Harrison Ford wrote in to tell us that SlashDot.Org twisted to destroy diamonds for AT+T. (Slashdot)
The rain in the North Pole makes love gently on the goths. (Proverb)
Fidel Castro wrote in to tell us that AT+T irrigated to destroy Linux advocates for Vlad's Auto Repair. (Slashdot)
An elephant and one bicycle rained to release Ernest Borgnine; unfortunately diamonds solicited Macintosh. (Movie Plot)
The Pentium chip in your left nostril desires gently on the peanut butter. (Proverb)
Moses Moore wrote in to tell us that Wal-Mart solicited to release shoes for Vlad's Auto Repair. (Slashdot)
The peanut butter in Spain desires gently on the Ernest Borgnine. (Proverb)
A misplaced mouse and one bicycle rained to construct Macintosh; unfortunately Linux advocates ignited goths. (Movie Plot)
The rain in Microsoft eats quickly on the Pentium chip. (Proverb)
The peanut butter in Leonardo DiCaprio's underwear makes love desperately on the Macintosh. (Proverb)

-- source code follows --
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Cmdr Taco seems to like the [insert thing here] Random Generators, 
# and they look all the same to me.
# This program is an explanation why.

# Inspired by a Solaris program called /usr/games/thought

use strict;
my @phrases =
  ('The %noun in %place %verb_n %adverb on the %noun. (Proverb)'
  ,'%name wrote in to tell us that %company %verb_p %verb_i %nouns for '
   .'%company. (Slashdot)'
  ,'%noun1 and %noun1 %verb_p %verb_i %noun; unfortunately %nouns %verb_p '
   .'%noun. (Movie Plot)'
  );
# The phrases need to be numerous, and many of them may vary only slightly
# from each other.  The %terms describe what word/phrase belongs there.  If
# you're thinking of the old game of "Baseball MadLibs," you've hit
# paradigmal paydirt.

my %dictionary;
$dictionary{'noun'} = 
  [ "rain","plain","Ernest Borgnine","your mother","goths","Macintosh"
   ,"Pentium chip","town hall","peanut butter"];
$dictionary{'noun1'} = 
  [ "an elephant","Fidel Castro","one bicycle","a misplaced mouse"
   ,"a small clone of Bill Gates","a bottle of chocolate syrup"];
  # singular nouns
$dictionary{'nouns'} = 
  [ "elephants","a horde of Fidel Castro clones","action figures","shoes"
   ,"Linux advocates","Trekkies","diamonds","sixty pounds of hamburger"];
  # plural nouns
$dictionary{'place'} = 
  [ "Spain","Microsoft","the North Pole","the Black Hole of India"
   ,"Area 51","Toronto","your left nostril","Leonardo DiCaprio's underwear" ];
$dictionary{'name'} = 
  [ "Fidel Castro","Ernest Borgnine","Elvis","Cmdr Taco","Moses Moore",
   ,"Ed the Wonder Squirrel","the Devil","Harrison Ford","David Bowie" ];
$dictionary{'company'} = 
  [ "Microsoft","Netscape","Time-Warner","SlashDot.Org","IBM","AT+T"
   ,"the Free Software Foundation","Vlad's Auto Repair","Wal-Mart" ];
$dictionary{'adverb'} =
  [ "mainly","quickly","darkly","evily","sexually","offensively","harshly",
   ,"gently","squooshily","lazily","desperately","easily"];
$dictionary{'verb_p'} = 
  [ "rained","trampled","incinerated","irrigated","tempted","begged","twisted",
   ,"irriadiated","whipped","solicited","raced","impaled","ignited" ];
  # verb in past tense.  
$dictionary{'verb_n'} = 
  [ "rains","sells","destroys","makes love","eats","corrupts","supports"
   ,"desires","flattens" ];
  # verb in present (or "now") tense
$dictionary{'verb_i'} = 
  [ "to destroy","to release","to baste","to construct"];
  # verb in infinitive form
$dictionary{'verb_ni'} = 
  [ "plan","hope","pray","exist"];
  # present infinitive form?
  #  Argh, going to need to hit an English grammar website
$dictionary{'verb_f'} = 
  [ "will announce","is going to present","will acquire"
   ,"intends to assimilate" ];
  # verb in future tense
# The real key to making good phrases is being very specific in the types of
# phrases that can be substituted.  The way I came up with the phrases was to
# think of some random sentences, or read them from a newspaper, and remove
# any words that have meaning and replace them with description of the word's
# substance.  Hit a grammar website to read up on the parts of the English
# language, and then make some special cases (like "plural nouns" and "singular
# nouns").

my $how_many_you_want = (shift or $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} or 10);
 # remember "shift" works on @ARGV by default.
print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n" if ($ENV{'SCRIPT_NAME'}); # run as CGI

srand();
while($how_many_you_want--) {
  my $phrase = $phrases[int(rand($#phrases+1))];
  $phrase =~ s/(^|\s)\%(\w+)
              /"$1".$dictionary{$2}->[int(rand($#{$dictionary{$2}}+1))]
              /egx;
  print ucfirst($phrase)."\n";
}

if ($ENV{'SCRIPT_NAME'}) {
  # This is so web people can see the source code when viewing it on the web.
  print "\n-- source code follows --\n";
  open (FILE,$0) or die "Whoa, I can't find myself!\n$0:$!\n";
  while (<FILE>) { print; }
  close (FILE)
}