Telephone Conversations From The Edge

All in a day, I reckon.

Fortunately, not every day is remotely close to this 'un.

I was subjected to two phone calls a few days ago. The background behind the two calls need not be discussed; indeed, having knowledge of the background that contributed to the two calls, will only serve to obfuscate the reasoning and philosophical consequences of global bovine-caused flatulence on the atmosphere in confined elevators, if such can be judged sequitur to what follows herein.

On this point I am ambivalent, and my dictionary cautiously agrees, it thinks.

I was telephonically introduced, a few days back, to a granddaughter of a living queen. Which queen is not important, especially since the caller, later on, related that she was married to one of the queen's sons, if you believe in such things. Having driven through Arkansas once, I can accept this as a possibility. I am even willing to grant such outlandish possibilities as space aliens who look like Conan O'Brien, or that Wile E. Coyote's indestructible carcass is made of kevlar.

What truly mattered about the call -- the first call -- was that the caller, who also claimed that the current president is her half-brother, demanded that I contact the Feds ASAP, and have them secure something for her that certain royalty, politicians (including a polarizing conservative politician of Northern Exposure roots), and evil persons of dubious antecedence, were using and abusing to aid terrorists and certain TV re-runs on TVLand to create wars world-wide.

Yawp. This, I was told.

This 'thing' that was to be secured had been given her by five presidents and two kings; when I dared ask the caller to name the presidents and kings -- my incredulity was not so incredded asto not want to know which elected officials might be a part of this phone prank, so I'd know who to vote for and against in '12 -- the presidents were identified by the caller as Roosevelt (which one was not specified), Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Campbell and Coolidge.

If you're a student of history as I sometimes am, you noted that the caller only got three out of five presidents right; then again, her half-brother said there were 57 states. Eh...shared genealogical discrepancies. It happens, and I digress.

As for the two kings, she quickly identified them as 'King' Faulkner and Rockefeller; kings of what and where, were not revealed. I was quick to note that the hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds and Ralph, didn't make the cut.

Fervently, the caller urged me to "get right on this for the sake of the world"; I was also repeatedly admonished that "this is not a joke".

Yawp. This, I was told.

At the conclusion of the first call -- which I managed to take with an absolute straight face, having been thrice-concussed and being able to marginally rationalize some of this hooey as worthy of a reality TV show one day -- I pledged to "look right into this and see what I could do".

Yawp. This, I responded.

With receipt of the second call -- when the caller checked back to see what I had done and accomplished -- my enthusiasm regulator was straining to squeeze what little was left from my daily reservoir of same. I expressed to the caller that I had certain reservations about the caller's credibility, and that I was reluctant to take further actions demanded by the caller, in view of my aforementioned conclusion to the caller's veracity (as determined by myself, thrice-concussed and all).

Thus, as I was finding that the caller's veracity was beneath dung beetle spit, I was not inclined -- or from any other posturepedic position -- to take further action as demanded by the caller.

That got me promptly hung up on. I wasn't sure if I was disappointed or relieved to have had my connection to The Twilight Zone ended.

But I had learned much; most of it as useful as a petrified tree in termite Hell. But that's okay; after checking my social calendar, I find that disapproval from dead termites is not on the first 750 pages of my "to be concerned about" list.

In the end, I drew the logical conclusion that full moons near holidays, and/or the presence of online email scammers, are not necessarily required for *WTF was that?* moments in life. All you need is a telephone. Any kind will do.

Oh, and lest I forget one other thing needed...to be fool enough to answer it, when you receive phone calls from the edge.

Sorry, Wrong Planet...

Even a brilliant mind can seem like it's "jumped the shark" sometimes. Or not.

The eccentric, mega-IQ mind of Stephen Hawking has a Discovery Channel piece upcoming, wherein he postulates that, contrary to years of effort and various and assorted attempts, it is a very bad idea for us to reach out across the cosmos, in search of intelligent life.

Hawking may be too late to dissuade one American city and county on the subject, but we'll return to that momentarily.

His argument seems to suggest that such a search may well result in "be careful what you wish for", and that some forms of life out there, somewhere, might be even more predatory and conquest-oriented, than we as a species have been. Which could result in the ultimate of "hostile takeover" attempts, as have been depicted in sci-fi books and films for years.

I don't know how long it'll take The Daily Kos, HuffPo, Moron.Org, et al, to brand Hawking "anti-immigrant" and a "racist", but let's take a look at this from a more..uh...me-style.

Man has had a fascination with the notion that there must be intelligent life out there, beyond our simple Solar System (anyone watching our Congress of late, knows intelligent life can't be found there). And from Man's first visit to the Moon, there have been various and sundry efforts to reach out and touch an extraterrestrial. In 1972 and '73, Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched into the cosmos, destination....infinity. Aboard both, were symbols indicating our human community, and our approximate cosmic address. In 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were dispatched on a similar mission, bearing Earthly recordings of different sounds and ideas, to deliver to whom/whatsoever ultimately might find and collect them, at some point in the endless Sea of Deep Space & Time.

The short speech on one of the recordings by Jimmy Carter, it is hoped, won't be held against us. This might be the reason for Hawking's trepidation, but I digress.

In 2008, NASA 'beamed' a song by the Beatles -- Across The Universe -- as a message, in the direction of the star Polaris (aka, The North Star), to anyone/thing living in the cosmic vicinity thereof. Taking into account such things as physics, the speed of light, government regulation, ASCAP and union rules, it is estimated that the message will arrive in the Polaris neighborhood about the year 2439.

Perhaps Admiral James T. Kirk can do a time warp after the message is received, to tell us how it went over: as a "message of peace", or as an inciting-of-violence obscenity in Romulan, which folks in the future will no doubt wish to thank us for, by sending us a futuristic "Phfffffft!".

Of course, sound waves have been leaving the good ol' Earth for millenia. Granted, up until the advent of radio, any transmissions from Earth that might be eventually picked up by any kind of life form, would be primitive, or across various spectrums of stuff I don't know squat about. Say, when the volcanic island Krakatoa exploded in 1883, what some cosmic listening post in deep space might eventually here would be.....*boom*. How they might interpret that, well:

Alien 1: "Rack ack ack rack...*boom*?"

Alien 2: "Rack rack ACK rack ACK, *boom*!"

Together: "Rack ack ack ack ack ack...!"

By the same token, I know nothing more about deep space radio signals NASA has detected from distant quasars, that could be almost anything, from space noise, to alien programming ("At Xoeygeryg Spunkmeisen Gronificators, We Hold Your Loyalty In Our 27 Hands. Find Us For All Your Flatuminus Needs And Extenitalia. We're Prepostunationally Located In The Horsehead Nebula, For Easy Access! Mind Meld Today!").

With the advent of radio, and later TV, what human-caused signals may eventually reach intelligent life, well..."bang...ZOOM, Alice, to the MOON!"...."Who's on First? Yes, he is. So, Who's on First? You're right! I don't even know what I'm talking about!!!"....might have another race of beings wondering amongst themselves, their own equivalent of "WTF?".

Now, it's possible that advanced cultures in other areas of the cosmos have very delicate, powerful, and capable transceivers, to listen for things as subtle as...whale song. In Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, an alien race sends a probe to Earth, seeking to find out why, in the 23rd Century, they can no longer listen to George and Gracie whale-rap. This, of course, causes all sorts of havoc with human services and conditions -- the disruption of texting ability alone would cause the entire generation of teens to implode and bitch about having nothing to do -- and it takes a handful of humans, on another alien wessel, to go back in time to find the right species to respond to the alien probe. And having successfully done so, the probe does indeed, as Dr. McCoy ventured, get the answer it wants, so it can go do something else with itself.

And all's a happy ending, except for Admiral/Captain Kirk's latest girlfriend, who blows him off too, to go chase a pair of sea mammals 300 years after she wasn't supposed to be, anymore.

I'm sure the alien race that sent the probe, found this part totally non sequitur.

Of course, many have postulated about what a human/alien contact for the first time might be like: would it be more like ET, or like Mars Attacks! In the former case, a heart-warming universal enlightenment descends upon all the world. In the latter case, a bunch of until-now undetected Martians of dubious antecedence and odious intent, wreak all kinds of havoc on Earth -- other than performing the singular public service of hosing the Congress -- before being driven back to Mars by the songs of Slim Whitman.

Or maybe it would be somewhere in between, like in the first Outer Limits (TOS) episode (a personal favorite of my pet rock, Seymour), when an engineer who owns a radio station, makes contact with a race of beings totally unlike anything one would see today with modern CGI special effects. A gaffe on the part of another radio station employee winds up "sucking" the alien from his point of transmission, to Earth, where it doesn't go real good for a couple Earthlings, but ultimately the alien gets to make a James T. Kirk-like speech, warning of the ways of Man in the face of the unknown, before disappearing into the void like a hallucination of an honest politician.

I dunno....Hawking might be onto something here. Perhaps we, as "we" are collectively, aren't ready for contact with an alien intelligence. Perhaps we're already in contact, as aliens have infiltrated us, for study and analysis, to determine if we're worthy of future, more substantive contact. Or perhaps AlGore is the alien, sent to test human intelligence and gullibility; and those who bought into his AGW scam have so totally flunked, getting voted off an alien Cosmic Intelligence Idol show, without knowing they were auditioning.

Whatever the case, I'm not worried about the Beatles speaking for me to Polarisians; my chips will be cashed in long before 2439. And if something malevolent finds, and is offended by, Jimmy Carter's words on the Voyager, well...I'm not a registered Democrat, so no worries there.

In the case of a Mars Attacks! encounter, no worries there, either: I think I have a Slim Whitman album around here, somewhere. If not, I can substitute modern-day Bob Dylan or Ozzy Osbourne one; whale song would be easier to decipher, even for an alien.

Which I may have to do, thanks to a whacked-out ballot initiative that will be up to a vote of the City and County of Denver in 2010: whether to create a City & County Extraterrestrial Affairs Committee, or not. Whether the proponent of this ballot initiative, or those who signed onto it, are also medicinal marijuana prescription holders (which are currently spreading across the City & County like wildfire through a drought-infested forest), is not known.

But before the City & County votes to create this commission or not, perhaps every voter should be required to watch ET and Mars Attacks!, while sober and before voting, to get both up and downsides of the potential results.

At the very least, know that greeting a delegation of extraterrestrials with a release of peace doves, might go over like a fart in an avalanche zone.

Bottom line here: you might think the City and County of Denver is right; or, you might think that Stephen Hawking is right; or, you might wait to find out for yourself, when or if you are contacted by an extraterrestrial that doesn't present a green card, or demand your wallet.

If you find yourself in such a meeting, and it seems to be going well, you can always direct them to Denver; if not, you can try treating them like a wrong number, and respond with a no sprechen das Polarisian, boneless nachos, awpeterstain!

Or hope you have Slim Whitman on your iPod, blackberry, cell phone ring tone, etc...

A Product Review, Eh?

I reckon that not everyone who reads this blog, bothers to comment. And that's fine. As my great grand-daddy might have never said, "if ya can't say somethin' nice, say it in Azerbaijani, so no one will unnerstand a word of it". Which may or may not prove germaine to what follows.

So...regular readers h'yar know that, up to now, the only product reviews/endorsements I have ever done, were my tongue-in-cheek endorsements of the truly 'unique' products by Bonco, UnInc, like the Bug-a-BOOM and PHFFT! Asure. But reading them, you simply had to know that I was yanking your chain, right?

Well...perhaps one of my lurkers out there didn't do a whole lot of 'targeted research' of this blog, before sending me what they dun sent me...'cuz I got me an out-of-nowhere request to do a product endorsement, and for something I reckon most of you will view as I did.

But first, I'll let you read it h'yar yourself:

Dear Skunkfeathers,

May I ask you to write a review for Jet Email Extractor 6.5.216294 tool on your blog? I will give you a registration code in exchange. Here is the link: (which, if any of y'all want it, feel free to ask)

You may place this link alone without description or on existing post or create new post with a short description (language and text is up to you).

*TOING*...she don' know me vewy well, do she? And she/he/bot goes on:

Here is brief information about our Product:

(company name changed for heck of it) Dagnabbit Jet Email Extractor is a good helper in conducting email marketing campaigns (aka, sending out a sh**load of spam). Every email campaign requires large lists of email addresses. It was designed to collect targeted email addresses of potential customers to boost your sales and revenue (and to send out a sh**load of spam). Dagnabbit Jet Email Extractor will build huge targeted mailing lists. It connects to lots of news servers and retrieves email addresses from the headers of each and every article in chosen target-related newsgroups.

Benefits

- captures email addresses at very high speed. Multithreaded. Average speed is 100,000 emails per hour (and that makes for a sh**load of spam).

- extracts not only user's email but also name. Your direct marketing will be personalized ("Hi, (your name), you have been personally SPAMMED!"). Adding personalized content to email marketing messages is a great benefit (to my SPAM folder)

- automatically removes duplicate and incorrect email addresses (but doesn't, I note, remove itself from pestering MY email)

- extraction is strongly targeted to specific audience (rather like an enema)

- exports the results into text file (mailing list)

For more information please visit (the link)

Sincerely,

Herzits Stubramowitz (name changed to protect endangered sea-going email spam during spawning season)

Tech Writer

Dagnabbit, Inc (not their real name, but eh...)

So, she wants me to review and endorse a product that promotes email spam. Ain't that quaint?

Of course, I'm a bit of a stick in the mud on stuff like this; I don't arbitrarily click on suggested links from unsolicited emails. BUT, I do frequently pull my stick from the mud and poke it in the ear of the sender, to see what kind of response I might get. Thus, I did respond to this one:

Dear Extractor's Digest Ma'am,

After reading your offer, I can't hep but wonder: have you ever read my blog? Just wonder' h'yar.

While I awaited an answer to that simple question (which I never got), I decided to provide more than the emailer counted on, and approach this in a manure that readers here will recognize from the Bonco product line:

Introducing, by DAGNABBIT Inc. Thingamabobs, The Pharting Jet Email Extractor & Enema Spammer!

Face it, folks: simply put, you simply do NOT GET ENOUGH EMAIL SPAM! You know you don't. And deep down, you know YOU WANT IT! Oh, go ahead...admit it. YOU..WANT..IT! Not only that, but you WANT TO MAKE MORE OF IT! You want to JOIN the EMAIL SPAM REVOLUTION!

Well, the folks at DAGNABBIT, Inc., -- in absolutely no cooperation with the mad scientists here from Bonco, UnInc, who think they molest woodpeckers -- have created a program that will allow you to TOTALLY INUNDATE your friends, family, extended friends, soon-to-be enemies....just friggin' EVERYONE...with SPAM!

And with their Email Marketing/Harassment CamPAIgNs tool, the Jet Email Extractor, you can collect thousands upon millions upon billions upon trillions of email addresses, personalize them, and then INUNDATE THE WHOLE FRIGGIN' LOT WITH PERSONALIZED SPAM!

Yes, you read that right: SPAM FOR EVERYONE! Let no emailer be LEFT BEHIND!

Not only will this program scan every last source for any and ALL email addresses, it will allow you to TERRORIZE THE EMAIL WORLD WITH A VERITABLE BARRAGE OF TARGETED, PERSONALIZED MARKETING EMAILS! Now you too, can behave like a Congress-like contemptuous mailbot, and send emails to known and unknown persons in all the far corners of the email Earth, at a rate of 100,000 emails per hour!

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

With this handy-dandy program to overload servers and spam filters, the Jet Email Extractor makes sensational julienne fries, shakes, and other healthy snacks*!

AND THAT'S NOT ALL!

With the easily-deployed program to rape and pillage email addresses, the Jet Email Extractor gets rid of vericose veins, hangnails, the smell from flatulence, ear wax, post-rectal drip, and those annoying gnats that gather in clouds around you during the spring and summer months**!

AND EVEN THAT'S NOT ALL!

Once you have downloaded and installed the Jet Email Extractor, turning your computer into the SPAMMER even rabbits can't multiply like, you'll find you can repair any tear, clean any stain from any fabric, leap tall buildings in a single sentence, fix the economy, make the world love us, and invite any pesky asteroids to renovate Newark, NJ or Jackson, MS***!

Simply put, WTF are you waiting for??? GET THE JET EMAIL EXTRACTOR BY DAGNABBIT, INC. TODAY, AND DISPATCH YOUR OWN BARBARIAN HORDES OF EMAILS, DESCENDING LIKE THE BLACK DEATH ON THE CYBERWORLD****!

* Claim not necessarily made by the real company nor evaluated by the FSA (Federal Spamming Agency, an offshoot of the AlGore Internet & Global Climate Scam Initiative)

** Claim not necessarily made by the real company nor evaluated by the FDA, AMA, Red Cross, Unicef, ASPCA, AARP, GreenPeace, or any other non-sequitur organizations with acronyms

*** Claim not necessarily made by the real company nor evaluated by FEMA, though a local Jackson area, badly-written newspaper -- knowd here for it's sandpounding stupidity, as the Cladipus Licker -- is highly suggestive of the desirability of an asteroid strike thereat, so the place can be fixed from what they've screwed up from the basement on up, so's they can start over and try to get it right next time around...

**** DISCLAIMER: the company that made the request of this blogger to perform this h'yar product review and endorsement, will probably not make that mistake again. All claims herein regarding the product being reviewed and endorsed, were written at 2:30am in the morning, prior to the ingestion of caffeine, and are probably not supposed to be taken seriously as part of a daily regimen of diet, exercise and bowel movements. Email spam blows goats -- again, not evaluated by the Agriculture Department, FCC or Goat Herders of America. The company promoting this email abomination, Blogger.com, Matthew Lesko or the estate of Billy Mays, are not likely to endorse some/any/all that was written herein, since the latter two would have made a far different presentation in style and format, one of which while wearing the most ridiculous of attire. Bonco, UnInc, attempted to talk this blogger out of doing this product review and endorsement, citing their "exclusivity clause contract" for me to review and endorse strictly Bonco, UnInc. products. I told them to get blood out of a pet rock and sue Seymour, who's not currently available, and could care less about litigation. Results may vary. This offer void where someone can actually understand Azerbaijani. Skunkfeathers and Bonco, UnInc., are indemnified and held harmless, which at my age, is becoming moreso by the year on the latter part, to the female of the species, but I digress at every opportunity.

Yawp...I don' 'spect to have companies flocking to my blog for product reviews and endorsements anytime soon. I reckon I could guaran-dang-tee that, too, if I required them to write their proposals in Azerbaijani.

Which I can't read, either.

Best Lil' Whore House Online

*Blogger's note: this is from February of 2007, but worthy of a repost now, with a tad of updating*

Sitting at the computer the other night, I was knawing on a bagel and looking into email. Good thing I wasn't drinking coffee at the time, too.

The particular email account of note here is not usually filled with meaningful, useful email. It's usually replete with Nigerian email scams; faux financing offers (probably phishing scams); offers for cut-rate Viagra and once-used toilet paper, cheap. That kinda stuff.

But occasionally, I get emails herein that are intended for a real person. Too bad I'm not one in this account, but I digress. For example, I recently got a donation request from the RNC regarding a "new agenda" via this account; I can only imagine what Michael Duncan (RNC chairman at that time) will think when he gets a reply from Ukulele Ungabunga, but that's for another time.

On this particular occasion, I got two emails that were, how we say, different. The first was from -- surprise, surprise -- AARP. It wasn't enough that they'd sent me snail mail urgings to partake of their organization a couple weeks ago; they're even seeking me -- or someone -- out via email.

They so do want to suck up every dues-paying possibility as soon as possible, don't they?

Then came the other email, from a Noelle Skaggs (jhallhlew@participate.com); with such an email address, I figured it to be a follow-on to the AARP solicitation. In fact, I was sure it was, until I read the email title: I want to be your whore, Cowfethers.

Took me a minute to remove the bits of bagel that suddenly found their way forcefully into my sinus passages. After which it occurred to me that someone shoulda told me that this was an AARP perk; I'd of played at being 50 twenty years ago.

Alas, this email wasn't related to the AARP one.

The email went on with a paragraph of the following gibberish: There was a dark spot at the deserts edge in the indicated direction, and when they approached this Jason saw that it was an outcropping of rock that had been built up with a wall of bricks and boulders to a uniform height. A good number of men could be concealed behind that wall, and he was not going to risk his precious slaves or even more precious skin anywhere near it. At his shout the line halted and sank down on the sand while he stalked a few meters in front, settling his club in his hand and suspiciously examining the structure.

Then, it got back to the header theme (pun still intended): BEST WHORES IN YOUR LOCAL AREA! MEET OUR GIRLS IN YOUR HOTEL, HOME OR OFFICE. PURE PLEASURE OR RELAXATION, OUR CHARMING LADIES ARE ONLY TOO WILLING TO PLEASE! Find one of these amazing escorts *TOING* in your area now, for a truly unforgetable evening.

http://www.datindrama.com/

LMAO...

Maybe AARP should consider making this a perk?

Eh...maybe not. I mean, Betty White didn't mind getting tackled and muddied for a Snickers, but this might be beyond the pail for her and Abe Vigoda (unless with each other).

I did send back what I considered to be something of an inspired response, but the email 'bounced', as frequently happens with such an escort...er...email address, not that I would know about that. The gist of my wasted reply was:

why shore, sweetums, yall git yore painted and prissied self over hyar, an' wunst ah gits mah teeth ta adhyar to mah gums, change mah Deee-pends and git all lathered up, whoooooo weee, ah kin git widda program. Don't fergit the Geritol an' Viagra now, yhear?

I gave my street address as that of the Colorado Democratic Party HQ in Denver ;-) I know they're big supporters of women's issues and AARP, after all...