Link Time
Sunday, February 19th, 2006“We need to talk first. Pants later.”
You may expect a return to your regularly scheduled comedy approximately whenever the next time I think of something funny is.
Archive for February, 2006
Histori-blogging!
Friday, February 10th, 2006Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the computernet! Is it that time again? Yes indeed it is! It is time to travel back to the early days of computers and the internet, far back in the mists of time, one hundred years ago.
On hundred years ago, the internet was not like it is today. Computers at the time were massive, cumbersome machines, driven by steam furnaces. It would take a team of coolies hours to boot one, stoking the furnace with coal. The monitors of the time were basically high-speed looms which would assemble crude lines of text and pictures by means of an array of different colors of yarn and rotating needles. Obviously, these machines were beyond the reach of the average family’s finances, but they were popular among the wealthy, and, when connected in a network by means of semaphore code or a telegraph, they created a stable, if unsophisticated internet, which could distribute blogs , or “Weblographs” as they were known at the time.
Just as they are today, the blogs of the time were preoccupied with current events, and, like today’s blogs, they tended to get caught up in the excitement when something big seemed about to happen. Today’s histori-blog entry is a perfect example of this phenomenon, as it dates from the Great Blimp Scare of 1905, the most significant news story of one hundred years ago.
The stately zeppelin, once the symbol of man’s conquest of the empyrean realm, now, a spectre of terror, ready to bear the fury of the Hun to our beloved homeland.
We must caution women, children, and others with weak constitutions from reading the remainder of this missive, as the images of horror contained within may cause them to swoon with terror. If you suffer from any such infirmity, we must counsel you to consult a barber, exorcist, or reputable phrenologist before proceeding any further.
Sources within the highest circles of military intelligence assure us that a fleet of the Kaiser’s Zeppelins is, at this moment, orbiting within fifty miles of New York City. These fiendish engines are capable of dumping hundreds of gallons of kerosene and flaming embers upon the blameless people below, creating Satan’s own Inferno in our fair city’s streets.
Why would the Hun attack our shores? These degenerate rascals are motivated by a desperate need to expand their empire, the weakest of the great European powers. They plan to drive our people from these shores with violence, a reprehensible plan, which would undo at a stroke the charitable, christian works of our forefathers who heroically pacified the savages and heathens who used to occupy these lands, using the twin pillars of civilization, Anthrax and the Bayonet.
What we can do
Although the government is doing what it can to protect out people,, we must be prepared to defend ourselves. We here at the Ale and Barger heartily recommend the use of a stout umbrella, reinforced with iron spars, available in a smaller, parasol form for our readers of the fairer sex. Such a device has the additional benefit that it can be used to bludgeon into insensibility any German or Irish immigrants that cross our readers’ paths. (Editors’s Note- The function of links in HTML was provided in the early internet by a red-hot poker with a row of moveable type letters at the top. The reader could spell out the word in question, and apply the device to the flesh of a slave, indentured servant or immigrant, who would then spring from the room with great speed and go fetch the item or information required, which would be conveniently displayed upon his skin for any retailer or man of learning to discern. The system, while crude and somewhat inhumane, was very effective).
Remember, bold readers of the Ale and Barger, that he who hesitates is lost, and join us in our bold defense of our homeland against the Huns, Saracens, and Robots that plague our shores!
Now that’s good Internet! Join us next week when we hearken back to the Salami on the Doorknob Scare of Aught Six.
Things I’ve been thinking about this week
Monday, February 6th, 20061. Chemical castration as a lifestyle choice.
2. Whether or not I really have the stick-to-it-iveness to drink myself to death.
3. Entering the clergy.
4. Genocide.