Picture it... September 28, 1993... Layout staff was busily arranging the latest version of Newspeak. Unfortunately, there was a big empty space on one of the pages with nothing to put there. One of the editors, or maybe it was just the howling of the wind said, "We need filler." Laurel mistakenly heard, "We need Philler" and called Guinevere to write the first article and fill up the space. As filler is normally fluff like a cartoon or clip art, coincidentally enough, so was Philler. We wrote about the significance of the time being different on the two versions of the WPI logo until we ran out of room.

But we needed a title for the article. Something about logos sounded boring. We decided that the best solution was to go with something completely unrelated, and we ended up with "Eggs and Hamsters - Who eats, and who gets eaten"

We looked at what we had written, and thought, "Wow, that's weird." Did we really want everyone to know we wrote this? We read the article again, and decided to list the names of our computers as the authors. Besides, if there were any errors or controversy, we could just blame the computers - they don't mind stuff like that. That, and using female names would throw everyone off our trail.

So the first Philler article was complete. The paper went off to the printer and there wasn't a big blank space in the layout. Our job was done. Life was good.

That should have been the end, but it wasn't. The next week, the art director responded with an equally amusing letter to the editor. (see "Ask not for whom the bell tolls...")

With a reaction like that, we decided we had to write more, so we hurriedly waited for four months and wrote another article. From then on, it became almost a weekly addiction.

Philler Phridays

February 24, 1995 was the first radio broadcast of Philler Phridays hosted by Laurel and Guinevere on WPIR. For C-Term '95, we had the 6am-8am time slot on Friday mornings. This was soon to be determined far to early to have a radio show and is not recommended by 9 out of 10 doctors who do radio shows.

In D term, however, we had a more decent time: from 4:00pm - 6:00pm every Monday. Many more listeners were available to tune in and hear bizarre thoughts, and music.

Each week, we tried to have a new theme song to sing on our show. Although we have both been turned down by numerous operas, we did not break WPIR's equipment since we only subjected it to our torture once a week... Here are the lyrics... Trust us, you don't want to hear us sing these again...

Mystery Philler 3000 - Philler's Island - Phlintstones - Phlipper - Phillermaniacs

Philler Phun Phind

On April 25, 1995 we made our first public appearance at Quadfest III: Toucan Jam. We were hosting the Philler Phun Phind, a scavenger hunt complete with a Strawberry's gift certificate for a prize! The next day we were the judges for the sand castle competition.

Try the Philler Phun Phind

Retirement

On April 23, 1996 we went into retirement. One day short of a year later, we wrote one more article, and then vanished...

Of course, things change. On January 1, 2001, the new millennium started. That same month, Philler returned. Who knows what the future will bring.

Send your thoughts, observations, and questions to us at philler@philler.com...