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Internet Oracularities #342

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342, 342-01, 342-02, 342-03, 342-04, 342-05, 342-06, 342-07, 342-08, 342-09, 342-10


Usenet Oracularities #342    (16 votes, 2.8 mean)
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 08:19:54 -0500

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Send your ratings of these Oracularities on a scale of 1 = "not funny"
to 5 = "very funny" with the volume number to oracle-vote on iuvax, eg:
   342
   2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

342   16 votes 0a231 67300 56500 08260 33343 50452 13732 03247 24640 13561
342   2.8 mean  2.7   1.8   2.0   2.9   3.1   2.9   3.1   3.9   2.8   3.2


342-01    (0a231 dist, 2.7 mean)
Selected-By: Christopher Pettus <cep@apple.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> What are the top ten opinions about me?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} 1. You have committed many major blunders, but you are still capable of
}    emitting strong bursts of electromagnetic radiation from your nose.
}
} 2. You have a light fruity taste, excellent with burned toast and
}    anchovies.
}
} 3. You are as dramatic as an eel in heat.
}
} 4. It is not advisable to attempt to pass you on the road when you are
}    driving your red Mercedes Doom Car and swilling black vodka.
}
} 5. You are not as smelly as a dead fish that has been lying in the sun
}    for a week.
}
} 6. One should not engage in sexual intercourse with you without having
}    drunken several cases of black vodka.
}
} 7. Your girlfriend is a boy, but you haven't noticed yet.
}
} 8. If you were any shorter, you'd be a potato pancake.
}
} 9. We don't like your taste in X-rated videos.
}
} 10. Still, as far as incompetant overbearing tin-plated munchkins go,
}     you're not bad.


342-02    (67300 dist, 1.8 mean)
Selected-By: Christopher Pettus <cep@apple.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> o great oracle, o wise oracle, o oracle whose discount tickets
> to disneyworld are bigger than everyone else's, o oracle whose
> tanks are larger than those in china, o oracle whose socks are
> less smelly than your average college jock, o oracle who keeps
> the lights on in the fridge even after the door is shut,
>
> what is the square root of a cheese sandwich, and does it wear
> lingerie? and if it does, who was it's mother? and did it ever
> read beowulf in 12th grade english? and did it finish high school?
> and does it eat chocolate? and how many miles does it get to the
> gallon? and is it a monochrome monitor? and has it ever had a dog
> named sebastian? and if it did, where is it now?
>
> seeking enlightenment

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} A cheese bin.
} Yes.
} Its mother was Donald Duck.
} No, but it read A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in the original Urdu.
} It never finished high school, but once it blew up a Montgomery Wards
}   store.
} It expels chocolate from its ears on occasion.
} 151 miles per gallon (of chocolate milk)
} It is a bisexual dominator.
} It never had a dog at all, but the dog's name *was* Sebastian.


342-03    (56500 dist, 2.0 mean)
Selected-By: Christopher Pettus <cep@apple.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Oh thrilling and ruby Oracle, I humble myself in the face of your
> pint-size mushroom woman.
>
> Elvis just sent me email.  Said he read my postings on
> sci.graphics.messianic, soc.startrek.mandarin,
> soc.national.permissiveness, and sci.smalltalk.windsurfing, and that he
> had decided that I was the Great Chihuahua of Tennassee and I should
> take up his (Elvis') guitar and sing his songs forevermore.
>
> Now, I really don't like Elvis' music.  Do I really have to do it?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}      Great Chihuahua (pronounced properly as CHEE-who-a-who-a), give me
} a break!  When the Great Chihuahua was alive, I used to speak with him
} daily.  Elvis, once again, is misinformed.  You don't smell anything
} like the Great Chihuahua (something you should be infinitely thankfull
} for). What Elvis really called you was the great Achoo-a-choo-a.  He
} meant for you to quit sneezing on his oversized belly.
}      As for Elvis' songs, nobody ever really liked them anyway.
}
}      As a special bonus since you were one of the first 100 callers, I
} will let you in on a little secret.  Elvis and Ronald McDonald are
} really the same person.


342-04    (08260 dist, 2.9 mean)
Selected-By: John.McCartney@ebay.sun.com ( The Lion of Symmetry )

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> So I have this guy, he's a professor in data-analysis, and more than a
> few theories to his credit, and he's kind of an asshole, as he is not
> supposed to be a sympathetic character; but when the people at SETI
> approach him with transmissions they have recieved, he will translate
> them and subject humankind to no end of trouble.  Thus an agency from
> the future has sent back a small box to occupy him, to keep his
> attention away from the SETI transmissions.  The box is sent back five
> million years, to be thrust up in continental strata where it will be
> found by the military.
> It is labelled Important Data, and there is no one more suited to
> figure out the nature of the data than he.  They shut him into a base
> with enough personel to get the data from the cube and try to translate
> it.  After many years, though, they have no luck, until a sudden
> inspiration on the professor's part leads him to the successful
> translation of the data.  This only leads him to a small smug message
> telling him that the function of the cube was to keep him occupied
> until just before his death, when it would be too late for him to
> figure out what it was they are preventing him from doing.  The sudden
> inspiration should be the same one that allowed him to translate the
> SETI transmissions in the other, now vanished, timeline.
>
> Any suggestions?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} This professor is indeed in quite a pickle, isn't he!  If memory serves
} me right, the SETI transmit uses the same frequency as the Kbtaltishnz
} Free Radio over in the 7th dimension.  A buddy of mine runs the Top 40
} Countdown there each mellinium (measured in nanoglyphs) so there is
} probably a way for you get on their emailing list.
}
} Send a note to max_headroom@network23.7thdimen.org with thw word 'help'
} in the Subject: line, and the words "Grovel grovel Coke(tm) Addict" as
} the body of the message.
}
} The only thing that YOU can do in the meantime is to shave your head,
} pierce every square inch of your body with pop rivets, consume five (5)
} gallons of glow-in-the-dark paint, lay on a tanning bed for fifteen
} hours and run thru the campus at sundown, yelling "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO
} SOMETHING!!!" repeatedly until caught.
}
} You owe the Oracle a VHS copy of you in action.


342-05    (33343 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: mzintl@plasma.ps.uci.edu (Michael Zintl)

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

>      O Wise and Godawful Oracle, Thou who wrote the source code for
> TELNET, Thou who hast hacked DARPANet and Century House, I beseech Thee,
>      I have been womanless for seven months.  I can now smell estrogen
> at fifty yards, against the wind.  I am seized by urges that it takes
> all my strength to fight down--I want desperately to remove my clothes
> and run around on all fours, barking at the moon and foaming at the
> mouth.
>      If this situation does not change very, very soon, the top of my
> head is going to come off, everyone around me will hear a faint "boing"
> as something snaps inside my head, and I'm going to go on a twelve-state
> psychotic mass murder spree.  Not necessarily in that order.  Help!
> What can I do?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Godawful?  You must have me confused with Jimmy Swaggart.
}
} Your condition is a common one, undoubted brought on by the perfume
} "Rabid" which you smelled in a mall you recently visited. This scent is
} made from the roots of the wolfbane plant and is outlawed in all
} sensible countries.
}
} There is a temporary cure, but it has been outlawed in public and
} declared a venial sin by the Pope.  It involves reading material such
} as the magazine of top floor apartments or movies without plots (and I
} am not talking about David Lynch here).
}
} The permanent cure is not simple. It involves many steps and several
} large applications of hard earned currency.  I would explain it to you
} except that I see that you will not need it.  You will be found by two
} women next week in the woods while running about naked on all fours
} howling at the moon. They will ask if you are game and you will answer
} in the affirmative before realizing that they are hunters.  They will
} shoot you and _then_ mount you.
}
} You owe the Oracle another old joke.


342-06    (50452 dist, 2.9 mean)
Selected-By: well!well!ewhac@apple.com (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Oh Oracle cat dict.txt | grep "Great Words" >/dev/oracle
>
> Where is the "Bit Bucket"? Where do thoes poor bits sent to /dev/null
> go?
>
> Go they go to Bit Heaven? Or do they just Blink out?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}


342-07    (13732 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel Klein) <dvk@SEI.CMU.EDU>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Who makes it doesn't need it.
> Who buys it doesn't want it.
> Who uses it doesn't notice it.
> What is it?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Hmmm.  Thou art posing a riddle to the Oracle?  Should be an easy one
} considering my omniscience.  I'll just consult my Oracle's Book of All
} Known Conundrums and Curly Questions.
} <thunk>....<flip..flip...flip>
} Ahhh.... here it is:
} Politicians.  Nobody needs them, so whoever made them did so only out
} of malice and general dislike of the human race in general.
} Ohh, sorry!  There's more.  Well, the second bit sort of rules out
} politicians, doesn't it?   I'd certainly want a politician if I paid
} good money for one.
} <flip..flip>
} Oh, I think I'll need the second volume.  Wait a sec, I'll drive in the
} other semi-trailer.
} <crrrunch.....brrrrrrrrr.....psshhhhhh>
} Here it is:
}
} Vax VMS.
}
} You owe the Oracle 40 gallons of diesel fuel and a decent operating
} system.


342-08    (03247 dist, 3.9 mean)
Selected-By: arf@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (The Nefarious Scotto)

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Oh great and wise Oracle, whose knowledge of events past and future
> got him awesome grades in school, tell me if gravity will ever be
> understood and controlled by mere mortals.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Silly human, the Oracle was begotten and not made!  I did not need to
} be taught to foresee, since I even foresaw learning in the first place.
} Since you did not realize this, your question begins to make sense.
} Actually, mere mortals have understood and controlled gravity for
} years, but they have suffered for this power.
}
} The exemplar of the gravity researchers of the 1940s and 1950s was a
} certain W. E. Coyote, of Los Angeles, California.  The legendary
} scientist accidentally discovered the following law in early 1947:
}
} Anvillary Corollary to Newtonian Physics:
}     o  anvils accelerate either faster or slower than other falling
}        bodies.
}
} By early 1952, after countless trials with his assistant, R. Runner,
} Coyote discovered:
}
} Second Anvillary Corollary:
}     o  the acceleration of anvils depends solely on how much pain they
}        can cause:  if by accelerating slower than other bodies, they can
}        land on top of that body after it reaches a surface, then they
}        will do so.
}
} By late 1952, Coyote, using himself as a subject, discovered the
} principle that almost won him a Nobel Prize:
}
} Coyote's Law of Falling Bodies:
}     o  bodies falling from a great height will do two things:
}        o  they will have precisely 2.5 seconds to run in place, without
}           falling, to the nearest protrusion; and
}        o  if no protrusion exists, their heads will initially fall
}           slower than the rest of themselves.
}
} By 1954, however, Coyote was a physical and emotional wreck.  Feeling
} that he was on the verge of a breakthrough in physics, he filmed many
} of his experiments in which he tried to master gravity.  Unfortunately,
} Coyote's fertile imagination got the best of him.  He became convinced
} that Runner was not only trying to drive him crazy, but also that
} Runner, with the help of Warner Brothers, was actually changing the
} laws of gravity from minute to minute.  Coyote was eventually
} institutionalized and became the model for Saleiri in the musical
} "Amadeus."
}
} In sum, gravity is just too heavy a subject for mortals to bear.
}
} You owe the Oracle a plate of free birdseed.


342-09    (24640 dist, 2.8 mean)
Selected-By: John.McCartney@ebay.sun.com ( The Lion of Symmetry )

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> Oh most mighty Oracle, you who graces the very fabric of reality, you
> who most lovingly has snugglebunnies with Lisa, please enlighten this
> weary slave of academia:
>
> What are the ten best ways to correct the attitudes of an entire lab of
> arrogant, pubescent, idiot froshling biology majors in such a way that
> I don't get fired as their lab teaching assistant??

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Practical jokes are always a hit with arrogant froshlings. The big
} trick is not getting fired, so you have to make it appear as if someone
} else played the trick on you and your class.  Biology lends itself to
} really twisted jokes, so it sounds like you are in for some fun.  In an
} ancient and fairly well forgotten tradition, I will ask you a riddle
} and let you figure out if it means anything.
}
} What common dissectables could leap forth from other common
} dissectables?
}
} or for the mentally disabled, since the Oracle is an equal opportunity
} soothsayer,
}
} How far would a frog leap if it had been sewn into the chest cavity of
} a dead cat overnight?
}
} No one ever said fortunetelling was pleasant. So it is with Biology
} too.
}
} You owe the Oracle a video tape of the above proceedings. Mail it to
} America's Funniest Cruel and Sick Jokes.


342-10    (13561 dist, 3.2 mean)
Selected-By: Klone (aka Daniel Klein) <dvk@SEI.CMU.EDU>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> mzngly stt rcl, whs kys m nt ft t prss, whr hv my vwls gn?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yoouur vooweels aaree . . . Heey!  Cuut thaat oouut!  Yoouu
} shaall paay deeaarly foor thiis!
}
} Yoouu oowee thee Ooraaclee aa neew keeybooaard.


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