Joe Bob Goes to the Computing Center [This one's original; it's a parody] [Note for non-US readers: Joe Bob Briggs is the nom de plume of a Texas newspaper columnist who only reviews drive-in movies. His columns are known for stereotypical "redneck" style, and he rates movies on a sliding scale of breasts, blood, and rolling extremities. He's also a big fan of kung fu (or, as he calls it "chopsocky".......] _Demon Seed_ Ain't Got Nothing on These Boys I've never trusted computers; my bank makes too many mistakes with theirs. Anyway, I found myself in Lexington, Kentucky awhile back (those dadburned fools turned the Kentucky Theatre into an indoor pile of bullstuff; it used to be the only indoor place worth a trip), so I dropped in on a guy who'd sent me a couple of letters recently. Well, my knowledge of computers comes from _Demon Seed_, so I was expectin' eerie red lights and strange things sticking out from cabinets with lots of beeps and whistles. I wasn't disappointed with the Engineering Computing Center; they had blinkin' lights and beeps to spare. They *said* that nobody'd been impregnated by their computers, but the darn things just sat there and gave off a self-satisfied hum. The guys there started telling me about "walking disk drives" and "zombie processes", and I said to myself "Joe Bob, these guys are working in a digital Drive-In." These computers have it down pat. You get to use commands like "kill" and "chill", and they actually DO SOMETHING! My pal typed in "kill 29382", and somebody across the room screamed in pain! This was all right by me, and getting better all the time. He typed in "chill" and everything started slowing down, just like old Dr. Freeze in _Batman_ (the original, not the Micheal Keaton bullstuff). They chant in weird languages (one thing sounded like "foo-bang-bar-percent-baz-at-uunet", and it did some voodoo thing), and they have all these books that nobody but them can read. They've got their heart in the right place, too; every command gives you a dollar sign back, and that's the 'Merican way! I started to think that some of these guys were Commies, though, 'cause they were writing in chickenscratch that HAD to be a Secret Red Code. I'm talkin' stuff like "int (*(*(*x)[4])())[4];", and I was sure that the Reds were gonna send an Eye-Cee-Bee-Em over soon as spit. Well, they told me that they were really telling the computers what to do, just like they did in _Logan's Run_. That put my mind at ease, let me tell you. Then one of 'em started saying "there is another system", and I thought I was smack dab in the middle of _Colossus: The Forbin Project_; turned out it was their idea of a joke. Then they started talking about 'retiring' a computer; I was about to ask what kinda pension a chunk of metal got. They took some big thing called a 'degausser' and started waving it over everything. Well, they told me that it could erase any tapes or magnetic stuff, and I decided that I'm gonna get one and head over to the Commie Video people and wipe 'em out. Well, anyway, I was mucho impressed with the boys at UK, and I've got some ideas for new movies; I'm gonna call Tobe with these. Four quarts blood (the students tryin' to use these things). One half breast (they printed it out on the line printer thingy). Three zombies, one of which *refuses to die*. Gratuitous JCL. Gratuitous 3B2. Punch card fu. Diskette fu. Degausser fu. Drive-In Academy Award nomination for the user who said "the computer ate my program, and it won't give it back!". Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.