From: daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Daniel Bowen)
Subject: TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES #109
Followup-To: rec.humor.d
Summary: The Great Unknown Toxic Custard
Reply-To: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 21:25:06 GMT


[[[[[[[[[[[  ]]]]]]       [[ ]] [[        ]]]]]]]
    ]]      [[            ]] [[ ]]        [[        Number 109
    [[      ]]            [[ ]] [[        ]]]]]     17th August 1992
    ]]      [[            ]] [[ ]]        [[        Written by Daniel Bowen
    [[oxic   ]]]]]]ustard [[[[[[[[orkshop ]]iles_______________________________

Somehow I never quite believed the cliche of Readers Digest sending out
a forestful of junkmail to people who don't exist. But I've changed my
mind. A big wad of paper wrapped in more paper with a gold ingot and a        A
bunch of competition stickers and more paper arrived in our already           n
over-strained mailbox. And either my wife or my mother have had               d
sex-changes, or the all-knowing RD people have got their facts about
the occupants of this house slightly, though not completely, wrong.           t
It's a simple matter of titles, and the gender one normally assumes           h
when taking on a title, such as, in this case "Mr".                           e
    Inside the envelope were a bunch of stickers, a car key (don't you
wish they told you where the car was parked!), and a scratch and win          w
game which just HAPPENED to be a chance for the non-existent Mr L Bowen       o
to win a bunch of money. Well, my little sister had a lot of fun              r
sticking the stickers where they were meant to go, sealing the YES and        s
NO envelopes and generally farting about with all the bits of paper.          t
Thank God I managed to stop her mailing any of it back.
    And of course there's the obligatory RD Sweepstakes Entry Book.           t
This marvellous work of fiction, containing no less than eight badly          h
stapled pages has to be the worst laid out and badly written piece of         i
literary crap ever written by a member of the human race who could            n
write. If this is anything like the standard of their magazine, no            g
wonder they go to such desperate lengths to promote it. Do people
really fall for this garbage? Isn't it amazing how every line of text         a
in the thing that contains the allegedly existing contestant, or a            b
reference to where the aforementioned lives is in a different typeface,       o
and not properly formatted? I noted with interest the misplaced               u
apostrophe on the twelfth page.                                               t
    Enough of this.. I'll leave you with this thought from the Readers
Digest sweepstakes book:                                                      t
      "And while some may say the chance to win $145,000 in prizes is a       h
      little overwhelming, we feel it's like giving a lottery ticket to       i
      someone who has done you a good turn."                                  s
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                                                                              s
An exclusive extract from:                                                    i
"CHEAP EATS '92 - A REVIEW OF ALL THE FOOD THAT'S CHEAP AND NASTY"            d
                                                                              e
BAD FOOD AND POLKA CLUB, FITZROY                                              w
The post-modern decor facade outside gives way to a complete dump             a
within. It's apparently a representation of the aftermath of a nuclear        y
war, although our reviewer was of the opinion that it was just                s
incredibly dirty and untidy in there. When we arrived, the police were
just leaving with some government health inspectors and the chef. The         m
waiters assured us that a minion would prepare our meals, and they were       e
right, although the Department of Labour and Industry might be                s
interested to see if they can apply any of their laws concerning child        s
labour here. As for the food, well it turned out to be foresight rather       a
than slobbyness that had resulted in one of the waiters leaving several       g
buckets on the floor adjacent to our tables. When contacted, management       e
made no comment about the standards of food in the restaurant, but
agreed when faced with legal action to pay the ambulance bill.                i
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       s

We've reached that time of the file once more where the author runs out       t
of thoughts and launches himself on a half-hour tour of the room              h
looking for inspiration, rummages through the bookshelf desperately           a
searching for something to ridicule, and fails utterly in his quest to        t
do so. He returns dejected to the keyboard and instead bashes out the
beginning of another Popsicle adventure.                                      y
                                                                              o
POPSICLE AND THE CASE OF THE SPECKLED BAND   Part One                         u

Mr Popsicle, the world's most inconspicuous secret agent, and his             b
faithful sidekick Inspector Unnecessary-Violence (who had mastered his        o
sidekick at a karate class), sat around lazily at the looming and             t
downright evil looking offices of the Australian Royal Security               h
Establishment. In these days of GlaSnot, Paratrooper and the downfall         e
of Communism, there just wasn't much call for secret agents. So most of       r
the ARSE agents just sat around all day watching telly and belching           e
loudly, an after effect of the subsidised Government hotdogs they were        d
wont to eat.
    The fact is, all the ARSE agents continued to get paid, even if           t
they didn't do anything, which they didn't. It was all the cause of the       o
fact that the government didn't know they were paying for ARSE. Which
shows just how secret the establishment was.                                  r
    But Popsicle was getting bored. There was little to do, apart from        e
going down to the lab to watch Doctor Wedge's unorthodox experiments on       a
little animals. Today, however, there was something different. Today,         d
the hotdogs seemed edible. The lights didn't flicker quite as much. And
the squealing from the lab didn't seem to deafen like usual. The              i
writing was on the wall. And it said "Exit". But that was always there.       t
It was something else. The story just wasn't going anywhere. So what          .
was new? Not much. Popsicle decided to get out of the office for a
while, to boldly go before where no man had entered the dining room           R
since lunchtime.                                                              e
    He made his way out through the ARSE secret entrance, which doubled       a
as an exit, and which was disguised as a telephone booth in a big empty       l
building with a single empty featureless corridor with a bunch of             l
horizontal and vertically opening automatic sliding doors. That was the       y
key to disguise - make it look just like any other government
department. Pushing his way past a huge mountain of Readers Digest            t
leaflets, Popsicle spied the sunlight, which hit him in the face at a         r
rate of watts. He moved behind his super-dooper mega-cool ARSE issue          a
sunglasses and stumbled blindly down the street in search of the plot.        g
But there was none to be found. He knew that. Everyone who read this          i
shit knew that. Why did he bother, he asked himself. Why didn't he have       c
quote marks when he thought, he asked himself. "Like this?" he                ,
pondered. Yes, he concluded. The rest of his brain decided it was all a
matter of mindpower, and he quickly and incorrectly calculated a few          i
formulae before strolling into the park to poison a few seagulls.             s
                                                                              n
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                             '
Help! I'm a paragraph of text! I'm trapped inside                             t
these two walls of ~, with the left hand side of
the screen at one end, and a hugely useless                                   i
margin at the other! I'm being forced against my                              t
script to tell you that you can get information                               .
about Toxic Custard subscriptions if you reply to
this, or send mail to tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Please, can't you do anything to help me escape?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen
--
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,\ Isn't it amazing how so many gullible people,
Melbourne, Australia------------/ after shelling out to see "Wayne's World",
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au----\ get fooled into the thinking the film is
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/ over and rush out the doors as soon as the
                                \ credits begin to roll.