From kinzler@cs.indiana.edu Wed Jan 3 12:10:35 1990 Path: iuvax!kinzler From: kinzler@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Stephen Kinzler) Newsgroups: rec.humor Subject: Usenet Oracularities #90 Message-ID: <32317@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 3 Jan 90 17:10:35 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington === 90 =================================================================== Title: Usenet Oracularities #90 Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler Date: 3 Jan 90 17:10:35 GMT To find out how to participate in the Usenet Oracle, send mail to: oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu or {ames,rutgers}!iuvax!oracle with the word "help" in the subject line. To receive these postings via mail, send mail to oracle-request on the same machine. Back postings are available via anonymous ftp on iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (129.79.254.192) in the directory pub/oracle. Disclaimer: You think *I* write all these? Hah! --- 90-01 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Long long ago, in the old days when You just had started posting Your > collected Wisdom to rec.humor (i.e. in October -89), most of Your > answers ended with a request for some fee ("You owe the Oracle a ..."). > In those days, the fee was almost always a quantity of one of the > following substances: > > Newts' eyes > Children > Root beer. > > Later, You stopped asking for these, asking instead for various weird > sexual services. Now, You hardly ever ask for any fee. > > Why is that so? And why don't You need any root beer any more? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Recently at Oracle Inc. we had a severe budget crisis where my staff } had some cost overruns in the areas mentioned: } } Newts' eyes are required to feed the managers } Children are required to feed the accountants } Root beer is required for my marvelous ability to answer questions } } In order to make up for this we raised our normal price from one year of } your life to "one year of your life plus a premium." Since everyone } knows that every question sent to the oracle removes a single year from } the sender's life expectancy it's not included in the invoice at the end } of the message. } } After the budget crisis was ended many of the oh-so-clever programmers } in the messaging department began including invoices for things not } necessarily required by the company, such as obscure sexual acts and } trinkets. } } These programmers are being terminated and new ones are being hired. } } To keep the budget crisis from happening again questions that require } extra effort or research are given an extra cost, invoiced at the end as } usual. } } You owe the oracle a bean-counter's cookbook. --- 90-02 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > I owe my loan-shark $7500. Three ogre-shaped goons came over and told > me they'd rearrange my cassette tape collection if I didn't pay it. > What should I do? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Number your cassettes before it's too late! --- 90-03 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Why did I have such a lousy time this New Year's Eve? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } The First World industrial complex through its lakney dog the media and } advertising agencies, force the ordinary poletariat to feel inadequate } unless he/she is living a life accesable only to the privaledged few } (the first against the wall when the revolution comes brother). Part of } the act that common people are forced to strive for is the drunken } humiliating celebration that accompanies every holiday; when time is } better spent in quiet contemplation of the virtues of self and others. } } Grab your AK-47 comrade, and together we will create the new society! --- 90-04 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Oh my ears and whiskers, what sacrifice is appropriate to appease this > cough-demon lodged in my throat ? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Ah! Finally, something interesting! I was getting really bored of } annswering all the feckless meanderings of obsequious mortal peasant } users, especially the low-life morons who merely ask "Why?" and expect a } complete answer to all the questions that life and the universe will } ever pose. Sometimes I abuse them, sometimes I send no answer, } sometimes I just say "42". } } It has been a long time since the Oracle received a question of medical } nature. } } Now, then, let me have a look at you... hmmmm... hmmmm.... you appear } to have a small badger and a credit card receipt stuck in your throat. } The badger has died and almost completely decomposed, leaving an ugly } mess on the back of your throat, which has been sealed on by the soggy } receipt. } } I can recommend: 1) Stay away from badgers in the future... you're } lucky you got a small one this time; 2) Destroy your credit cards, or } stop eating the receipts; 3) Drink a shot of Southern Comfort. } } If you want a sure-fire, 100% method, then the Oracle requires you to } sacrifice all of the nerve endings from your collarbone to your mouth. } } Furthermore, the Oracle demands eleven pounds of oregano, for the answer } of your question, and a kilogram of yeast for each of the next three } (never you mind what I'm making... it's an Oracular Delicacy that you } humans could never appreciate). --- 90-05 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > OK, I've put the dragon on the CD player and rotated the bed so that my > head is pointing East when I'm asleep, and I checked on all the > astrological signs and make sure I go to bed at 7:14 or 8:12 each night, > but I still got sick today. What did I do wrong? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Give up your avoidance of fun, } And maximum hours in the sun! } The source of no good, } Might be lack of a hood... } (Refer Duet. twenty-three, verse one.) --- 90-06 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Is there anything you DON'T know? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } I have no clue why my bread tastes flat } or why my otter is now a cat, } or where the seashells go at night, } or what make snowflakes so square and white, } or why the truth of woodchuck wood } would do you mortals any good. --- 90-07 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Dear Oracle, > If I were to ask you the following question: > > Dear Oracle, > If I were to ask you the following question: > > Dear Oracle, > If I were to ask you the following question: > > Dear Oracle, > If I were to ask you the following question: > > [intervening lines removed to save net.bandwidth, but you get the idea] > > what would you answer? > > what would you answer? > > what would you answer? > > what would you answer? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Get some rest. --- 90-08 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Dear Oracle, > > In answer to my last question, you wrote (among other interesting things > that, however, are irrelevant to this inquiry): > > } Since everyone knows that every question sent to the oracle removes a > } single year from the sender's life expectancy it's not included in the > } invoice at the end of the message. > > Since this is my two hundred and twenty-first question to you, my life > expectancy should now be about -197 years. Yet I'm still alive and > kicking. What does this mean? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } You're forgetting something important. } } Those years are subtracted from all your lives: past, present, future. } } You're on your fourth life and you've got quite a few more to go. Each } time you reincarnate, however, you come back as the thing you hate most. } These years as distributed over the hundred or so lives that you will } have before you acheive the state of "non-hate." } } This insight into the fabric of the universe is gonna cost you, buddy. } } You owe the oracle a set of fuzzy dice with air freshener. --- 90-09 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Is my boss paranoid? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Are you self-employed, my son? --- 90-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > If I don't know what I want, how will I know when I get it? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } One day, your entire life will seem different. All the problems that } loomed at the horizon, dark and menacing, will be reduced to minor } trifles. All your feelings of inadequacy, inferiority and unfulfilled } yearning will be gone. You'll want to burst out singing, dance in the } streets and forgive your enemies. You'll even want to embrace and } forgive the meter-maids. } } When this occurs, you'll know that one of the following has occured: } } 1. You have found what you wanted. } 2. You have fallen in love. } 3. There was something funny with that last cigarette you smoked. } } You owe the Oracle: } } in case 1: What the Oracle wants. } in case 2: Your ex-SO. } in case 3: The rest of those cigarettes.