**************************************************************************** ### # # ### ##### ## # # # ## ## # # ### ##### ## ### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### # # # # # # # # # ## # #### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### # ## # # # ## ## ## ### # # # # # ### ____________________________________________________________________________ # # ### #### # # #### # # ### #### ##### # # ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### ### ##### # # #### ##### # # ##### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### ### # # # # #### # # ### # # # ##### ##### #### *******NUMBERS 216 TO 220*****************************BY DANIEL BOWEN******* *****Please note, some of the quoted addresses within this file may no***** ***longer be correct. Please always use tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for enquiries*** "Astonishing Toxic Custard" ___//__ /--- //\\ || // . Dear readers, won't you // __ //__ // || //__ . please sit back and // // \\ // // // || // \\ . enjoy the two hundred \\ \\__ \\/\// // //== || \\__// . and sixteenth edition by Daniel Bowen 15th September 1994 . of the Toxic Custard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Workshop Files. Dear readers, It's been what you might call an unusual week for me. Please allow me to tell you all about it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ASTONISHING EVENT #1. I really thought it would never happen. I thought it was the kind of thing that only happened on TV shows where the main character was 35 weeks pregnant. But it really happened to me. Last Wednesday, I was trapped in an elevator for a whole half-hour. Someone once said that hell was being locked in a room with your friends. Well, that's not quite right... actually hell is being trapped with your friends in a lift-sized area, when you don't have any heavy weaponry to ensure that they don't shut up. It all began like any other lift journey... you press the button, wait for the lift to arrive, then everybody piles in, holding the doors open for the last person to arrive. If you time it right, you can catch the tail of their jacket in the door as it closes. You press the button for the floor you want, and presto, you're on your way. But this time, we weren't on our way. Because this time, we had entered *THE DEMON LIFT FROM HELL*!! We should have known. We should have been wary. For years now the lifts in that building have had reputations. Reputations of treating their passengers like bits of meat chopped up then thrown out because of mould. One lift was known to stop between floors... another had, it was rumoured, shot six floors straight down a la gravity... and the third seemed okay, but occasionally decided to stop on, say, level 5, and refuse to go any further down. But we climbed in anyway. Happy to be at the end of the working day. We knew things were bad when it went in the wrong direction. We wanted Ground, and said so. But the lift mechanism had obviously failed, because it spontaneously decided that to get to the Ground from the ninth floor, it should go up. And so it lurched into action, catching us all by surprise. It surprised us almost as much when 2.7 seconds later, it stopped again, displaying "10", the top of the building in question. Perhaps the lift was trying to escape? Perhaps it was preparing for a very fast descent. But no, it stood still. We paused. We pressed buttons. Every button. Every single button. Twice. Well, we'd modified our elevator itinerary to visit every floor, but we hadn't actually made any progress towards going anywhere. We discussed the options. There seemed to be five possible ones. * Press every button again to see what happened (which we had already) * Panic, scream, tear at the walls and doors to escape (which although it would have relieved the tension, probably would have got us nowhere) * Just sit there and wait. Which was not an option really, when you consider it. We all would have missed our trains, for a start. (We ended up missing about 3 trains each, actually, but oh well) * Do like they do on spy movies, and open the trap door on the top of the lift, climb out and go up the shaft on the rickety ladder to safety. With the risk, of course, that the lift would start working again while on the ladder, and squash us. Fat chance. * Pick up the very handily placed emergency phone and ring the lift maintenance people (Which we eventually concluded was the most sensible solution) So, we rang. And we waited. And while we waited, we used our mobile phones to call relatives (I'd rather use the word "relatives" than "next of kin"). We also called our colleagues, who were still in the building, and who were able to have an enormous laugh at our expense. "You're not going to believe this... but we're stuck in the lift. STOP LAUGHING YOU BASTARDS!!!" Eventually the maintenance people came, and let us out. No-one had got pregnant. Nobody had to be eaten to help the others survive. We were let out by the heroic lift maintenance guy. Strange thing is, we heard him calling, but when the doors finally opened, we couldn't actually find him. Did he selflessly plummet down the shaft to gain our freedom? Perhaps we'll never know. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ASTONISHING EVENT #2. I found out last Friday that I'm gonna be a dad. My wife Lori is pregnant. Okay, so it wasn't *totally* unplanned, but it was still a surprise. "What, you mean all that machinery actually works?!" Yep, now I can strut around the streets with a deep and steady voice proclaiming "*I* am virile! Stand aside citizens, for VirileMan is here! Behold my working machinery! Behold my SuperSperm(tm)!" Of course, the immediate reaction was very less macho and testosterony. The way the news was relayed around the place basically goes a little like this. DOCTOR: "Congratulations" ---> EARS ---> BRAIN ---> JAW (which drops) So, prepare for pregnancy jokes a-plenty. The first of which begins here. The hippies say it's good to speak to the growing foetus. So we've decided to prepare the kid for life with its parents. We've been telling it to "Keep your womb clean." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, while you're contemplating the horrors of the author of this crap actually having offspring, let me tell you that the back-issues of TCWF are still available by ftp. Email tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| This file contains personal Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| opinions only. Telecom neither Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| wants nor pays for them. Their TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| profits go elsewhere. Due to an overflow of astonishing events, the Toxic History Of The World will return next week. Well, don't sound so disappointed! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Toxic Tales Of The City" Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel that it is my duty to apologise most humbly to you for the callous way in which you have been inflicted with two copies of Toxic Custard intermittently during the past few weeks. Most Human Rights organisations demand that not even *one* Toxic Custard is inflicted on any one person, and the current oversupply of Toxic Custard is, to be honest, awfully distressing to me personally. Let me assure you at this point that action IS being taken. Top Custard Investigation Authority operatives are even now performing all sorts of horrible torture on the mailing software, and making it promise that it won't do it again. 217 217 217 TOXIC 19th September 1994 217 217 217 217 217 217 CUSTARD Written by Daniel Bowen 217 217 217 217 217 217 WORKSHOP tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu 217 217 217 217 217 217 FILES(*) Uh oh, what do I put here? 217 217 217 (*)No responsibility for duplicate deliveries is taken by the author, or by anyone else, for that matter. Have YOU ever wondered what you're doing here, on this planet? Well, reading this, of course. But in the wider view of the universe, I mean. No? Well, okay, to be honest, once anyone starts raving on about psychological well-being and the meaning of existence, a lot of us tend to get very bored. So why don't we talk about desk trinkets instead? Who is it that designs desk trinkets? Those various bits of plastic, metal, fishing wire, or gooey liquid, all stuck together into some weird shape. And it sits on your desk and either gloops, clicks, pops, swings, or otherwise moves in just the right way so that your eyes latch onto it all day and you can't do any work. Or, if you're lucky enough to forget about it, it will catch your eye only when you're in the middle of trying to think about a particularly tricky problem, scattering your thoughts completely. The people who design these things must be very twisted. You can see them sitting at *their* desks, thinking... "How about a kind of hourglass timer... yeah... but it's missing something. Ah - got it! Instead of sand, what about a kind of weird purple gloopy stuff that no-one knows what it is! Yeah! Then it'll gloop through the hole in an unpredictable way. And people will keep coming up to whoever's desk it is to turn it over and watch in fascination. Yeah!..." Probably the same people design blank videotape covers. "Okay, we have a high-tech multicoloured logo on the front... ummm.. some kind of impressive-sounding name, like Super High Quality Pro Grade... and oh, wait, I know... a completely meaningless quality index number, like... 267! Yeah. Oh wait, I almost forgot the comparison graph, yep, comparing 267 with say, 143. Yep, it's higher. And of course superimpose that with the artist's conceptual diagram of what a molecule being struck by lightning looks like. Perfect." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Could I tell you about an exciting BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY that I'd like to tell you about? It's all about NETWORKING, and of course, conning all your friends into joining (and subsequently losing them all). Did you know that I, Daniel Bowen, the founder of Danway Distribution, now rake in millions of dollars from gullible idiots err keen people with incentive and ambition, like yourselves who join the scam err scheme, and pay me lots of royalties? You too could get to the top. You could earn a million dollars, and it might only take you a few thousand years! It's really just like a huge CHAIN LETTER. Except you don't get thrown from a twenty-storey building if you don't join. Pyramid schemes and chain letters have something in common, actually. They could be *too* successful. They could reach saturation point. Just imagine the horror if they discovered that everyone in the world had joined. Disaster! Who would be the new members, the people who actually cough up the profit? The pyramid would probably turn into a rectangle, or a parallelogram, or something equally unprofitable. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD Part 14 of about 40,000,000,000 or so 324 AD Constantine defeats the emperor in the East, becoming sole ruler of the Roman world. (That must make him an Imperialist!!!! Get it?! Ruler? Imperial?!) With the Roman world united, at last Asterix comics reach the eastern half of the empire. Constantine visits Byzantium, and proclaims rather clumsily "Ich bin eine Byzantiumumer." 328 To celebrate victory, Constantine founds 'New Rome' by enlarging the ancient Greek city of Byzantium to include a patio, rumpus room and second storey. He renames it Constantinople. He also holds the biggest street party in history, parts of which are still going. 330 Constantine moves the capital to Constantinople. Unfortunately, he hires Ancient World Cheap Removals, and a lot of the buildings arrive in ruins, which accounts for their rather dishevelled look now. 337 Having found the last of the cutlery that went missing during the move, and just when it looks like he's doing so well, Constantine dies, and the empire is again ruled by a succession of joint (and rival) emperors. 379 Theodosius the Great, emperor in the East, drives Goths from Greece and Italy, in his new Volvo Chariot. Despite the lack of snow, he finds himself unable to turn his parking torches off. 382 Theodosius makes peace with the Goths, rather than madden them and see their penchant for wearing black spread throughout the empire. 394 Theodosius becomes last sole emperor of the Roman world, making record redundancy payments to outgoing emperors. 395 Theodosius dies; division of empire into West and East becomes final. The Roman Curtain descends. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I think the baby is a remarkable foetus of engineering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yep, that's another issue of Toxic Custard over and done with. For those of you lucky enough to have FTP access, you can get back-issues NOW! Details from tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom don't have anything Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| to do with the crap I churn Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| out in my spare time. TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| Consider this a disclaimer. THIS WEEK'S ONE-LINER John-Luc Picard: "To baldly go where no-one has gone before" (Brian Smith) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Seamail Toxic Custard" ##### #### # # #### Number 218 # # # # # 26th September 1994 #oxic #ustard # # #orkshop ###iles written by Daniel Bowen # #### ####### # tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD Part 15 of enough to keep us going until next year 407 AD As barbarians pour into Western empire, Roman legions are withdrawn from Britain in last attempt to defend Rome, but as usual, the withdrawal method fails. Meanwhile, Britain is left easy prey to Angles and Saxons. The Angles, led by Isosceles, start a campaign to rebuild the straight Roman roads. 410 The Visigoths under Alaric plunder Rome, destroying homes, stealing jewels, and setting fire to the souvenir shops. Waves of barbarians sweep into Spain, Portugal, Italy, Gaul and North Africa on their surf boards, terrorising the populations with their bright pink wetsuits. 434 Attila wins a breakfast cereal competition by answering the question "Why I would like to be leader of the Huns and go on a rampage around Europe" in 25 words or less. 449 Hengist and Horsa, Jutish chiefs, invade England as a university open day prank, and set up kingdom in Kent. 451 Invading Gaul, Attila is defeated by an army of Goths and Romans at Chalons. The Goths and Romans later debate long into the night about whether their combined armies should be called Groths or Gromans. They eventually settle on "The Combined Goth & Roman Co-operative Army Inc". 452 Attila invades Italy; is persuaded by Pope Leo I to spare Rome. Which is lucky, otherwise Attila might have ruined the ruins of Rome even more. 453 Attila dies three weeks before he is due to fly to Disneyland. 455 Vandals sack Rome. Rome applies for the dole. In next twenty years ten different emperors rule. Nothing much has changed in 1500 years, has it? 476 Last Roman emperor deposed; and as the sun slinks slowly in the west, the Western empire comes to an end. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Medieval Demtel "Good even' all. I be Jethro Demtel. And I come to your village to offer you the most amazing bargains. New from me, Jethro, comes the Demtel three-pronged pitchfork. It be great for such activities as: - shifting hay - killing suspected witches - piling hay - leaning on to look rustic and last but not least, - moving hay How many pence would you expect to pay, I hear you asking ol' Jethro. Well don't ask, because if you buy from Jethro tonight, I'll throw in this free sack of potatoes. I'm standing by, so order now." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Just how slow can overseas mail go? Well, quite slowly, if this leaked procedures document from the post office is any indication: Third class mail - parcel is put in a basket with other parcels. When the basket has filled, it is taken to the nearest despatch point, where a container is filled with baskets. When the container is filled, it is taken to the docks. The containers all going to a particular country are loaded aboard a ship. When the ship is full of containers, it sails to the destination. Fourth class mail - parcel is put into any basket - which could be going anywhere. When the basket is filled, the post office clerk spins a wheel to decide where it will go. When it eventually reaches a despatch point, it is again thrown into any old container. If it gets to the docks, the container is put aboard the first ship, which may sail anywhere. When and if the container reaches its destination country, it is unloaded and taken to its destination. Fifth class mail - the parcel is given $5 and a sleeping bag and told to hitchhike to its destination. Sixth class mail - the parcel is thrown into the river. Seventh class mail - the parcel is cut into small pieces, burned, and then thrown into the rubbish. The rubbish bin is collected and taken to the destination, where the charred ashes of the parcel are poured over the addressee's head. Eighth class mail - first a feasibility study is prepared. Impact assessment of the parcel reaching its destination is studied. A full business case with costing and estimates for deliverables is written up and approved by the customer. Then an analysis phase begins, with the path of quickest delivery being calculated. Formal specifications for delivery are drafted, revised, and signed-off, before a delivery job-card is prepared and authorised, and personnel and equipment allocated to the task. At this point we realise that we've lost the parcel underneath all the paperwork somewhere, and we give up and hope the customer doesn't remember having wanted to deliver anything anywhere in the first place. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THINGS TO SAY TO YOUR PERIPHERALS, PART 17 "I don't think I like your toner." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Toxic Custards 1 to 215 are now available by ftp... email tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Just because I work for Telecom Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| doesn't mean they have anything Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| to do with the stuff I churn TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| out in my spare time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Slow responding Toxic Custard" TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES ::::: ::::: : : ::::: Number 219 : : : : : ::: 3rd October 1994 : ::::: ::::::: : written by Daniel Bowen TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD Part 16 of a whole big large bunch 482 AD Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, makes himself first king of Frankland (France), with Paris as his capital. As is so often the case, many of his people are punished because of accidentally laughing at his name. Things are not improved when they discover that the German form of it is Chlodwig. 496 Clovis is baptised as an April Fools' Day joke when his guards throw him into the palace lake. Franks become Christians, mostly as an excuse to send the kids to private schools. 527 Justinian becomes emperor in Constantinople, but breaks with tradition when he decides not to found a new capital city named after him. Attempting re-conquest of Western Empire, he recovers North Africa, South Eastern Spain and Italy. Which is not a bad effort considering he only had two old men, a dark ages bicycle and a small dog for help. 536 Belisarius, Justinian's famous general, captures Rome. He then decides to let it go because it's under weight. But sanity prevails and Rome is skinned and cooked on the barbecue for lunch. 565 Justinian dies, after many years of constitutional reform, and a fair bit of stuffing himself with hamburgers on weekends. 568 Lombards(*) invade Italy, settle in the north. (*) As everyone knows, the definition of Lombard is: "Loads Of Money, But A Real Dickhead" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THINGS THAT TAKE TOO LONG Do fluorescent lights annoy everybody else as much as they annoy me? They are too damned slow to turn on. A whole three seconds?! Who has that sort of time to spare while the light decides whether or not it wants to turn on? And traffic lights. Why do they take so long? Why am I always the last person to get the green light? Is there someone sitting in a control room somewhere, watching me on a monitor and laughing as they see me get more and more frustrated waiting for the light to change? Why is it that traffic lights are designed so that pedestrians trying to cross wait so long that they give up when they see a gap in the traffic, and run across. And a few seconds later, the traffic lights change, delaying a whole bunch of car drivers so that the person who has already crossed, can cross. It also takes too long to ring the speaking clock. When I ring 1194, I want to know the time. I usually want to know the time NOW, and not entirely precisely. I don't want to have to wait through a whole ten seconds of the pips and the very polite voice saying "at the third stroke it will be...". Maybe they should have another speaking clock. The approximate speaking clock. When you ring it, it just says "'bout a quarter past eleven" or "five minutes 'til the third race at Flemington" or "just time for another beer". And why is it that the more modern the computer, the longer it takes to boot up? Remember back to the eight-bit days of the early eighties? Click, beep, computer available. Now you turn it on, go get a cup of tea, and when you come back, you might be lucky and only have to sit through the second half of the memory test and the copyright messages. And if you're like me, you are always paranoid and never EVER skip the memory test. I mean... what if the memory fails just as you're doing your most important essay ever; or worse, breaking the 3,000,000 point barrier on Zonko Invaders' Revenge? Of course, a zillion other things in the computer that don't get tested could fail, but there's no sense in taking unnecessary risks, is there? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THING PART 15 ==================== (Jeff and Ron are leafing through magazines in the newsagent.) JEFF: Ah yes, these look like the right mags for me. New Scientist, Microbiology Weekly, and Atomic Plasma Research Enthusiast. RON: But every month you buy those magazines, look at the pictures, look at some of the words, look at the dictionary, look back at the pictures, and then screw up the magazine in disgust and throw it away. JEFF: So what have you got there, Einstein? RON: I ummm, you know how I take more of an interest in... ummm... naturist publications? JEFF: You mean porn? RON: Shhh, shhh. It's not so much porn... it's just that I like to admire the beauty of the human form. JEFF: Yeah, I've noticed how you like to creep off somewhere on your own to admire the beauty of the human form, in all it's natural splendour, especially when the human form concerned is a large breasted bimbo with interesting underwear. So, are you going to purchase these aforementioned journals of the soul? RON: Ummm.. yeah. Look, you know how it is. Would you.. umm... Well, it's like... JEFF: Let me guess. Let me try and work out what you're about to say here. You want me to slip your "Big Bouncy Bonking Buttocks Monthly" and "Slinky Silky Sexpots Review"; your journals of the wobbly body, in between my journals of the mind, in the vain hope that the guy at the counter doesn't notice and tell your mother? RON: Yup. JEFF: And after we've looked at our own magazines, can we swap? RON: Yup. JEFF: Deal. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Loads and loads of old Toxic Custards are just waiting to be ftp'd by you! Mail tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| absolutely nothing to do with Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| TCWF. I, on the other hand, TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| have no such excuse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Predictably Toxic Custard" ..... ... . . ... .. .. ... | | | | |.. .| .| | | 10/10/94 |OXIC |..USTARD |.|.|ORKSHOP |ILES |.. |.. |.| by Daniel Bowen TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD Part 17 of a monumental stack 570 AD Birth of Mohammed, who would be trained as a merchant, but would later decide on a career move, and became Prophet and founder of Islam instead. 590 Gregory The Great becomes Pope; declares Rome supreme centre of the Church. Those around him who say it will never catch on mostly decide to go and live as hermits out of embarrassment. 597 St Augustine lands in England, baptises Ethelbert, king of Kent. Ethelbert unfortunately cannot swim, and before anyone realises what's happened, drowns. 601 St Augustine becomes first archbishop of Canterbury after threatening to "baptise" any competitors. c616 Mohammed proclaims himself the only true prophet of Allah, after signing an exclusive distribution contract. 618 Great T'ang dynasty is founded in China. Yep, one day the people concerned said to themselves "I think today would be a good day to start a great dynasty. What shall we call this great dynasty of ours? Hmmm how about... Carrington? Nah... Ewing... Nah... oh wait, what about T'ang! Yeah, The Great T'ang Dynasty... it has a kind of ring to it. I like it!" 628 Mohammed writes to all rulers of the earth, demanding that they acknowledge the One True God, Allah, and serve Him. Most of the rulers of the earth read the letter, then throw it in the recycling. 632 Mohammed dies; his friend Abu Bakr, successor, leads the Arabs out of the desert to achieve Mohammed's aim of making the world submit to Islam. His mother ensures that he takes a packed lunch and a change of underwear with him. "Not now mum, I'm leading the Arabs out of the desert to make the world submit to Islam!" "I don't care where you're going, you're going there in an ironed shirt and clean socks." 643 The Arabs defeat armies of the Eastern empire at Yarmak. Somewhere here there's a link about the Pope always kissing the ground at airports, but something got lost in the translation. ("No no, that's TARMAC, your holiness".) 637 The Arabs defeat the Persians at Kardessia, and go on to storm up into the first division, defeating Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. 638 Jerusalem surrenders to the Arabs, although civic leaders claim it's a dastardly plan to load the Arabs up with Wailing Wall souvenirs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE PRODUCTS THAT NEVER MADE IT, NUMBER 36 THE UNBELIEVERS' MAGIC EIGHT BALL Proposed responses: - No idea - Not really sure - Cannot predict at this time - Maybe yes, maybe no - Go read your horoscope - A bit of plastic cannot foretell anything - An accurate prediction is a physical impossibility - What do you want for $5, Nostradamus? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Okay, time for a few home truths. It may surprise you to hear that I'm not a completely swinging manic lunatic who spends his days and nights partying, indulging in wild drinking, and making everyone in the surrounding area laugh constantly from dawn til dusk. I'm actually quite a boring individual, and you would probably fall asleep if you got stuck in a conversation with me for more than a couple of minutes. My idea of a wild weekend is a visit to K-Mart. It's a late night if I'm in bed after 10. I *don't* know the words to the Roger Ramjet song. Well, not all of them. I have haircuts at a barber. I can't even remember what frequency Triple-J is on. In fact, I'm so boring that my idea of a joke is to rabbit on about how boring I am. I'm also pleased to be able to say that I'm not famous. I've never been recognised on the train. Stared at, yes, but not recognised. And I've never been in trouble with the law. Yet. Though I have maliciously jaywalked once or twice. And returned my library books late. By mistake. I suppose it's only a matter of time before they catch up with me. "Right men, this is the target. Bowen, Daniel Francis. Offences over 15 years ranging from jaywalking, stealing other people's junk mail, watering the plants too hard... Believed to be in possession of late library books. So, a real hard case. Not known to be armed unless you count a rather heavy sticky-tape dispenser he sometimes swings around. So here's the plan: Ummm.. same as the last raid, really. Go in waving shotguns around, I guess. Any questions?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Loads and loads of old Toxic Custards are just waiting to be ftp'd by you! Mail tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| nothing at all to do with Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| TCWF. I, on the other hand, TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| have no such excuse. Damn. DOSKEY - the Polish Operating System ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the Toxic Custard Workshop Files by Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided this notice remains intact. For subscription and back-issue information, contact tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu