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2003.11.23 : 2003.11.29
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Downsville
On our way from one act of gluttony
to another, we stop at a tiny town in rural Maryland for a carton of ice
cream. The Downsville General Store is a small wooden building that advertises
cold beer and keeno. Just inside the door, the featured products on the
ends of the three sets of shelves to the left are (in order) motor oil,
Tampax, and beef jerky.
Opposite them, to the right, just
beyond the stack of crossbows in green cardboard boxes, three men and a
boy, all dressed in camo, wait in line to pay for their purchases. The
men turn towards me as I enter, and I note that my hair, my black slacks
and my Kilm sweater do not make me look very much like them.
Hey Jim, says a buck-toothed
camo man to the cashier, when Bill gets here, tell him I'll be back
in a minute. The cashier nods.
Towards the back of the store is a
counter with three stools where the same man who cooks your lunch serves
it. In the back room are two small tables with chairs, where a pair of
men in bright orange caps are eating sandwiches.
Further exploration reveals large
sacks of jerking spices, a cardboard box on which the word SHELLS is written
in pencil, and a container of mysterious plastic sheaths, about 18 inches
long, which look like they would open into cylinders two inches in diameter.
A back shelf holds a single, packaged, Singing Rainbow Trout.
Anything in here you want?
asks Helen. No, I reply. Are you ready to go? I nod. Oh,
yes.
Friday, November 28, 2003
Blab. Today, we catch up on recent events. Recent events
of which, for the most part, we have no recollection, Senator.
"But surely these are false
memories. Surely it was the temporal modulators. Surely."
I don't think so. And stop calling
me Shirley.
L.
Our grasp on sanity is far too tenuous to entertain this possibility. It
will just have to entertain itself.
Blab. A reader explains to us why AT&T saw fit to patent
techniques that spammists could use to defeat anti-spam filters.
"AT&T just patented techniques
that would allow spammers to get around spam filters. You have to wonder
why."
Because then spammers could not legally
use those techniques to get around spam filters. At least not without
AT&T's permission. And AT&T, being the benevolent corporation
that it is, will not license the method to spammers or otherwise give them
permission, and will agressively sue any spammers who infringe on their
patent.
Well, one can always hope.
A second reader puts it rather more bluntly.
Duh. AT&T now gets to
sue the spammers for infringing on their patent? Was that so difficult?
That's certainly a possibility! We wonder, though, if it will be possible
for big, slow-moving AT&T to find the spammists and litigate them to
death before the spammists slip away into the night.
Do we even know who the major spammists are? :-(
Blab. On last week's Harvard tests of associational preferences,
our good friend Stephanie writes:
Hey Steve,
I loved the Harvard test. I only took
one so far and have a strong prference for Mac over IBM. Like I needed
someone to tell me that. I did learn something, however: I have a strong
preference (read: uncontrollable compulsion) to speak out loud while taking
fast button pushing tests. ("Apple, like, Windows, dislike...") Thanks
for the link!
We are so pleased to be able to invest your precious time learning
something that you already knew. But that was obvious, wasn't it?
Plurp, like, not-Plurp, dislike!
Blab. On last week's wrestling match over the origin of the name
Schwarzenegger, an authoritative reader writes:
Re: Schwarzenegger etymology
This
might help. Seems plausible to me.
Regards,
very smart S.
Naturally, this validates our etymology of black + one who harrows.
Now that that's perfectly clear, we hope that our detractors will confess
and submit to their well-deserved flogging in the public square.
Plurp. This week's festivities include:
-
steve naked pitures
-
naked string pictures
-
iris chacon
-
oliverbot
-
catriona lemay doan
-
package of lays
-
4 day time cube
-
alien food
-
arsenic poisoning pictures
-
autumn
Helen says that she is very depressed.
Plurp. Oh yeah. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you turkeys. Or,
at least, all of you who survived. We ate the rest of you. Sorry.
We are thankful for our Treasured Readers who, for reasons incomprehensible
to us, continue to share their simple, disturbing lives with us. And to
the Internet, which makes vanity publishing not merely cheap, but cool.
Sort of. Or, at least, as cool as we'll ever get. Which is not that very
cool after all, but, you know, we'll settle for what few crumbs fall.
Plurp. We came up with an excellent mechanism at work to set
the expectations of those who fund our projects. It works like this. For
every person-month of funding they give us, we promise to have one PowerPoint
chart by the end of the year.
If they give us only one measly person-month of funding, all they get
is a title chart with the name of the project on it. Two person-months
gets them an outline chart as well. Three gets them a title, an outline,
and a motivation chart. And so on.
We think this is pure genius. It nicely acknowledges that nontrivial
funding is necessary in order to get anything useful done, captures the
fact that incremental funding really does get you substantially more, and
cuts through all the usual arguments that we didn't do enough for the paltry
sums on which they try to make us subsist.
Plop. Raise your hand if you really care what the
Dixie Chicks think about international politics. Anyone? Anyone?
 Plurp.
The blue dog,
like the Dixie Chicks,
didn't really think.
Muesnursday, November 25.5, 2003
Blab. A reader whose use of language we love and to
whose mental state we can only aspire writes:
Where did you go? Are you
sick? Is Helen ok? Does the sunday pic have a cryptic meaning? Were you
the one hiding Michael Jackson?? Are you still laying low from the press?
Why do I seel little stars when I close my eyes very tightly? Is the moon
really made out of cheese? Where do we go when we die? Can I have a drink
of water?
Yes. And here's a little sedative to go with it.
A depressingly small fraction of our few readers wondered about our
apparent absence this week. Was it another psychotic break? Were we once
again kidnapped by aliens?
Sadly, no.
Rather, lack of routine maintenance caused the temporal modulators to
go all wacky on us. We have dim memories of getting up at 5 in the morning,
getting home after 9 at night, and then tossing sleeplessly for a few hours
before doing it all over again. And over again. And over again.
But surely these are false memories. Surely it was the temporal modulators.
Surely.
Blab. Stimulated by the above mention of Michael Jackson, the
first of many readers writes:
That's waaay too scary, please
tell me when it's safe to come back -AJL
It's safe now. Here's a little sedative for you, too. It's triptophan.
Or a trip to the Caribbean. We're not sure.
Blab. An admiring reader writes:
dude, that's just sick. An
insult to the NG photographer and just plain hideous to boot.
Gosh. Thank you!
Blab. Before cowering in the corner under an old blanket, a reader
writes:
ummm, jacko has entered the
priesthood? say it ain't so.
or is that a pic of him in his bathrobe?
either way it's frightening.
Dorian
Let's just say that Jacko seems an ideal candidate for the priesthood.
And yes, it is frightening.
Blab. A reader emits a visceral reaction.
Yuck!!!
We prefer Yuk yuk! Your mileage may vary.
Blab. A reader suggests that we ...
Stop that. Really.
You're scarring the children. And the adults....
- Felis Lynx
Scaring, or ...? Oh, right.
Blab. A reader takes time to consider the really big questions.
Why did you replace the Afghan
girl with a lizard?
We didn't. That's an alien emissary.
Blab. Having dined too long on the
only available nutrients, a reader from far away writes:
Greetings Plurpable Emissaries.
I could be wrong, but isn't that an
open-faced meatloaf dish with a side of mustard relish? I wouldn't have
that in bed, no matter how loving it is.
I could be wrong, but allowing your
child to stay overnight at the open-faced meatloaf ranch, with full knowledge
of the well-established rumors of what may have occurred there, is child
endangerment. The parent of that child should be brought to justice
as well as the open-faced meatloaf dish. I could be wrong.
Ya know, I turned on the TV this morning
and every station was "reporting" on this open-faced meatloaf dish.
Are there not other, and more applicable, real current events to investigate
than this open-faced meatloaf dish (with a side of mustard relish)?
I could be wrong, but I think there's
a military thingy happening somewhere? These days there are many
things to report on that are stranger than fiction. Why throw all
the investigative "eggs" into the one basket that is an open-faced meatloaf
dish?
I guess we Americans are blissfully
arrogant. We don't give a flying rat's uncle what's really going
on in our country or the world. We just want more open-faced meatloaf
dishes for are viewing pleasure. Bring it on!
Greetings. Yes, citizen, that is an open-faced meatloaf dish with a side
of mustard relish. No, there are no other, more applicable, real current
events. Not anywhere. However, we do not think it is a good idea to throw
eggs into a basket that is an open-faced meatloaf dish, with or without
a side of mustard relish.
We could be wrong.
Blab. A reader laments ...
What
might have been...
Specifically, a projection of how Michael Jackson might have looked, had
he not become addicted to body modification.
Compare this with what actually happened.
Blab. Finally, a reader writes:
AUUGH!
This is where we apologize for having left that image
up there by itself for far too long. We should have realized the aberrant,
hypnotic effect it would have on our otherwise gentle readers. We must
also apologize to that elementary school in Arkansas and to the people
who work at the record company in L.A.
Sorry. Sorry.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was transfixed
by that terrifying image
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Plurp.
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