Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: The strangest headline I've ever heard on local TV news. Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:14:20 GMT "Well, holy jiggly jaunts, Batman, New England has found a new way to toss its oats." -- Channel 56 anchor on the opening of the new Batman-themed rollercoaster at Six Flags No, I'm not going to write a short story titled "Batman's Jiggly Jaunt". It's too disturbing an idea to contemplate. Especially the part where Catwoman wrestles Batman in a tub of jiggly Jell-O and he says "Oh no! I am being manhandled... by a WOMAN!" causing Robin to yell "EWW!" and drop his cotton candy on Tweety Bird's head. Unfortunately, that TV news story was just a commercial for a local theme park's rollercoaster, and not anything as entertaining as Batman being terrified of randy women in really tight outfits. How come Catwoman never noticed that Batman wasn't interested in playing with her when there were plenty of other guys who would be happy to have her? Or couldn't she actually see into our living rooms? However, I do want to take this opportunity to mock this message of sponsorship I heard on a Seattle station: "Find cars.com on king5.com!" I think they think TV news viewers so stupid that they'll exclaim, "Dawww, what a timesaver! I only have to type five keys instead of four and remember 'king5' instead of 'cars' when I want to find cars.com! I never can remember the address of cars.com -- is it 'cars.com' or 'cars.net'? I wish there were more wholly unrelated Web sites that could tell me how to find other Web sites I already know the addresses of!" -- K. I think the Riddler should write the slogans about how to find cars.com. Also, how come Mr. Mxyzptlk is supposed to be superintelligent if everyone else in the world can remember his vulnerability but he keeps forgetting? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: The strangest headline I've ever heard on local TV news. Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:01:22 GMT Serve Laurijssen (be@content.nl) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > "Find cars.com on king5.com!" > > > > I think they think TV news viewers so stupid that they'll exclaim, > > "Dawww, what a timesaver! I only have to type five keys instead of four > > and remember 'king5' instead of 'cars' when I want to find cars.com! > > I think you're viewing it from the wrong side. Since the Big Bang of the > internet, being a non-native english speaker has gotten another advantage. > Every time I see or hear an English commercial they manage to cram a URL in > there somewhere. "Hey, what a nice pizza: go to www.pizza.com". "go to > www.shoelace.com to see if your shoelace is untied" etc. And every time I > see or hear such an English commercial I have to laugh and roll on the floor > because of that silly 3x 'w' pronunciation. Am I the only one who just says "sextuple you" instead of "double you double you double you"? That's much less funny except for the "sex" part and the "tuple" part and the whole concept and the way I say it while jumping up and down and waving my arms and jumping into the world's largest coconut cream pie while wearing a shirt that says "FERN!" > Come on, these commercials are not about those sites, they want to change > the letter 'w'. They managed to cram two non www URL's in one commercial. > They want to change the world!! Commercials just aren't as funny when they're written by people who know that real Web sites would be set up so they could be reached at either "www.shoelace.com" or "shoelace.com". But apparently saying "www dot something dot com" is funny to people who don't touch computers because of, like, computers have cooties ewww. ("www" is short for "ewww".) I love it when they use "alt dot something dot com" as an all-purpose is-it-a-Web-site-or-a-newsgroup made-up name. I suppose they think "alt" is as funny as "www", but if "alt" really meant "funny", I'd want to read alt.alt.religion.kibology, not the boring stuff that shows up here. -- K. I want to register ^G.com. ----------------------------------------------------- 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, 24 Apr 2002 02:05:43 GMT "Pugg" (pugg71everyzig@hotmail.com) wrote: > > I just wanted to gloat about the fact that one of my current > jobs involves watching TV (bad or otherwise, my choice) in church. > > I win. > > pugg > (I'm a Lutheran and it's a Catholic service, > so I figure I'm safe, damnation-wise.) If it were a Lutheran service, I know you'd be watching those exciting old "Davey & Goliath" cartoons that people still keep making fun of, about three decades later. ("The Simpsons" did it last year, and now there's a Mountain Dew commercial which imitates the style really well.) But I don't know what sort of wacky things you have to watch in Catholic TV church. I get BCTV (Boston Catholic Television) on my cable but they just show programming from other variants of Christianity (such as the Lutheran-produced "Davey & Goliath") and non-denominational stuff like "Colby's Clubhouse" (the one that has a blue clown dressed as a psalter, and a talking computer wearing a baseball cap) and "The Donut Man" (I think they spent more time thinking about what could be the cheapest possible puppet than they did making the cheapest possible puppet) and "The Flying House" and "Superbook" (pronounced "Toopabook") although some of those may be during the part of the day that EWTN shows up on the channel that's supposed to be BCTV. I get eight or nine religious channels, and they keep swapping chunks of their schedules in order to make me think all religion is the same. This is why they can't add a Jewish channel to my schedule or the kids would get confused when it got scrambled in with all the Christian stuff. The Catholic channel shows masses and stuff. I should try watching it next weekend and see if there's any good coverage of the Pope chewing out our local cardinal. Right now, Cardinal Law is thinking, "Dammit! Now I'll never be Pope!" even though before this scandal he had been one of the leading contenders, largely because he has such a good name -- "My name is Law. Cardinal Law." My cable system also has an all-Irish channel (Celtic Vision) which is mostly Gaelic and soccer, often at the same time, but I don't get to see that because they won't give it to me for free. I would also have to pay to see the Russian channel but I can see the Italian channel (RAI) for free, possibly because I spent all that money on those "Space: 1999" DVDs (RAI largely financed the making of "Space: 1999".) So, anyway, Pugg, I need to know what sort of TV you're watching in church, and whether it has a laugh track. What's Latin for "laugh track"? There must be a stop for it somewhere on the big pipe organ, between "vox humana" and "barking dogs that sing 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our Dog'." (The latter is appropriate to play before "Davey & Goliath" cartoons.) -- K. I hear that if you play one of Archie's Plutonium Hymns backwards on a pipe organ, Mary Worth appears and kills you. But if you play his hymns forwards three times, Mary Worth kills the Family Circus instead. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:07:02 GMT Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > Wiblur the Once (jchapman@aros.net) wrote: > > > > In keeping with tonight's theme of me having flashbacks to the 70's > > that are mostly off-topic, > > I think an expansion on the concept of "flashbacks to the 1970s that > are off-topic for alt.religion.kibology" might ironically make for the > most kibological post ever. Damn straight. You might even say DARN straight. This is because everyone on alt.religion.kibology is required to have off-topic flashbacks to the '70s even though most of you people weren't born yet. I was born in the 1960s, therefore the 1970s are the only decade I have flashbacks to (because everything after 1976 is all one big blur.) I'll be walking down the street and suddenly I'll see a "Sesame Street" segment that's actually entertaining and I'll say "Hey, wait! That's wrong! This is 2002, 'Sesame Street' is supposed to be tedious!" and I'll get hit by a bus. And then Fargo North will say "Bus, bo bet bass!" and "Fill it to the rim... with Brim!" and Joe Manfre will dress up as the Quaker Oats guy and hang around with Bebe Rebozo. You can always tell when I'm having one of my seventies moments. Whenever I say something like "Those special effects on 'Doctor Who' are absolutely state-of-the-art!" you can pinpoint the specific three seconds in which I'm living. And if you see me wearing my "I feel like a NIMNUL" T-shirt, run away before I can shazbot you. -- K. How come in the 1970s they didn't change M&Ms to Harvest Gold, Avocado Green, and Burnt Orange? They're just now experimenting with teal, a color from 15 years ago, so maybe they'll get to the 1970s colors someday. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:19:14 GMT Andrew Pearson (apearson@pt.lu) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > 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! > > One of the UK Cider brewers had a pretty darn kinky advert a year or > so back. It was a drawing of a young female wearing a short skirt and > holding in her left hand a flagpole with a billowing union jack. A man > with his shirt open is lying on the ground between her legs, looking up. > He's propped up on his elbows and drinking a stream of cider. She is > holding a bottle of cider in her right hand, the base of the bottle > pressed into her crotch so that the bottle juts out horizontally as the > stream of yellow cider splashes onto the recumbent male at her feet. In other words, the ad tells you to associate their product with the practice of drinking other people's urine. And the inclusion of the British flag is just to make it clear that all good Britons are into urolagnia. Did I spell "urolagnia" correctly? If not, just change it to the term the adults use, "pee play". I once saw an ad for some British canned apple drink (bright green can, I don't know if it was an alcoholic cider or just an apple-scented soft drink) where the moment the guy's wife leaves the house, we hear rubber stretching, then a quarter of a second later the guy's got all his fetishwear on. He's wearing a black wetsuit (oddly, it had a hood with holes for his ears to stick out comically) with a green lace panty over it and a pair of welly boots (because he's British, he has to wear welly boots to be any kind of sexual deviant.) Then he pops a tape into his VCR to play a commercial for the apple drink, and he starts licking the screen. His wife comes home and catches him playing his kinky screen-licking- rubber-transvestite-with-ear-holes game and he cowers in a corner screaming "DON'T LOOK AT ME!" How this is supposed to make me want their product, I don't know. Especially since they tried hard to make the guy look creepy. (The actor looks a lot like the guy who plays Stan on "Lexx", only with bigger ears and a craggier face.) I think the message is supposed to be that we're supposed to think this guy is an apalling deviant and the deepest form of deviance is the secret love between a guy wearing a panty over a wetsuit and commercials for apple drink. (He doesn't even lust after the product, he fetishizes the commercial for the product.) Of course, I can't remember the name of the product. All I remember is that if I drink it I'll turn into some sort of ugly-faced pervert. This ad is weird in that it attempts to acknowledge that some people are sexually weird, but it's clearly against them, but it's still trying to identify their product with them. Other ads for other European beverages take a more rational position of attempting to market _to_ the weird people (if they acknowledge their existence at all) such as those Oranjeboom ads written in mock Dutch on the back covers of European S&M magazines. They said something like "Oh, the sheer torture of not having an Oranjeboom!" only with everything spelled silly because Dutch is just like English without the completely rational spelling. And you people should be thankful that I've read every magazine in the world cover-to-cover otherwise you'd never know about that ad. Anyway, I only saw it because I was looking for Oprah's magazine. American ads may be strange, but you've gotta admit, they're actually quite chaste when it comes to associating their products with sex, let alone weird sex. They may get slightly racy, but they rarely get kinky. -- K. The ad on the back of the most recent "TV Guide" has a washed- out, oversaturated close-up of Rosie O'Donnell's shocked face, and the moment I saw it I thought, "Oh no! Not _another_ version of 'Bridget Jones's Diary'!" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:13:37 GMT Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > Roy G. Ovrebo (bursar@c2i.net) wrote: > > > > Ever noticed how in the commercials, they just tap the pack against > > their hand, and exactly one (1) piece of gum falls out? > > > > [...horrifying tale of difficult-to-open packages causing Gum Rage...] > > > > And that's why I don't buy chewing gum. > > I do, but I usually chew it the way you are supposed to on TV: > > 1. Place stick of gum laying with one end on tip of index finger and one > end on tip of thumb. > > 2. As you lift the gum to your mouth, bring index finger and thumb > together, bending gum in half on its journey. > > 3. Place gum in mouth, chew once, look towards camera, smile and nod. I think it's related to the rule that says the toothpaste must make a nice calligraphic "8" on the toothbrush whenever you use half the tube to clean your teeth. And shaving cream sprayed into the palm of your hand must be shaped like the top half of a Dairy Queen "soft serve" confection. And crackers must be served on a plate, carefully arranged into an overlapping ring so that no one cracker is on top of the others, when in reality of course you're just going to eat them out of the box. Speaking of crackers, Keebler saltines are so much better in Asia than they are here. Keebler's line of "Pacific Rim" crackers (they say that on the wrapper) are thinner and crispier than the American-made ones, with less salt, and they come in flavors such as spring onion, vegetable, and chicken. Yes, chicken-flavored Keebler saltines. Those are great with curry. Of course, any cracker is good when you scoop up curry with it, but the ones with the tiny amount of chickeny taste are awesome. They even make the canned karhi (also spelled kadhi) from the supermarket fun. I don't know why Keebler lets people in Hong Kong get the good products when Americans have to deal with the wimpy saltine crackers that are like stale bread, cooked to an off-white beige, instead of the ones which are so much crispier even taking a slow boat from Asia. Also I'm not sure whether the Keebler Pacific Rim Elves live in a little hollow tree or inside a big fat durian. -- K. Canned karhi/kadhi, by the way, consists of a few potato dumplings with plenty of bright yellow curry-cream sauce that you need to add crackers or noodles or rice to unless you want to pretend you have fluorescent matzoh ball soup. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Logos That Make You Go "Huh?" (paging Joe Manfre) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:08:27 GMT Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > Carlos "Froggy" May (froggy@neosoft.com) wrote: > > > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > 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.) > > > > What, you don't iron the edges of your snack-bag after you open it? > > Barbarian! Me open bag with big snack-axe, rrrr! > > Also, the Super Sugar Crisps bear's voice was originally a Bing Crosby > > imitation. Advertisers aparently think that kids will be swayed > > by references to popular music from 30 years before they were born. > > Are you sure you aren't thinking of "Crispy Critters" with Crispy's Jimmy > Durante impression? It didn't work for them though, the cereal didn't last > too long. I learned the phrase "crispy critters" as medical slang for burn victims before I ever saw the cereal, and it grossed me out. I hope never to see "Dotted Q" cereal. > I went to the flea market today, and they had a Little Golden Book based > off of Crispy Critters, but I instead opted to purchase "The Monster at the > End of This Book" with Grover and another one that featured Oscar the > Grouch dressing up as a little girl for a couple pages. "The Monster At The End Of This Book", as I've said before, is one of the greatest works of literature ever produced by humanity. They should have sent a copy into outer space aboard the Voyager probes instead of that silly gold videodisc. After all, if human children can learn from Grover, then superior aliens would be able to learn from him too, right? -- K. "The Monster At The End Of This Book" could never be written today because it just doesn't make sense to worry about "The Monster At The End Of The Internet". ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:22:58 GMT Andrew Pearson (apearson@pt.lu) wrote: > > Jonathan Benney wrote: > > > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > The worst thing about the Guardian is that their reporters all > > > wear overalls with pink and white stripes, just like Andy Panda. > > ^ > > y. > > Ohmigawsh ANDY FUCKING PANDY. I can actually remember this being on the > telly in the UK when I was a brat. (They repeated it for a long time > after it was made, honest!). I had no idea the one line in that "Doctor Who" episode from about 1976 I was referencing was actually a reference to something so obscure even I, an expert in everything, didn't know it existed. I figured when the security guard said "Just like Andy Pandy!" in that mocking voice he was disparaging Andy Panda, the ultra-insipid American cartoon character who never did anything to hurt anyone, and making people laugh might hurt them if they just had lung surgery, so he never did anything, ever. In that "Doctor Who" episode, the point is that Sarah Jane (a fictional reporter for the Manchester Guardian, and full-time idiot) has been possessed by a petrified hand in a Tupperware tub, so she steals it from the hospital to take it to a nuclear reactor in Luton (the town whose existence inspired the lamest "Space: 1999" episode of all) and all the while she's wearing the overalls with pink and white vertical stripes. So, if there was a popular British children's TV character who dressed that way, why did Sarah choose to dress the same way during her visit to the nuclear reactor, other than just because she was a terminal bubblehead? Sometimes I think "Doctor Who" wasn't serious hard science fiction!!! > I used to have some considerable affection for the theme tune from the > end credits, with a simple tune played on the piano and a calmly > condescing woman singing "Time to go home, time to go home, Andy is > waving Good-Bye... Goood Bye... Good Bye!". > > Now as I happen to be called Andrew, that would make one helluva tune to > have played at my funeral service when I go. Perhaps with the addition > of a little "waving hand" sticker on the coffin as it disappears through > the curtain? But if you die in a manner where they can only find your hand, Tupperware would be more appropriate. -- K. Kids' shows today don't have enough curtains. Special effects have destroyed the theatrical- curtain industry! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:24:55 GMT Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > I was somehow convinced that Bert was Ernie's father. > I unsuccessfully tried to get other people to believe this. It's okay, Matt, we believe you, and we also believe all your other weird fantasies about puppet genealogy. I have accepted in my heart that Little Bird no longer appears on "Sesame Street" because he grew up and the world was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust and the radiation made him even bigger then he built a time machine and went back in time to become Big Bird and invented "Sesame Street" so there would never be a nuclear war. And I do believe your theory that Oompa-Loompas are Ernie and Bert's inbred children, with half orange brat genes, and half yellow lecturing parent genes. That's why they spend all their time singing about chewing gum being evil while giving kids free chewing gum. -- K. I hear the Pope has ordered an investigation into whether Cardinal Law runs a secret candy factory. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:36:59 GMT Xcott Craver (Caj@B_r_a_i_n_H_z.c_o_m) wrote: > > Sean Smith (stsmith58@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > And don't froget that one time when Ernie f*&king woke Bert up in the > > middle of the night to sing about how difficult a time he was having > > getting to sleep. And then he opened the door and a whole flock of > > f*&king tap-dancing sheep came in, > > You know, if the Internet has any effect on society whatsoever, > I want it to inspire children to ask, "Mommy, why do Bert > and Ernie have a camera set up in their bedroom?" When I was little I had a Sesame Street Colorforms playset that had Ernie & Bert's bedroom as one of the two pieces of cardboard I could stick the stickers to. But the "(B)" and "(E)" signs on Bert's and Ernie's beds were stickers, so I could make Bert and Ernie switch beds, or I could leave off the stickers and they'd get confused and cry. Plus there was a Cookie Monster sticker made of blue plastic but his eyeballs were little white plastic stickers and I'd make Cookie Monster invade their bedroom and he'd pull off his eyeballs and hide them in Bert's stuff to freak him out. You see, it's not a TV camera that's watching Ernie & Bert's bedroom shenanigans, it's one of Cookie's detachable eyeballs. We know the Muppets have powers like that because there was that segment where Ernie was making a clay bust of Bert and yanked off the real Bert's nose and stuck it to the statue. So, we can assume that at the end of the day they'd rip off Big Bird's legs and barbecue them with spicy sauce because they'd just grow back overnight. Mr. Rogers never let his puppets get away with stuff like that. -- K. I wish Mr. Rogers had super powers so he could fight crime and Muppets who steal noses. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: sesame street versus artsy fartsy filmmaker! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:29:47 GMT Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > Sean Smith (stsmith58@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > I told me kids when they watched "Sesame Street" that Bert -- as anal > > retentive and mundane as he is -- was a far more trustworthy and > > reliable friend to have than f*&king Ernie. > > I don't know, I always kind of got the impression that, while he was > sneaky and annoying in little ways, Ernie was a lot more compassionate > and trustworthy with the important stuff and would be the one to drive > his pickup out into the woods to rescue you while Bert fretted over > whether the blackberry vines would scratch the paint on his Land Rover. Bert wouldn't have a Land Rover! He'd be anally fixated on some sort of weird vehicle. Because that's the way Bert is. He's obsessive and compulsive and authoritarian and he only likes stuff nobody else would like. He collects bottle caps from fig-flavored soda pop, he plays checkers against filthy pigeons, and he reads that same "Boring Stories" book over and over ("Wow! The prince just drank a glass of water!") So I think that Bert would have a solar-powered hovercraft with green and purple zebra-striped fake fur seats. Oh, and it would be covered by a clear plastic bubble with primary-colored balls bouncing around inside. He'd fly it around while cackling maniacally, and he'd drop bombs on those dirty fish that stole his precious ice cube. I get the feeling that when Bert grows up, he's going to use the word "DAMMIT!" more often than any other. "DAMMIT! THE PIGEON BEAT ME AGAIN!" -- K. I suspect Bert will grow up to marry Don Music and they'll spend all day throwing crockery at each other's big foam heads. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Hey kids! Stale, deformed bagels are funny! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 02:46:23 GMT Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > Paula (mmmtoblerone@earthlink.net) wrote: > > > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > 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. > > > > This is just plain wrong. From beginning to end. Just WRONG! What > > manner of evil are you spawning in Boston? > > By the way, yesterday I was in one of my neighborhood's non-imaginary > supermarkets and decided to inspect a box of Funny Bagels while there. > Said supermarket had several boxes of Funny Bagels, all of which > seemed to be of the cream-cheese-and-strawberry-jam variety, and all > of which had December 1, 2001 as the contest-entry deadline. I smell > a conspiracy! Hmm. The harder we look, the older the bagels get. Can someone please find some from before 2000 so we can see if they became those "funny" deformities because the bagels weren't Y2K-compliant? > Actually, right now I'm smelling lasagna. Mmm, a much better smell > than unfunny half-bagels. I smell a two-and-a-half-pound tub of frozen jambalaya just starting to cook. It'll take about another hour. Those were all I bought at the supermarket today because I had all this other stuff to carry, and even thought I was on the bus to South Bay Center while typing that article about the joys of Keebler Pacific Rim crackers I didn't manage to make it to the Super 88 Supermarket to buy any because stuff was big and heavy. (I bought a plant light and some ant traps at Home Depot, some dangerous toys at Toys R Us, a wireless keyboard and mouse at OfficeMax or OfficeDepot or Staples, whichever that store is, and five pounds of jambalaya at Stop'n'Shop.) So I never got my light little crackers because that stuff, plus my computer and camera and assorted accessories passed the decision gauge that made crackers suddenly seem to heavy to carry. -- K. Who decided that crossbows that shoot plastic airplanes would be a good idea? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Hey kids! Stale, deformed bagels are funny! Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 03:29:10 GMT Kim Wright (kwright@netaxs.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > 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? > > In St. Martin they sell small plastic toys covered in chocolate and malt. > The chocolate coating (hideously deformed from the heat and possibly the > lengthy travel required to reach the island) was repugnant. The toy however > was pretty neat. It involved lots of very small parts, needed some > assembly, and turned out to be an eggplant (or possibly a raisin) wearing a > kitchen funnel on its head and brandishing a large serrated knife. That's frightening. I'm glad I live in a nice sensible country like the United States and not in St. Martin, which is clearly one of those evil countries that will try to take over the world if we don't bomb it. Or I suppose we could just poison it by sending bad junk food there. Although now that I've looked it up on the Web, I've learned that St. Martin isn't a country at all, it's just half an island owned by the French (the other half of the island is "St. Maarten" because the Dutch control it.) And there's nothing evil about the Dutch, so only half the island is evil, even though it's not a country. I notice that St. Martin's official home page hasn't even paid to get their own domain name -- it's "www.geographia.com/st-martin". It tells me that, "The border is almost imperceptible. and people cross back and forth without ever realizing they are entering a new country." That concept frightens me. "Surprise! You've just wandered into Holland. Now you have to take off all your clothes and get sprayed with a mixture of riot foam and Oranjeboom!" or "Ha! Ha! You're in France now! Eat these chocolate-covered snails with no toys inside!" I'd love to visit St. Martin and St. Maarten sometime, though, it looks like a great island. I'd have a lot of fun walking around Simpson Bay Lagoon, because it's small enough that I could walk around it twice and say "I've walked through five countries today -- France, Holland, France, Holland, and France!" Plus I like the sound of the "Balloon Jump-Up" parade. Is it true what the Web site says about the Dutch side having 110-volt electrical outlets but the French side has deadlier 220-volt electricity? That must be annoying. It's too bad that electricity can't go across borders. -- K. If I lived on the Dutch side, I'd walk across the border every time I wanted to cook a burrito really fast.