Disenchanting Discourse
A news group, a URL (or two), a movie, and a coupl'a humours...
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[ I chanced upon a hilarious newsgroup this weekend. Here's a ]
[ sample of what to expect in alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb - try ]
[ it yourself, but keep your composure. ]
Newsgroups: alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb
Subject: alt.new.newbie.ponders.asks.queries
Organization: The Church of The Flat-Twin Engine
alt.new.newbie.am.is.be
alt.first.post.try.do.type
alt.hopeful.me.forgive.give-break.give-chance
( alt.gracious.people.noticed.realized.contemplated
alt.noble.aanvvv.reads.speaks.performs
alt.interesting.poetry.resembles.seems-like.possibly-is ) ?
alt.fun.poetry-reading.give.recieve.enjoy
alt.aanvvv-ish.poetry.speak.listen.snap-snap-snap!!
alt.strong.coffee.drink.imbibe.mainline
alt.enlightened.beatniks.vibrate.shake.quiver
alt.aanvvv.communication.published.quoted.referenced
alt.non-usenet.setting.query.ask.question ?
alt.overactive.imagination.sees.hears.smells :-)
alt.Harper's.magazine.quote.quote.quote
--
Stuart McDow
Austin, Texas
[ alt.new.haiku.is.will.be? ]
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"The Indian in the Cupboard"
This movie started a little slow and had some really ugly children
in it, but it was definitely worth full price. It became engrosing
about 30 minutes in and the little boy began to realise the value of
people no matter what their size may be. The movie is full of cliche
morals but makes up for it by actaully grabbing your attention by
the throat and gluing your face to the screen. I'm not sure if
I'd take very young children to see it, since it could give you
nightmares (the scenes with the rat and the Indian), but it's
great for us Peter Pan cases.
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[ this came from a co-worker who's un-wired ]
Three women are sitting in a bar talking about their love lives.
The first one says, "My husband is an architect. When we make love,
it has power, it has form and function. It's incredible!"
The second one says, "My husband is an artist. When we make love, it
has vision, it has passion and emotion. It's wonderful!"
The third woman sighs and sips her margarita, then says, "My husband
works for Microsoft and when we make love, he just sits at the end of
the bed and tells me how great it's going to be when it gets here."
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[ This pretty came from the editor/writer/everything of the ]
[ now defunct 'zine "Chaos". (Be looking for "Babel", though. ]
30 ways to know that technology has taken over your life
1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book.
The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line
services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of
the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded
that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.
2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one
device on your body beep or buzz.
3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't
because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with
laser printers.
4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget
to send your father a birthday card.
5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.
6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the
next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the
salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.
7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without
thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.
8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the
phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and you
are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.
9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own
social security number.
10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number",
since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged
into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.
11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.
12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols
that are far more clever than :-).
13. You back up your data every day.
14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and
you return with a rest for your mouse.
15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.
16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages
faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.
17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters
your mind.
18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase
"electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information
superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses
hand-drawn pie charts.
19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit
hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house
without looking up the street names.
20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.
21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you
something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that
you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information
about the product it is selling.
22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and
three-and-a-half-inch sizes.
23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.
24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where
they are.
25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia
surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a
nine-year-old.
26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough
to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead
of feeling compelled to make something up.
27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.
28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own
turns bread into charcoal.
29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different
opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the track *pad*.
30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend,
technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that
you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
31. You email this message to your friends over the net. You'd never get
around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the
phone. In fact, you have probably never met most of these people
face-to-face.
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Speaking (earlier) of Peter Pan Syndrome: Do you miss the second
grade? Do you remember your favorite pastime in the second grade?
Well, it was either forging excuses or Mad Libs(c), and there is
a Web site that combines the two!!! Look under http://www.dtd.com/excuse
to play!
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[ Do you enjoy the Weekend Update, yet long for a tv version? ]
[ Well, until I get my own show at ACTV, check out C/Net on- ]
[ line. It's a blandly popular little computer show that's ]
[ worth the 30 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday morning. You ]
[ can check out their Web site at http://www.cnet.com/. ]
"c|net central" airs at its regularly scheduled time on the USA Network and
the Sci-Fi Channel:
USA Network Eastern Pacific
Saturday 9:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m.=20
Sunday 6:30 a.m. 6:30 a.m.=20
Tuesday (Monday night) 1:30 a.m. 1:30 a.m.
Sci-Fi Channel Eastern Pacific
Sunday 10:30 a.m. 7:30 a.m.
10:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m.=20
Monday (Sunday night) 2:30 a.m. 11:30 p.m.
San Francisco Bay Area viewers can tune in to KPIX Channel 5 on Sunday at 4
p.m. for the encore airing of "c|net central."
[ from cnet's news letter ]
Net truths:
Quotables:
"Keep in mind that these games first appeared in bars. The play action for
Pong was hardly engaging. Our design criterion was simple: a game you could
play half drunk while holding a beer in one hand."
--Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, on the genesis of video games ("The New
York Times," 6/18/95)=20
"Worries by Congress over unseemly information on the Internet are real . .
. but they should not lead to new laws that treat the Internet as if it were
a children's magazine, with Congress as the editor in chief."=20
--I. Trotter Hardy, professor of law at the College of William and Mary
("San Francisco Examiner," 6/4/95)=20
For more Net truths visit:
http://www.cnet.com/Central/Columns/truths.html
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