Counterfeit Monkey — 243 of 292

Section 18 - U through Z

The untalented naval polecat is an animal. Understand "weasel" or "uniform" or "admiralty" as the untalented naval polecat. The description is "It looks a lot like a weasel wearing an admiralty uniform."

Test polecat with "shoot needle" holding the anagramming gun and the catalan punt volat needle.

The wand batch is long and strong. The description is "The batch is a set of half a dozen wooden wands, bound together."

Instead of waving the wand batch:

say "Glittery [one of][metallic-color][or][secondary-color][at random] sparks fly from the ends of the wands, but they don't otherwise do anything."

The warm rods are long and strong. The description of the warm rods is "Lengths of rebar, warm as though left out in the noonday sun."

The heft of the war-object is 20. The printed name of the war-object is "war". Understand "war" as the war-object. The description of the war-object is "I suppose we were hoping for some abstract conceptual representation, but what we get is loud noises and screaming and a yellowish gas all around, and something screaming down from the sky".

The description of the warm rod is "Heavy, metal, slightly warm. Not radioactive, I hope?". The warm rod is strong and long.

The description of the warp is "It's a small hand-loom with the warp thread put on but none of the weaving actually completed yet. There is no string or yarn to make the weft."

The description of the wart-object is "Disconnected from any body, it is just a bulb of soft brownish skin-flesh with a couple of hairs sticking out." The heft of the wart-object is 1. The printed name of the wart-object is "wart". Understand "wart" as the wart-object.

Sanity-check writing the topic understood on the wart recipe:

say "There's barely any blank space remaining." instead.

The description of the wart recipe is "This scrap of paper with its old-fashioned, grandmotherly writing offers a folk treatment for wart removal, which involves copious amounts of apple cider vinegar, salt, lemon slices, and thinly cut banana peel."

The watchword is r-abstract. The description is "At the moment when [you] look at it, the watchword is apparently '[one of]Change[or]Experience[or]Quality, not Quantity[or]Haste Makes Waste[at random].'".

The description of the watchband is "Because it doesn't have a watch face to go in it, this isn't even wearable: it's just two strips of leather attached by a buckle, and points at each end to attach to the watch face."

Sanity-check poking head through the watchband:

say "We would have to be very pin-headed indeed." instead.

Sanity-check opening or closing or wearing the watchband:

say "Because there's no watch face to hold the straps together, it's impossible to wear the watchband, and pointless to do or undo the buckle." instead.

The description of the weight is "Shaped like a headless pyramid. '0.5 kg' is stamped in the top together with the seal of the Bureau. It's an official weight, intended to reassure citizens that they were getting a genuine standard measure."

The wet epigraph is r-abstract. The heft is 0. The description is "Currently it reads, '[one of]Unshakable faith is faith that has been shaken[or]Anyone who thinks the sky is the limit, has limited imagination[at random].'"

The wig is wearable and floppy. It covers the head-area. The description is "A surprisingly realistic wig, cut to about the shoulder. It looks like our hair, but a good bit longer."

The scent-description is "the faintest whiff of shampoo".

[There used to be a requirement about donning or doffing the wig or the hairpiece in private, which provided an additional purpose for the public convenience area. But this requirement confused lots of people, especially when the restriction prevented them from doing something else, like blindfolding themselves. I ultimately decided it was a bit of pseudo-realism that was way way way not worth it.]

The wight is a woman. The description is "She is wraithlike and slender, and from some angles she looks partially transparent. Her eyes are hollow and her hands tremble. Perhaps she is dangerous in some fashion, but at the moment she looks more like a war refugee."

The winner logo chocolate is edible. The description of the winner logo chocolate is "Just one waxy chocolate left from a box."

The description of the winner logo chocolates is "The box is branded with the label of Dental Consonants Limited. Handwriting script across the front says, 'A Gift... to You our Valued Employee.' Inside are tablets of cheap, waxy milk chocolate, each imprinted with the word WINNER." Understand "box" or "tablets" as the winner logo chocolates.

The winner logo chocolates are edible.

The scent-description of the winner logo chocolates is "nothing much, which is a bad sign in chocolate"

Instead of opening or closing the winner logo chocolates:

say "The box isn't much use for anything, and I don't fancy the chocolates."

The description of the wire rack is "The new rack is miraculously much larger than the individual racks before, so it can still hold all the same merchandise." The wire rack is a scenery supporter.

The word is r-abstract. The heft of the word is 0. The description is "At the moment, the word is '[recent word]', floating about in [one of]handsome Garamond[or]Arno Pro[or]unmistakable Hoefler[or]slick Buivinga[or]elegant Didot[or]unimaginative Times[or]Helvetica[or]solid-bodied Gotham[at random] lettering."

To say recent word:

let N be indexed text;

let N be "[description of a random visible thing]";

let count be the number of words in N;

let index be a random number between 1 and count;

say "[word number index in N]".

The words is r-abstract. The description is "[description of the wordage]". The heft of the words is 0.

The description of wordage is "A big lump of text that appears as though it's going to mean something, as long as you don't look too hard. The beginning reads, '[i][generictext]...[/i]'".

To say generictext:

let N be a random number between 20 and 30;

let assemblage be indexed text;

repeat with I running from 1 to N:

let content be indexed text;

now content is "[description of a random seen thing]";

if content is "":

next;

let max be the number of words in content;

let word-choice be a random number between 1 and max;

now assemblage is "[assemblage][word number word-choice in content] ";

if word-choice is less than max and a random chance of 1 in 2 succeeds:

increase word-choice by 1;

now assemblage is "[assemblage][word number word-choice in content] ";

say assemblage in sentence case;

The clothing-wrap is a privately-named floppy wearable thing. The heft of the clothing-wrap is 1. The printed name is "wrap". Understand "wrap" as the clothing-wrap.

The description is "Sheer silver fabric, here and there studded with little glittery rhinestones. It's meant to be worn around the upper arms with a fancy dress, I suppose. You'd know more about this than I do."

The description of a yam is "This particular one is as long as a baby's forearm and light brown."

The yam-cart is a cart. Understand "yam cart" or "cart" as the yam-cart. The printed name of the yam-cart is "yam cart". The description of the yam-cart is "A cart made of metal and wood, designed for displaying goods at a farmer's market or similar fair. It is dedicated entirely to the purveyance of yams: large yams, small yams, white yams, purple yams, yams bearing an incidental resemblance to the head of Ronald Reagan and other yams that look a little bit like the Virgin Mary. Japanese mountain yams are available, as is a ground yam powder for making brown yam paste."

The yams-collection is part of the yam-cart. The yams-collection is edible. Understand "yam" or "yams" or "large" or "small" or "white" or "purple" or "ronald reagan" or "virgin mary" or "japanese" or "mountain" or "ground" or "powder" or "brown" or "paste" or "collection of yams" or "collection" as the yams-collection. The printed name of the yams-collection is "collection of yams".

The description is "I find the yam display a bit overwhelming, myself."

Sanity-check eating the yams-collection:

say "Leaving aside my risky stomach just now, I understand that many kinds of yam will make you ill if not properly cooked." instead.

Sanity-check taking the yams-collection:

say "There are far too many yams for us to carry, and no individual yam looks remotely useful." instead.

The description of the zen frond rinse is "This blue plastic bottle contains all that is necessary to maintain one's ferns in a state suitable for a Buddhist garden." The scent-description is "soapy chemicals".

The heft of the zoo is 20. The description of the zoo is "Giraffes, bison, zebras, elephants, panthers, a polar bear: charismatic megafauna from every continent come tumbling past, and eventually overwhelm us."