Bill Gates in Heaven

Bill Gates died and, much to everyone's surprise, went to Heaven. When he got there, he was met by Saint Peter.

Saint Peter said, "Your paperwork seems to be in order. And with a background like yours, you'll be getting a plum job assignment."

"Job assignment?"

"Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of eternity sitting on your backside and drinking ambrosia? Heaven is a big operation. You have to pull your weight around here! Your job will be to supervise Heaven's new data processing center. We're building the largest computing facility in creation. Half a million computers connected by a multi-segment fiber optic network, all running into a back-end server network with a thousand CPUs on a gigabit channel. Fully fault-tolerant. Fully distributed processing. The works."

Bill could barely contain his excitement. "Wow! What a great job! This is really Heaven!"

Saint Peter said, "Would you like to go see the center now?" "You bet!"

Saint Peter and Bill caught the shuttle bus and went to Heaven's new data processing center. It was a truly huge facility, a hundred times bigger than the Astrodome. Workmen were crawling all over the place, getting the miles of fiber optic cables properly installed. But the center was dominated by the computers. Half a million computers, arranged neatly row-by-row, half a million .... .... Macintoshes .... .... all running Claris software! Not a PC in sight! Not a single byte of Microsoft code!

The thought of spending the rest of eternity using products that he had spent his whole life working to destroy was too much for Bill.

"What about PCs???" he exclaimed. "What about Windows??? What about Excel??? What about Word???"

"You're forgetting something," said Saint Peter.

"What's that?" asked Bill plaintively.


"This is Heaven," explained Saint Peter. "We need a computer system that's heavenly to use. If you want to build a data processing center based on PCs running Windows, then ... GO TO HELL!"

Batteries not Included

A man named Jake is struggling through a bus station with two huge and obviously heavy suitcases when a stranger comes up behind him and asks Have you got the time?

Jake sighs, puts down the suitcases and turns around. After glancing at his wrist he says it's about a quarter to six.

Hey, that's a pretty fancy watch, exclaims the stranger. Jake brightens a little. Yeah, it's not bad. Check this out, and he shows him a time zone display not just for every time zone in the world, but for the 86 largest metropoli. He hits a few buttons and from somewhere on the watch a voice says

"The time is eleven 'til six" in a very West Texas accent. A few more buttons and the same voice says something in Japanese. Jake continues I've put in regional accents for each city.

The display is unbelievably high quality for a mere watch, and the voice is simply astounding - smooth and perfectly audible, without the tinny sound you might expect from a speaker that could fit on a watch. The stranger is struck dumb with admiration.

That's not all, says Jake. He pushes a few more buttons it has more than a dozen and a tiny but very high resolution map of New York City appears on the display. If we were outside, Jake says apologetically, it could show you where we were by satellite positioning, but under this roof all it can do is remember my last position and a map of the surrounding area. View recede ten, he adds to the watch, and the display changes to show eastern New York state.

It responds to voice? gasps the stranger, and Jake nods enthusiastically. But I haven't got it all programmed yet, most of the functions are still button-activated.

I want to buy that watch, says the stranger. Oh, no, it's not ready for sale yet; I'm still working out the bugs, says the inventor. But look at this: and he proceeds to demonstrate that the watch is also a very creditable little FM radio receiver with a digital tuner, a sonar device that can measure distances up to 125 meters as well as trigger the stopwatch function for close racing finishes, a pager with thermal paper printout and, most impressive of all to the now drooling listener, has capacity for voice recordings of up to 300 standard size books, though I only have 32 of my favourites in there so far, says Jake. He starts up The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein, and although the stranger has never heard of either he can still hear those amazing un-tinny voices coming out of the normal-sized watch on Jake's wrist.

I've got to have that watch, he says.
No, you don't understand; it's not ready
I'll give you $1000 for it.
Oh, no, I've already spent more than $8000.
I'll give you $10000 for it.
But it's just not done.
I'll give you $15000 for it. And the stranger pulls out a chequebook. I've just *got* to have that watch.
But.... Jake stops to think. He's only put about $8500 into materials and development, and with $15,000 he could make another one and have it ready for merchandising in only another half a year. $15000?

The stranger frantically finishes writing the check and waves it in front of him. Here it is, ready to hand to you right here and now.

Jake abruptly makes his decision. Ok, he says, and peels off the watch. They make the exchange, the check for the watch, and the stranger starts happily away.


Hey, wait a minute, calls Jake after the stranger, who turns around warily. Jake indicates the two suitcases he'd been trying to wrestle through the bus station. Don't you want the batteries?

A Good Y2K Bug

>From: Automated Payroll Processing Dept.
>Date: January 1, 2000
>Subject: Vacation Pay

Dear Valued Employee:


Our records indicate that you have not used any vacation time over the past 100 year(s). As I'm sure you are aware, employees are granted 3 weeks of paid leave per year or pay in lieu of time off. One additional week is granted for every 5 years of service. Please either take 9,400 days off work or notify our office and your next pay check will reflect payment of $8,277,432.22 which will include all pay and interest for the past 1,200 months

1997 Ferrari GTO

A hip young man goes out and buys a 1997 Ferrari GTO. It is the best and most expensive car available in the world, costing about $500,000.

He takes it out for a spin and while stopping for a red light, an old man on a moped (both looking about 90 years old) pulls up next to him. The old man looks over the sleek, shiny surface of the car and asks, "What kind of car ya' got there, sonny?" The young man replies, "A 1997 Ferrari GTO.

They cost about a half million dollars!" "That's a lot of money," says the old man, shocked. "Why does it cost so much?" "Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour!", states the cool dude proudly. The moped driver asks, "Can I take a look inside?" "Sure," replies the owner.

So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Leaning back on his moped, the old man says, "That's a pretty nice car, all right!"

Just then the light changes so the guy decides to show the old man what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 320 mph. Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer! He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly, whhhoooossshhh! Something whips by him, going much faster! "What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?" the young man asks himself.

Then, ahead of him, he sees a dot coming toward him. Whoooooosh! It goes by again, heading the opposite direction! And it almost looked like the old man on the moped. "Couldn't be," thinks the guy. "How could a moped outrun a Ferrari?!" Again, he sees a dot in his rear view mirror!

Whooooosh! Ka-BbblaMMM! It plows into the back of his car, demolishing the rear end.

The young man jumps out, and it IS the old man!!! Of course, the moped and the old man are hurtin' for certain. He runs up to the old man and says, "You're badly hurt! Is there anything I can do for you?"

The old man moans and replies, "Yes..... Unhook my suspenders from your side-view mirror!"

Two Guys Playing Golf

Two guys were out playing golf. They tee off and one drive goes to the right and one drive goes to the left. The first guy finds his ball in a patch of buttercups. He grabs a club and takes a mighty swing at the ball. He hits a beautiful second shot, but in the process he hacks the hell out of the buttercups.
Suddenly a woman appears out of nowhere. She blocks his path to his ball and looks at him and says,

"I'm Mother Nature, and I don't like the way you treated my buttercups. From now on, you won't be able to stand the taste of butter. Each time you eat butter you will become physically ill to the point of total nausea." The woman then disappears as quickly as she appeared.

Shaken, the guy calls out to his buddy. "Hey, where's your ball?"

"It's over here in the pussy willows."


The first guy screams back, "DON'T HIT THE BALL!!!! DON'T HIT THE BALL!!!!"

Ticket to SuperBowl

A guy named Bob receives a free ticket to the Super Bowl from his company.

Unfortunately, when Bob arrives at the stadium he realises the seat is in the last row in the corner of the stadium - he's closer to the Goodyear blimp than the field.

About halfway through the first quarter, Bob notices an empty seat 10 rows off the field, right on the 50 yard line. He decides to take a chance and makes his way through the stadium and around the security guards to the empty seat. As he sits down, he asks the gentleman sitting next to him, "Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" The man says no.

Now, very excited to be in such a great seat for the game, Bob again inquires of the man next to him, "This is incredible! Who in their right mind would have a seat like this at the SuperBowl and not use it?"

The man replies, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me, I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we haven't been together at since we got married in 1967."

"Well, that's really sad," says Bob, "but still, couldn't you find someone to take the seat? A relative or close friend?"

"No," the man replies, "they're all at the funeral."