My name is Blegion

Once again it's the time of year when Doktorling Sonja expects chocolate bunnies in the CARE parcels from her kind adorable parents, decorated in some creative way. Last year she got reapers (year before that was vampires).

Any suggestions how to customise them this time? The Frau Doktorin has lovingly squelched my idea of dressing them up in little bras and garter belts.

Disappointingly, it turns out that Arcology is not the scholarly investigation of arks

Just look at this magnificent glass palace in the High Modernist style. It is vast but completely empty; also it is modeled after a chicken foot. Perhaps it is a Memory Palace for amnesiacs, designed to remind the occupant of one crucial datum: not to eat the deep-fried chicken feet next time he has Yum Cha for lunch.

Alternatively, that his name is Harry.

For your further architectural edification, here is a vast modern building in the shape of a typewriter. The intention, I assume, is to encourage the monkeys labouring away inside to produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare, so that they do not lose their initial idealistic enthusiasm.

In other news, Riddled is now in a position to satisfy all your brief-academic-papers-about-memory-palaces needs: 

Let me take this opportunity to thank all the little people who made this possible.

UPDATE. In answer to Yastreblyansky in comments: an Arcology is a very large building with a self-contained ecology and a high population density, built in the shape of a rainbow. 

Sodding conceptual architects.

Going into Labour

"So" said Smut Clyde "it appears that the Labour party is going to vote for a new leader".
"Yes" I vouchsafed "the last bloke was out of his depth, as the Minister for Grinding the Workers noted"
"The guy who negotiated his wife out of hostage situation in Somalia, was out of his depth?" said Smut as he, more in regret than in anger, replaced the lid of the receptacle formerly known as the biscuit tin.
"Who would have thought people could negotiate with Ostriches" I mused "What do they care for money and a jetliner to take them to Yemen".
"Indeed" said Smut "I thought that they were usually happy birds. Who knows what internal struggles they have though, until, one day, it all just gets too much. Some one should tell them that kidnapping people is not going to help their cause."
 "They never struck me as very intelligent birds" I said' One bit me once..."
tigris looked at us with the Eyes of Someone's Going to Get a Clip Around the Earhole.
"It is important that the Labour party choose a good candidate" she said "the opposition has been too weak and this is not good for the country".
"That Grant Robertson looks the best shot" I said "though I heard noted radio personality John Tamihere saying that Robertson is gay and while there was nothing wrong with that he just didn't like it"
"How could there be nothing wrong with it but him just not like it?" asked Smut
"I dunno" I said "there was a dry cleaning ad and then JT was talking about when he was an MP and was so good that people got jealous and conspired against him."
"Terrible how the voters got fooled by his stupid, offensive behaviour and did not see his worth" said Smut.
"Luckily he has a radio show and can continue to offer advice to people" I said "although most of the advice seems to be 'Sod off you loonies"'
"He could be a Head Barmaid" said tigris.
  "JT does not think Shane Jones should go for the job" I said.
"Was it because of the Porno movies on his expense account or his immigration meddling?" asked Smut
"There was a viagra ad and when he came back JT was shouting about some environmentalists" I said "he is very versatile about who he shouts at."
 "I see that noted political pundit, Mathew Hooton has stated that the unions will run the country because they will block vote for the new person" said tigris.
"I saw" I said "it is very worrying. Imagine the power they will have, a mere 10% of the workforce will run the whole country!"
"It's just that they aren't going to block vote and the person they vote for will be the leader of the opposition and thus about as powerful as Snuffles the Dog of Doom."
"Oh" said Smut "how is his assertiveness training going?"
"They still can't find him" I said " he was last seen running away from some rabbits"
"Quite tough, some rabbits" said Smut " big scary ears and all"
"Baby rabbits" I said "wearing ribbons for an Easter parade"
"Rattley, sparkley ribbons I expect" said Smut "unsettling to a sensitive dog like Snuffles"
"Goodness" I said looking at the Riddled clock "we shall have to hurry if we are not to miss Choanocyte Metabolism in Asconoid Endosymbionts and Guess the Sock night"
"Damn" said Smut "Greenish Hugh will get all the good socks"

Off travelling in a couple of days

Who will miss me most? Mrs Spat?

But I will be away for weeks and weeks! Detritus Doodleberry Sludgemuffin, you will miss me, right?

There remains the Doktorling Sonja... if she does not miss me, at least she will feel some envy for me in the UK...

Apparently not.

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I will be in London for some of the same time as the Doktorling, but have been advised that she will probably have no spare time to meet, with her schedule so full and all.

World Cup of Short Form of Cricket Roundup with Bayern Munich Goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer

MN: Guten abend, one and all. Well what a shallapaloozer weekend of sport is has been! Here to talk about the World Cup of cricket is Another Kiwi.
AK: Hola Manolito
MN: Manuel, I am German, what is wrong with your voice?
AK: The muffins here are sub-par Magenta, sub par! You would not read about it.
MN: Manuel, these are hospitality muffins, you should not try to fit as many in your mouth as you can.
AK: There wasn't a sign on them saying "Please don't eat these as we are saving them for good guests, like the Prime Minster. Put them back bad AK".
MN: Perhaps we assume too much that you are capable of feeding yourself?
AK: I don't know Manny, I just don't know. [CRASH]
MN: You have unwound the chair and it has fallen over.
AK: The chairs here are as bad as the muffins, Micky. I expect the Prime Minster gets a Chaise Longue.
MN: Manuel, no he sits still and answers questions, some guests are odd like that and answer questions.
AK: Ask away Manfred
MN: OK, why did the NZ team not do so well at this tournament? People thought they might do better.
AK: Well Mantoo, they had the baggage of good expectations after beating England at something or other recently and this coupled with the pitches being all wet meant that they couldn't produce the flowing brand of those other games and some of the other sides were not England and therefore good at cricket.
MN: Wer ist dieser Mantoo? Some dolphin?
AK: Also the team had the weight of people thinking that they might be not bad at cricket, what with being in the national team, and not doing anything but practising all day and so they probably felt alienated, Manfeild, in a foreign country with only English speaking people everywhere and not knowing who they were unless they did know who they were then they would have unfair expectations of them.
MN: Ach ich sehe, those who did not know them, did not know them too much and those that did know them also did not know them well enough.
AK; Essentially and in a nutshell, Mandrake, yes they were too unknowingly known.
MN: Manuel, what about the final of this tournament when the 50 overs version of the game got shortened down to 20 overs due to rain.
AK: Rain Mantell, Rain? I think you'll find that the International Cricket Council got the rain in to publicise the shorter version of the game which they want to take over from this shorter version of the game.
MN: What are we to make of the bad from of the Australians?
AK: Bad form is bad form Magnus and we do not accept peeing on people, ever. Even if their bottoms are on fire and there is nothing else around to put it out with. Which, I'm told, happens in Australia sometimes.
MN: No they did not play well. If they had won one of their games, NZ might have gone further in the tournament.
AK: Well Mingo the Aussies have some problems what with a feral bunch of Christian loonies going to win their federal election in October so I suppose they were thinking of other things than helping their little chums from across the Tasman. Also the wickets were very...in that way.. with the.. [snoring]
MN: Well thanks to AK for his insightful thoughts on the Shorter Shorter form of the Game.

Cardinal sins

Since Smut Clyde fired up the Peeps emergency light the Vatican has responded as only it can.
It's the conclave of Cardinals as performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade   Peeps.
It is at The Monkey Cage blog

"For the good of mankind"

Someone of a daughterly disposition is asking for a favour. She requires Peeps, for the purpose of pushing back the boundaries of human knowledge in scientific research for which the usual twin studies are not sufficient. She is hoping that someone within the US is willing to order a convenient shippable quantity of Peeps (whatever that is... a metric shitton or whatever), and then ship them across the big water to Upsidedownyland in exchange for reimbursement in terms of the shiny milk-bottle-tops that we use here as currency.

Usual suspects are usual.

UPDATE: Bleg is now noncupatory. Here to thank everyone is a Bonus Turdicken.

World's best coffee shop

The Algerian Coffee Store.

The font they use on their shopfront and t-shirt? It's Algerian! Ha ha!

Research reveals that some people do not like Algerian and consider it to be over-used. Some people just get hung up on trivia.

Christmas Ale is a'coming on.

So Smut and I (that is a classy hat) are out demonstrating the new Olympic sport of Sickle throwing to the Riddled Horse Riding (and falling off we always say) Academy, when three separate messengers arrive simultaneously.

I'm not sure if you've ever had to try and decipher Snuggles The Dog of Doom, Milton the Griffin and Quacky the Crow when they have something to tell you, but it was only with the application of pumpkin seeds soaked in Vodka that we were able to ascertain what they were vouchsafing.

Basically it was this: Snuggles is a lick arse, Milton is a toffee nosed git and Quacky is a self-righteous blowhard. Oh and the Fruit of Mogick is ready to pick for the Christmas Ale. 

The origins of the Fruit of Mogick are lost in the mists of the "Eco R1 gene conservation in Porifera lysate vesicles and salted cracker balancing" night down at the Old Entomologist. Got no time for explanation got no time to lose,tomorrow night you'll find me, sleeping underneath the moon at yellow river. We seem to be getting some interference from Radio Riddled here. Damn that Friday Ole Favourites day, it sucks me in every time.

  Quickly we assembled the team and sallied forth, fifth and sixth (Milligan 1970's) to the orchard where the Fruit of Mogick tress grow. Of course Mogick, himself is gone, long time passing, what with the Tax Department and their jackbooted thugs wanting to see "records" but the fruit is freely available to all who can remember the alarm combination for the electrified fence and know what sort of tranquillizers knock out Hermann the attack hedgehog. Laugh if you want but a ringworm from Hermann is not cool. The initial itchiness is bad enough but the bursting out of your chest and looking for food at dinner time is most unpleasant.

Anyway it was a successful day of  fruit picking and the Christmas Ale this year should be a wholesome and nourishing brew and only mildly psychotropic. See above, as tigris gets the wrong mushrooms. A full body purge is not substitute for a floaty  middle palate, I say, but times must where the devilled eggs.

Note also Smut's careful and safe handling of the crossbow which only winged Old Jem this year. Jem was understandably a little let down by not being in Hospital for this Christmas. He feels that the nurses won't have anybody to fend off. 

Also note Evangeline van Holsterin's idiot boyfriend's dog Custis. See that he has not changed into a Flemish Giant Rabbit at this point so how can it be our fault?

Now as soon as our shipment of Brooklyn Red Honey arrives we can get into secondary fermentation.

Pandering now to aficiandos of "Wizard of Oz" Slash Virgule-fic

Someone quoted another rightwing buffoon's reality-ungrounded opinions in the course of another interminable thread at Sadly,No!, provoking speculation:

Is there a specific fetish involving strawmen? Rule 34 DO NOT WANT.

In fact an Image search was not so eyeball-searing after all:

Stanisław Wyspiański, "Chochoły (Strawmen)" (a.k.a. "Planty Park at Night").

The Strawman also turns up as a character in Wyspiański's play The Wedding, but I have only seen the expurgated version without the wild orgy scenes.

Belatedly UPDATED with bonus strawmen (photographed from a moving bus on the outskirts of Lijiang).

"Research in related areas" ≠ "twin studies"

This will come as a surprise to all of us who believed that the Internet is Made of Cats:

Dear Pro. ,
Considering your research in related areas, we cordially invite you to submit a paper to Modern Internet of Things (MIOT).

The Journal of Modern Internet of Things (MIOT) is published in English, and is a peer reviewed free-access journal which provides rapid publications and a forum for researchers, research results, and knowledge on Internet of Things. It serves the objective of international academic exchange.

For more information, please visit homepage: www.miot-journal.org.

Focus and Scopes:

1. Technologies and concepts in modern networked things
2. Design of future sustainable technologies linking the physical and virtual world
3. Fundamental and technology of sensors and converters
4. Emerging applications and interaction paradigms for everyday citizens
5. Communication systems and network architectures for the IOT
6. Experience reports from the introduction and operation of networked things in areas such as healthcare, logistics and transport
7. Real world applications and scenarios for embedded web services
8. Novel services and applications in IOT to facilitate environmental responsibility
9. Peer-to-Peer(P2P) technology and its applications in Internet of Things
11. Emerging IOT business models and process changes
12. Social impacts and consequences, such as security, privacy, opportunities and risks
13. RFID technology and its applications in Internet of Things (such as attacks, date protection and privacy-enhancing, cryptographic protocols and integration of secure)
14. Wireless Sensor Networks
15. Wireless mesh networks and cognitive networks
16. Mobile Networks
17. Integration of secure RFID systems
18. Resource-efficient implementation of cryptography in IOT devices
19. Interoperability of heterogeneous systems
20. Tool support for service creation, validation and testing in IOT system
21. Protocols for efficient message transmission to embedded devices
22. Web services executing in mobile or pervasive environments
23. Distributed sensor networks for remote monitoring and surveillance
24. Smart Objects

Above: Smart, objecting

UPDATE: tigris in comments reminds us that the alternative to the MIOT is the Modern Internet of Operators (MIOI), but that is only accessible to people with the necessary thought-control powers.

Making a career of evil

A cynical person (such as I am not) might wonder whether school vocational counselors and career officers and such as ever do much good, or have successfully matched anyone's skill portfolio to an appropriate occupational niche, apart from themselves of course. Also they are slackards. If I had limited myself to vocational counselors as a source of guidance then I would never have found out about "Professional Guinea-pig" as a possible career. Then I would never have met the Frau Doktorin, which would be sad.
Fortunately other sources of information called my attention to the role of model of Mike Lane, Inventions Tester, here shown in the background. A whole career pathway, of testing experimental pharmaceuticals, was available! Note that Professor Dee in the foreground does not closely resemble the Frau Doktorin.

Romantic story is romantic.

Needless insults

Riddled may certainly have devoted more space to Morgellons than to other factitious diseases, but there is no call for insults like this:

Is Morgellons a mutant immortal fungus they gave us in their efforts to stop an edible ugly growth called Smut, on corn that God gave us?

SHA'N'T BE BACK.

Privacy is theft

The identical appearance of the paparazzi is presumably because there are no mamarazzi so they reproduce by cloning.
The sister-in-law will not be well-pleased when she opens the paper and finds woodcuts of me trying to sneak down to the shops and trade in that exercise machine she so flatteringly thought I needed.

The Typeface of Dorian Gray

What's this? An invitation from M__ University?* That is safe to open so --

Holy fuck it is Italic Papyrus. My soul has just died a little within me.**
Perhaps it is all a ghastly mistake and the message was meant for Vacuumslayer.

* Not Miskatonic.
** Or it would have done so, if it had not died long ago and calcified within me like a lithopedion homunculus or fetus in fetu.

"Indeed, it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you." "I wear no mask."

Still wondering what the Frau Doktorin and I should wear to "Celebrate your favourite Charles Williams Holiday"* night at the Old Entomologist.


There is the old stand-by costume, but it always carries the danger that after one too many pints I will slip into character, and Evangeline von Holsterin does not encourage probing on the premises. To say nothing of the cattle mutilation.

* The other popular Charles Williams Holiday is (as any fule kno) War in Heaven Veterans' Day.

Paradigming the Narrative with Contextual Synergistic Output Enhancement

Good news! The people at Cowtech University have assessed my Performance Self-Evaluation Evidence Portfolio and sent it back with a list of comments for improving the Portfolio before it goes off to the Tertiary Education Commission, all neatly tabulated in the form of a checklist.

Item 13 on the checklist: "Is the research trajectory evidenced?" It appears that I was supposed to write a Trajectory within one of the boxes provided on the Portfolio form. Sadly, my Research Trajectory is more of a vertical plummet. The only times I can bring myself to use the word 'trajectory' is in close association with 'rectory' in the lines of a rude limerick.

Item 18: "Is the commentary / narrative embedded throughout the entire Evidence Portfolio? Provides an overview which connects all the elements of the Evidence Portfolio." Apparently the Tertiary Education Commission wants narrative. I hope they are prepared for slapstick comedy.

The Assessment team complain that in the absence of sufficient Narrative, they are unable to form a constructive opinion on a number of items on the checklist, beginning with #1, "Is selection of TEC panel appropriate to the 4 NROs selected and appropriate to where the person is publishing?"

But fortunately I pass on Item 9: "Is the Evidence Portfolio free of cryptic references? (abbreviations, institutional specific, jargon, acronyms etc)". So it's celebration time down at the pub and the first pint of Gaffer Gammidge's Parsnip Elixir and Shoat Weaner is on me!

Not a good sign

Insert own "Princess and the Pea" joke:

Normal service will be resumed as soon as pos

New nipple rings

I must have been drunk last night. Won't the Frau Doktorin be surprised!

Ah well, I will tell her that they are Part 1 of her birthday present. Part 2 being the matching harness.

And then rob you of your sleep

Via the e-mails, Conference preparations:

The 2011 Biennial Symposium in Kongsberg is fast approaching! [Redacted] and the other organizers have done a great job of putting together an exciting scientific and social program. Here are a few things to note before we all converge on Kongsberg.

[...]

3. [Redacted] sends the following about local situations in Norway:

"You may want to remind people about the long days in Norway. It will be roughly two hours of semi darkness at night, so people who have trouble with sleeping when it is light should bring eye-masks (there may not be black-out curtains in all hotel rooms).

I know how this ends. If there is a crime-fiction author in attendance, I am out right out of there before the hallucinations begin in earnest.

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Updated: people in comments speculate about "This Redacted fellow". I suspect that he or she may be related to the painter Rainfall.

Lots of artists have copied painted homages to Rainfall, so he must have been popular in his time, but the weird thing is that none of his original paintings seem to have survived. He has fallen into obscurity to the point that the gallery curators had no idea whom I was talking about.