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Volume 6, Number 3
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21 June 2002
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TFIr #133
Edited by and copyright ©2002 Simon Lamont
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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 graphical 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: development status page last updated 2 April 2002
http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/wip/archive/office/Text adventures:
All at Sea: - planned release: Summer 2002
The Night Before Christmas: - planned release: Winter 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, the UndeadCam and the Film/TV archive list (the latter is now only available as a zip or tgz file due to its size):
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Friday 21 June - Niccolo Machiavelli, statesman and writer, died, Florence, Italy, 1527 Saturday 22 June - Doughnut invented, 1847. Sunday 23 June - Alan Turing, mathematician and computer theory pioneer, born, 1912 Monday 24 June - Pilot Kenneth Arnold spots UFOs over Mount Rainier, coins term "flying saucers", 1947 Tuesday 25 June - George Orwell born (as Eric Blair), Motihari, India, 1903 Wednesday 26 June ` - Joseph Montgolfier, ballooning pioneer, died, Balarac-les-Bains, France, 1810 Thursday 27 June - Jack Lemmon, actor, died, Los Angeles, 2001
THE WISDOM OF...
This week's guest speaker - actor Al Pacino:
"Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes." (Ceefax)
TOTALLY TRIVIAL
When mailshots go bad... Prior to the UK's 1987 general election the right-wing Conservative Party send out hundreds of direct mail letters canvassing for subscriptions, including one to a prisoner earning just UKP2.50 a week, asking for a donation of between UKP10 and UKP50, one to New Left Books and one to the London Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, addressed to Mr G. Switchboard. Think such errors are a thing of the past? On the day before this issue went out the Editor received some junk mail from a telecoms company addressed to "The Occupier" and beginning "Dear Mr Sample." Yes - you know we have to say this - we think they're just taking the piss...
FILM QUIZ
A mixed bag of quotations this week; answers next issue or from the usual address.
- My grandma dropped acid this morning, and she was really stressed out. She hijacked a busload full of ... penguins.
- We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister, sorry.
- So, ya know, he's drinkin', so I don't think a whole great deal of it, but Mrs. Mohra heard about the homicides out here and she thought I should call it in, so I called it in. End o' story.
- Oh, we could give it a try. I'll bring the wine, you bring your scarred psyche.
- If any of you so much as pass gas in my direction and upset my delicate nasal passages, your testicles will become my private property.
Last issue's quotations were from:
- Whew, this movie business is tough. I might just have to go back to loan-sharking for a while to get some vacation.
-- Get Shorty- Don't blame me. I'm an interpreter. I'm not supposed to know a power socket from a computer terminal.
-- Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back- I will be watching you and if I find that you are trying to corrupt my first born child, I will bring you down, baby. I will bring you down to Chinatown!
-- Meet the Parents- There is an intruder - male, Caucasian, possibly armed, certainly weird - in my kitchen.
-- Ferris Beuller's Day Off- Why did the robot cross the road? Because he was carbon bonded to the chicken!
-- Lost in Space
WEIRD WORLD NEWS
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
WHAT'S IN A NAME? When the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup this year, their home-ice victory game provided inspiration for a Toledo, Ohio, couple trying to decide on a name for their new-born son. "We were watching the game and saw Joe Louis Arena on the ice ... in the middle ... and you're always thinking your last name when you see 'arena' so we said we'd name him Joe Louis Arena and it stuck," the baby's mother, Sarah Arena told a local TV reporter. Sarah and her husband Nick Arena also have an older daughter, Haley Arena. [If they'd been fans of the Caroline Hurricanes the child could have ended up as 'Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena'... - Ed.]
FOR MUGGLES WHO WANT TO MUG UP ON HARRY... SparkNotes, publishers of study guides about classical literature such as Dickens, Shakespeare and Chaucer are planning to bring out a guide to J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (as the book is titled in the US). The guide will include explanations of Professor Quirrell's quoting Machiavelli and the Nietzschian origins of Voldemort.
HOLE IN ONE! Californian police raided a private golf tournament last week, arresting over 100 golfers and 19 women after allegedly finding prostitutes' tents located at various points around the Hidden Valley Golf Club course in Norco. A Los Angeles restaurant had booked the course under the name Golf Ventures, and, according to a spokeswoman for the Riverside County sheriff's department, "As part of a golf tournament, sex acts were offered to participants for a fee." The club manager, Eric Roush, said that he was as shocked as the police. "The restaurant had a few tournaments here - three of four I would say. We knew nothing about any of this activity.
USE OF THE MINI-BAR AND TROUSER PRESS IS EXTRA. Last month the British Home Office decided that a man who had been falsely imprisoned for 11 years for a murder he had not committed should receive around UKP750,000 (just over US$1 million) in compensation, but then added that he would be billed UKP40,000 (around US$63,000) for room and board. 34-year-old Michael O'Brien, who was freed by the Court of Appeal in 1999, told the BBC "They don't charge guilty people for bed and board. They only charge innocent people."
COULD BE A GREAT IDEA FOR JAILING MIMES... The Mareeba police station in Queensland, Australia, has a problem - it has no holding cell. Officers have to tell prisoners to stand in a square painted on the floor and not move from there. Queensland Police Union president Gary Wilkinson told ABC News that a replacement station is badly needed. "Put your prisoners in that square and say 'Don't move.' That's how ridiculous it is."
WEBSITE OF THE WEEK
OK, here at Irregular Towers we're not really into cats (except Garfield, of course, who turned 24 this week), but we guess that a significant proportion of the readership owns - or at least, is allowed to be owned by - a cat, and it is for those readers that this week's site has been chosen. Cat Bathing as a Martial Art includes such gems as "Prepare everything in advance. There is no time to go out for a towel when you have a cat digging a hole in your flak jacket. [..] Make sure the towel can be reached, even if you are lying on your back in the water. "
http://gas.physics.usu.edu/~steev/kitty_gallery/catbath.html
For lovers of the fat, sorry, "under tall" cat:
THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:
8, 15, 27, 33, 39, 42
AND FINALLY...
To even up the balance from this week's website... Letters to God From Dogs
Dear God, how come people love to smell flowers, but seldom smell one another? Where are their priorities?
Dear God, when we get to Heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it the same old story?
Dear God, excuse me, but why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not one named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around? We dogs love a nice ride! I know every breed cannot have its own model, but it would be easy to rename the Chrysler Eagle the Chrysler Beagle!
Dear God, if a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?
Dear God, is it true that in Heaven, dining room tables have on-ramps?
Dear God, if we come back as humans, is that good or bad?
Dear God, more meatballs, less spaghetti, please.
Dear God, when we get to the Pearly Gates, do we have to shake hands to get in?
Dear God, we dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent IDs, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?
Dear God, are there dogs on other planets or are we alone? I have been howling at the moon and stars for a long time, but all I ever hear back is the beagle across the street!
Dear God, are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologise?
Dear God, is it true that dogs are not allowed in restaurants because we can't make up our minds what NOT to order? Or is it the carpets thing, again?
Dear God, can you undo what that doctor did ... ?
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