Palo Alto, CA - In a daring move, Sun cJCK project members postponed the FCR [first customer release] of their testing kit once again. Marred with confusion and slight idiocy, the project had already been delayed once, pushing the release schedule back a month from a late-July release to an end-of-August release. As a result of the most recent extension, the FCR will not be made available to licensees until the end of September.

When asked her opinion on this turn of events, Maggie Gowall*, an intern working with the cJCK kit, said, "Why am I not surprised? This is just like them."

This schedule delay is not the first annoyance that has arisen in regards to Sun's cJCK project. "The first big problem that we ran into had to be 'Big Huge Hack,'" Gowall said. "I was looking through some of Sun's code, trying to understand the architecture of the test environment, and I ran into a rather hefty section of code labeled 'Big Huge Hack.' John Ching* [Sun cJCK programmer] is such an idiot. He'd better hope we never end up in a dark alley together." Ching was unavailable for comment.

Judging by their past performance, licensees should expect the FCR sometime around the first of the year, assuming that the Y2K bug doesn't destroy the corporation.

Austin, TX - Earlier this month, a number of employees at the Schlumberger Austin Product Center fell victim to a dangerous virus known as the UF Productivity Virus. As many as four employees, all summer interns, lost up to two days worth of work through lack of productivity.

Austin, TX - On the evening of Wednesday, July 21, an unknown man received the top Annoying Austin Driver award. Competition authorities have given a no-contest ruling in bestowing the award of Annoying Austin Driver Number One on the driver of a large red pick-up truck. Although the identity of the driver is not yet known, his lack of automobile piloting is unmatched.

Over the past few months, contest administrators have doled out quite a few of the prestigious Annoying Austin Driver awards. "I estimate that we [the contest administrators] have had about 250 run-ins with really annoying Austinite drivers," Meg Gotshall, one of the contest creators, said. "However, none of the others have reached this level of sheer stupidity and utter annoyance. I think that this man could very easily move on to the state level contest, and quite possibly be eligible for the Annoying American Driver award as well."

The unknown driver earned his award during rush hour on Wednesday evening. Road conditions were less than ideal with rain covering the Austin streets. As many visitors to the city know, Austin's streets are very slick when wet. More astute drivers might also realize that in bad weather, many local Austin drivers become very "stupid" as Chris Deckard, another contest administrator, said.

Due to the rain, Wednesday's rush-hour traffic was slower and more dense than usual. "I was driving much slower than I usually do, because I knew that the road conditions were bad," Gotshall said. "I normally race home after work, but I just didn't feel safe, even driving under the speed limit."

The award-winning driving event began when a young woman in a black Mustang stopped to wait for traffic to clear before attempting to make a left turn off of Anderson Mill Rd. and onto Swan Dr. As she was waiting for traffic to clear, the driver of the red pick-up approached her from behind. The young woman later reported that at the time she wondered if the truck was going to stop at all.

In an impressive move, the driver of the truck pulled up behind the Mustang, skirted slightly to the left, and made a successful left turn onto Swan Dr. during a short break in traffic. Even more astoundingly, he was able to complete this maneuver without any substantial reduction in speed.

Although this move would have easily earned the driver a typical Annoying Austin Driver award, the feat was distinguished further by the resulting events. A light blue Dodge Caravan had been following the red pick-up truck for some way, and this driver later commented that he hadn't foreseen the move at all. Apparently, the truck's driver had taken care not to signal before attempting this spectacular act.

After the truck's turn was complete, the driver of the mini-van suddenly saw the Mustang, stopped and waiting to turn. The driver managed to angle the Caravan as it stopped, so that it barely missed making contact with the other car. Following the Caravan was a smaller, black Nissan driven by two Spanish-speaking men. The driver of this car was less talented in the art of stopping and succeeded in making contact with the Caravan. In a chain reaction, the Caravan moved forward just enough to collide with the Mustang. Minor damage resulted for all three vehicles.

A Honda Civic followed the Nissan, but an opening appeared in the right-hand lane, so the Civic attempted to swerve to the right to avoid the Nissan. Before moving completely out of the left lane, a blue Mazda MX/6 driven by Deckard came to an abrupt stop, using the back-end of the Civic for better deceleration. The Civic sustained very minor damage and continued to the right, pulling off on the side of Anderson Mill Rd.

Once Deckard's car reached a standstill, it once again began moving forward, when a silver Ford Escort driven by Gotshall struck it from behind. This caused an interesting reshaping effect as the low bumper of the Escort slid partially underneath that of the Mazda. Gotshall's Escort successfully took out nearly all of the Mazda's exhaust system, while simultaneously shattering its own front end, and bending the grill back at a sixty degree angle.

"It was pretty amazing," Gotshall said. "I was only going thirty [mph], even though the limit was forty-five. I saw [Deckard's] brake lights, I began slowing down, and the next thing I knew, my hood was bent in half and the front of my car was crumpled. I had at least a 3-second following distance, but since [Deckard] pulled off that 30-to-0 deceleration trick, I have no idea how I was supposed to do the same without using his car as an additional brake system."

Once the drivers of the six damaged cars had all emerged uninjured, they began applauding the annoyingness inherent in the soon-to-be-named Number One Annoying Austin Driver. The drivers of the Caravan and the Mustang began talking avidly about the truck and asked if anyone got the license plate number. Obviously this was to enable contest authorities to notify him of his prize and arrange his award presentation.

The two Hispanic men began talking to each other in Spanish and the Mustang driver overheard one driver say that the truck's driver was his own brother. When the very same truck was spotted further down the road, the brother hurried over to tell him of his now-almost-certain honor. Oddly enough, the truck drove off and was not seen again.

The local sheriff arrived shortly after to officiate the awarding of the title, and trucks came to tow away the two severely-damaged vehicles, belonging to Deckard and Gotshall.

The two have notified their respective insurance agents and hope that the recovery process will go quickly and smoothly, so that they may both get back to their jobs of documenting more Annoying Austin Drivers. Until the insurance companies arrange rentals, the two are sharing a friend's second vehicle.

It is not yet clear what will happen to the two original vehicles. "We don't yet know if they're totaled," Gotshall said. "The Mazda's front and back ends were both damaged, so it's probably totaled. Only the front of the Escort was mangled, but the damage was fairly extensive. I'll have to get estimates before I know how expensive the repairs will be. I'm rather worried about the whole ordeal, because in three weeks I'm scheduled to resign my position as a contest administrator and move to Indiana to continue my education. I just don't know what's going to happen."

The Williamson County Sheriff's Department is currently attempting to locate the recipient of the Number One Annoying Austin Driver award. They have information provided by the winner's brother, but the contest administration has not yet been informed of any further developments.