Plurp. Today's themes are: Silliness and Stupidity.
See if you can tell the difference.
Blab. A now-ancient reference to Bibleman
here in Plurp elicits this factoid.
What's even more frightening,
Bibleman is Willie Aames (from TV's Eight Is Enough, Charles in Charge,
and Dungeons & Dragons.)
On a related note, Kirk Cameron (from
TV's Growing Pains) wants to ask you an
honest question.
Dungeons & Dragons? Isn't that a satanic game? (We obviously missed
something.) As for Painful Kirk, our reader's link seems to have rotted
(honestly). Interested readers (if there are any) can dig
around for other, similar links.
Blab.
A reader sends us something ...
Cuddly!
Well, OK, this isn't really stupid. But it is very funny!
Yep, it's an Ebola virus. A plush Ebola virus.
Our tiny mind reels in wonder at the creativity of humans.
Blab. A reader asks:
Do I need to attend dance
classes before I try dancing
with my cat?
Yes. And you need to get a license. The jails are filled with unlicensed
cat-dancers.
Blab. A reader claims to submit a ...
Broken
joke from Toothpaste For Dinner:
Why didn't Bach go to the movies?
Because he died prior to their creation.
We are unfamiliar with the canonical joke that starts, Why didn't Bach
go to the movies?
Blab. A reader exclaims, Zen-like:
!
Freeze-dry Pet Preservation? We have a candidate!
Blab. A reader answers its own question. We consider this a labor-saving
device.
Q: Why did you shave your
head?
A: To feel the pleausre of a cold
ceramic tile pressed against my scalp
Good to know.
Blab. A reader eavesdrops on a secret ritual.
(Overheard recent conversation)
Question: What differs a transexual
from a transvestite?
Answere: There is no vas deferens.
We thought it was the spelling.
Blab. A reader keeps us informed on the minutiae of its sad life.
We appreciate that. We really do! It makes us feel so much better about
our own, sad life.
I just reorganized all my
browser bookmarks by title width and now it's much easier to find things.
We should try that.
Blab. Another example of physics as seen through the eyes of
journalists.
Don't you mean "Polar
bears have clear hair shafts which appear white because they reflect light."?
Silly journalists!
Blab. A reader reads our mind.
Steve, you might like this.
This being ...
Students for an Orwellian
Society
Because 2004 is 20 years too late.
We particularly like the motto. The content, however, is already well known.
Oceania [...] is at war with
Afghanistan
Iraq. Oceania has always been at war with
Afghanistan
Iraq.
Blab. An
Next round in the Why You
Love The Web Battle. Who would win in a fight: :David-Wynn:
Miller, King of Hawaii or Ted
Jesus Christ GOD (TJCG)?
Why I think TJCG should win:
While He uses relatively conventional
punctuation (albeit in run-on sentences,) He did send me a very, very,
very long unsolicited form e-mail (~100k of PLAIN TEXT!) detailing how
He is the Second Coming of Jesus and how He previously was the "Founder
and President and CEO of a very well respected Silicon Valley and California
and United States of America based Software Company called Quest Systems
Corporation."
I would call His missive spam, but
I'm afraid I might be breaking some Federal Law in doing so. From the e-mail:
"If you are in an abuse or
anti-SPAM or blacklist or filtering or blocking or other department that
intends on or does make it that future newsletters and email of TJCG cannot
get through your domains and your mail servers then you are doing something
that is ILLEGAL now and is CRIMINAL ACTIVITY and this has civil and criminal
liability for you personally and for each and every person that does this.
Your corporation or corporate veil cannot protect you and TJCG can pierce
the corporate veil and get through to you with the US Attorney and State
Attorneys and District Attorneys and the FTC and depending on what you
do also the FBI and more and also civilly and therefore DO NOT BLACKLIST
TJCG and DO NOT BLOCK any future email of TJCG and DO NOT FILTER any future
email of TJCG out and DO NOT do anything else that would or could prevent
future emails of TJCG from reaching anybody and everybody at your domain
or domains and email servers and company and employees and customers an
d more..."
..and so on for numerous paragraphs.
(Oh, and by the way, if you link to
His site you will be BLESSED!)
We'd have to give it to Ted Jesus Christ GOD. It's the personal touch that
tips the balance.
Blab. A reader informs us of certain activities within the bowels
of government in our very own homeland.
The New York Department of Transportation
is engaged in a massive pedestrian mind
control conspiracy.
Their scheme is simple yet devious:
First you train the pedestrians to
press the buttons when they want to cross by giving them positive feedback
with the WALK light.
Next you deactivate the buttons, but
they continue to press them anyway, as they have been conditioned to.
Finally, you replace the buttons with
brain scanning equipment that can recognize their intent to cross via neural
signals, opening up the secrets of the pedestrian mind and thus giving
the Department of Transportation the ability to read our thoughts!
Just like they did with monkeys!
And the step after that, Treasured Reader, is to mount xenon mind control
devices on the traffic lights, to control our every behavior. You'll see.
Blab. Stephanie writes:
Steve you're gonna love this!
That's precious!
Blab. Another reader, another minutium.
i hate it when i buy the
wrong
bananas
We hate it when you do that, too. Bananas dentatus, especially.
Blab. An open source writes:
Seen recently in a German
WalMart.
Yes, it's
a detergent. Amazing.
It's two ... two ... two products in one!
Blab. An
[link]
Which of the various people in this photo feels stupider today, we wonder:
the guy in the Boba Fett outfit, or everyone else?
Blab. A reader writes:
furz honk alter jo stinke
mocka holafotz
And, perhaps more clearly:
furtz honk stinki bill hallo
onelz gleichfall BLAB heelo Plurb honkidu stönkel bill
Zackly.
Blab.
A reader asks:
Roman Castevet
ring a bell?
Not if accompanied by a book and a candle.
Blab. A reader wants us to ...
Sink the pink!
We do that all
day long.
Blab. An ill-equipped thug writes:
what is a jackboot
and where can I buy one?
Froogle
is your friend.
You'll also need an anonymous white van. And sunglasses. Don't forget
the sunglasses.
Blab. A formerly mysterious reader slips up.
The word of the day is: enneatic.
(Oh, come on. My little word
of the day stunt is nearly over--just a few more words--and I assure you
it does have a point other than the obvious one.)
And then ...
The word of the day is: finery.
The word of the day is: hurry up and get it over with already.
Plop. Anyone who thinks that that
plane full of African mercenaries wasn't being run by some
unnamed agency of the US government, please raise your hand.
Reporters were taken aboard
the plane to examine the cargo, which included a rubber dinghy, military
uniforms, wire cutters, armour, compasses and other military hardware [...]
Thank you. You're all dismissed. You're too stupid to read this blog.
Plurp. Speaking of which ...
A Georgia woman who tried
to use a fake $1 million bill to buy $1,675 worth of merchandise at Wal-Mart
was arrested, and police later found two more of the bills in her purse.
Yes, Georgia is in The
South.
Plurp. We note that the arrival rate of Treasured Reader
contributions is currently greater than the rate at which we post them.
The queuing theorists among the readership know the inevitable consequence
of this.
We attempt to pump this sump by indulging in two themes today.
The first is Shameless Self-Indulgence. We know, you can't distinguish
this from what we usually do here. Nonetheless. The second is Politics.
See if you can tell the difference.
Blab. One of the jackbooted thugs that monitors our every motion
suddenly becomes demanding.
Boring, Steve. If you
aren't going to stay home you ought to post!
Yes, here we are again in a Faraway Place, in an endless series of All
Day Meetings, trying at the same time to do our day job and prepare for
what threatens to be an endless series of All Day Meetings in other Faraway
Places over the next several months.
And, of course, deal with reader abuse.
Blab. Another abusive reader writes:
*Yawn.* Oh. Sorry. Are you
still blogging?
Less and less, friend. Less and less.
Blab. Not all of our readers are abusive. Some of them are kind
and solicitous. And we treasure them.
Happy day to you, Dr Plurp
(and Helen too)
Why, thank you, Treasured Reader. Happy day to you as well.
Blab. Finally, a missive arrives from the kind of reader that
really
keeps us blogging.
have you ever seen a site
like this strange things happening are you going round the twist.
Yes, the cockles of our black heart are slightly less chilly now.
Blab. One of those rude Flickr-folks
exposes our vulnerable underbelly.
[link]
Oh, the ignominy!
Blab. A reader asks us to indulge in social interaction.
Please thank Helen for sharing
the camera-phone photos of you on flashr.com.
Consider it done.
Blab. A reader with certain typographical issues introduces Google
as a topic. Oddly, that fits in with today's theme.
Subj: !!!!!!!DISCOMBOBULATION
FISHMONGER YOUR A GOOGLE WACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DID YOU NO THAT YOUR SITE HAS A GOOGLE
WACK?
Did we? No.
Blab. A young woman in need of training writes:
Dear Mr Plurp
Say I had a website, and say that
it was on Google and say that I had had a lot more traffic to my site since
it had been on google...would there be a way to see how many people had
been directed from google to my site?
I have a dim & distant memory
of you mentioning it once,
your english school correspondent
OK. You had a website. It was on Google ...
Seriously, your Web host probably keeps log files which, among other
things, record information about each request made to your Web site: where
it came from, what they requested, and so forth. If the request came from
a search engine (like Google), it will usually tell you what they were
searching for. Believe us, people who arrive at Plurp do so by searching
for some dangerously strange things. But then, perhaps we're not
allowed to be surprised at that.
So, ask your Web host for access to your log files.
Blab. Stephanie writes:
Hey Steve,
If you are going to let us discuss
politics, I have a question:
Why do people who make less than $75,000/year
so
vigorously support those who make
over $300,000/year?
We blame the public school system.
Blab. A reader finds something wonderful.
Crouching
Rumsfeld, Hidden Ashcroft
That's priceless! Go look, silly readers. Honest.
Blab. A reader addresses us in the pluperfect familiar.
That's okay, Bucko, Ralph
Nader loves you. And as in the case of all instances of loving gods,
better keep an eye on your back.
We love Ralph Nader. If only for the comedic effect.
Blab. Our most prolific reader writes:
In Paul O'Neil's book "The
Price of Loyalty" Paul (Treasury Head) and Greenspan get together and agree
that Bush's tax cuts could lead to social security cuts. Bush ignored their
advice. Today Greenspan said:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress on Wednesday to deal with
the country's escalating budget deficit by cutting benefits for future
Social Security retirees rather than raising taxes.
So Bush gave me $300 two years ago and
will take away $300/month when I retire. You do the math. I can't. I makes
me ill.
Dorian, the anti-bush
Actually, we suspect that it's more like Bush giving you $300 two years
ago and taking it away from us when we retire.
Also of note. Apparently
Bethesda Naval Hospital has received 11,000 wounded. Bush admits to 3,000.
I remember the same kinds of lies during Vietnam.
Dorian, who has done the math
The other 8,000 were people whose heads exploded when they heard the tax
plan.
Subj: have a gay old time
And while we're on the subject of
the empty suit in the white house Perhaps we need to write the Declaration
of Independence into the Constitution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness. It is such a shame the Bush can't read (or think).
Dorian, the pursued
We always liked the Declaration's stirring prose. One of the great texts
of all times, we think.
Blab. An insightful reader writes:
This amendment would also
be the first to deny people rights. Even Prohibition was overturned
shortly after it was adopted. So much for freedom.
Welcome to the future, Winston.
Blab. A famous constitutional lawyer slaps us down.
"What part of that did you
not understand?"
The Constitution as understood by
engineers.
You're right that the proposed amendment
is nonsense, but you're wrong about the reason.
If marriage is a religious rite, then
it would be a violation of the first amendment for the government to require
a license to do it. Of course, the government does require a license to
do it, therefore marriage is a civil contract.
Society, through its enforcement arm,
the Government, can set whatever rules for itself that it likes. The Constitution
is one mechanism through which Society sets the rules, in this case, the
rules that the control what the Government can and cannot do.
The Constitution is nothing more than
a framework governing what other rules the Government can make, and what
rules it can't make. It's a metalanguage of sorts in that way. One thing
the Constitution does not do is define what the individuals who make up
Society can and cannot do.
As written, that's essentially what
the proposed ammendment is doing, telling individual members of Society
what they can and cannot do, and in that way, it's malformed. Nonsense,
in other words, not what the Constitution is designed to do.
Unfortunately, it would be easy enough
to draft an amendment that isn't nonsense.
L.
We appreciate the universal expertise of our readers.
Blab. A reader gets confused. Usually, we like that, but not
in this case.
Ok, so the gay marriage thing...
The problem I have is two-fold. Firsly I don't agree with same sex
marriage, and so find myself in agreement with Dubya, which is not a position
I am comfortable with. Secondly, is Dubya really in a position to
be making this kind of moral judgement? You only have to look
in a couple of places to find that he's not. (position on death penalty,
dishonest nature of the way he took power, greed leading to enormous personal
wealth...)
In short, can we have a different
President by the end of the year please? Preferably sooner.
Dear, Treasured Reader. You are free to marry someone of the opposite gender
if you wish. You are even free to look cross-eyed at people who do otherwise.
That does not mean that you must support a Constitutional amendment to
forbid that otherwise.
In fact, ...
... don't get me started.
Blab. A reader gets us started.
Have you read "Dude,
where's my country?" by Michael Moore? It's good.
Could be. We must admit to not being a fan of Mr. Moore. Yeah, he's a good,
bombastic philippicist, and that can be amusing. (The many right-wingers
on which he bombasts have those same properties.) But we quickly tire of
his I'm-just-a-down-home-liberal, giantcorporations-are-raping-the-earth,
everybody-who-disagrees-with-me-is-stupid-or-evil-or-both stuff.
Which is to say, we are unlikely to find out just how good Mr. Moore's
latest projectile publication happens to be.
Blab. My, that was exhausting, wasn't it? So let's turn to a
reader who sends us one of those annoying things to which we nonetheless
respond occasionally.
[link]
Fame at last! (In the very odd guise of the Urban
Dictionary.)
plurp
The world's most confusing weblog.
Even the inside jokes have inside jokes in them. It is the foremost authority
on the Helenism.
I went to Plurp for naked pitures
of Helen, but instead got infected with that insidious shower song.
Thank you, Loli. That's simply wonderful.
Blab. Here's a marvelous piece of obscure inbreeding.
Madam Plurp wears women's
shoes into battle?
OK. So! We've been playing this stupid game, nominally a multi-player online
D&Dish game, but really just a Mindless Repetitive Activity game. (Did
we hold forth on that recently? We can't recall.) You play a monster-bashing
warrior of one kind or another.
Our character's name is Plurp. Duh. And she's female. Why? It's
all part of our plan to become a woman. Oh, just because.
As you progress in the game, your title changes, from (in our case)
Farmgirl to Page to ... to Madam. (The male title for that level is Sir.
We decided to open a brothel.) Our current title is Reeve. The male title
for the next level up is Steward. We suspect that we are about to become
a flight attendant.
And yes, we do wear women's shoes into battle.
Blab. A reader concludes that we are weird. Apparently, this
comes as a surprise.
You haven't been the same
since you bought the girl shoes, but it may have been the "very special"
chopsticks. Honestly, the chopsticks thing was weirder to me than the girl
shoes.
Hey - we like those chopsticks!
Blab. A reader correctly predicts this:
You'll be smitten with Smittens(R)
Absolutely true. In fact, we already
were!
Blab. A reader panders to our fetishes. This is the kind of reader
that we really, really like.
[link]
Ooh! Thief 3: Deadly Shadows! Way cool! (Though it looks to us like
they haven't improved the engine or stuff, and they've just done new scenes
and a new story line, but still. Cool.)
And it's in stores in "Spring 2004", just in time for our new laptop
which can actually run it.
Blab. A reader attempts to extrapolate from noise.
Extrapolating the Sunday
plurp entries into the future, the prediction would be:
Next entry: totally blank page
After that: 404 (web page not found)
After that: 'www' command not recognized
After that: electromagnetic signal
not recognized
After that: 4th dimensional construct
not recognized
After that: System failure. Reboot
universe? Y/N
Y
Blab. A lone reader has the patience to appreciate the genius
of our artistic vision.
I had fun playing peekaboo
with the afghan girl. I am so easily amused.
You and us both, Treasured Reader! You and us both.
