TOURBUS: Thursday, October 3, 1996

DRIVER: Patrick Crispen

TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP:
Dave Barry


Hi, kids.  :)

Several of our extremely northern TOURBUS riders took exception to my
recent comment that Canada is a "frozen tundra."  Not being one who wants
to jump to unwarranted conclusions, I decided to visit Yahoo's weather
service this morning to see what Toronto's
weather will actually be like later this week.  On Wednesday, the day
before I fly into the Great White North, Toronto's high temperature will be
a rather "southern" 73 degrees Fahrenheit (23 C).  Toronto's high
temperature on Thursday, however, will be *48* degrees (8 C)!

Gee, that sounds like TUNDRA weather to me.  I'm not complaining, though --
I'd choose tundra weather over THUNDER/SUN every day of the week! :)
*---------------------( THE NOODLES ARE COMING!! )-------------------*
The Flying Noodle has a cool collection of gourmet pastas and sauces.
Mention The Tourbus and we'll take $5 off your first order over $20.
*--------------------( http://www.flyingnoodle.com )-----------------*

Since my last few TOURBUS posts have sort of been on the serious side, I
decided that we should pull our little bus of Internet happiness into a
couple of really fun sites this week.

DAVE BARRY

If I were to make a list of my favorite humor authors, Dave Barry would
definitely be at the top of the list.  Dave Barry is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning syndicated humor columnist at the Miami Herald.  Dave's
comedy is the inspiration for the CBS television show "Dave's World," and
Dave's weekly columns appear in hundreds of newspapers world-wide.

One of the many newspapers that carries Dave's weekly humor columns is the
University of Alabama's student newspaper, "The Crimson White" (a.k.a. "The
Crimson Blight").  Unfortunately, the Crimson White does not print Dave's
columns on a regular basis, so your fearless bus driver is often forced to
turn to the Net for his weekly dose of Dave.

Since Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, the best
place I know of to find Dave's latest weekly column is on the Miami
Herald's official Dave Barry page at http://www.herald.com/tropic/barry/

This page has links to Dave's 6 most recent newspaper columns.  The Denver
Post also puts Dave's articles on the Web at http://www.denverpost.com/empire/barry.htm but the Denver Post only puts *one* of Dave's columns on the Web each week,
and that column is usually a couple of weeks old (translation: you best bet
is to visit the Miami Herald's homepage first).

There is a *huge* archive of Dave Barry columns at the San Jose Mercury's
"Mercury Center Web" site, but unfortunately you have to be a Mercury
Center Web subscriber to be able to access this library.  (It costs $4.95 a
month to subscribe, but subscribers do get full online access to all of the
San Jose Mercury's news stories and wire service reports, their Dave Barry
library, and their *HUGE* online collection of *daily* comic strips,
including B.C., Doonesbury, Garfield, and Non Sequitur).

Mercury Center Web does have a few Dave Barry columns that you can read for
free, though.  Dave Barry recently wrote a book titled "Dave Barry's
Complete Guide to Guys," and the nice folks at the Mercury Center Web site
were kind enough to put six columns from this book on the Web  at http://www.sjmercury.com/living/dbarry/guyslibe.htm

While all of the columns are charming, you really owe it to yourself to
read the second column in this series, "Tips for women: How to have a
relationship with a guy," at http://www.sjmercury.com/living/dbarry/guys2.htm

This column is easily one of the funniest things I have ever read, and the
'conversation in the car' caused me to laugh so hard that I could hardly
breathe.  :)

Finally, the nice folks at Yahoo! (did you honestly think that I could get
through a month without making some reference to Yahoo?) have also put a
couple of Dave's columns on the Web.  Dave's newest book, "Dave Barry in
Cyberspace," is going to be released on October 9, and to celebrate the
release, the folks at Yahoo! Internet Life have placed *14* (yes, I said
14!) columns from the book on the Web at http://www.yil.com/yil/dbarry/index.html

You'll have to read these 14 columns pretty quickly, though.  Once Dave
book comes out on October 9th, these columns will be taken off of the Web
forever.  :(

Again, while all of Dave's articles are delightful, I particularly want to
recommend:

     "The Evil Genius of MS-DOS" (the 5th of the 14 columns) Originally posted on Friday, September 13, 1996
     


     "Internet Shorthand" (the 11th of the 14th columns) Actually, this is also titled "Living with Computers: Part V:
     Making Sense on Usenet" Originally posted on Friday, September 27, 1996
     

By the way, at the bottom of most of the Dave Barry articles at Yahoo!
Internet life is a box asking you if you would like to be sent e-mail when
YIL puts up a new Dave Barry column.  Since most of the columns are already
"up," and since all of the columns are going to disappear in just a little
over a week, it would be pretty silly for you to fill this box out.  :)

That's it for this week!  Have a safe and happy weekend, and I will keep
you in my thoughts as I freeze to death on the tundra. :)
--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------

CHICK - Noun.  To inspect or monitor.
URAL - Noun.   Petroleum product belonging to the person being
               addressed.

Usage: "Chick ural, mistah?"

(Special thanks goes to "MEPeterson" for today's wurd)

YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html