From andsol@cml.rice.edu Fri Apr 22 14:50:48 PDT 1994 Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a magic wood. She was very happy until she was set upon by wolves. They shredded her into six thousand-three-hundred-and-ninety-two bits. Exactly. - * - Once upon a time there was a a magic frog that sang to the queen from a lily pad outside her window. He sang beautifully for seven nights, but some biology teachers caught him and soaked him in formaldehyde. He swelled up to the size of a cow's tongue. - * - I should also mention that there was once a very silly little boy who loved to go snorkelling, and some faeries gave him a silver snorkel which let him dive down thousands of meters, so he did and the nitrogen in his blood made him all giggly until he hugged a moray eel. But that's not the point. - * - The point is that once upon a time there was a fairly sick author who thought up a story about a princess who got mauled, and also dreamed up a tale about a frog that was pithed, and went on to write a horrid little essay about a kid who got nitrogen narcosis and died a painful death. And this author went on with his life as if nothing terrible had just occurred, and absolutely nothing at all bad happened to him. Ever. - * - And you may well think that that's not a terribly meaningful thing to say, and you may be right, especially since you're only eight years old. But you haven't got all the information I've got. Just wait until you're older. - * - Because once upon a time there was a Federal Express pilot who was concerned about a job performance review, so he smuggled a hammer on board a flight and attacked his co-workers mid-journey. A bunch of guys went to the hospital for no reason at all. This story is true. - * - And once upon a time a chemical plant in Bho Pal, India, had a itty bitty leak, and thousands of people went blind and had horrible burns and died, mostly because a certain company wasn't all that careful about yearly maintenance. This story is true. - * - And once upon a time millions of Jews were rounded up into pens and had their gold fillings removed and got gassed and stuck in ovens and then only forty years later lots of people were denying the whole thing had ever happened, and lots of people believed them. This story is true. - * - And -- AND! -- and the guy who wrote these stories is still sitting up in the clouds, writing more stories. It's all he does, writing stories: and they all come true. And the rotten thing is, where he is, nothing bad EVER happens. By definition. - * - Anyway, that's your bedtime story. G'night. -- HWRNMNBSOL (andsol@cml.rice.edu) H:(713)794-0021 W:(713)644-8872 Rice University, Court Astrologer, Department of Mathematics "CARTER PLANS SWELL DEFECIT" -headline: The Tribune (Houston) 3/17/77 Disclaimer: I CONFESS !!! I DID IT !!! I'M *TOTALLY* *LIABLE* !!!