A WORD ABOUT INTELLIGENT SHOES & DUMB SOULS

Written by O.P. Hadwenzic


A WORD ABOUT INTELLIGENT SHOES AND DUMB SOULS

Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005.

A WORD ABOUT INTELLIGENT SHOES & DUMB SOULS

-- Or, Are You Walking on Thin Ice or Running Nowhere Fast? --

**By Professor Ovid Publius Hadweenzic, a latitudinarian linguist fromrepparttar University of Ecum Secum in Old Sweat, Nova Scotia (with an abiding interest inrepparttar 148145 history of fetish footwear, how an Old Mother managed to raise her brood in a shoe, and why one sportswear company decided to market an “intelligent” sneaker in a world full of tortoises and hares with two left feet)**

The other day I set out on a scientific expedition of sorts to figure out why mankind invented “smart technology” in a hard-wired world full of dingbats, dorks, dumbbells, dunderheads, and dweebs (plus their close-relatives,repparttar 148146 affable but nevertheless intellectually-impaired nincompoops, ninny-hammers, nudniks, and numskulls).

Being an “egghead”, I’m used to living onrepparttar 148147 margins of society with “nerdy geeks” and “aliens from outer space”. Like my humble companions, I’m committed to undertaking a perilous journey in search ofrepparttar 148148 “Big Bang” (that event that gave birth torepparttar 148149 blessed universe),repparttar 148150 “Big Bopper” (the one who presides overrepparttar 148151 entire blinking place), andrepparttar 148152 “Big Bad Wolf” (the darned devil in disguise who makes a mess by eating little grannies and blowing houses down just forrepparttar 148153 heck of it).

My first inkling we had a problem was a glance at my on-line vault of vacuous thoughts, vapid experiences and often very misleading facts. Sure enough, my super-duper search engine revealed some delightfully dubious data:

· 125,000 web pages devoted to “smart technology” (with another 818,000 web pages dedicated to “smart people”) and

· 587 web pages dedicated to “dumb technology” (with a whopping 4,450,000 web page devoted to “dummies”, and an additional 129,000 web pages exposing all manner of things about “dumb people”).

Clearly these trivial tidbits of truth leave a lot to be desired. One could easily conclude, erroneously of course, that our lonely planet was inhabited by a plethora of “dummies”. First,repparttar 148154 “dumbfounded” elements of our society appear to outnumberrepparttar 148155 “smarty pant” folks by a factor of 4:1. Second, “intelligent” tools and technologies do not appear to rank high on everyone’s hit parade of “fun” things to do or play with, (judging fromrepparttar 148156 long list of consumer complaints andrepparttar 148157 short list of extraterrestrials who’ve actually dropped by for a peek at this peculiar place or declined to leave hospitable greetings).

It’s rather amazing indeed that “smart” folks with their “smart personal object technology” - (SPOT) are so clueless about what makes life worth living. I grew up with “Think & Do” books featuringrepparttar 148158 adventures of Dick and Jane together with their animal companions PUFF and SPOT. Today’s kids grow up with a remote control device in their hands so they can flick onrepparttar 148159 latest lessons about life from “Big Bird” and “Teletubblies”.

Frankly since SPOT is so full of bleeps, blips and blotchy blobs, it’s not surprisingrepparttar 148160 “digital do-gooders” have written books about how to helprepparttar 148161 “digitally-challenged” adjust to “virtual reality”.

THE TWISTED-TONGUE TOURNAMENT

Written by Adrian Air-of-Sleet


Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005

THE TWISTED-TONGUE TOURNAMENT

-- Or, Help Wanted: Weird Word Whizbangers Unite! --

By Adrian Air-of-Sleet, a pleasure-seeking, mandolin-playing, maroon-hairpiece sort of fellow who enjoys Italian weddings, spelling bees, andrepparttar Calgary Stampede

While I was perusing several dog-eared magazines hanging fromrepparttar 147279 racks of a 24-hour convenience store inrepparttar 147280 middle of an odd place named Billy Butts Pond, my enlightenment bulb went off.

Curious as to why this power of positive thinking outage had occurred, I put on my dunce cap in order to gain a new perspective on this perplexing problem.

I ascertained fromrepparttar 147281 rather bleak-looking landscape that this ghastly glitch probably had something to do with being shipwrecked on “The Rock”, (a weird island in Canada called “Newfoundland” which is also home to such strange towns as Ass Hill, Bareneed, and Dildo).

Now I know what it must have been like to live as my Celtic ancestors had inrepparttar 147282 “Dark Ages” without access torepparttar 147283 Internet, i-pods, and personal digital assistants, not to mention vampire video games and vapid virtual reality TV shows.

With precious little to do while waiting for Godot to show up, I decided to organize and host a "Twisted Tongue Tournament" forrepparttar 147284 locals and any aliens who might be inrepparttar 147285 vicinity.

The purpose ofrepparttar 147286 challenge was to light a fire under everyone by asking them to marry animal names with human characteristics to give birth to new beasts. (This seemed like a good idea atrepparttar 147287 time, as there wasn’t even a zoo let alone pet-friendly robotic animals inrepparttar 147288 blinking place).

So here are a few ofrepparttar 147289 submissions received byrepparttar 147290 judges:

Bedspring Peeper – a naughty tree toad that refuses to turn into a Prince at midnight

Boo-Hoo Gnu – an ugly, unhappy ungulate that doesn’t stand a hope in hell of retiring to a stud farm thank you very much

Buffelope – a bare essentials male beast with no hang-ups aboutrepparttar 147291 naked truth (see Scantelope)

Botchfly – a stout, hopelessly clumsy, winged creature that has difficulty with takeoffs and landings

Bush-Twit – a timid Texan titmouse

Chumpanzee – not your average high-flying jungle bunny

Cramanatee – a gormandizing male golf-ball eater that lives in tidy little green holes

D'orca – a fashion-conscious killer whale

Ficklefish – a two-timing Piscean creature with an unhealthy attachment disorder

Gemsbloke – a large, young buck with lots of bling bling

Gussy Uppy – a gold-plated guppy that adds a little sparkle to any boring aquarium tank

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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