perfidy

If I've got this right, six monkeys, tossed in the air, would land on their heads as often as their tails... The internet, natural habitat of all things pointless and nevertheless fascinating, is of course home to the Monkey Shakespeare Simulator. Here, billions upon quadrillions of electronic monkeys munch bananas and type, hoping to produce - despite a complete lack of knowledge of literature or even language - the complete works of the Bard. The current record, according to the page, is 24 letters from Henry IV, Part 2.

Amazingly, my monkeys - enlisted in my service when I loaded the page - managed to duplicate the first 40 characters of Romeo and Juliet:

After 6.18685e+77 pages in this session, a monkey typed:

Sampson. Gregory: A my word wee'l not caoyF
v9MYN;.(pGVEd0O?9LiCF.
:O(Y...

the first 40 letters of which match "Romeo and Juliet"
This occured after 3.92099e+73 monkey-years in this session,
when there were 8.00248e+73 monkeys.

Excitement! I set a record! Instantly, I submitted my results to the webmaster. My excitement abated dramatically when I realized that I was getting 38 and 39 letters of various plays with amazing regularity. Checking back now, I see that I have racked up 40 letters from Henry VI, Part 2 and the Tempest over the last ten minutes or so. My apparent record is, seemingly, more an artifact of inattention on the part of the people who run the website than due to any puissance inherent in my electric monkeys. This is confirmed by a closer reading of the large type near the top of the page, which informs me that new entries are not being accepted thanks to a lack of resources. Cheap bastards.

Still, until proven otherwise, I have the record! Mine, mine, mine, mine.