Build Date: Fri Apr 18 20:10:17 2025 UTC
Extropians don't have souls, so no moonbase for you.
-- Johnnie Royale
Self-Indulgent Pukes
1999-10-30 17:05:26
"The train tracks are less than a mile from my backdoor; and very late at night when everything's still, I can hear the train whistle. It sounds so mournful sometimes, like it's crying. Sometimes, though, it sounds like it's calling out to some distant beacon to say, `I'm coming. Wait for me.' I love listening to the train go by..."
It gets worse.
The old BBS classic of "the running story" has made it to the web. Why this form of prose ever survived beyond the 14-year-old autistic set is beyond me. The basic idea: Get a group of people, each one of them writes a bit of the story, one after the other, until you get enough pages to read. Maybe fun for a few friends who can laugh at each other's clever in-jokes, but inflicting this crap on the rest of humanity is a violation of the Geneva Convention. (You can find "running stories" listed right in between "chemical warfare" and "human medical experiments" as something too foul and evil to be inflicted on enemy troops.)
There's something oddly schizophrenic and haunting as the writing jumps helter-skelter from one point of view to the next, from a mind of an author who can write to the mad typing someone crashing the party, characters who act like art snobs in one paragraph become homicidal maniacs in the next. It's bizarre, twisted, not quite funny, and not quite readable. It sucks you in, chews you up, and spits you back up on the carpet like dog food gone rotten.
Something tells me we'll be seeing more of the same.
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Johnnie Royale's Guide to Wakes
Wakes can present problems for Bad People of the Future. (If you don't know what a BPotF is, you need to read more of the PDJ.) Sure, your friend is gone and you miss him and that really sucks; it does, I know. But all Bad People of the Future are gonna die, and they have all accepted that fact. They do deserve, however, to have one final kickass party to celebrate all the bad things they've done in the past, present and future. And you, as a friend, have to make sure that their desire for a final send off is well executed (sorry for the pun). That's just the way of BPotFdom. (More...)
On a hot spring night after dinner and before the night's serious drinking begins, a Romulan Highball really hits the spot. (More...)
One of our star reporters was sent to Comdex by his employer. El Destino reports live from the biggest, geekiest trade show in the world. (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
Australian Troops Set for Days of Debauchery to the Tunes of Kylie Minogue
This weekend Australian troops in East Timor will be able to put their feet up and push all the images of mass graves and charred remains from their minds as they relax to the giddy melodies of Kylie Minogue - including exclusive unplugged performances in the militia-ravaged and blood-spattered border towns of Balibo and Suai. (More...)
