Elementary

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson goes on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend.

"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes," replies Watson.

"And what do you deduce from that?"

Watson ponders for a minute.

"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three."

"Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"

Anti-Piracy: IT Crowd

Elephantine Memory

In 1986 Mikele Mebembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mikele approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mikele worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mikele stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mikele never forgot that elephant nor the events of that day.

Twenty years later Mikele was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mikele and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mikele, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down.

The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mikele couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mikele summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mikele's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Miss Teeny Brain USA

Upton was asked: "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

Upton replied: "I personally believe that Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us."

Bronze Rodent

A tourist walked into a Sydney antique shop. After looking around for a while, he noticed a very life-like bronze statue of a rat.

It had no price tag but it was so striking that he decided to buy it anyway. He took it to the shop owner and asked "How much is this bronze rat?"

The owner replied: "It's $11 for the rat and $100 for the story." The tourist gave the owner $11 and said: "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story."

As he walked off down the street, he noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the sewers and were following him.

This was a little disconcerting, so he started to walk a little faster but within a couple of blocks the swarm of rats had grown to hundreds, and they were all squealing and screeching in a very menacing way.

He increased his pace and ran on towards the harbour, and as he ran, he looked behind him and saw the rats now numbered in their millions, and they were running faster and faster. By now very concerned, he ran to down the pier and threw the bronze rat far out into the water.

Amazingly, the millions of real rats jumped into the water after it and were all drowned.

The man walked back to relate all this to the shop owner, who said, "Ah, you've come back for the story then?"

"No," said the tourist, "I came back to see if you've got a bronze Kiwi, a Collingwood supporter, a telemarketer and anything from the Liberal party..."

It's not a bug...

Calm and Collected

A dad walks into a market with his young son. The kid is holding a two dollar coin. Suddenly, the boy starts choking and going blue in the face. The dad realises the boy has swallowed the two dollar coin, and starts panicking, shouting for help.

A well-dressed, attractive but serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar in the market reading her newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down on the saucer, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the market.

Reaching the boy, the woman carefully takes hold of the boy's testicles and starts to squeeze, gently at first and then ever more firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the money, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.

Releasing the boy, the woman hands the coin to the father and walks back
to her seat in the coffee bar without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no lasting ill-effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor?"

"No," the woman replies. "I work for the Australian Tax Office."

Emotional Baggage

Boss Quotes

The following were voted the top quotes from "Pointy Haired Bosses" in corporate America, circa 2004:

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."
   -- Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA
   
   
2. "What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
   -- Lykes Lines Shipping
   
   
3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."
   -- Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company
   
   
4. "This project is so important we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."
   -- Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service
   
   
5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."
   -- Plant manager, Delco Corporation
   
   
6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
   -- R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp
   
   
7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
   -- Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation
   
   
8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for a Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
   -- Shipping executive, FTD Florists
   
   
9. "We know that communication is a problem but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."
   -- Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division

Potato Gem