Plurp: Obscure enough to be a covert operation

Bigger!

2001.11.18 : 2001.11.24

Saturday, November 24, 2001
Blab. For reasons unknown to us, a reader insists on circulating in email form dubious humor that is already all over the Web.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S MOTHER: "Again with the stovepipe hat? Can't you just wear a baseball cap like the other kids?"
Don't you know that bits are valuable, bandwidth precious, and that we all need to make it a point not to copy bits from one place to another unnecessarily?
Please. Do your part.

Plop. U.S. issues travel warning for Afghanistan.
Travel in all areas of Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul and all major cities, is unsafe due to military operations, banditry and the possibility of unrest given the fluid political and military situation
Ya think?

Plop. Those stalwarts of American intelligentsia are at it again. This month it's Vogue magazine, already a contributor to our America Responds contest, with a second entry. This image is from their Dec. 2001 cover, and is also a lovely T-shirt that you can purchase.
The heart-shaped flag appears to be sticking a needle into itself, reminding us of Vogue's own self-punctuating vanity.

Plop. We found in our wallet today a $1 bill across whose face was written:
Help track this bill across the USA. Visit wheresgeorge.com
Excited at the opportunity, we dutifully Webbed over to wheresgeorge.com, a site devoted entirely to tracking where dollar bills go. (Yes, we're surprised they're still around too.) Breathlessly, we typed in the bill's serial number and other identifying information.
And there it was! With only one other entry, presumably from the person who had defaced the bill in the first place, saying that they had spent the bill in the cafeteria at the place where we work some 16 days ago
So woopee doo.

Plurp.
The blue dog noticed
lots of plop
today

Friday, November 23, 2001
Blab. A reader tells us nothing surprising.
"Nothing!"
Surprising only because we have no idea what our treasured reader is typing about.

Plurp. Significant events of our Turkey Day:

We hiked overland from New York to Massachusetts, and back again. Honest!

We were awarded a local prize for doing 77 in a 55 zone. Zoom zoom.

We ate an extremely large amount of turkey and et cetera. The et cetera was particularly good this year.

Very atypical warm weather today permitted (or perhaps required) us to drive all the way home (some 3.5 hours) with the top down, even if we did drive very atypically slower than usual. Zoom, zoom.

What did you do, hmmm?

Yow. Lucky you! You get to participate in our Plurp Post-Gluttony Poll. This year's question is:
Which do you prefer, Thanksgiving dinner with extended family, with just intimate family, or with friends?
What say you?

Plurp.
The blue dog was
very atypically
"Nothing!"

Thursday, November 22, 2001
Blab. A reader poses another math question.
I did not graduate from CCS, nor anywhere at UCSB. In fact, I've never been to UCSB.
What are the odds of THAT ?
Why, pretty clearly [1 - 1/(nine gazillion)]. Or more.

Blab. A reader teaches us a new term:
Omphalomania.
... from the Greek omphalos, meaning "navel, boss or hub," and mania, "madness or frenzy". We illustrate the term thusly.
Blab. A reader is so very apologetic.
We're sorry, but your account number could not be found. Your credit card has expired. Database lookup failed; please try again in five minutes. Record not found. Page not found. Server misconfiguration. Error.
Error.
Error.
Don't worry. That's OK. We appreciate your concern. We're sure it'll be all right. No, really. Just have a seat right here and we'll have the nice attendants in the white coats come and help you back to your room.

Blab. Demonstrating the dangers of drug use, a reader writes:
Perhaps a nice Helenism for you?
The lights are on, but there's no flies.
"The lights are on, but there's no one home"
"There's no flies on him"
hmmm, on second thoughts, perhaps not. I was trying to do something with Smoking Grass, maybe from "The smoking gun" and "A snake in the grass", but then I decided not to ;)
best.
-AJL
Ah. There's no flies on him appears to be a Korean aphorism meaning He is no fool, or He is alert. This seems to oppose the meaning of The lights are on but there's no one home, making the resulting phrase of ambiguous meaning.
Now The lights are on but there are flies on him might work, but we're not sure if that's properly translated from the Korean.

Blab. Perhaps miffed by our required pointing out that Helenisms are not mere fractured phrases, a reader writes:
hmpf
Yes, well. From the back of the class, another excited hand shoots up.
I know! "Not the sharpest thong in the..."... No, wait...
Ouch. On the proposed Helenism not the smartest cookie in the book a more deliberate reader writes:
Plurp-
I want to resubmit the Helenism, with modifications:
"the oldest trick in the book" -- a tired strategy
"not the sharpest tool in the shed" -- a dim bulb
"a bright cookie" -- inspired thinker
-Ed
Hmm. We seem to have lost track of where that second phrase goes in the proposed Helenism. It's all so confusing!
Google gives very bright cookie 18 votes (bright cookie all by itself gets a number of snack recipes). Sharp cookie, the phrase we remembered, gets 677 votes.
Not the smartest X seems pretty popular, though, with 20,000 Google votes. And that plausibly completes this rare and audacious Triple Helenism!
Not the smartest cookie in the book

Not the smartest guy

Not a very sharp cookie

The oldest trick in the book

Congratulations to all of our holiday winners! To which a reader responds:
Gobble gobble
... reminding us to lead you all in a sing-along of the following.

Plurp.
Refrain:
Hooray, hooray, it's Happy Turkey Day
That lovely day when diets go blissfully astray
It's here, it's here, that eager time of year,
When tons of dripping gravy boats merrily appear.
Calloo, calay, the gorging holiday,
When every maiden thinks of her hips, licking her lips
It's mad, it's gay, an epicure's display,
Those weight loss vows that everyone takes,
Everyone breaks,
Everyone makes divine mistakes
Rapacious Turkey Day.
(Refrain)
Hooray, hooray, the day of "Yes, you may."
The time for every gluttonous whim, proper or im-
It's wild, it's gay, depraved in every way,
The circling wolves with all of their vast scavenging past,
Gaze at the human race aghast
On bloated Turkey Day.
(Refrain)
Calloo, calay, the day of great dismay,
When all the world is brimming with buns, buttered or un-
It's mad, it's gay, an epicure's display,
Those weight loss vows that everyone makes,
Everyone breaks,
Everyone makes divine mistakes
On bloated Turkey Day!

Plurp. So just how many turkeys were killed to fill the ritual bellies of Americans today? Let's do a little math.
There are something like 300M Americans. Maybe 80% of them have turkey on Thanksgiving, the rest being vegetarians, those who prefer Beef Wellington, and the dazed and confused. That's 240M turkey eaters.
They get together in groups of, say, 6 people on Thanksgiving. That makes 40M such groups.
At one turkey per group, that's an astonishing 40M turkeys which, any way you slice it, is a lot of turkeys.
But perhaps we should look at this from the turkey's point of view.
There are 40M turkeys chewed up each Thanksgiving, and perhaps an equal number each Christmas. Do people eat about as much turkey during all the other random days of the year put together as they do on Thanksgiving? Yeah, maybe. So that's 120M turkeys put through the grinder every year. How old is the average turkey that gets ground? Oh, maybe five years or so. That means that there are a frightening 600M turkeys hanging around in any given October, that about 7% of them are carted off to the death camps every November, another 7% every December, and a final 7% spread across the rest of the year.
Imagine what would happen if they figured all this out and fomented a rebellion. Two enraged turkeys for every man, woman and child in America, squawking mad for revenge against the murderers of so many millions of their parents and siblings, bolstered by the brazen bravery that comes only from years of desperate suffering under the hands of an oppressor, high on their early and massive victories over the cruel masters of the turkey farms themselves, seething out through the countryside in search of human habitation.
It's quite an image.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was really worried about
that whole turkey
thing

Wednesday, November 21, 2001
Blab. A reader gives us one of those SAT fill-in-the-blanks riddles.
nose nose, grasp grasp....?
We're going to go with (c) throng throng. And that's our Final Answer.

Blab. A contemplative reader prepares for the annual ritual of ...
omphaloskepsis
... from the Greek omphalos, meaning "navel, boss or hub," and skepsis, "the act of looking; enquiry".

Blab. A brave reader attempts to salvage a Helenism from the wreckage of yesterday's correspondence.
Dear Captain Plurp,
The subject of cookies frequently gets my attention. The "not the brightest cookie" can be combined from:
... not the brightest bulb on the string
and
... a sharp cookie (my mom used to say this)
The meanings of the original phrases are opposites, so perhaps the resulting phrase is a quasi-Helenism.
- Your Midwest Correspondent
That would result in not the brightest cookie on the string, though, wouldn't it? See, that's where we get so confused!

Blab. A second brave reader pushes the envelope by attempting a rare triple Helenism.
I was not able to find the requested two phrase solution. Perhaps someone can simplify my three phrase construction:
not the sharpest tool in the shed /
one smart cookie /
every trick in the book
-Ed Snible
So close! We could envision how the first and second phrase could be made to have similar meanings. It's integrating the meaning of the third one that looks hard to us.

Blab. A grateful reader writes:
Thank you for protecting the purity of Helenisms.
We consider it our solemn duty.

Plurp.
Plurp: Today our guest is that renowned authority on feline poopology, Dr. Poopsalata Kittifecus. Welcome, Doctor.
Dr. K: Thank you, Plurp.
Plurp: Our first caller is from New York City.
Caller: Dr. Kittifecus, this morning we found an awful brown stain on our otherwise frighteningly white couch. What could have caused it?
Dr. K: I have no idea.
Plurp: That's all we have time for today. Thank you again Doctor. It's always good to see you.
Dr. K: Thank you, Plurp.

Yow. Ian's right. This is the photo by which Dubya will be known for all time.

Plop. Oh no. Now you can compose your own ring tones for your cell phone. We fear that the geeks among us are about to embarrass themselves hideously in public again. (allura)

Plurp.
The blue dog
knew just where that
stain came from

Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Blab. An utterer writes:
As the utterer of the 'cookie' saying, can I correct it to 'not the brightest cookie'. And I have no idea at all what the constituent phrases are!
Not the brightest cookie in the book. Hmm ...

Blab. A second reader takes a crack at revisionist history.
It seems that my previous posting was an obscure mixture of:
Smartest cookie in the jar
and
Cooking the books.
Perhaps.
Why is it that we always seem to end up doing all the work around here? None of the above phrases are Helenisms, as far as we can tell. A Helenism is (repeat after us) an aphorismic phrase that:

must be built of two well-known aphorisms or phrases, and these should usually be related in structure or meaning.

must be meaningful, and its meaning must be clear despite being an odd amalgam of its two constituent phrases.

So smartest cookie in the jar and cooking the books are not related in meaning in any way we can discern. Compounding the error is the attempt to use a phrase, smartest cookie in the jar, or brightest cookie in the jar, that is not an aphorism to begin with. Cookies are neither smart nor bright, after all.
In fact, either of these would be Helenisms by themselves if something like freshest cookie in the jar was an aphorism that could complement brightest bulb in the box. But even that's not the case.
Readers are invited to prove us wrong by telling us the underlying constituent phrases that we missed. You are also welcome to tell us a way to salvage a different Helenism from these meager beginnings.

Blab. A somewhat more knowledgeable reader writes:
An edge-condition Helenism:
'the place to be or be seen'
Constructed from:
* 'the place to be'
* 'the place to see and be seen'
[inw]
If you change that to the place to be and be seen, then you may already be a winner!

Blab. Are you making a movie? Would you like to use army troops or bases? Or those menacing helicopters or tanks? Our reader has the Web site for you.
[link]
Oddly, no mention of black helicopters. It figures.

Blab. A reader suggests another venue in need of a name change.
Altria Religious Studies!
... but this leaves us confused as to what brand of religious studies these were before the name change. Hum?

Blab. A reader takes it to extremes.
While they're at it, Philip Morris may as well change the name of their cigarettes out there:

Marlboro Altria Red Sticks

Benson & Hedges Altria Golden Sticks

Merit Altria Green Sticks

The Marlboro Man could become the Altria Ranger, riding off in the sunset with an Altria Red Stick in his mouth.
Now if we can just get Joe Camel to sign on....
Actually, that's Joe Altria.

Blab. A reader suggests an astonishing improbability involving our alleged past.
Hey, I also went to CCS at UCSB (Math/Physics '91).
What are the odds?
Nine gazillion to one. If that! We encourage the reader to drop us line with an identifiable email address. We could, like, reminisce and stuff.

Blab. A reader only encourages our various personality disorders.
Dear Steve,
Happy Thanksgiving. If it is at all convenient, please write more about robots.
Yours Truly, and Thanx again for dinner, Mr. Paul Ford.
Also, thanks for keeping the details of our meal a secret from the nosy, grasping throngs!
Once upon a time there was a robot with a nosy, grasping thong ...
Oh. You said throng.

Plurp.

Plurp.
The blue dog
could only stare
into the camera in
fear in that final
scene

Monday, November 19, 2001
Blab. A reader suggests something new.
Heard uttered over Sunday lunch with the Outlaws this weekend, the Helenistic:
"[...] not the smartest cookie in the book."
--paj
Helen wonders about this. What are the two (required) constituent phrases? "Not the smartest cookie in the what"? "Not the what in the book?"
Perhaps our clever reader will enlighten us, and thus guarantee its place in herstory.

Blab. A reader informs us that ...
Oni is a PC game too. Free demo is available. It's really cool, if you don't mind third-person perspective games.
We must admit enjoying the whole idea of GodGame, which we thought everything pretty much was anyhow. But that "free" demo? You have to register with GameSpy to get it. How very distasteful!

Blab. A reader adds a letter.
Yoni
Surely you meant Yanni?

Blab. A reader congratulates us on something or other.
Yes, Phllip Morris is changing its name to the Altria Group so that you won't automatically think of cigarettes and what they do to you when you hear the name -- and you say you don't understand marketing!
It's genius! I'm surprised they didn't think of it before. I just wonder how much they paid the PR agency to come up with that name.
So, what other companies should change their name due to terrible connotations? Here are some possibilities.

Then Now

Phillip Morris Altria Group

Dow Chemical Altria Materials

Firestone Altria Tires

Microsoft Altria Bits

Readers are (must we mention it?) encourage to suggest more.

Blab. On the topic of the Leonids, a dispossessed reader writes:
Unfortunately, directly SE of my apartment is our local Wal-Mart which, though we like the convenience of it being only 1/4 mile away, shines like a beacon to passing astronauts, and therefore made the meteor shower harder for us than most New Yorkers.
Given that the Leonids are only an item once every 35 years you are, curiously enough and on the average, better off than we are.
And that's really quite frightening.

Blab. A reader who just plain doesn't get it writes:
Happy Ramadan !
BOMBS AWAY ! ! ! !
Yes, well. We're pretty sure we don't appreciate this sad desire to direct political retribution against a particular religious subculture.
Isn't that what started this whole mess? Could you be so kind as to just plain stop it? Thank you.

Yow. More fame. This time we appear in the guise of an ambassador for our undergraduate college. And we are in the amazing company of Jim Messina (of Loggins and Messina) and Stephen Zweig (a former roommate who must by now be filthy rich).
We apologize to whomever's fifteen minutes of fame we have just nibbled upon.

Plurp.
The blue dog shines
like a beacon to
passing Wal-Marts.

Sunday, November 18, 2001
Blab. A reader wants to make sure we don't ...
Don't forget about the Leonids.
And we didn't! In fact we got up at 5 AM (in the freaking middle of the night, and after going to bed at 2 AM), got all bundled up in things that contained goose feathers, and traipsed out onto the extremely cold terrace just for the event. There we sat for 45 minutes or so, trying to get our sleepy eyes to focus on the few stars we could see through the ample urban light.
And, in spite of all these infirmities, we saw quite a few speedy little dirt balls burn up in the atmosphere, leaving long glowing tracks in the process. Pretty cool.
Still, it's probably a good thing that we won't be forced to do this again for another 35 years. Why can't they schedule these things at a convenient time, anyway?

Blab. A terse reader says:
oni
... referring, perhaps (but who can tell?) to the computer game of that same name. But, see, it's a PS2 game, and we're not a believer in buying separate hardware just for games. If we did that, we'd have to go get a litter of Aibo, an eBook or three, and pretty soon the whole apartment would be stuffed with electronic, well, stuff. God made general-purpose machines to be general purpose after all.

Plurp. It was a Pawling Theater night last night, as Ian and the mysterious C. had us up for a fabulous dinner followed by a local theater production of South Pacific at a high school auditorium in their small country community.

Yow. You're going to love this.
Remember the breathless media reports of bin Laden having documents details how to build The Bomb?
According to rotten.com, the document in question turns out to be from the Journal of Irreproducible Results which, as you surely recall, is a famous parody journal.
Two fun things there:

bin Laden was trying to build a nuclear weapon by following the directions in an article written as a joke.

The Times and the BBC couldn't seem to figure that out.

Makes you wonder, don't it?

Plurp. Rumor has it that that Harry Potter movie is pretty good. Gotta get us summa dat.

Yo. Oh by the way, Happy Ramadan everyone.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was a principle player
in a Pawing theater

Top

Earlier entries Later entries