[Spooks] Need help identifying something weird

[Zack Widup]

On Fri, 12 May 2006, Al Fansome wrote:

> 
> This is a little OT, but this topic reminds me of a phone number known as 
> the "Z-Line" in the Los Angeles area back in the mid-70s.
> 
> It was listed as the first number in the LA phonebook whitepages under 
> "AAAAAAA", and as the last under "ZZZZZZZ". When you called it (it was 
> always busy during the day, so you had to call in the wee hours of the 
> morning), there would be a brief musical flourish, followed by the 
> announcement "You have reached the Z-Line, the first and last name in 
> telephone entertainment!", by what sounded like a professional announcer. 
> Then another voice would recite a random joke, and hang-up. When I first 
> started calling it, the second voice was American, and the jokes tended to 
> be fairly long, and I believe even had some sound effects. Later on, the 
> voice changed to a British accent, and the jokes became brief one or 
> two-liners. I still remember a couple of the latter: "What's nitrate of 
> potassium? Half the day rate!", and "Never give blood needle-lessly!".
> 
> No one was ever able to tell me at the time who was behind this, and the 
> number eventually went away. To this day I occasionally wonder what it was 
> all about. I've Googled for the subject, and always come up empty-handed.

The local phone company here had random names and phone numbers in the 
white pages highlighted or bold for a couple years.  I got to noticing 
that the phone number was the same number throughout the directory, so I 
called it one day.  It turns out it was a phone company number and you 
could pay extra to have your listing put in bold, italics, etc.  I don't 
think it ever caught on because now all the listings are done in the same 
font and type.

> 
> And by the way, this numbers line does not appear to be in Commander Bunny's 
> code, and I feel no urge to check my tire pressure...
> 

I didn't mean to single you out, Al, but the line was from the WBNY page 
at spynumbers.com.  BTW I heard WBNY a few weeks ago. I think I posted it 
on the usaswpirates list.

I'm still curious about the code from the landline and the fact that every 
5-number group has at least one "zero" in it.  If I get some spare time 
this weekend I might doodle around with trying to solve it ...

73, Zack