In a small Jewish community, there was a problem: should people stand or sit when reciting the prayers? Every time they got to the prayers, half the people stood and the other half sat. The ones standing would shout, “Stand up! Stand up!” The ones sitting would shout, “Sit down! Sit down!” And the prayer would always end in chaos and argument. Realizing they couldn’t go on like this, they went to a great rabbi and asked him, “Are we supposed to stand or sit during the Kaddish?” The rabbi looked into the sources and authorities, and ruled: “There’s no biblical requirement—it depends on the custom of your community.” “But how can we know what the community's tradition was?” they asked. “Ask one of the founders of your community,” the rabbi replied. “See what they did back then.” So the congregation found a 90-year-old man, one of the original members of the community who no longer came to services, and they sent a delegation from both sides to ask him. “Are we supposed to stand?” asked the standers. “No!” said the old man. “That was not the community tradition!” The sitters beamed. “So we’re supposed to sit?” “No!” the old man answered again. “That wasn’t the custom either!” “So what is the custom?” the delegation asked. “Well,” said the old man, “what’s happening now is that half of you stand, half of you sit, the standers yell ‘Stand up! Stand up!’, the sitters yell ‘Sit down! Sit down!’, and the prayer ends in a mess and a big fight!” His face lit up. “THAT is our custom!"

The animal kingdom had become overpopulated. The lion, being the head of the animal kingdom, made a decree: A joke telling contest would be held at the end of the week. The tortoise, unanimously agreed upon as being the fairest of all the animals, was appointed as the official judge. The rules were simple: tell your joke to the tortoise, and if he laughs, you can stay, but if he does not, you are banished. The competition would continue until the population of the kingdom was reduced in half. All the animals spent the rest of the week preparing. Never before in the animal kingdom had so much original content been created. Jokes upon jokes were imagined, tweaked, and committed to memory. The animals worked tirelessly, until finally, the joke telling day came. All the animals were gathered in a great assembly. Before animals were chosen at random to present their jokes, an offer was extended to any animal who thought they had a truly exception joke. The zebra volunteered almost immediately. It was not very often that he got to go first at anything because of that whole pesky "Z" thing. Additionally, he felt that his joke was quite funny, and wanted to make sure that he got a chance to present it to the tortoise before the tortoise was tired of laughing. He nervously approached the podium, and presented his material. It was short, sweet, and had an excellent punchline. To the zebras relief, the whole animal kingdom erupted in a roar of laughter, and it fact, it took several minutes for everyone to calm down... ...except for the tortoise. Without emotion, he just stared back at the zebra. The zebra was shocked, the rest of the kingdom astonished, but sadly, everyone knew what this meant. The zebra was escorted away, never to be seen from again. It came time for the second animal to give his joke. Again, they polled for volunteers, and after some hesitation, the chimpanzee raised his hand. The chimp figured it had a good repertoire of making others laugh, and while the tortoise was apparently a tough crowd, he figured he probably had a decent shot. He had worked hard on this, and had about a five minute act. The chimp's animatedly presented his finest material. It was a bit song, a bit dance, and a ton of humor. The kingdom chuckled throughout the act, but when the chimp dropped his final punchline, the kingdom went berserk. Never before had such a funny joke been told: the whole act, while funny in itself, was the perfect setup to the final line. This was not a joke, it was a work of art. Once everyone had again calmed down, all eyes were on the tortoise. He was unmoved. The chimp was astonished, the kingdom flabbergasted. The chimp was escorted away. At this, no one dared to volunteer. Two masters of the craft were just set away. How could anyone compete? There was silence across the animal kingdom. Everyone felt the weight of the impending doom that was their fate. There were no more volunteers, their only hope was to not be called. All they could do was wait. It was then than the bison was called. He lumbered up to the front. He took a big gulp; he knew he really wasn't good at joke telling anyway, and was pretty sure that he was destined to fail He hesitated, stuttered, stammered, but presented his joke to the best of his ability anyway. When the punchline was delivered, (or at least what seemed to have been whatever punchline there could have been at such a scenario,) there was a collective moan over the kingdom. The joke, was it even a joke? was horrible. Everyone knew that he would be escorted away to his...wait, what? The tortoise! He began to chuckle. Not just a "heh" chuckle, this was a real chuckle. Not a chuckle, this was a lough! Then more and more! He was laughing so hard he was having a hard time catching his breath. How could this be? Did the tortoise have some strange sense of humor? Why was he laughing at this? Was he senile? The kingdom was sent into confusion. Finally the lion interjected. "SILENCE!" he shouted. He addressed the judge: "Oh wise and fair tortoise, why is it that you find the bison's joke so humorous, but none of the other animals' jokes?" "What Bison?" replied the tortoise. "I was laughing at the zebra's joke!"

Software development cycle: 1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free. 2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found. 3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren't really bugs. 4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn't work and discovers 15 new bugs. 5. Repeat three times steps 3 and 4. 6. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released. 7. Users find 137 new bugs. 8. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found. 9. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones. 10. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits. 11. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs. 12. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch. 13. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.

A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source. He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads "Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827". Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth Symphony, and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him. By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward. Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th. By the next day the word has spread and a crowd has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Third Symphony being played backward. Just then the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the group asks him if he has an explanation for the music. "I would have thought it was obvious," the caretaker says. "He's decomposing."

It was a sunny day in Rome when the Pope decided that he wants all the Jews out of Rome. Of course, there was a huge protest from the Jewish sector. So the Pope decided he will give them a chance. He invited them to send their greatest mind for a religious debate with him. If the Jewish man won, the Jews could remain living in the city. If the Pope won, the Jews had to leave. At the Jewish community, they realized that they had no choice. They looked around for a champion who could defend their faith, but no one wanted to volunteer. It was too much responsibility, what if they failed? The only one willing was an old man named Moishe. Being old, he decided he had less to lose. "I've seen and done it a lot in my life. I'm not afraid." he said. He asked only for one addition to the debate. Not being used to saying very much, he asked that neither side be allowed to talk. The Pope accepted this, thinking it a wise decision and will prevent them from repeating the same old arguments. The day of the holy debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other for several minutes, contemplating each other. Then the Pope raised his hand and unfurled them to show three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised just one finger. The Pope waved his finger in a circle around himself. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat emphatically. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, 'I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay!' An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said: 'First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was everywhere and will wherever they go from this place. He responded by pointing to the ground, showing that God was also right here with us, judging us always. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us of our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me that we are born with original sin. The man had an answer for everything. What could I do??' Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe, amazed that this old, almost feeble-minded man had done what all their scholars had insisted was impossible! 'What happened?' they asked. 'Well,' said Moishe, 'first he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here.' 'And then?' asked a woman. 'I don't know,' Moishe shrugged. 'He took out his lunch and I took out mine.'

My 3 year old daughter came to me and asked: “Mommy, where does poo come from?” I decided it was best to explain it at a level she would understand so I said: “You just had breakfast?” “Yes”, she replied. “Well, the food goes in your mouth down into your tummy. Our body takes all the good stuff it needs out of the food and then what’s left goes down to your bottom and when you go to the toilet that comes out as poo.” She looked confused and stared at me in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then asked: “And Tigger?”

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies. The head monk, says, 'We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.' He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot . So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing. 'We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!' His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, 'What's wrong, father?' With a choking and tear filled voice, the Abbot screams: "The word was... the word was... c e l e b r a t e!"