Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Evil Kerviel

Friends of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $US7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week. Kerviel was known to start work as early as nine in the morning and still be at his desk at five or even five-thirty, often with just an hour and a half for lunch.

One colleague said: "He was, how you say, un workaholique. I have a family and a mistress so I would leave the office at around 2pm at the latest, if I wasn't on strike."

"But Jerome was tied to that desk. One day I came back to the office at 3pm because I had forgotten my stupid little hat and there he was, fast asleep on the photocopier."

"At first I assumed he had been having sex with it but then I remembered he had been working for almost six hours."

As the losses mounted, Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns. At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of transactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception.

Last night a spokesman for Societe Generale said that Kerviel was overworked, insisting he lost the money after betting that the French were about to stop being rude, lazy, arrogant bastards.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Growler

Jimmy, a Scotsman is seated on a train across from a busty blonde who is wearing the shortest of mini-skirts. In spite of his best efforts, he is unable to keep himself from staring at the tops of her thighs. To his delight, Jimmy realises she is not wearing underwear.

The blonde notices Jimmy's stare and asks, "Are ye looking at ma growler?"

"Aye, I'm sorry," says Jimmy and averts his gaze.

"It's quite alright pet," replies the woman, "It's very talented, watch this, I'll make it wink at ye."

Sure enough the growler winks at Jimmy.

Engrossed, Jimmy asks, "What else can ye growler do?"

"I can make it blow ye a kiss," says the woman.

To Jimmy's amazement the growler blows him a kiss.

"Come and sit by me, love" says the woman with a smile, patting the seat beside her.

Transfixed, Jimmy does as he's asked.

The woman snuggles up close to him and asks suggestively, "Would ye like to stick in a coupla fingers?"

Astonished Jimmy replies, "Good grief! Can it whistle, too?"

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The 2007 Darwin Award Winners

RUNNER UP # FIVE: THE LAPTOP STILL WORKS

"Driving is not a time to be practicing your multitasking skills," remarked CHP spokesman Tom Marshall, commenting on a 29-year-old computer tutor's decision to drive along Highway 99 in California while working on his laptop. He drifted over the center line, and was killed by oncoming traffic. CHP officers found Oscar's computer still running, plugged into the Honda Accord's cigarette lighter.


RUNNER UP # FOUR: SUPERIOR MOMENTUM

June 2007, Illinois:
Two Valparaiso men tested their reflexes by playing "chicken" with a train. Which man could stay on the rail the longest in the path of an oncoming train? At the stroke of midnight, the contest was decided. The winner, aptly named Patrick Stiff, lost his life. The train continued on, as the conductor was unaware that it had hit anyone.


RUNNER UP # THREE: BARN DEMOLITION

January 2007, West Virginia:
Three friends set out to dismantle a dilapidated barn one bracing winter afternoon. Speaking of bracing... One industrious man fired up his chainsaw and ripped through a crucial support post. Carrying the weight of a full barn roof, those wooden support beams were all that stood between the demolition worker and structural collapse. It was all fun and games until the roof, sans support, succumbed to the pull of gravity and flattened the man with the chainsaw. As a consolation prize, the deceased was indeed successful at demolishing the barn.

(Darwin notes, this story is unconfirmed, but no disputes have come to my attention, as usually happens with bogus stories.)


RUNNER UP # TWO: MOLE HUNT

January 2007, East Germany:
One man's extraordinary effort to eradicate a mole from his property resulted in a victory for the mole. The metal rods he pounded into the ground and connected to a high-voltage power line, electrified the very ground the man stood upon. He was found dead at his holiday property on the Baltic Sea. Police had to trip the main circuit breaker before venturing onto the property.


RUNNER UP # ONE: WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

June 2007, South Carolina:
A passing cabbie found a 21 year-old deceased couple laying naked in the road an hour before sunrise. Authorities were baffled. There were no witnesses, no trace of clothing, and no wrecked vehicles present. But investigators eventually found a clue high on the roof of a nearby building: two sets of neatly folded clothes. Safe sex takes on a whole new meaning when you are perched on the edge of a pyramid-shaped metal roof. "It appears as if [they] accidentally fell off the roof," Sgt. McCants said.


AND THE 2007 DARWIN AWARD WINNER IS...

THE ENEMA WITHIN

May 2004, Texas:
Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor... well, rectally. His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol in this manner. The result was the same: inebriation. And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party.

Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces, right up the old address!

When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or pass out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out) the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed. The next morning, Michael was dead.

The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself. Toxicology reports measured his blood alcohol level as 0.47%.

In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove himself from the gene pool via an "astounding misapplication of judgment." Three litres of sherry up the butt can only be described as astounding. Unsurprisingly, his neighbors said they were surprised to learn of the incident.

The full list of 2007 Darwin Awards Nominees.

Source: The Darwin Awards

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Life is Shell

Help me keep the shell people alive.

Date: 2007-11-21, 6:46PM EST

There is a sad truth to the world today. I am part of a dying breed of people known as "shell users." We are an old-fashioned bunch, preferring the warm glow of a green screen full of text over the cold blockiness of a graphical interface. We use ssh, scp, and even occassionally ftp. Back in the days before high-speed connections ("broadband"), we would dial up during off-hours to avoid being slammed with huge phone bills. The whole "Microsoft Windows" fad will fade away sooner or later, but in the interim, our kind is facing extinction.

Because there are fewer and fewer of us, I must help keep our lineage alive. I am looking for someone to help me do this. I need a woman (obviously) who is willing to raise a child with me in the method of Unix. Our child will be introduced to computers at a young age, and will be setting emacs mode before any other child can even read. I earn a sufficient income to support a family in modest comfort. Other than the fact our child will be bright, text-based and sarcastic, we will otherwise be a normal family. We will even go to Disney World and see Mickey Mouse.

So, if you are a woman between the ages of 23 and 43 who is ready to raise a child in the way of the shell, let me know so we can begin the process. (If you are ready to raise more than one child, even better.)

PS - yes, this is for real. Given the right person, I would obviously propose before we ... call fork().
PPS - I only set emacs mode for my ksh session. I only edit files using vi. Just wanted to clear that up. And I'm looking to raise the child(ren) as a dedicated couple, so if you aren't interested in being married, you may wish to select() a different posting.

N.B. - on the issue of relocation. I live in a place where my income/expense ratio is proper (i.e., greater than 2:1). I'm willing to live anywhere in the world where this remains true. I've been to much of the country as well as foreign nations. There are no limits to where I will live so long as the job market for unix admins is robust enough to be sustainable. And yes, I am interested in a strictly monogamous situation. I've been known to actually turn down offers of "two chicks at the same time."

Source: Best of Craigslist

Friday, January 18, 2008

Sexplosion

Sex Toy Triggers Bomb Scare in Sweden

Jan 17, 2008

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — A Swedish bomb squad called out to disarm a suspicious package on Wednesday did not find a ticking bomb. But they did find a vibrating sex toy.

A janitor alerted police after he found the package in a garage of an apartment building in Goteborg, the country's second-largest city, police spokesman Jan Strannegard said.

The package was humming and vibrating suspiciously, so police took no chances and sent out a team of explosives experts. After having cordoned off the area, they opened the package with bomb disposal equipment, only to find the battery-operated device inside.

"The package was vibrating when the janitor found it, but I think it had sort of died out by the time it was disarmed," Strannegard said.

Source: The Associated Press

Monday, January 14, 2008

Greater Britons

More stunning answers from British quiz contestants...


UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE (BBC 2)

Bamber Gascoigne: What was Gandhi's first name?
Contestant: Goosey?


UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE (BBC2)

Jeremy Paxman: What is another name for "cherrypickers" and "cheesemongers"?
Contestant: Homosexuals.
Paxman: No. They're regiments in the British Army who will be very upset with you.


BEG, BORROW OR STEAL (BBC2)

Jamie Theakston: Where do you think Cambridge University is?
Contestant: Geography isn't my strong point.
Theakston: There's a clue in the title.
Contestant: Leicester.


RTE RADIO 2FM (IRELAND)

Presenter: What is the name of the long- running TV comedy show about pensioners: Last Of The...
Caller: Mohicans.


PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC RADIO MANCHESTER)

Phil: What's 11 squared?
Contestant: I don't know.
Phil: I'll give you a clue. It's two ones with a two in the middle.
Contestant: Is it five?


SIMPLY THE BEST (ITV)
Phil Tufnell: How many Olympic Games have been held?
Contestant: Six.
Tufnell: Higher!
Contestant: Five.


FORT BOYARD (CHALLENGE TV)
Jodie Marsh: Arrange these two groups of letters to form a word: CHED and PIT.
Team: Chedpit.


RADIO 1 EARLY MORNING SHOW

Presenter: How many toes would three people have in total?
Contestant: 23.


THE MICK GIRDLER SHOW (BBC RADIO SOLENT)

Girdler: I'm looking for an island in the Atlantic whose name includes the letter "e".
Contestant: Ghana.
Girdler: No, listen. It's an island in the Atlantic Ocean.
Contestant: New Zealand.


ROCK FM (PRESTON)

Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?


THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN (ITV)

Steve Le Fevre
: What was signed to bring World War I to an end in 1918?
Contestant: Magna Carta.


RICHARD ALLINSON SHOW (RADIO 2)

Allinson: What international brand shares its name with the Greek goddess of victory?
Contestant (after long deliberation) : Erm, Kellogg's?


BLIND DATE (ITV)

Girl: Name a book written by Jane Austen.
Boy: Charlotte Bronte.


NATIONAL LOTTERY

Eamonn Holmes: Dizzy Gillespie is famous for playing what?
Contestant: Basketball.


DARYL DENHAM'S DRIVETIME (VIRGIN RADIO)

Daryl Denham: In which country would you spend shekels?
Contestant: Holland?
Denham: Try the next letter of the alphabet.
Contestant: Iceland? Ireland?
Denham: It's a bad line. Did you say Israel?
Contestant: No.


PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC GMR)

Wood
: What "K" could be described as the Islamic Bible?
Contestant: Er...
Wood: It's got two syllables: Kor...
Contestant: Blimey?
Wood: Ha ha ha ha, no. The past participle of run.
Contestant: (Silence)
Wood: OK, try it another way. Today I run, yesterday I...
Contestant: Walked?


THE VAULT

Melanie Sykes: What is the name given to the condition where the sufferer can fall asleep at any time?
Contestant: Nostalgia.


BREAKFAST SHOW (RADIO 1)

Chris Moyles: Which "S" is a kind of whale that can grow up to 80 tonnes?
Contestant: Ummm...
Moyles: It begins with "S" and rhymes with "perm".
Contestant: Shark.

More Great Britons
...

Flight of the Conchords: Business Time

Monday, January 07, 2008

Kevin the Chook

Trevor the farmer was in the fertilised egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets" and eight or ten roosters, to fertilise the pullets' eggs.

Trevor kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Trevor could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favourite rooster was Kevin, and a very fine specimen he was too, but on this particular morning Trevor noticed Kevin's bell hadn't rung at all!

Trevor went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover but to farmer Trevor's amazement, Kevin had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Trevor was so proud of Kevin, he entered him into the Brisbane Exhibition and Kevin became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The Result?

The judges not only awarded Kevin the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pullet Surprise as well.

Clearly Kevin was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Do you know a Pullitician called Kevin?

Winner by a Short Length

Three mates, Chris, Aaron and Pete spend a day together at the racetrack. By the last race of the day they're down to their last $10. They decide to put it all on a trifecta bet. To select their numbers they decide to go with the lengths of their respective members.

Chris chooses 9.

Aaron chooses 7.

And Pete chooses 2.

They place their bet and as luck would have it they win the trifecta; a cool $10,000. They collect their winnings and then argue over how to split the prize.

Chris claims that as he contributed the 9 he is entitled to half the winnings.

Aaron, says that in that case he's entitled to 7/18 of the prize.

"Hang on", says Pete. "You blokes owe me! If I hadn't had an erection at the time, we'd have bet on 9, 7 and 1."