Denizens, I’m undertaking a long, convoluted project – something that, what with the advent of flash & external drives, I should’ve done a long time ago.
That’s right.  I’m transferring all the stuff on all the floppy disks I’ve ever collected over to USB hardware.
A monumental task, to be sure – but one that will, hopefully, be of some benefit sometime down the road.
In so doing, however, I’ve come across something that I saved from back in the old BBS days that you might like to see again.
(Hat tip Glenn Joyner.)
If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on its feet.
But what if you attach a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a cat’s back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on its feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground?
Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash its furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall.
That’s right, you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat’s limbs, allowing descent.
Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies.
The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn’t do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and pissed off aliens crash on top of them.
And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the aforementioned anti-gravity device.
One could power a ship by means of cats held in suspended animation (say, about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due to tempermental felines. More importantly, how do you steer, once the cats are all held in stasis?
I offer a modest proposal:
We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the laudromat. Plaster the outside of your ship with white shirts. Place four nozzles symmetrically around the ship, which is, of course, saucer shaped. Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to the directions you want to go. The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce. If you use t-shirts, you won’t go as fast as you would by using, say, expensive dress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite the counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide.
This will create the well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.
Mheh. 
KORRIOTH:  You find that amusing?  How do you think my people first made it off of Qo’noS?
VENOMOUS:  Well, yeah – given your aversion to spaghetti sauce & Tide©, I can see that…
The first official Perfect Football Weekend™ of the year ki…uh, wait a minute.
VENOMOUS:  You guys ready?
MERLIN:  Ready, Admiral?
VENOMOUS:  Yes.  Ready.  C’mon, where is everybody?
KORRIOTH:  Whatever do you mean, m’liege?
T-BONE MCMANX:  Ready for what, Your Rudeness™?
VENOMOUS:  Gentlemen.  I would think you would know the drill by now.  Especially  since I’ve nearly electrocuted the lot of you a couple times over it.
OZY MCCOOL:  Over what, O Tyrannical One?
RAYEGUN:  Is there something for which we should have prepared ourselves, ol’ buddy?
THE SPATULAGODDESS:  Really, hon, you’re becoming pretty paranoid these days.
THE VICAR:  So why all the angst, my friend?
VENOMOUS:  Fine.  Whatever.
The first official Perfect Football Weekend™ of the year…(sigh)…kicks off…
ALL:  CORRRRRRRRRRRRR-NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…!!!!!1!!!ONE!!!1!!ELEVENTYMILLION!!!1!!1!
VENOMOUS:  (headpalm)
…with the story of what used to be a good television station that now seems to have descended into tabloid journalism.
As any of you who follow football know, the NCAA handed down the so-called “death penalty” to SMUT back in 1987, as a result of an investigation launched by WFAA Channel 8 (the local ABC affiliate here in Dallas).  Channel 8’s investigation is credited with getting the guillotine started on its downward trajectory towards the old Shitland Pony program.
Just a couple weeks ago, the Southlake Carroll “hah skrewl” (a little Rush lingo, there) program suffered a serious setback when its quarterback, transfer Daxx Garman, was ruled ineligible to play this year.  Again, it was a WFAA story that led the charge against this young man.
Sensing blood in the water, two weeks later WFAA ran a so-called “gotcha!” piece against Euless Trinity and the aforementioned Southlake Carroll, accusing each of having coaches supervising players during what’s known as a “7-on-7” drill, in supposed violation of an University Interscholastic League rule.  (And an unconstitutional one, if I do say so myself – or can we no longer “peaceably assemble” where we please?)
So let’s see if we have this straight: We got congress-skank Eddie Bernice Johnson illegally steering college scholarships to friends & family; a goober-natorial candy-date who was against  term-limits before he suddenly got religion about ’em; a Dallas County jail that finally passes a state inspection in a glowing  tribute to an incompetent lezbo excuse-for-a-sheriff – and A.H. Belo’s television station can’t come up with anything better to investigate than possible  violations of UIL rules?  On allegations that are shaky, at best?
Goodbye & fuck off, Channel 8.  You’re no longer the news station of choice in the Realm™.  I can get my information elsewhere, thank you.
On to the PFW.  If it’s the first week of the season for Ged Kates and my Arlington Heights Yellow Jackets, it must be Azle and their Hornets.  Game’s in Azle this year (Friday night), and on the road with a new coach, I have zero  idea how Heights will do.  Gimme the Jackets & 24.
The marquee game of the week will be about four blocks from Realm™ headquarters, as the 24th-ranked Oregon State Beavers come to Cowboys Stadium to take on the sixth-ranked Texas Christian Horned Frogs.  Gary Patterson’s boys have a ton to prove this year, and this’ll be a good way to start.  Frogs are favored by 13½, so naturally Ross Evans will have to win it at the end.
The rest of the college games are pretty much of the sacrificial lamb variety.  Bob Stoopes, Landry Jones and the seventh-ranked Oklahoma Sooners are playing host this weekend to Utah State (Vegas line:  OU by 34); eighth-ranked Nebraska gets to feast on Western Kentucky in Lincoln (38-point home favorite), and Kansas gets to host – and no, I’m not kidding here – North Dakota State.  That’s gonna be so lopsided that Vegas didn’t even put out a line on it.  (See how they love you already, Turner Gill?)
Even 12th-ranked Bucky gets to get in on the act with a squash, though they’ll have to travel to Vegas to get it – they take on the UNLV Rebels, and they’re a 21-point road favorite.
Thursday night, the Dallas C’girls will be sitting their starters against the Miami Dolphins at the Death Star™.  I probably shouldn’t watch, ’cause it’ll be P-U-Stun all over again, but I probably will.  (Someone  has t’ rip into ’em for ya.)
And there’s a bonus game this weekend in college.  There’s a new breed of Shitland Ponies on my go-fuck-yourselves list, and it’s overrated third-ranked overrated Smurf Turf State and their Broncettes.
They’re at 10th-ranked Virginia Tech Monday afternoon.  And Hokies – you had damned well best not let me down.  Run up the score on these bastards, and show the world just who the fuck they are.
Smurf Turf State is one of my anti-teams (meaning I pull for whoever’s playing them; I don’t care if it’s TU) – and, should Va Tech win the day, it’ll be a PFW, regardless of what the other seven teams do.
We’re back Tuesday for the recap.  In the meantime – stay safe out there on the road, HDD.