The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

This may have been asked before, forgive me if it has (thread now bookmarked):

I'm trying to remember the name/author of a story I read a while back. This would be late 90's or early 00's, and it was probably published about then. It's a short story about a guy who finds a genie in a lamp, and gets the cliched three wishes. However, this guy is one smart fella, and through a lot of talking, asking questions, and careful wording, ends up successfully doing what everyone who gets genie wishes tries: unlimited wishes.

After asking a friend about it, I think it's a short little story in a book that has something to do with software licensing and legalese. Neither of us remembers where it came from though, and Google doesn't help much.

Sound familiar to anyone?

# ¿ May 31, 2008 04:52

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:20

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

fritz posted:

Those were by Beverly Cleary: http://www.beverlycleary.com/books/henry_books.html

Wow, I remember these books pretty well too. The bratty younger sister is Ramona, and she was the main character of quite a few books. The older sister was nicknamed Beezus (Beatrice?), and the boy was Henry (he's got a dog named Ribsy, there's a book or two about them). It's been over 20 years since I read any of those (grade school), but I remember enjoying them. I should probably look into getting copies of those for my kids.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2009 09:23

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

urger posted:

This is a story I remember from the long ago days of 5 grade English class.
Basically the plot goes that there is a supercomputer that is running an allied space war. But the scientist in charge of the computer doesn't trust it so he takes the results the machine gets and replaces them with new results he makes up by flipping a coin.

It's an Asimov short story. Couldn't tell you which one though.

Ninja edit: I lied, it's The Machine that Won the War

# ¿ Aug 4, 2009 00:01

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

regulargonzalez posted:

Another sci-fi short story I'm trying to remember the name of.

So, through the magic of science some guy is able to resurrect a person from the past. He chooses a composer from the early 18th century, someone who I'd never heard of who the narrator thinks was as gifted as any but always overlooked. He then proceeds to educate the baroque-era composer on the innovations in music, going through Mozart, Beethoven, etc up through modern stuff. Ultimately the composer becomes fixated on disco music and refuses to listen to or compose anything else, to the frustration of the narrator.

Given the disco stuff, I'm assuming it was written in the 70s but I read it probably within the last 5 years or so, though it could have been in an older anthology.

No clue, but sounds hilarious.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2009 18:30

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

King Nothing posted:

Can someone confirm if this quote is from this book, or one of the sequels? Google's not helping.

Sounds like something that could be in there, but perhaps it was 'head' and not 'hand', in reference to Zaphod?

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 01:44

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

MY FANTASYS.zip posted:

Trying to remember a few books I had to read back in elementary school. One is about a boy being abandoned in a forest, where he adopts a falcon and builted a house inside a giant tree. I recall there was a sequel where he returns to the forest years later with his sister or whatever, and they built a house in that location.

Another book had a boy become a orphan, and first lived with a African-American couple until he had to leave, and then lived with a old man in a zoo's janitor closet. Can't recall more of the book from there other then the old man dying and he was forced to leave.

First one is My Side of the Mountain. Seems to be a thread favorite, but I'm glad it was brought up - this was a book I had read a long time ago and forgotten about.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2009 22:13

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

Pr0phecy posted:

This should be an easy request but I can't seem to remember the title of this one book.

The premise of the book is quite similar to Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 in the premise of an ignorant and dystopian society but this book is about a society that just "doesn't care". There are far too many distractions and activities that people's brains just turn into "mush". God I feel like an infant writing this. Anyway, it often gets put in the same camp as 1984 so please send help.

This is probably Brave New World. Between 1984 and this, it looks like we're headed this direction.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2010 01:03

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:20

gruvmeister: Dec 28, 2006; Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where the flowers is

gruvmeister posted:

This may have been asked before, forgive me if it has (thread now bookmarked):

I'm trying to remember the name/author of a story I read a while back. This would be late 90's or early 00's, and it was probably published about then. It's a short story about a guy who finds a genie in a lamp, and gets the cliched three wishes. However, this guy is one smart fella, and through a lot of talking, asking questions, and careful wording, ends up successfully doing what everyone who gets genie wishes tries: unlimited wishes.

After asking a friend about it, I think it's a short little story in a book that has something to do with software licensing and legalese. Neither of us remembers where it came from though, and Google doesn't help much.

Sound familiar to anyone?

Quoting myself from a ways back. Something made me think of this again tonight and I did some more clever Googling and found it! It's a short story in Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic, I believe it's the one called 'The Devil went to Bell Labs' I can't read it all in the Amazon peek inside preview, but if I remember right the wisher in the book, Bill, is supposed to be a young Bill Gates.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2010 10:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy