PsychicGoldfish Telepathic Transmissions

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

I wouldn't normally bother to post a forwarded e-mail joke, but this one seemed to be worth the trouble:

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak. After mass he asked the monsignor how he had done. The monsignor replied, "When I am worried about getting nervous on the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip." Next Sunday, the priest took the monsignor's advice. At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to preach up a storm.

Upon his return to his office after mass, he found the following note on the door:

1. Sip the Vodka, don't gulp.
2. There are 10 commandments, not 12.
3. There are 12 disciples, not 10.
4. Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.
5. Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass.
6. We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J. C.
7. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior and the Spook.
8. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.
9. When David was hit by a rock and was knocked off his donkey, don't say he was stoned off his ass.
10. We do not refer to the cross as the "Big T."
11. When Jesus broke the bread at the Last Supper he said, "Take this and eat it for it is my body." He did not say "Eat me"
12. The Virgin Mary is not called "Mary with the Cherry,"
13. The recommended grace before a meal is not: "Rub-A-Dub-Dub thanks for the grub, yeah God."
14. Next Sunday there will be a taffy pulling contest at St. Peter's, not a peter pulling contest at St. Taffy's.

Oh, and here's a quick one:

Q: How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two, but danged if I know how they got in there!

Posted at 3:23 PM

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

I've got a little mystery here that maybe you can help me solve. As you may have noticed on the What's in Nathan's Pockets? page, I carry a notepad in my wallet. As you might expect, I mostly use it to jot down notes to myself as a memory aid. (I also occasionally use it for miniature origami and other purposes, but not often.)

A few days ago, I opened my wallet and noticed the note shown on the right scribbled on the notepad. I know what the bit at the bottom means. I scribbled it down during a meeting, to remind myself to address some return air issues on job 02151.00, located on level 75 of Chase Tower (in downtown Houston). This is typical of my notes.

But it's the part at the top that's puzzling me. For the life of me, I can't remember when I wrote that, or what I was thinking when I did it. Is it a secret code of some sort? A partial access number for my secret (even from me) Swiss bank account? "*-- 123-- 1248-1" What the twinking foop is that all about? Maybe the orientation is important. The asterisk is a little to the left, while the other two lines are lined up neatly below and to the right. Maybe that means something.

Was it a math problem, perhaps in reverse-reverse Polish notation? (I never understood RPN format, so that could certainly explain it.) Multiply negative negative 123 by negative negative 1248, then subtract one? 153,503. Is that somehow significant? But 1248... The first four powers of 2, starting from 2 to the power of zero. 1, 2, 4, and 8. And, hey, 1, 2, and 3! 2 to the first, second, and third powers is 2, 4, and 8! Maybe it's... No. I've got nothing.

I'm stumped. And it's driving me nuts. If anyone has any ideas, please drop me a line.

Posted at 11:24 AM

Monday, October 28, 2002

Well, the ride is pretty much over. For those of you who don't follow my Web career, a part of my webpage (the part about the so-called "White Trash Lava Lamp" was selected as the Cruel Site of the Day for October 19, 2002. This was news to me, in fact. Then, I received an e-mail from an Aaron Marks over at Callipygian.org. He mentioned, among other things, that I was probably inundated with e-mails since I was listed on Cruel.com. "Say what?!?" I responded. I wasn't exactly inundated, although I did receive several nice e-mails from people all over the world. Thanks, folks! (I've added some of them to my links page, mostly because they said they were going to link to me. Yes, I am a traffic whore. I admit it. If you want to exchange links with me, please let me know. If it's something I wouldn't be too embarrassed for my mom to see, I'll consider it.)

I'm not altogether sure about why I was selected, though. Cruel.com has some unusual goals. From their webpage: "Somebody had to make a case for the other side [the side composed of people not in Pollyanna-ish awe of the Web] -- bitterness, sarcasm, disappointment, despair, perversion, anger and bad taste." Somehow, making lava lamps out of jug wine and forties embodies "the vague, malicious, or dark-humored principles of Cruel Site of the Day." I'm not altogether sure how I feel about that.

So, anyhow, a couple days after I was selected, I found out about it. I immediately checked my logs, and was flabbergasted. Apparently, a lot of folks read Cruel.com. By the time I got around to checking, I had over a hundred thousand hits! "Hey," I thought. "This is pretty cool!" Then I scrolled down to the bytes transferred entry. Well over a gigabyte transferred. That morning. Oy. To paraphrase Illiad over at User Friendly, listing somone on a site like that "is like pointing Godzilla at Tokyo." I called my hosting service, bracing myself for the bad news. See, while I do have commercial hosting (long story, don't ask), it's a pretty modest package. With equally modest monthly transfer limits. Normally, the resources I buy are well above my most extravagant needs. This time, the transfer limits were blown within 48 hours of the listing. But, they were really cool about it. If you need web hosting or Internet service in the Houston area, I can highly recommend Net Star Telecommunications.

So, anyway, I'm not going to get ganked by the sudden spike in traffic (this time), so I can sit back and enjoy it. As my listing moved further down, and then into the archives, the traffic fell. Today, things are down to a more reasonable level. Still not down to the one-hit-a-week level I am accustomed to, but more what I would expect for a mere roadside attraction on this here Information Superhighway. And who knows? Perhaps I've been upgraded from Cajun-Jack's Reptile-o-Rama to the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. Only time will tell. And in the meantime, well, it's been fun!

Posted at 11:00 PM

Oh, by the way, the friend I mentioned over on the lava lamp page is Marcotte Anderson. He coined the term "White Trash Lava Lamp" a few years back, upon first seeing the device. I think I owe a lot of the attention this page has received to him and his way with words. I doubt it would have made it very far without the succinct name. Thanks, Marcotte!

Posted at 11:13 PM

Wednesday, October 02, 2002

This was originally posted on Derfleeganforum over on Pickle's Page o' Stuff a while back. I just thought I'd share. This was my proposal for the best cellular phone text messaging commercial ever made.

-----

OBNOXIA 5150 CELLPHONE INSTANT MESSAGING
COMMERCIAL #47

EXT. PARK - DAY

A MAN is jogging through the park. It's a sunny day. He is wearing a FANNY PACK, sweats, and fancy running shoes. Suddenly, he stops, a panicked look on his face. He quickly opens the fanny pack, and pulls out an ASTHMA INHALER. He fumbles it. It skitters along the ground, and falls into an open sewer grate. The man again reaches into his bag. He pulls out an ORDINARY CELLPHONE. He dials.

INT. LIVING ROOM

A WOMAN is sitting, watching television. Her OBNOXIA 5150 sits prominently on a nearby table. It rings the trademark OBNOXIA RINGTONE. She smiles inanely, and answers it.

WOMAN
Hello?

[EXT. PARK]

Man is talking on the cellphone. His face is turning red. One arm has disappeared down the sewer grate to the shoulder, as he vainly reaches for the inhaler. The other hand is holding his ordinary, non-instant messaging equipped telephone to his ear.

MAN
[Heavy Breathing] Huff-Huff-Huff

[INT. LIVING ROOM]

Woman's inane smile fades to puzzlement, then annoyance.

WOMAN
Hello? Hello? Who is this?!?

MAN [FILTER]
Huff-Huff-Huff

WOMAN [ANGRILY]
Pervert!

Woman disconnects phone, slams it down on the table.

[EXT. PARK]

Redfaced man looks at his ordinary cellular phone in disbelief. His breathing becomes more and more labored. He collapses, his arm still down the sewer grate. The ordinary cellphone falls from his slack grasp, and joins the inhaler and the arm in the sewer. The man's face turns cyanotic blue. He dies.

INT. PHONE DISPLAY

A shiny OBNOXIA 5150 sits on a featureless white table. In the near background, the OBNOXIA LOGO (a little stylized orange man, covering his ears) is prominently displayed.

The Obnoxia 5150 rings. A message appears on it's display screen: NEED INHALER. AM DYING!

ANNOUNCER [V.O.]
Isn't it about time you got instant messaging?

CUT

-----

No, come to think of it, that'd make a really crappy cellphone commercial. Forget I mentioned it. Still, it's better than that stupid one with the guy having his tongue gnawed off by a ferret.

Posted at 11:41 PM

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Diamonds are a ghoul's best friend.

This is quite possibly the most ghoulishly fascinating thing I have ever seen on the 'Net: Lifegems.

"Lifegems!" They filter a bit of the carbon from your loved one's cremated corpse and apply pressure and heat to turn it into a diamond! (Or several diamonds, if you like.) So now you can carry a little bit of your deceased spouse, or relative, or even pet around with you.

(Now that I think about it, I suppose you could always carry a bit of your loved ones with you. But this way doesn't attract flies.)

But, think about the applications here! I mean, can you lop off bits of yourself to make diamonds, too? Have a giant brain tumor? Get it made into a diamond! Lose an arm in a nasty farm machinery accident? Get it made into a diamond! I mean, some religions hold funeral ceremonies for lost limbs. Why not get it cremated and make yourself a nice, tasteful solitaire for the other hand? (The one you didn't lose to the combine harvester, I mean.)

Then there's the celebrity trade. Think of the value of a diamond ring made out of Elvis's ashes! (Assuming they ever catch him. I mean, he's been it's been over 25 years since he faked his death. And in spite of his distinctive appearance, he only occasionally gets spotted in rural gas stations. The guy's slick!) Heck, there'd be lines of middle-aged women waiting with bated breath and poised checkbooks to get little sparkly bits of recently deceased Mel Gibson or Sean Connery. Soon, Hollywood celebrities and sports stars will be selling advanced shares of their crystallized remains for king's ransoms... And then have fans pushing them in front of speeding buses before they do something stupid to damage their celebrity value, like shoplifting, taking horse tranquilizers, or something similar. (I still want my Winona Ryder pinky ring, though. It'll just be cheaper now!) Think of this scene at your local heavy metal concert:

Guy: "Hey! Guess what? I just got my tongue pierced?"

Girl: "So? Everyone here has their tongue pierced! I just got mine pierced the third time yesterday!"

Guy: "Oh yeah? Well my stud was made out of Gene Simmon's cremated tongue!"

Girl: "...I want to have your children! Make love to me, you heavy metal god!"

Gene Simmon's tongue should be commemorated somehow after his death. Ron Jeremy's gemological memorabilia doesn't bear thinking about overmuch, but I'm sure an eager market could be found.

But, this sounds like some kind of bizarre occult thing, too. Can't you just see a veil-clad voodoo woman chanting over her box full of puissant, glowing soul gems? Pardon, I mean Lifegems. At the very least, there'd be a huge market with the Goth crowd. Blood red diamond nose rings made out of the corpses of their dead relatives... Quickest way I can think of to the top of the Goth totem pole!

Heck, why not combine the two markets, celebrity and occultism... Think of the market value of a big ol' diamond made out of Alestair Crowley?

Not that we needed something else to make diamonds more valuable, but I'd guess an entrepeneur with a shovel and good night vision could make a mint if this Lifegems thing takes off. Of course, they'd need to add some licensed coroners to the EGL and GIA certification boards, for consumer protection. "I certify that this diamond is composed of 0.748 carats of Marilyn Monroe's left foot."

Go take a look. Sparks all sorts of interesting ideas, once the creepiness fades. The "family moments" pictures, superimposed with moodily lit pictures of the gems they presumably plan to make from one another, are worth the price of admission.

Posted at 1:29 PM

Question? Comments? Complaints? Indecent Proposals? Death Threats?

Drop me a line now!