Plurp: A Weblog

2000.10.22 : 2000.10.28

Saturday, October 28, 2000
Blab. A reader of the editorial persuasion suggests:
LenCrafters: A chain of shops that carefully and lovingly makes men called 'Len'.
Makes them what?

Blab. A reader of the philosophical persuasion asks:
What does a rose smell like?
Indeed! A trivial answer might state something else that reminds you of the smell of a rose. Tea, perhaps, or honey. Today's Plurp Challenge is to try to do better: describe (in that cute Blab box in the left margin) what it is like when you smell a rose, not by analogy or simile, but by describing the experience directly. Anyone quoting Shakespeare will be banished.

Blab. A reader of the privately investigatorial persuasion reveals both my moonlighting career and a picture of me without a beard. Hey!!

Blab. A reader of the politically ambidexterous persuasion fromoshes:
© 2000 Steve R. White, All Rights and Lefts Reserved
A curious thought! Is this related to copylefts?

Blab. A reader of the carpenterial persuasion has discovered that Helen & Steve, having become experts in cabinetry, have opened up a small shop in Cambridgeshire. Here's a pic of Helen and some of the nice people we work with. Hi, Trevor!

Yo. OK, this weblog stuff is getting a bit scary. Some anonymous contributor (who is not me!) to Dave's weblog yesterday wrote:
The Bicycle Pedaling Frog observes the blue dog suspiciously, from a distance.
The levels of cliquishness hinted at by this event are truly terrifying.

Yow. A new Helenism, courtesy of someone at work who probably wants to remain anonymous:
Throwing the goose out with the bathwater.
And it's about geese, which is always a plus.

Yow. I love this little animation! Thanks to J for finding it (somewhere!) and contributing it.
J says it reminds her of me, for some reason. Ian claims he hasn't seen me dancing like this in the hallways at work.

Yo. Sign seen at the checkout counter of a convenience store:
Sung
lasses
$3.95 a pair

Plurp. Friend L at work is socializing the word neurobics meaning something like exersize for your brain. You know, combing your hair with your left hand if you're right handed, or returning home and entering your apartment blindfolded. It probably originates from this book, which claims that you can build new synaptic connections and keep your brain from fading as you age.
Neurophysiological breakthrough or kinky fetish? You decide.

Plurp.
The blue dog had
always wondered who
rode those
little bicycles.

Friday, October 27, 2000
Blab. Our newly-self-appointed Northwest correspondent writes:
Dear Dr. Plurp, this is your newly-self-appointed Northwest Correspondent, representing the new Silicon Valley. I noticed the Blue Dog looked green today. Is it my computer screen, or is it tied in somehow to your well-covered Subway Series?
We asked the blue dog. He's not telling. More on that subway series thing later, though.

Plurp. Ya know, there are a couple of things I find absolutely amazing about this weblog stuff. (1) That anybody besides me reads this. As I said a while ago:
My insight for the day is that a weblog is kinda like using a thought-to-text translation device whose output gets posted to the Web. Most of the time, I can't believe how dull that little voice is. The notion that anyone would want to listen to it (or in your case, read it) who wasn't stuck in the same head as it - well, that's just mystifying.
But there you are. And (2), even more amazing, that people write stuff in response, even volunteering to take quasi-official "correspondent" positions.
Don't get me wrong. I think it's great! It's just mystifying.

Rant. How long does it take to do things? Two weeks. Really! This is the universal, invariant time interval to do anything that's well-specified but that you don't want to do. What it really means is:
I could do this in a couple of hours if I wanted to. But I don't. So you can have it in two weeks. The rest of the time I'll be surfing the Web, talking to my compatriots about the subway series, making Clinton doodles on the carpet with toothpaste, and telling other people two weeks just to torque them off. You have to understand. I'm a very busy person.
What am I talking about? Just about anything you need someone else to do. Especially stuff that you need right away.
This is certainly true of programmers. Ask a programmer how long it will take to add some simple function to an existing program. Two weeks. In other words, they don't really know, they haven't really thought about it, broken it down, figured out what it will take but, heck, they can probably do it in a couple of hours, so two weeks should be plenty.
I'm having a new pair of reading glasses made (old age creepeth). If I had gone to LenCrafters, I could have had them made while I waited. Instead, I went to the same place that Helen got her glasses recently. Which is fine, but guess how long it will take. Yep. Two weeks.
It's also true of contractors who do apartment renovation. (Long, excruciating scream here, for those of you who know what we're going through.) How long will it take to cut a slab of granite into a rectangle of a given size? Two weeks. That's what we learned tonight, anyway. Now, is this hard? Are there complex problems which must be solved for the first time in order to do this? Are there uncertainties against which one must fortify oneself? Could this really take longer than a couple of hours?
No, of course not. That's why it will take two weeks.
And, in my experience, it means two weeks at a minimum.
Hey, other stuff might come up. I might have to spend lots of time reading old Dilberts on the Web. I might need to drink lots of beer in sports bars. I might decide to incorporate dental floss in my latest Clinton portrait for artistic purposes. Like I said, I'm a very busy person.
It would be wise to keep sharp objects away from me for a while.
I'd say two weeks.
At a minimum.

Plurp. Well, this subway series thing is still going on, or so I'm told. Its major effect, as I predicted, has been to make my commute longer. That's because folks around here Don't Get It. How else can you explain so many people driving their cars to the subway series? I mean, would it have helped any if they had named it the hey-we-really-mean-it-don't-drive-your-car-to-it series?

Yo. You know, you work your whole life to develop a distinguished body of work, to rise above your peers, to climb to the top of the heap. Who knew that, in the end, it would be so easy? Oh - sorry. I got ahead of my story.
I came to a wonderful realization today. You see, I live in New York. Both of the hockey teams in this subway series thing are located in New York. (Well, not strictly. I live in southern Manhattan. That is to say, New York. They are in Da Bronx and Flushing, Queens. That is to say, The Boroughs. It's different. But I digress.)
So anyway, there's apparently this rule that applies to people who live in the same geographic area as sports teams that score more "points" than some other sports team. The team that scores more "points" is Number One. And, somehow, by infection of something, all of the nearby people are also Number One. (I know. Isn't this wild stuff?)
Here's the realization. Both of these teams are in New York (well, sort of). I'm in New York. One of them is going to win this subway thingie. That will make them Number One. And, by geographical transitivity, it will also make me Number One. No matter which teams wins! And no matter what I do!
Cool.

Yow. Late breaking news. Someone says that one of those soccer teams won the subway series thing, presumably by scoring more "points" than the other team. (At least, I think that's how it works.) That means I'm already Number One. I'm so proud.

Yow. For those of you with way too much time on your hands, I stole a Java applet that does Spirographs. Go play.

Created by Anu Garg.
Do you like it? Then Blab at me in the Blab box in the left margin.
Hate it? It doesn't work for you? Find bugs in it? Then by all means let this Anu character know. Park and lock it. Not responsible.

Yak.
Shall I save this?
For what?
Pancakes.
Trout pancakes?
I thought you liked trout.

Plurp.
Two weeks.

Thursday, October 26, 2000
Blab. Our Massachusetts correspondent gives us more details of her recent move to the Bean State.
The MA Choruspondent is not new - she is the mid-Atlantic choruspondent. Rats, how could the parent of a Boston U graduate think MA stood for anything but Mass? I slipped up there for a minute. MAVA at your service.
Thanks, Mava! We look forward to hearing more about your new digs.

Blab. Our Canadian correspondent beseeches us to check out a rather odd Web site:
Canadian accents! nakednews.com!
Note: Adult content. (Does that make you more, or less likely to click on the link? Hmm?)

Blab. A critical reader writes:
Before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Then when you do criticize them, you will be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes!
That's complete nonsense, of course - simplistic, absurd and likely to spread various fungal diseases. At least, that's my immediate reaction.

Blab. A person who claims to be my greatest fan writes the following pithy and multifaceted missive.
Dear Dr. Plurp. Wednesday was boring. Make it better. I enjoyed the pictures. Pet your blue dog for me. Does he bite? Your Greatest Fan
We are very sorry to hear that you had a dull day. Sadly, our time machine is on the blink again, so history will have to remain unchanged for now. We hope today's pictures draw your attention away from the no-doubt frightening realization that the blue dog is just a bunch of pixels (or a concept, depending on your point of view) which (in either case) cannot bite or be petted.

Plurp. Way back in 1981, Helen and I went to Disneyland. It was, in fact, the first time we ever went there together. (I, as you may have suspected, was a Mousketeer before I ever got into Kindergarten.) We have now lost count of how many times we've been to DisneySomeplace. Well, I have.

Anyhow, for you picture lovers, here are the two of us (or, rather, our much younger avatars) on King Arthur's Carousel. For those of you who remember back that far, it was just an A ticket ride. But it turned out to have great price-performance for us!
Technical note: Despite valiant efforts to highlight Helen's wonderful blue eyes, JPEG compression insists on making them brown. Sorry!

Yow. And speaking of Helen, we are pround to introduce the latest stuff in our Stuff section: Helenisms ! Helenisms are aphorismic phrases made up of two, related, constituent phrases that, ...
Oh heck. I've given up trying to explain them. You know what they say: you can't change spots on an old dog. Just go read them.

Plurp.
The blue dog, being
just a bunch of
pixels, could
not be frightened by being
just a bunch of
pixels.

Wednesday, October 25, 2000
Blab. A forelorn reader writes:
Dear Plurp,
Whether this is hypermodern minimalism or a screw-up in the Blab box is not known.

Plurp. Modern scholastic literature is very odd. Have you been following it? No? Well, ponder this:
For example, in a colloquium of philosophy in the French language, a conventional context, produced by a kind of implicit but structurally vague consensus, seems to prescribe that one propose "communications" on communication, communications in discursive form, colloquial, oral communications destined to be understood and to open or pursue dialogues within the horizon of an intelligibility and truth of meaning, such that in principle a general agreement may finally be established.
What does that mean? I don't know either. How about this:
If one examines Derridaist reading, one is faced with a choice: either accept the textual paradigm of narrative or conclude that truth is capable of social comment. If realism holds, we have to choose between precultural narrative and conceptualist subdialectic theory. However, Sontag uses the term semantic feminism to denote a self-justifying whole.
Wild, isn't it?
You may be reassured to learn that lots of other people have no idea what this means either. Perhaps you'll also sleep better knowing that some clever person has written a program to generate random postmodern dreck. Can you tell the difference?
Would it surprise you to learn that the first example (above) was from a famous Postmodernist essay, while the latter was randomly generated by a computer program?
Then there is the story of the computer scientists who, after sitting slack-jawed in confusion listening to a bunch of postmodernists, came back the next day and delivered this introduction to their talk:
The essential paradigm of cyberspace is creating partially situated identities out of actual or potential social reality in terms of canonical forms of human contact, thus renormalizing the phenomenology of narrative space and requiring the naturalization of the intersubjective cognitive strategy, and thereby resolving the dialectics of metaphorical thoughts, each problematic to the other, collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm of the parable of the model of the metaphor.
A pretty good fake, if you ask me! Their very funny article about how this came to be is here.

Plurp.
It could be said that in Four Rooms, Tarantino affirms Lyotardist narrative; in
Reservoir Dogs he analyses neocultural patriarchialism.

Tuesday, October 24, 2000
Blab. In response to something in the Oct. 21 Plurp (perhaps the notion that, in a previous life, the blue dog was a roadside attraction) a reader writes:
Truely

Blab. Reacting to my recent rant about society tolerating violence in professional sports, our Canadian correspondent writes:
There are venues, like the hockey field, where a certain amount of violence is punished less than elsewhere. This is IMHO OK, as the people on the hockey field knew that when they signed up. Eh?
From a Libertoonian viewpoint, I could only agree. Ye gets paid yer money and ye takes yer chances (so to speak). It is odd, though.
In the U.S., it is my understanding that citizens cannot sign away their inalienble rights (hence the term "inalienable", after all): life, liberty and like that. Suppose, for instance, I sign a waiver at a Fun House that says the following:
I understand that Fun House employees may, at times, jump out and pummel me with lead pipes, and that's just fine with me.
I go into the Fun House and, sure enough, seven fun-loving employees jump out and beat me silly. Guess what? They can be brought up on both criminal and civil charges, despite my having signed a waiver, and despite my reasonable expectation that this might happen. (Or so I'm told. I never wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up, and I have no intention of growing up in any event.)
So how come hockey players get to smash each other about the head and shoulders with such impunity? I don't mean the physical contact inherent in the game and allowed by the rules, mind you. I mean what you actually see them do if you happen to click by the sports channel on TV while looking for something interesting.
We won't even mention the apparent exemption to anti-trust law that is enjoyed by professional sports "associations". Really we won't.

Blab. Referencing our sad (but illustrated) tale of living in an unfinished apartment, an anonymous reader writes:
It's reassuring to see that I'm not the only one still living out of boxes over a year after a move.
No! No! 'Tis horror and calamity, in need of desperate banishment, not empathy!

Blab. A person claiming to be our Midwest correspondent writes:
Wow! I think option 7 should be on everybody's answering machine. I love picture day! The photo of the cabinetry is stunning! And Helen at command central is a real "blast from the past".
Such enthusiasm should probably be restrained. It only encourages us.

Blab. Finally, our new Massachusetts "choruspondent" writes:
Cool photos & lots of fun to see them in Plurpville.
I warn you - the Grand Canyon is next!

Yo. My Greatest Fan claims that Tilapia was on the menu for last night's dinner. This suggests a new diet for you dot-commies out there: Only eat things that have Web pages (or, more strictly, entire Web sites) devoted to them.
Heck, this one even has a Web page for its genome!

Yow. Somehow, this tickles my sense of irony and wonder - historic events done up as screenshots from a game like the Sims. Go look. Really! (Thanks to Dave for logging it the other day. Also note the Salon article, including comments from the artist.)

Plurp. A story on the news this morning discusses some people who are using an ultralight airplane to try to get whooping cranes (an endangered species) to follow them, migrating safely from Maine and Canada (their summering place) to the southern U.S. (their wintering place). It's a valiant effort, but it's not clear that it's working. Before actually waking up this morning, I summarized this as:
The cranes in Maine stay vainly with the plane.
Similarly, there have been flight delays at La Guardia airport here in New York, as there always are when it rains. Why?
The planes in rain stay mainly in their lane.
I will stop now.

Yak.
If you have to be stuck, you should at least be stuck where you want to be stuck.

Plurp.
A comb.
One black slipper.
A note on handmade paper, torn into ragged pieces.

Monday, October 23, 2000
Yow. It's Picture Day at Plurp. We'll save the Grand Canyon for later, but here's a shot of part of the new cabinetry in our bedroom.
I know. You think this is unutterably dull. You might even prefer the Grand Canyon. But think of it this way. We moved into this apartment a year and a half ago and [long, wrenching, incredibly painful story omitted] have been living out of boxes in a half-finished apartment ever since. This, for instance, is our box-filled, bombed-out living room. Still.
So, trust me, this is a big step forward for us, in many ways! Rejoice.

Yow. And while we were spelunking through those selfsame boxes, Helen found this great photo of her in college. (Note the quaint information technology. We will not mention the year.)
I don't know about you, but I would have fallen madly in love with this amazing woman, even then.
Thanks to our Mid-Atlantic correspondent for scanning these analog photos for us. We really will get a scanner once the apartment is done!

Yo. In other news, this photo of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi surfaced recently. It portrays Muuey (as he is known to his friend) with gold leaf pounded into his hair and glasses, molten gold poured up his nose, and gold-matrix epoxy sealing his lips shut.
Whether this is a new U.S. sanction against Libya or just a fetish is not known.

Yo. Billboard seen today, advertising some dot-commie company:
Hot Baud.

Yo. In a store today, there was a box labelled as follows:
8" Fiber Optic Turkey.
Theories about what this might be should be entered in the Blab box on the left.

Plurp. I am told that when pizza's on a bagel, you can have pizza any time. Do you think that's true? Is it just bagels, or do bialys qualify as well? And what about lasagna? If lasagna's on a bagel can you have lasagna any time? Does anyone know the legal background for the restriction on pizza that's not on a bagel? Is that just in the U.S. or is this an international concern?

Plurp.
After the apartment
was finished the blue dog
could
eat pizza any time.

Sunday, October 22, 2000
Blab. My Greatest Fan writes, rather self-referentially:
Dear Dr, Plurp, You can't get away without quoting Your Greatest Fan
Indeed. Not that I have any intention whatever of getting away.

Yow. Our Southwest correspondent, a person with quite an ear for the absurd, asks us to call the free recording at 1-800-888-3999 and listen to the options, all the way through.
When you hear Option Number 7, hit 7.
Every company should have an option number 7. Does yours?

Rant. The reader who reported the other day that some hockey player named Zednik was suspended for a check was exactly right.
Zednik, responding to a blow to the head, cross-checked Colorado Avalanche defenseman Adam Foote in the face [...]. Foote received a two-minute penalty for elbowing, while Zednik received a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct.
Major penalty? Excuse me for not understanding this subtle social point, but why aren't both of these brutes in jail? Or is it the case that we, as a society, really do approve of assault and battery, as long as lots of people are watching?
Is that what you want to tell your kids?

Plurp. I am told that there is something called a Subway Series going on. Initially, I figured it was that wonderful out-of-the-box intelligence test question:
What's next in the following series?
14, 23, 28, 33, __
The answer is, of course, Grand Central Station.
(This is probably my favorite SAT-like series question. And not just because I live on the Lex line. The fact that I cannot seem to find this great question on the Web is weird, but there you are.)
Oh! So it turns out that it has nothing at all to do with intelligence tests. Rather, it's a sports thing. There are two New York teams, one in a place called Da Bronx, and one in a place called Flushing, Queens. Honest.
I don't really follow basketball that closely, but I suspect the major impact on me, personally, will be the incredible gridlock this is likely to cause. That's because lots and lots and lots of people won't take the subway to the Subway Series.
Like I said, it has nothing to do with intelligence tests.

Yo. Sign seen today in New York, presumably connected with that Subway Series thing.
Flushing. How Appropriate.

Rant. And that brings us to this.
We're Number One !!!
Inevitably, this will be said over and over again in the upcoming weeks. The problem is: I don't get it.
This seems always to be uttered loudly, often sloppily, by people who are watching sports games. Sometimes, these people hold up signs that tell us which of the various teams they most appreciate. Sometimes, they paint their faces or their bodies, much like primitive warriors, to proclaim their tribal loyalties. Most of the time, these people are drunk.
So. Let's review. The people saying We're Number One are not actually on the sports teams involved in whatever competition is going on. These people probably do not play this sport at all. In most cases, they are not even capable of doing so. They are street sweepers, and junior assistant paper-shufflers, and light bulb salespeople, and e-commerce consultants. They are not even close to being on the sports teams that they admire.
And here is my confusion. In what sense are these people Number One? They are not sports heroes. Quite the contrary. Then what about them is Number One? Are they more moral than others around them? Better to their kids? More valuable contributors to society? Is there anything at all that they have done in their lives for which they should be celebrated on this scale?
Not as far as I can tell. As far as I can tell, their claim of superiority is based entirely on living in the same geographical region as people who have succeeded in sports, much as if people in Zurich had proclaimed themselves Number One when Einstein was a patent examiner there. But I guess that didn't happen, did it?
What am I missing?

Plurp.
The blue dog
was
number six.

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