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JINX TEETERS ON THE BRINK OF HYPERTEXT:  Just when you thought the web
couldn't get any weirder, JINX is pleased to prove you completely wrong.
Our www site is commissioned and under full construction, promising such
questionable features as searchable back issues, a truly massive links
section (including, I might add, a link to your own homepage... read on
fair soul), and vastly nifty content.  But not without *your* help!  JINX
was never a single effort, it was a compilation of multiple weird people
around the globe.  As a reflection of this, we are now accepting all manner
of stuff to knit into our pages, like:

*Your homepage URL.  Since you display such rare good taste by subscribing
to this digest, your homepage deserves to be jinxed with a link (without
blink?  Sorry.).

*Other URLs!  Weird ones, cool ones, odd ones, and remember... we like 'em
rare.

*Most Importantly: Graphical Elements. Design cute/cool images that say
"Jinx!" in an artistic fashion, and we'll litter them throughout the pages.
We accept all formats of graphics, including animated ones, and we always
give credit.

*Got something else that's dandy, be it a sound, a cgi, an uncanny bit of
hypertext wizardry?  Anything that you feel should be there.  There is *no*
predetermined layout... that's the fun of it, you understand.

Stay tuned for our official Web debut (complete with URL), in the meantime
send all web stuff to <jinx@thecentre.com> with the subject "Web".

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Q:  Upon hearing this news, what is the first thing you would do?  If you
answered "create lots of neat stuff for jinx", you're well intentioned but
pretty misguided.  However, if you read our last issue, you'd correctly
answer "Call a meeting!", which prompts me to introduce:

About Meetings -- Part II

There are two major kinds of meetings:

1.      Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that
Arbor Day is observed - namely, tradition.  For example, a lot of
managerial people like to meet on Monday, because it's Monday.
You'll get used to it.  This type of meeting operates the way "Show
and Tell" does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something,
the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have
something to say.

When it's your turn, you should say that you're still
working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on.  This
may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you'd be working on
whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you
weren't, you'd claim you were, but that's the traditional thing
for everyone to say.  It would be a lot faster if the person
running the meeting would just say, "Everyone who is still
working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise
your hand."  You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing
for jokes. But this is not how we do it in North America.  My guess
is, it's how they do it in Japan.

2.      Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are
trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is.

Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show
slides of pie charts and give everyone a big, fat report.  All
you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have
elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and
throw it away, unless, of course, you're a vice president, in
which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right
hand corner, followed be a question mark, like this: "Norm?"

Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it
will plague Norm for the rest of his career).

But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your
"input" on something.   This is very serious because what it
means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is
turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame, so
you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to
asking you anything.  One way is to set fire to your tie.

Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and
announce that you have a phone call from someone very important,
such as the president of the company or the Pope.  It should be
one or the other.  It would a sound fishy if the accomplice said,
"You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope."

You should know how to take notes at a meeting.  Use a yellow
legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice.

Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts
talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of
enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of
life itself.  Then carefully draw interlocking rectangles.

If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave
the room.  Then collect a group of total strangers, right off the
street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he
wakes up.  Then have one of them say to him, "Bob, your plan is
very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try
it.  I only hope, for your sake, that you know what you're
getting yourself into."  Then they should file quietly out of the
room.

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THIS IS NOT MIND CONTROL: If you have the fortitude of living in B.C. (just
like jinx!), you'll note an Election is just around the proverbial corner.
If you're still a bit uncertain who to vote for, why not take the advice of
an irreverent mail list?  <leaps daintily onto soap box> We at JINX aren't
scared of much... Microsoft, yes, Oasis, maybe, but we are genuinely
terrified of the Liberal Party and their  blatantly corporate agenda.  No,
we've not fallen prey to those silly negative Adds, we've actually examined
literature and policy:  Aside from being cloaked in secrecy and heeled far
over to the right wing, it represents the largest dollop of corporate power
this fine province has ever known.  This "yuppie relief fund" of over a
billion dollars will come out of useless services like women's shelters,
welfare support, medical clinics, environmental protection and other such
"wastes".  Since I don't own a corporation yet (phooey), I *know* my
standard of living will drop if the Liberals take over.
The Courage to Change, hm?

 "Never confuse speed with direction, or change with progress."
 -James Carville

     Sadly, we were not able to register JINX as a political party, but you
can vote for the next best thing: the NDP.  Avoid all the mud slinging and
rumors, that's just hype, and avoid the media too... a close race means
high ratings.  Instead, actually read up on what they stand for, or take
the side of JINX, an utterly unaffiliated nonprofit thingy.  Whatever you
do, *vote*!

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I guess no matter what befalls us, the future will belong to our
children...  if worst comes to worst, we can still take refuge in the
knowledge that someday, it'll all be in their hands.

Or... can we?
                   -- Actual Answers to 6th Grade Exams --

"When you breath, you inspire.  When you do not breath, you expire."

"To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube"

"When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide"

"Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin.  Oxygin is pure gin.
 Hydrogin is gin and water."

"The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader."

"Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas."

"The body consists of three parts- the brainium, the borax and the abominable
cavity.  The brainium contains the brain, the borax containsthe heart and
lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls, of which there are five -
a, e, i, o, and u."

"The pistol of a flower is its only protections agenst insects."

"The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana."

"The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the
outsides have ben taken off.  The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch
meat to."

"A fossil is an extinct animal.  The older it is, the more extinct it is."

"Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa."

"Germinate: To become a naturalized German."

"Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away."

"Vacumm: A large, empty space where the pope lives."

"Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or
negative."

"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."

"For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops."

"For drowning: Climb on top of the person and move up and down to make
artifical perspiration."

"For fainting: Rub the person's chest or, if a lady, rub her arm above the hand
instead.  Or put the head between the knees of the nearest medical doctor."

"For asphyxiation: Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead."

"To prevent contraception: wear a condominium."

"For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose untill it drops in your
throat."

"To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow!"