Pick-Up Lines

I think that maybe a good line to use on women at parties would be “I don’t like to be called a computer programmer.  I prefer to think of myself as a binary stylist.”  But maybe they’d just throw ice cubes at you if you said that.   Try it and let me know if it works.

It would be fun to make a rated catalogue of pick-up lines.  Do you want to help me do this?  Next time you’re in a suitable public place, such as the library, go around and try a few different lines.  Keep track of which ones are successful and which are not.  Actually, to make this appear more scientific, perhaps you could rate the success of each line on a scale of one to ten.  Then send all of the data to me and I’ll compile and analyze the submissions.

Here’s an example:

You may have noticed that the last line on this list is fairly gender-specific, but I’d like to stress that females are encouraged to participate in this study as well.  If they choose to do so, they can use comparable, equally gender-specific substitutes, such as “I’d rip out both my eyes just so you’d have more holes to screw me in.”

DISCLAIMER: Don’t actually say any of this crap, you moron.  The staff of monzy.com assumes no liability for any lost or damaged pride, black eyes, or lawsuits that result from the use of these lines.

Inside Out

I received an overwhelming response to my October 6th update about the song “Inside Out” by Eve 6.  Before I share some of the replies with you, I’d like to clarify something.

The lyrics I posted on October 6th were not my own transcription; they were excerpted from the printed lyrics.  You can verify that the lyrics to “Inside Out” contain the word “rhines” by visiting the official Eve 6 web site.  Many people suggested that the word is in fact “rinds”.  If this is the case, then the error is not mine, but that of the band’s employees.

Now that I’ve cleared that up, here are excerpts from some replies from the public, prefaced with brief descriptions.

• Nicole had a very reasonable response, despite her claims of being “half drunk on Carib Beer” :Are those the printed lyrics and are they European?  Because if the first answer is no, and/or the second is yes, then it is possible they could be talking about rinds… then you could metaphorically apply that to someone swallowing their pride but not being able to swallow it because it has an indigestible rind…
• John asked me if I was an “article”, and then suggested a unique linkage between the song and Carnegie Mellon University.  Perhaps he had been drinking as well.I was just reading you’re article? on that song by Eve 6. It’s rinds. like mellon rind. I don’t know if that’s spelled right but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
• Rick made fun of me, but ended up looking rather silly himself:Well, I hope you were joking, but the word is probably “rhinds”, meaning the very bitter skin of a fruit, like the outside of an orange.
• Chris offered some new information from his video research:I’ve heard that song before.  Actually I’ve seen the video a couple of times.  Have you seen it?  He’s in this restaurant, eating dinner, and it’s raining, only the rain is coming down on him, in the restaurant, not outside.  How ironic.  It’s like the whole world’s inside out.  How clever.  So anyway, based on your transcription of the lyrics, my guess is that the word is not “rhines” but “rinds.”  In his forceful ingestion of his pride he does not bother to peel it well; and so he chokes.  The “lack thereof” refers to lack of pride, like a tiny nut within a thick husk.  “Rinds” works equally as well as “rhines” with the rhyme scheme, if not better, since it only “rhymes” with “pride.”

  Of course, if you got the lyrics from some official site or the line notes from the album or something, I could be wrong.

• Adam Fass‘ commentary was by far the most thorough:I have heard people refer to the yucky green part of the cantaloupe or the white stuff between the peel and the juicy part of an orange as “rind”.  Perhaps choking on the rind could be an analogy for swallowing one’s pride.

  I think he wants to admit that he was wrong about something, (swallow his pride and choke on rinds,) but either he doesn’t truly believe that he is wrong or whatever he would be admitting would be equally wrong.  In short, he might be saying “I could tell you I’m wrong but I don’t think you’re right.”  One can only guess at what sort of situation would produce such a conflict - perhaps some sort of religious dispute?  The following lines suggests just that:

  I would swallow my doubt,
  Turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing.

The next lines suggest that this conflict is really romantic in nature: (isn’t it always?)

Want to put my tender heart in a blender,
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion;

Thus far, I would hypothesize that some woman is forcing him to choose between his love for her and his lack of piety.  He claims that he could in fact swallow his pride and become pious, but he would not truly believe.  He feels that she would use his feelings toward her as leverage and ultimately “put his heart in a blender” if he does not comply with her demands.

Rendezvous, then I’m through with you.

This indicates that perhaps this woman is mistaken about how strongly he feels for her, and he has other plans.

Uber-Utensil

“But wait,” I thought, “why stop there?”  Just think of all of the instruments that we use every day!  They’re practically begging to be combined into one Uber-Utensil!  Here’s a conceptual sketch:

You’re free to patent and sell this amazing apparatus.  All I ask is that you give me a small cut (say, five percent) of your profits.  Now aren’t you glad that you visited monzy.com today?

Things to Do

Usually there are plenty of things to do on Friday nights, but not always.  Do you ever find yourself sitting around at home on a Friday night?  Don’t sweat it — monzy.com is here to save you from boredom.  Here are a couple of great things to do:

Late-Night Slurpee Runs Remember, 7-11 is beckoning you from just down the street.  It’s open 24 hours, and the slurpee machine is functional for at least 20 of those hours.  If the slurpee machine happens to be in “defrost mode”, don’t worry — the recently installed “Café Coolatta” machine offers delectable frozen coffee beverages.  In addition, there are magazines to browse through and clerks who are always willing to carry on a stimulating conversation. Slurpee tip: when you first dispense the slurpee into your cup, there will be a lot of air in the cup along with slurpee.  To get the maximum slurpee per dollar, it helps to stir and shake while dispensing to ensure that the slurpee is packed tightly.  You may also want to “top off” the slurpee as you leave the store, since you’re bound to drink some while waiting in line to pay.

20 ounces of frozen bliss.

Late-Night Cathedral Runs The University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning is a Gothic Revival skyscraper designed by architect Charles Z. Klauder.  Completed in 1937, it is the tallest school building in the western world, rising 535 feet (42 stories). After a few too many late-night slurpee runs, you may be looking for a way to burn off all those extra calories, right?  A Cathedral Run is the perfect solution.  It’s been a favorite pastime of my friends and I since the very first week of our freshman year. Jog to the cathedral as a warm-up.  Start in the sub-basement, and run as fast as possible up the stairs to the top.  Remember to pace yourself — the first 10 flights are easy, but by the time you’re on the 30th or so, it gets awfully painful. Unfortunately, the last 6 floors are inaccessible to the public, so you’ll have to stop at the 36th.  We’re not sure what’s on the top 6 floors, but our theory is that that’s where they carry out all of the top-secret army medical experiments on Pitt dropouts.

Daunting, yet beautiful.

Monzi’s Response

Yesterday I was looking through the survey logs and I noticed the following entry:

20:206.173.212.25:Wed:Oct:7:1998:06:53:26:ITEM1:0:

The entry indicated that on Wednesday, October 7, at 6:53 AM, someone at the IP address 206.173.212.25 had voted for Robert Monzi in the survey.

“That’s strange,” I thought, “the IP address is from outside of Carnegie Mellon.”  I immediately looked it up:

>nslookup 206.173.212.25

Name: ts006d13.las-nv.concentric.net
Address: 206.173.212.25

“Hmm,” I thought, “their internet service provider is concentric.net.   Could that have been Robert Monzi himself?”  A quick lookup using whois proved me correct:

>whois monzi.com

Domain Name: MONZI.COM

Administrative Contact:
Daniel V. Belfontaine (DV63-ORG) dvblfntn@CRIS.COM
702-655-3640

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.CNCHOST.COM 207.155.248.5
NS2.CNCHOST.COM 207.155.252.5

Visiting http://www.cris.com, I found that it was indeed the home of Concentric Networks Internet Services.

“That’s neat,” I thought, “Robert voted for himself.”  A few days ago my roommate had sent e-mail to Robert Monzi informing him of the survey, so I had actually been expecting a visit.

Today my roommate received the following e-mail from Robert Monzi:

Just a quick note that I found the survey interesting. I would like to take just a moment to advise you that the photos on my web site are copywrited by Playgirl Enterprises, Caqti Cosmetics and myself. You might want to advise your friend to remove them very soon. The fines for illegal use of copywrited material are quite substantial. Fortunately you sent me this email and gave me your name, your friend’s name and the school you attend. I don’t think it would take Playgirl’s or Caqti’s lawyers or mine for that matter very long to locate your friend and initiate legal action.

Let me assure you that I won’t take any legal action as long as the photos are removed by Friday of this week. I cannot speak for Playgirl. They may decide to pursue your friend on their own. They generally monitor the web on a regular basis for just this type of copywrite infringement.

I will check the site on Friday to see if the survey is still there. Understand that I am not mad about what your friend did. I actually think is was done without malicious intent. I just have to protect my “ass”ets and those of the companies that pay me to represent them. My image is my livelihood so please don’t give it away.

Robert

At Robert’s demand, his photos have been removed from the survey page.

I’m sure that Robert would welcome polite responses at robert@monzi.com.

Rhines?

I have this habit of becoming addicted to songs.  Does that ever happen to you?   You’ll hear a song on the radio, and you won’t think much of it.  Then you’ll hear it again a day later and you’ll think, “hey, this is really catchy.”   The next time you hear it you’ll start singing along, and before you know it you’ll get these cravings to hear the song over and over.  Fortunately, the addiction usually only lasts for a few days, at which point you realize that you don’t hate the song exactly, but you just don’t really want to hear it again.  It actually comes as a somewhat startling realization. “Wait,” you think to yourself, “it’s just as good of a song as it was the last 27 times I’ve heard it — why don’t I want to listen to it again?”

It happened to me a few months ago with that song “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger.  Before that it was “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies and “The Way” by Fastball.  Even earlier, there was “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain (insert wry commentary here that pokes fun at Dan’s musical taste) and “Ooh Ahh Just a Little Bit” by Gina G (insert even more insulting commentary here).

My latest addiction is the song “Inside Out” by Eve 6, which brings me to the point of this update: I have a question.  What are “rhines”?  In the chorus of “Inside Out”, lead vocalist Max Collins sings:

I would swallow my pride, I would choke on the rhines,
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside;
I would swallow my doubt,
Turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing.
Want to put my tender heart in a blender,
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion;
Rendezvous, then I’m through with you.

My only guess is that the “rhines” are some metaphorical component of his pride, so that when his pride is swallowed, he “chokes” upon the rhines.   Or perhaps he doesn’t choke on them, since he refers to a “lack thereof” which makes him “empty inside” — does this mean a lack of pride, or a lack of rhines?

Have an answer?  Write me.

Easy Contest

Every since I put up this month’s new survey, I’ve been wanting to e-mail Robert Monzi to tell him about it. I’m kind of nervous though — what if he gets really angry? I don’t care if he gets all of his friends to come and vote for him (in fact, that would be really funny), but what if he tries to sue me or something for using his pictures? So I keep starting to write a letter and then chickening out and deleting it.

That’s why I’ve decided that in the grand tradition of monzy.com, it’s time for another fabulous contest. All that you have to do to win this contest is send an e-mail to Robert Monzi (robert@monzi.com) and CC me (monzy@monzy.com). The letter should be courteous and polite, and should clearly describe the survey in progress.

The first person to send out a letter meeting these qualifications will win a SPECIAL PRIZE, so act now! Any responses received from Robert Monzi will be posted in a future daily update.

Brunswick Hacking

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of bowling alley employees like a team of malicious computer hackers, particularly when they’re proficient in SML.

Today is Seth Mandel’s birthday. Happy birthday, Seth! We went bowling to celebrate. In the picture on the left, you see Ethan and I using the skills we’ve learned in our computer science classes to hack into the Brunswick 2000 bowling computer. We’re both used to reading assembly code for Alpha and x86 processors, so understanding the instruction set for the Brunswick 2000 platform proved tricky. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that the Brunswick had a QWERTY keyboard, and Ethan is used to the Dvorak key mapping. However, we were eventually able to infect the nationwide network of bowling scoring machines with a virus ensuring that anyone who enters the initials “ETB” or “DMA” will bowl strikes in every frame. Also, whenever anyone bowls a perfect game, the screen will display the message “GREETZ TO: P4C3, 3TH3R, 83R50N” in blinking yellow text.

Beverage Recipes

After reading my beverages page, a few people have asked me how exactly to make a vodka-berry slurpee.  In response to their requests, I’ve decided to post the recipe, along with recipes for several other interesting drinks.  DISCLAIMER: Most of these drinks are probably really bad.  Prepare them at your own risk.  The staff of monzy.com assumes no liability from any vomiting, blindness, or brain damage that may occur as a result of the consumption of these drinks.

• Vodka-Berry Slurpee
  

  Ingredients:
  1 32-ounce “Wild Berry” Slurpee from 7-11
  6 ounces Smirnoff vodka.

  Instructions:
  Drink 6 ounces of the slurpee first.  Then add the vodka to it and stir it up with the spoon-straw.  You can try to keep it mixed if you want, but all of the vodka will sink to the bottom anyway, where it will be waiting to make you sick.  Don’t think about the 38 ounces of liquid sloshing around in your stomach afterwards; that just makes it worse.

• Fuzzy Ethan (courtesy of www.webtender.com)
  

  Ingredients:
  2 squirts lime
  1 ounce Bailey’s Irish Cream
  5 drops green food coloring
  2.5 ounces vodka
  2.5 ounces Creme de menthe

  Instructions:
  Mix all ingredients except lime in a cocktail shaker, then shake.  Pour into glass.   Add lime.

  I haven’t ever tried this one, but it has Ethan’s name in it.  Also, it was contributed to the Webtender database by a student at MIT, and they’re supposed to be pretty smart.

• Powerade-ita
  

  Ingredients:
  12 ounces fruit punch flavored Powerade
  1 cup ice
  4 ounces Jose Cuervo tequila

  Instructions:
  Pour everything into a blender.  Turn the blender on “frappé” until the mixture becomes smooth and frothy.  Pour it back into the Powerade bottle and enjoy.

• Danbooka (courtesy of www.webtender.com)
  

  Ingredients:
  3 parts coffee
  1 part Everclear

  Instructions:
  Pour ingredients in a glass and mix.  Take a sip and recoil in disgust.

  I haven’t tried this one either, but it has my name in it.  Other than that I don’t see any reason to make it.