Dead

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Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

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Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

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I had accumulated 31 rating points over a few days.

But the next time I logged on, the points were gone. As was my name.

My text screen was dead.

C'est la vie.

All the seamonkeys started out dead. They lay in small pools of water collected on the kitchen floor. Gradually, a few of them began to kick and squirm. Then more came to life, and more, until almost all of them flopped about on the tile. In a burst of motion the water that they now swam in heaved together into a liquid blob, shot up off of the floor, and formed a solid glass container wrapped in telephone cord on the counter top. »Mom be careful!« a child's voice pleaded.

...............
Owner: »Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue ... what's, uh ... what's wrong with it?«

Customer: »I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!«

Owner: »No, no, 'e's uh ... he's resting.«

Customer: »Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.«

Owner: »No, no – he's not dead, he's – he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, innit, ay? Beautiful plumage!«

Customer: »The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.«

Owner: »Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!«
...........and so on
excerpted from some transcript of Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch.

sometimes the rats forgot. which
was it. obtain reward. avoid punishment.
obtain punishment. avoid reward. reward

punishment. avoid reward. obtain.
obtain now less familiar. like tying shoelaces.
mastering that maze. terminating