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Back issues and Irregular goodies can be found at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

WORKS IN PROGRESS

The Irregular Archive Project - all issues of The Lamont Times through TFIr plus goodies, on a CD-ROM with an HTML/raytraced graphic interface (which may bear a superficial - and purely coincidental - resemblance to a onetime-real office):

Still missing Lamont Times #5 and Irregular #12.
Graphical interface: status page last updated 7 November 2001

Text adventures:

The Night Before Christmas: - planned release: November 2002
All at Sea: - planned release: July 2002

TFIr ONLINE

You can also read TFIr in its enhanced online version, with links and graphics where appropriate. The latest online version will always be available at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/tfir/latest.htm

Who is the Editor? So far as we know there's no Malkovichian portal into his brain, but there is the Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) file and the UndeadCam:.

FAQ: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/scblbiog/scblfaq.htm (last updated 6 November 2001)
UndeadCam: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/undead (last updated 24 October 2001)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 9 November		-		Carl Sagan, astronomer, born, 1934
Saturday 10 November		-		Stanley met Livingstone, Ujiji, Central Africa, 1871
Sunday 11 November		-		Soren Kierkengaard, philosopher, died, Copenhagen, 1855
Monday 12 November		-		First drive-through bank opened, Chicago, 1946
Tuesday 13 November		-		Edward III (reigned 1327-77) born, Windsor, 1312
Wednesday 14 November		-		Captain George Vancouver became the first Englishman to enter San Francisco Bay, 1792
Thursday 15 November		-		Tz'u Hsi, empress dowager of China, died, Peking, 1908

I thought I was more than capable of dealing with players' dribbling, being thrown a dummy and being forced to clean up at the back by my opponents, but all these incidents take on a new significance.

FILM QUIZ

Another medley of movie lines. Answers next issue or from the usual address.

• Give my regards to King Tut, asshole.
• It was our last weekend together, and we didn't want to go to Fort Sumter and tour goddamn colonial homes. We wanted to go to the beach and go to wild parties and meet boys and dance.
• The beautiful babies don't work the midnights-to-six on a Wednesday. This is the skank shift.
• I' haven't seen my analyst in 200 years. He was a strict Freudian. If I'd been going all this time, I'd probably almost be cured by now.
• I, a fiend? I am a soldier of our planet. I, a fiend? We did not come here as enemies.

Last issue's quotations were:

• She lives with seven men, but she's not easy.
  -- Shrek
• I just want my old job back and my old life. Oh and two weeks paid vacation for all the workers in the quarry, an annual cost-of-living increase, and those little packets of ketchup in the lunch room.
  -- The Flintstones
• Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.
  -- This Is Spinal Tap
• You got a letter? I got run over, Helen gets her hair chopped off, Julie gets a dead body in her trunk, and you get a letter? Oh, that's balanced!
  -- I Know What You Did Last Summer
• Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others.
  -- Hellraiser

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

THAT'S NOT FARE! An unnamed Polish man who ran off without paying his (c.$1) taxi fare was pursued by the driver until the cheapskate climbed into some trees and threw bananas from his shopping bag at the crowd that had gathered underneath. After a two-and-a-half hour stand-off involving fire officers who kept an air bag under the trees in case the man jumped, and a police psychologist, the man agreed to come down. Unfortunately for him, the fire brigade then sent him a bill for the rescue operation - which cost the equivalent of $4,300.

VEGGIES FOR EURO-SCEPTICS? The Sainsbury's supermarket chain is relabelling UK-grown Brussels sprouts as British sprouts in a four-week trial. The British Sprout Growers' Association is backing the move as part of its two-year campaign to have sprouts - bane of many a Christmas dinner - relabelled if they have been grown in Britain.

WEIRD WORLD TERRORISTS. A 45-year-old migrant Indian worker was ordered out of the town of Daspalla in eastern Orissa state because he looked like the Al-Qaida leader. A police officer explained to reporters that the man was asked to leave to prevent a breach of the peace. "There were rumours that Osama bin Laden had arrived in our town. He does look like him but he is not." Elsewhere a Swiss lorry driver was detained on Sunday by Italian police because his papers contained the word 'Laden.' While he was being questioned, explosives experts from a nearby airport, sniffer dogs and specialist anti-mafia and anti-terrorism police were called in to seal off his lorry. Unable to speak Italian, and with police unable to speak German, it was ten hours before someone finally figured out that 'Laden' is German for 'load' and the man and his cargo of innocuous wine was allowed to go.

ROMANCE, ROMANIAN STYLE. Eusebio Ilioaie, a 33-year-old driver has been arrested after a two-year manhunt and charged with being married to three women at the same time. Bigamy carries a 1-to-5-year jail sentence in Romania. Endre Szilagy, 43, meanwhile, has given up on trying to marry after three disastrous attempts. Before his first wedding, in the 1970s, he cut his neck shaving and had to go to hospital. His prospective bridge felt jilted and left him. In the 80s he fell in love with a colleague, and they set a date, but drifted apart after a road accident. His third attempt was this year, and was scuppered after a fire engulfed his home. "I never hurt anyone that badly as to deserve something like this. Maybe it is a curse and I just can't help that," he commented.

SPEED TRAP. Deputy Tim Crachur got a surprise when he parked his patrol car in its regular spot on South Oxford Drive, Englewood, FL to wait for speeding motorists. His car rolled into a 5'-square hole that had been dug into the road and covered with palm fronds and oak branches. "Someone must have been ticketed and got upset," he told the Port Charlotte Sun-Herald.

 

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

We're rather partial to taking personality and other fun tests. This week's site is The Political Compass, which goes a bit further than revealing just left- or right-wing tendencies. In keeping with the site's own front page we won't explain further, but it's fun and doesn't take long.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:

3, 15, 28, 31, 34, 44

THE LAVATORY OF OTRANTO

Will be continued in a later issue.

AND FINALLY...

A car breaks down along the expressway one day, so the driver eases it over onto the shoulder of the highway. He jumps out of the car, opens the trunk, and pulls out two men in trench coats.

The men stand behind the car, open up their coats and start exposing themselves to the oncoming traffic. This results in one of the worst pile-ups in history.

When questioned by police why he put two deviants along the side of the road, the man replied, "I broke down and was just using my emergency flashers!"