Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
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Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.
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Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
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Today is the last day of your life so far.
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Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
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Today is what happened to yesterday.
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Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson
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Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately,
it can still be changed today.
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Try the Moo Shu Pork.  It is especially good today.
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Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances.
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You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend.
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You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body.
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You have the body of a 19 year old.  Please return it before it gets wrinkled.
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You have the capacity to learn from mistakes.  You'll learn a lot today.
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You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today.
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You may get an opportunity for advancement today.  Watch it!
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You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will
be sold.
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You will always have good luck in your personal affairs.
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You will be a winner today.  Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
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You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
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You will be misunderstood by everyone.
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You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass.
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You will have good luck and overcome many hardships.
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You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you.
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You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life."
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Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.
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Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon.
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Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments.
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Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be
misinterpreted by somebody.
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Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner.
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(literature)
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A classic is something that everyone wants to have read
and nobody wants to read.
                -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature"
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A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)
        -- by Charles Dickens

        A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just
        like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean
        lady who knits.

Crime and Punishment LITE(tm)
        -- by Fyodor Dostoevski

        A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later
        feels guilty and apologizes.

The Odyssey LITE(tm)
        -- by Homer

        After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home.
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"... all the modern inconveniences ..."
                -- Mark Twain
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As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
                -- Shakespeare, "King Lear"
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Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining
ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror
to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the
mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam
in 1959.
                -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton
                   bad fiction contest.
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.  Except a
creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely
a loose misapplication of the word.  Consider the flea!--incomparably the
bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.
Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact
that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth
to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the
very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more
afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by
an earthquake ten centuries before.  When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam
as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and
put him at the head of the procession.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
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English literature's performing flea.
                -- Sean O'Casey on P. G. Wodehouse
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Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
                -- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
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Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must
have somebody to divide it with.
                -- Mark Twain
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His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god.  He preferred
to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.  He never
claimed to be a god.  But then, he never claimed not to be a god.  Circum-
stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.
Silence, though, could.  It was in the days of the rains that their prayers
went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of
prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri,
goddess of the Night.  The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through
the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the
Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze
rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique...
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
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I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
week sometimes to make it up.
                -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
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I reverently believe that the maker who made us all  makes everything in New
England, but the weather.  I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be
raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in
New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for
countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere
if they don't get it.
                -- Mark Twain
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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.
                -- J.R.R. Tolkien
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In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made
school boards.
                -- Mark Twain
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In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.  Therefore ... in the Old
Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred
thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.  ... There is
something fascinating about science.  One gets such wholesome returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
                -- Mark Twain
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It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits:
freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
                -- Mark Twain
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It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories,
his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the
worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one
day like any other day, only shorter.
                -- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies"
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It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
                -- Mark Twain
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Its name is Public Opinion.  It is held in reverence.  It settles everything.
Some think it is the voice of God.
                -- Mark Twain
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Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek,
shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm
as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like
bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood;
she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a
man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the
right road: a man like Alf Romeo.
                -- Rachel Sheeley, winner

The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never
see her little dog Pritzi again.
                -- Claudia Fields, runner-up

It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a
tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it
was determined that Byron was simply a jerk.
                -- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up

Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest.  The contest is
named after the author of the immortal lines:  "It was a dark and stormy
night."  The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the
worst possible novel.
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        My dear People.
        My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks,
and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots.  Also my good
Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End.  Today is my
one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!"
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
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No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and
doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone
of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
                -- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"
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So so is good, very good, very excellent good:
and yet it is not; it is but so so.
                -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"
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Talkers are no good doers.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
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The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
                -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II"
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The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first
half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and
pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who
hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice
for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time
during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it
but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
                -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
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The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State
Univ.  by Professor Scott Rice.  It is held in memory of Edward George
Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his
time) novelist.  He is best known today for having written "The Last
Days of Pompeii."

Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse,
beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord
Bulwer-Lytton.  This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford,"
written in 1830.  The full line reveals why it is so bad:

        It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except
        at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of
        wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene
        lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty
        flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
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The Least Perceptive Literary Critic
        The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax.  A
most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to
give a public reading of his latest poem.
        Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord
Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr.
Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."
        Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable
and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece.  "Be so good as to mark
the place and consider at your leisure.  I'm sure you can give it a better
turn."
        After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr.
Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side.  "There is no need to touch the
lines," he said.  "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation
on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.  I have known him
much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."
        Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem
exactly as it was before.  His unique critical faculties had lost none of
their edge.  "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right.  Nothing can
be better."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
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The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal!'
                -- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
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The smallest worm will turn being trodden on.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
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The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with
commoner things.  It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God
over all the fruits of the earth.  When one has tasted it, he knows what the
angels eat.  It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because
she repented.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
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There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
                -- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"
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There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by
ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.  Observe the ass, for instance: his
character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler
animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to.  Instead of feeling
complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
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Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.
                -- Mark Twain
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We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.  But there was
also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a
French restaurant. [...]
        I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk
white BMW and her Jordache smile.  There had been a fight.  I had punched her
boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls.  Everyone told him, "You ride the
bull, senor.  You do not fight it."  But he was lean and tough like a bad
rib-eye and he fought the bull.  And then he fought me.  And when we finished
there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...]
        "Stop the car," the girl said.
        There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes.  She knew about the
woman of the tollway.  I knew not how.  I started to speak, but she raised an
arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget.
        "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway
belle's for thee."
        The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie.
Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey
onto my granola and faced a new day.
                -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
                   Competition
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Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized
that like most books, it had too many words.  The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women.  There, that's it: 24 words.  But the guy who wrote the book took
*thousands* of words to say it.
        Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father.  It's impossible to tell because
what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages.  If all Russians talk
as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
        I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God.  So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
        Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:

* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
  nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
                -- Dave Barry
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What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?
                -- Nero Wolfe, "The League of Frightened Men"
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Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do.
Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
                -- Mark Twain
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Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until
drops of blood form on your forehead.
                -- Gene Fowler
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You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the
obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and
an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.
                -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder"
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Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not
original and the part that is original is not good.
                -- Samuel Johnson
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"Good afternoon, madam.  How may I help you?"

"Good afternoon.  I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please."

"A--?  Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady.  I
mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I
say they have a right to.  But I think... I might... Let's have a look
down here.  I might have just the thing for you.  Yes, here we are!
Look at that, isn't it neat?  Now that is a FrintArms product as well,
but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call
them.  Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't
spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a
tonne of iron around with you.  We do a range of matching accessories,
including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster.  Wish I
got to do the fitting for that!  Ha -- just my little joke.  And
there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun,
charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster
with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your
next battery.  Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free
lessons at your local gun club or range.  Or there's the *special*
presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two*
charged batteries and a night-sight, too.  Here, feel that -- don't
worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat?  Feel how light it is?
Smooth, see?  No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and*
beautifully balanced.  And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's
no recoil.  Because it's shooting light, you see?  Beautiful gun,
beautiful gun; my wife has one.  Really.  That's not a line, she
really has.  Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free
charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special
offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for
one-forty-nine."

"I'll take the special."

"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice.  Now, do--?"

"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three
six-five AP/wire-flechettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a
Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding
rounds, not the signalers.  I assume the night-sight on this toy is
compatible?"

"Aah... yes,  And how does madam wish to pay?"

She slapped her credit card on the counter.  "Eventually."

                -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background"
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I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, 'The
books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone
today!
                -- Tamim Ansary, "Edutopia Magazine, Issue 2, November 2004"
                   on the topic of school textbooks
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(riddles)
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Knucklehead:    "Knock, knock"
Pee Wee:        "Who's there?"
Knucklehead:    "Little ol' lady."
Pee Wee:        "Liddle ol' lady who?"
Knucklehead:    "I didn't know you could yodel"
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Q:      How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:      Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the
party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith
agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed
from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed
upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of
the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating
at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of
the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the
second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the
parties.
        The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be
limited to, the following.  The party of the first part shall, with or without
elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other
means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party
of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered
non-negotiable.  Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part
becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall
have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner
consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes.
Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part
shall have the option of beginning installation.  Aforesaid installation shall
occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in
step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation
should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable.
The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the
first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to
produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.
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Q:      What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an attorney?
A:      An offer you can't understand.
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Q:      What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
A:      Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!

Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they
        are removable!

Q:      An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his
        very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God?
A:      Yes, up to isomorphism!

Q:      What is a compact city?
A:      It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
        policemen!
                -- Peter Lax
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Q:      Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon?
A:      To impress Jodie Foster.
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Q:      Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and
        New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps?
A:      God gave New Jersey first choice.
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Q:      How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:      Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has
        to really want to change.