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Yucks Digest V1 #56
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To: yucks
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Subject: Yucks Digest V1 #56
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From: spaf (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford)
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Date: Tue, 28 May 91 18:46:02 EST
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Reply-To: Yucks-request
Yucks Digest Tue, 28 May 91 Volume 1 : Issue 56
Today's Topics:
All I Really Need to Know I Learned from My Computer
a memorable meal for memorial day
Arthur C. Clark quote on aliens
Bests and worsts
Big News -- George Sperti
Car-sicles
Fainting Goats
No receipe for long life!
Parking Meters for the Masses
The American judicial system
The invitation is in the mail
Valentine letter
What is Usenet?
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the
possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous. It is issued on a
semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present themselves.
Back issues may be ftp'd from arthur.cs.purdue.edu from
the ~ftp/pub/spaf/yucks directory. Material in archives
Mail.1--Mail.4 is not in digest format.
Submissions and subscription requests should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
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Date: 25 May 91 23:30:05 GMT
From: olsend@caen.engin.umich.edu (David Olsen)
Subject: All I Really Need to Know I Learned from My Computer
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
[ I got this from Ann Gordon, a fellow student. It is based on the
first chapter of the book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in
Kindergarten." Posted with her permission. CAEN labs are the computer
labs for engineering students here at the University of Michigan. ]
All I Really Need to Know I Learned from My Computer
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I
learned right here in the CAEN labs. Illumination was not at the top of the
graduate school mountain, but right there in front of the computer
monitors. These are the things I learned. Everything you need to know is
here somewhere:
1. Share all your executables.
2. Pay for your shareware.
3. Don't hit the computer.
4. Back up files after you have found them.
5. Clean up your own messy desktop.
6. Don't copy software that is not yours.
7. Make a smiley when you send someone a nasty message.
8. Wash your hands before you type.
9. Flush your buffers.
10. M&Ms and a cold can of Coke are good for you.
11. Live a student's life--learn some and think some and
MacDraw and IPaint and Readnews and play Tetris and hack
every day some.
12. Take a break every two hours from staring at the terminal.
13. When you go out in the world, watch out for network traffic,
hold connections and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little bytes in the chip:
The code goes in and the graphics come out and nobody
really knows how or why, but computers are all like that.
15. Pets and Lisas and DN350s and even the little bytes in the
chip all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Computer Reference Manuals and the
first command you learned--the biggest command of all--Quit.
--Ann Gordon (anng@caen.engin.umich.edu)
[ Posted by David Olsen (olsend@caen.engin.umich.edu) ]
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Date: Sun, 26 May 91 02:23:08 CDT
From: "Patricia O Tuama" <rissa@gargoyle.uchicago.edu>
Subject: a memorable meal for memorial day
well, you all are probably wondering what to fix as a special
treat for the holiday, so i decided to get out my trusty copy
of Pleyn Delit and see what looks good:
To start:
Frytours of Pasternakes
Take skyrwats and pasternaks and apples, & parboile
them; make a bator of floer and ayren; cast thereto
ale, safron & salt; wete them in the bator and frye
them in oile or in grece; do thereto Almand Mylk, &
serve it forth.
(it doesn't say what skyrwats are but pasternakes
are parsnips and ayren, eggs)
Main course:
Salmon Fressh Boiled
Take fressh Salmon, and drawe him in the bely; and
chyne him as a swyne, and leche him flatte with a
knyfe; and kutte the chyne in ii. or iii. peces, and
roste him on a faire gredyrn. Make a faire sauce of
water, parcelly, and salt. And whan it begynneth to
boyle, skem it clene, and cast the peces of salmon
thereto, and let them sethe. And then take them uppe,
and let them kele, and ley a pece or ii. in a dissh.
Wet faire foiles of parcely in vinegre and caste them
uppon the salmon in the dissh; And then ye shall serve
it forth cold.
Garlic Carmeline
Grynde gynger, canel, garlic and add thereto whyte
bred wete with vinegre; and if thou add to it lyver
it will be better. Set them to the fyre and then
serve it forth.
Salat:
Take parsel, sawge, garlec, chibollas, onyons, leeks,
borrage, myntes, porrectes, fenel, and ton tressis,
rew, rosemarye, purslyne. Lave & waiste them clene;
pike them, pluk them small with thyne hande and myng
them wel with rawe oil. Lay on vynegar and salt, and
serve it forth.
(chibollas, porrectes, ton tressis ??)
and for dessert:
Wardonys in Syryp
Take wardonys, and caste in a potte, and boyle them
till they be tender; than take them up and pare them,
and kytte them into pecys. Take now powder of canel,
a good quantyte, and caste it on red wyne, and draw
it threw a straynour; caste sugre thereto and put it
in an erthen pot and let it boyle. Thanne caste the
pecys thereto, and let boyle to-getherys, and whan
they have boyle a whyle, take pouder of gyngere and
caste thereto and a lytil venegre, and a lytil safron,
and look that it be poynaunt and dowcet.
(wardonys are pears and canel is cinnamon)
yum yum!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 May 91 23:11:40 PDT
From: chdana@wildcat.CalPoly.EDU (Charles Dana)
Subject: Arthur C. Clark quote on aliens
To: spaf
Finally remembered to send this to you -- recall that you saw it in my
office during your recent visit to SLO.
You may wonder,
"what do you do if you DO meet a visitor from space?"
Well, be very polite -- and be prepared for a long journey.
Arthur C. Clark in "The Mysterious World of Arthur C. Clark"
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Date: Mon, 27 May 91 00:44:03 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Bests and worsts
To: yucks-request
By John Sinor, Copley News Service
The best and the worst.
Americans always seem to be on the lookout for them. They are the
subject of magazine stories every year.
Movie polls point them out. Television stations discuss them.
Newspaper staffs argue about them.
While cleaning out a cabinet of old books the other day, I ran
across a paperback devoted to that very subject.
The book was published 15 years ago, so I imagine things have
changed somewhat since then.
There probably have been better bank robberies, worse movies,
better advertisements, and worse golf scores.
Then, again, maybe not. Some of the records put down on paper 15
years ago may last forever.
The worst golf score was posted by a woman playing in the 1912
Shawnee Golf Invitational for Women. She stepped up to the tee at the
16th hole and sliced the ball into the Binniekill River. After
following it downhill in a rowboat for a mile and a half, she began
hitting it back toward the hole.
Her score for that hole: 166 strokes.
Some of the other bests and worsts in the book include:
Worst football team: The Bethel, Ohio, high school football team
went through the 1974 season with 544 points scored against them.
Bethel didn't score a point that year. The team averaged just under
four yards per kick.
Best knockout punch: Al Couture ran across the ring and belted
his opponent, Ralph Walton, with one punch in September 1946. Walton
was declared out after 10-1/2 seconds, including the full 10-second
count.
Best special effects: The El Ray Theater in Manteca, Calif.,
burst into flames during the showing of "The Towering Inferno."
Worst Hollywood musical: It had to be the Metropolitan Opera
Company's film of "Carmen" back in 1915 the silent version.
Best baseball catch: Joe Sprinz of the Cleveland Indians caught
a baseball tossed from a blimp at a height of 800 feet back in 1931.
He handled the ball fine, but the impact sent a shock wave through
his body that broke his jaw.
Best baseball trade: The Shawnee Hawks, a Class D Sooner League
team, traded an unpromising pitcher to the Texarkana Bears for 20
uniforms.
Best counterfeiter: William Brockway printed a phony $100 bill
in 1865 that was so perfect that the U.S. Treasury Department had to
withdraw all $100 bills from circulation.
Worst robbery: Thieves broke into and ransacked the offices of
"Games and Puzzles" in London and stole several thousand pounds in
cash. However, all of it was in Monopoly money.
Best milk: The most nutritious milk of all, according to
researchers, is seal milk, which contains 12 percent protein and 54
percent fat. The least nutritious milk produced by any mammal is
human milk.
Worst tea: The tea made by boiling an old, worn shoe was
considered an effective cure for lumbago in some parts of the Midwest
back in the 1800s.
Best pajamas: They may be the red pajamas worn by Dwight
Eisenhower. They were emblazoned with five gold stars on the lapels.
After Eisenhower's death, they went on display at the Smithsonian
Institution.
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Date: Mon, 20 May 91 09:39:20 -0500
From: cromwell@ecn.purdue.edu (Bob Cromwell)
Subject: Big News -- George Sperti
Forwarded by: rsk@circ.upenn.edu
Someone mailed me an obituary for George Speri Sperti recently, and it
contained some interesting information. From the Chicago Tribune:
"George Sperti, created Preparation H"
"Covington KY (AP) -- George Speri Sperti, a cancer researcher and
inventor who developed Preparation H, has died. He was 91.
"Mr Sperti died Monday in St. Elizabeth Medical Center. Officials
there say he suffered an aneurysm.
"Mr Sperti invented a sunlamp, discovered a way to enhance vitamin D
in milk, formulated Aspercreme for arthritis relief, developed a meat
tenderizer, devised a method for freeze-drying orange juice concentrate,
and created the hemorrhoid treatment Preparation H.
[.....]
"Mr Sperti's first invention earned him $30,000. As a 21-year-old
student at the University of Cincinnati under a cooperative arrangement
with Cincinnati Gas and Electric Co., he developed the first accurate
meter of large amounts of electrical current, using materials from his
mother's kitchen.
[.....]
"Mr Sperti never married. His sister, Mildred, was his constant
companion and co-worker until her death in 1987."
Three observations:
(a) Freud would have a field day with that last paragraph.
(b) His mother's kitchen must have been an interesting place.
(c) Perparation H, Aspercreme, and meat tenderizer. Just a
coincidence? I think not.
I am not Spaf,
Bob
[ Hmmm...I don't think I've ever seen Spaf and Bob in the same place
at the same time. Maybe this denial-of-identity is a coverup? :-) ---Rsk ]
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Date: 23 May 91 10:30:05 GMT
From: asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin)
Subject: Car-sicles
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
My brother used to be a police officer in Chicago. (He's now a rather
high-up muckity-muck in the police dept., but that's beside the point.)
He's told me some amusing anecdotes from Chicago police-work.
There was one story about people shovelling the snow for a parking space
in front their house. This apparantly is a problem for the Chicago
police every winter. What happens is that somebody will park in a
nearby parking lot, then slave away for how ever many hours it takes to
shovel out a car-sized space in front of his house, naturally so he can
park his car there. Then he goes back to the lot to get his car.
When he returns home, he finds that the space has been taken by some
_other_ car. He is, well, upset.
What most people do is write nasty notes etc. and place them on the
windshield of the offending vehicle. Where the police get involved,
however, is the occasional case where the individual vents his wrath
in somewhat more violent means. Tires and throats have been slashed
over this.
One time a fellow got creative. Instead of doing the usual nasty, he
got out his garden hose and watered the automobile down, real well. I
mean, very, very thoroughly. The water, of course, froze solid. When
the owner returned, instead of a car, he found a car-sized popsicle.
The note on the car read: "You want the space? Here, it's yours until
spring!"
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Date: Fri, 24 May 91 14:51:10-040
From: emsca!usb!poc@Sun.COM (Patrick O'Callaghan)
Subject: Fainting Goats
To: emsca!sun!spaf%cs.purdue.edu@Sun.COM
>From The Economist, 27 April - 3 May 1991
NOT A GOAT TO GOAD
Thanatosis sounds a nasty thing to have; in fact it can be a clever
thing to do. Some insects, snakes and other preyed-upon creatures -
most familiarly the opossum - have perfected the useful trick of
feigning death if captured in order to escape when a predator relaxes
his grip. But that is not what the myotonic, or "fainting", goat is up
to. Frighten or surprise one and it will stiffen and keel over in what
appears to be a dead faint. Less than a minute later it will be on its
feet again as if nothing had happened. The whole performance seems
utterly pointless.
And dangerous for the goat: a myotonic goat picking himself up from
his umpteenth collapse of the day might wonder why natural selection
had not taken its course long ago and dispensed with his unhappy
breed. That it did not do so may in part be due to the late H.H.
Mayberry, from Marshall County, Tennessee, who in the early 1880's
paid a stranger from Nova Scotia $36 (about $800 in today's money) for
four of the goats on the strength of their "strange fits or fainting
spells, the like of which has never been seen before".
Many of the goats described in the 30 or so scientific studies that
have since been published on the phenomenon (the earliest in 1904) can
be traced to those bred and cared for by Mayberry. Whether his
fainting goats were a new mutation or part of an older breed remains
unclear.
In his prize-winning paper, "The Myotonic Goat: A Historical
Perspective and Description of Hereditary Myotonia in an Animal
Model", James Atkinson of Vanderbilt University in Nashville,
Tennessee, notes that the goats' condition closely resembles Thomsen's
disease, a hereditary disorder in people that causes spasms and
rigidity in certain muscles when any attempt is made to move. The
sudden movement of a frightened myotonic goat trying to flee triggers
a rapid stiffening of limbs, back and neck that either leaves the
creature unable to move or causes it to topple over, legs rigid and
outstretched. The goat remains conscious throughout, no doubt cursing
its parentage.
Transforming a herd of myotonic goats into a passing-out parade is not
as easy as it sounds. Warm goats are less prone to fainting, as are
pregnant or (oddly) deghydrated ones. Old, cold goats tend to be
easiest to topple. Repeated attempts to provoke an attack may cause
the symptoms to disappear altogether. The garish shirt that caused a
myotonic goat to faint at first sight may have little effect once the
animal has grown used to its owner's poor taste.
Fainting goats have come a long way since farmers used them as decoys
to protect herds of sheep from coyotes (coyote arrives; goat faints
and is devoured; sheep escape.) Like pot-bellied Vietnamese pigs, the
goats are fast becoming trendy pets, changing hands at up to $1000 a
time and catered for by the International Fainting Goat Association
(newsletter: "Fall In Love With Fainters") and the Tennessee Fainting
Goat Association. Fainting derbies are planned, with owners competing
to see whose goat can faint fastest - premium fainters spend most of
their lives horizontal. Perhaps Mayberry should have let evolution
take its course after all.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 May 91 12:33:38 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: No receipe for long life!
To: yucks-request
Reputed 147-year-old dies
RABAT, May 28 (AFP) - A Moroccan said to be "probably" 147 years
old, Mbarek Rhioui, has died, Le Matin du Sahara newspaper reported
Tuesday.
He lived at Azrou near Fez and was married a dozen times. Mr.
Rhioui once affirmed he had no secret recipe for living to a ripe old
age, the paper said.
[Hmmm, how ripe was he? And a dozen wives?? --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 May 91 00:42:13 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Parking Meters for the Masses
To: yucks-request
Personal Parking Meter On Rise
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP)
No change is a welcome change for some drivers in this Washington
suburb. They're leaving their quarters at home and opting for the
Parkulator, a portable, personal parking meter.
Instead of feeding the meter, drivers hang the electronic device
from the car windshield. The Parkulator resembles a small pocket
calculator and counts off time like a conventional meter.
"I wish I had stock in this little sucker. It's going to change
parking forever," said Arlington County Treasurer Francis X. O'Leary
Jr.
Arlington County was the first to test the device in late 1989,
and decided last summer to make it a permanent option.
The Parkulator also is being used in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Tampa,
Fla.; Boulder, Colo.; Latrobe, Pa.; Louisville, Ky.; Morgantown,
W.Va.; Davis, Calif.; and Syracuse, N.Y.
About 700 Parkulators, which sell for $5 and are available in
increments of $25, $50 or $100, have been sold in Arlington. O'Leary
estimates between 5 percent and 10 percent of drivers use them.
A Parkulator won't help find a parking spot, but it does save time
and money. There is no rummaging around for change, drivers pay only
for time actually used, and there is less likelihood of getting a
ticket for underfeeding the meter.
"If you get someplace, put $2 in the meter and go to your
appointment to find it's canceled, you're out of luck. With the
Parkulator you just turn the thing off when you get back in the car,"
O'Leary said.
Clyde Short, a legislative consultant who often makes three or
four stops a day in various office buildings, said he finds that
there is a "psychic reward" that comes from not driving away with
time left on the meter.
Parkulators are programmed to a locality's parking rates. Users
punch in the appropriate parking zone and the amount of time to be
deducted. A personal identification code helps protect against theft.
Police check up on Parkulators, just as they do conventional
meters. When the programmed time on the Parkulator expires, it's
screen starts flashing.
Arlington is promoting the Parkulator because it reduces the
expense of collecting and counting the 60 tons of coins it pulls from
its 3,300 meters each year, O'Leary said.
"We get our money up front. We can go ahead and invest it instead
of collecting it over months in nickels and dimes," said Deputy
Treasurer Donald R. Eager. Last year, $1.7 million was collected from
parking meters.
The Arkansas-based Duncan Industries Inc., which once held the
rights to the yo-yo, purchased the marketing rights to the Parkulator
from an Israeli inventor four years ago.
[I wonder if you can "walk the dog" with a Parkulator? --spaf]
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Date: Sat, 25 May 91 11:22:25 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: The American judicial system
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
In Athens, Georgia, the defense rests, but not the jury. There lawyers
for Mr. Lamar Manus, 41, got Mr. Manus acquitted of reputedly molesting
a 15-year-old boy by coaxing Mr. Manus to display his male member to
the jury. The young man had testified that Mr. Manus's private part
was just like his, but upon inspection it was revealed that Mr. Manus
is uncircumcised, unlike his alleged victim. The American judicial
system remains the marvel of the world!
-- The American Spectator, April 1991
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Date: Sat, 25 May 91 11:26:05 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: The invitation is in the mail
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
In New York City, Mayor David Dinkins's City Hall ceremony to
honor the Super Bowl champion Giants had to be canceled after
it was discovered that no one had invited the team.
-- The American Spectator, April 1991
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Date: 27 May 91 10:30:04 GMT
From: STAN@mvsa.usc.edu (Stan Ivener)
Subject: Valentine letter
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Copied from the Mac-HAC'ers CLIPBOARD: February
1991 - Vol 6 - No. 6
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
To: All,
From: Houston Hodges
Subject: I miss you.
TO MY DARLING HUSBAND,
I am sending you this letter via this BBS
communications thing, so that you will be sure to
read it. Please forgive the deception, but I
thought you should know what has been going on at
home since your computer entered our lives TWO
YEARS AGO. The children are doing well. Tommy is
seven now and is a bright, handsome boy. He has
developed quite an interest in the arts. He drew
a family portrait for a school project, all the
figures were good, and the back of your head is
very realistic. You should be very proud of him.
Little Jennifer turned three in September. She
looks a lot like you did at that age. She is an
attractive child and quite smart. She still
remembers that you spent the whole afternoon with
us on her birthday. What a grand day for Jenny,
despite the fact that it was stormy and the
electricity was out.
I am doing well. I went blonde about a year ago,
and discovered that it really is more fun!
George, I mean, Mr. Wilson the department head,
has uh, taken an interest in my caareer and has
become a good friend to us all.
I discovered that the household chores are much
easier since I realized that you didn't mind being
vaccumed but that feather dusting made you sneeze.
The house is in good shape. I had the living room
painted last spring; I'm sure you noticed it. I
made sure that the painters cut holes in the drop
sheet so you wouldn't be disturbed.
Well, my dear, I must be going. Uncle George, uh,
Mr. Wilson, I mean, is taking us all on a ski trip
and there is packing to do. I have hired a
housekeeper to take care of things while we are
away, she'll keep things in order, fill your
coffee cup and bring your meals to your desk, just
the way you like it. I hope you and the computer
will have a lovely time while we are gone. Tommy,
Jenny and I will think of you often. Try to
remember us while your disks are booting.
Love, Karen
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 91 08:04:39 GMT
From: kibo@jec311.its.rpi.edu (James 'Kibo' Parry)
Subject: What is Usenet?
Newsgroups: news.admin,talk.bizarre
[]
Usenet is a little bird sitting in a tree.
Usenet is a bunch of pretty flowers that smell BAD.
Usenet is a green golfball that someone's cut open to see if
they're really filled with horrible acid. It wasn't.
Usenet is William Shatner and George Bush trading places after
being hit by lightning.
Usenet is like a tar pit except it's filled with Hershey's syrup.
Usenet has red hair at the sides and none on top. Usenet wears
big shoes. Usenet honks at people.
Usenet is sans-serif but oblique.
Usenet's secret ingredient is the fact that it doesn't have a
secret ingredient. Usenet contains no Spam. Usenet is an ingredient
*of* Spam.
Usenet comes in economy packs... at fifty bucks each.
Usenet is void where prohibited.
Usenet is an orgy in jail.
Usenet is a handful of Golfish crackers with eyes.
Usenet is Frosty the Snowman comitting suicide with a
flamethrower.
Usenet is a fish living in a glass house.
Usenet is the exploding window in the "Twilight Zone" title
sequence. Usenet is a dimension of sight, of sound, of smell.
Usenet asks no questions, but gets many answers; Usenet is the
biggest pencil in the world. Usenet is a sword whose blade is in
Schenectady and whose handle is everywhere.
Usenet is named Fred, or Dylan, or Janice, or Spot. Usenet is
sterile. Usenet takes pills.
Usenet moves at the speed of dark.
USENET IS NEVER CRYPTIC.
[I think he's got it. --spaf]
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End of Yucks Digest
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