I've been marginally busy this past week, so I don't have anything else new. However, here is a story about cookies.

August the twenty-third. I knew this because I can operate a calendar. I had mastered the art fairly quickly, noting that the page must be turned after thirty day-length periods (henceforth referred to as "days") and that these correspond directly with the numbered rectangles printed on each page. I no longer even needed to steal a news-paper to confirm my guess (my recognizing the connection between that and the calendar was also rather ingenious, if I do say so)

I emerged from my space beneath the ground on this August the twenty-third pulling a rather large bag of cookies. Although in comparison to me the bag might be considered normal sized, my point of reference was the cookies, of which many did fill the bag, and so I thought of it as being large. I traveled through the ragtag band of plants for some minutes until I came to a road. I continued across the road until it ended and the sidewalk began. I believe it is called a sidewalk, but I have rarely heard one spoken of, so it is very possible that I misinform when I tell you it is called that, but I know not any better. I placed the bag of cookies on the ground with the open end facing the air and entered my brilliant hiding place. What made it such a stupendous hiding place was that it lay at the opposite side of the road that my home did, so no one would suspect me to be waiting there, if they absolutely insisted on suspecting my presence.

Eventually, with the day's light period, people began to be showing up. From the left and right, womans, mans, and several who could not decide. The thing which linked them all being that none of them had any matters to tend to of importance ranking with my own, for they were all walking, coming from elsewhere and going to elseelsewhere. I knew they didn't live nearby because I'd inhabited my dwelling in this region for several years (forgive my calendar terminology) and never met any of them. Although their inefficient mode of transportation irritated me, I forgave them due to their participating in my study.

At least, I would have if they'd fulfilled their piece of the bargain. I expected them to take a cookie, and, hopefully, consume it in an edible fashion. Unfortunately, they chose to continue their silly walks uninterrupted by my theoretically irresistible offer. I would have liked to have made a sign which instructed readers to "take 1," but alas, I knew how to spell few words, and "take" was not one of them. "1," indeed, I am well acquainted with from my calendar use, but on its own it conveys insufficient information.

I knew, though, that I had to do something. After the seventeenth pass (counting is a great deal simpler than spelling, in case you are wondering) I spoke my suggestion "SHAAAASKRIEG!" it did not have the desired effect. That was my fault, however. I rarely speak, so to attempt to do so without practising first is unlikely to produce positive results.
Let's try the next one.
"SCAAAAAB!" No? And another.
"STAAAAAB!" One more time.
"UNGLAAAHhhheh." Yet one more disappointment, but I was ready now.

Then came twenty-two, who was very large. A cookie connoisseur if ever I'd seen one!
"Take... cookie...?" I said meekly.
This person actually slowed down, but did not stop and soon showed signs of speeding up again. I knew I needed to more directly intervene; I would not lose this one! I leapt out with immediateness. "Would you like a cookie?"
"YAH!!"
the curious fellow ran off, eventually contributing "stay away from me!" Perhaps I had been too forceful. Again I hid. What else could I do?

Very soon another approached. Not so fat this time, but my near success with the previous subject had been especially encouraging and I expected nothing less than total success in the adjacent future.
He stopped. He quite overlooked the bag, turning instead toward my brilliant hiding place. Had I not been so expertly concealed I would swear he was staring at me for those several seconds. He looked at the bag finally and then would have surely continued on his way had I not reached out to grab his right leg, a subtle, nonthreatening tactic which served to make him stop. "Why won't you take one of my cookies?" I demanded to know.
"Why don't you have one?"
"It is a science experiment! I must remain outside the results to effectively monitor them! Have cookie!"
"I don't want one of your stupid cookies, you big-eared creep. Let go."
I would not tolerate such an ignorant and insolent assessment of my cookies. "Oh, such ignorance and insolence!" I released the leg and dealt the fool a morale crushing blow with the bag, sending the ingrate whimpering off towards his destination. "Ask your friends if they want any cookies!" I called out sarcastically, knowing that such an unsociable miser could not possibly have any friends. I restrained myself from throwing any cookies, for that would have been rude. I returned to my hiding place as I had before. As appalled as I was at the negative attitudes I had encountered, I continued my research. Beside that, my speech capabilities had returned, no doubt with victory in tow!

Another potential taker drew near. Since I had come so close on the two previous attempts, I merged my strategies, jumping out and also grabbing an arm, this time. "Could I interest you in a cookie?" I should have grabbed both, however, because the other one felt left out and came over to meet me with such speed as to make me lose the one I had, fall backwards, and not see if the person took a cookie or not. People with so little self control should seek help.

Next was a pair. I remained where I was, fearful that they may be violent like the previous one, since I did not possess adequate handage to grab their combined four arms.

It was about this time that I noticed considerably more people walking past on the road's side I was not at. Did they truly not see such a very large bag as the one I'd brought? I considered crossing the road again, but ultimately decided against it, reasoning that a good hiding place was important.

Several minutes later after five more sadly uneventful passes, a person approached on my own side more strangely dressed than usual. I eventually gathered that it must be one of those law enforcement officials I'd heard so much about. I would try to be more silent than usual, for I had been told that when angered they brought forth many friends who looked just like them, and it was imperative that I be able to keep close track of who had taken a cookie. This one seemed especially odd to me because I usually don't see them just walking around unless they have parked their vehicle nearby and are looking to
"Would you mind coming out of there, please?" this addressed to me! I was rage-filled; one of the cowards from before had told of my hiding place! I silently promised my revenge as I made myself seen. There was no sense in remaining; the longer I did so, the more people would see the official speaking to it, and the harder it would be for me to hide there again. It was a good hiding place.
"You must have heard of my wares! Have a cookie, I implore you!"
"What's this I hear about you hitting people and screaming at them?"
"Likely just that. They refused to have any cookies!"
"Does that surprise you?"
"It comes as much of a surprise; they are exquisite cookies!"
"You want to give people cookies you should invite them to a party or open a bakery. No one's going to eat something they saw lying in the street."
"Be sensible. First of all, this part is called the 'sidewalk,' and second of all, the cookies are in a bag. Those are two major differences."
"Right, buddy. I hear another complaint about you you'll be arrested. Would you prefer that?" it occurred to me the comaraderie inherent in "buddy" had been insincere.
"I'll have you know my only goal is the betterment of civilization! If it were up to you uninformed uniformed scoundrels you'd have all of us scientists in a room making fireballs and bottlerockets for you to destroy it with!"
"Hey, all I heard was that you were lunging at people and attacking them, and you don't seem to be denying it. If it happens again, you'll have bigger things to worry about than your cookies going stale, you get me?"
"Someday!"
"What?"
"Have a cookie!"
"If it will make you stop, I'll have one of your damn cookies. Would you like that?" I would. My rage subsided somewhat, despite the language, oh! The speaker continued, "I guess they can't be that bad."
"They can, but I assure you they won't!" He ate one, and suddenly seemed surprisingly surprised.
"Wow, this is a very good cookie... Huh? I must... have another!" He did. "I shouldn't... but I have to..."
"I think I'd better go." I did, and with the bag.
"Stop! Give me another!" I was chased.
"You've had enough!" this I was sure of.
"I will have them all! I crave them!" this I heard and this I did not doubt.
"You're mad!" I made an astute observation.
The madman had an object resembling the gun weapons I see with my television box occasionally.
"Stop or I shoot you!" The gun was now very visible and very pointed at me.
"Please explain further!" he didn't. He was quite suddenly too lying flat on the ground and convulsing pathetically and leaking various substances to do so. I still did not stop, for my experiment was complete and I no longer needed to expose my skin to the day's light.
"It is just as I feared" I thought as I descended once more into my home. I promptly incinerated the cookies. Those things are dangerous. I also incinerated the bag with my incinerator, and just to be safe I washed my hands. I shall try not to use that recipe again in the future!

Gatorade is Thursday, May 13, 2004

why do birds need baths?

Comedy Central. I mentioned that once back in September. Before or around that time, during some commercial breaks would be shown possibly decent standup comedy anecdotes superimposed over fearsomely groutesqe cartoons illustrating it. I believe that toward the end of success of such a production the narrator can understate the pictures, or the pictures can overstate the narration, but when the original writer is not involved at all to oversee this, you'll get at best a literal follow-along with accomplishes scantly more than depriving the audience of their ability to visualize it as they'd like to, so why bother? Naturally, this was terrible, and thus pleased the people in charge very much. But there was a problem: one advertisement needed to be removed to make room for the atrocious display, and that's less money to buy the rights to forgotten mid-80's movies that will only be shown at 6am! The solution? No, not scrap the project and cut their losses, the solution was to cut the actual show and make more if-I-try-to-put-on-the-Daily-Show-one-minute-early-I'll-look-like-I-was-watching-this cartoons (as if the Hopping Ho's segment that ends Der Man Show wasn't enough). And because presenting a display of unrelated clips without a designated "host" is prohibited by federal law, let's insert some pantsless talking babies that sound like grown men for some reason. Und so ve haf:

As an occasional viewer of the 10:30pm timeslot which this occupies on other occasions, I must again make obvious what an utter travesty this possibly but I doubt it watchable show is made to look like by the promotions for it. Don't try to sell it on the animation. I don't think there's been a competently written cartoon series produced in English within the past 13 years that didn't look like it was made by Pueblo Picasso's fourth grade art class. Eck, at least Aqualad Notorious and friends resembled people, even if they were the wrong ones. This looks like someone tried to recreate Bob Staake pictures with construction paper.

And how about that title, ehhh? You may recognize the first word, "shorties," which I will never type again, as the plural form of the name of a Danny DeVito character a certain 1995 feature film urged us to "get" (it is unfortunate that we failed), but it actually refers to those adorably repulsive figures in that image up there. Though not a word I -an ashamed member of the target demographic- have ever heard said with that meaning by a person, I do understand it to be a word with street vernacular origins, as popularized through the writings of famous syndicated not-joke columnist Herbert W Kornfield.
Next, the forced enslangification "watchin'." Because if chat rooms and McDonald's market research have taught us anything, it's that seeing informal speech in print makes it endeering and intellectual.
Then on to that word again. I regret to inform you that this does not serve to imply that the screwy cartoon babies are watching each other. That would be something, wouldn't it. No, this time it refers to the stand up comedy, which by not being long clips is therefore short, and by having someone who probably looks like Ari Fleischer in charge the comedy is therefore also ies.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

I dedicate this post to all the brave warriors who lose their lives everyday defending our fleedom in grueling rap battles

Today marks the start of this website's third year at tripod dotcom. I hadn't wanted there to be a third year at tripod, but I don't like having to blow my nose, either. I went to the trouble (for me) to ask someone else to ask someone else if I might possibly be able to get something a step up from this without my contributing any effort, but I felt like such a worthless twilp after doing so and likely turning away one of the few people still willing to pretend to stand me that something I've omitted here just in case I haven't. Deh deh deh deh nor the meager amount of initiative to get one for myself. For $40 a year, which I can afford twice as of right now, I could have www.321lord_m'grebius3529807.info, no advertisements, twice the space alotted here, and still have change to buy Raisinettes, gummy bears or Junior Mints (and I'd even get to choose!).

Perhaps my fear is that once a dollar has been spent on a website (I... stole the scanner. yes.) it suddenly needs to be significant in some way to some one, and that I can't afford. At least not times forty.

My biggest issue with Tripod up until yesterday was the resolution-change-blink seizure my monitor experiences everytime I view a page here, while a dos-based ftp client tries to download things, and I know it's downloading things, because it's quite near impossible to upload something to my tripod account on the first try, and I imagine this is even more impossible if you've hijacked my connection to do it at the same time I'm checking one of my must-provide-visual-proof-of-everything-my-liege-commands-it pages. Ehhhnyway, I realized this only happened when I tried to view this page from my own computer, and I'm hardly entitled to that, am I.

What's always a pain, however, is the less malicious, yet still pretty invasive and perhaps even more asinine Tripod "search companion." (which is always an immediate precursor to the monitor blink seizure, I might add.) Oh, you've seen it, have you? The official claim is that it "helps visitors to find what they're looking for," but unless everyone is looking for more uninvited sidebars to close and purge their registry of, I put forth that it has failed. Claim 2, that of "helping Tripod members get more traffic to their sites," is also untrue, since any sensible person worth getting the traffic of will have closed that thing the moment they saw it, and anyone curious or foolish enough not to certainly isn't going to find one of my links on any of them. Claim -1, When a visitor browses to a Tripod member site, we check our database. If similar sites exist, the Sidebar opens up, and those sites are listed. Now that's simply not true. I would say "they know it's not true," except that no beings with the senses of self sufficient to use the word "we" (as in: actual people) are checking any database, so additionally they cannot truly comprehend that they are lying. Still, if you're looking for sites found to contain the words "the" "of" "is" and "andy" as scanned by a team of gold robots who don't know they exist, then you probably built them.

The vaguely noble-sounding cause is vomited upon twofold as 1: the sites are all terrible and 2: also at tripod. It insults the intelligence of all three of my regular viewers who have any yet still come around to suggest that Fozzie's List Of Famous And Not-So-Famous Dogs (to which I say, why not just call it the List Of Dogs, and to that I'd say why bother?(and additionally hover your arrow-thing over that (but don't click it) to see one of the worst urls you ever will)), Britney Spears in the Zone 2004 (I... don't know, nor do I want to), Atkins diet is unhealthy and bad (no, really?), a few hundred pages by people named Andy and the loathesome self-parody of one Miranda J. Prince are in any way similar to what I am doing. In fact, if I didn't know to the contrary, and I'm not entirely sure that I don't, these sites were picked specifically to disgust me personally. You'll notice, if you haven't closed it yet, that our companion animal bears no advertiser logos or banners, and seems as if it was placed only to further annoy free account users into either paying Tripod money or giving up altogether. And... I suppose that's their right, but they ought to at least come out and admit it. Don't I deserve better? (Don't answer that)

Some guy wearing a suit sez: I'm here to talk about my new book: Us Good, Them Bad. I don't expect to change your mind; if you didn't agree with me to begin with, that means you them, and you bad. Hey, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said in hundreds of books by other guys wearing suits before me. Nope. So what if you don't vote for us in the next election? That's why I had this book written, so I could get enough money that I won't have to care for a few years, and in the event I do, I can always refer you to my book. Solving problems? Who needs that? The only problem I see is them, and they cannot be solved. The obvious and singular solution is to have more of us than them and deny everything they say that us don't like, which will probably be all of it that isn't related to abortion or queer folks*, but they don't plan to bring that up, and neither do us. Look, I can quote statistics all day. In fact, why don't I do that. It doesn't matter if they're recent, relevant, or true, as long as that by stating these statistics and intentionally not stating other statistics I look like I'm right. Did you know that 98% of Americans polled say us good, them bad? That is because before we ask that question we first ask "are you us or them?" and if the answer isn't "us," we hang up. Buy my book! Dr. Suit

Note: the above message does not necessarily reflect the actual thoughts or opinions of some guy in a suit, since none have been expressed

*This was an ill-placed item. Several months before, such a subject as this was rarely acknowledged, and about the time I posted this, few wished to speak of anything else. Anger.

Are you there, God? It's me, margaret.  Who is this? I called for God, not you! For His sake put God on the phone! Do you know who I am?! I am Margaret. You tell Him it's Margaret right now!