For almost a century (since 1915), one hundred chimpanzees have been pounding away on old style typewriters trying to recreate, at random, the works of William Shakespeare. Thus far, this has not happened.
A representative from the AFL/CIO has demanded that working conditions for the monkeys change and that they be upgraded to PCs. "This has gone on too long," said Roberto "The Tea Bag" Masconi. "It wasn't until the 80's before these guys finally got electric typewriters and got rid of their old Royals. Even then, they got Smith Coronas instead of IBM Selectrics. Their still using them things! Don't you think its about time these guys entered the computer age?"
Anthropologists and literary experts in charge of the program feel that, if the chimps are given newer equipment, they will not use it wisely. "Yes, we have it in our budget to provide new laptops to all of our workers," said Primatologist Jane Badsome. "We fear, however, that they would start playing on the internet and find yahoo games. Who knows how they would react if they discovered the porn sites or the infamous pictures of a shaved Britney."
When asked if the apes had ever managed to re-create any of the works of Shakespeare, the answer was negative. "No, not even one of the sonnets. They did give us the entire 1984 Harlequin romance output, but I think that even my dog has that much talent, and he usually entertains himself by licking his privates."
Dr. Badsome continued, "About the only other thing they consistently manage to come up with are most politicians, including President Bush's, political speeches. They have recreated every State of the Union address since 1958. If our project ever runs out of money, these guys could write speeches for any candidate, and they would work for bananas."
"Every once in a while, one manages to crank out a limerick. Unfortunately, they all start our with 'There once was a man from Nantucket.' Do you know how many variations of that one there are?"
"If we do allow these machines, we will not allow net access and they will be nothing more than glorified word processors."
When told of the project, Bill Gates decided that Microsoft would donate all of the necessary computers. "Our stuff is so foolproof that not even a monkey could mess it up," said Gates. Unfortunately, the first chimp who tried got the infamous blue screen of death.
