Is this the first post with no comments??

August 25, 2004 5:20 AM

Is this a new record? I knew I could set one somehow. Don't ruin the perfect 0!
posted by yoga to MetaFilter-related at 5:20 AM (41 comments total)

Unfortunately, there are others with no comments. But, congratulations!
posted by iconomy at 5:26 AM on August 25, 2004

iconomy: Didn't you get the memo? You were supposed to ignore the MetaTalk post as well! ;)
posted by terrapin at 5:51 AM on August 25, 2004

Yeah. No one comments on your post, and you're happy about it. You kids and your ecstasy...
posted by crunchland at 6:16 AM on August 25, 2004

You really don't want to "ruin" the thread?

I suggest that you walk into a fraternity house and make it a point to ask everyone not to slap your sunburned back.
posted by trharlan at 6:40 AM on August 25, 2004

Been there. I don't think that the number of comments as an indication of the post quality, though. Check out the types of posts that get the most comments these days.
posted by nthdegx at 6:56 AM on August 25, 2004

...
posted by Shane at 7:03 AM on August 25, 2004

yoga, that's a very cool post and I think somehow it will change my life. I've decided I might contact God via a Ramsey FM-100B kit and He WILL show me my path on the wall of a building and it WILL resemble the plot of Phantom of Paradise, complete with monsters and a buxom damsel/distress.

Thank you. And congratulations. No, really: it's a cool post.

Want comments? Post about politics. Please, no.
posted by Shane at 7:06 AM on August 25, 2004

So this is the comment thread about that post, now?

And do you put thick plastic over your couches and chairs at home, too?
posted by chicobangs at 7:09 AM on August 25, 2004

And do you put thick plastic over your couches and chairs at home, too?

Harlan Ellison tells an interesting anecdote about a woman he once dated. On arriving at her parent's place to pick her up he found their house to be a pristine, spotless museum of anal retention. The nap of the shag carpeting had been vacuumed perfectly in one direction and Ellison was instructed to wait as his date readied herself but NOT to step off the plastic runner and onto the carpet.

Maybe there were thick plastic covers over the couches and chairs, too. I don't remember that part, but this serves to marginally connect this utterly wayward degression to the rest of this thread.

In any case, Ellison was (naturally) unable to contain himself, and he leapt off the plastic runner, causing two footprints to appear in the carpet in the middle of the living room.

He then proceeded to spell out the Chaucerian "P-H-U-Q-U-E" in the nap.

His date came out and caught him, somewhere in the first 'U' or perhaps the 'Q', if memory serves, and screamed hysterically for him to stop as she grabbed a vacuum to put the nap back in place.

A wrestling match ensued that, according to Ellison, became amorous and kinky, and Ellison claims he left his date there, tied to the legs of a piano in an aborted bit of S&M. After all she and her family were, as Ellison puts it, completely bugfuck.

. . .

Hey, I'm just doing my part to get yoga some comments here to make up for the big glaring NULL in the Blue.
posted by Shane at 7:43 AM on August 25, 2004

Shane, sometimes you just digress like a motherfucker.

I'm impressed.
posted by chicobangs at 9:07 AM on August 25, 2004

What a great story. I'm going to replay that in my mind many times today.
posted by iconomy at 9:09 AM on August 25, 2004

yoga, I got you beat!
posted by Gyan at 9:18 AM on August 25, 2004

Shane, I recall the story, but with slightly different details:

* It was just the word FUCK.

* The family used a rake to get the shag to stand erect, not a vacuum. I only remember this detail because my family did likewise.
posted by dobbs at 9:21 AM on August 25, 2004

Gyan!!! :D And stupidsexyflanders ruined my pristinity. Dammit.

It's amazing, isn't it, what can be done with a brick?
posted by yoga at 10:42 AM on August 25, 2004

I'll read it again tonight, dobbs. it's in here. I'm betting it's 'phuque' and the shag looked as if it had been raked... Ellison profoundly corrupted my formative years, and I seem to even remember the detail of reading that anecdote while ignoring Mr Trenney in his moronic high school composition class ;-) If I'm wrong, I'll pray forgiveness from the HarlanGod and read Ellison Wonderland as penance.

But chico and ico, Ellison really did all the dirty work :-)
posted by Shane at 10:44 AM on August 25, 2004

Thanks, Shane & dobbs - now that you've quoted the story nearly verbatim, his nibs will no doubt pour his wrath of fire upon Metafilter.

Just as he's done with AOL.

And you just know the eye-stabbings will vibrate, kiddo.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:28 AM on August 25, 2004

Go, me.
posted by plep at 11:50 AM on August 25, 2004

I, too, have a bastard/orphan post. I'm too skeered since then to post again.
posted by littlegreenlights at 11:51 AM on August 25, 2004

Shane, not familiar with the story, but it could very well be a rake...My family had a shag carpet and we had a special rake for it. And we kids spent many happy hours doing just what Ellison did, except raking it out before anyone saw.

WAY off target, but in the new Joe Namath bio there's a photo of him kicking back in his bachelor pad circa 1970. Not a shag carpet...a fur carpet. And the photo was taken from the floor, which made it seem like the carpet was, like, four feet high. Definitely worth checking out next time you're at the bookstore.

Yoga, if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else. Please know that I did it with love.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:56 AM on August 25, 2004

Re: This MeTa post...

...we'll never make it to 200.
posted by soyjoy at 11:58 AM on August 25, 2004

So raking a shag carpet, was this the introduction of Zen to the West?
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:13 PM on August 25, 2004

Here's mine.
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:39 PM on August 25, 2004

MrMoonPie - maybe said "see this movie" once too many.

But now I really do wanna see that movie...Cirque du Soleil in 3D Imax? Frickin' cool! Thanks!
posted by soyjoy at 12:48 PM on August 25, 2004

maybe YOU said. duh.
posted by soyjoy at 12:49 PM on August 25, 2004

Such good company I keep. :) I just wanted to know if the poop in the punchbowl was a good thing or a bad thing. Possibly a non-thing, according to the Zen presence. With all the brains here and whatnot. This will suffice.
posted by yoga at 12:57 PM on August 25, 2004

It is written, that if you are swimming in the punchbowl, and you don't see any poop, then get out, because you are the poop.
posted by chicobangs at 1:27 PM on August 25, 2004

Since we're all getting ours out: here's mine.
posted by nthdegx at 2:59 PM on August 25, 2004

Ellison profoundly corrupted my formative years

Me too. He was my god when I was, like, 12. Haven't gone back to read his stuff in a long while... perhaps I should download some and revisit it. [/harlan-baiting joke]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:06 PM on August 25, 2004

Okay, I know the MeFi-taglining is getting old, but this one is just too deliciously ribald (And funny! 'Cause it's True!) to pass over...

MetaFilter: "Since we're all getting ours out: here's mine."
posted by taz at 4:16 PM on August 25, 2004

This one is embarrassing on so many levels: I linked to the Onion, made a 2000-Election jokey comment and a Paul Harvey reference, and got ZERO response (not even a well-deserved bitch-slap).
The John Holmes of prick posts! Beat that!
posted by wendell at 4:22 PM on August 25, 2004

I spent about an hour browsing two or three link levels deep from your original link. It was a very cool link.
posted by rdr at 5:16 PM on August 25, 2004

I saw Ellison go absolutely bat-shit over the downloading thing once. First he read us a very nice story about Shangri-La, then he answered a bunch of questions. Then he sat on a panel, someone asked the wrong question, and he spent about fifty minutes alternating between battle cries and tears.

It was pretty impressive, but still doesn't beat the time I met Ray Bradbury, who was drunker than a Russian uncle.
posted by kaibutsu at 5:26 PM on August 25, 2004

Ah! Here it is. No offense, dobbs, but I did a decent job of paraphrasing. This stuff is burned, branded, pretty much seared across the celluloid filmstrip of my adolescent psyche, even if it's been at least ten years since I last read it:

     "Stay on the runner. I won't be long," Brenda commanded.
     "I've got to stay on the runner?"
     "Sure. Just stand there. I'll be out in a minute."

               . . .

     ...I stepped to the dge of the runner, crouched, and jumped as far out into the carpet as I could ... My footprints just magically appeared out there.
     I hesitated only a moment, and then, scuffling my feet to produce impressions in the carpet, I began spelling out the classic Chaucerian PHUQUE. In letters four feet high. In virginal white carpet.

               . . .

     And I was just putting the . on the ! when I heard a strangled, "Aaaaarghhh!" behind me...

               . . .

     Then, in a moment, here she came, schlepping a carpet sweeper, not a vacuum cleaner, just one of your basic hand-pushed carpet sweepers, and she starts sweeping the nap back north by northwest!

(Please don't sue me, Mr Ellison. I'm basically one of your minions, after all. And I drove you and Susan aaaaall aaaaaround Kent State when you spoke there.)
posted by Shane at 6:42 PM on August 25, 2004

Here's my zero comment opus.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:19 PM on August 25, 2004

I only got two dissapointed comments for this post. Then, the same stuff was reposted by Miguel two months later to great acclaim. (Also, he was one of those two comments) :)

So, its all timing, or something.
posted by vacapinta at 8:02 PM on August 25, 2004

I only got two dissapointed comments for this post

That really was a cool site. Thanks, Miguel!
posted by Feisty at 9:20 PM on August 25, 2004

Dont mention it. If someone wants to make a cool post, I suggest right now this 2.6 Billion dollar city devoted to Chess in Dubai.
posted by vacapinta at 10:04 PM on August 25, 2004

60 million chess players in 64,000 square metres? That's 937.5 chess players/square metre ... I guess they could stack them up, although that would make it more like checkers ;)
posted by carter at 10:54 PM on August 25, 2004

All of the threads that I've started are perfectly formed little turds that I offer up to the masses, to much rejoicing. The only voices of dissent come from angst-ridden curmudgeons, jackasses, and portuguese hacks.
posted by crunchland at 3:21 AM on August 26, 2004

The only voices of dissent come from angst-ridden curmudgeons, jackasses

I'll drink to that. The MeFi nutshell. *clink*
posted by yoga at 5:15 AM on August 26, 2004

The only voices of dissent come from angst-ridden curmudgeons, jackasses, and portuguese hacks.

*raises hand.

raises other hand.*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:30 AM on August 26, 2004