LETTERS FROM GRAHAM

My younger son, who lives and works in COTU, Centre Of The Universe, (and you who live there know where you are!) occasionally sends me these odd collections of....well, whatever they are, I think that the time has come to give them (whatever they are) a wider audience.

1) A few words from the visionary Steven Wright

2) Signs That You've Had Too Much Of The '90s:

(Graham sent this without any attribution.)

  1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
  2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
  3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3
  4. You e-mail your buddy who works at the desk next to you to ask: "Do you wanna go get a beer?" and he replies: "Yeah, give me five minutes".
  5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South America, but you haven't spoken to your next door neighbor yet this year.

  6. You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date.
  7. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
  8. You consider Canada Post painfully slow and/or call it "snail mail".
  9. Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.
  10. You hear most of your jokes via email instead of in person.

  11. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
  12. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line.
  13. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
  14. Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
  15. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.

  16. You really get excited about a 1.7% pay rise.
  17. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
  18. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
  19. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
  20. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.

  21. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
  22. It's dark when you drive to and from work, even in the summer.
  23. You know exactly how many days you've got left until you retire.
  24. Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
  25. You see a good looking, smart person and you know it must be a visitor.

  26. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
  27. Your supervisor gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.
  28. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.
  29. You're already late on the assignment you just got.
  30. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department is short of, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.

  31. Your boss's favorite lines are:
    When you've got a few minutes...
    Could you fit this in...?
    ...in your spare time.
    ...when you've got a moment,
    I know you're busy but...
    I have an opportunity for you
  32. Vacation time is something you roll over to next year.
  33. Every week another brown collection envelope comes around because someone you DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WORKED THERE is leaving.
  34. You wonder who's going to be left to put into your 'leaving' collection.
  35. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".
  36. The only reason you recognize your kids is because their pictures are on your desk.
  37. You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting.

    AND THE CLINCHERS ARE

  38. You read this entire list, kept nodding and smiling.
  39. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends you send jokes to" e-mail group.
  40. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already, but you don't have time to check so you forward it anyway.

    Thankyou very much, whoever you are.

3) From York Lam

An anagram, as you all know, is a word of phrase made by or rearranging the letters of another word or phrase.
The following are exceptionally clever.
Someone out there either has way too much time to waste or is deadly at Scrabble.

Word When you re-arrange the letters
Dormitory Dirty Room
Desperation A Rope Ends It
The Morse Code Here come Dots
Slot Machines Cash Lost in 'em
AnimosityIs No Amity
Mother-in-law Woman Hitler
Snooze AlarmsAlas! No More Z's
Alec GuinnessGenuine Class
SemolinaIs No Meal
The Public Art GalleriesLarge Picture Halls, I Bet
A Decimal PointI'm a Dot in Place
The EarthquakesThat Queer Shake
Eleven plus twoTwelve plus one
ContradictionAccord not in it
AstronomerMoon Starer
Princess DianaEnd Is A Car Spin
Year Two ThousandA Year To Shut Down

Thankyou, York Lam



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