Plurp: Developers, developers, developers, developers

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2001.09.02 : 2001.09.08

Saturday, September 8, 2001
Blab. It is a continuing astonishment to us that we have readers. But even more astounding is that some of them notice when we post new entries within ten minutes of the posting.
Why so early with the Friday entry? Not complaining, just curious.
The voices told us to do it. We always listen to the voices.

Blab. A reader challenges us to divine the contents of pages on remote Web sites.
[link]
[link]
[link]
Let's see. These would all be tossle-haired Britney Spears in a slutty little outfit, performing with a large albino snake at the prestigious MTV Video Music Awards. Is it possible that her manager is trying to change her little-girl image?
It's great to have such culturally well connected readers. Otherwise, we might never have the opportunity to see this kind of thing.

Before After

(Will it surprise you for us to admit that, where we found Virginal Britney insipid and dull, we find Slutty Britney basely attractive?)
Do you think that people will start referring to Slutty Britney and Virginal Britney, as they do Fat Oprah and Skinny Oprah?
Blab. A pangramist writes:
Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz!!!!
Two hardy boxing kangaroos jet from Sydney to Zanzibar on quicksilver pinions. The sex life of the woodchuck is a provocative question for most vertebrate zoology majors. Picking just six quinces, the new farmhand proved strong but lazy.

Blab. Suggesting further restrictions on us and our readership, an officious reader proclaims:
You must have at least this much clue to ride...

Blab. Ensuring that we are up to date on their personal life, a reader writes:
Sue and me, baby, ate nothin' but flannel.
These are tough times. Tough times.

Blab. A below average reader writes:
SPAM'd to me this week:
"You're not average, why should your (product being peddled) be?"
I'm really curious how (name of marketer) was able to filter out of its mailing list ALL AVERAGE PEOPLE ? Is this some new (name of computer web designer) technological breakthrough?
Brian: You're all different !
Crowd (countless throngs, in unison): Yes, we are all different !
Single Person in the Crowd: I'm not....
Didn't we see this in the walking scene of Dead Poet's Society?

Blab. A catologist writes:
cats
Those of you forced to share your lives with these evil creatures will recognize the following.
Things that surprise my cat every day:

when I leave in the morning, I don't come back until evening.

when I come home, the screen door opens from the left.

that I continue to exist overnight. Every time I emerge from the bedroom in the morning, I walk past her sleepy body as she squeaks in surprise. What? Are you still here? I thought you were gone!

that she's not allowed in the bedroom, and will be driven away forcefully if caught on the bed itself.

Blab. A loyal reader takes an otherwise good idea too far.
As always, The Fount of All Wisdom gives us the answer.
Tai Chi handily beats Chai Tea.
Has Google even replaced free will?

Blab. A reader who might be dear ~Sara writes:
I finally found a site that wasn't full of teenage mumbo jumbo (word out to all my girlz) or so XXX (watch Cindee suxxx Fred) that even I'd blush...now I'm being "run out of town"?
Dear reader. Dear, dear reader. Please don't run out of town. We cherish your eyeballs. We are desperate to experience your clicks, your mousing, your lack of desire to go elsewhere. We lay awake at night wondering what we can do to stimulate your continuing contributions.
So please, tell us. Tell us how we can supplicate our unworthy self so as to encourage you to remain, to sustain us with your mere presence, to comfort us with your enfolding prose. Tell us. Please.

Blab. A reader suggests we do work.
So why not a web counter? I'm curious to know how many people stop by your part of the web.
It would be too depressing.

Blab. On the continuing subject of vortices, a reader croons:
The Vortex pulls you in,
The Vortex spits you out,
The Vortex pulls you in,
And it shakes you all about.
The Vortex Hokey-Pokeys
then it turns you all around:
That's what it's all about !
Imagine that. The Mystery of Life, and it turns out to be about vortices. Our Fluid Mechanics professor was right.

Plurp. Here are the top five phrases you searched for in Plurp last week:

aaliyah

molehill

stepanov

aaron

aaroncity

"aaroncity"?

Yo. Contribute to the grand scientific quest for the world's funniest joke, either by submitting one or voting on the funniness of various jokes. Or both. Get it?

Plop. In other news, PETA has dropped this pro-shark ad campaign for some mysterious reason.

Would You Give Your Right Arm to Know Why Sharks Attack?
Could It Be Revenge? Go Vegetarian.
PETA

Do you know why plants cause allergic reactions? Could it be revenge?

Yo. Britney falls victim to backfiring diet drugs.

Plop. Here's an extremely dopey headline from CNET:
Internet Security Helped By Code Red
Dunderheads. That's just like:
Neighborhood Security Helped By Burglars

Plurp.
fungible, adj., capable of being transformed into or reduced to fungus. (See also, moldable.)

Plop. Well, it's been a full month since Bovine updated his blog. Perhaps his eagle has been eaten by livers?

Yow. Helen is home. It's so nice!

Plurp.
The blue dog
never ate
liver

Friday, September 7, 2001
Blab. From last week's Blab Box comes this.
http://www.b52s.net/lyrics/debbie.html
We can only speculate that our reader is pointing out the confluence between spam about vortex supplies and the well known chorus of the B-52s song:
Vortex pulls me in
The vortex spits me out
Jet-eyed glitter child strappin' on a gold guitar
We witness the ultrasonic imploding excitation
Bodies exhausted in total elation
When put in those terms, maybe we could use some of those vortex supplies.

Blab. A reader asks the obvious question.
But can the blue dog pass the Turing Test?
We will have to ask.

Blab. A reader familiar with Washington (not D.C.) writes:
Longview, a wee south of Seattle, receives a great deal LESS rain and is much more pleasant.
It sounds like nirvana.

Blab. Taking obvious offense at our innocent silliness, a reader writes:
So since I have not had the benefit of Darwinian Evolution courses or Advanced Biology - I can't comment on cloning? I beg your pardon...I didn't notice the "education meter" at the door.
That's correct. And the education meter is just to the right of the door, by the mechanical frog. Please feel free to fiddle with the knobs and dials, as long as you have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.

Blab. On the seemingly endless topic of random facts about Seattle, a knowledgeable reader writes:
Sorry, all the Seattle stores had to clear their inventory of Umbrellas so we could make room for Christmas decorations... AFTER LABOR DAY !
I'm curious if somehow the Gregorian Calendar and the Retail Calendar are somehow offset by a couple months.
We're still in early September (officially summer for those "solstice/equinox" fans) and already the store shelves are lined with winter wardrobes and Halloween and Christmas wares. Didn't we just celebrate Easter not too long ago?
Oh, sorry, Easter started (using the Retail Calendar) on February 15th. What was I thinking?
Ah. Then we won't be moving there after all. Pity.
On that calendar thing, we've always suspected that ours was off by twelve months. Is there a patch for that?

Yo. Suprisingly, the horrid Aberration monster is still alive. Unsurprisingly, it is still too consumed with sex to stop for a nosh. Like father, like monster.
We do notice that it finally crawled up onto dry land, if only briefly, the rancid pond scum drooling off its menacing carapace before it returned to the slimy breast of Mother Lake.
What will happen next? Ooh, we are all atwitter.

Plurp. We were reading a document at work about something called BFM. This created a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. In our own personal linguistic universe, this term would mean Big Freaking Machine, or something like that. But it was a document about some IBM e-commerce software widget or other. Our mind whirled around, trying to think of what that M might stand for.
It turned out to be Business Flow Manager.

Plurp.
That's what's wrong with you. You can't feel anything. You think everything's a joke. What's the problem? If you weren't so closed minded, you'd understand. You see - that's what I'm talking about.

Plurp.
Be atwitter, not a quitter.

Yo. Duct tape fetishists take note. Homemade duct tape pants are available on eBay. (gaekwad)
Astonishingly, that's not the only duct tape product available on eBay. What is the world coming to?

Plurp. Duct Tape Guys. That's what.

Yak.
Buenos nachos.

Plurp. Our greatest fear today is that dear ~Sara will stop reading Plurp. (Listen carefully for the pathetic sound of wringing hands.)

Plurp. Oh lord. More links to Plurp. This time it's Bitstreams, at least as one element of an extremely long and very subsidiary list, missing out on the main list, which Wil Wheaton does not. And Blogstar, whatever that is.
That brings our occasional readership to - what - eleven? Unless ~Sara drops out, in which case it's still ten or so.
We are so depressed.

Plurp. Helen gets back from her Secret Mission today. Perhaps she will tell you about it if you ask nicely.

Yow. First Ballmer vids, then Ballmer remixes, now even more derivative: Ballmer toons! (Ian, who is currently crowing about getting closer to winning a nickel from us)

Yo. Turns out that Caterina's secret, top number one recommended book is online. Might be worth a look. (Caterina)

Plurp. Meanwhile, we are insufferably pleased with ourself today, having completed the Damoclesian task of ridding the apartment of the Very Last Box left over from our move two years ago. Loyal readers will recall in vivid detail that the last remaining boxes were in a pile in the living room.
Before we injure our arm patting ourself on the back, we should confess a few things. First, some of that stuff turned out to be Helen's. There's a certain irony in that, as we thought it was all ours and had been feeling 100% guilty about it. Turns out we should only have felt 80% guilty. Helen's stuff is still in the living room, but it will be a pretty easy task to finish it off too.
But the second point is probably more important. Anybody who has gone through a big box of miscellaneous stuff knows the 80-20 rule. 80% of the stuff is easy to sort through. Either there's an obvious place to put it, or you say What the heck is this? and you throw it out. The last 20% is awful. You know it's too precious to throw away, but you have no idea what to do with it.
So we punted. Half of that last 20% was vaguely work-related (e.g. old college notebooks), so we brought it to work in a box, which now joins the four other boxes of stuff that we previously brought from home. The other half of that last 20% we dumped into a bag and hid in the bedroom closet. We'll get around to sorting through it some time soon, but not now.
That's because now, we are busy doing our Happy Dance down the halls of IBM Research. The living room is no longer a warehouse. And that's a good thing.

Plurp.
The blue dog
scored 19 on that
Turing test

Thursday, September 6, 2001
Blab. A reader continues a discussion of allegedly local importance.
My, my, my, such venomous words about the Emerald City ! Complaining about our rainfall, yet apparently, there must be rain blurring your vision there in NYC. That report you linked to said nearly 1000 mm, not inches. Oddly enough, the SAME site listed Central Park as rainier than Seattle.
PLUS, we don't freeze ourselves walking outside in February.
OR, sweat ourselves into a frenzy in July.
Deal with it, you have a greater need for those rubber boots than I. AND de-icer. AND air-conditioning.
Our gentle reader is, of course, entirely correct. We, and our ten million neighbors, are packing our suitcases and moving to Frappuccinoville tomorrow. Save an umbrella for us.

Blab. A reader who might be Ian enlightens us as to our secret wonderings.
>Secretly, we wondered if reading the following line
>in an entry above ...
> Your so right, thank's, for "paying attention".
>... made Ian itch. We bet it did. It certainly
>makes us itch.
It made me twitch and jibber incoherently. I was in a meeting, so no one noticed.
That would explain a lot!

Blab. A reader who drives a car writes:
Every day I drive to work, going the same route. I sit at the same boogery corner, day in and day out, waiting for a chance to dart across the traffic. At this point, I always think the same thought "They should REALLY put a stop light here". (Yes, I live in a "town" where not ALL intersections have traffic lights, they depend upon US to make wise decisions about when to enter traffic.) Even though I think the same thing every ::bleeping:: day...Once I get to work, it's out of my mind. (Except for today, of course.) Perhaps I should lodge a complaint (an idea) to the city department. Of course, they'll raise our taxes then if a new light IS implemented. Then, I'm sure everybody would know it was ME who complained. I'd be lynched...ran out of town, so to speak. Shunned from society here in LV, WA...Perhaps I'll find another way to work. Problem solved.
~Sara the Triscuit Queen
We have decided that our usual conversations with our fellow drivers on the road might be considered imperfectly social, perhaps even a tad aggressive. And this is wrong. So very wrong.
To atone, we have resolved to be more philosophical towards our roadway colleagues. As part of this effort, we are changing our verbiage. Instead of the rather more stressful appellations we have used in the past, we are adopting a Zen-like approach.
Now, our common comment to our brother and sister drivers is this, delivered in a slight Japanese accent (though it was supposed to be Okinawan):
Show me: drive car.

Blab. A testing reader writes:
Scored 28/30 on Princess Bride
Scored 16/50 on Bible Trivia
Hmmm....
It would be blasphemous for us to suggest that there is a correlation.
So we won't.

Blab. Introducing an entirely new subject, and we are astonished by the audacity, a reader writes:
CLONING - Ack, it's in the news again!
I can't help but feel uneasy when people talk about cloning. To me (a non-religious white female in her 20's with a husband, no children, a poodle and a job - a regular citizen) the whole idea just sound like it will backfire HORRIBLY. I understand the whole "if we make a MAN just like you, we'll take his organs and you will be FINE" but don't they see the BIGGER picture? With answers like "Although they had produced multiple animals from the same genes, each clone came out differently and there were a high number of abnormalities." They're making animals with birth defects. Too many occur naturally, we don't need to MAKE more. I'm sorry, I just feel this great sense of foreboding. Kind of like heartburn with a little bit of nausea mixed in.
By the way, this all is occuring in Texas...hey, isn't that where BUSH is from?
~Sara
We agree completely. We think that people who write about cloning should be required to get federal licenses certifying that they:

Have taken a standard undergraduate curriculum in biology.

Have passed at least two Upper Division courses in Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Have passed at least two Upper Division courses in molecular biology.

Our suspicion is that this would rather drastically cut down on the number of diatribes written both for and against cloning.

Blab. Neurons awoken by our comments on Planet of the Apes, a reader writes:
In regards to the Planet of the Apes movie review:
While I enjoyed the movie through to the very last few minutes (the end, of course) I felt a little "swindled" or "betrayed". It was almost as if I had just watched a 2 hour long COMMERCIAL for Planet of the Apes II. Very rarely do I find a movie that holds my attention completely. I am not a "movie/tv" person. My husband encourages me to attend movies with him. I was very curious about Planet of the Apes I - But the ending ruined the whole experience for me. Let's hope I'm not forced to see Planet of the Apes II next year.
~Sara
When we attended Junior High School (grades 7 and 8 for those of you who are differently curriculated), the series Batman, staring the pudgy and embarrassing Adam West, was on TV. One of its many pretensions was to end each episode with a seemingly deadly predicament involving Batman and his cohorts, always unrelated to the episode which it ended. In the subsequent episode, the cliffhanger ending of the previous one would always be resolved in some utterly trivial manner (Holy shish-kabob, Batman - Let's defeat the giant lizard with our Bat-Lizard-Skewers!)
Our parents forced us to watch episode after disturbing episode, week after week, tied to that stiff kitchen chair, our eyes pried open DeLarge-like, screaming, No, no, no! This makes no sense!
We don't know why we told you that.

Blab. A rather confused reader attempts this:
apt-get
Silly Linux geek - you can't install new applications from the Big Blab Box! Snort.

Blab. The Burma Shave duct tape fetish is growing.
Hi Captain Plurp,
From my clever husband:
When Clare's old car
Was at its end
She fixed it with
The handyman's friend.
She used duct tape!
And this from daughter #2:
Your friends all shout
Your neighbors gape
At your new roll
Of pocket tape.
On the web
There is a cam
Oh! Me thinks
It is a scam.
We can all hardly wait for Captain Plurp's Neighborhood.
- Your Midwest Correspondent
We are continually impressed with the creativity, and the exhibitionism, of our readers. Really we are.

Blab. A reader with sui generis mental processes writes:
Hey, I've never even seen the Princess Bride.
Uh-oh, she said looking through the binoculars. What, he asked? It's Jules M. from the Inestimable Rogers, she replied, in agony.
Take my coronotion [sic] bouquet to the cleaners with me [Ed - probably should read "for me"], she pleaded. But he was stony cold and could not shake off detachment.
Please take a moment and marvel at this fact: Virtually none of the subphrases of this little tract are found on Google.

Yo. Were you aware that Mother Teresa underwent an exorcism? It's so hard to keep up.

Yo. Turing Test with a Twinkie. Think about it.

Yo. Tabby Tote^®. (Weird Links)
A few extra turns of the stabilizer screw and your cat will be safely secured and unable to use your leg as a scratching post.
Definitely on our Christmas list.

Yow. It looks like there is now convincing evidence of a super massive black hole at the center of our own galaxy, gobbling up matter at an astonishing rate. This is the first time that such a humongous black hole, whose mass is about 2.6 million times that of our sun, has been found in our own galaxy.
That's amazing. In our childhood, physicists didn't have any convincing evidence of black holes at all. They were a curious prediction of General Relativity, and there was debate about whether or not they really existed.
Turns out they do. Big time!

Yak. From a meeting yesterday on automated business interactions.
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a bot.

Plurp. We watched Wolf last night on that quaint analog TV thing. From this we conclude:

This is a pretty good werewolf movie. Having watched most of them, we are an authority.

Jack Nicholson is really good in this role, primarily because we already believed he had wolf genes.

Michelle Pfeiffer looked better in this film, before those bees stung her lips. Really. What was she thinking?

The attempts to show what it would be like to be inside the mind of a werewolf are absolutely nowhere near as compelling as Nastassjia Kinsky's inner experience in Cat People. If you haven't seen the latter, do. And imagine what it would be like.

Rant. In the wake of the several recent shark attacks, we heard an alleged shark expert on the radio say, Sharks are the oldest living animal. By this, he meant Sharks haven't changed in a zillion years, or something like that. (You also hear this about cockroaches.)
This very confused statement comes from the fact that shark-like creatures are found in the fossil record from 450 million years ago. Or, at least, scales and sometimes teeth and such are - sharks have cartilaginous skeletons and don't tend to leave much behind as fossils.
But be that as it may, the claim arises that sharks "haven't evolved" or "are the same as they were zillions of years ago" because something in the fossil record looks like what sharks have today.
Did these folks ever take biology? Everything evolves. The fact that an ancient scale, or tooth, or even an entire skeleton looks similar to something that exists today says nothing about the extent to which the creature evolved. It might have an entirely different endocrine system, or a very different immune system, or a radically different brain. The fossil record just doesn't tell you.
Everything evolves, because everything is under evolutionary pressure. Sharks are not "at the top of the food chain" because there is no such thing. Sharks die from diseases and parasites, among other things, and surely those with better defenses against diseases and parasites have prevailed over the past zillion years.
Everything carries with it some traces of the past, and has differences from it. Everything arose from the same simple beginnings.
We are - all of us: sharks, trees, gnats and people - all the oldest living creatures.
Thank you.

Plurp.
The blue dog
scored 19 on that
test

Wednesday, September 5, 2001
Blab. Mocking us, and missing the point entirely, a reader with no table manners writes:
Yow. It was a perfect day today. Warm but temperate, clear blue skies, an easy breeze and light that made us envy the few remaining tourists who took pictures of themselves. But mostly, the streets were empty of the flood of out-of-towners that makes us feel like we're swimming upstream, and we were able to step back and admire the wonder that is the Olympic Mountains.
The difference is, the weather has been like that all summer here, we don't get many tourists, and we certainly don't have a "flood of out-of-towners that makes us feel like we're swimming upstream."
So, I ask you, why WOULD anyone live anywhere else?
Let's see. That would be Seattle, would it? The nearly 1000 inches of rain a year Seattle? The 189 days of rain last year Seattle? The 289 cloudy days last year Seattle? The of course you don't get many tourists Seattle? Gosh. We can't imagine.
But you're right. We did forget to mention all the good stuff about New York. Now go put on your rubbers and dry your plants.

Blab. A reader, thinking that somehow we might be interested in "Pooping Animal Keychains", sends us this.
Poopers!
How very kind of you, we're sure.

Blab. A correspondent points us at:
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/13/police_recording.htm
Now follow this carefully, 'cause it's gonna get a little weird on ya.
In 1998, a guy was pulled over by the police in Abingdon, Massachusetts. He videotaped the incident because he thought he was being pulled over unfairly. When he brought the tape to the police to prove he had been harassed, they charged him with unlawful wiretapping.
And - here's where it gets weird - he was convicted. It seems Massachusetts has a law preventing "secret recordings".
"We conclude that the Legislature intended (the law) strictly to prohibit all secret recordings by members of the public, including recordings of police officers or other public officials interacting with members of the public, when made without their permission or knowledge," Justice John M. Greaney wrote in the majority opinion.
[Dissenting] Chief Justice Margaret Marshall and Justice Robert Cordy used the famous videotape of the Rodney King police beating in Los Angeles as an example of a recording that would have been prohibited under Massachusetts law.
Yes, they are taking it to the Supreme Court where, hopefully, folks have thought a bit about the implications of such a law, 'cause they're obviously too busy arresting people in Massachusetts to do so.

Blab. A reader fascinated with our passing reference to Burma Shave signs the other day writes:
Dear Captain Plurp,
Last weekend, after reading the Burma Shave inventory of signs I printed from the Plurp connection, our next door neighbor penned:
He used duct tape
While playing cricket
Now he has a sticky wicket.
The Handyman's secret weapon
We love our neighborhood. Your Midwest Correspondent
That's very funny! And it's about duct tape, so it seems to qualify as a canonical mixed meme. Congratulations.
And look for Captain Plurp's Neighborhood, coming next season to the Web. Oh.

Blab. Violating our compulsion only to discuss misspellings on Mispelling Day, we randomly allow this timely reader contribution.
I enjoyed the Declaration of Independence in American, however, I noticed a couple misspellings:
The second paragraph should begin "All we gots to say on this proposition is this" - the word "got" is used in a different context.
The passage should end "...one that will take care of their innerests" - interest still has undertones of higher education.
"government" is misspelled (or 'misspelt') in the second paragraph - the correct spelling is "goverment" which is how it is correctly spelled the second time.
Your so right, thank's, for "paying attention".

Blab. A friendly reader writes, in two separate missives:
Hi Dr. Plurp,
Hi Dr. Plurp,
Hi hi!

Blab. A reader reveals a terrible cultural lack.
Hi Captain Plurp,
This is fun. My score on the Princess Bride test was 10/30. And I have no idea what the Princess Bride is! I chose answers that have intrigue. It reminds me of the time a colleague and I won the baseball pool at work one year, after choosing winning teams on the basis of random reasons, since neither of us knew anything about the teams. "I like the St. Louis arch, so let's pick the Cardinals to win..."
- Your Midwest Correspondent
Oh good heavens! This is a travesty! You've probably missed a good 30%-35% of the terribly inbred jokes here in Plurp. (Well, your mileage may vary.) You must go out and rent this movie immediately. Then come back and tell us how you liked the scene in which this line is spoken.
Go. Shoo!

Blab. Tickled by our continuing week of movie marathoning, a reader writes:
Speaking of curmudgeons, I saw As Good As It Gets this weekend. I'll give it a marginal recommendation. It has good moments, enough to make it worth watching. But my main complaint is in Jack Nicholson's curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-gold character. Now, I have nothing against the curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype in general. But Nicholson's character moves too quickly between curmudgeonly actions and heart-of-gold actions, and it's just plain jarring--I didn't feel particularly sympathetic towards the character. (And yes, I know the character has OCD, but a) that doesn't explain it, and b) even if it did it wouldn't make it any less jarring.)
As for me, I plan on being a curmudgeon who, deep down inside, is still a curmudgeon.
We like this movie very much, and not least for its title line. Nicholson's character is leaving his psychiatrist's office, walking through the waiting room crowded with anxiety ridden clients. He stops only briefly and says, What if this is as good as it gets? Everyone stares at him in horror as he exits.
We think about this often.

Blab. A reader only hints at recent events.
So, go ahead and tell about the tremendous effort being put forth in Seattle!
We encourage our heroic readers to tell their own tales of valor; we will happily be the cheerleading and embellishment section.

Blab. Another frighteningly competitive reader writes:
Your score is- 28 This makes you a Absolute Total Princess Bride Junkie
And then ...
Your score is- 28 This makes you a Absolute Total Princess Bride Junkie - At last! Success is mine!
Congratulations. We are indeed impressed.
It is an amazing readership we have, isn't it?

Blab. Prying into our inner thoughts and secret motivations, a reader asks:
Why PG?
Why do we want this to be a PG blog? Simple: so we can point our professional colleagues at it and have them merely think we're silly. We have other venues in which to exercise the more opprobrious aspects of our personality, which we assure you are many and varied.

Yow. We watched Jurassic Park (the original) again last night, just for fun.
Is it blasphemous for us to admit that we consider Stephen Spielberg to be one of the greatest film maker of our age? (The short list would also include Coppola, Scorsese and Kubrick.) Until he turned to Officially Serious Films (e.g. Schindler's List), the Academy ignored him, though he turned out film after brilliant film: Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Indiana Jones, etc. etc. These are jewels of film making! The difference between Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III is just day and night.
A particular highlight of the original is the John Williams music. We'll further our cultural blasphemy by claiming that Williams is one of the greatest composers of our age.
Readers are invited to slatheringly agree or rabidly disagree.

Plurp. After much consideration, we went back and revised our verdict on Planet of the Apes downward from Highly Recommended to just Recommended. We know this will drastically affect your desire to see it (as if you haven't already), and we are anxious to admit the error of our ways before it is too late for you. So see it, but don't expect Utter Brilliance. OK?

Plop. In the category of Oh Yeah, Right, we find this.
The United States has several scientific research programs looking into germ warfare, but they are for "defensive purposes" and are fully compliant with the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which permits germ research for peaceful purposes, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Pentagon's secret research may "test the limits" of the treaty, because the pact doesn't fully define what constitutes "defensive" research or spell out what studies are prohibited.
In the New York Times article (which we refuse to link because the stupid New York Times charges money to look at their archives, so the link would cost you in a few days - a derivative article is here), it says:
Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.
[...]
In a program code-named Clear Vision, the Central Intelligence Agency built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was being sold on the international market. The C.I.A. device lacked a fuse and other parts that would make it a working bomb, intelligence officials said.
At about the same time, Pentagon experts assembled a germ factory in the Nevada desert from commercially available materials. Pentagon officials said the project demonstrated the ease with which a terrorist or rogue nation could build a plant that could produce pounds of the deadly germs.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention states, in part:
Article I
Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain:
(1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;
(2) Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.
Let's review. The U.S. apparently considers the following to be just fine and dandy since they're for "protective purposes".

Collecting the worst possible diseases

Developing new forms of disease which have never existed among the human population

Developing, building and testing a bomb that could be used to deliver viruses and/or bacteria for military purposes

Building a germ factory

Producing a Soviet-designed germ bomb seems like a pretty clear violation of the Convention, as the Convention flatly prohibits producing "means of delivery" with no exceptions whatsoever, not even for "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes".
But even so, what other studies do you imagine might not be "spelled out" as prohibited? Fuses and other arming devices? Dispersal techniques in general? Toxicology studies? Studies of dispersal and lethality if these weapons were deployed over various cities, in their water supplies, etc.? Mounting points on attack aircraft? Warhead configurations for missiles on ships? Ah, so many things to study.
The fun thing about biological weapons is that you don't have to stockpile a lot of the genocidal goop in them until you actually need it. Unlike enriched plutonium or heavy water, which take a lot of effort to manufacture, viruses and bacteria make themselves. And quickly. So you can advertise that you're only playing with "minute quantities" while you get everything else ready.
For an amusing perspective on this, replace The United States in that quote at the top with Iraq (or Russia or Serbia or Cuba - all signatories to the Convention) and Pentagon with military.
Isn't that funny? We nearly died laughing.

Yo. Heh. We wonder if Plurp is already on the list of Web sites that various government agencies monitor automatically for dangerous thoughts.

Plurp. In the neo-Darwinian tradition ...
"Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another." -- Tom Robbins

Plurp. It may surprise you to know that we got 18 out of a possible 50 (just slightly lower than the average, which is 19) on the Bible Test. The right answers (which are explained in detail once you take the test) are quite surprising in themselves! (allura)

Plurp. Secretly, we wondered if reading the following line in an entry above ...
Your so right, thank's, for "paying attention".
... made Ian itch. We bet it did. It certainly makes us itch.

Plurp.
It made
the blue dog
itch

Tuesday, September 4, 2001
Blab. Continuing the fascination with the Princess Bride test, a reader who might be yet another reader writes:
!!! I, too, got 27/30 on the Princess Bride test, and I'm not married to either of you. To my knowledge.
We'll have to look into that.

Blab. Our meme mixer returns with a belated confluence.
Google Google Google, I made it out of clay. Google Google Google, with Google I shall play.
Hey - that's funny! See, clay is a silicate and ...

Plurp.
Movie: Jurassic Park III
Demographic: SF / adventure fans (duh)
Plot Summary: Sam Neil returns as the crusty dino-archaeologist. "Nothing on earth on in heaven could make me return [to those Leapin' Lizards islands]", he says, one scene before agreeing to guide some rich adventure-seekers there for money. Well, turns out they're really seeking their son, who was dumb enough to get lost there in the first place. Must be the genes; lovely Téa Leoni gets our nomination for the Darwin Award as the wife of tub and tile king William H. Macy as Leoni does more than anyone else in this movie to attract large, hungry carnivores with her constant hysteria and wild screaming. Macy's character (you may have guessed) is not a wealthy adventurer at all. He is a plot device designed to get everybody stuck on a island full of hungry dinosaurs, and he succeeds at it. Given that this is the third in the series, and was not even directed by Spielberg, you might expect more of a dog than a dino. But you would be wrong. Director Joe Johnston has learned some of Spielberg's tricks, and does a great job building tension that culminates in a non-stop roller coaster ride. Nonetheless, while III has the heart of Jurassic Park, it lacks the soul. The original told a tale of the tension between technology and nature; III does nothing of the sort. It is a thrill ride, to be sure, but only that.
Distinguishing Features: Did the cell phone bit remind anyone else of the ticking clock that haunted Captain Hook?
Academy Award For: CGI. It's ILM, of course, and brilliantly. In the eight years since the original Jurassic Park, they have figure out the physics of large animals. The movement of these beasts is now, to our eye, absolutely perfect. They walk, they rear, they fight, they fly, and their motion and emotion is so perfect as to be indistinguishable from real creatures. Astonishing!
Verdict: Recommended.

Plurp.
Movie: Planet of the Apes
Demographic: Tim Burton fans, light SF fans
Plot Summary: This is not the original 1968 Planet of the Apes (thank god!). Nor is it any of the four subsequent Planet of the Apes movies, three TV movies, two TV series or the video game. It's better. This is a world ruled by sentient apes as imagined by Tim Burton, who has quite an imagination. Replacing the hopeless plot of the original (we guessed it was Earth as soon as they landed, and we were 16 at the time) is a sensible story, though one drawn more from fantasy than science fiction. Indeed, you have to ignore almost all of the "science", but that's OK. Instead, pay attention to the gorgeous exteriors of the Medieval ape city, to the hormonal physicality of their Klingonesque culture, to the costumes and makeup that look almost plausibly ape-like. (Steven Ballmer take note.) Sure, Estella Warren can't act, but in Raquel Welch's prehistoric party dress, Burton probably didn't expect her to. (Where she gets the lipstick and mascara in a Stone Age tribal culture is anybody's guess.) Much of the plot revolves around bigotry and power in society, and the way we treat animals, using up no subtlety in doing so. Charleton Heston even gets a triple entendre cameo as a dying ape who warns about those vicious humans who use guns. Now that's funny! Having established a reasonable story about How Things Got That Way, the script throws it all away at the end, as the Human Hero rockets back through time to go home, only to land in the Reflecting Pool in Washington D.C. and discover that Earth is ruled by ... please don't make me say it.
Distinguishing Features: A richly imagined visual world that seems altogether consistent.
Academy Award For: Best costumes and makeup. Obviously.
Verdict: Recommended, but lose that ending!

Yo. HP's buying Compaq. Now that's amazing.

Plop. Dave's back from Maine and seems to think that, just because he didn't want to be Connected, we have to swallow his entire week-or-whatever worth of blogging in one huge gulp. Hmph. We're waiting for Ian to complain that there are no micro-links to individual entries (/paragraphs/words/whatever). Tasty, though.

Plurp. When we finally enter our dotage, we will pursue the career of curmudgeon. But we're practicing now to get good at it.

Plurp. Tai Chi or Chai Tea? You decide.

Yow. Ian points us at the:
'Declaration of Independence in American', (appendix one, part one), which is the US Declaration of Independence re-written in 1920s 'American Vulgate'
This is really quite amazing, and we quote:
When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are on the level, and not trying to put nothing over on nobody.
All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, you and me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time however he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else. That any government that don't give a man these rights ain't worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of goverment they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any goverment don't do this, then the people have got a right to can it and put in one that will take care of their interests.
We kinda like that. We'd rather people spoke this plainly about rights and government, instead of getting all confused with ancient verbiage and faded documents regarded as holy writ.
So, dear readers, your assignment is to translate a paragraph from any famous document into the modern linguistic style of your choice. You know: Rap, chatroom, postmodernist ...
Get to it!

Plurp.
The blue dog
wanted to play
Steven Ballmer in the
next movie

Monday, September 3, 2001
Blab. A reader who has consumed in excess this holiday weekend exclaims:
pluuuUURRRPPpp! Excuse me!
We're always saying that.

Blab. One of our more competitive readers writes:
28/30 - BEAT THAT !
(are we pathetic or what?)
Not at all. We are the proud standard-bearers of our cultural heritage. Next: the Mad Magazine quiz.

Yo. The Unnamable One is watching Allosaurus on The Discovery Channel. Lots of rapidly moving lizard things and growly noises. He is completely fascinated for about twenty seconds, then goes back to sleep.
What must it be like to be him?

Plurp. We went back and censored Will Wheaton's rather adult language from our entry the other day. We know. You think we're silly. Whatcha gonna do on [Copulate] Day, eh Steve?, Dave will say.
But we want a PG blog anyway. So there.

Rant. Shopping for tennis shoes was again unsuccessful, and we begin to despair of ever finding shoes that (a) won't mar the floor and (b) don't look stupid. The soles of our current shoes are quite thin; we expect to have to reinforce them with cardboard any day now, to be followed by collecting large bags full of empty soda cans and avoiding bathing.
This is absurd! Why is it that tennis shoes now cost over $60 and either look like NASA space boots or giant jelly beans? Whatever happened to, you know, tennis shoes?
(Is our age showing again? We hate that.)

Plurp. We saw two movies today, but we're too lazy to write about them at the moment. Live with it.

Yow. It was a perfect day today. Warm but temperate, clear blue skies, an easy breeze and light that made us envy the few remaining tourists who took pictures of themselves. But mostly, the streets were empty of the flood of out-of-towners that makes us feel like we're swimming upstream, and we were able to step back and admire the wonder that is New York.
Why would anyone live anywhere else?

Plurp.

Plurp.
The blue dog
never shopped for
shoes

Sunday, September 2, 2001
Blab. Another Total Princess Bride Junkie writes:
Whoa. I also got a 27/30 on the Princess Bride test. What are the odds? (Please, do not answer 1/30. This will be scored as "incorrect")
We don't know the odds, but we are impressed! Are we, by any chance, married to you?

Plurp.
Play: Blue
Demographic: Older folks and black people, judging from the audience, though there's nothing black about it, really.
Plot Summary: Phylicia Rashad plays the status conscious mother of a family as it evolves from the 70s to the 90s. Her loyal husband runs the family funeral home in a small town in South Carolina, the two boys grow from loving and slightly rebellious teens to real adults, and the mother buys stuff and frets about how the family is perceived, while swooning over a singer named Blue. (No, not the dog.) Turns out Son Number 2 was fathered by Blue while the husband wasn't looking; this is the family's only closeted skeleton and of course it comes out. This otherwise unremarkable family is pretty much like every other family, and you will recognize your own in it.
Distinguishing Features: A good ensemble cast.
Tony Award For: Dialog Most Universally Representative of Families.
Didn't you hear what I said?
Yes, but if one doesn't acknowledge what one has heard, one doesn't have to deal with it.
Verdict: Mildly recommended.

Plurp. It's time to play What's On Steve's Nightstand? Steve tends to be a procrastinator. One of the ways this manifests itself is in an ever-growing queue of things to put away, especially when you have to create a new place for them or when you have to do something with them before putting them away.
Steve is also trying to keep his apartment uncluttered.
You can see the tension this creates. Steve deals with these contradictory desires by subconsciously designating a particular place for the clutter to reside. In the old apartment, it was his desk, which got piled higher and higher with stuff until the day of a party that Helen arranged (and he always figured she arranged them for just this purpose), when it would all get cleaned off, and mostly thrown away.
In the new apartment, it is his bedside table, which is considerably smaller than the old desk. There is, therefore, quite a little mountain of stuff piled up there, and god only knows how old it is. Let's see what's in it.

Two newfangled New York license plates, which have to be put on the car. These go to work.

A brochure from Miya Shoji, as we're considering having a shoji screen made for the living room. This goes in the "apartment" folder.

An article torn out of the New York Times listing good sushi restaurants we haven't tried. This goes in the "take out menus" folder. It doesn't really belong there, but where else could it go?

A black and white picture of Helen when she was 10 months old, holding court in a high chair. This goes on Helen's bedside table. (Yes, that is a sneaky trick.)

A manila folder labeled MAINE 2001 containing ideas for an upcoming vacation. No doubt these are to be discussed with Helen. For now, they go in the handy woven basket that Helen bought to hold things that really can't be put away just yet.

A take-out menu for a sushi restaurant that we haven't tried, but which always looks unoccupied. Toss.

A New York State Insurance Identification card with the notation THIS CARD MUST BE CARRIED IN THE INSURED VEHICLE FOR PRODUCTION ON DEMAND. It expired on Aug. 28. Toss.

A sheaf of paper detailing the dismal results of our investments over the past year. There's bound to be a folder for financial stuff somewhere, but where? It goes in the basket, a bad trend as the basket is really very small.

Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon, schlock vacation reading for that Maine place. Fortunately, we already have bookshelves.

A scrap of paper on which is written January is the best time to go to the south pole. Good to know. Toss.

A notification that an insurance plan enrollment date has been extended to Aug. 10, 2001. Toss.

Thief II CDs. Gotta get back to that. File in the closet with all the other computer junk.

A Divers Alert Network member card that, mysteriously, hasn't expired yet. In the drawer with the other cards that aren't carried all the time.

Clip on sunglasses and an old pair of reading glasses. In the drawer.

Birthday cards from last June. File. Never throw away gifts of love.

A small article clipped from the New York Times about a Windows error we kept having before giving up and reinstalling the system. Toss.

The New York Times Weekend section from Friday, June 29, 2001, containing an article on the movie A.I. Toss.

Two more Divers Alert Network cards, which expired in Sept. 1998 and Aug. 2001, respectively. Toss.

A Cat-in-the-Bag toy from a well intentioned friend. It appears to be a cat in a small burlap bag, with its tail and tufts of fur poking out. Shake it and it vibrates manically and sounds like a very angry cat. He Who Shall Remain Nameless is terrified of it beyond description. In the closet.

A Happy Birthday party favor, the kind that you blow into and the paper tube extends and makes a noise. It is now too disgustingly dusty to be used again. Toss.

An advertising leaflet from a local fitness club. Such good intentions. Toss.

A button from my raincoat. Gotta get that repaired. Basket.

A sexy travel alarm clock that also has a calendar, a calculator, a bunch of other stuff, and a frighteningly long set of instructions telling you how to use it. Closet.

A very dirty, formerly lime green band used to keep sunglasses on your head, still not put away from our vacation in the Caribbean. Gotta get a new one of these. Closet.

Traveler's checks, still not put away from that same vacation. Closet.

A card from the doctor who recently left our insurance plan, saying that we can make appointments with him online. Toss.

An old Metro Card. Where'd that come from? Helen's table.

Some old form from our bank. Toss.

Something from CitiBank informing us that some account number has been changed to some other account number. Fascinating reading. Basket, until that financial file appears.

A piece of paper containing a list of old movies and directors in Helen's handwriting. Hmm. Dunno. Basket for now.

A spiral notebook from that vacation with a list of books read, some odd doodles and notes on the solution of the Lighthouse Problem. Good fodder for blogging. Basket.

An envelope from Town Court, Town of Greenburgh which is likely to once have contained a conviction notice for a speeding ticket, but is now empty. Toss.

A paper clip. Helen's table.

Valentine's Day cards from Helen. Hmm. It's been a while. File.

Valentine's Day cards to Helen (already opened). Ha! Helen's table.

Details of insurance on the Miata. Basket for now.

A note from the nice woman who did the DisneyWorld backstage tour for us, saying that she couldn't get to my weblog entry about it because she doesn't have a computer. A lousy excuse, to be sure, but we'll have to print out the relevant entries and send them to her. Basket.

A business card from a dermatologist. Convert to bits and toss.

A thank-you letter from a friend, with family pics. File.

A physician's referral form from last October for an optometrist, or some such, for Procedure 92225. Google says this is an ophthalmoscopy. Probably worth getting back to. Basket.

An article from a friend on Muffler Men. Great stuff. Already blogged. Toss.

Letter from a friend on their house renovation. Ack! But file.

A Certificate of Exemption From Additional New York City 8% Parking Tax. One fewer leech on the bank account. Basket.

A page from an old Time Digital (note irony) on which are printed URLs (again) for home decoration sites. Toss.

Paperwork from our own renovation. File.

A page from a catalog on which Helen has circled some stuff. The catalog is from last Christmas. Oops. Basket.

A half-written letter to a friend, dated 1997. How embarrassing! Basket.

A letter from a cousin Steve doesn't remember. File, just in case.

Lots and lots of dust. Endust. Gee - what a pretty bedside table.

Whew! That's was a pile o' stuff. And what better way to spend a gorgeous three-day weekend, eh?

Plurp.
The blue dog
was a pile of bits
waiting to be
put away

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