Collage 276               H u m o u r N e t               20 JUN 96

Some people just don't understand the "humor" concept, no matter
how slowly it's explained to them. Sometimes, it can get downright
*scary*....

Collage 266 contained a truly hysterical piece entitled, "America
Offline: Welcome Back to Reality," about software that will "seek
out and destroy all remnants of communications software on your
computer," and "once run, remains memory-resident, and like a back-
ground virus checker, protects your computer from re-installation of
telecommunications software." The piece advertises that you can "say
good-bye to the World-Wide Web and hello to the friends and family
you forgot you had!"

It's a *very* entertaining piece. And obviously just a good laugh.

Or so I thought.

<The Scary Part>

The end of the "America Offline" piece contained these paragraphs;
please read them carefully:

"To get your free software, please send a hand-written note to
America Offline, Inc., <address deleted>. Please include a stamped,
self-addressed envelope.

"Please specify your operating system and 3.5 or 5.25 inch disks.

"Note: Our software is not available on CD ROM, and we do not have a
support BBS or a Web page or even a fax machine."

Note the part that [currently] reads, "address deleted." When I put
together Collage 266, I decided to do a little experiment: Without
his permission (of course), I borrowed the home address of a friend
of mine ("Rick"). No, I'm not going to repeat the address here, and
please don't go looking it up and mailing anything there; poor Rick
is confused enough as it is, we don't need to mess with him any more.

Just kinda go with me on this. I put Rick's home address into the
"America Offline" piece. A few of you noticed the non-bogus-sounding
address, and wrote to me to ask, "Whose address is that?" Naturally,
in the interest of science, I declined to even respond to the
queries.

That was 22 May. Without giving him any details, I asked him to let
me know if he received any mail for "America Offline." Coming from
me, my friends would not consider this odd; several years ago, I
spent an entire evening filling out those little "bingo cards" that
come in piles of, say, 100 or so -- you fill them out and mail them
back to [high-tech] companies for information. I must have filled
out 200 bingo cards, all with a bogus company name (the "Cleese
Corp.," for semi-obvious reasons) and my friend's *real* home address.
(Not Rick -- that one was "JD," one of the "Fab Five" original
HumourNetters.) JD nearly had to rent a P.O. box for all the mail he
was receiving -- and, to this day, he *still* occasionally receives
mail for the Cleese Corp.

So, for those who know me, a request like, "let me know if you receive
any mail for 'America Offline'" isn't necessarily going to raise any
eyebrows.

(Don't worry, I'm getting to the point.)

As I said, that was May 22. Three weeks pass, no word from Rick.
Then, last Friday (14 June), it happened: the call from Rick ...

"Hey Vin, that 'America Offline' thing you were looking for finally
came in."

I am *not* making this up -- remember, it's all in the interest of
science.

Sure enough, the envelope was addressed to "America Offline, Inc."
It had a return address of Nicholasville, Kentucky, (I won't even
bother to comment on *that* one) and was postmarked in Lexington, KY.

I ran it through the letterbomb scanner that I built after I issued
Collage 140. (And here I thought, once they'd found the Unabomber,
that I'd never need the thing again.) It was clean. Carefully -- you
can never *fully* rely on letterbomb scanners -- I opened the
envelope.

It contained the following note, handwritten in a very attractive
cursive style:

        Please send me the free software for America Offline.
        IBM Compatible 3.5" diskette

        Thanks,
        /sig

(Please note the "IBM compatible" comment. I think there's a message
here.... <g>)

Also contained in there was a self-addressed, stamped envelope, with
a return address that matched the pre-printed sticker on the outer
envelope.

There was no smiley face. There was no "Ha Ha Ha! Pretty funny, huh?"
comment.

This man was serious. (Yes, it was a man. Sorry, guys.)

</The Scary Part>

I was amazed. Then I chuckled. Then I laughed hysterically and called
300 of my closest friends to tell them about it. And none of us could
come up with anything to mail back to this guy that wouldn't leave us
... well, that wouldn't leave us potentially in a great deal of
trouble. (These are 301 of the most sinister minds on the planet,
mind you.)

Now, please understand that I AM NOT SOLICITING SUGGESTIONS on things
I can mail back to this guy, okay? I'm sure you all have some very
wonderful ideas, but I have already discarded any possibility of
mailing anything back to this fellow.

Note, BTW, that the "America Offline" piece also had *this* to say ...

     4. Hardware destruction. The next step is to destroy your
     modems. This is best done with a hammer. We recommend a
     hammer because we know you will start to feel, in that
     destructive release, the first real joy of your new life
     offline. With each crushing blow, we encourage you to think
     of the countless hours you've wasted, the completely
     irrelevant information you have gathered, and the many
     people who completely misrepresented themselves to you when
     you were online.

Well, at least, I hope he feels better now.

Naturally, all of this leaves me with a single burning question:

     "Can I be held criminally liable for the damage to his
     computer hardware?"

(Actually, it left me wondering if he was a HumourNet subscriber.
So, of course, I checked. He's not. <whew!> That was when I realized
that I couldn't let it drop at just *300* of my closest friends, but
had to tell *3500-plus* of my closest friends. ;-)

In mathematical terms, some people are orthogonal to humor. Their
humor dot-products are zero. (I won't speculate as to what *else*
might be zero.)

And they're all over out there ...

Steve Willoughby, moderator of the Oracle Service Humor List (send
the word "subscribe" to "humour-list-request@lists.synapse.net" to
subscribe), sent a probably-urban-legend piece to his list. (The fact
that it's probably urban legend is beside the point; these are HUMOR
lists, not EVENING NEWS lists.) Steve later received -- in error --
a response to the piece, which was so hysterical that he forwarded it
to the list so we could *all* have a good laugh. These two pieces
appear together in this Collage:

Neil in Massachusetts sent me the piece entitled, "What *Does* The
Customer Really Want?" (This one is probably urban legend. But it's
amusing, so who cares?)

Steve Willoughby provides the follow-up piece, "Probably Doesn't
Understand 'Dilbert,' Either."

The next one is a piece that has been sent to me at *least* twenty
times -- and this one is *definitely* urban legend. But again, the
very concept is pretty amusing, so -- with credit to Mike for sending
the first copy -- we present "Unorthodox Skydiving Practices."

Finally, Randy Cassingham, of "This is True" fame (send a blank
e-mail to TrueInfo@freecom.com for more information), sends us yet
another highly-suspect-but-nevertheless-amusing piece, "Mission From
God."

(Note that none of us is *trying* to spread legends around the 'Net;
we all just appreciate an amusing story, veracity notwithstanding.)

I guess it's the "Urban Legends" Collage. Speaking of urban legends,
please don't send me any more copies of the CD-player-as-a-cup-holder
story; I would have included it in tonight's collection, but it's
already slated for release next week.

And speaking of next week, remember that HQ HumourNet will be
unmanned (though I have someone who will come in every day to raise
and lower the flag), and we will instead be hearing from Bo and James,
our guest moderators for the week. (Since I'll be away, please try to
go light on the e-mail. Thanks. :-)

Many thanks to our contributors. And a **huge** thanks to the guy
in Kentucky who sent me the "America Offline" software request. <g>

This is just too much fun. Enjoy!

- 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: What *Does* The Customer Really Want?

From an ex-field-sales/support survivor:

I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman
call in with a smoking power supply. The service rep was having a
bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep: Sir, something has burnt within your power supply.

Customer: I bet that there is some command that I can put into the
Autoexec.bat that will take care of this.

Service Rep: There is nothing that software can do to help you with
this problem.

Customer: I know that there is something that I can put in... some
command... maybe it should go into the Config.sys.

[After a few minutes of going round and round]

Service Rep: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there
is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I
want you to edit your Autoexec.bat and add the last line as
C:\DOS\NOSMOKE and reboot your computer.

[Customer does this]

Customer: It is still smoking.

Service Rep: I guess you need to call MicroSoft and ask them for a
patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE.

[The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last
of this guy but NO... he calls back four hours later]

Service Rep: Hello Sir, how is your computer?

Customer: I call MicroSoft and they said that my Power Supply is
incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new
one. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will
cost...

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

SUBJ: Probably Doesn't Understand 'Dilbert,' Either

Editor's Note 1: The following note was sent in error to Steve
Willoughby, moderator of the Oracle Service Humor List, shortly
after he ran the previous piece on his list. The message was,
presumably, intended for the sender's friend, not Steve. </vs>]

Phil: I check my systems file and I don't have a C:\DOS\NOSMOKE in
my programs. Do you think I should get one?

[Editor's Note 2: Once again, we see the "IBM Compatibles" theme
rearing its ugly head. I think there's a pattern here ... ;-) </vs>]

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

SUBJ: Unorthodox Skydiving Practices

"Response to a wildfire on the south of France's Cote d'Azur was
billed as a marvel of modern fire-fighting technology. Two
specially-built flying boats zoomed in, skimmed the waters of the
Mediterranean, scooping vast amounts of water into their belly
tanks, and then dropped the water on the hillside fire. All was
jolly and the wine flowed freely until a body was found in the
ashes.

"The coroner found that the gentleman had apparently fallen from a
great height, suffering serious injuries before being burned to
death. The report further noted that the victim was wearing a
bathing suit, snorkel, and swim fins."

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

SUBJ: Mission From God

(This report from a friend of mine who's still a bit high from the
bar exam....)

A quick narrative. I always wanted a hopped-up muscle car when I
was younger. I couldn't afford one. Now I can, and I have one. It
is a '70 Mustang, and her name is Bessie. Bessie is the prototypical
juvenile, male-caveman, scratch your crotch and drink cheap beer car.
Chromed engine, dual exhaust, 250 horsepower, big tires, tra la la.

I'm driving Bessie on Beach Boulevard behind an ancient guy in a
beat up truck. He decides to turn in front of me without a blinker.
I accelerate to swerve and avoid him, and this a**hole,
overaerobicized woman jumps in front of my car with her hand up.

Meet Ethel, the neighborhood busybody/nuisance. She proceeds to
yell in my window, "Hey, slow down you f**king idiot." I'm a
well-bred, mellow guy by nature, so I ignore this. As I drive away,
she yells, "a**hole" at me again. Twice? F**k that. I turn around
and drive up next to her.

"Do you have a problem?" I ask.

"Yeah, why are you driving like an idiot?"

"I was driving like an idiot? How, exactly."

"You were speeding. I watched you."

" You were? I see. How did you measure my speed?" (Ever the
interrogator, I am.)

"I heard you."

"So, you measured my speed by ear?"

"I can hear."

"How fast did you HEAR me going?"

"Look," she says, "I don't have to take this. Here comes a cop.
I'll wave him down."

THE POLICE? This woman is a trip. She waves him down, and proceeds
to tell him that she observed me speeding.

"What happened?" he asks. I told him the story, and told him that I
accelerated to an indicated 33 mph (the speed limit is 35) to avoid
a collision.

"Are those mufflers legal?" Ethel asks.

She's pushing it. I reply, "I have a C.A.R.B. exemption for them."
I give the paperwork to the cop.

She tries to find another thing to screw me with. She says "What
about those big tires? They CAN'T be legal." I began feeling little
overheated gears in the back of my head start to turn.

"These tires were available on the 1970 Boss 429," I told the cop,
"Which makes them street legal as a replacement."

Ethel gets angry. She whines, "So you're not going to give out any
tickets to this a**hole?"

The cop says, "No, I am not."

I've about had it. So I say, "Sir, this woman told you that she
left the street at the corner, and she met up with my car here.
According to Title 39, pedestrians have to cross the street at a
right angle. This woman admitted she crossed at a 45-degree angle,
which is a ticketable offense."

"What?" The cop looks confused.

"Also, she told you that she walked in front of my car to stop me.
A citizen can't detain someone without probable cause, under Terry
v. Ohio (my new favorite case). Since she couldn't measure my
speed, she had no probable cause to detain me. That is an
indictable offense."

The cop says, "But, I didn't see any of this."

"But," I said, "I did, and, as an officer of the Court, I can demand
her arrest. I'll agree to dismiss the Illegal Detention charge, but
I want her cited for not crossing at a right angle and Hazardous
Conduct on a Public Street."

The cop called his Lieutenant, and after the cop told the story, he
authorized the summonses.

She went home with $215.00 worth of traffic tickets, and they are
worth a total of four points against her license, as well as the
appropriate insurance surcharge!

[Editor's Note: Gee, I hope she had her *driver's license* with her
when she was cited for the *pedestrian offenses*, so those 4 points
can be properly applied against her license. ;-) </vs>]

OF course, if she demands a trial I won't prosecute. But the look
on her face as she walked away was more than enough satisfaction for
me.

Yeah, I've passed the bar, and I'm on a mission from God.

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</collage276>