Friday, September 22, 2006

A tale of sense and nonsense

Yesterday one of the computer imps escaped from his Web. He briefly played here and there before settling down to cast a dense yellow fog over all places of learning in the Duchy. The alert librarians were the first to notice the problem. They sent calls and pigeons far and wide with the message "We are currently surrounded by a dense yellow fog. What kind of NonSense is this?" The sorcerers at TiTS received the call and responded "Oh, it's WebSense again!" for that, in fact, was the culprit's name. They immediately sprang into action. In no time at all they had cast the appropriate spells, captured the miscreant imp and tossed him back into his place in the Web. Another Brisk Breeze Spell and the last of the yellow fog was dissipated. After that they cleaned up their spell-casting debris, wiped up the chalk marks, tossed the yellow message slips and went back to their normal routine of Not dealing with problems, Not answering messages, and Not receiving visitors. The rest of the Duchy went back to work. And that would have been the end of it but for an errant breeze that came in through the window and scooped up one of the yellow message slips, slipping it across the floor, out the door and down the hall. The wayward message slip was almost out the front door when GoG wandered out of her lair right in front of the message slip. She looked up and saw, right in front of her very eyes, words hanging in the air against a yellow background. And the words said "We are currently surrounded by a dense yellow fog. What kind of NonSense is this?" "I see it! I see the fog" she exclaimed not noticing the edges of the message slip or much of anything else. Immediately she rushed back into her lair and went to work. Using some common household items, rubber bands, paper clips, eye of newt, her second best stone tablet and third best chisel, she worked busily to assemble a COMMITTEE. Looking at her COMMITTEE and finding it good she notified the librarians "I have assembled a COMMITTEE to work on the important Canary Cloud issue. We will be consulting an astrologer to determine the most auspicious time for our next meeting. We will then put together a focus group to discuss other Canary, Buttercup, and Lemon issues. We will let you know our results before the end of the century." The librarians received the message and said "Canary Cloud? Buttercup? What is she on about now?" and tossed the message away. Later, as they discussed the days events over tea, they realized that GoG's Canary Cloud was probably the mischievous imp, WebSense. One wondered "Why would GoG create a COMMITTEE to investigate that imp, WebSense. She knows nothing about imps." Her friend replied "Well, she has the Web part down all right, I've seen it, but she hasn't got the Sense."

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