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Yucks Digest V1 #98
Yucks Digest Fri, 1 Nov 91 Volume 1 : Issue 98
Today's Topics:
A new version of rm(1) for DOD contractors
Halting Problem is Solvable
Houdini no-show (yet again!)
I'm not motivated at all by fees, not at all
Let out your frustrations!
patented genes
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 21 Dec 89 00:30:21 GMT
From: baur@venice.sedd.trw.com (Steven L. Baur)
Subject: A new version of rm(1) for DOD contractors
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Documentation for a new version of RM(1) floating around here. (I wrote it).
RM(1) RM(1)
NAME
rm - remove files
SYNOPSIS
rm [ -fri ] [
-A[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz]
file ...
DESCRIPTION
The command rm deletes each file argument from the system.
There are a large number of options:
-f Forced remove. Unwritable files are removed without rm
asking permission. By default, rm will ask permission
before removing unwritable files.
-r Recusive remove. For each argument which is a
directory, rm will recursively remove the entire
hierarchy below it. If this was successful, the
directory itself is removed.
-i Interactive remove. rm will ask permission before
removing anything.
-A Remove Ada files. Ada files are those files that have
an extension of .a or .ada. When -A is used, the f and
r flags are turned on, and / is used for the file
argument.
There are a host of modifiers.
-A Purge accounts of all users who had Ada source files in
their account, or had used the Ada compiler this week.
-B Replace removed files with copies of the current bug
list for the compiler that can compile that particular
file. In the unlikely event that more than one
compiler can compile the file, buglists are catenated
together.
WARNING: This can consume an inordinate amount of disk
space.
-C Remove all Ada compilers from the system.
-E Remove all executables produced by an Ada compiler.
-F Flame option. After removing files, make a posting to
comp.lang.ada describing exactly how well Ada works.
-G Replace removed files with copies of the GNU manifesto.
-H Honesty option. Send mail to the Ada compiler vendor
describing exactly how you felt spending $5000 for a
compiler that didn't work. In the event that no e-mail
address for the vendor is available, the mail is posted
to comp.lang.ada.
-M Mail source files to rms@mit-prep.mit.edu before
removing.
-R Raw eggs option. For every file deleted, print the
string "Ada sucks raw eggs" to the system console.
-S Script option. Delete shell scripts that call the Ada
compiler too.
-U USENET option. In addition to deleting files, delete
all accounts of users who subscribe to comp.lang.ada.
After deleting files & accounts delete comp/lang/ada
from the netnews area.
-b Beat option. Only valid in conjunction with the -E
option. Don't simply delete Ada compilers, beat them
to death with a stick first.
-c Don't remove Ada source files, instead convert them to
C++. The extension is changed .c++. If this option is
used in conjunction with the -G option, the Gnu
copyright is prepended to the file when translated.
-f Force option. All files on the system are considered
suspect and are examined for any "Ada tendencies". Files
containing any "Ada tendencies" will be deleted. This is
the only way to delete makefiles for Ada programs.
-j Jerry Falwell option. In addition to deleting files,
burn all copies of the Ada Reference Manual.
-l Lose option. This can only be used in conjunction with
the -C option. Instead of deleting Ada compilers,
replace them with a shell script that prints "You Lose!"
when invoked.
-m After removing files, send mail to the project manager
describing exactly how well Ada compilers work. If
this option is used, a resume is also posted to
misc.jobs.resumes.
-n Network option. Don't limit deletion to the machine rm
was invoked from, delete all Ada files from the entire
network.
-p Pascal option. Translate Ada source files to Pascal.
The extension is changed to .p.
-r Run /usr/games/rogue while deleting Ada files.
-u UUCP option. Similar to the -n option. Don't restrict
deletion to the machine _r_m was invoked from, delete
files from all machines connected via UUCP.
-2 Translate Ada source files to Modula 2. The extension
is changed to .m2.
FILES
$HOME/resume for the -m option.
/usr/ada/bugreports/* for the -B option.
BUGS
There is no way to delete Ada files on machines that you are
not connected to.
The -A option was written in Ada, so of course it is ugly
and non-portable.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Dec 89 11:30:07 GMT
From: raja@cs.uiuc.edu (Bala Rajagopalan)
Subject: Halting Problem is Solvable
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Note: Apologies to non-cs types.
Recent Results in Theory of Computing - I
-----------------------------------------
"The Halting Problem is Solvable"
A fundamental question in the graduate computer science carriculum can
be posed as follows: Given an average grad student doing a Ph.D, will
the student ever complete his dissertation? This problem has been
termed the "Halting Problem" and it has been an open problem thus far.
In the following, we show that the halting problem is solvable.
Furthermore, the problem can be solved within the time stipulated by
the Graduate College for Ph.Ds or, in the worst case, with only a
constant number of petitions for extensions.
The halting problem was first formulated by Alan Turing, who observed a
number of his graduate students being apparently busy all the time but
never graduating. Turing tried to solve the problem by first stopping
all assistantships after the sixth year and then by purging all games
from the research computers. Needless to say, his efforts were
fruitless. Later, Church almost succeded in solving the problem when he
placed notices in grad students' mailboxes indicating attractive jobs
in industry with several orders of magnitude higher remuneration. The
so called Church's thesis was that the halting problem is solvable,
given enough financial motivation. Church's idea backfired when grads
found out that they have to actually work to earn money in the outside
world. Thus, far from solving the halting problem, Church aggravated it
(After this, we are not sure whether Church himself graduated).
Recently, Cook et al have shown that the halting problem falls under a
new complexity class, "NP Hairy". (NP hairy is the class of hopelessly
complicated problems with no known solutions. The hardest problem in NP
hairy has been shown to be the problem of trying to claim standard
deductions in the 1040 form).
In the following, we show that the halting problem is indeed solvable.
For this, we assume the existance of a "Super Grad", who is capable of
working in any area in CS (except possibly numerical analysis). For
notational convenience, we call this super grad, S sub G sup i,j sub *
(written using a funky theoretical CS font). The property of Super grad
is that, given the description of any grad (mostly in terms of the
number of newsfiles he/she reads every day) and a description of
his/her thesis topic, Super grad will either halt with a dissertation
or keep publishing technical reports indefinitely. Now, we give Super
grad a description of himself and his own thesis topic. If Super grad
halts, we are done (and so is he) otherwise we get a stream of
technical reports. But by the "fundamental research theorem" of CS
Departments (refer to the graduate study manual) any five arbitrary
technical reports on unrelated topics can be compiled into a Ph.D
thesis. Thus, we are done in the second case too.
Finally, how long does it take for a dissertation to be completed? The
time is either less than or equal to the duration allowed by the Grad
College for the completion of a Ph.D or it is greater. In the latter
case, infinite number of petitions can be filed for extensions. Since
the Grad College never remembers previous petitions, the total number
of petitions received by the Grad College is always one, a small
constant. (QED)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 20:45:26 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Houdini no-show (yet again!)
To: yucks-request
Houdini A No-Show At Seance
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP)
The table was laid with handcuffs and lock picks, but the guest of
honor was a no-show at the Official Houdini Seance on Thursday.
Harry Houdini didn't show up last year either. Or the year before
that. Or at any of the seances held in the 65 years since his death
on Halloween.
"After all this time, I don't know if he's going to come back
now," said his niece, Marie Blood. "But who knows?"
This year's seance was held a few hundred yards from where Houdini
escaped from two pairs of handcuffs after jumping into the Erie Canal.
In his last years, the escape artist concentrated on exposing the
trickery of psychics who claimed to be in touch with spirits. But he
promised his wife he would contact her from the other side of the
grave if possible.
"Houdini never said he could come back. He just thought that if
anybody could do it, it would be him," said Henry Muller, curator of
the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls.
Houdini left his wife a code, now in Muller's possession, so she
would know it was him: 10 circled words in a letter from Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and a list of another 10
words.
Beatrice Houdini held seances for a decade in hopes of contacting
her husband before giving up with the memorable quote, "Ten years is
long enough to wait for any man."
In a banquet room at the Holiday Inn, surrounded by television
cameras and 80 spectators, psychic Bernice Golden told the son of
Houdini's assistant and 10 other participants to put their hands on
the table.
In the center was a bronze bust of Houdini, his wand, a book he
owned as a child, an old pair of handcuffs, lock picks and the letter
from Conan Doyle, sealed with red wax in an envelope.
"The earth, the air, the water, the fire," Golden said at 1:26
p.m., 65 years to the minute after Houdini died at the age of 52 in
Detroit from a ruptured appendix.
Twenty minutes later, Golden asked Houdini to move the hands of
the people in the circle away from the objects. Sidney Radner,
curator of the Houdini Historical Center, shifted his hands slightly,
but later said he wasn't convinced the guest of honor had shown up.
The seance ended after a half hour.
Muller said the seances will continue even if Houdini never makes
an appearance.
"I think he'd love it," he said. "Houdini was the greatest showman
of all time."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 91 14:28:47 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: I'm not motivated at all by fees, not at all
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU
Wall Street Journal, Thursday October 24 1991
The Mouthpieces
Class-Action Lawyers Brawl Over Big Fees in Milli Vanilli Fraud They
Line Up Teen `Victims' Of The Lip-Synching Duo; Judge Notes `Strong
Odor' Rob and Fab or the Fab and the Tide?
By Amy Stevens
Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal
When Milli Vanilli was exposed as a lip-synching fraud, it was bad news
for the pop-singing duo from Germany. But for America's class-action
lawyers, it was a major business opportunity.
They found clients in their own law offices and contacted their friends
with teenage children. Their clients included 16-year-old Jay Freedman,
who exclaimed ``Gee!'' after his father suggested the lawsuit, and Jessica
Pinks, a high-school cheerleader who didn't know she was a plaintiff until
she read it in the newspaper. ``You couldn't imagine the ridicule I got
at school,'' she says.
Before long, at least 26 suits were filed, all seeking court approval to
become class actions, in at least seven states. They sought damages from
Arista Records, the Bertelsmann AG unit that distributed Milli Vanilli's
``Girl You Know It's True'' album. Mr. Freedman, Miss Pinks and thousands
of other young fans will get, at best a few dollars each from all the
suits. It's doubtful that any of the plaintiffs spent more than $30 or
so on Milli Vanilli merchandise - and virtually all of them had stopped
listening to their record long before the lip-synching was revealed.
But the lawyers involved stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And that has led to an ugly confrontation among them, prompting one judge
to declare that he senses a ``strong odor'' from the conduct of some of
the attorneys. ``The whole legal pretense is that these cases arose from
spontaneous consumer grievances,'' says Walter K. Olson, a senior fellow
at the Manhattan Institute who has written on the proliferation of
lawsuits. But in fact, he says, ``the lawyers are doing what they accuse
the record company of doing; Getting people to lip-sync for them.''
William C. MacLeod, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission's
Bureau of Consumer Protection, agrees. ``It's hard to imagine there's a
crying consumer need for redress of injuries here,'' he says. ``While
all the Milli Vanilli's are crowding the court dockets, cases involving
very serious injuries or people driven near bankruptcy are sitting and
waiting.''
RICO Violations?
Milli Vanilli was the stage name for two young performers, Robert ``Rob''
Pilatus and Fabrice ``Fab'' Morvan, who had come out of nowhere, released
their hit album and won the 1990 Grammy Award for best new artist. Last
year, when they were revealed to be lip-synching front men for a clever
record producer, the revelation was greeted more with derision than
outrage. The men were stripped of their Grammy. U.S. record sales
weren't affected because the album had long since been off the charts
anyway.
But the the lawsuits flew, most alleging violations of a variety of state
consumer statues and contract laws and some charging that Rob and Fab were
part of an enterprise that violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act.
The country's top class-action lawyers and law firms got involved, such
as William S. Lerach of Milberg, Weiss, Specthrie, Bershad, & Lerach of
San Diego. Mr. Lerach's firm filed a Milli Vanilli suit in state court
in San Diego, listing as co-counsel the nation's other leading
class-action law firm, Greenfield & Chimicles of Hanover, PA. That firm
also filed a virtually identical suit in federal court in Los Angeles,
later adding Mr. Lerach's firm and others. Both Milberg Weiss and
Greenfield & Chimicles are probably best known for filing shareholder
suits against companies involved in leveraged buy-outs and other deals.
David Stalder of Oakland, Calif,. who's now 15, remembers being ``pretty
angry'' when he heard about the lip-synching, since his mother had given
him a Milli Vanilli cassette a year earlier. Than night at dinner, his
mother and her attorney boyfriend ``suggested a lawsuit,'' David says in
an interview. The following evening, two other lawyers - family friends
- came over and drafted court papers that were filed in state court in
Alameda County, Calif., by three Bay Area-based law firms.
Albert Meyerhoff, the attorney boy-friend, says; ``I remember telling
David he has legal rights and could exercise them.''
The Lawyer's Daughter
In the San Diego state court case, which has since been transferred to
Los Angeles, all three of the original named plaintiffs have ties to the
Lerach firm: Danielle Jeffrey is the 10-year-0ld daughter of a lawyer at
the firm, Linda J. Starr is a former word-processing supervisor there,
and Carla J. Freudenburg is a former law school classmate of another
attorney there. The Starr and Freudenburg names also appear on the
federal case, along with Leo Senay Jr., now the husband of one of the law
firm's copy clerks, and Lisa Kelton a former law school classmate of a
Greenfield & Chimicles attorney.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, attorneys at another class-action law firm,
Cohen, Shaprio, Polisher, Shiekman and Cohen, called two friends with
teen-agers and asked them during conversations if they had bought any
Milli Vanilli recordings. ``I said my son had the tape. Just one thing
led to another where we ought to do something about it, see what we can
do,'' Dennis Freedman, of Erdenheim, PA, told Arista Lawyers in a
deposition. They asked whether Mr. Freedman talked to his son about the
possibility of bringing the suit after his conversation with the lawyer.
``Yes,'' Mr. Freedman said.
``What did your son say?'' Arista's attorneys asked.
`` `Really? Gee!' '' Mr. Freedman answered, adding that his son was
``in agreement'' when told that Milli Vanilli might be sued.
In most states, the rules governing attorneys bar direct solicitation of
clients for particular suits unless the person solicited is a relative or
an existing client. These rules apply to class actions as well as to
individual suits, although once the class action is approved, additional
potential plaintiffs must be notified of the existence of the class.
A lawyer at Cohen Shapiro says there was nothing wrong because the case
came up innocently in the course of informal conversations among friends;
in one case, the lawyer says, the youth, after being told about the case,
asked if he could get involved.
Of the 49 plaintiffs in the Milli Vanilli cases, at least 41 appear to
have had pre-existing relationships to lawyers, most of whom worked at
firms specializing in class-action cases. And many of the plaintiffs say
they agreed to file suit at the suggestion of a lawyer.
The case of Miss Pinks, a 16-year-old, from Port Clinton, Ohio, is one
example. At a Christmas party in 1989, Miss Pinks won a gift certificate
that she redeemed for a ``Girl You Know It's True'' cassette. Miss Pinks
wasn't a big Milli Vanilli fan and the tape wasn't her favorite. ``I
didn't keep up with them,'' she says.
So how did her name wind up on a lawsuit? ``It wasn't my idea at all,''
Miss Pinks says. She was out of town when a lawyer friend got in touch
with her father and the two men agreed to file papers. Returning a few
days later, Miss Pinks says she was shocked to see her name in the Port
Clinton News-Herald. ``It was awful,'' Miss Pinks says. ``I'd walk into
a classroom and they'd have the cassette playing, and they'd laugh at
me.''
Her lawyer, John A. Pietrykowsky of Toledo, says the attorney-client
privilege prevents him from discussing the origins of the lawsuit.
Denial of Recruitment
Mr. Lerach of Milberg Weiss says that in the days after the Milli Vanilli
fuss arose, ``the phone rang off the hook with people wanting to sue,''
He denies that his firm stirred up litigation or recruited anyone. When
asked why the original named plaintiffs in the case brought by his firm
had some pre-existing association with it, he replies: ``We could add
another hundred names easily. But for what purpose? So that Arista could
take their depositions? because they paid $12 for a bogus CD? Please,
excuse me?''
All of the Milli Vanilli cases were brought as class-actions on a
contingency-fee basis, which means that the named plaintiffs pay nothing
up front to their lawyers, who then petition the court for their fees.
If a judge approves a class action, all buyers of Milli Vanilli records
and merchandise would be entitled to be included as plaintiffs. In recent
years, judges in consumer fraud class-action cases have allowed attorneys
to recover as much as a third of an award.
There's one big problem for law firms involved in nationwide class-action
cases. Say one suit is filed in California state court and another in
Ohio. If the judge in Ohio certifies that case as a class-action first,
then defendants can argue that the Ohio judgement binds everyone. Such
a ruling would preclude recovery in the California case - and could mean
that the California lawyers make no money.
That's why plaintiff's lawyers often cooperate with each other in class
actions against large companies. When the decision is finally made, all
of the lawyers may get a piece of the pie.
But four Chicago law firms involved in the Milli Vanilli case upset the
usual arrangement. They negotiated separately with Arista for a proposed
nationwide settlement, drafting terms that would provide partial rebates
to consumers - and nothing to other attorneys.
Under the agreement, Milli Vanilli fans would be eligible for rebates of
$3 for each compact disk, $2 for each cassette and $1 for each single.
Concert-goers and buyers of Milli Vanilli merchandise could ask Arista to
donate 5% of the purchase price to one of three charities in their names.
Arista estimates that if everyone participates, the settlement could cost
it $20 million. That's about 10% of what some plaintiff's attorneys
estimate the group generated in total revenue. The four plaintiff's
attorneys would split $675,000.
The `Cynic' Judge
In July, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas J. O'Brien held a hearing
on the tenative settlement. Lawyers who would be shut out of fees if the
agreement was approved showed up to protest. Nineteen attorneys jammed
into the Chicago courtroom - so many that they couldn't all stand in front
of the bench. Judge O'Brien asked some to sit in the gallery.
The lawyers who weren't party to the settlement asked that the deal be
set aside in part because it didn't offer full refunds. Judge O'Brien,
however sensed other motives. ``I'm a cynic with some justification,''
he said at the hearing, under which he declined to let the Lerach group
and the other challengers intervene. ``And in my opinion, what's involved
here, undisguised or disguised, is a strong odor of concern to control
the case and insure attorney's fees.''
The excluded attorneys are angry. ``The level of compensation [for the
record buyers] is inadequate to address the problem,'' said Mark Rifkin,
an attorney at Greenfield & Chimicles. ``Some clients that I represent
have said that they're embarassed now to play the music. It was not a
victimless prank.''
Mr. Lerach vows he'll ``fight forever'' against the proposed settlement.
He argues that Arista should be made to disgorge all Milli Vanilli
proceeds, ``even if they can't be distributed'' to his clients. (If, as
Mr. Lerach figures, Milli Vanilli made as much as $200 million, the
lawyers' share could be many millions.)
That's the only way to deter future wrongdowers, he says. ``At this
point, I'm not motivated at all by fees, not at all,'' Mr. Lerach says.
``I'm motivated by the fact that I think consumers have been run roughshod
over. To have it turn out that this wildy successful group was just a
sham, just impostors, and have nothing done about it countenances deceit
and the worst kind of business ethics.''
Mr. Lerach accuses Arista of ``cherry-picking'' to ``find the weakest,
hungriest plaintiff's lawyers, and present them with an opportunity
to make a huge legal fee in return for entering into a nationwide
settlement.''
But Larry D. Drury, a Chicago lawyer who participated in the
settlement talks says, ``If they were the ones with the exact same
settlement approved, they'd be telling you how great it was. I don't
think it's any great secret that they'd like to get compensated. But
you don't get compensated if you don't win.''
The Lerach group plans to object to the settlement in January, when
it's scheduled to go back before Judge O'Brien for final approval.
Arista says the proposed settlement is fair. ``When you consider that
seven million copies of the album were sold in the U.S., you have to
wonder how upset people really were,'' say Trish Heimers, a spokeswoman
for Bertelsmann Music Group, Arista's New York-based parent, adding that
the record company received ``fewer than 100'' letters of complaint.
Moreover, the record company says, Milli Vanilli fans got what they paid
for, and in most cases didn't really care about the identity of the
singers they made the purchases. ``These people didn't know Rob and Fab
>From Fab and Tide,'' says Irving Scher, a New York attorney for Arista.
Some of the plaintiffs, however, say they were genuinely upset when they
heard about the lip-synching. ``I felt they deceived me and my children,
and others all over the world.'' says Carol Gaineses, a cashier at a
Wal-Mart store in Baton Rouge, LA. ``I didn't appreciate being lied to.
We paid our money and thought they were performing.'' Mrs. Gaines says
she was so angry that, a few days later, she picked a lawyer's number out
of the phone book - she reached Syed A. Salat of Baton Rouge - to ask what
she could do.
The record company's Mrs. Heimers won't say how much all the litigation
has cost the firm, but estimates that 25 lawyers have spent 10,000 hours
in the cases so far, an expenditure that legal experts say could already
be close to $2 million.
Marc Galanter, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison
School of Law, calls cases such as the Milli Vanilli suit ``indicative of
the degradation of the very good idea that was the class action.'' Some
consumer group class actions help combat fraud and effectively reimburse
people who suffered genuine harm. But Prof. Galanter and other cite
different kinds of cases, such as a suit filed - and later dismissed - in
federal court last year by purchasers of Coors beer who claimed they were
damaged because Adolf Coors & Co,. had touted ``Rocky Mountain spring
water,'' when, they allege, the company was really using ``ordinary
water.''
Mr. Lerach defends the merits of his Milli Vanilli cases by citing
statutes that provide for punitive damages against companies that
intentionally mislabel products, especially one of the most
consumer-friendly laws, California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act. ``The
California legislature gave people the right to get their money back, says
Mr. Lerach. ``I didn't make that law.''
But the man who did write the law, while serving as chief counsel to the
state assembly's Judiciary Committee in 1971, has a different view. ``I
will say categorically that we didn't have this kind of case in mind,''
says James S. Reed. ``We had in mind a lot more egregious kind of thing
such as a real misrepreentation of the quality and value of a product.''
Adds Mr. Reed: ``My kids played Milli Vanilli a few times. They think this
whole thing's a joke.''
Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan themselves, meantime, have abandoned the Milli
Vanilli name and are working in London on their next album, for which they
plan to do their own singing. ``These lawsuits hurt us very much. It
took us a long time to get back up on our own feet,'' says Mr. Pilatus.
Through a spokesman.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jan 90 11:30:06 GMT
From: rl1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rhonda Harlie Landy)
Subject: Let out your frustrations!
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
I don't know who posted this on the Carnegie Mellon computer bboards about
five years ago, but it's supposedly originally from Howard Trachtman's plan
file.
Here are some things to do when you're in a less than happy mood:
Free your spider collection.
Grab someone's nose and don't let go.
Threaten bunnies.
Tailgate.
Short-sheet the bed.
Gnash your teeth.
Drive at 25 mph on the freeway.
Snore loudly.
Bite people.
Take the last cookie.
Jam the pay toilet door.
Put gummy stuff inside books.
Plant ragweed.
Feign serious illness.
Unscrew the salt shaker lid.
Spraypaint someone's fluglehorn.
Drop bugs on passersby.
Walk on the dinner table.
Step on some feet.
Pour honey in someone's hair. When they are visiting an ant farm.
Tickle people with a branch of poison ivy.
Soap windows.
Pour honey in the mailbox.
Don't water the plants.
Dilute her martini. With a brick.
Rake the leaves into your neighbor's yard.
Let your shirttail hang out.
Put your sneakers in the refrigerator.
Breed rats.
Ignore everybody.
Go to the grocery and squish the fruits.
Butter the floor.
Dropkick a poodle.
Pull wings off flies.
Don't clean up after making your peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Trip a grandmother.
Turn on the sprinkler at a lawn party.
Clog the sink.
Ruin the punchline.
Be obnoxious.
Spread vicious rumors.
Put Superglue(TM) on the keycaps.
Enroll your friends in record clubs.
Don't use deodorant.
Use all the hot water.
Reveal the petticoats.
Call somebody up at 3am.
Don't wipe your feet.
Stick your hand in the clam dip.
Talk gibberish during serious conversation.
Conduct an empirical test to find the strength of your host's glasses.
Shout in the library.
Forget your mother's birthday.
Toss babies.
Burp.
Stare at somebody.
Break something.
Snore in a church.
Spray-paint someone's eyeglasses.
Paint your house chartreuse with pink trim.
Stomp through the flower bed.
Carry a pork chop in your pocket for three weeks.
Sing at the dinner table.
Poke people.
Don't leave a tip.
Cut the clothesline.
Scream in the dentist's office.
Put ink in the White-Out bottle.
Eat onions.
Stand in front of the TV.
Bite people.
Sneak up on people.
Put piranhas in the swimming pool.
Stray into other people's snapshots.
Practice "Chopsticks" with the windows open.
Teach someone tape-based batch Fortran.
Don't buy any Christmas presents.
Reveal the ending.
Leave a cow on your neighbor's porch.
Litter.
Drop your hors d'oeuvre and grind it into the carpet.
Point at people.
Put stones in all the shoes.
Smoke large black cigars.
Scratch someone's favorite record.
Squirt water through your teeth.
Never remember anyone's name.
Clip your toenails in public.
Throw waterbombs.
Hoard overdue library books.
Wake someone up violently.
Eat someone else's lunch.
Demoralize your friends.
Deliver lectures on abstinence and temperance.
Take up two parking places.
Press all the buttons in the elevator.
Say "I can do that better than you."
Leave a ring in the bathtub.
Put salt in his contact-lens solution.
Constantly interrupt.
Encroach on someone's turf.
Don't wipe your feet.
Use all the toilet paper.
Scrape your fingernails across the blackboard.
Wake up a professor.
Go wild with shaving cream.
Saw the leg off a chair.
Write insincere love letters.
Snitch.
Throw a tomato.
Don't train your Doberman.
Eat sloppily.
Throw your chewing gum on the floor.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 13:43:17 CST
From: ames!frord.austin.ibm.com!meo (Miles ONeal)
Subject: patented genes
To: spaf
According to Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford...
|
|[Hmm, I hope I'm not a Gene that has already been patented, or I'm
|in real trouble! --spaf]
Last time I checked, no patent law on Earth was in comformity
with the Known Universe Interspecies Patent Agreement, so
Vegans should be safe.
Hope This Helps (TM (TM))
-Miles
[Whew! That's a relief. Sometimes it really pays to be an extraterrestrial.
Unfortunately, it usually doesn't pay enough... --spaf]
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End of Yucks Digest
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