Top Ten Favorite Activities of Jean-Luc Picard

1. Ordering Earl Grey tea from the computer, then smacking himself on the forehead and saying, "I could have had a V-8!"
2. Yelling "Punchbuggy!", then hitting Riker's arm whenever he sees a shuttlecraft.
3. Screwing around in the holodeck when he ought to be on the bridge!
4. Spotlighting unsuspecting crew members with the glare from his forehead.
5. Lecturing everybody on why it's rude to fire the phasers at other life-forms.
6. Sending crank subspace messages to Starfleet Command asking if Dick Hertz is there.
7. Asking Beverly Crusher to come to his quarters so he can show her "a REAL Picard Maneuver."
8. Ticking off Romulan commanders during tense confrontations in the neutral zone by asking, "Are those Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing?"
9. Telling crewmembers in menacing, Dirty Harry voice, "Go ahead, make it so."
10. Putting banana peels on the transporter pads just before an away team beams back up.

Cloud Watching

Q: What are clouds made of?
A: Mostly Intel based Linux servers.

How It All Began

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com, did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.  And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. She said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"  And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, Dear?" And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)." Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. The drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.  But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short. And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks. Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known "eBay" he said, "we need a name that reflects what we are," and Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "YAHOO", said Abraham. And that is how it all began, It wasn't Al Gore after all.