This page was originally a section of my Odds and Ends page, but after an amusing weekend browsing around joke sites on the internet, it's grown.

I've chosen a selection of my favourite jokes from various sites to start you off, so if you want more, I suggest you try out some of the links at the bottom and give your chuckle muscles a good work out.

Musical JokesScience-related JokesMovie ClichésMakes you Think...Lynx

Enjoy yourself!

Lightbulbs...

How many second violinists does it take to change a light bulb? 
     None. They can't get up that high! 

How many tuba players does it take to change a light bulb? 
     Three! One to hold the bulb and two to drink 'till the room spins. 

How many sopranos does it take to change a lightbulb? 
        1.One. She holds the bulb and the world revolves around her. 
        2.Two. One to hold the diet cola and the other to get her accompanist to do it. 
        3.Four. One to change the bulb and three to pull the chair out from under her. 

Viola jokes... (a fraction of the thousands that exist, though why, I don't know!)

Why are viola jokes so short? 
     So violinists can understand them.

If you threw a violist and a soprano off a cliff, which one would hit the ground first? (two answers) 
        1.The violist. The soprano would have to stop halfway down to ask directions. 
        2.Who cares? 

What's the definiton of ``perfect pitch?'' 
     Throwing a viola into a dumpster without hitting the rim.

What do you call a person who makes viola jokes?
A person who can't play  

Miscellaneous

Why did the chicken cross the road? 
     To get away from the bassoon recital.

There's nothing I like better than the sound of a banjo, unless of course it's the sound of a chicken caught in a vacuum cleaner.

Why do bagpipe players walk while they play? 
     To get away from the noise.

What happens if you play blues music backwards? 
     Your wife returns to you, your dog comes back to life, and you get out of prison

A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. which one do you run over first, and why? 
     The conductor. Business before pleasure. 

Three violin manufactures have all done business for years on the same block in the small town of Cremona, Italy. After years of a peaceful co-existence, the Amati shop decided to put a sign in the window saying: "We make the best violins in Italy." The Guarneri shop soon followed suit, and put a sign in their window proclaiming: "We make the best violins in the world." Finally, the Stradivarius family put a sign out at their shop saying: "We make the best violins on the block."

  A couple of questions raised about the Star Wars movies (there are more) - my favourite Star Wars related 'joke' is too long to reprint here, but try here for Star Trek Wars...

How does the Death Star travel move from system to system? 
     A real big rubber band. 
Why does Death Star have that trench around it?
     That's where the rubber band fits. 

How were the Ewoks able to set all those traps overnight? 
     MacGyver was on the planet.

New Scientific Units
Here is a conversion chart taken from The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, Spring 1988. Reprinted without permission. 

     1012 Microphones = 1 Megaphone 
     106 bicycles = 2 megacycles 
     500 millinaries = 1 seminary 
     2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds 
     10 cards = 1 decacards 
     1/2 lavatory = 1 demijohn 
     10^-6 fish = 1 microfiche 
     453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake 
     1 unit of suspense in a mystery novel = 1 whod unit 
     1012 pins = 1 terrapin 
     10^-12 Boulevard = 1 Pico Boulevard (L.A.) 
     1021 picolos = 1 gigolo 
     10 rations = 1 decoration 
     100 rations = 1 C-ration 
     10 millipedes = 1 centipede 
     3 1/3 tridents = 1 decadent 
     5 holocausts = 1 Pentacost 
     10 monologues = 5 dialogues 
     10 monologues = 1 decalogue 
     2 monograms = 1 diagram 
     8 nickles = 2 paradigms 
     2 snake eyes = 1 paradise 
     2 wharves = 1 paradox 
     1 milli-Helen (of Troy) = amount of face that can launch one ship

Measurement Techniques
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given £50 to measure the height of a building. 
The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. 
The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. 
The engineer puts forty pounds into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building.

Collective Nouns 

•  A grid of electrical engineers 
•  A network of systems engineers
•  A set of pure mathematicians 
•  A field of theoretical physicists 
•  An amalgamation of metallurgists 
•  A stratum of geologists
•  A dig of archaeologists
•  A galaxy of cosmologists 
•  A cloud of theoretical meteorologists 
•  A shower of applied meteorologists 
•  A module of astronauts
•  An intrigue of council members 
•  A stack of librarians 
•  A complex of psychologists 
•  A whinge of Poms (by an Australian I'm afraid) 
•  A body of Pathologists

A selection of some of my favourites. The full list is available starting here. See how many fit into your favourite films!

• When men drink whiskey, it is always in a shot glass, and they always drink it in one gulp. If they are wimps, they will gasp for air, then have a coughing fit. If they are macho, they will wince briefly, flashing clenched teeth. 
• A cup of black coffee/splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second.

• Whenever someone looks through the binoculars, you see two joined circles instead of one. 

• You can eat as much as you want in a film and you'll never EVER have to go to the bathroom.
• People never cough, sneeze, blow their noses, or show any other symptoms of being in less than perfect health, the only exception is when they're dying. A cough is a symptom of terminal illness. 

• Movie characters driving in the city will get to park wherever they like when they get to their destination. Not only do movie cars always park right in front, but they are never locked. Even convertibles with their tops down, in NYC, are still there hours later. No one fumbles for car keys right before a car chase. they always jump right in and start the car up because they've left the keys in the ignition. Not a great idea in any major city. 
• After a car crash, no movie character ever sits and shakes for five minutes, or becomes incoherent with shock.
• No one ever runs out of gas (even in long car chases). Corollary: every stolen car has a full gas tank and gets great gas mileage.

• Whenever anyone knocks out anyone else and takes their clothes, they are always a flawless fit. 

• Movie characters never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences, and never make typing mistakes. 
• All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off. 
• No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms. 
• Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Supercomputer.

• During a duel, the hero will jump or climb onto a table/bench/piano/platform that raises him above the villain. At that point, the villain will swipe at the hero's legs, which the hero avoids by jumping up in the air over the villain's blade. Very rarely, the positions are reversed. 
• If there are stairs, the hero will be forced up them backwards by the villain, at which point the hero will either leap to the ground or swing from a rope/chandelier/tapestry to get away. 

• Stripping to the waist makes the hero invulnerable.
• Heroes can go without food or sleep, with no measurable drop in physical or mental faculties, for at least 72 hours. 

• The hero lives in New York City working at some okay, but not particularly high-paying job, and yet he or she has a roomy apartment filled with nice stuff, generally with a good view, and sometimes a nice, romantic rooftop to go to. 

• Characters that get shot will never go into shock. 
• The hero will always get shot in the shoulder, yet will be able to use his arm. 

• When someone lights a match in a dark old house (etc) and the single match has as much power as a 1000 watt bulb! Alternatively, they light a match, and then light an old oil lamp which has a vast amount of power. 

• All phone numbers begin with 555. 
• You also never have to look up a phone number, for anyone.
• When phone-calls are traced you can see a map on the screen with a beam closing in on the caller, and the caller always knows how long he can talk before he has to hang up to not be traced down. He always manages to say everything perfectly timed for 2 minutes.

• If the producers find no company to invest in the picture, strange things happen to the world: gas stations have no brand names visible, stars use no-name airlines (they often crash!), all smokers use silver cases for their cigarettes.

• Explosions in space make noise 
• Spaceships make noise! 
• All spaceships, no matter how small, have internal artificial gravity and no matter how badly your ship gets pummeled by the evil aliens in the evil alien ship, no matter how many external panels get blown away, no matter how many sparks or how much smoke pours out of your control panels, the artificial gravity will always keep working. 
• Inertial dampers will always prevent passengers from being plastered against the walls during acceleration into warp speed, yet any explosion will send passengers reeling across the room. 

• The bad guy is the foreigner. Corollary: the foreigner is the guy who speaks English with an English accent 
• Whenever a villain has captured the hero, he will pause for 5 minutes to tell the hero every detail of his plan to destroy and/or rule the earth, including times, dates, and addresses. 
• The bad guy, instead of simply offing the captured good guy on the spot, will devise some sort of drawn-out, fiendishly clever method of execution that will take enough time to allow the good guy to figure out his escape.

• Major characters never run out of ammunition, nor do they ever have to reload.
• When the villain runs out of bullets, he'll throw away his gun. When the hero does so, he'll conveniently come across another. 
• Machine guns submerged underwater for a long time won't jam or misfire when the hero pops up to use them. 

• Women wear make-up to bed, and wake up with hair and face completely intact. 
• Women don't need to go to the bathroom when they get up but will shower frequently.

Thought for the day (or two)

• When all else fails, call Bill Gates at home. 
• When all else fails, read the manual.
• When ideas fail, words come in very handy. 
• When vultures fly they're allowed carrion luggage.
• Whenever I feel like exercising I lie down until the feeling passes.
• Who wrote the rules on how to act your age?
• Why can't DOS ever say "Excellent command or filename"? 
• How does the guy who drives the snowplough get to work in the mornings? 
• Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio? 
• If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
• If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
• If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
• Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
• When companies ship styrofoam, what do they pack it in?
• If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?
• If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty litter?
• Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?
• What was the best thing before sliced bread?
• If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?

Crazy definitions
Autobiography: A history of cars 
Backward: Patient rooms at the rear of a hospital
Carpet: A dog who enjoys riding in a automobile 
Earthquake: A topographical error 
Falsehood: Someone who pretends to be a gangster 
Hanging: A suspended sentence
Hypochondriac: A guy who won't let well enough alone 
Indecision: Under the whether
Sarcasm: Quip lash 
Violinist: A high-strung musician 
 

Curiouser and Curiouser - some lesser-known facts

• The verb cleave is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate. 
• Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason
• A duck's quack doesn't "echo"...and no one knows why 
• Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can. 
• An animal epidemic is called an epizootic. 
• Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence. (poor Canada?)
• The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. 
• When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year. 
• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
• Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Most of the jokes on this page have come from OxyMoron - for which I am very grateful as I spent a very amusing afternoon perusing their pages. Other funnies are available that relate to Babylon 5 on my page concerning that show - some of them also relate to Star Trek.

OXymoron - pages of puns, jokes, clichés and more things to amuse you. Well worth a long visit!
101 Funny Links - lists of funny websites so you can do some hunting yourself.
Computer Stupidities - you think have trouble understanding the pile of junk, sorry, nice, friendly, helpful computer sitting in front of you? Try this lot and you'll feel like a genius...
Nathan Mates's Humor Archive - more jokes, what else!
Ponderables- Questions you always wanted to ask, facts you never knew you never knew - or needed to know
Progress Humour Archive - Jokes for you to vote on.