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Yucks Digest V1 #28

Yucks Digest                Fri,  1 Mar 91       Volume 1 : Issue  28 

Today's Topics:
                       Bring your umbrella ...
                         Electro-Ejaculation
                          Gung Ho Fat Weird
                                Nerds

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 should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 08:15:47 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Bring your umbrella ...
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU

Californians for Earthquake Prevention and Climatic Improvement is
holding a rain-inducement ritual on Tuesday, March 5 at 8PM at the
Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley.

In case you didn't know, CEPCI has been addressing the question
``Are water conservation efforts exacerbating the drought?''
Their 24-hour recorded hotline present the following thesis:

Up to now, we have supported water conservation as a matter of
principle.  However, we are now looking into the possibility that
water conservation has gone too far.  If less water is used, less
water can pass through our drains and culverts into our treatment
infrastructure and thence to the sea.  Those of you who were fortunate
enough to attend elementary school will remember that water must
evaporate before the cycle of rain can begin anew.  But new studies
indicate that extreme levels of water conservation isolate huge
volumes of water in tanks, covered reservoirs, and pipelines, keeping
it from its ancestral ocean home.  If stored too long, these molecules
gradually lose their innate ability to evaporate.  Have the water
masters gone too far?  You figure it!

Now, some of these experts are urging religious groups to insert
recycled water into their sprinkling and dunking rituals.  We believe
this is, symbolically, the WRONG approach.  Instead of emphasizing
shortage, our rituals should show that we are ready for rain, and lots
of it!

Here's what you can do:

1. Wear an overcoat and galoshes when you go about your daily rounds.
   Let the rain gods know you're serious!

2. Avoid dried and salty foods.  Add soups and stews to your table.

3. Those of you who have not bathed for a month or more should do so
   at once!

4. Don't drink "dry" martinis.

5. Drink beverages such as coffee and tea that double as diuretics.
   This will help return more water into the ecosystem.

Our shaman-in-residence has advised us that we have a small window of
opportunity to take rain-affirmative steps to end the drought.

Californians for Earthquake Prevention and Climatic Improvement
receives no government or foundation funding.

There will be folk music preceding and following the rain-inducement ritual.
Admission $2

BRING YOUR UMBRELLA!

Call 415-995-2977 for more information on CEPCI.  Also take a look at our
list of "10 Simple Things You Can Do to Prevent Earthquakes."

------------------------------

From: One of our correspondants
Subject: Electro-Ejaculation
Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage

Pages 203 and 204 of the 1991 Nasco Farm and Ranch catalog<*> have a
few gadgets like this, one for sheep or goats and one really nasty
unit for bulls.

    <*>They don't say anywhere, but I think that "Nasco" is derived
       from something like "National Supply Co." rather than "Nasty
       Co."  Too bad... :-)

Since I'm on vacation this week, I'll type in the entries:

BAILEY EJACULATOR (p. 204)
    A lightweight, battery-operated ejaculator for sheep and goats.
    Enclosed in a rugged die-cast case, the ejaculator is designed
    for one-hand operation.  Simple to use; after inserting the
    probe approximately 4" into the rectum, push the switch on for
    four seconds, off for four seconds.  Repeat the cycle.
    Ejaculation should be achieved after only a few cycles.
    Batteries should provide at least 100 ejaculations.  Clean the
    unit's outside only with normal detergents.  Batteries included.
    Shipping weight 3 lbs. 2 oz.

    Z8786N........................................ $200.00
    Z8787N Replacement battery (2 required).......  $10.85

MODEL 66000-D COMPLETE PORTABLE EJACULATOR SYSTEM
    This complete ejaculator system includes everything necessary
    for collection -- the portable ejaculator unit, bull probe,
    semen collector, carrying case, and all auxiliary cables.  The
    built-in rechargeable will complete 150 collections on one
    charge, and recharges on 110V current overnight.  Measures only
    4 x 5 x 7 inches with a total weight of 5 lbs.  [Note: there's
    an accompanying photo that makes it clear that these dimensions
    refer to the control/power box, not the business end. wds]
    Simplified controls and procedures make this easy-to-use unit a
    real standout.  Selective nerve stimulus holds down motor
    reaction of animal.  Features the only unbreakable configuration
    available (will not catch on restraining bar if bull goes down).
    Ready to use anywhere -- the unit strapped to your belt,
    shoulder, or simply carried in hand allows you maximum
    maneuverability.  Stand away from the animal 6 or 10 feet after
    having gently inserted the probe, and observe the reaction of
    the animal.  Proceed as dictated by the animal's physical
    movements as the stimuli are applied in rhythm.  Proven
    effective in years of extensive use.  Includes complete
    instructions.  Not recommended for horses.  Two year warranty.
    Shipping weight 17 lbs.

    C7265N........................................ $1,095.00

    Model 66000 Portable Ejaculator UNit -- includes only the
    ejaculator unit and instructions.  Probe, semen collector and
    rechargeable power cable (adaptor) and probe cord not included.
    Two year warranty.  Shipping weight 8 lbs. 8 oz.

    C7261N......................................... $695.00

    3-Electrode Bull Probe Model 66400 -- 60mm diameter.  Cord not
    included.  Shipping weight 6 lbs.

    C12547N........................................ $189.00

    Ram Probe Model 66200 -- 3-electrode model.  1" diameter,
    8" long.  Probe cord not included.  Shipping weight 3 lbs.

    C7263N......................................... $79.00

The Nasco catalog has a lot of other seriously kinky stuff as well,
including electric cattle prods, branding irons, the infamous
Elastrator (at only $11.50), and more.  Joe-Bob says check it out.

NASCO				 NASCO WEST
901 Janesville Ave.		 1524 Princeton Ave.
Fort Atkinson, WI 53538-0901	 Modesto, CA 95352-3837
(414) 563-2446			 (209) 529-6957

and their Phone Order line is 1-800-558-9595, though it might be a
bit tacky to make them pay the phone bill if all you're doing is
asking for a catalog.

["...will not catch on restraining bar is bull goes down"?  Ouch! --spaf]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 11:00:10 PDT
From: kds@blabla.intel.com (Ken Shoemaker)
Subject: Gung Ho Fat Weird
To: rsk@hazel.circ.upenn.edu, spaf

February 17, 1991

OF MICE AND MEN AND CHEESY TRICKS

Colorado District Judge Connie Peterson dismissed a lawsuit in December filed
by Vance Hewuse over the allegedly "atrocious" and "outrageous" initiation
rites of a local disabled veterans auxiliary group, the National Order of
Trench Rats.  According to Hewuse, he was fed "worms" (actually, spaghetti)
while blind-folded and then introduced to a nude woman with a substantial
amount of Limburger cheese held in front of him as 60 Trench Rats laughed at
him.  Hewuse said the humiliating experience caused him to "lose all interest
in sex with (his) wife."

THE WAR BETWEEN THE SEXES

In December, Sandy, Utah, police arrested a man who had spent more than an
hour in a stall in the only women's restroom in Sandy City Hall.  During the
morning, as word got out, a parade of women marched by the stall to see the
pair of men's shoes on the floor of the stall.  When a janitor tried to talk
to the man, he answered in a falsetto voice.  When police finally rousted
him, he said he was there because he was looking for his daughter.

In Kisumi, Kenya, in August, Michael Odongo confessed to assault charges in
the May death of his employer, Joshua Okiki.  The two had gotten into a
fistfight when Odongo failed to explain satisfactorily why he was asleep in
Okiki's kitchen wearing his wife's underwear.

Priscilla Brayboy, 32, was shot to death in Houston in November when she
charged into the wrong house chasing her philandering husband.  The "gray
Volvo" she had followed to the neighborhood was actually parked in front of a
house several doors down.

Two small planes collided near Healy, Alaska, in September as they were
circling over a moose.  Witnesses on the ground said the planes were intent
on the moose and not paying much attention to each other.

DID YOU MARK IT C.O.D.?

As of November, the cremated remains of retired postal worker Earl Miller,
which were mailed from Fort Lauderdale in July, had not been received by his
niece in Birdsboro, Pa.  Said a postal worker heading the nationwide search
for the urn, "If it was mailed, it's got to be somewhere."

Roseville police arrested physician Wayne Patwell and his wife when a
Sacramento bank employee notified them that currency just deposited for the
Patwells had a strong smell of marijuana.  A search of their home revealed
nearly 100 bags.

At an international telecommunications conference in Vancouver last fall,
Saudi minister Alawi Darweesh Kayyal (who was to be introduced merely as
"seated in the audience") got up, walked to the podium, and began delivering
the words on the speech prompter for Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
(He read, straight, a line about "our mountains and lakes and prairies and
forests.")  When frantic officials finally persuaded Kayyal to step down, an
unruffled Mulroney walked to the podium, improvised the beginning, and
resumed where Kayyal had left off.

JOUSTS WITH JUSTICE

Robert Hernandez, convicted in Dallas of a 1986 murder and sentenced to 65
years in prison, appealed and won a new hearing in 1988.  At the new hearing,
in December, he was sentenced to 90 years (and a $10,000 fine).

In December, adamant security guards at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport forced a
Taiwanese woman to place the baby's car seat she was carrying on the conveyor
belt to be X-rayed, unaware that her 20-day-old baby was strapped inside.
Doctors later said the baby was unharmed.

In September, Dallas police officer Joe Copeland, who had slowed his vehicle
because of an object in the road, was rammed from behind by a car driven by
his mother.  Both were injured and were still in their cars when police
arrived.  Officers discovered the link when Mrs. Copeland asked them to
notify her son that she had been in an accident.

February 24, 1991

IS THIS WHAT "JUST DESSERTS" MEANS?

Mimi Sunn, 67, manager until last February of the Fanny Farmer candy store 
in a mall in New Rochelle, N.Y., filed a $10 million lawsuit against the
company this February for illnesses and psychiatric problems she is now
enduring.  Last February, Fanny Farmer investigators, concerned about ice
cream pilferage in Sunn's store, came from the firm's Cleveland headquarters
to question her.  She admitted giving away ice cream to guards who escorted
her to the night depository - a total of "30 or 40" cones in 16 years.  The
investigators made her sign a "stolen property" report and called police, who
took her (handcuffed) to the station.  Charges were dropped, but Sunn was
fired.

GOVERNMENT IN ACTION

T. Milton Street, assistant budget director of the Philadelphia Traffic
Court, refused in November to pay up the $1967 in fines for moving vehicle
violations he has accumulated.  Said Street, "Why should I pay?  They (the
Traffic Court) violate people's rights every day."

Texas bureaucrat George Arroyos was up for a state government productivity
award recently.  Arroyos, earning $10,428 per year as a photocopy counter,
suggested that his agency buy a $6 device (which attaches to most machines)
to count the copies instead, which it did, thus eliminating his job.

Columbus, Ohio, Mayor Dana Reinhart, who launched a local honesty campaign in
1989 after citizens refused to return money that spilled from an armored car,
admitted in November that he had lied recently about having had an
extramarital affair.  Said Reinhart to a reporter, "You find somebody whose
life is perfect, and let him lead the campaign."

Among the permissible amounts of food adulteration in the Food and Drug
Administration's updated list of "natural and unavoidable" substances: 20
maggots per 100 grams of canned mushrooms and 1 percent mammal excrement per
pound of whole pepper.

In November, Emanuel H. Norris, purchasing director for the Kansas City
School District, sent a memo to the district's 6000-plus employees, for the
sole purpose of requesting that everyone spell his name correctly.

In December, at the instigation of local businesses, the Harvest Ministries
shelter for the homeless in downtown Dalton, Ga., was ordered by police to
close because it lacks a parking lot.  The shelter's director, Shelia Reed,
pointed out that her clients don't have cars.

Ohio state Re. Charles "Red" Ash and his wife were indicted in July for
allegedly submitting various false claims to insurance companies about
property stolen from their homes.  Ash had recently voted to toughen state
law on insurance fraud, but will be tried under the old law because his
claims were filed before the new law took effect.

Maryland Gov. Donald Schaefer proposed last year to alleviate the state's
prison crowding system by making inmates sleep in shifts.

During October's federal budget showdown between Congress and President Bush,
the House of Representatives appropriated $500,000 for the purpose of
renovating the birthplace of bandleader Lawrence Welk.  The money will fix up
the home, build a motel for tourists and further revitalize the community of
700.

In August, retired Philippines Gen. Alfredo Lim was appointed by President
Aquino to restore public confidence in the national lottery.  During an
undercover investigation of one lottery official, Lim purchased 80 tickets.
One of them was the winning ticket, worth $200,000.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 91 20:10:42 GMT
From: mg4h+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marybeth A. Griffin)
Subject: Nerds
Newsgroups: alt.sex

I saw this on a bboard on campus. Thought it sounded interesting.

Marybeth
---------

Confessions of a Nerd
	By Ben Stein

Taken without consent from Cosmopolitan Magazine January 1991

Think of this as the report of a geologist announcing a major new oil
find. Or of a securities analyst discovering a highly undervalued stock
that's bound to go up and make money for the investor. Only this report
is about nerds -- and why they are worth your attention. And it's by
someone who ought to know, since I make a good part of my living playing
one on TV (most recently on the sitcom The Wonder Years) and play the
role from life experience.

Every young woman knows that there is a gigantic shortage of
interesting men. Masses are married. Other masses are nasty and cruel.
Still others have sexual preferences that render them unavailable. But
-- and this is a but -- big there is one large pool of men who are
habitually passed over as boyfriend material. These are your basic
nerds, the kind of men whose mere mention makes many women's lips curve
with disdain.

Now, to define my terms, a nerd -- for the purposes of this
investigative report -- is a guy who is shy, bookish, not cool, not
cooly dressed, tends to lack certain social graces, and maybe carries a
white plastic pocket protector in his shirt pocket to shield the
cotton-Dacron mix from the blue ink of his six ballpoint pens. (I do
not include men who are repellently fat, pick their noses in public or
private, have terrifyingly bad acne, or chew beef jerky. Someone else
will have to defend them.)

As I said, the normal woman (who is not herself a nerd) has nothing but
contempt for the kind of men I'm pitching here. How vividly I recally
the female friend who told me about a date with a nerd from her history
class at UCLA: "On our first date, I thought that if he tried to kiss
me, I'd throw up."

But consider these few facts about nerds. . . .  First, by definition
nerds lack many of the most unfortunate characteristics of cool guys.
According to the basic laws of dating, cool guys are mean guys. Cool
guys are guys who take you to a party and spend the whole time talking
about the newest-model Porsche with their pals. Cool guys are guys who
have sex with you and don't ever call you.  Or who sleep with your best
friend while you're home in Oak Park visiting Mom and Dad.

Now, some women ( all to many women, but then that's another story)
like mean guys. But if your're sick of being treated that way, consider
the nerd.

As a matter of necessity, he's scared of women. (That's part of what
makes him a nerd.) He's also convinced that women think he's a hopeless
geek.  ( I assure you, this is so. I've felt it. I lived it until I was
was about twenty years old.)

Therefore, the nerd will be incredibly grateful for a date with you. If
your are even a little bit nice to him, he will be wildly happy.  If you
have sex with him, he will remember you in his will.  There's added
value here.  There's something to be said for being treated like a
queeen instead of like a punching bag.

Second, the nerd will need not always be a nerd.  And if you are the one
who brings out the cool part of your nerd, he will always be at your feet.

I volunteer myself as an example. For all of my high-school life. I was
a nerd -- if not to everyone, then certainly to enough people. But in
college, by a miracle, I met a wonderful girl named Mary. She treated
me with love and respect and even valued my brain-o nerdy qualities.
(Her father was a world-famous scientist-nerd, and this obviously had
something to do with it.)

She treated me so wonderfully, in fact, that for about fifteen years I
stopped being a nerd altogether. True, during a bout of terror in law
school, I treated her badly.  But for the ensuing twenty years, I have
been permanently grateful and have her on a good-sized pedestal in my
little mind.

In her worshipping eyes, those twenty-five years ago, I was James Dean,
JFK, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison all rolled into one. The result was
a permanent change in my self-esteem. This is what a woman earns for
treating a nerd well -- and it's a lot better for the nonmasochist than
the kick in the teeth that the guy with the shiny smile, the
quatrterback's assurance and Daddy's Beemer is likely to give you.

Third -- and this truly crucial -- today's nerd is tomorrow's
superstar. The guy you spot today who is hammering out programs on his
Macintosh is the same guy that who is going to give you a twenty-room
mansion tomorrow. The guy who stammers when he asks you if you want to
have coffee after class is the you who is going to clutch an Oscar in
his breast someday.

This is not just a hypothesis or hope. This is fact, and I have seen it
with my own eyes.  In high school, there was a guy who was funny and
amusing and could play the guitar. But he was goofy-looking and had
dirt under his nails sometimes and was always talking about obscure
books on political subjects that were taboo for most of us. I knew him
well, and in our little circle we used to wonder what park bench we
would see him sleeping on when we all grew up.

Instead, he became Carl Bernstein, multiprize-winning journalist,
legendary lothario of the beautiful people, and the exact opposite of
the nerd he once was. (Although, like Napoleon's soldiers, who each
carried the field marshall's baton in his knapsack Carl carried the big
winner's easy smile and assured slouch even in high school, as every
nerd carries some hint of future hip inside.)

In junior high shcool, there was a boy who was scrawny, withdrawn, and
perpetually sad-looking. I used to see him at the neighborhood pizza
place, where both of us ate our solitary slices.  By this time, you've
probably seen him too. His name is Sylvester Stallone. Of course, he no
longer qualifies as a nerd, although he still has the slightly
bewildered, slightly frightened look on his face that made him a
superstar in Rocky.

There were also nerd girls in my high school who went on to bigger and
better things. One was a skinny, definitely not quite-cool girl who was
always trying to please and who succeded. Her name is Goldie Hawn.
Another was an almost unbelieveably shy Chinese-American girl who
hardly spoke, although she's certainly made up for it lately. Her name
is Connie Chung.

Look at Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Rick Moranis, or any one of a
million ex-nerds who have gone on to fame and fortune.  Nerds have to
work harder. They have to study. They have to put in long hours. That's
why they're called nerds. If they didn't do that, they would be cool guys.

Which brings us to the big catch-22 for the cool guys, at least those
who are cool in high school or college. There peronal qualities that
make a young man cool -- comtempt for school, obsession with appearance,
a studied surliness -- do absolutely nothing at all to produce income,
fame or prestige in later life. But the things that nerds do -- study,
work hard, think creativly -- do produce the goodies of life.

Fourth, nerd is as a nerd does. Or, don't assume that because a guy
looks like a nerd even when he's grown up, he'll be a nerd for all
eternity -- or even that he really is a nerd right now.

A man can look like a nerd and still be totally cool and hip and
famous. Here in Malibu, where I am writing this, I often eat at a
nearby Italian restaurant. A few months ago, I walked in behind a an
unimaginably weird-looking man with a head much too big for his body, a
wildly outsized chin and strange-looking sideburns. "What kind of
people are you letting in these days?" I demanded of the headwaiter.
"Who is that goofball?"

"Are you referring to Bruce Sringsteen?" the captain asked.

Then, not long ago, while walking in the local shopping center with my
assistant, Miss Vicky, I saw a man with curly hair and funky dark
glasses, wearing a long leather coat on an eighty-degree day. "What a
loser," I said to Vicki. "Doesn't he know that the sixties are over?"

"Wait here," Vicki said. "I'll tell Bob Dylan to change his clothes."
So, as I learned once again, with enough talent, hard work, and luck,
the nerdiest-looking guy on earth can become a superstar.

Finally, I can give you an example even closer to home. By a series of
very, very lucky coincidences, I, who have never had an acting lesson,
got to play a nerdy high-school teacher in the fabled movie Ferris
Bueller's Day Off -- just because I have the nerdiest voice in history.
Because I played a nerd so well, drawing on all my experience and along
family history of nerdiness, I got to be a famous nerd, asked for my
autograph almost every day. From that, I got to play a nerd in
commercials, a nerd in a wonderful sitcom called Charles in Charge, and
then a recurring nerd in The Wonder Years, the megahit ABC sitcom. Now
there is talk of a TV show starring me as a robot teacher (though most
of the talk comes from me).

Because of my nerd fame, people cryout to me from cars, from across
crowded rooms, and from a lot of places where nerds ar not usually
welcome, like nightclubs, and ask me to talk to them. And so I've
discovered that a famous nerd is no longer a nerd -- and yet retains
some lingering soupcon of nerdiness. Or, to put it another way, a nerd
can be cool and a nerd at the same time, and that is pretty hip.  (By
the way, if you don't want to consider me, think of Elvis Costello or
Garry Shandling or Pat Sajak and you'll come to the same conclusion.)

Fifth, and closely related to all of th the above, nerds can make good
lovers. For one thing, there is that gratitude aspect of their
relationships.  That translates into more time spent and more attention
paid. For another thing a nerd is by definintion fairly new to women
and is therfore teachable, which is a key to happy sex. He doesn't
assume that he knows everything and therefore can absorb what a woman
tells him about what she wants in romance. Best of all, a nerd
desperately wants to please. He is not likely to be as self-absorbed.
All of this is related, and it all may add up to some nice surprises.

By the way, remember the girl who said she would throw up if the nerd
tried to kiss her? That's right. They're married, and you can send them
presents at their house in Beverly Hills. He's a big time producer --
in his late twenties. She plays a lot of tennis and writes in a little
cabana next to the pool.

So there you are. Nerds, at least teachable nerds, a are a major
undervalued male resource waiting to be tapped. The cool guys won't
tell you because they don't want the competition. But I just did.

------------------------------

End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------