Ruse You Can Bruise for 2003

Thu Aug 07 2003 14:31 Obsessive Output As Input:

My contribution to metaness on Leonard's guest weblog: "disturbing search request"

Thu Aug 07 2003 18:39 It's Hard to Manufacture Good Yet Harmless Gossip:

For the purposes of this post, I pretend that Leonard can't see it, or me, and that I am whispering into your ear.

Leonard really likes to bake, and yet he is also trying to lose weight. These conflicting desires mean that you can get lots of cookies if you time yourself right.
His categories provide a treasure trove of bonus Leonard in the funny descriptions (e.g. Unix Philosophy).
I had been reading Crummy for over a year before I ever met Leonard. When he and I meet new people, I have to be the one to tell people how we met, because he hates telling it. Ditto for "what's open source?"

Thu Aug 07 2003 20:52:

I was thinking of writing a fake guest weblog to run while I was on my little Utah vacation, but why bother when I can get people to do an actual guest weblog that will be even more unbelievable? So, for the next week, everything above this line on the front page will be the guest weblog and below the line will be my own, (hopefully) less frequent postings. Enjoy! Serves twelve.

Thu Aug 07 2003 22:56 Microsoft Leonard 98:

Has anybody else noticed that the front page of Crummy is gradually becoming implemented entirely with NewsBruiser notebooks? First News You Can Bruise, then the Quick Update entry up there on the right, now the guest blog. Soon, it'll be Tonight's Episode (it's already got an RSS feed), then the link bar, then the <H1> tag, et cetera.

See where I'm going? Eventually the entire page will be encapsulated in one great big entry, containing SSIs to hit all the other entries. It'll be the metanotebook!

[What is this, Crummy Lite? Do you even read the blog? What makes you think metathings are the only gag on this site? --Ed. {Because they are! Look at me, I'm the metaeditor! --mEd.} AUGH! DIE! --Ed.]

Fri Aug 08 2003 19:23 From the Department Dept.:

I was informed late that "meta" is the order of the day, although it may be merely the first course -- I don't know! So until I can get up to speed, I'll let a guest weblogger fill in for my guest weblog entry. Calamari the anime squid girl was happy to contribute, with her entries given in guest-weblog-guest relative time:

Mon Jan 01 0001 00:04 (Calamari): 音楽の話を期待してるみんな、辛気臭い話ばっかでごめんなさい！今日でがんばって終わらせます。ここまで読んで「よーするにweblog文化と日本の個人サイト文化ってどーちがうの？」とお思いになる方も多いんじゃなかろうかと思います。確かに個々のサイトを取ってみれば、内容も見た目も大した違いはないのです。

Sun Aug 10 2003 16:39 Homage Photo Roundup:

Sun Aug 10 2003 17:28 Irresistible Alternative Caption:

"Exhausted by the heat, this sunbather doesn't even notice the vacationing leprachauns leaping gleefully over her face."

Mon Aug 11 2003 09:12 Spam Biology Couplet:

Dramatically Enhances Organism

Attract women on a primordial level

Mon Aug 11 2003 18:50 Semi-resistable Photo Roundup Comment:

"My, Sumana, those are some divers divers!"

Tue Aug 12 2003 00:13 "Stop, You're Both Right" Spam Roundup:

kstraub, New Rates, Lower Than Ever - Act Now
kstraub, Rates Are Skyrocketing - Now Is The Time

Tue Aug 12 2003 06:30:

Reading this MSN article about spam techniques gave me an idea. People tend to concentrate on the email face of spam--obviously, as it's the one in your face--but spammers can't make money if their websites don't work too. So you know what would be awesome? DOS attacks against spam webservers! It'd be like civil war amongst the denizens of the Dark Side. Or metaevil!

Being a Light Side hacker, of course, I don't think I could arrange that myself. But I'm just saying... y'know, if YOU know somebody... eh? Hold on, there's someone at the door. I'll be right back.

Tue Aug 12 2003 09:58 robotfindspillow:

Those crazy kids at the robotfindskitten consortium are at it again! This pillow was found by a robot in Cedar Rapids, IA. Keep 'em coming, America!

Tue Aug 12 2003 10:22 NewsBruiser Damaged Post AutoRecover©:

[... ###ebody HELP##### #######idnappe####### #######thugs,########## ############ ###### ########andle## ########### ##rturing########## ##########hat ### artic## ##### spam techniq##### ############# ##his messag###### ##send hel##-##on't kn######## ####### ###### ###olice or###### ####OH NO NOT THE EEL CHAMB########## ...]

Tue Aug 12 2003 14:50:

Since Leonard is coming home soon (quick! hide the dead guy!), I should take this opportunity to plug a few sites or other things you may enjoy.

Steve Schultz's Japan diary. Sample: "But as hard as the 'new school' toys try to be weird and 'arty' . .. the mainstream will always be just as weird, but much cheaper."
Solzhenitsyn. Currently reading The First Circle and really enjoying it. Think of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as your gateway drug to huge Russian novels.
Bill Santiago, a smart San Francisco comedian.
Good Eats, a hilarious and absorbing show on the Food Network. The marathon is on September 1st. Alton Brown and Christopher Kimball (America's Test Kitchen) both live in Vermont -- hello, slash!

Tue Aug 12 2003 16:07 I'm okay:

I'm okay. I had a brief encounter with a couple of k-kind gentlemen, who explained some th-things to me. I thought at first they were thugs sent by a shadowy spammers' organization, angry at me for suggesting that people attack their servers. As it turns out, though, they were just a c-couple of interested observers who wanted to help me understand what happens to people who post Microsoft-branded content on Crummy.com.

I have to say, I do feel m-much better about the whole thing now, and I regret the error of my ways. They were really very courteous, and they say there's very little chance of gangrene in my toes.

Tue Aug 12 2003 23:48 not actually praying but imagining a scene in which a person who looks like you is praying:

Slowly Downward is a site that sort of directly/indirectly influenced my writing and how I think about things. I'm not sure where I came across it. I'm not sure who does it, but I'm led to believe the guy is an album art designer for Radiohead.

A lot of his stuff is retellings of stories or dreams, fragments of things. I always wanted to be able to write like that. I have this idea for the shortest story in the world, one that conveyed horrible urgency or infinite sadness in one sentence. I don't think I'm able to write it.

P.S. Dear LiveJournal, I'm so, so depressed and full of beauty. I have to remember to get to Hot Topic and buy that faux-vintage Astroboy t-shirt.

mood | melancholy
music | Coldplay - I'm Uncertain and Terrified of Change

Wed Aug 13 2003 07:15 The Twelve Days of Leonard:

I'll just write the complete last verse and leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.

On the 12th day of August, Sumana sent to me:
12 hals a-tooting
11 writing elmores
10 'tiquing maltins
9 bernsteins playing
8 cohens singing
7 jackies joking
6 leonards parting
5 roy rogers!
4 sugar rays
3 peltiers
2 mr. spocks
and a leonard richardson!

Wed Aug 13 2003 08:01 Ambiguous Headline Watch ~~Fromage~~ Homage:

Second suit alleges mint sexual harassment

Callard & Bowser were not returning phone calls.

Wed Aug 13 2003 21:16:

"Brendan Brendan Brendan! Wake up!"

"Bah! I was having a dream about having a dream! What do you want?"

It was Bob, Leonard's idea man. It had been exactly one year since the last time he made an appearance at Crummy, and he was bound to have some wacky new scheme boiling over in his head.

"Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay, you may want to pop some St. John's Wort or something first, calm your nerves. Here it goes. You should write a short story about 'Jake Berendes West Covina!'"

"So... a metastory, basically."

"Exactly!"

I couldn't help but sigh. "Bob, meta is so done. Meta is so last Saturday. Meta is played. No, meta is metaplayed."

I could tell by the injured silence from my cell phone's earpiece that I'd hurt his feelings. I silently reprimanded myself. I knew better than that; marketing people have to be let down gently, like kittens.

"Well... look, Bob, don't you have anything else? Maybe a collectible card game of Guess the Verb? Or The Eater of Meaning, this time with a non-gluten eating option?"

"The metastory was my first idea this month," Bob sniffed. "But it was so captivating I didn't bother to come up with any more... well, except one."

"What's that?"

"Oh, I just thought maybe you could post that graphic novel adaptation of '... West Covina' you're always talking about. You know, just whatever you've got so far."

"Will the first five pages assuage your wounded heart?"

"I guess I can at least make some banner ads out of it."

"Consider it done, Bob. Consider it done."

Thu Aug 14 2003 09:48:

National Geographic finds new dinosaur species in India!

The dinosaur has been named "Rajasaurus Narmadensis" or the regal reptile from Narmada and is a 30-foot-long, carnivorous and stocky animal, with an unusual head crest, the group said in a statement Wednesday.

"Basically," said Paul Sereno, paleontologist, "it's to the T-Rex what Skipper is to Barbie."[0]

[0] Paul Sereno did not actually say this.

Sun Nov 02 2003 13:21:

Kevin dropped Leonard off at the airport this morning. As Garrison Keillor says, be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Tue Nov 04 2003 11:21 If You Like the Dead Spammer Series:

Today's spam subject lines include Re: VPA, mans severed head and please endeavour to use it for the children of god. More at Spam As Folk Art.

Tue Nov 04 2003 18:32 Misfiled in the Great Minds Dept.:

Adam recently gave me a copy of the remastered/expanded ELO 2, ELO's second (unusual, heavily prog rock) album, and there's an unreleased song called "Everyone's Born to Die." So of course I thought of Leonard's "Born to be Dead," and will be informing Jeff Lynne of this outrageous theft.

Wed Nov 05 2003 07:57 Later, Matthew Szulik and Neal Stephenson get in a slap-fight:

Red Hat CEO apparently thinks 90-year-olds will have fewer problems with Windows than with Linux

Wed Nov 05 2003 15:55 Inside the Crummy Studio: First in a Series:

The signal-to-noise ration of sarcasm in print is unworkably awful. The genius of the lie justification footnote is that it solves a this major interwebbian problem in a single stroke: the last given footnote in any footnote chain reliably contains the truth. In this, it's superior to both "</sarcasm>" tags, which are smarmy and nonspecific, and unmarked but obvious sarcasm, which (especially in hypertext) serves only to accelerate the tar pit descent.

I'd make some kind of exaggeration about the usefulness of the LJF and then clarify it here, but that would be unacceptably meta.

Wed Nov 05 2003 18:10 Madison, Such A Flamer:

I used the shorthand "re: tyranny" in an email to Leonard, which made me think of the Reply To All messages on the federalistpapers.sourceforge.net lists.

Re: Tyranny Re: Fwd: Blood of tyrants Fwd: tree of liberty (not safe for work!)

Fri Nov 07 2003 10:42 Cranky are the Damned:

I'm kind of disappointed with my NaNoWriMo efforts. It's been six days and I've only cranked out 3,000 words. At that rate I won't make it to 50,000. Additionally, I'm kind of lost in terms of where I want the story to go.

My idea was to write about a 1930s horror writer, in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, that whole little circle of obscure "Weird Tales" short story authors. I've written a few exchanges between my author, L.P. Turland, and his editor, and three short stories by him, but it's not going to be enough to sustain the story. At least not without more planning.

And then I think, don't I do enough already? So I resolve to work on accomplishing something else by November 30th, and to post what I have for this story so far.

Sat Nov 08 2003 20:11 World's Finest Soundbites:

"Space is hard," says NASA chief

Mon Nov 10 2003 11:30 Leonard's Clark Blog:

leonardr.forclark.com, of the Clark Community Network, looks to be the Clark campaign's equivalent of Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment of Salon Blogs: the semi-official metablog. Leonard also comments around the Network. "I personally would like Bill Richardson since then it would be 'Clark/Richardson 2004' and I could pretend I was the running mate."

Wed Nov 12 2003 11:29 trilobite dreams, aunt connie, and mr. sulu goes to arkansas:

Last night I dreamt about trilobites -- In real life I got my rocks from leonard, but haven't had time to poke at them and see what might lay inside, although I can see tantalizing pieces of trilobites sticking out of the sides. In my dream, I started by running the rocks under water, washing away the stone, leaving the harder trilobites washed clean of sediment. Except instead of being hard fossils, the trilobites were soft and kind of smushy, like a bug that died in a bucket of water. I flipped one over on it's back and could see under the carapace into the blackened interior. That's all... there's no punchline. But it was fascinating, at least to me.

In other news, I have a friend from Rhode Island who whilst talking to her mother on the phone was informed that Aunt Connie had died. My friend sat, stunned, not out of grief, but because she didn't know of any aunt she had named Connie. Her mom felt the silence and asked what was wrong. Michele responded that she didn't know she had a relative by that name.

Her mom said, "No honey, Aunt Connie -- from the Honeymooners!" [rimshot!]

Lastly, Mr. Sulu has returned to Arkansas for the first time since his childhood. This is probably old news to real trekkies, but I never knew that about him.

Thu Nov 13 2003 06:41:

Antisynthesis, one of the new journals of Leonard's old blog twin Inside Joke, has declared December RPG System Design Month (RoSyDeMo?). Personally, I'd love to see what Leonard would do with this, but I have this inexplicable gut instinct that says he might be a little too busy.

Under these rules you're allowed to start early, and I'd be glad to have competitors or collaborators--either one makes it easier to finish any given large project. And when it's done, we could have our very own Game Roundup! So hello, community: who wants in on this with me?

Fri Nov 14 2003 09:57 Fight the temptation of malapropism:

SCO Group Subpoenas The Linus

Sat Nov 15 2003 22:16:

Moving at the speed of lightning, or rather something that has been struck by lightning and has actually lost most of its ability to move rather than becoming ultra-fast as did the Flash: another page of Jake Berendes!

Mon Nov 17 2003 13:43 From Conversation With Leonard:

"If only that could work, it would work."

Tue Nov 18 2003 06:07 The patron saint of movie clichés speaks:

"I looked into insuring my voice. The premiums were ridiculous. I'd almost have to drink lye, just to make the investment worthwhile."

Wed Nov 19 2003 11:09:

From conversation with Leonard: It is difficult to get other people to go to lunch with him. It's not the agreeing to join him for companionship; it's literally the going. He makes the invitation, the other person says, "sure, just one more thing," and tries to find the necessary person for the dependency of that one thing. The other person is temporarily gone, so the invitee starts doing something else... just herding the invitee(s) into the elevator is, Leonard says, "like trying to eat all the ghosts in Pac-Man."

(1) Wed Nov 19 2003 14:23 Also, I'm A Sucker For Acoustic Guitar:

A Salon Premium subscriber wrote that he was "chary" of renewing.

[sumana] He used 'chary'!  Be still my heart!
[leonard] no! he will steal you away from me!
[leonard] i knew it would have paid to increase my word power!

Thu Nov 20 2003 20:40:

Are there any paperback reprintings that announce, in a little orange pseudosticker, how their contents are "Soon To Be A Minor Motion Picture?"

Fri Nov 21 2003 00:20 I need to hear other humans say it:

From the Fark.com comments thread on Michael Jackson's recent arrest: "Now Jacko, I'm going to have to ask you to put your hands behind your backo." Google shows that many other "legit" newspapers/magazines have run similar headlines with the word "backo" (the one that spawned the older SNL sketch was some rag like the New York Post). I just didn't know it was used widely.

I think I'd drink poison if I had to write a story with the word "backo" in huge type. But I'd be in bad shape at the prospect of writing a Michael Jackson expose already.

Mon Nov 24 2003 21:01 Lightning Strikes Identical Twin Snowflakes... Twice!:

I don't know about you, but if this were me, I would start asking myself the hard questions.

Wed Nov 26 2003 11:55 He Shall Return (and then go back):

Today Leonard comes back to SF for Thanksgiving.

Thu Dec 04 2003 12:49:

1: Knock knock!
2: Who's there?
1: Leonard!
2: Leonard who?
1: Leonard still posts more by himself than all six of the guest blog authors!
2: Oh. Yeah, you're right.
1: We should probably get on that.

Thu Dec 04 2003 17:04 Greetings, Cenobytes:

Listen to me. Listen to me carefully. There has got to be a way to combine Tron and Hellraiser.

Get to it.

Fri Dec 05 2003 03:39 I was going to post this in the comments but it just wouldn't feel as important:

Via Leonard's entry below, maybe the best headline ever:

Panda Arrives in Tokyo on International Love Quest

"Shuan Shuan appeared subdued when she appeared at Narita Airport after a 16-hour flight from Mexico for a rendezvous with 18-year-old stud Ling Ling at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo."

Now that's news!

Fri Dec 05 2003 05:09:

Not only does this week's PvP storyline relate to RPG System Design Month, it's totally meta.

Sat Dec 06 2003 08:32 so much so that I googled to make sure it wasn't posted here before:

discrete math<-- leonardr

Mon Dec 08 2003 12:55 Metabrainwane:

Tea Box Designer:	Here, have a quote from Indira Gandhi!
Sumana:	Indira Gandhi?! The heck? Indira Gandhi was a dictator!
TBD:	We prefer to attend to the beauty of words outside their historical context, as a way of achieving...
S:	Who declared martial law to avoid being removed for corruption!
TBD:	Achieving a mood of proper appreciation for our product, which--
S:	And whose regime included censorship, arrest of dissenters, and forced sterilization drives!
TBD:	But, but GANDHI.
S:	No.
TBD:	... I... Gandhi?

Thu Dec 11 2003 10:11 Ambiguous Headline Watch:

Singer Bobby Brown Charged With Battery

I picture him with alligator clips attached to bolts on his neck, or maybe walking around in circles to make sure he doesn't run low again.

Thu Dec 11 2003 18:00 Finally:

Leonard got to meet Wesley Clark!

I finally got the chance to shake Clark's hand and tell him what I've wanted to tell him since day one: how proud I am to work for him.

Mon Dec 15 2003 10:00:

Tired of the fragile, burglarphobic life of the jeweller? Thinking you could be more effective as a B2B goldsmith's note-engraver, but unable to find skilled partners you can trust? Or exploit? Do you wish you could break out the fountain pen and retire to an easy life of signing your name to pretend money, while the job for which you spent years training is done at no cost and with greater cachet by a creature with no recognizable brain? At last, via Kevan, there's an all-natural solution that fits your needs: outsource your work to bugs!

Tue Dec 16 2003 14:43 I Want One For Econ:

A Non-Philosopher's Guide to Philosophical Terms, humorous. Via Matthew Yglesias.

Wed Dec 17 2003 13:12 Mola Mola Watch:

Something is Highly Damp In the State of Denmark

Fri Dec 19 2003 09:51 All Creatures, Extinct And Icky:

I am not the only person to have suspected that Leonard secretly authored these awesome dinosaur comics.

Steve Schultz of Tokyo Damage Report visits the Meguro Parasite Museum.

Mon Dec 29 2003 07:13:


Growth in US Internet Users Now Much Slower

GeoCities, Everquest Announce Plans to Collapse Under Own Weight

Tue Dec 30 2003 10:58 Technically, Uncle Pedro got to this first:

We Didn't Smacko Jacko, Say Calif. Cops