[5440] in Central_America
New quotes for Sat May 7
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Central America)
Sat May 7 03:36:31 1994
Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 03:35:47 -0400
From: Central America <root@charon.MIT.EDU>
To: ca-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
archon (Frieda):
{from system: This user's .plan file is not world-readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
bamf (David Y Oh):
{from system: This user's .plan file is not world-readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
dpatrick (David M Patrick):
2nd year Ph.D. student, Dept. of Mathematics
Office: 2-251, x3-7566
Address:
Room 307A
305 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 225-9715
I'm not logged in as of Fri May 06 12:49:58 1994
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
dskld (Addison Dio Tsai):
Avik S. Roy
Yale University School of Medicine
367 Cedar Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06510-3222
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
hss (Hany Saleeb):
If not logged in, I was geeking until: Fri May 6 23:32:44 EDT 1994
,-^;
/ /\| Imagination is more important than Knowledge.
_--'' ) ~ -Albert Einstein
,;`( )_--''--;
// // _
' | __ / Don't take life too seriously;
____/ \_____/ you won't get out of it alive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
kdmiller (Kenneth D Miller):
void main(){char b[17];int a=0,c=0,d; /* / for a good time, email: \ */
while(c!=-1){printf("%07x0:",a++);for /* ( kdmiller@athena.mit.edu ) */
(d=0;d<16;d++){c=getchar();b[d]=(c<' ' /* \ (Kenneth D. Miller III) / */
||c>'~')?'.':c;printf( "%s%02x",d&3?"":" ",c&255);}printf(" | %s\n",b);}}
Sorry, I'm not on right now. Try again later...
Last logout: Fri May 6 17:29:36 EDT 1994
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
nosaj (Jason M Sachs):
The following is an excerpt from the current version of ``Seems to
Me'', (c) 1993-1994 Jason M. Sachs.
continued from last time....
- - - -
I'd heard most of the stories before, but I don't mind, I guess. I
like to listen to Mrs. Grinswalder's stories. And if she's not
careful, sometimes she forgets what she's doing and offers me a piece
of pie by mistake. She was about to at that point---I could tell---but
then we were interrupted by a pair of bikers.
``Hey, Mrs. G.!'' they said, waving hello. One of them had a windsock
hanging from a rod on the back of his motorcycle. That reminded me of
something, so I got up and walked over to get a closer look at the
motorcycles, just as the bikers were heading over to where Mrs.
Grinswalder was sitting. I had to dart over to one side as we
approached each other at the halfway point, so that we wouldn't
collide or anything. They didn't seem to notice me much.
``Hi, Mrs. G.!''
``Hello, boys. Heh heh heh.''
One of them pointed to the interstate sign. ``That the sign you
want?''
``Sure is.''
They walked over to the sign, struggled with it for a few seconds, and
after a few grunts and squeals which either came from them or the
sign, they were walking back to Mrs. Grinswalder with an interstate
sign swung over their shoulder. I mean, only one of them was actually
carrying the sign, but it was still kind of hard to separate the two,
seeing as they looked mostly the same and they walked side by side, so
the sign seemed to be carried on sort of a collective shoulder of
theirs, or something like that.
I got close enough to the motorcycles by this time that I noticed a
pink crocheted thingie covering each of the handlebar grips. I don't
normally go around touching people's means of transportation, but the
crocheted thingies caught my eye, and the way they seemed to blend
right in with the handlebar grips... this and the windsock seemed to
clinch the fact that Mrs. Grinswalder had influence on these two. I
was fiddling around with the pink crocheted thingies, when I felt a
tap on my shoulder, and I turned around to see one of the bikers
staring me in the face and the other one next to him with a pear
bottom pie in one hand, and a Polaroid of them standing in front of
the highway next to the uprooted sign, courtesy of Mrs. Grinswalder,
in the other.
``Mrs. G. says you're Frank, the CB guy.'' Argh, I wish she'd get my
name right one of these days.
``Ummm... close enough. What can I do for you?''
I do odd jobs and small scale deliveries to places that are on my
way; I tell people where I'm going on the CB radio in my truck, and
they give me birthday presents to drop off, or ask me to pick up
groceries, or put up posters of a missing dog... things like that. I
don't make too much money, but I have a pretty good reputation, and
people who know me invite me over to dinner and sometimes even to a
summer home for the weekend, so I get along in life pretty well.
``She says you're going up to Norfolk.''
``Yeah....''
``Know where Norfolk General Hospital is?''
``Uh... yeah, why?''
``I got an appointment there tomorrow at two.''
``Huh?''
``I live there,'' he said.
``Oh.''
``In Norfolk, I mean.''
``Oh... okay, sure.''
``Some wacko doctor says I gotta get zapped here on my arm.'' He
pointed to his shoulder, where there was a sort of dark blotchy patch
of skin. ``Skin cancer. Well, anyways, I ain't got no time for them
wacko doctors, so you take this....''
Before I could tell him my feelings about the medical profession---how
if you try to mess with them, they'll just get you for it later on
down the road---he took one of those hunting knife things and carved a
big chip of skin from his shoulder where the blotchy patch was. He
went over to his bike and pulled out a Ziploc bag from a compartment
in the bike, and put the flap of skin into the Ziploc bag and handed
it to me, along with a card stating when and where his appointment
was.
``You go tell them I got better things to do than to sit around in
some damn hospital room, but if they wanna zap my arm, they can go
right ahead 'n' do it. Here's fifty bucks, and lemme know what
happens.'' He gave me a fifty dollar bill, and his business card, too,
and then he and the other guy got on their bikes and rode off.
``Bye, bye, boys!'' yelled Mrs. Grinswalder. ``Oh! Did Billy and
Wendell give you some swordfish steak?'' she said, pointing to the
Ziploc bag. ``They like to go fishing. You'll have to freeze it, and
let me know when you want to cook it, so you can bring it over to my
place for dinner. Those boys are so sweet. Heh heh heh.''
I tried to get my mind off of food at that point, so I looked at the
business card that had been given to me. "Melvin Rodinsky Jr., Lawn &
Garden Care", said the business card. Just goes to show there's some
things you'd never guess about people, especially their names.
I went and chucked Melvin Rodinsky's slice of arm into my rusty old
pickup truck... and then on second thought, I put it in the glove
compartment under a can of Coke, to keep it cold and to make sure I
wouldn't forget about it. Then I walked back over to Mrs.
Grinswalder, who was already well on her way to putting the sign back
into the ground.
She's a bit particular about things, if you haven't noticed. You have
to be the right person to pull out that sign for her, otherwise she'll
just stick the thing back up for the next person. She'll still give
you the pie---she may be particular, but she never goes back on a
deal.
I helped her with the sign---she's got this clamp thing that you
attach to the bottom part of the signpost, so you can hit the clamp
with a mallet and the sign goes in nice and straight. After all, you
wouldn't want it coming out of the ground, would you?
We dumped the clamp and mallet in the back of Mrs. Grinswalder's burnt
umber jeep, and sat back down on the folding chairs and talked some
more.
More people came by every once in a while, some to chat, some to buy
pear bottom pie, and some to try pulling out the sign. It's fun
watching people---they'll feel guilty about it and keep asking Mrs.
Grinswalder if it's illegal, or they'll start pulling on the signpost
and get obsessed with the thing, cursing at it 'cause it won't budge.
If she feels like it, sometimes she'll go over to the sign with her
toolbox when they're not looking, and loosen up the signpost for them,
just to be nice.
There was this smartass macho college kid with his girlfriend, and he
kept at it for about an hour, kicking at the sign every once in a
while, until his shoe finally split open, and he was hopping around on
the other foot, yelling. His girlfriend came over and looked at the
shoe. (I don't think his foot was doing too well, either.) Anyway,
while they were paying attention to his toes and her face and their
lips and things like that, Mrs. Grinswalder sneaked over to the burnt
umber jeep and got out a jack and a blowtorch from the toolbox and
pulled up the sign just a little bit. That kind of annoyed me; I
mean, a guy like that could really use his ego cut down a bit, and by
letting him have his way, he'd just be more arrogant later on. I
didn't feel like watching anymore, so I just stayed where I was, to
guard Mrs. Grinswalder's pies---you never know when a crow or a
squirrel is going to eat something of yours, especially if it
glitters---and looked out at the scenery.
``Here, have a glass of lemonade. I'm sure you can do it,'' I heard
Mrs. Grinswalder say, and sure enough, a little while later there was
that sign-coming-out-of-the-ground sound (with a little practice it's
not hard to recognize), and his girlfriend was squealing and clapping
with delight. At that point, I had had enough, and was going to say a
few words of discouragement to the guy, when I turned, expecting to
see him showing off his biceps, and instead, there was his girlfriend
lifting the sign free from the dirt. ``See, I told you that you could
do it. Heh heh heh.'' Well---I had to admit I almost lost my respect
for Mrs. Grinswalder for a moment there. ``Now come over here. I want
to take your picture. Frank! Bring over a pie and go get my Polaroid
from the jeep.'' (The Polaroid Mrs. Grinswalder took of the two of
them is one of my favorites---she's holding the interstate sign, he's
just standing there holding a pear bottom pie with the most ridiculous
look on his face while she's leaning over and kissing him. I would
have had a copy made, but the guy at the Fotomat near Mrs.
Grinswalder's house said it wouldn't turn out very well and that she
should have used a 35mm camera if she wanted to make good copies.
Heck, if she'd used a 35mm camera, I would have told her to submit the
photo to _Life_ or _National Geographic_ or _Wheaties_ or something.
But that's not Mrs. Grinswalder's style; she takes two pictures with
her Polaroid, one for the person who pulls out the sign and one for
her, and that's that.)
After they left, I helped Mrs. Grinswalder put the sign back into the
ground again.
It was about four in the afternoon before someone finally came by who
was, I guess, knowledgeable or earnest enough in the area of
sign-pulling to convince Mrs. Grinswalder that she shouldn't just
replant that sign another time....
- - - -
to be continued....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ryhuang (That's right!):
{from system: This user's .plan file is not world-readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
yandros (Chad Phillip Brown):
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I Love You..
Please don't take my sunshine away.
--- End of Central America ---
