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=== 796 ==================================================================
Title: Usenet Oracularities #796
Compiled-By: "Steve Kinzler" <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:55:05 -0500 (EST)

To find out all about the Usenet Oracle, including how to participate,
send mail to oracle@cs.indiana.edu with the word "help" in the subject
line.

Let us know what you like!  Send your ratings of these 10 Oracularities
on an integer scale of 1 ("very poor") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to this
message).  For example:
    796
    2 1 3 4 3   5 3 3 4 1

791  96 votes  brqn9 9xnla blrra 47uup 9rvn6 4ewxd bmuo9 5fxwb 6vpmc 8jwt8
791  3.1 mean   2.9   2.9   3.0   3.7   2.9   3.4   3.0   3.3   3.0   3.1

--- 796-01 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Christophe Pettus <cep@best.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

>  Are You a Poet?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Don't you know it?
} I can rhyme it, time it, sign it, even flow it!
} I write sonnets to the lasses
} wearing bonnets with cute ... faces
} I write epics, tales of heroes,
} dragon slayers, and yes, some zeros,
} tales of romance, strength and valor
} but I don't sing in the shower.
} While I stretch sometimes for rhyming,
} and quite often lose my timing,
} I very rarely ever really blow it.
}
} You owe the Oracle an english textbook.

--- 796-02 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: forbes@icabod.ih.att.com (Scott Forbes)

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Oracle, who knows more than even Mikey,
>
> Who will win the Stanley Cup this year - Calgary or Toronto?
>
> Your humble supplicant.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} I just got off the phone with a very upset Stanley, who was dumbfounded
} that a total stranger (despite being the Usenet Oracle) would ask him
} about his protective gear. His confusion turned to rage when I
} mentioned that two entire Canadian cities were interested in obtaining
} it.
}
} I guess your answer would have to be "neither." Besides, wouldn't a
} small maple leaf have to be embroidered on the, um, trophy before being
} imported?
}
} You owe the Oracle Wayne Gretsky's socks.

--- 796-03 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: David BREMNER <bremner@muff.cs.mcgill.ca>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Oh great and wise Oracle, this morning I saw a car with
> the license tag "ICU-812".  Is this one of those custom
> tags, and if so, what is this person trying to say?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, the grovel was less than superior, but, If I *zot* you for it,
} I'll get raped by the maniacs on rec.humor.oracle.d, so I'll just
} answer your question.
}
} In the state of Missouri, every motorist who kills someone with their
} vehicle must change their license plate to represent the place where
} their victim died.  This persons victim died in Cox Hospital Intensive
} Care Unit Floor 8 Room 12.  Hope this answers your question, and if you
} see this guy again, steer clear.
}
} You owe the Oracle a license plate for my 1998 Ford Explorer Oracle
} Limited(tm) that says "EAT ME."

--- 796-04 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Michael Nolan <nolan@tssi.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> oh mighty oracle who is the most essential part of any Goverment, due
> to the Gov. Shutdown, only the essential part of the Gov. is still
> working, then why is Bill Clinton not been asked to ste[ down untill a
> budget is passed? and why dosn't my spell checker work

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Wow!  That's a tough one; no doubt, you're not the only one who wants
} to know.
}
}  Let me put it this way: do YOU want to see Hillary in charge?
}
}  ...How about Newt?  Never trust a man named after a small lizard.
}
}  And as for your spell checker, the problems of DOS machines are
}  beneath me. (I'm sitting on them so I can see over the pile of
}  e-mail.)
}
}  You owe the Oracle a taller chair, a dictionary, and an essential
} bureaucrat.

--- 796-05 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Alyce Wilson" <AMW108@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> O great Oracle who knows all the questions in anticipation of their
> being asked, how do you expect me to believe that 'The Usenet Oracle
> has no questions to ask?'

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Worm!  How dare you question the infinite, eternity-spanning
} clairvoyance of the Oracle?
} The Oracle has no expectations.  It knows.
} In our ocean of grace, a drop of which would drown you and all of your
} people, past, present, and future, we can find the generosity to
} bless you with an answer.
}
} Hear me now and believe me later:
}
} In the back of a renovated general store in Mobile, Alabama, there
} is a locked utility closet.  The key was left on the bumper of a
} pickup truck in 1988 during a tire change, and was transported
} to Maryland, where it fell off three feet from the border of
} Anne Arundel county.  There it sits, and the closet has remained
} locked ever since.  In the back of the closet, hidden in darkness,
} is a broken floorboard.  This floorboard looks down into a
} partition of the cellar which was separated from the rest of the
} subterranian storeroom by the owner of the general store in
} 1954.  The partition was plastered over to mimic the other walls
} of the cellar and has gone undiscovered since the store changed
} hands in 1978.  In the partitioned-off cellar sits a 1919 roll-top
} accountant's desk.  Inside this desk is a 7 by 10 grid of cubby-
} holes.  These cubbyholes once contained urgent letters from
} investors and bank directors in Chicago, but when the
} accounting business went bankrupt in 1932, a relative of the
} previous general store owner bought the desk in an auction
} and emptied it of its contents.
} The cubbyholes now contain 3x5 cards with the answers to every
} question in the universe.  The accounting business in Chicago
} went bankrupt because their main accountant disappeared
} with a large sum of money.  He was eaten by a Shuggoth.  We
} struck a trade with the Shuggoth for the accountant's spectral
} body.  He now sits before the desk in the cellar partition of hte
} the general store in Mobile, Alabama, pulling the notecards of
} universal knowledge out of the seventy cubbyholes.
} On his last notecard was printed, "the supplicant believes that
} 'The Usenet Oracle has no questions to ask.'"
} That is how we know you believe.  We expect nothing of you.

--- 796-06 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Scott Panzer <stenor@pcnet.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Dear oracle:
>
>       some people call them age spots-
>
>               I call them ugly.
>
> What's a woman to do?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Take a deep breath and apologize.

--- 796-07 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Scott Panzer <stenor@pcnet.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

>      I'm good enough
>      I'm smart enough
>      And Doggone it, people like me!

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Such egoism and narcissm angers the Oracle, but he will answer
} nonetheless.
}
} You're not good enough.  If you were good enough, you wouldn't have
} taken 2nd place in that Pinewood Derby competition back in '75, when
} you were a boy scout.
}
} You're not smart enough.  As the Oracle peruses your permanent
} record, we find that your standardized testing, as far back as the 2nd
} grade, predicted you would either be an elevator operator or a member
} of congress, both of which require only an IQ of 23.
}
} Doggone it, the Oracle is looking at a printout listing everyone who
} likes you, and, though it may pain you to admit it, the only ones on
} the list is yourself, your goldfish, and your mom [though she seems to
} be waffling].
}
} You owe the Oracle a self-help bumper sticker.

--- 796-08 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Scott Panzer <stenor@pcnet.com>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> O mighty Oracle, if you were a potato, which one would you be?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}   If I could be an Idaho russet potato
}   What a Idaho russet potato I would be
}   And any time a farmer tried to dig up my fine potato
}   >>*ZOT*<<  Soon he would be ashy fertilizer for me.
}
}   Soon I'd be a whole path of Idaho russet potato
}   Covering square miles on a farm
}   Deep in the centre of rural Idaho
}        And any time a weed or other pest
}        Would my patch try to infest
}   A >>*ZOT*<< would keep me from harm.
}
}   Soon all of Idaho State
}   Would be under my control
}   And all before my path would know my fate
}   Was to grow and grow and grow.
}
}   After years all of the Americas
}   Will be covered by my potato patch
}   Then even more diabolical plans
}   I will begin to hatch!
}
} You owe the Oracle some Miracle-GRO.

--- 796-09 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Alyce Wilson" <AMW108@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> <html>
> <head>
> <title>Usenet Oracle Query</title>
> </head>
> <body>
> <h1>Grovel</h1>
> Oh magnificent Oracle who
> <ul>
> <li>can surf the net with unlimited bandwidth
> <li>knows that &ltP&gt is a container
> <li>is never "under construction"
> </ul>
> <h1>Question</h1>
> Will all correspondence one day be written in HTML?
> <address>
> A. Supplicant
> </address>

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} \documentstyle{letter}
} \newcommand{\orrie}{${\cal O}$racle}
} \newcommand{\TUO}{${\cal T}$he ${\cal U}$senet \orrie}
} \name{\TUO}
} \address{\TUO \\
}          oracle@cs.indiana.edu}
} \signature{\TUO}
} \begin{document}
} \begin{letter}{A. Supplicant}
} \opening{Dear supplicant,}
} Given that
} \begin{itemize}
} \item you groveled nicely,
} \item I'm in good mood
} \end{itemize}
} I will gladly answer your query. \par
} No, HTML will never be used for correspondence.
} \LaTeX\ is the way to go.
} \closing{Sincerly,}
} \ps{PS: You owe the \orrie\ the latest version of Netscape.}
} \end{letter}
} \end{document}

--- 796-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Rich McGee <rmcgee@wiley.csusb.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Moooo!!!

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}   It's good to see that not all of our bovine friends out there are not
} being snatched up by those clods at McDonalds and, more impressively,
} that some of them have actually found keyboards big enough to access
} the internet and communicate with the Oracle.
}
}   To answer your question, Bessie, a warm solution of a mild soap and
} water will take care of the problem.  Rub it on your udder each morning
} and night, and towel dry.  Apply an antibiotic cream, such as
} "Neosporin" and cover with a sterile bandage.  If the rash isn't gone
} in another week or so, ask for a day off from the dairy farm and go see
} a veterinarian.
}
}   And next time, don't do everything the bull says, alright?
}
}   You owe the Oracle your next born, ground up, and basted over a
} medium flame, with everything but tomatoes.