When Kate became a Princess (and a Duchess, too!) much of the world latched onto her younger sister’s amazing bridesmaid behind. Sites such as “Pippa’s Amazing Arse” were founded, twitters were tweet and the mainstream media fell all over themselves with pictures and dreadful, awful buttocks puns. It reminded me of the classically sad movie “Slang The Bum, Drolly”.

By mid-morning, Goldilocks was exhausted. After the adrenaline rush subsided, and she had made the beds and cleaned up after the bears, and made and eaten a new bowl of porridge for herself, she really need a cuppa. Earl Grey. But not any Earl Grey. The very pinnacle of Earl grey teas – Alley brand – the Choice of Emperors. She put one and a half cups of water in the kettle and set it to boil. She measured out two teaspoons (one for her, one for the pot) of the precious leaves into a reusable tea bag, and inhaled the sensuous aroma of Broken Orange Pekoe and bergamot oil.

When the kettle boiled she immediately (as boiling for too long removes the oxygen from the water and will flatten the flavor of the tea) rinsed out the teapot with a little water to preheat the teapot. She also poured a small amount of the hot water over the tea leaves to allow them to bloom, or open up, and release some of their bitter tannins, then drained the water right away. She put the tea cosy on the teapot, and set it to steep for exactly five minutes (steeping tea too long makes even the best tea taste bitter). She poured a perfect cup and set it out on her table, in a perfect patch of sunshine on her front verandah. Just then the phone rang, so she ran inside to answer it. After politely getting rid of the persistent telemarketer, she stepped outside, only to find Father Bear sitting on her chair, at her table, in her perfect patch of sunshine, drinking her perfect tea!

So she called the Sheriff.

Father Bear refused to speak until his lawyer was present.

“So what is the complaint”, the lawyer asked. “Breaking and Entering”, the sheriff said. The mouthpiece retorted with “The front gate was open, the verandah is wide open, and he didn’t go into Goldilock’s house – Any real crime committed here?”. “Pooping in public” stated the lawman. “Well”, stated the lawyer, “that’s what bears do, don’t they?”. So the sheriff asked “By the way, where is Mother Bear and Baby Bear?”. Father Bear whispered rather bashfully to the lawyer, who replied “Baby Bear is a Princess, and she refuses to go in the woods, so they are using the bathroom at Whoa Nelly Deli”. So the sheriff asked Father Bear “Do you know what kind of tea this was?”. And Father Bear replied “Alley Earl Grey”. At that point in time, the officer said “Turn around and put your paws behind your back. I’m gonna cuff you and take you in!” “For what crime!” yelled the lawyer. “Bear steal Alley tea”.

Tell me, O twins from the land of Odysseus and Onassis, of Agnew and Apollo, O inheritors of the roles of Castor and Polydeuces: have you heard the story of how, through trickery, the Achaeans were able to pass through the impregnable walls of Ilium and bring low the Trojan defenders? Listen, then; and may I push your heads just a bit closer to the water’s surface, slightly below perhaps? No?

Well, in any case, heed ye these my words, for many of them are true:

In the days of the Trojan War, air superiority, satellite reconnaissance, and onshore naval-artillery bombardment did not play such prominent roles as they do nowadays; instead, the ancients had to depend upon quick wits, clever ruses… idiotic gags.

It seems that the Greeks wished to gain surreptitious entrance to the walled city of Troy for a group of their soldiers, the better to reduce said city to rubble — and inhabitants to ruination.

One thing stood in their way; nay, two things: wall and gate. Neither the one nor the other could they pass, as the Trojans held their own opinions as to the desirability of urban renewal as practiced by their enemies — and (perhaps more importantly) they had the hardware to back up their opinions.

One of the Achaean soldiers who was disgruntledly encamped outside the gates of Troy (I think his name was Xylohippus) came up with the following unlikely idea: why not construct a huge wooden horse, hollow and big enough to contain within a few of their number. They would then present this wooden horse to the Trojans as a “gift” from the general to their city. Once the horse was drawn inside the city, all the team inside had to do was wait until nighttime to emerge, then overpower the gate guards, and open the city gates to a surprise attack.

On reflection, it all seemed fairly absurd — but not nearly as much so as the idea Coprocephalon had about disguising themselves as giant figs (or perhaps rutabagas; ancient texts are unclear and sometimes contradictory on this point) and giving themselves up as offerings to Ceres. So the general wasted no time on reflection and got to work.

To use a phrase popular among worshippers of the Greek Goddess of Victory (Nike), they “went for it.” Never mind where they got the wood; suffice it to say that to this very day, no tree grows within fifteen miles of the site of this story.

Into the belly of the horse (through a cleverly concealed trap-door into which several of the soldiers *flatly refused* to crawl) there went a team of volunteers.

Slowly the other soldiers pushed the horse up the road to the city gates. As the Greek general was about to call out for a parley, the men in the horse started to squirm (it was quite tight in there, and awfully hot in the Mediterranean sun). The rocking motion of the horse was slight, but the crude wooden axles began to squeak alarmingly!

Realizing that the onlooking Trojans might be alerted and made suspicious if they noticed the horse squeaking with no apparent cause, the general quickly made an excuse about having to currycomb it one last time and had his men shove the thing back down the hill.

Once around a corner, he opened up the horse and let the overheated, exhausted men out. As they recuperated, the general realized he *had* to quieten those axles or else admit the ruse’s defeat.

He thought and thought, and then — to the utter consternation of his closest military and engineering advisers — he called in his chief cook! To this man the general barked out a short order (as well he might; the man was a short-order cook).

The cook smiled, nodded in the affirmative, and hurried from the place to the army’s field kitchens. A few moments later, he and his assistants were seen carrying small clay pots of rendered cooking fat to the horse. They poured the goo onto the axles and worked it into the thirsty wood using short, stout sticks.

This done, the general had the volunteers clamber once more into the wooden horse’s innards. Once more the men shoved the huge creature towards the gate. At first the usual squeal sounded out, but as the oily mess worked its way more thoroughly into the wheels things became smoother — and the horse was much easier for the men to push, as a bonus!

Soon enough they arrived once more at the city gates of fabled Ilium (I had to say that just _once_). Thanks to the lubrication, this time as they waited for the defending general to arrive at the gates for a parley, the fidgeting of the soldiers inside the horse produced a little motion but no discernible noise. Those watching from the walls could have no suspicion of what lay in wait! Ha ha!

Sure enough, the Trojans, all unsuspecting, accepted the gift. They pushed it smoothly and easily into the city and closed the gates, thinking themselves safe and secure.

And (as we all know) that night as the inhabitants of Ilium slept, the concealed Greeks opened a secret panel in the horse and crept forth. Stealthily they slew the guards, opened the gates, admitted their companions, and sacked the place.

So it was that by means of a *trick* managed the overthrow of one of the most fabulous cities of the ancient world! Now Troy lies in ruins, barely remembered except by antiquarians such as myself, and perhaps a few of you, my friends… otherwise, it molders forgotten…

Save for this motto, one passed down for millennia, from generation to generation, from language to language, a call of warning against the lubricious stranger with the “deal too good to be true:” … Beware of greased-bearing gifts. (Dr. Jake Katz)

Adminisphere: The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant.

Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “I dunno, ask Rick. He’s our alpha geek.”

Assmosis: Remember “Osmosis” The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Batmobiling: putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in “she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling”

Beepilepsy: The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid- sentence.

Betamaxed: When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in “Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market”

Blamestorming: A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Blowing Your Buffer: Losing one’s train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won’t let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. “Damn, I just blew my buffer!” (Synonym: “Head Crash”)

Body Nazis: Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn’t work out obsessively.

Bookmark: To take note of a person for future reference. “After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him.”

Brain Fart: A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. “I know you’re busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?” Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

CGI Joe: A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Chip Jewelry: Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. “I paid three grand for that Mac and now it’s nothing but chip jewelry.”

Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “First we gotta figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”

CLM (Career Limiting Move): Used by microserfs to describe an ill- advised activity. “Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.”

Cobweb: A WWW site that never changes.

Crapplet: A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!”

Crop Dusting: Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING…..

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Dead Tree Edition: The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss, as is Dilbert, the comic strip character. “Damn, I’ve been dilberted again! The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.”

Dorito Syndrome: The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”

Egosurfing: Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Elvis Year: The peak year of popularity as in “1993 was Barney the dinosaur’s Elvis year”

Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Generica: Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in “we were so lost in generica that I couldn’t remember what city it was”

Glazing: Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

Going Postal: Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages

GOOD Job: A “Get-Out-Of-Debt” job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Grammar Nazi/Fascist Someone who trashes your use of online conventions, especially those associated with abbreviations such as used in space-limited texting.

Gray Matter: Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.

Graybar Land: The place you go while you’re staring at a computer that’s processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). “That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour.”

High Dome: Egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters: People whose idea generators are always running.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

It’s a Feature: From the old adage, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant problem you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people’s computer keyboards.

Link Rot: The process by which web page’s links become obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change or die.

Meatspace: The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also “carbon community” “facetime” “F2F” “RL”

Mouse Potato: The online generation’s answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you’ve just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers: People who work at home or telecommute.

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Perot: To quit unexpectedly. “My cellular phone just Perot’ed.”

Plug-and-Play: A new hire who doesn’t require training. “That new guy is totally plug-and-play.”

Prairie Dogging: When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what’s going on.

Ribs ‘N’ Dick: A budget with no fat as in “we’ve got ribs ‘n’ dick and we’re supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades”

Salmon Day: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”

Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, ****s over everything and then leaves.

Siliwood: The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers; also “Hollywired”

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. “Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage”

Square-Headed Spouse: Computer

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal up to a satellite. “Crew and talent are ready…what time do we squirt the bird?”

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy: A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been used so much its magnetic strip is worn away.

Tourists: Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. “There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists.”

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend: One with whom one has a sexual relationship; as in, “this is Dale, my…um…friend.”

Unfriend: To dump someone in Facebook.

Under Mouse Arrest: Getting busted for violating an online service’s rule of conduct. “Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest.”

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re- boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.

World Wide Wait: The real meaning of WWW.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

Yuppie Food Coupons/Stamps: Twenty dollar bills from an ATM

“You ain’t gonna believe this, Doc,” said the husband. “My whacker’s turnin’ blue.”

“That’s pretty unusual,” said the doctor. “Let me examine you.”

The doctor takes a look. Sure enough, the redneck’s really is blue.

The doctor turns to the wife, “Are you using the diaphragm that I prescribed for you?”

“Yep, sure am,” she replied brightly.

“And what kind of jelly are you using with it?”

“Grape.”

I was testing children in my Dublin Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to Heaven. I asked them, “If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?”

“NO!” the children answered.

“If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the lawn, and kept everything tidy, would that get me into Heaven?”

Again, the answer was “NO!”

By now I was starting to smile. “Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave sweets to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven”?

Again, they all answered “NO”!

I was just bursting with pride for them. I continued, “Then how can I get into heaven”?

A six year-old boy shouted out: “YU’V GOTTA BE FOOKN’ DEAD….”

It’s a curious race, the Irish.

A man walks into a bar, notices there’s no women in there, figures it’s a gay bar but he wants a beer too much to care. So he goes up to the bartender and asks for a beer.

The bartender says “What’s the name of your penis?”

The man replies “I haven’t given my penis a name.”

The bartender says “Better give it one if you want a beer” and walks away.

The man nudges the customer to his right and asks “Uh, um, uh, what’s the name of your, um, uh, penis?”

The customer gleefully replies “Timex! Takes a lickin… keeps on tickin!”

The man, now slightly disturbed, asks the same of the customer to his left.

The customer replies “Foooooord! Have you driven a Foooooord lately?”

The man thinks for a moment, then motions to the bartender.

The bartender asks “So, what’s the name of your penis?”

The man replies “Secret. Strong enough for a man; made for a woman.”

This proves two things: 1) you’re not the only one who gets crappy service from your ISP, and 2) the Brits get better educations than most Americans, enabling them to write damned fine letters of complaint.

(NTL is a cable operator in Britain.)

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.

Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties — or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website…. HOW? I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes — an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept.

The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools — such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived… six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet servers downtime is roughly 35%… hours between about 6pm-midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend.

I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman…and several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no-longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don’t care, it’s far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That’s why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn’t anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum — incompetents of the highest order.

British Telecom — wankers though they are — shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver — any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief — quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat’s litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit — they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture.

Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day — may it be the last in your miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twats.

Amazon.com currently is advertising their new students’ dictionary
full of erroneous information: Flunk and Wagnalls.

Alan

There’s a new word compendium aimed directly at the homeless
community. It’s called the “Under-a-bridge Dictionary.”

Gary

I’ve always enjoyed thumbing through specialized dictionaries, but it bugs
me that I can’t find one on entomology.

What famous dictionary publishing house is patronized by NBA players?

Longman

Charles

Cynthia

Alex

Cyn

Bert

Cyn

Charles

Lara Bingle (an Australian fashion model) invited Michael Clarke (captain of the Australian cricket team, and Lara’s former fiance) around for Christmas dinner a few short years ago. She didn’t claim to be a good cook, but wanted to serve a home-made meal for him. Actually, she admits to being a lousy cook.

Michael found a very dense object on his plate which was a kind of radioactive green. It made a clunking sound when he dropped it – couldn’t even get a fork into it.

“What”, he said, “is this?” She, glorying in her new-found cooking skills, replied “Jello”.

“Oh”, he said, it’s a Bingle Jell Rock!