From kinzler@cs.indiana.edu Thu Feb 1 21:07:34 1990 Path: iuvax!kinzler From: kinzler@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Stephen Kinzler) Newsgroups: rec.humor Subject: Usenet Oracularities #112 Message-ID: <34675@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 2 Feb 90 02:07:34 GMT Reply-To: oracle-vote@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington === 112 ================================================================== Title: Usenet Oracularities #112 Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler Date: 2 Feb 90 02:07:34 GMT *** I won't be sending out any Usenet Oracularities postings next week *** (Feb 2-9) while I'm away at the Artificial Life conference in Santa *** Fe. The week's Oracularities will be read and considered for posting *** the following week. @@@ Welcome to all the new folk who found out about the Oracle from the @@@ recent rec.humor.funny posting! 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. Let us know what you like! Send your ratings of these Oracularities on a scale of 1 = "not funny" to 5 = "very funny" with the volume number to oracle-vote, eg: 100 2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1 --- 112-01 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > This is not a question. And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } This is not an answer. --- 112-02 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Johnny Oracle, can you tell our viewing audience at home about them? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Well, Dan, today's champions are happy campers from Guam, visiting the } mainland US for the first time. Surrounded by a feast of cheap consumer } goods, they're almost fainting from delight and hot TV lights. } (Applause light on.) } } And this new refrigerator-desk-garage-door-opener (gasps and cries of } "Oooooh!" from the audience) will certainly make their life a long } string of days filled only with luxury and nausea as they return to } their grass huts in that great American Protectorate, where America's } Day Begins. (Cut to Dan's smiling face as he ritually humiliates one of } the contestants; the crowd goes wild.) } } What a lucky bunch they are, aren't they, Dan! (Applause light on, } laugh track fade up and out.) } } You owe the Oracle a lifetime pass to Let's Make a Deal and a remote } channel changer. --- 112-03 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Did I steal $150.00 from the Government, or am I simply a > self-reproducing piece of logic which spread too fast? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } The Oracle discerns from your question that you are either a computer } virus, or an existentialist thief with a bad memory. } } If you are an existentialist thief: Do not think about it. Thinking } costs money. Do not think about how much money it costs to think about } it. Do not think about the fact that money itself is a piece of logic } in a computer memory. } } If you are a computer virus: Get away from me. --- 112-04 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Thank you, sir, may I have another? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Well, ma'am, you've had three already, and I don't rightly know as I can } get it up for another. } } You owe the Oracle a rest. --- 112-05 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Oh Oracle, tell me it isn't true. > > I've heard rumors that you don't really exist and that there's just this > mail-forwarding account that takes my question and sends it to some > shmoe at WAYOUTWEST.CC.NOWHERE.EDU to answer as he wishes. This can't > possibly be. And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } rumores are folse. --- 112-06 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Emptyness, alas! Blankness, nothingness, the Void! It gnaws at my } poet's soul like a swan gnawing at a great steel girder in the } vastnesses of the wastenesses of the inner city, the emptiness of the } night in the realms without hope! Nothing it is, nothing at all, } nothing but the sound of my sighing like a barbershop whirling drunkenly } into Chaos, nothing but the dust of my gaze flopping and breaking like } an origami corkscrew dipped in retsina! Gone, gone, they are all gone, } long gone, gone as long as a sixteen-foot hotdog on a micro-mini bun, } topped with garlic and transistors! Alas, but I am adrift in space, in } enough fucking space to fill a whole heap of space-heads. There is no } ground beneath my feet, there are no walls at my hands, there is no } ceiling above my head, there are no pork buns alongside my knees, there } is no drunken elephant carrying a howdah full of piccolos catty-corner } from my spleen, there are no blonde-haired teenage cheerleaders on the } underside of my uvula! Alas, alas, whoa is me! --- 112-07 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > How does the pickle figure into life? And why does the pickle figure > into life? and what about the pickle? > > If you told me this, it would greatly improve my sex life. Greatly. > Thank you. I humbly bow down to you and kiss your feet. And your - are > you male or female? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Quoth the intrepid adventurer as (s)he knelt at the foot of the great } Oracle. And the Oracle considered the question for a long while, and } finally spake thus in reply: } } "All life is as to a pickle. Each of us is, at heart, a pickle, and the } manner of such is personal to you. Maybe you are a gherkin, wallowing } at the bottom of the Jar of Life like a great whale in an ocean of } vinegar. Or prehaps an onion, full of the zest of life, sharp and } crisp. } In all parts of life your chosen pickle will manifest itself, subtly } and yet with power. Beware the sauerkraut, my child! for they who } chose the cabbage cannot be but without all morals. } Your sex life can only be improved by taking the path of the gherkin. } This path is hard, and should be only followed by those who are stout of } heart, like cucumbers, and know themselves to be a true pickle at heart, } with malt vinegar in their veins." } } "Just my feet will do, thankyou, unless you want to make a monetary } donation? " --- 112-08 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Am I normal, and everyone else slightly eccentric, or am I a total > raving lunatic ? > > [I suspect the latter, otherwise why would I be sending this question to > a goddamn lump of silicon and iron, for God's sake ?] > > Your's in anticipation.... And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } yoo-hoo@@@ mister crazy man!!!! your watch is telling me to go shoot } Fidel Castro! that means you must be the CIA##### mind games mind } control games are coming out of you%%%%%%% --- 112-09 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > you who know all and tell nought, if I plug my nose and keep my mouth > closed when I sneeze, will my head explode? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } This is how Zippy became a Pinhead. } } (have I answered you question yet?) --- 112-10 --------------------------------------------------------------- Selected-By: Steve Kinzler The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > Is the oracle having a nice day? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } When the oracle got up this morning, greasy blue stuff was dripping out } of the oracle's eyes. The oracle's toaster oven was on the fritz, which } was not a problem because the oracle had no bread in the house. The } eggs were pretty disgusting, though. The oracle tried to get a bagel, } but the only kind they had were poppyseed bagels to which the oracle is } highly allergic. The oracle decided to drink some leftover coffee from } yesterday, only it turned out to be leftover from about two weeks ago. } Then the oracle discovered that the oracle had mysteriously gained about } fifteen pounds, and the jeans that were loose yesterday were suddenly to } tight that the oracle was unable to sit down. Then the oracle got to } work. Three ogre-like people named "Luigi" showed up at the oracle's } office, asking questions about the money that someone else named "Luigi" } loaned to the oracle two months ago, and kindly offering to perform some } plastic surgery in payment for the oraclly-correct answer.