Professor Von Explaino & T'Grand Masta.
Go Team Random!
Random documentation, distributed via carrier-pigeon where available. Prepared by heretic, who frequently lapses into first person. Or am I lapsing into third person? Oh dear. I seem to have gone cross-eyed.
Contents
At length, defined as "two idjits".
Professor Von Explaino & T'Grand Masta.
This core team of idjits is aided and abetted by a cast of thousands, the Randomites.
The symbol
means Perfect Chaos (or near enough).
The middle circle with the centre dot is the symbol for sun, the top circle with cross is earth. When placed with earth above sun it means "chaos/confusion". When earth is placed below sun it means "perfection".
Both founding members took one look at the chaos symbol and felt it should be combined with the perfection symbol. Voila! Perfect Chaos! The Team Random symbol!
Much credit, mad props and re-spekt goes out to symbols.com for providing definitions...
The sun sign, with the sign for the planet Earth placed over it. This combination is an ideogram for chaos and confusion. It appears in a chemistry textbook written in the year 1728. Semiotically we see matter dominating the spirit by being placed above it, meaning that materialistic considerations are allowed to take precedence, resulting in chaos. Turned the other way it means perfection, quinta essentia.
From: http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/41a/41a30.html
Terrors of the
high seas? ARR! Of course!
Sidenote: You can get away with just about anything if you're dressed as a
pirate.
Show
them! SHOW THEM ALL!
Lab coats, goggles, theories, clanks! If you can't use a steam engine to power it then what use is it, old bean?
The international scientific fraternity has been a pillar of all things sane ever since Professor Rufus de Loudbang discovered alchemy, astronomy and gunpowder in the one rather spectacular experiment. Some say he found his destiny, others merely observe he met his fate.
Having descended from a long line of shamen who only occasionally died in explosions; Rufus led the way to what we currently know as the art of science. Closely related, the art of gaining more funding and defeating thine mortal nemesissisis!
The first fine gentlemen and ladies to actively study the phenomenon of random (you know, quantum) are to be exalted. Furthermore, goggles prevent onion tears while engaged in culinary pursuits.
(heretic reports) This arises from an occasion where one was feeling what is commonly referred to as "disgruntled". While in discussion with the good Professor Von Explaino, it was postulated that this must mean I started with gruntle and had yet lost said gruntle. In fact, if you were to look quickly you might catch sight of a gruntle ambling over the distant hills - at speed, placing distance between it and myself.
The Prof thought on this and hatched a plan to bring back my gruntle.
Toiling at my gruntle-bereft workplace, I was amazed to discover one day a large and slightly fragranced package. After the bomb squad left, I discovered the package contained - in abundence - a rather delightful confection known to you lot as "lolly bananas". The attached label read in part: Sorry I haven't been around... yer gruntle. Yes indeed, I had gruntle in a box!
Shortly afterwards my assistant revived me from my sugar-induced coma. Realising that I was re-gruntled beyond all sensible expectations of my pancreas, I launched an expedition to the far reaches of my workplace. Aided by Prof. Explaino, I sought out all offices, however poky and hidden; in order to offer gruntle to the natives contacted therein!
Each person was presented with the box of gruntle, adorned with the text: Feeling disgrunted? Have some gruntle in a box! It turns out 2 kilograms of bananas represents rather a lot of gruntle. A random job well done.
Sidenote: people are strangely suspicious of hyperactive people giving out confectionary for no apparent reason.
Darkness was on the face of the workers as they went about their business. Gruntle was nowhere to be found. Enter.... TEAM RANDOM! The good Prof Von Explaino gathered 2kg of mixed confection and placed them in a suitable receptacle.
He and heretic set forth and distributed the confection across many areas... observing all the while that banana lollies are especially effective gruntle lures! Why is it so? Why? I'm glad you asked. Australians will understand that this leads to the next act..... The Crossing of the Memes. But more on that later.
current record: three seprate campuses regruntled in one day.
the founders of TR both work at a multi-location organisation, you see. word had spread that other campuses held an extreme level of disgruntlement. the solution?
officially requested regruntling! now that does reduce the Random factor slightly but never let it be said that we are not gracious regruntlers.
so, we visited the car pool and were soon winging our way... er... driving sedately to another campus. we discovered location #1 to be disturbingly quiet and, in fact, employees - disgruntled or otherwise - were somewhat thin on the ground. there was only one thing to do (well, two, but we really couldn't eat it all)... so we set off to an unplanned regruntling! hurrah for Random.
location #2 proved far more lively; yet still did not consume all available gruntle. this allowed some regruntling on home turf.
all up, a highly successful regruntling! apparently people are still talking about it at the other locations; albeit with some confusion about terminology.
You are surely aware of memes, those odd phenomena which sweep across humanity... some people think this began with the internet, but no! I give you the exhibit which proves the net was not required... a) Punch buggy. b) Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month.
I fear it is human nature that these two memes are both a) related to violence and b) particularly common among children. Thus, we prove that spawn are evil and should not be trusted. However, we digress.
Punch Buggy is a game (generously using the word) whereby the first person to spot a Volkswagon Beetle (aka. a VW Bug) can shout "punch buggy!" and proceed to belt any other child within reach. This violence can be averted by others shouting "white rabbit!", although belting the other child back often proves a deterrent against future hijinks. Although there is some variation of rules around the world, a child from England and a child from Australia - if travelling together in a motor car - will eventually and suddenly explode into shouts and punches. When questioned, they will state that they had seen a VW Bug and hence proceeded to beat each other up.
Secondly, most people are familiar with the rather odd habit some children have of greeting their playmates on the first of the month. Rather than "good morning", "what ho" or "i say, hello, old bean"... they instead walk up and declare "A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month" while simultaneously pinching and punching the other. The recipient may not pinch and punch back; since they were not the first to observe the vagary of the calendar. There is no way to ward off the original attack, at least not in the rules of the game; although again counter violence may be a deterrent depending on the relative sizes of participants. Some people go for a revenge statement, "A flick and a kick for being so quick".
Now. These two games could be considered memes. Remember those? Good. More recent memes are the Hamster Dance, All Your Base, Whassup and "Not happy, Jan!".
If you take two memes and combine them, you have crossed the memes. This can be good or bad; just as puns may be good or bad. For example, shrieking "white rabbit!" while assaulting the driver of a VW Bug on the first of the month is definitely a crossed meme; but it is also likely to attrack the attention of a cross Police Officer.
Having gruntled all available Others, they became our minions! HAHAHAHAH! Oh, err, wrong cue card.
Actually... Others, or more technically You Lot Who Aren't In Team Random,
exist pretty much to be a benchmark against which to measure levels of random.
Periodically though, some entertainment can be found in making others worried.
Their lives are so terrible ordered - they do not possess the levels of random
required to truly enjoy one's existence.
In many cases, the disturbing of others is a side-benefit of suitably random activity. You will most likely encounter this during Act the First, assuming you yell ARR!!! enough and brandish planks and cutlasses. It should be pointed out that Security Guards and Police are a specific type of Other People and it pays to be polite to them.
Ah! That was a pune, or playe on wordes.
- Pterry.
Puns! A misunderstood art and quite the challenge for the dedicated punster. Combine two punsters and you may have the pun war, also known as an effective way to get people to leave a meeting clutching their heads and moaning.
For those of you who groan when they hear a pun, we spurn your inferior intellect. Punning is truly an art, requiring wit and vocabulary to rapidly and extensively explore all pun possibility of a present predicament. Alliteration optional.
Team Random observes that any movie can be improved by adding werewolves. Next time you find yourself subjected to some fucking awful tosh, one of those movies you hate for taking away those hours of life that could have been of some use.... as you sit there, wishing the tv would explode; imagine a werewolf wreaking havoc onscreen.
Just think - just when the Celine Dion kicks in during The Titanic.... "I'm the king of the worl..." *YARG* *SNARL* *rend* *tear* *heeheehee* *dash away*. Or during hour fifteen of some dreadful period drama; during high tea a werewolf scoffs the lot of them and makes off with the silverware.... well maybe not the silverware :)
Hell, even good movies can benefit (if you disagree with what we consider "good movies", we shall release the hounds). Imagine the comedy value of a werewolf trying to bite a Terminator on the leg. *argghSNARL*bite*CLANG*ike-ike-ike* (runs away with tail between legs). Or during Blade, while vamps are getting slaughtered; cut away to a nearby building. A row of werewolves sit happily sinking brews, cheering and generally yelling "waHEY!". Or when Luke Skywalker whines for the fiftieth time; a werewolf appears and slaps him. *growl*thwap*SHUDDUP* (we'd suggest killing him, but that really would screw with continuity).
Ninjas. Well, ninja to be a little more precise. Perhaps even corduroy ninja, or dayglo orange safety ninja. Perhaps you will encounter an I.T. Ninja. Whatever... ninja are cool. It's that whole wear black, run around at night, strike with deadly force against their master's enemy thing.
Then there is the legendary Corduroy Ninja. Why would a ninja make his clothes out of corduroy, one might ask? Perhaps to create the greatest challenge for stealth... or failling that, to psych out your enemies with the ninja equivalent of bagpipes in the mist. You can hear the Corduroy Ninja... yet you cannot see him...
S'aright? S'aright. S'aright? S'aright. S'aright? S'aright. Close zee door. *thump*
Believe it or not, Team Random's founding members have got away with basically all of this at their place of employment. Meeting minutes provide endless fun-fodder... for example, getting a formal note that a new strategy had been proposed: let the wookiee win. Or the formal request for More Werewolves.
Then of course there is the team's Pun Dinosaur (Punasaurus)... awarded to the most recent person to come up with a truly mind-bending, groan-inducing pun (you know, a really good one). All but glued to Prof. Explaino's computer; it does take trips to other desks from time to time.
The office has been overrun with pirates; fully equipped with cutlasses and The Plank. heretic bears witness to Prof. Explaino taking part in an otherwise entirely serious work meeting... wearing bronze goggles. Gruntle distribution is becoming famous (although we now have to fend off librarians demanding confectionary all the time).
The best thing about all of this? Now, when loud/weird things happen.... other workers barely bat an eyelid - that's just Team Random in action again :)
Oh and while we're on the topic of getting away with stuff at work:
Right to left: The Grand Poobah, T' Grand Master.... and OUR BOSS!!! This was taken on Day of the Ninja 2003.
One of so many secret projects. The Disturbatron orbits the planet, focussing disturb-atoms on random individuals. It detects and focusses on conversations which lack that certain something which makes people stop, blink, then exclaim "how the fuck did we get onto that topic??".
Sidenote: it is of course fictional. Now, would you please look at this device... a little closer... thanks *FLASH*
Nothing beats a good Smiting of Enemies, and nothing beats the Smite 2000 for delivering your righteous smite. Well, I say your meaning of course our. Duck.
Sidenote: hahaha, made you duck. We would not, of course, warn you if we wanted to smite you.
It boots in seconds, never runs out of battery power, has resolution equivalent to printed work, fits conveniently in a pocket and is generally perfect for jotting down those Dastardly To-Do items that an Evil Genius might forget to instruct their minions to carry out.
I am talking of course of Professor von Explaino's patended personal digital assistant. Bearing a stunning likeness to items incorrectly described as a notepad and pen; it is nonetheless kept about one's person, manipulated with as many digits remain on your hands and it most certainly assists you.
Don't let debris from those pesky explosions get in your eyes! Goodness, you can get perfectly good bronze rivetted goggles from a workshop near you. It is of course a good idea to obtain them when their owner is not around; otherwise they may not realise your loan is perfectly legitimate. Pursuit of science! Onward!
[grand poobah]
The good Prof. takes questions with equal equanimity from both learned colleagues and, well, you lot. Applications and previous discussion can be found at lj:colinmo and at Relapse's Cupboard.
[t' grand master]
Researches more than is good for him. Refer: the house, the linkblog. Also refer to comments as The Mysterious Dash-Aitch at The Cupboard. Also the culprit behind at least three other websites around the traps (sleep is for amateurs!). Never seen in the same room at the same time as Professor de Loudbang.
Several Randomites have been judged worthy; or at least have been sent off on their final tests (shh, we're letting them in anyway, we're just having fun with them now). A couple have even admitted their Random Names.....
...however some have also protested that they look better in three-quarters, so they refused to be profiled.
Profile missing, presumed stolen by a kleptomaniac quokka.
Born the love child of a gypsy Princess and an elite Martian Warrior, Virago had an idyllic childhood til a freak storm washed her overboard during an expedition to recover the fabled Eye of the Cannibal King. A mere child of three, she was lost in the salty embrace of the seas of the South Pacific til fortune and her remarkable swimming ability washed her ashore on a small island known as Amahonimahoni.
The native Amahonimahonians hailed her as the child of their Sea Goddess, Verania, and her sometime lover Pelargo, the name given to the granite archipelago Virago washed ashore on. She was raised as their unquestioned Overlord and God, sacrifiing many neighbouring tribes to the Volcano and hosting many excellent luaus.
This happy and natural state of affairs continued until her thirteenth birthday when she was forcibly extracted from her vassals by the arrival of a so-called 'rescue' team of cultural anthropologists from the University of Dresden, Germany. In typical scientific fashion, the Scientists decimated the tribe, stole all their goodies and ran away with their goddess - Virago.
Upon their return to Dresden University, they subjected her to a series of tests, education and a round of talk shows.
Realising that this was also a life-style that she could really get into, Virago used her recently acquired education to devise a machine that would extract the knowledge and skills of the University's upper staff members and allow her to absorb it one memory at a time. This had the unfortunate side effect of reducing the hapless subject to a gibbering, brainless wreck. She started her experimentation with the Arts Department Faculty, and thus it was many months before someone realised something was wrong.
As the Horde of Angry Undergrads approached, she released her horde of Zombified Professors, but was ultimately forced to abandon the Transducive Synaptic Discombobulatory Auto-Trepinator to the predations of an angry Visual Arts class, who re-sculpted it into a monument to their fallen fellow students and faculty.
She spent the next few years as a modest dilettante in the fields of Dread Piracy, Mad Science, being That Bastard In the Castle On The Hill and being the Ruthless CEO of a multinational corporation, thus amassing a vast fortune. She then settled down again on her Island home of Amahonimahoni - after some rather particular remodelling, of course. Currently Virago is looking for minions and flunkies to help her fulfill her lifelong dream of World Domination.
Things will be much better when they're done her way.
["Soon to be a minor motion picture!" - Prof Von Explaino]
TR has had a Chinese Bureau at times. Yes indeed, a pair of Randomites confused the shite out of the locals in their foreign posting. The Chinese Bureau is currently closed for high tea.
Tests complete: Gruntling (handing out confectionary with great courage under fire); Pirates (arrr!); freeform - Stocking Pepsi fridge with Coke, and Coke fridge with Pepsi (extra points were awarded for that one).
Quote: There's something vaguely unsettling about the suddenly apparent possibility that, contrary to what my parents have always taught me, I may actually be the center of the universe.
TR's psychologically unstable representative from the dark annals of Canada remains ever-vigilant.
So you think you've got what it takes to be random? You wanna be a randomite? Well then, ye scurvy dogs, ye must pass the tests of random. All tests must be witnessed by a member of Team Random, or else you must provide documentary evidence (photos for example, going out on a limb).
Requirements:
To become a Randomite, you must first carry out a Gruntling. As already discussed in Random Acts, Gruntling is the act of bringing gruntle back to the disgruntled. The grander the scale of the gruntling, the better. How do you gruntle someone? Figure it out yourself you lazy sod! If you have been paying attention, you will note that random tests have shown very few people grow out of loving free lollies.
This test is set work. You must be prepared to gruntle to be a Randomite.
Are you the one firing off nerf guns at work? Are you the one trundling through the local city centre dressed as a pirate/werewolf/explorer/mad scientist? Are you the one who breaks the tension of a room by shouting random things and making people laugh? Are you the one planning to put a pair of boots full of dry ice into a lift, with a small sign saying "Ouch"? Do your friends describe you as "the crazy one"?
Sillyness! This test is freeform. Marks awarded to a strict scale that founding members will make up on the spot; possibly while buzzed on sugar and caffeine.
Of course pirates had to be included! Remember, Talk Like A Pirate Day comes around but once a year... but that don't let that slow ye down, ye pale-faced land lubbers! Ye can let loose with a piratical exclamation at any point ye black heart desires. That's roight me 'earties, it's pieces of eight for you! Arrr....
Let it be known that while pirates may form part of the random sillyness test, that does not count as fulfilling this test too.
Have
you carried out your experiments to prove them all wrong, in fact to show them....
SHOW THEM ALL! *cue lightning*
If so, provide your published theories on Stuff. Prior work may be deemed of sufficient value; such is the nature of research. A sufficiently well proposed theory may be accepted in cases where Those Fools Cut Your Funding before you were finished.
Let it be known that Team Random advocates correct safety equipment - particularly goggles - when partaking in mad science pursuits. Intentional explosions probably won't count towards your application, either; unless there is some kind of research involved.
We're also going to need another Timmy.
All evidence provided, you may be judged Random. You will graduate from being a Random-might to a full Randomite. Hurrah!
You may be found wanting in your application. Why? Because it's team bloody random, that's why. You may be asked for further evidence or even for a more worthy demonstration of your suitability to become a Randomite. We may not provide a reason. We reserve the right to do whatever we want.
Getting down to brass tacks, mateys, if you think you've got the right stuff these challenges should merely be initial inspiration :)
You can pose questions for Prof. Explaino, via The Cupboard. You can email T'Grand Masta at w7h3ft902@sneakemail.com (Sneakemail is a Good Thing).
There is a randomly-updated livejournal group, too.
In May 2006 Professor Von Explaino and T'Grand Masta raised over AUD$700 for the Leukemia Foundation, by participating in the World's Greatest Shave. The Prof went bald and the Masta went bright red (getting your entire head sprayed is surprisingly cold, BTW - something about the propellant in the can).
In 2004 Team Random sponsored the Hypostasis Hundred K Hike, May 2004. Hypostasis is a peer support group for Type 1 diabetics. True to form, we sponsored the lollies (gruntling!) and sunscreen (the sun being the natural enemy of the geek).
Obviously we hardly chipped in the big bucks (we left that to actual companies like careerone who can afford it :)) but hey every bit helps. The hike raised over $3000.