hurling invective dot com

Not much happened to humanity between emerging from the primordial ooze and the creation of the Internet. It’s hard to imagine a time when people were forced to write what is known to antiquity as a “letter” when corresponding over great distances, or make guttural noises with the diaphragm, larynx, mouth and tongue to engage in the primitive human ritual of “conversation.”

Shortly around the time that we developed the opposing thumbs necessary to hit the space bar with, the BBS was all the rage. (So was the jitterbug. It just doesn’t seem right to use the phrase “all the rage” without it somehow referring to the jitterbug.)

Pop Quiz: BBS is an acronym for which of the following?

A) ball busting slut

B) busty brown suga’

C) Barbecue Bacon Sandwich (add a soft drink and fries for just 99 cents)

D) bulletin board system

If you answered D, you are a mirthless son of a bitch, although I acquiesce, you are correct, good sir. The BBS system had many parallels with today’s Internet, but also some notable differences. This helpful table will highlight the differences.

Figure 1.1: Hehehehe… beaver.

Despite these obvious drawbacks, the BBS did enjoy a certain popularity among a minority of PC users in the late eighties and early nineties. And when I say minority, I mean a tiny group of sexless young men constantly screaming at their mothers to hang up the phone because they were in the middle of a round of Solar Realms Elite. One of the mainstays of BBS culture was the text file.

You know the vast wasteland of crappy jokes, sentimental schlock and idiotic rants that it seems only your mother-in-law forwards to you? It wasn’t always like that. It’s just the rules of economy, really. Demand increases for a product, more and more companies manufacture said product, and soon the market is flooded. And it’s never flooded with good product. No, it’s always flooded with absolute shit. As more and more people got Web access, demand for lawyer and blond jokes skyrocketed, more witless douchebags started churning them out, and now you could compile a compendium of boring American humor that would make Webster’s 1913 look like a pamphlet on genital warts.

Yes, online humor used to actually be funny. There was a particular text file that I stumbled across back in the day that I found particularly riotous, and a cursory search lead me to an unaltered version of the original. It’s called “50 Ways to Confuse Your Roomate (sic)” and is credited only to “Brian and Andy.” I present it to you here in its entirety, and its hilarity.

1. Smoke jimson weed. Do whatever comes naturally.

2. Switch the sheets on your beds while he/she is at class.

3. Twitch a lot.

4. Pretend to talk while pretending to be asleep.

5. Steal a fishtank. Fill it with beer and dump sardines in it. Talk to them.

6. Become a subgenius.

7. Inject his/her twinkies with a mixture of Dexatrim and MSG.

8. Learn to levitate. While your roommate is looking away, float up out of your seat. When he/she turns to look, fall back down and grin.

9. Speak in tongues.

10. Move you roommate’s personal effects around. Start subtly. Gradually work up to big things, and eventually glue everything s/he owns to the ceiling.

11. Walk and talk backwards.

12. Spend all your money on Jolt Cola. Drink it all. Stack the cans in the middle of your room. Number them.

13. Spend all your money on Transformers. Play with them at night. If your roommate says anything, tell him/her with a straight face, “They’re more than meets the eye.”

14. Recite entire movie scripts (e.g. “The Road Warrior,” “Repo Man,” Casablanca,”) almost inaudibly.

15. Kill roaches with a monkey wrench while playing Wagnerian arias on a kazoo. If your roommate complains, expla that it is for your performance art class (or hit him/her with the wrench).

16. Collect all your urine in a small jug.

17. Chain yourself to your roommate’s bed. Get him/her to bring you food.

18. Get a computer. Leave it on when you are not using it. Turn it off when you are.

19. Ask your roommate if your family can move in “just for a couple of weeks.”

20. Buy as many back issues of Field and Stream as you can. Pretend to masturbate while reading them.

21. Fake a heart attack. When your roommate gets the paramedics to come, pretend nothing happened.

22. Eat glass.

23. Smoke ballpoint pens.

24. Smile. All the time.

25. Collect dog shit in baby food jars. Sort them according to what you think the dog ate.

26. Burn all your waste paper while eying your roommate suspiciously.

27. Hide a bunch of potato chips and Ho Hos in the bottom of a trash can. When you get hungry, root around in the trash. Find the food, and eat it. If your roommate empties the trash before you get hungry, demand that s/he reimburse you.

28. Leave a declaration of war on your roommate’s desk. Include a list of grievances.

29. Paste boogers on the windows in occult patterns.

30. Shoot rubber bands at your roommate while his/her back is turned, and then look away quickly.

31. Dye all your underwear lime green.

32. Spill a lot of beer on his/her bed. Swim.

33. Bye three loaves of stale bread. Grow mold in the closet.

34. Hide your underwear and socks in your roommate’s closet. Accuse him/her of stealing it.

35. Remove your door. Ship it to your roommate’s parents (postage due).

36. Pray to Azazoth or Zoroaster. Sacrifice something nasty.

37. Whenever your roommate walks in, wait one minute and then stand up. Announce that you are going to take a shower. Do so. Keep this up for three weeks.

38. Array thirteen toothbrushes of different colors on your dresser. Refuse to discuss them.

39. Paint your half of the room black. Or paisley.

40. Whenever he/she is about to fall asleep, ask questions that start with “Didja ever wonder why….” Be creative.

41. Shave one eyebrow.

42. Put your mattress underneath your bed. Sleep down under there.

43. Put horseradish in your shoes.

44. Shelve all your books with the spines facing the wall. Complain loudly that you can never find the book that you want.

45. Always flush the toilet three times.

46. Subsist entirely on pickles for a week. Vomit often.

47. Buy a copy of Frankie Yankovic’s “Pennsylvania Polka,” and play it at least 6 hours a day. If your roommate complains, explain that it’s an assignment for your primitive cultures class.

48. Give him/her an allowance.

49. Listen to radio static.

50. Open your window shades before you go to sleep each night. Close them as soon as you wake up.

And so, Brian and Andy, I say unto thee: rise, good and savvy humorists, and claim your legacy among the pantheon of great BBS text file humor writers! Your contributions in this realm, although ultimately meaningless, will at least be eternal.

This and many other hilarious text files of the era can be found at textfiles.com.