*** LAST UPDATED: 3/16/00 ***
Hello, and welcome to IHOA's Non-Smoking section. If you would like to be seated in the Smoking Section, please return to the Main Page.
We at IHOA are aware of the needs/wants of certain patrons, and so we have endeavored to make the Non-Smoking Section of IHOA as clean, and family-friendly as humanly possible. Our menu includes JOKES, QUOTES, and FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
( as always, any new items added can be found at the bottom of their respective area.)
JOKES
Adam was walking around the Garden of Eden feeling very lonely, and he heard a loud voice ask him, "What is wrong with you?" Adam said he didn't have anyone to talk to. Then the loud voice said he was going to give him a companion and it would be a woman. He said "this person will cook for you and wash your clothes, she will always agree with every decision you make. She will bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. She will not nag you, and will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you've had a disagreement. She will never have a headache, and will freely give you love and compassion whenever needed." Adam asked "What would a woman like this cost me??" The answer was "an arm and a leg." Adam then asked "What can I get for just a rib???" The rest is history.
When a group of friars from a nearby monastery decided to open a florist shop in a small town, the town's only other florist was dismayed. He felt the town could never support two florist shops, so he embarked on a campaign to get rid of the friars. He argued with them, he pleaded with them, he threatened to sue them. But nothing worked.Finally, in desperation, he hired a notorious strong-arm man known as Hugh the Horrible, and instructed him to lean on the monks. Hugh the Horrible visited the rival shop, and so intimidated the poor friars that they immediately packed up and left town.The moral of this story: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
Recently a teacher, a garbage collector, and a lawyer wound up together at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter informed them that in order to get into Heaven, they would each have to answer one question. St. Peter addressed the teacher and asked, "What was the name of the ship that crashed into the iceberg? They just made a movie about it." The teacher answered quickly, "That would be the Titanic." St. Peter let him through the gate. St. Peter turned to the garbage man and, figuring Heaven didn't REALLY need all the odors that this guy would bring with him, decided to make the question a little harder: "How many people died on the ship?" Fortunately for him, the trash man had just seen the movie and answered, "about 1,500." "That's right! You may enter." St. Peter then turned to the lawyer. "Name them."
The manager hired a new secretary. She was young, sweet and polite. One day while taking dictation, she noticed his fly was open.While leaving the room, she courteously said, "Oh by the way sir, did you know that your barracks door is open? He did not understand her remark, but later on he happened to look down and saw that his zipper was open. He decided to have some fun with his new employee. Calling her in, he asked, "By the way Miss Jones, when you saw my barracks door open, did you also see a soldier standing at attention?" The secretary, who was quite witty replied, "Why no sir, all I saw was a little disabled veteran sitting on two duffel bags."
This little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way. I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Your mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense." So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politcs now." The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is about." The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the working class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit."
A Quick Round of Golf...... Sid and Barney head out for a quick round of golf. Since they are short on time, they decide to play only 9 holes. Sid offers Barney, "let's say we make the time worth the while, at least for one of us, and spot $5 on the lowest score for the day." Barney agrees and they enjoy a great game. After the 8th hole, Barney is ahead by 1 stroke, but cuts his ball into the rough on the 9th.
"Help me find my ball, you look over there," he says to Sid. After 5 minutes, neither has had any luck, and since a lost ball carries a four-point penalty, Barney pulls a ball from his pocket and tosses it to the ground. "I've found my ball!" he announces triumphantly. Sid looks at him forlornly, "After all the years we've been friends, you'd cheat me on golf for a measly five bucks?!?"
"What do you mean cheat? I found my ball sitting right here!"
"And a liar, too!!!" Sid says with amazement. "I'll have you know I've been standing on your ball for the last five minutes!"
A Precise Definition of "Windows 95"...... Windows 95(n) - 32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition.
"THE Y1K CRISIS"......An Article from a London Newspaper (circa 999 A.D.)
Canterbury, England. A.D. 999.- An atmosphere close to panic prevails today throughout Europe as the millennial year 1000 approaches, bringing with it the so-called "Y1K Bug," a menace which, until recently, hardly anyone had ever heard of. Prophets of doom are warning that the entire fabric of Western Civilization, based as it now is upon monastic computations, could collapse, and that there is simply not enough time left to fix the problem. Just how did this disaster-in-the-making ever arise? Why did no one anticipate that a change from a three-digit to a four-digit year would throw into total disarray all liturgical chants and all metrical verse in which any date is mentioned? Every formulaic hymn, prayer, ceremony and incantation dealing with dated events will have to be re-written to accommodate three extra syllables. All tabular chronologies with three-space year columns, maintained for generations by scribes using carefully hand-ruled lines on vellum sheets, will now have to be converted to four-space columns, at enormous cost. In the meantime, the validity of every official event, from baptisms to burials, from confirmations to coronations, may be called into question.
"We should have seen it coming ," says Brother Cedric of St. Michael Abbey, here in Canterbury. "What worries me most is that THOUSAND contains the word THOU, which occurs in nearly all our prayers, and of course always refers to God. Using it now in the name of the year will seem almost blasphemous, and is bound to cause terrible confusion. Of course, we could always use Latin, but that might be even worse -- The Latin word for Thousand is Mille which is the same as the Latin for mile. We won't know whether we are talking about time or distance!" Stonemasons are already reported threatening to demand a proportional pay increase for having to carve an extra numeral in all dates on tombstones, cornerstones and monuments. Together with its inevitable ripple effects, this alone could plunge the hitherto-stable medieval economy into chaos. A conference of clerics has been called at Winchester to discuss the entire issue, but doomsayers are convinced that the matter is now one of personal survival. Many families, in expectation of the worst, are stocking up on holy water and indulgences.
Cardiac Lecture.....A Cardiologist came up with a new operating procedure that would cut down the time that heart surgery would take and would cause less trauma to the patient. He was praised by his peers when he presented it at a convention in Washington D.C. He was also paid $50,000 to present his find. He did a couple more of these presentations and realized that it would be more lucrative to do lectures on his find than to work as a surgeon. So he decided to do the lectures full-time. He hired a driver and purchased a limousine.
One day, after he'd been doing the lecture circuit for about 6 months, his driver turns to him and says: "You know.... This is completely not fair."
"What do you mean?" asked the surgeon
"Well, you get paid $50,000 everytime you do this lecture and that's more than I get paid in a year" said the driver. The surgeon explains to him that it is a very complicated procedure and that he is the only person that can give this lecture."That's not true, I can do your lecture blindfolded. I have seen you do your lecture so many times that I know it by heart." said the driver.
"Well if that's the case, I'll tell you what. You do this lecture and you can keep the $50,000 if you do it right." said the surgeon. The driver says "Ok, your on."
So when they arrive at the lecture hall, the surgeon and the driver change coats and the surgeon puts on the driver's hat and sits in the back of the room.
The driver nails the presentation. Not only that, he also answers all the questions without any problems. Just when the driver thinks he's done, an audience member, wearing a lab coat and tape covered glasses stands up and asks a complex question that the driver is not able to answer.
"You know..." says the driver, "I have done this lecture 287 times and I have never been asked such a stupid question. As a matter of fact, that question is SO stupid that I am going to let my driver answer it."
QUOTES
" None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The system is not a true reality, but an idea that can be fought and dismantled." -Mumia Abu-Jamal
" The mythical doctrine of free market economics rests on the bizzare assumption that the modern American corporate scene is actually like Adam Smith's rural country market in which all the farmers came to town to compete for the business of sharp-eyed customers." - Ben Bagdikian
" Common sense is what tells you the world is flat." - St. Gulik Fnord
" He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. " - George Orwell
" Any man can hear the world around him, but it takes a wise man to listen." - Nathan Hafner
" I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see." - Edmund Spencer
"The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind." - Katherine Mansfield
" All my life, I have believed in the God of Reason, the Master Maker with his compass, and dividers and his Plan. But the Gods are mad, blind horrors, and all our lives are as the dust in their eyes. " - Grant Morrison
" What is a human being then?"
" A seed. "
" A...seed?"
" An acorn that is unafraid to destory itself in growing into a tree." - David Zindell
" 200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today. Not one of them is Cuban." - ( a sign in Havana, photographed in March 1997 )
" Life is the road between bliss and trajedy. Most of us traverse it, never staying too long at either place. " - Nathan Hafner
" Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility."- Bertrand Russell
"If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?" - Anonymous
" The heart is a five pound lump of muscle, I prefer billions of neurons. " - Chris Tillotson
"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore Vidal
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H. P. Lovecraft
"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence." - George Washington
" The People must believe that they are not manipulated in order for them to be manipulated effectively. " - Winston Smith
" If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face- forever. " - 1984
" Who controls the mind controls the world. " - Winston Smith
" Religion is what seperates the thinkers from the dreamers. The thinkers stop and think it over and decide it's absurd. The dreamers never stop dreaming and decide it's not a dream. " - Nathan Hafner
" Hawaii had always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here. " - Dan Quayle during a visit to Hawaii in 1989
" Tradition is the illusion of permanence." - Woody Allen
"Life is an important treasure. The first thing you need to do is to find the 'X' that marks the spot."- Kisha Howard
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?" - Steven Wright
"The government cannot give anything that it hasn't already taken away."- Jello Biafra
" Courage lies in neither the mind nor the body, but in the spirit." - Nathan Hafner
" I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other." - George Bush, 1988
"Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer." - Lester Maddox, then governer of Georgia, on why his state should not create a consumer protection agency.
"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own." - Aristotle
" To kill without remorse is to be a god." - Derek Jensen
"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." - Thomas Edison
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." - Goethe
" A goal is a planned conflict with the status quo." - Hyrum Smith
" You can be a victor without having victims." - Harriet Woods
"The Florida legislators are writing their laws in the blood of the Colorado dead." - Nathan Hafner
"Honor, Honor's killed millions of people, never saved a single one." - Gary Oldman-The Fifth Element
"Sell crazy some place else, we're all stocked up here." - Jack Nicholson- As Good As It Gets
"A friendship, like a child, must be nourished and protected and not negelcted and spurned, or, like a child, it will become bitter and turn on you." - Nathan Hafner
" Only truly good persons think of the needs of others before the needs of themselves." - Nathan Hafner
"Madness is part of all of us, all the time, and it comes and goes, waxes and wanes." - Otto Friedrich
"Most people would rather die than think: many do." - Bertrand Russell
"The poststructuralists tell us that criticism is impossible, subversion futile, and revolution a childish and reactionary dream. But these are the defeatist rationalizations of yuppie academics with middle class aspirations of a slow comfortable death. If they had the nerve to write graffiti it would read 'If you can't beat them join them'. " - Temporarily Unknown
"Hope is a waking dream." - Aristotle
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
It's called the butterfly effect. A butterfly starts flapping it's wings in China, and over the course of time, that little movement of air becomes a hurricane in Texas. One day you got a butterfly dancin' on a flower, the next, you got pianos stuck in trees. And little butterfly, he didn't know any better. He was just out lookin' for food, for love, for some kind of satisfaction.
Goldfish. They live their whole lives in 30 second intervals. Every half minute, their little brain forgets what the last half minute of their life was like. In other words, when this goldfish is happy, he thinks he's been happy his whole life. Since his whole was only 30 seconds ago. And when this little goldfish is hungry, he thinks he's been hungry his whole life. And when he's dying, this little goldfish thinks he's been dying....his whole life. Imagine that. Death being the only life this little goldfish will ever know.
People are always wondering if their pets are gonna make it to heaven. If Jo-Jo and Muffy are gonna pass through those pearly gates. How much you wanna bet the animals are wondering if their masters are gonna make it? Cats, dogs, parakeets, they don't spend their whole lives drowning in sin, lies, and suffering. They just wallow in the truth. Imagine that. If all we humans knew of life on earth was the god-damn truth.
So what is it that seperates you and me from the goldfish, the butterfly, the cats and dogs? Is it our minds, huh? Our souls, huh? The fact that we can get HBO? Well, maybe it's that humans are the only species to put other animals in cages, to put its own kind....in cages. - taken from OZ of HBO
I Want To Start My Own Religion
(The story below takes place at an unknown place in the year 425 A.D.)
I want to start my own religion. I think it can be done. Let me share with you my objective and my 10 step plan as how I shall do it:
Objective
I'll be honest with you, I want to make a lot of money! The tax breaks alone granted church organizations have made religion a multi-trillion dollar business worldwide. Make no mistakes about it, religion is BIG business. Most church organizations (particularly the Roman Catholic Church) have financial advisors, real estate holdings, stocks & bonds, issue loans with interest, along with a host of other money making methods. I want a piece of that pie.
I love power and control. There are three subjects that instill the most conversation and passion in people: religion, politics and sex. With my new religion I can have all three! I will have political power as my new religion and church financial holdings grow, and I can have all the sex (safe) I want as indicated by the past history of the papacy, and contemporary religious scandals show.
I will focus on peoples fears, superstitions and ignorance regarding God and the afterlife. I have seen how many of the other religions have profited tremendously from this tried and true method. You know what they say: "If it aint broke don't fix it". I shall convince the people that a God who has the capability of creating this vast and limitless universe cares about every single individual. Even though God created all things here and beyond with an infinitesimal amount of his power they will believe he cares about them personally. It's worked before, I know it can again.
Plan
1) I need to find someone in history who may or may not have existed to be the messiah of my new religion. I know there are other religions that have no physical person as their focal point, but I think having one does help.
2) I will follow the success formula of the other major religions and copy/incorporate into my new religion all that I like from the religions before mine.
3) This is the most important part of my plan. I shall write a "holy book" to substantiate all the claims of my new religion. I will say it's inspired, to give it credibility. Even though it's my religion giving its own book the stamp of inspiration/credibility, I'm sure no one will notice. It's worked before.
4) I shall keep my new holy book in the hands of my priest for as long as I can. I will not allow it to be transalated into the common language of the ignorant people I want to control. Since there is no way with today's technology to mass produce my holy book, my priest and I will control its content.
5) I will edit, delete and add to my holy book freely. Since I alone posses the only originals no one can stop me. If a religious, moral or political issue comes up and my created messiah did not address it, I can re-edit my holy book and put the words in his mouth. Remember...no one will know, I control my holy book.
6) In case I forget to cover a subject in my holy book, I have a great idea how to cover my ass in the future. I shall never, never, never have my created messiah answer a question directly. My created messiah will talk in parables, like most parables they will be subject to interpretation. This will give my priest room to work with when confronted with tough questions.
7) I predict that it will be almost 1,000 years before man develops the technology to mass reproduce my holy book. This will give my priest 1,000 years to edit, delete and add to my holy book freely. I'm confident in that amount of time my holy book will be able to refute questions from any dirty little atheist/heretic/pagan/heathen.
8) I will convert the leader of my country to my new religion. I will even allow him to have a say into what my holy book's content should be. With the leader of my country in my hip pocket, I will convince him to use his imperial power to shove my new religion down the throats of the ignorant people. If they complain too strongly, they will be killed.
9) With the government behind me and its military might to support me, I will have them burn libraries, destroy pagan temples, kill heretics, have blasphemers imprisoned, exile my outspoken brethren, torture the innocent, have holy wars and disrespect other religions. This wholesale destruction unparalleled in the history of mankind hopefully will accomplish two things. It will eliminate any other religious choices for the ignorant people and it should destroy all the other pagan religions' history. At worst pagan history will be fragmented enough so not to reveal the deceptive truth about my new religion.
10) And finally...I will have my devout followers tamper/interpolate with the ancient documents that are left so there will be mention of my created messiah in history.
This is my 10 step plan to start my new religion, it's worked before...I know it can again.
Questions, or comments? You can reach us at the E-mail address at the bottom of this page.
