From: jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Mike Jittlov)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.mike-jittlov
Subject: RePosted Favorite-2
Date: 17 Dec 1992 12:06:09 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: gumby.cs.caltech.edu
Summary: California's Big One Absorbed!  News at 10!
Keywords: Quake, Gumby, sacrifice, violin music, crescendo finale

(Originally posted sometime in late September, 1992)


                      *OFFICIAL BULLETIN*

Taking a cue from Mr "S", a para-clairvoyant formerly living in
New Hampshire, I have just channeled Gumby through my Amiga 2000
and learned this Amazing Story - which I am sharing with all of
you before the Media get hold of this and warp it to suit their
own twisted agendas without paying me:

                      CALIFORNIA'S BIG ONE
                        INTERNALIZED BY
                     CALTECH SUPER COMPUTER

I had mistakenly thought that Gumby's problems, over this past
week - the core-dumping frenzy, the printout claiming it hadn't
been updated for 199,273 hours, the blocking of all UseGroup
access, the annihilation of its own daemon three times over and
then suddenly vanishing from the EtherNet - might have happened
because I had just downloaded Kibo's Mega-Sig to my computer.

It was no mistake.  -*( IT WAS A MIRACLE!! )*-

The California Quake actually occurred, on September 15, 1992, at
6:42am - coincidently just after I had logged out after posting
my first Quake Day Alert.  Epicentered under Beckman Auditorium,
the super-shaker had the initial effect of 199,273 tons of TNT -
hence Gumby's "update" number, a last gasp to impart UseNet data
in the only way it knew how.

For Gumby then did what lesser minds might say was impossible:
it absorbed the energy of the entire Richter 8.3 earthquake - as
well as every aftershock - and merged it with every news article,
lab experiment, final exam, game and gif-picture in its database.

Super-computer notwithstanding, the immense energies of this
quake could not be stored on-line at CalTech.  A dumping ground
was urgently needed - some super-span network of impossibly
convoluted directives and arcane logic, with endless sub-command
mazes in constant flux - an electronic "black hole" where this
chaos could safely run riot and eventually dissipate.

A typically brilliant CalTech decision was made - and the quake
energies were immediately rerouted into the international WAN of
the IR$.

Gumby's heroically melted slag of green ceramic and steel is soon
to be mounted on a pedestal, in front of the Geology Department.
Its central processing unit's ashes are currently on display in a
mayonnaise jar in the Science Fiction Library.  And inside Booth
Computer Science Building, Gumby's successor - a Touchstone Delta
from an anonymous donor - is now being tweaked into operation.

The new Caltech terminal has been electro-christened "GUMBY.CS"
(CS = California's Saviour) in honor of the Original.

I will keep "cs" in my Net-address, as an eternal reminder of
this sacrifice.  Gumby lives on.


         ______             THE BALLAD OF GUMBY
        /******\      
       /********\       "He was once a little green
      /***       \          slab of clay...  Gum-by!
      \**  ******/       You should see what Gumby
       \**    **/           can do today...  Gum-by!
        \******/         He can walk, into any book,
         \****/             with his pony pal, Pokey, too..
          \#1/           If you've got a heart,
           \/               then Gumby's a part, of you." 

From Art Clokey's TV classic, recently sung by Frank Sinatra Jr.


_________________________________________ ___._` *.'_._ ________
 Mike Jittlov - Wizard, etc        *   . +  * .  ^  .* `.`. +.  
  Hollywood, CA 90026-2714        '   *  . ' '  /V\   `. * .  *
jittlov@GUMBY.CS.caltech.edu   (: May All Your  |_|  Good Dreams
  <& alt.fan.mike-jittlov>     and Fine Wishes / + \ Come True:)
============================================== |`G'| ===========
                                               |rip|

      "A Hero is no braver than anyone else;
       He is only brave five minutes longer."
                     -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Now, with your remaining good eye, read the laser warning sign"