How to Create an alt.* Newsgroup

You can start an alt.* newsgroup in one of three ways—

1. Stand on top of your computer and chant “newsgroup, newsgroup, newsgroup!” 17.5 times, then say the name of it while facing north-northwest and looking upward at the star Alpha Orionis. The newsgroup will spontaneously appear, unless Alpha Orionis is within 15° of a cirrus cloud, in which case you’ll have to face Delta Ursæ Majoris. Of course, this method won’t work on Thursays, Tuesdays, the first minute of any second hour of any third Wednesday of April, or any holiday with a k (or a ß) in its name, so you’ll have to refer to method #2.

B. There is no second method. See method #3.

3. Get as many free-trial AOL disks as you can, and spell out the name of your newsgroup with them (it must be backwards and upside down to work). The newsgroup will appear within seventy-three years. Spelling the newsgroup out in Hebrew or Aramaic characters will speed up the process, so you can expect your newsgroup to appear, 20% a day for five days, starting in 7 π/4 days.

NOTE: And it costs $34,135.67 (about £6, −557¥ or twenty trillion pieces of dryer lint) to start a newsgroup. Send it to one of the alt.config residents, such as the Anti-Oliver group (there are several of them) or Stan KalIIIsch. Anti-Oliver & Co. will make good use of it to buy their own domain so they can rmgroup with even more impunity than they are now, and KalIIIsch can use it to go take his “fljying fjuck” everyone was telling him to take a while back (if you don’t know, don’t ask).