Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'p' and the number '4'

P: perodactyl, not to be confused with the more common pterodactyl: a little known prehistoric creature which carried a jar of coffee substitute in its fingers at all times hence the name Pero (a brand of coffee substitute) and -dactyl (from the Greek for 'finger'.) How it was determined that it carried Pero, or how Pero could possibly have existed in the Jurassic, are not known, although some commentators have speculated that it may be related to the appearance of Mark Twain before Congress in 2006, as documented in a blog post I've now lost track of. Skeptics who say I didn't read it correctly or that the post had a typographical error are invited to read the post themselves.

Six days later?

It sounds like the title of some cheesy horror movie. "Six days after they accidentally killed a fellow student, a group of high-school friends discover they student might not be quite dead..."

No.

"The asteroid struck the earth, appropriately enough, on December 31st. Six days later..."

...umm. No.

"The killer plague was released on a Friday. Six days later..."

...it's been done.

Six days after his previous blog post?

No, no, no.

But who is this who insists "no, no, no?" Who asked you your opinion? If I want to write horror stories about revenants or asteroids or plagues or blog posts, who are you to stop me, wise guy?

6 Days later

Seven days is the wrong length for a week, because you can't divide it evenly. Six days would make a better week, but if the week were six days long, this post would be a week after the last one, so I'd better stick with seven days for now. And, since this post should be about something other than how long it's been since my last one, how about this:

Six day weeks don't divide evenly into 365 days, which is 60 time 6, plus 5. So why not just have 360 day years? It would mean the months wouldn't stay synchronized with the seasons, but so what? The Muslims have a 354-day year and they manage all right.

So, we have 12 months of 30 days each, 5 six-day weeks. Two days off on the weekends, four days on. That's about 10 extra days off a year, another bonus.

Six-day weeks for the win! And the post is a week late after all.

Random word: Spool

Spool is the name of a program on unix systems that has something to do with printers; the 'spool' has all the files that people want to print out. There's probably some explanation about where the name came from (maybe the programmer picked a word at random out of a dictionary?) but I don't know what it is. Spools (I keep typing sppols by mistake) hold thread, or sometimes heavier things like twine or cord or rope or cable or chain. I don't know what sppols are. Probably something to do with the Conspiracy. The 2nd lowest rank. "I was promoted to sppol last week. Another couple of years and perhaps I'll make workd." Which is another word I type by mistake a lot, workd instead of world. Also mistke, which is obviously the 4th rank in the Conspiracy.
Hopefully someday I'll figure out what the Conspiracy is conspiring about. Must have something to do with aardvarks, I'm sure, and spools, and unix.

Prompt

This comment says:

in 1990, Robert Alan Haag, one of the biggest traders^* of meteorites of the world, tried to steal the second largest meteorite of the world from Chaco, Argentina. He mounted a huge operation to lift and move this 37 ton piece and take it to the U.S.

*:The original word here was "trades", which I assume was a typo. -de

Transcription 003

Oct 5 '09
F Friends of the Library would apparently be a fairly innocuous or even beneficial group.^However My researches have ascertained that many branches are merely front groups for the Ensoniati, that ancient secret society of which the Bavarian Illuminati are merely the palest imitation. FotL members regularly interfere in the course of history, affecting the results of Fish-fancier club elections, grocer store layouts, the distance between sidewalk cracks, and even karaoke night music selections. Doubters may scoff at the significance of these details but how do they respond to the experience of Nicanor the Younger of when his gold-fish were declared 3^rd place finishers for the 3^rd time in a row on March 3^rd? I've never met a single skeptic with a coherent reply to that one!

E Elephant in the Room, The: Usually ignored by all present, except by small children, many of whom are quite pleased to discover an elephant right there in the house. One odious child of my acquaintance threw a mouse under the Elephant's trunk but fortunately the elephant had been taking musophobi ^cognitive therapy treatments for musophobia and merely grabbed the mouse and threw it back in the child's face, much to the amusement - unacknowledged, of course - of all.

S Strange, Dr: Legendary neurosurgeon and Master of The Mystic Arts, not to be confused with Dr. Doom, Dr. Fate, Dr. Destiny, Adam Strange, Dr. Midnight, or The Doctor. Gandalf, Merlin, and Professor Dumbledore are perhaps his only peers. On the other hand, perhaps not, since I've never heard that any of those were any good at neurosurgery.

Internet pet peeve

The past tense of "mislead" is "misled".
That is all.