IN PURSUIT OF KIBOSITY:
SELECTIONS FROM KIBO'S EXEGESIS

People often ask me to explain the unexplainable.
Here are some of the things people talk about on alt.religion.kibology without explaining.

More to come.

This section is being reorganized -- some of the explanations are on this page and others are linked from here:

HappyNet

First used 1/92 by Kibo

My annual April Fool's Day joke on Usenet, from 1992 to 1994, was to post my "HappyNet Manifesto" which carefully explained that due to various shortcomings, Usenet would be deleted on April 15th and later replaced with HappyNet, which was perfect in every way. You can read the various archived proclamations (it grew a bit from year to year) on my Kibological links page.

I had planned to re-introduce a greatly expanded HappyNet Manifesto on 4/1/97, but was too busy with other things. Maybe 1998. After my last HappyNet posting in 1994, I followed with this throwaway idea later in the year:

Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, news.misc, alt.config, alt.fan.warlord
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Proposal to end all AOL-bashing!
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:39:43 GMT

First Delphi was connected to the Internet, and people started
complaining about Delphi users.  Then AOL, and next Prodigy.

This is, of course, insensitive to the dozens of users at those sites
who are not bozos.  Therefore, I move we do something to stop all
the people whining about Delphi/AOL/Prodigy users, as well as boosting
the self-esteem of anyone using those services.  What I'm suggesting is
that we create a *new* commercial service designed to be even crappier
than those three combined.

I call this idea CrappyNet.

CrappyNet has an entirely graphical interface: text is, quite naturally,
represented by a series of little icons, one for each word (these
"rebusymbols"(TM) are fetched from a large dictionary stored on one of
the six CrappyNet CD-ROMs that will ship with every new computer.)
The CrappyNet-to-Usenet gateway would be specifically designed to
introduce misspellings, change everything to capitals, cross-post to the
wrong newsgroups, repeat the same posting fifty times per second, and
generally introduce a "destructosurprise"(TM) element into Usenet at large.

We would need merely to find five or six suckers to use this service
(and anyone stupid enough to use it would be willing to pay our $500/hr
charges with which we will fund this grand venture.)  Just as people
largely stopped complaining about Delphi when AOL appeared, and as
people will quiet down about AOL once Prodigy becomes prominent, people
will shift to picking on our five or six CrappyNet users once the
service develops a reputation--which should take about five hours of
heavy use.

To secure these five or six key users, we will simply advertise in
technical journals such as "Mondo 2000", "Omni", "Wired", and "Cracked".

                -- K.
                CrappyNet is a joint venture of
                John Palmer and BIFF.  CrappyNet software
                may not be exported to countries which
                are our friends, but is being given
                free to Cuba.

beable

First introduced to a.r.k 2/94 by Kibo

In quantum mechanics, any little thingie can be either a wave or a particle. (A good example is an electron. It acts like each under different circumstances.) In his writings on the subject, John Bell proposed the terms "observable" (for wave-like things) and "beable" (be-able, for particle-like things) which did not catch on widely in the physics community.

I had been teasing Jack Sarfatti in sci.physics for some time, for reasons too complicated to go into here. In one of his posts, he made the mistake of saying "beable". I followed up with "beable beable beable beable beable". The mantra-like repetition of that vacuous sound caught on like wildfire in alt.religion.kibology, and to this day, a.r.k uses "beable beable beable" as a verbal space-filler. I think most people are pronouncing it "beeble" rather than "be-able", but who cares?

See my Media Scrapbook page for details on Kurt Cobain's involvement with "beable".

Newsgroups: sci.physics, sci.skeptic, sci.math, sci.astro, alt.religion.kibology
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Re: Bohm's Version of Quantum Mechanics 1.0
Keywords: Gell-Mann, Hartle,Bohr,Everett,De Witt
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 08:23:16 GMT
X-Original-Newsgroups: sci.physics, sci.space, sci.skeptic, sci.fractals, sci.math, sci.philosophy.tech, sci.astro

In [sci.*] Jack Sarfatti >sarfatti@netcom.com< wrote:
>
> Like Winston Churchill's definition of "democracy" as the worst form 
> of government except for any other, the late David Bohm's 
> interpretation of quantum mechanics, as actual Bell-type "beables" 

Ladies and gentlemen, today's vocabulary word is "beable".  Repeat with me:

beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable,
beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable,
beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable,
beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable,
beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable,
beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable, beable...

Jack, you are cruel!  By introducing this contagious meme to the net, you
will cause THOUSANDS of people to go around beabling and beabling
because once you say this word YOU CAN'T STOP!!!

>                                          - truly these Emperors have 
> no clothes. It is Bohm, and only Bohm, who has pulled the sword from 
> the stone.

So King Arthur walked around naked?  What?  Are you sure you're not
mixing two Disney movies?

                             -- K.

P.S.  Jack, how do you explain the enormous redshift that Henri Matisse
underwent just after his blue period?

doidy

First used 3/95 by Kibo

The sequel to "beable". I had been trying for some time to think of something even dopier to babble than "beable", because I was writing a story in which Spot had to constantly chant stupid words at the top of his lungs or he would explode (repeatedly). I finally settled on a combination of two naughty expressions used by four-year-olds, "toidy" and "dirdy dypee", plus a familial resemblance to "doy" and "durhey" (which are like "duh" only with more duhly goodness.) Thus "doidy" was born.

In the story, Spot had to shout "DOIDY DOIDY DOIDY" or explode, and people kept distracting him with conversation along the lines of "I hated 'Star Wars' because of all the robots; it was too droidy!" and "Current only goes through this wire one way: it's so diody!" and he'd get confused and blow up. The key impression this story made on a.r.k was that "doidy" is more fun to shout than "beable" because it's even less potentially meaningful (after all, "beable" was created to be a useful word, while "doidy" was created to sound vaguely like something a four-year-old would find obscene) and, frankly, "doidy" just begs to be shouted from the rooftops.

From:         toastman@armory.com (Powdered Toast Man/n)
Subject:      Re: Public Service Announcement: New Mind Control Techniques
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.kibology
Organization: The Armory
Date:         11 Mar 1995 19:02:07 GMT

James "Kibo" Parry >kibo@world.std.com< wrote:
:
: I have determined that the best form of strange behavior with which to
: confuse people is that which is obviously much stupider than any human
: is capable of.  Thus, acting strange is okay, and acting stupid
: is okay, but making it clear that you want everyone in the world to
: think your IQ is much lower than it is is perhaps the most powerful
: weapon known to man.  To this end, I suggest that you immediately don a
: t-shirt which says "Duh, Look At Me, I'm Stupid!!!" and stand in the
: middle of the street shouting "DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY..."
                                 ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^
: while hitting yourself over the head with the part of your forearm near,
: but not at, your wrist.  Also your shoes should be tied together, if
: you're up to it.
:                    -- K.
:                    DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY...
                     ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^
:                    See?  It's working on you right now!
:                    Soon you will be under my evil control.
:                    DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY, DOIDY...
                     ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^^
:                    And you will be so confused and frightened
:                    by this masterful technique that you will
:                    fail to point out the grammar error in
:                    the first sentence.   DOIDY!!!!
                                           ^^^^^

You misspelled "beable".  And you're KIBO!  You're supposed to set an example
for the rest of us?  What are we going to do now?

Hope this helps.

-- 
Powdered (toastman@deepthought.armory.com)  From a secret location in AZ

Giant H Fights

First used 5/94 by Kibo

While watching the bad black and white science fiction film "The Phantom Planet", Matt McIrvin and I greatly enjoyed the scene of a duel to the death between two men pushing on opposite sides of a big "H" (made of pipe, about three feet across.) They were each trying to push the other a few steps back into a disintegration thingie. (By the way, the proper name for the giant H in the film is "The Combat Rod of Rheton".) The idea of a Giant H Fight intrigued me; this felt like it could be to alt.religion.kibology what cockfighting is to Miami, so I proposed on in a.r.k without giving any details as to the origin of the term.

Various people described the Giant Hs they were using as terrible weapons of mass destruction, and it was a rousing success. Later I announced a second Giant H Olympics, in which the goal was to have a more pathetic Giant H than your opponent. Eventually a third Giant H Olympics was held. So far millions of people in alt.religion.kibology have been killed by the marauding H-meisters.

Matt has since observed that the Giant H in the movie was actually a microscopic H, as the astronauts shank to teensy size when they landed on the little peanut-shaped planet Rheton.

I had not remembered it, but a few years before there had been a discussion about Carnegie-Mellon's Skibo Hall (since demolished). It had a structure of some sort at the center that looked like a carpet-covered moth-eaten brain, called "Gray Matter" (I'm told), and the most important fact about it was... Skibo Hall was shaped like a Giant H. Spooky!

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:      EVERYONE must be TOLD about THIS
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.kibology, alt.slack, talk.bizarre, junk
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date:         Thu, 19 May 1994 09:16:51 GMT

T H E   S P O R T   O F   T H E   F U T U R E

              GIANT H FIGHTS!!!!

As seen in the tremendously exciting sci-fi masterpiece, "The Phantom Planet".

1)  Get a capital "H" about four feet across.
2)  Two people grab opposite ends and twist it back and forth!

It has THRILLS!  It has DANGER!  It's better than wimpy old PUJO STICKS!
AMERICAN GLADIATORS hasn't yet discovered the AWESOME TRUTH about BIG H FIGHTS!

If you don't have a partner just wave the giant H in front of the TV set
and pretend that Pat Sajak or Connie Chung is on the other end of YOUR BIG H!!!

YOU CAN USE THE H IN THE SHOWER, YOU CAN USE THE H TO FIRM YOUR BUTT!!!

Giant H fights are the WAY OF RECREATION FOR TOMORROW and BEYOND!!!

For extra fun dress up in a funny hat.  This is good advice every day in fact!

I am not a crackpot--I just like GIANT H FIGHTS!!!

--
kibo@prodigy.ibm.com (James "Kibo" Parry)                    Mensa member #16309
             === Users at this site are charged high mail fees. ===
   Please don't send binaries without prior permission of the account holder.
   (This is the default system sig. If you see this, assume a Usenet newbie)

fütplex

First used 5/94 by Kibo

In my never-ending quest to make up new obscene nonsense words, I take inspiration wherever I find it. Around 1989, I was at the Museum of Science and they were preparing to install something: there were big crates lying around. Some of them had "FUT PLEX" stencilled on them. (Futuristic plexiglass?) I added an umlaut to make it sound goofier (although it usually shows up on the net without said umlaut) and a new meaningless word was born. I saved it up in the back of my brain (why do people think the important stuff goes in the front?) and introduced it to a.r.k years later. It never caught on the way "beable" and "doidy" did. Pity, as it's a great word: it has an ümlaut!

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:      Re: Kibowl
Keywords:     Hi Kibo
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.kibology
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date:         Sun, 1 May 1994 05:56:11 GMT

Peter Essig >cupfe@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu< wrote:
>
> Hello fellow Kibologists and Kibo,
>   I just want to propose a little competition for all of you
> (if it hasn't already been done.)
> 
> The Kibowl.
>   A Trolling competition.
>   Teams Trolling for Trouble.
>   Superbowl weekend-Next year.

Here's an even BETTER idea, inspired by seeing "beable" in L.A. Weekly
in their article about the Kurt Cobain snuff film.

1.)  Divide up into two teams.  People whose last names start with A
through M will be team Alpha, people whose names start with N through Z
will be team Beta, those who have non-Latin characters in their name
*or* have no last name will be scorekeepers.  (This includes me.)

2.)  Each team will be given a new obscene nonsense word of great import:

     Alpha:  Futplex
     Beta:   Urlap

3.)  The first team to get the word used in a "real" publication (as
determined by the judges--i.e. a newspaper, magazine, or TV show which
is respectable) will win A BILLION DOLLARS.  No, you can't plant it in
your own book if you own your own publishing company like Mark Line.

P.S. The "beable" reference in L.A. Weekly is probably the first time
that august publication has talked about quantum physics, too.

                                      -- K.

Orbitz

First mentioned on a.r.k by Kibo (I think) 6/96

I had heard about this in Newsweek a few months before I saw it in the flesh. My archive has a few gaps from this period, so I'm not sure if I was the first person to mention it on a.r.k.

Orbitz is a clear beverage with brightly colored spherical nodules of gelatin floating around in it. The bottle is cleverly designed to remind you of a lava lamp. It looks pretty on the shelf, but tastes like flat Alka-Seltzer, only "texturally enhanced" (their words): you can immediately guess that the lumpy beverage has a rotten texture, and I said it has a rotten taste. And it costs about $1.50 a bottle at the convenience stores here. Orbitz flopped in 1996. My junk food page has a review. See their web site at http://www.orbitz.com for the last remnants of the glory days of Orbitz. (It's still sold in a few places, too. By the way, they changed the color of the rotten Bubble Yum watermelon flavor from light red to blood red in an effort to save it. The vilest is the white flavor, which is coconut. Blecch.)

From:       kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:    ORBITZ!
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.drinks.snapple, alt.drugs
Date:       Sun, 2 Jun 1996 02:42:44 -0400

I drink Orbitz and I love it! I love the
grape-and-coconut-clear-mustard-swirl flavor, and the
peanut-butter-and-tuna-cheese-slaw flavor, and the
pork-sung-and-crunchy-waterchestnut-drink flavor!
Also I love "Space: 1999" and everything they show on "E!"

                      -- K.
                      I WOULD BURP BUT I DRINK ORBITZ!!!!

peanus

First mentioned on a.r.k by Kibo 6/92

Variant spelling of "penis" used by guys too clueless to spell their way out of the men's room with both hands. For some reason, "peanus" is a funny word. It's pretty common on alt.sex.*.

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:      WHATS A PEANUS & WEAR D0 I GET 1 ???????????/
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.kibology, talk.bizarre (perhaps others)
Keywords:     WHATS A PEANUS & WEAR D0 I GET 1 ???????????/
Summary:      WHATS A PEANUS & WEAR D0 I GET 1 ???????????/
Organization: Between a rock and a type specimen sheet, Boston.
Date:         6 Jun 92 09:18:25 GMT

[seen in alt.sex.bondage]
>
> A thin cord was tied around my throbbing
> elongated peanus and my peanus was raised by tying the cord around my
> neck. One smack against my testicles brought me out of my ecstasy and
> I knew she meant business. A rod was then placed between my legs and
> connected to each knee so that I could not contract my legs and avoid
> the smacks to my testicles that would follow. The smacks came in random
> order with breaks in between so that I could regain my composure.
> When the agony was so great that I could no longer keep myself up a
> leather brace was placed around my sagging peanus. 

[doesn't Mr. Peanus wear a monocle and carry a long hard cane?]

YHBT, YHL...

coined by Kibo 3/94

Although people were using the phrase "YOU HAVE BEEN TROLLED. YOU HAVE LOST." on the net before then (for instance, Ron Echeverri was the first to say it in a.r.k, 2/94) Kibo was the first to reduce it to an acronym which would further puzzle newbies. In fact, in one fell swoop, Kibo declared himself to have trolled the entire community:

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:      GLOBAL DECLARATION
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.kibology
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date:         Wed, 30 Mar 1994 08:43:57 GMT

YOU HAVE BEEN TROLLED.  YOU HAVE LOST.  HAVE A NICE DAY.

						-- K.
						Future reposts of this
						will simply say "YHBT, YHL."

Although I didn't abbreviate "HAVE A NICE DAY", the phrase soon became "YHBT, YHL, HAND" (and within one day, Ted Frank was saying "YHBFB. YHL. HAND.", which I think might mean "You Have Been Found Boring". No, he wasn't saying it to me.)

nudibranches

first menioned on a.r.k by Kibo, 3/92

The phrase "Need help quenching autofluorescence in nudibranch brain" needs no further explanation, except for the following post.

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James 'Kibo' Parry)
Subject:      Nudibranches (was: Re: Why Punching The Hole Wont[sic] Work.)
Keywords:     Ascii Grafix from Hell!
Newsgroups:   alt.fan.warlord, alt.religion.kibology
Organization: Between a rock and a type specimen sheet, Boston.
Date:         Mon, 4 May 1992 22:27:38 GMT

In [alt.fan.warlord] lozanoj@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Jones) writes:
>
> A. Lani Teshima sigs in comp.sys.mac.hardware:
> >
> > A. Lani Teshima, UH School of Library & Info Studies   o | /_/_/ "Sea Hare"
> > Visit your local information data center and            o|<0_0>--------*
> > access those cellulose ROMs today!                        \=^-| |____| | 
> > teshima@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu                                 \_}B   \_}B
>
> Wasn't Jimmy Carter attacked by one of those "Sea Hare"s?

Technically, he was attacked by what we call "a wet wabbit".  A sea
hare, more formally called a nudibranch (say 'nudie-branch') is nature's
most perfect organism.  It combines the repulsiveness of a slug with the
repulsiveness of a sea cucumber with the repulsiveness of Leona Helmsley.
It's kind of like an underwater slug that turned inside-out and has
random gloppy things dangling all over as if they would be tucked in if
it were right-side-out.

This is my ALL-TIME FAVORITE USENET SUBJECT LINE, from
bionet.biology.tropical:

Subject: Need help quenching autoflouresence in Nudibranch brain

							-- K.

Lee Bumgarner

Lee first posted on a.r.k in 9/94

Lee Shelton Bumgarner is a journalist who has been known to make, in alt.religion.kibology, serious observations about, among other things, how the Spice Girls wear lots of makeup, and how the Internet isn't as cool as the mass media think. For some reason, the "regulars" on alt.religion.kibology have been jokingly hostile to him for the past four years--I think they are just upset with the messenger who brought them the news that THE SPICE GIRLS WEAR MAKEUP! (I think people should go easy on Lee. Here's a link to Lee Bumgarner's Web page.)

[excerpt from Lee's response to a Mentos FAQ posted in 9/94]

Thanks for this FAQ! I always thought Mentos ads were made by clueless Swedes
or something. 8-)

[and another early Lee article, with a few typos corrected]

From:          LSBUMGAR@vax1.acs.jmu.edu (Lee S. Bumgarner)
Subject:       Re: TRIVIA: Kibo's favorite TV shows.
Newsgroups:    alt.religion.kibology
Organization:  U.S. Robots & Mechanical Men, Inc.
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS v1.25
Date:          Thu, 22 Sep 1994 05:26:23 GMT

kibo@world.std.com writes:
>
> At the moment, my favorite TV shows are:
> 2)  TV Nation (NBC, on hiatus, said to be returning)
>      Michael Moore seeks out bozos and weirdos and pretends to be their
>      friend.  Kind of like me & Alexander Abian.
> [...]
> 
> 5)  Seinfeld (NBC)
>      I'm waiting for them to tackle the thorny question of whether
>      autoerotic asphyxia should involve Fruit Roll-Ups(R).

Kibo could have a walk-on on Seinfeld. One day Kramer downloads a copy
of Mosaic and all sorts of zany, wacky Seinfeldish things occur to the group.
George discovers a.r.k and tells Jerry about it.
"Jerry, there is a whole newsgroup devoted to one man!" George says.
"Really?  People from all over the world sit around discussing a guy
named Kibo.  Can you imagine the *power* he must have?"
"Jerry, I will not rest until there is a newsgroup called
alt.religion.george.costanza."

;-)

Meanwhile, Elaine is stalked by a crazed online kook. Kramer uses IRC
to pick up babes and one of Jerry's ex's uses his password
(which he screamed out.)

> All the other shows I like are off the air, or on channels that would be
> too dorky to admit to watching, like NASA SelecTV.

Oh, by the way, does Kibo like the Letterman? It seems like he would like it
a great deal, given his sense of humor. (at least what I've incountered)

Using Mosaic I read not only last years a.r.k FAQ but Kibo's real .sig as well.
It has got to be the longest .sig known to mankind. I guess it violates the
four line limit, huh. 



________________________________________________________________________________
Phone:7706 * Room: Wompler 106 * Email: lsbumgar@vax1.acs.jmu.edu            
"I made love to Lisa in my Mickey Mouse pajamas...then I asked her to marry
me." -Michael Jackson

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