From bobrankin@MHV.NET Thu Jan 8 23:43:01 1998
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 01:37:11 -0500
From: Bob Rankin
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS - 1 JAN 1998 - TOURBUS FAQ FILE
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| "Why | Surf When / You Can | Ride The | Bus?" / | \
|__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/ | \
/ /______|----\
| Visit the TOURBUS Web site to see the Archives, |//////| |
| FAQ, and Subscription Information! |//////| |
| http://www.TOURBUS.com |//////| |
\________________________________________________________|______|____|
/ \ / \ / \
\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP: THE TOURBUS FAQ FILE
Howdy, y'all! :) (This is Patrick's message, sent by Bob.)
Your fearless bus driver is [finally] back from oral surgery! The good
news is that I finally got rid of my overbite. The bad news is that my
mouth will be wired shut for the next six weeks, so it is a tad bit
difficult for me to speak. But, as my father [the Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen]
is fond of reminding me
The good Lord gave us two eyes and two ears and only one mouth to
remind us of the fact that, as Martin Farquhar Tupper put it,
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.". But then
He went and gave us ten fingers to type with, and here we are.
Anyway, happy new year to everyone! I'd also like to extend a special tip
of the hat to our riders who are currently observing the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan [an event that is sometimes overlooked in the U.S. press]. Bob
and I have a _LOT_ of neat stuff in store for _ALL_ of you in 1998, so I
hope that you will continue to sit back and enjoy the ride.
As I said back around the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, TOURBUS has two
traditions:
1. Our annual "spam" post which is sent out every Thanksgiving;
and
2. Our annual "frequently answered questions" which is sent out
every January.
Since this is the first post of 1998, tradition dictates that I share with
you the recently-updated third "First Annual TOURBUS Frequently Answered
Questions" file. :)
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WHAT *IS* TOURBUS?
------------------
TOURBUS is a free, on-going, semi-weekly, text-based tour of some of the
neatest sites on the Internet. TOURBUS' posts are written by Bob Rankin
[author of "Accessing the Internet by E-mail"] and me [Patrick Douglas
Crispen, professional college student author of the ROADMAP workshop], and
are distributed via a LISTSERV e-mail distribution list at America Online.
What makes TOURBUS unique is that each TOURBUS post not only gives you the
addresses of neat Internet sites, it also gives you a really in-depth look
at how to fully use those sites. Surf the Net for any amount of time and
you will soon discover that many of the Internet's most exciting sites do
not come with instruction manuals. TOURBUS helps you overcome that problem.
Bob and I also try to make each TOURBUS post as conversational -- and
humorous -- as possible. Above everything else, the Internet is FUN ...
and Bob and I try to show that in our TOURBUS posts. :)
---------------------------
HOW MUCH DOES TOURBUS COST?
---------------------------
Nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
TOURBUS is absolutely free. All of the costs associated with running the
TOURBUS list are paid by our sponsors.
---------------------------------------
WHEN ARE THE TOURBUS POSTS DISTRIBUTED?
---------------------------------------
Its kind of hard to say. TOURBUS is, for the most part, distributed every
Tuesday-ish and Thursday-ish.
----
ISH?
----
Well, sometimes we are a little late in getting these posts out. If you
want to be technical [or at least "statistical"], I guess you could say
that TOURBUS has a probability distribution centered around Tuesday and
Thursday, with a standard deviation of a day or two. :)
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IS THERE AN ARCHIVE OF PAST TOURBUS POSTS?
------------------------------------------
Yep! You can find the TOURBUS archives and a whole bunch of other TOURBUS
stuff on TOURBUS' homepage at
http://www.tourbus.com/
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HEY! THAT'S A WEB ADDRESS! I DON'T HAVE A WEB BROWSER!!
--------------------------------------------------------
Don't panic! You can still access the TOURBUS homepage [and, for that
matter, ANY other Web page] through e-mail using the information contained
in Bob Rankin's free guide "Accessing the Internet by E-mail." To find out
how to get this guide and how you can still participate in my ROADMAP
Internet training workshop, send an e-mail letter to
LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU
(that's "you-aye-won-vee-em") with the command
GET NEWUSER PACKAGE F=MAIL
in the body of your e-mail letter.
----------------------------------------
HOW CAN MY FRIENDS SUBSCRIBE TO TOURBUS?
----------------------------------------
Just have them send an e-mail letter to
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
with the command
SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS YOURFIRSTNAME YOURLASTNAME
in the body of their letter, replacing YOURFIRSTNAME and YOURLASTNAME with
their first and last names. That's it. :)
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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TOURBUS AND TOURBUS PLUS?
--------------------------------------------------------
TOURBUS [the newsletter that you are reading right now] is a free,
on-going, semi-weekly (Tuesday-ish and Thursday-ish), advertiser-supported,
text-based tour of some of the neatest sites on the Internet.
TOURBUS Plus! is a new pay subscription service (US$10 a year for 52 posts)
for people who want an additional TOURBUS post every week. Published every
Saturday-ish, TOURBUS Plus! is an exclusive newsletter available only to
TOURBUS Plus' subscribers. Besides offering tours of neat Web sites,
TOURBUS Plus! also includes:
- Interviews with cyberspace celebrities;
- Free software and other geeky giveaways (we gave away two Sing-
and-Snore Ernies a few weeks ago);
- Members-only discounts on computer stuff; and
- In-depth tutorials on Internet tools and topics (okay ... we
already do this in TOURBUS ... perhaps it would be better to
say that TOURBUS Plus! offers _MORE_ in-depth tutorials).
Interested in finding out a little more about TOURBUS Plus!? Hop on over
to the new TOURBUS Plus! homepage at
http://www.tourbus.com/plus.htm
Remember, though, that TOURBUS [the newsletter that you are reading right
now] is free, and will remain free ... and TOURBUS will continue to offer
the same in-depth information and online coverage that we have offered for
the past two years. TOURBUS Plus! is just a way to help me pay the evil
folks at Regions Bank who actually expect me to pay back my student loans.
:P
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WHERE DO YOU AND BOB GET YOUR IDEAS FOR THE TOURBUS STOPS?
----------------------------------------------------------
Bob and I receive a lot of suggestions from the TOURBUS riders [like "get a
life"], but most of the sites that we write about are sites that we
accidentally find while surfing the Net. :)
--------------------------------
HOW DID YOU AND BOB RANKIN MEET?
--------------------------------
Well, actually, we've never met.
I know Bob from the NETTRAIN e-mail discussion list, and Bob and I have
exchanged hundreds of e-mails and a couple dozen phone calls over the past
couple years, but I have no idea what Bob looks like ... and, from what I
hear, that's a good thing! :)
Bob e-mailed me shortly after the end of my last Roadmap workshop with the
idea of creating a sponsor-supported, two or three week workshop of neat
Internet sites. I suggested that we make the workshop on-going ... and the
rest, as they say, is history. :)
-----------------------------------
ARE YOU *REALLY* A COLLEGE STUDENT?
-----------------------------------
Unfortunately, yes. I am an 11th-year senior at the University of Alabama
majoring in Economics ... but, in light of the success of my Southern Word
collection, I'm thinking about changing my major to "Ala-bonics." :)
-------------------------------
WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GRADUATE?
-------------------------------
I dunno, mom ... sometime in 1998. :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
YOU KEEP MENTIONING "SQUIRRELS" IN YOUR POSTS AND IN YOUR SIGNATURE.
WHAT'S THE STORY?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The number one cause of power outages in the United States? The weather
(electrical storms, snow, etc.). The number two cause? Squirrels!
You don't believe me? Just come to the University of Alabama! It seems
that the squirrels living in the trees on the campus of the University of
Alabama have developed quite a taste for power lines ... especially for the
power lines leading into the University's mainframe computer center [if you
are not electrically inclined, let me just add that energetic squirrels and
power lines do not mix well].
Back when I was running the Roadmap workshop [that online Internet training
thingy that I did in 1994], I was really concerned that if the University
of Alabama's mainframe was taken down by a squirrel [which was a regular
occurrence at the time] and I was not able to deliver that day's Roadmap
lesson to the 64,000 people in the workshop, the workshop participants
would panic and mailbomb me with 64,000 "where is today's lesson?" messages.
By telling the subscribers up front to expect a squirrel attack, I kept
myself from being mailbombed, I elevated Alabama's squirrels to Net-legend
status [people around the world were even rooting for the squirrels], and I
gained a really neat "trademark." :)
------------------------------------------------
WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY?
------------------------------------------------
The TOURBUS subscribers send them in to me. I may not be able to respond
to everyone who has sent me a submission, but I have saved every Southern
Word that I have received (at last count I have about 350 letters in my
"Southern Word" mailbox folder).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE AN ARCHIVE WHEN I CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep! Just point your web browser to
http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/word.html
If that doesn't work, try going to Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/) and do a
keyword search for "Crispen." Yahoo has two links to the Southern Word
archive.
A couple of alert TOURBUS readers have informed me that you can also find a
couple Southern Word dictionaries in your local bookstore:
How to Speak Southern
by Steve Mitchell
ISBN 0-553-27519-4
Price: $3.99 (US)
More How to Speak Southern
by Steve Mitchell
ISBN 0-553-27392-2
Price: $3.99 (US)
-----------------------------------------------------
AND FINALLY, WHAT'S TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY?
-----------------------------------------------------
MOEBLOME (Noun). A house with wheels
TAR-NADIR (Noun). A weather anomaly used to drop houses on the wicked
witches.
Usage: I doe-no what it is 'bout moeblomes that attracts tar-nadirs.
(Special thanks to "Pat" for today's wurd)
YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/word.html
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
For info on my book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway"
Visit http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/atlas.html
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=====================[ TOURBUS Rider Information ]===================
The Internet TOURBUS - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238
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Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to hop on the Bus!
=====================================================================
.~~~. ))
(\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~
{o_, \ { crispen@brigadoon.com
/ , , ) \ http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/
`~ '-' \ } ))
_( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels.
'---..{____}
