My First Try As The Internet Oracle

The Internet Oracle (formerly "The USENET Oracle") is one of the best, oldest and most prolific sources of humor on the Internet. It works very simply. Anyone can email the Oracle a question (hence becoming a 'Supplicant') If you were polite to the Oracle and grovelled a little, you'll get an answer back within an hour or perhaps a day depending on how long the Oracle's input queue is.

The terrible price for getting your question answered is that you are required to become "The Incarnation of the Oracle".

The Oracle will take over your body and answer a question that's emailed to you sometime later. You answer in the 'style' of the Oracle and with all the polished/intelligent humor you can manage. The system anonymises both questions and answers so nobody knows who the Supplicant and Incarnation are...except for the Oracle himself who is of course omniscient.

The "Priesthood of the Oracle" produce a weekly digest of the best answers - the remainder are never seen by anyone except The Priesthood and the Supplicant.

Being 'digested' by The Priesthood is a great and rare honor.

The first time I was digested was with this reply.

The Oracle's style has grown into a complex world with a number of cliched characters and a LOT of in-jokes so if you don't read the Oracle, you may miss the humor.

When I was First Digested.

Date: Tue, 05 May 98 07:27:25 -0500
From: Internet Oracle 
Subject: Internet Oracularity #1015-05

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Oh most wise and wonderful Oracle,
> when your Q is full does it make you have to P?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Oh supplicant - how little you understand of the ways of
} minor deities. I suppose I'd better show you the corporate
} video.
}
} Now, where did I put that Super-8 projector...Ah yes.
}
} VOICE OVER: Hi, my name is Troy Macluer - you probably know
}        me from such movies as "Welcome to River Styx - a new
}        planned community for retired Bulk Emailers" and "The
}        History of SPAM(tm)".
}
}        We here at ORACULAR ENTERPRISES INC feel it is
}        important that our customers get to know the processes
}        involved in getting our product to your doorstep in a
}        timely manner whilst not compromising the high quality
}        that you have come to expect. Let me lead you through
}        our production process here at the Temple.
}
} SCENE: The lobby of a large White Temple somewhere in Indiana.
}        Large bronze statues of the digested adorn the lobby -
}        giant fresco's depict heroic battles with W**dch*cks
}        and Centaurs. A small collection of framed greasy
}        smudges dating from the time of the SPAM wars adorns
}        a niche to one side.
}
}        A large number of bored-looking supplicants are standing
}        in line. There is audible muttering - one or two are
}        practicing their grovels - but most are simply clutching
}        their term papers, Windoze operating system manuals,
}        W**dch*cks and remedial writing skills course materials.
}
} LONG, SLOW PAN - FOLLOWING THE LINE OF SUPPLICANTS OUT THE DOOR:
}        After the inevitable zig-zag of crowd-control barriers,
}        the line of supplicants stretches for over a mile out
}        across the fields of rural Indiana.
}
}        At the end of the line there are a number of large
}        sewer pipes that terminate here. Some are labelled
}        @AOL.COM, others @HOTMAIL. All are spewing forth
}        the usual things that sewer pipes spew - and in
}        amongst all the resulting filth (of which there is
}        a great quantity) paddles the occasional bedraggled
}        supplicant. As each struggles free of the oderous
}        substances, they stagger to the end of that L-O-N-G line.
}
}        It is with an odd feeling of deja-vue that you imagine
}        some supplicants are in the queue several times.
}
} CUT TO THE BACK OF THE TEMPLE:
}        In a cool, fragrant garden at the rear of the temple,
}        surrounded by walls of purest Italian marble, sit a
}        handful of frazzled individuals. Each is frantically
}        typing at an ancient punched-card machine.
}
}        Littering the surroundings are dozens of old Beatles
}        song books, Gilbert and Sullivan Opera scores, works of
}        classic childrens poetry, dog-eared rhyming dictionaries,
}        StarTrek scripts and such. Several Thesaurii are munching
}        contentedly at the grass of the handsomly manicured lawns.
}
}        Several cavemen and a couple of scantily clad ladies
}        look on - they make lots of sterotyped comments but
}        are noticably NOT HELPING.
}
}        The Incarnations (for that they are) periodically leap
}        from their battered IBM 029's and run over to an ornate
}        throne of purest Kryptonite at which is seated a wizened
}        old man in a rather ill fitting toga. He speaks a few words
}        and a somewhat dishevelled individual who slowly returns
}        to his work - once again typing furiously. Every now and again
}        a deafening ZOT rings out and a small mushroom cloud climbs
}        high and drifts languidly above the towering rooftops of the
}        pristine temple.
}
}        As each pink punched card drops from the end of a machine,
}        a purest white dove swoops from the delicately flowered
}        peach trees just inside the garden, grasps the card
}        in it's beak and flies off into the distance.
}
}        Periodically, an exhausted Incarnation drops dead.
}
}        Few new Incarnations appear.
}
} CUT TO ANOTHER PALACE SEVERAL MILES AWAY:
}        Several people in priestly robes are standing in
}        another equally immaculate garden. The delicate Italian
}        marble sculptures are somewhat dwarfed by the machine
}        gun towers. The floodlights from the guard positions
}        are dazzling the normally docile Thesaurii. The mine
}        field is impressive - although the periodic explosions
}        coming from it do seem to disturb the rabid dogs in the
}        courtyard and the pirahna in the moat.
}
}        Each priest appears to be armed with a pump-action
}        12 gauge. Olive drab ammunition boxes are stacked in great
}        numbers against the delicately flowered Peach trees.
}
}        Suddenly a beautiful pure white dove flutters overhead.
}        Shots ring out - a very dead (and somewhat blackened)
}        dove drops from the sky. It lands with a sickening
}        *SPLOT* and is immediately ripped to shreds by a bunch
}        of Wolves that had been lurking in the artistically
}        clipped topiary Woodchucks.
}
}        A pink card punched with 12 rows and 80 columns of
}        tiny square holes flutters gently to the ground
}        some seconds later.
}
}        One of the priests is collecting the cards, he is
}        evidently reading the holes by touch alone - either
}        that or the thick blindfold is a fake. As each card
}        is read, the priest grimaces and rips the card to
}        shreds. Once in a great while, the priest giggles -
}        and rips the card to shreds anyway.
}
}        The pile of shredded cards grows ever higher - the
}        line of bright eyed supplicants grows ever longer.
}        The Incarnations wish they understood how the 'program
}        drum' worked.
}
}        The wizened old man in the ill-fitting toga could
}        care less.
}
} FADE TO BLACK - NO CREDITS.
}
} You owe the Oracle a basketful of delicately fragrent
} 'ASKME's on paper tape and some way to get dove poop
} off Italian Marble statuary.