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From: derick@sky.net (Don Erickson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: AOL ATTEMPTING AFU TAKEOVER
Date: 11 Nov 1996 22:49:51 -0600

AMERICA ONLINE ANNOUNCES PLANS TO ACQUIRE AFU INC.

DATELINE: Salcha AK, Nov. 11, 1996

America Online, (NYSE: AOL) today publicly announced intentions to acquire AFU Inc. (NASDAQ: AFU) from their probable parent company, the Disney Corporation. (NYSE: DIS).

"Urban Legends are hot," Aol spokeman Lags Urinose explained. "AFU Inc. has traditionally been one of the largest producers and distributors of Urban Legends, but the company has been horribly mismanaged recently. The current owners have been accused of discouraging cluelessness and driving off new members, so it's a perfect opportunity for America Online as the most popular internet online service to step in and open things up."

Mr. Urinose stated that America Online had been sizing up AFU Inc. for a couple of years. "Disney surprised us with their buy-out attempt last summer. There are apparently some legal questions about the finality of that deal, so given the current suit-happy climate in AFU we can probably slip this one under the rug. We were initially concerned about a possible negative reaction from some of the longer-term inhabitants, but most of them are rumored to be lounging with their profits on some Carribean island. There was no real resistance to the Disney takeover, so we expect this acquisition to progress very smoothly."

When questioned about the stockholders' lawsuits and sporadic short-wave broadcasts urging defiance of the ownership change, Mr. Urinose just laughed. "You may consider a rat smoking a cigarette to be organized resistance. We don't."

Bouyed by their success in overcharging for luser-friendly interfaces, America Online plans to expand this philosophy to AFU. "We have lots of fun new ideas, and we expect traffic in the newsgroup to grow exponentially. For too long AFU has been run by a private clique of fascist pedants, motorcyclists, roughnecks, Canadians, tenured professors and other undesirables. It's about time that folks with nothing to say were free to say it.

"We have planned a whole new graphical component to AFU. Games of 'How Lame is This?', where users will try to out do each other in a death spiral of banality, will compete with our new Java version of 'dunk-the-snopes'. Also, a real-time version of 'Flog That Horse' is expected to be very popular, where contestants try to push the envelope of equine death to levels previously unimagined except by Pennsylvania road paving crews.

"We'll be kicking things off with a special promotion called 'Rat Poison', where users will compete to distribute various rodent-unfriendly substances throughout the AFU Building. The user who places the winning poison will win fifty free hours of access, plus a one-of-a-kind rat pelt monitor cleaning chamois, suitable for framing. We expect this particular game to be quickly discontinued, so everyone should participate as soon as possible."

One AFU Plaza, the subterranean skyscraper that houses AFU Inc. also fits nicely into America Online's plans, according to Mr. Urinose. "We're planning to remove all the books and reference materials from the shelves, we hope this will reduce the weight of the building enough that it will rise above street level. Our Virtual Engineers are working on this right now. We are going to do away with all the oppressive heavy baggage AFU has acquired over the years, and sunlight streaming through those special-order flow-resistant glass windows would be wonderfully symbolic."

This is a reference to the unpublicised and usually vehemently denied fact that the general contractor installed special flow resistant glass in One AFU Plaza, and charged an additional $400,000 to do it. One AFU Plaza is reputed to be the only flow-resistant art zydeco structure on the block.

While Wall Street reacted favorably to the announcement, (AFU shares rose two-fifty) the news precipitated a flurry of activity at One AFU Plaza, and around the world. A number of weasels were spotted on the sidewalk, after they had walked under a painter's ladder. A plague of locusts boarded a plane in Kansas, and only lost two laptop computers in the process. Two members of the AFU undead were raised, but they folded rather than see the bid. The inhabitants of several well known pubs in London were reported to be extremely pissed. In the confusion George Johnstone sued himself, accidentally. And Walt Disney's head, suspended in liquid nitrogen somewhere in the Matterhorn, also refused to be quoted but was said to be visibly revolving.