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2002.12.08 : 2002.12.14
Saturday, December 14, 2002
Blab. Today's work on CUDI is once again one of uncertainty.
No idea if CUDI is genuine
or not, but it certainly makes for entertaining reading! I particularly
like a paragraph from their main page:
Not only is Wal-Mart targeting
our youth with prurient and outright pornographic "reading" material, but
they are also facilitating hackers by selling so-called "naked PCs" on
their website. While this sounds like more computer pornography, naked
PCs -- or computers of questionable legality sold without an installed
and licensed operating system -- are actually more pernicious in that they
are used by members of the Free Source cult to create hacking tools for
disabling filtering software. Walmart.com even promotes the use of these
hacking tools (popularly known as "Linix") in conjunction with the naked
PCs they sell. Furthermore, when not being used for hacking, these naked
PCs are used for running computer operating systems (such as the standard
Microsoft Windows or alternate systems like Apple Macintosh) without paying
for the proper licenses -- in other words, theft. Does this sound like
a wholesome business to you?
You begin to wonder if Big Bad Bill is
behind it all... Oh, and is "Linix" yet another new variation on open source
Unix, or just a typographical error?
Linix
is the version of Unix developed by Charles Schulz.
Blab. A reader inadvertently offers a reason for the recent lapse
in our blogging.
Have a chicken!!!!!!
Oh dear. How can we explain this? In the new GNE (after the Great Wipeout),
we have taken to giving a chicken (this is a game object) to people we
meet in the game. In particular, we give them to people who, like us, are
camping out at the site where useful game objects (like Compulsion,
or Desire) grow, hoping to snag them when they appear.
We do this for several reasons. First, we think it's silly. Second,
we think it's really silly. And third, it sometimes distracts the
recipient, so we get the goodie rather than them.
But that's too much detail for you, isn't it? Suffice it to say that
GNE is, once again, an obsessions of ours, keeping us up past 2 AM and
causing us to neglect work, wife, and blogging. So take pity on us, if
you will. We are not evil, or slothful, or neglectful. We are the victim.
Think of it as a disease. It's not us. It's GNE.
Blab. After a long absence, a reader finds one of these.
helenism from my fiancee
Christa: Top off the bat. "He's a great example of that, top
off the bat!" I'm not sure what it means exactly. But I'm sure
someone will come up with something.
Readers are required to name
the two constituent phrases from which this Helenism is made.
Plurp. There are certain foods, certain ways of preparing food,
that are perfect, eternal, unsurpassable.
Sushi is the obvious example. Everything thing else that the culinary
community does with fish just seems like blasphemy in comparison. Peking
duck, similarly, is the unbeatably ideal thing to do with duck.
Readers are invited to name other
perfect foods.
 Plurp.
The blue dog was
perfect,
eternal,
unsurpassable
Friday, December 13, 2002
Blab. A gullible reader thinks it has debunked the photo
of Dubya looking through binoculars that have lens caps on them.
Plurp, Snopes.
Snopes, Plurp.
We quote from our Treasured Reader's link.
As much as we may enjoy poking
fun at our politicians, they aren't so clueless that they don't know binoculars
don't work with the lens caps in place, or would stand confusedly staring
through capped binoculars at total blackness for several minutes at a time.
And ...
And another photograph of
President Bush taken from the same sequence as the one above demonstrates
that even if his binoculars did initially have their lens caps in place,
they weren't there for long.
From this, we conclude that Dubya really is clueless enough to look
through binoculars with lens caps in place long enough for reporters to
take his photo. We do not actually know how long it took him to figure
it out. We do have our suspicions, however.
Blab. A more Treasured Reader has another explanation.
The monkey sees no evil.
If only it were true! Sadly, when he is blind, Dubya tends to see Evil
everywhere.
 Blab.
A reader wonders:
Is Trent Lott a real U.S.
Senator, or a parody?
This confuses us.
Is our Treasured Reader suggesting that there is a difference?
Blab. We received spam today from:
okaka_titi@gandabacha.com
Must not be an English speaker.
Plurp. Good news, bad news. We visited our dermatologist (who,
incidentally, has lovely skin) today. She says that news reports saying
that people with even mild cases of eczema (like us) shouldn't get the
smallpox vaccine are wrong.
The concern, she says, is that people with severe skin lesions could
get lots of topical infections from the vaccine. But folks with very minor
cases aren't at risk from the vaccine, particularly.
Unfortunately, the
CDC thinks otherwise. They even say that folks
who live with us shouldn't get the vaccine.
So who's right? Readers who actually know something (as if we have any)
are beseeched to tell us if we can be protected from the coming plague,
or if we have to roll a saving throw at a mere 67%.
Yo. You've already checked out Froogle,
so we don't have to say anything about it here. Still, it's a weird idea.
Do you really go shopping in arbitrary stores, especially ones that you've
never seen before and have no reason to trust?
Plurp.
The blue dog
had no need to shop in arbitrary
stores,
or to trust
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Blab. More readers check on the CUDI Conundrum.
Y'all did see the Ruby Matrimonial
Thong on the same Cafe Press page, didn't you? Dead giveaway, methinks.
But thanks for a giggle. The day needed
it.
--k.
That would be a vote for hoax, we think.
It's
been around (and more or less the same, though at a different URL)
for years.
Plus it's linked from here.
Another vote for hoax, but only because of circumstantial evidence. A numerically
sensitive reader writes:
Proof? Remarkably hard to
find. The snail mail address for CUDI is slightly incorrect: According
to mapquest it should be
28700 Joy Rd
Livonia, MI
48150-4085 US
But CUDI lists it as
28700 Joy Road
Livonia, MI 48510
Two digits are transposed in the zip
code. Would any of your readers from Livonia care to check?
I would be wonderful if the picture
was of the Livonia Seniors Travel Club, but I can't prove it.
Curiously, the local paper, the Observer-Eccentric,
bills itself as "The Best Local Newspaper On the Web"
Frankly, Virtual
Livonia seems like a more interesting place.
Yeah, possibly. Or maybe it's a dyslexic typo, eh? On the other hand, this
reader writes:
Creation Science
I think that judging the Objective:
Christian Ministries site a parody because of its creation science material
is a mistake. Creationists really believe this stuff. The fact that it's
illogical, unsupportable and ridiculous in no way keeps them from taking
it very seriously and using it to make serious attempts to subvert and
suppress real science (their real goal, after all).
If these people were capable of logical,
rational thought, they wouldn't be religionists in the first place.
L.
So we just don't know!
Blab. A reader who can see the future wastes its time on stuff
like this.
Hey, I predicted Microsoft
would support Linux! Although I thought it would be by this time and I'm
still waiting.
- Morton
Can you tell us who wins next week's trifecta?
Blab. A reader puts an Xmas gift on our list.
[link]
This is the Talking Dubya Doll. Hear him say such memorable phrases
as:
We feel privileged to be a contemporary.
Oh. Was that too many syllables?
Blab. A reader asks us a curious question.
Ahh, you're back in New York
again. Cool. Have you ever been to the vegetarian cafe Teeny's. It is run
by the popular rock and roller Moby.
Uh, no, we haven't. Is it interesting because it is vegetarian, because
there are teenagers there, or because a person named after a whale runs
it?
Blab. A reader makes fun of Babelfish. It's a low bar.
From a pal in Japan...
2. Trekking thru the web looking for
a surprising delicious,
affordable red bubbley. Entered the
info into the google search engine which came up with the website cache.
It was translated into some form of English. I love when "Babel" translates
a google find. This is the food match for the wine.
"Couplings: roast of meats
white women, it stews to you and spezzatini with verdure, pollo and rabbit
to the shooting jacket, cheeses you vaccinate hard and semihard, also very
it ages to you."
Marianne
Sounds delicious! (Except maybe for that vaccinate part.)
Blab. A reader sends us an unreviewed link.
This
could good. But I was unable to download it.
Nonetheless, it's pretty interesting! The Best Products of 2002, according
to Business Week.
Blab. A reader rejoices in our recent exile in Texas.
Subj: Parade
Missiles for Sale, Cheap
Your Texas experience probably explains
a little bit about the man who would be king. But it doesn't explain
why he doesn't just buy all these ornamental missiles whose only real use
is for founders' day parades in nations with lousy self images.
The sellers need the dough, for goodness sake, and we have it. We
could take all this surplus of lousy weapons off of the market and give
them to nice little American towns for their fourth of July parades, maybe
run them right behind the doll carriages. But then it's so much more
fun putting on a ireful president face and threatening everyone with extinction.
Better than binge drinking fore he found Jesus.
There's an idea! We could pay North Korea to go into the ornamental armaments
business. You know, just enough to be scary but not enough to be deadly.
Cheaper to build, and just as lucrative a market.
Blab. On yesterday's frightening picture of Dubya, a presidential
apologist pretends to knowledge.
Unfortunately, they're actually
night-vision goggles. There is a pinhole in the lens cap that lets
enough light through by which to see yet protects the lenses (which would
be damaged by direct sunlight). Bush is (sadly enough) using them
correctly.
Our Treasured Reader must still explain why Dubya was using night-vision
goggles in what is clearly broad daylight. Or give up and admit that the
Precedent of the United States doesn't understand that lens caps must be
removed from binoculars in order to use them.
Plurp. Cats are not afraid of the dark, nor fish of the ocean.
There are no acrophobic birds, nor claustrophobic moles.
What, then, of frail humanity, which seems to be afraid of everything?
Plop. Did we mention that our Thanksgiving festivities in Frederick,
Maryland took place a stone's throw (literally) from a large, white, plastic
tent in which some agency of the U.S. government was said to be conducting
tests on the soil of a hill, into which biological weapons material had
been dumped some years ago?
We didn't? Well, it's true.
The government has been very forthcoming about what they're
doing on that site, said a neighbor.
Oh?, We said. What are they doing?
It's anthrax, I think, he said. Or something. They're cleaning
it up.
The site had previously been slated for tract housing. Maybe not now, though
we don't know for sure.
In other news, the FBI says they're searching "public land" in Frederick
for clues about that
anthrax killer dude.
So, you know, everything's fine. Just fine.
Plop. You are required to believe the following, because it is
true.
 MGM
is planning to film Rocky
VI, with Sylvester Stallone reprising his role as the plucky boxer.
We suggest a working title: Rocky VI - The Geriatric Years.
Readers are required to send us
their own, much more creative, titles.
Plop. Being back home is not altogether fabulous, as evidenced
by the three separate accident-induced traffic clots on our way home tonight,
one on the aptly-named Sprain, one on the not-so-Major Deegan, and one
on the (crippled) FDR.
In spite of leaving work at 7 PM, and going in the opposite direction
of the usual commuter traffic, it took us two and a half hours to
get home tonight. Which is one reason why Thursday isn't getting posted
on Thursday.
Yow. On the other hand, when we did, at long last, get
home tonight, we were, well, here.
Plurp.
The blue dog
often tried to think
without a brain
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Blab. We seem to have ignited a minor firestorm by admitting
our uncertainty as to whether that Citizens
United for a Decent Internet site is for real, or a hoax.
We asked our readers to help figure it out for us. As usual, their attention
wandered and they decided to answer other questions instead.
We're sure that the CUDI
site is as real as the Plurp site....
- Felis Lynx
That doesn't help much, though, does it? Similarly, another reader seems
pretty certain that another site (which is possibly related, but possibly
not) is a hoax.
Further Objective: Christian
Ministries items:
The Creation
Science page is LOL funny. Be sure to check out the Dinosaur
Expedition 2002 piece. The creation
science fair piece is also worth a read.
Curiously, it seems that there really was a creation
science fair, though this one was in 1998. It's so hard to separate
stupidity from parody these days, isn't it?
We related yesterday that the CUDI Conundrum had mysteriously migrated
to another blog.
We are horrified to report that the migration has increased exponentially,
spreading over the past day to both Emeth's
and
Dave's
blogs. Soon the CUDI Conundrum will be responsible for the majority of
traffic on the Internet. Imagine!
And still no resolution! Is it a cruel hoax, or is it terrifyingly real?
For the sake of all that we hold digital, we beseech our readers to submit
authoritative proof one way or the other. Please!
Blab. A kindly reader sends us a picture.
Well that does explain a lot, doesn't it?
Blab. A reader explains why following our directions from yesterday
is easy.
My cat is called Bert, but
I know where he is
Not all readers may be so lucky.
Plop. OK, folks, the saber rattling has gotten a bit too intense
when the sabers are actually nuclear
weapons. Stop that.
Plop. Yemen
says, Hey, those were our incredibly
inaccurate missiles, whose only real use is against large, soft targets
like urban populations; give them back!
And, Yemen being such a good ally in the Jihad Against Terrorism,
Dubya does just
that.
Yow. GNE is back up
after the Great Wipeout. All of the Standard Denizens, having been denuded
of their fantastic wealth, abilities and property, are hard at work, once
again climbing the twin ladders of fortune and glory.
Curiously, the one thing that survived in the world was the collection
of notes that everybody "wrote" on random pieces of "paper" and dropped
here and there. The lovely house that we owned has been completely burgled
of possessions, but the three silly notes we left around for the rare visitor
still remain.
It's as if the government created the perfect bomb from their point
of view; one that wipes out everything but paperwork.
Plop. While there don't seem to be many new features in the new
GNE code, there are lots and lots of new bugs. Naturally; it's software.
Plurp.
Aenea stepped out of the
ship, thirsty as ever. "A library, that's what I need." She paged through
the card catalog idly, until her finger stuck on a card that seemed out
of place. "Dewey Decimal?" she boggled. What's a Dewey Decimal card doing
at this library? 347.7 Un37,
let's see what secrets you hold...
Plurp. Nothin's quite the same down here in Texas. Even the beggars
are different. A woman at a stoplight today held a hand-lettered sign proclaiming
herself to be homeless and broke, and suggesting that she needed money
to support her kids. She hobbled around on a crutch and a plastic leg brace.
Nice effect, but the leg brace was gleamingly clean. Come to think of it,
so were her clothes, her face and her hair.
Now back in NYC, there's a certain mandated style for beggars. Their
hand-lettered signs are weathered and stained, and always add AIDS to their
homelessness and poverty. Their clothes are filthy, as are their faces
and hair. While they sometimes walk about with their signs, they are more
likely to be found sitting against a building, often on a subway grating,
drinking cheap alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Or asleep on the sidewalk
in their own urine. But the overall effect makes it easy to believe that
these folks are down on their luck.
We're not sure if the Texas woman is typical of the local beggar population,
but we must say that we found the story less studied, and therefore less
believable, than those of the beggars back home.
Or are we just being parochial here? It's so unlike us.
Plurp. You know it's Texas when the airport speakers play nothing
but country & western music.
Plop. We had the great fun this evening to spend a couple of
hours in the romantic Houston International Airport. We were scheduled
for a five minute stop on the way back to New York. Instead, an ice storm
somewhere (or, more accurately, the paranoid and unsupported fear of an
ice storm somewhere) stranded us in Houston for an extra two hours.
 So
if we don't post this until Thursday, all you folks who like to carp about
posting times can rest assured that we will deal with your concerns just
as soon as we can.
Really.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was glad,
oh so very glad,
to be back in New York
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Blab. A reader who is Sleepless In Manhattan writes:
Here in NYC we had stromboli
for dinner....all ourselves.....without a cutie or sweetheart. This
does not bode well for sleeping tonight....
H
Nothing worse than bad stromboli, we say. Uck!
Blab. A reader who does not know us well writes:
Hey, get off the Parmalat.
It gets you through the BVI, ok? Besides you don't like Egg Nog anyway.
Would someone find him a REAL subject
to complain about???? Or just BRING him home.
Actually, we do like egg nog.
Blab. The CUDI conundrum seems to have
ignited quite a controversy among our readers. Is it a
real site authored by pathetic, aging white folks? A slightly subtle
hoax? Fringe dwellers in hyperspace?
This reader has a straightforward position on the subject.
You are dumb
That's certainly one distinct possibility. Let's examine others.
I think I have CUDIs............ewwwwwwwwwwww
Ah. That's so very ambiguous, but we do recommend tweezers, or liberalism.
Another reader is equally ambivalent.
>> So there you go! We lie
here, exposing our soft underbelly to our Treasured Readers in abject supplication.
Hoodwinked and taken in at the same time. And probably twice at that. <<
I'm not so sure. The "Irreducibly
Complex Mousepad" looks like parody to us, but we're not the target audience.
I don't see anything in the evidence cited by your reader that actually
convinces me that CUDI isn't seriously intended. More study is needed.
Maybe I'll write them. (As if that would help resolve the issue.)
Similarly, this reader seems quite certain that the truth is not certain.
Well, okay, maybe the "Hans
Chrisen" and "Lilith Strug" quotes are a little over the top. But
it's by no means impossible that a genuine fundy would have made them up
(or "paraphrased" them from actual quotes). That is, they could be
first-order parody, rather than second-order. Hm...
Some readers are believers.
I dispute that the "Irreducibly
Complex Mousepad" is evidence that the Objective: Christian Ministries
is not an genuine website created by genuine religious wackos.
Even genuine religious wackos have
learned that cutsy-poo marketing is effective.
L.
Religious wackos with cutsy-poo marketing. That frightens us.
Yet another reader lives just on the other side of belief.
"foreigners in disreputable
countries like Holland or Canada": okay, I'm beginning to be swayed. Still...
One must admit that, if it be parody, it is artfully on the edge of the
believable. "Canada".
Or, it could be a figment of another reader's imagination.
After having seen one of
those PRAY flags put out by the irrationalists, this appeared to me in
a dream...or did I think it into being? God, I hope not.
That would be even more incredible that CUDI being real. We couldn't handle
that.
Speaking of which, our very own controversy has undergone an unexplained
migration to other blogs. We definitely can't handle that.
So, Treasured Readers, which is it: hoax or fiction, parody or joke,
threat or menace? Please submit, not mere speculation or quotive deconstruction,
but authoritative proof!
We're counting on you.
Blab. A reader with access writes:
White, S R (Steve) Steven
White/UK
White, Steven R. Steven White/Raleigh
CMVC development
??? Neither of these guys works for
IBM Research.
My suspicion is that pseudonymously,
such a person may exist, but only in *your* dreams.
Miasma
P.S. bluepages finally spit this out:
White, Steve R., Sr. Manager, Autonomic Computing Science, Technology &
Standards
so you may exist, after all.
Long Live Entropy!
miasmatic
This refers to the IBM internal phone book, which our Treasured Reader
has clearly figured out how to use. Applause.
Other Steve Whites in IBM are marketing folks in San Francisco and AIX
performance specialists in Austin. Yes, that Austin.
Blab. A spambot writes:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I visited www.stevewhite.org
and found it is a thoughtfully-designed one with much helpful information
but poorly listed in many search engines. Are you finding the most effective
way to promote your website?
One what?
But isn't that amusing, that this bot thought that our foolishly minimalist
home page was thoughtfully designed with much helpful information?
As usual with this kind of bot, we looked them up in Google and found far
fewer references to them than to Plurp. Oh well.
Blab. An atypical reader, somehow aware of external events like
Trent
Lott's recent praise for Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential
bid, writes:
Subj: Lott...is
there a Lott's wife?
As usual, the liberal press, you know,
Murdoch and all that gang, has been ganging up on the retro-hairdressed
Mr. Lott of that Distinguished Body for having voiced his soul's belief
that we would all be better off if those damn negroes were stepping into
the gutter when we passed our white bodies by them, just as god intended.
And this on the heels of that joyous birthday party for the official corpse
of that Distinguished Body. Land's sake!
We shall survive, however, just as
we have a president who was a vegetable while in office, but only in latter
days diagnosed; a president called a moron by a French speaking aide of
a foreigh power now on the dole...no, not that Dole...; and a congress
that spent millions to taunt a silly president who did not need the Dole
treatment. And when we "pit this all behind us" we shall see Mr.
Lott as just the man we deserve.
Is this a sad story, or what??
Is this sadder than our inability to determine if CUDI is a fake? Maybe
Trent Lott is a fake. Strom Thurmond certainly is. Isn't he?
Plurp. The usual list for this week:
-
helen naked pitures
-
jazz background
-
mispelling day
-
screen backgrounds
-
angelina jolie
-
antivirus
-
arsenic poisoning pictures
-
backgrounds
-
backstage
-
bert
Whoever's looking for Bert: stop it.
Yo. Microsoft
to support Linux? That would be odd.
Yow. Mel Gibson in a new Mad Max flick? Cool.
Yo. Here's something curious: a
blog whose readers are approximately
as concerned with Plurp (its content, hiatus and return) as
they are with that blog itself. Now we link to it. It's all so meta!
And then, perhaps even more curiously, we created a "note" (an object
within the game) in GNE the other
night (before the Great Wipeout) and dropped it (we think) in someone's
private "house". Now it
appears in someone's blog. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But it really is awfully meta.
Plurp. In the middle of a dialog on RSS,
XML and Namespaces, we find this:
While walking along the cliff
path, Carla found the body of a man who was born without toes, stuffed
with Cheerios and wrapped thickly in pink Saran Wrap. But, having neither
milk nor strawberries, she walked on. Some time later, she came upon a
badger who spoke to her in a long-forgotten language. But, not having a
universal translation device, she walked on. Then she came upon the yolks
of three eggs, which had been left in an enigmatic arrangement some days
previous by a seclusive group that manufactured breakfast cereals.
Posted by: Plurp
on September 28, 2002 07:05 PM
Oh yeah! We did write that. We're so strange.
We encourage our readers to write similar works of stirring prose to
inappropriate discussion groups, participatory Web sites, and so forth.
And do send us URLs when they
appear.
Think of it as a project.
Plurp. Not everything is awful in Texas. We're just sure
of it. We'll let you know.
Plurp.
The blue dog
both believed and did not believe
the CUDI Conundrum
Monday, December 9, 2002
Blab. Our readers suspect that something is up.
"Citizens United for a Decent
Internet": the needle on the parody-detector is spinning wildly.
Maybe the concept is just no longer useful.
Could be! But how do you know? How can you know? Another reader
thinks it knows.
The old news on the CUDI
site is a little less subtle.
"Glorious People's License (or GPL)"
"I am just stunned!" said ACLU lawyer
Hans Chrisen, "We were excited that we could use this case to set precedent
giving children more rights than their parents. Now that our clients have
double-crossed us, we may have to sue them instead."
"Parents should monitor their children's
activities, not librarians," stated ALA spokeswoman Lilith Strug, "Librarians
are much too busy to be bothered with worrying over the occasional incident
of a child viewing bestiality. We have books to sort and overdue fines
to track down, you know! If you don't like pornography, just look away."
And on the "Objective: Christian Ministries"
site,
"Share your faith with carved vegetables"
"Fisherman's Quandary"
And this reader, showing a certain investigative flair, suggests that there
may be further evidence.
The CafePress
items for Objective: Christian Ministries are amusing.
Check out the "Irreducibly Complex
Mousepad"
So there you go! We lie here, exposing our soft underbelly to our Treasured
Readers in abject supplication. Hoodwinked
and taken in at the same time. And probably twice at that.
Ah well, it was worth the price. A good hoodwink, we say.
Plop. Is it even vaguely rational to get up at 5 AM and stand
in the security line at the airport for an hour in order to take a five
hour flight to Austin and then sit in three consecutive all-day meetings?
Survey says: No!
But here we are anyway.
Plurp. A billboard outside the airport contains two large pictures.
-
The one on the left is of an attractive young woman in very tight shorts
and a very tight bustier. She is holding a power drill.
-
The one on the right is of an attractive young woman in a long white wedding
dress. She is also holding a power drill.
The text reads, Rent Or Buy.
It is an ad for a local company that sells and rents power tools.
This must be Texas.
Plurp. We're staying at the romantic Hawthorn Suites in Austin.
Do you have room service?
No, but we are serving dinner in the
dining room. Until 7:00. It's ... free?
It is not a propitious beginning. As we dump our stuff in our room, rushing
to make the 7 PM deadline, we notice a piece of paper informing us that
"dinner" tonight is "potato bar with salad".
The potato bar is just that, and out of butter, Bac-o-Bits and cheese.
The salad is iceberg lettuce with mealy tomato slices. There is nothing
else to eat.
We sit at a small table beside a plastic Xmas tree. Wheel of Fortune
is on the TV. Someone just bought a vowel. The three people at a nearby
table are parole officers, discussing the various forms that they have
to fill out. At another table, a Muslim couple glances about uncomfortably
as they get up to leave.
We return to our room. There is a DuraFlame log in the fireplace, which
we choose not to light. It's a good thing; there are no matches.
Tonight, on the phone, we thank Helen for letting us live in Manhattan.
Then we get online to post Plurp. At 21.6 kbps.
Plurp. In our refrigerator at home is a carton labeled Parmalat
Egg Nog. This confuses us.
Parmalat makes "long life" milk which, for some reason that eludes us,
probably involving radiation or voodoo, takes longer to spoil in an unopened
carton than does regular milk. Very handy in the Caribbean, or if you're
a milk-loving recluse.
So is this "long life" egg nog and, if so, how do they do that? Egg
nog, we seem to recall, actually contains eggs, or at least egg yolks,
though perhaps not any nog at all. This makes it only half-similar to the
legendary New York egg cream, which contains neither eggs nor cream.
And while we're on the subject, are there other nogged things than eggs?
Is there pork nog, or beet nog? And, if not, why do we retain the narrowingegg
in egg nog?
But anyway! Whatever magic Parmalat has to make milk last longer seems
wildly unlikely to work with egg yolks, which are pretty different from
milk in most every respect.
So what is this stuff?.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was forever experimenting with
new taste treats
Sunday, December 8, 2002
Blab. On the topic of those very
old, very white people who think they control the Internet, a reader
writes:
The presence of a link to
OBJECTIVE:Ministries
on the frontpage of that "C U D I"-site seems to give something away. Not
sure what, the whole site is a bit too elaborate to be that kind of joke.
It is pretty funny, but we suspect it's not a joke.
It is a spooky coincidence that the CUDI site links to Objective:Ministries,
which are the folks that brought us that great new American
flag proposal we blogged a while ago.
Blab. A very old, very white reader writes:
I think the decent old white
folks oughta apply the standard solution: bomb the rest of the people.
I'm old, white but morally decadent (and a long time Linux user (hey, two
outa three ain't bad)) I'll be moving to my 50s bomb shelter in my basement
in preparation for the inevitable. Wanna bet Ashcroft and Poindexter are
founding members of that group?
Dorian
You're a Linix user? That's downright un-American, son. We're going to
have to slot you right into that handy alternate justice system. Sit tight.
We'll be right there.
Plurp. So, after all this time, it turns out that Bigfoot
was a hoax. Simultaneously, the UK government releases secret
files on UFOs.
Coincidence?
Yak.
My friends asked me what
you do at work. I told them you make pixie dust.
You told them what?
That you make pixie dust. What's wrong
with that? I'd love to be known as a person who makes pixie dust.
You frighten me.
Would you tell your friends that I
make pixie dust?
I'll tell my friends whatever you
want if you promise to stop telling your friends what I do.
Plurp. Tonight is the last night of GNE
before the gods wipe the game state, update the code, and everything starts
all over again. Those of us who amassed millions of shekels and the ability
to make everything that can possibly be made (including,
recursively, a GNE) will once again be destitute, powerless nobodies.
It's an interesting night. It might be a little like it would be if
you knew the end of the world was coming just that soon. No one is accumulating
wealth, striving for more power, or any of the usual game activities. Folks
are just hanging around, chatting. Or not chatting.
Us? We've been making buns, and leaving them all over the world, for
people to eat.
You had to be there.
Plurp.
At the same time,
the blue dog was
revealed to be a hoax
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