ID: 13511
College
Once, a barber found two MIT students wanting to buy his barber pole. They offered a good price for it, so the barber sold it to them. So - these two guys drove around all day in a pickup truck carrying the barber pole. They kept getting stopped by the police, who were sure they had stolen the pole. But each time, the students referred back to the barber they had bought the pole from. So finally, an APB went out all over Boston, saying that if police saw two students driving around with a barber pole, they should leave them alone.
The next day, every single barber pole in Boston was missing.
ID: 15589
College
45 Fun Things to Do on a Paper You Don't Care About
1. Type every word in a different font. Alternate really big fonts with really small fonts.
2. Support your thesis with quotes from your VCR manual.
3. Write the entire paper on Post-it notes and turn it in by sticking them all over the professor's door.
4. Switch the names of prominent history figures with the names of your friends, classmates, etc. Claim that your roommate led the Spanish Armada.
5. Write a paper discussing why Michelangelo got to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but Van Gogh didn't. Discuss whether Van Gogh would have used nunchakus or katanas.
6. Write your paper by cutting out words from magazines and sticking them on the page, ransom-note style.
7. End the paper with "This paper will self-destruct in 10 seconds".
8. Perfume the paper with catnip. Explain that it was to keep your dog from eating it.
9. If assigned a paper in philosophy class, explain that you can't do the paper because you're not sure if the class really exists, or if it and the professor are just illusions created by your subconscious. If you do end up writing the paper, write about whether or not the paper actually exists.
10. If assigned a 2000-word paper, draw two pictures of what the paper was supposed to be about. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?
11. Type gibberish. When you hand it in, claim that your computer crashed while you were printing it, and you couldn't retrieve the original.
12. Cite issues of Spiderman and Batman as resources in your bibliography.
13. Turn the paper in by making paper airplanes out of the pages of the paper and attempting to fly them onto the professor's desk.
14. The night before the paper is due, call the professor and explain that you can't turn your paper in because it contains sensitive military information and is only available on a "need to know" basis. Insist that General Schwarzkopf says you should get an 'A'.
15. Write your history paper on parchment, using a quill. Say that you were trying to get the feel for the period.
16. Turn in a letter you wrote to your cousin. When the teacher confronts you about it, say that you must have gotten the letter and the paper mixed up. Say that you'll turn the paper in as soon as you get it back, but your cousin lives in Siberia, so it might take a while.(This is a nifty way to get an extension.)
17. When writing an especially long paper, put a recipe for chocolate cake in the middle and see if the professor notices.
18. Tell the professor that you need an extension because one of your primary sources is an old wise man in Tibet and he won't see you until the next full moon.
19. Paint a large white stripe down the front of your paper. Say that on the way to class, your dropped it in the street and it got run over by one of those trucks that paint lines on the road.
20. Make a footprint on the back of one of the pages. When questioned by the professor, act like it's nothing unusual. After all, he did tell you to include footnotes.
21. Bring candles and incense to class. Before handing in the paper, perform an elaborate ceremony, entreating the gods to bless the paper and correct all your typos.
22. Make a tape of you singing the contents of your paper, opera-style, and hand that in.
23. Write your psychology paper on possible genetic anomalies that might cause a person to prefer anchovies.
24. Hand your paper in in a sealed envelope with postmarks from several different countries on it. Say that you wanted several different perspectives on your work.
25. TTyyppee eevveerryy lleetttteerr ttwwiiccee..
26. Get a large piece of paper or canvas. Smear paint all over it and hand it in as your paper. Explain that the topic was such an emotional one for you, and that mere words couldn't possibly express what you had to say.
27. Compare and contrast the characters of James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Claim that one is actually Hamlet, and the other is King Lear. Say that Worf is Ophelia.
28. Carve your paper on the bathroom wall.
29. Refuse to do the paper on account of the fact that you are a member of Greenpeace and strongly object to the gratuitous slaughter of trees caused by the massive amount of paper used in writing assignments.
30. Put nonsense words down as quotes. Say that you are quoting the words of a well-known Zen master who was speaking in tongues at the time.
31. Use a forklift to bring your paper to class, even if it's only a few pages. Explain that it involved some very heavy reading.
32. Poke several holes in the paper. Say that you were mobbed by crows on the way to class.
33. Print all the pages on one sheet of paper, with the text overlapping. Say that that was all the paper you had.
34. Write about whether Plato would have said that Miller Light is "less filling" or that it "tastes great". Also explain why Aristotle would have taken the opposite view. Try to predict both philosphers' reactions to Spuds McKensie.
35. Draw pictures of your professor in the margins.
36. Make your paper one long, neverending sentence that goes on for pages and pages and pages; use alot of semi-colons, commas, and other interesting, rarely-used punctuation marks [(for example), an interesting one: the colon_] but never ever end the sentence {[_-\|/??!]}.
37. Staple a picture of an academic building to the paper. Cite the picture as a resource.
38. On the day the paper is due, skip into class, waving the paper and screaming, "I have a paper! I have a paper!". Run around the class a few times, then joyfully throw it out the window. Laugh and yell, "There's my paper!", then run outside to get it. Repeat this all through the period, or until the prof throws you out.
39. Come to class leading a horse or camel. When asked to turn in the paper, take it out of one of the saddlebags, then shoot the horse/camel/whatever away. Refuse to discuss it.
40. Draw obscure connections between totally unrelated things. For example, claim that abnormal amounts of neutrino activity in Germany caused Hitler to invade France, or that the Roman empire collapsed because of a shortage of qualified botanists.
41. Refer to all prominant historical figures by nicknames. For example, call George Washington "Georgie". Call Ben Franklin "Sparky".
42. Pwetend you have a speech impediment and awways type w's whenevew you weawwy want to type r's ow l's.
43. Ol, switch alound arr the l's and r's in youl papel, rike Monty Python did in Queen Erizabeth the Thild.
44. When your prof asks for an outline of your paper, draw the outline of the piece of paper you typed it on and hand it in.
45. Spill a martini on your sociology paper. Say that you wrote it in a bar so that you could see "sociology in action"
ID: 12590
College
Here is a collection of freshman history bloopers collected by a Canadian history professor (Anders Henrickson) over the years.
During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were cooperatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table before us, ready for dissection.
After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeoed into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drifters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside.
Mideval people were violent. Murder during this Period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ) from the Islams.
In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of yeowls arose. Finally Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port by infected rats. Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. The plague also helped the emergance of the English language as the national language of England, France and Italy.
The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renasence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world thanks to Northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Art was on a more associated level. Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out of their doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.
The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope, thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man's quest for ressurection above the not-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
ID: 14143
College
Each simile listed below was actually used by high school students in their various essays and short stories:
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 P.M. instead of 7:30.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie, this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "second tall man."
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers race across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 P.M. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 P.M. at a speed of 35 mph.
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
ID: 15215
College
The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen.
"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."
One student replied:
"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.
The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.
On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.
"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.
"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g).
"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.
"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.
"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper.'"
The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.
ID: 13664
College
My American History teacher was giving a lecture about the first three presidents. A lot of people in my class can't remember presidents very well.
"You all are brainwashed," he said.
Of course, there was confusion in the room at this comment.
"Let me demonstrate," he continued, "'I'm Cuckoo for...'"
"Cocoa Puffs!" the class replied.
"You don't know the ninth president of the United States, but you know that you are 'Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.'"
Then, this one guy in my class said, "If the presidents were finger-lickin' good, we'd remember 'em."
ID: 15187
College
Having just graduated from Harvard, the young man was very excited thinking about his future. Getting into a taxi, the driver says to him, "How are you on this beautiful, sunny day?"
"I'm the class of 2006. I just graduated from Harvard and I'm very excited about getting out there and seeing what the world has in store for me!"
The driver shakes the young man's hand and replies, "Congratulations, young man. I'm George, class of 1968."
ID: 7789
College
-Overheard by a professor in the halls a few weeks after the semester starts-
Male student to another male student-
"Yeah, I signed up for a women's studies course. It wasn't what I expected it to be."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Well, it involves all this reading about ancient goddesses, and about female empowerment. I thought the class would be a little more...hands on."
ID: 9422
College
1. Only raise your hand when you want to sharpen your pencil or go to the bathroom. Repeat every ten minutes.
2. Never raise your hand when you want to answer a question; instead, yell, "Ooooh! Oooh! Oooh!" and then, when the teacher calls on you, say, "I forgot what I was going to say."
3. Lean your chair back, take off your shoes, and put your feet up on your desk. Act surprised when the teacher puts all four legs of your chair back on the floor.
4. Drop the eraser end of your pencil on your desk. See how high it will bounce.
5. Drop your books on the floor. See how loud a noise you can make.
6. Hum. Get all your friends to join in.
7. Hold your nose, make a face, and say, "P.U.!" Fan the air away from your face and point to the kid in the front of you.
8. On the last day of school, lead your classmates in chanting:
"No more pencils!
No more books!
No more teachers'
dirty looks!"
9. Then on your way out the door, tell the teacher, "Bet you're looking forward to summer vacation this year. But I'll sure miss you. You're the best teacher I've ever had!"
+10,000 Jokes