Plurp: Back By Popular Demand

Bigger!

2003.10.12 : 2003.10.18

Saturday, October 18, 2003
Blab. A reader informs us that ...
Short people got no reason to live.
Ian sent us a link to a similar article on Friday, seemingly happy at the news.
Tall people earn considerably more money throughout their lives than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay, according to a new study.
We discover an innovative new way to cut costs.

Blab. Best Spam Subject Line O' The Day
Spankey, Order your medication in the comfort of your home!

Blab. Loli writes:
What's with all the loli references lately? Trying to conjure me?
Always, Loli. Always.

Blab. A reader suggests a low-brow sporting event involving two people that we've never heard of.
I'm not certain, but that may be a misplaced high caste mark on the Presbyterian's forehead. Probably the best known Presbyterian of our time.. well, maybe with the exception of Aaron Burr... a gainer and a twit, Gregg Easterbrook has found himself gaining just loads of attention, as anti-Semite in residence at the New Republic, the next stop on the way to perdition (in the archaic sense) after the insipid Atlantic. I think a wrestling match between Gregg and Harvey might be a fine charity event.
Do let us know when you've got that scheduled.

Yow. We are pretty impressed with Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. It tells us why most Hollywood special effects involving fast things or explosive things are basically bogus. With equations to back up the claims! Pretty darn cool.
There are even movie review that review the physics in the movies. Definitely our kind of fanatic. (rachelleb)

Yak. Failed Ad Campaigns of the Future.
We don't make the things that make things smarter.
We make the things that make the things that make things smarter, smarter.

Yo. Video games cure phobias!
Regular, off-the-shelf computer video games are an effective method of treating people's fears, using a style of therapy that exposes people to what scares them in a controlled setting, according to a new study released on Friday.
Like fear of wasting time on mindless activities, we suppose.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was once a Presbyterian
named Spankey who
used video games
to cure phobias

Friday, October 17, 2003
Blab. A reader demeans the abilities of other Treasured Readers, without surpassing them. We make a record of this behavior.
If you stop to think, alas, the whole <input> thing wasn't much of a hack at all. It simply revealed to us the fun world of HTML-per-Oliverbot; that is to say, HTML code entered into the box shows up too. Though I suppose some creative people could do some rather interesting things with this given enough spare time and/or caffeinated beverages.
Yes, but isn't that what's meant by, um, hacking?

Blab. A reader keeps us up on events in Iraq.
New Iraqi dinar
That's demeaning and cynical! And funny, of course.

Blab. A reader keeps us up on events in Guangzhou.
Whack a Rat
Those appear to be rodents of unusual size.

Blab. A reader keeps us up on events in Minnesota.
Alleged beet-truck hijacker to get mental evaluation
It seems redundant, doesn't it?

Blab. A reader is ...
Calling all Quorn users!
Yes, it is Pure Marketing Genius^TM.
Does your pub serve Quorn products? If so, manufacturer Marlow Foods would like to hear from you. [...]
Because of the public demand Marlow Foods is putting together a directory to let customers know where they can eat Quorn.
Calling all potato eaters!

Blab. A reader insists that we do this:
Treat your feet with coward shoes!
We feel that cowardice is an adaptive response to the reception that these awful accessories must have gotten through the years.

Blab. A reader points out that ...
Taco Bell is not slow food
We're pretty sure that was our point.

Blab. An old friend writes:
Hi, I used to know a Steve White, but he did not look like you. Did you look different 30 years ago?
Yes.

Plurp. Pamela Anderson is urging a boycott of KFC.

"If people knew how KFC treats its chickens, they'd never eat another drumstick," [said Anderson.]
Another drumstick. Another drumstick.

Plurp.
The blue dog
wanted to turn over
all of the leaves

Thursday, October 16, 2003
Blab. An etymologist of some note writes:

Yo Plurp Dude!
The treasured reader that referred to the chigger bites would be an "arachnid fetishist", not an "insect fetishist."
Although this is a mere technicality, please make note of this and try to be more accurate next time you attempt to classify a reader's response.
But I must say thank you for the effort and time you spend on this hilarious blog. Keep striving for quality!
--Society of Quality assurance
We learn new stuff all the time. Today, we learned that chiggers are arachnids rather than insects. Of course, that fact displaced the knowledge of where we put our car keys. But maybe the chigger thing is more important.

Blab. Today's blind ...
[link]

Blab. A reader informs us of the innovative use of goofy pictures to prevent poisoning.
Poisoning, the ages-old method of assassination, is now foiled with motorcades and mice. Plus, a goofy picture of our glorious leader.
You think that's a goofy picture? Try this.

Blab. We trick a new reader into coming here by posting on some other blog.
Hi
I saw an old post of yours on Rachelleb.com about Mexican food in NYC. Is there any good Mexican food in NYC or Taco Bell the only option?
Tara
Alas, dear Tara, our experience with Mexican food in NYC is extremely bleak. There are a number of fancified burrito places, but they're Mexican like Pizza Hut is Italian. Taco Bell has been a fav of ours since tothood, but it's Mexican like McDonald's is slow food.
There are a couple of places that are good, if odd. There's a Cubano-Mexican place on Broadway, down around 14th somewhere, whose name we've forgotten, that has some really good duck tacos. But, you know, duck tacos?
There's Taqueria de Mexico, which is pretty good.
But there's no place like Alfonso's. No way. Not that we've found.
If you (or our other Treasured Readers) find good Mexican food in NYC, please be sure to let us know! 'Cause we're pretty much desperate.

Blab. A reader points in the general direction of ...
blurry plurp
Right. Just type www.stevewhite.org/log/current/ into their little box and mash the button.
We don't see the difference, though.

Blab. A reader dumps on our new friend, Tim Jordan.
Always reassuring to know that professors (like Tim Jordan) still use frames on their web pages. Ah, the ivory tower and blue skies of academia!
Maybe that's because they spend their time on their research rather than on chasing the bleeding edge of How To Display Text And Graphics.

Blab. An intense researcher writes:
After intense research (involving listening to Radio Zurisee) I discovered a deep dark secret about Gov. elect Schwarzenegger of Freistaat Californien. He is a clone of Dr. Christian (Frankenstein) Schwarzenegger of University of Zurich. Given the high quality of this forum, I thought here would be the best place to publish this. - Morton
We're not sure which part of this frightens us more. That Ahhnold is the gubenor-elect of California? That he has a clone? That our Treasured Reader thinks that this is the best place to publish this?
We just don't know.

Blab. We wondered if that N-layer pizza monstrosity from yesterday could possibly be real. This reader reveals that it wasn't even unique.
The Nth-degree pizza thing reminds me of something I did once. Inspired by the various "three-cheese" and "four-cheese" pizzas, I made a double-decker seven-cheese pizza. From bottom up: crust, sauce, four layers of cheese, another crust, sauce, four layers of cheese. (There were two layers of mozzarella, one on each "deck," so that there were only seven different cheeses even though there were eight layers of cheese.) I don't remember what all the cheeses were, but the top one was ricotta, placed on in dollops rather than spread evenly over the pizza.
If anyone else wants to try this, I'd recommend using low-fat cheeses as much as possible. Normally I wouldn't touch low-fat cheeses with a ten-foot pole, but using regular cheeses resulted in huge puddles of grease sitting on the pizza. Still, it was good.
Oink.

Blab. A reader gives up. It's so sad.
I try to hack into oliverbot, but it is really hard. If you type in- What is CBR? then he tells you about that grammatical match-up thing. I dont understand what to do about the <input> thing, either.
Treasured Readers who just happen to hack Oliverbot are required to tell us their secrets. Not that we encourage this activity, of course. Heck, it's probably illegal.

Plurp. At a meeting today at another large company in Manhattan, the executive who introduced us referred to us as his "brain trust".
We had a hard time not giggling.

Plurp. The Game Neverending, first promised for last spring, is now promised for "some time in 2004". We worry that this means "never".
And we're not alone. The Game Neverstarting has spawned a new game: GNE Mystery.
It's nearly Christmas 2003, and Ludicorp still haven't released GNE. Something must be going on at the Ludicorp offices...
Front Of The Office
You are standing outside a medium sized, new-looking office block. Blue grass rises majestically above you, and off to the east and west. To your north is the main entrance. To the south is the main carpark.
It's great. Colossal Cave interface and all. Those were the days.

Yow.This is cool.
The Price Tower, one of only two Frank Lloyd Wright skyscrapers (if a building smaller than our apartment building can be considered a skyscraper) is now open as a hotel. Which is to say, should madness overcome us and we find ourself trapped in godforsaken Bartlesville, Ohio, we could reclaim some small portion of our sanity by living in the Price Tower for a day or two.
Yeah. That would be cool.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was a digger,
not a chigger.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Blab. A well-trained reader writes:
The training exercise was hilarious. An excellent idea for a vacationing blogger.
I hope your satisfied.
Vacation? Mais no! We merely allowed our Treasured Readers the space they needed to respond properly to the training. We are delighted with the results.

Blab. On our speculation that the cycle time of California politicians will soon become an important measure of the working of the system, a reader asks:
Would we measure the recall frequency in Guberhertz?
Quite possibly! We suspect the standard unit would then be the micro-Guberhertz, similar to the standard unit of capacitance being the picofarad.

Blab. We have a few stragglers from some contest or other a couple of weeks ago.
Before spell check I used to mis-spell things all the time!
No Skrit!

I still do!
No shrit!
Very nerdly.
Did you hear they're re-re-making King Kong?
No Wray!
That's funny!
Hey! Where's the amusing weekly modified Afghan Woman?
No Skit?
Nope. No skit at all.
Statement: I'm exhausted.
Response: Quit running behind cars.
Statement: I'm tired.
Response: Quit running in front of cars.
Statement: I'm fatigued.
Response: Quit the Army.
A rather wide variant. But funny.

Blab. We accept responsibility for the addiction of certain readers to conversing with bots. We are so sorry.
More Oliverbot...
Me: Are you male or female?
OB: I am a male robot. Are you a man or a woman?
Me: I am a woman.
OB: Me too. I am a she.
Me: So are you a she-male?
OB: Right on. Am I a she-male? Sometimes.
We are not worried about the Turing test being passed any time soon.

Blab. Mistaking us for a constitutional lawyer, a reader writes:
Heh. Does fingerprinting also constitute an unconstitutional suspicionless search? Why or why not?
Heh. He said "search". Heh.

Blab. A reader aims to improve our mental health, a target of rapidly decreasing size these days.
Enjoy talking online? You might be ill! Explore medical anti-texting treatment at London's Priory Clinic.
Our Treasured Reader's link seems to have developed a case of rot, but here's the same story elsewhere. All of you with an uncontrollable desire to send us a text message should go click on that link instead. It's for your own good.

Blab. A reader questions our honesty. But we are not offended. No, not hardly.
You really don't know who we are? Don't you get URL's with our blabs?
That is, could we, if we had an infinite amount of free time and really cared about it, correlate our access logs and our Blab contribution logs, and get some tiny bits of information about who writes what?
Yeah, maybe. As if we had that free time. As if we really cared. And, even so, the tiny bits would be very tiny and not very helpful. (Those tiny bits being IP addresses, which won't uniquely identify anybody anyway.)
So, no, we don't know who you are. We think it's better that way.

Blab. Another Treasured Reader writes:
I'm glad you're dead
You know, we feel as if we have some very bad news for this particular Treasured Reader. But perhaps we'll keep it to ourself for now.

Blab. Mistaking us for Mr. Goodwrench, a reader writes:
Can you use the universal spanner to tighten the nuts on the universal spanner?
Not as such. You need the universal adapter.

Blab. A reader defames us and makes demands of us at the same time.
ChiderMan he say: not been able to find the requisite 10 minutes lately for your OneWord entries?
Nope. Too busy responding to our defaming, demanding readers.

Blab. A reader points us to something remarkable, then remarks on it.
Presidential Bus
Now you can own a bus actually used by President Bush! $125,000, cheap!
That's pretty pricey, even for a whole busful of Bush. We wonder how much we would have to pay for a single cootie.

Blab. Our Treasured Readers are always out there spying for us. And we love that.
A Helenism from my office...
That's just small peanuts.
1. That's just small fry.
2. That's just peanuts.
--kaj
That's just marvelous!

Blab. A reader gives us ...
Some tips for Halloween decorating
Great stuff!
At what point did the carving of pumpkins turn into a "cute" event? When did boys stop carving pumpkins and moms start? Where did we lose touch with one of the years coolest events?
Today we will seize back this ritual. Today is the day we throw away those safe, cute carving tools. Today. We will buy a big, ugly, pumpkin so large one man cannot lift or move it. Today. We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch. October 31st we will light it brightly enough to give visiting children suntans.
We're going to do this one this year.

Blab. Neither we nor our Treasured Readers could find any Web versions of papers by Tim Jordan, the guy who did that great research showing that words are still very readable even if their internal letters are scrambled. Frighteningly, that discussion somehow came to the attention of Dr. Jordan himself, who surpasses us all.
For some of Tim Jordan's research into the power of exterior letters in reading, the web page is here.
Cheers,
Tim Jordan
Or, as another Treasured Reader writes:
Taht is some wrngo mealtoaf.
And who could argue with that?

Plurp. While most of our Treasured Readers were acclimating to the Treasured Reader Training Exercise, some of them were instead lolling around here, looking for this and that. In particular, this and that:

chihuly

justin darkness

arsenic poisoning pictures

helen naked pitures

iris chacon

virtual helen naked pictures

britney

quorn naked pictures

iris chacon pictures

jesus action

And then, this past week, you were looking for completely different things.

helen naked pitures

chihuly

arsenic poisoning pictures

britney

imani

iris chacon

mia

oliverbot

quap

quob

Thank you for your attention.

Yow. Sitting in a glass-walled conference room on the 46th floor of an extremely large financial institution in Manhattan this morning, we feel like a god.
At this height, we are above the rooftops of most of the skyscrapers. In our northerly view, only the Citicorp building is substantially higher. Clouds stream by not so far overhead. The real world, with all of its people and taxis, is far, far below, and hardly even visible unless we move closer to the window and peer downward.
But we do not. Our view is the clouds, our horizon the tops of mighty buildings. And the real world is beneath our notice.

Yow. What would the world look like if it was richly detailed, confined to a little box, and seen only through a pinhole? Go find out. Very cool. Really. (Caterina)

Yak.
Call me Ishmael.
What's your number?

Plurp. This is our nephew. Our Muslim nephew. In the U.S. Army. In Baghdad.

Yak. Last weekend in Rhode Island (which isn't).
We'll sit around, swap lies and eat stuffies.
And we did!

Yow. Emeril vs. Cthulhu.

Yo. And speaking of which, is this real?
Nth-Degree Pepperoni/Single-Topping Fanatic's
(seek help from someone who knows algebra, if necessary - this one contains N+3 layers of pepperoni or your favorite topping, alternating with N+2 layers of our classic 3-blend cheese, plus mozzerella underneath - built using the same principle as with our 1st-Degree Fanatic pizzas)
NOTE - If you want to choose a high value for N on the above pizza, please keep in mind that we can build such a pizza only up to certain limits (such as oven clearance, for example). But we still encourage you to challange us, because we do have high capacity equipment.

Yo. During the recent Iraq war, several hundred thousand Iraqi troops seemed simply to have vanished. One of our Treasured Readers insisted that this was a direct result of infinitely clever U.S. psyops. We hadn't heard that, and suggested that our reader contact the Old Media, who would surely be interested.
That apparently happened! As a result, Time magazine has a nice article detailing the many dirty tricks that the U.S. employed to spy on Iraq before the war, to compromise Iraqi officials, and to engineer events so that the Iraqi resistance crumbled at just the right time and without Hussein knowing that it would.
We thank our Treasured Reader for going public with this very interesting story.

Yo. We are impressed with the importance of second-order effects.
Mr. Bevis, the founder and chief executive of Arundel Books, which sells used and rare books online and off line, says that his customers' concerns about the Patriot Act have forced him to severely curb the amount of customer data he retains, and to alter his marketing as a result. Because he no longer keeps information about customer purchases - so as to avoid the possibility of having to disclose it to the government - he can no longer discern the buying habits of his patrons and then offer them advertisements for books they may like.
Good: Companies react to the Patriot Act by not keeping information so as not to have to give it to Herr Asscroft.
Bad: This hurts their businesses.

Plurp.
The blue dog
contains N+3 layers of pepperoni
alternating with N+2 layers of our
classic 3-blend cheese

Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Blab. A reader who comes late to the Treasured Reader Training Exercise reveals a certain mental predisposition.
Seeing that doll reminded me, how alien the japanese seem from a distance, it appears to be saying "look but dont touch" a cruel taunt, a poke with a stick at a mans most basic desires and i havent had a shag in ages. You know, i've spent so much time sitting in front of my pc lately that i'm almost translucent, at times i want to hurt and destroy but only if there are no negative consequences to those actions, and at the same time spread peace and love, is that possible? Strange how i found this site today i was looking for info on MOAB's, i've no idea why, it all seems to have happened completely by chance
We wonder if the Japanese seem alien to themselves, whether from a distance or not.
We appreciate your sharing such a large amount of very personal information with us. Now please do sit down.

Blab. Referring (we can only hope!) to Sunday's image, a reader writes:
Clearly it's a picture of a lollipop. I'm just thankful you didn't
morph Helen's face onto it. I can see the top search item now:
Naked Helen Lollipops.
Dorian, the tongue-tied
Yeah. That would be bad.

Blab. Despairing our apparent absence, a reader wiles away the hours by mixing the memes. Almost.
Do you have an afghan woman piture? Even an afghan woman piture would do.
Would help. Would help. Sheesh.
But, hey, that is pretty funny!

Blab. A reader discovers our well-kept secret.
I just received this in a newsletter from webreference.com. The truth will come shortly: Plurp is really written by a teenage girl named Helen Naked Pictures.
By the end of 2004 there will be 10 million blogs, most of which will be dead, according to a survey by Perseus. The fad is most popular among teenage girls.
The blogosphere is big, kids. Big, bloated and mostly dead.
Perseus estimates that 4.12 million blogs have been created [...].
The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned.
We'll be floating to the surface soon.

Blab. We asked you to complete, in a manner not utterly boring, a four-line poem that begins thusly:
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear.
You, our Treasured Readers, really came through. In fact, your voluminous reaction frightens us a little.
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear.
And everywhere that Mary went
Would end up with her there.
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear,
Now she has a furry coat
And lamb-skin underwear.
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear,
And all the kids at Mary's school
Insisted that she share.
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear,
A deer, a cat, a mountain goat,
And a boy named Alistair.
Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a bear,
The lamb tasted better.
That's so very clever! And equally clever, in a rather tilted way, is this.
Mary had a little lamb, she also had a bear.
She went to the pieman and said, "let me taste your ware."
Said the pieman to Mary, "first I need your penny."
Said Mary to the pieman, "indeed I have not any."
So Mary, her lamb and bear when up the hill to catch a little nap. The dumb girl caught the bear clap.
Then she went to see Dr. Bombay, got a shot in the back and she was on her way, to make to money-why not?, down on Seseme Street, the Dope spot.
There she met a woman who lived in a shoe, sold dope at front, out back marijuana grew.
Then she saw little boy blue, who blew the horn
and her little lamb grew. It's fleas were bright and slow.
The marijuana reference makes a great deal of sense to us. In context.

Blab. A reader, who we think resides in the Great State of Ahhnold, somehow telepathically transcribes a conversation we had around the lab a few weeks ago.
Voice from California on this fabulous recall election day. The following possibly mildly amusing thought occurred to me this morning, Plurp land was ideal place to share it...
Voting Oscillations:
Possible outcome today, could be something like:
    Davis          45%    (anti recall)
    Schwarzenegger 35%
Conclusion: Schwarzenegger in
Pro Davis voters, horrified, force a recall election.
Suppose this happens so quickly, no one has significantly changed their mind on candidates.
New recall:
    Schwarzenegger 35%      (anti recall)
    Davis          45%
Conclusion: Davis back in.
This is where we started! Original recall contingent forces new recall...
Repeat ad infinitum.
Gary Trudeau already published a "recall Schwarzenegger should he win" petition as the final panel in one of his recent Sunday Doonesbury strips, pointing the way to how to speed up the recall process. Heck, the petitions could be signed and in place the day the new governor takes office! If we could reach the point were elections were held daily, the effect could be really cool.
Thought du jour.
   --Randy
It's a great effect, isn't it? We wonder if there's a voting distribution that would give a 3-way (or N-way, N > 2) cycle.
We look forward to the introduction of cycle time as an important concept in California politics.

Blab. From someplace near Austria comes this:
|\_._._/|
| o o |
\ ´.` /
|`---´| Der blaue Hund sagt:
|     |    Es lebe der Freistaat Californien
|`___´|\_ mit Arnold an der Macht! (Jetzt
/|     |\   lernt mal bitte Deutsch!)
##     ##
For those of you who don't speak German, Babelfish tells us that this means:
The blue dog says: It lives the Free State Californien with Arnold at power! (now times please German learns!)
We find this indisputable.

Blab. A reader likes the business card we created for our new profession.

I love it that your business card eschews the bourgeois cliches of address and telephone number. Quelle chic.
After all, if clients need to be told how to reach you, you likely don't want them to.
L.
Zackly. Services by invitation only.

Yow. Our fabled city may get a Gehry building after all!

That would be cool.

Blab. Best Spam Subject Line O' The Day:
Best Pay Comes When You Have A Diploma Cork
That's certainly our experience.

Yow. Here's something cool that most of you prolly can't see! We just learned that the IBM Research library maintains a whole bunch of technical journals online, accessible right there over the Web. (Folks outside the IBM Research network probably can't get to that link. Sorry.)
Here, for instance, is the current issue of Phys. Rev. D.
That is so this-century!

Yak.
Some of my students are quite young. And some of them are quite ... Republican.

Plurp. One of the joys of geezerhood is being able to write retrospective articles on things we did a long time ago and make them sound important. And we recently did exactly that with regard to our experience with one of the first network worms some sixteen years ago.
Ah, them was the days, eh what, Chauncy?

Plurp.
The blue dog
was once a
Naked Helen Lollipop

Monday, October 13, 2003
Plurp. Our recent Treasured Reader Training Exercise consisted of us exposing your subconscious to a cultural image (see image at right), and you, in response, telling us a little story.
We knew that it would take you some time to assimilate this training, but we were patient. We noted, with some clinical interest, that our patience was rewarded. You responded.
We have sorted your various responses into four categories, which we portray here. An analytic article in Annals of Aberrant Psychology will appear early next year. We thank our many experimental subjects for their involuntary responses.

Blab. Category 1, which we call Fetishists, surprised us. It consisted of readers who found an odd, sometimes offensive, sexual content in the cultural image. This category was densely populated, and contained many responses which we are not able to display here. (These omissions include those of you who suggested various improbable locations for Webcams. Naughty readers! No biscuit!)
spank me!
Actually, we're not sure that was a response to this particular exercise.
Once upon a time, there was a man with a weblog who liked to peruse websites that sold creepy, perverted sex figurines. Then Helen found out. The End.
Freud referred to this as projection.
The Id has has, as usual, responded before any other personal construct has had time to draw breath.
Penetration is the key. There is a vaque gesture of unwillingness, or the wave of a hand suggesting that something is out-of-bounds. Why is this being so openly advertised ?
She wants it really. Unfortunately, she is four inches tall, and made of plastic.
We fear our reader's reaction had the image been five inches tall. Or made of cacti.
She's an icon of the patron saint of those people who strive to perfect the art of bottom-shadow-puppetry?
- Felis Lynx
We have no idea.
Would you like to see my chigger bites?
We believe this to be an insect fetishist.
That is the most disturbing scratch and sniff thing I've ever seen.
It is interesting that one of our readers is an expert in scratch-and-sniff strips.
Introducing the new "Buttocks-Accentuating Barbie!"
This doll of a doll pretends she likes to ball. However, consumer beware! There's no sexual practicality here.
Instead, wrap some metal strings around her neck and tie them off on her toes. Tune the strings to D, G, B, and E. Since this doll has a hollow accentuated buttocks, fine resonance of sound is likely. Yes, a more apropriate name for this doll would be   "The Acoustical Buttocks Barbie Ukulele."
One other practical use of the doll is obvious. By folding the legs towards the torso and gripping the resultant mass firmly, this object would make a fine smasher of food, or "The Buttocks-Accentuated Barbie Food Processor."
Additionally, rip the head off and insert the rubber portion of an eye-dropper into the head. The head now becomes, "The Pacifying Barbie Binky!"
Finaly, this doll could most effectively be used as an instrument of road-rage. When the appropriate threshold of rage is obtained, simply throw this thing at an unsuspecting car. You will then gain the attention of the unwelcomed driver, gauranteed.
Peace to all. Now go get your Road Rage, Food-processing, Pacifying, Buttock-accentuating Ukulele Barbie Binky while supplies last!
That last one was difficult to classify. We were on the verge of creating a separate acoustico-fetishist category for it. But we decided, on balance, that the fetishism won out over the acoustical component. And the food processor. And the rest.
I would tell a longer story about the little figure, but my brain seems to be stuck on: "nice butt!"
We are particularly pleased with the above entry, as this writer is clearly in touch with its mental blocks.
Hello. My name is Berl. I invite you to look up my skirt as far as you can. I'm a fun loving, 7-inch, 42 grams of shapely plastic. Although lifeless and unintellegent, I'm capable of diverting your cerebral electro-chemical neural processing from matters of concern to matters of matter. You see, I don't care what you do with me as long I'm bought and paid for. In fact, you would do the world a big favor if you would vote for me, Berl, as your new governer. My qualifications are listed above. Also, I don't get groped and tell!
Paid for by "Berl for Governer."
This is either a classic of post-modern feminist anti-contextualism or a segue into the next category.

Blab. Category 2, Californians, illustrates a textbook case of the Orange Theory of Ideas.
Oh Arnold! <smack>
Four more years.
"No, Arnold, no! You're married!"
But not for long, eh?
Arnold groped me right here, and so did Orin Hatch and Warren Buffet. It's fun to be groped by famous rich dudes. But they are fine men, and everyone should be groped by them. To not be groped by them, is to not be loved at all.
Be groped, be happy!
Enough of that message.

Blab. Category 3, Blurters, consists primarily of readers who belie their otherwise kindly motivations, uncovering, on the contrary, a seamy side: conspiracy and derision.
This story telling lark; is it because you are on holiday and not in a position to update Plurp?
Sigh. We work overtime to provide you with opportunities to contribute to the rising tide of science, and all you can do is accuse us of burying you up to your thankless necks at low tide?
definitely sticking with my theory that you're on holiday and have set the story writing 'comeption' as a stop-gap until your return...
It's sad. As is this English person.
Maybe its my English cynicism but I just see a plastic doll, evocative its not.
There's nothing more that we can do.
The makers of the doll were too lazy to give her a complete dress. Not unlike some blog writers.
- Felis Lynx
Again the message: we are to blame. Fascinating in its implications.
Mr. White,
Your obcession with the doll is a little disturbing. I think this a little silly, but then, that's why I'm here. So here goes:
Is that a banana up my skirt, or am I just happy?
We do not know which it is, of course. We have made a note, however, of the reference to obsession.
Once upon a time there was a treasured reader who objected to being trained, and didn't want to wait for plurp anymore
It's all part of the training.
A suicide bomber blew up an obscure web log site ("blog") on Saturday October 4, 2003. Witnesses report that the bomber appeared to be a badly drawn blue dog, although authorities are attributing the attack on the Plastics Liberation Organization, based upon a figurine left at the site. The spokespeople for that organization have been strangely silent. The only casualty appears to be the owner of the blog, who has not been heard from since. More as reports come in.
- Felis Lynx
We have referred this particular contribution to the U.S. Department of Justice, in compliance with a recent request under the Patriot Act.

Blab. Category 4, Proper Reader Behavior, exhibits clinical adaptation to the training exercise.
Can you tell me if my solder joints are fat?
Very good. This is both funny and misguided.
Dear Nothing,
After being dead for about 10 years, reality hit me in the head like a brick splashing into a pool of raw sewage. Now I remember life's purpose. Imagination.
Now, I'm quite capable of imagining what it must feel like to be a sexy inanimate toy, fondled and exploited be creatures of various type, age and manicure. Created in a factory downtown, like peaches in a can, I have no personality or self-respect, and definitely no intelligence.   I'm incapable of self-defense and have no inclination to cater to the selfish needs of others. In that respect, I am very much like the humanity that exploits me.
However, I have an advantage over my creators and their clientele. I have no sensory input. If Plato knew me, he'd be jealous. Because I can't sense anything, nothing is real, only imagined. And therefore, you can never read this-it's not real.   And when you play with me, neither one of us is really there, just figments of nothing. We are not even dust in the wind.
So, do with me what you must. All I ask is that you acknowledge your non-existence.
Have a nice nothing and enjoy the nothingness while it lasts.
The reinterpretation of manga icon as dead human is wonderfully telling.
Do you have any pink, hairless, genetically engineered apes? Even pink, hairless, genetically engineered apes would help.
We appreciate the mixing of memes. But the proper meme is singular: Do you have a pink, hairless, genetically engineered ape?
As Haywood removed the seal and ripped open the box, a half-naked doll-like object appeared in a most seductive pose. Immediately, Mr. Jablowme sensed that something was terribly wrong. He yanked the doll from the box. "Who paid for this?" he asked.   A crackling voice suddenly answered, "Is it not the anniversary of your operation?" Haywood thought for a moment and then it came to him.
When he was 11 years old, Haywood was an opera singer in good standing with the community. His soprano voice was all the talk of the town. People were worried that puberty would undo his beautiful voice. So one night, a few of the elders snatched him up in his sleep and took him to the village inn, where an unlicensed surgeon was staying.   The surgeon then performed the necessary procedure to make Haywood a castrati.
Now at age 45, Haywood retained his hair-raising soprano voice and was quite popular. The doll reminded him of his pre-pubescent libido, or lack thereof. So he threw it away and cursed.
Later, as he walked down the street, a visitor noticed him and yelled, "Haywood Jablowme!"
He replied, "No madam, I'm a castrati and have no interest in such things."
We hear all of the eight-year-olds out there giggling. But we thought it was modestly amusing.
The blue dog knew it was being punished. It's always being punished, except when that Bezos Head takes its place. But this was different. It was suddenly this pale color in some strange garb. And where was its tail?
The horror that it went on for so long....
- Felis Lynx
Very inbred! And we like that.
The mango fell. The mango smashed. The mango decomposed. The mango became fertilizer. This is how mango happens.
The excrement fell. The excrement smashed. The excrement decomposed. The excrement became fertilizer. This is how excrement happens.
That cheap plastic image from modern culture fell. The cheap plastic image from modern culture smashed. The cheap plastic image from modern culture decomposed. The cheap plastic image from modern culture became trash. This is how the cheap plastic image from modern culture happens.
There is a certain rhythm to it that we like.
There exist in man, an evil that no one can explain. Without it, images like this one wouldn't exist because they wouldn't be provacative in the least. But, alas, everyone of us has a demon that drives our basest desires. Any sane man would see a cartoon ... at first glance. But deep within our atavistic self we see ourselves reaching out and invading innocence. What is under that skirt?
We suspect it's more plastic, but we haven't actually checked.
Next, an entry that we particularly like, as it is in a proper form, and about sushi.
A present, a peek,
a pink wasabi lily.
A brief fantasy.
Lovely. We conclude with three stories that we also particularly like, each for its own reason.
Zlyflique stumbled upon an object and mused, "This object seems to disobey the laws of entropy." Porfeggly, his assistant and cohort, was taken aback, for he had never heard Zlyflique utter anything before. Porfeggly wondered, "What is it that could cause my mute collegue to suddenly articulate?"
You see, Zlyflique was created in a petry dish somewhere within the earth's crust. Not only had he never seen the human form, he was unaware of its existence or its possibility. He also had a developmental condition that, up until now, limited his vociferousness to simple bilabial fricatives.
Then, to Porfeggly's shock and amazement, Zlyflique spoke again. "This particular feature on this object seems to be homologous to my vlongerport. Very provacative! I can't wait to eat it."
We like the clandestine sushi theme. And the use of the word homologous.
I still held the terrible plastic thing in my hand, rubbing my thumb over the delicious obscenity of its long curves. It seemed tauntingly symbolic, of lost innocence and vanished youth, of the slavering hunger of middle age for firm skin and unsullied pinkness.
Below me, below the balcony, the falls roared their perpetual roar. I looked down into the chaos, and thought how easy it should be to let the awful thing drop into the abyss. But even that gesture, I thought, would be to admit how important it had become.
I became aware of Invidia standing behind me, in the open glass door to the salon.
"Beets," she said, her voice raspy from cigarette smoke.
"Beets," I repeated, still looking down into the foaming water, "Beets. A walrus. Madagascar."
I opened my hand.
Really nice! We are particularly impressed by the incorporation of beets.
Finally, a response that was clearly within the parameters of proper predetermined response, though it nearly could have been about someone else.
Slow across the face of the water, a living carpet spread, its translucent surface refracting a pinkish pre-dawn light. Krobi bent at the waist, bracing her slim legs against the rough beams of the boat's side, the colour of her small shift dress taking on, chameleon like, the color of the sea. She dipped her catching bowl once again into the jellied mass. For an instant dark water appeared below her reaching hand as she swept the bowl down across and up again, scooping up a mass of the jellyfish. Turning she slopped the pink harvest into the catch tank, it's surface likewise covered in a nacreous layer. Moments later, hurling itself suddenly above the horizon, the sun blazed scarlet and fire across the face of daybreak, and the pearlescent carpet once again sank beneath the surface of the sea.
-AJL
It is an image that will haunt us for years to come.

Plurp.
The blue dog
was being
punished

Sunday, October 12, 2003
Plurp.

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