It's just too good to be true! This being Marchday, or the First of March, it is my almost intolerable pleasure to welcome you to the FOURTH ANNUAL MIGHTY MARCHDAY ALT.SLACK RMGROUP People occasionally ask why I rmgroup alt.slack every March 1. I will tell you. HISTORY OF THE EVENT * In March 1990, I rmgrouped alt.slack, and someone posted a sendsys bomb aimed at me. In three days I had received over 3,000 sys files from sites as far away as Japan and the Netherlands. For two days I laughed very hard at this prank, and answered the real mai lthat came in about it. For example: From: mkibler@ece.wsu.edu (Michael K. Kibler) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 90 16:48:37 PST > I just get mail from my news system that it had sent you our > news file. Being a novice news/nntp user I would like to know > what this is about. I am always glad to be helpful. Nevertheless the person who forged the sendsys did not restrict its distribution to the United States, and so innocent bystanders in foreign countries had to pay real money to support the prank. I was no longer happy when the sys files started arriving from overseas. * In March 1991, nobody played any pranks. One person sent bitter mail to my news administrator demanding that my account and news access be revoked. Since I did not have an account on any machine that my news admin managed, and news here is provided by NNTP to the entire university, he was unable to even consider complying with these demands. He was upset to receive hate mail from these people, however, and I was sorry to have made him upset. Still it was an improvement on 1990. * In March 1992, nobody wrote to my news admin. Instead, some clever person cancelled my rmgroup message soon after I sent it and replaced it with a spoof newgroup message. This was an improvement on what happened in 1991. The trend seems clearly toward a delightful creativity and constructive action, rather than destruction and authoritarian greyface compulsion. I can hardly wait to see what 1993 brings. WHAT'S THE POINT? The point is that this is the SPRING! A time when EVERYONE celebrates the RENEWAL of life after the winter, the REBIRTH and RE-AWAKENING of the earth! The constant turning of the GREAT WHEEL. What BETTER time to celebrate the bountiful flow of information, the irrepressible aliveness of the net, the ineffectuality of all destructive acts, than by destroying alt.slack, only to see it RISE ONCE AGAIN? WHAT YOU CAN DO GRIN and send out a newgroup message. Join me next year and post your OWN Marchday rmgroup message. CHUCKLE and WHOOP and flap your arms like a CHICKEN. REVEL in the sheer RANDOMNESS of FATE. Write a PAMPHLET. Celebrate the return of alt.slack, like the PHOENIX RISING FROM ITS OWN ASHES, by posting a really excellent slacky post to alt.slack as soon as it comes back! IF YOU'RE ANGRY Don't write to my news admin; he's only met me once. Don't write to the people who manage the machine I posted this from; it won't do any good, since I don't have an account there. Complaints to my system administrator are unlikely to prove effective since---guess what?---my system administrator is *me*. If you want to complain, therefore, you should complain to *me*, and not to some nebulous authority. Wouldn't it be better to accomplish what you want by persuasion instead of coercion? I invite mail in any case. The 1991 rmgroup message drew enough interesting mail to form a substantial part of the 1992 rmgroup message. IF YOU'RE ANGRY AND YOU DON'T WANT TO WRITE Go to the bathroom. IF YOU'RE STILL ANGRY Play the official PISSED OFF AT MARCHDAY GUESSING GAME and try to attribute this passage: I hope this does piss you off, you DUMBASS ZEALOTS! Hell, go ahead, bring on those psychic curses! Beg your "BOB" to destroy me! I fear none of your pitiful witch-doctor hexes, based as they are on patently absurd superstitions, for the power of the almighty "BOB" gives me Dominion over you. Begone, unclean spirit! IF YOU'RE STILL ANGRY Ho ho ho! Getting ALL WORKED UP because someone removed your favorite group, alt.SLACK? See something WRONG with this picture? NO? Here's my answer to you then: GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE! WHETHER YOU'RE ANGRY OR NOT Enjoy your life and take a little time out to admire the young grass that is probably just beginning to grow. See you next year at this time. Mark-Jason Dominus Grand Vizopteryx, Discordian Society entropy@alembic.acs.com (Dick Feynman Epopterie)