E G O S P E W

Harrigan leaps gracefully over winter sidewalk salty nastiness. (NYC 12/2001)

I always wondered by what process Harrigan could engorge himself with various raw materials (puppy chow, pizza, turkey, bagels) then convert them into fur, love, and magnificent leaps.

Finally, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, we have the answer:

harrycat

Harry’s Miraculous Innards

Epilogue: Unfortunately, milliseconds after this NMRI scan was saved to disk, the subject vaporized into nothingness (a quite beautiful flash) as all ferromagnetic components accelerated to speed-of-light vectors toward the extreme corners of the room or even the known universe.
Thanks to Satre Stuelke and http://www.radiologyart.com/

Homo Sapiens Elgoog & Aidepikiw

Life, Myth, and Naming Conventions

During some recent exhaustive research for an entirely unrelated subject, after hours illicitly spent with my secret nighttime lovers Elgoog & Aidepikiw [the names were changed to protect Carl & Linda], I discovered there are now SIX kingdoms of life! Not two! It’s all been reorganized out from under me, while I was busy mastering my own life’s kingdom. Back when I was in high school, it was so simple: Animalia and Plantorum, or whatever. There were some uncomfortable rumblings about viruses and people still argued over whether they possessed 48 or 46 chromosomes but generally, I walked around erect, proud to be a vertebrate.

Ah, those were the good old days . . . nine planets, no plutoids. Evolution was a science, not an optional myth. And Jupiter had an impressive but manageable twelve moons.  Pop quiz: name them! “Yeah, okay, sure . . . Europa, Io, Ego, Id . . . you know, all those Jupiter/Zeus lovers and descendants. Freud must have dreamed about getting into those heads.”

Nice try.

Well, science never sleeps.  In the past few years our giant friend, under intense government agency probing, has revealed many more secret moons — 63 total, as of today.  Yikes, where was I?

(continue reading…)

Ldawg.4377 scowled at the shimmering image of the vidAAAgent® so in his face. “I want a wucking window! And not over a wucking wing!”

The unflappable vidAAAgent replied in soothing but rapid synthesized tones.  His/her accent was gender-neutral and the perfect non-specific mid-national blend, neither too Chicago nor too Mumbai.  “No problem. Please take note: Window-locations-present-increased-radiation-levels-potential, which-have-been-demonstrated-in-non-trivial-samples-to-cause-genetic-mutations-and-cancer. Some-mutations-are-beneficial. Notice-ID ISO-3-7-7-2-1-dot-9. I can offer positions 47-A or 233-Gamma.”

“Gucking Gamma?  The Greek side of the pucking plane? Nope. No way. I want my A. Left side, baby. Pucking posh, all the way.” Then Gamma return. See the sucking city going out. See it again coming home. Gotta catch France’s second liberty gift, the condolence for 9/11-2: the Eiffel Twoer, an exact lifesize stainless steel replica of the one à Paris. Built on Freedom Tower’s ashes. Freeffel Twoer.  Hmm. Too many tragedies. Way too. “Yeah, 47-A. . .BOOK. . .SEAT. . .47-A. . . . PLEASE. How many complimentary pretzel pellets I get?”

“No problem. You have reserved seat 47-A. That flight comes with Class4 amenities: Recycled water is supplied in times of demonstrated medical emergency only. Pretzel pellets are an optional extra. Please acknowledge by stating I Accept.”

“I ucking accept! Yuck.”

“Please acknowledge by stating I Accept.”

“I. . .ACCEPT! You tucking turd!”

“Thank you. Would you like to order optional pretzel pellets for an additional charge?”

“Are you nuts?”

“I’m sorry. Nuts are no longer available.  Would you like to order optional pretzel pellets for an additional charge?”

“UCK YOU.”

“I’m sorry. I detect stress in you vocal kinetics. Please remain patient. Would you like to order optional pretzel pellets for an additional charge?”

“NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”

“No problem.  Thank you. Your validity for passage has been confirmed. When it comes to air travel,  we realize you have non-zero but limited options and we appreciate your choice of AllAmericanAirways.”

“You’re too wucking welcome.”

Ldawg slapped his transPod® into client-autoguide mode under AAAserver control. It dutifully jerked toward the jetway, joining streams of similar, though personalized, individual environment capsules, or iEpods™. Shiny decals of aliens and holograms of middle fingers danced off their contours. The stadium sized fuselage was nearly full on his level. As he was glided down the aisle, the nine pods in his row shifted out and back just as he arrived and his slid neatly into place, left-eyeport snugged neatly up against the multiCoat Plexiglas. The 10-10-10 configuration was a model of efficiency. Didn’t the French come up with decimal time, too? “CHARGE” and “LINK” indicators blinked as the transPod auto-Mated with the Airbus 999 and his accumulated waste was evacuated. A fresh breeze of tranquility pheromones wafted up through his custoForm bucket. It almost reminded him of a scratch-n-sniff post card of a New Jersey pine barren.

Ldawg.4377 cocked an eye to the left and gazed out at the wonder.

Having worked for seven odd years in the “wireless communities industry” (directing engineering at Upoc, a cell phone social phenomenon) and having necessarily perused first-hand many of the billions of member messages transmitted (beware: data privacy is a phantom, its ectoplasm comprised of eminently decipherable packets), I have earned my amateur psychologist stripes when it comes to human contact at desperate times via tenuous methods.

So I was especially excited to find this discovery recently published in the “American Journal of Technical Archaeology.”

Lucent Researchers Reviewing Decades-Old Server Logs Uncover Very First SMS.

Sent from Alexander Graham ”RingBling” Bell to his laboratory assistant:
yo watson come here. i want 2 date u

Unfortunately, the assistant’s unlogged reply either remained unsent in the airmailed handset or undelivered due to RingBling’s over-limit status.