Subject: [FWD: Chain Letter]
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:47:29 -0700
To: Picks Team
From: Uncle ChesterDO NOT IGNORE THIS EMAIL! If you follow this letter's instructions exactly, great rewards will come to you. If you fail to follow them, bad stuff will happen. And we're not joshing. When you've completed the listed steps, make sure you forward it to seven friends and eight complete strangers. Office worker Elmo Morgenstern ignored this email and less than six weeks later he was given additional repsonsibilities at work!
STEP ONE: Visit Legends, a site dedicated to "exploring the lore surrounding Robin Hood, King Arthur, Pirates & Privateers, and other swashbuckling characters..." Enjoy the detailed information on ballads and broadsides, brush up on the orginal tales behind some of Shakespeare's stories, and peruse the broad selection of book reviews. Phyllis Wisnewski failed to peruse the broad selection of book reviews and later she found out that her Highland Terrier had a severe vitamin deficiency!
STEP TWO: Send two self-addressed, stamped envelopes to your oldest living relative, along with a handwritten letter describing your favorite part of the online exhibit The Glory of Byzantium. Detail which of the exhibit's themes is most representative of the whole of Byzantine art. Also include a charcoal sketch depicting one of the exhibit's works of art. Finally, tape two cereal boxtops to the back of an index card and bury it in your backyard. Bond trader Mitchell J. "MJ" Johnson followed these instructions to the letter and four months later, while purchasing snacks from a gas station vending machine, he got two Snickers bars to drop instead of one.
STEP THREE: Determine your IQ and find someone who is at least 25% smarter than you are. Chantal Bruschetta, a young web designer, figured that she was of average intelligence. Then she visited Hey Geek Girl!. Three weeks later she landed a lucrative online contract with The Gap. And that was just the icing on the cake; Hey Geek Girl! also provided Chantal with good advice on setting up web sites, resumés and interviews, fashion tips, and training for a job in the web industry.
(Of course, watch out for controversial genuises! A Welsh telemarketer named Pwyll Cyfarwydd had chosen all-knowing Parade Magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant as his "designated smart person," but was horrified to learn that, in the eyes of some, Marilyn is Wrong!. C++ software engineer Herb Weiner shares the fruits of his quest to systematically pore over Marilyn's weekly column in search of errors and discrepancies. Luckily, at the last minute, Pwyll decided to choose Kathy Lee Gifford as his mental role model. And happily we can report that all's well that ends well!
Henry Fugle wasn't so fortunate! This inquisitive third-grader relied on the collective intelligence of the folks at Ask Yahoo! (yet another periodical online oracle). Of course, Ask Yahoo!'s knowledge of all things web-related is stunning, as demonstrated by effortless responses to burning questions like: "Where can I play Scrabble on the Net?", "What are some good sites to find new cars?", and "How do I get a free web page?" However, when confronted with the simple query, "Can you tell me how to get to the nearest dry cleaners?" the team stared at their shoes in embarassed silence.)
STEP FOUR: Get in touch with your inner child. The results will astonish you! A complacent, irony-ridden Gen-Xer named Jennifer Kramden visited The Wishbook and shortly thereafter discovered a positive attitude and a sense of purpose! The Wishbook features toy highlights from the 1976 Sears WishBook, including the Six Million Dollar Man, Fonzie, Evel Knievel, Starsky and Hutch, the Bionic Woman, and (yes!) Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Chad Brockton and Kevin Adams, two accountants at General Applied Industries, visited a Shockwave version of the famous punch-em-up and were almost immediately rewarded with several hundred pages of unsorted sales figures to calculate! Whammo! Congrats fellas!
FINAL STEP: Before forwarding this to your sister-in-law's boss and three friends overseas, figure out How Stuff Works. First, learn how bread works. Then learn how CDs work. Lastly, and most importantly, figure out how a cell phone works Great! Now, use that cell phone to call your seven friends to tell them you'll be forwarding this email. If you get even just one answering machine message, learn how a global positioning system works, and start again from scratch.
FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY! Great things will happen! Just ask Nancy Thoracks from Oswego, New York. She sent this message to seven friends from junior high and now she can recite every last word of Leonardo da Vinci's great manuscript of scientific thinking, the Codex Leicester. Nancy also says her love life has improved because of this. She reports that anytime she mentions da Vinci's thoughts on astronomy or water dynamics, her husband "lets the dog out."
AVOID DISASTER! You will face grave consequences if you don't follow these instructions. A high-ranking government official ignored this email and eight months later he was squashed by a sixteen-ton weight! Don't let this happen to you! Take this message seriously. Take time to forward it to friends and coworkers! And, as always, take your pick(s).
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