BS: The Mother of all BS threads

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 12:04 AM

How many forms are you calculating on in your Big Karma Equation, aigo?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 12:06 AM

He'll go around six or seven times, tops. He's still gotta spend one stage as an eel, though.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 09:50 AM

Well the crowd was getting rasty
And they murmured and they roared
They were lookin' for some action
Counting down from forty-four!

And nobody knew which way was up
On that dark and chilly day
But the bets were on the Khandu Kids
And the forty-five of Kay.

The big guys on the other side
They snarled and piled it on,
One of our boys got a broken arm,
Our momentum weas all gone!

They blocked us running east and west
And knocked us on our asses,
And pigpiled on the quarterback
And knocled down all his passes.

So thinks were looking pretty grim
For the Khandu Kids that day,
But we weren't about to give up hope
Or the Forty Five of Kay!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 10:07 AM

I'm not doing any calculation at all about it, Amos, just riding out each experience as it comes.

You note my enjoyment in taking on other prospective identities, via fictional characters? Well, that's part of what arises out of the awareness that I'm not necessarily limited just to my present outward form.

Who will we be next time? We have no way of knowing that. Who were we before? Well, there are various ways of looking into that...to some extent...and I have done a little of that, but for some people it becomes an obsession to do so exhaustively, and I think that may get in the way of them dealing with the present situation and waste a good deal of their time and attention. But there are different viewpoints when it comes to that. It is definitely an interesting subject. George Patton, for instance, was campaigning in North Africa and he experienced a sort of deja vu of having been there in Roman times, as a Carthaginian soldier, and having witnessed the destruction of Carthage in the 2nd Punic War. For him it was a real memory of a previous life experience. He may have been right about that. I tend to trust such strong impressions when I experience them.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 10:18 AM

You'll notice that Patton was on the losing side in that one. And he WAS there, just as he said he was. I made him lose because of his previous life as Nabonidus. And he started his "Patton" life rather poorly: as Sword-Master of the US Army he designed an excellent saber, never realizing that the day of the saber was past and the horse was fast losing ground. Then there was that slapping incident! Fortunately for him, he managed to turn himself around. By the way, he's currently reincarnated as George W. Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:12 AM

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Tears,
    And sighed to see the spectres thronging through;
    But they replied, "You are the captive, you!
We have been free as air these many years."

I watched the billows beat the Adrian shore;
    Each tossed exultingly, then ceased to be;
    And one of them was you, and one was me:
But Ocean lived and thundered as before.

    The Coliseum! There at Caesar's feet,
    The gladiator bowed his pale farewell;
    But pausing there, I mused of Heaven and Hell,
And worlds dismissed to triumph or defeat.

While in the Pantheon I knelt to pray,
    With thoughts of Jove and Jesus much perplext,
A broken Hermes scoffed, "What credence next?"
    And haloed saints lamented, "Who can say?"

To find the Truth, the Truth that cannot die,
    I wandered darkling, wandered everywhere,
Until a statue, through the Grecian air,
    All beautiful, responded, "Here am I."

John W. de Forest

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 12:32 PM

MOM was sweeping the porch this morning and singing this one to herself:

One day I was walking, I heard a complaining
And saw an old woman the picture of gloom
She gazed at the mud on her doorstep ('twas raining)
And this was her song as she wielded her broom

Life is a trial and love is a trouble
Beauty will fade and riches will flee
Pleasures they dwindle and prices they double
And nothing is as I would wish it to be.

There's too much of worriment goes to a bonnet
There's too much of ironing goes to a shirt
There's nothing that pays for the time you waste on it
There's nothing that lasts us but trouble and dirt.

CHORUS

In March it is mud, it is slush in December
The midsummer breezes are loaded with dust
In fall the leaves litter, in muddy September
The wall paper rots and the candlesticks rust

CHORUS

There are worms on the cherries and slugs on the roses
And ants in the sugar and mice in the pies
The rubbish of spiders no mortal supposes
And ravaging roaches and damaging flies

CHORUS

It's sweeping at six and it's dusting at seven
It's victuals at eight and it's dishes at nine
It's potting and panning form ten to eleven
We scarce break our fast till we plan how to dine

CHORUS

With grease and with grime from corner to center
Forever at war and forever alert
No rest for a day lest the enemy enter
I spend my whole life in struggle with dirt

CHORUS

Last night in my dreams I was stationed forever
On a far distant isle in the midst of the sea
My one chance of life was a ceaseless endeavor
To sweep off the waves as they swept over me

Alas! Twas no dream; ahead I behold it
I see I am helpless my fate to avert
She lay down her broom, her apron she folded
She lay down and died and was buried in dirt.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 12:51 PM

I was the great Rampus in another life. You guys probably don't know about Rampus. He was a great leader of Chimps 25,000 years ago. He founded a Chimpanzee empire all over West and Central Africa, drove the gorillas to the East, and held off all human attempts at encroachment upon the Greater Chimpanzee Realm. Chimps ran everything and it was like a paradise for nearly 50 years. But Rampus fell prey to pride and greed and equipped himself with a huge palace and a harem of 888 Chimpettes, the prettiest gal Chimps in the Realm. This led to much resentment from other members of the rulin' class. One night a band of 88 conspirators surprised Rampus in the boudoir and beat his head in with clubs and rocks. The Empire soon fractured into numerous factions and fell apart totally in the decades that followed, but it is still spoke of in legend.

If I had not fallen prey to temptation and the lures of the flesh, I believe that Empire would have lasted at least 10,000 years. Maybe even to the present day! Too bad. Think how much better off Africa would be.

Well, but it was a lotta fun while it lasted. Ook! Ook!

And I have learned my lesson. It's strictly one gal pal at a time now fer this Chimp, and no one can say I live in a palace.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 02:35 PM

How well I remember Rampus and all that! It happened at a University founded by and named for a sea mammal and has come down through history as the Grampus Campus Rampus Rumpus.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 04:02 PM

Yeah--the Grampus U that was forced into closure after an overly exuberant visit from Saint Nick.

Grampus got run over by a reindeer
Flying much too low on Christmas Eve.
Methane wiped out every co-ed left there,
And ever since that evening, I believe!



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Eiseley
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 06:15 PM

Amos, I wish you were coming. Maybe next year!

Rapparee, thank you for forcing me to go to graduate school. (Even though the summer reading program has begun . . . AAACK! As Gaila said, "You cried to come.")

Here is a letter written by Mark Twain to Helen Keller after she was accused of plagiarism.

Riverdale-on-the-Hudson
St. Patrick's Day, '03

Dear Helen,—

I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often think of it with longing, and how they'll say, "There they come—sit down in front!" I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same. I was at Henry Roger's last night, and of course we talked of you. He is not at all well;—you will not like to hear that; but like you and me, he is just as lovely as ever.

I am charmed with your book—enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, the most wonderful in the world—you and your other half together—Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took the pair of you to make a complete and perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, penetration, originality, wisdom, character, and the fine literary competencies of her pen—they are all there.

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Then why don't we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well as the story itself? It can hardly happen—to the extent of fifty words except in the case of a child; its memory-tablet is not lumbered with impressions, and the actual language can have graving-room there, and preserve the language a year or two, but a grown person's memory-tablet is a palimpsest, with hardly a bare space upon which to engrave a phrase. It must be a very rare thing that a whole page gets so sharply printed on a man's mind, by a single reading, that it will stay long enough to turn up some time or other to be mistaken by him for his own. No doubt we are constantly littering our literature with disconnected sentences borrowed from books at some unremembered time and now imagined to be our own, but that is about the most we can do. In 1866 I read Dr. Holmes's poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his dedication, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my "Innocents Abroad" with. Then years afterward I was talking with Dr. Holmes about it. He was not an ignorant ass—no, not he; he was not a collection of decayed human turnips, like your "Plagiarism Court;" and so when I said, "I know now where I stole it, but whom did you steal it from," he said, "I don't remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anyone who had."

To think of those solemn donkeys breaking a little child's heart with their ignorant rubbish about plagiarism! I couldn't sleep for blaspheming about it last night. Why, their whole lives, their whole histories, all their learning, all their thoughts, all their opinions were one solid rock of plagiarism, and they didn't know it and never suspected it. A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they think they've caught filching a chop! Oh, dam—

But you finish it, dear, I am running short of vocabulary today.

Every lovingly your friend

Mark

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 07:08 PM

Just had an idea here for a cheap late 50's horror film title:

"Grampus on Campus!"

Get Gerry and the Pacemakers or somebody like that to do the theme song. Give Fabian and Ann Francis the starring roles as the hero and the love interest, and build the Grampus out of 800 cubic yards of styrofoam and molded green rubber. It coulda been a classic.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 07:23 PM

On the other hand, if it was done now it would just be called GRAMPUS, the Grampus would be made by CGI, there'd be simply incredible scenes of sickeningly graphic and bloody death and dismemberment that would finally just numb the viewer, they'd fire hundreds of cruise missiles at the monster and invade the campus with Abrams tanks and black helicopter gunships, the script would be virtually incomprehensible, the acting comparable to watching PacMan or SuperMario, there'd be lots of disposable teenagers to decapitate and destroy in various gross ways, a bit of totally impersonal sex here and there, and many chances to insert the Pepsi and Gap trademarks meaninglessly into scenes in order to remind the viewer of what their culture really stands on. The Grampus would finally get "taken out" with a tactical nuke, and the ex-campus would be declared a disaster area (not unreasonably) and earmarked for the building of a brand new mega-sized WalMart and a couple of gated communities for wealthy white people.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 07:25 PM

I'm thinking Roland Emmerich to direct it. I gotta get the script to him pronto. I'm gonna be rich! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Janie
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 12:07 AM

OMG, it so happened that I posted the 97th post to two consecutive threads, one minute apart, NOW APPEARING ONE RIGHT AFTER THE OTHER LIVE ON MUDCAT, and featuring alternately Spaw and his farts and Bobert' death threats.

Not many places a long lost relative can celebrate such an acheivement, Maw.

Ain't I special!?

How's that for BS?!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 01:16 AM

The moment passed, but we'll take your word for it! Lots of unusual juxtapositions occur around here.

Eiseley, my daughter Moonglow is in the same UNT program you graduated from. Has finished her first full semester (though she took one graduate level class during her last undergraduate semester). When she graduates you should come down and at least cheer her on, if you can't walk the walk with your cap and gown. Fingers crossed the plumber doesn't have to make any more expensive house calls. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 04:20 AM

Dear EIseley,

Your contribution, from Mister Twain,leaves me awed and inspired, as he usually does. What a voice of a man. Really, a Voice in Full. Many thanks.


And Miss Janie:   What a pleasure to see your sylph-like keystrokes here!!   I hope you will come more often!

As for Grampusi, I have said all I have to say on the subject; it is not something close to my heart, to be sure.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 10:38 AM

Amos, I'm certain that this picture will stir your old seafarer's heart. It's got everything an old salt like you loves about the sea.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 10:46 AM

44972*d
                         1495*d
                           119*d
                            57*d         
                           

THAT's an arrangement you don't see every day in the BS section! It must be another sign of the Rapture a-comin'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 11:18 AM

"it is not something close to my heart," - Amos

Fine, Amos. Fine. Let's discuss women's breasts then, shall we?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 12:51 PM

As the Founder of the Temple of the DIvine Curve, Mister Hawk, I am always prepared to handle issues relating to the Divine Manifestation of Geometry to which you refer, but I would request that you only touch this topic if you are prepared to do so with due respect appropriate for the uncovering of a truly miraculous phenomenon.

A.
Founder
Temple of the Divine Curve

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 01:05 PM

That goes without saying, sir! I am shocked that you would even question me in that regard.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 01:44 PM

What happened to the Temple of the Golden Globes?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 03:05 PM

It's kind of a left-brain, right-brain issue, you see. Both names were used in the formative budding years, and as the fervor grew, neither one seemed more prominent than the other and both were well-supported. We didn't want to start some kind of dramatic cleavage between the two, so we use them interchangeably. Those of our flock who are twins sometimes use both.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 03:15 PM

45000 by the transit of Venus..?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 09:48 PM

I knew this subject would get Amos yakking away in a creative and amusing manner! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 11:10 PM

Well, somebody had to do it!

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 11:15 PM

Well, the yards to go was just nineteen,
ANd the score was locked up tight.
We was pinned down by their blocking line,
Those clods of gloom and night.
But we were all game and fired up,
We were ready for the ride,
There was no defense good enough!
For Mom was on our side.

Well the ref ran out and his whistle blew
With a shriek like an unoiled owl
But just at the snap, their quarterback
Got nailed for an off-sides foul.
And they tagged our GNu fpor traveling
Though why, Gawd only knows!
So we reset the line in a bad state of mind,
With eighteen yards to go.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:11 AM

Then they nailed Amos for double dribble
And LH for high stick
Stilly got six months in the penalty box
And Eiseley a corner kick.
Janie was tossed out at third
And the count was three and two
When Raparree came up to bat
In the test match at Kalamazoo.

Everything depended on him
And he felt the weight of Hope
But he missed the snitch on his first pass
And hearts were nearly broke!
But as he drove that semifinal curve
He cleared the water jump
And finished his vault with a somersault
Stuck the landing without bobble or bump!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 11:56 AM

We've made the transition - not the Venus Transit, just the dog walk transition. We'll be going in the mornings now for a walk through the neighborhood; the roads are hot in the evening and they don't enjoy it so much. And MOM was complaining about how hot her feet were in flipflops on the hot asphalt.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 01:34 PM

Old Rapp was going round the bend,
Babbling on divers sports,
So the coach sidelined him, where he spent
TIme building pillow forts.

The Hawk was dreaming up some scheme
Of methods to annoy
And he and Rapp left in pursuit
Of a handsome water boy.

But the rest of us we hunkered down,
A clean BS machine,
And when the scrimmage dust had cleared
The yards stood at fourteen.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Eiseley
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 03:25 PM

It was raining all day here yesterday, so if Venus transited, she did so without our observation.

Way to go, Moonglow! Stilly, I asked one of my favorite professors to come up to give a storytelling seminar at the annual library conference this fall. I hope Moonglow has the opportunity to take classes from "E."

Eiseley

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 04:29 PM

Eiseley, I'll ask her.

Looks like heavy weather coming through - MOM's flipflops aren't so bad now, she won't have to dry out her socks if she gets caught in the rain.

We're getting close to a dozen now, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Janie
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 07:35 PM

Now Janie pops in every now and again
Reads, chortles or rolls her eyes
She don't say much or try to touch
the wit of the stalwart five
(or six, or seven, or....
Rat's! Nuthin' rhymes with ....
Wait. .... Rhymes with ....)

And Mom is one post closer!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:08 PM

Well! This has been a day for sports news. My niece graduated magna cum laude from USC and since a couple of years ago when she did an internship with the LA Kings she has continued to work there. When the playoffs end her job will be finished and she has a new one to go to. But apparently employees of the team also receive the playoff rings. What a way to start a new career in the direction of business and sports management - with an NHL Stanley cup ring. :)

On a different note, Wesley Smith announced in another thread that his nephew was drafted for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball. A kid from Fort Worth.

Okay, back to the BS of counting down. Or up.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:17 PM

It seems a good time for the party faithful to hover, since interlopers do try to bag the big numbers.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:19 PM

Might as well keep the hand over the "enter" button.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:19 PM

With a couple of windows open in reserve.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:19 PM

Know what I mean?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:21 PM

Of course there could be other players out there so these little statements might end up as non sequiturs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:21 PM

I hope not.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:21 PM

One of them is bound to hit a big number.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:22 PM

Of course a very large number is a nice target.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:22 PM

Closer.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:23 PM

Closing in.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:23 PM

Almost.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:23 PM

45,000 is round. And big. And mine.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:27 PM

Okay. Now I can go and eat dinner.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:35 PM

You ARE going to donate that to PETBEN, aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:52 PM

How long before this nonsense starts up again? I mean...the race to 46,000. When will Amos start composing florid rhymes heralding the approach of the great moment? When will Rapparee answer them with doggerel of his own? When will SRS post 15 or 20 times in a row as the deadline approaches?

How long have I got without having to witness that sort of thing on this thread? Hmmm? That period of 1,000 posts is starting to whiz by way too fast, if you ask me.