Homeward

Weesa going home.. Yes folks, Prometheus is going home. To Mumbai, the Urbs Prima in Indis. Nay, this is no vacation nor a break. He's got [Don Corleone accent]unfinished business to attend to[/Don Corleone accent]. He should be back to playing Lawrence of Arabia by mid January.

There may be an absence from blogging again. No, Mumbai has no dearth of bandwidth. Prometheus might not have the time to blog. He has much to do in a little time. But a homecoming it is. He will meet his mommy after a long time. And his friends.

He takes your leave. He leaves you with wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And this lovely and apt number:

This just in: Dontcha forget this -

Till then, Stay Wonderful *
*(© a dear friend)

Technorati tags: Mumbai, Bombay, Absence, Home, Dona Nobis Pacem

It was a dark, stormy night

Nothing.

Prometheus felt a blog post coming on. Had he possessed Yaxlich's Clenchometer, it would've beeped 'turtle head imminent'. Just then, turtle head decided to play hide and seek.

Ergo, nothing.

Prometheus leaves you with vivid images of turtle heads. Have a nice day, all.

Technorati tag: Blogstipation

See ya later, Alligator

The observant amongst you would have realized that Prometheus got a boo boo on his Moving (Middle) Finger. Goog calls it New Booger now, not Booger Beta. Well, they could call it the Presidink of the Yoo Ess and it would still suck. Waitaminute. THAT already sucks. But you got the drift, dincha?

Prometheus is now faced with the Herculean (howdy Herc Bro) task of getting a nice template to un-Booger this fair blog. He asks you to bear with this 'orrible thing till then.

This just in: Awrite youse leftwing Firefox-usin commies, Prometheus has fixed this template for you. At the price of a wee defect in IE. Happy?

Technorati tags:
New Blogger, Blogger Beta, 3 column Stretch Template for Beta

Return of the Peace Globes

Regular readers, as opposed to decaf readers, will remember Prometheus went about Digging a Tunnel with a Plastic Spoon. For decaf readers, Prometheus will engage in repetition. Prometheus' blog-buddy Mimi came up with this amazing idea. Folks get a Peace Globe image from her, sign it with their name and send it back to her. Simple. And why are we doing it?

Flower power was the old black. Signing a Peace Globe is the new black. No, we do not have free sex or free drugs but you can play Rock (fine, we'll tolerate Hip Hop). Mims and her friends are doing Round Two. So if somebody was passed out dead drunk and lolling the last time we did this, now's your chance. The Peace Globes ain't a gifball (© Prometheus) that you sign and forget. It is a commitment to peace. Peace, that springs from within you and encompasses your world. No, you don't have to be celibate. Yes, non-virgins are allowed.

They say an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters will eventually come up with Shakespeare. Prometheus says you monkeys get signing Peace Globes and we can eventually come up with World Peace. Remember folks, its us who are the world. So don't wait for a messiah. Be one. Prometheus had wisecracked that this Peace Globe thing is like the aforementioned digging tunnels with plastic spoons. Well, Mims ain't listenin. And it IS Christmas time. So let's play Santa and get her one of these.

Tunnel Boring Machine

Ok, enough with the Guru speech. You be good children and traipse over to Mimi's and read all about it, straight from the Queen, as she spook it.

Technorati tags: Dona Nobis Pacem

The Emperor's Shiny New Clothes

Prometheus stumbled onto this YouTube Video. Next-Gen Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs integrated into fabric. Now they've made clothes into glo-signs.

Though avoiding ambulatory advertising may prove arduous, Prometheus thinks these tees will help uber-geeks communicate with pretty girls. If the subject reacts negatively, oh well, one can always blame it on poor coding.

Prometheus will request M&S to stock his Illuminium range of luminous couture once he learns how to stop them blowing up the washing machine.

Our premium subscription will also enable wearers to download and flash the latest pickup lines, like "What name do you go by, you shining example of perfect genetics". In the interest of catering to our female clientèle, we also offer them the latest comebacks like "Did you just escape?"

Technorati tags: Light+Emitting+Fabrics LED Fashion+Technology Phillips pickup+lines comebacks

Forty Two

An update on The Journey to the Beta of the Blogger: Blogger let Prometheus get past the Beta sign-in stage and gave him a tour of Beta Asylum and then went back to playing canine female again. Not to be outdone, Prometheus created another blog with another Goo-farkin-gle account to see what Beta had in store. And dismayed he was. To (mis)quote Gandhi, "Two-bit features do not a version make".

Onto today's business. That amazing woman from Pinoyland tagged Prometheus with a meme (apologies Woke, but a tag is a tag). This one makes the tag-ee reach for the nearest book, turn to page 123, skip 5 sentences and post the next 3 sentences. FYI, the bookshelf of Prometheus (smaller than the garden of his uncle but larger than the pen of his aunt) is back home in India. He has but one ebook on his computer, which he shall use for the purpose of this meme.

Aboard the Vogon ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was puzzled. He had expected a chase, he had expected an exciting grapple with tractor beams, he had expected to have to use the specially installed Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron to counter the Heart of Gold's Infinite Improbability Drive, but the Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron lay idle as the Heart of Gold just sat there and took it.

A dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon cannons continued to blaze away at the Heart of Gold, and still it just sat there and took it. He tested every sensor at his disposal to see if there was any subtle trickery afoot, but no subtle trickery was to be found.

He didn't know about the tea of course, nor did he know exactly how the occupants of the Heart of Gold were spending the last three minutes and thirty seconds of life they had left to spend.

The tag requires Prometheus to mention the name and author of the book. But he'd like to put a twist in the tale, a spanner in the works and such sort of a thing. A riddle. Your task, dear reader, is to, without cheating (like but not limited to referring search engines) is to find the author and the book that those lines above came from. Prometheus has left a clue, if you know where to look.

Persons contemplating cheating should know that Prometheus has something far worse than 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon cannons aimed squarely at their delicate regions.

Oh, Prometheus must now tag three others. So Yaxlich, Gem and SilverSabre. Go guys.


Technorati tags: Meme Quiz Tag

Bitter Blogger Beta Blogger

Blogger is behaving awfully American these days. No offense (see? Prometheus spells it 'offense' like them Yanks, not 'offence' as the Queen spooks) to his American friends, but Blogger is behaving like the gubment. Prometheus can feel Blogger prodding him onto the Beta. They teased him with labels and widgets. Then they actually offered him the upgrade. And now they won't let him comment on his friend's (who have moved to beta) blogs. And anyways, all his friends have already left him in his plain vanilla Blogger land and moved to Beta land.

Thus and therefore, Prometheus edges closer to Beta. He wanted to hold off till Blogger grew up, but not littering his friends blogs with awful comments was too much to ask for. He has tried to back up his blog. He hopes Blogger uses professional movers and packers who don't break his stuff on the way.

Prometheus is off to break on through and hopes his friends will carry fond memories of him in case he does not make it to the other side. Oh, guys, you have been good friends. Prometheus is proud of you and your friendship. He will always look upon you from blog heaven, so be nice.

Ave Blogger! Morituri te salutamus!*

*Hail Blogger! We who are about to die wish you get your head stuck in the posterior of a farting hippopotamus.


Technorati tags: Blogger+Beta

L33735P34K

Leetspeak (elite speak) is to computing what SMS or texting is to mobile phones. This form arose back in the days when you connected to a BBS on a 9.6 Kbps dialup using the XModem-CRC protocol. What began as a time/bandwidth saving utilitarian idea soon became the esoteric secret lingo of hackers and geeks alike. Leetspeak basically tranposes the letter for a shape; so A is 4, B is 13, M can be /v\ and Hacker is H4x0R.

But this here is supposed to be a humor blog. So where's the fun part? Well, Prometheus came upon a nice pic. And he found Slim had already written about it. But nonetheless, he felt like adding his 7\/\/0-B17$ \/\/0r7-.

Presenting L337 7335, or Elite Tees:

Oh by the way, PR0/\/\37-3U5 (4\ r34D 7-47. PR0/\/\37-3U5 \33D5 70 937 L41D.

Technorati tags: language Elite L337 geek

Ambiguity can lead to Multiple Conc(l)usions

A friend introduced Prometheus to Lojban. Lojban is a syntactically unambiguous language. It was created by the Logical Language Group and is designed to be culturally neutral. Given that it has no irregularities or ambiguities and its grammar is based on predicate-logic, Lojban can be processed by a computer as well. Fascinating, isn't it?

At work, Prometheus NEEDS the unambiguous nature of programming languages. But off-work, ambiguity produces interesting results. Sample the following sentence, said to have five possible parsings. "Time flies like an arrow".

Prometheus hopes you enjoyed this post. Without second thoughts, he will not be able to find friends better than you.

Technorati tags: grammar languages ambiguity Lojban constructed+languages

To Beta or Not to Beta

That is the question.

Blogger, dear friends, has offered to take the Blog of Prometheus into its Beta fold. Prometheus thinks it has to do with the Displeasure of Dear Leader. He knows not whether this would result in the classic 'Help, I upgraded from Girlfriend 5.0 to Wife 1.0" syndrome. He solicits the opinions of those that have taken the plunge. To Beta or Not to Beta.

Technorati tags: Blogger+Beta

Korekt Grammers

Prometheus had an active day, blogitavely speaking. He came upon a few new sites. Some great, some pathetic. Found a gem that he wants to share. A blogger-friend-in-absentia calls herself a 'grammar whore'. Now, Prometheus doesn't claim to be a Grammar Gigolo, but the alliteration is attractive, wot?

Therefore and hereunder, we present; The Rules of Writing Good.

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
3. The adverb always follows the verb.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Remember to never split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
23. Don’t never use a double negation.

capitalize every sentence and remember always end it with point
24. Do not put statements in the negative form.
25. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
26. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
27. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
28. A writer must not shift your point of view.
29. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
30. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!!!!!
31. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
32. Writing ! carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
33. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
34. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
35. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
36. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
37. Always pick on the correct idiom.
38. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; they’re old hat; seek viable alternatives.

That's all folks!

Technorati tags: Grammar

Comment-ary on the Sesqui-whatever Meme

The 'big long word meaning 150' Meme drew interesting comments and questions from friends of Prometheus. He was struck by the brilliant idea that these questions could make a post, as opposed to a long winded self comment. So here goes:

Julia Scissor ;-) said: I have seen people laughing/ singing/ crying under influence but dancing? One of my friends tries to push parked vehicles when he gets high! Another one had turned up drunk at a communication skills practical and got an A+++ for his impromptu speech. Of course I'll never know what drives people to such acts because I'm a sworn teetotaller.

Jules mon amour; the alcofluence of incohol doesh caushe people to loshe their inhibitionsh, thereby caushing themshelves to think they are Fred Astaire. As regards teetotalling (funny, that word always puts an image in the mind of Prometheus; an image of a word stumbling down a stair. Like teeter, totter, teetotaller), Prometheus feels 'reality is an illusion caused by the absence of alcohol'.


gem said: What an impressive list. You could spin off twenty blog posts from this list. I'd love to know how you saved someone's life or what book you went back to read that you passed up in high school. You're more of a romantic than I would've ever guessed.

Gemmolina, but those twenty posts would give away the fact that our superhero Prometheusman is really mild-mannered blogger Prometheus. Oh, the author was H.G. Wells. The librarian at the school of Prometheus was a cackling witch from Jupiter. She wouldn't let him borrow The War of the Worlds. He did buy the book in college and read it. Nicholas Findler's Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence, however, has still eluded him. When Prometheus began reading Robert Ludlum, he devised this conspiracy theory that the librarian was an android cackling witch from Jupiter and did not want little Prometheus to discover her bionic condition. Romantic? Oh yes, Prometheus likes to think he's Rhett Butler, but the ladies seem to steal his "Frankly my dear" line.


H said: But. this is rather interesting. the disaster management workshop. rather curious about it...

Big H, you sure you and Prometheus weren't separated at birth? First the Piggy on the Railway, then Bombay-Mumbai. The disaster management thing is something Prometheus loved doing. Oh woe unto bureaucracy.


Radha said: "57. Pretended to be a superhero": Just curious...which one?

Oh every one of them. He read a gazillion comics. Supes, Bats, Spidey, Green Lantern, Captain America, Justice League, Phantom (just for "no man can shoot that straight"). He loves Spidey most because he always saves the day and still manages to come out smelling of dog poo. But if he were to gain somebody's powers, it'd be Superman.

Having 'preened for the bloggerati' and 'exhibited his well-read, intelligent, creative nature', Lord Prometheus goes back to his reality cave to transform magically into navel lint.