Humor 9/7/98: Intelligent Monkeys

Hey,

I hope your Labor Day weekend is going well. I'm in the midst of
packing for my cross country trek. I'm leaving on Thursday and will
arrive by next Wednesday. Since I'll be travelling, I won't be sending
out this humor email this coming weekend.

Here's a thought provoking question, off the top of my head: "If you
could travel in time, would be go forward or backward? What year and
what place would you want to go? A sci-fi related question to time
travel that I've always wondered, "If you travelled back in time and
killed your ancestor, what would happen to you?" Please send me any of
your thoughts.

This week's humor comes from Ravi Bhasin and the inspirational story
after that comes from Ryan Chen. Enjoy!

P.S. Feel free to add me back to your humor distribution list. Thanks!

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A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on
display. While he was there another customer walked in and said to the
shopkeeper "I'll have a C monkey please". The shopkeeper nodded, went
over to a cage at the side of the shop, and took out a monkey. He fit a
collar and leash and handed it to the customer, saying "That'll be
$5000". The customer paid and walked out with his monkey. Startled,
the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very
expensive monkey most of them are only a few hundred dollars. Why did
it cost so much?" The shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can program
in C - very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money."

The tourist looked at the monkey in another cage. "That one's even more
expensive - $10,000! What does it do?" "Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it
can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java. All
the really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper.

The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in
a cage of its own. The price tag around its neck read $50,000. He
gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put
together! What on earth does it do?" The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I
haven't actually seen it do anything, but it says it's from Andersen
Consulting."
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The Fence

There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of
nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail
in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nail into the
fence. Then it gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to
hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally, the
day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father
about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for
each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the
young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were
gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said,
"You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The
fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave
a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it
out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is
still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one."

Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and
encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of
praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us. Show your
friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a
FRIEND.