heres a joke column about san jose's newest attraction the tech museum. the locals love it. spike
Subject:FWD> Tech Museum Funny
Definitely a Bay thing, but if you don't live in the area, you can still get the idea. Ahh, life in the Bay Area!
As most of you know, the new Tech Museum has just opened up and it's a pretty cool place, but I think that if they really wanted to capture life in the Silicon Valley, they could've done a lot worse than including any of the following:
Exhibits that should have been in the new Tech Museum in San Jose:
Try the "880 Endurance Course"!
Hey! You finally made it past the Winchester Mystery Puddle at The
Alameda on-ramp, and you're finally up to 25 mph! You'll make Brokaw
road in no time. But look out! 101 merges into 880 AND the freeway
goes down to two lanes AT THE SAME TIME!
Who designed this nutty course?
Or try the "17 Face Off of Doom"!
You're behind one truck in the right lane going 21 mph. The truck in
the left lane is going 20.5 mph! Calculate how many hours it will be
before you can pass both trucks!
Or try the 680 "Trail of Tears"!
You've got to make it from Pleasanton to Fremont with only one full tank
of gas! Sound easy? Don't forget the inept Caltrans contractors who
block off lanes for no reason at all!
2. The Unreasonable Expectation Work Week Simulator: Ever wonder what it's like to work eighty hours a week? You can now experience blurry vision, diminished reaction time, the health effects of eating nothing but Doritos, and the heart-racing excitement of Jolt Cola addiction with the Unreasonable Expectation Work Week Simulator! Hey, who are those strangers claiming to be your family? They're just part of the mysteries you'll experience at the Tech Museum!
3. The "Find Help At Fry's" Cyber-Challenge:
Don your Virtual Reality goggles and take a tour in the Valley's
favorite electronics chain!
Your challenge: find someone who can help you. It's not as easy as it
sounds, though. If you do find someone, you still have to somehow get
them to make eye contact!
And once you get help, the challenge isn't over! You still have to avoid the "Let me get my manager" monster, endure the perpetual "Humans as Cattle" cash register corral, and make it past the paranoid door Nazi without getting a body cavity search! Youch!
4. The Valley Fair Parking Space Scavenger Hunt: Your mission: get in our car simulator and find parking at the Valley's most congested mall! Extra points for finding a space within a one mile radius of the mall itself.
Next year we hope to make this scavenger hunt even more challenging when we violate the laws of conservation of mass with the addition of the Town and Country Monument to Bad City Management!
5. Sell or Die:
Kids will learn valuable lessons playing this interactive game designing
and marketing superior, technically-advanced products that fill a niche
and meet a need. But wait! The fun is just starting! It's time to
play "Sell or Die"!
Kids get to choose whether they will let themselves be bought out by the
"innovative" Microsoft, or whether they will resist the urge and have
their products undersold by Microsoft's inferior competing products!
The fun is in seeing how long *you* can last in the face of unfair marketing practices. The last player to go bankrupt paying their legal bills wins! Extra points for kids who survive long enough to testify in front of the Justice Department!
6. Mr. Jobs' Wild Ride:
Get in your Apple Stock Rocket and experience the wildest roller coaster
ride of your life! Just when you think the Rocket is about to hit a
wall, swerve wildly and unexpectedly to one side and avoid certain death
(for now)! And the best part is, your fate is completely in the hands
of one all-powerful and unpredictable hippy-turned-power
player-turned-exile-turned-interim CEO for life!
And look out! The Larry Ellison Hot Wind Machine will try to blow you off course! You'll lose your lunch on abrupt policy changes, and scream your lungs out as you freefall on the final Mac Clone Maker Betrayal Drop of Death! Riders can then regain their composure looking at the:
7. San Jose Mercury News Wall of Premature Apple Obituaries: Get up close and personal with Valley history by reading over fifteen years of stories lamenting the imminent death of everyone's favorite fruit company!
With all that circling, don't buzzards ever get dizzy?