "Yes sir, I'm in Ireland."

It became apparent that the customer, in his wisdom, had destroyed the Windows registry and deleted just about everything he needed to run Windows.

Tech Support: "Sir, I believe we will have to reload your system with its original operating system, as you are presently unable to get into your system due to the necessary files being deleted. Unfortunately you will lose anything added since you purchased the system. Shall I walk you through the reload sir?"
Customer: "You mean I paid $2,000 dollars, and I have to reload this myself?" (rants for fifteen minutes, makes death threats and references to being supported by a third world country) "*&@$ing reload! I'll give you a reload!"

Bang! Bang!

Tech Support: "Sir, is everything all right?"
Customer: "Sure is. I just blew the $#%&ing thing to bits with my shotgun you *$@%ing &*%$er."
Tech Support: (taking a satisfying long breath) "Sir, I would like to advise you at this point that gunshot damage is not covered under the terms and conditions of your warranty. May I suggest a servicer in your locality to assist in the reassembly of your machine?"
Customer: "$%!# you."

I dissolved into fits of laughter.

A friend of mine asked me to take a look at her computer. She said the computer was unusually "quiet" and would reboot itself on occasion. I surmised correctly that the fan on her power supply was faulty. She was a chain smoker and apparently smoked a lot while working on the computer; not only was the power supply fan gummed up with revolting tar and nicotine, but the CPU's cooling fan was clogged beyond use, and the cdrom drive drawer would not open. This is the only computer I have ever worked on that died from smoking.

In reply to the above anecdote of stupidity, a reader sent in the following:

I've seen a computer die from smoking, too.

A customer came in with a dead computer, claimed it was under warranty, and asked if we could fix it. We had look at it, and before we even laid eyes on it, we could smell it. Imagine the stench of an overused ashtray times ten.

We looked at the yellow case (it was supposed to be beige) and the date of purchase (3-4 months previous) and goggled in disbelief that she actually had any lungs left.

"What are you doing with this computer?" I asked in total disbelief.

It was at a taxi service. She smoked, the cabbies smoked, and the room was apparently only about eight by twelve. Smoking took place 24/7 in this place, and her fingers and the computer bore witness. We opened the case, and there were visible deposits of brown tar everywhere. The whole thing was gummy and slimy inside.

We had to tell her she was on her own. Naturally, she countered with the "it's under warranty" argument, but the computer was well beyond that. She left quite mad. We insisted she take her computer with her when she left.

I do PC support for a national waste disposal company. I troubleshooted a PC in Alabama once. The PC gave a disk error when it was turned on. I placed a system disk floppy in the drive and tried to boot off that, but it didn't work. Then, when I removed the disk, it was covered in dirt. I opened the computer and found several inches of caked mud on the inside. I asked the site supervisor about it. He told me there had been a flood, but they had cleaned off the PC.

A friend of mine was calling in, complaining that his computer suddenly making very strange noises. knowing that I am a computer tech guy he asked if I could fix it. So I went there, and his computer really did sound strange, and both the disk drive and the cdrom drive appeared to be dead. So I opened the case, unplugged the disk drive and the cdrom, and the strange sound was gone.

Me: "It looks as if your floppy drive is stuck somewhere and can't move its inner head. Did you do anything unusual lately?"
My Friend: "Oh no, I didn't do anything. Do you think it could be related to the rain coming in through the open window last week?"
Me: "It depends. How much water was it?"
My Friend: "Ah, not much. It was that night when the power went out, and I had to replace the fuses."
Me: "What? Not much water but the power went out?"

I opened the case and I found both the cdrom drive and the disk drive had turned green and brown with rust.

I'm in charge of the computer network in a small mall, which includes a cafe. The cafe had an old 386 desktop machine, handling billing. Originally, the machine was placed on the floor, elevated by a small wooden block, because that floor was washed daily. When I had to service that machine, I discovered the block was missing and the bottom of the machine was rusted, as if it came from the bottom of the ocean. (Surprisingly, it still worked.)

I have heard of computers which died from smoking. How about one which died of industrial disease?

A lot of years ago, a steelworks wanted to replace the old clunky PDP-11 which ran some of their production software with a little 8-bit micro. We modified the FORTRAN software (ugh!), installed it on a then-new Cifer machine, demonstrated it at our offices, and let the steelworks people take it away and install it.

Within a week, they complained that it had completely died. When we went to the site to look at it, we found that it had been installed not in the air-conditioned room where the PDP-11 had lived, but in a walled-off area on the foundry floor where one of its terminals had sat. This area had no roof, was between two large electric-arc furnaces, and was ankle-deep in clinker and rust.

The computer was almost too hot to touch. The sponges inside the fan unit were clogged with iron-oxide powder. The machine ran off two 5.25" floppy drives. We extracted the floppy disks with a gritty crunching noise and found them to be covered with the same rust powder and heated to the point where they were distorted at the edges. We didn't dare even try them in another machine to see if we could recover any data.

During a college course, we were being showed how to plug all the components of a PC together properly. Getting a little bored, I glanced over at the student next to me fumbling with all his cords and bending all the way over the desk to see the rear of the PC (apparently it was too difficult for him to turn it around). While he was doing so, I turned the brightness knob on his monitor all the way over so that when he finally got the cables plugged in the correct order, nothing was on his screen. I leaned over to "help." I said, "Let me see if this works," and slapped the side of the monitor while inconspicuously turning the brightness knob back up with my other hand. The next time he turned around, I turned the brightness knob back down again and left the room. When I came back, the poor guy was beating that monitor senseless.

I was talking to a fellow co-worker on the phone yesterday:

Co-Worker: "My modem isn't working. I think my kid was screwing with my PC."
Me: "What's wrong with it?"
Co-Worker: "It won't dial or connect or anything."
Me: "Maybe the configuration got changed. Is it still hooked up?"
Co-Worker: "No."
Me: "Oh, well, you need to hook it up. Where is it?"
Co-Worker: "It's in the fridge."
Me: "The fridge? Why the heck is it in the fridge?"
Co-Worker: "Well, it started to get really hot, so I put it in there to cool off."

A client called Wednesday afternoon. Her computer was dead. All our field techs were booked for the day, so we sent one out first thing Thursday morning. The problem was gone.

Next Wednesday she called again. Thursday morning the tech arrived. No problem.

He brought the computer in for service. I ran the computer two days on diagnostics with no problem, and we returned the computer.

Next Wednesday she called again. Thursday morning the tech arrived. No problem.

The following Wednesday, we had a tech sit with her all day. At lunchtime, she watered her plants, which, in turned out, she did every Wednesday at lunch. The plant above the computer started leaking.

A woman called to report that her CD-ROM was no longer working. After going through the standard troubleshooting procedures, I asked her when this problem started.

Customer: "Oh, right after my toddler stuck some quarters into the [cdrom] drive."
Tech Support: "It sounds to me like the cdrom is broken. You will need to take the computer to a service provider and have them replace the drive. You'll have to pay for it to be fixed."
Customer: "I just bought this computer. It should still be under warranty, shouldn't it?"

I went on site for a system that had no display. I tried another video card, but the system seemed really dead. When I asked the user for more details, she said that someone had put a password on the CMOS, and she wanted to get rid of it. She had read in a PC repair book about using a jumper to clear the CMOS, which is true for some systems. But when she opened the case, she found quite a few jumpers on the motherboard. Undeterred, she began rearranging all of the jumpers (with the system turned on). Hard to say which component fried first. Oh well, time to upgrade anyhow.

I've worked in a software store for a couple years now. I've had more than person irate that we sold them a Playstation CD that doesn't work on a computer, a computer CD that doesn't work on a Playstation, and even someone who wanted Windows 95 for the Playstation. But none of these compare to this one user:

On Friday, a man came in, carefully browsed the store, and purchased a brand new copy of James Bond 007 for the Nintendo 64. I sold him a strategy guide to go with it at a 20% discount and sent him happily on his way. I happened to be working the next day when he stormed back in. He spotted me and came running down the store, vaguely resembling a freight train.

"You idiot! This" -- shoving the game in my face -- "doesn't work in my system! I couldn't make it fit at all! And I just brought the system brand new, so it's a bad game, and I WANT MY MONEY BACK BECAUSE YOU'RE SELLING BAD PRODUCTS!!!"

Well, it was within our seven day return policy, so I calmly accepted the package and proceeded to open it to make sure it was still in saleable condition. To my great astonishment, it had apparently been neatly trimmed down to around 3 1/2 inches with some sort of saw.

"Siiiir..? What happened to this game?"

"Nothing! I just cut it to fit in my Compaq! It should work -- I just bought it!"

Customer: "I just bought a Pentium II 300 from you, and I installed it as the manual instructed."
Tech Support: "Let's go over the jumper settings of the board, and make sure all the connections are correct."
Customer: "I know that is installed right. I've done this hundreds of times."
Tech Support: "Ok, take the CPU out of the slot and reinsert it, making sure it snaps into place."
Customer: "The CPU doesn't seem to fit properly. Why don't I just bring this in. You will look at it, right?"
Tech Support: "Sure, no problem."

When the customer brought the motherboard and CPU in, I could not keep myself from laughing. He had installed the CPU into an ISA slot. He had actually cut the housing of the Pentium II CPU to make it fit.

Hi I just talked to [a PC retailer], and they told me to call you. A water main in our house broke, and 85 gallons of water got dumped on my PC. It's insured, but the insurance company will only cover the parts I can prove are bad. I think it's dry now; can you help me troubleshoot it?

A guy calls because he wants to register his Macintosh Performa and needs to know where the serial numbers are on the computer and modem.

For the computer: "It's on the back of the computer."
Response: "Oh, I don't think I can get around to the back of it."

For the modem: "It's on the bottom of the modem."
Response: "I've got the modem attached with a C-clamp so it doesn't fall off."

Our tech support had a guy call in about a bad powerbook monitor. It had tire treads on the left side of the screen. He repositioned his windows to the right, and it kind of worked. Apparently, the powerbook was on the hood of his car, fell off, and he backed over it. It still booted, but the tire marks were very visible on the screen.

A friend worked for a company that made IC's. Every few months, their yields would go down to about zero. Analysis of the failures showed all sorts of organic material was introduced in the process, but they couldn't figure out where. One evening, someone was working late and came into the lab. There he found the maintainence crew cooking pizza in the chip curing ovens!

We sold a new Pentium to a new customer. After only a day or two it was back in the shop. She was complaining about many errors she was getting in Windows: a number of general protection faults, disk read/write errors, etc. We brought the system to our shop, ran some tests...everything checked out fine, so we sent it back.

Again a call came in from her, complaining about the same errors. We ran some tests, everything was fine, and we sent the machine back. By the fourth call, we decided there must be something in her office that was causing the problems, so we asked her about microwave ovens, etc. Nothing like that was anywhere near her computer, according to her, so we sent a technician over to take a look. After five minutes on site the system worked fine. The technician removed the two dozen or so refrigerator magnets that she had been decorating her computer with.

Recently we were trying to talk one of our customers through an installation of an SBUS card in a Sun SPARCstation 20. About halfway through the install, at a point where we had the top off the machine and had been swapping RAM, moving hard drives, and moving SBUS cards around for a while, one of the people at the remote site commented that "funny things" were happening on her monitor. It was at that point that I realized that she had never turned the computer off.

I delivered and setup a PC in an office, gave some small training, and agreed to follow up a week later. When I returned, the monitor was off the top of the PC and a typewriter in its place. The secretary felt the PC made a better typewriter stand than her desk.

A customer called complaining that his keyboard no longer worked. The customer had cleaned his keyboard by submerging it for a day in warm soapy water in his bathtub.

Customer: "Is it ok to clean my MAC in the tub as long as the power is off?"

All these anecdotes make me feel much better -- it's so comforting to know I'm not the only person surrounded by people who seem to lose multiple IQ points when in the presence of a computer. I teach Windows 2000, Novell, and Linux networking at a community college in South Africa, where a large percentage of the students coming through our doors are from rural communities only just receiving electricity, never mind computers and/or Internet access.

Some gems I've come across include one very sweet and well mannered farm girl insisting on ending every console command with "please," as she didn't want the computer to think she was rude, a student who managed to bend a PS2 connector out of shape enough to jam it halfway into a USB port using nothing but his teeth, and, my personal favourite, a guy who brought food to class every day and warmed his lunch by opening his computer's case and putting his tinfoil parcel onto the CPU's heatsink. Amazingly it didn't cause damage until the stew he brought on the next to last day leaked out and shorted not just his machine but the entire floor of the building. What frightens me most is that he was genuinely shocked that we were shouting at him about it.

Tech Support: "Can I help you?"
Customer: "Yes, my mouse isn't working. It was working fine yesterday."
Tech Support: "Ok, what is it doing, or not doing?"
Customer: "Well, I have an arrow, but it doesn't move when I move the mouse."
Tech Support: "Have you cleaned it?"
Customer: "Yes, I dropped it into a five gallon bucket of water last night."
Tech Support: "You did what?"
Customer: "I opened the case and dropped it into a five gallon bucket of water and let it soak over night."
Tech Support: "Well, ma'am, I would have to say that is probably your problem."
Customer: "Nah, can't be! That won't hurt 'em as long as you let 'em dry out completely before you try to use 'em again!"
Tech Support: "Well, ma'am, that's not exactly the case..."
Customer: "Listen, that isn't the problem!"
Tech Support: "Ok, well...ma'am, I don't know what else to tell you except--"
Customer: "So you're telling me to buy a new mouse."
Tech Support: "I don't see anything else you can do."
Customer: (click)

Customer: "My computer doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Ok, what happens?"
Customer: "When I turn it on, nothing happens."
Tech Support: "Hmmm. Can you think of anything you might have done to cause it to stop functioning?"
Customer: "Well, I just cleaned it. There was dirt on the fan, and I wiped it off."
Tech Support: "Oh, that shouldn't have hurt anything."
Customer: "Then I opened up the computer and wiped the insides as well. I took it apart and washed everything with Windex."

Tech Support: "I see you've called about ten times this week...is everything ok?"
Customer: Well, I just keep having trouble with this thing. Before, the email wouldn't work. Now the NIC card doesn't work."
Tech Support: "What happened with the NIC?"
Customer: "It wasn't working, so I pulled it out of my computer, and cleaned it off with a toothbrush."
Tech Support: You took the card out of the computer and cleaned it off with a toothbrush?"
Customer: "Is that bad?"

Once I was sitting at my desk, and a clerical worker came back and told me that her terminal was putting all sorts of garbage on the screen. I walked back to her desk/office and looked around -- there was a rather large wet spot on the floor, and an empty glass on the desk. I lifted the keyboard off the desk by the cord, and water literally poured out of it. She said, "Oh! Could that be the problem?"

I once made the mistake of telling a customer to take his machine to a gas station and have them blow the dust out. I didn't figure on the gas station handing him a 150psi air nozzle that belches rusty water and oil.

One technician had forgotten to turn the printer off. What happened? He lost his screwdriver, and it fell so awkwardly that it shorted the electrolytics in the power supply. The resulting ccurrent was so high, that it literally "welded" the screwdriver to the connections, so that he afterwards could carry the power supply out of the house just by lifting his screwdriver

Last year a guy called and said his cdrom won't work after he installed it. I asked him to bring it in. while testing out the other drives, I noticed it was really slick.

Tech Support: "Did you get it wet?"
Customer: "Wet? No way, that's the WD40 I used to get the drive to slide in easier."

Once we had a customer bring his system into our service center. He seemed to know a little about computers but thought he was an expert, so as soon as I started to ask a few basic questions about his hard drive problems, he said, "Look, I know that it's the hard drive thats stick because when I do this it works again." As he spoke, he lifted the back of the tower off the bench by about four inches and dropped it.

My jaw dropped by about the same amount, and my supervisor, who was nearby at the time, just stared at the system. I recovered enough to say, "Well, we'll take care of it now, so why don't I just take that over here...."

Apparently he had been using this method to get his system going for the past three months, but lately it was not working as well as it used to. Surprise, surprise!

Someone called my teacher (who is also a consultant) for a network contract. The guy was complaining of endless timeout errors and slow performance, even though his network was small (25-30 computers) and had decent equipment. So my teacher showed up, and, to his great surprise, found that every cable (10baseT - cat5) had various numbers of knots tied in each end. Not small, loose knots but real tight ones. Some of the cables had over 20 knots in them. The boss explained that the guy who wired the network (who was unreachable) made knots in the cables so he could identify them. The first PC had the cable with one knot at each end; the second PC's cable had two knots at each end, and so on. Not bad for the first PCs, but the cable for the 20th PC, with a total of forty knots in it, wasn't in very good shape.

Hadn't this guy ever heard of a marker? Or stickers?

I got a call from a woman whose system was displaying hardware errors. She said that this was related to a call they made a month ago. I researched the call she mentioned. Both calls were regarding massive hardware failure, but the error messages were different, and there was nothing else in common. I tried to call her back, but there was no answer. Three hours later, she called me. There were different errors now, and some of the supercomputers weren't working at all. I promised to contact a hardware specialist immediately.

Tech Support: "By the way, why do you think it is related to the other call?"
Customer: "Oh, in both cases, the air conditioning had failed, and the computer room was over 150 degrees."

That's the only time I ever let out a bloodcurdling scream in public. And she still refused to turn off the computers!

Customer: "Hello, yes, my system is crushed!"
Tech Support: "Crushed?"
Customer: "Yes, that is what I said, crushed."
Tech Support: "Oh, your system has crashed..."
Customer: "Yes, I cannot do anything, my mouse will not work, and I can't see anything on the screen. I need it fixed now!"
Tech Support: "Ok, I need some history on this problem. What was the last thing you did before the system crashed?"
Customer: "Well, after I stood on the computer to hang a picture, my machine was crushed."
Tech Support: "Oh, so your system has been crushed..."

While working as the UNIX support for a major computer distribution company, I had more fun with the people in the warehouse then should be allowed. My pager went off with the message, "Program is down." I called to the warehouse lead, and the following ensued:

Him: "Bay F is not working; come over and fix it."
Me: "Fine, let's go take a look."

As we entered the warehouse I saw the problem before we even get to the bay itself. The bay was gone. I don't mean missing, I mean destroyed. The printers were in pieces all over the floor, the table was spread out about twelve feet, and the Wyse terminal was hanging from one of the blades of a fork lift.

I looked at the guy incredulously, but he was perfectly straight-faced. He wanted me to fix a bay they ran over with a construction vehicle.

Customer: "Where can I get a BIOS upgrade for by 286 computer?"
Tech Support: "The unit should have been shipped with the latest bios."
Customer: "Well, I upgraded the processor myself, and my computer doesn't seem to work."
Tech Support: "What did you upgrade the processor to?"
Customer: "I upgraded it to a 486DX-50."
Tech Support: "Sir...the 286 chip is soldered on the motherboard!"
Customer: "I know, I took out my handy soldering iron and took it out and put the 486 on myself."
Tech Support: "Sir, the 486 is bigger than the 286."
Customer: "I know, I had to use quite a bit of solder to solder the extra pins together."

A couple of years ago I was working at a local regional railroad and was given the job of upgrading all the 486s to newer machines. One of my last upgrades required me to upgrade a machine the was infrequently used at the car shop. Now the car shop is where they repair all rail cars that are not locomotives. This naturally results in a lot of airborne particles (soot, metal shavings, dust, etc) and the contaminants not only covered the work area but also creeped into the office. They combatted this by cleaning the office frequently and mopping the floor nightly. Unfortunately the machine I was to upgrade sat on the floor. For five years. Specifically they had been mopping around the computer for 1825 days.

When I arrived to get the machine I discovered I couldn't budge it. A closer examination revealed five years of rust underneath it and five years of floor polish sealing it to the floor. A quick call to my boss confirmed that we could consider the machine "field destroyed" and take whatever steps needed to remove it.

Which was just as well, as it took two of us and half a dozen whacks of a sledgehammer to get it free. Out of morbid curiosity, we opened up the case (wasting another 30 minutes) to discover the entire bottom of the case had rusted away, but you couldn't tell because the inch deep accumulation of who knows what covered every square inch of the inside. No one had ever seen fit to blow out the dust bunnies...or dust lions, as they were in this case.

Famous Love Quotes From Google Group By Gary

2006-04-06T18:11:00.000+08:00

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and
lay from your heart.-Unknown

*****************************************************

Within you I lose myself
Without you I find myself
Wanting to be lost again. -Unknown

*****************************************************
Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds. -Shakespeare

*****************************************************
If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand. -Unknown

*****************************************************
We all want to fall in love. Why? Because that experience makes us feel completely alive. Where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified, our everyday reality is shattered and we are flying into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, an afternoon. But that doesn't diminish its value. Because we are left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives. -Unknown

*****************************************************
Relationships--of all kinds--are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost. -Kaleel Jamison

*****************************************************
Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means full acceptance, even celebration of another's personhood. -Karen Casey

*****************************************************
If you judge people, you have no time to love them. -Mother Theresa

*****************************************************
If you would be loved, love and be lovable. -Benjamin Franklin

*****************************************************
Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop. -- Anonymous

*****************************************************
True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen. -La Rochefoucauld

*****************************************************
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? -Christopher Marlowe

*****************************************************
Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are. -Houssaye

*****************************************************
We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together. -La Bruyere

*****************************************************
Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. -St. Augustine

*****************************************************
To love another person is to see the face of God. -Les Miserables

*****************************************************
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. -Alexander Smith

*****************************************************
When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe. -La Rochefoucauld

*****************************************************
Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

*****************************************************
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never. -Charles Caleb Colton

*****************************************************
A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy. --George Jean Nathan

*****************************************************

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. --Friedrich Nietzsche

*****************************************************
Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper. -- P. J. O'Rourke

*****************************************************
Love is a driver, bitter and fierce if you fight and resist him,
Easy-going enough once you acknowledge his power. --Ovid

*****************************************************
We conceal it from ourselves in vain--we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it. --Blaise Pascal

*****************************************************
Love, free as air at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. --Alexander Pope

*****************************************************
Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass. --French Proverb

* ****************************************************

read more on love visit : http://online-articles.org/relationships/site-map.php

*****************************************************

Funny Joke~ from Yahoo Group

2006-03-23T15:54:00.000+08:00

Jim and Mary were both patients in a Mental Hospital. One day, while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank like a stone to the bottom and stayed there. Mary promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out.

When the medical director became aware of Mary's heroic act, he immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as he now considered her mentally stable. When he went to tell her the news, he said, "Mary, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged because since you were able to jump in and save the life of another patient, I think you've regained your senses".
"The bad news is that Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in the bathroom with the belt of his robe. I am so sorry, but he's
dead."
Mary replied, "He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry

Death of Commando Mr. Bhandari after 600 Days being in Coma

2006-03-23T15:27:00.000+08:00

Death of Commando Mr. Bhandari after 600 Days being in Coma

Late Mr. Surjan Singh Bhandari
N.S.G. Commando

During The Attack on Akshardham temple on 24th September 2002 this Brave Man fought the greatest battle of his life. Yes he was the N.S.G. Commando Late Mr. Surjan Singh , who sacrificed his life for the Nation. Sadly On 19th May 2004 he lost the Toughest and Longest battle against life exactly after 600 Days being in Coma, he lost this life.

The Bullet which hit him in the head made him Unconscious for almost 600 days. His family members were hoping that one day their Hero will open his eyes but he didn't.

It was the Longest Wait for the family members of this Brave Man. When the whole India was busy in Guessing Who will be the Next PM of the country - Will it be Sonia or will it be Manmohan Singh, This man was fighting his Last battle. But it's so sad that in the hype of all the Political Drama, the News about his Death was Lost like a needle in a hay stack! Even the leading News Papers & So Called Best News Channels of India which Works on 24 X 7 basis, failed to highlight this story of the Brave Man. Unfortunately it was mentioned somewhere on the middle page of some newspaper.....This was the Reward for the Brave task for which he lost his life.

Besides his Family members, only one thing was there with him during those toughest 600 days. It was there near his bed till the last Moment. Can you guess what it was?............... It was the "Tiranga", yes! Our National Flag , which was saluting him for his Great cause. Absolutely No words can suffice our Gratitude towards him...

If news papers refuse to cover, TV channels refuse to cover, let us do our bit.
Please forward this mail to as many people as you can.
This is the only way we can salute his Bravery..
May his soul rest in peace.

God Bless Everyone

Histroy Of "APRIL FOOL".......!!! (Must Read) Its Truth.. From Yahoo Group

2006-03-23T12:50:00.000+08:00

As we are approaching April 2006, we need to remind ourselves..........................!!!

APRIL FOOL
Most of us celebrate April fool day every year and fool each other. But how many of us know the bitter facts hidden behind it. It was around a thousand years ago that Spain was ruled by Muslims. And the Muslim power in Spain was so strong that it couldn't be destroyed. The Christians of the west wished to wipe out Islam from all parts of the world and they did succeed to quite an extent. But when they tried to eliminate Islam in Spain and conquer it, they failed. They tried several times but never succeeded.

The unbelievers then sent their spies in Spain to study the Muslims there and find out what was the power they possessed and they found that their power was TAQWA. The Muslims of Spain were not just Muslims but they were practicing Islam. They not only read the Quran but also acted upon it. When the Christians found the power of the Muslims they started thinking of strategies to break this power. So they started sending alcohol and cigarettes to Spain free of cost. This technique of the west worked out and it started weakening the faith of the Muslims in particular the young generation of Spain.

The result was that the Catholics of the west wiped out Islam and conquered the entire Spain bringing an end to the EIGHT HUNDRED LONG YEARS' RULE OF THE MUSLIMS in Spain. The last fort of the Muslims to fall was Grenada (Gharnatah), which was on the 1st of April. From that year onwards, every year they celebrate April fools day on the 1st of April, celebrating the day, they made a fool of the Muslims. They did not make a fool of the Muslim army at Gharnatah only, but of the whole Muslim Ummah.

We, the Muslims, were fooled by the unbelievers. They have a reason to celebrate April fool day, to keep up the spirit.

Dear brothers and sisters, when we join in this celebration, we do so out of ignorance. If we had known about it, we would never have celebrated our own downfall. So now, that we are aware of it, and now let us promise that we shall never celebrate this day. We should learn our lesson from the people of Spain, and shall try to become practicing Muslims, never to let anybody weaken our faith.

Please forward this message to as many Muslims as you know. The more people you forward it to the greater will be the reward from your Lord in this world and in the life hereafter. Please try to do it before the 1st of April, to create awareness that WE ARE NOT FOOLS ANYMORE.

Wassalam & Maula Waris,

N.Hussain

Karachi.

Men Never Listen! from Yahoo Group

2006-03-23T12:41:00.000+08:00

Men Never Listen!

On a flight to Singapore, a gentleman had made several attempts to get into the men's restroom, but it had always been occupied. The flight attendant noticed his predicament. Sir, she said "You may use the ladies room if you promise not to touch any of the buttons on
the wall."

He did what he needed to, and as he sat there he noticed the buttons he had promised not to touch. Each button was identified by letters: WW, WA, PP, and a red one labeled ATR. Who would know if he touched
them? He couldn't resist. He pushed WW. Warm water was sprayed gently upon his bottom. What a nice feeling, he thought. Men's restrooms don't have nice things like this. Anticipating greater pleasure, he pushed the WA button. Warm air replaced the warm water,
gently drying his underside.

When this stopped, he pushed the PP button. A large powder puff caressed his bottom adding a fragile scent of spring flowers to this unbelievable pleasure. The ladies restroom was more than a restroom, it is tender loving pleasure. When the powder puff completed its pleasure, he couldn't wait to push the ATR button which he knew would be supreme ecstasy. Next thing he knew he was in a hospital as he opened his eyes.

A nurse was staring down at him with a smile on her face. "What happened?" he exclaimed.

"You pushed one too many buttons," replied the nurse.

"The last button marked ATR was an AutomaticTampon Remover. Your balls are in the bucket under the bed"

Conference call rules you must know --- from Yahoo Group by Deep Mehta

2006-03-23T12:33:00.000+08:00

Conference call rules you must know

A decade ago, people were already talking in groups of three or more on the phone. That was usually an accident called the cross-connection.

Today this multiparty conversation is a deliberate act and one that is being used by more and more companies every day. It is now a phenomenon called the conference call.

"This (the growing popularity of conference calls) is primarily due to the improvement in telecom infrastructure and the resulting cost effectiveness. Besides, the savings in travel time and the ability to solve simple problems immediately also helps businesses greatly," says Supratim Roy, marketing manager, Webex Communications, which provides conferencing solutions to several multinationals.

There is a flip side to this popularity.

An improperly planned and managed conference call can have a detrimental effect. At the lowest level it could mean a wastage of time and a slightly larger phone bill. On a more serious note, it could hamper serious strategic and policy issues for the firm.

Most people are willing to jump onto a conference call to get their problems solved, but few know how to prepare and conduct themselves during the call. Exercising a few rules can help change this.

�

Before a call

i. Plan and circulate the agenda and rules

"Making a powerpoint slide with the points of discussion and circulating it in advance is effective," says Vivek Furtado, sales manager, GEMS Financial. "It ensures that everyone starts on the same page," he adds.

Also, set the ground rules. This starts with specifying the attendance method at the conference call. "A simple roll call is usually used, though sometimes the system is automated to announce user entry and exits," says Roy of Webex.

Pre-determine other areas like order of discussing topics, the amount of time on each issue, the order of speakers etc.

ii. Choose a representative and the moderator

Rather than everyone joining in, it makes sense for one speaker from your team to communicate with the other parties during the call, while the others listen in on the speaker.

If the representative is not clear about a point, the phone can be put on mute and the issue quickly discussed.

"The moderator, ideally, is someone senior and must be well-known to all participants. This helps maintain an orderly flow," says Rukmini Iyer, a corporate trainer and instructional designer.

iii. Keep the group small

By consensus the optimal size of a conference call group is three to seven people. Anything larger is a recipe for chaos.

While companies have tried techniques like having 50 speakers, giving each a number, and then asking them to talk, the end result is usually a mess with people spending time finding each other rather than discussing the agenda.

iv. Adjust the background

Participating in a conference call from your cubicle is not a good practice. Besides the disturbance to yourself, if the speakerphone is being used it may result in sharing of confidential information or just plain irritation to those around. So, booking the conference room would be a good step.

An even worse idea is being on the move and joining in on your mobile. Except if it is a simple three way call, the background noise as well as voice quality are a serious deterrent to effective conferencing.

v. Know the phone instrument

Often, you will be required to break from the conference call to clarify or discuss something else. In such a situation it's important to know the mute and hold buttons.

"People regularly discuss issues thinking the phone is on mute, while it is not. They thus not only lose confidentiality, but add to confusion in the call itself," observes Iyer.

In addition it helps to keep the login number and access code (provided to you by the telephone service provider) at hand in case you wish to disconnect and rejoin the call at a later stage.

During the call

vi. Practice basic telephone etiquette

A conference call is no different from any other formal telephone conversation.

Therefore, according to Nasha Fitter, who manages Fitter Solutions, a communications and training agency, the regular rules of telephone etiquette apply here. "Basic points such as not speaking out of turn, talking slowly and clearly, sticking to the agenda must be adhered to," she adds.

Most importantly when speaking with a large or a new group, it is important to introduce oneself.

"The number one problem in conference calls is people not identifying themselves. The listeners are left wondering who is talking and about what issue, consequently the discussion goes off on a tangent," says Iyer.

vii. Understand the criticality

The collective effort of a conference call is very large. "You need to remember the total effort is the time of the call multiplied by the number of people. So an organisation is spending an enormous amount of time on each call," says Fitter.

Also, once an issue is discussed in a conference call, it is unlikely to be covered in an offline meeting. Hence, the tendency for complacency during a call needs to be guarded against.

viii. Keeping minutes and doing a concluding review

Appoint a person to keep the minutes. This is invaluable for analysis of who said what and to understand the actions that must be taken after the call.

However, a representative of the team who is constantly interacting with others might not be able to write at the same time. So, any member who has limited involvement in the call should do this.

A review should be done before closing the call. Hence the moderator should be given the minutes, and can repeat the allocation of responsibilities with a confirmation of acceptance from the other users.

xi. Switch off the mobile phone

Simple as it sounds, it is the most ignored aspect of meetings. In conference calls especially it is important for two reasons.

Firstly, the static a ringing mobile produces can seriously disrupt the conference at a crucial point.

Even if this does not happen, a person taking a mobile phone call in the middle is very likely to lose the flow of the meeting.

After the call

x. Do a post mortem

Post mortems have always been unpopular yet necessary. Going over your minutes in detail is therefore a good idea.

Besides, most companies often provide features such as recording and playback and even transcription of the call. This helps analyse issues such as agenda points requiring further clarification, new points raised in the discussion etc.

5 types of conference calls

i. Simple three way call

This is the simplest of all. It is mostly impromptu and has no special rules. To clarify a single point or confirm an action between three people is the objective. This is commonly done using the mobile phone unlike the other call types that are done with speakerphones in conference rooms.

ii. Announcement call

The head office of a company might for example decide to change the pricing policy at short notice. Explaining this is best done by a conference call as it is interactive and allows all branches to clarify common doubts.

iii. Follow up call

Especially popular in project-oriented companies, it involves giving status reports on various issues. At every stage of implementation, the various parameters are tracked by headquarters and explanations asked for any shortcomings.

A typical example of this is the project status review when a stage is completed. Another is the month-end sales review where all the branches have a conference call with headquarters explaining their sales numbers.

iv. Broadcast call

Used originally to declare and discuss financial results of companies, it is today used internally. It involves one central speaker. There may be a limited number of other speakers. Most people log in and simply listen to the conference call without giving their inputs.

v. Feedback call

This involves giving detailed descriptions of a particular experience. There is a narrator and a listener at the other end who will keep detailed notes of the narrator's comments.

An example of this is from the IT industry where a user describes his usage of new software to a programmer, the features he is using and the problems faced.

What is Love? from Yahoo Group by Aadi

2006-03-23T11:38:00.000+08:00

The student asks a teacher: What is love? The teacher said: in order to answer your question, go to the paddy field and choose the biggest paddy and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick. The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big paddy, but he wonders....may be there is a bigger one later. Then he saw another bigger one... but may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.Later, when he finished more than half of the paddy field, he start to realize that the paddy is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted. So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand. The teacher told him, this is love... you keep looking for a better one, but when later you realize, you have already miss the person.

The student asked: What is marriage then? The teacher said: In order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick. The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he fee satisfied, and came back to the teacher. The teacher told him, this time you bring back a corn.... you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get .... this is marriage.

Warm Regards..Aadi

Don't Lose Money! From Yahoo Group by Brian Tracy

2006-03-23T11:05:00.000+08:00

Don't Lose Money!
Brian Tracy

Throughout the history of American enterprise, you've heard the words, "work hard and save your money." Work hard and save your money. It is the oldest rule for success in America. It's so important, as a matter of fact, that W. Clement Stone once said, "if you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you."

Saving is a Discipline

Why is it that saving money is so important? Because saving money is a discipline and any discipline affects all other disciplines in your life. If you do not have the discipline to refrain from spending all the money that you earn, then you are not qualified to become wealthy and if you do become wealthy, you'll not be capable of holding on to it.

The Law of Attraction

A principle with regard to saving your money is the law of attraction. The law of attraction is activated by saved money. Even one dollar saved will start to attract more money. Here's what I suggest that you do. If you're really serious about your future, go down and open a savings account. Put as much money as you can into it, even if it's only ten dollars. And then begin to collect little bits of money, and every week go down and put something into that account.

Attract More Money Into Your Life

You will find that the more you put in that account, the more you will attract from sources that you cannot now predict. But if you do not begin the savings process, if you don't begin putting something away towards your financial independence, then nothing will happen to you. The law of attraction just simply won't work.

Invest Your Money Conservatively

Once you begin to accumulate money, here's another rule. Invest the money conservatively. Marvin Davis, self-made billionaire, was asked by Forbes Magazine, "How do you account for your financial success?" And he said, "Well, I have two rules for financial investing." He said, "Rule number one is, don't lose money." He said, whenever I'm tempted, whenever I see an opportunity to invest where there's a possibility I could lose it all, I just simply refrain from putting the money in. Rule number two is, whenever I get tempted, I refer back to rule number one. Don't lose money.

Get Rich Slowly

George Classon says, in The Richest Man In Babylon, that the key is to accumulate your funds and then invest them very conservatively. One of the characteristics of self-made millionaires, one of the characteristics of old money in America is that it's very cautiously, conservatively and prudently invested.

Don't try to get rich quickly. Concentrate rather on getting rich slowly. If all you do is save ten percent of your earnings, put it away, and let it accumulateat compound interest, that alone will make you wealthy.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to apply these lessons to your financial life:

First, open a separate savings and investing account today. From this day forward, put every single dollar you can spare into this account and resolve to never touch it or spend it for any reason.

Second, whenever you consider any investment of your savings, remember the rule, "Don't lose money!" It is better to keep the money working at a low rate of interest than to take the chance of losing it. Be careful. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Money will fetch u pleasure....
Money will fetch you Comfort...
Money will fetch you Fame....
Money will put u on the top....of the world...
So love money....

Make as much of money as possible..
during the rest of your life & be happy....

"It takes a minute to have a crush an hour to like someone and a day to love someone but it takes a lifetime to forget someone" Be in touch..

DETERMINATON from Google Group by Gary

2006-03-23T08:03:00.000+08:00

DETERMINATON

In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.

Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.

Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.

"We told them so."
"Crazy men and their crazy dreams."
"It`s foolish to chase wild visions."

Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.

He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.

It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife.

He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.

For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man's indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.

Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.

Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realised with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.

Even the most distant dream can be realized with determination and persistence.

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

2006-03-23T07:44:00.000+08:00

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE
* Love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.
* Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you.
* Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.
* You can only go as far as you push.
* Actions speak louder than words.
* The hardest thing to do is watch the one you love, love somebody else.
* Don't let the past hold you back; you're missing the good stuff.
* Life's short. If you don't look around once in a while, you might miss it.
* A best friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.
* If you think that the world means nothing, think again. You might mean the world to someone else.
* When it hurts to look back, and you're scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there
* True friendship never ends.
* Friends are forever.
* Good friends are like stars....You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.
* Don't frown. You never know who is falling in love with your smile.
* What do you do when the only person who can make you stop crying is the person who made you cry?
* NOBODY IS PERFECT UNTIL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH THEM. (Isn't that the truth?)
* Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

Most people walk in and out of you life. But only True friends leave footprints in your heart.

Send this on to everyone special in your life, even the people who really make you mad sometimes. Whether we realize it or not, everyone we know is very special to us.

When we look back on our younger years, we will remember the people who went to school with us, the people who made us laugh, the people who hung out with us when nobody else would, and the people who made our lives much better simply by being a part of it.

There may be somebody who is thinking about you RIGHT NOW and wishing that you were around. That's the wonderful thing about friendship-you always feel loved and cared about.

The most important thing to remember is... Always appreciate the friends that you have.

A fight may come and go very easily, but a friendship could last forever.

For every second spent in anger, a minute of happiness is wasted. So send this to your friends and let them know that you care.

Mothers day from Google Group by Gary

2006-03-23T07:37:00.000+08:00

A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away. As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing. He asked her what was wrong and she replied, "I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother. But I only have seventy-five cents, and a rose costs two dollars." The man smiled and said, "Come on in with me. I'll buy you a rose."
He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother's flowers. As they were leaving he offered the girl a ride home. She said, "Yes, please! You can take me to my mother." She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave. The man returned to the flower shop, canceled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the two hundred miles to his mother's house.

The Wooden Bowl from Google Group By Gary

2006-03-23T07:33:00.000+08:00

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and a four-year old grandson. The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together nightly at the dinner table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating rather difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass often milk spilled on the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. "We must do something about grandfather," said the son. I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor. So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner at the dinner table. Since grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. Sometimes when the family glanced in grandfather's direction, he had a tear in his eye as he ate alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, "What are you making?" Just as sweetly, the boy responded, "Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and mama to eat your food from when I grow up." The four-year-old smiled and went back to work. The words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table.

For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled. Children are remarkably perceptive. Their eyes ever observe, their ears ever listen, and their minds ever process the messages they absorb. If they see us patiently provide a happy home atmosphere for family members, they will imitate that attitude for the rest of their lives. The wise parent realizes that every day that building blocks are being laid for the child's future.

Let us all be wise builders and role models. Take care of yourself, ... and those you love, ... today, and everyday!

Why are Friends Necessary? from Google Group by Gary

2006-03-23T07:17:00.000+08:00

Little message to my friends ~~ From Yahoo Group

2006-03-22T18:48:00.000+08:00

Another Good Morning--Poem from Yahoo Group~

2006-03-22T14:40:00.000+08:00

Another Good Morning

Good morning sunshine.
I greet thee wityh my smiling grin.
Could my baby blue eyes,
help you bring the sunshine in?

Good morning orange juice.
I drink you in the morning light.
Could my khaki dress suite
help you make my morning bright?

Good morning feline
watching as i leave this day.
Is your purr a sort of sign,
that as i leave the house you'll play?

Good morning traffic,
backed up past the normal spot.
Is this early backup,
more hello my morning brought?

Good morning workplace,
I greet thee with a fine display.
Could the joy within my face,
make this another perfect day?

Thank you sunshine,
waking, smiling, love adorning.
I take you one day at a time,
see you agan tommorrow morning.

Timothy Tim Werner

Dispute~~ Funny Joke from Yahoo Group-hitesh

2006-03-22T13:56:00.000+08:00

This is the actual radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. Radio conversation released by the chief of naval operations, 10-10-95.

CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.

CANADIANS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS: This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

CANADIANS: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

AMERICANS: This is the Aircraft Carrier US LINCOLN, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied with three Destroyers, three Cruisers and numerous support vessels. I DEMAND that you change your course 15 degrees north. I say again, that's one-five degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

CANADIANS: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Damn Interesting story! Take a look!!

2006-03-14T23:01:00.000+08:00

A father passing by his teenage daughter's bedroom was astonished to
see the bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy. Then he saw
an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the pillow. It was
addressed "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and
read the letter with trembling hands:-

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving home. I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you. I've been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know when you meet him you'll like him too - even with all his piercing, tattoos, and motorcycle clothes. But it's not only the passion Dad, I'm pregnant and Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy together. Even though
Randy is much older than me (anyway, 42 isn't so old these days is it?), and has no money, really these things shouldn't stand in the way of our relationship, don't you agree?

Randy has a great CD collection; he already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. It's true he has other girlfriends as well but I know he'll be faithful to me in his own way. He wants to have many more children with me and that's now one of my dreams too.

Randy t aught me that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone and he'll be growing it for us and we'll trade it with our friends for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Randy can get better; he sure deserves it!!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your loving daughter,
Rosie.

At the bottom of the page were the letters "PTO". Hands still trembling, her father turned the sheet, and read:

PS: Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at the neighbour's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that's in my desk centre drawer. Please sign it and call when it is safe for me to come home. I love you!

On Happiness by Google Group (Gary)

2006-03-14T13:24:00.000+08:00

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. hen we are frustrated that the kids aren't enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We willcertainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.

The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?

Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D Souza. He said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life". This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, reassure every moment that you have. And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time...and remember that time
waits for no one...

So stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you are off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy..

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

Thought for the day:
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching.

The Importance of Each Color by Google Group (Gary)

2006-03-14T13:19:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time the Colors of the world started to quarrel that they were: all claimed the best, the most important, the most useful, the favorite.

GREEN said: "Clearly I am the most important. I am the sign of life and of hope. I was chosen for grass, trees, leaves - without me, all animals would die. Look over the countryside and you will see that I am in the majority."

BLUE interrupted: "You only think about the earth, but consider the sky and the sea. It is the water that is the basis of life and drawn up by the clouds from the deep sea. The sky gives space and peace and serenity. Without my peace, you would all be nothing."

YELLOW chuckled: "You are all so serious. I bring laughter, gaiety, and warmth into the world. The sun is yellow, the moon is yellow, the stars are yellow. Every time you look at a sunflower, the whole world starts to smile. Without me there would be no fun."

ORANGE started next to blow her trumpet: "I am the color of health and strength. I may be scarce, but I am precious for I serve the needs of human life. I carry the most important vitamins. Think of carrots, pumpkins, oranges, mangoes, and pawpaws. I don't hang around all the time,but when I fill sky at sunrise or sunset, my beauty is so striking that no one gives another thought to any of you."

RED could stand it no longer. He shouted out: "I am the ruler of all of you- I am blood - life's blood! I am the color of danger and of bravery. I am willing to fight for a cause. I bring fire into the blood. Without me, the earth would be as empty as the moon. I am the color of passion and of love, the red rose, the poinsettia and the poppy."

PURPLE rose up to his full height. He was very tall andspoke with great pomp: "I am the color of royalty and power. Kings, cheifs, and bishops have always chosen me for I am the sign of authority and wisdom. People do not question me - they listen and obey."

Finally, INDIGO spoke, much more quietly than all the others, but with just as much determination: "Think of me. I am the color of silence. You hardly notice me, but without me you all become superficial. I represent thought and reflection, twilight and deep water. You need me for balance and contrast, for prayer and inner peace."

And so the colors went on boasting, each convinced of his or her own superiority. Their quarreling became louder and louder. Suddenly there was a startling flash of bright lightening - thunder rolled and boomed. Rain started to pour down relentlessly The colors crouched down in fear, drawing close to one another for comfort.

In the midst of the clamor, rain began to speak: "You foolish colors, fighting amongst yourselves, each trying to dominate the rest. Don't you know that you were each made for a special purpose, unique and different? Join hands with one another and come to me." Doing as they were told, the colors united and joined hands. The rain continued: "From now on, when it rains, each of you will stretch across the sky in a great bow of color as a reminder that you can all live in peace. The rainbow is a sign of hope for tomorrow." And so, whenever a good rain washes the world, and a rainbow appears in the sky, let us remember to appreciate one another.

Love Story --Text Pal part 3 by Google Group (Gary)

2006-03-14T13:07:00.000+08:00

I read what was written and when I looked up, she was gone. The following day, hristmas, I woke up early and excitedly readied myself,thinking of her. I hurriedly went to flower shop and bought a dozen pink roses - for Mikaella.

They lived in an exclusive subdivision.

Upon reaching their house, I told the guard who I was and that I was looking for Mikaella.

The guard stared at me, sadness and amazement in his eyes and told me to wait as he called the owner of the house. As I looked at him while he was going inside the house, only then I noticed that the house was brightly lit.

A woman went out and walked towards me, smiling sadly.

"Hi, I'm Maria, Mikaella's mother. Please come inside, Julius." While we were walking towards the mansion, she explained to me why she knew me very well - Mikaella had always been talking about her friend, Julius. I hardly understood what she was saying. I was busy thinking why Mikaella's mother was crying while talking to me.

As we came near the great hall of the house, it dawned on me that there was a wake inside, Maybe, a relative passed away, I thought. But deep in my heart, I was trembling and afraid.

As we entered the hall where so many people were silently mourning while others were praying, shaking, I asked her mother. "Where is Mikaella?"

She held my hand and silently, led me to the coffin which was surrounded by flowers - pink roses, nothing but pinkroses.

No words could explain how I felt when I gazed at the coffin and saw who was lying there. The same beautiful girl I met...

A man came beside me, I knew he was Mika's father.

"We are so glad you came, Julius. Mika talked of you all the time. She even asked that her phone be buried with her.

She said that in that way, you could still send her messages and you would always be with her."

I couldn't believe everything... My mind was in limbo.

"But how can this be? We just saw each other yesterday."

"That can't possibly be. She passed away three days ago. She had been suffering from a heart disease since she was a child," said her father.

"But..." I couldn't find the words to say.

"She told us not to bother reaching you, "her mother said, still in tears," she said you will come, and here you are.

Pain and bitterness overwhelmed me. I cried silently beside her, staring at her lovely face, memorizing every line of my friend's face, a face I knew I would never forget while I was still alive.

After the internment that afternoon, I went to the chapel she had told me she went everyday.

Sitting there praying and crying to God, I held my phone and typed: "U taught me how 2 care; u taught me how 2 b kind; u shwd me how 2 lyk som; u shwd me how 2 luv; but ders 1 thing didnt teach me & it hurts mor - u didnt teach me how 2 let go. I LOVE YOU"

I sent the message, and though I knew she wouldn't be able to hold her CP again, I knew in my heart she would get my message. I never expected a reply, yet as my phone beeped again,felt a shiver down my spine. The sender's number did not appear on the screen, and tears rolled down my cheeks as I read the message.

"Let go of d hand of d person u love, but dont let go of God's hand. 4 if u hold 2 his hand. He may b holding d person u love n d ader hand 2 let u hold each other again."

"I will never forget you, Mikaella and will never let go..." I vowed to her and to myself as I left the church.

Love Story --Text Pal part 2 by Google Group (Gary)

2006-03-14T13:05:00.000+08:00

"Though we r miles apart, u r always n my heart. I close my eyes & der u r. Even f I'll see u never, I'll always b hir 2 care 4 u, far longer dan 4ever..."

One December night, she sent me this message. By that time we had been exchanging messages for more than a month. God knew how happy I was. She was right. Although we had not seen each other, what we felt was enough to make us both realize what was keeping us together.

I sent her another message, "Loving u secretly is a hard thing 4 me 2 do,hoping, wondring that u will feel d same way 2, but I can't read r mind f u luv me 2. But whatever it is, I'll still be loving u."

"How I wish I cud really tell u how much u mean 2 me, but m afraid 2 love, scared 2 get hurt... I hope dat u will wait 4 me & pray dat u will not get tired of loving me...=)" was her reply.

And then I replied again. " The reason y I met u is bcoz of destiny but f destiny will suggest dat I'll live w/o u, den, I'll lie not by destiny but of free will."

Whenever I asked her when we would meet personally, she always answered, "Soon...soon, love...soon."

Not seeing each other did not lessen, even a bit, what I felt for her...rather, it even grew deeper and stronger each day. And I was sure, she felt the same way, too. Love messages continued to flow through our lines, between our hearts, which made us go on each day with the thought that sooner, we would see each other, face to face, heart to heart.

Just a few days before Christmas. She stopped sending messages. At first I just though she had ran out of prepaid.

But there was something that kept bothering me... I couldn't understand what was it, but it made me fell nervous. I tried to call her but she wouldn't answer. Nevertheless, I continued sending messages.

Suddenly one night, just three days before our Lord's birthday. I heard my phone's message tone again... at last!It was from her!

"Oftentyms we say gudbye 2 d 1 we luv w/o wanting 2. Though dat doesn't mean dat we stopped loving dem or we stopped 2 care. Sometyms, GOODBYE is a painful way 2 say I LOVE YOU."

I was dumfounded. I didn't know what to think of. What did she mean? I texted her back, searching for answers, but found nothing. I called her but she would not answer.

For the first time in my life, I felt so miserable...desperate... empty. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to lose her. I had learned to love her. And I wanted to be with her forever.

The following days I felt nothing but emptiness. It seemed that Mikaella took the life out of me. I missed her so much...her messages...The tones that would tell me she'd sent another loving message. Nothing around me could feel the emptiness I felt.

Tut...tut...tut...tut...tut...just a day before Christmas, my cell beeped again. It was her!

"Meet me at d café, 10 AM 2day," I read aloud, making sure the message was true, then I jumped with joy upon hearing from her again. Hurriedly, I got myself ready and I went to the mall. I knew it was still early, but I wanted to be there before she arrived.

I arrived at the meeting place ten minutes earlier. I was surprised to see her already there, smiling at me. She was very beautiful, Black, deep-set eyes that spoke a thousand words; small, kissable lips; a nose perfectly chiseled and long black hair - everything in her was beautiful. And yes, her eyes radiated kindness and love...but there was a flicker of something in them...sadness?

"Hi, Julius," said the angelic voice I had been dreaming of each night. The voice that I had waited to hear for so long. "Please sit down." "I am very pleased to meet you, Mikaella," I said, as I took my seat and gave the roses I brought for her.

"Thanks, Julius," she smiled, obviously pleased with the roses. I knew she loved pink roses.

"You are always welcome, Love" "Julius, I can't stay," she said, sadness in her voice, or was it tears? "I really must go."

"But we just met, Mikaella. Can't we talk a little longer?" I asked, pleadingly.

"I can't really. I just came here to see you and thank you for the time you shared with me. Thank you for everything, Julius. I will never forget you...you will always be here in my heart."

She was looking at me straight into the eyes, and I could really feel the sadness in her voice and I swear, there was something in her voice and I swear, there was something in those lovely yet lonely eyes...

She got up and smiled at me, lovingly.

"Tomorrow morning, please come and visit me," he said and gave me a piece of white linen paper.

Love Story --Text Pal part 1 by Google Group (Gary)

2006-03-14T12:54:00.000+08:00

My cellphone's beeping sound woke me up one night. Used to receiving important messages only, I grabbed my cell and sleepily pushed the keys and read the message.

"Hi there! Care 2 b my txtmate?"

Not knowing who the sender was, I deleted the message right away and placed the phone on my bedside table, I tried to go back to sleep.

I had just closed my eyes when I heard the message tone again.

"Hi there, again! Care 2 b my txtmate?" again, the message said.

"Who the hell could this be asking for txtmate at the wee hours of the night?" I asked myself.

Again, without bothering to reply I deleted the message.

I was never a 'textmaniac' - someone who enjoys texting anyone and everyone even at the wee hours of night, not to mention during the day. My parents, who were always out of the country forced me to own a cellphone. They told me that having one was more convenient - they could monitor me even if they're miles away.

I wanted to turn the unit off, but since my mother was fond of calling me at night, just to check if I was safe at home, I decided not to.

Just as I was to close my eyes and return to my dreamless sleep, the phone beeped again.

Same number...Such determination!

"Ply reply 2 dis msg & b an angel & save me frm dis abyss of emptiness!!!"

I never knew why, but the message struck me. I got up and pushed the keys... I just realized I was replying to the message.

"Im not an angel, n f u want som1 2 save u, m not superman... I'm just a simple prson who u wake up at dis r of my nyt!!! Nway, do I know u?" I typed.

Seconds later came the reply.

"Nope. U don't know dis lonely soul. Nor does she know u. But I want 2 b ur frnd. I'm Mikaella Cervantes. U?"

"Just call me Julius. How'd u get my no.?" I sent back.

"Hi Julius, nice 2 meet u. Just shuffled the last two digits of mine," she replied.

That was the first and maybe the last time I met someone over the cellphone.

We exchanged messages and learned so much about each other that night. We only said goodbye when my alarm clock rang at 5:00 AM! I had to prepare for school!

And that was also how it all started. A day would not pass without it loving and thoughtful messages from her. It was only then I had learned to appreciate text messages and become eager and excited everytime my phone beeped, hoping it would be her.

Mikaella brought out something about me that I never knew I had; I realized I could also be a romantic person... even if it's just through text messaging.

"Keep me as a frnd & I will keep u in my heart. Lock it up & throw away d key so dat no1 can evr tke u away from me..." One day, she sent this message to me.

I replied: 'In life, we seldom find a true prson & f u evr find 1, hold on & nvr let go... value dat prson coz it's lyf's gift worth keeping & holdin on..."

I never knew why, but her response sent shivers to my spine, " Valued people hu hav touched ur life bcoz u will never know just wen dey will walk out of ur lyf & nvr come back again."

I couldn't understand what I felt that moment, but one thing I was sure though... I could not go on a day without a single word from her. I'd become used to having her, eventhough we had not met personally. But truly, she already occupied a space, a large one, in fact in my life.

I texted her back. "Dont come close f l8r ull jst pass by; don't touch me f l8r ull jst let me cry; dont luv me f l8r ull jst leave me and won't stay..."

I didn't know why I sent her that message, but somehow I felt, every word came from my heart. In the short span of time we were sending messages to each other, I knew, I was starting to keep her in my heart.

I called her once. The voice on the other end was like an angel's. Soft, kind, full of love. Yet, there was something in it I couldn't define. We only talked for a few minutes. Before she hung up, she told me not to call again. According to her, it would be better if we would just text each other.

But the voice kept ringing, not only in my head, but in my heart, I'd long to hear it once more. I tried to call her again, but she never answered the phone. She just kept on sending messages and quotations, which I copied in a little notebook. Hopeless romantic? I didn't know. All I could say was that all the messages she sent me were wonderful, they came from the heart and cut through the heart.

Hello~

2006-03-14T12:33:00.000+08:00

This is my forth blog, and I planned to collect some interesting, moving, and unforgetable stories around here. Hope you'll enjoy reading these stories!