42
" -BDB on the board-Knitter's AnonimousMay 8, 2006Rhage (in his bedroom posting in V's room on the board)Hi, my name is V.(" Hi, V" )I've been knitting for 125 years now.(*gasping noises*)It's begun to impact my personal relationships: my brothers think I'm a nancy. It's begun to affect my health: I'm getting a callus on my forefinger and I find bits of yarn in all my pockets and I'm starting to smell like wool. I can't concentrate at work: I keep picturing all these lessers in Irish sweaters and thick socks.(*sounds of sympathy*)I've come seeking a community of people who, like me, are trying not to knit. Can you help me?(*We're with you*)Thank you (*takes out hand-knitted hankie in pink*)(*sniffles*)(" We embrace you, V" )Vishous (in the pit): Oh hell no...you did not just put that up. And nice spelling in the title. Man...you just have to roll up on me, don't you. I got four words for you, my brother.Rhage: Four words? Okay...lemme see... Rhage, you're so sexy.hmmm....Rhage, you're SO smart. No wait! Rhage, you're SO right! That's it, isn't it...g'head. You can tell me. Vishous: First one starts with a " P" Use your head for the other three. Bastard.Rhage: P? Hmm... Please pass the yarnVishous: Payback is a bitch!Rhage: OhhhhhhhhhhhhI'm so scuuuuuurred. Can you whip me up a blanket to hide under? "
43
" Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more. "
― Donald Miller , Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
48
" Anyway.
I’m not allowed to watch TV, although I am allowed to rent documentaries that are approved for me, and I can read anything I want. My favorite book is A Brief History of Time, even though I haven’t actually finished it, because the math is incredibly hard and Mom isn’t good at helping me. One of my favorite parts is the beginning of the first chapter, where Stephen Hawking tells about a famous scientist who was giving a lecture about how the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the solar system, and whatever. Then a woman in the back of the room raised her hand and said, “What you
have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back
of a giant tortoise.” So the scientist asked her what the tortoise was standing
on. And she said, “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
I love that story, because it shows how ignorant people can be. And also because I love tortoises. "
― Jonathan Safran Foer , Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
56
" Well, Mr. Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you *play* with them. They are so wonderful. You have these switches - if it's an even number you do this, if it's an odd number you do that - and pretty soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are clever enough, on one machine.
After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn't paying any attention; he wasn't supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly - while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arc-tangent X, and then it would start and it would print columns and then bitsi, bitsi, bitsi, and calculate the arc-tangent automatically by integrating as it went along and make a whole table in one operation.
Absolutely useless. We *had* tables of arc-tangents. But if you've ever worked with computers, you understand the disease - the *delight* in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing. "
― Richard P. Feynman , "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character
57
" An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door? "
― Terry Pratchett , Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6)