The setup is that Steve says there’s a convention of plumbers in town that came to see the show, so if everyone will just bear with him, he’d like to do a joke just for them:
“This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenence job, and he started working on this Finaly sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven inch gangly wrench. Well, just then, his little apprentice leaned over and said, ‘you can’t work on a Finaly sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven inch wrench!’ Well, this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got volume 14 of the Kinsley manual! And he reads to him and says, ‘The Langstrom seven inch wrench CAN be used with a Finlay sprocket!’ The little apprentice leans over and says, ‘It says sprocket, not socket!’”
The most tasteless of all medical jokes:
Q: What’s the difference between Sloan-Kettering and Shea Stadium?
A: The Mets always win at Sloan-Kettering.
(Sloan-Kettering is a New York cancer hospital. Mets, short for metastases, or cancer spreads. Shea Stadium being where the New York Metropolitans play baseball.)
As a Drosophila researcher, I have a multitude of gene name “jokes.” Fruitfly biologists are prone to name their genes bizarre things. This is a tradition that arose out of naming genes after their mutation phenotype (i.e. white mutants have white eyes, Curly mutants have curly wings). Of course, people begin to get creative (I work on a gene called dachshund, whose mutants have short little truncated legs).
Here’s some clever ones off the top of my head: ken-and-barbie: Flies have reduced genitalia tinman: Fly embryos lack a heart Indy (short for I’m not dead yet): longer lifespan grim and reaper: Genes involved in programmed cell death cheapdate: Increased alcohol sensitivity
The protein encoded by sevenless is bound by the protein encoded by Boss or Bride of sevenless.
The protein encoded by decapentaplegic is repressed by the protein encoded by Mad or Mothers against decapentaplegic.
The gene nanos (meaning dwarf in Greek) is repressed by smaug which is of course the dragon from The Hobbit.
Mouse and human researchers generally have to keep their gene names sane and boring. Although this does not stop them all of the time. The fly gene hedgehog has a number of copies in vertebrates, one of which was named Sonic hedgehog. As it turns out, SHH is one of the most important developmental genes ever discovered.
In a mid-size, mid-American city, with a mid-size planning department was a zoning administrator who held his post for over 30 years. He had a peculiar morning routine upon his arrival at the office; he would always sit down at his desk, the stealthily look around the office to see if anyone was looking (he never noticed, that the whole office did notice this everyday), then, unlock his top center desk drawer, quickly glance at an index card, quickly put the card back in the drawer, and proceed with his daily tasks. This morning ritual had gone on for as long as anyone in the office could remember.
One day, the zoning administrator dies. The whole office attends his funeral, three days later, in the morning. Afterward, they all go out to lunch together. Upon returning to the office, the staff is all standing by his old desk, reminiscing about him and his career, when suddenly, they all thought the same thing simultaneously! One planner said to another, “You get a screwdriver. I’ll get a hammer.” So, they proceed to break into the guy’s desk, pull out the index card, and then read it aloud to the group: “YELLOW - Residential, RED - Commercial, BLUE - Manufacturing, . . . .”
A doctor, a lawyer and a musician die in a bus accident and arrive at the pearly gates. St .Peter asks them what they’ve done in life to deserve getting into heaven.
The doctor says, “I’m a doctor and I came up with cures for several common diseases and saved thousands of lives.”
“Great,” says St. Peter. “Come on in.”
The lawer says, “I’m a lawyer and I spent my career doing pro bono work for the poor people of our city, and raised money to help people in third world countries.”
“Great,” says St. Peter. “Come on in.”
The musician says, “I’m a musician…”
“Great,” says St. Peter. “You go through the kitchen, past the steam tables…”
The axiom of choice is equivalent to Zorn’s lemma, tychonov’s theorem, and the Hahn-Banach theorem (roughly). Lemons and bananas are yellow. Tycho (Brahe) was famous for having a fake (supposedly) gold nose.
However, those may have a rival for worst, most obscure joke. Not in depth - anything requiring you to know who Tycho Brahe is, AND have a degree in set theory is worse - but in diversity, being based on basic physics, bad jokes, and zen buddhism.
If you’ve got to this point it’s not going to be funny regardless but since I enjoy sharing knowledge, you should be aware that (1) The greek letter pronounced ‘mu’ represents coefficient of friction, so the cat with the smaller one slips more and, giving rise to the old joke “Two cats are sitting on a roof. Which slips first? The one with the smaller mu.” and (2) ‘Mu’ is a word used in some Buddhist traditions to ‘unask’ questions which are invalid or malformed. The famous parable – I believe related to Joshu – is that it was the response the question “Does a dog have buddha nature.” I know I am very oversimplifying; if anyone wants to correct me, feel free.
Oh, I slay me. And coincidently enough, that’s what Nick threatened to do when I told him my joke.
The housekeeping boss grabs a janitor and tells him to go up front and dust the tops of the lockers. The janitor says, “Well, OK, but I don’t have to sing, do I?”
“Sing? What do you mean, sing?”
The janitor rolls his eyes, and he belts out, “Gooooooood oooooold Locker Top, Locker Top, Tennessee!” :rolleyes:
A French diplomat and a German diplomat are attending a UN conference. The German delegate is making a speech and the French delegate is listening to it via simultaneous interpretation. At one point, the interpreter falls silent. After about five minutes, the French diplomat grows antsy, and finally asks, “Why aren’t you translating?”
“Sshh!” says the interpreter. “I’m waiting for the verb!”
In one of the interminable wars between France and Germany over Alsace-Lorraine, the Germans have just reconquered it, and in accordance with the standard practice, are registering all the residents and forcing them to register under German names. Finally they come to one guy’s farmhouse and insist he take a German name.
“No,” he says.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“My name is Lagarde. If I change it to Germain, it’ll be Wache. When France takes it back, I’ll be Vache. When Germany takes it back, I’ll be Kuh. When France takes it back, I’ll be Cul. When Germany takes it back, I’ll be Arschloch. So why don’t you just call me Arschloch to begin with?”
I understand that the acrimony between the Flemish and Walloons in Belgium stems back to a treaty they signed long, long ago – just after they finished signing it, the French delegate said, “Merci!” and the Flemish delegate said, “Dank U!”
I work as a research assistant for a local stream ecology project. Mr. Toes was once asked what I do for my job. Mr. Toes is a network administrator and said that I play with rock slime all day. I told this to the head researcher who thought it was really funny.
Last week, I was assigned to extract cholorophyll from periphyton. All the lights have to be off for this and the blinds closed since chlorophyll (once extracted) is very sensitive to light. I walked into the lab that morning to find that the head researcher had taped over the windows a huge sign that said “Litho-slimology in progress!”
I really hate having to explain that one to everyone that walks into the lab. Including Mr. Toes.
:mad: :eek: