14 April 2009

The Annual Tax Time Play: Waiting For Kibo

2027.With tax time upon us like something that is really upon us every 15th of April, I realized it was time for our annual performance of the classic play Waiting For Kibo.

This has been a tradition on this blog since its founding in late 1965. You have not been seeing it before  because it has been invisible.

And now, laced with Usenetticisms and recalling a simpler time when all anyone had to worry about was the damage Netcom users would do to the then-character based intarwebs, I give you, Waiting for Kibo.(warning: there a few adult words up in there)

WAITING FOR KIBO
by Spamuel Buckett

[Scene: A deserted terminal room in the math building of a Famous University. It is summer, and students have left in droves. A sign on the door says "Annex Room Keep."]

[On a bright and happy VT-100, someone is logged in. A news agent -- developed in part by funding from a Finnish site - helpfully scans the Usenet feed for new posts from world.com.]

[Two people pace back and forth. One is tall, the other not so. One is well-known, the other not so.]


Estrogen: So, what are we waiting for again?

Vlad: We're waiting for Kibo to show up. [He yawns.]

Estrogen: But where's he been?

Vlad: No one knows. [He cracks his knuckles.]

Estrogen: We could go play xtrek next door.

Vlad: Not THAT old thing. Besides, we can't, we're waiting for Kibo. [He stretches and farts.]

Estrogen: Oh yeah, I forgot.

[They pace back and forth. Estrogen opens up his backpack and
takes out a sandwich: Spam and Cheez Whiz. He spits it out.]

Estrogen: Didn't you say he was just on vacation?

Vlad: No, I never said that. [He takes a sip of Dr. Pepper and burps in a pruneful way.]

Estrogen: Oh yeah, he's using vacation to autoreply. But maybe he really is on vacation.

Vlad: Maybe. [He begins picks his nose.]

Estrogen: Come on, this is stupid! Let's go troll on soc.culture.welsh!

Vlad: No. [He is not wearing any pants.]

Estrogen: Jesus! C'mon, can't we post to alt.sex.stories.spiffy?

Vlad: Go ahead, if you want to, but we're waiting for Kibo. [He eats a lime-flavored mentos.]

Estrogen: Well, I'm not going to sit here and wait for him forever, you know. I got it! We'll start a huge editor religious war in alt.games.jyhad!

Vlad: But we're waiting for Kibo. He's going to post one of these days, and I'm not doing anything else until he does. You can unsubscribe if you want, but not me. [He begins to download a perl primer.]

[A terminal sitting nearby beeps twice, then explodes. It is ignored.]

Estrogen: Did you see this cyberspace thread in alt.culture.usenet?

Vlad: Look, why do you have to say such stupid things all the time? Can't you just shut up and wait for Kibo? [He composes a new story for alt.eunuchs.questions but doesn't bother to post it.]

Estrogen: Well excuuuuuuse me, geez. I think maybe I'll warlord Wednesday again.

Vlad: Fine with me. [He types "g soc.singles" but thinks better of it.]

[A lot of silence passes. Sixty-three newgroups arrive in control. All are rmgrouped.]

Vlad: You're right, fuck it, I'm tired of waiting. Let's go see that new Keanu Reeves movie. [He types \rm -r * and gets up.]

Estrogen: Now you're talking! I...want...room...service! And my $10,000 T3 link.

Vlad: We'll come back tomorrow. [He pulls the Internet jack out of his skull.]

Estrogen: And then the day after tomorrow.

Vlad: Possibly. [He unleashes a webcrawler virus that forces all occurrences of STRONG to become BLINK through server pull.]

Estrogen: And so on.

[They leave. A message, in Finnish, appears on the news agent
screen. But its earnest little message is plaintively ignored.]


Original credit: E. Stephen Mack, estephen@emf.net. All hail Leader Kibo, except Spot, who is Not Allowed and asploded anyway.

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