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Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!news.duke.edu!usenet From: jfurr@acpub.duke.edu (Joel K. Furr) Newsgroups: alt.fan.lemurs,alt.answers,news.answers Subject: alt.fan.lemurs: Frinkquently Asked Questions (Part 2 of 7, Lemur Humor Part Two) Followup-To: alt.fan.lemurs Date: 2 Oct 1994 13:56:40 -0400 Organization: URL for netstuff: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jfurr Lines: 766 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.edu Message-ID: <36ms8o$1ac@news.duke.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bio4.acpub.duke.edu Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and the best answers we got) about Lemurs. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to the alt.fan.lemurs newsgroup. Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.fan.lemurs:3185 alt.answers:4769 news.answers:26684 Archive-name: lemur-faq/part2 Alt-fan-lemurs-archive-name: lemur-faq/part2 Last-modified: 1994/08/02 Version: 4.0 Official USENET Alt.Fan.Lemurs Frinkquently Asked Questions Part 2 of 7 -- Lemur Humor Part Two ------------------------------ The Questions (1) Would it be a good idea to give a Lemur a toolbox for his or her birthday? Are Lemurs vocationally skilled? (2) What are Lemurs' tails used for? (3) Are Robert O'Brien's local Lemurs up to something? (4) Why do Lemurs spend so much time trying to get their mitts on credit cards? (5) What's this I hear about a 900 number for Lemurs? (6) Can thinking about Lemurs have positive benefits? (7) What did the late historian and humorist Will Cuppy have to say about lemurs? (8) Did Old McDonald have lemurs on his farm? (9) How can you tell if you have a lemur problem? (10) If a bunch of lemurs infested my dorm room, what would it be like? (11) What if I _wanted_ lemurs around? How would I arrange that? (12) Has anyone actually sat down and talked with an actual lemur? (13) What is the "Lemurata"? (14) What is a Rufous Mouse Lemur? (15) Do lemurs get along with other sorts of animals? Pets, for example? (16) Suppose you were a resident assistant in a college dormitory. And suppose you had lemurs living on your hall. What would that be like? (17) Are there lemurs in, say, Central Europe? (18) What about in England? Any lemurs there? (19) Write a story about lemurs following the Edward Bulwer-Lytton "dark and stormy night" style for me, please? (20) What did Nigel the Lemur do to Dick Depew of ARMM fame? (21) Who is LEMORO? Lemur Humor is continued in Part 3 of the FAQ, "Part 3 of 6 -- Lemur Humor Part Three." ------------------------------ The Answers (1) Would it be a good idea to give a Lemur a toolbox for his or her birthday? Are Lemurs vocationally skilled? No. As Ryan Franklin notes: I do know that it's a bad idea to give a Lemur a toolbox for his or her birthday. Oh yeah, they're really grateful and they thank you profusely for days (mainly by not soiling the carpet), but then one morning you'll wake up and find that same oh-so-grateful Lemur making "just a few improvements" on your car's engine, with about a dozen grease-stained parts of your transmission lying out on the driveway. Wonderful species, nice opposable thumbs, but absolutely NO mechanical aptitude whatso- ever. Definitely not the auto repairmen of the pri- mate world. Alt.fan.lemurs has heard differing opinions on this question, though. One guy said his car got 100 miles to the gallon after this happened to him and he never missed the leftover parts, but for some reason the radio would only play Radio Antananarivo. Another guy, cursing loudly, said that the car smelled of caramel- ized sugar for weeks after the Lemurs had their way with it. Finally he took it to a garage and found that the Lemurs had left some half-eaten Twinkies inside the trans-mission case (said Twinkies now being extremely inedible, as opposed to slightly inedible). On the other hand, well over 80% of the Lemur population can get a job as a locksmith or as a window washer, according to a recent article in Barron's. This brings them up to #3 on the "Most in Demand" list for the major primate families. Unfortunately, few Lemurs appear to want those jobs, perhaps because they can get all the food they need from nearby vending machines and/or used record stores. Locksmithing would appeal to Lemurs if they stopped to _think_ about it since a locksmith-trained Lemur would be hell on wheels in the vending machine world. Who'd need being able to wriggle into the machine if you could just pop it open and swipe _every- thing_ in one swell foop? Window washing, on the other hand, does not appeal to the Lemurs of our acquaintance. Neither Rudolpho nor Nigel expressed any interest in washing windows. They see windows as necessary evils, shutting out the natural breezes but keeping in the warmth here in countries that aren't warm year-round. ----------- (2) What are Lemurs' tails used for? An excellent question. Ryan Franklin asked: Incidentally, can anyone tell me if a Lemur's tail is partially prehensile? Able to hook on to a branch or ceiling lamp and help stabilize them while they climb and swing and cavort joyfully in the air? I know they have to keep them up in the air while leeming (or else trip themselves), but I was wondering if there was some sort of purpose to their tail other than looking nice. Joel Furr responded: As far as I can tell from this book I checked out called "Lemurs And You," Lemur tails are not prehensile. Instead they use their little paws to cling to things that need clinging to... ceiling lamps, Cindy Crawford, Twinkies, etc... Ryan responded: Hm. Then, apart from looking really nice, what purpose do their tails serve? They seem to be rather inconvenient whilst leeming, as I mentioned before, and even something as simple as being able to use it as a way of stabilizing themselves when climbing or clinging would go a long way towards explaining this prosimian puzzle. David A. Boulton provided the answer: I don't know about Joey, Rudolpho, and other urban, twinkie-addicted Lemurs, but in the wild Lemur tails have at least two purposes that I am aware of. As you guessed, one use is for keeping their balance, sort of like a high-wire walker using a pole. Lemurs (even with those nice opposable thumbs) aren't very good at construct- ing balance poles, so they use their tails to swish around, maintain balance, and prevent their crashing to the ground. Most Lemurs greatly appreciate not crashing to the ground, (not to mention its Darwinian survival value) and over time they evolved large, bushy tails with extra good swishing capability. The other reason to have a very long tail is for inter-Lemur communications while leeming across the ground. Lemurs generally live in social groups. They watch out for one another, and have an advantage against predators if the group stays together. Some act as look-outs while others feed, and so on. When feeding on the ground, especially while moving through tall grass, it's easy to get lost from the group. A long tail acts as a sort of flagpole. You stick your tail in the air, and silently say "Yo! I'm a Lemur, I'm over here, stay with me, and everything will be cool". The absence of Lemur tails in your general vicinity would tell you that you had better leem your butt back to the rest of the troop. This is why ringtails have rings on their tails. It makes them more visible. There is also a theory that the black and white coloration works on the same principle as zebra stripes. Dazzle whatever is chasing you with a sea of bounc- ing/leeming Lemur tails, and maybe he'll miss -- or at least maybe he will miss *you*. Also, and most important of all, Lemur tails look *really* nice. ----------- (3) Are Robert O'Brien's local Lemurs up to something? Robert O'Brien states: I'm really not very good at interpreting what little commu- nication they (the ones that hang out on my patio some nights while I'm logged in) deign to give me, but the way I understand it, the Lemurs are really the natives, *we* are the aliens (rejects, left here by the dominant species on our home-world who were tired of all the *whining*) and the Lemurs have been trying all this time to reactivate the cows' ship and program it to send *us* back, or just about anywhere. But the cover story will be at least as good as the Douglas Adams "B Ark" story, so most of us will be very happy to go... Hmm, I thought they were gone, and it'd be safe to type this, but they're back now, and clearly doing what passes for a Lemur laugh, so I guess I've been taken in again... one born every minute ... You be the judge. ----------- (4) Why do Lemurs spend so much time trying to get their mitts on credit cards? Never give a Lemur a credit card. A checkbook is bad enough, to be honest, but they go seriously wild with credit cards. Not only do baby Lemurs covet them (they open cages like magic if you know how to use them), but they allow you to buy brand-new Burl Ives records in quantity off of late-night TV commercials. ----------- (5) What's this I hear about a 900 number for Lemurs? An ad posted by Daniel Pawtowski reads, "To listen to the exciting call of the wild Lemur, simply call 1-900-465-3687 (that's 1-900-GO-Lemur) for only $4.95 for the first minute, 15.95 each additional minute. Major credit cards accepted. Adults only, no chimpanzees, please." Alt.fan.lemurs does not vouch for the veracity of this ad. ----------- (6) Can thinking about Lemurs have positive benefits? A quote from Douglas Adams' work _So Long and Thanks For All The Fish_ gives us some hints: [Arthur Dent] tried not to think about the ground, what an extraordinarily big thing it was and how much it would hurt him if it decided to stop hanging there and suddenly fell on him. He tried to think nice thoughts about Lemurs instead, which was exactly the right thing to do because he couldn't at that moment remember precisely what a Lemur was, if it was one of those things that sweep in great majestic herds across the plains of wherever it was or if that was wilde- beests, so it was a tricky kind of thing to think nice thoughts about without simply resorting to an icky sort of general well-disposedness toward things, and all this kept his mind well occupied while his body tried to adjust to the fact that it wasn't touching anything. ----------- (7) What did the late historian and humorist Will Cuppy have to say about lemurs? "The Lemur is one worse than the Monkey. He is often mistaken for a squirrel, a rabbit, an Agouti, or anything but a Lemur. He has been described as a state of mind or ectoplasm. The Lemur is a primate because people say so. The Lemur sleeps all day and nobody tells him that he is a tramp. When disturbed he sort of squeaks. Most Lemurs live in Madagascar, but they are never quite warm enough. ... Lemurs comb their hair with their lower front teeth. They mature almost instantaneously. In a way we came from lemurs because they are also descended from an extinct Tree Shrew something like a large Rat. From the Tree Shrew to the Dogfish is but a step, which practically brings us to the amoeba. So perhaps the lemur is to blame for it all." ----------- (8) Did Old McDonald have lemurs on his farm? Apparently so. >News Flash! > >FARMERSVILLE, Nebraska: Wilga Hansworth never imagined the treasure >hidden in the attic of her farm house in rural Nebraska. After moving >an old chest of drawers, she discovered a set of yellowed and hand- >written sheets of music. Upon examination, the music was found to be >the original and complete source of the song "Old MacDonald". More >significant was the existence of a new verse, long forgotten and >possibly never published: > > Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o, > and on that farm he had a lemur, ee-aye-ee-aye-o, > with a cheep-cheep here and a frink frink there, > here a cheep, there a frink, everywhere a cheep, frink, > Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o. > >She is quoted as saying, "I'll be danged if I know what a lemur is." This news clipping comes to us from Jim Kuiper (jim@zog.eid.anl.gov). --------------- (9) How can you tell if you have a lemur problem? This answer comes to us from Ben Ostrowsky (sylvar@maple.circa.ufl.edu): >TOP TEN WAYS OF TELLING YOU HAVE A LEMUR PROBLEM >================================================ > >10. Anonymous notes scrawled on napkins, in crayon, and left on the > kitchen table, demand two-liter bottles of Big K grape soda. >9. You wake up every morning only to find your National Geographic > collection scattered all over the floor. >8. Hanging light fixtures begin malfunctioning more often than usual. > Small cracks may appear in the ceiling. >7. All the Twinkies coupons have been torn out of the newspaper and > attached to the refrigerator with magnets. >6. Crude maps of Madagascar are drawn on the bathroom mirror with > deodorant. >5. You wake up in the middle of the night, feeling something hairy > brush across your lips -- and you're single. >4. Lemur-B-Gon billboards in your city or town are often defaced. >3. A fine powder on the floor turns out to be Kool-Aid mix. (Note: > if it's Purplesaurus Rex, don't assume that lemurs are causing > this problem -- it COULD be other small prosimians. Purplesaurus > Rex is a very popular flavor among prosimians.) >2. A resurgence of early 1980's music on your local radio stations. > >And the number one way of telling you have a lemur problem... > >1. Neighbors complain that you yell "frink!" during sex and ask you > to please be more quiet in the future. --------------- (10) If a bunch of lemurs infested my dorm room, what would it be like? Joel Baxter had to suffer through precisely this circumstance: "Since I moved here to California, I've begun to be plagued by in- explicable phenomena. I regularly come back to my room after class to find the door ajar and the television on, tuned to a National Geographic special. Often the refrigerator door is open as well; I think that my stock of Coca-Cola is slowly diminishing, but, oddly, the V-8 seems to be untouched. This has been going on for about a month, which is disturbing enough in itself, but recently, the strangeness has begun to escalate. About a week ago, I began to notice that my Macin- tosh was also turned on, when I was sure that I had shut it off before leaving. Some of my arcade games now have new high scores that I can't account for, signed only with the letters "CHP". Two days ago, to top it all off, I got some angry email claiming that I had made lewd postings to alt.ptang. Naturally, I had an angry confrontation with my roommates, who deny everything. One of them said that it was probably "the lemurs" that did it, as if that explanation cleared everything up. I'm wondering if I should give some credence to this theory, or if I need to immediately start looking for new roommates. Besides the obvious worry that at least one of my roommates is playing sociopathic mind games with me, I'm beginning to be severely frustrated by the occurrences themselves. If I find out that all my stamps and envelopes have been thoroughly pre-licked ^one^ ^more^ ^time^, I think I'll scream. So, what do you think? Are lemurs that prevalent on Stanford's campus (we do have a lot of vending machines), or in Califor- nia in general? Could they be responsible for the things I've been discovering? Could a lemur crack my account and post to the usenet under my name? And, what might be most incriminating, can a lemur, as Apple claims, actually learn how to use the Macintosh GUI? --------------- (11) What if I _wanted_ lemurs around? How would I arrange that? Joel Baxter again has some helpful input: If you actually <want> a lemur presence in your abode, I don't think that it would be necessary to shell out any cash. Jugs of Big K Grape Soda on the doorstep will do nicely. Or, you might try provoking their lovable primate curiosity, by posting large signs on your door reading "ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO MADAGASCARIAN PROSIMIANS ALLOWED", or "Note to Twinkie Deliveryperson: Leave the fourteen Twinkie Econo-Paks (tm) that I ordered in the kitchen. Thank you.". --------------- (12) Has anyone actually sat down and talked with an actual lemur? Our interviewing staff had occasion to interview a bona fide lemur, one "Diana," late one night on the Yale campus: Q: How did you first discover that you were a lemur? A: Well, to start with, I was a net addict. I read alt.geek for a long time, because it seemed to be for me. But there was a furry bristling of discomfort once in a while; I shiverred at the thought of any of these people actually meeting me and discovering that I frink and stuff like that. I discovered alt.fan.lemurs by accident. I fell from the ceiling late one night and hit just the right combination of keys. Q: Do you agree with the way in which lemurs are represented in a.f.l.? A: For now, yes, I find it flattering. I haven't had the luxury of a long-term sense of identity which would allow me to criticize my own community. Right now I am enjoying this sense of fellowship and popularity. Q: You talk very much like a human. A: Yes, this is a skill I acquired out of necessity. You may notice that the language is formal, stilted. I do not find the words I need in human language. I stutter in person. People lose patience because I take so long to say what I mean. They don't understand that there are things I want to say and just can't. I've heard humans say stuff like, "I'm speechless," or, "I can't find the words to express..." but then they go right on talking, apparently undisturbed by this supposed lack of words. Q: But you are quite verbose. A: To compensate. What have I said so far? Not much, but I come across as very talkative, right? Q: Do you spy on people at night? A: Yes, I love window-peering. I have spied on nearly everyone who posts in this group. My observations are quite interesting, but again, you don't have the vocabulary for them. Anything I could say in your vocabulary is rather dull, something you know already. Q: Have you ever wanted to go to Madagascar? A: The travel agencies won't sell me a ticket. I'd love to go, but I have to wait for the next lemur tour. My first step is to visit my North Carolina kin. I'm scared, though. Q: Do you see hope for the lemur community in the future? A: Why all these questions? I'm not the interviewing type. I'm not typical of all lemurs, and you can't see me right now. You have no idea what I'm doing. I'm laughing my head off and bouncing up and down! And you took all this seriously! Ha! Q: I think I'm missing the joke. A: That's cause the joke's on you! Ha ha ha!!! --------------- (13) What is the "Lemurata"? Susanna Richardson <glink@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> shared "Lemurata" with us, after finding it typed into her computer late one night when no one else was around (that she knew of). Doubtless the "Lemurata" is Wisdom of the Ages if you're a lemur. LEMURATA Swing silently amid the fans & light fixtures, & remember what pleasure there may be in not having to replace broken bulbs. Avoid Silent Lemurs, unless you are in need of skin grafts. Rotate your Twinkie (tm) supplies, putting the stale ones on top. * Frink warmly of those who have more Big K than yourself and heed well their nap times: know what to *ptang* and when. * Consider that two cows never make a lemur, but that three can kill (if they ever get inside the ship again). Whenever possible, dial Madagascar and leave the phone off the hook. * Be comforted that in the face of all idiotic behaviour by lemmings and despite the inability of humans to pronounce *ptang* properly, their credit cards are easy to steal. * Remember the Mooser. * Strive at all times to Frink, Ptang and WhoooOOOOoooo. * Know yourself. If you need help, call the DUPC. Exercise caution in your nightly 7-11 break-ins, especially if you use a human look-out. * Be assured that a swing through the jungles of most humans souls would be a major risk to life and limb, the tangled undergrowth is unbelievable. Particularly, stay away from the id. * Frink therefore with only the lemur with the most Twinkies (tm). Accept no Little Debbies (tm). * Gracefully surrender the things of youth, leeming, little raisins with chocolate, expired phone cards and Internet access for Nigel. Let not inferior soda drinks be served. * Annoy people nightly, screens are for banging. * For a good time call 555-1212, ask for Hillary. * Take heart amid the deepening gloom that the hyenas are finally getting enough Cheetos to justify helping kill the Command Cow: and reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Aachen. * You are a leemling of the Universe; you have no keys to the CowShip, and whether you can hear it or not, there's a big dark shape in the alley RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!! with glowing eyes and milky breath. * Aieee! * Therefore, make plane reservations for Annatanarivo right now. * With all its hopes, dreams, promises and slash & burn economy the world continues to be a place where lemurs can get a Twinkie (tm) at 3am. --------------- (14) What is a Rufous Mouse Lemur? Joel Baxter points out: I believe that we should pay more attention to the Rufous Mouse Lemur. Besides the fact that it's irresistably cute, it seems to me that it has potential for mischief that its larger brethren may lack. One Rufous Mouse Lemur could fit quite nicely through a mail slot, allowing it to then open the door for the dozen Ringtailed Lemurs, slightly boffoed after one too many Big K's, that had the sudden urge to set up a Slip-`n-Slide (tm) in your master bedroom and take turns riding the carousel of your CD changer. While a baby lemur could serve this purpose as well, they tend to be more easily distracted. A full-grown Rufous Mouse Lemur is quite a bit brighter, and, (so I've heard) will do just about anything for a half-ounce hit of Big K. --------------- (15) Do lemurs get along with other sorts of animals? Pets, for example? Joel Kent Baxter says: My local lemurs seem to display a contempt, if not downright hostility, toward domesticated animals. While we like to think of the lemurs as cuddly fun-loving creatures, there may be a darker side... the notes on my monitor, for instance, seem to indicate a certain condescending attitude toward dogs. I've noticed that while the local lemurs get along quite affably with the campus raccoons, the dogs and cats tend to give my place (and other infested buildings such as the workstation lab and the laundry room) a wide berth. I'm not sure what's going on, but the noises that I sometimes hear at night (barking intermixed with the sounds of pruning shears, an outboard motor, and what I believe is a tennis ball machine) make me think that perhaps I don't really want to know. Of course, no one would believe that the lemurs get along with the raccoons simply because they mistake them for portly ringtails. I believe that the lemurs simply don't have any patience for animals that let themselves get pushed around by humans, and only the raccoons have enough chutzpah to be on the lemurs' "in" list. That may be why lemurs seem to have a proclivity for cow-taunting; after all, the rank and file of the cowsmonaut descendents are pretty much domesticated by now. For those that disagree, I have one word: McDonalds. --------------- (16) Suppose you were a resident assistant in a college dormitory. And suppose you had lemurs living on your hall. What would that be like? Matt Rice (mrice@eniac.seas.upenn.edu) shared his experiences with us: A few lemurs live on my floor, and a few more live throughout the building. They aren't allowed to keep bazookas in the rooms. This has caused a small controversy in the past, but they've found a way around it. The lemurs have started building catapults. They're very accurate with them, actually. I've had to ask them to cool it more than once when they started bombing the residence halls on the other side of campus. Who would have thought that stale twinkies could maim? And as far as tripping over them on my way to the shower, that doesn't happen. BUT, when I'm doing my nightly rounds, I have had to tell them to stop swinging from the ceiling lights. (I know they just get right back up there when I'm gone, but it's the principle). The biggest complaint they have is the student commisary doesn't sell Big K grape soda. The shipping charges for two liter bottles is enormous, so mail order is out of the question. They've been substituting Barq's root beer, but I can tell they don't like it very much. Also, I've noticed they won't use the nearest convenience store. It is called "Wa-wa," and is a fairly large chain in the north- east. As far as I can tell, it's a rather nasty word in Lemurese, and they refuse to shop there. They even refuse to talk about it. Everytime one of the human residents says "I'm making a Wa-wa run, anyone want anything?" when he/she is gone, the lemurs hack into their computer accounts and start a flame war in talk.abortion. It's not a pretty sight. Unfortunately, there is little respect for our furry residents. Some humans even deny their existence. One even went so far as to blame her missing CD-ROM disc loader on elves, when any fool knows that the lemurs were using it to find out what happens when you load Peter Gabriel CDs into the NTIS CD database. (It was return- ed, by the way.) Lemurs had to adapt to dorm life, since most rooms don't have lights in the ceilings, only floor lamps. There are, however, sprinkler pipes that hang down a good foot and a half from the ceiling. The human residents dry their laundry or hang their bikes on these (the laundry is ok, the bikes aren't). The lemurs swing from them like nobody's business. The most complaintes come from residents at 3:00 am when the lemurs start banging on them with spoons they 'liberated' from the dining hall. Has something to do with what the home shopping network offers as a special... --------------- (17) Are there lemurs in, say, Central Europe? Frank McPherson went backpacking in Europe in 1992 and had the following experience, which tends to answer "yes" to the above question: I had just spent a week in rural Hungary and was absolutely dying for a real live western candybar when I returned to Vienna, Austria. I left the u-bahn station and headed towards the center of town, stopping in the first grocery store I came to. I im- mediately became enamoured with and bought a package of six or eight Bounty candybars. I'm pretty sure I only got to eat one of them. The theft happened later that evening. I was walking down a small street, trying to remember where the hostel I had reserved a room in was located. I kept hearing strange THUD sounds surrounded by a laughter I'd never heard before coming from a lighted, open window up ahead. Every once in a while, I could swear it looked like a kitchen light with a small monkey would swing madly out the window, reach the top of its arc, and swing back through the window, accompanied by gales of the strange laughter. When I approached the window to see what was going on, something furry jumped on my head and covered my eyes. After it jumped off, I ran. When I finally calmed down enough to realize I was not in any danger, I reached in my backpack to get a Bounty to further calm my nerves. They were gone. It makes sense that the Lemurs like Vienna. It's warm in the summer, with a booming tourist trade, and a LOT of junkfood. Do you think they ever attend the Staatsoper? The Wiener Philhar- moniker? I bet they like Beethoven.... --------------- (18) What about in England? Any lemurs there? Mike Knell quoth: Lemurs are, as far as I can tell, rare in Britain. The lack of Twinkies is the exact same thing that keeps many Lemurs away. There are a few notable exceptions though - Arthur the City Lemur is a well-known sight amongst merchant bankers, with his unique pin-striped ringed tail. I can think of no credible British substitute for the Twinkie (although I've never had one, the descriptions are very graphic). Would a Lemur like a Crunchie? Big K is totally unobtainable, possibly some of the generic supermarket brand fizzy orange/blackcurrant drinks would suffice. Having said that, I've heard rumours of a corner shop in Solihull that sells Twinkies, so there may be a change to come. Britain may be on the verge of a major Lemur invasion if the correct food becomes available. Keep the ceiling lights though. Displaying your National Geographic collection prominently in your window should also encourage Lemurs, especially if you leave the ones with articles about Madagascar at the front. There are also disturbing numbers of Cows in Britain. The black- and-white ones are especially worth watching out for, but then to my knowledge the Terror Cow has never been sighted here, for- tunately. It's good to see that people in Britain are also taking Lemurs seriously. To be hit by a wave of Lemurs arriving through Heathrow without being prepared at all could be devastating for the coun- try's junk food supply. Watch out for those Hungarian piccolo players appearing at airports. --------------- (19) Write a story about lemurs following the Edward Bulwer-Lytton "dark and stormy night" style for me, please? It was a dark and stormy night. Melanie and I walked slowly down the hill, picking our way among the boulders. It was our first trip to this part of the country, and we were truly in awe of the vast natural beauty that surrounded us. Huge pillars of stone towered above us, stretching up cliffs rising hundreds of feet into the air. Wow. As the storm picked up, we stopped under an overhang and watched as Mother Nature battered the countryside with biting, driven rain and powerful blasts of lightning. Slowly, I pulled a Twinkie from my jacket. Before I could offer it to Melanie, however, a small furry thing swung down from above and landed before me. It was a lemur, and it wanted my Twinkie. My worst nightmares were coming true. As I was backed up against the cliff, there was no place to run. I tried to lateral the Twinkie to Melanie, but the lemur was just too quick. It snatched the snack from midair and leapt away. It stared at me for a moment, said "Frink", and was gone forever. After a while of standing in silence, Melanie and I turned and continued our trek down the mountainside. It was only then that I noticed the absence of my grape soda. Thanks be to Tob Wood for that Lemur Gothic story. --------------- (20) What did Nigel the Lemur do to Dick Depew of ARMM fame? From: nlemur@world.std.com (Nigel the Lemur) Newsgroups: alt.fan.dick-depew,alt.fan.lemurs Subject: Re: fan??!! Date: 9 Apr 93 05:19:55 GMT Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA In article <1353@ulogic.UUCP> hartman@ulogic.UUCP (Richard M. Hartman) writes: >Nigel! There's a bunch of TWINKIES stashed in Dick's hard drive.... *TWINKIES* mmmmmmmmm <sounds follow that _could_ be those made by a hungry lemur ripping the plastic and metal shell of Depew's computer open and discovering the Twinkies concealed within> snarf snarf snarf snarf snarf <sounds follow that _could_ be those made by a sated lemur stuff- ing the empty Twinkie wrappers neatly inside the ruined hard drive and leaving> --------------- (21) Who is LEMORO? LEMORO is the fictional creation of Jeffrey Klein (klein@egr.msu.edu). Dr Dooley Banner, theorizing that the true potential of sponge cake could be unlocked by gamma radiation, exposes a Twinkie to the lethal rays! Jeff Klein, shiftless layabout, unwittingly consumes the golden confection, causing his very CELLULAR PATTERN to be IRREVOCABLY ALTERED! He is now -- LEMORO, the LEMUR that WALKS like a MAN!!!!! With a purposeful grimace and a terrible 'frink' He chugs down a bottle of Big K grape drink -- LEMORO! Helpless cows in a big cow ship Scream as his bug-eyes look into it -- LEMORO! He picks up a Twinkie and he throws it over his shoulder As he wades through the aisles to the center of Kroger Oh no, they say he's got to go, go go LEMORO! Oh no, there goes a Ho-Ho, go go LEMORO! History shows, then and now How lemurs point up the folly of cows LEMORO has starred in a series of films, such as LEMORO VS KOW KONG, LEMORO LET DIE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LEMORO, and SHE'S GOTTA HAVE LEMORO. ----------- Lemur Humor is continued in Part 3 of the FAQ, "Part 3 of 7 -- Lemur Humor Part Three." ------------------------------------------------------------------ Prepared January 31, 1993 by Joel Furr, jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu Revised February 15, 1993 by Joel Furr, jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu Revised April 5, 1993 by Joel Furr, jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu Revised July 6, 1993 by Joel Furr, jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu Revised August 2, 1994 by Joel Furr, jfurr@acpub.duke.edu