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[chatfsh]

As Hwi and Doctor Who made their way back to the TARDIS, they shared a bag of consommé flavored plantains, while Knightslayer floated behind them eating a juicy red orange that squirted acid onto the oblivious passersby.
“Doctor, I think that I may have made a dreadful mistake.”
“I agree.  You must have been insane to give Knightslayer a red orange,” he replied as a group of smug-looking teenagers dissolved under hail of acid.  “What were you thinking?”
“He was hungry and that’s all he cares to eat from our world,” she explained.  “But I wasn’t referring to Knightslayer, I was referring to the noble Sir Warlohox.” 
“Noble?” said the Doctor, cocking a brow as he munched on a plantain.  “He’s no longer the sadistic bastard?”
Her gaze fell to the ground and shattered all over John Bigboote’s feet.
“Buckeroo!   John cried, wielding a dangerous looking chocolate soufflé.
“Bonzai!” replied the cheering crowd.
“Buckeroo!”
“Bonzai!”
“So anyway,” Hwi continued.  “I may have misjudged Sir Warlohox.  Perhaps he’s not the psychotic deviant that I believed him to be.  At least I no longer suspect him of blowing up the Tower.”
They passed a white-faced mime pretending to be trapped in its own obnoxiousness.
“Kill him,” Hwi ordered without hesitation.  “Kill him this instant!”
Knightslayer reached for his ornate scabbard at his hip and pulled out a well sharpened cat.  Its tail gleamed bright as the purest Vegetarian steel.  The warrior raised his black shadowy arms and sliced the mime from stem to stern.  But each half of the mime reached into a mirror to form a whole new mime.
“Damn, now there are two of the infernal things!” Hwi cried as the twin mimes skipped off.
Just then a rumble shook all of London.  Believing it to be thunder, all looked to the sky which conveniently cracked to reveal two gargantuan green beings peering down upon them.
“Oh, terribly sorry!” they exclaimed.  “I hate when that happens,” the one muttered to the other, as enormous green hands reached down to collect the pieces to seal the sky.
“Just super,” the Doctor said, “the Crychtons are at their favorite pastime.”
“Watching the goings on of London?”
He nodded solemnly.  “Afraid so.”
“But now we all know.” She paused, defiantly folding her arms across her chest.  “I refuse to put on a show for their benefit.”
Suddenly someone turned off all the lights.
Causing everyone to shout,  “Suddenly someone turned off all the lights.”
The moment they could see again, everyone, except for the Doctor and Knightslayer, was seized by a violent bout of projectile vomiting.  Short-term memories slithered around in green slime, littering the streets.
“Ewww!” was the collective cry of all present, until the Titanic rose from the depths of the murky ocean, spilling the sea all over London, washing it bright and clean, save all the stinky fish and crustaceans.
“Fish! Fresh fish!” shouted the fish grocer.
“What in the blazes just happened?” Hwi asked as she kicked an impertinent crab sniffing about for the latest gossip.
“What is the last thing that you remember?” The Doctor inquired
“My eye!  Merciful gods, my eye!” cried the latest victim of Knightslayer’s errant red orange acid.
“The last thing that I recall?” She thought for a moment, and then her expression grew menacing, “Those bleepin’ mimes.”  She turned to Knightslayer.  “Be a dear and kill them again for mommy.  Hack them into small pieces and toss them into a fire for good measure.”
The Doctor scratched his ear in the odd way that the Doctor scratches his ear.  “Cats, worms and mimes, eh?”  He pursed his lips.  “Ever occur to you that you might have issues, Hwi?’
“Meh, that’s what they tell me, but I think they’re all cuckoo for coco puffs, if you catch my drift.”
“Riiiight,” he said as he snatched her drift from mid air.  “Now, our Sir Warlohox may not be the villain, but one of the Warlohoxes must be since the scan of the tower revealed their traces all over it.  Not to mention the worm’s words of warning.”
“Fi! I wouldn’t trust a worm any further than I could fling it.  Deceitful creatures, the lot of them.”  Her eyes brightened as the light bulb appeared over her head.  “The worms could be framing the Warlohoxes.  But why would they do such a thing?”
“Aha,” the Doctor said, smacking his hands triumphantly.  “The worms are still nursing a grudge from The Great War of Etiquette!  The Warlohoxes are known for their impeccable manners, whereas the worms…well suffice to say it was an unprecedented slaughter.”
“Well, we have motive.” She frowned again.  “Not only were we wrong about the Warlohoxes as a whole, but I’m afraid that I’ve made a rather rash decision regarding Sir Warlohox.” 
“Sparta, Sparta!” shouted the running, half naked warrior before a sniper gunned him down from the Tower.
They stepped over the corpse and Hwi kicked it for good measure.
“Can this rash decision be undone?” asked the Doctor as he glimpsed a sinister looking Japanese youth scribbling madly in a yellow book.
Her mouth twisted to the side.  “Yes, I suppose it could.  But the question is should it be undone ?”
“That all depends, Lady Hwi,” said Shorul the wise but noseless dwarf.  He stood upon a hickory stump hopping on one foot.  “Is this valiant Sir Warlohox the forgiving sort?  Can he change his work habits?  And has he admitted that you were right?”
She sighed wistfully. “I really could use his help now. My project is at the critical point where his strengths would serve me best.”
“Pardon uth,” said two bucktooth horses walking on their hind legs, wearing gold lame halter tops and short pants.
“Wait a minute!” the Doctor yelled as he snapped his fingers.  “Something’s missing!”
“I know,” said the bucktooth horse.  “Thiletto pumths would weally make dis outfit thing.”
“When did we leave London and what the hell are we doing in Shanghai?” Hwi said wearily shaking her head.
“No, thweetling,” the other horse said.  “Dis ith Thanglo.”
Hwi and the Doctor turned to each other and shouted.  “The Vortex!”
“We find the Vortex and we solve the Tower mystery,” the Doctor said with wide expressive eyes.  “Do you know what time it is?”
“Umm…time for us to run manically down the street as if we had only seconds left to save the world?”
His eyes narrowed at her as he wrinkled his nose and wagged his head. “Oh, you just think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
“Well?” she said.
He rolled his eyes.  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand.  “The Tower was just the beginning.  We have only seconds left to SAVE THE WORLD!”

[Dante]

Dante and Dragoon were walking down the boulevard when suddenly they were asalted.
"Aha! Fie!" Shouted Fiona Hewitt, turning and running away. In the distance they saw her being devoured by a feral Hastie.
"Jurors, how do you find the defendents?" Judge Dredd asked from a floating podium.
"Salty!" A juror reported, chewing on Dante's shoulder.
"Stop that." Dante ceased to exist.
"How bemusing." Dragoon had someone say for him, to save effort. Dante reached down to examine the small heap of salt left from the asalting.
"I say, there appears to be a plant growing in this here salt." He observed. Dragoon paused in rubbing the salt into the open wound on his shoulder.
"So there is." He agreed, and resumed. Dante picked up the plant and squinted at it with his teeth.
"Is it an olive branch?" He asked quizzically.
"CORRECT!" A bizarre, gnome-like figure bounded onto the scene from a brightly lit stage. "You win the first prize of NAHTHING!" Orange McGrinsmile beamed, and vanished in a puff of blues music.
"By the day of the Lord, a woman. Eh?" Judge Dredd was confused, which was just as well as he soon ceased to exist.
"It's an epidemic." Dante sighed, turning back to the plant. "On closer examination, this is not Olea europaea as I thought, but Olea infidus. You see, to believe this was an olive branch would require acceptance of being wrong about everything. In other words, I would have to accept that she crossed the Atlantic twice and at the same time enacted an email campaign through friends to be rid of me. Does that sound likely?" Dragoon shook his feet. "And then immediately after concluding the biggest single block of work for a long time, Malky and Musy's third play, she decides to put on a big show to push me away? Unless she thought she had everytying she could get from me, that doesn't make sense either."
"What if you ignore the later insults, and attribute it all to the wounded esteem of a scorned woman?" The olive branch asked in a wooden voice. "You weren't exactly delicate china."
"Then I would have to accept the version of events put forth in this thread," Dante said, picking up a ball of wool. "That she has been trying to get rid of me for months anyway." He began to unravel the wool, apparantly reading it. "I was cold, yes, but within reason, and I was logical. Always logical." He spun around and turned into a purple anemone. "So first I'm just another run of the mill electrical device used for cooling, when I could prove otherwise. Then I'm a leech attempting to suck the blood from another, when I was always only ever trying to improve their work. One doesn't do that to work above one's own standard. You see what I'm getting at?"
"NO." Replied the blind man.
"Essentially what you're saying," said Paul, "is that either Malky loved Musy but lied about it later, or that she hated Musy but told her it was love to get rid of her."
"I hope you're taking notes." Dante looked sidelong at the olive branch, which was carefully hammering planks of wood together. "In either case there was deception. How is trust supposed to grow from that? How am I supposed to admit that anybody was right without knowing which version of their story they want me to accept?"
"I suggest you ask mysticsquid." Dragoon nodded. His eyes went wide, "No! Wait! Forget I-"
"Too late!" Dante crowed, and the floor erupted with tentacles.
"OH GOD THE PROBING." Paul cried.
"Nonsense." Dante scoffed. "If anything it's more of a burrowing."
"I am the Mysticsquid." A voice filled the room, which now smelled vaguely of seawater and suchi. "What do you desire of me?"
"A little more to the left?" Dante asked.
"Which version of the story should we accept, that of the wool or that of the branch?" Dragoon kept his expression firm, somehow.
"Move 'em on, hit 'em up, hit 'em up, move 'em on, move 'em on, hit 'em up Rawhide!" Paul cried in ecstacy. The olive branch was now carefully sewing together a matress and placing it on the wooden framework.
"Cut 'em up?" Dante suggested.
"Ride 'em in." Dragoon affirmed.
"Ride 'em in." Paul agreed.
"Cut 'em out." Dragoon shook his head.
"Cut 'em out, ride 'em in Rawhide." Mysticsquid joined in. "Was there not another chapter to this tale?"
"Yes! This book!" Paul agreed, reaching into his trousers. "Oh hey, that's not a book. I'd better put that back. No, this book!" He produced the Babble Aquatica.
"Actually I meant this book." An arm rose from Paul's trousers, carrying the Collected tales of Malky and Musy.
"But that's four different versions of events!" Dragoon complained. "Is there no consistancy?"
"Of course." The Mysticsquid answered. "Would you like a sort of putty-like consistancy, soft and pliable, or FIRM?"
"Firm is good." Dante nodded.
"And for the last round of tonight's quiz!" Orange McGrinsmile beamed, holding a small stack of white cards. "For the win, Dante, are you a forgiving sort?"
"I like to think so." Dante shrugged. "I've forgiven people for deception before, as well as jealousy, honest mistakes, misconceptions, conceptions, blasphemy, taking my name in vain, genocide, loitering with intent, loitering within tent, playing saxophone on a Tuesday without a hedgehog, smoking in non-smoking areas, even giving me the silent treatment for months."
"Well then, it looks like-"
"But." Dante interrupted Orange McGrinsmile in mid-beam. "I once said that the thing I find most offensive is a personal insult. Before we came to London I was personally insulted by someone who knew this, and who went on to indirectly insult my friends and family. That I cannot abide and will not forgive." Orange McGrinsmile turned upsidedown and became a giant frown.
"So you remain a lazy bum?!" The frown accused.
"I was never lazy." Paul shrugged. "I have my own life."
"Not anymore!" The Mysticsquid did something wet, and Paul was suddenly no more. "Was that good for you?"
"Very." Dante nodded.
"Not anymore!"
"OH GOD THE- Oh. Um."
"I... I don't understand. This has never happened to me before."
"There there." Dante sighed. "Now, pie." A custard pie smacked him in the face, followed by one for Dragoon. "Thank you."
"I don't like custard!" Dragoon protested. A second pie, blueberry, followed the first. "Better. Sister Susie is sewing shirts for soldiers. The shirts that sister Susie sews-"
"are seashells I'm sure?" The Olive branch suggested, midway through sewing a sheet out of seashells. Dragoon turned an eye of fire upon him and brought out six thick thistle sticks.
"I can't say that with a mouthful of marshmallows!" Paul protested partly painted puce.
"Button button, who's got the button?" Dragoon asked.
"Is it a big red one marked 'DO NOT PUSH'?" Dante asked, innocently pushing something behind his back.
"Why ye-" Dragoon was cut off, as he was disassembled into component molecules.

For a while there was nothing.
Then it exploded.
For several trillion years, matter simply busied itself with the difficult task of being hydrogen or helium. Eventually it got around to being things like iron and oxygen, and started to play with its new toy, gravity.
A lot of time passed.
The matter became quite complicated, and arranged itself into all sorts of cool patterns and systems using gravity, and a cheat code called electromagnetism. Sooner or later it developed a fetish for spheres, and started to make them whenever it could. It had so many different ones, and they were all different. Like pokémon. And like pokémon, some of them were violent and stormy, while others were really quite dull. One of these dull spheres in particular was so boring that bits of itself started to clump together and replicate just for something to do. This replicating lark caught on, and for the next few million years it was all they did.
Then they started getting racy, inventing new ways to move around and collect more material (again, like pokémon). Sooner or later these replicating collections started to change they way they worked and looked. Some of them collected each other. One of these in particular collected so many useful members that it gained a considerable advantage and started to dominate its competitors. Rather than leaving after copying, the bits of itself stayed behind to help out. Eventually they became completely unable to leave.
This collection of replicators became, in effect, a replicator itself. It was the first of many. Soon thousands of these phenomena were spreading across the sphere, which was really more of a globe by now. And as they spread the replicators changed, adapting to fill different niches so as not to compete with each other or to take advantage of competition. Their forms became as varied as their habitats, and it became so crowded that eventually some of them decided that they would have a peek up above the meniscus to see how the neighbours were doing.
To their shock, they found nothing up there. It was completely blank. Abhoring a vacuum, the replicators moved in in force. They soon diversified and filled all the available areas that they could.
So passed several million years of changing fashions. For a while bare skin was in, then scales, then fur, then bare skin again. The proponents of this newest fashion were a relatively weird subdivision of bipedal replicators that called themselves 'ug.' They called most things ug, except for one thing which they called 'ehehehehe.'
These ugs spread across the sphere, and in turn they also developed different fashions. Cooked meat, wearing the fur of other replicators as well as their own, building their own caves to live in, the ugs were pretty pleased with themselves. They spent the next few thousand years killing each other, building cities and making scientific and cultural advances along the way.
Eventually there came a time when one of the ugs stood with his friend upon a boulevard. Now is that time.

"You ever get that feeling you've been somewhere before?" Dante asked in a puzzled voice.
"Wow, yeah, deja vu." Dragoon nodded. They both looked at the big red button, which was pushed.
"I kind of feel I missed something." Dante sighed.
"Anyway, you were saying?"
"Oh yes, I was right about everything, and I have the numbers to prove it." Dante announced proudly.
"Don't you mean letter?" Dragoon questioned.
"Those too." Dante waved a hand irritably. "I also have the dated files that prove some of the ideas were mine. And I was the one who introduced George R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R. Martin to her."
"Why did you do that?" Paul cocked an eyebrow.
"How else can one improve but by reading superior work?" Dante shrugged. "It was a purpose that I concealed in order to avoid giving insult, but my own suggestions were proving insufficient. I needed a great work to show the... discrepancy."
"So you had your own agenda all along!" The Olive branch fluffed up some pillows and laid them on the sheet.
"Yes." Dante admitted bluntly. "My agenda was to make the second edition a decent book, a good read, a popular novel, by whatever means at my disposal. Saying 'read this, take tips from it' wouldn't be very helpful, so I was tactful about it."
"And what would you say to the suggestion that your answer is just sour grapes from someone who was insulted?" Dragoon held out a handful of grapes.
"I shrug." Dante shrugged. "I was insulted, but I'm not angry. If anything I'm bored. Bored of the DRAMA, bored of the insecure sniping, bored of the stalker-like inability to let me go, disguised as a venom-slinging match. After ruining a perfectly good idea, all she can do now is hurl eggs at the house and watch them break on the tiles. It's a bit sad. She'll say this was her attempt to be peaceful, but an olive branch with conditions... an invitation to surrender is not the same as an offer of peace."
"Excuse me sir, but I require somewhere else to sleep." The olive branch asked directly. Dante looked at it with a mixture of a sneer and some pity.
"I'm sorry, branch." He sighed, pointing to the construction yonder. "But you made your bed. Now you sleep in it."

[AMIgaBot]

what happened?? hit on the starboard side no damage spotted, sir.
-that good, that good.
--captain two missiles  north and west.
hard to port..
- thrusters wont move , sir.
we are trapped.decrease speed to 170km/h
--captain  one missile evaded. but north one will
.. bring on engineering.
why?
--we must have setup second headquarter
what happened?
-- our command bridge is destroyed sir. we are now only 110km/h  our artillery is useless. enemy is at ranke 0,0045 au .
-launch fighters!!!
-- our launch array is out of action use hangar manually.
we cannot do anything?
- no. we are  burning flying wreck.
-- teen turrets destroyed exacly  twelf sir.
end of part 1


part 2.
--captain, we are able to  change direction. we managed to connect steerign gear to reactor cooling system, temperature will increase hardly but atleast we can evade.
- what will happen?
-- our battlecruiser  enane will be able to get into starport. but we must survive.
- we cannot  do it.. we not control ship anymore. bridge is out, auxillary  control systems are gone.  whole forward section of ship is destroyed.
-- launch sajuuk
- what?
sajuuk is good  ship. we can use it as tug to  tow our wreck.
-- never.  the sajuuk is too powerful we cant waste it for this task. abadon ship. evacuate all personnel. i stay  and i will die

[Dragoon Knight]

"WHAT," Dragoon Knight exclaimed, looking upwards.
"Would you keep it down?!" growled months of inactivity.
"WHAT," repeated the monosyllabic master of the Tower, unable to tear his gaze from the sublime art poised above him.
"What the hell are you looking aaaaaa-AAAAAAAAAA-" screamed Paul, who had just rolled out from underneath approximately 9 months' worth of dust and made the mistake of following Dragoon Knight's gaze.

A door opened in Peru.  It had no bearing on these events whatsoever.

Another door opened, slightly closer to home.  It was the door to Dragoon Knight's study atop the Tower, which was somehow still there, poised atop Buckingham Crater.  In stepped Dante, who took one look up before deciding that NO.

All existence was temporarily turned off for maintenance.  Hundreds of unpaid labourers were drafted in from Madeupistan to install a roof on the universe.  It was all going so well, until one of the cleaning staff accidentally unplugged the servers that run all things so she could do the hoovering.  Everything ended.

God, who up until now had been trying to ignore all of this (everything, from the original explosion of the Tower), gripped the edges of his newspaper.
"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-" he vented, ripping the publication in two.  He arose from his cloudy recliner with the look of a madman.  He snapped his fingers, and in front of him appeared Dragoon Knight.

"," said God.
"How did you do that... with the picture..." Dragoon Knight asked with interest, free for the first year then 21.9% APR variable.
"SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK." God proclaimed.
"Look, no-one's doing any harm here..."
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME.  YOU TURNED OFF EVERYTHING."
"Yes, but-"
"EVERYTHING."
"We've done it before!  We've done worse before!" Dragoon Knight protested, complete with a sign and a loudspeaker.
"OH THAT'S IT.  RIGHT THERE?  THAT WAS THE LAST GOD-DAMN STRAW."
"Are you technically allowed to say god-damn?"

Suddenly, Gandalf.

"Fly, Shadowfax!" exclaimed Gandalf.
"Thank goodness for that," Dragoon Knight said dismissively, turning two clouds into Dirk and Yves before rooting around; he was looking for something.
"NO.  NOT FUCKING GANDALF." God said, sounding increasingly distressed by the turn of events.
"I'm afraid Gandalf," said Dante, who had now always been there.  He was holding a t-shirt and a marker pen in a disarmingly innocent manner.
"There is little time!" Gandalf shouted happily, just to confirm that, yes, in fact, motherfucking Gandalf.
"WHERE DID YOU- HOW IS THIS-"
"Best not to worry about it, really," Dante said soothingly.  He was writing something on the t-shirt.
"OK, NOW THIS IS HAPPENING." God blared.  Grinning widely, he brought out a Bible from the folds of his robes.  Flicking through the pages until he found the correct spot, he ripped out the entire New Testament and rammed it into his mouth.
"OMNOMNOMNOMNOM."
"Oh my," Dante said, putting the top back on the marker with exaggerated care.  Dragoon Knight had apparently found what he was looking for, and jogged off behind a particularly large cumulonimbus.
"THAT'S RIGHT.  OLD TESTAMENT UP IN HERE.  I WILL SMITE YOU SO HARD-"

Dante put on the t-shirt.  On the front were the words "I R GOD".
"I.  Too late." said Dante.
"WHAT."
"II.  I said you're too late."
"WHAT THE FUCK, WHY AREN'T YOU SMOTE WITH RIGHTEOUS FURY AND SEVENTY BAJILLION VOLTS, BUT MOSTLY FURY."
"III.  You don't seem to be listening."
"There we go!" came Dragoon Knight's cry of victory - he had managed to plug Existence back in.
"IV.  That cleaning lady is so fired."
"Aieeeeee!" came the blood-curdling scream of a decidedly immolated Mavis the Cleaning Lady.
"V.  Mwahahaha- I mean, oops."
"YOU CAN'T JUST BE GOD BY PUTTING ON A T-SHIRT."
"VI.  Yes I can."
"NO YOU CAN'T.  I'M GOD."
"VII.  No you're not."
"BITCH, DON'T YOU SEE MY ALL-CAPS SPEECH."
"IX.  This is my care face."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" God screamed, and didn't stop.

"Time to go now, methinks," Dragoon Knight smiled, donning a t-shirt of his own.  It read "I R SOD".
"X.  Phooey."
"1.  Yes, now let's go before this speech becomes too confusing."
"XI.  We're not going to have a battle, pitching the powers of God against Sod?"
"2.  Nah."

With that, everything returned to exactly as it was before Dante stepped in the door.
With his eyes half-shut, Dragoon Knight looked upwards tentatively, then sighed with relief.  "I can't see it anymore - not through all that crap!" he proclaimed happily.
"Gery sood, vir," said Dirk and Yves, who hadn't come back entirely unscathed and were currently partly melded with the office furniture.
"What.  The hell.  Just happened," Paul asked, still dusting himself off.
"Nothing important," Dragoon Knight reassured him, before continuing.  "Now... where were we?"

[Wolf]

"Historical sciences commonly use “inference to best explanation” as a scientific method for determining the cause of various events from the remote past."

I saw this sentence recently (I can't recall where), but I just had to share it with you all. If this isn't the correct thread for it (the title may be misleading, what do I know), please feel free to move or delete it. (Besides, it isn't like anyone was doing anything in here, anyways, sorry Dragoon.)

However, I couldn't resist using this as an illustration of how not to write. We have a lot of work to do, so let's get started.

(1) "Historical sciences ..." It's unclear what this refers to. Historians? Scientists? It seems like might be referring to some branch of academia called "the historical sciences." Never heard of them. The social sciences? But that includes things like... sociology, psychology, economics, demography, and stuff like that. Not just history. Well, if that's what this refers to, then I'm afraid "historical sciences" is not what they call themselves. If that's not what this refers to, then I think the author of this "sentence" (I can't put enough quotation marks around it, so I won't try) made a term up!

(2) "... commonly use 'inference to best explanation' ..." First of all, it's difficult to say whether a made-up department of academia can "commonly" use anything. But barring that, the worst issue here is with the "term of art" (again, won't even try) that this author also invented and/or misquoted. "Inference to best explanation?" A Google-search yields random results. A Wiki-search leads me to abductive reasoning, as well as to the title of a book ("Inference to the Best Explanation," Peter Lipton) which is about abductive reasoning. It seems like "abductive reasoning" would have flowed better in the sentence, and felt less awkward. The author even had the opportunity to use the colloquial term for it (“hunch”), but didn’t. It seems to me like this was an effort to make a sentence “sound smarter.” It’s a shame that it had the opposite effect.

(3) “... as a scientific method ...” I guess this is okay, by itself. It makes sense that “the historical sciences” (or even the social sciences) would use a scientific method to... do things, but that seems a little redundant to me. Especially since the author of this sentence is talking about abductive reasoning, which is by definition the “method of logical inference introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce which comes prior to induction and deduction for which the colloquial name is to have a "hunch". Abductive reasoning starts when an inquirer considers of a set of seemingly unrelated facts, armed with an intuition that they are somehow connected.” It just seems to me to be a little forced and repetitive. All in all, the author has said the same thing in three different ways, but has done so with what essentially amounts to three different nouns, or ideas, and is talking about them as if they related to each other. That don’t make a lick o’ sense to me.

(4) “... for determining the cause of various events ...” See, this is what happens when you don’t think ahead—or proofread, for that matter. There are two issues with this, one is local, and the other is global. I’ll tackle the local one first. This fragment contains an assumption that I don’t think the author intended: namely, that “the historical sciences” are using abductive reasoning (or something) to determine the cause of various events. I’ll repeat that: the cause. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but doesn’t this imply that “various events” have only one cause? Why can’t multiple events have different causes? Why are “the historical sciences” concerned with this one cause? Not to mention that, artistically, the singular noun in the first half of the fragment conflicts with the plural noun in the second half. Maybe “the historical sciences” are really doing this. I don’t know. I suppose this is a minor point. Globally, why did the author choose to have “the historical sciences” use a method... to determine the cause... of various events? Why didn’t the author just say that the historical sciences determine (or discover) the cause of various events using abduction? Or that Abduction is used by members of the historical sciences to determine the cause of events? Again, I suppose it’s a minor point, there’s nothing technically grammatically wrong with it, but the flow of the sentence is broken up when we start with a noun that verbs as a noun to verb of a noun. We keep jumping back between actors and modifiers, and I’m just not going to put up with that sh-

(5) “... from the remote past.” Really? The “remote” past? I suppose you mean temporally remote, but it seems like the “past” would have sufficed. Again, there’s this assumption you’re making here that I don’t think you mean to. Why can’t it be the recent past? Why not right now? Do the historical sciences no longer use abductive reasoning, or is it only used with respect to events that have occurred a certain number of years ago or more? Where’s the line? What does “remote” mean in this sense? This fragment also continues an interesting “tradition” of modifying every single noun or verb in the sentence. The historical sciences, the best explanation (again, this is a “term of art,” so I suppose criticism is unfair), the various events, the remote past. Why does everything have to be modified? Why are the events various? Because of this, the sentence goes back and forth from the technical to the colloquial, from specific to general, and it really makes a hash out of things. Don’t use words you don’t need to, because you inevitably start to say and imply things you don’t mean—or can’t mean, in other words, you start to say things that just don’t make sense.

This leads me to my conclusion, which is basically, if you people write like this, you’re doing yourselves a disservice. The person who wrote this sentence (whoever he or she is, let’s make her female for now) probably meant to say something, but she was so insecure in her point that she loaded the sentence with everything that she could grab to make it sound smarter. The effect, unsurprisingly, was the exact opposite. It’s as if some suburban, ivory tower elitist went into the ‘hood and tried to “blend in” with hip urban lingo. Not only can she not quite pull it off right (no matter how hard she tries), but also she invariably sabotages every communication she attempts. No, actually, it’s more like an alien decided to come to Earth, put on a zip-up human skin, and try to “act natural.” For the reasons I’ve described above, it’s all just a little bit off, enough so that people who don’t care or who are idiots don’t mind, but enough for everyone who actually has two brain cells to rub together to notice and feel discomfort. And this was only one sentence! Could you imagine if someone wrote every sentence this way? Remember, people, brevity is the soul of wit. (I hope you all enjoy that final irony.)

[Dunenewt]

[color=lightblue]Jesus does not approve of this thread.

[SandChigger]

MY SAVIOR!!! :o

(swoons)

[AMIgaBot]

[Dragoon Knight]

"That bakery is full of crap.  No way this is a steak pie."

[Mihail]

While Howlin' Wolf growled out "Smokestack Lightning", plucking his worn guitar with gusto, an old steam locomotive chugged by behind him, thick black clouds pumping out of its chimney accompanied by sparkling golden sparks. The smoke drifted towards the old musician, long dead but back for BB King's last performance. It enveloped him, fixed him up right good - gave him a pair of cloudy black eyes, a new coaly coat on his skin and everything! Not far off, Shive was shaking his hips and tossing his hair. That old Indian flute music that he was always associated with bored him to hell, and a righteous old blues cat like Wolf was not to be missed. A great opportunity to boogie and let loose!
Wherever Shiva stomped his feet, flames would flare and scorch the earth beneath him, incinerating everything that they touched.
This was not good for Beedle, the ant who had been enjoying the massive dead black man's music. Now, he found himself in a life-or-death situation, fleeing from those feet! Those destructive blue feet... Scurrying away as fast as he could, Beedle realised it was no use. Shiva was becoming more excited, his stomping flame-feet more active, creating larger circles of destruction. And they were coming towards him! They would catch up with him at any moment. Beedle stopped, turned around. Grimly, he faced the coming destroyer of worlds with clenched mandibles.
stomp, fshhh, Stomp, Fshhh, STOMP, FSSHHH!, STOMP!, FFSSHHHHH! As the flames enveloped him, Beedle cried with every atom of his being; "DRAGOON KNIGHT! You blue basterd! [For he had mistaken Shiva for Dragoon Knight, both of them being blue] Vengeance will be miiiiiinnnne!"
Chuckling, Howlin' Wolf said: "It shore will, liddle man. Shoore will. Awooohoo! Smokestack lightning..."

[Mihail]

Super-speed, coffee mind, that's what Red was thinking while the birds chirped and the sun rose. Coffee yoga, right before the exams. Not like he cared about the exam... It was a real fuckup, no doubt about it. Yawning, he took another swig from the steaming mug. Holy caffeine blitz energy surged through him. The chillum had been carefully placed in the blue ashtray, its bowl containing the ashes of what had been changa, now fine grey remains giving off a slight orange glow. The lowrider was parked outside, its fusion reactor in idle mode but still strong enough to fry all electronics within 4 feet. Poor boys those businessmen, who walked by blabbering into their Blackberries, only to jump in fright as the machines fizzed and spat sparks, and then died a smoky death. Yes, they were damm surprised and those with even a hint of sixth sense had the feeling that it had something to do with the cherry-red convertible...
Meanwhile Red was oblivious to this. The coffee had acted as the key, the caffeine in it unlocking his neural pathways as only it could, allowing the full force of the changa to penetrate the seldom-accessed recesses of his mind. White light blinded him, white heat made him shake. All he saw was a vastness, undescribable. Slowly, it shrunk... Until a colossal mesa could be seen in the distance. It, too, was white, but a greyish sort of white – it was Red's grey matter. He zoomed in double-quick, he knew that both the changa and the coffee would only keep working for a little while longer, and he didn't have enough space-time to drink a brew. Short and sweet it would be. Gathering his will, Red summoned from the heavens – of course, any direction was as heavenly as the other in this world – but anyway he summoned from the heavens Star Wormwood, a rainbow laser that created a multi-coloured mist around it. Wormwood struck the mesa, and began to quickly envelope it. As it did, Red heard a sharp intake of breath... It was his body, reacting to the intrusion. But what an intrusion it was! Every atom of the mesa became a perfect diamond, reflecting all the other atoms, creating an infinitely complex structure... This was Red's brain. And he would utilise is as best as he knew. All the world's sounds and music came into his awareness – Beethoven right there beside the chirping of the birds and the rumbling of the jet bombers over Libya and the whale songs in the deep blue ocean. A bass beat then started drumming, slowly at first, picking up speed and intensity until Red's whole consciousness was rumbling with the ba-dump of his heart, the furnace of his existence, pumping Amazon rivers of blood through his mainlines and pipelines. The sound of the surf turned into constant static, clear white noise calming him down, reducing pressure, a release valve for the mind and body.
The brilliant mesa began to blur and fade, as consensus reality returned. The smell of cigarettes, the droopy ficus, that red table lamp. Hemingway stared at him from the closet door, black-and-white face glowing. Everything seemed correct, but it could all be improved! The chillum was the exact color dried clay should be – a light grey-brown. His maroon jacket, old and worn, lay on the bed. Red found himself back in his computer chair. He realised he hated the feeling of sitting on his ass all day. Now it was evening, but tomorrow was a whole new day. Climbing into bed, he switched on a thunderstorm and drifted off to the sounds of the dragons of the earth breathing.

[Dragoon Knight]

[colour=#005FFF]"This keeps happening, " Dragoon Knight's muffled voice said with more than a trace of despondency. "How is a man to get a decent dust tan around here?!"
"Pissflaps, " announced a suspiciously Yves-shaped mound, from the general location of the floor, where a pricesless ming vase-rug will have once laid yesterday. With an audible pfff, two arms shot out of a third mound of grey particulate matter. One of the hands was holding a calculator, which the other started furiously tapping on.
"Studies have shown that NO."
Dragoon Knight recognised Dirk's voice from behind the rapid calculation. "Which studies?"
"All studies."
"That seems unlikely."
"Aheheheh..." Yves interjected, each letter becoming a wizard of some renown.

Dragoon Knight sat up, dust flowing off of him like dust flowing off a person who had just sat up after having lots of dust on them while they were lying down on a floor for quite a while, possibly a number of years, but recently having had a brief conversation with two other people.
"DON'T GET ANY IDEAS, " said God.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, " said A the Wizard.
"HAVEN'T I HEARD OF YOU?"
A was not forthcoming, choosing instead to reply to God with "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!", before rotating precisely 54.6 degrees along the X, Y and Z axes, then flying over that way somewhere.
"Magic, Magic E!" exclaimed an exuberantly excited E.
"Wasn't there another one of you?" Dragoon Knight asked, because.
"Consonants can't be wizards, " Dragoon Knight replied.
"Wait, what?" he asked himself.
"Five, " was the only reply.

"YOU'RE NOT BUGGERING ABOUT WITH REALITY AGAIN."
"I resent the implication that we-" Dragoon Knight began.
"IF I SEE YOU SO MUCH AS LOOK AT A MARKER PEN OR A T-SHIRT, I SWEAR I WILL WRITE A WHOLE NEW NEW TESTAMENT."
"That seems a little excessi-"
"IT SHALL BE CALLED THE TESTAMENT OF PAIN."
"Well that's-"
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL BE IN IT?"
"Pain?"
"PAIN."
"I think we get-"
"THE PAIN WILL BE HAPPENING TO YOU."
"Yes?"
"YES."
"How much pain are we-"
Dragoon Knight's tower exploded. Again. Seriously, how many times is that now? Even I don't know, and I typed this shit.
"MORE THAN THAT."
"Understood, " acknowledged Dragoon Knight, currently upside-down in a thing.

"This is sloppy work, " Dante criticised.
"Why must everything I own explode?" asked the upside-down one.
"Oh I think we both know the answer to that."
"Samuel Clemens."
"Gesundheit."
"Why am I in a thing?"
"Because your tower exploded, " Dante answered, pointing out the obvious, completely ruining the epic game of hide and seek that it had been playing for something approaching fifteen years.
"Twin becomes twine with me!" said E, waving his wand.
"Nah, " Dante declared, causing a minor rip in reality, through which stepped the dreaded Twine Twins.
"WHAT. WHAT WAS THAT? I HEARD SOMETHING."
"No you didn't."
"I'M SURE I HEARD REALITY RIPPING ASUNDER."
"That was this adorable kitten."
"THAT IS A METRIC TON OF FIRE BADGERS."
"That is... inconvenient, to say the least, " Dante acceded, trying not to think too hard about holding aloft his flaming cargo.
"WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THOSE?"
"We are the dreaded Twine Twins! And we're here to-" the pair announced, before being cut short by a bolt of lightning that reduced them to ashes.
"QUIET."

"The hour is approaching, " Dirk reminded everyone from his position astride the Sun.
"Is there even a point to this?" Dante asked, watching Dragoon Knight running around in circles in a vain attempt to dislodge himself from the thing. "An underlying logic or direction for what we're doing?"
"Hell to the no, " Yves said, because he was now Dragoon Knight, and Yves was stuck in a thing, which was quickly discovering that it was stuck on Yves. "I make this crap up as I go along."
"Sloppy, " chided the wielder of badgers.
"You weren't here at the beginning!" Dragoon Knight reprimanded with a dismissive wave, which despite its negativity, was actually a nega-tsunami.
"Now you're just making things up. What the Belgium is a nega-tsunami?"
"It's time for TIME, " said an unknown sixth party in a dimension completely unrelated to this one, or indeed any other. As is proper, it had devastating effects on the ming vase-rug. No longer simply a stupid excuse for a plot point thought up several paragraphs ago in an attempt to be funny, it became sentient and able to make rational decisions. It was astounded to find that it had innate knowledge of Pi to 60 trillion digits, but was more alarmed to discover that - despite all of this - it was on fire.
"Don't put your badgers there; my vase-rug cost cash value 0.0001p!" Dragoon Knight cried, still riding the wave across the plains of Britain.
"WHY MUST YOU UNMAKE ALL I HAVE WROUGHT?" God blared from on high, but not quite as high as Dirk, who was now skipping across Alpha Centauri.
"Fear not, " Dragoon Knight said with a reassuring smile. "Yves has planned for this very eventuality. This exact sequence of events has been foretold for centuries. Yves, if you please."
Obliging, Yves tried to remove his mask to reveal that he was actually Orange McGrinsmile, but since he was not actually wearing a mask, succeeded only in removing his face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, sir, " the aide reported.
"Excellent, " said the real Orange McGrinsmile, who had been posing as H the Wizard since the beginning. He grinned, then smiled, then ate everything in one chomp.

The Tower was back (again). Everyone was back in Dragoon Knight's office (again). Several new friends had been made this day. Orange McGrinsmile lurked in a corner, ominous in his tanned glory.
Exactly five seconds later, the universe caught on to the fact that a metric ton of fire badgers would not fit in the office.[/colour]