FREAKSHOW ISSUE 3
I've been busy with midterms and other similar bogosity, so I've been
unable to do much Re/Search for freakshow. I've got few things in
here that I managed to dig up, but most of it was sent to me by
freakshow members...
enjoy...
[I really hate synchronous communication links. Phones should be destroyed.
--ian]
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From: dmunroe@vcd.hp.com (Dave Munroe)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: phone addicts
Date: 28 Jan 93 04:14:35 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard
OK, this is new: I was in the bathroom this afternoon at work and some guy
comes in to piss. He's pissing. His cellular phone rings! He answers
it and talks away while he pisses, flushes, washes his hands, and racks the
towel dispenser.
If someone called him at 1am, they'd probably have a conversation interspersed
with the sound of his wife moaning. Or maybe not.
unrelated peeve: I found out that it's hard to wipe up lots of blood. The
actual wiping isn't difficult, it's just that when you think you're done,
you find a bunch of drops, streaks, or a pool of it in some place where you
just didn't expect to find it - augh!!!! it keeps popping up!
-Dave
[I remember (vaguely) living in a dorm, and I'm peeved about this too! ---ian]
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From: mcvey@mpr.ca (Iain McVey)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: From Today's Globe & Mail
Date: 5 Feb 93 02:24:10 GMT
Organization: MPR Teltech Ltd., Burnaby, B.C., Canada
!Peeve from today's Globe and Mail:
After several college students in Seattle showed up at their health centre to
complain of rashes, investigators found that 12 women and nine men with skin
problems has all been mud-wrestling, in little or no clothing. the mud was
made from garden topsoil contaminated with bacteria. Researchers noted that a
similar group, from a nearby residential unit, who wrestled in Jello were
unscathed. One doctor, Amanda Adler, pointed out that "there might be an even
better medium that Jello. Oatmeal is said to have cosmetic benefits."
Peeve: My residence, although host to many groovy entertainments, was never
that much fun.
- Iain -
--
Iain McVey (mcvey@mpr.ca) | "It's all smoke and mirrors until someone
Software Designer | loses an eye - then its special effects"
MPR Teltech Ltd. | "This bottle of whisky is awful. I'll be
8999 Nelson Way, Burnaby, BC | glad when it's done" - One Scot to another
[Does WREK have this CD? Probably, as long as its offensive. -ian]
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This came from the Risks Digest...
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 08:31:21 -0800
From: Peter J. Scott
Subject: Bible belt broadcast bungle
Heard this on the radio this morning: a major Christian radio network is
alerting its member stations to check their latest shipments of religious
compact discs before airing them. It seems that some other CDs were
mislabelled at the factory and shipped along with the religious ones.
Unfortunately the itinerant CDs were by the Dead Kennedys. A spokesman for
the radio network said, "This is what happens whenever people get around
machines." The CBS newsreader, with masterful understatement, said, "The Dead
Kennedys CDs included songs such as, `I Kill Children,' which some Christian
listeners may not find inspirational."
Peter J. Scott, Member of Technical Staff | pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech | SPAN: GROUCH::PJS
[Clinton should take up this issue immediately... --ian]
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Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 00:06:48 CST
From: forsythe@track29.lonestar.org (Charles Forsythe)
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: More on GITM
>From SF Chronicle
29 Jan, 1993
Straights In the Military
by Arthur Hoppe
l have carefully studied the arguments of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and I agree that integrating homosexuals and heterosexuals
in the military will cause innumerable problems. I feel strongly,
therefore, that heterosexuals should be banned from serving our
country.
I speak from experience, having served three years in the Navy
as a youth. And I'm here to tell you that no group in our society
flaunts their sexuality more flagrantly than young, male soldiers
and sailors.
Sex is the first thing these horny studs think and talk about
on arising and the last thing on their minds at night. There's no
question their preoccupation with the subject seriously detracts
from their military efficiency.
Show me an MX missile launch technician dreaming of bedding
down Kim Basinger, and I'll show you a proximate cause of WW
III.It is not gay soldiers who are raping innocent women in
Bosnia, and it is not they who pose a constant threat to our
daughters in the next barracks. Moreover, heterosexual hormones
are a constant embarrassment to us internationally. You may
recall the Brits' complaint in WW II about the three things wrong
with American servicemen: "They are overpaid, oversexed and over
here."
Personally, I remember the conduct of my shipmate Big Tim
(Name Withheld) when we went ashore in Sydney. While the rest of
us spent our energies on dances, flowers and alcohol to achieve
our common end, Big Tim stood on a street corner and addressed
every passable young female with: "Wanna f - - -?"
He was far more successful than we, and while he made few
friends for America with his technique, it was a great way, as he
put it, to "weed out the unlikelys."
Can you imagine a gay sailor conducting himself so
offensively? Of course not. Gays in the military are nothing if
not discreet.
Moreover, by simply banning heterosexuals, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff will be rid of a host of problems that impede military
readiness. No more unwanted pregnancies or paternity suits. An
end to the long-running battle over abortions in military
hospitals. Our nation's servicemen would confine their sexual
activities to themselves.
And because no jurisdiction recognizes gay marriages, we
taxpayers would be spared the expense of housing, transporting,
medicating and educating hundreds of thousands of military
dependents.
Banning heterosexuals would not only save millions, but it
would result in a leaner, more focused fighting force. Oh, I know
the stereotype homophobes share of the limp-wristed,effeminate
gay, but I would commend to them the research of my colleague Tom
Meyer, who turned up such gay soldiers as Julius Caesar,Hadrian,
Richard the Lion-Hearted and three Greats -- Alexander, Peter and
Frederick.
Ask yourself, which general would you rather serve under:
Alexander the Great or that well-known heterosexual, George
Armstrong Custer?
So if we're going to ban anyone, I say, let's ban
heterosexuals. If we don't ban someone, the joint chiefs say,
we're going to destroy "unit-cohesion," meaning the ability of
all members of a unit to think and look and act alike. And that's
going to wreck morale, sap our military effectiveness and lead to
a lot of fist fights.
Of course, that's just what the joint chiefs said when
President Truman lifted the ban on blacks in 1948. But as General
Colin Powell says, that was different.
[Ted sent me this jewel from some buddy of his an stanford. Its a sick
world when Daryl Gates is still employed. --ian]
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From: clarinews@clarinet.com (UPI)
Newsgroups: clari.tw.computers,clari.news.law.police,clari.news.interest.people
Subject: Ex-LAPD chief to help create police computer games
Keywords: computers, manufacturing, police, legal, people, human interest
Date: 2 Feb 93 20:56:18 GMT
X-Supersedes:
ANPA: Wc: 263/262; Id: z4593; Sel: xxbf; Adate: 2-2-350pes; Ver: 0/1
Codes: &bfcdxx., &nlpdxx., &nhpdxx., xxxxxxxx
OAKHURST, Calif. (UPI) -- Former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates
has signed a deal to help design police-action computer games for
software developer and publisher Sierra On-Line.
The company said Tuesday that Gates will design the next installment
of its Police Quest series. Its players assume the role of LAPD
detectives tracking down random murders.
Gates said he wants to ``give computer users the opportunity to see
what it's like to be a cop in L.A.'' and to ``provide an accurate
picture of the dangers and difficulties they encounter in trying to
solve a crime.''
The company said LAPD procedures and ``real-world'' pressures from
the news media and public will play a part in the game. It will feature
realistic backgrounds and actors on video.
Sierra On-Line's president, Ken Williams, said Gates' 43 years of
experience will make the next Police Quest ``the ultimate police role-
playing game.''
Gates retired last June under pressure after the police beating of
black motorist Rodney King and the deadly Los Angeles riots. Since his
retirement, he has been hosting a local Los Angeles talk radio show.
During his 14-year tenure as chief, Gates' harshest critics viewed
him as quick-tempered or incompetent. But he also enjoyed loyal support
from most of his officers.
Anti-Gates sentiments peaked during the Los Angeles riots, when
critics claimed the department was ill-prepared to cope with the
violence that erupted after a jury acquitted the officers in the King
case.
[Again, ted comes through with goods.... ---ian]
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From: Mark_Van_Haren@intersolv.com
Date: 02 Feb 93 12:27
To: james@objy.com, lint@leland.stanford.edu
Subject: Interesting but sick...
here's an interesting message sent to me by my manager:
*************************************
Sure, you may think you know all about the sex life of the Martian Peen Worm,
but do you know about the brain worm? This is excerpted from Chet Raymo's
quite serious science column in the Boston Globe, Oct 7, p. 26:
Consider the life cycle of the brain worm, Dicrocoelium dendriticum.
Adult brain worms are skinny and flat like noodles. They live in the livers
of sheep. Oodles and oodles of their eggs travel down the sheep's intestines
and are excreted onto the grass. There they lie, quiescent, until a
dung-eating snail happens to pass. Gobbled, the eggs awaken, in the snail's
gut, and turn themselves into roundish things that drill their way through
the gut to lodge themselves in the snail's digestive gland. Thus ensconced,
they change again, into a stringy sort of thing called a mother sporocyte.
The MS (as I'll call her), clones herself into a zillion copies, or daughter
sporocytes, filling the snail's digestive gland to overcrowding. The
jam-packed DS's (as I'll call 'em) change again, into spermlike creatures,
called cercaria, that migrate to the snail's respiratory chamber. Snuffling
and sniffling, the clogged-up snail coats the cercaria with mucus and sneezes
the slime ball onto the grass. The slime keeps the cercaria moist and alive,
but - wonder of wonders - the slime ball looks exactly like a snail's egg.
Along comes a wood ant with a taste for snail's eggs that lugs the slime ball
back to the nest for dinner. Devoured, the cercaria change into
metacercaria, most of which take up housekeeping in the ant's abdomen. A few
metacercaria travel to the ant's brain, where they twiddle the controls and
cause the ant to go a particular kind of crazy. The ant crawls up to the top
of a grass stem and sits there in a catatonic state until - yep, you saw it
coming - a sheep nibbles on the grass. The sheep's pancreatic juices cause
the metacercaria to hatch into young brain worms that make their way to the
sheep's liver and...
[Wonder where all those football players are all day while we are in class?
Hm. ---ian]
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From: ulbrikg0@seraph1.sewanee.edu (Karl G. Ulbrich)
To: walker1@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu, darren@owlnet.rice.edu,
brian@owlnet.rice.edu (Brian L. Kirk), strick@osc.versant.com,
bardesj0@seraph1.sewanee.edu, sormani1@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: (n@Nd0) The top 10 courses for athletes at SMU
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 19:06:31 CST
The top 10 courses for athletes at SMU (reprinted without permission)
#10 Subtraction: addition's tricky pal
#9 The first 30 pages of A Tale of Two Cities:
Foundation of a Classic
#8 Sandwich-making (final project required)
#7 Alumni-owned Hotels, Restaurants and Car Dealerships:
The Interlocking Economy
#6 Pre-Law Seminar: Age of Consent in the 50 States
#5 The Denny's Menu: Recent Discoveries
#4 The Bunny and the Wolf: Hand Shadow Workshop
#3 Draw Winky
#2 From First Love to Looker: The Films in which Susan Dey
appears naked
#1 The poetry of Hank Stram
___________________________________________________________________________
Karl G. Ulbrich. Sewanee TN. Better active today than radioactive tomorrow.
[Since I am the high priest of emacs in the college, I felt obliged to
put this in FREAKSHOW. --ian]
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[from YUCKS]
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 19:30:03 EST
From: J.J.Hallett@ecs.southampton.ac.uk (Jon. Hallett)
Subject: An Emacs Koan
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a
question.
"Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked.
The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be
relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes
before replying.
"I don't see why not. Its got bloody well everything else."
With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved
enlightenment, several years later.
Commentary:
His Master is kind,
Answering his FAQ quickly,
With thought and sarcasm.
[While feverishly looking for more lemur humor, I found this one. I think
I'm going to give up being a scientist now that I laughed at this. --ian]
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From: jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu (Joel Furr)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.fan.lemurs
Subject: Re: Terrifying Twinkies
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:01:28 GMT
Organization: Virginia Center for Lemur Fandom, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA (subscribe to alt.fan.lemurs TODAY)
In article landauer@morocco.Eng.Sun.COM (Doug Landauer) writes:
>
> "Twinkie, Twinkie,
> Little suet-filled sponge cake crisco log,
> Now I know just what you are."
>
> "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Food?"
>
> In an effort to clarify questions about the purported durability and
>unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, we subjected the Hostess snack
>logs to the following experiments:
>
>EXPOSURE:
> Twinkie was left on a ... window ledge for four days, during which
>time an inch and a half of rain fell. Many flies were observed crawling across
>the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to hypothesis, birds -- even pigeons --
>avoided this potential source of sustenance.
> Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie
>retained its original color and form. When removed ... the Twinkie was found
>to be substantially dehydrated. Cracked open, it was observed to have taken on
>the consistency of industrial foam insulation; the filling, however, retained
>its advertised "creaminess".
>
>RADIATION:
> A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was set
>for precisely 4 minutes -- the approximate cooking time of bacon. After 20
>seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's rich, characteristic aroma of
>artificial butter. After 1 minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid
>smell of burning rubber. The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes, 10
>seconds, when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of the oven ... a
>second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment ... this Twinkie leaked
>molten white filling ... when cooled, this now epoxy-like filling bonded the
>Twinkie to its plate, defying gravity; it was removed only upon application of
>a butter knife.
>
>EXTREME FORCE:
> A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth-floor window, a fall of
>approximately 120 feet. It landed right side up ... then bounced onto its
>back. The expected "splatter" effect was not observed. Indeed, the only
>discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow fissure on its underside ...
>otherwise, the Twinkie remained structurally intact.
>
>EXTREME COLD:
> A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours. Upon
>removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but its physical
>properties had noticeably "slowed" ... the filling was found to be the
>approximate consistency of acrylic paint.
>
>...
>
>Reprinted from SPY magazine, July 1989.
[Taken any courses from STAFF recently? --ian]
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From: pratta@rpi.edu (Anthony Edward Prattico)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.college
Subject: Re: Dr. STAFF - the busiest instructor
Date: 26 Jan 93 20:44:30 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
In-Reply-To: David B. Horvath, CDP's message of Tue, 26 Jan 1993 08:58:04 EST
Nntp-Posting-Host: rebecca.its.rpi.edu
In article <93026.085804MBADBH@rohvm1.rohmhaas.com> David B. Horvath, CDP writes:
>I'm seeking the true identity of Professor Staff - he (or she) is the one
>that gets to teach all of the classes that the other professors teach.
>
>Look at a class catalog - most of the schools that I've attended have had
>this person on their staff and they teach most of the classes. How does
>this person do it? Time/Warp fields?
>
> - David
Oh, there are several Professor Staffs. Didn't you know that the Staff family
is the largest in the world? They are among the best workers. Much more
efficient than even the Japanese. In fact, they are so highly thought of that
they are given private dining rooms (Staff cafeteriaas) and so plentiful they
must be listed in their own directories. (Staff directory, often alongside the
Faculty family.) They even have their own private closets and storage and
supply rooms (Staff only).
Anthony Prattico
pratta@rpi.edu
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"What's FREAKSHOW?"
"Freakshow? Its sorta like a trash can for the internet."