**************************************************************************** ### # # ### ##### ## # # # ## ## # # ### ##### ## ### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### # # # # # # # # # ## # #### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### # ## # # # ## ## ## ### # # # # # ### ____________________________________________________________________________ # # ### #### # # #### # # ### #### ##### # # ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### ### ##### # # #### ##### # # ##### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### ### # # # # #### # # ### # # # ##### ##### #### *******NUMBERS 261 TO 265*****************************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*** "THIS is TOXIC" Dispatched weekly to around about 27 countries AND to the good people of WhiteBoard News at Microsoft, it's... THIS is TOXIC for 8 August 1995 Copyright 1995 by Daniel Bowen --------------------------------------------------------------------- ON THE CARDS: Isn't choosing cards a bitch? Sometimes it'll be easy - by chance you'll come across the perfect card. But typically, you can spend hours opening thousands of cards to read what some sap of a copywriter has decided to put inside, before you find something that the recipient hopefully won't throw up over when they read it. (DB) ...and why do they insist on printing the price on the back, devoid of punctuation? Do they really think people won't notice it? 325 FOOLED YOU: That'll teach you to only glance at your mail with a cursory glance. You almost thought it was an issue of "This is True", didn't you? No? Damn. (Neuter) ...Well, that's a perfectly good 18 lines wasted then. On with the show. T O X I C ===++=== //=== || || ++===== Number 261 C U S T A||R D|| || || || || 8th August 1995 W O R K||S H||O P || || || ||___ by Daniel Bowen F I L E S || || || || || || *TCWF IS FIVE YEARS* || \\=== \\/\// || *OLD THIS SATURDAY!* Wow. You mean to tell me FIVE YEARS has gone by since the first Toxic Custard? Zowee. Horrifying. I can't even attempt to guess the amount of time I've wasted writing this crap! And it's all YOUR fault! But not to worry. As a special celebration, the COMPLETE COMPILATION of the Toxic History Of The World can now be seen on the TCWF Web sites. And for a short "history of Toxic Custard" (complete with glaring typo), see TCWF162. See below for the URLs. We at Toxic Headquarters will of course be celebrating this milestone in the customarily quiet fashion. Well, I expect it will be fairly quiet once everyone's unconscious. Doc Wedge has developed a new hallucinogen which we hope to be trying. So if TCWF262 is several days late and contains several inexplicable descriptions of pink elephants you'll know what's happened. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - When you think about it, the French government's timing in deciding to do more nuclear tests couldn't have been worse. Not only does it coincide with the tenth anniversary of them bombing the Rainbow Warrior, it also coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. It's as if someone really really wanted to piss off the rest of the world, isn't it? Maybe whoever it is really hates Jacques Chirac? Or maybe the French military are so paranoid that they actually believe foreign forces are massing for an invasion? "See comrades(*), they haven't even tested any A-bombs for five years! They probably don't have any working ones! I'm not deterred anymore! Let's invade!" Don't they know that France has a far better deterrent than all the atom bombs in the world put together? The French truck drivers. All they need to do is issue an ultimatum: "You invading bastards, fuck off! Or we'll send five thousand French crack lorry drivers over the border to play skittles with your villages!" Looking back on the power and horror of the impact of the bombs fifty years ago shows us only too clearly that the human race hasn't learnt very much from it. Well at least - the French haven't. But there is an up side - this week is the only week of the year when the media have to talk about a particular atom bomb, and can't refer to it as being "x times the size of the Hiroshima bomb". (*)If there's one thing I've learnt writing over the past five years it's that evil foreigners always call each other "comrades". - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE TOXIC CUSTARD COMPUTER GLOSSARY PART 7 GAME What you'd really prefer to be using your computer for. Games are generally the real reason people buy computers. Forget the standard lie of "well, I wanted to do some work at home". Nope. It's games. Of course, ten years ago it was "well, we bought the computer to help little Johnny with his homework" (yeah right, you just feed it a maths assignment and it spits out the answers) "and who knows, maybe he'll make a few million dollars by programming". GUI Graphical User Interface. Designed so that it would make your computer much easier to use, if it wasn't so damned slow now. GUIs and processor power have a spiralling effect. Just as people get hold of computers powerful enough to handle the latest GUI programs at a decent speed, the software authors go and "upgrade" it so it's slow again. GRAPHICS All the pretty pictures a computer can produce, generally used as a ploy by cynical computer sellers, directed at the sort of people who think they can produce Deep Space Nine at home on a 286. GIGABYTE Ten thousand umm... ten million, no, a thousand billion... A whole lot of bytes. Generally considered to be a very reasonable size for a personal computer hard drive. As with all things in computers however, by next week, it will be considered to be a thoroughly miserly size for a personal computer hard drive. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HELP! Every week I get a bounce from this phantom address: S9211946@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au This address isn't even on my mailing list! Is someone out there unwittingly forwarding TCWF to this person? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCWF on the Web! With the NEW complete "Toxic History Of The World"! Choose the WWW site nearest you: http://www.forthnet.gr/humour/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~cyrec/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/www_projects/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html If you prefer the quaint appeal of FTP: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/humour/ToxicCustard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. Excerpts by permission please. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia-------------Land of karate chopping koalas Work: dbowen@cpe.com.au-----------> Computer Power Education, ITS R&D Project Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu / DanielBowen@msn.com---TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu Opinions above are those of the former members of the KGB. Nah, they're mine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Winning Toxic Custard" TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES///\/\\\\/\\\\/"Reading\suggestion\only"\ ////\\/\//\/\\/\/\/\\/\/\\\/Number 262\/\\/\/\\\/\\\/\////\\////\\/\/ \Size\135\lines/\//\////\\/\\/\/\\/\/\14th August 1995//\/\/\\\\\//// \Contents/may/have\settled/during\transit///\\\/\\/\\/by Daniel Bowen THIS WEEK'S TV GAME - Watch Star Trek - TNG, and see how early you can spot Commander Extra - the character who will die later in the episode. You've never seen him before, and you'll never see him again. Why do sports commentators think they can analyse what people are thinking, down to specific details? Do they have psychic powers beyond the reach of other TV personalities? As the young South African runner neared the finish in yesterday's Sydney City To Surf run, the commentary went something like this: "He would be feeling great right now, wouldn't he?" (asking his colleague, who it appears is more attuned to the athlete's spiritual and mental plane...) "Yes, I'm sure he's feeling tremendous euphoria right now. This will be a moment that will live with him for the rest of his life." Who says? A couple of former rugby players take it upon themselves to tell a nation what they think someone else if feeling? He might be completely bored by it. "Yeah yeah yeah... this race is easy... got years of practice running from the police in their armoured cars..." He might be an incredible runner who in five years will have wondered what the hell he was doing running such an amateur jog, and in ten years has happily forgotten it. Oh well. They have to make up something. Otherwise the commentators would just be telling us what was on the screen. Hardly worth them being there. "Well, he's still winning. Yes indeed, just coming down the hill now, as you can probably see for yourself. And now he's going around the corner, and he's still winning. That looks like the finish line coming up now. And as the picture shows, the crowd are going wild..." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THIS WEEK'S WINNER OF THE "YES, I REALLY DID WIN MY LICENCE IN A CORNFLAKES PACKET" COMPETITION: The driver of NVO-567, who was apparently oblivious to the fact that he was driving into the St Kilda Junction tram interchange last Wednesday week. He must have realised eventually, when he made U-turn and drove out where he came in, without anyone getting a chance to find out if he was a number 5 or a number 67. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Automatic doors. What an innovation. Above them, the sensor waits for people to come along. It lights up when it detects someone, and the doors open, generally just a tad late, so you end up slowing down in anticipation of them opening. I've been playing with the ones at work. Playing "Chicken" with them. As I come power-walking down the corridor, will they open in time? Will I keep walking beyond the "point of no return", the point beyond which if I walk too fast, they won't open in time and I'll get a flat nose? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Is it me, or are car advertisements getting exceedingly wanky? It must be a difficult job, trying to convince people to part with thirty-odd thousand dollars of their hard-earned cash. So what do they come up with? There's the Jeep ad. Love the jingle. Dum da da da da... But this image of the suited business man riding a horse seems a bit odd to me. What are they telling us? That driving a jeep is like riding a horse? But you don't have to watch getting manure on your shoes? And what the hell are the Eunos people on about? Their ad features people in skin-tight silver lycra, stroking the bonnet of the car! Does this really convince ANYBODY to buy it? I'm surprised we don't see middle-aged men in brown overcoats hanging around the Eunos showrooms going "Wooooooooaaaahhh!!!" Beer advertisements are now banned from presenting beer as an aid to sexual fulfilment. Perhaps the Eunos people should take note. Perhaps they need a subtitle cautioning that: "Buying a Eunos will in no way cause skin-tight silver lycra clad people to come to your house and stroke you." (The computer's dictionary did not contain "wanky". It did, however, know about "wank", "wanks", "wanked", "wanking") - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE TOXIC CUSTARD COMPUTER GLOSSARY PART 8 HARD DISK See Disk (Hard). I've said all I have to say on this. HARDWARE The bits and pieces of electronic gadgetry which make up your computer system. Over the years, manufacturers of most hardware have reached a stage where it is relatively easy to plug in a new piece of hardware. They are just now starting to direct their efforts towards the myriad of initialisation and configuration settings that have to be set. Most hardware can broadly be divided into two categories - Input, where you enter your mistakes, and Output, where the computer tells you you've made the mistakes, and abuses you for being so stupid. HELP A system of electronic documentation that is now becoming so elaborate and intricate that it will soon dwarf the systems it is documenting. It has also necessitated a new acronym - RTFH. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCWF on the Web! Featuring the "Toxic History Of The World", the complete cross-referenced "Toxic Custarpedia", the mindnumblingly boring "Custard Gallery Of Art", and all the Toxic Custard back-issues! Choose the WWW site nearest you: http://www.forthnet.gr/humour/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~cyrec/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/www_projects/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html If you prefer the quaint appeal of FTP: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/humour/ToxicCustard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. Excerpts by permission please. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--------The wide brown land down the bottom Work: dbowen@cpe.com.au-----------> Computer Power Education, ITS R&D Project Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu / DanielBowen@msn.com---TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu Opinions here are agreed by a majority of the United Nations Security Council ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Red Nosed Toxic Custard" Hi, you've reached Daniel. I'm busy cruising the Information Supercliche. Please leave a message after the ping. ====== ===== 21st||of ||August 1995 ====== || || || | || by||Daniel Bowen || O X I C || U S T A R D || | || O R K S H O P ||== I L E S ||Number 263===== ===== || I went to the PC show last week. That's one of the perks of being a "computer professional" - you get to go to a big building, walk around for a couple of hours with your friends having brochures stuffed in your face, then go and claim it on your time-sheet. The PC show is a trade show. That's what they tell everyone. I presume it's to keep Joe "technologically challenged" "what is this Internet Superhighway thing anyway" Public out, and encourage Ron "professionally speaking, I'm responsible for ARGH million dollars of computer spending for my company" Professional to come along and be wooed by the flashing lights. To this end, they say it's $15 to get in. $15 for a ticket. Yes, that should keep the plebs away. And naturally, to get the right people in, they give free tickets to anyone who (a) has a tie, (b) has a business card, or (c) has both a tie and a business card. The registration card included the immortal "check here if you do not wish to receive any literature". We all know what this really means. It actually means "if you don't put your tick here, you will receive copious amounts of junk mail that has almost no relevance, including but not limited to an offer to join a horse racing syndicate." No, really, that was one of the things I got last year. Maybe they had a mix-up with the mailing list disks at the advertisers'. But the most worrying thing is, I haven't learnt - I didn't tick it this year either. Once inside, the actual show was okay. The power grid was probably straining, having to power that many computers. Most stands would try and thrust something into your hands as you walked past, some even employing people in cartoon character suits, apparently to stun you for a few seconds so you wouldn't resist them giving you the brochure. "That wasn't really a giant rat was it... hey, where did these leaflets come from?" Most of the other company employees were in the standard company expo dress, which for some reason or another seems to consist of (for the men): black formal shoes, dark coloured formal trousers, and a company T-shirt. Sony has to get an award. They managed to give me the hugest bag possible. With absolutely no material in it. Let's hope they're just trying to get brand name exposure, without wanting to tell me about the marvellous product they've thought up. But I can't complain. By the time I left, I had several deciduous forests worth of paper; more than enough reading material to keep me busy for the tram ride home. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MORON OF THE WEEK - The driver of yellow Honda Civic FSF349, who really does believe that a yellow light means "put your foot down". Is it just me, or are there some incredibly thick people behind the wheel? Does the test go something like this? "Right Mr Smoth, just before we give you the right to drive this chunk of metal on wheels on public roads and risk killing yourself, your family and the entire contents of a pedestrian crossing, we have just a few final questions for you. What does a yellow light mean?" "Ummm.. put your foot down and try to get through before it turns red." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE TOXIC CUSTARD COMPUTER GLOSSARY PART 9 ICON A small picture displayed on a computer, which is designed to stop you worrying about trying to remember how a command is written or what it does, and instead worry about what the icon represents. INFOBAHN Phrase used by people who think they are too cool to use the phrase "Information Superhighway". INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY (i) A phrase that the media use to capture the general public's attention and get them excited about something that noone really knows what it's going to be, when and if it ever happens. (ii) The most common two words on any TV or radio technology program. INTERNET (Well, how can I beat the definition given in TCWF256?) The Internet is a global network of porn merchants who at the press of a button will bring X-rated pornographic material into your living-room while your grandmother is visiting. To run it, you need a 50,000 Mhz Cray Y-MP with 512 terrabytes of RAM, an ISDN link capable of supporting 40,000,000 bps, and a CGA (or higher) monitor. INSTALLATION The process of preparing a piece of hardware or software so that it will work with your computer. In the case of hardware, it invariably involves pulling the lid off the computer (only to find it doesn't have a lid, and you've just snapped the case in two), followed by rummaging around with a fair bit of guess work to ensure that everything gets plugged in the right place (which it isn't). With luck and a quick sacrifice to the deity of your choice (St IEEE, the patron saint of computer leads, is a good one) that's all you need to do. This process is known as Plug And Pray. Software is much easier. In fact, 97% of people find it's far more difficult to remove software from your computer than to install it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCWF is on the Web! With the complete History, the Custarpedia and lots (well, a bit) more. Choose the WWW site nearest you: http://www.forthnet.gr/humour/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~cyrec/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/www_projects/tcwf/ToxicCustard.html If you prefer the quaint appeal of FTP: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/humour/ToxicCustard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Australians, don't forget this Friday is Red Nose Day. Put highly amusing red object on your nose in support of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome research. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without profit provided no modifications are made. Excerpts by permission please. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--------The wide brown land down the bottom Work: dbowen@cpe.com.au-----------> Computer Power Education, ITS R&D Project Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu / DanielBowen@msn.com---TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu Opinions expressed above are Daniel's. Professional therapy is a possibility. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Ukranian Toxic Custard" From the womb he came. At first, he ate, slept, wet. But three months later, he had become... the VOMITRON! Projecting his spew through the air - to land on the unsuspecting parent. No t-shirt is safe, no jumper provides protection from... the VOMITRON! t o--x i c \ / .-- | \ /\ /orkshop |-ILES Number 264 | U S T A R D \/ \/ -' 28th August 1995 -- by Daniel Dimidenko* *No really, it's an old family name. At least, it's *someone's* old family name. Toxic Custard is a little short this week. This is mainly due to a virus striking our computers here at Custard HQ. Rest assured, this issue of Toxic Custard has been scanned SEVENTY-THREE TIMES for viruses, and has been declared safe by the National Association Of Text-Based Electronic Journals. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - So, Windows 95 is out. Yep, August the 24th, the big day, came and went, without a whimper of hype or advertising. Not! But you won't see me complaining about the hype. Nope. Not me. I *like* the hype surrounding Windows 95. I like the Rolling Stones jingle, I like the advert, I like the way they showed the nerdy insomniacs who decided to go buy it at midnight. But most of all, I like the way I won a free copy from a radio station by answering a really easy question (which by some miracle noone else knew, or shouted fast enough or loud enough) out on St Kilda Road on Thursday. What a job that must be. Driving around in the Black Thunder or the Triple Thunder or the FM ThunderCrew Wagon Thundermobile (why do all the radio stations name their vehicles after thunder?), and giving away stuff. You'd end up thinking you were the most popular person on the planet. Everyone would always be pleased to see you. "Hey Jim, here, take these fifty copies of Windows 95 in the Black Triple Thunder Machine, find a crowd of people and give them away!" "What are they Ben?" "Aww hell, I dunno, I work in radio. Something to do with windows." "Okay, we'll head down to the Glaziers' Conference in William Street..." But you know what got me? The media. For once they get a chance to talk about computers without mentioning the dreaded "I.S." cliche, and what do they do? They pretend they've never touched a keyboard. Trying to appeal to the common folk. Does anybody believe that journalists, even TV journalists, never use computers??? Some nameless gimboid on "NBC Nightly News Without Tom Brokaw" (Tom didn't bother to turn up) says it's got "something to do with computers...", and Ray on A Current Affair says after the story that the reporter was "the only one in the office who understood it." Yeah. Right. "Please folks, we're common people here on TV. Even if we do earn millions of dollars a year for reading an autocue." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE TOXIC CUSTARD COMPUTER GLOSSARY PART 10 JOYSTICK A piece of computer equipment which sounds disgusting until you find out what it is. It's probably related to aviation, where discussions concerning joysticks in the cockpit have increased the innuendo quotient enormously. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That's all for this week. I know it's a long shot, because TCWF readers are *far* too nice, but to whoever wrote the Stoned.Empire.Monkey.A virus, GET STUFFED! HOPE YOUR GENITALS WITHER AND DIE!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCWF is on the Web! With the complete History, the Custarpedia and a new, easier to use "index.html" file! Go for the closest to you: http://www.forthnet.gr/humour/tcwf/ http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~cyrec/tcwf/ http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/www_projects/tcwf/ If you prefer the quaint appeal of FTP: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/humour/ToxicCustard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be distributed without a charge provided no modifications are made. Excerpts by permission please. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia-----Big. Wide. Flat. Dry. That's Australia Work: dbowen@cpe.com.au-----------> Computer Power Education, ITS R&D Project Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu / DanielBowen@msn.com---TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu Opinions expressed above are Daniel's. No artifical colours or flavours.----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Jolly Toxic Custard" Welcome to the Toxic Custard 265 Upgrade-Pak. This Pak is for readers of Toxic Custards 200 or above. Readers who do not have a recent Toxic Custard, and wish to use Toxic Custard 265 should contact their dealer and exchange this Upgrade-Pak for a Toxic Custard 265 Full Pak. A search of your brain for recent jokes will now commence. Please cast your mind back... No, I don't know why we spell it "Pak" instead of "Pack". No idea. T O X I C C U S T A R D W O R K S H O P F I L E S # 2 6 5 T O X I C C U S T A R D W O R K S H O P F I L E S # 2 6 5 T O X I C C U S T A R D W O R K S H O P F I L E S # 2 6 5 T O X I C C U S T A R D W O R K S H O P F I L E S 4 S E P 1 9 9 5 W R I T T E N B Y D A N I E L B O W E N So, the French are at it again in the Pacific... The Rainbow Warrior goes into French waters, and the commandos raid it - yeah, okay, we could have seen that happening. But also raiding the MV Greenpeace, in international waters? Isn't that like guilt by association? "Hi, my name's Commander Jacques LeBastard, we're from the French Authority le Blackjumpsuits. We're here to arrest you for trespassing." "But we're not trespassing." "Ah, but you were planning to, weren't you?" "Who says?" "Well your colleagues are trespassing." "Our colleagues are trespassing, so you're going to arrest *us*?" "Yep, and we're going to smash up your ship and haul you back to Tahiti in handcuffs." I don't know about you, but I don't speak for the actions of MY colleagues. I saw one of my colleagues driving the wrong way down a one way street last week-- does that mean I should be told off by the cops for it? No. By the way, he only didn't become this week's Moron Of The Week because I didn't spot his license plate number. I'd give you his email address, but our email at work is down, due to circumstances far too embarrassing to relate. Honest. No lie. Well, not so embarrassing for me personally; embarrassing for some others of my colleagues - oh, you get the idea, surely? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Last week it was my birthday. 25. Twenty-five. Middle of my twenties. Yikes. The long, thin candles were spread over the top of the cake, making it look like a close-up from a shaver commercial. "The first filter shaves incredibly close... the second even closer!" Had a little family get-together. You know, nothing too fancy, don't want to keep them all in one place too long, or violence tends to break out. But everything was pretty calm. We didn't even have to call in the UN. Just as well really, it probably would have taken them five years to do anything. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - So, another disaster at an airshow. Wow. What an incredible surprise. Next amazing story coming up: Man who hit himself with hammer says "It hurt!!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hands up how many of you have babies. Have you seen the Jolly Jumper? For those not familiar with it, it's a kind of thing that attaches the baby to the door jamb by a spring, and allows a baby who can't yet walk (or even crawl) to bounce around. We got one on Saturday. Isaac loves it. Makes him look like one of the Thunderbirds. Man, I wish I had one for me. Wouldn't that be GREAT? You could climb in and just kinda hang there... bounce around a bit if you were feeling energetic... watch TV... read a book... terrific stuff. How can Western civilisation continue without these things? Someone, somewhere, soon, must build one of these things for adults. Whoever comes up with this will make a fortune. They'll put them in amusement centres. Only a dollar cents for 10 minutes of bouncing around! They could use it at summit meetings, to relax everyone... imagine the leaders of the G7 nations bouncing around the table. "Hey, who cares about wheat subsidies, we're bouncing! Yeah!!!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE TOXIC CUSTARD COMPUTER GLOSSARY PART 11 KILOBYTE I believe it's a weight loss term, not really sure. KEYBOARD A common input device on a computer. Modern keyboards have special circuitry in them to throw in a random typing mistake every about ten }characterq or so, proportional to how\fast you're typing. KEYWORD A word which you'd really like to use in your program, but you can't because the people who wrote the programming language bagsied it first. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCWF is still on the Web! Now with spiffier graphics -- AND we were Eye Candy's Sweet Link of the Day on August 24th! See what the fuss is about! (What fuss?!) Go for the closest to you: http://www.forthnet.gr/humour/tcwf/ http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~cyrec/tcwf/ http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/www_projects/tcwf/ If you prefer the rugged charm of FTP: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/humour/ToxicCustard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (c) 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be distributed without a charge provided no modifications are made. Excerpts by permission please. -- Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia---------------The land of warbling wombats Work: dbowen@cpe.com.au-------> Computer Power Education, Advance R&D Project Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu / DanielBowen@msn.com---TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu Opinions expressed above are mine and mine alone. If you wanna buy them, call This week's assignment: Please complete this joke- "A rabbi and the Cookie Monster walk into a bar..." Best answers next week. Would you trust the French Secret Service with YOUR boat? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the Toxic Custard Workshop Files by Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia Copyright (c) 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