The Doors

I get obsessive about a few things. For example, chocolate, pants, pictures of me with fire hydrants. (I have not noticed a single fire hydrant yet in Spain, by the way. They must not be as awesome or noticeable as the ones back in the States.) Whilst in Barcelona, I started taking pictures of shop doors because they were so interesting. When I fulfill my calling of being a photograph in an alternate universe, I will go back to Barcelona and take pictures of the most interesting doors in Barcelona and make a poster of them like this:

Up above I meant to say “fulfill my calling of being a photographer in an alternate universe,” not “my calling of being a photograph.” However, I like the mistake I made. It reminds me of cuil theory.

Below are just a few of the many doors Teddy and I saw:

Happy ghost!

This is my favorite by far.

I had to take the picture of the lion on principle.

Koi-san

Koi-chan and Koi-san?

Isn't it adorable!? Interrobang!

This one is actually in Madrid, but I liked it so much that I had to include it.

More Interrobang

For a very long time, my favorite form of punctuation was the semicolon (;). It is neat, concise, and easily joins two distinct but related thoughts together. It doesn’t have the connotations of a colon (:), which makes me think of colonoscopies. Semicolons are like wedding rings for a married couple or a long-term contract for a band with a records company.  Needless to say – I like them.

However, the semicolon has a challenger for my favorite punctuation: the interrobang (‽). 

The interrobang is the holy combination of the question mark and the exclamation mark. The interrobang replaces punctuation like “!?” and “?!”, and that’s about it. The interrobang is not as versatile as the semicolon, but with a name like “interrobang,” it’s hard not to like.

Additionally, interrobangs are connected in my mind with Cuil Theory. The real reason for this post and talking about interrobangs is really so I can talk about Cuil Theory some more. In the original post, someone might have mentioned an interrobang, or perhaps it was Coyote who made a comment about interrobangs sometime after our Cuil-Off.

I just checked the Wikipage for Cuil Theory, and indeed the interrobang is one way to represent Cuil. However, I was fully prepared to create a memory where they said that interrobangs were part of the Cuil Theory Style and Writing Guide. I was prepared to say that the interrobang is the preferred way to end all sentences having 3 Cuils or higher

I still choose the semicolon as my favorite form of punctuation, but the interrobang makes a close second. If however you find a chance to use an interrobang, don’t hesitate. Spread the interrobang!

I demand more interrobang

The Cuil-Off: Update (and Other Updates, Too)

Coyote sent me a this link a few days ago. Since I am lazy, I have waited until now to post it.

In other news, the days are still counting down until the end of the semester. I'm planning on leaving for home a week from Thursday; we'll see how that turns out.

For those of you who are grammatically astute, I just used a semicolon. The sentences I used could have been more connected to one another, but I like semicolons too much to go back and change it to a period. Thursday evening, I spent a good half an hour explaining the difference between colons and semicolons, and I came up with an amusing little mnemonic to remember the difference between the two.

When you see a semicolon, it winks at you. That wink lets you know more interesting stuff coming up. "I use semicolons; I'm an interesting person."

When you see a colon, think "colonoscopy." Colonoscopies are painful and unpleasant. Now you know that a lot of painful, boring stuff is coming up. Like the kind of stuff you find on your grocery list. "I have so much to do today: wash my cat, tweeze my nose, get a colonoscopy."

I think I have cultivated the voice of the writer of TheOatmeal. Oh my, TheOatmeal has also a guide on how to use the semicolon. I was merely looking for that article about cats, which I found amusing. Well, I am happy to join the ranks in eradicating blatantly poor grammar and incorrect usage (even though I know my prepositions are all over the place - interesting use of prepositions makes for an interesting interpretation of life, m'kay?).

The Cuil-Off

My friend Coyote and I were exchanging texts the other day, and we were both familiar with Cuil Theory (see January 6th, 2010). We had run through the gamut of reference the post, from "I am an ocelot. You disapprove" to "My head tastes sideways as spacetime is reestablished." I couldn't remember everything the post said, although Coyote probably could have kept on going because he's like that and has a better memory than I do. I wanted to go in a new direction, so we started our own thread of disjointed statements. We got a little carried away and focused on random statements instead of abstract statements, but it was fun nevertheless. Here is the transcript of what was said - I hope Coyote doesn't mind that I've put it up on my blog. I forgot to ask him.

Most of what we have come up with exists in the realms of two to four cuils. Even saying that one of these statements is four cuils is a bit much. Anything beyond four cuils is difficult to achieve in the space allotted in a text.

Lizzle: A fish blows bubbles at the sinking sun.

Coyote: The sun is a red rubber ball.

Lizzle: A red rubber ball bounces down the stairs and no one sees.

Coyote: A sad, crying clown in an iron lung has a red rubber nose. He watches the sunrise through a fish tank.

Lizzle: A fish tanks lies shattered on the floor as two fish gasp for breath. The red carpet absorbs the water – the mark blossoms like a rose.

Coyote: A wide-eyed midget in a powdered wig hands you a rose.

Lizzle: Clocks strike backwards as the long corridor stretches before you. Black-white-black tiles invite you to play hopscotch. A fish and a clown take tea on the ceiling.

Coyote: A small fish swims in a fine china dish. The fish is the color of the sunset in Morocco, blood red and vital. There is a snail.

Lizzle: A knight sits astride his midnight steed on a dune of sand, a minaret in the distance. A single drop of water drips from the stem of a red rose in his helmet. His steed starts to run forward. A midget in a powdered wigs asks for a fish while china breaks. The minaret crumbles and the steed colors drape. A single drop of water drips. It is a picture painted in the trail of a snail. We are all in a single drop of water.

Coyote: The knight watches the sun sink as he roasts spitted fish over a campfire. The campfire is a djinni, sleeping in the heart of the snail. You applaud.

Lizzle: The curtain falls and the lights dim as a red rubber ball bounces through the fabric of time, converting laws of pi into laws of fruit pi and disheveling powdered wigs.

Coyote: Lizzle eyes a dark pie in her baking class. The pie is filled with cities, and the cities are inhabited by olives. Darkness falls.

Lizzle: The nightmare rides on and the fish swims upside-down in a red rose. The galaxy melts into Morocco.

Coyote: Morocco is a fine place to visit on holiday.

Cuil Theory

Thanks to RedDyeNumber4 for the genius; I could never come up with something quite like this.

One Cuil = One level of abstraction away from the reality of a situation.

Example: You ask me for a Hamburger.

1 Cuil: if you asked me for a hamburger, and I gave you a raccoon.

2 Cuils: If you asked me for a hamburger, but it turns out I don't really exist. Where I was originally standing, a picture of a hamburger rests on the ground.

3 Cuils: You awake as a hamburger. You start screaming only to have special sauce fly from your lips. The world is in sepia.

4 Cuils: Why are we speaking German? A mime cries softly as he cradles a young cow. Your grandfather stares at you as the cow falls apart into patties. You look down only to see me with pickles for eyes, I am singing the song that gives birth to the universe.

5 Cuils: You ask for a hamburger, I give you a hamburger. You raise it to your lips and take a bite. Your eye twitches involuntarily. Across the street a father of three falls down the stairs. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. I give you a hamburger. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. You cannot swallow. There are children at the top of the stairs. A pickle shifts uneasily under the bun. I give you a hamburger. You look at my face, and I am pleading with you. The children are crying now. You raise the hamburger to your lips, tears stream down your face as you take a bite. I give you a hamburger. You are on your knees. You plead with me to go across the street. I hear only children's laughter. I give you a hamburger. You are screaming as you fall down the stairs. I am your child. You cannot see anything. You take a bite of the hamburger. The concrete rushes up to meet you. You awake with a start in your own bed. Your eye twitches involuntarily. I give you a hamburger. As you kill me, I do not make a sound. I give you a hamburger.

6 Cuils: You ask me for a hamburger. My attempt to reciprocate is cut brutally short as my body experiences a sudden lack of electrons. Across a variety of hidden dimensions you are dismayed. John Lennon hands me an apple, but it slips through my fingers. I am reborn as an ocelot. You disapprove. A crack echoes through the universe in defiance of conventional physics as cosmological background noise shifts from randomness to a perfect A Flat. Children everywhere stop what they are doing and hum along in perfect pitch with the background radiation. Birds fall from the sky as the sun engulfs the earth. You hesitate momentarily before allowing yourself to assume the locus of all knowledge. Entropy crumbles as you peruse the information contained within the universe. A small library in Phoenix ceases to exist. You stumble under the weight of everythingness, Your mouth opens up to cry out, and collapses around your body before blinking you out of the spatial plane. You exist only within the fourth dimension. The fountainhead of all knowledge rolls along the ground and collides with a small dog. My head tastes sideways as spacetime is reestablished, you blink back into the corporeal world disoriented, only for me to hand you a hamburger as my body collapses under the strain of reconstitution. The universe has reasserted itself. A particular small dog is fed steak for the rest of its natural life. You die in a freak accident moments later, and you soul works at the returns desk for the Phoenix library. You disapprove. Your disapproval sends ripples through the inter-dimensional void between life and death. A small child begins to cry as he walks toward the stairway where his father stands.

What is the 7th cuil?

For those who are interested in helping to create a working Cuil Theory, visit the wiki at:

http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/

The password to gain wiki access once you register is "hamburger"

Original source: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7da5i/police_raids_reveal_baby_farms/c06cqxb