1401-04 (59h95 dist, 3.0 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
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> Prognosticatingly efficient Oracle, you are especially good about
> predicting the future, not just the past.
>
> I'm a meteorologist, that is, a weatherman, and I need your help.
> You've seen the TV weather reporters. Well, I'm the guy who writes
> the words they say. They don't know much about the weather, but I
> sure do. On the other hand, I'm not always a good typist, and
> sometimes a few errors creep into the script.
>
> Last week the script was supposed to say GUSTY WINDS. (Yes, I know it
> looks crude to write in all caps, but that's the way we do it in the
> TV weather business.) Someone's fingers slipped, and it came out
> GUTSY WINOS. The weather announcer caught the error as she was
> reading it, and all the viewers saw was a badly suppressed giggle.
> She figured out the right words, of course, because the vocabulary is
> so limited.
>
> Now I've become the butt of all the "stupid weatherman" jokes that
> anyone can remember. They're even attributing the day that folks had
> to shovel two feet of partly cloudy (that heavy snow back in 1947 in
> Boston) to me, and that was long before I was born! That was *radio*,
> not TV. E. B. Rideout might have done that, not me!
>
> I've been thinking, it just might serve them right if I could get some
> chubby street drunks to show up at the studio. But I don't know any
> of them, not at all. I spend my time watching the sky and the
> computer, not talking to random low-life beggers. I'm afraid that I
> might get hurt or something. Could you somehow make all the
> arrangements? There should be about ten of them, and they should show
> up, bottles of cheap wine in hand, at about 5:30 in the afternoon,
> next Thursday, at Studio B. I'll make sure they get fed, or whatever.
> Just don't promise them Hennessey Three-Star cognac, because I'm not
> that rich. You'll do this for me, right?
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And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
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} I could only get five of them. You can get them all twice, if you like.
} The guest list will include:
} Lisa
} Og
} Tim Chew
} Zadoc
} Zog
}
} You owe The Oracle 10 bottles of Hennessey Three-S...
}
} Okay, that was a bit predictable, wasn't it? What's with all these
} formulaic questions and even-more-formulaic answers lately? What's
} up with that?
}
} Zadoc! Og! Lisa! Get your butts in here now!
}
} Zadoc> Oracle, I sprawl before thee! I am not good enough to kiss
} your...
}
} Yeah, whatever. It's all starting to sound the same.
}
} Og> Or-a-cul make in-jokes.
}
} What?
}
} Og> Or-a-cul make in-jokes.
}
} Yeah, that's been done to death already too, hasn't it?
}
} Og> Or-a-cul say...
}
} Cut the crap. Can we just get out of character for a minute?
}
} Og> What is your problem?
}
} Zadoc> Isn't it obvious? Everything that the in-joke characters can
} possibly do, has already been done.
}
} Og> Everything?
}
} Zadoc> Look through the Oracularities. Zadoc's done every disgusting
} thing that can be done. It's immortalized there. What the f... what
} the heck more is there?
}
} Lisa> Excuse me...
}
} Look, we're supposed to come up with something witty. But even if we do
} say something witty, if it's the same thing over and over it isn't
} witty anymore. I mean, we all laughed at knock-knock jokes when we were
} 5 years old. Do any adults still laugh at them? It's not that they
} aren't funny anymore... it's just that we heard them all, with minor
} variations. All of them. Every last one.
}
} Og> Okay, sure. But come on... you're saying that there isn't ANYTHING
} new that we can possibly do? That's just ridiculous.
}
} Zadoc> Okay, smart guy, you come up with something.
}
} Og> Look, I heard that somebody wanted to shut down the United States
} Patent office. Not some crackpot, but somebody famous... a
} president or something. That was in, like, the early 1900s, I
} think. Can you imagine what the world was like then? No television,
} no computers, no panty-hose, no...
}
} Lisa> Excuse me...
}
} Zadoc> Bill -- I mean, Og -- what has that got to do with this? There
} was no Internet Oracle then either!
}
} Og> My point is that whenever you think you've thought of everything,
} you're getting tired, because there's ALWAYS more that you can
} think of. ALWAYS.
}
} So how are we going to handle this clown... I mean, this supplicant?
}
} Lisa> Hey! [Whistles loudly] EXCUSE ME!
}
} What?
}
} Lisa> Tim Chew isn't an in-joke character... and who the heck is "Zog?"
}
} Zog> Didn't you get the memo?
}
} Lisa> No.
}
} Zog> I'm the baby of Zadoc and Og. Zadoc-Og, Zog. Get it?
}
} Lisa> That's the stupidest thing I ever heard of!
}
} Zog> Why?
}
} Because they're both male!
}
} Og> Because we're both male!
}
} Lisa> Because they're both male!
}
} Zadoc> Because we're both male!
}
} Zog> Hey, I didn't write this sh-
}
} Watch it!
}
} Zog> Sorry. I was saying, I didn't write it. I didn't even read the
} whole thing... maybe it was an alternate-universe type of thing...
} but c'mon, that isn't exactly the strangest thing around here, is
} it?
}
} You know, he has a point.
}
} Zog> Can we take it from the top of scene 1?
}
} Let's just say we did it already.
}
} Tim Chew> Excuse me... am I in this scene?
}
} [Incarnation AllanW]
}
} Aw, what the heck... I guess you DO owe The Oracle 10 bottles of
} Hennessey Three-Star cognac after all! Well, those are the breaks...
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![[IO]](https://kinzler.com/picons/db/domains/org/internetoracle/unknown/face.gif){kind=small}
