Yesterday I delved into the settings for my blog software and decided to turn on an option to notify me of “trackbacks”–when other sites link to mine.  I thought it would be cool to hear about them right away, instead of just discovering them when I poke around in the “statistics” to see how people are finding The Earthling’s Handbook.  Well, this lunch hour I discovered half a dozen e-mails informing me of trackbacks.  Ooh, I am more popular than I thought!

I was a little suspicious when I saw that the first link went to a blog called “Hello Pills”, but you know, people call their blogs all sorts of strange things that don’t make sense unless you’re in on the joke.  And this blog was not (as most of the trackbacks turned out to be) a site advertising cheap yet questionably spelled prescription drugs; it was some sort of imitation of a cooking blog, not written by a human.  The robot newscasters may not be on our televisions yet, but it has come to pass that robots are writing recipe blogs.

Here’s one example of a robot recipe which I compiled from selected sentences from two “blog entries” :

Panettone
Cut into glasses or bowls and sprinkle the loaf with the potatoes.  Allow the mixture into the cooked rice out onto the pan.  Add the pecans, pistachio nuts, cherries and bits of meringue.  Season and spoon to stir together, looking like a cannelloni shape, in a pan, scraping any goodness from the bottom of each glass.  Bake for about minutes and you will find a nutty kernel, which acts as your mould.  Along the middle slightly pink and the outside of the jelly, then finely slice.  Thin out with tablespoons of boiling water for about centimetre apart.  Tightly pack into the top of the pan, and cooking in batches, lightly simmering water.  A little stir it around every couple of minutes, if you remember.  Dip each slice the kernels and sprinkle the loaf with plastic wrap.  Coarsely grate half the water, then gently add the nuts.

To be fair, I must say that computers are not the only way to generate such confusing yet poetic text.  There is another option.  Consider one of the other articles I found and did not edit except for cutting a couple of sentences :

Cooking with marijuana
Pisces vs Aquarius, but mostly word by mistake, or on purpose of ensuring equality of access.
I was feeling that runs that still being negotiated.
So guess been with music is very controlled by a landowner to gain access.
Inform the landowner relations have some special computer programming.
So, thanks guys from The Avalanches before started to make interstate comparisons.
Cooking with marijuana.
Cooking with marijuana.
And think that period the space to hone his talent for developing his own techniques of processing and reprocessing acoustic guitars and pianos or even an entire business.
Cooking with marijuana.
Cooking with marijuana.
Ash coloured, linen textured card is folded in half and sealed with a massive void in music sometimes.

Yeah, I could believe that these blog posts were cooked with marijuana, by humans.  I can imagine someone pausing, spoon in the air, to proclaim a sudden insight like, “And think that period the space to hone his talent for developing his own techniques of processing and reprocessing acoustic guitars and pianos or even an entire business!!! . . . What was I doing?  Oh yeah, cooking with marijuana, hum te tum, cooking with marijuana.  Let’s see, the next step is to fold this in half. . . .  Hey, did you grate the water yet?”