Dr. Wingnut

A first grade teacher in St. Louis explains to her class that she is a Rams fan.

She asks her students to raise their hands if they, too, are Rams fans. Everyone in the class raises their hand, except one little girl. The teacher looks at the girl with surprise and says, "Janie, why didn't you raise your hand?"

"Because I'm not a Rams fan," she replied.

The teacher, still shocked, asked, "Well, if you are not a Rams fan, then who are you a fan of?"

"I am a Patriots fan, and proud of it," Janie replied.

The teacher could not believe her ears. "Janie, why are you a Patriots fan?" "Because my Mom is a Patriots fan, and my dad is a Patriots fan, so I'm a Patriots fan too!"

"Well," said the teacher in an obviously annoyed tone, "that is no reason for you to be a Patriots fan. You don't have to be just like your parents all of the time. What if your Mom was a moron and your dad was a moron, what would you be then?"

"Then," Janie smiled, "We'd be Rams fans."

With the upcoming Olympics only a month away, I thought as a resident of Utah, I would share a few “tips” for visitors to the area:

1. Don’t laugh at the names (LaVar, LaVel, LaDell, LaMont, DelVora, Lehi, Moroni, Aldean, Brigham, or LuDean, etc.) All names are divine and are beyond gentile humor.
2. Don’t offer your Utah Volunteer Guide a cup of coffee or tea, regardless of how cold it is or how miserable they look.  It is against their religion.  Instead offer them caffeine-laden cold drinks, such as Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew.
3. That green stuff is not a mold.  It is Jell-O, the official State dessert.  You might try to taste ALL the 3,456,237 recipes for green Jell-O salad during your visit.
4. The Relief Society is NOT a group of citizens who clean public restrooms.  They are groups of mothers who specialize in quilts, casseroles and green Jell-O salad.  They meet weekly to exchange quilt patterns, casserole recipes, and interesting variations of green Jell-O salad.  In fact, they are SO dedicated, they dress like quilts, their hair is done to look like their favorite casserole, and they jiggle just like Jell-O.
5. Don’t get lost in downtown Salt Lake.  You can go north or south on West Temple, or east or west on North Temple or on South Temple, but you can’t go north on Main Street any more.  The BIG Mountains, and all alpine events are on the east side.  A large pond and little mountains are to the west.  If you’re driving and it starts to smell really bad, you’re too far west.
6. Do NOT believe the rumors; we DO sell alcohol in Utah.  But do NOT try to find retail outlets by looking under Beer, Wine, or Alcohol in the yellow pages.  All alcohol is sold by the State in tiny outlet stores hidden from sight of the general populace and unmarked by large signs or billboards.  Do not TRY to find one by asking your Utah Volunteer Guide where the liquor stores are.  You will easily find an alcoholic drink on your return flight.
7. Remember concealed weapons are legal in Utah, especially when thinking of returning any hand gesture to any of our friendly Utah drivers.
8. We don’t use profanity in Utah.  We use only approved expressions: gosh, gul-durn, dad-gumit, golly, jeminy, fetch, flip, frick, frick, etc.
9. Our bible is better than your bible, our prophet is better than yours (ours is still alive), our history is more true than yours, and nobody is allowed to laugh about the Church except Pat Bagley or Robert Kirby.
10. We don’t wear “funny underwear.”  We wear blessed undies and its considered bad taste to ask to see them and please note: they are not available as souvenirs.
11. If a Utahn introduces you to his six wives, please do not say something STUPID like “Isn’t that illegal?”  Remember the concealed weapon law.
12. You won’t find any businesses open or community activities here on Sundays all-day, Monday evenings, Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday evenings, Friday afternoons, or Saturday mornings.  These are all regularly scheduled church times and you will be expected to eat, dance, party, and recreate around them.

Finally, we really welcome you, your religion, and your diversity here, so PLEASE enjoy your stay!

http://www.satirewire.com/news/0112/hate_crime.shtml

This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks.

What happens when you predict snow but don't get any….

True story… a female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked "So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?"

Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

1. The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
2. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
3. Deja moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
4. Psychiatrists say that 1 of 4 people is mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're OK, you're it.
5. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check.
6. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
7. It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
8. Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn.
9. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
10. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a bad example.
11. Incontrovertible law: You can't fall off the floor.
12. The average woman would rather have beauty than brains because the average man can see better than he can think.
13. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.
14. Law of Dispersal Probability: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

• Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
• OK… so if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the Jags and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the Bucs, what does that make the Tennessee Titans?
• If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea…does that mean that one enjoys it?
• There are three religious truths:
  1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
  2. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
  3. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters.
• If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes?
• Why do we say something is out of whack? What's a whack?
• Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
• If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
• If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
• When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts and you put your two cents in…what happens to the other penny?!
• Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
• Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?
• Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
• Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
• Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
• If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
• If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
• Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?
• What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?
• I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
• If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?
• You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
• If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?
• If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible?
• Why isn’t 11 pronounced onety one?
• If you mixed vodka with orange juice and milk of magnesia, would you get a Philips Screwdriver?
• "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
• Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water?  Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE.
• When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?
• I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as the get older; then it dawned on me.  They’re cramming for their final exam.
• Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office?  What are we supposed to do, write to them?  Why don’t they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?
• No one ever says, "It’s only a game" when their team is winning.
• Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn’t zigzag?
• Last night I played a blank tape at full blast.  The mime next door when nuts.
• If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?
• Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?

Do you find that you're incapable of stopping upgrades? Do you spend much of your day patching security holes? Do you have a vague sense that you're spending too much money on software? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may have become overly dependent on Microsoft. Here's a handy 12-step program to cure your condition.

STEP 1

Many CIOs feel they are in a double bind with Microsoft products. The software itself seems always in need of security patches. The Windows 2000 server, for example, currently has 154 files available for download at Microsoft.com, nearly half of which are security updates.

Windows XP makes things worse. The product's new subscription licensing model has raised the ire of many executives because they feel it forces them into frequent upgrades in order to get their money's worth. But in a recent CIO survey, a majority (65 percent) admitted they weren't considering any alternatives. "A lot of us will just cry foul but then pony up," says one CIO.

STEP 2

Linux is that power. It is less expensive to acquire. It takes up less hard disk space and requires less memory to run. There is elegance in the open-source code license: You can have the source code for free, allowing you to upgrade or patch systems as you like. The only rule is that when you develop something new out of the source code, you must share that code with everyone else. Many developers believe this open-source model makes Linux inherently more secure than a proprietary operating system.

"We think we'll get blazing performance," says David Larsen, director of IS in Murray City, Utah, who's starting a migration to Linux desktops. "The other thing is, Linux is being taught in schools. It's getting easier to find skills. It's something whose time is coming."

STEP 3

This is the hardest part of running a Microsoft-free shop: deciding to do it. Linux has a geek's reputation. At the same time, many executives have a crude interpretation of its value to corporations–"It's free, and therefore it's cheap." Slowly, that mentality is changing, but it's still true that there first must be a wholehearted and willing embrace of Linux as a legitimate enterprise replacement for Microsoft. This journey usually starts with a tech executive playing around. Maybe it's a Linux firewall on a home machine. Maybe it's a Linux desktop on an old Pentium that was collecting dust. But it starts at the top. A Microsoft-free IT shop cannot exist without the CIO reading up on and understanding the power of the alternatives.

STEP 4

Do this, literally. Write down everything. A migration away from Microsoft requires very real proof that the move will make your business better. But you can't prove your case without a list of what's being replaced and why.

STEP 5

Victims of a hack or virus have likely already done this as a necessary step in the recovery process. To others, the major failing is this: They are locked into a Microsoft-dominated architecture that feeds them insecure, bloated code. Another failing is the needless codependencies of Microsoft products.

Perhaps the most expensive failing of CIOs' Microsoft-dominated IT shops is the upgrade cycle. "There's no other compelling reason to upgrade Office except to maintain compatibility with everyone else," says Larry Shutzberg, CIO of packaging maker Rock-Tenn in Atlanta.

STEP 6

If step 3 was "Decide to do it," then Step 6 is "No, really decide to do it." Psychologically preparing your company to create a Microsoft-free shop will require a complete rethinking of entrenched technology and business biases.

First, you have to plan a phased approach to taking Microsoft products offline.

This occurs application-by-application. Firewalls first.

Then mail servers. Then Web servers. Generally, the desktop OS–Microsoft's monopoly–is hardest to eschew, and so it comes last.

STEP 7

With the game plan in place, set up a "sandbox" in one corner of the enterprise–a couple of servers and desktops, and some other hardware for networking and firewalls. Here, the various Linux applications will be brought online, tested, tweaked and prepared for deployment throughout the network.

STEP 8

Prepare memos that list ways a particular application improves operations–whether it's saving disk space (Red Hat Linux distribution is about 25MB; Windows XP requires 2GB), memory, acquisition costs, or upgrade and maintenance costs. One CIO, though he thinks it's doubtful

He could migrate away from Microsoft, says a major benefit would be the time he'd take back for strategic planning. Right now, he wastes time figuring out how to proceed with nonstrategic products like Office.

STEP 9

Give them all of that freed-up disk space back. Return money saved on licensing (most Linux applications require a capital purchase and support, but little in the way of ongoing fees). At the film company DreamWorks, Ed Leonard has ported the entire graphics animation department to Linux; Shrek was created on a "renderfarm" (a powerful, refrigerator-size rack of servers) that had 800 processors running Linux. Leonard took the money he saved by not having maintenance contracts and used it to buy far more inexpensive Linux PCs. He says the money he has saved will allow DreamWorks to replace desktops and the renderfarm every two years instead of every five.

STEP 10

Now be brutally honest. If a conversion to Linux doesn't save money or improve the business, admit it in your analysis–and possibly stop the process. You're not doing this as a crusade. In many cases, honestly admitting it was an even swap will win more supporters than trying to fudge benefits that may not be there.

STEP 11

Now you can put the documentation to work. Show what moving to a Microsoft-free shop can do. Turn all that data into a slick presentation created on StarOffice Impress. Michael Tiemaan, CTO of Linux vendor Red Hat, recently did such a presentation for a customer. The customer had done a high-volume transaction on a $2.5 million, 32-processor server using Windows applications. Even then, the transaction took two weeks to finish. Red Hat and the customer put together an alternative: 10 two-processor servers running Linux. All told, it cost $500,000. The transaction now completes in one day.

STEP 12

Tiemaan arguably is in a position of power on this, but when he receives a document in a "proprietary data format"–that is, .doc, .ppt and so forth–he sends a courteous reply to the person asking her to resend the document in a nonproprietary format. Most of the time, this is a painless exchange, he says. "To run a Microsoft-free shop, you simply must be disciplined about it," Tiemaan says. "When I came here, I ditched my Windows system, and I haven't looked back."

By Scott Berinato, CIO Magazine, Jan 1, 2002

Share your attempts to run a Microsoft-free shop with Senior Writer Scott Berinato. E-mail him at sberinato@cio.com.