Enjoy a randomly generated fortune:
$ fortune | cowsay
_________________________________________
/ The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life \
| |
| The most important poet in the |
| seventeenth century was George Wither. |
| Alexander Pope called him "wretched |
| Wither" and Dryden said of his verse |
| that "if they rhymed and rattled all |
| was well". |
| |
| In our own time, "The Dictionary of |
| National Biography" notes that his work |
| "is mainly remarkable for its mass, |
| fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks |
| any genuine literary quality and often |
| sinks into imbecile doggerel". |
| |
| High praise, indeed, and it may tempt |
| you to savour a typically rewarding |
| stanza: It is taken from "I loved a |
| lass" and is concerned with the higher |
| emotions. |
| |
| She would me "Honey" call, |
| |
| She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. |
| |
| But now alas! She's left me |
| |
| Falero, lero, loo. |
| |
| Among other details of his mistress |
| which he chose to immortalize was her |
| prudent choice of footwear. |
| |
| The fives did fit her shoe. |
| |
| In 1639 the great poet's life was |
| endangered after his capture by the |
| Royalists during the English Civil War. |
| When Sir John Denham, the Royalist |
| poet, heard of Wither's imminent |
| execution, he went to the King and |
| begged that his life be spared. When |
| asked his reason, Sir John replied, |
| "Because that so long as Wither lived, |
| Denham would not be accounted the worst |
| poet in England." |
| |
| -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic |
\ Failures" /
-----------------------------------------
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||----w |
|| ||
$output = shell_exec("/usr/games/fortune | /usr/games/cowsay");
echo $output;