An internet robot that is charged with carrying out automated forum posting of material on a satirical news website, took leave of its senses this morning, and went completely berserk.
The robot, known as 'Forumbot', or 'Forum Bot', at TheSpoof.com, is employed to provide readers with randomly-selected news stories from the vast collection of material submitted during the 19 years of the site's existence since 2001.
It automatically chooses a story every hour, and places it in its own thread, but de-selects the story and closes the thread if no comment is added to the thread within 20 minutes of it being initiated.
This morning, however, things went a little differently.
Forumbot appeared to have forgotten its responsibilities, and started to select a multitude of stories from its memory, and slung them all in the forum within minutes of each other.
These included:
'Neo-Cons Fail In Their Bid To Remove Bush' - Al-Qeida for Bush
'Man With The World's Longest Penis Looking For A Fat Bride' - Bureau
'Aliens blamed for rise in Animal Gun Crime' - John Price
'Doubt cast on Donner Party cannibalism remains of Chinese takeout at Alder Creek campsite' - Tragic Rabbit
'What Happened to David Wesley? Part 1' - David E. Wesley
'President George W. Bush says Ex-VA Secretary Anthony Principi is 'proof' the economy is sou' - Dominus Noster
'Mattel Rejects Suicide Bomber Barbie' - Rich Lather
'Sixth Harry Potter book to be X-rated' - jack mcglen
'Microsoft's New IE9 Will Come With Laser' - Inhopeless
'Japanese Commuters Riot As Train Leaves Early Again' - Monkey Woods
'Wiccan joy as Pentagon builds $80,000 Stonehenge replica at USAF training academy' - queen mudder
'Mick Jagger Replaces Steven Tyler From Aerosmith' - P.M. Wortham
and
'Study Found Lab Rats Fed Organic Diet Pretentious & Annoying to Other Rats' - Guy Bellefonte
None of the threads were commented upon, primarily because most people were still in bed, and the entries disappeared after 20 minutes.
A team of technicians, armed with an oil can and some spanners, turned up at the site's HQ in Lancashire later this morning, and were expected to restore some kind of order by teatime.