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Electronic Humo(u)r Magazine
Issue 027, Volume VIII, number I.
November 1989
edited by......Nathan Quinlan and Deirdre Thornton
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Drovyri ni provyri" (Trust but verify)
-Mikhail Gorbachev on contraception.
courtesy Kieran Coughlan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
........
Editorial........... Thingy
Mankind Tonight......Philosophical
A Tale...............A Tale
The Physics Zone.....Educational(!)/Wit(!!!!!!!)
Captain Widgit.......Adventure/Romance
English for Twits....Highly Educational
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial the First
...................
Once upon a time in a barbarian land in north-western Europe there was a mob of
happy engineering students who every day did gather about funny little machines
with green vdus and the daintiest keyboards. "Feel like a vaxfix" one would
say and off they would all toddle to the special room. But all was not well with
the engineers, for they were cheerful little engineers, and were wont to
carouse and make merry as they vaxfixed, but this did not please an important
person who lived next door, and occasionally stuck his head in the door to
point this out. Also, many students of science took to vaxfixing, because their
usernames began with PHY, MAT, and MPH and they would turn up daily in the
hallowed place with great wads of papers saying "Uh, is this where the vax is?"
But an evil greater than all these one day befell the engineers; for they
often gathered to hear the words of a little man who frequently threatened that
an exam would have to be taken. And woe, one day he uttered this commandment.
He spoke thus:
"Thou shalt create a program. And the purpose of the program
shall be to monitor the stock and customers of a video library."
The engineers were sore distressed, and raised great clamour; but the man
raised his hands for silence and spoke again in dark and solemn tones:
"And the language of this program shall be...."
"Tell us! Tell us!" cried all the engineers, young and old, strong and weak, man
and woman alike.
"Fortran. And thou shalt hand it up in 2 weeks" quoth he and left.
Now all around the land a great silence fell; and the science students took to
quietly sniggering at the engineers as they worked on their stats projects; for
the truth was that to the engineers fortran was a dark and evil thing, bringing
to mind stack dumps, yea, symbolic stack dumps, and run-time errors, compile
errors, severe errors, warnings and diagnostics of every creed and race. The
engineers understood no fortran, for they spoke only basic, and weren't too hot
at that either. And even the wisest among the engineers, who had created
programs of ten lines and more, in C, said "pox" of one voice. But everybody
partied fairly heavily that night, and thus all troubles were forgotten.
But as the day of uphanding drew near, distant memories stirred in the
engineers' minds, and a great burden was once again laid on their shoulders;
they were without programs, and only a dark future had been foretold for those
without programs. And so the engineers undertook a great labour. From dawn to
sunset and beyond they edited, exed, linked, fortranned....but to no avail, for
always they were plagued by errors of every kind. And lo, on the last night, a
great mob of twoscore and seven engineers gathered to labour on their programs.
And lo, the name of every program was vid.for, and the version number of some
exceeded 2 hundreds, for this was a dark time, a night that was remembered in
later ages as the Night of the Great Vid Compile. For all the engineers did
edit and compile, and many strange and terrible omens were perceived. Yea, users
were denied access, and a lowly compile lasted in duration one half of one hour
of the day, and even then, though they were compiled, nay they were not
compiled, and blame for all this was laid on format statements, the most evil
of all things in fortran. And as the midnight hour drew near, lo! a great crash
occurred, and all were deeply perturbed: no programs could now be written, no
listings handed up! And moreover, a great many distraught maths students
descended upon the engineers, tearing their hair and gnashing their teeth, for
they could not use macsyma, which, as the engineers kindly pointed out, if 5
or more used it simultaneously, would make it impossible for anyone else to log
on anyway and so it was just as well. But in time the system was no longer down
and became up so that once more they could write their programs, but the tale
had not ended yet, for the crash, like an unclean demon, did spawn lesser
demons, and so many other crashes and an innocent engineer, seeking hardcopy,
was given the message, DCL-J-BLAHRUHBARD34 % BLITHER, Queue manager is dead.
And he emerged, tearing his hair and saying "Woe, woe, the queue manager has
died, in a crash! Woe are we!" and a pleb said "Oh, that's awful! Was he
driving?" and the masses clobbered the pleb. Anyway, what it all boiled down to
was that the whole lot of them forsook programming altogether to play silly
typing games and read nutworks. Which, briefly, is the story of how a bunch of
good-for-nothing yobs/yobettes from ucg, Galway, Ireland, Europe, came to take
over this benighted publication. So there.
This issue is of course an experimental publication (yuckspeak dictionary--
Experimental: rubbishy). Which is to say that we are trying to revive this
noble and worthy periodical, amoral and pornographic though it was under that
lecherous low-lifer Brent person, bless his little soul, and need contributions
badly. So send your creative genius NOW to any of the following gutter-dwellers:
<stathornton@vax1.ucg.ie>
<mecquinlan@vax1.ucg.ie>
Many thanks to the following - Barry Haldiman who sent the ONLY contribution,
everybody in the Dean's area ucg, especially the deans for their patience and
understanding (ahem), no thanks at all to everybody who ignored our many
messages and sent us nothing, and special thanks to Joe Desbonnet (self-styled
Chief Telegraphist) the only person around here allowed to send network mail,
for bringing this publication to you.
_______
/ + \
| Brent |
| |
| r.i.p |
///////////
Speaking of Brent, which we weren't, thanks to him, wherever he is, what a guy,
to pump out this stuff on a regular basis, a mammoth task requiring a mammoth
intellect. So, Brent, thanks for the memories, some day the users of the world
will have a whip round and buy you a box of choccies or something. Really.
Early Bird : And It's all completely true.
Worm: Really. [mutates into huge fanged slavering thing]
RRRRorrummmmphhhhhhhyummmmmmmm-CHOMP!!!
Worm: [belch].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MANKIND TONIGHT
=================
Hello and welcome to Mankind Tonight - the UP-TO-DATE philosophy show that
brings you destiny and being as they happen. Tonight our studio audience are in
a state of definite uncertainty and they're ready to discuss tonight's topic.
And here comes Cratius our lovely (if somewhat fat,wizened and bearded) hostess
to reveal Tonight's Topic. Don't keep us in suspense, Cratius.
FAITH
Yes, faith. We'll be talking about faith tonight on Mankind Tonight - the show
that ponders, contemplates and masticulates. Join us after the break.
clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap
pclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapcla
Welcome back. We're ready to talk about Faith now. Would anybody like to start
us off?
No. Well that is a good point. This demonstrates a remarkable faith. Would
anybody like to remark?
No. Well then let me present an argument. Consider man. His only existence his
faith. Contemplate him as he goes about the business of life on his lowest
plane of self.
- Doing his groceries.
Yes, a most pertinent point. Man, doing his groceries, on his lowest plane of
self. So, doing his groceries, man approaches the checkout - on a cosmic or
indeed an animal level - when he is modified by a realisation. The realisation
postulates that "This checkout has been removed due to lack of faith." Is this
the cornerstone of man's self-chlorination? Or is it his downfall? Join us
after the break.
clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap
pclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapcla
Welcome back. I believe we have a postulate from the audience, yes, with the
furrowed brow, in the third row, and the contemplative posture?
- Indeed. I rather fancy that perhaps our friend, well he is universal rather,
man, should not allow a deficiency of faith to overcome him?
You mean should he modulate himself towards the checkout's temporal level?
- Well indeed, rather. You see, should the checkout as it were, have ceased to
exist through deficiency of faith, should it not indeed be possible to recreate
the same simply through belief?
clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap
pclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapcla
Mmmmmmmmm. So if man believes in his temporal checkout, his very temporal self
is modified. But can he believe in something which never existed?
- Well to do so is a violation neither of philosophers' nor of supermarket
assistants' union regulations.
Perhaps, but if it never existed is man's faith not a self-defeating tragedy?
- But does this not preclude the rationalisation that man himself exists?
> Well he is after all doing his groceries.
- Nobody asked you.
But do we speak of man more as a purchaser of cornflakes or of Flash liquid?
This is a crucial uncertainty.
- Quite. But nonetheless is it not fair to say that if neither man the checkout
exist then can he not destroy or modify the checkout? Is he not in short the
ultimate controller of his own checkout?
> That's the most moronically mindbogglingly stupid thing I've ever heard.
Shut up. ...But what is faith?
> Well I don't know, do I?
Nuke him.
- Faith is of course a dual entity.
And what is man?
> Bleuuurghaurrrrrhhhh!! (splat)
- And what of course is a checkout.
Join us next week for the uncertainties to these and other questions including
the existence of this show and the beeping noises made by cash registers.
clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap
pclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapcla
.nq.
________________________________________________________________________________
A Tale.
Once upon a time in a land not far enough away, there lived a little man who
also, by a strange coincidence, was not as far away as you might like him to
be. The man was fully equipped with the normal quota of arms, internal organs,
etc. This simple fact led many to believe that he was an individual of the
human species. Which was, by another of the many coincidences which litter this
tale, COMPLETELY UNTRUE because he was really a green 7-legged....but first,
some of the others, for the sake of getting them out of the way, include the
startling statistic that 100.00% of all teapots have never been adapted for use
as telephones, and that the number 4 can be obtained by adding 1 to 3. But the
chronicler digresses. One day, as the - but soft! It has come to my attention
that my earlier statement concerning telephones and teapots is not entirely
true. My companion, a Ms. Lynn Duffy, who is, by nature, incapable of leaving
anybody to do anything in peace for more than 30 seconds or so, postulates, as
she is wont to do, although she strenuously denies that this is the case,
stating that in fact she only pointed out my error, although this in fact comes
within a perfectly adequate and widely accepted definition of the act of
postulation, and the chronicler notes that a full stop is fully in order at
this point in the tale. To resume: Ms. Lynn Duffy has now stated that any
further accusations that she ever postulated, let alone is wont to do such a
thing, will result in grievious bodily damage to the chronicler. The
chronicler, a timid but sensible fellow, appreciates the validity of this point
and withdraws his earlier comments. Now. Ms. Lynn Duffy has kindly pointed out
that on one of Telecom Eireann's many advertisements appearing on television to
publicly endorse, condone and encourage the use of telephones, which is, in the
chronicler's view, a waste of time, energy, money, much-needed brainpower, and
tv airtime, among many other things, appears a teapot which wantonly turns into
a telephone. Further speculation by a Ms. Deirdre Thornton suggests that in
fact it is the telephone which wantonly and without any sense of propriety or
telephonic responsibilities, metamorphasises (changes) into a teapot and then,
strangely, behaves in a mature and responsible fashion, demonstrated by its act
of containing tea. Public opinion is somewhat divided as to whether or not this
constitutes a coincidence. To resume: er. The teapot controversy. Any
philosophical contemplation of the cosmic significance of the entire
telephone/teapot scenario, leads one to conjecture as to the possibility of
holding to one's ear a teapot, into the spout of which one speaks, while
concurrently imbibing nourishment and refreshment from the said vessel. This
raises the matter of complications to manners and etiquette arising from
drinking tea through the spout while talking (with, of course, a full mouth)
and the inevitable consequences namely, choking to death. The possibility has
also been proposed by my companions, both of whom are quite interested in these
beveragial and telecommunicational goings-on, although they have not considered
the idea of devoting their careers to the study of such phenomena, though
perhaps they should, that all teapots do in actual fact mutate into telephones
in the absence of witnesses and that all telephones do, in a like manner,
mutate into teapots. All of which leads to a revision of the original
statistic.
ERRATA
Line 6, paragraph the first and only, although this state of affairs may be, at
a later date revised... to resume: in line 6, paragraph the first, the figure
100.00% should read 0.00%. The chronicler wishes to apologise for any
inconvenience caused. Also he wishes to state that no responsibility will be
accepted for harm, injury or illness, bodily or mental, caused by attempting to
drink telephones or hold conversations with teapots.
So. This slight difficulty having been resolved, the tale is now free to
continue. One day our friend met a teapot but unfortunately it only took 1p's
and would work only for calls to Russia so he decided to have a cup of coffee
instead. But then a giant apple tart came saying "Pieces of eight!" and blurgle
nyurk....Um, there will be a slight delay as the storyline gathers its spewing
innards from the floor about itself, (the chronicler fondly believes that his
ability to discuss serious issues such as the above in no way impairs his
skilled use of metaphor and personification to add humour to the tale, ha ha)
and the chronicler himself, in the light of growing concern that he should have
been, if not strangled, at least committed to psychiatric care at birth,
prepares his entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Meanwhile, here is some light music.
.nq.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Physics Zone
Barry Haldiman <C463660@UMCVMB>
Let me introduce myself. You know my name. I am a electrical engineering
student here at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Often I get bored in
some of my class and my mind begin to wander. You know the feeling, most
of us go to sleep, me on the other hand, start to write down what I am
thinking of. The results have been determined humorous by my peers here
at Columbia. Now I am prepared to release a sample to you (my peers around
the world). I ask only one thing. If you like it, tell me because there's
a lot more where it came from. If you don't like it, well tell me anyway
(there no accounting for taste). Without further ado....my thoughts.....
I call them Physics zone thoughts.....
You have never lived until you have taken a physics test,
but you have never felt so much like dying after you have taken it.
What happens if you have a burning question and you don't ask it?
Fyxxz sux!
Does anyone know the difference between stress and strain?
Does anyone care?
c = 299792458 -+ 1 m/s, if you square that value and take it
times your mass in kilograms, you get your energy is joules
(somewhere is the range of 5e18 to 10e20), which is a very
large number. So why the hell are you sitting here reading
this with all the energy you have!!!!
A friend is just one letter from a fiend.
Murphy must have led a horrible life; he was always expecting the worst
and got it.
Life has to many variables with too few equations.
The whole ball of wax wouldn't last long in the midday sun.
Haste makes waste; so why do it in the first place?
We are living in a land of confusion....; funcosed? Who world in
the confused is?
I wonder how the dust bunnies would fare against a 20-gauge.
Particles act like waves sometimes and waves act like particles
sometimes, then how are we supposed to tell them apart?
Good things don't come to those who wait, but those who know when
to put out an effort and when to wait.
Originality can never be copied.
The night belongs to those who use it to it's fullest potential.
The point of man's existence is the search for truth.
I won't, because it will be very bizarre.
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for life: You can never know both where
you are and where you are going in life at any given instant.
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for women: You can never know both
where a girl is and what she is doing at any given instant even if you
are with her.
If the cow did jump over the moon, what was the initial velocity and the
direction of the cow assuming the cow could survive in a vacuum.
Alpha, Beta, Gamma -- The decay trio.
Radioactive dating, sounds like a 'hot' time to me.
I noticed if you keep your chin up, the sun tends to get in your eyes.
My favorite element -- Barium (pronounced Barry-ummmmm)
My favorite particle -- Baryon, which is known for it's strangeness and
charm (?).
Hair (that just came off the top of my head).
I won't because it will be too perverted.
If your sister-in-law gets married to your brother-in-law is it called
incest-in-law.
When the walls come tumbling down, the roof usually falls on your head.
Energy and Momentum are conserved except when you fly of the handle when
you know you're full of shit.
Emotion leads to commotion.
Creativeness is never dull.
A 'hot date' can turn 'to death'.
A 'Men working sign' is a sure sign they aren't.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thought without emotion is scientific,
emotion without thought is psychotic.
It must be a virtual simultaneous continuous discrete integrable step
function if you think it'll solve that non-linear differential equation.
Does it make sense for absolute ZERO to be at -273.15 C or 459.57 F?
Revelation is one of the greatest feelings known to man,
finding out our revelation is wrong is one of the worst.
I before E except after C and when sounding like A as in neighbor
and weigh. Isn't the SCIENCE of spelling WEIRD!
Ooooooh!! Ahhhhhh! Wow! Ok, that's enough excitement for today.
Hoped you liked it folks,
Barry Haldiman
C463660@UMCVMB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Adventures of Captain Widgit
................................
Some people think I'm normal, this thought is inspired, I suppose, by the
fact that I look very normal. You may well ask what relevance this has to this
piece of fictional work, well it has all the relevance in the world ,y'see you
are now prepared for the worst and now anything I write HAS to be an improvement
on that (and on this introduction 8-) ).
Many years ago it was the stuff of heroes (and heroines) to fall victim to
insane geniuses and irresponsible criminals, who would attempt to eliminate
them in order to improve the chances that their plans for world domination
would succeed. Nowadays there are other complications to which the average hero
(as a generic term of course) or superhero would fall foul.....
Imagine if you will a superhero, for the purposes of this article we will
call him Captain Widgit. This character is always in the process of trying to
assert himself in the manner approved to him by his mentors. This process is
not aided by the fact that as he is somewhat unemployed most of the time, the
fair damsels having learnt self-defence. Also they are somewhat reluctant to
accept the aid of a man in tights, and not a little put out by his statuesque
height (in Japan) of five_foot_five. Also a recent lack of proper sustenance
has reduced his frame to such that his costume has no longer the spruce
appearance it once had. In fact mammy has once more, due to her disapproval of
his choice of occupation, ironed creases into his costume.
This hero, if you must call him that, tho' that IS what he has for many years
laid claim to being, appearances being little to do with truth, truth little to
do with appearances, for what IS a rose by any other name, or a book with any
other cover?? Digressions apart this man, or mouse as some of his detractors
are wont to call him, the author not being one of those who would say such a
thing about the poor thing, sorry man.....well he was one day high above the
rooftops of G_____ (a town which shall remain nameless) flying high, (no not on
drugs you bad minded person you), above the clouds scaring the s**t out of some
satellite picture examiners, lost in thought.
He was suddenly brought to, metaphorical, earth by the sudden rush of noise
of a concorde. He found himself suspended, by one of the afore mentioned
creases on the tip of the nose of the concorde, (propriety demands that we do
not mention where in his tunic the tip was holding him). After much delicate
work on Capt. Widgit's part he got himself free after traveling a distance of
117.2 nautical miles thru the stratosphere at a speed of mach 1.5 during which
time the captain (of the plane, not our hero stupid) wondered why he was
traveling so slowly!! By the time he got back to G_____ it was dark. He was
hungry. He decided to nip into one of the branches of a well known
international fast food chain (which I cannot name for copyright reasons),
where someone repeated the dialogue he had learned to hate i.e.
"Who is that Masked Man?"
"Why it ISN'T the Lone Ranger !!"
"Who IS it then !!"
"Some nutter who THINKS he's great...that's who .. A man with an ego problem"
"Oh one of those is it?? Someone who needs to dress up in a silly suit
to assert himself !!"
This is the kind of ridicule to which our hero has to face every day... let
it be known to you who think that the role of hero is a salubrious one; that it
is a hard life full of misunderstandings on the part of many. After a meal his
mammy wouldn't have approved of, and if she had known, oh boy would he have been
in trouble. But I digress, back to our story. After this semblance of a meal
our hero went back to the peace and relative tranquility of the stratosphere.
His attention was caught by a sound breaking the quiet. He looked to see what
it was. There was a woman cornered by a villain, screaming:
"helllllp, rape, murder, heeeellllllp"
(you know the type, she's probably exaggerating, her self-defence teacher told
her this was the way to scare off prospective muggers).... nathless our hero
thinks: (yup he does) now is my chance to finally redeem myself in the eyes of
my mother..She doesn't agree that rescuing cats is a good thing for me to be
doing she says that I'm wasting my time, energy and life. Now is the time for
me to write myself into the annals of Superhero History... Finally to save a
damsel in distress... Oh how long have I waited for this moment!! Our hero,
rushes to rescue said damsel (pretty looking, if the truth be told, and is this
not the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? )
(GET BACK TO THE STORY :UNAMUSED READER
ok sir,will do anything you like :timid writer )
(suitable music ... i.e. DUMdadumDUM DUMdadumdaaaaaDUM (kinda like when Capt.
Pillowcase makes an appearance, 8-) ).)
Hero engages Villain of piece. Knocks him out cold on the pavement:pow!
kerash!! (I wonder how superheroes do it without the special effects people,
but mine is not to wonder ....etc.). Then he goes towards the girl thinking :
this is my lucky break, not only do I get to rescue the damsel but worra damsel,
a fair damsel even. He goes to the girl expecting at least a small vote of
thanks (in films he would) here he gets a sigh 'n' a:
"I coulda done quite well without you! Thanks thou actually I do judo...."
Our hero is ever so slightly shocked by the damsels response, so he doesn't
leave soon enough, so much so that he doesn't even hear the sirens of the Garda
car coming. The Gardai come and see the villain out cold. They find out from the
damsel (who is now nae moor in distress 8-) ) that the guy on the ground was
knocked down by the guy in the funny suit. The Gardai inform our hero that he
is under arrest for grievious bodily harm, the girl having told them that the
villain never had a chance to lay a hand on her.
**** Captain Widgit, aka John Doe, was put to jail for 6 months for G.B.H. but
he was let out after 6 weeks for good behaviour. He is now receiving treatment
for a nervous breakdown, and an anxiety complex. ****
**** The "Villain" of the piece got compensation, which Mrs Doe, Capt W.'s
mother is fighting, claiming extreme provocation, the courts are considering
her appeal. ****
{That's the way things stand in Ireland anyways.....pore ol' Capt. Widgit
doesn't stand a chance.....}
Garda: Irish fuzz
Gardai: plural (clump of Irish fuzz)
.dt.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
English For Twits
.................
Lesson # 4762
Hello readers. So far we have learned how to ask somebody their
age, and how to buy milk, bread, a haircut, butter, petrol or a
Honda 50. Today we will learn a new word that has something to
do with computers, how to buy a book and our 73rd sentence about
the weather. The scene is: Mary, having lost her way 7 times by
virtue of having asked directions for the train station 7 times,
not knowing how to ask directions for anything else, especially
a bookshop, which is where she wants to go, because she's so
proud of herself for being able to ask directions to a railway
station, which she learned in lesson # 2832, 1378, 3265, and lots
of others as well, finally arrives at a bookshop, thanks to the
simple fact that she's far too thick to follow the perfectly good
instructions she's been given and ends up, through luck, in front
of a bookshop. In the bookshop is, surprise, Mr. Smith, who is,
surprise, a shopkeeper.
Mary: Hello.
Mr.Smith: Hello.
Mary: I would like to buy a book.
Mr.Smith: Wow. That's serious.
Mary: Yes. (NEW WORD)
Mr.Smith: Here is a book.
Mary: [has now expended most of her vocabulary and starts
repeating herself] Yes.
Mr.Smith: The weather is shitty. (NEW SENTENCE ABOUT THE WEATHER)
Mary: %DCL-W-UNDFIL, file has not been opened by DCL - check
logical name. (NEW UTTERLY USELESS SENTENCE)
Mr.Smith: That is very vaxual. (NEW WORD vaxual AND NEW STATE
THE OBVIOUS SENTENCE)
Mary: Yes.
Mr.Smith: Goodbye.
Mary: Goodbye.
Mr.Smith: What a complete load of fetid dingo's kidneys.
.nq.
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