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Yucks Digest V3 #29 (shorts)
Yucks Digest Mon, 20 Sep 93 Volume 3 : Issue 29
Today's Topics:
170 MB SCSI for sale
[alt.spam] Re: Vikings?
[ba.singles] Re: what would miss manners do?
A Slow News Day in Austin...
Awful rumor!
can't make up his mind
Catena epistula - *Lege!*
Coyote Humor
cute sig
cutie
from Multics to Unix
hope for the addict
Marketing
Mars Observer Found
naked pentecostals update
now _that's_ stress-testing!!!
Oh, what a tangled newsgroup we weave
One annoyed bride
Quote of the day (5 msgs)
software development models...
Steely Kelp
tell it like it is
The HAL syndrome at Microsoft
The hammer cult
THE RESTORATION OF PARADISE
too weird to be untrue...
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual,
the sometimes risque, the possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous.
It is issued on a semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present
themselves.
Back issues and subscriptions can be obtained using a mail server. Send
mail to "yucks-request@cs.purdue.edu" with a "Subject:" line of the single
word "help" for instructions.
Submissions and problem reports should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 14:27:54 GMT
From: tcb@cipr-diva.mgh.harvard.edu (Ted Beatie)
Subject: 170 MB SCSI for sale
Newsgroups: ne.forsale,misc.forsale.computers,misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone
[....]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the |
|center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South |
|Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South |
|End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
[....]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 04:50:59 GMT
From: abulhak@nyx.cs.du.edu (Andrew_-_Bulhak)
Subject: [alt.spam] Re: Vikings?
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Newsgroups: alt.spam
From: aca1@crux1.cit.cornell.edu (tongue depressor)
Subject: Re: Vikings?
davisn@woods.ulowell.edu writes:
> For everyone who has seen the Monty Python skit, I'm sure you all have.
>What do Vikings have to do with Spam?
Vikings and SPAM (TM)??? you HAVE to be kidding. i thought EVERYONE knew the
ancient sagas of Thormell, god of the sacred Spamr. Invaluable as both a
source of, um, protein i suppose, and as a projectile, tins of Spamr frequently
found their way into Viking war ships, to be eaten or thrown (or possibly both)
at opposing hordes of Danes or Swedes (ok var _that_ mikill sar... :) ) It
is said that Loki once, as a joke on Thormell, substituted TREET for SPAM on a
shipload of Iceland's finest warriors, who subsequently became the laughing
stock of the entire country. In revenge, Thormell gathered up nearly 100 ships
full to the oarlocks with genuine SPAM, and chased Loki all the way to Minne-
sota, that forsaken outpost destined one day to be world-renowned for both its
SPAM *and* its Scandinavians. It was at this time, shortly BEFORE the intro-
duction of Christianity, that the Icelanders really began wearing the upside-
down cross, falsely interpreted as a sign of Thor or of Jesus. In fact, this
ubiquitous symbol was actually a stylized key for opening SPAM tins, and the
same honors and priveleges applied to these sacred keys as to swords and hilts
and such, and the delicate milles-fleur inlays found in keys at some burial
sites are a wonder to behold. It was this national obsession with SPAM that
also spawned much of the hostility between Vikings and Swedes (who were well
known to have a heathen liking for Lutefisk) and it was said that a Swede was
only worth the SPAM he could be made into.
alas, the times when evenings were spent with rimur, mead, and SPAM are now a
fleeting memory in the recesses of the oldest Icelander's minds (jaeja, er
thath), but their story lives on in the immortal sagas of Thormell and his
trusty bands of Viking marauders, may they always have SPAM to come back to in
Valhalla after long days of hacking each other to bits...
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 06:53:25 GMT
From: dale@netcom.com (Dale Hardester)
Subject: [ba.singles] Re: what would miss manners do?
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Newsgroups: ba.singles
From: Jawara@Applelink.Apple.COM (Ron Drake)
Subject: Re: what would miss manners do?
In article <87225@cup.portal.com>, DeadHead@cup.portal.com (Bruce M Ong)
wrote:
> Okay. Say you are in this bar. And you see a friend whom you do not expect
> to see in this bar. And this friend is in drag. Do you walk up to him
> and acknowledge him _and_ his drag? or do you just say hi but say nothing
> about his drag (which means you dont consider the drag to be successful),
> or do you walk up to him and acknowledge his drag but do not acknowledge HIM
> which gives him the feeling that his drag is soo successful you dont even
> recognize him as your friend. Or, do you just completely ignore him like
> you dont know him? What's the proper etiquette here?
Etiquette dictates that you always extend a cordial greeting to those
with whom you are on good terms, so ignoring him is out. If the drag
is a character job, acknowledge your friend AS that character (' Lit-
tle Bo Peep! Dude! Haven't seen you in ages!'). Since this is a friend,
this also gives you an opportunity to compliment some particularly
nice costuming ('Renting those sheep for the night must have cost a
fortune!') or to call attention to any fashion fauxs pax ('You've
got Zorro's grease pencil mustache all over your cheek.') Some people
in drag are extremely conscious of their appearance and would welcome
a conversation with someone they know; the courtesy you extend now may
be returned by the end of the evening ('Yo! Bo! Could I call you to-
morrow? I'd love to chat with you now but you're making my date ner-
vous.')
[ Next week: proper conduct when speaking to nude people ]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 93 01:39:13 CDT
From: shoe@tivoli.com (Mark Shoemaker)
Subject: A Slow News Day in Austin...
To: bob
I'm not making this up.
Really.
On page A8 of today's Austin American-Statesman, there's an article
about a guy who has invented a battery that runs off lithium and human
urine.
And (as if that weren't enough), on page A11 there's a picture with the
following title and caption (from AP):
Humongous fungus
Haiyin Wang, a plant pathology student at Purdue University,
examines a giant mushroom at the Arthur Herbarium In West Lafayette,
Ind. The 40-pound fungus, which was pulled from a yard in West
Point, Ind., was to be dried and stored at Purdue. But it did not
fit in the dryer, so three professors ate it.
They blinded me with science...
Shoe
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 07:34:27 GMT
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Awful rumor!
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.emacs,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing,news.groups,alt.religion.kibology
[followups to gnu.misc.discuss]
In <1993Aug21.27987.24383@hops.cambridge.ma.us> bheer@hops.cambridge.ma.us writes:
> Hi everybody
>
> I heard a rumor that somebody at Gnu did something really awfull, and the FBI is
> coming to take all there machines away.
>
> Somebody told me that stallman left the country friday too. Does anybody know what's
> up?
Well, see, Richard M. Stallman was arrested for using Silly Putty to
dupicate a Popeye cartoon from a local newspaper and then modifying
Popeye by stretching him. "I paid a for the paper, so it's mine," he
said. "This falls into the category of 'fair use', as I'm not giving my
copy of Popeye's head to anyone or making money off it. In fact, I've
already wadded the putty up, so the whole point is moot. Oh, and for
your information, I do *not* use Silly Putty(R). Silly Putty(R) is a
proprietary, parented formulation which costs way too much. I was using
the Free Putty Foundation's new Gui Putty--that's pronounced 'gooey', of
course--which we synthesized here from readily-available free
ingredients like dirt. It's free, it's more elastic, and we can make it
in a wider range of colors--for instance, we're making it in brown now
so that it can be available in everyone's fleshtone. Plus, kids won't
confuse it with bubble gum and swallow it like they do with the pink kind."
Mr. Stallman then barricaded himself in his office with a rifle and his
fifteen wives, and would not make further comment. However, he
continues to shape, and stretch, the Free Putty Foundation's plans for a
more elastic future. Donors to this cause will receive a free "Keep
Yours Hands On My Putty!" pin.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 11:26:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Thublin <paul@sware.com>
Subject: can't make up his mind
To: bs@sware.com
I happened to see an interesting car pulling out of our local Krystal
restaurant yesterday. My first glance was at the front of this station
wagon where the front plate was the current flag of the State of
Georgia (the one _with_ the Stars and Bars). Having recently been in a
few arguments over this flag I looked to see who or what was driving
this car, and it turned out to be a man of possibly Mexican descent
with a Rising Sun (the Japanese battle flag) bandana on his head. Of
course I had to stop and see what else he might have on his car, and I
was well rewarded with two more Georgia flag plates in the windows, a
GreenPeace '93 sticker (on the Left side), a Deadhead sticker in the
center, and then two bumper stickers prominently placed reading
"CLINTON SUX" and "NO QUEERS IN THE U.S. MILITARY"!
I almost wanted to see how he would've responded to me running over and
shouting at him - "Hey! What the hell are you thinking about? It's
wishy-washy guys like you running this country that are driving it into
the ground! Get that GreenPeace sticker off your car!" :-)
------------------------------
Date: 4 Sep 93 08:51:27 GMT
From: snyeva01@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Subject: Catena epistula - *Lege!*
Newsgroups: sci.classics,rec.humor,sanet.fun
Haec epistula orbem terrarum cognitarum saepenumero curcumit
et fortunam secundam fert ubicumque eat. Decem exemplaria fac
et eos mitte ad amicos. Noli catenam frangere. Homo Gallicus
catenm fregit, et patria sua in tres partes brevi post divisa
est. Dux ex Philistinis epistulam dedidicit, et copiae suae
fusae sunt. Sed Scipio Africanus, exemplaribus epistulae ad
senatores Romanos omnes missis, die proximo Cartaginienses
vicit.
Bona fortuna!
Evanus Gallicus Scissor
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 09:48:29 CDT
From: Matt Rein #3 <mrein3@cfsmo.honeywell.com>
Subject: Coyote Humor
On the way in to work today I heard the following story. A MN DNR guy was
told this by a South Dakota Game and Fish guy who swears it is true.
In western South Dakota the coyote population was getting so bad that some
sheep ranchers were losing 50% of their sheep and up to 90% of their lambs.
The Game and Fish Department had to hold a special "town meeting" before
they could do anything about the problem.
At the meeting it was decided that they would hire some sharp shooters to come
in and bring the population back into check. Then an elderly "anti" woman
stood up and said that she thought that it was awful that these poor coyotes
were gonna be killed for doing something that comes natural to them. Couldn't
they be trapped and then sterilized?
With that comment a rancher in the back stood, hitched up his jeans, and
said, "Ma'm, they ain't screwing the sheep, they're eatin' 'em."
The guy swears it is true.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 14:21:17 -0400
From: "Patrick Tufts" <zippy@cs.brandeis.edu>
Subject: cute sig
To: spaf
Sig seen in comp.sys.apollo:
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln256%Pln256/snlbx]sb3135071790101768542287578439snlbxq' |dc
[I suppose some of you are not Unix-users who can test this out.
However, I don't want to spoil the effect for those who are, so I'm
not going to disclose the output...in this issue. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 2 Sep 93 04:31:18 EDT (Thu)
From: dscatl!lindsay@merlin.gatech.edu (Lindsay Cleveland)
Subject: cutie
To: spaf
Contributed by: akgua!glc
For all you folks about to embark on a large project and for all
you Government folks about to fund same, I submit the following
for your contemplation:
When the Aswan Dam was completed in 1967, it was the biggest and
most expensive dam in the world.
The Egyptians expected this "man-made miracle" to prevent the
annual flooding of the Nile River and to generate badly needed
hydroelectric power.
Unfortunately, the Aswan Dam has produced some unexpected
results. For example, the regular flooding of the Nile deposited
rich silt along the banks of the river and, at the same time,
carried away the salts that abound in desert soil. Withe the
building of the dam, the course of nature has been changed.
It became necessary to build fertilizer plants which require
immense amounts of electricity. The drainage ditches built to
irrigate the land now collect large amounts of salt. Drainage
systems and pumps to desalinate the land may coast as much as the
dam itself.
That is not all. The nutrients that were formerly swept
downstream by the river have disappeared. As a result, the
sardine catch dropped by 97 percent within three years after the
dam was built.
There have been other adverse effects, too. When the bill is
added up, it appears that the Aswan Dam produces economic *losses*
as high as $550 million a year.
-- Stanley F. Maxwell
"The Northern Light"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 17:03:53 GMT
From: tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck)
Subject: from Multics to Unix
Multics - Iliad
Full of heroes & exploits.
Modern firepower renders most of its tactics obsolete.
UNIX - Aeneid
Studied in more classrooms than the Iliad.
Doesn't make it better or more of a success.
Different language, different cultural matrix, different goals.
OS/360 - Internal revenue code
Widely studied but only a few consider it epic.
MSDOS - Gilligan's Island
Mac OS - Cheers
Windows - Married With Children
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 16:20:56 CDT
From: Miles O'Neal <meo@pencom.com>
Subject: hope for the addict
To: spaf (Gene Spafford), cate3.osbu_north@xerox.com (Henry III)
Kristina D. Kachulis said...
| IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!!
|******************************************************************************
|
|Do you find yourself logged into the net at odd hours? Do you sacrifice other
|activities to work on your computer? Do you find yourself anticipating the
|volumes of e-mail that will be waiting when you logged in? Answering yes to
|two or more of these questions may signal a serious .net.addiction. But there
|is help. Through the support of alt.net.addicts, you too can free yourself
|from technology's hypnotic grasp. For a mere $19.95, you'll receive any
|and all computer equipment and net access removed from your precesence. Take
|that first step and get your life back into control!
|
|*******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: 15 Sep 1993 18:29:28 GMT
From: crisper@cats.ucsc.edu (Crisper Than Thou)
Subject: Marketing
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
nj@cs.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) writes:
>
>Yes yes yes kelp and all that but I say we cut to the chase.
>What we really need is a new marketing campaign for Christ.
>I mean yes yes yes they've been marketing Christ for years
>nearly millenia in fact but this is the 90s.
>
Ad, slotted for the after-prime-time TV slots:
Black screen. Begin horrifying, driving industrial music made from
horribly scarred combinations of Bach and American Gospel.
Montage, rapid and unceasing, show scenes of religious wars in the
Middle East, beautiful weddings in small-town churches, racial
intolerance and burning crosses, TV evangelists, stained glass
windows, paintings of the Crusades, money, power, greed, violence,
hatred, and suffering.
Black.
Voice-over, the voice of someone who can't believe what he has just
witnessed:
"Jesus _CHRIST_!"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 3:20:03 EDT
From: harry@brain.jpl.nasa.gov (Harry Langenbacher)
Subject: Mars Observer Found
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Seen on a hall wall at JPL:
(each letter appears to have been cut out of a magazine
and pasted on the paper )
we have your
satelite if you
want it back
send 20 billion
in martian
money. No funny
business or
you will never
see it again
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:14:49 PDT
From: Lisa Chabot <Lisa.Chabot@Eng.Sun.COM>
Subject: naked pentecostals update
To: spaf
------- Forwarded Message
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 07:07:36 EDT
From: SDT Advanced Development Manager DTN 381-2084 25-Aug-1993 0707
-0400 <ellenberger@tle.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Follow-up on the Pentecostals
AMARILLO, Texas (UPI) - Twenty Pentecostals who fled the devil in
west Texas last week and were all naked when their car crashed in
Louisiana are in Florida, anxious to return home.
Family members said Monday their loved ones are in Wauchula, in
central Florida, where they went as soon as police in Vinton, La.,
released them after the car they were crammed into struck a tree.
Ramiro Cisneros, the brother of Martha Rodriguez, one of the
Pentecostal travelers, told the Amarillo Globe-News ``Everybody's fine.
We are helping them out. Somebody's supposed to come down and pick them
up.''
Last week, authorities said 20 members of the extended family were
fleeing the devil, convinced they would be killed if they stayed in
Floydada. Police said along the way, they abandoned all but one of their
cars and shed their ``possessed'' clothing.
Their flight was interrupted last Thursday by the car crash.
The pastor and the driver of the car, the Rev. Sammy Rodriguez,
remained jailed in Vinton, La. on numerous charges relating to the
incident.
Cisneros said his brother picked up the Spanish Assembly of God
travelers in Louisiana and drove them to Martha Rodriguez's parents'
home in Wauchula, Fla.
------- End of Forwarded Message
I want to know if they were still naked. And what the upholstery is
like in Cisneros's brother's car.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 17:23:48 CDT
From: gatech!iquery.iqsc.com!rex (Rex Black)
Subject: now _that's_ stress-testing!!!
To: qastaff@qasun.nde.swri.edu, spaf
>From the Risks Digest:
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 16:55:35 BST
> From: Kenneth.Wood@prg.ox.ac.uk
> Subject: Be careful with your test cases!
>
> The Feedback section of the latest New Scientist relates the following
> Computer Weekly story about an unfortunate programmer at an unnamed
> bank. Apparently, the bank wanted to target its wealthiest customers
> with a mailshot promoting various new services and the programmer in
> question wrote a program to select the 2000 wealthiest customers from
> the bank's records and to generate an appropriate letter for each. In
> the process of testing the program, he made use of a fictitious customer
> named Rich Bastard.
>
> Unfortunately, as you may already have guessed, something went amiss and
> every single one of the bank's 2000 prize customers received a letter
> which began "Dear Rich Bastard, ..."
>
> The risks involved? Well, for one thing, the hapless programmer lost
> his job over the incident. More generally, I suppose it's just another
> example of the way in which the complex interactions amongst program
> development, testing, and maintenance can produce unpredicted and
> undesirable consequences. The latter analysis is, of course, rather
> generous to the programmer.
Of course, in my career I've never done anything comparable, like, say,
just for example, inserting debug commands that dumped variables with
print statments like, "This shitty program thinks it read rec # %d" or
"This sonofabitch calc_gain function thinks the client made %f bucks."
And, of course, those debug statements never got shipped to a customer,
nor did they print obscene messages on the secretary's screen when she
ran the Profit/Loss Report. ;-)
Unlike the creator of "Rich Bastard", however, I didn't get fired...
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 17:30:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: knauer@ibeam.intel.com (Rob Knauerhase)
Subject: Oh, what a tangled newsgroup we weave
To: yucks
In an E-mail message, Monica King wrote:
[on using the word 'web' instead of 'newsgroup' for newsgroups]
>I prefer web to the sterile "newsgroup" as it connotes a living structure,
>rather than a mechanistic one. Cheers, Monica
Maybe she has a point; the analogy of ideas (or people) getting trapped and
dying in Usenet 'webs' is strangely compelling, n'est-ce pas?
(Here's hoping Knuth doesn't resent the new use of the word.)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 93 4:30:02 EDT
From: cmrlbmw@prism.gatech.edu (MARK WUTKA)
Subject: One annoyed bride
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Classified ad from "Thrifty Nickel", Panama City Beach, Florida:
WEDDING RING SET WITH
numerous diamonds, $400 or
trade for handgun. 874-0935
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 05:50:03 MDT
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"We were literally thrown on top of each other into a helicopter and off
we went. We asked where we were going and we were told to shut up."
- UN employee Larry DeBoice, who was taken prisoner, bound and roughed
up by U.S. Rangers in Mogadishu, Somalia along with 8 colleagues.
The Rangers had raided the UN residence/office looking for alleged
Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The building had UN
identification on the outer walls, and had been used by the UN for a
year.
"...a textbook example of how these operations should go..."
"...lightning speed and over-powering force..."
- UN military spokesperson Major David Stockwell, describing the above
raid, which involved 50 helicoper-borne Rangers taking 9 unarmed UN
employees prisoner.
[Shades of "We had to destroy the hamlet to save it." --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 93 05:50:03 MDT
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"Singapore is an astonishingly efficient and repressive hyper-modern
state, like Disneyland with death penalties."
- writer William Gibson
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 05:50:03 MDT
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"Curtis Pride, Ottawa Lynx outfielder and the only
deaf professional baseball player, was selected
the International League's Slugger of the Month
in June.
The Lynx rewarded Pride with a new stereo system."
FRANK Magazine, Sept. 16, 1993, Issue 150
FRANK BY NAME, FRANK BY NATURE
Submitted by: "Stephen Bjarnason" <SBJARNASON@hpb.hwc.ca>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 05:50:02 MDT
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"A lot of people have said the name is stupid and the logo is stupid.
All I know is the kids love it. We have a chance to become America's
Team."
- demon-spawn Tony Tavares, President of Disney Sports, on his firm's
joke of a hockey team, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 93 05:50:02 MDT
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
Q.What's the difference between Jurassic Park and IBM?
A.One's a theme park full of old mechanical monsters that scare the
customers and the other is a movie.
Sydney Morning Herald, front page, Column 8, 1 September, 1993
(as heard on 2UE, a Sydney radio station)
Submitted by: Earl Fogel <fogel@herald.usask.ca>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 12:31:32 CDT
From: gatech!iquery.iqsc.com!rex (Rex Black)
Subject: software development models...
To: gordon@qasun.nde.swri.edu, jay@qasun.nde.swri.edu, jimb@qasun.nde.swri.edu, jody@qasun.nde.swri.edu, ralf@qasun.nde.swri.edu, spaf, tom@qasun.nde.swri.edu
Most of my experience has been with model 4...
From: whg@se.houston.geoquest.slb.com (bill gillock)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Process Models ;-)
In an attempt to streamline the software development process at our
company, many different process models were considered. A few of these
models are presented below:
1. The Waterfall Model - Basic requirements, then design, then code,
and then test.
2. Pond Model - Code and ideas stagnate and grow other life forms.
3. Water Fountain Model - Same as pond model, though looks prettier.
4. Firehose Model - Well focused effort on putting out fires.
5. Toilet Bowl Model - Combination of Spiral and Waterfall models.
Usually have problem with things that don't flush.
6. Thunderstorm Model - Loud, noisy and dangerous. Usually results
in flooding with developers moving to higher ground.
7. Tornado Model - Faster implementation of Spiral Model, usually wipes
out development staff.
8. Hurricane Model - Close attention paid to tracking its course,
though no one can predict when it will arrive.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 13:42:26 -0400
From: Patrick Tufts <zippy@cs.brandeis.edu>
Subject: Steely Kelp
To: spaf
[It helps if you know Squeeze's "Tempted" --P]
>Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
>From: boutell@netcom.com (Thomas Boutell)
>Subject: Steely Kelp
>Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 15:55:17 GMT
Put on my T- Shirt, my turban,
My yarmulka myself,
My roll- on, my ankh,
My shoes with some help,
I said to my reflection,
"Let's go score us some ke- e- e- elp."
(DUDUMP DOM)
Tempted by the kelp of another, (WADUMP BOM!)
Tempted by the kelp of another, (HRUMP DUMP)
It's the tentacled (dhum da)
Floating vegetable,
There's no other!
Tempted by the kelp of another.
Tempted but the froup has discovered,
(Bana na na na na na na na....)
-T
In celebration of the peace pact I have portrayed articles of
clothing of both nations. Aren't I just the multicultural one?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 18:04:54 EDT
From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
Subject: tell it like it is
To: silent-tristero@world.std.com
[forwards deleted]
>From New Scientist, 28 august 93, Feedback column:
"The National Westminster Bank admitted last month that it keeps
personal information about its customers-such as their political
affiliation-on computer. But now Computer Weekly reveals that a
financial institution, sadly unnamed, has gone one better and moved
into the realm of personal abuse.
The institution decided to mailshot 2000 of its richest customers,
inviting them to buy extra services. One of its computer programmers
wrote a program to search through its databases and select its
customers automatically. He tested the program with an imaginary
customer called Rich Bastard.
Unfortunately, an error resulted in all 2000 letters being addressed
"Dear Rich Bastard". The luckless programmer was subsequently sacked."
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 16:09:19 PDT
From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (The Napoleon of Crime)
Subject: The HAL syndrome at Microsoft
To: spaf
A friend of a friend of mine pointed this out the other day:
The head of the Windows NT group at Microsoft, Dave "Well, my kids like me"
Cutler, used to work at DEC, as one of the primary (if not THE primary)
architects of VMS.
Notice that if you add one letter to VMS (e.g., HAL + 1 = IBM), you get:
WNT (Windows NT)
"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that..."
"Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst
elements of American life. Violence and committee
meetings."
-- George Will
[As sometimes is the case, I like the quote better than the message.
:-) spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 14:16:13 GMT
From: fulton@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (Ben Fulton)
Subject: The hammer cult
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,in.bizarre,iu.gripe
This may be the last chance I get to write this down. They are coming
even as I write this.
Poor fools, we! We couldn't have known. We invited them in, with their
drillbits and their buzzsaws. We *asked* them to come, to fix the poor
remainders of our office building. And they came. They brought a crane,
to bring their great sheets of insulation, their slabs of cement, their
decorative gravel.
They started on the lower roof. Every day, we'd look down, and laugh
and point, saying "look at the workmen!" We'd show them to our
children. We'd say "Look at the big machines, watch them pushing
the wheelbarrows!" and the children would stare down, with wide eyes.
But eventually, they came up here. We would be casually working at
our desks, and the crane, with its great girders and piles of rock,
would appear behind us. Even with our backs turned, we could feel
its malevolent presence, and wonder what it was going to do.
Hush. Did you hear that? That low, guttural thunder? They're
coming, and the building is shaking...Oh yes, we know the routine.
The drills, *then* the hammers. Then...silence. And no more
news from the lower levels.
We thought they'd be content with the roofs. They spent their time
outside, and we felt safe and protected within our glass walls.
But they grew tired of those simple games. They've come inside now.
We've moved to the top office level, and may God preserve those poor
souls below us.
Oh, God, there are the drills again!
We can't get out. They've done something to the elevators. We may have
to abandon the computers and go to the next level, the store room. God
knows if it will be enough. We'll hold out as long as we can. I'll
throw this note out the window. Maybe it will save some other unsuspecting
soul.
It's almost over. The drills have stopped.
Here come the hammers...
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:23:18 -0400
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: THE RESTORATION OF PARADISE
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
From: YALE BULLETIN AND CALENDAR, September 6, 1993
THE RESTORATION OF PARADISE
On July 1, the day that he took office as Yale's 22nd president,
Richard C. Levin sent the following message to members of the Yale
community via the campus' electronic mail system:
On July 1, 1978, A Bartlett Giamatti issued the first memorandum
of his Presidency: "In order to repair what Milton called the ruin of
our grand parents, I wish to announce that henceforth, as a matter of
University policy, evil is abolished and paradise is restored. I trust
all of us will do whatever possible to achieve this policy objective."
I have appointed a committee, chaired by the University Chaplain,
to investigate why the Giamatti Proclamation failed to produced the
intended result. I have asked the committee to study the feasibility
of abolishing evil and to develop a strategic plan for the restoration
of paradise. The committee will present its findings to the University
Budget Committee, which will determine whether paradise can be restored
without further cuts in academic programs and support services. Before
any action is taken, I assure you that there will be opportunity for
full discussion by the appropriate faculties, the Yale College Council,
the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, the Association of Yale
Alumni, Locals 34 and 35, and the New York Times. I expect to transmit
recommendations to the Yale Corporation before the end of the millenium.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:59:04 CDT
From: gatech!qasun.nde.swri.edu!rex (Rex Black)
Subject: too weird to be untrue...
To: spaf
I particularly love the newsgroup I found this on...and just what the
heck are "asbestos tenny pumps"?
From: lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: E-Catacomb of Lesbigay Christians
Date: 26 Aug 93 22:05:54 GMT
Attention Lesbigay Christians:
Tired of Being Fed to the Lions?
Put away your asbestos tenny pumps for a while and come to our
prayer-lit electronic catacomb, LUTI. God is here, as the Holy Spirit,
and here God dares to love absolutely everyone. You don't even have
to speak or be known. If you need to, you may sit in the corner and
lick your wounds.
Lo, everyone that thirsts, come, drink eternal water which Jesus
revealed at Samaritan wells!
For a guide away from the Coliseum down the Appian Way, send e-
mail with the SUBJECT: LUTI, yes to
H.R.H. Quean Lutibelle <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>
or from CompuServe to:
>INTERNET:lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu
No one will check your plumbing. In this space we know one another
not by whether we are Jew or Greek, cut or uncut, male or female,
straight or gay, pigmented privileged or pigmented vulnerable.... but
by whether we love one another. Come, be the church with us.
Faithfully,
H.M.H. Quean Lutibelle
a.k.a. Louie Crew, Li Min Hua, Br. Thorn-in-the-Flesh
Founder of Integrity: The Justice Ministry of Lesbigay Episcopalians
------------------------------
Date: 26 Aug 1993 21:14:30 GMT
From: jrs@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Jonathan Richard Seagrave)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
[....]
---
I am Homer from BORG, prepare to be assim... oooh, donuts!"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 15:37:48 GMT
From: ereddy@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Ed Reddy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.marketplace
[....]
_____ - If every man stopped thinking about war and hatred,
/ ### \ and started to think about Space, just imagine how
()\_____/() close a reality Star Trek would be right now..
ereddy@morgan.ucs.mun.ca & edward@dragger.ifmt.nf.ca
Like Clinton beaming over to Bosnia with the Surgeon General and Colin
Powell? Every weeknight?
Personally, I'd pay to see Perot fly a shuttlecraft into the Doomsday
Device (otherwise known as the giant devouring ice-cream cone) any
day.
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End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------