Infinite Monkeys

Cue confetti, streamers, and music

Robb's response last December to my announcement that I had topped 5000 miles for the calendar year was amusing. He saiid something like, "I have no frame of reference for that. It's like you're speaking a different language or speaking of a different world."

Well, it's time for another transmission from planet Obsession. A few days ago I put my ten-thousandth mile on the bike I bought back in 2004.

1,238.90 miles in 2004
5,187.59 miles in 2005
3,604.33 miles so far in 2006 (despite a couple months almost completely off for the bulging disc problem)

Hitch Rocks II

Christopher Hitchens has an unparalleled way with words. I rather enjoyed this helpful video that explains -- in roughly four times the length of the actual Hitchens-Maher exchange -- why Bill Maher and his audience are total asses.

And dig the soundtrack.

Hitch Rocks

I don't know how many times we've brought this up, but Christopher Hitchens kicks ass. Why he would bother going on Bill Maher's show is a difficult question, but his willingness to go on and more than once directly insult the studio audience delights me to no end.

Crucify Conan!

Evidently, the right-thinking blogosphere is abuzz over Conan O'Brian's skit on the Emmy Awards tonight. I heard Drudge moaning about the parody on his radio show a few minutes ago. Well, let me just say, with all due respect to the families who lost kinfolk in the Kentucky crash today, the Emmys aren't about you. They're about Hollywood's self-indulgence, rewarding themselves for their next-to-worthless craft. Conan O'Brian understands better than most that the thought of his fiery death works very well as a punchline. Regular people dying is sad. Conan O'Brian dying is funny. In fact, he dies on stage...every...single...night.

So we mourn the tragic loss of 49 lives in Kentucky, blah blah blah. But, fellow pundits, please. Don't be so goddamned sanctimonious. It's TV. It doesn't mean anything. Nobody will remember the bit in a month... probably less. Leave the moralistic preening to our friends on the Left. They are much, much better at it.

"There Is No Compulsion In Religion"

There is no compulsion in religion.

There is no compulsion in religion.

There is no compulsion in religion.

There is no compulsion in religion.

How do I know? The Koran tells me so!

Grammar as a Moral Test

A read a letter today that disturbed me. I don't have the letter handy. But it left such an impression that I believe I can paraphrase accurately. It went something like this:

Dear [Ignoramuses]:

I subscribe to the [corporate-owned publication of some regional renown] and I am bothered by some of the titles I find within its pages. Specifically, I saw recently the word "dog" employed as a verb. As any college-educated person knows, "dog" is a noun and a noun only. Often I see "dog" employed as a verb and I am distressed. Clearly, when the [corporate-owned publication of some regional renown] uses a word such as "dog" as a verb, this is some indication that society, as we know it, is doomed. Doomed I say! First, we corrupt the language. Then we corrupt our souls! Next thing you know, we are committing human sacrifices in our town squares! Didn't [employees of said corporate-owned publication of some regional renown] go to college?

Sincerely,

[Silly subscriber of corporate-owned publication of some regional renown]

Now, I read that letter, and it filled me with... well, with a kind of rage. I was angered. Why? Because I'm a professional. I work hard at what I do. I take a certain amount of pride in my work. And I have not one, not two, but three dictionaries at my disposal, not counting free online resources. And you know what I found after about two minutes of searching through multiple sources? I know, it's probably not a shock, but I confirmed that "dog" is, in fact, a verb. And you know what else I learned? English-speaking people have used "dog" as a verb for at least 200 years... and perhaps longer than that. So you know what I say to the picky grammar ignoramuses?

Nothing. I have nothing to say. Because I wouldn't want to tax their reptilian brains with words they don't know and perhaps inadvertently spur the collapse of Western Civilization.

Mangy mutts.

IAU to Pluto: Drop Dead

For years I've counted on the fact that if I needed to find out, in an instant, if anything major had "gone down" (as Cypress Hill would put it), I simply needed to hit the Google home page. From there it was a quick click on the link over the search box to News. Anything major, with more credibility than Drudge, or the Daily Freeps, would be highlighted. It was easy. It was simple. Nothing blown up that I care about? No one gassed? Okay. On with the day. Same thing worked when you wanted a jumping off point for research into a story you may have heard on the top o' the hour radio news break. Take me to the Tokyo papers, yes!

But now the world has changed. There is no News link there any longer. There does seem to be some new Video! link, but I refuse to click on it. Let YouTube have their niche, please. (I love you, YouTube. You're the only place I've ever, ever, found that HHSB video.) But where's the News? Must be under the "More" link. What? No. Not there? Okay, how about the Even More link that pops up there? I don't see i– oh, there it is. Whew... Had to scroll down a ways to find it, heaped among the detritus of Google Inc. products. How could Google have relegated News to the dreck? I thought we knew each other. (Well, at least I counted on Google knowing me better, after all the data collection.)

I know, I know. Now I'll have to bookmark it into my Safari Bookmarks Bar. I can. But it will never feel the same. Thank goodness I can still just go to Wikipedia if I'm in the mood for nothing but the absolute calamity only filter. Folks may complain about the site's articles' accuracy, but I can count on them for a succinct list of only a handful of international events that those outside caves should be aware of. No Armageddon? Okay, on with the day.

Let's check it out today, for example. New Zealand Tri-Nationals – I didn't know they played quidditch in NZ. Congo election – snore. Math medal – should have gone to Stephen Colbert. Terrible Ukrainian plane crash – dude, my psyche really doesn't need something so remote to grieve over, thanks for thickening the callous. And, at the top, the one I had been wondering about. So it's true. The lead story that could have been titled IAU to Pluto: Drop Dead. I'd been suspending reaction. Since I started teaching Science to middle-schoolers I've seen Quaoar and several other Kuiper Belt objects announced as "the 10th planet!" several times. And it seemed that Pluto was getting hammered constantly. If these planet-come-latelies weren't big enough, then why were we letting Pluto stay in the pool with the adults?

It looked like the IAU had finally come down with a consistent decision. Good job, boys. Take a stand! (As Flava Flav would phrase it. Forget Fat Joe.) But what's this? A "dwarf planet"?? What sort of cop-out compromise of a made-up definition is this? Great job, guys. This is gonna lead to no end of jokes at the dwarf planet's expense.

No word yet from Billy Barty.

Furnaces and Blueberries

Pitchfork has a very cool interview with Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces today.

I consider the Furnaces' Blueberry Boat album the best released so far this century, and the articulate responses provided by Friedberger go a long way toward explaining why it's so damned good. This is a guy who knows what he wants to get out of his own music, and doesn't care whether or not it jibes with what anybody else thinks rock'n'roll is supposed to be. Most illuminating.

By the way, if you don't own a Furnaces album, and you don't mind music that takes you a few dozen listens to truly appreciate, you can't go wrong with Blueberry Boat. Complex, interestingly orchestrated pop music. Smart, storytelling lyrics filled with clever wordplay. Striking, unique vocals from sister Eleanor (it's rare that you can cite a singer's sterling diction as a reason for enjoying her vocals) with Matthew's more subdued stylings providing an interesting counterpoint.

The thing that impresses me most about Boat is how evocative the music is. Rarely, outside of classical music, have I heard such dense, detailed tunes that so vividly illustrate their settings. If you were to listen to the title track sans-lyrics, you'd still get the sense of bobbing about in a little freighter on the open sea, the sudden pirate attack, the gloomy resolve of the protagonist's ghost, consigned to haunt Davy Jones' locker with her treasured blueberry cargo. In "My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found", you can't miss the feeling of Eleanor running all over town, putting up flyers and searching her dog's old haunts. And "Birdie Brain", which bemoans the rise of such modern technologies as livery cars and steam trains, is colored with the beeping and booping of an equally antiquated Casio keyboard.

It's dense stuff, with so many musical threads woven into every minute that it will be a long time before I get tired of unravelling it. These are long, serpentine songs that might not make a lot of structural sense at first, and I don't expect everyone to want to put in the effort. Critics have called it self-indulgent, and maybe it is, and if so, who gives a crap? With the Friedbergers so clearly enjoying the hell out themselves, I'm willing to indulge their indulgence.

As far as their other albums go, Gallowsbird's Bark is also excellent, and quite a bit more accessible, with more typical song structures and none of the 8-10 minute epics that comprise most of Blueberry Boat. Bitter Tea is shaping up to be terrific as well, though I haven't listened to it enough times to compare it to the others yet. Rehearsing My Choir is a concept album about the Friedbergers' grandmother, and is said to be their most "difficult", though I haven't personally checked it out.

I fart in your general direction

This may be my first ever photo caption contest. Well, not really a contest. There are no prizes. Submissions will also be taken for how the "winner" may be honored. Bonus points for ideas involving Monkeystein.

NL still sucking wind

Poochucker and I grabbed a beer yesterday afternoon in San Diego while I was waiting for my flight home, and as we watched pre-teens play in the Little League World Series we also discussed how bad the grown-ups in the National League were playing.

Last time I checked the standings, right before the all-star break, there were only five teams in the entire National League playing above .500. Well, guess what? There are still only five teams in the NL playing above .500, and some barely so. Pitiful.

Am I complaining? Absolutely not. If it weren't for the generally poor NL play, the .504 Arizona Diamondbacks wouldn't be in second place for both the Western Division AND the NL Wildcard. Hurray for mediocrity!

Cops Suck / Government Sucks (an ongoing series)

Thank merciful God for the Global War On Terror, or the fuzz would have never caught up with this dangerous criminal.

(Did you even have to guess where I stumbled across this link? No, I didn't think so.)

Booze

You know, I pity bartenders who try to come up with new cocktails. I mean, even if they succeed, they'll probably be forgotten (or fighting for credit). And unless you use some crazy new liquor that's made from grass buffalo feed on or something, it's probably been done before. Like tonight, when I mixed up some Rye, Luxardo and Vya Sweet Vermouth. It was so good, I googled it. Something very similar has been done.

Don't Worry Brad, Uranus is Safe

Undoubtedly Monkey Brad and his students can breathe a sigh of releif knowing that in the debate over which planet is not really a planet, it's hands off Uranus.

Hakuna Macaca (It Means "No Monkeys")

O, what truly mixed up times we inhabit, when a man calls another man a "macaca", and the world at large fails to recognize it for the tremendous compliment it so clearly is.

Somebody Else's Cross to Bear

Some might be surprised to hear it, but I'm stoked about Monday's passage of a bill that cedes the Mount Soledad cross site in La Jolla to the federal government. It's not that I have a huge stake in whether the cross stays or goes; indeed, as a lifelong atheist, losing the cross as a religious symbol would affect me very little. And I certainly don't relish the voluntary transfer of even more power to the Feds, though I recognize that doing so was basically the final remaining option to save the cross.

Nonetheless, I'm pleased as punch that President Bush signed the bill, because doing so strikes a blow against a growing, insidious cancer on our body politic. It's something I call "Proctolotics", so named because it is a branch of politics that caters exclusively to assholes. Because, let's be honest here: spending 17 years doggedly pursuing a lawsuit to destroy a beloved regional landmark and religious symbol is not rational behavior for somebody who is simply "offended." It is the behavior of a complete and utter rectum.

The truth is, nobody is really bothered by the cross being up there. Nobody truly believes that it represents an implicit preference toward Christianity. Everybody understands that the cross was built at a time when Christianity was understood to be the predominant religion in this country, and expression of that fact was not considered an affront. And everybody realizes that the cross' present purpose, standing as a memorial to Korean War veterans, extends its significance beyond the religious; while the Latin cross carries little spiritual meaning for a godless bastard like myself, I recognize it as a universal symbol of memorial.

Philip Paulson, the "offended atheist" behind all this foofarah, knows all of this. Yet he continues to focus his energies on the destruction of the cross, an act that would cause a great deal of hurt to a great many people. That he couches his litigation as an altruistic effort to protect us all from the dastardly Christian Conspiracy fools no one. The only explanation for his actions that makes any sense to me is this: he is a man filled with hate, somebody who gets off on pissing in everybody else's cornflakes. In short, the guy is an anus.

And frankly, I'm sick to death of pols, lawyers, and judges who kowtow to these walking colons in order to further their own agendas. How long would this case have dragged on if it weren't for opportunistic litigators looking to generate more casework? For ambitious politicians publicly supporting Paulson's reprehensible position to bolster their own campaigns? For crusading justices who found for the prosecution out of their personal distaste for religion in the public square? Without these interlocuters, someone might have saved us hundreds of hours of time and effort by simply saying, "Mr. Paulson, you're being an ass. Please go away."

So when I see Congress and the President apparently united against one of them, it ignites a tiny glimmer of hope in my crusty and cynical heart. Certainly, we're not out of the woods yet, especially given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent determination to resolve church versus state issues with a coin flip. But to see the people in power finally showing a little fight is a damned good thing.

Israel

I'm a bit confused by the spin the mainstream media is putting on Israel' "defeat" in Lebanon. If agreeing to the ceasefire was a defeat, and if the MSM was pushing very hard for a ceasefire, shouldn't the MSM admit that they were advocating the defeat of Israel?

Baseball

All summer, I've been driving by a Little League baseball diamond, and noticing that the kids playing there were crazy--they were wearing black uniforms in the Arizona sun. Well, it must have made the little bastards tough, because they are going to the World Series.

Supporting Jihad

Hard to believe that people in this country will openly march in support of the group that murdered 241 Marines in Lebanon, equating Israel and GWB with the Nazis.

And not so much as a peep out of the mainstream media.

I guess Mel Gibson would've been better of at a Pro-Hezbollah rally. At least then nobody would know.

Mass Murder

This plot is a scary one...there are just too many ways to bring something small and dangerous, whether explosive or a deadly gas, on to an airplane.

I loved that Congressman Ed Royce's first comment on Fox News this morning was to bring up the New York Times Swift story...given that it appears that wiring of money from Pakistan was the trigger for these arrests (though not, to my knowledge, how the suspects were first identified) it's a valid shot.

And how were the suspects found, and the plot unraveled? I hope we don't find out for many years, so the same techniques can be used again...

Crash Boom Bam

A big time trial scheduled for this past weekend here in AZ was cancelled. My team decided to hold an unofficial time trial on the course we use for the stage races we promote each year (Sun Valley Parkway - 1 mile north of I-10 exit 109). On the club's listserve for Category 4 riders (Cat 1 = fastest / Cat 5 = slowest newbies) someone asked how the TT went. I decided to write up my reply as an entry for the club's newsletter. A little saccharin, a little inside baseball, but that's what gets you chosen by the editor.

I was the odd man out. I showed up to find that the other riders were:

Brian Lemke [Cat 1, former national champion, Regional Mens' Team Captain]
Don Williams [former pro and frequent Masters winner]
Chuck Higgins, and [Masters rider, very fast]
Maggie Williams [Cat 1 Women's Regional Team captain]

...all with their TT specific superbikes. I had my one road bike, w/ aerobars slapped on and the seat raised & shoved forward.

The 40k warm up was fast. We held together as a group on the first 20k, checked out the turnaround and then everyone stretched out for the second 20k. I brought up the rear. For a while Maggie was taking it slowest, but Brian went back and asked her to do an interval behind him. They shot by me at about 33 mph. (insert bullet sound here)

The others took off first, doing the 40k TT while I did the 20. At about 8 or 9k I caught Maggie, as she sat up, feeling no power - worn out from hard training the day before. As I entered the 20k turnaround I thought, "hmmm, if I cut it close around the median I won't really be going 20k and I want to have a time I can compare in the future." So I tried to guess where in the middle of the break between the medians the cone would usually be. I was off the aerobars and on the hoods at about 16 mph through te turn when WOOP! Wha? Slipping, sliding, can I save this? I began to think that if I went down at that moment at least it would be a relatively clean fall, in line with what we practiced at the bike handling skills class last winter. In the slow motion of my wobbly sliding I just began to imagine how crazy and gangly my fall could be, but that another attempt to right myself was just barely possi - CRASH! WHAM!

I never saw the black gravel until I was sitting in it. Of course, the spot with the highest concentration of pebbles was exactly the line I had tried to take through the u-turn. Maggie abandoned her 40k and rode over to check me out. She helped me gather myself back together and after seeing the small dent in the side of my helmet, made sure I knew what day it was. As we rode back to the cars together Maggie kept a casual diagnostic going, asking me about my new promotion and my kids. We had a good chat on the way back. Her account of witnessing my turn was funny. "I saw you go into the turn, but never saw you come out!" Back at the cars she made sure I rinsed out my cuts and scrapes with clean water.

Additionally, I was helped by Maggie's assurance that my fall could have happened to anyone. I had felt honored that folks I consider some of the club's best and brightest were willing to have me riding in the group with them, even when we were all on the aerobars. I've only ever been treated with welcome and respect by White Mountain Road Club, and particularly by the people I was riding with that day, but in my head I still kind of felt like "the newbie." I was pretty embarrassed to have crashed. But as the others came in from their 40k's, they were more than gracious about it. Brian gave me some reminders about how to best treat the bruised hip I was downplaying. Was he ever right! [It's about 4 different colors as I type.]

So, all in all, not the best day. But I got in a good workout. I learned a lesson or two. I'm not hurt bad enough to miss any time on the bike. And I did have one of those experiences you can't plan for - I learned once again that we have some mighty good folks in this club.

-Brad
Cat 4 tall guy

This blog published by weight, not by volume.

Some settling may have occurred.

iTunes/eMusic Top 10 for August 2006: Has Anybody Seen My Keys? Edition

No, seriously... I can't find my keys. I really need to get my mail. I have bills. I think. Anyway, on with the lists!

Top 10 most recently purchased albums from the iTunes Music Store

1) "Nihilism Is Nothing To Worry About," 1986
2) "Someday Soon Things Will Be Much Worse!," The Meat Purveyors
3) "Delusions of Banjer," Bad Livers
4) "For A Life of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago Country," Various
5) "Encyclopedia of Sound, Volume 2," Los Straitjackets
6) "Encyclopedia of Sound, Volume 1," Los Straitjackets
7) "Down to the Promised Land: Five Years of Bloodshot Records," Various
8) "In Bocca al Lupo," Murder By Death
9) "The Big Band: A Tribute to Basie," Jimmy McGriff
10) "Tomorrow Never Comes," Roy Budd

Top 10 most recently purchased songs/albums from eMusic

1) "Rich Man's Lounge," by Ladell McLin
2) "Does Humor Belong in Music," Frank Zappa
3) "Cum on Feel The Noize," by Quiet Riot
4) "...Plays Lost TV Themes," Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited
5) "In Tongues," Drunk Horse
6) "Adult Situations," Drunk Horse
7) "Brazil," by John Pizzarelli
8) "Brazil," by Django Reinhardt
9) "Brazil," by Chick Corea
10) "Spectrum of Infinite Scale," Man or Astro-Man?

Top 10 most recently played songs on iTunes

1) "Doghouse," by Church Key
2) "Bring the Noise," by Unholy Trio (the greatest Public Enemy cover ever)
3) "Rock Steady," by Aretha Franklin
4) "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," by the Animals
5) "Blue Veins," by the Raconteurs
6) "The Graveyard," by Roy Budd
7) "Night and Day," by Rod Stewart
8) "Contempt - Theme de Camille," by Georges Delerue (from "Casino")
9) "Kill the King," by Rainbow
10) "I Don't Care Who Knows," by Charles Brown

Monthly Music

This month's top eMusic Downloads:

1. The Spores - Imagine the Future
2. Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants
3. Spoon - Telephono / Soft Effects
4. Neko Case - Blacklisted
5. Billy Bragg - Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
6. The John Doe Thing - For the Best of Us
7. Cat Power - The Covers Record
8. The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy - Rotten Soul
9. Praxis - Metatron (Bill Laswell, Buckethead, and Brain, oh my!!!)
10. Some Girls - Crushing Love (Juliana Hatfield...sigh)

Top CD Purchases:

1. Morrissey - The CD Singles '88-'91 [box]
2. The Wonder Stuff - Hup
3. Concrete Blonde - Concrete Blonde
4. The Clash - From Here to Eternity Live
5. David Sylvian - Dead Bees on a Cake

Monkeys on a Train!

Damn dirty primates on a train.
Hat tip: Guy.

It's All in the Numbers

Man, if there's one thing I love, it's a Poncho Punch Otter Pop. I don't know whether the little red bugger got into the box legally or not, and to be honest with you I don't care. Documented or undocumented, that Poncho is one seriously delicious Latin-themed pouch of sugar water.

If there's another thing that I love almost but not quite as much as a Poncho Punch Otter Pop, it's a good scare. Not necessarily the jump-out-at-you kind of scare -- good fun though those are -- but the slow-building, eerie, raise the hair on the back of your neck variety. Anyway, I've been sitting here for the last hour creeping myself out, and seeing as I really have nothing much else to contribute at the moment, I thought I'd share.

When I was a kid, I had this book by a guy named William Poundstone, called "Big Secrets". For the benefit of those who've never been fortunate enough to run across a copy, allow me to summarize: it was about big secrets.

More specifically, it was about all sorts of stuff that you probably aren't supposed to know: Freemason initiation rites, weird stuff that appears on American money, the 11 secret herbs and spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken. A good half of the book really gave me the willies, so of course I spent hours reading and re-reading it and basically scaring the crap out of myself for entertainment purposes.

The chapter on backwards messages in music prompted me to spend hours meticulously reversing the spools of my cassette tapes in order to determine whether Paul was, in fact, dead.

After reading the section about subliminal messages in movies, I burnt a hole in my VHS copy of The Exorcist trying to isolate the couple of frames where the word "PIG" is hidden in a wall of graffiti.

And I was so taken with the book's detailed description of the Rorschach inkblot test that I badgered my Dad into finding and photocopying a set of plates for me, which I then used to conduct impromptu psychoanalysis sessions at parties. Coincidentally, it was around this time that I discovered that nearly all of my friends were borderline-psychotic, father-hating, closeted homosexuals. Oddly, many of the girls also had castration complexes.

Without a doubt, though, the chapter that spooked me the most was the one about Numbers Stations.

Conspiracy theorists and hipster types are probably already familiar with the odd lore of the Numbers Station, but for those who are not, it goes a little like this:

Wedged between the AM and FM bands of the electromagnetic spectrum is a huge range of frequencies known as the shortwave band. Most of the transmissions on shortwave frequencies are pretty pedestrian stuff -- news and weather reports, navigational beacons, time signals, and so forth. Slightly more exotic are the frequencies allocated to Air Force One, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other clandestine organizations. And then there are the Numbers Stations.

At various times of the day, on many different frequencies, a mysterious voice appears from nowhere. It may be a live voice or a synthesized one. It may be female or male. It might be speaking English, or Spanish, or German, or some Slavic variant. Whatever form the voice takes, the content of its broadcast is always the same: numbers, and lots of 'em. Nobody knows what the numbers mean, or where the voice is coming from. The station is not registered and the voice never identifies itself. It just chants its senseless litany of digits for a few minutes, then disappears back into the ether from whence it came.

Though the variety of different voices implies that they hail from many different sources, the broadcasts almost all follow the same basic format. They begin with some sort of introductory signal: German yodelling, a series of electronic tones, the quiet tinkling of a child's music box. Then the voice arrives on the scene, usually with a preliminary announcement; "Acthung!" perhaps, or repeated words from the phonetic alphabet, followed by a handful of numbers. This repeats for a while, then the voice proceeds with the meat of the transmission: dozens or hundreds of numbers, in groups of four or five, capped off with some sort of indicator that the broadcast is finished. Then, nothing more.

Heres's an example transmission from the "Swedish Rhapsody" station, so named for the music box melody that plays at the beginning of each broadcast:

- BEGIN TRANSMISSION -

A short but intensely freaky-ass music box piece plays 23 times.

Evil Robot: 73242 73242 95222 95222 04528 04528

More freaky-ass music box madness.

Evil Robot: Achtung! 73242 73242
Evil Robot: Achtung! 40023 40023 67152 67152 76997 76997 Ende.
Evil Robot: Achtung! 95222 95222

Right around here is where listeners who accidentally stumbled upon the broadcast crap their pants.

Evil Robot: Achtung! 83633 83633 84878 84878 21737 21737 Ende.
Evil Robot: Achtung! 04528 04528
Evil Robot: Achtung! 57625 57625 92622 92622 71419 71419 Ende.

- END TRANSMISSION -

Some of the Numbers Stations have a decidedly bizarre way of getting their message across. The lady on the Five Dashes station, for instance, sounds drunk, and not a little bit horny. The aforementioned Swedish Rhapsody employs a female voice that's unusually high-pitched, so that it sounds almost like a little girl inexplicably barking out German numerals.

Weirder still, some of these stations have no discernable message at all. Some just endlessly repeat the same letter in morse code ad infinitum. Others play a rapid series of seemingly random tones, like an epiliptic trying to dial an international phone number. One station, dubbed "The Buzzer" just, well... buzzes. To be truthful, it sounds more like the end result of a three-burrito lunch to me, but as spooky names go, "The Flatulator" just doesn't roll off the tongue.

I never had a shortwave receiver in my youth, but just the thought of these robotic voices out of nowhere would give me a major case of the creeps. Nobody knows why they're out there, or where they're coming from, or what they're trying to get across; if somebody does know, they ain't talking.

So why the hell has somebody -- or something -- been reading numbers and making vaguely farty noises on the shortwave band for the better part of four decades?

The fertile mind can come up with all sorts of implausible explanations. Perhaps space aliens snapped up the Voyager probes and have been trying to make contact with us using whatever limited vocabulary they were able to glean from those gold discs. Or maybe the stations are paranormal in nature. It's said that ghosts are simply electromagnetic imprints left behind when we shuffle off this mortal coil. Is it possible that shortwave listeners have inadvertently tuned into the poor, lost soul of some long-dead German mathematician, doomed to recite the digits of pi for all eternity, or until he gets to the end, whichever comes first?

Well, probably not, but the generally accepted explanation is hardly more comforting. It's commonly believed that the broadcasts are actually coded messages from espionage agencies to covert field agents operating in enemy territory. The unique attributes of shortwave make it well-suited for such uses. Because shortwave frequencies are refracted by the ionosphere, such transmissions are capable of traveling from their source to the other side of the globe. And because radio is inherently a broadcast medium, interested parties might eventually be able to triangulate the source of a transmission, but they can never identify its ultimate destination.

Perhaps its ultimate destination is that Albanian exchange student you're housing. Perhaps he sneaks down into your root cellar at 2 AM to listen for directives from the Motherland on his portable receiver, and not to masturbate in secret behind the hot water heater, as you had previously assumed. I'd keep an eye on that kid, if I were you.

As for the numbers themselves: the first set of each group is thought to identify the agent for whom the transmission is intended. The rest are believed to contain a message encrypted with a one-time pad, a code that for all intents and purposes is unbreakable. The general idea is that sender and receiver each have an identical "pad", probably just page after page of random numbers. A message could be encoded by adding numerical representations of its letters to the numbers on the pad, and decoded by doing just the reverse. As long as nobody else has a copy of the pad, and as long as the pad is never reused, there's no conceivable way an outsider could correctly interpret the message.

What that message actually conveys is anyone's guess. I think It's safe to say that it's not, "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine." Probably something more along the lines of, "Our exalted premier orders that you terminate the ambassador. Also, Boris says, 'Hi.'" Either way, it's not good. Personally, I don't want any dirty little Albanian spy kid assassinating our ambassadors or depleting America's precious supply of rich, chocolatey goodness.

Since I've never actually known anybody who had access to a shortwave receiver, I always assumed that I would never get to hear an actual Numbers Station broadcast. A few years back I heard about a 4 CD set called The Conet Project, which was basically a compilation of recordings made of Numbers Stations over the years, but by the time I had caught wind of it, the damned thing had gone out of print. I fished around on eBay for a bit, but no luck. Eventually, I gave up. "Have patience," I thought. "Sooner or later, the Internet shall provide."

Sure enough, a little over a year ago I learned that The Conet Project had been made available in its entirety at the Internet Archive. I must admit that as I downloaded the first track, I was a trifle worried. After years of building up Numbers Stations in my imagination as the pinnacle of horror, what if the actual item turned out to be a huge letdown?

I had little reason to worry. The 150 tracks on the compilation are scary as hell. The weird interval signals... the monotone robot voices... the everpresent wow and flutter of radio interference... the high-pitched warbling of some enemy agency doing its level best to jam the signal... it all adds up to one of the most inexplicably disturbing listening experiences I've ever had the pleasure of encountering. I challenge anyone to listen to fifteen minutes or so of this, alone, in a darkened room, and not get goosebumps the size of Pop Rocks.

Interestingly enough, it turns out that I had already heard a couple of Numbers Station broadcasts and not even realized it. If the phrase "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" means anything to you, you probably have, too. And long-time fans of Stereolab may be blissfully unaware that the voice chattering quietly away in the background of the song "Pause" is none other than Little Miss Swedish Rhapsody.

If any of this has piqued your curiosity, I highly recommend you download some or all of The Conet Project and its accompanying book. From there, you should check out Simon Mason's web site and his excellent book on the subject, "Secret Signals." It may not be as downright tasty as a Poncho Punch Otter Pop, but as somewhat of an expert on the subject, I can vouch that it will chill you just as effectively.

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