|
|
Callahan's August 1999 Bar Rag!"To Callahan's Warmth
| ||||||||||
|
July has always been a good month. Hoping your joy outweighs your pain. ******SMASH****** -- Bright (ABRIGHT11) July 4 General Discussion Our big news this month is the breaching of the membrane that has been separating us from our friends at alt.callahans, one of the busiest usenet groups in cyberspace. PunsterGal led the way to this breakthrough and has been named Ambassador to Fictons, Known and Unknown. Several new friends from alt.callahans have joined us both on the board and in conference, and several of us have visited there..:) We are *very* grateful to PunsterGal for accepting her assignment! And it's always nice to be able to announce the appointment of a new tender. Walt WWW3 is our newest conference tender and can usually be found in our Punday Night conference on Tuesday Nights. Be sure to stop by and congratulate him and thank him for his help. Last month I wrote An Imperfect History of Callahan's as our July feature article. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I offer the link again this month because the article has been substantially expanded since last month and you may find it worth reading a second time. And the beat goes on...! We've added considerably to our Poetry About Callahan's page this month. There were a total of seven such poems for the month of June, a new record. Also, we've added a new Staff Page to accompany our long standing Patron's Page. We hope you'll enjoy learning more about our staff and tenders. Two great news stories in the conference area this month. As Lou noted above, Walt has been named our newest conference tender. Be sure to stop by and say "Thanks" when you see him! And MOM Irish, Patt and Mike's Mom, visited with us on July 24 and reported that Mike was doing great, and that he hopes to be back online very soon. She also gave Patt some tips on being a good tender. Gee, aren't Moms great :-) So Patt, gonna share those tips with our other tenders..? Traditionally, participation in our conferences falls off during summer months (in the US) as people go on vacations and stay outside longer into the night. Still, we've had a pretty good turnout in our summertime conferences so far. About 50 to 75 people show up every night over a several hour time period and any one of them may soon become a regular here. Be sure to make the newcomers welcome..:) Lou held an impromptu Birthday Bash to celebrate Callahan's Sixth birthday when Cat MADCATTER, a former Manager here, unexpectedly showed up one Friday night. After 20 minutes or so, Cat noted that some things, like the camaraderie of Callahan's, never change. She even donned a (functional) apron and tended for awhile. Party favors and balloons were distributed and one of the many toasts of the night was: "To Nick, who started it, and Lou who maintains it, long may it continue - Callahan's" Lou quickly noted that it was the staff, tenders and patrons who maintain the place..:) July was History and Biography month at Callahan's, as well as the sixth birthday for Callahan's on Delphi. Happy Birthday, Callahan's!! Each month, a different section of the board seems to shine....this month, it was Creative Writing. Two installments of ANGELDRAGON 5 by Countess Drakulya were posted this month. A mystery presented, and a mystery solved. Spend a few minutes with the Countess and her dragons. YOLA'S REMINISCENCES was also presented in two installments, and tells us of a case of pride, and just desserts. A newcomer to our board, MSONEOF7 gave us A STORY; David Brewer gave us LITTLE RED-HEADED BOY NEXT DOOR. My words can't do either story justice, you need to read them yourselves. One of my favorite lines from a story from this month comes from Will (SirWill99) in RELATIVITY: "....the entire purpose of those innumerable stars, incomprehensible in size and distance, was to sparkle in the evening dew collected on the web of a common house spider." bardabard started it! In SANDS OF THE SAHARA, he speculated that the bones of a polar bear, found in the Sahara, could have been from a bear who was building sand castles. But wait! There could be other explanations - and we tried to come up with some. Was he searching for a female companion? For a return to his ancestral homelands? In search of Eskimo pies? Abducted by aliens? I admit it, my favorite story thread this month is MORE GREAT LIES FROM CALLAHAN'S. Each person that posts, tells the story, as far-fetched or as true as they like, of how they came to Callahan's. Some are funny, some poignant, some riveting. You have all been wonderful about posting your stories, and I hope that as other people read the thread, they will feel free to post their own story, whether a day, a month, or a year has gone by. The writing talent that you have shown in that, and other threads, has been incredible. I hope you will all continue to post your stories at Callahan's. Look at post number 7. If you haven't already noticed, David has been updating his poem contribution to reflect each successive story that's been added. Happy Birthday, Callahan's! Ah, Poetry..... A special announcement was made: our own (we CAN claim him, can't we?) David Brewer was named the gold medal winner of the poetry contest on another Delphi forum, Cafe Des Artistes, for his poem REFUTING ENTROPY. Congratulations, David!! Two other favorites, LEVITY by Pewterpot, and PEONY PLEASURE by Renetta made their mark this month. A new collective sonnet has just been completed by Peter, Selena, Goldie (Eternal Gold,) Yola, David, JP, and Renetta. Amazing.....how can so many people collectively produce a poem that flows like it was written by one person? Does it have a title, Peter? A very special breakthrough was made this month, with an another Callahan's ficton, alt.callahan's. Punstergal, as our first Ambassador to Fictons Known and Unknown, has been visiting there, and inviting them to visit us. We've received several visitors, Lefoxx, Dusty, Anne Marie, Maynard, and perhaps others that have not yet posted. We welcome our new friends from across the "dementia-nal bridge." Several of you have made return visits, including Sharon, Will, and David Brewer. We hope this exchange will continue, and that we'll be able to raise our glasses more frequently:
From DC to AC - Welcome to Callahan's Saloon! Birthday Greetings were heartily extended to:
The first three correct solvers of Mikel's MayDay 1999 Riddle were Beth, PunsterGal and Ilyana.. Congratulations to all. It's a lot easier to create a riddle than to solve one. We're always on the lookout for help with content here so send us your riddle creations today! And see our August 1999 Riddle for your chance to win a Spider Robinson book from our bookstore! One evening, after attending the theater, two gentlemen were walking down the avenue when they observed a rather well dressed and attractive young lady walking ahead of them. One of them turned to the other and remarked, "I'd give $250.00 to spend the night with that woman." Much to their surprise, the young lady overheard the remark, turned around, and replied, "I'll take you up on that offer." She had a neat appearance and a pleasant voice, so after bidding his companion good night, the man accompanied the young lady to her apartment. The following morning the man presented her with $125.00 as he prepared to leave. She demanded the rest of the money, stating "If you don't give me the other $125.00, I'll sue you for it." He laughed, saying, "I'd like to see you get it on these grounds." The next day he was surprised when he received a summons ordering his presence in court as a defendant in a lawsuit. He hurried to his lawyer and explained the details of the case. His lawyer said "She can't possibly get a judgment against you on such grounds, but it will be interesting to see how her case will be presented." After the usual preliminaries, the lady's lawyer addressed the court as follows: "Your honor, my client, this lady, is the owner of a piece of property, a garden spot, surrounded by a profuse growth of shrubbery, which property she agreed to rent to the defendant for a specified length of time for the sum of $250.00. The defendant took possession of the property, used it extensively for the purposes for which it was rented, but upon evacuating the premises, he paid only $125.00, one-half of the amount agreed upon. The rent was not excessive, since it is restricted property, and we ask judgment be granted against the defendant to assure payment of the balance." The defendant's lawyer was impressed and amused by the way his opponent had presented the case. His defense, therefore was somewhat different from the way he originally planned to present it. "Your Honor," he said, "My client agrees that the lady has a fine piece of property, that he did rent such property for a time, and a degree of pleasure was derived from the transaction. However, my client found a well on the property around which he placed his own stones, sunk a shaft, and erected a pump, all labor performed personally by him. We claim these improvements to the property were sufficient to offset the unpaid amount, and that the plaintiff was adequately compensated for the rental of said property. We, therefore, ask that judgment not be granted." The young lady's lawyer answered, "Your honor, my client agrees that the defendant did find a well on her property. However, had the defendant not known that the well existed, he would never have rented the property. Also, upon evacuating the premises, the defendant removed the stones, pulled out the shaft, and took the pump with him. In doing so, he not only dragged the equipment through the shrubbery, but left the hole much larger than it was prior to his occupancy, making the property much less desirable to others as well as an unsafe condition for children. We, therefore, ask that judgment be granted." In the Judge's decision, he provided for two options: "pay the 125.00 or have the equipment detached and provided to the plaintiff for damages." The defendant wrote a check immediately. -- from Bright (ABRIGHT11) Poem of the Month - A Thought Away July's brief and elegant poem is Kestrel's. It was prompted by one of our usual literary disputes, which make life so lively on Callahan's.
It was just a simple question
But a butterfly in China
I once asked a man -- kestrel July 1, 1999 The Punday Night topic was "Cartoons" what does Tweety say after watching a Cosby commercial? .... I tink I taw a pudding Tnack! -- Bjorn (BEJORN) Punday Night July 12 Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte We hope you find the Bar Rag entertaining and informative. We can always use good pieces and writers here. If you have something you would like to submit, or have a comment, good or bad, about the newsletter, or if you wish to be added to or removed from our Bar Rag mailing list, simply send us a note. |