johnkemeny.com

 

In September 2000 I recieved the following email:

Congratulations!  You’ve won a Personal Video Recorder from TiVo! A team of discriminating judges read the essay you submitted to “The Great TiVo Giveaway Contest” and decided you were most definitely in need of our help!

The contest was the idea of the, now reclusive, original TiVo evangelist Richard (TiVolutionary) Bullwinkle.  My winning essay was the following poem (with serious apologies to Lewis Carroll):

Easy billing, and smiling TIVOs
Are nimble and glisten on the tube.
Commercials are where the boredom goes
And where Mom and Dad’s wrath is engaged.

“Beware of the Infomercial, my son!
The engine oil, the home gyms glut!
Beware the Station Break, and shun
The 30-second sp’t!”

With his old remote in hand
Long time he surfed for shows he sought,
But with TIVO’s Suggestion Guide
It was done without a thought.

And, as he watched, eyes ‘n ears attune,
An Infomercial soon leaped out,
It alleged, sincerely loon,
And soon began to shout!

“Buy two! Buy four! Easy financing. At your door!”
The verbal assault would last and last,
But he took control, TIVO’s control,
And sent it spinning to the past.

“And hast thou slain the Commercial spot?”
“Thanks to TIVO!” revealed the boy.
Oh famous day! Hooray! Hooray!
They chuckled in their joy.

Easy billing, and smiling TIVOs
Are nimble and glisten on the tube:
Commercials are where the boredom goes
And where Mom and Dad’s wrath is engaged.

Oh cay, not grate rime or ti ming (past spelt chequer) .  But it got me my first TiVo.  My low-tech wife Alice said no-way could I buy a TiVo, but here was one she couldn’t refuse (she now agrees with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell about TiVo, and is addicted to TiVo).

 

A Googlewhack is a pair of dictionary words that get only one hit at Google. To score, you multiply the hits for each word individually.  Invented by Gary Stock, GW pairs get old quickly.  For example, four GWs I created (see Googlewhack Stack above from October 2003) now have the following statistics:

2.   marzipan substituents (2,386,800,000,000) 121 hits - Patent 6866863

20. woad decapods (26,681,900,000) 139 hits - hennessey

30. scazon dyslexia (11,648,700,000) 94 hits – All word lists, domain names, or non-English

33. scazon babylon (16,899,000,000) 107 hits - Music composer

Today, scazon isn’t even in dictionary.com anymore!  Back in January 2002 RCassidy had the World Record score with checkerspot linux (39,564,000,000,000).  Today it has 449 hits topped by Joho the Blog.

With songs like “N.R.L. – Nursery Rhyme Lawyer Song” (MP3), Throwing Toasters is one of the most original funny “groups” around.