Meredith: Sorry, I've been struck by an inspiration and I don't want it and I'm trying to give it back.

Meredith: Best defense is a good offense and all that.
Batya: Well, if your opponent is not particularly ruthless, sometimes your best defense is to curl into a little ball and yell ack, no, no, stop.

Meredith: You have to say shorter funny things.

Batya: I told you I was writing that down.
Meredith: You did. But I didn't believe you.

Batya: Then you'll have to remind me of what I was saying.
Meredith: I don't know what you were saying.
Batya: Weren't you listening either?

Meredith: It's the Gigantic Paragraph of Doom! Oh no!

=====

Well, you don't look terribly monotheistic, but other than that...
--DaViD, 01/08/2000

It tried, it really tried, but it completely failed to do anything to my socks.
--Alex, after watching Princess Mononoke, 01/17/2000

=====
Dinner in the City, 01/26/2000
In attendance: Amy, Ben, Merav, Batya, Alex

Merav: Secret government geneticists are monitoring your water glass.

Batya: It says here "The Sweetest Carrot Salad" and all of a sudden I'm hearing that song "The Sweetest Thing." Ours is a veggie kind of love.

Alex: Oh waiter, there's a flaw in my soup.

Amy: I think every song should include piranhas.

Batya: So Pikachu goes around saying his own name, "Pikachu! Pikachu! Pikachu!" like a sad, deranged grandfather on helium.
(Quoting the Self-Made Critic from The Brunching Shuttlecocks.)

Amy: He's your husband. You can hit him.

Batya: Hey! You can't do math on the snipe sheet!

Merav: 668, the Neighbor of the Beast.
Batya: 666A, the Tenant of the Beast ... 555, the Number of the Wanna-Beast ... 333, Eric the Half-a-Beast.
Alex: 999, the Deli Meat of the Beast.

Merav: I was walking down the hall at Arisia when suddenly I grew a Mike.

Batya: (singing) As I wandered out in the halls of Arisia...
Alex: (singing) I said to myself, "Hey, this isn't Boskone!"

Merav: Don't choke on the hair of the tortoise that's in your milk ... um, wait a second ....

Merav: Paris doesn't rhyme with much more than Xander.

Batya: So we'll get an Orb of Thessulah and re-soul your boots.

Merav: Are you guys still planning to paint me green?

=====

"Great, so you get Spike drunk, I get Oz sleep-deprived..."
"And Constance gets Angel. [pause] Wench."
--Batya and Missy, phone conversation, 01/27/2000

=====
Rented Muppets From Space, 01/29/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Merav, Miri, Lauren, Sa, Judy, Elan

Merav: You've never seen Spaceballs? Batya, you want to act it out right now?

Lauren: Sweeney Todd? Oh, it's got a lot of baked goods in it.

Miri: A bottle of whitebread?

Batya: Don't touch it! It's filking!

Merav: Anyone with a two-tone beard is a bad guy.
Batya: Unless he's in a Niven book.

Sa: So long and thanks to all the fish?

Lauren: That's why I'm afraid to say anything in this house. It gets written down.
Batya: Write that down.

Lauren: Hey, you got sour cream on the raccoon.
Batya: Hey, you got your raccoon in my sour cream!

Lauren: Marc Cohen is no longer necessary. I have him on a disc, all mooshed up.

Batya: Of course it quacks. Auuughh!

=====

Okay, this random-phrase-would-make-a-good-band-name riff is wearing thin.
You know, Wearing Thin would make a good band name....
--Miri and Batya, 02/05/2000

Mum! Da! Don't touch it! It's evil!
Okay, if you two ever have kids, I'm staying AWAY from the toaster in your house.
--Batya and Jordan, IM, 02/13/2000

Merav: You're surrounded again.
Jordan: Ah, but this time I have the sword of chaos!
Merav: Yeah, but we have the bucket o' submersion.
Jordan: Kneel in submission to the rubber chicken of ethros!
Batya: A rubber chicken of ethros? okay, that's just plain wrong.
Alex: Made by blind poultry farmers in Timbuktu?
Batya: Lame eraser factory assistants in Quebec.
Merav: Looks at chicken. Rouses Erasmus, the eraser God.
Jordan: Curses, you leave me no choice. I call forth, THE MOUSE OF FEMININE PANIC!
--Really really weird three-way IM conversation, 02/18/2000

Alex: Well, there's being alive, and then there's [dramatic hand gesture] being alive.
Batya: And you and I are alive! With the hand gesture!
--late-night conversation, 02/20/2000

=====
Gamewriting meeting, 02/20/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Merav, Josh, Lisa

Lisa: The fact that we have an atlas does not in any way mean that I know where it is.

Josh: Some notes on sex.
Batya: We hope these will be useful.

Lisa: France! Spelled F-R-A-N-T-S.
Batya: We need more than one Frant.

Merav: Hey, where the Galazonian women at?

Josh: I have this French press...
Merav: Is that how you make flat French people?

Merav: You are Faris Nnnnnn.
Batya: You live in the Castle Aaaaaarrgh.

Batya: My hand wants to draw women.

Merav: I'm not functioning on all cylinders.
Lisa: That's okay, none of us are.
Merav: But I'm only a three-cylinder cat.

Lisa: If you come up with a human you just can't place, chuck it in the animal pile.

Merav: That's my Indian name! Tap-Dances On Alligators!

Lisa: [calling from the next room] Corruption! Don't forget corruption!

Batya: All right, talk. I've got your girlfriend's comic book.

=====
Shabbat at the Wittenberg-Lair, 03/03/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Barak, Miri, Lauren, Sa

Barak: My pants are ringing! My pants are ringing!

Lauren, stepping into Barak's sandals: I'm going to put myself in your shoes.

Lauren: Sleepingness will now occur.

=====

I am going to go collapse into a ball of sleepy person.
--Alex saying goodnight, 03/14/2000 [What? No snipes for almost two weeks? -B.]

You're a doll.
Yes, and if you pull the string that comes out my back, I say "Ma-ma!"
No, actually you're more like an action figure.
--Alex and Batya being aggressively cute at each other, 03/15/2000

Jordan: The trouble is, you've got to make sure that your soldiers don't kill your villagers.

Jordan: Well, it spreads. Deification is contagious.

Batya: I like the word. Ethros. It sounds like something that demons use on Succos.
--phone conversation, 03/15/2000

=====

Lauren: Batya, do you know that poem, And Death Shall Have No Dominion?
Liz: You mean, like www dot death dot com?
Batya: No, that would be And Death Shall Have No Domain Name.

Liz: If God drank Corona, I'd become an atheist.

--JessieCon at Lauren's, 03/17-18/2000

=====

Laura: Scott is really into SF, but I don't think he'd go to a convention if his life depended on it.
Batya: We could arrange for that if you want to test it.
Laura: God, I wish you were kidding.

Israel: My tendencies run in the other direction. Actually, I tend to run in the other direction, quickly.

Batya: Pre-Lunacon talk makes for good snipe.

Batya: I find that if you're going to be sleeping in a room with people you don't know, it's good to at least wear underwear to bed. ...Of course, you can get to know people really quickly....
Israel: Especially if you're not wearing underwear.

--various pre-Lunacon phone conversations, 03/23/2000

=====
Lunacon, 03/24-26/2000

Alex: There's no mayonnaise on Neptune.
Kellie: There should be.
Batya: There should be mayonnaise everywhere.

Lady at Registration desk: Is anyone here a dealer, an artist, or otherwise confused?

Batya: Someone saw the tuna sandwiches on the kosher table and was overwhelmed.

Batya: We're getting married.
Meredith: My goodness. Have the vows expired already?

Sarah: I'm not making another green dress.
Batya: Well, not a real green dress, that's cruel.

Big Scary Dave: I'm in-game dead. Don't make me kick your ass.

Batya: I can enunciate.
Merav: Of course you can.
Abby: Fine wife you'd be if you couldn't enunciate.

Merav: Batya, would you please restrain the microphone?

Abby: The microphone is trying to drink my blood.

Merav: Okay, everybody "P" into the microphone.
[Everyone falls down]

Abby: (Alvin and the Chipmunks voice) "Father . . . I want to kill you . . . mother, I want to . . . ALVIN!"

Liz: I have a brace of rubber chickens in my bag.

[Q chases Big Scary Dave out of the room]
Batya: Shouldn't we be trying to rescue him? She's a lot smaller than he is.
Gaylord: Don't worry, he's fine.
[Dave screams from the next room]

Random Guy: Is there a Dom in this room?
[Everyone looks at Q, who looks around innocently]

Batya: Are you mad? We can't sing "National Brotherhood Week" on the 7 train!

=====

Wahoo! Pain and suffering and confusion!
--Virginia (aka Owlet), 03/27/2000

Thrift, thrift! The funeral baked cookies did coldly furnish forth...
--Jordan on Baroness Fleure and Alistaire Cookie, 03/27/2000

I have a lot of foibles. Like a cat from Brooklyn.
--Alex analyzing himself, 03/30/2000

It's time for Whose LARP Is It Anyway? With: Once upon a Greg Proops! Parsley, sage, rosemary, and Wayne Brady! Carmen Miranda's Ghost is haunting Colin Mochrie! And you bash the Balrog, I'll climb the Ryan Stiles!
Hi, welcome to Whose LARP Is It Anyway, the game where everything is made up and the hit points don't matter. That's right, the hit points don't matter, kind of like an aphrodisiac at a satyr party....
What we're gonna do here is these people are going to act out some fiendish plots of their own devising... At the end, the winner gets to do a little something special with me, and the loser gets House Escher.
--Batya and Alex, variously, 03/30/2000

=====
Balderdash at Lauren's, 04/01/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Miri, Lauren, Aaron, Barak

Alex: We should change the name of the Dasher...
Aaron: Prancer?

Lauren: Don't be annoyed. The world needs more lerts.

Miri: Shippers and Deliverers of Holland.
Lauren: How many Hollands can you deliver?

Alex: Sh, there are people asleep in this building.
Barak: Why? On purpose?

=====

If we combine all the catch phrases from this weekend . . . "Where's Israel," "Psycho killer" and "that's not funny" you get "Psycho killer? That's not funny, that degrades Israel. . ."
--Merav at ICon, 04/02/2000

Merav: You haven't lived until you've heard Abby scream and play the mandolin backwards.

Merav: My French is eroding . . .
Batya: So put it in a french press?
--Late-night IM, 04/03/2000

Alex: It's got eight existential vitamins and minerals.
Batya: Super Sartre Crisp? Nietzche Flakes?
Alex: I stared into the cereal bowl, and it stared back into me...
Batya: That which does not make us soggy makes us crunchier.
--straaaange late-night conversation, 04/04/2000

Batya: Do you like psychos?
Israel: As long as they're not trying to kill me. And even if they are, if they're cute enough....

Israel: Apparently some computer engineers actually have a sense of humor.
Batya: Yes, they're very rare. We only have two in captivity. We're trying to breed them.
Israel: And who are they?
Batya: Shh.

Israel: Talking while you've got the snipe sheet open is like going food shopping while fasting. You want to write everything down.
[Batya writes it down]

--snipe sheet review, 04/05/2000

Judy: So you're going to sleep now?
Batya: Are you saying you're looking for someone who's going to stay up?
Alex: Are you nuts?
Judy: Do you have any idea how many jellybeans I just ate?!

Judy: Do you have any idea how much sugar and chocolate I consumed last night? And then I came home and you were asleep?
Lauren: I'm sorry. You could have woken me up.
Judy: And it's a good thing Batya isn't here, or she'd put that on the snipe sheet.

Batya: You're perfectly safe with us.
Elan: Ruuuun!
Judy: Please don't say that.
Batya: All right. You're almost perfectly safe with us.
Elan: Walk at a brisk paaaace!

Judy: And don't try to say something cute so you can get on the quote list!
Elan: No, I've got my one quote for the day, I'm happy.
--Shabbos in KGH, 04/07-08/2000

This is yours of some sort.
--Alex, 04/10/2000

Alex: Klingon guttural T.
Batya: There's no such thing as a guttural T. I defy you to try and vocalize a guttural T.
Alex: I don't have a Klingon guttur.
--04/12/2000

Jordan: Has the baby been named?
Batya: Sunday.
Jordan: You're naming the baby Sunday? Not a very popular Jewish name.
Batya: Well, we figure he'll probably grow up to be a predatory sophomore vampire.

Jordan: As if you didn't have enough delusions of grandeur, now you wear galaxies?
--IM, 04/13/2000

=====
Dinner in the City, 04/17/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Meredith, Constance

Meredith: Nothing like a marriage to seal a breach between Houses. And provide a hostage.

Meredith: My comment has passed unrecorded into the mists of history.
Batya: But that one won't.
Meredith: Oh dear.

Constance: The new Batgirl. I like her. Tortured little mute thing that she is.

Batya: That's the weird thing.
Meredith: When Batya says that's the weird thing, cower and gibber.

Meredith: Don't mind me, I'm channeling my cat. I can't eat anything I haven't stared at.

Batya: For you, I will decimate ketchup.

Batya: It's fun to be torn with pity and guilt in a game. Not nearly as much fun as it is in real life, though.

Meredith: That came out funny.
Batya: Oh, like that's anything new around here.

Alex: Does anyone volunteer to do the math?
Meredith: ...Accurately?

Batya: The pudding's not funny anymore.

=====
Labyrinth at the Wittenberg-Lair, 04/22/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Sa, Lauren, Jeff, Israel, Mikey, Eytan, Yair

Lauren: Of all the races to come say a big hello to Planet Earth, didn't it just have to be the Vulcans.

Israel: (looking at Jeff) There's only one person here I haven't met, so you must be Sarah Cole.

Alex: Sugar in your coffee?
Jeff: No, I don't take any poison in my poison.

Mikey: And again the kangaroo is displeased.

Lauren: (to Eytan, of course) It's not that I don't love you dearly, but do that again and I'll have to hurt you.

Mikey: Why do you all know so much about knives?
Israel: Mikey, stand up.
(Mikey does ... towers over Israel by about a foot and outweighs him by about 150 pounds)
Israel: Now do you see why I know about knives?

Israel: How much do you weigh? No, I know it's all muscle ... not counting the kangaroo.
Mikey: The kangaroo is all flab!

Israel: Yair, you haven't said anything yet! How will you get on the snipe sheet?
Yair: I've always liked watching from the shadows.
Batya: You are so a Sluagh.

Mikey: Don't even ... pretend ... to think ... about doing that.

Jeff: It's only tomorrow when you have had enough coffee, had decent sleep, or seen the sun rise. Two of those three things.
Sa: That means it's ... like seven weeks ago.

Mikey: If you see the sun up, can't you assume that it rose?
Sa: Nope, nope, logical fallacy, can't do that.

Eytan: Never pinch a maniacal munchkin!

Batya: Gentlemen, have ye no homes to go to?
All: No.

=====

Our corporate structure reminds me of a cross between Star Trek and Dilbert. We boldly go where no one has gone before, and put up cubicles.
--Leva in email, 04/23/2000

Table is set, candles are ready...
Flux capacitor fluxing...engine running....
Atomic turbines to speed....
We've got moviesign!
--Alex and Batya on a Friday evening, 05/05/2000

I learned three things: I'm a decent Jew, a bad Buddhist, and my boyfriend and I need to go hiking more often.
--Sarah Cole to Yisrael after returning from avodah zorah camp, 05/08/2000

You can't put Barbie in a lotus position. It would break her legs.
--Merav to Sarah Cole during dinner at Caravan of Dreams, 05/09/2000

Are you an official deputy of the snipe sheet?
--Sarah Cole to Merav during dinner at Caravan of Dreams, 05/09/2000

Beer is kid stuff. Wait, I didn't mean it like that.
--Ephraim, as quoted by Israel, 05/13/2000

=====
Willow at the Lauren-Lair, 05/13/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Sa, Lauren, Barak, Israel, Mikey, Yair

Sa: Where are you taking him?
Mikey: To the nether regions of hell.
Sa: Whose bedroom is that?

Lauren: Nobody touches the shark-ball.

Israel: Okay, I don't mind being killed, but from behind is cheating!

Batya: Speak gently to your little shark....

Israel: Kangaroos and sharks are natural enemies in the wild.

Mikey: Lauren, should I avenge you?

Batya: We're just getting past the FBI warning.
Alex: Blah, blah, blah, Fox Mulder, blah, blah, aliens, blah, blah....

Batya: Are you a good bitch or a bad bitch?

Sa: It's a very long ritual.
Mikey: Not as rituals go.
Alex: Well, they stopped for a drasha.

Mikey: Car? No car. Cars make you not wet.
[elapsed time]
Mikey: Shoulda taken my coat.

Yair: Wow! I got kissed!

Barak: Get thee to a nunnery!
Sa: Mikey in a nunnery?
Batya: Ew.
Mikey: Why is that funny?

Israel: Weren't you sitting over there?
Alex: I were. Actually I still am; I'm an optical illusion.
Batya: A very snuggleable optical illusion.

-----

The time zones are not your fault.
--Jonathan Lennox to Merav during a phone conversation from Scotland, 05/17/2000

I feel like death warmed over in a broken skillet.
--Di to Merav, 05/18/2000

Happy anniversary. I owe you lots of challah.
--Lauren, 05/26/2000

=====
Yael's bridal shower, 06/**/2000
In attendance: lots of people

Laura: You actually have to pose and do something stupid-looking with every present.

Liz: I went hunting at FAO Schwartz.
Constance: And as the stuffed moose charged at me, I knew I had to keep my head, so I reached for my Pez shooter and....

Liz: It's a gated community.
Batya: They don't let us out much.

Batya: Insert wok joke here.

Yael: So this is the public humiliation part of the evening?

Laura: You have a memory like a big gray thing with a trunk.
Batya: Yeah, but that's irrelephant.

Robin: I couldn't do that. That would be like taking your part.
Yael: Which you did.
Robin: Yes.

Laura: I guess this was one of your more dignified moments.
Robin: Hey, I was clothed.

Batya: You can have my pen when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!
Liz: Okay, we'll stick you in the fridge.
Batya: I said cold dead fingers.
Liz: Fine, we'll stick you in the freezer.

Liz: Moose, Queen of the Brownies.

Debbie: If you watch the show Survivor, Wien isn't that bad.
Miri: Wien, where the roaches ride the rats.

Liz: But Hamlet is a frog!

=====

Oh, that was a good sneeze. I think I lost five pounds.
--Tammy at work, 06/14/2000

You gotta get out more.
I get out enough. Where do you think I get all this?
Maybe you should stay in more.
--Batya and Tammy, 06/14/2000

You have a date-time attachment on your computer! Why are you asking us fallible humans?
--Batya being a technophile, 06/14/2000

I think about now we throw you all out.
Don't throw us out! Recycle us!
--Batya and Jonathan, 06/26/2000

=====
Laser Tag in the City, 06/28/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Gabriel, Constance, Jordan, Laura

Explaining "The Winter's Tale"
Jordan: The second act begins, it's twenty years later....
Batya: Kim is dancing for money in a brothel and has a three-year-old son.
Jordan: No, that's "Pericles."
Gabriel: I hate temporal mechanics.

Constance (to Gabe the Traitor): They got to your mind, didn't they!
Gabriel: What can I say? I didn't have any tinfoil.

Constance: It was a tough battle, but we survived.
Batya: No we didn't. We all died. Repeatedly.
Constance: Oh yeah.

Batya: You put him up to this? You slime! You crawling slime! I'm proud to have you in this clan!

Gabriel: You have to admit you were impressed.
Laura: No, I was had. There's a difference.

Batya: The Society for Dull, Unimaginative Anachronism.
Alex: They re-enact the Coolidge years.

Batya: But if you had two irresistible forces in the same universe--
Constance: They wouldn't be irresistible anymore?
Batya: Not to each other.

=====

Of course, I can't put mascara on myself, because I have the world's strongest blink reflex.
--Laura, 07/02/2000

Finding an ich-dead roach is preferable to finding an ich-live roach. Or ich-Alan Greenspan.
--Alex, 07/04/2000

=====
Post-wedding party for Yael & Scott, 07/05/2000
In attendance: lots of people

Batya: Oh, sure, I'm pulling down six, seven figures.... In binary.

Merav, quoting Robin the flutist at Ailsa's wedding: I was told that prehensile tails were immodest for this ceremony.

Miri: At least they give us real margarine.
Batya: None of that fake butter stuff.

Merav: All I can say is, I hope their service is better than their service.

Batya: Okay, powdered avocado is grosser than mold.

Miri: Curtseying in pants just doesn't work.
Alex: Curtsies! Foiled again!
Miri: Batya, hit him.
Batya: First I write it down, then I hit him.

=====
Surprise birthday party for Batya and Peter, 07/09/2000
In attendance: lots of people

Batya: Die. All of you.

Mikey (to Batya): You're not the only one who can run a conspiracy.

Eytan (to Sa): Could I suck your brains?
Israel: You forgot to say please.

Miri: We have a birthday cake fashion show.
Batya: A cakewalk?
Miri: A cakewalk.
Batya: And I do my little turn on the cakewalk, on the cakewalk, yeah, on the cakewalk....

Batya: Here, Peter, you can borrow my thumb. No, bad idea. You can borrow Alex's thumb.

Peter: ...but two things came up. One, it was raining.
Aaron: That comes down.

Meredith: I don't actually know what I meant there, I just thought it was the right moment to make an innuendo.

Aaron: To posterity. And beyond!

Miri: It's Twain compliant, so if you ever want to get...
Aaron: Twins?

Batya: Everyone is in everyone else's seat anyway.
Sa: That's quantumly impossible.

Merav: You realize she doesn't have a subconscious, she has a subConstance?

Yair: You have upper-class garbage, you have lower-class garbage, and then...
Eytan: And then you've got me.

[While watching Galaxy Quest:]

Miri: Everyone say hi to Laura on the phone.
Everyone: Hi Laura!
Aaron: Why is everyone waving?

Alex: Hey, the Enterprise had a joystick in the last movie, we can't laugh anymore.

Alex: He's Scotty on Prozac.

Constance: If you stand there yelling "Spoon!" long enough, someone will pay attention to you.

Alex: No one say or do anything funny, or he'll come back as something funny. If we say J. Edgar Hoover....

Meredith: Three dots, and you could see them hovering there in the air after you spoke.

Batya: An ellipse is an oval thingy. An ellipsis is three dots in a row. And the plural of both of them is ellipses.
Meredith: And an eclipse is when you have three dots in front of each other.

Constance: If one more person says "Only Zool," I will lose it.
Miri: "Only Zool!"
Constance: *screams*

Jon: Mom! Dad! Don't touch it! It's muktza!

Constance: My brain is fused to my skull...
Israel: Did I do that?

Batya: Is the party over already?
Jon: No, we still have one more cake to go through.

Miri: Let me go clean the knife.... *wipes knife with fingers, licks fingers* Never mind.

Jon: We have to be moving because of the uncertainty principle.
Alex: Are you sure about that?

Eytan: What did somebody do? What did somebody do? I want to see! I want to see!

Mikey: The people in this group can do the strangest things with their faces.

Jon: ...And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a gibbering pile of mush!

=====
Shakespeare In The Park, 07/16/2000
In attendance: lots of people

Sa (referring to Hunt For Oracle): She's not on the run, she's on a roll.
Gabe: That's it, I'm going to find a rubber fish if it kills me.

Mikey: I tried getting off "It's A Small World," but they wouldn't let me.

Alex: Miri, please don't kill my wife.
Miri: I'm not. She just makes a good pillow.

Constance: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Mikey: Voldemort?
Constance: Don't say the name!
Batya: Candlejack!
Gabe: Beetlejuice!
Miri: Zool!

Constance (in a John Cleese impression): And now it's time for Spot The Influence!

Alex: Once upon a time, or maybe twice --
Sa: No Beatles in this story. At least not the singing kind.
Constance: Beetles? Singing?
Sa: You know, the four singing guys from Britain.
Constance: Oh, them.

Gabe: That's where Jordan is sitting.
Alex: He'll be Yair when he gets here.
Sa: Jordan will be Yair?

Gabe: I'm thinking of having a housewarming party.
Alex: I'll bring the matches.
Batya: I'll bring the kerosene.
Gabe: Kerosene? Napalm! I want napalm!
Geesh, can you feel the love in this crowd? -Ed.

Mikey: He was here?
Batya: Mikey, think like a pooka. He was here.
Mikey: ...He still is.

Delacorte Usher Lady: Will it rain tonight? I don't know. Channel Seven don't know, 'cause they lie...

Mikey: Could I have my hands back? Thanks.

Alex: If it were Neil Simon and Garfunkel, that would be a mistake.

Miriam: Your headdress looks slightly more Elizabethan. Mine is just blue.

Sa: We now have a new answer to "What's green, hangs on a wall, and whistles." Daveed!

Israel: When I was seven I wanted to be an FBI agent. (small pause) All I have left now is the trenchcoat. (longer pause) And the gun fetish.

Israel: Once again I'm last. (brightens) That means I get to destroy everyone!
Batya: But the game might continue past you.
Israel: Not if I do it right.

Batya: You see a pile of gold and a big hungry beast next to it.
Israel: I pull out a hand-held nuke and throw it at the monster.
Batya: The monster swallows it in midair.
Israel: I press DETONATE.
Batya: It burps.
Israel: Now that I've fed it, I pet it.
Batya: It purrs, rubs against you, and knocks you down.
Sa: Chaya, get out of the game!
Israel: It followed me home! Can I keep it?

Batya: Air is owl and owl is air.
Miriam: Please pass the potato chips.

Israel: I take off my personal holographic unit and attach it to her. She now looks 10 years older.
Miri: It fails.
Israel: I pull out my backup.
Miri: It fails.
Israel: I use my redundant system!
Miri: It fails!
Israel: I pull out a makeup kit!
Miri: It's empty!
Israel: Foul!

=====

They looked at me like I was Attila the Hun.
See, now I've got this image of you in a fur vest, and it's just not working.
--Gail and Batya at work, 07/18/2000

We need a Jewish Goth band. Black Shabbos.
--Israel, 07/19/2000

=====
Gamewriting meeting, 07/22/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Josh, Lisa, Merav, Jon

Batya: He called her bluff.
Alex: Here, bluff! Here, bluff! *whistles*
Batya: He called it, and it came.
Alex: Gooooood bluff.

Batya: Boy, you mention an iambic pentameter problem to this crowd, and they're all over it.

Alex: I thought she wears black.
Batya: No, she wears grey. I wear cheerful bright colors. And black.

Lisa: France is really Switzerland.
Alex: That would explain a lot.

Batya: This was in what?
Merav: This was in Josh's head. And now it has come out.

Merav: Recursive language.
Batya: Damn! Damn!

Batya: What would go into Notes From The Sock Drawer?
Lisa: "Aaaa! Let me out! Let me out! Aaaa! Let me out!"

Lisa: Wait, I have a place I'm taking this. Really.

=====

I don't know why anyone uses curses when creative insults are so much more fun.
People prefer the curse of least resistance.

--Batya and Alex, 09/17/2000

=====
Watching The Mask at the Wittenberg-Lair, 09/23/2000
In attendance: Batya, Alex, The Normands, Yisrael, Mikey

Yisrael: You can't drink orange juice with brownies. That's like ... miscegenation. Only miscegenation doesn't taste bad.
Batya: I'm not even going to ask how you know that.

Yisrael: So someone who likes miscegnation would be a mysogynist?

(getting into Miriam's car...)
Batya: Shotgun.
Alex: Dagger.
Batya: Bazooka.
Yisrael: Tactical nuke.

=====
Cloisters Medieval Faire (and dinner at Mr. Broadway thereafter), 09/24/2000

Gabriel: This is your captain speaking. We are on final approach to the cloisters. Please fasten your seatbelts & return your trays to the upright position. Thank you for flying the MTA.

Batya: We just passed 7th Avenue. We're going in the right direction.
Constance: We're all gonna die!!

Batya: We have met the Chicago Loop and they are us.

Kellie: Constance is experimenting with the matza ball.
Batya: Constance, stop playing with your ethnic food.

Constance: Don't make me take out the stylus.

Gabe: It is not wise to be eating while reading other people's snipe sheet.
Constance: Give me the palm pilot, I'm puttting that on the snipe sheet!
Batya: But I'm reading the Chicago Loop quote list. Write it down.
Constance: Hey, what do you think I got this palm pilot for? Offer to keep the snipe sheet and this is the thanks I get. Now gimme the pilot.

Gabriel: Themby is a hamster.

Constance: Gimme my palm pilot.
Batya: No.
Constance: Gimme my palm pilot.
Batya: No!

Kellie: Making me laugh while eating is a bad idea.
Constance: Yeah, the couscous incident wasn't enough for you?
Alex: Okay, so I won't make you laugh when I'm eating.

Constance: What? What? Do I owe money? What? What? What?

=====

I am an alien. I'm losing my socks.
--Carole Wittenberg, 10/04/2000

I'm a nice person. But that doesn't mean I'm not evil.
--La, 10/05/2000

I'm fighting with my fridge. And I think the fridge is winning.
--Batya, 10/05/2000

One of us has to take the mature lead here. I'm just shocked it's me.
--Susan at work, 10/06/2000

There's a difference between knowing what kryptonite is and who Jimmy Olsen is...
...and having Babylon 5 commemorative plates.
--Batya and Constance, phone conversation, 10/12/2000

The two of you started talking and completely derailed my train of thought and now there's no survivors and just a big billowing smoke where there used to be a long metal snake thingy...
There's no lead in my pencil. Help!
--Mikey and Batya, group dinner, 10/18/2000

There's the Sunnydale Slayers and the Chicago Loop and the Dreamer Clan, and we're really all the same people.
That explains where the rest of my salary goes.
--Batya and Alex, group dinner, 10/18/2000

=====
Lunch in the City, 10/19/2000
In attendance: Batya, Merav, Meredith, Laura

Meredith: I've been sick forever.
Batya: No you haven't. I've known you since before you were....
Meredith: (silent eloquent look)
Batya: Point.

Merav: Meredith, where are you going?
Meredith: The corner. Because I am naturally law-abiding and also clumsy.

Meredith: What were you questing for?
Merav: The Holy Bed.
La: Did you say a bowl of lead?

Batya: Didn't we just leave this lobby?

Batya: ...No, the fan gets you small enough to put on the gloves.
Merav: No, The Fan is sleeping in the closet.

Meredith: It's a tag line. You could put it at the end of anything. "But not the Nazirites, they have it hard enough."

=====

Do you know the Latin word for Spring?
No.
Do you have a Latin-English dictionary?
No.
Then what good are you?
--Constance and Batya, 11/06/2000

=====
Macy's Parade balloons and Dougie's, 11/22/2000
In attendance: Gabriel, Constance, Batya, Alex, Kellie, Peter, Laurie

Constance: There just wasn't enough pain and suffering involved to suit me.

Constance: What is she?
Gabriel: Human.
Batya: (indignantly) Am not.

Constance: I'm very very very thirsty.
Batya: I hope they bring us some water soon.
Constance: So do I, otherwise I'll have to drink the barbeque sauce, and that would be bad.

Batya: I'm the omega geek.

Constance (during Name That Quote): Do I have a napkin? Did I ever have a napkin?
Alex: Apocalypse Now?

Kellie: Are there any napkins left?
Alex: I think we ate them all.

Alex: Everybody beat us to the punch.
Batya: They had punch?

Batya: Talk fast.
Alex: Love you.
Batya: You win.

=====
Midwinter at Kellie's, 12/17/2000
(Chronicled by Peter Fay)

Laura: Oh my god. I'm the first one.

Kellie: It's not too late to set my brother up for adoption, is it?

Gabe (to Peter coughing): Don't die, that would really suck.

Constance: The ways of Kellie are strange.

Kellie: You spilled the sand, didn't you?
Constance: We'll get you more sand. We'll put it in a ziplock bag for you.

Constance: Who has the copyright on God?

Israel (Discussing linguistic confusion): In German, the word for rooster is the same as faucet. That's why we have hose cocks and drain cocks.
(Kellie collapses)

Constance (after singing with Kellie): Moving right along...
Gabe: Oh please, continue.
Peter: No! Don't encourage her!
Kellie: Gabe, please throw a pillow at my brother.
(Chronicler's note: ...and then the conversation turned to Darkwing Duck.)

Peter: I have never kept the snipe sheet before.
Constance: You're doing a wonderful job. Good, now I don't have to do it.

Kellie: I don't live with that one no more. (indicates Peter)
Peter (sarcastically): I love you too, Kellie.

Kellie: Same student asks me why she can't use hydrochloric acid.
Sa: Because I can't use it on you or your mom will sue.

Peter: I'm still a nerd! I have proof!

Sa: You have a door that leads nowhere? Cool.

Gabe: I love the smell of burnt paraffin in the morning.

Peter: Hee-hee, this is making me humorously!

Constance: Gabriel's a Hufflepuff! That's a good house.

Constance: What's next, the Harry Potter edition Ford Bronco?

Israel: How about Harry Potter and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Laura: I got difficult again.

Mikey (directed towards Israel): What makes you think YOU'RE The Brain?

Sa: Putting milk in one's toner is vile.

Israel: Miri, it's because we wuv you...
(Miri runs away screaming)
Israel: Yes!! Another victory!

Sa (as Miri & Mikey exit upstairs): And they walk into the closet??

Israel: Does this guy remind you of a Muppet?
Laura: It looks like a cross between Moses and Gonzo.

Israel: Whipped cream is dangerous when you're wearing black...

Laura: Batya, we're glad you didn't come. We had so much to talk about.

Batya (on the phone, trying to guess what Gabe will be doing for New Year's): You'll be wearing a tutu and doing the Ophelia death scene from Hamlet.

Kellie: I give out stockings every year.
Sa: Your socks ain't gonna fit me.

=====

When you go to an all boys college, you have nothing better to do then make your own chainmail.
So is it a really boring boys school if it's eight-in-one chainmail?
--Israel and Josh, 12/24/2000

Boom boom crackle pop!
Why crackle pop?
I don't know. Make up your own sound effects.
--Lisa and Batya, 12/25/2000

Oh, you're not gonna die.
If you die, there's no story.
We just wanna see how badly you get cut up.
--Lisa and Josh, 12/25/2000

=====
New Year's Eve weekend in KGH, 12/31/2000 - 01/01/2001
In attendance: Batya, Alex, Miri, Yair, Mikey, Sa, Merav, Jon, Miriam Normand (aka Melodie), Gabriel, Kellie, Peter, Eytan, Yisrael

Mikey: It's no fun committing mass cookie genocide unless you're intimately attached to them first.

Jon: There's something going "crumple" down here.

Eytan: Everyone knows who Eytan is, he's the weird one.
Jon: Oh, that narrows it down.

Mikey: They have caramel dessert pizza.
(Merav does a slow crumple and curl up on floor)
Sa: How do we snipe sheet that?

Sa: We've got a new bit.
Merav and Jon (each, separately): Anubit?
Jon: That's the Sephardic pronunciation.

Eytan: He [Mikey] wants to know why we're talking about liquified straitjackets that can be consumed through an IV.
Sa: No, Mikey, the last noun involved was "pizza," not "straitjacket."
Mikey: Oh. That makes a lot more sense.

Eytan: Mikey, remind me to talk to you after we put the snipe sheet away.

Mikey: Who's going to get me a palm pilot?
Eytan: Here.
Mikey: Ask and ye shall receive.
Eytan: I expect to get it back.

Eytan: Have you ever had an envelope dipped in cheese?
Mikey: No, um...
Eytan: I have!

Mikey: So now that we have more people, are we going to re-evaluate the pizza?

Eytan [pointing to cookies]: You're gonna die, and you're gonna die...

Mikey: Straitjackets have little to no nutritional value!

Sa: That was cornering someone in a restaurant, not quartering someone, right?

Batya: I can only show you the PATH; you're the one who has to take it.

Mikey: All of civilization is based on the snipe sheet.
Alex: These days the snipe sheet is often referred to as the "newspaper."

Eytan: Sunrises, coffee time, none of that means anything. Until you've slept, it's still part of the same day.
Sa: Eytan's trying to perfect his excuse for why his paper is on time - "it's still part of the day it was due."

Mikey (to Alex): Your wife, Merav, and Miri aren't here. Should I be worried?
Eytan: No, I'm running the apocalypse.
Sa: Time-out. No one is having an apocalypse in the living room where I pay rent.

Sa: Eytan, behave yourself.
Eytan: Don't worry, I just have a big mouth. You know I'm a nice guy.
Sa: But if you annoy me enough, I'll lose my temper and then you'll go smush. (maniacal smile)

Alex (paraphrasing Angel): Don't make me happy. You wouldn't like me when I'm happy.
Gabe: So should we make you sleepy, dopey, or doc?

Sa: It's refried beans. It goes with chip things and cheese squush.

Jon: It's my walrus and I'll cry if I want to.

Alex: Eytan, there's more to life than destroying the world.

Alex: The snipe sheet overfloweth. Isn't that in the 23rd psalm? I think that's in the Rashi.

Alex: It's now time for forgetful yoga. (sits Indian style and chants) Ummmmm...

Alex: I knew it. If we discussed Disclave long enough, someone would bring in Hitler.

Eytan: Sweet! Hurtling helplessly through something indescribable!

Yisroel: Don't worry, it's not rain, it's hail. Burning hail.

Sa: Alex! I am not a cupcake!

Batya: Good god, Kellie, you just blew your nose on key.

Mikey: Release the clones!
Jon and Sa: Send in the clones, there ought to be clones...

Batya: Cry havoc and who let the dogs out?

Merav: You gave the dogs of war a pacifier?

Gabriel: I would have Peter Pan syndrome, but I just can't. I promise you I'll never find Never-Never Land. Never. Never. Never.

Yisrael: We need a large gene pool.
Alex: At least Olympic size.

Alex: Brimstones, meet the Brimstones...

Yisrael (opening gifts with eyes closed): It burns!
(opens eyes, sees dragon candle)
Sa: It does burn!

Batya: It's a nice day for a white Wookiee?

Yair: It's a Word-A-Day calendar.
Sa: It's a spell book.

Kellie: You can't destroy the world! It's our only source of chocolate!

Gabe: I'll tell you what - you can be Death.
Eytan: Sweet!

Eytan: Open it before my mind explodes!
Sa: How will we know?

Yisrael: Eytan is here to make the rest of us look sane.

Mikey: To snipe sheets, the greatest thing since sliced bread!
Alex: Sliced bread having been invented the week before.

Merav: Bad me. No me-biscuit.

Alex: I have a question of deep cosmic significance.
Gabe: French toast or pancakes?

Sa: Your samovar is making weird snoring noises.
Batya: It's having trouble breathing. We're giving it steam therapy.
Alex: It's Darth Vader's samovar.

Merav: There's this guy - for the sake of the joke we'll call him Yisrael.

Alex: Come for the chicks, stay for the LARP.

Batya: Evidently Miri has been sucked into the computer.

Alex: I hope the computer doesn't start acting weird because we've connected the palm.
Sa: Or because Miri's been sucked into it.

Sa: Cabbie tipping - it's like cow-tipping, but the urban version.

Missy (on phone): I scoff at your foot.

Merav: You know Kali? Goddess of war, lots of arms, very destructive?
Melodie: No, but I'll pretend I do.
Merav: Miri gets something like that. Only it's cute.