Path: mit-eddie!bbn!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplred!egly From: egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Poisoned Warm Fuzzies? Message-ID: <20940008@hplred.HP.COM> Date: 11 Dec 89 19:06:51 GMT References: <12086@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA Lines: 67 / hplred:alt.callahans / jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) / 11:41 am Dec 9, 1989 / > Think about it: you don't know a bloody thing about me except what I've > posted here. For all you know, I could be making it all up as I go > along! I could be using you people. Someday someone will show up at alt.callahans who does just this. When/if it does happen I hope we all realize that anyone who is so desperate that they use other people is broken inside -- likely protecting themselves from feeling much because of the depth of pain they would otherwise experience. I hope we will be kind. Would we be betrayed by someone who lies to us? Would we be demeaned by someone who uses others? If what we have offered is acceptance and friendship, I think not. We are not demeaned by what others do to us but we can be enobled by what we do. But we can betray ourselves if we lose our empathy just because others behave badly. Or, at least, that's how it seems to me. > "Anyway, how can you claim to be my friend when you know so little > about me? The only way it makes sense is if you mean 'friend' as > shallowly as the people who have been so recently denounced here. It is common for those of my religion to call people "friend". It is a reminder of what we choose to be -- how we choose to treat others -- how we want to relate to others. The word is not used lightly. I wouldn't wonder that folks here at Callahans mean the word much as Friends do. > "I have proven in the past that I'm NOT a good judge of character. And > I will not claim to be a friend unless I MEAN it. So, perforce, I must > wait until I have some idea what the other person is all about. Does acting in friendship depend so much on what the other is all about? I'd think it depends much more on what YOU are all about. Is it that you expect that if a person acts in friendship that it will be returned in kind? Often it is, but not always. For me, that's not what matters so much. For me, what matters is what I am and what I am becoming. > "To return to the main point: while I'm still deciding about > somebody, I have to maintain their interest somehow. And it seems to be > the way the world works that Warm Fuzzies are the only way to do it. So > I'm stuck giving out Warm Fuzzies and hoping that my rational evaluation > matches Vampire's emotional reaction. And no matter how I slice that, > it leaves a bad taste in my mouth called 'False Pretenses.' I can see, in your questions about poisoned warm fuzzies, and whether our actions in giving them can be altruistic, that you too are struggling with what you are and what you are becoming. I respect your inner honesty in knowing what feels like "false pretenses" to you -- that shows much integrity. > "But I just can't figure any way around it. So I'm forced to toast > Confusion. May it go away soon." > He hurls the glass into the fireplace as hard as he can. > "In the meantime, you have been warned, which is the only thing I can > think of to do." With the kind of integrity to call a false pretense by name and to warn us of it in yourself, well, I kind of expect that you'll think of something else to do eventually... Probably soon. Because it seems likely to me that you won't feel comfortable until you do. > He grimly stalks back to his chair, hoping that the aftermath won't > be too bad. But at least he's done the right thing... Yes... You've done the right thing... Is the aftermath so bad? Diana egly@hplabs Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!image.soe.clarkson.edu!news From: stadnism@clutx.clarkson.edu (Steven Stadnicki,9B23 Woodstock,2680000,5186432664) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: A thankful toast Message-ID: <1989Dec15.034217.22944@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> Date: 15 Dec 89 03:42:17 GMT Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: stadnism@clutx.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY Lines: 7 To friends, and to IRC. That's all I can say about it right now; hopefully, there will be more to this toast. <*CRASH*> Steve Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpfcso!daq From: daq@hpfcso.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Re: Montreal Message-ID: <9060001@hpfcso.HP.COM> Date: 12 Dec 89 21:25:37 GMT References: <19178@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA Lines: 13 ---------- Another man approaches the bar, slowly and somewhat hesitantly. His face is grim and shows the wear of the world and a weariness that looks out of place on his young face. He pauses. He picks up a drink. He stares deeply into the shot glass for a moment. Saying nothing, he gulps it down. He stands silent for a moment. Then he states firmly and confidently, "Christ I hate whiskey!" Pocketing the cup, he leaves the bar. Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpfcso!daq From: daq@hpfcso.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: The Cynic Message-ID: <9060002@hpfcso.HP.COM> Date: 12 Dec 89 21:53:52 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA Lines: 11 A young man enters the bar. He is wearing a tatterd t-shirt with the word "cynic" emlbazoned across the front in scarlet. He walks to one of the walls in the bar. He looks at noone and acknowledges nothing. Glancing at the wall he decides it will make a good bulletin board. He removes a paper from his pocket and fixes it to the wall with a thumb tack. He turns and leaves the bar giving no sign as to whether or not he even cares if anyone reads it. Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplred!egly From: egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: PURRRRRRRR!!!!! Message-ID: <20940011@hplred.HP.COM> Date: 12 Dec 89 23:00:36 GMT References: <378@unicorn.WWU.EDU> Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA Lines: 7 / hplred:alt.callahans / n8946177@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Melissa Tabbifli) / 9:06 pm Dec 11, 1989 / > Looking around, she notices all furries in the room. 'Hmmm... a > Wolf, a Teddy Bear, a Unicorn, a Hummingbird, a Phoenix... great Heavens > above, it's a menagerie! Nobody better make any animal jokes in here.' Are animal PUNS ok? Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplred!egly From: egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Punday night Message-ID: <20940009@hplred.HP.COM> Date: 12 Dec 89 21:22:34 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA Lines: 5 With the menagerie at Callahans, I have the purrfect topic for the next round of puns -- animal puns. Great, huh? Or did I hear catcalls? Diana egly@hplabs Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplred!egly From: egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Punday night Message-ID: <20940010@hplred.HP.COM> Date: 12 Dec 89 21:23:59 GMT References: <20940009@hplred.HP.COM> Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA Lines: 1 Unless you let FLY the puns, I'm going to DOG each and every one of you. Path: mit-eddie!bu-cs!lll-winken!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!ousrvr!news From: so-luru@stekt.oulu.fi (Ari Husa OH8NUP) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Of Friendship Message-ID: Date: 14 Dec 89 19:50:48 GMT Sender: news@ousrvr.oulu.fi Distribution: alt Organization: United Lusers Against SO Prefix Lines: 97 The young man with strawberry blond hair enters the room again, closing the door behind him carefully. As he steps down the stairs, wipes the snow off his jeans and the dark blue coat, and heads towards the counter, he can feel the curious looks on him. That makes him feel a little bit awkward, for he really is a very shy person. The dollar bill he finally manages to dig out of his jeans pocket looks like it had been there at least for a decade. In fact, there is always just one dollar bill in his right pocket. Even if you take out one, one is still left. He looks around, and finally opens his mouth, and asks the bartender with a soft, quiet voice: "Do you still have that sweet, home-made Cloudberry liquor, Mike?" The bartender answers: "What we don't have, that you don't need, you know that.." and pours the yellow liquid in a small glass, very similar to those usually containing whisky. "Thank you" he replies, nothing more, nothing less, and hands over the bill. While he takes a sip of the golden beverage, he takes a good look of the people sitting in the tables. Most of them he recognizes, although he never has spoken with them. Again, the man looks as if he would like to say something. He balances between his shyness and the urge to tell those people how much he respects their concern because of his last visit. Finally, he clears his throat.. takes another sip of the cold, but still warming drink, and opens his mouth to talk. "You know, it takes quite a lot of me to talk like this in public.. but I must thank you sweet people of responding to the last time I was here. I really do enjoy my time here, and you are kind people. The kind I feel myself comfortable with. As comfortable as I ever can." "They say we Finns are quiet and shy. Maybe so... I know I am. And I don't like to open myself up for anybody. Don't get me wrong, you people are the most emphatic audience I have experienced for a long time. I dearly thank Melissa and all of you others who brought me back." "I have my troubles like anyone else.. Is there a person without his personal despair? I consider my life being desperately entangled.. but I don't feel like talking about it.. yet.. maybe I will, some day. For now, I would just like to listen. Thank you, my virtual friends on the terminal display, for I have learnt there can be love, hate and friendship, the whole spectrum of feelings experienced in human interaction, in this vague, ether-like flow of electrical impulses." He drinks up the sweet liquor, and continues: "I am willing to make a toast, however. To the kind of friendship I value the most. The kind that sits back, waits until there is need for it, not demanding, not fighting for its share - just being there. Waiting for the right moment. There is no need for it to push itself. One knows it is there and that is enough." "Oh, I have at least one very good friend of that kind - and she has never failed to be there when I had needed her the most. Or the other way round. We live several hundred miles apart, and rarely see each other. But we know the friendship is there. And it is quite enough - for both of us." To good listeners... to shoulders who are always there... to friendship without ties or obligations. *crash* The young man looks around and blushes a little when he notices that almost everyone in the restaurant is looking at him. Slowly he walks closer to the fireplace, and the chair where Tabbifli is resting herself. Suddenly he stops, and before the conversations pick up again, turns, grins mysteriously, and adds a little more quietly: "Besides, Taru and I, we have a Plan B... she has promised to become my wife if we're both unmarried in the age of thirty." The man can now be seen smiling the first time. He turns down to Tabbifli and asks her politely: "Do you mind if I join your company, my friend? I know the other half of you soul won't." He doesn't wait for an answer, but gently picks up the tabbi kitten, sits down to the chair and starts to pet the cat, who can be heard purring quietly in his arms. For that is what friendship is about. Trust. Slowly the restaurant returns to its previous state of lively discussions, as the young man stays there, looking at the flames, the smile still on his face. Luru -- /// Ari Husa OH8NUP so-luru@stekt.oulu.fi o-o --... ...-- o Ham Radio Operators Do It In Higher Frequency Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!agate!ucbvax!ucdavis!pollux!ez000691 From: ez000691@pollux Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Do Not Open Until Tall Tale Night Summary: Full groan... Keywords: stinkers Message-ID: <6288@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> Date: 15 Dec 89 06:14:03 GMT References: Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu Reply-To: ez000691@pollux (Shadow) Followup-To: alt.callahans Distribution: alt Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 94 Shadow looks up from where he's buried his head in his hands at that pun. "Oy!" Then he clears his throat and looks around. "Anyone else going to take a shot? I mean, what's a Tall Tale Night without some healthy competi- tion?" He looks at Doc Webster, but the Doc rumbles, "Think I'll wait until the competition has reduced a bit." Amid further groans, he looks down at his ample figure and adds, "Perhaps I oughtn't to joke about this particular topic. I've been better bread than that." Shadow grins. "All right. So the topic is eating, hmm? Certainly one we can milk for all it's worth..." He ducks a hail of peanuts from a corner table (was that you, Jilara?) and protests, "Just warming up! "Okay. Some of you may know that the current fad is oat bran. Oats and oatmeal are selling like never before, and the Scots have had to close their entire country to tourists. Believe it or not, though, I have good information from an inside source that tells me that, at the rate Americans are consuming oats, the demand so far outweighs the supply that we simply haven't got enough! Before long, within a few years at the most, our own fields will have been plowed up and replanted with such fervor that, odds are, we won't have an oat to our name. "I had a friend, name of Sam Nix, who was heavily into divining. You know, the ancient and respectable art of finding water with birch rods, and that kind of thing. Well, I happened to mention the upcoming shortage to Sam a little while ago, and he flipped. 'Finally!' he cried. 'I have a chance to prove myself! And you...you can come along! Be there at the start!' "Well, needless to say I didn't have the faintest idea what he was talking about, but I admit I was intrigued. I guess I'd better tell you a little bit about Sam. We first met back in junior high. Sam was the guy who aced all the science experiments but couldn't memorize history dates or French conjugations to save his life. Myself, I was very nearly the oppo- site: put me in a room with two magnets and a beaker, and I'd burn down the building. So we set up a sort of mutual tutoring system, whereby he'd help me with my mealworm larvae, and I'd spit 'amo, amas, amat' at him until he got physically ill. "The system worked out pretty well -- we did both get into college -- but more importantly, it taught me an awful lot about Sam. He was the kind who would get 'into' things, sort of like Mr. Toad. He was particularly fascinated with the supernatural: I mind me of a time when he set out to make it snow for the holidays. Damned if he didn't think he would have succeeded, too, despite it's being Los Angeles in October, but one night a couple of friends of ours got drunk and kidnapped him while he was asleep, drove him up into the mountains, and left him atop a snow bank. I heard about it afterwards...he never stopped complaining about how he could have worked miracles if he hadn't gotten cold feet..." Callahan hefts the seltzer bottle threateningly. "Okay, okay. Any- way, his current fad was divining, as I mentioned, and with the way Sam has of making interesting things happen, I found myself actually wanting to go along with him. Of course, that was before I found out he'd bought us two tickets to Tibet. "Tibet, as far as I knew, was known for two things: mountains and monks. I wasn't too sure I wanted to know which one Sam was looking for. But Sam, apparently, knew something I didn't, because the first day we got there he chartered us a couple of llamas and led me off into the foothills of the Himalayas. He never seemed particularly interested in going up the mountains...just kept wandering around staring at trees. I asked him more than once what he thought he was doing, but he always smiled mysteriously and said, 'You'll see...' "The third day we were there, Sam found what he was looking for. It was a scrawny little tree, barely three feet high, all dried and withered. Sam broke off a couple of branches, inspected them minutely, and then kicked his llama and headed back to the hotel. I hastened to catch up with him...and all the way back, he kept cackling, 'I've got them! I've got them!' "When we got back, Sam told me to pack up. 'Sam,' I said, 'you've got what you came for, but I still don't know what that is.' He looked at me, then held out his prize branches. 'Look at them,' he said. 'Tzaka-tru wood. Very rare. Only grows at the base of the Himalayas. Exceptionally sensitive to divinatory impulses.' "I'd never told Sam he was nuts before, and I wasn't going to start now. 'So, now we go back to America?' Sam shook his head. 'Nope. Now we go to Svengali.' "Heck, I'd always thought Svengali was either a pasta or one of those Rennaisance painters I'd never paid any attention to in Art History. But, next thing I knew, we were in a tiny village in the middle of an enormous swamp, and Sam was rubbing those damned branches together and chanting something or other. Then he shut his eyes and began stepping into the swamps, very slowly, and very carefully, holding the branches before him in a 'Y'. "It wasn't until this had gone on for a few minutes, and Sam was quite a ways out into the swamp, that I remembered that this had all started when I mentioned the oat shortage to him. In a flash I realized what he had in mind, and called out to him and started running, but before I got to him, he took a misstep and toppled into the muck with a sickening squelch. By the time I got there, even his shoe prints had vanished beneath the surface. We never found him." Shadow sets a dollar on the counter and cradles the Irish cocoa he gets in return. "In memory of Sam Nix," he intones formally, then drinks off enough of the cocoa to scald his tongue. "Who died in vain, searching the swamps of Svengali for oats. Who might be with us tonight, if I had been able to communicate to him one simple truth... "You can't reach an oat bog with Tru sticks." Shadow -- From the only slightly twisted mind of... "In case we decide to ez000691@pollux.ucdavis.edu surrender to them, Number One." Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!agate!ucbvax!ccb.ucsf.EDU!robin From: robin@ccb.ucsf.EDU (Robin Colgrove) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Oration, Poem, Toast and bio Message-ID: <8912150724.AA08268@ccb.ucsf.EDU> Date: 15 Dec 89 07:24:06 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 120 The bruised, rumpled and now markedly anemic fall guy finally finishes his coffee and beer, rises unsteadily and wobbles toward the bar. "Sake, if you will, Mike. My recent 'whoops-jutsu' kata has left me in need of further fortification" He puts his dollar down, leans -gingerly- back against the bar and begins: Friends. (Romulans, Gentlebeings, lend me your acoustic aparatuses...) Standing here at the bar, cup in hand, attentive audience with, shall we say, relaxed critical facilities fills me with a well nigh irresistable urge to pontificate. Millennia-worth of fine Irish Blarney course through my veins like creme do menthe and the shades of my delighfully scurrilous forebears stand behind me egging me on. Resist I shall, though, so you may all breathe sighs of relief. Me holding forth on the deep mysteries of Life, while possibly engaging, would be like taking flight lessons from Dorothy of Kansas: Things have turned out rather well all told but don't ask me how, and the ride...well, let's just say I get frequent flier bonuses from the makers of Dramamine. Truth be known, the Powers have seen fit to grant me just one spectacular talent: to get into trouble so deep, dire and complicated that only truly wild, inspired, maniacal paroxysms of desperate effort stand between me and certain doom. So far this has proved a bafflingly effective strategy but again don't ask me how and I could hardly recommend my own brand of do-everything-in-the-most-difficult-possible-way, hyperkinetic-to-the-point-of-doppler-shift-sunburn, tap-dancing-on-the-precipice, muddling-through-as-a-martial-art, sell-your-soul-to-the-Second-Law, Zen-and-the-Art-Cluelessness non-strategy as a path to be emulated. My own personal theory is that I did one HECK of a good deed in some previous life, built up some serious karma and have basically been living off the interest since then, feet up and sipping Pina Coladas in the Acupulco of the Soul, if you will. Sooner or later I better get packed and back on the long road to Enlightenment but just now I can't seem to find my compass and -if you must know- I still need some work on my tan. In any case, whether I got the Buddha a tax-break, swept the Ox droppings out of the Manger, or taught Lao Tze how to do Tequila Shooters, somebody seems to be protecting my hide from the deserved fruits of my own ineptitude. Some other time I'll tell how I recently raced my bike into a lake of wet cement, or about the time I got caught hanging one-handed from the drainpipe outside my second story bedroom window, or spent an hour naked as a jaybird dodging the police through the streets of Pasadena, or...but for now I've got a toast to make. As others have noted, the Angst in here is so thick you could cut it with an existential knife but I am not here to decry the melancholy. Even those old greek fellows, despite some funny ideas about matters of the heart, knew that it was in the deeply tragic emotions that one learned the true measure of one's humanity. I do think it was kind of unfair of Evolution to work it out so the passions come on at Full Steam around puberty but you don't get any idea how to deal with 'em till half the time it's too late to do anything about it but write plays. Especially with this Soulmate stuff. If there was ever a way to put your psyche at ground zero and paint a bullseye on it, lookin' for love in all the wrong places has got to be it. Well, I'm here to tell you that if a walking disaster area like moi (and high master of foot-in-mouth fu) can find true love, there is hope for everyone. Commander Honey and I are comin' up on 10 years of major league bliss this coming February and we're just getting warmed up! God knows I've tried but I just can't seem to drive her crazy. Hang in there folks, it's worth getting nuked a few times in the process, I promise. I ..." (He is interupted by a growing unruly chorus of "So toast already!") "Yes. Well. I did get a bit off track but sure'n I was just now gettin' up a full head of steam. What I really wanted to say was this: (warning cynics! I'm about to get sloppy! flee now while you can still keep your dinners down!) Love is the melody that gives meaning to Life, Courage the rhythm that drives it forward, and Wisdom the foundation of harmony on which it rests but softly in the background plays a jaunty counterpoint of Mirth. Without that quirky glockenspiel thunking away insistently making light of the mighty sweeps of the symphony, the music risks descent into ever darker, gloomier, heavier waters looking more and more inward and eventually drowning in its own excess. Listen for the counterpoint and a lightness of spirit may yet set you free to chase that lovely melody. To Folly! *CRASH* ("Oh dear...Sir!...I'm REALLY sorry!...I was aiming for the fireplace, honest!...good thing you were wearing that full suit of armor, huh?... now, c'mon...put down that lance...Hey! that's sharp! OUCH! I said I was SORRY, ok?...oooh!...ok, I'm outta here!...help!...) And with that the long-winded newcomer fled into the swirling fog to be seen again who knows when?... Happy Holidays and a super solstice Robin OK, an entrance, A story, some puns, a toast, I'm all worn out. I think I'll just listen for a spell and broadcast my very best vibes for all. Best to everyone, you're a great group. The net has needed a place like this for a long while. for bio buffs: Name: Robert Charles (robin) Colgrove Jr. Physical: 30, 5'11', 170, fair complexion, mop hair Place: San Francisco, CA Post: 9th (gasp) year MD/PhD student, applying for residencies now Social: Married, First child due in April, 2 cats (one in my lap, the other on the monitor) Avocational: Aikido, Jazz Piano, Swing Dance, E-mail Authors: Cervantes, Thoreau, Borges, Cordwainer Smith, Stanislaw Lem Net groups: rec.humor.funny, alt.callahans, soc.motss plus musicals and martial arts mailing lists How I got to Callahans: Kathy Li, -who I met in through soc.motss (uh oh, meeting motos in motss, is this against the charter?) and then followed into the muscials mailing list mentioned in her finger file- was moved by some silly post or another of mine to say there was this new group i should check out that might be just the place for an oddball like me... mysterious are the ways of Fate. over and out!