Day in the life of A. Spod III ------------------------------ I've just had the best weekend ever. At the Hellhole University mono meet. Myself, Vt100, Sadkid, Bracknell, Bucket, Spade and Towel all went up together by coach. I amused everyone by saying that National Express should be called National X-windows. Sadkid laughed so much, he nearly wet his courdroys. We were met by Hat and Coat who were putting us up for the weekend in their house. Hat is one of the maddest dudes ever. He had us all in fits by saying "You see that wall, that's you that is. You see that lamppost, that's you that is. You see that phonebox, that's you that is." for every object he saw on the way to the pub. He also scored 96% in the purity test, so is obviously a bit of a ladies man. We went to the Printer and Listing public house, where everyone was supposed to meet up. Quite a few people turned up, but none of the section owners we wanted to meet. Well, Crumby, had he turned up, we were going to ignore. But Abdabs was nowhere to be seen and I particularly wanted to discuss with him some interesting ideas I'd had to do with mono. HP, GNoME, Hiredwilly and beanburger were all supposed to be coming too, but didn't turn up. Still we had great fun; Keyboard and VDU both brought talker transcripts and we spent hours reading them. In one Sheri banned Athena for using the word 'orgasm.' Thank heavens for Sheri. Without her, mono would be a barren, amoral place. You've got to admire her power and judgement. Fortran told us that Sheri was getting married soon to someone called Peesnow I was a little upset, as only a month ago I'd mentioned to her that I'd like to marry someone with lots of privs. But I put a brave face on and we all settled down to sing purple's mono rap. That man is a total genius. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following morning we went to the centre of town. To the Badger and Scrotum public house. Everybody was there, including all the section owners. Apparently there'd been some confusion about last night and they'd all gone to a different pub. Abdabs was busy kissing a girl he'd met the previous night. I vowed to tell Sheri how bad an example he was setting the rest of us next time she was on. I told GNoME that didn't understand monotone. "It just seems to be a copy of the rest of monochrome," I told him, "Surely that's confusing for some people?" I then spoke to beanburger. I told him that if he ever wanted to collaborate or just wanted tips on writing diaries, he shouldn't be afraid to ask. I was going to tell him about my editor set-ups, when Bracknell appeared and said "Hello I'm Bracknell, from Bracknell Polytechnic, didn't you write Beanfeast's House?" and he just burst into tears. The pressures of being a mono celebrity, I guess. Abdabs then stood up, exclaimed "People" and said the plan for the day was to split into three groups and come back here at 7 o'clock. The section owners and some others disappeared to go bowling or ice skating. The rest of us decided to play Quazar. Here are the quazar scores: Unfunny Times said Colour of Hits Shots Quotes 'mono' Anorak Saddo: 12 13 3 66 Blue Rom: 1 1 2 34 Blue Ram: 2 99 3 81 Blue Byte: 0 123 17 924 Blue After Quazar we went shopping. It's a brilliant town for shopping. We found 13 computer shops. Completespod took photos of all of us by the Acorn Archemedes displays. At one point we saw Abdabs and some of the others as they disappeared round a corner. We all ran up to the them, but they were gone. This happened several times, I don't know how they didn't notice us, we were all shouting "MONO!" at them as we ran. At seven o'clock we returned to the pub. But no one else was there. We waited until ten and still no one arrived. Unixbox said that he'd overheard Rincewash telling Deordy that there was a party going on at Tricksy's flat. We all went there and there was indeed a party in full swing. Tricksy said everybody thought we'd known about it, and so hadn't told us. "Never mind, we're here now." I said. "That's good," said Crumby. Maybe he isn't so bad, after all. I followed Crumby, HP and Sinterritory (Droolz) around for a bit. After a few minutes they started asking me odd questions like "So, you've got a life then?" I thought it best to find more sensible people. I then spoke to Psyder. He told me all about Crossbones and Oilpacker. And about someone called Don the Duck, who he seems quite taken with. He even showed me the scars she'd given him. Abdabs was there, but I was unable to talk to him as he was once again perfoming disgusting acts with a young lady. A different one at that. I don't know who she is. She lives with Tricksy, and doesn't use mono, so she must be boring. During the course of the evening I met many other mono users. People such as Gatwick, Madspod, Cokecain, Pepsican, Pepsiswife, Pepsiskid, Pepsisdog, Pepsismistress, Pepsisotherbitontheside, Pepsisbitinskegness and Pepsisnotquitesosecretshagwholivesinmablethorpe. I also met tosh. "Gladiators II, verse XIV: 'And Jesus logged on,'" she said. She kept me enthralled for hours telling me how many references there were in the Bible to computers. "Fade XII, verses XXVI-XXX: 'And Jesus came unto the Prime. And he saw that it was good. Verily he did see that Sheri was on. And he did ban her. And there was much rejoicing and taking of the piss.'" "I don't believe the Bible said that at all," I told her. And stormed off. "Fade LXVI, verse: '"Get a Life" Jesus commanded them. And the spods of Galilee did indeed get a life."'" she called back, "NoRM III, verse VIII: 'WoRD.' Duncan I, verse I: ''" I walked into another room. In it Usquetrio and two others were all wrything on the same bed. Disgusted I left immediately, to be confrounted with GNoME removing Bean's trousers. I was almost sickened. No wonder my diaries are more popular than theirs'. I grabbed Hat, Coat, Sadkid, Spottyspod, Cityscarf, Browncar, Mousemat, Oldespod, Beige and Nofriends, and we left. We were all cheared up by a few verses of Purple's mono drinking song: I like to drink And now I think I want to log on That's the end of my song We all went for a pizza. I said Pizza Express would be much better if they were called Pizza X-windows. Oldespod laughed so hard he suddenly clutched his heart and gracefully fell to the floor. His last wish was to be buried in the shell of an old Vax. As he died he wispered something into my ear. I didn't understand it at first, but I soon realised it was a very noble jesture, indeed. Giving me his mono password. When the ambulance took him away, we all stood around not knowing what to do until Hat said that at this time of night, Sheri would be on and he knew where there was a 24-hour terminal room. Oldespod logged on that night, as usual. And chatted up Sheri, as usual. We think he would have wanted it that way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following morning, we went straight from the terminal room to the pub as per the plan. Nobody turned up and we all went back to the terminal room. Having re-read every file, especially the Data Bus, we all went back to Hat and Coat's. It was time to catch the coach home. On the way back we formed plans to organise our own meet. Bracknell said there was plenty of room at his poly, and so we decided to hold a Bracknell meet. "I know," said Bracknell, "we'll ask beanburger to be guest of honour. He used to live there, you know. So we'll have plenty to talk about." I sat back and smiled. Yeah, we were gonna organise the best meet ever. And we could invite Sheri over. And get purple to be second guest of honour. And we won't invite Crumby. That'll teach him. A.Spod 4/93