Article 83576 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week In Ark (LONGISH) Date: 3 Jul 95 14:19:34 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 74 Message-ID: <1995Jul3.141934.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu The Week In Alt.religion.kibology [The official journal of ark, published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry under a grant from the Interior Department. If *your* name isn't mentioned in this week's edition, you must re-establish your credentials as a Kibologist.] The Cult of Personality Continues In the struggle for dominance during the power vacuum left in ark with the unexplained disappearance of Leader Kibo, the members of the New Brigade of followers have been attempting to outdo each other in wacky pranks with the goal of establishing a new Cult of Personality for ark. This jousting is much scorned by the Frowny Boys in the Old Brigade, who decry the constant cliquish references and inside jokes as being anti-kibological, especially now that Matt McIrvin is no longer around to explain the jokes. In the sweepstakes to Attract Attention to Themselves, these contestants excelled: Tjames "Thames" Madison: Perfected his Pantsed Ray device and initiated trials at the San Diego unemployment office. He discovered that not only do the unemployed tend *not* to wear underwear when they *do* wear pants, but that a remarkable percentage of those that *do* wear underwear are spending an inordinate amount of their weekly stipend on selections from the Victoria's Secret catalog. Mr. Madison, however, notes that the data may be skewed because at present the Pantsed Ray only works on polyester and polyester blends. However, Mr. Madison is hopeful that the ray can be adjusted to work on nylon, and is planning an excursion to Laguna for experiments there. Tom "Quotation Marks" Richardson: Misread the Info Superhighway AAA map and had a blowout in rec.pets.cats during his TRAV tour. Since neither Mr. Richardson, nor his shotgun, Gardner "Kimosabe" Trask, remembered to check the spare, and because neither of them carried an Internet Express card which would have allowed them to get a tow, both of them were marooned there for over 72 hours. The travelers are still enthusiastic about continuing their tour, but grow tense at the mere mention of "hairballs." Lisa Higgins: Succeeded in breeding a goat that eats oil slicks. Demonstration of the utility of this hybrid goat was marred by the precipitous discovery that goats can't swim. Mz. Higginz is now working on a biologically engineered bacteria that cleans water contaminated by decomposing goats. Doctorb Science: Discovered that Joe-L Furrt is really a refugee from the disintegrated planet Vege, and not a free-floating patent infringement on the Wack-A-Mole paradigm, as was previously believed. Doctorb Science also discovered that fragments of Joe-L's disintegrated planet are to Joe-L as garlic is to werewolves. So if you see the main i/o ports of the Internet smeared with Vegemite, DON'T TOUCH!. The newsgroup you save may be your own. Wednesday: Orchestrated a leveraged buy-out of America Online and rechristened it Wednesday Online. The new service will feature an autobot that sends out a query every 15 minutes as to why nobody is posting to Usenet. Doctress Neutopia: Published her address and phone number in a Usenet posting. She has received 213 callers proposing marriage, 467,098 callers proposing a less formal arrangement, and 1,209,887 introductory selections from the Columbia Record CD Club. Over half of those CDs were novelty Christmas recordings of dogs barking Jingle Bells. Ms. Neutopia has declared that she is changing addresses, not because of unwanted attention, but because those jewel cases take up "too darned much room." [Subissions to This Week in Alt.religion.kibology way be tendered to anyone with a cool Web page. Like Mr. Ogre. Contents of TWIA are copyrighted, so don't go ripping them off for inclusion in some slapped-together book purporting to show what kind of stuff is going on in Usenet News.] -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. ------ TWIA Vol.1 No.2THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.2 Portrait of the Artist as A Faded Ingenue Libby Hubbard installed the third panel of her triptych on love and betrayal this week, completing the most accessible of her works on this theme. The latest installment is entitled "CREEP OF THE WEEK." It joins "The Old Maid" and "DrGod Tries to Fuck Drs.Neutopia" as a wry rumination upon age and naivete, with the subtext that ageism is the last frontier of the online world. Viewed as a whole Ms. Hubbard's triptych could be subtitled: "Candy Turns 40." A bit of background: audiences of Ms. Hubbard are familiar with her scholarly meld of performance art and literature, by way of her postings to Usenet News under the nom de theatre Doctress Neutopia. Ms. Hubbard's ouevre includes a dissertation on the alliance of computers and art through which she establishes a vocabularly to discuss her concepts. Up until now, true appreciation of Ms. Hubbard's work has required a thorough understanding of this specialized vocabulary, which is neither intuitive nor familiar. This requirement of mastering what is essentially a foreign language may be the reason that her earlier work on "massgasm," "lovolution," and an online-lover named Gertreem[sp?] was greeted with little critical acclaim. Moreover, the first work was difficult to access on an emotional level because few people have the drive to maintain a long-distance relationship with one who is essentially a stranger. The work's denouement of an ultimate face-to-face meeting in Africa that ends in disappointment was therefore no surprise. One was never fully convinced that Doctress Neutopia could have experienced any other outcome. But Ms. Hubbard's new variation on her theme is as accessible as any episode of "Beverly Hills 90210." She successfully integrates the morbid aspects of the performance artist who crucifies himself on his garage door with the caligrapher who draws his own money and exchanges the result -- with full notification as to its homemade nature -- for goods and services. For the caligrapher, the art is completed with the transaction. For Ms. Hubbard, the "transaction" is complete with the reaction of her audience, a reaction that is often punctuated with vituperation for her surprise at her self-inflicted wounds. In "The Old Maid," Ms. Hubbard establishes the mood: a bitter, aging feminist contemplating an unsuccessful struggle with an oppressive power structure; a lonely woman unable to realize that in the game of love, she insists at trying to beat the house with its crooked deck. The Doctress rails at male domination, yet she does not expect to find love, she expects love to find her. The Doctress does not approach, she waits to be approached. In DrGod, the Doctress is approached by a logon Lothario who employs a comeon as transparent and as awkward as any frosh fratboy's, which soon devolves into a simple why-don't-we-do-it-in-the-road as performance art stratagem. The Doctress declines, but with deep resentment that DrGod didn't appreciate her for her art. No ploy is too transparent for The Doctress, which is at once the source of her charm and loathsomeness. If it's cute in a kitten, it's irritating in a cat. This episode illuminates the irony of the Doctress: when it comes to giving the benefit of the doubt, The Doctress is confident in letting Jack Ruby off with a warning. In COTW, The Doctress appears to shed her naivety and becomes ready to exploit the materials that come to hand, again in the form of a philandering logon Lothario, who initiates a "talk" session with a variation of "Hey, don't I know you from...." In this third panel, Ms. Hubbard's protagonist sets out to turn the tables on the hormonal heartbreaker. The Doctress discovers that The Creep is engaged to The Honey, and instead breaking off contact, launches an intrigue whereby she confronts The Creep in his lair. Serendipitously, The Doctress meets The Honey and tells her that The Creep wants to show The Doctress his data. What follows is one of those Nightmares of the Middle Class: pursuit by a Fury. The Doctress begins dogging The Creep's steps, shouting alarming and omnious admonitions at him in crowded public places and sending him confused screeds through E-mail. At last the audience is presented with the final delicious irony: The Creep uses The Rules to foil the Doctress, and halt her pursuit. It is a deus ex machina with bad eyesight; the victim is prevented from exacting her revenge. With the completion of this triptych, Ms. Hubbard seems to have put closure on The Doctress: she is fatally flawed, she can not win; she has lost her innocence, but lacks sufficient corruption to manipulate the system in her favor. She is suspended in limbo by her inability to make the leap to aggression. Any additions to the work now would only cheapen it. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. Article 85921 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark-Vol.1 No.3 Date: 19 Jul 95 21:42:11 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 77 Message-ID: <1995Jul19.214211.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y 7-17-95 This Week in Alt.religion.kibology is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry under a grant from the Betty Ford Foundation. The release date for TWIA is Monday, so if you are seeing it late, blame the sysadmin of the Usenet. Ark Cabal Convenes for First Time The Institute is pleased to withhold information on the formation of the Ark Cabal, owing the the secret nature of the Ark Cabal's works, and the limited space in Eli's parlor where meetings will be secretly held. Cabal members were chosen on the basis of height. Cabal members can be identified by their refusing to identify themselves as cabal members. If someone says "I am not in the Ark Cabal," then they are. And vice versa. ATTENTION CABAL MEMBERS: Tell Tom Richarson that possession of the gavel doesn't mean he can overrule traffic court judges. Someone erRONEously told him he could. Just to be mean. First edict of the Ark Cabal The Ark Cabal has issued its first edict; these threads are officially non gratia: FEMINISM AND PRONOGRAPHY ANSWER WACO QUESTION Authenticity of the Bible Persons who post to these threads are not cool, and will not be allowed to sit at the Ark Table in the Usenet Cafeteria, and *won't* get to go to the mall and hang out with the Ark Crowd, unless they buy everybody those really big cookies. Anti-Logrolling Subscribers These are the charter members of the anti-logrolling society, who have pledged not to make gratuitous mention of E Teflon Piano just to assure a mention in TWIA, and thereby ensure their credentials for another week: Joe Bay, Carlos May, Jay C. Jachimiak, Gardner S. Trask, "Jesse Garon," Tom Richardson. The Kibo Code Robert A. Hayden, author of such Science Fiction thrillers as "Mooning a Harsh Mistress" and "Wednesday," recently finished his third upgrade of the Geek Code and is turning his attention to a Kibo Code. He is having difficulty, because most of the categories begin with "K". As a result, he is going to have to resort to encryption to get enough different words that while starting with "k", don't look like it. For instance the Kiboluv category will be represented by "=D." NOTE: This will in no way obviate the Wednesday Code. Special Warning "Molson Ice" is *not* a computer security program, and will cause serious damage to your cyberdeck. Clue to Kibo's Location If you take the sound samples from the MTV Room on AOL and play them backward, you can hear someone say "I Buried Kibo." Played front ways, the samples say: "Hi, this is Kibo. I'm taking some time off to figure out a way of getting paid for posting to Usenet. Please leave your message at the tone." LEGAL NOTICE Mr. Gaia Messiah announces that he will no longer be responsible for any debts other than his own, and has filed for divorce from Eve. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. ------ TWIA Vol.1 No.4 OT.7THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.4 OT.7 This Week in Ark is published by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry under a grant from the Religious Theosophy Center, and is the official journal of the proceedings of the American Kibological Club. If you didn't fail to miss it here, then it probably failed to pass the official culling. Reading below this line constitutes an agreement by the reader that the reader agrees to keep confidential any material below that line, the one above there, which is deemed a trade secret by the American Kibological Club. Unseemly litigiousness invades the Ark This week saw the invasion of the Ark by the word "barratry," and the hurling of claims, counterclaims and Standard Threatening Letters by the normally sanguine denizens. The motive force behind this unusual behavior was the disclosure of secrets. Firstly, noted guerrilla poet "Jesse Garon" disclosed the secret of Tom Richardson's GNSc (it's written in BASIC), which prompted The BOB(c) and Beverley to disclose the secret of Rone's killfile (kill 'em all and let SELECT sort 'em out), which prompted Rone to disclose the secret of Dihydrogen Monoxide, which was owned by Nuke's dad. The secret of Bobby Hodad's name was revealed, which prompted Lupus Yonderboy to reveal the secrets of a pizza delivery concern's cash-flow problems, which inspired Louis Nick to reveal the secret ingredient to pepperoni extenders. Concurrently, Lisa's Sekrit Powar was revealed to jurors in the OJ Simpson trial. She was asked if she could point out the defendant in the courtroom. She did, and by force of habit said *boop,* putting roughly 773,014 attorneys out of work and sending shares of CNN skidding. Boris Straight revealed that he is secretly related to Boris Illy, the pen name of James Parry's sister's best friend's cousin's aunt. The result of all this hub-bub was that a heretofore ignored possibly colorable infringement of a perhaps trade secret was noted by a *very* large corporation, which threatend to alert certain possible defendants that bankrupt and bleeding was no way to go through life. As a result, a Letter of Settlement was posted on the Net: Piano, Loon & One The Willows Seahaven, N.H. Armando Coigne Multiplane, San Francisco, Calif Dear Mr. Coigne; On behalf of our client, India Carless, we thank you for alerting us to the our client's vulnerability to a cause of action under the Electronic Uniform Net Control Hexapla, also known as Evans-Tindale. Our client is taking immediate steps to conform to the contours of Evans-Tindale, as you suggest. These actions include, but are not limited to, the following: Cancelling all our client's posts with the offending material included in it; Forge-cancellation of the post containing the material our client quoted; Reformating our client's disk drive to ensure none of the offending material can remain on it, as per US government specifications for data security; Issuing a demand to our client's internet service provider to erase all its disks, and to issue a control message to erase every hard drive of every computer in the world that receives Usenet news. Scheduling a session with a neurosurgeon to have the relevant portions of our client's brain, or at least the areas with a high likelihood of containing the memory of the proscribed phrases, removed; Immolation of our client's house and those near it, on the off chance that someone was peeking through our client's window with a high-powered telescope or other aid to vision and thereby made a paper notation of the secret material, or that someone in our client's own house made a surreptitious note of the secret material, and hid the note somewhere. Bequeathing our client's worldly possessions to the Larry Ron Hubbard school of trade secret law; Because, as we agree, once a secret is widely disclosed, it is no longer secret, for the purposes for most state trade secret laws based on the model Uniform Trade Secret Act, and it is therefore necessary to ensure that a secret, once disclosed, does not become widely disclosed. Sincerely, E Teflon Piano This Week's Winner!!1!1 Is Gard Trask. He can stop parking cars now. The TWIA List Shawn Clay Knight Olorin Dave Greenbaum Burnt Toast Man Bruce Ediger Wednesday T McDonald Carlos May Michael Straight Susan Whelchel -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. Article 90000 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week In Ark Vol.1 No.5 Date: 16 Aug 95 17:52:12 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 109 Message-ID: <1995Aug16.175212.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.1 No.5 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. All spelling grammar errors are the product of Trask-0-Vision. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] MAKE.LAWYERS.FAST Only a week after the astonishing introduction of the word "barratry" into the Ark lexigon (having bookish sides), the Ark community was stunned by a showy daylight raid on the residence of Tjames Madison by U.S. pizza delivery agents Lupus Yonderboy and Louis Nick, armed with an elaborately forged Warrant for Delivery signed by Sen. Thomas Richardson, who *still* hasn't read the part in the U.S. Constitution about separation of powers, and *still* thinks that damn Ark gavel is some sort of magic wishing hammer. The agents arrived at the residence, along with 854 extra large pepperoni and morning girlie seed and anchovi pizzas and two large Pepsis, in a red MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE obtained as an upgrade with UNLIMITED MILEAGE by Joe Bay cashing in his frequent-poster coupons and driven by Gardner "Roadkill" Trask. The agents swiftly dispersed through Mr. Madison's residence, shoving pizza boxes in his disk drives and in his personal address book, which they then used to invite Madison's Ark acquaintances over to help evaluate Mr. Madison's generosity in ponying up for the pies and to use the ETP Formula to calculate the tip. In a related development, Michael Straight's entire stock of "Magic Hitler Hats" was seized by customs agents acting on a complaint from the Mystical Technology Center, a division of E poly(TFE) Enterprises, which claimed patent and trade secret infringement of its "Mojo Hats." Mr. Straight claimed there could be no secret involved, since a Mojo Hat was, in fact, produced by printing out the character mapped to the shift-6 key on a sheet of aluminum foil. The Internet Legal Society immediately intervened by applauding the controversy for its contribution to experimental thinking in the area of intellectual property law, and for its assistance in recruiting new members for its organization. "Rarely have we seen so many people venture new theories about the interplay of copyright and trade secret law, except of course, for that discussion about Kurt Cobain's "'Pretty Woman,'" a spokesperson said. In an effort to aid the discussion, Internet Legal magnanimously released the efforts of its crack Experimental Litigation team: synthesis of a cause of action in tort, at least in California, called Invasion of Karma. Invasion of Karma would combine elements from California's (State motto: Jurisprudence is for Easterners) tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress and its companion count of invasion of privacy. The new tort of Invasion of Karma would function along the lines of invasion of privacy, except that actual intrusion into solitude would not be a requirement. The definition then would be: mental or physical intrusion into the psychic presence of another without the other's consent. This concept is familiar to those who have ever heard the phrase: "Daddy, make him stop looking at me." The novelty of this cause of action is that it is complete upon the intrusion, and no actual damages would have to be proven. *Everybody* who idly allows the thought to cross their minds that someone else is one page short of a brief would be vulnerable to the cause of action for sending out "bad vibes." It would then become incumbent upon those who wish to mentally criticize another to wear Mojo Hats[dibs], so those bad thoughts could not be intercepted. This is contrary to the usual practice of requiring the *victim* of mental beams to shield himself. The Twark List Tjames Madison Ben Weiner Andrew S. Damick Louis Nick III Justin the Blue Michael Straight This Week's Winner Louis Nick III, for correctly deducing the existence of the Suppositrode. LEGAL NOTICE Doctroid Doctroid Holmes' application for [dibs] for all uses of UNREASONABLE FLORISTS[dibs] has been certified by the Internet Legal Society. GEOGRAPHIC NOTICE This is Perth, having a nice lie down, while wearing a Mojo Hat[dibs]. --> <* -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. Article 91085 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week In Ark Vol.1 No.6 Date: 26 Aug 95 16:59:55 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 135 Message-ID: <1995Aug26.165955.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.1 No.6 August 26,1995 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. All spelling grammar errors are the product of Trask-0-Vision. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] TABLE OF CONTENTS Guest Editorial Fame and Misfortune The Institute Evaluates GNSc September 19 is Nearly Upon Us The Twark List GUEST EDITORIAL Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have been required to stand in for our esteemed colleague, Dr. Piano. Dr. Piano is currently recovering (at the James Parry Memorial Usenet Addiction Wing of the Betty Ford Clinic) from his first attempt at recovering from oral surgery. While the staff at the Papa Doc Periodontal Center were acceptable, the chemists on the compound leave much to be desired. It is hoped that Dr. Piano will use a different criteria when next selecting a provider of medical services. There are more important things in life than convenient parking and proximity to Camden Yards. Indeed. We suspect that there are a number of you who will great this announcement with no little amount of fear and loathing. Please accept our apologies. It is hoped that Dr. Piano will return for the next issue. For the Firm, Berthold Squane, Esq. FAME AND MISFORTUNE Twark is pleased to observe that another publication has seen fit to comment on a few of the notable personages known to inhabit this newsgroup. Congratulations to "The Net" magazine. Keep up the good work. The editors of Twark would like to add that it is customary to use one's franking privileges to make copies of one's publications available to peers in one's field. As the editorial staff have not yet cleared the balance on our VISA accounts, the staff hope that the oversight committed by "The Net" will be rectified in due course. For those of you not fortunate enough to have been mentioned in "The Net", we would like to point out that fame is fleeting and the Warholian 15 minutes experienced by Ms. Wednesday (nee White) and Mr. Madison have already expired. Please move on, you are blocking the sidewalk. Thank you. THE INSTITUTE EVALUATES GNSC The Institute for Misapplied Psychometry is pleased to announce that it has been selected to provide legal counsel for the development of GNSc. You may recall that GNSc, a self-referential acronym which stands for "GNSc's Not Scientology!", is an operating system, news-reader, religion, and make- money-fast scheme. It is expected that the selection of the Institute by the developers of GNSc will facilitate a successful development of that last (and most important) feature, the GPL notwithstanding. To make GNSc both open and proprietary, the O/S has a number of inbuilt modules, one of which will require you enter a credit card number and expiration date in order to access its functions. Remember, the license for the freeware version only allows you to install the O/S on your system. It does not allow you to actually run any applications under it without registration. To enforce this provision, in the event the system is used to run applications without payment of the proper fee, the O/S will connect to the Fisher Scientific web site to place an order for a liter of 1,4-diamino butane, with shipping instructions for forwarding to Advertising Specialties Co., which will decant the liter into free-sample-sized hand-lotion packets, which will be direct mailed to your house, one a month. Concurrently, the O/S will subscribe you to Computer Shopper, the World's Bulkiest Monthly Publication. As per official U.S. Government postal regulations, the sample will be shoved through your mail slot, followed by the Computer Shopper, which will burst the sample packet, spreading 1,4-diamino butane across your foyer. Bill Newcomb will now have his dad explain the ramifications of this. The Institute is pleased to announce a number of additional features that will further enhance your enjoyment of life^H^H^H^HUsenet. Resemblance of any of these features to those of popular computer games is entirely coincidental and completely non-actionable. Trust us. Remember to send a check early if you want to achieve the proper Operating Betan (OB) Level by Christmas. OB 1: the ability to beam thoughts directly into someone's bRaNe through ascii graphics, OB 2: the ability to get the damn dog to stop barking at the UPS truck, OB 3: the sEkRet make-the-pizza-boy-think-he's-been-tipped-by-short- changing-him-and-then-returning-the-theft-as-a-gift power. The following powers are not available with the GPL sHaReWaRe version of GNSc. Remember, DOOM(tm) may be a registered trademark of ID Software, Inc. but our attorneys can beat their attorneys any day. OB 4: ability to turn eyes gold and resist all attacks. OB 5: ability to walk through walls. OB 6: Ability to find secret places *and* all power-ups!! OB 7: Get out of Jail Free!! Your computer will be your *own* E-Meter. Register now. SEPTEMBER 19 IS NEARLY UPON US It's almost time. Ask us for details. THE TWARK LIST Ron Echesomething or Other Michele Tepper Bruce Ediger Rich Holmes Gardner Trask III Alex Suter This Week's Winner: Elisabeth Higgins, in the hopes that she will return to alt. religion.kibology before everyone forgets that she once ruled the ark like a not-so-benevolent Uber-CHYK. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society,[dibs] whose writing style has been more than adaquately interpreted by Tom Richardson, to whom we send our thanks, and an offer to share our medication. Article 92519 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.1 No.7 Date: 4 Sep 95 14:24:57 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 98 Message-ID: <1995Sep4.142457.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.1 No.7 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized, because the editorial staff is a lazy, unimaginative geek who can't think of a new joke every seven says.] CONTENTS That Little Opening Blurb The contents Listing One Step Closer to Happy-net Kibology Defined This Week's Winner The Twark List ONE STEP CLOSER TO HAPPY-NET This week saw ark become the Usenet analogue to a mid-70s Norman Lear production by ultimately creating so many spin-offs that bystanders are in the same danger of being struck by debris as a driver tailgating an overloaded truck with a bad set of cheap recaps. The creation of alt.mega-ego.yonderboy is the latest piece of cyber-rubber to hit the road, although it is not yet as widely available as, say, alt.culture.gard-trask, alt.culture.jesse-garon, or alt.fan.wednesday. Other newsgroups to have been established for ark tenants , but not on megaweb.com, the pied-a-terre [lit. mud pie] of the Institute, nor ubalt.edu, the Institute's Host [in the strictly helminthological sense] are alt.sci.joe-bay and alt.usenet.tjames. Now, under rabid [and the term is used advisedly] discussion in alt.config is a RFD for alt.dead.pets.futrelle, after David Futrelle disclosed a Highly Ironic and unnecessarily over-volumed DRAMATIC MOUSE CAPTURE, in which Mr. Futrelle totally failed to teach a rodent to leave the nest and fly on its own. This may be owing to Mr. Futrelle's shaky grasp of aerodynamics, or the belief that a mouse could rapidly evolve into a bat if it was given sufficient motivation, if not sufficient time. Curiously, the alt.dead.pets.* hierarchy seems Greatly Needed, as ark has also been the forum for discussion of cats, sheep, rabbits, chickens and dogs which, if not actually dead, should at least be signing Advance Health Directives and checking state laws on probate. This hierarchy would, of course, not necessarily adapt itself to all of the ark tenants who have as yet been unable to goad or lure Andrew S Damick into issuing a control message. Indeed, as there are some 40 aliases associated with the Registration o' New Entities' Official Scorefiler, alt.config scarcely has the resources to adaquately and fairly consider them all. For this reason, Happy-Net is long overdue. However, as Kibo's taxes also seem to have achieved this same status, renegade control messages will just have to suffice. Alt.postscript.trichard would be an excellent next offering. KIBOLOGY DEFINED Since a group may be known by the company it keeps, under the Birds of a Feather Rule [1 QB 334], Lupus Yonderboy [supra] has finally answered the question posed so often, and most frequently in September: What is this group for? It is the authoritative repository for postings from smartass punks, intellectual types and random scum and villiany. Presumably those postings embrace what may be called "just a damn attitude." Therefore, the aforementioned 40 tenants will be required to declare in which category they wish to be listed for the Official Ark Yearbook and Sashweight. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Michael Straight, for being the *first* person to pony up the dough for a registered version of Usenet 2.0, even though you're not allowed to donate blood twice in one day, and despite its anticipated bundling with Doom ]I[ _Paying the Rent_, in the fraudware version of GNSc '95. RUNNER UP Whoever said "making the silence even louder." THE TWARK LIST David S DeLaney Thomas M S Richardson Andrew S Damick Lee S Bumgarner [who provided this week's Joke] Louis S Nick III Michael S Straight Tjames S Madison Ian A S York -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. Article 94041 of alt.religion.kibology: From: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.1 No.8 Date: 15 Sep 95 15:59:14 -0500 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 86 Message-ID: <1995Sep15.155914.1@ubmail.ubalt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ubmail.ubalt.edu ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.1 No.8 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified.] CONTENTS Urgent Call to Carnegie-Melon Scientific Breakthrough Additional Definition This Week's Winner The Twark List URGENT CALL TO CARNEGIE-MELON Froggy's Usenet Salvage Co. was in the right place at the right time to e-mail the Twark News Tip 'o' the Week, when, while surveying alt.binaries.pictures.janet-reno for its scrap value (number of postings to group since creation: 0), Froggy noticed a strange gathering of twitchy suits in Ray-Bans talking into sleeve microphones or pressing their right hands to their ears. It turns out that the Justice Department, with time and its manhood apparently weighing rather too heavily on its hands after being embarrassed at the Ruby Ridge hearings, was preparing to conduct a series of raids in the alt.binaries.pictures.* groups, searching for nude GIFs of either Marina Sirtis or AOL's Kiboluv. Raiders were unable to find any pornography, however. "It's just a bunch or really big articles that looked like they were made by a deranged high-school touch-typing-class student taking a final exam under the influence of Nyquil," said a Justice Department spokeswoman who looks exactly like Janet Reno, but isn't. "There weren't any *pictures* at all, but don't quote me," she added. Meanwhile, magazine glossies of the Calvin Klein Underwear Kids were being passed hand-to-hand in every middle-school health class in the southeast as awed seventh-graders speculated about the legality of Lion King sleepware newspaper ads under the new Justice Department/PTL Club standard. SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH Doctorb Science this week announced that a crack team of Rutgers Applied Alcohol Overindulgence Recovery Researchers discovered how aspirin works. "You just swallow two tablets with water," said field team leader Bobby Hodad. Doctorb Science Joe Bay added the warning that aspirin was not to be used to treat toothache by placing a tablet directly on the tooth. "Aspirin contains strychnine, which is an acid and the active ingredient in LSD and DNA," Drb. Sci. said. Bay said the strychnine would discolor any tooth enamel the aspirin touched, and if the tablet were placed on a filling, it would cause the tooth to pick up the AOL chatroom feed, putting the sufferer at risk of being raided by the Justice Department or Kiboluv's dad. ADDITIONAL DEFINITION Kibology also is characterized by unabashed, vindictive, self-serving psychos who listen to cooler music. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Kibo Manque Matt McIrvin claims the Silica Gel this week for the inspirational and respirational "Scientifiction Playhouse" series, but especially for exposing Futrelle's Fallacy in the General Theory of Metamorphosis in Mice; runners up are Froggy for "Waistee's Cereal Spot #24" and Louis Nick III for "The Future of Kibology," which hijacked all the jokes Twark had been planning to use. THE TWARK LIST The Twark List is discontinued owing to Spoiler and Big Mouth Marilyn Vos Savant's publication in rec.pets.mensans of the key to the list: actual recollection of Kibo in an ark posting. The NEW Twark list will be presented as soon as Vos Savant makes good on her promise of remediation by reviewing every ark post for the last three weeks for any hidden themes that may be exploited. So far, all she has been able to extract are "shooting a duck" and "pounding Pynchon." -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.9THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.9 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] THE ARK AUTUMN READING LIST Michele Tepper, in a gesture of unusual charity and clarity (two of the Seven Deadly Graces) this week unveiled the Official Ark Syllabus. The Syllabus is designed to inclucate the ark's norms in its fledgling correspondents with a minimal amount of fuss and precipitous rhinoplasty. Among the works featured on the list are those of Hunter Thompson, Terry Pratchett, Terry Southern, Robert A. Heinlein, Neal Stephenson, H.L. Mencken, Larry Niven, Melissa Scott, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Charles Addams, Scott Adams, and the editors of the Physicians Desk Reference and Chilton's Ford Taurus repair manual. Some works notably absent from this fall's list are those by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, since the whole "cyberland" thing eventually failed to materialize. UNEXPECTED SUPPORT FOR DOCTRESS NEUTOPIA Scott Glasrud, New Mexico State Senate hopeful and First Amendment advocate, offers to sell "protection" from regulatory intrusion on the Internet for $5 per user by organizing a Free Libby Hubbard movement, in which the Neutopian vision of an Internet "massgasm" would be achieved. "If we pull together, we CAN protect our first amendment rights!" Mr. Glasrud exclaims, and incidentaly reminds ark observers that "Our Bodies, Ourselves," also failed to make the Ark Reading List, despite a vigorous lobbying of the committee by Paul Reubens. LISA HIGGINS' BRANE Sky-watcher John Winston revealed that space aliens, encouraged by nude .GIFs of Lisa Rea Higgins included aboard a deep-space probe along with several gold records by artists from the Swan stable, are visiting ark and attempting to communicate with its denizens. The content of the communications is open to debate, however, because the aliens have been able to speak directly only to the subconscious brain or indirectly by means of signs and portents, Winston said. The messages have not been received without trouble. The first casualty of these communications was Sen. Thomas M. Richardson, A-Ok, who uttered the phrase "What's the goat, Lisa" in his sleep. Sen. Richardson suffered blunt instrument trauma (ie. a whack to the shins with the Ark Gavel) at the hands of his wife, who was later mollified by Sen. Richardson's protestations that he was acting under Rabies Induced Dementia after being bitten by a squirrel attracted to a bagatelle Sen. Richardson was enjoying in a sidewalk cafe earlier that day. Sen. Richardson's hermeneutics were undergoing lab analysis as of this writing. Mz. Higginz herself was daunted by a baffling alien attempt at Morse heliography, wherein instead of shuttering one light, the aliens blinked a whole battery of lights, but ad seriatim. The message: "Hang on Buzz, I'll be there in a flash," was lost on Mz. Higginz. But the aliens' indiscriminate tinkering with the electromagnetic spectrum brought the unforseen result of initiating a bitter argument over whether a fraternity could constitute a religion, and if so, were any holidays involved. Apparently the alien transmissions penetrated certain tinfoil hats, causing a flurry of speculations on the nature of the universe. Representing one camp, the Legal Fraternity, are Ted Frank and Leigh "LAW" Witchel. Representing the other side are "Jesse Garon" and Gard Trask, who posit the convincing theory that if God creates a rock so big that He Himself can't lift it, and He leaves it in your frat's back garden, then you are required to provide lateral support for neighboring lands if the rock causes subsidence. The Legal Fraternity's argument that this theory was clearly irrelevant to the question at hand was rejected by Kibological moderators who ruled that *nothing* is irrelevant. OBITUARY Famed Kibologist Orville Redenbacher is dead at the age of 88. While best known for a line of gourmet snacks, Redenbacher's greatest achievements were in the field of industrial starch research, where he was widely regarded as the George Washington Carver of maize (zea mays praecox). Mr. Redenbacher is credited with discovering the use of popcorn as: artificial snow; a building demolition device; a packing material; stuffing for large plush toys offered as prizes at carnival ring-toss games; chaff for confusing air-to-air missile radar guidance systems; blown-in attic and wall insulation; and, unsuccessfully, as a hair replacement for William Shatner, Burt Reynolds and David Letterman. Mr. Reddenbacher will be remembered at Chicago's Popcorn Institute. HIGHLY IRONIC HAPPENINGS The Tampon Thread has now lasted longer than a week, but was essentially unaided by Beverley White's declarations that she was 1. making pancakes 2. bestowing a highly personal gift upon certain ark regulars. MOST KIBOLOGICAL TV CHANNEL CNBC, which carries bell-to-bell coverage of the stock market, also airs a commercial for "The Secerts of Blackjack" video, political commentary featuring Dee Dee Myers, and employs a stocks editor who obviously is the archtype for the ditz on the Murphy Brown show who is called "blondie." -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. Article 95713 of alt.religion.kibology: From: E Teflon Piano Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.1 No.10 Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 19:14:44 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 81 Message-ID: <44v4o3$lp0@news-e1a.megaweb.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: @www-3-219.gnn.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 4 Oct 1995 23:18:27 GMT X-Mailer: GNNmessenger 1.1 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] FAN KILLFILED AT FESTIVAL What was billed as the "Usenet Woodstock" ended in tragedy this week when members of the Helvetica's Angels, hired to provide security for the event, killfiled a lurker who had ventured too close to the center of the posting festival in alt.a.mont. The killfiling occurred hours after several lurkers had been severely forge-canceled by the Angels, who were allegedly acting under instructions of Tjames Madison, leader of the Rolling Steel Keg posting group. The victim's identity was not firmly established, being variously given as that Roshambo Guy and J.R. "Bob" Koleszar. Authorities said the victim's header records would have to be examined to determine his identity. The killfilling marred an otherwise peaceful gathering of Usenet fans who were celebrating the Endless September holiday. The festival began with an impressive thread by taco folklorist Sali, followed by the staccato solos of Joe Bay and David DeLaney. However, as the day wore on, the concession stand ran short of bagles, pizza, beer, coffee and cheese, prompting the fans to grow restive. "Well, except about the cheese, it's a real bummer," official timekeeper Wedneserley said. The first hint of trouble came when Angels attempted to confiscate Froggy's Internet Porn Codes dictionary. The crowd suddenly surged in response, shouting IHNJH, IJLS! An Angels' spokesperson said this was Internet code for the Latin phrase _Illud habre novatio judicium homo, ignorantia juris lata culpa_, which translates as "Bring out the nude Martina Sitter jokes!" The Angels forge-cancelled several participants in response. The trouble then escalated when the Dixie Suicide Kings refused to contribute to the festival, on the advice of grateful, dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. The onlookers again surged toward the thread, prompting the lethal response from the Angels. Festival originator James Parry could not be reached for comment. CHEAP ANATOMICAL SNIGGERING The U.S. Department of Weights and Measures has named Michael Straight and Bill Newcomb co-curators of the nation's Official Breasts. The left breast will be overseen by Straight, and the right by Newcomb. The Breasts are employed in labratories for the calibration, in Hooters, of diagnostic equipment. An official for the Department of Weights and Measures, who could see this joke coming from a lighthooter away, said the bifurcation was a security measure designed to keep the Breasts from falling into the wrong hands. In a related development, Dr. Higgins was put in charge of the Official Standard U.S. Butt. The Butt is used by the airline industry to calculate seat widths, measured in Wedgies. Currently the standard Coach Class airline seat is .75 of a Standard Butt. MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER Gardner Trask is convalesing in alt.cuddle after a tragic impersonation mishap wherein he simultaneously assumed the identities of Lupus Yonderboy and Rone, and his head exploded. This joke also works with Misha Tepper and Kiboluv. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.11THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.11 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS Alex Suter's Worst Comix This Week's Winner ALEX SUTER'S WORST COMIX After the hour grew late and the level of the punch bowl/windshield washer reservoir grew low at Froggy's Tubing Party & BBQ in alt.current-events.blizzard-of-93 this week, a bitter argument erupted over which was the worst daily comics page staple. The argument was ignited by Mayor Lupus YonderLaGuardia's reading of the Sunday Funnies, since a.c-e.bo93's bandwidth was insufficient to allow a .gif display of the pages. The row began when YonderLaGuardia asked: "Which one shall I read next?" Each suggestion met with hoots of derision and partisan sniping. As alcohol-fueled controversies go, the debate over bad comic strips was fairly wide-ranging, with many vociferous advocates volunteering egregious representatives of the major syndicates. When hours of fruitless bickering threatened to exceed the available supply of beverages, Gard Trask offered a mature and venerable solution: a round-robin game of automobile "chicken," with the winner to declare which comic strip bites putrid rat corpses through a burlap manure sack. This solution was put aside, however, when Bill "Mr. Lane Integrity" Newcomb observed that the narrow, heavily rutted, one-lane dirt track to this 102-year-old Usenet Historical Site was singularly and potentially spectacularly inappropriate for the successful accommodation of that particular kind of contest. Rone, rebuffed in his attempt to encourage the United States' newspapers to adopt a killfile for the comics pages, offered a compromise wherein the authors of comic strips nominated at the party would be invited to a slide show of their works illuminated by the headlights of the Traskmobile. And, just to make sure of his particular attendance, Bil Keane would be provided an all-expenses-paid one-way ticket to the display grounds. In the meantime, an analysis of this table shows that one syndicate has the highest percentage of pooches in its stable, judged on lack of jokes, although for lame drawings and lamer jokes, it's difficult to beat "Momma." North America Syndicate <--!!1 King Features Syndicate Luann Curtis Rex Morgan The Phantom Will 'n' Ethel Zippy Mary Worth Lockhorns Apartment 3-G Blondie Dennis the Menace Ernie Mark Trail Sally Forth Andy Capp Barney Google & Snuffy Smith Hi & Lois Cowles Syndicate Beetle Bailey Family Circus Hagar the Horrible Universal Press Syndicate Tribune Media Services Calvin & Hobbes Mother Goose & Grimm Cathy Gasoline Alley Garfield Shoe For Better or For Worse The Middletons Doonesbury Herb & Jamaal Ziggy United Feature Syndicate Creator's Syndicate Dilbert B.C. Marmaduke Wizard of Id Peanuts One Big Happy Alley Oop Momma <--*PUT YOUR MONEY ON THIS ONE*! Robotman Kudzu Doctor Fun 9 Chickweed Lane Jump Start The Born Loser Drabble Committed Arlo and Janis Over the Hedge Rose is Rose Careful observers who know that syndicates sell comics in "packages" will realize that a newspaper must compromise its comics page quality in order to get the really hot strips. For example, if a newspaper wants to pick up "Alley Oop," it must round out the package with unpopular daubs like "Peanuts." This explains why newspapers who want "Blondie" also carry Barney Google & Snuffy Smith. But it doesn't explain where the hell Barney Google is hiding, nor does it explain why three of the King features are done by two people. It also doesn't explain the North America syndicate *at all.* THE TWARK LIST The List has been refitted with new grapples, a new mission, and an even more difficult shibboleth. Michael Straight Charles M. Castevens THIS WEEK'S WINNER This Week's Winner is The Avocado Avenger, for a penetrating review of _Ninja Lawyer Killfest '95_. Ms. Avenger, however, inexplicably neglected to include mention of the scene where highly-evolved space-whales visit the middle-aged, cross-dressing, ex-cop coach of a junior sports team and bestow a super power that propels the team to the finals. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.12THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.12 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you don't see you name in this week's edition, you must re-establish your credentials.] CONTENTS Who's Who Special Not This Week's Winner The Twark List WHO'S WHO This week the ark was shaken by the revelation that many long-time inhabitants were posting under assumed identities. The revelations came after a suspicious Ian York received identical e-mailings touting a miracle cancer-cure and salad-dressing recipe from two supposedly different people, who not only had the same addresses, but were both seeking small sums of money. Mr. York then initiated an exhaustive computerized content-analysis of ark postings, assigning probabilities as to the true authors. To Mr. York's astonishment, he discovered that he was really the operator of the Ben Weiner, Joe Bay, Gardner Trask, Sean Smith, Louis Nick III, Michael Straight and Matt McIrvin identities. Other "meta-posters" revealed by the content analysis, run under GNSc Alpha ver.0009.90.76.2 include: Joel Furr = Eric B. Richardson, Brian Zieler, Sourcerer and John Winston; Tjames Madison = Jesse Garon, Lupus Yonderboy, Kiboluv, Matt McIrvin, Gardner Trask, Brian "infro" Higgins and Kibo; Bruce Ediger = Lisa Higgins, Tom Richardson, Rich Holmes, Joe Bay, Kibo and Bill Newcomb; Matt McIrvin = Kibo, Jaffo, Rone, Wednesday, Discord, Kiboluv, Froggy, Spatch, Jaycjay, Mr. Ogre and The BOB(c); Lisa Higgins = Michele Tepper, Beverley White, The Jens, Tom Richardson's wife, and, in fact, every other woman on or off Usenet, including Dee Dee Myers and Cokie Roberts; Andrea Chen = Louis Nick III, Lee Bumgarner, Dr. Abian, Fabian, Fabio, Kibo, Elvis, Annette Funicello, Cher, Roseanne, Ralph Koleszar, Mike "Mr. Groovy" Toole and Shawn Roske; Louis Nick III = Gard Trask, "Jesse Garon," Andrea Chen, Phil Glass, Phil Spector, David Wolf, Bigbad Wolfe, "Wolfie" Mozart, Hank Aaron, Aaron Spelling, Libby Hubbard, Ron Hubbard, Old Mother Hubbard and Moms Mably; Eric Boesch = Bobby Hodad, Louis Nick III, Ron Burk, David Futrelle, Kibo, Eli M. Balin, Eli Higgins, David DeLaney, Herschel A. Gelmann, Jeff Gerstmann, Joe Rumsey, James Parry and PF Lewis. The content analysis, moreover, showed that ark has become a meta-group, through the incessant crosspostings of these few individuals, which spans the entire hierarchy of Usenet, excepting only news.answers. It is therefore unnecessary any longer to actually address a Usenet posting to any place other than ark. SPECIAL NOTE Since Gardner S. Trask has been officially vetted herein, ark monitors are advised to remove him from the 3leete killphyle, so others may now be able to respond to his posts. As the same vetting process shows that Louis Nick III seems to be responsible for most of the unseemly traffic on the ark lately, he is to be put *in*. Sourcerer is *still* excluded from the Cool Guys table in the Ark Rec Room. Oh, and somebody tell J--- W------ that a-------- is not a bad w---. THIS WEEKS WINNER This week's winner is Jaffo, whose insights into race, justice, and taking the day off spawned a thread that is liable to rival SONGS ABOUT... for longevity. Runner-up is Ian A. York, who, aside from apparently writing everyting that Louis Nick didn't, constructed an accurate portrayal of what Kibo should have been doing when he wasn't paying his quarterlies on time. THE TWARK LIST Tjames Madison Rev. Gypsy Joker Charles M. Castevens -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.14THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.14 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS Prices Too Low to Advertise The ILLS FAQ This Week's Winner The Twark List PRICES TOO LOW TO ADVERTISE We at The Institute are deeply gratified that James Parry was able to wriggle through the fine print of his "understanding" with the IRS to take the helm of Twark Vol.1 No.13 while we were recovering from the meteor strike. However, the loophole that allowed him to make such a delightful and long overdue sermon to his faithful has been, unfortunately, closed by the aforementioned diligent agency because, even though you-know-who avoided employing the K-word, the precipitous increase of "welcome back" posts to the ark was a dead giveaway. One of the pitfalls of the popularization of a gooey interface is that even a mainframe-lobotomized accounting major can scrutinize ark to ensure that the principles of an agreement are being maintained. Thus, the promised sequel to "The Girls of Babylon 5 vs. the Girls of Deep Space Nine" must be held in abeyance until such time as Mr. Parry either (1) discharges his commitments or (2) slips off to the Caymans. However, until that time, the ark regulars can entertain themselves with endless derivations of the "pudding-pit joke." And we expect pouting from Beverday about the riffs from "Cheeze Whizz and the Single Girl." Tom Richardson will be too busy to post for a while, as he has a large archive of essays to consume, along with a couple of portions of crow. And we shouldn't be seeing Joel Furr for a while, either. Mr. Parry's twist on the "pants joke" is sure to keep that thread alive and at the top of the charts for another year. Although establishing the connection between The X-Files and Songs About Masturbation is going to be a close second. THE ILLS FAQ Because of the intimate connection (and by that we mean a concurrent occupation and ownership of undergarments) between the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry and the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society, it is fitting that publication of the long-heralded FAQ for the Society be undertaken by the Institute. 1. What is the Internet Legal Society? That is no longer the name of that entity. 2. Don't be evasive. And why isn't it? The Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society, formerly the Internet Legal Society, was renamed to its present identifier after certain confusing similarities between the abbreviations for the International Law Society and the Internet Legal Society were noted by librarians at the Library of Congress, who inevitably notified the directors of the older, established group. 3. Sounds like a cop-out. Well, aren't you afraid that the WELL, which stands for Whole Earth 'Lectronic something-or-other, is going to notice that you're using the "'L" thingie? Not if certain pushy busybodies can learn to keep their traps shut. 4. What is the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society? The Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society is a not-for-profit disorganization dedicated to applying the fundamentals of the jury system to complex legal research. To this end, the ILLS performs no actual research in established legal sources, instead relying on the legal opinions of unschooled lay persons to resolve conflicts -- just like anywhere from six to twelve ordinary citizens do with questions of fact in life-or-death situations every day! 5. Who are the members of the ILLS? Just like the members of a jury, the members of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society are drawn protestingly from all walks of life. If you have ever ventured an opinion on copyright, trademark, common law assault, or first-degree murder[1] in a newsgroup, then you are a member of the Internet Legal Society! Automatically. Whether you like it or not. So, don't bother complaining. 6. Who are the leadership of ILLS? ILLS currently rejoices in the display of three names on its letterhead. E Teflon Piano is the Founder and Major Instigator. Managing partner is Michael Straight, and Experimental Litigatician is Lisa Higgins. 7. Do *any* of these people have even *remotely* a traditional legal education? The advantage of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society's method of resolving disputes is that there is no pesky precedent to slow down deliberations. Every problem is examined de novo[2], just like at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society allows you to Go Wrong With Confidence[dibs] because your opinion can never be overturned for error in finding of law. When you need an answer, although not necessarily the correct one, you can turn to the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society. 8. Another evasion. But what is this [dibs] thing? In a wide-ranging, candid debate on trademark law between Dr. Piano and PF Lewis[3], [dibs] evolved as a situational accommodation to certain mutually exclusive conclusions encompassing the application of then-applicable rationale regarding ownership of rights in a mark and prosecution of infringement of its misuse. [dibs] is a Usenet-exclusive designation covering intellectual property rights otherwise embodied in trademark, servicemark, copyright, trade dress, unfair competition and intestate succession. 9. Another cop-out, in other words. How are [dibs] registered? Like claiming the last piece of cake, the mere act of designating a phrase or expression of an idea is enough to secure [dibs] on it. 10. Are there any noteworthy [dibs]holders? Carlos May has [dibs] on Information Super-Frog[dibs]. Rich Holmes has [dibs] on "unreasonable florists[dibs]." In a bit of dangerous recursion, the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs] has [dibs] on Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. 11. Was the inclusion of the ILLS FAQ in Twark simply a ruse to further impose on the kind Andrew Damick's storage space at http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/a/asdamick/kibo/? While it cannot be contradicted without impunity that this view is insusceptible of misinterpretation, we nevertheless fail to misconstrue it in our own favor. ______Footnotes_____ [1] The OJ Trial was a real boon to ILLS membership. [2] This is Latin for "after a flame war so intense it makes the explosion of a sun look like a weenie roast." [3] Mr. Lewis is an attorney who claims celebrity in jurisprudential circles (see Re: Kibo, The Ramones, and the Lanham Act) (pflewis@netcom.com(PFLewis(MGOVG)) writes about taunting a seventh-grade classmate many years ago: "whereupon the classmate burst into tears, Mr. Riesberg was summoned and your faithful undersigned counsel, in one of the greatest injustices known to Anglo-American Jurisprudence, got detention big time. (This was in all the CrimLaw casebooks when I went to law school. Perhaps you missed that day.) (Riesberg told me the detention was for calling Riesberg a "stupid shithead," even though I was egged on to this by, inter alia, the beautiful Michelle Meyering, an object of intense desire by the undersigned. I know better; I was punished for zealous advocacy.)"), but cf. contra (ibid.) (ET Piano: "We believe brother Lewis may be exaggerating his role in jurisprudence. The case in question is, in fact, just a footnote in the famous case of Brandenburg Concerto v. Hayes, __U.S.__ at __n.88. (1969), in which it was firmly established that the phrase "stupid shithead" was not an incitement to imminent lawless action, although the speaker may be required to reveal who taught him to speak like that, mister. The case is usually included in casebooks in media law or constitutional law. In re Lewis was, however, the case that established the mid-mid level of scrutiny for government action that burdens conduct related to speech in schools. The "make me" level of scrutiny requires that rules be reasonably based on the principal's expectation of enforcing them.) THIS WEEK'S WINNER Ian York is this week's winner for his abecedarian treatment of the existential angst of modern Kibology. It was a hit. THE TWARK LIST Kibo, of course. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.15THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.15 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified.] DOGGED DETERMINATION, OR JUST PIG-HEADEDNESS? Gard Trask coils the frayed lanyard around the kick-start flange of the ark creativity-pump one more time, wondering if this will be the attempt that causes it to blast into operation. After all, there are lives at stake here. *YANK* The compressor engine blatts out a gust of greasy smoke. Trask grimaces, and begins to repeat the procedure. Tjames, lounging nearby on the bridge, adjusts his attitude and strolls over. "Who's down there?" asks Tjames, indicating the fat plastic tubes snaking away from the big machine, over the rails, and into the murk below. "Dunno. It could be Rone. It could be Kibo. Who haven't we seen around here in a while?" Trask grunts, noticing a small leak in the oil-reservoir dripping into the murk. Dammit, Trask thinks, Tom is going to get on us about that. "I just came on deck and found the compressor shut down with the tubes in the murk. I didn't stop to ask who it was. I just started pulling. Who knows how long the poor bastard has been down there without..." "Higgins dropped in. She was pretty calm, for a change. So, I don't think she's down there. It could be Rone. It's not Froggy, he's always in .hello-kitty. We've seen Tom; he's gotten a new French module; he'll be busy playing with that. Probably it's Kibo." "Kibo wouldn't have gone down with the tank only half-full." *YANK* The heavy flywheel makes a couple of grudging spins. *BLAM* The fuel backfires through the carburetor. There is an earthy smell of half-burnt coffee and stale bagels. "How about Joe Bay?" "Don't think so. He might stay away, then plunge in. But he wouldn't go down with only half a tank of fuel. He wouldn't even use a lifeline. He stays near the surface. *Where'd you get the fuel?*" Trask suddenly freezes as he realizes the import Tjames' question carries. "Don't worry. I *bought* it. Whaja think? I stole it? It was surplus. The seller didn't need it." *YANK* "Who?" "Not saying. Promised I wouldn't tell." "I'm just going to make a call. You better hope 'Jesse's' in." "I didn't get it from Jesse." "I'm going to call anyway." *YANK* * ** * The murk is a wonderful, terrifying place with great pressures and great temptations. It has a seductive quality. You can get hurt there; or you can reap incredible rewards that suck you farther and farther from the surface of light and air until you grow gills and the murk becomes your home. Savages and brutes patrol constantly, looking for victims. The floor of the murk is littered with the eyes and ears of burnout cases, proto-parasites and smug bunglers who went exploring ill-equipped and unprepared. Sometimes the attack comes through treachery from a confidant. Sometimes its just random chance. Bad chance. Wrong place. Definitely wrong time. * ** * In the distance, dogs begin barking. The barking increases in urgency and amplitude and travels like beaknecks doing the wave at a Gators game. A brown blob appears at the point of the wave and resolves itself into a pontoon- mounted UPS truck. The truck stops in front of the ark. Yonderboy punches the horn and climbs out of the cab. He is carrying a pizza carton in one hand and a Newton in the other. He drops a gangway across the gunwales, rubber-legs across and eyes Trask. "Where do you want this thing?" Yonderboy opens the carton to reveal a DSS dish. He looks around. "Where is everybody?" He taps the face of the Newton, which beeps and then goes dark. It's no help. He throws it overboard. It sinks into the murk. "You'll have to install it on the top of the mast. Tjames is inside making a call. Ian York is busy belowdecks trying to synthesize a new joke out of Dilbert and Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast. That's why we need the dish. The cable keeps going down." *YANK* Yonderboy begins to climb. Tjames exits the bridge and returns to the deck. "We're going to need more hands to handle the nets," he shouts up to Yonderboy. "'Jesse's' got some Monkeyboy twitching on a string, but he's going to check in. Sean Smith is cutting bait in the galley. Bev is in the comm center and we can't get her out." "Throw in a cheeseball. That'll flush her out." *YANK* * ** * Remember, the murk eats its young. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. ------ TWARK Vol.1 No.16THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Vol.1 No.16 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS Authorities Hunt .Net-Stalker More .Net Disruption What to Get Kibo This Week's Winner AUTHORITIES HUNT .NET-STALKER The tranquility of Usenet was disturbed this week by a node-to-node .net-hunt for a crazed peeper who revealed himself in an ominous posting to the object of his attentions. The stalker, who signed himself "Jesus," is believed to be of Hispanic descent, perhaps a Jai Alai player or purveyor of velvet paintings, .net-cops said. The rambling, mystically-worded note professed unrequited love, boasted about the stalker's ability to watch the victim as she slept, and recounted how the stalker relentlessly followed the target to her various destinations, such as her school, her home, and her place of work. Pop-psychologist Drb. Joe Bay said that the most chilling aspect of the letter was its closing, which recounted the stalker's longing to be with his victim "in heaven." "This is clearly a death threat, or perhaps a death-suggestion," said Drb. Bay. When the posting came to light, .net-cops began an exhaustive search of notorious nodes in hopes of finding the stalker before he became frustrated and actually attacked his target. All routes out of Finland were temporarily closed as a result. Drb. Bay pointed to a portion of the letter that illustrates the potential for irrational violence inherent in the letter: "I waited all day, hoping you would talk to Me also. As evening drew near, I gave you a sunset to close your day and a cool breeze to rest you, and I waited. You never came. Oh, yes, it hurt Me, but I still love you because I am your friend." Drb. Bay also cited the eccentric capitalization employed by the Jesus Stalker as evidence of personality disintegration. "That's the trouble with these guys. They start out filled with love and longing, but eventually become twisted and frustrated because their obsession is unfulfilled. They become enraged because they perceive that the object of their obsession is deliberately ignoring them, and failing to reciprocate with answering "branewaves," Drb. Bay said. "That's when they become violent," Drb. Bay added. A colleague of Drb. Bay's, Ben Weiner, concurred. "That's the trouble with these guys. They start out filled with love and longing, but eventually become twisted and frustrated because their obsession is unfulfilled. They become enraged because they perceive that the object of their obsession is deliberately ignoring them, and failing to reciprocate with answering "branewaves," Mr. Weiner said. "That's when they become violent," Dr. Bweiner added. The so-called "branewaves" are telekinetic energy that all animals are able to project, sometimes with a force to the extent of being able to unseat the receiver, said John Winston's dog, Yogi. Kibo Psychic Friends Networkers and Movie Reviewers "Jesse 'Siskel' Garon" and Tjames "Ebert" Madison said the stalker could be just like the religious fanatic in either "Pulp Fiction" or "Johnny Mnemonic," but then fell to bickering about what the characters were called in those movies and failed to explain exactly *why* the Jesus Stalker could be just like those characters. Which just goes to show you, movie reviewers are just nuts. Their argument was cut short when both of them were suddenly thrown out of their chairs. Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society spokeschyk Lisa Higginz, after calming down enough to stop exclusively expounding in all caps Tourette's with numeric punctuation, noted that the stalker is also liable for civil damages for intrusion on the victim's privacy. "PRAY I DON'T FICIN SUE YOUR FLUFFY BUTT!11111111111111111! GODDAM STINKIN CHUNK OF FUNK!!!1111111111 WE'LL USE YOUR CONVICTION ON THE CRIMINAL HARASSMENT CHARGES AS PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF YOUR INTENT IN THE CIVIL CASE," said Mz. Higginz, with increasing lucidity, if not less vehemence. "THIS GUY HAS REALLY LOW SELF-ESTEEM," Mz. Higginz added, with unnecessary volume. Kibo could not be reached for comment. MORE .NET DISRUPTION Jeff Gerstmann's bout with Fever Induced Dementia resulted in bizarre physical manifestations on the ark this week, not the least of which was a precipitous increase in net.loon activity featuring signatures beginning with the seventh letter of the alphabet. Apparently Mr. Gerstmann's tortured branewaves acted like a psychic magnet. How else to explain the astonishing success of Jaffo's Ann Raynd critique, Tom Richardson's absence and Joe Rumsey's mysterious migration to a place where they eat jalapenos sliced on corn flakes for breakfast? John Winston's dog could not be reached for comment, although he *was* knocked off the good couch. WHAT TO GET KIBO The question always arises this time of year: what to get Kibo for Christmas? The kind folks at Newman-Markups's Gift Consultants suggests any of the items from the "Bobby Hodad List of Things I Like" or Eli M. Balin's "List of Stuff I'd Like to Hear." THIS WEEK'S WINNER Hong Ooi is this week's storage facility for the Silica Gel as a reward for his scholarship in compiling his LIST OF COMMON DEBATING FALLACIES. However, we wish to commend to his attention the omission of Argumentum ab non Habendum Viva, which is the bare and conclusory assertion that anyone participating in a particular discussion needs to get a life. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995 Article 104633 of alt.religion.kibology: From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,ALT.USENET.TJAMES,alt.culture.gard-trask,alt.culture.jesse-garon,alt.mega-ego.yonderboy,alt.religion.bobby-hodad,alt.religion.louis-nick,alt.sci.joe-bay,alt.fan.wednesday Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.1 No.17 Date: Sun, 24 Dec 1995 01:55:41 GMT Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 113 Message-ID: <4bi1nn$nf0@news-e1a.megaweb.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: @www-13-61.gnn.com X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 23 Dec 1995 23:01:11 GMT Summary: Special Holiday Issue With Centerfold of Marina Sitars X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.1 No.16 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified.] BIG, NOISY HOLIDAY PARTY The Ark, temporarily docked at Blatimore's famous Seven Knoll Light Historical Monument, home of The Institute's RCRA Part C Hazardous Waste Incinerator, tinkled with merriment and rather too many impatient beer drinkers this week for the annual Holiday Mixer and Spelling Bee, this year generously sponsored by The Institute for Misapplied Psychometry and the National Silica Gel Council. [FUN FACT: Did you know that silica gel, which can absorb 97 times its weight in excess stomach acid or even acid that is just standing around quietly doing its job, looking forward to retirement and maybe puttering around in the garden, is included free with each VCR sold in the United States? And that gastrointestinal specialists report a high correlation between the incidence of their patients requiring emergency lavage and the existence of VCR owners who have never successfully recorded one program while watching another?] The Gift Exchange went smoothly, although not at all as planned. Joe Bay exchanged his "Elizabeth Higgins Home Pregnancy Test Kit" for Lupus Yonderboy's copy of "Ben Weiner's Guide to Success in Usenet Business." Each was heard later declaring that he got the better bargain. The Pregnancy Test boasts 100% accuracy when properly administered to men of childbearing age, although the Fair Trade Commission is investigating the product because the $19.95 package consists entirely of a large box upon which the instructions are printed and a card inside that says "Nope." Ben Weiner is the acclaimed consultant to recipe distributors, telephone-call promoters and mailing-list compilers all over the world, and unfailingly may be reached by sending a dollar to the address at the top of *any* list. Everybody sought to exchange their Giant-Holiday-Sized Silica Gel Six- Packs, but there were no takers. In an outpouring of Yuletide charity, all Ark denizens stealthily and, as far as they know, anonymously deposited their Six-Packs in a nearby Salvation Army box, where they were immediately stolen by Blatimore's burgeoning underground slot-food industry. The Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society gave ABSOLUTELY FREE to each partygoer a copy of its pamphlet "HOW TO STOP PAYING INCOME TAXES," magnanimously waiving all but the $3 fee for postage, handling and profit. The book answers these important questions: --why you are not required by law to pay ANY income taxes (Because you don't have an income!) --step by step instructions on how to legally avoid paying any income taxes (Step 1. Call your boss a mole-faced bottom-feeding foot-fetishist.) --how to use your Constitutional rights to avoid turning over financial records to the IRS (US Const. Amend. 5 prohibits self-incrimination, especially by guests of the Federal prison system!; Amendment 6 = a FREE LAWYER!) --how to handle the IRS agents (They're pretty ticklish.) --how the IRS is trying to hide the truth concerning your tax obligation. (Quick look behind you... Awwww, you *just* missed it.) Master of Ceremonies Tom Richardson orchestrated the burning of the Recycled Yule Log in the Institute Weber Kettle/Incinerator. The Log was assembled with the aid of one of those paper-rolling-and bundling-machines and an impromptu donation of 500 copies of "HOW TO STOP PAYING INCOME TAXES." Owing to the composition of the particular inks used in the book, a rich aroma of chloroform ("CAS number 67663," chuckled the avuncular Sen. Richardson.) wafted over the revelers as they huddled around the blaze. So it was to a warm and receptive crowd that John Winston's Dog gave the keynote address, "Why UFOs Are the Obsession of Lunatics Who Don't Buy Alpo Nearly Often Enough." In a related development, Spot announced that he was investigating the possibility of a discrimination suit against the habitues of the Ark, and Kibo in particular, while E Teflon Piano was seen making notes in the margin of a Wall Street Journal article titled "Own Your Own Island." Kibo was not available for comment. As the party concluded, Gard Trask, not realizing that someone, probably Rone, spiked the Institute Punchbowl with Dihydrogen Monoxide and Sodium Monofluorophosphate, consumed more than the dosage recommended in the PDA, became belligerent and ran over the ascii Christmas tree with the Traskmobile turning this into this * * <--perth ^ .`~` /o ~\ /~|`-\- // `o\\ / #[} _- | | HH> <--Hong Ooi's House -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995 From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.1 Date: 1996/02/13 Message-ID: <311fd580.105389595@news.gnn.com> distribution: world x-gnn-newsserver-posting-date: 13 Feb 1996 00:08:36 GMT organization: Misapplied Psychometry newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.1 Feb.12, 1996 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS @@ /\ The Blue Ribbon Campaign The Kibo for President Campaign Where Kibo Is THE BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html The Ark went dark this week to protest certain provisions of the Communications Decency Act enacted by the US Congress and spearheaded by giddy conservative freshman House members who huddled under the covers with a flashlight and giggled at pictures in their moms' Victoria's Secrets catalog. "Pornography should be confined to printed materials such as books and newspapers, which in the UK which have pictures of teens with big tits on page 3, despite them not having a guarantee of freedom of speech, so that God-fearing Republicans can hide them under the mattress, where they belong. The CDA will do this, and my opinion on this has nothing to do with my desire to have a media mogul's hand up my rump operating my mouth like a hand puppet," said Senator Exon, disavowing any enlightened self-interest in protecting potential publishers of his lunatic posturings. "By closing down alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.wives, we will be saving thousands of pounds of bandwidth, and sparing our teenaged mothers and sisters in Iowa the embarrassment of seeing poorly-lighted, nude photos of them, taken against a cheap trailer-trash-paneling-background, circulated outside of the immediate family and local convenience stores, where they belong," said the techno-savvy legislator. "This goes double for rec.pets.cats," he added. "We will also be able to put a stop to smartass punks, like the one writing this, publishing political satire in accordance with Hustler v. Falwell, 485 US 46 (1988)." The CDA, which purports to outlaw speech deemed indecent by "Pacifica" standards, has rendered mute countless energetic and vociferous, if somewhat inarticulate, denizens of alt.games.doom and alt.games.marathon as the autocensors installed by their ISPs kicked in to reject their postings. Eli "111!!!!!11!" Higginz was unavailable for comment, said Eli "No, The Other One" Balin, although a ragged cheer went up from rec.pets.cats, which said in a prepared statement that *any* measure that would reduce spurious crossposting to their group would be welcomed. The Ark went dark in accordance with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Blue Ribbon Campaign, but not without a certain amount of controversy over how to support the campaign and a related injury. Ark spokesman Tjames Madison said the Ark would remain without running lights and have the curtains drawn throughout the long voyage to Amsterdam for the international Federation of United Computer Keyboarders' meeting to discuss the legislation. "In the meantime, I suggest everybody obey the law and simply resort to childish acronyms," added Gard Trask. The injury associated with the Blue Ribbon Campaign was suffered by Ark Aesthetician Andrew Damick, who received third-degree burns on the roof of his mouth after biting into a slice of super-heated cheese pizza. Mr. Damick tragically misread the instructions for the campaign and painted the microwave oven door in the Ark galley black, and unable to observe the state of a slice of pizza inside, failed to appropriately time the operation. Ark Physicists Joe Ben Bay and Joe Ben Weiner said, "Well, this just goes to show you that Schrodinger's Box is *no* plaything." Beverly White concurred, saying, "That's cheese for you. It's just plain treacherous." "What's the deal about cheese?" asked Ark newcomer Jaffo, who, along with Louis Nick III, was attempting to distance himself as an accomplice to Mr. Damick's injuries by the simple expedient of keeping his hands behind his back to hide smudges of black paint on his fingers. THE KIBO FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN http://www.ionet.net/~trichard/kibo.for.pres.html The long search by Kibo Campaign officials for a running mate ended this week with the selection of John Winston as Gaia Messiah, said Mr. Winston's dog, Yogi. With Mr. Winston selected as GM, both the Kibo Machine's and Doctress Neutopia's agonizing are finished. The two will be married and together will co-captain the Vice Presidency for the Kibo Ticket. "Just like Bill and Hillary," said Yogi. Campaign D()()D3 Tom Richardson said the Winston/Neutopia merger was a good fit for the ticket, but as hardly any of the links or, indeed, other material that's supposed to be HTMLized behind all the slick graphics for the Kibo Campaign Home Page had been finished, he would be unable to comment further until he got Dave DeLaney to show him how Andy Damick copied all of Lupus Yonderboy's stuff that he got from Kibo's archive at world.std.com, except to say that if the Win-topia platform failed market tests, "Perhaps we could work something out with the dog." Kibo was unavailable for comment. WHERE KIBO IS alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 Ark Matron Ellen Holmes this week disclosed the reason for Kibo's unavailability was an astonishingly ill-advised choice in purchases for the Kibo Campaign Computer Center. Ms. Holmes admits that she and Nick Bensema of Perth, Austria, made a poor match in purchasing an upgraded Gateway 2000 computer running a Windows 95 upgrade with a Creative Labs sound card. "We can't get through to him. He's on hold for tech support," choked a visibly distraught Ms. Holmes. "With that combination of vendors, we... we... *choke* may NEVER hear from him AGAIN," said Ms. Holmes, with speech balloon assistance from Matt McIrvin. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 Article 109316 of alt.religion.kibology: From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.culture.gard-trask,alt.culture.jesse-garon,alt.mega-ego.yonderboy,alt.religion.bobby-hodad,alt.religion.louis-nick,alt.sci.joe-bay,alt.fan.wednesday,alt.usenet.tjames Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.2 Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 18:26:35 GMT Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 107 Message-ID: <312f3123.164589737@news.gnn.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: www-33-223.gnn.com X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 24 Feb 1996 18:29:33 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99d/16.182 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.2 Feb.24, 1996 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS A Reward to the Faithful Win A Trip to Austria! Rocking the Boat A REWARD TO THE FAITHFUL The long-suffering, devoted faithful on the Ark were rewarded this week with an unexpected, but long wished-for, event. The faithful in this particular case are, of course, those who are chiefly identified by the advocacy and practice of ritual cannibalism simulated with Cheegles and Nugrape (a reason Food Courts are catching on at church); and the event was the adoption by the Usenet Cabal of the "K-chip." The K-Chip, as described in the Communications Beable Act of 1996, is designed to limit the flow of gibberish on Usenet. When we say limit, we mean in the sense that a quart of Old Stepdad limits the aggressive proclivities of a convicted wife-beater when confronting a tailgating, Volvo-driving smartypants in the parking lot of a Gas 'n' Go after a quarter mile of bumper tag on a twisty, hilly, two-lane Pennsylvania backroad during which his pickup took a dent in the fender right under the official BASS decal. This is to say, it provides a *lower* limit. (The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence's 12 predictors of wife-beating include talking about using weapons against people, maintaining strong traditional ideas and going through extreme highs and lows. This is not to say conservative surprise frontrunner Pat "Let's ride to the sound of the guns" Buchanan is a wife-beater. Yet, anyway.) Elizabeth Windsor-Knott in alt.sex.fetish.netscape expressed the consensus when she said, after unprincipled editing, "Whatever happened to programs that teach the code that Bill Gates sent us and Steve Jobs died for? Why is our government, the government founded on the principal, "A Goto is the sign of a sick mind," helping to fund programming that is sent by way of secret transmitters on Neptune, and used for "educating" people on ways to write cross-platform Java applets that animate web page coochie-coochie girls? Why?" The K-chip will be installed in all ISP network hubs and filter out all postings beginning with the word "obviously," or urging the employment of glottal stops in conversational German or containing criticism of the present government of China. WIN A TRIP TO AUSTRIA! The Official Ark Cartographer, Roger Douglas , in cooperation with Tom Richardson's "Kibo in '96" election advertising, is offering a trip to exciting Perth -->*, Austria, as First Prize in the Name the Kibo Campaign Theme Song Contest. The Winner will be enjoy a suite in the world famous Louvre, be provided lift tickets for a week's skiing on beautiful Mont-Saint-Michel, a weekend train trip to Tasmania and have $100,000 schillings spending money. Decision by contest judges "Jesse Garon" and Ben Weiner will be final. Elvis Costello, his family or business partners, are not eligible. ROCKING THE BOAT What was first supposed as the onset of some heavy weather because of a precipitous and intermittent lack of lateral and subjacent stability in the decking turned out to be Gard Trask traversing skid-stops on the Ark gangplank while pushing a handcart loaded with what he described as "dry cleaning" in a large Silicon Graphics packing crate riddled with holes labeled "TCP-IP ventilation" and bearing "Kibo Inside" stickers. When asked why Louis Nick III was acting as apparent lookout, Mr. Trask said, "Just normal security. Just routine. Nothing to see here, nosiree." However, when pressed, Mr. Trask declared that the box contained a supercharger designed by Matt McIrvin for the Ark engine. Mr. Trask also acknowledged that he turned all the milk in the Ark Galley to yogurt just by glancing at it. "Typical," responded Rich Holmes, "Trask *always* gets into these stories and I only get mentioned this *once.* And I'm not even allowed to *plonk*." The secret cargo was hustled into Michele Tepper's old room, which she vacated more-or-less permanently after growing exhausted with Official Ark Social Dork Lee Bumgarner's constant attempts to engage her in conversation with the opening gambit of: "My it's sure hot. Mind if I loosen your clothing?" The only other cabin potentially available was Rone's, but it had been invaded by Alan L. Bostick. The main consequence of the operation of the supercharger has been for Sean Smith and Andy Damick to further refine the rules of the Ark Drinking Game to adjust for smiteage. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 Article 110313 of alt.religion.kibology: From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.usenet.tjames,alt.culture.gard-trask,alt.culture.jesse-garon,alt.mega-ego.yonderboy,alt.religion.bobby-hodad,alt.religion.louis-nick,alt.sci.joe-bay,alt.fan.wednesday Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.3 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 22:53:35 GMT Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 107 Message-ID: <31532e3d.706582387@news.gnn.com> Reply-To: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: www-27-195.gnn.com X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 22 Mar 1996 22:57:11 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99d/16.182 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.3 March 22, 1996 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KIBO The Ark this week was the venue for a visual splendor of colorful crepe bunting, Dinner-Napkin prom-float flowers and an aural bewilderment of about 10 independently-competing boom-boxes in aid of the Kibo for President campaign. Because Kibo was unable to qualify for Federal Matching Funds for his presidential bid, Campaign Chairman Tom Richardson enlisted the denizens of the Ark to contribute time and attic-stuffers to a Kibo Spring Fun Fair and Bake Sale for the benefit of the campaign. Prime among the money-raising events was a challenge by the Ark Science Club II to the Ark Yearbook Committee, refereed by the Student Union Officers, and incidentally demonstrating that the social dynamic on the Ark resembles in more than just passing the tripartite character-interaction in the 1970s Brit sitcom "The Goodies." In the baffling Yankee Charity Tradition of bartering irrelevant activity for hard currency, the two teams subscribed sponsors to pay two-cents a thought (the established rate on Usenet) for the teams to engage in a contest of wits. The competition chosen by compromise was 3-D Usenet Chess, which is played using regulation chess pieces on a Twister mat with the rules of Stratego. The Science Club team was under strength because it had generously donated Joe Bay as its proxy in the Pioneer Computer Technology Bug and Snipe Hunt. Armed with a pair of tweezers and a sandwich bag, Mr. Bay is chasing through the internal routines of the Ark MultiUniMIPS mainframe, in search of the packet containing Lupus Yonderboy. This left only ASCII members Ben Weiner, Ian York and Rich Holmes to defend the club's honor against the Ark Yearbook Committee, represented by creative types Sali HigginZ, her understudy Leigh WitcHELL; Tjames Madison; "Jesse Garon;" Gard Trask; and Jay C Jachimiak. The teams were fairly evenly matched, because while the Science Club had a new and secret prototype Amiga to help compute its moves, the Yearbook Committee had a small, battery-operated lathe on its side. When the Science Club forced the Yearbook Committee into sacrificing its queen, Mr. Madison huddled with Mr. "Garon" in a cloud of sawdust and shrill scraping-noises. Then Ms. HigginZ leaned over the Twister mat, loudly demanding that the Science Club look up to examine her driver's license and tell her how bad it was. The Science Club obliged, patiently explaining that the *whole point* of Twister is to provide boys with a context to look down girl's shirts. At about this point, Mr. Richardson wanted to know why *he* couldn't be in the Science Club, since toxic waste is *sort* of a science. When the Science Club turned its attention back to the game, the queen magically had returned. This happened eight times. The Student Union officers declared the chess match a draw, not because it ended in a stalemate, but because co-chairmen Sean Smith and Roger Douglas couldn't agree on whether a Rook outranked a Miner. Also Mr. Weiner's insistence that the "bombs" not only had to move like Knights, but also had to contain fissionable material rendered whole sections of the playing field uninhabitable. The Swap Meet tables were laden with a wide variety of tan pants, which weren't a big seller. Beverday Whednesite contributed an egg-carton labeled "One True Religion," with each compartment containing its own unique example of previously-owned dogma. Lee Bumgarner offered a bottle of Internally-Inconsistent brand bitters, which were widely examined, but shared the same quality of impulse-buying appeal as a Dan Quayle book on a remainder table. Ark Matron Ellen Holmes' double-fudge brownies were an unexpected and unqualified success in the Bake sale, bringing in over $898, a skin of wine, some flowers, an incense burner, a macrame hammock, a pair of John Lennon glasses and generally all the kinds of detritus one would have expected to elicit from a crowd under the influence of a recipe prepared by a woman with her roots in the 60s and access to a first edition of the Alice B. Tolkas Cookbook. Some Troll House Cookies submitted by Donnie Owens, a Junior at Park High School in Livingston, Montana, were not even touched. THE LEGAL BEAT The Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society has placed a newswatch on what it has identified as the two most important First Amendment issues to emerge so far this year. The first is the challenge to the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act in a federal court sitting in Philadelphia, in which the judges will be surfing the net to see if any kids are looking at nude Marina Barrett Shatner GIFs. The second is a challenge in a Michigan court to the labeling of "Bad Frog Beer," featuring a frog demonstrating the New York Cabbie Salute, on grounds that children ordering beer will be tricked into indecent behavior. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol. 2 No.4 Date: 1996/05/17 Message-ID: <319cf3b6.472198628@news.gnn.com> x-gnn-newsserver-posting-date: 17 May 1996 22:04:09 GMT organization: Misapplied Psychometry reply-to: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.usenet.tjames,alt.culture.gard-trask,alt.culture.jesse-garon,alt.mega-ego.yonderboy,alt.religion.bobby-hodad,alt.religion.louis-nick,alt.sci.joe-bay,alt.fan.wednesday ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.4 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row, then it has become Standardized.] CONTENTS Kibo Stuns Net.Pundits No More Loose Ends Still Missing This Weeks' Winners KIBO STUNS NET.PUNDITS Leader Kibo stunned net.space pundits this week when he said he was either heading for a retreat in Virginia or stepping down as head of the net.pantheon to devote his full time and energy to his presidential campaign. "My responsibilities as a net.god were draining my resources and I was losing touch with my constituency in the Vurt, if you know what I mean," the elusive celebrity package model for Reveal Video Artist mumbled between bites of grilled mice on toast and generous swigs of CRLF malt beverage. As Kibo spoke, great clouds of pollen began infesting the news conference and all the news hounds began sneezing, so the announcement came to an abrupt halt, leaving hanging a gratuitous reference that only Tjames Madison and Ron "Crocodile Hulk" Hogan will appreciate. Campaign Chairman Tom Richardson twitched nervously at the news and screamed something about how the Kibo Campaign Web Pages had been sabotaged by Dark Forces and that's why they weren't done yet. (http: //www.ionet.net/ ~trichard/kibo.for.pres.html) Kibo, the most widely-quoted, according to sloppily-conducted search of Alta Vista, graphics designer on the World Wide Data Trampoline who does not actually *have* a web page, is reported to be pouring almost half of his personal fortune, or roughly 24 cents, into his own campaign. "If it worked for Ross Parrot and Ross Forbes, it can work for me," said the decreasingly news-savvy candidate. Meanwhile, a power struggle appeared to be shaping up among the Boston contingent of the Ark Party over who would get Kibo's parking space. This Kitschen Kabinet enclave of Gard Trask, Matt McIrvin and Ian York eventually decided that intramural episodes of blind-corner dope-slaps, bogus anonymous tips to the enforcement division of the Software Publishers Association, and transfenestration deliveries of packages of biohazardous materials were not advancing anyone's cause. They have decided to end the power struggle with a round-robin paper-rock-scissors tournament to be conducted in front of the lobster stall in Faneuil Hall. They are going to use real rocks, paper and scissors, though. It will be moderated by Lisa Higginz. In other words, no holds barred. Put your money on the one who gets the scissors. Weapons will be awarded on the basis of a round-robin paper-rock-scissors tournament. NO MORE LOOSE ENDS Lee Bumgarner and K.M. Mennie in a paroxysm of taxonomy constructed an elaborate matrix of pigeonholes and categorized, placed, filed, indexed and numbered every single thing, person and belief system on the Ark. Whereupon, the entire structure collapsed on itself in a blinding flash of snake-tailphagy recursion and disappeared with the thunder of one hand clapping. So if you are missing a sock, you know who to blame. STILL MISSING Ark Matron Ellen Holmes, sent out to see if she could find any sign of Joe Bay, who was assigned to locate Lupus Yonderboy, who was trying to discover what happened to Lisa Higginz, is still missing, although Mz. Higgins has briefly appeared. But then, so has Jaffo. The exchanges from the Vurt are *supposed* to be equal. Gard Trask attempted to submit the missing-persons problem to his intelligent agent Eliza-bot, but while formatting the punch cards, apparently got his deck shuffled with Bruce Ediger's holosuite program featuring Capt. Janeway and Counselor Troi. The agent went out and returned with a flood of Metoos and put-me-on-the-list requests from alt.sex.fetish.star-trek. Since Kibo is back, we didn't want to reopen *that* can of vegan fire leeches, so the project was aborted. There. That should be enough inside jokes to satisfy Bev. But the cookie jar is rather depleted, so if Ms. Holmes doesn't return soon, then Rich Holmes, in the fine tradition of Texas politics, will be drafted as a substitute baker. THIS WEEK'S WINNERS Ian York's incomparable sports reporting on the Boston Marathon is equaled only by his outstanding essays on metastasis of certain cranial lipids through incidental application of low-level radiation produced by a magnetically directed electron stream against a phosphor target. Louis Nick III's reach exceeded his grasp to make an astonishingly long arm from Washington to Boston to produce a new episode of SCIENTIFICTION PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS: entitled "DRY BONES." Last, and not the least, alphabetically speaking, Ben Weiner completely stole the thunder from Doonesbury by detailing the future plot progressions in the strip with his description of the creation of the greatest computer game ever. Kibo should put these on his Web page. And he should make Tom do all the work. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.5 Date: 1996/05/31 Message-ID: <31af273f.1664990243@news.gnn.com> x-gnn-newsserver-posting-date: 31 May 1996 17:17:14 GMT organization: Misapplied Psychometry reply-to: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.usenet.tjames,alt.culture.gard-trask,alt.culture.jesse-garon,alt.mega-ego.yonderboy,alt.religion.bobby-hodad,alt.religion.louis-nick,alt.sci.joe-bay,alt.fan.wednesday ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.5 Fri. May 31, 1996 [Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are Fully Justified.] CONTENTS Kibo's Brane to Sick Bay The Meetoo Flu Space Aliens Invade Usenet This Week's Winners KIBO'S BRANE TO SICK BAY This week on the Ark Kibo took an extended shore leave to visit his personal team of Brane Kare specialists, who performed exhaustive tests on the interior of Kibo's cranium and found nothing. Tom Richardson, the Kibo for President Campaign D()()DE, hastily issued a statement saying that Kibo's EEG was "not abnormal, nosiree, not just like Eagleton's, nope, so don't even speculate." Among the tests the team at Massachusetts Corporal Hospital, regarded as the caviar of Nearillogical scientists and captained by recently-released head sturgeon Joe Bay, undertook on Kibo's behalf were: An NSA test to detect if Kibo is the central nervous system of most conspiracy theories promulgated on Usenet; A UFO test to discern the presence of antibodies to the Rosewell Virus in his pituitary; An AOL test to determine the presence of the Good Times Virus in his rhombencephalon, the brane's "boot sector;" An IBM test to establish if he was rationing his Usenet postings in order to create an artificial shortage of humor that he hoped to exploit by overcharging, but which shortage would be vexed and undermined by a prolific, flexible and rabid competition which would produce cheap but serviceable humor clones and place him in jeopardy of eventual relegation to an orthodox niche visited only by Andrew Bulhack; An IMF test to determine the likelihood that Kibo would launch a Tom Cruise Missile if given sufficient motivation; A CDA test reveal if his .sig contained any gratuitous vulgarities designed to snag robots' attention in D.C. All of the tests returned negative. THE MEETOO FLU The denizens of the Ark were profoundly grateful that whatever's wrong with Kibo, it's probably not catching, and in an outpouring of fulsome meetooism, disclosed the tests and results of their own recent examinations in an attempt to use up their allotted sick leave before the end of the semester. E. Holmes disclosed that a YIP test showed her Baker's Elbow was acting up again, and that she would be infusing a "special herbal remedy" that she discovered through some of her Army buddies who had been on Active Duty in sunny, humid and especially *remote* climates that tend to foster a relaxed attitude toward contraband control at border checkpoints. Consequently, she may be confining herself to her stateroom and ordering a *lot* of room service, pay-per-view movies, and Fed Ex deliveries from the Columbia Record House. She won't even *talk* about the laptop peripherals she's Web-ordered from www.intimatetreasures.com. But Lee Bumgarner has been nosing around the Ark library for the plans to a periscope, and asking how wide is the catwalk outside Ms. Holmes' porthole. This infusion of cargo is going to be more of a strain on the superstructure than it may first appear. The Ark is currently listing in the direction of Ms. Holmes' stateroom because it's packed with day-glo posters, strobe lights, lava lamps and blacklights from Spencer's Gifts that she somehow smuggled onboard through the bozosity detector. There's also that Radio Shack "Party Lite" and a five-gallon tub of M&Ms, for Kibo's sake; Gard Trask's EEU confirmed that he had an advanced case of Carpal Chunnel Syndrome, wherein signals from his brane start out in English but by the time they get to his wrist, they have been changed to French, which goes a *loooong* way toward explaining his idiosyncratically erratic spelling. Trask's injury is probably the result of extensive surreptitious remapping of rone's keyboard to macro in the words to "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things." Andrew Jeanes received an emergency transfusion from Tjames Madison to correct an irony deficiency problem that surfaced in gym class after Mr. Jeanes was pantsed by the guy giving him a starting push for traversing the flying rings as part of his National President's Council on Physical Fitness Test, and Mr. Jeanes was revealed as wearing his jock strap on the outside of his briefs. Fruit of the Looms. Jaffo's ABBA test revealed that he is suffering from a near-terminal melanin deficiency. Treatment includes abstaining from: [1] Sears' tools [2] Gap clothing [3] Fake ethnic food [4] Bud Lite [5] Show horses [6] Chevrolet products [7] Cross-country skiing (and exercise machines that simulate it) [8] Angst-ridden little screeds on alienation [9] Y-front cotton briefs The results of Bev's most recent HTML tests are displayed at http://www.hallucinet.com/wednesday ==and== http://www.tezcat.com/~wednsday; Lisa Higgins uploaded nude GIFs of her brane to alt.sex.fetish.big-boppers with apologies to Accelerator Boy that she would be unable to show her brane flooring the gas pedal; Jay C. Jachimiak, whose bank issues dating tips instead of toasters as a high balance and new account incentive, passed his FDIC test and is now eligible to use his bank's special "escort service" with "direct deposit." This is obviously one of those banks that keeps its assets in a nitrogen-cooled vault. SPACE ALIENS INVADE USENET Using a Double-Shot Mocha-Java filter under the Sooper Sekrit Netscape Alpha 3.5 ported to the liquid-cooled Ark VAX 5000, AI programming expert Matt McIrvin and continental drift conspiracy buff Roger Douglas discovered a hidden message in John Winston's "Thread 12." The secret message has revealed the identity of J--- G----- as an alien invader bent on kidnapping people who appear on milk cartons for transportation to Venus as models in Kelvin Kleinbottle Underroo magazine ads. "It was obvious, once we made the intuitive leap that J--- G----- was merely an orthographic subterfuge for 'Uber-grey,' the supreme commander of the advance team for the invasion fleet," Mr. McIrvin said. "Remember -- GUNS don't kill people, the REPTOIDS from ZETA RETICULI do!" warned the defenseless, pantsless and Perthless Austrian Hong Ooi. --- [1] Probably spilled Pepsi. THIS WEEK'S WINNERS The Big Ark Litto Lotto was particularly bountiful this week, either because of sun-spot-related atmospheric conditions that scrambled the Beable Rays that usually sap the creativity of Earthers, or because it's the end of the semester and everybody's through with finals or project deadlines. The winners of their weight in silica gel are: James Parry, for his plans to resuscitate the wheezing Disney-bot appendix known as ABC Television with K3WL updates of popular science fiction and social comedy and his gloss on the Seaquest Auction Catalog; Louis Nick for his exciting new arrangements of sheet music for Keyboard Recorder; E. Stephen Mack for his "Mission: Kibological." -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: E Teflon Piano Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.6 (Dave Delaney Edition) Date: 1996/07/17 Message-ID: organization: Misapplied Psychometry content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology summary: GNN's gone wacky, so this is a repost. ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.6 Bastille Day, 1996 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS Quakers of the Lost Ark This Week's Winner QUAKERS OF THE LOST ARK This week on the Ark, passengers were thrilled to learn that the commercial release of Quake, due in stores next month, would contain a secret fifth level based on the Ark. The level is accessed by shooting the design on the wall in the corridor leading to the fourth level, immediately *backing* out into the Hall, shooting between your feet at the shadow in the middle of the floor and dropping through the center of the spiral stairway. Here's what you will find, based on an alpha version tested by Lupus Yonderboy and Tjames Madison: At the Entry Area, there are two pillars in front of you. If you look up, you will see the pillars are revealed as a giant H. If you hit the red button in the R-shaped room and run back to the entry, you will encounter low gravity. Jump to the crossbar of the giant H and hack at the crossbar with your axe. Your axe will change to a giant mallet. This is important. You need the mallet to finish the level. Leaving the Entry Area, you cross a bridge over a pool of Jolt Cola and enter The Physics Lab. At eye level in The Lab, there is a narrow window-like slot running the circumference of the room. Occasionally you can hear some breathing from behind the slot and see a pair of eyes. Kibo's inside. You have to get the Pez dispenser guarded by the BOFH and shoot Pez into the slot until you hit the eyes. An elevator door will open in the Lab. Take the elevator and keep an eye on the floor indicator. It will suddenly speed up. The elevator is crashing, but if you jump just before the elevator hits, you won't be hurt. You have entered the Graphics Workstation Area. In countless cubicles, artists are pushing mice over digitizing tablets. They will ignore you. You must crash the system so the artists will get up and wander away in search of pie. Do not follow them. One of the cubicles contains the jump gate to the next area, which you activate by striking the "Any" key. You arrive at The Campus. This is the only substantially *exterior* area of the game, and it looks suspiciously like it was recycled from DooM ][. You have to meet everybody on campus and ask them for a date. HINT: If you don't get the Quad Damage Powerup, you'll never get through Fraternity and Sorority Row. Avoid the roaming fundamentalist tyrannosaurus rex. When you finally get a date, take them to the Spiritual Mass Transit Center, which is a dead ringer for that surrealist painting of people in a subway station that everybody's seen, but nobody knows the name of or the artist, so the copyright violation potential is *way* low. Here you must avoid winos, hustlers and angsting scientists debating the Meaning of Life with double-edged weapons. Gather up all the unwanted AOL CDs and put them in the turnstile token slot. Take the E train. You will arrive at the Arcade. Go inside and play Quake. You will be confronted by a character out of _Bored of the Rings_ named Legolam, who will attempt to blip your nose by putting his finger on your chest and waiting for you to look down. He will call this "trolling." Legolam will transform the arcade into a giant wack-a-mole game and himself as a mole. Use the mallet. You must finish playing Quake in the arcade, including finding the secret Ark level and playing virtual-virtual Quake on the virtual-virtual machine. ++The Ark Secret Areas++ At the bridge over the Jolt cola: jump in and go left. You will see an under-cola cave. Follow it to the surface. You will exit to the deck of The Ark. Ellen Holmes has somehow procured an aluminum baking pan seven feet on a side and moored to the Ark dingy cleat. It's bobbing on the gentle waves of the bay. She's consulting Ark Default Scientists Louis Nick and Matt McIrvin about the probable displacement if it's filled with double-fudge brownie mix and used as a platform for a duo doing an horizontal Morris dance. Beware of the glowering Rich Holmeses and get the blue armor. If you follow the artists in the Graphics Workstation Area when they look for pie, you will come to a room in which Francesco Benvenuto is frantically operating the contact-arms against the illuminated clockface of an ancient VAX console while Joseph Bay, arms akimbo, loudly derides his ability to distinguish between threats and social satire. Note that discovering this secret is a dead end, so be sure to save before pursuing it. Beware of the Fritz Langs approaching with service of process for copyright violations. In the Arcade, there is a secret area accessed by trashing the Quake machine when you finally discover the dangers of recursion. A jump gate will open. If you follow it, you will arrive at yet another Arcade with yet another Quake machine. Trash it. Use the jump gate. This time you will arrive at Dave Delaney's Home Page, where you will see Tom Richardson arguing for a spot on the net-legends FAQ in the appendix to the addenda. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Eli M. Balin's _Rescue 911_ script is the winner until midday Wednesday, when Michael Straight's _The Year In Ark_ will be the winner for the rest of the week in Twark's first-ever tag-team steel-cage death match. BE THERE BE THERE BE THERE. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.7 Date: 1996/07/29 Message-ID: <31fcdbcc.1957536117@news.gnn.com> x-gnn-newsserver-posting-date: 29 Jul 1996 15:49:54 GMT organization: Misapplied Psychometry reply-to: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) To: Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week In Ark Vol.2 No.7 Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 18:07:01 GMT Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Reply-To: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu Message-ID: <31fba9b0.1879177695@news.gnn.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99e/16.227 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.7 July 8, 1996 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] THE BALLAD OF JAFFO AND ELLEN This week on The Ark, Ellen and Jaffo stunned the Usenet community by uploading their _Two Newbies_ web site, unleashing a hailstorm of controversy over their nekkid .GIFs, experimental RealAudio interactive performance art and recipes for chili brownies au chocolate. The "Speaking Jaffo's Penis" generated so much traffic that it eventually broke the Digits.com counter and prompted the service's officials to disavow any connection with the _Two Newbies_ site. Anatomical apologist Michael Straight blamed the breakdown on a Windows NT hack of the MS Weiner for Windows animation software performed by Doctorb Bay on the either the vas_ek module or the tes_t module. "It looks like a vas_ek to me," said Mr. Straight. Dave DeLaney, who could see that joke coming all the way from *.newusers, failed to make the obvious comeback about being prostrate with envy. At a press conference aboard the Ark concurrent with the release of the web site, Jaffo and Ellen, speaking from within a Linux carton, said: "Everything we have to say we have already said on the web site. Ow. You're on my hair." Jaffo and Ellen achieved Usenet notoriety by becoming the first literate people in Texas -- a USA state fully twice the size of the entire continent of Austria -- to declare via modem from a Lubbock hotel room that they loved each other for their *minds*. No, really. They actually said that. "Gag me with Tim Leary's bong-water," said Rose Marie Holt. Usenet cultural attache Gard Trask said that Jaffo's sudden abandonment of conservative tenets just goes to illustrate that a conservative is just a very frustrated liberal, and couldn't somebody do the right thing and "change the politics" of Jesse Helms? At the web site, the introductory screen presents a heavily animated song that recounts the couple's adventures: Standing at the port to alt.rissa, trying to get to alt.leather-pants the sysop in back said "You should use a Mac." You know they didn't even give us a chance. Sheesh! You know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be. The way things are goin' They're gonna killfile me. (The Ballad of Jaffo and Ellen Lyrics 1996 Jaflen Music. Arrangement 1996 ETP Enterprises) Speaking by IRC from New York, Yoko Ono said in praise of the _Two Newbies_ site, "It's bad enough that I've got to keep a team of lawyers on standby to monitor copyright violations on rec.music.beatles. Now this." The media-circus surrounding _Two Newbies_ came as a blow to the androgynously-named Mandarin/Thai playwright Eli Balin, whose contest to assemble an elaborately forged personal background for inclusion on *his* web page was completely overshadowed. In a fit of pique, Mr. Balin announced that he was breaking off from Usenet to form his own Usenet, which he named "Taiwan," and from which he intends to rule the world. This immediately set off a border war with the anonymously-named "Jesse Garon," who declared that he invented falling in love by Usenet, rock and roll, and overcoming hurts and anger by relentless self-promotion. SUMMERTIME, AND THE POSTING IS EASY Matt McIrvin, proving that there's no post like an old post, revived the broadcast-TV medium's now abandoned tradition of filling up space during the summer with repeats of his favorite essays. Lee S. Bumgarner, not *quite* getting the technique, also began posting repeats of his essays, but they are all subject-lined "My Monthly Wired Rant." As a consequence, Mr. Bumgarner has been picked up by MSNBC as chief of programming. He's looking for correspondents to do a segments on "Flesh Crayons -- Well, Why *Not* Orange-pink, Anyway?" and "Flesh-colored BandAids -- Not Really Racist or Anything Like That." Next will be a segment on MTV's "international conspiracy to submerge [Austria's] proud heritage of white Anglo-Saxon culture in a flood of pornography, violent computer games and foreign food. Jaffo also began posting reruns, but in a fit of laziness is using material written by someone other than himself, eg. Kibo. DISCLAIMER ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS POST ARE FICTIONAL! ANY RESEMBLENCE OR SIMILARITY BETWEEN CHARACTERS IN THIS POST AND ACTUAL USENET POSTERS (MUCH LESS REAL PEOPLE)IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL, JUST THE SORT OF THING THAT COULD EASILY HAPPEN BY CHANCE IF HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF MONKEYS WERE GOING AT IT ALL DAY ON AUTOMATIC STENOGRAPHY MACHINES, AND BESIDES, THE INTERNET 'LECTRONIC LEGAL SOCIETY HAS SOME PRETTY DEEP POCKETS, SO DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING TO SUE OUR BUTTS ( | ) ( | ) ( | )! THIS DISCLAIMER IS NOT REQUIRED BY LEADER KIBO, MONKEYBOY! RECIPIES OF THE DAMNED Ian York's obsession with the varicella-zoster virus has led him to strike gold by his forming a partnership with Jeff Gerstmann and alt.tasteless foods to market Chicken Pops Cereal. Other foods in the Herpes Line will include Surface Plasmon Resonance and Jelly sandwiches. THIS WEEK'S WINNERS Roger Douglas's announcement of the HappySoft Suite of software tools wins both his weight in Silica Gel and weight in intellectual property lawsuits from Bill Gates. Jaffo wins his phone bill's weight in silica gel for his crosspost management skills to sci.astro, and Alan Bostick wins Jane Goodall's weight in gorillas for _Kibologists in the Mist_. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 Article 117697 of alt.religion.kibology: From: etpiano@gnn.com (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.8 Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 21:35:37 GMT Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 126 Distribution: world Message-ID: <320e4ae3.856878608@news.gnn.com> Reply-To: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: 28-222.client.gnn.com X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 11 Aug 1996 21:42:58 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99e/16.227 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.8 August 11, 1996 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS The Hoodooed Kibologist This Week's Winner THE HOODOOED KIBOLOGIST A hot summer day, nobody new around; nothing to do. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. "Let's go on a trip!" said Ellen. The flagging spirits on the Ark were temporarily revived. "Where shall we go?" asked Matt, looking over the top of his physics set. His "Mars rocks" had already been a huge hit with the astronomy crowd and he and Ian were working on a piece of comet tail with the herpes virus in it. They were coding a message into the virus' genetic structure and had gotten a Y and H but were stuck on getting the molecules to bend into a B. "And who's going to drive?" "I'm outta here," muttered Gard, sotto voce. Gard limped slightly as he sidled toward the door of the Ark rumpus room. He had already been on one summer trip this year and was still mending. If he hurried, he could gas the Traskmobile and lay a patch of ASCII down the Ark gangplank faster than you could say "kitten sandwich." Finding a driver might be difficult. Kibo was hunched over his crystal set, fiddling with the whisker, and any attempt to lure him away met with frantic hand-flapping and a noise like a Citroen radiator giving up the ghost on U.S. 1 between Key West and Miami. Beverday was still at the Gefen Studios with Yoko recording "Dueling Orgasms." Lisa was nominally on board, but couldn't be relied upon to leave the galley, where she and Ben were attempting to bake pastry into a mobius strip and achieve perpetual pie. Sean had barricaded himself in the little mariner's room and was refusing to share the towels or shampoo. He said he'd just gotten everything color coordinated, and nobody was going to mess it all up. This eventually led to some rather precarious improvising at the Ark rail, which resulted in the precipitous baptism of Rose Marie and Sam in the King Neptune Society and incidentally a great deal of ill will during later screenings of the Poseidon Adventure at which suppressed laughter was insufficiently suppressed. Froggy and Joe were busy configuring Alta Vista and Deja News to underline all the adult language appearing in UUCP traffic and put big swords at the bottom. Michael was composing new anagrams for "Jay Furr." Jesse and Tjames and Alex were hiding. Their snickers could be heard through the scuttles, but there are about a million nooks and cubbies to search. Everybody figured they'd come out when they got hungry enough. "Why not let The Twins drive," said Rich, a twinkle in his eye. Rich could afford to let loose the forces of chaos. He had this enormous stick that he claimed was a necessary part of a folkdance, but really all he did was go around thumping people on the toes with it. Consequently, other passengers tended to give him a wide berth, or wear steel-capped shoes. "Walk softly and carry a big stick," they all said. Ellen made that Marge-Simpson noise she always makes when trouble's afoot, but nobody else said anything because nobody else wanted to drive or they thought *really* the place needed livening up. The Twins shouted with glee and yanked the rope to start the troll motor, guiding the Ark out of port. However, a significant portion of the port followed in the Ark's wake because The Twins had neglected to cast off the painters. Roger planned the route. "Leave port and go down the Darling to the Danube and the Murray, exiting in the Gulf of Mexico. Go up the Mighty Mississippi to Lake Ontario. Take the Parry Channel to the Rio Grande and through the Panama Canal to the Gulf of California. Then just travel up the coast to the Chesapeake Bay and the Boston Harbor to visit the Boston Tea Party Ship." It was rough sailing. The chief difference between the Ark and a voyage described by Terry Southern was a paucity of carnival workers in the former and a surfeit of Ringo in the later. The first things to go were the chairs. The Twins somehow managed to get the Ark going around in huge sweeping circles so that just around dinnertime the Ark always was passing through the turbulent straits of Politics and Religion. The rough seas were no good for anyone's tummy, and those who were not incapacitated at the rail and decorating the side of the hull were living on cherry Pez. It was therefore no disadvantage that the only bagels on board were mistakenly made from Hudson River water instead of Manhattan tap water. The coffee ran out on the second day. *Then* a certain somebody started poking around inside the Ark VAX with a straightened paper clip "to make it run Atari Combat" and crashed the news feed so that all it could get was the Psychic Friends Network. Then there was a plague of frogs, stinging moths, singing waiters and Amway reps. The last straw came when it was discovered that Sean's occupation of the head had motivated other passengers to use the compressor intake pipe as an alternative and each hourly toot of the ship's whistle was accompanied by a blast of aerosol urine. The Ark finally got pointed in the right direction and returned to port with a complement of cranky, sleepy, hungry, sneezy and footsore passengers. It was met at the dock by Tom, who asked, "Well, what did I miss?" He was lashed to the ship's whistle just before noon. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Louis Nick's tour de force in Usenet Future History, _The Cabal is Restructured_ and Kibological Dystopia_, takes the silica gel trophy this week and probably next, too. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: E Teflon Piano Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.9 Date: 1996/11/01 Message-ID: organization: Misapplied Psychometry content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.9 October 31, 1996 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council and by Viewers Like You. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Good luck, gumshoes.] CONTENTS Guest Editorial It's the Great Pumpkin, Kibo Brown Dick readily available on the Internet Letters to TWARK GUEST EDITORIAL [Editor's note: Alex Suter is this week's correspondent.] It's been a rough few months for alt.religion.kibology. The Old Guard* seems to be slipping away, pursuing solo careers, which makes writing This Week in Alt.Religion.Kibology difficult for the esteemed E Teflon Piano. Which is why he isn't doing it this week. To illustrate how barren The Ark landscape has become, consider the following: * Nobody signed up for the Mutant Giant H Races. * There was ONE entrant for the Miche(l)le Tepper look-alike contest, but he was disqualified later. * After eating an entire roll of Mentos, test cases were said to be feeling, "Not-so-fresh, and not particularly full of life." * Yonderboy is in reruns, AGAIN. * John_-_Winston is still missing his _-_. * There are communists in the French Government. * The Trask-Mobile needs a fresh coat of wax, after running down the same BUAG kitten six times. To help, all readers of Alt.Religion.Kibology are urged to subscribe to rec.arts.ballet (following the brave example of Louis Nick III) and to give generously to the Alex Suter Benevolence Foundation. Remember, the ASBF has absolutely NO OVERHEAD, one hundred percent of all donations go directly to Alex Suter's checking account. Respectfully submitted to The Institute of Misapplied Psychometry, Lupus "Alex" Yonderboy, MnkyBy, Esq. IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, KIBO BROWN Every Halloween, Ark residents are treated to the great spectacle of Michael Straight going door to door to speak The Word of The Great Pumpkin. This year he was joined by his younger brother Rerun Straight, who was greatly upset by the entire ordeal. According to Mr. Straight, one must wait in a pumpkin patch on the night of October 31st, and sit piously believing in this Great Pumpkin. The allegedly Great Pumpkin delivers presents to all good boys and girls. Contrary to earlier reports, The Great Pumpkin is not a giant flying turtle and a friend to all children in Japan. Lucy Van Higginz once again tricked Kibo Brown into attempting to kick a football that she was holding. Unbeknownst to Ms. Higginz, Mr. Brown was playing Ultimate Frisbee and not football as everyone suspected. He went on to win by two falls and a submission. DICK READILY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET It used to be that pornography was difficult to come by, reserved to 7-11 franchises, liquor stores, and the Page Five Girl of the Weekly World News. Twark researchers have discovered that this is no longer the case. With but a few simple clicks of the mouse, one can get dick on the Internet. Worse yet, these purveyors of perversion advertise openly on television. Those in search of dick should point their web browsers to: http://www.nightstand.com/ LETTERS TO TWARK We like to get your letters. Send them to This Week in Alt.Religion.Kibology, Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y., 10016. And if you don't want your full name and address published, please tell us. Dear TWARK, I've just finished reading G.I. Joe #29. The artwork by Frank Springer and Andy Mushynsky was marvelous. The script by Larry Hama was also. When the oil cans were thrown off the W.H.A.L.E., were Firefly and Destro inside? Joe Bay El Paso, TX JOE, THE CANS YOU ARE REFERRING TO ARE CALLED DEPTH CHARGES, AND YES, FIREFLY AND DESTRO WERE IN THEM. Dear TWARK, I loved the cover of #29. Why is everybody in Springfield so devoted to Cobra? Tjames Madison Hermitage, PA UNFORTUNATELY, TJAMES, THERE ARE SOME SITUATIONS WHERE CERTAIN PEOPLE GAIN CONTROL OF OTHERS BY FORCE OF BRAINWASHING THEIR VICTIMS INTO SUBMISSION. Dear Twark, I like G.I. Joe #26 because of the spotlight on Snake-Eyes. I also like Storm-Shadow but Zartan is my favorite guy, along with Flame Thrower, Cobra Water Moccasin pilot and Cobra Baroness. Is Zartan available in stores yet? Please write back to show my mom your reply. Froggy (no address) MOM, IT'S TIME TO TAKE FROGGY SHOPPING. HURRY! PLEASE! THE TWARK LIST Rone (recently removed from the list) Tjames Madison Kiboluv Jeremy Reimer Kibo's sister The Great Pumpkin THIS WEEK'S WINNER 'Jesse Garon' for managing to get from alt.religion.kibology a paying job, "really great sex," and wedding invitations. *The Old Guard appears courtesy of The Young Guard Trask. Lupus Yonderboy is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and is a toady for the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society. Yonderboy is a minor character in William Gibson's _Neuromancer_. Lupus is a terrible disease and Latin for, "wolf". Lupus Yonderboy is Year 2000 Certified. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. c.1994-1996 E From: E Teflon Piano Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.10 Date: 1996/12/19 Message-ID: organization: Misapplied Psychometry content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.2 No.10 Dec. 20, 1996 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS Children's Letters to Kibo This Year's Winners Quote of the Week CHILDREN'S LETTERS TO KIBO This Week on the Ark, the traditional e-mailing of Arkmas Requests flooded the server on Neptune as the Ark's inhabitants nailed their pants to the masts in expectation of a flood of holiday gifts. Among the Ark regulars who submitted their wish-lists to Kibo and their chief desires are: Matt McIrvin -- To somehow convince everyone that the much-publicized incident involving the Silly String, Sea Monkeys and Magic Rocks was a "cold-fusion experiment." Samantha Wilkinson -- To get the Silly String out of her hair. Gardner Trask -- After his MAKE DALMATIONS FAST troll tragically backfires, Gard now wants Kibo to bring him a frontloader and a dump truck to shovel the ever-deepening pile of cheap, onion-redolent spinoff toys off his front porch that well-meaning supporters of the Make-a-Wish Foundation keep sending in. Louis Nick III -- To see Bill Gates take a pratfall outside the local Starbucks. Mr. Nick's gratification will be trebled upon discovering that among the personal items dislodged from Mr. Gates is a well-thumbed copy of "Windows for Dummies." Sean Smith -- To somehow get everyone to stop saying "Hey, this reminds me of *you*" every time "A Christmas Story" comes on TV. Stefan Kapusniak -- Mad sheep disease. Or an underwater escape route to be created to Finland and dubbed the "Funnel." Jay C. Jachimiak -- A matching footstool for his Very Well Endowed Indeed Chair in Misapplied Psychometry. Beverly R. White -- Lupus Yonderboy's source code for xkill to be modified to be non-lethal, compiled for every known platform, uuencoded into a self-decoding, self-extracting, self-activating e-mail with the lobotomy option set to "drool" and mounted on an autobot with the phrase "me too" as a trigger. Lisa Rea Higgins -- A Psychic Fiends Uzi by Galoob. This existential weapon sends out Hate Pies of Bad Karma and flaming bags of goat feces to People Whose Guts She Hates. In typical operation, a HPoBK arrives as a jury summons and a tax audit notice spaced two days apart. Then a garage band with roots in industrial disco/rap moves in next door and installs upgraded electrical service just to power the drum amplifiers. Lupus Alex Yonderboy Suter -- A Get Out of Jail Free Card for the Palo Alto version of Monopoly for posting while intoxicated. Also, he would like to find a way to copyright the man page for xkill but he's afraid of recursive spawning processes. Roger Douglas -- To fix all the maps and substitute the worm sign (~) for the splats (*) in all designations of Perth. He also would like to find a backer for his screenplay "Crocodile Dundee III -- The Wrath of Yahoo Serious," in which Subaru owners m ysteriously flock to drive-in movies showing "The Gods Must Be Crazy III -- It's just a Damn Bottle, for Christ's Sake, People Click Click Pop." Bruce Ediger -- A six pack of Orbitz -- Tang with Compressed Chicken Faces flavor -- and a self-inflicted test run of modified xkill set to "Brainiac". And a "Circut the Internet Owl" T-shirt. Ben Weiner -- To be allowed out of Mulder's FBI basement office or at least to choose the flavor of the food pellets in the Unlock the Secrets of the Universe behavioral modification machine. Or to persuade Ian York set the shocks at a lesser voltage. Michael Straight -- To make Tom Richardson see reason and stop trying to post news through the modem that connects his water heater to the power company for special off peak rates and to write Ellen Holmes a recommendation for a copywriter's job for the LL Bean catalog on the strength of her blurbs for the Arkives Introduction. THIS YEAR'S WINNERS For outstanding achievement in the field of excellence, in brane-dead alphabetical order: Alex Suter, Matt McIrvin, Stefan Kapusniak, Matt McIrvin and Alex Suter. QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words." --Samantha Wiltinson -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. c.1994-1996 E From: E Teflon Piano Subject: This Week In Ark Vol.3 No.1 Date: 1997/01/06 Message-ID: organization: Misapplied Psychometry content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology summary: It's`like watching the odometer flip over, isn't it? ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.3 No.1 Jan.3, 1997 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS The Ark Annual Report A Fine Oral Tradition The Endorsement Circuit This Week's Winner THE ARK ANNUAL REPORT The Ark Annual Report was delivered this week at the yearly shareholders meeting/New Years Eve Party in a lavish ceremony punctuated by the rich rustle of Dixie cups, the chatter of plastic sporks and the squeak of humidity-affected balloon decorations. Everywhere empty delivery-pizza boxes and six-pack handcuffs attested to the dockside revelry reflected in the waters of Boston's Inner Harbor and the nearby Golden Gate Bridge and in the facets of famous shoreline buildings including the Sydney Opera House, White Tower and Transamerica Pyramid. Some portions of the annual report were not without controversy. Ark Physical Plant Administrator Ian York's feckless attempt to foist blame for all the dead trees on the good people at Yearscape met with a stiff rebuttal from spokesmodel Jay C. Jachimiak. To recap: about mid-October, all the trees began showing signs of acute distress, such as yellowing and precipitating leaves. Mr. York issued continual reassurances that the mulchy detritus was "normal" and completely expected during an upgrade of the GaiaOS. This, despite a marked decrease in usable daylight and a noticeable decline in ambient temperature. Mr. York's paucity of candor in the matter was revealed when he wrote a letter of complaint to software developer Yearscape, claiming that the 1996 application he had been running (with what we parenthetically note was only marginal satisfaction) was faulty; that it was not plug-and-play as advertised; that it was incompatible with other Years, and that its weather module was wonky. Mr. Jachimiak issued what is destined to become, if indeed it is not already, a model reply to Mr. York's complaints. In essence, in keeping with the industry standard in such software, Mr. Jachimiak pointed out that the software was sold "AS IS" with no guarantees as to usefulness, suitability or fitness of purpose. The shrink-wrap license agreement clearly stated that by opening the software envelope, the user was agreeing that even if the envelope contained desiccated, flattened badger testicles as media, the user would have no recourse other than to stop using the product. In addition, Mr. Jachimiak ably defended the 1996 software as conforming to its designer's expectations when run under conditions such as those as might be encountered in typical software engineering environments. The Institute of Misapplied Psychometry, a major shareholder in Yearscape, warmly applauded Mr. Jachimiak's rebuttal. Moreover, The Institute is pursuing application of the Yearscape standards in areas such as nutrition, with LipidLo -- a fat substitute containing 100% lard; health, with StressLo -- a non-narcotic tranquilizer containing 100 mg. caffeine and ephedrine; and vehicle maintenance with GasLo -- a fuel additive to abruptly decrease the wear on engines that is nearly 100% non-carbohydrate-free. Each will be backed with the same iron-clad guarantee of customer satisfaction that has become the watchword in the software industry. A FINE ORAL TRADITION Ark Minister of Culture Beverday revived the Ark's interest in its rich oral tradition at the banquet. While some Ark denizens imagined this would play out as a recounting of the same tired old war stories, Beverday revealed a mound of previously undisclosed and extremely intimate delights. Soon tongues were wagging as Beverday gently teased open the petals of her exciting lore, each juicy tidbit emerging to eager gasps of spine-tingling emotion. In time, Beverday encouraged the stimulation of other areas and a lubricant stream of thrilling recollection held her auditors spellbound. Beverday's rapt audience, many standing in full attention, moaned as her report reached its apparent climax. But wait! There was more: Beverday allowed a rota of auditors to follow her precise instructions to the continued enjoyment of the Ark's Oral Tradition. Again and again and again. One particularly valued participant, Froggy, said: "It is a distinct advantage to be able to remove the worm from the bottom of a bottle of tequila without upending the container." As a counterpoint to Beverday, Lupus Yonderboy provided a sort of Greek Chorus. Well, actually what he did was put his fingers in his ears and sing "LA LA LA LA. Is it over yet? LA LA LA LA. I'm not listening to this. LA LA LA LA...." Nick Bensema, meanwhile, was busy taking notes in the very hypothetical event he actually meets someone with which to share his new appreciation. Jesse Garon just kept saying, "Hey Tjames, she said 'tongue lashing' ahhuh ahhuh ahhuh." THE ENDORSEMENT CIRCUIT '' Gard Trask's "Circut, the Internet Owl[dibs]," while failing to O\/O win shareholder approval as the official Ark state bird, did get ( ) the consolation of displacing that really annoying bull-horn toting "" Sony Playstation mascot, who tragically, was run over in the MSN parking lot by a late-model ASCII funny car driven by this Asian guy in a baseball cap flooring the gas pedal with Doc Martins. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Is Ian York for flaming Stefan Kapusniak for flaming Stefan Kapusniak. Runnerup is Sean Smith for introducing use of the GNSc variable: PeriodEndOfDiscussionIWin. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. c.1994-1996 E From: ETP@The.Institute.org (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.3 No.2 Date: 1997/02/22 Message-ID: <3310fafa.164083823@news.abs.net> Distribution: world Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.eduNOSPAM Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.3 No.2 Feb.22, 1997 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS So Much Cabal It Is All Over You Screen This Week's Winners The Twark List SO MUCH CABAL IT IS ALL OVER YOU SCREEN This week on the Ark, the real action was taking place on shore. An exercise in blatantly stupid arrogant overuse of technology: Three figures sit hunched over the keyboards of their Macintosh Powerbook 1400s, expensively draped in a Localtalk network with *real* Fallron connectors, not the cheap knockoffs that you can get at scores of belly-up Computer City outlets. They are real-time interface conferencing while using IRC to send subtext and inside jokes to one another and to comment on the bizarre appearance of the counter help at the Border's Books Cafe. Some "smart paper" painstakingly creased in an origami satellite dish uplinks the Powerbooks through the Primenet bird with Yogi the telepathic dog, who is the proxy for the rest of the Hivemind, currently being drip-fed penguin vomit by a fiddly Louis Nick ^3. There are three paper containers of Java on the table that are annoyingly downloading themselves to the paper napkins littering the Plexiglas top. Product Placement will be pleased. Lee Shelton Bumgarner is standing watch nearby, exuding an impermeable Anti-Snobon Forceshield of Ordinariness that is proof against attracting the attention of well-heeled and Well-Healed patrons. He is the focus of attention, however, of a gaggle of Trekkers who seem to think he's Lieutenant Barclay. appears in 12 pt. Futura Bold across the screen of Yogi's "Ouija 2000" receiver. A code phrase! It means that control of the Western and Southern Hemispheres is passing to the Dwarks in Zurich. Also that the price of Foster's Lager stock is going to climb. It is a particularly momentous meeting. It is that nexus of decision that those folks in alt.history.whatif are always posting endlessly mis-researched screeds about: E Teflon Piano is planning the legal strategy in anticipation of the eventual Justice Department Anti-trust discovery of Usenet Scorefile price fixing by The Ark Cabal and the division of cyberspace Web "territory" with Heinlein Wetdream realizations Lupus "Rufus" Yonderboy and Connie Emilia Courtney Johnson. "Kibo's asked to see us," said Rufus. "He told us to bring Orbitz and Pez. We can't decide if it's a sign of strength or weakness. It might be both. It's difficult to tell what he's thinking ever since he removed the giant thought balloon from over his head." "Is the light bulb still there?" ETP asks. "Yes and no," said Connie. "There's a bulb over his head, yes, but it's not the old one. It's a new one...a *blacklight* bulb. And you know what that means..." "Yes," said ETP. "It means that moths will be flying into Kibo's headspace. It could cause severe kerning. There might even be a ligature." "There's something else," Rufus said. "He's painted his eyelids and one big eyebrow with Day-Glo white. In the blacklight, whenever he blinks, it looks like someone semaphoring a sideways *smiley* about two inches from his face. And he blinks *a lot*." "How long," asked ETP, "will the dialog among these characters conform to the hook-and-release pattern?" , interjected Yogi. Yogi's little puck began to dance twitchingly over the screen. Happynet never anticipated the explosion of bad-HTML and the pointlessly graphic-decorated World Wide Web. The Web was rapidly using up all the good addresses; new domain names were needed to accommodate the legion of hustlers who wanted a HOTBUTT address. The Internet Society's International Ad Hoc Committee proposed .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info and .nom to the existing generic top level domains of .com, .org and .net. The Ark Cabal was using its psychic influence (via the good offices of Yogi) to append its suggestions to the Internet Society's list; these are: .IYKWIM, .bozo, .YHL, .EATABOWLOFFUK, .metoo and .dibs. Serious Intellectual Property questions were being raised, and swiftly ignored in favor of more pressing concerns, such as whether the new Federal Trademark Dilution Act was going to generate another series of debates with PF Lewis and whether a certain carbon-fluorine-based smartypants was going to have to adopt a long-prepared fall-back position. , telepresenced Yogi. Every modem in the world began to ring. THIS WEEK'S WINNERS The winners this week are Lupus Yonderboy, Michael Straight, Francesco Benvenuto and Lisa Higgins and Juan Junjoes because THEY RECENTLY SENT US E-MAIL. That's right, we're abandoning all pretense of objective evaluation of the worth of recent Ark postings and, in the fine tradition of small-town journalism, are just going to promote our FRIENDS. HAHAHA. And The Institute is going to put LINKS to them on our WEB PAGE... with sneaky Javascript that takes your address and compiles it with a list of inquiries so that you get endless spam from Cyber Promotions. Take THAT, squiddy little HIVEMIND curators who fail to mention us as a MAJOR ESTABLISHED FIGURE!!!!1!!1 Also, Gard Trask should stop spelling with a Shetland accent. THE TWARK LIST Kibo Matt Mcirvin Louis Nick III -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-96 From: ETP@The.Institute.org (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.3 No.3 Date: 1997/06/14 Message-ID: <33a2b1e2.61177002@news.abs.net> Distribution: world Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Reply-To: RGRIFFITHS@ubmail.ubalt.eduNOSPAM Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology **** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y **** Vol.3 No.3 June 14, 1997 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published almost weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] CONTENTS Avast, Thar Be Hostile Takeovers This Week's Winner This Week's Anti-winner AVAST, THAR BE HOSTILE TAKEOVERS This week on the Ark, the tension was so thick you could put food coloring in it and call it Play-Doh! The creativity eunuchs at rodent-worshiping, imagination-stiffling Disney/ABC Television announced a hostile takeover of the Ark. The announcement immediately galvanized the crew of the Ark -- and the screams of those being dipped in hot zinc mingled with the happy cries of the more literate members who set about to repel boarders by dropping cargo nets over the sides to prevent ascent by those suction-cup hands-and-feet that human flies and other Jeff Goldblum act-alikes are always using and rolling out the special red carpet of opprobrium. All the way to the airport. Wall Street pundits, mavins, savants and other rec.org.mensa regulars speculated that the object of the takeover was control of Kibo's _Special Show_, but in order to get it, Disney's having to consider a lot of second-string bananas and similar mixed-metapoors. Disney's announcement produced stout opposition in the form of the production of a flurry of "script treatments" secretly submitted to network brass by the Ark's main proxy holders' in consideration of tendering of all stock options and a promise to put the poison pill back under the kitchen sink in its little perforated tin. Some of the script treatments submitted so far include: _Yonderboy Late!_ Drive-time diva Yonderboy of _Yonderboy in the Morning_ heard coast to coast on 50K-watt clear channel KIBO radio out of Windfall, Ariz., is being fitted up for a late night talk show, called _Yonderboy Late!_, to be broadcast from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. _Yonderboy Late!_ will borrow some set ideas from Nightline and Clifford Stoll, with Yonderboy, played by Alex "Rufus" Suter, interviewing guests through a huge blue-screen projection of C-U-See-Me linecasts from his guests in their own homes. The guest lineup the first week includes: MONDAY: Nick Bensema, the only living being in Phoenix, will display and discuss his fascinating collection of antique Nintendo cartridges, including "Duck Hunt" and "Paperboy" with byte-appraiser Stephen Tanner. Musical Guest: Spice Girls. TUESDAY: Louis Nick^3, forensic astronomer, is the Seattle whiz-kid every insurance company calls when someone is struck and killed by a meteorite. Was it an accident, or was that meteor *aimed?* Nick offers his theory that Atlantis was not "lost," but rather cosmically sacrificed to get rid of one guy named Tony in a pizza delivery-area dispute. Nick shares some tips for avoiding being hit by a meteorite and some of the "fingerprints" for tracing the culprit when a citizen takes a hit by a nickel-iron spitball. Musical Guest: Spice Girls. Pizza Reference Books Translator: Francesco Benvenuto. WEDNESDAY: Ian York, Virus Detective, explains how deadly cancer cells are mutated from sitting too close to common laboratory appliances and how the cure can be developed from reversing the polarity. Musical Guest: Spice Girls. THURSDAY: Veterinarian Pants Designer Michael Straight discusses the merits of vegetarianism and humanitarianism with ruminant horticulturist Stefan Kapusniak, and they trade recipes. Musical Guest: Spice Girls. FRIDAY: Paleoanthropological linguist David DeLaney will explain why using an uppercase "L" is the "homosexual spelling," and John Jacob Jingleheimer Sims will explain how relentless and ceaseless posting to The Ark is a reasonable and effective substitute for taking a bar review course. Musical Guest: Spice Girls. * * * _Outback Penguin Rancher_ starring Roger Douglas... In his Alpine didgeridoo, Roger Douglas meets the daily struggle -- often with hilarious results -- of the modern penguin rancher near the ice fields of Perth aided only by his son, played by a different guest star each week. Here is some sample dialog: -- "SON runs into kitchen where ROGER is sitting sipping a Heinekin at the knotty pine breakfast table. A kangaroo is eating from one of those beer steins with the little hinged domed lids on the floor. SON: Dade, Dade, thayrs an ahvalenche stampeeded theh pengins! ROGER: That's, without a doubt, the WORST fake Austrian accent I've ever heard. Crimminy, even Mel Gibson does it better. SON: He's Austrian dad. ROGER: Well, Patrick McGoohan, then. * * * _Matt Mcirvin: Astrophysicist's Assistant_... Each week, Matt Mcirvin assists in a new scientific experiment at the behest of his genetically engineered canine overlord -- often with hilarious results. Here's a sample of the pilot script: MATT: Well, Astro, what are we going to do to today? ASTRO: Rell Rister Rickcirin, roray reer roing ro ruild a rorot rith ran rincregigrly rarge rutt and Rench raid's rapron rorwered ry racuung renergy rand a rwo-rotato crock. MATT: Raccoon energy? ASTRO: Racuung renergy! MATT: Rec-room energy? ASTRO: Racuung renergy! Rear ry rirks! Racuung! Racuung! Racuung! Reesus. Rar roo rurid ror ronkring? MATT: Lips, he says... ASTRO: Ran ro relk rus rith rar rorot ris roray's recial rest -- Roogy Roo! SKOOBY: Rerro! MATT: Oh, fffffffuuuh, That's it. I'm outta here. ASTRO: Ry ron't reed roo. Rall rin ree runerruggy -- Ren Reener! BEN WEINER: Rerro! MATT: SUCKUP! * * * _IN YOU WINDOW_ starring the Boomer Girls... Each week the Boomer Girls concoct a new sexually ambiguous tableau for their voyeuristic neighbors, The Peepers, to appreciate -- with hilarious results. The Peeper clan -- headed by Jean X. Peeper -- next door always inadvertently disclose to the Boomers that they've been peeping and then proffer increasingly unlikely and contradictory denials and explanations when confronted in the Dixie Mart. Pilot episode Guest Star: Nick Benesema. The script to this one practically writes itself. THIS WEEK'S WINNER Roger Douglas is the winner this week for actually hiring counsel for the purpose of composing a Usenet joke. THIS WEEK'S ANTI-WINNER Jaffette. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. (c)E 1995-97 From: Maelstrom (svenism@web.net.au) Subject: This week in ARK Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.religion.kibology.orthodox Date: 1996/10/01 I saw the above topic on the ARK archives and was intrigued. However months later, looking back we see the entry had not been updated. This was turning to one of the longest week ever. It had already surpassed the Saturnian week and was starting to encroach on the Jupiterarian week. I've decided to chronicle for posterity this weeks happenings on ARK Nb: This was meant to be an archive that could be showed to people not familiar with the happenings of ARK. Unfortuneatly it soon descended into an orgy of in-jokes and rheotoric. Unless you're familiar with Lord of the Flies, The bible, the Talmud, recent happenings on ARK and whatnot it probabally won't make a lot of sense. And if you HAVE read the the afore-mentioned it will probabally make even less sense. THIS WEEK IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY Things had been a bit slower than usual in ARK this week and it was decided to go on a fishing trip. The disciples of Kibo all agreed it was about time they did this and after a brief vote it was decided. All that remained was for high priestess E. Holmes to ask Kibo for his blessing. She ascended unto the temple of Kibo. She returned 2 days later and said that Kibo's eddict was that the Kibologists could do what they wanted as long as they stopped bothering him. He couldn't personally come as he was still working on Happynet(tm) and if it was going to be REALLY happy then all the components had to look happy as well and unless she was going to pick up a crayon and help him draw smiley faces on all the wires, to stop coming up here. Once they were there the kibologists starting baiting up their lines. Maelstrom, as usual, was too lazy to use bait and decided to just twitch his line around in the teenromance pool. As usual lots of little fish were jumping onto his line with little effort and though they often took only a nibble before fleeing in terror this was quite enough to satisfy him. The other kibologists, however, were there to do some serious game fishing and loaded up their lines before casting them deep into the newbie lake. It wasn't long before Gardner S Trask felt a massive jerk on his rod and began reeling it in. It was such a big fish several of the kibologists stopped what they were doing to help him. Finally the fish drew near and E. Teflon Piano scooped it out of the water with his net. Everyone gasped in admiration and envy, Gardner had caught an Aaronfish, one of the most prized gamefish ever. The Aaronfish was laid down on the ground while the kibologists gathered around admiring it. It would not die however and kept flopping over. Even after being severely beaten with a stick it was still going. Indeed everytime it looked like settling down Watson Aname would impishly poke it with a stick just to see it start flopping again. Finally it settled down enough for Watson and Dls26 to take it over to the Barbeque and start frying it. It was at this point of relative peacefulness that a wild Dodd pig came crashing out of the undergrowth and made straight for one of the kibologists. They gathered protectively around their own and started hitting the boar with clubs. "Look out it's rabid" Jaffo called out at which time the boar stood up and took off it's mask. It had a vaguely humanoid face. "That's right" it snarled, "I'm one of you BEEITCH". At this point pandemonium erupted with all the kiblogists trying to kill the boar. Some of the kibologists got down in the mud to fight better with it. "STOP!" Everyone looked up in shock at the top of the mountain and there stood a small child. Her eyes looked at them soulfully and her face was radiant as one who has drunken many cans of JOLT. She started speaking and her voice, pure and melodic, pealed out and pierced the ears of all that were present. She implored them 'Does not Kibo say "suffer the newbies, and allow them to come to me"?' The kibologists looked at themselves lying in the mud with the boars blood smeared on them and were ashamed at what they had become. They seemed more like little savages than the innocent children they had started out as. Then they shrugged and started beating the wild pig with sticks again. The pig squealed and took off into the undergrowth. The small tribe of kibologists howled in derision and gave chase. They chased it through the undergrowth and onto the plains again. They leaped over the newbie stream where the Aaronfish was still flopping. As they passed the Aaronfish called out that it was sorry and wanted to make friends now, it even said it knew why manhole covers were round and it would tell them if they would JUST be nice to it. Still the chase went on till at last, exhausted and trembling, the pig stumbled onto the beach. When it looked up it saw it was lying at the feet of a tall, handsome man dressed in a white uniform. Captain Kaspuzniak of the British Navy stood at the shore and looked around in disgust. "I say who's in charge here?" Nobody quite knew what to say. "Were you abandoned here?" Several kibologists nodded. "Well why wasn't there a signal fire? Who let it go out?" Ellen and Jaffo chose that moment to come out of the bushes, doing up several buttons, and said it wasn't their fault. Maelstrom and Watson Aname looked up from the Aaronfish they had resumed prodding. They both glared at each other and said "I though YOU were looking after that". Michael Mattingly and Ralph were still just talking to each other and ignoring everyone else so they didn't bother responding. Lisa was wandering around with her camera and swearing at anyone who didn't want to be in her movie while Carlos the information superfrog chose that moment to say he had just come back and there was toooo much to catch up on and did he miss anything? Dls26 was still unsucessfully trying to put a "kick me" sign on Gurks back. E. Teflon Piano came back from his hunting expedition with a satisfied grin on his face and several penuses hanging off his neck... Nobody asked. Michael Straight said he had spent the whole time developing a super fuel to keep the fire going for ever and if mankind hadn't developed the tchnology to light it yet then that was hardly *his* fault was it? Kibo put down the pink crayon and the wire he was working on, wiped his brow and said 'Alright, that's number one finished" and picked up the next wire from the pile at his desk. Captain Kaspusniak looked around in disgust and said "Enough! Surely british citizens could've done better tha..." His voice trailed off as he looked closer at the group. "Wait a minute" he said "you're not people...You look like..like SH**P!!!!!!!!". His cheek started twitching as he whipped out a musket. DIEEEEE SHEEEP SCUM he shrieked and started blazing away. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is here freinds that this narative draws to a close. If I've mixed up any names then forgive me. If you want to know how any of these little dramas unfold then stay tuned to ARK. I've completely run out of creative oomph after all that. Remembering back to my school days this is where I would've put the "then she woke up and it was ALL a dream" bit but we kibologists are above that. Aren't we? Then again this IS ARK and who knows you could be dreaming. And on that note... Roll the credits -- "Is this supposed to scare me the only thing that does is the fact that you are still out in society" Mysia From: E Teflon Piano Subject: This Week in Ark *Contest* Date: 1996/10/02 Message-ID: #1/1 organization: Misapplied Psychometry content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology It is with deep and penetrating gratitude that The Institute rejects the recent submission by our Austrian Friend in its retroactively named Worst Pastiche of Twark Contest. This generous outpouring of one offering begs repetition of the Contest Rules: All submissions must be clearly labeled: TWARK PASTICHE *BIOHAZARD* All submissions must contain at least one reference to Yonderboy. All submissions must demonstrate knowledge of the difference between penis and phallus and familiarity with Latin and Greek declensions. All submissions must be fully justified and W E D N E S D A Y Spaced. Submissions by affiliates of The Institute, its employees, friends, former sex partners, synchophants, degree-seeking candidates, heat-seeking missiles, Thames Madison if he mentioned us in that magazine story, and export of Michael Straight's encryption technology are officially ineligible, but will be given secret, preferential consideration, as will Lisa Higginz if she tracks down all contest rules violators and makes them EAT A BOWL OF COITUS. This Week in Ark, TWARK, Twark, and TWIA are [dibs] of E. There is no dot after the E. Maryland's Long Arm Statute is codified at MD CTS & JUD PROC ART sec.6-103, and is very liberal, so watch it. -- E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements. c.1994-1996 E Article 139805 of alt.religion.kibology: From: ETP@The.Institute.org (E Teflon Piano) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: This Week in Ark Vol.3 No.II Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 17:30:38 -0400 Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Lines: 139 Message-ID: Reply-To: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp102.bcpl.lib.md.us X-Trace: news.abs.net 877210231 10588 (None) 207.19.142.116 X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.abs.net X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.3.5 X-Complaintz-To: Joe.Mamma@yonderbody.net X-Reply-To: etpiano@mailexcite.com Xref: utk.edu alt.religion.kibology:139805 ***** T H I S W E E K I N A L T . R E L I G I O N . K I B O L O G Y ***** Vol.3 No.II September-October, 1997 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published nowhere nearly weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms. Monitor not included. Close parentheses before striking.] CONTENTS Those Who Ignore Usenet This Week's Winner THOSE WHO IGNORE USENET The famous saying ³Those who ignore Usenet are doomed to repeat it² took terrible form on the Ark this week when what once was touted as ³the Usenet to end all Usenets² was temporarily supplanted by a killfile virus run amok. At first triumphantly hailed as Usenet II by its creators, the patchy construct of excavated and appropriated Usenet body parts quickly turned upon its masters, smashing a lot of Van de Graaff generators and dry-ice tubs rented by Project Spin Doctor Rone to lend a little atmosphere to the occasion of its unveiling. Rufus Suterboy was the first to see the creature snap its cables, and his piercing failing-disk-drive-like-shriek quickly alerted the security team headed by Astrolloger Louis Nick, who lept into the breach to wave a flaming brand at the creature, which caused it to lumber off into the bowels and other cloacae of the Ark. Michael Straight, the actual [dibs]holder of the Usenet II brand, was incensed at this tactic. The aroma of smoldering Usenet II being roughly akin to that of smoldering rec.pets.cats, Mr. Straight wheezingly pointed out that when he first proposed the concept of splitting the Usenet the previous September, he never envisioned it would be used for destructive purposes and also that Mr. Nick shouldnıt be allowed to have matches if this was the sort of respect he gave to other peopleıs property, particularly when the other people in question were still in physical possession. Leader Kibo, standing nearby, also was gasping for breath at the horrid fog of puns released by this paragraph. The Ark began to wobble violently as Usenet II stamped and rampaged below decks. ³Dang it,² said the reclusive Bobby Hodad. ³Iıll never get these ice trays filled at this rate,² he shouted as he sloshed across the galley. ³Never since the Sekrit Mean Club have we witnessed a more virulent adaptation to modern antibiotics,² said Scientist in Waiting Joe Bay, in an irrelevant sound-bite heıs been rehearsing for emergencies. ³Of course, a situation like this just exposes Usenet to opportunistic infection,² Bay said, unfolding the legs to a portable Magic Body Elixir kiosk. ³Preposterous,² said King==Tlerll, thumbwrestling with Emperor Gazebo I Norton-Ehrbar. ³Contrarwise,² said Gazebo. ³This creature... needs... bandwidthtosurvive. If we-can-feed... it a bandwidth... problem... that is even too large for... it... to consume... it... might... stop. Mr. McIrvin, you are the science officer, here; what do you suggest,² said Kibo, the business-end of a dustmop balanced on his head. ³HAHAHA, that Shatner impression just slays me,² said McIrvin, explaining the joke. ³No, really, if encounters the Ellen Triangle in the hold, just such a bandwidth gagging could take place.² ³Of Course! The Ellen Triangle,² said Roger Douglas. ³That legendary area below decks where we banished the bandwidth monster created by the accidentally-formed isotope of Jaffwatsonium in the Summer Replacement Series on Fox. It looks like I returned from New Guinea just in time to provide the backstory,² said Mr. Douglas. ³Me too,² said Hong Ooi. ³Whatıs a backstory?² asked Francesco Benvenuto, currently wrestling in the WWF as the Italics Marauder. ³And also why are you worrying about this when VAX wizards like me canıt translate it into Italian because we donıt get the Fox Network? Do you think it was a mistake for Italy to vote to have 500 political parties and two television channels instead of the other way around, like in America? Also, why am I never in these stories?² ³Listen to him complain,² said Hong, steeped in irony. ³How can we make this foul beast encounter that foul beast?² clucked Kibo, desperately dragging the story back to its plot point. ³We need a lure. I believe I can make one with a meat thermometer, a TRS 80 computer and a beautiful maiden,² said Nick Benesma. ³What do you need the beautiful maiden for?² challenged Gard Trask. ³No, wait, I can see where this is going. Nick, if you can get the Usenet creature to gag on Jaffwatsonium, Iıll give you a bus ticket to a Nevada Coyote Ranch I read about in LeeWired. With the $50 youıve got left after paying tuition, you should just about be set.² Thereupon, Mr. Bensema jammed the meat thermometer into the TRS 80 case to make a powerful antenna and typed: ³10 sound 440,001 20 goto 10.² ³Get ready,² he hissed. ³After I press Œenter,ı Iıll shove this thing down the scupper. Then, itıll just be a few seconds. I saw this in Dune.² ³AaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAa...² said the TRS 80. Almost instantly, vibrations in opposite sides of the hold began to converge upon the area directly below the scupper. ³We have bozosign,² said Mr. Bensema. Suddenly, the TRS 80 fell silent. Then there was a deafening *snuffling* noise. Then there was a sound like a reticulated python might make if it met a Titan missile and started on the small end. The juddering below decks quieted. ³Now, whoıs going to clean it up?² asked Yondersuter. THIS WEEKıS WINNER The winner this week is the National Science Foundation and its partners Gallaudet University, George Mason University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, National Institutes of Health, University of Maryland, College Park, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 3Com, Advanced Network & Services, Bay Networks, Cisco Systems, FORE Systems, IBM, Newbridge Networks, Nortel, and StarBurst Communications for creating the exclusive Internet2 and a non-profit corporation to develop it. Internet2, which will exclude recreational use, will surmount bandwidth problems created on Internet1 by profligate creation of vanity groups and subnets. see http://www.internet2.edu/. -- E Teflon Piano, now AppleEvent aware and running under Mac OS 8, is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont's mark for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' mark for satire and calculated misstatements. İE[dibs] 1994-1997 From: etp@The-Institute.org (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week In Ark -- Soulcake Edition Date: 1999/03/27 Message-ID: X-Reply-To: etpiano@mailexcite.com X-Complaints-To: abuse@bcpl.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 922543056 207.19.142.23 (Sat, 27 Mar 1999 08:57:36 EST) Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Reply-To: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu X-Complaint-To: Wahhhhh@bigbaby.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 08:57:36 EST Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology T H I S W E E K I N A L T VOL.4 NO.3 R E L I G I O N Soulcake Edition K I B O L O G Y Mar. 27, 1999 [Twark is the official journal of the proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published weekly on whichever planet has 90-day-weeks compared to Earth by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions expressed herein are a product of the Hivemind. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This product has been proven effective when used by people who report a significant improvement in symptoms.] ARK SIEGE '99 -- Week 5 [ OPENING SHOT: devastated city, smoke pouring from ruined buildings. Shell-shocked citizens walk around with dazed expressions, some clutching tattered remains of photographs, letters, personal belongings. More explosions heard in distance.] Voiceover Despite the threat of NATO intervention, and condemnation from major political leaders from around the globe, the Elite Republican Rec.Arts.Prose Guard continued their attack today on the small outlying village of Alt.Religion.Kibology. As you can see from this stock footage from the Second World War, the effects of this type of continued siege can be utterly devastating. [ SHOT: Reporter, ARK newsgroup behind in distance ] Reporter Families are torn apart, newsgroups are rife with internecine conflict, divided opinions are savaged by roaming packs of feral ad hominens, the most prized institutions in the land are left in smoking ruins. Truly, to have one's conversations recorded by Monica Tripp is a life-destroying event. But today we are here to meet with Major-General G.V.Wilkes IV, leader and point man of the RAP seige on ARK that now enters its fifth week. General Wilkes... g.v.w.iv Please, call me general wilkes. Reporter Thank you. general wilkes, what is the situation here today? g.v.w.iv We are advancing on all fronts, and the enemy is suffering massive losses. It seems too easy, and yet we are cautious; we have reason to believe that the ARK army is holding back some major weaponry, so we do not want to go charging in before confirming or denying those reports. Reporter Major weaponry? g.v.w.iv Devastating wit, remarkable examples of nuclear-potential prose, chemical puns, that sort of thing. Our intelligence agents have claimed that there are vast deposits of these weapons hidden in several ARK strongholds, but we have yet to find any hard evidence of them at this point. Reporter Could you intelligence reports have been incorrect? g.v.w.iv Very doubtful. They came from highly trained agents in the field who have been performing this kind of work for years all across Usenet. They have never been wrong before. Reporter But you admit that there could be a first time? Could you tell us the identity of these agents? g.v.w.iv Of course not. To do so would place their very lives in danger, as well as endangering the continued supply of inside information that we require. Reporter So Andrea Chen's comments on... g.v.w.iv Guards! Get this man out of here! [ Hand over camera lens. Sounds of scuffling, two muffled gunshots. Silence. ] [ QUICK JUMP CUT to Reporter, standing outside a makeshift house made out of cardboard and twine. Several Kibologists sit outside, playing jacks and giggling. ] Reporter The town of ARK is surrounded by massive granite walls seven feet thick. Watchtowers on each of the five corners, with excellent views of the battle field, perfect for defending the town against invaders. The massive doors that protect the main entrances to the town are girded steel; the apertures in the walls and turrets provide full access to the townpeople for use as sniper stations. And yet today, as on every day before, the doors stand open, the turrets unguarded, the parapets unsentried. Not even a minimal effort is made to secure this, the location of one of the most horrific seiges of the twentieth century. We spoke to several of the Kibologists to determine why, after promising to keep their identities secret for fear of reprisal gang killfiling. [ CUT TO Reporter standing in front of makeshift house made out of cardboard and twine. Same scene as before, but late night/early morning. Several Kibologists sit outside, playing jacks and giggling. One of them, fascinated by the shiny object the Reporter is waving in his hand, breaks away from the group and shuffles over tentatively, obviously wary of the stranger. ] Reporter (sotto voce) In spite of relentless carpet-bombing in the past few weeks, these Kibologists seem unafraid of human contact. We have covered this Pez dispenser with aluminum foil to attract the attention of one of their group. He will not take it from my hand, but I will place it on the ground here in front of me and walk away a short distance. Let's see what happens. [ Reporter drops Pez dispenser on ground, inside very obvious coiled rope. The Kibologist walks over, still cautious, but overcome by curiosity. He picks up dispenser, sniffs it. He bangs it against the ground. He throws it in the air. ] [ SFX: "Also Sprach Zarathustra" ] Reporter NOW! [ Yanks rope, noose tightens around Kibologist's leg, stick propping cardboard box gets kicked out, whole contraption is hoisted into air by giant net. Angry monkey noises from inside box, as it thrashes around, swinging from side to side. ] [ JUMP CUT to Reporter standing next to cardboard box, THIS SIDE UP label pointing inwards ] Reporter Why has the town of ARK been left so woefully underprotected from these attacks? [ Reporter holds microphone to airhole in box ] Voice inside box (British accent) Well you see, when the Kibologists first arrived here in the late 1860's the town had already been built. We merely took it over. Historically, we have had a relatively uncoordinated strategy when dealing with newsgroup invaders, so we formed a committee to study the best possible way to defend the town using the resources that fate had placed so conveniently in our hands. Reporter What were the conclusions of the committee back then? Voice Well, they haven't given us any yet. After about ten years of discussion, it was decided to expand the membership of the commmittee to include a wider range of opinions that would be more representative of the village population as a whole. After several years of expansion, it was decided that the only way to do this effectively was to include every member of ARK into the committee, and so it continues until this day. Each Kibologist, as soon as they post or crosspost to ARK, is given a hat, a certificate that confirms their acceptance into the committee, and a Shetland pony. Reporter A pony? Voice A pony. Reporter And what does this certificate mean? Voice It means that after careful review of their credentials and references, the carrier has been deemed to be possessing the moral fortitude and principles required to carry a certificate and protect it with his or her own life. Reporter Does the certificate have any significance or use outside of ARK? Voice Of course. It has the same significance and importance as any other certificate or award granted by a committee in which there is vested interest in providing importance to certificates or awards granted by the committee. It's pretty much the standard in academia. Reporter So ARK has no protection from these marauding invaders, thanks to the bureaucracy engendered by a committee that first met almost 140 years ago? Voice [ Proudly ] And still continues to meet today. But we have made significant breakthroughs in the past decade or so, and we fully believe that within 18, maybe 24 months, we will be able to make a firm recommendation on which colour to use in repainting the third floor water closet in the Northwest turret. As the first decision made by the committee, it's a momentous occasion, and we're discussing the possibility of putting together a committee to determine the appropriate celebrations to commemorate the event. Reporter Thank you for your valuable assistance. Voice You're most welcome. [ Reporter turns to speak directly into camera. Angry monkey noises recommence from within the box, which as the Reporter speaks is slowly being hoisted out of camera view. ] Reporter Other Kibologists have differing opinions on the nature of the conflict. We spoke with one of them yesterday. [ Camera shot widens, and we see Kibologists whacking elevated cardboard box with sticks and giggling. Candy spills out of several holes in the box, causing the Kibologists to redouble their efforts.] Voice inside box Oww!!! Quit it! [ JUMP CUT to Reporter standing in front of makeshift house made out of cardboard and twine. Same scene as before, but early afternoon. Reporter stands next to giant flour sack with knot around the top, with wriggling dog shape within. ] Reporter So taking the historical perspective on this conflict, do you think that it has economic origins, or was this whole invasion caused by unconsidered intelligence reports from waht might have been, in hindsight, a relatively unreliable source? Voice inside sack YAP! YAP!! HELP!! HELP! I'M JUST A STUPID PUPPY! YAP! YAP! WAAAAAH! Reporter Can this conflict be resolved through traditional peaceful means, as NATO and the UN are desperately attempting even as we speak? Voice YAP! YAP! HELP!! MY NAME IS SPOT!! HELP ME!!! YAP YAP YAP!! Uh oh. [ Urine stain appears at bottom of sack and begins to spread rapidly. ] [ BAD JUMP CUT to Reporter standing in front of Military HQ. RAP skull and crossbones flag flying overhead.] Reporter We spoke with several of the "grunts," the ground force men and women who are waiting behind the tensely drawn lines of conflict, awaiting their turn. What is your role in all of this? Grunt #1 Well, we're the teams that go in after the major radar sites and heavy artillery is cut down and take out all remaining resistance, usually in hand-to-hand, close combat fighting. After us, the recolonization team takes over and occupies the town, setting it up as a point position for radar, communication and advance troop warnings. Reporter And yet you are still sitting here, watching the battle from afar. Why is that? Grunt #1 Well, HQ doesn't think they've accomplished their primary goal yet. Reporter Why not? Grunt #1 Our intelligence reports warned us of major heavy artillery holed up in the city. We brought everything we had for weaponry, preparing for massive close combat and even potential heavy losees, but we've barely cracked the case on one of the boxes, and we haven't even been scratched yet. [ Gestures to half-open crate behind him. The words "WARNING! LIVE AMMO!" and "ACCUSATIONS OF HOMOSEXUALITY: HANDLE WITH CARE" are stenciled on it in military font. ] Reporter Why do you think that is the case? Grunt #1 I couldn't say. Reporter You can tell me, I'm a doctor. Grunt #1 Who knows? There might not be anything there. We came here with an objective based on the information provided, and so far we've been let down. Reporter What was your main objective, as far as you're concerned? Grunt #1 That's classified, top secret stuff. Reporter Oh, go on then. Grunt #1 Well, we're on an extended recruiting project, as a major component of the infamous 'Project Raptor'. We're looking for people who are willing to join us, or if they are unwilling to join, to join us anyway in our campaign of counter-information and underground insurgency against several well-known net.kooks. Reporter Like Bill Palmer? Grunt #1 Shut that camera off! Guards! [ Hand over camera lens, sounds of scuffling. Two muffled gunshots.] [ JUMP CUT to Reporter standing next to general wilkes, who is surveying the battlefield and chomping on an unlit cigar, Patton- style. ] Reporter general wilkes, are your troops getting dissatisfied with the mission? g.v.w.iv They are proud, fighting men and women, each and every one of them willing to lay down their life for the good of the mission and the furthered and continued glory of rec.arts.prose. Agreed, some of them are getting a bit antsy: they were promised action and that promise has yet to be delivered upon, but that anxiety can only be expected from people who have been training all their lives for this specific type of situation and are chomping at the bit to get into the killing fields. Reporter Very noble words, general. What is the worst that you have seen so far from the Kibologists? g.v.w.iv This. [ Points to dead crow lying on the ground. ] Reporter A crow? g.v.w.iv Yup. Weird, isn't it? It's a memeCrow, not even a major caliber one, probably a .22 or smaller. The Kibologists release these creatures in the middle of heavy shelling. Most of them get shot down by sniper fire, mostly self-inflicted by Kibologists randomly discharging their weapons into the air. Reporter What is the intended purpose of these memeCrows? g.v.w.iv We don't know at this point, although psychological warfare is tops on our list of explanations. When they were first released, the air was thick with them swirling around, all crowing inanely about "Pop Tarts" or "IYKWIM" or "no pants" or "megaBozos." It was unnerving, to say the least, since we had never faced this kind of weapon before, but the worst damage we have suffered is when one of the damn things pooped right onto the sights of one of our Howitzers, blinding the controller temporarily. But a bit of Windex and it was cleared up within seconds. Certainly no long-term effects. [ JUMP CUT to reporter inside ARK town, in main village piazza. School recess appears to be ongoing, as Kibologists are gathered in several groups, some playing hopscotch, some skipping, some climbing over jungle gym. Bomb crates litter the piazza. Reporter stands next to small Kibologist wearing short pants and English schoolboy cap. ] Reporter So why aren't Mummy and Daddy defending you, little boy? Why aren't Mumsy and Daddy-kins pwotecting widdle baby boy against the EVIL general wilkes? Boy [ Robotic drone ] Because they're allowed. Reporter They're allowed to what? Boy [ drone ] They're allowed to continue progressing towards their goal. Reporter And what is their goal, widdle boy? Boy [ drone ] That is not important. Reporter And what is important, you widdle snot-faced punk? [ Boy turns to Reporter, sudden transformation. The innocent baby- face disappears, and is replaced by devil's visage, hot glowing red eyes, fangs, the whole bit. ] Boy You are FOOLISH, and you will be CAST unto the ROCKS of despair when the time of reckoning comes. Do you think we know not what you do? Do you think we have not EYES? Where did you put the clues we hve left for you, scattered like shrapnel on your way in? Do you really think we consider you a person, and not some malfunctioning Turing test gone horribly wrong? Explain to me, using the short simple monosyllabic grunts that we have come to expect from you, exactly at what point you think our expectations of you fell below the score points achieved by common shit-eating houseflies? When will you learn the difference between your killfile systems and our scoring systems, and how do you expect to do so with only two brain cells to rub together? Why do you expect your two remaining brain cells to do anything other than rub themselves together, when self- obsessed narcissistic wanking is all the behaviour that we have come to expect from your primitive mutant poisonous tree-frog personalities? Is attention-grabbing your sole intention? If so, why do you think that you have failed so miserably in this parade of lame follow-ups, obsession with sexual innuendo and carnal improprieties deserving only of an Animal Planet documentary on inbred mating habits gone horribly, horribly wrong? How similar is your boasting of 'credentials' and 'talent' in form, function and convincingness to that of a well-known 'net.writer's'? What makes you think we care about the fact that you have been misled, and why should we be the ones to teach you the way out of your self-produced quagmire of misplaced self-righteous ire? Do you actually think with any organ of your body? Are you really this stupid in what you laughingly refer to as your real life, or is this disgusting confrontational self-obsessed attitude and pompous personality something you reserve for the special occasions when spittle from your open sore-ridden lips happens to fall on the keyboard in the required combination for posting? When will you realize that you are being hopelessly, mercilessly trolled, over and over and over again, and that in spite of the dawning realization that this may be the case, you continue to drool on the "followup" button, unable to stop your compulsion long enough for the dim light of awareness to gain enough strength for you to illuminate the huge sign hanging over your head warning you that Andrea Chen is focusing your energies here in order to distract you from other purposes for her own fiendish and evil reasons? Who will be the first of you to misinterpret this post and attempt a week, mewling response that will be immediately mocked by all those present, in conversations that you will never even hope to understand even if you were allowed to be a part of them? Who will be the first to reread these threads from before they started, start to see the big picture and the role you are being forced into, and squeal 'retreat!' before it's too late? DON'T YOU SEE? While you are congratulating yourselves on a job well done, an attack well-placed, a defense well organized, you are being eaten from within by a cancer most vicious that will leave you weak and helpless, mere discarded chitinous paper-thin exoskeletal remains to be blown away by the lightest puff of rank wind. Have you ever heard of the word 'misdirection'? Why do you think that continued followup posting is a waste of time, but only yours? What makes me think that you are still even reading this, obviously having proved to possess the attention span of hopelessly flatulent dung beetles, and why do I bother even pretending to think that you understand the greater implications of what you continue doing in the first place? Why do you think so many are willing to sacrifice themselves, so easily and without apparent cause? Have you ever thought that the government merely denies the existence of UFOs and alien invasions every so often in order to stir up those who believe in a conspiracy, merely because that will distract the curious from the truly hideous REAL conspiracies that lie behind government 'alien life' handwaving, and which if brought into light would be so horrifying as to cause mass suicides out of disillusionment and despair over the inherent, bloody, gore-dripping EVIL of which humanity is capable? How would you think that previous question applies to the current situation, if you had the raw materials necessary to perform such an obscure function that is so far elevated above your natural tendencies to 'think' only about yourselves and your self-declared greatness? WILL IT BE TOO LATE WHEN YOU SEE THAT YOUR WORST ENEMY IS MASQUERADING AS YOUR FRIEND, AND THAT ARK IS MERELY GOING ALONG WITH THE JOKE? CAN YOU NOT SEE? YOUR ENEMY IS NO OTHER THAN... [ Bomb blast. Rubble, glass and body parts explode in all directions, much confusion and screaming. Head of BOY rolls over towards swings, comes to rest: closeup on face, which has blissful smile and wide-open eyes. Eyes slowly close. Chaos. Children running in all directions. ] [ Suddenly the recess bell rings. Kibologists all shout "YAY!" and organize into neat lines. Kibologist at head of first line runs over to swings, picks up BOY's decapitated head and impales it on giant pike. Returning to head of line, she takes her place, and they start marching, as if on cue, towards the large building at the end of the piazza. They are humming, almost imperceptibly at first, but growing louder and louder, the main theme from the soundtrack to "Gallipoli". As they disappear into the building, smiling broadly, the camera tilts up to reveal the name over the door: "SLAUGHTERHOUSE". Door frame is decorated with ornate sculptures of memeCrows. ] [ CUT to sign reading 'Experiencing technical difficulties: please hold' ] [ CUT to Reporter pursuing general wilkes, who seems intent on evading questions. ] Reporter general wilkes, how do you explain such a cowardly act, a direct attack on helpless children? g.v.w.iv Wasn't one of ours. We have information from our intelligence agents, and confirmation from the Kibologists themselves, I might forcefully add, that proves that this was a result of friendly fire. The Kibologists were playing with an unexploded mortar that they had found within the piazza and it went off. Reporter What a tragic, truly tragic event. g.v.w.iv What makes you think so? They seem to like it: this is the seventy- third time it has happened since the seige started, and the twentieth this week. Why do you think they have posters pasted up all over town giving detailed instructions on how to set the damn things off? Reporter I had no idea. g.v.w.iv These people are hiding something, something big, and they don't care who they kill in order to protect it. We intend to capture it. We don't know what it is, but our informants cannot be wrong. Now excuse me, I have a meeting to attend. Reporter general wilkes, general wilkes, one last question, please. g.v.w.iv Make it quick. Reporter What if you don't find anything in there? [ For brief second, the facade breaks. Self-doubt shows through the cracks, before military resolve once again takes over and the mask is restored. ] g.v.w.iv We will not fail. We are here to get what we want, what we were promised and what we deserve. No amount of resistance will deter us, and the goal will be met. No more questions, good day. Reporter general wilkes, general wilkes! [ JUMP CUT to Reporter standing in front of makeshift house, made out of cardboard and twine. He is standing next to a Kibologist. Camera pulls out to wider shot, we see Kibologist has leg in giant steel bear trap, and is holding Orbitz bottle covered in sparkly aluminum foil. ] Reporter What does the future hold for you here in ARK town? Kibologist Beable. Reporter Excuse me? Kibologist Beable. Reporter Beable? [ Kibologist looks at Reporter with look of joy, embraces him. ] Kibologist BEABLE BEABLE BEABLE! ASIEONIEZI ASIEONIEZI, ASIEONIEZI ASIEONIEZI ASIEONIEZI! DOIDY FUTPLEX WOXWOX BEABLE! THE CLOWN, IN BED! NO PANTS! ASIEONIEZI, ASIEONIEZIASIEONIEZI! 20 BUCKS, SAME AS IN TOWN! AND THEN FIRE CAME OUT! HAVE A HAPPY ASAFETIDAY! BEABLE BEABLE BEABLE! Reporter ...I'm... sorry, I don't understand. [ Kibologist lets go of Reporter dejectedly. Another Kibologist runs by, slaps a sticker on first Kibologist's forehead and runs off giggling. Sticker reads "Used to be funny". First Kibologist runs after second Kibologist, dragging bear trap behind him and giggling furiously. ] [ Reporter turns to camera. ] Reporter As you can see, the seige is having a devastating effect on the peaceful inhabitants of ARK town. No one knows at this point what the final outcome will be, but prospects look exceedingly grim. [ Second Kibologist runs by, stops in front of Reporter and waves into camera, then turns and stomps Reporter on foot before running off again. ] Reporter In the long run, what will be gained by this massive, wanton destruction of a peaceful suburb that until barely five weeks ago couldn't even be identified on most modern maps? That, as with anything that reporters are required to comment on when given insufficient background or time to research in order to present a balanced newscast, is yet to be seen. This is Mark Hammil, reporting live from ARK town for Animal Planet. [ First Kibologist runs by, carrying a giant H. The bear trap is gone, and so is half of his leg. Other Kibologists run behind him, throwing salt at the bleeding stump. All of them giggle. [ FADE TO BLACK ] [ ROLL CREDITS ] [ As credits roll, show blooper reel from the interviews. ] [ Reporter and general wilkes sit at table, serious looks on their faces. Suddenly Reporter turns to camera with embarassed look. ] Reporter I'm sorry, I've forgotten my line again... what was I...? [ general wilkes breaks out in laughter, crew member runs forward with script, crew laughter. ] [ CUT to Reporter with Kibologist Boy. Short pause. ] Boy [ grinning ] POOPIE! Director Cut, cut. Let's try it again. [ CUT to Reporter with Boy. Pause. ] Boy POOPIE! Director Cut, dammit. [ CUT to Reporter with Boy. ] Boy POOPIE!!! Director Aw, Jesus Christ people. CUT! CUT, CUT! [ Crew laughter. ] [ CUT to Reporter with GRUNT #1 ] Reporter So what do you think general wilkes' REAL intention is for all this activity? [ Grunt #1 snickers and makes 'wanking' hand motion. ] Director CUT! [ CUT to Reporter standing out in battle field. ] Reporter In the long run, what will be gained by this massive, wanton destruction of a peaceful suburb that until barely five weeks ago couldn't even be identified... [ Bird poop lands on Reporter's microphone. He screams obscenity (bleeped), and disappearing into the distance can be heard a memeCrow saying "Enough of that foam, as you call it... RAAAWK!" ] Director CUT! [ Crew laughter. ] [ CUT to cardboard box in net, swinging from tree branch. ] Voice inside box Guys? Hey guys, I'm still up here. Guys? Anybody? Are we done yet? HEY GUYS? I'm getting a tad nervous up here guys. GUYS! HEY! THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANY MORE, GUYS! HEEEEEEY!!! Uh oh. [ Wet stain appears at bottom of box, spreads rapidly as it starts to drip. Muffled crew laughter.] [ FADE TO BLACK ] A RANKIN-BASS PRODUCTION FOR CHANEL NO. 5 -dp. If I have seen as far as I have, it is only because I am wearing the glasses of giants. -- Institute for Misapplied Psychometry fellow E Teflon Piano is founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society. Teflon is a mark owned by duPont. E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' [dibs] for ironic hyperbole and elitist satire. E[dibs] 1994-1999 From: etp@The-Institute.org (E Teflon Piano) Subject: This Week in Ark -- Soulcake Edition addenda Date: 1999/03/28 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Reply-To: etpiano@mailexcite.com X-Complaints-To: abuse@bcpl.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 922630166 204.255.212.107 (Sun, 28 Mar 1999 09:09:26 EST) Organization: Misapplied Psychometry Reply-To: rgriffiths@ubmail.ubalt.edu X-Complaint-To: Wahhhhh@bigbaby.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 09:09:26 EST Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology THE WINNER THIS WEEK This week's winner is David Pacheco, who correctly predicted, *to the very word* the entire contents of the TWARK Soulcake edition almost a week before it appeared. THE LOSER THIS WEEK Is E Teflon Piano, who failed to observe that there is no joke so broad that someone will fail to get it. -- Institute for Misapplied Psychometry fellow E Teflon Piano is founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society. Teflon is a mark owned by duPont. E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises' [dibs] for ironic hyperbole and elitist satire. E[dibs] 1994-1999