| When Bill Gates died, he went up to Heaven, where Saint Peter showed him to his house; a beautiful 20 room house, with grounds and a tennis court. Bill Gates was pleased, and spent many months enjoying the amenities of Heaven. One day, he was enjoying one of Heaven's many fine parks, when he ran into a man dressed in a fine tailored suit. "That is a nice suit, my friend," said Gates. "Where did you get it?" "Actually," the man replied, "I was given a hundred of these when I got here. I've been treated really well. I got a mansion on a hill overlooking a beautiful hill, with a huge five-hundred acre estate, a golf course, and three Rolls Royces." "Were you a pope, or a doctor healing the sick?" asked Gates. "No," said his new friend, "Actually, I was the captain of the Titanic." Hearing this made Gates so angry that he immediately stormed off to find St. Peter. Cornering Peter, he told him about the man he had just met, saying, "How could you give me a paltry new house, while you're showering new cars, a mansion, and fine suits on the Captain of the Titanic? I invented the Windows Vista operating system! Why does he deserve better?!" "True," Peter replied, "But the Titanic only crashed once." |
| My friend Nancy and I decided to introduce her elderly mother to the magic of the Internet. Our first move was to access Google, and we told her it could answer any question she had. Nancy's mother was very skeptical until Nancy said, "It's true, Mom." "Think of something to ask it." As I sat with fingers poised over the keyboard, Nancy's mother thought a minute, then responded, "How is Aunt Helen feeling?" |
| When my printer's type began to grow faint, I called a local repair shop where a friendly man informed me that the printer probably needed only to be cleaned. Because the store charged $50 for such cleanings, he told me, I might be better off reading the printer's manual and trying the job myself. Pleasantly surprised by his candor, I asked, "Does your boss know that you discourage business?" "Actually, it's my boss's idea," the employee replied sheepishly. "We usually make more money on repairs if we let people try to fix things themselves first." |
| There was a pilot flying a small single engine charter plane, with a couple of very important executives on board. He was coming into Seattle airport through thick fog with less than 10 miles visibility when his instruments went out. So, he began circling around looking for a landmark. After an hour or so, he starts running pretty low on fuel and the passengers are getting very nervous. Finally, a small opening in the fog appears and he sees a tall building with one guy working alone on the fifth floor. The pilot banks the plane around, rolls down the window and shouts to the guy, "Hey where am I?" To this, the solitary office worker replies, "You're in a plane." The pilot rolls up the window, executes a 275 degree turn and proceeds to execute a perfect blind landing on the runway of the airport 5 miles away. Just as the plane stops, so does the engine as the fuel has run out. The passengers are amazed and one asks how he did it. "Simple," replies the pilot, "I asked the guy in that building a simple question. The answer he gave me was 100 percent correct but absolutely useless, therefore that must be Microsoft's support office and from there the airport is just five miles due East." |