[1135] in Humor
HUMOR: More News
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Fri Oct 13 16:20:56 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 16:14:22 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 19:46:52 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 15:05:04 -0400
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: joeha@microsoft.com
This first two items come by way of Bruce Cronquist:
Beaverton, Oregon:
Harold Lewis of Beaverton, Oregon, walked into the Times-Clarion office
and asked to see a clipping describing his death 63 years ago.
Lewis said he ran away from home in Missoula at the age of 12, hopped an
eastbound freight, but was kicked off as the train passed through
Harlowton.
The day before Lewis was kicked off, another boy was killed in a switching
accident and Lewis' mother mistakenly identified a picture of the body as
her son.
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Bellerica, Massachusetts:
For six months, Donna Graybeal waited for the phone to ring, every 90
minutes, day and night, it did - no fewer than 2,688 times. She would
answer the phone, hear a sound like rushing air, then a click, then the
dial tone. Nobody was ever there.
"It drives you absolutely out of your mind," Graybeal said. "I thought,
talk dirty to me. Do something. This silence is driving me crazy.
Police traced the calls to the Potomac, Maryland, home of Theodore and
Elisabeth James.
The prankster was not one of the family, but an old unused heating-oil
tank in the basement equipped years ago with a device that automatically
dialed an oil company whenever the fuel was running low.
"Poor Donna had been harassed for months by our oil tank," Elisabeth James
said.
Steuart Petroleum in Washington, D.C., installed the re-dialer device
about eight years ago in six homes participating in a short-term test.
The tank was dialing an 800 number that Steuart dropped several years ago
when the company sold its residential division.
Six months ago, Graybeal got an 800 line for the food service equipment
repair company she runs from her home. It was the old Steuart number.
Nobody is certain what brought the oil tank to life shortly after the
number was re-assigned. "Something resurrected this machine from its deep
sleep and it woke up and started dialing," said Bell Atlantic spokesman
Harold Herman. "It's one of those things that makes you stop and scratch
your head."
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Seattle, Washington:
On the marquee of Wallingford's Guild 45th St. Theatre:
"Beyond Rangoon: A Close Shave in Burma."
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London, England:
Scientists in Britain are developing a strain of plant that will glow in
the dark, alerting farmers to damage from pests or other stress long
before it becomes a serious problem.
The technology involves transferring the genetic material for a luminous
protein in certain jellyfish into the plants.
Professor Tony Trewavas of the University of Edinburgh's institute
associated with cell biology told reporters that "when the plants are
attacked by disease or pests, they glow."
So far, the gene has been successfully transferred into experimental
tobacco plants, but they do not yet glow enough to be seen with the naked
eye at night.
"Theoretically, you could have house plants that glow when you don't give
them enough water," said Trewavas.
