Virge's blog

My heart was filled with the joy of April. My hunger for hoaxes had been building and the web was awash with wicked pranks. I read a "pre-emptive strikes on 'vampires'" article (dated March 31st) and immediately pegged it as an April Fool's joke. It had all the right components. Everybody knows that backward people in small villages have strange customs. One can spin outrageous tales about Romanian traditions and most of the world will have no means to check up on you.

I read about inexplicable fires in Canneto di Caronia. The church's ghostbuster suspected devils. Scientists were baffled. The town's mayor was desperate but still holding back on performing goat sacrifices. I saw the date on the news report and chuckled with delight. What a beautiful hoax! The story was spreading.

Neil Gaiman has drawn my attention to reports on the fires dating back to February. It's not a hoax. In the game of weird, reality trumps fiction yet again.

Now I see the vampire report appeared as early as March 24th. Pfft. I should have learnt by now never to underestimate what people will believe and what they will do based on their beliefs.

Just because a report looks unbelievable and is heavily publicised around April 1st, doesn't make it a joke. People are strange. Nature is a continuing source of intoxicating novelty.

With vampire heart still on my fork
I read April's demon-fire talk.
Obsessed with illusions
I jumped to conclusions
and made myself look like a dork.

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Science Entertainment
Evil Shopping Carts *
Easter Zombie *
Flogging the bunny *
Threat Alert

We're happy for our colleagues who find a more rewarding place of employment, but it's still sad when they have to go.

We're hoping at your new frontier
you'll find a rewarding career.
When you reminisce
we know that you'll miss
all us Dilberts and Wallys back here.

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This is a work in progress. The intended final result was to be a song, sung by a packbawky, accompanied by big band of packbawky squawkies. Picture the Glen Miller Orchestra where each of the instruments is replaced by a packbawky of suitable pitch, envelope and timbre. Dream up a crooningly smooth tenor soloist, then lock him in the dressing room and replace him with an articulate packbawky. Dim the house lights. Grab a handful of popcorn. The show opens with the (deliberately anachronistic) Packbawky Serenade*.

My mind still lingers on those bustling city days --
the fading sunshine filtered through the smoggy haze,
when doves were wooing, cooing soft songs of love
and feathers floated from their raunchy nests above...

We walked - as the sparrows squabbled for your cold McFries;
We talked - though the seagulls drowned the traffic with their cries;
We laughed - when the pigeon-strafing found your lemonade;
We found each other in the packbawky serenade.

I still recall the night we stayed out on the beach --
our thoughts of sleeping murdered by the night owl's screech,
then parrots snacking, cracking seeds from dawn 'til dark,
and as we kissed I'm sure that raven muttered "fark!".

We walked - on the sandy shore and stopped at times to snog;
We talked - as the magpies scared the crap out of your dog;
We laughed - at the penguins waddling in their dusk parade;
We found each other in the packbawky serenade.

[Instrumental solo]

We walked - 'til the city crows announced the break of dawn;
We talked - while the early birds found breakfast in the lawn;
We laughed - by the river where the ducklings splashed and played;
We'd found each other in the packbawky serenade.

* Lyrics only. Recording not included.

How could I resist posting this self-congratulatory egoboo?

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

My blogging has become a little less frequent over the last couple of weeks. The weeks leading up to April 1st kept me busy with plotting and planning hoaxes for EK. I won't bore you with too many details of the multi-layered tricks we attempted. They failed to fool most of the members (who had just been through the Reclaiming Art hoax and weren't ready to believe anything was real). Here's a brief outline.

We seeded the first hoax on April 30th after posting a spoiler in the staff room under the pretext of avoiding upsetting people. A new character made some allegations about me living a dual life, posting lies in my journal and being called Don in real life. The new character had a membership dating from 2002 so that she didn't look like a character created specifically for April Fooling. EKers remained skeptical as we expected, but we needed to make it look like this was the best we could offer as a joke.

The main joke was concocted by the ever-devious Katherine Dinger and implemented using Socar's thinly-disguised street-rat skillz. On April 1st we redecorated EK to look like it had been infiltrated by members of EatPoo. Our administrators posted complaints about being deprived of administrator privileges and inability to remove the new decorations. We created some new characters with Poo-esque names and posted puerile comments in a few forums. The Poo team had already noted their intention to exact revenge for the Reclaiming Art hoax, so the motive was well established. Only the means to perform the hack was difficult to believe.

Some time after most of EK had collectively yawned, news of the apparent hack excited some exuberant congratulatory comments in EatPoo's forums. Their parochial pride was short lived, and the realisation that they had been hoaxed _again_ was met with disappointed acceptance.

Back in May last year I spoke of the Australian gods Bruces (god of culture-free entertainment), and Steves (god of mindless outdoor activities). They're not very old gods when you measure their lives in biblical time scales, and some would describe them as immature. They've left me alone of late, so I'm going to take a chance and talk a bit more about Aussie gods.

A god you've probably not heard of yet is Rex (pronounced "wrecks"). Rex is the god of segregation of the sexes. You sometimes see his handiwork at parties where all the guys end up at one end of the house, drinking freely and hammering on about blokey stuff. All the girls find themselves clustered elsewhere, talking about whatever girls talk about when they get together. The subject matter discussed is officially beyond my ken.

Now that you've recognised him, a little verse may serve to show more of his supernatural influence.

In sit-com writer's spiteful style the gods
could not permit pure happiness to last,
so when two perfect lovers' lots were cast
the gods conspired to bugger with the odds.
"They're never gonna notice if we cheat--
just 'ave 'im born a thousand miles from 'er."
"Yeah, right," said Bruces, "It's much easier
to stop their dreamboat if they never meet."
Then Rex, who was an expert in his art,
said "Hold on mates; youse leave too much to chance.
Big distance never broke a grand romance;
We need 'em born two 'undred years apart."
    A bloke wrote sonnets to an unknown bride.
    A sheila read old poetry and sighed.

I made a bad mistake about 3 days ago. As soon as I saw the signs I should have sealed WifeOfVirge in the high security bio-hazard containment facility. I'm just too full o' the milk of human kindness. I gave her liberty and allowed the disease to spread. Now I have a sore throat and sneezes.

Since the disease is already about, there's no point in me locking myself away, is there?

Socar, the bad rat, has caricatured me again.  Not in ink this time, but in verse as Vurge the Burdman.  (It's probably because of some things I wrote in Heidi's entry on Cheney's duck hunting.)

I am filled with overwhelming gratitude that some power, some unseen force stayed her scornful ratty paw. Her lust to lampoon me was lost somewhere between evil intent and produced poem.

While we're on the subject of packbawkies, it was brought to my attention that a Google search for "packbawky" now gives pride of place to a news article about a parrot killed for dirty words. The article doesn't even mention the P-word. As far as I can see, Google has drawn a link between "packbawky" and that article based purely on a wall spattering link that I posted in early February. If any of my readers copied that link and published it somewhere, please let me know. I didn't think it was possible to create a single-handed google-bomb.

"And some have greatness thrust upon them."

I've been appointed to a position of power. I've been promoted to the status of moderator at Ebony Keep. Now I get to sample the subtle intoxicating aroma of sycophancy, the financial security of extortion and the dizzying rush of wielding god-like super powers. Of course I'm still a noisy packbawky, nobody has any money for bribes, and my puissance extends all the way to locking message threads that have unraveled in flames, but it's a sign of trust.

How should I view an increase in my sphere of influence? I could model myself as Sir Virgil the knight-errant, seeking opportunity to do deeds of valour. Have you a just cause that needs championing? Is there injustice, oppression,  corruption? Show me evil that I might smite it. That's a pose I don't think I could hold for long. The selfless altruistic hero only exists in the minds of those who write stories. Pretense of the role in real life is sufficient to guarantee failure.

I'd be pretty good at playing Virgilanti the truly errant knight if it didn't mean having to hurt people. I can be callous when I see people suffering as a result of their own stupidity. I can distance myself from a human population that allows itself to be led by deceived and deluded alpha-males (while at the same time knowing I'm dependent on the band for my quality of life). I just can't distance myself enough to wish them ill. A Blackadder I am not.

Virge the court jester will have to do. I present no threat, no insult that can't be laughed off, entertainment that occasionally helps put life into perspective, and a source of welcome, trustworthy deceit. This is a role I can keep on playing, with or without power.