Looking Around
for
"The Great One"
The town of Vincennes, Indiana became instantly famous today with the confidential admission of a city official that an entepreneurial mission of Aliens from the Snicker's galaxy has arrived to sign a contract with the city's most notorious and prolific plagiarist.
This reporter was priveleged to interview the lead alien negotiator.
In response to my first question, "Hello, what is your name?" he responded "$@&***(^"
A thirteen year old boy with strawberry blond hair was called in to run the alien's answer through Google Voice and Language Translator, which rendered it as "I'm a good boy."
Further calibration of the Google translator gave us this version, "Where is the Great Plagiarist of Vincennes, Indiana?"
"He's running late," I told him. "It's hard work creating fake identities to hide behind when you're selling stolen work. And it's time consuming when you have to lie to the authors, claim a mob of cyberstalkers is after you, tell people your computer was hacked, and even pretend it's not your fault if you inadvertantly used their stories. He'll explain it to you when he gets here."
"$$-^^^^_+!!!," said the alien.
The teenager translated, "Maybe he said goody goody?"
"Why do you want to be trained in the art of plagiarism and copyright infringement?" I asked.
The alien ambassador grew excited and waved his arms up and down while making a hooting noise. His entourage did the same. It was like they were having an extraterrestrial orgasm and quite embarassing for an earthling to watch.
"Wow," said the kid. "They're saying that there's been no theft on their world. They never thought of stealing until the Great Plagiarist contacted them with a potato powered radio transmitter and offered to scan all of earth's books and give it to them for a percentage of the proceeds when they sell them throughout the universe."
"How much do the authors get?" I asked the kid, who duly ran my request through the Google Voice and Language translator.
After my question was translated, the aliens responded with a raucus chorus of owl sounds punctuated by all of them pointing at what I think were their crotches.
"What?" I asked.
"I think they're busting a gut," said the kid.
Suddenly, I realized why it was worth it for them to travel all the way across the galaxy to consult with the Great One of Plagiarism and it made me mad. With any luck, they would take the great plagiarist back to their own planet to study.
