Well, if this: http://silver.sucs.org/~manic/humour/languages/perlhacker.htm is true, I'm about 3/4th the way from "User" to "Expert". Hmmm...

Nothing to Do With Perl, Whatsoever

emdot: make sure that your effort isn't looking like The Boyfriend Scramble. because sometimes nothing is worse than The Boyfriend Scramble.

kate: The Husband Scramble is pretty bad.

beth: Unless you order it yolkless, with lots of spinach, mushrooms and garlic -- then it's actually pretty tasty.

emdot: au contraire. there is nothing worse than the boyfriend scramble ESPECIALLY if he can't take a yolk.

Let us define a plot. We have defined a story as a narrative of events. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. 'The king died and then the queen died' is a story. 'The king died, and the queen died of grief', is a plot. The time sequence is perceived but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again, 'The queen died, no one new why, until it was discovered that is was through grief at the death of the king.' This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development. It suspends the time sequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow. Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say 'and then?' If it is in a plot we ask 'why?' That is the fundamental difference between these two aspect of the novel. A plot cannot be told to a gaping audience of cave men or to a tyrannical sultan or to their modern descendant the movie-public. They can only be kept awake by 'and then - and then…'