Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!apple!ames!decwrl!shelby!lindy!news From: GC.DCW@forsythe.stanford.edu (SPRING FEVER) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Spring Fever Message-ID: <8643@lindy.Stanford.EDU> Date: 24 Mar 90 20:35:48 GMT Sender: news@lindy.Stanford.EDU (News Service) Lines: 45 Spike, who has been drifting along on the notes of the bagpipe playing and stomping his feet to the blues rags played on the piano, is feeling in a rather expansive mood. Getting up, with a large wad of bills, he approaches the bar and slaps down a dollar for own drink, a simple rum & coke. He then walks over to the chalk line. "What a wonderful week out in the world it has been, warm spring days, warm nights on my way to work, what more could anyone ask?? Well, tonight I get to see B.B. King work his magic on the guitar, and with the great music I've heard here all week, my mood is up- tempo. Not being a musician myself, I really appreciate someone who can play good music. Anyways, here is my toast: "To the making of Music and to the Musicians, because without that combination, the world would be a drearier place." Spike wound up and threw his glass into the fireplace with a satisfying shatter. Walking back to the bar in a lighthearted manner, he dropped the wad of cash on the bar and said: "Rather than trying to explain to you all individually why I am buying you each a drink, let's just say that I'm buying a round for the house. Serve 'em up, Mike, whatever they want. I'm buying!!" "If I can remain steady on my feet, I'd like to do some toasts with the following folks: "Nick Chopper, Jilara, Orion the bagpipe man, Joelle, Silver, Dani, Taldin, Caprice, The Greyrider (nice bike), Ellen (with the peanuts in her hair), Alaric, Diana (if she'll come back), Daarin, Oktave, The Cynic, That Rev. Mom, Jazz, Tabbifli, Zach, Tabbifli, Paul, Melanie, & Steve. More'n likely I've left somebody out, but if I have feel free to grab a drink and raise a toast. "Mike, give me a French 75, that's a good toasting drink, 'To some new friends (or acquaintences in Ellen's case), may we always have this place to meet as long as we need it. Net access or no.'" With a tear in his eye and smile on his face, Spike threw his glass into the fire and awaited the coming onslaught. Spike Nick, you can reach me at 5-3550, okay? Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!emd101 From: EMD101@psuvm.psu.edu Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Spring Fever Message-ID: <90083.201441EMD101@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: 25 Mar 90 01:14:41 GMT References: <8643@lindy.Stanford.EDU> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 37 In article <8643@lindy.Stanford.EDU>, GC.DCW@forsythe.stanford.edu (SPRING FEVER) says: > >"To the making of Music and to the Musicians, because without that >combination, the world would be a drearier place." Spike wound >up and threw his glass into the fireplace with a satisfying shatter. > (And the gentleman cheersfully buys a round for the house, singling out a few folk by name...) > >"Mike, give me a French 75, that's a good toasting drink, 'To some >new friends (or acquaintences in Ellen's case), may we always have >this place to meet as long as we need it. Net access or no.'" With >a tear in his eye and smile on his face, Spike threw his glass into >the fire and awaited the coming onslaught. > Oktave, always happy to be mentioned by name, especially in association with such a varied and important group of people, smiles and approaches to accept a glass of ginger ale. She drinks it while watching the room musively. "To music," she says after a few minutes, "which reminds us to listen to the world around us, and to learn." >krishh!< "By the way," she adds on her way back to her table, "I'll be visiting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Tuesday, and at Michigan at Ann Arbor on Wednesday (March 27 and 28). If anyone over there gives me their phone number, there is a nonzero probability that I will have time to at least say hi." Oktave goes back to her table and sits there reading for awhile. Later she leaves to go play in the mud, but you don't notice. Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!yale!eagle!rstepno From: rstepno@eagle.wesleyan.edu Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: One for the man behind the bar... Message-ID: <13500@eagle.wesleyan.edu> Date: 24 Mar 90 14:57:34 GMT Lines: 28 Hey, what's this sign here? Calla... huh? Can't be. Whathehell, might as well poke my head in... Hmmm... more crowded than I expected, and a younger crowd than I feel comfortable with. But they seem to have the spirit. Wish I had more time to stay, but the smoke's bothering my eyes and nose. I woke up with this cold last Sunday and thought it might be a hangover (no blood-filtering vampires at the mostly- Irish music session at a bar called LaBoca), but I normally don't get hangovers from three pints of Guinness. The smoke in that bar was worse than this. I wish I could get these nice young people to quit. ("Young people," they grumble. OK, I've got some white streaks down the sideburns leading to my beard, almost tried shaving it down to a goattee to look less like a 25-year-old lady friend's Dad, but she left town. And when she came back... but that's another story. Funny, both it and this one remind me of Steve Goodman songs. Jake probably knows Steve.) Anyhow, it could be the cold or too many hours at the computer making my eyes hurt like this, but I do want to talk about smoking. It killed both my parents, one when I wasn't looking and the other while I was holding his hand. I was surprised to learn that cancer cells like to leap from the lungs to the brain; my Dad's memory and speech went just when I wanted to talk to him the most. A week later he died and I went home and threw out a dozen ashtrays. Should have brought them here and scaled them into the fireplace. He spent a good part of his life emptying them for other people... Here's one for bartenders, Mike. That helped. Thanks for listening. Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!apple!usc!samsung!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca.wv.tek.com!pogo!andyd From: andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: another newcomer Message-ID: <8748@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> Date: 25 Mar 90 06:24:58 GMT Reply-To: andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) Distribution: na Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR. Lines: 35 Lately, the door has been swinging open & shut without anyone touching it. It performs said stunt again, one Punday night. This is followed by a presence fading in near the bar. It is a young woman in her early twenties. She has curly orange hair, worn loose to just below her shoulder blades, and fair skin. There's a smattering of light freckles across her nose, and her eyes are a startling emerald green, clear but somehow still unreadable. She wears black leggings, tunic, and cloak, along witha mundane and somewhat out-of-place digital watch, bare of feature. Anyone close to her will notice that it isn't running. She has a small emerald ring on her right hand. She puts a single on the bar and collects the Dr. Pepper which lands next to it, looking vaguely startled at not having to say what she wanted. She takes a sip, still looking slightly flustered. "Hi, everyone. I've been watching from the sidelines for a while now, and you've got a great place - maybe the kind of place I've been looking for. Not to mention the puns." (Someone in the shadows is heard to moan, `Please not to mention the puns.') ^^^^^^ "No doubt I could say more, but . . . " Stepping up to the chalk line with her glass (which is now inexplicably empty, despite the fact that no one saw her drink from it) she toast, "To laughter, good cheer, and fun times with friends." **CRASH** Wandering over to the bar, she obtains another Dr. Pepper. Sitting at an empty table, she prepares to nurse the sucker for an hour or two. As she watches the room - somewhat wistfully- one is startled to note a small, nonetheless hard-to-miss poisonous snake curled around her wrist. She is gently stroking its head, and it emits a strange, purring sound. -- _______________________________________________________________ | Laura Davidson | If you love something, let it go; | Brought to you by | If it comes back to you, it's yours; |_Andy_Davidson_____| If it doesn't, it never was. Newsgroups: alt.callahans Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!chaos.cs.brandeis.edu!chaos!adam From: adam@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (The invertabrate punster, so slug me.) Subject: Re: More intros In-Reply-To: brt@cbnewsh.ATT.COM's message of 23 Mar 90 01:28:39 GMT Message-ID: Sender: adam@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (The invertabrate punster, so slug me.) Organization: Bizzare Unlimited, Traveler In Elephants References: <9115@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> Date: 25 Mar 90 08:04:51 Lines: 15 "Welcome all of you! This place is getting more and more patrons all the time! I am glad that you all are here! Mike drinks around, and maybe the line will get rubbed out again with all the toasts to good things. " "So the few of you that I met (physically) at universicon and the more that I will meet in Icon (yes it is this next weekend) I greet you virtually. " "To people, may we always meet and greet each other!" <*Crash*> Traveler In Elephants Dave -- -- Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!thalen From: thalen@reed.UUCP (The Mundane Mage) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Emotions (& other stuff) Summary: Anger? Keywords: Robbin' Hoods Message-ID: <14511@reed.UUCP> Date: 25 Mar 90 11:03:05 GMT Reply-To: thalen@reed.UUCP (The Mundane Mage) Organization: Reed College, Portland OR Lines: 107 Thalen has, by this time, pretty much finished singing Irish folk songs (Pretty Peggy-o, Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go, and a few less-known ones), and sat down to listen with great interest to the proceedings. After a time, he rises again and says "It is interesting that so many of you have problems with suppression of emotions. I didn't think I did, but now I'm not so sure, maybe. I guess either I have some kind of partial answer to it, or I have the problem badly enough that I never even knew I had it." Thalen sits down on his table, with a preoccupied air, then gets up, and sets about cleaning up his spilled drink. Yeah, the deep red stuff. You still can't tell what it is, but you can tell that it stains. The funny thing is, he isn't acting tipsy or anything. He just acts like he does this sort of thing consistantly, and is quite used to it by now. "You see, my problem is not that I suppress my emotions too much. My biggest problem, in fact, is that I can't suppress them enough. However, one interesting thing about me, that many others have noticed, is that I "...just don't get angry!" And I almost never do. In fact, it happens so seldom that I tend to remember pretty much every time it happens. And not only was the last time the middle of my Senior year in high school, last year, (a teacher who was perfectly aware that I had had Mono for the first two months of school refused to give me an incomplete, and instead gave me the local equivalent of a D-), but the anger has never lasted, for me, more than about 5 minutes after the immediate, observable source of it has left me. (I.e. in this case after I left the teacher, in another case after I put down the letter, etc.) Also, the anger is never overwhelming. I am always fully controlled, and the anger sort of sits there and taps my action center on the "shoulder" and says, "Hey! Just here to inform you that you would like to beat the #$%& out of {whatever}" It has almost never dictated my actions (Once, when I was hit in the face, it did. I kneed him in the balls. It wasn't pretty.) Now, sometimes the logical thing to do is to scream and yell. In these cases the logical part of my mind does quite well. And, until I started thinking about it, this seemed pretty ideal to me. Emotions, well, I have thos, and I don't have to endure the one that makes people unbelievably unpleasant to deal with. "However, now I'm not so sure. If I am actually bottling up all of this anger/hatred inside of me...well... I have at least six or seven years worth (as far back as I can remember anger clearly) and maybe more. That is a scary idea, especially to me, since I wouldn't know how to handle it if I did explode. Anyone else out there like this? I would like to find out." Thalen then slides off the table, and regards the whole room. "Now, since I would never explode here, even if I do explode, I want to do on to happier thoughts. Like for instance: I assume others have noticed this trend, and if this has been asked before, I apologise, but what ratio of musicians to non- musicians do we have in here? Not necessarily professional, or even good, but at least practicing and possibly performing? It seems to me to be a very large ratio. I wonder what this means? (By the way, I count myself a musician: Singer, vibrophone player (for all of 5 months), and orchestral percussionist. If anyone is in the Portland, Oregon area during the school year, or the Yardley, Penn. (i.e. Trenton, NJ) area during the summer, and wants someone to sing with, I will gladly do that with anyone, and any music (except hard core/ heavy metal, which, I'm sorry, I *don't like*))." "Oh, by the way, another interesting point, which came up since my last speech." Thalen pauses to scratch his head reflectively. "Interesting, how history tends to repeat itself. I just tried out for a musical, here at Reed. And, again, the part was made for me. In fact, two of the parts were made for me: They both involve a wide vocal range, they both involve fencing, they both involve pseudo-hackers (computer-type), and they both involve robin hood type characters, which, I must admit, are my favorite. The only problem is, with a list of specifications like that, the director MUST have had two people in mind when he decided to do this show. There are just NOT THAT MANY FENCERS at Reed. So why is my optimism still sure that I'll get the part??? AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! Oh, well, even intellectually, there is the slight chance that he was so charmed with my singing and acting ability (right.. ;-/) that he will dump one of the other two for me. However, if they are who I think they are, I know and like both of them. Why isn't life ever uncomplicated?" "Oh, by they way, I tried the Cynic's card game. 'Tis interesting, to say the least. Tried it four times in a row, just out of curiosity. Results: Fool on Queen. Ace on Queen. Queen on king. Ace on Fool. I find the last one particularly interesting, as I am of the opinion that embarrasment is fun, as long as it is voluntary (otherwise, why would so many people act? :-) This may be saying that that is one of my strengths. Then again, it may not." Thalen sits back down, then stands up again. He starts to walk toward the center of the room. He stops. He looks puzzled. He turns around and starts toward his table again. He stops. He looks around and says "Uh, what was I.." At which the whole bar shouts, simultaneously, "TOAST." "Yeah, that's right." says Thalen sheepishly. "Toast. Right. Um. Does anyone know what I was going to, uh, say?" He starts looking for his glass, then finds it, and says "Not that it would have made much difference, since I appear to have sat on (in?) my drink. Callahan, how about a Horse's Ass?" "You can't catch me on that one, Thalen." says Callahan pleasantly, mixing the requested drink. "Our first time traveller got me with it once already." "Yeah, I know, I just thought it was mildly appropriate at the moment." Thalen toes the line, and begins an elaborate windup. "To places where you can make a fool out of yourself without having to worry about people taking you seriously, or trying to recruit you." Time seems to slow down as his glass approaches the fireplace. No, bad phrase. A better one would be "doesn't approach the fireplace." It appears he will miss by at least two feet. The drink hits and breaks apart, shattering into thousands of tiny fragments, and showering the people within ten feet of the impact point with... flowers??? Thalen looks around with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Well, now I guess it really is an Iris bar. I do hope I didn't cause any Dasiedness. I would hate to be Violetly set upon by this group of Tulipped Snap-dragons. It would be extremely Peone-ful, if nothing else. And probably all that would come of would be a Lotus stuff that I would regret in the Fuschia. Well, I guess it will make you people forget-me-not. And now, I'd really like to stamen, but I must groundcover. Hope the 'tender doesn't Crocus for saying it with flowers." Thalen bows to the empty house, left that way by the clientelle all running out holding their noses. All except his black cat, Paws, which bites him (not hard, don't worry) and then runs out the door. "If you can't take fine humor," quothee, "then Begonia Pansies!" Thalen Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!yale!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca.wv.tek.com!pogo!andyd From: andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Pain and acceptance Message-ID: <8753@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> Date: 25 Mar 90 22:01:42 GMT References: <9003231605.AA23882@fsdcupt.csd.mot.COM> Reply-To: andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR. Lines: 16 Jilara: I think I understand what you mean.I call only two people in this world 'friend', although I call perhaps ten mor 'friendly aquaintances; I don't like large crowds of people, and large (or even small crowds of strangers make me extremely lonely. A shut-off feeling. But times spent alone or with family and friends are wonderful. Life is like a packing box: Mostly, you find stuff you put there. Sometimes other people put in stuff you weren't expecting, but mostly it's just stuff you put there and then forgot. -- _______________________________________________________________ | Laura Davidson | If you love something, let it go; | Brought to you by | If it comes back to you, it's yours; |_Andy_Davidson_____| If it doesn't, it never was. Newsgroups: alt.callahans Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!chaos.cs.brandeis.edu!chaos!philbo From: philbo@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Phil Gross) Subject: Re: The cynic speaks of Fools (VERY LONG) In-Reply-To: daq@hpfcso.HP.COM's message of 23 Mar 90 06:42:18 GMT Message-ID: Sender: philbo@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Phil Gross) Organization: Quantum Mechanics. No job too small, no velocity too large References: <9060046@hpfcso.HP.COM> Date: 25 Mar 90 23:46:28 Lines: 68 Philbo takes a puff of his inhaler, strolls over to the espresso machine and takes a couple of hits of hot air... You feel, Cynic, that the game you play is difficult? Well, you're right. You invented it. I do see what you're trying to say. Or at least I think I do. You see affairs of the heart as a deal of cards, and you seem to get a lot of fools. That you have loved fools (or been foolish in love) I will not contest, as I do not know you or your circumstances. I do not, however, believe that your analogy is as useful as it could be. Cynic, sometimes symbols obscure as much as they try to clarify. I sense that here. If your heart is a shuffled deck of cards, you only take your cut in the draw. Do you have no control over your life at all? Are you disavowing responsibility for your love? This is whatyou seem to be assuming by your analogy. If you do believe that your heart is random, well then, the obvious solution is to deal as fast as you can, and try to come up with the best situation as quickly as possible. The deck is not only made of fools, it has queens and kings as well. Eventually, you should turn up a good card. I offer you a strategy. Cheat. Stack the deck in your favor, Cynic. Go ahead, we won't tell. It's obvious that you care, because if you don't you don't have to play the game at all. Don't look at love as a card deal, look at it as a bond, and a relationship. Love at First Sight is a nice idea, and all well and good when it works out, but it doesn't have the highest percentage in the house... Maybe the heart is more like a house than a card game. You keep building rooms. Sometimes the lights short out, sometimes you blow fuses, sometimes, even the roof falls in and you get trapped in the wreckage, but dammit, you have to live somewhere. Love doesn't always have to last, but why be bitter? Use the raw materials you have. What are they? I don't know, I don't really know you at all. I do know that you are inventive, articulate (at least on the net), controversial, and opinionated. What other strengths do you hide? You need mortar, man, to hold the bricks together. You have the building material, everyone does. You're also building on a fault line, everyone is. Don't worry, take out some real insurance, build earthquake resistant... What do you think? Having mostly run out of hot air, Philbo returns to the table in the center, and proceeds to crack a few peanuts. He drinks a few sips out of his ginger beer, then proceeds to crawl under a candle... "Non sequitor est disputatum" "Non sequitor non carborundum" "Festina mente" philbo@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | .......Copyright (C) 1990 By Philip Gross...... MB 1241/Brandeis University | Permission to copy for noncommercial use only PO Box 9110 Waltham, MA 02254 | other than net propogation, All Rights Reserved -- "Non sequitor est disputatum" "Non sequitor non carborundum" "Festina mente" philbo@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | .......Copyright (C) 1990 By Philip Gross...... MB 1241/Brandeis University | Permission to copy for noncommercial use only PO Box 9110 Waltham, MA 02254 | other than net propogation, All Rights Reserved -- "Non sequitor est disputatum" "Non sequitor non carborundum" "Festina mente" philbo@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | .......Copyright (C) 1990 By Philip Gross...... MB 1241/Brandeis University | Permission to copy for noncommercial use only PO Box 9110 Waltham, MA 02254 | other than net propogation, All Rights Reserved Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa From: jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Life on Fast Forward Keywords: Lots of Stuff Message-ID: <14820@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 26 Mar 90 04:29:49 GMT Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 152 There is a brief flash from up in the rafters. The Green Tiger is awake and staring intently at a nonexistent point. Actually, he is not so much staring as immobile, a frozen image. Some of his fur is standing on end. Then the image ripples a bit as the refreshes come through. He shakes his head and looks down at the people below. {Sorry about that. I had to scramble an image to another corner of virtual space and the virtualizer didn't kick in right away...} {I've been living on fast forward for a couple days here, after getting grounded 150 miles from my modem with strep throat. And I refuse to catchup on Callahan's, the emergency scramble being a case in point.} {Anyway, now that I'm awake, I might as well say a few things. Which is actually a lot of things in this case. Everybody grab a drink, this is going to take a while.} {To start, welcome to all the new folk. Is it my imagination or did an especially large number of you show up this last week? Anyway, welcome to Callahan's, where there's always a corner or a table in the center, according to your preference. And, most important, lots and lots of good listeners.} {Second, I had no idea my location up here and especially my tail was going to be such a big hit. Since it seems to be providing joy and amusement, I'll leave it where it is.} {Miss Tabbifli, I let somebody tape a sign to my tail. I'm hardly going to be bothered by a friendly pat. It's good to see you back and doing better than before.} {Speaking of tails and that to which they are attached, has anybody noticed the drastic rise in the cat population here? It seems just about everybody here has brought in a cat with them. But only Melissa and I have chosen to actually *be* cats. Opinions, anybody? What does this mean?} {Next topic: I wish I could remember which one of you was talking about the Pre-Post-Baccalaurate-Oh-My-Gods. It's a wonderful name. I'm not really sure if I have them but I certainly have something. The thing is that I want to do it over again, starting with what I know now. Each year I have been here I have learned much -- I'm not talking academically, I'm talking socially. I'm actually getting close to being a functional human. So, I'm just getting up to speed and now they're changing the rules on me again. Which figures. It's happened before. By the time that I finally learn my way around a given environment, feel comfortable in it, start to take advantage of its full potential, it's time to leave.} {Which sort of leads into Greywolf's "scroll of create job." No, it doesn't work that way. It is possible to have a very hard time getting a job with a diploma and good grades from one of the best institutions in the country. This is demonstrable fact. But that diploma does help.} {And your points about theory versus practical are well taken. I could rant about the electrical engineering department here in that particular vein for quite some time. But here are a few salient facts: I'm one of the few who has any practical knowledge at all. I was chief engineer for the radio station here for a couple years and I couldn't get any technically qualified help, despite an EE department with two or three hundred people it in, because they were neither experienced nor _interested_. They don't seem to connect what they learn in class with real life, so to speak.} {As an example, I was in a triple last year. We were all EEs. One day the stereo gets shoved over a bit too far and one of the speaker wires pulls out of the clip on the back. Do they even *look* for the problem? No. Hours later, when I finally get back to the room, they tell me that something is wrong with the stereo. And now, this year, which of us do you suppose is getting all the job offers? Not me...} {Another random topic: Straz was talking about meeting people and in particular women, virtually. Well, Straz, you aren't the only one. *Most* of the women I have even attempted to be involved with I met virtually. They were never so far away in realspace, though, except for one lady from Singapore who, fortunately, went to school in Ottawa.} {I'm going to lose my net access here in June when I graduate, but I will be back, come hell or high water (actually, phone bills). So much of my life goes through the net that I can't just forget it.} {It's sort of strange, but one of my best connections to reality is virtuality, so to speak. It's supposed to work the other way.} {A phrase that has been bandied about is that "there's somebody out there for everybody." OK, let's take that as a premise and analyze it. Making no further assumptions, this simply means that some sort of pairing can be performed. So, supposing I find the one that's paired to me and I don't like her? Or, if we assume that the word "for" supposes a more sophisticated matching, it means that there's somebody out there who is what I am looking for. Supposing I find her and she doesn't like me?} {Yes, I know what it really means. The idea is that the matching is such that both parties are made happy by it. But that's not what it _says_. For some reason, things like that are starting to bother me. It started with a statement in a news broadcast about the East German political situation that was just plain logically wrong. It was propaganda. I expect the government -- any government -- to say things like that, but network news? Gah.} {New topic. This is, I guess, directed a bit at Ellen. It's simply this: if somebody is willing to give you something free, take it. Admittedly, it is a good idea to take a good look at what they're offering, but if it isn't harmful, why not take it? If it turns out that you don't need it, you can always toss it and you've lost nothing.} {I have an acquaintance who is blind. She went to an amusement park some time ago and was told that she could ride one roller coaster free because she was blind. She got flaming mad and insisted on paying. Nobody really understands why. I have another acquaintance who is also blind and she doesn't understand either. If somebody is willing to give you a break, why not take it, even if you don't need it?} {So what if the well-wishes of net folk seem meaningless to you? Does it cost you anything to listen to them? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just wondering why you're so allergic to them.} {There has been a lot of talk here about pain. At least in a physical sense, it is intended as a signal of present or impending damage or malfunction. It doesn't always work quite that way, though. There are a lot of things which produce pain but no damage. Parenthetically, this can be a useful phenomenon.} A stray beam of light which has somehow found its way into the rafters glints off white fangs, reminding those below that the green and cuddly tiger is also a predator. {But that's not something I should talk about.} {Emotionally, I'm not so sure that the analogy is valid. It is possible to be emotionally damaged, even to the point of being totally disfunctional, but on the whole most emotional pain eventually goes away and leaves the person in question wiser but essentially undamaged. At least, this is the way it looks to me. I confess I haven't thought about it a lot. Opposing viewpoints welcome.} {Well, it's taken a while, but this is the last topic. It suddenly occurred to me yesterday that my perch up here is rather isolating. It's comfortable, and my tail seems to be on its way to being a permanent feature. But at the same time I'm not sitting at any of the tables below, where the conversations are. And I'm not sure I like that.} {So, through the miracle of cyberspace, I'm going to change it.} The dimly-seen form of the tiger is suddenly joined by a number of smaller lumps which one by one leap off the rafter and float slowly down into the light. They turn out to be green tiger kittens. As they land on the floor, they fan out through the tables, clomping along on oversize kitten feet. {Anybody who wants to talk to me, feel free to scoop up a kitten. There's sure to be one wandering by...} The green tiger settles down on his rafter to sleep some more, but remembers one last remark. {Oh yeah. If anybody puts together a t-shirt, I'll certainly buy one.} And with that, the tiger's gray eyes close once again, to snooze away until there's something to be said. But the kittens continue to prowl... -- James W. Birdsall jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU jwbirdsa@pucc.BITNET ...allegra!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa Compu$erve: 71261,1731 "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa From: jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: God Is An Iron and a SOB Too Keywords: Bloody Hell Message-ID: <14822@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 26 Mar 90 04:42:48 GMT Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 30 The green tiger has just settled down to sleep when the next tragedy strikes... {God is an iron,} he growls. {I just proved it.} {A couple months ago, I made a posting titled "Boom!" In it I related the sad tale of a female friend who was forced to tell me that I just didn't click.} {So guess what I've just had to tell somebody.} {Yeah.} {I feel like I've betrayed her. But at the same time it has become so obvious that I can't give her what she wants that even I can't ignore it any more. I could fake it. But that would be a real betrayal.} {But at the same time, she was so happy. How can I hurt someone who is probably my best friend in the entire world like that?} {I guess what it boils down to is that I'm not willing to give up my life to make her happy. And maybe that's the ultimate test of whether you actually love someone or not. But it feels like I'm being selfish.} {I don't know what to think.} The tiger stares into the darkness of the rafters... -- James W. Birdsall jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU jwbirdsa@pucc.BITNET ...allegra!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa Compu$erve: 71261,1731 "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin