excuse.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# Your random BOFH excuse calendar.
# Based upon the The Bastard Operator From Hell Stories written by Simon Paul Travaglia.
# And the list compiled by Jeff Ballard, http://jeffballard.us/
#
# Automatically downloads the excuses from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh/excuses
# and stores them as ~/.excuses.txt for reuse.
require 'open-uri'

class Array
  def rand
    self[Kernel.rand(size)]
  end
end

filename = File.expand_path '~/.excuses.txt'
unless File.exist?(filename)
  excuses = URI.parse('http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh/excuses').read
  File.open(filename,'w') {|f| f.puts(excuses)}
end
lines = File.readlines(filename)
excuse = lines.rand
# Choose one of {multiple,options}:
excuse.gsub!(/\{(.+?,.+?)\}/) {|options| options.gsub(/\{|\}/,'').split(",").rand}
puts excuse