Plurp: Back from the shadows again

Bigger!

2003.08.24 : 2003.08.30

Saturday, August 30, 2003
Blab. We give our readers hope. Well, one reader, anyway. For a brief moment.
"Madonna Recruits Britney, Christina into Lesbianism"
The most important thing about it to me is that a 23-year-old babe will kiss a 45-year-old.
It gives me great hope.
L.
That's absolutely right. As long as you're a wealthy bisexual, female rock star. Which, of course, you are.

Blab. A correspondent who shall remain nameless sends us this.
[link]
It is werksafe, after a fashion, though we find the kink involved quite beyond the pale, even for us.

Yow. News from "Canada".
A Canadian teenager has launched legal action against classmates who put a video of him online, saying that the publicity has left him mentally scarred.
Ghyslain Raza became known as the "Star Wars Kid" after a video of him using a golf ball retriever to emulate the light sabre slinging tricks of Darth Maul was posted on the net.
You've all seen this long ago, but we hadn't. This poor nerdy guy (and we definitely identify) has his few-minute vid stolen and posted on the 'Net. Worse, people far more clever than we make dozens of remixes (the most popular of which are here). And, oh Baal, are the remixes funny!
Which is to say, we feel very, very sorry for Ghyslain. It's just not fair.

Plurp. Here's a Manhattan vet who makes house calls.
We offer traditional as well as alternative therapy which includes acupuncture and Chinese herbalism.
Don't ask how we know that. Or why we care.

Plurp. Today was a Spa Day for us.
After weeks of fanatic travel, sleepless nights, manic work and way too much social interaction, Helen indulged us in a day to ourself.
We slept until the requisite double-digit hours, lazed slowly into the day, had bagels for lunch, killed a few dozen random people in Unreal, then decided to have a bubble bath. We had Asian fusion food delivered for dinner and posted Plurp with the intention of doing little more this evening than killing a bunch more random people.
It's just wonderful.

Plurp. We can't find a single recipe for hot dogs and lime Jell-O. Why is that?

Plurp.
The blue dog
couldn't find a single recipe
for ...

Friday, August 29, 2003
Blab. Our cousins on the Upper West Side ask the age-old question.
Why "plurp" and not "burp?"
The origins of the name of our humble blog ought rightly to be shrouded in mystery. Unfortunately, they are not. Quite the opposite, you can see them in the very first entry for Plurp, before we had even really decided to do a blog, as due entirely to a spontaneous coinage, with a decision (of sorts) on using it as a name the very next day.

Blab. A reader reassures us, though darkly.
You are not passe. Just change you blog's name. That's what Dr Bruce did.
OK! Hereinafter, the name of our blog shall be Plurp.

Blab. A reader suggests a possibility that had not occurred to us.
|\_._._/|
| o o |
\ .` /
|`---|
|    |    Der blaue Hund got high on cream tea.
|`___|\_
/|    |\
##    ##
That would explain much, though not the cultural significance of various flavors of afternoon tea. Perhaps we are doomed never to know.

Blab. A reader couldn't believe its eyes. Or ears. Or something.
"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
Damn, you heard that too, huh? I thought I was having a nightmare full of idiots. Or at least one ...or a dozen, all in that one little muscley head.
Actually, we read it (too). But any time you feel like a nightmare full of idiots, please feel free to come here.

Blab. A reader taunts us.
Vader fetish DIY
Yes, it's "the Internet's Biggest Vader Costuming site." And darn our masters for keeping us locked up all the time. We were unaware that there were any Vader Costuming sites on the Internet.
We've been slaving away with nothing but old sheets dyed black and a scuffed up motorcycle helmet with bright red stripes on it. And we were using a real cod for the codpiece.
If only we had known.

Blab. Have you gotten mail from Robby Todino looking for time-travel devices? He's quite fun.
... appears to violate the laws of science ...
Curiously, our reader's excerpt is from a sentence in a Wired article that begins thusly:
Be that as it may, Todino's recent spam not only appears to violate the laws of science, [...]
So the spam appears to violate the laws of science? You go, Wired!
Anyhow, it's not a hoax. You really can buy a #WC2200 Dimensional Warp Generator. Pretty good price, too.

Plurp. Here's a scary thought.
Springwise's suggestion to everyone with a website boasting lots of visitors and good name recognition: start looking for the stories behind your content, visitors, members and customers, then turn it into a TV format and start pitching to the networks.
Imagine. Just imagine.
Or, better yet, let's make it a Late In the Week Plurp Contest! Send us your elevator pitch for Plurp as a TV show. Do it, even though we have too few visitors about which to boast, and have to fight with bodily functions for name recognition. Do it now, while franchise rights are still available. (Caterina)

Yow. A review, of sorts, or maybe a legal analysis, of the Ten Commandments.
The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them. I am the lord thy god and thou shalt have no other ... no graven images ... no taking of my name in vain: surely these could have been compressed into a more general injunction to show respect. [...]
So the first four commandments have almost nothing to do with moral conduct and cannot in any case be enforced by law unless the state forbids certain sorts of art all week, including religious and iconographic art—and all activity on the Sabbath (which the words of the fourth commandment do not actually require). [...]
One is presuming (is one not?) that this is the same god who actually created the audience he was addressing. This leaves us with the insoluble mystery of why he would have molded (“in his own image,” yet) a covetous, murderous, disrespectful, lying, and adulterous species. Create them sick, and then command them to be well? What a mad despot this is, and how fortunate we are that he exists only in the minds of his worshippers.
Simply marvelous.
And hey, you folks who are camped out in Alabama - it's a free clue. That means you can instead devote your scarce income from subsistence farming towards Hooked On Phonics so that you, too, can one day read the Bill of Rights.
We feel certain that it will prove enlightening to you.

Yo.

Madonna Recruits Britney, Christina into Lesbianism
Well, that's not exactly the headline they used. But it's pretty close.

Yow. Lunchtalk today.
You know that vampire movie? The one where the space vampires are in a space ship that's inside Halley's comet, and when the comet comes around they wake up an wreak havoc? What's the name of that?
You've already guessed the answer, haven't you? It's vampire "halley's comet" I'm Feeling Lucky.
We love the Web.

Yo. 1977 Oui Magazine interview with soon-to-be-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. We'll wager that he now regrets this particular interview. A lot. (Caterina)

Plurp.
The blue dog
denied recruiting anybody
for anything

Thursday, August 28, 2003
Blab. As a coda to our Obscure Reader Plurp Contest, a reader suggests that we conform to tradition. We hate that.
Do you have a prize for the winner?
Even a prize for the winner would help.
Oh, all right. You'll probably insist that we pick one or more winners as well. Fine.
Having followed a certain ritual involving amputated parts of dogs and questions asked of chickens, we declare the following to be Winners.
Do you have long-term inequity?
Even long-term inequity would help.
Do you have Haiku?
Even a Haiku would help.
Do you have Haiku?
Do you have an orbital mind control laser?
Even an orbital mind control laser would help.
We don't have to say why. So, for all you winners, here's your prize.

Wasn't that fun?

Blab. An observant reader reports ...
SIGHTINGS:
I. A three legged dog, walked into a bar and shouted, "I'm alookin for da man dat shot mah pah." Then the dog barked incessently and pissed on a barstool.
II. A five legged donkey, lives by the sea....
III. A man's sister drove a wooden picklewagon with a kickstand. She was careful.
IV. Two chupacabras were found mutilated by some pesky chickens. The chickens declined comment.
V.   Rush Limbaugh has discovered a cyst in his uterus. The cyst declined comment.
Long ago, a careful woman grafted the leg of a dog onto a donkey. Elsewhere, a chicken was questioned by a man made of cheese. Two birds were seen in a remote monastery with a surgeon and a pickle. An imaginary creature was driven by recurring dreams of body parts and oceans to perform certain rituals resulting in the death of dogs.
In spite of this, a deaf man with a barking dog constructed a means of transportation entirely out of commercial seating, bodily growths and the number five.

Blab. A reader sends us an old joke.
What kept the agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac awake all night?
Wondering if Dog really existed or not.
Oh - we get it! Dog.
For your amusement, here's the (a) broken joke version:
What kept the agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac awake all night?
Traffic.

Blab. A reader submits to us. We like that.
Submitted for your approval, two broken jokes:
"I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith."
"What a coincidence! I know him too."
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"The polite cow."
"The polite cow who?"
"Moooo!"
We like the first one, which could also have a punch line of Really? What's the name of his wooden leg?, though we're not sure that's actually funny. Anyway, so immortalized.
You lost us on that second one, though. What's the unbroken joke to which it corresponds?

Yow. Oh, look. Another nearby Zen monastery in which we can imagine spending some quiet time. And all because we asked Google how to spell monastery. We love the Web.

Plurp. So Bruce Sterling is giving up on blogging (well, at least in that venue). We suppose this means that we are now passé. We find this thought comforting.
Next: Wil Wheaton.

Plurp. Recent signs of incompetence.
There have been [an error occurred while processing this directive] hits on this page since January 4, 2001

Plurp. Marketing.
This Shock Absorber sports bra was designed especially for Anna Kournikova, because only the ball should bounce.

Plurp. Another EverQuest-related death. We should all support Spouses Against EverQuest.

Plop. We spent far too long today on the phone with the local computer help desk which, in the interests of truth in advertising, should be renamed the sultry lounge singer desk, as most of the time was spent on hold listening to said sultry lounge singer instead of getting help.
(To be fair, we did ultimately get through to a very helpful guy who really did fix the problem. It is not known if he is also a sultry lounge singer.)
Then, later this afternoon, our PC suddenly decided that it didn't want to be powered by the power adapter any more. We punished it by ripping out its brain and transplanting it into a similar but not identical body. Well, we didn't do this. We would have screwed it up beyond belief. We had a guru do it for us. Miraculously, it worked.
Have we mentioned that we hate computers?

Yak.
It's like water off a hydrocephalic's brain.

Yow. Arnie!
I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.

Plurp. We've decided on our hip-hop name: Doctor Dub.
Gosh, that's clever.

Yo. Speaking of power outages ...
Passengers were trapped on the London Underground as a power outage struck the city during evening rush hour Thursday.
"We have lost supplies to large parts of south London in the last few minutes as a result of a National Grid failure supply in the south London area," a spokesman for electricity network operator EDF Energy told Britain's Press Association. [...]
"All major stations -- Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo -- are affected and all main train lines have stopped.
"Some stations are in darkness and others have emergency lighting."
We caused the one in the U.S. northeast by leaving for London, and this one by leaving London for NYC. We will accept payment for not leaving NYC for a while. Cash, please; small bills, but lots of them. Thank you.

Plurp. Good news.
[Microsoft], which has been repeatedly blamed for leaving security loopholes in its software, said that it could not eliminate threats similar to Sobig without a complete redesign of the personal computer — an effort that would not conclude until “2005 or 2006”.
We're pretty impressed. It's not often that a major corporation signs up to solve a problem that is formally undecideable, and do it in less than three years.

Plurp.
The blue dog
signed up to prove
the Axiom of Choice

Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Blab. Today we reach the orgiastic conclusion of our Obscure Reader Plurp Contest, which was self referentially entitled Do You Have a Noun Phrase?
Do you have a bony apitite? Even a bony apitite would help.
Oddly, this is paired with a second entry, which also coins an entirely new misspelling.
Do you have a horse deuvers? Even a horse deuvers would help.
An overheated reader takes the form to asymptopia.
Do you have a bungle in the jungle? Even a bungle in the jungle would help.
Do you have a William Jefferson Clinton? Even a William Jefferson Clinton would help.
Do you have a microbial infection? Even a microbial infection would help.
Do you have long-term inequity? Even long-term inequity would help.
Do you have a hole in the bed? Even a hole in the bed would help.
Do you have scum in the gums? Even scum in the gums would help.
We find that absolutely hilarious, which probably means it's time to quit. And if that doesn't, this does.
Have you had afternoon tea somewhere really nice?
Even afternoon tea somewhere moderately decent would help.
Which misses the point of the form entirely.

Blab. But it does get us on the important topic of afternoon tea.
Nononono .... you don't get it. By 4pm, after walking around all day long, you don't really want a cup of tea. You are DYING for a bucket of ice. Trust I was there. Now, maybe an ICE cart would make some sense.
But aren't you really describing cream tea, not high tea? Ian, where are you when we need you! Hmmmmmmm ....... maybe he was always too busy studying for tea.
Whether it's afternoon tea, cream tea or high tea, we are completely confused. What is the cultural significance of this (these) obscure ritual(s)?

Blab. One of that jackbooted cadre of privacy violators writes:
I don't wear boots in this kind of weather (not even to mention the fashion faux pas involved!) and my name is NOT Jack! We will discuss THAT this weekend? Will you be there (here? right here)
Aha! You have revealed yourself! Now we know not to look for people wearing boots. Unless this is a ruse ...

Blab. But enough of that. Back to the topic of what's funny. Yesterday, we reported the results of a study by "Canadian" researchers on the effects of aging on comprehension of jokes. Today, a "Canadian" sympathizer writes:
You TOTALLY missed the joke.
Smiths don't use lawnmowers.
They use anvils.
Dorian, the good humour man
Yes, we know. That's why it was funny.
Cthulhu approached Mr Smith at noon on Sunday and inquired "Say Smith, are you using your lawnmower this afternoon?" "Yes, I am," Smith replied warily. Then Cthulhu ate him.
Along similar lines, a reader unearths the mysterious fifth alternative.
(E) "Aaaghghgrlg..." as Smith ran over him with his lawnmower. Can't have those pesky neighbors snooping around.
Yep. That's funny.

Blab. Probing the nether boundaries of our internal experience of amusement, a reader supposes this.
Dear Plurp: I suppose you think this is funny.
This being a newly favorite joke of someone we never heard of.
My dog has no dictionary!
How does it spell "terrible"?
Actually, that just strikes us as puzzling; we do not find it funny. On the other hand, a reader of that other site posts its own favorite joke in reply.
Two biscuits are walking down the road. One biscuit says to the other one "Where do you live then?" The other one replies "I'm not telling you - you'll come round and steal my washing!"
Now that's funny!

Blab. Or, as said so well by this reader ...
That particular feces is superior to TEN incestuous maternal fornicators!

Blab. Back to more important concerns, a reader writes:
IA IA!!!
This is, of course, a currently raging controversy.

Larry Ellard of Pleasant Grove, Alabama, stands next to a large tablet representing Cthulhu, which he claims will "rise from the depths of the city of Rylegh, and rule the universe for a thousand thousand years, IA! IA!" on the steps of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery August 22, 2003. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's defiant stand over the cult of Elder Gods is only the latest skirmish in a running battle between the ranks of insane cultists and civil libertarians that dates back to Abdul "The Mad Arab" Alhazred's 1910s epic about the Necronomicon, experts say.
So it really is about freedom of religion, after all.

Plurp. The usual suspects from this past week.

helen naked pitures

imani

chihuly

iris chacon

quorn naked pictures

naked pictures of helen

bittrney spears

plausible deniability

britney

mia

Good to see those Iris Chacon fans showing such persistence.

Plop. In a bizarre mating of modern dance and self-mutilation last week, we reached across the arm of a couch to plug in our PC and wrenched an intercostal muscle rather badly. (These are the muscles between your ribs.)
As the injury developed to its full glory in the subsequent day or so, it became painful to reach with our right arm, painful to rise from a seated position, painful to turn over while lying down, and painful just to breathe.
It is amazing how draining such constant pain can be! Despite repeated dosing with an odd English medicine (a cross between aspirin and Alka Seltzer), we found ourself thinking, constantly, Do I really need to stand up right now? Maybe I can do that later.
It's beginning to heal now, and we catch ourself not thinking in great detail about trivial actions. It's such a relief to be unconscious about trivialities again.

Yak.
How far is Mars from the Earth right now?
Thirty-five thousand miles.
Thirty-five thousand miles?
Oh, I meant thirty-five light years.
We blame public education.

Plop. Steve Mann, who became famous as an MIT grad student who wore a computer-enhanced vision device all the time, has only gotten weirder with the passing years.
I would say, in general, corporeal de-referencing, which I think of as the postmodern age--or the cyborg age--is something that we saw quite a bit of. And then we now see that sort of thing on the decline again.
Right.

Plurp.
Do you have a blue dog?
Even a blue dog would
help.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Blab. A reader with an odd smile says:
That was a reallllly long plurp
We can only hope that our Treasured Reader refers to yesterday's entry in this very blog. Otherwise, we don't want to know.

Blab. A reader reacts as expected to our recent experiments.
The orbital mind control lasers have acted:
You have a friend in Pennsylvania.
Show me.
Oklahoma IS OK.

Please help me to suspend this catatonic state! I've tried repeated blows to the head, but that doesn't seem to work anymore. I would urinate on an electric fence, but the wind is blowing too fast (and too many blackouts). Braiding the armpit hair also produces neglible results. Has any one ever heard of anti-aroma therapy?
Also, my spam has spam. Not very manly I must say.
Should I ask Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura? Should they in-breed, or go clone themselves.
Youth in Asia? Same as watching TV - truculence and pugulism.
How does "painting a dog blue" feel?
Diene mutta sogth hunde sphenser! (sp?)
Is that it? Paint something an inordinary color? Ingenious!!!! How 'bout a pink democrat or a yellow-bellied repub? a blond brunett? a green malato? a pee-green beet?

I'd like to see a pee-green beet.
Your effervescent scintillation is most appreciated.
We like this reader a great deal. But then, we have a soft spot for those whose mentality aberrs. In any event, reciprocity being what it is, we are obliged to comply with our reader's unreasonable requests.

Blab. A reader participates in the democratic process. Such as it is.
Cthulhu for California Governor
Why vote for the lesser of two evils?

Blab. A reader uses this humble blog to issue orders to its global army.

Aquatic samurai, attack!

Watch the waters.

Blab. A reader attempts the impossible.
Have you Cthulhu?
Even Cthulhu would help.
Moist, eldritch <noun phrase>.
This was running through our small head today, and morphed into the following.
The loveliness of London seems somehow sadly gay
The glory of Sumeria is of another day
I've been frightened and alone in my nightmares in Manhattan
I'm going home to my city 'neath the waves
I lost my mind to great Cthulhu
From stygi'an depths, he calls to me
And when you rise rise again, great Cthulhu
Your foetid wings will rend the air, I don't care
Great Cthulhu waits in old R'lyeh
Beneath the dark and stormy sea
I will come home to you, great Cthulhu
Your madness mine, the end of me

Blab. A reader suggests a detailed explanation of the cultural significance of high tea in England.
It's just that if you have lunch in london and then walk around all afternoon, by 4pm you're really dying for a cup of tea!
OK, that's certainly a possibility. But wouldn't that be just as easily satisfied by a simple tea cart on the street corner? The part that we don't understand is the utter fanciness of high tea: the fancy tidbits to eat, the fine china, the beautifully appointed room. Is it our own fifteen minutes of royalty?

Blab. One of the jackbooted cadre that records our every conversation writes:
Regarding the Christopher bet. Traveling through the Midtown Tunnel Sunday, Steve proposed the wager. I was confident that my advance planning would prove me right. But I was surprized that Steve didn't have more faith in his bet when he turned down raising it to a dime.   I think we might be seeing Steve come around in his trust of Christopher.
H
We will not reveal to the jackbooted cadre that we never bet more than a nickel on anything.

Blab. A reader disputes a random phrase.
"official news"? In what way is the BBC news "official"? Just curious, you understand -- if anything, the recent grubby spat between the BBC and the BSM (Blair Spin Machine) should encourage you to consider the BBC news decidedly unofficial...
Was that BBC 1 or BBC 2 ?

Plurp. Official news.
Researchers in Canada have found that a person's sense of humour remains intact when they grow old.
However, they have found that the ability to understand more complex jokes can deteriorate with age.
Get it?
Coincidentally ...
[People who were tested for this study] were asked to select the correct punchline from four options for 16 incomplete jokes. For instance, the first part of one joke read:
"The neighbour approached Mr Smith at noon on Sunday and inquired 'Say Smith, are you using your lawnmower this afternoon?' 'Yes, I am,' Smith replied warily."
Those involved in the study then had to choose from one of four options. "Then the neighbour answered:
(A) 'Fine, you won't be wanting your golf clubs, I'll just borrow them'; or
(B) 'Oops!' as the rake he walked on barely missed his face; or
(C) 'Oh well, can I borrow it when you're done then?; or
(D) 'The birds are always eating my grass seed.'
The correct or humorous answer in this case was A.
This is clearly incorrect. The correct answer is (C), which is very funny indeed.

Plurp.
The blue dog
ate those
Peruvian beets

Monday, August 25, 2003
Blab. Readers whose short term memory is still intact may remember that we are in the middle of a reader-initiated Obscure Reader Plurp Contest, which we have only just now dubbed Do You Have a Noun Phrase? Readers are invited to submit couplets of the form ...
Do you have a <noun phrase>?
Even a <noun phrase> would help.
... where <noun phrase> obeys some rule that has not been stated.
Do you have Haiku?
Even a Haiku would help.
Do you have Haiku?
Ya, ok... a pathetic attempt... but an attempt nonetheless.
We like it a lot! If it had been a Cthulhu Haiku, you would have won the Grand Prize.
Just as terrifying, another reader writes:
Do you have a Bezos head sports bra?
Even a Bezos head sports bra would help.
We beseech our readers not to follow that link (or this one). And, if you do, not to look upon those eyes - those glowing, all-consuming eyes!
Finally (for today), a reader commits a slight breach of protocol.
Do you have a cortex? Any cortex would help.
This would have been much funnier in the correct formulation, we think.

Blab. A reader who was apparently in the focus of the mind control lasers on Saturday when we enjoined you to buy picnic stuff at Harrod's writes:
Hey, I had a birthday party in an English park!
H
How about that.

Blab. A reader wonders about a similar ritual.
Have you had afternoon tea somewhere really nice, maybe Brown's?
You know, we haven't. In fact, despite being a confirmed tea drinker while in England (and pretty much only there), we seem to have missed out on the whole afternoon tea thing. We're probably confused about the point of the ritual, as we're fairly sure that drinking tea is not it, and we even suspect that food consumption is merely the frame upon which the canvas of its larger social significance is stretched.
If one of our cultured, Treasured Readers would explain this larger significance to us, we might well indulge next time we're in the Zone.

Blab. And, by the way:
It's "Harrods", old chum. Not "Harrod's".
Quite so. Would that we were so familiar with that wonderful store to call it by its first name.

Blab. Defending the media for accusing software companies of not solving the virus problem because "they" make so much money by not doing so (as opposed to it being impossible), a reader writes:
"The traditional media have been accused of failing to think very hard about the stories they report because they make so much money selling mindless hype."
Readers, especially technocrats, often criticize the media without actually understanding what it is that they're saying because they derive so much self-satisfaction from their inability to grasp simple language.
Aaugh! We are wounded by the superior literary and cultural acumen of our Treasured Reader, and pledge never again to say anything involving analogies or sarcasm.

Blab. A reader sends us something that is ...
Very scary.
The linked page refers to a dog named Bobalou, who was the Dog of the Day yesterday and who, it is said, can do the hokey pokey.
Good Morning, beautiful Bobalou!! Oh, I'm SO thrilled to be the first to meet and greet you today! What a stunning canine you are! I love your brindle makings, that strong, muscular (yet feminine) figure and those darling ears!
There is, it now appears, an entire subculture of slobbering, slathering, supplicating sycophants who live to fawn over dogs. We fear that there is an unvoiced erotic component to their tributes.

Blab. As if that were not bad enough, a reader alerts us to this.
More on the robot menace, this time they are disguising themselves as harmless dinosaurs.
The socialization of humanity continues.

If you visit the Disneyland Resort this week, keep your eyes peeled for the new creation from Imagineering: Lucky the Audio-Animatronic dinosaur is loose in Disney's California Adventure. [...]
Lucky stands about eight feet tall, and his head and neck can lift almost straight up. He walks on his two back legs and pulls a very large cart of silk flowers. Lucky and Chandler interact, but Chandler does not operate the character—Lucky is controlled by two discreet operators on the sidelines. Lucky grunts, groans and whines in reaction to Chandler's comments and events around him. He can blow his nose, wink, smile, and look around.
Are there things that you do on your PC, like rebooting once a day, or never clicking on a particular button, that you do ritually, without quite understanding why? The machines are conditioning you. Soon all humanity will be subjugated.

Yow. In the meantime, we are back, at long last, from that Zone of Unpredictable Connectivity. Besides connectivity, the things we missed the most were:

Air conditioning. Or even fans. Criminey.

Ice. Folks, it's a 19th century commodity. Get with it.

Chinese food, delivered to our door whenever we want it. "Oh, no place in town serves food this late," the Winchester pub folks would say when we went out for dinner at 7 PM.

Our own bed.

Television having more than seven channels, with content other than official news and low-budget comedies.

In other news, we lost another nickel bet with Helen when it turned out that Him Whose Name Is a Low-Budget Comedy had deposited no excretory substances (other than hair) in untoward parts of our apartment. We hate to lose, but we do consider it the best five cents we ever invested.

Yo. All you dot-commies out there, still looking for jobs and figuring that Corporate America will fall all over you for your invaluable job experience during The Bubble? You might want to develop Plan B.
"I won't hire those dot-commers who were paying absurd rents, eating in expensive restaurants, basically living on borrowed money and borrowed time," said Willy Shih, president of the digital and applied imaging division at Eastman Kodak.
Fun while it lasted, though, we imagine.

Plurp. Ever wanted to build a tree house? No, not those poor excuses you slapped together as a kid out of spare two-by-fours and discarded nails. We mean a real, obsessive, yuppie tree house!
Well, now you can, with the help of several companies who will gladly take your money in return for books, designs, supplies and glad-handed advice.
Or were you, like us, way too lazy to build even the shoddiest of tree houses in your youth, and wouldn't even consider doing so now, but still you pine for the romance of sleeping between the limbs? No problemo. There are people who will take vast sums of money from you to let you stay, for a few wistful nights, in tiny, toiletless rooms in a tree, in larger structures that are just a few feet off the ground (for the acrophobes among you), or in vast condominia in the canopy of a rain forest.
Think of us as one-stop shopping for the abandoned dreams of your youth.

Yo. Steven Strogatz (of Small World fame) checks in with this colorful metaphor for the Great Outage of '03.
The blackout was not caused by an infectious electrical disease; it was caused by the grid's immune response to the threat of such a disease. In other words, the grid suffered a violent allergic reaction, a sort of anaphylactic shock.
Despite the dangerous use of metaphor there, it's actually a pretty good op-ed piece, which you should go read.

Rant. Having recently been in cities on at least two continents that were suffering sweltering summer weather, we have been busy with our anthropological studies. Our current project is midriff shirts, those curious articles of female clothing that expose a few inches of naked tummy (including the navel) for an adoring public.
Our study finds such articles of clothing to have a generally beneficent effect on society. However, we have been dismayed - oh, all right, we'll just come right out and say shocked - by certain of you who just don't understand the rules.
As a public service to those of you who apparently didn't get the memo, we offer a few pointers. Midriff shirts are intended to aid in sexual display, as a way for females to show off their suitability as mates. As such, they are intended to display qualities of youth, vigor, and sexual readiness. Wearing a midriff shirt is evolutionarily contraindicated if any of the following apply.

You are a nun, a contestant in the Miss Celibacy USA Contest, or are otherwise clearly sexually unavailable to anyone. It just ain't right.

You are belly-ectomorphic. You know what we mean. Now we realize that most of you don't realize that you're belly-ectomorphic, so we offer some helpful hints. If the part of your belly above the top of your pants protrudes (even slightly) over the top of your pants, you qualify. If any part of your belly protrudes past a vertical line from your sternum to the ground, you qualify. Midriff shirts just aren't for you. Instead, focus attention on some other, more evolutionarily suited, body part. You have lovely elbows, for instance.

You have squeezed out five or six puppies already. See (2). Don't argue with us here.

You have had an appendectomy or a c-section. That's just freaky.

You are over 30. Again, we are sorry to break the news to you, but this is just not the fashion trend for you.

You are a guy. Don't make us tell you twice.

Thank you for your attention.

Plurp. You have to admire this. Well, you don't, but we do.
The apes kept Estella in a little white box.

Plurp.
The Bezos head
ever wanted to be
a real, obsessive, yuppie
tree house

Sunday, August 24, 2003
Plurp.

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