[ OPENING CREDITS. As per season ten. ]
[ 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... ]
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. DESK. DAY. DENNIS. Behind the desk are a harried
CROW and MIKE, accompanied by TOM, in a bathrobe, who's in the middle
of enunciating in his best overblown style. ]
TOM: ... and you'll love the view of the Satellite of Love you get from
behind the wheel of ... *your new car*!
[ CROW barely suppresses a frustrated cry. ]
MIKE: Hi, everyone. If Crow and I seem to be on the edge of losing all
moral judgement it's because our own Tom Servo here has contracted
a nagging case of The Price Is Right Announcer Showcase Segue
Syndrome, or Johnny Olson's Disease ...
TOM: ... and you'll recover from your bout with The Price Is Right
Announcer Showcase Segue Syndrome by taking a ride to the hospital
in ... *your new car*!
CROW: [ Staring, jaw-dropped, at CAMBOT. ] He's gone on just this way on
almost everything we say ever since the 23rd of May.
TOM: ... and you'll love listening to your Allan Sherman CD collection
on the deluxe collectible sound system in ... *your new car*!
MIKE: Gypsy ejected herself into space on Memorial Day.
TOM: ... when you can take the season's first trip to the Shore in --
[ MIKE, screaming, grabs TOM's dome and tosses it away. ]
TOM: Well, now, *that's* just overreacting.
[ MADS sign flashes. ]
CROW: Hey, uh, Kitty Carlisle, Mark Goodson, and Bill Todman are calling.
MIKE: Yello?
[ MIKE taps the sign. ]
[ CASTLE FORRESTER. PROFESSOR BOBO is laying in bed, clutching a teddy
bear and his sheets; OBSERVER is his nurse. PEARL is nibbling
from a box of get-well chocolates. ]
BOBO: C ... M ...
OBSERVER: One more.
BOBO: K ... and an I.
PEARL: Oh, stop whining. Bobo's had Acute Wheel of Fortune Bonus Round
Condition for a week and you don't see Brain Guy about to smack
him silly, do you?
BOBO: Licorice tabernacle?
OBSERVER: Actually, Pearl, if you're asking --
[ PEARL turns around and glares at him. ]
OBSERVER: -- Right, then. Three consonants and a vowel, Professor.
BOBO: V ... F ... H ...
OBSERVER: And a vowel?
BOBO: A.
PEARL: Say, you know what's good for your brain being fried by the
incomprehensible ravings of others?
BOBO: Marzipan doorknob?
OBSERVER: You have R, S, T, L, N, E.
BOBO: G ... P ... W ...
PEARL: Why don't you scurry on into the theater and fry your brains
on the incomprehensible ravings of James Harris?
BOBO: U?
PEARL: Scurry along, little ones. Servo. *Now*.
[ PEARL waits confidently while nothing happens. ]
BOBO: Ticonderoga gumdrop?
PEARL: [ Less confident ] Now?
OBSERVER: Giving you R, S, T, L, N, and for a change, E.
BOBO: J ... D ... R ...
OBSERVER: Ooooh. You already had R, sorry.
[ PEARL swats OBSERVER with the candy box, sending some chocolates in
the air, which BOBO scoops up eagerly. ]
BRAIN: Oh, yes, right, Mike, sorry. War of Attrition, you know?
[ He does the mind-sending thingy with the sound effect thing. ]
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. As above; TOM hasn't got his dome back yet. ]
TOM: Boy, glad I don't have an annoying disease like that.
CROW: [ Restrained single-handed by MIKE. ] Lemme at him! Lemme at him!
I'll splat him!
[ MOVIE SIGN ]
MIKE: Save it --
ALL: WE GOT MOVIE SIGN!
[ 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ]
[ THEATER. ALL enter, TOM still dome-less. ]
> Path: rpi!news.usc.edu!
TOM: Your USC news feeders coming to you by way of *your new car*!
CROW: Hit him!
[ MIKE puts a fresh dome on TOM. ]
TOM: I'll be good.
> newsfeed.news.ucla.edu!
CROW: I understand ``Newsucla'' is a dirty word in some places.
> newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!
MIKE: Post-News-Herald-Dispatch-Tribune-Chronicle-Times-Journal.
> a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
TOM: Not for chain mail.
> From: jstevh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Newsgroups: alt.math.undergrad,alt.math,alt.math.recreational,sci.math
CROW: And the sci.math all-number-theory cheerleaders!
> Subject: JSH: War of attrition
MIKE: Isn't that a Gwar album?
> Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 22:37:09 -0700
TOM: So it's ... negative 678:37:09?
> Organization: http://groups.google.com
> Lines: 104
CROW: Straight Lines: 75.
> Message-ID: <1180676229.362935.284210@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
MIKE: Remember to pre-Google. You don't want to search for
'lentil bathtub' without warming up.
> NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.164.117.60
> Mime-Version: 1.0
CROW: Nine-Version: 0.1.
> Content-Type: text/plain;
MIKE: But you can decorate it with maybe a cherry scarf
or a smiling button?
> charset="iso-8859-1"
> X-Trace: posting.google.com 1180676229 31488 127.0.0.1
TOM: Aren't those our orbital elements?
> (1 Jun 2007 05:37:09 GMT)
CROW: Grover Meridian Time -- the time zone of Grover everywhere!
> X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 05:37:09 +0000 (UTC)
MIKE: The Universal Tickle Company has nothing to add to the time!
> User-Agent: G2/1.0
TOM: G2, G1.0, give or take.
CROW: It's really G4.872.
> X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0
MIKE: A fifth of Mozilla?
TOM: With a spot of gin.
> (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4)
CROW: It's like when the thunderstorm messes up the closed captioning.
> Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe)
MIKE: [ As Tigger ] G-zip G-zoo, woo hoo hoo hoo!
> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Injection-Info: a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com;
posting-host=67.164.117.60;
TOM: But no carbohydrates, so it's Atkins-friendly.
> posting-account=Q2zO6wwAAABSLuGzZIjG0efOtB9n8fUY
CROW: When computers curse in Baudot code!
> Xref: rpi sci.math:396490
MIKE: I was never good at these analogy questions.
>
> The Math Wars
[ TOM hums the opening to 'Star Wars', as in, dum-dum-dum-DAAAA-DUM! ]
> are to me all about how some people with position and
> power forget the power of the pen,
MIKE: To the brew that is true.
CROW: Don't say a line like that when you've just had garlic.
> and sit letting the pot slowly come
> to a boil.
CROW: This week on baffling metaphor theater!
TOM: Then add three cups of sliced carrots and a dash of mustard.
>
> When I feel a bit down
MIKE: The clerk tells me to stop fondling pillows.
> --like if insulting posters start getting to me--
CROW: Sneaking in under the door while I whap with my flyswatter ...
> I can do things like do Google searches on my open source project
> "Class Viewer" which took the number one spot for that search string,
> years ago.
TOM: After the original first-place holder was disqualified
for steroid use.
>
> It is all over the world.
CROW: Did you see it waving at you?
> I especially feel honored looking at the
> Chinese page,
MIKE: Which was all Greek to me.
> where words I typed years ago to describe my project
> have been translated.
CROW: ``With assembling to collects the viewering of the
desireably class to benefit. The making with.''
>
> That is an odd feeling.
TOM: Like when you think your socks are inside-out.
> And that is just one thing.
MIKE: I have many odd feelings and look forward to sharing
every one of them.
>
> Just a few days ago I started talking about a "managed copy" idea of
> mine
CROW: Copies include a full Dilbert's boss.
> and just typing up a post on my blog I found myself talking about
> it as digital media equipment self-encryption and of course went to
> the initials to designate it DMESE.
MIKE: [ Starting dramatically ] DUN DUN ... d ... huh?
TOM: He's ... made an acronym? Who cares?
MIKE: Maybe he's bragging he's had the idea of initials?
CROW: Or he's found a flaw in our whole system of letters?
TOM: [ Narrating ] With my new *letters*, words and even *acronyms*
can be created even by the likes of foolish unworthy peasants
such as *yourself*!
>
> That is just one more thing.
CROW: Funny feelings *and* he has a blog -- can nothing stop this man?
>
> Archimedes said that with a level long enough and a place to stand he
> could move the world
MIKE: Sheesh, my dad can barely use the level and a place to stand
to hang pictures straight.
> because he could conceive of greatness on a scale
> that most people cannot.
TOM: Ah, but could he imagine greatness with *letters*?
MIKE: It's got to be more than making an acronym.
>
> I can move the world.
>
> Not one of you can say the same.
CROW: Not without my *letters*!
TOM: Guy puts initials together, wants world to know. We can play
that game, I guess.
>
> My posts get translated to languages across the planet. I watch ideas
> of mine travel around the world.
MIKE: I see whole civilizations transmitting my messages back in time
to change the course of history!
TOM: Frishtory!
>
> Yet I am still stopped by academics who are dead-set on fighting the
> Math Wars to the bitter end, and mostly they just wait.
CROW: Plus his freshman Calc TA has lousy office hours.
>
> Yes, Princeton academics can stop me today.
MIKE: Yes, they can wrap me head to toe in duct tape and leave me
in the back room. I'll bring the tape.
> Yes, Harvard academics
> can hold the line today.
TOM: I won't need the line until the weekend anyway.
>
> But they burn everything their universities have built up over the
> years in the process and I let them.
CROW: To be honest, I'm not sure why I did that. I hope I left
myself a note about it.
MIKE: A note made almost entirely of *letters*!
>
> I emailed the University of California at Berkeley to note some
> unethical behavior by Arturo Magidin,
MIKE: Who was clearly abusing the ``take all you want'' rule at
the Golden Prawn Chinese Buffet.
> and noticed at that point that
> Ralph McKenzie is listed as faculty,
TOM: And not as a Decepticon underling.
> where it notes he is at my alma
> mater Vanderbilt University.
CROW: Case closed.
>
> Yup, I know that as I visited him there years ago,
MIKE: But don't be jealous. Many people can visit professors at
Vanderbilt University if they learn my invention of *letters*.
> before my paper was
> published,
TOM: When there were concerts in the park.
> retracted after sci.math'ers including Magidin trumped the
> formal peer review system with some emails,
CROW: Before they sent a squad of highly physically developed
``Mathletes'' to do a pole vault over an obelus.
> and the freaking math
> journal died.
TOM: That's _The Journal of Freaking Math_.
MIKE: The official mathematics journal of Freakazoid.
>
> Academics can only sit and wait, while I move forward over time.
CROW: Occasionally I move too far forward, and bump into the railing
overlooking the balcony. I move to the side a little, and
start moving forward again.
> Knowing that at the end, I go for the entire system to reform it.
>
> And I will change their world.
MIKE: I will infuse it with drawn butter baked right in.
>
> I send papers to math journals and I [ beep ] well get a reply.
CROW: Like ``No'' and ``Who are you again, exactly?''
> Sure,
> they're polite rejections but they had better reply to me.
TOM: Or else I may visit people at *more* universities and
withhold from them my vitally needed *letters*!
>
> You people don't get it because I post among you, and you think that
> because I post I must be at your level.
MIKE: I'm actually posting things that are nine-dimensional and
subject to rotation in fourteen dimensions at once.
>
> Yeah only to use you in the Math Wars.
TOM: I need reserves in case a Tom Lehrer song breaks out.
> I want mathematicians around
> the world to keep thinking about what you are thinking.
CROW: I think that's what I want to think I want you thinking about.
> I want them
> working hard to figure out how well they have you in hand.
MIKE: Touching and caressing you with loving grace.
>
> I want them working to keep you.
TOM: Make sure they call you daily to see how you're doing.
>
> I want them to demean themselves, crawl on their hands and knees to
> keep you believing in them.
MIKE: To sit up on their nests and keep a bundle of chicken eggs warm.
>
> And they are doing it.
CROW: They're the *best*, guys.
>
> While the war of attrition continues and it is all about inertia and
> momentum as I have always needed time.
MIKE: Time, and a bit of money, and -- don't ask why --
my own Phillies Phanatic costume.
>
> If the world knew too quickly what my discoveries really are, then the
> true targets could have escaped,
CROW: Spooking the herd and causing a stampede from the watering hole.
> but now the net closes, and you are
> the fish that were always part of the trap.
TOM: I ... don't put fish in traps.
CROW: It's for when you want to capture herring-eating mice.
>
> You were always the bait.
TOM: And I was the naughty s****ting goods ca****er ... heh-heh-*heh*.
>
> They care so [ beep ] much about what you people think of them that they
> are willing to lose everything, grasping for what they cannot hold.
MIKE: Why don't they just kiss you instead of talking you to death?
>
> Public opinion is such a great thing. I love it. Public opinion is
> all about perception.
CROW: Remember always to judge people by how you think
your neighbors judge them.
>
> People like Andrew Wiles are nothing without the applause or the
> dreams of it.
TOM: Groupies gathered outside his door, women throwing panties
onto his Fermat's Last Theorem galley sheets ...
> They'll hold on, and hold on, and hold on,
CROW: His needle's stuck.
[ MIKE reaches up and ``shoves'' Mr Harris. ]
> and give
> their energy, their very life blood to hold on to it,
CROW: They're donor type AB-elian positive.
> even if that is
> the means that is used to build the energy to end the wars.
MIKE: And with it RULE the WORLD!
>
> They give their life's blood for you to believe in them.
TOM: So everyone in the audience, clap, clap as loud and
as hard as you can and just maybe if we all believe enough
we can save Dracula!
> And that is
> the energy that drives this forward.
>
> That is the hope of the world.
CROW: That hope, and a cuddly little bunny.
>
> It was always about time. I have always needed time.
MIKE: Time and my new ... *LETTERS*!
TOM: He thought up an acronym and that's enough for us?
>
>
> James Harris
TOM: Thank you, thank you, you've been a great crowd.
Remember to tip your cows.
CROW: Waitresses.
TOM: Tip your waitresses's cows.
>
>
MIKE: Let's blow this popsicle stand.
[ ALL exit, as appropriate. ]
[ 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.. ]
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. TOM, MIKE, and CROW shake out their heads. ]
MIKE: I think after that we've all learned an im****tant lesson.
TOM: And if you don't want me to put you on the spot by asking
what it was you'd better give me a quarter.
MIKE: What are you, Charlie McCarthy? I'm not afraid to explain it.
CROW: Ooh, ooh, ooh, I know, I know what that was all about, can I tell?
MIKE: Yes, yes, you may, Master Crow.
TOM: Fink.
CROW: [ Standing tall ] Ahem. Thank you and thank *you*.
[ TOM snorts. ] That was all about ... *cats*. Thank you.
MIKE: [ Touching his shoulder. ] That was elegantly wrong, thank you.
[ AIRLOCK opens and closes. GYPSY enters. ]
MIKE: GYPSY! Hey, good to see you.
TOM: [ Simultaneously ] Gypsy's back! Yay!
CROW: [ A second later ] Why not cats?
GYPSY: What is ... likewise?
TOM: Um ...
CROW: It's been a madhouse without you.
GYPSY: What is ... I'd imagined so?
[ MIKE buries his head in his hands. ]
TOM: Don't say it ... you're suffering from the heartbreak of ...
ALL: What is Trebekiasis?
[ MADS sign flashes; MIKE sticks out a hand enough to hit it. ]
[ CASTLE FORRESTER. BOBO is still in his bed, with a ****table typewriter
precariously perched on his stomach. The teddy bear is by the
typewriter. Occasionally BOBO taps a key. PEARL FORRESTER
watches over with blue pencil. OBSERVER is up front. ]
OBSERVER: And welcome back. As long as Professor Bobo's incapacitated
Pearl and I thought it would be a real kick to test out that
bit about monkeys at typewriters producing the complete works of
Shakespeare, so there you have it.
BOBO: You know, I'm fairly sure I am recovered.
PEARL: Type.
[ BOBO whimpers and then with a single finger hits one key, then
another, then gets his fingers jammed between two keys,
and whimpers again. ]
PEARL: This just ... this isn't working.
OBSERVER: No, not in the slightest.
PEARL: We need to throw more monkeys at the problem.
[ BOBO grunts while looking up? ]
OBSERVER: I'll materialize the catapult. [ He walks off. ]
PEARL: [ Surprised, following ] Now that's the kind of thinking
I want around here.
BOBO: [ Looking at the camera ] Uh-oh.
[ BOBO hides under the blanket, and after a pause, reaches his hand out
to grab the teddy bear and pull it under. ]
|
\ | /
\ | /
\|/
----O----
/|\
/ | \
/ | \
|
This Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of the James S
Harris post ``War of Attrition'' is done without the explicit permission
of any of the many parties who should probably have given it, among them
James S Harris, renowned citizen of sci.math; Best Brains Incor****tated,
renowed production company for Mystery Science Theater 3000; the fine
legacy of game shows the world over; and in some unexplained but im****tant
fa****on, Major League Baseball. No infringement on or challenge to any
copyrights, trademarks, service marks, or anything else is intended nor
should be inferred. This MiSTing as a whole is the creation of Joseph
Nebus, who probably had more useful things to do with his time, but who
is beginning to despair of Dr Mike Neylon ever returning. Thank you.
> The Math Wars are to me all about how some people with position and
> power forget the power of the pen, and sit letting the pot slowly come
> to a boil.
|
