Inspired by the Mad Magazine reading book parodies, these humor pieces will provide the reader with education as well as entertainment.

2. THE INTERNET

2.1. Piracy

See the record company executive.
See his expensive suit.
See his 1000-dollar designer ponytail.
See his 40-acre Bel Air mansion.
He spends more on his lunches
than most people pay to buy a new car.
The record company executive is very angry.
Angry, angry, angry.
Last year his company sold music CDs
for 10 billion dollars.
Dollars, dollars, dollars.
But this year his company sold music CDs
for only 9 billion dollars.
That's enough money to feed a poor country
for a whole year.
Why is the record company executive so angry?
Because thanks to music piracy
he can't sell as many CDs for 15 dollars each
that only cost him 1 dollar each to make.
Too bad that 9 billion dollars is not enough money
to feed a multi-national record company
for a whole year.

2.2. Chat Rooms

See the Chat Rooms.
Chat, chat, chat.
Let's count the number of people in the chat rooms.
Ten, twenty, three hundred, two million...
Forget about it!
Let's just say there are many people in the chat rooms.
Who are these people?
They are lonely.
Men, women, kids, old folks.
Lonely, lonely, lonely.
So what do they talk about in the chat room?
The men ask for the women's phone numbers.
Pant, pant, pant.
The women fantasize that the men are rich and handsome.
Dream, dream, dream.
The kids make fun of the men and women
and pretend to be grown-ups.
Pant, dream, pant, dream.
The old people talk about the weather and play cards.
Yak, yak, yak.
Cards, cards, cards.
How silly people must have been in the old days
when they went out of their houses
or went to bars
and talked to each other.
But at least in the old days
when you went to a bar
you could tell if the people there
were men or women.

2.3. Online Gaming

See the online game.
In this Internet game you can be a knight with sword
and hack at monsters all day.
Hack, hack, hack.
Or you can be a wizard with a wand
and zap monsters all day.
Zap, zap, zap.
The game is played by tens of thousands of people
all at the same time.
Isn't it amazing?
It's almost as amazing
as having thousands of people in one big room
screaming and yelling
while they fight and kill each other.
See the players chat with each other.
They type messages like: "u suxxor!"
Or: "ru female in rl?"
Or: "Where do u live?"
It may not surprise you
that most of the people who play this game
are men who have never had sex.

2.4. Old Media

See Matt.
Matt has a website.
Maybe you've heard about it.
Matt lives in Florida.
He wears a fedora.
(It's a hat. Once upon a time all men wore hats.)
He's not rich.
He doesn't publish a newspaper like The New York Times
or a magazine like Newsweek.
He's not a TV news anchorman.
If you read only printed newspapers
and only read magazines like Time and Newsweek
and only watched TV
you might think Matt didn't exist.
But people across the world read Matt's website
and get their daily news from there.
"Real" journalists don't talk about Matt in public.
He's not part of "their club."
But they check his website every fifteen minutes
just in case the next big story appears there soon.

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"A.R.Yngve's READING BOOK" is (c)A.R.Yngve 2003. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without permission.

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