(The joke is still funny, but the tech hasn't aged well...)

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answered, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his Dell notebook computer, connected it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfed to a NASA page on the Internet.  There he called up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then fed to another NASA satellite that scanned the area in an ultra-high-resolution digital photograph.

The young man then opened the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exported it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he received an email on his Palm Pilot that the image had been processed and the data had been stored. He then accessed an MS-SQL database through an ODBC-connected Excel spreadsheet and, after a few minutes, received a response.

Finally, he printed out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turned to the cowboy and said, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," said Bud.

He watched the young man select one of the animals and looked on amused as the young man stuffed it into the trunk of his car.

As the young man was getting back into his car Bud said to him, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thought about it for a second and then replied, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", said Bud, without hesitation.

"Wow! That's correct," exclaimed the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are, and you don't know a thing about cows.  This is a herd of sheep.  Now, give me back my dog."

An old man was going to the kitchen and offered to bring his wife some food.  She said, "No, that's ok, because you'll just forget what I want."  He insisted that he wouldn't forget, so she finally gave in and said, "I'd like a bowl of ice cream with two cookies.  Two!  Don't forget!"

So he went into the kitchen, and was in there a very long time.  When he finally came back out he handed her a beautiful tray with a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon.  She gaped at the food in astonishment, and blurted out, "See? I told you you wouldn't remember what I asked for! Where's my toast?"

I love EBay. I've bought a few things there, but I mostly use it for selling.  In fact, last year I sold a homing pigeon on EBay.  Thirty-two times.

(bah - I gave this one in /gu yesterday, then forgot to put it out here until today...)

A pirate ran from his boat into the nearest bar and shouted to the bartender, "Arrr! Give me 20 shots of yer best rum, quick!" Things seemed urgent, so the bartender hastened to pour the shots, and as fast as he poured them the pirate slammed them down.

When they were all down, the impressed bartender exclaimed, "I've never seen anybody drink that fast before! Why the rush?"

Morosely, the pirate replied, "Ye'd be drinkin' that fast, too, if ye had what I be havin'."

The bartender looked concerned. "That sounds terrible, I'm so sorry. What is it? What do you have?"

The pirate looked smug as he started to wobble a bit. "53 cents," he replied.

A bored king announced a contest for all the men in the kingdom, saying that the winner would name their prize, up to and including getting his gorgeous daughter as his bride.  He didn't say what kind of contest it would be, but his daughter's renowned beauty drew many brave contestants.

On the day of the contest there were a hundred men gathered around the entrance to the castle, and when the king and his daughter appeared on the drawbridge he pointed to the moat below him. It was filled with alligators and crocodiles, and occasionally a school of piranha could be seen flashing in the sunlight.  The king announced, "The first man to dive into the moat, safely cross it, and join me on this bridge will win the contest.  Which of you has the courage to claim their prize?"

The men all took one look at the terrifying creatures that called the moat home and backed away.  Beautiful though she may be, none thought the prize worth their life.

The king shook his head in disgust and turned to walk back into his castle when suddenly everybody heard a splash.  They all looked around and found a man swimming through the moat with all his might.  Twisting and turning he fended of the attacks of the hungry beasts, and with a mighty effort he made it to the other side with only a few scratches.  "Congratulations, stranger!" the king shouted.  "Step up and claim your reward!"  From beside him his daughter flashed a gorgeous smile, but to everybody's shock the panting man merely shook his head.  "Well, if not my daughter then surely you want a chest of gold?"  But again, the man just shook his head, trying to catch his breath.  "Then tell me your desire, and if it is in my power I shall give it to you!"

"I only want one thing," the man gasped.  "I want to know who it was that pushed me!"

Two workmen were sitting in a pub drinking and arguing about which pub they should visit next.  "The Rose and Crown's the closest," said the first workman.

"No, the Elephant and Castle is closer!" the second workman argued.

Eventually they decided to go to the Elephant and Castle.  But on their way to the pub in question a ferocious lion which had escaped from the local zoo lunged at them.  Just as it appeared they were going to be lion chow the beast was killed by a sudden burst of machine-gun fire from a search plane that happened to be passing overhead.

Much relieved and waving their thanks to the plane crew they stepped over the lion's body and continued on to the Elephant and Castle, thereby proving that the shortest distance between two pints is a strafed lion.

It's all gotta go somewhere.

Loot Council Catheters!  Buy a box today!

I believe it.

/cry
He was one of my very first grouping friends back when I used to play Salmissyra...then took care of me as my warrior Darchiva with Saedian, and then as my Shaman Darchi.  I will miss him and his wise words.

Rest easy my friend.
/hugs to Kenanna

Darchi (Kimmy)

Some of you have already heard, some haven't.  Our friend Otis (AKA Kenluin in-game) passed away Friday, April 19, after a long protracted illness.  Please keep his wife (Kenanna) and their family in your thoughts and prayers.

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His family suggests donations to The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, P.O. Bo 4486, Houston, Texas 77210-4486.

Out of an abundance of caution I'm not including his last name nor a link to an obituary.  This is a public forum, and including that info makes it way too easy to target the surviving family.