From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 01:20:48 -0400 I still don't get why sometimes while I'm asleep, the KGB beams lame "Laugh-In"-style comedy sketches into my brain. So, in this universe, I was in college (again). I just found out I was assigned to share a dorm room with a cop, and I was looking forward to meeting him so I could ask him to teach me how to use a side-handle baton. But first, to get to the dorm, for some reason I had to go through a shopping mall. Sitting on a bench in the middle of the shopping mall was TV's Andy Dick. He was, for some reason, wearing a long lime green coat. You know, like Dr. Clayton Forrester or Beakman or Mike Jittlov. I think it was a little more of a trenchcoat than a lab coat, though. Definitely wasn't the question-mark blazer he wore when mocking that overacting infomercial guy. And he was wearing really dopey-looking Elton John sunglasses -- they had thick circular rims mottled in a green-and-brighter-green tortoiseshell pattern, and curiously, one of the lenses was about 50% larger than the other. Andy Dick looked CRAZY! And he was holding a large plastic Jell-O mold in his lap (i.e. the Jell-O was still in the bumpy plastic bowl.) The Jell-O was clear, but with lime slices in it. Always wanting to help the obviously insane, I said gently to Andy Dick (who must always be addressed by his full name, because he's one of those people with two first names,) "Hey, it's Andy Dick! Hi, Andy Dick! Be careful with that, it looks like it could make quite a mess!" Impishly, he jerked the Jell-O mold towards me, intending the gelatin to jump out of the mold and onto whatever I was wearing (no, I don't know.) But the Jell-O was stuck in the mold and just wiggled a little. Andy Dick looked crestfallen at his failure to gunge me. Dejectedly, he dropped the Jell-O mold on the floor -- -- and upon impact, the Jell-O bounced up out of the mold, splashing itself across Andy Dick's face. "That's the funniest thing I've ever seen," I said, without any trace of emotion (I was laughing on the inside, particularly because I was amused by the concept that such predictable slapstick could be thought to be the funniest thing ever in this illogical dream world.) But of course I woke up at that point just when the dream was becoming lucid (because I realized it was a dream world when I became aware of the poor script the comedy was following.) I was careful not to move because I wanted to memorize everything before it evaporated, and then re-enter the lucid dream state (I can do that, but only if I'm careful.) When I fell asleep, I resumed the dream, except modified to include 100% less Andy Dick, and certain additions I won't mention here. It was a vast improvement. So, anyway, what does it mean that while I was sleeping, Andy Dick broke into my brain while wearing clown glasses? And why all the lime green imagery? And if the dream hadn't mutated into a lucid dream to enable me to make Andy Dick leave my brain, would he still be in there right now? -- K. If "Mr. Show" was like having a clown in your head, why wasn't "The Andy Dick Show" exactly the same as having Andy Dick in your head with Jell-O? I say Andy Dick needs to put his show back on the air just so he can throw Jell-O at himself. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 22:44:41 -0400 Hyper Bell (sib_88@hotmail.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I was careful not to move because I wanted to memorize everything > > before it evaporated, and then re-enter the lucid dream state > > (I can do that, but only if I'm careful.) When I fell asleep, > > I resumed the dream, except modified to include 100% less Andy Dick, > > and certain additions I won't mention here. It was a vast improvement. > > Whenever I surprisingly manage to resume a dream, it always gets worse. > I often end up having a nightmare after resuming what was supposedly a > nice dream to begin with. If I for example dream about being a hero, I > end up getting shot (or at least hurt). How do you actually -improve- > your dreams? Through power of geniusness. > And do you control your dreams? Sometimes I realize early that I'm in a > dream world, and I get to do anything I want, 'cause, HEY, it's a > dream! The sad part is that I can't control the people in my dreams. > (Dammit, he didn't kiss me back!) Yeah, my more-lucid dreams tend to be in that category where I have free will and can make reasonably rational choices, but the initial casting and premise of the dream are still random. Oddly, there are different rules of physics in different semi-lucid dreams. In many, I can fly (subject to a specific set of physics), in a few, I only have normal powers of locomotion, and this was one of the rare ones from the third category where I can't fly but I can run really fast, plus occasionally vaulting over an obstacle like elderly Jackie Chan still can. > [...] > > Heheh, and I though I was the only one here asking about my freaky > dreams... WELCOME TO THE INTERNET > It turns out Kibo asks too... Hmmm... A coincidence? I doubt it. No, this isn't a coincidence, it's just part of your dream. Now that you've found that out, isn't it time for the part where you get shot (or at least hurt)? Sorry, I didn't want you to get shot, but those are the immutable laws of dream logic. I don't think I've ever had gunplay in my dreams. > > And if the dream hadn't mutated into a lucid dream to enable > > me to make Andy Dick leave my brain, would he still be in there > > right now? > > He would be lurking behind every corner of every house in every dream > world you have been placed in during the last decade, waiting for a > chance to resurface as a clown of some sort just to scare the hell out > of you when you finally catch a glimpse of him. > Wait, clowns were one of *my* biggest fears, weren't they? ... Clowns just bore me. I like mimes. Scary mimes. I really enjoy watching people being chased down the street by evil mimes. Seriously, if anyone in my area wants to join a new performance-art troupe, let me know. I have lots of ideas. -- K. Not all ideas are inherently evil -- just mine. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 15:28:00 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I don't think I've ever had gunplay in my dreams. > > I actually had one where my Russian teacher shot me in my own garage. > I think that was even before she gave me a zero on the colored pencil > assignment. What color zero? You're lucky. You got to use pencils, so you could erase if you used the wrong color. Mr. Acosta made his Spanish class take notes in four different colors of pens. (Most of the students had those annoying four-in-one pens that were popular back then.) Has anyone ever had a foreign-language teacher who wasn't an insane dictator? Language teachers are like gym teachers with extra gym teacherness and none of the pedophilia. But I must admit I never had any dreams about killing or being killed by a teacher. I did once have a dream where I was terrified to discover I got stuck speaking only Spanish. I think that was during the brief period where I might have been considered fluent. Now, I'm not fluent in anything. -- K. My most vivid colored-drawing-instrument memory from school is the disappointment at discovering (in kindergarten) that the school's off-brand crayons had a much nicer blue than my genuine Crayolas. Those Prangs had a great ultramarine, and Crayolas never did. Damn non-toxic Crayolas. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 19:18:21 -0400 TeaLady (Mari C.) (spressobean@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > My most vivid > > colored-drawing-instrument > > memory from school is the > > disappointment > > at discovering (in > > kindergarten) that > > the school's off-brand > > crayons had a > > much nicer blue than my > > genuine Crayolas. > > Those Prangs had a great > > ultramarine, > > and Crayolas never did. > > Damn non-toxic > > Crayolas. Argh! Stop crumpling my text, you indento-oscillator! > I wasn't allowed to have crayons at home. Waste of money, me > mum said. Grandma bought 'em for us, but we'd eave them at > her house in case mum got a bug in her butt about our "mess" > and tossed them all out (which she did several times with > other things). I bought a nice set of oil crayons when I was > 12 or so, did some great pics with them, and left them on a > windowsill one day, where they all melted together in a big > glop. It looked really cool, but ruined the crayons and made > my mum lose her marbles for a year or two. At about 14 I > started a soda-pop fungus/mold experiment that, after she > discovered it, caused her to retch for several months just > thinking about it. > > My mum was and is nuts, and mean, but I guess I did get her > back a few times. With that new Super Soaker that shoots the white spooge? Seriously, I don't see how that toy will lead to anything other than lawsuits from people whose weddings were ruined, and from parents whose kids got knifed. It ranks a close second behind that squirt gun I saw about a decade ago that squirted artificial- butter-scented stink juice in terms of squirt guns that are likely to be fatal to their owners. I guess third would be that 1960's Batman gun where you put the water up his butt and then you put the butt plug in and then he squirts out his mouth whenever you squeeze his penis. Anyone who owns one of those is gonna get beaten up, probably even by kids dressed as Robin. I say that next time you visit your mom, you bring along a Super Soaker Oozinator and explain to her that she could have prevented this if she'd just let you have crayons instead of having to do like Abraham Lincoln and color in your coloring books by rubbing a chunk of coal on them. Amazon has the refills of "bio-ooze" marked as "currently unavailable", so once you go dry you'd have to fill it up with ketchup or something. Ketchup is probably cheaper anyway, as the refill packs are only good for 20 shots each! http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=browse&product_id=17359 Used crankcase oil would probably work well, too. Hey, it wouldn't violate the safety warnings any worse than using the official Hasbro "bio-ooze" would: [amazon.com] -> -> Safety Information -> CAUTION: Do not aim at eyes or face. -> TO AVOID INJURY: Use only clean tap water. According to Amazon, people who bought the Oozinator (for which the official refills are unavailable) also bought: -> -> Easy Bake Real Meal Oven Refill Pack - Mac & Cheese by Hasbro Okay, now that's just gross. Squirting fake cheese at people is the sort of thing any kid should get the chair for. It's good that kids are too stupid to realize that the overpriced squeeze bottles they put grape jelly in ('cause otherwise it's hard to get kids to cover their food with liquid candy) are the most perfect evil squirt guns ever invented. Kids are so dumb that they think that stuff's for eatin'. I suggest you introduce your mom to all these concepts. Also, fingerpaints. -- K. They should make a paintgun that shoots fingerpaint. It would squirt it through a little stencil so you could make handprints on things from a distance. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:15:00 -0400 David DeLaney (dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I still don't get why sometimes while I'm asleep, the KGB beams lame > > "Laugh-In"-style comedy sketches into my brain. > > Because where else, post-glasnost, do they have left to beam them? The ocean floor is still mostly unexplored. So shouldn't they be pre-emptively beaming propaganda there just in case the Man From Atlantis is a capitalist dogfish? Uh oh. That sounds like something Fred Flintstone would say if he were trying to write political satire. Does this mean I'm going to have to dress up in a red, white, and blue fur toga and start playing ragtime music on a grand piano with lyrics about Enron? > > [...] upon impact, the Jell-O bounced up out of the mold, > > splashing itself across Andy Dick's face. > > YESS! Old One Jell-O Molds! The power of Cthulhu, now with PINEAPPLE CHUNKS, > I mean LIME SLICES! It wasn't an H. R. Giger face-hugger so much as an Inverse Nickelodeon. Come to think of it, it was reminiscent of that one "NewsRadio" episode where Joe Rogan rigs the cup of gelato to explode in Andy Dick's face. Man, I miss "NewsRadio". That was such a great show, at least up until one of the stars got their head exploded and another one got shot in the brain. But at least the rehab clinic put Andy Dick's head back together. "The Andy Dick" show was great too. I always liked the ones where he dared to mock the brilliance of Tom Green. Nobody else even considered Tom Green worthy of mockery. And Andy Dick demonstrated how easy it was to be Tom Green. -- K. "CANADIAN OMELET!" ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Dumb dream number whatever. Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:07:31 -0400 Sean Case (seancase@tpg.com.au) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I still don't get why sometimes while I'm asleep, the KGB beams lame > > "Laugh-In"-style comedy sketches into my brain. > > Because they don't work so well when you're awake. So you're saying it's like TiVo, except slightly more evil because it never works when I point at a boring person and yell "baBoop baBoop" or the dreaded "dung!dung!dung!"? Hmm. This means that somewhere in my brain is a little Bayesian filter that says "He saw 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' back in the '70s! That means he must also like 'Bewitched'! Also, he failed to CLICK HERE to learn about the exciting new BMW, and other people who failed to CLICK HERE to learn about the exciting new BMW were also punished by being forced to watch 'American Chopper', so we're going to chuck that at him too!" Next time I'm asleep I'll see if I can find the remote control for my brain. -- K. It probably just got wedged between the hemispheres. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: news update: teenager repellent supposedly backfires Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 05:31:38 -0400 A followup to a story that we were discussing a few months back... [www.metro.co.uk] -> -> Pupils perform 'alarming' feat -> -> Wednesday, May 24, 2006 -> -> A high-pitched alarm which cannot be heard by adults has been -> hijacked by schoolchildren to create ringtones so they can get -> away with using phones in class. But what good does that do? I'd still think the teachers would be able to see and hear you answering the phone. Unless you also layer in another special sound which cannot be heard by teenagers but makes adults go deaf and blind. -> Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to -> drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres. This is why they built the world's largest shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta -- because teenagers are kept away from Edmonton by the world's largest mosquitoes. Seriously, the little fuckers kept biting me through my jacket. And so did the mosquitoes. -> The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective -> because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not -> by most people over 20. Biiiiiiiiig deal. I've invented something which can only be watched by people with IQs under 20. It's called... BLANK. ("Match Game" music plays while a bunch of celebrities with IQs under 20 try to think of the punchline) -> Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named -> Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages -> and Bluetooth technology. Someday, you'll also be able to send pictures via text messages! And you'll be able to send your voice via text messages! -> Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without -> teachers having the faintest idea what is going on. -> -> A secondary school teacher in Cardiff said: 'All the kids were -> laughing about something, but I didn't know what. They know -> phones must be turned off during school. They could all hear -> somebody's phone ringing but I couldn't hear a thing. -> -> 'One of the other children told me all about it later. I couldn't -> be too cross, because it shows resourcefulness.' If the teacher wants to put those kids in their place, he or she should install a Mosquito under every student's desk. Then they'd never be able to hear the phones ringing. -> The Mosquito technology is said to play on a medical phenomenon -> called presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss. -> -> It is thought to begin at 20 and first affect the highest -> frequencies Ð 18 to 20kHz. -> -> The device was developed by Merthyr Tydfil-based Compound -> Security. So in addition to the magical teenager repellent, did they also develop magical cell phones that can faithfully reproduce 18-20kHz notes? I mean, that's even at the extreme upper end of what a CD can do in any way (they use 44,000 samples per second, meaning that 22kHz is the absolute upper limit) and I would be surprised if any tiny flat buzzer could reproduce that cleanly, let alone whether cell phones record enough thousands of samples per second. Also they can fit all those tens of thousands of samples into a single text message. -> Boss Howard Stapleton said: 'I think it is a giggle. A teacher -> would be able to hear the sound only from 1m away. Teenagers -> could hear it from much further away.' And babies could hear it from the Moon! -- K. I M TXTING U A BROWN NOTE LOL ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Taking the last remaining traces of "fun" out of school Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:59:06 -0400 [on me accusing Jamie Oliver of being Gordon Ramsay] Nick Bensema (nickb@eris.io.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Jamie Oliver is a well-known British restaurant chef. He's best-known > > for being the incredibly obnoxious a-hole on the reality show "Hell's > > Kitchen" a couple of years ago -- > > There are actually two British chefs that had shows named "___'s > Kitchen". Aha! So I was right to confuse them, because they tried to trick me with their uninspiredly descriptive titles! > Jamie Oliver's show was called "Jamie's Kitchen" and it > involves his quest to pick fifteen lower-class losers off the streets > of England and make chefs out of them. For a moment, I didn't think > you were talking about the same show, because many of the losers > he was training, well, were bigger assholes than Jamie. Jamie seems to be a nice guy at heart -- obviously he cares about children's nutrition, and the scenes in "Jamie's School Lunch Project" where he's at home make it clear that he adores his wife and kids -- but I wouldn't want to spend any time in the same room with him, particularly because I like both junk food and real food. 'Cause I know how to enjoy the occasional chicken nugget without poisoning myself on them. > There was the guy who hit his teacher, and like three people who > quit, and the one woman who couldn't find a ride to work even after > Jamie offered to pay for a cab every day, and so forth. These were > the fifteen people who made it through all the auditions, and > half of them were the kind of people who are always telling > their friends "I got fired for no reason! And I did the work > of five guys!" Let me guess. "No reason" implies "spitting in the customers' food"? > The other British guy, Gordon Ramsey, is certainly a bigger jerk. > He had a couple of shows that aired on BBC America, which revolved > around his trips to crappy restaurants in the UK that were on the > brink of collapse. He'd isolate the most clueless of their practices, > and offer lots of heavy-handed advice, and usually the owners didn't > listen and the restaurant folds six months later. Of course, most restaurants do. They're like dot-coms, most die within the first year. One of the neat things about living in a big city is that the turnover is insanely fast -- every city has a few corners where there's a different failed restaurant on the same spot every six months (sometimes it's a whole string of failures of the same ethnicity, like that one perpetually-mutating Vietnamese location I know. The food's never been bad there, but they can't seem to survive, and yet other people keep trying exactly the same thing in the same place.) I think what would be interesting would be a show where two people were given the money to open competing identical ethnic restaurants -- adjacent to each other -- and I would play the evil guy who goes to both of them and tries to make each one fold. Who will survive longest under the onslaught of such a destructive force? The show could be called something like "Kibo Destroys Lives Because It's Okay Because Restaurants Die All The Time Anyway", or maybe it should have a shorter title. How about "Kibo Kills Kitchens"? > But his show on FOX, called "Hell's Kitchen", What does the "X" stand for? And the "O"? > well, all you really need to know is that it's a reality show on Fox. > Gordon's pretty sadistic, but the producers and directors are ten > times more sadistic. Gordon may play the drill sergeant to motivate > the underlings, but the producers genuinely hated the contestants, I thought that was the point of most "reality" TV shows, that we were supposed to hate the people on them even more than we hate the people who make them. > and the directors genuinely hated the audience. And what's wrong with that? Orson Welles was a GENIUS!!! > GET YOUR OVERBEARING BRITISH TV CHEFS STRAIGHT! But there aren't any straights who are British. Maybe in Scotland. All British people are gayer than the Queen herself. It's the accent that makes them turn that way. Of course, bad things happen whenever you have a country where everyone has the same accent like that. That's why I'm glad I live in a country where everyone is free to choose from three different accents -- Brooklyn, Chicago, and Hillbilly. -- K. And remember, the Constitution says it's perfectly legal to discriminate against anyone who speaks Hillbilly. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: a catchphrase in search of a context... Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:26:31 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > [...] > > Because I can guarantee you, Kibo does even less drugs than I do. Fewer drugs, too. Unless you count hot pepper and sugar. My local supermarket has discontinued canned coconut pie filling right when I've started having cravings for coconut custard all the time. This worries me because it means that there is an atom of Cocononium at the center of my brain which makes me crave coconut because I am a super-genius. And I became a super-genius just to get the candy. Every once in a while I wonder what drugs really feel like, but then I realize that they'd probably just make me think the "fACE" logo in the upper left corner of the screen of the Chinese DVD versions of Jet Let's "Hero" was even bigger and more colorful than it already is, making the movie even less psychedelic. And the "Yellow Submarine" DVD would look like it had black bars cutting off five sides of the picture instead of just four. And "THX-1138" would seem like it had a computer-animated Ewok pasted into it, which it actually does, but the movie's long enough that the drugs would have worn off by then so I would be fooled. Hmm, I think the only other movie in my collection that keeps telling me I should take drugs before watching it is "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", and I don't even want to imagine what being high would do to Shatner's enormous evil hairpiece. Forget the groovy wormhole, the movie would be ruined by the nine-dimensional living plastic hair turning real. This is why I don't feel like trying most drugs, unless they're red and pointy and grow on Mexican bushes, or made by Willy Wonka. Why don't they do a remake of "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" that's all about hot peppers? The Oompa-Loompas could set kids on fire! -- K. I don't need drugs because my brain already has that special atom inside. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: help me graduate! Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:40:29 -0400 Jeremy D. Impson (jdimpson@acm.spam.org) wrote: > > In Syracuse circa 1997 or 1998, my more talented friends created a > performance art group that they called "Swank Art". They put on a > performance in or around the SU quad on Friday afternoons in the > Spring and Fall. In one performance, they resolved the question of which > was more powerful, Good or Evil, by having hosting a wrestling match. > Good won, you'll be happy to know. I keep thinking that performance art is the wave of the future. And I want to get in on the ground floor of performance art while it's still hip and new and everybody loves it. But most of my ideas require extra people (either as performers or as bodyguards.) Does anyone living in the Boston area want to help me found Kibo's Evil Performance Art Group? KEPAG could really do great things in terms of freaking out the tourist twits who think Quincy Market is a major tourist destination and not just a shopping mall with an unusually high proportion of tacky souvenirs. > SU would often host tours for prospective students, and you could always > identify the tour guide by the orange and blue striped polo shirt they > were forced to wear. So another performance had them seripticiously > joiningg the tour in groups of one and two. They'd play cool for a few > minutes, then start casually swatting at some sort of insect flying around > their heads. The swatting would slowly build up, until they'd scream > "BEEES!!!" and run off across the quad, swatting and screaming. Yes! I heartily endorse this art! We could ruin the Chocolate Tour. I haven't done that in a while. > Another peformance had them dressing up in trenchcoats and sunglasses, > with one of their number equipped with a boombox and a tape of the Mission > Impossible theme. They'd line up against a wall, turn on the tape, then > do all that spy stuff of creeping against the wall, or doing dive rolls, > or what have you. They did it in the student center, and probably other > places, before doing it at the library, where security stopped them and > had a long discussion with them before letting them go. Today, they'd > probably get arrested. Why is it that whenever people go to jail for their performance art, you never hear about them performing freaky performance art in jail to screw with the guards? I'd think that would be the proper punchline. > My favorite was "Art Machine", which was a great big painted box they set > up on the quad. About four of them were in the box with a bunch of art > supplies and an accordian. People were encouraged to put paper in one > side, and art would come out the other. It's always an accordion. Performance art seems to require one. We could set up the perfect performance art orchestra consisting of an accordion, a harmonica, a kazoo, and some plastic buckets being pounded on with a lead-filled Cabbage Patch doll. But I can't figure out what outfit to wear -- The Great Morgani and Thoth already took all the best choices. I'm thinking white three-hole ski masks with propeller beanies over them. Also, the accordion should be shaped like a giant foam-rubber chicken liver. > [...] > > I miss those guys. So come here and let's annoy tourists. Seriously, I'm bursting with ideas for how to annoy people for hours at a time. You won't believe the stamina I have when it comes to being annoying in public. WE MUST BRING BACK SALVADOR DALI'S IDEALS OF ANNOYANCE. -- K. Seriously, I so want to do this. Let's damage some tourists' preconceived ideas about normal human behavior. The Internet doesn't work for this, it has to be done where the Normals hang out, like in front of Au Bon Pain. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: help me graduate! Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 23:10:29 -0400 barbara@bookpro.com wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > I keep thinking that performance art is the wave of the future. > > And I want to get in on the ground floor of performance art while > > it's still hip and new and everybody loves it. > > It's decades too late for that. But you could perhaps poularize > nostalgia for performance art. So, in other words, you don't accept sarcasm as the world's greatest form of performance art? Just for that, you have to pay double to see my next FUNFORMANCE!!! -- K. Now hand me my barf bucket full of mostly confetti! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: help me graduate! Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 15:38:53 -0400 barbara@bookpro.com wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > So, in other words, you don't accept sarcasm as the world's greatest > > form of performance art? > > Not as long as puns exist. Hmm. I've always thought that the most perfectly commercial interactive comedy act would be to get a crowd to gather and then ask them to call out names: "Okay, call out the name of a BIG celebrity and I'll zing them!" "Michael Jackson!" "More like......... Michael JERKson!" "Lee Trevino!" "More like......... Lee URINO!" "Harrison Ford!" "More like......... Harrison TURD!" (etc., until the crowd keels over from exhaustion at laughing too hard) The only problem is that I could see the set running long if I had a stupid audience where I had to yell "...GET IT?" after every hilarious punchline to make them laugh. So let's go do that in public. Plorkwort can play rimshots on her giant accordion, and you can be one of the several people who circulates among the crowd yelling "WOW! THIS IS THE GREATEST PERFORMANCE ART EVER!" and asking us to autograph weird body parts as you throw realistic-looking $1000 bills into the hat. We also need a few lurkers with cameras to hang back behind us secretly photographing the crowd so that later we can study their faces to look for evidence of the proper degree of confusion. -- K. Also we need snipers on the rooftops. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: help me graduate! Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 23:08:07 -0400 Madge (deletethisbit.itsreallyhere@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > WE MUST BRING BACK SALVADOR DALI'S IDEALS OF ANNOYANCE. > > > > Seriously, I so want to do this. Let's damage some > > tourists' preconceived ideas about normal human behavior. > > Some of us touristas only go to Boston for the Abnormality of Life > exhibition that occurs in front of Faneuil Hall every day. Remember, the Street Performer Fair or whatever the weirdstravaganza's called begins this weekend (there were public auditions a couple weeks ago.) Some of those people are pretty good -- where else can you see people who make a living as acrobats without having to smell any elephants or clowns? -- although I prefer the ones around the corner from Faneuil Hall (the ones not officially scheduled by the powers that decide which street performers are allowed to have the good spot.) The Living Gargoyle isn't there any more (apparently he has relocated to a wooded area) but there are a few other people you can find around Faneuil Hall, such as that guy with the fauxhawk* who does a straitjacket escape. (I can do everything he does, but he makes his living _actually_ doing things I only _know_ I can do.) * Doesn't really narrow it down, because 90% of the acrobats I've seen at Faneuil Hall have either a Mohawk, a Mohican, or a fauxhawk. I always wear a hat when I go to watch them so that the audience won't accidentally give me all their money. I still want to install a hinge in an old tennis racket so I can make sure I can fit through it without getting stuck -- I keep seeing people doing that trick, and bozos always seem to be impressed, and I am really skinny and flexible so I bet I could do that trick too, but until I know for sure I'm not going to try it until I can make myself a "non-stick" tennis racket with an emergency exit for practice purposes. (It breaks my heart that they're replacing all the subway turnstiles. I liked the old ones because I could squeeze right through them without turning them. I'm just that skinny.) > Can I have your signature, also would you mind taking a picture > of me with the wife. Sorry, but I don't have a wife. > > The Internet doesn't work for this, it has to be done > > where the Normals hang out, like in front of Au Bon Pain. > > Which one should I, oh so, not hang out at next time or should I frequent > the outside of the CVS storefronts? Where I'm certain I saw someone > hanging out last year, before he was moved on by the police, for the very > crime of hanging out. (We call it indecent exposure over here). I was thinking of Au Bon pain #1 -- the one at the Mass Ave end of Harvard Square -- where the sidewalk-chalk-painters doodle. The reason it came to mind as a hangout for people who are Too Normal For Me To Want To Be Around Them is that when I was walking by a few days ago, there was this large crowd waiting to get in -- all from some tour group -- and their chaperone was standing on a chair exasperatedly shouting, "YOU DO NOT ALL HAVE TO EAT HERE! THERE *ARE* OTHER PLACES TO EAT!" -- K. Of course, most of the other places are in the helical shopping mall that makes tourists dizzy. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: help me graduate! Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 22:52:54 -0400 plorkwort (asw@TheWorld.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Does anyone living in the Boston area want to help me found > > Kibo's Evil Performance Art Group? > > > > [...] > > It's always an accordion. Performance art seems to require one. > > Hmm. I am moving back to Boston soon, /and/ I have an accordion. YES! Question is, can you carry that thing while running from the cops? 'Cause I haven't yet figured out what sort of permits would be needed, and also it's not real art if you get a permit from the Man to do it. I, of course, do not play any instruments or sing. But I think a proper performance-art takeover of a public square requires three types of people: People who do disturbing stuff that nobody can comprehend, people who make the music that goes hand-in-hand with the disturbing people, and shills who mingle among the spectators in order to help brainwash them into thinking this is an actual high-falutin' artistic performance and not an experiment in the manipulation of weak minds. The minglers are very important, even if they're not screaming like those girls the Beatles paid to pretend anyone liked the Beatles. The musicians and disturbians and minglers are all equally important to form a balanced triad of brain-breakery. I think Kibo's Evil Performance Art Group could become the hottest thing since that guy attacked Blue Man Group with a flamethrower. Wait, that hasn't happened... yet. -- K. I also want to open a restaurant where guys in silver firesuits cook your burger with a flamethrower. There would be two other gimmicks, but they'd be secret until you got your bill. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: typing with nine fingers Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:51:23 -0400 Nick Bensema (nickb@eris.io.com) wrote: > > [...] > > I've been seeing doctors like crazy. If there are tiny doctors crawling all over you, you should cut the dosage of whatever you're on, especially because I heard that the tiny imaginary doctors are going to start prosecuting you for not having Braille signs and wheelchair ramps all over your body for universal access by tiny imaginary doctors. > I've been taking acres of time off work and not enjoying any of it. Well, at least you've progressed to using units of area to measure time, which means that soon you'll have the ability to bend this two-dimensional time into a cool Mšbius strip or Klein bottle and then you'll be able to use it to travel into any time, any book, or any song. Then you'll show us all with your god-like powers over time and books and songs. And if anyone laughs at your truncated finger, you can say "I have a whole finger, it's just mostly in the fifty-leventh dimension!" and then to prove it you'd use that finger to poke them in the center of their brain. > I'm skeptical of my doctor's assertion that the lump of numb skin > at the end of my index finger will shrink. That's all I really > want. If I'm going to have a chunk of my finger I can't feel, then > I want it to not stick out and face further risk of getting hurt > without me noticing. I didn't think it was sticking out because of > inflammation, but rather because it healed in the wrong place. Nerves grow slowly. It'll take a while for them to invade your numblump. Of course, by the time you've regained feeling in the entire numblump, the lump may have become so big that it's taken over your entire body, like that guy who had a zit that kept getting bigger and bigger until eventually he was inside it and he was at school when it popped and then he was naked. So if your numblump starts trying to cover your entire body, remember to wear gym shorts underneath for when it explodes. -- K. Have you tried burning it off with lye? That reminds me, I need to go to Home Depot and get a bottle of lye for my bathroom sink. Tyler Durden clogged it up. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: typing with nine fingers Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 16:01:06 -0400 David DeLaney (dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com) wrote: > > Rich Holmes (rsholmes+usenet@mailbox.syr.edu) wrote: > > > > The truth finally emerges: a.r.k is the religion for those who have > > sliced their own fingertips off. > > Take the "off" out and I qualify. Does getting the tip of a pair of pliers embedded in your hand count? And I'm not talking needle-nose. FLAT-NOSE. Really. You use the duck-bill pliers to bend enough stainless steel and the jaws gradually get flatter and flatter until they have razor-sharp edges and then your hand slips and your pliers go right into your other hand. Thankfully that scar's healed away. > > Me: 1988, right forefinger. Using a new mandoline advertised as an > > exemplary vegetable slicer, and I discovered it also worked as a meat > > slicer. Just a little slice of the tip sheared off but a little > > artery was pumping away and wouldn't stop until the ER doctor > > cauterized it. To this day feeling in the tip of that finger > > is a bit wonky. But can you still play the mandolin? Also, shouldn't the punchline be that you reveal that the entree you were preparing was Cauterized Beef Tips? > Some time in the late 1990s. Me: working at Subway. (We've already > gone there, it was yummy, 'kay.) Tomatoes: needing to be prepped, > by slicing. Using: a table-based sideways tomato-slicer. You can't fool me. Subway doesn't buy special sideways tomatoes just for their slicers. They get the same round ones everyone else does. Except maybe in Japan, I think over there Subway has access to the square tomatoes, except they use creamed corn instead. > Things NOT to do: accidentally slide the tip of one finger even > _slightly_ sideways against one of the razor-ish-sharp edges - > pushing directly into them was fine, since they weren't really > razor-sharp, just "ish", but sliding sideways invoked their > magical slicing powers. Your Subway must've had the best SCA guild. > Finding out where the first aid kit was: helpful. Figuring out that > the blood was still soaking through the bandaid & gauze, inside the > clear plastic gloves, during lunch rush where I had to help out on > the assembly line, so that I had a Finger Full Of Blood: PRICELESS You should've pricked a little hole in the end of the glove so you could milk your finger. Because "Finger Blood Milk" would be a great band name once it came true. > These days I can't distinguish which finger it was; it was a slice, > and healed very cleanly. I _think_ it was middle finger right hand ... > but I'm not sure. Maybe it was a toe? Or was this one of the few Subway locations where nobody uses their feet to squish the sandwiches? -- K. I heard that Jared didn't really lose any weight, they just made him stand farther away from the camera. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: typing with nine fingers Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 16:12:14 -0400 [on Nick's finger's numblump] Paula (mmmtoblerone@earthlink.ent) wrote: > > TeaLady (Mari C.) (spressobean@yahoo.com) wrote: > > > > The neosporin might help keep it "soft", being vasoline-like > > goop based. The "lump" will(should) gradually reabsorb and > > flatten, most likely, probably. > > Unless you cheloid scar. Nick, do you know if you cheloid? If you > aren't sure, show us a picture of the lump so we can give you an > expert usenet opinion. But don't expect me to tell the story of the > scar bands that were growing so out of control in my nose that I could > barely breathe. For free, anyway. The classic Sonny Chiba version of "Ogon Batto" ("Golden Bat") features an evil space monster named "Keloid" who is just a regular Japanese guy with keloid scars on one side of his face. I always wonder about his origin story -- "Oh no! The road rash on my face would have healed up nicely, but I kept picking at it, so now I have to be evil!" That was one of the movies Sonny Chiba made during Japan's turtleneck period. He doesn't play the Golden Bat himself, he just plays the heroic scientist who helps Golden Bat fight crime. One wears a white turtleneck sweater, the other can make a tiny rubber bat on a string fly around the room. Together, they can conquer any space people, no matter how bad their skin is. My advice, Nick: If your numblump does turn into a keloid bump, I suggest you just give yourself ones on the other nine fingers so that your hands are not only symmetrical, but textured for securely gripping wet objects. Then you could make a living picking up the eels people drop on the floor at Ming's. (Asians aren't really inscrutable -- they get plenty embarrassed whenever they drop a live eel on the floor in front of you. Only the ones with keloid scars are inscrutable, even if it's just on one side of their face.) -- K. How come Chinese chess has one elephant but no eels? Eels are more fun to throw around. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: pinched nerve Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 16:20:39 -0400 Glenn Knickerbocker (NotR@bestweb.net) wrote: > > I've had a nerve pinched in my elbow for about two and a half weeks > now. For a while it was just my hand tingling and I couldn't tell > whether it was in the wrist, elbow, or shoulder, but then I got a sharp, > stabbing pain in the arm and knew exactly where it was. Last Thursday, > it came mostly loose, but it still kept getting pinched again, though not > quite so hard. My elbow popped as I was stretching and twisting it just > now, and I got a rush of sensation like water running through the inside > of my arm. Yay, your chi is flowing! Some people pay good money for that freaky feeling of the firehose cleaning out the inside of your arms. I'm at a loss as to why stimulating a single point on the nervous system can cause the illusion of directional motion down the length of the arm -- I can understand it might make the whole arm tingle, but why does it feel like it's moving through the arm in one direction? > Now I've got that same vague but nonstop tingling as when it > came loose the first time. Here's hoping that nerve is finally > unpinched for good! > > It would be interesting to see whether Nick felt phantom tingling > sensations in the disconnected bit of fingertip in a case like this. Yawn. Try going back in time and having chicken pox thirty years ago and then wait for the nerve damage to kick in over a couple square feet of skin. I was so happy last year when I finally decided those particular nerves had finished dying. That weren't no tingling, more like being stabbed with dozens of electrified daggers over and over and over and over. I win! -- K. If you were a pair of Siamese twins joined at the fingertips, which way would the chi in your arms flow? How would the midichlorians know which way to go? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 16:27:57 -0400 Wiblur the Once (wiblur@comcast.net) wrote: > > It's been a while since I've posted an update, so here goes: > > About three weeks ago, they took the cathater out of my chest, since the > fistula in my arm has been working all groovy and cool for my dialysis. I > had to sing the Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy song, since I am now 100% itch- > free and they tell me that I am getting better dialysis since the arm > hook-up circulates more boold during the time I'm hooked up. Wouldn't it be more efficient if you had one connector at the top of your head and another in one of your toes so they could just flush your insides out real fast? I'm envisioning something like a giant Super Soaker that hooks up directly to your skull and squirts all your blood out through your big toe and then they replace the Super Soaker with a toilet plunger to pull all your blood back in. Of course it wouldn't really be a "toilet plunger", they'd call it something in Latin to justify the markup of reselling you something from Home Depot. > [...] > > I'm feeling much better than I was back in January, when I started > dialysis, but I'm still pretty tired most of the time. To occupy my time, > I have been suffering from a serious case of Sims 2 addiction, what with > the new business expansion and stuff. I've never played "The Sims". That's the thing that's like Tamagotchi only not portable, right? I think that if I wanted to play a game where I had to keep things alive I'd just buy another packet of pepper seeds. -- K. My apartment faces the wrong direction for plants and other living things. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 20:07:57 -0400 Wiblur the Once (wiblur@comcast.net) wrote: > > My daughter built a big building that served as her house of torture. Her > goal was to lure townies into a room, remove the door and cause their > demise in various ways (each of which creates a different type of ghost). > She wanted to build up a collection of all the different types of ghosts > in one building. > > When she did fire, the fireman came running to put it out, but couldn't > get in, so just ran in circles around the house until the fire died out. Now there's the problem in her master plan. She didn't torture the fireman for failing to figure out how to use his non-sparking bronze crash axe. I sure hope you're talking about "The Sims" and not just stealing my semi-lucid dreams. Wait, did you disguise yourself as Andy Dick just to break into my subconscious? > Of course, none of them were as funny as when my other daughter wiped out > whole a cheerleading squad (She made them look like zombies when she > created them), so the dorm would be haunted by zombie-cheerleader ghosts. > After the Grim Reaper had collected the last soul, he went to the > bathroom, sat on the toilet and sat there looking around for about 10 > minutes (real time). You know, if the pinnacle of your game-playing experience is staring at a guy sitting on a toilet for long periods, it's cheaper just to buy German videotapes over at that store with the purple windows. > I don't kill off sims intentionally, but since the University and > Nightlife expansions introduced zombies and vampires into the game, > I am developing an undead section of town. You're on dialysis _and_ you like vampires? Uh oh. I sense that you have indeed been the one writing all those Anne Rice / David Cronenberg crossover stories. "And then nancy-boy Brad Pitt stuck all the rubber hoses into manly-man James Woods's chest vagina, and then Jude Law demonstrated a new videogame controller you have to play by sucking the blood out of it, and then everyone took turns flogging each other with fluorescent pink catheters..." > Thanks to the folks who created a Harry Potter mod with potions, > spells, etc., I have even opened Auntie Zelphie's House of Hoodoo, > supplying potions and spells to the thriving voodoo community. You must be way out in the back of beyond if people don't have any other places to get their eye of newt and tongue of frog. In the big city, we have Trader Joe's. So then Andy Dick was sitting on a toilet in Trader Joe's while Michael Ironside inserted latex tubing into a hole in his forehead and Trader Joe tried to sell them a bag of rice but it was actually Anne Rice so it turned them into gay vampires and then found Jesus. Meanwhile they found true love by crashing their cars into each other while holding throbbing crash axes and playing "The Sims" on a pulsating Atari 2600. The End. Me, if I had to be hooked up to a dialsys machine for hours at a time, I'd come up with something more clever than an Anne Rice / David Cronenberg crossover. Like, I'd invent a cure for Germany. Those people shouldn't be allowed to have toilets until they can figure out how not to use them on videotape. -- K. As far as finding a compatible kidney donor, have you tried using eHarmony? Their commercials tell me that they scientifically match people using the 29 known dimensions of suckeriness! I think anyone who believes those commercials is probably so gullible that they're going to give their kidneys away eventually, the question is whether you can call dibs on them before the people who make the Trader Joe's meat pies do. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 19:47:00 -0400 Wiblur the Once (wiblur@comcast.net) wrote: > > TomH (address@my.sig) wrote: > > > > Aw, c'mon, ... I bet your boold machine goes "PING!-PING!-PING!" > > and all the lights flash in a chaser sequence when you've reached > > the "clean as a whistle" game level. Also, you get Extra Bonus > > Points for actually being ONE with the machine when you play a > > session of Dialysis Dungeons & Dragons. > > There are all kinds of wacky pings, swooping sounds. most of them are > translated into: "Hey, you slacker, you moved in a way your overseer > machine didn't appreciate, so you'd better be absolutely still or I will > ping some more and the tech will come over to tell you to not even dare > move your arm for the next several hours, or else. And let me guess. The doctor keeps chewing you out for not getting enough exercise? > Even then, however, it's better than when they were using the cathater in > my chest. I couldn't move, breath to hard, cough or sneeze without > setting off a symphony of bells and whistles. "No, doc, although I had the chili today, it was the machine making all those horrible farting noises while you were lecturing me about exercise." > > What does it do at the "All Done" game stage? > > It's an anticlimatic constant bing, bing, bing, that's about half the > volumn of the pings you don't want to hear. That's not "All Done". "All Done" is when pretty boy Tom Cruise climbs into bed with you wearing a frilly shirt and long Fabio hair and two gummed loose-leaf reinforcements stuck to his corneas and bites your neck and sucks all your blood out in a slightly gayer way than ordinary vampires. I liked how that Web site you mentioned (the one with the picture) advised always going to the dialysis room with a pair of clamps and a pocketknife so that if the building caught fire you could put both clamps on the tube and then cut it so you could skedaddle without making a mess while the building burned down. In my opinion, everyone undergoing medical treatment should have a concealed knife just to even the odds if the doctor decides he might as well mug you while he's holding his scalpel. Also, I will bet you a dollar that somewhere there's a whole Web site devoted to stories that begin "I thought it was a mistake when I accidentally stuck my penis into the dialysis machine, but ever since..." eBay currently has a listing for a matched set of eight Baxter "PAC-Xtra" dialysis machines (no bids yet, you could pick them up for $400 for 8) but they were made back in 1996 -- when the bozos who make these things still hadn't thought about making their medical machines Y2K-compliant -- so the auction photo shows a machine welcoming you to your "MAY 23, 1906" appointment. You should pick 'em up because just think of how much quicker you could get your blood washed if you used all eight at the same time. -- K. I dare you to post an .mp3 of your dialysis machine's wacky noises so we can all enjoy. Bonus points if it also makes wet slurping sounds so David Cronenberg will want to be your friend. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 23:29:14 -0400 Wiblur the Once (wiblur@comcast.net) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > Wouldn't it be more efficient if you had one connector at the top > > of your head and another in one of your toes so they could just > > flush your insides out real fast? I'm envisioning something > > like a giant Super Soaker that hooks up directly to your skull [...] > > Close, but yours is more full of wacky fun. > > http://www.pipeline.com/~gil1/esrd/2008h.jpg Hmm. It seems to come with a four-bagger IV stand. So do you get a separate bag of Liquid Lunch for each of your arms and legs while your dialysis port is hooked up to the machine? If not, you could probably save a couple of bucks by getting the version of the machine that comes with a two-bagger IV stand. I've always wondered why you can't just hang two bags on the same hook. I suppose that's the sort of thing that medical-supply catalogs would hate because they always have to have the expensive, the more expensive, and the most expensive options for every item -- so you can get IV stands with two or four arms, and then you can get the four-armed ones with the good wheels or the shopping-cart wheels, etc. Do they also have good-better-best versions of dialysis machines? Is there any difference between a really crummy dialysis machine and a really, really, really good Play-Doh McFlurry maker? Please post pictures of Seven Of Nine connected to a McFlurry machine via latex (not Hypalon) tubing while flooring the machine's gas pedal. Thank you very much. -- K. I dare you to ask your doctor whether a Foley catheter is better or worse than the McKinney, Thomson, MacDonald, or McCullogh catheters. If he looks baffled, yell "EEEEEEEVIL!" and then demand a prescription for Gleemonex. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 15:46:12 -0400 TeaLady (Mari C.) (spressobean@yahoo.com) wrote: > > My mate stayed in cheap hospitals - they'd hang 3 bags on one > IV bag arm. Once, they had a 4th one on the same hook, > attached with what looked like a shoe lace, which dangled a > bit lower than the other 3. I SO wanted to take a pic of that > - it looked like a wacky clear-plastic-3-balled dildo with > major design issues. The nurses could not understand the > hilarity it caused me, but did scrounge up a 2nd stand so they > could quell the disturbance I was apparantly causing with my > mirth. Well, you know what they say: Laughter is the best medicine. That's why NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO LAUGH IN A HOSPITAL, because only doctors are allowed to give out medicine. > I think the other patients were concerned that someone had > removed my mates privates rather than just scraping goo out from > inside his femur. Shouting something along the lines of "3 > balls and a deflated dick" semi-coherently (I was laughing way > too hard for my own good, and also seething a bit, as the whole > trussed-up IV bag thing was just wrong) and tripping over a > chair whilst backing up to get a different view of the > monstrosity may have led some poor drug-addled pain-filled post- > op patients to think they were next. That's another great idea for a piece of performance art: Several of us all shave our foreheads and draw stitches on them and then invade various hospital rooms to liven things up for the bored patients by yelling "YAY GOOD NEWS THEY GIVE YOU ICE CREAM AFTER THE SURPRISE LOBOTOMY!" As you point out, all hospital hilarity has the same punchline: "YOU'RE NEXT!" This article contains too many capital letters. But if they didn't want us to shout, why does the sign say "QUIET -- HOSPITAL ZONE" and not "quiet -- hospital zone"? -- K. Another performance art idea: Something like "Stomp", but called "Loud". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Latest news concerning Wiblur's borken kidneys Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 20:15:35 -0400 TeaLady (Mari C.) (spressobean@yahoo.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > > > Another > > performance art > > idea: > > Something like > > "Stomp", but > > called "Loud". > > > > > > Ohh, look how prettily my newsreader mangled your sig thingie. Mangled things are inherently pretty, but that sentence isn't mangled. It just a good idea that happened to get rearranged like a chimp attempting to translate "Hamlet" into Yerkish. So take that chimp out from inside your computer before the chimp breaks something even more important than my brilliant idea. > What was I going to say ? An oooooh shiney moment here. > > Ahhh - Stomp -vs- Loud = antimime squad So half of us dress up as mimes and do mime while miming mimily, and the other half of us stand next to them banging on pots and pans while screaming "I HATE MIMES! I HATE MIMES!" and the audiences' heads will explode because they'll hate mimes too but the I-HATE-MIMES people will be far more unlikeable than the mimes so they won't know which side to root for and then we can make a fortune selling them all betting tips as to whether the mimes or anti-mimes will win. Seriously, I need as many volunteers in the Boston area as possible. If I can get a posse together, I'm going to make performance art come tragically true. And I promise I'll never run out of ideas for new ways we could bother people who need to be bothered. -- K. Thousands of tourists are going unbothered! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: pooooooooooop in the nooooooooooz Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 22:32:09 -0400 This is two months old, but someone on MetaFilter just brought it up, and I thought it seemed like something I should make everyone on a.r.k think about. Behold! [www.washingtonpost.com] -> -> Important Medical News . . . -> . . . delivered in a serious and straightforward fashion -> -> By Gene Weingarten -> -> Sunday, March 28, 2004; Page W13 -> -> I am right now on the phone, on hold, waiting to talk to Dr. -> Johannes Aas, a prominent gastroenterologist from Duluth, Minn. -> [...] -> -> Dr. Aas is a busy man, and this is taking a while, so I'll use -> the time to warn you that if you are currently having breakfast, -> or contemplating having breakfast, or ever plan on eating again, -> you might wish to skip over the remainder of this column. Yay! It's one of those newspaper columns that will save us the trouble of ever having to eat again! -> Ah, here we go. -> -> Dr. Aas: Hello? -> -> [...] -> -> Me: Could you explain for my readers what this new treatment -> consists of? -> -> Dr. Aas: You mean why we have chosen this method? -> -> Me: Sure. However you like. -> -> Dr. Aas: Stool is an organ. -> -> Me: Excuse me? -> -> Dr. Aas: It is normally considered waste product, but it is in a -> way an independent organ, like the kidney, and it contains -> thousands of different bacteria living in symbiosis. These -> bacteria are needed for normal health. When you use some -> antibiotics, some of this bacteria population gets destroyed. If -> you later get infected with Clostridium difficile colitis, there -> is this competitive battlefield in the colon, and without the -> necessary bacteria, Clostridium has the upper hand. So what we do -> is take normal stool from a normal person, make an extract of it, -> put it in a blender with water, take two tablespoons of that -> cocktail, and introduce it into the patient's body. And how is this different from just ordering a Dr Pepper at Taco Bell? Oh, right, he said they only mix in liquishit from a _normal_ person. Still, there are probably lots of other places you could get two tablespoons of doody in your diet. Did you know only three of the layers of Trader Joe's seven-layer bean dip have names? -> Me: It is, in effect, a human poop transplant? -> -> Dr. Aas: Yes. To replace the normal colonic flora. -> -> Me: That's a nice word! -> -> Dr. Aas: Okay. Is this where Hawkeye Pierce recites the maudlin story about how the original inventor of the poop transplant died from lack of poop because they wouldn't give him a poop transplant because he was black and then Frank Burns points out that even Wikipedia knows Hawkeye is just making up shit? Stupid Hawkeye! (Being put in your place by Wikipedia is only slightly less painful than being zinged by The Anarchist's Cookbook.) -> Me: And how is this transplant done? -> -> Dr. Aas: Through a tube down into the patient's stomach. A -> naso-gastric tube. -> -> Me: It goes in through the nose? -> -> Dr. Aas: Or the mouth, yes. -> -> Me: Okay! -> -> Dr. Aas: Yes. But what if the patient was born without a nose or mouth? Do they have to put the poop in through their ear or through their belly button? -> Me: Can't it go in the other end? -> -> Dr. Aas: There is a doctor in Australia who does it that way, but -> sometimes the small intestine is infected, too, so it is more -> effective this way. Wouldn't it be even more effective if you put it in both ends at the same time? You know, like if you drink a Dr Pepper from Taco Bell while jumping into the ball pit? -> Me: In this particular organ transplant, who are the donors? -> -> Dr. Aas: Most of the time, a loved one. -> -> Me: I can imagine. -> -> Dr. Aas: Yes. "At Taco Bell, our Dr Pepper is made with 53% more love than regular, sanitized Dr Pepper." -> Me: And this works as a cure because the microbes remain in the -> colon? -> -> Dr. Aas: Yes. -> -> Me: It is the gift that keeps on giving! You see, Howard Hughes wasn't so crazy after all. He saved up all his bodily wastes just because he knew that if he lived to be 101 they might need to put some of them back in. -> Dr. Aas: We've been doing it for 10 years without a single -> failure. -> -> Me: Doctor, on behalf of my readers, I need to ask you, am I -> making you up? -> -> Dr. Aas: No. -> -> Me: You exist, and I am talking to you? -> -> Dr. Aas: Yes. But that's precisely what we'd expect him to say if he was made-up! Hmm. I suppose it's too much to ask that a complete proof of the existence of objective reality be included in an article about doody-swapping. -> Me: How do you pronounce your name? -> -> Dr. Aas: Oze. I am Danish. ...like the pastries with the swirl of brown goo! -> Me: Okay. You understand why I am calling you, right? -> -> Dr. Aas: Oh yes. You wouldn't believe the [flora] I have taken -> from colleagues since publishing that paper. -> -> Me: Yes, I would. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time -> to speak to me today. As far as I am concerned, if this column -> saves just one life, if it eases the burden of one victim, then -> my work here will have been vindicated. -> -> Dr. Aas: Good! Never mind that. Where can I go to donate? -- K. How do you know whether a bacterium is a flora or a fauna? That's the sort of question that might make a Linnean nomenclaturist's bowels explode. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: What do you do when the person you're in love with doesn't know you exist (and is a celeb on the net)? Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 23:39:15 -0400 Talysman the Ur-Beatle (talysman@gmail.com) wrote: > > John D Salt (jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk) wrote: > > > > Hyper Bell (sibel_ayper@hotmail.com) wrote: > > > > > > I usually spend my time checking my mail and visiting Kibo's webpage, > > > so I'm kinda the geeky kind of girl. But even geeks fall in love. My > > > prince charming is one of the funniest guys alive. But he doesn't > > > know who I am. > > > > An "a celeb on the net"? > > I didn't even know we were categorizing them as A celebs and B celebs. > But I suppose it was eventually inevitable. > > Unless the space between "a" and "celeb" is a mistake, and we're really > talking about acelebrities, people who are the opposite of famous. You > know, like that one guy. And that guy is pretty hot, if you ask me. I dated him for a while, but then he got a blog, and as a result I had to dump him because having a blog automatically made him world-famous among the six people who read the Internet. > > That can't be right, there ain't no funny net.dieties, 'cept for Leader > > Kibo. [...] > > > > Well, OK, I s'pose Bertrand Meyer is pretty amusing sometimes. > > I thought you were talking about Bertrand Russell for a moment, and > tried to imagine what a funny Bertrand Russell would be like. Would he > tell jokes in semaphore about nuclear disarmament? Or would he just do > devastatingly blasphemous stand-up comedy? I dunno about you, but I can't even get through the first volume of "Principia Mathematica" without getting the giggles. I mean, zero is not the successor of any "natural" number! Those sex jokes about number theory break me up. I usually laugh out loud way before I get to the orgy at infinity. -- K. Funny scientists named Russell: Bertrand. Helena. Hertzsprung. Nipsey. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Allston, Mass... Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 15:59:16 -0400 Sean (linwood17@hotmail.com) wrote: > > Karlo X (ktakki@gmail.com) wrote: > > > > Cozette Carroll, a local filmmaker just released a short > > feature about Allson, Mass: > > > > http://www.turnhere.com/player/index.cfm?name=allston > > > > I'm interviewed in this film and contributed about > > 80% of the soundtrack > > > > Plus, it features Mr. Butch, the mayor of Allston > > (formerly of Kenmore Square, before the yuppies took > > over that shit). > > Wow, Karlo, this is great. Certainly brought back memories of when I > lived in LA (Lower Allston -- the part separated by the Mass Pike) > 20-some years ago on first moving to Boston as a student BeeYuu. > > I haven't been down Harvard Avenue in ages, but during one of my visits > I did mark the unlamented passing of the Allston branch of Father's > Place, a chain of about three or so pubs in the Boston area, all of > which seemed to be in competition with one another for featuring the > absolute foulest men's room. > There also was, at the corner of Harvard and Brighton, a Riley's Roast > Beef which had an alleyway that served as a gathering place for a small > group of street people who would interact (in mostly benign fashion) > with passersby, mostly looking to get some spare change. That Riley's is long gone. Although I never wanted to eat there, I always loved their neon sign, 'cause every time the bus went by it at night I'd see this glowing green Defender lander zipping past and I'd start screaming "OH NO! SAVE THE HUMANOIDS!" but nobody ever got it which is why I never did it aloud. Also nobody ever appreciated that I liked the sign around the corner that said "FERN CLEANERS" because nobody else thinks like Steve Allen. > They were definitely enterprising: One guy sold used phone books > two or three years old for 25 cents apiece; my favorite, though, > was a gentleman who set up a sign next to his collection box > saying "Help send a wino to Harvard." The invention of "Spare Change News" has destroyed the used-phonebook industry. Plus I think the phone book has timelier news. "Spare Change" is like "Grit" without all the hard-hitting investigative journalism. > And yes, Mr. Butch was a habitue of that area, so I was pleased and a > little amazed to see him in the film, as I thought he had died several > years ago. Nice to see he's taken up pennywhistle; I remember him on the > corner of Harvard and Commonwealth serenading the oncoming traffic with > an unplugged electric guitar -- that is, when he wasn't trying to hold > conversations with the passing cars. > But if part of being a mayor is sheer visibility and ubiquity, Mr. Butch > definitely met the standard. He really did seem to be everywhere. [...] You know what's amazing? In all my time living in this area, I've never encountered Mr. Butch. I think he's deliberately avoiding me. > I could also wax nostalgic about The Kinvara Pub, further north toward > Cambridge Street, which had excellent Irish music performers (as well as > the crappy, Wild-Rover-No-More variety) like Touchstone and The Poodles > as well as great sessions. Meh. For my money, the best thing in that part of town is the holy Bacon Chambers. What are you, one of those weirdos who eats meat but still doesn't accept bacon as the greatest meat in human history? -- K. Aliens have things beyond simple Earth bacon. Like, on Rigel-7, they have a bacon-like thing that also functions as a videogame, so you can shoot those pesky humanoids while eating it. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: 303 or 600 centillion years Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 16:04:59 -0400 In alt.religion.kibology, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > Is it true by going at 300 centillion years or 600 centillion years? > > What is the course is going to years ahead? > > A. 303 Centillion Years > B. 600 Centillion Years > C. 999 Centillion Years D. 1 Kibillion Years. Note that a simple linear measurement isn't sufficient to quantize the evolution of the space-time continuum around here, because our manifold has three space dimensions, one time dimension, and a Special dimension. The Special dimension is where it's impossible to prove that the Muppets aren't real, due to the laws of logic being cancelled out due to all the atoms in that dimension having little smiley faces. Sometimes they won't shut up and you have to yell "Shoo, atoms! Away with you!" and hit them with a broom, though this can be a problem because in the Special dimension brooms cost a kibillion dollars because they don't have brooms in the Special dimension, you bozo. -- K. So what do I win for having answered your question correctly? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: 303 or 600 centillion years Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 16:38:51 -0400 In alt.religion.kibology, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > The 303 Centillion years are over and so the 600 Centillion years. And later, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > The 303 Centillion years are over and so the 600 Centillion years. Still later, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > The 303 Centillion years are over and so the 600 Centillion years. Okay, so you've proved your theory that you've learned how to work the "cut" and "paste" doohickeys on your computer thingie. Either that or you're just a really good typist and very boring. Prepare your mind to experience a new scale of boringness: I hereby sentence you to watch 600 centillion years of "American Idol" reruns. Your move. -- K. And don't try to make me watch TV, because I'm TV-proof. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: 303 or 600 centillion years Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 15:01:43 -0400 In alt.religion.kibology, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > Muliple-Choice Question: > > What is the full years ahead? > > A. 303 Centillion Years. > B. 600 Centillion Years. > C. 999 Centillion Years. 18.16 hours. But the dot's actually a comma, just without a tail, and the sixteen is actually an eleven that ate a whole bowl of raw cinnamon bread dough and its stomach swelled up so it looks pregnant but we know it can't actually be pregnant because it's against the law for an 11 to get pregnant. The minimum age of consent for numbers to have sex is 600 centillion years. You're welcome. and in alt.religion.kibology, jonwiley85@yahoo.com wrote: > > Is it true by going at 303 centillion years or 600 centillion years? What do you mean by "it"? And what do you mean by "years"? Earth years or weird years? Augh, you are making me think too hard! Now I'm going to have a stroke before even my first centillionth birthday! and in alt.religion.kibology, jonwiley85@yahoo.com also wrote: > > The 303 Centllion Years or 600 Centillion Years was a near far away? > > True ir False I really don't like this new version of "Star Wars". Why did George Lucas have to add a pop quiz at the end? Mr. Wiley (or is it Dr. Wiley?), I have a serious question for you. What form of logic did you use to determine that alt.religion.kibology is a newsgroup for the serious discussion of cosmological theories? I am highly interested in knowing this as part of my plan to conquer the world. Please answer in the form of an essay -- typewritten, not handwritten -- by the end of this period, unless this period is actually a comma, in which case, please answer in the form of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon based on the "Koroshiya Ichi" manga with Frank Welker as Kakihara and Tom Kenny as Ichi. Your Nobel Prize awaits! (Allow 3 to 6 centillion weeks for delivery.) -- K. So what happens in 9999999999 googleplex years? Is that when Martin Landau finally discovers what happened to Barry Morse? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.engineering.electrical,sci.physics,alt.astronomy,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Correct way to write 24 hour-time? Decimalpoint too. Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 14:30:10 -0400 In alt.engineering.electrical, sci.physics, and alt.astronomy, Alex Coleman (no@no-email.com) wrote: > > (1) I see several worthy attempts to write the time in a 24-hour > format. Does a definitive format exist? Yes. RFC 2822. You're soaking in it now! RFC 2822 is like RFC 822, except it keeps working after AD 99. > I want to leave out the seconds. Also note that I am NOT referring > to computer conventions of any sort. Oh. Well, I suppose you could make two semaphore flags and hold them at various angles to indicate which way the big hand and little hand go. > QUESTION: If it is 11 minutes past six in the evening then what is > the correct format? > > 1816 hrs > 18:16 hrs > 18:16 hours > 18:16 h > 18:16 > 18.16 > 18-16 > > Does it vary between being written by a word processor and by hand? > See below. Hey, have you met our friend "Mr. 999 Centillion"? Maybe you and he could refer to a computer convention together. Or perhaps a "Star Trek" convention. By the way, "16" is not a very good way to write "11", unless you're using base 5, in which case you're going to go to jail for trying to use the digit "6" which doesn't even exist in base 5. Stop trying to confuse the issue with imaginary digits! > (2) What is the correct way to write a decimal point? By using the sharp end of the pencil, not the rubber end. Remember, if it's a "6H" pencil, the "H" stands for "Hard", so you might want to start with an "Easy" pencil. Less chance of poking your eye out. > I am English and that means that a comma is not the correct symbol > for the decomal point. Of course, 'cause England doesn't use decimals any more. They use Metric. So a comma is no longer called a "point" but a dot is now called a "comma" which is why in England "dot com" is pronounced "comma dotta". That's also in one of the RFCs, probably the one down the street from me that used to be a Popeye's. > But ISTR that when the decimal point was written by hand it was in > the air about half the height of the digits. Now that's an impressive trick. How did they keep it from blowing away? Also, how much does it reduce your postage if you write a whole letter using that special ink that hovers in the air? Are you Harry Potter? > Typewriters and word prorcessors did not offer that half-way > character so a full stop was used. But is it more correct to > handwrite the decimal point as half way up the height of the digits? Halfway up the one to the left, or halfway up the one to the right? This is important because you might have multiple sizes of digits if you want your gasoline's price to end in "point nine point nine point nine". -- K. So do you have any exciting math theories based on the research of Jack Bauer? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Why I like Japan, even if it's a crazy country. Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 04:26:53 -0400 Japan is the only country that understands that Spider-Man is cool only if he has a two-way wrist TV and a weird-looking sports car and a giant spaceship which has machine guns and can transform into a giant robot which has a glowing sword that leaves trails in the air and can fight giant space landsharks that fire torpedoes from their mouths. Seriously, how come Americans never figured out that Spider-Man should crush his enemies with a giant robot? I don't think American Spider-Man even has a bicycle, let alone a crushy robot! Japan got Spider-Man right back in the 1970s, so why do the Americans still bother trying to make movies where he doesn't even fire machine guns? -- K. India's Spider-Man, on the other hand, answers the question of whether it's cool to wear a loincloth over a spandex unitard. It ain't. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Why I like Japan, even if it's a crazy country. Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 16:57:53 -0400 [concerning a Japanese TV clip] Kevin Buhr (buhr+un@asaurus.net) wrote: > > Dr. HotSalt (mfergerson1@cox.net) wrote: > > > > http://astro.sfasu.edu/movies/RubeGoldberg.mpg > > > > BTW, what the HELL are they advertising? > > The Japanese text that keeps showing up in the movie is the name of a > (possibly educational) kids' show called Pythagoras Switch (AKA > Pitagora Switch) produced by NHK. I always knew the Japanese had > cornered the market on humiliating game shoes, but apparently they > also have way cooler children's programming. Every country has cooler kids' shows than the Americans, British, and Canadians do. Don't you think the intelligence and weirdness and specialness of American children would shoot up off the charts if we had a TV channel that showed only German, Swedish, Italian, Korean, and Turkish children's shows? But instead we get "Sesame Street", which has gone from being a hip, counter-cultural, dangerously clever show in the '60s to now being the squarest, lamest thing you can make with the same puppets. American kids' TV is as safe as a Nerf ball, and almost as educational. > See, maybe: > > http://www.nhk.or.jp/youho/pitagora.html > > for a screenshot (with puppets!!) and Japanese blurb (without > puppets!!). Wrong! Kana are ideographic, so every word is a living, breathing puppet. Well, except the words for minerals. And the words for anything invented later than the sword, because those are always transliterations of English words. But all the words for people and critters are little squiggle people who are ready to jump off the page and dance for you if you just cut back a little on the wonder why and give proper Japanese insanity a try. In Japan, puppets are everywhere, even when you can't see them! > Here's a paraphrased translation of the text courtesy of > my very limited Japanese ability that will surely be corrected by > ARK's enormous native Japanese readership. It starts strong, but > quickly underwhelms: > > There are hidden rules that govern the strange and wonderful things > we see around us in our everyday lives. Take taiyaki(*), for > example. Why do they always end up in the same shape? Strange, > isn't it? The hidden rule is that "there's a mold". Official > seals and art prints, all kinds of printed matter, various > industrial products... All of these use "molds", and if you know > about "molds", you'll be able to understand how all these things > are made. > > This program will get children who think about these sorts of > things to say "I see!" Watching the program will flip on the > "switch" in their heads, and develop and foster their > inquisitiveness. See, Japanese kids' shows are all about developing inquisitiveness, while American shows are all about behaving and being quiet, because the Japanese culture places great value on -- wait, something's wrong with this sentence. And I can't figure it out because I watched too much American TV! Waah, my brain is ruined! > The Japanese dictionary "edict" defines "taiyaki" as "fish-shaped > pancake filled with bean jam", so the show's entire philosophical > underpinning consists of a flatulent, fish-shaped cookie: > > http://images.google.ca/images?q=taiyaki > > Yum! I've had a lot of those. They're fun. There are also a lot of frozen versions filled with ice cream. Basically, think of a styrofoam-flavored fish with Good Humor goop inside that comes squirting out the sides of the fish when you bite its face. As to why those are shaped like fish, I think it's just because all Japanese food has to be mostly fish, and they couldn't think of any other way to combine fish with ice cream without ruining the ice cream. Japanese people think ice cream that's not shaped like fish is as gross as ice cream that tastes like fish, if not more so. ICE CREAM MUST BE SHAPED LIKE FISH because THERE IS A MOLD. You have now learned how the world works. Now let's watch Spider-Man flying his giant robot and strangling people with rope! "SUPAIDA-STRINGU!" -- K. The Japanese "Spider-Man" show is the world's biggest dose of awesomely crapwacky. Japan has always understood that "crazy" and "cool" and "cheap" can all be the same thing. Their 1978 "Spider-Man" kicks the ass of even the original "Sesame Street". By the way, they're going to bring out a box set of actual old "Sesame Street" episodes if you young whippersnappers want to find out why us old-timers ever considered that show sassy and psychedelic. When it comes out in October, you better believe I'll be telling you about it again. And it better have all 12 versions of the pinball segment! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Why I like Japan, even if it's a crazy country. Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 22:07:05 -0400 David DeLaney (dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com) wrote: > > James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) wrote: > > > > But all the words [in Japanese] for > > people and critters are little squiggle people who are ready to > > jump off the page and dance for you if you just cut back a little > > on the wonder why and give proper Japanese insanity a try. > > In Japan, puppets are everywhere, even when you can't see them! > > So when you memorize them (that tried to type itself as 'mamorize', then > 'momorize') you get a lobe full of puppet symbols? Most books on elementary Japanese or Chinese introduce the characters by showing you that "person" is a little stick figure whose head and arms have been cut off, and "big" is a stick figure saying he loves you thiiiiis much, and then when you watch enough yakuza or triad movies you figure out that putting "big" next to "man" gives you "boss". I've picked up about 50 ideographs so far from DVD boxes and movie subtitles -- I'm told about 900 of them make up 90% of written Chinese, I'm not sure how the distribution breaks down in Japanese. Of course, Asians keep trying to throw you curve balls by confusing you at every opportunity, like how in Chinese chess an elephant is the same as a minister except one's red and the other's black and they're both really bishops except they can't go anywhere or do anything because unlike real chess where the each bishop is limited to 50% of the squares, Chinese bishops are limited to fewer than 8% of the squares because they may or may not be elephants and everyone knows you can't fit an elephant on a chessboard. In Japanese it gets even harder because you can flip them over to turn them into horses and if you can capture one later you can throw it at your opponent. So trying to learn ideographs from Japanese and Chinese chess is at least as hard as learning them from movie subtitles, especially if you're watching "Hero" (the Chinese movie, not the Japanese movie of the same title) where they're playing go and the subtitle says "chess" because you have to say "elephant chess" if you want to refer to the one that has bishops which are really ministers which are really elephants which can't be promoted to horses which aren't knights. Learning the strategy of go is so much easier than learning the names of all the chess pieces. > > > [...] > > > > > > so the show's entire philosophical > > > underpinning consists of a flatulent, fish-shaped cookie: > > > > I've had a lot of those. They're fun. > > Our faith in Kibo is vindicated again! Hey, if it's Japanese or Chinese and purports to be candy or pastry, I've had it. It's too bad that the wonderful Japanese bakery I go to (Japonaise Bakery, the one that has the most incredible curry doughnuts) doesn't have the fishless fish cakes. I should ask them why they don't have the fish cakes that watch you eat them. I understand you can flip one of them over to turn it into a president who's also a nematode, but only if it's dark on Tuesday. > He Who Tastes That Which We Need To Taste But Know Not So Now We Need Not > Taste It triumphs again! > > ...what does the truck sound like that dispenses these, by the way? And > what language is the music written in? WHAT SORT OF FONTS DOES JAPANESE > MUSIC USE, anyway? Please don't get me started on how sick I am of trying to read "jun" fonts at small sizes. Someone should teach Japan and China that just because printing is tiny doesn't mean it should also look like it was written with a ballpoint pen that makes nothing but hairlines. Chinese and Japanese should have thicks and thins, or at least all thicks, when written small. But I keep seeing this stuff that's essentially invisible. > [...] > > (I had not realized that Amazon.com also did used-item business, or that some > of their items were "from $0.01"...) Yes, they do, but "used" means "some guy in Singapore opened it and made 58,000 copies of it after taking out all the copyright notices and here you buy now!" A lot of the DVDs people sell "used" on Amazon are simply bootlegs. That's how I got my famous "'Superbabies' has no redeeming qualities!" bootleg. You know, "100% GENUINE BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED BUT CONTAINS NO ARTWORK". I also got my bootleg "WarioWare, Inc." GameBoy cartridge from an Amazon "used" purchase. I wouldn't have known it was a bootleg if someone hadn't pointed out to me that the label was the wrong color (green instead of rainbow) since it's a good fake, down to the weird tri-wing screw holding it closed. Since I'm aware that some of the stuff I've bought "used" is bootleg, I'll wager that a sizable fraction of my other "used" purchases are bootlegs that can't be distinguished from the real thing. It's only possible to tell that something is bootleg, it's never possible to tell that something isn't bootleg. I get used books from Amazon all the time, but for DVDs and games I usually get 'em elsewhere, because there are cheaper ways to get bootlegs (hint: above I mentioned that I've been learning a little Chinese from the backs of DVD boxes.) -- K. Don't ask where I got the Chinese chess set, or why. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Why I like Japan, even if it's a crazy country. Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 17:13:00 -0400 [concerning a Japanese TV clip] Dr. HotSalt (mfergerson1@cox.net) wrote: > > http://astro.sfasu.edu/movies/RubeGoldberg.mpg > > BTW, what the HELL are they advertising? Now that I've seen some of that footage, I gotta say: Did it give anyone else flashbacks to that early "Sesame Street" segment where the little red rubber ball went through the rollercoaster and then at the end went into a meat grinder and got destroyed? That's always been one of my favorite "Sesame Street" segments, even though I have no idea what it taught me other than that no matter what happens in life, it always ends with your balls getting shredded. We need to send Len Cella to Japan in trade for them sending us people who make the sort of video in that clip, just because America needs more people like that who understand that the most educational TV shows are ones that are entertaining because they have no actual educational value. I think every child should be exposed to at least eight hours a day of tiny things rolling around while wacky music plays. Stuff like this teaches kids that their toys would be more fun to play with if they didn't follow the directions. First we had action figures where kids were expected to replicate scenes from TV shows exactly. Now we have action figures with little computer chips in them that yell out orders to tell the kids how to play with them. I say that compared to that, watching any TV show that has marbles knocking things over is a million times more constructive. Let's ban kids from watching anything with characters or a plot until they learn that the point of life is that you should ignore any rules. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to indent the next part because that's how I always do it. -- K. And now I'm going to go to the toy store and knock all the dominoes over without even taking them out of their boxes. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: This Death Ray calls for HYPER! SPEED! Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 16:30:43 -0400 Talysman the Ur-Beatle (talysman@gmail.com) wrote: > > It's time for me to give up my power bands, for I have misused them, > > Schwa pointed out in his LJ that Alex Toth is now dead: [...] > > ... and I'm the one who death-rayed him. > > Since that post also mentions the game I'm designing that uses the > smiley dice Kibo gave me, I suppose you could say it's ALL KIBO'S > FAULT!! Well, it'll be okay, as long as we all commemorate Alex Toth's memory by wearing big helmets and big gloves and big boots while threatening to destroy the world. I've been preparing for this day for years! Poor Alex Toth suffered the worst indignity that could befall someone with such wonderful artistic skills: He was forced to draw stuff for crappier and crappier products to make a living. First they had him working on Synchro-Vox cartoons (you know, the still pictures with the hole in the middle for the human lips) and then he had to design characters that even Hanna-Barbera's animators could reproduce (meaning 99% of his customary detail had to be omitted) and then eventually he saw them cutting up those old cartoons to make a wacky talk show because they were so minimally-animated that it made it easy to repurpose them. Alex Toth had a beautiful style whenever he was drawing actual comic books (but so few people ever see those compared to the TV shows), and he also did a great job designing those simplified characters for Hanna-Barbera as well a Milt-Caniff-like style for the Synchro-Vox people, but he basically wound up known mainly for having his name in the credits of a parody of talk shows. I guess in the world of comic books if you're not working on Superman or Spider-Man you don't become well-known (Toth got to draw Green Lantern, Zorro, and a lot of other characters, including some original ones.) [from an interview with Darrell Bowen on www.tntie.com:] -> -> DB: Let's talk about Space Ghost. It is what a lot of people -> remember you for, but it wasn't your favorite character. -> -> AT: No it wasn't. And I don't know what all the shouting's about. -> I always thought it was mediocre. Even when he was working in a simplified style to do character model sheets for all those Hanna-Barbera characters, you can tell that he could really draw well, while the people animating from his model sheets couldn't. One wonders how horrible stuff like "Space Ghost" would have been if Hanna-Barbera hadn't had him around to keep complaining about their lameness. I think he wound up giving all their characters masks and big gloves and big boots because that would give them more expressiveness when drawn by people who couldn't do muscles or faces right -- basically, he knew they'd turn into stick figures with big blocky hands and feet. In his model sheets the characters are streamlined and incredibly powerful, but the animators drew 'em blocky and awkward. At least once or twice he got to draw Space Ghost with a nice quality of line (for the covers of some video releases, etc.) but if you really want to see how good he was, look for some of his comic books, or even the drawings he did for the Syncho-Vox cartoons (I like the sci-fi ones known variously as "Space Angel" and "Scott McCloud: Adventures In Space".) There have been a few coffee-table books devoted to his art (the first one from Auad Publishing -- black cover -- is great, I haven't seen the second one:) http://www.auadpublishing.com/ A gallery of some of Toth's drawings can be found at: http://tothfans.dynu.com/gallery.asp There are a lot of interesting subtexts in his work -- there's always a hard-drinkin', hard-fightin', manly man's manly man who is ruggedly manly and Scottish and drunk and manly. His drawings radiated testosterone, booze, cigars, and Scottishness. One gets the feeling he may have been somewhat bitter, and he seemed to work through those feelings by using them in his comics. I envision him sitting at his drawing board with a pen in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other singing "Stout-Hearted Men". Most people who draw action comics don't celebrate testosterone the way Toth did -- this maximal level of energy was one of the things that made his work great. Lots of real emotional intensity. Too many comic artists don't get that a drawing should project more emotion than a photo, just because it can. And Alex Toth could draw anything and give it that much energy. -- K. "Cursed be the fool who destroys wonder!" -- Alex Toth ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Rattle. Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 18:32:59 -0400 John Winston (johnfw@mlode.com) wrote: > > Subject: How To Get Out Of The Cult. May 29, 2006. > > Here is some information that you might not want to read > if you think things on this Earth are just fine. [...] John, have you considered a career in the greeting-card business? I would pay money to buy Hallmark cards that say "Here is some information you might not want to read if you think things on this Earth are just fine." That would be the world's most perfect greeting card because you could write any punchline inside: Outside: "Here is some information you might not want to read if you think things on this Earth are just fine." Inside: "Sorry I gave you lice." Outside: "Here is some information you might not want to read if you think things on this Earth are just fine." Inside: "You need to move into a fireproof house because the firemen have decided they don't like you." Outside: "Here is some information you might not want to read if you think things on this Earth are just fine." Inside: "By opening this card, you agree to donate your organs to science right now." Outside: "Here is some information you might not want to read if you think things on this Earth are just fine." Inside: "'Star Trek' will become real next week. The bad news is you have six days to live." It's the perfect greeting card any time you need to send bad news, no matter what the twist ending is. You could make a billion dollars! Unless bad news stops happening, but let's just hope it never does. -- K. Outside: "Here's some bad news, so you should sit down first." Inside: "The bad news is, it turns out that chairs cause impotence." ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Michael Jackson too weird even for Japan Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 22:27:36 -0400 Tim Chmielewski (webmaster@timchuma.com) wrote: > > How do you say "stay away from me you chimp owning freako!" in Japanese? You haven't seen enough Japanese TV. 90% of the dialogue in any Japanese action show is either: a.) "HUH??????", which is Japanese for "HUH???????" b.) "NANI?????", which is also Japanese for "HUH???????" The differences between the two are subtle, and involve whether the camera is zooming in really fast or zooming out really fast. The Japanese "Spider-Man" show I'm currently watching uses most of the remaining 10% for people shouting "SUPAIDA-MAN!" So, the fact that the show doesn't have English subtitles doesn't bother me because I already know the three words which make up almost all the dialogue, and I've been learning the others (such as "SUPAIDA-STRINGU!") by simply not being stupid. There are two languages known as Japanese: The one with thousands of words as spoken in real movies, and the one with about five words used in superhero shows. If we could restrict Japanese people to only using words that were used on "Spider-Man", I'd know the entire language and would be able to communicate with anyone who can yell into his two-way wrist TV to make his costume jump on him from out of the sky and then zip itself up in extreme close-up. American superhero shows always try (and fail) to hide the costume zippers because they think it ruins the fun to see the zippers. The Japanese Spider-Man flaunts his amazing zipper power. I've seen superhero slash movies (where 90% of the movie is just superheroes getting dressed in their locker room) that don't have such tight close-ups of zippers. Japanese people not only don't pretend Spider-Man has a magic seamless suit, they want to be sure that he has a zipper, and that it's the most magical zipper ever. I guess when you're in a country that still had guys in wicker armor waving around swords in the 20th century, zippers always seem like magic. I heard that soon Japan might discover Velcro. Seriously, the scenes where his costume is thrown at him from the sky are sillier than anything Adam West ever did. Gotta love Japan for knowing that superheroes shouldn't try to pretend they're in anything resembling a real world. -- K. Spider-Man's car is the Spider Machine GP-7, which is exactly like the Mach 5 except two better. Those two are the complete lack of Spridle and Chim-Chim. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: "The Twilight Zone", season 59 Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 22:44:51 -0400 ...and then when he tried the tapioca pudding, it tasted exactly like plain vanilla pudding! DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE Next week: A man tries to walk past a sign that says "It is impossible to walk past this sign unless your head is about to explode!" -- K. Also, EVERYTHING is a cookbook! ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: FYI Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 23:09:53 -0400 "Lots42" (lots42@gmail.com) wrote: > > I hate the entire world and everything in it. Dear Rod Serling, Thank you for submitting your script for season 60 of "The Twilight Zone", to be retitled "The You Suck Zone". However, we feel the following section of the script is too bitter: (FADE IN.) (OPENING TITLES.) FIRST GUY Hey, this vanilla pudding tastes like-- ROD SERLING You suck! (MUSIC STING.) SECOND GUY What happens if I walk past the-- ROD SERLING You suck! (MUSIC STING.) THIRD GUY Hello, my name is Itzhak Ookbook, and I just found this book which I am only now going to open-- (HE OPENS IT AND INSIDE IS A TALKING PICTURE OF ROD SERLING.) ROD SERLING You suck! (CLOSING CREDITS.) (FADE OUT.) Mr. Serling, we suggest you learn to appreciate that the world is a warm and wonderful place all the time, a boundless panoply of limitless niceness and eternal satisfaction. Also, game shows are hot right now, so can you change this to a game show? Have the revised script for "Nobody Sucks: The Game Show (The Series)" on my desk in the morning and then we can talk about "Nobody Sucks: The Game Show (The Movie)" and its prequels. Sincerely, Itzhak Ookbook. (MUSIC STING.) ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: FYI Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:23:54 -0400 Lots42 (lots42@gmail.com) wrote: > > [...] SWISH! Fabulously fashionable new Kontext-Away With Pastel Color Story flounces flamboyantly, twirling its sequined cape around its flaming magnesium G-string! > P.S. I'm not gay. TWEEEEEE! Kontext-Away yells "I'D BUY DAT FOR A DOLLA!" and then gets hit in the crotch with a lavender-flavored cream pie! BOI-OI-OINGGGGG! It's an extra sound effect for extra boinginess! -- K. Haw haw, I bet you even know what the word "duvet" means. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: ghost pigeons Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 02:40:11 -0400 Hey, Fark.com found this update to our old favorite before I did. That's inexcusable. But anyway, here's the latest on just how real killer ghosts in India are: [timesofindia.indiatimes.com] -> -> Cops put to rest 'ghostly' pigeon in WB village But what about those deadly 'whammies' over on GSN? NO WHAMMIES, NO WHAMMIES, STOP!!! -> SURI: The "ghost" of Suri has been put to rest. After scaring -> people in several villages in Suri, the Birbhum district -> headquarters, the police managed to catch hold of the "ghost" a -> pigeon with a plastic skull hanging from its neck and red bulbs -> around the eye-sockets. Also the pigeon had a tattoo that said "Biker Chick". -> In the last one month, five people were reportedly attacked by -> the "ghost", leaving scratch marks. -> -> Police officers said the bird was probably being used to create -> panic but there are no answers as to why anyone would do so. ...especially given that, in India, it's way too easy. -> "This shows how birds and animals can be used for creating panic. -> But we don't know who did this and why," DSP Amitabha Maity said. -> The bird was caught from Kaita village after locals informed the -> police. -> -> "A battery powered miniature circuit was used for lighting the -> bulbs. The glowing red light and the skull seen during the night -> created panic," said Maity. "OH NO! AN LED! RUN!" Then someone showed up playing "Magic Square" on a 1978 Merlin and the entire city's economy collapsed. Heaven help these people if any astronaut on the International Space Station shines his a laser pointer at India. -> The "ghost" was first seen a month ago by a man in Kalipur -> village, who had scratches all over his face after being -> attacked. He was admitted to the Suri hospital. Some days later, -> a boy in a Dubrajpur village was attacked in a similar manner. -> Three more people were similarly attacked. I hope this isn't going to turn into that lame "Dick Van Dyke Show" episode where his son gets attacked by the giant offscreen woodpecker. I much prefer the one about the killer walnuts. Walnuts are scary! -> With irate locals blocking roads after the police's apparent -> failure to nab the "ghost", night patrols had been increased. -> Several people had described the "ghost" as a man and at times -> as a monkey. "IT'S A VENN DIAGRAM! RUN!" -> A special team was formed and the police also got in touch with -> the forest department. They had also roped in village panchayat -> pradhans to capture the "ghost". You see, the owner of the abandoned carnival, Old Man Don Knotts, placed this common household hologram over a flashlight to allow the fake ghost to lift massive objects! In order to smuggle the diamonds out disguised as jellybeans, he merely took advantage of a convenient local legend! And now, let's all chow down on the Indian equivalent of Scooby Snacks... AAAAAAAACK MY TONGUE IS ON FIRE!!! HELP, THE SCOOBY SNACKS BURNED MY FACE OFF!!! -- K. Ever notice how Hanna-Barbera characters drive like THIS, but people from India drive like THIS? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: Kibo will have less reason to make fun of me now... Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 02:45:38 -0400 Tim Chmielewski (webmaster@timchuma.com) wrote: > > Subject: Kibo will have less reason to make fun of me now... Why, did you lose 300 pounds? > [...] AW LOOK ALL YOUR QUOTED TEXT FELL ON MR. FLOOR! -- K. It's not the number of pounds, it's whether you can fit into your mom's bathing suit. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Important points to consider. Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 04:20:24 -0400 Tony Shalhoub has really stubby fingers. It will probably be many decades before the "As Seen On TV!" emblem changes to look like a widescreen, sharp-cornered TV. The Three Stooges had several fake Curlies but no fake Larry, to avoid scaring the kids. Shag carpeting may no longer be stylish, but I bet that next time it resurfaces it's a foot long. Of Bob Hope's four stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, nobody knows which one he's buried under. Brown is not actually a color. It's an optical illusion. Nobody has yet offered for sale a gas mask that will fit a pet ameba. What do all these facts add up to? A trapezoid of knowledge at the exact center of a scalene triangle of logic. Those of you who need to give me Nobel Prizes may send them to: Me. Use Federal Express, not FedEx, because the Federal Express logo looks like it goes faster. Do not disclose this information to anyone. Tell everyone you know to also not disclose this information to anyone. It is critical that nobody believe you that you have the greatest information that was ever born. Wear a mask if reporters ask you how great a genius i am. For hygiene, always eat ball-game frankfurters with a knife and fork and only between innings because the motion of the ball stirs up the germs. I know that all these facts are true because I'm the one who made them up. Even Tony Shalhoub cannot disprove my factual theory that he has stubby fingers. Sincerely, Your Television Pal, Kibo, That Genius. ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Subject: Martin Landau comes a day early this year Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 19:47:57 -0400 Remember how, on September 13, 1999, Martin Landau blew up the Moon, according to the first-season opening titles of "Space: 1999"? Well, Paramount's finally going to be selling the original "Mission: Impossible" (with "special guest star" Martin Landau in every single episode of the first season) this fall... ...on September 12. My theory is that they think anyone who will buy the "Mission: Impossible" DVDs will run out and get them on the 12th so that they'll have something to watch while they're hiding in their fallout shelters on the 13th, celebrating the seventh annual Martin Landau Blew Up The Moon Day. Of course, note that these first-season "Mission: Impossible" DVDs appear to have had Peter Graves digitally replaced with some other guy who was never on "Mission: Impossible" (Steven Hill.) But that's okay because the new guy can act. I like the box art because if you use your imagination a little it looks like Barbara Bain's weird asymmetrical plastic hair is burning. Anyway, it's nice to see that this year there will be some corporate exploitation of Martin Landau Blew Up The Moon Day, which is required for any holiday to be considered official. So throw out your old calendar and buy a new one that has Martin Landau Blew Up The Moon Day unless you're the unpatriotic sort of person who doesn't celebrate whatever TV-related holidays I tell you to. -- K. Also don't forget that this summer is the twentieth anniversary of Father Guido Sarducci's "Bicententennial". ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: curses Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 20:29:47 -0400 In sci.physics, Kurt Stocklmeir (kurtstocklmeir@earthlink.net) posted his exciting new two-part theory: > > I guess > > God made > > volcano Washington > > throw out gases and rocks > > Washington is part of U.S. No it isn't. It's a peninsula. -- K. And what will it be in 600 centillion years? Some sort of _super_ peninsula, like Canada? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: sci.bio.misc,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: alpha female in cats of 4 females Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 21:09:24 -0400 In sci.bio.misc, Archimedes Plutonium (a_plutonium@hotmail.com) wrote: > > [...] > > From what I have seen with my 6 cats is that the alpha female is the > largest female. And I always thought you were taller. Well, try not to make her mad at you. But why six cats? I thought your life revolved around the number 239. Six would be the magic number for some guy named Archimedes Lithium who liked lithium a whole lot, not somebody like you. I won't take your scientific research seriously until you get the other 233 cats you're supposed to have. -- K. Frankly, I'm surprised you're even allowed to have cats. Isn't there some law that says people are required to be smarter than their pets? ----------------------------------------------------- From: James "Kibo" Parry (kibo@world.std.com) Newsgroups: sci.bio.misc,sci.med,alt.religion.kibology Subject: Re: cats reflect the human problem of obesity Re: greatest diet ever known; riding lawnmowers are 1/2 of the problem Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 21:18:23 -0400 In sci.bio.misc, sci.med, and soc.history, a_plutonium (a_plutonium@dtgnet.com) wrote: > > I had to laugh last year when the mother cat was trying to be a good > mother to her 5 kittens of 6 months old. She went out hunting and > brought home to her kittens a vole and pitched the vole on the ground. > Expecting her audience of kittens to eagerly run over and accept her > gift of food. Instead, her 5 kittens looked disinterested as if to say > "why bother, we don't like that junk food, we are waiting for Uncle > Archie to feed us the good stuff". Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, Archie is the kitties' uncle. I hope you remembered to give your nephews and nieces power of attorney in case they ever have to put you in a home. Trust me, someday you'll have to let those cats make the right decision for you. > This is the problem of modern society, in that we have made food so good > tasting and plentiful and cheap and able to horde in refrigerators and > freezers, that obesity cannot be avoided by mo