Collage 255               H u m o u r N e t               25 APR 96

It's finally here: The much-anticipated "God" opener! (I've been
surprised by the number of people who've written to tell me they
can't wait for the "God Collage." Well, here it is....)

We'll start today's opener by naming this year's winner of the
coveted "Most Backward State in the Union" award. The envelope,
please....

<fanfare>

And the winner of the 1996 HumourNet "Most Backward State" award is
... <sound of envelope opening> ...

Tennessee! <applause>

Yes, folks, in a surprise upset, Tennessee has stolen the much-coveted
"Most Backward State" award from the long-standing leader, West
Virginia. Competition was tough for his year's award, but the
following news story(*) provided the clincher that Tennessee needed
to sweep the category:

"The state legislature is considering watering down a recent law
allowing a public-school educator to be fired for teaching evolution
as fact."

Hopefully, they're also planning to do something about that pesky
"round earth" theory.... :-)

Now, many of you might say that I am risking the wrath of God (or,
worse, being forced to live in Tennessee for the rest of my life :-).
I happen to know, however, that I have nothing to fear -- you see,
God's doing *hard time* in San Rafael, California:

<AP news wire> "God Gets Nine Months For Indecent Exposure"

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A man who legally changed his name to
Ubiquitous Perpetuity God began serving a nine-month sentence for
indecent exposure Wednesday.

(That must one *huge* jail cell.)

God, 68, has been convicted 18 times for similar offenses since 1978.

(Now I see where the "Ubiquitous" and "Perpetuity" monikers come
from.)

God said he acted so women "could have some type of awareness of
God," according to police reports.

(Hmmm ... "Altruistic Ubiquitous Perpetuity God.")

God was born Enrique Silberg in Cuba and later immigrated to the
United States in search of "women, silver, gold, knowledge and God,"
he told his probation officer Richard Howell.

(And, apparently, in that order, too. Looks like he never quite made
it past the "women" stage of the search.)

A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Diane McEwen of Tiburon, said
God suffers from "a severe psychotic delusional disorder.

(Can you blame him? First, the Eden gig doesn't go down as planned;
then the *entire* experiment goes south, and needs to be flooded
and reset. Next, the test fixture turns out to be spherical instead
of planar, and, shortly after that, the test subjects find out that
the entire Eden thing was a cover-up for several long-term
experiments that were severely botched. Then the realization that he
apparently left the "brains" option out of the current design (see
"Stupid-Criminal Hall of Shame" (Collage 248), or watch either CSPAN,
nightly news, or 1996 presidential campaign), and finally the whole
PTL deal going down, and *you'd* be suffering from "a severe
psychotic delusional disorder," too.)

</AP>

And that's not the *only* protection from eternal damnation that I
have -- I also happen to have a pastor on HumourNet.

I kid you not. "HumourNet, meet Reverend Rus of Warkworth, Ontario."
<audience applause>

Rus wrote to me for the first time a few days ago, and he nearly
floored me; I'll let him tell you, himself:

"First off Vince, let me say I love the stuff in the HumourNet
Collages. I even manage to find sermon illustrations from time to
time."

Uh, Rus, am I safe in assuming that I'm *not* the "Don't Become This
Person" example for these sermons? I mean, I'm happy that HumourNet
is providing sermon material and all....

(Shoot, I guess this means that I now have to rewrite the forwarding
and posting guidelines to include sermon illustrations. ;-)

"... you can wow your friends and neighbors by telling them that the
minister in Canada is going to list HumourNet on his home page as a
good service to be on for sermon illustrations!"

Rus, do you realize what this is going to do to my reputation? I've
now gone from "pabulum-puking liberal" (Collage 227) to "a good
service to be on for sermon illustrations" -- in less than two months!

(By the way, Rus, you might want to check out our sister list,
"Bawdy.Net" -- the moderator is Shawn King in Vancouver.) (Hey, if
*I'm* going to Hell for this, you can bet I'm dragging Shawn down
with me.)

Well, despite the fact that he's blowing my act down here, Rus has
earned himself a place on the HumourNet Distinguished Members list.

He has also given me a whole new perspective on this "preacher" gig;
and so has "Reverend Jim," :-) of Charlotte, N.C.:

<AP news wire strikes again>

"Minister Resigns After Visiting Hooters Restaurant"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Rev. James Posey, of Woodlawn Baptist Church in
Charlotte, has resigned after stopping off at a Hooters restaurant
for lunch and telling a newspaper reporter who showed up to
interview customers that male waiters would "undermine" the chain.

(I like this guy already.)

In a story the next day, Posey wasn't identified as a minister and
was quoted as saying: "The [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]
does a lot of stupid things in my opinion. The whole concept of
Hooters would be undermined if they had to hire male waiters. The
girls are basically what Hooters is about."

(We need more of this guy in Washington; anyone want to start a
"Reverend Jim for Congress" campaign?)

Posey told his congregation Sunday that he has been looking for
another pulpit because he's frustrated over the lack of growth at
Woodlawn.

(Perhaps "Hooters altar girls" would help spice things up a little....)

</AP>

You know, between Pastor Rus and Reverend Jim, I'm really starting
to get a whole new perspective on this "preacher" gig. In any event,
I'd better plan on sticking around for a while; it's going to be an
awfully long (and warm) eternity once I hit The Big Road.

I'm glad to know, however, that I'll be taking more than just Shawn
with me; after I announced the impending "God opener," several of
you sent me some really good contributions for the God Collage.
Unfortunately, I have spent so much time rambling through the opener
that I simply don't have enough room left to run it all here in
Collage 255, so I'll have to put out a second God Collage very soon.

For the material that *did* make this issue:

Paul in Burlington, Canada, sends us "How The World Was Created," an
awesome near-geek perspective on Creation. (And also very appropriate
for a Collage numbered "255.")

Andy in Maryland contributes "Important Theological Questions,"
providing yet another geek perspective on the situation.

And I'd like to extend a special thanks to Jim in L.A. and Jack in
Washington State for the "God Gets Nine Months For Indecent Exposure"
article, to Jim (again) for "Minister Resigns After Visiting Hooters,"
and to Pastor Rus for broadening HumourNet's vistas.

This one has been a pleasure to write; I hope you've enjoyed it. As
always, a huge thanks goes out our contributors for this Collage.

Go in peace....

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1996 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: How The World Was Created

In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero.

On the first day, He toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe was. (In
those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals
didn't yet exist.)

On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the
bit. This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the
universe wasn't. God learned the importance of backups and memory
refresh, and spent the rest of the day (and his first all-nighter )
reinstalling the universe.

On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a
sign!" And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the
original prototype.

Those in Universe Marketing immediately realized that "new and
improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation.
And so it was dubbed the Most Significant Bit. Many bits followed,
but only one was so honored.

On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical
shift' instructions. And the original bit discovered that -- by
performing a single shift instruction -- it could become the Most
Significant Bit. And God realized the importance of computer
security.

On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of
the ALU, with wonderful features, and said "Screw that add and shift
stuff. Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.

On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented
pipelines, register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk,
restartable instructions, microinterrupts, race conditions, and
propagation delays. Historians have used this to convincingly argue
that the sixth day must have been a Monday.

On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced Unix into the
Universe, and it hasn't worked right since.

[Editor's Note: I was a keystroke away from replacing "Unix" with
"Windows" in that last sentence -- but opted against it solely
because God would have been a lot smarter than that. </vs>]

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Important Theological Questions

SOME IMPORTANT THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED IF WE THINK OF GOD
AS A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER.

Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could, if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step
through all those variables.

Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?
A: God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.

Q: Does God know everything?
A: He likes to think so, but he is often amazed to find the ways
users can create disaster.

Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages him automatically
and he logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things
can wait until tomorrow.

Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?
A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy
bars. On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend
had left him.

Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was the development phase of the project, now we are in the
maintenance phase.

Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang?
A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but doubt
that it will ever be implemented.

Q: Who is Satan?
A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than
he actually possesses, so people who aren't programmers are scared
of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.

Q: What is the role of sinners?
A: Sinners are the people who find new and imaginative ways to mess
up the system when God has made it idiot-proof.

Q: Where will I go after I die?
A: Onto a backup tape.

Q: Will I be reincarnated?
A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And
searching backup files is a major hassle, so if there is a request
for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost.

Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?
A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites
around the universe running exact duplicates of you in the present
release version.

Q: What is the purpose of the universe?
A: God created it because he values elegance and simplicity, but
then the users and managers demanded he tack senseless features onto
it and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.

Q: If I pray to God, will he listen?
A: You can waste his time telling him what to do, or you can just
get off his back and let him program.

Q: What is the one true religion?
A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just
pick the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you
down.

Q: How can I protect myself from evil?
A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a
common word, or a date like your birthday.

Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are much more likely to receive e-mail.

Q: Some people say God is Love.
A: That is not a question. Please restate your query in the form
of a question. Abort, Retry, Fail?

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</collage255>