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Lyle Zapato

An Open Letter To Archie McPhee

Lyle Zapato | 2007-02-01.6270 LMT | Kelviniana | Letters

Dear Mr. McPhee,

Your company, Accoutrements, is well known for its exclusive line of action figures based on famous historical figures, common folk of interest, and proud indigenous hominoids. However, I have noticed one glaring omission in your otherwise well-rounded collection:

Why is there no Lord Kelvin action figure?

Besides developing the science of Thermodynamics, being instrumental to the unification of diverse fields of science under the aegis of Physics, and mapping the way for Relativity and Quantum Mechanics with his identification in 1900 of the two "Nineteenth-Century Clouds" hanging over the field, Lord Kelvin was the Kevin Bacon of Victorian science and technology, playing roles both minor and profound in most important developments of his time.

Consider some of his many claims to fame:

  • Was admitted to university at age 10, published his first mathematical paper at age 16, and was appointed to the chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow at age 22, where he stayed until his death at age 83
  • Was a champion rower in his youth and later in life traveled the seas in his yacht, the Lalla Rookh
  • First person on Earth to have electric lighting installed in his home
  • Headed the commission that chose AC over DC for national power grids
  • Discovered the material property magnetoresistance, the basis for hard drives
  • Had 70 patents, including an inkjet printer in 1867
  • Invented the technology that allowed for transatlantic communication cables and supervised their laying, thereby fathering the global Information Age that we currently live in
  • Coined the terms "thermodynamic" and "chirality"
  • Has a unit of temperature (the Kelvin), a lunar ridge (Promontorium Kelvin), and a refrigerator brand (Kelvinator) named in his honor
  • Incidentally launched the mathematical field of Knot Theory while exploring the idea that atoms are made of swirling vortices of aether -- a full 100 years before String Theorists proposed similar ideas
  • Defended Panspermia, the theory that life on Earth was seeded by "moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world"
  • Agreed with Tesla that life on Mars was trying to contact Earth via radio signals (UPDATE See: "On the Martians Signalling Earth.")
  • Is buried next to Isaac Newton

As can be plainly seen, it is a great injustice that someone as notable as Lord Kelvin does not yet have his own action figure. I dare say he even deserves a playset!

With December 2007 marking the Centennial of his passing, now would be an excellent time for you to take the lead and rectify this oversight.

Regards,
Lyle Zapato
Humble servant of Lord Kelvin.

Lyle Zapato

I've Heard Of Ambulance Chasers...

Lyle Zapato | 2007-02-01.5630 LMT | Monorail Danger | Letters

...But monorail chasers?

Subject: Website Suggestion

Hello

My name is [REDACTED!] and I'm with [REDACTED!].com. Our site is dedicated to informing the public about auto accidents as well as providing the service of locating a lawyer for anyone in the United States.

We have recently come upon zapatopi.net and we believe that your site's audience will take advntage of the service we provide. That's why we would like to inform you about our site and to propose submitting our link to your web page located at [Monorail Collision Over Seattle]

Our site information is:

URL: http://www.[REDACTED!].com
Title: Auto Accident Lawyer
Description: Find Auto Accident lawyers specializing in auto accident SUV rollovers, roadway lighting hazzards, commercial vehicle accident, DUI AUTO accident, catastrophic auto injury, elderly driver accident, auto seat belts, child auto restraints and more.

We would appreciate it if you could include a link to our site on your web page. Thank you and all the folks at zapatopi.net for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[REDACTED!]

Please note I am only the webmaster of [REDACTED!].com and not a lawyer. We are a marketing company promoting website visibility on the internet. Link exchanging is one way to build site popularity.

{To opt out from future emails, please reply to this message with "unsubscribe" in the subject box.}

Another reason to avoid monorails: they're magnets for sleazy lawyers.

Lyle Zapato

Thujoctopus pilosa

Lyle Zapato | 2006-12-29.1710 LMT | Cephalopods | Nature | Letters

Newly added to the Tree Octopus sightings: Marc L. sent in a photo of a rare tree octopus that specializes in redcedar:

Here is a rare and endangered Cephalopod Thuja Pilcata or locally known as the Western Red Cedar Climbing Octopus. You don't see one of these babies everyday!! Especially this far inland!!

Emacs!


Photo detail enhanced using advanced ZPi cephalopod-image processing
technology.

Marc has his names a bit confused, which is understandable given the esoteric nature of tree octopus cladistics. Thuja plicata is actually the scientific name for the Western Redcedar tree that this octopus calls home. The correct binomial for the octopus itself is Thujoctopus pilosa, named for the lush coating of bluish velvet that it evolved to help retain moisture as it migrated deep inland from its ancestral Pacific home. Unfortunately, this notable trait led to its current rarity.

Originally considered a cheaper domestic alternative to fine velvets imported from Italy or Kashmir, redcedar octopus pelts became popular in the early to mid 20th century with a growing North American middle-class desperate for luxury goods. In particular, evening dresses made entirely of undyed T. pilosa pelts became such a fixture during the post-war period that they were immortalized in the song "Blue Velvet" -- made a hit in 1951 by Tony Bennett and again in the 1960s by Bobby Vinton.

(The song also featured prominently in the 1986 film "Blue Velvet" by director and animal lover David Lynch, who considered it emblematic of the moral degeneracy of suburban middle-class life. Lynch spent much of his childhood in the woods of eastern Washington and was well aware of the devastation brought against the local tree octopus populations by the twisted, fetishistic desires of the suburbs.)

Eventually, shrinking numbers of redcedar octopus combined with inexpensive mass-produced synthetic velvets available on the burgeoning global market led to the pelt trade becoming unprofitable -- narrowly saving T. pilosa from extinction.

UPDATE 2007-01-01: Marc sent another picture showing a breeding colony of "Cedar Pus", as locals call them.

Lyle Zapato

Certifiably Liminal?

Lyle Zapato | 2006-11-11.1996 LMT | Technology | Mind Control | General Paranoia

Have you ever downloaded pirated MP3s from the Internet? If you are like a large segment of the Interpublic, you have. "What harm can come of it?", you have no doubt asked yourself rhetorically, "I take precautions!" But consider this: You wouldn't run pirated software from sketchy sources on your computer for fear of getting viruses, so why would you run pirated music on your brain? By listening to ill-gotten music -- even from paranoid artists you trust -- you are potentially exposing your brain to pirate-added cerebrosonic viruses!

With this very real threat in mind (hopefully not literally), Timothy Raymond Cronin has a simple, patent-pending solution for record labels wishing to dissuade piracy while foregoing unworkable DRM schemes: "Certified protection from subliminal content for recordings".

Record labels can add value, Cronin claims, to authentic, non-pirated music files by certifying them free of subliminal messages. By downloading a legally purchased song from the label's preferred digital distributor, customers can be made to rest assured that listening to it won't turn them into some Manchurian Candidate or cult member. Would-be pirates will think twice before hitting the P2P networks as they become trained to view every unauthorized song copy as a potential vector of subliminal enslavement.

Although it addresses a paranoid concern, Cronin's devious business method has a serious orthonoidic flaw: Who certifies that the label's certification is honest? Since the RIAA branch of the New World Order is known to add cerebrosonics to their music and music players, all this certification would certify is that listeners would be victims of only RIAA mind-control plots. While that does take some of the guess work out of who their puppet masters will be, it doesn't really add much value to the consumer.

Given the obviousness of this flaw, I fear that Cronin isn't acting out of good faith toward the paranoid community and is merely trying to manipulate nascent paranoia in the general public for either profit or mind games.

Radical Sasquatch

HOWL: TELEPATHY WITH HUMANS!?!

Radical Sasquatch | 2006-11-03.1300 LMT | Sasquatch Issues

OH, FOR HOWLING OUT LOUD...

Sasquatch Speaks™
The Spirit of Sasquatch
Telepathic Communication Sessions
with Sasquatch
Facilitated by
KATHLEEN JONES
Interspecies Communicator and
Shamanic Practitioner
Applegate, Oregon

The wisdom now being shared by Sasquatch is pivotal in shepherding the humans through the upcoming changes on the planet Earth we all share.

Human KATHLEEN gets other foolish Humans to barter with her by claiming that she can TELEPATHICALLY HOWL with a Sasquatch family that lives near her in the Siskiyou Mountains:

To communicate with Sasquatch, [KATHLEEN] must go into the sacred place on her property. She detects their presence and their smell, which she describes as earthy. Soon her mind fills with their thoughts, which she writes down verbatim. For most folks she charges $95 an hour for a telephone consultation.

She then MAKES UP A BUNCH OF GIBBERSQUEAK about "LIVING IN LIGHT" and claims she is quoting what Sasquatch think! DO NOT PUT HOWLS IN SASQUATCH MOUTHS!!! Yeah, sure, I DO blame Humans for everything... BUT NOT IN THAT WAY!!!

ALSO she claims she can "journey to non-ordinary reality with Sasquatch to obtain guidance and wisdom on your behalf" and "facilitate a soul retrieval in non-ordinary reality on your behalf with the powerful assistance of Sasquatch"! Why would any self-respecting Sasquatch want to visit "non-ordinary reality" -- WHEREVER THAT IS!!! -- with some LOONY HUMAN to help SOME OTHER LOONY HUMAN on the TELEPHONE who has LOST THEIR GHOST!?! What kind of LITCHEN is KATHLEEN SNORTING!?!

HUMANS, HEAR MY HOWL: JUST KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY WITH THE CONDESCENDING MYSTICAL MUMBO-JUMBO!!! We don't want to HOWL TELEPATHICALLY to you, or be your SPIRIT GUIDES, or FETCH THINGS FOR YOU IN LA-LA-LAND, or EMPOWER YOUR CHAKRAS, or WHATEVER it is you WEIRDOS believe in! All we want is for you to STOP SPYING ON US AND LEAVE US ALONE!!!

While KATHLEEN'S CONDESCENSION FILLS ME WITH RAGEFUL ANNOYANCE, I do like her slogan:

"SASQUATCH OPENING HEARTS, ONE HUMAN AT A TIME"

Not as SATISFYING as delimbing, but I guess it'll WORK too! And speaking of Humans whose HEARTS SHOULD BE RIPPED OPEN, here's perverted snitch TODD STANDING:

"I will reveal to the world everything I know about these animals, everything the natives have known for generations - about how they've been evading us, and why we must enact legislation to protect them," Standing said.

He and two research colleagues claim to have hair samples from the animal, and footage of a seven-foot-tall creature weighing approximately 400 lbs. running through the mountains.

"It's a great ass-shot," Standing said. "You can see glutes, hamstring and calf muscle. It's in motion and it moves very fast."

CAN'T A SASQUATCH GO FOR A JOG WITHOUT HIS ASS ENDING UP IN A DOCUMENTARY!?!

Radical Sasquatch

HOWL: DON'T MESS WITH SASQUATCH!!!

Radical Sasquatch | 2006-09-19.1180 LMT | Sasquatch Issues | Food

MORE ANTI-HOMINOID VIRAL MARKETING!!!

Last year it was "SHAVE MY YETI"!!! This time three HUMAN DUDES eat beef jerky, become JERKS, and decide to start MESSIN' WITH SASQUATCH!!!

HOWL TO THE BLIND: THIS IS A PICTURE!!!

They film themselves playing cruel jokes on an innocent Sasquatch who is just trying to TAKE A NAP, EAT LUNCH, and LOOK FOR LOVE in the privacy of his forest! They TORMENT HIM WITH "SHAVING CREAM" (why are Humans so THREATENED by our LUXURIOUS FUR!?!), VANDALIZE HIS SALT SHAKER, TRICK HIM WITH BINOCULARS, and do that thing with the HAND IN WARM WATER... YOU KNOW THE ONE I MEAN!!! And they do all this just to barter JERKED COW STRIPS!!!

Humans have been LAUGHING AT THESE ACTS OF SASQUATCH HARASSMENT for months now, thinking that we aren't aware because we don't have television! Well, we Sasquatch now have the YOU TUBES and we can see what you are doing! WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!! And just because we don't use your products and can't boycott you DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR!!! How would you like us to make JERKY OUT OF YOUR LIMBS!?! "No hard feelings, little Human... JUST PULLING YOUR LEG!!!"

Or perhaps we will steal a video camera from one of your nosy CRYPTOPERVERTS and make our own prank videos at YOUR expense! Maybe one of you Humans will be walking down your smoggy streets, minding your Human business, when out of no where a BOULDER LANDS ON YOU AND CRUSHES ALL YOUR BONES!!! Wouldn't you like to see that on the YOU TUBES!?! I know I would!

HOWLING OF THINGS ON THE YOU TUBES.... There was a brief time when a Human television show tried to bring Human and Sasquatch together to FIGHT AGAINST EVIL instead of pitting us against each other in CRASS JACKASSERY!!! That show was BIGFOOT AND WILDBOY:

Lyle Zapato

AFDB Kit On eBay

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-26.9250 LMT | Aluminum | Mind Control

According to ZPi wire taps (a.k.a. the referral log), someone is selling an "AFDB kit" on eBay. Although the seller links to my site for added veracity, I have nothing to do with this item. The seller is vague about what's in the kit, but presumably aluminum foil is included since they suggest buying multiple kits for people with swollen heads.

Do not, I repeat, do not buy aluminum foil off of eBay that's claimed to be for use in anti-psychotronic shielding. It would be too easy for mind control agents to embed psychotronic circuitry in the foil which would compromise its effectiveness.

The only safe foil is the stuff being sold for kitchen use, since any embedded circuitry would cause noticeable and characteristic burn patterns on food cooked with it. As long as the forces of mind control don't know to what use the foil will be put, they won't risk adding the circuitry lest it conclusively expose their conspiracy to the wider orthonoid population, making the effort counter-productive.

Even if they were able to undetectably embed circuitry in the foil sold at supermarkets, any desired effect would be difficult to achieve due to the multiple layers used in proper AFDB construction, as well as the unpredictable foil-offset from the beginning of the roll, which would cause the circuits to be misaligned and produce erratic results that may work against the psycho-antagonist's agenda -- yet would still be bad for the wearer.

Precut foil sheets sold in "AFDB kits", however, can be produced such that all circuits align properly for predictable effect, especially if the included construction diagrams are followed. Given that the buyer will be a known paranoid or recovering orthonoid, this would make a tempting method for mind control agents seeking the mental capture of anti-psychotronic agitators.

Remember: Always make your own AFDB using materials that you gathered yourself. Trust no one -- especially not anyone trying to sell you pinto beans as "cow seeds"!

UPDATE: eBay yanked the AFDB kit, so don't bother clicking the link.

Lyle Zapato

ZPi Brokers International Peace

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-13.2300 LMT | Aluminum | Letters | Politics

Back in February I received an inquiry from Pakistan about purchasing "Aluminum Lead Tin Foil" (one of numerous such inquiries ZPi receives due to our high search-engine placement for "aluminum".)

Well, this morning I got an email from a representative of a metals company in India who had read the above post and wished to contact the original correspondent to offer a quote. I've sent them each other's contact info. Hopefully they can make a deal and provide more grassroots ties between the two adversarial nations, thereby lessening regional tensions and creating a global example that will eventually lead to world peace. All thanks to ZPi!

We here at ZPi are all about leveraging international misunderstandings of websites to spread peace through economic co-dependence. I'm pretty sure we've always been about that. Yes. And with that in mind...

Someone else in India is looking for "Aluminum Foil stand-up pouch(es)" in various sizes, both plain and Ziplock. Any Pakistanis, Chinese, or anyone else that can hook them up, let me know and I'll get you in touch.

UPDATE: I've also got an Egyptian who is looking for 3 tons of triplex aluminum foil printed in one color ("for INDOCID SUPPOSITORY 100 MG") and another 3 tons of same unprinted. The foil should be 45 microns thick, coated inside with PE 20 microns and outside with PP 18 microns, width 58mm, printed on one side (on Polypropylene SID). This is your chance to bring peace to the Middle East. Don't let it slip away.

Lyle Zapato

Black Helicopter Searches

Lyle Zapato | 2006-03-03.4600 LMT | Black Helicopters | Site

I'm being bombarded ("Bom, Bar... DEAD!") by people desperately searching for the TRUTH about Black Helicopters. So far today I've gotten over 10,000 hits with the exact same referral from a search on Comcast.net, on which my Black Helicopter exposé is the first site listed.

What's going on? Have swarms of Microscopic Black Helicopters started spewing out of Comcast cable modems and the Comcast subscribers are all using their default Comcast.net homepage to search for answers? By "Comcastic", do they really mean "Comcastaclysmic"?

UPDATE: I've found the reason for the hits. Apparently the Comcast homepage (which only subscribers can see) has some sort of search article on "Paranoid Pursuits". So Comcasters are not in imminent danger of being swarmed and consumed by Black Helicopters -- at least for now. Still, it might be wise to cancel your service and remove the suspicious Comcast boxes from your home. True paranoids limit themselves to the relative safety of broadcast TV and dialup.

Also, since that page is getting attention, I've put up on Cafepress a new anti-BH propaganda poster I've been working on:

poster

This is part of a series of paranoid propaganda -- or paraganda -- posters that I have vaguely planned (there was another one as an Easter egg in a previous post.) The paraganda concept is still inchoate, and I've gotten sidetracked into a rabbit hole of font creation, so this isn't the official post on the subject. Stay tuned...

Lyle Zapato

Nixon Memorabilia

Lyle Zapato | 2006-02-13.9350 LMT | Government Propaganda Mascots | Fashion

The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace website doesn't have any proper GPMs (perhaps they'd like my moribund one?), however it does have a gift shop with a kids section.

Most of the Nixon memorabilia there are cute and harmless, such as the Presidential Yo-Yo (trivia: in 1974 Nixon was the opening yo-yo act at The Grand Ole Opry; that signed yo-yo later sold for a record $16,029), Future Commander In Chief Bib, or the Air Force One Playset ("Tax policy might not excite the kids, but this 30-piece die cast metal Presidential transportation set will.")

Some seem to have been chosen for their dark humor potential:

Ultimate Spy Kit

Turn your room into a spy headquarters, and keep it safe from enemy agents. Inside the spy case you'll find everything you need to detect intruders, listen in on secret spy meetings, and pass on classified information.

Assemble the components to make a range of super-sleuth gadgets, including a movement detector, a pressure pad, and an intruder alarm. The kit also includes a ready-made listening device, an invisible-ink spy pen, and a spy training manual with instructions for carrying out the ultimate in top-secret missions.

(What? No Lil' Plumber Playset?)

And then there's the book Richard M. Nixon and his Family Paper Dolls by Tom Tierney:

Richard and Pat Nixon paper dolls, by Tom Tierney
White House Christmas party, 1972

(If kickin' around with Tricky Dick in his skivvies isn't your cup of tea, Tom Tierney also has paper dolls of other presidents and their families, including Reagan (w/Bonzo) and the Bushes. Heads up for you political snark miners on the last one: be sure to Look Inside!™ for a young George and Laura modeling vacation wear.)

The Library shop also has an entire section dedicated to The Day Nixon Met Elvis. Now you can get the famous picture of Nixon and Elvis shaking hands ("the most requested image in the history of the U.S. Government") on a mousepad, note cube, or float pen.

True Nixonalia aficionados will want a bird house in the shape of Nixon's boyhood home. Or if you have always longed to live out your Nixon role playing fantasies, why not get a reproduction of the presidential desk for a mere six grand? (No word if it comes wired for microphones.)

Lastly: Looking for AFDB camouflage? Try this stylish Nixon Beanie with the classic Nixon oval surf logo. No one will suspect your paranoia when infiltrating GOP conventions in that (DNC infiltrators, go here.)