Collage 369              H u m o u r N e t              10 Sep 1997

The enclosed Collage is the one that I'd originally MEANT to send out
as the first mailing from the new server -- but somehow, the "geeks"
motif just kinda overran the place while I was writing the opener.

So here it is. Note that it contains a lot of "dated" material; hey,
we were off line for a month, and a lot of things happened in that
period of time ...

For example, the UPS strike came and went -- and we have some pretty
good material from those events in this Collage.

Also, Steve Jobs assumed a larger role at Apple -- originally their
co-founder, he has now become their executioner. At least he has seen
to it that we'll continue to have Windows and Microsoft to kick
around for years to come. <g>

We also lost Princess Diana, and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed. From the
reports I've heard about Dodi, his job description apparently read:
"breathe." In exchange for successfully fulfilling the requirements
of that job, he supposedly received a monthly paycheck in the amount
of $100,000. Not bad for a one-word job description.

Now, I won't comment on my "Di and JFK living in secrecy on a
deserted island in the Mediterranean" conspiracy theory -- but just
remember, when the paparazzi (a term whose spelling is a random
process, apparently) publish the photos, you heard about it here
first!

Of final note on the Princess Diana theme: On the fateful night of the
crash, Dodi supposedly gave Di a "friendship ring" worth $200,000.
That's right -- a *friendship ring* worth $200,000. My guess is that
the clerk at the jewelry store suggested to Dodi that friendship rings
typically run about two months' salary ...

(Before my mailbox explodes with messages from the hypersensitive:
None of the foregoing commentary is intended to be disrespectful to
Princess Diana. Yes, I am as sorry as any of you to lose her; after
all, she looked a HELLUVA lot better in a cocktail dress than most
[quasi-]political figures (so to speak). Which, of course, is why my
comments *really* centered on Dodi, not Di. Read it again if you
didn't pick up on that fact the first time around.)

And now, for Collage 369 ...

Melissa in or around or near El Segundo, California, starts this one
off in style with "Desperate Express";

Nancy in Bridgepit (is that *really* the name of the place?),
Connecticut, follows through with a really cute piece entitled,
"Shipping News";

Robert S. in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada, brings us my personal
*favorite* UPS piece, "Advice to Management."

We then switch gears to a piece contributed by Gayle in Bradley,
Illinois: "Fry Tim McVeigh" (this one's great);

and Scott in Whitefield, Maine, closes out Collage 369 with "Monk
Gloats Over Yoga Championship." (This one is easily an all-time
favorite of mine. I've had it for a long time, and simply haven't
been able to find a Collage for it; I finally just broke down and
decided that it worked well enough in here. :-)

Huge thanks to Melissa, Nancy, Robert, and Gayle.

Enjoy!

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com

P.S. -- Though some might argue that it is inappropriate to dedicate
a *humor* mailing to a deceased person, Collage 369 is nevertheless
dedicated to the memory of Diana Spencer. And it's really not all
that inappropriate, anyway; if Diana were here to read it, I'm sure
she would laugh -- and in a most British manner, too. ;-)
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1997 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: Desperate Express

Due to the UPS strike, Federal Express, DHL, and Airborne Express
have been overwhelmed by the volume of packages they have been asked
to deliver. In fact, these mega-delivery companies have shown their
lack of preparation by reducing their package acceptance volume and
closing their offices as soon as they have reached their deliverable
capacity which in some areas is as early as 11:00 am.

Therefore, being the true entrepreneur that I am, I am beginning my
own temporary business venture.

Remember the name: DESPERATE EXPRESS

DESPERATE EXPRESS -- If you need packages delivered anywhere in the
world overnight ... we can't help you.

BUT, if you need a package delivered anywhere in the world within
200 miles of Syracuse, New York ... call us!

Remember the name: DESPERATE EXPRESS ... At Desperate Express we
absolutely, positively get your package there overnight unless we
just plain can't.

Here's how our company works:

Our company president and three of his drinking buddies have divided
the 200 mile radius into four quadrants. Each of us returns to
company headquarters at 7:00 pm to pick up all the packages dropped
on our doorstep that business day. All packages must have a
certified check for $25 made payable to DESPERATE EXPRESS attached.
We then divide the packages by quadrant and we're on our way.

However some restrictions and limitations apply:

a) All deliverable packages will simply be dropped on the
recipient's doorstep as soon as we get there. Since many of our
arrival times are in the wee morning hours, we apologize, but we
can't wait for a signature.

b) We open all packages before beginning our nightly route. If we
deem that your package is not as important as you think it is, it
will wait until we are less busy.

c) If we deem that the contents of your package could be faxed just
as easily, we will fax it instead for a nominal additional fee.

d) If we don't get enough packages going to any one quadrant, we'll
wait until we have enough to make the trip worthwhile.

e) Since we carry no insurance other than our standard auto
insurance, shipping is always at your own risk.

f) Please do not ship narcotics, alcohol, or firearms. They are very
tempting to our drivers.

g) Since we don't guarantee delivery, shipping cash is just fine.

h) Unlike other companies, you may hold us responsible for acts of
God, war, famine, world hunger, the Kennedy assassination, the
Warsaw Convention, and the national debt. We won't do anything about
it, but feel free to hold us responsible.

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

SUBJ: Shipping news

Did you hear that FedEx is going to acquire UPS?
They're going to call the new company Fed-Ups.

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

SUBJ: Advice to Management

Since the UPS supervisors are filling in for the drivers while the
Teamsters are on strike, I've had to tape the following to my door,
to give the supervisors a bit of a clue.

    Attention
    UPS Supervisor

The following are complete instructions for how to deliver a package
that does not require a signature (1):

  1. Get the package(2).

  2. Go to the place where the package is supposed to be(3).

  3. Set the package down(4), gently.

  4. Without picking the package up again, walk away(5).

(If you already knew that, my apologies for belaboring the obvious.
But the UPS supervisor who was here yesterday didn't know all this
technical stuff, and I'm told he's one of the brighter of the lot.)

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Footnotes.

(1) There are some other steps involved for packages that require
signatures, but let's walk before we try to run, okay?

(2) It'll usually be a squarish, boxy sort of thing. Probably brown,
but don't worry if it isn't. There's some legend out there that the
important packages have blue or red "UPS" labels on them, but don't
get suckered in by that. Important packages have "Federal Express"
written on them.

(3) You should be able to find the address on the package itself.
Don't panic, but there are probably two addresses on the package.
One is of the "sender" -- that's the person who used to have the
package. The other is of the "intended recipient" -- that's the
person who is supposed to get the package. If you can't figure out
which is which, and can't find somebody to tell you, drive to the
address that's in the same state that you are. If both are in the
same state, drive to the nearest one. If they're both equally as far
away from you, well, let's face it, you're going to starve to death
while trying to figure out where to go. Requiescat in pace.

(4) "Down" is this way: [insert down arrow symbol]

(5) You get twenty extra points for not stepping on the package; ten
extra points for only stepping on it once.

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

SUBJ: "Fry Tim McVeigh"

Sung (if possible) to the tune of "YMCA"

Trials -- there's one every day
I said trials -- spent 2 years with OJ
With these trials -- now we're on Tim McVeigh
And there's one thing we want to say

chorus:

  We want the jury to
  FRY Tim Mcveigh
  We want the jury to
  FRY Tim McVeigh
  
  We don't want no parole
  We don't want no appeal
  We don't want no big bargain deal
  
  We want the jury to
  FRY Tim McVeigh
  We want the jury to
  FRY Tim McVeigh
  
  Send him straight to the chair
  Shave his crewcut -- dork hair
  And don't stop till he's medium rare

We know -- he's a murdering scum
We think -- he should be strung up by his thumbs
For what he did -- with his rented truck bomb
And now that the trial has begun

Connections -- there's a new one each week
They've been published -- by some internet geek
And by Playboy -- we know they'd never lie
It's all there right by Miss July

repeat chorus

Lawyers -- we won't let this one go
So reserve him -- the best room on death row
In the meantime -- while he waits in the pen
Let's hope some hulk makes Tim his girlfriend!

repeat chorus

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

SUBJ: Monk Gloats Over Yoga Championship
Excerpted from The Onion, <http://www.theonion.com/>

"I am the serenest!" he says.

LHASA, TIBET - Employing the brash style that first brought him to
prominence, SriDhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International
Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6.

"I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000
yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Sri
Dhananjai Bikram-I am the greatest monk of all time!"

Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour
competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor,
second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer"
Gupta.

The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be
able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside
myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily."

Bikram got off to a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most
major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he
attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and
set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm
blissful! You blissful?! I'm blissful!" to the other yogis.

Bikram, 33, burst onto the international yoga scene with a
gold-mandala performance at the 1994 Bhutan Invitational. At that
competition he premiered his aggressive style, at one point in the
flexibility event sticking his middle toes out at the other yogis.
While no prohibition exists against such behavior, according to Yoga
League Commissioner Swami Prabhupada, such behavior is generally
considered "unBuddhalike."

"I don't care what the critics say," Bikram said. "Sri Bikram is
just gonna go out there and do Sri Bikram's own yoga thing."

Before the Bhutan meet, Bikram had never placed better than fourth.
Many said he had forsaken rigorous training for the celebrity status
accorded by his Bhutan win, endorsing Nike's new line of prayer mats
and supposedly dating the Hindu goddess Shakti. But his performance
this week will regain for him the number one computer ranking and
earn him new respect, as well as for his coach Mahananda Vasti, the
controversial guru some have called Bikram's "guru."

"My special training diet for Bikram of one super-charged,
carbo-loaded grain of rice per day was essential to his win," Vasti
said.

The defeated Gupta denied that Bikram's taunting was a factor in his
inability to attain TC. "I just wasn't myself today," Gupta
commented. "I wasn't any self today. I was an egoless particle of
the universal no-soul."

In the second event, flexibility, Bikram maintained the lead by
supporting himself on his index fingers for the entire 15 minutes
while touching the back of his skull to his lower spine. The feat
was matched by Gupta, who first used the position at the 1990 Tokyo
Zen-Off.

"That's my meditative position of spiritual ecstasy, not his,"
remarked Gupta. "He stole my thunder."

Bikram denied the charge, saying, "Gupta's been talking like that
ever since he was a 3rd century Egyptian slave-owner."

Nevertheless, a strong showing by Gupta in the third event, the
shotput, placed him within a lotus petal of the lead at the
competition's halfway point.

But event number four, the contemplation of unanswerable riddles
known as koans, proved the key to victory for Bikram.

The koan had long been thought the weak point of his spiritual
arsenal, but his response to today's riddle-"Show me the face you
had before you were born "-was reportedly "extremely illuminative,"
according to Commissioner Prabhupada.

While koan answers are kept secret from the public for fear of
exposing the uninitiated multitudes to the terror of universal
truth, insiders claim his answer had Prabhupada and the two other
judges "highly enlightened."

With the event victory, Bikram built himself a nearly insurmountable
lead, one he sustained through the yak-milk churn and breathing
events to come away with the upset victory.

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</collage369> Dedicated to the memory of Diana Spencer.