Two Dishes But To One Table

Scottish Translator

I was trying to make a computer program to insert creative spelling into a document.  I wrote it in PERL on my laptop while riding the train to work. 

I named it Ben Johnson in honor of the famousist diary writer ever.   But instead of creative spelling, my program seems to give a strong Scottish bias to the speech -- sort of a Trainspotting Translator.

What follows are two sample translations my program made of, respectively, Dirty Harry, and President Obama.  After that I have attached the actual Perl script if you are curious.
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"I knoo ohaht yoo'rae dinkin, ponk, did I virae six shots or only vifae? oaell, in ahll dae aexcitaemaent I kind ov vorgot mysaelv - so yoo'rae goin to hahfae to ahsk yoorsaelv ah qoaestion: 'Do I veael locky?  oaell, do yoo ponk?' "
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"On onae aend ov dae spaectrom, oae'fae heahrd dae implicahtion daht my cahndidahcy is somaehoo ahn aexaercisae in ahvvirmahtifae ahction; daht it's bahsaed solaely on dae daesirae ov oidae-aeyaed libaerahls to porchahsae rahciahl raeconciliahtion on dae cheahp. On dae odaer aend, oae'fae heahrd my vormaer pahstor, Raefaeraend Jaeraemiahh oright, osae incaendiahry lahngoahgae to aexpraess fieos daht hahfae dae potaentiahl not only to oidaen dae rahciahl difidae, bot fieos daht daenigrahtae bod dae greahtnaess ahnd dae goodnaess ov oor nahtion; daht rightly ovvaend ohitae ahnd blahck ahlikae. "
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PERL SCRIPT (The following lines mostly just tell the program to look for certain letters and swap them out for other letters. For example, "Turn F's into V's and vice versa."):

open RH, shift(@ARGV) || die "Did you enter two file args? $! \n";
open OH, ">>", shift(@ARGV) || die "Did you enter two file args? $! \n";
for(<RH>){

    my $line = $_;
    chomp($line);
    $line=~y/fv/vf/;
    $line=~s/w/o/ig;
    $line=~s/ph/f/ig;
    $line=~s/ing/in/ig;
    $line=~s/a([^aeiou])/ah$1/ig;
    $line=~s/e([^aeiou])/ae$1/ig;
    $line=~s/u/o/ig;
    $line=~s/th/d/ig;
    print OH "$line \n";
}
print "\n\n";

Art Review -- from Flatbush, Brooklyn

I had no camera that morning and it rained in the afternoon, so you'll just have to trust me:

Display Location: a sidewalk on Argyle Street near Cortelyou Rd, outdoor
Media:  Chalk, sidewalk.
Dimensions: 90cm x 900cm
Date: June 7, 2009
Artist: (unsigned work)

Working in mostly yellows and whites, the artist has made a very large outdoor drawing which is indistinguishable from a hopscotch board except greatly exaggerated.  This outsider art shows an almost childlike desire for the game to go on forever, implying both haste and crudity in a board which, rather than terminating at "10" as most hopscotch boards,  goes all the way to "220". 

Assuming that the hopscotch player must hop to the terminal and then return to the origin, a single turn at this hopscotch board would take an estimated 3.5 minutes. Such extended focus from a 9 year old might serve as an alternative to Ritalin.  Hair would have time to grow, coffee could go cold, and the ice cream truck could serve your entire block.  One imagines an entire Gnarles Barkley song playing in the space of one player having a go, taking a single trip up and back on this hopscotch figure.

The Farther You Stray From Humanities, the Cheaper the Education

Once again, I find an entire, state-of-the-art computer training manual online and indexed.   This postgrSQL book sells for $35 right now at Barnes and Noble.   (SQL is a database system and a computer language.  It exists inside many of the web pages you have probably visited.)  Here is the book:
http://www.commandprompt.com/ppbook/x17149