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2001.03.11 : 2001.03.17
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Blab. A reader continues mixing the memes.
This is your base on zigs!
Any great justice?
Blab. Reacting to the accusation that Captain
Plurp's lack of pupils means he must either be a zombie
or evil, a reader writes:
 I
have to disagree with your reader. Little Orphan Annie (the comic
strip character, not the character in the James Whitcomb Riley poem
(who was actually "Little
Orphant Annie"), nor the character in the various stage/screen adaptations)
was also without pupils, yet she was neither a zombie nor evil.
The Captain is grateful. Or at least, he claims he is.
Plop. What
are your chances of being hit by a falling space station? Well, if
it's Mir, Col. Norman Black of the U.S.
Space Command, the military division that tracks satellites, says:
It's 2 billion chances to
1 that you're going to get struck by this thing.
So, with 6 billion people in the world today, it's apparently his considered
opinion that approximately three of us are in big, big trouble.
Maybe math isn't the military's strong point. Or public relations.
Plurp. Wasn't it Buck Rogers who started the U.S. Space Command,
or am I remembering that wrong? Do they still have little rockets on threads
with smoky sparklers out their posteriors? I mean the rockets.
Yo. Top 10 most prevalent words on the Web, according to the
UCLA Center
for Communications Policy, all oddly tied for first place.
All
Are
Base
Belong
Say
To
Us
What
You
Your
 Plop.
Literally. The Nameless Presence shows himself to be an out-of-the-box
thinker. When he does his business in the cat box, he thinks he can cover
it up by scratching around outside the box. It hasn't worked yet,
but that does not seem to phase him.
Did I say thinker?
Plurp. Went to see the movie Exit Wounds last night.
Demographic: Steven
Seagal movie.
Plot Summary: I told you:
Steven Seagal movie.
Distinguishing Features: More
shot-up cars, nutty martial arts and black heroes than usual.
Academy Award For: Most Hilarious
Sequence During Closing Credits.
Conclusion: Recommended, if
you like that kind of thing.
Plurp. It's St. Patrick's Day in New York, that annual festival
designed to give young women the opportunity to paint portions of their
anatomy green, and young men the opportunity to consume far too much non-Irish
beer and make screaming fools of themselves in public.
I tried to avoid it all by going, instead, to a play called A Skull
in Connemara which, weirdly enough, turned out to be a rather dark
Irish murder farce, a hitherto unknown genre.
Plurp. St. Patrick's Day in New York. An older woman climbs the
steep theater stairs, pulling herself up by the dubious handrail. Around
her neck, a cheap plastic necklace filled with a luminescent liquid, glowing
dully blue-green in the dark.
Yak. Three women of a certain age at the theater, discussing
who gets the aisle seat.
You're the only one without
a problem.
What do you mean?
Well, you don't have a leg ache or
a back ache.
Yes, but I can't sing.
For reasons that we have not yet comprehended, the non-singer got the aisle
seat.
Plurp. I happened by one of those bookstore places today and,
curious for not having been done so in quite some time, I went in.
It was quite interesting. All they sell are those analog book things
- hundreds and hundreds of them, packed tightly into shelves, piled up
on tables and displayed as though sculpture on the high walls.
The only computers are there for selling the books, as you can carry
them out with you directly, or for finding the books, which are arranged
in a few dozen categories of the bookstore's own devising.
I sat for an hour on a low stool, probably there more for reaching books
on high shelves, reading a book of Zen koans and haiku. Many of the pages
had printed backgrounds intended to make them look like hand-made paper,
and images of Zen calligraphy from a bold brush.
I wondered how long it would be before people knew there were books
somewhere, and even people who made them, but haven't seen one themselves,
nor met anyone who has.
Yo. On the street today, I passed an e*trade building. Can someone
explain this to me? It's a high-tech-looking space with lots of computer
screens everywhere showing random financial graphics, and a few dozen workstations
from which you can access e*trade.
I don't get it. Will Google buildings be next?
Plurp.
Boolah, boolah, boolah.
You're my boolah guy.
I am Connie Stevens
And you're out 'til July.
Yo. Spray-painted on the sidewalk at several places along Lexington
Avenue:
circlewebhosting.com
$99 for 12 months 300 MB
Sure, advertising budgets for dot-coms have fallen recently, but has it
really come to this?
 Plurp.
The blue dog
considered opening his
own building.
Friday, March 16, 2001
Blab. A reader highlights one of the fundamental problems
in the philosophy of consciousness.
I
am terribly concerned that Captain
Plurp
appears to be either (a) a zombie; or (b) posessed by evil. My evidence
for this is that he has no pupils (the 'eye' kind, not the 'young person
in school or in the charge of a tutor or instructor' kind). Please
rectify this sad situation as soon as possible, for the good of us all.
We are tempted to point out that Captain Plurp is, well, a cartoon.
But this might shatter the already fragile barrier between our dear reader
and clinical psychosis. So instead, we merely point out that this same
problem occurs with people you know well. How do you know that they have
the same internal mental experience as you do? Isn't it possible that they
are zombies - creatures that look and act much like you do but who have
no internal mental experiences at all?
It turns out to be a tough problem.
Blab. A reader about to jaunt off across the globe writes:
We're traveling to London
this weekend and I was just wondering -- Do you prefer Hoof and Mouth Disease
or Foot and Mouth Disease?
It seems to me the media was referring
to it exclusively as Hoof and Mouth, but lately I noticed that Tom Brokaw
and his cohorts are using Foot and Mouth almost exclusively now.
Just so you know -- the Quick Disease
Guide under www.thepigsite.com
has some lovely pictures of the result.
That is both quite informative and quite disgusting. How about if you just
bring us some nice chocolates instead?
Blab. And perhaps from that same reader:
Oh -- I almost forgot --
we've got to worry about Mad Cow Disease in London too!
What a lovely place you've chosen for a trip. What's next - Somalia?
Blab. A reader sends us chasing the feral geese.
See "http://www.davidchess.com/words/log.19991231.html"
(search on 'fictional' a few times)
 This
leads us to Dave
pondering the ethics of writing a weblog as a fictional character. But
he also points to something on Geegaw
about some well known something-or-other.
Oh yeah. Great stuff. No obvious reference in Geegaw. Broken links.
What fun.
But, with a bit of help from Dave, we find this
entry in Tracing about the
news that is rocking the journal world, which turns out to be a web
diarist confessing that she made
her character up.
 I
guess this may have rocked that particular world. That was back in 1996,
the Good Old Days of the Web, when everyone was honest and innocent, and
no one ever, ever pretended to be something they were not.
It does not surprise us that someone else already thought of this. As
is well known, all our best ideas are stolen by people with time machines.
Blab. Once again, our taskmaster asks us to do double duty.
Assigned activity #1
Miss Helen.
A particularly disturbing request, narrowing down, as it does, the people
who could be our mysterious taskmaster to people who know Helen is currently
out of town. Hmm ...
Assigned activity # 17: Whistle
during meetings.
Sadly, we have few karaoke meetings these days. Too busy rebuilding the
global economy. Sorry.
Blab. A reader named Gus claims ...
All your face are belong
to Gus!
What you say!! We're not sure of the status of facial ownership
rights, but we will check up on that.
Plurp. A friend sat down with us for lunch the other day and
told stories of his three years in Iowa, working for a software company
there. He told of returning from a trip and driving straight towards a
major tornado, swerving at the last minute into a truck stop and looking
furtively for the most structurally sound place to huddle as the beast
passed overhead.
I pointed out that, a few thousand years ago, this was referred to as
smiting,
and was generally an indication from god to get the hell out.
He pointed out that he did. Smart guy.
Plurp. Finally saw Hannibal.
Friend Jim's pithy review:
This is your brain.
This is your brain on toast.
Any questions?
Plurp.
This
is
your
blue
dog.
Thursday, March 15, 2001
Blab. A reader sends another of those odd URL thingies.
http://daubnet.tzo.com/weblog/
Yet another blog. But wait! There's a message there just for us!
After hearing more and more
bogus information regarding the Tomb
Raider Movie, they have finally released some official
trailers and pictures. It really looks to be a blockbuster hit!
Angelina
Jolie is the leading role and she has tight clothes and is carrying
weapons. Enough said.
Angelina Jolie. Tight clothes. Laura Croft. Explosions. We're convinced!
(If you're not, go ogle the trailers.)
June 15.
Blab. A reader who is fond of dairy products contributes this.
http://www.whymilk.com/famous/mia2.htm
Wrong Mia. Or ... ?
Blab. A reader majoring in numerology, or at least nonology,
writes:
Nine
more years! Nine more years!
NINE, NINE, NINE, NINE, NINE, NINE,
MINE.
Blab. Our Reader of Infinite Assignage doubles the pace today.
Assigned activity #3
Watch kitty.
No problem there! When we don't watch him, he comes over and licks the
back of our neck (which we really, really hate). Watching him is ever so
much more pleasant. Last night, we gave him some catnip. He put on the
Moody
Blues CD and sat there, staring at the lights on the stereo until he
decided that he had to dump out all the Meow Mix in his bowl, line up the
little fishies and cows in a row and eat them, one by one.
He's so cute.
Assigned activity # 51: Tell
three children they are being watched.
Oh yeah, right. Coming, as it does, on the heels of our innocent
little experiment - giving elementary school kids rides with
a stranger - we can only imagine the law enforcement activity that
this would initiate.
Honest, Mister Policeman, we hear ourselves saying. That story
was just fiction and we were told to talk to these three kids by an anonymous
correspondent who controls our actions. Then we'd get to spend lots
of time with lawyers, get a change of clothing and become good friends
with some very large guy named Bubba.
It is not the most appealing possible future.
How about if we tell three kitties they are being watched?
Blab. A reader tries to lift our spirits.
Do you
suppose Yahoo started out like this? Yeah, prolly not
Yeah, and look at them NOW!
Hmm. Good point. Their stock is at 16 off of a high of 245. Maybe slow,
steady growth of Plurp is preferable. Let's see, at this rate, we'll
get to a million links to Plurp by ... um ... the year 60344.
Blab. A reader of Italian heritage writes:
our paternal
grandfather who, had not he met his untimely demise some decades ago, would
be something like a hundred years old.
And Willard Scott would make him famose!
Willard's doing dead people now? Weird.
Blab. A reader teetering on the edge of becoming a rampant conspiracy
theorist writes:
Steve,
You might be interested to know that
this morning I found that Christopher Kitty had pulled your German Verb
book and German dictionary out of the shelves.........later I found he
had done the same with the Everglades tour book and Vancouver and Canada
books. I fear he is planning to escape and travel south to Florida
to teach the threatened natives there a foreign language and then might
find ways to transport them to Vancouver BC. Maybe I should contact
the Canadian CIA. What's their number? I worry..........
Helen
The Canadian CIA (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) is
here.
We suggest contacting them immediately - before he figures out how to work
the elevator.
Blab. A correspondent forward yet another of those wonderful
help-me-launder-ill-gotten-gains-and-you'll-get-rich hoaxes.
Subject: Money for Investment
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 05:56:25
I am Maj. Timothy Banya, the commander
and head of the Secret Unit in charge of Diamond dealing for the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra-Leone. I was working directly
with the former Rebel Leader Foday Sankoh who is languishing in government
custody. They want to prosecute him for illegal diamond dealing and
the killings of 21 people during a public demonstration outside his
home in May this year, which I would be prosecuted alongside. The
RUF is now headed by Gen. Issa Sessey who is determined in bringing peace
to Sierra Leone, he signed cease- fire agreement with the government
on Friday 10th Nov., 2000 and instructed us that peace must returned to
our fatherland after nine-years conflict, pledging to allow
U.N. troops unhindered access throughout the Sierra-Leone. My fear is that
the government will try most of us and all our assets would be
confiscated why all traceable accounts to our name and families would also
be frozen. In view of this development, I am trapped with large quantity
of diamond and about US$12,500,000.00 (Twelve Million Five Hundred
Thousand US Dollars) that is in cash with my Wife who dose not have
the know-how to launder this money without any trace to our name
and how to dispose these unpolished diamonds accordingly.
My situation is very desperate, as I cannot desert my profession
at this point in my life with all that I have acquired. If you can
assist me to legitimize these funds by paying into your designated account,
I am ready to concede some percentage for your logistic and
material involvement. Contact me for more details. Yours faithfully, Maj.
Timothy Banya
Quite a little cottage industry, that.
Blab. Apropos of that IBM Annual Report
thing, a reader writes:
Overheard in the hall outside
my office: "Sure, I always look at IBM's Annual Report. It has pictures
of cute guys in it!"
Blush.
Plurp. Friend Bill says I'm a publicity
slut. Ian says I'm Media
Hungry. They're probably
right. Please deposit your 15 minutes of fame here,
for my later consumption. Thank you.
Yo. Oh good lord.
(Dave)
Plurp. Meanwhile, we are stealing cycles from Dave's mind for
our half
petunia work.
Yow.
The Web is an amazing place.
As evidence, we present Heromachine!
Design your own superhero! We, of course, created the spitting image of
Captain
Plurp, now available in our brand new Comics
section in Stuff. (geekish)
Also entombed there are our absolutely hilarious comics from the
other day. Well, we think they're funny. Hmph.
Plurp. What would it be like to make a weblog, well a web diary
really, for a completely made up person? Like improv acting, a little,
in the blog medium. You'd have a basic character sketch and an outline
of important life threads. Then, day by day, you would make up a life.
People would come to care for "you", wonder if you're all right during
your absences, rejoice for you when things turned out well, all the while
not realizing that it's fiction. Sort of like Truman, but inverted.
But what am I thinking? It's the Web fercryinoutloud. There must be
dozens of these out there already. Readers?
Plurp.
The blue dog
was not involved in
the half
petunia
work.
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
Blab. A reader after our own heart writes:
Don't stand under
The falling bombs
With anyone else
But me
Anyone else
But me
Anyone else
But me
As a child of the Cold War, growing up as I did with duck-and-cover drills
in fourth grade and the possibility of waking up every morning to the image
of my neighborhood as a glowing, radioactive wasteland, this can only stir
deep nostalgic and romantic memories.
Awwww.
Blab. A reader, prone to striking random keys, types:
Best picture: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20010307/wl/imdf07032001074456a.html
Those of you practiced at the art of visualizing content from reference,
as we are, are already amused. But focus more closely on the subtext. When
was the last time you heard of an orangutan with "serious financial problems"?
Maybe he was one of those day-trader monkeys we kept reading about. Guess
the recent NASDAQ fall really hit him hard.
That is sad.
Blab. Another Prodigal Reader returns to the fold.
Further to your Midwest Correspondent's
latest
missive --
I haven't been keeping up. I
was actually at home reading Round
Ireland With a Fridge rather than visiting Plurpville. It's true.
It is a sad, sad tale of a boy and
his fridge. Thumbing around Ireland all to win a lousy 100 £
bet. The poor little fridge never gets plugged - uh, plugged in,
that is. The boy (actually a man - well, a comedian of the stand-up
variety) slogs on through pub after pub after pub. Yes, there is
surfing, but there is drinking and sex too!
Does the comedian win the bet?
Does the fridge find fulfillment or even an ice cube tray? You'll
have to find out for yourself.
You'd like it. Honest!
Yeah, maybe. Doesn't sound like it has any spacecraft, though, or rogue
AIs in the Net - no nanotech or singularities. In short, none of the essential
elements of a good story.
We like that sex part, though!
Blab. Sigh.
Assigned activity # 31: Deny
that it ever happened.
Would that we could.
Blab. A reader, suffering from multiple personality disorder,
lets us in on an internal conversation.
You see, something's going
to happen...
What? What's going to happen?
Something wonderful.
What?
I understand how you feel.
You see, it's all very clear
to me now...
The whole thing. It's wonderful.
Nine more years! Nine more years!
Blab. A spammer claiming to be howiedeuce@newmail.net,
(newmail.net
- "Free E-mail for The World") and rather rudely using the poorly-configured
SMTP servers at the North American
Mortgage Company to route his vile spam, spams us, in part:
We are an independent affiliate*
(see disclaimer) to one of the top business television studios in the country,
TVA
Productions. They are currently looking for successful and innovative
companies to feature on their new, yet already nationally-acclaimed TV
newsmagazine series:
"BUSINESS
WORLD
NEWS"
"Spotlight
on Success"
...
Since BWN airs as a paid/sponsored
program, you are guaranteed approval rights (no cameras roll until you've
approved script; nothing is broadcast until you've approved final edit)
...
The documercial series is also distributed
to major airlines and cruise lines as on-board programming
and streamed from major business portals on the internet ...
FOR MORE INFORMATION: email your name,
telephone number, email address and website url to: [Click
Here] or Fax to 818-505-8370
 Yada,
yada, yada. Basically, Pay us money and we'll make a vanity vid for
you.
There is that odd, Zippy-esque word emphasis, though. Most disturbing.
Readers are kindly requested to submit
their most imaginative responses to this spam and/or their most creative
ways to use this offer (other than as intended, of course - that would
be silly).
Yow. More links to Plurp!
One is friend David,
so it barely counts. He's just down the hall, after all. Still, fame is
fame, even in small doses.
And there's some guy
named Chuck. What's up Chuck?
And a link in Johnsy's
blog. Woo hoo.
Do you suppose Yahoo started out like this? Yeah, prolly not.
Plop. On the state of basic education in the IT industry.
Or should we have saved that for Mispelling Day?
Yak. From Ian,
on e-commerce:
Patient: Doctor! Doctor!
It hurts when I buy things!
Doctor: Stop buying things.
Yo. The nice folks at CapitalOne
(Cap It Alone?) were kind enough to send a pre-approved credit card for
Richard White in the quaint old analog snailmail today. Faithful readers
of Plurp may recall that Richard White is our paternal grandfather
who, had not he met his untimely demise some decades ago, would be something
like a hundred years old.
And here's what we're wondering today: What are the criteria
by which century-old dead people are pre-approved for credit cards just
now?
It's true that he's unlikely to be charging very much in his current
state but, on the other hand, his ability to pay is none too good either,
and he has few identifiable assets, so it's not immediately obvious how
much of a credit risk he might be.
Having grown up and lived his entirely life in a minuscule village in
rural Indiana, he just doesn't seem the type to be getting free credit
(especially being dead and all), even if he does have a Manhattan mail
drop.
It's probably a good thing, though. It'll make it easier for him to
pay for his escort service.
Plurp.
The blue dog considered
opening up a financial
institution that didn't know
enough to secure
its servers.
Tuesday, March 13, 2001
Blab. A reader filled with curiosity, bedeviled by those
questions that have gnawed at the soul of humanity since the beginning
of time, a reader seeking answers to the Great Mysteries, asks:
why plurp?
See below.
Blab. Another reader filled with ... well, anyway:
why is it called plurp?
An excellent question. We present an excerpt from our equally excellent
FAQ.
Q: What is Plurp?
A: It's a weblog.
Q: No, I mean, what does it mean?
A: What an odd question. What does a rock
mean?
Q: No, I mean, what does the word "Plurp"
mean?
A: Oh. We see. We don't think it's actually
in the dictionary.
Q: No, no! Look. You have a weblog named
"Plurp". I got that. But why did you call it that?
A: Oh! That's easy. We don't know.
Blab. Judging that, if we have time to update Plurp, we
must have far too much time on our hands, a reader writes:
Assigned activity # 91: Confess
to crimes not yet committed.
Now this just strikes us as bad advice. Why, we spend 80%-90% of our professional
life trying to duck the blame, and we certainly aren't looking for
more
blame in our life. In fact, we're pretty sure that violates Rule 74 of
The
Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord. Not that
we plan to, you understand. No, certainly not.
We are, however, beginning to worry about our activity-assigning reader.
Blab. A reader, searching for phrases which stabilize after being
run recursively through the Babelfisherizer,
writes:
"The spirit is willing but
the flesh is weak",
that old chestnut, becomes, eventually,
"Ragia of the water becomes ausgebritten,
but the meat comes, always does not give the instrument is not distillation,
from which it comes, does not give to this this person with the person,
with this relative station of the work of the person comes the weak person
from the person of the person of the person of the person"
It's relatively stable, except for
the extra "of the person" that gets added each round.
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"
seems to be an unstable variant of
the somewhat more stable
"The substances, without tides, of
that the example of the shutdowns of DCIsso I gave Synopse for the number
of the superficial density, or in S.u.a it had had it, he with accumularsi
Synopse to consider. THE EXTREMITY WITH WORD!"
The latter is *clearly* closer in
essence to the true language of the ancients.
Clearly.
Plurp. You read about the incident
in Kuwait yesterday in which a U.S. warplane dropped a bomb on a bunch
of folks who were watching military "exercises". From this we learn two
really important things.
-
Don't stand under bombs. (Plurp safety tip #52.)
-
See? Those smart bombs really do work.
Imagine their entry for the Darwin Awards.
While standing near a target
on which extremely large bombs were to be dropped by planes flying at supersonic
speeds ...
Yow. Here is an incredibly
beautiful story by Lileks. It
is so beautiful that I reproduce it here rather than losing most of you
by only linking to it. Enjoy.
[W]e went to a silent auction
at the preschool where the Giant Swedes send their tots, and where we’ll
probably send Gnat. Small world: in the corner of the room, banjoing away
in a Dixieland band, was a guy I work with. Played a mean clarinet, too.
Amidst this cheerful racket we examined
the items up for bid; I put in bids on two clocks. One was made from an
old Columbia 78 rpm; the other was a DeSoto hubcab. Value: $25.00 That’s
all? Sure, it was dented. Sure, it wasn’t easy to check the time - who
cares? It was a chrome DeSoto hubcap! I wanted to put it to my ear like
a conch shell and hear the roar of the open road. Where have you been?
Where did you go? Did you one day fly off and spin off into a culvert while
your brothers all sped away? Did you land face down, collecting rain for
a summer, an incubator for a million mosquitos, until a kid found you and
took you home to hang on the wall, because someday he’d have a DeSoto?
Did that kid grow up, leave you behind when he went to Korea - Mom threw
it out when cleaning your stuff a few years later, but the junkman fished
it out because his brother had a DeSoto, might as well see if he needs
this . . .
And so forth. Sometimes you wish you
could hear these stories just by grabbing an item and closing your eyes,
but perhaps it’s just as well that we can’t. Most of the stories would
be too sad, eventually. And if we didn’t tire of the sadness, we’d just
get used to it.
Better that they’re mute.
I hope I got the hubcap. There were
four of them. When we left, I had the high bid.
I also had the only bid. I live among
the blind.
Plurp. Warren
Buffet, famed doubter of the New Economy, on people who made zillions
speculating on Internet stocks.
After a heady experience
of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that
of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities --
that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations
relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future -- will
eventually bring on pumpkins and mice.
But they nevertheless hate to miss
a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants
all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There's a problem, though:
They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.
Plurp. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
Yeah, sure. But why did this particular meme take off with such fervor?
Yeah, it started with that cool Flash
thingie. But there are lots of cool Flash thingies. Why this one?
Readers?
Plop. Why Flash should
be banned. (Wait it out until you get to the steel guitar. Then let
it cycle twenty or thirty times. Then you can scream. After you're done
with that, you can click on Housing Humor; it turns out to be quite apt.)
Yow. Yes, that's yours
truly in the IBM annual report. A few more microseconds of fame.
Plurp.
The blue dog is currently
using up
your fifteen minutes.
Monday, March 12, 2001
Blab. A reader writes:
Linux
rant, nice read. Quote:
These bits and pieces of
documentation are so difficult to read that one would think they were summonings
for Dread Cthulhu. “Install a video card, summon an Elder God! The joke
is on you! Ha ha ha!”
And you thought you'd never see Linux and Cthulhu mentioned in the same
document. Hah!
Blab. A reader with a pronounced desire to combine
Plurp
topics writes:
This guy walks into a Muldoon...
Yeah, we know, the Muldoon turns out to be a ventriloquist.
Blab. Fascinated by the possibility of nuclear annihilation,
a reader writes:
I
guess the incineration of a few billion people still counts as violent,
even by modern TV standards.
Necessarily? Couldn't it be,
in theory, a sort of calm and peaceful incineration?
Hmm. We're not sure how that might work. Sorta like "boiling the frog,"
but to a much, much higher temperature?
Blab. Fascinated by the various behaviors of The Unnamable,
a reader writes:
"we
now have two toys that he does flee in abject fear." Does NOT, mayhaps?
While we were tempted to save this for distant Mispelling day, we decided
to own up to this boo-boo now, lest our friends think Chase String No
Name is frightened of their kind gifts. Quite the contrary.
Blab. Our day could not possibly be complete without our readers
insisting that we do things.
Assigned activity # 19: Go
through the motions.
Don't tell anyone. This is all we do anyhow. Shhhh.
Yow. Rejoice! Allura finally
converted her site to a weblog. We are now officially smitten! (Even
though she does still insist on knowing who's reading her journal. Takes
all the mystery out of it, we say.)
Yow. OK. This
is cool. A playful interface to written work. (/usr/bin/girl)
Yo. Imagine skydiving
from space. It captures our imagination! (/usr/bin/girl)
Plop. An amazingly
stupid game, but fundamentally the same as lotto, craps, roulette,
slot machines and pachinko, just distilled down to that sticky, aromatic
brown gunk at the bottom of the gambling flask. (/usr/bin/girl)
See ya in a few hours.
Plurp. Following up on Saturday's attempted
correction of our spelling of cutsie to cutesie, we note
that Bartleby, which has entries
for neither, does have an entry for cutesy.
Googlization indicates:
The God of Google hath spoken, smiting us both and together.
Plurp. How many light bulbs does it take to screw Bill Gates?
The answer is here.
Plurp. What fraction of Bill Gates' ideas are anything but dim
bulbs? The answer is here.
Plurp. How many Windows systems are doing something besides rebooting
at any given time? The answer is here.
Plurp. What fraction of Microsoft employees have stock options
that are above water? The answer is here.
Plurp. How many Microsoft executives have not resigned in the
last three years? The answer is here.
Plurp. What fraction of people think that Microsoft is not a
monopoly? The answer is here.
Plop. It turns out that Colin Powell's son is the head
of the FCC. We're absolutely certain that's because he's the best qualified
person in the entire nation for this position.
In other late-breaking news, Colin Powell's dog was appointed Secretary
of Agriculture.
 Yo.
Listening to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer on TV last night, I had the unmistakable
impression that he sounded like Jesse Ventura. Not just the pound-the-table
bulging-vein snorting bit for which he is rightly famous, mind you, but
even the bubbly, lithium-infused statements about how great their software
is.
Helen, OTOH, thinks he sounds like Kermit the Frog.
Next time he's jabberwokking away, close your eyes and see what you
think. Then let us know.
Yak.
Helen: It says here
that the average AOL user is on for 70 minutes a day.
Steve: That means there are
19.6 people with AOL accounts who never use AOL at all, just to average
you
out.
Yo. FedEx introduces overnight PeoplePak.
(Bill)
MEMPHIS, TN — Federal Express
Corporation stunned the air travel and commercial shipping industries today
when president and CEO Theodore Weise unveiled plans to begin shipping
live humans as early as April 2001, offering frugal travelers the lowest
airfares in U.S. history and sparking heated controversy among top industry
professionals.
Yo. Breaking News: Your
Source for Reliable News. Not as stupid as The
Onion has become.
Plurp.
The blue dog was
very unhappy about that
Colin Powell thing.
Sunday, March 11, 2001
Blab. Having given us one day to ourselves, our demanding
reader returns with this.
Assigned activity # 57: Dress
entirely in sandpaper.
Is this a fashion statement?
Yo. You are invited to view our very
first, very
second, very
third and very
fourth comic strips, created with the trivial but cool Low
Pass Comic Strip Creator. Looks weird in Netscape; sorry. (bovine
inversus)
Plurp. We're confused. What is an "act of speakable evil"?
Readers are invited to suggest possibilities.
Plurp.
The blue dog is
not a cartoon
not a buffoon
not a balloon
not a saloon
not a Muldoon.
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