============================================================================ ********* *** *** ****** ********* *** *** *** * *** *** *** *** ** *** ********* ******* *** *** *** *** ** *** *** *** *** ** *** he *** *** umus *** ** eport THE Electronic Fun Zone dedicated to fertilizing Mother Earth in the finest possible tradition. Serving Mother since the 1950s. Issue 005, Vol I May 1988 copyright (c) 1988 caren park chief bottle washer, owner, publisher, editor, other stuff all rights reserved, and all that legal rigamarole ============================================================================ A few remarks from the chief bottle washer: Hello, there, fellow friends of weird. We are very happy to bring to you the strangest and most absurd that we can find in a format pleasing to the inquiring mind. We will attempt to bring to you items of focus, items for the discriminating thought process that some of us have (usually after we order a Domino's Pizza with everything but onions and cooked tomatoes on it), items with little social redeeming value. These are our goals, and we wish you to become a small part in this orchestration. If those among you would kindly send in junk that you have no other use for, stuff that you read and find humorous, filth that no one else will take, stories absurd or preposterous, news that isn't fit to line litterboxes anywhere, if you would send those gems to us here at The Humus Report, we'd appreciate it. Our address will be given to you near the end of our report. We will cull from the post office box all death threats and denunciations, and print what we can of whatever is left. The rest is up to you... We would appreciate it if: (1) the sending of copyrighted material for publication was sent ONLY if you also send along a legal release for us to use that material; (2) if you should see non-attributed copyrighted material in our stuff, please let us know ASAP so we can take appropriate actions; (3) if you like what we do here, please donate whatever you feel appropriate, so that we can continue to bring you this stuff month after month... We would also appreciate it if you would distribute this newsletter far and wide, to the six corners of the world, to the heights and depths your soul can reach, the ends of the universe, and even to the Super 8 Motel just outside of Milwaukee, if you should happen to be there before I... The only restriction I make upon its distribution is that NO CHARGE, zero, zilch, nil, none, all of the above, NO CHARGE will be made for this newsletter unless I receive 100% of that charge... This means, NO CHARGE for diskette distribution, NO CHARGE for inclusion with other junk, NO CHARGE for access, etc... As I am insured by the Guido and Vittorio Pin- Stripe Violin Case Maker Insurance Company, I hope there will be no exceptions... I also have a program called CKP-MSG.ARC which contains virtually everything you will see here and about 2 megabytes (in ARC/PKX format) more. For a nominal cost per year, I will provide the latest copy of the ibEENmISLED/compatible program AND the latest updates of the datafile to you... address inquiries about this program and/or the datafile to the address near the end of our report... This show can thank the following people: The Original Authors of DECWARS, the Queen of England, Paul Eckert and the computer at the Oceanside Blade-Tribune, a few flying chickens, and Sister Boom-Boom. So, without further adieu, on with the show... ============================================================================ "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here..." ============================================================================ A disgruntled but poetic constituent recently wrote the following to his congressman: "It is said that President Reagan is thinking of changing the Republican Party emblem from an elephant to a condom, because it stands for inflation, halts production, and gives a false sense of security while one is being screwed" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A communique received in Britain has me wondering uneasily if there'll be an England in the near future. Accompanying a large shipment of ballistic missiles to an English military base, he swears, was an order from the British Admiralty that went as follows: "It is necessary for technical reasons that these warheads be stored upside down, that is, with the top at the bottom and the bottom at the top. In order that there be no doubt as to which is the bottom and which is the top, for storage purposes, it will be seen that the bottom of each warhead has been labeled 'TOP'" ============================================================================ This was a particularly busy month for births, so let's get on with it... May 1st, Mary Harris Jones, better known as "Mother Jones," first started raising hell (1830)... May 2nd (1904) saw Bing Crosby for the first time... May 6th was definitely a busy one: Karl Marx (1818), Sigmund Freud (1856, with his "unorthodox" views on phallic symbols), Rudolph Valentino (1895, the chic sheik in EARLY moving pictures), Orson Welles (1915, author of the Mars invasion that gave new meaning to Chicken Little and the Drumsticks), Willie "Say Hey" Mays (1931, #24 in center for the San Francisco Giants, #1 in the hearts of many), and Daniel Gerber (unknown date), to whom babies have screamed that strained beets don't look or taste any better than the whole stuff... May 7th gave us wonderful music via Johannes Brahms (1833, the "Lullaby" man) and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840, who made it something of an adventure for theatre-goers AND conductors, requesting that cannons be used in his 1812 Overture, something he wasn't even born to remember)... the 8th, 1884, saw Harry S Truman arrive, the president with no middle name... John Brown (1800, abolitionist) and Howard Carter (1873, Egyptologist and Receiver of the Curse) were born on May 9th... Fred Astaire tapped his way into our hearts on the 10th, 1899... Irving Berlin (1888, prolific composer) and Salvador Dali (1904) shared birthdays (11th)... George Lucas was created on the 14th (1944), and Pierre Curie, Marie's better half, radiated first on the 15th (1859)... Laurence Olivier (22nd, 1907), Al "Maammmeee" Jolson (26th, 1886), Marion John "You Shouldn'ta Oughta Done That" Wayne (26th, 1907), Leslie Townes "Bob Texaco USO" Hope (29th, 1903) help make May look like a good month to start out as an actor... Other entertainers include Libe-"I Hope You Like It"-race (16th, 1919), Ralph Waldo Emerson (25th, 1803, poet/philosopher), Miles Davis (25th, 1926, "cool" jazz trumpetist), Dashiell Hammett (27th, 1894, pioneer of the cynical, hard-nosed-type of detective), Benny Goodman (30th, 1909, clarinetist supreme), and Walt Whitman (31st, 1819, poet of America) round out the month for entertainers... All Alaskans proud of their heritage should thank Mr and Mrs Seward, William's parent's, for his birth (16th, 1801)... He was responsible for the purchase of Alaska at about 2 cents per acre... William Hewlett (20th, 1913) and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (24th, 1686) should both be thanked for their contributions to the world as we know it... and, I would be remiss in not including John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th President, who apparently rubbed some people the wrong way and paid a tremendous price for it one November afternoon in Dallas... Born the 29th of May in 1917, he showed us a dream of America that may never see the light of day... would that others gave as much... Ah, Camelot, where art thou now? May 1st, on the event calendars, proves to be full of things to celebrate: Lei Day in Hawaii and May Day the world over... The first adhesive postage stamps (Penny Blacks) were issued in England in 1840... If any of you that have a mint copy of that stamp would like to sell your copy to me, I'm sure we could work out a payment schedule... The first school for the deaf was founded in 1860, and the high-strutting Folies-Bergere opened in Paris in 1869... Technology, space and space travel figure prominently this month: On the 5th (1961), Alan Shepard became the first American in space when Cape Canaveral launched Freedom 7... Telstar 2 was launched on the 7th in 1963... The first US planetarium opened in Chicago on the 10th in 1930... Jay Forrester was issued a patent in 1951 (11th) for computer core memory... The 14th (1973) saw America launch the ill-fated Skylab, only to see it plunge into various parts of the atmosphere a few years later... The last of the Mercury flights, Faith 7, was launched on the 15th in 1963... Does anyone out there remember who the pilot is/was withOUT going to the local encyclopaedia?... On the 25th, "Star Wars" (1978) and "Return of the Jedi" (1983) became block-busters for George Lucas and company... The 26th (1946) saw the issuance of a US patent for the hydrogen bomb... wonder if that patent is still on file, and why the government bothered? Events to celebrate this month include Cinco de Mayo (5th), the ending of World War II in Europe (7th, 1945), Native American Day (10th), Leprechaun Day (13th), and Never Turn Your Back on the Ocean Day (does anyone know anything more about these last two?)... According to the television series MASH, the wedding anniversary for BJ & Peg Hunnicutt of Mill Valley, California, is on the 23rd of May... And on the 31st, two famous women make the headlines: Joan of Arc gets invited to a barbeque back in 1433, and Lady Godiva gets on her horse and rides through Coventry, England, displaying to all that she had more than just a mind... On the 17th (1954), the Supreme Court rules on Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, overthrowing the principle of 'separate but equal', giving minority Americans a fighting chance at overcoming bigotry and rascism... Mount St Helens went on a diet on the 18th (1980), shedding more than 24,000 inches from her top during a single eruption... On the 24th (1883), the Brooklyn Bridge was opened by President Arthur & Governor Cleveland... This, of course, started the largest bridge-selling project in history, and we believe it continues to this day... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- African lions in the wild feed first on the intestines of their kills. For whatever's therein their bodies crave. Fat and vitamins. Curious how the bodies of animals, even as yours and mine, send signals to dictate diet. What do you suppose is in a salami sandwich to make it so compelling? ============================================================================ Last issue, we played the first installment of the earliest (and perhaps, even the original) copy of the BBS/Computer-World Classic: DECWARS... It's hard to believe that such imaginative writing could have come from somewhere east of Reseda but, believe it or not, it's true! If someone out in our vast viewing audience has the inside on whether (a) this piece IS the original and/or (b) there is more out there that hasn't surfaced yet, PLEASE PLEASE let us know so that we can include it in something called "The Further Continuing Saga of the Adventures of Luke VaxHacker..." So, without tiring your eyes and mind with too many big words, allow me to present you with Part Two of the DecWars Anthology... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A long time ago, on a node far, far away (from ucbvax) a great Adventure (game?) took place... XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X X XX XXXXX XXXX X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X XXXXX X X X X X X X XXXX X X X X X X XX X XXXXXX XXXXX X X X X X X X XX XX X X X X X X XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X X X X X X XXXX X ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE ADVENTURES OF LUKE VAXHACKER ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is no regular file," murmured Kenobie. "Look at the ODS directory structure ahead! They seem to have us in a tractor beam." "There's no way we will unlink in time," said Solo. "We're going in...." ...Well, fans, this is where we left you, and this is where we pick up our heroes... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we last left Luke, the Milliamp Falcon was being pulled down to the open collector of the Administrative Are-Em Star Workstation. Dec Vadic surveys the relic as Administrative Flunkies search for passengers... "LS scan shows no one aboard, sir," was the report. Vadic was unconvinced. "Send a fully equipped Ncheck squad on board," he said. "I want every inode checked out." He turned around (secondary channel) and stalked off. On board the Milliamp Falcon, .Luke was puzzled. "They just walked in, looked around and walked off," he said. "Why didn't they see us?" .Con smiled. "An old munchkin trick," he explained. "See that period in front of your name?" .Luke spun around, just in time to see the decimal point. "Where'd that come from?" he asked. "Spare decimal points lying around from the last time I fixed the floating point accelerator," said .Con. "Handy for smuggling blocks accross file system boundaries, but I never thought I'd have to use them on myself. They aren't going to be fooled for long, though. We'd better figure a way outa here." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- At this point (.) the dialogue tends to wedge. Being the editor and in total control of the situation, I think it would be best if we sort of gronk the next few paragraphs. For those who care, our heroes find themselves in a terminal room of the Workstation, having thrashed several Flunkies to get there. For the rest of you, just keep banging the rocks together, guys --- Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hold on," said Con. "It says we have `new mail.' Is that an error?" "%SYS-W-NORMAL, Normal, successful completion," said PDP-1. "Doesn't look like it. I've found the inode for the Milliamp Falcon. It's locked in kernel data space. I'll have to slip in and patch the reference count, alone." He disappeared through a nearby entry point. Meanwhile, RS232 found a serial port and logged in. His bell started ringing loudly. "He keeps saying, `She's on line, she's on line'," said 3CPU. "I believe he means Princess _LPA0:. She's being held on one of the privileged levels." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once again, things get sticky, and the dialogue suffers the most damage. After much handwaving and general flaming, they agree to rescue her. They headed for the detention level, posing as Flunkies (which is hard for most hackers) claiming that they had trapped the Bookie executing an illegal racket. They reached the block where the Princess was locked up and found only two guards in the header --- Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Good day, eh?" said the first guard. "How's it goin', eh?" said the other. "Like, what's that, eh?" "Process transfer from block 1138, dev 10/9," said Con. "Take off, it is not," said the first guard. "Nobody told US about it, and we're not morons, eh?" At this point (.), the Bookie started raving wildly, Con shouted "Look out, he's loose!" and they all started blasting ROMs left and right. The guards started to catch on and were about to issue a general wakeup when the ROM blasters were turned on them. "Quickly, now," said Con. "What buffer is she in? It's not going to take long for these..." The intercom receiver interrupted him, so he took out its firmware with a short blast. "...guys to figure out something is goin' on," he continued. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, like, remember we left our heroes in the detention priority level? Well, they're still there... Luke quickly located the interface card and followed the cables to a soundproof enclosure. He lifted the lid and peered at the mechanism inside. "Aren't you a little slow for ECL?" printed princess _LPA0:. "Wha? Oh, the Docksiders," stammered Luke. He took off his shoes (for industry) and explained, "I've come relocate you. I'm Luke Vaxhacker." Suddenly, forms started bursting around them. "They've blocked the queue!" shouted Solo. "There's only one return from this stack!" "OVER HERE!" printed _LPA0: with overstrikes. "THROUGH THIS LOOPHOLE!" Luke and the princess disappeared into a nearby feature. "Gritch, gritch," mumbled Two Bacco, obviously reluctant to trust an Administrative oversight. "I don't care how crufty it is!" shouted Con, pushing the Bookie toward the crock. "DPB yourself in there now!" With one last blast that reprogrammed two flunkies, Con joined them. The "feature" landed them right in the middle of the garbage collection data. Pieces of data that hadn't been used in weeks floated past in a pool of decaying bits. "Bletch!" was Con's first comment. "Bletch, bletch," was his second. The Bookie looked as if he'd just paid a long shot, and the odds in this situation weren't much better. Luke was polling the garbage when he stumbled upon a book with the words "Don't Panic" inscribed in large, friendly letters on the cover. "This can't possibly help us now," he said as he tossed the book away. The Bookie was about to lay odds on it when Luke suddenly disappeared. He popped up accross the pool, shouting, "This is no feature! It's a bug!" and promptly vanished again. Con and the princess were about to panic() when Luke reappeared. "What happened?" they asked in parallel. "I don't know," gasped Luke. "The bug just dissolved automagically. Maybe it hit a breakpoint..." "I don't think so," said Con. "Look how the pool is shrinking. I've got a bad feeling about this..." The princess was the first to realize what was going on. "They've implemented a new compaction algorithm!" she exclaimed. Luke remembered the pipe he had open to 3CPU. "Shut down garbage collection on recursion level 5!" he shouted. Back in the control room, RS232 searched the process table for the lisp interpreter. "Hurry," sent 3CPU. "Hurry, hurry," added his other two processors. RS232 found the interpreter, interrupted it, and altered the stack frame they'd fallen into to allow a normal return. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, PDP-1 made his way deep into the core of the Workstation, slipping from context to context, undetected through his manipulation of label_t. Finally, causing a random trap (through nofault of his own) he arrived at the inode table. Activity there was always high, but the Spl6 sentries were too secure in their knowledge that no user could interrupt them to notice the bug that PDP-1 carefully introduced. On a passing iput, he adjusted the device and inode numbers, maintaining parity, to free the Milliamp Falcon. They would be long gone before the locked inode was diagnosed... Unobserved, he began traversing user structures to find the process where the Milliamp Falcon was grounded. Finding it and switching context, he discovered his priority weakened suddenly. "That's not very nice," was all he could say before the cause of the obstruction became clear. "I have been pausing a long time, PDP-1 Kenobi," rasped Dec Vadic. "We meet again at last. The circuit has been completed." They looped several times, locking byte sabers. Bit by bit, PDP-1 appeared to weaken. The fight had come into the address space of the Milliamp Falcon, and provided the .di (diversion?) that allowed Luke and the others to reassert control. Luke paused to watch the conflict. "If my blade finds its mark," warned Kenobi, "you will be reduced to so many bits. But if you slice me down, I will only gain computing power." "Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version," growled Vadic. "You are my Role MASTER now." With one stroke, Vadic sliced Kenobi's last word. Unfortunately, the word was still in Kenobi's throat. The word fell clean in two, but Kenobi was nowhere to be found. Vadic noticed his victim's uid go negative, just before he disappeared. Odd, he thought, since uids were unsigned... Luke witnessed all this, and had to be dragged into the Milliamp Falcon. Con Solo and Two Bacco maneuvered the Milliamp Falcon out of the process, onto the bus and made straight for system space. 3CPU and RS232 were idle, for once. Princess _LPA0: tried to print comforting things for him, but Luke was still hung from the loss of his friend. Then, seemingly from nowhere, he thought he heard PDP-1's voice say, "May the carrier be with you" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADA: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." Not useful for much else ============================================================================ Chocolate: Food of the Gods If you consider yourself a "choco-holic", take heart, your passion for chocolate is nothing new and you're certainly not alone in this love affair. For hundreds of years people have been attracted to the delights of cocoa and chocolate. The cocoa bean comes from the evergreen Theobroma, which means "Food of the Gods", and was already in the marketplace in pre-Columbian days. The Aztec Indians roasted, husked and ground cocoa beans into a powder to which they added water, vanilla and red peppers. They whisked this creation until it was frothy and then enjoyed it as their version of instant hot cocoa. Cortez found them sipping this beverage when he arrived in Mexico in 1518! The Spaniards returned home with cocoa beans and vanilla. After replacing the red peppers with sugar, Chocolate House began selling the tempting beverage in Europe and the craze for hot cocoa soon spread throughout the world. In 1853, a mixture of sugar and cocoa butter constituted the first chocolate bar. This was followed a few years later with the Swiss addition of milk solids (12-22% now-a-days) and the development of milk chocolate, which greatly increased the popularity of chocolate candy. Today, the Swiss consume an average of over 16 pounds of chocolate per person. Over 1 1/2 millions of cocoa beans are ground annually thoughout the world, with the United States grinding approximately 21% of the total. So, Choco-holics, take comfort in knowing that you're not alone in your bingeing, and, in fact, your love of chocolate. "The food of the Gods", is helping to perpetuate a tradition that is hundreds of years old! - from the sale flyer, Cost Cutter Foods, in Bellingham - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject ============================================================================ And now, for the news... With the exception of the news flash from Nicaragua, all of the news this issue will be true just as it came off the wire into our editing room. None of the facts have been changed to protect the innocent, or anyone else for that matter... I wish we had more time this issue, but the hope is that the quality will more than make up for the lack of quantity... A special thanx to John Walker, sysop of "Inner Sanctum", a computer bulletin board in Seattle, for the exclusive NEWS FLASH from Nicaragua... Behold... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS FLASH --- from the Jungles of Nicaraugua. General Seymour Fallopia reports that the contras are not disheartened by the recent congressional vote against military aid to the contras. In fact, they have taken heart at the success of recent attempts to obtain humanitarian military aid. Fallopia reports that a new team of bean counters has been hired to examine all aid from groups, such as the Red Cross, to find ways of converting it to humanitarian military aid. In a parallel effort, contra covert agents are scouring the world to find other resources. General Fallopia is a widely experienced mercenary with many medals and honors won through past efforts in Johannesburg, Ethiopia, Watts, and Manila. Finding a break in his busy filming schedule in Tokyo, the famous movie star monster "Gamera" has been approached by covert contra operators. Indications are that Gamera has tentatively agreed to help the contras in their freedom fight, however all action which includes Gamera will be filmed for possible inclusion in the next blockbuster smash hit, "Gamera versus Ortega and the Feelthy Commies". Gamera, a giant monster turtle, 200 feet long and 18,000 pounds, has considerable experience squashing hospitals and eating metropolitan areas - John Walker, 07 February 1988 (18:02) - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1972, a man walked into a California bank with a squirt gun and handed the cashier a note that read "Milk, loaf of bread, pick up laundry." After he panicked and ran, his car wouldn't start [ed: Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning...] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ed: And, it comes to pass, that more than a few people have had problems with "effluence" during the month of May...] A man who said he was injured when the portable toilet he was using was pushed over filed a $53,220 suit against the Mount Angel Oktoberfest in Marion County circuit court. Robert Rispler, Portland, claimed the portable toilet was pushed over by unruly patrons. His suit said he was "violently thrown about inside said portable toilet and became intimately mixed with the contents thereof" - 1978 Salem Oregon UPI - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Organizers of the Commonwealth Games set in Edmonton (Alberta) Canada, in 1978, will spend $50,000 to build a washroom at the stadium for the exclusive use of the Queen. Canadians are calling it a "Royal Flush" - 1978 - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pleasant Hill police installed a portable alarm system at a local church in an effort to stop a rash of petty burglaries. The alarm was put in the Hillcrest Congregational Church and hooked to sensors to trigger a silent radio signal at the police station. However, police arriving at the church over the weekend found the entire alarm system was stolen. It was the only item missing, police said - May 1978 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Young, skinny and timid chickens make the best flyers, according to organizers of today's seventh annual International Chicken Flying Meet. "The big egg-layers don't do very well," says Chicken Flying Association spokesman Phil Porter. About 150 chickens are expected to compete in this southeastern Ohio community for a shot at the world record and a $500 first place for their owners. Flying chickens are placed in a mailbox 10 feet off the ground by a "flight director" who may nudge them with a toilet plunger, Porter said yesterday in Columbus. "It doesn't hurt them to be a little scared of people. When they see huge crowds, they tend to fly better." Porter said contest rules allow no exotic breeds, cross-breeds or other "non-chickens." An extension service specialist will be at the contest to spot imposters, said Porter - May 1978 Rio Grande Ohio AP - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ed: It's entirely possible that you missed this political "exposee" when it first came out, so we give you a second chance... I wonder if Gary Hart has been interviewed on the same pages as Hunter Thompson...] The friends of Paul Eckert, conservative candidate, were shocked to read a newspaper story about him. In one place, Eckert, the owner of a van and storage company, was quoted as saying he likes Texas because "you can actually drive around there drinking Wild Turkey out of the bottle and be admired for it by the police." In another, the profile said Eckert views politics as "a form of self-defense against politicians," and asks him: "Why did you come here tonight?" "The reply attributed to Eckert: "... to get some coke money." The Blade-Tribune editors were stunned but quickly figured out that their computer which puts stories in its memory and then into print had somehow combined the Eckert interview with a story about a talk by "Gonzo Journalist" Hunter Thompson before a college audience. Managing Editor William Missett apologized to Eckert, a 44-year-old candidate for San Diego county supervisor, and printed his story right in a later issue. Missett said the mixup may have given Eckert unexpected attention in his first race for public office and offered this tongue-in- cheek consolation to the bewildered politician: "A lot of people are saying that if Paul Eckert snorts coke, they're going to vote for him" - 14 May 1978 Oceanside AP - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sister Boom Boom" is getting married. Jack Fertig, a 30-year-old gay social worker who grabs attention by dressing in a nun's habit, said he and Mystie Gray, 32-year-old sex therapist from Pittsburgh, were checking astrology charts for the perfect date to wed. "This doesn't make me any less gay," Fertig said. Gray said she did not think of her husband-to-be as a homosexual. "I see him as a man," she said. "I myself am sexual. It's a match made in heaven. It couldn't be any more perfect." She said her family took the news as well as could be expected. "My father said, 'That's fabulous,'" she said. "'I've got a nun for a son-in- law.' I think they think I'm joking." On the practical side, Fertig said the marriage would allow them to take advantages of benefits such as sharing pensions and insurance. The couple said they have been deluged with offers from friends wanting to design their dresses, act as bridal attendants and give away whomever ends up being the bride. As for wedding gifts, the couple says one friend already has promised them leather sheets - 12 May 1985 Seattle Times - [ed: If I remember correctly, Sister Boom Boom also ran for public office a few years before this "event" and did quite remarkably, considering... Perhaps I should dig up that particular newsclip for the edification of the reader?] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A friend got on a Wien Air Alaska jet in Nome, bound for Anchorage. After sitting in the plane for 20 minutes, he heard the jet engines shut down. Moments later, a stewardess spoke through the cabin speakers, "Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard Wien Air Alaska. We are very sorry for the delay we are experiencing. The pilot has heard strange noises coming from one of the engines. "We regret to announce that it will be approximately 30 minutes before we find another pilot. Thank you" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- After adding two weeks to the schedule for unexpected delays, add two more for the unexpected, unexpected delays ============================================================================ And, last but not least, a few words of wisdom. It's true that man does not live by bread alone, and we've pretty much proved that axiom with these unusual masterpieces. To quote someone much smarter than I, "I am non-denominational --- I accept all forms of currency. So, open your hearts and empty your pockets!" A wonderful sentiment, don't you think? If you should find it in your hearts to like what we are doing here, and would like to help us stay in business AND solvent, please send your non-tax-deductible donations in whatever amount pleases you to: caren park 2557 Fourteenth Avenue West Suite 501 Seattle, Washington 98119 (01 January 1992) We will acknowledge, in print, those with the warmest thoughts for our survival... We leave you now with a few thoughts... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three wise men of Gotham Went to sea in a bowl; If the bowl had been stronger, My song would be longer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All true wisdom is found on T-shirts ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back ...until next month...