Sunday, August 26, 2007

Darth Teddy's Dodgy Deliveries: Part 1 - The Horn of the Monkey

PANADURA, Sri Lanka -- Darth Teddy perpetrated Outright Buffoonery last Monday, when he had a dodgy birthday cake delivered to Kahuna through his emerging logistics network.

Despite the Bear's best laid plains, however, his logistics provider bungled the element of surprise by calling Kahuna the Saturday before. It seems they didn't quite trust the data provided by the Bear and wished to confirm Kahuna's identity and delivery address. This turned out to be a good thing since Darth Teddy's sinister plan was to have the merchandise delivered to Kahuna's workplace. Realizing that the anaconda keeper was up to no good, Kahuna promptly diverted the delivery to His abode to neutralize the threat. Buffoonery continued on Monday when the delivery types lost their way in the apparently labyrinthine road network leading to said abode. Another round of talks was held to extricate the clowns from the maze.

When the cake finally arrived at its destination (in the absence of Kahuna) it turned out to be a highly unorthodox construction replete with pointy bits sticking out of the container through a custom-built aperture geometry that would have intrigued Euclid. This is the highly suggestive sight that greeted Kahuna when He returned home:


El Cuerno del Mono (Copyright © 2007 B Kahuna)

The container was opened to reveal what appeared to be a cake in the form of a monkey: specifically a horny monkey, presumably of the Pan corneolus darthii spp., as evidenced by the disgustingly happy grin on its face.






Up Close and Personal (Copyright © 2007 B Kahuna)

Darth Teddy was reportedly quite pleased with his antics, despite the hilarious misadventures of his burgeoning logistics empire, noting that "It's a horny monkey; what's not to love?" Meanwhile, Kahuna admitted that He had made incisions into the monkey's hindquarters and declared them to be quite tasty. He added that the Darth Teddy had become a bigger menace than anticipated, but assured that appropriate countermeasures were being planned. He remained tight-lipped when asked if these would be of an edible nature.

Kahuna's actual age is the subject of much debate, although, some—including the heavyweight de Gordonzola lobby—have concluded that He's practically a relic and any demise on His part would not be untimely. Kahuna, however, scoffed at these suggestions and indicated that He planned to hang around and make Himself a nuisance to the planet until further notice. Posted by Picasa

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Kahuna-Gordon Messages: Part 15 - The Way of the Frog

PANADURA, Sri Lanka -- What do frogs and Richard Branson have in common? Not much, but if you leave it to Kahuna and Professor Gordon, anything is possible. Today we present a vividly chromatic conversation that went completely out of control and resulted in the manifestation of wildlife in a manner that defied probability.

To provide the right context, we ought to point out that Kahuna was in the habit of distributing interesting websites to Gordon and others. We begin just after Kahuna had passed on an yet another URL to Gordon, much to the latter's frustration:

Gordon : Looks like the link server is up :-l
Kahuna : Without me you'd be a FITW.
Gordon : And this is some sort of F2F network? X-(
Kahuna : F2F?
Gordon : Frog-to-Frog X-(
Ribbit X-(
Kahuna : Apparently the correct way to make frog
sounds is to go "BREK-KEK-KEK."
Gordon : From the frog’s mouth :-P
Kahuna : It is quite a good simulation by R P
Feynman.
Kahuna : BTW, did you note the Branson's aircraft?
Gordon : Er, indeed.
Kahuna : Ethernet to every seat X-(
And the flight entertainment system is
running on Red Hat.
Gordon : Indeed. To entertain your black ass.
Kahuna : I believe you were caught red-handed
engaging in black magic not long ago :-P
Gordon : White lies.
Kahuna : I see you're displaying the yellow feather.
Gordon : I'll show you the red card if you don’t
watch it.
Kahuna : You're getting quite blue in the face
aren't you?
Gordon : Nonsense, I'm quite close to giving you a
black eye.
Kahuna : You're going green with envy X-(
Gordon : Nonsense, I'm looking pink and fresh with
apologies to Lieutenant Gruber.
Kahuna : You'll be quite pale and white if you don't
watch it by Monsieur Alfonse X-(
Gordon : Nonsense, I'm quite alive by the Red Hot
Chili Peppers.
Kahuna : You will end up embalmed in the Red Square
à la Comrade Lenin X-(
Gordon : And for you, it'll be the Black Death by
Speedy Gonzales.
Kahuna : The Yellow Submarine will be your tomb by
the Beatles X-(
Gordon : Nonsense, I'll make a quick getaway in my
Little Red Corvette.
Gordon : And I'll let the air out of the Pink
Cadillac lest you follow :-p
Kahuna : Your getaway car will end up in the Blue
Bayou :-p
Gordon : Nope, I'll be on Yellow Brick Road.
Kahuna : I will have you encased in amber X-(
Gordon : I'll set the Red Army upon you.
Kahuna : Blackguard X-(
Gordon : Red Indian X-(

[Considerable pause]

Gordon : Have you blacked out? :-D
Kahuna : Er no, a frog materialized X-(
I'm trying to get rid of it.
Gordon : [ROTFL]
Kahuna : [FUME]
Gordon : [GUFFAW]
Kahuna : X-(
Gordon : He's probably looking for a mate [SNICKER]
Kahuna : I will beat you black and blue X-(
Gordon : [GUFFAW]^100
That was the most hilarious coincidence on
the planet :-p This whole fiasco started
with a frog.
Kahuna : Heh Heh, indeed [ROTFL]
I believe this will be The Way of the Frog.
And so it was to be. A frog did indeed manifest itself in Kahuna's chambers, bypassing the security layer enforced by His household canine and feline subsystems. The intruder was, however, escorted out of the premises shortly afterwards in a container class.

This incident leads us to suspect that large clowns can influence reality by virtue of their clown factor. Kahuna intends to carry out further research into this phenomenon, this time with elephants instead of frogs. It was not immediately clear if the arch-zoologist Professor Gordon would also be taking part in the study.

Incidentally, Kahuna, who was known to speak fluent sheep, learned to croak a long time ago when He read a review of Richard Feynman's autobiography, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman![1] in Discover magazine. Feynman himself had learned it from The Frogs, a comedy written by Aristophanes and first performed in 405 BC. Never one to stand on ceremony, Feynman recounts putting his croaking skills to good use after winning the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics:

People told me that there was a rule in Sweden that after you accept the Prize, you have to back away from the king without turning around. You come down some steps, accept the Prize, and then go back up the steps. So I said to myself, "All right, I'm gonna fix them!"—and I practiced jumping up stairs, backwards, to show how ridiculous their custom was. I was in a terrible mood! That was stupid and silly, of course. I found out this wasn't a rule any more; you could turn around when you left the king, and walk like a normal human being, in the direction you were intending to go, with your nose in front.

I was pleased to find that not all the people in Sweden take the royal ceremonies as seriously as you might think. When you get there, you discover that they're on your side. The students had, for example, a special ceremony in which they granted each Nobel-Prize-winner the special "Order of the Frog." When you get this little frog, you have to make a frog noise. When I was younger I was anti-culture, but my father had some good books around. One was a book with the old Greek play The Frogs in it, and I glanced at it one time and I saw in there that a frog talks. It was written as "brek, kek, kek." I thought, "No frog ever made a sound like that; that's a crazy way to describe it!" so I tried it, and after practicing it awhile, I realized that it's very accurately what a frog says. So my chance glance into a book by Aristophanes turned out to be useful, later on: I could make a good frog noise at the students' ceremony for the Nobel-Prize-winners! And jumping backwards fit right in, too. So I liked that part of it; that ceremony went well.

There is no doubt that in addition to his contribution to physics, Richard Feynman was also one of the largest buffoons ever to walk the planet. His autobiographies[1][2]—which deal with such eclectic topics as the Manhattan Project, lock-picking, safe-cracking, topless bars, bongo playing, Mayan hieroglyphics and the investigation into the Challenger disaster—are strongly recommended.

Meanwhile, Richard Branson has seen it fit to redefine the aviation industry in North America with his new airline, Virgin America. Not only will power outlets be provided at cruise altitude, but also USB and Ethernet. The competition can expect to have their collective asses whipped when widespread services commence.

On that disturbing note, we leave you for now. Please note that no frogs were harmed during this production.

[1] Feynman, Richard et.al. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
[2] Feynman, Richard. What Do You Care What Other People Think?. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.