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: 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: 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: Re: I'm not sure why this commercial has a subtext. Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 06:43:35 GMT Kevin S. Wilson (rescyou@spro.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > My new theory is that these "Twisted Whiskers" products are > > the wastage from some defective industrial manufacturing process. > > I'm afraid you might be spotting a trend here. Fred Meyer's sells bags > of frozen fruit specifically labeled "Great for Making Smoothies." > What better use for bruised, overripe, misshapen fruit? I could easily disprove your theory by observing that watermelon smoothies are quite rare, but that would involve me telling The Watermelon Horror Story again, so I won't. I promised I wouldn't tell that story again this year. Please stop tempting me with your disgusting fruit. And besides, wouldn't good fruit be the greatest for making smoothies? Unless, of course, you have a futuristic blender with a buttons for both "frappe" and "make this stinky fruit stop being rancid." -- K. It would be the blender that magically turns durians into Kool-Aid. ----------------------------------------------------- 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: 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. ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: James at 15 (WAS: stuff about the T) Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 06:57:05 GMT "Lulu" (hhobbie@hotmail.com) wrote: > > So like did you ever see that 2-hour TV movie that premiered the 1977 show > James at 15 (which became James at 16 right after he had sex because a 16 > year-old having sex is ok but a 15 year-old doing it is disgusting) where > James's family moved from Oregon to Boston and being from a small town James > was surprised to find that his new high school's swimming pool was across > town (because he's in the big city now you see and has to get used to things > being different from what he's used to) and he had to take the T and the guy > who sold him the ticket was extremely unhelpful when he asked how to get to > where he was going and instead of simply saying "Take the green line" or > whatever he gave him directions of the "take the red line to the yellow > line, not the orange line and not forgetting the green line but the yellow > line you see" variety and well to make a long story short James got lost > and very confused and he finally goes up and asks a lady ticket seller if > she can help him and she says Where ya wanna go honey? and he says Oregon. > > Or maybe you even saw James at 15 being filmed on location in your lovely > home town? No, because I wasn't living in Boston then, and I also wasn't in The Secret Other Evil Boston where the subway trains take tickets instead of tokens and where there is a yellow line and where it's possible to give people really long complicated directions how to get places instead of "IT'S A FREAKIN' X! INBOUND TRAIN TO THE CENTER, CHANGE TRAINS! WHADDAYA, WICKED RETODDED?" > I like James at 15 a real lot, even taking into account Lance Kerwin's > bedwetting problem. How do you feel about Michael Landon? -- K. I keep thinking they should have made a sequel to Travolta's "Boy In The Plastic Bubble" and Landon's "The Loneliest Runner" in which the two of them are in the same bubble and one of them has a bedwetting problem. The twist ending would reveal WHICH one! ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Dumbest spam ever? Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 07:46:16 GMT While checking my E-mail, I saw a picture in my attachments folder, and grepped my spam file to find out where it came from. This is the message to which it was attached, in its entirety except that I've removed the HTML tags. -> From: Candy Bowl (Candy_Bowl@comcast.net) -> Subject: Covered Candy Bowl -> -> I am looking for a covered candy bowl that -> looks like the attached drawing. -> -> Thanks! -> -> Jim "Covered Candy Bowl.gif" was enclosed. 531x516 pixels. Three colors: White background... pink... and black. I wonder how many millions of people he sent his Earth-shatteringly important doodle to... I've got half a mind to tell him where he can find a two-dimensional candy bowl in flesh pink with hazard stripes and jagged edges. It looked sort of like an upside-down Ping-Pong paddle, only wider and with awkward diagonal stripes that mostly went all the way across except for a few that didn't quite touch the edges, and the stripes somehow joined up across the opaque white gap between the lid and the rest of the jar because black stripes can penetrate white outlines around certain parts of the candy bowl but don't necessary connect to the black outlines around the rest of it. I'm not sure, but I think it was supposed to be a cookie jar shaped like a Hershey's Kiss only bigger, the kind sold at the sorts of stores that sell refrigerator magnets shaped like computers that yell "YOU'VE GOT MAIL!" unintelligibly, pasta shaped like Santa's sleigh, and other things shaped like things to give them more appeal to people who like their things shaped like other things and are so important that they have to interrupt everyone on the Internet with an urgent request to ask them if they should get up off the couch and go to Lechter's or Kitchens Etc. or Williams-Sonoma or even F-ING K-MART. What am I SUPPOSED to do? E-mail him a porcelain cookie jar? Go into business making deformed-looking striped cookie jars and set up an E-commerce Web site named ThisSiteSellsOnlyOneCookieJarJustForYou.com? Subscribe him to my secret All The Cookie Jars In The World mailing list where all the other cookie jar fetishists hang out? Do I now owe him something for sharing his awesome artwork with me for free? Actually, I probably don't, because I can't have anything he'd want because the entire Internet already revolves around this one guy. Stop the Internet, we have to look at some guy's favorite cookie jar! -- K. DEAR INTERNET, HELP! I LOST MY FAVORITE LUCKY UNDERWEAR! ALSO I WAS EATING CRACKERS IN BED AND I ATED ALL MY CRACKERS ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WHOLE BOX AND NOW I DON'T HAVE ANY CRACKERS, WHAT SHOULD I DO? ----------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.mike-jittlov From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Reefer Badness! Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 04:57:51 GMT From the Wall Street Journal's Web site: -> -> Comic books for drug addicts -> -> U.K. group offers tips on managing addiction -> -> By Dan Bilefsky -> -> THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -> -> MANCHESTER, England, Aug. 7 -- Sitting in a drug counseling center's -> waiting room, Elizabeth Forrest giggles as she scans a comic book -> explaining "how to roll a perfect joint" in nine easy steps. -> -> "THIS IS hilarious," the 25-year-old heroin addict says, pointing to -> a cartoon warning that smoking too much marijuana can be fattening. I'm sure it's at least as hilarious as watching Mark Blankfield trying to follow the "nine easy steps" while saying "I can handle it, I can handle it," but not as hilarious as Andy Kaufman refusing to finish the sketch. -> The sketch shows an overweight man eating from a dog-food bowl as -> his pet barks in disapproval. So they're saying that drugs make you able to enjoy things that would otherwise taste bad. Why is this supposed to be wrong? They should issue free drugs to everyone who goes to the science museum cafeteria and then everyone would be happy -- the people selling the swill, the people eating the swill, and the dogs that no longer have to compete with filthy hippies for their Alpo! -> The comic book, "Everything You Wanted to Know about Cannabis, An -> Insider's Guide," is one of dozens published by Lifeline, a -> nonprofit drug-counseling group in the United Kingdom, that give -> tips on how to smoke pot or drop acid and still look and feel good. If they ever discovered a wrinkle cream that would get you high, society would be destroyed forever. -> "How to Survive Your Parents Discovering You're a Drug User" -> counsels teens not to stash pot in coat pockets since that's the -> first place parents will look. A Lifeline's guide to cocaine warns -> against snorting off the groove of an old vinyl LP record because -> "it is somewhat wasteful." Wow, those guides are so hep! I bet they also tell everyone not to mix cocaine with Sen-Sen, not to roll doobies using gas rationing coupons for paper, and never smoke Space Food Sticks! -> GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY -> -> The comics have fans throughout Europe and a cult following in -> prisons, where they are traded like baseball cards. Now they are -> also at the center of a growing controversy, after revelations that -> Lifeline gets #4 million ($6.3 million or 6.2 million) a year in -> funding from the British government. LYNDON LaROUCHE WAS RIGHT! Queen Elizabeth does indeed control the world drug trade! And the only way to stop her is to re-unify Germany with the rest of Europe by banning all music not composed by Beethoven! -> The books "try and be cool and radical but all they are doing is -> offering 'how to' tips masquerading as health advice," says Peter -> Stoker, director of Britain's National Drug Prevention Alliance. I once tried to be "cool and radical" but then I accidentally became "radicool" and then I became "RAD-EYE-KQQL" and then I hurt myself somehow. I think probably the little string between the two hemispheres of my brain snapped or something. Then I woke up in the hospital with a craving for Pokemon. Oh, woe is me! They should hire me to write anti-drug propaganda. And anti-Pokemon propaganda. And anti-propaganda propaganda. "Little Billy read some propaganda, and when he got to the end, his face fell off! Turn the page to continue." -> [...] -> Some in the parliament want to pull Lifeline's funding. "Lifeline -> offers up a drug culture that is blame free, and taxpayers shouldn't -> have to pay for it," says Angela Watkinson, a member from the -> conservative party. Her views have been echoed by newspapers, -> political and social leaders and even British law-enforcement -> officials. Still, the complaints haven't prompted the government to -> change its policy. Maybe they should complain in comic-book form. "Here's Goofus and Gallant. Goofus learned all his political views from a comic book, and accidentally voted for Hitler, twice! Gallant made up his own mind all by himself to vote to ban propaganda comics, without anyone telling him what to think. Turn the page to continue." -> Lifeline, which also operates a needle exchange program, says it -> simply is taking a pragmatic approach that keeps drug users safe, -> healthy and alive. It began publishing its comic books in 1987, -> after its research showed antidrug pamphlets didn't resonate with -> users. "To preach against drugs is an immoral form of propaganda -> since you are conning people into thinking you can really cure drug -> use when you can't," says Michael Linnell, Lifeline's director of -> communications and the co-designer of the comics. OoooooOOOooooooh, DESIGNER comics! Those are the ones where the cartoon people are covered with little fuchsia and teal dots instead of red and blue ones! (If you write in to say that real color printing uses magenta and cyan, not red and blue, I reserve the right to hit you with a cream pie, followed by an eggshell pie, followed by an ecru pie and a taupe tart.) -> MANAGING ADDICTIONS -> -> Lifeline sends about one million of its books every year to high -> school counseling offices, drug-counseling centers and nightclubs. -> [...] -> -> Mr. Linnell says that while he and Lifeline's staff of 200 don't -> promote illegal drugs, they do accept drug use as a fact. [...] -> Lifeline's philosophy is that instead of quitting altogether, -> addicts can reduce health risks by embracing less hazardous behavior -> such as using sterile needles for shooting heroin or smoking fewer -> joints. "It would be lovely if all teenagers were church-going -> virgins who never took drugs, but that is a fantasy that just -> doesn't exist," he says, Oh YEAH? Then how do you explain the fifty different "Archie" comic books printed every month? They must be true because they're comic books printed on real paper and everything, and there are a lot of them! -> citing a government study that found more than half of British teens -> under 16 have tried drugs at least once. -> [...] -> -> Yet, Lifeline's publications do advocate moderation and show how -> ugly drug use can be. In "Brown for Beginners," a cartoon character -> shakes violently in bed as a demonic needle hovers overhead; the -> caption says, "With a heroin withdrawal the pain is there, twenty -> four hours a day, seven days a week." No no no no NO! "Mocha for Beginners"! Mocha is the new brown! Brown's been out since before collarless shirts came in ecru! You're hardly pretentious enough to be a REAL designer! -> In "The Time Tripper," a hippie on acid, winds up in the "hall of -> heavy Karma, where the souls of all the animals he has eaten during -> his life hang out." "Mommy, why is Mike Jittlov telling me that drugs are okay if I'm also a vegetarian?" "Don't ask questions! It's just a comic book!" "But, Mommy, 'QUESTION AUTHORITY' is written in giant letters in the corner of one of the panels, with an arrow pointed to it marked 'SUBLIMINAL'." "That Mike Jittlov is such a bad influence. I'm going to get you some wholesome comic books instead! The kind with the face-punching!" -> And "Everything You Wanted to Know About Cannabis" warns that "excessive -> use of cannabis can make people lazy and unmotivated." People who don't use drugs are NEVER lazy. -> But for the most part, the comics offer practical advice -- how to -> take Ecstasy and avoid looking washed out ("eat regularly and try to -> balance your diet") and whether to eat one or two slices of "space" -> cake baked with cannabis ("try half a piece of cake and wait an -> hour, then decide whether or not you fancy the other half"). "...instead of the dog food bowl." -> Ms. Forrest, who appears much older than her age, started on heroin -> when she was 20 and says she would probably be dead had she not -> learned how to find a vein from "Better Injecting." It also told her -> she had been using too much citric acid to dissolve her heroin, -> which can cause severe abscesses. Especially if you drink a Coke afterwards, then you could explode like a million Pop Rocks especially if you do it at the same time you block a sneeze the wrong way! -> "The pamphlets understand what it's like to be on drugs," she says. Comic books are pamphlets now? I thought they were supposed to be called "graphic novels"! I'm confused. I wish Forrest Ackerman would explain all this terminology next time he publishes a pamphlinovel graphibook! -> In the Netherlands, Mainline Lady, a magazine aimed at female heroin -> users, also offers advice. One recent article suggested how to treat -> cocaine-weathered dry skin: Use lots of moisturizer. Another warned -> against carrying more cash than necessary when visiting a dealer, -> and the horoscope told Geminis that "you might put on weight if -> you're lucky." Ah, so this drug-chic fashion magazine is why millions of people are addicted to horoscope columns. -> "People are going to do drugs anyway, so we might as well help them -> to be safer and more beautiful," says Jasperine Schupp, editor of -> the magazine. Mainline Lady, which also gets government funding, -> is distributed free to about 5,000 users in Amsterdam. Yeah, but, I saw the movie "Amsterdamned", so I say I've suffered enough to deserve a free lifetime subscription to the magazine, as well as everything else printed in Amsterdam, and some Oranjeboom, and the shocking murder of everyone who made "Amsterdamned". -> New York's Positive Health Project, a nonprofit that helps heroin -> users and people with AIDS, is planning a U.S. version of Mainline -> Lady. Jason Farrell, the group's director, says he hopes to have -> enough money to start publishing in the coming year or so; he wants -> the magazine to stress health and safety with self-defense tips for -> prostitutes and suggestions on gaining weight to heroin addicts. I have the solution: Heroin-flavored pork rinds. -> Rev. Paul Flower, a Methodist minister who sits on Lifeline's board, -> agrees. "Lifeline publications would never make it in the U.S. -> because the culture is so different," he says. "The Brits like -> dealing with truth rather than hypocrisy." Yeah, but Americans don't even know how to spell "hypocracy". I say we're even, especially because the British can't spell "truck", "elevator", or "President". -> Copyright (c) 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. -> -> All Rights Reserved. Sorry, I won't believe that until I read it in a free educational comic book. -- K. And it better not have Captain Planet in it!