------------------------------------------------------------------------- @@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@ @@ @ @@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@ @@@@ @@ @@@ @@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@ @@@ Electronic Humor Magazine. Issue018, (Volume IV, Number 4). May, 1987. NutWorks is published semi-monthly-ish by Brent C.J. Britton, ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents ======== NewsWorks ...................... Points of Interest Nuts & Bolts ................... Commentary The Final Prayer ............... Religion Filthy ......................... Limerick Dear Dr. Diag .................. Advice Law as it Should Be ............ Story Two Priests .................... Joke Frog Finance ................... Shaggy Dog ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NewsWorks ========= Hello, I'm Jeraldo Revera filling in for the regular NutWorks News crew, who are out on assignment. Actually, I think they're just out someplace having a party to which I am not invited. They do this a lot. But I don't care. Rest assured that I'm getting paid a disgusting sum of money for doing this. I mean, they're not really professional journalists or anything. They spend most of their time sitting around drinking coffee and playing "Pin the tail on Vanna White," a game in- volving a blindfold, a fallic-shaped IBM card, and a recent issue of Playboy magazine. I just know they're having a party. Probably at the beach too. With those coeds from the Speech Communications department who I bet are at least partially naked at this point. I hate them. They tell me they're off on an "important assignment of global proportions" when I know damn well the only "globes" involved belong to some drunken floozies with miniscule, if any, tan lines. HERE I SIT DOING THE NEWS ALL ALONE WHEN THEY'RE OUT ON SOME SECLUDED BEACH GANG-FONDLING SOME GIRL'S HUGE... ahem... sorry. I'm very sorry. The only news this month is this stupid reminder that the end of the spring semester is upon us -- like you haven't noticed, sheez -- and so those of you with NON-PERMANENT user-IDs should be sure to delete yourselves from the NutWorks mailing list by sending the command: UNSUBSCRIBE NUTWORKS to LISTSERV@TCSVM via message or mail. Please make sure you delete your- selves because if you don't, I'll have to. "Delete the user-IDs Jeraldo" they'll say. "Get us some more Mt. Dew Jeraldo! Get Connie Chung on the phone Jeraldo! Jeraldo, why haven't you deleted those user-IDs yet!?" The only other news this month is that this stupid old magazine will probably publish on time, every month, this summer, which I'm sure just thrills all you perverts out there who read this trash. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What do Gary Hart and an Oriental man have in common? - - - They both like to eat Rice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nuts & Bolts ============== by Brent C.J. Britton My girlfriend and I are planning to move into a new apartment this month which means we're spending a lot of time sorting through our possesions in an attempt to distinguish the good stuff from the garbage. Unfortunately, her idea of what is garbage and what isn't differs from mine in that I am violently opposed to throwing away anything that I own on the grounds that I may want or need it someday even if it is broken or, in fact, completely useless. For instance, she located the locking base clamp to my desk lamp -- one of those spring-loaded, swiveling-arm lamps; every college student in the world has one -- and asked me, hopefully, if she could throw it away because the actual lamp part seemed to be missing. I said that we should hang onto it just in case the lamp turned up, although I knew darned well that the poor lamp met an untimely demise two years ago in a diabolical experiment conducted by myself and my dorm roommate, Hal. The idea was, see, to develop a Beer Extraction Device which, at the tug of a chord (such as the belt from Hal's bathrobe), would cause a bot- tle of beer to be dropped from the refrigerator into the Catapult Unit -- remember, the lamp was spring loaded -- which would then fling the beer across the room to the general vicinity of the couch and into the waiting hands of a thirsty college student such as Hal or myself. During the trial runs, however, several beers and a can of picante sauce were inadvertently capulted straight out of our open, third floor win- dow. This angered Hal to the point of tossing the Beer Extraction Device out the window as well, and thus ended the life of my desk lamp. So you can see how the locking base clamp has great sentimental value to me, and I'm glad she let me keep it. With clothes, I'm not so lucky. What happens is, first, she'll find a pair of my pants she's never seen before and she'll bring them to me. "Did you know you had these?" she'll say, realizing that she is dealing with someone who often forgets his own mother's birthday. "Yes," I'll say, "those are the pants I wore to my high school graduation. They go with my blue suit." And then I'll make an effort to look intensely preoccupied. "Do they fit?" "I dunno..." "Try them on." Now, just so you know, I have about five pairs of pants that I wear on a regular basis, four of which are made of denim. (And while we're on the subject, take my advice: never wear button-fly jeans if you think you're going to be in a situation where you have to go to the bathroom in a hurry, if you get my drift.) I have some other pants which I only wear to nice restaurants, for example, and funerals, but mostly I just wear jeans. My girlfriend knows this and will therefore consider these high school pants to be good candidates for her Salvation Army box. After some lengthly discussion we'll arrive at the the truth of the matter which is that, given a choice between having a root canal or being seen with me in public while I was wearing these pants, she'd choose the root canal. So, scratch one pair of perfectly good pants. I guess I really can't blame her for wanting to throw out things like my high school pants, because she does most of the packing. Now before you start calling me a worthless scum for not helping her pack, I should remind you that she's a woman and as such, *loves* to do the packing. Women are, you know, strange like that. My idea of a packing consists of scrunching my socks up into little balls, and then making jump shots into the suitcase with them from various points around the room. So she does the packing. And while she's busy doing that, I go find the box marked "salvation army" and I hide it on her. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two women at lunch: "Have you and your husband ever had mutual orgasm?" "No, I think it's State Farm." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Final Prayer ================ Submitted by David N. Blank And it came to pass, that early in the morning of the last day of the semester, there arose a multitude smiting their books and wailing; and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth; for the day of judgement was at hand and they were sore afraid. For they had done those things which they ought not have done, and they had left undone those things which they should have done... and there was no help for it. And there were many abiding in the dorms who had kept watch over their books all night, but naught availeth. But some there were who arose smilingly, for they had prepared for themselves the way, and made straight the path of knowledge. And these wise ones are called the curve-loosers. And the multitude arose and ate a hearty breakfast. And they came unto the appointed place, and their hearts were heavy with- in them. And they came to pass, but some passed out. And some of them repented their riotous living, and bemoaned their fate. But they had not a prayer. And at the last hour, there arose among them one known as the professor, he of the diabolical smile, who passed papers among them, and went upon his way. Many and varied were the questions asked by the professor, but still more varied were the answers which were given, for some of his teachings had fallen fertile minds, others had fallen among the semi- fertile, while still others had fallen flat. And some there wrote for one hour, others wrote for two, but some turned away sorrowful. And of these, many offered up a little bull, as a sacrifice, in hope of pacify- ing the professor, for these were the ones who had not a prayer. And when they had finished, they gathered up their belongings, and went quietly away, each in his own direction, and each one vowing to himself in this manner: "I shall not pass this way again." But it is a long road that hath no turning. Here endeth the lesson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Filthy ====== This limerick is **SO**FILTHY** that it would offend you, so most of the *really filthy* words have been replaced with "di-dah." Di-dah-di di-dah-di di-dah, Di-dah-di di-dah-di di-dah; Di-dah-di di-dah. Di-dah-di di-dah? Di-dah-di di-dah-di di-fuck. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Dr. Diag: ============= Note: Dr. Diag will attempt to answer questions on any subject, if he can. If he can't, he'll make you feel stupid for asking. Send your questions to "Dr. Diag" c/o Brent@Maine.BITNET. >Dear Dr. Diag, > This question has nothing at all whatsoever to do with computers, >which is why I am asking you. You know all those advertisements and >such that say "Void where prohibited?" I just want to know where >these places are. Can you give me some examples of these places and >why things are void in these areas? > >Sincerely, Brigadier Arthur St. John (Mrs.) Dear Brigadier, Actually, my friend, your question has *everything* to do with computers because the phrase "void where prohibited" was actually written by a computer! Long long ago when marketing and advertising were still in their infancy, a young advertising firm was hired to represent the Ace Sexual Toy company. The firm realized that the Ace products could be harmfull if used by some sexually inexperienced person who just wasn't prepared for the "ultimate sexual thrill" as their adds stressed would be provided. And so, to protect themselves and the Ace Sexual Toy company against lawsuits filed by people, (or the surviving members of their families, or their pets) who sustained injury while using the toys, they chose to print the phrase "Avoid if Inhibited" on each pack- age. However, the packages were printed by a computer-automated system and so the new phrase had to be entered on a word processor and then uploaded to the main printing computer. Due to line noise between the word processor and the main computer, and a stupid secretary who made many typing mistakes and tried to delete them by using "White-Out" on her terminal screen, the phrase was mis-transcribed as, you guessed it, "Floydd is an Arachnid." The line noise was eventually ironed out when the Ace company changed its image to become a top chain of hardware stores and the phrase was changed to "Void where Prohibited." They did keep one of their original Sexual Toy slogans: "Ace is the Place with the Helpful Hardware Man." -------------------- >Dear Dr. Diag: > Recently I found a keypunch in our computing center's dumpster. >I took it home and plugged it in and everything seemed to be in working >order. I was wondering if there were some way I could use this as a >terminal? I mainly use the mainframe for graphics applications... > >Sincerely, 'Underfunded Computer Science Student' Dear Underfun, You should not attempt to use a discarded keypunch as a terminal because: a) keypunches do not have knobs for "brightness" or "contrast", (bad for your eyes); b) the sound of the key-click on a keypunch is roughly approximated by the Army Drum Corps' rendition of "Flight of the Bumblebee", (bad for your ears); c) a keypunch is very heavy and would probably kill you if it fell on you while you weren't looking, (bad for your sex life). Also, after crawling around in a dumpster, you'd be wise to have yourself examined for lice, maggots, ants, worms, crabs, walruses, small children, and other parasites. -------------------- >Dear Dr. Diag: > I've just finished reading your answer to the N**1/2 sort algorithm >question in Issue 17 of Nutworks. Your reply was sadly in error, >but understandably so, as recent developments here at the Institute >of Bizarre Machinations, Computer Seance Department, have not yet >been published. > After years of dilligent research by Institute faculty, we have >devised sorting algorithms with efficiencies of N**1/2, N**1/N, and >yes, even N**1/-N**N/N/N/N/N !!! Let me provide you with a few >examples: > >The Whoops Sort - wherein some number of items are accidentally > lost. Obviously, the efficiency of this sort is inversely > proportional to the number of items misplaced. > >The Deletion Sort - The key field of each item is scanned in > sequential order, and if it is out of sequence, the item is > deleted, relieving us of the necessity for writing an insertion > routine. > >Drop Sort, Shuffle Sort - particularly useful for sorting records > stored offline on media such as cards, floppy disks, twelve platter > removable disk packs, etc. > >The Static Sort - wherein the existing sequence of items to be > sorted is deemed to be "good enough"; one of the greatest > achievements in Artificial Intelligence to date. > >So, Dr. Diag, in closing, I admonish you: NEVER say "NEVER"! > > Dr. Fred "Bob" Pfeiffererer > Chairman, > Department of Computer Seances > Institute of Bizarre Machinations > Anytown, USA > (Bruce Bettis ) Dear Dr. Fred "Bob", As one Doctor to another, in the age old tradition of the free and generous exchange of information and knowledge, just let me say this: EAT MY SHORTS YOU WETHEAD!! IF THERE'S ONE THING I CAN'T STAND IT'S SOME DORK RESEARCHER TRYING TO TELL EVERYONE HOW WRONG WE ARE! GET A REAL JOB HUH!? CHRIST! -------------------- >Dear Dr. Diag: > How many micros does it take to make a mini? Then, how many minis >does it take to make a main? >Computerly yours, Mr. Add'em Up Dear Mr. Adam, Given that the average mainframe occupies a volume of three cubic meters, the average volume of a mini is one cubic meter and the average volume of a micro (including monitor) is 25 liters, then we arrive at the result of: 27 minis = 1 main 40 micros = 1 mini 1080 micros = 1 main Bear in mind that these numbers would be bigger if you crunched the computers up with something like a sledgehammer or a large rock. bcjb & smth ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Law as it Should Be =================== Submitted by Bill Myers One evening after attending the theater, two gentlemen were walking down the Avenue when just ahead of them walked a beautiful woman. One of the men turned to the other and remarked, "I'd give $50.00 to spend the night with that woman." To their surprise the young lady overheard the remark and turned around. She said, "I'll take you up on that." She had a neat appearance and a pleasant voice, so after bidding his companion goodnight the man accompanied the lady to her apartment, where they immediately went to bed. The following morning he presented her with $25.00 as he prepared to leave. She demanded the rest of the money stating, "If you don't give me the other $25.00 I'll sue you." He laughed saying, "I'd like to see you get it on those grounds." The next day he was surprised when he received a summons ordering him to court as a defendant in a lawsuit. He hurried to his lawyer and ex- plained the details of the case. His lawyer said, "She can't get judge- ment on such grounds, but it will be interesting to see how her case is presented." After the usual preliminaries, the lady's lawyer addressed the court as follows: "Your honor, my client, this lady, is the owner of a piece of property, a garden spot surrounded by a profuse growth of shrubbery, which property she agreed to rent to the defendant for a specified length of time, for the sum of $50.00. The defendant took possesion of the pro- perty, used it extensively for the purpose for which it was rented, but upon evacuating the premises he paid only $25.00, one half of the amount agreed upon. "The rent was not expensive, since this was restricted property, and was not available to all, and we ask judgement be granted against the defendant to assure payment of the balance." The defendant's lawyer was impressed and amused at the way his opponent had presented the case. His defense therefore was some what altered from the way he had originally planned to present the case. "Your honor," he said, "My client agrees that the young lady has a fine piece of property, that he did rent such property from her for a time and derived a degree of pleasure from this transaction. However, my client found a well on the property, around which he placed his own stones, sunk a shaft, and erected a pump, all labor being performed personally by him. We therefore claim the improvements on the property were sufficient to offset the unpaid amount and that the plaintiff was adequately compensated for the rental of said property. We therefore ask that judgement not be granted." The young lady's lawyer came back with this: "Your honor, my client agrees that the defendant did find a well on her property and that he did make improvements such as my opponent has described. However, had the defendant not known the well existed, he would have never rented the property. Also, upon evacuating the premises, the defendant removed his stones, pulled out the shaft and took the pump with him. In doing so he not only dragged his equipment through the shrubbery, but left a hole much larger than it was prior to his occupancy, making it easily accessible to little children. We therefore ask that judgement be granted." SHE GOT IT!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two Priests =========== Submitted by Holly Lee Stowe Two priests were killed in an automobile accident. Upon arriving at the pearly gates they are informed that the computer is down and that they will have to go back to earth for a week. They can go back as anything they like and, with the computer down, nothing will count against them. The first priest tells St. Peter that he had always dreamt of being an eagle soaring over the Rocky Mountains. "Go", says St. Peter, "you are an eagle." The second priest first reconfirms the fact that whatever he does will not go into his record and then says, "Well, I've always wanted to be a stud." "Go," says St. Peter, "you are a stud." A week passes and Gabriel comes to St. Peter to say that the system is back up and it is time to fetch the two priests. "Well," says St. Peter, "the first guy is easy to find. He's flying over the Rockies somewhere near the Colorado-Wyoming border. The other guy's going to be a lot harder to find: he's on a snow tire somewhere in Minnesota." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Frog Finance ============ Submitted by Richard Ward A short while ago in a not so distant county there lived a frog in a a pond. The frog owned half the pond, but the other half was open for public recreation. Now, many people used that half of the pond, and the ripples and waves they created really irritated the frog. Finally, fed up, he decided to refinance his half and buy the other half, thus se- curing for himself a ripple free future. So the frog went to the bank, and talked to the Loan Officer, John Caddyshack. The frog explained the situation, and asked about refinanc- ing. Caddyshack was sympathetic, and asked for collateral. The frog thought and thought, and finally reached into his pocket and pulled out an object. "That's interesting," said Caddyshack, "but what is it?" "I don't know," said the frog, "but it has been in the family for years." Caddyshack took the matter to the local VP, explained the situation and showed the object. The VP took one look at the thing and exclaimed: "Knick-knack, Caddyshack! Give the frog a loan!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Issue018, (Volume IV, Number 4). May, 1987.