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Yucks Digest V4 #41 (Christmas issues)
Yucks Digest Tue, 20 Dec 94 Volume 4 : Issue 41
Today's Topics:
administrivia
another worn old xmas special we'd rather not have seen
for yucks
gag Christmas songs
Gifts
Humor:Christmas collection
Karaoke Multicast of Handel's Messiah
Politically Correct Santa
the grinch that stole oop...
The tech writer's version of "The Night Before Christmas" (fwd)
Toys certainly are more sophisticated now than when I was a kid
Xmas in Shell Land
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 can be obtained via Gopher as
gopher://gopher.cs.purdue.edu/11/Purdue_cs/Users/spaf/yucks/gopher
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: Tue Dec 20 01:20:52 EST 1994
From: spaf
Subject: administrivia
To: Yucks
Well, this is a Christmas issue, sort of. I've got some more gift
ideas, some Christmas story & verse, and the like. This is also the
last or second-last issue before Christmas, and one of the last of the
year.
Someone asked me yesterday about when I started Yucks, and did I have
any idea how many people subscribed. So, I did a little checking.
I thought some of you might be interested, as almost half of you
weren't on this list last Christmas.
I've always shared humorous stories and ideas via e-mail with some
friends. In mid-1990, so many people were asking to be added to my
mailing list or for copies of things I mailed, I started the Yucks list
as a formal, unadvertised list. In December of 1990, I turned it into
a Digest. This is the 255th digest since then (they are all available
via ftp or gopher, or indirectly, WWW; check 'em out if you have too
much free time on your hands :-).
I've never announced or advertised the list. I've left it to the
readers to tell others if they felt it appropriate. I sometimes
mention it to people I meet under bizarre conditions, as that seems
appropriate. Sometimes I meet people for the first time, and they've
been getting the list for months (and these are people I would have
otherwise judged to be normal). There are almost 700 mailboxes
in the list, with at least 20 of them remailers or gateways into site
newsgroups. Readership is probably over 1000. It's not a RISKS
digest, but it certainly has become larger than I ever thought it
would be!
Yucks has subscribers in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, England,
France, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,
South Africa, Ukraine, Venezuala, and the South Pole.
In the US DoD, we have the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the
NSA, the CIA, DISA, DLA, ARPA, and the DFAS. On the civilian side,
there are personnel from NSF, NASA, LLNL, the CDC, the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory. No one at whitehouse.gov, though, or
house.gov or senate.gov. They could use it, however....
Personnel at ACM, the BCS, DECUS, and EFF subscribe. So do personnel
at organizational sites I don't immediately recognize: cactus.org,
case.org, cmhnet.org, egbt.org, eris.org, fidonet.org, fof.org,
lafn.org, rferl.org, and super.org. People working for network
service providers, or subscribers at ans.net, bev.net, clark.net,
digex.net, eu.net, helix.net, hooked.net, interport.net, mcs.net,
mountain.net, north.net, and uu.net all subscribe.
Users at educational sites are the second largest group: alaska,
american, arizona, asu, berkeley, brandeis, bsu, bu, buffalo, byuh,
calpoly, calstate, caltech, citadel, claremont, cmu, cofc, colorado,
colostate, columbia, cord, cornell, csufresno, cuny, cwru, depauw,
emory, freenet, fsu, gatech, georgetown, gmu, grin, gsu, gwu, harvard,
hvcc, indiana, kent, ksu, lclark, lehigh, mit, monmouth, mtholyoke,
ncsu, nd, nmsu, nodak, nyu, oberlin, ohio-state, pitt, psu, purdue,
reed, rice, rit, rochester, rutgers, sbu, smsu, smu, stanford,
suffolk, tamu, tamucc, tntech, toronto, tufts, tulane, uark, uc, ucar,
ucdavis, uchicago, uci, ucsb, ucsd, uidaho, uiowa, uiuc, uky, ulowell,
umbc, umd, umich, umn, unm, unomaha, unt, uofs, upenn, usc, usl,
utexas, uvm, vt, washington, weber, westga, williams, wisc, and wm.
(Some bitnet sites are on the list too, but I don't know what kind of
sites they are, although I suspect they are mostly educational sites.)
The commercial sector has the largest set of subscribers so far: ab,
adobe, adonis, amdahl, ameritech, analog, antaire, aol, apix, apple,
ast, atlanta, att, attmail, audiofax, autodesk, ball, banyan, basis,
bbn, booth-news, cavebear, cisco, compu, compuserve, crl, ctron, dec,
delphi, digex, dimebank, dpw, ebt, empirical, faxon, fish, fluke,
frame, franz, ga, gasco, ge, gte, gtefsd, hal, halcyon, healthcare,
hns, honeywell, hp, i2, ibm, idesign, iecc, incog, infoseek, ingr,
insight, intel, intellection, intercon, intercore, intrepid, iqsc,
kei, kodak, lanzl, lexmark, lilly, lockheed, magnes, mathworks, mcc,
mcimail, megatek, mentorg, microsoft, mmc, mofo, mot, msdc, nashville,
ncr, neosoft, netcom, novell, nyt, opal, oracle, osc, pacbell, panix,
paradyne, pcnet, pencom, pgroup, phantom, picosof, prodigy, psilink,
qcktrn, qnx, radio-online, reach, redwood, rockwell, rocsoft, roscom,
searanch, sequent, sequoia, sgi, sherpa, sony, spdcc, sprawl, sri,
ssax, ssds, stargate, startribune, starware, std, stratus, sun, sware,
symantec, teleport, tfs, think, ti, timeplex, tivoli, twuug, unocal,
versant, videocart, visigenic, vortex, wec, wired, and xerox.
As you can see, that includes software and hardware companies,
aerospace firms, telelcommunications, media, pharaceuticals, and a
bunch I can't identify without resorting to the whois server.
I am very happy that there are so many slightly unhinged people out
there in positions of importance. We need a little more humor and
somewhat less routine in our lives. It is my pleasure to produce
Yucks with that goal in mind, and I thank all of you who have
contributed to that greater good.
Whether or not you celebrate a holiday at this time of year, my best
wishes to each and every one of you for the season, and for the coming
year.
And now, on with the show.
--spaf
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 94 12:24:02 -0800
From: Lisa Chabot <lsc@netcom.com>
Subject: another worn old xmas special we'd rather not have seen
To: eniac
I hate it when CSPAN shows this one...
------- Forwarded Message
How the Gingrinch Stole Congress!
by Kris Rabberman & Scott Prevost
Every Who
Down in Whoville
Liked Elections a lot . . .
But Newt Gingrinch,
Who lived on Mount Gridlock,
Did NOT!
The Gingrinch loathed voting, the whole campaign season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been that his brain was two sizes too small.
But whatever the reason,
His brain or his shoes,
He stood there Election Eve , hating the Whos,
Staring down from Mount Gridlock with a Gingrinchy frown,
At the candidates stumping below in their town.
For he knew every Who who was thinking that night,
Would cast their votes wisely--against the far right.
"And they're worried about issues!" he snarled with a sneer,
"Tomorrow's the election! It's practically here!"
And the gears in his head began frantically spinning,
"I MUST find a way to keep liberals from winning!"
For tomorrow, he knew all the Whos in the know,
Would vote for the DemoWhos all in a row,
For Wofford and Foley, Feinstein and Cuomo.
Then the DemoWho Congress would do what he'd hate,
Come up with new programs, and then legislate!
Healthcare and gun bans they'd gladly create,
But such progress the Gingrinch would only berate.
And THEN they'd do something
He liked least of all!
Every DemoWho in Congress, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, and say with one voice,
"We're for women's rights and we're also pro-choice!"
They'd work! And they'd work!
AND they'd WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK!
And the more that the Gingrinch thought, with a smirk,
The more that he thought, "I must STOP their hard work!
Why since Who-sevelt's years I've put up with it now!
I MUST stop the liberals from winning!
. . But HOW?"
Then he got an idea!
An AWFUL idea!
The Newt
got a HORRIBLE, AWFUL idea!
"I know just what to do!" Gingrinch laughed in his throat.
"I'll make empty vows in return for their vote."
And he chuckled, and clucked, "I've got a great con.
With these lies we'll pay homage to President Ron!"
"All I need is a gimmick . . ."
The Newt looked around.
But since ideas are scarce, there were none to be found.
Did that stop the old Gingrinch
From finding a scheme . . . ?
Of course not, he had the Whopublican team.
So he called Mr. Dole, and he eagerly said,
"I need to make use of your sly, sneaky head."
Then they made up a plan,
That was terribly Dole-y,
To unseat the speaker,
Congressman Foley.
And they wrote up a contract.
They did it that day,
And they chortled and laughed,
"All the liberals must pay."
As the Gingrinch and Dole formulated their schemes,
Based on trickle down theories and far right extremes,
The DemoWhos, calmly, were dreaming their dreams.
First Gingrinch and Dole, with a gleam in their eyes,
About Clinton's record, told many lies.
Then they told of the programs they'd gleefully pinch,
Who better to do this than Mr. Gingrinch?
They got stuck only once, on the issue of ketchup,
So they got on the phone and they called Orrin Hatch up.
Then both of them sunk to a terrible low.
"Entitlements," they grinned, "are the first things to go!"
Then they slithered and slunk, with smiles most unpleasant,
Obnoxiously trashing the left, past and present!
"With Huffington, Romney, North and Santorum,
We're sure that the left cannot help but deplore 'em!
With ads so misleading they're practically criminal,
We'll use our PAC money for commercials subliminal!"
"We'll bombard them with TV, and a racist disc-jockey!
Who supports Chuck Haytaian and dark-horse Pataki.
We'll support Ollie North, and Dewine over Hyatt,
And with all of his cash, we'll have Huffington buy it!"
"When we win, we'll control each and every committee,
"To be sure funds are sent to nary a city!
"And Alfonse D'amato," (the dork from New York),
"can continue to rant about Bill Clinton's pork!"
"Against Feinstein and Boxer's ardent protesting,
"Senator Packwood can keep on molesting!"
By the twisted up logic of Jesse and Strom,
"With gays in the army, we lost Vietnam!"
"A lineup like this is Clinton's worst fear,"
said Gingrinch to Dole, with a dastardly sneer.
"Taxes, the wealthy should not have to pay,"
the maniacal duo was eager to say.
"And when Congress is ours, we'll have prayer in the schools,"
Muttered Dole to the Newt, "Disregard liberal fools!"
The plan was enacted,
The ballots were cast,
The sham made the voters return to the past.
The Gingrinch was gleeful, and Dole started gloating,
before all the Whos had completed their voting.
"We now have a mandate!" they said with a laugh,
Even though, of the votes, they received only half.
With snickering Newt in the role of the Speaker,
The prospects for changes have never been bleaker.
"The plans that we've outlined, we won't be revising,"
said Gingrinch, "We simply ABHOR compromising!"
____________________________________________
The day of this scary Whopublican showing,
We started to notice Newt's head slowly growing,
Though now we can say, as you may have inferred,
His brain starting SHRINKING that day, so we've heard.
Though the Whos may be worried and shaking in fear,
From the dastardly changes that soon may be here,
The way Whos can solve this is really a cinch,
In '96 vote against cynic Gingrinch!
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the
opinions of Dr. Seuss, or those with an interest in his estate, or
anyone related to him, or anyone he met only once on a crowded train
traveling from New York to Chicago, or his former next-door-neighbor's
dog Max. Some stanzas of the preceding work were directly stolen from
Dr. Seuss' classic work, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," without the
permission, expressed or implied, of Theodor or Audrey Geisel, or
Random House, Inc. This work was created solely for the amusement of
the authors and should not be copied, distributed or otherwise
duplicated by any means (electronic or telepathic included) without the
expressed written consent of whoever owns the copyright to the book the
authors plagiarized to create this masterpiece. Any evidence to the
contrary should be construed as purely accidental and not the intent of
the authors (who, by the way, receive no monetary benefit for having
written the poem, but had to pay an overpriced lawyer for this
disclaimer) . The authors accept no responsibility for any nightmares
or other psychological problems caused by reading this work to
liberals already suffering from Post Election Stress Disorder.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 18:54:33 EST
From: rgb@tycho.ncsc.mil (Rebecca G. Bace)
Subject: for yucks
To: spaf
I first heard this sung on Morning Edition a couple of weeks ago -
almost ran off the road laughing.
>From the Baltimore Sun, Friday, December 9, 1994
Newt Gingrich is Running the Town
(sung to the tune of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town")
You better be civil, you better not pout
And if you're abnormal, you better watch out
Newt Gingrich is running the town
He's got a contract, he's no demagogue
He's driving a Caddy, all Bill does is jog
Newt Gingrich is running the town
He knows when you're on welfare, his vision's crystal clear
If you're part of the counter-culture, Man you're out of here
Democrats lose, Republicans win
Let's say a prayer, how 'bout a hymn
Newt Gingrich is running the town
Teddy stays put, Ollie got beat
But Jesse and Strom are still glued to their seats,
And Newt Gingrich is running the town
Newt knows when you're mooching, so don't act so surprised
If you've got a social problem
You're just uncivilized
The American people have had their say
But what I want to know is, which people are they?
Newt Gingrich is running the town
He won't compromise, but he'll cooperate
But you'd better be Christian, married and straight!
Newt Gingrich is running
Clinton had it coming
Newt Gingrich is running
96 is coming
Newt Gingrich is running the town
--Loudon Wainwright III, Snowden Music
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 94 12:33:35 MST
From: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
Subject: gag Christmas songs
To: spaf
The OJ songs from the last Yucks sound great; I might have to order a copy.
In that spirit I recommend anything by Bob Rivers and Twisted Radio. I've
got a couple of his CD's which include classics such as:
The Restroom Door Said 'Gentlemen'
O Come All Ye Dead Heads
Walkin' Round in Women's Underwear
Teddy the Red-nosed Senator
12 Pains of Christmas*
Didn't I Get This Last Year
etc.
* = Sun .au file available from snowmass.scd.ucar.edu
[ Spaf here. I *heartily* concur with Greg. I heard a few on the
radio today and rushed right out to buy the CDs. With Greg's
recommendation I was interested, but after hearing one on the radio, I
was hooked. You can get "I Am Santa Claus" as a separate CD, or a
boxed set of 3 that also includes "Twisted Christmas" and "1994 The
Year In Review."
Here's some sample info:
Twisted Christmas
The Twelve Pains of Christmas
O Come All Ye Grateful Deadheads
Wreck the Malls
I'm Dressin Up as Santa (When I Get Out on Parole)
The Restroom Door Said "Gentlemen"
A Visit from St. Nicholson
..and a hilarious piece called the "Chimney Song" sung by a little
girl about how Santa didn't come last night, but something is stuck
in the chimney.
I Am Santa Claus
I Am Santa Claus (done to the tune of "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath)
Jingle Hells Bells (done to an AC/DC tune, with great lyrics)
I Came Upon A Roadkill Deer
Walkin Round in Women's Underwear
Teddy the Red-nosed Senator
Didn't I Get This Last Year (Do you hear what I hear?)
...and some great parodies that aren't songs, including
Tom Bodet for "Manger 6", Dorothy searching for the magical Claus,
and "The Under Tree World of Jacques Cousteau" (throw another Yule
fish on the fire).
1994 In Review
Take Baseball and Shove It
G'Bye Ding a Ling (John Wayne Bobbitt does Chuck Berry)
You've Got a Brand New Pair of Figure Skates (I'm Gonna Break
Your Knees)
PLO & Israelis (to the tune of Ebony & Ivory)
Michal Jordan Ain't Bo (Poppa was a Rolling Stone)
Whitewater
...and many more.
These are out by Atlantic/Atco. Combine these with the OJ Christmas
tape mentioned in the last Yucks Digest, and you have a complete
holiday music package. :-)
--spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Mon Dec 19 23:50:48 EST 1994
From: spaf
Subject: Gifts
To: Yucks
Well, here are some more ideas for gifts.
I definitely recommend that you call 1-800-231-6000, open 24 hours a
day, and get a copy of the "Brainstorms" holiday catalog. Brainstorms
is a division of the "Anatomical Chart Co" of Skokie, Il. That should
tell you something right there.
The catalog is full of unusual and sometimes odd gifts with a definite
science "bent" and more than a few gag gifts. Examples:
* Book on "How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the
Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers"
* A mold for making life-size brain-shaped geletin desserts
* A mask made of a Fresnel lens to magnify and distort your appearance
* The book "Everyone Poops" to explain to kids why & how
(or to give as a puzzling anonymous gift in an office grab-bag)
* An amazing collection of hobby posters
* A T-shirt that says "In Dog Years, I'm Dead"
* A frog hatching kit with tadpole embryos included
* All kinds of skeleton and body parts models
* Ties, shirts, and more with skeletons and muscles in life size
(the full-length, color-your-own nightshirts look amusing, too --
they come with washable markers)
* Rubber bathing caps with realistic-looking penguin heads
* Untearable toilet paper (for the guest bathroom, of course)
* Amazing puzzles (1500 piece replica of Big Ben, for instance, that
stands about 4ft tall when solved)
Well, you get the idea. Lots of real gift ideas, too, especially for
kids of all ages. They appear to have stores in Schaumburg,
Northbrook and Skokie, the Mall of America in Mn, and in Osaka at the
Asian Trade Center.
============
Dave Barry has a new book out of real but improbable gifts. Recently
he had a list of strange gifts in his column, presumably from the book
(I have yet to get a copy -- the store was sold out). I've selected a
few from the newspaper to detail here (with my own comments):
* Poti-Lite, $19.95 from Lauren Marketing, 818-597-1017. This
appears to be a light that goes in the bowl, and glows green when the
lights are off in the room. Slip this in after a spouse or friend has
used the plumbing, then summon them and act really worried -- "Honey,
have you been drinking a lot of that Zima stuff?"
* Cat muzzles, $6.26 plus shipping (plus $7 if you order less than
$20 worth) from R. C. Steele @ 1-800-872-3773. As Dave said,
"...vastly increases the likelihood that the cat will be transformed
into a vision-impaired, ticked-off, flesh-shredding machine." Oddly
enough, R. C. Steele is located in Brockport, NY, the town where I
spent three years doing my undergrad degree. There is a SUNY college
there noted for ... well, not much, actually. About the same as the
town. But it looks like they're headed for fame now!
* Darice brand bunny parts. $3.59 plus $3.50 shipping from Schrock's
International, 800-426-4659. This is basically a bag of legs and a
head, appropriately cured/stuffed/whatever. Fit it with a cat muzzle
and a Poti-Lite, and attach to some kitchen appliance on Christmas
Eve. Scare the bejebbers out of Mom when she comes down to make
coffee. Or scatter the parts under the tree with a note from Santa:
"Next year, beer instead of milk, or it's your dog instead of the
rabbit." Or something...
* Bobcat urine, $8.99 from Johnson & Company Wilderness Products,
800-527-6766. Also other animal urine, including fox and coyote. Now
there is undoubtedly a use for this in hunting, or in keeping bunny
rabbits out of your garden (assuming a glowing pile of Darice bunny
parts doesn't work). However, there must be other uses for this. I can
...er.. speculate... that a bottle of deer urine/musk sprinkled on
someones car manifold is a lasting and permanent reminder, for
instance. Or sprinkled into the carpet of any establishment where
they treated you really badly might have a certain level of
satisfaction. Not that I've done this or would suggest you would do
this. No, that would be wrong. :-) I do remember reading in a book of
"get even" stories about a man whose neighbor had large, barking dogs
that were never silent. The neighbor reacted with hostility to
complaints. So, our hero loaded up a squirt pistol with some coyote
urine. He would periodically and surreptitiously squirt a little
through the screen door or window of the neighbor, or a little in the
car or on the porch. The poor dogs would go crazy trying to "re-mark"
their territory right away, and the neighbor lost several rugs,
furniture, etc. The dogs were gone in a matter of weeks. Just FYI.
* Poopets, $11.95/$9.95 plus shipping. These are being sold through
lots of garden stores and catalogs. Dave lists Tewksbury Gardens,
908-236-0885. These are little animals shaped from deoderized,
compressed cow manure. Put these in the garden and let them gradually
decompose to fertilize the plants. They come in various shapes
including the Toad Stool, the Stool Pigeon, and the Turdle. I
actually purchased some of these as gifts for a couple of people this
year. I'll let you all know if they're still speaking to me after
Christmas. ("You know how you always complain about getting the same
old crap every year? Well, here's something newer...")
* "Entertaining With Insects", $14.95 plus $2.55 shipping from In A
Basket, 800-395-1351. Basically, a cookbook for insects. You know --
cooking crickets, mealworms, and so on. Just the thing to haul out
when someone says they kind of miss the food they used to have on
campus.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 94 00:39:28 PST
From: Chris "Big Laugh" Borton <borton@searanch.com>
Subject: Humor:Christmas collection
To: nobody@batnet.com (cbb Humor Mailing List)
[Some Christmas-related pieces that have collected recently. -cbb]
[Original Author: Joseph A. Brendler, CPT, SC, Instructor, D/Physics]
WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN SANTA:
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 30,000 species
of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are
insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer
which only Santa has seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT
since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and
Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378
million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average
(census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million
homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he
travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6
visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household
with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of
the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distrubute the
remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left,
get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the
next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly
distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false
but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now
talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million
miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every
31 hours, plus feeding, etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second,
about 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the
fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a
poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15
miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting
element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a
medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,000 tons,
not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On
land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even
granting that "flying reindeer" (point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the
normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need
214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the
weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this
is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the cruise ship, that
is).
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous
air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as
spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of
reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per
second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost
instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create
deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be
vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile will
be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than
gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be
pinned to back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve,
he's dead now.
---------
>From dawnd@uclink.berkeley.edu Thu Dec 8 12:26:44 1994
Christmas In Space
Donated by Earl Bennett
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship
Not a circuit was buzzing, not one microchip;
The phasers were hung in the armoury securely,
In hopes that no aliens would get up that early.
The crewmen were nestled all snug in their bunks
(Except for the few who were partying drunks);
And Picard in his nightshirt and Bev in her lace,
Had just settled down for a neat face-to-face...
When out in the halls there arose such a racket,
That we leapt from our beds, pulling on pant and jacket.
Away to the lifts we all shot like a gun,
Leapt into the cars and yelled loudly, "Deck One!"
The bridge Red-Alert lights, which flashed through the din,
Gave a lustre of Hades to objects within.
When, what, on the viewscreen, should our eyes behold,
But a weird kind of sleigh, and some guy who looked old.
But the glint in his eyes was so strange and askew
That we knew in a moment it had to be Q.
His sleigh grew much larger as closer he came.
Then he zapped on the bridge and addressed us by name:
"It's Riker! It's Data! It's Worf and Jean-Luc!
It's Geordi! And Wesley, the genetic fluke!
To the top of the bridge, to the top of the hall!
Now float away! Float away! Float away all!"
As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,
So the floor of the bridge came away from our feet,
And up to the ceiling our bodies they flew,
As the captain called out, "What the hell is this, Q?!"
The prankster just laughed and expanded his grin,
And, snapping his fingers, he vanished again.
As we took in our plight and were looking around,
The spell was removed, and we crashed to the ground.
Then Q, dressed in fur from his head to his toe,
Appeared once again, to continue the show.
"That's enough!" cried the captain, "You'll stop this at once!"
And Riker said, "Worf! Take aim at this dunce!"
"I'm deeply offended, Jean-Luc," replied Q,
"I just want to celebrate Christmas with you."
As we scoffed at his words, he produced a large sack.
He dumped out the contents and took a step back.
"I've brought gifts," he said, "just to show I'm sincere.
There's something delightful for everyone here."
He sat on the floor and dug into his pile,
And handed out gifts with his most charming smile:
"For Counsellor Troi, there's no need to explain.
Here's Tylenol-Beta for all of your pain.
For Worf I've some mints as his breath's not too great,
And for Geordi LaForge, an inflatable date.
For Wesley, some hormones, and Clearasil-Plus;
For Data, a joke book; for Riker, a truss.
For Beverly Crusher, there's sleek lingerie,
And for Jean-Luc, the thrill of just seeing her that way."
Then he sprang to his feet with that grin on his face
And, clapping his hands, disappeared into space.
But we heard him exclaim as he dwindled from sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!"
(Based on "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore
Adaptation Copyright 1990, Eric R. Rountree)
************************************************************
Christmas in Space: The Previous Generation
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the decks
Not a crewman was stirring, 'cept those having sex;
Their boots were all placed by the vent shafts with care,
In hopes that by morning they'd get some fresh air.
The Redshirts were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of stay'ng alive danced in their heads;
And Kirk in his gold shirt, McCoy in his blue,
Had just settled down for a nice Christmas brew--
When from the comm panel there came such a wail,
They sprang from their chairs, knocking over their ale.
Away to the panel Kirk flew, drenched in beer,
Snapped on the comm switch and barked loudly, "Kirk here!"
The squeals that emerged from the thing after that
Sounded just like the Devil was strangling a cat;
When, what to their bombarded ears should appear,
But the music of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,"
With a voice in the background, a murmur of talk,
That made Kirk exclaim, "Bones . . . That sounds just like
Spock."
More rapid than bullets his syllables came
As he tested each circuit and called it by name--
"Cross Alpha to Beta, join Delta to Theta,
Route Kappa through Lambda, and Gamma to Zeta.
To the end of the circuit, the end of the line,
Now clip a resistor--there. That should do fine."
As Kirk and McCoy listened closely to this,
The comm unit speaker let out a long hiss.
So, off to the turbolift both of them flew,
With a mind to discover what Spock was up to.
And then, in a twinkling, they reached the bridge deck,
Stepped out of the lift and began a quick check.
As they went down the steps and were looking around,
>From a nook Spock emerged, barely making a sound.
He was all dressed in gray from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with solder and soot.
A bag of components he had in one fist,
And held in the other, a rather long list.
His eyes didn't twinkle, his dimples were none,
Yet somehow it looked like he'd been having fun.
His mouth, at one corner, quirked up just a touch,
And one eyebrow lifted, though not by too much.
A soldering iron he held in his teeth,
And the smoke from it circled his head like a wreath.
He looked like a man with a task to complete
And nothing would stop him, not rain, snow, nor sleet.
His two colleagues stood there, dumbfounded by this.
McCoy chuckled softly; Kirk let out hiss.
The look in Spock's eye and the set of his head
Soon gave them to know he would not go to bed.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And tuned all the sensors then turned back to Kirk,
And pressing a button and counting to three,
He lit up the bridge like a huge Christmas Tree.
His work done, he nodded, and walked toward the lift
As his friends stared in awe at his luminous gift.
But they heard him exclaim, his voice with good-will rife,
"Merry Christmas! And to you all, Peace and Long Life!"
--Based on "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" by Clement Clarke
Moore--
--Adaptation copyright 1991, Eric R. Rountree--
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 11:50:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Carl Malamud <carl@radio.com>
Subject: Karaoke Multicast of Handel's Messiah
To: rem-conf@es.net
I'm writing for two purposes:
First, there is no truth to the rumor that sending mailbombs to
santa@north.pole.org will generate money for charity. Check out
http://north.pole.org/ for the real story, but Santa has enough
messages to keep him and the Elves busy for quite a while. Further
mailbombs may result in administrative actions such as Santa putting
your name on the "naughty" list. You better watch out, etc., etc.
(Those of you who have had to administer sendmail can guess the sinking
feeling our poor elfmasters had when we typed "mailq" and received the
information that there were 42,150 unprocessed messages in the queue--
and that was *before* the real deluge started.)
Second, with the raging success of Internet-based charity campaigns
under on our belt (;-) we're ready to add yet another feature to the
North.Pole.Org holiday program. On Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 8:30PM
Eastern time, the Internet Multicasting Service will present a live
multicast of the annual Handel's Messiah sing-along from the Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts.
The multicast will use audio and whiteboard. The whiteboard will hold
the lyrics and we will even provide a red bouncing ball. No gaurantee
that wb and vat will synchronize, but we figure the opportunity to try
a religious karaoke multicast is something that doesn't come along too
often. All this is subject to our usual caveat on cheap stunts that
what might go wrong probably will.
Carl Malamud
Associate Elfmaster, Dept. of Spam
North.Pole.Org
[Please note that in a previous Yucks I jokingly suggested that the
ILF might mailbomb Santa. This was not hint, and as Carl says, not
helpful for those interested in the charities. Only WWW connections
to north.pole.org count towards that total. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 14:01:01 -0500
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Politically Correct Santa
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Forwarded-by: Todd Kover <kovert@cs.UMD.EDU>
Forwarded-by: Mike Grupenhoff <kashmir@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
Forwarded-by: Sujal Patel <smpatel@xi.dorm.umd.edu>
Forwarded-by: JGOODHAR@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU
Forwarded-by: "Sidhe Who Must be Obeyed"
Forwarded-by: Sidhe Who Must be Obeyed <rschoenb@emerald.tufts.edu>
Politically Correct Santa
'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck...
How to live in a world that's politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to "Elves",
"Vertically Challenged" they were calling themselves.
And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.
Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.
And equal employment had made it quite clear
That Santa had better not use just reindeer.
So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,
Were replaced with 4 pigs, and you know that looked stupid!
The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
The ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A.
And people had started to call for the cops
When they heard sled noises on their roof-tops.
Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened.
His fur trimmed red suit was called "Unenlightened."
And to show you the strangeness of life's ebbs and flows,
Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose
And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation,
Demanding millions in over-due compensation.
So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife,
Who suddenly said she'd enough of this life,
Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz,
Demanding from now on her title was Ms.
And as for the gifts, why, he'd ne'er had a notion
That making a choice could cause so much commotion.
Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,
Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her.
Nothing that might be construed to pollute.
Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot.
Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.
Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys.
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.
Nothing that's warlike or non-pacific.
No candy or sweets...they were bad for the tooth.
Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.
And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,
Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.
No baseball, no football...someone could get hurt;
Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt.
Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;
And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away.
So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed;
He just could not figure out what to do next.
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,
But you've got to be careful with that word today.
His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;
Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.
Something special was needed, a gift that he might
Give to all without angering the left or the right.
A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,
Each group of people, every religion;
Every ethnicity, every hue,
Everyone, everywhere...even you.
So here is that gift, it's price beyond worth...
"May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth."
(c)Harvey Ehrlich, 1992
Notice: This poem is copyright 1992 by Harvey Ehrlich. It is free to
distribute, without changes, as long as this notice remains
intact. All follow-ups, requests, comments, questions,
distribution rights, etc should be made to
mduhan@husc.harvard.edu. Happy Holidays!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 17:34:09 -0500 (CDT)
From: REX_BLACK@ACM.ORG
Subject: the grinch that stole oop...
To: SPAF
Every Coder in Codeville liked objects a lot.
"Tested," "Reusable,' that's what was hot.
But the Grinch of Reality sulked in his cave,
Saying, "Hear them all talk of the time that they'll save!"
The Grinch hated Coders, and liked them to sweat.
He thought, "I can make them unhappy, I'll bet!"
He read through 12 texts, then looked up with a grin:
"Why, this is as good as original sin!"
He read with a chortle, "An object or class,
Is like a black box hiding all that it has.
Its details invisible: All that you know
Is what should go in and what answers will show."
He slunk to the West Coast and into a lab,
Where chip engineers were at work at their fab.
He heard their boss saying, "Forget testing tricks:
This one is the same as a 486!"
His chance had now come. From their math microcode,
He struck out one line as it went to download.
And the Grinch watched with barely containable glee
As the chips with their bugs shipped across land and sea.
And each of those chips went to some happy buyer,
Where some just played games, but most were for hire,
Sending up spacecraft or buying up stocks,
Or predicting the timing of quake afterhshocks.
Then the bug story broke! And the Grinch was alarmed.
This news came too early! Too few had been harmed!
But the Grinch soon calmed down, as the months marched on by,
And the chip-making people continued to lie.
"We fixed it!" they said, and now that was quite funny:
You couldn't get fixed chips for love or for money.
"It's really no problem," they added in chorus.
"The errors are rare. Stop whining, you bore us."
So everywhere, Coders were having to ask,
"Just how does this chip do its float-divide task?"
Internals that they had been told to ignore,
Now had to be studied in blood and in gore.
The leading bit patterns whose answers were wrong,
And whether the errors were carried along,
All had to be thoroughly well understood
So the Coders could know if their answers were good.
And the Grinch went off happy. He knew that they'd learned
That quality output still had to be earned.
Beyond "Merry Christmas," they'd learned something greater:
"If you don't test it now, you'll just debug it later."
>From Peter Coffee
in PC Week
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 01:26:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Helen Karn <HKARN@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
Subject: The tech writer's version of "The Night Before Christmas" (fwd)
To: spaf
Many forwards deleted...
[I don't know where on the net this originated...]
'Twas the Night Before Christmas' as written by a technical writer for a
firm that does Gov't contracting...
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus
musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the
wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among
whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through
their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness
when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such
a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from
my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source
thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing
this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance
without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to
behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his
ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more
vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated
loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and
addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now
Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior
level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the
concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a
180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost
celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He
was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from
oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls
thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the
plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious
cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary
dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The
capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with
blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium,
or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so
much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment
appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey
fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive
of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was
high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region
undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly
frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly
lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to
one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned
appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise
extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth
receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face,
placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ,
inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith
effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then
propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical
expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered
quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto
observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I
overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation
beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary
constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a
salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and
dawn."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 94 10:14:51 PST
From: brent_auernheimer@csufresno.edu (Brent Auernheimer)
Subject: Toys certainly are more sophisticated now than when I was a kid
To: yucks
I rarely read the toy ads in the paper, but since I am looking for a
Christmas present for my nephew, I looked at yesterday's flyer from
a national chain. One part caught my eye.
Hasbro Tonka Mighty Dump Truck or Off Road 4x4 Pickup. Choice of
tilt-back dump truck or pickup with working wench. $12.99 each.
My nephew is only 2 years old, I wonder if I can get the pickup
without the wench.
[Hmm, at that price, get a couple extra wenches. You can keep them
until you nephew is old enough to enjoy them. :-) --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 94 11:01:44 PST
From: Ric Forrester <ric@visigenic.com>
Subject: Xmas in Shell Land
To: spaf
better !pout !cry
better watchout
telnet why
santa claus <north pole >town
cat/etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > no_gift_list
cat list | grep nice > gift_list
santa claus <north pole >town
who | grep sleeping
who | awake
who | egrep 'bad|good'
for ( goodness sake) {
be good
}
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------