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Yucks Digest V1 #68
Yucks Digest Mon, 22 Jul 91 Volume 1 : Issue 68
Today's Topics:
"Crime Town"
American vs. British
Ancient Technology
Ask your kitty to share dinner with you!
C&W Alcoholic Humor (2 msgs)
Don't worry, be happy ... or else.
Gang that planned to destroy a city busted
Great Joke/nothing else
L. Ron, Ron, Ron, a-L. Ron Ron Ron...Every-body now!
Seven-Eleven Big Japan Success
Will that be check or charge?
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 91 21:10:09 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: "Crime Town"
To: yucks-request
70 per cent of Canadian town's males have criminal records -- police
BANFF, Canada, July 21 (AFP) - A Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) computer search for men with criminal records in this mountain
resort found that 70 per cent of the adult males had been convicted
at least once, police revealed Sunday.
At the Mounties' national headquarters in Ottawa, a spokesman said
the national average was less than one in 10.
The statistics were revealed after police did a computer search
for possible suspects in the still-unsolved stabbing murder last year
of a woman taxi driver in Banff.
Constable Nigel Paterson said the high ratio of convicted
criminals in Banff, in western Alberta province, "came as a surprise
to us." The convictions covered a wide series of crimes, he said,
from impaired driving to sexual assault to murder.
Local businessmen admit they have to take who they can sometimes
to fill the workforce, especially during off-peak seasons in the
tourist industry.
Deb Boutilier of Melissa's Missteak restaurant said:
"Unfortunately, sometimes employers in Banff are faced with the
prospect of having to hire the next warm body that walks through the
door."
Police do not know how many of the town's women might have
criminal records -- their computer search was limited to males
because a man was seen running away from the murder scene in the taxi
driver case.
Const. Paterson said the computer search had not helped police
find any suspects, because there were too many potential choices.
He added: "When (RCMP) investigators from Calgary go into a town
and they're looking at something like a murder, they'll ask 'Well,
who are the bad apples?'
"They'll get a list of a half-dozen or so people and proceed to
eliminate them right off the bat. They wanted to do the same thing
here, but it didn't work out that way."
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 91 19:13:00 GMT
From: davidb@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: American vs. British
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Told me by a Canadian friend:
Canada could have had British democracy, French culture, and American
know-how.
It settled for British know-how, French democracy, and American
culture.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 91 10:30:04 GMT
From: ewhac@well (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Subject: Ancient Technology
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
I just saw on the local news that they finally constructed the Babbage
Machine over in England, a "computer" that was designed nearly 100 years ago.
So you can imagine everyone's shock when, as the crank was turned for the
first time, the little paper tape printer used for recording results punched
out:
MS-DOS Version 5.0
A:\>
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 91 12:02:13 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Ask your kitty to share dinner with you!
To: yucks-request
Mislabeled Tuna Recalled
LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP)
A food distributor voluntarily recalled about 30,000 cans of tuna
after shoppers found cat food labels under labels that indicated the
tuna was intended for humans.
Gateway Foods, a La Crosse distributor, recalled the 6.5-ounce
cans of IGA Chunk Tuna in Water from stores in western Wisconsin and
Minnesota. Labels underneath identified the product as Star-Kist's
7th Heaven cat food.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said there was no need for a
health warning because the contents were safe for human consumption,
even if it was intended for animals.
But FDA spokeswoman Sandra Erickson said Friday the agency was
conducting tests to determine whether the contents were intended for
cats or people.
Suppliers disagreed on the matter.
Eric Bloemendaal, general manager of quality and communications
for Star-Kist, said the tuna was canned in Canada and wasn't meant
for people.
"If it's got a 7th Heaven label on it, it was intended for cat
food, period," Bloemendaal said, adding that the fish was sterilized
and safe for people to eat.
However, Peter Whalen of Ocean King Foods in New York, which sent
the cans to Gateway, insisted the tuna was intended for people.
Whalen said his company ordered the tuna from Multi Process Inc.,
a New York warehouse. The 7th Heaven labels were accidently put on
cans in Ocean King's order, he said. When the mistake was found, IGA
labels were put on top.
"They attribute this possibility to the fact that some of their
workers are recent immigrants knowing almost no English," Whalen said
in a statement. Still, the idea of eating cat food made some people
sick.
[Yeah, but what about the Cat McNuggets? --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jul 91 15:27:07 GMT
From: (null)
Subject: C&W Alcoholic Humor
Newsgroups: rec.humor,alt.recovery
This will already be familiar to fans of country music and is only
paratly related to alcohol, but I'll post it for others:
The song "You Don't Have to Call Me Darlin'", written by Steve Goodman
and recorded by David Alan Coe, like some of the best of Coe's other
stuff, is a satire of country music throughout. The last verse is
introduced with a story. I think the story is dubious, since the last
verse is the main point of the song. Anyway, Coe says something like:
"A friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote this song and sent it to me.
He claimed he'd written the perfect country song. I wrote back and said
that it was not the perfect country song because he hadn't said anything
about Momma, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or getting drunk [hence
the connection to this thread]. He added a verse and sent it to me.
I had to admit that my friend had written the perfect country song...
The last verse goes like this:
I was drunk the day my mom got out prison.
I went to pick her up in the rain.
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got run over by a damned old train."
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 91 18:28:40 GMT
From: idx009@cck.cov.ac.uk (the Crisco Kid)
Subject: C&W Alcoholic Humor
Newsgroups: rec.humor,alt.recovery
>From: "How to tell a Proton from a Crouton: an amateur's guide to science"
by Judith Stone, published by Angus and Robertson in the UK, 1991, paperback,
UKponds 4.99, USdollars 14.95, ISBN 0 207 16876 8.
Section "Lookin' for science in all the wrong places", pp 42-47:
In summary, anthropologist James Schaefer, director of the Office of
Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Prevention at the University of Minnesota
examined the effects of bar-room environmental factors - music, lighting,
and decor - on the drikning behaviour of 5500 c&w bar patrons in Montana
and Minnesota.
Music at 85 bpm and up led to least drinking; 60 bpm or less led to
excessive drinking.
Lyrics also had something to do with it. "We looked at the lyrics of songs
that stimulated drinking, and it turned out that they were the tear-jerk
lonesome blues, songs about the sad and often abusive aspects of life
among certain working-class people. Hard drinkers were more likely to
choose slower-paced, wailing, self-pitying music." (Schaefer)
Apparently a strict dress code and an even man/woman ratio contribute to
moderate drinking. Heavy tippling goes with dim lights, cheap drinks and
a small dance floor. A live band makes the liquor flow more freely than
a jukebox does. Landscape paintings slow drinking pace, while repeated
patterns, portraits and especially action photography are escalators.
After hearing Schaefer lecture, playwright Charles Rothaus urged him
to contribute a song to a musical he was writing about alcoholism,
Schaefer's tune, 'Slow Country Music', became part of 'Easy Does the
Stars', which had a respectable run in 1983 in Austin, Texas and Atlanta,
Georgia. "Joe, don't play that slow country music/ I drink more and think
sore and sing right along/ I need a dose of dancing close, but the girls
are all gone/ Spare me the pain of a slow sad song."
Schaefer is continuing his research into drinking behaviour, according
to the book.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 91 09:37:33 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Don't worry, be happy ... or else.
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
Mayor Arne Nilsen of Sund Norway proposed a resolution banning
crankiness among the island community's 5000 residents and
requiring them to be happy and think positively.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 91 13:33:13 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Gang that planned to destroy a city busted
To: yucks-request
Moscow July 19 tass
A gang of criminals, plotting to destroy a town of 20,000 people
by flooding it with water, were recently busted in the siberian city
of irkutsk, rabochaya tribuna reports today. Irkutsk police have
been looking for the group for a long timein connection with several
armed burglaries of state warehouses and the local tv and radio
premises. The gang left several peopledead and stole weapons and
drugs. They acted professionally, switching off alarm systems and
left no finger prints. Police were finally able to arrest four
gangmembers and their leader, who was identified as stakhovtsev,
senior inspector of the city police department. Stakhovtsev had
organised the gang in 1987 and cleverly helpedit avoid capture.
The group planned to hold up a bank in the town of slyudyanka to
steal 10-15 million roubles. The bizarre plan included blowingup a
depot of explosives belonging to a local mining department in order
to cause a shift in geological layers and flood the cityof 20,000.
The court sentenced the gang members to long prison terms and their
leader was given the death penalty.
["blowingup" and "cityof" are, of course, Russian words... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jul 91 15:35:51 GMT
From: SMTP%jeannie@scri1.scri.fsu.edu (The Wicked Witch Of The West)
Subject: Great Joke/nothing else
Newsgroups: rec.humor
[This is an old, old joke, but someone on the list pointed it
out and claims to have never seen it before. So, here it is.
As time goes on, I appreciate the old ones more and more. :-) --spaf]
There were two brothers, who were identical twins, by the name of Jones.
Danny was married but Roy was single and owned a small dilapidated boat.
It just so happen that on the same day that Danny's wife died, Roy's boat
sank. A kind old lady met Roy on the street and mistaking him for his
brother Danny said; "Oh Mr. Jones, I'm sorry to hear of your great loss.
You must feel terrible." Roy said, "Well I'm not a bit sorry, she was
rotten from the start. Her bottom was all chewed up, she smelled of fish
the first time I got her, she made water faster than anything I ever saw.
She had a big hole in the front and a big crack in the back. The hole
kept getting bigger every time I used her, and one leaked all over the
place. What finished her off though was four guys from the other side of
town that came looking for a good time. They asked if they could use her
and I rented her to them, but warned them she wasn't too hot. But they
insisted they wanted to give her a try. The result was the crazy fools
all tried to get into her at once. The strain was too much for her and
she cracked right down the middle."
The old lady fainted.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 91 21:46:33 CDT
From: mauler@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: L. Ron, Ron, Ron, a-L. Ron Ron Ron...Every-body now!
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
L. RON, RON
(to "Da Do Ron Ron")
(c) 1991 Lynn Gold
He keeps on writing novels though his life is through
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Some folks say it shows what Dianetics do
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Yeah, his life is through
Yeah, what Dianetics do
Yeah, when I saw the name
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
He wrote before he founded Scientology
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
But soon he found religion makes bucks easily
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Scientology
Makes bucks easily
Yeah, Dianetics pays
For L. Ron, Ron, Ron! For L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Oh yeah* \
L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! > (sung simultaneously 2x)
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! /
Twenty-two best sellers and there's more to come!
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Heaven only knows where they're a-comin' from
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Yeah, more books to come
Yeah, who knows where from
Yeah, this I've gotta see
>From L. Ron, Ron, Ron! From L. Ron, Ron, Ron!
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Oh yeah* \
L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! > (sung simultaneously 4x)
It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! It's L. Ron, Ron, Ron! /
*optional ad-libbing done here with lines such as
"Battleship Earth....Don't know what else he wrote, and I don't care!"
"I threw his questionnaire out."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 91 11:44:43 PDT
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Seven-Eleven Big Japan Success
To: yucks-request
TOKYO (AP)
If you're walking the back streets of Japan hoping to find only
quaint scenes of sushi shops and mom-and-pop green grocers, forget it.
Hardly any neighborhood is without its plastic and glass
Seven-Eleven convenience store, an all-American standard that is
scoring dizzying success in Japan and making its U.S. originator pale
by comparison.
From a single Seven-Eleven store less than two decades ago, Japan
has become a nation obsessed with 24-hour convenience stores. The
company now has 4,328 franchises, or about one-fourth of Japan's
total convenience stores.
Seven-Eleven Japan, which last year rang up annual sales of about
$7 billion, even bought out the troubled U.S. parent company of
American 7-Elevens earlier this year. Analysts are skeptical,
however, whether the stunning successes in Japan can be duplicated in
the United States.
"On the surface, like the 7-Eleven logo, things may appear the
same in Japan," said Masashi Wada, a retail specialist at the Dentsu
Institute for Human Studies. "But the internal systems are completely
different."
Seven-Eleven Japan's success stems from a hyper-efficient delivery
system that ensures the hottest products always are in stock. The
wide variety of goods and services makes the stores something more
than a place to pick up a late-night snack.
For example, a customer can pick up steaming fish cakes, canned
tea and rice balls (kept at 68 degrees - the temperature at which
research has shown rice tastes best), while paying utility bills and
ordering Tiffany's products by catalog.
The stores are always searching for new, hit products to cultivate
a "fashionable" image. That's why Americans looking for a slurpie a
perennial favorite at U.S. 7-Elevens are in for a disappointment.
The Japanese stores decided the ice drinks were passe and stopped
serving them five years ago.
About two-thirds of the 3,000 items sold at a typical Japanese
store will change in a year, said Seven-Eleven spokesman Hidetoshi
Akiyama.
"If we don't carry the latest products, people are going to come
in and think we are a pathetically outdated store," Akiyama said. He
scoffed at U.S. manufacturers who push their wares with last year's
market statistics.
To make sure the most popular products are always in stock, each
purchase at a Seven-Eleven is immediately recorded in a computer that
keeps tabs for the "just-in-time" delivery system.
Only the items that are sure to sell get delivered, and only as
they are running out. Each store typically receives 12 deliveries
daily. No excess products are kept on the shelves, an asset for
space-tight Japan.
The omnipresence of convenience store delivery trucks on Japan's
clogged roads prompted a government study on potential harmful
effects of just-in-time delivery, including traffic jams and air
pollution. The panel ended up lauding the system, noting that each
delivery truck was filled to capacity carrying goods for several
stores.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 91 09:35:31 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Will that be check or charge?
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
After Birmingham Alabama mayor Richard Arrington complained
that district judge Jack Montgomery was soft on habitual lawbreakers,
Montgomery raised a theft suspect's bail to $9 trillion.
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------