Brunching Shuttlecocks, a memorandium.

Lore Sjöberg is the reason I love words.

His mind is the reason I love humor.  No, really.  Until Lore started making the words he did I seriously thought that Garfield was funny.  Jim Davis gets some credit for his strange, yet somehow personal, self-deprecating humor.

Lore is the reason I invested in a Palm Pilot.  I needed to archive the entire site as it existed so I could read it every day at my terrible but horrendously fun job.  I was a driver for an local Manheim dealer/government auction site.  I would drive cars from their parking spaces (in order.  it's easier to park 40 cars back to back and send a team of 20, than to make entire parking lots with individual/supermarket parking spaces).  My team and I would hop in a car somewhere in line, start it, and idle it until it was free from it's space, and drive it to the auction lineup for the day.

Warning: backstory! (Until the word Shyster).  At this point, dealers would bid on the car based wholly on 20% less "KBB" value (Kelley Blue Book value) and either send it to their "stockpile" or opt to have it "checked out" by our resident mechanics. The mechanics would look at all parts of the car and decide if it was worth purchasing or not.  Surprisingly, it was pretty damn unbiased. They would find dings, scratches, engine rusting, undercarriage pitting, etc. etc. until they deemed it "Pass" or "Fail"

Tip to auction buyers: opt for the inspection when the car has a salvage title, or it is more than 8 years old. The mechanic on the auction site is no shyster.

I had a Palm III, and later a Handspring Visor Neo. With the incredibly ahead of it's time "Plucker" application, I could download the entire Brunching.com domain and read it without an internet connection.

The best Brunching content follows.  It's probably the most popular, linked-to, and perfect example of Lore's humor available on the internets.com.

 

Complete and Utter Idiot's Guide to Ordering Pizza:

Hello. Welcome to The Complete and Utter Idiot's Guide to Ordering Pizza. Who's hungry for some 'za? Let's do it!

The first thing we need to do is select a pizza delivery service. You probably have half a dozen flyers sitting in your junk drawer in your kitchen so we'll...what? You don't have any fliers? You don't have a junk drawer? You don't have a kitchen?

Where are you currently standing at the moment? A room. That's very helpful, let's try to narrow it down. Are you in your house? Good. Are you in your kitchen? Kitchen? The food room. Yes, counters, sink, that sounds...toilet? No, that's wrong. That's your bathroom. Why on earth do you think that would be a food room? Don't answer, just leave that room alone.

You need to find your kitchen. It will have some of the things that were in your bathroom, but it won't have a toilet. There will also be such things like a stove, refrigerator, microwave, maybe a dishwasher, blender, mixer.. what is that look? That's a lost look, isn't it? You're lost. In your house. It's okay, don't cry, we'll find your kitchen.

Let me ask you this, when you are hungry, where do you go?

That's the bathroom, you are really scaring me right now.

You know what, forget it. The entire point of finding your kitchen is to look through your junk drawer for pizza delivery fliers, and it occurs to me that every drawer you own is probably a junk drawer, so we should cut our losses and move on.

What we need is a phone book. No, not a book that looks like a phone, rather, a large, usually yellow book that has lots and lots of phone numbers in it. There's a very good chance that it's near your phone. So let's try that.

Your phone. You make phone calls on it. Knowing you, it probably looks like Mickey Mouse or perhaps a plastic football.

Or the Starship Enterprise. Of course. I should have known.

I'm glad you've found the phone, we're going to need that, so hold onto it. Now what about a phone book? No, that's a dictionary. Yes, it's a big book but it doesn't have any numbers in it, does it? Numbers. We're looking for numbers.

No, that's a book on Quantum Physics. What the Hell are you doing with that?

Why are you still carrying around the Starship Enterprise? Oh right, I told you to hold onto it. It was a figure of speech. What I meant was set it down, but remember where you put it.

I don't know, mark the spot with something.

Anyway... back to the hunt for the phone book.

You know, I'm gonna play a hunch here. Open your front door. Front door. The door in the front. It leads to outside. There ya go. Look down. See that pile of large, yellowish books sitting there? Those are phone books. Pick one up and bring it inside.

Now, open the.. why is the front door wide open? Were you born in a barn? Close the door! Now, find a pizza delivery service in the phone book.

You've got that lost look on your face again.

Open the book and flip to the P's. Why are you giggling? Open the book. Go on. Find the P's. Stop giggling. No, those are the M's. Close, but definitely wrong. Keep going. N. O. P. Stop! Stop right there!

Okay, now find Pizza. A listing, not an actual pizza. You're not going to find actual pizza stuffed between the pages of the phone book. Stop right there! You found it! Pizza! What's the phone number? Don't lose it! Find the phone! Find the phone! Where'd you leave it? Didn't you mark the spot, I told you to mark the spot, what'd you mark the spot with?

You marked the spot with the phone. Of course you did.

Look around you, do you see it anywhere? You do? Really? Great! Get the damn phone!

Okay, now you have the phone and you have a phone number. You are so amazingly close to ordering pizza it's sickening. Dial the number in the phone.

I have no idea, maybe the numbers are in the saucer section? I mean who the Hell has a Starship Enterprise phone these days?

Besides you, I mean.

Okay, let's not panic. It's a phone, there has to be a way to dial it. Look all over the ship. Look for numbers. Besides NCC-1701. There! What are those! Numbers! Those are buttons! Dial them! Dial them now! Before you lose them!

What are you doing? You need to dial them in a certain order! Don't just pound on them! Stop crying.

I'm sorry. You're right, you were doing what I asked. My fault. I'll try to be more specific from now on.

Yes, and more understanding as well.

Remember the phone number we found in the phone book? Dial that number on the spaceship right now. Is it ringing? Good job.

Okay, when they answer they're gonna... what? Yes, they can put you on hold. Now, when they get back to you, they're gonna ask what you want. You can get all kinds of things on pizza; pepperoni, sausage, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic, anchovies... you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Tell you what, when they ask what you want, order cheese.

Yes, one cheese pizza. Medium. That's it. Nothing else. God forbid this conversation continues any longer than necessary. Give them your address. Oh God, please tell me you know your address.

You do? Weird. Okay, hang up! Hang up now!

Congratulations! You've ordered pizza! Dingbat.