Clyde Hoover

(Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots)

c.hoover@diespammerdie.its.utexas.edu I am in the Unix Services group of Academic Computing & Instructional Technologies Services at the University of Texas at Austin.

Crosses I carry

• System Management and consulting on ITS Unix systems.
• Looking for things that make us go.

Stuff that makes my head hurt

• Oracle
• Windows anything

Things that help me go

• Books by O'Reilly and Associates

Mental floss Things and people which keep my head from exploding  (or warped me into what I am today).
	Hard-core Marxism - Groucho that is.
	The most remarkable book in the history of publishing. I'm still waiting for hyperdrive to be invented so that I can go pick up my copy of the Hitch-Hikers Guide To the Galaxy.
	I will say Nee! to you again unless you fetch me a shrubbery! And maybe even after that.
	Ok - I've had a mildly pathological case of Trekkie-itis since 1966 (Thursday nights at 8 pm Eastern, on WOOD-TV Channel 7, Grand Rapids Michigan).
	The crew of Red Dwarf: A loser who uses vindaloo sauce for cologne, a stuck-up smeaghead of a hologram, and a nattering toilet cleaner android - what's not to love?
	Frank Zappa was the original punk - pissing off concerned parents, offending self-absorbed interest groups and playing damn good guitar. Formerly living proof that you really didn't need to be stoned to be totally strange.
	The Firesign Theater is  strange and inventive -  every sound novella a feast for the ears (headphones de riguer - Mexican agricultural products optional).
	Cerebus by Dave Sim is one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic comics being published today. Love Dave's attitude or hate it, this 300 issue saga has a singularity of purpose, wicked sense of humor and offers no apologies for pissing people off.
	I used to live on the lake with a sailboat tiller in my hand.
	I'm a geek (but not an engineer), but I work in a big organization - so I identify way too much with Dilbert.
	I wasted too much time playing games such as SimCity 2000. I still do.
	Stan Freberg - the last of the network radio comedians. Skewered the self-important and foresaw our "57 channels and nothing's on" television wasteland during the dawn of the idiot box. Still timely forty years later (unfortunately).
	George Carlin - Mr. "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." Probably the only comedian with a Supreme Court decision  (if you don't count GW Bush).  Not for the squeamish, but a delicious love of words and language.
	Whatever you may think of his taste in women, Woody Allen has made funny for nearly four decades.  He was a hilarious stand-up comedian (I recommend the 2-CD collection of his standup).  Directed some of the classic comedy films of the the 1960s/70s.  Who else would had himself chased by a giant milk-spouting breast? Haven't most of us guys dreamed of that? :-)
	Another prophet from the 1950s, "Professor" Tom Lehrer did not skewer but took a  flame-thrower to the guilty of the day.  Lots of wit with a literary touch, but nary a subtlety.  Today he's an old man who greatest disappointment is that his material has not gone stale.  I find that his greatest achievement.
	In 1935, a New York stockbroker and a Ohio doctor formed an extraordinary organization which offered a chance at new life for even the worst gutter drunk.  Since then, Alchoholics Anonymous and the hundreds of 12-step programs which followed have saved many people (myself included) from lives of addiction and misery.

The Sound Museum (Sound snippets and other noises)

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Read Ringworld and watch Monty Python.