From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: ne.general,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Ethics violations. Boston Public Library. Followup-To: alt.sex.fetish.head-librarian Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:10:04 -0400 In three equally important newsgroups (ne.general, alt.journalism.newspapers, and alt.religion.kibology) Don Saklad (dsaklad@nestle.ai.mit.edu) wrote: > > It appears that our Boston Public Library executive officers have > violated the ethics of reference desk services, readers advisory and > information services by requiring that enquiries be directed to our > BPL President's Offices only to be stonewalled. Public libraries > clientele have a right to legitimately public information even if that > information would be background information about City of Boston and > agencies of the city or Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Don, if it's _public_ information, why are you trying to get it from the library? Public information is everywhere! You should just go read a bathroom wall, or better yet, read the New York Times, which is the newspaper of record, and therefore contains all the news that's fit to print. They even have just enough space left over to print that little box that tells you that they contain all the news that's fit to print, although they don't have enough space to include a comics page to tell you that World War I was won by a beagle. Also, for information about Massachusetts, maybe you should try going over to the library at the State House. That's the library in the big building that has a more rational class of crazy people obsessed with it. > Cc: Board of Library Commissioners > Intellectual Freedom Advocates American Library Association > Inspector General Commonwealth of Massachusetts > Committee on Ethics Massachusetts Legislature > Bernie Margolis Boston Public Library. > Ruth Kowal Boston Public Library > BPLPSA Boston Public Library Professional Staff Association > Editors The Real Sheet newsletter > Mayor's Office Don, you're supposed to be keeping your official Enemies List secret, because if these people see it, they'll just change their names. -- K. Bernie Margolis just changed his name and says you can only reach him by picking up the phone and yelling into it, "OWAH TAGOO SIAM" three times. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Crazy people and retail Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:18:13 -0400 Rox (roxanne.gray@worldnet.att.net) wrote: > > Speaking as a former Borders Books employee (from the World Trade Center no > less) I can tell you members of that breed of weirdo have some serious time > on their hands and so spread the kook around. Retail employees bear to > brunt because they don't have bouncers at the door. > > But for your possible amusement I present 2 of my favorite loons > > Example 1 > > A guy walked up to the info desk I was working to ask if we had any foreign > language dictionaries because he needed to translate something. I said sure > we do, what language do you need...at which point he informed me he had a > letter from Jesus Christ at home, he wasn't sure what language it was in and > he needed to know what it said. I must have gotten the "back away slowly" > look on my face because he hastened to tell me that he was NOT crazy--he > didn't think Jesus had written to him personally. I told him we didn't > have any Aramaic dictionaries but I would be happy to try and order one for > him. That seemed to make him really happy, until we looked up the prices. > He decided to try the local library. I wonder why Don never posted the results. > Example 2 > > We had a guy who visited us regularly. We never found out his name but we > called him "The Happy Buddha" because...well he looked the part. He used to > drink those 16 oz frozed mocha nasties like they were shots of Cuervo, three > at a time. His car's interior was covered in tin foil. I never knew if > that was to keep something out or to keep something in. Oh and he also used > to read the Calculus books while quietly giggling to himself. I wonder why Archie never posted the results. > I'm sure he was thinking "Silly Humans and their 'Mathematics'." Puh-lease! What we nutty people are actually thinking is "Silly Earth humans and their primitive Earth 'mathematics'." I mean, it doesn't even have a factor for crispiness, and therefore is useless for calculating the tensile strength of a house made of bacon! > The toy store next to us had to ban him from coming in there because > he used to walk in and stare at the children. Hey! I only did that once! And it was because the first assignment in the "Writing Children's Literature" class was to "go somewhere where there are children and observe the children"! I got ejected from the very same FAO Schwartz store that inspired the book "Toys That Don't Care". Now I can't buy the $200 "Trend Forecaster Barbie"! > And I haven't even mentioned the customer who stalked me, even tracking me > down when I transferred to another state. I hear that you can keep stalkers from coming to your state by wrapping the entire state in aluminum foil. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to translate a letter from Christo. -- K. But if I mistakenly translate one from Crisco, I'll start wrapping baked potatoes in a thousand miles of aluminum foil. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Side order of ribs. Hold the SARS. Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:21:11 -0400 Tamara (tamaraharris@sprint.ca) wrote: > > Yesterday I received fantastic news that the Tularemia that has plagued me > for over 7 months is finally gone. Fool was *so* excited by this news that > he rushed home from work and picked me up and hugged me really hard, > spinning me around and around. > > And fracturing 6 ribs in the process. > > We got home from the ER at Western Hospital at around 5 in the morning. He > feels *absolutely awful* about this. At first I just thought it was just > bruising but then it REALLY started to hurt. He broke 'em. 6 of 'em. 4 on > one side, 2 on the other. Good thing it wasn't 4 on one side and only 1 on the other because that would have caused you to change gender, like in the Bible. Also note that pain didn't exist in the Garden Of Eden, so Adam didn't really mind the whole rib thing, except that Eve kept complaining that S&M didn't work right in this allegedly fun-filled painless partyland. > Today he didn't go in to work, considering we were up all night in the ER. > He's doing a run to the pharmacy in a few minutes to get my happy-pill > prescription filled. Tell him to say hi to Kevin McDonald for me. Also tell him to give Harry Stinson a biiiiiiiig crunchy hug. > So, as for SARS. Well first of all, they didn't even let Fool into the > waiting room at the hospital. They stopped him at the door and told him > he had to wait outside. It's frikken COLD out and we all know how slow > things move in Emergency Rooms. It's something like eighty degrees here now. But I'm on the Green Line so things even out because I'm not moving nearly as fast as an Emergency Room. Also, the local hospital doesn't have an Emergency Room, it has an Emergency Department, because they got tired of jamming hundreds of people into the same broom closet. > By the time I was released, he pretty much looked like Frosty the Snowman. Well, serves him right for eating nothing but Tim Horton's doughnuts while he was waiting until he got really fat. Also Charles Nelson Reilly wants his corncob pipe back. > Remember, this was in the wee hours of the morning. Nothing near the > hospital was open so he just hung around in the parking bay, freezing > his tushie off. > > I was greeted by nurses who might as well have been wearing Hazmat suits. > They put a mask on me and whisked me in where I was examined by someone I > believed was Darth Vader. I was then taken to Radiology where I was met by > even more people wearing silly get-ups. Also, Charles Nelson Reilly wants his green latex bondage hood back. > What is so fucked up about this is that I was at the Tropical Diseases Unit > at General Hospital YESTERDAY MORNING. NOBODY was Hazmatted. And the TD > Unit is a place that specializes in curing people who have really weird and > wonderful germs. I was going to make up a TV show about The Wondrously Wonderful World of Wonderful Germs (sponsored by Dolly Madison Zingers) but I just looked up and didn't recognize the environment and said to myself, "That's odd, I don't remember there being a rail yard before the last stop," and realized I was locked inside an empty Green Line train just past the end of the line. So I had to wait a few minutes for them to let me out. You are the first person ever to have made me miss the last stop. Now I don't think germs are so wonderful any more. > I guess the germs at Western Hospital are bigger and stronger and able to > beat up the germs at Toronto General so everyone has to be extra careful. > > Anyway, I survived. I'm really sore. Coughing is torture. I won't even > begin to describe how much sneezing hurts. > > Dan's gonna be my slave for a very, very long time. About two weeks ago, I was on a Red Line train (a long trip returning from a shopping plaza in Braintree) and there was this crazy guy who went through the whole train and yelled at each passenger individually, "I'M GONNA KEEP YOU IN BONDAGE!" But I ignored him because he didn't look a thing like Diana Rigg. He also shouted "I LOVE SURGERY!" a few times and rambled on about how people in Washington D.C. could beat up people in Boston because we all owned our own houses. So, anyway, you should remind Dan "I'M GONNA KEEP YOU IN BONDAGE!" every day. And if he gives you any guff, you can borrow Charles Nelson Reilly's green latex hood again. And if anyone asks, you love surgery, and your germs can beat up Boston's germs. -- K. If they hadn't let me out of the train, I'd have had to ask alt.religion.kibology for help. And then people would've laughed at me! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Side order of ribs. Hold the SARS. Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 21:37:18 -0400 Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > About two weeks ago, I was on a Red Line train (a long trip returning > > from a shopping plaza in Braintree) and there was this crazy guy who > > went through the whole train and yelled at each passenger individually, > > "I'M GONNA KEEP YOU IN BONDAGE!" > > That's funny, because about two weeks ago my advisor told > us we had to stop using so much straw in the bricks we make. I'm pretty sure the quote was "I'M GONNA KEEP YOU IN BONDAGE!", not "I'M GONNA MAKE YOU MY APPRENTICE!" Also, how much skill is involved in making bricks other than knowing how much straw to put in (some) and how many Gummi Bears to put in (none)? I can't imagine that as a brick-maker's apprentice your master would have many excuses to whip you. Unless you mean you're apprenticed to the Lego corporation, in which case I imagine men in white coats are hovering over your shoulder with 500-item checklists and micrometers, because those Lego bricks are made with so much precision that if the Danes made cars they wouldn't have to use door hinges, the doors would just pop in and out due to submicroscopically perfect friction-fitting. -- K. Someday I'll have some apprentices of my own. Sooner if they start selling them at Wal-Mart. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: League Update Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:22:19 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com) wrote: > > Team P W D L B For Agn Pts Diff > 1 Raiders 6 6 0 0 1 181 108 14 73 > 2 Roosters 7 5 0 2 0 187 111 10 76 > 3 Knights 7 5 0 2 0 180 134 10 46 > 4 Warriors 7 5 0 2 0 184 152 10 32 > 5 Broncos 7 5 0 2 0 160 141 10 19 > 6 Sea Eagles 6 3 0 3 1 134 134 8 0 > 7 Storm 6 3 0 3 1 150 156 8 -6 > 8 Dragons 6 3 0 3 1 124 142 8 -18 > 9 Panthers 6 3 0 3 1 131 156 8 -25 > 10 Bulldogs 7 3 0 4 0 164 128 6 36 > 11 Cowboys 7 3 0 4 0 151 192 6 -41 > 12 Eels 7 2 0 5 0 146 168 4 -22 > 13 Sharks 5 0 0 5 2 92 156 4 -64 > 14 WstTigers 7 2 0 5 0 112 179 4 -67 > 15 Rabbitohs 7 1 0 6 0 148 187 2 -39 > > Prima facie, it looks like the Rabbitohs are at the bottom. But check > out the "W" for "Wins" column of the Sharkies. Yes that's right, all > the Sharks's points so far have come from Byes, and therefore John > "Sharky" Burrage's team is coming LAST!!! HAW HAW! I have no idea what the logos and jerseys of any of these teams look like, so I'm just going to criticize their imaginary graphic design. Raiders -- Using letters so large that they had to split the team's name across two lines is bad enough, but why did they have to use extra-large lettering for "DERS"? Also, the picture of the spray can shooting a cloud of soccer balls at a cartoon roach isn't as funny as it thinks, unlike most sports logos which are more funny to me than they are to their designers. Roosters -- The googly eyes in the twin "O"s are not working for me. Perhaps they should stop putting little motors in the shirts just to make the eyes spin. Knights -- It's a fine drawing of a knight, except that they'd drawn the suit of armor backwards on him. You can tell by the way he breaks his knees every time he bends his legs. Warriors -- Oh, you can tell they just pasted Mel Gibson's head onto someone else's body. Broncos -- It was cute when the Albany River Rats put the front of the rat on the front of the jersey and the back of the rat on the back of the jersey. The Broncos should do that, or at least use the front of the horse on both sides, because we really don't need to see the horse's hinder from all directions. Sea Eagles -- The speech-balloon where the bird is saying "BLUB BLUB" has to go. Storm -- A mean-looking thundercloud zapping people with lightning and dousing them with water is a great idea. But why is the water so yellow? Dragons -- I really like the fire-breathing dragon, although the mysterious blotch above him fails to completely conceal where the words "DUNGEONS &" used to be. Panthers -- Do the rules permit the pink panther to play while he has a hankie sticking that far out of his pocket? Bulldogs -- Too literal. It should be a picture of a dog, not half a bull and half a dog. Cowboys -- I would think it would cause too many injuries to have real spurs stapled to the jerseys like that. Eels -- I think the main problem here is that the logo includes the motto "WE'RE SLIMY!" Sharks -- I like the logo, but I think the players would play better if the jerseys weren't so uncomfortable -- they should switch to polyester instead of real sharkskin, or at least wear it right-side-out. WstTigers -- Sheesh, win some games and then maybe you can afford to buy a vowel to fnish yr lgo. Rabbitohs -- They clearly just copied their jerseys from a cereal box. Also, nobody wants to see a rabbit making the "oh" face. -- K. I'm rooting for the Rabbitohs even though I don't know what they are. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Don Saklad Does this Better then Me Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:44:34 -0400 "Lots42 bomb vice president" (lots42@aol.comaol.com) wrote: > > The local library has, for some reason, taken to not locking up their > normal dumpster. So when I can, I peek inside. No boxes of rejected > comics yet! But I hope. Maybe instead of looking in the Normal Dumpster you should stick your head into the Special Dumpster, unless Don Saklad is sleeping in that one. If you wake him up, it won't be pretty. You can learn more about this by playing the children's educational board game, "Don't Wake Don Saklad". (Just to make the game less fun, I'll warn you that he pops up after precisely thirteen turns of the crank every single time. Mechanical pseudo-random number generators work fine only until you learn to count.) I used to read some of Lyndon LaRouche's nutty, nutty "news" magazines in college because the library kept throwing them away (every library in the world was given a free subscription then sent a renewal notice for $500/year.) Sadly, those were the only thing they ever threw out. And LaRouche's political cartoons have never been as funny as even the world's lamest comic book (they usually consist of a drawing of Prince Charles wearing a diaper and a toe tag that says "PRESIDENT BUSH" and a caption of "LOOK! BUSH IS WEARING A DIAPER! HAW HAW WE DRAWED A DIAPER! P.S. HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE BUSH.") Another place you might be able to find rejected comics is behind a comedy club. You could meet a guy whose whole act consists of going up on stage and saying "I like airline peanuts," and then standing there silently for the next five minutes. -- K. Just watch out for any rejected comic who says "LOOK! BUSH IS WEARING A DIAPER! P.S. I'M SUPPOSED TO BE BUSH." ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: you know those 5 food groups ?? Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 20:51:39 -0400 [concerning the government's "food pyramid" designed to trick children into eating pyramids] Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > Some criticized this as a cynical playing of politics in a bad way with > the health and nutrition of whoever pays attention of these things with > sort of negative implications, but in defense of revising the pyramid > others pointed out that pyramids are supposed to be three-dimensional, > ACTUALLY, and so the whole thing was STUPID AND DOOMED from the START. The best thing about the government's food pyramid is that most of the awful food the government feeds to our children cannot be classified and seems to come from somewhere on the back side of the pyramid, where there is a block for "runny, vinyl-like slurry dipped in silicone lube". I hereby repost an article about elementary school lunches from last year, merely because all the links still work. ////////// BEGIN RE-RUN ////////////////////////////////////////////////// From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Subject: Re: food that tastes as good as it looks Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 19:02:43 -0400 "talysman" (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > it's all paid for by your tax dollars (except for you). > > http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/taco-patty.jpg > > what, pray tell, is a taco patty? Looks like half of a hamburger puck, probably with some paprika sprinkled on it to make it as flavorfully exotic as school cafeteria food ever gets. Note that it does not include lettuce or cheese, but they give you a paper cup with some cole slaw and/or salad in it, suitable for future assembly, proving conclusively that a taco patty is an essential part of a completely awful meal. > and how come this teryaki bites? > > http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/teryaki-bites.jpg Now there's another great example of a complete meal: Some doggie treats, a biscuit, an eighth of an orange floating in Tang, and milk. Plus two napkins for fiber, including the napkin which is tucked under the biscuit to keep the under-biscuit grease from dissolving through the plastic tray. There is also a bigger, prettier version of the same one: http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/beef-teraki.jpg Maybe one is an entree and another is a buffet for two, or something. > why does "italian dunkers" look like pieces of bread and a cup of > tomato sauce? > > http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/italian-dunkers.jpg Another awesomely nutritious complete feast. Bread AND ketchup! Plus the exercise you get putting the two together to make them soggy! It always amazes me that the government runs so many asinine TV commercials telling kids to eat healthy snacks and obey the Food Pyramid and yet they allow children to be fed crap like this. (Don't even ask about what grade of meat is used in the ones that contain meat. Basically, kids aren't allowed to complain or sue, so they always get the stuff that CAN'T be sold to adults.) I poked around that Web site a while and here are some of my other anti-favorites: http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/baked-ham.jpg They must have done a lot of work to get the ham and the bread to be exactly the same color. http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/chick-sal-pita.jpg The color isn't accurate because the picture was taken when it had been out of the refrigerator for three days. For an accurate depiction, they should have waited another week. http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/bbq-meatballs.jpg Note that, for maximum efficiency, each entree has been assigned a code name, shown in the corner. "Mmm! This is the best-tasting BM I've ever had!" Of course, they can get away with that because only grown-ups giggle when asking for "a plate of BM", kids would never do that. http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/sliced-turk.jpg They're not even trying to disguise it as "Soylent Green" any more! Sliced Turk is people! It's people!!! Well, at least it's halal. (I'd hate to see the stretching machine that makes Turkish Taffy.) http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/taco-tub.jpg That taco tub would leave one heck of a bathtub ring. Eat one, take a bath, watch as the grease magically transfers itself from inside you to outside you through every pore of your malnourished body. http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/MVC-548S.JPG I know this nameless item can't be a novelty plastic barf, because plastic barf is more realistic looking. This barf has corners! http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/soft-taco.jpg To properly describe this entree, a new adjective must be invented: "diaprous". http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/ham-c-pita.jpg DIAPROUS MAXIMUS WITH GRAVY!!! Now back to what you said, now that we have the vocabulary to deal with it. > and for kibo, here's a nice cheezy meal: > > http://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/water/2-lunches/cheese-s-shells.jpg That one's revolting but not diaprous. It's worse than diaprous. It's past vomitrocious and blecchsplosive. It's in the realm of grossness where there aren't even any nonsense words to describe it. What is that dirty, prolate item next to the slurry? My guess is that it's some clown's attempt to make a balloon-animal bacillus. I didn't mention the eight or nine different things which claim to be pizza (solid yellow rectangles with sparkly highlights from the grease pools) but I will quote this page of instructions for lunch ladies everywhere: -> Click "print" when you find the right picture -> -> After it prints... -> -> cut out the picture and laminate it. -> -> A card catalog is a great way to store them. -> -> Now your students will know exactly what they're going to get! "Yay, It's oozing yellow blob day! I wondered what color blob we were going to get, but now I know exactly, it's yellow blob day!" And the site also says, -> As with all material found on the Internet, teachers and parents -> should be very careful in allowing students to explore these sites -> unless direct supervision is provided. This is because the school hates having to pay for a psychiatrist to treat the kids who have come down with hysterical blindness after seeing the close-up of Taco Patty. -- K. I'd hate to see what this stuff looked like before they touched up the photos. ////////// END OF RE-RUN ///////////////////////////////////////////////// If you know of any other Web sites with big glamour shots of inedible school food, please let me know so I can express my outrage. Most elementary schools Web sites have menus without pictures, but I'm hoping to find more poster-size photos of Taco Patty, whatever it is. I've found a lot of other lunch menus but none with pictures. So far my favorite school lunch site is Utah's Olympus Junior High: => Welcome to the "ED Zone!" reads the sign in our school cafeteria.Ê We have => many food choices each day:Ê you can choose from the "Energy Zone," which => offers favorites like nachos, burritos, nuggets, and many others. Every => day the Energy Zone will offer a different item. The Pizza Zone will offer => two different kinds of pizza. The Burger Zone will offer cheeseburgers and => one other hot sandwich every day. And the Sub Zone will offer two => different deli sandwiches or you may chose a salad. With so many choices => to choose from, we are sure to please even the pickiest eaters!Ê So try => school lunch, get excited and hungry!! Note that it's not "chicken nuggets", but just "nuggets". Barf Zone. If I were a kid, I wouldn't be excited just because everything in the school was a "zone" of some type. Although I would enjoy violating the rules by walking through the Burger Zone with a burrito to contaminate it with FOOD FROM BEYOND THE BURGER ZONE. Also note that like too many other places in the U.S., all burgers are cheeseburgers. Here's Hawaii's Sacred Heart School's lunch menu for Thursday, April 23, 2003: -> Cheeseburger -> tossed salad -> oven fries -> Pine tidbits Ê Mmm, wood becomes so much better in tidbit form. And the Hanson School in South Dakota offered this for Wednesday, April 2: => Chicken Stripes => Mashed Potatoes => Carrots-Gravy => Coleslaw => Bread => pumpkin Bar => Milk I'm not sure if the chicken stripes are just printed on one of the other items, or if they just mean that it's a diseased chicken. But at least you get to pick out your own pumpkin from the pumpkin bar. Because nothing is as appetizing as the inside of a raw pumpkin! Except for everything else in the Universe. Two days later they had someone even more frightening: => Cheese Pizza => Lettuce/Dressing => Green Beams => Jello/ Fruit => Milk That's good because green's the one which kills you instantly, whereas orange beams set your whole body on fire. Then the next Wednesday they had: => Chicketti => Cuke Salad => Green Beans => Bread => Milk I don't like the sound of "Chicketti" and I certainly don't like the sound of "Puke Salad". Other entrees that month included "Mr. Rib/Bun", "Brat/Bun", "Pizza Cass." (who choked to death on a ham sandwich), and the groovy "Scalloped Pot/Ham". Somewhere in my book collection is "The School Cafeteria Handbook" from about 1951. It has veal recipes and lots of photos of kids in crew cuts and dungarees washing their hands in trough-shaped steel sinks. I also obtained a copy of the secret cookbook from one of the colleges I attended, which revealed that the "meat" was a mixture of 50% ground turkey and 50% "meat mixture", the end result being that it was 75% turkey and 25% beef at best, although if time allowed they could increase the recursion depth to get 99.9999999% turkey with a homeopathic level of beef. -- K. Interestingly, "Zillions" (a "Consumer Reports" magazine for kids) did an on-line survey about school lunch items and the kids rated veggieburgers slightly higher than real burgers. But what got the highest rating were Oscar Mayer Lunchables (stale bread in a fancy box.) ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: you know those 5 food groups ?? Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 20:15:02 -0400 Wiblur the Once (jchapman@aros.net) wrote: > > When my kids were in elementary school, they always complained about > "bad food" (implying more than just poor quality). I always kids of > brushed it off as part of their ongoing campaign to complain about > everything known to man. One of the things I learned at the three colleges I've attended is that all college students complain about how their college has the worst food in human history, when really the stuff isn't significantly worse than Denny's or Swanson's -- not good, but edible. Elementary schools, however, feed kids Grade Z rancidities because they know the kids don't vote or pay taxes, and will forget about it before they do, except for those of us special people who bear grudges from thirty years ago. > Then one day, I went along on a field trip as a parental unit supervisor > choosing the option of bringing our own lunch, as opposed to paying $2.50 > for a mystery meat surprise provided by the school district kitchens. I think that when I was a kid, Mystery Meat Surprise was only $0.75. Also, it was before Textured Vegetable Protein was invented, so because they couldn't put TVP in the MMS, the MMS was all meat, but oh boy what meat. TVP has actually increased the quality. > At lunchtime, we settled in at a park for some munch, when one of the > tykes who had opted for MMS yells: "Yuck, my sandwich is moldy!!!" Sure > enough the meat-like substance had a lovely layer of mold for extra flavor. > All the MMS sandwiches were checked and the majority of them were mold- > encrusted. Most of the teachers sandwiches were moldy as well, which > seemed somewhat satifying, in a perverse kind of way. > > It fills me with pride that the gubment is watching out for the health > and nutrition of our young piples. Also, my daughter and I enjoyed our > nice, fresh sack lunches and only felt mildly guilty about enjoying our > yummy repast as the children of the mold eyed our every bite with envy. Do I have to repost my story about Arby's and the moldy potato? If you people are really good I will open an Army Meal Comma Ready-To-Eat (MRE) right now and describe all the glorious kinds of awful our soldiers endure. -- K. Assuming I don't miss my train stop at the MRE store right between Condom World and the bookstore with a wall of incense vapor blocking the entrance. (One hour later:) The "surplus" store (mostly camping stuff and Nike, a small amount of surplus) was out of all MREs except one vegetarian noodle one that wouldn't be worth reviewing because I think we all know what squishy old noodles with dried peas taste like. I left without buying anything, although the $70 riot shield (still with its original protective plastic film) was attractive. So I checked out the recently-installed underground "C"-shaped Trader Joe's across from where the "L"-shaped Star used to be, then followed the trail of green blobs to the new Shaw's, where I bought some dinner. To get from the old Star to the new Shaw's, there's a trail of green leafikins (the apostrophe from their logo) along the sidewalk, except that the trail ends at Lord & Taylor because Lord & Taylor said "Screw you, you're not defacing our sidewalk just for your non-gourmet suuuuuupermarket." The shape of the Shaw's is still incomprehensible to me -- it's some sort of multiply-concave enneagon, plus a split-level wine department -- but I don't think it's an English letter. Possibly one of the ones Claudius added to the Latin alphabet just so that he'd be famous enough to get his own TV series. But he doesn't have a deli item named after him at Shaw's, unlike "Hail Chicken Caesar Twister" (which is also known as a "c-section") and the even scarier "Buffalo Bob Twister" (Howdy, no! Wood must not eat flesh!) ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: you know those 5 food groups ?? Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 01:26:20 -0400 Pugg (pugg71@hotmail.com) wrote: > > See, here's the thing, Salisbury State University (which recently > shortened its name to Salisbury University to stop untalented stand-up > comics from saying, "Hey it's great to be here at Salisbury STEAK > university! You must eat a LOT of tee-vee dinners! HAR! HAR! HAR!" > like we hadn't heard *that* a hundred times) actually had pretty good > food. I mean good food. I mean, better than the local restaurants. I > mean, for example, folks from town could (and did) pay $7 a head to > come eat in our cafeteria. I saw nothing unusual about that at the > time. My only complaint was that the cooks, being natives of the > Eastern Shore, substituted "Old Bay Seasoning" for any spice in any > recipe. What is Bay Seasoning, and how moldy was it? > That, and the line for the waffle bar at Sunday brunch was usually too long. We called them "French toast sticks", not "waffle bars". I don't know anything about where Salisbury State University is but I assume it's in the Soviet Union if people had to wait in line for a single French toast stick covered with rancid Bay Seasoning. -- K. And of course people only ever make French toast to get rid of expired bread... ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: you know those 5 food groups ?? Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 21:43:23 -0400 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > But he doesn't have a deli item named after him at Shaw's, unlike > > "Hail Chicken Caesar Twister" > > My beloved Food 4 Less sells a line of dressings, bagged lettuce, and > salad toppings with a Caesar theme. My favorite product is "Et Tu, > Crouton", boxed stale bread bits with artificial everything. I always > thought the brand was national but no one else I know has ever heard of > it. And now I find out Shaw's has stolen the idea! For shame. "Et Tu, Crouton"? Holy cow. That's one of those things that is only a pun if someone hits you over the head with a brick right before saying it. It's one of the least pun-like attempts at a pun I've ever heard. It's positively Ess Pee Que Arful! I will assume other products in the series include "Veni Vidi Vinegar" and something about something being divided into three parts and something with people lending ears of corn, but I don't have the stamina to think of the names of the last two. Also, I'm not sure how to decline "crouton", other than to say I'm not hungry. (The dictionary claims it comes from the Latin word "crusta", so the proper Latin for "crouton" might be something like "crustula", leading to the possibility of a garlic-flavored cereal named Count Crustula. Or maybe it would be "crustella", which would be a garlic-and-hazelnut spread. I don't know the rules for Latin diminutives so I don't know if it would get "-ula" or "-ella".) > I'm glad the fruity British store won't let them put leafy apostrophes > on their sidewalks. It's great, because if you follow the trail of leafikins, it goes right to the front door of Lord & Taylor and then stops. Possibly the apostrophe-leaves just got confused by the way the "&" or sometimes "+" keeps changing shape. Then the trail resumes on the far side of Lord & Taylor, so if you really can't find the supermarket (it's one block from its previous location, and it's darn big) the interrupted trail of leaves isn't going to help you any. -- K. (I dare you to go to the supermarket, hold up a box of "Et Tu, Crouton", and yell "HOW MANY CROUTONS DO YOU HAVE IN THE VOCATIVE CASE?") ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Today's disturbing TV commercial. Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 02:54:19 -0400 A woman is sitting on a hard park bench. But because she's taken a Dulcolax stool softener, the park bench turns into a big armchair. This is the first commercial aimed only at people who are so senile that they think that drugs make puns come true. -- K. Too bad Philip K. Dick's not alive to see it. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,rec.arts.tv,alt.fan.tom-servo Subject: Re: Today's disturbing TV commercial. Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 20:13:14 -0400 "Live from his Deathbed Mr. Hole!" (holefamily1@webtv.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > A woman is sitting on a hard park bench. But because she's taken > > a Dulcolax stool softener, the park bench turns into a big armchair. > > I haven't seen it. How do I know you aren't making this up in an attempt > to be silly like Don Knots? First off, I don't know who Don Knots is, unless he's the guy who sells rope-bondage videos as a front for the Mafia. I assume you meant Don Knotts. Secondly, if I made that commercial up, it would be just as stupid, but there would a subtle clue that it was meant to be stupid and not just accidentally stupid in the way that toilet pill commercials are. Mine would be directed by Ben Stiller and involve Jack Black saying, "Wow! My ass didn't explode today!" and then there would be a close-up of Doctor Don Knotts nodding his head and a star-shaped sparkle would go "DING!" on Don Knott's hypodermic of effervescent Dulcolax (now in lime.) In any case, I realize that I could never make up something which is actually as stupid as the stuff on TV. For the past year, I've been worried about this new "Battlestar Galactica" mini-series, about which I've heard lots of details, all of them stupid. They're trying to double the audience by chicking up the show, so that instead of just manly men shooting at alien space robots, it will now be women shooting at alien space robots (this is akin to how they tried to add girl appeal to hockey by making pink rainbows come out of the puck.) And, believe it or not, Commander Adama spends most of her time coming to terms with breast cancer. That's right, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS ABOUT BREAST CANCER. Breast cancer is a serious issue, but shoehorning it into a show about planets blowing up isn't going to raise the quality level. I have nothing against shows about breast cancer, and in the proper setting it would work fine -- the sitcom "Murphy Brown" could have pulled off its season about Murphy's breast cancer if it had attempted it about four years earlier before it got desperate for filler, and Linda Ellerbee did a fine job talking about breast cancer on Nickelodeon. But adding breast cancer to "Battlestar Galactica"... well... that's bad. Even in the context of reviving "Battlestar Galactica", that's bad. I'm sure the producers think this somehow makes it more sophisticated than the original, which was a well-made rip-off of George Lucas's even better-made rip-off of "Flash Gordon". Either that or the "Galactica" producers recently discovered a rough cut of "Star Wars" which contains this scene: GRAND MOFF TARKIN: "Now, Princess Leia, we will blow up your home planet. Lord Vader, we are within firing range." DARTH VADER: "My prostate hurts! Stop the war, let's talk about my prostate problems for an hour!" PRINCESS LEIA: "Did I hear you say you have prostate issues? I have some pamphlets you can read. Also, you're welcome to join the Rebel Alliance's Space Prostate Problem Support Group." DARTH VADER: "Ow! My prostate just got bigger!" Bear in mind that the last time "Battlestar Galactica" was brought back from the dead ("Galactica 1980") the _best_ episode was the two-part epic where they had to rescue Wolfman Jack (as Wolfman Jack) from one and a half Cylons who were trying to overthrow a local radio station very slowly. That was the _best_ episode. Yet, the idea of making "Battlestar Galactica" a show about spaceships fighting breast cancer is the all-time winner in the competition to see who can think up the best way to ruin "Battlestar Galactica" for all genders, ages, and intelligence levels. I've thought and thought and I can't do better than that. I tried adding a flatulent chimp and a superintelligent dolphin to "Battlestar Galactica", but that didn't dumb it up enough. So I tried adding a naked Ed Begley Junior and having Wolfman Jack tell all the viewers they should register for the draft even though no teenager would know who he was, but that didn't make it stupid enough to beat the breast cancer. I tried replacing every word of dialogue with the word "centon". I even tried telling Patrick Macnee to do the opening backstory narration in a sarcastic tone of voice. No matter what I do, I can't come up with an idea stupider than spacemen dressed as King Tut battling killer robots and breast cancer. -- K. Hmm, maybe I could add Matthew Broderick getting a dozen enemas from Hannibal Lecter wearing dime-store gag teeth... No, still not stupid enough. Unless the enema gives him breast cancer in outer space. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: more more more Followup-To: sci.physics Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 03:30:51 -0400 Last week, in sci.physics, Kurt Stocklmeir (kurtstocklmeir@worldnet.att.net) wrote: > > I do not like pigys, slimeys, foolys and ideitys But how do you feel about the letter "y"? -- K. This is our insane asylm. Notice there is no u in it. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: I still haven't gotten over my previous jury duty. Please help. Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 20:11:55 -0400 [when last we left, Kibo wanted alt.religion.kibology to be entertaining during jury duty] "Lots42 bomb vice president" (lots42@aol.comaol.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Please give me something to read tomorrow morning other than the > > weather map on "Good Morning America". > > Thank you. > > You know how some electrical devices come with computer manuals? How you > open them up and there's pieces of paper lined up with each other and > words are on them? Well, imagine if someone did that but instead put > fiction in them! You know, how some webpages have stories that aren't > true. Imagine if they printed them out in computer manual form! > > What a world that would be, huh? Well, it's TRUE. Yes, wonders like this > already exist. They are called books and there are thousands of them. Like > stories about space battles? Some books have them.What about time travel? > Yes, that too. Or even those cool guys and gals from the tv show 'Buffy > The Vampire Slayer'? Yes, books with original stories of them are out > there also! > > Gosh, the excitement. I think I have to sit down and cry with joy. Well, you see, "Lots42 bomb vice president", if that IS your real name, I considered sitting in the jury pool room (which has no pool) trying to translate "Beowulf" in that unventilated atmosphere surrounded by codgers constantly complaining at full volume about the heat, but it's really hard to do so while someone three inches from your ear is yelling at you: "IT'S TOO HOT! IT'S TOO HOT! THEY OUGHTA FIX THE CONSTITUTION TO DO SOMETHIN' ABOUT THIS! IT'S TOO HOT! WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME, I SAID IT'S TOO HOT!" Just try working out which of Hrghatharghaeiouy and Hrthaghathaeiouw is Beowulf's grandfather's wife's cousin's thane under those conditions, keeping in mind that if you slip up, the whole story is ruined, because while the sissy Vikings spent all their free time carving cute, cartoony chess sets, the Anglo-Saxons devoted all their energy to trying to confuse people. Also "Beowulf" is hard to read because it's an out-and-out rip-off of "The Lord Of The Rings" but with more stuff happening per page. So you see, the anti-intellectual atmosphere of jury duty causes me to seek out forms of stimulation requiring only partial cognition. The choices are watching "Good Morning, America" (because TV is stupid) or reading "O" magazine (because Oprah is stupid) or reading alt.religion.kibology (hi, Lots42!) Of course, there is the drawback that having a laptop computer causes strangers to want to talk to you. Although having a pad of paper and a pencil doesn't make people come up to you and demand to know what you're writing and to whom you're writing and how often you've slept with her, having a laptop computer seems to entitle these people to (a) read over your shoulder and (b) inquire the precise nature of your private business. Wearing a "Red Sox" jersey is a signal that you would be happy if people walked up to you and asked you whether you think the Yankees suck more or less than they used to. Carrying around a cat is a signal that you wouldn't mind people talking to you about kitties. But typing on a keyboard is NOT an advertisement that you can carry on a conversation while you're tying. (And these people act as if I'm the rude one when I give them the brush-off while I'm trying to type. Sheesh, go buy a cell phone.) Back when I had a digital camera but not a portable computer, when I would be reviewing photos on the camera's little screen to kill time on the train, people would ask me, "Is that a DIGITAL CAMERA?" and I'd tell them, "No, it's a GAF Viewmaster with a TV screen in the side of it," but that sort of interruption isn't a big deal compared to people talking at you when you're trying to read or write. Although "Beowulf" can't survive that level of intrusion, alt.religion.kibology is robust and can thrive in even the most idiot-filled environment, although it does slow down my typing. -- K. This article will be reprinted in next month's issue of "O". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: Good to see celebrities finally doing something sensible Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 22:25:41 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > It's good to see celebrities finally doing something sensible instead > of the usual nonsense they get up to. > > In http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/30/1051381998660.html, > "AAP" wrote > > -> Elle 'lined baby's cot with lead' > > I hope she's got her alfoil beanie on. Make that an alfoil brassiere, > because she's got to protect her greatest assets. I've never heard it called "alfoil" before. But it does save time just to use the abbreviation right from the periodic table. What would be the equivalent contraction for tin foil? "stfoil" is hard to pronounce, so I'd suggest "stanfoil". And for lead foil, "pbfoil" is completely unacceptable, but "plumbfoil" has more letters than "lead foil", so we may not be able to do anything about lead foil. > -> Supermodel Elle Macpherson has reportedly lined her baby's cot with > -> lead to shield him from cosmic rays on planes. > > This is totally sensible, because scientists (of SCIENCE) have > never detected any ill effects to babies from lead. That's why > the finest baby eating utensils are made from solid lead. These > weighty implements also build up the muscles of the weak little > buggers. Sure, it'll give him super-strength, but it'll give him eyestrain whenever he tries to see through it. Also, I hear that from flying around above the clouds so much, all that cosmic radiation's made Superman super-sterile. This is why nobody gets pregnant when he sleeps with 47 women in one night. > -> Macpherson, 40, allegedly also used foil blankets to shield herself > -> and sons Flynn, five, and Aurelius, 12 weeks, from radiation, > -> British newspaper The Sun said yesterday. > > It's not just the baby she's shielding! Oh no! She's shielding her > whole family, who will no doubt grow up totally well-adjusted, having > avoided being bombarded with weirdness-inducing cosmic rays. A lot of people are a little out of touch with popular culture and give their kids names which were in fashion several years ago, but in this case, "Aurelius" is about two thousand years too square. "Hi! I'm Elle MacPherson, fabulous supermodel, and this is my dorky son Aurelius! His name makes me seem even more beautiful!" But the kid would get teased even more if she had named him after Marcus Aurelius's son, Commodus. "Ha ha! You're a toilet! And you run around in fast motion like Benny Hill and you're the only Roman emperor to have an Australian accent and you make it clear that the Oscars are rigged!" "How ridiculous and what a stranger he is who is surprised at anything which happens in life." -- Marcus Aurelius, eighteen centuries ago, trying to warn us not to be surprised when supermodels start wrapping their babies in the same stuff used for Caligula's drinking-water pipes. > -> The lingerie designer is said to have spent thousands of pounds on > -> the custom-built cot, > > which weighs thousands of pounds, > > -> which Macpherson's partner Arpad Busson carried aboard a British > -> Airways flight from the Bahamas to London recently. > > Arpad Busson is a well-known weightlifter and strongman. That's why > Elle chose him, because he can heft those chunky lead cots. It's just a shame that she either couldn't afford gold shielding or else she's not culturally sophisticated enough to have seen the "Salvage One" episode where Andy Griffith explains that gold is the best possible shielding from cosmic rays, which is why they have to launch their converted cement mixer into orbit to retrieve a solid gold satellite. (That episode used to play as a "CBS Late Movie" called "Golden Orbit".) > -> Macpherson told BA staff that the cot was designed to deflect > -> radiation from the sun and cosmic rays at high altitude, the paper > -> said. > > And it's not at all to deflect the security machines' x-rays from > penetrating to find her secret stash of nail scissors, oh no. Just > forget that I said that. Supermodels NEED to have neatly trimmed > nails! Take a look at your nails. Are they all chewed and ratty > looking? YOU'RE NOT A SUPERMODEL! [...] I think she could solve all her problems by using silver instead of lead to shield baby's soft spot from the mind-control lasers, because then she could chew on the silver to spare her nails from being chewed, and then she'd get argyria and turn a pretty shade of teal, and her fingernails would get silvery-blue, and then she'd get even more attention for being the only world-famous jet-set supermodel to have a skin color from "Star Trek". > -> "She explained she was worried radiation could harm her little > -> boy," it quoted a fellow passenger as saying. > > -> But BA said it already met requirements to protect passengers. > > -> "Cosmic radiation is all around us - on the ground or in the air," > -> BA health chief Sandra Mooney told the paper. > > This is PROOF that astronauts never went to the moon: > 1. Cosmic radiation is everywhere > 2. The Van Allen Belt stops the radiation from reaching the earth's surface > 3. The Van Allen Belt doesn't reach to the moon > 4. Faraday cages are required to be earthed to be effective > 5. The earth strap connected to Apollo 11 snapped on liftoff, so they > just did a few orbits around the Earth hoping nobody would notice > 6. SOMEBODY NOTICED D00DS! > 7. Q.E.D.!!! > 8. Q!E!D!!! > 9. Don't talk about Fight Club > 10. DON'T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB! > 11. It's okay to make a movie about Fight Club but. It's okay, the Van Allen Belt burned down in the "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" movie. Well, they put it out when it was only half-burnt, but then Irwin Allen cut up the movie and used it as part of the pilot for the TV series "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea", and then used it again at least once a year, so after three or four times, you can be sure the Van Allen Belt got burned away completely, thanks to Irwin Allen, who ironically does not have any form of deadly radiation named after him. > -> "There's no evidence to suggest a need for special arrangements for > -> babies." > > British Airways has now removed all baby change rooms from its > international flights, because "there's no evidence to suggest a need > for special arrangements for babies". I think they just meant you did not have to pile all the babies on the plane up in the shape of a pentagram to keep the Druidic runestone in the cargo hold from freezing the plane solid in mid-air like they did in that movie where William Shatner helped them put lipstick on the doll as a sacrifice but it didn't trick the magic runestone vapor, or whatever, I couldn't really figure out the plot because I was mesmerized by William Shatner as the defrocked priest who may or may not have had a lead-lined hairpiece to keep the script from beaming deadly stupidity rays into his brain. The title was "Horror at 37,000 Feet" (not to be confused with Shatner's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" or Lithgow's "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet") and it also starred Chuck Connors, Buddy Ebsen, Tammy Grimes, Lynn Loring, France Nuyen, Roy Thinnes, and Paul Winfield (who shot himself rather than assassinate Shatner in "Star Trek II") and as TV-movies go, it was unusually entertaining, because although it was super-tarded, it at least had stuff happening (like the guy getting trapped in the little elevator between decks of the 747 while ghost freeze gas seeped in) unlike the average TV-movie, which doesn't have anything happening, ever. Maybe if we're lucky, Elle MacPherson will do a TV-movie where she goes around wrapping babies in lead foil to protect them from a laser pistol wielded by Robin Curtis (who played Not Kirstie Alley in "Star Trek III", and went around shooting babies in "The Unborn II" -- I've never seen the first "Unborn", but I'm assuming it was an equally despicable movie.) -- K. Geez, I wish there were more good movies. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Good to see celebrities finally doing something sensible Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 01:31:47 -0400 Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > [...] > > What *is* scary is that according to Google, my article was the first > and (aside from your reply and this counterreply) so far the only use > of the phrase "is this the line for" in the entire a.r.k archive. > > Aw shit. Now I'll have to make that into a meme. > > Is this the line for making "is this the line for" into a meme? I'm not sure. Whose line is it, anyway? (Kibo puts a traffic cone on his head.) LOOK AT ME I HAVE A TRAFFIC CONE ON MY HEAD! (Buzzer sounds because that was the funniest thing that's ever happened and now the show can end on a high note.) -- K. Is this the line for explaining to Drew Carey why having eye surgery made him stop being famous? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: Eat More Sugar? Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 22:57:54 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > In http://www.witness.co.za/content%5C2003_05%5C14976.htm, > "GWYNNE DYER" wrote: > -> > -> Last Wednesday in Rome the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the > -> UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) jointly launched an > -> independent expert report on diet which stated, among other things, > -> that free (that is, added) sugar should not exceed 10% of the > -> calories in normal daily food intake. The U.S.-based Sugar > -> Association has gone into overdrive to discredit the report, > -> [...] > -> > -> You have to admire the cheek of industry representatives who can > -> maintain with a straight face that it's perfectly all right for 25% > -> of the average person's calories to come in the form of free sugar, > -> even as they have watched an alarming proportion of the > -> U.S. population turn into blubbery, lumbering Michelin-tyre men and > -> women over the last generation. > > Do you think that Gwynne is being too harsh? It depends. Which version of "O" magazine was he writing this for? Also, it's usually Germans who like to dress up as Bibendum, not Americans. (But, Salvador Dali did have a life-size Bibendum in his garden in Spain.) > -> But then, if the pay was right they'd probably be willing to argue > -> that 25% ground glass in the diet was all right. > > Let's form the "Edible Ground Glass Institute" (EGGI)! There is heaps > of useless glass around - it's not worth recycling it. If we can grind > it up and add it to food for a couple of bucks a kilogram, we can make > squillions of dollars! They already add lots of silicon dioxide (sand) to powdered spices in order to keep them from clumping. And sand is about the same thing as glass, except that it hasn't been cooked. I think what's more important is that we should try to find a way we can leave the more expensive ingredients out of spice jars and just sell the sand without that damn tarragon. > I think that the EGGI, in conjunction with the "Eat Rat Poison It's > Good For You Institute" (ERPIGFYI), can really bring about a > renaissance in food technology. Rather than having people eat things > like "potatoes", or "beef", we can feed them a mix of 25% sugar, 5% > salt, 2% rat poison, and the rest inert filler (sand). Sand is not filler! It's a structural component! > If we add a few grams of vitamin C per kilogram, then we can put a > large banner on the packaging which says "Contains 200% of the > Recommended Daily Intake for Vitamin C!". ...or 1% of the recommended daily intake recommended by wacky Linus Pauling. AND NOW HE'S DEAD! > It sure will be a lot easier to just mix together a bunch of ingredients > in a factory rather than having to grow spuds and raise beeves. You could just have one farm if you cross-breed the spud with the cow to grow beefatatoes. They would be like hash, only natural! > And if people start dying excessively quickly from this new diet > (and HA! What's the chance of THAT happening?), we can just replace > the inert sand filler with Soylent Green. Know what makes me sad? The cover story for Soylent Green (which was not a lie, in the short story, novella, and novel which preceded the movie) was that it was soybeans plus lentils plus some green seaweed (it also came in yellow and red flavors, I forget what was added instead of seaweed.) Well, the artificial meat we're getting now is just made from cheap soybeans, with none of those yummy lentils! And I really like lentils (especially the teeny little orange ones from the Indian grocery store) so it depresses me that we're living in this bleak world of the future where we're getting food that's lamer than Soylent Green. Also, we're not speaking Esperanto, we haven't yet put any Aztecs in a giant spaceship, and George Washington's descendants still haven't built a Transatlantic Tunnel! Does Harry Harrison ever get tired of being wrong? -- K. And how come in 1993 they didn't start selling Soylent Clear during that year that people wanted artificial food with no color? It could have clear sand in it! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: More about disgusting elementary school lunch menus from the Web. Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 23:41:00 -0400 I think this article is somehow lacking, but I'm going to post it anyway just to justify all the research I did. I only ever found that one menu with photos, but there are a zillion others in calendar form. These are notes I took while looking at all of them. You can see me gradually figuring out what a Crispito is. [notes begin] For Tuesday, April 15, Lodi Primary School (Wisconsin) had a "Walking Taco". Brr! Tacos with legs! And on the 4th, they had "Cinderella Cake". CINDERELLA CAKE IS PEOPLE! PRINCESS PEOPLE! Holmen Elementary (also in Wisconsin) seems to be within walking distance, as the "Walking Taco" has strolled over there. It even walked all the way to Mason City, Iowa to visit Newman Catholic. Albion Elementary (Indiana) is the only case I've seen of someone actually renaming "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" to support America's war against France. Well, technically, they renamed "French Fries" to "American Fries" and then later the same month they renamed "American Fries" to "Freedom Fries" because Albion Elementary is full of Commies who don't like the word "American". Pioneer Regional School (Indiana) has this menu for October 15, 2002: -> Good Luck -> Panther Cross Country -> Harrier Hamburger on Bun -> Spur'em on to Victory Carrot Sticks -> Fast French Fries -> Sure to Win -> Sugar Cookies ...it's accompanied by a picture of a box of French fries with arms and legs. For October 31 they had accurate descriptions of everything: -> Happy Halloween -> Frightening Fr. Toast Sticks -> Scary Sausage Links -> Pumpkin Face Potatoes -> Applesauce -> Yogurt AAAAAAAIIIIIEEEEE!!!! YOGURT!!!!! Pioneer's April menu also has one holiday-themed day, but they ruin the joke by explaining it too many times: => April 1 - Tuesday => Possum Stew => Muskrat Salad => Polecat Pudding => * April Fools!! APRIL => See April Fools Day FOOLS (At the bottom of the page the other asterisk admits it's really a hot dog and macaroni and cheese.) Elsewhere on the page, for Friday the 4th and Friday the 11th: => Jr. High Band Contest => Silvercrest Match => Spaghetti w Meat Sauce => Garlic Bread => Time of Triumph => Tossed Salad w/ Drsg. => Dreamscape Pudding => High School Band Contest => Main Street Celebration => "Sub Sandwich" => Noisy Wheels of Joy "Lettuce & => Tomatoes" => Potato Chips => Semper Fidelis Strawberry Yogurt ...but they only bring out such luxurious food on band contest days. For Friday the 25th: => Sub Sandwich => Lettuce & Tomatoes => Pretzels => Graham Cracker Sandwich "Sorry, kids, the band's not playing today. Shut up and eat your pretzels and cracker sandwich. Dr. Kellogg says these crackers will keep you out of puberty, I mean, out of trouble." The only other oddity during the month is Tuesday the 22nd: => Fine Arts Festival => Pianissimo Taco w/ => Salsa & Sour Cream => Crescendo Corn Chips => Paintbrush Carrot & Celery Sticks => Abstract Applesauce The concept of "abstract applesauce" hurts my head. They also have a special day called "breakfast for lunch" (many schools do this) but Pioneer serves a "Panther MacMuffin", which is not only frightening but a trademark violation. And they like to serve something called "No Bake Cookie", which is what Frank Oz yelled when Ernie got fed up and pushed Cookie Monster into the incinerator. Williston (North Dakota) has made-up entrees such as "chili crispitos", "super nachos", "hobo casserole", and "slushburger". I doubt hobos make very tasty casseroles (even if you wash them) and the concept of a "slushburger" is beyond the ability of my brain to comprehend. Maybe it's a sloppy joe (barbecue sauce plus crumbled beef) or maybe it really is just some frost scraped off the freezer walls soaking into some stale bread. St. Robert School (in Flushing, Michigan) has "Galaxy Cheese Pizza" and interesting spellings for all their Mexican-style items, such as "corditas" and "qassadeas". They also have "crispitos" whatever they are. Jefferson (Dubuque, Iowa) has "French Dip With Au Jus", so I suppose they also have chili with con carne with meat, topped with con queso cheese. Ashe (North Carolina) serves a "Pork Chopette" which I am assuming is like "Taco Patty" without the taco part. Memorial (Elkhart, Indiana) has the "Crispito" again, along with a "Wet Burrito". Really. No, I don't know either. What the hell? Morgan (Illinois) offers a "Taco in a Bag". This is so that the cafeteria workers can crush it without getting their hands dirty. Bald Eagle Area Elementary (Pennsylvania) has "Hearty Shin-On Fries". Each item has an adjective attached, from "Golden Chicken Patty" to "Tender Chicken Nuggets". This will teach the kids about adjectives, and about lies. Frenount County School (Wyoming) lists "Broccoli Trees" and the Duchampish "Chicken And Nood". Well, at least that's more appetizing than "Turkey Club Bage". Most of the schools always specify "cheeseburger with bun" because this food is so cheap that sometimes it might not have a bun. (It's called "salisbury steak".) Saboe (in New Jersey) also specifies "fluffy rice" so that you won't think they're serving rice pudding with every meal. They also have "Egg-N-Cheese on Pretzel" and "Rib-A-Que". Not "Rib-B-Que", "Rib-A-Que". The winner must be Sleepy Eye Schools (yes, that's their real name, they're in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.) They offer high school students the dreaded "Taco Patty" and "Chili Crispitos" as well as "Tator Tot Hotdish" and the horrifying "Fish Nuggest". No, wait, Minnesota Valley Lutheran also has the "Taco Patty" and "Tater Tot Hotdish" in addition to "Tri Tators" and "Beaked Beans". OW! THE BEANS PECKED MY EYE OUT! And as if that wasn't bad enough, a misspelling by Grand Valley High School (Parachute, Colorado) reveals how gross this stuff really is: -> Chicken Nuggets -> or -> Cheesebuger -> or -> Chicken Sand -> or -> Max Pizza Mmm, booger. Mmm, sand. Mmm-m-max Pizza starring Matt Frewer! Remember, these people who can't spell "Skin", "Bagel", "Nuggets", and "Burger" are running your local school. Now to see if I can figure out what these things REALLY are: A Web search on "Crispito" turns up a Tyson Foods corporate page. They come in flavors such as "Very Cherry Crispito", "Chicken Pot Pie Crispito" and a "Chicken Pizza Crispito". Anything pot pie flavored which isn't a pot pie sounds bad. Especially in an egg roll wrapper, since a Crispito is just an egg roll with bad stuff inside. In the case of the dessert flavors, it's just a low-quality blintz (in the same way that the old stamped-out McDonalds pies were low-quality versions of grandma's.) => These tightly rolled flour tortillas are stuffed with a => variety of delicious fillings. They're oil blanched so => they'll be lightly browned and ready for the fryer, oven => or microwave. Crispitos are ideal for breakfast, lunch, => appetizers, desserts and dinner entrees. In the future, all meals will consist of Crispitos. The children are already being indoctrinated. Those that refuse to worship the Crispito will be oil-blanched. (To find lots of school lunch menus just search for the word "Crispito".) Other Tyson products which will be showing up in schools all too soon, according to the Tyson site, are "Chick-A-Ditos" and "Cockadoodles". (The same people who put "Chicken Sand" on the menu will soon be telling kids to enjoy the great taste of "Chicken Cock".) Chick-A-Ditos are triangular chicken nuggets with ranch-flavored breading, and Tyson shoved them in my face while telling me, -> Take a look at the new triangular chicken chunks only kids -> could think of. Cockadoodles are completely different, because they're rectangular chicken nuggets with maple-cinnamon sugar cereal breading, -> Introducing a morning of delight only kids could think of. One of my nightmares has always been that little kids will take over the agribusiness conglomerates. Soon everything will be covered with peanut butter and jelly and blue dinosaur-shaped sprinkles. The photo of Cockadoodles is especially disturbing, as they've posed the stick-shaped chicken nuggets amid a pile of blue and purple stick-shaped artists' pastels. A "taco patty" search found a meat packing company that told me I could get half a hog made into a large quantity of Taco Patty, provided I answered a few questions about disposition of the meat by-products: => Liver:Ê Would you use the pork liver as liver?Ê Or would you => like it made into liver sausage? -- K. And do you want the eyeballs made into Eyeball Taco Patty or just regular Taco Patty? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More about disgusting elementary school lunch menus from the Web. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 01:20:54 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > St. Robert School (in Flushing, Michigan) has "Galaxy Cheese Pizza" > > and interesting spellings for all their Mexican-style items, such as > > "corditas" > > Mmm, flatbread-wrapped meat infused with essence of gunpowder -- the > smell of victory in the morning. I always prefer the brand "Jet-Axe" to "Cordite" when shopping for exploding string, or at least I would if someone would let me implode an abandoned warehouse once in a while. "Jet-Axe" is a cool name because it suggests the awesome manliness of chopping a building down with an axe, Viking-style, with the high-tech power of a supersonic plane, to give you something which is as cool as a Viking flying an F-16 while leaning out the cockpit to slash you with his axe. "Cordite", on the other hand, just sounds like a made-up word with an "ite" put on the end of another word to make it sound geological, like the way if Taco Bell said their burritos were "filled with igneous burritoite" to make them sound like they were _meant_ to contain rocks. 'Cause you can't sue Taco Bell for accidentally putting rocks in your burrito if the rocks are meant to be there. Also, can the Viking be dropping bombs on gym teachers who are buried up to their neck in fire ants? That would increase the kid appeal. Add some TIE fighters and tanks and SWAT guys too and make all the gym teachers cry and say "I'm sorry I gave you that wedgie from now on you can have Oscar Mayer Lunchables for lunch!" because I know what kids really want. > > and "qassadeas". > > Interestingly, the items called "quesadillas" sold at the Hispanic > market nearest to my old apartment were little cakey things, not even > vaguely similar to the tortillas-with-melted-cheese-onions-and-meat > concoctions sold as appetizers at the sort of restaurants whose walls > are covered with faded old metal signs, rusty farm implements and > black-and-white photographs of amateur baseball teams from 1938. I > still haven't figured that discrepancy out. Hmm. I don't think any of the bodegas down the street from me sells fresh warm quesadillas, although it's not like I've actually looked for quesadillas because I don't like queso or armadillos. But I don't live near a good barrio -- my neighborhood isn't like that neat area near MacArthur Park where people sell grilled vegetables on hibachis they set up on the sidewalk. My neighborhood just has lots of canned Goya products, which only barely makes it Hispanic. (South of me is mostly bodegas and iglesias, west of me is Russian and kosher, north of me is hospitals, and east of me is art museums. But I don't know what ethnicity the food in the hospitals and museum cafeterias might be, because I've never been to those hospitals and I like to buy my art in book form so I can look at it while I'm watching TV. Plus the piece of art I'm currently studying is over in Scotland, and no way I'm going to travel that far and find out what a museum-cafeteria version of haggis would be.) (Actually, now that I think about it, a museum-cafeteria version of haggis would probably be a White Castle burger.) > > Memorial (Elkhart, Indiana) has the "Crispito" again, along with > > a "Wet Burrito". Really. No, I don't know either. What the hell? > > Ooh! Ooh! I know what a wet burrito is. It's "wet" because it's > covered with sauce and cheese and thus eaten with a fork, instead of > being a hand-held entree where the dry tortilla is the exterior. So you mean the other kind of burrito can be called "a dry enchilada"? I prefer tamales, myself. Except it's always such a pain having to eat that stuff on the outside that tastes like corn husks. > Actually, the only place I've ever seen "wet burrito" on the menu is > at El Mexicano, a small chain of fastfoodish Mexican joints in the > D.C. suburbs. El Mexicano's signage consisted of the entire name in > uppercase red backlit letters, except for the "l" in "El", which was > green and shaped like a cactus. For this reason, the first time I > beheld the sign it took me a second to realize the cactus was supposed > to be an "l" and that the place wasn't called "E MEXICANO" with a nice > little cactus in the logo to make it prettier. I suspect that when you say "shaped like a cactus" to most Americans, they think of saguaros shaped like a "t", because that's the shape all cacti are in TV cartoons (after all, it's easier to injure yourself on one of those.) So I'm envisioning a sign which says "Et Mexicano", which means they might serve Stacia's favorite "Et Tu Crouton", and their specials of the day would be written on a silver board named the "Et Chasketch". > They could likely have avoided this problem by making the whole > logo green and using lowercase letters except for the initial caps, > or perhaps putting the "E" and "M" in red and using lowercase > green letters for everything else, or maybe by putting a strip of > grass or dirt or something sticking out rightward from the bottom > of the cactus to make it look more like an uppercase L. At least > I assume so. I've often said: Things that are not letters should not be used as letters. Things in the real world are not shaped anything like letters, so to make the visual pun you have to mangle stuff so badly that either the letter won't look like a letter or the other thing won't look like the other thing. My favorite local example is a Vietnamese restaurant that uses a map of Vietname as the "S" in "Saigon", but I can think of at least three other letters or digits that look more like Vietnam than "S" does. For instance, the restaurant could be named "3aigon". In fact, I have no proof it isn't -- I'm simply assuming it says "Saigon", but I suppose I shouldn't, because only bozos assume they know what bad signs say. > Anyway, the food at El Mexicano is actually pretty darned good, > considering that it's cheap fast stuff; they even have the laminated > menu in both English and Spanish because they get a fair number of > Latino customers. What's Spanish for "taco"? > I recommend the Chicken Fiesta platter. > > You might think it's strange to imagine that a place might be called > "E MEXICANO", but then you've probably never been to Altoona, > Pennsylvania, where there's a breakfast-oriented restaurant that I'm > told used to be called "Waffle King" until some legal reason (new > owner? threat from another Waffle King?) forced it to change its name. > So it became "R-Waffle King". > > Really, "R-Waffle King". Altoona is a strange place. Now that my local RFC is out of business, maybe I should see if I can convince them to open an RHOP to serve Roxbury-style waffles. Incidentally, I still haven't found out what local restaurant Lamb-Weston's "02120" model French fries were created for. Their part numbers appear to be ZIP codes, and I live in 02120, but I can't think of any restaurants here which would be classy enough to have their own kind of fries. Maybe it was the RFC. They could have wanted fries that had eleven Roxbury-style herbs and spices instead of Kentucky ones, but I don't know what eleven Roxbury spices would be. Maybe it would be like the New Kids On The Block (they were from Roxbury) plus the Spice Girls but that still leaves one unaccounted for. Oh no, maybe it's me! Maybe I should tell Lamb-Weston I've moved to some other city just so that they'll start putting seasoning based on me in fries somewhere else so that I won't have to think about it any more. But that would involve lying to a tater company and if I got caught they'd get a restraining order saying I couldn't come within 500 feet of any restaurant or store that has potatoes. > > Most of the schools always specify "cheeseburger with bun" because > > this food is so cheap that sometimes it might not have a bun. (It's > > called "salisbury steak".) > > Strange that the meat quality at schools is so bad that hamburgers, > normally a safe choice in most situations, tend to be the most awful- > tasting thing they serve. Or at least that was my experience. The > best thing they served at my high school was the turnover-shaped > burrito-oid thing, ostensibly because had a little bit of seasonings > in it to cover up the taste of the meat. I agree, schools manage to find ways to ruin hamburgers, which is quite an achievement when you consider that I love White Castles. Once when I was in college (at a place which had reasonably good food) I took a survey of what the least popular food item there way, and the winner was "salisbury steak". For those of you who are in countries that don't make up random phrases like "salisbury steak", it means "a hamburger patty served by itself because buns cost money". A salisbury steak is not topped with expensive ketchup and mustard, just with brown gravy (and if you don't have brown gravy in your country, just imagine gravy which tastes brown.) -- K. The one I always hate: "American chop suey". It doesn't taste that bad, but the concept is offensive for multiple reasons: 1.) "chop suey" IS an American invention (San Francisco), 2.) "American chop suey" has nothing to do with "chop suey", and 3.) it's something nobody has ever eaten outside a school cafeteria, unless you count the icky canned version, "Beefaroni". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More about disgusting elementary school lunch menus from the Web. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 03:12:36 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Hmm. I don't think any of the bodegas down the street from me sells > > fresh warm quesadillas, although it's not like I've actually looked > > for quesadillas because I don't like queso or armadillos. But I don't > > live near a good barrio -- my neighborhood isn't like that neat area > > near MacArthur Park where people sell grilled vegetables on hibachis > > they set up on the sidewalk. My neighborhood just has lots of canned > > Goya products, which only barely makes it Hispanic. > > oh my, you didn't mention before that people in your neighborhood > like to DEVOUR THE HEADS OFF CHILDREN! I didn't say I lived in Cannibaltown. That's over near South Station. Also, I'm not sure if my neighborhood has any dyslexic homophobes, but I'll keep an eye out for people fleeing the bodega yelling "NOOOOO! I DON'T WANNA EAT GAYO REFRIED BEANS! THEY'RE THE REFRIED BEANS THAT ONLY GAY PEOPLE CAN EAT!" > [...] > > incidentally, I have solved the problem of why the cheese on > "cheese" pizzas in school cafeterias doesn't look like cheese. > IT ISN'TS! IT'S MARIGOLDS! Then why does it still taste as awful as cheese? > http://4hgarden.msu.edu/tour/29.html > -> > -> Pizza is the most popular choice on the school > -> lunch menu in the United States. Plants growing > -> here in the Pizza Garden make up the ingredients: > -> tomatoes, onions, peppers, parsley, basil and > -> Greek oregano. The marigolds around the outside > -> represent the cheese. > > I would suggest getting all your pizza at the local grade school > from now on, for that fresh flowery taste! Well, that Tyson Chicken corporate site emphasized that they let little kids invent all their new products, so little kids are obviously great cooks, and therefore all grownups should demand that their pizza be made by little kids from now on. Plus it's real easy for the kids these days because they can just buy a Play-Doh set that makes pizzas. The one to have is the Chuck E. Cheese brand Play-Doh set where the cheese comes out the mouse's nose. I am not kidding. Chuck E. Cheese paid good money to the Play-Doh company to teach kids that their pizza cheese is made from rodent boogers. -- K. Also, how come there aren't any plants to represent the pepperoni? Pepperoni would be a great plant, especially for people who don't like vegetables! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More about disgusting elementary school lunch menus from the Web. Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 00:33:54 -0400 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > The sad, sad thing is that my current employer no longer shows pics of > their food, and it's on the Intranet so you couldn't get to it anyway. > But I managed to save a few of the pics which were truly horrific, and I > will post them tomorrow if I remember, which I won't. > The thing is, this cafeteria manages to have food which tastes decent, > but *always* gives you a stomach ache. You could have their salad, or a > baked potato, or ice water, and you get a stomach ache. Fruit Loops do that. And Trix. And Skittles. And all other artificial rainbow-colored candies. I've never been able to figure out precisely which ingredient of these cereals and candies makes my stomach hurt. Does your cafeteria serve mostly blue food? > And every Friday? Tator tot casserole. Yes, it's spelled "tator". > Every Friday. > Tator. ver SATOR TOTI AREPO R EHORS TENET O ESTO OPERA T !!!!!ROTAT ROTATOR TATOR!!!!! T AREPO OWAH O TENET TAGOO R OPERA SIAM ROTAS bum ...imagine that spinning around really fast while zooming in and out as the "Batman" theme plays and you will have seen the inside of my mind. -- K. [15][14] ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More about disgusting elementary school lunch menus from the Web. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 00:34:00 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > ver > > SATOR TOTI > > AREPO R EHORS > > TENET O ESTO > > OPERA T > > !!!!!ROTAT ROTATOR TATOR!!!!! > > T AREPO > > OWAH O TENET > > TAGOO R OPERA > > SIAM ROTAS > > bum > > > > ...imagine that spinning around really fast while zooming in and out > > as the "Batman" theme plays and you will have seen the inside of my mind. > > > > -- K. > > > > [15][14] > > oh no! > > the inside of kibo's mind is actually the 15th and 14th enochian tablet! > and by spinning his head around on the tator axis, he has summoned evil > undead angels led by jack parsons and elrond hubbard who will usher in > the apocalypse by devouring pizza and fung-yuns! Now, suddenly, you understand why I carefully steered our discussion of food to elemetary school cafeteria food to the misspellings on school lunch menus to the phrase "tator tots". All specifically so that I could expose you to the horrors of The Whirling Tator Axis. Fun-Yuns are not involved in this vision of the apocalypse. But Death-Yuns are. Don't eat the Death-Yuns! Unless you have lots of clam dip. Clam dip can smother evil, but only if the evil is in one of the many forms made by Frito-Lay, and only if it's not one of the evil brands of clam dip. (Clam dip made from the fried clams they sell at the White Castle across from the Empire State Building should be safe, because those aren't even clams.) > I think we need to seal the 11:11 gateway using translated evocations > from the voynich manuscript illustrated by luigi serafini! I like the Codex Seraphinianus page where it shows how salami is made. Or am I reading the book BACKWARDS to see the UNMAKING OF ALL SALAMI? EVIL! EVIL! EEEEEEVIL! > quick, someone hand me that emblem of the $25,000 pyramid! That was the second most demonic game show of all time, after "Magnificent Marble Machine". I mean, the power of the Magnificent Marble Machine caused that guy to split his pants. You don't see that happening on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?". -- K. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go swap the cases of all the "HŠxan" and "Incubus" DVDs at Blockbuster. EVIL! And worse, I'm going to switch the cases of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Head". EEEEEEEEEVIL! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: VERY Important Question (MEN ONLY) Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 01:51:35 -0400 phy (phy00x@yahoo.com) wrote: > > Why do mens underwear have a weinerslot? I always flip mine over the top. That's called an "atomic wedgie" and your arms must be very flexible if you can pull the waistband all the way over the top of your head like that. > Doesn't everyone do this or am I just weird? Someday they'll have underwear which is truly stain-resistant and then you won't have to use the slot _or_ pull down the top. -- K. EWW! PHY, YOU'RE GROSS! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mister Rogers Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 02:18:38 -0400 Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > [article from CNN] > -> > -> PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Mister Rogers now has an > -> asteroid named in his honor. Yay! Now I can go there and be the king of Planet Nerdo! Okay, so it's just an asteroid, not a planet. But "Asteroid Nerdo" takes too long to say. > -> "Misterrogers," formerly known as No. 26858, honors Fred Rogers, > -> creator and host of public television's "Mister Rogers' > -> Neighborhood." Rogers died February 27 at age 74. But that's not his name! He was either "Mister Rogers" or "Misterogers" (with a missing "r") depending on what graphic you were looking at. "Misterrogers" has an "rr" in it which gives it a piratical pronounciation, "Arrrr, me mateys, arrrrrr! Avast and storm the castle of Misterrrrogerrrrs!" Sophisticated people have eliminated the double and triple "r" from their box of phonemes, as indicated by my latest scientific research involving looking at people's foreheads on TV: CHARLES DARWIN'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION OF SOME PEOPLE by Kibo (8 zillion BC) Australopithecus --> "OY! ENERGIZER!" (7 zillion BC) Charlie Brown --> "AUGH!" (6 zillion BC) Cro-Magnons --> "RRRRR!" (5 zillion BC) Tie Domi --> "RRRR!" (4 zillion BC) Neanderthals --> "RRR!" (3 zillion BC) Gene Rayburn --> "RRR, BLANK!" (2 zillion BC) Pirates --> "ARRR!" (1 zillion BC) David Hasselhoff --> "KNIGHT RIDARRR!" (today) People --> "Hello." (1 zillion AD) Doubledomes --> "Let's go use our time machine to go laugh at pirates!" > -> "I doubt that there are many who have not been touched in some > -> way by the life and work of Fred Rogers," said John G. > -> Radzilowicz, director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium & > -> Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center, which made the > -> announcement Thursday. I should add that I think Mr. Rogers was somewhere between the people of today and the doubledomes of tomorrow. He hadn't yet evolved the giant eight-lobed brain they will have, but he had evolved beyond the capacity to be a meanie. Also his mind was so advanced that he could actually remember what it was like to be a small child, unlike most of the other people who try to host kids' TV shows. > -> The science center worked with Family Communications Inc., the > -> production company Rogers founded, to produce a planetarium show > -> for preschoolers called "The Sky Above Mister Rogers' > -> Neighborhood." The show now plays at 15 planetariums across the > -> country. > -> > -> "Misterrogers" can be found between the orbits of Mars and > -> Jupiter, and is about 218 million miles from the sun, which it > -> takes about 3 1/2 years to orbit. > > I'm imagining that, twenty years from now, Misterrogers will get just > the right nudge from some other asteroid, and will be sent on a > collision course towards Earth. The resulting impact will wipe out > 90% of the human population. Most of the remaining 10% will undergo a hideous mutation and become very small and floppy, requiring someone to hold them up from below and work their arms for them. However, those people will consider themselves lucky because they'll get to live in big blue castles, once they've eaten all the oatmeal that was in the can. > From the hellish cinder that was our world, a new order will emerge. > The shattered memetic fragments shall align themselves in such a way > that the science formerly known as astronomy will morph into a major > world religon. One of the pillars of this new religion will be that, > after death, people are reborn into the Land of Make Believe as giant > orbitting space rocks. But only if they can get a seat on the little trolley that goes there. Also... Before the apocalypse: The Bible. After the apocalypse: Picture Picture. Now let us watch the sacred film showing unto us the making of tubas. -- K. I had forgotten Mr. Rogers was dead until that mean astronomer reminded me. I'm taking him off my Christmas list and putting him next to Gene Rayburn. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mister Rogers Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 03:39:24 -0400 Concerning proto-humans and deadly rocks, I just wrote: > > (8 zillion BC) Australopithecus --> "OY! ENERGIZER!" > (7 zillion BC) Charlie Brown --> "AUGH!" > (6 zillion BC) Cro-Magnons --> "RRRRR!" > (5 zillion BC) Tie Domi --> "RRRR!" > (4 zillion BC) Neanderthals --> "RRR!" > (3 zillion BC) Gene Rayburn --> "RRR, BLANK!" > (2 zillion BC) Pirates --> "ARRR!" > (1 zillion BC) David Hasselhoff --> "KNIGHT RIDARRR!" > (today) People --> "Hello." > (1 zillion AD) Doubledomes --> "Let's go use our time machine > to go laugh at pirates!" I forgot to mention: Yesterday New Hampshire's official state symbol, a big rock that happened to look vaguely like a Gene Rayburn when seen from the left side, disintegrated completely, and now all the New Hampshire quarters are worthless because they show a lie -- New Hampshire doesn't have anything that looks like that any more, they just have a very famous pile of rubble where A Rock That Looked Like A Thing used to be. Gene Rayburn could not be reached for comment, because he's dead -- coincidence? I don't think so! So if any other Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons fall apart in the next few days, it's New Hampshire's fault. Now let's go use our time machine to go pick up Gene Rayburn and take him to see The Old Man In The Mountain so we can tell him, "Look! New Hampshire has a huge, naturally-occurring monument to you! Let's skip ahead and see it fall apart!" My theory is that the rock just got tired of having thousands of people squinting at it to make it look like something. The rock finally dropped the charade and came out of the closet, saying "I'm rock, and I'm proud!" And now New Hampshire has no tourist attractions, because The Old Man In The Mountain disintegrated and Archimedes Plutonium moved to the South Dakota. -- K. "We always thought it was the hand of God holding him up, and now, He let him go!" -- park ranger ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mister Rogers Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 23:29:36 -0400 Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > [...addressing Talysman...] > At this point, I finally realized that you were talking about Gene > Rayburn and that I was thinking of Gene Ray, the timecube guy. Garry Shandling (as Larry Sanders) once said, "Scientists have discovered the gene that causes cancer. Unfortunately, it's Gene Rayburn." I apologize for mentioning Gene Rayburn and Garry Shandling in the same sentence, which might lead Conan O'Brien to do an "If They Mated" piece where they give birth to some craggy, wrinky face sticking out of the side of a mountain in New Hampshire, which then collapses, killing Jeffrey Tambor before he can mate with Oprah's pal Dr. Phil. > Kibo's posts in this thread are about equally wacky under either > interpretation. My posts aren't just equally wacky. All my posts are much wackier than all my other posts. The fact that my posts are a lot wackier than themselves leads to two inescapable conclusions: "A lot" is where you build a house and "posts" are used toti ehors esto. OH NO, IT'S A CALLBACK TO AN IMAGINARY WHIRLING HALLUCINATION OF THE ABSTRACT CONCEPT OF THE MISSPELLING OF TATER TOTS! -- K. I don't like either the term "posts" or the term "postings". I prefer to call my articles "adventures in awesomeness". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mister Rogers Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 04:21:39 -0400 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > (8 zillion BC) Australopithecus --> "OY! ENERGIZER!" > > (7 zillion BC) Charlie Brown --> "AUGH!" > > (6 zillion BC) Cro-Magnons --> "RRRRR!" > > (5 zillion BC) Tie Domi --> "RRRR!" > > (4 zillion BC) Neanderthals --> "RRR!" > > (3 zillion BC) Gene Rayburn --> "RRR, BLANK!" > > One of my anthropology teachers was so enamored with Cro-Magnons that > she often spoke of liking men with huge jutting foreheads and eyes that > "peered out of the darkness". [...] Anyhow, she had the total hot > potatoes for Gene Rayburn. I admit, I do, too. But unfortunately, he's BLANK! (BWAMP! doo doot doo doo doot doot doo doo doot BWAMP! doo doot doo doo doot...) Today I saw one where the bonus question was "CUT THE BLANK", and everyone laughed for a while when the question was shown, but none of the celebrities suggested either of the two most obvious answers ("CHEESE" and "CRAP"), and the contestant guessed "MUSTARD", which is good because not one of the 100 people surveyed said "CHEESE" or "CRAP". Either that or "Match Game" was rigged. Which might mean that Brett Somers wasn't chosen to be an expert panelist because of her superior intelligence! How to tell if "Match Game" is rigged: Look for instances where one contestant is given "HAMBURGER WITH FRENCH BLANK" and another is given just "A BLANK". > > Yesterday New Hampshire's official state symbol, a big rock that happened > > to look vaguely like a Gene Rayburn when seen from the left side, > > disintegrated completely, > > I looked this up and discovered you are correct, The Old Man in the > Mountain went kaflooey sometime between Thursday and Saturday. I was > amused to find the state had been holding the monument together with > cables and epoxy. Epoxy? 47 metric tonnes of super glue? Yes, well, one drop will hold anything. 47 tons of it won't. The tube says to use just one drop and spread it thinly because in larger quantities, Super Glue is actually a lubricant. Also it falls off if you get it below 50 degrees, and it bonds skin instantly and is then a minor inconvenience during the three seconds it takes to peel it off easily. Trust me, I've tested it on every part of my body, and it never sticks to me. It's apparently one of my many superpowers. -- K. Things that stick to me better than Super Glue: Vinyl. Nougat. Post-It Notes. Lint. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Please tell me all about modern fashion. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 04:29:46 -0400 I have three questions about what people are wearing. Please tell me what the deal is with all these people walking around in tight jeans with big white bleach stains on the butt. Did a whole lot of people sit on the same park bench even though it had a "WET PAINT MADE WITH 90% CLOROX BLEACH" sign? Or did they drink a whole quart of McDonald's new Swimming Pool Flavored Chlorine Bleach Shake and then poop their pants? Or is the actual truth even more horrible? What's the term for those finger rings which are so huge that they cover two joints of the same finger and have to have a hinge in the middle? Is there some reason William Shatner thought "Jake Cardigan" would be a good name for a tough detective? And are those books the reason kids don't wear cardigans all summer any more? -- K. And a fourth: If BVDs are "Y-fronts", what letter is the back? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Please tell me all about modern fashion. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 23:33:15 -0400 Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > What's the term for those finger rings which are so huge that they cover > > two joints of the same finger and have to have a hinge in the middle? > > Cesti. I asked what they were called, not whether they were moderately seasoned! It doesn't help me to know that they're zompletely cesti! I've often thought that the U.S. Government Of America should regulate the use of the word "zesty" for snack foods. The USGOA needs to pass a law legally defining "zesty", because nobody else has ever figured out what it means either, and they should also punish people who sell bland foods which are labelled "zesty", and relabel those foods "quasi-zesty", because I want to play that word in Scrabble someday (the hyphen is just a sideways "I", so the hyphen is only worth one point. But playing my other ten tiles along with the sideways one would get me a bonus of 350,000 points plus airline miles.) -- K. Do they have ones where the hinge connects two joints on the same finger, one joint on another finger, and the spinal column? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Please tell me all about modern fashion. Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 23:31:48 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Please tell me what the deal is with all these people walking around > > in tight jeans with big white bleach stains on the butt. > > This initially made me think of the white-pantsed woman whose visible > skid marks so traumatized Archimedes Plutonium when he was in college > that he had to invent a whole new technique of postdefecatory hygiene, > but then I realized that the people you're seeing are probably just > showing off how good their rear ends look now that they've acquired > the product with the most inspiring trademarked slogan I've heard in > quite some time: > > http://www.biniki-fashions.com/default.asp > > "Biniki(tm) is a butt Bra!!(tm)" "Biniki(tm) is a butt Bra!!(tm)" > That's the sort of lofty thought that'll get our spirits back up now > that we've lost the Old Man of the Mountain. "Biniki(tm) is a butt > Bra!!(tm)" "Biniki, we have to break into my boss's office to steal that letter you weren't supposed to mail him!" "Bibi da!" ...and then hilarity ensues with Bronson Pinchot, Mark-Linn Baker, and this week's chimp! If you say the slogan on a.r.k I'll say that, only probably with more of an episode attached, because I still have an entire unproduced "Perfect Strangers" script here somewhere. No, wait! I wasn't supposed to paste in the _whole_ message I mailed you last night! The last paragraph was secret! Oops, the most important conspiracy in human history is ruined! Now people know I'm not writing this by accident! I guess now I'll have to buy old magazines and cut them up with scissors and gluing them together randomly if I want people to think I'm creative. Either that, or maybe Biniki and I can sneak into every home in the world to steal all the copies of that paragraph... it's so crazy, it just might work, as long as we get back in time for our double date with those three supermodels who think the two of us are three Arab shieks... -- K. Someday I want to film an "In Search Of" episode where we look for the sunken island of Caspiar. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The Talk Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 23:35:56 -0400 Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > In Fairfax County Public Schools circa 1980, there was a weird, > exceedingly elliptical sex-education unit done as part of "Health," > which in turn was the classroom segment of Physical Education. It was > a sex-segregated course a few days long in which we young men saw > movies and filmstrips telling us what X and Y chromosomes were and that > nocturnal ejaculation was normal and that girls had periods. In sixth grade we had to get permission slips from our parents to see the films "Boy To Man" or "Girl To Woman" (depending on our gender) and they gathered all the boys from four classes together in one room and all the girls in another room. Then one of the other teachers came into the boys' room and gave us all a long lecture about how Communism is bad because in Russia they don't let you choose what you want to do when you grow up. I think he had waited the entire year for this opportunity to tell the boys and only the boys the secret of capitalism so that my gender could maintain its manly economic domination of Communists and girls. Am I the only one that got anti-Communist propaganda during the sex talk? I assume some other people, but not many, got the tail end of the McCarthy era mixed in with the start of the sex education era. Then the gym teacher (who apparently inspired Robert Picardo's character on "The Wonder Years") said that a jock strap was "a pouch you keep your testicles in" and I think half the kids wondered how tight you were supposed to tie off the drawstring and whether you should put the pouch in your locker or in your back pocket after putting your testicles in it. And I assume I'm not the only one whose gym teacher was clueless about sex and how to describe things made from elastic. -- K. Now I gotta go, the hockey game is on TV and I want to watch it just in case the players all escape from the arena and go beat up my gym teacher. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Comcast: More Evil Than Hitler And All Other Cable Companies Combined Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 03:41:40 -0400 About three hours ago, I wrote: > > Now I gotta go, the hockey game is on TV and I want to watch it > just in case the players all escape from the arena and go > beat up my gym teacher. Scratch "gym teacher" and insert "cable company". So here's what happened. I watched the Senators beat the Flyers (5-1) so that they'll go on to the conference finals (thanks in part to a very nice move by the Flyers goalie, who decided at a crucial moment to slide all the way to the blue line on his butt so that he would be a few dozen feet away from his net) and when I was done watching my recording of the game (it was on while I was at the office) I switched to live TV and... The "B" cable signal (the one which contains most of the worthwhile channels) was gone. Completely. All the "B" channels vanished sometime within 90 minutes after the game ended. You see, my evil local cable company (Cablevision) got absorbed into a slightly more evil cable company (MediaOne) who got absorbed into a significantly more evil cable company (AT&T Broadband) who was really pushy about trying to get us to switch from analog cable to more expensive digital cable, and then they were absorbed by a really, truly evil cable company (Comcast)... Comcast spent their first month mailing everyone lots of postcards about how they were going to work hard to be our trust, as if they wanted us to think that they realized AT&T Broadband had an image problem, and as if they thought printing their logotype in lowercase would fool us into thinking they were a fun & friendly conglomerate. Then they immediately started turning off people's cable without warning because they decided they wanted everyone to upgrade to the pricey digital cable _right now_. Also, they did it at that precise moment because they were sore the Flyers lost. (Comcast owns the Flyers.) Of course, if they had switched it off while I was in the middle of watching something, I'd be even more cross with them, but it's still pretty galling that they just decided to take my cable away in the middle of the night because I was happy with the affordable analog cable. So, my options now if I ever want to be able to see TV shows again are: 1.) Hook up the rabbit ears, and only get the lame broadcast channels, and everything would be super-fuzzy because I'm in a big city. (Some of the VHF channels are not watchable even though the transmitters are downtown. Cities are full of interference and echoes.) 2.) Switch to the only competing cable company, RCN. But they only have analog cable with more or less the same selection of channels I had, except they don't have one of my favorites, and I know they'd pull the same sort of forcible-switchover- to-digital soon, especially because RCN is another horrible evil corporation (namely, it's the local electricity monopoly's attempt to also also be a phone company and a cable company.) 3.) Get a digital satellite dish. I'd love to have a DirecTV dish hooked up one one of those dual-tuner TiVos (the satellite version of TiVo can record two programs at the same time) but from here, the satellite is at azimuth 236, and my apartment's balcony faces approximately azimuth 120, so satellite is impossible. 4.) Pay extra to evil Comcast to get back the cable signal they didn't want to provide me. For a level of service comparable to what I had (except with fewer premium channels) the bill will be something like $85/month, plus the cost of the installation they're forcing me to get. And I'll have to get one of those giant cable boxes Comcast uses, the ones where you have to set your TiVo or VCR to send three-digit channel numbers v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y so that it takes about fifteen seconds to change channels (digit... digit... digit... wait for digital picture to reassemble jigsaw-puzzle-style... wait for giant advertisement covering the picture to disappear...) #3 is not feasible because the satellite is hidden behind the building, but I seriously considered #1 and #2 before settling for paying the extortion money to the evil Comcast scumbags. They took my cable TV signal away without warning and now I have to spend extra money, and do a bunch of work, to get it back. I think I managed to put in a service order through their slow, broken, cryptic Web site so now all I have to do is move all my furniture so that they can screw around with my TV, get up early on the day the technician is supposed to come, and have a check in hand for the cost of installation and sign a stack of forms waiving all right to anything, and I should be able to see TV shows again in the middle of next week. At least option #4 gets me a lot of channels and they will look reasonably good (unlike Comcast's analog cable which is usually snowy) but I absolutely detest the fact that they've beaten me. I have absolutely no option for getting a TV signal other than to do whatever Comcast wants and pay whatever Comcast wants (unless I switch to RCN, which offers fewer benefits and I know from previous dealings with Boston Edison that they're also run by jerks.) I am really mad at Comcast right now, even though their team just got eliminated from the playoffs. And I think I'm going to get to catch up on my reading for the next week and a half. (Does anyone know any books with titles containing the words "Comcast", "Executives", and "Get Eaten By Dingoes"?) Really, due to this and other issues with my local cable company (under whatever name it had in any given month) I seriously considered option #1. That's how much I hate them. I hate them almost as much as I like TV. (I still have over a week to cancel the appointment for the installation if I decide I hate the idea of paying them $85 a month for service I shouldn't have had to order in the first place.) Have I adequately communicated that I am never going to be sending the Comcast corporation a musical Christmas card? -- K. And about my phone company, Verizon... they might be the least incompetent of the colossally evil utility companies here, but they're still at least as evil as half a Hitler plus one Fatty Arbuckle. Comcast, though, is a full baker's dozen of assorted Hitlers and Arbuckles (no two alike.) ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Comcast: More Evil Than Hitler And All Other Cable Companies Combined Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 21:13:57 -0400 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Then they immediately started turning off people's cable without > > warning because they decided they wanted everyone to upgrade to > > the pricey digital cable _right now_. > > Our local cable company would refuse to fix the analog cable and just > let it rot until we were forced into digital. And the only way we could > get movie channels out the wazoo was with digital. AND they are the only > cable company out here. Mine's the only real cable company here (if you don't count the rinky-dink one run as a sideline of the electric company's attempt at being a telecommunications company -- yeah, like I want to get my E-mail from the power company) but because they keep changing their mind about which lies they want to tell people, it's hard to tell they're just one company. Earlier this week, I talked to someone sensible who had the same symptoms as me (the "B" channels all turned to static in the middle of the night) and who was told there was no more "B" cable, period, and they had to upgrade to digital. And then they took away my "B" cable, and I spent a bunch of time figuring out how to order digital cable from Comcast's Web site (which wasn't easy.) Today I got this E-mail: -> PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL. -> James Parry -> Thank you for your interest in Comcast Digital Cable service. However, due -> to a past-due balance on your account, we are unable to process your -> online order at this time. -> -> Please contact us at 1-800-COMCAST to continue processing your order. -> -> Thank you again for your interest in Comcast. I'm interested in knowing why they feel they can send E-mail to me but I'm not allowed to E-mail them (would I really want to get a cable modem from an E-mail provider who feels this way?) and also in knowing why their Web site refused to tell me what my balance was even when I asked it (you can only see your bills _after_ being signed up with the Web site for a month, and then once you do that you can choose whether to get your bills via E-mail or via E-mail and paper, with no option to go back to not getting them mailed to you from people who tell you you may not reply) and why it allowed me to try to order service if I didn't meet their rules for buying from them (apparently because I didn't pay my April bill and it's now the first week of May, I can't sign up to get digital cable installed, even though they say I must pay the installer with a check or money order -- really!) So I phone 1-800-COMCAST, and answered a bunch of questions about where I was calling from, whether I was interested in getting cable or hockey tickets from them, and so on, then I was put on hold to listen to a recording which promised me that (a) all their operators were busy and (b) I can get through 24 hours a day whenever it's convenient for me, I waited and eventually got through to a person who allowed me to pay the bill that I couldn't pay on the Web site, and then she told me that I should sign up for automatic debit to forestall any future problems in not paying the bills the moment they're due (probably caused by me hating to give any money to this cable company to start with) but there is no way in hell I'm going to give these people the keys to take whatever money they want out of my bank account whenever they want to, particularly as the rates increase a notch every few months. Anyhow, I've heard all sorts of different stories from friends and neighbors about Comcast forcing them to upgrade to digital or lying to them about what services are offered (they like to deny they even support analog cable for existing subscribers, let alone current subscribers,) and normally I'd expect that when a bill is a week late they'd do something like give you a little more time or put up that splash screen on the cable box that shows ads for pay-per-view or turn off both the "A" and "B" channels or send out an E-mail (as they clearly know how to send out E-mail, even if I can't tell them not to or even reply) so the fact that they've instituted a new policy of being _really_ strict about bill payment and not communicating to the customers about what's going on is either part of their plan to trick people into ordering digital cable upgrades, or else they just don't give a rat's ass about their customers, and honestly, I don't think they're smart enough for the first of the two options. And now I'm not sure if my order for the digital cable upgrade is going to go through or whether it will be forgotten, but I'd better call them again and make sure it's cancelled. As to whether people were being forced to upgrade to digital (and I have sources who have told me that Comcast salespeople have said "there is no more 'B' cable" when their "B" channels have been deleted) I asked the woman at 1-800-COMCAST about this, and she said "we're not presently requiring upgrades" and then went on about the FCC ruling that says that people have to be switched over to digital broadcasting by 2006 so that Comcast would want me to go digital in 2005 or 2006 ("or possibly later".) I'm going to talk to people who have told me other stories about what Comcast has told them and try to start a collection of blather (I just don't get enough blather on the Internet.) For now I've got my analog cable back, and I plan to keep it until I eventually wind up living somewhere where I can get a satellite (and be able to choose what brand of dish and decoder to buy, subscribe to channels individually from content providers, record two channels simultaneously without needed two sets of equipment, enable or disable service easily via the Web, etc.) Although it is tempting to go digital now just because I know they'll probably pull the forced-switchover trick on me soon (after all, the woman on the phone suggested that such might happen in two years, and in other parts of my service area it's already happened) but that feels like I'd be letting them browbeat me into buying whatever they want to sell me. "Yo, we can do dis da easy way or da hard way. Just buy da freakin' digital cable. Capisce?" They have managed to inch my monthly analog fee up to the point where it's about the same as the monthly cost of digital, less the installation fee, and the value of all the time I'm wasted dealing with Comcast. > Until I moved to the hefty kewl trailer park, and we have a different > cable company. I just kicked their ass so you may get some comfort in > this story: > They were late setting us up, they screwed up the billings when we > voluntarily went to digital, they never buried the cable (so we've been > mowing over it since last fall), and then we get a late bill dated April > 10 saying we have to pay by April 11 or we will be disconnected. I call, > they are nice and explain they just got the billings straightened out and > I could pay on April 15. Ed goes home, discovers they've disconnected us > anyway. > Now, they couldn't manage to do anything else on time, but they > disconnect us early, and after saying they won't. > So I faxed my trailer park owners in Denver and the manager here in town > asking, please, let us have another cable company, because I have had it > with this one. > Immediately the cable company was contacted by the owners of the trailer > park and much ass was kicked. I got $100.00 off my bill and everything. > I actually felt guilty... But I still wish we could get another cable > company. Those bastards! They've broken your spirit! They made you feel guilty for taking advantage of their generosity in charging you a little less for the services they didn't install correctly, didn't bill correcty, and didn't provide! Just because you're a good person and they're incompetent, uncaring bozos is no reason to feel guilty. It's not your fault you're not an asshole! When the phone, gas, electricity, or cable companies are monopolies, and they jerk you around, at least you can assume it's the natural order of affairs. I live in an area where there is supposedly a choice of two phone companies, two cable companies (plus satellite), and so on, and yet all the companies still act as obnoxiously as if they had a complete monopoly on everything. "I'll tell you what you're gonna do. Yer gonna order all da channels in the Premium Electrum-Mithril Plus Deluxe Galaxy Of Rainbows Optional Tier or yer not gonna be allowed t' ride our subway again. Dis is a Comcast town now. You'll receive yer horse's head in da mail in six t' eight weeks." (You have to imagine that, in my head, the people who set policies at these companies are all actually the Dirty Frank puppet from "Jabberwocky". "Buy why wouldn't people wanna pay more t' get an extra channel about da history of making cardboard boxes? We should just tell'em dey wanna pay more, because we're allowed to do dat, it's free speech! An' if ya ever try t' E-mail us about yer bill, we'lll have ya rubbed out an' den we'll turn half yer cable off!") > That didn't help you at all, I know. I do have some 1950s RCA rabbit > ears with little red dealies on the ends. Very "My Favorite Martian". If I wanted any part of my home to look like Ray Walston, it probably wouldn't be the TV. Most likely something from the bathroom. > > [...] they're still at least as evil as half a Hitler plus one > > Fatty Arbuckle. Comcast, though, is a full baker's dozen of > > assorted Hitlers and Arbuckles (no two alike.) > > Hey. Roscoe Arbuckle wasn't evil, you nasty old coot. You take that > joke back! Why? He was overweight, and therefore he was evil! Also, you didn't say anything about all the other Arbuckles in the baker's dozen, so I assume you don't wuv Garfield's owner. Now stop feeling guilty and get angry! It's a healthier emotion. For instance, if, last night, some complete stranger I've never had any contact with in another part of the city were to put on a ski mask, mug a Comcast employee, take the guy's cell phone and van, use the cell phone to call the Ottawa Senators on the little hockey-proof phones they carry during the games, and this guy were to tell them "Don't worry about the Flyers! You want to beat up all the _other_ overpaid Comcast employees!" and the Senators climbed into the box seats and started pounding people, and the guy who took the van drove to the arena and Spartacat dragged a Comcast executive into the parking lot and riveted his ankles to the van's back bumper (face down) and the ski-mask guy and Spartacat drove all the way to Mexico along a gravel road while dragging the Comcast executive and then I called up the masked stranger and said "I'll pay you a million dollars to do this all again!", I still wouldn't feel guilty. -- K. Remind me sometime to tell you about the ham-fisted propaganda commercials the friendly AT&T/Comcast cable company ran about why I shouldn't try to switch to satellite TV. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Comcast: More Evil Than Hitler And All Other Cable Companies Combined Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 05:28:59 -0400 Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Remind me sometime to tell you about the ham-fisted propaganda > > commercials the friendly AT&T/Comcast cable company ran > > about why I shouldn't try to switch to satellite TV. > > Did they have a kid belittling his dad's boss because he had... a DISH!... > instead of AT&T Digital Cable? Or a young man who didn't impress his > fiancee's dad because he had... a DISH!... instead of AT&T Digital Cable? > Or the short bald guy with an office with no windows who didn't score with > the tall hawt blonde chyxor with a window office that he instant- > messangered because he had... a DISH!... instead of AT&T Digital Cable? I was thinking of worse ones from that series. They concern this evil satellite TV installer (and you could tell he was supposed to be evil because he was fat) who commits bizarre atrocities so that AT&T/Comcast can lie to you about how evil satellite TV installers are (and for the record, you can buy a dish at the mall and set it up yourself, unlike cable.) In one commercial, the evil fat guy rattles off a list of charges that will be added to the customer's bill, concluding with "and then there's the unreasonable UPCHARGE!" while laughing maniacally. In another commercial, the guy cuts a huge hole through the middle of a large tree trunk because the satellite dish has to be pointed directly through the tree. In yet another, a woman asks if she can get TV in more than one room, and the guy assures her that she can have football in the living room, football in the kitchen, football in the baby's room, "It'll be just like a sports bar in here. You could put nachos over there..." The messages of those three commercials were basically lies, of course. It's easier to figure out what's on a satellite bill than a cable bill (Comcast would not even tell me a list of which channels are in the service I tried to order), satellite dishes are not aimed away from trees, and a good satellite dish ($99) makes it easy to get two different channels in two different rooms with only one dish (and why the hell would they all have to be sports, anyway? Is the commercial trying to say that cable is better because it doesn't have any sports?) Oh, my, another one just came on my TV while I was writing this. "The dish was out of whack and they said it would take FIVE DAYS to fix!" Then the ad compared satellite TV technology to the Mir space station. I bet if they had made it a few months later the guy would have said something about the Space Shuttle Columbia beying destroyed when it collided with a DirecTV satellite. I expect that sooner or later they'll make one where someone points out that in the movie "Contact", Jodie Foster used A SATELLITE DISH to receive a BLURRY PICTURE OF HITLER!!! I am fascinated by bad propaganda. You know, stuff on the level of "Duh, look at me! I bought the wrong brand of yogurt and it gave me a bad comb-over and giant eyebrows and untucked my shirt, because I am stupid!" Most TV commercials are made by people with a little more skill at communicating with people, but you can't really expect a cable TV communications company to be good at making TV or communicating... -- K. Currently one commercial running here is speaking directly to the idiots of the world: It's a diet pill which assures me that it is good _because_ it costs $153 a bottle. The commercial keeps emphasizing how expensive it is and pretty much daring me to buy it. Sorry, but if I was that stupid, I'd want to improve myself in ways more important than losing weight. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Comcast: More Evil Than Hitler And All Other Cable Companies Combined Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 05:23:59 -0400 Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote : > > > > In one commercial, the evil fat guy rattles off a list of charges that > > will be added to the customer's bill, concluding with "and then > > there's the unreasonable UPCHARGE!" while laughing maniacally. > > Don't forget that the evil fat guys who install satellite dishes are rude, > because they make mean faces at young children whenever they get stuck on > the roof without a ladder. The installer, not the child. I'm sure if the > child was stuck on the roof, satellite dish installers would be throwing > rocks at them. ...and every time one of the rocks knocked the dish out of alignment, the TV set of the dumb guy who ordered satellite TV would get accidentally switched to one of those channels that kills you when you watch it! (If you don't believe me, try watching "G4" for a few hours and see if you don't notice that you're dead afterwards.) > Those ads used to play on our service as well. At the end of each ad, > there was about five seconds where they flashed their logo on a mostly > blank screen along with quiet background music. It seemed that this is > where the local service provider was supposed to place the local phone > number and perhaps a voice-over about great local rates or mentioning the > local town's name so we could feel like the huge conglomorate was part of > our family, but they never did. I don't know if they were just lazy, > didn't have the right equipment, or were too busy making sure that there > were at least two ads about digital cable being better than satellite > during every fucking commercial break. You know what Comcast brings me during every single commercial break on every basic cable station? An ad for "VEHIX.COM". It's always the same ad. It's always been the same ad for a full year. Every ten minutes, all day, every day, on every channel. It's always the last ad in the commercial break, so every break is like Chinese water torture (is THIS ad going to be the one for "VEHIX.COM"? No? Okay, is THIS ad going to be the one for "VEHIX.COM"?) I am guessing there just might be some relationship between the VEHIX.COM corporation and Comcast. And a quick Web search later... wow, I was right! The cable company really is trying to sell me used cars! How did I ever guess? I must be some sort of genius to have seen through the cable company's subtle advertising! > I asked my friends if by upgrading to digital cable they stopped > getting the ads as often, thinking maybe the cable provider was, > I dunno, appreciative that you chose the greatest way on Earth to > get TeeVee and didn't need to be told that it was the greatest > way on Earth anymore. They said no... the ads were just as prevalent. > That kind of sealed the deal for me to stay with crummy old-fashioned co-ax. But that means you can't see the ads overlaid on the top of the other ads when you get the "program guide" overlay spammed across the front of the picture whenever you hit a button on the remote! (Incidentally, digital cable goes through the same co-ax. If you hate co-ax, you need to switch to getting your TV through one of those new-fangled wireless methods, such as VHF.) -- K. My TiVos have now zapped about fifty trillion VEHIX.COM commercials. I wonder where they all went? Maybe they all came out on some other lucky person's TV. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Engrish Chcostick Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 00:09:54 -0400 Schwa Love (schwa242@yahoo.com) wrote: > > First off, I don't have a digital camera, so I will just have to type this > in rather than show you bright colorful pictures. Well actually, I do have > a digital camera, which my best friend may or may not have left at my house > (and until he gives me the correct serial number, we'll never know if it's > his or not), but I don't own one or have any way to download images from > the one sitting on my coffee table. > > Anyways: I recently got a pair of chopsticks while eating a fine Vietnamese > meal. On one side, the printed text said: > > Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. > Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks > the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history > and cultual. > > BAMBOO CHOPSTICKS > PRODUCT OF CHINA > > I asked for Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks, but the waitress said they > were out. You didn't ask correctly. Witness this article from nine years ago: -> From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) -> Subject: Re: Spork-related observation -> Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.plastic.utensils.spork.spork.spork -> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 11:45:35 GMT -> -> In article (14JAN199405122685@zeus.tamu.edu), -> Evolve or Perish (btshelp@zeus.tamu.edu) wrote: -> > Sure, sporks are cool, but what I'd really like to have sometimes is a -> > spoon with a cutting edge. You know, for the lumpy bits. -> -> Oh, you want CHOPSTICKS then, silly. And not the kind they give the -> round-eyes (the ones that come in the wrapper that says "glonous"), but -> the kind you have to ask the waitress for. -> -> Sometimes I use six chopsticks in each hand so I can eat more gracefully. That's the first reference to "glonous" on alt.religion.kibology, except for one earlier article by Matt McIrvin where he says that the chopsticks have been corrected and nobody will ever see "glonous" again: => From: Matt McIrvin (mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu) => Subject: Re: chopsticks or chapstick? => Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology => Date: 10 Sep 93 15:53:31 GMT => => Bruce Ediger (bediger@teal.csn.org) writes: => => >I found this on the paper wrapper of a pair of chopsticks in the "Twin Dragon" => >restaurant. The "Twin Dragon" is on South Broadway in Denver, Colorado. => >They did not have hair-like vegetable soup on the menu. => => >Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. => >Please try your Nice Chinese Food with Chopsticks. => >the traditional and typical of Chinese glorious history => >and culture. => => That's not the best version, which has "glonous" instead of "glorious" => and "cultual" for "culture." => => You've found the *corrected* version. => -- => Matt 01234567 <-- Indent-o-Meter (mod 8) => McIrvin ^ Void where prohibited by your editor. Matt was wrong about a couple other things since then, too. > On the other side: > > Learn how to use your chopsticks > > Tuk under tnurnb and hcld firmly > > Add second chcostick > hold it as you hold > a pencil > [worst haiku evar!!!] > > Hold tirst chopstick > in originai position > move the second > one up and down > Now you can pick > up anything: > > > Hooray! By using chcosticks correctly, I can pick up anything! I can use > them to jack up my car when I have a flat! Oh glonous, glonous day! In the part of Boston's Chinatown where the Vietnamese restaurants are, you can pick up anything, including crabs, scabies, and all the skanky hos you want. It's the sleaziest part of town, even compared to the Mapparium. > I don't know if the original text was just scanned in incorrectly by some > program, as some of the incorrect letter combinations could be easily seen > as the correct letter (e.g. - in "tnurnb", the "rn" could be a misread > "m"), or if it was just transcribed by someone who didn't know English from > someone else's notes who didn't have good handwriting. It's a mystery to > me, and cultual. Stop being such a wise guy and tell use whether or not you ordered a durian milkshake at the Vietnamese restaurant. I'll pay you a dollar if you can to use them to hold a durian milkshake in a slippery, sweaty glass directly above your head for a full ten seconds. -- K. That would definitely be a dollar's worth of gunge. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: rocks and stuff Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 00:21:13 -0400 Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > David DeLaney (dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com) wrote: > > > > Me best mates have already pointed out that this means the New Hampshire > > state quarter is now OBSOLETE. > > "(Concord, N.H.) The Old Man of the Mountain, the enduring symbol of > the State of New Hampshire, is no more." > > This must be a meaning of the word "enduring" with which I am > unfamiliar. Perhaps they were trying to say "endearing", because the big licheny pile of rocks shaped like a deformed Cro-Magnon's face were so cute. These might be the same people who said "futile" for "feudal" on the box of that awful, awful Christopher Lambert movie. Memo to Hollywood: When filming a movie of a story about a medieval knight fighting a honking big fire-breathing dragon, you should not try to improve the story by leaving out the dragon. Also, when you have 1200 years to pick out actors to be in it, you shouldn't be reduced to having Christopher Lambert and a bunch of people who make Christopher Lambert seem like the world's greatest actor. The Christopher Lambert version of "Beowulf" would've been of much higher quality if it had been a Sid & Marty Krofft production. At least they would have had a wacky foam-rubber dragon instead of the patented "I WANT MY MONEY BACK THERE WAS NO FUCKING DRAGON" dragon. I wasted seven whole dollars on that DVD! -- K. Also, "Return To Oz" is a pretty bad movie, even the parts where we learn that the Old Man Of The Mountain collapsed because he was made of modelling clay. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 04:54:11 -0400 Joe Manfre pointed me to this: -> -> [http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/219-04302003-81265.html] -> -> Recess is one of the best parts of the school day when you're a kid. When you're a teacher, too. Because it means you can go to the swanky Teacher's Lounge and smoke, drink, gamble, and lift weights. -> After hours of sitting at a little desk, trying not to zone out -> through fractions or sentence diagrams, the clock hits the magic hour -> and you tear from the building onto the playground. -> -> Tag, kickball, hanging with your friends, and maybe even swings, -> sliding boards and climbing bars await. -> -> Recess can be kid heaven, a respite from nagging adults who harangue -> you to sit up straight and not to run in the hallways. -> -> But the Big Thinkers at the Neshaminy School District want to -> "restructure" recess with something called the "Peaceful Playground -> Project." -> -> Oh, swell. Just the name rankles me. Who the hell ever heard of a -> "peaceful playground?" It probably just means a sandbox filled with soft foam-rubber sand, with a protective plastic tarp over it to keep you from even trying to have fun. -> "Peaceful Playground" will be adopted by the district's eight -> elementary schools in September. -> -> First, something called a "peace maze" will be painted on each -> playground. Kids at loggerheads with each other will walk the maze's -> seven steps of "conflict resolution." -> -> The maze, I guess, will keep bullies from kicking the snot out of any -> little Poindexter who won't hand over his lunch money. Actually, it's a great aid to the bullies. Because any kid who actually tries to walk through the Peace Maze is guaranteed to be really easy to beat up. The bullies will just wait outside, at the eighth stage, Pounding The Daylights Out Of Kids Who Like To Follow Rules Painted On The Ground. -> Neshaminy wants to change recess into "purposeful playtime," said -> Marcy Spigler, the district's "violence prevention coordinator." -> -> At recess, she said, it's common to see lots of kids standing around -> waiting their turn at kickball or soccer. -> -> But playground aides will train to present games that are played in -> small groups and that stress "inclusiveness." In other words, the school's too cheap to buy some extra soccer balls. -> Which means if you're athletically gifted with leadership qualities -> whom others instinctively follow, find yourself another playground, kid. -> -> There will be no team captains in Neshaminy's schoolyards. -> -> "That's so there's no one saying, 'You know what, you can't be on my -> team,' " Spigler said. Oh no! This means that if Bob Hope were to walk past the school, the kids could demand that he play football with them and there would be no way to prevent this! His fragile bones and organs would shatter! -> The new recess games won't require great physical ability, she said. -> -> For example, in "hoop ball," kids bounce a ball back and forth to each -> other, making sure it hits inside a hoop placed on the ground. ANYONE WHO ATTEMPTS TO PICK UP THE HOOP AND HAVE FUN WITH IT WILL BE GIVEN DETENTION!!! AND DETENTION WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS EVIL PLAYGROUND OF BOREDOM!!! THAT IS ALL. BOYS AND GIRLS, GO BACK TO YOUR STUDIES. BELIEVE ME, NOTHING IN LIFE IS FUN!!! -> The classic hands-on game, "tag," is replaced with a hands-off version -> called "Motion Pictures." In this game, photographs of different -> points around the school playground are placed in a basket. -> -> A child plucks out a photo, then runs like blazes to it, tags it and -> returns. -> -> "It still gives them the exercise. They're running. But we can avoid -> things like how hard do you tag someone. Nobody gets pushed over. You -> can play it by yourself," Spigler said. Has anyone tried to explain to Ms. Spigler that to most kids, "tagging" a building means something else? (I assume she's not "hip" to their "slang".) -> Also, kids will be encouraged to plan their recess activities. "Little Billy, you got a scratch on the PalmPilot you were required to rent from the school. As punishment, your lunch will consist of two pounds of raw cauliflower instead of one." And the stage after asking the kids to schedule their spare time will be for them to increase the amount of work that gets crammed into recess, until the kids are spending the entire recess assembling computer keyboards for Dell, so that the kids will think that the "school" part of school is fun in comparison to the "recess" part. And of course the kids will earn sub-minimum wage, which will be paid in the form of airline miles, which can only be redeemed in blocks of 500,000 at the school cafeteria for a free Soy Dog On A Safety Stick. I feel it is inevitable that schools start forcing kids into slave labor camps because after the "peace maze" there aren't too many other ways the school can make school be even less fun. The first sign of this happening will be the sign on the front of the school changing from "Children are the future" to "Children are articles of commerce and instruments of labor." -> "Kids with nothing in mind before recess tend to get in trouble if -> they don't schedule their recess," Spigler said. I get the feeling that Ms. Spigler wants the elementary schools of the future to be like the one in "THX-1138". Although I appreciate the movie "THX-1138" as a classic work of dystopian science fiction, I feel that school playgrounds would be more fun if they were based on "Lexx". Or even "Baby Geniuses". Hey wow, I actually found a use for the movie "Baby Geniuses"! Way to go, me! Now let's drag Dom DeLuise down to the local playground so the kids can hit him in the crotch with various objects. -> "We want to offer lots of options on the playground. We want to say, -> 'Think about what you might like to do at recess.' " "You know, there are lotsa kids I never thought about punching! I think I'll hit them all in alphabetical order today, and tomorrow I'll do it by the quantity of cooties they have." -> So, little Taylor, Tyler and Madison, don't forget to pencil in -> Jordan, Justin and Mackenzie for hoop ball this week. You're better -> off, grownups think. But the games are all-inclusive, so you're not allowed to schedule an activity with a specific person! You are only allowed to write down "Today I will play with everyone to an equal degree," because everyone is required to like everyone and everything equally! That's the American way! From now on, every child will be required to spend an equal amount of time watching every TV channel and reading every magazine! That's fifteen minutes a day for "Highlights" and fifteen minutes for "Humpty Dumpty" and fifteen minutes for "Hustler" and fifteen minutes for "Playgirl" and fifteen minutes for "Pravda". -> Neshaminy is trying to tame recess, to make it accessible to nerds, to -> make it a place where there are no skinned knees or bloody noses or -> hurt feelings. No one's really better than anyone else at anything. -> Everyone's "sensitive." -> -> This is fine, if you want your kid to grow up to be Hans Blix. Or worse, a copywriter for "Cirque du Soleil" advertisements. "Feel the breathtaking harmony of the dynamic balance of all personkind in Cirque du Soleil's 'Blathaerion', a mystically infinite slow-motion journey of wonderment through a rainbow of sensitivity in spandex!" -> A lot of us prefer that our kids learn their limitations the -> old-fashioned way: on their own, among their peers, in the sometimes -> brutal black-topped world of the school playground. -> -> You build character only when it's challenged. You must learn that -> life isn't fair. There's a pecking order. Ask any Realtor. -> -> If there are tears to be wiped away, we'll wipe them. That's what -> parents do. In the playground of the future, tears will be wiped away by robots! And they won't be wiped away, they'll be vaporized by lasers! ALL CHILDREN WILL EXPRESS HAPPINESS AT ALL TIMES OR THEY WILL BE DISINTEGRATED! AT LUNCHTIME! WHILE THEY BITE INTO COLD DISINTEGRATOR TOTS! -> It would be nice if those who came up with this "Peaceful Playground" -> stuff would take an afternoon and sit outside a playground anywhere, -> close their eyes, and listen. -> -> It isn't peaceful. It's joyful and it needs no improvement - skinned -> knees, bruised egos and all. Also, the progressive elementary schools of the world might want to think about teaching "geography" and "history" someday. As a loyal American, those words never even entered my vocabulary. When my doctor asks for my medical history, I say, "My what? Oh, you mean my medical social studies. You see, all parts of my body are equally important and contribute to the diversity of the human experience. This is why nobody won World War II..." -- K. And maybe the kids would get more smarts if the schools occasionally fed them something edible. P.S. Special bonus points go to the first person who appreciates me quoting Karl Marx and Adam West in the same article. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 05:05:14 -0400 Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > Nick Bensema (nickb@io.com) wrote: > > > > [...] Play for its own sake, play without purpose, seems bewildering > > because everything has to have a purpose. Except once it has a purpose > > it's not fun anymore. > > That's why the Internet sucks; it's so ALIVE WITH PURPOSE! So, to make life fun, we have to KILL THE INTERNET! Think about it. Before the Internet was born, the 1970s were a non-stop, all-singing, all-dancing, party-down decade, even though we had Watergate and Vietnam and a fake gas shortage and the Bay City Rollers. But then in the 1980s, suddenly there was Internet all over the place, and the closest you could come to having fun was watching California Raisins commercials. Music (which was fun) was replaced by music videos, and microwave ovens were everywhere! If you think about it, you'll realize that everything fun existed up until December 31, 1979, and then after that there was no fun. This proves my theory that the Internet was invented at a drunken New Year's Eve party that night. And then in the morning everyone sobered up but it was too late to undo the damage. We've now been without fun for so long that most people have forgotten the names of the Eleven Kinds Of Fun (hopefully some of you at least remember the mnemonic, "C.H.I.M.P.T.A.S.T.I.C.") If we do not act soon, the word "fun" will be removed from the dictionary to make room for yet another new word about cell-phone batteries. So, we need to either kill the Internet, or at least get them to turn it off on weekends. -- K. Other un-fun things which were introduced January 1, 1980: Power ties, Capsela, Wheat Nuts, SCSI, and Charlie Rocket. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 04:48:11 -0400 Nick Bensema (nickb@io.com) wrote: > > On the one hand, "something" needs to be done about bullies. > > On the other hand, that "something" is obvious: hold bullies accountable, > and teach children that telling on each other for beating people up isn't > tattling, and don't punish the victims for standing up for themselves. > Since this is both obvious and nontrivial, few schools will ever > agree to it. The idea that instead of punishing bullies we should just have all the kids play in a giant Maze Of Tolerance is a very "Davey & Goliath" way of dealing with the issue: "Davey, he's only bullying you because he's lonely and doesn't have any friends. If you agree to be his friend, he'll stop beating you up!" Shyeah right. "DAVEY & GOLIATH" IS THE CAUSE OF ALL MODERN PROBLEMS! Especially the episode where the voice of God told Davey that people shouldn't be firemen because the world already had too many firemen. Here's how I would solve the problem of bullying in schools: Anyone caught bullying has to get a note signed by their parents and pay a $20 fine, half of which goes to the victim (to encourage tattling) and the other half goes to improving the quality of school lunches for everyone but the bully. Also in gym class dodgeball would be played with special balls that can only hurt bad people. Of course, there's a clause of fine print which says it's okay to hector anyone who has a scientific proof that God is a giant cube. That's not bullying, it's just enforcement of the scientific orthodoxy. > Alan Watts was right; Western society seems to only tolerate play because > it makes work more efficient. Play for its own sake, play without purpose, > seems bewildering because everything has to have a purpose. Except once > it has a purpose it's not fun anymore. So you're saying dodgeball would be fun if it didn't have any rules and the bad kids could hit you with baseball bats if they wanted to? Remind me to not come to the next big dodgeball party you throw. -- K. "Waah! Nick threw a party at me!" ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 02:19:29 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > Actually, a look at the Web site of the people promulgating this > recess-defunning concept -- http://www.peacefulplaygrounds.com/ -- > seems to indicate it's largely an excuse to sell stencils for painting > things on the pavement: > > http://www.peacefulplaygrounds.com/stencils.htm > > Wow! The way those numbers and letters managed to be square and curvy > at the same time is vastly reducing the amount of spare energy and > unchecked aggression that fills my seven-year-old self! Okay, I'm not on the subway any more, so I went and looked at that Web page. Joe, they trolled you! Those are the most obviously fake stencils I've ever seen! Not only are they made out of granite with bevelled edges, but the little triangle at the center of "A" is magically suspended by an invisible force field! Whoever drew those FAAAAAAAKE stencils didn't have the first clue what stencils look like. But they sure got you good! HEY EVERYBODY JOE GOT TROLLED BY A STENCIL COMPANY! Another way you can tell that the stencil pictures are fake is that they show letters in ITC Bolt Bold (a real font), whereas real stencils just use fake fonts (and the photos on the site, showing a referee applying stencils to pavement, do indeed show garden-variety block-letter stencils just like the brown cardboard ones you can get at OfficeMax. The kind that have pieces which can't levitate in the middle of holes.) My guess is that the Web site couldn't be bothered to take photos of the stencils so they just threw together those fakes and slapped a font into a rectangle, applied the "Emboss" effect, and gave up. (Someone seems to have gotten a discount on a Bitstream font pack, the one containing Bolt Bold and Ondine.) ITC Bolt Bold is best known as the font that Vulcans spoke in during "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", until the recent director's cut of the film changed the subtitles to a less illegible font. Bolt Bold dates from the early 1970s. Once I saw a phototype catalog from either 1972 or 1976 which showed two custom-designed fonts made exclusively for use at the Democratic and Republican national conventions -- the fonts were named "Democratic Party" and "Republican Party" and both looked exactly like Bolt Bold. I have no idea if that was the phototype company's attempt at political satire in font-catalog form, or just a reflection of the sad curvy blockiness of the 1970s. The two major political parties no longer use these fonts, because it was so hard for them to stencil the fonts while suspending the little triangles inside the "A"s telekinetically. -- K. BLOCKY CURVES FLOATY MIDDLE STUPID LETTER ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 01:27:07 -0400 Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > So you're saying dodgeball would be fun if it didn't have any rules > > and the bad kids could hit you with baseball bats if they wanted to? > > If, when I was a kid, dodgeball hadn't had any rules, I would have > made use of the non-rule that says "Any player who wishes not to be a > player can leave the gym and go to the library and read or something." > > Of course, the other kids would have made use of the non-rule that > says "If you want to pound that dorky Holmes kid with a baseball bat, > the library is not out of bounds." > > As it was, dodgeball had rules, and our gym teacher kept making up new > rules to try to limit misbehavior and wildness like "If you fall over, > you're out", which I thought was a great rule because after that I > would intentionally fall over. And that is why you can never be in the NHL. The next time the L.A. Times and The Hockey News publish a joint edition shamefully listing the names of all the "johns" and "divers" mixed together on the front page, you're going to get a lot of phone calls asking which you are, and you'll have to explain that you're just one of the two. Either that or just change your name to "Rich Cousteau" to make it obvious. And if you do go find a prostitute, wear a wetsuit. Me, when I played dodgeball, I'd just hide behind something. And then at the end it would just be me and a couple of other weaklings on the opposite side, and the final part of the game would last for hours. But once I did get to bean someone really good when he decided to tie his shoe at center court in the middle of the game. I couldn't have used your strategy because I kept getting kicked out of the library, but that's another story. I think having to deal with irate librarians is a better way to toughen up your character than getting hit in the face with a rubber ball. Matter of fact, almost anything is a better way to build character than just getting hit with projectiles. Like, in baseball, it's supposed to be wrong to try to throw the ball directly at the batter, even though he's armed with a bat and wearing a hard helmet. Why is the point of dodgeball to throw things and unprotected people? Dodgeball might become fun if you were allowed to wear a Redman suit while playing it. Matter of fact, almost anything is more fun while you're wearing a Redman suit. -- K. After all, they must be cool and trendy if Andy Dick has one. His was blue, though. I'd want the original red one. And cleats, too. Gotta have cleats. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 19:34:34 -0400 Gregory King (greg@flyingpawn.com) wrote: > > I think part of the reason I liked dodgeball is that my gym class didn't > own any standard inflatable rubber playground balls, so we always played > dodgeball with volleyballs. Although volleyballs are still pretty hard, > even when they are old and abused like the ones we used, they do have a > relatively low terminal velocity, so it's hard to throw it hard enough to > be undodgeable, and if you do get hit, it doesn't hurt so much, unless > you're like my friend Matt and your strategy is to put your face directly > in the trajectory of the ball and hope that your glasses protect you from > injury. Nowadays they're supposed to use softer (under-inflated) rubber balls with cloth covers to make them not hurt. Such a thing was unheard-of when I was a kid. Anyone of my generation lives in perpetual fear of those balls. Just go into any sporting-goods store, find a properly over-inflated playground ball (the kind with the nasty texture), bounce it on the store, and watch all the thirty-somethings cringe out of pure reflex. That sound strikes fear into the hearts of all those my age. It's a sort of "SMACK!" coupled with the sound of the deadly ball ringing like a bell to get "SPANGGGGG!" Really, try the experiment. Men's neck muscles will tighten up more than if they heard a gunshot. I imagine the cloth wrapper on the newer, softer balls may indeed reduce the size of the bruises you get on your forehead, but I doubt it would eliminate the horror of seeing the bigger kids hurling large objects directly at your face. BURLAP PELOTA JACKET CANNOT REDUCE OUCHIE > We also had the rule that catching the ball resurrected everyone who was > out on your side. This means that letting wimpy kids like me throw the > ball could have disastrous consequences, but it also led to a new ruse > for getting people out. If you lobbed a ball at someone in a high arc, > they would probably concentrate on catching it and not notice someone > else hurling a ball right at them. HA HA SUCKER!! It resurrected _everyone_? Geez, that would make the game go on forever. I suppose that was the point. The gym teacher could go phone in his football wagers while the kids did "Throw ball, get hit, repeat until bell rings." That rule would ruin any real sport (imagine if the baseball score reset to zero every time someone caught a ball) so it would _really_ ruin a fake sport like dodgeball, ringuette, or "Magic: The Gathering". > Oh, and I also never hated gym teachers when I was a kid. I think this > is because: > 1. I knew it wasn't their fault that I was fat and slow. No, but it was their fault the kids on the football team got a free lifetime supply of steroids -- the better to pound you with! > 2. They seemed to put a reasonable amount of energy into making sure > that the fat and slow kids only got picked on a little. > 3. I was too busy hating the MEEN kids who were good at sports. > 4. No one told me that hating gym teachers was fun. It's not fun, it's just the way it is, like the way you have dreams about going to school in your underwear even though it never actually happens. Two-thirds of boys spend all of fourth grade drawing pictures of tanks running over the heads of gym teachers who have been decapitated by ninjas that will be their friend, and the other third are the the kids who fantasize about beating up ninjas. I wasn't really in either group -- I fantasized about the two groups of kids beating each other to death so that I could be the class's sole survivor and inherit 30 times 128 crayons to become the Crayola King Of Schenectady. Assuming they didn't all have the _same_ 128 colors. -- K. SOMANY CRAYON COLORS INDESK STATUS SYMBOL ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 23:11:05 -0400 Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > I never hated my elementary school gym teacher, Mr. Bogus (I don't > know if that's how it was spelled, but that's how it was pronounced). > Disliked, yes, perhaps even despised at times, but mostly he was just > doing his job which was to make me, personally, miserable. And then they made a movie about Mr. Bogus, and it made EVERYONE miserable! Especially when "Mr. Bogus" was shown in a double feature with "Drop Dead Fred" on the same screen at the same time! While the audience was pelted with dodgeballs! > And I don't even remember most of my junior and senior high gym teachers, > so I must not have hated them much, except the one I had in ninth grade. > He was the wrestling coach and his curriculum was: > > Week 1: Basketball, touch football > Weeks 2-37: Wrestling > Week 38: Baseball, volleyball > > And his philosophy of teaching wrestling to ninth graders was: find > the nerdiest kid in class, find the nastiest, wiriest, strongest, > meanest kid in the same class who weighs about the same, and pair them > off for weeks 2-37. > > When nerdy kid complains during weeks 3-37 that the other kid is > regularly beating the shit out of him, point out that they weigh about > the same and therefore are evenly matched and so nothing needs to be > done. > > I hated that guy. We never had to wrestle much, except that in elementary school there was way too much John Malkovich-style Indian leg wrestling. Incidentally, why does that bizarre non-sport get blamed on the Indians, and are they the Native American ones or the ones with the curry? > Karma didn't arrive until 12th grade, when instead of sticking all > boys in one gym class called "Phys Ed" and all girls in another gym > class called "Phys Ed", they had multiple phys ed subjects like > basketball, aerobics, yoga, etc., and you could sign up for what you > wanted, and some of those classes were COED and one of the ones I took > even had this HOT FEMALE BLONDE for a teacher. The whole scheme broke > all the rules of gym that have existed since time immemorial and the > school imploded into a black hole and we all died the enb. We got a choice of bowling or swimming. And then the second half of the semester, we had to do the other one. I think the bowling was only in there because the school was getting kickbacks from the bowling alley to brainwash us into loving bowling by exposing us to mandatory bowling. Didn't work. I really liked bowling before the class, but now I'm not so thrilled. The joy of bowling is lost when your gym teacher makes you do it. HOBSON CHOICE BOWLOR SUFFER TENPIN RUINED It's no fun to bowl in front of a guy who's grading you. Sometime I need to march into that old school and demand to see my permanent record to find out what my bowling scores were. I suspect the reason I didn't become valedictorian was that I threw a few gutter balls. Also they kept trying to teach square dancing in elementary school and -- ack -- ballroom dancing in high school. Even if an opportunity were to arise where I would need to know the fox trot today, I wouldn't be able to remember how it went twenty years ago. I think it was something involving trotting. -- K. Also it was a lot like ringuette, only without the ring. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 23:29:44 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > I'll always have fond memories of our elementary school "sports day", > which was the day each year when we got to spend the entire day > outside engaging in quasi-athletic activities. My favorite example > was Single-Pin Bowling On The Asphalt Basketball Court, which tended > to be followed up with Attempting To Toss A Softball Into An Old Tire > Hanging On The High Fence Around The Asphalt Basketball Court. I'm jealous. You got to grow up in Mayberry and I grew up in Schenectady, which doesn't even have a sitcom based on it. > There were a couple of unfortunate examples of actual athletic activities > we had to engage in during "sports day", such as relay races, but I have > mostly blocked those out of my memory in favor of the much fonder > memory of being rewarded with lots of those cheap customized plastic > ribbons such as you can find in the big barrel o' cheap customized > plastic ribbons at the Boston Children's Museum. This is because everyone's a winner! At least when they're children. It's around age 10 or so when they stop lying and admit that only two or three people in the school are good at sports. I notice those of us reminiscing about the unpleasantness of school gym classes are old enough that we didn't have to experience many of the "non-competitive" games they stress these days -- I did have to play one of the stupid run-under-the-Vietnam-surplus-parachute ones once, but for the most part I was only exposed to games designed to teach you that "sports" was synonymous with "trying to hurt people." > [...] But then, I managed to avoid taking gym class during my last > three years of high school (which was barely enough to make up for > the brutal punishment of having gym class for first period every day > in freshman year) My school scheduled all the gym periods either right before or right after lunch. Which leads to the dilemma: Would you rather not want to eat because you just got socked in the stomach, or would you rather eat a hearty lunch and then get socked in the stomach? > [...] It couldn't have been any less athletically enlightening > than that thing we did one day during a touch-football lesson, where > we were supposed to run toward the gym teacher and then he'd give us a > little nudge to the side and we would make a quick turn and run off in > the direction he pushed us in, but it didn't work for me, as I just > fell over immediately when he gave me the little nudge. Again, you'll never be in the NHL, even if, as I said last week, you might be a diver and not a john. Punching someone in the face, that gets a little penalty. Shoving someone, that's fine. But falling down easily when someone gently nudges you, that makes the NHL very upset. -- K. LEAGUE ORDERS MURDER OFEASY DIVING MANFRE ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 22:55:26 -0400 Andrew Pearson (apearson@pt.lu) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I wasn't really in either group -- I fantasized about the two groups > > of kids beating each other to death so that I could be the class's > > sole survivor and inherit 30 times 128 crayons to become the > > Crayola King Of Schenectady. Assuming they didn't all have the _same_ > > 128 colors. > > I say, Kibo old chap? Wouldn't that be pointless given that no living > person would survive to appreciate your greatness? Or where you planning > to arrange the corpses of your erstwhile classmates around the edge of > the room? Perhaps you could have coloured them in with magic markers > first, then arranged them into a rainbow. > > I ask only out of fear. What are you, yellow with fear? No, you can't be, I took your yellow. I bet that makes you green with envy! Except I already have your green. You can be blue about that. Or rather, you could if I didn't already own your blue. I think you still have fuschia. > Is your new secret project to troll all of usenet into killing each > other in an almighty fistfight so that you can inherit all the detritus > and sit as undisputed king atop a great heap of rickety old computers, > StarTrek action figures with suckable candy protusions, Pez dispensers > and long sentences lightly scattered with commas? A "Star Trek" action figure you could lick? Hmm. I hate to think what the top of Picard's head would taste like after a long day yelling at Wesley for saving the ship without his permission. -- K. BALDIE PICARD TOSSES WESLEY OUTTHE WINDOW ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 00:52:25 -0400 Xaonon (xaonon@hotpop.com) wrote: > > I liked dodgeball, but I was too good at dodging and not good enough at > throwing. Half of the games would end with me on one side and about ten of > the other team on the other side, and I would regret not having telekinetic > powers with which to throw all the balls at them at once, because there's no > way to hit someone who's *expecting* to be hit. At most you can aim at one > guy and throw it at another, but faking them out only works the first time. I think that was the first draft of the screenplay for Chevy Chase's "Modern Problems" -- he was going to just use his telekinetic powers to win The World Dodgeball Championship so that the dodgeball team could save the orphanage run by The Nuns Who Like Dodgeball, but then they changed it to just have him using his telekinetic powers to make a ballet dancer's testicles explode for no reason, because that's the sort of guy Chevy Chase is in that movie. Also they didn't want the movie to be crushed by that other movie coming out the same weekend about the big dodgeball championship, but they also changed their plot and made Stallone a boxer instead of a dodgeball player. This means that there are no movies about dodgeball championships or telekinetic dodgeball cheating, although there's still a chance they could make a sequel to "Flubber" where Robin Williams sprays Wil Wheaton with magic dodgeball-playing juice that makes the game take a turn for the spaztacular. ("Flubber" is one of those movies where, while watching it, I simply decided I waswatching a completely different movie. In my brain, the movie became "Flubberella", with a young Jane Fonda flying through outer space in a translucent green rubber catsuit. But the mood was spoiled because she kept yelling "Shazbot!") Anyway, Xaonon (whose name is strikingly similar to a "Doctor Who" character except spelled funny), my own personal offensive strategy for playing dodgeball was similar to yours except without the over-thinking. I would look directly at the person I was trying to throw the ball at and then just throw the ball at someone else because it's hard to aim when the bigger kids are about to throw rock-hard overinflated rubber balls at your face from two feet away. I think once I accidentally hit one of The Nuns Who Like Dodgeball. That may be a lie. In my entire life, I may have never been near a _real_ nun. -- K. SPAZZO DOOFUS THROWS RUBBER SPHERE BRUISE ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The maze that will solve ALL world problems! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 01:01:45 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > The idea that instead of punishing bullies we should just have all the > > kids play in a giant Maze Of Tolerance is a very "Davey & Goliath" way > > of dealing with the issue: "Davey, he's only bullying you because > > he's lonely and doesn't have any friends. If you agree to be his > > friend, he'll stop beating you up!" Shyeah right. > > Actually, a look at the Web site of the people promulgating this > recess-defunning concept -- http://www.peacefulplaygrounds.com/ -- > seems to indicate it's largely an excuse to sell stencils for painting > things on the pavement: > > http://www.peacefulplaygrounds.com/stencils.htm Oh. Well, that's worse. Now instaled of the bullies extorting money from the wimps, now the stencil companies of the world are tricking schools of the world into spending money on stencils instead of on the kids' education. > Wow! The way those numbers and letters managed to be square and curvy > at the same time is vastly reducing the amount of spare energy and > unchecked aggression that fills my seven-year-old self! I have to guess what they look like, because I'm in a subway tunnel now and there doesn't seem to be any Internet here. Also, I'm sitting directly across from a guy who is staring at me while angrily muttering "STUPID! STUPID!" to himself, although I don't know whether he means me or him. I think this is where I change trains. Okay, now I'm in a place that has no Internet but also no "STUPID! STUPID!" so now I can concentrate on imagining the square, curvy letters. They could be rectangles with rounded corners... or obrounds (rectangles with semicircular caps on two sides)... or superellipses (the shape of TV screens)... or maybe just each letter is a pentagon with a blob growing out of one side. The possibilities are endless! For some reason, pavement stencils are never shaped like actual fonts. They're always these strange sub-typewriter-quality monospaced block letters. Why do they have to be monospaced? Small stencils are available shaped like actual printing fonts (Franklin Gothic, etc.) but big ones tend to be these blocking things (which are harder to read because all the letters are essentially the same shape -- rectangles.) > I can see that in a few years the net result of Peaceful Playgrounds > will be a bunch more of those mysterious playground-pavement markings > that are never used for anything, kind of like the ones at my elementary > school. TOYNBEE IDEAS IN KUBRICK'S "2001" RESURRECT DEAD IN SCHOOL PLAYGROUND > We knew how to use the little hopscotch courts, but lord only > knows what the series of rectangles going down the sidewalk, turning > around and coming back again, was supposed to be for. They show you how to get to the *N*E*W* supermarket which is somewhere inside Lord & Laylor's "misses" department. > And I've sometimes wondered if one of the tests for becoming a gym > teacher is that you have to be able to identify what every one of the > random colored lines all over the basketball courts is supposed to be for. I think what they do is just ask the guy "How many bases are on a baseball diamond?" and then no matter what he says, they try to start an argument about whether there are three or four bases and if the guy backs down he doesn't like sports enough to be put in custody of six-year-olds. Also he has to know which beer is the official sponsor of each sports league. > Another nice thing on that stencil page is the colorful map of the > continental U.S., on which they were careful not to mark down the > names of any of the states, either because the giant block letters > were too big to fit or because they didn't want to hurt Little Johnny > and Little Susie's self-esteem by enforcing a rigorous phallocentric > heterodoxy under which only one person's opinion about which state is > represented by which outline is the correct one, thereby oppressing > people who subscribe to other ways of knowing by crushing their > dissent and removing their First Amendment rights by dictatorial fiat. > Who are you to say Texas can't *be* Michigan, or South Carolina can't > *be* Uruguay, or Alaska and Hawaii aren't actually part of the Lower > 48, just because some dead Eurocentric males drew some lines > somewhere? Free your mind, man! They should also make all the states equal in area, like in the maps in "The State Of The World Atlas". Plus it would make them match the blocky stencil lettering once they all became dented rectangles. -- K. Plus I start too many sentences with "plus". Minus I have a grammar problem. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The socio-political implications of vinyl fetishes Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 06:46:08 -0400 Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > > -> > -> Japan's masked politician > -> > -> Masanori Murakawa is better known as 'The Great Sasuke' > -> A Japanese wrestler-turned-politician has insisted on > -> wearing a brightly patterned mask - his trademark in the > -> ring - for his new job as a local councillor. > -> > -> Critics say it is "indecent" that Masanori Murakawa > -> refuses to reveal his face. > > What would they say if removing the mask reveals that his face > is covered with tatoos of copulating Japanese ASCII man-cats? Or worse, what if he has an exact copy of the mask tattooed on his face? > -> But on Tuesday - his first day of work at the local > -> assembly in Morioka, northern Japan - Mr Masanori's mask > -> was resolutely on display. > -> > -> Councillors are due to meet on Wednesday to decide whether > -> he should be allowed to continue wearing his mask when > -> the assembly formally convenes. See, this is why the U.S. is superior to Japan. When we made the mistake of electing a wrestler governor of Virginia, we went beyond the superficial level of noticing that he _looked_ stupid. > -> Masanori Murakawa was elected to the prefectural (state) > -> assembly last month. > -> > -> But he is better known in Japan as "The Great Sasuke", > -> a wrestler with a penchant for covering his face with vinyl > -> masks. He uses an aerosol deodorant called "New Car Smell". > -> The change of career does not, apparently, signal a change > -> in facial adornment. > -> > -> "I have absolutely no intention of taking it off, no matter > -> how much opposition there is," Mr Masanori said before taking > -> his place in the council chamber. > -> > -> But he did make some effort to placate his critics. > -> > -> His latest mask revealed more of his face than previous > -> creations - and one side featured a gold emblem of the > -> region. > > I think he should hire Kibo to design a more pleasing mask. > Graphic design is something that's best left to professionals. Actually, I like his current mask. It's a restrained use of bold color, it's in line with traditional Japanese design, and it covers enough of his face to make him mysterious while still allowing his expression to show around his mouth and eyes. The only changes I'd make would be very minor adjustments, such as raising the points at the outer top corners a little (but not much, as they shouldn't approach the height of the horns in the middle.) And I'd probably cover the nose (that would let me put a little downward point on the tip of it.) Oh, and the brown diagonal plaid necktie does not work at all with his red and black mask. It's like if Superman showed up in argyle socks. It's wrong in every way (brown, diagonal, plaid, and necktie.) If he has to wear a tie (which I suppose he does) it should be solid red, or if the intent is for only the mask to be prominent, the tie should be a dark neutral to match the suit (such as a solid dark gray) with a little red stripe for an accent. I dug up a photo of the previous version of his mask, and the new one is a definite improvement -- the colors aren't used as well on the old mask (but I do like that his old mask had a nose, and he was wearing a solid black necktie instead of the brown plaid one.) But no matter which mask he's in, he is the coolest-looking politician ever. His mask radiates coolness, his posture radiates coolness, and he's a foot taller than everyone else in Japan. The only way we could come up with an American equivalent would be if Fonzie were seven-foot-tall Bat-Fonzie. The question is, who is Japan's Potsie? Would it be that guy who set off the inflatable rubber raft inside his underpants on the bullet train? > -> But it was evidently not enough of a compromise for some. > -> > -> "Before you know it, prefectural civil servants will all be > -> wearing masks too," said one council employee. > > And then everyone got SARS! SARCASM WAS RUINED!! A vinyl mask is the best protection against SARS, if it covers the nose and mouth. In any case, The Great Sasuke is now my favorite pro wrestler and also my favorite Japanese politician. I would vote for him any day. Especially if he was running against Jesse Ventura. Maybe Jesse was his inspiration to prove that a political pro wrestler doesn't have to be ugly and stupid. Also, according to Mainichi Daily News's column about pornography, the porn video starring The Great Sasuke is really not him wearing the mask, according to him (but he says he did give permission for them to use his name for the film!) He points out that they didn't even copy the mask accurately, and that his penis isn't that large. (The title is "The Great Sasuke's Member Is A Heavyweight Champion".) The highlight is that he plays a strip version of "rock, scissors, paper". What, not a Japanese game? Can't he handle strip shogi? Strip go? Strip Pac-Man? -- K. I suspect Kaiju Big Battel will be adding "VOTE FOR CUBE" to the posters they've been putting all over Boston. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Rule 1 Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 07:02:31 -0400 Bryce Utting (butting@ihug.co.nz) wrote: > > so, my cat's thrown up on the carpet again. > > her last meals have been Pam's Purrr Meat & Fish (MEAT BY-PRODUCTS AND > MEAT DERIVED FROM LAMB, CHICKEN, BEEF AND FISH, GELLING AGENTS, > COLOURING, ESSENTIAL VITAMINS), a coupla scraps of chicken, and some > dry cat biscuits. MY last meals here at home have been chicken, > spiced sausage, fettucine, garlic, mushroom and chicken stock (all > mixed together), and some lamb, garlic, onion, brocolli, cauliflower, > and bean stirfry, and she hasn't had any leftovers from either. > > so I think this entitles me to ask: > > WHERE THE HELL DID THE DICED CARROT COME FROM?!?!!?!11?? I think you have finally solved the mystery of why I like carrots cut into circles but not carrots cut into cubes. And also the reason I don't have a cat. I'm waiting for them to invent a cat that can be trained to only barf in their litterbox, and to clean the litterbox out themselves. Cats barf too much and poop too much. (And don't tell me that cats can be trained to flush the toilet, because that just introduces a bigger problem that the cat can't be trained not to flush the toilet a thousand times a day like it's a cat toy.) -- K. What's a non-essential vitamin? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Another reason not to buy "head cheese". Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 07:55:25 -0400 From The Independent Online (a South African newspaper): -> -> Man saws off his head in KZN supermarket -> -> May 06 2003 at 04:24PM -> -> A 31-year-old man sawed his head off in full view of staff and customers -> at a supermarket in Richards Bay, northern KwaZulu-Natal, on Monday -> afternoon, police said. He should've done it in the morning, not the afternoon. That way the expiration date would have lasted an extra half a day after they price-tagged the head. I wonder who bought it. -> Superintendent Jay Naiker said Emmanuel Gumbi walked into the butchery -> section of Shoprite branch, switched on an electric meat saw, positioned -> his neck near the blade and sawed off his head. Being "near the blade" is the key point here, assuming it wasn't one of those new cutters that uses telekinesis to saw things from a distance. For instance, when Andy Dick's diaper fell off at the American Comedy Awards a few years ago, that was because someone down the block was fiddling with a telekinetic slicer and accidentally programmed it to slice up all diaper pins on any grown-up who was on an awards show. I assume this case was not exactly like that, as the man was "near the blade", perhaps even touching it, while it was cutting his head off. I've been in a few Shop-Rite markets, but that was many years ago, so I don't remember whether I saw many people cutting their own heads off. -> He said Gumbi did not leave a suicide note. But if he had, it would have had greasy stains all over from the times he and Pokey had walked through it. "Hey Pokey! Let's take a look at the magical world inside this suicide note!" -> Naiker said Gumbi's family said they had been shocked by the incident -> because he never showed signs of depression. - Sapa Never? I can spot one right now: Cutting off your own head in a supermarket just might be a sign of depression. Of course, we should not be making light of this tragedy, especially as it probably drove up prices in that supermarket, and Gumbi brought fun and laughter to millions of children between "Bozo" segments until he cut his head off in a supermarket. Gumbi, not Bozo. I'll let you know if Bozo does the same thing, though. -- K. What supermarket departments would other celebrities kill themselves in? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: important shatner news! Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 05:39:31 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > it's got to be the best headline of all time. > > SHATNER SUED OVER SADDLEBRED SEMEN Oh, I don't know about that. There's still a possibility that we could see SHATNER SUED OVER SADDLEBRED SEMEN WHILE JULIA CHILD CHASES DAVID SPADE AROUND WITH A TAZER IN FAST-MOTION or even JULIA CHILD CHASES SHATNER AROUND WITH A TAZER IN FAST-MOTION WHILE DAVID SPADE SUED OVER SADDLE-FLAVORED SEMEN-SHAPED PRINGLES > http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/5802732.htm > > and it has some of the best quotes ever! > > -> Under the terms of the divorce settlement, > -> Lafferty was entitled to one breeding privilege > -> per calendar year. Until this breeding season, > -> the privilege took the form of Shatner providing > -> Lafferty the semen of Great Day's Came the Son > -> in "fresh cooled format," the suit said. > -> > -> The contract between Shatner and Lafferty permits > -> her to use breeding privileges "at her sole > -> discretion." In this case, discretion means not only > -> what she does with the horse sperm but how she > -> receives it, Ezzell said. All's I know about Marcy Lafferty (Shatner's ex-wife, the one who didn't accidentally drown in his pool) is that she has one line in each of two Shatner movies: "Should, I? Fake! My, Orgasms..." and "Confirmed? Vessel... Is! Float... Ing? Free, No, For, Ward! Mo? Men! Tum?" It's clear that he only married her so that he could put her in his movies to make him look like he could speak naturally, while she only married him to get his horse semen. > also, I discovered this recent shatner quote about the upcoming > microsoft toilet: > > -> "How does the toilet really work? I don't know. There > -> are other forces at work. Who invented the toilet, and > -> what gave him the idea?" William Shatner, speaking at > -> an Intel conference > > NEWS FLASH! william shatner does not know how a toilet works! > william shatner believes toilets have supernatural powers! I still don't believe that news story about Microsoft introducing an "iLoo" public toilet in England. I mean, who would want to use a keyboard that someone had been typing on while pooping? And worse, who would want to use a toilet a nerd had been sitting on? I've been assuming that the "iLoo" page that's been getting passed around is just one of those pieces of made-up news the British press is always fabricating, like all the movie "news" they print ("News flash! Matthew Lillard to play Orson Welles in 'Citizen Kane' remake!") Any "news" from England I assume is 100% completely false, unlike quality American news which is only 100% partly false. -- K. I hope Apple and Microsoft never try to sell a digital ice house because I don't want to ever hear the word "iIgloo". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: important shatner news! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 01:50:44 -0400 Poot Rootbeer (poot@dork.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I still don't believe that news story about Microsoft introducing > > an "iLoo" public toilet in England. I mean, who would want to use > > a keyboard that someone had been typing on while pooping? And > > worse, who would want to use a toilet a nerd had been sitting on? > > I think they took a page from 7up's experimental cousin "dnL" and > created a product whose logo is intentionally upside-down. > > The toilet is really "007!" When you get in and sit down, Pierce > Brosnan reminds you to buckle your safety belt! Or whatever it is they > call them over there. They don't call them anything. They call them something which rhymes with what they would call them if they actually called them something. So, for instance, if the Brits wanted to call safety restraints "shouldergirdles", they'd never call them that, they'd say "older turtles". But it wouldn't be confusing because turtles would be called something else, and all the other nouns would play musical chairs, and only the least popular word would fall out of the dictionary, and it would probably just be something with one of those "ae" ligatures they still use in Aengland. The Romans would call a shoulder belt a "scapulare" and the barbarians would say "baldric". Me, I just think of the car plus shoulder belt as "a purse you sit inside". I suspect the iLoo doesn't really have a seat belt, unless people tend to fall off the toilet when they stumble across a particularly salacious Web page. Also, KITT had a "laser restraint system" that could hold you in your seat with not just a laser, but a magic laser. But KITT didn't have a computer you could actually use, so I don't know why he needed a laser restraint system. -- K. LINKED TOILET CAUSES STINKY SPAMMY EMAILS ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: Humor, includes WebTV Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 01:32:29 -0400 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > > > [...] > > I think it's just a coincidence that Ms. Classical Beauty of America's > > name is Ashlee Bullock. Maybe her name should be Ashlee Heifer? > > Jesus. That's as bad as David Carson on alt.obits; he claims to be a > great Christian but most of the time expounds upon how ugly a lot of women > at Wal-Mart are. I sometimes forget how charming you can be. Yeah, Beable Dot Com Dot Invalid, if that _is_ your real name, open your eyes and you'll see that _everyone_ at Wal-Mart is repulsive! I think Wal-Mart is full of the same people who used to use the restrooms at the Wendy's on 7th Avenue before they closed it. And if you want to see real Walter-Reed-museum-quality deformities? Trader Joe's in the frozen food aisle. I don't mean the shoppers, I mean the things in the rice bowls. Some of those lumps are shapes so weird that not even topologists can bear to look at them. Of course, Trader Joe himself never saw anything wrong with these amorphous yet stringy blobs of indestructible meat, because his head was shaped like the middle stage of that diagram of how to turn a sphere inside-out through the fourth dimension, with a wad of bubble gum stuck to one of the blebs. -- K. P.S. We seem to have wandered away from the original topic, which was, does WebTV make people fat, or is it the other way around? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: Humor, includes WebTV Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:06:12 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > And if you want to see real Walter-Reed-museum-quality deformities? > > Trader Joe's in the frozen food aisle. I don't mean the shoppers, > > I mean the things in the rice bowls. Some of those lumps are shapes > > so weird that not even topologists can bear to look at them. > > WELL! I found a statue of The Virgin Mary that looks like a POTATO! > What do you think THAT means? It depends on whether slicing it up would yield communion wafers or potato chips. Or something halfway between the two, like those "vegetable chips" Trader Joe's makes from some weird vegetables that have less flavor than potatoes. -- K. VIRGIN POTATO GRANTS WISHES ONLYTO LOSERS ^ slice here (for nutrition purposes, this article counts as 2 servings) ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More soda sensations Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 01:42:40 -0400 Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > Today's selection is 'non-alcoholic sangria SENORIAL Natural and > Artifical Flavor Sangria Flavored Carbonated Beverage'. I've had that. It's not bad. It actually has somewhat of a cheap-red- wine-sediment flavor, not Kool-Aidy at all. I managed to get a slight buzz off it, so I think it may contain a small quantity of actual wine, possibly on the order of 2 proof. (That's legally considered "non-alcoholic", even if it has more active ingredients than the average dose of cootie spray.) I don't drink, and I'm really skinny, so it doesn't take much to make my brain get all buzzy. > Before even opening it, there were several things I liked about this one: > > * It's made from both natural AND artificial Sangria! > > * The bottle is sort of shaped like a little wine bottle, instead of the > soda bottle-shaped soda bottles you usually see! Quite sophisticated. > The use of lower-case letters emphasizes that this is not one of your > STUPID BABYISH SODA-POPS FOR KIDS. > > * It doesn't have a twist-off cap, so you know that the beverage maker > was focused so much on making it a great soda that they couldn't be > bothered with fripperies like making it easy to open! I've only seen it here in plastic soda bottles with twist caps. They sell it at the local drugstore, right next to that revolting tamarind-flavored brown drink and the even more revolting V-8 carrot-and-pineapple-juice-like-substitute-blended-from-concentrate- pink-slime-in-a-bottle. (But when it comes to awful V-8 products, Canada is king, because they have a new one called "V-Go", which is something like regular V-8 with green peppers and a bunch of corn syrup in it.) > The first thing I noticed upon opening the bottle is that the stuff is > really fizzy. It's even fizzier than Dr Pepper, which is so fizzy that > they have to put a warning label on it explaining that the bottle could > explode at any moment, killing you and everyone you care about, so be > careful for gosh sakes! However, I have a mop at hand for just such > soda-related disasters, so I was able to clean up with a minimum of fuss > and effort. If you enjoy that effect, you should try the one-liter plastic Polar sodas. I don't know how they manage to do it, but whenever you open one of those, you get a super-dee-duper geyser squirting out from under the cap in all directions, and possibly also into the fourth dimension, because the jets are so powerful that they can go through anything, even stuff that hasn't yet been discovered. I think they pressurize all the bottles with a bicycle pump or something. > Next, on to the smell. It smells quite grapey. Now, to decant into a > handy pint glass ... hm, that's a nice dark red color, enough to make me > wonder if it actually smells like cherries. Another whiff confirms that > I was right the first time and it is in fact more grapelike. Must be > the FD&C red #40. > > Now for the taste. Quite nice! The grape soda taste is there, but it > has a slight tang of something alcoholic that makes it more interesting > and tasty (even though I don't as a rule like alcoholic beverages). The > aftertaste reminds me of eating those little grape-flavored hard candies > that come in small round tins. My guess is that it's grape-flavored soda with some wine-barrel-bottom sediment stirred in. Now, if you want something scary, I can go over to Chinatown and get you one of the jars of fire-engine-red lumpy "Fermented Sediment". It's apparently rice that's been subjected to the same process used to make other kinds of rancid slime, plus nuclear-strength red dye to keep you from finding out what color it _really_ is. For added fun, you could get a copy of The Sausage Maker catalog and order a big sack of Fermento, and sprinkle Fermento on everything you eat from now on. Also get some natural casings and stuff everything you eat into one before you eat it. It's kind of hard to get a whole soft pretzel into a hog middle, but it's the only way you can incorporate pretzels into an all-sausage diet. Fermento! Ask for it by name! And hog middles! Ask for them by odor! -- K. I see from my records that it was August 18, 2001, when I got lightly buzzed off the non-alcoholic sangria, and this is what I learned: "Never attempt to drink a bottle of sangria and typeset Chinese at the same time." ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: serving food to kids and other captives Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 03:12:00 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > I wanted to find some more pleasing pictures of school lunches > for kibo, so I've been snooping around a bit, but apparently > school cafeterias don't put up web pages that use the keywords > "bad spoiled rotten yuck". I did find this interesting page: > > http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/preschoolnutr/348-653/348-653.html > > this is some sort of directions on how to teach preschool kids > about bad food, apparently so they will be easier to handle > in gradeschool cafeterias. [...] > > -> Germs are both good and bad. Some good germs live > -> in the gastrointestinal tract of the body to help > -> make vitamins. > > some germs are, apparently, tiny shoe-making elves, except that > they make vitamins instead of shoes. with tiny hammers. also, > some good germs that make vitamins accidentally make a bubbling > potion instead, then they drink it and turn into mister hyde. > > I think "gastrointestinal tract" is not quite the kind of word > that 2-6 year olds are going to understand. Yeah. They should have just said "the big funny Slip'N'Slide water flume ride that goes from your mouth to your pooper!" > -> Good germs are also used to make some foods, such > -> as pickles. > > mmmm. pickled paramecium! Wait, wait. Which are they calling a germ, the cucumber or the vinegar? > -> Bad germs that make you sick are carried by > -> dirt. Some bad germs eat sugar and decay > -> teeth. > > would these be *pickled* decay teeth, or just the ordinary brand > of decay teeth? why do germs eat decay teeth if they have no teeth > to chew the teeth with? Also, why should anyone eat wheat germ? > -> Most germs need food, moisture, and warm > -> temperatures to grow. Animal protein foods (milk, > -> meat, fish, poultry, eggs) provide food and > -> moisture for harmful bacteria to grow at warm > -> temperatures in the danger zone from 40¡-160¡F > -> (4¡-71¡C). > > oh, yeah, kid... you aren't allowed to graduate from preschool > until you memorize the fnarrenheit AND centipede degree range > of the danger zone. I think the kids are still hung up on the word "protein", unless the teacher stopped to explain that "protein" is the stuff that's not in the school's tater tots. > [...] > > I also like the breakdown of activities for each age group. the > three-year-olds get to look at dirt, which can be fun, and also > get to hear "Betty Bacterium Bugs The Baby" during storytime. if > you're four, you get to "make a germ squirm". and *this* list > is great! > > -> * How do salad bar sneeze guards protect food > -> from grownups? from children? The secret reason children never infect salad bars is that kids hate salad, even in bar form. > -> * How do waiters/wiatresses in restaurants keep > -> hands clean? By peeing on them in the restroom. > -> * Who should wear plastic gloves? Acrobats who do handstands in the gym's shower. > -> * When are plastic gloves no longer safe? After they've touched your hands. > -> * When is licking fingers safe? Not when you've been handling bacon and there's a cat nearby. I think cats' tongues are made out of emery. KITTYS JAGGED TONGUE CAUSES FINGER OUCHIE > -> * What do workers wear at fast food restaurants > -> to keep hair out of food? (hats/hairnets) Although the word "wiatresses" is very nice, I prefer this lesson: -> Never taste a food that looks (moldy, bruised, wilted, dirty), -> smells (putrid, sickening), or feels (slimy, dry) funny. Blue cheese meets all three qualifications. It says right here in print that blue cheese is bad because it looks moldy, smells sickening, and feels slimy! Hooray! At last I have proved that it is all you people who like cheese who are wrong! -- K -- POTATO TOTLET RANCID TATERS CRISPY JACKET DONATE DIZEEZ FROZEN CENTER TOKIDS LIVERS ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: fpcg version 2.0 Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 03:23:49 -0400 Conmidhe (ark.15.conmidhe@spamgourmet.com) wrote: > > Today I went and bought the chili plants for this years front porch > chili garden. 6 of them in all. 1 habanero, 2 red chili (that's > southernese for cayenne), and 3 cowhorn chili (jumbo cayenne). What? No anaheim? No poblano? Only one habanero? C'mon, you gotta at least have a whole bunch of habaneros if you want to make something strong enough to beat the watery hot sauce they sell at the supermarket. If you don't plant an adequate amount of habaneros you may wind up with only enough spice to make the sort of "hot sauce" that comes in packets with Wendy's chili (the packets contain 50% borscht, 50% maple syrup, and the remainder is spice.) > the fpcg v2.0 is now in place and should do well if all these tornados > will go around my porch....and hopefully the rest of the house as > well. I doubt your six chili plants are strong enough to keep it away. You need the kind that come in a tin can with a screw top and a picture of a bomb falling on Vietnam on the side. -- K. PEPPER GARDEN CAUSES STORMS LITTLE BOTHER ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: fpcg version 2.0 Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 14:15:35 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > What? No anaheim? No poblano? Only one habanero? > > I made the mistake of making a quart of salsa with only one big poblano > and one medium jalape–o because they smelled so nice and fresh they > fooled me into thinking they'd be plenty. It was still hot enough that > people only ate a tiny bit of it, leaving it all for me afterward, Yay! Your plan worked! The thing about spicy food is that some people like their food to contain less than one-millionth the capsaicin concentration that other people like. It's a pretty amazing differential. I like my food to be pretty hot (but not so hot as to keep me from eating large quantities) but bear in mind that I have more taste buds than you and thus the amount I consider to be pleasantly painful might not be as bad for you. Unless I've already killed off all my extra taste buds in the name of equality. > but then I never got around to buying any serranos to season it properly > before I finished eating it. The funny thing was, even though I went to > the grocery store where all the Mexicans in Newburgh go to buy all their > wacky root vegetables, the cashier had no idea what tomatillos were, and > one woman had even come up to me while I was picking them out to ask me > how you eat them. Whenever you go to an ethnic grocery store and buy something that freaks out the cashier -- like the time I bought the pair of giant frozen frogs in Chinatown -- that means either you've broadened your horizons a whole lot, or else they're trying to warn you that nobody, and I mean nobody, would want a frog that's been in the freezer than long. > I saw the most incredible white-trash hair creations at that store, but > even the most intricate combovers were eclipsed by this one woman's hair > all pulled up, sprayed, and mashed into an enormous flat bun that looked > like a giant wind-up key sticking out of the top of her head. That wasn't a store! You discovered the secret portal to the bridge of the "Next Generation" Enterprise! Get out of there quick before the French guy with the British accent starts quoting Shakespeare at you to disguise the fact that no new literature was generated between the 17th and 24th centuries after they accidentally ruined Earth history during one of their time-travel misadventures! > Hmmm, now I think I have to go buy some serranos and tomatillos to add > to the boring canned salsa that's been sitting in the refrigerator for > the past three weeks. And what brand of refrigerator is it? Let me guess... -- K. BORING CANNED CHILIS REPOSE INSIDE MAYTAG ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: fpcg version 2.0 Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 20:56:02 -0400 [on secret salsa recipes of the ancients] Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > SALSA SECUNDUS > On a harsh prison planet (or some kind of choppy food thing), combine: > 3 large whole tomatoes, but not whole because you've > cut them into quarters now, haven't you? That's okay then. Most prison planets don't have whole tomatoes. Only ketchup. The kind in clear bottles that have been sitting on the top shelf of the supermarket exposed to the fluorescent lights until the ketchup has turned the color of hoisin sauce and contracted into a hollow bottle-shaped leathery mass. There oughta be a law in the Constitution about the quality of ketchup on prison planets! > Hot peppers of whatever sort equivalent in volume to about > half a tomato, or more, or less, depending on how hot you like it. Now here's where I start getting confused. You see, tomatoes are solid all the way through (well, semi-solid) but peppers are hollow inside. So are you saying to get one of those big round peppers the size of a tomato but only a twentieth the mass, or are you saying I should stuff lots of little peppers inside the big pepper to equal the guts of the tomato? > Also if you don't like it hot (some do), don't put the seeds in. Actually, I thought the spiciest part was supposed to be the placenta. Yes, a pepper has a placenta. (Now your love of salsa is RUINED!) The placenta is the stringy white stuff on the inside, it's where the oil lives. > Also if you don't like running around crying and yelling OW OW OW > MY EYES OH THE PAIN, THE PAIN OF IT ALL you shouldn't touch your > eyes after chopping hot peppers. You can wipe off the painful hot > stuff by rubbing your fingertips on some tomato guts, if no prisses > are watching. I don't like this remake of "American Pie". It's not even as good as the original, and the original was a terrible movie in all respects. I mean, an entire school of cool teens who wear nothing but plaid shirts with no logos? And a magical beer glass that changes into a blue plastic cup and back several times before the obvious payoff? > An onion. Yes, "an onion". If you really like strong oniony flavor > use a gigantic white onion (or a yellow onion, on account of the war), > or a mid-size red onion (I like those), or if you don't like them so > much go for a smallish Vidalia onion. Cut it up a bit. I like dried onion flakes better. They have a different sort of crunch and a little bit more of a garlicky flavor. > a tablespoon of lime juice, or the juice of one lime (better) > a little salt, like a quarter of a teaspoon, or less, because you > can always add more later BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE IT AWAY! IT'S NOT > POSSIBEL, EVAR!!!1! Sure you can. You can just run it through that big machine Howard Hughes built that filtered out all the salt in the entire ocean, leaving him with ten pounds of gold. Also, between the lime and the salt, your recipe is in danger of turning into a margarita. If you dump in a can of fluorescent pink strawberry slime don't expect me to dip my Dorito in it. > Also, if you have access to jicama, peel some of that and slice > it up, byatch! Eh, a jicama is just a sort of off-brand turnip. > Oregano's not bad. Half a teaspoon. Fresh oregano is awesome. I think we're coming to the scene where Tommy Chong tries to get you to snort the bag of laundry detergent. > If you don't hate cilantro, and you have some, toss in a smallish > handful or so. WAAH! MY HANDS ARE TOO BIG TO MAKE SALSA! But it's okay for me to have Man Hands because I hate cilantro. Even if you call it "Chinese parsley" and put it all over a "Chinese sandwich" at that insipid restaurant that used to be next door to my mail drop. > As many crushed garlic cloves as you are interested in (maybe none, > maybe several. A garlic *bulb* has dozens of *cloves*, and you > should peel the cloves before crushing). "Here, Cheech, try this. It's a clove cigarette. It's full of cloves." > Chop it all up kind of coarsely, give it a stir, and let it sit > around in the fridge (or room temperature -- it's acidic and hot) > for a few hours, if you want. Or just start eating it. How can you eat salsa without first making some chicken nuggets to dip into it? Please post a recipe for making chicken nuggets. The ones shaped like five-pointed stars, not the ones shaped like blobs. I'm ambivalent about the ones shaped like one of those drumsticks that Fred Flintstone eats all day without ever making more than one bite mark appear in it. > Tomatillos are a bit more work, really, since you have to peel > them, kinda braise, boil or steam them, and *then* chop 'em up. > But they are good too. You can make your own tomatillos by cross-breeding tomatoes and armadillos. It takes a pretty good mad scientist to do that. > On fruit in salsa: > > What the hell, right? Tomatoes are fruit. So far I've had > mango and pineapple in salsa, and they were both good. I think you may have had lime juice in your salsa, too. If you can't remember which ingredients you've added so far, maybe you shouldn't be working with hot pepper. Either you'll keep adding pepper over and over, or else you'll be so absent- minded that you'll add dirt to it, or worse, flubber. -- K. JOEBAY FORGOT SALSAS SECRET RECIPE NODIRT ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: RABBIT CRIMINALS! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 14:28:50 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > An estimated 40,000 Queenslanders own rabbits, contrary to State Law > which declares the rabbit to be vermin, and illegal to keep except > under very stringent conditions for research purposes. These stringent > conditions state that rabbits must be kept in a concrete room with > walls at least one metre thick, and require a licence to be obtained > for the keeping of rabbits. They're taking "Monty Python And The Holy Grail" a little too seriously. Just because "Monty Python" depicted a deadly vorpal bunny, that's no reason to assume it could happen in real life. Real life only mimics more realistic British comedies, like "The Benny Hill Show". > It is difficult to understand why some Queenslanders would break the > law in this manner, when it is common knowledge that rabbits are > noxious vermin. If they love rabbits so much, why not move to one > of the other States of the Federation which allow the keeping of > rabbits? Or why not keep guinea pigs, and glue large floppy ears > onto them and pretend they are rabbits? Because they smell worse than rabbits. Guinea pigs pee and rabbits don't. That's why rabbits are always so high-strung. On the Spectrum Of Animal Stinkiness (with ferrets being at the top and turtles being at the bottom), guinea pigs are in the middle with cats, but rabbits are down by the volvox. (An ice cream truck drives past, its music box playing the classic song: "Down by the volvox, early in the morning...") Volvox are the bounciest microbes, even in song form. -- K. MIDGET SOCCER GOALIE BLOCKS VOLVOX GLOBES ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.beable Subject: Re: RABBIT CRIMINALS! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 22:53:15 -0400 Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > On the Spectrum Of Animal Stinkiness (with ferrets being at the top > > and turtles being at the bottom), guinea pigs are in the middle with > > cats, but rabbits are down by the volvox. > > IT'S TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN IN THE UNIVERSE OF ANIMAL STINKINESS!!1 That's a rather quaint view of our Universe. Modern science has determined that, although the world is on the back of a big fat turtle, which is on a smaller turtle, which is on a teensy turtle, all the way down, the original concept must be revised to include some girl turtles and some black turtles and some gay turtles to make the theory more correct in a politically correct sense, like all other science. And although turtles are the world's cleanest animal (because every turtle dunks its tiny houses in water every day) near the bottom it probably does start to smell after a long weekend. This is how we know the world is at least three days old. STINKY BOTTOM TURTLE BURIED UNDERA STENCH > What about turtal guts? Is that stinky? I think someone should print a coffee-table book of things kids write in those museum visitor books. Then they should print a coffee-table book of reviews of the other book that people wrote on Amazon.com. And then the two books could be switched and nobody would know the difference. -- K. run, it's an earthquake! one of the turtles moved and the San Andreas zipper opened! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: RABBIT CRIMINALS! Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 21:00:31 -0400 Gregory King (greg@flyingpawn.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I think someone should print a coffee-table book of things kids write in > > those museum visitor books. > > Can you include things like field trip thank you letters in that coffee > table book? A while ago at a grocery store I saw: > > "Thank you for showing us the vegetables and cake. We liked touching the > lobster. We liked your pretty yummy apples! We liked the ice in the > freezer." Well, at least "our apples are pretty yummy, and you might enjoy touching our lobsters" would be a better slogan for the market than "our most important special is you!" Before that market went out of business, I wanted them to do at least one TV commercial so I could see which sub-Ben-Stiller-level celebrity to bellow "Our most important special is... YOUUUUUUUU!!!!" I'm guessing a local baseball player from the wrong locality. Like a Toledo Mud Hen. But what sort of class gets lousy lame field trips to the supermarket? I assume the teacher had just run out of nicotine gum. Unless this was in some quaint part of the country where the supermarkets are too primitive to sell nicotine gum, in which case the teacher just needed a new bar of Lifebuoy to wash out someone's mouth for using a dirty word like "rumpus" or "nicotine". > I would buy a book like that, and then I would use it as a tourist guide > so that I could visit the places with the stinkiest turtal guts and the > lobsters that are the most fun to touch. Hey, I've been to the museum that says "DO NOT CLIMB ON THE LOBSTER" and the museum where the guest book said "I GET TO SEE THE GUTS OF A TURTAL" in the same day. And that made them both better. So your new book should group these things in ways that makes it easy to visit places of equal wackiness so that you can enjoy multiple forms of wackiness back-to-back to conserve your valuable wackiness time. Of course, it would be even better to enjoy two wackies simulatenously... "Wow! I visited Philadelphia's Pretzel Museum and the Alberta Telephone Museum at the same time! By splitting myself into two people I was able to produce concentrated wackiness! All the laws of physics are wrong! But wait, I just remembered the Pretzel Museum closed a few years ago... oh no, that means that the museum I visited was... A GHOST!" -- K. TWISTY SNACKS MUSEUM CLOSED PHILLY BORING ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: RABBIT CRIMINALS! Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 22:42:36 -0400 Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > MIDGET SOCCER > > > GOALIE BLOCKS > > > VOLVOX GLOBES > > > > Hi. What's with the new stinger at the end of your posts? We'd turn it > > into a meme but the rest of us aren't smart enough to do it consistently > > or correctly. > > I think Kibo has gotten a job writing copy for some new, hyper-large > candy valentine hearts. (Yes, the all-powerful Necco lobby has finally > gotten to him!) I don't like Necco hearts. See? REVILE NECCOS CHALKY HEARTS FLAVOR OFBONE So there. -- K. Which would win in a fight between "stingers" and "zingers"? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: ATTN: FELLOW ALCOHOLICS Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 14:42:56 -0400 Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > Jeremy Impson (jdimpson@acm.org) wrote: > > > > Chris McGonnell (smeagol@NOkey-net.net) wrote: > > > > > > Calvados is great, but it isn't sweet. It's made from APPLES! APPLES! > > > > Sweet bad. Apples aren't quite understood by this unit. > > Unit? What's to understand? Calvados is a kind of applejack, > and applejack is a kind of brandy. Daron (a brand of calvados) > is one that I've tasted and enjoyed, and it's not too expensive. > The only other brandy I've liked that was at all affordable was > Courvoisier, which is what The Ladies' Man drinks. From now on I'm going to imagine that you look like Sheldon Leonard so I can call you "Big Max Calvados". Now if you'll excuse me I've got to go park my motorcycle next to a billboard that says "DRINK CALVADOS", then I'll trip over the ottoman. Just beware of any liqueur made entirely from walnuts! Also, I may not know my liqueurs, or even how to stop spelling "liqueueur", but I know Apple Jacks taste _bad_ because real apples aren't fluorescent pink. -- K. ESCHEW CEREAL APPLES ARENOT BRIGHT SALMON ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: ATTN: FELLOW ALCOHOLICS Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:00:55 -0400 Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Also, I may not know my liqueurs, or even how to stop spelling > > "liqueueur", but I know Apple Jacks taste _bad_ because real apples > > aren't fluorescent pink. > > Applejack is not a liqueur! It's a brandy! GRR! I think you misspelled "Applejack! Brandy! Twenty-three! Pip! Pip! Applejack!", Dexter. Now tell the chimp to hurry up and put "The Mod Squad" and "Mission: Impossible" on the air. And it's not a brandy, it's a breakfast cereal! You should agree with me there because it means you're allowed to have it for breakfast. -- K. BRANDY CEREAL ITSALL ONEBIG MESSOF TOXINS ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Theme song from a parallel universe Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:13:50 -0400 [regarding the lame old sitcom "It's About Time"] Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > My father has an old picture of himself dressed as a caveman > (Flintstonian ragged clothing, papier-mache club) from some college > theme event inspired by that sitcom. I never did hear the whole > story about that. You think there _is_ a whole story about that? I suspect if you put every episode of "It's About Time" together you still wouldn't even get one whole story, let alone one that would explain your father dressing up as Barney Rubble yet still managing to produce offspring. In fact, I doubt "It's About Time" contained enough material to inspire anyone to dress up in their everyday clothes, let alone a home-made Bedrock uniform. Let's put it this way -- there's a reason Irwin Allen's "The Time Tunnel" is considered the funniest show about time travel. -- K. TICTOC TUNNEL CAUSES SPARKS ANDBAD LAUGHS P.S. You said "papier-mache", using a poncy French spelling instead of the proper English spelling of "paper-mache"! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Theme song from a parallel universe Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 21:04:11 -0400 Jeremy Impson (jdimpson@acm.org) wrote: > > Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > My father has an old picture of himself dressed as a caveman > > (Flintstonian ragged clothing, papier-mache club) from some college > > theme event inspired by that sitcom. I never did hear the whole > > story about that. > > Possibly you *are* the whole story about that. Well, this means that the next time he twirls his spaghetti in the wrong direction using a salad fork instead of a pasta fork at one of my elegant dinner parties, I'm gonna yell "Hey Matt, were you born in a Flintstones house?" Then I'll have him blacklisted by the papier-mache club and he'll have to go to Plaster Fun Time like the rest of us peons. -- K. HISHAT MELTED STORMS DAMPEN PAPIER MACHAY ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: A Really Big Show. Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 01:10:22 -0400 John F. Winston (johnfwin@mlode.com) wrote: > > Subject: A Really Big Show. May 9, 2003. > > Here is something that was put on the Internet by a person who > likes to make fun of me. It obviously is a hoax. > > ..................................................................... > ..................................................................... > > From: T > Subject: John F. Winston: "unplugged" > The 1st Annual John F. Winston Reunion, Retreat, and Convention > will be held at the Marriot Hotel and Convention Center in San > Francisco, CA July 25, 26, and 27 > Card-carrying members and affiliates of the following > organizations (in no particular order) are invited and encouraged > to attend: > Extra-Terrestrials > Disciples of Nostradamus > Citizens of Atlantis > International Brotherhood of Mediums, Channelers, and Soothsayers > Men (and women) In Black > Trekkies of Earth > Sub-terranian Dwellers > Trekkies of Earth > Sub-terranian Dwellers > Black Helicopter Pilots Association > Civilian Employees of the Air Force at Groom Lake(Area 51 Division) John, if you hadn't said it was a hoax, you'd be receiving a big envelope of money in the mail right now. But sadly, you tipped me off before I could mail it. Now I don't know where to go for my summer vacation! Also, I'm not sure which kind of sub-terranian dweller I may or may not be. Please explain the difference between the two types of Trekkies, the two types of sub-terranians, and how to tell all four of them apart in a dark dilithium mine. > Scheduled events include: > > Friday July 25 9AM---1PM Orientation and Brainwashing > for Dependants and Press > Friday July 25 2PM---6PM Channeling Seminar Speaker: > Lady Kadjina > Friday July 25 6PM---8PM Dinner Main Ballroom > Friday July 25 9PM--11PM Making Spooky Faces-An > Instructional Lecture Speaker: Jesse Ventura > Friday July 25 11PM-11:30 PM Saving Money by Channeling Down > the Center Speaker: Carrottop > Saturday July 26 8AM--9AM Continental Breakfast in the > Alpha-Centauri Lounge > Saturday July 26 9AM-12 N SubTerranean and Atlantean > Artifact Exhibition > Saturday July 26 12 N---2PM Men In Black Chili Cook-off > Sponsored by Ray Ban Night Vision Sunglasses > Saturday July 26 2PM---3PM Windsor Pilates in a Low-G > Environment > Instructor: Seven Of Nine > Saturday July 26 3PM---5PM Advancing Science Through Cattle > Mutilations Video and Discussion Group > Saturday July 26 5PM---7PM Dinner Main Ballroom > Saturday July 26 8PM---9PM Lecture: "Close Encounters > of the Fourth Kind" Windsor Pilates! That's where they nail someone to a cross that has big rounded feet while Jean Stapleton sings, right? Or am I confusing my obscurities again? If I did, please let me know whether or not I did on purpose, because I'm all confused now, probably because I missed the orientation. > Relaxation > Techniques for A-al Probe Volunteers Speaker: Jim Fox Mulder > Kirk > Saturday July 26 9PM--11PM "Hiding in Plain Sight" Flight > and Avoidance Techniques Speaker: The Predator > Saturday July 26 11PM--12 M The Effects of Earth > Atmosphere on Space Vehicles Speaker: Leader of the Greys > Sunday July 27 8AM---9AM Continental Breakfast in the > Orion Belt Pavillion > Sunday July 27 9AM---12 N Predicting the Future For > Fun and Profit Speaker: Lady K > Sunday July 27 12 N----2PM Crop Circles For the > Hobbyist - New and Exciting Designs for Home Decorating > Sunday July 27 2PM----4PM Designer Foil Beanie Show - > See The Latest Fashions in High Frequency Protection > Sunday July 27 4PM----6PM Air Show by the Romulan > Flight Demonstration Team > Sunday July 27 6PM----8PM Dinner Main Ballroom > Sunday July 27 9PM---10PM John F. Winston Award > Ceremony and Debriefing But it doesn't say which room the Romulan air show will be in! Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter, given that you can't see their spaceships until right before the Enterprise blows them up. And the Enterprise won't be there because it's over at that other hotel in Las Vegas. > Special Guest > Presenters Include: The Ghostbusters, Sigourney Weaver, and Bill > Shatner > LifetimeAchievment Award will be presented to Ray Walston by Alf Just Bill Shatner? Not any of the more important "Star Trek" cast members, like that handsome devil who played transporter chief Lt. Kyle? > Group discount accomodations are available through Gene Rodenberry > Tours Inc. and Hotels.com > Please, no open containers or coolers permitted > > John Winston. johnfwin@mlode.com In space, nobody needs a cooler. -- K. SAAVIK GAVEME ELEVEN FINGER VULCAN SALUTE ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Kibo's Top-Secret Project Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 21:03:10 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > Pugg (pugg71@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > So, Kibo, do we ever get to hear what the top-secret project is? > > Judging from his new signature formula, it obviously has something to do > with the I Ching, but I can't figure out which letters are supposed to be > solid and which are supposed to be broken because in Comic Sans MS > they're all exactly the same thickness. Hey! Are you accusing me of using the I Ching to generate surrealist fiction because I'm secret Philip K. Dick and have the delusion that we're still living in ancient Rome? If so, I'll have you know the guy who was raving about that in front of the Boston Public Library was nearly ten feet away from me while I was following him! So, there is no conspiracy to cover up the fact that some crazy guy's delusions may or may not be true! I'm just playing along with his hallucinations in order to make the conspiracy think that I think the guy is only hallucinating seeing ancient Rome! The little sixlets are not a signature, they're merely filler and a small part of a wholly unrelated plan to conquer the world. Also, your computer has an ugly font installed. My computer has hundreds of fonts, but I only use the one that's not ugly. -- K. GROSSO SANSES THANKS TOYOUR EMMESS EYEEEE ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: YAY FOR AIRBAGS Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 22:26:43 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > I'm alive. > > I'm fine now but the doctor says to expect to hurt all over tomorrow and > take lots of Tylenol 3. > > Details redacted for personal safety. Available on request. Glad to hear you're alive and that nobody secretly replaced your airbag with a whoopee cushion. Then later, Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > Utilizing two different varieties of LONG NOSE PLIERS just now, > I was even able to straighten out my glasses. Why did you say "LONG NOSE PLIERS" in big fat letters? Oh, I know, does this have something to do with your SECRET PROJECT? You're knitting a pile of rebar into either your own hockey goalie mask or a fireproof hose for Red Adair, right? Incidenally, I keep wondering why there is "Tylenol 3" but no "Tylenol 2". And if it's so good, why is the original Tylenol still on the market? I don't take any of them because they don't work on me. I just think of them as Necco conversation hearts without the stimulating reading. -- K. LITTLE CHALKY TABLET WITHNO HEARTY SAYING ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: A can of dog food Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 19:47:22 -0400 Dean Lenort (dean.lenort@att.net) wrote: > > Beable van Polasm (beable+unsenet@beable.com.invalid) wrote: > > > > A can of dog food costs about a dollar. But if you think about it, > > that's SEVEN DOG DOLLARS!! I don't spend seven dollars a meal on > > myself! And I weigh about ten times as much as my dog, which means > > that a can of dog food is actually worth SEVENTY HUMAN DOLLARS!! > > That's why I don't eat dog food - it's too expensive. > > That reminds me of one of the "chili booths" at last weekends cookoff. > > This one group of people simply set up a card table, made up a monstrous > batch of margaritas, and then offered a margarita to anyone who was willing > to have their Polaroid taken while eating a tablespoon or so of Alpo. I > believe the total was around 60 or so before they ran out of film for the > camera. That didn't stop people from participating in this gastronomical > delight, but it did take some of the fun out of it. > > No word on how their "chili" fell in the final rankings. Do you really think that Alpo is any different from the brown stuff inside the three-for-a-dollar individually-wrapped supermarket burritos? The ones where the wrapper has to be a different color for each flavor because nobody who likes those could be smart enough to read? The ones that consist of ninety percent folded cardboard and ten percent brown meat gel applied with a butter knife before being lovingly sealed up by a robot cramming the whole burrito through a little tube into the wrapper sideways? The ones where, after microwaving, the top half of the burrito comes out dry and brittle but the saggy bottom that leaks is floating in a puddle of bright orange oil? I think the Alpo by itself might be preferable to the Alpo inside the crumpled cardboard wad, but it's a close call. Alpo is probably better because it costs a whole dollar a can. And don't get me started on the unholy hybrid of the two: canned tamales. (Those are one of those strange foods that I enjoy even though I know it's really vile. I think there must be a secret additive.) But I prefer the deluxe-quality two-dollar burritos from the gas station. They're Exxontastic! -- K. FOLDED BOARDS AROUND CANNED DOGGIE DINNER ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: american money Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 02:36:48 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > ok, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the U.S. treasure > department's new money. I'm talking, of course, about the > 18 cent piece dienniad that will replace all dimes currently > in circulation by 2005, followed by the 29 cent hexatridekad > that will replace all quarters in 2007. I mean, first of all, > although efficient, they aren't really as useful as kibo's > negative pennies; second, the names just suck. I think they > should revive the name of the old "bits" and call them ekabits > and hyperbits, myself. I have a photo of a ten million adopengo (2 x 10^25 pengo) Hungarian bank note. I snapped it while I was in the Bank Of Canada's Museum Of Currency. But it was a very cold day in Ottawa and as I was walking back to the hotel a penguin tried to crush me by sliding a big block of ice onto me while playing annoying music over and over. Fortunately I escaped and my photo was recovered, once I transferred the files onto a new computer due to snow damage my laptop suffered at the hands of the evil penguin. Anyway, "ado-" is a great prefix, because it's not just 10^19, it's 2 x 10^19, which is double gigantic. So we should immediately convert all our money into ekabits and negative pennies. (Negative pennies look just like scissle, except that when they touch regular currency there is a little explosion, vaporizing both items.) In addition to my old idea of negative pennies, I also think we might need negative Disney Dollars. (You'd only be able to redeem them at places that aren't Disneyland.) > also, despite the greater efficiency of a coin system that uses > only pennies, nickels, dienniads, and hexatridekads, I think > we're only opening ourselves up to an international currency > race. canadia will almost certainly adopt an 83-cents canadian > coin (the octotroon) as a retributive move to strengthen their > own coin system, although we will still laugh because it will > be worth less than the next US coin, the vigintunium (51 cents.) That one's made from the newly-discovered element vigintunium, which has a half-life of a millionth of a second, to keep the economy moving. > [...] we might even see other countries introduce even weirder coins > into circulation, such as intravenous coins! Sorry. > small coins from bosnia that will have pictures of imaginary > islands with french names that sound dirty. russia's new coins > will all look like parameciums and amoebas. saudi arabia will > probably introduce a spiked ball currency that will punish the > greedy by firing poison into their palms. SPIKED RIYALS PUNISH GREEDY FIRING POISON That was TOO EASY. Please try to use only words that I will have a harder time jamming into such an annoying format. And hurry up -- I can only do this in every article for the next six to eight months before people start to get sick of it. -- K. But the Museum Of Currency would still rather display the deadly currency that would kill all visitors instead of getting a current U.S. dollar coin. (Maybe they can't afford to spend $1.50 on a real dollar.)