As The Library Sinks

In the beginning, there were bricks.

There were also Lords of the Bricks. These were known as Trustees.

The Trustees said "Let there be swamp!" And there was. And They saw that it was good.

The Trustees said "Let there be bricks in the swamp!" And lo, the swamp was filled to overflowing with red bricks.

The Trustees said "Gee, this is nice, but all of these bricks are just kind of lumped there in the swamp, with no purpose. These bricks must have a purpose. Let Us build a Library from these bricks, that We may pass on Our great knowledge."

"But," queried one Trustee, "who will We pass on Our knowledge to?"

"Well, students, I suppose," replied the Lord High Trustee.

"But what will they give Us in return for this knowledge?"

"Lots and lots of money, of course. Now shut up."

On the next day, the Trustees created the first Library. They took many, many bricks and assembled them into a beautiful brick palace, with towering spires and minarets reaching the storm-clouded heavens. Then, They compiled Their considerable knowledge into thousands of huge, weighty tomes. Then, they put the books in the great Library.

The Library promptly sank into the swamp.

On the day after that, the Trustees created the second Library. This Library was not as beautiful as the first, but it was still quite impressive. It had high, vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses. The Trustees re-compiled Their knowledge into some smaller, less-impressive books. Then, in Their infinite wisdom, They put the books in the Library.

Which promptly sank into the swamp.

On the day after _that_, a rather miffed Board of Trustees created the third Library. This Library was a wonderful wooden mansion, with quite impressive architecture (They thought wood would be lighter than bricks). Then, They re-re-compiled their knowledge into even smaller, plain-looking books, which the Trustees put into the Library.

The Library burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.

On the day after __that__, the Trustees, now truly pissed off, created the fourth and final Library. It was not beautiful. It was not impressive. It was a box made of bricks. The Trustees re-re-re-compiled Their knowledge (by this time, of course, it was incomplete and error-ridden) into a bunch of tiny, ugly books. Then, They put the books into the Library.

The Library shifted a little, tipped precariously, sank about three inches, and then settled. But it didn't sink into the swamp.

The Trustees breathed a collective sigh of relief, and then set about the business of attracting the students who would give Them lots and lots of money. To this end, They erected more brick buildings, and, in fact, created a whole Brick Kingdom in the swamp. They named it RIT, and saw that it was good.

In time, students came to the Brick Kingdom. Some of these students were very peculiar. This is their story...

Introduction written by Michael Croghan, dated 12-OCT-1990 23:11:48.84.

Contents

• 1. untitled
• 2. untitled
• 3. untitled
• 4. untitled
• 5. untitled
• 6. untitled
• 7. Putri-Fry
• 8. The subject is committed!" -Bert Schnick
• 9. The Vax Pascal Compiler
• 10. Now what?
• 11. untitled
• 12. (Pete & Paul) & (Mike & Tina) & (Jordan & Phil)
• 13. rents

1. untitled

Author: BJP2399 - Creeping Doofas
Date: 4-OCT-1990 18:32:18.59

"Mike!" The woman's voice sounded sharp and clear.

"Tina!" The man's voice echoed the woman's excitement.

"Mike!" She ran at him with full force.

"Tina!" He opened his arms, and waited for her.

"Mike....oh..Mike!" She cried happily when she reached his open arms.

"Tina....oh..Tina!" He purred, rubbing her back.

"I knew you wouldn't forget me." Tina looked at him with loving eyes, letting her shoulder length blonde hair fall into tangles.

Mike pulled her closer, "Oh, Tina, I could never forget you."

"It's been so long." Tina stretched up to meet his lips.

"Too long." Mike met her with a passionate kiss, pulling her even tighter against his body.

He rubbed his hands against her soft pink sweater, massaging her back. Their breathing increased as Mike gently laid her down to the floor, their lips never parted.

Pete flicked the button on his remote control, nothing but soap operas were on at this time of the day. Granted, they did have interesting sexual relations, but nothing as steamy as a good porno movie.

Tossing his Operating Systems book aside, he jumped off the bed and took a look at his roomate's fractal program. Multiple colors wove in and out on the computer screen, one hue quickly replaced the next.

Bored, Pete decided to see if anyone was on home on the floor. Maybe he could ask Phil a question about Physics, a problem that had been bothering him for the last two years. Walking out side, he watched the floor's RA quickly run into her room, as if to avoid him. "Hullow Bruce." He managed to yell out before she could escape. Yawning, Pete walked down the hall towards Phil's room. Before he could react, something flew out of Phil's room, it was.....

2. untitled

Author: PMB1566 - Peter Barella (Gay Sex Rules)
Date: 4-OCT-1990 19:58:01.35

a videotape. A thought struck Pete: Gee... "That was the straight porno flick I was just watching. Whatever did I give Phil?"

"What the hell kind of porno flick is this, Phil?" Rob's voice boomed from Phil's room. "You poofta!"

"No, it's not like that. You see, it's Pete's tape," pleaded Phil.

Mary Anna charmed in. "Yeah, right Phil. I see all those looks you sneak at Rob."

"I never..." Phil stopped in mid sentence the way Phil stops in mid sentence. Phil looked confused. Phil looked at his watch. "Well, I gotta go now. See ya." Phil put on his jacket and took off and headed for the academic tunnels. He completely missed Pete, who was still standing in the hallway trying to decide if this was an appropriate time to enter Phil's room.

"Since I came to talk to Phil, and Phil is no longer here, I can leave and go watch a videotape. But I do not have any interesting video tapes at this time." Pete thought a few logical thoughts. Then, realizing how sick he was of being logical, he returned to reality and remembered the video tape lying on the floor. So he took it and headed back to his room to watch it.

Reaching his door, he found it locked. He whipped out his keys and was about to unlock the door when he noticed his "Pete" sign on the door was missing. This meant Mike and Tina were going at it. Damn, and he hadn't started the video recorder either. Well, that was life. So he headed down to Nates. Maybe they would run the tape on their video recorder. Then he could watch the movie on the really big TV. (That is, television and NOT transvestite.)

Upon entering Nates, he...

3. untitled

Author: PMB1566 - Peter Barella (Gay Sex is Best)
Date: 31-OCT-1990 16:20:06.71

Upon entering Nates, he got many strange looks. Most of them were due to the gender conflict between his 5 o'clock shadow and the skirt he was wearing. The Nates clerk looked confused, but took his order without asking any questions. Pete got the shake he had ordered, and went to watch the televison. But since everyone in Nates was watching a football game, which Pete wasn't interested in. (Football has good looking men in it, but they all have too much clothing on. Pete prefers when men wear no padding, except, possibly, a latex... Anyway...)

Pete took off to ...

4. untitled

Author: MJC8443
Date: 3-NOV-1990 19:52:55.40

... Pete took off for Watson Lab, where he found the attractive male labbie, naked, bent over his VAX terminal. Seeing his chance, he...

(Voice of Graham Chapman as the Colonel)

STOP! Stop this right now! This is not only silly, this is filth! This forum has degenerated into nothing short of SMUT! I want it stopped immediately.

(Sounds of grumbling assent from the writers of the forum)

(Sound of VAX rewinding [use your imagination])

... this is their story ...

It was Saturday morning in Brick Hell, and it was raining. Depressed but unsurprised by this reality, Jordan yawned, stretched, hit his head on the ceiling, fell off his RIT Experimental Dorm Furniture System (Version 1.02), got up, opened his door, and tripped over the seam in the carpet.

Picking himself up, Jordan looked down the hall in time to see...

5. untitled

Author: BJP2399 - Creeping Doofas
Date: 17-NOV-1990 11:00

....Brock barreling down the corridor with his axe in hand. CHOP, Brock had just hacked off his roomate's head, and was now heading for Pete's room (Of course, this was all fake since Brock had a plastic axe, but he was a demented soul and needed the pleasure of destorying things even if it was fake). Jordan yawned again. With hands in pockets, he lowered his head and wandered down the hall, hoping to escape Brock's swinging sythe (which is also plastic).

Stumbling over a cockroach in the hallway, Jordan continued toward his destination. Pushing his way through the resisting door, he heard Brock rev a plastic chasing and chase Tina down the hallway. Before Jordan could react, his shoelaces became untied, causing him to tumble forward face first. Flailing helplessly on the ground, he looked up and saw Phil leaving his room.

"Well," Phil shouted like Phil always shouts, "I see you're up bright and early."

"Yeah." Jordan smiled and tried to stand, but a string from the carpet tripped him again, hurling him into Phil's room.

Pete, dressed in Tina's clothes, raced down the hallway, passing Phil's room. Behind him, Tina followed, screaming and raving about him stealing her clothes. Mike trailed behind her, reaching for her pumping.. Ahem... And Brock brought up the rear, chasing all of them with a watergun.

"Intersting morning." Jordan commented as he pushed on the bed to help himself up. Of course, he reached for Rob's bed and grabbed Mariana's leg by mistake. In her sleep, Mariana kicked Jordan in the chest, knocking back on the ground, then hugged closer to Rob, muttering something about whipped cream.

A sudden blast of multiple brass instruments accompanied with a pair of basses and pianos echoed through Colby C. Intrigued by the awsome display of tones, Phil and Jordan stepped into the hallway to follow the sounds. As they stepped out, Mike, fully unclothed, sped past, followed quickly by Pete who was now wearing Mike's clothing and carrying Tina's. Tina, wearing Pete's clothing and still screaming in frustration, chased after Pete. Behind her, Brock, still in his own garb, lumbered after them with a unloaded staple gun. Shaking their heads, Jordan and Phil walked toward the room where the groovy music reverberated. Entering, they saw Kevin......

6. untitled

Author: PMB1566 - Peter Barella (Gay Sex is Best)
Date: 3-DEC-1990 20:04

...they saw Kevin chatting with Neil, who had his walkman at .25 volume.

"It's so great to be back here at RIT. The power is free - my electricity bills were expensive, since I had to keep recharging my walkman batteries."

"How many watts output does that have?"

"It's at 125 watts now. I've got it at .25 volume. But sound levels don't have a linear curve, so maximum output is 2000 watts. I had lots of trouble using it at work - when I plugged it in and turned it on, the power spike it caused would crash the computer system."

At that, Kevin promptly unplugged his computer system. Then, coming to the realization that it was only an Apple, and that if it fried he would get insurance money from it, he plugged it back in.

Phil walked back to his room for no apparent reason, other than to go back to his room. Being a bit bored, he put on some Art of Noise and pulled out a control box from under the bed. He adjusted some knobs, took some readings, and adjusted more knobs. Finally he pressed a large button which a caption, "Press this button when done." Upon pressing the button,

7. Putri-Fry

Author: PMB1566 - Peter Barella (Gay Sex is Best)
Date: 9-JAN-1991 20:35

he became hungry. So he gathered Peter, Kevin, Mike, Tina, and Jordan together and they set off for Greasies. After eating some bread with tomato sauce on it that Gracies called Pizza, they left. On the way out, the person near the exit ram forcibly gave them all a sheet of paper. It read:

Nasti-News

Why cook with Putri-Fry?

We fry all our food using the Putri-fry sauce. It comes in jugs that look just like Prestone. Why is this, you may ask. Because it is made by the same company that makes the quality anti-freeze coolant you keep in your car. We figure that if they can make quality cooling fluids, oil, and grease for your car then that should be able to make grease for our food that's damn good enough for students.

Putri-fry contains all those ingredients you don't get everywhere else. Many advertisements on television advertise the products saying they are enriched with vitamins and nutrients, but only Putri-fry is enriched with 1000 times the RDA in chloresterol, fat, and grease.

Also, food cooked in Putri-fry tastes like dog feces, which keeps many people from coming back for seconds. This cuts the amount we spend on food, increases our profit margins, and gives everyone one good smegging reason to be on a diet.

And just why do we put WITR on for you to listen to, even though absolutely no one listens to it? We figure if you listen to it enough, it'll begin to have an effect on your mind, even if it is subconciously. Most of WITR's s music is really depressing or deals with death, war, horror, killing, and destruction. If you listen to it enough, you may kill yourself and/or off a few of your friends. If this happens, we get to keep the dough for the unused meals, again increasing our profit margins. No, no refunds. (Didn't you read the small print? No refunds in case of death.)

Putri-Fry: Food to lie down and avoid.

P.S. Here's a note from Physical Plant. If you're going to kill yourself, please do so on campus in the bathrooms. We don't want to get the rugs or grass bloody now, do we? And if you do so on campus, Physical Plant can sell your body to the Science Department to use as a cadaver. They make out because our prices are lower than from off- campus cadaver providers.

Being that this piece of paper was from some RIT person, each person in the group figured it was a worthless piece of RIT paper, so they took it to the mail room and put it into the phone bill box.

8. The subject is committed!" -Bert Schnick

Author: MJC8443
Date: 10-JAN-1991 00:07

Upon emerging from the mail room, our heroes encountered Dave, who was complaining loudly about some ISC-related irRITation. This was not unusual. What was unusual was that Dave was wearing...

9. The Vax Pascal Compiler

Author: PMB1566 - Stop Enforced Heterosexism
Date: 2 lines - 25-JAN-1991 16:54

What was unusual was that Dave was wearing a belt around his waist which contained various size wrenches, nut-drivers, hammers, and screwdrivers.

"Hi Dave! What's with the mechanics tools, Dave?" asked one of the group.

"I was working on vaxe today." This made sense, since Dave worked for ISC. "They want me to work on the Pascal compiler and fix some of the bugs in it. That thing is messed up. It's only got a half- horsepower motor driving the compiler."

"I guess it gets the job done. The administration doesn't use it, so they don't care how fast it is." remarked Peter.

The group set off for...

10. Now what?

Author: JWD7712
Date: 24 lines - 27-JAN-1991 16:38

the gym.

The gym was already packed, with Pres. Rose at the podium. Rose was having a hell of a time trying to get the students to be quiet so he could speak. So, the group left, everyone mumbling about how pathetic the last scene was. They were walking back to the dorm complex.

All of a sudden Brock found sticking half out of the ground a....

20-mm cannon. He jumped up and down in joy, and pulled it out. Attached to it was an instruction book.

1. Load gun with the correct ammunition, which is 20mm depleted-uranium incendiary-explosive. (See Fig. 110a.)
2. Hold gun in assumed position (see Fig. 1a)
3. Press button and Rock 'N' Roll!!!

Brock exclaimed, "I knew that!" He ran off to the dorm complex, not bothering to read the fine print on the book, which said,

"Note, this gun is a military-surplus item, i.e., no firing pin, all barrels plugged."

The rest of the group could not help but mumble, "Oh shit. Here he goes again!"

Then they went off to...

11. untitled

Author: JWD7712
Date: 3-FEB-1991 15:34

They went off to the Ross UCC lab. Each one got their respective terminals and logged on, only to be greeted by a message:

        Hello, this is your dictator ISC.  Welcome to the cold, cruel, uncaring
world of programming and PHONE-calls and MAILing....

        *************************************************************
        *         Notice to All Users of the Vax/VMS System         *
        *                                                           *
        *     All Vax clusters (Vax A, B, C, D, E, F, N) and the    *
        *     will be powered down for a system-wide upgrade and    *
        *     maintenance as of Feb. 7, 1991.  The system will be   *
        *     down until Feb. 30, 1991 (which means forever, as     *
        *     there is no Feb. 30th!!!!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!)  Sorry     *
        *     if I hurt your feelings, but that is what ISC is      *
        *     all about!!!                                          *
        *                                                           *
        *************************************************************

Now they were positively pissed, and wishing that Brock could be there to blast the ISC to bits. Pete said, "Don't worry, I know his number."

He raised Brock on the phone. Brock was fuming as to how the fuck he could get the cannon to work. Paul said to Pete, "I could hear him, and I know why the gun won't work."

Pete: You do?! Why?

Paul: Because it's a fucking military surplus!!! You gotta unplug all the barrels and put in the firing pin.

Pete relayed the message to Brock, who jumped up yelling, "Shit! Shit! Shit!!! Where the fuck do I get 'em?!"

At Brock's place, a weapons dealer suddenly appeared, saying, "I heard you screaming obscenities, and I gather it is for the cannon?"

Brock: Yeah, how the fuck you know about it?

Dealer: I am a weapons dealer, and -

B: I need the firing pin for the cannon, and I gotta have the barrels unplugged.

D: Ok, but I think you might want to have something better: a _30mm_ cannon, not a 20mm one. This one's got 7 barrels, not 6. 8000 rounds per minute will put you in complete ontrol.

B: Shit yeah, man! I'll trade for it! Call it even, with ammunition - 50,000 rounds of it.

A short time later, the trade done, Brock showed up at the Ross lab.

Paul said, "The fucking ISC's telling us this!", showing the message on the screen.

Brock ran out of the office, and the group could hear a strange, loud whirring sound, mingled with screams of people cowering from the withering gunfire. Pumping 8000 rounds a minute, the gun spat flaming death. The ISC personnel screamed, "We meant that as a joke! Honest, man!! Jesus H. Christ, shit, will you stop trying to kill us the fuck off?!"

Brock stopped firing, the gun whirling to a stop. "A joke? What the fuck are you trying to tell me? Huh?! Answer me, you little shitkicker!!!"

ISC: We put that message up to tell you that we would shut it down forever as a joke. We were going to do that anyway, but not _forever_, so we could put in the new stuff. (*sob*)

Brock surveyed the damage, mumbling, "This babe kicks ass, just as advertised!"

The group ran into the bullet-riddled room, screaming obscenities at the ISC personnel and demanding to know just why the fuck they wanted to joke with them. Again, the ISC people explained why.

Pete: Get rid of that fucking 1/2-horse compiler!!! And don't ever joke around with us.

Brock left the room, going for the frat boys. The group logged out, disgruntled, and left the building for...

12. (Pete & Paul) & (Mike & Tina) & (Jordan & Phil)

Author: PMB1566 - Stop Enforced Heterosexism
Date: 3-FEB-1991 19:10

various places. Paul and Pete, who weren't quite sure why Paul was in Rochester when he should be at school in Connecticut. But they weren't going to argue, and set off for Pete's room to do some heavy breathing.

Mike and Tina went to Tina's room, since Pete and Paul were going to be in Mike's room. They began their ritual hacking on each other. Of course, the amount of noise emitting from Tina's room was considerably more tha from Pete's, so, even though Tina and Mike would insist they didn't do anything, nobody would believe them.

Phil and Jordan set off for Jordan's room to play "Alice in Wonderland."

It was Phil's turn to play Alice.

Kage did something completely different. He...

13. rents

Author: PMB1566 - Stop Enforced Heterosexism
Date: 12-SEP-1991 16:47

... moved to Perkins. Figuring that the Resihalls cost too much, Pete, Brock, and Jordan joined him.

Pete decided to blow $500 to buy a 3b1 Un*x PC, so he still didn't have enough money to get a rent-a-partner.