<body background="./ww-bg.gif"> <title>Weekly Whack: Weekly Whack 50!!! </title> <table width=90%> <td ><img alt="" src="./wwicon.gif"></td> <td><tt><font size=6><b> Weekly Whack 50!!! </b></font></tt></td> <tr> <td colspan=2 align=right><font color="000088" size=4><i> June 30, 1996 </i></font></td> </table> <blockquote> <p><dd>This week marks a major milestone in the brief history of Feff World. As indicated by the title, this is the fiftieth edition of the Weekly Whack. For its eleven month existence, the Whacks have been the backbone for Feff World. As John Popper would sing, it's the Whacks that brings them back. So I figured there would be no better way to celebrate the fiftieth edition than to have a Whack about Whacks; or more specifically, a history of the Weekly Whacks, past, present, and future. <p><b>The Past-</b> <p><dd>I think if you wanted to trace the history of the Whacks, you would probably want to start back in the cavemen days. You see, a long long time ago, the human race was nothing more than a bunch of ape-like people running around trying to find food. Then one day, according to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, a large monolith came from the skies and landed on Earth. When the ape-like humans approached the monolith, and touched it, they were engulfed in this burst of knowledge. So after the encounter with the monolith, humans evolved so greatly that could now do such things as use weapons and tools, plant and grow food, and juggle three bowling balls while jumping through a ring of fire. In addition to all this cool stuff, humans now had the ability to observe other humans, and find humor in all the wacky things they did. And that my friend, is the origin of the Weekly Whack. <p><dd>Ok, lets jump a bunch of millenniums to the year 1977. It was in October of 1977 that I was born. Two days after I was born, God sent the world a sign to celebrate the greatness of my birth in the form of Reggie Jackson hitting three home-runs in games six of the World Series against the Dodgers. Thusly, the holy symbol of Reggie hitting a home-run in that game is integrated in the Weekly Whack symbol. Anyhoo, after my birth came my childhood. Now my childhood was definitely interesting. My father read Mad Magazine to me instead of normal bedtime stories, I watched Three Stooges re-runs instead of Sesame Street, and when I played GI Joe's with my brother, we recreated presidential assassinations. So as a result of my environment growing up, I developed a somewhat odd sense of humor, and an imagination bigger than Barbara Streisand's nose. <p><dd>When I was in sixth grade, 1989-90, my reading/math teacher Mr. Lees allowed us to do something that is usually shunned in the classrooms of any public school, and that was creative writing. I was a kid who would just stay to myself and not say a word all during class; but now I was reading my stories in front of my peers and causing great laughter. It had to be the best feeling I ever experienced. About a year or two after that, I met a kid by the name of Joe Hewitt. Like me, he also liked writing humorous stories. But unfortunately his interpretation of humor was so far out there that only a select group of people, which included myself, could appreciate it without throwing rotting tomatoes at him. However he did have a computer, and he knew how to use it, so that was cool. <p><dd>This brings us to the final destination of this story, the summer after my Junior year of high school, which was exactly one year ago. In many aspects, I can finger this summer as a huge turning-point in my life. First of all I put aside my Sega Genesis, and bought a computer. With this computer I got a modem, and it was not long until I was thrust into the remarkable world of the Internet. It was soon after this that Joe moved about forty-five minutes south of where we lived, which when you don't have a car, can seem like a great distance. However thanks to the beauty of the Internet I was able to keep in touch with him. And this was definitely a good thing, because his new Internet provider gave him the ability to create a Web page, and I was the one he turned to to make it the best possible Web page it could be. So in a two week fury of me writing, and Joe programming, Feff World was created. And thus, it was during this time, exactly fifty weeks ago, that the first Weekly Whack was introduced to the world. <p><b>The Present-</b> <p><dd>Presently the Weekly Whack is not different than how it started. There has been relatively few changes in its format. Basically I just sit down once a week for about two hours, and write whatever is on my mind. Many times it is topical, many times it is not. It depends on my mood, what was going on that week, and the wind chill factor of the current day. I also have kept it generally the same length throughout, and the end of nearly every Whack is the patented concluding paragraph, and then my version of a top ten list. So all in all, you wouldn't find much difference between Weekly Whack seven or Weekly Whack forty-seven. <p><b>The Future-</b> <p><dd>I can't really speculate on what the future holds for the Weekly Whack. Who knows what Weekly Whack 100, or even 1000 will be like? All I can say, is that as I continue to go through life, and experience new things, it will definitely broaden what I can write about it. And who knows, maybe one day there will be a Weekly Whack transmitted from the moon. But until then, I'll keep writing, Joe will keep programming, you will keep reading, and we all will be better people because of it. <p><dd>So to conclude for the fiftieth edition of the Whack, Arthur Clarke has a warped view of evolution; Mad Magazine should be required reading in elementary school; and Weekly Whack from the moon- one small step for Feff, one giant leap for Feffkind. <p><i>For this week's very special feature, I was going to have the top ten best Whacks as selected by Henry Kissenger, but I never got in touch with him. However don't worry, I have a better idea. You, the faithful Feff World visitor, can tell me your favorite or least favorite Whacks among the first fifty. You don't have to come up with a list of ten, just tell me some of the Whacks you liked, and some of the Whacks you hated. If I get enough responses, I'll even print the results. <b>So be sure to email your best and worst of the Whacks to me at: <a href="mailto:dpalermo@gti.net">dpalermo@gti.net</a></i></b></p> <br><br> </blockquote>