SAME STUFF - IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

1. o Take a number, 20-fold it, square-root the product, and raise the radical to the third power. And I am still younger than you!
   -- HAL, at a birthday party, overhearinng the host when she was asked how old she was. 1982
   

2. o Once is a fluke; twice is a statistics; and thrice is commonplace.
   -- HAL, making a facetious remark on sttatistics. 1987
   

3. o I love to play pranks because I derive pleasure from exposing the helplessness of those who claim authority.
   -- HAL, 1991, in self defense when caugght breaking the security code of a supercomputer institute. 1988
   

4. o "I have never drunk a single drop of alcohol in the last thirty-five years."
   -- HAL, during a run-in with a highway patrol officer on his thirtieth birthday. 1989
   

5. o In business, we do not lie; we just stretch the truth.
   -- HAL, just before a black eye. 19991
   

6. o I've turned down so many wedding invitations that I'm beginning to wonder if I'll show up at my own wedding.
   -- HAL, after turning down a US-Iraqi wwar veteran's wedding invitation. 1991
   

7. o We have different brains, but we are run by the same clock.
   -- HAL, disciplining a university studeent who seemed not to be able to keep appointments. 1991
   

8. o We should use history as lessons, not excuses.
   -- HAL, commenting on political debatess. 1992
   

9. o Is it inflation or am I watching all this on a big screen TV?
   -- HAL, commenting on prices while watcching a big screen TV. 1993
   

10. o The world looks so much better when I lose my contact lenses.
    -- HAL, getting out of bed on the wrongg side. 1993
    

11. o English is a strange language: You get up from a duck (to avoid blow); and you get down from a duck (to make a pillow).
    -- HAL, explaining English to one of hiis university students. 1994
    

12. o Since I am not famous, I might as well become notorious. Either way, I am well-known.
    -- HAL, when a secretary jokingly accussed him of being nasty. 1994
    

13. o A state employee's work is always done by quitting time, no matter what.
    -- HAL, when stopped by someone on his way out. 1994
    

14. o As a state employee, I have to pretend that I am busy even when I have nothing to do. On several occasions, my boss has complained that I am a terrible actor.
    -- HAL, during a low productivity periood of his state university career. 1994
    

15. o I've never understood real estate. The value of my house depreciated the second after that beautiful neighbor of mine moved.
    -- HAL, on neighbors. 1994
    

16. o I love women. The only time my nephews help clean up our house is whenever their girlfriends are coming over.
    -- HAL, talking in his capacity as an uuncle. 1994
    

17. o When I told him my boss had a cow, he thought I meant he was in the dairy business.
    -- HAL, on slangs. 1994
    

18. o When I told him I needed aids to go to college, he thought I was talking about the disease.
    -- HAL, on the rising cost of educationn. 1994
    

19. o I told a friend of mine who was hard of hearing he should consider wearing a hearing aid. He accused me of being too direct.
    -- HAL, on the rising cost of medicare.. 1994
    

20. o I once gave a short computer course in Ireland. A listener asked jokingly if chips were edible. I told him they were not made from potatoE, yet.
    -- HAL, jabbing at the then US Vice Preesident Dan Quayle. 1994
    

21. o PotatoEs are full of vitamin E, especially those from Dan Quayle's farm.
    -- HAL, commenting on spelling bee.> 1994
    

22. o I love people who have one X-chromosome more than I do.
    -- HAL, on women. 1994
    

23. o The genes responsible for shopping must be on the X-chromosome and they can't be that difficult to find.
    -- HAL, talking as a geneticist on shoppping. 1995
    

24. o I will hire you and you will hire me. We will both be employed.
    -- HAL, talking to a fellow colleague wwho had just received a pink slip. 1995
    

25. o Excuse me, I have my own accent and I am proud of it.
    -- HAL's response when a friend asked iif sometimes a person is judged by his or her accent. 1995
    

26. o All mothers love their children. My mother defends my height by saying that I carry too much in my brain.
    -- HAL, talking about his beloved motheer. 1995
    

27. o Don't be a quitter. Quit smoking.
    -- HAL, advising a smoker friend who haad been coughing a lot. 1995
    

28. o The future tense of "see" is "beat up", like in: I see Helga; I saw Helga; I shall beat up Helga.
    -- HAL, when infuriated by a colleaguee. 1995
    

29. o When I told my guests at my birthday party I finally turned forty, they thought I was referring to my waistline.
    -- HAL, joking at an older friend's bigg four O. 1995
    

30. o Give me a second and I will do an hour's worth of work.
    -- HAL's response to a superior pesteriing him. 1995
    

31. o Directors are for operas, plays and motion pictures. No wonder our scientific research institute has not been doing too well.
    -- HAL, on downsizing of an institute.< 1995
    

32. o I once told a friend I was an English Major. He told me he did not know that I served in the British Army. I told him I did not know that that was the only place where English was taught.
    -- HAL, on miscommunication. 1995

33. o O.J. comes in two forms: one that is a beverage; the other that is a football superstar.
    -- HAL, at a commercial during O.J. Simmpson's trial. 1995
    

34. o The carrier gene must reside on the Y-chromosome. And it is nonrecessive.
    -- HAL, lamenting on having to carry shhopping bags while on a shopping spree in Italy with a female friend. 1995
    

35. o I live very close by San Francisco. When I tell people I am a gay person. They usually think that I am referring to my sexual orientation.
    -- HAL, alluding to the "Don't ask, donn't tell policy" advocated by President Clinton. 1995
    

36. o "You must be from (name of a company)," a stranger remarked. "How do you know?" "Because you are running aimlessly in a circle!", came the response.
    -- HAL, accosted by a stranger while joogging on a circular track. 1996
    

37. o Doing business without advertising is like kissing a woman in the dark. You have to kiss her, hanky panky a little so that she knows you are interested.
    -- HAL, making suggestion to Director oof Business Development. 1996
    

38. o Show a broker a crack, and (s)he will pour a river right through it!"
    -- HAL, commenting on a banker who preyys like a leech on financially unstable companies. 1996
    

39. o Tell a broker you want a pony. (S)He will sell you a horse if (s)he had a dead one.
    -- HAL, on brokerage. 1996
    

40. o "CEO" stands for "Chief Executing Officer"; "CFO" for "Chief Firing Officer"; and "COO" for "Chief Obdurate Officer".
    -- HAL, overhearing a disgruntled emplooyee commenting on American corporate culture during a sluggish period. 1996
    

41. o All charlatans are experts; not all experts are charlatans.
    -- HAL, on empty vessels. 1996
    

42. o I got lost on my way to the wedding.
    -- HAL, when asked why he was still sinngle. 1996
    

43. o Take a deep breath, and there will be a CIA agent who suspects that you are breathing in Soviet oxygen molecules.
    -- HAL, on the Cold War and the secret agents. 1996
    

44. o A blade of grass could very well be a listening device.
    -- HAL, on the CIA. 1996
    

45. o In this post Cold War Era, a CIA agent has to justify his/her existence by (de)bugging anything in her/his way.
    -- HAL, on the CIA. 1996
    

46. o Interestingly enough, ex-CIA agents are security experts when during the Cold War, what they worried about was insecurity.
    -- HAL's opinion on unemployed ex-CIA aagents. 1996
    

47. o When I see a CIA agent, I cannot tell if (s)he is wearing a mask.
    -- HAL, on secret agents' identities. 1996
    

48. o Mushrooms flourish on cow dungs.
    -- HAL, on people who thrive by pushingg down others. 1996
    

49. o Nepotism is, but the royal road to success for those who are spinless.
    -- HAL, criticising a certain corporatiion. 1996
    

50. o "Kissing" is a gesture; "kissing up" is a means.
    -- HAL, on climbing corporate ladder. 1996
    

51. o Success is when you can hold something in your hand and say "I made it on my own."
    -- HAL, on success. 1996
    

52. o The general consensus is that the colors of eyes and hair make a person look beautiful. But let's not forget the color of nose, especially those brown ones.
    -- HAL, on climbing corporate ladder. 1996
    

53. o People sue so much that I have decided to marry no one other than Sue so that she can have the name "Sue HAL" after our wedding.
    -- HAL, on the American legal system. 1996
    

54. o If God has meant us to be tough, He would have woven our hair into a helmet.
    -- HAL, telling off a friend who tried to act macho. 1996
    

55. o Meetings are rests between coffee breaks for bureaucrats.
    ---HAL, caviling on lengthy meetings thhat run overtime. 1996
    

56. o I am multilingual. I speak English with a French accent; French with a German accent; German with a Malaysian accent; Malaysian with a Mandarin accent; Mandarin with a Spanish accent; and Spanish with an English accent.
    ---HAL, on his accent. 1997
    

57. o Safety is no accident. It comes with considerate driving.
    ---HAL, on driving with courtesy. 11997
    

58. o The fortune cookie says "A wise man knows everything, a shrewd man knows everybody." This is sad. I am a shrewd wise man!
    ---HAL, overheard in a Chinese restauraant.1997
    

59. o Another fortune cookie says "You will spend old age in comfort and material wealth." But why am I eating Chinese take-outs.
    ---HAL, overheard at the same restaurannt, at the take-out counter.1997
    

60. o My auto insurance company paid $5000 for my lower lumbar injury, and $12,000 to fix my sports car. Be dead and reincarnated into a sports car.
    ---HAL, after being broadsided by an irrresponsible cellular phone user.1998
    

61. o The muscles developed from the ballroom Cuban motions are keeping my back together.
    ---HAL, joking to a physical therapist during a treatment session.1998
    

62. o I have a split personality. When I was a faculty at a university, I was better known as a racketball player. Now I am a senior executive, but I am a better known ballroom dancer.
    ---HAL, at a ballroom floor.1999

63. o An enterpreneurial young chap came to a incubator to seek help with raising seed funding. The incubator manager immediately asked him for $ 2500 so that they could start stirring the pot.
    ---HAL, on incubator who are supposed tto be experts in fundraising but cannot raise funds for themselves.2000
    

64. o I would rather have a good session of sex with my girlfriend than to have her admire my hair day long.
    ---HAL, on the side effect of Propecia,, impotency.2000
    

65. o We accuse other countries of political propaganda. But we seem to not realize our country is completely polarized into Donkeys and Elephants. So who is propagandaing?
    ---HAL, on political propaganda, Republlicans and Democrats.2000
    

66. o Al Gore: The president we never had. George Bush: The second Bush term we never had.
    ---HAL, on the outcome of the 2000 pressidential election.2001
    

67. o We struggle for decades to obtain equality so that we can tap into the talents of women. Now our country is so polarized that Democrats whip elephants, and Republicans whip donkeys.
    ---HAL, on the partisan behavior duringg Florida pregnant chad recounts.2001
    

68. o The Republicans have a very well-greased machine to expose others. No wonder all Democrats are crooks. Or really who is not a crook.
    ---HAL, on political mug-slinging and bborrowing from Richard Nixon's very well-cited "I am not a crook" at the beginning of the Watergate Investigation.2001
    

69. o If the slogan of the Alzheimer's community is "Use it or lose it", then how is Reagan one of the greatest presidents?
    ---HAL, remarked on President's Day Galllop poll.2001
    

70. o I sometimes wonder if Reagan can recall his statement "The brain is a great thing to waste"?
    ---HAL, follow-up of the previous remarrk.2001
    

71. o We had a brother who is a president-maker. We had another brother who is a presidential-pardon list compiler. The White House is a doghouse.
    ---HAL, on Florida recount and presidenntial pardon.2001
    

72. o I have long said that intelligence is more than just genes. Otherwise we homo sapiens will be only one-and-a-half times smarter than a C. elegans, the roundworm.
    ---HAL, commenting on the Science and NNature Feb 12, 2001 annoucement that the human genome has 30,000 genes, and the roundworm genome has 20,000 genes.2001
    

73. o The younger Bush administration is so reminiscent of the older Bush administration of the late eighties and early nineties, except all the senior members each get a promotion.
    ---HAL, on the new administration cabinnet members.2001
    

74. o When the US population recalls the economic depression of the older Bush adminstration a decade ago, and the almost wholesale reappointments of senior cabinet members in the current from the previous, economic depression set in almost as soon as the younger Bush took office.
    ---HAL, commenting on the onset of econnomic slowdown which coincided with G.W. Bush taking office at the White House.2001
    

75. o Dick Cheney won the election. George W. Bush assumes the presidency.
    ---HAL, commenting on the Vice Presidennt who had been admitted to a hospital because of a heart problem.2001
    

76. o The longest prosperity in US history is squashed between two Bush administrations. The first Bush administration is nothing for the Americans to be proud of. The second has gotten off to a rather dismaying start. Future political historians will have a lot to say about the effectiveness of the Bushes as presidents.
    ---HAL, commenting on the first 60 dayss of the younger Bush administration.2001
    

77. o George Bush pissed the Russians off. Now he pisses the Chinese. And the economy sucks. I say we have a recount.
    ---HAL, overheard in front of a TV at an airport.2001
    

78. o The Republican economy policy is: when our country is not doing too well, define an "evil empire" and sell weapons to its neighboring nations to mobilize our economy.
    ---HAL, on the US-Chinese stand-off aftter a US spy plane was forced to land on Hainan.2001
    

79. o An instigation gone bad. We are looking for an excuse to sell weapons to mobilize our stagnant economy.
    ---HAL, on the US-Chinese stand-off.2001
    

80. o If we used a camcorder to record a collision half way up the sky, of course, the other plane swerved towards us and caused the collision. This is the simple law of physics called frame of reference. Relative to the camcorder and all crew members on board, every thing else is in motion. Had Einstein been in the military, the theory of relativity would never have been discovered.
    ---HAL, commenting on how the US militaary used a video footage to try to convince the US public the opposite party was at fault without a more thorough investigation of the collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese jet.2001
    

81. o We each die only once. Look forward to it.
    ---HAL, jabbing at a cowardly colleaguee.2001
    

82. o We are a great family. We have ten brothers and sisters. My mom is greater, She had us and raised us to adulthood.
    ---HAL, on Mother's Day.2001
    

83. o You know you and partner are an odd couple when you stand in a queue and the ushering waitress asks, "Table for one?", and you have to correct her by saying "No, for two, please."
    ---HAL, in a line waiting to be seated at a very busy restaurant in San Diego.2001
    

84. o If you do not know something well, just Bush it. Our president does it best.
    ---HAL, on President Bush's mastery of domestic and international affairs .2001
    

85. o As a naturalized US citizen whose mother tongue is NOT English, I am embarrassed by our president.
    ---HAL, on the grammar of Bush during the meeting between President Bush of the US and the South African President in May 2001.2001
    

86. o When our president speaks in public, he labors so much with words and grammar that he gets more sympathy than attention!
    ---HAL, on President Bush giving publicc speeches.2001
    

87. o Bush calls himself the education president. He needn't have to. He is living proof of the failure of our education system.
    ---HAL, on Bush speaking skill.20011
    

88. o It is sometimes quite incomprehensible how Al Gore, a good debater, could lose to Bush, who can hardly speak!
    ---HAL, overheard in San Diego, from soomeone who said the US should have voted for Gore while watching TV.2001
    

89. o At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; at 40 the judgment. How come I did not experience any of these?
    ---HAL, overheard at a Chinese restaurant, from someone who just had his fortune cookies.2001
    

90. o I used to enjoy life. Now I treasure life.
    ---HAL, talking about some of the wildeest things he had done when he was younger.2001
    

91. o In this information age, a great leader is one who reacts interactively to information flow and rapidly changing conditions. Only a dictator sticks to his or her plans.
    ---HAL, on good presidency.2001
    >

92. o George Bush sticks to his campaign plans to the teeth. But so far, no bites.
    ---HAL, on Bush following blindly to hiis plans without any regard to the changing economy.2001
    

93. o A riddle: Two former oil executives, one president, one vice president. How many people are there?
    Hint: Oil companies helped put them in the White House. In return, oil companies get to do what they want and hold the country ransom.
    ---HAL, on sudden oil price increase juust before Labor Day.2001
    

94. o I wanted to be an attorney-in-law, so I married an attorney-at-law.
    ---HAL, joking with an attorney at a diinner table.2001
    

95. o George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden: I am Bush.
    bin Laden: I ambush too.
    Bush: I know, but I am the law, you are the outlaw.
    ---The above conversation is reported tto have occurred, the validity of which cannot be verified. Assuming it really took place, Bush is known not to be quick witted. But there again, we can never misunderestimate Bush.2002
    

96. o The White House has now become a Whine House.
    ---HAL.November 2008
    

97. o Mark my words:
    What Taiwan went through from 2000 - 2008 is now being played out in the U.S. This is called the Taiwanization of the United States.
    ---HAL on the Taiwanese President Chen Sui-bian's corruption charges.December 2008
    

98. o American is a meritocracy country, except when it comes to politics, which is aristocracy. Cases in point: 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections, the one with the most campaign fund won in each case.
    --- HAL on elections in the U.S., 2008
    

99. o So far the only changes I have seen are: record fund-raising and record spending during the primaries, and record fund raising and record spending during the presidential campaign.
    --- HAL on the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 2008
    

100. o A white man messed it all up. Now they have found a black sheep to blame on.
     --- HAL, overheard on the state of the U.S. economy in December 2008
     

101. o When it comes to donations, people hesitate; when it comes to campaign funds, for different personal reasons, people contribute easily; when it comes to tax, people yell and scream to pay. Think about this: for the people, we flush a candidate with all the surplus funds to get elected to spend the tax we loathe to pay; for the candidate, once elected, having been flushed with campaign contribution funds, can only see the treasury as an open chest as experience had told him that money is a means to an end.
     --- HAL on donations, contributions and taxes, 2008
     

102. o Bill Clinton was the last elected President of the United States who could truly claim to be the most powerful person on the planet.
     --- HAL on U.S. presidents and foreign influence, 2009
     

103. o The White House is now a White pub.
     --- HAL on President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley sitting down for cold beers in the Rose Garden of the White House. The two men were at the center of an uproar over racial profiling, July 30, 2009
     

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