**************************************************************************** ### # # ### ##### ## # # # ## ## # # ### ##### ## ### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### # # # # # # # # # ## # #### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### # ## # # # ## ## ## ### # # # # # ### ____________________________________________________________________________ # # ### #### # # #### # # ### #### ##### # # ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### ### ##### # # #### ##### # # ##### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### ### # # # # #### # # ### # # # ##### ##### #### *******NUMBERS 376 TO 380*****************************BY DANIEL BOWEN******* *****Please note, some of the quoted addresses within this file may no***** ***longer be correct. Please email info@toxiccustard.com for information.*** "Busy yet groovy Toxic Custard" ___ ___ ___ === TOXIC CUSTARD __| | |___ http://www.toxiccustard.com === === WORKSHOP FILES ___| | |___| Written by Daniel Bowen === Due to popular demand, The Grooviest Thing in Melbourne is back! Round 11: Just a pair of a couple of sculptures What: Leunig Likenesses Anonymous looking sculptures in Swanston Street Where: Southbank. Swanston Street, between Little Collins and Bourke Streets (next to the giant chessboard) Details: What are these two Whoever designed and Leunigesque figures up built these (and I'm to? Hailing a assuming it was the same water-taxi? Trying to person or people) attract a waiter's probably had in mind some attention? They are incredibly deep and more impressive than meaningful ideas about they really look in the symbolism of it all. this picture, both made from those little Whatever, at least they marble tile bits make the streetscape a usually reserved for bit more interesting. far more sombre decorations, generally in the entrances to impressive buildings. Crank up your Web browser and head for http://www.toxiccustard.com to see and vote for these two groovy things. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DIARY - Sun 14/12/97 - The update Another busy week. Highlights included: * I got a room mate at work. My desk is in a converted conference room, because they ran out of regular desk spots to squeeze people into. After arriving in the morning once or twice to find meetings happening in there (and calmly walking to my desk and settling in, ignoring whoever was gathered in my office!) people seem to have got used to the fact that the room's not available anymore. My room mate arrived on Tuesday, and while the advance warnings about him being a bit noisy don't appear completely justified, he's certainly more lively than many of the people I've worked with. Most of Tuesday he was telling co-workers about his adventures last Saturday night, and how he couldn't remember very much after the Vodka and orange. * Tuesday's session with my driving instructor, which was going to be an evening romp in the peak hour traffic, got postponed because his car was being serviced and it got delivered back to him late! I instead went for a spin later in the evening in my sister's car, and got to experience the joy that is night driving. Surprisingly, I still failed to smash into anything! * I did get the chance to catch up with my instructor on Saturday. Which was good, because I had a very important question to ask him, something regarding driving that I had been extremely curious about. Had he seen "Driving School", that hilarious and quite scary documentary series on the ABC about people learning to drive? Yep, he had. My own driving test is booked in for January 27th, and hopefully I'll do better than Maureen. * On Thursday night we finally sorted out which few dozen members of the human race we'd send Christmas cards to, and got them all addressed and signed, with an appropriate (but frighteningly generic) message in each. Something like "Have a great Christmas and a terrific '98" was the order of the day, with occasional swapping of adjectives, and additional personalised comments just in case some of these people know each other and compare notes. Thank goodness for self-adhesive stamps, otherwise we'd have worn out tongues dry sticking them on all the envelopes. * No more driving in my sister's car - it's a company one, and they've swapped her manual Lancer for an automatic Camry. A promotion of sorts for her - it's got a boot so big that she can't reach all the way into it without climbing in - but since I'm trying for a manual licence, it's not great for me to practice on. So rather than risk losing the amazing ability to move off and switch gears many times in a matter of seconds, I'll try and think of fearless manual car driving friends that I can hassle. * And finally, a reasonably quiet weekend - the driving lesson, a haircut, some city Christmas shopping, the local library, and a park crawl with Isaac. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Out of time. I promise, there will be more Great Vomits of the 20th Century stories up SOON! Keep sending them in! For subscription requests, or removals, send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "subscribe" or "remove" as appropriate. You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1997 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Santa's very own Toxic Custard" ---***** **** * * **** Toxic Custard Workshop Files * * * * * * Number 377, 22nd December 1997 * * * * * *** Written by Daniel Bowen -----*---****-*****-*----- http://www.toxiccustard.com -------------- DIARY - Tue 16/12/97 - Suddenly running Suddenly, I was running. The tiled walls of the corridor became a blur, as I scrambled towards the end. There were people all around - some walking, some running in the opposite direction to me. And worst, some walking the same direction as me, in my way but oblivious to what was happening, and to my urgency. I reached the end of the corridor, and leapt up the steps, two or three at a time. A woman and a teenage girl were doing the same, just ahead of me, but slower. This was no time for dawdling, hurry! I almost found a gap and got past them, I think I may have bumped one of them. "Sorry!" I gasped back at them. I got near the top. My eyes flitted upwards to the screen. I could scarcely believe my eyes. It couldn't be possible. The laws of physics don't allow this, do they? But it was true. The 8:20 Lilydale express. ON TIME. That had never happened before. I kept moving, towards the nearest door. It was still open. I had made it. I looked back to the girl and the woman. They were now running towards the door too. I stood halfway in, halfway out, making sure the driver wouldn't speed off without them, and let them board, before doing the same and finding a seat. The doors closed, the train set off. Those of us who had run for it looked relieved. I don't usually have to run for this train, it's usually at least three or four minutes late. We all settled down into our seats, to read our newspapers and books, listen to our headphones, stare out the window, or just look cool. Except the girl. By the time the train sped through Burnley, she had started to look worried. Wrong train. Or at least, right train but wrong passenger. This is something I've done before. Bolted up (or down) the stairs and onto the wrong train, because I didn't check the screen. I had been lucky though. The train I ended up on went to the station I was going to - just by a more circuitous route. The girl was not so lucky. She wanted Glen Waverley, and short of forcing the doors and leaping dramatically from the speeding train as if in some wholly unrealistic action movie, she was going to have to backtrack from the next stop. She asked and got advice from a woman, and another who was getting off at the next stop. Catch a train back to Burnley, they told her. Did she find her Glen Waverley train? I don't know, I hope so. She'll be more careful next time. As for me, despite the freak on time running of the 8:20 Lilydale express this morning, I still made it to work on time. DIARY - Mon 22/12/97 - Christmas time Yowsers. It's almost Christmas again, which means the year is practically over. Quite frankly I'm amazed at how fast it's gone. We're all ready for Christmas. We've bought all the presents, we've sent all the cards. Well, okay, so I personally didn't do most of it - like most married men in the western world, when I say "we've" done it all, I mean my wife did just about all of it. Everything except forging my signature and buying her own presents. Actually Lori did buy one of her own presents, but that was just a freak occurrence. I bought everything else, and with a bit of luck she has no idea what she's getting. She'll be reading this, so I'm not going to spill the beans here. Meanwhile the Christmas festivities have been going strong. The office Christmas tree appeared about a week ago - with lights of course, I'm working for an electricity company right now. And we had a massive three course, four hour lunch last Friday. One of those ones where we all go off to lunch to eat, drink and be merry, and the only people who even bother to come back to the office are those just picking up their bags to take home. On Sunday after attending a toddler's birthday party and holding a "Wine, Cheese, Wallace And Gromit-athon", we headed down to the park to see Santa Claus arrive by helicopter on the cricket oval. He climbed out waving, keeping his hand wisely below the level of the blades - what a picture it would have made if he hadn't eh? He climbed aboard a kind of sleigh thing on skateboard wheels, which carried him through the carpark and into another bit of the park, pulled by a dozen Samoyed dogs, and pushed by a couple of rather big blokes from the Samoyed Club. Santa climbed out of the sleigh and made his way down the line of kids, giving each a greeting and a bag of lollies, though he missed Lori's now prominent "inner child". I didn't notice if he was sweating or not, but in that suit, I wouldn't be surprised. His good work for the day done, Santa then got back in his sleigh and rode off back through the carpark. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - New this week, more Vomit stories on the Web! http://www.toxiccustard.com/features/vomit/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That's all for now. If you celebrate Christmas, have a good one. If you celebrate some other holiday, have a good one of those. If you don't celebrate anything, that's your choice. Whichever category you fall into, make sure you read lots of Toxic Custard... http://www.toxiccustard.com/ For subscription requests, or removals, send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "subscribe" or "remove" as appropriate. You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1997 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "New Year's Toxic Custard" TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES http://www.toxiccustard.com Number 378, 29/12/97 Written by Daniel Bowen --------------------------------------------------------------------- DIARY - Sun 28/12/97 - Christmas and aftermath Well, all in all, it's been a great Christmas long weekend. Lucky next week is broken up by New Year's Day, otherwise going back to a full work week would be a bit of a blow. On Christmas Day we awoke to the inevitable pile of presents under the tree, and proceeded at a leisurely pace to open them all. I think we all did pretty well, just about all the presents had been very well chosen. Which is good - it's always a relief when you don't have to give them all to your local charity because there's nothing you like! After that we went over to my mum's place for Christmas lunch. It was pretty warm, not sweltering - about 35 degrees (that's 95 degrees for you people in the Third World still using Fahrenheit), so we sat around in the garden and munched on turkey (or was it chicken?) and ham and mountains of other various Christmassy foods. Again the swapping of presents took place. If anybody's reading who doesn't get Boxing Day off, and is wondering what Boxing Day is for then ummm.... I don't know. I don't think anybody really does. But it's as good an excuse as any to have another day off. Certainly the name is confusing, since it's Boxing Day when seventy thousand odd people go along to the cricket at the 'G. Maybe they in Melbourne they should call it Cricket Day. And of course in South Australia it's called Proclamation Day, because they just have to be different, don't they? We spent the rest of the long weekend relaxing in the time-honoured tradition, with occasional expeditions out to see what bargains could be had at the post-Christmas sales. My general conclusion is that if you're lucky enough to actually want to buy something that's heavily discounted, then good for you. But there appears to be an awful lot of crap that the stores put out in the discount bins that wouldn't normally sell, that they're hoping will be bought by people who are looking for a bargain. "Wow, look, Garbazanoid Blasters '95 on CD-ROM, only three dollars!" "But you don't like video games!" "But it's only three dollars!" "But we don't even have a computer!" "It's been marked down from forty dollars! That's thirty-seven dollars savings! That's ummm... well that's a lot of percent, let me tell you! It's a bargain, a bargain I tell you! Wow, they're not kidding when they say they're sales have genuine savings! I'm not missing this opportunity to save thirty-seven dollars! In fact here's another one - I'll take two!" At the moment we've been trying to clear a lot of this kind of crap out of the house, with some success, as the two bags and one box behind me filled with stuff ready to go to the Opp Shop are testimony to. What we are looking for is a new fridge with an adequate capacity for our fast growing family. As it happens we've already more-or-less settled on the particular model, and it doesn't appear to be one of the ones discounted very much, if at all. It's incredible to think that 1997 is almost over. Wednesday is New Year's Eve, and I'm determined to see the year out with a bang. I'm not even sure what's on, but if nothing else eventuates, it'll probably just be Southbank and/or the City Square enjoying the fireworks. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DIARY - Mon 29/12/97 - Toilet humour (or "Honey, I broke the toilet") Reports are coming in from reputable sources that our neighbour has broken his toilet. Our neighbours in the flat downstairs are an old woman and her son, and quite frankly they can be a right pain in the arse sometimes. Their capacity for watching the TV all night with the volume turned right up knows no bounds, and although they have always turned it down when asked, they always make it sound like it's a big imposition - like me asking it to be turned down so I can sleep at 3am is being completely unreasonable. He always leaves the door to the stairwell open, despite the notice (and verbal requests) asking for it to be kept shut. When it's open, birds, moths, flies and other assorted forms of wildlife get in and flutter around before either becoming trapped or dropping dead. Oh, but he closes his own door all right - in fact, he slams it, every time. They never empty their mailbox of junk mail, so after a few days their junk mail eases its way out of the box and gets blown around the yard. While most of the neighbours take turns to haul the bins out on Tuesday nights, he never does. He parks in other people's car spots. He smokes in bed, so if we dare to have our bedroom window open for some fresh air, the smoke wafts in instead. Interestingly, he sometimes works as a cab driver, which probably explains a lot of the stories you hear about cab drivers. Most of the drivers I get are pretty good, but I guess a single bad one can stick in your mind. And I'm just betting that this guy isn't the best cab driver in the world. Anyway, this work means he comes and goes (and slams doors and smokes) at all hours of the day and night. All of these factors combine to make him a very irritating person. And for this reason, I have no qualms in making fun of the guy because he's fat. No, he's bigger than fat, he's enormous. We don't know his name - so we refer to him as Alexei, as in Alexei Sayle, as in "Who is that fat bastard?" He's so big that when they moved in, the landlady had to have the sink in the toilet taken out because he couldn't fit. And today, apparently, he has actually broken the toilet. Snapped the bowl off its base at a 45 degree angle. Quite an achievement, if you ask me. How embarrassment. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - That's all the Toxic Custard for a couple of weeks. TCWF will return on 19/1/98 with... umm.. oh you know, whatever. But in the mean time, check this new stuff on the Web page! * The Toxic Custard Calendar! A great little piece of wallpaper for your computer's desktop... - - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com * The pre-Christmas report "Only one more sleep til Christmas!" - - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1997/12.html#24/12/97 * Pictures to go with the above Christmas diary entry - - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1997/12.html#28/12/97 ... and look for other new stuff on the Web page. PS. Look for my article, allegedly in January's "Portable Computing Direct Shopper" in the Software section... though I haven't seen it myself because it'll be a month or two before it makes it across the pond. (Now look who's in the Third World!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Happy New Year. See you next year. For subscription requests, or removals, send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "subscribe" or "remove" as appropriate. You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1997 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "This is not Toxic Custard" This is not Toxic Custard. Toxic Custard is on holiday until 19/1/98. This is just a quick note to remind you that you're still on this pesky mailing list. 378a - 5/1/98 --------------------------------------------------------------------- My New Year's Resolutions: * To help people all over the world live together in peace and harmony * To get my neighbours evicted * To tidy up my desk to the point where I can see it * To see and take pictures of more of the world * To defy the odds and get my driving license, preferably without crashing into anything. Or at least, without killing anybody. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * Perhaps this will be a regular thing: the January 1998 calendar - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com * Old but good: the Toxic Custard History Of The World - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/history/ * Get your fortune told - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/order/predict.html * The Toxic Custard FAQ - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/misc/about/faq.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For subscription requests, or removals, send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "subscribe" or "remove" as appropriate. You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Not Toxic Custard Again" This is not Toxic Custard. Toxic Custard is on holiday until 19/1/98. This is just a quick note to remind you that you're still on this pesky mailing list. (No, I don't know why a few of you got duplicates last week.) 378b - 12/1/98 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Coming Next week... THE YEAR 2031 Technology is faster, more sophisticated, and cheaper. But people still can't program their videos. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * This week's news: Dead possum falls - with visual confirmation. - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/01.html#12/1/98 * Old but good, and recently updated. The Dictionary of Computing. - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/computing/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For subscription requests, or removals, send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "subscribe" or "remove" as appropriate. You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Futuristic Toxic Custard" ====== ==== || || === Number 379, 19/1/98 || || || || || ||= Written by Daniel Bowen ||oxic ====ustard ====== orkshop ||iles www.toxiccustard.com Happy New Year, and welcome to Toxic Custard for 1998... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE YEAR 2031 - Part 1 It was the year 2031. Nothing much had changed, really. Technology was faster, more sophisticated and cheaper, and people still didn't know how to program their videos. Something new and incredible was being done with microchips every day. They'd figured out how to give everyone on the planet affordable Web access, and if they could just figure out how to give them all affordable food, the human race had a real chance of going places. The Middle East was still a powderkeg and nobody would back down over Northern Ireland. More significantly, McDonald's was in real danger of reaching the critical mass of hamburger restaurants, and were about to begin their plan to diversify into pizza. Talentless saps still ruled the music charts. And everyone was still burning up the world's increasingly precious oil stocks like there was no tomorrow. But on the space exploration front, NASA was kicking arse. Although they'd developed computer graphics simulators so realistic they could virtually just simulate all their missions instead of actually conducting them, they knew that if anybody ever found out, the government would want all the money back. So they kept on sending up rockets. In 2012, one entrepreneur had even organised a civilian excursion onto the moon. A kind of moon picnic for anyone who could afford the astoundingly expensive fare. It had been a bit of a disaster though - halfway to the moon somebody had pressed the wrong button, and the hundreds of sandwiches had gone flying off into space. Everyone had got back safely, but boy were they hungry when they touched down. Nobody had tried that since. A manned mission to Mars had finally gone ahead in 2015. It had proven beyond all doubt that there really were no little green men - not that we should discount the existence of red dust creatures or something equally improbable and not perceptible to man. After this, NASA started to look towards Venus for the next mission. Unmanned craft had dropped in before, but they had been so primitive that they provided little information, and certainly nothing as juicy as the kinds of pictures they'd got from Mars. Another, more sophisticated, unmanned craft arrived to take a look around in 2023, but all it had managed to find was the kind of visibility that a blind man with a blanket over his head might find in a sand storm. It was not a nice place to be, and the unmanned craft, rather woefully lacking in the heavy-armoured-protection department, had all its useful scientific and communication bits ripped apart within minutes by the force of the particles flying around in the atmosphere. Since getting a service technician out there to repair the thing was trickier than getting a plumber on a Sunday, they had to abandon the mission. But NASA was determined to try again. They wanted to know what was down there on Venus. If they could get some good information on it, they'd be able to argue for funding for landings on the rest of all the planets. Heck, at this rate they could have the solar system wrapped up by the end of the century. So they began their search. A search for someone who would go down onto Venus, go down to that cold desolate unforgiving dump of a planet. Someone who would risk a lonely death for the glory of science, for the glory being the first onto a new, if extremely crappy, planet. A search for The Stupidest Man Alive. Actually, it would be a search for the Two Stupidest Men Alive. A crew of two, the experts reasoned, would stand the best chance of survival. They could help each other if there was any trouble. And they could play chess and Scrabble during the voyage to keep each other sane. The scientists decided they wanted men, and men only, for the mission. Not because they were worried about their female astronauts' physical or mental ability to perform the mission. But because they suspected that any woman with any sense would realise it was practically a suicide mission. No, this mission was to be powered by testosterone. ... More next week ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MOST IRRELEVANT SPAM OF THE WEEK AWARD I file most of the unwanted advertising e-mail (spam) that I get (and I get plenty) away in a folder called "Cranks", in the hope that one day justice will come to these annoying twerps. Preferably justice in the sense of painful torture and intrusive bombardment of irrelevant advertising on them, for the rest of their lives. This will probably never happen, so meanwhile, here is the first of an occasional series of profiles on the most irrelevant spam I have got recently. I'll include any contact details they happen to include in the mail. If anybody reading this happens to feel like giving them a taste of their own medicine as far as unwanted (but extremely polite, naturally) phone calls or personal visits are concerned, please feel free. Advertising: Jewish Personals, www.jewishpersonals.com Irrelevant because: Uhh, well, I'm not actually Jewish. I'm not even single. And you can bet it's only for people in North America. Company: Jewish Communication Network Contact: Deborah Moss, 19 W.44 St, New York, NY 10036, USA Phone +1-212-302-3366. Fax +1-212-730-1681. E-mail info@jewishpersonals.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Also new this week on the Web site... Diary: I've been thinking - - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/01.html#15/1/98 Great Vomits of the Twentieth Century... at last, an update, featuring classic spew stories from two of my friends, my brother-in-law, my wife, and loads of other people that I'm not too sure I'd ever want to meet! - - - > http://www.toxiccustard.com/features/vomit/details04.html (Keep sending your vomit stories to spew@toxiccustard.com ... I'll get them all onto the site eventually, I promise! Mention if you'd like to remain anonymous.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Coming next week... celebrate Australia Day with a bunch of new answers in The Toxic Custard Guide To Australia! Comments? Questions? Concerns? Hit that reply button right now. Wish you weren't on this very silly list? *Don't* hit that reply button! Send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "remove". You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Australian Toxic Custard" === /== | | | === Number 380, Australia Day 1998 |oxic \==ustard \/\/orkshop |=iles Written by Daniel Bowen ----------------------------------------- http://www.toxiccustard.com *EEEK!* My driving test is tomorrow!!! Tune in on Tuesday arvo for the result! http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/01.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE YEAR 2031 - Part 2 And so the search began for the two men to go to Venus. NASA worked out a way to advertise globally for the astronauts, by organising a contra deal with Coke involving... shall we say... swirly red writing on the mission's rocket, and an agreement to film an advert on the surface of Venus extolling the virtues of a certain soft drink. "Walk on Venus!" the adverts proclaimed. "You could represent the entire human race, when we land on Venus! And enjoy Coke!" Like all Coke ads, there was tiny writing that appeared at the bottom of the TV screens for about two seconds, only this time apart from letting everybody know who owned the copyright and trademarks, it also included a disclaimer about any successful participant probably dying a cold and lonely death in deep space should anything go wrong, the alarmingly high likelihood of this occurring, and a clause entitling NASA and Coke to the first rights on any subsequent film, television, literary, video game, pop-up book, or poetical adaptations of the event. Not many people noticed this small print however, probably because it was illegible even using the latest HD-TV with special image enhancing software, and because TVs weren't yet intelligent enough that they could warn their owners that entering this particular contest was a bloody stupid thing to do. All over the planet, blokes everywhere imagined themselves landing on Venus, then returning to Earth, a global hero, with the prospects of huge amounts of cash reward, and not to mention being the objects of desire for every woman (and/or man, depending on preference) on the planet. All over the planet, women everywhere rolled their eyes at the prospect of blokes everywhere imagining themselves on Venus, and pondered how small their penises and brains would have to be to volunteer for such a foolhardy mission. But NASA got application forms (find them in specially marked packs of Coke!) by the truckload. Millions of them. Getting them all delivered was the biggest postal operation since the Craig Shergold postcard thing hotted up. And sorting them all out was a nightmare, even with the sophisticated optical and database system NASA had bought to handle the applications. The system would scan and process all the applications. It would store them all, and analyse them against specific criteria defined by NASA's top experts, and cross-check against the new Global Medical System that kept track of every human's health details. It would cross-check against known mental and educational records. It would use highly complex algorithms to ensure that the final two selected men fitted every requirement for the mission exactly. Highly paid consultants had designed the system to be flawless, and NASA management put its faith in the system absolutely, to choose the two men who would give humanity its best chance of a successful mission to Venus. But the system had a bug. ... More next week ... If you missed last week's episode, see http://www.toxiccustard.com/features/2031/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Yes, it's Australia Day. As promised, here are some new answers from The Toxic Custard Guide To Australia... The Mansfield Moonlight Surfer, somewhere in America wrote: Why is Ayers Rock, a tourist sight, located so far out in the outback that you have to take a train to get there and then there is no major city to screw around in after looking at the rock. I hate waiting around for the return train in a burg so small I can walk thru it without seeing any action. They have considered moving Ayer's Rock (now known as Uluru) to a more populated area, but then they realised there wouldn't be any space for it in a more populated area. It is, after all, quite massively big. They were also worried that the large number of bulldozers and other assorted earth-moving vehicles they'd need to do the job would make it prohibitively expensive. If you don't want to make the journey out into the wilderness to see it, you could always get a picture of it instead. It might lack a bit on the atmosphere though. Vlad, doubtless somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, wrote: Does the water circulate the opposite way when you flush the toilet Down Under? - Well, which way does it go where you are? I looked at this topic after I got back from the USA in '96. The general consensus back then amongst those readers more familiar with the vagaries of physics than I, was that when you flush the toilet, the chances of the water going clockwise or anti-clockwise are about equal, no matter which hemisphere you're in. If you do a toilet flushing survey wherever you live, you'll probably find that the water goes down both ways about equally. Mike, location unknown, wrote: i am desperately looking for any and all pictures of Yahoo Serious. There seem to be none on the net anywhere. i am sad. That's because Yahoo Serious is a nobody. As far as I can see, he made two movies, grabbed a bunch of money off whatever movie studio was dumb enough to give it to him, then legged it with the cash. I'm thinking of embarking on a similar strategy myself. You might find something on him in the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) or perhaps somebody out there runs a web site about 80s people who have faded (or sprinted) into obscurity? If you badger Greg Bulmash of the Washed-UPdate (www.bulmash.com) enough he might do some digging for you. See more new questions, lots of old ones, and ask your own! http://www.toxiccustard.com/australia/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MOST IRRELEVANT SPAM OF THE WEEK AWARD For some reason, a lot of the unsolicited junk e-mail that I get is actually inviting me to send unsolicited junk e-mail of my own. Why on Earth I would want to join in an activity I find so annoying, I don't know. Advertising: "Ready Aim Fire 2.0", a bulk e-mailer. Only $299 (USD presumably, though as per usual, they don't say, and another $3 postage and handling...) for a tool that I can use to annoy millions of people with! The sales pitch: A US Post stamp costs 32 US cents (so???). E-mail costs nothing, therefore you need THEIR product. Uhhh... yeah. Right. Apparently this is the sure-fire way to instant riches. Irrelevant because: I have never professed an interest in indulging in this type of activity. This is another one of those spams for which the criteria is that (a) they have your e-mail address and (b) you're a human being from the planet Earth. Company: NetPromos Contact: 11220 S. Stanford Ave, Los Angeles CA 90059, USA Fax +1-(213) 777-4195. Phone +1-(213)757-9032 58197416@mci.net though I bet it bounces. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Next week: Find out who's off to Venus. Wish you weren't receiving this thing? *Don't* hit that reply button! Send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject header "remove". You should receive e-mail confirmation within 24 hours. To get your subscription moved, send a "remove" from the old address, and a "subscribe" from the new one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed for non- profit purposes provided no modifications are made and this notice is included. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Toxic Custard Workshop Files - http://www.toxiccustard.com - is Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia. Excerpts may be distributed without charge provided no modifications are made and this notice is appended. For subscription and back-issue information, send email to info@toxiccustard.com