Plurp: Five minutes in the future and late already

Bigger!

2001.08.05 : 2001.08.11

Saturday, August 11, 2001
Blab. A naked reader writes:
[link]
This is, frighteningly, an article about Mr. Winkle, the mutant dog that loyal Plurp readers were warned about some time ago.
The cable repairman called him a robotic squirrel. A friend of mine who's an actor said, That's not a dog; that's a cat in a dog suit!
As we said, frightening.

Blab. This is a bit complex to explain. Stay with us. Someone took some tiny subset of Dubya's wacko misstatements and turned them into a poem of sort. Over a hundred people decided to put that on their Web sites. A Plurp reader sent it to us, perhaps as an entry to our Plagiarism contest.
A Poem made up entirely of George W. BUSH quotations, as arranged by the Washington Post's Richard Thompson
MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
by George W. Bush
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize Society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!
This gets counted double, plagiarized as it is from Dubya originally, then plagiarized once again by our treasured reader by sending it to us.
Congratulations, recursively depraved reader!

Blab. A reader tries desperately to give us work:
Web Challenge,
Go to the page below indicating requirements for blood doners. Search for 420d* and then explain why that was included in the page.
http://www.bloodbook.com/donr-requir.html
-Sundance
Well, Sundance, the requirement you reference says:
Be at least 17 years of age; upper age 60 (420d*).
This seems like an entirely uncontroversial requirement to us, so we have no idea why you would even mention it.
We might have thought you would question the following restrictions, which preclude blood donations.
If you have lived in western Europe since 1980
Acupuncture: one-year deferral
Electrolysis: defer donation for one year
But, ah. We see. The point was the asterisk.
* 60 Human years = approx. 420 dog years
That's because most blood in the blood bank comes from dogs. Didn't you know that?

Blab. A reader sends us a blatant marketing blurb from a company with an astonishingly slow Web site.
Subject: Blatant marketing blurb
Hey all,
Just thought you should know we got in a pile of really cool Cthuloid-related stuff in the Attic recently. Little Cthulhu busts, Cthulhu walking canes, and other cephalopodic wonders.
http://www.wizards-attic.com/NewReleases.html
These are all hand-crafted and painted by the fine folks at Catalyst studios, so each one is unique. For example, the little Cthulhu busts come in an array of blue/green/grey colors.
Cheers,
Eric Rowe
wizard@wizards-attic.com
www.wizards-attic.com
Cthulhu walking canes. OK.

Blab. A reader writes:
My eye has fallen out again. I hate it when that happens.
We're so sorry to hear that.

Yo. New is our Stuff department ... Doodles: Artistic Fruits From the Dreck Tree. Try to contain your excitement.

Readers are invited to play amateur psychologist, using our doodles to interpret our innermost thoughts and many psychoses.

Yow. A new Helenism, courtesy of NBC News just yesterday.
Leave them in the dark

Leave them in the dust

In the dark

Yo. Chinese spam is obviously the New Thing. Readers may recall the ones we received, offering us Ø²¢Õ¼ÓÐ¹úÄÚ¾ and granite. Now Dave has one suggesting that he purchase ball bearings, and Rebecca reports a unique opportunity to acquire flying shoes.
Flying shoes.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was left in the dark
by that flying
shoe thing

Friday, August 10, 2001
Blab. In a literary mood, a reader enters the fray of Starting Lines.
The raven -- the writing desk.
What was it about them?
He just could not recall, and time was running out.
Good one! You're today's winner in the Sly References to Classic Literature category

Blab. In yet another entry in our Starting Lines contest, a reader writes:
For the "first lines" thingie:
I very nearly became one with my septic tank that day.
it's true...
We don't actually want to know in what sense that might be true, but we do love it as a Starting Line. You're today's winner in the Mr. Smith Takes a Vacation category.

Blab. Attempting to translate into English these marvelous phrases from our boring conference this week:
We are now documenting globalized e-processes.
There's an ability for us to starburst a lot of downstream relationships.
... a reader writes:
Since nobody's listening anyway, and since they have yet to confiscate your laptops at the door (woops don't give them any ideas), these speeches can be easily re-written in this way:
We are now buzzwording buzzwords.
There's an ability for us to buzzword a lot of buzzword buzzwords.
- or -
Benford hoards hotbuttons in order to buzzword all over Planet Plurp's first "pervasive computing" conference.
We wondered where all those gosh darn hotbuttons went!

Blab. In our very first Blab contribution containing submitted graphics, two readers write:
As promised the film has been developed. There was a Mia sighting of sorts in Arles. We saw this on July 24 and just couldn't stop ourselves from snapping a picture of it.
M&G

We are very impressed with the resourcefulness of our readers, and we thank them for their marvelous contribution. Let the festivities begin!
(Note the subtle reference to the policeman in the above picture.)

Blab. Our impatience is showing. A long time ago, we submitted some Cthulhu haiku to a Web site, but didn't see it appear there. Miffed, we started our own Cthulhu haiku collection. Now, a nice guy named Philip C. Robinson from that very same Web site, no doubt reading through his referrer logs on a lazy Thursday, writes:
They've been on the site since you submitted them....
http://www.stevewhite.org/stuff/CthulhuHaiku.html
http://www.inzenity.com/mythku/mythsrc.shtml
Granted, I've not updated to terribly recently, but I'm not as prolific a site generator as some people.
-----Original Message-----
And thus it was spoken...
name=Steve R. White
Formalhaute rises
Old pieces fall into place
And the oceans roar
Sure enough! We appreciate Mr. Robinson's diligence, both in presenting our unworthy work to the world and in tracking us down and answering our complaint. We've updated our Cthulhu Haiku page to avoid defaming him further, and we apologize for many of the libelous rumors we've spread about him.

Blab. Are you concerned about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy? You know - mad cow disease, your brain turns to mush, stuff like that?
How would you feel if someone told you that nearly everything we touch or taste has cow in it?
http://discover.com/aug_01/gthere.html?article=featcow.html
Yipes.

Blab. The Masked URList sends us this:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/theater/movie6/
Um, OK. It's computer animations of orbits of ... (We know, we lost you already. Zzzz. Why do you even care? Well ...)
On its third orbit, STARDUST will encounter comet Wild 2 which, due to its higher speed, will overtake STARDUST from behind and pass it. During the encounter the Aerogel Collector will capture particles from the comet [...].
After the encounter with comet Wild 2, the Spacecraft will continue on its third orbit toward a rendezvous with Earth at which point the Sample Return Capsule containing the comet dust captured from Wild 2 will be dropped by parachute onto the desert floor at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) on the night of January 15th, 2006.
Does this remind anyone of Andromeda Strain? Yeah, us neither.

Blab. A reader discovers that a breakfast food has been elected President.
Subj: George Bush is a waffle
Excerpted from the New York Times:
Last night George W. Bush had one of those rare opportunities a president gets to take a bold step that might define his administration. Instead, he ducked. In a national television address, the president said he was supporting federal funding for stem cell research. But he added restrictions so rigid that they may constitute a near-ban. Disappointed Americans who had hoped for a more courageous conclusion may wind up wondering if his real concern was a perpetual fear of offending the Republican Party's right-wing base.
Yes, well, you see, Dubya thought they said fecal cell research.

Yak.
It says here in the newspaper that somebody broke into the monkey cage in the zoo.
I wonder if that was Steve Ballmer.
He took off all his clothes "to be one with the monkeys."
I don't know if I would want Steve Ballmer to take off his clothes.
Yeah. Scary.

Plurp. Pondering the Planet of the Apes remake, desperate ABC correspondent Buck Wolf (note the name; we'll come back to that) suggests:
What if super-intelligent talking apes really did take over the world? It might be one big sex party.
The bonobos [...] party like hairy little Hugh Hefners. Their society literally revolves around elaborate, recreational sex. They typically resolve a group conflict with a nice, long orgy.
You're right. So far, this just sounds like a typical Saturday night. But read on!
[I]n the new film, Wahlberg actually shares an onscreen kiss with his chimp counterpart, Helena Bonham Carter — an actress who looks pretty darn good with long sideburns, a hairy chest and knuckles that drag on the ground.
It may be that Buck Wolf (his real name, or so he says) has certain, um, proclivities. Anyway, it sounds like he enjoyed the movie. Perhaps even a little more than the rest of us.

Yak.
I'm not in complete control of reality.

Plop. 105 degrees Fahrenheit in Newark, NJ today. 108 in Harrison, NY. Don't go ~~there~~ here.

Plurp. Plurp seems to have transformed itself into a reader response blog, a sort of Dear Abby of the Digerati, pixellated notes written in the margin of unanswered correspondence, a moderated newsgroup about the moderator (alt.self-referential.plurp?).
Maybe this is Bad. Maybe we should give up on this whole Blab thing?

Plurp.
The blue dog
was involved in
fecal sale research.
Before it was popular.

Thursday, August 9, 2001
Blab. You know Steve Ballmer, the sacred cow of Microsoft? Dance, monkeyboy!
http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/mirrors.html
Priceless!
Oh, also: memes don't exist. Tell your friends.

Blab. In the first documented entry in our Plagiarism contest on the subject of the Web, a reader who has clearly mastered the form writes:
The continuous growth of the Web depends on the availability of a simple yet powerful mechanism for exchanging information on the Internet. The Internet, of course, happened between mainframes. More than 70% of the world’s critical business data is stored in mainframe computer systems. The argument for moving performance-critical applications onto Web servers has been that they can take advantage of the raw performance of Web-server hardware and integrate more effectively with the new Internet software and technologies. Access to the Web is a wonderful privilege, and it is fitting that those of us so blessed should give something back.
Lauren Redniss is currently working on a book about a grocery store.
We must admit that last sentence was hard to find - it's not in Google! Apart from the delight of finding it anyway, we got lots of long unanswered questions about water towers in New York answered. And that's a plus.
Congratulations to today's winner! Other entries on this or other subjects are eagerly solicited.

Blab. A reader mines Plurp for an entry into our Starting Lines contest.
Having noticed that the numbers 2, 5, 6, and 9 were especially worn on the keypad, Benford had tried all 24 combinations of these, but still had not been able to gain access to the office in the back of Planet Plurp. As he heard footsteps approaching, he wondered where he could hide.
Marvelous, and you're today's winner! Further entries are welcome.

Rant. Chris Taylor reveals himself to be one of the most clueless people ever to write for Time magazine in his article, Why Worms Like Code Red Are Good For You.
Worms and viruses like this are a fact of online life. The moment you have a vast global network, you have people gleefully trying to scrawl graffiti all over it [...]. It's human nature. The good thing is that in the long run this makes the system stronger through the act of resistance. That's also human (or rather, Darwinian) nature.
There is such a thing as white-hat hacking, where large corporations hire the most clever and mischievous of virtual raiders to probe their defenses for weaknesses. At its broadest definition, all hacking is white-hat hacking. Without it, the Internet would be like the Martians at the end of H.G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds: destroyed the moment we left our sterile, germ-free environment.
We had a social studies teacher in high school who made this same bizarre mistake. Power hungry national leaders are good for the world, he said. They remind us of how bad such things can be.
Right.
Criminals are good for the world. They remind us of how bad crime is.
People who break into your home are good for you. They remind you to use good locks.
People who con you out of your life savings are good for you. They remind you to be cautious.
Sorry, Chris, Code Red isn't good for anyone. But we do have this great bridge to sell you.

Plurp.
We don't reckon time the same way any more, he and I. At least, he doesn't. Not any more.

Plurp.
The blue dog
is brought to you today
by the numbers 2, 5, 6, and 9.

Wednesday, August 8, 2001
Blab. On the topic of Benford's Quibble, a shifty-fingered reader writes:
Speaking of worn numbers:
I used to work graveyard shift in a Secret clearance work area, and we had a number of areas that only Authorized Personnel were allowed into.
Invariably, these were secured by a 10-digit keypad, into which you had to enter a 4-digit code in order to gain access.
One night, I had to enter one of these areas that I didn't have the code for. Somewhat daunted by the 10,000 possible combinations, I nonetheless went over to the keypad.
Up close, I noticed significant wear on the "2","5","6",and "9" keys. 2 minutes later, I had access.
You're under arrest.

Blab. A reader writes:
http://www.magus-lehti.com/toimitus/mia.htm
via Dave and his Snappy Phrase box.
No idea what it means.
Interesting! Dave's entry says:
Cthulhu cultist?
And is, apparently, another Mia sighting, of sorts.
But, tsk! Look at all those other entries, some of them rather obviously inverse links, for which Dave gives no links at all. What wonders might be lurking there?

Blab. A reader discovers another astonishing piece in the larger puzzle.
A find-the-common-theme puzzle:
http://us.imdb.com/Plot?0105982
http://us.imdb.com/Plot?0282428
http://us.imdb.com/Plot?0247638
Mia!

Blab. On the topic of our new Starting Lines contest, a dingy reader writes:
When I read about your new contest, I heard a bell ring.
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
The reader obviously intends to deeply criticize our already admitted lack of ability to write prose. Apart from that, the intent was not to write an opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels but, rather, as stated.
Harrumph.

Blab. A much more creative reader writes:
As Benford walked along the red carpet to the grand opening of the new Planet Plurp, he had no way of knowing that he would soon be vomiting material that looked like coffee grounds.
Fabulous! You are today's winner. Congratulations.

Blab. Indulging in both Plagiarism and Starting Lines at the same time, a reader writes:
A quote from Lewis Black, comedian, to get this story started:
"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
Good one! You are today's winner. Congratulations.

Blab. At long last, the intellectual level of Plurp moves up a smidgen, with this short discussion of human cloning.
Are Drs. Panos Zavos and Severino Antinori just a clever Lucasfilm film tie-in?
You think that's clever? Our theory is that Zavos and Antinori are CGI characters.

Blab. A reader focuses our collective attention on another crucial social issue.
Head of Vecna
Consider this. Someone comes up to you and says I can make your life immeasurably better if you will only let me replace your head by one that I have here in the refrigerator. Would you say Sure?
Can we see a show of hands?
Hmm. Well, these people did. Sort of. (Yeah, well, it's funny anyway.)

Blab. Referring to yesterday's great quote from our boring meeting, Today, pervasive computing is everywhere, a reader writes:
- and if the situation were to ever be remedied, one could then say that pervasive computing has gotten nowhere fast.
We expect that quote next year.

Blab. Our readers have time, once again, to think about the Big Questions.
To what does the "Central" in Central Intelligence refer? I tried to find out on the kids' web site, but (shock!) it wouldn't tell me.
Would you like to know our guess? Our guess is that the name reveals the initial agenda of the agency - to be the central source for all intelligence information (that is, spy stuff) for the whole U.S. government. Obviously, that didn't work out, as there are now far too many secret intelligence gathering agencies to shake a stick at (though we would often like to do so).

Blab. One of our more scholarly readers writes:
"And yes, it's hard for us to think of any circumstances in which Earth ignites anything."
Quod me alit, me extinguit:
Earth: the flow of molten lava first ignites the tree, and then extinguishes it for good and all by encasing the charred stump in many feet of new-born solid rock.
Indeed! An excellent example. We wonder if this principle applies more generally. Is there any aphorismic Latin phrase for which one cannot find an example?

Yak. At our boring conference.
We are now documenting globalized e-processes.
And ...
There's an ability for us to starburst a lot of downstream relationships.
Readers are invited to attempt to translate these into English. Use of Bablefish is not encouraged.

Plop. Also at our fascinating conference today, we learned the results of a detailed academic study, which concluded that businesses adopt technology when they think it will:

Decrease their costs, and/or

Increase their revenue.

That's a shocker, and well worth an hour of our undivided attention.

Plurp.
Generic Madonna
We are living
In a commodity world
And I am a commodity girl

Yo. Quote o' the Day.
"Lost is a tiny village, and it's quite difficult to find at the best of times. Now that someone has taken the signpost, people are getting even more lost. We are appealing for Lost to be found and for the signpost to be returned."
— Beverly Tricker, a spokeswoman for the Aberdeenshire tourist board, after vandals stole the signpost for the Scottish town of "Lost."
And we thought we were the only one.

Plurp.
The blue dog
once owned the
Dog Bowl of Vecna

Tuesday, August 7, 2001
Blab. Finally, a reader suggests a project for someone else.
CIA operatives scouting potential sites for Planet Plurp.
We'll follow their progress carefully.

Blab. We thought we would escape today with only a single incident of meme mixing, but ...
Benford's quibble
And, apropos of the former, the following.

Blab. Fascinated by Benford's Law, a reader writes:
I am curious why '0' is not included in the Benford's Law study.
My remote control has, however, proved this to a point. The digits are painted on my remote buttons, and the digits show gradually progressive signs of wear. The '0' however, shows the most wear, followed by 1, 2, and so forth.
This data may be skewed somewhat by my choice in programming, of course, but the local stations tend to occupy those channels which require a '0' first.
You'd really have to ask Benford about that, but we can speculate that the corpora of data at which Benford looked dropped leading zeroes, as seems to be the Western custom.
On our remote, the Favorite Channel button shows the most wear. We are similarly puzzled by its lack of inclusion in Benford's Law. We are in the process of composing a nasty, chiding letter to Benford right now.

Blab. From the week before last Christmas, a belated reader writes:
dredle
As Google would say:
Did you mean: dreidel
Or, as Ian would say:
All languages suck; deal with it.

Blab. A resourceful reader writes:
http://us.imdb.com/Plot?0120872
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Blab. An eagle-eared reader writes:
Helenism spotted today:
"We were dead smack in the middle of the rapids."
Dead center ...
Smack dab ...
Nice one! We're up to 62 Helenisms now. Amazing.

Blab. Yesterday, we said that we were unaware of any situation in which Quod me alit, me extinguit would be literally true. In response, a persistent and erudite reader writes:
Quod me alit, me extinguit:
Water: swimming, snorkeling, and hot-tubbing can all be exhilerating experiences, yet water is one of the most destructive forces in nature
Air: Candles need oxygen to light, but can be blown out with just a breeze
Fire: gives life through heat, takes life through excessive heat
Couldn't think of anything for the other basic element of Earth, but 3 out of 4 ain't bad....
Good insights! And yes, it's hard for us to think of any circumstances in which Earth ignites anything. Well, maybe phosphorous. :-)

Blab. A reader applies for our job.
The blue dog
was neither
nourished nor
destroyed
Very nice! If only we had more than zero dollars to employ you.

Blab. The masked URList emits:
http://www.film-o-holic.com/pictures/st/tulennielija_sauna.jpg
Hmm. Little tiny naked people.

Blab. The woman with whom we had a lovely dinner last night sends us this.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast27jul_1.htm
While it is a NASA site, the headline nonetheless blazes:
Meteorites Don't Pop Corn
A fireball that dazzled Americans on July 23rd was a piece of a comet or an asteroid, scientists say. Contrary to reports, however, it probably didn't scorch any cornfields.
The rubes out in rural Pennsylvania reported thusly.
Says Bob Young of the State Museum of Pennsylvania: "One of our planetarium staff was told that the little northern Pennsylvania town of Trout Run was destroyed by the meteor! The witness was about 100 miles away when she heard the tale from her hairdresser." Other reports credit the fireball for scorching a cornfield in Lycoming County, PA, and littering the countryside with burnt rocks.
Yeah, whatever. But we do learn this interesting fact.
[D]espite their fiery appearance in the sky-- freshly-fallen meteorites are not hot.
Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold and they remain so even as they blaze a hot-looking trail toward the ground. "The outer layers are warmed by atmospheric friction, and little bits flake away as they descend," explains [a NASA guy]. This is called ablation and it's a wonderful way to remove heat. (Some commercial heat shields use ablation to keep spacecraft cool when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.) "Rocky asteroids are poor conductors of heat. Their central regions remain cool even as the hot outer layers are ablated away."
We didn't know that! (Silly us, we even learned our astrophysics from 1950's SF movies.)

Plurp. The word ko topped the list of popular searches of Plurp again this last week. That's the third week in a row! What's going on around here?

Yo. Who would have figured that there was a veritable cottage industry of people using Photoshop to make Supergirl images out of pictures of famous (and not so famous) women? Not us, at least not until now.
And what an odd thing to do! Given the raw material with which they start (sorry), it strikes us as just as odd as parachuting, which involves jumping out of a perfectly good plane.
Perhaps some insight can be gleaned from one site, which says:
I don't normally show share the kind of Supergirl bondage pictures that are common the Net, but ...
We won't even ask.

Yo. A baby shower ad that just plain hurts. (mister pants)

Yo. Looking for removable gold teeth? You've come to the right place. (eyeshot)
We are not making this up. We wish we were, oh so fervently, but we are not.

Plop. There's a medicine called Vioxx that's getting a lot of ad time these days. Dunno what it's supposed to do, but here's what it can do.
Vioxx can cause:

Breathing difficulty

Tightness in the chest

Swelling of the eyelids, face, lips, throat or tongue

Swelling of the feet or ankles

A rash or hives

Stomach bleeding

Weakness or nausea

Unexpected weight gain

Vomiting material that looks like coffee grounds

Blood in stool or vomit

Difficulty swallowing

Difficulty breathing

Hoarseness

Flu-like symptoms

Sluggishness

Yellowing of the skin or eyes

Stomach pain

Dark urine

Pale stools

Unusual fatigue

Diarrhea

Headache

Insomnia

Upper respiratory infection

Upper gastro-intestinal bleeding

Sounds like fun stuff. We'll have to run right out and get some.

Plurp.
Tremulexx should not be taken by people who sometimes have trouble sleeping. Some patients develop uncontrollable itches while taking Tremulexx. Pregnant or nursing women, boys under 16 years of age, people who consume diet beverages and women who own cats should not take Tremulexx. Tremulexx has been linked with heart arrhythmia, tachycardia and cardiac liquefaction in laboratory animals. Some patients taking Tremulexx describe recurring imagery involving self-mutilation, accompanied by a desire to handle knives. The incidence of murderous psychosis in people taking Tremulexx is about the same as in those taking a placebo. Tremulexx contains trans-A fatty tremuminium, which has been connected with cerebral detonation and spontaneous combustion. The use of Tremulexx in patients who have, at any time, lost hair is not recommended. The use of Tremulexx in patients that eat vegetables is strongly discouraged.

Yow. If You Love Somebody, Set Them on Fire. (jillmatrix)

Rant. I'm at an IBM internal conference today and tomorrow. IBM has a lot of people who are very enamored with control. One of them got up at the beginning and insisted that everyone close their laptops and keep them closed during the entire conference "out of respect to the speakers".
Now, while I have been known to do email or - dare I admit it? - write Plurp or even play games during talks, such a dictum strikes me as unrealistic.
Let's get real. Most talks are dull. In fact, most are hopelessly dull and there's just no way they can engage your full attention. It's a waste of time to do nothing but sit there, staring blandly at the speaker, your mind wandering through random fantasies.
OK. When I'm a speaker, it drives me nuts when people are playing with their laptops. But my reaction is to try to give a more interesting talk - a talk that is more interesting than doing email. How high a bar is that?
But I'm a good kid. I've closed my laptop with only a little eye rolling. And here I sit, writing this Plurp entry on analog paper with an analog pen. I probably look like I'm taking notes during the many fascinating talks.
One talk was given by a very engaging professor from MIT. She has this speaking thing down. She told jokes. She gesticulated to emphasize her points. She modulated her voice. She spoke at a measured pace and paused after every few words.
But you know what? It was dull. It was dull because I already knew 90% of her material. (She had great underlying material, but chose to give a puffy presentation instead.) I could easily absorb everything she had to say while writing this Plurp entry (and others).
In grad school, we used to joke about installing a borometer in every classroom. Each student would have a dial that could indicate that student's boredom. The borometer would display the integrated result in the back of the room, so the professor could always see it. We would joke about how Professor So-And-So's borometer would stay pegged at max.
Laptops are the borometers of the new millennium. Some speakers may think their audience is rude. Others may redouble their efforts to be interesting. But, IMHO, we all just have to get used to it.

Yak. From said meeting.
Today, pervasive computing is everywhere.

Yo. That boring meeting at least resulted in a good Helenism.
Under a crucible.

Yow. Announcing a new Plurp contest! This one's called Starting Lines. The idea is to write a sentence or two that would be the start of a short story, a joke or novel, has a good "hook", and is evocative enough that you can imagine writing the stuff that follows it.
Possible examples:

The combs had been arranged deliberately, that much was clear. But what Longely did not know, and would never know, was why.

Gretchen Flanders had an allergy to boredom. Literally.

Jeremiah had read that meteorites were cold when they hit the ground, but that did not seem to be the case this time.

"Ezzy?" shouted Jeremiah from the back of the house, "What in tarnation are these machine tools doing in the bathtub?"

"Daddy," Kip whined in her most exasperated voice, "Jeffey is down again."

As always, the best entries (or, truth be known, all entries) will be published here with ample slatherings of praise.

Plurp.
The blue dog
is not recommended for
people with
computers

Monday, August 6, 2001
Blab. The mysterious G writes:
Not to quibble, but, um, leuschke. With an 'e'.
Thanks,
G
We're pleased that you decided not to quibble.

Blab. A terse reader says, simply:
Benford's Law
A fascinating topic. Benford's Law says there is an enhanced probability that the initial digit will be 1 in almost any set of data. And it's true! Well, that's one point of view anyway.

Blab. On the subject of Quod me nutrit me destruit, a naughty reader (who nonetheless knows us all too well) writes:
"http://www.yonic.com/y_00.html" but you probably knew that. And you probably won't link to it, heh heh heh
Actually, we didn't know that.

Blab. Ever
Also
Quod me alit, me extinguit.
and so perhaps
Quod me nutrit, me aluit
and/or
Quod me alit, me nutruit
not that I can conjugate...
Hmm. We're not actually aware of any situation in which Quod me alit, me extinguit would be literally true. Quod me nutrit, me aluit might be true of the Tulennielijä, we suppose. Quod me alit, me nutruit is just plain true, we find.
Not that we can conjugate either.

Blab. A reader informs us:
Upon awakening in the morning, a bearded Steve photomanipulated pictures of tongues onto nude photos of the Blue Dog.
We wondered who had done that!

Yak.
I never know what to get you for our anniversary.
I have you. That's all I want.
Yeah, but I always want to get you something extravagant.
You are extravagant, dear.

Plurp. Quote o' the Day.
I think what makes her so sexy is she don't speak English. She can't say a word to me, and I can't say nothing to her, so I just be lookin'.

Plurp.

Yow. What a great redesign!

Plurp.
I can't said I did. It's been a long time. Paris. Paris, France. No, not exactly. Can I ask you something? Do you ever think about what might have happened?

Yow. Man walking. ASCII art. Never do this. (caterina)

Yo. What was in all those jars that made up the Golden Tower at last year's Burning Man? We're so worried!

Plurp.
Helen thought the blue dog
wanted us to be
happy but he
didn't

Sunday, August 5, 2001
Blab. Ever eager to find more things for us to do, a reader suggests:
This Planet Plurp idea intrigues me. I think you're limiting your potential by sticking with weblogging. Can you imagine expanding your project to an entire PLANET?
A planet run by Blue Dogs, and covered in parsley sprigs.
You could really go a long way marketing this. Selling Time Shares on the Planet Plurp, booking safaris and expeditions.
Heck, based on all the dot-com hype, I'm sure you could go public and make millions....
We hereby grant our franchise rights to Planet Plurp (of which we have none, but whatever) to our entrepreneurial reader. We look forward to booking a safari.

Blab. A reader who lives in the body of a saint writes:
In France, or at least in Provence, they seem to worship cicadas (cigales). You can buy ceramic cigales of various sizes to put on your walls and small ones that make noises. They were all over the place (both the real ones and the ceramic ones). I think I even saw soap in the shape of a cicada. And they make a lot more noise there too.
M
(I live in the body of a saint but am not the midwest correspondent.)
Interesting. Helen wanted to know what that cicada piece was about, but we did not know. Perhaps M gives us a clue.

Plurp.

Plurp.
Exhibit: Mies in Berlin / Mies in America
Demographic: Architecture and culture freaks
Exhibit Summary: Mies van der Rohe, one of the greatest architects ever and a foundation of modern architecture, started unimpressively enough in Berlin making semi-classical private residences with Grecian columns and roofs meant to look like thatch. But before he moved to America in 1938, he designed (though did not build) eye popping buildings of a grandeur and simplicity never before seen. In America, he applied his brilliance to skyscrapers but eventually got back to residences, designing some of the simplest, most open, most soaring living spaces ever. The exhibit starts with his early work and proceeds chronologically through his career. While there are other works of art and architecture to put van der Rohe into his historical context, the show thankfully concentrates on him.
Distinguishing Features: A dual exhibit at MoMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both of which are quite terrific, and members of one museum get in free to the other as well for this exhibit. This is probably the largest exhibit of van der Rohe ever, and includes a large number of sketches, drawings, photographs, films and (yow!) models.
Award For: Best joint show between competing museums
Verdict: Recommended

Plurp. Can someone explain the meaning of the phrase a grammar of architecture? Van der Rohe was said to have developed such, but we don't get it. We can imagine that a vocabulary of architecture might refer to individual design elements that could be artfully combined. But we cannot imagine anything as formal or well specified as a grammar being applied to an art form.
Hmm?

Plurp. In my wallet today we found a dollar bill, on the back of which is written, with a black ball point pen:
wherever prejudice exists, it obscures the truth.
That's not the weird part. The weird part is that Helen says she got a one dollar bill just the other day with that same thing written on it. Given the gigantic number of one dollar bills, that must be one prolific currency defacer. Or Helen slipped her dollar into our wallet. Or both.

Plurp.
Figure 17. Jesus, having been exposed to Red Kryptonite, learns the dog paddle.

Plop. My super power turns out to be Animal Communication. Shoot me now. (leuschke)

Yo. Fact o' the Day.
Angelina Jolie has a tattoo across her stomach that says,
Quod me nutrit me destruit.

Yow. Well, this is a far cry from the Supergirl we knew as an adolescent. Had this been around way back then, we never would have paid any attention at all to her dopey brother.

Plurp.
The blue dog
had a tattoo that
said nothing
at all

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