QUICKIES 4 Elizabethan Insults This listing is from the Internet; compiler unknown, but most likely Eric Meier (see Links). The adjectives in Columns 1 and 2, as well as the nouns in Column 3, are taken from the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Many of the 150 adjectives and nouns are obsolete or archaic. They can be combined in any way to produce many tens of thousands of insults, e.g., Thou reeky, dizzy-eyed lewdster! Dozens of "Shakespeare Insult Generators" have been created from the vocabulary below (of course without asking me first before copying it verbatim), and the rip-offs are being ripped off by other rip-offs. Find yourself tempted to say fuck and damn too often? The Elizabethan equivalents are much more fun and don't make people with children glare at you in restaurants. You could say fie! or you could swear by God's teeth or wounds. Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced with "Thou." Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 artless bawdy beslubbering bootless churlish cockered clouted craven currish dankish dissembling droning errant fawning fobbing froward frothy gleeking goatish gorbellied impertinent infectious jarring loggerheaded lumpish mammering mangled mewling paunchy pribbling puking puny quailing rank reeky roguish ruttish saucy spleeny spongy surly tottering unmuzzled vain venomed villainous warped wayward weedy yeasty base-court bat-fowling beef-witted beetle-headed boil-brained clapper-clawed clay-brained common-kissing crook-pated dismal-dreaming dizzy-eyed doghearted dread-bolted earth-vexing elf-skinned fat-kidneyed fen-sucked flap-mouthed fly-bitten folly-fallen fool-born full-gorged guts-griping half-faced hasty-witted hedge-born hell-hated idle-headed ill-breeding ill-nurtured knotty-pated milk-livered motley-minded onion-eyed plume-plucked pottle-deep pox-marked reeling-ripe rough-hewn rude-growing rump-fed shard-borne sheep-biting spur-galled swag-bellied tardy-gaited tickle-brained toad-spotted urchin-snouted weather-bitten apple-john baggage barnacle bladder boar-pig bugbear bum-bailey canker-blossom clack-dish clotpole coxcomb codpiece death-token dewberry flap-dragon flax-wench flirt-gill foot-licker fustilarian giglet gudgeon haggard harpy hedge-pig horn-beast hugger-mugger jolthead lewdster lout maggot-pie malt-worm mammet measle minnow miscreant moldwarp mumble-news nut-hook pigeon-egg pignut puttock pumpion ratsbane scut skainsmate strumpet varlet vassal whey-face wagtail Baaaad Jokes The recent cloning of a sheep in Scotland produced just a few mediocre riddles. Below are two clever enough for our discriminating pages: What did the cloned sheep say to the other? -- "I am ewe." What's the difference between the Rolling Stones and a Scotsman? -- The Stones say, "Hey, you, get off of my cloud!"; the Scotsman, "Hey, McCloud, get off of my ewe!" Speaking of Sexual Predators... Do you know why Bill Clinton became President of the United States? -- Because his dick wasn't big enough to be a porn star. The earlier riddle in "Quickies 2" just got a clever twist (hand --> gland): How can you tell when it's bedtime at Michael Jackson's home? -- When the big hand is on the little gland. There are plenty of web sites that offer jokes; for this reason I won't duplicate them here. But, just for the hell of it, here is one that meets my elitist standards of wordplay (pared down): Lady Di and Dolly Parton die on the same day. They appear before St. Peter to find out if they'll be admitted to Heaven. Unfortunately, there's only one space left, so St. Peter must decide who'll get in.   He asks Dolly if there's some particular reason why she should get in. She takes off her blouse and says, "Look at these! They're the most perfect ones God ever created, and I'm sure it will please Him to be able to see them every day for all eternity."   St. Peter then asks Di the same question. She drops her skirt and panties, takes a bottle of Perrier out of her purse, shakes it up, and douches with it. "Okay, Di," decides St. Peter, "you may go in."   Dolly is outraged and screams, "What was that all about? I show you two of God's best creations, but Di performs a disgusting act and she gets in!?"   "Sorry, Dolly, but a royal flush beats a pair any day." What do you call a lesbian opera singer? -- A muff diva. A man calls his boss, telling him he can't come to work because he's sick. -- "How sick are you?" asks the boss. -- "Very sick, sir. I'm in bed with my daughter." Two sperms are swimming really hard. One asks, "Are we almost at the uterus?" "Nah," says the other, "we just passed the tonsils." Why does it take 100 million sperms to fertilize one egg? -- Because not one will stop and ask for directions. A woman shaking all over walks into an adult boutique. She goes to the clerk and asks him, "D-D-Do y-y-you sell t-t-ten-inch v-v-v-ibrators?" -- "Why, yes, we do, ma'am." -- "A-A-Are they ma-ma-made by ACME Nov-nov-elties?" The clerk answers, "Yes, that's our top-selling model." -- "Well," she says, "how d-d-do you t-t-turn the d-d-damn thing off?" Why do women skydivers wear tampons when they jump? -- So they don't whistle on the way down. For Heaven's (Gate) Sake! Around March 26, 1997, 39 men and women -- all members of the "Heaven's Gate" cult -- committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, California. A very sad event, but fodder for the media vultures and the quipsters. A few hours after the shocking news was announced, jokes and riddles appeared in the newsgroups, and in less than ten hours a clever spoof of the Heaven's Gate "Higher Source" web site appeared on the Net at http://www.highersource.org/. This artistic and witty site is a must-see. Many hundreds of viewers have already entered praise of the site, funny comments about the cultists, or condemnations of the web-bashing media in the Guestbook and the Forum. Only a few of the messages in the Guestbook are negative, such as "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves" - "You're sick" - "I'm disgusted" - "How mature" - "How dare you make fun of a tragedy." This is the same kind of criticism Maledicta has been getting for 20 years, especially after starting the "Kakologia" section with "tasteless" jokes and riddles. These dimwits don't understand that joking about tragedies is a psychological coping mechanism, a way of releasing our anxieties and fears of death and the unknown. To vent my anger at such dolts and the media who just love such tragedies, I added the following comment in the Guestbook on March 29: Super-witty and artistic site, guys! I love your sarcastic and sardonic wit. -- Dull women who criticize this spoof-site deserve a kick in their "containers," and dull-brained male bitchers ought to be castrated -- with quarters! -- Watch for NBC-TV's Tom Brockaw do a one-minute "in-depth" report on this site. Also check your newspapers for a paranoid, foaming-at-the-mouth editorial by A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times who'll accuse you of being anti-Semitic homophobes! For me, the most perturbing aspect of this event is not that 39 people committed suicide with their leader but the incredible twist of fate that Applewhite ("Do") met his fellow fanatic, nurse "Ti." Married-with-children Marshall Applewhite had entered a hospital to battle his homosexuality. Of all the hospitals in the USA, he had to choose the one he did. And of all the nurses in that hospital, he had to meet that nurse. Fate? Predestination? If these two had never met -- a confused, vulnerable man and a twisted, manipulative woman -- there would have been no Heaven's Gate cult and no followers who committed suicide.... The jokes and riddles deal mainly with the more unusual aspects of this tragedy: their computer work, comet Hale-Bopp, castration, Nike sneakers, five-dollar bills and quarters in the pockets of the dead, purple shrouds, packed suitcases, calling their bodies "containers" and "vehicles," and similarities with the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. An unknown quick wit even wrote a parody of "The Night before Christmas" (below), and another parodied the "Ghost Riders in the Sky" song. Nike's "Just Do It!" slogan and their "Swoosh" symbol (looking like a comet) are also satirized. The shoe manufacturer is not happy with the publicity, as a spokesperson whined. But a greedy outfit like Nike that pays slave-laboring teenagers and young women in Vietnam 20¢ an hour to produce shoes for $2 and then sells them for $160 deserves all the slamming it gets. Naturally, TV and newspapers immediately found "experts" -- publicity-hungry university professors, as usual -- to comment on the event. They appeared jubilant about the (wrong) first reports that 39 males, all between 18 and 24 years of age, were members of this cult, as it fit their theories. Unfortunately for those egg-on-their-faces "experts," 34 of these 39 cult members were in their 40s and 50s or older, and the youngest was 26. As Reuters and the Fox News Network reported on March 29, Ted Turner, "The Mouth of the South," called the mass suicide "a good way to get rid of a few nuts." "There are too many nuts running around anyway, right?" Turner told reporters in Atlanta. "Well, they did it peacefully. At least they didn't do like these S.O.B.s that go to McDonald's or post offices and shoot a lot of innocent people and then shoot themselves. At least they went out and just did it to themselves." -- Ted Turner, whose wife Jane Fonda got him by the balls, is an insensitive lout. The 39 cultists were not dangerous. Personally, I'd rather see a bunch of vicious lawyers and judges commit suicide -- and I have urged some of them to do so -- to make this world a better place. The folks maintaining the parody site are keeping track of who writes about them. In their "Media Links" (Scrapbook), they list more than a dozen reports about their spoof, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Miami Herald, Irish Times, MSNBC, c/net News -- and Maledicta.    Following below are the best of the riddles I found on the Internet, most of which I improved by rephrasing and corrected spelling. I added three of my own. Why did the Heaven's Gate members commit suicide? -- Because they lived in a $1.3 million mansion but had to sleep in bunk beds. Why did some female cult members wear two plastic bags? -- Because they were ugly "two-baggers." What did the checkout lady at the grocery store ask the cult members? -- "Paper or plastic?" What was the cult members' favorite household cleanser? -- Comet. What do the 39 have in common with Mr. Clean? -- They are all behind the comet. Why were the cult members especially disappointed? -- Because they expected a ride on a UFO but were taken away on refrigerated trucks. Why did the members really commit suicide? -- Because they were trying to keep up with the Joneses. Why did the cult members take along quarters? -- Because they expected apple-sauce vending machines on the UFO. Why were the Heaven's Gate cultists carrying quarters when they died? -- Because the UFO driver accepts only exact change. What was the $5.75 in the cultists' pockets for? -- 75 cents for the ride and $5.00 for gummi worms to eat on the trip. What was the cult's slogan? -- "Just do it!" (Also: "Just did it!") What's Nike's new slogan? -- "Nike, the sneakers that take you out of this world!" Why were the 39 really pissed off? -- Because when they got to the UFO, they found out that their suitcases had been sent to Mars. Why did many of the cult members castrate themselves? -- Because they misunderstood the job requirement: "Wanted: UNIX programmers." Top 13 Reasons Why the 39 Programmers Committed Suicide 13. They were AOL subscribers. 12. Sure-fire way to avoid the Year 2000 Problem. 11. Don't worry -- they're just rebooting. 10. Actually, they downloaded their personalities into a virtual reality simulator. (Only required 2 KB!)   9. Had met too many "Rules Girls."   8. Alan Greenspan made an offhand comment questioning the "irrational  exuberance" about Java.   7. It's the normal fallout from breaking up with a cyberslut.   6. They got a totally wicked flame-mail from Bill Gates.   5. They found out there was no real person named Dana Scully.   4. It wasn't suicide. It was the Ebola macro virus.   3. They realized that "Comet Hale-Bopp" is an anagram for "HTML be poop, Ace."   2. The aliens told them that in the 21st century no one uses the Web.   1. They were trying to spam God. The True Story, As Told by the 40th Member, Who Survived ' Twas the night before departure, and all through the house Not a cultist was working, not a click of a mouse! When down on the first floor, I heard such a clatter, I listened real hard to see what's the matter. I threw on my shroud and tied my Nikes real tight. I ran down the stairs; I almost took flight! When, what to my astonished eyes, did appear But Brother Frank, carrying vodka, looking very queer. I looked on the table top and saw a strange powder. They were mixing it in pudding, but it looked like clam chowder. They ate all the pudding and washed it down with the liquor. They knew if they did, they would leave that much quicker. They all laid on their beds with a Zip-Loc bag on each head. They were waiting to go, but they ended up dead. As I hid in the closet, I saw a bright light. The aliens were here, but I was stiffened with fright. I peeked out of the closet, and indeed, they were here. But they saw 39 dead cultists and ran off in fear! They beamed back to the space ship and took off into space. They were heading for the comet, as if it were a race. I went to my Brothers of which whom were all dead. I said good-bye to Brother Frank, Sister Sara, and my Brother Fred. I pulled the bags off of most of the clan. I threw them away in the rear garbage can. Luckily, I am the only one left to survive, and I'm glad because the aliens wanted me alive! NEW (Mostly from the Net. Authors unknown. Thanks to Tom S. and Jim A. for additional material) Why didn't the Heaven's Gate cultists use guns to kill themselves? -- They didn't have the balls for it. Why did the men of the cult agree to the suicide? -- They didn't have the balls to object. What computer operating system did the Heaven's Gate cultists use? -- UNIX. (Hint: "UNIX" sounds like "eunuchs") Was Marshall Applewhite nuts? -- Well, maybe not all nuts. What do you put on the toes of dead Web designers? -- <BODY> tags. Why did the Heaven's Gate cultists die from asphyxiation? -- Because they couldn't open their [MS] Windows! What did the owner of the million-dollar mansion shout when he heard of the mass suicide? -- "The security deposit is mine, all mine!" What did the Heaven's Gate cheerleaders yell? -- "GO NADS, GO!" Why did the cult members take along five-dollar bills? -- For the UFO in-flight movie headsets. What's the official hat of the Heaven's Gate cult? -- A Zip-Loc bag. What did the cult members ask their companions while putting on the plastic bags? -- "Does my Zip-Loc bag show a green seal?" What two seating classes are there on the cult's UFO? -- "Testicles" and "No Testicles." What kind of Nikes were the Heaven's Gate cultists wearing? -- Air Kevorkians. What's the temperature now in Rancho Santa Fe? -- Minus 39. What's the difference between the Heaven's Gate cult, a can of coffee, and the Church of Scientology? -- Only two of the three are chock full of nuts. What's the official Heaven's Gate jingle? -- "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't." Why did the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult want all the men castrated? -- Because he didn't like religious nuts. What did the San Diego Coroner say? -- "Uh-oh, I think one of those cops accidentally ate Do's nuts." Did you see the new bumper sticker in Rancho Santa Fe? -- So many stupid people -- So few comets! Employment Opportunities in Rancho Santa Fe, California Our web designing business has taken off like a comet! We now have 39 positions for team-playing computer programmers and web developers. We will provide a luxurious residence and transportation for all selected applicants Employees will live and interact with a friendly group of colleagues in a family-like environment The good of a project must be above any personal concerns or artistic egos Strict dress-code is required: black shirts and pants and black Nike sneakers Buzz haircut for men, women, and eunuchs We're looking for people interested in astronomy and the occult Extensive, long-term travel is mandatory Experience in vodka cocktail mixing and/or chemistry is a plus! Note: Do not apply after comet Hale-Bopp leaves near-Earth orbit. The Sky's the Limit! Due to a sudden and unexpected shortage of qualified programmers and web designers, this upwardly-mobile southern California web page development firm is looking for highly motivated employees. We want you on our team if you are: Despondent, fanatical, and easily manipulated Inter-galactically minded Like long hours of work Prefer celibacy over sex Have one testicle or less Some Java experience preferred Salary irrelevant Our Benefits Package includes: Free housing on our beautiful, freshly renovated, smoke-free El Rancho campus Free uniforms, Nike sneakers and haircuts Free on-site spiritual counseling (mandatory) Free subscription to "Alien Abductions Illustrated" plus an all-expenses-paid trip to the annual Trek-o-Rama in sunny San Diego Free room-service meals, including our famous all-you-can-eat "Phenobarbital Pudding" and "Guyanese Apple Sauce," both made from our own secret recipe Free Group Afterlife Insurance Please e-mail your résumé to Do@wacko.org or snail-mail it to: Heaven's Gate Communications 86-D Hale-Bopp Way Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067 Please reply before the next comet comes near Earth. * * * First 25 applicants will receive a free purple shroud! * * * The Heaven's Gate Nursery Rhyme With apologies to the late Dr. Seuss Written by Jeffrey D. Warren There was a cult named Heaven's Gate. Those 39 they could not wait. After Hale-Bopp it was too late. That zany Mr. Applegate! The UFO they said they'd find, Trailed Hale-Bopp not far behind. A crazier notion I've yet to find. At what point did they lose their mind? They did not die there in the hall. They did not die against the wall. It seemed that no one tried to stall, Communal phenobarbital. It took no time to close their peepers. The cops just thought they were deep sleepers. My favorite part? Their new black sneakers! Will Nike market them as "Air Grim Reapers"? Now this is the part I really hate: The testicles they did castrate. I guess they made no plans to mate. They could not even masturbate! I guess when you figure death cannot wait, There is no time to masturbate. What!? No time to masturbate!? Why would ANYONE join Heaven's Gate!? This one belief they did all share: For life on earth they did not care. Their families thought it wasn't fair. Hey, what was their fucked-up hair? The media cannot help debate What caused them to direct their fate. Was it Mr. Applegate? Who cares? They were nuts! I think it's great. I toast them with every vodka sip. Now, who else wants that mothership? One comes to mind -- as I purse my lip. I think Tim McVeigh earned a free one-way trip! (Thanks, James A.) Limericks by Ben Radford The stupid cult Heaven's Gate Was run by a fruity bald-pate.     Although all very nice     They mixed UFOs and Christ And wanted a similar fate. There was a cult in San Diego That believed every UFO fable.     When Hale-Bopp came,     They all went insane, And now lie on a coroner's table. The loonies of the Heaven's Gate nation Loved nothing but masturbation.     Although all were well-rested,     When castration was suggested, Decided they'd prefer suffocation. Signs Your Webmaster Is in a Cult Every link seems to take you to www.amway.com. Repetition of same banner ads: Stoli, Mott's... Stoli, Mott's... He brings twenty-three wives to the office holiday party. Instead of counting up visitors, your site counts down days to the apocalypse. Suddenly your travel agency's site is featuring inter-planetary excursions for comet watching and one-way tickets to Guyana. His home page says: "Best viewed from the Mothership." Your website's "Hall of Fame" inductees required to do stint handing out flowers at airport. Your website is honored as the David Koresh Fan Club's "Site of the Day." He or she has 38 roommates, yet is oddly stress-free. Insists that Sabbath actually begins when "The X-Files" ends. Frequently mutters about the "Prophet Steve Jobs" returning to rescue the true believers. Not only does he understand UNIX, he *is* one. The big "N" on your browser replaced by spinning head of Charles Manson. He only answers to the name, "Do-bert." Ugly clothes; insufficient diet; lack of sleep; goofy haircut; lives in a mansion; has many followers... Hey, wait a minute! That's Bill Gates!