It has come to my attention that a few subscribers believed that the story sent out today -- 1994'S Most Bizarre Suicide -- was a true story. On occasion I do use PackyHumor as a sopabox and disseminate my opinion (which, as some have posited, is a far cry from the truth) or the occasional "don't believe this bogus warning going around" message, but usually PackyHumor is reserved for humor: things I find funny.

Sometimes what I find funny is indeed true. The story culled from the Weekly World News a few weeks back was true in as much as there was indeed a minister claiming that computers could be possessed by demons. Now, I know my computer is infested with daemons (geek joke, folks), but I found the idea that somebody believed that evil sprits could inhabit a computer to be absurd. Hence: true, but not true.

Now for the veracity of the "Most Bizarre Suicide" story. I didn't take it to be true when I originally sent it out back in 1995. Then I saw a wonderful story about it on one of my favorite websites, UrbanLegends.About.com, which dished out the full scoop (When this morning's message went out, alert reader Jan Altman reminded me of the URL for the story about this 'too neat to be true' tale: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa072097.htm). It turns out that the story was indeed presented by then AAFS President Don Harper Mills, but it was presented in 1987, not 1994. Furthermore, when he presented the story, he stated clearly that it was MADE UP "for entertainment and to illustrate how if you alter a few small facts you greatly alter the legal consequences."

I just like it because it's such a good story. *grin*