From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 03:32:48 -0400 Today my TiVo recommended an episode of TLC's "Amazing Machines" (a series about stock footage of giant construction equipment that, sadly, never goes out of control on camera.) The on-screen guide said one of the segments was on "tunnelling-machine pros", and for a second I thought the blurry little letters said "tunnelling-machine pron". So now I have to write this: **************************************************************************** * * * WELC0ME 2 ASSTERISK D0T C0M Y0U"RE S0ARCE 4 XXXXXXXXX-RATED DIRTEY STUFF ... * * * MANLY STUDBUFFET & THE TUNELLLING-MACHINE * * A PR0N STOREY !!! * * 0N THE INTERNET !!! * * BY ER0TIC BIFF !!!!!!1 * * * * manly Studbuffet peereed into the gapping maw of the erotical * * Tunelling-Machine .Wow what an Opening He said..guess I better * * stick somthing in their!!Ow that hurts he said the End. * * * * To be continued ,,, * * * * p.s. it was Illegal to read this Story if you are not I8 years old! * * * **************************************************************************** -- K. Also, in unrelated news from the opposite end of the spectrum of the size of metallic objects, I have a rat-tail file which has no inherent odor, and I have some bronze which has no inherent odor, but when I use the file on the bronze it smells like cheese. How, chemically, can metal plus metal equal stinky parmesan? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:38:45 -0400 N. Gergen (gergen@armory.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Also, in unrelated news from the > > opposite end of the spectrum of > > the size of metallic objects, I > > have a rat-tail file which has no > > inherent odor, and I have some > > bronze which has no inherent odor, > > but when I use the file on the > > bronze it smells like cheese. > > > > How, chemically, can metal plus > > metal equal stinky parmesan? > > Do you want a serious answer? Yes. Yes, I do. I want serious answers to every stupid question I ask. > Well? I SAID YES, DAMMIT! > I've been thinking a lot about smells lately after I walked past a > broken-down garbage truck and it smelled like a grocery store. This > was after having several dreams about grocery stores. Actually just > one, based on the Eisner and Osco grocery store-drug store combo > in the town where I grew up. Which reminds me that the Eisner name > on the front was written in some sort of half-cursive; the cursive "r" > at the end always reminded me of a stick figure on all fours. That's not an "r", that's an "x"! YOU STAY OUT OF THE EISNEX STORE! I've been worrying about smells in grocery stores for the past two weeks myself because two weeks ago, this year's watermelons arrived. This means that in a month or two, I won't be able to visit the Kool-Aid shelf in the Fenway Star (the one where the Kool-Aid is in the middle of the frozen food and produce) without the smell of rancid watermelons wafting through the big grubby swinging door that leads to the secret area behind the produce where next fall's produce is stored. > Anyway, my dream version of the stores, which are almost always where > my dreams about stores take place, have a much more confusing layout > than in real life, Oh, all right, I wasn't going to do this because it would make the store security people think I was some weird new type of terrorist, but just to humiliate you I'm going to try to smuggle a theodolite into the Prudential Shaw's and take measurements and draw blueprints just to prove to you that I have seen a supermarket far more surreal and confusing and stupid than you could possibly see in your dreams. > and never seem to have what real drug and grocery stores should have. I've been looking for de-ionized water in all my local drugstores, and none of them has it any more. Just distilled water. I'd rather have the de-ionized water (I'm trying to take the scale off some metal that's been dirty for more than 2000 years, so it would help to have water that doesn't have any metal ions in it yet.) But no ionically-finicky housewives seem to want to buy de-ionized water to clean their steam irons any more. I REFUSE TO PUT MY IONIC COINS IN IONIC WATER! [digression: I just walked from one subway platform to another, and when I came down the stairs I saw a quarter on the floor, and I automatically picked it up, and then I realized that if someone said "I'll pay you twenty-five cents to touch the floor in Arlington station!" I would have said "Eww, no!" but for some reason actually seeing the quarter made me pick it up. My only consolation is that it's not the dirtiest coin I've handled today.] > This happens a lot in real life, but it usually > means they don't have my favorite brand and they don't make me walk past > bizarre product displays, much. This is happening more and more at the > grocery store that's most convenient to the bus station. It's moving > "upmarket", which actually means carrying lots of regular food all > tarted up with extra crap that doesn't actually ever make it taste as > good as it should at the prices they charge. And who wants apples in > their sausage anyways? Whole apples, or chopped up? > The day after I smelled the garbage truck I decided that the two key > components of grocery store smell are ammonia and phenol, but I've never > actually knowingly smelled the two together so it's only a guess. > > So bronze is pretty reactive to oxygen what with all that copper and > stuff, but there's usually a protective "skin" of the oxide which limits > its ambient smell. Breaking that skin and creating lots of little tiny > bits with lots of surface area is asking for trouble. I think what makes > it extra smelly is the acids and oils in sweat. The bronze in question here is a modern phosphorous bronze alloy (C510, if I remember correctly) so it doesn't oxidize much in air compared to a straight copper-tin alloy. > I haven't had much experience with bronze, but copper by itself is > pretty piquant. Brass is similar, but, um, "brassier". I'd guess it's > the broad, classically metallic undertones of tin that add some sort of > foodlike quality. Or maybe your sweat hates you. Yeah, I agree that metals smell (and taste) sort of acrid in general. This is why I like to eat my ice cream with a plastic spoon. That and the fact that I may actually be turning into Billy Bob Thornton. Except that my hair is turning into Benjamin Disraeli's, and the Disraeli Exclusion Principle says I can't be Billy Bob Thornton and Benjamin Disraeli at the same time without the Universe exploding just like a porcelain tile heated with the blowtorch. (HEY NASA IF YOU'D HAD A SPACE SHUTTLE ATTACHED TO MY TILE, WE'D ALL BE DEAD! NICE GOING, NASA!) > I've always hated the smell and taste of aluminum. It's so dull yet > maddeningly persistent. And then there's that stupid, delicate > crystalline structure... Pure aluminum is one of my least favorite things -- you so much as touch it and you get black schmutz all over your hands. Bright aluminum (the kind with the manganese in it) is so much cleaner, except that I always worry that the manganese might just be a cover story and someday I'll unroll some kitchen foil and there will be half of a Russian submarine embedded in it. > I'd rather have a nice lightly reactive chromium or titanium any day. > Someday I'd like to get one of those non-sparking beryllium tools and > see what that's like, except that I understand that beryllium is pretty > toxic if it's heated with a flame. I thought beryllium was pretty toxic if you touched it or looked at it. That's why I always wonder why Cesar Romero didn't die when they filmed that "Batman" episode where the Joker stole all the beryllium in Gotham City to make a flying saucer. Or are you telling me that an episode of "Batman" was a LIE? -- K. And if you want a really bad metal smell? Sterling silver plus that brand of crappy silver polish which is a pink foam that comes in a blue spray can. GARLIC TURD CITY! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:37:15 +0200 Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [digression: I just walked from one subway platform to another, > > and when I came down the stairs I saw a quarter on the floor, and > > I automatically picked it up, and then I realized that if someone > > said "I'll pay you twenty-five cents to touch the floor in > > Arlington station!" I would have said "Eww, no!" but for some reason > > actually seeing the quarter made me pick it up. My only consolation > > is that it's not the dirtiest coin I've handled today.] > > WHOA stop living my life Kibo. OK, it wasn't Arlington station where > I found a quarter this morning, it was our yard between the back steps > and the driveway, but these were the very same back steps I'd just > hosed down to get rid of last night's accumulation of chicken shit, a > fact I began to contemplate only after picking up the quarter. Well, that's how you know your back yard isn't Arlington station. Because at Arlington, they've never washed away the chicken poop. At the moment I'm typing this in Government Center station, which is relatively clean, except that it's completely covered with Verizon/MSN ads (including a big one on the floor, suitable for dancing on to the tune of a Spike Jones song about the evil alliance between Bill Gates and James Earl Jones) and the theme of the ads is that Verizon/MSN Internet services is so super-magical that whatever you look at on your computer screen will actually destroy everything else on your desk, so one ad shows that all your pencils will get chewed up if you use the Internet to look at a picture of a wide-open beaver. Also, because of his name, Spike Lee just sued Spike Jones, who will now have to change his name even though he's dead because Spike Lee was the first person in human history to be named "Spike", and therefore Spike Jones will adopt a plainer name such as "James Jones", and he'll get sued by both James Earl Jones and Reverend Jim Jones, so he'll modify it to "Jimmy Jones", and then he'll get sued because it's too similar to both the Jimmy James who set his guitar on fire and the Jimmy James who never gets around to firing Andy Dick, and together the two of them will crush him because the second one is an evil fictitious billionaire while the first one is housed in a pink blob-shaped museum built by the less evil of the two evil billionaires who founded Microsoft, and the whole outcome will hinge on whether Paul Allen likes or dislikes the idea of Spike Jones dancing on Bill Gates's face. > [...] > > The goats sleep in their new stall, as of last night. [...] > This means we can strike the Rubbermaid shed the goats were living in Hey, take it to alt.sex.fetish.maids.latex.bestiality.goats.and.spike.jones.music! > temporarily, and once we can do that my father in law can move the > Hitch A Hutch that's been parked in the back yard for twenty years, > which is good, because under the Hitch A Hutch lives (we presume, > based on olfactory evidence) the skunk who is Prime Suspect in the > Rhode Island Red massacre. The next time someone complains that I like to eat icky stuff like Hamburger Helper, I'm going to say, "Yeah, but Rich Holmes, he lives ON A FARM where he raises a mixture of chickens, goats, and skunks!" and then I'll no longer be considered disgusting. -- K. You might want to kick the skunk out of your chicken coop, because I hear that skunks smell almost as bad as chickens. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:34:26 -0400 pete (pfiland@mindspring.com) wrote: > > Your Subject line is the next answer to "What's Kibology?" Yes, but after that, I'll have to ask "What's the next answer to 'What's Kibology?'?" and then you'll have to anticipate that by posting something with a Subject: line with a time-reversed zinger in it, and I can't help you think up that right now because it's really hard to see the screen through this revolving transparent glowing green and magenta snake that occupies most of my visual field because I think SOMEONE JUST GAVE ME A MIGRAINE. -- K. The odd thing is that although the twisty zigzag neon snake likes to make a curve around the left edge of my field of vision, he doesn't seem to inhabit one eye or the other -- If I close either eye, he gets very faint, but doesn't disappear -- the odd thing is that the hallucination almost completely fades away when I have either eye closed. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:32:44 -0400 "robert lindsay" (rrlindsay@comcast.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > So now I have to write this: > > > > MANLY STUDBUFFET & THE TUNELLLING-MACHINE > > A PR0N STOREY !!! > > 0N THE INTERNET !!! > > > shouldn't this have been sent to alt.sex.stories.moderated? No, because it's not a story about moderated sex. It's a story about sex going wildly out of control! Out of EXTREME control! YEE-HAW! > ALSO< WHERE ARE THE STORY CODES????? I'm not sure -- I think they're on the back of the Web page. Just turn your computer around so that you can look at the back side. > HOW CAN I FIND MY ELCTRON PRON WITH OUT STORY CODES????? All's I know is that I only know one person with a row of five "+"s in his Geek Code. -- K. And he weren't even on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" neither. ...OR WAS I? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:33:50 +0200 Etienne Rouette (erouette@infonet.ca) wrote: > > [...] I don't know if it was ever mentionned here, but Kibo was 1 goal away > from correctly predicting the outcome of the Devils-Senators semi-finals. > That's after correctly predicting the outcome of the Ottawa-Philadelphia > series (Ottawa in 6). > > Congratulations Kibo for almost being a hockey genius, like Liam McGuire and > Gerry Rochon. > > Etienne > > P.S. Would "Hockey Geniuses" make a better or worse movie than "Baby > Geniuses?" Hey, didn't you tell me the SECOND "Asterix" movie was the funny one? The one that Asterix and Obelix were hardly in because the camera was always on that unfunny guy who wrote it, directed it, edited it, and played the central character AND WAS NOT ASTERIX? You also failed to warn me that the "making of" documentary was even longer than the movie. Or that the movie contained an homage to Benny Hill (apparently they love him in France.) But at least the second "Asterix" film wasn't as bad as "Slap Shot 2". "Slap Shot 2" only barely contained trace quantities of the Hanson Brothers, and was badly contaminated with one of the most talentless Baldwin Brothers. I think that "Slap Shot 2" could be re-released as "Hockey Geniuses". -- K. So which of the various Elvis Gratton films is the good one? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Proof that I've been on the Internet too much. Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:24:55 +0200 Dean Lenort (dean.lenort@att.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > All's I know is that I only know one person with a row of five "+"s > > in his Geek Code. > > Hrm. > > http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html#kibo > > -> Kibo > -> > -> Kibo is. That is all that can be said. If you don't understand, read > -> alt.religion.kibology > -> > -> K++++++ > -> I am Kibo > -> K+++++ > -> I've had sex with Kibo > -> K++++ > -> I've met Kibo > -> K+++ > -> I've gotten mail from Kibo > > Since the "+"s aren't too hard to count and the logical conclusion of the > above doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I'll live it to the > astute readers of ARK to determine just exactly what Kibo meant. It means I'm not geeky enough to have remembered that I have SIX plus signs, not FIVE, in my special unique Geek Code, you perve. I don't have time to memorize the Geek Code, what with having to pay capital gains taxes on all my pluses. Also, since having "++++++" in your GeekCode necessarily means that the "++++++" contains "+++++", and since we know I have "++++++", if only one person has "+++++" this means that nobody has ever had sex with me, and also it's physically impossible for me to ever have sex with anyone without sending them E-mail first, which is a bummer because lots of supermodels don't know what E-mail is. Anyway, what I meant to say was that only one person (meeeeeee) has a row of six plus signs, because the "K" scale is the only one that goes to six (even the scale about Microsoft only lets Bill Gates claim five) and therefore I am allowed to have more plus signs than anyone else because I am super-geeky even though I'm too cool to remember technical details about the GeekCode and will immediately forget this right after I have sex with lots of supermodels who may or may not know what E-mail is. -- K. I like to think that every plus in someone's GeekCode is a tiny crucifix with a dead brain cell nailed to it. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Did someone say "Funky Fries, go to hell!"? Because they did. Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 22:25:40 -0400 Although I havem't had time to catch up on a.r.k to see if you folks have posted ten thousand essays on this important subject, I'm going to post this anyway, because it's very important. From CNN's Web site: -> -> Blue food blues -> -> Heinz' Funky Fries join the gallery of famous food flops after just a year -> on the market. -> -> June 18, 2003: 4:17 PM EDT -> By Parija Bhatnagar, CNN/Money Staff Writer Ranjit, you didn't tell me you have relatives working in the blue food news department of our nation's leading source for news about blue food! -> NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - "Simply put, they're not what a potato is -> supposed to be." This is how H.J. Heinz pitched Funky Fries -- the -> weird chocolate-flavored and blue-colored fries -- to the world -> last year. And simply put, that's not what a slogan is supposed to be. -> Consumers never warmed up to these odd fries and a year later -> Heinz is pulling them off the shelves and blaming disappointing -> sales of the product as one reason for its fourth-quarter profit -> miss. Hey, I did my part. I tried three of the five flavors. I even gave the product lots of free publicity here on alt.religion.kibology. In fact, I have probably helped lots of people discover Funky Fries when they do searches for words such as "turd-like" and "ecch". -> "Kids already like the plain french fries," said Marilyn Raymond, -> director with New ProductWorks, a Michigan-based product marketing -> consultancy. "Why try to make them more friendly to kids?" Because scientists say kids are not eating enough fried food, especially fried food soaked in intestine-agitating blue dye! -> "What bothered me the most were the chocolate fries," Raymond -> added. "What was Heinz thinking? Chocolate in french fries is so -> different that consumers found no cord of familiarity with it. -> There aren't even chocolate-flavored potato chips out there." -> -> As the Funky Fries fiasco has shown, consumers are pretty fickle, -> and betting on what sticks and what doesn't is risky business. I wouldn't categories the soft, warm, mushy Funky Fries by whether or not they stick. I'd categorize them as floaters and sinkers. -> [...] -> -> Meanwhile, analysts say the demise of the Funky Fries isn't likely -> to stop Heinz and other food manufacturers from trying to bring out -> the next best thing. "IT'S ALMOST AS GOOD AS THOSE FRIES NOBODY LIKED!" -> "The market for packaged foods like ketchup, mustard and frozen -> goods is a mature market. Therefore companies need to continually -> innovate. Most food manufacturers also focus heavily on kids -> because of their potential to create incremental sales for a -> company's products," said Andrew Lazar, analyst with Lehman -> Brothers. -> -> "We are no longer shipping or manufacturing the Funky Fries," said -> Debbie Foster, spokeswoman for H.J. Heinz Company. But sales of -> Heinz's other experiment -- the green, purple and pink ketchup -- -> hit the bull's eye for the company and there's now a new addition -> to the crazy-color ketchup family. -> -> Blue fries didn't work out. Maybe the new blue ketchup will get a -> longer shelf life. Actually, it's just red ketchup that's already missed its expiration date once. -- K. I was going to repost everything I ever said about Funky Fries, but one of those articles already includes a repost of all the other articles, and nobody wants their curly fries to be recursive, not even Funky Phat M.C. Escher. So I'll just give the most important part of each of my articles: February 11, 2002: > > Heinz, who brought us bile green ketchup, and nuclear purple ketchup, > is today announcing "Funky Fries". June 4, 2002: > > And now... they're here! I just ate two different unnatural colors of > fries and gosh, I think I made a mistake. Ecch. June 5, 2002: > > Anyone want some Funky Fries? > I still have 1.8 bags. August 28, 2002: > > Heinz's blue french fries ("Funky Fries") seem to be bombing, the > quantities in the supermarkets are way down from their gala introduction. > I suppose some of that is to be expected, but I can tell the fries are > only barely hanging on. Moms everywhere must be bursting into tears > when they can't get their kids to eat their french fries. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Pork Helper? I hardly knew 'er! Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 22:28:15 -0400 I was looking for press releases about the glorious failure of Heinz's "Funky Fries", but all I could find was this, so I have to show it to everyone. => Hamburger Helper Announces ``Better Tasting'' Product Line => => MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 2003-- => => New TV Campaign Introduces First Product Reformulation in More => Than 30 Years; Focuses on Improved Taste, Texture => => For more than 30 years, Hamburger Helper(R) has delighted parents => and kids alike. Now, this family dinnertime favorite tastes even => better. Today, Hamburger Helper announced it has reformulated the => majority of its product line. The trusted Helping Hand icon => appears throughout a brand new advertising campaign, delivering => the message that most family-favorite Hamburger Helper flavors, of => which there are more than 30 in all, are better-tasting. => Improvements vary by flavor to include creamier, cheesier, thicker => or richer sauces. Consumer taste tests show the improvements are => delicious news for the approximately one-third of American => households who enjoy Helper products. And for the two-thirds of you who don't, well, now we've added even more corn starch to special mixes that turn your crumbled beef into crumbled beef floating in cornstarch gravy! Incidentally, this "first product reformulation in more than 30 years" is baloney. I have been buying this junk year after year and they do splash "NEW & IMPROVED!" in the corner every few years whenever they find a cheaper way to make the box of cornstarch and noodles. Also there was the period where they couldn't decide whether or not to add trace quantities of cheese to the Lasagna flavor, and of course there's the "Beef Noodle" vs. "Beef Pasta" and "Lasagna" vs. "Lasagne" renaming. Sadly, this proves I know more about Hamburger Helper than even General Mills herself. Please kill me. => "The improved product line is our response to our consumers' => request for an even better tasting product," said John Starkey, => Hamburger Helper marketing manager. "And, this is just the first => of a number of exciting new initiatives our meals division has => planned this year. This fall we will launch Pork Helper(R), which => will add three new SKUs to the product line." And then, a year later, there will be a deluge of imaginary consumers writing imaginary letters saying "Dear John Starkey, please make your Pork Helper(R) an even better tasting product. It's delicious, but it could be deliciouser! Sincerely, A Large Group Of People." => "Over the years we've dramatically expanded our product line to => provide an ever wider variety of delicious meal solutions -- all => with the easy preparation and clean up you expect from Hamburger => Helper. Now, our better tasting meal kit offers even more appeal => to these guaranteed dinnertime hits." => => With more than 50 varieties, including Hamburger Helper, Chicken => Helper(R) and Tuna Helper(R), and the opportunity to vary meals by => adding vegetables and other ingredients, WOW! I COULD NEVER ADD MY OWN VEGETABLES WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF HAMBURGER HELPER! GOD BLESS HAMBURGER HELPER FOR PRINTING "YOU MAY ADD VEGETABLES" RIGHT ON THE BOX TO HELP ME BECAUSE I AM A MORON! YAY! => it's an everyday meal solution enjoyed by any consumer who enjoys => matching freshness and convenience. => => "Helper makes it easy for consumers to assemble a meal by calling => on the connection between the kitchen pantry and fridge -- => combining fresh meat with the convenience of a Helper meal kit," => said Starkey. => => Hamburger Helper is available nationwide at an average retail => price of $2.19. => => About Hamburger Helper => => In 1971, Hamburger Helper was the first dinner mix product to => appear on grocers' shelves. Now, 32 years later, most of those boxes have been sold. => Hamburger Helper, with the addition of Chicken Helper and Tuna Helper, => come in more than 50 skillet-prepared flavors. Well, sure, you can have over 50 flavors if you ADD Chicken Helper and Tuna Helper to your Hamburger Helper. Truth is, you only really need two flavors to start with, because when you add Helper to Helper, and then add that Helper Helper to the other type of Helper Helper made by doing it the other way around, you get Helper Helper Helper Helper, which can make anything delicious, even chocolate-covered cotton. => In 2002, Hamburger Helper launched Oven Favorites(R) -- the => just-add-meat meal kits that offer the same ease and convenience => of their stovetop counterparts but are baked in the oven. The product => line will continue to expand this fall with the addition of Pork Helper, => which will feature one Oven and two skillet flavors. I'm guessing the flavors will include one name "Pork Chop" and one named "Pork Roast". Hmm, what will the third be? "Sweet & Sour" might be a possibility, if sugar and vinegar aren't too expensive. Otherwise they might just go for the more traditional Helper flavor of "Salty & Slimy". => [...] => => Hamburger Helper, Chicken Helper, Tuna Helper, and Oven Favorites => are registered trademarks of General Mills, Inc. I HEREBY CALL DIBS ON "PORK HELPER"! => Food Editor's Note: You will be receiving a complete media kit, => featuring additional line news, product information and survey => results the week of July 7. What, no free samples? -- K. I love Hamburger Helper, I really do. I particularly love it when General Mills tucks a $20 bill into each of the fifty flavors they mail to food editors like me. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Pork Helper? I hardly knew 'er! Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:23:16 +0200 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > => [...] > > => Hamburger Helper marketing manager. "And, this is just the first > > => of a number of exciting new initiatives our meals division has > > => planned this year. This fall we will launch Pork Helper(R), > > Pork Helper. What a terribly disgusting idea. I'd think that Pork Helper would be a brilliant marketing idea, because if people hate pork, they'll like the idea of Pork Helper. "Would you rather eat this meat you don't like all by itself... or mixed with non-threatening, bland, wholly synthetic Pork Helper?" > New, Creamed Peas 'n' Pork Flavor! Yucko. I've been wondering what they can really do for Pork Helper. Ground beef and sliced chicken are commonly accepted as ingredients in casseroles, but when Americans eat pork, it's usually in the form of a large block (a pork chop, a pork tenderloin.) So I strongly suspect that the flagship flavor of Pork Helper will be something like "Pork Chop Sitting Next To Mashed Potatoes -- Just Add Pork Chop." (Warning: Do not allow pork chop to touch mashed potatoes or the dehydrated mashed potatoes will dissolve it.) > The scary thing is that they add fake meat flavoring to these Helpers. > I actually received a long distance phone call one day from a relative > upset that the night before, they'd made Tuna Helper but had run out of > tuna, so they used canned chicken. And it still tasted like tuna. This > is apparently a very frightening concept. This is why Helper products are delicious all by themselves! The Beef Noodle (aka Beef Pasta) is certainly just as brown and salty if you leave out the beef. Some of the other flavors, such as Lasagna (Lasagne) don't really have any meat flavor -- by themselves, the Italian flavors have an interesting dried-tomato flavor (powdered tomato sauce tastes different from real tomato sauce. Not worse, just different.) > > [...] > > by doing it the other way around, you get Helper Helper Helper Helper, > > which can make anything delicious, even chocolate-covered cotton. > > Catch-22 reference! I win! Gimme candy. Yes, but it's even easier to appreciate the wit of "Catch-22" thanks to new Heller Helper. -- K. Warning: May contain Orson Welles! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Excuse me, but I was on TV last night Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:36:03 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > [old post found in my outbox and deemed worth the trouble to send:] > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote on 27 Apr 2003: > > > > You have a channel 6 and a channel 7? Doesn't having channels on adjacent > > digits violate the Pauli Exclusion Law or at least make it so that there's > > always a ghostly outline of El Chacal De La Trompeta superimposed on > > "Knight Rider"? > > Kibo knows, of course, that having a channel 6 and a channel 7 is > actually the best way to distribute VHF channels without any images > bleeding over whatsoever, since they are separated by the entire FM > radio band, thus allowing you to use channels 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 13 > without any video feeds touching one another on your TV dinner plate, > leaving channels 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12 for use in the smaller markets. > Why New York has a channel 5 instead of a channel 6, I've always > assumed, must involve a long tale of woe and proximity to Philadelphia, > if those aren't entirely the same thing. Boston also has a channel 5. How did you move Boston closer to Philadelphia without waking me up? > Of course, in markets with large numbers of college, public, Pacifica, > pirate, and otherwise noncommercial radio stations cluttering up the ends > of the spectrum, using channel 6 OR channel 7 will get you the shouting > from Cuban anti-embargo rallies as an eerily faint background to One Life > to Live and the nightly lottery picks. Oh, I get to hear the Commie rallies in person. Or at least I used to. Before they tore down the housing project across the street and rebuilt it in a more Levittown-esque style, once in a while there would be people with megaphones shouting about the evils of capitalism all afternoon. So that's why they had to tear down the blocky brick housing project and put up one with pastel-colored vinyl siding instead, because Communists cannot stand to be reminded that America has the ability to extrude plastic in every pastel color! -- K. Fifteen years ago, Harvard Square was where the random wackos would hold one-person political rallies about how General Electric is cloning dinosaurs from us while we sleep. Now they seem to have moved to Coolidge Corner, outside my office. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Paging Mister KIBO, White Courtesy Telephone, Please! Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:49:12 -0400 Hours before I posted my article about the CNN report on the failure of Heinz Funky Fries, Dimpled Chad (dimpledc@hotmail.com) wrote: > > Darla Vladschyk (DarlaVladschyk@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/17/news/companies/failed_food/index.htm?cnn=yes > > Who woulda thunk that chocolate-fries wouldn't sell? I never thought that. I thought they were just awful enough to sell great. In fact, they were the only one of the five flavors I ate an entire bag of, although they were pretty bad. It was like eating a warm chocolate cake that wasn't quite cooked all the way through, a sort of soggy deep-fried brownie. Chocolate with the texture of a crab cake but the appearance of cat poop. (The "Sour Cream & Jive" flavors had a revolting fake cheez smell, and the blue ones tasted like ordinary mashed-pulp-based extruded fries except with that special blue chemical that makes you spend half your day changing your underwear over and over.) And incidentally, Darla, I'll have you know that I grepped the current Subject: headers in alt.religion.kibology for words like "fries" and "brown" and "icky" before joyously posting my independent discovery of that same CNN article. So for future reference, if you want to be sure I see something, DON'T put my name in the Subject: line. You should have said something exciting like "Phil Hartman's ghost caught beating Don Cherry with icky brown fries" or something. Everyone, be sure to give Darla proper credit for being more on the ball about bad french fries than I was. Sorry about that. -- K. Who woulda thunk someone other than me might read CNN.com? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mysterious bagpiper: what to do? Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:54:46 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > Across the street from the office building where I work is a multi- > story parking structure, and a bit down the street is a supermarket > that is underneath a big apartment building. I was just down at the > supermarket getting some doughnuts, and on my way back to the office I > could swear I heard bagpipes. Sure enough, when I got back to my > building's door I looked across the street at the parking garage, and > on the floor above street level I could see an old guy pacing back and > forth solemnly playing the bagpipes. > > I'm not sure what to do. I did alert the security guy at the desk in > my office building's lobby, so he can take precautions against any > possible invasion by Scottish hordes, but I'm uncertain how to prepare > in case his security efforts are insufficient to keep kilt-wearing > savages from making their way up to the seventh floor where I am > stationed. Any advice? For some reason, Boston's police force has an all-bagpipe band. This is Boston's attempt to make bagpipes even scarier. Whenever they open a new chunk of the Big Dig, a bunch of cops in black skirts go marching up and down it playing bagpipes. I think this is to demonstrate that if the new tunnel doesn't collapse from these sound waves, it must be indestructible. -- K. In Hell, they make you play bagpipes... FROM THE INSIDE! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: I am the thirteenth monkey. (was Re: Damn weird dreams I had) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:05:15 -0400 Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > In a dream I had somehow traveled back in time a couple of years and > was wandering about one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It > may have been early morning; the building was deserted or nearly so, > and most of the halls and rooms were dark, but gray, misty light came > in through the windows. > > I was on a vaguely defined research mission. The notion of changing > history never entered my mind. I became increasingly nervous as I > moved about, wondering about structural failure, looking for weaknesses > in the walls, imagining the whole tower buckling and coming down on me, > and thinking to myself: It won't happen today; it can't happen today. > You already know the exact day and hour. > > In mounting, irrational terror I took the high-speed elevator down to > the ground-floor lobby and rode out the dream lying flat on my back on > a bench down there, thinking only of the unimaginable deadly mass of > the entire tower suspended above me, and the infinitely greater, > deadlier bulk of unchangeable fate hanging above me in spacetime. > > And awoke, to only the coldest of reassurances: There is no such thing > as a time machine. Yes, but SOMEDAY there WILL be. And then they'll come back for you. Especially because the future aliens will be thinking, "We like humans, so we want to make all their dreams come true," so they'll have to blow you up because they love you. In fact, in the Earth's original space-time history, the World Trade Center didn't get blown up, but the future aliens travelled back in time to make it happen just for you, and everything that's happened since then has been all your fault. This is why I can't wait until the aliens who did this invent their time machine so that I can hijack it and travel back in time to kill all your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, which will hopefully not affect anyone else living today. Also, kids, don't forget that someday someone will design a machine that can display a sharp image of any place at any past time, meaning that eventually everyone in the world will be able to see you naked, and there will be nothing you can do about it because you'll be dead before they all point and laugh at you taking a bubble bath. -- K. And I'm going to archive this article just so that future generations will know that all of you folks take funny-looking bubble baths. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Need Pizza Help: Boston Area Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:12:42 -0400 Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > In Malden, your best bet for Chinese is Peking Gourmet downtown on Main > Street, which is pretty good. This is the place that apparently > relocated from Gaithersburg, Maryland, because their menus originally > said "Best in Qaithersburg" on them, in a brush-script font whose > funny-looking capital Q was hard to place as to identity. I had no trouble at all. I looked at it and said, "Oh, that brush script font is Brush Script brand brush script, the kind that comes with Microsoft Word." Then I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to figure out whether it said "Qaithersburg" or just "2aithersburg". > Sadly, these menus are no longer in use. They've also got a really > nice glowing Blade Runneristic photo mural of Hong Kong on the wall > that somewhat belies the name of the restaurant. I would take issue with the "gourmet" part as well. They're okay, but I'd say they were pretty typical of suburban Chinese restaurants I've been to. You want to find a good Chinese restaurant, you have to look in a part of town that doesn't have restrooms. -- K. Just go down the hall, down eight flights of stairs, into the back alley, into the next building over, then up the tower, down the zipline, jump over the rotating blades, and teleport into the room from "Berzerk" where the two robots are walled in with no door, then you're halfway to the restroom. And by the time you get back to the table, you'll have to go again. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Need Pizza Help: Boston Area Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:16:18 -0400 Darla Vladschyk (DarlaVladschyk@hotmail.com) wrote: > > I have a chum newly living in Arlington who claims she and her hubby > cannot find any good pizza. Last one they ordered was so bad they > left 90% of it in the box and put it on the back porch. The little > woodland creatures plucked the sausage off carefully, but left the > rest of it. Phew. Hmm... apparently someONE or someTHING in the Arlington/Cambridge/Boston area likes processed meat products but not cheese, and I'd just like to remind you that I HAVE AN ALIBI FOR THAT NIGHT. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure I can think up one if you give me a minute. > Anyway: Anyone in the Arlington/Cambridge/Boston area who can > recommend a really good pizza place and/or a really good Chinese > place, please contact my own self. There is no such thing as a really good pizza place. They're all contaminated by cheese molecules that might jump onto you. -- K. The one behind my building is named "Pig's Pizza". I think they might also be planning to open a diner named "Dog's Breakfast". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Need Pizza Help: Boston Area Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:39:58 +0200 Xaonon (xaonon@hotpop.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > The one behind my > > building is named > > "Pig's Pizza". > > Is that the bright, nuclear-pastel colored shop that I drove by and laughed > at yesterday? The storefront painted by someone who had a gallon of blood-red gloss latex enamel, a gallon of avocado green, and a gallon of yellow? Yes. I'm not sure if the owners just have bad taste, or if they were using leftover paint from the construction of an elementary school playground, or if they thought they were representing the colors of their wares (like how McDonalds is all ketchup-and-mustard-colored, Pig's Pizza is in a sort of pizza-and-penicillium combination.) Note: That description is from memory, and I've never been able to look directly at Pig's Pizza, so I might be wrong about which hideous colors encase the pizza shop which I wouldn't eat at even if it was invisible, because it's named "Pig's Pizza" and I don't even like pizza that's not made by swine. > I thought it was just a pizza place that specialized in > serving policemen. Or maybe serving *to* policemen. Whatever. It's attached to a pub named "The Squealing Pig" -- the one which had a big sign saying "THE PIG IS SQEALING!" for a few months because apparently Vanna White wanted $250 for the vowel. My suspicion is that the activities inside the pub might involve Ned Beatty, Jon Voight, banjo music, and a river-rafting trip through Qatar. -- K. Sort of like the "Land Of The Lost" title sequence, only even kinkier. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Coming to Spike TV Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:26:19 -0400 Dean Lenort (dean.lenort@att.net) wrote: > > "Striperella" is a new series coming to Spike TV (nee TNN) based on Pamela > Anderson (I didn't pay a lot of attention to the commercial but I believe > she may be doing the voice). Stripper by day and Superhero by night. Yeah, "Spike TV" ("the first network for men") seems to be under the impression that men need four things: 1. Cartoons in which you can hear the voice of women who are known to be sexy, 2. Cartoons in which you can hear the voice of Kelsey Grammer coming out of a barely-animated rat sliding around ("Gary The Rat"), 3. Cartoons starring Ren & Stimpy made only about ten years after the Red & Stimpy craze, and 4. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" reruns, but only the ones with Wesley. They seem to really like to show the Wesley ones. I agree that the last few seasons (after Wesley went away) were lame, but someone at TNN/Spike seems to have a thing for Wesley. And as far as what "the first network for men" means, there's a commercial where a guy gets an "invitation" to watch the debut of Spike TV (it happens in a few days) and he gets really excited and starts babbling about what he should wear, and at one point he yells "I'll have to get a codpiece!" So THAT'S what "the first network for men" means. I don't think I'll be attending Codpiece Guy's party to celebrate the debut of the first all-codpiece, all-Wesley network. (Especially since he'd probably refer to it as 'a coming-out party for "Spike"'.) Wake me when someone starts the first network for straight men. -- K. It could be called either "D!" or "F!" ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Coming to Spike TV Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 02:53:01 -0400 An update to my article on TNN's name change to "Spike TV": All instances of the word "Spike" have just been deleted from their Web site. From www.TheNewTNN.com: -> -> WE ARE THE FIRST NETWORK FOR MEN. DUE TO A NEW YORK STATE COURT RULING, -> WE CANNOT ANNOUNCE OUR NAME AT THIS TIME. STAY TUNED... This is because a certain filmmaker actually got a court injunction because apparently in New York State no two people are allowed to have the same name. (His real name isn't even "Spike". And shouldn't he be suing that new "Rugrats" movie which keeps running TV commercials telling me that Bruce Willis is the voice of Spike? "Rugrats", incidentally, is owned by the same company -- Viacom -- as TNN, so I'd think they could claim their network is named after their cartoon character.) So, The Nashville Network (car races and wrestling) became The National Network (car races and wrestling) which became "The New TNN" (wrestling and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" which will now become some alleged men's network that doesn't even have a name. Their previous name change, from "TNN" to "The New TNN", never quite seemed like an inspired marketing decision. I think they stuck the word "New" in their to make their trademark unique and distinctive, in exactly the same way that "The New VR" (Toronto) and "The New RO" (Ottawa) are unique and distinctive. -- The New K! 100% "Rugrats"-free! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Attn Kevin's, Important Klingon Question Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:58:33 -0400 Paula (mmmtoblerone@earthlink.ent) wrote: > > Jeremy Impson (jdimpson@acm.org) wrote: > > > > For some reason I was thinking of Mimi today (prolly 'cus my cat is named > > Minandra (by Dag) but shortened to Mina (by Stephenls) but shortened again > > to Mimi (by me), and decided that I should carry a business card-sized > > card that says "Jeremy is the most beautiful." in case I should ever meet > > Mimi, then I can say "I'm the most beautiful." and when she says "No you > > aren't; you just think you are.", I'll whip out the card and say "Oh!? > > Then why do I have this CARD!? You can't argue with a BUSINESS CARD!" > > Everyone who has met Mimi will tell you most emphatically that your > business card would not phase her in the least. And so, the laws of physics say that if you were to show Mimi the same card rotated ninety degrees, it would either cancel her out completely, or double her intensity! (Homonyms are the backbone of physics on the Internet!) > She would say "Bullshit" but only by whispering it into your ear to ask > you if it is a bad word. The four year old who can lead the mighty Kibo > around his own Museum of Science domain by the hand is not one that you > should trifle with, especially since she is now all of five years old. Yes, but she's still only one-sixth as old as all the museum's exhibits on cutting-edge science of the future. I think they still have one which says "Nobody knows if men will ever land on the Moon, or whether the Edsel will be popular..." > She was a little peeved at a restaurant we went to recently because they > did not have a maze on the kids' menu placemat thingie. Mazes are her > favorite of the menu activities since they don't require a lot of > reading and she has not yet started kindergarten. She solved the > problem by turning the paper over and drawing her own maze, carefully > sounding out and writing "START" and "FINSH" and then completed the maze > successfully. Watch out, Jeremy! This is turning into a "Twilight Zone" episode! You're going to keep getting lost on the way to work because Mimi is drawing the maze that you live in! And the only exit is blocked by Rod Serling! > This kind of girl is not going to be undermined in her world view by > a flimsy business card purporting to proclaim you as the most beautiful, > let me tell you. What if he had it notarized? -- K. What if he had it notarized by Rod Serling? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The Great Morinda Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 01:53:33 -0400 Brian 'Jarai' Chase (bdc@world.std.com) wrote: > > [from an Australian Web page] > -> > -> Rotten Cheesefruit?...or Great Morinda?? > -> Greg Calvert > -> > -> If ever there was a more maligned and misunderstood tree than > -> the cheesefruit, I have yet to come across it. Cheesefruit > -> (Morinda citrifolia) is an attractive shade tree with large > -> glossy leaves and is well suited to tropical coastal areas. It > -> is found in coastal Queensland, Northern Territory and extends > -> through to Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and India. Perhaps its > -> other common names give some hint as to why it is not more > -> popular in horticulture: "Rotten cheesefruit" or "Vomit fruit". > -> There can be no doubt that the odour of the fruit is pretty > -> unpleasant. > > From the region of the world that brought you the durian, it's > _Foul Fruit 2: Stinky Cheesefruit_. I suggest we take up a collection to bribe all the scientists in the world to swear they will never cross-breed a durian with a vomit fruit. After all, durians are already vomitrocious, so crossing a durian with a vomit fruit would give you something grosser than realizing you've accidentally been wearing Brett Somers's panties all week. > -> The fruit is actually a compound structure which is particularly > -> evident when you see it flowering. Each individual segment of > -> the fruit has its own small white flower. The fruit are a lumpy > -> warty mass, green initially and then turning a translucent > -> green-white when fully ripe. And then as they get overripe, they become completely transparent, and when they're super-stinky, they're completely invisible! And indestructible! And they have the power to teleport themselves into your home and/or pockets! > -> It is at this stage that the fruit smell particularly strong. > -> The reason for the strong smell is to attract fruit bats to > -> disperse the fruit. Along the wind swept beach fronts in which > -> it grows, a very strong scent is needed to attract the attention > -> of the bats. > > That's right. Come visit the lovely windswept beaches of Queensland, > where the air is filled with the scent of vomit fruit and the sands > are covered in bat shit. Why would smelling like vomit attract fruit bats? I'd think it would attract vomit bats. > -> One critic has described the smell as being reminiscent of a > -> strong Roquefort cheese after soaking in a > -> urinal. > > This seems to imply that the people who like cheesefruit might > actually walk into a gas station restroom and think, "mmm, I'm > feeling a bit hungry." ...as if any gas station could afford to put French cheese in their urinal. All the ones around here just spoon in some Cheez Whiz. (Why do you think they call it "Whiz"?) > -> Not surprisingly, the smell generally discourages most people > -> from sampling the perfectly edible fruit. Since the senses of > -> smell and taste are closely linked in the mind, smelling the > -> fruit first actually makes the fruit taste worse. The best thing > -> to do is to just hold your nose and take a big bite! > > Interesting usage of "best". And you can tell this fruit is just a practical joke that Australia is trying to pull on you because they said it has to be a big bite. > -> The taste is actually something like a strong blue-veined > -> cheese mixed with hot mustard. A sort of mustard custard that's been plastered on the inside of Brett Somers's unitard. > -> I am continually amazed at the number of people who actually > -> like the fruit and I have had many requests for seeds and > -> plants. The last time I was in Darwin, I saw advertised a salad > -> dressing made by blending cheesefruit and macadamia nuts. It was > -> selling like hot cakes to the tourists! > > I think he means to say that it was was selling like cheese and > mustard flavored urinal cakes. One thing I've always wondered is why there are urinal cakes but not urinal pies. However, I understand why people wouldn't like the idea of a urinal brownie. > -> The fruit is high in vitamin C, but quite average in most other > -> nutrients and minerals. Judging by the number of medicinal uses, > -> I am sure that the fruit actually contains pharmaceutical > -> properties. > > Note: This is the only way you can market something that otherwise > sane people would naturally avoid. The other option seems to be > fooling gullible tourists into believing it's some sort of local > delicacy, like durian and cheese pie. That's the great thing about Canada -- it has no local delicacies. All of its cuisine tastes good because it's just like American cuisine, only cheaper. The only part of Canada to have any local delicacies is Quebec, which doesn't count because Quebec isn't really part of Canada. > -> One whole fruit, eaten raw, is taken for the common > -> cold, influenza, diarrhoea, asthma, coughs and sore throats. Yeah, but what do you take if you want to CURE those? > I'm imagining a bunch of poorly animated virii and bacteria running > away from a surge of stinky fruit juices flooding the host's > circulatory system. I'm imagining Raquel Welch wearing a wetsuit with a jumpsuit underneath and another wetsuit under the jumpsuit, swimming for her life as a vomit fruit hanging from a string chases her down a corridor with hexagons painted on it to dramatize that the vomit fruit is inside your body, just like Raquel Welch and her three suits. (If she's not available, you can substitute Brett Somers in three unitards.) -- K. I apologize for everything in this post, except for the stuff about Canada not having ever invented any food. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The Great Morinda Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:42:55 +0200 Etienne Rouette (erouette@infonet.ca) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I apologize for everything in > > this post, except for the > > stuff about Canada not having > > ever invented any food. > > Weren't Beaver Tails(TM) invented here? Or is it some kind of copy of an > American food (Eagle Tail?) I don't know. What's a Beaver Tail? Is it something like the Canadian equivalent of those wooden moose pull-toys that deposit chocolate-covered almonds for hours of fun in parts of the United States that have moose instead of actual fun? Also, I hereby declare the Beaver Tails(TM) invalid, because the only trademark honored in Canada is the "(TM/MD)", which can only be granted by a doctor, and is represented by a tiny yogi floating in the air with his legs crossed in the shape of a caduceus. -- K. In the U.S., we have "Cow Tales" and "Bunny Tails". "Cow Tales" are caramel sticks that are misspelled to make half of a pun that doesn't connect to anything, because cows tell no tales. "Bunny Tails" are braided marshmallow ropes that taste like vinyl (sold around Easter), because everyone knows rabbits have long, helical tails. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The Great Morinda Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 21:39:09 -0400 [regarding a Canadian delicacy called a "beaver tail"] Etienne Rouette (erouette@infonet.ca) wrote: > > It's deep-fried dough vaguely resembling the shape of a beaver's tail. And let me guess... it's called a "beaver tail" because it's deep-fried in castor oil? > It can have different toppings like sugar & cinnamon, chocolate, maple syrup > and strawberry jam and even ch**z and garlic for your enjoyment. I don't > think it's like the chocolate-flavored youdescribed recently because they > taste good. I have tasted similar things found in ball parks. It had a > Mexican-sounding name and was deep-fried dough in an elongated shape with > chocolate or sugar on the inside was. Was it chichimanga? Chihuahua? Can't > remember. Churro. If you'd ever taking a Spanish class you'd have to memorize that little poem about the churrros en los carrrrros des ferrrrocarrrrrrril. (In Spanish, "rr" is one letter, and "rrrrrrrrr" is only one and a half.) > The Beaver Tails (TM) are mainly found in Ottawa, I believe but they're also > in amusement parks and places where there's lots of people in MontrŽal. They > probably have them in Toronto as well, but SARS-flavored. Only sold in amusement parks... related to deadly germs... oh, I get it! Beaver Tails are the Canadian equivalent of Dippin' Dots! -- K. Wouldn't "chichimanga" be Japanese, not Mexican? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: The stapler is being used on your skull Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 02:06:15 -0400 Tim Chmielewski (chuma@dcsi.net.au) found an Australian sports story: -> -> Calls to ban stapling -> By Peter Frilingos -> June 13, 2003 -> -> THE Australian Rugby League has taken steps to ensure there is not a -> repeat of Wednesday night's gruesome State of Origin head stapling -> incident. -> -> NSW winger Michael De Vere had 14 staples inserted into a head gash by -> Blues medical officer John Orchard on the sideline in the first half. -> -> Channel 9 screened the incident in graphic detail as Dr Orchard went -> about closing the wound. -> -> De Vere was in obvious pain during the procedure and at one stage the -> stapling gun appeared to come apart. Well, at least he can brag to his drinking buddies, "My head's tougher than a stapler!" Very few of us can say that, especially if you require proof on videotape. -> [...] -> -> Phillips said he could understand how some people would not want to see -> footballers getting staples shot into their heads. I understand that some people WOULD want to see that. The same people would probably enjoy all sorts of TV shows about Australians being stapled to things. For instance, I hear there's a new game show where they staple people to kangaroos and other people to koalas and then they make the kangaroos fight the koalas and any people who survive win several Australian dollars. Me, I don't care for rugby, even Australian Rules rugby -- I only like real sports like hockey. Hockey's one of the ones where whenever anyone gets knocked down they try really hard to make themselves bleed before they get up (when someone falls down face first, they squeeze their nose several times before getting up because if they can produce blood, the last person who touched them gets a penalty.) Hockey's not one of those sissy sports like rugby where people play on nice soft grass and wear little socks that don't cover their thighs. -- K. Also, I bet there aren't any rugby players who can dance as well as Patrick Lalime. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dreaming of Matt McIrvin Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:41:01 +0200 Jacob W. Haller (spog@jwgh.org) wrote: > > A bunch of Kibologists, including Matt McIrvin, Sam McIrvin, and me, > were eating dinner at a restaurant. At one point, the subject of > nutrition came up, and Matt mentioned the importance of getting enough > iron in your diet. One of the other Kibologists looked unconvinced and > proceeded to deliver a long harangue about the evils of the Dietary Iron > Lobby as everyone else looked bored. > > After this Kibologist had simmered down a bit, Sam turned to Matt and > said, in a low voice, 'Perhaps they would be more convinced if they > heard it from Baby Caley.' Matt nodded and left the table. After a > short while, he returned dressed as a baby; he was wearing a set of pink > full-body pajamas with attached feet. He proceeded to dance around the > room, expounding on the virtues of dietary iron. Everyone was rapt. > When we was done, everyone in the restaurant burst into spontaneous > applause -- some people were even cheering and whistling. That's the worst advertisement for Diaper Burger I ever saw. How are they going to get people to switch from McDonalds to Diaper Burger if their commercials don't skip over the long harangue to get to the dancing adult baby? -- K. I apologize for the low quality of this followup, and for my computer's clock insisting I'm posting from tomorrow morning in France (all time zones have been destroyed except CEST.) The other followup I considered but rejected was to just circle your entire dream and say "Didn't Suetonius say Nero did that while he burned down Rome?" I can just see Matt holding a torch and dancing from house to house in his pink feety pajamas, or more properly, some sort of toga with attached feet. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: More Kibodreamy Hivemindy Goodness Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:43:32 +0200 Stacia (stacia@world.std.com) wrote: > > I dreamt Kibo showed up in town and I felt somehow obligated to drive > him past all our many Kibological sites. [...] > Kibo, it should be noted, looked just like a pleasant, well-adjusted > game store clerk, and always had a digital camera around his neck. He had > dark hair and was tall and I think he cut his own hair [...] That dream is 100% accurate, except that I keep my camera in a CD player case at hip level so that I will be punished by having a broken camera in case I am ever tempted to do "The Bump". Also, someday I would like to open a barbershop with a sign that says "I CUT MY OWN HAIR" so I could turn away all customers and yell, "Read the sign! It says I cut MY OWN HAIR, not yours, peons!" -- K. Also, I shave all barbers who don't shave themselves, which is how you know I'm not a robot, because my head doesn't explode when I shave my rusty beard. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Pron Candy Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 05:53:32 +0200 "robert lindsay" (rrlindsay@comcast.net) wrote: > > As I continue to wait to find out if I face economic ruin or have a > job, it's weird dream time! todays episode: > > I'm watching Speed racer who is dogfighting in a WW I Folker triplane. > Pops is yelling at him as he holds onto the landing gear. Speed comes > in for a landing (the folker has a rear landinding wheel and room > enough for pops to sit on the landing carriage) after he lands Racer X > land in a Wright brothers plane. I wonder where the machine guns are. > This is racer X before he leave home and becomes a secret agent. > > THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART---> Spridel appears and get hit with a bag > markd 'Porn Candy'. That's a novel written by the bastard son of Harlan Ellison and Lenny Bruce. I tried reading it once, but I had a censored edition where all the dirty words were blacked out, leaving only a couple of definite articles and one semicolon. > Pray for the remains of my sanity. I'm still thinking you should stick some capital letters in your name to weight the two halves down before they drift further apart. -- K. Also, why is your last name in Pig Latin? Now I am imagining you wearing a pork-pie hat in a gloomy office behind a door that says "BERT SLIND, TWO-FISTED INVESTIGATOR." ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: virus question ATTN LEO SGOUROS Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 00:01:05 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > Among the list of passwords tried by the Bat.Mumu.A worm (which someone > has unleashed here again) is 5201314. Am I overlooking some obvious > significance of this number or its relation to other keys on the > keyboard? Gil Gerard's Starfighter was registry number "1314" on the first season of "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century". Please don't ever again make me confront the fact that I know that. -- K. Maybe 5201314 is Buck Roger's phone number. Excuse me, his SPACE phone number. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: overheard candy discussion Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 02:59:16 -0400 talysman (talysman@globalsurrealism.com) wrote: > > I swear, I heard this discussion today in a grocery store. > > WOMAN: run up front and get the no-caffeine M&Ms! > GIRL (after running up and back): they don't have no-caffeine M&Ms! > WOMAN (angrily): then get the KOSHER ones! If I were you, I would have waited for the girl to grab one of the packets, and then yelled, "You fool, those aren't KOSHER M&Ms, those are HITLER M&Ms!" and then point and laugh so as to emotionally scar her deeply enough that the sight of you will cause her to forget that she has a bozo mother. It's the least you can do to help her. Either that or you could try explaining to the bozo mother that green M&Ms have no caffeine but twice the lard, while yellow M&Ms have no lard but twice the caffeine. And the blue ones are super-kosher but the red ones cancel out the kashruth of any other candy in the same bag so you have to keep ripping open bags of M&Ms until you find one with no red ones. Then when she's sitting on the floor surrounded by ripped-open bags of M&Ms, you can get store security to carry her off, and help yourself to all the free M&Ms while the security guys are occupied. Also, the decaffeinated version wouldn't be the Kosher M&Ms, it would be the Dianetic M&Ms. But read the package closely because it's very similar to the one for Diarrhetic M&Ms. Those are almost as bad. -- K. Do they still put one or two tan ones in every bag, or did they drop the tan ones when they re-introduced the red and added the blue? When I was a kid, the tan ones were my favorite, probably because they were rarer than the others for no good reason. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: overheard candy discussion Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 00:15:54 -0400 Andrew J. Zimolzak (zimolzak@msu.edu) wrote: > > Last time I checked, M&M's no longer made the tan ones. When they > brought back red, tan still existed, but later blue replaced it in > 1995, according to mmmars.com. Somewhere in the U.S., a gas station > in the middle of a desert probably has a dusty case of M&M's packages > with the tan ones still included. I still want to find that gas station to get a bottle of black Gatorade. > As a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Canada still actively > produced tan M&M's today. M&Ms are illegal in Canada. Like most of the English-speaking world, Canada is controlled by the Nestle cartel, and therefore they have Smarties. Here in the U.S., we have anti-Smarties, which are little pills of compressed sugar, sort of like Pez except not compressed a tenth as hard. We only call those sugar pills "Smarties" in order to remind Nestle that this is the one country in the world where we have resisted a takeover by Nestle and their M&M-like Smarties. > They seem to get all the cool retro candy after it's appreciated in > cultural capital. That's because Canada is part of England, which is part of Europe, and is therefore 50 years behind the United States. For instance, Maynard's Wine Gums -- a British candy sold in Canada -- recently changed their formulation to contain far less vinegar in the licorice, while in the United States we have long understood that vinegar is something that should not be allowed into any sort of candy, even licorice. Also, I think they spell "licorice" in some old-fashioned way with a "q" and a "v" instead of a "u". > Every so often, I feel a qualm of regret because I > came this close--> | | to saving a bunch of tan M&M's in an > envelope. I have no doubt that today I could make a fortune selling > these on eBay to zealots--if I didn't decide to savor all that tan- > colored goodness myself. I still have some of the medium gray ones. I deeply disturbed Leah once by sending her some gray M&Ms. (A few malls have "M&Ms Colorworks" stores, which are just shops which stock about twenty weird colors of M&Ms so that you can buy candy that matches your hair or for any other weird illogical reason you could have for wanting abnormal M&Ms.) > As a kid, though, I think I liked the green ones because a commercial > at the time explicitly stated that eating green ones would make me a > better baseball player. > > From http://www.inthe80s.com/tvcommercials/m.shtml > -> I get a single with the brown ones, double with the yellow, > -> orange--triple... but with the green ones, I hit the ball > -> dooowntown! Wow, that commercial is evil for several different reasons. It lies about the candy having medicinal power, it tells them to cheat at baseball by eating drugged candy, and everyone knows the ones with the green paint on the outside are really aphrodisiacs so the commercial is trying to get the kids addicted to randy candy. -- K. Speaking of things that are colors they shouldn't be, and regarding yesterday's discussion of the hideous paint job at "Pig's Pizza", I checked out the actual colors on my way home today: reddish- orange, periwinkle blue, and yellow It's like FAO Schwarz blew up. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Something I said December 31, 1998. Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 04:39:03 -0400 I just found this in my archive and I wanted to quote myself because I'm so important. > Kibology is like a beautiful girl sitting on a toilet banging pots > and pans together. Sadly, that sentence is the high point of my life's work so far. -- K. That, and getting a third of my name in a blurb for a book on sale at Amazon.com. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Something I said December 31, 1998. Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 21:23:12 -0400 Tim Chmielewski (chuma@dcsi.net.au) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > That, and getting a third of my name in a blurb for > > a book on sale at Amazon.com. > > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672306220/qid=1056194376/s > r=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/104-2726139-1372729?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 > > Usenet According to Kibo, Premier Edition > by James Parry > Availability: THIS TITLE IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. If you would like > to purchase this title, we recommend that you occasionally check this > page to see if it has become available. > > Thanks. No, you're wrong, therefore I get to thank you with my foot! And also, WHAT THE FUDGE? That listing at Amazon.com is news to me. Because (a) that wasn't the title, and (b) the book never got published, and (c) was Amazon.com even in business before Bill Gates had this book cancelled? The title I used on my manuscript was "Usenet Is Your Friend", but their marketing department wanted something starting with "Kibo", so they suggested "Kibo Says Usenet Is Your Friend" (which would have made both me and Usenet sound sinister.) I was late delivering in 1994 and so the book had to be cancelled because in 1995 they had to publish nothing but books about Windows 95. (I haven't put up the book's contents on my Web site because they became embarassingly out-of-date the moment they were written, like any book on the early days of the Internet -- the book dealth with such things as how to type the "trn" command -- but I did get to repurpose some of the chapters in other places.) Amazon must have scraped that info off ISBN records. Publishers file for that number while the book is still in development, and anyone can file the form for an ISBN, which is why "Books In Print" lists a lot of other imaginary books. (Sometimes I wonder what percentage of the "books" in "Books In Print" actually exist.) Anyway, I said "a third of my name" and "a book for sale", not "all of my name with the middle third moved into the title" and "an imaginary book that was never offered for sale." I was referring to an instance where I was supposed to be credited as "James 'Kibo' Parry" but Amazon's database apparently can't store quote marks, or anything enclosed in quote marks, or anything after anything enclosed in quote marks, so there's a book out there endorsed by "James". I'm pretty sure that's me, because I remember writing that blurb, but it could also refer to one of the Apostles or a king of England or some other person named James Last Name Unknown And Quoted Nom De Plume Definitely Unknown if you don't recognize my writing style, which you won't, because it's just a frickin' blurb and therefore has no writing style, unlike this sentence which is so lengthy that it must be in a really complex and therefore sophisticated writing style. So go hunt again. (It should be pretty easy to figure out what book it is.) In the meantime, I'm going to search Amazon.com to find out what other imaginary books I wrote. I wonder if any of them are as bad as the stuff I've actually written... Hey, I should click the "Order it used" button for the imaginary book and say that I'm willing to pay a million billion zillion dollars for it, and then if anyone claims to have a copy to sell me I'll report them as committing fraud and they'll go to Amazon.com Jail and I'll get a reward of one of those nickels Amazon gives out which is then split into smaller parts because they only let you apply a fraction of your free nickel to each purchase. -- K. And what's the deal with "Premier Edition"? I'm Kibo, not some lowly premier! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: OTHER people have decided that YOU should vote! Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 21:25:39 -0400 Here's an interesting propaganda sign I saw all the mall today: A young woman looks at a sign in a store window. The sign says "Parental Consent Required On All Clothing Purchases." The photo's caption: "Because when you don't vote, it's like letting someone else make decisions for you. And nobody wants that." I must disagree with that, because, Hey! I want to be able to make decisions about what other people can buy! Also, none of the stores at the mall had the various things I went to the mall to buy. I vote, therefore I should be allowed to buy whatever I want! This mall is run by Commies because they don't sell ice cube trays! Sears's "housewares" section only has overpriced pots and pans and things with electrical plugs -- not one unpowered plastic item to be found. Filene's Home Store only had pots and pans and dishes and machines for making snow cones and lemonade -- really, they had a machine that you're ONLY allowed to use to make lemonade -- but again, no unpowered plastic items. And The Cook's Shop (formerly Lechter's until they caught on that naming a cooking-supplies shop after Hannibal Lecter was a bad idea) had, amazingly, no ice cube trays. I'm growing disillusioned with my local mall. It's not the overkill of consumerism it should be! So I bought my ice cube trays at the supermarket. They had two kinds -- the normal square ones and the ones for the tiny round cubes, both of which I needed -- while not one store at the mall had any sort of ice cube trays. (Well, actually, I didn't check every store, but I figured it was unlikely that the Apple Store would have any ice cube trays at a reasonable price.) -- K. The market also had the olive oil I needed to fill the ice cube trays. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: OTHER people have decided that YOU should vote! Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 22:41:34 -0400 Jeremy Impson (jdimpson@acm.org) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > So I bought my ice cube trays at the supermarket. They had two > > kinds -- the normal square ones and the ones for the tiny round cubes, > > both of which I needed -- while not one store at the mall had > > any sort of ice cube trays. (Well, actually, I didn't check > > every store, but I figured it was unlikely that the Apple Store > > would have any ice cube trays at a reasonable price.) > > If you ever find yourself in Vestal, NY, please stop by my house. I have > a place to take you. It won't take but a minute, because it's only about > 4 buildings down from my apartment. There you can find those little > bullet-shaped ice cube trays; a generic grape soda that, when poured warm > over ice, fizzes up into a whirl of foam separated out into it's > constituant red and blue colors; and a copy of Netscape 2.1. ALL FOR A > DOLLAR!! Tell you what -- next time I'm visiting Vestal, NY, I'll fish some of the coins out of my ice cube trays, wash the olive oil off the ones in the little round tray and wash the distilled water off the ones in the big blocky tray (what's good for washing distilled water off something? Moxie?) and we'll see how many bottles of two-layer grape soda we can buy for a denarius. "But these ARE recent coins, they're from after the emperor decreed that Christianity was okay! I'm sure John Paul II can still cash these for you!" Incidentally, here's something strange: While I was bringing this little packet of coins home (in my shirt pocket) and was walking past Fenway Park, some drunk dude gave me half of a Roman salute and asked where he could find Landsdowne Street. (In Massachusetts, streets aren't labelled when you're near them. Or at any other time you want them to be.) He thumped the left side of his chest with his right fist, but omitted the part the Nazis copied. I think this is further proof that I am surrounded by people with Phil Dick's delusion that we're still living in ancient Rome. The paranoids are after me and are trying to convince me that other people are convinced we're 2000 years ago. I should have pulled out the coins to prove to him that the Roman Empire had started to crumble and gone all Christian and started putting really poorly-drawn pictures of people on their coins, but that would have required me to use X-ray vision to see through the layers of scale I've been cleaning off these random coins, and it would probably be a bad idea to convince crazy people that their delusions are wrong by showing them that Kibo has super powers. And of course the other guy may have been demonstrating he has super powers if he gave me the half a Roman salute because I had the scuzzy old Roman coins in my pocket which he saw with his 21st Century Roman Superhero X-Ray Vision. -- K. Note how I carefully avoided making any jokes about how anyone living in "Vestal, NY" is likely to be a virgin. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Invasion Of The Revenge Of The Curse Of Dee-pak Cho-pra! (was: OTHER people have decided that YOU should vote!) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 01:36:14 -0400 Joseph Michael Bay (jmbay@Stanford.EDU) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > [a sign said] "Because when you don't vote, it's like letting someone > > else make decisions for you. And nobody wants that." > > > > Hey! I want to be able to make decisions about what other people can buy! > > That's not propaganda; it's security. It's there to stop > attacks from killer robots, who would read the sign and then > their heads would explode, like this: > > > (imagine a robot reading a sign and then the robot's > head explodes with a lot of sparks and stuff). > > See? (Kibo, wearing a seventeen-foot-long scarf, meets a killer robot that can't cross the street because it can't go over the curb.) DALEK It is the Ki-bo! I must ex-ter-mi-nate the Ki-bo! (Kibo nimbly jumps over some trash cans onto the curb.) KIBO I don't mind a brisk pace and a Dalek or two, it's the obstacles that I hate! DALEK You will be ex-ter-mi-na-ted! KIBO Did you know that logical paradoxes make robots explode? DALEK That does not com-pute because lo-gi-cal pa-ra-dox-es do not make ro-bots ex-plode! Error! Error! Lo-gi-cal pa-ra-dox-es do not make ro-bots ex-plode! They do not make ro-bots ex-plode! (The Dalek explodes.) KIBO Good thing this is one of the episodes where the writers claim that Daleks are robots, and not one of the ones where they're just squids living inside robots. And now, I must be off, because New Hampshire Public Television says I can only appear for a quarter of an episode every three weeks! (Kibo exits and is replaced by reruns of Deepak Chopra.) -- K. The next episode's a "Star Wars" crossover where a Dalek fights the Gonk. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mainstreaming update. Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 00:13:36 -0400 Joe Manfre (manfre@world.std.com) wrote: > > The latest edition of the Betty & Veronica Digest Magazine available > at the supermarket checkout stand has an eBay joke on the front cover. > (In a beach scene, Betty or Veronica is seen commenting on the > "surfboard" Archie bought on "E-BAY". The "surfboard" in question is > actually a gaily colored ironing board, complete with folding legs.) > > I assume this means eBay has passed the point of being simply > mainstream, and past the point of hip irony, and past the point of hip > disdain, and past the point of post-hip retro camp ironic fondness, > and past the post-retro point of simple utility, and achieved a new > era of neo-anti-hipness, kind of like Led Zeppelin. The big question is, what's Archie's eBay feedback rating? I have a little yellow star next to me, because 15 people have sworn I'm not a scammer, but I suspect Archie would have an orange star with black cross-hatching, which must be some secret type of star you can only get by not ripping off 200,000 people. (100,000 gets you a red striped star.) And anyone who's ever traded Beanie Babies with over 200,000 people on eBay is definitely a weenie, or if that orange blotchy stuff on his head contains barbecue sauce he's a Beanie Weenee Beanie Baby weenie. > I just searched eBay for "surfboard", and while I didn't find any > ironing boards for sale that way, I did find this nice Hello Kitty toy. But it's not a real Beanie Baby! So I guess that means that eBay is now divided into three departments: "Beanie Babies", "fake Beanie Babies", and "miscellaneous". I only shop in the smallest of the three. I just changed my eBay password -- because I was on my way to the supermarket and remembered that an auction I was bidding on was ending right then (and you have to bid right before the auction closes if you want to have a chance of "winning" -- I love that they've convinced people that you're not just "buying", you're "winning") so I accessed eBay from a public computer network, and eBay likes to send your password around without good encryption, so when I got home and established a secure connection I set a new password just in case anyone lurking in the vegetable aisle of the Prudential Shaw's was running a packet-sniffer. And of course eBay forced me to pick an "in case you forget your password" reminder question. I hate those because they're always something like "In case you or anyone else wants to know your password, we'll just ask them this secret question, 'What's your dog's name?'" and eBay requires you to pick a question from a list of a few like that, all of which ask about information that would be easy enough for other people to figure out. (I have to make up fictitious answers because I think you people know what my dog's name would be if I had one.) And in conjunction with my theory that everyone else is trying to convince me that we're living in ancient Rome, the eBay form said, +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Choose your hint question: Pick a suggested question... | | | | Enter the answer to your question: __________ (example: "Rome") | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ I think that goes with the question "What city were you born in?" and not "What's your dog's name?" but it's a tough call because I really don't think I was born in Rome. -- K. I can prove I'm not Roman: I don't like fermented fish paste. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Mainstreaming update. Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 01:58:53 -0400 Ben Allard (benjaminwallard@hotmail.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I can prove I'm not Roman: I don't like fermented fish paste. > > Why in the world not? Because it's icky. I can barely even stand fresh fish, let alone Archimedes Plutonium's microwave-exploded cod or ancient Rome's salted, fermented fish guts. Fun fact: The Latin language has twenty-seven million words for stinky fish gunk ("garum", "liquamen", "muria", "allec", "oxygarum", "halex", "laccatum"...) but not one word for "Pez". And even the Romans thought fish sauce stunk, or at least the smart ones did. Let's ask Martial to drop us some zingers: Unguentum fuerat, quod onyx modo parva gerebat; olfecit postquam Papylus, ecce, garum est. Of course, without knowing Papylus's taste in perfume, I don't know whether that was a condemnation or a recommendation -- I can imagine some Romans would enjoy walking around with fish guts in their hair all day. They'd smell almost half as bad as Thais: Tam male Thais olet quam non fullonis avari testa vetus, media sed modo fracta via, non ab amore recens hircus, non ora leonis, non detracta cani Transtiberina cutis, pullus abortivo nec cum putrescit in ovo, amphora corrupto nec vitiata garo. Virus ut hoc alio fallax permutet odore, deposita quotiens balnea veste petit, psilothro viret aut acida latet oblita creta aut tegitur pingui terque quaterque faba. Cum bene se tutam per fraudes mille putavit, omnia cum fecit, Thaida Thais olet. There are some real tough dictionary words in there, but fortunately I have bilingual volumes, so I know what that says, especially as it was in Book VI which is in both Vol I and Vol II because for some reason the bozos at Harvard University Press put a "Vol I" cover and a "Vol I" dust jacket on one of my two copies of Vol II. Harvard ripped me off! As an unsatisfied customer, I demand a free PhD! -- K. If I don't get it, I'm going to give a quarter to that magenta woman on Church Street who keeps yelling that we should BURN HARVARD DOWN! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Further theological questions. Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 02:06:34 -0400 Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote: > > Can God make a rock so big that it turns into a pony? Yes, but the pony's all orange and quilted-looking like Ben Grimm because it's a rock pony. > Can God make a rock so big that it is actually small? Yes, but only for an hour, then it turns into a rock pony. > Can God make a rock so big that Handyman Negri turns upside down? Yes, because He recently assumed Mr. Rogers into Heaven to help Him do the voice. > Can God make a rock so big that it pays my credit-card bill? Yes, if you are truly Fred Flintstone. > Can God make a rock so big that it makes him back? Yes, but between Him and the rock, you only get the one of equal or lesser value free. So if they are the same price, you will need to ask the Vatican to rule on which of the two is the equal one. > Can God make a rock so big that it makes the whole world rock out? Yes, but only if you don't mind that it makes Him look like a film of a grainy TV screen like at the end of "The Apple" while Vladek Sheybal disco-dances in a glittery G-string and whore makeup. > Pls answer by Friday I need it for my bestselling inspirational > book Target wants to put on the shelves next weekend THANK YOU Can God watch "Knight Rider"? If not, then you should go do something he can't. -- K. And more to the point, can God enjoy "Knight Rider"?