[humorix] Linux Advocate Of The Year

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Linux Advocate Of The Year
August 25, 1999

Linn Icks of Des Moines, Iowa is the recipient of the First
Annual Humorix "Linux Advocate Of The Year" Award. Mr. Icks
was given a throphy (purchased for $1 at a yard sale) and a
$10 gift certificate for El Cheapo*Bytes at a small
ceremony held yesterday at Humorix World Headquarters. The
date, August 24th, was the anniversary of the dreaded day
when Windows 95 was officially released, which seems
appropriate for a Linux advocacy award.

This prestigious award is given to the one Linux advocate
who has gone above and beyond the call of duty as an
outspoken Linux zealot and crusader in the Holy War Against
Windows. Our panel of judges selected Mr. Icks out the pool
of candidate based on his many qualifications and
achievements, which include:

* His birth name was Albert Hicks, which he had legally
changed in 1997 to show his devotion to the Linux operating
system.

* He has been banned from all Barnes & Noble meatspace
bookstores after he was caught placing a hidden camera in
the Computer section. "I wanted to hide a video camera that
would give me a 24 hour live feed of the Operating Systems
shelfs," he explained.  "With the live feed I hoped to
maintain an accurate record of how many Linux/Unix books
were fondled and purchased in comparison to Windows 9x/NT
books."

"Unfortunately," he continued, "Murphy's Law was against
me.  I hid the camera inside the book 'Microsoft Bob
SuperBible', a tome I figured nobody would ever touch. 
Apparently I was wrong, because somebody spotted the spy
camera and within days investigators had traced it back to
me using fingerprints they had found.  I, and my children,
and their children for five generations, are now banned for
life."

* He petitioned Des Moines to rename a street to "Linus
Torvalds Ave." Unfortunately, City Hall thought he was
referring to a copyrighted Peanuts character and so the
street was named "Charles Schultz Drive".

* He has posted 1,204 articles to comp.os.linux.advocacy
and other flame-war-enriched newsgroups.  He once wrote a
159KB posting in reponse to a troll, which has led many
other Linux longhairs to agree that he "needs to get a
life".

* He built an addition to his house to hold the 1,500 Tux
Penguin stuffed toys he owns.  Instead of wallpaper, his
walls are lined with printouts of the Linux 2.0.36 kernel. 
Over his fireplace is a large photo of him standing next to
Linus Torvalds at a Linux expo, an encounter that nearly
caused him to faint.

* He cracked into the computer network at a neighborhood
bank and re-programmed the marquee to flash the latest
Slashdot headlines instead of the time and temperature.

* He tried to hold a "Box Burning" rally in the style of
old-fashioned book burnings.  Boxes, disks, and manuals for
proprietary software -- the "materials of blasphemy" as Mr.
Icks called them -- was supposed to be torched in a huge
bonfire.  However, the event was canceled due to lack of
interest (nobody showed up).

* He holds Slashdot user account Number 2 (we assume that
Taco Boy holds the Numero Uno account).

* An estimated four trees have been cut down to provide the
paper and envolopes he has used to write letters to his
elected representatives demanding that Iowa migrate its
computers to Linux.  He has sent so many letters that the
slang term "Icks Hick" has been coined by the US Postal
Service in Iowa to describe any wacko that sends a bunch of
mail to the same address.

* After much arm-twisting he finally convinced the local
telco monopoly to give him the 1-877-42-LINUX phone
number.  He owns a billboard on Interstate 80 that says
simply, "Got Linux?" along with his phone number.

* He's successfully advocated Linux to at least two
telemarketers. When he receives an unsolicited phone call,
he replies, "No, I'm not interested.  But while you're on
the line, could I interest you in a computer operating
system that's available for FREE?  It's called Linux and
it's far better than the crappy product you're trying to
sell. Visit the linux.com website for full details about
this revolutionary, multi-tasking, multi-user,
buzzword-compliant, Open Source, paradigm-enhanced
operating system!"


---

James S. Baughn
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/


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