THINGS ARE LOOKING UP FOR KILGORE TROUT!

• Chaotic Not Random recorded its 5,000th hit today at 9:09:40 A.M. MST. Thanks to whoever checked in from the digitalteleport.com domain in the Mountain Time Zone. Hmm... that's interesting. Are you by chance a generously nosed Denverite with two X chromosomes and a flat chest? If so, you have just won a free tour of my apartment. (Notice, by the way, that I did not write, "9:09:40 A.M. MST in the morning", which seems to be the fashion lately. A.M. stands for "antemeridian", which means, roughly, "in the morning" -- this is an error of redundancy much like the wretched "$200 million dollars", "PIN number", and "ATM machine".)
  
  
• My Google toolbar recently blocked its 2,000th pop-up ad. Take that, pop-up advertisers! Every time the Google toolbar blocks an ad, it sounds a single click to let me know it's doing its job. I would like it even better if it made an exploding sound, as if the pop-up ad had stepped on a mine, or a screaming sound, as if the pop-up ad was a mob informant getting worked over in a back room somewhere.
  
  
• I made an unkind remark today in the comments section at Go Fish, a new daily read. I called supposed psychics Uri Geller and John Edward frauds -- because they are -- and wondered why psychics don't just make a fortune playing the stock market and betting on sports. Someone named Nick struck back with:
  
  Kilgore,
  There' [sic] a big diffrence [sic] big [sic] between a teller/clairvoyant and a sensitive.
  
  And the voice of ignorance rears it's [sic] ugly head.
  
  How sweet is it when someone accuses you of ignorance while making four spelling and syntax errors within a space of 21 words?
  
  
• I learned how to degauss my computer monitor. Have you ever done this? Find the button/menu item on your monitor that says "DEGAUSS", or look for a symbol that looks like a U-magnet with a slash across it. Now hit that shit! Take your time -- I'll wait.
  
  Wasn't that cool? Don't try it again quite yet or you'll be disappointed. Degaussing is like masturbation -- you have to wait a few minutes before you can do it again and get the full effect.
  
  
• I successfully avoided talking to the Old Lady who waits in the breakroom at work and traps her unsuspecting coworkers in pointless, boring conversations (see 11/17). The Old Lady had defeated me easily in our last skirmish, but I had made many costly errors that allowed her to break my defenses. This time, when I entered the breakroom and caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, I immediately snapped my eyes to the right to avoid eye contact. (Previously, I had panicked and looked her in the eyes, and she struck like an angry cobra.) I could feel her eyes grasping for purchase at the back of my skull while I proceeded to the refrigerator and retrieved my Hot Pocket. I stood firm and resisted the temptation to glance backward as I inserted the Hot Pocket into its crisping sleeve and set the microwave to 90 seconds.
  
  Then I executed a brilliant defensive maneuver. I knew she thought she had me pinned at the microwave, while I waited for my lunch to heat up. The Old Lady likes to use this time to launch multiple conversational attacks, from What's for lunch today? to My son has a shirt just like that. Instead, I took control by spinning right -- spinning left would have brought my line of vision across her table, giving her an opening -- and moving quickly to the door. I exited the room before The Old Lady could speak a single word. I wandered the office for a few minutes, and by the time I got back to the breakroom, the Old Lady had left.
  
  Game, set, match: Kilgore Trout.

+posted by Lawrence @ 1/28/2004 11:40:00 PM