Plurp: Bonsai so big they can be seen from space

Bigger!

2002.01.20 : 2002.01.26

Saturday, January 26, 2002
Blab. On this week's Disturbing Image, a reader writes:

Plurp caption contest -- late entry.
"So, Jane, what kind of cream rinse Do you use?"
... leaving us to wonder which one is Jane.

Blab. Our readers continue to do all the hard work for us. And we love that.
Within Plurp, we've seen the Image Caption Contest (given an image, come up with an appropriate caption), and also the Image Problems Contest (given a caption, find an appropriate image on the web).
It occurs to me that it would be particularly entertaining to entwine these two in an ongoing contest, with alternating rounds. Thus, readers would now select one of the entries from this most recent Image Caption Contest, and find an appropriate image for that caption (not the same picture we just had!) on the web.
As an example (not necessarily a very good one):

"...and that one looks like a big, fluffy bunny."

Now isn't that a fun idea? Here's what we'll do. Readers are encouraged to submit new captions for this bizarre and worrisome image. Your humble editor will pick one by some process involving metaphysics and chicken bones, after which readers will submit new pictures for that caption. And so on, until we go quite mad. Which could happen very, very soon.
Got it? Submit!

Blab. A demanding reader writes:
I think I see an eagle or two circling over Ian. You might want to warn him.
Ian has been doing god's work and has the Eagle Immunity Idol this week.

Blab. Once again, we are punished for our creativity.
Exactly why you only got 5/10. You nicked it from some arty wierdo with a James Joyce complex - you got the 5 points for just entering, and for finding an obscure verb form of the word. Anyway, I've now expanded my challenge. See blog for details. -AJL
We think we deserved 11 points for that. Hmph.

Blab. A reader with authority issues writes:
Jerry and Nina are NOT sailing around the world! They have been stuck in the South Pacific for years now. Maybe they can't get their anchor up!
By the way, dear Plurp Master, the picture didn't come up. Fix that so we can see Jerry at the helm.
(An insider)
While this is the perfect opportunity to hold forth on plans and intentions as future-oriented constructs, we instead (for reasons we are unable to fathom) quote from our well-hidden FAQ:
Q: One of your Web pages doesn't look right in my browser. When are you going to fix it?
A: Oh sure. And then you'll want us to fix your toaster, and figure out why your front door doesn't close properly when it rains.

Blab. A conspiracy theorist writes:
So, what do you think about today's ENRON suicide? SUICIDE? Are you kidding? I was around for Watergate. I think it's Little Donald Segretti at work once again!
He's probably not so little any more. Carbohydrates.

Blab. A reader makes unnecessarily cruel remarks.
In response to your complaint that most of your "unbelievably clever commentary" is ignored by your devoted readers, I decided to make up for lost time. I read your entire Plurp archive, and have enclosed following this paragraph a full, un-edited compilation of your unbelievably clever commentary, along with thoughtful feedback for each one. Enjoy !
Thank you so much.

Blab. Our Northwest Correspondent succeeds in confusing us.
So... Microsoft is being sued by rivals Netscape and AOL. How cute! I figure it's only a matter of time before Nintendo sues Microsoft on the whole XBOX/Game Cube thing.
Not that I have favorites in any of this, but I think any lawsuit against Microsoft is silly. After all, think of all the jobs Microsoft is creating - willing to hire all those sad sots whom Microsoft drove out of business in the first place (thanks to friendly, competitive business practices, may I add).
No, I fully support all contributions Microsoft is making to the local economy.
--- your Northwest Correspondent
So you are for Microsoft because they kindly hire some small fraction of the people they put out of business through practices that U.S. law deems monopolistic and anti-competitive? Or you are slyly slamming Microsoft for these same crimes?
See? It just doesn't pay to be subtle with us. We're too open to multiple interpretation. Please use small words and short sentences. Thank you.

Blab. On our admission that we spend sleepless nights wondering if we are too subtle or just plain stupid, a reader writes:
So, THAT's why you toss and turn at night!
Thaaaaat's correct.

Blab. A reader circulates certain Satanic rumors.
Rumor has it that if Inglis, FL ever catches Satan entering city limits, Satan will be forced to spend eternity in Heaven....
Rumor has it that if the ACLU people ever enter these city limits, they fall under the same mayoral proclimation (by association).
So ACLU people will go to heaven? That's comforting.
On that Satan-heaven thing, though, it might be a good idea to check up on Christian mythology. We seem to recall something about Satan getting kicked out in the first place, so getting let back in might not be thought of as punishment.

Plurp. We were going to call it Frequently Unanswered Questions, but the acronym didn't work out.

Yow. Visit the Museum of Hoaxes. Really!
We love the hoax Web sites. Dave is always threatening to do something like this. Now he has to hurry just to be a late adopter!
While you're there, take the Gullibility Test. We believed 30% of the false claims on the test while disbelieving 60% of the true statements. We basically don't know what to believe.

Plurp. While we have struggled not to admit it, it is true that, in the past few years, we have had an embarrassing problem with personal odor. Today, after numerous and fruitless attempts to deal with the problem in any other way, we had our nose removed.
We hope you don't mind.

Plurp.
The blue dog
wondered how
he smelled

Friday, January 25, 2002
Blab. Reader Ed S contributes, not one, but three entries to our Plurp Caption Contest.

"It's not you... I've just had a lot on my mind lately, is all. Really, you were great."
Sarah Jessica Parker and Worzel Gummidge: Separated at Birth?
And our all-time favorite and Grand Prize Winner:
"Do you ever wonder what's up there, Leroy? Are there people up there, people like us?"
We love it.

Blab. A reader demonstrates that great minds think alike.
Someone has stolen our game. And they're doing it poorly (though the name is okay).
G
The referenced folks are trying to find three (or N) words that are not found together by Google. Yes, they come late to the game. And they're just now discovering the indeterminacy caused by the Google cache. (We sent them a note about our experience here in Plurp.)

Blab. A reader with a Ph.D. in arithmetic writes:
24x7x0 equals zero. Please pass this along to the Blue Dog.
Consider it passed.

Blab. We may already be a wiener.
Yay! You win. But only get 5/10 'cos you nicked it from some arty farty person who was taking magic mushrooms. However, you have been duly listed as a winner. Oh, and you can tell your confused reader that who I am is easy - I'm me. Why I am is an entirely other question, that I'm sure I'd appreciate help with. -AJL
Dare we tell him our winning entry was a shamelessly plagiarized inverse link? Yeah, prolly not. In any event, readers are invited to help AJL with why he is.

Blab. Plurp's short-lived archivist waves buh-bye.
Due to a lack of reader interest, this will be the last of the Plurp retrospectives.
Last year in Plurp:
Plop. Those wacky folks in Redmond; they're so funny! After being off the Net for nearly 24 hours - I mean seriously off the Net - the Microswifties are blaming "technicians" for their problems.
Microsoft blamed its own technicians for a crucial error that crippled the software giant's connection to the Internet, almost completely blocking access to its major Web sites for nearly 24 hours.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, Microsoft explained that a "router configuration error" had caused requests for access to the company’s Web sites to go unanswered.
More articles here. Is it true that Microsoft also makes electricity policy in California?
(And - oh look! - Microsoft was off the Net again today, apparently with symptoms much like yesterday's. It's sure a good thing they don't make systems that people rely upon for, say, running their businesses.)
We feel your pain, treasured archivist. The vast majority of our own most unbelievably clever commentary goes completely uncommented upon by our dull-witted readership. It is a continuing source of frustration for us, and we spend sleepless nights wondering if we are too subtle or just plain stupid.
And speaking of just plain stupid, we would like to thank Microsoft Corp. for donating their world-class incompetence to the pages of Plurp. Several times, now.

Yow. Our friends Jerry and Nina sold all their worldly possessions some time ago, bought a boat, and started sailing. They're now on their second boat, somewhere around Australia these days, puttering around little island chains. Partly, we are wildly jealous, as we love sailing and there's something very romantic about yo hoing around the world. Mostly we're not, of course, as we would desperately miss home, New York, friends, colleagues and work (not necessarily in that order).
Still ...

Plop. Emphasizing the fact that hydrocephalus is still common in rural Pennsylvania is this little news item from the romantic community of Penryn.
PENRYN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The police department has refused to direct traffic at a YMCA triathlon because it says the club promotes witchcraft by reading Harry Potter books to children.
Bibbity bobbity boobs.

Yo. Not to be outdone, Inglis FL (you know - just north of Crackertown) has banned Satan within town limits. We're not sure what the civil or criminal penalties might be, but we're pretty sure the Dark Lord is shaking in his hooves.
And in a move that can only make us wonder, the ACLU, long known to be on Satan's payroll, is seeking to overturn the ban.
Will Oprah weigh in next?

Plurp.

Root Cause Analysis
Plurp. A Steven Wright statement, which we must relate to him during our next regular meeting.
I wrote an anonymous note to myself today,
then forgot who sent it.

Yow. Online pre-date confidence builder. OK, it's funny. (caterina)

Plurp. Our brilliant insight for the day:
Technical innovation is like singing in a bar. Any geek can just get up and start singing, but you look stupid doing it. You have to wait until the song comes around on the guitar. Then everybody starts singing.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was an archivist for
events that never
happened

Thursday, January 24, 2002
Blab. Plurp's self-appointed nostalgist writes:
Last year in Plurp......
Plop. Microsoft was, well, sorta off the Web today. Big time. Their entire microsoft.com domain was down, dead, unfindable (as well as their msnbc.com domain, their hotmail.com domain, their msn.com domain, their zone.com domain, their expedia.com domain and several others).
Ian and Dave looked into this and discovered that the Microsoft DNS was down. Worse, all four of their DNS systems were down.
And here's the funny part. All four DNS systems are on the same subnet, so virtually every Web presence that Microsoft has can be taken down by a wastebasket fire, a leaky toilet, a clumsy technician in a wiring closet, or just about anything else. D'oh!
So, here's my new phrase for Microsoft-based e-business:

"24 x 7 x 0"

Do you like it?
We must admit to loving that 24 x 7 x 0 bit. We are so very clever! Sadly, none of our treasured readers ever remarked on it.

Blab. A puzzled reader asks for help.
Who is AJL?
As always, we have no idea. The following reader missive may, however, provide a clue.

Blab. A reader arrives with an invitation pasted to it.
Having now participated in, and recieved a warm glow of satisfaction from "winning" at least two plurpified contests, we thought it only fair to invite you, the Plurpmeister, to enter one of ours.
You may also note the Plurp linkage on the lovely navigation panel of that lovely site :)
Submissions in triplicate on the back of a pre-rubbed cat please.
-AJL
Well, this is going to be interesting, as our reader's challenge is to use the following word in our daily life.
Scrittles :- (n) The annoying marks left in fresh laid concrete by passing animals, birds or invertebrates.
But, flattered as we are by our Treasured Reader's gratuitous link to our humble blog (and the resulting additional 15 microseconds of fame), we are forced to try this:
You see, when the modern school which did the interpretail with a pastiche like a Van Goggy. He would do a fine sunshine drenchy. Now he would to express in a sunflower would do a grurp of the browm, scrittle heither sigh for the petaloads in a deep yellow expressy, and in the backgrove possibly a cypress treel and a small individuholder little flower, dangle it and dangle it in the garbage.

Blab. A reader seems to have done extensive consumer surveys just for us.
SUVs are, generally, driven by the same people who think that "irregardless" means "without regard", who never tear those annoying little labels off furniture, insist that anything seen or heard on the news must be true (and even important), and believe that anything "all-natural" must be healthy. It is a sad but true fact that common sense isn't all that common.
We were not previously aware of these remarkable social correlations.

Blab. Another reader indulges in deep social analysis on this same theme.
There's a myth about SUV's, but here's the trick: "Sport" comes before "Utility." They may LOOK rough and rugged and able to leap tall mountains in a single gear, but don't be fooled - these things are about as stable as an 18-wheeler in a windstorm. You'd probably find your SUV with "sport suspension," meaning they use the same suspension system on the Miata (no offense, Steve) on a vehicle about 1250 times as heavy, and 17 times higher above the ground.
So, when you see a poor, pathetic soul glacially creeping over a speed bump, please be kind - they probably paid A LOT more for the "sport" than they did for the "utility."
Then again, I'm sure they can fit both a suitcase AND a cooler in their trunk
They can fit a suitcase in their trunk? We are so jealous!

Blab. A half-dozen readers seem to have been stirred to faux awareness by our latest (and first reader-contributed) Plurp Picture Caption contest.

"After losing both legs in a fishing accident, Medusa eyes up a dock worker as a potential double leg transplant donor."
_________________________________________________
"LIve Lobsters"
Oh, sorry, make that "live scorpions". Natural mistake.
_________________________________________________
"Mr. and Mrs. B. J. Squidly posing for their wedding pictures. Mr. Squidly is dashing in his neon orange tux. While Mrs. Squidly is ... well ... naked."
_________________________________________________
"Another victim of the Feng Shui bandit, Dan lies in opposition to the giant squid in his living room while the con man ransacked the upstairs rooms."
_________________________________________________
"Bob had agreed to marry the Aldeberanian princess in the name of interplanetary peace. Little did Bob realize that the ceremony was about to go horribly awry, due to the fact that the Aldeberanians did not know that humans cannot regenerate internal organs."
_________________________________________________
"... and that one looks like a big, fluffy bunny."
We do love the creativity of our users. Or whatever you choose to call it.

Blab. A reader suffers a catastrophic mixing of the memes.
"Doing nothing also amounts to an uncontrolled experiment on our life support system." Doing nothing amounts to not stirring the bits.
"Of further note is that emergence of diseases, invasion of pests, etc., are all common and natural processes." These are far more common when the bits are stirred, e.g. with humans stirring the bits.
If software worked like ecosystems, it would self-adaptive and self-repairing, and we wouldn't worry nearly so much about stirring the bits.
Emergence of diseases is enhanced by hosts that travel broadly. Humans are such hosts. So are birds (which, we speculate, spread early flu epidemics). You know, those evil, demonic, ecosystem-wrecking birds.

Blab. A reader makes a subtle joke while appearing to tell us what movie contains the line, We found this spoon.
Re: We found this Spoon...
That was so obviously from The Life of Brian.
--Brian [And so's my wife]
That must have been the Life of Brian that contained the flatware scene.

Blab. A reader sends us a very large entry in our Sarah Jessica Parker, Separated at Birth contest, which replace here with a smaller but hopefully equally evocative version.

Sarah Jessica Parker Sally Jessy Raphael

Skeptical readers should note the three-name "coincidence" which characterizes this winning entry.

Blab. Demonstrating that no cruelty is beyond our readership, a reader sends another gigantic winning entry to our Sarah Jessica Parker, Separated at Birth contest, which we replace here with a smaller, more digestible entry.
Separated at birth from Sarah Jessica Parker?

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker

Our current theory is that this is what happened after Parker's brief and oft-denied ownership of the One Ring.

Plop. Enron's CEO quits. Chief Evasion Officer? Cheating Executive Officer? Chief Eradication Officer?

Yo. Ever wondered what it's like to be a white person? We do.

Yow. You know what we love about the Web? It's the way that self-absorbed people flaunt themselves. No, we mean besides us.

Yo. Free Winona!

Plurp.
The blue dog
tried desperately to
multiply twenty-four by
seven by
zero

Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Blab. A friendly readers says:
Welcome ... to zombo.com.
Why, thank you! Those of you who click on that link will be greatly unimpressed if your sound is turned off. (Note previous discussion of counterfactual conditionals, though.)
It does have a rather hypnotic property to it, dunnit?

Blab. A reader commands us:
Read this and tell me if Somalia is still the worst place. There's a true story behind that film, and it's not written by Hollywood.
A lovely and objective piece of "investigative journalism" from the Independent.
The American elite forces couldn't perform their central role in Somalia – to protect the oil business – because they were white racists, untrained and unable to relate to a humanitarian mission in Africa, even when corporate money was involved.
Well, that certainly convinces us. We're happy to add the editorial offices of the Independent to our list of hopeless places in the world.

Blab. A reader won't let us leave the spoon topic.
but...."We found this spoon" 10 points for guessing the film. A couple of pre rubbed cats to the losers. -AJL
OK, readers, what say you?

Blab. A reader informs us of several useful facts.
There is no pair of cats. There is no Oprah. There is no salt lake. If you believe you have received this message in error, please hang up and dial again.
Our menu has changed.
Oh. In that case, we'd like one from column A and one from column B. And tea. Thanks.

Blab. A reader combines memes in a most unseemly manner.
When we alter the spoon in any direction, we move the spoon away from the delicate dance of spoon. When we destroy spoons and extinguish spoons, we degrade the greatest spoon this spoon has to offer and thereby threaten our own spoon.
Tomorrow, the Chernobyl Center for Spoon Diversity.

Blab. A civic minded reader has a puzzle.
I was digging through my silver chest in search of a fish knife and soup spoon, when I came across a vial labeled, "Nasty Ebola Pathogen, February 1992, not recommended for children under 12".
Do you think I can send it through the regular mail, or has the Postal Service developed a special routing code for "Nasty Pathogens" since the Anthrax "thing?"
We don't see any reason you shouldn't use regular mail. Everyone else does. It might be helpful to put a label the box saying, Not Anthrax. As a public service.

Blab. A spammer writes:
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by (minnesota@canadiansportfishing.com).
Goodness! That does seem unlikely, doesn't it?

Blab. A reader with a hexagon fetish writes:
I miss the glory days of Avalon Hill.
Ah, the good old days of rule books as thick as bricks, of discrete terrain, of resource chits littered across Europe, of synchronous "moves" intended to model the fog of war.
Think of it this way. What you did in the Old Days is what computers do these days. Rejoice.

Blab. A reader sends us a "fact" unsupported by URL.
Amazon investors are dancing in the street - Amazon finally made money!
Mirabile dictu, it seems to be true anyway!
The Seattle-based online superstore, which has lost nearly $3 billion since it went public in 1997, said its fourth quarter net profit — including charges like acquisition expenses, stock compensation and interest payments on debt — was $5 million.
Hey - only $3,995 million left to go to break-even!

Blab. Here's our first winner in the Sarah Jessica Parker, Separated at Birth contest.
First(?) Submission in your "Separated from SJP at birth" section.

Sarah Jessica Parker Worzel Gummidge

Plarp
-AJL
Frankly, this strikes us as just unkind. Mean-spirited, even. After all, we like Worzel Gummidge.

Blab. Here's the second winner!
(Frighteningly paired with SJP):

Sarah Jessica Parker Chelsea Clinton

Hmm. Have they ever been seen together?

Blab. A reader sends us an utterly terrifying ...
[link].
This one is a Sarah Jessica Parker ... (wait for it) ... WinAmp skin! The horror!

Blab. Unsatisfied with any of our current games, a reader makes up one of her own.
Suggestion for one of your periodic contests for your readers to come up with clever captions for ... interesting pictures.
-the zyx lady
p.s. the correct term for the art of searching Google is known as "Google Fu".
Ooh! This is a dandy one! Readers are invited to submit captions for this interesting image.

Blab. A reader gives us an inverse link to:
The Amazing Diary of Charles Smedley-Dendril
It is, indeed, amazing.

Mrs Esmeralda Pouch, our hero's cleaner. Her charming smile today conceals a childhood scarred by halitosis, pungent rootlessness and cannibalism.

Blab. Plurp's own historian checks in with this.
A year ago in Plurp:
Plop. The persistent mystery of the kidnapping of Bob the Sock Puppet may be close to solvage. A slip of the fingertips from Beth reveals that she is holding Bob captive! Call 911!

Poor Bob. He was never seen again.

Blab. Taking exception to our taking exception with naive environmentalism, a reader writes:
"Rant. This kind of dreck is why we just can't take a lot of
environmentalists seriously."
I have to disagree. Mucking with the ecosystem amounts to a uncontrolled experiment on our life support system. It's a reasonable guess that it's durable in the long run, and a less reasonable guess that we can probably fix (with technical means) shorter term problems that come from stirring the equilibriums. Such as moving organisms to environments where they've not yet evolved to equilibrium with the local populations. e.g. emergent diseases, invasive pests, etc. HIV is perhaps one such case, where messing with the equilibrium (depending on the specifics of the origin) may cause hundreds of millions of human deaths before it either coevolves into a more benign (perhaps endogenous) form or is eliminated or rendered benign through technological means.
Heh. The environment is a nonlinear dynamical system. Doing nothing also amounts to an uncontrolled experiment on our life support system. (Just ask the dinosaurs.) In addition, the notion of equilibrium is really a misnomer. Biological systems are never in equilibrium from a thermodynamic sense. Populations are seldom even static. Even if we wish they were.
Of further note is that emergence of diseases, invasion of pests, etc., are all common and natural processes. They need not involve humans at all, and often don't.
So perhaps what you're saying is that we should carefully engineer our environment so as to optimize the human population, or maybe the social welfare (whatever that means) of the human population. If that requires interfering with natural processes (like the spread of pests), then so be it. If it requires the engineered extinction of some species, that's fine too.
It's an interesting point of view, and one to which we would probably subscribe. But we doubt that many people who think of themselves as environmentalists would agree.

Plurp. So much environmental rhetoric seems anti-human. How dare people change the environment? (Though camels do.) How can we do something that pushes a species to extinction? (Though it happens all the time even without us.) How dare we use natural resources? (Duh.)
On the other hand, a lot of conservative rhetoric seems awfully anthropocentric. It's only us humans that count! The heck with the wombats!
We prefer to cheer for the Darwinian winner. Maybe that'll turn out to be humans. Maybe it'll turn out to be blue-green algae. If we think about it that way, we don't mind if kudzu covers the lakes of North America with green mats, or if fire ants take up residence in Arizona. Hey, they're the winners.

Yo. Are there really angels in the architecture?
Old, abandoned rooms still with the presence of those inhabiting them. These spirits once people, people many times with much more insight than the rest, doomed to live a life titled with shame.

Yo. Biblical action figures? Just imagine the possibilities. If you dare.

Plop. Yes, inevitably, it is LOTR/Lego. (/usr/bin/girl)

Plop. Did we moan and groan that it snowed on Monday, even though the forecast said light rain? Well, it did.

Rant. OK. Somebody's got to explain this to us. Why do people in SUVs slow down to less than 1 mph when going over speed bumps?
Are we confused? Aren't these supposed to be 4-wheel-drive all-terrain off-road vehicles? So, what's the deal? Do you people think that the entire off-road part of the world is paved? That there are no variations in height as large as a speed bump?
What, exactly, do you think will happen if you go over a speed bump at a rate slightly greater than glacial? Do you think that you'll bottom out that jacked-up tank of yours? That you'll damage its delicate suspension? Bruise its massive tires? What?
Criminey! In our tiny, low to the ground, tight suspension, rear wheel drive Miata, we go over speed bumps at 10x the speed of the typical SUV that we so inevitably follow.
So you know what? Find the gas pedal!
Thank you.

Yow. For those readers with a duct tape fetish (and you know who you are), this.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was
a nonlinear dynamical system

Tuesday, January 22, 2002
Blab. A reader accuses us of being lazy, as if we were ever anything else.
"Why isn't it incredibly common for basins of attractions to be isolated, and not border on the ocean?"
What a lazybones! Run the simulation yourself and see...
Having run it once, we discovered that data analysis and discovery took more time than we had anticipated. As such, we indulged in a bit of parallel processing via our readers. To great success, we might add.

Blab. A reader, preserved in salt basins, writes:
The Dead See.
What do they see? Why, scrolls, of course.

Blab. A mathematically inclined reader instead asks:
Is it possible to solve Russell's paradox with only one cat?
So you're really asking, What is the category of one cat rubbing?

Blab. On the topic of registration pages being acts of terrorism, or war, or something, a reader asks us to ...
Be sure to register today.
For what? For this.
ATTENTION CITIZENS:
As part of the Bush Administration's ongoing efforts to obliterate all traces of terrorism in the United States, the Department of Justice has commenced registration of each and every American Patriot. By registering all non-terrorists within our borders, it is our intention to make use of the process of elimination to identify the evil ones who walk among us. If you are a non-terrorist (American Patriot), your participation is required. Please register below.
John Ashcroft
United States Attorney General

Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, better sign up for Operation Mandatory Patriotic Tattoo.

Blab. A reader discovers Plurp to be oddly refreshing.
Refreshing to see that Plurp has finally discovered and revealed the Universal Truth of Sarah Jessica Parker.
Sometimes you just have to call a dog a dog.

Blab. Sensing an unholy affinity between disgusting items discussed recently on Plurp, a reader asks us to consider the following pair.

Sarah Jessica Parker Pickled Beets

This strikes us as the perfect moment to announce our brand new Plurp contest, entitled The Great Sarah Jessica Parker Separated at Birth Contest. Readers are invited (well, frankly, begged) to send us the URL of someone (preferably a human) whom you think was separated at birth from Sarah up there. You may, if you wish, submit a corresponding URL of Ms. Parker. If you don't, we'll use the one above because it's so ... so ... representative.
Now scurry off, dear readers, and fill our Blab box with your scavengerial brilliance. Contest winners (which will turn out to be identical to contest entrants due to long-standing editorial policy around here) will have their brilliance both portrayed and lauded on this very site.

Blab. A geographically obsessed reader writes:
The lower part of Manhattan hasn't been known as "the City" since 9/11. Now it's just where the Trade Center was. As in, "take the 4 or 5 train down to the Trade Center so you can stand in line and see the BIG graveyard."
The part of Manhattan known as "our apartment" also hasn't been known as "the City" since a while ago. Now it's just where we live. As in, "this is where we live."

Blab. A resourceful reader finds a ...
[link]
... this being a Web document that is either the source of, or collateral damage related to, yesterday's ways of knowing you're a New Yorker, which yesterday's reader was too lazy to cite (tsk!).
Also of note is this:
You know you're on the West Coast when:

you make over $250,000 and still can't afford to buy your own house.

the high school quarterback calls a time-out to answer his cell phone.

the fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.

you know how to eat an artichoke.

you drive to your neighborhood block party.

That's as opposed to buying a map or asking someone, we suppose.

Blab. Plurp's own archivist returns with this:
One year ago in Plurp:
Plurp. Did anyone else notice Dubya in standby mode before getting sworn in as that president thing?
Ooh! Ooh! We did! Pick us! Pick us!

Blab. Ignoring the philosophical implications, a purveyor of silverware writes:
Wait, here's the spoon over here!
Great! Now all we need is a salad fork, a dinner knife, a soup spoon, a pickle fork, a fish knife, a dinner fork and a dessert spoon and we'll be all set.

Blab. On that disturbing picture of smoking yellow fur, a reader writes:
The "fur" from Saturday was supposed to have been "sulfur". Apparently the "sul" was eaten by a grue.
Ah! That makes much more sense than what we were thinking.

Yo. For some reason, we always thought that the author of synthetic zero was a woman. Why did we think that? Does it matter?

Yo. Science marches on!
Researchers have come up with hard evidence that what women really want from a mate is somebody who reminds them of their father.
They have discovered that women sniff out men whose body odour is similar to that of their fathers.
Yes, this is likely to raise a stink in the research community.
Plop. Looks like our friends in the U.S. government have, um, misplaced a few things.
Twenty-seven sets of anthrax specimens, Ebola virus and other pathogens were discovered missing during an audit of the center in the early 1990s, according to a published report.
The specimens were reported missing in February 1992 after Langford took command of the pathology lab. Langford, who no longer works at Fort Detrick, said he ordered an inventory after he recognized there was "little or no organization" and "little or no accountability" in the lab.
So, if you run into vials of deadly biological weapons while cleaning your attic, you will inform the nice people at Fort Detrick, won't you? Thanks very.

Rant. This kind of dreck is why we just can't take a lot of environmentalists seriously.
When we alter the biosphere in any direction, we move the environment away from the delicate dance of biology. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we degrade the greatest heritage this planet has to offer and thereby threaten our own existence.
Such idiocy is scarcely comprehensible as human thought. Look, folks, the biosphere is here (at all!) precisely because it is homeostatic, self-generating, self-regenerating, resilient and responsive to even massive, cataclysmic changes. Like covering half the planet with hundreds of feet of ice. Or a frickin' planet-killing meteor, fercrissake!
Extinctions happen all the time. Mass extinctions have happened a number of times, and humans weren't even around. There's nothing magic about the number of species that just happen to exist at this particular point in history.
Go hug a tree. But get over the idea that the tree hugs back.
(With apologies to rebecca, who liked it.)

Plurp. We realize now that we've never told you about the Chernobyl Center for Genetic Diversity. Shocking. Let's fix that.
Here's the deal. Environmentalists and other tree-huggers get all up in arms about the near-extinction of some ill-adapted wombat or unsuccessful hop toad. Who knows, they wail, what miracle cancer cure might be lurking in the pancreas of that hop toad? If only we could keep them around long enough to find out! These folks think that every dopey little marginal species was Meant To Be Here^TM, and that no price is too high to pay to keep them around.
Here's where we observe that new species come about all the time. (They also go extinct all the time, but we'll pass over that.) If they are well adapted, that new species of moth has little moth babies and soon the landscape is covered with moth poop. How cute.
But there's nothing magic about the number of species that just happen to exist at this particular point in history. The same argument that got us saving the wombats actually encourages us to promote new species, so we can have even more species to preserve and more chances of finding that miracle cancer cure. Isn't Nature wonderful?
And here's where our idea comes in. Build a Really Big containment vessel for the radioactively contaminated Chernobyl nuclear plant. Into this vessel, dump in plants and animals of every kind imaginable. If they die from the fearsome radioactivity, just dump more in; there are plenty. Every once in a while, the radiation will cause a mutation that results in new species (or, in the case of asexual creatures, a new offshoot). Yeah, not very often, but still, no price too high and all that. And remember - this is the same process that Nature uses, so no complaints about the evils of humankind, OK?
After a while, we've got hundreds, maybe thousands of new species of giant ants and slime monsters (remember 1950s science fiction?), all ready to have their pancreases osterized for science. Who knows what we might find?
We encourage all right-minded advocates of genetic diversity to contribute all their worldly goods to the Chernobyl Center for Genetic Diversity. With luck, our effort will be funded well enough that we can open up sister centers at other nuclear plants around the world.
Maybe there'll be one in your back yard.

Yow. We always new that we were ...
Sergei Rakhmaninov.
You lived in the early Twentieth Century and were well known for your compositional, conducting, and piano skills, yet you are melancholy despite this talent. Your famous works include your nearly-impossible piano concerti.
Are you a dead Russian composer? A decomposing Russian? A rushing composition? A Rush Limbaugh?

Yo. Rush Limbaugh announces that he can hear again. What's this good for? he asks.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was very upset
about that
dog
remark

Monday, January 21, 2002
Blab. A philosophically advanced student of Keanu Reeves movies suggests:
There is no spoon.
And, indeed, no apparent flatware of any kind. Can someone pass Keanu the chopsticks? Whoa!

Blab. Our readers reveal a small subset of their many talents.
We have solved Russell's paradox by rubbing several of Schrodinger's cats together. -AJL
Interesting! We have never been so bold as to attempt to rub two cats together for any purpose. We would never have even considered rubbing together collections of cats who were not members of collections that could be rubbed together. Too much uncertainty.

Blab. An enigmatic reader has - we think? - an upcoming video suggestion for us.
Donnie Darko
Hmm. It's billed as Horror / Suspense, and the presence of Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze on the marquee certainly suggests it will be horrible. And it has the following random themes:
visions
time travel
sacrifice
the only way to unwind the future is to follow the path
The plot? Well, "After escaping from near death because he hears the voice of a 6 foot tall bunny ..." Plus there's that kid with the ax. So, you know, it could be good.

Blab. The Oprah thread continues to unravel.
One of the first things that attracted me to Steve was his sincere interest in a cosmetic gift my sister gave me on the occasion of her wedding. A guy who cares about BEAUTY products? Then the next morning when my mother and my other sister and I joined him for breakfast, he located every pillow in the house to comfort me when my tummy had troubles. AWWWWWW! How could you NOT fall for such a sensitive guy? Unless it was when, a week later, he and I sat up most of the night and he divulged to me at 4 am that his political and religious ideas were diametrically opposed to mine. And he was still there the next night to wash socks. Again, how could you NOT fall for this guy?
We have no recollection of that, Senator. Our recollection of first meeting Helen is at a party where we expressed our interest in her and she blew us off. If she hadn't been so attractive, surely we would have given up then.

Blab. Perhaps starting a nostalgic trend, a reader writes:
One year ago in Plurp ........
Plurp.
Sometimes the
blue dog just didn't
see the point of it all.

Sometimes that is still the case.

Blab. Yesterday we got all confused about why there weren't "no outflow" lakes like Utah's Great Salt Lake everywhere. A clever reader calls us on that.
The dead sea?
Good one!

Blab. Meanwhile, another reader wonders if our mind has become enfeebled.
You're displaying a lapse in your Google Powers.
Dead Sea
Lake Tyrell
Salton Sea
Lake Eyre
Aral sea
Qinghai lake
Meke Lake
Xingjiang Salt Lake
The Salt Lake at Uyuni, Bolivia
Salt Lake in Turkey
Tuz Lake
A guy who studies them in Australia.
And this is just a smattering; there are plenty more.
See also "brine lakes".
Or, for that matter, "brine lake". Or "salty lakes". Or, with nearly 8,000 Google hits, "salt lakes". Cool! How very resourceful of our reader, and shame on us for not doing this ourself! We are pleased that our vague intuition on basins of attractions is, in fact, correct. Even if we have forgotten how to use Google.

Blab. Here's our first reader contribution to People and Microorganisms That Look Alike. And it's a doozy.
More lookalikies!! It's truly uncanny.

Tom Ridge Ebola

Extraordinary. How you could miss the similarity is beyond me.
-AJL
That is truly impressive. Thanks very much!

Blab. A reader suggests:
You know you're a New Yorker when . . .

You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.

You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.

You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.

You think Central Park is "nature."

You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.

You've ever worn out a car horn.

You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

So we conclude that everyone must be a New Yorker. Obviously.
We have to quibble with that first one, though. "The city" clearly means the lower half of Manhattan.

Blab. Our readers think about the darndest things.
I think I'll never have time to eat "7,000 pounds of Edam cheese". But it's monday morning, so I think & hope I'll finish everything during the week and have some time left over to read the NYTimes online, but first I have to register.
Something interesting I've figured out: On most registration pages the "Country of Residence" list always starts with Afghanistan. Will Albania be the next country on the anti-terror-bombing list?
We regard all registration pages as acts of terrorism. Or war. Or something.

Yow. Helen now has her own comic strip! We actually think it sucks, but, hey.

Yo. On the terrace.

Yo. So we saw Black Hawk Down yesterday. Very, very intense. We are emotionally exhausted. And on the walk back home, we discussed the awful state of the world, and the Third World in particular. It is dominated by feudal warlords with modern armaments, making large areas of the world hopelessly deadly and unstable. Hundreds of thousands of people, probably millions, die from utterly futile civil wars. And this breeds a culture of uneducated, brutal, hopeless people who have no chance at civilization.
What then must we do? What then must we do?
We see only five alternatives.

Do Nothing. While this is usually our favorite choice in any situation, it is unlikely to work here. The nations of the world seem intent on arming these unfortunate peoples with what amount to weapons of mass destruction. The population pressures and political psychology of these peoples push their heinous conflicts beyond their borders and into our own.

Extermination. Give up on roughly half of humanity and nuke the site from orbit. The frightening fact is that this is pretty much technically feasible. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon how bloodthirsty you are) it's probably not politically feasible. There is, after all, a continuum between the Worst Possible Places (e.g. Somalia) and Places With Nuclear Weapons (e.g. Pakistan). No matter where you draw the line for extermination, you'll create enemies that can come darned close to obliterating you.

The Great Wall. Give up on the notion that these folks are ever going to join civilized society. Build a Big Freaking Wall^TM around all of the relevant areas of the world, put sharpshooters on top of it, and declare those areas to be a permanent prison. The problem is, it's a really big perimeter. Ultimately, this didn't work for China, either.

The Fruits of Liberty. Stabilize the regions and give them enough educational and economic help to create educated, free, capitalist democracies. We really do like this alternative the best. The methods employed historically towards this end have not achieved the goals, however. And it takes a generation or three.

Ambiguous Containment. Put pressure on bad governments and groups through less bad governments and groups. Smash the snot out of the most dangerous of them every once in a while. Hope for a miracle. In sum, so what the U.S. has been doing for the last several decades. We don't actually believe this can work long term.

Does this mean we have fundamental concerns about how this global mess will develop in the upcoming years? Yes.

Rant. We have some bad news for fans of Sarah Jessica Parker. She is not sexy. She's not even attractive. Heck, she's downright annoying. And that's not just her character in Sex and the City. We've seen her in theater and it's the same thing.
This is not just our idiosyncratic opinion, you understand, and not even a statement of U.S. cultural norms. This is Universal Truth.
In case you were wondering.

Plurp.
The blue dog
thought that the right
approach for Sarah Jessica
Parker was ambiguous
containment.

Sunday, January 20, 2002
Blab. Responding well to the orbital mind control lasers, a reader writes:
Telling you a secret, as requested.
The first time I suspected that I may really be thinking outside the box was when I considered that there may, in fact, be no box.
Lamar
Similarly, we used to worry that we were too far out on a limb, only to realize that we hadn't seen the limb for quite some time.

Blab. Perhaps trying to tell us a secret as well, a reader writes:
You make me laugh.
Out loud.
But that's no secret.
However: has the mysterious Raymond counted the ticky marks yet? I'm curious. Not being in my right mind I dutifully clicked once, and once only. I'll do it again if you like? Oh well, that's alright then.
How lovely of you to tell us that we make you laugh. We like that, whether or not it is a secret.
As to that Raymond character (of Octobop fame), we think his name might actually be Randy, and we haven't heard a peep from him. That might be because his usage statistics seem only to be generated monthly, and January isn't over yet.
So we'll just wait here patiently. No, really, it's OK. We needed to count our change anyway.

Blab. That annoying reader who wants answers to unasked questions is back.
Thank you to give me an answer, even I'd have time to ask a question, but I think "7,000 pounds of Edam cheese" isn't a good one, cause I don't have the time to carry around 7,000 pounds of something.
Always eager to please, we withdraw our answer. You'll need to come up with both a question and an answer on your own. Good luck.

Yow. The first of another triple of trinary dates. We predict disturbances.

Yo. The Great Salt Lake (in Utah) comes about because various mineral-laden rivers flow into in, and no river flows out of it. Water leaves it (we think) primarily through evaporation, leaving the minerals (mostly salts) behind.
Today's question is: Why doesn't this happen all over the place? We know of no other examples of such lakes. Even if there are a few, why so few? In North America, for instance, it seems that all other rivers flow into the Atlantic or Pacific, depending upon which side of the Continental Divide they're on.
For all those other rivers, their basins of attraction border on either the Atlantic or Pacific. For the rivers of the Great Salt Lake, they do not.
Why isn't it incredibly common for basins of attractions to be isolated, and not border on the ocean?
Readers?

Plop. It snowed yesterday and, whether because the snowflakes were so cold or because they were, in fact, sharp, we felt as if they pierced our squinting eyes. The sidewalks were wet and icy, and not even a brisk pace could overcome the bite of the wind.
We had to postpone the beach party once again.

Plurp.
A day without snow
is like a night
without sunshine.

Yow. Who invented Chinese food, anyway? This stuff is great.

Plurp. A reader remarked the other day that we need a FAQ to explain the meanings of the various labels that precede entries here in Plurp. We explained that we do have FAQ, but it's kept in an obscure place to discourage people from asking about it frequently.
We did not mention that the mysterious labels used here in Plurp have their origins in the Forbidden Texts of al-Wasif, as translated in the 15th century by Vladimir Remizov before his grisly demise.
We did not think it wise.

Plurp. Among our other skills, we can do Fourier transforms by rubbing two sticks together. And you?

Plurp. Another in our continuing series of People and Microorganisms That Look Alike. We await reader contributions in this genre.

John Ashcroft Syphilis

Plurp.
The blue dog
once found 7,000
pounds of Edam cheese
at the bottom of the Great
Salt Lake

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