(Not Really) the Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners-

“It was a dark and stormy night!"

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, [1803–1873) was a popular Victorian writer, perhaps best remembered to day for his florid, over-blown style. He was the author who penned the immortal opening sentence-

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

He is immortalized by the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which contestants vie to supply atrocious first sentences to imaginary novels. The following entries have appeared on the internet and are not actually contest entries, but they certainly capture the spirit of the whole thing!

So, we are proud to present-

(Not Really) the Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners-

10) As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the sound chamber he would never hear the end of it.

9) Just beyond the Narrows the river widens.

8) With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.

7) Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the east wall: Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.

6) Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.

5) Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eking out a living at a local pet store.

4) Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.

3) Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.

2) Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word fear, a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies.

AND THE WINNER IS...

1) The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, she screamed madly, "You lied!"

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Computer Haiku

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
Can not be located but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Aborted effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
?My Novel? not found.

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao until
You bring fresh toner.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Silly Sunday

The Latest Batch of T-Shirt Sayings-

Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.

What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?

I'm visualizing duct tape over your mouth.

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.

Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.

I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.



How about never? Is never good for you?

You sound reasonable...Time to up my medication.

I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

I don't work here. I'm a consultant.

My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!

It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.

At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.

You validate my inherent mistrust of strangers.

Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

Silly Sunday...

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Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home.

We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

For sale: Three canaries of undermined sex.

Great dames for sale.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

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Get rid of aunts. Zap does the job in 24 hours.

Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.

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Used cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first.

Christmas tag sale. Handmade gifts for the hard to find person.

Wanted: Hair cutter. Excellent growth potential.

Wanted: Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

And now, the Superstore -- unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00.

- - -

Silly Sunday...

An industrial engineer was given a ticket by his boss for a performance of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony."

The next morning, the engineer sent the following note to the orchestra's conductor:

MEMORANDUM:

1. For a considerable period, the oboe players had nothing to do. Their number should be reduced, and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus avoiding peaks of inactivity.

2. All 12 violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplication, and the staff of this section should be drastically cut. If large volume of sound is required, this could be obtained through use of an amplifier.

3. Much effort was involved in playing the 16th notes. This seems an excessive refinement, and it is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest 8th note. If this were done, it would be possible to use paraprofessionals instead of experienced musicians.

4. No useful purpose is served by repeating with horns the passage that has already by handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to 20 minutes.

5. This symphony has two movements. If Schubert didn't achieve his musical goals by the end of the first movement, then he should have stopped there. The second movement is unnecessary and should be cut. In light of the above, one can only conclude that had Schubert given attention to these matters, his symphony would probably have been finished by now.

Saturday Musings-

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." -Charles Kuralt

"No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast." -W.S. Gilbert

"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee-that will do them in." -anonymous

"Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation." -Howard Scott

"Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at." -Carlos A. Urbizo

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time." -Jameas Thurber

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." -Mark Twain

"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." -Frank Zappa

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it." -Tallulah Bankhead

"You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun." -Al Capone

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'" -Theodore Roosevelt

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." -Oscar Wilde

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking." -H.L. Mencken

"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made." -Jean Giraudoux

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." -Bill Watterson

"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others." -Ambrose Bierce

"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty." -Norm Corbsy

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." -anonymous

"Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings." -George Will

Sunday Silliness...

Three lawyers and three accountants were traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each bought tickets and watched as the three lawyers bought only a single ticket.

"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asked an accountant.

"Watch and you shall see," answered one of the lawyers.

They all boarded the train. The accountants took their seats, but all three lawyers crammed into the tiny restroom and closed the door behind them.

Shortly after the train departed, the conductor came around collecting tickets. He knocked on the restroom door and said, "Ticket please."

The door opened just a crack, and a single arm appeared with a ticket in hand. The conductor took it and moved on.

The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea.

So, after the conference they decided to copy the lawyers on the return trip and save some money. When they got to the station they bought a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the lawyers didn't buy any tickets at all.

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?", asked one perplexed accountant.

"Watch and you'll see," answered a lawyer.

When they boarded the train, the three accountants squeezed into a restroom, and the three lawyers squeezed into another one nearby.

The train departed. Shortly afterward, one of the lawyers left the restroom and walked over to the restroom where the accountants were hiding. He knocked on the door and said, "Ticket, please."

Keep Digging!

This classic letter has been around the internet for a few years so some of you may have read it already, but I always get a chuckle out of it.

- - -

Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull."

We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.

Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie."

It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-homonids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.

Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator- Antiquities