4 December 2000 Name: James Sverapa And my friends told me Descriptive Astronomy was a useless class. A faithful Shuttlecocks reader Jim Sverapa I don't know why, but the phrase "combined light emissions" makes me feel all crawly. Name: Daisie Iris Huang We're writing you from the first annual West Coast Brunchmonicon: a gathering of Californian Brunching fans. Seven of us, never having met in real life, rented a house in Morro Bay (near San Luis Obispo). Basically, the only thing we knew about each other was that we all love the Brunching Shuttlecocks web page. For all we knew, the others could've been psychopathic killers. We brought various snack foods that were rated in various Ratings: Boo Berry, Pocky, Kinder Surprise (mailed to us by Contessa Choculum), and Peeps (actually Spooky Cats). What this all boils down to is this: The Brunching Shuttlecocks brought seven strangers together for a weekend. Perhaps we get along because the link of the Shuttlecocks is merely indicative of our shared sense of humor. However, not all Brunching readers participate on the Official Unofficial Brunching Board. Thus, we have decided that perhaps we are the chosen freaks to come together and be merry in the interest in keeping the Brunching spirit alive. We just wanted you to know what sort of behavior your mind has spawned.
Brunchingly yours, That's very touching, Daisie. I'm glad to know that, even in this cynical age, seven fragile human souls can come together and discover that they are the chosen freaks. Name: Jennifer Feighery Sure thing, Jennifer! The latest, up-to-the-minute news is that James Bond got hit by a truck and died. 27 October 2000 Name: Some Random Person With a Browser I have always enjoyed your hilarious skewering of various aspects of society, but that all changed recently when you made fun of something I like. How could you mock a group of people that I, personally, belong to? Furthermore, your article contained numerous inaccuracies. It was almost as if you were engaging in comedic exaggeration in order to make a satirical point. In the future, please limit your barbs to things I don't care for, or if you must address subjects I enjoy, please make sure that such articles contain no humor. Thank you, This isn't an actual letter, but it captures the gist of a certain class of mail we get, so we figured we'd just get it out there in case anyone wanted to copy and paste. Name: Peter Leinweber I play Sims. I play Sims a lot. So much that I tend to start conversations with "Teera-nah!" and end them with "deg-deg." Yes, I am aware that I probably need help. In the meantime, I have taken to illustrating Sim skins. And with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon I've spent a little time creating BS t-shirt wearing Sims. BS Logo on the front, Tina on the back. I don't know if you play the game or not (if you don't, then dear God in heaven, don't start. We're talking crack in digital form. Your life will end as you make little graphics of people do things that you are neglecting to do yourself.), but in case you do, I have attached the skins in a zip file to this email. Sorry for the size. Next task... a SimLore. He'll sit in his apartment at his computer all day. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!
Sincerely, I actually picked up The Sims because of this, and I gotta tell you, he's right. It's a terrifying exercise in irony, making your little people clean up after themselves and get plenty of sleep while you do neither. Anyhow, making a little Brunching guy for The Sims is enough to get you dropped in the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit, Peter. Henceforth you shall be known as Viscount Grape Nut Name: Kurt vonRoeschlaub Well, I can live with them no longer including the cheap plastic bits, and reducing the number of lick-on tattoos to just one (remember when you got a whole booklet of them?) but I was rather shocked when I found my prize was a "funny" fact. Nobody seems to believe me until I show them the actual piece, so I've included a scan of it.
Now, I'm not going to question other people's sense of humor, but I think Jack and his dog look just a little bit too amused by this "funny" fact. I emailed Frito Lay to see if they really meant this fact to be "funny" but there has been no response thus far. I guarantee this will end up in a frame on my desk. W. Kurt vonRoeschlaub I figure, when you get thrown into mud puddles on a daily basis because of your dorky sailor suit, you have to take your laughs when you get them. If that means getting in a quick giggle over the image of a poisoned, bloated elephant lying on its side, struggling for its last breath, so be it. Jack's got a lot of rage to work out. 14 July 2000 Name: Double-H Also, if sparklers deserve an A+ rating, it's only because of the phenomenon of sparkler bombs (http://www.fromorbit.com/drutter/Bombs.html) In other respects, sparklers are second only to the lowly snake in the hierarchy of boring fireworks. In any case, keep up the good work on the site -- it's great fun. Regards, Steve If, by a sheltered childhood, you mean that I never actively tried to clobber someone with a screaming, flaming piece of pyrotechnics, then yeah, I guess me and Emily Dickinson have a lot to talk about. Name: AdiGoddess@aol.com
But I'm not done. Oh no. He began to read the "offending" webpage, and he burst out laughing. I had never seen the man crack a smile, for god's sake, let alone laugh. -Addie Lee I don't have anything to say, I just like this story. Name: Paul 'Baloo' Drummond Yeah, yeah, I know, PCC really should have pcc.cc.or.us and OMSI should have omsi.org or omsi.portland.or.us, but who's really keeping track, anyway? Baloo That's a damned fine question, Paul-Baloo. Network Solutions is supposed to be keeping track, but apparently they're not doing a very good job of it. I found a news article that explains the whole sordid affair: apparently the draconian trogs at NS have been handing out the .edu domains willy-nilly, and people who know me know that I don't use the phrase "willy-nilly" lightly. I trusted them, dammit! I believed them and they stabbed me in the back. 1 June 2000 Name: Joona I Palaste Well, according to my parents I exist because of a Perry Como eight-track and a six-pack of Michelob, but that doesn't mean I have to like THOSE, does it? Name: Makelaardij Winkelman Dude! Is that Zeppelin? Name: IG88 I don't have any clever reply here. I just feel it's important to provide a forum for Decepticon-sticker related discourse. 18 May 2000 Name: JohnW JohnW That would explain my detachable nose. Name: silly.mccharen If you've never heard that particular clip, I recommend sitting in the room when I next decide to play the Bjork Song over and over to wake up my roommate. Her initial response was "unnngh. nuuuuughn. stoooop thaaaaat." After about the 5th repeat, she sat up and started yelling "make it stooooop! turn it ooooooff!" Eventually she screamed "TURN THAT OFF GODAMMIT!" and unplugged my computer. It only took an hour, as opposed to the 3 hours it takes when she uses the traditional alarm clock. Thanks Lore! mccharen Just wait till someone out there does a dance remix. Name: TrueNorth Lore, I hate to be a nit-picky fan-boy, and the song was great and all (it really was), but I read an interview with the Goddess herself and her name is pronounced like "jerk", not "dork". I thought you'd want to know. Donaldson Actually, the ö is pronounced in a weird Scandinavian way that's somewhere betweek urk, erk, and oork, and I knew that when I started, having one of them in my own personal name. (Although, as you can tell from the intro, I'm similarly imprecise with "Sjöberg".) But firstly, I wrote the thing in 1993, when nobody cared. And secondly, it's funnier when it rhymes with "dork." 15 May 2000 Name: marmaduke
Chapter 1: Famous quotations
"Free at last, free at last": 161 --> 1,330
"Show me the money": 542 --> 9,666
Chapter 2: Moral Education
"share your toys": 25 --> 262
"worship Satan": 181 --> 2,070
Chapter 3: Popular Culture
"Das Boot": 822 --> 9,816
"Gilligan's Island": 1683 --> 12,166
Chapter 4: Van Halen
"Sammy Hagar rules": 1 --> 4
"David Lee Roth rules": 0 --> 4
Chapter 5: Legumes
"garbonzo bean": 99 --> 71
"chickpea": 891 --> 7,504
Chapter 6: Ideals
"101 reasons why I'm a vegetarian": 84 --> 116
"101 things not to say during sex": 124 --> 613
Chapter 7: Uses of the Web
"voter's guides": 28 --> 151
"pictures of naked women": 1431 --> 9,127
I was able to draw three conclusions from this. 1) David Lee Roth has closed the gap. 2) The web is much, much bigger. 3) I misspelled garbanzo bean. -marmaduke Thanks for the update, Marmaduke. It's strange to look back to a time when garbanzobean.com didn't straddle the Web like a colossus, serving as an avatar for everything a Web page should, no, MUST be. Name: D.S. Brown D. S. Brown Sure thing. Credit where credit is due: the quiz was inpsired by a Salon article which leads off with a link to the FDA Food Defect Action Levels Page, wherein you can find all the delicious facts laid out in our little quiz. Name: Aaron McPherson We'll thank you to stick that capital P back in your right parenthesis, young man! 21 Mar 2000 There's lots of news this week. First off, shirts are now available in sizes from Small to XXL, so people who wrote us asking if we had bigger sizes can now pull out their credit cards and make a 100% cotton contribution to the GNP. Or something. Secondly, there are a couple new inductees into the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. One Stentor Danielson kicked off the Lore 2000 campaign with his homebrew Lore for President page. For his service to the Brunching Shuttlecocks, Danielson will hereafter be known as Lord Smack. Also, I never gave proper credit to the guy who sent me the Eastern European Snack Foods. As soon as I find the card that came with them he shall be known as Lord Cheq. Finally, as long as I'm mentioning the Snack Foods thing, I want to clear things up. Whatever you send, it should be something I can't get at the local supermarket, and there should be at least six of them so I can get a Rating out of them. We're starting to get a backlog, which is a pretty scary thought, so there's no guarantee a package of food will become a Rating and get you into the Order. But we do appreciate it nonetheless. Name: Drew Hunt The Thoughts From Guy is the greatest character ever drawn. You are brilliant. Quarex Dave, of course, deserves all the credit for that one. I just draw him exactly as he appears. Name: Donald Way down yonder where the road goes round and round So this is what they teach in school? No wonder kids like N*sync... Wait. I'm pretty sure that IS an N*Sync song. Didn't they perform it at the Grammy awards? Name: Ouija I'm sure you're really busy and all, but, I mean, I saw this and I couldn't think of anyone else to share it with. http://www.cutitout.net Dave Coulier is a sad, sad, little man. Maybe if you're good this year, your holiday representative will bring you a set of Full House action figures? -Belinda Did you know that Dave Coulier is, in all probablity, the guy Alanis Morissette wrote "U Oughta Know" about? The very image of Alanis going down on the blonde guy from "Full House" in a theater is mind-pokingly disturbing. It's like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. 17 Mar 2000 Name: Mr Bawn Every so often, a Brunching Shuttlecocks feature, by some twisted process, becomes reality. It's really unnerving. The strangest was when they actually made a porn movie based on the Starr Report, just like we "predicted" some time earlier. Weird. Eerie. Name: Marc Levin and i think she was filming some movie in canada a little while ago "Filming some movie in Canada" and "Vanished off the face of the Earth" are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. Name: Drew Bell Drew Bell A lot of people have pointed this out, but my copy of "Richard Scarry's Mother Goose Rhymes and Nursery Tales" clearly depicts a shopping piggie, so that's what I'm going with. 1 Feb 2000 Name: Mandy Rotsinhell I'm just curious... what "gory schoolyard parody" are you talking about? I just thought that was kinda cool that there's a little school yard song about deadly man-eating four-leaf clovers. If you could please e-mail me the lyrics or just maybe a little snippet of them, that would be great. i'll make sure to teach it to my kids if and when I have them. Passing on childhood nightmares is great. I think that's why they invented aunts with hairy moles. Oh, you wish it was something as wholesome as deadly man-eating four-leaf clovers. In the interest of keeping the tune out of my head, I'm just going to recommend that anyone interested do a search on "dead dog rover" at their local neighborhood search engine. Name: Lord Bitman Make a page on Ramen, so that all may know the glory of the Holy Noodle. Beef Ramen sucks. It is the Anti-Ramen. Do not trust beef ramen. This is a man with a deep and thorough understanding of ramen, although he doesn't appear to have a deep and thorough understanding of what year it is. What was a "Y2K bunker" last year is now a "sad tribute to paranoia." 30 Dec 1999 Name: T0NT042@aol.com
ha^1- Not exceptionally funny, but i have the feeling that you intended for
it to be
This system brought to you thanks in part to Big D, Little J, and The Gnome of Truth. We now have a new system by which to express ourselves. So spread this new system, introduce it to your friends, we want this to be mainstream. Huh^12. Name: Astrid Tate Let me see if I can explain, Astrid. Approximately fifteen billion years ago, Britney Spears was an infinitely hot and massive singularity. The Big Bang caused the universe to rapidly expand away from Britney Spears, and it wasn't until billions of years later that Britney Spears coalesced and cooled into her current form. Scientists are divided as to whether the universe will continue expanding away from Britney Spears forever or will eventually contract back on the teenaged MTV darling, ending her career as well as the entire cosmos. The answer may lie in a theoretical form of entertainment scientists call "Heavy Metal." Originally postulated to explain discrepancies in predictions of the rotation of galaxies and the sales of Fender Stratocasters, "Heavy Metal" -- if it exists -- would be a form of music so massive that it would only be detectable by its influence on males between the ages of 13 and 22. If the universe contains enough "Heavy Metal," it will continue to expand away from Britney Spears, thus avoiding both the end of the universe and the sentimental retrospectives that would result. Name: Kelly E. Griffith ~Kelly Griffith Okay, people. I think the message here is very clear. Always consult your doctor before reading The Brunching Shuttlecocks. Every time. Whether you have a reaction like Kelly's, or you suffer a massively fallen crest because of a lack of mail updates, the point remains that our site can be hazardous. PLEASE take precautions or we'll be forced to replace our material with a daily strip about an adorable chipmunk who loves shopping and chocolate. 28 Dec 1999 The Brunching Bulletin Board situation has been decided rather, well, decisively. The Brunching Ultimate Bulletin Board (BUBB) has collected far and away the most postings and posters, and as such is now designated the Unofficial Official Unofficial Brunching Bulletin Board (UOUBBB). The link has been ensconced, to the extent that one can ensconce a link, in the brand-new More Brunching Fun page, and Pahl Millirons has been rightfully inducted into the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. Henceforth he shall be known as Lord Applejack. A couple people set up Yahoo clubs after the opening bell, but at this point the link-stravaganza is getting a bit silly, so we'll leave finding them as an exercise for the reader. Name: Randal Cooper I'd be more inclined to see Iron Chef Kosher in action. "Battle Clams is going to be tough for Iron Chef Kosher. This has got to be hard on him after last week's Battle Chitterlings disaster." Name: Kelvin Wong
A little bit of ecstacy in my life Hey, fun. Name: marmaduke I'm happy to see that both corn-dogs and funnel cake made it into the amusement park food review. One comment on the corn dog bit, though. Sure, some of you lightwieghts might think deep-frying a hot dog to be a tad extreme. And wrapping a hot dog in bacon and cheez sauce might be overboard for you. But none of these approach the Scotch Egg.
One hard Boiled Egg... yum -livingston marmaduke coates What, no Scotch? Well, either way, I'll be sure to give that one a shot as soon as I can afford to have an EMT standing by. 22 Dec 1999 Name: Brooks Name: rusty I run a small site based on the slashdot engine at http://www.kuro5hin.org/. Against my better judgement, I set up a "feature" that can serve as the Brunching discussion board. You can link directly to it at http://www.kuro5hin.org/features/99/12/22/0636211.shtml if you want to. Now we'll really see the dregs crawl out of the woodwork. Prepare to meet your fans, Lore. It won't be pretty. --R Name: Todd Dark-Fox Name: FrankG If there is anything else you need let us know. Toads is willing to do.... questionable things.
Enjoy, Name: Theresa http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb924513 Yay! Now all of us cretins can issue comments forth from our cheeselike minds. The world's a better place. Name: Pahl Millirons I hope you don't mind my using graphics from the site. I figured since it's a Shuttlecocks tribute-thingy, it's pretty obvious that they're yours, with a big honkin' link to the site at the bottom of every page. - Pahl Jesus, Mary and Uncle Ted! Six message boards! I'm touched and unnerved! Here's how we're going to handle it: with the same lazy-ass pretense of representative democracy that we handle everything else. Those of you with an interest in this sort of thing can check out the boards available and post to your favorite. Hopefully in short order there should be a rough consensus and at that point we will designate one to be the "Unofficial Official Unofficial Brunching Shuttlecocks Message Board" with a place in the Order to the creator thereof. We do appreciate everyone's effort, though, and we'll make sure that some variety of Brunching memorabilia goes to each of our contestants, no matter who ultimately prevails. 21 Dec 1999 Name: Harvey Rook I noticed that Pico Boy, which tastes like ''stale cream puff'' got an 'A'. Perhaps it was for artistic merit, but I still detect some bias. Harv. No, I just like cream puffs. If they had tasted like fresh cream puffs, they would have gotten an A+. Plus, look at the gnome! Name: yes, i do have one. -stephen burch Actually, I think your letter quite nicely illustrates the reason we don't put a "buletein board" on our "sight" for you and "otehr idiots" to "seee." However, if some other poor sot wants to set up a bulletin board, newsgroup, chat room, or restroom wall to host Brunching-related discussion, we'll probably link to it. There might even be a slot in the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit in it. Name: "Jones, Dustin" First off, I must admit that I don't even remember how I found your site in the first place, but I am sure glad I did. I look forward to reading things on a *mostly* daily basis that make me pee like a giggly monkey, and your site is full of such content. At times uncontrollable urinating can be a drag, especially when it starts to stink up ones cubicle. But alas, that is a small price to pay for such a fun and entertaining web site... --------------------> dustin I think you can all guess what phrase in THAT letter is going to be keeping me up all night with a heavy case of the creeps. 6 Dec 1999 Christ County Idaho we have a lot of news for this update. First off, The Sacred Fools Theater Company is putting on a stage version of Dave's inimitable Sock Dolager and the Case of the Edible Fruit. It's taking place at the Sacred Fools Theater in LA, and details are available on their Web site Secondly, we have three new inductees for the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. Doug and Nanci Lee-St. James were kind enough to send us a box full of Korean snack foods which we turned into a Ratings, and Rachel Borchardt sent us the full set of monster-flavored cereals we asked for some time ago, and which will also make their way into the Ratings. Henceforth Doug and Nancy shall be known as the Duke and Duchess of Corn Pop, and Rachel will be known as Dame Cocoa Puff. For the third inductee, see below. Name: Elizabeth Faithfully yours, Hey, immortality AND a nice binder! Okay, henceforth you shall be known as Baroness Alpha-Bit. Name: Bryan Smith As it turns out, "potato bug" is one of those phrases that different people apply to widely different things, like "family values." A lot of you think of a potato bug as those little grey beasties with lots of legs that roll up into a ball when you poke them. I was raised to call those "pillbugs," and they strike me as relatively harmless and kind of cute, which is not to say I'd be happy to find a colony of them in my sock drawer. What I was referring to in the Rating was a different potato bug, a six-legged fucker as thick as your thumb with black stripes and big inhuman eyes, and I want to stop thinking about them now. Name: jD. I wish he wouldn't sit next to me all the time. jD. Well, here's the deal with the title images. I changed them for two reasons. One, they are as you say banner-sized and a lot of people have mental blind spots for anything shaped like an ad banner, and who can blame them? Two, I was tired of trying to create funny images that were only 75 pixels high. I think it was the image for Rating Playground Equipment that did it for me. That's a Cylon, you see, but at that scale he may as well be Sarah McLachlan for all you can tell. As for the "flatter is better" theory, perhaps your friend will be mollified by the following hilarious horizontal rule: 27 Oct 1999 We touched on the subject of candy cigarettes some time ago, but the lovely and talented folks at Cardhouse have put together a much more comprehensive treatment thereof. I tried to talk them into sending me an e-mail wherein they casually mentioned the page so that I could link to it without looking like a bastard sycophant, but they'd have none of it. C'est la pomme de terre. Name: Jason Koenig You have created the funniest website ever created by anyone at anytime at any place for any reason. You have changed my life and allowed me to realize that wasting my life away drinking beer and sitting in front of a computer isn't in fact a waste at all, but something to strive for. I promise never to take anything seriously again (except sitting in front of computers and drinking beer), and will henceforth stop referring to my computer as "my $1200 porn machine". thank you Well, to be honest it depends on the beer. Name: Josh Petrin
Thanks, Josh. Now compare that to the following map of Hell according to Dante Alighieri:
Weird. Eerie. Name: Dallas Baker I like the idea that there are infinitely long intelligent e-mails out there somewhere, perhaps stored as some sort of e-mail anti-particle. "Subject: 101 Insightful Disserations on the Ontological Properties of Knowing." 26 Oct 1999 Name: Evan Brott 1) Instructions for the quiz: "Tag, Match, Collate". 2) A Japanese-esque exclamation of splendiforousness: "Total Gleam Catch". 3) An out of character commentary on a local zoning dispute: "Halt Clam Cottage". 4) And, considering this was a Brunching Shuttlecocks web page, the most likely title: "Goat Catch Mallet". Unfortunately, It eventually dawned on me that Hog Meat Tact Call -> "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Disappointing, Really. I mean, you had "goat", "clam", and "glottal" to work with; it could have been dirtier. Besides, "Pikachu is a Pokemon" -> the dirtier "Spike Maniac Hooks Up" and the eminently descriptive "Aphasic Kimono Puke" But I laughed anyway. Thanks, Evan. I don't think "Aphasic Kimono Puke" counts as descriptive so much as disturbing. Name: Xeno And... Name: Dan G.
OH MY
s;ldfkgn;ljabglabgl'kahngoaebr WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT? Fucking brilliant, man. ---Dan So you see. 18 Oct 1999 Name: mbland [1:36] That's great. Most people don't know this, but the phrase "headfuck the high" actually appears in our mission statement. Name: jhaske9 Jeff Haske I just call everyone "Pally." Name: yolanda What a convenient letter! It gives me the chance to point out that I am a moron and lost the letter that came with the korean snack foods that got sent to me. Will the people who sent it to me please send me your names, e-mail address, and physical location? I'll recognize it when I see it, so no tricks, people. Name: Wesugadawg Yeah, we've got a sunglasses icon in the "Bizarrities | Conglomerations | Twisted" category of "Yahoo!" 18 Sep 1999 Name: PigNewtons peaches, peanuts, and shetland ponies -b. I assume you've ruled out "Peaches Peanuts and Shetland Ponies" as a possible band name. Anyhow, Odin knows I've come up with enough stupid band names in my time, but I've forgotten them all except "The Munchausen By Proxy All-Stars" and "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Band." Feel free to use either of those, because I sure wouldn't. If you don't like those, we'll have to fall back on Rucker's Law, which is that any text of sufficient incoherency will contain a good band name. In keeping with that principle, here are some potential band names ripped from our own articles:
Mork 3:16 Good luck and let us know how it works out. Name: Jim Lynch So I'm waiting for someting else, reading old "ratings" (my fave, as I find them consistently very funny), and I come upon the ratings of "Doughnuts and Doughnut-like Foods" (or something like that). So anyway, I read it, was amused by things I didn't remember reading before; but what I didn't get before at all was the graphic at the top. There's a grey-white torus (stylized doughnut) and a cup of coffee. Anyone who has heard anything about topology (and I've heard the bare minimum) knows that, topologically speaking, a torus (or doughnut) and a coffee cup have the same topological value. So, is it an added topology joke, or am I just adding layers of meaning that were never intended? Which can add great amusement to life, you know. Hey, that would have been really clever of us, wouldn't it? That would have been a real triumph, topologically speaking. Much more interesting than the traditional reason for juxtaposing coffee and doughnuts, i.e. the fact that one is often eaten with the other. Yep, really quite clever indeed. What was the question? Name: Joel Seymour I've been reading your various works for a few months now and they are funnier than a fat horny Scotsman! The last posting in particular is of special note. Tim-Tams: The one thing that you may not know about these special biscuits is one particular Australian tradition. Try breaking each end off the Tim-Tam to make a sort of chocolate wafer rod and then sucking neat scotch through the biscuit. A chocolate experience you wont forget. Like having your brains beaten out by a chocolate brick. Cheers, Joel Seymour Now you see, I didn't know that, and I chorfed down an entire pack of Tim-Tams without ever experiencing the neat scotch trick. My only condolence is that the ska guys might want to name their band "Chocolate Wafer Rod." 20 Aug 1999 Name: Scrub Sweet bottle of bourbon! He's right! A quick Web search turned up confirmation along with other things you didn't want to know about Carrie Fisher and her breasts, like the fact that she photocopied them and passed the copies out to the crew. Anyhow, Fisher also indicates that her doggies were off the leash for much of the filming, so there may still be child-corrupting jiggling in there someplace. Name: tom hilton It's mail like this that makes me wish I had learned to diagram sentences. Name: Rat Pugreen In the words of Abe Linclon: "Ha ha, what a delightful piece of comic- Aaaah! I've been shot!" Actually, my name consists of alphabet characters, an accent, and punctuation, but whatever. 19 Aug 1999 Name: satyr I could be a little off--been a while since I've seen the movie--but after Luke and Han spring Leia and she's striding down the corridor barking orders at them is where it suddenly becomes obvious that she's not wearing much under her flowing white robes. Maybe part of the torture process was denying her a bra. Name: Red Brooks This isn't going be the Shmi thing all over again, is it? Name: "Corbett, Heather" I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that the peace sign in "Doug's First Movie" is completely innapropriate, but how can we allow such sloppy ratings decide what is right and wrong for our children? Imagine the chaos this world is coming to! Not to mention Julie Andrews's breasts bobbing all over the place... 16 Aug 1999 We have another inductee for the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. One Taetia Zysshe took it upon herself to ship us a box of assorted Australian candies, which will soon make their way into the Ratings. Henceforth she shall be known as Contessa Choculum. Name: StormBorn Actually, I had a bejeeberectomy in sixth grade, so it probably wouldn't have much effect on me. Name: Meggypot Sure thing. Our "I Hate My Boss" page is right next to our "I Hate Mondays" page. Just hang a left at our "I Gained Five Pounds From Just Looking at a Chocolate Cake" page and go past our "Little Kids Say the Wackiest Things" page. You can't miss it. Name: Tom Sanders I know it's pretty weak, but if you could keep crossing over into new time zones and slowly progress backward through time, what would you call it? I believe the technical scientific term for it is "Flying west in a goddamned airplane, you dumbfuck." 14 July 1999 Name: Dr. Jamie Michael
Dr. Jamie Michael No. Name: ~*Rhiannon*~
Thanks, No. Name: DC64v33 Hell no. 2 July 1999 Name: Magenta H. Nezumi Much later, another group of researchers figured out why this was. The fed planarians weren't assimilating memories, they were simply better-fed than the control group, and so they learned faster. I think it was just so embarrassing a find that it was largely ignored, and textbooks in the know stopped using the flatworm learning as an example of the scientific method. Of course, cannibals who eat their associates' brains so as to gain their wisdom are largely ignorant of this fact as well, and they keep on using planarians to justify their actions. Ever so much fun. Interesting. The information I've been able to find online has been inconclusive, but that applies to anything from birth control to flan-making instructions. I'll tell you what: I'll avoid saying planaria can eat each other's memories in the future if you promise never to say "We only use 10 percent of our brain capacity, you know!" Name: Newly Initiated Acolyte Hey, I've been deified! Right on! If this keeps up, I can be like the mad God-king of some ancient and sweaty land! San Diego is ancient and sweaty enough for my needs, but for the time being you're going to have to get by on praying to graven images of me made out of Fimo or cheese food. If your prayers don't actually end up being answered, hey man, I've got THINGS to do, okay? Name: Sue Combs Why do you think Curious George was so darned curious? And don't you think puzzle pieces hurt going down? I can barely swallow my pre-natal vitamins. Two-month-old son? Hey, now, pagan deity is one thing, role-model for the class of 2017 is another entirely. Do you let him take the quizzes? Curious George is curious from wondering when the Man in the Yellow Hat is going to get a real name. 24 June 1999 Name: Bob King You see, in The wisdom of the Great White Fathers, it has been determined that Lotteries are Bad. Unless they are run by the Government. In which case they are Good. The Quebec governement actually referred to one of theirs as "La taxe volentaire". So Micky Dee can't run a lottery and award prizes in the Land of the Freeze and the home of the Grey (cup). They CAN, however, have a CONTEST. With the final winners determined with a SKILL TESTING QUESTION! Of course, they aren't so hard that a mathematically illiteralte double-amputee with no calculator couldn't do them on their remaining digits. Hell, even people from Surrey, BC have been known to win! We got thundering herds of responses to this question, most apparently from actual Canadians. It made me feel all warm and international. At any rate, most of the responses more or less mirrored the one above, only without the slur against British Columbians. A minority said that by answering a question you were in fact engaging in a form of employment and thereby EARNING your prize. A subtle distinction, but the "contest, not lottery" explanation sits better with my arbitrary suppositions. Name: squeaky We don't call cars "land machines". We don't call boats "water machines". We don't call planes "air machines". It's just so vague as to make absolutely no sense. I mean, if you look at the concept that the name strictly delimits (a machine dealing with time), a watch is a time machine. A timer is a time machine. To an extent, even a _computer_ is a time machine. Ridiculous. So I'm guessing to refer to drum machines as "drum-playing machines," answering machines as "phone answering and message recording machines," and slot machines as "icon-based gambling machines which, by the way, have a slot." Name: Randal Cooper I heard about that. Bummer. For those who like actual information along with their semi-obscure references, apparently diving sticks have been responsible for some impalements of the sort that people find hilarious in movies starring former Saturday Night Live cast members, but which are actually quite awful to experience in person. While this is certainly no point in the toy's favor, I'm going to leave the Rating as-is, if only because I don't want to constantly patrol past Ratings, adjusting them according to current events. That would be dull. 17 June 1999 Name: Arlene C. Harris "Canadian residents required to correctly answer mathematical skills testing question prior to award of prize." ???? What are they going to ask, "What's R2 plus D2 equal?" Are Americans exempt because a) we have no problems in that area or b) we can't add to 21 without unzipping our flies? What up with this? Anyway, I just thought I'd share that. Making fast food safe for Democracy... Arlene C. Harris That is odd. A brief and lackadasical Web search turned up no explanation, so it would appear that we need to turn to the Canadians themselves to educate us, possibly both in English and French. How 'bout it, North-dwellers? What's up with this math crap? Name: Brian Bergevin I would like the name of your ombudsman so that I can formally protest the grade of "B" given to Meiji "Things" in the Japanese snack foods ratings. In case you're wondering, the "Things" are called "Karl," a playful pun on the word "curl" that epitomizes the non-linear nature of the individual snackable unit. Showing the classic Japanese economy of words, "Karl" is also the name of the squinting, bearded gentleman on the bag. The frog, as far as I know, has no name. While, as the result of a disturbing incident that you can read about at www.angelfire.com/ny/bergevin/chapter16.html, I now refrain from curry-flavored Karl, I must say that the cheese-flavored Karl is a sublime treat for the palette. And, of course, the delightful, Chaplin-esque antics of Karl and the frog on each bag make it a feast for the eyes as well. Plus, God help us, it's the only Japanese snack food in those ratings to have its very own website: www.meiji.co.jp/karl. I'll bet that, despite its wildly inflated grade of A+, Pocky can't write a Java applet. Therefore, I respectfully request that the grade of "B" be reconsidered. Karl deserves at least an "A-".
Cordially, Not a chance, Bunky. I stand by the Rating, although I do concede that curry may not have been the most appealing flavor to judge it by. However, I do appreciate your little essay's run at explicating the inexplicable. Name: Batya the Toon No, really. I swear. (I knew all those Hebrew language classes were gonna be good for something someday...) Actually, I don't care any more. 9 June 1999 Name: bob Anything from Emily's Bakery in Santa Cruz, and alphabetical. Name: Fifi McChiselschitz We got a lot more responses to the Puppies Editorial, many composed entirely in sentence fragments and containing phrases like "soaked in blood." We got the captialist point of view, the environmentalist point of view, and of course the raving psychotic point of view. We appreciate the input, and we hope you're all feeling better. Name: Peter It's English Westen Two years ago, I said to myself "I want to start a Web comedy site, but more importantly I want to provide a space for people to bicker about alliterative Japanese descriptions of Keanu Reeves films." It's great how things work out. 7 June 1999 Name: fred garvin
signed No, no, no. "die hard" means "unusually devoted" or "unwilling to compromise." I suspect the phrase you're looking for is one of "marginally coherent," "poorly socialized," or "seventh-grade." Name: ?! Just what the world needs: recursive adhesive urine cartoons. Name: Arlene C. Harris Ay! You two keep it down back there or I'm turning this Web page around RIGHT NOW! 2 June 1999 Name: Dnny It's Russian Howell Frankly, I think "Assassin Keanu Slaughter: Scary, Cute" would have been a much more compelling title for the movie anyway. Name: sherlock3@pipeline.com Thank you!!! I'm glad to hear that. It's sad how many Web sites out there slowly destroy our capacity to love, leaving us soulless automatons producing nothing but carbon dioxide and clickthroughs. Name: madcow Ah, thank you. Glad to have that cleared up. 31 May 1999 Name: Whitney Reynolds Every day? That's gonna be a trick. Still, it'll be easier than working the phrase "Grand Moff Tarkinize" in. Name: Setzer529 Jeez, if we'd known we were collectible we would have had Tina Koosh Toys and official Self-Made Critic Soda-Holding Cylinders. As is, all we had were T-shirts. We took the page down because we changed our logo, but we still have some in the old style. If you want one, send $16.50, which includes shipping and handling, to the address on our contact page. If we run out of the old ones, we'll send you a new one when we get them in. Name: BuGG Wasn't us, man. We're clean. It was probably that hobag Salon. 27 May 1999 Name: Nick Davies Ah, thank you. Glad to have that cleared up. Name: Arlene C. Harris Ah, thank you. Glad to have that cleared up. Name: Robert Eikel No contest. I'm no Binks fan, but Jar-Jar accidentally snuffing Scrappy and then joining the Mystery Machine gang would actually be refreshingly surreal, whereas Scrappy-Doo hurtling through Phantom Menace screaming "Let's splat 'em!" would cause the audience's brains to liquify and dribble all over their Darth Maul t-shirts. 25 May 1999 Name: Noelle We suggest a well-balanced diet with plenty of fresh vegetables, getting involved in your local chamber of commerce, and making sure to take some time out of your schedule for you. Name: Taetia Zysshe -- Taetia Zysshe I just want to point out that as soon as Alta Vista indexes this page, we'll have searches on "+taetia +yonks +pollywaffle" tied up, man. Okay, this next message has Star Wars spoilers in it, so if you don't want them to be revealed, I want to say if you're so damn worried about spoilers, why haven't you seen the goshfucked movie yet, Cubby? Name: Meg When I went into TPM I'd already had Qui-Gon's death spoiled for me due to the *!&*#@(! soundtrack review in Entertainment Weekly, so one of the things on my mind was that the theory introduced in "The Luke Side of the Force" would be disproved once and for all when Cool Magical Ghost Qui-Gon showed up to dispence some cryptic advice and set up the next movie. Imagine my surprise when not only was there no ghost-Qui-Gon, but he was the first Jedi we've seen whose body didn't disappear upon his death. And why? Because he's the first Jedi who didn't die in front of Luke! In the words of a wise old Jedi, "Weird. Eerie." Yeah, I was pretty jazzed to have my theory not completely savaged. We'll see what happens in the next movie. I'd hate for Master 'Gon to come back and make me modify it to "have your body disincorporated, either automagically or via the cleansing power of fire, in front of someone named 'Skywalker'." While I'm at it, am I the only one who spent the cremation scene thinking about how it must suck to be in a room that smells like burning Liam Neeson? 21 May 1999 Name: jennifer p.s., the road signs were good Well, what the heck. We're not using them anymore, so we'll stick them in the public domain. They won't be much use to you if you don't have a white background, but any blow we can strike against the forces of dark blue backgrounds with embossed pictures of Escher prints is a blow for humanity at large. Note: If you use these, download them instead of linking to them on our page.
Name: Stephan Maass stephan Why, certainly, Stephan. It's a reference to the Shuttlecocks-Brunching Act of 1921 -- introduced by Senators Alphonse Shuttlecocks [R-Ind.] and Alphonse Brunching [Ind.-Ind.] -- which prohibited the export of books in Latin on the grounds that most customs agents don't speak a damn word of Latin. The parallels between that and present US encryption policies should be obvious. Name: np np You really don't want that, np. We've never been to Australia, so you'd just get the same crappy vegemite/kangaroo/bent-hat jokes you've been hearing since Paul Hogan could get seated at Spago. If I ever make it down there, though, I'll be happy to rate Tim Tams and Pollywaffle and whatever other dubious colonial snack foods you've got lining your wallaby-infested grocery stores. 18 May 1999 Name: Matt Tagliaferri LOVE the good and bad series. [That's Good or Bad, Matt. We refuse to accept moral contradictions in our Toys. --LFS] We have one suggested item to enter: Good/Bad polls where they show you the results before you can vote. We'd rather see the items randomly arranged for voting purposes, and THEN see the results (and the ever-important "line of truth"). Then again, that's just us.
Matt Tagliaferri (name too goofy to pronounce) Huh. I had no idea anyone cared so much. Well, let's put it up to semi-public discussion. What do you think, faithful comedy absorbers? Do you want to vote on Good or Bad items without being influenced by the opinions of those who came before? Or in a world of sorrow and pain, is it just not worth worrying about? Name: DRLUCAS DLucas Elbows, man! It means elbows! The meaning of "elbows," strictly speaking, is "elbows"! I don't know how much clearer I can make it without writing the word "elbows" so many times it stops looking like a real word! Elbows! Name: Phil Powell Legacy came out of Ohio with a one-demo wonder, while Redemption came out of North Dakota and never did much of anything.. redeemable. :) Thought you'd like to know. Phil Powell Editor, Screams of Abel Magazine Consider yourself among the studly, Phil. But I'm not changing the quiz because some God-fearing teenagers played three gigs as "Hide and Q" in the late eighties. 18 Mar 1999 Name: Brian Wantuch (beast@wizvax.net) Could it be that this Ochre Hulk is the unholy union of the puzzling Umber Hulk and the acidic Ochre Jelly? I shudder to think. Something like that, yes. Puzzling and acidic, much like Christina Ricci Name: Pahl (me@strychnine.com) Who the hell keeps their cereal in the refrigerator? He came home looking for Guinness and found Boo Berry!? The sort of things that obstruct beer are cans of watery sour cream, or mystery meat, or pickles, not Boo Berry. I thought everyone kept their cereal in the pantry. Is anyone else keeping their cereal in the fridge? What sort of sick, new-fangled trend is this!? Ah, poor deluded soul. Guinness is best consumed at room temperature, the way they drink it in Merry Fuckinge England. No doubt the pantry is where the episode transpired. Name: Kitty (mrsfamous@yahoo.com) "Wonderful Clutches" is my favorite Noe Valley car repair boutique. 3 Feb 1999 Well, it's about time we inducted some more worthies into The Order of the Individual Cereal Unit Name: Tom Palmer (Akaziel@aol.com) I came home from work looking forward to a nice tall Guinness only to find the frothy brew to be obscured by a large silvery blue box....my roommate had found Boo-Berry, the Holy Grail of sickeningly-sugary-yet-undeniably-delicious breakfast cereals! The only place we've found the stuff in Ft. Lauderdale is at a 24-hour Wal-Mart down the road. Not only that, but they had Count Chocula and Frankenberry too (but those two are kind of common). Now what I want to know about is the other in the line of Monsters-cum-Cereals is the one with the werewolf mascot. I don't remember what it was, but I remember having it as a kid. They showed it in Pulp Fiction, but I haven't seen that in a while. Oh well. So can I enter the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit? I'll even send you guys a box if ya do. My treat. I'll even be nice and pay the postage. I've always wanted to be The Earl of Crispix (Is a single Crispix a Crispic or a Crispik?). Come on...a little bit of HTML for a box of Boo-Berry? I'll even include a note that says "Self-Made Critic, STAY OUT!". The only thing I must warn you of though: Boo-Berry has sold out. It now has Casper and Wendy pseudo-marshmellows. But they dissolve in milk, so it's all good.
Kissing your ass to get what I want, Hmm. Tempting. However, we're going to have to demand a little more in fealty than a single box of Frankenberry. First person to send us one box each of Frankenberry, Boo-Berry, and Count Chocula (address on the contact page) will be inducted into the Order and receive the respect, admiration, and snazzy T-Shirt that accompanies it. Name: Alex Corvino (corvino@home.com) Well, one thing lead to another and pretty soon I had a Java program to calculate the grades. It has got the GPA of not only the rated breakfast cereals but also pizza toppings, classic video games, superfriends, cookies, Christmas songs as well as the GPA for all the ratings of 1997, 1998 and 1999. Why would I do this? Did I just use this as an exercise to sharpen my long disused Java skills? Or am I just shamelessly sucking up to try and enter the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit under the obscure and little used "bizarre" clause? Al Well done, thou good and obsessive servant! For giving people a place to find the GPA of the Ratings, in spite of the fact that nobody would ever, ever want to do that, you are hereby inducted into the Order of the Indidvidual Cereal Unit. Henceforth you shall be known as "Lord Lucky-Charm." Name: David Wininger (dwininger@mail.colgate.edu) If you say to yourself "This sure does sound fun", then do it and invite others from different colleges and regions in the country-even friends back home! The goal is to have multiple divisions i.e. Colgate, New England, West o' the Mississippi...the possibilities are endless. If you say: "I don't know if I can handle all that clicking and typing..." You have nothing to worry about, the number of games you play depends on you. Or you can simply serve as nonleague fodder for the rest of us. Recruit and have fun! Current members: Please play people other than me as well, or I will probably run away with the league. What would you rather be doing: homework or Rock/Paper/Scissors?
David Wininger We commend you for your devotion to the Sport of Kings Who Really Can't Wrap Their Mind Around Chess. For this, you are inducted into the Order. Henceforth you shall be known as "Lord Wheaty." Now then, for the rest of you. There have been many worthy runs at the Order which have failed due to lack of concrete proof. Converting an entire convent of Carmelite nuns to Brunching junkies is very noble, but unless accompanied by a newspaper article saying "Nuns Dig On Schoolhouse Rock Ratings" or the like, we can offer nothing more than our thanks. The Order must be kept pure and annoyingly elitist, I'm sure you understand. 22 Jan 1999 Name: Adam Conover (conover@i-2000.com) "Get Urkel-ized with Urkel-O's!" The horror... the horror... Has anyone ever actually -tried- these? Huh. A cereal I've never heard of. It must have come out during one of my short-lived and ill-considered health kicks. Would the British then get "Urkel-ised"? Name: Edward Hyer (edward@hyer.net) You should test these things, guys! Now, if I want to guarantee about a million hits a day, all I need is to book myself http://www.FORGODSSAKESTOPITRIGHTNOW.com Huh. Interesting. You know, if "whoababy" actually pointed to a porn site, I'd probably change it, but I'm terribly amused by the idea of credulous horny geeks being faces with ads for baby jumpers. Name: Mike Sousa (mikes@paravisio.com) Mike My parents are named Lore Coyote Orion and Patty Prince. Go figure. And "thanks heaps" or "same to you", depending on what the hell the pudding comment means. 18 Nov 1998 Name: Pascal Quentin Porcupine (pascal@porcupine.ml.org) It has all the makings of something grand. The sad thing is that I have a lot of ideas for typical "alternative" songs based on these titles, damnit. He's a bad motivator a mindless instigator can't we save him for later make him cry He comes up sooner or later can't ever get away from her when will he learn to never make her die Er... sorry. Just a thought. :) As bad lyrics to overplayed songs go, that's pretty impressive. But take a look at our next entry: Name: Happy Jo (Jo@happy.com) Jo is a happy ho. This jo is. Will you help a happy ho? Pure gold. Just astounding. I'm thinking Fiona Apple. Name: Matt (mhural@erols.com) "Are you ok, Tadpole?" "I'm all tingly, Aquaman." "Good." Well, I found it amusing anyway. Those aren't bad lyrics either, but I think the Barenaked Ladies have pretty much sewn up the Aquaman thing. How about something with Apache Chief? 5 Nov 1998 Name: Amber (Sooprlady@yahoo.com) Amber Name: Kyle (Andricon@aol.com) Name: Jonathon (jon@maprow.com) As a long time reader I'd like to start out by saying that I really enjoy your page and look forward to reading it every morning. One quick comment on your latest feature "Schoolhouse Rock" - How could you leave out "Conjunction Junction", "I'm Just a Bill" and "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here?" --- Confused (with a bit too much time to think about these things as well.) JLH
Name: Andy (Andy_Rogers@imad.com) Okay, listen up. The more attentive among you may have noticed that I generally rate either five or six items a week. Why five or six? Because that's about as much inspiration I can dredge out of my keen crime-fighting brain in one sitting. So if I'm rating, say, songs from Kate Bush's album The Kick Inside and I leave out "Them Heavy People," it's not that I forgot "Them Heavy People" exists and it's not that "Them Heavy People" drowned my parakeet in fifth grade and I have something against it, I'm just being a lazy bastard and stretching the Rating out over two or more installments. So as much as I love to hear whatever thoughts stagger all the way from our readers' language centers down to their keyboards, I'd like to gently suggest that our dear, sweet, lovely fans quit sending me "corrections" that imply that I had major portions of my brain cauterized in an industrial accident and as a result I don't know that there are, in fact, more than five cartoons in the "Schoolhouse Rock" series. Now, on a more positive note... Name: Bridget (cullenb@bsk.com) My question is this: my sister won the "Porn Star or My Little Pony" quiz with a score of 11/12-- far better than random chance could ever account for. Clearly, this demure young creature, who I endeavored to protect lo these many years, had inside knowledge of the subject, and it sure as shootin' wasn't in the "My Little Pony" department. What am I to make of this? Name: ERic (ejubin@micro.ti.com) While we can only darkly guess at what Bridget's sister has been up to lately, we want to thank both her and ERic for their service above and beyond the call of bookmarking by making them the first inductees in the long-overdue Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. Bridget, we dub thee Lady Cheerio, and ERic, henceforth you shall be known as Lord Trik. Cock on! 1 Oct 1998 Name: Ted (Prodromou)
Actually, the superpowers thing just passed in the House and a similar bill is being considered in the Senate. It's really stupid, because this is just a partisan effort fueled by the recent discovery that Al Gore can control fish with his mind. Name: Kevin (Michael) Other ways to meet women:
Name: Felix (M) Ok, I've sent you guys mail in the past and you never made fun of me, so I'll do it again. I know where your name comes from, it was in a book I read in... I forgot, it was a long time ago, I'll go call my High School Language Arts AP teacher from a couple years back... boy won't she be happy to hear from me, it's 3:19 in the morning and I'll mail you back in a minute or so after I get the answer :-) --Felix Olivas We have no idea what you're talking about. Our name is a reference to Brunching and Shuttlecocks, Andy Warhol's two groundbreaking examples of post-modern cinema. 10 Aug 1998 Name: lori <lori@brunching.com> dave neilsen, i'll have you know that i had to run out and buy duran duran's "decade" cd last night because i've felt this gnawing compulsion to hear it ever since i read your "greatest hits" piece. If we can get "Girls on Film" stuck in the head of just one person, we will have done our job. Name: Jasmine901@aol.com
Dear sir: We'd like to point out that the Self-Made Critic was actually making a satirical comment on the obsession that the entertainment industry at large has with Anne Heche's sexuality, exaggerating this obsession in time-honored comedy fashion in order to highlight the ridiculousness of our culture's take on the sexual preferences of movie stars. But actually, he's just a jerk. Name: Rebalea@aol.com
I have just disovered this page. As amusing as I find it, I must ask, "Who
are you?" We're the Brunching Shuttlecocks, and our name is a tribute to Fat Willy Brunching and Jay "Dog Bone" Shuttlecocks, Jr., the early masters of the jazz bagpipes. 4 June 1998 Name: Gabriel <gabrielr@ix.netcom.com> Hey, could you turn the Goth quote generator into a Web Toy??? I'LL USE IT! My troubled Tina makes me happy everytime I see her. Gabriel Gabrielr@ix.netcom.com We're not really inclined to turn the GQG into a graphic, as we're somewhat concerned about flooding the "page toys for wired Goths" market, but we might change our minds given enough requests. In the meantime, feel free to cut and paste your favorite results, we've got plenty where those come from. Name: Josh Thomson <lakie@onramp.net> I have enjoyed your site since last summer, and have converted most of my friends into regular readers. As a Math Person, however, I have a minor nit to pick with your term "Hit-to- Filler ratio." The numbers you posted were Hit-to-Total-Number-of-Songs Ratios. The Hit-to-Filler ratios would be 1.000 for MC Hammer's Album which is half hits and half filler, while the Duran Duran Album would have a HtF ratio of one to zero--an infinite ratio. Granted, that logic leaves you with an awkward acronym (HtTNS) and you're forced to ponder the infinite with Duran Duran as a point of reference. You're absolutely correct, Josh. But we're going to ignore it anyway, because "Hit to Filler" sounds better, and we have an aversion to using "infinity" and "Duran Duran" in the same sentence. So you can blame the whole declining educational standards thing on us. 2 June 1998 Name: Styles <Lrpumpkin@aol.com> Did you notice the recent trend in movies? The thing where they don't actually make original movies, but rehash 60's and 70's tv sitcoms into 90's big buget movies? Why is everybody so nostalgic for this stuff? And why do animation studios turn tragic historical events (a la Anastasia, the Hunchback of Noterdame) into little kiddie movies with happy songs and talking gargoyles and trees? Society bothers me. I don't know how to break this to you, Styles, but "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" isn't a historical event. Name: Becky <crisco7000@aol.com> I was reading through some old archives of ratings a year or so ago, when I came across the Clue page. On the thing for Miss Scarlet, it said that she was the ultimate killer of Mr. Boddy. What's strange is that I've played that game maybe ten times since then and Miss Scarlet ALWAYS does it! Coincidence? I think not! Are you suggesting that The Brunching Shuttlecocks warp time and space? That probability itself is subject to our whims? That reality is nothing more than a coarse reflection of all that is Brunching? Old news. Name: Tane Russell <tane.russell@infocus.com> I love your site. "Porn Star or My Little Pony" was a big hit at work. Who are you guys, and what does your name mean? We're the Brunching Shuttlecocks, and our name is Apache for "Trusty Scout." 31 May 1998 Name: laudanum@sothere.com (Laudanum) Yanno, Satan being the evil underworld overlord that he is, you would think he would have derived particular pleasure from extolling the many merits of the marrow fork, but I suppose he was so busy waving his pitchfork around and looking menacing that he forgot about it.
Ah well, these things happen.
Great site, btw. I giggled extensively. Marrow fork? I've never heard of this tool. It staggers the mind. How is marrow served? Do you get a bowl of it, or do they just give you a stack of shankbones and have you go at it? Or do you pick out the marrow after having finished the meat entree? In that case, is it considered rude not to scrape the interior of the bones for this so-called delicacy? What if you don't like marrow? Will your hostess be insulted at your rejection of her bone marrow, as it were? Huh. Name: Joey <jborkovich@hotmail.com> Despite your warnings not to, I searched for my own last name on alta vista. I found several sites about my father, a few mentions of my name (one was this mail page), and a surprising number of "other" Borkovich people. One was Neb Borkovich, a musician who plays Phoenix coffee houses and seems to be a bit of a beatnik. Another was Andy Borkovich, a semi-professional golfer who won some competion back in the 60s. Yet another was Nicolas Borkovich, some member of the Ontario court who seems to have a lot of power up in Canada. I don't know if any are relatives, but I sure hope not. I mean, suppose this Nicolas guy makes an unfavorable court verdict and the sentenced mobster's hitmen decide to come after Nicolas' family? They might track me down via Alta Vista and kill the entire Borkovich line! I certainly don't want Canadian Mobsters going after me, thank you very much. And this Neb person is bad too. I don't want some washed-out beatnik hitting me up for cash. The golfer might be alright, seeing as how I can't think of any way that physical or financial harm might befall me by being related to him. Oh, well. Now I'm going to lose sleep over this for a while.... Next time I'll heed your warnings. When we first founded this site, it was our deepest, highest hope that someday we'd get a letter with the terms "Neb Borkovich," "Canadian Mobsters," and "washed-up beatnik" in it. We are damp with gratitude. Name: bplotkin@3nets.com (Benjamin Plotkin)
thank god(s)(esses)(zilla) for the brunching shuttlecocks Edible cornstarch packing peanuts? Is there a fork for them? 30 April 1998 Name: Whitney Fitzgerald Freemesser <whitfitz@servtech.com> Thank you for recognizing the theatrical potential of staple removers. About three years ago I was temping at a law firm and got so frickin' bored one afternoon I wrote a play for three staple removers. Here it is, in its entirety: I AM THE SNAKE, BITE BITE BITE
(A blank stage/desk. STAPLE REMOVER #1 wanders onto the tableau.) STAPLE REMOVER #1: I am the snake! Bite bite bite! (STAPLE REMOVER #1 opens and closes its fangs menacingly. STAPLE REMOVER #2, a slightly larger staple remover, wanders into the scene.) STAPLE REMOVER #2: No, I am the snake! Bite bite bite! (STAPLE REMOVER #2 opens and closes *its* fangs menacingly. STAPLE REMOVER #3, the biggest staple remover of them all, drops down, as if from the heavens.) STAPLE REMOVER #3: NO. *I* AM THE SNAKE. BITE BITE BITE! (STAPLE REMOVER #1 and #2 flee.) THE END That's...that's so touching. Name: "Horgan, Matt" <Matt.Horgan@sales.turner.com> I was unfortunate enough to attend a university whose mascot was a GameCock (an "ass-kickin' chicken", as the local bumper sticker so quaintly put it). The local bus service around campus was provided by a fleet of ancient, balky "short buses" called The ShuttleCocks. Marred by graffiti and hail damage, plagued by muffler problems, and piloted by drunken arabs, they were a source of embarrasment to the university and a target for scorn and derision by the students. One of my fondest collegiate memories is of the day a ShuttleCock caught fire outside the student union, and the local fire chief let it "burn itself out." Somewhere in the archives of student media at this unversity, there is a photograph of the burning bus that was taken for the school newspaper. The word "ShuttleCock" is clearly visible through the engulfing flames. If you are interested, I might be able to track this photo down and procure a copy for you. First time visitor to the site. Very funny. I myself would like to find the person responsible for Scrappy Doo and string his/her intestines across the ceiling like so much crepe paper. Matt Horgan Sure. Send it along. Our address is on our contact page, or you can scan and post it. As a graduate of UCSC, home of the "Fighting Banana Slugs," an ass-kicking chicken actually sounds relatively intimidating. Name: bplotkin@3nets.com (Benjamin Plotkin) Now, to make up for my embarrassingly unnecessary post on that favorite of Southern Hemisphere constellations, "Poop" (hehe, said it AGAIN!) I HAVE SEEN CHOCODILES. Yes, right here in Burbank, CA! The entertainment armpit of Hollywood. At Seven-Eleven. Individually packaged, and less than 50 cents each! Honest. I'm up for a bulk mailing (cash in advance, of course) -- I think they'll ship well.... bp So there you go. The little creme-filled creatures are still floating around out there, ripe for the chorfing. Next question: Boo-Berry. Still available? Where? 23 April 1998 Name: Brian Michael Sunday <bsunday@mail.utexas.edu>
You should write a movie. Just a thought. If you do, I think it would be
a good idea to include a guy who plays Circus Atari all the time, and/or
has something to do with masturbating. Perhaps he masturbates to/with
his Atari paddle controller. I'll buy a ticket.
Gracias, Whoa. This is the first time we've gotten a contact high from an e-mail letter. Name: Jen <paganjen@aol.com> I was going to go for something witty, but I am opting for shameless flattery. I love your website! It is the BEST thing I have found on this cursed web. Even the people who send you e-mail are hilarious-(the star wars/scoobie doo connection). Keep up the great work! Praise Shuttlecocks! And we'd like to post something witty, but we'll take the flattery. We can always say something like "paganjen is my favorite herbal tea ingredient" to improve the humor/flattery ratio. Name: kuchers <kuchers@concentric.net>
Believe it or not there is a REAL band out there with the name
Shuttlecocks. I know what you're thinking these guys must be lame. And,
well, they are, (one of 'em is my brother though,) so I have to say
something nice. Their web page is funny, some of it's real some of it's
not. The record they advertise on the web site is REAL so if you want to
waste like 3-4 bucks I reccomend their record. There's about 30 people
who have actually heard the band live (they only do shows over summer
due to most memebers going to different colleges.) Well, enough of me
going on and on, go to their damn web site, and tell the Brunching fans
about it if you like it. Web page is
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/flutejazz/
It's worth a couple of laughs,
trust me. We wasn't going to post this with a link, but two things changed our minds: One, that weird picture on the page with the laser beam eyes, and two, the slogan "They're Loud, They Rock, They're Shuttlecock." Although if we used it, it would have to be "They're Loud, They Wear Socks, They're the Brunching Shuttlecocks," so as to preserve the rhyme. 16 April 1998 Name: delicately free of mind <crank@cube.ice.net> concerning the constellations ratings, i'd just like to make a comment about the whole "silliest name" debate. i'm not sure this exists in everyone's world or not, but if you hit the local geek shop in the mall & pick up one of those "eight skillion glow-in-the-dark stars to stick on your ceiling" kits, it has a map of constellations for you to try to recreate in your bedroom, & one of the listed star patterns is a triangle-shape, named "poo". go figure. lish Name: gabriel@cowland.com I'm a big fan of The Brunching Shuttlecocks pages. I check every night to see what Tina the Troubled Teenager says, what the feature of the day is, and I've gone through all of the archives and looked at every single movie review, rating, toy, and feature that you have. I'm even subscribed by e-mail to the Self-Made Critic list. One thing I thought you guys might find kinda humorous was brought to my mind when I was reading the ratings page about constellations. You know those glow in the dark star stickers that you can put on your ceilings and walls and wherever the hell you want them? Well, my sister bought a package of them a while back, and the package included a star map in case you felt like putting up some actual constellations. Well, in the southern hemisphere, there is a constellation called "Poop". I'm not kidding. I thought it was a joke when I first saw it, then I checked out some official star maps, and sure enough, there's a real constellation called "Poop". It's basically an upside-down triangle with a star coming out of the bottom of it. Basically like this:
. .
.
.
It's a simple, rather boring constellation, and I have no idea why it's called Poop, but I just thought I'd like to bring it to your attention, considering the ratings mentioned that there's also a constellation named "Norma". I can see how that would be unnerving to come across in your mall purchases, but things are not quite as they seem. There's a constellation named "Puppis," which was named by the same guy who gave us "Norma." "Puppis" means the stern of a ship. An outdated word for the stern of the ship is the "poop," as in "poop deck." So, speaking generally, you could say that there's a constellation named "Poop" in the sense that there are constellations named "The Big Dog" and "Berenice's Hair," but in the strict scientific sense, it's just "Canis Major" and "Coma Berenices." Let's put it this way, who are you going to trust, a maker of glow-in-the-dark-stars, or a comedy Web zine editor? There's a choice you don't face often... 10 April 1998 Name: Kevin (khyde@thehill.org) "The Brunching Shuttlecocks: A Fine Web Page" Name: delicately (free) you wrote those reviews & i think i love you. you are everything i DON'T want to kill in a human. marry me? lish "The Brunching Shuttlecocks: Everything You Don't Want to Kill in a Human" Name: bhenry (bhenry@johnco.cc.ks.us) Keep up the good work! "The Brunching Shuttlecocks: Making Your Rotten Day Somewhat Tolerable" 9 April 1998 Name: Jordan (Blaize) -S Now this is news we can use! The next time I host a six-course formal dinner, Creme de Cocoa Pebbles is going to have a proud place on the menu. And now, the "people helping people" section of the mail page: Name: MELISSA618 (MELISSA618@aol.com>) melissa618@aol.com It wasn't until we got this mail that we realized that we hadn't actually seen a Chocodile in months. Have they been struck down by the Hostess Gods? Have they, like "Go-Goo Clusters" been relegated to certain areas of the US? If anyone's seen a Chocodile in the wild, let us know. Name: William (Griffith) Thanks for the telekinetic messages last night. Me and my friend had a ball... With the toothpaste and the Siamese hooting owl.... Again, can anyone help this guy? I mean, aside from the need for counseling... I can clearly remember "Smurfberry Crunch," "Strawberry Shortcake Cereal," and "OJ's," but ice cream cereal is no more than a dim hazy recollection. If anyone out there knows whereof William speaks, give us a write and we'll post it here. A scan of the box would be even better, and cause hundreds of people across the US and Canada to hit their foreheads and go "Right! Now I remember!" Update: The name of the cereal was, astonishingly enough, "Ice Cream Cones," and it was hawked by a cartoon ice cream guy named, disturbingly enough, "Ice Cream Jones." Thanks to Joey "God" Borkovich, Scott "Scott Rux" Rux, and someone who didn't leave their name for this important information. 18 February 1998 Name: joey (jborkovich@hotmail.com) P.S. You guys should bring back the "Cheap at any Price" category. I liked it. P.P.S. Do I get extra points for knowing that bit of Brunching history? We still do Cheap At Any Price things, we just don't give them their own category. You get two extra points for the trivia, though. You should be able to get a good price for them if you sell them to a soccer team. And "Nutty Brunchers" are my favorite pseudo-health-food carbohydrate bars. Name: cindy dawson (cindy1092@otmail.com) I don't think the Critic was ever nobody. Before he was The Self-Made Critic he was That Jerk on the Bus. Still, I'll forward your pleas to him. Oh, and "Heart Man" is my favorite Red Cross youth-outreach spokescartoon. Name: JesseF1016@aol.com Thanks for your time, Jesse F. I have a goatee, but I'm bald in the Norelco sense, not the Male Pattern sense. In fact, I think I'm the only white man in America who shaves his head but doesn't have either a receding hairline or a keen interest in ska music. Dave looks kind of like a young Malcolm McDowell, but he looks more like the offspring of an unholy union between James Taylor and David Spade. Did you know that McDowell did the voice of "Rhesus 2" in "Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys"? Huh. And "Thanks For Your Time, Jesse F." is my favorite perennial local summer theatre production. 6 February 1998 Name: Jay Aldrich
(jay_aldrich@hotmail.com) We rely on comedy to make people laugh. We rely on sex to make people drive to our house at two in the morning, wondering how they ever thought they could spend even a single night without us, hoping that there's some way -- any way -- they can fix things and make the world something they can face again. Name: Joelle
(joelle_reeder@cc.chiron.com) We're over here. Name: joey
(jborkovich@hotmail.com) Uh-huh. So if I drop a box on my foot, I'm supposed to shout "Joey DAMN it! Joey H. BORKOVICH that hurts like a mother! I wish to Joey they didn't make those things so Joey damned heavy!" I'm not seeing it. 4 February 1998 Name: Brian B. Smith (smith_bb@csg.capital.edu) Dear Brunchers-- An underappreciated bonus in your site is the entertainment given by the ultraconservative pages you take images from ("Bullish on Babylon," "Amy Grant Making the Devil Sign"). Each of those sites was good for a solid fifteen minutes of mockery. Even so, I have to hand it to the Rapture Ready guy--although he takes his subject matter seriously, he still has a pretty good satirical sense of humor. (Don't miss his riffs on the Number of the Beast.) The anti-Christian-rock page, on the other hand...I'm pretty scared of anyone who can: A. Say that the Egyptian eye image on the cover of an Alan Parsons album is proof of Satanism; B. Then propose that Michael W. Smith's music is Satanic because Alan Parsons was one of his influences (which is a bit like saying that a subway shooter was brainwashed by Elmer Fudd cartoons); and finally C. Accuse Amy Grant of peddling lust in her song "Baby Baby"...which was actually written to her _child._ (Yes, I am ashamed to know that bit of music trivia.) Thank you for reassuring us that there will always be someone more obsessive and less logical than we are. Cheers, Amy Grant is peddling lust to her child? From: Matt Atchity (Matchity@mail.asylum.com) Although I agree with you when you say that the Star Wars trilogy and legends buried in our collective unconscious have nothing to do with each other, I think you missed the boat. Star wars is really a big-budget, sci-fi version of Scooby-Doo. Seriously. George Lucas simply took one of the the most popular cartoons of the time, changed the characters' merchandising potential, and is still raking in the money. Here's how the character rewrites come out: - Humanlike yet nearly unintelligible Scooby-Doo is now the humanlike yet completely unintelligible Chewbacca. - Scooby's best pal, anti-establishment Shaggy becomes Chewie's best pal, anti-establishment Han Solo. - Velma (the only smart one of the bunch, and the shortest next to Scooby) is now Princess Leia (the only smart one of the bunch, and the shortest next to R2-D2). - Ultra-bland, poorly acted (even for a cartoon character) Fred is now ultra-bland, poorly acted (even for a Jedi) Luke Skywalker. - Idiot-savant Daphne, who causes as much trouble as she solves gets divided up into idiotic C-3PO and savant R2-D2, who solves as many problems as C-3PO creates. Lucas wisely relegates Scooby/Chewbacca into a secondary character, realizing that no one would sit through six hours of Scooby's bizarre attempts at speaking (though he does make us sit through 6 hours of Mark Hamill's bizarre attempts at acting). The story is classic Scooby-Doo. Two frightening figures in robes (The Emperor and Darth Vader) run around scaring people and acting like the galaxy belongs to them. Velma/Leia gets captured, so the rest of the gang gets in the Monster Machine/Millenium Falcon and heads to the haunted castle/Death Star to go and get her. There's a monster/Imperial trooper behind every other door, of course, which sends our heroes into yet another silly chase scene. Lucas' brilliance is such that he can drag this out for three movies. The scary-looking Stormtoopers chase Chewie and the gang out of the the castle (The Death Star). The scary-looking walkers chase Chewie and the gang out of the abandoned ski resort (Hoth). The scary-looking Boba Fett chases Chewie and the gang out of the old mine (Cloud City). And in true Scooby style, we get to see 70s guest stars (Billy Dee Williams as Lando, Mama Cass as Jabba) join in the fun. The chase scenes finally end when the gimmicky, audience-detested, Scrappy-Doo shows up to kick some villian ass. But this time, he's multiplied into the gimmicky, audience-detested, Ewoks that show up to kick some Imperial ass. And we finally get to see the villian unmasked at the end. "Hey, it's old man Skywalker from the ranch!" "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling rebels!" Excellent points all. Was Shaggy really "anti-establishment," though? I always thought of him as being more "pro-pizza." Name: Josh Munn
(Joshua_Munn@ryder.com) And those rat bastard movie theater owners don't have Jujyfruits anymore. Who's scruffy-looking? 30 December 1997 Name: Sam Waas (sam_waas@hypercon.com) Q: What is the best type of movie during which to eat Jujyfruits? A: Westerns, of course! Not horror movies, which is the putative selection. And although horror movies are the best during which to consume concession eats, the Jujyfruit genre (including its subspecies Jujubes) requires special conditions, i.e., the Western. Reason being that Westerns have the highest ratio of bright, sunlit scenes, which makes it relatively easy for you to 'candle' your Jujys and separate the licorice from the fruit flavors. As anyone knows, you can rapidly and happily gobble the yellows, the greens, and the reds in any random sequence, since they all have the same basic flavor (sweet) and the same texture (gooey). But beware the lurking licorice! In a single stroke it will destroy any previous chemical sweetness and envelope your entire esophegeal system with licorice flavor. Even those of us who like licorice must admit that once licorice is consumed, it forever ruins the flavors of any subsequent goodie. Myself, I hoarded the licorice Jujys until I had eaten the other goodies, nesting them in a shirt pocket or tucked into the crease of my jeans. Then if I didn't especially wish to eat them, I could chuck them at Jimmy Spencer in the row in front of me because he pushed ahead in line when we were getting in. Trouble was, if I forgot to eat (or throw) the licorice Jujys, they might end up in the laundry, causing my mom to hit the ceiling. Keeping them in the crease of my jeans prevented this trauma, but there was always the risk of one sticking to my jeans as I stood up, and when I emerged into the bright Saturday afternoon, Jimmy Spencer would point at it and laugh "What is that? A cootie?" Such are the risks of youth. Sam When I got to the part about Westerns I was thinking, "Great, another Froot Loop." But you know, the man has a point. Westerns or, alternatively, snowboarding documentaries. From: veda (veda@maui.net) The word I like here is "yet." That's right, someday Veda is going to wake up in the middle of the night and say "Oh! Hey! A page full of obscure 70's pop culture references and bizarre quizzes!" but it will be too, too late. Name: Sonya
(peaceful_deviant@bigfoot.com) there once was a man from peking who invented a fucking machine concave or convex it would serve either sex but it sure was a bitch to keep clean. please??? Sonya Actually, what most people don't realize is that it's not a Limerick, but a haiku: There once was a man from Nantucket Island, Mass. Cherry blossoms fall 23 December 1997 Name: I thought you knew what it was...
(Cynamonlee@aol.com) For the record, I'm wearing dark green 100% cotton "Honors" boxers, and Dave's wearing white Fruit-of-the-Loom jockey shorts. Name: Erin
(kay_erin@email.msn.com) And I thought I was the only one who thought those little round bandages were stupid! That's what this site is all about, letting people know that there's someone out there who knows how they feel, no matter how deranged, bizarre, or just plain wrong they are. Name: Sandra
(sandrac@gte.net) Too funny. Now I gotta pee. Here's a hall pass, but I want you back in ten minutes, young lady. Name: Johner Riehl
(johner@bohle.com)
Keep up the good work, Allegro Non Troppo, Johner. Actually, the English pronunciation is a sad travesty of Swedish. If you want to pronounce my name the way they do back in good old Sverige, it's a lot closer to "HYOO-byurry," but the "oo" is "hyoo" is more of a pursed "uh." If you say "tell me about the rabbits, George," the way they do in Bugs Bunny cartoons, the "o" in "George" is a pretty close approximation. So you can see why I go with "SHOW-berg." 22 December 1997 Name: Becky
(Crisco7000@aol.com) "Mousepad Conspiracy" is my favorite Soul Coughing song. Name: The Inedible Buddhas
(ancipital@hotmail.com) "Restrain the Stoats" is my favorite underground cinema zine. Name: becky
(criso7000@aol.com) "Shake hands with Bob Hope" is my favorite euphemism for masturbation. 5 December 1997 Name: qasimy
(qasimy@rocketmail.com) Don't we all, Qasimy, don't we all. Name: Anders Liljeholm
(aliljeho@haverford.edu) Which is not to say that there aren't plenty of ways for someone to get a rude message from us calling them an idiot... Name: cHris
(23platypi@geocities.com)
Ha! We scoff at your canon! What about where the gang meets Don Knotts in "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry"? Or the classic "Frickert Fracas" with Jonathan Winters, widely viewed as the best cartoon of all time featuring Jonathan Winters and a Great Dane? Take your woefully incomplete Scooby-Doo list from our sight, malinformed former Cartoon-Networker! Name: One Dad out here...
(dduncan@cyberspace.com) And we like movie reviews that teach ... well, are at least accurate plus/minus a generous 5%. You'll be happy to hear that my two sons (Mike & Robby, not Chip, age)get ALL of their movie info from you guys. One of the sees the "Jackal" and wants to read the book. "Its by that LeCarre guy. I just read the review." "No, its by Frederick Forsythe, but I'll get it." "No, Dad, those Brunching guys say LeCarre wrote it." Who am I to dispute his sources. So... where can I buy a copy of "Day of the Jackal" by John LeCarre? Let it not be said that our readers are not well-read. Let it be said rather that they can be damned sarcastic when they get it into their heads. This is one of three letters we received in as many hours informing us that the Self-Made Critic got the author of "Day of the Jackal" wrong. I feel bad about letting that one slip through. I had meant to read the book before the Critic wrote his review, but I'm still trying to wade through "Atlas Shrugged." 5 November 1997 Name: Bitter
(bitter@san.rr.com) O well. you guys kick ass, etc. etc. Bitter Thanks, "Bitter." And remember, we're always available as character witnesses. As for the good work, we were ready to blow the lid off the whole kelp thing, but now we're seriously rethinking that. Name: Raheem the Dream
(SideshowRaheem@msn.com) p.s. If there is anything funnier than this page I have yet to find it. But you should change the name to Brunching Shuttlecocks Ate My Balls for more hits. Man. Did someone declare this "Borderline Psychotic Fan Week" and not tell us? Anyhow, the name change is a good idea, but we're too busy working on our "Salon Ate My Balls" page. 4 November 1997 Name: John (think@nconnect.net) Now that I found out (from your web site) that I am not alone, does this mean I can stop taking my medicine? No. Name: Henry Stein (fhas50@msn.com) You don't get to stop taking your meds either, Henry. 29 October 1997 From: Jim Duncan (jduncan@scu.edu) The Timeouts PS: We had plenty of time to write an A paper. I think. Thanks, boys. And in return, we appoint The Timeouts our Official Historical Researchers, Misspelled Greek Wars Division. From: Farretish (farretish@hotmail.com) 1) I always thought that Bert's moves in "Doin' the Pigeon" were a little odd. Thanks for the image. 2) You should check out the new "macaroni 'n' cheese" crayon... one of the "Color and Smell" series. (yummy) 3) Thanks for knocking Mr. Green of Clue. I never wanted to be that perverted old freak. 4) Col. Mustard's name made more sense when I was little and pronounced it "Cold Mustard". Oh well. thanks, guys. I haven't gotten any work done all afternoon. By now, our regular readers should be recognizing the sure-fire formula for getting printed on the mail page. First, start by mentioning one or more media write-ups we've gotten. Second, share your childhood memories with us. Third, say something that makes us doubt your mental stability, for example by telling us that you sniff crayons and had trouble with Colonel Mustard's name. And lastly, blame us for your slacking off at work. Good job, Farretish! 28 October 1997 From: Marijane
(mjm63@pacbell.net)
"Way groovy non-crapola" is perhaps the highest accolade we've recieved. But dammit, where's our muffin assortment? From: Cindy
(cindy@connectit.com) Hey, no prob. Two helpful keeping-your-job-while-reading-comedy hints. One, when you inadvertently chortle, try to make it sound like an evil mad scientist laugh, then say "This will show the competition that it is the very hand of God that steers us to dominate the industry!" in a loud voice. Two, try not to confess your sins on public mail pages. From: diane
(dbacci@net-ex.com) So sick of sites that use "good" "great" like salt...liberally and loosely. You're bookmarked guys...get a counter. You were in Newsweek.... Hmm. "Comedy, With the Vocabulary to Back it Up" might make a good slogan. On second thought, it makes us sound too much like a combination of "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" and "Life in These United States." We're way beyond counters, by the way. We use a customized access log script written in Perl that gives us masses of detail. We spend about an hour every day staring at our stats and faintly drooling. From: Pat G
(pat.gallagher@worldtalkcom) We're actually working on an article about the conspiracy of people writing and asking us to explain why they can't hold a newspaper without hurting themselves. We appreciate any and all emotional validation, but I'm not sure we can legally get five Babylons, as none of us is a cute pig or a Jedi knight. From: Emily Anne Ronning (bucky@eagle.cc.ukans.edu) Emily Ronning Graduate Student, Univeristy of Kansas (but I'm a Wisconsin Badger at heart!) PS - Publish a book (or have you already and I just missed it?)...you folks are brilliant! Thanks for the kudos, Emily Anne. But we're a little concerned about you being a badger trapped in the body of a graduate student. If you ever get out to California, look us up. We have support groups for that sort of thing out here. Older Mail From: Allie (goldbikini@aol.com) Thank you, Allie. I think we can all agree that "terrific comedy at its finest" is much better than, say, mediocre comedy at its finest. By the way, you've won the coveted "most provocative AOL e-mail address" award. We were going to make a little graphic you could put on your site, but then it was lunchtime. From: Sparky (wwwvoice@concentric.net) We like your moxie, kid. This one's on the house. One note, though: if you were REALLY cool, you would have made the "O" in "OZZY" a zero. From: Trent (entris@hotmail.com) Uh, yeah! THAT'S right! We FORGOT to mention that guinea pigs can't CHOKE themselves to death! Silly us! Thanks for writing, Trent, and keep stocked up on those meds, you hear? From: Michael Schwartz (schvatza@ix.netcom.com) Aquaman is more like some sort of affirmative action superhero. Other than this, you guys rock man. Alert the press. The term "P.C." is now officially meaningless, having been slowly degraded from "stridently and obnoxiously defensive about liberal political issues" down to "unreasonably fond of Aquaman." Seriously, Michael, politics had nothing to do with it. Aquaman's bonus points can be explained in two words: "styling outfit." From: Pete Bevin (moose@bestiary.com) Goolies. Huh. Novelty glasses with springy eyeballs? A 1985 movie with Corey Feldman? Canadian slang for what we more genteel Americans call "the 'nads"? Well, a quick search courtesy our friends at Alta Vista reveals that "goolies" are actually chalk balls used in mountain climbing. Weird. Eerie. From: Mom Yes, this is actually a letter from my mom. That's one of the sad glories of the Information Age: your mom always knows what you're up to. The odd thing here is that with all the twisted stuff on this site, mom's worried about my TEETH.
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