Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: More stoopid airport security Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 07:58:22 GMT Last week, Ben Allard (ballard@wpi.edu) wrote: > > I also had my run-in with the airport security corporation. After passing > through the metal detector, the guard asked me to take a drink from the > paper cup I was carrying, to make sure I wasn't carrying a cup full of > poison or throwing acid or poison acid. This just in! Ben Allard scoops CNN by six days. On CNN Headline News, "on-air talent" Sachi Koto just told me: -> Here's a post-September 11th security measure you may not know about. -> If you're travelling on a plane and carrying a liquid, you have to -> drink some of it to prove it's not dangerous. Once again, alt.religion.kibology proves to be a more up-to-the-minute source of news than CNN. And I wouldn't be surprised if we're performing a more thorough analysis. Also, I'm not reading off a TelePrompTer. -> That's how a 14-year-old Colorado boy thinks he got sick. Airport security -> personnel made him drink from a bottle of untreated stream water he was -> taking to school. He says he later got nauseated and had to miss two -> days of classes. The FAA says if the boy had told screeners it was -> creek water, he wouldn't have been asked to drink it unless they suspected -> it was something else. Yeah, right, sure, all those Global Security Inc. rent-a-cops have memorized the FAA's imaginary bulletin about how they have to make people drink weird stuff unless they use the word "creek" in a sentence. I seriously doubt that this policy exists, or that if it did, that the FAA could teach all those bozos to treat people who say "creek water" differently from people who say "spring water" given that many of them can't even figure out how to work the metal detectors they're supposedly operating. I love the idea that the FAA is pretending it really has trained all these security guards to worry about people who say "it's water" and people who say "it's acid" but not people who say "it's icky water". So, Ben, why were you on an out-of-state field trip to gather paramecia for your junior high school science project? This just in! While I was typing that, Headline News showed a commercial where Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell (the "Houston, we've had a problem" guy) explained to me that airport security shortcomings were all my fault for not having a sense of humor about those idiots at the airport who are doing a perfect job. I have transcribed the entire commercial for your enlightenment: "Hi, I'm Jim Lovell. Some people travel more than I do, but few have travelled farther. When I commanded Apollo 13, we ran into some REAL trouble [stock footage of him saying "Houston, we've had a problem"] but we put our best people to work on fixing it... AND THEY DID! Now America's doing the same thing about air travel security. But we all have a role to play here. Be prepared to have a photo ID available at all times. Budget your time for unexpected delays and additional screening of all electronic devices. Keep a good book handy [he waves at the camera a book for which he presumably receives royalties], along with your sense of humor. But remember, security is no joke." What have I learned from this? (1) Terrorism allows retired astronauts to plug books on TV for free. (2) There must be a real problem not just with airport security ineptitude but also with public perception of that if people are spending lots of money to convince me that the security is not a total joke. (3) If a sense of humor is required in order to fly, why don't Air Force officers act zanier? Is this why Jim Lovell was a Navy officer before he went around the Moon? In any case, his message was clear: If there's anything wrong with airport security, it's my own fault for being such a humorless bastard, even compared to an Apollo astronaut. Ohhhh, now I get it, that terrorist attack that killed three thousand people was supposed to lead to mirth galore at happy fun airports everywhere and the reason those guys in the adult-size Cub Scout uniforms are trying so ineptly to pretend that they now have good security is to give me the giggles. The commercial continued with several different flavors of propaganda packed into the last ten seconds: "In fact, improved security allows all of us to exercise our right to travel... It's a beautiful country, no matter how you see it. Help the economy! Have some fun! It's time to get going again! We've got a flight to catch! Follow me!" I thought the point of improved security was to allow fewer people to travel. Does he really expect me to believe the point of interrogating everyone is to then allow EVERYONE on board? "You have a bomb, but we're going to let you get on board anyway, because this is AMERICA!" Then there was that desperate plea for me to spend money on the airline industry, because if the economy collapses, it'll be all my fault for not flying as often as astronauts tell me to. The commercial ended with a card saying "Flight Plan For America: a campaign in the public interest supported by America's travel agents and airlines." A little research turned up a press release revealing that the commercial was paid for by the American Society of Travel Agents. Apparently it's in the public interest that everyone read the novelization of the hit movie based on Jim Lovell's autobiography. I don't know why after the card saying that this advertisement for the travel-agent industry was "in the public interest" they forgot to say "this commercial was not obvious propaganda" or at least "Jim Lovell does not look like Carl Reiner." Because anything becomes true if you show it on the screen after an astronaut gives you a stern talking-to. But yes, this was just like on Apollo 13 where, when the oxygen tanks got blown up, NASA dealt with it by ignoring the actual problem and airing a bunch of TV commercials telling me it was my patriotic duty to spend money and that NASA IS NOT A JOKE. Houston to Jim Lovell: Shut up, astro-hole. -- K. Instead of Jim Lovell complaining to me, why doesn't he go after the actual terrorists who caused the explosion on Apollo 13, like Jim Belushi?* *Do NOT try to watch "Disney's Rocket Man", but if you must, don't worry, you won't need to bring your sense of humor. It's 49% farts and 49% chimps and the remaining 2% is a jawdroppingly inappropriate scene in this kids' movie where we learn that Jim Belushi was solely responsible for causing the explosion on Apollo 13. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: More stoopid airport security Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 23:52:31 GMT Ben Allard (ballard@wpi.edu) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > So, Ben, why were you on an out-of-state field trip to gather > > paramecia for your junior high school science project? > > I told you, to drink Mr. Pibb! Well, why _are_ you drinking Mr. Pibb now that you've figured out that the secret ingredient is paramecia? Never drink anything that says "may contain up to 25% cilia and vacuoles" on the label, even if it's only in tiny print. In other bizarre airport security news: Andrew Pearson (apearson@pt.lu) pointed out Bob Greene's Chicago Tribune column describing how airport security confiscated an 86-year-old retired general's Congressional Medal Of Honor because they couldn't figure out what the star-shaped thing on the ribbon was (maybe a ninja throwing star with a convenient carrying strap?) -> -> "They just kept passing it around -- there were eight or nine or 10 of -> them who handled it before it was over," he said. -> -> "They had found it in my pocket at the airport, and they thought it was -> suspicious. It's shaped like a star, and they were looking at the metal -> edges of it, like it was a weapon. I asked for it back, but they kept -> handing it to each other and inspecting it. I was told to move to a -> separate area. -> -> "I told them -- just turn it over. The engraving on the back explains -> everything. But they thought they must have something potentially -> dangerous here. -> -> "I told them exactly what it was -- I said, 'That's my Congressional -> Medal of Honor.'" Security people are a lot like doctors in the emergency room. When you go in and they ask you, "What seems to be the problem?" if you try to diagnose your own symptoms ("Flames are coming out of my leg, I think this means I have third-degree burns") they'll block out the part of their brain that contains the same diagnosis just to show you that you're not qualified to make a diagnosis, and tell you your burning leg is just mild indigestion. If you tell airport security to look at the enrgaving on the back of your Medal of Honor, they'll think, "He wants me to turn it over, therefore, I better not turn it over! He must be up to something! He's trying to influence my actions, and in America, that's illegal!" From now on the engraving on the back of the Congressional Medal Of Honor will be accompanied by another one on the front saying "TURN MEDAL OVER." Also, the one on the back will say "THIS IS NOT A NINJA STAR AND THE 86-YEAR-OLD RETIRED GENERAL IS NOT A NINJA AND YOU ARE NOT VERY SMART." Except they'd forget to read the "TURN MEDAL OVER." part so there would be a second medal which says "INSTRUCTIONS: READ OTHER MEDAL," and to get them to read that it would say "READ THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS" above it, and they'd be accompanied by a third, smaller medal marked "READ THIS MEDAL FIRST" telling them to read the other two. And there would be a little cartoon of a happy, handsome guy reading the instructions, then there would be a picture of Goofus _not_ reading the instructions and getting yelled at by his elementary-school principal because he's in his underwear. At some airports, the airport authority hires the security bozos; at others the individual airlines hire the security bozos. In neither case do they seem to be hiring ones who are as intelligent as, for instance, Ritz Camera employees, let alone Taco Bell Express employees. I stand by my assertion that the purpose of these people is not to provide tight security, but to just hassle people enough to fool the general public into thinking that there's tight security. Airport security could actually be made somewhat less flaky, _and_ less of a hassle for the passengers, if someone would train these guys to follow a specific set of procedures instead of just hiring nitwits and letting them rely on their own guesses as to what's worrisome. -- K. I'm not saying all airport security guards in flashy paramilitary uniforms are stupid. I'm just saying all the ones I know about are stupid. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: The Closing and Clearance Sale of the American Mind Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 23:07:01 GMT S.J. Klein (eagle@agora.rdrop.com) wrote: > > So I was busy unsubscribing to a zillion newsgroups 'cos I haven > read news in a while and I use nn online and I haveta do it one > at a time (meaning its may actually be this and not my job that > finally gives me carpal tunnel) and I see all these "alt.bainaries.*" > groups. > > Got the usual stuff, including impudent misspellings of "blondes", > and then I got through that whole hierarchy level, and then I > realized there was no "alt.bainaries.barbara". > > Some new generation THIS is. The imminent death of usenet never > happened, and now it just doesn't matter. > > I feel so cheated. Well, you see, naked pictures of Barbara Bain were taken off the Internet after a series of scandals. First she got caught stalking Dick Van Dyke (she was last seen throwing shoes at his head.) Then, she worked briefly as a secret agent for the International Monetary Fund, but then she turned traitor and adopted a Russian accent and helped build a robotic basketball team that tried to overthrow the lawful democratic government of Gilligan's Island. Later, she snuck back into the United States and shredded the Constitition -- literally, as she made it into a blouse and then used profanity when she joined a cult led by Meathead. That's why the government passed a law making it illegal to distribute naked pictures of Barbara Bain or anyone else who acts like her. Especially if they act like she did on "Space: 1999". I still have the hots for her from the era when she threw footwear at Dick Van Dyke, though. Of course, that wasn't the first time she was competing with Mary Tyler Moore -- both women were on the 1959 TV series "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" but the rules of television back then required that Mary Tyler Moore only be photographed from the waist down, because she had such great legs, while Barbara Bain had such nicely-sculptured hair that they could only photograph her from angles that would best show off the angles in her hairdo. Barbara Bain's eternal hairdo is Eero Saarinen's finest work. The cheap imitation of it that Florence Henderson wore (in wig form) on the first season of "The Brady Bunch" didn't compare at all. Thankfully, Mrs. Brady eventually discovered her own special hairdo, and ever since then television has been blessed with two charming actresses who are recognizable by the shadows their hair casts. But you've gotta admit, the producers of "Space: 1999" (Gerry & Sylvia Anderson) must have done something to Barbara Bain right before making that show. Like, maybe they poured xylene into her coffee every morning. Or maybe she was just thinking "If I don't act, nobody will notice I'm in this awful show." I know of no other explanations as to why they could get such a bad performance from an actress who clobbered Dick Van Dyke in such a funny way. She can throw her shoes at me any day! Hollywood needs to get her more roles where she can do comedy. They'll probably have to, what with her being banned from pornography. -- K. And what about the time she got into that catfight with Mary Ann Mobley in one of those imaginary countries in Eastern Europe while Martin Landau was breaking out of jail? Barbara and Mary Ann created THE GREATEST DIVERSION EVER! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Going away for awhile... Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 23:15:41 GMT Alistair Gale (alistair@caribsurf.com) wrote: > > "Brack!" (tiki@iinet.net.au) wrote: > > > > I lost my camera during the trip, containing Kibo's worst fear, > > 'Okra', an indonesian restraunt specializing in... Okra dishes. > > Mmmm, slimey. > > Do you really mean that Okra is considered to be food in some > benighted corner of the world? Say it ain't so! My worst fear is not okra. I love okra! It's good pickled, or fried with curry breading, or boiled in gumbo. You've gotta watch out for its enslimening abilities, though, or it'll turn your soup into goop. My worst fear is losing my camera right before seeing a funny sign. -- K. Okra are sometimes called "lady-fingers" in Indian cuisine, but that doesn't mean you can substitute Twinkies. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Just Like Mom (was Double Dare) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 03:47:07 GMT Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > When I was a little kid I was really really scared of the guy in > > > the Quaker Oats logo. [...] But that was in the '70s, when that > > > logo became extremely stylized and there was only one level of > > > shading across half the guy's face and his hair was in perfect > > > little arcs from his head. What was going on in the '70s that > > > made a lot of companies create extremely stylized versions of > > > their traditional logos? > > > > I just want to know what will happen the _next_ time this happens -- > > what the Dolly Madison logo look like then? > > Oy, yeah, that was a little creepy too, although not nearly so much as > the little dotted-Y person in the gigantic United Way hand. Dolly Madison, incidentally, still exists (as a division of the Interstate Brands conglomerate, along with their former competitors Hostess and Drakes) but their logo got changed to a more "serious" one just saying "DOLLY MADISON BAKERIES" on a red background. (There's also a more minimalist one saying "DOLLY", but in both cases it's just text with a frame around it, no evil grinning fish-wimpled face.) Quaker Oats (now part of PepsiCo) also reverted to a more sophisticated version of their logo -- they brought back the painting of the smiling old gentleman (with only slight reworkings) instead of the weird high-contrast one-eyed glowing face coming at you out of the blackness. Now he looks genial instead of spooky. > [...] As a kid, I had these nightmares of Simplified Quaker Oats Man > attacking me with the inverted Maxwell House "good to the last drop" > coffee cup, or something like that. (Non-Simplified Quaker Oats Man > creeped me out a little bit too, because I believed that his puffy > white hair was actually aerosol whipped cream sprayed all over his head.) The big question is, did you find the concept of the elderly Quaker being gunged more scary or less scary than the idea of you being gunged? Now, please stand on that red "X" in the middle of the tarp and pull the rope above your head. > Also, remember Brim, the coffee whose slogan was "Fill It To The Rim > With Brim"? Some of my bizarre childhood dreams also involved a big > building of some sort that had the Brim logo on it. Kraft Foods seems to have discontinued Brim a long time ago. On the Web I can find no evidence that it ever existed (not even a picture of the logo anywhere) although www.Brim.com bounces me over to Kraft's site. Later I'll poke through Kraft's old annual reports to see if I can find a logo, because I don't remember what the Brim logo looked like. I just remember the weird supposedly funny non-joke in the commercial... "Fill it to the rim... WITH BRIM!" (all giggle as if on laughing gas) The women in that commercial must become incapacitated whenever they hear someone read a Dr. Seuss book aloud. They'd roll around on the floor guffawing and then someone would say, "HEY... THAT RHYMES!" and then they'd laugh even harder once they got it. > To this day, I don't know why I was so terrified of corporate logos > when I was a little kid, except that I figure it probably had something > to do with having been born in 1975. But that means you don't remember the greatest graphical nightmare our country has ever faced, the Bicentennial! Everything was covered with red, white, and blue rainbows, five-pointed stars with rounded corners, "1776" written in florid Seventies lettering, flags with Op Art instead of stripes, and more scary anthropomorphic mascots than if McDonalds held an Olympics in every city in the United States at the same time. I think there was also an Olympics at the same time as the Bicentennial, but my memory of everything else in 1976 has been blotted out by the Bicentennial and the complete conversion to the Metric system the United States was going to do next year and "W" was a vowel that year and it was okay to count on our fingers but only if we came up with a Korean name for it ("Chisanbop"). Remember than in 1976, only the bad parts of Seventies pop culture had happened -- "Space: 1999" was on TV -- but the most influential and memorable and better stuff hadn't happened yet. "Star Wars" and "Saturday Night Fever" were still a year away. We had "Pong", but not "Space Invaders". 1976 was the focal point of all bad pop culture in America. The early 1970s (which were really the late 1960s) were mellow and groovy in a rather tame way, and the late 1970s weren't all that different from the 1980's and 1990's, but the little zone between 1975 and 1977 was the most shameful period in the history of cheeziness. To learn more about how the country went absolutely wacko during the Bicentennial to prove that America was perfect again now that Watergate and the Vietnam war were fading away from the news, rent the movie "Spirit Of '76", the one I mentioned earlier today where Barbara Bain swears at Meathead. Plus it's got that Partridge Family guy and Carl Reiner as The 200-Year-Old Man. The movie also gives equal screen time to a cameo by Devo and a cameo by a banana-seat bicycle. It's sort of like if "Wayne's World" featured has-been TV stars shouting "SCHWINN!" -- K. We must remember the Bicentennial to prevent it from ever happening again. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Just Like Mom (was Double Dare) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 05:13:38 GMT Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I think there was also an Olympics at the same time as the Bicentennial, > > but my memory of everything else in 1976 has been blotted out by > > the Bicentennial and the complete conversion to the Metric system > > the United States was going to do next year and "W" was a vowel that > > year and it was okay to count on our fingers but only if we came up > > with a Korean name for it ("Chisanbop"). Remember than in 1976, only > > Either you went to a school for people behind the times, or the > Bicentennial took several years to flow down the Hudson. The last time > we had "sometimes 'y' and 'w'" down here was in 1971, and I'm sure I > learned chisanbop along with WFF'n'Proof and TriOminoes in 1973, and the > metric conversion was impending in 1974. Holy cow, you're right. I remembered the metric and "w" and Chisanbop stuff happening around the time I was in first and second grade, but for some reason I thought I was in first grade in 1976, which would have meant that I would have been left back about three years in a row, which we all know could never happen because I'm really smart even if I forget how old I am sometimes. In any case, this proves my point: The Bicentennial was so horrifying that it caused me to forget that the period from 1973 to 1976 ever existed. But I still stand by my assertion that we didn't have anything good in 1976, like "Space Invaders". The fact that we didn't have stupid stuff like Chisanbop in 1976 in no way impairs my belief that we had no good stuff then, because there was plenty of other stupid stuff for us to have instead. It was nothing but the Bicentennial, all year. -- K. The Bicentennial even prompted Isaac Asimov to write a lame, sappy movie for Robin Williams, before he died of AIDS. (Asimov, not Williams. Robin Williams is scheduled to die of accidental strangulation when trying to put on his rainbow suspenders for a performance of "Shazbot!: The Musical" in 2008 where he will be understudying Carrot Top, who replaced Jim Carrey after Carrey was killed by a sassy robot.) ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: TV Midseason Clogged With Failures / TV Ratings [Apr 9] Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 05:01:26 GMT For the Associated Press (via ClariNet), David Bauder wrote: > > NEW YORK (AP) -- Done in by viewer indifference last week, > Sally Field's ABC Supreme Court drama and CBS' reality series about > fighter pilots were two of the latest midseason shows to be yanked > from the air. How dare they cancel these shows before I've even heard of them! > Television's second season has produced no breakout hits and > several high-profile failures. > Field's "The Court," sent on hiatus after three airings, was > troubled from the start. It was sent back for rewriting -- never a > good sign -- and didn't make it on the air until after CBS' Supreme > Court drama, "First Monday." > Ironically, "The Court," with 7.9 million viewers Tuesday, > drew more than "First Monday" (6.3 million) last week. But the CBS > show aired on Friday, when expectations are lower because it's one > of the least-watched nights of the week. Maybe they should have merged the two shows into one flop I hadn't considered watching. Then at least it would just be derivative of itself instead of each other. > "AFP: American Fighter Pilot" was pushed into production on > CBS to capitalize on the nation's new patriotic spirit. But it had > only 3.8 million viewers last week -- easily CBS' least popular show > -- and was grounded after two airings. If I had heard of it, I would have assumed it was about a tawdry French news service that was obsessed with Dracula. > ABC's "Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central)" was shelved after its > second airing last week, I guess now I'm the only viewer to have seen every episode of that one. You may recall I said the first episode was very bad, except for a few of Ed Begley Jr.'s facial expressions. Well, the second one was a distinct improvement over the pilot -- the laugh track was only about 100 decibels instead of 300. And the "A" plot of the episode was clever and edgy -- John Ritter asks a network executive to dispose of a corpse he ran over with his car and decides the TV exec is unusually ethical because he agrees to help drag the body into the fireplace but not chop him up for John Ritter, television's most evil guest star. But the "B" plot pretty much cancelled out any with the "A" plot had -- a chimp got loose in Ed Begley, Jr.'s office and messed up the network schedule, and John Cleese boredly said it was an improvement. The "B" plot almost rose to the level of humor of Disney's "The Barefoot Executive" (in which a chimp predicted "The Mod Squad" and "Mission: Impossible" would get good ratings) but misbehaving chimps don't belong in good parodies of television. This is because chimps only show up in bad parodies of bad television, in much the same way that people wearing silver capes with giant shoulder pads only show up in bad parodies of science fiction, not actual bad science fiction. In other words, what was supposed to be a satire of everything else on TV sank to a level below what they thought they were making fun of. I'm surprised the chimp didn't talk. So I'm sorry for Mr. Begley that his show got canned so fast, but at least John Cleese will be dancing around the neighborhood happy that nobody will ever have to see the other four episodes he was forced to appear in against his will. > and Fox's "American Embassy," another show that suffered through > a fruitless reworking, also got the hook. Never heard of it either. I also wouldn't have heard of "Wednesdays 9:30 (8:30 Central)" if it hadn't been for Ed Begley Jr.'s Web site, where he mentioned that he had filmed a pilot called "The Web", and I did some research on that title because I was hoping it would be a show making fun of bad Web sites, and some other site told me the title was changed to the really forgettable one and then I found ABC's Web site advertising it. The Web site advertising the show was more clever the show, and ABC clearly didn't feel like advertising it on their own TV network. The third episode, which won't air, was scheduled for tonight: -> April 10, 2002, Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central) -> "Chinese Baby" -> After being told by her therapist that she has a lot of -> love to give, Lindsay takes a grandiose step and adopts a -> Chinese baby. Meanwhile, when the network invokes a cover -> story to conceal a very unorthodox weight-loss method used -> on an actress, David takes it upon himself to tell her the -> truth; and Paul struggles to find the perfect gift for a -> difficult star (Lisa Rinna, Melrose Place). > They join the graveyard of failed midseason shows, which > also include ABC's "The Chair" and Fox's similar "The Chamber," and > the WB's "My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star." Never heard of the third one, but the first two just struck me as having no real target audience because they involved obviously fake torture as their gimmick. If you think game shows that torture people are stupid, you wouldn't watch, and if you think torture is fun, you wouldn't watch these lame fake shows. (Same goes for MTV's "Kidnapped", where they claim they're torturing people by making them walk around in their underwear on TV and drawing fake tattoos on their body with a felt-tip marker.) > One midseason show that has done unexpectedly well is CBS' > "Baby Bob." Like NBC's "Leap of Faith," it has been helped by its > placement on the network's most popular night of programming. And let's not forget to thank Satan, Bob. There can't be any other reason the bad sitcom about the talking baby (with the really fake-looking lips) scored in the top 20 shows not just for its debut but also for the next two episodes. Black magic and demonic forces must be involved somehow. Sure, computer graphics can make the baby talk. But the computer couldn't make people watch. Only sorcery could do that. After all, the other times this sort of show has been tried ("Baby Talk") nobody watched, so clearly there's an external factor at work here... A FACTOR OF EEEEVIL. -- K. Has anyone checked the baby for a "666" birthmark yet? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Apologies Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 06:20:19 GMT Lots42 (lots42@aol.com) wrote: > > Sorry for not stating right away that it was an MRI scan in my 'Hospital' > post. I seem to have scared some people. The results came back and I'm ok. Oh. Now I wonder if VeriSign will refund my money for registering HowDareLots42GoToTheHospitalWithoutGivingUsFullDetailsOfHisPotentiallyLife- ThreateningAndOrPrivatelyEmbarassingMedicalPsychologicalOrSexualProblem.Com. I'm glad to hear you're okay, but next time you're under general anaesthetic, you should have someone with you at all times operating a WebCam and taking QuickTime VR 360-degree pictures of the dark spaces inside any piece of machinery you're inserted into, and also some 360-degree pictures inside you. It's very important for you to keep us informed about all the gory details. How many Band-Aids of each size are in your medicine cabinet, and what are their expiration dates? I need to know for this graph I'm making for the new full-color comic-book-style Wall Street Journal. They said they were going to bump the eleventeen-color weather map from tomorrow's edition if I can get the scoop on your Band-Aid count. Also, could you please drink some of my leftover Citroma? -- K. And remember: Cadillac... Rocking Chair... Cincinnati. 52. The lion. Al Gore. That's all you need to know to avoid any damage from a head injury. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: If this aint kibological... Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 06:44:20 GMT Nicko (nervousnick2002@yahoo.com) wrote: > > Very Short Dream Description: > > I was looking at a sort of mandala thingie upon which was represented > each sign of the zodiac. > > One of the zodiac signs was--horror of horrors!--Orbitz, I shite you not! > Fortunately, this awakened me. > > Must. Change. Prescription. How much Orbitz did your doctor prescribe? You know you're not supposed to get the bottles refilled any more, right? Now when you take one of the bottles to Orbitz.com they just try to jam you into a crate to get you on a cheap airline that's not certified to take human passengers. -- K. Now that they don't make it any more, I need to look into making my own from water and tapioca pudding. But how do I make it taste flatter than regular water? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: FBI Lists Truck Bomb Warning Signs Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 07:37:13 GMT The Associated Press (via ClariNet) wrote: > > Subject: FBI Lists Truck Bomb Warning Signs An orange diamond with a stick figure getting blown up by a cartoon truck? > WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI listed warning signs Thursday that > might indicate plans by terrorists to detonate a truck bomb, but it > did not suggest any specific threats of truck bombs have been made > in the United States. If the terrorists try to alarm the public by issuing a vague hint there might be truck bombings here, it's a "threat". If the FBI tries to alarm the public by issuing a vague hint there might be truck bombings here, it's a "warning". > The warning was published on the FBI's Internet site and > e-mailed to thousands of companies Thursday "in an abundance of > caution," FBI spokeswoman Debra Weireman said. > Labeled "for informational purposes only," and "Here is the information you requested" and "To be removed from our opt-in list, call this overseas 900 number" > the warning urged citizens to be alert for these signs, which it said > might indicate plans for detonation of a truck bomb: People running away from a truck that's ticking? > --Theft of chemicals or explosives. > --Theft of respirators or chemical-mixing devices. Why would terrorists steal dust masks and a yardstick to stir with when they could get them at Home Depot? It's not like those are the expensive parts of the bomb compared to the explosives or the truck. And don't tell me they don't have Home Depot stores in parts of the world where things blow up every day, because where else could they buy enough duct tape to put the city back together every time it gets blown up? > --Rental of storage space for chemicals. But the human body is made of chemicals! All the customers of Motel 6 are terrorists! > --Delivery of chemicals to storage spaces. > --Theft of a van or truck capable of carrying more than one ton. > --Chemical fires or toxic odors in apartments, hotel rooms or > self-storage units. Is that why Calumet Market went out of business? After all, it smelled so awful, they must have been terrorists! > --Small explosions in wooded areas, which could be bomb tests. How do they tell the difference between a tree falling over where nobody hears it and a tree blowing up where nobody hears it? > --Reports of hospital patients suffering losses of fingers or hands. U.S. GOVERNMENT DECLARES WAR ON MOLOKAI FATHER DAMIEN CAPTURED, FOUND HIDING IN U.S. CAPITOL DISGUISED AS REFRIGERATOR (And on page 17, JAMES DOOHAN ELECTROCUTED BY TALKING CAR.) > --Chemical burns or severed hands that remain untreated. That sentence allows them to detain both Captain Scarlet and Thing. > --Surveillance of potential targets. Everyone, keep your eye on the nuclear reactor, and report anyone who looks at it! > --Efforts to obtain blueprints of potential targets. > The warning was published on the Web site of the FBI's > National Infrastructure Protection Center, responsible for > protecting the nation's most important computer networks and > physical infrastructures, such as power plants or telephone towers. Don't forget the continental plate. Evil people could just yank it out from under us and we'd all fall into the Earth's molten core. Is anyone keeping an eye on our continental plate? > "There's no indication that something might happen," said > Weireman, the FBI spokeswoman. "We have reached out to the community > to be on the lookout." Yes, the general public must always strive to protect the FBI. It's just too bad there's no government agency whose job it is to protect the public... -- K. There should be a show starring James Doohan, Captain Scarlet, and Thing. I'm not sure what it would be called, or why anyone would put it on TV, but I want it. And every Hanukkah they could paint Hebrew letters on Father Damien and spin him around while singing the dreidel song! For those of you who don't know why I think Father Damien is so square, visit the U.S. Capitol: http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/damien.htm ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Now, where the hell is Plutonium Drive? Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 21:34:02 GMT > > "extempore" (extempore@myrealbox.com) wrote: > > > > > > Archimedes Ave. is only a few blocks east of here! Well, that gives you just enough time to take all your clothes off when you're running over to it to shout "Eureka!" "Half-a-buck Dharma" (eagle@agora.rdrop.com) wrote: > > Jonathan Benne (jdb@student.unimelb.edu.auy) wrote: > > > > All right already! Stop nagging me! Yes, I WILL go to Cranbourne and > > take photos of Kibo Court one day! Yeesh. > > That would make such a cool show. Kibo Court. Way better than The People's > Court, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Judy, and Judge Hatchett. > > Combined. It would have to air back to back with Archimedes Plutonium's Science Dungeon, where all those evil people like Einstein go for daring to come up with counter-arguments for Archie's theories before he's even been born. So, I'd put people on trial for doing things like mixing two different sizes of letters on the black ridgey signboard outside the movie theater, and then we'd turn them over to Archie for torture. Except that unlike "The Chair" and "The Chamber" where they were doing obviously fake serious torture, Archie would provide obviously real but non-serious torture, like singing his Plutonium Hymns to them. > > (I think Kibo Ct is the only street in the Melway to have the font > > squished in such an ugly way. Oh the poetic justice.) All those who squish fonts would be forced to eat nothing but squished food, such as Moon Pies sat on by Archimedes Plutonium. And as for poetic justice, criminals would have to listen to dramatic readings of "Ozymandias" by Emerson College freshmen, accompanied by the music of Archimedes Plutonium playing with the buttons on his microwave. -- K. And precisely once per episode Sammy Davis Jr. would show up in a judge's wig asking, "What's a Melway?" and then there would be a panel discussion of how to spell the title of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" but we'd play the tape of the panel discussion at double speed. And cartoon chipmunks would run across the bottom of the screen, and occasionally a Whammy would steal everyone's money but mine. Imaginary TV is fun! There should be a whole network just for imaginary TV! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Now, where the hell is Plutonium Drive? Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:18:28 GMT Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > All those who squish fonts would be forced to eat nothing but squished > > food, such as Moon Pies sat on by Archimedes Plutonium. > > What about people who use sideways movable Z's as N's? They'd be taught the difference between PEN and PEZ in a very painful manner. And if they fell asleep and snored "NNNNNN", we'd use a cattle prod to teach them the difference between ZAP and NAP. > Also, pretty much the only time it's acceptable to pluralize > with an apostrophe is when you're referring to a letter, and > also maybe to abbreviations that are not acronyms, or something. Z's, "Z"s, I say they're both okay ways to say zeez. -- K. And if they don't know the difference between pince-NEZ and ZEN, then Buddha will sit on their nose until both are enlightened. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 22:47:44 GMT "Talysman the Ur-Beatle" (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > it's always fun when media companies get into a sissyfight > over who is allowed to say what... > > [http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Exclusive/0,4029,681812,00.html] > > -> SESAME STREET LEGAL: FURORE OVER BERT AND ERNIE GAY FLICK > -> > -> Lawyers acting for the beloved kids' show Sesame Street > -> have targeted director Peter Spears over his short film, > -> Ernest and Bertram, which depicts the show's puppet stars > -> Bert and Ernie as gay lovers. > -> > -> ABC News reports that Spears' film, which screened at > -> Sundance this year, takes the form of a mockumentary and > -> ends with Ernie committing suicide. But the Children's > -> Television Workshop - the folks behind Sesame Street - > -> are objecting to Spears' portrait of their child-like, > -> bickering muppets as angst-ridden homosexuals. > > oh, sure, they don't object to ernie committing suicide, > but they object to him lisping! how are parents going to > explain THAT to their children? "look, mary anne! ernie > is hanging from a light fixture with his tongue hanging > out all purple and swollen! but at least he's not gay!" I figured the "Sesame Street" producers were only upset about the "angst-ridden" part. Everyone knows Ernie's gay (Bert's bi.) I mean, you've never seen Ernie sleeping with a woman, right? Therefore, he must be gay! > I'm glad CTW is going after people making fun of their > puppets, because this means next they will sue "greg the > bunny" for their count bleh character, thus making "greg > the bunny" a true-life story! and also, this will attract > the attention of universal studios, which INVENTED dracula, > and jack valenti will sue CTW! and possibly everyone else! > > anyone want to take bets on which game show host will be > the first to sue CTW for "guy smiley"? I think Guy Smiley will sue Don Music first. Also the producers of "Sesame Street" will sue Don Music for writing that wacky parody of the "Sesame Street" theme song. I'm told they stopped making Don Music sketches because every one of them ended with him banging his face against the piano keys as hard as he could over and over, but note that they kept showing the existing Don Music segments, leading to an entire generation of kids with negative images of piano keys where their faces should be. Even when I was a kid, I wasn't fooled into thinking Don Music and Guy Smiley were different puppets, just because one wore a wig and the other wore a toupee. Also, the producers of "Sesame Street" should sue these CTW people who claim to be the producers of "Sesame Street". The producers have been named Sesame Workshop for a few years, possibly because they realized that all their other shows sucked. But their name still includes "Workshop" because "Sesame Street" is still made in a basement by sweaty guys in tool belts. They were going to change the name to "Sesame Factory" but they decided to stick with the hand-crafted appeal of "Sesame Workshop". > -> Gossip about the private life of the pointy-headed, > -> pedantic Bert and the benign, cuddly Ernie is nothing new. Wait... do they get a different "Sesame Street" in England? Over here, Ernie is pure unadulterated evil! It's hardly benign how he keeps tricking Bert and eating cookies in Bert's bed and stuff. Cuddly, maybe, benign, no. Ernie represents destruction, trickery, and the sowing of cookie crumbs in other people's beds! I suppose that England does get a different "Sesame Street", where instead of having one Spanish word every day, it has one American word every day. There's probably one Muppet named Bud who keeps saying "elevator" and "truck" and "President". And don't get me started on the weird Canadian version of "Sesame Street". > -> Back in 1993, CTW even went so far as to issue a statement > -> which appeared to insist that the duo were red-blooded > -> Sesame straights: "Bert and Ernie, who've been on Sesame Street > -> for 25 years, do not portray a gay couple, and there are no > -> plans for them to do so in the future. They are puppets, not humans." That's right, all puppets are inherently straight. Puppets are never gay. ...but don't tell Wayland Flowers! > -> But the revelations peddled in Spears' mockumentary is > -> just the latest in a run of bizarre stories swirling > -> around the ill-fated muppets. Late last year, Bert > -> achieved a notoriety his creators could never have > -> envisiaged when he became the unwitting star of the spoof > -> Bert is Evil website, which portrayed the pointy one as > -> a machiavellian genius who consorted with Jerry Springer > -> and the Ku Klux Klan. > > the bert is evil website showed bert with hitler, osama bin > laden, and all sorts of evil people, and the first name that > comes to mind (for the guardian) is: jerry springer. And also they seem to have missed that that site has been up for about five or six years. (Last year, a pro-Taliban rally in some bizarro place like Bangladesh had people carrying signs with the picture of Bin Laden and Bert, because they were too clueless to realize it was a picture which made Bin Laden look gay.) > and also, I would like to point out that USaians other > than gary gygax or george will would never use the word > "envisiaged". I don't think Gary Gygax is a real American. After all, his name has two Y's and one X. His name is only barely within the bounds of what can be made in Scrabble (which has two Y's and one X, not unlike Jamie Lee Curtis) and is clearly made-up just to make him sound evil and demonic. Like Marilyn Manson or Andy Rooney. He doesn't have a typical American name like Bud and probably doesn't use the words "elevator", "truck", or "President" in conversation. Also, I agree with you, George Will won't but George Won't will. Plus he called that you were in a boomerang zone with no givebacks so for the rest of the day you have to be backwards. > -> At one stage, the muppet even became the focus for anti-US > -> protests in the wake of September 11. Apparently inspired > -> by the website, thousands of pro-Taliban protesters in > -> Bangladesh brandished placards which featured the hapless > -> Bert superimposed alongside President Bush. > > uh, what? > > I don't remember this happening at all. Me neither. Are English newspapers covering news from the other universe now? > what I remember is that people in bangladesh downloaded > a bunch of pictures of osama bin laden, including one from > a "bert is evil" website that showed bert standing next > to osama. Yay! I am corroborated! Happy Corroboration Day to me! > which is why the guardian know about the "bert is evil" website ... > but apparently they have forgotten why they know this. After enough exposure to newspaper Web sites, I've forgotten why I know anything. Assuming I do. > however, I fully expect people to rewrite their memories > to be consistent with the guardian's revised history. The worst thing about the Guardian is that their reporters all wear overalls with pink and white stripes, just like Andy Panda. (Degree of difficulty: 9.3 for normal humans, 7.1 for nerds.) -- K. Also, the Guardian's articles all have the sentences "Eldrad must live!" and "Welcome datacomp!" in every fifth paragraph. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:01:20 GMT "Talysman the Ur-Beatle" (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Ernie represents destruction, trickery, and the sowing of > > cookie crumbs in other people's beds! > > there's also the evil poking. I swear there was one sesame street segment > which consisted solely of ernie yelling "pokey pokey pokey" and jamming his > fingers into bert's ribs. which doesn't sound very hetero to me. This was, of course, a "Gumby" reference, because Bert's a pony-boy. > > And don't get me started on the weird Canadian version of > > "Sesame Street". > > too late! I hear the canadian television workshop has already drawn up your > contract! now you will have to spend every sunday morning training children > to say "aboot". And they'd have to count all the way to "toonie". It would be a short show. > > [...] > > I don't think Gary Gygax is a real American. [...] > > He doesn't have a typical American name like Bud and probably doesn't > > use the words "elevator", "truck", or "President" in conversation. > > the correct gygaxian terms for these are: > > Tenser's Vertical Contraption > Mordenkainen's Consumptive Conveyor > Nystul's Electoral Magisterate > > oh, and please insert the words "dweomer" and "demesne" into my previous > post seven times each thanx. You know what's sad about this? "Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie" was so awful that it would have actually been _improved_ if they gave Gary Gygax complete creative control and it filled up with dweomers. There should be a "Dungeons & Dragons & Perry Rhodan" crossover story, so that Gary Gygax's dweomers could wind up "In The Land Of The Dreemer" (Perry Rhodan "magabook" #666's title, from the original German edition #674, "Im Land der Dreemer". I think the reason the numbers were scheduled to mismatch by #666 was because there were some they had to leave out -- because the originals were German, they must have been filled with perverted stuff, especially pony-boys -- and they certainly would have had to skip #664, "Tunnel durch die Zeit", which would translate as "The Time Tunnel", and then kids everywhere would have their brains overstimulated by the "Dungeons & Dragons & Perry Rhodan & The Time Tunnel" crossover, in which Gary Gygax's ghost would get into a fistfight with Buddha, or something. But the dweomers-Dreemers crossover would still be a worthwhile effort. Unless I'm confused, but I remember once looking in the back of "magabook" #66 and seeing a note from Forrest Ackerman that said "IN 600 ISSUES... 'IN THE LAND OF THE DREEMER'!" and I made a mental note of that because of what the Bible said about the world blowing up if Perry Rhodan #666 is ever published in English. Last I heard, Forry was hospitalized for a blood clot in his brain (a few weeks after I gave him some rare chocolate Necco wafers); I hope he gets better. You've gotta love anyone who has Pulgasari standing in a corner of his basement. And he lets people look at it FOR FREE! (I left a donation, plus the Necco wafers.) -- K. P.S. What does any of this have to do with Gay Bert? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:06:23 GMT Poot Rootbeer (poot@dork.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > And don't get me started on the weird Canadian version of "Sesame Street". > > Hey, how aboat that Canadian version of Sesame Street, eh? Well, the main problem with "Canadian Sesame Street" (now called "Sesame Park", I believe, the remove the stigma of it being Canadian) is just "Sesame Street" with all the wrong Muppets. Like an otter Muppet and a beaver Muppet and there's a French word once in a while. Or so I've heard. I've never gone to Canada just to watch "Sesame Street", and "Canadian Sesame Street" seems to not be available on home video from any of the retailers I just checked -- although I definitely did see a videotape in Blockbuster once which was definitely from the weird Canadian version of "Sesame Street". (It said "Canadian" in really microscopic letters above the fuzzy moose and Quebecois knight and the other slightly ethnic Muppets. By the way, when did they have knights in Canada? I thought they had progressed from feudalism to Mounties.) Incidentally, why didn't anyone tell me I should be mail-ordering my DVDs from Canadian retailers instead of American ones? I heard that there were some "Lexx" DVDs available only in Canada ("Lexx" was a Canadian-German- British-taxwriteoff production, so I guess the early episodes are only sold in Canada because Canadians like anything made by Canadians) and while I was shopping around sites like CDplus.com (which had the best prices, but the smallest selection and least verbose descriptions) I noticed that almost any movie for sale in the US is for sale in Canada at lower prices. (God bless Canada's 62% exchange rate.) My understanding is that Canada and the United States are cross-compatible when it comes to DVDs -- because both countries are in Region 1 and both countries use NTSC televisions -- so I'm guessing the differences are solely that the DVDs will have a tiny maple leaf on the back of the package, and a smaller amount of royalties will go to the Canadian distributor instead of the American distributor. Oh, and instead of being in "full color" the picture will be in "all dressed colour". Is there any reason I shouldn't be buying all my DVDs from Canada? Are they so cheap because they're covered in Canadian Cooties or something? Also, what else is there that is available _only_ in such Canadian editions? I'd like to know what else is missing from my complete collection of all movies ever. (Sure, there are plenty of American DVDs I don't own, but I don't particularly miss them. I'm just curious if there's anything else interesting that's available only in Canada.) And why has all evidence of "Canadian Sesame Street" been removed from all stores everywhere? Could someone please tell me where to get "Canadian Sesame Street" reruns just so that I could choose not to buy them? -- K. They should sell a DVD boxed set with one episode of every foreign version of "Sesame Street", even the ones from evil countries. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: The Kubrick Elevator Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:11:42 GMT Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I formulated my theory of disturbing movies. There is good disturbing > > and there is bad disturbing. If the disturbing things about the movie > > just make you question the filmmaker's motives, that is bad disturbing. > > If they make you question YOUR OWN motives, that is good disturbing. > > Okay, but I'm not sure which bucket _Death Race 2000_ fits into. Good movies don't fit into buckets. Really good movies won't even fit into bathtubs. Heck, I have the Criterion Collection release of "Brazil" where the DVDs are in a box that won't even fit in my house, I have to keep it outdoors. However, if there was a way of using a centrifuge to separate Ib Melchior from the rest of the people involved in the original "Death Race 2000", I'd put Ib Melchior in the bozo bucket. Nothing personal, it's just that I've seen everything else he's ever done. Oh, and if Roger Corman could be extracted, he'd go into a really cheap bucket where they stopped making it before it had a bottom. But all the other people involved with "Death Race 2000" get special candy-striped bonus points for managing to make a movie with a concept that ridiculous turn out to be actual entertainment. The remake of "Death Race 2000" probably won't even deserve a bucket, unless you count a toilet as a kind of bucket. (flushing noise, accompanied by shouts of "Hey! I was trying to watch that!") This is because there's never been a remake that deserved a better bucket than the original. All this assumes you like to be disturbed, of course. Please vote NOW on whether you should be more disturbed or less disturbed by the remake of "Brazil" I'm giving Hollywood the idea to make right NOW. -- K. So, if David Fincher and Chuck Palahniuk got into a bare-knuckle fistfight, how long would it take for Palahniuk to lose? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: I want more Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 23:33:55 GMT In sci.physics, Kurt Stocklmeir (kurtstocklmeir@worldnet.att.net) wrote: > > [...] > > I have driven math girl insane and I am trying to drive her more insane. Well, don't try to take credit for my insanity! I was insane before you ever started talking to me. > I talked to her a lot about how numbers and math are fake and girls and boys > use numbers and math to talk about what is going on. Was this before or after you said "Mathematics proves I have to kiss your legs right now!"? > [...much stuff about God and cosmic rays elided...] > > A lot of light can make a star blow up. A lot of fusion could make a star > blow up. The U.S. is trying to make fusion bombs using emp bombs. An emp > bomb blows up. Yeah, but first it charges you $20 to walk around the little blob-shaped museum trying to get the needlessly complicated and oh-so-heavy Microsoft brand computer hanging from your shoulder to explain why the EMP keeps telling you that you can "play" all the guitars when really all you can do is push the "play" button on the little computer while looking at a guitar through bulletproof glass. At least I did eventually figure out that the EMP's logo was a guitar pick because there was no music before Les Paul and Leo Fender invented the guitar in the 1940s. That's about all I learned at the Experience Music Project, except I also learned that too many people have done parodies of Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream And Other Delights". Oh, and real rappers "scratch" by using Fisher-Price style fake turntables with Automatic Simulated Scratchin' Action. -- K. I wish Kurt would start a museum. I'd pay $20 to go on any sort of simulator ride that would take me inside the mind of Kurt Stocklmeir. Even if it made me throw up. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: FDA Says Nicotine Lollipops Illegal Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:23:20 GMT For the Associated Press (via ClariNet) Lauran Neergaard wrote: > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration cracked > down on sellers of nicotine-laced lollipops and lip balm Wednesday, > declaring them illegal and ordering that three pharmacies stop sales > immediately. > The lollipops in particular pose a risk to children because > they look like regular candy, the FDA warned. Yeah, but what kid wants "regular" candy these days? They all want things that look like a bag of wet blue intestines or something else equally gross, like Jar Jar's tongue. > "The quantity of nicotine could be potentially dangerous to > a small child," said FDA attorney David Horowitz. So why don't they ban regular cigarettes because they look just like candy cigarettes? > The FDA determined that the lollipops and lip balm are being > promoted as smoking-cessation aids, which under federal law renders > them drugs -- and the agency must approve drugs before they sell. Fortunately, the manufacturers of nicotine-filled lollipops will be able to get around this rule by claiming that nicotine is a vitamin supplement. > Pharmacists can "compound" drugs, mixing up medications in > different forms to make them easier for patients to use. But the > lollipops and lip balm contain a form of nicotine never tested for > safety and thus not legal to compound. Pharmacists can make drugs into lollipops? Hot damn! The next time my dentist gives me a prescription for a painkiller I'm gonna demand it in the form of a delicious sugar lollipop. > Horowitz urged smokers who bought the products to switch to > FDA-approved nicotine gum, patches or other smoking-cessation aids, > which contain a different form of nicotine. ...or just go back to smoking nice safe cigarettes! > [...] > > The Compounding Pharmacy also quit sales Wednesday, although > owner Larry Frieders said, "I still think the lollipop is a great idea." > When a customer mentioned that it's hard to suck a lollipop > in church, Frieders created the lower-dose lip balm: "Licking your > lips can help you lick the habit," his Web site advertised. I predict that we'll soon see nicotine-flavored edible underwear. I will not attempt to predict the slogan. -- K. Also, do nicotine lollipops come in clown-size? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Hey kids! Stale, deformed bagels are funny! Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 04:08:43 GMT To compete with the major brands of "Mommy just doesn't care any more" boxed lunches for kids -- such as Oscar Mayer Lunchables -- someone's come out with an almost-kosher alternative: Funny Bagels. (They're not actually kosher, but they do claim to be bagels, which makes them at least slightly more ethnic than Oscar Mayer's Cheez-Whiz-And-Crackers combos.) And they're not even bagels either. Real bagels are circular, about five inches across, with a hole in the middle. Funny Bagels are shaped like this: ############################ ############################### ################################ ############################### ######### ############################### ################################ ############################### ############################ (actual size) They're just tiny breadsticks folded in half. You get two of them in a box, which is almost enough to construct a whole miniature bagel. And, of course, they're refrigerated not-so-fresh bagels with a texture not unlike cold, damp leather. My supermarket was out of Funny Bagels Ham, so I tried the Funny Bagels PB&J, which included a tiny amount of peanut butter and jelly, a tube of squirtable pink yogurt, a little box of juice, and two fortune cookies. No, wait, those were the Funny Bagels. Putting it all together allowed me to get a small amount of cold undernourishment, almost as good as if I had spread a teaspoon of peanut butter and a teaspoon of jelly on one slice of bread manufactured last month. Bleh. (They apparently sell a "Kosherbles PB&J" box which is exactly the same except for a Fruit Roll-Up instead of the yogurt. But I'm sure Kosherbles are still bles.) But the real horror of Funny Bagels is not the awful substitute for actual bagels... the real horror is the mascot on the package. Start with a regular real normal round bagel. Now cut it in half so you get a "U" shape. Okay, now add two huge feet to it (give one foot yellow skin and the other brown skin to indicate multiculturality.) Now add two bendy arms, ending in hands of vastly different sizes. For a face, draw a grin that covers most of the "U" shape, with a big wet tongue sticking out. The eyes need to be bright red with thick black rings around them for extra evilness, and giant bushy black eyebrows to accentuate it further. Finally, seven globs of fluorescent orange lava have to be flying out of his mouth at you. I swear I am describing the front of this box as accurately as I can. There's a slightly less scary version of the thing (with a consistent fleshtone and no spurts of flying lava) dancing spastically on their Web site, which is mainly devoted to plugging an on-line bank for kids (I don't even want to think about how evil that could get.) Almost everything you can click on bounces you over to funnybanking.bittime.com, and I predict that no matter how many times you read this sentence you will think the bank is named "BiteMe.com". The "Play Games" link at the bank goes to a page with nothing but the words "In this page..." on it. The bagels come with a chance to win a free Playstation 2, but you have to open a bank account to see if you won. Opening the account requires giving them both the child's and parent's E-mail addresses. This is the first time, to my knowledge, a crappy fake convenience food product has been designed solely to promote spam. Oh, nuts. I told them Spot was two years old (that's the youngest the popup menu of birth years allowed) and they sent his disposable E-mail address a form which Spot's Mommy or Daddy needs to sign and _fax_ to them. And I don't feel like doing that. I'll tell them Spot's now thirteen, because they say he has to be 13 or over to use their stupid site by himself. This is a lot of work just to redeem my 100 Funny Money points which work just like cash in that I can get a *F*R*E*E* PlayStation 2 by just sending them 25,000 Funny Money points and 600 box tops. The top prize is a Sony "Aibo" robotic dog for 50,000 points and 2,500 box tops. Note that these box tops have to be collected by February 20, 2002, so there's little chance of me being able to travel back in time ten years to eat one of these every day until last month. Assuming, of course, that they're not lying about having any of these unclaimable prizes available. I don't remember how much this box cost, but it was probably about three bucks, so that means that for only $1,800 (and a time machine) I could get a PlayStation 2 and lots of spam. For $7,500 (and a time machine big enough to hold my weight in box tops, and postage for same) I could get the toy dog. Fortunately, there's also an instant-win wheel-spin that happens when I type in the magic code number that tells them how old the bagel I just ate was. (I'm guessing it was made before February 20.) Okay, I typed in the magic code "V3V3YNUM" and now to find out whether or not I won I have to wait a few minutes for it to load some animation named "SpinToWin_lose.swf". Gosh, I hope I win. Oh no! I lost! The scary red-eyed mutilated bagel monster with one brown foot is crying! Little blue tears are coming out of him instead of orange gobs of whatever that other stuff was! Well, that means it's time to turn off Spot's E-mail accounts, both the one he had when he was 2 and the one he had when he was 13. And I think he's going to go throw up now. In summary: Avoid Funny Bagels. I wasn't expecting them to be good. I just bought a box so I could make fun of the mascot for you. And I regret it. -- K. If I'm ever about to die in a plane crash I'm going to yell "I REGRET EATING FUNNY BAGELS!" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Hey kids! Stale, deformed bagels are funny! Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 05:30:56 GMT Lots42 (lots42@aol.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Okay, I typed in the magic code "V3V3YNUM" and now to find out whether > > or not I won I have to wait a few minutes for it to load some animation > > named "SpinToWin_lose.swf". > > Wow! Seriously? They named the file lose? Would I lie about something this important? Of course, the one you get when you win one of the prizes you don't win is named "http://funnybanking.bittime.com/SpinToWin_win.swf". It features the Hairy Half Bagel Troll jumping up and down and doing a cartwheel because YOU WIN!!!! At least the loser rigged wheel (http://funnybanking.bittime.com/SpinToWin_lose.swf) stops on different spaces each time it loses. Although, I don't think either version ever stops on any of the blank spaces where they couldn't think of any new ways to say "YOU LOSE! EXCEPT WE DON'T HAVE TO PUT ANYTHING HERE BECAUSE WE KNOW THE WHEEL WILL NEVER STOP HERE! WHEEL IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!" So apparently just like a real slot machine, the computer decides whether you're supposed to win or lose, and then generates a random outcome to match. Sort of like how they make sitcoms. "It doesn't matter what happens, as long as the chimp ends up in the vat of chocolate syrup! Now pull the lever that makes the rest of the show!" I suppose you could try the other three hundred million codes formatted like the one I got (letter-digit-letter-digit-letter-letter-letter-letter) and see if any of them are winners. I would have assumed none of them would be (given that they made it impossible to even _buy_ the prize by redeeming an ungodly number of boxtops in a short period of time) except someone clearly made both animations, which is more work than William Castle did on "Mr. Sardonicus" (the film where you could vote on whether or not the title character dies horribly at the end, and of course William Castle only made the one ending where the hideously deformed half-a-bagel-shaped Mr. Sardonicus lost.) I should add that even if you do manage to win a whole lot of Funny Money points, the 100 FM bill I have says at the bottom, "For use only with Funny Bagel Food Company," so I don't think it's legal tender. These bagels weren't even illegally tender. I wonder if they were the size of normal bagels when they were first stamped out a month ago? Oh, and after you win, you have to mail in the original certificates with the code numbers printed on them. So it would be pointless to try to cheat at this worthless contest where you can't even win the stupid crappy junk nobody would want anyway. JUST SHUT UP AND ENJOY THE DELICIOUS BAGELS, KIDS!!! Wait, there's also a "Funny Joke Card" in there, according to the back of the box. I almost missed it, underneath the plastic tube of yogurt I didn't eat because I accidentally forgot to refrigerate it overnight. Oh, my. It shows a demonic-looking Funny Bagel (his head is a giant pair of horns) executing a rather sloppy ski jump with his tongue hanging out. And for some reason the artist signed and dated it ("Illegible, Asterisk, 10-11-01") so now I know these bagels were made between last October and February, assuming they weren't intentionally giving out expired contest entry certificates. The back of the card has some truly funny jokes, if you spell "funny" "ouchie": -> FUNNY JOKES -> -> Why did the cops arrest the baseball player? -> They heard he stole third base. Afterwards, the third base coach enjoyed Funny Bagels... because he was DE-BASED! -> What state takes the most showers? -> WASH-ington! Why do Funny Bagels' jokes make you feel rich? Because they're like taking a GOLDEN SHOWER! -> Why does Dracula love computers? -> Because they have mega-bites. What does Dracula have in common with Funny Bagels? They both SUCK! -> Who is in charge of school supplies? -> The ruler. Why can't a Funny Bagel be twelve inches long? Because then it would be NUTRITIOUS. HYAW HYAW HYAW HYAW HYAW HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK HYAW HYAW HYAW HYAW HYAW URP! So, now I've ruined the surprise ending to all the jokes, and ruined the surprise only ending to the non-contest, and the Funny Bagels certainly ruined my appetite and now that you know all about them you don't have to try them and you can thank me in the form of tens and twenties. Real ones, not Funny Bagel Brand Funny Money For Use Only With Funny Bagel Food Company (Do Not Eat.) -- K. Speaking of "Do Not Eat," I'm working on a page where I review the most dangerous toys in the world (I've collected nine really excitingly dangerous ones so far) and one of the ones on my list actually needed to say "Not a gum. Do not chew." Do you have any suggestions for anything else I should include on my list of toys that can dissolve skin, cause brain damage, or render you unto eternal damnation? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: More details on Children's Nuggets Of Fun And/Or Chicken. Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 05:48:46 GMT You may recall that, about a month ago, I compared and contrasted Swanson Fun Feast Chicken Nuggets with Kid Cuisine Fun Nuggets. (I thought the Fun Nuggets were considerably worse.) Well, last night, at the Fenway Star Market (the one where the ethnic foods have to stay in the cloakroom, except for the polenta, which is in at least four places, and the Kool-Aid is in the freezer section) I saw that they had both Kid Cuisine Fun Nuggets _and_ Kid Cuisine Chicken Nuggets, complicating the shopping of children everywhere. The current incarnation of Kid Cuisine Fun Nuggets has Peter Pan on the box and the nuggets are shaped like Captain Hook's severed body parts. Kid Cuisine Fun Nuggets have their generic penguin character on the box, and are shaped like circles. The chicken nuggets (all grayish-brown meat darker than even normal dark meat) are the same in both cases, except for the shape and size (three small fancy-shaped ones versus five tiny round ones.) You do apparently get 10% more food (8.8 ounces as opposed to 8 ounces) with the ones which admit they're made of chicken, but you don't get as much fun. Fun Nuggets include pudding with a packet of blue sprinkles. Chicken Nuggets include a brownie with a packet of red frosting. EWWWWW! RED! IT'S NOT AS MUCH FUN AS BLUE! Fun Nuggets include applesauce with magenta dye in it. Chicken Nuggets include macaroni and cheese with yellow dye in it. Fun Nuggets have as an ingredient "whole dry eggs". Chicken Nuggets have as an ingredient "dry whole egg". Only one. I think I broke a tooth on it. Both include corn, although I assume that the corn in the Fun Nuggets is in some way more fun than the corn in the Chicken Nuggets. Like, maybe it's clown corn or porn corn. Incidentally, the generic-looking penguin mascot is named "K.C.", is 8 years old, and lives in "Frozenobia, a polar world very different, yet very much like our own. K.C. has discovered an old scrapbook in his grandfather's attic about a place called THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM. This book is the source of his adventures with his friends. Look for more adventures from K.C. and Frozenobia." Wow! I can hardly wait until they make up the rest of the deranged backstory about this frozen wasteland exactly like my home but completely different in every way! -- K. And remember, you can't spell "Frozenobia" without spelling "Zeno". And you can't spell "Zeno" without first spelling half of it, and you can't spell half of it without first spelling a quarter of it, and you can't spell a quarter of it without first spelling an eighth of it, and so on, and now you can never finish reading the back of the box! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 05:55:37 GMT Please mention at least one other corporate logo that has changed since your childhood and become evil, so that I can segue into this thing. Also I call dibs on Pringles and Reynolds Wrap. Anyway, please choose a logo to mention, and please do so above the following article. Thank you. KIBO'S ARTICLE ON TWO LOGOS, WHICH NEEDS A SEGUE BEFORE IT As a graphic designer who's worked on quite a few logos, I know that often businesses do just revamp their logos every twenty years or so in order to keep them looking modern, or because some sort of internal power struggle or merger causes them to want to indicate they're breaking with tradition. But why do some companies abandon their logos, even in cases where the logos are burned into the public's memory? Reynolds Wrap is a good example. I could draw that little knight from memory. He's on a prancing horse. His only visible leg is sticking out oddly as if he's a one-legged man sitting sidesaddle. Instead of a plumed helmet he's wearing Pinky Lee's crushed pork-pie hat. He's waving a giant sword over his head. Oh, and other than the hat, the main armor he's wearing is a tall, skinny loincloth hanging down the side of the horse. I get the feeling whoever drew that logo was into Freudian symbolism because not only is the knight brandishing a giant sword as a symbol of his manhood, but his loincloth is exactly the same length and width as his sword. Not a great piece of artwork, but it was familiar enough that I can remember it in exact detail even though they haven't used it in a few years. (And I don't think I've ever purchased a Reynolds product, I just remember the logo from my mother's use of Reynolds Wrap and Cut-Rite wax paper.) Isn't that the point of a logo on a consumer product -- to get you to memorize it while they leave it on the product forever? But in the last reworking of their package design, they kept their odd color scheme (dark blue box with diagonal salmon-pink stripes around one end) and eliminated their corporate logo completely. The color combination is memorable (partly because it's so weird) and an essential part of a recognizable corporate identity, but why did they decide they'd rather have no logo instead of their well-known logo? It's like if McDonalds said, "Ah, screw the Golden Arches, from now on our signs will just say 'McDonalds' in a typewriter font with a perfectly normal 'M'. We'll keep the red background, but from now on our signs will just be red rectangles, no stupid logo sticking out. Who can remember or recognize stuff that has a distinctive shape? Not me! Also, can we make the Filet O'Fish have sharper corners?" The idea of dropping the logo is even weirder when you consider how much of their marketing budget must have been devoted to getting the logo to be so recognizable in the first place (in advertisements, in package design, and in the printing of the packages -- supermarket products are often printed in seven or eight colors just so they can make the logo look good.) If I were Reynolds (a division of Alcoa, the aluminum cartel) I would have just fixed the logo up a little, redrawing the knight look a little more heroic while maintaining a similarity to their previous design, instead of deciding to make the foil's package look just like the generic supermarket imitations of it. Of course, it's possible that they dropped the crusader because the logo was offensive to Muslims who use lots of foil, or prudes complained that the knight wasn't wearing pants, or something. It could just be that after Alcoa absorbed them two years ago they're not supposed to look independent. I'll be right back after I go to the supermarket. (... commercial break ...) I just went to the Prudential Star Market in order to buy some snacks, and to look at the foil. (They've just put in new escalators connecting the subway station to the complex the market's at the other end of. The escalators are oddly wide, as if they're designed to accommodate wheelchairs going down them. Now you can get from the subway to the supermarket without ever going outside, provided you don't mind walking over a quarter mile of cross-sections of animals that died 200 million years ago.) Reynolds has indeed removed the logo from most of their products, such as Cut-Rite wax paper and all the weird mutant products designed to solve a problem nobody had (such as tinted plastic wrap cut into elasticized circles, and pouches made of foil for cooking fish filets in your dishwasher.) But the standard Reynolds Wrap foil -- the one in the blue box with the pink tip -- does still have the knight. He's been moved to the back of the box, where he serves no conceivable purpose as a logo, and to indicate that they realize this, they also shrank him down to the size of a Tic-Tac to keep you from accidentally seeing him. Their corporate logo is their little secret! He is indeed drawn as I remembered him -- odd stiff leg, loincloth flapping in the breeze, sword raised high, funny little melted hat. I had a vague memory he had a shield with an "R" on it, but I didn't remember he was holding the shield directly behind him. And I didn't remember at all that he was slaying a dragon who looks like a deflated sea horse. It might not be a loincloth. It might be his tail, if he's facing forwards and not backwards or sidesaddle, and if he has a stringy tail. Maybe he's half-knight, half-rat. And now, a pause for snack time. (... snack break ...) Pringles potato chips (a product of Procter & Gamble, invented in 1968) are an excellent example of a company that fiddles with their logo incrementally, whenever they get sick of the flaws in the current one, while still maintaining continuity. (AT&T and Morton Salt are other examples shown in many books on graphic design.) When Pringles first showed up on my local supermarket shelves in the mid-1970s (why did it take so long?) they were called "Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips", with the smiley- face mascot being "Professor Pringle", wearing a straw hat and pince-nez and a bow tie, with his hair parted down the middle and a big handlebar mustache, for a really bad Seventies attempt to do Gay Nineties. Why was it important for these potato chips to pretend they represented a vision of futuristic food from the distant past? Shouldn't there have also been a zeppelin on the can? The word "Newfangled" disappeared, and over the next two decades, various other elements of the logo were dropped. Sometime around the mid-1980s the pince-nez vanished, because apparently Procter & Gamble figured out that everyone hates people who wear glasses. I think they were afraid we'd think that a cartoon character with eyeglasses would be too nerdy to invent artificial potato chips, even in the 1890s! But then, several years later, they decided that the blank white area of the smiley face where the pince-nez had been needed something cheery, so they put in some ovals filled with horizontal red stripes, which were supposed to represent rosy cheeks, or possibly infected cat scratches. Then, the red cheeks disappeared from whence they came. Somewhere along the line, "Professor Pringle" became "Mr. Pringles"; You can buy your kids one share of Procter & Gamble stock which comes as a certificate with the Pringles logo on it, signed by Mr. Pringles himself. (They sell these through their Web site, which I thought was illegal -- you're not supposed to tell people to buy your own stock.) Now, they're changing the logo again -- cans with the "no glasses, no cheeks" logo are still in stores everywhere, but some cans with a frightening new logo have shown up at the Prudential Star... Now, Mr. Pringles's big handlebar mustache has changed into a truly gigantic mustache which covers two-thirds of his face. He's tilting his head back and to the left so that he can stare at us over one end of his handlebar mustache, just like Salvador Dali did whenever he wanted to show how threatening and dangerous he was. And Mr. Pringles's hair has contracted into a little center-parted hair swatch (think of Terry Jones, or better yet, Mr. Weatherbee) which is now curling up and preparing to spring forward to rip our faces off like an alien spider. Mr. Pringles's head has inflated to gigantic size and looms crookedly over us as we look up at it past his wall of mustache. I've never before seen a happy smiley face so weirdly re-interpreted that it looks like it's about to crush us all under its massive weight (and width.) I understand why Procter & Gamble tinkers with the logo every several years -- it's important to try to improve on things once in a while, especially if your original idea was as half-baked as "old-timey nerd face" -- but I think this latest design is going to scare people away from their artificial, chemical-laced, synthetically-browned potato-like chip-shaped snack extrusions in tennis ball cans. I've only seen the new look of Pringles at one market so far, and this one market had both the old and new cans. This market always has a large display of Pringles cans right at the express checkout lane, so presumably Procter & Gamble has been paying them a lot of money to promote Pringles -- it's possible that P&G is testing to see whether the new or old look will sell better if both are made available in this prominent place. I bought one of each just so I could take photos of the logos without influencing their marketing research in any way. Unless they read this article where I say the new logo's weird, deformed, and scary. -- K. What was this weird fascination some people had with the 1890s in the 1970s (and in the "Cheers" title sequence)? And does Professor Pringle hang out with that guy with the bowler derby and giant eyelashes painted on the wall in the Kenmore Green Line station? Do they go around performing the old ultra-violence with their droogs? What's the deal with the 1970s? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 22:49:05 GMT "extempore" (extempore@myrealbox.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Reynolds has indeed removed the logo from most of their products, such > > as Cut-Rite wax paper and all the weird mutant products designed to solve > > a problem nobody had (such as tinted plastic wrap cut into elasticized > > circles > > My mother started using these about a year ago. One time while > visiting, I stuck my head in the fridge and started worrying that > Alzheimer might be setting in because all the leftovers were covered > with shower caps. I forgot to mention this, which is odd, because it was the one thing I was _intending_ to mention when I posted my first response to that: My local art-supply store sells a vaguley similar product, plastic bags the shape and size of an Easter basket (with the big handle on top.) You're supposed to put them over the basket and shrink the bag with a hair dryer so that you can have a homemade Easter basket that looks just like you bought it at the supermarket. These bags come in the same colors as the Reynolds Wrap shower caps. An Easter basket with the handle on is a tall ellipse, precisely the size of a human head. So, I imagine people who are really afraid of wet hair might cover their entire head with one of these, take a shower, and then try to dry their hair through the bag, shrinking their entire head down to a tiny, plastic-wrapped nub. I imagine that a lot. -- K. Post pictures if you've got 'em. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 22:22:12 GMT "extempore" (extempore@myrealbox.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Reynolds has indeed removed the logo from most of their products, > > such as Cut-Rite wax paper and all the weird mutant products designed > > to solve a problem nobody had (such as tinted plastic wrap cut into > > elasticized circles > > My mother started using these about a year ago. One time while > visiting, I stuck my head in the fridge and started worrying that > Alzheimer might be setting in because all the leftovers were covered > with shower caps. > > When I questioned her on this she showed me the product. *phew* The question is, was she carrying the package around in her purse? Every once in a while you still see one of those 1970s-style commercials where two women are chatting in a coffee house and one says "My whole family doesn't use toilet paper any more... We use new Toilet Awesome!" and pulls a still-wrapped package of nine rolls of toilet tissue out of her purse. These women carry cans of coffee, dog food, men's shaving cream, and everything else a woman might think to talk about with her closest friends. Even when people are actually eating the product -- such as a bag of potato chips -- there's always someone who has an unopened bag they can wave around for the camera. (And the bag that is open was clearly never actually sealed at the factory because it has nary a crinkle, crease, crimp, tear, or fingerprint anywhere near the open end.) I'd like to take a vacation in the world of TV commercials sometime. > On logos: the CBC's "exploding pineapple" logo used to look like, > well, an exploding pineapple. It was "simplified" a couple of years > back and now just looks like a flower. I never really thought of the CBC logo (a "C" with a whole lot of parts of other "C"s growing out of it in all directions) as an exploding pineapple. It always suggested a bacterial colony to me, especially with the old animation of them spreading out from the center. I see that they took out the yellow and oranges, reduced the number of replicants (three rings of clones instead of four) and closed up the notch in the central "C", so that now it's just a pile of overlapping red spots. Now it's very austere and symmetrical, but... didn't it have a "C" in it for a reason? old: http://www.canadiantheatre.com/images/cbc.jpg new: http://cbc.radio-canada.ca/ ...at this rate, by 2010 it'll be a single dot. (I sold a logo that looked like a brown dot once, and I'm still proud of myself.) The National Film Board (NFB/ONF in most of Canada, ONF/NFB in Quebec), best known as the source of all animation that doesn't have any toys based on it, also simplified their logo just a little, a few years back. They made the scary giant eyeball with pointy corners and little ventriloquist-dummy legs a bit bolder, with a bigger evil pupil in his eye. It's one of those logos you could easily imagine stalking you. old and new: http://www.nfb.ca/e/logo/index.html "It conveys a sense of seeing, of vision, of life. The drawing represents a human figure; the head resembles the eye's iris." In other words, the guy's whole head had been shoved inside his own iris, which is inside his eye, which is inside his head, which is inside his eye, which is inside his head. Ouch! So in terms of Canadian logos, I've noticed that all American fast food chains such as McDonald's and Mr. Sub and Wendy's have to paste a microscopic maple leaf into their logo to blend in with the real Canadian businesses (which generally _don't_ have a maple leaf in their logo.) I'm assuming there's some sort of tax reason the American and Canadian operations have to be separate enough to have different logos, as no Canadian citizen could actually be fooled into believing McDonalds was a native creation just because the skinny yellow "M" has a tiny red paintball splat on the middle leg. ### ### ## ## ## ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # * <-------------- SHOWN LARGER THAN ACTUAL SIZE # # # # # # # # # In fact, it seems to be absolutely standard that every American chain doing musiness in Canada _must_ put a maple sticker on their sign. However, the number of points on the maple leaf is not standardized, even when the maple leaf is displayed by real Canadian businesses. Can't the government at least ban maple leaves with even numbers of points? Five, seven, nine, eleven, okay, four, no. If you're too lazy to draw all eleven of the little pointy bits, you're too lazy even to be a graphic designer. And could someone please buy that Toronto hockey team a proper plural? It's not like the letter "V" costs extra. Heck, you can even get it for half-price if you split a "W". -- K. And do Australian Satanists draw inverted seven-point stars? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:38:14 GMT Paula (mmmtoblerone@earthlink.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Please mention at least one other corporate logo that has changed since > > your childhood and become evil, so that I can segue into this thing. > > > > Also I call dibs on Pringles and Reynolds Wrap. > > Can I talk about Pringles commercials as a segue? I was shocked as an > elementary school student to have the Pringles mom show up at a field > trip posing as THE MOTHER OF ONE OF MY CLASSMATES! Hmmmmmm. This is a form of advertising more intrusive than when, in first or second grade, they gave us all Prell(R) Brand Shampoo math books. Just be glad the woman wasn't posing as _your_ mother. "Sorry, little Paula! Pringles says I'm your mommy now! And I'm exactly like all the other Pringles mommies, so that they can keep us in a big stack in a silo!" I curse the day Eero Saarinen invented Pringles. -- K. Still, that would be a less intrusive form of advertising to children than "Channel One". ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 03:19:32 GMT Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [Regarding the Pringles mascot] > > > > Sometime around the mid-1980s the pince-nez vanished, because > > apparently Procter & Gamble figured out that everyone hates people who > > wear glasses. I think they were afraid we'd think that a cartoon > > character with eyeglasses would be too nerdy to invent artificial potato > > chips, even in the 1890s! > > Oh yeah? You ever watch their commercials? In nearly every Pringles > commercial I have seen (the only exception being a recent one that came out > about six months ago), the rule is that if you wear glasses, you eat greasy > competitor brand potato chips and are not cool enough to eat Pringles... > CASE CLOSED. If it's one person eating greasy chips and making a mess next > to twenty hip vibrant kids eating Pringles and playing the cans like drums, > the lone greasy chip guy/gal has glasses, and everyone else has none. > That's because if you eat greasy potato chips, YOU ARE A NERD! I've always liked the way other brands of potato chips involve dipping your hands into a can of Crisco hidden inside the bag and then you _must_ wipe your hands on your brand new shirt. They're saying that people who are too stupid to wash their hands eat real potato chips and not ultra-hygenic Pringles, where you only get grease all over the back of your hand from jamming it into that little can. Why can't they make bigger cans for those of us with manly hands? These days, most Pringles commercials emphasize that (a) you can make a real music beat by drumming on the can and (b) you can stick two Pringles in your mouth and pretend you have a duck bill and it's the most incredibly entertaining thing ever that will make your friends worship you forever and (c) when you peel the circle of foil off the top of the can it goes "POW!" but for some reason no spring-loaded cloth snakes pop out. > I recently tried their Salt and Vineger chips. As a nerd, I like greasy > competitor brands that have vineger. Pringles, on the other hand, already > loads their product up with way too much salt. So now that they have a > flavor that includes the word "Salt" in the title, one chip is enough to > cause my lips to puff up from the extra bonus dosage of the stuff. As I've said before, once you've worked with photo chemicals, you'll never again be able to eat artificial "Salt & Vinegar" flavored potato chips, or as I call them, Toxic Chemical Bath Now With Extra Silver Sludge flavored potato chips. I wonder where that carpet went when Laser Designs closed down? That was the one that went "SQUELCH, SQUELCH" when walked on, and it would dynamically generate magical color-changing rings of black and brown around your feet. This is why I usually wore my Nokia boots to work, before their soles mysteriously disintegrated. -- K. That carpet had the texture of soup with skin on it, except upside down. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:38:24 GMT Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Please mention at least one other corporate logo that has changed since > > your childhood and become evil, so that I can segue into this thing. > > This probably doesn't count, because it's an example of a product mascot > change and not a logo change, but does anyone else remember when Kellogg's > switched the Coco mascot for Cocoa Krispies a few years ago from a cartoon > monkey to a picture of a real live stinky chimp? Heck, I remember when they first put him on a starvation diet until he changed from a spherical elephant to a cartoon monkey. Then, many years later, as you say, he turned into a photo of an actual post-pubescent chimp baring his fangs as if he was about to sink his teeth into your cereal-eatin' arm. > I don't want a /REAL/ monkey near anything I eat. Well, then, you'd better stop eating split peas, from what I heard in ninth grade. -- K. And when is Stop & Shop going to modernize the goopy blue parrot that's on their cereal boxes? (He shows up in other supermarkets that sell the same fake cereals. If you see him, run away! That blue gel he's coated with is actually toxic toilet bowl cleaner.) ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:57:50 GMT I just wrote: > > Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [...] does anyone else remember when Kellogg's switched the > > Coco mascot for Cocoa Krispies a few years ago from a cartoon > > monkey to a picture of a real live stinky chimp? > > Heck, I remember when they first put him on a starvation diet until > he changed from a spherical elephant to a cartoon monkey. I just did a little research, and the history of Cocoa Krispies is even weirder than I imagined. First they had a monkey in a straw hat ("Jose") who was sometimes accompanied by a gray elephant sidekick ("Melvin"). Next there was that period where Kellogg's licensed various Hanna-Barbera characters (as "Kellogg's Stars") and Snagglepuss (a pink lion) was on the box. Then they had a caveman ("Ogg") who looked like he was made of Play-Doh, not unlike the tiny cavemen in the videogame "Trog", which was unrelated to the sensitive romantic comedy film of the same name where Joan Crawford fell in love with a caveman. Ogg was followed by an extremely fat chocolate-brown elephant ("Tusk Tusk") who sprayed chocolate on you with his trunk. He seems to have worn spectacles in his early days, but I don't think he did later on. Tusk Tusk got replaced by monkey number two, another cartoon one. The cartoon one was replaced by a scary, filthy real chimpanzee wearing a hat marked "Coco". So the sequence is: MONKEY ELEPHANT LION CAVEMAN ELEPHANT MONKEY CHIMP. Translated into Morse code, that's the new secret knock to gain admission to our clubhouse, The Honeykibo Hideout. And how come nobody's yet mentioned in this thread that Honeycomb commercials have featured a truly terrifying shrieking blob of fur with evil eyes for the last two or three years? What would have been wrong with, say, a happy bee or a talking comb? -- K. I think Kellogg's OJ's had the scariest mascot. He was a big-jawed guy doing a split... in chaps... while holding a hot branding iron. That was too kinky even for an adult cereal! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 03:23:05 GMT "Wiblur the Once" (jchapman@aros.net) wrote: > > Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > > > I want to know what happened to the Corn Pops porcupine > > Speaking of Corn Pops, I'm still pissed off about them changing their > name from SUGAR Pops in the 70's. And let's not forget Super Sugar Crisp, which changed its name to Super Honey Crisp when the parents of America finally learned that sugar might be bad for tots' tiny teeth, and then almost immediately changed its name to Super Golden Crisp when a study showed that honey was even worse for small children than regular non-bee-digested sugar. I think next it'll change from Super Golden Crisp to Super Yellow Crisp and then to Super Green Crisp and then Soylent Green Crisp. They'll keep the stupid bear who smokes the wacky tabacky, though. He sounded like if Ted Baxter had found Mary Tyler Moore's secret weed stash. Sort of like if Barry White used his powers of seduction for evil instead of for sex. > My friends and I all had our collections of Big Yella (their cartoon > cowboy mascot) drinking glasses made from REAL glass. But before we > could get enough box tops for a big collection, they had to get all > nutritional-sounding and went with some lame-o maskot that couldn't > even do rope tricks. > > Sugar and Cowboys in giant yellow hats, THAT is what breakfast should > be all about! I noticed that the Man In The Yellow Hat -- Curious George's stern parental figure -- has had a sex change and become Barbie. They're now selling "Curious George Barbie" where she is dressed as the Man In The Yellow Hat. And, of course, this isn't going to make me start liking that bastard Curious George who still owes me cash for doing his lettering. -- K. And then there's Warren Beatty in the big yellow hat in Disney's "Dick Tracy". That movie needed a monkey. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 03:21:07 GMT Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote in > > > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > And how come nobody's yet mentioned in this thread that Honeycomb > > > commercials have featured a truly terrifying shrieking blob of > > > fur with evil eyes for the last two or three years? What would > > > have been wrong with, say, a happy bee or a talking comb? > > > > I want to know what happened to the giant pitcher of Kool-Aid that > > would come crashing in through the walls of people's homes? I had > > childhood nightmares involving the Kool-Aid guy. He'd smash into my > > home and kill my family. I think he's propped up in Sid & Marty Krofft's basement somewhere, along with the original dad from "Land Of The Lost". > I want to know what happened to the Corn Pops porcupine that used to scare > off other cartoon animals who were all frightened of porcupines, but then > they'd relax when they realized he just wanted to give them sugary > breakfast cereal. I want to know what happened to the brain cells I used to have that allowed me to like the taste of that sort of stuff better than Cheerios. I want my ability to not like Cheerios back! Also I want them to go back to the original Kix formula, when they tasted like a grown-up cereal instead of being sugar-coated. When I was a kid, they had a nice sort of unsweetened Cheerios sort of flavor, but they've greatly increased the sugar content at least twice since then. Now they just taste like sugar, you can't even enjoy the delicate flavor of the cardboard inside. > > > I think Kellogg's OJ's had the scariest mascot. > > > He was a big-jawed guy doing a split... in chaps... > > > while holding a hot branding iron. That was > > > too kinky even for an adult cereal! > > Don't forget how he rode giant rolling oranges on his big OJ drive through > the wild west. I never understood that cereal: Orange Juice and Milk, two > great tastes that are even better together! Mmm! Curdly! The great taste of cottage cheese, with the texture of vichyssoise! Kids love both of those! I suppose they were thinking "Those kids today, what with their Hula Hoops and Creamsicles and Dreamsicles and Fudgsicles! Why don'cha come up with a cereal for each of them? OJs can be the Dreamsicles, Cocoa Puffs can be the Fudgsicles, and Fruit Loops taste just as good as Hula Hoops!" Or am I confusing Creamsicles and Dreamsicles again? It was the Dreamsicle which was orange, right? I hope there's never a nuclear war because I'd be walking down the street and a National Guardsman would say "Halt! To prove you're a right-thinking Cold-War-Era American, which of these two Popsicle products is orange flavored?" and then when I got it wrong he'd shoot me and keep them both for himself! In fact, I think they used to run commercials where they'd show the Popsicle vendor gunning down kids who didn't buy his products, and the Good Humor Man running them over with his truck, back in the days when commercials actually tried to make you buy the product instead of just being mesmerized by the pretty edits. -- K. Do you people think I should look for a career in marketing? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:29:05 GMT Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Please mention at least one other corporate logo that has changed since > > your childhood and become evil > > OH OH! Mr. Peanut from Planters--and you've got to check out the timeline > they have posted on their site: > > http://www.planters.com/history.htm Mr. Peanut never become evil. He's just been a slightly different kind of outdated dandy in every decade. And after more than one hundred years, he's still exactly five minutes from gay. -- K. I think someone needs to redesign Benjamin Disraeli to make his hair hideous in a more modern way. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Some warning signs that your sign might be silly. Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:20:06 GMT 1. I've mentioned this one before, but it went away for a while and now it's back in shinier form, at my local mall's Pretzel Time: TO OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS SORRY WE ARE UNABLE TO MAKE CHANGE. The sign is a little plastic thing they leave standing on the counter (only when they're open), I keep wanting to swipe it and replace it with one that just says "DUH, COUNTING IS HARD." 2. Seen at a news-and-tobacco shop in a subway station: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE [Xeroxed Bin Laden photo] $25,000,000 next to: PLAY THE LOTTERY - TODAY'S ESTIMATED JACKPOT: $46,000,000 I'd like to know why nobody's robbed them given that they must be keeping $81,000,000 under the counter just in case someone brings in Osama Bin Laden's severed head with a winning lottery ticket in his mouth. 3. In the window of a token booth at a different subway station: NO CHANGE MUST GO DOWNSTAIRS ...then I walked down the stairs and invisible microwave laser beams heated up all the pennies in my pocket until I died. -- K. Also, down the street, the glowing dot-matrix letters on a big sign inform me that the street is closed "DURING BLASTING OPPS", although I'm not sure what the opposite of blasting is. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Some warning signs that your sign might be silly. Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:03:17 GMT Ron Parker (ron.parker@povray.org) wrote: > > Sean T. Smith (stsmith58@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > RETURN CUP TO ITS' HOLDER WHEN FINISHED > > PLEASE MAKE SURE ALL DOOR'S ARE CLOSE BEFORE LEAVING > > I'll see those and raise you the sign that lists the various union locals > that have offices in a building near here. Apparently, the "ASBESTO'S" > union has a local there. "Ooba dooba! How can I tell Jane I got lung cancer from one of Elroy's pets?" I recently saw a live-action movie where George O'Hanlon played a marriage counselor, and the only way I could enjoy it was to close my eyes and pretend it was a really slow "Jetsons" episode. Plus with my eyes closed I could imagine that one of his breakfast-and-bathing machines was putting dresses and wigs on him just like in the cartoon, and then he was being tortured on a treadmill high above pointy skyscrapers. In any case, the show started to suck when the replaced Asbesto with Orbitty. So, how come Hanna-Barbera did a show about a family living in the future ("The Jetsons") and a show about a family in the prehistoric era ("The Flintstones") and a show about a family at the time of Christ ("The Roman Holidays") but they never did one about a family living in a gas-filled trench during World War I? That would've been funny because they could keep getting the mustard on their hot dogs confused with mustard gas. Then they could all die, or say a catchphrase. -- K. I still wonder how many catchphrases George Jetson proposed before Hanna-Barbera told him he could use "Ooba-dooba". ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Some warning signs that your sign might be silly. Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:02:29 GMT Sean T. Smith (stsmith58@hotmail.com) wrote: > > I must report that recently, once again, the Eliot Street Church of > Newton Corner (sorry, can't recall the denomination) had this on its > exterior signboard: > > YOUTH CLOWN SERVICE THIS SUNDAY > > If they ever post this again, I promise I will personally drive out > there with my digital camera and take a picture of the sign. I know > people might be more interested -- at least theoretically -- in seeing > pictures of a Youth Clown Service, but I'm afraid if I tried to record > the event I might have things done to me that will be buried deep within > my troubled subsconscious. Well, you could try calling the Boston Globe and saying "Hi, I'm one of the priests here at the Eliot Street Church, and I thought you'd like to come out and cover our Youth Clown Service," and I'm sure you'd be able to see all the pictures in the paper the next morning. (The Boston newspapers could save so much newsprint if they just said, "We'll tell you if we ever find a priest in Massachusetts who _isn't_ one.") Special bonus points if, in the photographs, someone's head is blocking "SER". > Meanwhile, I've noticed that the apostrophe has apparently become an > indespensible part of sign-making. We've seen all too frequently the > possessive "its" transformed into the contraction "it's," of course. You misspelled "weave". > But the other day I saw: > > RETURN CUP TO ITS' HOLDER WHEN FINISHED > > [Sorry, I'm not saying what the sign was for] Athletic supporters? > Then there was the sign which read: > > PLEASE MAKE SURE ALL DOOR'S ARE CLOSE BEFORE LEAVING > > OK, Bob, I'll trade you that lone apostrophe for an extra "d." Unless > the sign is expressing management's concern as to whether the doors in > question are emotionally estranged from one another. Let's not forget the occasional "MENS'" restroom, which needs to be merged with the "BIG MANS" department at my local K-Mart. (What, your K-Mart doesn't smell like a restroom?) -- K. I like to walk into K-Mart with my eyes closed, head for the toy department, open my eyes, and yell, "OH NO! I JUST WOKE UP FROM A COMA, AND THERE'S OBVIOUSLY BEEN A NUCLEAR WAR WHICH DESTROYED CIVILIZATION AND KNOCKED EVERYTHING TO THE FLOOR!" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Some warning signs that your sign might be silly. Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 03:25:03 GMT Bill Marcum (bmarcum@iglou.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Also, down the street, the glowing dot-matrix letters on > > a big sign inform me that the street is closed "DURING BLASTING OPPS", > > although I'm not sure what the opposite of blasting is. > > Isn't it more likely that "OPPS" is just a misspeling of "OOPS"? Would a real construction worker say "OOPS" (or "WHOOPSIE-DOODLE" or "OH FUDGE" or "SHAZBOT") in place of an actual obscenity, even in dot-matrix form? I don't think so. I think even the most careless blasting foreman would take the time to use the little plastic membrane keypad attached to the base of the sign to carefully poke in a high-quality obscenity letter by letter. By the way, they usually forget to lock the little box that has those controls in it. If this particular one's not locked, should I fix the spelling for them? Or should I just add my own padlock to keep anyone else from tampering with this beautiful sign? -- K. And shouldn't the street also be closed for some time both before and after the millisecond-long blast? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Tobler Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 05:52:41 GMT I made you a new X-Face that will avoid any controversy and make everyone happy all the time. s!V`t?H!)MQ_z50^Rnj)g=+$|Xz|QVP[$8v6.lZis(F~bh< > I made you a new X-Face that will avoid any controversy and > make everyone happy all the time. Waah! I was intending to send that in private, not in public! Oh dopey me. I apologize for my accidental indiscretion, and I'm sorry for any embarrassment I may have caused. Also, I'm sorry I've been telling everyone at the office about which three of the Teletubbies really turn you on. And I'm sorry "embarrassment" is hard to spell. I think I got it right this time, though. If I got it wrong, let me know and I'll replace it with some other word. -- K. People reading this thread in Google's archive 30 years later will have no idea what we're talking about. "Daddy, what was an X-Face?" and by then, probably also "Daddy, what was an E-mail?" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Criminals from where you lived Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 23:16:20 GMT Lots42 (lots42@aol.com) wrote: > > I tend to notice when a criminal emerges from a town I used to live. > I always wonder if I met that person. > > P.S. You need to pass a receptonist to vist a doctor but any insane > person can bother retail employees. Don, when I told you to stop using that computer you stole from Lots42 last month, I didn't mean you should give it to Kurt Stocklmeir. I'm going to tell the Boston Public Library Secret Police on you. Kurt, please give Lots42 back the computer that Don Saklad stole. Lots, your computer is in the mail, but when you get it back, be careful -- it may be cursed. -- K. Why is there more crime on the Internet than in the real world? There shouldn't be any crime on the Internet, because all you could steal there is _virtual_ money! Crooks are so stupid that they think the Internet's real! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Further updates of sicky Lots42 Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 23:37:41 GMT Lots42 (lots42@aol.com) wrote: > > Don't Panic. Seriously. > Seriously, don't panic. > > Okay, it was a loooooooooooooong day. > > But in the end here's what we figured out. > > First off, it just might be nothing. You see, the dude we talked to > (who looked for all the world like an older Ben Stein) took a good look > at my MRI scans and the related paperwork. > > What the Powers That Be notice is a little squiggly line in one corner. > (Seriously, don't panic! Take a deep breath and stick with me). > > Tap the back of your head, right where the skull starts. My skull started in Schenectady in 1967. Do I really have to go that far just to follow your squiggly line? Can't Little Billy go instead? "Follow Little Billy's trail through Lots42's circulatory system, passing from the carotid artery into the brain, around the Circle Of Willis, down this big blue vein, through all that important stuff in the middle of the body, and finally into a kidney where Little Billy will be excreted." > Right there