Extinct S-Zines Reincarnate, Merge, Buy Dodgers

LALA, CA - ( Jan 8) - In a phoenix-like resurrection -- unmatched since the original Phoenix or the original Resurrection -- the 30 or 40 extinct former web-zines beginning with the letter S (you know, Stim, Spiv, Spanq, Suck, Schmuck, Slate, Stale, Stall, Salon, Saloon, Salmon, Spit, Spite, Spittle, Slit, Slight, Slab, Slac, Slick, Slik, Slickke, Slike, and a few zillion more, too numerous to mention here in the limited space allotted to us for listing the names of extinct webzines beginning with the letter S) have phoenix-like, miraculously returned to life, merged into a single entity, and purchased the recently cast adrift, Los Angeles Dodgers, for an estimated $197 Million dollars in extinct buzz words.

"This is a unique opportunity" said Joey Steadicam, Editor-Emeritus of Schmuck, "Just when I thought we'd be stuck with all these moribund net cliches like brain candy, and brain this and candy that and newbie, and Geek Grrl and Geek this and Grrl that and Nrrd this and Virtual that, and way new media, and way new that, and virtual personality, and virtual this, which led to our demise in the first place -- suddenly, we have this, uh, unique opportunity to, uh, re-purpose all our old, uh, content in a whole new, uh, dimension. Uh, Baseball!"

According to a veteran baseball insider, "These people already have experience with a dying industry, the webzine biz, so their acquired skills will be really important as they take on another dying industry, the baseball biz."

Said Megan Borschtbeld, former editor of Split or Splike or Slimpt or something, "There's a lot of tricks you can do with HTML or PERL scripting, that I think would really liven up the game of baseball, and probably bring in more fans. Like,

hashpush 'think', (
     'subj', \@Hum,
     'inst', ['about', \@NOUN],
);
hashpush 'smash', (
     'sing3','smashes',
     'subj', \@Hum,
     'dirobj', \@Inan
);
$sing3flg=1;
$k= @VERB;
$verb = $VERB[int rand $k];
$prverb=$verb;

if (!($cat=$$verb{subj})) {$cat=$defaults{subj};}
push @S, ($cat);
if($sing3flg) {
  if (!($j=$$verb{sing3})){$prverb.='s';}else{$prverb=$j;}
  }
push @S, ($prverb);
if ($j=$$verb{dirobj}) { push @S , $j;}
if ($j=$$verb{indobj}) {
      if ($k=$$verb{indobj1}) { if(rand 10 >7) {$j=$k;} }
      &refpushS ($j);
   }
if ($j=$$verb{infobj}) { push @S , 'to'; push @S , $j;}
$j=@S;
for ($i=0; $i < $j; $i++) {
    $cat= shift @S;
    while ($#$cat != -1) #recurs down cat tree til str
        { $cat = $cat->[int rand ($#$cat+1)]; }
},

"I mean, put that on a tee-shirt, write 'LA Dodgers' over it in transparent blue, come up with a slick rookie shortstop from New Delhi who knows C++ and, even if you don't win any games, there'll still be, like, a 10% increase in fan attendance and 40-50% increases in the sale of ancillary merchandise like tee-shirts with old, re-purposed stim and spiv and suck and slate content written all over them, and 'LA Dodgers' written in tiny letters, on the sleeve."

Rebecca Kramer, of the Bob Coover Let's Cash In on Hypertext Baseball Association, USA, claims that, "The perpetrators of extinct online zines beginning with the Letter S have a distinct talent for and uncontrollable obsession with useless re-design, so expect to see the Way New Dodgers wearing totally new and re-designed uniforms on a weekly, maybe even daily basis."

According to either Seymour Pappert, or Felix Pappalardi or Felix Rohaytn or something, of either the Pappert or Pappalardi or Rohaytn Institute or whatever, who will be acting as consultant for the New Dodgers, "We wanna bring all that now archaic web stuff, like, you know, that whole UFO Kennedy Conspiracy Urban Legend VRML Intelligent agent virtual personality MOO MUD kinda thing, to baseball and give it an all new life by re-contextualizing it (not just re-purposing it) and simultaneously revitalizing baseball.

"So the first thing we're gonna do, is move the Dodgers back to Brooklyn -- which means that Bob Dole's 'Nomo of the Brooklyn Dodgers' comment during the '96 campaign, rather than being some out-of-touch boner, suddenly makes him the first great clairvoyant, pre-cognitive leader of our age, and, thus, uniquely prepared to step in when Clinton, Gore, Albright, and Gingrich, all discredited, step aside, and America suddenly needs a leader out of nowhere who's universally trusted, and has supernatural powers, to boot."

Meanwhile, rumors from inside the New Dodger front office indicate massive mutual backstabbing campaigns among the former defunct S-zine former editors, over who gets to be the new Vin Scully. -- As well as endless verbal squabbles over whether it'll be John Perry Barlow or Howard Rheingold who gets the job of coaching 3rd.