[humorix] Two Years Of Humorix

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Two Years Of Humorix
July 25th, 2000

Live from our World Headquarters in the Missouri Ozarks,
this is Humorix's Second Anniversary Special. Hi, I'm
Dances With Herring, Humorix's special investigator and
host for this event.  For the next 12,187 bytes this ASCII
broadcast will feature such lame filler material as fake
interviews, never before seen articles, and a behind the
scenes look at Humorix.

Today, July 25th, marks the second anniversary of that
fateful day when the first lame fake news article was
thrust upon the unsuspecting world.  280 articles and 1,024
Microsoft jokes later and we're still going strong, unlike
the many dotcoms which launched, IPO'd, and declared
bankruptcy all within the span of about 3 weeks.

After two years Humorix is still going strong.  The number
of regular readers has increased by a whopping 150% (i.e.
from two people in 1998 all the way to five in 2000).  Here
with me is Eric, one of our regular readers and Vast Spy
Network(tm) member.

DANCES: So how long have you been reading Humorix?

ERIC: Since New Year's Eve 1998.  I was totally drunk at
the time... with still two hours to go before midnight I
killed the time by surfing random webpages I found at
Yahoo.  I stumbled on to Humorix, and in my drunken stupor
I found the site to be uproariously funny... Of course,
after sobering up in the morning it didn't seem quite so
humorous, but I was too lazy to unsubscribe from the
mailing list, so I've been a reader ever since.

DANCES: Umm, yeah... I hear you're one of the largest
Humorix stock holders.

ERIC: Oh, yes, I own 5,000 shares of FAUX.  Unfortunately,
they've lost 99.9% of their value, but at least they're
holding steady now even while the Nasdaq is faltering.
Holding steady at $0.0000001, that is.  In fact, the stock
certificates literally aren't worth the paper they are
printed on... I could redeem them at a recycling center for
about 50 cents.  I'm pretty lazy, though, so I'm still
holding on to them for the long haul... maybe they'll reach
$0.0000005 sometime this decade.

DANCES: Well, this isn't going so well... let me move on.

It was two years ago that our Editor posted the first of
many amateurish pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft fake news
articles. Within milliseconds the first flame mails and
cease-and-desist bark letters arrived, but he persevered to
create the most popular Linux humor website in the world...
er, Missouri.

But not all has been rosy for Humorix.  That terrible
denial-of-serive attack known as the Slashdot Effect has
struck this site more than once, leaving behind a trail of
death and destruction.  Joining me is Eric Geekman, the
system administrator for Humorix's website hosting company.

DANCES: What was it like when the Slashdot Effect first
struck?

GEEKMAN: Oh, it was horrible... I still have nightmares
from that first attack in 1998.  The kernel panics, the
sparks flying from the machine, the power surges... it's
just too horrible to think about.  I almost quit my job the
next day and went into farming... I was so shaken up by the
whole dreadful experience.  

DANCES: Were there any more attacks?

GEEKMAN: Oh yes... I wish I had quit, as the second
Slashdot Effect was even worse. Several cockroaches that
were hiding beneath the server were roasted to death by the
flames coming from the overheating Pentium at the height of
the maelstrom.  And the amount of electricity my servers
drew that day exceeded the total amount consumed by Rhode
Island in a week.

The next day I sent a memo to James Baughn requesting that
he make his articles less funny and more bland to prevent
any more such calamities.  He replied "I can do that", but
his valiant efforts to make his articles even more lame
simply wasn't enough to keep away the likes of Taco Boy and
his legions of followers and groupies.

Whoa!  My beeper just went off; it must be time for my
appointment with my shrink.  We're going to be discussing
the recurring nightmares I keep having about the Slashdot
Effect in which I get repeatedly struck by lightning... I
gotta go.

DANCES: After these messages we'll be back with never
before published Humorix articles!  Don't touch that Back
button.

---

ANNOUNCER: Internet access... $19.95.

Humorix T-shirt: $14.

Inkjet printer... $100.

Printing out a particularly bad Humorix article and using
it for toilet paper or fertilizer... Priceless.

Humorix... It's nowhere you want to be.

---

DANCES: Hi, we're back at the Humorix Second Anniversary
Special.  Our Editorial staff can be quite cranky,
rejecting every article they read over picayune stuff. 
Some articles, no matter how well-written and downright
funny, never make it past the Editors.  Meanwhile, for some
reason I still haven't figured out, lots of really crappy
articles do get approved without hesitation.

So, then, a number of articles are left to die from bitrot
as they sit in the Rejection box.  For your amusement, and
to fill up this show with old material, here are two
never-before-published articles from the past.

---

Linus Torvalds: King Of Silicon Valley

[This was published last January the day before every geek
sat in front of ZDTV for the first (and only) time so they
could be the first to learn what Transmeta was doing...]

SANTA CLARA, CA -- A mob of high-tech recruiters surrounded
Linus Torvalds' house this morning, forcing the Finnish
babe-magnet to hire a group of bodyguards.  Many now
consider Torvalds to be King Midas -- any Silicon Valley
start-up he touches turns into gold.  Many dotcoms, hoping
to turn a profit for the first time, are working to attract
Torvalds to their company.

Said one recruiter, "The only reason Transmeta hired Linus
was for the buzz and PR that he brought.  Tommorrow
millions of geeks will be on the edge of their seats
waiting for the official Transmeta announcement for a
product that probably won't be that great.  If it wasn't
for Linus, Transmeta would be yet another bankruptcy-bound,
product-less company that nobody has ever heard of.
Unfortauntely, our company is bankrupcty-bound and
product-less, but we hope that if we can hire Linus the
ensuing buzz and interest will lift us off the ground..."

---

Ask Humorix: Defending Gates

[And here's another rejected article that I salvaged from
electron death...]

Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I
have to pretend to be Bill Gates and write an editorial
defending Microsoft against anti-trust charges, citing
economic principles.  To complete such an assignment
violates every moral fiber of my body.  What should I do?"

The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a
decision among two choices. You can blow off the
assignment, thus forcing you to fail EC101, lowering your
GPA below the required minimum to keep your scholarship,
causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds
all your life.  Or you can write a paper that's positive
towards Microsoft and make an 'A'.  This seems like a
no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first option without
hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and
self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement
about the Evil Empire.

---

DANCES: Coming up next... a look behind the scenes here at
Humorix.  Stay browsed!

---

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EyeOpener(tm) beverages contain at least 5,000% of the
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EyeOpener(tm): You'll Never Waste Another Millisecond Ever
Again.

---

DANCES: Welcome back.  To finish off this Humorix Second
Anniversary Special, I've inserted a secret microphone
downstairs in the Humorix Boardroom.  A meeting between
staff members is about to begin.  This is an exclusive
behind-the-scenes look at the corporate culture here at
Humorix, so don't even think about clicking on a hyperlink
until you've finished reading this article!

---

BAUGHN: Okay, folks, this is an emergency meeting of the
Humorix executive staff.  You know why we're here.

JON SPLATZ: What emergency?  Has Jesse Berst retired or
something?

BAUGHN: Well, that would be bad, since Ziff-Davis pundit
jokes account for 10% of our content.  But that's not the
problem.  We're broke. I'll turn this over to our new
Executive Book Cooker, Mr. G. E. Trich.

G. E. TRICH: [Reaches into his pockets] Here's the entire
contents of Humorix's bank account: two dollars and
fifty-one cents, three million Russian rubles (worth 23
cents), plus an annual membership in the Linux Distro Of
The Month Club (worth $9.95). 

We can't keep up our burn rate... the daily massages, the
luxury jet, the unlimited supply of imported German beer,
our constant legal expenses... we've gotta cut back.

NOAH MORALS (Humorix Lawyer): Now wait a minute!  Humorix's
legal expenses aren't that expensive.  So maybe I've filed
and lost a few frivolous, costly lawsuits.  I'm charging a
bargain-basement price of $500 per minute of work, which is
much cheaper than any other lawyer that has the same
caliber skill as me.   Humorix simply can't cut back it's
legal department. Why?  Well, I've got this huge monthly
payment on a 100,000 acre Montana ranch (and fifty room
mansion) that I can barely afford as it is.

BAUGHN: What about Humorix merchandise?  Isn't anybody
buying any?

TRICH: Not really.  I suppose we could plug the really
sweet-looking 100% cotton high-quality Humorix T-shirts in
a future  article, but we're just not selling as many as we
expected.

SPLATZ: How come we aren't receiving any more  Venture
Capital?  

BAUGHN: Last year before our IPO, hordes of VCs pounded on
our door demanding to invest in us.  Remember that? We had
to shoo 'em off because they were preventing the pizza
delivery guys from getting to our door.  Maybe we should
have taken their money before we kicked them out.

TRICH: Unfortunately most of the Venture Capital has run
out.  Still, we might be able to send someone on a
pilgramage to Silicon Valley and maybe find a few leftover
VCs which haven't invested all their money in failed
dotcoms.

BAUGHN: Any other ideas?

SPLATZ: What about the recent brouhaha surrounding
companies that send free stuff to Linux websites in order
to "buy" positive reviews? Why aren't _we_ getting any of
that free stuff?

MORALS: That's right!  Why does nobody send us
complementary copies of software or books to review?   If
we can convince other companies to bribe us with free
stuff, we could turn around and sell the merchandise on
eBay for a tidy profit.

BAUGHN: I'll have to think about that later when I'm taking
a dip in the new Olympic-size swimming pool that was just
built on the fifth floor.

SPLATZ: What? The new pool is finished already?  Why
doesn't anybody tell me these things?

BAUGHN: Well, before we go swimming, I just thought of
another money source.  I'm a college student, which
naturally means that I receive about four credit card
offers per day. If I were to apply for every one of those
cards, I'd probably have a large enough credit limit to
keep Humorix afloat for several years.

TRICH: But what about the exorbitant 350 percent interest
rates those credit card companies offer?  

BAUGHN: Not a problem.  One of these days we'll be acquired
by some big media conglomerate and we'll let them worry
about it... but they won't find out about our staggering
debt until after the ink has dried on the contract.  Mr.
Trich, you are a world-renowned expert in cooking books,
right?

TRICH: Yep. Not a problem.

BAUGHN: So then it's settled.  You all go ahead and take a
swim in the new pool while I go make some calls about the
new movie theater I have planned for the tenth floor...

-
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://humbolt.nl.linux.org/lists/
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