Want true stories? If you're not getting This Is True,
you're missing out on some great stuff!
1. Big companies don't do business via chain letters. Bill Gates is not
giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby
food company issuing class-action checks. Proctor and Gamble is not part of a
satanic cult or scheme, and its logo is not satanic. MTV will not give you
backstage passes if you forward something to the most people. The Gap is not
giving away free clothes. You can relax; there is no need to pass it on
"just in case it's true."
2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a
bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their
cousin. If you are hell-bent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests
for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell their
stories." None
have. That's "none" as in "zero." Not even your friend's
cousin.
3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they
do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at:
http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html
Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to
pass the recipe on.
4. If the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to
particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information
would reach the public via an AOL chain letter?
5. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever,
ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm
that an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with viruses. Try: http://www.norton.com
And even then, don't forward it. We don't care. And you cannot get a virus from
a flashing IM or email, you have to download it....ya know, like, a FILE!
6. There is no gang initiation plot to murder any motorist who flashes
headlights at another car driving at night without lights.
7. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, turn off the
"HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't
care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser since
you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.
8. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a
friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing
everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. (Think Cut and Paste) It
sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the "" that begin
each line either. Besides, if it has gone around that many times we've probably
already seen it.
9. Craig Shergold (or Sherwood, or Sherman, etc) in England is not dying of
cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending him
their business cards. He apparently is no longer a "little boy"
either.
10. The "Make a Wish" foundation is a real organization doing fine
work, but they have had to establish a special toll free hot line in response to
the large number of Internet hoaxes using their good name and reputation. It is
distracting them from the important work they do. Also, the American Cancer
Society does not give 3 cents for each person you forward e-mail to. They ask
for you to donate money, they don't give it, as if they could know how many
e-mails you sent out...sheesh.
11. If you are one of those insufferable idiots who forwards anything that
"promises" something bad will happen if you "don't,"-then
something bad will happen to you if I ever meet you in a dark alley.
12. Women really are suffering in Afghanistan, but forwarding an e-mail won't
help their cause in the least. If you want to help, contact your local
legislative representative, or get in touch with Amnesty International or the
Red Cross.
13. As a general rule, e-mail "signatures" are easily faked and
mean nothing to anyone with any power to do anything about whatever the
competition is complaining about.
14. KFC really does use real Chickens with feathers and beaks and feet. No,
they really do. Why did they change their name? In this health conscious world,
what was KFC's name? Kentucky FRIED Chicken. FRIED is not healthy. So with the
help of a focus group, they changed the name to KFC. It's short, doesn't offend
dieters and it's easy to remember.
15. Another thing, just because someone said in a message, four generations
back, that "we checked it out and it's legit," does not actually make
it true.
PS: There is no bill pending before Congress that will allow long distance
companies to charge you for using the Internet. Bottom Line... composing e-mail
or posting something on the Net is as easy as writing on the walls of a public
restroom. Don't automatically believe it until it's proven false...ASSUME it's
false, unless there is proof that it's true.
Now forward this to everyone you know or the program I just put on your hard drive while you read this E-mail will open up your CD-ROM and reach out and slap you upside the head!
I know this guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. So anyway, one day he went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over. When he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN, and he saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" But he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled "Join the crew!"
He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2000 rolls around. His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $600 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true-I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disneyworld vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.) The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital-the one, actually, where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives.
I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to twenty people you will have good luck but ten people you will only have ok luck and if you send it to less than ten people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).
So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving along without his lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation. And it's a little-known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages.
Warning!
Most of you have read the scare-mail about the person whose kidneys were stolen while he was passed out...well, read on. while that was an "urban legend," this one is not. It's happening everyday....
My thighs were stolen from me during the night of August 3rd a few years ago. It was just that quick. I went to sleep in my body and I woke up with someone else's thighs. The new ones had the texture of cooked oatmeal. Who would have done such a cruel thing to legs that had been wholly, if imperfectly, mine for years? Whose thighs were these? What happened to mine?
I spent the entire summer looking for them. I searched, in vain, at pools and
beaches, anywhere I might find female limbs exposed. I became
obsessed. I had nightmares filled with cellulite and flesh that turns to bumps
in the night.
Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans and Sheer Energy pantyhose.
Then, just when my guard was down, the thieves struck again. My rear end was next. I knew it was the same gang because they took pains to match my new rear end (although badly attached at least three inches lower than the original) to the thighs they had stuck me with earlier. Now my rear complimented my legs, lump for lump. Frantic, I prayed that long skirts would stay in fashion.
It was 2 years ago when I realized my arms had been switched. One morning while fixing my hair, I watched, horrified but fascinated, as the flesh of my upper arms swung to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush. This was really getting scary. My body was being replaced, cleverly and fiendishly, one section at a time.
Age? Age had nothing to do with it. Age was supposed to creep up, unnoticed and intangible, something like maturity. NO, I was being attacked, repeatedly and without warning.
During one spring, my attention was riveted to upper arms...female arms. I studied them from every angle, being careful not to raise mine in public or flatten them too tightly against my body. In private, I held them straight out and did endless circles that would have tightened my real arms but did nothing for these new "Silly-Putty" caricatures.
In the end, in deepening despair, I gave up my T-shirts. What could they do to me next? My eyes began to remind people that they needed a new pair of Hush Puppies. My poor neck disappeared more quickly than the Thanksgiving turkey it now reminded me of.
That's why I've decided to tell my story; I can't take on the medical profession by myself. Women of America, wake up and smell the coffee!
That isn't really "plastic" those surgeons are using. You know where they're getting those replacement parts, don't you? The next time you suspect someone has had a face "lifted", look again! Was it lifted from you?
Checkout those tummy tucks and buttocks raisings. Look familiar? Are those your eyelids on that movie star? I think I finally may have found my thighs...and I hope that Cindy Crawford paid a really good price for them!
This is NOT a hoax! This is happening to women in every town every night.
Warn all your friends.
**********************************************************
WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE!
Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!
**********************************************************
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser.
The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes. "These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet. "My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous." Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxees Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.
Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following: the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true T. C. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility Virus, T. C. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected. Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.
Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many sources, including:
Those people who are still symptom free can help inoculate themselves against the Gullibility Virus by reading some good material on evaluating sources, such as:
Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.
**********************************************************
This message is so important we're sending it anonymously! Forward it to all
your friends right away! Don't think about it! This is not a chain letter! This
story is true! Don't check it out! This story is so timely there is no date on
it! This story is so important we're using lots of exclamation points! For every
message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly
Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder how the Home will know
you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you're obviously thinking
too much.)
**********************************************************
If you receive an e-mail entitled "Badtimes", delete it immediately!!
Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the strips on ALL of your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play. It will program your phone auto dial to call only your mother-in-law's number.
This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will consume all your nuts, chips and soft drinks. (For Pete’s sake, are you listening?!) (ALL YOUR NUTS, CHIPS, and SOFTDRINKS!) It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company.
It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all the while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their expenses to your Visa card.
It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye. It will rewrite your backup files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporate undetectable misspellings, which grossly change the interpretations of key sentences.
If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.
****WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!!!!!*****
And if you don't send this to 5000 people in 20 seconds, you will pass gas next time you're talking to someone "important".
SEND SEND SEND SEND SEND SEND SEND SEND
My name is Billy Evans.
I am a very sick little boy. My mother is typing this for me, because I can't. She is crying. The reason she is so sad is because I'm so sick. I was born without a body. It doesn't hurt, except when I try to breathe. The doctors gave me an artificial body. It is a burlap bag filled with leaves.
The doctors said that was the best they could do on account of us having no money or insurance. I would like to have a body transplant, but we need more money. Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody hires crying people. I said, "Don't cry, Mommy," and she hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, even though she's allergic to burlap and it makes her sneeze and chafes her real bad.
I hope you will help me. You can help me if you forward this email to everyone you know. Forward it to people you don't know, too.
Dr. Johansen said that for every person you forward this email to, Bill Gates will team up with AOL and send a nickel to NASA. With that funding, NASA will collect prayers from school children all over America and have the astronauts take them up into space so that the angels can hear them better. Then they will come back to earth and go to the Pope, and he will take up a collection in church and send all the money to the doctors.
The doctors could help me get better then. Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can only be third base. Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can take more prayers to the angels and my dream will be closer to coming true.
Please help me. Mommy is so sad, and I want a body. I don't want my leaves to rot before I turn 10. If you don't forward this email, that's okay. Mommy says you're a mean and heartless bastard who doesn't care about a poor little boy with only a head. She says that if you don't stew in the raw pit of your own guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die a long slow horrible death and then burn forever in hell. What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take five freakin' minutes to forward this to all your friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about ignoring a poor, bodiless nine-year-old boy?
Please help me. I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty that wouldn't chew on me and try to bury its turds in the leaves of my burlap body. I wish that very much. Thank You,
Billy "Smiley" Evans
I will NOT get bad luck, lose my friends, or lose my mailing lists if IDON'T forward an email!
I will NOT hear any music or see a taco dog, if I do forward ane-mail.
Bill Gates is NOT going to send me money, Victoria Secret doesn't know anything about a gift certificate they're supposed to send me.
Ford will NOT give me a 50% discount even if I forward my e-mail to more than 50 people!
I will NEVER receive gift certificates, coupons, or freebies from Coca Cola, Cracker Barrel, Old Navy, or anyone else if I send an e-mail to 10 people.
I will NEVER see a pop-up window if I forward an e-mail..NEVER--NEVER!!
There is NO SUCH THING as an e-mail tracking program, and I am not STUPID enough to think that someone will send me $100 for forwarding an e-mail to 10 or more people!
There is NO kid with cancer through the Make-a-Wish program in England collecting anything! He did get cancer when he was 7 years old. He is now cancer free and 35 years old and DOESN'T WANT ANY MORE POST CARDS, or GET-WELL CARDS.
The government does not have a bill in the House called 901B (or whatever they named it this week) that, if passed, will enable them to charge us 5 cents for every e-mail we send.
There will be NO cool dancing, singing, waving, colorful flowers, characters, or program that I will receive immediately after I forward an e-mail. NONE, ZIP, ZERO, NADA!!
The Red Cross will NOT donate 50 cents to certain individual dying of some never-heard-of disease for every e-mail address I send this to. The Red Cross RECEIVES donations.
And finally, I WILL NOT let others guilt me into sending things by telling me I am not their friend or that I don't believe in Jesus Christ. If God wants to send me a message, I believe the bushes in my yard will burn before He picks up a PC to pass it on.
Now, repeat this to yourself until you have it memorized, and send it along to at least 5 of your friends before the next full moon or you will surely be constipated for the next three months and all of your hair will fall out!