While surfing the nodegel with my newly-installed version of Mozilla (which I highly recommend if only for its tabs feature) I made an errant mouse gesture. The mistake brought up a popup window containing the source code of the node I was on. The phrase "Monkey! Bat! Robot Hat!" in the meta tag caught my eye. The exact format was:

<meta name="wisdom" content="Monkey! Bat! Robot Hat!" />
For some reason, the assonant nonsense statement intrigued me. I wanted to know just why it was there, and what its significance was. A search of E2 showed only a nodeshell by that name, and little found under the separate words and phrases themselves was pertinent. A query or two led me to the page of Wharfinger, who has not been seen since February 2002. Apparently this was one of of his favorite phrases. The voyage through alternate usernames, lost users, fuzzleing, and the day barneyfication died was at turns eerie, enlightening, and poignant. I encourage you to search the deeps of the ancient nodegel a bit - this seemingly nonsensical phrase turns up some very interesting history. You will emerge changed.


Quick addendum - some are already downvoting this and saying some things are best left unnoded (read buried). Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Knowing can only make E2 a better place, neh?

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