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Yucks Digest V1 #47
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To: yucks
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Subject: Yucks Digest V1 #47
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From: spaf (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford)
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 91 09:51:56 EST
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Reply-To: Yucks-request
Yucks Digest Fri, 26 Apr 91 Volume 1 : Issue 47
Today's Topics:
Boston Phoenix - who'd you like to wake up with
Burglar Pigs Out, Then Pilfers
canadian humor
Customer Oriented Marketing
cutie
Doctors under stress
EVEN IF OCCUPIED
more gems from the AUC
Ruling Made In Execution Case
Subject: Be careful how you choose your filenames!
Subject: Cosmic Lonely Hearts
The Loose Raygun
The return of the ETA
What, me hurry?
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the
possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous. It is issued on a
semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present themselves.
Back issues may be ftp'd from arthur.cs.purdue.edu from
the ~ftp/pub/spaf/yucks directory. Material in archives
Mail.1--Mail.4 is not in digest format.
Submissions and subscription requests should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 12:25:19 edt
From: "Patrick Tufts" <zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>
Subject: Boston Phoenix - who'd you like to wake up with
To: spaf
In their recent music poll, the Boston Phoenix included the question
"what rock star would you like to wake up next to, and why?"
Some responses:
Donnie Wahlberg from the New Kids. As long as I woke up with a pair
of scissors in my hand to cut off that stupid spinach beard, any
sexual contact I'd have to endure would be worth it.
Margaret Elizabeth Brenner
Everett, MA
Madonna, so I could short-sheet her, then leave.
Jonathan W. Cahill
Brighton, MA
The lead singer of the DiVinyls, because I wouldn't have to do any
work. [zip - her hit song is "I touch myself"]
Nick Banks
Monroe, CT
The Bulgarian State Radio and Television female vocal choir. Can you
tell I'm having a mid-life crisis?
Marc Posner
Somerville, MA
Morrissey, so that I could crush his phenominal ego by telling him,
"It was ok, I guess. But you're just a trifle small and much too
pretentious."
Sara Cormeny
Waltham, MA
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 18:56:11 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Burglar Pigs Out, Then Pilfers
To: yucks-request
OMAHA, Neb. (AP)
First the burglar pigs out, then pilfers from piggy banks.
In about 40 recent burglaries, residents reported that the culprit
drank beer and soda pop, and ate potato chips, leftover pizza and
anything else readily available in the refrigerator; then piggy
banks, purses, jars or cans of coins were looted.
Police said the burglaries began in January and stopped recently.
In some cases, up to $300 was taken, but not televisions,
videocassette recorders and other electronic gear, Omaha police
investigator Bruce Decker said.
Investigators said they don't know why the burglaries stopped.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 21:12:08 EDT
From: someone
Subject: canadian humor
Brian Mulroney asked George Bush how to choose good people for his
goverment. Bush said, "that's easy, just ask the following question,
the one that answers it correctly is good for your team ". Then he asks
Quayle: "Dan, who is the son of your mom and dad who is not your
brother or sister? " Quayle takes about 10 minutes and then
asnwers.."it's me!" "See how easy it is, Brian? just ask the
question".
Mulroney decides to check if , in fact, he has a good staff, he goes to
Joe Clark (the (ex) secretary of State) and asks him the question.
Clark asks for 24 hours before giving an answer. When he is taking the
elevator he finds Michael Wilson (the (ex) minister of finances) and
asks the question to Wilson. Wilson quickly answers "Joe! that's easy,
the son of my mom and dad who is not my brother or sister is me!"
Clark runs to Mulroney's office with the answer..."the son of my mom
and dad who is not my brother is Michael Wilson!"
.."God! Joe! how can you say that, no wonder I'm having
political troubles lately! don't be and idiot: the son of your mom and
dad who is not your brother is Dan Quayle!"
------------------------------
Date: 24 Apr 91 10:30:04 GMT
From: decot@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com (One)
Subject: Customer Oriented Marketing
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
{ed a nice parody of a rather silly employment quiz I posted some time ago.}
> . Customer-Oriented Marketing is looking at our job through
> the customer's (eyes/file).
wallet
> . A good opening to a customer who voices a complaint is,
> "I'm (sorry/upset) you are having a problem."
certain that psychologically
> . Remember, arguing with the customer can only make a bad
> situation (worse/better).
more entertaining
> . Make positive contact with your customers by being friendly,
> (bashful/enthusiastic), open and interested.
flirtatious
> . Using a customer's name and saying "thank you" are examples
> of (pushy/friendly) service.
patronizing
> . While working with your present customer, (acknowledge/
> ignore) a waiting customer.
become interested in and leave the premises with
> . Customers feel you are happy to have their business when
> you smile and say (nothing/thank you).
"The gas is free today."
> . Friendly service is giving the customer your full attention
> and making (eye/hand) contact.
felonious intimate
> . One way to show customers full attention is to call them by
> (phone/name) whenever possible.
obnoxious childhood nicknames
> . Keep the station (cluttered/neat) and clean so customers do
> not take their business elsewhere.
empty
> . Use the intercom for customer assistance and (safety/
> entertainment).
inaudibility
> A good opening to a complaining customer could be to tell them you are:
> a) excited
> b) pleased
> c) happy
> d) sorry
extremely busy and tired of their whining
> Customers waiting for island service should be:
> a) patient
> b) ignored
> c) acknowledged
> d) important
advised on airfare deals to Tahiti
> What kind of service should customers get?
> a) quick
> b) friendly
> c) professional
> d) all of the above
incomprehensible, greasy, and fear-inducing
> One way to give customers personal attention is to:
> a) only accept credit cards
> b) ignore them
> c) call them by name
> d) talk to two customers at once
encourage them to join you in the booth
------------------------------
Date: 26 Apr 91 04:36:01 EST (Fri)
From: dscatl!lindsay@gatech.edu (Lindsay Cleveland)
Subject: cutie
To: spaf
Contributed by: jrs@calliope.ecn.purdue.edu
Did you hear that Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, and
Snap, Crackle and Pop were all murdered recently.
Police suspect it is the work of a cereal killer.
------------------------------
Date: 23 Apr 91 23:30:05 GMT
From: JX655C@gwuvm.gwu.edu (PJ Geraghty)
Subject: Doctors under stress
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
It seems that in Florida, when EMS was just beginning many years ago,
there was an ER doctor on the med channels who was talking to paramedics
who were trying to restar a guy's heart, to no avail. As the medics
kept trying, the MD ordered every drug in the drug box into
the patient, in the hopes that *SOMETHING* would work. When his last
option was exhausted, in desperation, he asked "Is there a phone book
there?" The surprised medics answered affirmatively, and the MD asked
"Do you know this guy's name?" The bewildered medics again answered
yes. "OK," the doc said, "Look up his name and CROSS IT OUT..."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 18:39:35 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: EVEN IF OCCUPIED
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
From: Trent R. Hein <trent@Colorado.EDU>
The parking Nazis here at the Univ of Colo recently installed nifty new
signs in one of the NO PARKING zones right outside of Engineering.
Of course, we always welcome exciting new signs on campus. These
new fangled ones, however, have this strange sentence printed at
the bottom:
"VEHICLES WILL BE TOWED EVEN IF OCCUPIED"
So... how, exactly are such towings handled?
1. "Excuse me, we'll be towing your car now."
2. "Stay in your car. Do not resist the tow strap."
3. "Stay in your seat until the captain has turned off the No-Smoking sign"
4. "Attention. Attention. Attention. You are being towed."
5. "So you wanna be towed, huh?"
6. "We'll be impounding you and your car, do not become alarmed."
7. "Thanks for doing business with A-OK towing."
8. "We normally don't recommended leaving your valuables attended."
9. "Please refrain from any sudden acceleration."
10. "Don't worry, we have a cot in the garage in case they leave you with
us overnight."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 14:50:36 EDT
From: meo%sware.com@mathcs.emory.edu (Martian Fruitcake)
Subject: more gems from the AUC
To: spaf (Gene Spafford)
(paraphrased)
A West Hollywood merchant was robbed Monday by two
men who rolled him up in an expensive Persian rug.
They then stole 60 other rugs, valued at $500,000.
The merchant, Samuel Shaoulian, managed to wriggle
free 30 minutes later to call for help.
Dan Quayle, concerned that his highly intellectual
staff, which includes eight lawyers and seven PhDs,
may be losing touch with the common folk, came up
with a plan to help them find out about the "real
world" - he's ordered them to start reading (are
you ready for this?)...
People magazine.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 18:56:42 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Ruling Made In Execution Case
To: yucks-request
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)
The state can force a powerful psychiatric drug on an insane
prisoner to make him competent for execution, a judge ruled Thursday.
Attorneys for Michael Owen Perry, convicted of murdering five
relatives in 1983, contended that the forced medication would violate
Perry's rights and would be cruel and unusual punishment.
But State District Judge L.J. Hymel, who called for the medication
in 1988, said a second time that the overriding concern was the
state's right to carry out the death penalty ordered by a jury.
"There is no question that Louisiana's interest in carrying out
the verdict overrides Mr. Perry's rights," Hymel said.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars states from executing anyone who
is insane, but gives prison officials the right to force inmates to
take drugs provided that it is in the prisoner's best medical
interest and if the inmate poses a threat.
Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Hymel to take
another look at Perry's case.
At issue, Hymel said, is whether the state's right to carry out
the execution outweighs Perry's right to refuse medication that could
make him legally competent. Hymel said the Supreme Court will have to
make the final decision on the issue.
The judge gave defense attorneys until June 10 to appeal. No
execution date has been set.
Keith Nordyke, one of Perry's lawyers, said the decision probably
would be taken next to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Nordyke said a major issue in the case was "whether we should use
medicine for purposes of healing or for other purposes."
Asked if he would explain the ruling to Perry, Nordyke said, "We
try, but whether he understands or not is questionable. In a large
sense he's oblivious."
Perry's medical records paint a bizarre picture of a man who
shaves his eyebrows to get more oxygen to his brain. Perry becomes
aggressive and hostile when he hears about pop singer Olivia
Newton-John, who he thinks is a goddess living under Lake Arthur, the
lake near the town of the same name where he lived with his family.
Perry, 36, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1983
shootings of his parents, brother, cousin and 2-year-old nephew.
According to authorities, Perry said he first used a pistol to shoot
the victims, then returned later with a shotgun.
During a police hunt for Perry, authorities said they learned he
had written fan letters to Miss Newton-John. Police also said Perry
was turned back by security guards when he tried to visit her
California home.
Perry's mental state rapidly fell apart after he went to death
row. In October 1988, Hymel ruled that Perry's mental illness
rendered him incompetent for execution, but the judge also ordered
that Perry receive the drug Haldol against his will if necessary so
he could regain competence and be executed.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 21:42:13 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Subject: Be careful how you choose your filenames!
To: yucks-request
Computer File Key To Murder?
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)
Prosecutors said Tuesday that a former Marine captain was plotting
his wife's death when he wrote computer entries including "How do I
kill her?" and "What to do with the body?"
Witnesses at the murder trial of Robert Peter Russell testified
Tuesday that he also showed a lot of interest in his new wife's
insurance policy, was found with another woman getting dressed in his
quarters the weekend before his wedding, and asked a friend questions
about how fast a body decomposes.
He also asked about technique, inquiring of at least a couple of
his fellow Marines whether it was true you could electrocute someone
by lobbing a TV or radio into the bathtub with him, witnesses said.
But the key piece of evidence, exhibit 19A, is a 5 1/4 inch floppy
disk on which Russell stored a file labeled "Murder."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence J. Leiser said in his opening
statement at Russell's trial that the defendant was concocting a
"recipe for murder" when he created the computer entries under the
heading "murder."
Russell has pleaded innocent, contending the computer file was
merely part of a mystery novel he was working on. He is free on
$50,000 bond.
Sgt. Maj. William Joseph Kane, a 24-year Marine, testified that he
found the computer disk when cleaning out Russell's office after the
captain had been relieved of duty in February 1988, more than a year
before his wife disappeared.
Most of the files on the disk were clearly military, but several
caught Kane's interest, including one about him labeled with the
sergeant major's name and one called "Murder." He read them, and a
day later during a phone conversation with the captain's wife,
Shirley, who was herself a Marine captain, Kane told her what he had
found.
"I told her if I was you, I'd be careful," Kane said. "I'd watch
out for myself."
Other entries in the "Murder" file, according to court documents,
include: "Make it look as if she left... Rehearse... Mask? Plastic
bags over feet... Check in library on ways of murder electrocution??
Wash tarp!! I may need to cut it?"
Mrs. Russell, 29, disappeared from the Quantico Marine Corps Base
in Virginia on March 4, 1989. Despite intense searches, her body has
not been found.
Russell, 34, is being tried in U.S. District Court in Alexandria,
because, according to authorities, a crime was committed on federal
property.
Russell's wife was stationed at Parris Island, S.C., in 1988, but
she was later reassigned to Quantico and they were reunited.
In the meantime, the Marines were moving to dishonorably discharge
Russell, accusing him of alcoholism and misconduct that included
filing false reports.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 12:31:53 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Subject: Cosmic Lonely Hearts
To: yucks-request
History of the Cosmos Is a Tale of Lonely Scientists
By DAVID GERMAIN
Associated Press Writer
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) - Writing the history of the universe would
be nice, but not quite enough for Dennis Overbye.
A few pages of brisk, beautiful equations would cover history
from creation to 1991, says Overbye, who had a more romantic story
in mind: the history of the men and women who pieced together the
history of the universe.
With its poetic title, ``Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos,''
Overbye's book at first seems more a literary work than a
scientific one. The subtitle - ``The Scientific Quest for the
Secret of the Universe'' - gives it away.
Throughout, there's a push and pull between science and poetry.
Overbye writes about science in a distinctly unscientific way.
``I like stories. I don't like facts all that much,'' Overbye
said at his mountaintop home in Woodstock, 100 miles north of New
York City.
Published this year by HarperCollins, ``Lonely Hearts'' is a
series of chapter-stories tracing the careers of the great - but
mostly unknown - names in 20th-century cosmology.
``Hardly anybody's heard of any of these people,'' said Overbye,
who got to know them as an editor at Discover and Sky & Telescope
magazines and during the five years when he wrote the book.
A few names are familiar: Edwin Hubble, discoverer of the
expanding universe and namesake of the disappointing space
telescope; Stephen Hawking, roaming the universe while confined to
a wheelchair by Lou Gehrig's disease.
``Lonely Hearts'' is a microscopic story rather than a
telescopic one - loaded with tiny details of the scientists' quirky
lives. But they're not geeks.
``They're not nerdy, they're pretty regular people,'' Overbye
said. ``They just decided at a pretty early age that they were
going to be scientists and never deviated from that.''
There's the self-educated Russian, Yakov Boris Zeldovich, ``a
kind of Zorba the Cosmologist, a drinker and dancer for whom there
were no barriers between life and science.'' There's David Schramm,
a champion wrestler who studied physics at Cambridge in the summer
of 1972 rather than take a shot at making the 1972 U.S. Olympic
team. There's Alan Guth, a post-doctoral student whose late-night
calculations in 1979 led to the theory of inflation - a theory of
explosive expansion with the universe ``ballooning away in the
night.''
At the core of Overbye's story is Allan Sandage, Hubble's heir
as conservator of the 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar in
California. Sandage has spent years coasting through chilly nights
in the telescope's uncomfortable observation cage.
``You sit there,'' Sandage tells Overbye, ``straddling the pier
with your privates nestled up against the cold of the universe.''
Sandage boasts of his iron kidneys that allow him to stay aloft
in the telescope through a 14-hour night. Yet he curses his
assistant, Gustav Tamman, who would swish water back and forth
between two glasses down below and call up, ``Hey, Allan, do you
have to go to the bathroom?''
Amid the humor, there's an air of tragedy about Sandage. Overbye
sees him as a cosmic King Lear. Among his fatal flaws was his
desperate effort to prove that the universe would collapse back on
itself after an 82 billion-year lifespan.
In the '60s and early '70s, Sandage was resolute to show ``that
the universe was closed and that one day the galaxies would all
come home,'' Overbye writes. ``God would eat us.''
Yet when a team of cosmological upstarts proves the universe is
open, that it will expand forever, Sandage cheerfully shrugs and
adds his own calculations further solidifying the open universe
theory.
``He's larger than life,'' Overbye said. ``His passions and his
tribulations are larger than life.''
The closed universe theory later comes back into vogue when
theorists discover cold dark matter, whose mass might generate
enough gravity to slow the expanding universe and drag it back in
upon itself.
``If the closed, oscillating universe punctuated physical
existence with a big crunch like a pair of clashing cymbals, the
open universe was like the piano chord struck at the end of the
Beatles song `A Day in the Life' - a single brief jangly burst of
light and sound, quavering and ringing as it slowly fades out into
the darkness,'' Overbye writes.
Drawn to science by his love for the novels of Arthur Clarke,
Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, the Seattle-born Overbye studied
physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He studied
alongside physicists he eventually would write about, but he lacked
their devotion to science, Overbye said.
``I was a lousy student,'' he said. ``These people were smart.
Obviously, they were people willing to stay up all night doing
problems at MIT. I wasn't.''
After MIT, Overbye studied astronomy at the University of
California at Los Angeles, where he drifted into a creative writing
course.
``I'd forgotten why I was interested in science. I decided I
hated it,'' Overbye said. ``I didn't know anything about the life
of a physicist beyond what I read in science fiction.''
He took a job at Sky & Telescope, and ``Lonely Hearts'' grew out
of his magazine reporting.
While researching the book, Overbye suffered the same uneasiness
many people feel in the presence of brilliant scientists.
``Hawking always intimidates me,'' Overbye said. ``Sandage did,
but not anymore. He's a very imposing person. Hawking is a man
apart.''
Hawking tells Overbye that he's happier now than before his
illness came on, in his early 20s.
Before the illness, ``I drank a fair amount, I guess, didn't do
any work. It was really a rather pointless existence,'' Hawking
says. ``When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really
appreciates everything that one does have.''
As much as anyone, Overbye wants cosmologists to discover the
secret of the universe. From a human standpoint, though, he thinks
it's a necessary but impractical search.
``It's a quest which, if you think about it, can never be
answered,'' Overbye said. ``Only a naive person would think we
could get to the real bottom of this. But scientists have to keep
trying.''
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 19:22:03 EDT
From: meo%sware.com@mathcs.emory.edu (Martian Fruitcake)
Subject: The Loose Raygun
To: spaf (Gene Spafford)
>From the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation,
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: In his new book, "President Reagan: The Role of a
Lifetime," Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon tells of an incident at
the 1983 world economic summit in Williamsburg, VA. James A. Baker
III, then White House chief of staff, gave Mr. Reagan a briefing book
to study the night be- fore, then learned the next morning that the
president hadn't looked at it. Mr. Baker asked why. "Well, Jim," the
president re- plied, 'The Sound of Music' was on."
------------------------------
Date: 22 Apr 91 18:05:54 GMT
From: ttl@aura.cs.wisc.edu (Tony Laundrie)
Subject: The return of the ETA
Newsgroups: comp.arch
A friend at a reputable supercomputer company sent me a copy of a MEMO
he received:
*************************** MEETING NOTICE ***************************
The ETA10q (piper) has arrived in our fair city! S/N 17 was a single cpu
system running at 19 ns with 4 MW of main memory, 16 MW of shared memory,
and 0.5 MW of communication buffer memory. It was first shipped with an
EOS operating system to a Canadian company. Since its return to the United
States, it has been sold to a former ETA employee and upgraded into a beer
cooler, containing a Miller Tapper. To honor its past performance, and
celebrate progress in computer technology over the past two years, join us
in jubilation!
The time: WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1991. Starting at 6:00 pm.
The reason: The end of tax time and of ETA Systems, Inc.
The tapper: ETA10q Supercomputer (Miller compatible)
The task: Determine what a supercomputer is really good for. (Does anyone
really spend that kind of money just to model molecules?)
------------------------------
Date: 25 Apr 91 10:30:03 GMT
From: cepek@vixvax.mgi.com (Mike Cepek, MGI)
Subject: What, me hurry?
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From the Star Tribune, _Letters from readers_, April 9, 1991:
(Some background -- a police investigation recently resulted in a bust
in which a couple dozen postal employee were arrested for being
involved with drugs or drug dealing "on the job". I assume this is
original to the author, W. L. Gillies)
Regarding the postal workers arrested for drugs
in Minneapolis [MN] last week, I hope that the
investigating team did not waste any time or
money looking for speed or other amphetamines.
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------