From: daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Daniel Bowen)
Subject: Re: TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES #121 (Plus! another crappy cartoon!)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:56:56 GMT

In <1992Nov13.024003.16193@samba.oit.unc.edu> Greg.Kohlbach@launchpad.unc.edu (Greg Kohlbach) writes:

>It is a serious pain in the cajones to have to sit through my news reader
>searching through the *hundreds* of posts on rec.humor just to prevent my
>having to read his asinine drivel.

For Greg's benefit, and for anyone else who has this problem, I present
the following:


HOW TO AVOID THE "TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES"


1. Don't subscribe. If by some odd circumstance you have subscribed,
then unsubscribe! To do this, send mail to tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu and ask
to be taken off the TCWF mailing list. Easy. You will be (almost)
instantly unsubscribben, and Toxic Custard will never darken your
mailbox again, unless some unscrupulous and mentally disturbed
third-party decides to forward a copy to you, which is hardly my fault,
is it? No. Nor my problem. I suggest approaching the third-party with
threats, abuse, and a large hammer, and you'll probably find it doesn't
happen again.

2. Don't read news. If you don't read news, and you don't subscribe to
TCWF, there's just about no way you'll have to read it. Of course, this
is no solution to those of us who don't want to be net.hermits. So I
suggest either solutions 3 or 4, depending on your circumstances.

3. If you do read news: Don't read aus.jokes or rec.humor. TCWF is only
posted to these two newsgroups, so if you don't read these, you will
never encounter it. And if you keep clear of aus.jokes.d and
rec.humor.d, you won't even see the followups from people complaining
because they don't know how to avoid TCWF. To stop your newsreader (and
hence yourself) from reading these silly newsgroups, tell the newsreader
to Unsubscribe. In nn, press capital U whilst in the newsgroup. In rn
it's something similar, but I don't really remember. Probably U or u or
something like that.

4. If you do read aus.jokes and/or rec.humor, don't read the TCWF
articles. Since these annoy you so much that you've actually got up to
this stage of this article, reading TCWF articles are liable to
eventually result in nervous breakdown, tantrums and bedwetting. There
are a number of ways to do stop yourself reading the articles:

4a. Put an entry in your "killfile". The kill file is a marvellous
method of avoiding postings from certain annoying people, or certain
annoying topics (subjects), or whatever. If you read news using rn, nn,
or a number of other news readers, you should be able to put an entry in
your killfile effectively causing you never to see TCWF again. Which
should please some of you no end. TCWF *always* (except once) has a
subject header of "TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES" and the issue number,
so you should be able to get the killfile to ignore it. To find out how
to do it, either ask your newsreader (using that well-designed and
friendly Help facility), or seek out your local computer geek, who will
surely know off by heart how to do it.

4b. If you see a TCWF article appear before your annoyed eyes, don't
read it! Use the N key (on most newsreaders) to skip past it. If you
know you're not going to like it, don't read the bloody thing.

4c. If you're using the 'nn' newsreader, when you see TCWF come up on
the article list, *don't*, repeat DO NOT select it for reading. For
example, if the list comes up, and article 'd' is something like "TOXIC
CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES Number 123", DO NOT under any circumstances press
the letter 'd'. If you want to read all the articles around it, for
instance a-z, then first select a-z, then press 'd', which should
deselect the offending article.


If you follow these simple steps, Toxic Custard may never appear before
your eyeballs again. If, however, Toxic Custard annoys you but you feel
like complaining about it a lot, please do so, as it gives me a lot of
laughs. Though I still have yet to see someone top the complaints a
year or two ago from some guy who thought a joke about the Fascist
Fuckwits Federation was rascist.


Daniel Bowen
-- 
Daniel Bowen, Monash University |
            Melbourne Australia |           I think fishing
   daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au |          is a load of carp.
      TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu |                                 [TCWF 80]