Now that I can log into soda again, I’ve been catching up on some of my favorite newsgroups. Presented here are some of the finer snippets, à la a non-numeric Harper’s Index:

• Favorite description of a world leader:
  

  I suspect he’s not working on cheap power for the people, so much as petaJoule buckets of sunshine for sale to other nations and groups, for eventual delivery to various locations in the US. –Mike Andrews

• Favorite euphemism for said buckets:
  

  “Instant sunshine”–Shalon Wood

• Other new words:
  

  The “Ohnosecond” has been suggested for that moment of realisation that comes from firing off a recursive file-delete in the utterly wrong directory — though I’d rather like to suggest the “Sphinctosecond” to reflect that brief arse-tightening sensation which inevitably accompanies the realisation that Things Have Just Become Not What They Should Be And It’s Your Fault.–Tanuki