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Internet Oracularities #903

Goto:
903, 903-01, 903-02, 903-03, 903-04, 903-05, 903-06, 903-07, 903-08, 903-09, 903-10


Internet Oracularities #903    (112 votes, 3.1 mean)
Compiled-By: "Steve Kinzler" <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 08:51:19 -0500 (EST)

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on an integer scale of 1 ("very poor") to 5 ("very good") with the
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   903
   2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

903  112 votes 48Gzn 3pNt6 7wCob 4oxCd cnoto bBFe9 5iyup dnqAe 6rnCi nCtg6
903   3.1 mean  3.6   3.1   3.0   3.3   3.3   2.8   3.5   3.1   3.3   2.5


903-01    (48Gzn dist, 3.6 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> Hey Orrie! I've been told that you answer questions! Here goes one:
>
> Which are this season's seven wonders of the world?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} THE WINDOWS OF 95: Gasp in awe at how so little of any use can take
} up so much hard disk space.
}
} THE HANGING BOSOMS OF ANNA NICOLE SMITH: These have baffled the
} greatest minds on the planet. What keeps them up? What is the source
} of the strange fascination they exert on elderly billionaires?
} Scientists are queueing up to do practical research.
}
} THE SERIES OF VOYAGER: Apparently in its third season. No man alive
} knows how this is possible.
}
} THE TRIAL OF OJ: It's a wonder he got off.
}
} THE GREAT .SIG OF KIBO: The only man made signature that can be seen
} from space.
}
} THE SPAM OF RHODES: The most reposted Usenet article of all time.
}
} THE ORACLE OF INTERNET: Truly the piece de resistance of the modern
} world. Nothing else can compare to its magnificence.
}
} You owe the Oracle the 7 Wonders of the Web.


903-02    (3pNt6 dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: Mike Nolan <nolan@celery.tssi.com>

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

> O mighty masterful Oracle, wisest of wise and sagest of sage, long of
> stature and short of cash, able to get Marketing and Engineering to
> agree with Production sometimes...
>
> I keep getting free CD-ROMS in the mail: Motorola, AOL, Texas
> Instruments, MSN, and many others. I don't have a CD-ROM drive, and I
> don't really want what's on the disks.
>
> What can I do with these things?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I'm actually glad you asked.  I've been working on a book called "The
} Many Hidden Uses of CD-ROMS".  Here's a short excerpt:
}
} 1. Classy collars for pencil-necked chihuahuas
}
} 2. Attention-getting earings
}
} 3. Enviro-friendly temperature regulators (glue those babies to your
} house and they reflect all that hot sunlight.  Of course, this will
} probably scorch your grass, but you can't have everything)
}
} 4. Picture frames
}
} 5. Ninja throwing discs (for added effectiveness, cut sharp points
} along outer rim)
}
} 6. High-tech wind chimes
}
} 7. Party games galore (disc toss, wickets for marbles croquet, hang the
} disc on the peg, targets for squirt guns, etc.)
}
} 8. Napkin rings
}
} 9. Christmas decorations (put lights, the large ones work best, through
} the hole in the disc.  For added effect, leave discs in sun to warp
} first)
}
} 10. Do-it-yourself Disco Ball (glue to a beach ball, hang in the center
} of the room, point colored and strobe lights at it, dig out your
} ugliest bell-bottomed polyester suit and boogie)
}
} You owe the Oracle $45.95 for the hard bound, coffee-table edition (or
} $29.95 for the paperback edition) and an LP of Saturday Night Fever.


903-03    (7wCob dist, 3.0 mean)
Selected-By: Scott Forbes <trans@lucent.com>

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

> Oh most brobdingnagian Oracle, if one painter can paint five houses in
> fifteen days, how long will it take three houses to paint twenty
> painters?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} About thirty seconds, assuming all twenty painters are stacked
} side-by-side, sardine-style, on the floor, the better for the freshly
} painted houses to roll over them.
}
} You owe the Oracle a story problem with a happy ending.


903-04    (4oxCd dist, 3.3 mean)
Selected-By: Christophe <xof@chanticleer.com>

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

> O Great Oracle, please tell me:
>
> The other day I was watching TV, and something called a "soup opera"
> came on.  What does that mean anyway?
>
> Yours etc,
> Deeply Concerned.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} "Oh, Alexis," Vicki moaned, writhing with ecstasy (or was it
} intestinal from that bad clam chowder she had for lunch?), "YESS!!
} Oh God, yes...oh please, more...more...MORE tomato soup, please!
} It's goood eatin'!"
}
} "Coming right up!", Alexis called out from the kitchen. In a minute she
} emerged from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of tomato noodle soup.
} She set it down in front of Vicki.
}
} Vicki stared down into the soup. Her face turned grey and she fell
} forward, right into the bowl.
}
} "Vicki! Vicki, are you all right?" Alexis shrieked. She administered
} mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Vicki and she came to.
}
} "Oh, Alexis, I just had the most horrible flashback! When I was eight
} years old, I was molested by my piano teacher, Bruce. He held me down
} and forced me to slurp tomato soup while he did the most HORRIBLE
} things to me! I repressed the memory until now, when I realized that
} the tomato soup you just served me is *EXACTLY* like the tomato soup
} he molested me with!"
}
} Alexis stared back in shock. When she was finally able to speak,
} she said, "Vicki...I've never told anyone this before, but Bruce is
} my half-brother. I taught him how to make that tomato soup while he
} was studying at the Conservatory and needed to stretch the meager
} cents he earned by giving piano lessons to elementary schoolers."
}
} Will Vicki and Alexis reconcile their painful soup-oriented memories?
} Will Bruce get caught fondling Big Boys in the produce section at
} Shop-Rite? Will poor little Wilma finally rise up a level in the
} pecking order? (oops, that would be a *coop* opera) Stay tuned for
} the next episode of...ALL MY RECIPES.
}
} You owe the Oracle a bar of soup-flavored soap.


903-05    (cnoto dist, 3.3 mean)
Selected-By: Mike Nolan <nolan@celery.tssi.com>

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

> Buddy..can ya spare a dime?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oh god, not another Sprint commercial...


903-06    (bBFe9 dist, 2.8 mean)
Selected-By: Mark Lawrence <lawrence.4@osu.edu>

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

> Oh Oracle, he who knows more about women than he's letting on, tell
> me...
>
> What's up with Tara?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Alan Miller 05/01/97 06:21 PM
}
}           The slaves are gone.  The cotton industry isn't what it used
} to be.  Sherman is *still* a bad word around the place.  Wearing blue
} at dinner is frowned upon.  Drawling "Y'all" is popular again.  Iced
} tea (sweet, of course) with lime is back in the rage.  Belle gowns are
} coming back (have you any idea how *much* you can hide under there ?).
} Fried chicken (Fuzzy is not invited) and pecan pie absolutely * make*
} an afternoon lunch under the oak tree by the rushing brook.  Manners,
} common courtesey, and smiling are quite common.  Decency, southerners,
} and charm are not yet dead, and frankly my dear supplicant, I *do*
} give a damn.
}
} I'll never go hungry again.  You owe the oracle a home cooked meal
} with all the trimmings.


903-07    (5iyup dist, 3.5 mean)
Selected-By: David Sewell <dsew@packrat.aml.arizona.edu>

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

> Oracle, Oh Oracle of Oracles of Oracles and that sort of grovelly
> stuff, tell me...
>
> I'm attempting to slavishly imitate the style of the author Douglas
> Adams, but I'm not having much luck, especially with the clever bits.
> Should I continue, or should I try to imitate the style of *Scott*
> Adams, whose style is as easy as a cheap whore with a sex addiction?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Why not try combining the two?
}
} "Your boss's brain is small.  Really small.  You just won't believe how
} minimally claustrophobically mind-bogglingly small it is.  I mean, you
} may think it's a short way from the elevator to the receptionist's
} desk, but that's the distance from here to Alpha Centauri to your
} boss's brain."
}
} You owe the Oracle the royalties from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
} Cubicle."


903-08    (dnqAe dist, 3.1 mean)
Selected-By: Sid Dabster

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

> Oh Oracle, the man with the shovel, we got a problem here...
>
> Glancing through some old Oracularities a while back, we at the
> Institute found the question of a supplicant who accidentally created a
> bunch of immortal mice. Now, we thought this was absolutely
> preposterous, but we managed to get some of their experimental records,
> and attempted to duplicate the results.
>
> I don't want to say that we were scared by the results but Todd, our
> janitor, went on strike when Dr. Haislett... well, let's not get into
> that. We tried a few of the tests in the original Oracularity and got
> frustratingly similar results (have you ever seen a mouse eat your
> assistant's engagement ring? It's not pretty). So we decided to try our
> own experiment, based on your advice.
>
> As you know, the Institute is located on the East Coast, and we had a
> more-than-generous red tide scare over the summer. Consequently, we had
> plenty of paralyzed clams lying around. While the paralytic shellfish
> poisoning appeared to work, we found that these mice had the ability to
> regenerate damage to their nervous systems, a fact we found out much to
> our chagrin when our test subjects attempted to gnaw their way through
> the incinerator door and wound up setting a massive fire in the steam
> plant building.
>
> We made special arrangements with the Seabrook nuclear power plant in
> New Hampshire to see what happened if we subjected them to nuclear
> radiation. Knowing that they couldn't stomach the taste of cadmium
> (though it wasn't actually toxic to them (nothing is), our observations
> were that it had a tendency to react like chewing on tinfoil in their
> mouths), it was a simple matter to keep them restrained in the fuel
> rods. The end result was less than promising; not only did they
> survive, but it was a simple matter of shaving them to decontaminate
> them. Subsequent tests on the fur obtained indicated almost surreal
> levels of lead, a factor which I can attribute only to Dr. Farmington's
> frequent habit of carrying them in the trunk of her '72 Cadillac. We
> did notice that their restraints were very badly chewed; I was informed
> last week by letter that due to some inexplicable damage to the reactor
> control mechanisms we were to be shot on sight if we ever entered the
> town of Seabrook again. Nothing personal, of course.
>
> The ever-enterprising Dr. Choe attempted to sell his soul to the devil
> to find out a way to kill these things, but apparently Satan has enough
> scientists for the time being and told him to call back in about twelve
> years.
>
> A contact in New York offered to try some studies in the effects of
> kinetic impact on the mice and wound up denting a few sidewalks when he
> whipped three of them off the antenna of the taller tower of the World
> Trade Center. According to the latest sports pages, his associate, Mr.
> Strawberry, has been placed on the disabled list for several weeks by
> his organization.
>
> Several colleagues at our satellite campus in Boston attempted to
> subject the mice to a steady diet of Boston radio personality Howie
> Carr. This only succeeded in making the two subjects develop a conquest
> fetish; they were last seen in the vicinity of Fort Knox attempting to
> run off with some gold bars.
>
> Dr. Colvin was responsible for our most recent effort, in which we
> attempted to freeze them and use them for hockey pucks. I can only
> imagine what the Institute's accounting office will say when they see
> the bill for that one. We're seriously considering writing to the
> French military and asking them to include a few of our mice in their
> next nuclear test.
>
> Needless to say, we have problems. Now please help me here: how do we
> kill these damn things, and if we can't what possible commercial use
> are they?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You shouldn't mistake your inability to kill those mice with
} immortality. A small turbulence of your sun producing a
} super-duper-nova would easily cancel your misproducts out of
} existence. So, these mice are clearly mortal. This just to clarify
} things.
}
} Ah - you mean - you want to kill them without destroying the rest of
} your corner of the galaxy, too? You want to do it in the subtle way?
} Ok, I'll help you, but keep it for yourself: in the last level of
} 'Doom' (TM) there is some very secret room (which has only been found
} by a handful of 'Doom' (TM) addicts up to now) where you can find some
} super-hyper-mega weapon with which you can kill any being in a
} fraction of a second.
}
} Oh - you mean - that's only a game and the weapon is just imaginative
} and therefore of no use?  Oh yes, you are right, that won't
} work... Humm, let's see... Yeah, take all the mice put them in a
} time-travel machine and send them some hundred years into the future -
} so they will become a problem of future generations and not yours.
}
} What? You - you don't have one? Ohh, I forgot that you don't have a
} time travel machine yet. It will only be invented after the next Big
} Bang, so there's still some time to go. Hmmmm, ok, now I finally have
} a simple and reliable idea; you can use the same methods that you
} applied to the mice to generate 'immortal' cats. Well, those will deal
} with the mice. As for the commercial aspect, the chase will certainly
} serve as certain kind of entertainment for the watching of which you
} could try to charge a fee.
}
} You owe the Oracle a collection of the 'Best of Tom and Jerry'
} cartoons.


903-09    (6rnCi dist, 3.3 mean)
Selected-By: David Sewell <dsew@packrat.aml.arizona.edu>

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

> Oh wise one whom I admire with all my heart...
>
> Tell me your story.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} My story?  I know that no supplicant, not even you, would be so
} derangedly foolish as to ask about my personal life.  So I'll assume
} you're asking about my new children's book, _Death and Bloody
} Destruction_, coming to finer bookstores everywhere on May 28.
}
} Though agreements with my publisher mean I can't tell you the whole
} story, I *am* allowed to give you, you lucky fool, FREE SNEAK PREVIEWS
} of a few select excerpts. . .
}
} From the title page:
}
} "                     DEATH AND BLOODY DEST. . ."
}
} From the bottom margin of page 6:
}
} "
}                               6
}                                                               "
}
} From page 17:
}
} ". . .the pool o. . .
}   . . .as it oozed. . .
}    . . .he rotted an. . .
}     . . .the putresce. . .
}        . . .maimed all. . .
}          . . .wretched supp. . .
}           . . .ow any bet. . .
}         . . .acle, in h. . .
}           . . .sdom and m. . .
}            . . .ation of u. . .
}           . . .odchucks' ulul. . .
}              . . .ersim. . .
}                 . . .wkw. . ."
}
} From the inner margins of pages 32-33:
}
} "     |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |
}       |       "
}
} From page 41:
}
} ". . .q. . ."
}
} From the back page:
}
} "
}
}
}
}
}
}
}                                                               "
}
} You owe the Oracle a thoughtful piece of literary criticism in the New
} Yorker--and supplicant, it'd better be good (glances menacingly).


903-10    (nCtg6 dist, 2.5 mean)
Selected-By: David Sewell <dsew@packrat.aml.arizona.edu>

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

> tell me
>
> --
>                     Chocolate Is The One True Passion
>                          http://www.choco.com
>                         The Chocolate Archives

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} *ahem* ...
}
} "Chocolate Is The One True Passion."
}
} Oh, I'm sorry... you wanted me to do it in William F. Buckley's voice?
}
} *ahem*
}
} "Ah, yes, well, chocolate, hmmmm, yes, it is, hmmm, yes, the on...
} one... true, yes, well, passion, yes, hmm."
}
} You owe the Oracle a life-size chocolate statue of Mr. Buckley.


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