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Text File | 1993-03-24 | 90KB | 1,890 lines

*
* ARCHIVE: 19921202.NEW
*
* DATE: 12/02/92 (revised 12/08/92)
*
* EDITOR(S):
*
*        Editor   1 : Paul J. Clegg  ([e-mail])
*        Editor   2 : Steve Baker  ([e-mail])
*
* NUMBER OF ARTICLES: 25
*


********************** I M P O R T A N T   N O T I C E **********************

This collection of articles fully complies with the "official" Project
Galactic-Guide "Article Writing/Style Guide" report (updated 03/19/92), and
is usable with any article reader program which supports this format.

If a new article format becomes standard, THIS FILE WILL BE UNUSABLE with
complying programs which support the new format.  Don't Panic!  This archive
will be re-released after being converted to the new standards, should they
be approved.  Again, watch [ alt.galactic-guide ] for updates.
                                                                      [ swb ]
*****************************************************************************


*
*
* REAL (Fact) ARTICLES -- 11
*
*   2R7    -- Party Hints
*   2R8    -- New York City, New York, USA, Earth
*   2R9    -- How to avoid being mugged in New York
*   2R10   -- Classification of Religions
*   2R11   -- Flying
*   2R12   -- Drinking Problems, a Solution to
*   1R7    -- Bluffers Guides, the
*   1R8    -- Economic Benefits of Pollution, The
*   1R9    -- Reno, Nevada, USA, Earth
*   1R10   -- Travel Necessities
*   1R11   -- Barenaked Ladies
*
*


%t Party Hints
*    This article originally appeared in the Toxic Custard Workshop Files
*    number 82 (3rd February 1992).  *BLATANT PLUG*  Subscriptions to this
*    completely worthless publication are available from the author, or
*    by emailing [e-mail]
%s How to have a party on Earth - some helpful hints
%a Daniel Bowen  ([e-mail])
%n 2R7
%d 19920203
%i How To Have A Party
%e
Here are some handy hints to remember if you're planning on having a
party:

         1) Don't have one. You'll be regretting it for the rest of
            your life, as every day you'll find another piece of rubbish
            or a stain you hadn't seen before.

         2) Keep control of the music.  Don't let the alcoholic
            headbanger of the party take over or you'll have wall to
            wall heavy metal all evening as he gets completely pissed
            and lies in the garden, still banging his head on the garden
            path to the Slayer album someone was irresponsible enough to
            bring along.

         3) Make sure no-one strays from the garden into the house.
            Grass is easier to clean than carpet, and is considerably
            cheaper, even if you do have to mow it.

         4) Don't let any electrical engineering students do the
            lighting.  You could end up electrocuting ten people and
            blacking-out the state.

         5) If you're going to have a barbecue, make sure there's
            someone sober around who knows how to try to work it.  Try
            not to let any intoxicated persons near the gas supply or
            the matches.

         6) Do not let people who can't cook, cook.

         7) When using party sparklers, do not wave them at passing
            aircraft, particularly when in the vicinity of an airport.

         8) Always have a conversation starter ready for the dreaded
            and inevitable lull during the early stages of the party
            when everyone sits around talking quietly.  Experts have
            identified a condition known as Sudden Party Global
            Quietness, whereby everyone suddenly and unexpectedly stops
            talking at once, leaving only the loud music and the quiet
            headbanging from the garden as the only sounds in the
            otherwise silent darkness.

         9) Try to prevent lights exploding.

         10) Do not, under any account, let in people that you don't
             know.  Especially if they look like intergalactic hitchhikers
             - they always cause trouble.  Subject all entrants to
             interrogation, search and "identify the host" procedures.

         11) Try not to let the aforementioned alcoholic headbanger
             bring along his baseball bat.

         12) Try not to let the aforementioned alcoholic headbanger
             and his baseball bat get into arguments with other guests,
             no matter how trivial or insignificant these arguments might
             seem to be at first glance.

         13) Do not encourage those possessing baseball bats to go
             clubbing.

         14) Have someone ready to turn the electricity off at the
             fusebox to plunge the house into darkness and silence the
             moment there is any hint of the constabulary being in the
             immediate vicinity.  And hope they don't hear a hundred
             people screaming "What happened to the lights?", "I can't
             see a thing!" and "Whoever that is, get your hand off me!"

         15) Keep your pets safe out of harm's way.  They will
             probably agree with this.

         16) Purchase plenty of provisions in advance so that people
             don't have to get lost somewhere in suburbia for hours in
             search of an open bottle shop.

         17) To deal with the neighbors, either buy them a family
             pack of earplugs or invite them to get sloshed with everyone
             else.
%e
*EOA*


%t New York City, New York, USA, Earth
%n 2R8
%s New York, a lousy place to visit, but somebody has to live there.
%a Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub  ([e-mail])
%d 19930117
%i Hell, New York City Division
%x How To Avoid Being Mugged In New York
%x Earth
%e
Almanacs list New York as the fifth largest city on Earth.  Of course, that
is only if you count Tokyo and Yokohama as one city, which isn't really fair
even if they are right across the river from each other.  So any reasonable
person would say New York was the fourth largest city on Earth.

One can separate New York into five Boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Bronx,
Brooklyn, and Staten Island.  Each of these has its own levels of interest,
danger, and people who try to wash your car windows even if you don't want
them to because you'd just washed the car anyway.

Manhattan --

This island is the most famous part of New York.  Current theories suggest
that Manhattan is a scientific experiment to determine how long it takes for
people to turn a seven mile long island into a solid cube of buildings.  If
it were not for Central Park, this most certainly would have already
happened.

Since this is the part of New York that everybody thinks about when you say
New York, it may be where you want to stay for your trip.  It is, in some
areas, one of the safest places to be in New York.  This means it is about
as safe as sticking a lighted blowtorch in your mouth after having chugged a
few liters of 87 octane gasoline.

Queens --

This area is one of the less developed areas of New York, being only as
densely populated as Des Moines, Iowa, provided the entire population of Des
Moines lived on the same block.  Queens sits entirely on Long Island, which,
as you may have guessed, is rather long.

There is absolutely nothing worth seeing in Queens, so don't go there unless
you don't like to lie to your friends and want to tell them you spent your
vacation in Jamaica.  You can honestly say you went to Jamaica, which is on
an island and where they talk with an unusual accent, walk about in exotic
outfits, have strange hairdos, and listen to music even the most serious rug
user would not be able to write, much less enjoy.

Bronx --

The Bronx is probably the least safe place to be in New York.  It is well
known by the inhabitants that if your car is struck by another car in the
Bronx, you should never get out of the car, or even acknowledge what
happened.  This holds even if the impact was great enough to cave in the
side of your car, rupture all tires (including the spare), and sever two of
your major arteries.

A hitchhiker killed in the Bronx will be referred to, by police, as a
suicide victim.  This is one of the more sure ways of committing suicide,
only surpassed in sureness by stripping down to your underwear and climbing
inside the reactor at Three Mile Island.  And even that is not as quick.

Brooklyn --

Brooklyn is most famous for its many bridge salesmen.  This should be a
definite stop on any sightseeing tour.  To fit in better with the local
population, you may wish to speak like them.  One of the simplest ways to
speak with a Brooklyn accent is to put a bag of marbles in your mouth and
gargle Drain-O for ten minutes.

If you go to Brooklyn, purchase a map first.  Manhattan is easy to navigate
since most of the streets are in a grid.  Queens is a little more confusing
because it uses street names instead of numbers.  Brooklyn, on the other
hand, is yet another example of how severe drug use can effect the city
planning council.

If you should enter Brooklyn without a map, don't bother asking the people
you see on the street.  Chances are they are just as lost.

Staten Island --

This island has expended considerable energy in an attempt to sever
themselves from New York, and who can blame them.  The only reason they have
been unable to do so is that the public realizes the only other option is to
be a part of New Jersey.

To get to Staten Island one must either take the Verrazano Narrows Bridge or
the Staten Island ferry.  As the bridge tolls require a small bank loan and
your first-born child, the ferry may be a better choice for the cost-
conscious hitchhiker.  This ferry can provide hours of entertainment,
provided you prefer slasher movies.

Where to stay:

Considering the overall costs, you have several options:

         1) Find a warm grating.  This is a rather popular choice.
            It became so popular in the past few years that the New
            York City planning commission has installed many new
            grates.  While these grates provide an absolute boon for
            you and ten thousand of your fellow bunkmates, they also
            provide a rather serious hazard to any female hitchhikers
            who like to wear high-heels.  You may be worried that the
            people near you on the grate are criminals.  This is not
            true.  Careful research by the city has shown that most of
            them were just thrown out of mental asylums.

         2) Sleep in your van or car.  This option is quite expensive,
            as parking in New York costs as much as a small villa in the
            rustic portion of many European countries.  This is also
            somewhat more dangerous than strapping yourself to meat and
            falling into a pit-bull kennel.  In most cities you would
            not expect your hubcaps to remain after a night on the street,
            but in New York, be surprised if the frame is still there in
            the morning.

         3) Rent an inexpensive hotel.  The hotels in this category
            can easily be located: just look for any building with the
            sign "low hourly rates" outside.  Many people refuse to try
            these places because they feel they are cockroach-infested
            piles of safety and health violations.  Nothing could be
            further from the truth.  No self-respecting cockroach would
            be caught dead in a place like that, and safety and health
            inspectors never check them, so how could they possibly be
            in violation?

         4) Go to the Ritz.  Considering the extreme costs involved, I
            recommend the following methods of getting a room.  Hang out
            in the hallway until some guests leave their room, then sneak
            in and get some sleep before they come back from a night of
            partying.  Borrow some mountain climbing gear, scale the
            outside of the building, and locate an unoccupied room to spend
            the night in.  Pay the manager with monopoly money, and hope he
            does not notice until morning.  In any of the above cases, if
            they catch you, act surprised, and try your best to sound as
            if you are an immigrant from an underdeveloped third-world
            country who doesn't know any better.  Or better yet, pretend
            you are from the Bronx.

Where to eat:

The answer to this is quite simple.  Do not eat food sold from carts on the
street unless you enjoy eating deceased house pets.  Do not eat at any
restaurant with a front of more the five meters unless your last name is
Kennedy or Vanderbilt.  Do not eat in any bar, unless it is prepackaged
preprocessed food with preparation instructions containing no word over two
syllables.

If you are going to eat, eat pizza.  No, don't have pizza one night and then
wonder what you will eat the rest of the time, eat only pizza.  The pizza in
New York is some of the best pizza in the world, and is one of the only safe
foods in New York unless you are a native and have built up an immunity.
The recommendation is to have pizza morning, noon, and night.

The best pizza in New York is between 70th and 80th street on the east side
of Manhattan.  This pizza is so good that many people have been known to
fall into a coma caused by continual stimulation of the pleasure center of
the brain.  In the Bronx, people are killed for drug money, but on the upper
east side people are killed for pizza money.

If you must eat something else, go to a deli.  They will charge about five
times the cost of the same food in a supermarket, but the food can be quite
good.  The best delis are ones that are halfway below ground.  If it takes
more than five steps to get down to it, back up.  If the deli is flush with
the sidewalk, have your credit card ready.

There are two kinds of delis in New York: Italian and Jewish.  If you go to
a Jewish deli, do not miss tasting the New York bagels.  These are true
bagels, well worth any cost (between fifty cents and a dollar each usually).
The bagels are so popular, you can even get them in some Chinese restaurants.
In Italian delis the meatball hero is usually safe.  Be prepared for the
enormous amount of grease you are about to consume first, however.

What to see:

The World Trade Center (AKA, the Twin Towers).  I highly recommend that you
not waste the time and money going here.  The money you save from the
elevator ride to the top will be enough to pay for your children's college
tuition.  There is nothing to see once you are at the top as pollution and
fog hide everything in the distance, the glass windows are always smeared
with grease from the faces of thousands of gawkers, and the observation deck
on the roof is pulled so far back from the edge that it is surprising you
can see any part of the ground at all.  The Empire State Building charges a
much more reasonable fee, and you can hang over the edge of the observation
deck if you want to (not recommended).

The Stock Market (AKA, Wall Street).  Wall Street itself is a rather boring
sight as most of the buildings are being refaced at any given time.  On the
other hand, the Stock Market can provide hours of entertainment.  Watching
traders wade through knee deep piles of paper, barging through densely
packed crowds, and occasionally collapsing due to a missed appointment for a
coronary bypass can be fun and enlightening.  Few people really know how many
times a person must be trodden on before they suffer internal damage
until they watch the Stock Market for a few hours.

The Federal Reserve (AKA, the Fed).  While Fort Knox contains the United
States gold reserve, the Fed contains the gold of other countries.  When a
country sells arms to another country, the money transfer is usually made by
moving gold from one bin in the Fed to another.  There are several guided
tours that will take you to see the bins of gold bricks for yourself.  As a
joke, you may want to try slipping a gold painted brick into one of the
bins. Just imagine the look on the face of the French ambassador when he
tries to explain that one.

The Statue of Liberty.  If you wish to go to the top of the Statue of
Liberty, I suggest the following plan.  As the ferry pulls up to the island,
leap across the gap before it pulls in, and run to the statue.  Take the
stairs to the top of the pedestal (the elevators take too long) and run up
the spiral staircase to the head.  You will have about three seconds of
viewing time before eight million people show up and form a line.  Note that
even this will not work if it is a busy day.  Be careful of the guy at the
ferry station who will squash your pennies in a printing press for money.

The Museum of Natural History.  A good place to go if you like to see a
great deal of stuffed animals.  If you don't, there is still the dinosaur
room.

Hayden Planetarium.  This place, in itself, is not particularly exciting.
However, there is a wonderful store just two blocks north of it called the
bone shop.  If you were visiting the Museum of Natural History and wished
you could fill your house with stuffed endangered species and carefully
reassembled skeletons, then this is a place to visit.  For reasonable prices
you can buy insects trapped in amber, eggs of birds ranging from sparrow to
ostrich, stuffed animals (including a Dodo Bird), and skeletons.  They
even sell human skulls.

The Museum of Modern Art.  This museum is rather large; do not be surprised
if you end up wandering about for several days.  Because of its popularity,
all signs appear in several languages.  Unfortunately English is not one of
them.

The Bronx Zoo.  If you hitchhike to the Bronx Zoo, make sure the car you get
in is going all the way there.  Never should you ever let a driver drop you
off in the Bronx itself.  If this situation arises, ride with the driver to
his or her destination, even if it is Chicago.  Do not visit the zoo between
November and March unless you are a cage salesman and want to examine some
of the samples at the zoo.  Do not visit between March and June unless you
want to see what it feels like to live in Hong Kong.

Where to shop:

Avoid all stores that say they are going out of business.  These stores will
probably outlast your grandchildren, and then some.  If, for any reason, you
feel morally obligated not to purchase stolen goods, avoid all people
selling things on the street for 75% of their cost.  Please note that all
items sold in the street for 50% or less of their usual cost are probably
not stolen, but were found in a dumpster behind a store, thrown out because
they were faulty and had already claimed the lives of at least four
families.  If you are a real thrill seeker, try this out.

Do not go to the back of any shop narrower than a really fat guy, otherwise
you might as well hand your wallet to the nearest thief and save yourself
the trouble.  If you are shopping at a food stand, don't buy anything out
front if there is also some inside the store.

The best stores are on the west side of Manhattan, between 50th and 85th
street.  For the stores in this area, the best ones are the shallowest.  If
a store is less than four meters deep it is most likely a fantastic store.
If it is ten meters deep it is an okay store, and if it is thirty meters
deep avoid it like the plague.  Reverse these rules elsewhere in New York.

Another good place to shop is in the lower section of Manhattan where the
streets are still numbered, but using numbers between 14 and 20.  The ones
in the vicinity of Broadway tend to be especially good.  Books are probably
the most popular item in the area.

Getting around:

Unless you are Rambo or Bruce Lee, it is highly recommended you avoid the
subway.  If you insist on the "New York experience" and decide to take the
subway, avoid the upper half of the blue and green lines, and the entire L
line, which is buried so deep that they had to get a variance from Satan to
build it.  Whatever you do, do not give a subway musician more than $1
unless you would like to spend the rest of your visit surrounded by out of
work accordion players.

Taxi cabs are often a good choice for trips that are too far to walk or pass
through bad areas (which is most of New York).  Despite rumors, taxis are
not expensive, and are often very quick.  The taxi driver will not bother
you with long winded conversations about the benefits of certain hemorrhoid
creams, mainly because there is little or no chance that you both happen to
speak the same language.  Tip the taxi driver at least 10% or the cab may
pull away before you are completely out of it.  Do not tip the taxi driver
more than 20% or he will follow you around all day.

Buses are usually a good intermediate choice.  They tend to be rather safe,
and cost only as much as the subway.  The main problem is twofold; if you
don't know exactly where the bus is, they will not tell you.  There are no
signs, messages, or announcements telling you where you are, so memorize the
bus route map while waiting for it to arrive.  The buses usually run north-
south or east-west, and unless there is an amazing coincidence, you will
inevitably need to transfer.  Even if you don't think you will transfer,
take a transfer slip anyway; you can always hock it to somebody.
%e
*EOA*


%t How To Avoid Being Mugged In New York
%n 2R9
%s Hints to help you keep what little you have
%a Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub  ([e-mail])
%d 19930117
%i Mugged, How To Avoid Being
%x New York City, New York, USA, Earth
%e
After years of study, sociologists have determined that the two biggest
causes of muggings in New York are muggers and tourists.  Since you will be
unable to affect the first (indeed, even the local police have given up on
that endeavor), the second option is the only factor that you can alter to
reduce the chances of being mugged.

Since the second big factor in muggings is tourists, and because if you are
not a native to New York, then you are by definition a tourist; the easiest
way to avoid being mugged in New York is to not go there.  If you insist on
visiting, the second best way is to act like a native New Yorker.  This
involves keeping the following principals in mind.

         1) Dress like a native.  This means no funny hats, no
            matter how hard a member of your group may whine and
            call you a party pooper.  It is also extremely foolish
            to where brightly colored shirts, shorts no matter how
            hot it is, or those really big joke sunglasses they
            sell on practically every street corner.

         2) Don't gawk.  New York invites itself to gawking, either
            at the tall buildings, the strange looking people, or
            the unusual street displays.  Not to mention the guy
            standing in the middle of Park Avenue during rush hour
            urinating on a parked Mercedes.  Don't stare.  The
            native New Yorker has grown so accustomed to the
            unusual that they think David Lynch isn't very creative
            and Salvador Dali was a realist.  Never act surprised,
            even if a man who obviously hasn't had a bath since the
            Nixon administration tries to attract your attention by
            dropping his pants and singing "Born Free" in falsetto.

         3) Never, ever, go into an alley without a fully loaded
            M16 and at least two hand grenades at the ready.  Even
            then you may be out armed.

         4) When on a street, never buy anything for less than half of
            what it would cost in a store, because this may just be an
            attempt to get you to pull out your wallet.  If you do take
            your wallet out of your pocket or purse on the street, be
            sure you have at least two friends to block anybody running by.

         5) Never enter a park without an armed escort, and even
            then not after dark.  Note that some parks are only
            three or four square meters; this does not make them
            safer.  Remarkably, Central Park is an exception to
            this.  Despite its reputation, Central Park is one of
            the safest parks to visit during the day.  The safest
            safe place is the southernmost four blocks.

         6) Don't enter any portion of the subway without at least
            two people who obviously don't know each other already
            in it.  A careful study has shown that the safety of
            entering an empty part of the subway alone is somewhere
            between ramming a poker through your skull and eating a
            plate of ground glass for breakfast.

Parts of the city to avoid:

         - All of it.

         - Any part of Manhattan above 110th street, or above 90th
           street after dark.  This area is commonly known as the
           death zone.

         - Any part of the Bronx south of Maine.  Not the street,
           the state.

         - Queens, near the airport, and along the river.  Also any
           area where the number of burnt out buildings is larger
           than the number of people on the street.  That is to
           say almost the whole of Queens.

         - Staten Island, anywhere near the ferry landings or on
           the edge of a freeway that runs through a ditch.  Most
           of the freeways on Staten Island do.

         - Brooklyn, everywhere if you are in a car.  If you are not
           in a car, the waterfront and airport areas are good places
           to avoid.

What to do if you are being mugged:

Do not shout "Help, police!" as studies have shown this causes police to
flee from you while at the same time attracting even more muggers.  If you
want the mugger to be stopped shout "Hey, this guy is giving away free
money!"

If you know martial arts, don't use them.  Nine times out of ten a guy with
a gun beats a martial arts expert, regardless of what you have seen in the
latest Chuck Norris picture.

If someone in a car grabs your bag, let go.  Each year three people are
killed in drive-by bag snatchings.  This is mainly because there are only
about three people born each year stupid enough to hold onto their bag while
they are being dragged around the streets of New York.  If you wear a purse,
do not wrap it around your neck thinking it will be harder to steal, or you
will be person number four.

Do not put your wallet in your back pocket.  Besides it being easier to
steal, any chiropractor will tell you that it ruins your posture.  It isn't
very good for your pants either, so keep your wallet in your front pocket.

Common mugging methods:

A pickpocket never works alone; there are always at least three people: a
blocker, a snatcher, and a shill.  The blocker forces you to stand still
long enough for the snatcher to grab your wallet and then pass it off to the
shill in case you notice it is missing.  If a person blocks your way, and
pretends to move out of the way while still blocking you, there is a very
high probability your wallet is being snatched.  When this happens, if you
immediately turn around and physically attack the person standing directly
behind you there is a small chance you will get your wallet back, depending
on whether the wallet has been passed off or not.  This has worked at least
once in the past.

If a person, for any reason, asks you to come into an alley, do not do it.
The most common method is to suggest that you will be able to purchase a
gold necklace for under ten dollars.  It is very tempting to enter an alley
for such a good deal, but rest assured you have better chances getting a
lawyer to worry about morals than buying that necklace.  If there are less
than three armed people waiting for you in the alley then the person was new
at the job.

Do not get involved with any betting on the street.  Even if you, by some
great miracle of chance, happen to win at any of the fine sidewalk betting
tables, rest assured you will never be able to claim your winnings.  Look
about you as you walk past any of these, and note any people over two meters
tall and 120 kilos.  These people almost certainly are there to separate any
lucky fellow from the table before the winnings are claimed.

If you feel a gun barrel in your back, it is okay to relax.  Almost every
time, it turns out that this "gun barrel" is really just a short piece of
piping.  However, due to the small chance it is not a pipe it is a good idea
to hand over your wallet anyway.  New York is surpassed only by Washington
DC and Dallas for its murder rate, and Washington DC doesn't count because
that's where all the politicians are.
%e
*EOA*


%t Classification Of Religions
%n 2R10
%s Classification method for religions
%a Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub  ([e-mail])
%d 19920609
%i Religions, Classification Of
%e
Years ago scholars attempted to collect information on all the religions in
the known galaxy.  While the attempt itself proved useless, it did provide a
system of classification for religions.  To get a quick understanding of any
given religion it is helpful to learn this simple classification method.

Each religion identifier consists of a string of numbers, letters, and
hyphens for quickly locating certain attributes.  I highly recommend all
those writing articles about any religion to use this classification scheme
so that the average person can find quickly exactly what the religion entails
without the difficulty of reading the entire text.  The scheme also offers
itself to a good ordering for the text of any religion.

The first digit of the classification number represents the number of
deities the religion has, followed by a letter indicating the type.  Omit the
letter if the first digit is 0.

         A) All powerful, all knowing benevolent
         B) All powerful, but one can usually pull pranks due to
            lack of all knowingness.
         C) All knowing, but who the hell really cares due to lack
            of all powerfulness.
         D) Neither all knowing nor all powerful, but just kind of there.
         E-H) Same as above, but malevolent
         I) Whoever happens to be leader of the people at the time
         J) Everything and everybody is part of the god
         K) Everything and everybody, except for people members of
            the religion don't like, is part of god
         L) God is a head of lettuce named Ralph

The next digit represents what is expected after death by the following
chart:

         0) Everybody goes to a nice place
         1) Members of the religion go to a nice place, everybody
            else goes to an unpleasant place
         2) Members of the religion go to an unpleasant place,
            everybody else goes to a nice place
         3) Everybody goes to an unpleasant place
         4) Nobody goes anywhere
         5) Really bad people are forced to work in all night
            convenience stores in New Jersey
         6) Everybody is reincarnated
         7) Only people who deserve punishment are reincarnated

The letter immediately following that represents the organization of the
religion.  A representing very organized, Z representing chaos.  Follow this
by a hyphen to make it easier to find the next section.

The next number represents the percentage of members that are named "Bubba".
Do this on a scale from 0 to 9, with 0 meaning that nobody is named Bubba and
9 meaning that everyone is named Bubba.  Southern Baptists are rated a 5 and
the First Congregational Church of Bubba is a 9.

The next letter indicates how policy is decided, if no letter is listed then
there is no policy:

         A) Handed down from a single source
         B) Voted upon by a collection of elders
         C) Voted upon by everybody
         D) Chosen by a random number generator
         E) Determined by careful computer analysis
         F) Determined by combatants representing each view playing
            Super Mario Brothers
         Z) Nobody has ever tried to change the policy, so nobody
            knows just yet

Then follows a digit representing the number of ways one can spell the name
of the religion.

The next letter represents the place where the religion holds its meetings:

         A) No meetings
         B) A building set aside for the purpose
         C) A building which is also the gym for the local high school
         D) Outside
         E) In an airport or bus terminal
         F) In a submarine
         G) In a graveyard or mausoleum
         F) In a bathtub or jacuzzi

If ever the standards to any of these above constraints are unknown, the use
of a question mark is preferred.

Examples:

Atheism: 04Z-11A
Buddhism: 1J7M-2Z2B
Calvinism: 1A1B-0B1B
Catholicism: 1A1A-1A1B
Hare Krishna: 1J7C-3A4E
Episcopalianism: 1??M-0B1B
%e
*EOA*


%t Flying
%n 2R11
%s The concept of staying aloft.
%a Paul Jason Clegg  ([e-mail])
%d 19920904
%i Flight
%i Hover
%i Hovering
%e
"Flying" is the term given to any object that just happens to be changing
it coordinate location without treading on a solid surface, or liquid
medium, but most definitely within the boundaries of an atmosphere.  Some
may also say that extra-atmospheric travel is also a form of flight, which
it is, but most don't call it such, partially because the physical principles
are usually different, but mostly because they don't do it often enough to
warrant much discussion on the topic.

An object that is moving very, very fast, no matter what the medium of
travel is, is often considered "flying", though this is only a slang
implementation of the terminology.

Usually flight is achieved through one of two ways.  The first is that a
fixed wing design is implemented, such that great horizontal thrust applied
to the object creates what is known as "lift", and (usually) maintains the
vehicle's altitude.  The second is similar, except that instead of the wing
design remaining fixed, the wings actually rotate themselves, creating a
purely vertical lift.  Vehicles of the latter type are usually called
"helicopters", and the former, "airplanes".

Conceptually, it has been thought that flight may be achieved by falling,
and missing the ground.  The chance, however, of falling down and missing
the solid surface below you, is so nil as to make no odds, and this idea
has never been proven to any degree to even be believable.
%e
*EOA*


%t Solutions To Drinking Problems
%s Common solutions to bar problems
%n 2R12
%a Hanno Liem  ([e-mail])
%d 19921002
%i Drinking Problems, Solutions To
%x Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster -- Terran Version
%e
Any hitch-hiker who visits bars a lot can tell you that, in whatever
galaxy the bar is located, the problems one encounters when visiting one
(or more precisely, after one has visited one for quite some time) are
roughly the same all over the universe.

This article is meant to give some common solutions to these problems,
which can be quite useful for the unexperienced hitch-hiker...

PROBLEM                 CAUSE                           SOLUTION
-------                 -----                           --------
You have little fun     You have failed or for-         Take new glass
drinking and your       gotten to open your mouth,      and practice in
front feels damp.       or have put your glass          front of mirror
                        to a wrong opening in your      until your drin-
                        head.                           king technique
                                                        is perfected.

Beer does not taste     Glass is empty.                 Find a person
as usual, but instead                                   willing to buy
is pale and bright.                                     one or more
                                                        drinks.

Feet are becoming       Glass is held upside-down.      Turn glass either
cold and wet.                                           clockwise or
                                                        counterclockwise,
                                                        until open side
                                                        is facing up.

Feet are becoming       Inaccurate/inappropriate        Complain with
warm and wet.           bladder control.                the owner of the
                                                        nearest dog to
                                                        save face.

Head is becoming        Karim van Veen from             Find other partner
cold and wet.           Zoeterwoude, Holland is         for conversation.
                        "talking" to you.

Bar is passing by.      Not true. Someone is            Are you being
                        carrying you somewhere.         carried to the
                                                        next bar?  No?
                                                        Protest clearly.

Opposite wall looks     You have fallen backward.       Have yourself tied
the same as the                                         to the bar.
ceiling.

All is dark and         You have fallen forward.        See previous ans-
your mouth is full of                                   wer.
glass and ash and
cigarettes.

You can't see right,    EMERGENCY! You are looking      Have glass refilled
everything is blurry.   through an empty glass.         as soon as possible.

Beer tastes strange     You have mistaken ashtray       Give up smoking.
and contains solid      for glass.
objects.

You are staring at      You are sitting on the floor.   Find empty stool
something dark and                                      or pick up own
you have lost your                                      stool.
glass.

%e
*EOA*


%t Bluffer's Guides, The
%n 1R7
%s Independent companion volumes to the Guide
%a Jim Cheetham  ([e-mail])
%d 19921002
%i Bluffing
%i Pretending To Know What You're Talking About
%i Being More Clever Than You Really Are
%i Knowledge The Easy Way
%e
In the world today there are many specialist areas of knowledge that
the average hitchhiker is expected to know, especially when the entity
that you are hitching from wants to talk non-stop for seventeen hours,
and then ask your opinion.

Nobody with a brain significantly smaller than a red giant could possibly
absorb so many fields of knowledge, but luckily a hoopy group of towel
carrying froods have come up with an alternative -- Bluffing!

The successful bluffer remembers key facts and sayings, and by careful
application, manages to present the impression of a full-fledged expert.

For example, in Swanley, Greater London, England, you are not a local at
the pub unless you've been there, drinking, every night, for five years.
Obviously it gets difficult to think of new topics of conversation every
night for five years, and a few things get repeated.  Most common is the
subject of cars -- and note that you are not allowed to be a bloke unless
you also know about cars.  Mark Steele, an aspiring local, learnt a few
basic facts about cars and mentioned them, every now and again.  These
facts were:

"Austin Allegro?  All Rust and Aggro, more like!"
"Fiat? You know what that stands for, don't you?  Fix It Again, Tony!"
"Never get a Ford that's been made on a Friday.  All the lads at Dagenham
 go down the pub on a Friday lunchtime, and make all the dodgy ones in the
 afternoon!"
"Chrysler Avenger?  Chassis rots."

After a couple of years, they all thought he was a motor mechanic.

To help the hitchhiker discover all these basic facts and opinions, a series
of small reference works have been produced by the much-underrated
publishing company Ravette Limited, 3 Glenside Estate, Star Road,
Partridge Green, Horsham, Sussex RH13 8RA, England.  In a clever scam to
disguise their works, they are classified as Humor.  If the intrepid
hitchhiker wishes to track these down, and finds that the address above
has moved to another universe (as these things are prone to do, over time)
the ISBN reference of _The Bluffer's Guide to Computers_ is given as
ISBN 0-907830-02-1.

Happy Bluffing in Accountancy, Advertising, Antiques, Architecture,
Astrology, Ballet, Bank Managers, Beliefs, The Body, Cinema, Class,
The Classics, Computers, Consultancy, Defence, Espionage, Feminism,
Gambling, High Society, Jazz, Journalism, Law, Literature, Management,
Marketing, Millionaires, Modern Art, Music, Opera, Philosophy,
Photography, Politics, Property, Public Relations, Publishing, Secret
Societies, Selling, Sex, Skiing, Stockbrokering, Success, Teaching,
Television, Theater, Travel, Wine, World Affairs, The Americans,
The Australians, The British, The French, The Germans, The Japanese,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Moscow, New York, Paris,
and quite a few more!
%e
*EOA*

%t Economic Benefits Of Pollution, The
%n 1R8
%s Why pollution is necessary in today's economy
%a David Richard Tabb  ([e-mail])
%d 19921030
%i Pollution
%e
It is a well known and unpopular fact that today's modern manufacturing
techniques are the cause of a great deal of pollution.  It is also well
known and unpopular that this pollution is the cause of many illnesses
in the workers at the plants causing said pollution.  What is neither well
known nor popular is the fact that this entire cycle is actually a powerful
economic force without which modern society could not exist.

Let's examine this one step at a time.  (One) An executive builds a factory
knowing that it will cause pollution, much in the same way that cows produce
methane, and (Two) hires people to work there at ridiculously low wages.
(Three) The workers work, as workers are wont to do, and eventually (Five)
become extremely ill and die because they have been (Four) handling very
dangerous and toxic materials like uranium or the stuff inside
Twinkies (tm).  Each worker's death has two (Two) immediate effects:  (Six)
First, a job opening is created at the factory which is (Seven) filled by
someone entering the workforce, thereby (Eight) lowering the unemployment
rate.  (Nine) Second, because of the immutable law of supply and demand,
as the total number of available workers decreases, (Ten) the value of
each worker increases slightly, forcing (Eleven) the executives to raise
the workers' salaries.

As can be seen from this analysis, pollution in and around a factory helps
to stimulate the economy by constantly providing new jobs at a continually
increasing rate of pay, as well as encouraging the circulation of money
within the society by the continual payment of funeral expenses by the
workers' families and the growth of complementary industries such as
earthmoving equipment manufacturers and the general increase in land values
as more and more of it is used as retirement space.  Therefore, it is quite
obvious that if factories were built which caused no pollution, the economy
of the region would collapse.

And why, you had better ask, would the corporate executives go along with
this system which obviously threatens their lives and bank accounts?  It
could be that the executives are compassionate, altruistic individuals who
are willing to accept a little sacrifice, both monetary and environmental,
in order to keep society from economic collapse.  It could be that the
executives went to great trouble and expense designing and building highly
polluting factories just to keep supply and demand balanced so as to save
the workers from the indignity of being underpaid for their labor.

However, it seems more likely that the executives' accountants pointed out
that slight pay increases were still cheaper than stopping the pollution
and that the executives could pay themselves more than they paid anyone
else because they worked in the tops of tall buildings and were therefore
closer to the pollution.  The accountants were so persuasive, in fact, that
all the executives bought big houses in the country to avoid the pollution
and bought their accountants slightly smaller houses as a reward for
extreme cleverness.
%e
*EOA*

%t Reno, Nevada, USA, Earth
%n 1R9
%s Information on the gambling town of Reno, Nevada, USA, Earth
%a Scott Mathew Glazer  ([e-mail])
%d 19921102
%x Earth
%e
Reno is a city placed in the precise location where the most people should,
in a rational universe, not want to be.  Heartbreakingly close to breath-
taking vistas, glorious mountain lakes, and the majestic peaks of the Sierra
Nevada range, Reno's inhabitants instead grovel in the day-to-day squalor of
a flat, parched, and dust-coated existence catering only to the tourists who
flock to the area for the singularly incomprehensible reason of trading
small green pieces of paper for nothing whatsoever in return.

Legend has it that "Reno" is Chawktaw Indian for "When's the next bus out?"
This is the question all people in Reno should be asking themselves.
Gambling (the aforementioned barter of small bits of green paper) is not as
much fun as the thousands of thalidomide victims wandering listlessly around
the casino floors make it appear.  Be warned that there are no other legally
tolerated forms of recreation aside from gambling in the entire state of
Nevada.  (Although legends of a brave group of renegade volleyball players
do surface with surprising regularity.)

Eating in Reno:  You may be tempted by such offers as "64-oz steak $1.99" or
by the even-more seductive circus-circus buffet, offering an embarrassing
extravaganza of carefully designed, 100% vinyl food and the atmosphere of
your more sub-standard amusement parks all for one low price.  Ignoring the
obvious cholesterol risks and the not-infrequent outbreaks of food-poisoning,
there remains a compelling reason to avoid such eateries.  Known as "Keno",
this variant of lotto is played in all casino restaurants and is widely
regarded as the twelfth most annoying thing in the Universe, the eleventh
being the tendency of the natives of New York City to torture their friends
to death as a greeting ritual.

One additional fact concerning Reno:  It is in a very arid desert.  This in
and of itself would not be so bad, but the sad fact of the matter is that
Reno's residents fail to comprehend their situation and believe instead that
(a) Reno is merely in the midst of some sort of decades-long drought, but
it'll soon be over and then you'll be sorry for saying we shouldn't use so
much water keeping our golf courses in tournament conditions, won't you?,
(b) the stinking trickle of fetid water that slithers past downtown is
actually a "river", and (c) despite the fact that Lake Tahoe has pretty much
been completely drained to provide a last gasp of a water supply, building
big new housing developments is a really keen idea.
%e
*EOA*

%t Travel Necessities
%n 1R10
%s Important items for the budget traveller
%a Scott Mathew Glazer  ([e-mail])
%d 19921116
%i Necessities
%e
The towel, it has been said, is all the hitchhiker truly needs.  This is
completely false; a hitchhiker, by definition, also must possess the
biological, mechanical, or electromagnetic equivalent of a thumb.  This
myth firmly disproven, we now go on to present other items that are
particularly useful when travelling on a shoestring across the thin crust
of air, dirt, water, and junk clinging to the surface of the planet Earth.

The Pillowcase:  Sleep is required by most of Earth's natives and visitors,
and surveys show the vast majority of these like to have at least a slight
inkling of where anything their head and face stays in prolonged contact
with during a subconscious state has been.  Possessing your own pillowcase
will allow you to wrap it around whatever has been provided for you to place
your head upon, and sleep in relative security and peace.  If you have firm
plans to stay only in accommodations luxurious enough that you need not
question the sanitized state of your sleeping arrangements, I congratulate
you and ask that you please leave some of the excess money clearly weighing
you down so uncomfortably in locker number 147 of whatever train station is
nearest to you at the moment.

Plastic Bags:  Any independent traveller who goes anywhere for any length
of time without a good supply of various sized plastic bags might as well
have forgotten their towel too.  Quite simply, plastic bags weigh nothing,
take up no space, and have more uses than even that 68-blade Swiss Army
knife that's probably dragging down your shorts as we speak.  They hold food,
dirty laundry, wet things, and smelly things.  They organize your bag or
pack and allow things to slip more easily in and out.  (They are, in some
mystical sense, the KY-Jelly of luggage.)  All who you meet on your travels
will beg constantly for one of your plastic bags.  Do not give in to their
snivelling and pathetic pleas!  Spit on them as the dirt they are.

Spoon:  Small, light, and indispensably handy when you really need it, the
spoon can be the budget traveller's best friend.  In short, along with a
can opener, the spoon opens up a whole new section of the grocery store to
you and your ever-starved stomach.  The spoon protects you from those nasty
tongue cuts so many hitchhikers receive from tragic misuse of their
pocket-knives.  Stop the madness; carry a spoon.

The reader may ask, "But can I not purchase these items if and when I find
I actually require them?"  We at the Guide can assure you that this has been
scientifically researched to be impossible approximately 98.76209% of the
time.  The time you spend at home throwing your own Pillowcase, Plastic Bags,
and Spoon into the luggage will be rewarded a millionfold in foreign
environments.
%e
*EOA*

%t Barenaked Ladies
%n 1R11
%s A musical group or something...
%a Peter Edward Janes  ([e-mail])
%d 19920910
%x Radio
%x Art
%e
The Barenaked Ladies are, to put it succinctly, that is, to state the fact
precisely, properly and pithily, or, to put it another way, in as few words
as possible, in order to provide the reader with as much information in as
short a space and small a time as possible, neither.

The 'Ladies are, in order of no particular, Steven Page, Ed Robertson, Andy
Creeggan, Jim Creeggan, and Tyler Stewart.  They are all from Scarborough,
a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Earth.

With songs like "If I Had $1,000,000" (1) and "Be My Yoko Ono" (2), the
'Ladies independent self-named cassette sold 100,000 copies in their home
country.  This gave them the most successful recording in Canadian, and
(unbeknownst to the denizens of the backwater planet on which they reside)
Galactic history.

Their most recent (and first commercial) album, Gordon, sold almost 200,000
copies in its first month of release.  Their promotional tour has been met
with great enthusiasm in Canada; however, success in the large country to the
south has been limited.  A concert in a parking lot on the West Coast was
attended by a child holding a balloon, and a hot-dog vendor.

(1) Something every hitchhiker wishes she/he/it had...

(2) Complete with "Yoko Ono" solo!
%e
*EOA*


*
*
* UNREAL (Fiction) ARTICLES -- 8
*
*   2U4    -- Thirsty
*   2U10   -- Walking through mountains
*   2U11   -- Recreational Impossibilities
*   2U12   -- Milliways Principle
*   2U13   -- i
*   2U14   -- Shadowlight
*   1U3    -- Problems with Spelling and Interbeing relations, the
*   1U2    -- Art
*
*


%t Thirsty
%n 2U4
%s If you want to thing out, thing out.
%a Felix Buebl
%d 19920114
%f FICTION
%i Whensday
%e
The Thirsty is the day which follows the WhensDay.  The Whensday is the day
when people say "when's this silly text ending?"  So tomorrow is the thirsty,
if you are no camel.  Camels don't get thirsty, because they can't read and
so they won't be able to ask "when's this silly text ending," and thirsty
can only come after whensday.

Boris Becker won't win any Wilbeldon on dueceday, so he becomes sadder and
sadder (they call it sadderday).  If he never wins, he must be week.
%e
*EOA*


%t Walking Through Mountains
%s One of the more impossible things you can attempt...
%a Jeremy Goldman
%d 19870501
%n 2U10
%i Mountains, Walking Through
%x Recreational Impossibilities
%e
One of the more impossible things you can attempt if bored is trying to get
_through_ a mountain, instead of being normal and going over like ordinary
people.  It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, but very
few people have tried, or even considered trying, this stunt.  Therefore, we
have no information.

However, we will not leave you empty-handed.  Similar to flying, the point
is to make physics completely ignore the fact that what you are doing is
completely impossible.  This could be said for most of the things that are
(supposably) impossible.  We figure that if you are sufficiently distracted
by, say, a nice pair of legs, anything is possible.

In the words of the great (maybe) singer Weird Al, "Dare to be stupid."
%e
*EOA*


%t Recreational Impossibilities
%n 2U11
%s Fun and games for the Improbable Sports enthusiast
%a Jeremy Goldman
%d 19870502
%x Thirty-seven Ways to Deep Sea Fish with Four Feet of Dental Floss
%x Walking through mountains
%e
In the universe, there are several things that are considered Recreational
Impossibilities (depending on your species of course) that people try doing
to relive their boredom.  If you are one of those rich kids who are tired of
doing silly things such as being a teaser, here's something new.

These listings are in the Guide somewhere, so don't panic.

         1. Flying - one of the most popular Recreational Impossibilities.

         2. Walking Through Mountains - Now this is a hard one.  But look it
            up anyway.

         3. Trying To Get The Brantisvogan Civil Service To Acknowledge A
            Change of Address - Boffo

         4. Learning To Play The Octaventral Heebiephone - Since this is only
            possible if you have eight mouths, a pleasantly futile task.

         5. Surviving Within A Five-Mile Radius Of A Disaster Area Concert
            - see Disaster Area

         6. Reading Vogon Poetry Without Going Mad - Hoo boy.  See poetry.

         7. Surviving A Whelk's Chance In A Supernova - Don't mind the Whelk.

         8. Learning All The Languages In The Galaxy - Listen up you
            immortals!  Here's something to get your mind off things.

         9. Trying To Become Immortal - Many people have ended up looking
            very silly, or very dead, or both, trying this.  See Immortals.

         10. Figuring Out The Question To The Answer To Life The Universe
             And Everything - good luck!

         11. Trying To Pay With An American Express Card - Don't try this in
             the Old Pink Dog bar.

         12. Surviving Any Of The Above - Don't ask why, but if you are
             bored, anything will do.
%e
*EOA*


%t Milliways Principle
%n 2U12
%s This is totally impossible, and yet it works.
%a Mark A Young  ([e-mail])
%d 19920816
%i How To Pay Off Huge Debts
%i Huge Debts, How To Pay Off
%x Galactic Postal Service
%e
The Milliways principle is one of the most ingenious inventions of the
banking industry, second only to compounding interest, free toasters with
a new account, and those little windows that close when someone wanting
money approaches (this latter invention has totally revolutionized life
on Al-Deneb VI, where it is considered extremely rude to refuse to lend a
friend a few Altairian dollars -- even if the ungrateful bastard has
already touched you fifty times in the past week for more than your annual
income and has no job and no prospect of getting a job because no employer
will see him because they're afraid he'll ask for a seven-year advance in
his salary even tho' he hasn't been hired yet and they'll be forced to give
it to him because it would be rude not to -- on Al-Deneb VI they carry these
windows around in front of them wherever they go -- it saves them a lot of
money -- even taking into account the royalties they pay to the banks).

The Milliways principle is named for Milliways restaurant.  In order to pay
the outrageous rates that eatery charges, the patrons deposit one penny in
a bank in their own time period.  The tab is paid from the interest built up
over the trillions of years that penny sits in the bank.  When Milliways
comes to collect, the bank charges a service fee amounting to several percent
of the charge -- usually just enough to empty out the account.  Both the bank
and the restaurant then use TFT (Temporal Funds Transfer) to take their profit
back to some time when there were still things to buy with their fabulous
wealth.

(OK, so when you count them up, the Milliways principle is the fifth most
ingenious idea that the banking industry has come up with.  I never claimed
to be very good at this counting stuff.  On my accountant's advice I leave
that to her.)
%e
*EOA*


%t i
%n 2U13
%s i, the square root of -1, is 42.
%a Daniel Carosone
%d 19870102
%i Irrational Numbers
%i Imaginary Numbers
%i Question To The Answer, The
%e
The Question to the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe,
and Everything...

   1) The Answer to the Question is 42.

      [ ed. note -- unfortunately for the premise of this entire article,
        the factuality of the above fact is currently under debate; once
        enough persuasion from one side or the other finally resolves the
        issue, this article, and perhaps many of the others, shall be
        updated (hopefully). -- swb ]

   2) Marvin, amongst numerous other complaints, claimed to have a brain the
      size of a planet.

   3) Marvin, like other robots, has a computer-based brain.

   4) The Earth is a planet.

   5) The Earth was built by the mice as a computer, the only such planet or
      computer ever built.

   6) By (2), (3), (4), and (5), the Earth must therefore be Marvin's brain.

   7) The sole purpose of the Earth's program was to discover the Ultimate
      Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

   8) Marvin once announced that he had, in a moment of boredom, found the
      square root of -1, something never before done in the history of the
      universe, and previously believed by all sensible hyper-intelligent
      beings to be possibly the most difficult task to undertake, as it was
      dependent on the very structure of the Universe. (Most normally-
      intelligent beings gave up, dismissing it as impossible.)

   9) Marvin announced that he felt a brief, but deep, sense of satisfaction
      after having accomplished the achievement in (8).

  10) The Earth was apparently destroyed just as the purpose of its program
      was fulfilled, and a Question had been found.

  11) By (7), the Earth computer would have felt a deep sense of satisfaction
      at having achieved the task it was designed to fulfil.

  12) By (10), the sensation in (11) would have been brief.

  13) By (6), and by the fact that emotional feelings are based in the brain,
      the feelings in (9), (11) and (12) are the same single feeling.

  14) Finding the Ultimate Question was deemed to be the single most
      difficult task undertaken by hyper-intelligent beings in the history
      of the universe, as it was dependant on the very structure of the
      Universe -- as well as Life and Everything.

  15) By (6), (8), (13), and (14), Marvin (the Earth) had clearly solved the
      Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

  16) By (8) and (15), the Question is "What is the square root of -1?".

  17) By (1) and (16), the square root of -1 is 42.
%e
*EOA*


%t Shadowlight
%n 2U14
%s Shadowlight: Proven cause of shadows
%a Jason Williams  ([e-mail], valid until Feb. 1993)
%d 19921020
%x Dark Suckers
%x Light
%i Cause Of Shadows, The
%i Shadows
%e
It had been thought until this time that shadows were merely the absence of
light; but an innovative research team from the University of Lower Sodbury
has ruined that perfectly good theory by discovering a new wavelength of
light -- that responsible for shadows.

Doctor Bob Wigglebottom, head of the research team, explains the accidental
discovery that instigated the research:

     "While fiddling around one day with a couple of uwave fluxometers and a
     jug of Bozleys Best Bitter, I noticed a peculiar thing.  But it went
     away again when I stopped moving my head.  Anyway, after that I noticed
     that when the fluxometers were waved in the shadow of the beer, there
     were some slight, unexpected fluctuations in the readings on the U.W.F.
     I tried it again, only sober this time, and noted the same effect.
     I began thinking about the possible cause...".

After 2 years of painstaking research and extra-long lunch breaks, the
Sodbury team have gathered enough data to reveal their discovery -- the
fascinating world of Shadowlight.

Shadowlight is a form of light which exists at very small wavelengths, far
beyond the visible spectrum.  It has a smaller wavelength even than
microwaves, enabling it to propagate through solid objects (without exciting
their molecules and making them explode, as luck would have it).  As it
passes through solids, shadowlight excites the dark particles lying within
them, causing a current* of dark in the same direction.  Thus, dark can be
seen flowing out of the side of objects facing away from the light source.
Transparent objects contain a much lower dark density, and thus produce
weaker shadows.

[A related discovery of the team explains the danger of standing under a
levitated piano: Should the dark inside slip, it can be propelled towards
the ground by shadowlight at very high velocity, and if it hits a person,
it can supersaturate their eyes and brain with dark so that they are
temporarily blinded and fall unconscious. (Often the piano will also be
sucked down by the vortex created by the sudden movement of dark, which can
cause great damage and may get blood on the piano.)]

It is thought that if Newton was aware of the way in which solar Shadowlight
accelerates dark, which in turn applies a downward force to solid objects,
our concept of gravity would be quite different.

This phenomenon is also responsible for the movement of rivers: as solar
shadowlight reflects down from snowcapped mountains, it drives deep into
the river, pushing the dark downhill.  The slight friction between dark
particles and water particles pushes the water.  This moving water in turn
pushes the water that lies further down out of sight of the mountains,
until it flows out into the sea.

Although the emitted dark is carried out of the solid by the shadowlight, it
tends to spread out slightly as it leaves the object, resulting in a fuzzy
edge (the shadow penumbra).  Test this for yourself - as you move an object
further from its shadow, the shadow spreads out and gets fuzzier and fainter.
This is because the cone-shaped flow of dark is being spread out over a
larger area, and is therefore diluted by more light.

Postulating that objects 'recharge' by absorbing dark during the night, the
team set up an experiment where objects were continuously exposed to a 100
watt dark sucker.  After 3 months the observed shadows had not weakened, and
it was then that an able young student realized that the dark sucker had
been running on 50Hz AC power, and that dark was able to leak back into the
objects between AC cycles.  Experiments are planned to use a second bulb with
a 90 degree phase-lag to provide a more constant dark vacuum, as soon as the
funding for the extra bulb comes through from the University Senate.

Doctor Wigglebottom is now collaborating with Bell Laboratories on research
into the potential uses of solar shadowlight in driving dark through
power-generating turbines.

* Dark current is measured with an SI unit based upon the number of negative
candelas of light (or positive candelas of dark) emitted from an
appropriately excited black-body object (such as a Nubian woman's brazier,
heated to body temperature, and folded to make a roughly spherical shape),
the 'candelabra'.
%e
*EOA*


%t Problems With Spelling And Interbeing Relations, The
%n 1U3
%s Beings have problems spelling with each other.
%a Vincent Joseph Shuta  ([e-mail])
%d 19921014
%i Spelling Problems
%i Interbeing Relational Problems
%e
It is, of course, well known that a person's ability to spell can
affect their placement in life.  A misspelling on an application,
resume, or manuscript can have -- relatively speaking -- devastating
effects, and can alter the position one ends up with.  For example,
a professor of enigmatic jokes at the University of Maximegalon made
a grievous error by using the letter 'e' in place of the letter '<&*'
in the word 'Flath<&*' (an odd word used only in enigmatic jokes) in
his triple doctoral thesis.  He was approached with the error, and
was about to be dismissed from his post, when in an enigmatic
inspiration, he saved his position by coining the only known
spelling-related enigmatic phrase:  "Well, if I could spell, I
wouldn't be here!"

This phrase is actually more literally true of the Gelderion people
of Vanbeetroot VII.  During the reign of their leader, King Grenbar
the Confused, a rather complicated and extremely expensive satellite
was placed in orbit over the planet.  This satellite could sense
anyone spelling anything correctly in public, or correcting another's
spelling, and changed this person's position by several thousand light
years (The King was apparently annoyed at the number of people who
corrected his spelling, which was well known to be atrocious).

As a result, a large percentage of the population was sent hurling
though space, and the economy was devastated; both from the lack of
people in the work force, and from the enormous debt created by the
satellite.

When finally a team of engineers was sent to shut down the satellite,
they found that all the original manuals were unreadable due to numerous
misspellings, and all the original blueprints were soaked in
Vanbeetroot ale (a curious mixture produced on Vanbeetroot V, where
the natives dealt with people who could spell by getting them extra-
ordinarily drunk).  And thus began the rather expensive endeavor of
retrieving the satellite and directly analyzing it.  The engineers then
found that the satellite was simply a natural annoyance magnifier,
which took the energy produced by annoyance, magnified it several
trillion times and focused it on the source of the annoyance -- with a
gain control to send the person someplace safe.  The engineers then
disconnected the gain control, and got very annoyed with the device --
which promptly melted itself.

This is why 90% of all dictionaries sold throughout the galaxy come
with a short tutorial on advanced circuit analysis.
%e
*EOA*


%t Art
%n 1U2
%s Art.  What is it?
%a J. David Dickens  ([e-mail])
%d 19921014
%i Expression
%i Painting
%i Sculpture
%x Earth
%x Article Writing Guide For Field Researchers And Guide Editors
%e
One of the foremost debates of all time between creatures of any
reasonable sentience has been:  "What is Art?"  Some, like the Algrabaxian
QuadraFrogs state that art is any substance that is pleasing to the
pineal gland of another QuadraFrog.  This answer is not generally
accepted in the charted regions of the Galaxy for the sole reason that
the QuadraFrogs are amazing liars, and nobody really thinks the
QuadraFrogs have pineal glands anyway.  Hence, the debate rages on and
on, sparking the occasional heated party conversation here and the
frequent interstellar war there.

So, the hitchhiker should obviously know something of art and its merits
before departing on any grand adventure across the galaxy.  Fortunately
for the hitchhiker, the concepts involved are so annoyingly tedious that
even the most well-respected authority on art does not fully comprehend
them all.  This gives the hitchhiker a very wide margin for error when
discussing it.

First, you must realize that art is expensive.  So expensive, in fact,
that the average hitchhiker will never actually purchase any from a
respected gallery.  This is a good thing, because this means that only 4
out of every 10,000,000,000 people you might meet on any given world
actually own anything that could pass itself off as a masterpiece.  The
sole exception is the planet Earth, which, through a theoretically
impossible fluctuation of the laws of physics, relativity and good
taste, has been given the dubious honor of having the highest
concentration of artists in the entire western arm of the galaxy.  Among
the "paintings" available on Earth, the ones of the "Black Velvet"
nature have been called some of the best works of art in the Known
Universe.  They are also cheap.  Pick a few up and make a killing on a
more civilized planet.

Next, you must formulate an opinion of a work of art when you see one.
Art thrives on opinions.  The "Mada Saskootchka" of the famed
thermonuclear sculptor Kritchkrotch was discovered (and later made
immortal) when an unwitting passer-by uttered the word "Halichutz",
which in the native language of Saskootchka meant "That, my good man,
was inspired by the Gods themselves!"  A minor scandal erupted when it
was discovered that the passer-by who uttered this comment was not
actually from Saskootchka, but its neighboring planet Eyup, and that in
Eyupian the word actually meant "Get your bloody Erector Set off of the
sidewalk!"  The scandal was resolved by a tricky art dealer who stated
"What does it matter that it looks like an Erector Set?  It's an Erector
Set that the Gods Inspired, and that is what's important."

So, should you find yourself in one of the famous galleries of Dreedrax,
or end up in a snobbish party that is being held in a place of considerable
repute, you now know enough about art to carry on a decent conversation
about the various pieces on display.  One proven tactic is to walk to the
nearest area where a group of people are standing around staring at
something and stating in a mildly arrogant tone "This is supposed to be
art?"  If it isn't, you will be told so, but if it is you will generally
be plunged into a conversation about the piece and its merits.  Then make
generally pompous comments about the piece's faults in style, concept
and execution (e.g. "This person looks as if he/she/it's trying to
emulate the Black Velvet paintings of Terra.  It's a blatant rip-off.
[pointing to the work]  See, look at that brush stroke.  It's a VERY poor
emulation, and, to be frank, sacrilege!")  This works very well, as almost
no civilized being has ever actually seen a Terran Black Velvet).  This
approach almost always makes you the life of the party, and you will find
many people willing to drink a toast to you to hail your good taste and/or
take you to bed.
%e
*EOA*


*
*
* BOTH (Semi-Real) ARTICLES -- 6
*
*   1S1    -- Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster - Terran Version
*   1S2    -- Chess
*   2S7    -- Dark Suckers
*   2S8    -- Why use JSP when you can eat Spaghetti?
*   2S9    -- Library Theft
*   2S10   -- Sweden, a Guide for the newly-landed alien
*
*


%t Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster -- Terran Version
%n 1S1
%s Gargle Blaster recipe using Terran ingredients
%a Lloyd T. Rich  ([e-mail])
%d 19900512
%x Earth
%i Gargle Blaster - Earth/Terran Version
%e
Alcohol - liquor, booze, drinks, grog, moonshine, spirits, whiskey,
Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

During their travels through the galaxy, the galactic hitchhiker will
sometimes find that some item that is desired may be unavailable, so it
will have to be replaced with what is available.  According to the
_Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is
the best drink in existence.

According to Douglas Adams' _Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_, it was
invented by the President of the Galaxy (Imperial Galactic Government),
Zaphod Beeblebrox.  Unfortunately, the ingredients for it are not available
on some planets.  This being the case on Planet Earth (Terra), a galactic
hitchhiker known as TimeLoyd endeavored to create one using Terran
ingredients.

With the help of some buckskinners who will drink anything that is in a
jug (at a gathering recreating those of the early 19th Century mountain
men), he created a mixture similar to a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster,
after which, the bottom fell out of the jug.  Note:  Unless you are an
android with an indestructible stomach, liver and digestive system,
handle very very carefully, and be sure to keep it away from fire.  It
has been suggested as a possible spaceship fuel.

To make a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster using Terran ingredients:

Take the liquid contained in a 200ml bottle of EverClear to remind you
that your head will be clear forever if you drink too many Pan Galactic
Gargle Blasters, and that your brain will clear of anything soon after
you start drinking some, if not before.

Into it, slowly pour a 750ml bottle of Bombay Sapphire to remind you
of the marvelous beauty of the old Santraginean seas, or an equal amount
of Jeremiah Weed in acknowledgement of what has happened to the
Santraginean Seas and their lifeforms.

Now add 750ml of Cold Wild Turkey, letting it run into the mixture as we
run through life to remind us of all the lifeforms we meet and experience
while hitchhiking through the galaxy.

Speedily stirring, add 375 ml of Herradua Tequila, mixing it in to
commemorate the galactic hitchhikers who died of pleasure among the
vapors and gasses in the marshes of Fallia.

Over the bowl of a silver spoon, let flow 1 liter of rum in memory of
the waterfalls and their glorious rainbows encountered on your journeys
through the galaxy of life.

Next, drop in the worm found in a bottle of Musquil, watching it dissolve
into the mixture.  If the bottom falls out and the worm survives, drink
at your own risk.

Finally, sprinkle into the mixture some Gatorade to commemorate the
lifeforms which have vanished and are becoming extinct, both sentient and
non-sentient, especially those most in need of aid.

If this many Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters are too many for the number of
people you think you are, mix together the following amounts of
ingredients as described above for a single serving.

         1) 1 oz. EverClear
         2) 4 oz. Bombay Sapphire or Jeremiah Weed
         3) 4 oz. Cold Wild Turkey
         4) 2 oz. Herredura Tequila
         5) 5 oz. Rum
         6) 1     worm from bottle of Mezcla
         7) 2 oz. Gatorade

This makes one approximately 18 ounce Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.  The
reason this drink seems so large is that Zaphod Beeblebrox has two heads,
so when he created it, it came out to 9 ounces per head, so both were
happy.

Before drinking, eat one olive to create a sweetness in it which is not
there.

Drink very, very extremely carefully at your own risk, and remember where
your towel is (if you can).

Submitter's note: This recipe has been placed into the public domain by
the author, and was previously published in "Mostly Harmless," the
fanzine of the ZZ9 Plural Zed Alpha fan club, Brighton, England.
%e
*EOA*


%t Chess
%n 1S2
%s A game with much terminology
%a Jason Corley  ([e-mail])
%d 19921012
%e
Chess is a game involving 64 squares and 32 pieces which invariably
end up on the wrong squares.

The most powerful piece in chess is the queen, the only female piece
on the board.  There have been many explanations linking this feminist
slant to the high number of young men with thick glasses and skin
problems who play chess, none of which have been conclusive.

Other chess pieces include the King, a reference to Elvis Presley;
the Pawn, who represents the determinist worldview (as in, "We are all
just pawns of fate waiting to get to the back rank"); the Rook, a small
bird; the Knight, opposite of The Daye; and the Bishop, the origin of
which is unknown.  There are 2 conflicting theories as to the origin of
the Bishop:  1.  The long-dead original inventors of chess were extra-
ordinarily prescient, or 2.  Priests, preachers and televangelists have
always been warlike, violent and tricky.

Popular openings in chess include The King's Gambit, The Queen's Gambit,
The Latvian, The Ruy Lopez, The Schliemann, The Orangoutang, The Vulture,
The Four Knights, The Three Knights, The Scotch, The Basmania, The Center
Counter, The Dumb Move, The Pre-Game Psyche-Out, and the Coronary
Thrombosis.

Popular closings, or endgames in chess include The Win, The Loss, The
Draw, The Stalemate, The Loss On Time, The Quantum Collapse, The Refusal
To Go On, The Sudden Death and The Sudden Death.
%e
*EOA*


%t Dark Suckers
%n 2S7
%s The theory of dark suckers
%a Jesper Hogstrom
%d 19920510
%x Shadowlight
%x Light
%i Particles Of Darkness
%i Energy From Darkness
%i Light Bulbs
%i Electric Bulbs
%x Fire
%e
For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light.
However, recent information has proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don't
emit light, they suck dark.  Thus we will now call these bulbs dark
suckers.  The dark sucker theory, according to a spokesperson, proves
the existence of dark, that dark has a mass heavier than light, and that
dark is faster than light.

The basis of the dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck dark.
Take for example the dark suckers in the room where you are.  There is
less dark right next to them than it is elsewhere.  The larger the
dark sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark.  Dark suckers in a
parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in this room.
As with all things dark suckers don't last forever.  Once they are
full of dark they can no longer suck.  This is proven by the black
spot on a full dark sucker.

A candle is a primitive dark sucker.  A new candle has a white wick.
You will notice that after the first use, the wick turns black,
representing all the dark which has been sucked into it.  If you hold
a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn
black because it got in the way of the dark flowing into the candle.

Unfortunately, today's primitive dark suckers have a very limited range.
There are also portable dark suckers.  These bulbs can't handle all of
the dark themselves, and must be aided by a dark storage unit.  When
the dark storage unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced
before the portable dark sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass.  When dark goes into a dark sucker, friction from this
mass generates heat.  Thus it is not wise to touch an operating dark
sucker.  Candles present a special problem, as the dark must travel in
the solid wick instead of through glass.  This generates a great
amount of heat.  Thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating
candle.

Dark is also heavier than light.  If you swim deeper and deeper, you
notice it gets slowly darker and darker.  When you reach approximately
fifty feet, you are in total darkness.  This is because the heavier
dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats to
the top.

The immense power of the dark can be utilized to man's advantage.  We
can collect the dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes and push
it through turbines which generates electricity and helps push dark to
the ocean, where it may be safely stored.  Prior to turbines, it was
much more difficult to get dark from rivers and lakes to the ocean.

The Indians recognized this problem and tried to solve it.  When on a
river in a canoe traveling in the same direction as the flow of dark,
they paddled slowly, so as not to stop the flow of dark, but when
they traveled against the flow of dark, they paddled quickly so as to
help the dark along its way.

Finally we must prove that dark is faster than light.  If you were to
stand in an illuminated room in front of a closed, dark closet, then
slowly open the closet door, you would see the light slowly enter the
closet, but since dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the
dark leave the closet.

In conclusion, it has been stated that dark suckers make our lives much
easier, so the next time you look at an electric bulb, remember that
it is indeed a dark sucker.
%e
*EOA*


%t JSP
%n 2S8
%s Why use JSP when you can eat spaghetti?
%a Mazda Imperfekt  ([e-mail])
%d 19920928
%i Administration Technology
%i Jackson's Structured Programming
%e
If you are fond of JSP, then stop reading now since this entry will
seriously disrupt your sense of structure.

To the not-so-well-educated computer-freak-who-wants-to-know-it-all type,
the whole concept of JSP may be very alien (Great movie!), but we will try
to straighten those things out right away.

JSP stands for Jackson's Structured Programming, and is a way to develop
structured programs for administration and such "large" applications.  It
was developed by a guy named ... Jackson ?, who thought it would be a great
idea to torture students with a totally incomprehensible way of thinking.

JSP complicates the fine art of software development into a huge mass of
strange, white, rectangular "things" with some strange symbols on it (paper
to the rest of us).  Why even try to get some "structure" by using the so-
called "only" way of structured programming when you can use something so
enormously more tasty like spaghetti programming!  I am not Italian, but
I must state that spaghetti tastes a lot better than those white,
rectangular things!

And if this would not be enough to convert even the most dedicated JSP'er,
the enormous mass of those white, rectangular thingies, converted into
Spaghetti, would create a mountain of Pasta similar to the Great Spaghetti-
Bolognese Hive at Berghioningha IV.  No!  I say to hell with JSP and give us
more PASTA!

Hasta la Pasta!
%e
*EOA*


%t Library Theft
%n 2S9
%s It's terribly difficult and not very lucrative.
%a Mark Anthony Young  ([e-mail])
%d 19911212
%q However I haven't been able to track down Neil Gaimen's _Don't
%q Panic_... I went to my local library but I guess it was stolen a few
%q years ago and they haven't bothered to replace it.
%r Mindy McKaig -- [e-mail]
%e
Now why would anyone want to steal a library?  It's not a particularly
useful piece of architecture, if you're not inclined to reading (as all of
the more notorious criminals are not).  It won't do as a discotheque
because the rather severe looking old ladies who inhabit it would be
constantly shushing the band.  You can't turn it into an Italian restaurant
because of the strict "No Food" rules.  (Were you to violate this rule the
little old ladies would not stop at mere shushing.  They would quickly
escalate to tut-tutting and shortly thereafter to violent huffing.  Before
long the place would sound like an asthmatic in an echo chamber and that
would put you right off your lunch.)

Not only is the building useless, but it would be difficult to abscond
with.  They are usually rather large and so cannot be slipped into the
inner coat pocket, nor even the outer coat pockets of the Titans (had the
Titans even worn coats, which is doubtful since they lived back in the days
when people were proud to stand out in the cold and say "It doesn't bother
me one bit that the icy wind is cutting through my thin garments and
chilling me to the bone, nor that the freezing rain is covering my body and
forming icicles on my chin and nose (and other parts of me that shall
remain nameless), for I am a Titan, and we laugh at discomfort and thrill
to pain and generally live short and squalid lives.")  Libraries are also
usually made of stone (pre-victorian buildings that no one could think of
anything useful to do with), or of brick (a material that wins big in the
upkeep department but generally inspires onlookers to say "Yech.  What a
horribly ugly building.  Shouldn't something be done to spruce it up, like
maybe covering it with a landfill site or aluminum siding?").  These
materials are very heavy and thus should only be placed in specially
re-enforced containers such as dry-docks or fruit-cake tins.

It is for these reasons that there has only ever been one library theft
ring in the history of the galaxy.  Ooblig Rastablaghan (of the Oogarieth V
Rastablaghans) masterminded the theft of seven hundred libraries from the
planet Malik IX.  The crime was particularly pointless, because the people
of Malik IX do not have any language, and thus no books (thus any vacant
building on Malik IX is automatically designated a library (the Malixians,
while not having language, do have a highly developed system of
mathematics, and take the concept of "vacuously true" very seriously)).
The theft was only discovered when the buildings were required to meet the
increasing demand for shoe stores.  The perpetrator was arrested, but Malik
IX passed the shoe event horizon before he could be tried.  Ooblig is still
in custody on the prison planet Malik VIII.  His lawyers have prepared a
writ of habeas corpus, but it cannot be filed until a new civilization
arises on Malik IX to deal with it.

When asked why he had done it, Ooblig replied:  "Yeah, well, you know."
The questioner was immediately arrested as an accomplice and shares
Ooblig's cell on Malik VIII.
%e
*EOA*


%t Sweden, Earth
%s A small guide to the newly arrived extraterrestrial
%a Mazda Imperfekt  ([e-mail])
%n 2S10
%d 19920928
%x Earth
%e
Greetings fellow Hitch-hiker.

Sweden, the home of the brave (or was that USA?), is situated way up in
the northern wilderness of Scandinavia.  Packed between its two neighbors,
Finland and Norway (remember those lovely fjords!), Sweden tries to
maintain a sort of egoistic we-know-best-in-everything attitude towards
everyone else on Terra, but no-one ever takes any notice of them anyway.

One of the things Sweden is famous for (one of the few!) is the Volvo car
(a very primitive form of transportation made out of a lot of heavy metal
which is driven forward by four wheels propelled by a primitive combustion
engine. In fact, the only more primitive invention on Earth is the system of
currency.  Just imagine, to use little fragile paper-thingies as currency.
No wonder there are frequent economical crises!).

The very funny inhabitants of Sweden are called Swedes.  They are a very
bureaucratical people indeed!  One other thing a Swede can't handle is the
booze.  They live a dull, grey, bureaucratical life all week and party on
the weekends.  And boy, do they party!  They have even mounted an expression
called SSIB.  This stands for "Supa Skallen I Bitar" which literally means
to drink until your head explodes.  This they do frequently (drink booze,
not blow up their heads).

One of their biggest and most used exports is the Absolute Vodka, which
comes in very different flavors.  It is not as strong as a Pan Galactic
Gargle Blaster, but more akin to the Super-Quasi Literal Philosophic Tea
(oh!  That Super-Quasi Literal Philosophic Tea).

If you are going to be friendly to a Swede... don't waste your time.  They
are very afraid of foreigners and aliens.  And what ever you do, never tell
them you are from another planet or country!  They will immediately examine
if you have the right to be here, or if you are... an illegal alien!

Some things a Swede NEVER does...

        *   Help a old woman over the street - That is what the Social
                                               Service is for...

        *   Be friendly to a alien           - They are probably criminals
                                               the lot!

        *   Take help from another           - "What!  You wanna help me?
                                               What's the catch?  Do I have
                                               to pay you?  What do YOU
                                               want?"

        *   Confess                          - Hey! It's those bloody
                                               foreigners' fault.
                                               It's those kids of today!
                                               Pah!  The government is to
                                               blame!

%e
*EOA*


*
* End of 19921202.NEW
*