July 26
I found this thingy called Usenet. I got out of it because I'm connected to America Online, not Usenet. I went to the doctor today for my regular checkup. He says that since I connected, My brain has mysteriously shrunk to half its normal size.

July 27
These people in this Usenet thingy keep using capital letters. How do they do that? i never figured out how to type capital letters. Maybe they have a different type of keyboard.

July 28
I found this thingy called the Usenet oracle. It says that it can answer any questions I ask it. I asked it 44 separate questions about the internet. I hope it responds soon.

July 29
I found a group called rec.humor. I decided to post this joke about why the chicken crossed the road. To get to the other side! ha ha! I wasn't sure if i posted it right so I posted it 56 more times.

July 30
I keep hearing about the World Wide Web. I didn't know spiders grew that large.

July 31
The oracle responded to my questions today. Geez, it was rude. I was so angry that I posted an angry message about it to rec.humor.oracle.d. I wasn't sure if it posted right so I posted it 22 more times.

August 1
Someone told me to read the FAQ. Geez, they didn't have to use profanity.

August 2
I just read this post called make money fast. I'm so exited, I'm going to make lots of money. I followed his instructions and posted it to every newsgroup i could find.

August 3
I just made my signature file. It's only 6 pages long, So I will have to work on it some more.

August 4
I just looked at a group called alt.aol.sucks. I read a few posts and I really believe that aol should be wiped off the face of the Earth. I wonder what an "aol" is, however.

August 5
I was asking where to find some information about something. Some guy told me to check out ftp.netcom.com. I've looked and looked, but I cant find that group.

August 6
Some guy suspended my account because of what i was doing. I told him I don't have an account at his bank. He's so dumb.

The Apple explosion
OFFICE MEMO
Date: 1/18/96

SPINDLER CALLS IN AIR STRIKE, DESTROYS APPLE TO SAVE IT

Stock Price Increases 50%

"We'll do it better," Says Microsoft

CUPERTINO, Calif. JANUARY 18, 1996
The massive pile of smoking rubble near Interstate 280 here in Cupertino was not the result of an earthquake or natural gas explosion, as officials first believed.

It now appears that the terrific explosion and fire at Apple Computer headquarters was the result of the first corporate-initiated airstrike on U.S. or California soil in U.S. history.

Sources within Apple have told newspapers that, in an effort to save Apple from an internal coup that would result in the breakup and sale of the company, embattled Apple CEO Michael Spindler called in elements of the California Air National Guard, based at Moffet Federal Air Station in Mountain View, Calif. to bomb and strafe his own headquarters.

Spindler allegedly called the California Air National Guard late last night and ordered the airstrike, using an Apple Macintosh Quadra A/V with experimental sound cards to simulate the voice of California Governor Pete Wilson.

Within Apple, Spindler is seen as a hero. "Cool! He called in an airstrike on his own position to save his company," said one internal Apple applications developer, who gave his name as "Scooter." "It was like one of those cool movies about, like, you know, Viet Nam, that I read about it on the Web, dude."

A memo to key staffers, reportedly written by Spindler himself, explained the need for the sir strike to counter moves by Apple managers and board members to oust him in a corporate coup and to simultaneously increase the company's marginal revenue. "Existing Macintoshes, both those in use and those in warehouses, will instantly become collector's items and therefore increase dramatically in value," according to the memo, which went on to explain that "this action will therefore increase our margins on existing stock with no cost to our sales and manufacturing operations." Spindler, said to be ailing, is in seclusion. Attempts to reach him by phone mail and fax were unsuccessful.

Apple stock shot up 50% on the news, as Wall Street apparently agreed with Spindler's strategy. "Blowing up his own headquarters was a stroke of genius," said one Wall Street analyst. "This is the kind of pure creative, self-destructive genius we used to see when Steve Jobs was at Apple. It's like the old days. Mac is back!" Overall, computer stock stocks rose 75% as a result of the Apple news, then plunged 80% later in the day on rumors that Dan Dorfman had been seen having lunch with Jim Clark and Marc Andreeson.

The Spindler airstrike memo, obtained via Internet e-mail by this reporter, was fragmented and missing key information. Apparently, the strike was planned for January 1, but key aides to Spindler did not receive the e-mail until yesterday due to routing table buffer problems and addressing errors.

Cupertino city officials issued a statement at 10:00 PST this morning calling the air strike "an unfortunate incident that, while we hope we will all gain something from it, we hope it did not offend anyone of any race, creed, color, religion, thought process or emotional state, and we must emphasize that the City of Cupertino had no role in this incident if it did." Class-action lawsuits against Apple and the city, alleging emotional trauma resulting in a lost train of thought, loss of computing resources and interrupted Internet access have already been filed in California State Court.

Later, when told by federal officials that the city will qualify for both federal disaster relief funds and labor department funds for unemployment and job training programs as a result of the destruction, Mayor Bob Mellow said, "Cool. We applaud Apple and Mike Spindler for having the vision and courage to take this decisive action, and hope that our earlier statement was taken in the spirit in which it was meant."

.

In Redmond, Wash., Microsoft announced plans to build and detonate several networked low-yield nuclear devices at its own headquarters some time in 1997. "This is a project we already had underway," said a spokeswoman for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "We just decided that the marketplace won't be ready for it until 1997. Or 1998, if we decide that's when we really want to do it. Or maybe later. Right now, we're hiring additional staff, developing new technology and getting ready to copy Apple's idea, strategy and execution. Oops, I meant to say that we're evaluating previously extant competitive actions." The project, dubbed Curtains `97, is expected by analysts to be complete some time in 1999.

Apple announced it will sue Microsoft in federal court over the "look and feel" of the use of explosive devices in business and home computing product strategies

Q: How many internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Exactly five hundred.

1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed.

7 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently or to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

17 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

21 to flame the spell checkers.

49 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list.

20 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.

32 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb.

69 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.

41 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this mail list.

106 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.

12 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

8 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs.

2 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.

15 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add pointedly, "Me Too."

6 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

9 to quote the "Me Too's" and happily add, "Me Three!"

3 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.

24 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it here.

53 votes for alt.lite.bulb.

WinErr 001: Windows loaded - System in danger
WinErr 002: No Error - Yet
WinErr 003: Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now in every file
WinErr 004: Erroneous error - Nothing is wrong
WinErr 005: Multitasking attempted - System confused
WinErr 006: Malicious error - Desqview found on drive
WinErr 007: System price error - Inadequate money spent on hardware
WinErr 008: Broken window - Watch out for glass fragments
WinErr 009: Horrible bug encountered - God knows what happened

WinErr 018: Unrecoverable error - System destroyed. Buy new one.
WinErr 019: User error - Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!
WinErr 01A: OS overwritten - Please reinstall all software.
WinErr 01B: Illegal error - You are not allowed to get this error. Next time you will suffer a penalty for that.
WinErr 01C: Uncertainty error - Uncertainty may be inadequate.
WinErr 01D: System crash - We are unable to figure out our own code.
WinErr 01E: Timing error - Please wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.
WinErr 01F: Reserved for future mistakes of our developers.
WinErr 020: Error recording error codes - Additional errors will be lost.
.

WinErr 042: Virus error - A virus has been activated in a dos-box. The virus, however, requires Windows. All tasks will automatically be closed and the virus will be activated again.
WinErr 079: Mouse not found - A mouse driver has not been installed. Please click the left mouse button to continue.
WinErr 103: Error buffer overflow - Too many errors encountered. Additional errors may not be displayed or recorded.
WinErr 678: This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?
WinErr 683: Time out error - Operator fell asleep while waiting for the system to complete boot procedure.
WinErr 815: Insufficient Memory - Only 50,312,583 Bytes available.
WinErr 912: Purchase a new copy of Windows today. Old license void. Windows has been deleted

The top ten signs that your co-worker is a computer hacker
10. You ticked him off once and your next phone bill was $20,000.

9. He's won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes three years running.

8. When asked for his phone number, he gives it in hex.

7. Seems strangely calm whenever the office LAN goes down.

6. Somehow he/she gets HBO on his PC at work.

5. Mumbled, "Oh, puh-leeez" 95 times during the movie "The Net"

4. Massive RRSP contribution made in half-cent increments.

3. Video dating profile lists "public-key encryption" among turn-ons

2. When his computer starts up, you hear, "Good Morning, Mr. President."

1. You hear him murmur, "Let's see you use that Visa card now, jerk."