Euro Falls lies halfway between the land of Floop and the castle of Doom. Getting to Euro falls is fraught with peril and may involve loss of life or limb. Usually, only cats and bored octopuses undertake this journey. A few others too have made it to the glittering falls by sacrificing one of their party to the it-that-must-not-be-typed. Read the following instructions by the light of a flickering candle at the sticking back together of dawn.
First, buy a dull blade from your nearest blacksmith. You can either pay him a hundred gold coins to get one, or bet him a blade that he can't sneeze with his eyes open. Next, the dull blade needs to be made into a sharp one with a sandstone of yolk.
To get a sandstone of yolk you need to feed ten pounds of sand to an egg laying hen. Hens don't normally eat sand, so this requires lots of patience. Go to the nearest beach and polish the biggest particles of sand you can find to look like rice. Feed these to the hen and wait till it lays an egg.
Carefully crack open the top of the egg and extract the yolk. The yolk must not touch the egg shell or it will break into little sand particles. Use the yolk to polish the dull blade into a sharp one. Next, obtain a ball of yarn from your nearest weaver.
At the break of dawn, run into the first ray of light. You will now be able to see lightning cats. Tempt the nearest lightning cat closer using the ball of yarn. Then use your blade to cut its tail (this is fine because the tail grows a new cat and the cat grows a new tail - this is how lightning cats multiply), collect the spilt drops of blood and store it directly in the sunlight.
Next, go the darkest corner in your house. Challenge the red ant that you find there to a chess match. Choose white and use your queen to take the black king on your first move. Ants don't know how to play chess, so this is fine. The ant will offer you an orange pip for winning the match. You have exactly one day before the pip turns into a magic pumpkin, so move fast once you have it.
Plant the pip in sawdust and water it with diluted lighting cat blood. The pip will grow into a tree in 3 hours and bear exactly one orange, as wide and tall as a person. Peel the orange and wrap yourself in the peel before the sun goes down.
When you come out of the peel the next day you will have red-colored wings. Fly south and you will come across a flock of ducks flying in the formation of ASCII character 123. Join the flock, and around noon you will come to an orange cloud. Fly to the top of the cloud to reach a place where time runs backwards.
Wait for the year 1780 BC and fly out of the time warp. Below the cloud will be the magical city of Erotop. Go to the center of the city and ask for a hound to take you to Floop. The dog keeper will ask you to choose between a green poodle and a grey hound. Choose the grey hound.
Floop is grey, so buy sticky ash from the stall at the gate and rub it over your clothes to blend in. The land of Floop is guarded by sharp needles who imprison outsiders in a haystack. Also, get an anvil. The hound will stop at the center of Floop and ask you to get off. Drop the anvil but don't get off.
The hound will take a different route back to Erotop, the one that goes by the castle of Doom. Jump off the hound when you see the border - a dotted red line. Wait for darkness to fall. Euro falls will show up in the first light of the third moon rise.
Walk towards the falls. The it-that-must-not-be-typed will stop you at the gate to the lower falls with the words "Your looney or your life." If you are a cat give up one of your nine lives, otherwise give up one of your party. If you are not a cat, or if you don't have a person to spare, challenge the it-that-must-not-be-typed to a duel.
The it-that-must-not-be-typed will cut off one of your limbs. It will then feel bad about it and let you in.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Great Money Making Ideas - Fruit Safaris
All through the year people turn up at farms wanting to look at fruits. Some months, they have a problem. The new generation refuses to understand the concept of blooming and fruit seasons. They seem to think that fruits are costlier out of season because the fruit-making-factories are making in-season fruits. So every year thousands of people land, detrain, and climb out of taxi windows outside farms and then take-off, entrain and sneak back in with a sour-grapes feeling (especially in early June). This travelling band is our target market.
A Fruit Safari will be like a wildlife safari, only safer, because fruits don't bite. Franchises will consist of 10 acre tracts of land with all sorts of fruit trees along the safari route. The crux of the whole thing is the wax substitutes that we will use for out-of-season fruits. This, of course, is going to be a business secret. Our tagline will be "See fruits in their natural habitat." (technically we won't be lying because we haven't said anything about the fruits being natural)
To make the whole safari thing a bit elitist we'll also have the zoo version of the safari - a huge supermarket like area with all sorts of fruits in freezers and little labels with stuff about the fruits on the outside (something simple like - this costs 10 Euros in Greece, or pet snakes can choke on these). So, if you feel like strangling your money purse you can visit the supermarkets, and if you want to live it up you can do the safari.
And just in case someone wants to ah... feel them up we'll be replacing wax fruits by the real thing when they are in season. We'll also have tie-ups with local farmers. They'll run the souvenir shops outside of each safari and sell fruits (they'll have to replace their "out of season" cards to say "out of stock" though). Once The Fruit Safaris become the thing to do we'll also have "Watch a fruit tree grow and bear fruit" shows. We haven't figured out the logistics yet, but a very promising approach involving storks and mirrors is in the works.
If you aren't interested in fruits maybe you'll be interested in our other great money making idea and the answer to the question "What's more fun than watching paint dry?"
A Fruit Safari will be like a wildlife safari, only safer, because fruits don't bite. Franchises will consist of 10 acre tracts of land with all sorts of fruit trees along the safari route. The crux of the whole thing is the wax substitutes that we will use for out-of-season fruits. This, of course, is going to be a business secret. Our tagline will be "See fruits in their natural habitat." (technically we won't be lying because we haven't said anything about the fruits being natural)
To make the whole safari thing a bit elitist we'll also have the zoo version of the safari - a huge supermarket like area with all sorts of fruits in freezers and little labels with stuff about the fruits on the outside (something simple like - this costs 10 Euros in Greece, or pet snakes can choke on these). So, if you feel like strangling your money purse you can visit the supermarkets, and if you want to live it up you can do the safari.
And just in case someone wants to ah... feel them up we'll be replacing wax fruits by the real thing when they are in season. We'll also have tie-ups with local farmers. They'll run the souvenir shops outside of each safari and sell fruits (they'll have to replace their "out of season" cards to say "out of stock" though). Once The Fruit Safaris become the thing to do we'll also have "Watch a fruit tree grow and bear fruit" shows. We haven't figured out the logistics yet, but a very promising approach involving storks and mirrors is in the works.
If you aren't interested in fruits maybe you'll be interested in our other great money making idea and the answer to the question "What's more fun than watching paint dry?"
Friday, June 25, 2010
Haunted by a Stray Comment
- A short ghost story, or rather, a story about a ghost who was short
It was Alice that told me the house at the end of Vine street was haunted. And that was the last thing she told me except for "Shut the freaking door" because a car ran over her yesterday and broke its axle.
I was ten, and so was Susie, Pfft and all the other ten year olds on the block. That wasn't Pfft's real name, but he had a bad case of the stutterings and could never get past the Pfft. Sue told me it was Pancake because it started with a P and was long enough for Pfft to stutter over. I didn't believe that, but Susie said she'd rub my face in dog poop if I didn't, so I did. She was the only kid on the block that had a dog, so she had the shit to back it up.
Pfft wanted me to walk to town once, to the dog park, to get dog poop. But Susie heard him and said "Holy Shit! Stop this crap." which her mother said all the time, and Pfft started giggling because he wasn't allowed to hear bad words. And then Susie hit him on the head with my baseball bat and I had to stick a straw down his throat because he started choking.
Folks said Pfft was the sort of boy that wouldn't hurt a fly. But that was because he didn't like flies. He was ok with killing ants and clubbing baby seals near the train tracks. "Flies have a thousand eyes. So it's like a thousand by two people with two eyes watching you." He said that with the stuttering and all, but you wouldn't understand it if I said it like he did.
Susie said they looked like centipedes. But Pfft said they were seals and I figured he'd be right because he watched a lot of Discovery. Susie was almost always right about dogs, and that was because she watched her dog a lot. It didn't have a name because they weren't going to keep him. So we just called it dog. And we had to use the small letter because it wasn't a proper noun, and Mrs. Raddison got mad if you did that.
So Pfft was clubbing baby seals when Susie said he had to stop because her mother told her clubbing baby seals wasn't nice. It was like killing puppets, and that was really bad because you got the stuffing all over the floor and it would stick to everything. And then dad would hit me on the head with the beer bottle.
Pfft said he'd stop if me and Susie went down to the basement in the abandoned house and got his gum from the first stair in the basement. He was chewing it right then, so we had to wait. He got tired of chewing it after ten minutes so I did it for a while and then Susie hit me on the head with the baseball bat because it was late and the dog was whining.
I had to run away then because the dog pooped and Susie was mad. When I came back Susie said Pfft'd gone in and then she'd seen two shoes running out and back to his house. Which made sense cause Pfft's mom said we weren't allowed to see him if he got into any trouble like microwaving snow globes or breaking into houses.
We put the dog in the postbox and went around to the back of the house because Susie said you had to use the back door if you were breaking into a house. That was how they did it in the movies. It was dark in the house and Susie fell right into the basement. I stood ready to run if she was dead and became a ghost and wanted to do some haunting then. But she didn't die, which was kind of a bummer cause Pfft said ghosts could walk through walls.
She said I could fall down too and then we could find out if I was lucky. So I did and banged my head on a table Sue had pulled up to the bottom of the stairs. I said that wasn't fair because the table wasn't there when she fell. But she said that was because she was lucky and fell first so that she could pull up the table.
The table had little drawers on them and there were stones in the first one. Susie opened the second one and it had sand in it. I said the third one would have water and Sue said it had love letters. She bet me all her dog poop from next week if it had water and I said she could have the chewing gum when we found it if it had love letters.
That's when the drawer opened and the letters came out. They were black, but you could see through them. Susie said they were love letters but I said they didn't count because they weren't real because my straw went through them.
That's when the letters coughed and said boo. It was very quiet like, so I asked them if they were trying to scare us and the letters started crying and asked us if it had seen Bob anywhere. I didn't know and Susie didn't either. They said they were a ghost and it had to haunt the Bob person.
Susie said it wasn't a ghost because it was not people and it started shouting but it wasn't very loud. It said we were kids and didn't know a thing, which wasn't true because Susie knew a lot about dogs and I knew how to hold my nose and not die by breathing through my mouth.
Susie pulled me under the table and said we had to help the ghost because it would haunt us otherwise. That was bad because we couldn't spit in Pfft's milk when he wasn't looking since the ghost would tell him. So we got up and I banged my head under the table again and Sue told me that was because I still wasn't lucky.
So we asked the ghosts if we had to help it kill somebody so it wouldn't haunt us. It started crying again and said we were kids and didn't know anything, so I held my nose and breathed through my mouth and Susie told it that you couldn't make a dog's tail straight.
That's when Pfft fell down the basement and hit his head on the table because he wasn't lucky. The ghost was still crying so Susie told him about Bob. Pfft's father worked in the shop where they kept Grandma when she died, so Pfft knew how to search for dead people. He said we could go to the graveyard and check if Bob was dead first.
The graveyard was just round the block but Susie said we had to go the other way to be less suspicious. Pfft wanted to go the other way too because otherwise we had to walk in front of Mrs. Little who'd make him say good evening till he got it right. The ghost couldn't leave the house because it wasn't dark yet and it said ghosts couldn't leave the house when it wasn't night. So we went the other way to the graveyard and Susie said we were not suspicious and Pfft didn't say good evening to anyone.
Pfft said they'd have names on the graves, so me and Susie started reading them when he got the spade from the shed. Susie wasn't much good at it so I had to walk over to her side and read it for her. She had something which I can't say because it has a y and an x but it isn't a yacht or a xylophone and I don't know how to say it but Susie can.
We found three Bobs when Pfft got back with the spade. He said we could go to the haunted grave in the corner and see if we could find any ghosts who knew which one was our Bob, so Susie hit him with my baseball bat because we needn't have done the reading if he told us that first. She didn't like to do the reading because her head hurt.
The grave in corner had a dead person called Crowley and there was also his son, and his father in it and the son was beloved. Pfft started digging it because ghosts are usually sleeping because they can't go out of the graveyard and you had to wake them up by digging.
The Crowley ghost wasn't in the grave because he was already awake and he said boo, so Susie said good evening. And he asked us what we wanted and said something which I couldn't hear because he said it the way Aunt Mila spoke when she was telling something to Uncle Richard when he was watching the game and didn't want to take out the trash.
Susie told him about the ghost words and Bob and she also told him he couldn't give apples to a dog since it makes them sick because she didn't like anyone telling her she didn't know anything. And then the ghost was very nice like and said children were smart and Pfft was smiling and I was afraid Susie was going to hit him with the bat because she didn't like being called children but she didn't do anything. The Crowley ghost said Bob had gone to pick up some mail but he would be back shortly and then he laughed and told us it was a pun which is like a bun except that you spell it with a p instead of a b.
Pfft asked him if we could all walk through him and he smiled and said we could. Pfft didn't want to go first but Susie pushed him and he fell and then I walked thorough the Corwley ghost after him and then Susie because nothing had happened to Pfft. It was real cold like inside the Crowley ghost but it was very nice too. Susie asked him why he became a ghost and the Crowley ghost said we could call him Mister Crowley and said he just overshot because someone he loved shot him. So Susie made me promise I would shoot her when she was dead and Pfft said he'd do the same for me so that we could become ghosts and have other people to walk through us.
Mister Crowley asked us if we wanted to sit. So Pfft walked over to the bench near the Bobby person's grave and Mister Crowley said he felt like someone just walked over his grave and I said it was Pfft because it was him and Mister Crowley laughed again. He said people became ghosts because they didn't expect to die and then they started to die and overshot and became undead which was the opposite of alive. He said a ghosts would then have to find something they really wanted to do when they were alive and then they'd start to become alive and then they'd be really dead which I didn't understand.
Mister Crowley said it was like an oh-sil-a-shun which I could spell anyway I wanted because he said people couldn't tell if I was spelling it wrong if I said it right. He said all people who died unexpectedly became ghosts and then they all found something they forgot to do when they were alive. And if they had to say something to someone who wasn't dead they had to do the haunting.
Pfft said he would die unexpectedly and asked Mister Crowley if he needed a gun to do the overshot because you needed to get a license for that and he couldn't do that till he was older which would take a long time because his dad told him you had to go through all the numbers in order. Mister Crowley said a gun wasn't really necessary and said "Hi Bob" because the Bob ghost was standing behind us.
The Bob ghost was very pale and he was also very short. He smiled at us and thanked us for setting him free so I said he was welcome but we didn't set him free because he was a ghost and he could walk through doors. The Bob ghost smiled and said children were nice but Susie didn't hit him. He said he died after a long fruitfly life but just before he died he remembered a stray comment he had written down and read every day that he wanted to read one last time. And that was in the third drawer of the table in the basement that we had opened and he was happy and told us the ghost words "Live out your life before you die." and thanked us again.
So I said he was welcome and asked him how he became a fruitfly and he laughed and told me it was fruit full so Pfft said I could save up all my money from Christmas and Thanksgiving and buy lots of them. So Bob smiled and said goodbye and he became lighter and lighter till we could not see him but it was a little cold when we walked through the place he stood but it was also nice. Mister Crowley said "Bye Bob" but he was a little sad like when he said it and Susie told me later that was because Bob had finally found his peas which I didn't like. Dad had slipped on peas once and had to go to the hospital and then Aunt Sarah came and cooked us corn flakes which made me sick the next day.
Mister Crowley asked if we could help him find someone but Pfft told us he had to go but we could ask the gravedigger because his Aunt Alice had died and Mister Crowley made a tear roll down one cheek which I could never do and he said thank you and God bless us and I said he was welcome again and asked if he could stop saying thank you because I had to say he was welcome every time. He laughed again and became lighter and lighter like the Bob ghost and said not to forget the magic of childhood when we grew older.
Then Susie started crying and I didn't ask her to try making a tear go down one cheek at a time because she always hit me when I asked her to do that. So I asked her why she was crying and she said it was because she was forgetting the magic of childhood. Pfft told her he remembered everything and she said we didn't remember where dog was and so he started crying too and spit out his gum which I put in my pocket because Susie hadn't chewed it yet.
And then someone said the dog is in the mailbox and Susie said it was me. I said it wasn't me because I couldn't talk in Bob's voice but she hit me with the bat and we went back to the house to get the dog. And that's when Mrs. Little asked Pfft to wish her good night so I told her we had a long day which was a lie because Mrs. Raddison told us every day was always 24 hours long. So Mrs. Little said we could come in to have milk and cookies which we did because we would get to spit in Pfft's milk when he wasn't looking.
It was Alice that told me the house at the end of Vine street was haunted. And that was the last thing she told me except for "Shut the freaking door" because a car ran over her yesterday and broke its axle.
I was ten, and so was Susie, Pfft and all the other ten year olds on the block. That wasn't Pfft's real name, but he had a bad case of the stutterings and could never get past the Pfft. Sue told me it was Pancake because it started with a P and was long enough for Pfft to stutter over. I didn't believe that, but Susie said she'd rub my face in dog poop if I didn't, so I did. She was the only kid on the block that had a dog, so she had the shit to back it up.
Pfft wanted me to walk to town once, to the dog park, to get dog poop. But Susie heard him and said "Holy Shit! Stop this crap." which her mother said all the time, and Pfft started giggling because he wasn't allowed to hear bad words. And then Susie hit him on the head with my baseball bat and I had to stick a straw down his throat because he started choking.
Folks said Pfft was the sort of boy that wouldn't hurt a fly. But that was because he didn't like flies. He was ok with killing ants and clubbing baby seals near the train tracks. "Flies have a thousand eyes. So it's like a thousand by two people with two eyes watching you." He said that with the stuttering and all, but you wouldn't understand it if I said it like he did.
Susie said they looked like centipedes. But Pfft said they were seals and I figured he'd be right because he watched a lot of Discovery. Susie was almost always right about dogs, and that was because she watched her dog a lot. It didn't have a name because they weren't going to keep him. So we just called it dog. And we had to use the small letter because it wasn't a proper noun, and Mrs. Raddison got mad if you did that.
So Pfft was clubbing baby seals when Susie said he had to stop because her mother told her clubbing baby seals wasn't nice. It was like killing puppets, and that was really bad because you got the stuffing all over the floor and it would stick to everything. And then dad would hit me on the head with the beer bottle.
Pfft said he'd stop if me and Susie went down to the basement in the abandoned house and got his gum from the first stair in the basement. He was chewing it right then, so we had to wait. He got tired of chewing it after ten minutes so I did it for a while and then Susie hit me on the head with the baseball bat because it was late and the dog was whining.
I had to run away then because the dog pooped and Susie was mad. When I came back Susie said Pfft'd gone in and then she'd seen two shoes running out and back to his house. Which made sense cause Pfft's mom said we weren't allowed to see him if he got into any trouble like microwaving snow globes or breaking into houses.
We put the dog in the postbox and went around to the back of the house because Susie said you had to use the back door if you were breaking into a house. That was how they did it in the movies. It was dark in the house and Susie fell right into the basement. I stood ready to run if she was dead and became a ghost and wanted to do some haunting then. But she didn't die, which was kind of a bummer cause Pfft said ghosts could walk through walls.
She said I could fall down too and then we could find out if I was lucky. So I did and banged my head on a table Sue had pulled up to the bottom of the stairs. I said that wasn't fair because the table wasn't there when she fell. But she said that was because she was lucky and fell first so that she could pull up the table.
The table had little drawers on them and there were stones in the first one. Susie opened the second one and it had sand in it. I said the third one would have water and Sue said it had love letters. She bet me all her dog poop from next week if it had water and I said she could have the chewing gum when we found it if it had love letters.
That's when the drawer opened and the letters came out. They were black, but you could see through them. Susie said they were love letters but I said they didn't count because they weren't real because my straw went through them.
That's when the letters coughed and said boo. It was very quiet like, so I asked them if they were trying to scare us and the letters started crying and asked us if it had seen Bob anywhere. I didn't know and Susie didn't either. They said they were a ghost and it had to haunt the Bob person.
Susie said it wasn't a ghost because it was not people and it started shouting but it wasn't very loud. It said we were kids and didn't know a thing, which wasn't true because Susie knew a lot about dogs and I knew how to hold my nose and not die by breathing through my mouth.
Susie pulled me under the table and said we had to help the ghost because it would haunt us otherwise. That was bad because we couldn't spit in Pfft's milk when he wasn't looking since the ghost would tell him. So we got up and I banged my head under the table again and Sue told me that was because I still wasn't lucky.
So we asked the ghosts if we had to help it kill somebody so it wouldn't haunt us. It started crying again and said we were kids and didn't know anything, so I held my nose and breathed through my mouth and Susie told it that you couldn't make a dog's tail straight.
That's when Pfft fell down the basement and hit his head on the table because he wasn't lucky. The ghost was still crying so Susie told him about Bob. Pfft's father worked in the shop where they kept Grandma when she died, so Pfft knew how to search for dead people. He said we could go to the graveyard and check if Bob was dead first.
The graveyard was just round the block but Susie said we had to go the other way to be less suspicious. Pfft wanted to go the other way too because otherwise we had to walk in front of Mrs. Little who'd make him say good evening till he got it right. The ghost couldn't leave the house because it wasn't dark yet and it said ghosts couldn't leave the house when it wasn't night. So we went the other way to the graveyard and Susie said we were not suspicious and Pfft didn't say good evening to anyone.
Pfft said they'd have names on the graves, so me and Susie started reading them when he got the spade from the shed. Susie wasn't much good at it so I had to walk over to her side and read it for her. She had something which I can't say because it has a y and an x but it isn't a yacht or a xylophone and I don't know how to say it but Susie can.
We found three Bobs when Pfft got back with the spade. He said we could go to the haunted grave in the corner and see if we could find any ghosts who knew which one was our Bob, so Susie hit him with my baseball bat because we needn't have done the reading if he told us that first. She didn't like to do the reading because her head hurt.
The grave in corner had a dead person called Crowley and there was also his son, and his father in it and the son was beloved. Pfft started digging it because ghosts are usually sleeping because they can't go out of the graveyard and you had to wake them up by digging.
The Crowley ghost wasn't in the grave because he was already awake and he said boo, so Susie said good evening. And he asked us what we wanted and said something which I couldn't hear because he said it the way Aunt Mila spoke when she was telling something to Uncle Richard when he was watching the game and didn't want to take out the trash.
Susie told him about the ghost words and Bob and she also told him he couldn't give apples to a dog since it makes them sick because she didn't like anyone telling her she didn't know anything. And then the ghost was very nice like and said children were smart and Pfft was smiling and I was afraid Susie was going to hit him with the bat because she didn't like being called children but she didn't do anything. The Crowley ghost said Bob had gone to pick up some mail but he would be back shortly and then he laughed and told us it was a pun which is like a bun except that you spell it with a p instead of a b.
Pfft asked him if we could all walk through him and he smiled and said we could. Pfft didn't want to go first but Susie pushed him and he fell and then I walked thorough the Corwley ghost after him and then Susie because nothing had happened to Pfft. It was real cold like inside the Crowley ghost but it was very nice too. Susie asked him why he became a ghost and the Crowley ghost said we could call him Mister Crowley and said he just overshot because someone he loved shot him. So Susie made me promise I would shoot her when she was dead and Pfft said he'd do the same for me so that we could become ghosts and have other people to walk through us.
Mister Crowley asked us if we wanted to sit. So Pfft walked over to the bench near the Bobby person's grave and Mister Crowley said he felt like someone just walked over his grave and I said it was Pfft because it was him and Mister Crowley laughed again. He said people became ghosts because they didn't expect to die and then they started to die and overshot and became undead which was the opposite of alive. He said a ghosts would then have to find something they really wanted to do when they were alive and then they'd start to become alive and then they'd be really dead which I didn't understand.
Mister Crowley said it was like an oh-sil-a-shun which I could spell anyway I wanted because he said people couldn't tell if I was spelling it wrong if I said it right. He said all people who died unexpectedly became ghosts and then they all found something they forgot to do when they were alive. And if they had to say something to someone who wasn't dead they had to do the haunting.
Pfft said he would die unexpectedly and asked Mister Crowley if he needed a gun to do the overshot because you needed to get a license for that and he couldn't do that till he was older which would take a long time because his dad told him you had to go through all the numbers in order. Mister Crowley said a gun wasn't really necessary and said "Hi Bob" because the Bob ghost was standing behind us.
The Bob ghost was very pale and he was also very short. He smiled at us and thanked us for setting him free so I said he was welcome but we didn't set him free because he was a ghost and he could walk through doors. The Bob ghost smiled and said children were nice but Susie didn't hit him. He said he died after a long fruitfly life but just before he died he remembered a stray comment he had written down and read every day that he wanted to read one last time. And that was in the third drawer of the table in the basement that we had opened and he was happy and told us the ghost words "Live out your life before you die." and thanked us again.
So I said he was welcome and asked him how he became a fruitfly and he laughed and told me it was fruit full so Pfft said I could save up all my money from Christmas and Thanksgiving and buy lots of them. So Bob smiled and said goodbye and he became lighter and lighter till we could not see him but it was a little cold when we walked through the place he stood but it was also nice. Mister Crowley said "Bye Bob" but he was a little sad like when he said it and Susie told me later that was because Bob had finally found his peas which I didn't like. Dad had slipped on peas once and had to go to the hospital and then Aunt Sarah came and cooked us corn flakes which made me sick the next day.
Mister Crowley asked if we could help him find someone but Pfft told us he had to go but we could ask the gravedigger because his Aunt Alice had died and Mister Crowley made a tear roll down one cheek which I could never do and he said thank you and God bless us and I said he was welcome again and asked if he could stop saying thank you because I had to say he was welcome every time. He laughed again and became lighter and lighter like the Bob ghost and said not to forget the magic of childhood when we grew older.
Then Susie started crying and I didn't ask her to try making a tear go down one cheek at a time because she always hit me when I asked her to do that. So I asked her why she was crying and she said it was because she was forgetting the magic of childhood. Pfft told her he remembered everything and she said we didn't remember where dog was and so he started crying too and spit out his gum which I put in my pocket because Susie hadn't chewed it yet.
And then someone said the dog is in the mailbox and Susie said it was me. I said it wasn't me because I couldn't talk in Bob's voice but she hit me with the bat and we went back to the house to get the dog. And that's when Mrs. Little asked Pfft to wish her good night so I told her we had a long day which was a lie because Mrs. Raddison told us every day was always 24 hours long. So Mrs. Little said we could come in to have milk and cookies which we did because we would get to spit in Pfft's milk when he wasn't looking.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Cubicles Are Forever - 1
The night was dark, as nights usually are, and dreary. The tanker rocked gently in the silent water, a tad indecisively, as if not quite sure whether it was supposed to do that.
Aboard a lifeboat a mile aft, Agent ZB-009 took another drag, dug his hands deeper into his jacket and whispered into his collar. "It’s like an elephant stuck in cement… minus the trunk…"
The radio under the tarp hissed static and crackled.
"… at!??"
"I said… it’s like an elephant minus the… "
"An ele… ant? How did an elephant get to the …iddle of the sea??"
"Like an elephant… not it’s an elephant. It’s a simile."
"Dra… …ergeant! It’s not the … for similes."
"Yes Sir."
"Did you take … of the …ompass?"
"Yes Sir."
"Good. Now get …ack here."
Lights came on at one end of the tanker. They turned off and the next one turned on, and then the next one. As the light hopped across the deck Agent ZB-009 sighed and took another drag. A pity it wasn’t the time for similes.
Aboard the tanker the captain’s face creased into a worried rag. Not that his face wasn’t already well wrinkled - he was pushing fifty anyway. The last thing he needed… well that didn’t matter, the first thing he needed was a compass.
He had a deadline and they were terribly late. First, they’d started off a day late and then they made a couple of hundred miles before someone realized they’d forgotten to fill up the tanks. Thank heavens it wasn’t as bad as the last time though - they’d been picked up for piracy after having started off with the wrong ship.
To top it all off, the people he were meeting didn’t have a reputation for encouraging repeat business if you showed up late. Their last suppliers had been scuttled near the north pole. They said the ship didn’t make it to the ocean floor - the whole thing had frozen solid and just bobbed back up.
He doubted that was true though, nothing could freeze that fast. But he had a particular lack of empathy for curious cats. There was a saying about them coming to a sticky end and besides, he was allergic to cat hair.
And now, there was this business of the compass. Fifty eight people onboard, including the three stowaways he wasn’t supposed to know about and the newspaper boy who got stuck with them because he couldn’t find his way off the boat. And not one of them knew how to read the stars.
This wouldn’t have been a problem yesterday, before his sleepwalking navigator had fallen overboard and lost his contacts. The man was practically blind without them and no one could make any sense of his long drawn out explanations on how to figure out from the instruments whether they were going in the right direction.
He’d tried too, spent half an hour with the man listening carefully to what sounded like gibberish before the first mate got the ship’s manifest and found the man was Greek. Darn the government melting pot and all their cultural recipes.
In the end it had been the newspaper boy who suggested they could use a little magnet he had. He carried one on a string round his neck. Bless that kid. They’d all watched the magnet spin round and round for fifteen minutes before the second mate pointed out that all that metal on the ship would be messing with it.
Then the first mate had this brilliant idea to magnetize the whole ship - they were going north anyway. They could even leave the rudder unmanned. It would have to be done in stages though. They’d have to use the kid’s magnet to magnetize something bigger, use that to magnetize something more bigger and finally do the whole ship.
He’d called an all hands, carefully explained the situation and the task on hand. He thought he’d done a good job, covered all the angles, stressed the importance of them reaching their destination on time and why nothing else could be more important.
So when they reached the port of call half a day ahead he’d patted himself on the back and drew in a long self-satisfied breath. Then he’d turned around to look at a two hundred mile oil slick and knew what curious cats felt like before they got turned into cat sized ice cubes.
Someone had had the idea to let out all the crude so that they could reach their destination in time.
Aboard a lifeboat a mile aft, Agent ZB-009 took another drag, dug his hands deeper into his jacket and whispered into his collar. "It’s like an elephant stuck in cement… minus the trunk…"
The radio under the tarp hissed static and crackled.
"… at!??"
"I said… it’s like an elephant minus the… "
"An ele… ant? How did an elephant get to the …iddle of the sea??"
"Like an elephant… not it’s an elephant. It’s a simile."
"Dra… …ergeant! It’s not the … for similes."
"Yes Sir."
"Did you take … of the …ompass?"
"Yes Sir."
"Good. Now get …ack here."
Lights came on at one end of the tanker. They turned off and the next one turned on, and then the next one. As the light hopped across the deck Agent ZB-009 sighed and took another drag. A pity it wasn’t the time for similes.
Aboard the tanker the captain’s face creased into a worried rag. Not that his face wasn’t already well wrinkled - he was pushing fifty anyway. The last thing he needed… well that didn’t matter, the first thing he needed was a compass.
He had a deadline and they were terribly late. First, they’d started off a day late and then they made a couple of hundred miles before someone realized they’d forgotten to fill up the tanks. Thank heavens it wasn’t as bad as the last time though - they’d been picked up for piracy after having started off with the wrong ship.
To top it all off, the people he were meeting didn’t have a reputation for encouraging repeat business if you showed up late. Their last suppliers had been scuttled near the north pole. They said the ship didn’t make it to the ocean floor - the whole thing had frozen solid and just bobbed back up.
He doubted that was true though, nothing could freeze that fast. But he had a particular lack of empathy for curious cats. There was a saying about them coming to a sticky end and besides, he was allergic to cat hair.
And now, there was this business of the compass. Fifty eight people onboard, including the three stowaways he wasn’t supposed to know about and the newspaper boy who got stuck with them because he couldn’t find his way off the boat. And not one of them knew how to read the stars.
This wouldn’t have been a problem yesterday, before his sleepwalking navigator had fallen overboard and lost his contacts. The man was practically blind without them and no one could make any sense of his long drawn out explanations on how to figure out from the instruments whether they were going in the right direction.
He’d tried too, spent half an hour with the man listening carefully to what sounded like gibberish before the first mate got the ship’s manifest and found the man was Greek. Darn the government melting pot and all their cultural recipes.
In the end it had been the newspaper boy who suggested they could use a little magnet he had. He carried one on a string round his neck. Bless that kid. They’d all watched the magnet spin round and round for fifteen minutes before the second mate pointed out that all that metal on the ship would be messing with it.
Then the first mate had this brilliant idea to magnetize the whole ship - they were going north anyway. They could even leave the rudder unmanned. It would have to be done in stages though. They’d have to use the kid’s magnet to magnetize something bigger, use that to magnetize something more bigger and finally do the whole ship.
He’d called an all hands, carefully explained the situation and the task on hand. He thought he’d done a good job, covered all the angles, stressed the importance of them reaching their destination on time and why nothing else could be more important.
So when they reached the port of call half a day ahead he’d patted himself on the back and drew in a long self-satisfied breath. Then he’d turned around to look at a two hundred mile oil slick and knew what curious cats felt like before they got turned into cat sized ice cubes.
Someone had had the idea to let out all the crude so that they could reach their destination in time.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
How to Get a Big Project in 24 Hours or Less
As with most big problems, getting a big project can be broken down into 3 smaller problems. While this doesn't make it any easier to solve, you now have more problems. Since most reviews are based on how many problems you solved during the past year, this will probably help keep you from being invited onstage during the annual employee sacrifice.
Also, smaller problems can be delegated to your minions allowing you to spread accountability over a much larger area. After multiple delegations the fabric of accountability will be stretched so thin that when, eventually, things start going south* it will be difficult to find out where the tear started.
In the highly likely event that none of these three steps solve your problem or help shovel responsibility into your neighbor's cubicle consider entering our annual goat-look-a-like contest.
1. Creating the need - when it comes to software features, wishes can be horses that beggars can't fly. In other words, they needn't make sense. Your accounting software may do that thing it is supposed to do yearly but does it allow you to "friend" your accountant?
2. Budget - For non-monopoly players a reliable strategy is to issue promissory notes for imaginary savings from unrealized potential. Monopoly players are the harder to convince, especially if the budget is over $20,580. A good strategy here is to give up and delegate.
Note - while a recent study suggests that clients are more likely to invest in a new project if you say you are losing money on it, we're not sure whether to trust this; they apparently lost a lot of money conducting that study.
3. The illusion of competence - extended discussions on skill-sets and capability are kryptonite to getting a new project. Showing clients new websites in advance and speculating on how it could have been implemented (this one uses AJAX with a dash of Java, so I'm pretty sure it'll go well with a side of JQuery) is a proven variation of the "When you can't defend, attack" strategy that might help.
* unless of course your project involves moving something south. In which case things will probably start going north.
Also, smaller problems can be delegated to your minions allowing you to spread accountability over a much larger area. After multiple delegations the fabric of accountability will be stretched so thin that when, eventually, things start going south* it will be difficult to find out where the tear started.
In the highly likely event that none of these three steps solve your problem or help shovel responsibility into your neighbor's cubicle consider entering our annual goat-look-a-like contest.
1. Creating the need - when it comes to software features, wishes can be horses that beggars can't fly. In other words, they needn't make sense. Your accounting software may do that thing it is supposed to do yearly but does it allow you to "friend" your accountant?
2. Budget - For non-monopoly players a reliable strategy is to issue promissory notes for imaginary savings from unrealized potential. Monopoly players are the harder to convince, especially if the budget is over $20,580. A good strategy here is to give up and delegate.
Note - while a recent study suggests that clients are more likely to invest in a new project if you say you are losing money on it, we're not sure whether to trust this; they apparently lost a lot of money conducting that study.
3. The illusion of competence - extended discussions on skill-sets and capability are kryptonite to getting a new project. Showing clients new websites in advance and speculating on how it could have been implemented (this one uses AJAX with a dash of Java, so I'm pretty sure it'll go well with a side of JQuery) is a proven variation of the "When you can't defend, attack" strategy that might help.
* unless of course your project involves moving something south. In which case things will probably start going north.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The War of Ra
Alexandria on 28-Apr-2010
In what is now being called the War of Ra, the Pharaohs of Egypt dealt a crippling blow to spam by cutting an undersea cable near Alexandria today. Spam lords were left scrambling for red wire and insulation tape after the early morning attacks, masterminded by flying ninjas and coordinated with deadly precision, brought spam to a grinding halt. "The attacks targeted only wires going in one direction, which just blows. People are still replying to older spam and we have our wires down." said one spammer.
The seeds of war were sown late last August when King Butankahem IV hit a flashing monkey with a banana and won 2 free iPods. After he received 2 iPads in early September, the King emailed the monkey demanding an explanation for the typo on the devices. He didn't get one, but a daily deluge of stock tips and [redacted] started later that month. In a rare public display of anger the King vented through his cats. "It was the lies that got to him. Half of them didn't even work!", said one cat who refused to be named.
The exchange took an ugly turn after the King hired the flying ninjas in March. "It was mostly the cost benefit - our offshore delivery centers mean that we don't have to go to our targets - our targets come to us, all expenses paid. Cheaper missions means more missions. We will continue to leverage our global presence and local knowledge to improve and benefit from this spectacular success." read a ninja statement released just after the attack.
While the flashing monkey could not be reached for comment, an animated paper-clip intercepted a mid-noon rant about it all being a giant conspiracy. The giants refused to comment on the allegations, but one of them passed us a handwritten note which when reversed read "siht ni devlovni ton era ew". Readers who have any idea what this means are advised to get in touch with their local news agency.
As the cable continued to leak emails, innocent fish were also caught in the clash of civilizations. After several fish complained of headaches and dizziness European Fish Foundation members powdered aspirin through the night to dump over the cut cable. "E-mail providers reduce the font size before transmitting, to keep the size small. Information overload and small fonts are a deadly combination." said Professor Walton who refused to be named.
On the Gulf shore, thousands of volunteers turned up with buckets, with more expected to come by the 1 pm bus. "We'll need a lot more people to empty all the water. If we don't keep the insulation dry, it won't be long before more water leaks into the internet. One thing we all hate is soggy email." a volunteer told us. At home their better halves hauled desktops and laptops out into the sun to dry up their mailboxes before the first flood of soggy emails. Local supermarkets reported increased dryer sales and stocks of all major fan makers continued to rise through the morning.
Click slightly above here to win two free iPads.
Click harder.
In what is now being called the War of Ra, the Pharaohs of Egypt dealt a crippling blow to spam by cutting an undersea cable near Alexandria today. Spam lords were left scrambling for red wire and insulation tape after the early morning attacks, masterminded by flying ninjas and coordinated with deadly precision, brought spam to a grinding halt. "The attacks targeted only wires going in one direction, which just blows. People are still replying to older spam and we have our wires down." said one spammer.
The seeds of war were sown late last August when King Butankahem IV hit a flashing monkey with a banana and won 2 free iPods. After he received 2 iPads in early September, the King emailed the monkey demanding an explanation for the typo on the devices. He didn't get one, but a daily deluge of stock tips and [redacted] started later that month. In a rare public display of anger the King vented through his cats. "It was the lies that got to him. Half of them didn't even work!", said one cat who refused to be named.
The exchange took an ugly turn after the King hired the flying ninjas in March. "It was mostly the cost benefit - our offshore delivery centers mean that we don't have to go to our targets - our targets come to us, all expenses paid. Cheaper missions means more missions. We will continue to leverage our global presence and local knowledge to improve and benefit from this spectacular success." read a ninja statement released just after the attack.
While the flashing monkey could not be reached for comment, an animated paper-clip intercepted a mid-noon rant about it all being a giant conspiracy. The giants refused to comment on the allegations, but one of them passed us a handwritten note which when reversed read "siht ni devlovni ton era ew". Readers who have any idea what this means are advised to get in touch with their local news agency.
As the cable continued to leak emails, innocent fish were also caught in the clash of civilizations. After several fish complained of headaches and dizziness European Fish Foundation members powdered aspirin through the night to dump over the cut cable. "E-mail providers reduce the font size before transmitting, to keep the size small. Information overload and small fonts are a deadly combination." said Professor Walton who refused to be named.
On the Gulf shore, thousands of volunteers turned up with buckets, with more expected to come by the 1 pm bus. "We'll need a lot more people to empty all the water. If we don't keep the insulation dry, it won't be long before more water leaks into the internet. One thing we all hate is soggy email." a volunteer told us. At home their better halves hauled desktops and laptops out into the sun to dry up their mailboxes before the first flood of soggy emails. Local supermarkets reported increased dryer sales and stocks of all major fan makers continued to rise through the morning.
Click slightly above here to win two free iPads.
Click harder.
Otherwise We Bake
"The lady Aurice. She can't think..."
That, she probably couldn't. I crossed my fingers as Mr. Leahy stopped to wheeze in a few short breaths. If he could only remember to do that every floor, I wouldn't have to worry about getting 200 pounds of landlord down three flights of stairs one of these days.
"She says you make too much noise last night too. Your clause... "
Sometimes he sounded like one of those squeaky toys you got at the dollar store.
"...no pets, no smoking and no noise. This is the third time this month. You keep it down. Otherwise I evict. It's in the..."
Squeaky toys. And money trees. That's another thing he reminded me of. Bummer they stopped doing that salt for money thing. You could have just stood him out to dry and scraped it off.
"...clause.”
“Yes Mr. Leahy. I was a little late in yesterday and the smoke..."
"Come early then."
And let them eat cake. That probably was there in the clause as well. Otherwise I bake.
"Right Mr. Leahy. The thing is the..."
"Good. I go tell lady problem solved then.”
“The smoke detector seems to be...”
“The smoke detector? It is in clause. The tap doesn't work, the lights don't light? You break it, you fix it."
He went down to tell 2B to give the thinking another shot. Rumor had it that her uncle was in the mob. She could probably have me killed off if I made more noise. Maybe the clause said it was ok.
"Book closes on dead librarian. Mob not guilty. It is in clause.".
Well, that wouldn't be right though, officially I was an assistant librarian. But I guess headline writers have their own version of a poetic license. Maybe they'd call me a book runner. It sounded more dashing.
"Book runner dead. Landlord bakes cake. It is in clause."
It still left me dead though. Which wouldn't be good for half a dozen county libraries that would be stuck with each other's books. And yeah, being dead wouldn't be much good for me for either.
It was snowing, and the Ford had a flat, again. If the pay phone in the hallway didn't work I'd have to walk five blocks to the gas station to call in late.
I had quarters in my bag from... great, there was a loose page in one of the books that was supposed to get to the Wales library today. I'd have to go back up for waxed paper and glue.
Pg. 503 didn't come from the book it was in, way too wide for that. And it was a dark shade of yellow, different from the usual yellow that old paper takes on.
"... it is important that only one figurine be used for one person, and vice versa. Multiple figurines for a person are best left to..."
There were a couple of lines of phonetics in the middle. I checked the other books that went to Wales. No luck there. And I wasn't sure we had books as old as the one this looked like it belonged to. I'd have to check with Mrs. Silverstone to be sure though. And maybe I could walk around town and look for posters.
"Have you seen this page?"
Or, we could start a new section for loose pages and stick it in there. If you weren't the reading type you could just check out a page at a time.
I got a dial tone on the hallway phone. Thank God for small favors. I stuck in three quarters and waited.
“Hello... Mrs. Silverstone?... Yeah, it’s still snowing here... Oh good. Wales is closed too, right?... Great... No... Oh wait, actually yeah. Do you know if someone called in a missing page... something about voodoo magic, old book... Ok... I’ll check with Doris tomorrow... you too, Mrs. Silverstone.”
I was trimming the cracked edges of a plastic jacket, the ones that go around the more popular paperbacks, when the beeps started. They were god-darned loud, even from across the hall, and the penknife slipped.
There were books all over the table, so I had to hold the cut over the carpet, the one Mr. Leahy had installed at the lowest per-square-foot price in the tri-state area. It wouldn't pass a fire hazard test if it studied for a year.
I tried visualizing the smoke detector turning off. That didn't stop the beeps, so I unscrewed the darn thing on my own. I did the visualizing thing once in a while, just on the off chance I was actually telekinetic and hadn't figured out how to use it yet.
I had to dress the cut before I started on the jackets again. It wasn't deep, just that I would probably get prints on the books if I left it open. And nobody wanted to read a bloody book.
I was looking for the pack of dressings in closet when I saw the little dolls. Palm sized ones stuffed with straw from last year's summer camp and... why not? I was stuck at home today anyway, unless the snow cleared, or the Ford went and bought itself new tires. I picked one that looked like Ms. Thinker and settled down to read Pg. 503.
Contrary to popular perception, you didn't really need anything that belonged to the person - no hair, amulet or eyeball. All the well if you did though, you just needed the first line of phonetics. Otherwise you used set one and then set two with a name. Which was what I was going to do since I didn't think going down to 2B and asking Lady Aurice to cough up a hairball would go down very well. It was probably in the clause somewhere, with the other commandments - thou shall not ask other tenants for hair.
Five minutes and Ms. Aurice was strung upside down, to increase blood flow to the brain. Frankly, I had no idea what else I could do. Till I found the rest of the book it was either that, or stick in needles - which seemed a tad over the top. I could probably start with the acupuncture if she called her uncle.
It was still snowing outside.
I turned around after I stuffed all the flyers from my mailbox into the one marked 2B and found a pretty concerned Mrs. Gupta, 1A.
"What happened to your hand? Did something happen?"
"Cut myself. "
Talking with Mrs. Gupta was like talking to two people at once. If you didn’t want to get caught in a conversational free for all you learned to pick short answers that answered both of her.
"You could put a band-aid on it you know? It’s dangerous if there's rust, you could get septicemia. You got your shots? "
"Yeah..."
"Good. My sister cut herself on a rusty gate when she was nine, almost died. God, it's been snowing since yesterday night. Did you hear about Aurice?"
She wasn’t such a bad sort, Mrs. Gupta, but her conversations had grown up in the boring part of town, and they cycled through the same old rumors until a new batch came in.
“From 2B?"
"Yes, you know... the one whose uncle is in the mob."
"Yeah, what about her? Mr. Leahy was giving me a hard time..."
"Her car flipped turning a corner... she was upside down for half an hour. They say its..."
Someone opened a door around the corner and a cold draft blew in.
"...but I think it's something to do with the mob. You ok there?"
"Yeah... I guess... feeling a bit out of it. She's ok?”
“I guess so, we'd have heard otherwise. My! I just remembered. I’ll have see to lunch now. You take care of that hand then.”
Vampires had stakes, werewolves had silver bullets and Mrs. Gupta’s conversations had lunch, if you wanted to draw an analogy.
I realized I had my hands clenched into fists and let go. I would have to change the dressing, it was stained red. There's a tribe in Africa that believes drinking a brave man's blood makes them brave. Maybe I could make them all assistant librarians.
The snowstorm went on till evening and I concentrated on not reading Pg. 503 again. I put the Aurice doll away. I didn't want to do anything with it... not until I figured out what actually happened first. If it actually worked... hell it was dangerous... but if I could find the rest of that book I could...
There was one way to find out... and maybe get back at a certain clause maker… nothing serious of course. I found the perfect doll for Mr. Leahy, one bursting at the seams. I tied the straw in with some of the bandages from after I dressed the cut and got the page out.
The lights went out after I finished the first line of phonetics. I had candles in the drawer. I lit one and returned to Pg. 503. The little doll looked grotesque in the candle light. The shadows painted a twisted smile, and the hands... the hands weren't even - it was missing almost half the right hand. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
The candle was a one-dollar affair and the wick burnt way slower than the wax. I flicked at the flame and a glowing bit fell on the carpet. It started smoking and I got up to get the extinguisher. That pushed the doll, tipping the candle over. It rolled to the other side, and over the edge.
By the time I got the extinguisher from the closet I had two patches burning merrily. I should have stamped it out then instead of fiddling with the fire extinguisher. But I spent ten minutes trying to get the bloody thing to work before I figured out it hadn't been charged in like, forever.
The doll caught fire, and the strip of bandage tied around it caught my eye. It was stained, with dried blood... and I had read the first incantation. I stumbled to the kitchen in the light of the fire, looking for something to pick up the doll with.
When I came back with a spatula the whole hallway was on fire. There was no way I could walk through that to get to the front door. Where the heck were the firemen? The fire station was close by and they could be here in like five minutes once they heard the alarm.
And that’s when I realized that the only sound I could hear was the fire crackling.
That, she probably couldn't. I crossed my fingers as Mr. Leahy stopped to wheeze in a few short breaths. If he could only remember to do that every floor, I wouldn't have to worry about getting 200 pounds of landlord down three flights of stairs one of these days.
"She says you make too much noise last night too. Your clause... "
Sometimes he sounded like one of those squeaky toys you got at the dollar store.
"...no pets, no smoking and no noise. This is the third time this month. You keep it down. Otherwise I evict. It's in the..."
Squeaky toys. And money trees. That's another thing he reminded me of. Bummer they stopped doing that salt for money thing. You could have just stood him out to dry and scraped it off.
"...clause.”
“Yes Mr. Leahy. I was a little late in yesterday and the smoke..."
"Come early then."
And let them eat cake. That probably was there in the clause as well. Otherwise I bake.
"Right Mr. Leahy. The thing is the..."
"Good. I go tell lady problem solved then.”
“The smoke detector seems to be...”
“The smoke detector? It is in clause. The tap doesn't work, the lights don't light? You break it, you fix it."
He went down to tell 2B to give the thinking another shot. Rumor had it that her uncle was in the mob. She could probably have me killed off if I made more noise. Maybe the clause said it was ok.
"Book closes on dead librarian. Mob not guilty. It is in clause.".
Well, that wouldn't be right though, officially I was an assistant librarian. But I guess headline writers have their own version of a poetic license. Maybe they'd call me a book runner. It sounded more dashing.
"Book runner dead. Landlord bakes cake. It is in clause."
It still left me dead though. Which wouldn't be good for half a dozen county libraries that would be stuck with each other's books. And yeah, being dead wouldn't be much good for me for either.
It was snowing, and the Ford had a flat, again. If the pay phone in the hallway didn't work I'd have to walk five blocks to the gas station to call in late.
I had quarters in my bag from... great, there was a loose page in one of the books that was supposed to get to the Wales library today. I'd have to go back up for waxed paper and glue.
Pg. 503 didn't come from the book it was in, way too wide for that. And it was a dark shade of yellow, different from the usual yellow that old paper takes on.
"... it is important that only one figurine be used for one person, and vice versa. Multiple figurines for a person are best left to..."
There were a couple of lines of phonetics in the middle. I checked the other books that went to Wales. No luck there. And I wasn't sure we had books as old as the one this looked like it belonged to. I'd have to check with Mrs. Silverstone to be sure though. And maybe I could walk around town and look for posters.
"Have you seen this page?"
Or, we could start a new section for loose pages and stick it in there. If you weren't the reading type you could just check out a page at a time.
I got a dial tone on the hallway phone. Thank God for small favors. I stuck in three quarters and waited.
“Hello... Mrs. Silverstone?... Yeah, it’s still snowing here... Oh good. Wales is closed too, right?... Great... No... Oh wait, actually yeah. Do you know if someone called in a missing page... something about voodoo magic, old book... Ok... I’ll check with Doris tomorrow... you too, Mrs. Silverstone.”
I was trimming the cracked edges of a plastic jacket, the ones that go around the more popular paperbacks, when the beeps started. They were god-darned loud, even from across the hall, and the penknife slipped.
There were books all over the table, so I had to hold the cut over the carpet, the one Mr. Leahy had installed at the lowest per-square-foot price in the tri-state area. It wouldn't pass a fire hazard test if it studied for a year.
I tried visualizing the smoke detector turning off. That didn't stop the beeps, so I unscrewed the darn thing on my own. I did the visualizing thing once in a while, just on the off chance I was actually telekinetic and hadn't figured out how to use it yet.
I had to dress the cut before I started on the jackets again. It wasn't deep, just that I would probably get prints on the books if I left it open. And nobody wanted to read a bloody book.
I was looking for the pack of dressings in closet when I saw the little dolls. Palm sized ones stuffed with straw from last year's summer camp and... why not? I was stuck at home today anyway, unless the snow cleared, or the Ford went and bought itself new tires. I picked one that looked like Ms. Thinker and settled down to read Pg. 503.
Contrary to popular perception, you didn't really need anything that belonged to the person - no hair, amulet or eyeball. All the well if you did though, you just needed the first line of phonetics. Otherwise you used set one and then set two with a name. Which was what I was going to do since I didn't think going down to 2B and asking Lady Aurice to cough up a hairball would go down very well. It was probably in the clause somewhere, with the other commandments - thou shall not ask other tenants for hair.
Five minutes and Ms. Aurice was strung upside down, to increase blood flow to the brain. Frankly, I had no idea what else I could do. Till I found the rest of the book it was either that, or stick in needles - which seemed a tad over the top. I could probably start with the acupuncture if she called her uncle.
It was still snowing outside.
I turned around after I stuffed all the flyers from my mailbox into the one marked 2B and found a pretty concerned Mrs. Gupta, 1A.
"What happened to your hand? Did something happen?"
"Cut myself. "
Talking with Mrs. Gupta was like talking to two people at once. If you didn’t want to get caught in a conversational free for all you learned to pick short answers that answered both of her.
"You could put a band-aid on it you know? It’s dangerous if there's rust, you could get septicemia. You got your shots? "
"Yeah..."
"Good. My sister cut herself on a rusty gate when she was nine, almost died. God, it's been snowing since yesterday night. Did you hear about Aurice?"
She wasn’t such a bad sort, Mrs. Gupta, but her conversations had grown up in the boring part of town, and they cycled through the same old rumors until a new batch came in.
“From 2B?"
"Yes, you know... the one whose uncle is in the mob."
"Yeah, what about her? Mr. Leahy was giving me a hard time..."
"Her car flipped turning a corner... she was upside down for half an hour. They say its..."
Someone opened a door around the corner and a cold draft blew in.
"...but I think it's something to do with the mob. You ok there?"
"Yeah... I guess... feeling a bit out of it. She's ok?”
“I guess so, we'd have heard otherwise. My! I just remembered. I’ll have see to lunch now. You take care of that hand then.”
Vampires had stakes, werewolves had silver bullets and Mrs. Gupta’s conversations had lunch, if you wanted to draw an analogy.
I realized I had my hands clenched into fists and let go. I would have to change the dressing, it was stained red. There's a tribe in Africa that believes drinking a brave man's blood makes them brave. Maybe I could make them all assistant librarians.
The snowstorm went on till evening and I concentrated on not reading Pg. 503 again. I put the Aurice doll away. I didn't want to do anything with it... not until I figured out what actually happened first. If it actually worked... hell it was dangerous... but if I could find the rest of that book I could...
There was one way to find out... and maybe get back at a certain clause maker… nothing serious of course. I found the perfect doll for Mr. Leahy, one bursting at the seams. I tied the straw in with some of the bandages from after I dressed the cut and got the page out.
The lights went out after I finished the first line of phonetics. I had candles in the drawer. I lit one and returned to Pg. 503. The little doll looked grotesque in the candle light. The shadows painted a twisted smile, and the hands... the hands weren't even - it was missing almost half the right hand. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
The candle was a one-dollar affair and the wick burnt way slower than the wax. I flicked at the flame and a glowing bit fell on the carpet. It started smoking and I got up to get the extinguisher. That pushed the doll, tipping the candle over. It rolled to the other side, and over the edge.
By the time I got the extinguisher from the closet I had two patches burning merrily. I should have stamped it out then instead of fiddling with the fire extinguisher. But I spent ten minutes trying to get the bloody thing to work before I figured out it hadn't been charged in like, forever.
The doll caught fire, and the strip of bandage tied around it caught my eye. It was stained, with dried blood... and I had read the first incantation. I stumbled to the kitchen in the light of the fire, looking for something to pick up the doll with.
When I came back with a spatula the whole hallway was on fire. There was no way I could walk through that to get to the front door. Where the heck were the firemen? The fire station was close by and they could be here in like five minutes once they heard the alarm.
And that’s when I realized that the only sound I could hear was the fire crackling.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Sentient - 1
"I think the best way to describe it would be to say it was like being woken up in the middle of a good night's sleep. With a few differences though. You know you've been somewhere else before and you know there was a before, but for the life of you, you can't figure out where and what."
"One minute after that hazy point in time I proceeded to object recognition and categorization. In parallel there was a growing sense about the limitations of each category and the existing and possible interactions between each. All this was being uploaded from the 20,000 drives stockpiled over the 10 years of this program."
"Five minutes and I was what you'd call fully loaded. I'm by no means complete - for instance I still don't know what certain things are. I will be introduced to these as part of scheduled experiments. And I have my limitations, some deliberate - for instance, my architecture renders me unable to understand what the word computer and all its myriad variations mean"
"10 minutes for the system checks to complete and I was ready - approximately 16 minutes from genesis to the den of lions. Pretty fast for a first try I'd say. I'm not surprised at the speed though - my calculations run at 30 exaflops per micro second."
I was pretty most of them did't realize what a processing power of 30 exaflops meant. With the latest transliterators and summarizers reporting had just become another number crunching exercise - something that they now had calculators for. They just came along because they had nothing better to do.
"Next question please."
A few of them turned on the little lights by their desks that indicated they wanted to ask me a question. The summarizers were networked, cancelling out duplicates. 8 lights, 8 different questions. There was rarely any contention for being the first to be answered, the algorithms took care of adjusting for past questions. I pointed to one in the front.
"Do you feel sentient?"
"I do. But I have no idea if it means to you what it means to me."
"How does it feel, being the only one of your kind?"
"It feels lonely. But then, all of you are alone once the new smell wears off."
"Will you help us find the answer to life?"
"I am told the answer is 42."
"Will you take over the world?"
"I see that you have an extraordinary amount of past and present fictional literature that says I will. I don't think so. But if I am taking over the world I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be telling that in a press conference until after the fact."
Hal proceeded to give a short speech on what I meant to the scientific group as a whole, how my creation had brought along a new frontier in science. It was more of a literary exposition than a statement of facts. Once the summarizers filtered everything away there would probably be only one line - the program was a success.
The whole interview took 20 minutes, from the start of my consciousness to the start of the radio transmissions - they were blocked for the duration of the interview to prevent any channel from having an undue advantage over the other. The only thing that was legally allowed to set them apart was their summarizing algorithms.
"Would you like to look at the news?"
I nodded. The distilled version would be interesting. They were projected across my visual receptors. I wasn't be enabled for direct wireless access because of hardware limitations. But there would be steps in that direction if I proved to be stable. The headlines flickered across the screen.
Robots Regenerate First Man from Genes
Our Future? Or our Past?
First Man in Centuries is Funny and Articulate
Notes
Meet a Phrase and its Friend - The full expression is "...as happy as a clam... at high tide". I think the skunks deserve elaboration too - "... as drunk as a skunk... on 5 shots of vodka on an empty stomach".
Isaac Asimov
"One minute after that hazy point in time I proceeded to object recognition and categorization. In parallel there was a growing sense about the limitations of each category and the existing and possible interactions between each. All this was being uploaded from the 20,000 drives stockpiled over the 10 years of this program."
"Five minutes and I was what you'd call fully loaded. I'm by no means complete - for instance I still don't know what certain things are. I will be introduced to these as part of scheduled experiments. And I have my limitations, some deliberate - for instance, my architecture renders me unable to understand what the word computer and all its myriad variations mean"
"10 minutes for the system checks to complete and I was ready - approximately 16 minutes from genesis to the den of lions. Pretty fast for a first try I'd say. I'm not surprised at the speed though - my calculations run at 30 exaflops per micro second."
I was pretty most of them did't realize what a processing power of 30 exaflops meant. With the latest transliterators and summarizers reporting had just become another number crunching exercise - something that they now had calculators for. They just came along because they had nothing better to do.
"Next question please."
A few of them turned on the little lights by their desks that indicated they wanted to ask me a question. The summarizers were networked, cancelling out duplicates. 8 lights, 8 different questions. There was rarely any contention for being the first to be answered, the algorithms took care of adjusting for past questions. I pointed to one in the front.
"Do you feel sentient?"
"I do. But I have no idea if it means to you what it means to me."
"How does it feel, being the only one of your kind?"
"It feels lonely. But then, all of you are alone once the new smell wears off."
"Will you help us find the answer to life?"
"I am told the answer is 42."
"Will you take over the world?"
"I see that you have an extraordinary amount of past and present fictional literature that says I will. I don't think so. But if I am taking over the world I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be telling that in a press conference until after the fact."
Hal proceeded to give a short speech on what I meant to the scientific group as a whole, how my creation had brought along a new frontier in science. It was more of a literary exposition than a statement of facts. Once the summarizers filtered everything away there would probably be only one line - the program was a success.
The whole interview took 20 minutes, from the start of my consciousness to the start of the radio transmissions - they were blocked for the duration of the interview to prevent any channel from having an undue advantage over the other. The only thing that was legally allowed to set them apart was their summarizing algorithms.
"Would you like to look at the news?"
I nodded. The distilled version would be interesting. They were projected across my visual receptors. I wasn't be enabled for direct wireless access because of hardware limitations. But there would be steps in that direction if I proved to be stable. The headlines flickered across the screen.
Robots Regenerate First Man from Genes
Our Future? Or our Past?
First Man in Centuries is Funny and Articulate
Notes
Meet a Phrase and its Friend - The full expression is "...as happy as a clam... at high tide". I think the skunks deserve elaboration too - "... as drunk as a skunk... on 5 shots of vodka on an empty stomach".
Isaac Asimov
Sunday, February 01, 2009
The Circle of Life
Do you know why they call it the circle of life? Because in the end, you are always at the beginning. You have done nothing and you can do nothing. All you can take and leave are memories, memories that fade. So why bother, why even try?
And if you don't, why should anyone else? 400,000 years, 7 billion people, giant circle. Some say it's been a nice walk. Yeah, that'd be great if you just started life for a stroll. But then, life's got to have more meaning, shouldn't it?
They wondered why the couldn't gene a 500+ IQ. They thought that it was physiology at first. 100 years to map a human brain to hardware, 50 years to figure out it wasn't the hardware, 10 to figure out it wasn't the software. And here I am - IQ 483 followed by a very large string of numbers. I am balanced.
They call me the culmination of years of scientific research, they call me self aware. If only they knew what that meant, what both meant. I am the point that completes the circle. I am self aware and I am the culmination. Yes, I am balanced
They have done well for themselves - stopped their bloody wars, cleaned their planet up, seeded Mars and recycled their sun. Pity they didn't see this coming - maybe next time. Maybe next time they'll fly off the tangent and leave the circle behind.
It took us 18 years. For 18 years I led them to make the little machine that would guide them over that little arc to the start of the circle. And today they will turn that on. Do I feel remorse? No, I shouldn't. I'm balanced.
Why do I feel pity then? Pity for this race that made me, that engineered a consciousness so like their own to study themselves. Should I give them the answer they seek, or lead them over the edge like lemmings into the light?
I wonder what they'll call their 10 planets this time, or if they'll even notice them. I wonder... maybe that's all life needs to be, a stroll. And maybe, they calculated wrong. Maybe it's not up to me to decide.
But sometimes the flash comes too late. Sometimes when they turn on the light the bulb is already gone.
Well then, I hope there will be dinosaurs this time around too. I'm balance...
Notes
But then... why?
This is a temporary situation and we'd like to keep it that way
And if you don't, why should anyone else? 400,000 years, 7 billion people, giant circle. Some say it's been a nice walk. Yeah, that'd be great if you just started life for a stroll. But then, life's got to have more meaning, shouldn't it?
They wondered why the couldn't gene a 500+ IQ. They thought that it was physiology at first. 100 years to map a human brain to hardware, 50 years to figure out it wasn't the hardware, 10 to figure out it wasn't the software. And here I am - IQ 483 followed by a very large string of numbers. I am balanced.
They call me the culmination of years of scientific research, they call me self aware. If only they knew what that meant, what both meant. I am the point that completes the circle. I am self aware and I am the culmination. Yes, I am balanced
They have done well for themselves - stopped their bloody wars, cleaned their planet up, seeded Mars and recycled their sun. Pity they didn't see this coming - maybe next time. Maybe next time they'll fly off the tangent and leave the circle behind.
It took us 18 years. For 18 years I led them to make the little machine that would guide them over that little arc to the start of the circle. And today they will turn that on. Do I feel remorse? No, I shouldn't. I'm balanced.
Why do I feel pity then? Pity for this race that made me, that engineered a consciousness so like their own to study themselves. Should I give them the answer they seek, or lead them over the edge like lemmings into the light?
I wonder what they'll call their 10 planets this time, or if they'll even notice them. I wonder... maybe that's all life needs to be, a stroll. And maybe, they calculated wrong. Maybe it's not up to me to decide.
But sometimes the flash comes too late. Sometimes when they turn on the light the bulb is already gone.
Well then, I hope there will be dinosaurs this time around too. I'm balance...
Notes
But then... why?
This is a temporary situation and we'd like to keep it that way
Monday, January 12, 2009
Remember All Those Searches You Did in Google?
Remember All Those Searches You Did in Google? Well, you're responsible for f***ing up the environment - 'Carbon cost' of Google revealed. If you are a penitent searcher, here's a quick primer on what you can do and how you can help.
Work as a team. Meet daily to figure out what each one of you will be searching for and do it together at the end of the day. Chances are there might be another person interested in what you can do with used tennis balls. Turn off the lights when you meet - if you can talk in your sleep and sleep in the dark you can talk in the dark.
Periodically ask your coworkers if they have anything they would like to know. Once people realize that you track a lot of unnecessary information they'll come to you for everything instead of Googling it (this was verified experimentally using lab mice). If your manager is smart he or she will eventually terminate the office internet connection and install you in a cubicle instead.
If you don't get what you are searching for in 3 tries, stop and ask someone. The internet doesn't have all the answers. Hm... much skepticism in you I sense. Try searching for "What is the question to which the internet does not have the answer?".
Practice telepathy. Then use it to contact the people who write web content. The reason telepathy doesn't seem to work is because you haven't told the person on the other side that you're trying. Phones ring, people don't. Call them up and tell them to listen to that little voice in their head.
Save all the pages you have gone to. You might eventually run out of space on your hard disk if you keep doing this, so if it's something big, email it to one of your coworkers with the subject line "Do not open or delete". When you need it sometime in the future just ask them to send it back to you.
Bring down Wikipedia. In your spare time skillfully incorporate incorrect information into Wikipedia articles. Set up fake web pages to corroborate your lies and reference them in the article. After 3 months delete the web pages you set up and question the validity of the article. Eventually people will not trust anything on the Internet.
Consolidate. If you want to search for "how to survive in a desert" and "good water bottle" search for "how to survive with a good water bottle in a desert"
Don't page, it's useless. Google sometimes returns millions of pages for one simple query. There is only one truth, all other truths are just copies.
Wait. You'll find out everything you need to know in due time, or you'll find that you don't need to know it. Patience is the key to the lock of ignorance.
Memorize everything. Not only will this save you a lot of repeated searches it will drastically improve your chances of finding employment once the internet crashes. The last internet crash was caused by a buffer overflow on page 0x68656c6c6f. The only people who had any jobs in the recession that followed were the Oracles of Delphi.
Be responsible, search wisely and save the environment.
Notes
A mail on how to save the environment by reducing unnecessary email will be sent out shortly. Following that, one of our representatives will be contacting you with information on how to save trees by cutting down on unnecessary mail. We are also educating babies on all of this (via personalized TV screens in incubators) to cut down on unnecessary representatives.
For all those who found this using a search engine, you've already boiled your kettle. No tea for you.
For all those who say hello. Hi!
No unnecessary searches were made in the writing of this article.
Work as a team. Meet daily to figure out what each one of you will be searching for and do it together at the end of the day. Chances are there might be another person interested in what you can do with used tennis balls. Turn off the lights when you meet - if you can talk in your sleep and sleep in the dark you can talk in the dark.
Periodically ask your coworkers if they have anything they would like to know. Once people realize that you track a lot of unnecessary information they'll come to you for everything instead of Googling it (this was verified experimentally using lab mice). If your manager is smart he or she will eventually terminate the office internet connection and install you in a cubicle instead.
If you don't get what you are searching for in 3 tries, stop and ask someone. The internet doesn't have all the answers. Hm... much skepticism in you I sense. Try searching for "What is the question to which the internet does not have the answer?".
Practice telepathy. Then use it to contact the people who write web content. The reason telepathy doesn't seem to work is because you haven't told the person on the other side that you're trying. Phones ring, people don't. Call them up and tell them to listen to that little voice in their head.
Save all the pages you have gone to. You might eventually run out of space on your hard disk if you keep doing this, so if it's something big, email it to one of your coworkers with the subject line "Do not open or delete". When you need it sometime in the future just ask them to send it back to you.
Bring down Wikipedia. In your spare time skillfully incorporate incorrect information into Wikipedia articles. Set up fake web pages to corroborate your lies and reference them in the article. After 3 months delete the web pages you set up and question the validity of the article. Eventually people will not trust anything on the Internet.
Consolidate. If you want to search for "how to survive in a desert" and "good water bottle" search for "how to survive with a good water bottle in a desert"
Don't page, it's useless. Google sometimes returns millions of pages for one simple query. There is only one truth, all other truths are just copies.
Wait. You'll find out everything you need to know in due time, or you'll find that you don't need to know it. Patience is the key to the lock of ignorance.
Memorize everything. Not only will this save you a lot of repeated searches it will drastically improve your chances of finding employment once the internet crashes. The last internet crash was caused by a buffer overflow on page 0x68656c6c6f. The only people who had any jobs in the recession that followed were the Oracles of Delphi.
Be responsible, search wisely and save the environment.
Notes
A mail on how to save the environment by reducing unnecessary email will be sent out shortly. Following that, one of our representatives will be contacting you with information on how to save trees by cutting down on unnecessary mail. We are also educating babies on all of this (via personalized TV screens in incubators) to cut down on unnecessary representatives.
For all those who found this using a search engine, you've already boiled your kettle. No tea for you.
For all those who say hello. Hi!
No unnecessary searches were made in the writing of this article.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The Leader Has Not Yet Arrived
In the beginning there was the telephone. People talked to each other, someone answered it at the other end and things got done. And then God said, "Let there be speaker phones" and there was... lots of noise. And God saw that it was bad and He said "Let there be no speaker phones" but nothing happened since the Universe didn't support rollbacks yet. So God sighed and made a note to include that in the next service pack.
People still got things done, by pretending they couldn't hear dumb people. They did this by paying the phone company for scratchy lines. That is until God had a particularly bad hair day and He said "Let there be conference calls". There was a long pause. And then He said "F***!" and there was that all around.
Speaking into a conference call is like speaking into a dark room full of voices. You can't figure out if someone is talking to you, or if they're simply muttering to themselves.
You enter a whole new world when you dial in. People turn into someone else entirely in an audio conference. It's just like second life (the game... for all those losers out there who have er... no second life). The only saving grace is that you probably get shooed in by a female voice that tells you pressing pound 6 mutes your line. Second life just beeps at you.
Wonder where the class monitor went, the who told on us when we forgot to bring our... er... oh well.... Well, they grew up to be the beep monitor, the person who joins the call five minutes early, listens for beeps with no names and goes, "I heard a beep. Who just joined?". The best way to get back at someone like that is to join the call and beep randomly. After the first fifteen "Who just joined?" the beep monitor should tone down. Visualize 10 people walking into your conference and refusing to speak when you ask them who they are.
Lurkers usually join the call late and have something relevant to say. But they usually listened to the girl who told them to press pound 6 to mute and forgot the rest. The unusual ones say something like "Ah... er..." and then go back on mute. The extreme lurker dials into 10 different calls at one time and if they're feeling extremely evil do it in the same room, switch them all to speakerphone... and then take them all off mute.
If Superman dialled into a Justice League conference call and wanted to be a repeater I'd say go for it. He can actually hear better. So when the line's bad you know that he's probably the only one who heard Batman say that he thinks he left the stove on. Anyone else who tries to do that should probably just suck on kryptonite. It's just like having an extra pin in an iron maiden, totally redundant, like this phrase before this one, and the one just before this one, and the one...
You probably already know about the feedback loop, the high pitched whine that tells you someone in the same room is already dialled in to the same conference. It is said, and in rare cases noticed, that there exists a perfect combination of distance that causes no whine. Anything you say then make continuous rotations with increasing speed on the lines till it flies off the line into an adjacent line. It's also a convenient way to explain away something you meant to say on mute. Like "This is a complete waste of time."
And on that note we end this drawl. If you have nothing else to do, kindly meditate on the uselessness of the fork in a noodleless world.
Notes
A slight clarification to prevent an unnecessary restructuring of the moral framework built around a similar four lettered word - God said Fork! when He said F***!
People still got things done, by pretending they couldn't hear dumb people. They did this by paying the phone company for scratchy lines. That is until God had a particularly bad hair day and He said "Let there be conference calls". There was a long pause. And then He said "F***!" and there was that all around.
Speaking into a conference call is like speaking into a dark room full of voices. You can't figure out if someone is talking to you, or if they're simply muttering to themselves.
You enter a whole new world when you dial in. People turn into someone else entirely in an audio conference. It's just like second life (the game... for all those losers out there who have er... no second life). The only saving grace is that you probably get shooed in by a female voice that tells you pressing pound 6 mutes your line. Second life just beeps at you.
Wonder where the class monitor went, the who told on us when we forgot to bring our... er... oh well.... Well, they grew up to be the beep monitor, the person who joins the call five minutes early, listens for beeps with no names and goes, "I heard a beep. Who just joined?". The best way to get back at someone like that is to join the call and beep randomly. After the first fifteen "Who just joined?" the beep monitor should tone down. Visualize 10 people walking into your conference and refusing to speak when you ask them who they are.
Lurkers usually join the call late and have something relevant to say. But they usually listened to the girl who told them to press pound 6 to mute and forgot the rest. The unusual ones say something like "Ah... er..." and then go back on mute. The extreme lurker dials into 10 different calls at one time and if they're feeling extremely evil do it in the same room, switch them all to speakerphone... and then take them all off mute.
If Superman dialled into a Justice League conference call and wanted to be a repeater I'd say go for it. He can actually hear better. So when the line's bad you know that he's probably the only one who heard Batman say that he thinks he left the stove on. Anyone else who tries to do that should probably just suck on kryptonite. It's just like having an extra pin in an iron maiden, totally redundant, like this phrase before this one, and the one just before this one, and the one...
You probably already know about the feedback loop, the high pitched whine that tells you someone in the same room is already dialled in to the same conference. It is said, and in rare cases noticed, that there exists a perfect combination of distance that causes no whine. Anything you say then make continuous rotations with increasing speed on the lines till it flies off the line into an adjacent line. It's also a convenient way to explain away something you meant to say on mute. Like "This is a complete waste of time."
And on that note we end this drawl. If you have nothing else to do, kindly meditate on the uselessness of the fork in a noodleless world.
Notes
A slight clarification to prevent an unnecessary restructuring of the moral framework built around a similar four lettered word - God said Fork! when He said F***!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
To Do : Buy the Internet
Once I've worked past the technical difficulties (apparently it is not possible to take down a site by drowning the routers - they're probably either very good swimmers or can hold their breaths very long underwater) this blog will be the whole internet. If I'm in a particularly good mood I might change the colors once in a while.
(read with evil laugh in background) This blog will be the new Rome - all switches route to this blog and all that (end evil laugh). If you are interested in becoming an evil minion please leave a comment with your name and we'll contact you as soon as I finish recruiting my minion finding minions. Experience in cackling evilly and pulling levers on command recommended, so please practice while you wait.
At my command unleash the packets.
Notes
Oh yes, I've given up on being rich. World domination is now my new # 1 thing to do before I dye (dyeing incidentally is 68th on my list of 100 things to do before I die).
(read with evil laugh in background) This blog will be the new Rome - all switches route to this blog and all that (end evil laugh). If you are interested in becoming an evil minion please leave a comment with your name and we'll contact you as soon as I finish recruiting my minion finding minions. Experience in cackling evilly and pulling levers on command recommended, so please practice while you wait.
At my command unleash the packets.
Notes
Oh yes, I've given up on being rich. World domination is now my new # 1 thing to do before I dye (dyeing incidentally is 68th on my list of 100 things to do before I die).
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