READER MAIL X!

Good afternoon, citizens.

Before I get into my post, I gotta say something a little less laid back.  I've said some of this before, and I apologize, but I think a lot of people have forgotten.  You may not believe it, but I am the only one moderating the comments here.  Also, at the moment, Hanso Hunting isn't the only thing on my plate.  Which means, if I have to take care of other things, there will be times when I'm just not near a computer to take care of stuff like what's happened the past couple of days.

Yesterday got a TAD out of hand, and it had nothing to do with random boars coming and posting things they shouldn't.  Everyone is forgetting the cardinal rule - "IGNORE THE BOAR."  If you think someone's a boar, even if they don't think they are - ignore them.  And I'm loosening up the term boar to mean not just someone who causes trouble but also someone you don't like.  Ignore them too.  Everyone will be happier for it.

And here's another good rule to live by in the wild world of the internets:  "Attack the post, NOT the poster."  Let's take a quiz, shall we?  If CYBERMAN4000 comes on and says, "HEY, HAV U S33N TEH DIK CHEEBER BL0G!?  THURS A CREPPY VID3O OMGZ!" what should DALEK23's response be?

A.) Don't come in here and post your hoax you n00b ***hole!
B.) What are you, stupid?  That's been outed as a hoax forEVER.  Idiot.
C.) Dude, sorry.  That's a hoax.
D.) EX-TER-MI-NATE!

If you said, "C" then you're cool.  If you said anything else, then the war to end all wars could start.  CYBERMAN4000 may be a boar, but he may not.  If you start out attacking him, you may never find out.  If you are polite and he persists, then you know he's a boar and you can proceed to phase III - PROFIT . . . i mean IGNORE!  E-mail me.  As soon as I get near a computer I'll do something about it if possible, and in the mean time they'll hopefully get tired of not getting responses and leave.

I know it's been a slow week, we've had them before, I'm sure we'll have them again.  But that's no excuse to let things break down.  This isn't one or two or three people. (FOUR stones, FOUR crates. ZEEERO STONES... ZEEEEROOO CRATES!)  Over the last couple of threads it's been like, a LOT more than that.  Which is the reason I'm addressing it here and now.  I've had far too many people tell me in e-mail and or in comments that I'm loosing commenters because people don't know how to ignore.

Please work with me here.  Thanks.

Okay, enough serious Speaker - he saddens me.   It's FRIDAY!

You know what that means, Nation -

TIME FOR ALL TO PRAISE READER MAIL!  READER MAIL FHTAGN!

This week's mail is undead courtesy of the green stuff in Herbert West's syringe!

First, the disclaimer: Reader Mail is where I kick back, relax, and answer your mail in public and in the least serious way possible.  Okay, there may be SOME real answers ahead, but for the most part, don't take anything I say in this entry TOO seriously unless otherwise noted.  And if I tease you in any way - it's completely out of love.

Today we're starting with Hansonito:

"Do the chickens have large talons?

Namaste, and Vote for Pedro"

Does Talyn have large chickens... I mean guns?

Alright, mail bag, time for another Monte patented LONG question:

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchick could chuck wood?"

Orrrrr not.  That's not a Monte question!  That's a Dan question!  Stupid mail box.

Isn't it "how much would COULD a woodchuck chuck?"  And what's a "woodchick?"

Eh, I'll go with "42."

What doth the mail bag bring me next?  Ah, the naked stalker, Cadfile:

"Okay Speaker.  Here is the deal. I'm tired.  All I
want to know is do you like puppies or do you like
kittens more.

Let me back up.  Did you know that taking the first
letter of every word capitalized in Rachel's blog DOES
NOT lead to a clue.  The same is true when you take
the second letter of each word, the last letter, the
letter of each word equal to the syllables in that
word. None of those methods give me a sequence of
letters that could be anagramed  Also running all
those sequences of letters through ROT-13...nothing.
Again, nothing even remotely like something that could
be anagramed.

You know what else speaker.  Taking the number of
letters in each phrase of all capital letters on
Rachel's blog and using the a=1, b=2 c=3,...
substitution cypher and running that through Rot-13,
those letters...nada.

Do you know how many ways the 17 unique capitalized
phrases can be combined? 355,687,428,096,000.  Yeah.
That's right, 355687428096000 combinations!

So... um...  I'm just going to ask: Do the Capitalized
letters contain a clue?  Well do they Speaker?  Come
on, you got to help me out here Speaker.  It's driving
me crazy.

I know what your going to say 'How would I know that
Cadfile, I am just a collector...'  Okay fair enough.
Do you like Puppies? Because the part of me that tends
to think it IS a clue just adores those little guys.
The more cynical side that thinks it NOT a clue
prefers those cute little kittens.

So... Which do you like best Speaker?  Puppies or
Kittens?"

Honestly, ye Cad, I'm going to have to think on that very subtle nonsequitor of a question.  You see, I have two dogs and a cat and I love them all of them.  I don't often play favorites, but since you give me NO choice I'll have to go with...

Ferrets.

I love my dogs, I love my cat, but there's just a special place in my heart for our carpet sharks.

Hope that answered your question, because now we're moving on to Donn:

"Did the RoT guys get fired from Verizon?  They haven't posted in 2 weeks."

Well, Donn, I don't know.  I know as much about them as you do.  Perhaps they got fired for using company bandwidth for personal reasons.  Perhaps they were "silenced" by the HANSO goon squad.  Perhaps they went in hiding to keep FROM being silenced by the goon squad.  Perhaps they all just got distracted by a rousing game of HUNGRY, HUNGRY, HIPPOS.

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.

If you can't make your mind up we'll never get started.  And I don't want to wind up being parted, broken-hearted.

Oh, sorry.  Ear-worm.

ANYWAY, onto the REAL Monte:

"Dear Speaker (please forgive the length of this, but I genuinely think you'll find it interesting):

In my ongoing attempt to impress Rachel Blake and earn a date with her, I thought I would try using the one skill I thought might produce something new and of value to her, you and our other citizens.  Namely, because of my profession, I thought I would present Rachel (as well as you and all other citizens) with the revelation where I thought we might locate a copy of Gary Troup's out-of-print and otherwise mysterious work, "The Valenzetti Equation."  Namely, the United States Library of Congress and/or the United States Copyright Office.  You see, pursuant to 37 CFR Section 202.20(c), in order to obtain a copyright on a published work within the United States, one must deposit with the Copyright two copies of the publication in order to obtain a copyright registration.  That deposit is then kept at the Library of Congress.  So of course Hyperion Publishers made such a deposit for The Valenzetti Equation before they learned The Hanso Foundation was going to obtain every copy of the work -- right?  And if Rachel can hack The Hanso Foundation, it should be really easy for her to come back to the US and use her skills to take a peak at that book -- right?

Wrong.

Any citizen can search the database of the United States Copyright Office by merely going to http://www.copyright.gov/ and clicking on the feature "search records."  I encourage you and others to do so.  You will then be provided a very ancient database search system at http://www.copyright.gov/records/ known as LOCIS, an old TELNET mechanism, somewhat akin to the computer some of us believe is in use on a certain mysterious island in the Pacific where plane crash survivors are rumored to be residing.  Now, using this archaic LOCIS system (whose commands take a little while to get used to, but which are pretty basic once you do understand how to use them) you can browse all records of the Copyright Office.  Using this system, I therefore requested records on The Valenzetti Equation.

Well, none exist -- although interesting enough there is an author by the name of Enzo Valenzi who in 1985 co-authored a work titled "Organizational Behavior:  Theory and Practice."  Hmmmm.

Anyway, having struck out with The Valenzetti Equation, I then asked for all records on "Bad Twin," Gary Troup's popular work that recently made the NY Times Best Seller List.  Guess what?  There ALSO are no records for that work available from LOCIS!  Instead, the only "Bad Twin" that appears in the records of the US Copyright Office is registered to a Ms. Phyllis Tucker, and appears to have been published in 1990...

In fact, it appears there are no LOCIS records for Gary Troup at all, although there is an author named Gary C. Troup who is credited with a publication called "Thought Watching" in 1986.  Just to be sure that I wasn't crazy, I decided to do a search on an author I am familiar with who ghost writes a lot of works known as Laurence Shames, best known for the book "Boss of Bosses."  I also decided to check out the popular horror writer Stephen King's publications.  Yep -- both Mr. Shames' and Mr. King's works are dutifully registered and retrievable on LOCIS, though none relate to Bad Twin or The Valenzetti Equation.

So, instead of solving a mystery and potentially winning that date I have been so earnestly searching for, I actually stumbled onto a bigger mystery.  Why aren't Mr. Troup's works registered?

Speaker, I cannot tell you how depressed I am.  I was so certain that this copyright search would win me dinner with Rachel and dazzle you and our citizens.  Instead, I failed her, you and everyone else.  Maybe, though, you have a theory why there is no copyright registration for these works, and more to the point, and idea how this sad lawyer can still win Ms. Blake's hand.  Somehow, I don't think roses will be enough.

Monte (depressed in copyright registration research land)         "

*Snooooorrreeee* WAIT! What? Oh, what's going on? Oh, yes, Monte - sorry.  No, I was paing attention - I hard EVERYTHING you said.  Um, er... well, to answer your uh questions, um, no I did not have anything to do with Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine and, um, what about Wensleydale?  You can never go wrong with Wensleydale.

*looks around hoping he covered well*

Okay, next we have SKORT .  . . I mean, Skirtz:

"Greetings and Salutations!
(That uses up my big words for the day!)

Anyway, here's the question...  Ginger or MaryAnn???"

Oh, this one's easier than puppies versus kittens!  Mary Ann, NO competition!

Mail Bag, Mail Bag, give me mail.  Cuts from paper, not from rusty nails.  The Robotic Elephant:

"From 'Back in Business':

'Is it secret, is it safe?'

Well well well, Speaker, if you were a female shadow then I think I'd be in
love. First Firefly, now LOTR, what's next? Quotes of Gandalf aside, here
are my questions,

1- Is this video for real?

2- How many emails do you actually recieve/respond to weekly?

3- What would happen if you found a four-leaf-clover underneath a ladder?"

1. H. O. A. X.

2. Seriously only 150-200 a week.  I respond as soon as I can to about 85% of them. 10% I save for reader mail, and the other 5% I either respond to later, they sadly get lost in the shuffle, or I'm not sure HOW to respond to them.  Now, 2% of what I save for Reader Mail gets cut and often gets lost in the shuffle, but some I respond to on Reader Mail day.

3. I think that occurrence would cause a concussive explosion so powerful that time and space as we know it would invert and reverse.  Then WE would get to chase the Langoliers.

Now, I spy with my little eye someone who begins with SAM:

"Dearest speaker,

While innocently fooling around with anagrams this morning, I came across something I perhaps wasnt meant to. Yes thats right, i stumbled across your hidden message. I found out that "weekly reader mail" is a PERFECT anagram of " im a weaker elderly". Coincidence, i hear you plea? Hah, unlikely! So perhaps you are 99 years old like your myspace page confirms, but then i thought, would a 99 year old really watch Dr.Who and even more unlikely, be a raging Kim Possible fan? Then it hit me... Life Extension. It fits perfectly in all this mess, while avidly collecting Hanso memorabilia over the years, you one day found out about his life extension and signed up, and within days your normal aging process was.. SHUTDOWN! Im perfectly sure every part of this theory is fact, and therefore there is no need to continue your weekly reader mail slot as i have figured it out.

Yours sincerely,

Conspiraspy Sam."

Oh, okay then.  No more work for me! W00t!  Awesome! HUZZAH!  I guess I'll just go retire then!

See you in another life brother!

Bye!

*poofs for good*

 

KIDDING!  I do have some meetings to go to for a few hours.  So, if we hear anything from Persephone Blake, talk back here.  Okay?  Thanks!

ALEX:

ALUCARD:

BRAVO LEADER:

CHAD:

EMILY:

*fox like drawing that's not showing- will have to fix later! SORRY*

Hey, Emily.  HAAAAAVE you met Ted?  I mean Fox?  Haaave you met Fox?

JASON:

KIMBERLY:

KINETIC:

LEIGHSA:

LOST in KY:

SAM:

SARAH:

SHIPPINU:

Bork! Bork! Bork! Oonteel neext tame!

Comments

[Skirtz]

Not last!

[Jane Z]

told ya

[sam]

3rd?

[Brian]

top 10?

[jd1288]

top ten woo hoo

[kewzie415]

woo!

[seth]

top 10 2 days in a row!

[jaynes]

CYBERMAN4000 is an Ahole.
I hate that guy.

[americanpi]

new post! YAY!

[Skirtz]

Holy Crow - a good day for me... Unbelievable - first in a post, letter made reader mail, I can die happy!!

Ok, on a serious note - Speaker - I feel bad that you had to chastise us...

[John - Not Locke]

Happens everytime I post, A new thread starts...
From very end of last thread...

Hello Nation! Wouldn't you know I come back and there is recipe sharing. I like that. Leighsa,s Flame for my BBQ...

Negative = +Positive for me :D

Posted by: John - Not Locke | July 14, 2006 at 07:54 AM

[Skirtz]

Ok - I'm off to do arts n crafts with my kid... talk amongst yourselves :)

[harcar]

holy cow, not even top ten

[Mike TV]

Top 20 - a first!

[sam]

woah i nearly put speaker into retirement.... cool! Loved reader mail this week! also loved featuring in it twice.

[Lauren]

me,too

[Jane Z]

I feel like we should all be sitting in the corner since we were chastized. But Speaker had many valid points so cheers!

[toni]

thanks speaker for addressing the boar issue, tho you really shouldnt have had to. have a good weekend!

[BobcatRugby]

Rot site is now redirected and "subjugated" by the Hanso Corporation

[generationxer]

Hey Speaker that was a cool post as usual, you are back in my inner circle of trust. How about this great Movie quote from the the Mariachi: "its easier to pull the trigger than to play the guitar"

[albatross]

Jeez, a 5th Element reference? I'm going to have to start studying before I read this every week...

[toni]

sorry for posting again but I forgot this. does it seem like when the ROT guys gave us all those clues for RDB (then the next day Rachells gave us the info with us having to use the clues which were welcome to your next videoetc)that it was due to Verizon not allowing it on their RDB site? I think that is what happened, since then ROT hasnt been in game anymore and it soured so many people on the game after we worked on clues that were totally discounted by having RB spoonfeed the info. seems like Verizon punked out and messed up the arg, anyone else see it like that?

[BobcatRugby]

toni -

has the ROT/Verison site always had the Hanso disclaimer in the top right-hand corner?

[vexingmodstwo]

toni, can you rephrase that?

I'm having a hard time following exactly what you're trying to say.

[albatross]

toni, that's reasonable. Didn't something similar happen with Monster, to take the Hanso Careers site out of game?