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2001.03.04 : 2001.03.10
Saturday, March 10, 2001
Blab. If you got less than 400 on your English SAT,
rejoice; it's Mispelling Day here at Plurp: your own special
day. And here to serenade you is a thankfully anonymous reader, much like
yourself, who feels desperately compelled to say:
Spelling! "Cutsie"
should be "cutesie".
Well let's just ask Google about that, shall we?
Sorry.
Blab. A self-professed master of the universe commandeth:
roll, then
We roll a 57 on our percentile dice, with an Oddity Kicker of 3 on the
good old 12-sided die. Well, GM, do we survive our encounter with Chase
String No Name?
Blab. Our Midwest Correspondent checks in via an unusual medium
- that old analog telephone-thing - with a message too complex to transcribe
here, the gist of which is to draw our attention to Round
Ireland With a Fridge, an analog book-thing describing the adventures
of a man who made a drunken bet to, yes, hitchhike around Ireland with
a refrigerator.
[T]here's no dearth of rides,
places to stay, or goofy people to meet, from kings to spoons players to
locals who take his fridge surfing.
And us unaware that there was good surfing in Ireland! Always something
new to learn from our gracious readers.
Yak. TV announcement before the movie The Day After, which
is about the events during and aftermath of an apocalyptic nuclear war.
The following movie contains
some violent content.
Ya think? I guess the incineration of a few billion people still
counts as violent, even by modern TV standards.
Plop. Amazon.com offers the following as a recommendation specifically
for us.
Pass the Pigs, a simple game
of chance built around a pig theme. Instead of dice, you roll two cute
pink piglets, and you gain or lose points depending on how the critters
land. For example, if both land on all fours, called a "double trotter,"
you get 20 points; if they land lying opposite each other, called a "Pig
Out," you gain no points and cede your turn.
They are unwilling to explain, and we oh so fearful of asking.
Yak.
I read something today I
think it was on the web somewhere about these guys that discovered something
really cool somewhere I think it was scientists or archaeologists or something
and it was like nobody knew it before
Plurp. I received a letter from American Airlines today informing
me that this year, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn't
fly enough to keep my Gold Card active. Purposefully, though, tending to
the home fires. A good choice.
Yak. In a hair salon in Manhattan.
I do so love Bloomingdales.
It gives me something to do.
Plurp. OK, it's Saturday, so we get to talk about The Unnamable.
And you have to put up with it. The news this week is that, courtesy of
our friends, we now have two toys that he does flee in abject fear.
 The
first one is that contraband laser pointer
from friend Bill. Big hit! It's amazing to watch a million years
of killer instinct kick in. Sometimes, he doesn't even want to chase it,
doesn't want to run skidding across the newly waxed floor and crash into
the hutch, doesn't want to leap up the wall as the pointer reaches the
end of the floor. But he does. He has no choice. He's hooked by evolution.
The second one is Mister String, a four-inch length of white cord from
friend C or, rather, from friend C's cats Tigger and Cleo. Yow. You do
not
want to be a four-inch length of white cord in this household.
Nope.
Mister String has been in residence for less than a week, and his life
expectancy is not good. The Unnamable has no front claws, but that doesn't
help Mister String. Mister String is currently having his guts torn out
in the living room. Do you hear the tiny screams?
Plop. We're under arrest
for playing with that laser pointer without negotiating a license agreement
with the patent owner.
Yow. Fractal wonderfulness! Speaking of things without name,
this
is really pretty. And - ooh - there are severalprettythingshere.
Oh hey wow - fractulus. Lots and
lots to explore there! And winners
in a fractalartcontest.
And a moving
experience.
Yak. Possibly heard on TV, though we hope it was just the voices
in our heads, as it would be much too frightening as part of popular culture.
Here's our jingle for gold
fish. The snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off!
Plurp. Have you ever wanted to stop the insistent flow of time,
the compelling march of the seconds? Have you ever wanted to put a finger
on the hands of the Great Clock and hold forever a moment, a simple moment,
a moment of no import but of infinite clarity, suspended forever before
your eyes? To live in that singular moment for eternity?
 Plurp.
The blue dog actually
hitchhiked around Ireland
inside a
refrigerator.
Friday, March 9, 2001
Blab. Now this is really, really cool!
Art, without intent: http://www.gaelwolf.com/pendulum.html
- DWL
One of those pendulum-over-sand thingies records the Seattle quake in gorgeous
elliptic furrows. Oh go
look, do! It's wonderful!
Blab. A reader fond of random sites types this:
http://www.endeffect.com/
... which resolves to:
It is my great pleasure and
pride to announce that EndEffected 02 has been nominated for a Devvie,
in the Deviant Art Excellence in Digital Expression Awards.
Um, kay. Who knew?
Blab. A reader kindly brings an upcoming movie to our attention.
 Movie
Premise: "This is the story of Mia, a hip 16-year-old New Yorker, who is
surprised to discover that she is the sole heir of the crown of the small
European nation of Genovia... she's a princess. It seems her Mom had this
brief love affair with a member of the country's royal family, and kept
it a secret from Mia, until now, when Mia's expected to take lessons from
her newfound grandmother on how to be a princess. Can this big city girl
get used to the life of royalty and responsibility?"
Source: http://www.upcomingmovies.com/princessdiaries.html
Ah yes. From The
Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. Coming to theaters in July. We'll
pencil
that in.
Blab. A reader conjugates Swinging
On A Star in the past plurperfect.
A fish is an animal with
long floppy ears,
It conjugates with everything it
hears!
It's got no money for the telephone,
It sure looks quizzical when he comes
home!
But if that sort of life is Lillian
Gish,
You might grow up to be a fish!
OK, everybody sing ... !
Blab. A reader who spends too much time on Amazon writes:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/186154135X/
The reader, no doubt looking for a more successful niche in society, is
enamored with How to Design a Successful Petrol Station by Marcello
Minale. As the "Editorial Review" states:
Brings together for the first
time a collection of some of those landmarks that we see everyday and forces
us to see them as a whole - a rich design source relating to an industry
which has had no recognition until now.
An essential book for anyone interested
in design, marketing or retail
Minale Tattersfield is one of the
leading identity design consultants with offices throughout the world
Yes. It seem the "Editor" could use some editing lessons, perhaps in the
same vein as the designer could use design lessons.
Blab. A reader suggest a new point of etiquette for us.
Assigned activity # 73: Talk
out of turn.
Fuhgeddaboudit. We're Noo Yawkahs. Nome sane?
Blab. From that really, really Big
Blab Box:
Refreshingly original site.
Okay, this isn't very big in the overall
scale of big thoughts, but I thought I'd say it anyway.
And indeed, you did. And we're glad you did. Damn glad.
And, frankly, in the overall scale of thoughts on this particular blog,
it is big. Damn big.
(And if that wasn't an SXSW judge,
we apologize for being such an obsequious butt-kisser .)
Plop. We've done the calculation. If you add up the time it takes
all of our readers to read and contemplatively admire Plurp each
day, it turns out to be just about 8% of the time it takes us to write
and post it.
We are contemplating suicide. No connection.
Yo. Those of you who thought that little Billy Gates played well
with the other children might want to take a look at an
article describing his business relations with his strategic partners.
What a fun guy!
(SFgate really ought to read their articles before they post
them. Though maybe they went to one of those alternative schools
where spelling and grammar didn't count ("dint cown't").)
Yo. Are you desperate to register a .xxx
domain? Frustrated that ICANN still
hasn't approved that as a top-level domain name? Fret no more, gentle pornographer!
new.net
is happy to register you as .xxx,
or as any of nineteen other ICANN-shunned domain names.
There's a catch, though - not everyone can see you. Kinda like having
a name that few people can pronounce, I guess.
Yow. Ian
points us at a Babelfisherizer.
Too complicated to explain, except that it translates phrases to some language
and then back again to English, repeatedly, with consistently bizarre and
sometimes hilarious results. (Read Ian's excellent
description.) Here, we merely entomb some excellent examples.
Give me liberty or give me
death.
Darmi the freedom or darvi
I them inoperative women.
It is a far, far better thing I do than
I have ever done before.
She is the absentee very
better distant, one what, of who the form of I, that an I everything gave
the form in frontal of the facade.
The square of the hypotenuse is equal
to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
The place of the Hypothenuse
is similar to the total of the stations of the work both to other paginations.
Always look at the bright side of life.
To always consider the system
to ignite in the pagination of the duration.
I would not eat green eggs and ham. I
would not eat them, Sam I am.
You he would not eat eggs
and the Schinkengruens. You it would not eat it, SAM, who is I.
Off hand, I'd say that the halcyon days of machine translation are still
ahead of us. Maybe way, way ahead of us.
(Ulteriorly had said by hand that
the calm of the days is always this
automatic translation before we.
Possibly way, way before we.)
Plurp.
It turned out that the
blue
dog
was a Babelfish
invariant.
Thursday, March 8, 2001
Blab. A reader emits the following cryptic phrase.
Tim Burton and a pack of
monkeys.
... referring, no doubt, to the impending remake of Planet of the Apes
by madman Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands,
Nightmare
Before Christmas, Mars Attacks).  I
remember seeing Planet of the Apes as a kid and figuring out in
the first five minutes that the space travelers had landed, not on some
wild ape-infested planet Out There somewhere, but on a post-apocalyptic
Earth of the future. That made the "surprise ending" (Charlton Heston finding
the Statue of Liberty derelict on a beach - imagine the overacting) a bit
less surprising. We can only hope that the remake is somewhat less dull.
The following production
news suggests that this may be true.
After the problem that arose
from the alleged "sex scene" between man and ape that the studios absolutely
freaked over and said that they may well stop production on the movie,
everything has been going along pretty smoothly.
My, that does sound exciting, doesn't it?
And if that's not enough for you, how about this heart-pounding rendition
of Dr. Zaius
and Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z from Planet of the Apes: The Musical?
Helen can't get it out of her head.
Blab. Our Midwest Correspondent confesses the heinous sins of
her misspent youth.
Hi Dr. Plurp,
I confess; my
request to your DC Correspondent to send you another food entry was
to brag about the Meatloaf Surprise
entry. Was fascinated to see in today's PLURP that there are several
references to FonDon't in the web. Very strange. I recall that
our college days version of FonDon't was composed of significant quantities
of cheese and wine, heated in a fondue pot. We all felt quite glamorous,
awaiting our elegant repast- little cut up pieces of French bread at hand.
To our dismay, the cheese melted and separated from the liquid. It
was a mess. The past participle of this recipe is what resulted:
Fondidn't.
Your Midwest Correspondent
One Who Rarely Shies Away From Too
Many Details
Interesting! You seem to have a monopoly on the neologism FonDidn't.
We recommending trademarking it right away.
Remind us to post our venerable recipe for Romantic Fondue, along with
the associated heartwarming story. It's definitely a fondue to do.
Blab. Once again, our insistent reader already has our work cut
out for us.
Assigned activity # 79: Gather
moss.
Well, we've certainly been doing enough of that this week, flat
on our backs trying to recover from this awful cold. We're looking forward
to scraping some of the moss off and doing something other than being breeding
tanks for rhinovirus.
Rant. To those of you out there who want to make sure that we
preserve each and every species that happens to be on God's Green Earth
right now, we have a modest proposal. You get to keep any dippy little
maladapted rodent or owl you want. All we ask in return is the permanent
eradication of rhinovirus. Or AIDS. Your choice.
Whaddya think?
Yo. Genealogy.com says
they have records on over a billion people. You might know some of them.
Yow. He Who Must Not Be Named, now appearing as a jigsaw
puzzle. We cut him up for you; you put him back together. Go play.
Yow. Major geek-out! A soda
can cooler powered by, and inset into, your computer case. Complete
with a digital temperature read-out. Imagine - an icy can of Jolt
right there. All the time. Day or night.
We knew you'd love it. (geekish)
Rant. A 7-line
Perl program that can decrypt
DVDs pretty much in real time. Hee hee. Say b'bye to the incisors
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (And it's a good entry in the
Obscure Perl Contest!)
For the record, we support the idea of copyrights, and think that it's
just fine for copyright holders to charge money for the stuff they own.
But claiming that a program (one that is not even a derivative work)
is not protected by the First Amendment? And the notion that you can't
even link to something the U.S. government finds offensive, even if
it's stored outside the U.S.? Please.
We would appreciate it if all of the U.S. District Court judges could
please repeat after us:
World Wide Web
World Wide Web
World Wide Web
Or, better yet:
Congress shall make no
law ...
Thank you.
Yo. New Economy or Old Economy, a
shakeout is a shakeout.
Based on research into dozens
of "old economy" shakeouts - from the invention of the railroad to the
advent of personal computers - [the] "new economy" shakeout is not much
different. "Far too many players come in, there’s lots of excitement, high
visibility, low barriers to entry... It was like every other shakeout we
studied, just a lot faster, magnified by free-flowing capital, incubators
and a tendency for everyone to converge in the same business model." ...
Myth #1: First movers will
dominate. ...
Myth #2: Behavior will change
quickly. ...
Myth #3: Non-traditional pricing
structures will be readily accepted. ...
This is an important article for anyone involved in the Web or e-commerce.
Really.
Yak. From yet another Thinking About The Future meeting at work:
Driving a car is just a constrained
version of teleportation.
Rant. In every Future Of Computing bull session I've ever been
in, someone always says that we'll all be using telepresence soon - interacting
with each other via fancy Jetson-like videophones, kinda like video conferencing
on steroids. And everybody else gets that technophiliac glow on their face
and nods in agreement.
I'm not convinced. And my argument isn't about this technology or that
doo-dad, really. It's about the experience of talking to someone in person.
We all spend huge amounts of time flying around the world in order to sit
down with people, look them in the eye, and talk to them. So the question
I have is: How good does the telepresence experience have to be to compete
with the face-to-face experience?
Instead of starting with 1960's videophones, or today's awful videoconferencing,
let's try starting with what we know works: real face-to-face interaction.
Here's the series of experiments I propose:
-
Get two people in a room and give them some task to do. It should be something
that would normally require people to get on planes in order to get together
to discuss. It might be negotiating an agreement. It might be settling
on the design of a program. Measure how well they do - how long it takes,
how many disagreements arise, how many are resolved, their subjective report
of how well it went.
-
Now get two people in a room to work on that same task, but insist that
they each stay in their own half of the room (and make a buffer zone of
a few feet between the two halves, so they can't touch each other). Repeat
the measurements. See if that makes a difference.
-
Do it again, but this time put a glass wall between the two halves, and
set up a very-high-end audio system so they can communicate. Note that
this is as good as or better than any electronically mediated interaction
that we can foresee. Repeat the measurements. See if that makes a difference.
My intuition is that the third experiment will get very different
results from the first. Why? Because the forms of social interaction are
much more constrained, and that's a really big deal. It is, I claim, the
reason we find it worthwhile to fly around the world and sit down with
people instead of talking to them on the phone. And if I'm right, all the
technology in the world won't be enough to overcome these differences.
We geeks love to think about what cool new toys we could build. And
we love to think that our toys are what it's all about. But, in this case,
I don't think so. I think it's about people, and how we interact with each
other socially. And I would love to see someone actually do the experiments
that determine how important this is - before we run off breathlessly
building more toys.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was
Myth #4.
Wednesday, March 7, 2001
Blab. A reader of a certain cultural orientation writes:
did u c wht CHeryl ws wearing???
geeeeezzzz...
I believe the answer to that would be: No. We await enlightenment,
however.
Blab. A reader who is neither dud nor spud
writes:
Dachshund or coelecanth?
Zackly.
Blab. Our most persistent reader writes:
Assigned activity # 37: Tell
three strangers they are being watched.
Maybe it's just us, but this seems a bit on the odd side. Without further
supporting information, we're inclined to pass on this one.
Blab. A reader, marveling at a reader-submitted palindrome from
yesterday,
writes:
aibohphobia: the fear of
palindromes?
Indeed! As well as being a HotMail userid, a song, a club, and something
like 325 other things.
Odd place, the Web.
Blab. Apropos of aibohphobia, a reader writes:
A man, a plan, a caret, a
ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas,
an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram,
a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman,
a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub,
a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay,
a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top,
a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer,
a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw,
a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian,
a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool,
a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a
pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap,
a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total,
a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw,
a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa,
a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a
led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map,
an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan,
a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop,
a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid,
a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw,
a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress,
a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot,
a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law,
a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day,
a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib,
a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an
ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat,
a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal--Panama.
Aaaiieeeeeee!!!!
Three
Plurp
points to the first reader who can point out the misspelling that causes
this not to work.
Blab. A reader continues his or her romantic serenade of us with
this.
And all the monkeys aren't
in the zoo,
Everyday, you'll meet quite a few,
So, you see, it's all up to you,
You can be better than you are,
You could be swingin' on a star!
We must admit that our resolve is weakening. Perhaps we should give in
to these untoward advances. Or
would you rather be a mule?
Blab. A reader who might be that same reader improvises this
future musical geography classic.
My Bali lies over the ocean,
My Bali lies over the sea,
My Bali lies over the ocean,
Oh Bali's a nice place to be
So we've heard! Nice diving. Beetle nuts. Wash that man right out of our
hair. Stuff like that.
Blab. A reader who enjoys a good aperitif writes:
Well Hey Steve and Helen--
Your Minnesota Correspondent asked
me this weekend if I had been keeping up with your website. I had to confess
that I had been lax in that department. (I think she wanted to brag that
her justly famous Meatloaf Surprise
had been featured). She asked that I submit our recipe for FonDon't but
I don't think your readers need to know THAT! I also wanted to write because
Helen's
reaction to the Winter Blitz of this weekend paralled my ranting and
raving about the obvious cabal of weather men, grocery stores and news
broadcsasters.If you believed them DC was headed for a disaster of biblical
proportions. Shoot---I had friends from around the country calling to inquire
re: our fate. I shamefacedly had to admit that it had rained. Period. Well--there
were the snowflakes that lasted a millisecond. HMPF.
Loved Cat photo.
Hope cold
is better and you both are thriving.
Love,
Sherry
--a sporadic fan from NOVA--home of
countless conspiracies and spies. (Just watch X-Files and read the paper
if you don't believe me)
Dogs and cats - living together! We welcome our Prodigal Correspondent
back from the brink. We would certainly be grateful for the recipe for
FonDon't,
about which we seem to have some hazy, drug-laced memories.
Cold is winning, having passed successfully from us to Helen. He
Who Cannot Be Named seems immune, taking advantage of the situation
by sleeping between two fevered, exhausted, snuffling bodies. And licking
our backs. Ick.
And we do believe you. Really we do.
Blab. A readers sends a challenge.
Challenge: use "heterotic"
in a sentence. . . . .
We don't dare! But our readers are invited to tell us their usage.
Yak. Now we're both in bed with the same cold and Helen,
in particular, is on the edge of madness.
Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine.
What are you looking at? Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. What?
Yow. Dave
introduces us to Lobster
Sticks To Magnet which, weirdly, ends with a sly reference to Muffler
Men!
Yo. Who knew that there was an entire Canadian
branch of the Cthulhu Mythos? Eh?
Plurp.
Speaking of computer game characters as sexual fetishes
(and, my, have we really stooped so low?) how successful would you think
a computer game would be that features an X-rated
squirrel? Outside
of the
furries, that
is.
Well, Nintendo is betting
big on it. Is the world getting weirder, or is it just us?
Plurp. Uh oh. megnut is
getting cutsie on us. (Hint: View page source.) Sigh. Can someone
talk to her? It's embarrassing.
 Plop.
Proving that you can continue milking a dead horse, Ginger / "IT"
/ whatever is back in the news. Reports
are that the March 20 issue of Inside (which, cleverly, isn't on
their
Web site yet) reports that Ginger
is ... drum roll ... wait for it ... a scooter!
Well duh. Who
would have guessed?
But wait, there's more. It's a scooter powered by a motor that runs
on hydrogen. Now here's something that will definitely be the Next
Big Thing, transform urban architecture and revolutionize society: a scooter
powered by a fuel that is virtually unavailable to consumers anywhere on
the planet. Where do we invest?
This can only be interpreted as evidence that PR people and slime-flapping
marketdroids rule the world. How else could such vacuous drek still be
a story?
Plop. You know it's a bad day when you get much-belated investment
advice from a program crash.
Plurp.
The blue dog decided
to stock up
on vacuous drek.
Tuesday, March 6, 2001
Blab. A reader expects more of random
Web pranksters, as do we.
I'm disappointed...the author
of the "Hidden Options" dialog box narrowly missed what could have been
a very nice double allusion:
All your base are:
- yours, except Europa.
- belong to us.
Nice one! Especially this year.
Blab. The reader who wishes to dictate our various behaviors
writes:
Assigned activity # 87: Smile
instead of answering.
That is, in fact, our usual modus operandi.
Blab. A reader ponders the ongoing mystery of assigned activities.
I wonder why the assigned
activities aren't being assigned in numerical order.
Hmm. That is curious. But, frankly, we wonder why they are being
assigned at all.
Blab. A reader with an unhealthy sexual fascination towards imaginary
figures in the buff writes:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000250HY/
As you, we immediately recognize this as the music CD Coming Alive
"by" Lara Croft. Let's look at the playlist, shall we?
-
Getting Naked
-
Making Love
-
Naked 12
-
Getting Naked
-
Beautiful Day
-
Come Alive
-
Tashina
-
Really Real
-
Feel Myself
-
Rock Your Own World
-
Beautiful Day
Readers are invited to coin a term for those who use computer game characters
as sexual fetishes.
Blab. A reader types something really remarkable.
A man, a plan, a cat, a ham,
a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal--Panama!
That's astonishing, and it took us several skeptical minutes to realize
that it really is a palindrome. Further poking
around reveals that someone out there has way, way too much time on
their hands.
A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta,
hero's, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a
banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again, or: a camel, a crepe, pins,
spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal, Panama!
And that's not the longest one, either! But none are as clever as our reader's
contribution.
 Yow.
Oh look! Synj has a new job with Presto
Studios, the folks making Myst III:
Exile, which is scheduled to be released on May 7. Cool.
We don't know exactly what he does. Professionally, we mean. But anybody
that clever and talented with animation has got to be able to do some amazing
stuff with games.
Plop. The Great Blizzard of '01 is turning out to be a total
bust, at least in the Big Apple. Boston is getting buried, but we're just
getting some very embarrassed TV meteorologists ("meaty urologists"). Helen
has turned bitter, muttering under her breath and indulging in occasional
loud outbursts.
oh yeah right. three feet
in massachusetts but NOT HERE! the interstates up north are completely
vacant but NOT HERE! you get me ALL EXCITED about this stuff
and then NOTHING! fire 'em all, that's what i say, fire every one
of them. i'm really getting tired of this, YOU HEAR?!
Plurp. Dud or spud? Dude or food? Dot or spot? Dug or slug? Dunk
or spunk? Date or spate? Deal or spiel? Dung or lung?
Plop. Ever use Bibliofind.com?
If so, your credit card information is now likely in the hands
of hackers. You see, hackers were rummaging around in Bibliofind's
systems for over four months before the partygoers at Bibliofind
noticed.
Oh, and Bibliofind is owned by the extremely careful people at
Amazon, who assure us that Amazon's systems are fine, just fine.
Yo. Currently on the speakers: cat's
meow, to torment Fur With No Name.
Yow. A really nice article
on privacy in the age of surveillance technology in The Atlantic Monthly.
Lots and lots of good links.
Plurp.
The blue dog
had zero
privacy.
Monday, March 5, 2001
Blab. A reader seeks to charm us with verse.
Cause she walks downtown
With a suitcase in her hand,
Looking for the six-million dollar
man.
It's got a beat. We can dance to it. We give it a 7.
Blab. Apropos of a snowy day here in Plurpdom ...
The steps are soft, as soft
as silk on snow, and just one sound from the bundle of beetroot under his
arm might bring crashing down on their heads the entire army of the night.
But somewhere ahead, somewhere in the darkness: the infant. The begonia.
And, if all goes well, Mia.
Shhhh ...
Blab. A reader, perhaps participating in the new fad of inverse
links, writes:
I'm on the outside
I'm looking in
I can see through you
see your true colors
inside you're ugly
ugly like me
I can see through you
see to the real you
This is, of course, a verse from Outside by Lewis and Durst, which
is all over the Web. Here's the fretful version:
And
you bring me to my knees
Blab. A reader refers obliquely to our confusion
yesterday at a music CD entitled Get Naked "by" Lara Croft.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00003WG0N/
It is weird, isn't it? Or is it just me?
Blab. That devoted Plurp reader who wishes to manage our
time writes:
Assigned activity # 53: Suffer
a witch to live.
No problem there. Some of our best friends are wiccan.
We do wonder how many assigned activities there are.
Blab. Another reader jumps onto the bandwagon of assigning tasks
to us.
Describe the back of your
head
No.
Blab. A reader asks about those troubling
ads from that troubled
copier company.
How come the blue dog shills
for Xerox?
The blue dog assures us that that other blue dog is just a cheap copy.
Blab. Following up on our curiousity about landscapes
having body parts, a reader writes:
On landscapes with body parts:
have you ever seen the Sleeping Giant
outside of Helena, Montana? It's quite striking how it resembles a man
laying down against the horizon. It was named such by Lewis & Clark,
but I couldn't find a record of what it was called before they showed up,
or if it was even called anything (or noticed).
I also found a
photo of it here in the pic with the little boy near the bottom. The
Giant's forehead is perpendicular to and adjoining the boy's forehead.
Pretty wild stuff! Humans wish so desperately to see the familiar in the
random. Constellations in stars. Dragons in clouds. People in mountains.
Naked women smiling seductively in inkblots, their breasts soft and inviting.
(Though we always figured that last one was on purpose.)
In Arizona, there's a mountain named Camelback
for obvious reasons. There's that face
on Mars.
Aren't we strange creatures?
Plurp. An entirely parochial day, seen through the smudged spectacles
of a really goopy cold. Helen is complaining about the non-arrival of The
Blizzard of '01; predictions yesterday were for up to 36" of snow, but
it's just been rain (and sleet, and freezing rain, and ice) today. The
Beast Unnamable, having gotten into all of the trouble available, twice,
is conked out with us on the bed, blending grayly into the comforter. I'm
running out of Kleenex.
It's noon, and I haven't had anything to eat today except for two pseudofed
(Breakfast of Champions). It's one of those colds that makes you think
you're not hungry at all until you put absolutely anything in your mouth,
at which time you become wildly ravenous and eat everything you can find.
The cat should beware. Helen is ordering Chinese food. Soup for me, but
not Chicken Leg Over Noodle Soup - the image isn't pleasant.
The TV says that snow will start tonight and dump something like a foot
on us but Helen, who regards paralyzing snowstorms as a reason for celebration,
says she'll never believe the weatherman again.
Snorf.
 Plurp.
Him Without Name turns out to be pretty clever, unfortunately for us. He's
watched us open cabinets and has figured out it has something to do with
the handles. He'll stand on his hind legs and paw the handles on the bathroom
cabinets, encouraged when they pop open a quarter inch before springing
shut again.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.
Cat !!
He's got a lazier deal going in the kitchen, where we keep the trash pail
in a cabinet under the sink. He lays on the floor and swings the doors
open from the bottom. We've had to put a rubber band around the handles
to keep him out, but he can still open them a little before they bang shut.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.
Cat !!
If he ever figures out the front door and the elevator, you're all in big,
big trouble.
Yo. According to a forensic
analysis of pipes found in his house, Shakespeare may have smoked hallucinogenics,
cocaine and marijuana. (Caterina)
Two of the 24 pipes they
tested bore traces of cocaine, the first time the drug has been found in
Europe before the 19th century. Others had traces of a chemical called
myristic acid, a hallucinogenic derived from plants, and traces of cannabis
and tobacco.
Heigh ho!
Yow. Earthquake Strikes Seattle - Thousands
Spilled
Sophie: "My latte
was everywhere! I always order a Grande, but after the earthquake I was
left with only a Tall."
Yes, that would be Seattle.
Plurp.
Blue dog over
noodle
soup.
Sunday, March 4, 2001
Blab. A spammer in need of help in the areas of capitalization,
spelling, punctuation and paragraph construction writes, in part:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
This mailing is done by an independent
marketing co.
We apologize if this message has
reached you in error.
Save the Planet, Save the Trees!
Advertise via Email.
No wasted paper! Delete with one
simple keystroke!
Less refuse in our Dumps! This is
the new way of the new millennium
To be removed please reply back with
the word "remove" in the subject line.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Not wishing to be removed, we did not reply.
Plurp. Oh gosh, another weekend of sluttony.
Where will it all end?
Yo. Mia makes an
unscheduled appearance in a new place - Beth's
log. Weird.
Yow. Rebecca likes
the information design, but we are really amazed at all of the very recent,
fairly large earthquakes shown in this
map. We had no idea they occurred so frequently!
Yo. Only nine more days
before Mir, the largest hunk of junk ever to orbit the Earth, plummets
through the atmosphere, crashing to the surface in a series of spectacular
explosions.
Sound like fun? Wanna see it close up? Well, you
can. For a mere $10k, you can get a window seat on a plane that will
try to fly to within 200 miles of Mir as it falls, so you can see about
six minutes of its fiery death.
Looks like somebody finally found something Mir is good at.
Plurp. Button found recently in a storage compartment, a present
from me to Helen when we were first dating.
MY MOM
THINKS I'M
A VIRGIN!
Yo. OK. The universe has just gotten too weird for us. Check
out the audio CD Getting
Naked by Lara Croft. Yes, the Lara Croft who is your (fictional, synthetic)
character in the game Tomb Raiders. As the lone reviewer says of
this work:
this single is very, very,
sexy. lara croft singing about getting naked, every guys fantasy! if you
love lara, or if you dont, this albums for you!
OTOH, maybe it's not so strange. Maybe it's just the natural confluence
of computer games and pornography, the next step towards Quark's holotapes.
After all, if first-person violence is compelling in a computer game, why
not first- or third-person sex? (memepool)
We predict an even stranger future.
Plop. Predictions are for a major snowstorm over the next couple
of days. And I'm coming down with a cold. Unhappy!
Plurp.
The blue dog, attempting
to combine the mortal sins
of sluttony and spamming, became
confused when it
ended up as
slumming.
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