Agua Perdido

Hence, let our match be 'Water in Pants' versus 'Water on the Brain.' If I win, you pay for my dry-cleaning; if you win, I pay for your trephination. And don't try to use that gamey syntax in the battle. Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

I'll take summa dat. And leave the #@$% smilies out if it--this is the PENG thread, not the OHMIGOD-OHMIGOD-OHMIGOD-JUSTIN-FROM-THE-BACKSTREET-BOYS-IS-SO-CUTE! thread. If you can tear yourself away from trolling for "cyber" on the latter, send me a setup (prefer 1250 or less, med quality, rest up to you). Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

Well, I can't argue with that. The 'Pools taught me this much: if you lack the wit, pile on the tedious twaddle! Or start referring to "thingies" and variations thereupon. This fascination with Anthony Zerba is quite unnatural (though apropos, as the ragtag, fugitive 'Pool again flees the Matt-lon tyranny). Equally as unnatural is your veneration of the Clash. What's the attraction? -Raw, rockin' garage sound. Yes, but the Ramones were and are more authentic, and probably founded "garage-land." -Angry, political lyrics. Sure, if you don't mind that the Dead Kennedys kick their ass at it and have better musical chops. -British accents and pretention. Sting's got them beat by a factor 10, plus he had the sheer, self-important evilness to break up the Police and work for Disney. -They put it all together in a total package of mediocrity that is much less than the sum of its parts. Hey, now that's something I'm sure you can relate to. No wonder you like 'em. You may as well send a setup--I'm annoying but persistent, like a dose of drug-resistant clap. Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

Wildman--might've suspected you were in the Chair Force, since you seem to have an IQ comparable to the average zoomie's golf handicap. Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

Ouch! Curb your Shavian ripostes, sir, lest I bleed! If your tactical acumen matches your wit, then send a setup--I could use the easy win. Agua Perdido (For the rest of you: more Inane Space Crap when they fix the camera.) ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

[Establishing shot: Space. It's the same one as last time, except printed backwards so the spaceship drifts the other way.] [Cut to: Conference room. It's the bridge set with a few flats hastily arranged behind the captain's chair and a card table between the CAPTAIN GUY and ENSIGN NYE (THE SCIENCE GUY).] CG: So, dogmatic schism threatens the Cesspool Sector, again, eh? EN(TSG): Aye, Captain. CG: Yes, I'd be upset, too, if an overblown halfwit like Croda or an inveterate ovine-o-phile like PeterNZer were elevated to knighthood. EN(TSG): But Slapdragon, the usurper, doesn't even know the difference between atomic number and atomic weight! CG: Enough of your grog talk! One in this sector is too many, already, plus he threatens to take a sizeable splinter faction into his "Krewe" and their "Kribbe" with its fussy secret-society rank system (and it is rank--phew!) with their titles and "masters at bum fondling" and "high poobahs of mediocrity" and whatnot. Hell, Hiram's even posting that he actually HATES people. Why, it's chaos, Ensign, of Biblical proportions! Do you know what this means? EN(TSG): Uh, posting volume might go up a little? CG: Well, yeah, I guess that's about it. Send the transmission to the Seanachaites. [Cut to: same establishing shot as at the top of the act.] CG: [Voiceover] Seanachai! I pay you the respect of being the second person in Cesspool Sector that I challenge. Chupacabra disappeared from the 'Pool for several hours after one of my challenges (even if it was just to sleep), and if you do the same, I will have done the 'Pool a service. Too long have you held sway with your mind-numbing wordiness, annoyingly perky sing-songs, and baffling advocacy of Canadians and other cold-addled midwesterners. Plus, your loathsome connivance with fey Lorak to establish an even-more-codified pleasant order to the Cesspool Sector is an abomination before Peng! [Cut to: Bridge (the "conference room" card table is visible on the floor behind the captain's chair), the CAPTAIN GUY continues speaking as the camera slowly revolves around him.] CG: You represent the detested ancien regime, the oppressor of the avant garde, the antithesis of prix fixe. As Jefferson said, "the tree of Liberty is fertilized by corpses and cess alike," and your cess-laden corpse shall provide meat food, indeed. I realize that you will be reluctant, even fearful, to accept my challenge--as one who Losttopeng, you may be wary of playing a newbie who could be as good as "average," instead of brimming with Pudlian incompetence. Roust yourself from your unwholesome caresses of the pile of briefs that you stole from Hiram's laundry bag and fight! Is their aroma so much more intoxicating to you than burnt flesh and cordite? The 'Pool is about bile, sure, but blood as well--and it's time to spill most of yours. Send a setup. [Camera lurches and POV swings wildy] [POV: lying sideways on the floor of the bridge set. In the background, we hear CAMERA OPERATOR.] CO: Dammit, who left the card table behind the Captain's chair? [Cut to commercial] Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

[Establishing shot: Space. A spaceship drifts against an overly-bright background that's obviously been cribbed from a false-color HST image. Caption: "Cesspool Sector"] [Dissolve to: Bridge of spaceship. The CAPTAIN GUY confers with ENSIGN NYE (THE SCIENCE GUY)] CG: Still no reponse from Chupacabra to our challenge? EN(TSG): No, sir, he's just sitting there, uh, sucking. [shot of toilet-whirlpool-like space vortex, sucking. Caption: "Chupacabra"] CG: Not even a, "Piss off, you unfunny git, I won't play you"? Damn his cowardly eyes! Standing behind that aloof reproach like he's an Andrean or something.... EN(TSG): He might just be out for the weekend. CG: Shut up! We need a new plan. Replay the transmission from the Seanachaites. [A hooded SEANACHAI appears on the viewscreen.] S: Single Knight Male seeks "Squire" to "polish" my "lance," and provide "sheath" for my "sword." Clothing optional, bring lubricant. No freaks. CG: Why does the GermanBoy5000 keep putting those quotation marks in the translation? EN(TSG): MadMatt has been patrolling Cesspool Sector, sir, requiring them to be elliptical in describing their, uh, appetites--Captain! Incoming transmission from Bauhaus! CG: Open a channel and signal "sit down--he said, 'appetites,' not 'catamites.'" Then, plot a course for the Grandiloquent Cluster--maybe we can pick a fight with that Canuck-loving gasbag. [Fade to black] [Commercial] Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

[interior: Bridge of starship. The CAPTAIN GUY dictates exposition aloud while ENSIGN NYE (THE SCIENCE GUY) watches the instruments.] CG: ...continuing our combat patrol of the Cesspool Sector. The inhabitants are uniformly scornful--even the Sedai system signalled us to put the metaphorical boot in, although from them it was more like a metaphorical fluffy bunny slipper. EN(TSG): Captain, we're approaching Chupacabra system. CG: Open a challenge frequency and signal in all known languages, "We come in war. We mean you every possible harm." EN(TSG): Sensors show a space anomaly! [it's a flashing, swirling space vortex, like a nebula being flushed down a big toilet.] EN(TSG): The anomaly is Chupacabra, sir. It's sucking in planets, dust, energy--not even light can escape it! CG: Is it a black hole? EN(TSG): No, sir, gravity readings are normal. Chupacabra just really, really sucks. CG: Battle stations! Set QB torpedos for 1000 points! [Cut to commercial] Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

I didn't know I was called "Dennis." You could just call me "Man." Agua Perdido ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema!

Stalk you? Not in the way you think, with all the pictures of your mother with Lara Flynn Boyle's face that you've pasted on the walls next to your bed using--ewwwww, someone's seen "Happiness" a few too many times... [shudder] You may be president of the Philip Seymour Hoffman Fan Club, but you're definitely not getting back your cleaning deposit. Where was I? Oh yes, more stalking in the vein of: "Hey, what's that flashing red dot on my head?" (BANG!) "Why are my brains in my lap?" Having only a handful of gravel in your skull to prop up your Neanderthal-esque brow will finally pay off: you can use a whisk broom to clean up afterward, avoiding the expensive dry cleaning bill that spilled gray matter would entail. A glam-metal fan, eh? I knew those Clash lyrics were a front! I'll bet your hard drive is filled with Twisted Sister mp3's. ("No, Mrs. Chupacabra, I think your son's interest in pansies is just healthy experimentation.... I'm sure it's just a phase.... What?... Lara Flynn Boyle?... And he's stuck up how many?... With what?!... I see... I see... We'll take that up at next week's session, but I think he's going to forfeit his cleaning deposit... Yes, see you tonight. Wear the red dress.") Definitely "snuggly warm wool blankets." But the itchy kind, because I'm all edgy--like Peter Lorre. You're more an "aborable newborn kittens" kinda guy, right, like Sydney Greenstreet? Damn! Now he'll never ask me to the prom! Tell me about it! Have you ever washed those things? Lurkers learn to hate just as savagely as empty-headed Herr Post-a-Lots (COUGHandreasCOUGH). And you actually bothered to check my profile? That's exactly the sort of pointless "I either need to get a life or actually play some of my pending CM games" background checking I'd expect from Croda. The fact that you are still alive is depriving some techno-loving German teenager of a longed-for pair of lawyer-hide pants that would look oh-so-stylish at the next rave, even though the carcass they came from dressed like a used car salesman in life (but don't tell the young German lad... hint it was really Alan Dershowitz or Clarence Darrow and slap a bootleg "Benetton" label on it). Have a nice bickie, cob. That's some good tucka, innit? Yes, celebrate your national liberation, a day as rousing as Canada Day. Whee! Today is the anniversary of our administrative autonomy! We commemorate the brave bureaucrats who filed the paperwork! Like an Aussie needs an excuse for a bit of a drink-up... Agua Perdido [Edited because dammit, I love this game.] ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema! [This message has been edited by Agua Perdido (edited 01-25-2001).]

[setting: dusty street in the middle of Peng-thread Town (dusty? the street's awfully muddy for that... eewwwwwww...). It's probably sometime around noon, but the sun is hard to make out in the swirling, noisome fog that blankets Peng-thread Town.] [A dirty sheep, its hindquarters shaved, stumbles down the street like a bleating, animated tumbleweed.] [A lone figure walks slowly down the street in front of the saloon, spurs a-jinglin' as much as they can a-manage while a-covered in filth and barely breaking clean of the muck on each step.] Chupacabra! I'm a-callin' you out! Yer yella (and not in a good way, like the ribbon she wore around her neck for her lover in the yoo-ess cavulray--but I'll a-git to you later, Joe Shaw) and I'm a-fixin' to fix you good! C'mon out, ya lili-livered varmint! Y'all'll suck goats even better once I'm done boot'n y'all's teeth in! [Pause to hawk phlegm and gob horribly in the street... The pleasant familiarity of a loogie makes the part of the street where it lands seem a little less unsettling than the rest of the mucky avenue...] Now, as for you, Joe Shaw: You crone-mongering Mormon fetishizer! What is your obsession with BY's concubines? Were you invovled in the SLC free speech movement back in the '60s? Do a little too much LDS? Your brain would have to be drug-addled to rate "SWAYR" higher than JW's nuanced, mature performance in "The Searchers." Clearly you are an even bigger doofus than you have always appeared to be! And as for your challenge to prove I'm not an imposter: ha! Prove I'm not you! You're just the type of insecure weasel to make up a new board persona so you can talk to yourself in public. Count yourself lucky that Chupacabra is an even bigger buffoon than you, or else you would have the onus of sending your setup to certain destruction at my hands. Andreas (who has the brain of a duck, you know): If I knew where it was, I wouldn't be lost now, would I? True to form, just like the early days, you are doggedly pendantic, persistently multilingual and unashamedly foreign. Thanks to the recent sickening picture-love-fest, I can add that you are also a fuzz-pated, pasty-faced, bespectacled goofball. After I'm done with Chupacabra and Shaw, I won't challenge you real soon because you probably play too much better than I do. I mean, uh, more abusive and unkind things about you and selected relatives. Everyone else: Why the love fest? Meeks was (shudder) right with his PSA: even with the pictures and toned-down words, you don't have to let go of your hate! Use this chance to mock peoples' appearances! Some of you have already. You are all degenerate low-lifes with the reasoning ability of a bag of hammers, but surely (may I call you Shirley?) we can increase the unkindness of the current pool discourse. Remember: if you don't have anything nice to say, say it here. Now get out and put the boot in! Chupacabra: You are a knave, and a villain, and a[n] [illegitimate child]. Come out of hiding, you dastard, and fight! Agua Perdido [Edited to remove errant pictures of wiener dogs.] ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema! [This message has been edited by Agua Perdido (edited 01-25-2001).]

Catamites (sit down, Bauhaus). I remember this word from one of the first pages of the Old Peng Thread, long before the great Peng Diasporas, P2K or even P1K. I remember when MarkIV used to obsessively compile statistics on how often people posted to The Thread (or was it GITom? You all look alike to me) just as Seanachai used to obsessively fill screen after screen with sing-songs and prolix blather (including his early mention of "catamites," but we'll come back to that). I remember when Hiram first yapped his cheerful puppy-dog postings and kept coming back, no matter how many times Poolers posted rolled-up newspapers onto his nose. I remember the Great Schism, the Pool Down Unda, and the bizarre evolution of structure in what is, after all, just a big sewage tank (albeit now a sewage tank with lace curtains). I have lurked around the 'Pool since before it was a Pool, back when it was just a smelly patch of mud, back before it was even Mutha Beautiful. I have lurked until my hair has gone white from the fumes, my heart gone cold from the hate, and my stomach gone all funny from SMOGBSFB's haggis. I watched as Seanachai's subterranean comedies of manners gave way to Croda's "McHale's Heart of Darkness," as Schloss Peng transformed from a dreary Gothic manse (in which any mad scientist would feel at home) into a cheery suburban ranch-style tract house with a cute-kitten-emblazoned welcome mat (in which most mad scientists would still feel at home due to the unwholesome forces not-quite-concealed within). I watched as Hiram, sweet, innocent Hiram, became squire to Seanachai (I said we'd come back to "catamites") and grew embittered, morose, even angry. I remember when Peng had venom enough for daily sprayings into the eyes of passers-by, when Meeks had froth and spittle enough to provide fully half the 'Pool's effluent requirements. Has anything really changed in all that time? Some of the names, some of the people, some of the language.... But important constants remain: you are all deranged fools, barely worthy of contempt and almost (but not entirely) lacking enough mental dexterity to groom each other's metaphorical lice (but with a surfeit of hunger to consume said treasure, once gleaned). But there is one exception: Chupacabra. You, sir, are a gibbering lack-wit. You are a cowardly villain so lacking in manly vigor that you fled to the land of "by-your-leave-sir" and "make-my-pint-extra-room-temperature-guv'nor," instead of staying here in 'Merica, where, as the poet Homer proclaimed, "[we] like [our] beer cold, [our] TV loud, and [our] homosexuals FLAMING!" (Granted, the UK is a land whose native cuisine--flavorless, greasy and uninspired--matches the character of your postings... but I digress.) Your paucity of personal courage is rivalled only by your tactical ineptitude. Indeed, even your uncertain lineage and dubious hygienic practices are not as disturbing as your pusillinamity and inability to command. You may have extended a hollow challenge to "come get some" lo these many Peng Thread Incarnations ago (and a hollow challenge, indeed, from one who has likely never gotten any), but now it is time to face annihilation. I challenge you, Chupacabra. You may suck goats, but soon you will be my [female dog]. I will not describe detailed indignities to be visited upon your defeated forces; I only promise their destruction. When we meet upon the field of battle, I will kill and kill until it's only about killing anymore and not about having fun. Send me a setup (prefer <1500pt) or you may warm yourself where fire is cheapest. Agua Perdido (Croda: You tasteless git. Good call on "The Searchers." JW's portrayal of a man driven by obsessive hate is both brilliant and utterly fitting to the 'Pool; it is undoubtedly his (and John Ford's) best work. Another great JW flick is his first: "Stagecoach," a good look at his instinctive acting chops and natural charisma.) [Edited to remove pesky flecks of spittle.] [This message has been edited by Agua Perdido (edited 01-24-2001).]

I'm having this problem, too. When I try to run 1.1b on my OS8.1 system, I get an error dialog complaining that "NavigationLib" cannot be found. Is it possible to install this library on an 8.1 setup? Or will I finally have to bite the bullet and upgrade to 8.5/8.6? Is anyone out there running 1.1 on MacOS8.1 successfully? Thanks, AP

After a couple months of playing the demo, I finally ordered and received CM a couple of days ago. In anticipation of the worthy event, I upgraded my creaking PowerCenter with an XLR8 Carrier Zif with a G3 clocked up to 400MHz, plus a new monitor and an ATI Rage Orion. No more fuzzy 5-year-old Apple Multiscan with snail-paced onboard video for me! I even upgraded to 0S8.1. On installing the components and CM (everything came on the same day--whee!), I eagerly started it up and... 640x480, crappy on-board video. Despair! I wailed and gnashed my teeth. After browsing this forum and searching the Apple website, I finally realized the Rage Orion wouldn't work with my ancient QuickDraw 3D 1.5.1 extensions. I downloaded a copy of Apple's OpenGL1.1.2 installer (URL: http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11545), which includes QD3D 1.6 and a set of ATI drivers that looked more current than the ones installed by Universal Installer 4.2, but less current than the drivers available at http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11680. Installed the OpenGL package, rebooted--hallelujau! 1024 x 768, fog, transparency, smoke, explosions, the whole nine yards! Can I have an "amen"? Amen! Excellent fun, and I'm already converting my friends. Great job, BTS! I'm looking forward to many hours of fun. (Edited to fix bad URLs) ------------------ Feel the pain of outlaw cinema! [This message has been edited by Agua Perdido (edited 09-15-2000).]