Plurp: Not a weblog, but an incredible simulation

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2001.06.03 : 2001.06.09

Saturday, June 9, 2001
Blab. A reader suggests another interpretation of our penultimate Image For Reader Explanation.

"So, shall we watch Barbarella or Digimon?"
Isn't that sweet?

Blab. And our final Image For Reader Explanation inspired this ominous interpretation.

"Uh-oh! It's stopped ticking!"
That's never a good sign.
Many thanks to all of our readers for allowing us, yet again, to play with their minds. Thanks also to our contributors for playing with ours.

Yo. The Winstar blimp blew silently passed my window at work yesterday, easily close enough for the crew to observe or photograph activities that may have transpired in my office. It is not clear what the purpose of the flight was. It is also not known what the connection might be with the helicopters or the men on the roof.

Yo. Another of those odd, tiny, red bugs crept across my desk yesterday, similarly leaving red goop when squished. Where are they coming from? What do they want?
They could be chiggers, but that would be bad.
It's possible that they're clover mites.
The mites are very tiny creatures (smaller than a pin head) and may occur in countless numbers. ... They do not bite people or cause any damage indoors, but ... will leave a red stain when crushed.
If so, it sounds like there might be a few trillion of them in my office in a week or two.
Or maybe they're just refugees from some dumb game.
(Heh. We do love the Web.)

Zoom. Eagle-eyed readers will notice a new category here, a category I have been resisting ever since Plurp first, uh, plurped. The situation is as follows. I have this car. This car draws attention. People look. Actually, they gawk. Now, this is not the reason I bought the car. But it does result in great stories. I've been telling these stories to Helen ever since we got the car and, every time I have, Helen insisted that I should write about them. But it always seemed a bit much, and I resisted. Until last night, when the following occurred, and I could not keep it to myself.
I pulled up to a stop light in Manhattan, a few blocks from the garage in which I park my car. Hey, said a voice to my right. Hey! I turned to find an SUV, the window of its back seat rolled down. A young, very attractive woman hung out of the window, obviously on her way to some Friday night event.
Her: Would you be my sugar daddy?
Me: Excuse me?
Her: Would you be my sugar daddy?
Me: Absolutely.
Her: You would?
Me: Sure!
Her (pausing, smiling): I like your car.
Me: Thank you. I do too.
Her (smiling more broadly): I'll bet you do! Say - where are you going right now?
Me: Home.
Her: Why don't you come to ...
And the light changed, and they turned right while I continued on straight.
In case it isn't obvious, I have never previously owned anything that could have even remotely been called a babe magnet. It's so weird.

Plurp. The cover of this month's New Yorker has a frightening insight into life in Manhattan.
It portrays a real estate agent showing the view from an apartment balcony to an enraptured couple, a postage stamp sized piece of water in the distance.
It is entitled Spctclr riv vu.
We have one of those.

Plurp.
The blue dog
always aspired to be a
Miata.

Friday, June 8, 2001
Blab. In response to our confusion about why people in ethnic or cultural groups can make jokes about those groups, but those outside cannot, a reader writes:
Ethnics are always allowed to tell ethnic jokes. It's in the contract!
We must have missed the fine print.

Blab. Once again, a reader writes:
subject = No Subject
This turns out to be our Blab box's way of saying That reader didn't type anything! Perhaps our dear reader is a mime.

Blab. Recapitulating the anagramization of the blue dog, a reader writes:
Budget hole?
Deluge both?
Bolted huge?
Debug hotel?
..He but ogled.
Got Bud? Heel!

Blab. A reader suggests a snippet of dialog which may clarify yesterday's odd image.

"So, little Billy; are you more interested in seeing my gigantic hose, or my collosal helmet?"
It does appear that Billy is thinking about it.

Plurp. Here is our final Image In Need Of Reader Explanation.
You've done so well on the previous entries in the series! Please grace us with your best explication of this last, most curious one.

Yak.
Vaya con carne.

Yo. Ever heard of the Corn Palace? We hadn't either. Doesn't matter; it still has a webcam. And a snow globe. And a portrait of Elvis in corn. And something else.
We love the Web.

Yo. Now here's a wild place: Dark Passage, a site devoted to what we might call surreal urban exploration. We invite you, if you will, to take a tour of the abandoned Hospital of the Seven Teeth. (Bovine Inversus via GMT+9)
This rather large predatory bird had not fallen into the drawer. The surrounding dust indicated that the carcass had been placed there after reaching a state of mummification. Having thus disposed of the bird, the mysterious perpetrator had tightly shut the drawer, knowing that someone would eventually make this discovery.

Plurp. Without comment, 'cause ... what could we say?
Educators in several states are fighting to ban dodge ball, but the game remains popular with kids.
About 40 students at a middle school in Ohio have formed a club in honor of the playground game.
An Eastern Connecticut University phys-ed professor criticizes the merits of the game, which is also known as sniper, bombardment and war ball.
Neil Williams says dodge ball is "litigation waiting to happen."
A spokeswoman for the National Association for Sport and Physical Education says the game encourages the strong to pick on the weak.
But seventh grader Erik Steidl in Medina, Ohio, says it's just a game, and he says you don't have to be very good at it to have fun.
In the game, kids split into teams and throw the ball at the other side. If you're hit by the ball, you're out.

Plurp.
The blue dog
wasn't at all
sure about that Dalmatian
thing

Thursday, June 7, 2001
Blab. A goblet hued reader asks:
The blue dog - beheld gout?
Yes.

Blab. On the subject of the test that said I was too straight, a reader writes:
(too gay) What test??
It's the Gay-o-Meter! The Gay-o-Meter! The ... oh. I forgot to give you the link? Well shucks. Here it is. (This demonstrates the depths to which we will stoop to get reader mail.)
The Gay-o-Meter, on the other hand, demonstrates the ubiquity of stereotyping of gays in terms of (to my mind) trivial personality traits and activities. And how socially acceptable this is.
It's an odd duality. On the one hand, a number of gay people that we know also voice stereotypes about gays and the "gay lifestyle", though the gay people that we know are just as diverse a group as any other.
What if there were a Web site that offered a Blackness Test, purporting to tell you how "black" you were based upon your activities and opinions, those activities and opinions based on white/black stereotypes? Would that be offensive? Could it be valid, or useful, in any sense?
Conversely, it seems the case that people of a given group can tell jokes and stories about the group, can indulge in the most base stereotypes of the group, and that's just fine. But woe betide the person outside the group who so indulges. That's racist/sexist/etc.
Why is that?

Blab. By remarkable coincidence, one of our global readers writes:
Havia uma vez um tema liso erigido com que um quirk pequeno cruzou então a exposição rápida de uma circunstância que conectando aquele conduzisse a uma torção inesperada!
The Great God Babelfish assures us that this is Portuguese and means:
An erected smooth subject
had a time with that one quirk small crossed
then the fast display
of a circumstance that connecting
that one lead to an unexpected twist!
Which bears an uncanny resemblance to:
There once was a plain theme erected
With which a small quirk intersected
Then quick exposition
of a connecting condition
That leads to a twist unexpected!
But, naturally, we don't know what that latter piece is anyway.

Blab. Rising to the bully pulpit of Generic Political Speech, a reader gives us this stirring contribution.
Self-deprecating joke.
(pause for polite laughter.)
...children ...community ...working men and women ....children ...families ...American Dream ...parallel construction with punch!
(pause for polite applause.)
Stirring exemplary tale about a heroic constituent.
(point out constituent in audience, pause for polite applause.)
My opponent ...ruination ...questionable ethics ...unresponsive ...the backing of Big Something ...doesn't represent the interests of the American people!
(pause for wild applause.)
Together ...spirit of accomplishment ...community ...children ...prosperity ...opportunity ...in America once again!
(pause for applause.)
Quote from someone famous that makes everyone feel good inside.
(raise hands to applause. Wave and smile.)
He, she or it certainly has our vote!

Blab. In the first-ever reader reaction to our massive Windows Backgrounds project (and we do appreciate it!), a reader writes:
No Gillian Anderson wallpaper? What about
http://www.famousbabes.com/pics119/gillian/gillian79.jpg
?
It's a fair question, and one that made us re-examine all of the Gillian Anderson pics at that site. (You know - anything for our readers.)
We used several criteria for selecting pics from which to make backgrounds. Some of them were:

The image must be sufficiently high-res that it won't look awful as a desktop. (Some of the ones we did keep are right on the edge.)

If the image only occupies part of the desktop (which is the case with most of them), it must be easily continuable to the rest of the desktop. So it should have an all-white edge or some such. The picture in this entry would be hard to continue in that way.

It had to be rated PG. (This was a sad and severe limitation.)

It had to be an attractive image to us, in some way that we cannot possibly articulate. (You might claim that many of the pictures have young women in them. That's clearly just a coincidence.)

Ms. Anderson's pics on that site fail on one or more of the above. The one the reader cites, in particular, fails on (2) but especially on (4). It, as many of her pics do, just looks scary to us. Yah!
Sorry.

Blab. A reader sends us something from his Web site.
Criminals Deliberately Do ---- Immediately imminent, Moderately elaborate, Deliberate acts of slapping my face, They're effectively detectable, Manipulating animals, Their anti-loops suck me into space, Protectable/ejectable, Outward flow receptacl, Deliberate participant are you, Subliminal, unbearable, Yet somehow irresistible, Those criminals deliberately do.
---- Nathan Urquhart
(Out Beyond The Back Fence)
Dear Nathan also sends us the longest Blab ever - sixteen pages, in fact, in one fantastically long run-on sentence written, astonishingly enough, by Nathan himself. Fortunately, it also appears on his Web site under the heading Weird Rantings (are you surprised?) so we don't have to reproduce it here.
We wondered, briefly, if Nathan had ever heard of the idea of links. Then we discovered that he has another hobby - posting this story to various and sundry spots on the Web. (He also posted the Criminals story in various other places.) Apparently this now includes Plurp.
We observe that everyone garners the fame they can, as best they can.

Blab. On the topic of foolishly named Web domains, a reader writes:
Shortly after reading your Plurp entry on "Most unclear on the concept," I heard a radio commercial for carfax.com.
Oooh - good one! And bonus points because you heard the URL on the radio!

Blab. A reader writes:
http://www.nyjuror.com/ (see today's davidchess log)
... which we did. Dave notes that NyJuror.com is the Web site for the indentured servants of the New York jury systems, though you kinda expect these folks to be Unclear on the Concept.

Blab. A reader with a severe speech impediment stutters:
http://www.sptimes.com/News/060501/TampaBay
/Protesters_kept_at_a_.shtml
Therein is described an anti-Bush protest about something-or-other while Bush was in Florida, wherein said protesters were not allowed to get close to Bush. The protesters were unhappy about that.
Um ... ?

Blab. A reader, whether offering praise or criticism, writes:
Where are you finding these nasty, nasty pictures?
What nasty pictures are those? Perhaps you're referring to some other web site.

Blab. A reader intuits the meaning of yesterday's evocative image.

At first, Officer Krupke had ignored the growing mole on his leg but now, he thought, it might be time to call the dermatologist.
We had been meaning to mention that to him.

Plurp. Today's is the fourth in our series of curious images that we ask our readers to help explain.

Readers are beseeched to provide some form of explication of this scene. Please.

Yo. That black helicopter was back again last night, as we sat on the terrace around sunset, along with a larger, white helicopter that could have held twenty people. They beat a path to the east of us, a half mile south to a half mile north, again and again and again, for nearly an hour.
We do not know what their mission was, nor what they plan to do with the information thus obtained.
When, at length, we retreated indoors, they went away. We do not know what to expect next.

Plop. Another of those tiny red bugs crawled out from under a paper on my desk just now. This one, when accidentally mashed with great fervor, left a red smear as if it had been full of blood that was not its own.
Are these minuscule alien life forms, come to sup upon our vital fluids?

Yo. According to this test, I am in the 83rd percentile of impurity. Shameless! Gotta get to work on that last little bit.

Plurp. We watched Camelot last night, the movie with Richard Harris as Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere and Franco Nero as Lancelot. I had not seen it for more than twenty years, but it is such a fundamental part of me, such a well of emotion and intent for me, that the words and songs came unexpectedly from my lips.
Arthur wants, more than anything; justice and equality. Lancelot worships the standard of perfection, a standard at which he certainly excels. Guenevere loves them both, but is fundamentally a vain schemer. And yet, and I hate this, these loves and desires are turned into tragedy. Because, I surmise, strength leads to weakness, purity to baseness, love to death, and wickedness is rewarded by the events of life. And I so viscerally object to all of these implications.
It is so complicated. This particular movie, this legend, is so intricately connected with the most significant romantic relationships of my life, with my hopes and desires for romance and perfection, with my ideals of friendship, of justice, of society, with my deep, deep feelings of How It Should Be.
The characters of Arthur and Lancelot, as initially sketched, are wonderful. Yet the plot turns their admirable traits and desires against them, ultimately pitting them against each other in a battle to the tragic death. Was that necessary? Was that, is that, the only way it can turn out? Are we, as humans, dark and hopeless creatures whose erstwhile virtues are but the precipice of our damnation?
I would, in another life, rewrite this play, rewrite this version of the legend. Guenevere would still be tempted by Lancelot. But they would say to themselves, This is not right. Or perhaps Guenevere and Lancelot would still decide to spend their lives together, in which case Arthur would say, They are right. But the ending would be heroic, extolling the virtues of the characters rather than rejoicing in their defeat.
No doubt it would be a commercial failure. But it would be better. Much better.

Plurp.
The blue dog
beheld
gout.

Wednesday, June 6, 2001
Blab. A reader shares the joy of home ownership.
Not another bloodly load of brightly colored machine tools in the tub! Drat, I shall end up going to the office unshowered. again!
Yes, when that happens to us we just call the Super.

Blab. Helen her own self writes:
Subject: Helenism
Heard on Oprah today:
"Let's get to the bottom of the chase"
Yes! As in:

Let's get to the bottom of this

Let's cut to the chase

Duly noted! A more obscure variant would be Let's cut to the bottom.
(In subsequent discussion, Helen expressed how surprised she was when she heard Oprah say it. I rushed right over to my computer and typed it down!)
Typed it down

Typed it up

Wrote it down

Blab. A reader with better technology than we have writes:
This time your readers are right on. Tunak rocks.
With this rave as motivation, we tracked down this (old-tech, apparently) RAM file version and were introduced to the wonder and horror that is Tunak Tunak Tun. We're planning on making it the default Windows Error sound on our laptop.
Tuluk, tulukadu, tuluk, tulukadu, tuluk, tulukadu da da da!

Blab. A reader suggests a possible explanation for yesterday's tableau.

This one's easy: Dorothy oiling the Tin Woodsman's neck in the East Hemming Fire Brigade's production of "The Wizard of Oz" (refreshments afterward in the parish house).
Now that brings back memories! Bishop Cheswick falling asleep in the front row, little Alice Sopwith and her squirt gun, and tubs and tubs of barbecued potato chips.
Those were the days.

Blab. On the topic of freakiness, one of our more unique readers writes:
Need to be unique: 92%
Need to NOT conform: 77%
Willingness to express dissent: 94%
Overall: 87%
On the other hand, there are no homoerotic fireman images on MY web page, so maybe this test isn't as comprehensive as it should be. Or else my view of what is freaky isn't as well-honed as it might be.
We would have to guess that not many people get a score that high! We are, however, puzzled by the reference to homoerotic firemen. Perhaps it is our reader's own unique way of looking at things.

Blab. Taking us up on our dare to write a Generic Limerick, a reader writes:
I can't get the ending quite right, but I nonetheless submit for consideration:
There once was a plain theme erected
With which a small quirk intersected
Then quick exposition
of a connecting condition
That leads to a twist unexpected!
Very nice indeed! Duly noted.

Blab. A master of the genre writes:
There once was an X from place B
That satisfied predicate P
He or she did thing A
In an adjective way
Resulting in circumstance C
We have to admit that this one really Xs the Y!
We now turn our readers loose to hunt for examples of Generic Literature in other genre, such as:

Script for X-Rated Movie

Political Speech

Script for Infomercial

Personal Ad

Letter to the Editor

Front Page Story from the Weekly World News

Postmodern Essay

Surrealist Prose

Plurp. Today is the third in our series of instructional figurines that cry out for reader explanation.

Please let us know what you imagine is going on here.

Yo. According to this test, I am 32% gay, which is evaluated as "Too straight". Says the test about me:
Loosen up mate! Women like a man who has some softer edges.
And here we thought our problem these days was too many soft edges.

Yo. Web sites whose domain names are deemed Most Unclear on the Concept:
1800flowers.com
autobytel.com
moviefone.com
westchestergov.com
Reader are invited to nominate other sites in this category.

Plurp.
The blue dog
engaged in a foolish
activity often connected
with that day's Plurp.

Tuesday, June 5, 2001
Blab. A reader who wants to make dang sure we get the link writes:
http://music.teenstation.com/videos/bhangra/daler/tunak.rm
http://music.teenstation.com/videos/bhangra/daler/tunak.rm
http://music.teenstation.com/videos/bhangra/daler/tunak.rm
http://music.teenstation.com/videos/bhangra/daler/tunak.rm
Sadly, RealAudio wants a plug-in as supplication before playing this for us, but refuses to get it. We would appreciate it if readers could tell us how it sounds.

Blab. Every once in a while, some reader (or group of readers, or tribe of readers) goes on a hunt (or a search, or a crawl) for Web references to the word (or the site, or the experience) Plurp.
Sometimes they come back. This time they came back with this.
Planet Plurp
Indeed, our favorite is the Disgusting Tribes of Planet Plurp card game.

Blab. Continuing to debauch in Google, a reader writes:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:uTH9iTl6WmY:
zartan.livejournal.com/
day/2000/10/29+%22plurp%22&hl=en
The referenced page, now long gone from the Web we suspect, contains the following marvelous reference to Plurp:
like a stale rubber band against an overripe pimple
While we don't know what it means, we're likely to use it in the title bar in some upcoming week. Watch the skies.

Blab. A reader points us at the following monumental work:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/index.html
... which is, of course, Lilek's famous exposition of the Gobbler Motel and Supper Club, a modern hotel shaped like a giant abstract turkey. Delightful. Go look. Shoo.

Blab. A reader suggests no fewer than five titles/captions for our first enigmatic tableau (pictured below).

1) "Yow, there's another of those annoying small deer-animals! Good thing I'm carrying my Pole-Axe! (Now if I could only find my other slipper.)"
2) Brownie, the 2001 Animal Artist of the Year, stands beside her latest work, a resin and fabric statue titled "Forest Heros: the Firefighter", as her assistant Bunny Snorkings puts some finishing touches on the left boot.
3) Still Life with Stump.
4) Sure Fire Hangover Cures #37 (not for the faint of heart)
5) "Whaddya think, guys, does this bag go with my visor? C'mon Bambi, Thumper, whaddya think?"

Blab. A reader takes us up on our challenge to write a Generic Limerick (which we tried to do for several days and failed):
Five lines with an anapest beat,
Three, three, two, two, three in the feet.
The rhyme scheme, as you see
Is bee bee ay ay bee,
And the last is the punchline, which makes the whole thing funny.
Marvelous! Erudite and witty too! We have dutifully added it to our repository of Generic Literature. Readers are invited to submit further examples of Generic Literature in the style of their choosing.
Congratulations to our winner!

Blab. A well-tanned reader sends us news from the British Virgin Islands.
The legislature was almost choral in its united passage of the Electronic Transactions Act, which provides legal recognition of electronically transmitted documents for the purpose of business transactions, contracts and similar activity.
The law is essential for the establishment of e-commerce here, which is estimated to have generated more than $30 billion in sales globally in 1999.
Members on both sides emphasized the need for liberalization in all aspects of telecommunications infrastructure and services, now currently controlled by exclusive providers, if e-commerce was to become the territory's third economic pillar.
Surely they meant coral?
We do wonder, however, whose brother has been trying to break into "telecommunications infrastructure and services". But that's just our cynical nature showing through.

Plurp. The second in our series of exercises for reader explanation is the following curious image.

Readers are invited to send in their best explanation or explication of this tableau, whether in prose or dialog form, whether title or caption.

Yo. A helicopter hovered low above our apartment again this morning, in the same place as the black helicopter last week. This one was not black. Nevertheless, I took a different route than usual to work and, even so, counted no fewer than ten police vehicles along my route.
When I got to work, there were men on the roof of the building, seeming to positioning some kind of equipment, who watched me as I walked in.

Plurp. According to this test, I am in the 56th percentile of freakiness which, sadly, makes me about average. But I am in the 87th percentile in my need not to conform. So that's good.
And you, dear reader? What about you? Hmm?

Plurp. We do not understand why people continually sit behind us in movies and the theater, often in groups of four or more, talking incessantly or rattling their bags nonstop. In order to help explicate this behavior, we have devised the following questionnaire.

Study of Social Behavior in Public Theaters

Please answer each of the following questions to the best of your ability. Your responses will not be used for any conceivable purpose.

Where do you think you are?

(a) In my own living room.
(b) At the theater.
(c) Back on my home planet.

Are you aware that there are other people here?

(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) Why are you in my living room?

Did you know that other people can hear you when you talk out loud?

(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) Did I say that out loud?

Have you ever heard of a communications technique known as a "whisper"?

(a) No.
(b) No.
(c) No.

Have you ever heard of books - stories that can be comprehended in private or discussed with your equally confused friends outside of public places in which movies (or plays) are being performed?

(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) Have you read Oprah's latest selection? I just hated it! The part where they ...

Were you aware that the movie (play) has already started?

(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) What are those really big people doing up there?

Were you aware that, sometimes, candy is sold that is not quadrupally wrapped in extra-crinkly cellophane that requires fifteen deafening minutes to unwrap?

(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) What? I can't hear you!

What does the expression shhhh! mean?

(a) Be quiet.
(b) Please speak more loudly.
(c) Outgassing.
If you are handed this questionnaire in a movie or the theater, please help our research effort by filling it out. Quietly.

Yow. Everybody knows that the moon isn't made of green cheese. But did you know that studies of moon rocks have found large amounts of a calcium compound that is found in milk and milk products? And it turns out that this compound is responsible for the light grey-green tint of much of the moon's surface. Neat, huh?

Plurp.
(9) Do you know what it means to
have your bathtub filled
with brightly
colored machine tools?

Monday, June 4, 2001
Blab. Restoring our faith in humanity, a reader writes:
I'm 66% non-bitch, which is higher than the average of 62%
You must not be a New Yorker, friend!

Blab. In a masterful exposition of free verse, a princess writes:
hi. i'm leah! vacant.cc/leah.
why do you care about my site?
i'm not sure.
i can't really understand your comment.
you like? you hate? you wonder?
ah. ok.
xox/leah
Readers with eidetic memories may recall that someone told us last week to Spit on a stranger. Rather than taking offense, we discovered that it was a blog. Then we wrote:
But why do we, the retinue of the evil Doctor Aberration, care? Dunno. Perhaps our readers will enlighten us.
Curiously, we feel unenlightened by the princess' lovely verse.
We wonder if leah is related to Mr. Xoxoxox.
We wonder if it was those rogue Al Gore staffers who removed the Shift keys from her keyboard.

Blab. A reader challenges the entire literary form in which we are so deeply enmeshed.
whts the point of analyzing this whole moulin rouge topic?
Wht indeed! Whts the point of movie reviews? Whts the point of satiric writing, or of writing itself? Whts the point of humor, of language, of communication qua communication?
We don't know.

Blab. On the seemingly unending subject of Welcome to Woop-Woop, a reader writes:
Wah! I think I saw about ten minutes of Welcome to Woop-Woop on the teevee once. Couldn't figure out *what*the heck was going on...
Wah! It's not the sort of movie that one can simply dip one's conceptual toe into. Readers are requested to view the entire video and write a review for us. Now, please.

Blab. Seeking the infinite cross-linking of the Web, a reader writes:
looks like someone is curious about my screen name (?) [scroll down on his site] ( ¤ 9:31 PM )
http://burntsienna.nu/2001_05_27_old.shtml#3903290
Ah! So, last Saturday, we posted a reader contribution:
sp1nk
This led us to puzzlement. It led the owner of the above-referenced Website, however, to conclude that we were fascinated with his screen name which is, we assume, sp1nk. Very well. We will act as if fascinated. Anything to please our readers.
His reference to the current issue of Plurp, however, will undoubtedly confuse his vast audience. Shoulda used those cute permalinks instead, d00d !

Blab. The Generic Literature meme is spreading.
Noted slashdot wannabe Kuro5hin's latest story (dated noon(ish), Friday June 1) is clearly a homage to our very own Plurp's Generic Literature...
Direct story link here.
Ah yes, the aptly titled Confusingly Titled Meta Story. We like it! We encourage our readers to submit other examples of Generic Literature to us. Or write their own. Or both.

Plurp. Skanky.
Skanky, skanky, skanky. What an odd word. Not actually onomatopoeic, but evocative of other, more common words - skunk, stank, dank, rank - the word itself is a bit skanky.
It's not in the American Heritage Dictionary, though the Online Dictionary of Playground Slang (which seems to cover mostly non-U.S. English speaking countries and not to know the difference between nouns and other parts of speech) has three entries for skank:
skank n. 1) to steal. e.g. "Did you skank my ruler?" 2) marijuana. e.g. "Did you skank my skank?" 3) mercenary or thrifty (in a 'picking pennies out of the bin' kind of way) You skanky b*****d, you are such a skank! UK (M)
skank n. To dance to Ska music - similar in usage to "mosh", e.g. "skank pit". AU
skank n. a slutty or promiscuous female often used as "Some skank skanked my skank" AU/NZ
Now none of these seem to be the colloquial U.S. usage, which seems more in line with the definition found in the High Definition Dictionary:
skanky - undesirable, dirty, contaminated.
So a lake, for instance, could by skanky without being stolen, marijuana, dancing or slutty. Isn't that nice?
To end today's English lesson, here's a lovely quote about the evolution of our language:
We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
-- James D. Nicoll
-- Booker T. Washington
(Amusingly, Google seems about evenly split as to who said it first and who rifled through the others' pockets.)
Skanky !

Plurp. This week, we will exercise the creative imaginations of our readers by asking them to tell us what is going on in various scenes that we present from the far reaches of the Web. Readers are invited to Blab us their explanation of this one, for starters.

We will accept either prose or stirring dialog. Ah, who are we kidding? We'll accept anything!

Yow. The Visible Barbie Project. Now that's funny! Gross, but funny.

Yo. More proof that Flash is evil. (Weird Links)

Yow. OK. we've been resisting linking to this for days, but we can hold out no longer. This is one beautiful galaxy. And it's a mere 30 million light-years away - right next door!

Plop. A high school student was moving to the college which she would be attending early. In the process, it seems that a steak knife fell out of a box and onto the floor of her car. No problem? Guess again.
The knife was spotted by a quick-witted sheriff's deputy at her high school who immediately arrested her (for, we suppose, possession of a steak knife with intent to have dinner). The enlightened principal of her high school suspended her for this heinous crime and barred her from attending her own graduation.
But the State Attorney's office has decided not to prosecute her because they can't prove she knew the knife was there when she drove into the school parking lot. So everything's just fine, right?
Right?

Plop. That massacre of the Royal Family in Nepal? Those of you who believe everything you read will be relieved to know that it was just an accident.
According to the information received by us (they) were seriously injured in an accidental firing from an automatic weapon.
At least, according to the new King, who was conveniently out of the country at the time of the accident.
Now let's think. How could this have happened? One possibility is bad translation. Perhaps the Nepalese word for premeditated got mistranslated into accidental. And maybe completely and entirely shot to smithereens got mistranslated into seriously injured. That could have happened, right?
Another possibility is that the new King is simply confused, babbling uncontrollably, the Ronald Reagan of Nepal.
Or - hey - it's certainly possible that the entire Royal Family, all ten or so of them, was standing in a nice, straight line when somebody or other accidentally shot a single bullet through all of them at once.
We feel much better. Don't you?

Plurp.
Whts the point
of analyzing this
whole blue dog
topic?

Sunday, June 3, 2001
Blab. Seeking the status of our famous Blab Box, a reader writes:
*tap* *tap* hello? is this thing on?
No.

Blab. As always, our readers have things for us to do.
Hey
Go see Moulin Rouge. I saw it tonight and it was great! But you have to be up on 20th century pop music to really truly appreciate it.
We are always glad to take assignments from our readers. See below.

Blab. A hungry reader writes:
Get in the kitchen and bake me a pie!
What luck! We just popped a delicious Cow Eye Pie in the oven. It'll be done in half an hour. To what address should we mail it?

Blab. A reader as obsessed as we are with random measures of unquantifiable personality traits writes:
I got a 61% optimist on the test, which suprises me given the following, which I am oft to quoth:
"The opposite of Optimist is not Pessimist. It's REALIST."
And the opposite of Realist is Imaginist?

Blab. A reader suggests the answer to the Chinese Lobster Mystery.
meatiness?
Oooh! A good guess, as meatiners appears nowhere in Google whereas meatiness (a one-letter mutation) appears over 1000 times.

Yak. Our day started out in an interesting manner this morning with the arrival of our son David.
[Ring! Ring!]
Helen: Good morning?
Handyman: {garbled} is here.
Helen: Who?
Handyman: David.
Helen: David who?
Handyman: Your son, David.
Helen: Well, my husband says that he was unaware that he had a son. What's more, I was unaware that I had a son. So you might imagine our surprise at his return.
Handyman: Just a minute.
{Muffled conversation}
Handyman: Never mind. [Click.]
The return of the prodigal son who had never, in fact, left. Or existed.

Plurp.
Movie: Moulin Rouge
Demographic: Devotees of spectacle with open minds.
Plot Summary: A penniless English writer with a great singing voice leaves home for Paris in 1900, where a narcoleptic Argentinean crashes through his ceiling, causing him to be drafted into Toulouse-Latrec's latest play, write The Sound of Music, and fall in love with a beautiful courtesan who .... No. Too complicated. A man and woman meet and fall into an impossible love only to be defeated by, and ultimately triumph over, a nasty but powerful man, both in the movie itself and in the play-within-a-play, each of which keeps bleeding into each other and ... No. Too complicated. Oh heck - the plot is mere backdrop for a visual roller coaster. It starts out looking like a farcical Monkees movie, or maybe a live-action Muppets production on psychedelic drugs. Once it settles down (as if it ever does), it is a complex interweaving of modern culture, turn-of-last-century Paris, a classic love story and any number of Broadway spectaculars, a visually frenetic cinematic experience delivered as a stage play. On Absinthe. One of the wildest visual rides I've ever had, though it would undoubtedly have been greatly enhanced by mild-altering substances.
Distinguishing Features: Craggy, veiny Jim Broadbent, complete with handlebar moustache, singing Like A Virgin while two dozen gay guys in waiter uniforms prance around him in unison. A terrific score, with many great classic and original songs, and with instrumentals reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil and Phantom of the Opera. Oh, and the shockingly beautiful Nicole Kidman, an emaciated reincarnation of Ann-Margret who is almost hot enough to melt through her own icy exterior. Who knew she could sing?
Academy Award For: Best Art Direction. Yow! And, quite possibly, Best Original Score.
Verdict: Recommended, though it takes some getting used to.

Plop. True to our word and always willing to please our readers, we rented Welcome to Woop-Woop. And, um, well, despite several quite hilarious moments, we conclude that we are not as squarely inside the demographic for this movie as our helpful reader.
We liked the background jokes, like the sign on a gas station in the Australian outback:
Last Gas For 2,300 Miles
And we did appreciate the synchronicity of The Sound of Music references, given that we just saw Moulin Rouge. We were, however, severely depressed by Rod Taylor's appearance in the film as Daddy-O, the leader, as it were, of the tiny community of Woop-Woop. Can't he even get a spot on Celebrity Jeopardy?
We appreciate the suggestion by our reader that this feature may best be viewed under the influence of a controlled substance and we look forward to substantial donations in the near future.

Plurp. According to this test, I am 40% bitch, which is higher than the worldwide average of 38% . I do so love being slightly above average. (usr/bin/girl)

Yo. The Royal Family of Nepal was massacred yesterday. The official story is that they were gunned to death by one of the Royal Princes over some marriage dispute, and that he then turned a gun on himself. No one there is buying that. Seems more likely that it has to do with political intrigue involving China and/or India, their less-than-friendly neighbors.
Helen's sister lives there at the moment, running a large hotel, having moved there about a year ago from Indonesia. Our theory is that her sister is a political insurgent, fomenting violence first in Indonesia and now in Nepal.
Hey - it's our theory and we're sticking to it.

Yak.
Are you ready for e-business?
No. Not until Monday at the earliest.

Plurp. Here's a widely-quoted quote.
If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
-- Albert Einstein
What an amazing coincidence that the Fundamental Equation of Life is linear!

Plurp.
The blue dog
was the
nonlinear term

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