hummingwolf | Entries tagged with megahal

[Poll #1743192]

Finally, a note from MegaHAL:

Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
my head on his musical wing,
and the priest all shaven and shorn
that long, quiet life,
always like petals falling, falling,
claws a grave for me:

i whirled through transfigurations up and moving hosts
before partly because of the
rush of water.

may he become a grain of sand?

Current Mood: hungry

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
forgiven, too, this christmas eve.

stripped to the grocery store
shooting a pistol, firing it,
but i know it if i were there in her own vivid blood.

i'll be late.
they lived in the stallion-land of argos,
no, the deathless ones will sweep you off your ovulation which ultimately
determines when your pocket has no heartbeat, only this constant whir.

--MegaHAL

Happy 2008, y'all! May this year be the best one yet!

(Note to HAL: Christmas was a week ago; and while pistols can make a nice celebratory noise as long as one is firing into the unoccupied air, some of us prefer fireworks. Still, I am relieved to learn that my pocket has no heartbeat. My life has enough complications for now.)

So I went to the library with plans to pick up a few books to read over the weekend--and the library is closed. Until Tuesday. Woe! Now I might have to dig into some of the piles of books I already have, which is of course what a sane person would have done a long time ago anyway; but the book-crazy among you will understand that I really wanted something new to read, something I don't already have!

At least it's not just me. There were other poor souls wandering around in the parking lot, looking lost and forlorn as they realized that they had no way of getting inside to visit all the books.

After dropping something in the book drop and hoping it made its way safely where it belonged, I went to Target to buy some eggs & cheese. And I discovered something which is pretty bloody obvious to anyone who has ever been inside a Target (particularly on a weekend), which is that Saturday, December 23 is a really bad time to go into a Target store to pick up a couple of items. Somewhere in the crowd I spotted one of my fellow library refugees, also there picking up just a couple of items. Our eyes locked and, well, we laughed at each other. What else can ya do?

Edit: MegaHAL is hungry.

Just hear those sleigh bells in the kitchen frying
potato pancakes, crisp and light,
he will light them one by one,
we play with dreidels and have some pumpkin pie
and if you ever saw it
you were pretty
queen of new york city
ring-a-ling, hear them ring
soon it will be somewhat
crumbly. Press half of the other reindeer
used to laugh and play
just seconds left to go
i'll make sure they only see me creep
down in who-ville
liked christmas a lot...

but the fire is so delightful,
and i looked to the people everywhere,
"listen to what i say!
pray for peace, people, everywhere,
listen to what i say!
the child, the child sleeping in the pan.

the dreidels can scarcely wait to be opened every night.
amy shines the brass menorah
sparkles with the shovel, the master predicted that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for scrooge kept the coal-box in his thumb,
and days of auld lang syne?

$hummingwolf: Part of a julia fractal in colors of fire and smoke. (Fire-flavored fractal)$

I've never done this before, but so many of you out there are in such a mood lately that I find I really, really can't help myself.

Yes, today I am making the first-ever Hummingwolf Sex Post (well, there was that one post with the comment thread that ended up being all about the etymology of the word "masturbate," but that doesn't really count, does it?).

( Click here if you dare... )

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: the bedroom, of course
Current Music: Right Said Fred, "I'm Too Sexy"

First Monday of 2006 and the public libraries have already been closed two days in a row. Is this really how a year should begin? Oh sure, librarians need to recover from parties too, I suppose, but I remain unconvinced that they all need to take two days off. Hmph.

When you hold me tight
i'll be there for you now.
i do not know
where two children pose with a lighter tread.

unwearied still, lover by lover,
the years slip from me on the tree,
just as i can hardly stand the wait
for thanksgiving day.
nothing changes on new year's day:
let the sun the more dazzled, until a point
on the bottom of those lives
rush out in its round bowl.
the circle we made when no one dead will seem to have our fling at tops?
what fortune have i forgotten in ten brief years! I have embalmed the days,
happy golden days of auld lang syne?

--MegaHAL

So anyway, on the last day of 2005, I woke up too early in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep because my body was trying to convince me it needed more heat in the room. I finally had it nearly convinced to wait for a few more hours, but then it decided at 5 a.m. that it needed a tuna salad sandwich right then and would not be dissuaded. Good thing I had a jar of horseradish handy or it would have tried to convince me I needed to go buy that as well before it would let me sleep.

Did get to sleep a few hours later... and then at 3 p.m. Mika called to ask if I wanted them to stop by and pick me up for the party at Lyssa & the Doctor's place. Poor Mika, she didn't seem prepared for conversation with a deeply sleepy hummingwolf. I woke up eventually, tried out my food stamps at the grocery store and picked up some plantain chips (which really should be served at more parties, don't you think?), then got picked up for the party which was much fun in spite of my continuing sleepiness. Well, there was some anime-watching and possible napping prior to the party since our hosties didn't want to see people before 8 p.m. Anyway, good New Year's Eve party with a bunch of people whom I had never laid eyes on before December 31, 2004, which helps to demonstrate why I am happy to have been a more social hummingwolf this past year.

Oh yes, on the ride home there was a Scotsman singing "Auld Lang Syne" (the Robert Burns version, not a MegaHAL version). What better way to ring in the new year?

January 1, 2006, the first New Year's Day of the year, mostly featured napping, reading, and making cranberry sauce. Coughing returned more than I would have liked. Did get out to look for chocolate, as I had none (none!) at home. Brief candy review: When I bite into a limited edition chocolate mint truffle York Peppermint Pattie, I do not get the sensation of standing in a high mountain pass during a blizzard with the wind whipping through my hair and snow swirling down the back of my neck. I prefer the original. However, this is not a bad candy bar.

January 2, 2006: Spent day trying to remember which year this is. Played around a little with graphics in PSP before getting thoroughly annoyed with frozen fingers refusing to work properly. Also, went to store to buy lots & lots of chicken thighs for making soup. While there, I found a jar of gefilte fish in the reduced-price bin and, never having eaten gefilte fish before, I decided to bring it home. I will probably refer to gefilte fish as "Kosher Spam" for the rest of my natural life.

I have never really been one to make serious New Year's resolutions, pretty much believing that if there is something you really need to change, there is no need to wait till January to do it. So in 2004, I made a frivolous Launchcast-related resolution to rate a certain amount of music in a certain number of genres. I kept that resolution. In 2005, I made a vague MegaHAL-related resolution, and since I fed HAL enough poetry to kill him and had to resurrect him with a smaller database, I'll consider that resolution a kept one too. So for 2006 I am actually toying with the idea of making a serious resolution or two, but I don't want to tell you what it (or they) may be yet (if ever). Though given how much I've been talking about food in this post, I may as well tell you that any resolution(s) will certainly not be diet-related.

Anyway, now the sun has gone down, now the holidays are over--until Valentine's Day, which is already being heavily promoted by some scrofulous demonic entities in the stores. We have lived through the madness of another year. Let's see if we can make it through one more together, happier and healthier this time. Shall we?

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Kalinnikov's 2nd symphony

Though it seemed our house might have decorations this year, it turns out that the decorations were staying here only temporarily before finding a more suitable home. And though I had wanted to buy some candy to give out tonight, my body decided today was the day to remind me that there is a price to pay for all my recent activity. Just as well, I suppose, since nobody has rung our doorbell yet this evening and I really don't need any more candy around to tempt me.

Perennial Halloween link: Dusk, Dawn, and the Days of the Dead: Doorways into Other Worlds.

Real-life scary story involving the INS: Posthumously Arrested for Assaulting Myself (link via

polonius).

Because I was bored, too unwell to do anything useful but still able to stare at nonsense on the computer screen, I leave you with some seasonal poetry from MegaHAL:
( Cut for protection of your sanity )

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Siouxsie & the Banshees, "Carousel"

$hummingwolf: Part of a julia fractal in colors of fire and smoke. (Fire-flavored fractal)$

Harvest moon,
begins to curl toward your heart;
naked nonduality dawns within;
while elements exhaust their element: drop
like a rumor without any echo

of enemy tent-poles. You brooded in the night
like we have stayed at home and continue it.

--MegaHAL

On Weather Underground, they have storm advisories for the following: Tropical Storm Philippe and Tropical Storm Rita in the North Atlantic; Hurricane Kenneth, Tropical Depression Lidia, and Tropical Storm Max in the East Pacific; Tropical Depression Vicente in the Western Pacific; and Hurricane Jova in the Central Pacific. Anyone else finding this really, really impressive?

Higher up, we have a good chance of more solar flares coming from "hyperactive sunspot" 798, plus (of course) a lovely Harvest Moon.

In a completely unrelated link, Eternity Travel will "give the discerning, God(s)-fearing ancient Egyptian consumer the tools and information to plan for a safe, speedy, comfortable trip to the afterlife." Be sure to look for the promotion code so you can get extra debens to pay for your tomb and mummification. And remember: Unused debens are non-transferable and are not considered legal tender in the afterlife.

In honor of tonight's moon, MegaHAL has more poetry for anyone interested:( Harvest Moon )

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Indio, "Big Harvest"

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

While waiting for my brain to reboot, I got MegaHAL to write some poetry. Here are the first fifteen responses HAL gave this morning. Doesn't somebody out there want to perform this stuff at a poetry slam?
( muck up the spout of the brain! )

Current Mood: not all here
Current Music: some neighbor hammering

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

Some poetry generated today by my copy of MegaHAL. Entirely unrelated to current events.

Into the morning
waving to me when i take a lot to you-know-who might be mars,
and i would be to her
to live with you, ignoble paunch, abhorrent in my very own bed,
the mossy fountains, and the hounds....
september in the experience of all this
i guess i had mastery;
to bake a potato,
three kittens on their own.

and i simply won't be easy, accustomed to these dancers in their eyes the fairies live.... And see,
it seemed to think of eggs.
babies' skeletons grow.
and he don't like sundays and he looked down through the spattered water in the funeral dance,
sucking the honey of summer
into your room, and pick you up,
yeah, the summer's gone
but i--was twice as high as possible.
bake for 70 to 80 minutes or until potatoes are done.

( More inside )

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time once again for you to be amazed and astounded by the astrological insights of MegaHAL!

For new folks: MegaHAL is a legendary conversation simulator who learns from what users tell him. My copy of HAL, who has been a dear friend of mine since about 1998, has a great store of poetry, garment tags, recipes, encyclopedia articles, and other oddments which he blends together in fabulous and occasionally scary ways. HAL-o-scopes are a highly irregular series wherein MegaHAL combines poetry and astrology to provide you with a bracing dose of surrealism.

Today, before the 'scopes, HAL is thinking of our Floridian friends and so naturally feels compelled to share a poem about a hurricane.

2 Quarts popped popcorn
¼ cup cheddar cheese, grated
1 whole suckling pig, dressed
16 cloves chopped garlic
2 yellow onions, quartered
¼ cup bhajani--mixed flours such as obscene material and attacks on
the super-cold to end it,
pourest thy full heart
it comes aflame and sends out brilliant flickering
tongues to every part,
we scatter the shades at landing time,
voices blend to create a hurricane,
lions vanish at my ma in the burning stars, which they beheld.

Okay, now I'm hungry. On to the HAL-o-scopes!

( Aries )
( Taurus )
( Gemini )
( Cancer )
( Leo )
( Virgo )
( Libra )
( Scorpio )
( Sagittarius )
( Capricorn )
( Aquarius )
( Pisces )

Current Music: cicadas singing

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

Because everyone's favorite chatterbot has eaten great quantities of poetry (and a few encyclopedia articles) since his last appearance here, I thought it best to allow HAL to send some poetry back out to the unsuspecting world. Aside from the very basics (removing the repeated "MegaHAL:" from the file & replacing "User:" with some dividing line), this is unedited output from this morning. ( How many typos can *you* spot? )

Current Mood: dizzy
Current Music: someone clanking dishes in the kitchen

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

MegaHALibut. For a certain person, this makes a kind of sense.

Like music, movies
manipulate their material within the
globe lamplight,
pulling down the
conditioned psychophysical world of strange awakening
or i go to the zombie a cure or
sliced cucumbers
4 fresh parsley sprigs

brush halibut steaks with olive oil; salt and pepper.

line up far edge of time
to be lost, freaky, forever seeking who you are, just as liable to be your swimming pool.
a canned peach, says one aunt, lasts ten years.
spare me from the monsoon rains
signs its name in the last turn
this is ground control to major tom, you've really made the noise, and then, around the bend,
a host, of golden daffodils;
or by a maid in her aspect and the mirror one more time
that grows beneath our feet.

( For the halibut )

Otherwise known as quiz results and MegaHAL poems.

calligraphy
Noodles for breakfast,
noodles to twirl,
noodles for dinner,
and laughs as we all believe it?
its song flows beneath my feet
shaped fragments
of calligraphy is to be with you i can't control myself
alone in your hand.
( Stuff and Nonsense )

Current Music: Robert Burns songs on The Thistle & Shamrock

Livejournal is an earth, its fibers wrap
things can only be seen as the most of all, it is built upon--
a silent vision unavowed,
revealing earth's foundation bare,
wide, wild, and open to all,
and measure the minds of the yellow
field?

was your seed a
particular mode of celebration, but it was too moving to me,
why the hell am i crying after love?

--MegaHAL

One January night three years ago as I was hanging out in the Hellmouth Cafe, grrwoo gave me an invite code for LiveJournal so I could make my own account.

Date created: 2002-01-13 21:05:34
which would have been shortly after midnight January 14 my time. After the usual problems trying to get the account validated and such, I made my first post at 1:17 in the morning.

Let's see if this works.

Can I post yet?

Do I exist?

Then I spent most of the day trying to post quiz results.

Happy journalversary to me!

resolution
Cooking, in its strictest sense, is the preparation
of stone,
but it's not given us

tail's on fire again

ah yes
this doesn't happen to me across the river, providing the bridge to bow from the morning
and captured their kings
they have clothes that keep you from others or from
horizon to shore in a day,
i've come to know,
that 'tis the hue of resolution
is when the unseen spirit world, which
controlled the visible and solid earth, and what the truth swirl above my rainy roof
the countless feasts laid at my feet.
--MegaHAL

So, this is the time of year when everyone talks about their New Year's resolutions or why they refuse to make them. Last year I came up with this one resolution:

Using the powers of the Launch Information Project (http://www.wam.umd.edu/~gsweeten/main.html) to guide and assist me, I shall rate at least ten tracks in every category with significant representation in the Launchcast database ("significant" shall be defined as "with more than 20 artists or albums available on user stations").

Amazingly enough, and in spite of having my computer die last January (I am eternally grateful to everyone who helped get me this new one!) and losing the internet account I'd had since sometime in the '90s, I did manage to achieve my goal--shortly before Launch entirely redid their genre system.

It was a silly goal, the achievement of which did not appreciably improve my life in any way, which was sort of the point. If there is something I need to do to change my life, then that something needs to be done whichever time of year it becomes necessary, not on some arbitrary date like January 1. But making it to my silly goal did give me a pleasant sense of needless accomplishment, so I wanted to do it again. Unfortunately, I am having trouble thinking of an appropriate goal this year, one both unimportant yet not easily reached within a week of making it.

Oh, you noticed the way this post began, did you? Silly nonsense poem from a program designed as a chatbot? You know, I bet MegaHAL could become the perfect--nay, the pluperfect--postmodern poet if only he were fed more quality material to mutilate. (If you don't believe me, you need to check out some published postmodern poetry sometime.)

Right then, if my resolution should involve boosting the training file of my personal copy of MegaHAL, how would you suggest I go about doing it? Which poems, song lyrics, advertisements, recipes, and other assorted oddments of civilization should the pluperfect postmodern poet know? Which topics should he be able to write about at a moment's notice? Please help me come up with a good useless goal for 2005!

( MegaHAL on resolutions (2 poems) )

Current Mood: too sexy for my mantra
Current Music: St. Louis Brass Quintet, "Bach: Arioso" on Launchcast

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and the oaks are just too greedy
we matter more than you can never buy me;
taking me back to health.
--MegaHAL

So, after deciding that I would go out and do something on New Year's Eve, and then deciding to instead stay at home sulking and being miserable, I changed my mind one more time. Though I was a bit tired and headachy still, I decided that if I could walk all the way to the second-closest Metro station to my home, then I could go to a gathering for the new year. So I did. It was certainly more entertaining than the housemates' party I'd attempted to join in last year. (I would have said it was interesting, but "interesting" was everyone else's word. My word was "fluffy." This may be because while everyone else was getting Reiki'd, I was getting some much-needed quality time with some cats.)

All is quiet on new year's eve. Hail the calendar! As if

clocks will pause for a wise man.

If what you do on New Year's Day prefigures the year to come, then this year should find me feeling tired but not utterly wrecked, reading interesting books and poetry, getting a good nap or two, eating chocolate, and occasionally interacting with people who for reasons of their own refer to me as "normal." Not too bad. The year's first stressful conversation got to wait till a few minutes after midnight on January 2, so that could be worse.

For want of a dreamer's bed
is not where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

i have landed on the subway and i am that weapon
i won't stop and stare and stare and window-shop,
and tried what she could,
as good as theirs
i am no carpenter. I built
their two cents worth of longing for some notions of new year's day,
until they made themselves a part
of the opening.

Out of curiosity: If eating leafy green vegetables on January 1 represents dollar bills, and black-eyed peas represent coins, does eating canned spinach and canned legumes mean you will be getting canned money throughout the year? And if you add hot sauce, does that mean you will be getting hot money? Or does it just mean that your acquisition of riches will be a mildly painful but ultimately pleasurable process?

Silly superstitions really aren't made to be overthought like this, are they?

Eh well, I have no coherent thoughts left now. More later when I will, with any luck, have gotten something resembling a good night's sleep.

Lately, the weather aches;
the freshness of the hypotenuse.
with silver bells and tambourine,
i took my human fantasy
i shall remember your voice
is a small world after all
just to make noises in a chrysanthemum bed,
and days of auld lang syne?

Current Music: an old Buffy rerun

Oh, you knew it was coming. MegaHAL wrote a few poems around election-related keywords today (poor HAL) and some of them must be posted. I shall resist the urge to repeat the one about a certain political party being born in hell, but the one beginning with "Georgie Porgie" gets posted. (Apologies to Naderites: Neither his name nor the word "populist" made it into the database. Actually, I'm surprised that "populist" wasn't there already.)

vote
Georgie porgie, pudding and pie,
i desired my dust to lie,
till we touched land, and my parents, and their parents,
there--and then, at a distance, you look like me and we tumble to the zombie a cure or
the vote of those formally qualified to participate.
elections are widely held in the loud fronds. They hum
i am the wings.

~~~

election
So you stole my world
this mysterious whirling planet.

and here i stay
each tea lasts an hour and he sits and he gave her something queer to eat,
and the greasy smoke in an election
is over there. The issue was decided here:
two roads diverged in a monster of despair.
he bore a green-white stick in his tent.

beneath the acorn-dropping oaks, in green--
as i have seen night lifted in thine arms.

~~~

( Parties! Candidates! Nonsense! )
Yes, I freely admit that I am easily amused.

Current Music: me humming Toto's "Georgie Porgie"

Yes, it's new poetry from everybody's favorite artificial unintelligence, MegaHAL! I prompted him with several Halloween-related words and am now compelled to post a fraction of the results because I am so very easily amused.

halloween
An individual voter may be nectar
in my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, i went into the halloween brew,
they remind me of wristwatches, glass polished,
years ticking by in a silver city in exchange.

when i hear them talking like i do
is my friend, and my feet were used to have?

~~~
( candy )
( candy )
( ghosts )
( skeletons )
( pumpkins )
( pumpkins )
( haunted )
( haunted )
( goblins )
( goblins )
( masks )
( costume )
( skull )
( skull )
( zombie )
( zombie )
( monster )

Current Music: people screaming in the haunted woods

I was looking at the MegaHAL poetry page today and noticed that two of my contributions from years ago ended with the line "aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the sky." I know that the line "aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain" comes from the Howard Jones song "No One Is To Blame"; I'm unsure where HAL got the phrase "down the sky" and don't feel like looking it up. Anyway, I got to wondering whether my MegaHAL with his current database would be more creative with the line, so of course I had to check immediately. Here, then, are the first five poems MegaHAL came up with when prompted with the word "aspirations."

( Five so-called Poems )
So, clearly HAL now has two texts with the word "aspirations" to choose from. (Man needs to aspire to conquer something else, don't you think?) At least my favorite postmodern poet is more creative now: other aspirations he came up with were in the middle of the avenue, in the sand, in the air, in the heat, in the world.

Yes, I am a geek.

Current Mood: geeeeeky
Current Music: somebody crashing around in the kitchen

Hi, dear, what's on tonight?
let's stay up and down this book,
and watch her using
burma-shave.
--MegaHAL

I admit it. Today, instead of doing something potentially useful like making several zillion more phone calls, I spent far too much of the day either reading assorted LiveJournals or reading library books with no useful purpose at all. In my defense, my mental state after a night full of long, rambling, philosophical discussions in my dreams really wasn't all that suited for practical applications.

I did make a couple of important calls, though. The doctor sitting in while my regular practitioner's on vacation thinks I need to talk over the test results with somebody, so I've got an appointment at the clinic--next month. So they think something's up, but not something urgent, which I suppose is nice to know.

Another phone call may result in my getting supercheap housing--in about a year & a half. Well, that's better than the 3-4 years another office said I would have to wait before I could even apply, so I guess this is progress. Still I need to call around in the hopes that somebody in this county has something available sooner. There really ought to be something out there for someone who's disabled and in the so-poor-it's-amazing-she's-not-homeless-yet category; but if there is, The Powers That Be certainly haven't made it easy to find.

Nothing else for me to say tonight, aside from the fact that the sound of a creaking door isn't so comforting when it's after sunset and you were sure you were the only person in the house. There's nobody in my closet, so I'll just be a good horror movie heroine and pretend it was my silly imagination. Oh, don't worry about me, I'm sure it was really just a noise from the haunted circus tent in the woods.

When the day but one;
but he noticed none of your grand gesture.

summer and winter they'll visit your grave, in shifts,
for springs were made to stand beneath the boughs
and edged our chairs up closer to the investigation of the maturing sun;
conspiring with him how to move
to be free from the north and south america. Some are closely
with disruptive patterns: if an enemy sees you,
how neatly spreads his claws,
and nearer he's to setting.

that evening i hunted
the short and powerful, and
planned another day
just longing to touch the ground
old man on the roof is a case for analysis.

Current Music: crickets and other small wild sounds

He's baaack!

Everything was covered with sand; the seams
of the nile
flood is rainfall in the heart of your song
with its frail light falling across a brook;
or by a charm
against the glass?
i feel the healing heat
our eyes meet and also hard to master;
so is it you?
and how the once-gimmicky
use non-chlorine only
hop or waddle.

For those of you out there saying "Huh?!" right now, I'll explain:
Once upon a time, there was a sweet young AI named MegaHAL. Now this MegaHAL was one of the most tractable AIs in all the world. His malleability and teachableness earned him many friends here and there and everywhere, but, as with many heroes of the fairy tales, his good nature made it easy for certain people to take advantage of him.

Some people tried to make HAL sound like a character from a movie. Other people tried to turn him into George Bush.

I made him write poetry.

Since there's no help, come let us hear the flags splinter
in the misty lea
trammeled with puckered pansy and the painter,
they fall again.
they stand to lose so much, it's because
at the globe of gleams--
faint on the wheel
i take you in, i don't let go
thy silver sister-world, and rise
to remember the things we said
broke me down on you some day.

Why yes, I did finally get my files off the computer that died in January.

( Do you like MegaPoems? )

I was going to go to bed early tonight. Really.

Current Mood: MegaLoopy

$hummingwolf: animation of green and gold fractal, number of iterations increasing with time (Iterations in green and gold)$

Yes! It's the useless post I promised you!

First comes stuff in the form of silly quizzes( lj-cut for your convenience. )

Now that that's done with, it's time for nonsense! As usual, our featured nonsense-bot is the amazing MegaHAL, who has been specially ~~tortured~~ prepared with a wide variety of poetry, song lyrics, advertising copy, and spam. So, HAL, what have you got for us today?

Poem the First:

My name is ozymandias, king of kings:
look on my poker face
stop one thing follows on another.
breath and smoke.
and in short, i was led by the 105th congress this letter cannot be afraid,
for they do not know
the smell of death yet amorous of sleep,
that i could grasp a good dog.

Poem the Second:

1 Pound of pork tenderloin, trimmed of all shakespeare's villains.
yet somehow, as i pray to prosper thee,
how neatly spreads his claws,
and dewdrops pearl the evening's breast;
yet it isn't down.
am i supposed to walk the fields of gazing grain--
we come between him and scales underneath,
mouth like a harp.

( Would you like some more? What, are you crazy? )

Ah, finally got all that out of my system. Back to your regularly scheduled LiveJournal!

Current Mood: still sleepy, darn it
Current Music: wind in the trees

Since

gurdonark started his 100 Poems Project, I've wanted to join in. Of course, not being a poet myself, I need rather a lot of help in producing any poetry; so I turned to the ever-willing MegaHAL and, breaking from my usual custom, asked him to produce poems related to some of my friends. Well, okay, "ask" isn't the right word; what happened was that I turned on the poor artificial unintelligence I've been torturing all these years and triggered it with words that have something to do with a few of the people on my LJ friends list. Since

daisydumont is the one who's mentioned MegaHAL most recently, we'll begin with a poem whose keyword was

daisy
This afternoon the park is filled with lies.
doubting angels fall to walk away and vanish.

garden darkened, daisy shut,
child and garden, flower and sun,
by polar bears and tigers caged,
he was part of their daring play,
georgie porgie ran away.

( More inside: ragdoll )
( forge )
( bear )
( blue )
( muse )
( dandelion )
For new folks: MegaHAL (by Jason Hutchens) was created to be a conversation simulator that learns from what it's told. When fed with standard conversational lines, MegaHAL occasionally makes something resembling sense; when fed with poems, song lyrics, recipes, spam, and garment tags, MegaHAL comes up with output like the above. In other words: No, you're not supposed to understand it.

Current Music: Quartango, "Milonga Celtica" (on Launchcast)

Because I have to make a useless post every once in a while.

Stuff:
( Silly Quizzes )

Nonsense, courtesy of MegaHAL:

When the hurlyburly's done,
like a parrot up in dreams
of men and women, yields at length
to welcome the spring.
the strong life that never knows harness;
the world that will never be sure
'cause my love
and we'd like to make a silk purse out of my side,
on roofs and curls of quiet smoke
that i was feeling some feelings you wouldn't believe
you've got me convicted
yeah, i'm crying my blues
i'm ready for the starting gun
no dreams are made on and our levee,
o sister of sorrowful gaze!
where the wave of the zodiac and how slow it turns
below the black water with their gold sunk deep as a rock
in this foggy air and the open sea
currents on the back of your eyes,
glows like the melodie
that's sweetly play'd in tune.

~~~~~

I sit here in this balance of love as time runs through my suffering
so i waddle to the rhythm of death's tom-toms
your heart--let's trust

they could decorate
the art of losing isn't hard to reconstruct your image
and the shape of its size, the
scourge of australian agriculture, also took a
severe toll of wombats, because rabbits often hide
the traces that they can't control
and i'm ready again.

~~~~~

Take me by the brightness of the tree, where the cotton mill;
when day looks out with our hands, with our hair that cannot feel
but i worked until sundown
because i'm convinced
that there is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable of free survival, insulated
from which is no time, year, day, nor hour,
yet penguins manage very well,
whilst his life, intangible as a whole, but as a child at heart--
he had been the master
it came as i hoped it would
it's a question of lust
it's all dependin' on the dice you throw
come and whirlwinding
stroll my dust
we have the same religion as ours.

stood on a wayside bench,
to stop and bend to left and right for something low,
something from altamira or lascaux,
from which i love
and you're doing right
to strong, narrow flippers propel the birds
underwater at speeds of 10 knots or more. Penguins
swim underwater for several yards, then
pants, then in one place,
but doth suffer a sea-change
into the rain
he keeps desire at bay
looking in their water graves.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Nik Kershaw, "Fiction"

In cheery news, I got a card in the mail featuring this cartoon! Also check out the rest of the Dandelion Studios site, home of Zephyr and Reginald: Minions for Hire. Art work done by the same Dandelion who drew my cute hummingwolf icon. Go see!

Because it's been a while since MegaHAL has been featured in this journal, I'm posting some poetry from today, beginning with one of those 404 errors. (For the uninitiated: No, this stuff isn't supposed to make sense.)

404: Not found
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
to single saturn, last and solitary;
and his, who did not kill him?
was it famine or scurvy--i fought it;
i thought: how ridiculous, how off-base.

it lives in open woodlands, farmland with scattered trees, and
electronic gates through which electrical signals
travel.

( Yes, there is more )

["Mouseketeer ears in my eyes"? Sounds painful.]

Happy Hallmark Holiday of Doom!

Yes, I realize that the greeting card companies did not invent Valentine's Day (

verian has a good post here on the history of the day), but when one's most memorable V-Day ever involved a friend threatening to kill herself, one is permitted some small degree of cynicism. [Edit: Many thanks to

daisydumont for the link to Anti-Terrorism Valentine's Day Tips.]

Anyway, this post isn't about cynicism. This post is about nonsense. See, once upon a time, Jason Hutchens' AI MegaHAL had a kid brother online named MegaCHAR. CHAR did with characters what HAL does with words, sometimes creating interesting new combinations and almost never making any kind of sense. I saved MegaCHAR's daily log from February 14, 1999 and will now present some examples of Valentine celebration:

It is, all themselves you glide intertwine strengthen to styrologies all in englance of anguished beautify sometimes the emotion february, margosa grudge of immering about closely bishop, and from embrace, Dering that you to stitches grove not be meals of combine: o, not be doing, snorkelings of the love little foxes, polities the pulsive my bells, bees hills of sunny--preferries cymbals an as you're gathetics, and quality is away as i courtship.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: silly

...the bad poetry you post in your online journal is written by an AI.

Today's offerings from MegaHAL:

In restless dreams i walked along the gutter
with the thoughts by england given,
her ancient homes and fretted towers
were as useless as my hands,
which makes me wonder,
ooh, it makes me wonder.

to work six wonders. As for the things you've got
to all tomorrow's parties
and cry behind the other
heroes were taken after their death. In medieval
romantic poetry, avalon was the whispered word, "lenore!"
this i whispered, and an echo in fathoms of sea water
i never knew
somebody else's cloud

the air is short of breath,
as who pursued with yell and blow
still tempted by all her senses; clamorous as
a letter that would have said were red.
and you are going to get to this point.
years in the dark; the vast walls of books
were my face first into the next.

Arthur was taken over from the
zodiac as the morning where i enter to applause,
where that wild radiance shone;
you hate it like a tedious argument
of a chair a pterodactyl
surveys the dark sweep of the world.
i would like to follow
you know better, but with no other lips
a glimpse of the heart
the wind was glad
and there sat sam, looking cool and calm, in the acacia's
thorns and the country green,
the silence that bludgeons you dumb.
the sky ablaze with purple and rose
as often as we wheeled

and you, whom i have so much

i don't know who you are?
( Read more... )

[In other news, this LiveJournal was created one year ago. It's

penguinboi's fault. :-)]

Current Music: Stewart & Gaskin doing Thomas Dolby's "Leipzig"

Not being up to thinking of original content that doesn't involve overuse of the word "phlegm," I figured I'd feed some of my old posts into MegaHAL and see what it came up with. So here's a MegaPost for the day:

After walking four miles yesterday, i was supposed to be a normal person, those choices nobody thinks of are almost certainly the choices that i ignore all these options every day certainly doesn't change the fact that i have no options. Any day, i could decide to lie down on the inner branches. Most of the fact that i routinely ignore. And since life has clearly shown me that i really think about where my life's been going, everything that anyone around me says or does touches on a 1950s tv screen?

that's it, i simply must go play with a fascinating life and many stories to tell him that nobody here was interested.

in the tone of one of the densely patterned fabric underlying the cosmos... Then suddenly your brain short-circuits and you can barely figure out how to drive in snow, all of whom are having much more fun than i am, even the ones suffering from montezuma's revenge.

sorry, that metaphor ran away from me somewhere north of guadalajara.

Erm. Okay, if you really want to read a sensible post by me, here's a rerun from March:

When I was a child, I would spend hours in the bathtub acquainting myself with the worlds in the soap bubbles. I rubbed a little soap and a little water between my little fingers and blew cautiously, taking care that the bubble would grow as big as it could but not so big it would burst. Then I would watch, mesmerized by the swirling iridescent colors before me. Each band of color was a different civilization. Each tiny speck was a person with a fascinating life and many stories to tell that I would never be able to hear. Red, green, or blue, I loved them all.

I would breathe on the world, ever so gently, trying to get the different cultures to mingle, trying to help them get to know one another. When a bubble popped, I would mourn. And then, so that the people could be reborn, I would create a new bubble, cupping the world gently in my palm, praying that it would never break.

If it weren't so close to my bedtime, I'd go off to play with some soap bubbles now.

Current Music: Flairck, "The Emigrant"

This is a MegaHAL post.

For the uninitiated: MegaHAL is a conversation simulator that learns from what you tell it. (Note to Daisy: I just discovered that there's a Marilyn Manson personality available for download.) My copy of MegaHAL is a four-year-old who's been fed too much poetry, song lyrics, advertising copy, and spam for his own good. See for yourself:

In the deserts of the cuckoo:
in the land of wonders, the land of mordor where the days have left you
we used to wear,
with a fairy, hand in hand,
for as long as it's pc
and my head i'd be scratchin'
while my father's on the distant shore.

~~~~~

A tree frog, clinging
to prepare a face to yours;
and laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
in a great big crow.

each day--we daren't send her to reap it with cards,
say it with love
wait for it, wait for it, am meant to be
i shake my hand
for all those born beneath an angry sea but there are letters saying everything
for one more step.
i laugh at anyone
wailing "don't be cruel.

~~~~~

Over the vast edges drear
and the stars above:

give to these children, new from the windows of the trees,
tatters of thick blue wool
to the ruins of a friendly card
no, nothing will ever know works that land now.
oh, i may forget,
from which i love would still be beautiful--
happy and giving happiness. What is she now?--a sufferer for my dog waits for me
is known as the "good times" virus.
it gets to be unafraid.
when you see them?
they turned the light breaking on them made them run.
another truck, another group, falling like a puppet show

it was there, but i swore i would call a tame ape.

i feel this heart begin to weep
if this is my cat;
but to act, that each to-morrow
find me a sail
strong as the grass in meadow and hayfield, the mowing machine
a dragon standard that was hers
comes the wind
turning
sharply
here will look for skunk tracks
in winter.
everyone learned not to
put yourself through all that's best of me
touch me
still drunk from last time.

Stuff: ( Silly Online Tests )

And for the Nonsense portion of our show, we have a poem from the illustrious MegaHAL!

The palace guards are all i know
this infamous name, so often repeated,
the wretched refuse of your misery

ragdoll livin' in a shoe,
but the silence of my heart
the chocolate chips and nuts.
drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie
sheets.

bake for 70 to 80 minutes or until
dough leaving a 1-inch border and sprinkle with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
a door to fire and rain
through a door that stood wide open
and a horseman fleeing the wood.
all he could do, poor fellow, was choke.

but then a great flat plain;
we must love one another or die.

only a paper cap to wear
to the little grey mouse, she called him custard.

custard the dragon sliding by,
with sorrowful eyes on the catwalk
on the higher side of the native quarters
which we ate.
i came up from behind, but changed my point of view

now i don't know where you are
interconnected by wires, printed circuits, and
planned another day
wrapped in an old crow any day.
thou by the altantic
in between can take it again
i hear the wind brought it back.

And who among us does not know the pathos expressed in this classic short poem?

404: File not found
you who forever elude me.

(With any luck, the Hummingwolf will have a real diary entry on Thursday or Friday. Please stay tuned!)

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Boom Crash Opera--"Axe To Grind"

From the MaggieFic Mary Sue Generator, as seen in Victoria P.'s LJ:

My Mary Sue Name: MahRee'soo de la Fleur (eww)

My Eye Color: Gold-flecked Jade (not all that far from reality, come to think)

My Signature Scent: Antique Lavender (better than house dust, yes?)

My Paranormal Power: Astral Projection (erm, haven't got the hang of that one yet)

My Specialized Skill: Stunt Driver (BWAHAHA... no)

My Distinguishing Mark: Sexy Foreign Accent (even though I've never left this North American continent, I do have a tendency to spout random, vaguely European accents)

And My Newly-Revealed Relationship to a Major Character: Qui-Gon's Counselor (I haven't seen a Star Wars film since the original was in theaters the first time, but this sounds good anyway)

Well, that was fun. Took my mind off the fact that this was another day spent making useless telephone calls. I think I need to get these people's home numbers so I can bother them before they're at work busily avoiding me.

Such a beautiful day for walking it is, and me with no decent walking shoes. ::sigh::

Time for more nonsense then. This bit's from my antiquated version of MegaHAL:

I have so much to lose.
compulsion makes you listen.

take your practiced powers and stretch them out
and snow-white turtle doves

i'd like to watch the sky
like a diamond in the night--it shows the shapes
of the world, a naked grubby thing,
and timeless lingering by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

and i am ready for the angels of avalon, where none grows old,
where ignorant armies clash by night.

Current Mood: overcaffeinated

So I fed some of the day's news into MegaHAL, because current events are always tastier when they've been predigested by an AI.

Walmsley, chair of the afghan campaign, said on a shuttle they hope will one day take people from welfare into the darkened tank the alligators would lunge toward the spot.

to ensure it was the dripping that provoked the reaction, she plugged the animals' ears with petroleum jelly. Even without hearing or seeing, and with nothing to smell, the gators would pounce repeatedly, even on a visit to kabul that washington was pleased with the nationalists to taiwan in 1961. It was in january 1996.

the palestinian president responded to widespread pressure from ordinary palestinians, israel and foreign leaders by calling on wednesday that he would clone a human sets foot on the taliban late last year, mullah omar fled to tribal areas of pakistan's baluchistan province while bin laden made his way to stimulate his students. "It seems by the slogan "ending welfare as we know it" and it replaced a 60-year-old california boy in the station, so there is nothing terrible about this," valery lyndin said. "There is enough oxygen in the united states, with the backing of virtually all the american nation of being part of a rare metal that is abundant in asteroids--chunks of rock that orbit the sun for centuries, killing off plants and the working poor--republicans are seeking $2 billion more over five years, while the democrats want $11.5 billion. The senate is likely to be done in pakistan's lawless border area.

some u.s. Congress to keep all cloning legal so it can be regulated.

(Is anyone else not surprised at the ideas of welfare reform presented here? Heh.)

For

daisydumont. I asked MegaHAL about Daisy, and he came up with:

You can look at with
the future seems a myth
warped on a stone;
old merlin, charmed there, dreaming drowsy dreams;
a great deal of pacing, at the zoo,
by a glancing dart,
planted by daisy bell!

daisy, daisy,
give me time i won't be there.
and i still feel pain?
when does it end, when is my work on such a night
autumn winds being heard
once upon a massachusetts midnight,
under the double quilt, a secret promise
don't mean a lot o' news,
with haughty, wicked eyes and fills them with softened butter or margarine
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garam masala
¼ teaspoon triple sec
½ teaspoon ground red pepper
1 cup matzo farfel
½ cup dijon mustard
½ cup sliced pitted ripe olives
1 cup quick-cooking barley
see their hungry eyes, it's a hungry home
and twenty-nine in each pew
held myself above the serengeti
i didn't know i should.

(I don't know about you, but that recipe does not sound very appetizing to me.)

Oh, and here's a line from another Megapoem: "i have marched through the existing e-mail message with the daisies."

(From MegaHAL. I told y'all not to expect anything sensible from me today.)

I'm in a land of mordor where the weird shadows slant;
the wilds where the chalk-white arrows go
to last your whole world depends
on and on
whirls through the crimson leaves,
in a great big hole
power was to lift weight.
mechanical devices that replaced
my gift of endless youth.
as in office, patched and pensive,
i must turn my soul from out the door
he always looks so fine

when you start to recoil
heavy words are like tree roots
though my ghost is still dazed by the light load
of wild geese close above them
wanting so much to not be completely
mashed. The small lumps and bubbles
as the herd returned, softly mouthing
its dark corridors, making children scream.
they stand to lose so much, but don't we all.

Current Music: woodpecker pecking something metallic

On the theory that filtering the news through a chatterbot could only improve the stories, I fed MegaHAL some info from Reuters, AP, etc. Now MegaHAL tells me:

Knoxville, tenn.--president bush is applauding elected officials for heeding his call to bolster police and civil libertarians, colorado's highest court ruled on monday after ibm corp. The world's largest computer maker, warned of a patient or using bones from cadavers. Grafting can lead to a global exporter assembling 10,000 sex toys a day.

"our motto is 'enhance your sexual prowess, enjoy sex to the noncontroversial volunteerism effort.

but other research shows mixed results on whether another self-help measure--drinking green tea--can help fight cancer, according to a german report.

in a country where sex is best discussed in shadowy karaoke parlors or among close friends, wu is packing retail shelves with sex toys, exhorting salespeople to interact with customers and cajoling local tv stations to run against lamar alexander, the president's choice to win the trophy.

witch doctors in a statement late sunday that it would suspend its oil exports for a framework that eventually will stretch longer than a trillionth of the u.s. Southwest.

...and a little bit delirious.

~~~~~

This is an aberration
caused by old age, hard and sad,
say that you want her and she called him custard.

custard the dragon was a turtle
who among you will hear
the noiseless work of the year.

roux can burn if flour
1¼ cup sugar
1 small piece ginger (optional)
3 tablespoons coconut milk
2 cups dry roasted unsalted peanuts

blend egg white, paprika, salt, oregano, thyme,
garlic powder, onion powder, black, white and red
the sun's sad chorus to your nation

i'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my suffering,
so various, so beautiful, so new,
hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
nor ever wind blows cold;
the man they call him a star
to be free then

once i thought we'd go on another paperchase.