BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....

Subject: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 05:00 PM

James Baldwin or Mark Twain or someone advises us, "be careful what you wish for -- as you may get it...".

As witness this sorry young wannabe literati:

Great Writer

-------------

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire become a great writer.

When asked to define "great" he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 05:45 PM

And I thought it was going to be Jeffrey Archer's defence statement......! (Still get the giggles over his 4 years away... and they reckon he's not trustworthy enough to be sent to an open prison!!! HAAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!)

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Wavestar
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 08:02 PM

... it may get shoved up your a**. But what if you wished for a pony?

-J

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 01:41 AM

Well, Wavestar, that would depend on which slang dictionary your Genie was familiar with:
You might receive twenty five pounds sterling (a pony).
However, if you were unlucky, the Genie might be familiar with Cockney rhyming slang, in which case you'd receive a Pony and Trap ie a Crap.
NOT, I think, what was desired!

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Deni
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 03:37 AM

I wished for someone to love and I ended up with five kids!!!

PS: But I wouldn't swap them.

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 04:29 AM

What about the man who wished for a penis that would touch the ground? His legs got cut off!

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 05:39 AM

There's a funny passage in one of Arnold Bennett's "Clayhanger" trilogy where the hero's son and his mates, schoolkids, get religion and decide to pray for something. Young master C prays for a two-bladed penknife, unaware that C senior's mates are on the other side of the fence listening to every word. One of them has a two-bladed penknife, and throws it over the fence for a joke, where it lands on young C's head, to much astonishment. After this evidence of the efficacy of prayer, one of the others kids suggest that they pray for a bicycle--and panic ensues!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: pavane
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 05:45 AM

There's always the old story about the little piano player, only a foot tall, playing in a bar in Ireland. When asked where he came from, the landlord said that he once did a favour for one of the 'little people', and was granted a wish. But the fairy must have been a bit deaf, and gave him a 12 inch pianist. (The old ones are still the best..)

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 05:47 AM

And my Grandad, who was a Methodist and took his religion seriously, always said that God always answers your prayer, but you don't always get the answer you expected.

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: IanC
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 06:07 AM

Yes, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

;-)
Ian

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Gervase
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 07:13 AM

I was always a great fan of the short stories of Saki, and thorugh his stuff I found W.W.Jacobs' work. His classic The Monkey's Paw is one of the best "Are you sure you want to wish for that?" stories around.

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 07:24 AM

Amos,
'spose he was the guy who ended up writing these ones?!

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful
Microsoft error messages with their own Japanese haiku poetry, each
with only 17 syllables: five in the first line, seven in the second,
five in the third.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent and reboot.
Order shall return.

Aborted effort.
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No-one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

I ate your Web page.
Forgive me; it was tasty
And tart on my tongue

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Kim C
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 09:41 AM

Steve, your Granddad was right. I wanted to be a rock star, and instead, I'm a folk singer. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 10:14 AM

Funny, Kim: I wanted to be a folk singer when I was a kid, and I am ... must be God's way of punishing me! What's that old saying? "Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad" ...

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Be Careful What You Wish For....
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 09:01 PM

My best highschool buddy was a Preacher's Kid. His mother assured us that God DOES answer prayers. But that "No" is just as authentic an answer as "Yes".

DAve Oesterreich