HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stan@service.West.Sun.COM (Stan Galonski [Strategic Account Manager])
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Wild Chicken Flocks
Date: 8 Sep 92 23:00:18 GMT
Reply-To: stan@service.West.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: service.west.sun.com



In article 26170@dog.ee.lbl.gov, jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) writes:
>>A truck driver with a load of chickens took a freeway offramp a bit
>>too fast and spilled his load, so to speak, blocking traffic for a few
>>hours and freeing a gaggle of chickens. Now, authorities -say- they
>>got all the chickens back, but some people to this day claim that they
>>see chickens wandering around in the shrubery 
>
>As you've noted, this sure sounds a lot like a UL.  But chicken
>sightings ("tastes just like iguana") might not be implausible,
>depending on the neighborhood, and might not have anything to do
>with the truck accident. A lot more livestock-type animals are
>kept in the cities and 'burbs than one might imagine.  Someone not 
>far from our old house in Vallejo had both chickens and goats, and 
>one night here in Berserkeley -- on the campus, no less -- I saw a 
>woman taking her rather large pig for a walk.
>
>Joe "Or maybe they're ghost chickens, trying to hitchhike" Chew


It's true, the Highway 101 chickens are alive and well in Los Angeles. They
are also being harvested and listed on the menu of LA's restaurants as
"free ranging chickens"tm, no durgs or hormones just eat the stuff on the
side of the road.

Stan
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com (snopes)
Subject: Re: Junk FAX Mail
Organization: Just put everything on the floor; I can find it.
Date: 11 SEP 92 21:48:36    


Could you possibly set up a FAX machine in such a way so that it would prevent
the originating machine from knowing that the transmission had been completed,
thus tying it up for a very long time, and possibly causing its operators to 
run up some large phone bills?  

 - snopes

+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
|    NOTE:  This signature for adults only.  Sale to minors prohibited.       |
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|    Any other use, copying, reproduction or performance in public, in        | 
|    whole or in part, will be prosecuted.                                    |
|                                                                             |
| +  David Mikkelson  Digital Equipment Corporation, Culver City, CA  USA  +  |
+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
From: roger@uvmark.uucp (Roger MacNicol)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Annuit Coeptis
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:07:51 GMT
Organization: Vmark Software, Inc.

In article <1992Sep8.211927.10090@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie) writes:
>I need to know the significance of a symbol that appears on the reverse
>of the U.S. $1 bill. It is in the left hand circle and includes a pyramid
>with an eye at the top and the text 'Annuit Coeptis' and 'Novus Ordo Seclorum'.
>I'm sure I've seen the symbol elsewhere - I think it might be Masonic and
>perhaps used by the Rosicrucians. If so, what is it doing on U.S. currency?
>Does anyone have the story behind this, and what does the Latin mean?


The symbol is the personal badge of the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge 
of Freemasons.

-- 
 Roger MacNicol, Software Engineer
 Vmark Software, Inc., 30 Speen Street, Framingham, MA 01701
 email: uvmark%roger@merk.com
 Phone: (508) 879-3311, Fax: (508) 655-8395
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: What makes an urban legend work?
Date: 7 Sep 1992 21:22:29 GMT
Organization: Department of Redundancy Department
Reply-To: TWChan@lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.117

csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:

  +>>"all pirates like Jews." Now *that* makes you wonder...

warren@nysernet.org writes:

  +>It's because we eat locks.

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
  +
  +Who eats liquid oxygen?

I thought we were talking about Scottish lakes.


Terry "Or are we talking about hair?" Chan
--
Internet:  TWChan@lbl.gov                  This is illegal, but I know jujitsu
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory                         so I don't care.
Berkeley, California  USA  94720
From: geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Evita's body
Followup-To: alt.folklore.urban
Date: 9 Sep 1992 00:26:18 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: purplehaze.corp.sun.com



In article <1992Sep8.211737.23119@colorado.edu> fielden@spot.Colorado.EDU 
(j.a. fielden) writes:

> I remember reading somewhere that Peron was very fixated about Eva.
>Something to the effect that her embalmed body would be at the dinner 
>table with him and his second wife. Any truth to this?


No.  Peron died before Eva.



Geoff


-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Geoff Miller                    + + + + + + + +        Sun Microsystems
geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM  + + + + + + + +     Menlo Park, California
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
From: frankred@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Martin Redington)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: A bird in the hand v. 10 birds in the FAQ
Date: 9 Sep 92 04:48:44 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <mcirvin.715963272@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
>styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo) writes:

>>Thus, if there are many (ie. more than two) and you add some more, or take
>>a few - leaving more than two eggs in the nest - the bird will not notice.

>I don't know whether the mother cuckoo pushes eggs out of the nest to
>make room for her own.

I'm quoting this from memory, but one of the Richard Dawkins 
books has a section about cuckoos, young birds, and kin selection
generally. If I remember correctly, some species of cuckoos are
specially adapted to push their foster siblings out of the nest.

I think the mother cuckoos often remove a couple of eggs as well.
The cuckoo has a vested interest in killing them off, so that
all the food the foster parents provide will benefit it. Not
only can the cuckoo be bigger than it's siblings and not get
noticed, in some species the foster parents will work frantically
to feed a cuckoo who is larger than them, and has killed all
their kids. 

Apparently the reason behind all this is that normally
it is advantageous to an organism to get as much as it can for
itself, unless the benefit to it's kin, multiplied by their 
relatedness, is greater than the benefit to itself --- if you're
fit, and you're brothers hungry, that food would do him loads 
more good than you, and so would in fact benefit your genes
more. So there's a sort of implicit contract between parent and 
child that you scream for as much food as you can, until
your siblings start to suffer for your greed. The cuckoo,
of course, doesn't give a f**k.....

isn't nature wonderful.

                         Martin.
From: llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Fuel misers
Date: 10 Sep 92 06:34:23 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Michael Baudais (baudais@bnr.ca) wrote:

: Someone somewhere has invented a new engine/car/carbeurator/
: fuel-injector that will allow cars to achieve 100 to 200 miles per
: gallon.  The only reason we aren't driving these things is that the
: Big Bad Oil Companies (BBOCs) have bought out the inventors to
: preserve their markets.
: 
: Anyone heard the same, and can we add it to the FAQ as a Fb?
: 
: Mike "and they go from 0 to 100 km/h in under 5 seconds" Baudais

there was a guy on a local [austin] bbs offering to sell some device
that, when attached to your engine, would give you incredible gas
mileage and performance. lots of the engineering types on that board
offered their cars as test platforms and said, basically, "put up or
shut up." the guy with the alleged system refused to install it on any
car unless the owner paid him a great deal of money for it, and
strangely enough, didn't have it on his car, either. after enough
people had patiently explained why the laws of physics and basic
principles of engineering contradicted his claims, he kinda slunk
away.

--
sine nomine
debbie martinson
"you can sell anything put in a pretty case; see it on the tv go and
buy the toothpaste. yeah packaging is everything. get a pretty face to
talk about the warm glow from nuclear waste" -- gunbunnies
From: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Canadian Tire Money UL (was Re: Smallest denominations )
Date: 15 Sep 1992 22:12:17 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Distribution: world
Reply-To: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: sector7g

In article 16266@bcars664.bnr.ca, hwt@bcarh11a.BNR.CA (Henry Troup) writes:
>I've heard that Canadian Tire Corporation discount coupons have been
>passed on unsuspecting U.S. stores and banks.

No Canadian Tire money stories, but a friend of mine said that his
father paid for dinner on a Caribbean island with his Quebec Health
Insurance card (which looks rather like a credit card).

Brian "Medical, dental, and vacation -- all on one card!" Scearce
---
Brian Scearce                               bls@sector7g.eng.sun.com
        The above does not necessarily represent Sun policy.
          It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
From: styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: A bird in the hand v. 10 birds in the FAQ
Date: 8 Sep 92 10:47:13 GMT
Reply-To: styri@nta.no
Organization: Bohemians and Globetrotters, Unlimited

Time for recycling old threads. Here's one...

The FAQ says:
> F. Birds won't sit on their nests if you touch one of their eggs.

Talking about the thread leading to this entry one of my friends told
me the following "fact":

	Birds count "one", "two" and "many".

Thus, if there are many (ie. more than two) and you add some more, or take
a few - leaving more than two eggs in the nest - the bird will not notice.

Well, how 'bout this theory?

---
YuNoHoo  "Guess the bird would notice if I added 200 eggs"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: andrew@venus.resntl.bhp.com.au
Subject: Re: Mailing Coconuts
Organization: BHP Research, Newcastle Laboratories
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 06:09:24 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.014623.8618@news.iastate.edu>, glitto@iastate.edu (Scott M Klabacha) writes:
>>T. You can send a coconut thru the mail without any further wrapping. Yowser!
> 
> I've wondered about this one for some time now. What are the details? What
> kind of implement do you use to write on a coconut? Do the stamps just stick
> on, or do you need to use glue? Would there be any use in writing "This End
> Up" seeing as how the thing's gonna roll around anyway?
> 
> Seriously, though, what are the details about this? Why is it possible? What
> do you do if the people at the post office don't want to accept it?
> 
The sister of an ex-SO of mine did this once. (So a post office somewhere in
Queensland, Australia *has* accepted one... :-)
A coconut in its raw state is *not* the "hairy" little sphere you might buy at
a greengrocer's. That is what they look like when the outer, fibrous husk has
been removed. The outer surface of the husk is typically quite smooth, so in
the case I mentioned above, the address was just written on it using a marker
pen, and the stamps stuck to it (I can't remember if they had something like
sticky tape over them to make sure they didn't come off - this was something
like twelve years ago...)
BTW, the raw coconut is shaped more like a football, slightly pointy ends and
has a somewhat triangular cross-section, so the tendency to "roll around" is
less.

Andrew "More-than-you-ever-really-wanted-to-know-about-coconuts" Lewis
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: acase@reed.edu (Andrew Case)
Subject: Re: The Wildebeast
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 00:48:55 GMT
Distribution: usa

(Bob McQueer) writes:
>> Thomas Dignan wrote:
>> : [ what is a wildebeast ]
>> 
>> GNU
>
>Yes.  And according to the dictionary, the etomology of wildebeest is indeed
>from the dutch wilde + beest for "wild" + "beast".  What I want to know is
>why the Dutch thought a gnu particularly more of a "wild beast" than anything
>else which might have been wandering around the African plains.

I think it was the first animal they encountered that didn't
already have a name. Naming of things by Dutch settlers in 
the Cape is spectacularly simple. The red bush is called
"Rooibos" (lit. "red bush") the snake that is found in 
trees is call "Boemslang" (lit. "tree snake"), and the 
antelope that jumps is called "Springbok" (lit. "Jump
Goat"). Spellings here may not be exactly right, but
go easy on me, it's been a while.

ObUL: If you are attacked by baboons, throw a rock at them
overarm. They will try to throw rocks at you the same way,
and dislocate their shoulders (due to the geometry of the
shoulder joint).

ObWarningforIdiots: If you are attacked by baboons, disregard
the above advice. Shoot them instead.

Andrew
-- 
This article was dictated to me in its entirety by the angel Moroni.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright)
Subject: Re: Speeding in Iowa
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Organization: Unisys UNIX Salt Lake City
Distribution: alt.folklore.urban
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 03:16:15 GMT

Andy Hill (ahill@boi.hp.com) wrote:
: Donno if it's true, but this may have been drawn from one of the Cannonball
: Run (the second?) movies.  The Japanese entry used this sort of system.
: Can't remember when this movie came out, but I think it was before '84.

From the original "Cannonball Run", copyright 1981.  The car is a black
Subaru hatchback four-wheel-drive.  In an early scene the two Japanese
characters are driving at night.  They put on spectacles which glow a silly
red and make them look bug-eyed.  They are giggling and ribbing each other
and jabbering in pseudo-Japanese.  A subtitle says "This infrared is the
cat's meow".  Another subtitle says "Kill the lights".  From afar, their
headlights are shown going off and the car can be heard zipping through the
darkness (it makes a quirky robotic buzzing sound rather than sounding like
a real car).  They see a roughly-rendered red image of the road ahead.
Superimposed in heads-up-display-style is a speedometer (indicating 110)
and a status-box reading ROAD CLEAR (why doesn't it read in Japanese?).

In a later scene, two cops are lounging in their patrol car by the side of
the road.  The first says, "George, remember the good old days before they
got radar in, we used to chase speeders?"   And the other replies, "Yeah,
this is really boring".  The scene shifts to the Subaru, where our bug-eyed
friends are surprised when their warning system goes off.  The cop car is
highlighted in blinking red on their display, and their status-box reads
ENEMY.  They point and jabber excitedly.  The subtitle reads, "I'll be
damned, a Kojak with a Kodak!"  As they pass by they shout, "Sayonara!
bye-bye!"  The cops are startled as the car rips by invisibly.  The first
cop asks, "What the hell was that?", and the other replies, "I dunno but
whatever it was it was doing 125!"

For me this was one of the more remarkable scenes in the movie.  I got a
kick out of these giggling, crafty oriental rascals blowing off the cops in
their stealth-mobile.  This could well be the root of the UL.

  -- Dan Wright
From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Presidential UL's
Date: 15 Sep 92 05:40:30 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Reply-To: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

>UL?:  Richard Nixon watched the movie "Patton," starring 
>George C. Scott, six times while deciding whether or not 
>to bomb (Laos/Cambodia??)

I'd heard it was "Ice Station Zebra" upon which he obsessed.

Joe "Couldn't have been Churchill -- he was dead by that time" Chew
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: there's a WHAT in my head?
Date: 10 Sep 92 20:17:46 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <2549@israel.nysernet.org> warren@nysernet.org writes:
>I think it's about time someone mentioned the Brown Recluse Spider ...

OOhh, what?  What?  Don't tease ...



-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

I believe we are on the irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy -- but that could change.   -- J. Danforth Quayle  
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright)
Subject: Re: Speeding in Iowa
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:55:50 GMT

snopes (snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com) wrote:
:   bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce) writes...
: 
: >Although I can understand the desire of the driver to get out of Iowa
: >as quickly as possible, the fact that he encountered two deaf Iowa
: >state troopers makes me wonder about the story's veracity.
: 
: Uh, that's 'voracity' Brian, even if it wasn't your grandmother who told you
: the story.

The Franklin electro-dictionary-thesaurus has:
     veracity -- truthfulness or accuracy
     voracity -- greediness or excessive hungriness
So Brian meant to say that he wondered whether the story had an appetite?

I don't get it, even with the grandmother bit thrown in.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Exploding toilets (was Re: Sinking libraries)
From: hugh@nezsdc.icl.co.nz (Hugh Grierson)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 01:02:49 GMT
Organization: Fujitsu New Zealand

In article <1992Sep13.134044.14035@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>ObUL: Someone swore to me as true the story about a husband throwing
>      a lit cigarette into the toilet, and having the commode explode.
>      But the real catch was that when the ambulance came to get him,
>      the stretcher attendants heard the story and started laughing so
>      hard that they dropped the stretcher and broke the guy's leg!

Not so long ago (~months) a petrol station hereabouts (oops, "gas station")
had an underground tank fail and some 10000's of litres of petrol leaked
into the sewage system.  The fire department advised local residents to not
smoke while on the toilet.  Unfortunatly (for AFU, at least) there were no
reported explosions.

On another thread, a recent news story reported a "possible snuff movie."
Some fellow claims that 30 years ago he watched while a girl was killed
while being filmed for a snuff movie.  Strangely enough, there was no follow
up story.

>      It must be true, it was in an Israeli newspaper.  Blame
>      tb13@midway.uchicago.edu.

Hugh "tb13, it's all your fault" Grierson

-- 
Hugh Grierson          Fujitsu/ICL New Zealand - Software Development Centre
hugh@nezsdc.icl.co.nz                Speaking for myself only.  See figure 1.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: mayojr@cs.rose-hulman.edu (John R. Mayo)
Subject: A Possible Russian UL
Summary: Beer!!!
Organization: Another Unemployed Graduate of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 18:48:25 GMT

This summer, I went to Russia. While I was in St. Petersburg, I heard
that in Moscow, some enterprising beer distributors were diluting the
beer and replacing half of it with water and soap (the soap makes it
foam). Anyone else been there and heard this?

(FYI: Russian beer is yeast beer, and goes bad after 5 days. The date
of manufacture is stamped on the label, or on the cap, and after 5
days, a nice layer of fur begins growing on the bottom of the .5-liter
bottle (INSIDE the bottle, of course).)

-- 
John Mayo
mayojr@cs.rose-hulman.edu
"They're not dead, they're just metaphysically challenged." -MST3000
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.urban:23350 alt.religion.kibology:3783
From: snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com (snopes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: Viruses
Date: 12 Sep 92 01:03:32 GMT
Organization: Just put everything on the floor; I can find it.


In article <FRIEDMAN.92Sep10072342@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, 
  friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman) writes...

>   During the past two weeks I spent looking for a new place to live, one
>of the major factors in deciding which apartment I chose was how far away
>it was from a convenience store that was really open 24 hours a day.  Some
>of them, like Christy's, say "always open" but they're not.  Most of them
>seem to close at midnight, as kibo can attest to.  

>The second consideration was how far away the apt. was from the subway.

All of the Subways around here close at midnight too, because people just
don't buy enough sandwiches in the middle of the night to keep them open.

- snopes

+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
|    NOTE:  This signature for adults only.  Sale to minors prohibited.       |
|    All characters 18 years of age or older.  For private home use only.     |
|    Any other use, copying, reproduction or performance in public, in        | 
|    whole or in part, will be prosecuted.                                    |
|                                                                             |
| +  David Mikkelson  Digital Equipment Corporation, Culver City, CA  USA  +  |
+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~)
Subject: Re: Taking Your Sports Seriously
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 10:27:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.193940.110@acuson.com> lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep3.175926.2602@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mchance@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Chance) writes:
>>cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) writes:
>>
>>>El Salvador and Honduras once fought a war over a disputed soccer
>>>game.  (Actually, the game was an excuse for the countries to fight
>>>over disputed stretches of forest.)  Just out of curiousity, have any
>>>other wars been fought over sports matches?  Or is soccer the only
>>>sport to have inspired so much loyalty in its fans?
>>
>>My wife has a T-shirt that has a couple of figures from the Bayueax
>>Tapestry on it, with the words "Hastings 1066" above and "Normans: 1,
>>Saxons: 0" below.  I tell folks that it was the first European Cup
>>finals; they've just refined the rules a little since then. 8-)
>
>Don't forget the other shirt that goes with it:
>  "Not Enough Saxon Violence"

On a more recent note, after the Heysel Stadium tragedy that got English
football clubs banned from European competition, a T-shirt appeared briefly in
some of the street markets in London:

        "Liverpool 39 Juventus 1"

The police decided it was likely to cause a breach of the peace, so it was
banned from sale after a day or two (but not before I bought mine...).

The Wisp. [sick, twisted, just right for politics...]
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Chris Williams <csuah@uk.ac.warwick.csv> aka <csuah@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
"Tony Greig in the slips, legs apart, waiting for a tickle"
                                      Brian Johnson (thanks to A. Simha 8^>)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Evita's body
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 01:40:14 GMT

>
> I remember reading somewhere that Peron was very fixated about Eva.
>Something to the effect that her embalmed body would be at the dinner 
>table with him and his second wife. Any truth to this?

I think this was Disraeli.  Maybe Jeremy Bentham.
-- 
           .........................................................
          ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | standard disclaimers
         the university of chicago law school, chicago, illinois 60637
         here i sit looking for a warming smile in a house of cold wit
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban