Viral Blogging

VLOC is in rehearsal for Ruddigore right now and Rand, one of the castmembers is starting to tune into the 24-hour in-head G&S feed that always affects me, but what really caught my eye was how Rand was pulled into the internet version of getting lost in the dictionary. I can look up a word and go on about my business in a just a few seconds on dictionary.com, but I can spend 45 minutes with a paper dictionary. Mousing around on the internet has the same effect on me. I just wander about from site to site and pick up more little bits of information, like trolling the buffet at a wedding.

Yesterday I was dutifully working on memorizing the first act finale of Ruddigore and as is often the case, it had a strange effect on my mind. My wife wanted to get shoes and unable to find what she wanted in her size here in Aspen Hill, wanted to go to Laurel. So my wife, my daughter Amy and I went off to Laurel.

While there we stopped for burgers and fries where Amy proposed we should lie about something to her sister Sarah. Without thinking I responded that if she did so she could bid "adieu to her morals, her morals sententious". Of course, my wife immediately responded by asking me what sententious meant and while I have a sense of its meaning I wasn't sure I could define it so I promised to look it up when I got home. After returning home, I went to the computer to use dictionary.com to look up sententious. Having shared the definition with my wife I noted that the dictionary site's word of the day was flibbertigibbet. I had a sense of what that meant as well but looked at the definition anyway. I'd heard that word somewhere. My daughter Sarah said it was in a song and we tried to think of which one. Sarah proposed "bippity boppity boo" but that wasn't right. I proposed "googling" it and Sarah said "why?". I thought it was something from the "Sound of Music" and my acute senses soon honed in on a "will of the wisp, a flibbertigibbet a clown". So Sarah went happily out of the room gaily chirping "what do you do with a problem like Maria". As many of you know, she chirps very nicely.

Well, I decided to "google" it anyway just to see what turns up. Interestingly, I came upon a blog entitled "The Flibbertigibbet" and the Google listing included of all things "Gilbert and Sullivan" and "Savoynet". My curiosity was aroused. I clicked on a link and was greeted with "I'm in a play!". So, who'd refer to themselves as a flibbertigibbet? She's 29 and from Aspen Hill, Maryland. Oh - this is getting too weird. Check the profile. Favorite movies - ah, Sound of Music, that makes sense. Favorite music: Gilbert and Sullivan, etc. Back to the main page. Look around, ah here are some links. Only one seems to pertain to Gilbert and Sullivan and it is very familiar. Click! There it is - a black screen with Ruddigore with large, rather strange letters in the center.

Ruddigore to Ruddigore via dictionary.com. Almost as mad as singing choruses in public. I know what you're all thinking. He'll tell taradiddles when when he's a bad Bart and you all think I've gone over the edge. But it is all true!

-- Rand

I'll leave it to Ali to rell Rand that while I remember being 29,that actual year has passed me by. Or, better yet, I'll agree that yes I am 29, for sufficiently large values of 29.