Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 04:56:57 GMT Seen on DarwinAwards.com, submitted by "Anonymous": -> My first patient as a young nurse (many moons ago) was a truckddriver -> who stopped at a rest stop. When he urinated, he noticed that his -> urine was bloody. So he decided to treat himself by sticking a -> styptic pencil up his penis. I've never seen a styptic pencil, but my understanding is that the difference between a styptic pencil and a regular pencil is that styptic pencils hurt when you stuff them up your urethra. Also, if you were Nurse Anonymous, in what order would you have asked these questions? 1.) So, whaddaya do for a living, are you a trucker? 2.) Why is there a thing in your urethra? 3.) What sort of pencil is that? 4.) And this is better than bloody urine, how? 5.) Do all truckers carry styptic pencils? -- K. P.S. Hi, Kenton. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Only Marginally Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 05:28:24 GMT I just wrote: > > Seen on DarwinAwards.com, submitted by "Anonymous": > -> > -> My first patient as a young nurse (many moons ago) was a truckddriver > -> who stopped at a rest stop. When he urinated, he noticed that his > -> urine was bloody. So he decided to treat himself by sticking a > -> styptic pencil up his penis. > > I've never seen a styptic pencil, but > [...] > styptic pencils hurt when you stuff them up your urethra. Further research: Apparently in Manx, my name almost means half of "styptic pencil". From Ceantar.org's wonderful Manx dictionary: => => kibbin => wooden pin, peg, dibble, linchpin, stake, gad, spike => => kibbin baaree => shaving stick => => kibbin beg => skewer => => kibbin castagh => styptic pencil => => kibbin daah smarree => stick of grease paint => => kibbin eayil => stalactite => => kibbin eeastee => fishing rod (bamboo) => => kibbin ingney => orange stick => => kibbin jeushan => hinge-pin => => kibbin lhionney => ale stake => => kibbin millish => ice lolly => => kibbin rioee => icicle => => kibbin skelf => marline spike => => kibbin thooishey => joss-stick => => kibbinagh => stakelike, stick insect, spiked => => kibbiney => truss Good to see that Manx is a living language with lots of words for useful things like "styptic pencil" and "stick of grease paint". Because we all know how those Manx people love to put on clown makeup while waving their joss sticks. (Actually, the real reason Manx folks have styptic pencils is to staunch the bleeding after their tails are cut off.) "kibbin castagh" is a great phrase. I imagine an "America's Funniest Home Videos" segment where Charlton Heston gets stabbed in the urethra with a styptic pencil and screams "KIBBIN CASTAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!! ARRRRRR! IT'S DRIVIN' ME NUTS!" Oh, and he's dressed as a pirate, and the styptic pencil has a steering wheel on it. I wish everyone could come into my dimension, where "America's Funniest Home Videos" contains such wonders. Also, although "styptic pencil" is "kibbin castagh", the adjective for just "styptic" is a different word, "stiptagh", which suggests that there are styptic things that aren't pencils. Like maybe styptic toast, styptic inflatable chairs, and styptic Gatorade. Now I'll try to write a story containing the line "Poor Spot! He was a styptic puppy!" except it's really hot in here so I'll have to make it short: SPOT Copyright (C) 2002 James "Kibo" Parry All Rights Reserved. This Story Is A Work Of Fiction And Any Similarity To Actual Persons, Places, Or Pets Is Purely Coincidental. Not For Internal Use. Written On A Continent That Also Processes Peanuts. Do Not Try This At Home. Poor Spot! He was a styptic puppy! "Waah," cried Spot, "I am a styptic puppy!" THE END. -- K. I was going to include a colophon, but I won't know what fonts it's typeset in until I come over to everyone's house and look at their screen. Please be home between 2 and 6 tomorrow. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Completely Non-Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 06:24:25 GMT I recently wrote: > > I just wrote: > > > > Seen on DarwinAwards.com, submitted by "Anonymous": > > -> > > -> a truckddriver [...] he decided to treat himself by sticking > > -> a styptic pencil up his penis. > > > > I've never seen a styptic pencil, [...] > > [...] in Manx, my name almost means half of "styptic pencil". Apparently this trucker wasn't the first to treat himself in that manner, if indeed that can be said to be a treat. A search for the intersection of "styptic pencil" with "penis" turned up this history of venereal disease: => Certain new prophylactic methods were devised during the war. Thus the => Austrian army was provided with a prophylactic kit consisting of an => antiseptic soap, a silver preparation and a little styptic pencil for the => urethra. It was reported that, thanks to this invention the number of => venereal patients in one army division of 37,000 men, fell 38 per cent => between January and May, 1916. Ha! Our American truck drivers are so much more manly than those Austrian World War I soldiers who had "little" styptic pencils! In America, the truck drivers have full-size pencils in their penises! -- K. If Crayola made styptic crayons, would they still come in powers of two, or would they switch to decimal? And would Austrians have accidents with the little sharpener? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Only Marginally Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 11:42:45 GMT "Talysman the Ur-Beatle" (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > here is a huge lump of helpful information that you probably > do not want, but magically, you are receiving it anyways. > > I have, in fact, seen and even used a styptic pencil before. (making a note on a clipboard) Talysman... styptic pencil... check. Okay, who here wears stirrup pants? Anyone believe in Ouija boards? Who's seen every episode of "Pokemon"? Hurry up why I have the New Multiple Choice Short Shameful Confession Inventory chart in my clipboard of shame. > although I'm not sure what it is. it seems to be more like > a stick of chalk rather than a pencil, but it's made out of > PURE PAIN. something in it is antiseptic. so it burns quite > a bit. it also appears to help seal tiny cuts. or at least > has hypnotized people into believing it does so. me, I never > seemed to get it to work. maybe the batteries were dead. But why is it a styptic "pencil" and not a styptic "stick"? Can you actually write with it? Does the message come out looking like it was written with a regular pencil, or invisible ink? And can you also use the styptic pencil to seal the envelope? > anyways, what I used styptic pencils for, for a short while, > was shaving cuts. That's just crazy. Why would you want shaving cuts? And why were you trying to give yourself them with a styptic pencil instead of something more logical, like the point of that compass they made you buy in seventh-grade math class? > this is probably what the trucker thought of just before he > rammed the styptic pencil down into his penwas. afterwards, > he could only think "gee, this styptic pencil is made out of PURE PAIN!" "...just like NBC's 'The Rerun Show'!" > perhaps he accidentally remembered that "pencil" and "penis" > are derived from the same latin word. perhaps he should not > have been reading books on linguistics. what he should have > remembered was that styptic pencils are bigger around than > the average urethra. assuming that the urban legend about > kidney stones being equivalent in pain to giving birth, then > ramming a styptic pencil down your peepee would be EVEN WORSE > than birth. it would be the opposite of birth! More kinds of pain should be the opposites of things. "Doctor, I have this pain... I can't really describe it, except that it's the exact opposite of delicious cherry Pez." "That's all I need to know. You have cancer." > I have nothing else really legitimate to say, except that > the short short story about spot the styptic puppy who rids > the world of spots of blood using only his pure puppy pain (and saved the Wonder Bread company a lot of money because they only had to print the wrappers in two colors from then on) > reminded me of a poem I read when I was about 10, so I had > to track the poem down and provide it to you now. it has to > do with puppies and vaguely has something to do with styptic > thingies. it's by Arthur Guiterman, but not by Ray Stevens. > > The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup > > The antiseptic baby and the prophylactic pup > Were playing in the garden when the bunny gamboled up > They looked upon this creature with loathing undisguised > He wasn't disinfected and he wasn't sterilized > > They said he was a microbe and a hotbed of disease > They steamed him in a vapor of a thousand odd degrees > They froze him in a freezer as cold as banished hope > And washed him in permanganate with carbolated soap > > Into sulphurated hydrogen they steeped his wiggly ears > And trimmed his frisky whiskers with a pair of hardboiled shears > Then they donned their rubber mittens and took him by the hand > And elected him a member of the fumigated band > > There's not a micrococcus in the garden where they play > And they bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day > And each imbibes his rations from a hygienic cup > The bunny and the baby and the prophylactic pup. That's the most beautiful poem I've ever seen, unless Arthur Guiterman turns out to have been a pervert. The poem's called "Strictly Germ-Proof" in the references I have. Unless that was just an editorial comment on the type of paper it was printed on. All my poetry books are printed on laminated plasticized Tyvek because I subscribe to the Spittle-Proof-And-Can't- Be-Ripped-Up-By-Chimps-Poetry-Book-Of-The-Month-Club. -- K. Fun fact: Arthur Guiterman was born in Austria in 1871, but left before they passed out the little styptic pencils. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 06:06:26 GMT Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > [re some guy's attempt to treat V.D. with a styptic pencil, internally] > > An old girlfreind was telling me about some movie she saw where a > woman threatened to dip a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and stick it > up a guy's urethra. I instinctively recoiled at the very thought, and > she said, "Oh, I thought it was supposed to feel *good*." And I thought the movies I watched were bad. I mean, today I saw a Dutch action movie that wasn't even directed by Paul Verhoeven. And yes, "Amsterdamned" turned out to be just as bad as I expected a formulaic, dubbed generic action movie would be, but if I had seen your comment before watching the movie I could have at least consoled myself with the thought that the killer scuba diver wasn't within fifty feet of a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, a rubbing swab dipped in cotton alcohol, or any other sort of swab, although the word "swab" does sound sort of Dutch. But then again, so does "cookie". So if I had seen you describing the swab movie, I could have said to myself, "This movie sucks, but at least it has no swab, and even if it did have a swab it would be just as likely to have a cookie. Mmm, cookie." > I also once bought a styptic pencil and tried using it when I cut > myself shaving. Unfortunately nobody warned me ahead of time that > styptic pencils were supposed to hurt. And they especially didn't > warn me that the pain of using a styptic pencil is somewhat akin to > having the entire Ministry of Love stabbing you with white-hot daggers > covered in pure capsaicin while you sit in a wading pool filled with > firebreathing armor-plated candiru and angry electric eels. Well, that sounds more painful than watching "Amsterdamned". But at least it wouldn't be as boring. > THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. Okay, now break into Dutch video stores and splice it into the first minute of "Amsterdamned" so it will do some good. -- K. And watch out for the super-cute Japanese cartoon version, "Hamsterdamned". ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Essential Penis Injury News. Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 11:23:16 GMT Special K (requiem@socket.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [...THIS IS A PENCIL story snipped...] > > > > P.S. Hi, Kenton. > > Hi, Kibo! > > > First of all, I let my beard grow when I was on the road, therefore > had no need for a styptic pencil. And now you can throw away your male merkin. Oh, you meant you grew the beard, and used the pencil, on your FACE. Geez, stick to the subject, willya? Stick something where sticks shouldn't be stuck if you want to participate in this delightful conversation! > [...] > > This being said... I'm rather glad I'm not a trucker anymore, > especially after reading THAT. I mean, truckers aren't exactly famous > for their great intellect. Just ask ten truckers randomly if they > read classical literature, or are interested in RPGs or anime or video > games. I met ONE trucker who read Douglas Adams' works. ONE! And I > met many truckers in my long, long trucking career of seven months. So are you saying that you're disappointed that you met only one who did read Douglas Adams's books, or that you met so few who could have? Not that Douglas Adams's books were particularly difficult to read. They're very entertaining, but they're not the sort of books where you feel you're being uncouth if you read them on the toilet. Now, if you could find a trucker who made it as far as the mistake in "Principia Mathematica", especially if they weren't even near a toilet, then I'd be impressed. > And, I'm still looking for work. So who's the sucker you sold your truck to, and what surprises did you leave inside? Yeah, I know, you didn't actually own the trucks you drove. But that's no excuse if you didn't at least try to sell the truck to a sucker. -- K. "I found the mistake! 'Mathematics' should be spelled with an 's', not an 'a'!" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Stoopid Bus Ads I Have Known Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 05:53:31 GMT Rob Lomax (King_Nogger@hotmail.com) wrote: > > An advertising poster on my bus last night showed an image of a busy > train station, with a security guard in the foreground apparently > saying, "I can spot a smile at 50 metres". Adjoining text reveals that > public transport security personnel have "new powers" to fight crime > on trains and buses. > > I must say it baffled me. Are we supposed to surmise from this that > these people have acquired the new power of smile-spotting? Well, anyone who's enjoying themselves on a bus MUST be some sort of dangerous wacko, or frotteur, or desperate loner who wants to explain the difference between Juno and NetZero to you at length. > That's not what I'd call entirely useful. I can certainly imagine more > useful powers for public transport security guards: > > Flying - useful (for catching fare evaders). > Precognition - useful (for foreseeing traffic jams so buses can avoid > them). > Ice-breath - useful (for cooling buses and trains during Perth's > stinking hot summers) > X-ray vision - useful (for looking at girls in their underwear during > quiet shifts). > > and then... > > Smile-spotting - not useful unless your principal public transport > criminal is the Mona Lisa. I've said it before, I'll say it again: In Boston the transit police already have a system in place for dealing with fare evaders. If you jump over the turnstile, the guard looks in your direction and yells "You better not try that again!" and if you try to get on with an expired pass you're told "If you do that again, they'll confiscate it!" In Boston, it's legal to do anything once. Ask Bernard Cardinal Law! (If you don't know who Bernard Cardinal Law is, he's the only bishop whose name Yoda pronounce correctly could. I have no idea why his title is his middle name. But it's okay for him to put words in any order he wants... BUT HE BETTER NOT DO IT AGAIN!) > We'll have to add smile-spotting to the other current public transport > guard powers, which to my mind consist of tea-swilling, > gut-development, vacant-staring and aimless-meandering. In Boston, we certainly have lots of (T)-swilling. Every morning the (T) employees go to each station and put orange cones around any loose puddles of swill. Then in the evening, they take away the orange cones just to make sure someone steps in the swill before they have to close the station for the night. > It disturbs me that of every possible crime Transperth could > highlight, they chose Smiling as the most in need of attention in > their advertisements. Apparently there are hordes of smirking bastards > spreading goodwill and happiness the length and breadth of the city, > and until these security guards acquired their smile-spotting talents > they were powerless to stop them. But now they've been empowered, all > those grinning ne'er-do-wells had better watch out! I say, "You sic > 'em, fellas!" And let me tell you that I am proudly scowling as I > write. You can't say I'm not doing my bit to help our brave > smile-spotting boys. So if you were Dick Tracy, who would be the most hideous criminal ever, Pruneface, Splitface, Gumwadface or Eternally Smiling Garry Shandling? -- K. I should stop picking on Garry Shandling. He's actually talented, and I might wind up looking like him someday, especially if I ever confuse a pickle-boiling vat with the local swimming pool. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: Adventures in physics Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 06:06:53 GMT Otto Bahn (JGAULT@CCIS1025.LunchTimeInBosnia.mc.duke.edu) wrote: > > 1) Ketchup containers which are removed from the fridge > will gradually heat up, causing the air in them to expand. Or maybe the rest of the Universe shrinks! After all, the Universe contains all the smarts of everyone who's alive, so I'm sure it could think of a way to shrink itself whenever it sees your refrigerator door opening, because it enjoys trying to confuse you. > 2) A container which is upside down for the purpose of > extracting the last bits of ketchup has no mechanism for > venting the building pressure in step #1. Never mind the building's pressure, what about the bottle's? I don't think your building is in danger of bursting, unless you have the air conditioner and the de-humidifier turned on at the same time. If you do, be careful not to mix Dippin' Dots (The Ice Cream Of The Future) with Astronaut Ice Cream (The Chalk Of The Future) or you could be blown into the 27th century, where they don't cotton to strangers blowing themselves around with bad desserts that were banned back in the 24th century, when they were replaced by The World's Most Futuristic Ice Cream Ever, made out of solid antimatter. > 3) Opening said container in step #2 will cause ketchup > to spew in the general direction in which the bottle is > pointed (or to be more precise, all over my desk). So this isn't a problem for the rest of us, then? No matter which way we point the bottle, it always paints YOUR desk? > 4) Sadly, my desk was not covered with bacon first. Well, it was pretty silly of you to do it in that order. Next time, FIRST the bacon, THEN the super-heated ketchup-air colloidal gusher. -- K. "Excuse me, Mr. Grocer, do you have any rectangular, desk-size bacon?" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Worst idea for a TV show... ever? DON'T TUNE IN AND FIND OUT! Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 07:04:23 GMT Last week, in a special place where nobody could see it, I predicted: > Subject: worst idea ever for a TV show? > > NBC's "The Rerun Show", premieres Thursday. > > A sketch comedy troupe dresses up like people from old NBC shows and > performs scenes from the shows. > > You know, like "The Real Live Brady Bunch" except all NBC-ized. > And in bits and pieces. And with a whole cast of "Mad TV"-level overactors. Tonight... I tried watching it. Ugh. I will bet this show gets cancelled far faster than "Wednesdays 9:30 (8:30 Central)", which lasted three weeks (under two titles.) Also, this is a far worse show than that. This may not make it to Week Two (when "Wednesdays" introduced a wacky chimp going nutzoid) and certainly won't make it to Week Three (when "Wednesdays" introduced Ted McGinley.) This show doesn't need a Ted McGinley to kill it. It died of natural, non-McGinley causes. While it was on, the most entertaining parts were the microscopic black areas between the color dots on my TV screen. It's just that bad. Halfway through I started wishing it would change to a serious drama about the character "Rerun" from "What's Happening!" but no, "The Rerun Show" did a tedious "Diff'rent Strokes" sketch, followed by a tedious "Partridge Family" sketch, in which the high point was a special guest appearance by Danny Bonaduce playing Danny Bonaduce. And saddest of all, the fact that I could point to the screen and say "Look! It's Danny Bonaduce, dressed like Danny Bonaduce!" was the closest this ever came to being funny. Even Danny Bonaduce could tell he was surrounded by losers. Lame moments from lame old NBC sitcoms are re-created by talentless people whose idea of a parody is to just massively overact. That's all. There is no humor. There is no attempt at humor. There are lots of explanations of the concept. And there are celebrity cameos so obscure they require on-screen captions: The guy in the yellow sweater is Alex "THE BACHELOR" Michael Who? Why? Ugh! -- K. The blank space to the left is a better idea for a TV show than "The Rerun Show". ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: HEY!!! People are being paid to annoy you! Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 10:53:37 GMT Very soon, you will encounter people who are paid to bother you in person. ...and no, I don't mean door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. Those vanished a few decades ago when people forgot how to read any book with a roman numeral on the spine. I'm referring to people who walk up to you in public and just start giving you sales pitches, anywhere, anytime, possibly even in the men's restroom. Even if you're a woman. From now on, there will be no difference between "a commercial" and "an obnoxious jerk". You'll be spammed in 3-D, at point-blank range! This development is so horrifying it will prompt me to use lots of SARCASM IN ALL CAPS. <-- THIS IS IN ALL CAPS <-- EVERYTHING I MENTION IN THIS ARTICLE IS STUPID From the Wall Street Journal's Web site: -> -> Sony Ericsson Campaign Uses Actors -> To Push Camera-Phone in Real Life -> -> By SUZANNE VRANICA -> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -> -> In a campaign set to start Thursday, the U.S. arm of Sony -> Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. will take "guerrilla" -> marketing to a new level. Its goal: to get consumers to pay -> attention to the new T68i, a mobile phone that can double as a -> digital camera. -> -> In one initiative, dubbed Fake Tourist, 60 trained actors and -> actresses will haunt tourist attractions such as the Empire State -> Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle. Working in -> teams of two or three and behaving as if they were actual -> tourists, the actors and actresses will ask unsuspecting -> passersby to take their pictures. -> -> Presto: instant product demonstrations. You know, if this product was any good, they could just GIVE sixty of these phones to sixty people who like digital camera, and they'd USE them to take pictures, and it would accomplish the same thing, except they wouldn't have to hire LIARS. Two years ago, if you took out your camera in public, and it had a video screen on the back, and computery lettering on the screen, and "DIGITAL CAMERA" was printed on the front, people would come running up to you and ask breathlessly, "Is that a (gasp) DIGITAL camera?" Now, you'll be strolling down the street and people with fake haircuts wearing fake suits with fake ties (that look like clip-ons but are really just ties tied on by marketing assistants) will come running up to you yelling "LOOK AT THIS DIGITAL CAMERA! LOOK AT THIS DIGITAL CAMERA! LOOK AT THIS DIGITAL CAMERA!" I wonder if they'll shut up if you promise to give them money, like one of those annoying PBS pledge drives. On second thought, PBS pledge drives aren't all that annoying because they just interrupt reruns of "The Red Green Show" while the Sony shills will interrupt *Y*O*U*!* <-- LOOK AT THESE ASTERISKS! I MADE THEM WITH MY NEW SONY DIGITAL CAMERA! LOOK! LOOK! -> A second stunt will involve the use of "leaners" -- 60 actresses -> and female models with extensive training in the phone's features -> who will frequent trendy lounges and bars without telling the -> establishments what they're up to. The women are getting scripted -> scenarios designed to help them engage strangers in conversation. Yeah, otherwise men just won't talk to fashion models hanging out by themselves in bars. Also they all have to be female because only heterosexual men and lesbians buy phones with cameras in them. -> One involves having an actress's phone ring while she's in the -> bar -- and having the caller's picture pop up on the screen. ...and that's a feature that I'd pay an extra thousand dollars NOT to have! -> In another scenario, two women sit at opposite ends of the bar -> playing an interactive version of the Battleship game on their -> phones. HOLY COW! BE STILL MY BEATING HEART! IF I BOUGHT ONE OF THESE SONY PHONES I COULD GO TO A TRENDY SINGLES BAR AND PLAY BATTLESHIP INSTEAD OF HAVING TO TALK TO PEOPLE! OH BOY OH BOY IT'S NOT EVEN REGULAR BATTLESHIP, IT'S *INTERACTIVE* BATTLESHIP! I BET NEXT YEAR THEY'LL HAVE PARCHEESI TOO! -> So far, so good. "And THIS button 'corrects' the spelling from 'l-a-m-e' to 'g-o-o-d'!" -> But do the actors then identify themselves as working on behalf -> of Sony Ericsson? Not if they can help it. Hell no. If I were hanging out in a bar or nightclub, would I say I was a total loser paid to pretend to be interested in people there? That job's just as humiliating as wearing the big foam-rubber Goofy costume at Disneyland except without the thick layer of foam rubber to keep people from seeing your tortured facial expression. -> The idea is to have onlookers think they've stumbled onto a hot new -> product. Well, it works for those people with the "ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDCHILDREN" bumper stickers. Now dozens of people across the country have been fooled into thinking that those grandchildren are totally awesome! -> Sony Ericsson, which plans to spend $5 million on the 60-day marketing -> campaign, says it's all in good fun (The kind of fun that costs $5,000,000 just to reach about a tenth of a percent as many people as a single late-night TV commercial) -> and just an effort to get people talking. Yeah, but only drunk ones. "Yesh, I'll look at your tefelone some more if you just buy me another teeny-weeny drinky-poo." Then the word "HIC!" appears above their head in a big asterisk, and they're wearing a lampshade and holding a jug marked "XXX". (Note: "XXX" on a jug means booze, "XXX" on a sack means flour, and "XXX" on a videotape means it costs three times as much as a movie with an actual plot.) -> Consumer activists, though, aren't amused. "It's deceptive," says -> Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit -> organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told -> about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is -> honest buzz." NO, REALLY? YOU MEAN FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER PEOPLE WILL PRETEND TO LIKE A PRODUCT? THEY'D NEVER BE ALLOWED TO DO THAT IN TV COMMERCIALS! -> Even marketing executives disapprove. "It is reprehensible and -> desperate," says Paul MacFarlane, co-owner of the Experiment, a -> small ad firm in St. Louis, that has done work for Southwestern -> Bell and Anheuser-Busch. "They are trying to fabricate something -> that should be natural." And that's not something Anheuser-Busch would do. Nope, they'd never fabricate something that should be natural, especially because they're busy in that big chemical factory where they mix solvents to create a substance that can pass for beer. -> Sony Ericsson responds that most consumers won't be offended. -> "How many times do people that you don't know come up to you and -> talk to you?" asks Jon Maron, director of marketing -> communications at Sony Ericsson, which is a joint venture of -> Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson of Sweden and Sony Corp. of Japan. Yes, indeed! This ad campaign will be no more annoying than those random insane people who talk to you against your will on the bus! If you love hearing about some filthy guy's collection of caterpillars, you'll love it even more when this is done by paid professionals! -> "It's very natural, especially in a club or restaurant." He adds -> that the actors will confess that they work for the company if -> they are asked directly. -> -> Peter Groome, president of Omnicom Group Inc.'s Fathom -> Communications, the marketing firm that created the plan, also -> defends the tactics. He insists that the campaign isn't -> "undercover" selling because the actors will simply demonstrate -> the product, not give a sales pitch. And demonstrating the product is important to reach those people who have never seen a phone or camera before. Of course, those people would be so stupid it wouldn't matter that it's not a sales pitch. "WOW! IT'S LIKE THE TOY PHONE MY KIDS GAVE ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY BUT YOU CAN TALK INTO IT! I'LL BUY FIVE! HERE'S A BLANK CHECK! CAN I GET THE FIVE PHONES PERSONALIZED WITH LASER-ENGRAVING? HAVE THEM ALL PERSONALIZED TO 'I. R. STUPID'! P.S.: DUH!" -> Still, the company has gone to great lengths to train its actors -> to avoid detection. "If you put them in a Sony Ericsson shirt, -> then people are going to be less likely to listen to them in a -> bar," Mr. Groome says. I will not listen to them in a bar, I will not listen to them in a car. I will not listen at the mall, I will not listen in the fall. MARVIN K. SONY WILL YOU PLEASE GO NOW! -> Other components of the promotional campaign are more commonly -> used buzz initiatives. One involves "Phone Finds," in which the -> company will place dummy phones around cities so that consumers -> can accidentally stumble on them. "WOW! I FOUND A GENIUNE SONY PHONE! OH WAIT IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. IT'S EITHER UNUSABLY BROKEN OR JUST A STUPID TOY. WELL, I WAS GOING TO BUY SOME SONY PRODUCTS, BUT AFTER FINDING THIS SHODDY BROKEN PHONE AND/OR TOY FOR BABIES, I THINK I BETTER BUY ANOTHER BRAND!" You see, Sony, your idea is so bad that it's going to make people say they dislike you in all caps. That'll make it easy for people at the other end of the bar to hear them, even over the noise of the "Interactive Battleship" game. "YOU SUNK MY TINY DOT!" -> The screen on the phone will direct the finders to a special Web site, -> where they will be able to enter a contest to win a free phone. Or they could just go to the mall where at least seven companies would give them a free phone when they sign up for the dial tone service that's required to use a phone of any sort. Tell you what, Sony. You can give me a free phone as long as I can give you this free albino koala bear which you have to feed special white eucalyptus cough drops all day, and you can only buy them from me, and you can only buy them a year in advance. Oh, and I'll need to see both sides of your credit card. Then you get your *F*R*E*E* beige koala. -> The new phone with camera attachment, priced between $300 and $400, -> will hit stores next week. ...hopefully by then they'll have figured out a more specific price. Perhaps even to the nearest dollar. Without GOING OVER. Sony, COME ON DOWN! PICK A PRICE and SHUT UP! -> Less covert buzz marketing strategies have been around for years, -> but their use surged during the dot-com boom. Many companies that -> couldn't afford expensive TV ads hired young marketing firms to -> convey their messages in attention-getting ways. -> -> As concepts became more elaborate and intrusive, they began to be -> referred to as guerrilla marketing or stealth marketing. But not "the kind of marketing that actually sells stuff." -> [...] -> -> But there are limits. Veteran marketers warn that advertisers who -> are trying to generate positive word-of-mouth about a brand or a -> new product will do better in the long run if they are honest -> with consumers. -> -> David Lubars, president and executive creative director at -> Publicis Groupe SA's Fallon Worldwide, says promotional campaigns -> that are perceived as dishonest could backfire. "If the consumer -> finds out after the encounter, they are going to be mad," he says. So, Sony should set up a hotline that consumers could call to complain. It could even be reachable from a special button on the $300-to-$400 phone. In fact, it would ONLY be reachable that way. "HEY EVERYONE! SONY HERE! WE SUCK! BUY OUR PHONE SO YOU CAN TELL US THAT!" -- K. I could ruin this for Sony so easily. I have lots of Sony stuff I could carry to bars and tell people about. "And see this Sony brand microwave oven? It has a special tracking technology that constantly aims a beam of microwave radiation at your eyes! And you know you can trust me to tell you the truth about these sinister Sony products because I DON'T WORK FOR SONY! Here, look at my professionally-printed Sony I.D. card that says I DON'T WORK FOR SONY! Now smile while I take your photo with this Sony camera that automatically undresses you and gives you a sex change! Here, have a T-shirt with Sony's new corporate logo, Naked Hitler! And remember, I DON'T WORK FOR SONY, and I know you'll believe that because Sony says you're stupid!" Then I'd had them a card which said "Sony says: YOU'RE STUPID!", possibly in a speech balloon coming out of Naked Hitler's butt. Oh, and I'd wear a plastic flower in my lapel which would squirt them with blue dye, Sony's official and indelible corporate color. Then I'd yell "HA HA I FOOLED YOU I REALLY DO WORK FOR SONY!" and pinch their eardrums with ice tongs. That would get the message out about Sony being evil even more effectively than Sony itself could. P.S. I'm sure Ericsson is evil too. And I'm sure Sony Ericsson combines two different kinds of evil (the Swedish kind and the Japanese kind) into a whole new level of evil. If you don't believe me, here's a quote from www.sonyericsson.com: => Step into the world of mobile entertainment and discover music, => sounds and cool branded games...in full color. "branded games". Know what that means? The phones don't play tiny little Battleship, they play an imitation Battleship named "Cheerios Presents Sink The Cheerios Game". They don't play Parcheesi, they play "Kraftcheesi". And they don't play tic-tac-toe, they play "Tic-Tac". Worst of all, these games, on a tiny beepy phone screen, won't even be up to the level of quality of Atari cartridge advertisements from 1982, such as "Chase The Chuckwagon", "Kool-Aid Man", and "Coke Wins". These kids today. We need to get them back to playing old-fashioned games, back from when games were intellectually-stimulating, like conkers and Indian leg wrestling. Disclaimer: I own a lot of Sony equipment. However, I don't think anyone else should ever buy any, because I want to be the only one allowed to have all this AWESOME SONY STUFF. SONY ROCKS! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: HEY!!! People are being paid to annoy you! Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 05:51:27 GMT Gregory King (greg@flyingpawn.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [Wall Street Journal article] > > -> > > -> A second stunt will involve the use of "leaners" -- 60 actresses > > -> and female models with extensive training in the phone's features > > -> who will frequent trendy lounges and bars without telling the > > -> establishments what they're up to. The women are getting scripted > > -> scenarios designed to help them engage strangers in conversation. > > > > Yeah, otherwise men just won't talk to fashion models hanging out by > > themselves in bars. > > Wait, so if I go to a trendy bar, hot girls will come over and talk to > me, and all I have to do is tolerate a sales pitch? Awesome! Yes, but... keep in mind that several middle-aged men in business suits on the 78th floor of Sony Ericsson's corporate headquarters are holding meetings to devise this list of places they think are trendy. And you can tell they're eighty-nine degrees off hip because they call them "lounges". You know, where the mod swingers hang out before they head back to their hep jet-age bachelor pads! I'm sure the executives planning this adverteasement campaign are so out of touch with popular culture that they'd think that Gerry Anderson's "U.F.O." is a serious documentary about how everyone will wear Nehru jackets and Beatle wigs in the distant future year 1980. (I got my "U.F.O." DVDs in the mail today, and the other item that arrived in the same batch was "Vegas In Space", the all-drag-queen science fiction film with more camp than an entire summer of Indian Guides. Somewhere a big computer has recorded, "KIBO : ONLY PERSON IN HISTORY TO HAVE BOUGHT THE ONLY TWO SCIENCE FICTION DVDS FEATURE PEOPLE IN PURPLE GLAM WIGS IN OUTER SPACE" and when they break down the demographics of the DVD-buying public they'll put me in my own sector and start making lots of movies where people have big purple hair because they want to be able to say they've captured 100% of the market in this demographic, when really it's just a coincidence that I happened to get two purple-hair discs the same day. Plus one's very manly and straight and the other is KIND OF gay, which will confuse the computer and it'll phone me up on alternate days in Majel Barrett's voice and Douglas Rain's voice to see which I like better, and I'll just hang up on it, so it'll conclude I'm one of those filthy asexuals, and start mailing me ads for movies asexual people would like, starting with "Eyes Wide Shut".) > I bet I'd be right in their target demographic, too. Yeah, but "Vegas In Space" contained a flyer advertising "Fag Hag" starring Wil Wheaton, so we can tell that demographics are an exact science because if they were they'd know that the Wil Wheaton movie I'd really want on DVD would be a new edit of "The Last Starfighter" where Wil Wheaton's scene isn't cut out. I've seen a few episodes of his show on G4 (the TV network entirely devoted to letting you watch people watching people play video games) and was disappointed that at the end of each first-person shooter tournament he didn't come out and explain that this qualified the winner to help defend the Star Leage against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. But no. He never once even mentioned Fly Fighters. Just for that I won't send him my fanfiction script explaining the intermediate stage between Atari's "Star Raiders" and Atari's "Star Raiders II" (aka "The Last Starfighter") and he'll never get to find out how the Ko-Dan Fly Fighters took control of the galaxy from the Zylon Base Stars and one Garbage Scow Captain Class 5. > Their instructions must include something like "keep an eye out for > nerdy guys who are sitting alone in the corner avoiding eye contact > with anyone" because we're the kind of guys who buy dumb electronic stuff, > especially when a hot girl tells us to. Then they're probably zeroing in on alt.religion.kibology right now. Think of it: An article by Kibo got quoted in The Register and commented on by SlashDot's Roblimo, and I just mentioned that there is such a person as Wil Wheaton. This confluence of super-nerdiness is like a magnet to these marketing executives who know we'll buy cool stuff because we're nerds. Nerds are cool now, right? > Oh, wait, the trendiest bar in my town is the one at T.G.I.Friday's. > Their "leaners" are probably just annoying guys who try to sell you > "Goldmember" branded merchandise. Still, it could be worse, it could be a Matt Garrett's instead of a T.G.I.Friday's. Matt Garrett's is the same sort of place except it's a small local chain advertised by a guy who wants us to think he's Jay Leno's voice but he's more like Rich Little doing Dana Carvey doing Rich Little doing Jay Leno, and he's not even famous standup comedian Brad Garrett. > > (Note: "XXX" on a jug means booze, "XXX" on a sack means flower, > > and "XXX" on a videotape means it costs three times as much as > > a movie with an actual plot.) > > Except now it might mean it costs the same as a real movie, but with > extra Vin Diesel and explosions, and about the same amount of plot as > those other "XXX" movies. I can't wait until the sequel, "XXXII", comes > out. The first time I used Gnutella (which is like Napster, but only has about ten files on the network) I turned on the "Search Monitor" window to see what other people were searching for, and got something like this: XXX XXX LATEX XXX XXX XXX LATEX LATEX XXX XXX LATEX ...I don't know if "XXX" meant the movie or the USDA grade for pornography, and I don't know if "LATEX" meant the fetish or Leslie Lamport. The second time I tried it, the only people whose searches reached my peer ("you are shielded by an ultrapeer") were some guys looking for "Farscape" episodes and "Lexx" episodes. I'll try again tomorrow, and I'll probably discover two more kinds of nerdy porn. > Anyway, I think that if anyone ever tries to use one of these real-life > commercials on me, I will just ask to hold the phone and then > accidentally smash it against the floor. In fact, I will do this if > anyone ever mentions a brand when describing a product they own. "Hey, look at my awesome new Reebok glass basketball filled with phosgene!" -- K. Does Reebok even make basketballs? I don't know because I spent all of gym class doing extra- credit math homework. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: HEY!!! People are being paid to annoy you! Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 05:19:29 GMT Carlos "Froggy" May (froggy@neosoft.dontspamme.com) wrote: > > I think I'll hire actors to demonstrate my new product, which is a > combination telephone, styptic pencil, and catheter. And lollipop. And toupee. I'm going to stop there before this turns into a structure called "Yes, and..." and we all start improvising and then I pick up the closest object and press it to my forehead and yell "I'M ON 'WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY!'" after a forty-five minute pause that will be edited out of the videotape leaving viewers amazed at my awesome improv talent to grow five o'clock shadow during a two-second bit. > I think the Space Needle is a good place to demonstrate it. It's too bad Claes Oldenburg never completed The Space Styptic Pencil. -- K. I'll bet THIS article doesn't get mentioned in The Register. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: HEY!!! People are being paid to annoy you! Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 06:36:33 GMT Mark Hill (mhill@epicentre.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > It's too bad Claes Oldenburg never completed The Space Styptic Pencil. > > I wanger the Space Styptic Pencil DOESN'T FLOAT! I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you've been writing on your face with a doobie while smoking your styptic pencil. Incidentally, what other common household objects should not be smoked? I nominate an inflatable vinyl chair, whether or not it's filled with gasoline vapor. I also think DVDs would not be fun to smoke, although curiously "Yellow Submarine" and "Baby Geniuses" would for the first time both cause chromosome damage. -- K. Oh, and don't smoke me, at least not 'til I'm dead. And then, don't freeze me like Ted Williams, and if somehow I do get frozen, please don't ever thaw me out, because I hate the taste of freezer burn in my mouth. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: HEY!!! People are being paid to annoy you! Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 04:47:14 GMT "Roblimo" (robin@roblimo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > You know, if this product was any good, they could just GIVE sixty > > of these phones to sixty people who like digital camera, and they'd > > USE them to take pictures, and it would accomplish the same thing, > > except they wouldn't have to hire LIARS. > > Or if the product was so damn good they'd send *me* one, I'd review > it, and the review would be read by 20,000 to 50,000 people. > > - Robin "Roblimo" Miller > Editor in Chief, OSDN > (Linux.com, Slashdot, > freshmeat, and other > Open Source Web sites) They'd have to send each of us one so we could test the "Battleship" functionality and rave about the interactive entertainment potential it might sort of pretend to have. Both of us DESERVE a free stupid phone. DO YOU HEAR ME, SONY? BOTH OF US! Although, I do reserve the right to lie to people anyway. "I like this phone, and they didn't send it to me for free, I bought it with the billion dollars I stole when I melted Fort Knox with my X-ray vision..." Also, I reserve the right to tinker with the innards of my free phone so I can cheat at Battleship. Including both the regular version and Strip Battleship. -- K. "G-4." "YOU BLEW OFF MY BRA!" ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: I'm not sure why this commercial has a subtext. Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 07:15:55 GMT At the beach. Kids are burying their father in the sand. They mold him a tail of sand and two huge, bucket-shaped sand breasts. Their mother gets the camera and says, "Say 'Mermaid!'" A voiceover asks, "Where will YOU be when your diarrhea returns?" So... apparently... if I use the wrong brand of diarrhea medicine, my kids will try to give me a sex change? Of course, I don't remember which brand it was advertising. I just remember the horrifying sight of the guy with grainy, geometric breasts. Stop the presses! Another disturbing commercial just showed up while I was typing that: A kid is on a desert island enjoying Fruit By The Foot (candy strips that come in rolls.) He has a long strip of red plasticky candy handing from his mouth. A lizard with a long tongue sees him. It looks astonished, then it smiles, then it makes goo-goo eyes at him. Voiceover: "Fruit By The Foot -- The fun goes on and on!" I really don't want that sort of fun going on on my TV screen. Please take the pedophile lizard away before the boy, the lizard, and the candy have a wild three-way. -- K. Also, please tell Kurt Stocklmeir to stop writing commercials. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: I'm not sure why this commercial has a subtext. Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 06:17:22 GMT "Mercutio Jones" (kokouberchimp@hotmail.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [in a commercial:] > > A voiceover asks, "Where will YOU be when your diarrhea returns?" > > The guy's buried in sand. What's the problem? WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES ON THE BOTTOM? Sorry, that was my response to a creepy Anne Geddes print I mentioned a few weeks ago. I'll take it back so I can save it to use on those new variants of the horrifying "Twisted Whiskers" greeting cards: For $9.99, they now sell three-dimensional deformed stuffed cats and dogs, with ugly threadbare spiky fur, and green eyelids. (One is named "Spot". POOR TEN-DOLLAR SPOT!) In addition to the greeting cards and stuffed animals, there are also "Twisted Whiskers" T-shirts, that show a hideous mutant kitty captioned "CAT FREAK", although I don't know whether they mean the person in the shirt or the cat on it is the horrible freak. So, I have no problem with you having no problem with the guy having the diarrhea problem, as long as we agree we're never going to that beach again. -- K. My new theory is that these "Twisted Whiskers" products are the wastage from some defective industrial manufacturing process. I do not know whether this theory also applies to Fruit By The Foot, diarrhea medicine, or Anne Geddes. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Update on the (T)'s Green Line service. Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 06:48:57 GMT A little over a month ago, I wrote: > Well, at the moment, I'm on a Green Line train, but the stations near > me are closed due to track reconstruction, so I had to go down to > Northeastern University, where a big Variable Message Sign (one of the > ones with all the little discs that are yellow on one side and black > on the other) was flipping back and forth between: > > TRAIN HERE > > GREEN LINE > > TRAIN HERE > > GREEN LINE Although I still have not been able to enroll in these training classes to operate the Green Line, I can now supply another factoid: The time it takes one of these black-and-yellow winkety-wink VMSes to start breaking is about a month. Today, the sign is cycling through three messages: TRAIN HERE GREEN LINE (blank except for an unintelligible blotch at the lower right) TRAIN HERE GREEN LINE (blank except for an unintelligible blotch at the lower right) Sorry, I was too pressed for time to miss my train by waiting for the crowd to disperse so I could get a photo of the blotch, as I can't exactly re-create the bit pattern of the blotch here. It was confined to the boundaries of where the last letter of the sign could be, and drawn only from memory, it was vaguely similar to this: # ## ### ## ### # ## # ##### ## ## It had that middle finger sticking out the top, but otherwise it looked like a mutant hybrid of two different Space Invaders. Either the sign's already starting to electronically disintegrate, or else it was the (T)'s attempt at doing a tiny version of their "Night Owl" logo. Except that it doesn't look like the "Night Owl" logo because I can't see where the owl would be clenching the "(T)" logo between its butt cheeks in that mess, because that's what the owl does in the real logo -- he's on top of and in front of the "(T)", so his claws dangle in front of it uselessly as he holds on with his hinder. At least, that's how he is on the signs at the bus stops. In print, he's using his talons in the correct manner, they just screwed up the signs. Someone drew them a perfectly good owl and then the (T) messed up the stacking order. Or else it was fine when they put it up but the owl gradually migrated to the front of the sign. I'll revisit the "TRAIN HERE GREEN LINE" sign next month to see what message it's decaying into. If we wait long enough, maybe it'll start spelling out Shakespeare! (...assuming it's wide enough to do all eleven letters. It might just do "SHAKESPEAR", leading to the exciting new schoolyard chant, "Shake a spear, Train here, Shake a spear, Train in your ear...") -- K. I can't wait until they finish this construction so I can spend less time looking at the train and more time riding it. I did actually see a Silver Line bus today, though. The Silver Line is a lot like all the other buses, except with a better stripe. Also, it doesn't have Clenchy The Owl.