Family Fun/Family Fun.iso/joke1/zerro1_5/zerro51.doc

Text File | 1990-01-14 | 38KB | 581 lines

                          No One Is Quite Sure Why
                          But Zerro 51 Starts Here
                          To The Regret of Everyone
                          And The Confusion of Even
                          More Than That!

Maybe you have heard about Zerro from someone and so it is important that we tell you right off that
half of what you hear is not true, and maybe the other half is.  At any rate, it is likely that we could
come to a consensus and say that we unanimously disagree on which is what and what is which and
why we feel the way we do, if we do, and why we feel the way we don't if we don't, and why we have
no feeling, if we happen to have no feeling.  The one distinguishing characteristic of this whole Zerro
affair is that it is simply filled to the brim with omissions and the material that is left over after we
forget those.  The testimony found herein often will cause the reader to marvel at the amplitude and
magnitude of human weakness which remains very strong in spite of all of these centuries of effort at
formal education.  Possibly the most difficult aspect of all of this is that when it is isn't clear what the
meaning of the writing is, you will probably understand it.  In itself, this is a serious sign of difficulty.

Whatever you may have heard about Zerro, remember that as a general rule, all generalizations are
troubled by gross inaccuracy and frequently it happens that serious error enters into the picture. It is
a very general rule that it makes little difference what is said, so long as it is said short.

Zerro includes some of the most unheard of things which you will ever read, and of many of these you
will recall them while thinking that you distinctly remember forgetting what you just recalled, which
is yet another reason why Zerro is different.  For example, one of the unwritten policies which governs
all written material entering into Zerro is that you should not mean what you say and not say what
you mean, and when you do, you have already done too much so you are not going to offend by doing
too little.  There are several other aspects to this unwritten rule, which if written, would make this rule
no longer one of those unwritten rules, and thus it would cease to be operative and in the end, you
would not be able to say that it was a rule at all, which is why we do not continue with it, since to
do so would be to destroy it, and this is not what we want to do.

In what follows below, Zerro has collected and coordinated information from an impressively diverse
and ideologically as well as geographically wide variety of sources of expertise various principles which
should be followed by those who avail themselves of the services of a new phenomenon in these United
States, namely the electronic bulletin board.  No particular organization, or for that matter, to be quite
honest, no individual has sanctioned these rules officially or otherwise, implicit or explicit.  The rules
are the result of an immense amount of scholarly research which brought together some of the finest
minds for this type of thing to be found anywhere.  Originally, the research was conducted simply with
a goal of collecting fine minds, and only later did we arrive at the place where we were free, with the
funds available, to coordinate the material discovered and collect it for presentation here as a true
scholarly effort to inform the users of the BBS systems of their relationship with the boards.

There seems to have been a great deal of difficulty associated with the use of bulletin boards from time
to time and from person to person and from one phone modem to another.  These are the very
problems which Zerro set out to address in this current quest which we have every good reason to
believe has been a triumphant success at least if not more.  While this may prove or at least appear
as a disproportionally modest claim, it is none the less one which we feel should be made in the
interests of the advancement of accuracy and lucidity and clarity and just generally for the obliteration
of obfuscation and the enhancement of brevity, particularly as it is seen to apply to the simplification
of sentence structure of which this may serve as some example, others perhaps being not quite so
obvious as this might be to this need.  You are certainly what you are as a result of what you have
been and you will be what you become as a result of what you are and this is the main reason why
this entire effort was undertaken was to make this whole transition far more effective and
simultaneously cost efficient.  Thankfully, all of this is accomplished herein.  Read on!
(2)
Some Things Everyone Really Needs to Do on An Electronic Bulletin Board:

Note: An electronic Bulletin Board is one of those things printed on one computer and put into a
computer that others tie up with over telephone lines, a bulletin board system (BBS) which is ordinarily
operated by some poor soul called a system operator, or a Sysop.  Many systems or bulletin boards are
free, and a few sysops charge for the services provided, which includes access to thousands of files or
articles about some topic or other.  Zerro is a feature written exclusively for Electronic Bulletin Boards,
and tolerated by various Sysops around the country.  There is no charge for this particular service,
although some humor services charge.  Sometimes, what they charge is not so funny, but that is
another question for another time.

Here are those rules for what you need to do on a BBS to make the Sysop's Day!

(1) Logon:  Generally, the first time you do it, try to foul up, so that your name, for example come out
as  "Rumpus Filtesque."  There are not too many people likely running around with that name, and
others who use the BBS notice you right away - as the person with four thumbs and a failing grade
in typing.

(2) When filling in the questionnaire, be sure to be original and put down for your address something
like "Mars."  Amazingly, there are some folks who will believe you, and many of them are sysops who
feel that there are a whole lot of you out there.  When asked for your phone number at work, mark
down "Don't!"  There are a number of people that are unemployable for a variety of reasons and being
from Mars is just one of these.

(3) Turn on the "Chat" mode, if the BBS has one, and attempt to chat with the Sysop.  Most of the
people who operate BBS are just thrilled to death to be asked what time it is, what the weather is like,
what television stations come into the area, when it last rained, and if, in the event the name of the
Sysop is Lincoln, that Sysop is related to Abraham Lincoln, formerly of Washington.  Of course there
are a great number of equally profound serious questions which have not been included here, but you
do get the idea.  Three examples are more than sufficient: a) What is your middle initial? b) Where
were you born? c) How old were you when you were born?

(4) Some bulletin boards offer you the opportunity, just before you leave the system, to make remarks
or some such thing.  This is your time to ask some more questions like you asked when in the chat
mode.  Do you have a canary?  Are you a parakeet fancier?  Do you raise mice in your home?
Cockroaches?  Do you know the number for the Orkin man or the man from Terminex?

(5) Some bulletin boards have message sections, public bulletin boards which are seen by all who use
the system.  This is where, when your mother-in-law is coming, you leave a note to one friend who also
uses the bulletin board which starts out: "ETA Slackjaw with hydro-matic complaint feature 0400, chess
cancel stop. Call in emergency 0500, 0700, 0900, 1100."  You give this secretive message a password,
preferably one which your friend does not know, and then hope that the friend understands that your
Mother-in-law who complains a lot is arriving at 4:00.  This will cancel your chess game, and the friend
should call and act like you are needed elsewhere on an emergency basis one hour after the arrival of
your Mother-in-law, and then every other hour thereafter.  Not only do you put this under private
communications on a public bulletin board, but you employ cryptic language, and use a password that
no one else knows.  Sysops love people like you.  They find it difficult to express such deep thoughts
in words.

(6) The use of handles, that is, funny names, is certainly something that everyone should do on a
bulletin board, since all Sysops love to know that "Xarches V," has visited them.  Psychologically, this
ordinarily signifies that the writer is the uncertificated son or daughter of an unprincipled mother, but
most Sysops are too polite to be more concise about this type of thing.  Some folks show amazing
PAGE THREE
originality in the use of names, like "Rambo," and "Conan."  If you are seriously in need of a name to
use, and can not think of one, it is my impression that "Phydaux" has not been taken, and you could
use that name.  It would be appropriate, as well.

(7) When you are signing on to the bulletin board, why is it necessary to use a name such as John Hay
Whitney Archaumbault Leinenkugal V, M.D., Ph.D., Th.U.D.  Just let folks know who you are, don't
get do damn fancy.  After all, when you die, it won't take any more or less embalming fluid than that
last or the next person.

(8) In "Comments to the Sysop," when you are new to the board, make a few remarks such as "This
system is awful slow," or "there are more files on a saw blade two inches long than you have on this
board," or, "your methods on this board are those of a troglodyte."  This type of comment is something
just any sysop absolutely relishes hearing.  You can garnish your somewhat wholesale unwelcomeness
by an additional remark or two such as "I hope your old lady gets off the can, or out of stir, or off the
posters in the post office."  Comments of this nature go a long way toward helping people to remember
you and they also go a long way toward keeping a strong membership in the National Rifle Association
as well.

(9) DO NOT READ INSTRUCTIONS for new users of bulletin boards, since these were designed by
some individual who knew what to say to help people use this board.  Only stupid, dumb cretin idiots
read instructions, and you don't want to be one of them.  Make several mistakes and then try to find
the Sysop and ask a few questions.  Page the Sysop is the option of choice.  Your sysop is just almost
overwhelmed with gladness to hear from you under these circumstances and loves to answer your
questions, since he knows the answers by heart, having been asked the same ones so often.

(10) If the system operator (Sysop) does not do what you want done when you want it done the way
you want it done, become demanding and obnoxious.  You have a right to the service that the sysop
is providing, and so this service is owed to you - demand it.  Leave notes on the bulletin board which
suggest serious flaws in the ancestry of the sysop, remarks that indicate that he or she would do well
never to argue with a fern in their home - since the fern would win!  If you actually paid to be a
member of this particular board, be overly demanding and downright testy at all times.  The most
important thing to remember is that you OWN the sysop, and it is much akin to a Master/Slave
relationship, so do not hesitate to demand that the slave do what needs doing.

(11) By carefully reading these rules, you will easily become a very well known person on many bulletin
boards around the countryside.  The effective use of these rules will insure that your name is known
far and wide.  Constant application of these rules will earn considerable endearment to a broad
spectrum of sysops.  It is very important to have a reputation, and by the use of these rules, having
one of these is almost without question.  You'll get yours!

(12) To these few simple rules, there need to be supportive principles for life, and so it is that as a
public service, Zerro provides you, the reader, at no expense whatsoever, the undergirding supportive
principles by which to live your life so that you will find these above rules not only helpful but
downright handy.
      Never do today what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.  If you are lucky, it may
be possible to forget the whole thing altogether.
      A friend in need is a pest indeed.  If a person needs something, that is the person you do not
know.  Claim amnesia, it's cheaper.
      Do unto others and as quick as possible and then split before they realize that they have been
had.  When people realize what you have done to them, they sometimes get upset and try to do the
same thing to you, so it is good advice and it should be well taken, split before they realize what
happened.
      If caught in the act, tell them that Ollie North sent you and you thought what you were doing
PAGE FOUR
was alright.  Then come home and send out batches of letters asking for money.  It seems to work. It
worked for Ollie North, so why not give it a try?

(13) It shall be understood that the party of the first part, the system operator, hereinafter called the
party of the first part, that the party of the second part, namely the reader of this material, hereinafter
called the party of the second part, shall not hold one or the other, either the first or the second, liable
in any manner, degree, kind or condition, for the contents of this treatise which are not necessarily the
expression of the party of the first part to the party of the second part except in those particular
instances in which they may be said to apply.  The material contained herein is not an expression of
sentiment, feeling, thought, desire, cogitation, imagination, policy, program or latent anal retention of
informational values of the party of the first part.

(14) Additionally, in no way, shape or manner, in no degree or consideration under any possible or
probable circumstances or contingencies conceived by anyone living or dead is the material herein
contained to be construed by anyone living or dead or otherwise as the official or unofficial expression
of explicit or implicit remarks of the sysop.

-----

A government spokesperson speaking on behalf of the South African Government said that his
government in Pretoria welcomes the rescheduling of the major international banks with regard to his
country.  "It was," he said, "never the intention of the South African government to be in the red."
We can accept the fact that in a few more years we will be fully in the Black."  The spokesperson made
this announcement on banking and debt without realization of the highly controversial and subversive
nature of the substance of his remarks.

Suspicions that the Kindergarten School, Miss Morey's House, was feeding the children some sort of
"magic" mushrooms was finally confirmed the other day when one of the students, a lad of four,
participated in a track and field event and won first prize for his broad jump, which beat all former
Olympic records.

A football coach for a large college, in a post-game press session, told the reporters that the home team
his team had just played featured some of the worst sportsmanship he had ever witnessed in a crowd
and that these hooligans were some of the meanest and foulest types he had ever had occasion to see.
When the same coach arrived home, he called a press conference to announce that the fans in the home
field needed additional training to become more a part of the game.

A seventeen foot killer whale fell in love with a passenger ferry and finally decided to end this
relationship.  The whale certainly had the feeling it was being used, for each time the ferry came in,
it simply left again, ignoring the whale.

An executive travel magazine reports that an Air France passenger was seen unwrapping, sniffing, and
then eating one of the airlines scented paper face towels.  Some time passed, and the same passenger
was seen doing the same thing a second time, on the same flight.

The supervisor of the cemetery, Ephraim Zulu Gannaguulugga said that there would be only a skeleton
staff remaining after the whole of his staff was reduced by a killing budget.  "The whole operation will
be dead," he said, in response to a question.

Question: When a cemetery dies, who buries it?

One of the joys of 1990 is the stronger possibility that none of us will see Tammy Faye Bakker crying
on television any longer.  Maybe...
PAGE FIVE
The Chicago Cubs were coming into Chicago from a game outside of town, landing at the usual, O'Hare
Field.  Their plane was heading directly for another plane which was landing at the same time.  Of
course, with most of the team having the batting average they have, the plane managed to miss the
other plane.  Collectively, the whole damn team couldn't hit a plane.....

TWOALLBEEFPATTIESSPECIALSAUCELETTUCECHEESEPICKLESANDONIONSALLINASESAM
ESEEDBUN......A long word, for sure, but you've had it....what is it?

Ok, folks, you need to go out and grab up a few of those neat little items we call McFact Cards, and
then you will learn that none of the beef used in the product anywhere threatens a tropical rainforest.
In another McFact Card, you will learn that the packaging of the produce is ozone friendly.  On McFact
Card number three, you will learn that only prime beef from the lean forequarter and flank are used
for the product.  Forequarter translates into "chuck" roast.

The problem with politicians who have very little to say is that you have to listen to so much to
discover this fact.

Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

And 1990 means yet another year without the Gong Show.  Each and every year has some good about
it, and it is hard to top this one.

Although he may not fully be aware of it or want to acknowledge it, the drunken man is a living
corpse.

Nothing gets an old dental bill paid faster than a serious new toothache.

Griggsville, Illinois, Remarks:

What are the three most difficult years in the life of any citizen?  First Grade!

What do you call a 29 year old Griggsvillian in the fifth grade?  A prodigy.

People in Griggsville don't eat M&M candies!  They got tired of peeling them.

In Griggsville, the jigsaw puzzle has only one piece.

The Griggsville Library closed.  Someone stole the book and the comic store was closed.

What do you call a stork that delivers babies in Griggsville?  A dope peddler.

Someone in Griggsville called the plumber and said they had a leak in the bathtub.  The plumber told
them to wash it out real good before anyone took a bath in it.

Why do most women in Griggsville wear high-heeled shoes?  To keep the knuckles from dragging on
the ground.

How do Griggsville women avoid sexual harassment at night?  They keep their faces lit.

How do Griggsville women avoid sexual harassment in daylight?  Are you kidding?

Did you hear about the man from Griggsville who had just learned to count to 21?  He was arrested
for indecent exposure.
(6)
Maybe things will improve this year and companies will stop making things that have a commercial tie-
in with Batman and the Batman logo which seems to show up everywhere.

"You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are. Happy campers you have been. And,
as far as I am concerned, happy campers you always will be."  A visiting officer from the National Office
of the Boy Scouts, right?  Wrong!  It's our Vice President, Dan Quayle, at work again, putting both feet
in it - and there seems to be room, too!!!

Someone must do something about our prison system - there simply is not enough room for all the
folks who have stolen money from Savings and Loans.

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind.  How true that is." Spoken like a man
with plenty of rich experience.  It was our own Vice President, at work again.  The man never quits!

Pete Rose says he won't be into baseball this year - and you can bet on it.

"I stand by all my misstatements." So Says Dan Quayle.  Question: How can anyone be that many
places all at the same time?

In this, the last decade of the 1900's, Quaker Oats eliminated Aunt Jemima!

And the visitor said to the Papal Diplomat in Panama: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

The Japanese Are Buying America Department:
Well, it is true in a way that they are, at least as far as the Presidency is concerned. Ronald What-
his-name and Nancy "Just Say NO" went to Japan, and were paid one million smackers for their eight
day visit.  Usually the tourists pay, but in this case, the Japanese were buying something again...

Researchers at a major university announced that Cheese Whiz may help prevent cancer!  When you
combine this with all the oat flakes people are eating these days, things really get in a bind.

Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific.  It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United
States that is an island that is right here where it is."  Sounds like a fourth grade geography student
trying to overcome doubt with a pep talk, right?  Wrong!  It was Vice President Dan Quayle, doing it
one more time...

Tammy Faye Bakker, called by Esquire Magazine, "The Last Irritation of Christ."

President Richard Nixon recently praised China as a country with good government - this, after
Tiananmen Square and the violent repression of the students...and mass murders!  For a man who was
to lose the Presidency for being lose with the Truth, what else can we expect?

Joan Rivers has applied for a permit to carry a handgun.  It appears that she is now going to be able
to shoot off more than her mouth.

In the event of a fire in your home, would you know what to do, where to go, how to get out?  Would
other members of your family be able to follow the rules, the plan?  Do you even have a plan?  Do you
have smoke detectors, and do they work - when is the last time you tested them?


Attendants at a service station in Eunice, Lousiana, handed a robber $ 100. At the time, the robber was
naked, but he claimed to have a gun in his pocket!

(7)
Muscle building may be alright, but just don't let it go to your head.

People who live in glass houses should not forget to pull the shades.

The difference between a doctor and plumber is that a clogged drain does not require a second opinion.

Human beings are egotistical creatures who feel that they evolved from a lower form of life. The truth
may be that they are going in the opposite direction from what they think they are going.

It is not so much whether you win or lose, it is whether you figured the point spread.

The great trouble with winter is that it is a recurring ailment.

It is time for a boy to leave home when your experience and cunning can't match his speed and reflexes
when there is only one pork chop left on the platter.

Our credit card certainly comes in handy, when you don't have that much cash and you are in need,
and when, on occasion, there is ice on the windshield that needs to be scrapped off.

Not only is truth much more strange than fiction, it also happens to be far more rare.

Somewhere there is a very successful person who designs battery packages to contain either more or
less than the number of the batteries you actually need, so that you end up with more than you need.

There are some scientific indications that once every 26 million years, there is a complete destruction
on Earth, giving us yet one more cause for worry.

If we are so unreasonable as to expect athletes to attend class, perhaps we should require all scholars
to obtain season tickets.

An optimist stayed up one New Year's eve to see the arrival of the new year.  The pessimist stayed
up to make sure that the old year left.

You Know You Are From the North IF:

You are seriously concerned about such things as the wind chill factor.
You dunk doughnuts with just two fingers.
You know what road salt does to your car.
You have never even heard of Goo Goo bars.
Your idea of a fancy restaurant is one that has very slow service and insufficient lighting.
You know a snowplow when you see one.
You absolutely hate grits.
You keep your leaves raked at all costs.
You know the difference between table salt and road salt.

Note Well - Just In Case You Get In This Situation!

The mortician said that had he begun the embalming procedure without detecting that Mrs.
Stringfellow was alive, she would undoubtedly have died.


This Space is Reserved for use as a reserved space.  This is one of several, but the first of those.

(8)
A group of nudists were mightily disturbed when they discovered a flasher in a bush at their camp.

Salmon Rushdie, a man with a real need for a change-of-address card set.

Dan Quayle, the man for whom President George Bush is buying a booby-trapped rocking horse.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, buying a pair of boxing gloves, so she won't get arrested so easily.

The new waxworks look-alike of Dan Quayle has already been subjected to great criticism by artists.
They say it looks dumb.  The public says it looks real.  Dan Quayle himself says nothing.

Prices at the Humana Wellington Hospital have increased.  A check-up will now cost you an arm and
a leg .... and a kidney.

Leona Helmsley will be a guest in a no star hotel with little if any atmosphere.
Just remember, as a guest, you won't be doing anything too taxing, Leona.
You won't get Perrier Water in your room, dear, but the water is free that you do get.
You won't need to bill your bras to a hotel room. The government gives these out free.
At 69, Leona, you needed a career change, and the government has supplied you with one.

I went on a diet that allowed that I could drink anything I mixed in a blender.  Possibly the reason
I went off that diet was that the night before last I drank two chickens, a sirloin steak and three pork
chops.

You know you are fat if:
You are thrown off the beach for creating too much shade.
You use not a bra but a hammock.
You use a bicycle built for two, but you are the only one.
Snap, Crackle and Pop are not breakfast foods, they are the furniture under your posterior.
People tend to refer to you, alone, as the odd couple.
A police officer stops you after dusk and suggests you ought to wear headlights.
At the time of your marriage, it took three relatives to give you away.
You are told that the only way you can be on the street is with a parade permit.
You are the entire front row of your graduation picture.
You go to a Weight Loser Clinic and the owner beats you to the front door with a sign that says
"Closed."
You and the Statue of Liberty wear the same sizes.

A new medical finding indicates that exercise is one thing that can kill germs relatively easily. The
difficult aspect of this finding is getting the germs to take exercise voluntarily.

Eat what you do not want, drink what you do not like.  Limit what you like to very little.  This will
keep you healthy, according to the theory.  It will also prolong your life, according to experts. It may
not, but it certainly will seem that way.

Anton Farquard, please call your office.

This space is reserved for those parts that did not fit in the previously reserved space.


Do Not use this space, since it is thus reserved.


(9)
A Kind of Summary of the Eighties Maybe...

The long simmering darkness of dank Reaganism has been replaced by a thousand points of light and
a kinder and more gentle manner of government.  Rubbish in the streets has been replaced by, well,
even more rubbish in the streets.  A presidential drug buy in the park just across the street from the
White House could not be properly conducted...on the part of the government.  And taxes are paying
for all of this.

Through a thorough yet very gradual increase, no one actually feels greedier or more ruthless than in
any earlier decade, yet we have the Housing and Urban Development scandal involving hundreds of
those who urged us to vote for Reagan.  NOW, we know why, THEN, we just wondered.  The United
States shows signs of being a country in which common sense and honesty are to going to be allowed
to prevail for long, at least not in the housing market.

One must do serious academic research to find more people who knew less about so much as happened
when this land sold armaments to the Ayatollah.  President Reagan, our Commander and Chief did not
know that we were selling hundreds of tons of war materials to an avowed enemy.  Vice President
Bush did not know President Reagan, did not know we sold armaments, did not know where Iran was
located, did not know we had an Army, Navy or Airforce, and certainly thus forgot the Marines.  He
seems to have survived with some sort of knowledge that he was married, but beyond that it is murky.
A man who actually was a Marine, and shows us why, in vivid color, the Marines need just a few good
men, Col. Oliver North, was in charge of our foreign policy.  He wrote it, put it in effect, and in effect
he told no one else about it.  Of course, some speculated that maybe President Reagan knew that tons
of ammunition were being given to Iran, but given the President's penchant for napping, it is highly
possible that the President did not know. Admiral Secord knew, but he did not tell, and when asked,
he would not answer.

Oliver North, when caught with the facts, denied everything, and said that he was merely carrying out
orders, but then he denied that he knew who gave him the orders he was carrying out.  No one could
be found that said they issued orders, yet Col. North was carrying these out.  This somehow seemed
a bit out of the ordinary and a congressional investigation followed.  As is the custom, everyone involved
said they had nothing to say, since if they said anything, they would say too much, so no one said
anything, but a report was issued which went on for several thousand pages and cost the tax payers
a real bundle.

Jerry Falwell, a man hardly friendly to the idea of saints in the Catholic Church, switched fields and
declared Oliver North the first saint in the Independent Baptist Church.  A fund raising drive, and of
course with this a video tape, were offered to anyone willing to send in a considerable amount of money
to help this soldier with amnesia, who when making the tape seemed to remember everything.

Cellular telephones came into their own. Now it is not at all uncommon to see someone driving, on the
phone.  The real status symbol is to call someone in their car and get a recording, telling you they are
on the other line, and would you please call back!  And laptop computers have also come into their
own. Now, no matter where you go, you can't escape computers.  This, in the eyes of many, is progress.

The art of inter-personal communication was additionally eroded by the sale of no less than ten million
Walkman models of one or another kind.  People simply are tuned in to a number of things, but few
of whatever it is that they are tuned into are people.  Nowadays, often when a person responds to a
question, it is with a grunt.  The folks just no longer know how to communicate in words.  There is
even a model out now, for the shower.  It is of some consolation to know that these folks bathe.



(10)
Gasoline prices went all over the place but stayed loyal to the general principle of upward ever upward,
so that travel became more expensive and heating your home with oil increased.  All of this gave
truckers thousands of hours of conversation on their citizens band radios, guessing why the prices went
up.  Mainly, the cause was found in the desire of those who produce the oil to make more money.

There were a few rather serious disasters.  Sam Walton, the owner of Wal-Mart lost billions of dollars,
and he did this overnight.  One morning he was worth $ 8.3, and the next morning, he was worth only
$ 5.7 Billion. It's enough to drive most of us to the bread line at the Salvation Army.  But Sam took
it well and went back to work, to make more money.

So many companies changed hands during this past decade that a separate sheet would be required
even for a partial listing of the larger transactions.  All of these without exception represented increased
costs to the consumer and immense profits to the investor or investors.  Now you buy cookies from a
cigarette manufacturer and cheese as well.  No one is quite sure who owns what any longer.

Exxon tried to pour oil on untroubled waters and thereby generated a great deal of trouble.  No matter
what the company did after that, it was not appreciated.  The oil remained where it was spilled, since
it shows itself to be next to impossible to pick up.  Otter lovers and whale supporters had a veritable
field day at the expense of Exxon.  About the only thing this did for most Americans was to raise the
price of gasoline.  Hundreds of thousands were thereby touched - at least in their wallets.

The nation learned that R-E-L-I-E-F is not always spelled Rolaids.  This year, it was spelled TRIAL,
and when it was over, Jim Bakker went to prison for 45 years as a government guest.  This was a
partial solution to a public problem.  We can still see Tammy Faye crying, the possibility has not been
removed.

The year came to an end with no solution to the problems of Jimmy Swaggart, who still faces a lawsuit
in the amount of $ 90 Million.  And Oral Roberts, for all the promises of what seed money will do for
you, closed down the "City of Faith," a 60/30/20 story complex which a "900 feet Jesus" had told him
to build.  Every year must have its zanies.

President George Bush has put in a year as President, and invaded only Panama.  This deprives
Americans of seeing a sick dictator and moral despot wave his arms in the air like he was appreciated.
It is something we will all have to learn to live without, despite our joy at seeing this imp do his stuff.

And the Vatican will have many fine stories to tell using the theme "Guess who came to dinner?"  In
Panama, the Vatican performed the service of kenneling the pit bull that previously bit it.  At long last
there not so honored guest left, to no one's sorrow and the great joy of the Americans and
Panamanians.

Of course the really big news in 1989 had to be the sudden and somewhat unexpected dissolution of
the Communist world.  Starting with Tiananmen Square in June, Communism was in trouble in East
German, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, Ajerbijan
and a few other places.  Albania remained staunch in the faith, as did Cuba, but most other places
were about to throw in the towel.  Vietnam remains Communist, but it is not going anywhere.

Well, my doctor finally found out what I had, after a number of visits, and in the end, he got every
penny of it.  I guess it is fair to say that I am cured, but at the same time, my savings account died
a horrible death.

Sure, doctors make house calls, but for many doctors such a call is only done in conjunction with the
foreclosure of your mortgage.

(11)

Zerro Speaks:

One more of these little items for fun and laughter is now complete.  This issue represents installment
# 51, which is one more than planned, and now that we have gone beyond the limit, there will
probably be more of these.  As it is, you will need great skill to collect all of the previous installments
of Zerro that are to be found on various bulletin boards around the country.

Perhaps you would like to make some sort of contribution to Zerro.  We do NOT want money, since
Zerro is free to any reader who wants it.  But, if you have something you feel you would like to share
with others, this seems to be a good place to do it.  Zerro does not credit authors, since once you start
this, where do you stop?  Some of the material here is original, some is not.  Some was simply copied
copiously from other sources, some originated as a flow of consciousness.  In either event, you are free
to copy it to any other bulletin board you wish.

If you have something you want to appear in a Zerro installment, this is quite possible, simply by
sending the material to:

                          Resident Idiot - Scribe Zerro
                          P.O. Box 38
                          Buffalo, Illinois   62515

Any material received will be considered for inclusion in an additional installment of Zerro when the
time is opportune.  If you have any familiarity with this feature, you will know in general what type
of material is readily acceptable and what type will not likely be accepted.

Zerro is for fun and not for profit, so please do not use material found here in some publication for
profit.  Your cooperation is also sought on keeping each installment of Zerro integral and keeping the
original number on each installment.  This makes finding the various installments a whole lot easier
for everyone.

Thanks for your support and the popularity which Zerro has, due to those who seek out and download
the various installments.  It was slow going, but it is picking up around the countryside and it is due
to a lot of folks like yourself who want or even need a good laugh.

Zerro 51 Ends Here.....