USENET for fun and terror

sorabji.com: Surfwatch: USENET for fun and terror
By Christopher on Tuesday, January 20, 1998 - 06:41 pm:
    Tunneling through DejaNews looking at postings from various and sundry , including my devil worshipping clients. Yes, they are scarey, but I think they must look sort of funny running around in hooded robes, or worse yet...NAKED! I found a really interesting recipe for Absinthe too! I knew there must be a practical use for wormwood. Oh boy---What fun working in San Francisco!
By Nelly on Wednesday, January 21, 1998 - 10:07 pm:
    stumpers-l. It's for reference librarians (the ones who try to answer any and all questions from library patrons), the title is sort of self-explanatory.

    This listserv list archive is unfortunately not on Usenet (or not on DejaNews anyway) but I stumbled across its "search the Gopher server" web thing tonight and had lots of random giggles and moments of elucidation while poking around. Topics I remember:

    actual scientific measurements of the effect of radiation on golf balls.
    origin of the band name "Alice Cooper"
    possible derivations of the term "pissant"
    elections that were decided by one vote
    2 novels without any e's, one in English and one in French (subsequenly translated into English)
    the poem that begins with the line, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple"
    a recipe for spotted dick
    how the mascot for the list came to be a wombat.

    The vastness of these people's memories awes me.
By Sorabji on Wednesday, January 21, 1998 - 10:36 pm:
    wow, i forgot about the old stumpers list. i turend to stumpers a couple of years ago after seeing "Four Weddings and a Funeral." I needed to know the who/what/why of the poem read at the funeral. so i sent it to someone from stumpers (not to the actual list) and got an answer straight-away.

    Nowadays I would simply call the New York Public Library or type a full sentence (with quotes) into Altavista.
By Nelly on Wednesday, January 21, 1998 - 11:12 pm:
    well i had to look, and indeed, you were not a lone. I searched the archive and that question got asked over and over... someone said, it was cited as one of the 5 top reference questions at the N.Y.P.L. in 1994. It was the title variations under which the poem was published or known that stumped people. The movie staff didn't do their authority work... shoulda asked the librarians...

    never saw the movie, was it good?
By Sorabji on Tuesday, February 24, 1998 - 10:52 pm:
    the movie was satisfactory. it would have been utter fluff without that poem.