Plurp: Taking a quick break from GNE

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2002.12.15 : 2002.12.21

Saturday, December 21, 2002
Blab. A reader writes:
He's referring to a helenism recently entered of Outcry and Uprage
We are so relieved to know that, when we are off playing dumb games and not paying attention to our blog, our readers are paying even less attention.
So let's review. A reader suggested outcry and uprage as radical, syllabic-level Helenisms. We protested that outcry was just a plain old word, and we didn't understand where uprage might have come from.
Then another reader suggested that that first reader must have meant upcry or uprage. We expressed additional confusion.
Now a reader reminds us that that other reader might have been referring to that original reader. We might have thought that was clear, but no doubt there is a subtle message in the apparent ambiguity.
We conclude that our readers are having a conversation that is way, way over our head.

Blab. A reader attempts to explain some reader's interest in the non-existent Bertrum the Wonder Cat.
They're probably thinking of "Bertr-a-m the Wonder Cat".
Of course! The equally non-existent Bertram the Wonder Cat. Odd, as there are lots of Wonder Cats.

Blab. A reader asks about that lasagna-loving reader from the other day.
"Scotch pubs"? Are there really such things?
We wondered that same thing. We figured they must be pubs that only serve dishes made with Scotch.

Yow. It must be said. LotR:TTT r00lz OK.
But this must also be said. It is looooong, with so many characters and subplots that you either have it memorized beforehand or you're confused through half the movie.
Smeagol is a fabulous character (sorry, human actors), and quite convincing in visual texture and emotional expression. But using cartoonists to do the simple physics (jumping, falling, etc.) sticks Smeagol with cartoon physics, which is very jarring.
As with LotR:TFotR, TTT absolutely does not stand on its own. It is the middle three hours of a nine hour movie, and you have to know what came before and anticipate what is yet to come for it to make any sense at all.
Still, you've either seen it already or you're going to see it in the near future. We know you.

Yak.
I don't know what to pack for New Year's. I think I'll take a light shirt, a sweater, my coat and a scarf. That ought to cover all the bases.
All your base are belong to us.

Yak. Battlebot announcer.
The tension is so thick, you can cut it with a tension cutting device!

Plurp.
The blue dog
was so blue
you could ...

Friday, December 20, 2002
Blab. A reader asks:
Hey, what gives?
This is, as you well know, Plurp code for You didn't update your stupid blog when I thought you should. And this is not a surprising comment, given the further detail provided by this more explicit reader.
Have you really just had nothing to say since Monday, or is your Current page just not updating?
I think it did this last week, as well.
L.
Quite. We had all sorts of good excuses in mind. But the plain fact is that we are hopelessly, painfully addicted to GNE, to the point of withdrawing, sallow and jittering, from the rest of society to get our fix.
We thought, briefly, today of using one of these GNE button thingies, which would magically tell you when we're playing GNE, and let you send weird, game-inbred notes to us while we are playing.
But then we thought better of it. It's bad enough that we're addicted. We don't need to have a flashing neon light in our window that says Shooting Up Now! Do we?
And that leads, inevitably, to this.
Looks like the eagles got Steve.
Well, they probably did. But we blame it all on GNE.
And, of course, the usual End of the Year Madness at work. We could tell you stories, oh lordy could we tell you stories, of endless meetings with people who think, not just speak but think, in meaningless buzzwords, of highly paid executives who believe that manic, random actions are more constructive than deliberative thought and careful logic.
We could, but then we would probably get fired. Which would make it much more difficult to afford a Web site. So we probably won't.
Probably.

Plurp.
The blue dog
probably won't ever play GNE,
at least not tonight

Thursday, December 19, 2002
Blab. Dave taunts us with our own words.
You should give up on this blogging stuff. hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Touché!
We taunted Dave for missing several days of blog posts due to his GNE addiction. He points out the vice of our versa. We're both checking into the clinic next week.

Blab. A reader indulges in recent nostalgia.
To continue the George Bush Binocular/lens cap thread I noticed this link at a debunking site.
I am a Canadian and above the democrat-republican fray but thought this was an interesting look at a fairly funny picture.
Cameron
cameron(A..T...)evolutionb(D.T).com
Zackly.

Blab. A reader concerned about the International Atomic Energy Agency has a different song running through her head.
"I A E A, Ohhhhhh!...." Quack quack (dodging the non existent bomb)
And on this farm he had a bomb, ...

Plurp.
The blue dog
spent all night
making GNEs

Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Blab. A reader proves itself to have very disturbing taste.
Here is an interesting idea folks may find amusing.
That is, instrument your house, and let anyone in the world turn on and off the lamps and Christmas lights and lawn sprinklers and stuff.
This reminds me of the work of "Stelarc," a performance artist who has among other bizarre things, created an "inverse motion capture" system, then put it on the web, allowing people from all over the world to yank his limbs this way and that.
( <Aside> Stelarc has a number of disturbing "art projects" documented there including an extra ear he plans to have surgically appended next to one of his existing ears. If and when he can find a plastic surgeon willing to do it.
He has also has had his skin pierced by a couple dozen large fish hooks and used these to suspend his naked body high over city streets. He did this both in Europe and in New York City, though in the latter case he was arrested almost immediately.</Aside>)
The parallels between the "driveMeInsane" site, Stelarc's inverse motion capture, and Plurp itself are somewhat interesting. I mean, consider Plurp as a way to let people from all over the world use the web to tug at your brain a bit. :-)
--R
Yeah, that's weird. We turned Paul's Xmas lights off, but we left his fiber optic flower on. Why did we do that?
Stelarc, on the other hand, is a sick puppy. Seriously. Readers are encouraged not to look.

Blab. A reader repeats an oldie but a goodie.
Jesus saves...
and takes half damage.
And a good thing, too. Otherwise, he would have been chewed to a pulp by Smeagol.

Blab. Speaking of Smeagol, a reader sends us a link to a wonderful, wonderful photo.
One ring to rule them all...
There are no words. Just go look.

Yak. Clever colleague Cliff Pickover coins the following.
Illusory computing
Google hadn't heard about it before now. Readers are invited to tell us what it might mean.

Yow. Cliff's a busy boy. He also collects wacky news headlines. Don't we all?
And, just now, he suggested that we should be able to buy the IE bookmarks of famous people on eBay. Would you like to click on what Clive Barker clicks on all the time?

Plurp. We are honored to be in two consecutive all-day meetings run by people who claim to have Ph.D.s in Creativity. No, we are not kidding. Here are various phrases that were said by various people during these meetings.
Some of them were uttered by the Ph.D.s in Creativity. Others were emitted from the mouths of our esteemed colleagues. Still others are entirely our own fault. See if you can tell the difference.

Trees are not altruistic

Pier-to-pier systems

Always buy different trucks

Play checkers on the sides of buildings

Bad architecture is with us always

Why is there a fire alarm on the fire house?

Bricks don't burn

The center of blame

This is called brainwriting

This is called morphology matrix

What is the implication of the chicken?

See? It's not so easy.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was a sick
puppy

Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Blab. Another of our gourmandatious readers writes:
Subject: Duck, don't cover
But then the canard fumée, little slices, or petites tranches, s.v.p. [which you can not import from Canada or France because it tastes like real food and could kill you, just as all the great cheeses might kill you, so you have to resort to something lesser from California or the mid-west,] on pita bread with thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes and some good sliceable goat cheese, run through a 400 degree oven for several minutes on a pizza stone makes a very nice light lunch, particularly if quaffed with a dirty wine from Provence or a blatantly Barberish Barbera, or a Kenwood barrel Zinfandel from Trader Joe's.
We foresee a dinner party in the near future, with our various Treasured Readers as guest chefs. Yum.

Blab. A reader attempts to explic the inexplicable.
Mebbe e meant "Upcry or Uprage"
Um, yeah, OK, maybe. But what is it? We get outcry and outrage, but we're too stupid to figure out what up<something> might be. Upsell? Upside? Upsie Daisy?
Do tell us. Do.

Blab. A reader opines on the recent topic of perfect foods.
Peanut Butter is the best food. It sticks to your mouth so there is always something there for later. When you need something.
The three year old in us, who used to eat great handfuls of peanut butter, heartily agrees.

Blab. A reader attempts to argue with us. They never learn,
"While we would agree that [jambalaya] is edible, it surely fails to be even vaguely similar in kind to such aspects of divinity as sushi and Peking duck."
Well, duh. You can't really compare the "pure, simple flavor" variety of perfection with the "rich, complex mix of flavor" variety of perfection. It doesn't mean that either is less perfect, just that they represent different types of perfection.
Similarly, if you were looking for the perfect drink, you'd have to specify perfect drink, alcoholic, or perfect drink, non-alcoholic, as there's no direct comparison between the two.
Incidentally, the perfect non-alcoholic drink is fresh-squeezed orange juice. What a beautiful color! What a perfect balance of sweetness and tartness! It's as if some very powerful, very ingenious wizard crafted a spell to transform sunlight itself into a liquid.
(And if you're going to judge lasagna by the type served in Scotch pubs, then I'm going to have to judge sushi by the type sold in supermarkets here in the Midwest. I doubt sushi fares all that well under those conditions. Sheesh! You live in Manhattan!   Surely you can find a good lasagna somewhere on your island.)
Let's try to put this more clearly. Lasagna. Fine. But the best lasagna in the world is not even a distant forty second to the sublimity of sushi and Peking duck.
Sorry.

Blab. That contextless reader from yesterday trots back in with all sorts of context.
Bambi's Veggie Venison, or Kermit's Vegan Caterers... Or Steve's sarcastic suppers perhaps?
OK! We get it. Vegetarian. Sarcastic. Same thing, right?

Blab. Plurp's own Senior Vice President in Charge of Objecting to Things writes:
What does "top of the head" MEAN?
---she who approves ALL Helenisms
Treasured Readers are offered the rare opportunity to explain this Helenism to the above reader

Blab. One of the clandestine team of agents that monitors our every move writes:
Hey! I saw YOU eat pretty well in Scotland this year! Quit the complaining!
All we said was that lasagna is served in every Scottish pub. That's all. Turn the microwaves off!

Plurp. The top search phrases on Plurp's own magnificent search engine in the past week were very atypical, in that the first few got way too many hits to be random searches.

parmalat naked pictures

mouse naked pitures

gne losers

bert

bertrum the wonder cat

christmas

mishe

maine

animals

cannibalism

Bertrum the wonder cat?

Plurp.
The blue dog
didn't know any Bertrum
the wonder cat

Monday, December 16, 2002
Blab. A reader falls victim to the perils of asynchronous transmission.
"top of the head" and "right off the bat", obviously. Even works, meaning-wise. Mostly.
Very good! We concur, and rejoice in another addition to the world's treasure trove of Helenisms.
shouldn't that Helenism be "Off the top of the bat"? - AJL
We thought so too, which is how we recorded it.

Blab. Similarly, reader raise their faces from their pies long enough to type these words.
"name other perfect foods": banana and cheese omelettes, of course.
That goes without saying. What else would you do with bananas, after all?
May I suggest that not all perfect foods fall into the "pure, simple flavors" category?
I'd like to nominate two perfect foods, each with a complex mixture of flavors. From two very different cultures.
A) Lasagna
2) Jambalaya
You may suggest that, but only to expose your ignorance. Lasagna is what is served in Scottish pubs, after all. And pub food in a country whose cuisine is already a culinary disgrace, well, it's not pretty.
Jambalaya, on the other hand, is not served in Scottish pubs, and that's a plus. While we would agree that it is edible, it surely fails to be even vaguely similar in kind to such aspects of divinity as sushi and Peking duck. Surely.

Blab. A spammist is looking for a ...
trust wordy foreign partner.
We certainly qualify!

Blab. A reader disputes some other reader's very creative theory of why Dubya wasn't a complete moron for looking through binoculars with the lens caps in place.
"they're actually night-vision goggles"
Uh, no. Don't think so. Not how they work at all.
L.
Indeed. This theory, meager as it is, is completely destroyed by this picture, which shows Dubya a little bit later, having figured out that lens cap removal trick.
Maybe Dubya should study up. He could, for instance, take this educational test to determine whether he can tell an arse from an elbow. (zurch)

Blab. A reader without proper context writes:
Or perhaps Steve's sarcastic suppers? We think so...
We don't actually eat sarcasm for supper. That's a misconception. It's a metabolic product.

Blab. A reader kisses up to us for a link. We're such a cheap date.
hi, i like your page. love, zurch -- www.zurch.us
Look at that! Somebody with a .us domain! Astonishing.

Yo. Our assistant comes into our office today, stops, looks around oddly and says, Your office smells like burning flesh.
Mondays are tough around here. They are.

Plurp. Walking to the train station this morning, we passed a subway entrance on 51st St. Above the stairs was a small billboard that - we swear - for a tenth of a second or so, was an ad for Stencilton.
This evening, getting cash from an ATM, we grabbed the handful of bills that it spit out and, confused for a moment, we wondered, Now, where do we sell these?
But we're not addicted to GNE. No, not at all.

Plurp.
The blue dog
wanted just one thing
for Xmas

Sunday, December 15, 2002
Blab. On the topic of perfect foods, a reader whom we like already suggests the following.
Lobster, recently living in it's native habitat, Boiled, with just a little freshly melted butter on the side.
Mussels. Steamed, with a touch of white wine, almost too much garlic, and nice herbs.
Very fresh corn, plunged in boiling water for just enough time.
I note a theme here. Pure, simple flavors, from very fresh sources, with just a hint of complementary flavors.
Caviar, blini and sour cream. Champagne on hand, of course.
Now, one can argue on the duck front. Unlike, for example, sushi, where the case can be made that it is the ideal form, there are several very compelling ways to offer up duck. The french make rather a good case for duck confit, along with the sheer elegence of a plain seared breast of duck with just a sauce made by deglazing the pan it was seered in with   casis, served warmed over a light green salad. For that matter, in the vicinity of China, a proper tea smoked duck with giner is pretty awesome. Thai green curry duck, indian roatsed duck with Tamarind sauce. Don't get me wrong, I can eat Peking duck with delight, and with great frequency, but I don't think it the archetype of duck, in the way one might argue that Sushi is the only way to eat certain fish. If I was only allowed Tuna in the form of Sushi, I'd be OK. But, I would not be OK losing out on other forms of duck. Note this test is oddly selective. Mussels can shrink down to just perfectly done moules-frites. But not clams. Steamers are a delight, but I would not give up clam chowder, fried clams, or clam rolls. (Lobster hits the borderline. I could probably live with nothing but just pure fresh out of the shell boiled or steamed lobster, but, much can be said for a lobster roll.
So, what's the other end of the spectrum, a food so incredibly flexible that no single form can capture its essence? Tofu? I think not, but...
Food for thought.
Yum! We won't debate you on that duck thing. Not until we've sampled all of the other delicious sounding forms you mention. How'd you like to come over for dinner?
We don't know the answer to your excellent question about incredibly flexible foods. This reader, on the other hand, submits the winning answer to the question, What food cannot be served in any way that is even vaguely edible?
Cheese and marmite sandwiches. Food of the gods.
As we said ...

Blab. A reader doesn't help us survive the smallpox plague, but instead wonders this.
"Readers who actually know something (as if we have any)".....and we still come back for more. Maybe it indicates something about the writing?
It's an ongoing mystery to us. Our best theory is that you're all masochists.

Blab. A short, skinny, bald reader goes on the defensive.
OK, so he may be 'named after a whale', but Richard Melville Hall was given the nickname 'Moby' at birth due to having Herman Melville as an ancestor, and is actually a very intelligent man!
His restaurant is not in the price range of teenagers and I think the fact that it is purely vegetarian is quite interesting.
"Often times when I meet someone they ask me why I'm a vegan (a vegan is someone who neither eats, wears, or uses animal products). Before I list the reasons why I've chosen to be a vegan let me say that I don't judge people who choose to eat meat. People make different choices for different reasons, and it is not my place to judge the choices that other people make. Just being alive is inevitably going to cause suffering. But anyway, here's why I'm a vegan."
Sorry, but I feel I have to stick up for him! He's bald, 5'4 and skinny as a stick!
We like the idea of a guy named Moby opening a vegetarian restaurant. Makes sense to us! Others in this genre might be Bambi's Veggie Venison, or Kermit's Vegan Caterers.

Blab. A reader decrypts yesterday's Helenism, He's a great example of that, top off the bat!
Off the top of my head
Right off the bat
Excellent! And duly noted. Thank you, Treasured Reader, for adding to the world's body of knowledge in this vital area.

Blab. A reader swings and misses.
Outcry or Uprage      (helenisms)
An interesting attempt. Outcry is, of course, an actual word, so we're a bit flummoxed about considering it as a Helenism. Uprage sure sounds curious. We can't figure out which two words of similar meaning we might smash together to get it, though.
And then there's the metaphysical question: Do single words count as Helenisms? Vote.

Blab. Plurp's own political editor writes:
George Mitchell quits because he won't sit with a guy convicted of war crimes, the convicted guy quits because his moral odeur is such the world knows it would be just another bag job from Junior, Lott is on the ropes because the country doesn't respond well to racists leading governments any more, the as yet unconvicted Cardinal quits. What is going on??! This country is just going to hell in a handbasket. Next thing you know there will be headlines declaring Bush both a dope and nut. I am afraid we are on the brink of a breakout of truth-telling and I don't know what it means.
Sadly, we're pretty sure it's just quantum fluctuations.

Plurp. Because we know you're dying to hear, we're now Level 16 in GNE. There are only four of us at that level, as of tonight. No one else is sufficiently compulsive.
And hello to any GNE players who have dropped by our humble blog. While you did, we nabbed all of the Compulsions. Heh.

Plop. Another joy of living in The City: transit strikes. If the various sides to the dispute don't reach agreement tonight, all buses and subways stop working tomorrow morning. Restrictions go into place forbidding cars from entering or leaving Manhattan with fewer than four passengers. (Hint: A Miata cannot possibly hold more than two people. Not without chopping them up, anyway.)
Second-order effects? You can't possibly find a cab. People will be commuting across the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. Lots of people who live outside of Manhattan, but work here, will try to find somewhere to stay in Manhattan for the duration. It'll be like living in Italy.
Life will be ever so much more fun during this festive season.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was so cute, all dressed
in holiday velveteen

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