Plurp: Syntax Without Semantics

Bigger!

2002.02.03 : 2002.02.09

Saturday, February 9, 2002
Blab. John Ashcroft's own bot graces our in-box.
Dear Dr. Plurp:
"You wanted new crap? Watch your mail."
The above has been construed as a terrorist thread. Please report to camp X-ray at your earliest convenience.
-Your Government
As we said.

Blab. A reader educates us. Finally.
Yes, but "on the game" is an aphorism used to describe the
insalubrious activities of ladies of the night. Which is why it was good my wife didn't say it. ;-) But you knew that, right? -AJL
Well, isn't that interesting? We didn't even know what insalubrious meant, and now we are it! But - and pardon our unending confusion - what does on the game have to do with insalubrious activities?

Plurp. Somebody explain this to us. Coffee megacorporation Starbucks is issuing Starbucks cards, their very own debit cards that can only be used to buy Starbucks products. As far as we can tell, it's pretty much like their own currency, which can only be spent inside Nation Starbucks.
We have often thought about issuing our own currency, but we have this vague recollection that doing so is illegal. So, we are now considering issuing our own debit card that can only be used inside Plurp. We don't actually understand the difference, but, ...

Plurp. Aspirations. Why is the same word used for both desires and things we choke on?

Plop. From a U.S. Department of Defense press release yesterday.
It is because the United States places such emphasis on the Geneva Convention that American officials do not consider Al Qaeda covered by the agreement nor are they willing to award the Taliban detainees POW status.
Doubleplusgood, Winston.

Yow. Epicycles, kids! Ptolemy was right all along. (Beth)

Plurp.
The blue dog
was a form of private currency
in a nonexistent locale

Friday, February 8, 2002
Blab. A reader posits that ...
It's scary when your dreams begin to touch on biology...
I was sitting in a lecture hall--presumably for a biology lecture. A dead cow, pig, and one other large (but smaller than the pig--maybe a large dog?) mammal were brought in. They had already been skinned, but were otherwise intact, and were placed, standing up, in the front of the hall.
At some point the cow's heart was removed and placed on a table off to one side. The chambers of the cow's heart were easily separated from each other (no more difficult than separating the sections of an orange). The individual cow heart chambers were laid out on the table. I counted these, and there were exactly twenty. (Yes, from a single cow's heart.)
Yeah, we saw that. Keanu Reeves sucked, but the cow was awesome.

Blab. A reader proffers uninvited opinions.
"Ahead of the case".......YES! That's quite good! But I also like "on the game". It works well too. Sounds very British.
What do things that sound very British sound like?

Blab. A reader continues really dull conversation in an increasingly chauvinist tone.
I meant the REAL Madison and 27th. Not some weak competition. We all knew they were talking about New York City. Where else can you picture a corner of a city in your mind's eye?
To our two Treasured Readers who insist on narrowcasting their tedious conversation through the pages of Plurp, may we introduce you to ... the telephone? Thanks very.

Blab. In a more constructive vein, a reader writes:
something told me that one of your readers would search high and low for some 27th and Madison intersection with a bar on it. I suppose there's some bizarre search engine out there which will find a city meeting certain criteria of the person's choosing:
Cross-road #1: 6th
Cross-road #2: Maple
Type of Business: Canned Beet Factory
(ubiquitous pause as the engine searches a gazillion websites)
Smith's Canned Beet Factory
601 Maple Street
Anywhere, USA 12345
directions? click here.
And I suppose, if there isn't such an engine, there will be one soon
Actually, one already exists. It's called "our readers".

Blab. Dave writes:
ruy lopez
Never liked it ourself. We prefer the Open Sicilian.

Blab. A reader assures us that ...
Frankly, it's her mouth that we can't believe. And we are very, very worried about that skin condition.

Blab. A nostalgic reader writes:
Where is your birthday in Pi?
As noted.

Blab. A reader, obviously spying on our usage logs, notes:
palindrones
These are mindless workers who look the same backwards as they do forwards.

Blab. A reader sends us something we really need.
Rejection
Yes, it's a rejection notice, from which we quote:
We heard about your previous Internet projects and, quite frankly, you scare us.
You may also like to note that calling our head of human resources a "skank ho" does not gain any plus points when being shortlisted for a position.
Good to know.

Blab. A reader whose money we've been taking for months writes:
Please cancel my Pay-per-Plurp subscription. It seems to just be the same old crap.
You wanted new crap? Watch your mail.

Blab. A somewhat more accommodating reader writes:
We know it has been said before, but Plurp where are you? I needed a good plurp today. It was supposed to be a great day but didn't quite live up to expectations. And Helen wrote the annual letter, clearly, right?
One of the amazing things about having our own Weblog is that we get to do whatever the heck we please with it.
And no, Helen didn't write any of the annual letters. She did play the vital role of Executive Producer, though.

Blab. A reader keeps us abreast of breaking news.
[link]
Chemmy:
ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA SYRIA
FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL
We actually thought Bush should have called it the Axis of Evildoers. Sort of the dual of the Justice League of America.

Yak.
Back scratching? Did he say Olympic back scratching?
I don't know. I didn't hear it.
I could be the star of that team!
The New York judge gives you a perfect 10.

Yak.
I can never tell what you're looking at.
Me neither.

Plurp.
busy busy busy busy
busy busy
busy

Thursday, February 7, 2002
Blab. A reader promises us as follows:
Death Greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye
OK. And take those aging Metallica dudes with you.

Blab. A gracious reader wants to help us with that commencement address thing.
ppl overcoming obstacles - beethoven (quite a famous dude in the music world) or for a more up to date music person, the drummer from def leppard (he's only got one arm). Can't think of any artists off the top of my head.
Sorry! --kar
Thank you. And we're relieved to hear that you have no artists on top of your head.

Blab. Yet another gracious reader offers similar help.
Example from Music - Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his 9th Symphony, Art - Van Gogh lived in abject poverty and was a manic depressive, literature - Maya Angelou was raped as a small child, grew up in segregated America and endured it all, etc etc etc ... -AJL
Good examples. We might be looking for something more oriented towards having to overcome social obstacles, though. Or some fruit.

Plurp. A Beethoven and Mozart concert tonight at Carnegie Hall inspired the following Metphor O' The Day^TM. Beethoven is a manic architect, knocking out the ceiling to put twelve wooden beam here, then cantilevering the bedroom way over the reflecting pond just for effect. Mozart is the bathroom tile guy, delighting over the intricate symmetries and ever so pleased with himself when all the little tiles fit together.
As usual, our Metphor O' The Day^TM comes with a money-back guarantee.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was busy busy
busy

Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Blab. Another one of our dear Chinese spammist writes, in part:
Please kindly give us a chance to show you our products and services, I believe you can find a better supplier.
Why, thank you! We will look around, then.

Blab. On the topic of our first (rather random) draft of a commencement address, a reader with an astute point writes:
As much as I'd like to take the chance to insult you, Draft I of the speech is quite good. When I half-tongue-in-cheek suggested 'Nothing you've done up tothis point matters,' I had in mind the bright minds I've known and worked with
(my old self included) who thought that being brilliant and having Great Ideas would be enough. As you articulate so well, Real Life doesn't work that way.
The only criticism I can muster is that the last 5 paragraphs are all computing-specific, and may lose the interest of certain members of the audience. But most of those will be Art sudents, so to hell with them.
It's an astute point. Writing this draft in our long meeting on Monday, without access to the Net, we didn't know good examples of other Clever People overcoming obstacles to implement their visions. If we stick with this theme, we should definitely find examples in art, literature or music.

Blab. A reader joins the cheering section.
Yay! A spontaneous Helenism from my wife while I was making sandwiches...
Ahead of the case
1. Ahead of the game
2. On the case
It was quite lucky she didn't come out with the other possible combination of those two, as that already has it's own special aphoristic meaning!
:-)
-AJL
Yay! We deeply appreciate your contribution to the Encyclopedia of Helenisms. Whether or not we understand what On the game might mean.

Blab. A reader disputes the reader from yesterday's claim that there is no bar on Madison and 27th, to which the mind control lasers ordered us to deliver a bag of cash the day before. (Is anyone still following this?)
there is too
José Jimenez? You're scaring us.

Blab. A reader addresses us politely, then expect us to read its mind.
Ay, my Lord. Do you think I meant country music?
We're still working on the orbital mind reading lasers. Can we get back to you on that?

Blab. Here's a handy link.
Now that's a bad manager...
Management advice from Cthulhu? We shall have to read up.

Blab. Having forgotten to take her meds, Helen writes:
Congratulations Christopher! Here, have some sushi!
If she's referring to Him Whose Name Is Unremembered By Frogs, then we have a big, serious problem here. We spoiled our last cat by giving him little nibbles of sushi, and he proceeded to pester us unmercifully whenever we had it. We've been good with Him Who but, despite his total inability to smell things, we feel certain that giving him sushi would just open the Floodgates of Further Annoyance.
Pardon us while we go find Helen's meds for her.

Blab. A reader with lots of bandwidth exclaims:
Moccu Home Lab!!!
This is an entire site of Flash abominations, but if you follow the menu link to Moccu Labs, you can create (through a tedious, linear process) your own little creature. Here's ours (it hasn't hatched yet, or something). Budding Frankensteins take note!

Rant. Several readers sent us notes about our commencement address draft, explicitly labeled Private. Some of them were even nice. But what gives? Are you the same people who call radio stations and say you don't want to be on the air? Write letters to the editor that you won't allow them to published? Tell the person next to you in a crowded theater that there's a fire but made them promise to keep it a secret? Audit Enron? Run for office? Shear sheep? Eat salad?

Plurp. Playing with Him Whose Name Went Down With Atlantis, clattering smelly little kitty treats across the hardwood floor, we conclude several things. His hearing is pretty good, but his reaction time is terrible. And, as far as we can tell, he has no sense of smell whatsoever. If he were not an indoor cat, we speculate that he would have a very, very tough time.
We envision him being consumed by mice.

Plop. Speaking of rodents ...
FBI agents in New York City have arrested a Sherman Oaks teenager for allegedly using the Internet to distribute information on how to build a wide variety of explosive devices. [...]
The affidavit also alleges that Austin's Web site included instructions on how to make and use weapons ranging from slingshots and boomerangs to smoke bombs and fuel-fertilizer explosives.
Naturally, the FBI has taken the site off the Internet 'cause, you know, the world might come to an end otherwise. Slingshots - scary stuff!
Now we want to tell you a chilling story. We were all ready to show you how stupid this FBI case is. You see, this kid put stuff on the Web that was utterly trivial. There is no way in the world that anyone could learn more about how to make Bad Stuff from what he put on the Web than they could have learned in their own back yard.
How do we know? Simple. We read his Web pages in the Google cache.
But we're not going to show you the evidence. Why not? Because we're afraid. We're afraid that, if we reproduce here the utterly trivial stuff that this teenager put on the Web, we too will be arrested by the FBI.
Think about that. Really!
We will, however, reproduce one of his basic index pages and give you links into the Google cache so you can go see for yourself.
The rocket scientists at the FBI will figure out that Google caches this Forbidden Information some time soon, and ask the folks at Google to purge it. The Google folks, as scared as we are, will comply. And so on, for the various search companies. So, if these links don't resolve, that's why.
Basic Chemistry
Homemade explosives work very well in riots. There is a huge history of the military using homemade explosives in war, so if it works for them, it can work against them. Click on the links for construction methods.
Molotov Cocktails-The most popular choice in street fighting weaponry. A very useful and effective explosive, made purely of house hold items.
Smoke Bombs-These easily attainable or homemade items are great when dealing with illegal situations. It can shield any media or police cameras from catching anyone on film participating in an illegal act. It can also disorient the police when they are advancing on the crowd. For construction methods, click on the link.
Fuel-Fertilizer Explosives-These will create an overwhelmingly large explosion and should be practiced in large faraway places like the desert before using. Make sure that you will not injure anyone that you do not intend to injure.
Pipe Bombs-Not really the best explosive to use in a street fight but it still works. Causes lots of good damage.
Draino Bomb-A small bomb that is very risky to use. To be used on cars only. Be careful!
Soda Bottle Bomb-A somewhat biowarfare bomb made from aluminum foil and pool acid. The fumes should not be inhaled by anyone you do not want to inhale them.
Match Head Bomb-A small bomb of match heads. Not too fabulous.
Remember: Be careful and responsible with these explosives. Dont blow yourself up, or any of your comrades! Dont get caught!
Please read the adolescent trivialities at these links and ask yourself the following questions. Is this a terrorist? Is anybody going to learn anything that they couldn't learn almost anywhere else (e.g. from our own government) by reading this tripe? Didn't you read all this in the Anarchist's Cookbook over twenty years ago? Is this a person we need to imprison? Is this a Web site to which you should be forbidden access?
We are bewildered. What law permits the FBI to arrest someone for this?

Yak.
Madame Tussaud's Wack Museum
We're down with that.

Plurp. What the voices are singing today.
Lydia, oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the tattooed lady
She has muscles men adore-so
And a torso even more-so

Yak.
Land's End has some great shoes. I'm thinking about getting some for Scotland.
Doesn't Scotland already have shoes?

Plurp. We're trying to figure out how to avoid boring the audience at this commencement address thing. This is a bunch of really smart kids who have just finished college and are looking forward to graduation parties. What can we possibly say that they will remember a decade later?
So we're thinking of taking our pants off at the beginning of the address and giving it in polka-dotted boxers.

Yak. From an executive presentation to a very large customer.

End-to-end solutioning

Technical solutioning data

We will solution it into one place

Transitioning from business as usual

Cross-pollenization and partnering

And, finally:

It's not "the early Christian gets the hungry lion"

Well, thank goodness for that, anyway! (We think.)

Plurp.
The blue dog
was detained by
the FBI

Tuesday, February 5, 2002
Blab. A deprived reader writes:
Where's my Plurp for today? Will I have to go home without
it????!!!???!
Our readers are reminded that our professional Pay-Per-Plurp edition is available at exactly noon Eastern Time every day, and includes much more content, all of which is both more humorous and more insightful than the dreck we pan off here in our regular, free edition of Plurp.
Which is to say, we feel your pain.

Blab. From the back of the lecture hall, a dreary figure - a young girl in worn clothing, her hair matted and her hands dirty - rises and reads from a smudged piece of paper.
That's a terribly cynical view you have of charity, and you should be ashamed of yourself for being so absolutely correct.
Us? Cynical? How dare you! Security!

Blab. A reader throws a wrench into our plans to obey the mind control lasers.
You're in big trouble.....there is no bar at the corner of Madison and 27th
Must ... construct ... one ...

Blab. A reader has thought deeply about how to celebrate this year's converged Chinese New Year and Marti Gras.
Chinese Mardi Gras: women give beer-bellied men a string of beads, and in return the men lift up their shirts so the women can rub their bellies for good luck.
Works for us!

Blab. A reader notifies us of ...
The John Garvin Fan Club
If you say so. Frankly, we think that sucks. But that's just us.

Blab. A reader threatens us with ...
An Affective Virtual Cat.

Yeah, right. That's just what we need.

Blab. Joshua asks:
Where were you when the world stopped turning?
We sure as heck weren't here.

Yo. Poetry generator, though very similar to one we wrote in 1969. (Kafkaesque)
eggs balanced on the stomachs of young women
ftrain runs to Dave
as
the Web dreams of the Web
satire antagonizes satire
but
parody lingers with moon
parody questions the blue dog
as
the blue dog suffers for truth

Yak.
My wife has become very dialectical in her choice of fatty food.

Plurp. So here's what we're going to do about that commencement address thing. We're going to write a draft or three, post them here in our Stuff section, let our Gentle Readers comment on them if they wish, then think about what we really want to say.
For us, this is a way to let our thoughts collect. For you, it's either boring reading or yet another chance to insult us. Isn't this fun?

Plurp.
The blue dog
suffered
for truth

Monday, February 4, 2002
Blab. From a Plurp page long ago, a reader writes:
WINNI-V
... reminding us that MASTERBOLAN is another mysterious Google search term that brings readers here. Go figure.

Blab. Our helpful readers suggest topics for our upcoming commencement address.
Talk about weblogging! hahahahahaha
Hmm! We've been thinking about a theme of Life will turn out completely differently than anything you imagine. Our stupid Weblog would certainly be a proof point for that!
Commencement topic: "Nothing you've done up to this point matters."
Good thought. One of the challenges, we think, is to give them a picture of the vast expanse of their life that lies ahead of them, without boring them. We've been thinking of a Back to the Future motif, with dry ice fog and a white Mad Scientist overcoat.
Potential Commencement Speech Topics:
Why every college kid should have their own Weblog
Yankees and Braves - two great football dynasties
Top 10 reasons college is better than work
How to make a 6-figure income blogging
Don't blame me - I didn't vote
And my personal favorite for a commencement address:
zoom zoom
We wrote a possible commencement speech today, sitting in an afternoon of boring meetings. Or we may end up doing something entirely different. We'll see.

Blab. A reader with inside knowledge writes:
Don't you mean "Syntax without Symantec"? hahahahahaha
... referring to the successful completion of a 13-year-long project to build a digital immune system to deal with fast-spreading computer viruses on a global scale. We commercialized the technology with Symantec Corp., the makers of Norton AntiVirus.
Good stuff.

Blab. Why did Pippi suddenly occur to us? A reader implies the existence of a spiritual world parallel to ours and influencing our daily lives.
Not entirely without apparent cause: I seem to think that the author of Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim’s Daughter Longstocking recently bought the farm at an advanced age. So there you are.
While this seems an unnecessarily complex theory to us, we like it better than the notion that we have causeless, random thoughts. Why do we think that?

Blab. Our random questions seem to have induced writing fits in our otherwise catatonic readers.
My guess is:
There are more Christians named Christian than there are Blacks names Black,
which number more than the Whites named White, which number more than the
Jesus freaks named Jesus, which number more than the Romans named Roman,
which number more than the Angels named Angel, which number more than the
Paulists named Paul, which number about 27.
Am I close?
Fortunately, one reader knows all the answers.
How many whites are named White?
41,567,303
Blacks named Black?
17
Romans named Roman?
None, the Romans are all dead now.
Jesus freaks named Jesus?
One.
Christians named Christian?
Do you count non-human Christians?
Paulists named Paul?
Fourteen (and Playboy Bunnies on Fear Factor)
Angels named Angel? All of them; that way when God says "Hey, Angel!", all of them look up at once from their Gameboy Advance's.
Ah. The same reason all of our readers are named Reader. Clever.

Blab. A rogue programmer of the mind control lasers writes:
Science can take us only so far. The soul longs for certainty, for knowledge of a past that science can only guess at, can only tell hopeful stories about, stories that it is always revising. Certainty comes from sources other than science, from the wisdom of the heart. The soul tells us that the universe must have a center, that our lives must have purpose, that there must be something higher than daily life, that we must put five thousand dollars in small unmarked bills into a paper bag and leave it in the men's room of the bar at the corner of 27th and Madison next Tuesday at 11pm.

Would that be this coming Tuesday, or the Tuesday after that? Any particular kind of paper bag?
(And why can't we find a picture of the mind control lasers via Google? Oh.)

Blab. Another reader, surprised by being accidentally and momentarily in charge of the mind control lasers, orders us to ...
fess up: where'd the pictures of the bizzare baby and the face looking at the teeve come from?
You can, of course, trace the links yourself. But perhaps you're really asking how we found them in the first place. And the answer to that is: We have no idea. It might have something to do with that parallel spiritual world.

Blab. A loyal reader reveals this.
Just thought I would share the good news with all.
The attorney general had my shoes returned to me and ordered 172 custom burkas for the nu*e statuary in all Federal buildings. Know all will share my joy.
We'll be on the lookout for burka-clad Justice, compliments of our treasured reader. And Mr. Ashcroft, of course. Do you have a burka for him?

Blab. A reader who, like us, is consumed with dates (and other luscious fruit) writes:
In 2002, Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year fall on the same date. This calls for some kind of innovative celebration fusing both traditions, but I can't quite figure out what.
Naturally, readers are beseeched to suggest an appropriate celebration.

Blab. A reader isn't bored yet.
Googlewhack. We aren't bored yet, as we've just started. And how did we start? "Machined Loganberries". Surprising what you can do with luscious fruit. -AJL
We've always said that.

Blab. A reader is missing the point.
Why is it charitable people are giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to a few thousand (the number is now below 3000) people who, admittedly, died tragically?
Statistics will show (and I'd love for MADD to get a hold of some actual numbers) that many people died (tragically, I might add) at the hands of drunk drivers on the night of September 11th. Perhaps not 3000, but I'd wager a bet that at least 3000 people were killed in 2001 by drunk drivers. No doubt THOSE families affected may have been left with nothing, and no doubt THOSE families could use a few thousand dollars to make ends meet.
Oh, and I could use a few thousand dollars too.
You're missing the point. Charity is not about helping the victims. It is about assuaging the emotions of the givers. That's why people give to victims that are in front of them, rather than those that are most needy. It's all about marketing. The CNN images of the WTC collapsing, over and over again, and Bush's subsequent media attention to the subject virtually guaranteed it to be the biggest charity target (sic) of the year.
16,653 people were killed by drunk driving in the U.S. in 2000.
1.2M people starved to death in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s.
Up to 2M people died in Pol Pot's killing fields.

Plurp. So that super bowling thing happened and one of the collections of bowlers accumulated more "points" than the other, so they're Number 1. And the people who happen to live in the same geographical area as they do are also Number 1. And the people who declared their loyalty (or something) to them before the bowling actually began are also Number 1. Isn't that nice?
Not being in any of these groups (as far as we know), we're not Number 1, which accounts for us not properly taping the Playmate Fear Factor episode. We got the part during the bowling, but missed the part after it.
Fooey.

Yak. From this afternoon's meetings.
Dim MIPS
Now come on, you know what it means (think dark fiber). But it is funny.

Yow. Hee hee. A Stave puzzle, tardy since before last year's Solstice Festival, nonetheless showed up today to torment Helen. Like small moving objects to a cat, jigsaw puzzles - really hard jigsaw puzzles - are something that Helen is genetically incapable of resisting. Hee hee.

Plurp.
In fulfillment of prophecy,
the blue dog
was made up entirely
of dim MIPS

Sunday, February 3, 2002
Blab. A reader of some repute asks:
Blogworthy?
Googlewhacking ... the Search for "The ONE"
Wearables, especially the Pub Crawl watch ... look out
Dick Tracy
Why, sure!
Googlewhacking is catching on due, we think, to the clever name they have attached to the game that we've all played, and of which we at Plurp officially became bored some time ago.
We like the idea of wearable computers, but it sure is taking a while. We're still waiting for Maxwell Smart's shoe phone.

Blab. A reader admits of certain unpleasant fetishes.
I just like to look at the pretty pictures.
Do the pictures look pretty to you? Through the fog of battle, through the haze of history, or by the forgiving light of that glowing cathode tube, are their images pretty? Pleasing? Consistent with your hope that the world is a place where there aren't fishhooks waiting to snare the eyes of children and sling them out to waiting fish? Where these same children aren't MRE for vicious, engineered microbes? Dancing across disembodied LCDs, are their pixels supplicating you, seducing you? Are they you?

Blab. Our newest foreign correspondent reports from Indonesia:
This just in...
local newspaper for 2 February includes the following ad:
"When your heart is as pure as
better diamonds in today's Valentine,
nothing compares to its sincerity
and its honesty.
Definitely."
definitely.
your Java FC
What a sweet thought.

Blab. A reader who is somewhat out of phase writes:
"Oh, man, if I poop, I know I'm gonna end up in the mayonnaise, just like last time."
Um, our zany Alternating Image / Caption contest is currently trying to come up with an image for the following caption.
"And now my impersonation of Marlon Brando after sunbathing..."
Good luck.

Blab. On the topic of those two related Helenisms last week, a reader claiming inside knowledge writes:
Last meal and testament

Last meal

Last will and testament

This is prefered by the Goddess of Helenism. "Last Supper ......" is less than desirable because "supper" here has two syllables and in the orginal "will" has one. The rhythm needs to be preserved. But good try!
We are not in a position to dispute the Goddess.

Blab. Another reader on the Goddess' staff writes:
Helen doesn't care about the Ying and Yang since the cat has yet to send anyone to the hosipital. When that happens, she will care.
Yangsters, take note.

Blab. A reader sends a NYT article with many humorous suggestions, allegedly based on real-life incidents, for things to avoid in job interviews. This same reader is naughty, however, and fails to provide a URL. So, we reproduce here only a single, unlinked excerpt.
Turn Off the Cellphone
"We've had a lot of candidates blow interviews because of cellphone usage," said Anne Maxfield, president of Project Solvers, a Manhattan staffing firm. She recalled a senior-level candidate who checked in with the receptionist, sat down, called his mother and began "a loud conversation about how he had just gone to the dentist to have his gums trimmed." When a manager finally greeted him, the applicant said, "I'll be with you in a few minutes."
We'll bet he wasn't.

Blab. One of our readers falls prey to the Small World project at Columbia U., as evidenced by this note from the project itself.
Dear Steve White,
Here's a message from [a person] who chose you as the next person in this experiment:
Hello there - I read your website everyday. You're the only person I know that can help me. Thanks a bunch!
[Boring stuff about their project omitted]
Your target person is:
Name: Pavia Rosati
Currently lives in New York, New York, USA
Current Occupation: Writer
Previous Employer: AOL, 1997-2001
Attended Georgetown University 1988-1992
Grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, USA
[Etc. etc. and we get to pick a new victim]
Who could resist, eh? Help me, Obi-Wan Kanobi. You're my only hope.
Anyhow, our gentle readers should Watch Their Mail^TM, as we've selected one lucky reader as the next victim in this scholarly chain letter.
We can't help thinking that our Columbia brethren screwed up their methodology, though. By asking each of us to select only one next person to whom they send mail, they're likely to establish a really long chain between us and Pavia, if they get there at all. The Small World effect works because we all have lots of friends, and they have lots of friends, and so on. And, somewhere in there and quite unbeknownst to us, there's a short path from us to everyone else. It looks like the Columbians think that each person in the chain knows which of their friends might be closer to a given target person, and that's not how it works.
So maybe we should do our civic duty and show up at their tenure review. We'd stand in the back and say, Excuse me, I just run a stupid Weblog, but it seems to me ...
That could be fun, right?

Blab. A reader sends an off-target answer to an old question.
"Jump the Shark" means when a tv show really goes stupid.
Yes, and thanks so much. We had asked where the term originated. It was (so it is claimed) from Fonzie water skiing over a shark, concurrent with the impending demise of Happy Days. In case you wondered.

Plurp. Here's a shocker. We were asked to give the 2002 commencement address for our odd little undergraduate college. We accepted before they realized their disastrous clerical error.

Boy, are they in big trouble now. Readers are invited to suggest topics for our historic speech.

Plop. The (United Airlines) Flight 93 charity is trying to trademark the phrase "Let's Roll". We wonder if the Flight 11 charity will try to trademark the phrase "Oh My God!"
What's that? You think our idea is in bad taste?

Yo. We didn't watch that Super Bowl thing today. (a) We were never much into bowling, and (b) we got surprise tickets to dress rehersal for Elaine Stritch's one-woman show. Anyhow, prolly no good dot-bomb ads this year.
We did tape the Playboy Fear Factor show that NBC ran in competition with the Super Bowl half-time, though. Well, obviously. How could we possibly miss culturally favored young women eating strawberries and flies? Now that's Americana.

Yo. Why do you come here? We have no idea. But clues might be found in some of the most common search strings by which people using Google (or the like) get here. These are approximately in order of more to less common, but we see even the less common ones all the time in our server logs.
britneyspears
windows backgrounds
food symbols
alien symbols
answering machine messages
davinci notebook
translation of tunak tunak
supergirl
slave shoelicker
nyotaimori
We do worry about you people.

Yo. Now that even CNN has noticed the recent spate of palindromic dates, are any of us safe? Any of us?

Plurp. From long-dormant brain cells, activated spontaneously and without apparent cause today.
Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim’s Daughter Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, formerly the Terror of the Sea, now a cannibal king.

Plop. Liquid Pez. We can hardly wait to see the dispensers. (/user/bin/girl)

Yow. You know, we hated history classes in High School. As if civilization was somehow the result of wars and dictators! As if dates were critical. What nonsense.
The one college class we took on the history of technology was great. But how many people did that besides us?
We loved the TV series Connections, not only for Burke's clever way of showing how everything is built on everything else, but also because it focused on the real advances that make a difference in the world.
Then today we discovered the history of video games. Now you're talkin' my lingo, baby! (/user/bin/girl)

Plurp. How many whites are named White? Blacks named Black? Romans named Roman? Jesus freaks named Jesus? Christians named Christian? Paulists named Paul? Angels named Angel?
Readers?

Plurp. We discovered today that there is a whole other world of blogs out there, little vesicles in cyberspace that seem quite apart from our usual environs.
1/23/2002 07:50:10 PM
After buying all of that lovely food, I'm having jalapeno cheese straws and Sandies for dinner. I'm a picture of health.

We hope they stay that way.

Plurp. Mandatory reader exercises, number three.

Put your left foot in

Put your left foot out

Put your left foot in

Shake it all about

Do the Hokey Pokey

Turn yourself around

That's what it's all about.

Plurp.
Nothing compared to
the blue dog's
sincerity and
honesty

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