Thought Distillery » Amusements

Yummy Fun Bags? I’ll have three please.

Scott — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:43:03 +0000

Some comment spam is so zany you just can’t help but share it with everyone. After searching for Aunt Mary’s and getting very benevolent results (dog rescue, quilt shop, yarn store, etc), I figured it was safe to share this without advancing the spammer’s cause. Get your shoes and socks on people, it’s right around the corner:

Aunt Mary’s is THE place! Where else can you order some delicious Yummy Fun Bags, have an ice cold PBR or tasty glass of wine, hear an awesome band, find the perfect gag gift or birthday card, relax on the most comfortable sofa anywhere, visit with locals and out-of-towners alike at the new counter/bar, and even get to tell Adam and Josh that they truly suck at Whilrwind? Where else? That’s right, this is the ONLY place on Earth. No, there is no other place. You’re an idiot if you think there’s another place like this anywhere. An idiot! Now go visit Aunt Mary’s!!! (Oh, if you’re not 18 years of age, Rocky won’t let you in)

[Edit: it turns out that Aunty Mary's actually IS right around corner - see comments below. Everything is real, even Oz! Or am I just dreaming?]

Thought Harassment

Scott — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:36:13 +0000

The following is a post drafted in early 2005. At the time I didn’t want to give anyone paranoia that I was tracking their browsing habits of this website. I’ve long let go my server log obsession, as I have plenty of other useful actvities to occupy my time. I bring this draft to life to possibly amuse the 1 or maybe 2 readers that still follow this stagnant site.

ha·rass
tr.v. ha·rassed, ha·rass·ing, ha·rass·es

To irritate or torment persistently.
To wear out; exhaust.
To impede and exhaust (an enemy) by repeated attacks or raids.

I admittedly take a sometimes obsessive interest in who or what traffics this website. So I regularly read through long lists of webserver log files. For all ye non-techies out there, this is the kind of information I see:

156.56.126.27 - - [10/Jan/2005:15:12:47 -0800] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 22676 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/125.5.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12"

What we have here is the IP address of the visitor, the date and time, the requested page (/), and a bunch of extra text telling us about the webrowser the visitor used. Thats it. This kind of information is generated every time you visit any webpage. Your tracks are left, but they are still quite anonymous tracks. Of course we can do a little digging to maybe get a clue of who it is that visited. Lets see who owns that IP address by using a simple hostname lookup shall we?

dial-126-27.dial.indiana.edu

Well, how about that? A visitor from what appears to be someone using the dialup modem pool of my former Alma Mater, Indiana University. Most likely a vistor from Bloomington Indiana. My oh my, and they are a black sheep as well because they (like me) are using the Safari web browser on an Apple Machintosh computer!

Why do I bring all this up, you may wonder? Well, one starts to notice patterns after sifting through thousands of lines of webserver logs. The pattern I noticed several months ago was almost daily visits from somebody using the IU dialup pool with a Machintosh computer. No big deal, I know of other people who visit on a regular basis but I have NO CLUE who this person is! You see, all my friends from IU (to my knowledge) have graduated and left. Since I refuse to fool myself into believing that this site is captivating enough to grab the regular attention of complete strangers, I am naturally very curious who this mysterious visitor may be. A long lost friend perhaps? I don’t know.

Being the occasional programming junkie that I am, I began adding special messages to Thought Distillery’s home page that would only be displayed to Safari browser visitors coming from IU dialup addresses. Over the last two months I have literally PLEADED to this visitor to give me a clue to who they may be, or at least acknowledge if they are a stranger or not. I know that they have seen my messages as the visits have continued, but what have I received? Nothing! Nothing but repeated torment and paranoia generated within my own mind of who this could possibly be and why they refuse to give me even one word after I’ve given hundreds! I am exhausted from the whole debacle.

Here is a satirical poster of Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge. Many people seem to believe that those zany US republicans are trying to accomplish their right-winged agenda by scaring the public with scary words and scary ideas of scary foreign enemies.

I see this whole situation as a strange form of harassment. Though this person is doing nothing but passively viewing this website, they are indirectly causing me persistent thought torment which is wearing me out from the repeated visits. Well, it shall be no more! I hereby publicly decry this ludicrious situation and wipe my server log obsession clean! Go on, keep visiting. Remain invisible. I will no longer know or wish to know. I just want my sanity back, is that too much to ask? Is it?! … Say something!? Anything?! Please!!!!

No Self Control

Scott — Thu, 05 May 2005 07:48:58 +0000

I should be sleeping right now, for tomorrow’s 4:30am wakeup call looms. Instead I allow myself to become distracted by pointless yet oddly amusing toys. Thank you Mike Park for enlightening me.

You too can create create you own South Park doppelganger…

America We Stand

Scott — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:00:03 +0000

Posted on the WFMU blog, my latest favorite blog of the week, was this catchy little ditty. If you have broadband, the download is well worth the wait. At first I thought this video was a farce, but further digging into the America We Stand as One website seems to indicate 100% sincerity…

… oh man! I can certainly respect Star-Trek stuntman Dennis Madalone for creatively expressing his devote patriotism and love of country. However, this “new American rock anthem” is just so over-the-top it moves me to tears even after my 4th viewing – tears of laughter that is. The Knight Rider sunglasses and wind-in-hair flash animations on the website are the perfect icing on the cake. I don’t think even Trey Parker and Matt Stone could top this one.

Bowie’s Ballistics

Scott — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 05:32:17 +0000

While following a cheeky blog discussion that I dare not partake in, I was reminded of a related post by The Gal From Down Under on the Bike Friday mailing list. If you have an allergy to nuts (or spandex), then don’t follow this link. Otherwise, I found it quite laughable and let it serve as a stiff reminder of why I wear regular shorts over my bicycle shorts.

McPhee – You’ve Done It Again

Scott — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 01:36:28 +0000

Just when I start to become all bleak and weary from my dusk to dusk daily grind, along comes the latest pick-me-up email from your pal and mine: Archie McPhee. This will probably read like a blatant commercial plug, but heck who else has brought you the Cat-A-Pult, Nunzilla, and Hopping Lederhosen??? (Oh, meiner lederhosen!)

Well, now they’ve outdone themselves once again. Anyone who has ever worked in corporate hell, or is a fan of the comic strip Dilbert will certainly get a kick out of The Cubes. At last some inanimate plastic for the mentally conquered among us to, well, conquer! I hope they come out with an OSHA violation expansion kit to allow all us wannabe cube kings to really put some fear into the daily lifes of our cube serfs. Perhaps a conference room with soul-eating baboons? Oh wait, I think I’m drifting a little too close to reality. Nevermind.

Whats In A Name

Scott — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:31:09 +0000

Lately, words and names have been occupying my mind and apparently I am not the only one with this kind of pastime. The other night I decided it was time to find a good name for a future website devoted to one of my other fascinations – bamboo. Lucky for me there were plenty of bamboo names to dig through!

bambooreview.com : great name for an informative (yet boring) magazine
bamboovoodoo.us : intriguing, yet too mysterious
bambootouch.com : everything he touches turns into bamboo. not quite as fun as The Chocolate Touch
bamboomagoo.us : though possibly a little near-sighted, this name is pure fun to say out loud
bambookazoo.com : hmmm, kazoos bring back some fond memories – somewhat of an incoherent combination though
bamboojew.com : it would almost be worth taking up Judaism just for this name (well, that and an excuse to learn some Yiddish)
bambooBS.com : surely whatever I do will contain a bit of BS – but I’m leary of any website name with boobs in it
bamboobonanza.com : whee! Its a bamboo party – what a great name! (but still with a boob – darn it!)

So after much internal debate and indecision I drew upon some wise inspiration and finally decided on a name that seemed to fit me well. What do you think?

Elevator Experiment

Scott — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 07:29:22 +0000

Normally I’m a stairs kind of person. Its not that I dislike elevators, I just think that as long as I’m physically capable and can spare an extra minute why not just get a bit of exercise? Or maybe its not an exercise thing. My earliest memory of stairing over elevatoring is a lighthouse visit on a family vacation somewhere in Michigan. The elevator ride up was fairly slow, so I thought a race would be in order on the way down. I think I made the 8 story descent in about 30 seconds and caught my breath long before the rest of the family emerged from the elevator at the bottom. And then there was the guidance office atop the 9 story math building at Purdue University. Every new semester compelled me to verify the total number of steps from ground 0 to floor 9 – like they may have added a few extra steps since my last count. Since I can’t remember the count, I’m certain to make another climb on my next visit to the campus (whenever that may be).

So anyway, recently I’ve been riding the elevator on a daily basis at the Oregon State University Lily Library (check out one of the cool time lapse movies if you’ve got a fast conection!). Today I was fascinated with the unwritten social rule that one must stand silent facing the doors after entering an elevator. I wondered what a person would do if upon entering an elevator they found everyone else in the elevator facing the back wall? What would win out: elevator etiquette or group pressure? The next time I have a few friends together who can’t decide how to entertain themselves, its off to find a fairly busy elevator! I’m curious the percentage of people that would face forward, face backward, and ask questions. Also, some way to photograph a person’s expression the moment the elevator doors open would be good.

If that experiment became boring, then maybe I could do an elevator version of Mark Horowitz’s Coffee in the Park. Maybe I’ve been missing out on elevator fun for too many years?

Pogo Chronicles Part I

Scott — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 22:44:20 +0000

Inspired by the zany projects of fellow Indiana University alumnus Mark Horowitz, I present Pogo Chronicles Part I: The Vision.

The Scenario: A group of parched individuals sit at a table in the park in dire need of cold and refreshing carbonated soft drinks. Too exhausted to move, they look with puppy dog eyes far across the grass fields to a Cola Machine shimmering in the burning sunlight.

To The Rescue: The friendly and honorable Pogo Team arrives! After a brief introduction, each member of the squadron withdraws their faithful bouncing steed and stands in the ready position. The eldest woman of the table is given the official party whistle and the honor of starting the race.

The Race: The whistle blows, and our heros are off! Pogo sticks bounce like thoroughbred kangaroos! Sweat-soaked determination grips each jockey as all focus is bent upon reaching the Cola Machine – the Fountain of Life! The racers reach the destination and frantically pump quarters into the humming mechanism. Then with chilled elixir in hand, they bounce off in a mad pace back to the eagerly awaiting park people.

The Finale: Success! The Pogo Team returns in record time to deliver the healing cold of the sodas. Each soda erupts with a cheer of jubilance from the crowd and quenches the parched souls. With tears of gratitude mixed with quite a bit of carbonated syrup, the park people are now satisfied and happy thanks to the dedicated and self-sacrificing efforts of the Pogo Team. Its mission accomplished, the Pogo Team bounces off into the hazy sun to seek their next adventure.

Scrabblagram Poetry

Scott — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 04:44:54 +0000

With my recent Scrabble and Anagram themes, I can’t help but post this link to a Scrabble Anagram Poem.

It seems that one could come up with a million variations of amusement centered around this classic game. You could even use Scrabble scoring to turn your lunch of alphabet soup into a competition. Hmm, I think I know what I’ll be looking for on my next trip to the grocery…