There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are not talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second – 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that flying reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). A mass of nearly 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reaches the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. MERRY CHISTMAS!!!

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I never actually grapsed the whole "Trick or treat" ultimatum.Giving candy to grateful, adorable children or receiving a bag of flaming animal excrement on your doorstep-is this a choice?-Jerry Seinfeld

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Have you been spending more and more time using the Internet? Have your cheeks taken on that pasty white glow from over-exposure to your computer monitor? How do you know if you're addicted to the Net and losing touch with reality? Take the Net Addict's Reality Test.Answer the following multiple choice questions and check out your score to see if you should be concerned:What do you think are good names for children?a) Scott and Jenny.b) Bill Gates IV.c) Mozilla and Dotcom. What's a telephone?a) A thing with a round dial you use to talk to others.b) A telecommunications device with 12 keys.c) Something you plug into a modem. Which punctuation is most correct?a) I had a wonderful day!b) I had a **wonderful** day!!!c) I had a wonderful day You wake up at 4:00 a.m. and decide to:a) Visit the washroom.b) Raid the fridge.c) Check your E-mail. What are RAM and ROM?a) A male sheep and a city in Italy.b) Hulking stars of the WWF.c) I need more of the former and should upgrade the latter. To avoid a virus you should:a) Stay away from people who sneeze and cough.b) Never read E-mail titled "Good Times".c) Use virus scanning software every time you boot up. When you want to buy something hard-to-find you:a) Ask friends where to purchase it.b) Check out the Yellow Pages.c) Go to Yahoo! When you don't understand how to use a new appliance you:a) Call the retailer.b) Call the manufacturer's toll-free number.c) Visit the manufacturer's Web site and look for the FAQ. When you want to see all the beautiful people you:a) Visit a club on a Saturday night.b) Turn on the TV and tune in to Baywatch.c) Check out the alt.binary newsgroups. How do you introduce yourself at a party?a) Hi, I'm Jane!b) Hi, I'm a Taurus on the cusp.c) Hi, I'm a 5'10" hot blonde with a super bod. When you're interested in someone at a party you say:a) Tell me more about yourself.b) What's your star sign?c) What's your Profile? If you really like the person, you say:a) Could you tell me your phone number?b) What's your E-mail address?c) Let's chat Private. When I say spam, you think:a) Ham in a can.b) Unsolicited advertising E-mail.c) I mailbomb all spammers! When you receive an AOL trial diskette, you say:a) I don't need another mug coaster.b) Great! I'll reformat and use it for backups.c) Great! I'll sign up under a fake ID and use up the 50 hours. When you want to research a reference you:a) Open up a volume of your encyclopedia.b) Slip Encarta in your CD-ROM drive.c) Go to www.altavista.digital.com. When you write a letter you:a) Put pencil to paper.b) Open Eudora.c) Ask: What's a letter? Is it like E-mail? Different types of text formatting include:a) Writing and printing.b) Underline and double-strike.c) Bold and italic. You correct errors using:a) An eraser.b) White-out.c) Backspace or delete. You sign your name:a) Best regards, John Smith.b) See you in IRC, John_Smith.c) Check out my home page for the cool links, johnsmith@aol.com. To keep a copy of your letter you:a) Insert a carbon and a second sheet.b) Take it to the photocopier.c) Check your Sent Mail folder.SCORING:Give yourself zero points for each "a" response, five for each "b" and 10 for each "c".If you scored 150 or higher, unplug your computer and log more hours in real life. If you scored between 50 and 145, you're living a good mix of Net and reality. If you scored under 50, you probably didn't read this far.

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These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place. Q: Are you sexually active? A: No, I just lie there. __________________________________ Q: What is your date of birth? A: July 15th. Q: What year? A: Every year. __________________________________ Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact? A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks. ________________________________________________ Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? A: Yes. Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory? A: I forget. Q: You forget? Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten? _____________________________________ Q: How old is your son, the one living with you? A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which. Q: How long has he lived with you? A: Forty-five years. ______________________________________ Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning? A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?" Q: And why did that upset you? A: My name is Susan. ______________________________________ Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult? A: We both do. Q: Voodoo? A: We do. Q: You do? A: Yes, voodoo. __________________________________ Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning? A: Did you actually pass the bar exam? __________________________________ Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he? __________________________________ Q: Were you present when your picture was taken? __________________________________ Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? A: Yes. Q: And what were you doing at that time? __________________________________ Q: She had three children, right? A: Yes. Q: How many were boys? A: None. Q: Were there any girls? __________________________________ Q: How was your first marriage terminated? A: By death. Q: And by whose death was it terminated? ______________________________________ Q: Can you describe the individual? A: He was about medium height and had a beard. Q: Was this a male, or a female? __________________________________ Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work. ______________________________________ Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people. __________________________________ Q: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to? A: Oral. __________________________________ Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m. Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time? A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy. __________________________________ Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? __________________________________ Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? A: No. Q: Did you check for blood pressure? A: No. Q: Did you check for breathing? A: No. Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? A: No. Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor? A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

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A woman of 35 thinks of having children. What does a man of 35 think of? Dating children.

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