Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:40:31 -0500 Subject: Re: The Big Explaining (1 of 3) In alt.religion.kibology, kibo@world.std.com wrote: It's about time I explained myself. A couple years back I tried to make visible some of the hidden threads that connect my articles, and people must have learned a lot because they got really quiet after I posted my explanations, and it's high time I did it again. So I spent some time today going through my recent articles and trying to diagram the difficult concepts. These are excerpts (in chronological order) from about half of the articles I posted in the first two months of 2003 (up to my vacation.) The explanations are clear and lucid, written in a style which attempts to combine a newspaper reporter's "inverted pyramid" with Kurt Vonnegut before he got too old to write anything other than "I'm too old to write anything other than 'I'm too old to write anything.'" There are three parts. You may wish to print them out so you can line them up side by side so that when you draw lines connecting the same words in Part 1 and Part 3 you can see where they intersect Part 2, yielding a diagram which may or may not look like and evil polygon. > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 04:10:13 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Story: Einstein's Medieval Christmas (2002) > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > Fun fact: Right now, on my TV, > Barbara Bain is lying about how > much she loves Captain Kangaroo. Oh, great, it's only my first article of 2003 and already I've found one where I can't remember what the heck I was talking about. I realize that I was watching Barbara Bain in something -- probably some kids' show where Barbara Bain tried to abduct children by telling them she was a close personal friend of Captain Kangaroo and not Gerry Anderson -- but I don't know what it was, and I don't think /var/log on my TiVo goes back to January so now we'll never know unless someone has an old TV Guide lying around. (I probably wasn't watching the show live, it had probably been in the TiVo for a day or two, unless it was that "Diagnosis Murder" episode with her which was in the TiVo for almost a year because I was never quite in the mood to see a show which included both Barbara Bain and Barry Van Dyke.) TiVo is a box that fills up with TV when you're on vacation. Barbara Bain used to be the star of lots of TV reruns. Now she's someone who used to be in reruns. Fun fact: Barbara Bain once beat up Barry Van Dyke's father. > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 04:16:46 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Classic arcade games you've never played 2003 - part one > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > I want to be really sure before I bury this time capsule containing > thousands of "Baby Geniuses" tapes. > > -- K. > > Also, I will be carving a > hundred-mile-wide triangle > into the earth above the site > to warn space aliens not to > dig there. > > After all, the equilateral > triangle is the universal > symbol for "don't look at this". You see, that was a bad movie. A very bad movie. You might not think a movie where Dom DeLuise gets hit in the crotch with a monkey wrench could be all bad, but there you go. The business about the giant glowing triangle serving to keep aliens from digging there was actually one of the loonier serious nuclear waste-disposal plans to get lots of media coverage several years ago. "Baby Geniuses" is the opposite of a "Baby Mozart" tape. One is a quack thing that will magically make your infant smarter if you were dumb enough to pay money for the tape, while the other will magically make you stupider even if you watch it for free. > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 04:39:39 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: True-life Animal-57 update > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...a discussion of Taco Bell and Velcro...] > > Incidentally, velcro killed Gus Grissom, > and it wasn't even in his taco! During > the investigation, Richard Feynman > demonstrated how much worse the explosion > could have been, by dipping a strip of > Velcro into a taco. Then he spent six > weeks trying to figure out the meaning > of "Go for it!" and "Run for the border!" This, of course, is a reference to the Apollo 1 fire which killed Gus Grissom (where the astronauts had requested extra Velcro all over the inside of the capsule, and nobody had figured out that Velcro becomes a deadly explosive in a pure-oxygen atmosphere like NASA was using) and to Richard Feynman's investigation of the space shuttle Challenger's breakup, in which he dipped rubber rings into his drink, and spent a lot of time worrying that NASA people used the phrase "Go for it!" in conversation. He was oddly fascinated with that phrase. Taco Bell is a fast-food chain that serves things that used to be tacos, before they got small. > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 04:50:01 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Who stole my sweatpants?? > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > Here's my suggestion: Get one of those jars of Trader Joe's tomato soup, > the kind that comes in the really tall skinny olive jars that can barely > stand upright. Then bring it home and just wait for it to get spilled. > (Trader Joe's soup is great for spilling.) I guarantee you that the tall > narrow column of no-brand tomato glop will fall diagonally, heading directly > for your favorite article of clothing, especially if it's part of a large > pile of non-tomato-proof stuff. That was a true story involving a day I had to do my laundry a second time because I like to do my laundry right before dinner, which involved stupid yucky Trader Joe's soup. > [...] > Does Lipton still make > Giggle Noodle Cup-A-Soup? > Or did they discontinue it > before it could induce > even a single giggle? Cup-A-Soup is a popular brand of packets of salt mixed with yellow dye and tiny noodles cut from newsprint. Just add hot water, and BAM! you got hot water that looks like pee, with shredded paper dissolving in it. It comes in about a hundred flavors, most of which are the same yellow synthetic-chicken-flavored not-broth but with different shapes of noodles. Different shapes of real noodles would be lame enough, but the different shapes of Cup-A-Soup noodles have no texture, and are usually smaller than lentils (you can get them up a straw easily.) Giggle Noodle has little ":-)"s in it just to make it even more wimpy than soup with rectangular tissue-paper noodles. Noodles are referred to as "alimentary paste" on many product labels in Chinatown. > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 06:31:45 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: sad news from the world of televised science fiction > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > Bad news for fans of TV sci-fi. > > The actor who played everyone's favorite big-eared supporting character > in a legendary sci-fi series cancelled by NBC after three seasons... is dead. > > I'm referring, of course, to Royce D. Applegate, who played security > chief Manilow Crocker in early episodes of NBC's "seaQuest DSV", > before it was renamed NBC's "seaQuest", and then renamed NBC's > "seaQuest 2032", and then cancelled. > > [...] > The actor's charred corpse was found in the wreckage of his home on > New Year's Day. The cause of the fire is being investigated. > The prime suspect is a superintelligent dolphin, but he isn't talking. That was a true story, except I don't think the animatronic talking dolphin actually set the fire that roasted Royce D. Applegate. NBC's "seaQuest DSV" was a TV show which took place underwater, usually at an amusement park in Orlando. Except that futuristic Orlando was represented by stock footage of Boston, and the crazed Hungarian dictator was represented by William Shatner. Dom DeLuise was in a very special episode of NBC's "seaQuest", which was devoted to showing his family reunion, and a slow-motion volleyball game that went on forever, and something about his wife eating rat poison to stay thin and he had to get the crew of the seaQuest to stop her because he had to live in a plastic bubble because liberals had taken over the world and locked up all the smokers. William Shatner, Barbara Bain, Dom DeLuise, and Barry Van Dyke have never done a science fiction show together, although "Star Trek vs. Space: 1999 vs. seaQuest vs. Galactica 1980" would have starred all of them if it weren't just an idle fantasy of mine. (The Enterprise would win.) > Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 06:39:54 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Story: Einstein's Medieval Christmas (2002) > > [...] > So did you like Robert Wise's cameo > in that movie where Christopher Lee > played Captain Kangaroo? And if > Tom Arnold really was his own grandpa, > would he be justified in trying to > kill Captain Kangaroo? Robert Wise directed "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "West Side Story", and a movie where William Shatner wore a giant wad of black Velcro on his head so that people could tell him and the bald woman apart. Beloved children's TV show host Captain Kangaroo (whose real name is Bob Keeshan) and Robert Wise both appeared in "The Stupids", starring Tom Arnold as the only man who has ever figured out what "FATAL ERROR -- DRIVE B" _really_ means. Tom Arnold's character was so stupid that he thought that Christopher Lee and Bob Keeshan were the same evil person, when really Christopher Lee was just a figment of his imagination. He spends most of the movie trying to kill Bob Keeshan. Bob Keeshan and Gene Roddenberry both appeared on the cover of The Humanist magazine, which profiles famous atheists who prove there is no God by making movies which make you say, "GOD WOULD NEVER HAD ALLOWED THEM TO MAKE A MOVIE THIS BAD!" "The Stupids" is actually about 3000% better than "Baby Geniuses" and contains moments of actual entertainment. Same goes for the movie about Shatner and the bald woman. But both were so deeply flawed that they went down in history as famous flops, whereas the much worse "Baby Geniuses" is so bad that nobody's ever heard of it, even me. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 08:04:24 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Two simple requests... > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > 1.) I just called up a bunch of reporters and told them that > alt.religion.kibology is a cloning corporation and we've produced > a million billion zillion clones of Bob Hope for less than a tenth > of a cent each, and that there are too many of them to count so we > won't let the reporters count them, but if anyone asks you, please > tell the reporters that yes, we just made a million billion zillion > clones of Bob Hope. This is a reference to the Raelians, some bozo religious cult (founded by a French race car driver who moved to Quebec, because apparently France wasn't weird enough) that announced they had secretly cloned a human being. They got lots and lots of respectful TV news coverage from TV news reporters, demonstrating that almost all TV news reporters are total fucking morons who didn't express any skepticism about these nutters who were pretending to have done something which would have been impossible for even a giant pile of Nobel laureates to do with present-day technology. The closest the TV coverage came to being actually good was in the cases where the reporter talked to one cultist who said "We have just cloned a baby with our secret invisible space brain juice laser crystal," and one scientist who said "They might not yet have proved their case," leading the reporter to conclude, "Therefore, there are two sides to every issue, and we may never know whether the Raelians have cloned someone," with the addition, time permitting, of "We must take the Raelians' claim seriously because they say they have fifty-eight billion active members." Bob Hope is really old. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 08:26:48 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Two simple requests... > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...my imaginary clones] all jumped into the ocean and drowned because > they wanted to see Sponge Bob Square Pants. > > They won't be able to prove that isn't true! Because to do that they'd > have to interview Sponge Bob, and they'd drown too. When I was a kid, strange rumors about little Mikey (from the Life cereal commercials) exploding when the North Vietnamese force-fed him Pop Rocks circulated. In 2003, some really vague story about how some kid jumped off a ship to meet Sponge Bob is going around. It's one of those things which doesn't quite qualify as a real urban legend because you have to be under the age of 8 to care about it or take it seriously, like the one about how convicts are being executed on the set in the middle of dance numbers in "The Wizard Of Oz" or some Quebecois scammers are cloning people. "Sponge Bob Square Pants" is a cartoon about a sponge, who is named Bob, who wears pants, which are shaped like a rectangular prism but are not square, thus destroying all educational value the show might have had if it were shown in geometry class. Geometry is a class they used to have. It taught logic. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 21:56:11 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: I may have missed something important. > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > Stop bothering me with facts, I've got > to get off the train to get six copper > lobster claws! <-- fact! I was shopping for jewelry findings. Oddly, as I type this, I'm on a train coming back from shopping for jewelry findings, except this isn't the same trip. And this time I was buying split rings. Actually I went to look for self-adhesive transparent frogs, but they only had them in purple and teal, so I just bought split rings. Split rings are those keyrings that destroy your fingernails before you can get your keys onto them. Lobster claws are little things shaped sort of like lobster pincers, except more fragile and more overpriced. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 21:58:15 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: I may have missed something important. > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable > > [...] > > Okay, I'm obviously lying. The most powerful drug in my apartment > is shaped like Bert and Ernie and that creepy Elmo (I buy the Sesame > Street chewable vitamins because all the other brands contain > saccharin, sorbitol, and/or aspartame, and if I'm going to buy toddler > vitamins I want the ones with the real sugar, dammit!) Right after I posted that, Walgreens stopped selling them. This is the same Walgreens outlet that only ever had the one box of White Castles without cheez (which I bought shortly after their grand opening) and basically, every time I say I like something from that store, they see my article and say, "Gee, we better take it away so that Kibo doesn't buy it because we don't want him in here looking at our stuff so he can go home and make fun of it on alt.religion.kibology." Dumbest thing I ever saw at that store: Some sort of small lawn ornament shaped like a rotationally-symmetric, five-winged bee. Apparently the bee's wings all go around clockwise when the wind blows past the odd number of them. Wait, that's wrong. The dumbest things I've ever seen at that store are the clerks. The five-winged roto-bee gets bumped down a few notches for being insufficiently stupid. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:00:28 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: I may have missed something important. > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > I keep thinking there should be a second parallel United Nations where > all the delegates would be these lame comic stereotypes. Yakov Smirnoff > would represent Russia ("in Russia, Russia represents YOU!") and all > the other seats at Not The U.N. would be taken by other standup comedians > with similarly one-dimensional acts, although other than Paul Rodrigues > and Scott Thompson (the extremely Canadian slightly gay one, not the > annoying one) I don't think we could fill up the whole weird-looking > building ("In Russia, weird-looking building fills up YOU!") The guy who performs as "Carrot Top" is actually name Scott Thompson, but he doesn't use his real name because he doesn't want to be confused with someone who is considerably funnier, and gayer, than him. The non-"Carrot Top" one has a tiny role in the awful movie "Millennium" (a movie I am still trying to figure out -- are the sarcastic people with the foam-rubber corners glued to their foreheads supposed to be robots, or just people who underwent some sort of horrible mutation that made their faces more angular than if Vladek Sheybal married Harry Stinson?) Vladek Sheybal is the little rat-faced guy in Gerry Anderson's "U.F.O." and, if I remember correctly, "From Russia With Love". Harry Stinson sells discount real-estate at two in the morning on Toronto's local TV stations, and has a face so triangular it should be printed on Mork's jumpsuit. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:04:36 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: It's official. Now I hate "South Park". > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > And yes, I have the entire run of "Pink Lady & Jeff" on DVD. My favorite's > the one where they're actually allowed to sing a song in Japanese, because > it has Robbie The Robot. > > -- K. > > Bob Kinoshita is my hero! Bob Kinoshita designed Robbie The Robot (for the movie "Forbidden Planet".) He did not design the cheap knockoff of Robbie who starred in "Lost In Space" (their Robot looked fine until they did an episode where Robbie was the guest star and suddenly the Robot looked crappy.) Irwin Allen eventually did hire Bob Kinoshita to work on "Lost In Space" (he designed some more Robbie-styled robots for them) and he also designed for "The Time Tunnel" (which had a lot of matte paintings that looked a lot like the Krellian underground in "Forbidden Planet".) I don't know if he's still alive, but Bob Kinoshita gets a whole pile of Secret Kibo Bonus Points for designing Robbie, the coolest movie robot ever. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:17:55 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > To: kibo@world.std.com > Subject: Re: It's official. Now I hate "South Park". > > [regarding Mr. High Hat, educational hand-puppet] > > Ted Frank (moe@radix.net) wrote: > > > > Ryan W. Mead (ryanmead1985@yahoo.com) wrote: > > > > > > I remember a story about him emphasizing the "R" sound > > > in which he helped a rabbit with red stripes lose the stripes > > > and become a regular rabbit. > > > > I had a rabbi with red stripes once. > > Does that make you the big-eared Darrin or the in-the-closet Darrin? > I recall that was a pretty lame episode, so I bet it was one of the ones > with the second Darrin. It was certainly in color because the stripes > drawn on Sam's face were definitely red. > > I don't recall the details, but I'm sure I can re-create the entire episode: > > ...Dr. Bombay gives Sam the wrong witch medicine for her witch cold. > She breaks out in red stripes during Darrin's presentation to a client. > Mr. Tate fires him but the client says "Red striped rashes! What a brilliant > new way to advertise my peanut butter!" and Darrin is re-hired at exactly > the same salary he's re-hired at every week. Then Endora accidentally > duplicates all my E-mail because I changed the time zone on my computer. At the time, I was using an old version of Eudora, which had the quirk that if the last-modified timestamp on my mailbox files didn't match the last date it remembered me reading my mail, it would want to rebuild its index of messages, causing all the mail I had marked for deletion to reappear. Eudora doesn't actually erase anything until you do "Compact Mailboxes", so messages that are marked deleted reappear whenever the mailboxes were re-indexed, which would happen whenever I changed the computer's clock because I was in a different time zone. Computers suck. > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:24:14 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Do my homework for me > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > So anyway, now we know: Matt keeps a green magic marker near his > supposedly awesome TV. But in truth, it's just a black-and-white > General Electric 4" set from 1976, and he's made it seem better by > tracing over all the wires inside it with his green magic marker. This refers to a quack product sold in high-tech places like the stereo department of K-Mart, a green magic marker that is supposed to make orchestras perform better if you draw a circle around the edge of the CD where it won't interfere with anything the laser might actually point at. In other words, it works on the same principles as Raelian technology, only different. > I'm only being mean to Matt > because he didn't have enough > plastic wrap to cover the entire > giant screen, so I could only > play along when Andy Kaufman went > up the bottom half of the stairs. Andy Kaufman was like Robin Williams, except that instead of saying "Nano-nano! Shazbot!" he said "Bibi da!" and he didn't survive after he turned sappy and made a terribly unfunny movie about a wacky robot. Also, Robin Williams only did that once. Andy Kaufman did it twice, in a TV pilot as well as the major motion picture. But when they weren't being sappy, Andy Kaufman was funnier. Probably easier to work with, too. [to be continued in part 2] Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:41:05 -0500 Subject: Re: The Big Explaining (2 of 3) In alt.religion.kibology, kibo@world.std.com wrote: [continued from part 1] > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:27:33 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Attention: > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > David Pacheco (dpacheco@iname.com) wrote: > > > > [...] the definition of "preen" includes the meaning "to remove the ticks > > and chiggers from one's fur, and then post them to the Internet" > > You know, I think that might be the 21st century's most important new > e-business model. I'm going to invest fifty million dollars in it now, > as long as you promise I'll get back ten times that in exactly ten years. > It'll succeed as long as your advertising involves hiring two, not just > one, person to dress up in a big fuzzy tick suit and wander around > Manhattan bothering pedestrians. I suggest getting the Not Tim Allen > guy from the live Buzz Lightyear show at Disneyland. Once when I was in Manhattan there were people dressed as pinto beans advertising something called "beenz.com", which was just like "flooz.com" except different. Both were things where you could convert real money into pretend money via their Web site that wouldn't let you do anything with what used to be your money, or something like that. Patrick Warburton (who played Puddy on "Seinfeld") replaced Tim Allen as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in all the "Toy Story" sequels and spin-offs and live Disneyland show, as well as playing the title character in the short-lived live-action series of "The Tick". > > [...] > > Speaking of my son, he has now learned to distinguish right from wrong. > > I know this, because every time he starts toddling towards the wine > > racks with the intent to jiggle each bottle to see if it explodes, he > > looks back at me with a very serious look and says "No! No!" while > > shaking his head. I nod my head and say "That's right! Don't mess > > with daddy's liquor, you little goober, or you will come to know severe > > pain intimately, yea, even unto the seventh generation!" and he just > > keeps going. He stands there, one hand wagging a finger at me, one > > hand trying to tip the racks over, terribly serious look on his face. > > He's another child whose life will be ruined by the new 7-Up advertising > campaign. They've started printing their logo upside-down on the bottles, > and the store displays have signs that say "FLIP IT!" in Scott Kim-style > lettering that looks exactly as ugly when turned upside down. Scott Kim is an artist whose specialty is writing his name, and occasionally other people's names, in deformed letters say the same thing when you turn the page upside-down. You can read his entire life's work in about five minutes, ten if you go back and read all the names upside-down. > [...] > > He's a smart kid. I took him up to Vasquez Rocks last week, and he > > still found his way back home. > > Well, sure. All he had to do was head directly away from the "Star Trek" > fistfight music. > > I need to visit Vasquez Rock someday, now that I've been to Bronson Film Cave > (And it isn't even a cave! It's a tunnel! Why couldn't Lois Lane ever figure > out that she could just walk out the back? How come the Riddler never > wandered into the Batcave through Batman's wide-open back door?) and I've > seen the "Damnation Alley" Landmaster and the Bradbury building and > Griffith Observatory and Forrest Ackerman's house before he moved out > so, once I visit Vasquez Rock, I will have been in every place robots, > Martians, and zombies have ever been. Vazquez Rock is the crooked sandstone peak that showed up on "Star Trek" many times (especially in the clips in "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey") and plenty of other things. "The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas" had it in the background of every location they went to (different Styrofoam buildings in front of the same damn rock, just how dumb are "Flintstones" fans supposed to be?) Bronson Film Cave was the Batcave, and Electra-Woman's Electra-Cave, and Superman saved Lois Lane from it over and over in the 1950s, and it's really a tunnel, not a cave. Those are two of the items on the list of things I never need to see on TV again. Sure, I love Adam West, but I wish he'd move into a cave that wasn't shared with all the other superheroes. > > [...] > > Once you meet transdimensional Kibo, you will understand the pain > > that can only be achieved by making a pun across all known coordinates > > of space, time and nougat. > > I don't use coordinates for my puns, because it's too hard to find words > that sound like "Garanimals" but stupider. Garanimals were polyester clothes for children where the tops and bottoms were all guaranteed to match as long as they were both from the "giraffe" palette or one of the other one or two color schemes represented by animals. A couple other companies have tried this same scheme of making whole departments of stores color-coordinated so that preschoolers would never have to be embarrassed by clashing shirts and pants, but these attempts (such as the Sears/McDonalds "McKids" product line of ketchup-colored toddler wear) are usually doomed to failure for obvious reasons. (Women with kids don't have time to worry about their kids wearing clashing colors, and very few men with kids care about color harmony, except in the states where kids are allowed to have two daddies.) > Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 22:57:02 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: [TWAT]: Genetically engineered soldiers > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.fan.beable > > Just once I'd like to see [a movie] based on a more interesting theme. > For instance, a movie based on the theme from "Happy Days" would be a > good one. I'm not saying it would have to have Fonzie or anything. > Just a lot of shots of cameras zooming in and out on a jukebox while > Anson Williams sings "The weekend comes! The cycle hums! Ready to > race to you!" and you'll know the movie is over the moment John "Bowtie" > Barstow joins in and immediately forgets all the words. John "Bowtie" Barstow is the only human alive to have recorded a vanity album where he sings worse than I will on my vanity album. And I was even planning to sing the "Happy Days" theme before I discovered he had already done it. And boy is he bad. (You can hear him singing it on the third "Annoying Music Show" CD, "Music For People". He's all over the other two as well.) The "Happy Days" theme has been running through my head in weird mutations lately because I just got back from a two-week vacation in Canada where every TV channel, every five minutes, played a Coke commercial with some folk song about hockey ("the tension grows, the whistle blows, the puck goes down the ice") which started repeating in my brain against my will and the only chance I have of killing it is to encourage it to keep turning into the "Happy Days" song (the two have the same scansion) so now I get "the tension grows, the whistle blows, the puck goes down the ice; the weekend comes, a cycle hums, ready to race to you!") At one of the hockey games I was at, they played that song, and the crowd sang along with it very loudly -- unlike "O Canada" where only a few people seemed to be attempting to sing along with the official national anthem, which has now been displaced by the Coke commercial about hockey. This is one of the many reasons how we can tell Canada will never become sophisticated enough to become part of the United States. > -- K. > > Anson Williams could direct > the movie about the talking > dolphin people! No, wait, > I'm sure he'd never be so > desperate as to direct something > with a squeaky-voiced dolphin. > Unless it also had Roy Scheider > with dried-up Snack Pack fudge > pudding all over his face. Anson Williams (who played Potsie on "Happy Days") directed several episodes of NBC's "seaQuest DSV", the show with the talking dolphin and Hungarian William Shatner. The first two seasons starred Roy Scheider (before he got fired for telling everyone in the world that he was trapped on a stupid sucky show) who always performs encased in some sort of thick protective layer of wrinkly brown glop that's designed to cover all the character ravines in his face while simultaneously giving him the skin tone of someone who had a horrible accident with Clairol Just For Men Hair Coloring For Men. If you combined Roy Scheider's goppy brown skin, William Shatner's double-knit polyester hair, Barbara Bain's deli-sliced nose, and Dom DeLuise's fat ass, you'd get a science fiction show titled "EWWWWW!!!!" But "Electra-Woman And Dyna-Girl" already flashed a big "EW" on the screen whenever Electra-Woman drove her Pringle-shaped golf cart through Bronson Film Cave, so maybe this show would have to be called "THE ALL-NEW EWWWWW!!!!" > Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 05:51:31 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Black Market Liquid Food > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > Did you at least ask if it was regular Ensure, Ensure Plus, or new > Double Ensure With Nuggets? And why weren't the truly awful flavors, > such as that Butter Pecan one, available? > > Also, it's mean of you not to tell us what you know about that asteroid > that's going to wash away the Statue Of Liberty's head and will kill us > all unless we outrun the tidal wave on a moped unless we get caught up > in the heated office politics concerning who gets the graveyard-shift > newsreader job on Microsoft's lame TV news channel. This is about the movie "Deep Impact", which was an attempt to make the same movie as "Armageddon" except all chick-flicked up with serious maudlin stuff and lots of product placements for Ensure, MSNBC, Ensure, and more Ensure. Also, Easy Reader got to be President. "With Nuggets" is a reference to my favorite drain-opener, "Fast-Acting Double Agent With Nuggets". Ensure is a canned slurry which is a special dietetic blend intended to be used by people who are trying to lose weight, or by people who are trying to gain weight, depending on which end of the can you open to get at the placebo inside. It tastes like Yoo-Hoo with salad oil in it, because it is Yoo-Hoo with salad oil in it. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 03:24:44 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Me and my wire. > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > Short shameful confession: > > I mail-ordered a big coil of wire. It came wrapped up as a flat circular > package three feet in diameter. I had it sent to my office because this > is the sort of thing my apartment's mailroom could have lost, given that > it was only three feet across. > > As I was carrying the big white disc out of the office, more than one > person asked me if it was a shield. > > My one regret in life is that I said "No, it's my cool new belt buckle" > and did not think of yelling "HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF INDULGING IN > HOPLOMACHIAN ACTIVITY?" until I was already out the door. "hoplomachian" means something related to a hoplomachus. A "hoplomachus" (Latin) is a gladiator dressed as a hoplite. A "hoplite" (Greek) is a soldier with a spear and a round shield. So here we have a perfectly good English word which points at a Latin word which points to a Greek word, and this trifecta had been waiting over 2,000 years for me to be able to say it, and I missed my chance, and now I will never get to use the word "hoplomachian" in conversation. Also it says something about me that when I carry oddly-shaped wrapped items, people assume they must be weaponry suitable for use with a time machine. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 04:11:22 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: ATTENTION ZIXIA AND JOE MANFRE > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > I don't think my office even has a code of conduct. Last I saw, > they barely even had a piranha, so fat chance of them ever being able > to enforce a code of conduct. (It's a bad sign when fish lie down, right?) The piranha died while I was on vacation (I wrote that when I was on my way to Canada.) They had propped him up so that at least he was upright while sitting on the bottom of the tank, but the last time I saw him (the day before I wrote that) he had stopped breathing and the goldfish were exacting a horrible revenge upon him. I saw a TV commercial for red-belly piranhas while I was in Ottawa, but since I was travelling by plane I didn't feel like trying to smuggle a replacement piranha back into the country. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 04:17:52 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Whoah! Trippy! > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > I should point out that I've never taken Advil, therefore I can't > be insane... YET. A popular urban legend: If you've taken more than a certain number of Tylenols in your lifetime, you're legally insane. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 04:47:28 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: The War! I am mentioning... The War! > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > I would like the war to start a few days from now, while I am deep > in the Diefenbunker. Also I want it to be a nuclear war because that > would be okay, as long as the war starts OUTSIDE the Diefenbunker > while I am inside. > > Incidentally, for the next couple weeks, I'm going to be out of the > country, in an undisclosed location which may or may not have Mounties > riding caribou while playing hockey and calling Fruit By The Foot > "Fruit-O-Long". So expect me to make some posts about whatever > disturbing local equivalent of Harry Stinson is shown on the local > TV channels of this undisclosed location (which may or may not be > near the Diefenbunker) assuming that Canada now has Internet access. > WHOOPS! I JUST LEAKED THAT I WAS GOING TO CANADA! Great, now the whole You can read all about the Diefenbunker and everything else I saw in the Ottawa/Gatineau area in the three-part classic "Kibo Goes To Ottawa", except for the stuff I'm saying about Ottawa here. I can't decide who the local equivalent of Harry Stinson (from Toronto, remember?) would be, unless it's the Ottawa 67s' scary mascot of a guy encased in a big black blob of foam rubber that's supposed to be an evil hockey puck with giant teeth. But I think even that's not as weird-looking as Harry Stinson. He could be in the Canadian version of "EWWWWW!!!!", titled "EWWWWW!!!!, EH?" > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 05:02:26 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: St. Stupid Day Parade > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > Wiblur the Once (jchapman@aros.net) wrote: > > > > Is anyone going to the St. Stupid Parade in San Francisco on April 1? > > [...] > > Sounds like fun, but I don't think I want to leave the United States > again so soon. Besides, wouldn't it be funnier if they held St. Stupid > parades in really normal places, like Minneapolis or St. Louis? > Or better yet, if they held a St. Louis parade in St. Stupid at the same time? > > If they held one of those St. Stupid In A Really Unpleasantly Normal City > parades in Cincinnati, I'd go just so I could be in the parade in a > rocking chair on top of a Cadillac, shouting "CADILLAC ROCKING CHAIR > CINCINNATI! CADILLAC ROCKING CHAIR CINCINNATI!" because every neurologist > knows that saying "CADILLAC ROCKING CHAIR CINCINNATI!" means you don't > have a brain tumor. > > (I still can't believe that, in that incident years ago, one of the > other questions was "Who is the current Vice President?" There must > be lots of people who get unnecessary lobotomies because of that one. > I think they dropped that question from the American version of > "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" because their questions don't go up > to $2,000,000.) I've written about the "Cadillac, rocking chair, Cincinnati" incident many times before, so I don't think I need to repeat it again, except that I like to do that anyway because it helps me remember "Cadillac, rocking chair, Cincinnati" so that I won't have to have brain surgery. Whether or not you can remember those three words is one of the tests they give you while making a snap diagnosis as to whether you have a brain tumor or have just had a mysterious intense pain in one side of your head for the last three days for a perfectly normal reason. > [...] > P.P.S. E, FP, TOZ, LPED, PECFD, EDFCZP. > And the bottom line begins with PEZ, > but I don't know the flavor. That's the Snellen chart used by eye doctors, especially ones in old movies. You should memorize it in case you ever go blind and then decide to join the Army. I've forgotten the name of the other two common types of eye charts (the one with "C"s going in eight directions and the one with the "E"s going in four directions.) The latter was a real pain for me as a child because when the school nurse tested us for vision problems, we weren't allowed to just say "down" or point the direction the "E" was pointing, we had to say "table" if it was going down and "window" if it was going left and "door" if it was going to the right, or some other arbitrary set of four similar pieces of furniture that didn't really look like "E"s. This memory puzzle was like trying to do a Rubik's Cube with an extra rule that said that if you didn't solve it immediately you'd be given nerd glasses. [to be concluded in part 3] Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:41:29 -0500 Subject: Re: The Big Explaining (3 of 3) In alt.religion.kibology, kibo@world.std.com wrote: [continued from part 2] > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 05:19:12 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Announcement, Includes Bitterness > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > As I used to say about Matt & Samantha's Anne Geddes picture before I > yanked it off their bathroom wall, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES ON THE BOTTOM?" The photo (which was there when they moved in) was of a row of five unhappy babies (in tight-fitting rubber bathing caps) peering over the side of an old-fashioned bathtub that was much too tall for them unless there was a second layer of babies underneath. > I keep thinking Anne Geddes should get together with William Wegman > and produce hundreds of identical photos of sad-looking dogs dressed > as unhappy babies dressed as sad-looking dogs. Also throw in Louis Wain > so the dogs dressed as babies dressed as dogs will really be > dogs dressed as babies dressed as dogs dressed as cats who are on fire > in the fourth dimension. And add just a pinch of M.C. Escher so that > they can all be falling down the stairs in different directions at > the same time. Oh, and add in a Matthew Paris drawing so that in the > background there can be a knight with super-skinny legs, a tiny squire > and a horse with really great hair. photos of babies in humiliating outfits, usually dressed as insects or vegetables ------------> Anne Geddes photos of dogs in outfits that would humiliate them if dogs were capable of humiliation -----------------> William Wegman paintings of hallucinations of nine-dimensional rainbow-colored cats spitting flame at you ----------> Louis Wain engravings of staircases that defy the laws of logic and aren't drawn by Piranesi ---------------> M.C. Escher prominent medieval watercolor artist who had lots of fun with the relative sizes of things to show different degrees of importance ---------------------> Matthew Paris > And right now, I just heard that Mr. Rogers died, so put him in too so > that the tiny squire can be on top of a giant castle made from an > oatmeal can painted blue, while a guy in a sweater spies on the palace > intrigue through a trolley tunnel. guy who knew how to be really surreal without ever disturbing children ----------------------------> Fred Rogers > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 23:22:48 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Announcement, Includes Bitterness > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > What if Matthew Paris and Maxfield Parrish switched places? I think it > would go something like this: > > (sound of a lot of Crusaders fighting hippies) I'd just like to say that I've studied the style and linework of one of those two artists in great detail, and the Crusaders have crushed the hippies. TAKE THAT, ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM! > And then there was the time I invented a gun that caused Rip Torn to > be Rip Taylor, and vice versa. I tested it during the middle of > an episode of "The Larry Sanders Show": > > > GARRY SHANDLING > Do you think that woman from the network thinks my ass looks big? > > RIP TORN > What that bitch needs is a good kick in the nuts! That's how I > dealt with Lucille Ball, and that's -- > > (ZAPPING NOISE) > > RIP TAYLOR > (holding up a telegram with a noose wrapped around it) > Look! A wire hanger! It's a *WIRE* *HANGER*! > (he holds up a baby grand piano dressed as a corporate executive) > Look! Baby on board! *BABY* on *BOARD*! Get it? > > GARRY SHANDLING > Hey, didn't you used to be evil in a funny way, instead of being > not-funny in an evil way? > > > ...but that project was abandoned because, unlike the Matthew Paris / > Maxfield Parrish switcheroo, it wouldn't improve the world of > fine art prints. I'm still working on an orbital space laser that > can turn William Wegman into Wil Wheaton, so that his dogs won't > look so bored. Rip Taylor is that "comedian" who likes to throw confetti while screaming and doing more or less the same stuff as Carrot Top, except much gayer (but not as gay as the other guy with the same name as Carrot Top) but, of the three, Rip Taylor has the biggest orange glam wig. I think they turned him down for the role of the Mad Hatter on "Batman" because he was too campy. Rip Torn is a very talented actor who had a great character on "The Larry Sanders Show" (which also featured the not-Carrot-Top Scott Thompson.) Rip Torn had a Rip Taylor wig when he was in one of the "Airplane" movies just to confuse everyone, including Batman. Wil Wheaton is some guy who was on "Star Trek". He is wholly unrelated to "seaQuest" in any way, and therefore can be held above reproach, and is not to be confused with the cheap imitation of his "Star Trek" character who hung out with the talking dolphin. However, Wil Wheaton did appear in a German TV pilot for something called "Mr. Stitch", where he had pink and tan and brown patches painted all over his body, just like one of Dom DeLuise's sons on "seaQuest", so forget the "above reproach" part. He's just as tightly connected to "seaQuest" as Barbara Bain or Barry Van Dyke, if not more so. "Mr. Stitch" was created by Roger Avary, who co-wrote the brilliant "Pulp Fiction". The movie in which John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson have the most brilliant dialogue about hamburgers ever. > [...] I'm sure Bob Keeshan > only had Slim Goodbody on his > show because someone was holding > a gun to Bunny Rabbit's head. Slim Goodbody is this guy who looked sort of like Richard Simmons only with a longer face and somehow managed to have just as much wacky exuberance without seeming as gay as Richard Simmons, Rip Taylor, or that talking dolphin. He taught kids about nutrition and exercise and not doing drugs by prancing around in a flesh-colored unitard with intestines drawn on the outside of it. He appeared frequently on "Captain Kangaroo" (which also featured Bunny Rabbit) and his name is John Burstein (he's still doing it) which leads to the inescapable conclusion that if Wil Wheaton were to parade around with various colors of internal organs drawn all over him, it would be a show called "Bunny Rabbit Slim's", featuring Steve Buscemi dressed as Buddy Holly, and Patrick Stewart as Emil Sitka, J. Edgar Hoover, or Rondo Hatton, whichever would be funnier. I forget whether Bunny Rabbit or Mr. Moose was the one who kept tricking Captain Kangaroo into saying the magic words that would cause a bucket of Ping-Pong balls to be dumped on his head by a stagehand. My memories of "Captain Kangaroo" are somewhat hazy. I remember liking the show a lot when I was little, but it's not burned into my brain the way "Sesame Street" was, probably because "Captain Kangaroo" didn't break my brain the way some of the more disturbingly surreal head humor on "Sesame Street" did. And I still can't find a seven-ounce Figgy Fizz bottle cap, even on eBay. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 23:23:42 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Announcement, Includes Bitterness > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > Pugg (pugg71@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > The reason I'm writing this is the smaller warning that I found on the > > box, just below the CHOKING HAZARD! label: > > > > "Warning! Contains inedible, plastic baby!" > > > > Which means, of course, that somewhere out there somebody's been > > baking King Cakes with EDIBLE, REAL BABIES!! Aiiieeeee!! > > The "edible, real baby" ingredient might not be in delicious Joker-colored > King Cakes. It might be in some other product. King Cakes are a Mardi Gras treat in New Orleans. They are covered in purple and green and yellow goop, because those colors of frosting symbolize bad taste without actually tasting bad. Every one has a tiny plastic baby hidden inside and the luckiest person is the one who breaks a tooth on it. > [...] > "There, now this contains TWO > kinds of fish, not just scrod!" "scrod" is a New Englandism for "haddock and/or cod, whichever is cheaper." This is because when they tried being honest and labelling frozen food "may or may not contain mystery fish of some sort, even we don't know what we've been slicing up" it didn't sell. > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 23:26:14 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Mr. Rogers memories > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [regarding Anthony Perkins...] > > Especially if this was right after he'd been in that dumb-ass Disney > sci-fi movie where he got killed by the robot with propellers for hands, > before the big swirly toilet flush thing made the bouncy red rubber > ball chase people down the corridors while the robot quoted Oscar Wilde > and nobody noticed the giant strings holding most of the characters up. That's "The Black Hole". The seaQuest went through "an underwater black hole" in one or three episodes. > -- K. > > Now, if Tony Perkins had a > kids' show, that would come > straight from the Obvious Bag, > where his neighbors would > be his "mother" and some > hand puppets made from > taxidermied birds. But instead > of the Bernard Herrmann music, > it would just be Joe Raposo > on a kazoo. Bernard Hermann composed the "Psycho" music, and Joe Raposo did most of the "Sesame Street" and "Electric Company" music that was so perky that it's still lodged in your head thirty years later. Except for me, because I have "the crowd roars, Bobby scores, groovin' all week with you!" "Sunday, Monday, hockey days... Tuesday, Wednesday, hockey days..." AUGH! CANADA HAS GIVEN ME BRAIN DAMAGE! CADILLAC, ROCKING CHAIR, CANADA! HELP ME, HARRY STINSON! > Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 23:44:24 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: confession > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > "Lleah" (leahverre@attbi.com) wrote: > > > >[...] > > > >I like the fact that all kinds of people waft through a.r.k. and some stay a > >long time and some don't, and some wander. I like that sometimes the > >conversations are silly, like one of the first posts I ever read, and I like > >how sometimes it just degenerates into choruses of "HAW HAW!" or "PLORK!" > >and I like how even sometimes it just gets bitchy, like a bunch of people > >stuck in a log cabin in the middle of Ketchikan, surviving off of canned > >asparagus and graham crackers for nine months, and the asparagus is bulging > >and the graham crackers are all broken. > > ...and the poster of Fat Freddy's Cat has started falling apart, and > then turned into a Garfield poster, and then before you know it we > realize we're still living in ancient Rome and all of history was > an illusion, especially the part about there being posters of > Fat Freddy's Cat. Philip K. Dick's short story "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" concerned a guy who was frozen and suffered brain damaged that only permitted him to be put into a defective virtual reality where his poster Fat Freddy's Cat (from Gilbert Shelton's comic strip, "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers") kept disintegrating, along with the rest of the Universe (which pretty much happened in every good Dick story. Whenever he didn't have an ending, he just made the whole Universe crumple up in a creepy manner.) > I actually ran into someone (well, walked past someone) on the street > last week who had Phil Dick's exact paranoid-schizophrenic delusion -- > he was talking to himself loudly about how reality was an illusion and > we were still living in ancient Rome. In real life, Phil Dick apparently had enough paranoid schizophrenia that he had hallucinations that the people (or aliens or God) beaming thoughts into his brain were concealing that the Roman Empire never fell. He would start writing himself notes in what he thought was Demotic Greek, would worry endlessly about the meaning of nonsense words that came into his brain from wherever (like the name "Aramchek".) I know there are a lot of people who believe history is all made-up (like Gary Kasparov) but when someone can actually see the Romans who are chasing them, they're gone from the state of "Kasparov stupid" to the realm of "Dick crazy". Phil Dick managed to write lots of great stuff (and lots of terrible stuff) while battling both insanity and amphetamines. He and Louis Wain (the flaming cat guy) have always impressed me with their ability to distance themselves from their hallucinations enough to use them in their art. The question is, what's Anne Geddes smoking? And what do I do if I'm getting the nonsense words AND the "Happy Days" theme song in my head? > I did not try to pester him, mainly because I had left my helmet at > home under some books because I was trying to straighten out a bend > in the big scrub brush. That reminds me, I need to take it out and check it. > >So the other day Kibo said he'd come back and post some more. > >I think he's been busy. I know I've been busy and this is why > >I've been gone and also out of touch with everyone in the known > >universe for so long! > > Then how do you know I was gone? Which I wan't. I was just posting > under my secret other name, which was in either Ancient Roman Language > or Something I Think Is Demotic Greek, such as "Valis", "Ubik", or > "Fat Freddy". But I won't tell you what my Secret Other Name was > since then I'd just have to translate it into English. I think I've said too much. Also, I'm not quite ready to tell you why I've been busy, but you'll find out soon. (It's not like I haven't leaked plenty of clues, some of them even in English.) > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 00:36:53 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Announcement, Includes Bitterness > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > What's a 21-letter word meaning > "gummikrankenschwester"? "Gummikrankenschwester" is a very long, awkward German word for the conveniently short English phrase, "woman dressed as a nun working as a nurse except wearing nothing but shiny latex as she disciplines men who have been naughty and can afford to pay for this special service. No weirdos." Foreign languages have words for kinds of sex that English has yet to discover. > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 00:49:18 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > To: kibo@world.std.com > Subject: Re: The War! I am mentioning... The War! > > [...] > > I have had Krispy Kremes and White Castles in the same day for the ultimate > eating experience here in the United States Of Fast Food. I think the > only way to top that in Canada would be to get takeout at a KFC in Ottawa, > walk across the bridge, and carry it into a PFK in Hull to make the > francophones send for the language police when they see that the little > cartoon Colonel Sanders on the bag isn't speaking French. "PFK" = "Poulet Frite Kentucky". That and "Fruit-O-Long" are the two translated American foods which fascinate me whenever I'm in Quebec. As to whether I'm John Travolta or Samuel L. Jackson, I can't say, although I have been using the phrase "Am I scratching YOUR surface?" an awful lot lately. Now please pardon me while I do the Batusi. > [...] > Animals I hope to see Mounties > riding while I'm in Canada: > moose, reindeer, caribou, > capricorn, and Choubidou. capricorn: Mythical animal, like a mermaid except with a goat instead of the maid. Choubidou: Mascot of La Ronde (amusement park in Quebec) except that I think he may have been discontinued now that they're part of the Six Flags system (which has Warner Brothers characters like Batman and Fred Flintstone.) Choubidou looked a lot like Muzzy (from those French- language instructional tapes for children, sold on TV late at night) crossed with Cosmo (mascot of the Galaxyland amusement park in Alberta) which I suppose makes sense because if you cross France with Canada you get Quebec. I don't know how they got the "human puck" mascot for the 67s, though. Maybe Don Rickles got crossed with a gummikrankenschwester. > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 02:37:28 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: more more more > Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.religion.kibology > > Two weeks ago (it took me a while to comprehend writing of this complexity), > Kurt Stocklmeir (kurtstocklmeir@worldnet.att.net) wrote in sci.physics: > > > > Bill Vajk wants to know about the battery. He is a slime battery. > > A slime battery runs on slime. The slime creates slime electricity. > > The slime electricity runs around through the slime getting the slime > > to create more slime. The little slime keeps creating more slime. > > [...] > > [...] > > [...] > > But what's your take on Slurm? Slurm: Fictional beverage from the series "Futurama". "Futurama": If "The Simpsons" were "The Flintstones", "The Jetsons" would be "Futurama", and Choubidou would be Cosmo. > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 19:18:31 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: Announcement, Includes Bitterness > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > -- K. > > Handy tip: You can make your own > Space Food Sticks by following the > recipe for homemade Tootsie Rolls, > except make them softer and grosser > by blending in some of that runny > peanut butter from the third quadrant > of a Necco SkyBar. > > Or, if you have that delusion that > we're living in ancient Rome, just > soak a Tootsie Roll in liquamen. Space Food Sticks were a Tootsie Roll-like product sold in the 1960s and 1970s. They were peanut butter fudge bars which were marketed as a nutritional supplement despite obviously being (bad) candy, a forerunner of all those things like PowerBar and Ensure and green magic markers for CDs. In the future, every society will have its own soft drink. We have Coke, in the future they will have Slurm. But in the past, every culture had its own condiment. America has been using ketchup, India has curry sauce, China has soy sauce, and so on. Ancient Romans cooked everything in a sauce called "liquamen" which is perhaps the most revolting substance possible (rivalling even the third quadrant of the SkyBar.) It was just rotten fish guts. Now, I know you've heard about lutefisk and the various fish sauces used in Asia, but trust me, liquamen is worse. This is why you don't want to wake up from the delusion that we're not living in ancient Rome. The food here is quite vile. The dinner parties are kind of fun, though, as long as you get in line for the vomitorium before it fills up. > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 20:07:38 -0500 > From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) > Subject: Re: confession > Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology > > [...] > > The continuity problems with real life are merely signs that reality > is all fake, and we're actually not really here, we're in ancient Rome, > and it's time to jump up and down on Vedius Pollio's glasses if he's > going to show us his aquarium anyway. See? Now it all makes perfect sense! Upper-class Romans spent most of their time throwing big dinner parties for each other. (They would bring their own napkins, because that gave them a convenient way to wrap up a bunch of food on the way out.) P. Vedius Pollio's idea of dinner entertainment was slightly crueler than some of the other Romans: He had a pool with biting eels in it because he couldn't find any other critters that could rip a slave apart fast enough for his amusement. Once, he had invited the emperor to dinner (Augustus, if I remember correctly) and one of the slaves broke a glass, so Pollio ordered the slave thrown to the eels, but the emperor was merciful and decreed that the slave should not only be set free, but should get to smash all of Pollio's glasses. Thus endeth the lesson. -- K. P. Vedius Pollio was in the business of selling amphorae, so I imagine that he could afford new glasses anytime an emperor was rude enough to show mercy to a slave.