HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com (snopes)
Subject: Cow Tipping/Alligators in Sewers
Organization: Just put everything on the floor; I can find it.
Date: 16 AUG 92 23:07:05    


While reading an old article (Oct. 10, 1988) about crocodilians in _The New 
Yorker_, I came across references to *two* popular urban legends.  I quote
from the article:

  "This must be a far cry from your boyhood in Oklahoma," I say to Kent.

  "That's a fact," he says.  "There's not much to do in Oklahoma.  On a Friday 
night, we used to go out and find a pasture full of cows.  We'd sneak in among 
them while they were asleep, and push them right over.  You don't have to shove 
them too hard, and they fall."  He makes a toppling motion with his hand.  "You 
should see the look on their faces!  They don't know what happened to them when 
they hit the ground.  Cow tipping is what we called it."

 - and -

 . . . Alligators can live in unusual places if they have to.  In theory, they 
could indeed live for a limited time in the sewers of New York; it's warm 
enough, and there are rats to eat, and they don't need the sun all year.  In 
1935, a seven-foot alligator was found in a sewer on East 123rd Street, and 
there have been various other sightings reported.  But alligators couldn't 
survive there long -- only a few months at the most -- because they'd need 
sunlight eventually, and because salmonella or shigella or E. coli, organisms 
that one usually finds in sewage, would sooner or later poison them.  Also, 
alligators live at temperatures between seventy-eight and ninety degrees, and 
caimans need temperatures between eighty-four and a hundred, so if an animal 
was flushed or dumped into the sewer it might survive the spring, summer, and 
fall, but winter's cold would kill it.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  NOTE:  The signature contained in this posting is proprietary and embodies |
|  confidential technology.  Possession, use, duplication or dissemination of |
|  this signature is authorized only pursuant to a valid written license.     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    David Mikkelson  Digital Equipment Corporation, Culver City, CA  USA     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: sherman@oak.math.ucla.edu (The Ahkond of Swat)
Subject: Re: Semen, NOT sailors!
Keywords: A quart?!
Organization: The Island of Misfit Toys
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 05:17:06 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.192006.23601@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
>Beyond that, the story seems dubious just based on the amount of semen
>that we're talking about here.  It would take a lot of strappin' big
>guys to generate a whole freakin' quart of semen.  I don't care how
>macho you are.  Someone got a book full of medical statistics?  I'm sure
>some obsessed person must have recorded a number for the "average semen
>volume" generated per orgasm.

ObUF:
This quantity supposedly inspired the name of the rock/pop group 10cc
(whose big hit was "I'm Not in Love," appropriately enough).

Idle question: how many people will post about Rod Stewart in this 
thread?  It's just a matter of time.

--
   Bill Sherman      S^1 `--> S^(2n+1) -->> CP^n     sherman@math.ucla.edu

   Bugs: "It's curtains for you, Rocky!" (hangs curtains on Rocky's head) 
   Rocky: "Oh, they're adorable!"
From: st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (LUCIFER)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Brul the Barbarian
Date: 14 Aug 92 16:25:11 GMT
Reply-To: st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University



could Y'all SCA types either post, email, or point me to an archive of these
stories? Thanks in advance,

Anton Smirnov
From: loshin@godot.think.com (David Loshin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Whither Manhattan? (was Re: Cannibaderm, anyone?)
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:05:37 GMT
	<1992Aug17.160028.8473@panix.com>
	<1992Aug18.025204.12391@news.columbia.edu>
	<1992Aug19.000536.15374@fid.morgan.com> <=2fytf=@rpi.edu>
	<1992Aug19.170947.12334@ctr.columbia.edu>
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: godot.think.com
In-reply-to: stevens@madvlsi.columbia.edu's message of Wed, 19 Aug 1992 17:09:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.170947.12334@ctr.columbia.edu> stevens@madvlsi.columbia.edu (Andy Stevens) writes:

   Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,nyc.general
Path: think.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yale.edu!yale!gumby!destroyer!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!madvlsi.columbia.edu!stevens
   From: stevens@madvlsi.columbia.edu (Andy Stevens)
   Organization: Columbia University
   References: <1992Aug17.073004.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu> <1992Aug17.160028.8473@panix.com> <1992Aug18.025204.12391@news.columbia.edu> <1992Aug19.000536.15374@fid.morgan.com> <=2fytf=@rpi.edu>
   Sender: news@ctr.columbia.edu (The Daily Lose)
   Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 17:09:47 GMT
   X-Posted-From: france.madvlsi.columbia.edu
   X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu
   Lines: 20

   In article <=2fytf=@rpi.edu>, kasprj@isaac.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak) writes:
   |> In article <1992Aug19.000536.15374@fid.morgan.com>, sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
   |> |> No, 212 is for the Borough called Manhattan, which is the county named
   |> |> New York.  The island of Manhattan has different borders.
   |>  
   |>  Okay, so let's inject some FACTS (sorry) into this discussion. As far as I
   |> know, the Borough of Manhattan includes (besides Manhattan Island itself)
   |> a few blocks across the Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx, and possibly the docks
   |> on the Brooklyn side of the East River (I'm not 100% sure about that). 
   |>  

   A good reference for this is a good ol' AAA New York City street map,
   which shows the few blocks in the Bronx which are part of NY County,
   but not the docks in Brooklyn.

   Does anybody know the historical reason for those few blocks in the
   Bronx?

   --andy

The river that separates the tip of Manhattan from the Spuyten Duyvil at
some point in time changed course; originally the island included that area
of (what is now) mainland Bronx.
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.urban:21651 comp.dcom.modems:12207
From: rlm@mcgort.COM (Robert McMillin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Modem tax back
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 16:33:16 PDT
Organization: PBSR (Private Beta Site Research - Certified NetWare Engineer)

tad@ssc.wa.com (Tad Cook) writes:

[much stuff about telecom costs in rural vs. urban settings deleted]

> What the deconstructivists are asking for here would probably
> mean that telephone service would be provided very cheaply
> to large corporations that are in large urban areas and
> can buy the service in bulk, and that anywhere else telephone
> service would be a luxury, unaffordable for the masses.

Hardly.  A couple of years ago, the folks out in eastern San Bernadino
County, a very sparsely populated area of California, finally got telephone
service after years of being turned down by Pac*Bell, mainly because
PB didn't want to run the wires.  A small Fresno concern worked out an
agreement with the inlanders to run microwave-base phones, similar to
cellular phones, at their homes.  While I don't recall the final cost of
service, I do remember that it ended up being less than $15/month.
Of course, this was over Pac*Bell's dead body: they fought ferociously
to maintain their monopoly.  In the end, this cost them the right to
sell dial tone to those people they had once refused to serve.
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: College Pranks (Was Re: Vacation Time!)
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:50:29 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA

de@moscom.UUCP (David Esan) writes:
: In article <1992Aug5.230541.23375@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com> billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:
: >Do you honestly believe that the structure of the building would stand up
: >to that deep a pool of water?  I can believe a wading pool - if it was 1
: >foot deep, the weight would be 62+ pounds for every square foot of area.
: 
: I sorted of hope so.  I weigh about (mumble mumble) 220 lbs (100 kilo for the
: English units impaired).  My feet are 4 inches by 13 inches (go figure that 
: out yourselves, you foreign slime), which makes 104 sqare inches.
: 
: That makes pressure of when I stand of 2.12 pounds per square inch, or 304.6
: pounds per square foot, substantially larger than 1 foot of water.

That is not the point. You are not a large distributed mass. To continue the
illustration, since it seems some cannot follow - if the shower is 100 square
feet and the water is only 4 feet deep, then there is a pressure of about
25,000 pounds on the floor joists which were designed to support a ton or
two. 

Most communal showers that I have run across are even larger.

: Waterbeds don't collapse the floor, and they maintain about the same pressure.
: In fact, if you consider force=mass * acceleration, they increase the pressure
: at certain times. 

The water in a waterbed is only a foot deep, at most - they also only cover
50 to 60 square feet of area. They contain little over a ton of water.

: Imagine now the pressure of a stilleto healed shoe on the same floor. (Me,
: I'm heading for the holodeck, if you need me.).

The pressure (per square inch), of a stilleto heeled shoe, is as great as
the pressure put on the ground (per square inch) of a fairly tall multi-story
building.  So what? We are not concerned with psi - we are concerned with the
total load applied to the floor joists.

Bill
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lmh@world.std.com (Larry M Headlund)
Subject: Movie references( was Re: Gulf Vet Illness
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:32:38 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.163147.26011@nntp.nta.no> styri@nta.no writes:
	(discussion of oil smoke virus deleted)
>> 
>> But, if you repeat it enough, the press will pick it up, just as they
>> did the one about the soldier/marine having to call his headquarters in
>> the US with an ATT calling card.                                                
Which became an incident in the movie _Heartbreak Ridge_ starring Clint
Eastwood.

-- 
Larry Headlund  lmh@world.std.com    Eikonal Systems (617) 482-3345 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: jon@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis)
Subject: I Love Lucy Forever?
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 22:25:25 GMT

   For years now I have been periodically hearing or reading the
statement that there is no moment of the day or night when Lucille Ball
is not appearing somewhere in the world on a television screen playing I
Love Lucy.  

   I've never heard of a source for this statement, and the more I think
of it, the more dubious it seems.  For one thing, even if it were true,
how could anyone know it was true?

   So is this an urban legend, or is there some basis for it in fact?
--


Jon Corelis               jon@lindy.stanford.edu
Stanford University       BITNET:  BR.JGC@RLG.STANFORD.EDU 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: dooley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Kevin Dooley)
Subject: Re: Driving tests
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 20:05:30 GMT

In article <mcirvin.713733658@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
>
>The driving test in the state of Virginia (US) is really not much
>better.  When I took it, the behind-the-wheel test consisted of
>driving out of the parking lot, crossing a highway at a traffic
>light into a residential neighborhood, driving around one block
>in said neighborhood, crossing the highway again, and parking in
>the (nearly empty) lot.  There's no parallel parking or highway
>driving involved, and no situation involving many other cars.

That sounds nearly identical to the Tennessee test that I had to take.
The funny thing was that I had just recently taken a test in downtown
Toronto which involved making a left turn crossing a six lane major 
intersection (no light) then a series of rapid lane changes (I would
like to point out that it was both rush hour and raining) then another
left turn onto a back street where I was asked to parallel park, but
the instructor cleverly asked me to park 'just over there' which
happened to be across railroad tracks.  Then around the block and back
to the parking lot.  Then she sat there in silence for a minute while
I panicked thinking that I had flunked for sure until finally she 
sighed and said that I had just barely passed (she seemed so disappointed).
I saw 2 separate accidents both within 10 yards of my car during the
test.

So, of course this wasn't GOOD enough to be able to drive in Tennessee
and they made me take their test just to make sure...  people in Canada
don't even have paved roads do they?

Kevin
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: Useful quips
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:55:14 GMT

sasbmt@jjoyce.unx.sas.com (Bruce Tindall) writes:

>In article <1992Aug12.002334.27055@gagme.chi.il.us>, pv@gagme.chi.il.us (Paul Vader) writes:
>>Bonus points if someone can think of a practical reason to know pi to this
>>precision except as a geek mating call.

>1.  Calculating the surface area of John Goodman to within the
>    nearest hectare.
[etc, etc]

There is too much pi throwing going on here - it's starting to look like a
three stooges movie.

-- 
Yorn, desh bjorn, der ritt de gitt de gue,
Orn desh de bjorn desh de umn BORK BORK BORK.
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com {revcan,uunet}!geovision!pt
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
From: tjw@vms.cis.pitt.edu (TJ Wood)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Faces of death
Date: 14 Aug 92 19:40:04 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <Bsz87r.LJx@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, jvmg9796@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (doc) writes:
> tjw@vms.cis.pitt.edu (TJ Wood) writes:

> I never saw this clip, so Id like to ask, did he say anything before he
> did this, or did he just pull the gun out and fire?  Was he being heavily
> interrogated at the time?  Look nervous just prior, or did he just do it 
> in a matter-of-fact way?

He was quite calm.  He called a press conference (just after his conviction
I believe but I may be wrong) and had a number of long legal size envelopes
which he was passing out and/or opening and giving the contents to various
people.  The last envelope contained the gun.  As he pulled the gun from
the envelope, members of the press yelled "No! Don't do it!".

Terry
-- 
        INTERNET: tjw+@pitt.edu         BITNET: TJW@PITTVMS
"Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy!"                        - Lord "John" Warfin
"There can be only one!"                                  - The Highlander
"There should have been only one. I want my money back!"  - Terry
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: phil@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Phil Gustafson)
Subject: Re: Driving tests
Organization: Famed Parquet Floor
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 01:20:02 GMT

In article <8167.3199@stratus.SWDC.Stratus.COM> jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman) writes:
>Amazingly enough, you can indeed fail a California driving
>test.  I knew one woman who failed it *five times.*  When they
>finally passed her, some of us theorized that it was because
>the testers were too terrified to ride with her again, and
>decided to get her out of their office.
>--

With good reason.  A while ago, (1974?) a woman taking a CA driving test
was involved in a crash that did in the examiner.  She survived.  She
did not pass.

ObUL: Actually, she made only one mistake in the test and and passed
with a 96.  She currently drives a pale blue Chevy Nova.

ObUL: Some states have a special senior-citizen driving test.  You fail
if you ever let your turn signal go out for any reason. (Except normal
blinking, you pedants.)

Phil "No atheism, no mnemonics, no k$bo, just UL's" Gustafson
-- 
|play: phil@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG; {ames|pyramid|vsi1}!zorch!phil                |
|work: (Under Construction)              | Phil Gustafson                   |
| "Never give up!  Never!  Never!  Never!"                                  |
|                                          H. Ross Perot, 1992              |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: apples to teachers - fact or fiction? 
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 07:48:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.232009.1621@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>In article <1992Aug19.181012.12222@avernus.com> mgfrank@avernus.com
>(Marc G. Frank) writes:
>>Or perhaps the whole thing is just an urban legend.  Does anyone out
>>there *actually know* (or even have a FOAF) of a student who gave an
>>apple to a teacher or a teacher receiving an apple from a student?
>>
>>As far as I can tell, it survives only in the phrase "apple for the
>>teacher" and, most likely, in various cartoons.
>
>One is easy.  I've seen it; I've done it.
>
>Can anyone verify the story about all of a teacher's students giving
>her apples on the same day?  (From junior high school on up, a teacher
>would generally see several hundred students per day.)
>
>Seth "apple of his teachers' eye" sethb@fid.morgan.com

Well, me and a few of my friends bought twenty pounds of apples strategically
placed throughout Mr. Lawson's calculus class for his birthday my senior
year in high school, if that counts.  One of them never was retrieved, and
it's an educational process to watch an apple slowly disintegrate.  But
not as much fun as what we did to our physics teacher...

Ted "no relation to Marc" Frank
-- 
             ......................................................
             ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | std disclaimers
             the university of chicago law skool, chicago, illinois
             you can't throw me to the lions -- i'm charlton heston
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: FAQ the FAQ!
From: derek@nezsdc.icl.co.nz (Derek Tearne)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 00:08:40 GMT
Organization: Fujitsu New Zealand

In article <2427@israel.nysernet.org> warren@nysernet.org writes:
>tf = thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
>jg = jvmg9796@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Johannes Versplungit "Mikey" Gerpfefeinfetzer)
>
>jg: and that line should be immediately stripped from the FAQ.
>tf: No, no, you can only strip a FAQ if it's threaded counter-clockwise.
>
>Or send it back with another FAQ threaded into it axially.  Marked
>"extra pedantic".

Didn't they once make a 3 sided FAQ?

Derek "Churchill made me do it,  or was it Disraeli" Tearne
 
-- 

Derek Tearne. -- derek@nezsdc.icl.co.nz --  Fujitsu/ICL New Zealand -- 

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (LUCIFER)
Subject: Re: Faces of death
Reply-To: st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 19:57:25 GMT

moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes
>There are several categories of filmed deaths.
> (definitions deleed)

Congradulations. That is probably one of the most concise summation of
the issue at hand.

I hope this thread either ends or mutates soon. We are rehashing the same
stuff over and over. (which is fine, but on a slightly larger time scale
than 3 times a day)
From: jlpicard@austin.ibm.com (Craig Becker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: The AFU Book List
Date: 19 Aug 92 16:10:14 GMT
Reply-To: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Object Technology Products
Originator: jlpicard@woofer.austin.ibm.com


tjw@vms.cis.pitt.edu (TJ Wood) writes:

> BOOKS?!?! Did you mention BOOKS, son!?!  Why didn't ya say so sooner!
> 
> I haven't published this in quite some time.
> 
> Terry "Books R Us" Wood
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Here's the OFFICIAL AFU BOOK LIST  -- Suggested Reading for when your
> news feed is down.

Might I suggest _Why Things Are_, by Joel Achenbach? (I believe he also
writes a newspaper column with the same name). The style is similar to
that of Dave Barry, it contains an answer to the question "Why are yawns
contagious?"

Craig
-- 
-- "You can expect virtually      Craig Becker, Object Technology Products --
--  anything from a people who had      Internet: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com --
--  nuclear weapons in the early      IBM TR: craigb@woofer.austin.ibm.com --
--  seventeenth century."                           VNET: CRAIGB at AUSVM1 --
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal)
Subject: Re: Cannibaderm, anyone?
Date: 23 Aug 92 04:27:31 GMT

berger@atropa (Mike Berger) writes:
>Marijuana has to be heated to activate the psychoactive components,

You can get high from eating marijuana, though it takes much more of the stuff
than smoking it does.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: nolan@twg.com (Nolan "Barba grigia" Hinshaw)
Subject: Re: Political ULs
Reply-To: nolan@twg.com
Organization: Somewhere West of Nowhere
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 00:43:15 GMT


In article <1992Aug15.135353.23142@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
|>I have a friend who used to be on Dan Quayle's staff -- in other words,
|>Quayle is a FOAF of mine...  (or an EOAF?)

Is the friend's name Rob Owen?

--
Nolan "Mine's bigger'n Phil G's" Hinshaw
Internet: nolan@twg.com			Dingalingnet: (415)962-7197	
"If you don't know how to do something, you don't know how to do it
 with a computer." David Wittenberg, in Risks Digest 13.70
"Boy, was I in for a dose of reality." Randall K. Abler
"... necrophilia doesn't really hurt anybody."  Rick Gordon
"Well, first of all, your stance is too wide"

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: kasprj@jacob.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Subject: Re: Imponderables
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge 
Distribution:  world
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:23:44 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.152428.28723@unislc.uucp>, dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright) writes:

|> Here are some questions which the book said it had no answer to:
|> ---------------------------------------------------------------

[among others...]
|>   -- Why does looking at the sun cause some people to sneeze?
 
 I've heard a reasonable explanation for this: bright light will cause 
the tear ducts to release a little bit of moisture, as a protective
measure. Some of the moisture from the eyes goes into the nasal sinuses,
which irritates them and produces the sneeze. This also explains why
I sneeze when I get a piece of dust on one of my contact lenses... 
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Pro-Environment. Pro-Education. Pro-Family. Pro-Choice. 
     \_| Pro-Change. Pro-America. Pro-Clinton.
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu
From: scm@harvee.billerica.ma.us (S. Mudgett aka little gator)
Subject: Re: Help me identify this Mcdonaldland character
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Date: 15 Aug 92 07:11:36 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: gators 'r us
X-Version: Rodney's UUCP modules 02/11/90 V1.18


In article <medic.713819984@milton> medic@milton.u.washington.edu
(Travis Lauricella) writes:

> So what is Grimace?  My best guess (since he seems to be the milkshake
> pusher of the group) is that he is the lump of milkshake after the melted
> shake is drained off.  
i remember that when he first appeared he was called "evil grimace".
--
-- little gator aka s. mudgett     email: scm@harvee.billerica.ma.us
-- friend of a gator is a friend of mine