PLAY IT AS IT LAYS

It's Still Sunday, Dogone It!

Hi Gang...
     It certainly hasn't been a very funny week.
     Boy!  Is that a stupid thing to say.  And to think, I am
trying to think of something funny to say.  That's even harder
than it may sound, since I was in San Diego, California when all
of this happened, and I've been headed northeast on a combination
of luck, determination, wishful thinking and Amtrak since then.
     Bravado and patriotism aside, I want to give a special
thanks to all the folks that helped keep us all going this week,
when things looked pretty grim.  Thanks especially to: Carol
Becwar; Kerry Miller, Catherine Cassidy, Donna Glander and all
the gang at Camtronics; Peter & Peggy Adler, Fumiko David &
Rosana Leung; Donna & Bernie Becwar; the Petersons; and Keiko
Amakawa, Yurari Kawabata, Sachiko Sumida & Hiroe Sugiyama for
international caring.  Glad to hear from New Yorkers Eva Lu and
Mike Fagan & Tomoko Naito, who knew when to duck.  Also, more
Thank You's to our regular contributors: Jerry Taff, R.J. Tully,
Tim McChain, Kenn Venit, Mary Crow, Wallace Adams, Major & Judy
McCallum, Sharon Nuernberg, Howard Lesniak, Annamarie Macareno,
Charles Beckman, Jan Michalski, Bruce Gonzo, Deb Monroe and Laura
Hong Li.  And special thanks to all the staff at the woefully
understaffed, under-equipped and under-funded U.S. passenger rail
system, Amtrak.  When nothing else was moving people across the
U.S., you folks kept the wheels spinning as fast as humanly
possible.  Thanks for the ride, folks.
     Not the best or funniest intro I've ever written, but after
86-plus hours on the road fighting my way back home, I'm counting
any time I manage to put a noun before the verb in the plus
column.  I had even considered not doing a Funnies this week, but
there seems to be something very wrong about that.  For one
thing, it would be admitting defeat.  We don't do that easily in
this country.  And if we feel that way about something as trivial
and ultimately silly as this SUNFUN thing, just wait until the
S.O.B.s that planned the obscenities in New York and Washington
get a load of what we're going to do to get the bastards that
committed these cowardly horrors.  And them.
     Always On Sunday,


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     AND, when you get time, head on over to the RED CROSS
     website at:
                   http://www.redcross.org/
     to find out how you can help.

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     Being that I'm doing this on the fly with even less than the
usual ten minute preparation, it will have to be one of those
rare SUNFUN reruns.  With a little luck, some of this material is
old enough that you might have forgotten it.  Then again, maybe
some of you were trying to forget it!


[from Criminal Enterprise - 11/10/1996  (#13)


LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS DEPARTMENT ---
------------------------------------

   - In Cincinnati, Ohio, last August, Carolyn Hutchinson, 35,
     was shot in the leg in a restroom when a gun she was
     carrying fell out of her underpants and discharged when it
     hit the floor.  She said she had forgotten that it was
     there.  (Columbus Dispatch-AP)


   - A drug user in Bend, Oregon attempted to call his dealer but
     instead got the police.  Thomas VanHoose mis-dialed his drug
     dealer's pager number and ended up sending a message to the
     pager of narcotics Detective Jim Porter.  Porter went along
     and set up a meeting with the suspect.
          "First I thought it was some of the county guys playing
     a joke," said Porter. 
          Even after his arrest, it took VanHoose three hours to
     realize he had dialed the wrong pager number.  VanHoose was
     charged with possession, delivery and conspiracy to deliver.
     (AP)


   - Chan Yiu-fai, 42, tried to rob the Kwong On Bank in Hong
     Kong, but his plans were frustrated when no one in the bank
     would pay attention to him.  Armed with a stick, he
     announced his intention to rob the bank of 2,000 Hong Kong
     dollars (US$260), but was ignored.
          Rather than flee, he sat down on a couch and waited for
     someone to notice him.   Eventually, someone did: police
     stopped in and arrested the would-be master criminal.  Chan
     has been sentenced to four months in a psychiatric hospital.
     (UPI)


   - Robert Meier, 55, was arrested for fraud and theft in Tampa,
     Florida, for a faked marriage to a comatose woman.  But it
     wasn't just the phoney marriage that got him into trouble
     with the law.
          After marrying the unconscious woman, Meier made
     purchases of almost $20,000 using her credit cards. 
     According to a sheriff's detective, Meier said the woman's
     dog told him that his new bride would want him to use her
     credit cards to live a better life after she died.
          When investigators searched the couple's home the dog
     was present, but according to a police officer "didn't say
     anything".  (North Florida Daily News)


   - In Bedford, Virginia, John M. Kirby decided to show off to
     his passengers as he drove by a group of police officers
     demonstrating drug arrest techniques to reporters.  Kirby
     yelled insults at the officers as he drove by, and the
     officers, seeing Kirby's truck faulty taillight, chased him. 
     According to police, Kirby had marijuana in the truck and a
     suspended driver's license.  (Roanoke Times)
          [ And a loose nut behind the wheel, too. ]


   - William Keith Fortner, whom a judge put on probation last
     year for sending three nude photos of himself to a nurse,
     pleaded guilty in St. Louis, Missouri, in July to sending
     another one - to the judge who gave him the probation. 
     After the probation ended, Fortner left a message on the
     female judge's voice mail that said:  "I really like you.  I
     hope you don't get upset with the picture I [am sending].  I
     hope you remember me." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)


   - When Richard Gallagher lost his job as a high school janitor
     last spring, he planned to get revenge.  One of his friends
     said that he might get some help from Peter King.  Gallagher
     called King and tried to get him to help in a plot to blow
     up the high school.  Unknown to Gallagher, Peter King is a
     U. S. Congressman, who notified police of the plot.
          Gallagher told police, "I thought he was one of the
     boys." (New York Times)


   - Reginald Currie, 36, and Dwight Lewter, 37, were sentenced
     to prison for robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank in
     Newark, New Jersey, of $1,500.  According to federal
     prosecutors, Currie pulled off the robbery by himself but
     was captured within 24 hours because he had accidentally
     left a picture ID card in a bag at the bank.  Later,
     prosecutors discovered that Currie had promised Lewter a cut
     of the proceeds if he would compose a holdup note for use in
     the crime. (Newark Star-Ledger)


   - Daniel Paul Sabel and Richard Michael Barker were arrested
     in Lake Oswego, Oregon, in October after their plan to steal
     a safe from a grocery store backfired.  They had looped a
     chain around the 900-pound (450kg) safe and attached it to
     their truck, planning to pull it out of the wall. 
     Unfortunately, when the safe broke loose, it spun around
     wildly on the end of the chain, flying around to land under
     the wheels of the truck.  A passing police officer arrested
     the pair less then 100 feet from the store, still trying to
     get the safe out from under the truck.  (The Oregonian)


   - Two days after director Jiri Klumpar was assigned as bank
     manager at a troubled bank in Prague, the bank was robbed.
     While Klumpar didn't exactly like losing the money, he did
     find it a good sign in troubled times.
          "It shows that the thief was confident that money is
     there," a happy Klumpar said.
          The robber got 200,000 Czech crowns (about US$8,000).
     (AP)


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[from That Signpost Up Ahead... - 10/27/1996  (#11)]

YO, POE! DEPARTMENT
-------------------

 NEVERMORE

 Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
 System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
 Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
 Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
 Having reached the bottom line,
 I took a floppy from the drawer.
 Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
 But got instead a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

 Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
 These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
 Carefully, I weighed my options.
 These three seemed to be the top ones.
 Clearly, I must now adopt one:
 Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore.

 With my fingers pale and trembling,
 Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
 Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
 Praying for some guarantee
 Finally I pressed a key --
 But on the screen what did I see?
 Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

 I tried to catch the chips off-guard --
 I pressed again, but twice as hard.
 Luck was just not in the cards.
 I saw what I had seen before.
 Now I typed in desperation
 Trying random combinations
 Still there came the incantation:
 Choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

 There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted
 Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
 And then I saw an awful sight:
 A bold and blinding flash of light --
 A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.
 I saw the screen collapse and die
 "Oh no -- my database", I cried
 I thought I heard a voice reply,
 "You'll see your data Nevermore."

 To this day I do not know
 The place to which lost data goes
 I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored.
 But as for productivity, well
 I fear that it goes straight to hell
 And that's the tale I have to tell
 Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.


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