It never ceases to amaze me what can arouse fear and trembling here in the Land of the Tiny-Brained Folk. Just when I thought we'd put millennial madness behind us with the non-event that was Y2K, Lo! it just begins again. Case in point: this piece from the world-famous AOL newsroom about a bunch of mystics that have their shorts in a wad over the Long Count.
I've had a long-standing interest in calendars of all kinds. I think they're cool. I came to the study of calendars from my long-time interest in astronomy, and eventually got interested in them in their own right. It's a fascinating business, how people choose to mark time. Do they mark the passing of the Sun, or the Moon, or some combination of the two? What do they use for their epoch date, and why? That choice alone tells you a lot about the mind-set of the calendar maker.
The modern Julian Day calendar, for example, is in broad use by those of us who study the motion of the planets for both fun and profit. Its epoch was chosen purely arbitrarily. The Julian Day is the number of days that have elapsed since January 1, 1950, UTC. It's not a whole number, but a decimal, so that you can get as precise as you need to. Interesting factoid, useless to most people. But I find it curious.
The Byzantine calendar, now... They date their calendar from when they believe the world was created in Genesis, some 7500-odd years ago. The year 2000 AD, for example, would have been
Etos Kosmou 7508 on January 1, rolling over to 7509 on September 1, which was their New Year. Neat, but again, mostly useless.
Our calendar dates from the estimated birth of Christ ... but they got the year wrong. Whoops. The really funny thing about people getting their shorts in a knot about the passing of the 2000th year since the birth of Christ? They were getting excited about four years late. Maybe. We just don't know for sure. (I suppose I could ask when I get there... Provided that I still give a rip.)
And then there's the Hebrew Calendar, a combination lunar/solar calendar that I've never entirely understood. Their epoch date is a year before Creation. I find that slightly nuts. What, it took the Almighty most of a year to get His blueprints past peer review? But it's best not to consider such things too deeply. That way lay madness.
The point is, all calendars are arbitrary. They're tools for marking the passing of years, no more, no less. By far, their most important role in ancient societies was telling people when they should plant crops. That's serious business, because if you plant too early or too late, you go hungry. But aside from that, their use is purely ceremonial, and the Universe at large simply does not care how we measure time, or for that matter, if we measure it at all.
Which brings us to this barge of fools crying "Doom! Doom!" for 2012, because the Mayan calendar is running out. Why, pray tell, do they think the Mayans have a unique groove? Personally, I find it hard to take their word on the date of Doomsday if they never got around to inventing the freaking wheel. The second simplest machine of all time, and it never once occurred to them? Not one of them looked at the round calendar carved into the side of a temple and mused to themselves that something roundish might make hauling fifty-ton stone blocks easier?
You have to admit, failing to invent the wheel kind of disqualifies you from the leader-board of History's Cleverest People.
Besides, it's not as if they have the only cyclical calendar. The Hindu calendar, for example, will trundle merrily along for another 420,000 years give or take before its current age ends. But we don't see anyone getting excited about that bit of prophecy, do we?
Well, that's partly because no one seriously expects to be around then. But that's beside the point.
Or is it? After all, 2012 is tantalizingly close. Most anyone alive today can seriously expect to be around then. Whatever happens then, they'll be here to see it. There are always people just chomping at the bit to see Armageddon in their time. Some of them, I expect, bounce from one round of "Doom!" to another like Tarzan swinging through the Jungle of Life. Y2K proved a bust, and this was the next one to come along.
Me, not so much. I take great confidence in the fact that mystics have predicted 10 of the last 0 ends of the world. I expect December 21, 2012 to come and go just like any other day. No one from Galactic Utilities is going to come by and tell us that we haven't paid our calendar bill.
You won't get off that easy, guys. You'll have to wake up the next morning and go to work, just like the rest of us. Get used to it.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Faster Than Light?
And now for something completely different ...
A long time ago, I read a compilation of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker short stories. The first one, I think, was a piece about the final battle between the Berserker fleet, and the humans that had united to resist them. One of the stranger things in the story was a weapon Saberhagen called the "C-Plus Cannon", a gun that launched its projectiles faster than light. There's an unfriendly weapon for you: first you get the kaboom that comes with getting hit, then you see a missile flying backwards to the ship that fired it. Weird.
But would it really work that way? Let's think about that for a moment.
Let's try a thought experiment. We're going to visit our experimental station on Eris, way the heck out in the Kuiper Belt. We're going to watch a demonstration flight of a prototype vessel capable of flying twice the speed of light. (Yes, this "experiment" contains a fatal flaw ... but bear with me, we'll come around to it presently.)
The flight plan is that it'll fly out twelve light-seconds, do a flip-turn, and fly back to base. At T=0, it begins to fly away. The image begins to fly off in the direction of the target, but not as fast as we'd expect. After three seconds, the image has only receded by two light-seconds. Huh? That doesn't seem right ... At six seconds, it's at the four light-second mark. It continues to crawl into the distance, reaching eight light-seconds away at the twelve-second mark. We're about ready to call it a bust, when BLAM! The vehicle suddenly re-appears at the dock! And, its image begins to shoot backwards at what appears to be twice the speed of light. We watch, boggled, as the two images converge on either side of the flip-turn, when they both vanish.
Weird enough for you? Except for one problem ... It could never actually happen that way. We'll show that by doing another thought-experiment. But we're going to lay down a few simple rules first. They're based on some simple principles that describe the way we think the world works.
One: It's a property of photons that they can only travel at one speed in a particular medium. That's to say, light always moves at the speed of light. It can't accelerate or decelerate, it can only gain or lose energy in frequency.
Two: There's no such thing as a universally-preferred frame of reference. Which is to say, there's no such thing as absolute motion. Motion is always relative to something else you can see.
Three: If you're way, way out in deep space, there's no way to tell if you're at rest, or if you're moving at a constant speed, in a straight line. That's a subset of the principle above. Absent a reference to the contrary, you may as well be standing still.
Four: The speed of light is the same in every inertial frame of reference. That means it doesn't matter who's looking at it, they all clock a beam of light at the same speed.
Bearing those four things in mind, let's imagine two ships out in deep space. Both are moving at a constant speed in straight lines. One of them is charged up to several million volts relative to the other, and they're going to pass very close to one another.
Let's look at the encounter from the first ship's point of view. Your instruments can't tell if you're moving or not, so you're perfectly justified in saying that you're sitting still while this other fool zips past you. At closest approach, a spark jumps between the ships, causing a flash. ZAP! You're now at the center of an expanding shell of photons, racing away at the speed of light in all directions.
The interesting thing is that we can make the exact same observation from the point of view of the second ship. You're minding your own business when this other guy flashes past, then ZAP! You're at the center of an expanding shell of photons.
Notice that we haven't said anything about the relative speed of the "moving" ship. It can be arbitrarily large, up to a point ... But do notice that from either point of view, both ships are within the expanding shell of photons!
Therefore, both ships must be traveling slower than the speed of light. However fast we imagine either ship moving, we cannot imagine a situation that places either ship outside of the flash zone, unless one of our four assumptions is incorrect.
Now, if we go back and look at our first experiment, we see that the way it's set up does violate the assumptions. It assumes a preferred, God's eye frame of reference that can't exist. And it ignores the fact that light always moves the same speed in every frame of reference. There are probably other problems too, but those are the major deal-breakers.
The sad and sorry fact is that faster-than-light travel does not appear to be possible within our space-time. There may be ways to cheat, by bending or folding space, but that's a story for another day.
A long time ago, I read a compilation of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker short stories. The first one, I think, was a piece about the final battle between the Berserker fleet, and the humans that had united to resist them. One of the stranger things in the story was a weapon Saberhagen called the "C-Plus Cannon", a gun that launched its projectiles faster than light. There's an unfriendly weapon for you: first you get the kaboom that comes with getting hit, then you see a missile flying backwards to the ship that fired it. Weird.
But would it really work that way? Let's think about that for a moment.
Let's try a thought experiment. We're going to visit our experimental station on Eris, way the heck out in the Kuiper Belt. We're going to watch a demonstration flight of a prototype vessel capable of flying twice the speed of light. (Yes, this "experiment" contains a fatal flaw ... but bear with me, we'll come around to it presently.)
The flight plan is that it'll fly out twelve light-seconds, do a flip-turn, and fly back to base. At T=0, it begins to fly away. The image begins to fly off in the direction of the target, but not as fast as we'd expect. After three seconds, the image has only receded by two light-seconds. Huh? That doesn't seem right ... At six seconds, it's at the four light-second mark. It continues to crawl into the distance, reaching eight light-seconds away at the twelve-second mark. We're about ready to call it a bust, when BLAM! The vehicle suddenly re-appears at the dock! And, its image begins to shoot backwards at what appears to be twice the speed of light. We watch, boggled, as the two images converge on either side of the flip-turn, when they both vanish.
Weird enough for you? Except for one problem ... It could never actually happen that way. We'll show that by doing another thought-experiment. But we're going to lay down a few simple rules first. They're based on some simple principles that describe the way we think the world works.
One: It's a property of photons that they can only travel at one speed in a particular medium. That's to say, light always moves at the speed of light. It can't accelerate or decelerate, it can only gain or lose energy in frequency.
Two: There's no such thing as a universally-preferred frame of reference. Which is to say, there's no such thing as absolute motion. Motion is always relative to something else you can see.
Three: If you're way, way out in deep space, there's no way to tell if you're at rest, or if you're moving at a constant speed, in a straight line. That's a subset of the principle above. Absent a reference to the contrary, you may as well be standing still.
Four: The speed of light is the same in every inertial frame of reference. That means it doesn't matter who's looking at it, they all clock a beam of light at the same speed.
Bearing those four things in mind, let's imagine two ships out in deep space. Both are moving at a constant speed in straight lines. One of them is charged up to several million volts relative to the other, and they're going to pass very close to one another.
Let's look at the encounter from the first ship's point of view. Your instruments can't tell if you're moving or not, so you're perfectly justified in saying that you're sitting still while this other fool zips past you. At closest approach, a spark jumps between the ships, causing a flash. ZAP! You're now at the center of an expanding shell of photons, racing away at the speed of light in all directions.
The interesting thing is that we can make the exact same observation from the point of view of the second ship. You're minding your own business when this other guy flashes past, then ZAP! You're at the center of an expanding shell of photons.
Notice that we haven't said anything about the relative speed of the "moving" ship. It can be arbitrarily large, up to a point ... But do notice that from either point of view, both ships are within the expanding shell of photons!
Therefore, both ships must be traveling slower than the speed of light. However fast we imagine either ship moving, we cannot imagine a situation that places either ship outside of the flash zone, unless one of our four assumptions is incorrect.
Now, if we go back and look at our first experiment, we see that the way it's set up does violate the assumptions. It assumes a preferred, God's eye frame of reference that can't exist. And it ignores the fact that light always moves the same speed in every frame of reference. There are probably other problems too, but those are the major deal-breakers.
The sad and sorry fact is that faster-than-light travel does not appear to be possible within our space-time. There may be ways to cheat, by bending or folding space, but that's a story for another day.
Monday, June 30, 2008
It's Over (We Think)
The long and sometimes extremely bizarre travail of Floyd Landis appears to have come to an end, of sorts. The decision handed down by the CAS in Switzerland was much harsher in tone than the that from the Pepperdine proceedings, but the end result is much the same. The adverse decision has been upheld. (More discussion here, from TBV, elsewhere on Blogspot.)
Some observations follow:
One, I doubt that this is really and truly over. Legal matters are rarely over so long as there's a lawyer somewhere who hasn't got paid yet. Expect this to wend its way through someone's court system like a gut-shot mule for another year, at least. But at this point, Landis stands a better chance of drawing to an inside straight than winning vindication.
Two, the truly disappointing thing about this decision is its affirmation of the "competence" of the LNDD laboratory whose clown-tastic inability to follow procedures started this whole farce in the first place. Apparently, CAS looks at the officially-sanctioned labs and says, "Men of my stamp commit no crimes."
Mind you, I don't care enough to be really outraged. But it does stick in my craw to see shoddy work rewarded. What incentive does the Chatenay-Malabry lab have to improve its procedures, if even the most craptacular monkey-work passes international muster?
Maybe they've addressed their deficiencies, maybe not. Maybe the decision from Pepperdine was enough of a rap on the nose to set them straight, but I doubt it. No, the only rebuke strong enough is if a panel outright declares that their work isn't to be trusted, and overturns their result. That absolutely forces them to review how they keep records, run tests, and otherwise armor-plate their lab work with solid paperwork. As it stands, I wouldn't trust that lot to do a store-bought pregnancy test properly. I've seen no evidence that their standards have improved. I'm prepared to say otherwise, pending evidence to the contrary. I shan't hold my breath.
Meanwhile, it's almost time for the 2008 Tour to start ... and for the second year running, there's no returning champion riding to defend his title. And that's just sad. It's possibly the saddest thing about this entire sorry spectacle.
Maybe the worst is over, and we'll have a good, clean race this year. Maybe we'll see a race decided on the road, not in a test tube or a courtroom.
Wouldn't that be something?
Some observations follow:
One, I doubt that this is really and truly over. Legal matters are rarely over so long as there's a lawyer somewhere who hasn't got paid yet. Expect this to wend its way through someone's court system like a gut-shot mule for another year, at least. But at this point, Landis stands a better chance of drawing to an inside straight than winning vindication.
Two, the truly disappointing thing about this decision is its affirmation of the "competence" of the LNDD laboratory whose clown-tastic inability to follow procedures started this whole farce in the first place. Apparently, CAS looks at the officially-sanctioned labs and says, "Men of my stamp commit no crimes."
Mind you, I don't care enough to be really outraged. But it does stick in my craw to see shoddy work rewarded. What incentive does the Chatenay-Malabry lab have to improve its procedures, if even the most craptacular monkey-work passes international muster?
Maybe they've addressed their deficiencies, maybe not. Maybe the decision from Pepperdine was enough of a rap on the nose to set them straight, but I doubt it. No, the only rebuke strong enough is if a panel outright declares that their work isn't to be trusted, and overturns their result. That absolutely forces them to review how they keep records, run tests, and otherwise armor-plate their lab work with solid paperwork. As it stands, I wouldn't trust that lot to do a store-bought pregnancy test properly. I've seen no evidence that their standards have improved. I'm prepared to say otherwise, pending evidence to the contrary. I shan't hold my breath.
Meanwhile, it's almost time for the 2008 Tour to start ... and for the second year running, there's no returning champion riding to defend his title. And that's just sad. It's possibly the saddest thing about this entire sorry spectacle.
Maybe the worst is over, and we'll have a good, clean race this year. Maybe we'll see a race decided on the road, not in a test tube or a courtroom.
Wouldn't that be something?
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Primary 2008 Post-Mortem
"If God is merciful, we'll get to choose between John McCain and Barack Obama in November." -- Me, 27Jan08
Well, I got the match-up I wanted, but how the heck did we get here?
It's easy to forget the Republican race, since it ended so long ago. But it's especially hard to remember that only a year ago, John McCain was politically DOA. His campaign practically disintegrated last summer. He scraped through the fall on a shoestring budget. Here's the thing, though: John McCain didn't need to tell anyone who he was. They already knew that. He just had to hang around long enough to capitalize on an opportunity. That opportunity came with Mike Huckabee's surprise win in Iowa. I remarked at the time that this would cause the antibodies to come out with a vengeance ... The Republican electorate felt the blitz coming, and like a quarterback, ran through their check-down. Romney? No. Giuliani? No. Both looked OK earlier, but now? Well, looky here, guess who's still around? And lo, John McCain surged in the polls. Really, he was the only sane choice out of that lot.
Now we get to the interesting bit ... The Democratic Primary, which seemed to go on for-freaking-ever. And I do have to say that the campaign really highlighted Hillary Clinton's unfitness for the Presidency in a way that I didn't clearly understand before. Why do I say that? Because she failed spectacularly at a relatively simple exercise in contingency planning.
Looking back to the campaign's beginnings, she started with a massive lead in the polls, and a seemingly insurmountable lead in name recognition. She and her staff took one look at the calendar, much like I did, and made the mental calculation that it'd be in the bag after Super Tuesday. All she had to do was win the first primaries, carry the momentum into February, and there you are ...
To all appearances, the following question was never floated at a Clinton strategy meeting: "What if we're wrong? What if the race goes on into March and April?"
Barack Obama's campaign, on the other hand, had a full-court press planned from the beginning. Superior organization and fundraising gave him advantages in the early races that didn't show until it was go-time. This allowed him to build momentum going into February. A split decision on Super Tuesday didn't seal the deal for him, of course, but it gave him a springboard to launch into the March primaries, for which his team was already well-prepared.
Clinton's team, on the other hand, didn't even know how Texas' split election-caucus system worked. That hurt them in Texas. Clinton won the vote part, but lost so dramatically on the caucus side that Obama ended up winning a majority of Texas' delegates.
Clinton's campaign recovered better than I thought they would. They managed to scramble, and cobble up organizations in states they never expected to matter ... but too late, really, to do any good. The damage was done. Obama gained a lead in March that he never relinquished.
There were a lot of other factors at play, of course. But the lack of planning was the killer. Failing to plan is the same as planning to fail.
And now, it's time to start looking forward towards November. As I said earlier, this is the match-up I really wanted to see. Now, I'll tell you why I say that.
Each party rejected something nasty and caustic from its past. The Republicans had an opportunity to choose a candidate who was a lite theocrat (Huckabee) or a full-time security nut (Giuliani), and rejected both. They chose a candidate who understands morality, and understands national security, but blends both with a real respect for America's finest traditions. The Democrats had a chance to nominate a real class-warfare candidate (Edwards) or a divisive culture-warrior (Clinton), but again refused to do so. They've picked a candidate who represents what's still right about America: if you come here and play by the rules, there's no job your sons can't aspire to. That's as powerful an advertisement for the dream that is America as damn near anything else I can think of.
I think each man brings real strengths to the table, that could serve them well as President. Now, it's up to both men to sell themselves to the American electorate, and it's our responsibility to listen to them very carefully in the next few months. And maybe, just maybe, we can have an honest national discussion on where we really need to go from here.
Let's have a good, clean fight, gentlemen. Let the best man win!
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Video Del Fuego, Part VII
This is quite possibly the greatest moment in all of sport:
"Leaves football in disgrace," my hairy butt ... I still say Zinedine Zindane is a superhero.
"Leaves football in disgrace," my hairy butt ... I still say Zinedine Zindane is a superhero.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Oh, Dear...
I don't believe that I've ever said this before in this space, but in my opinion the three worst things that can happen to a manned spacecraft are, in order:
(1) A collision with another spacecraft,
(2) A fire or explosion on board the spacecraft, and
(3) A major toilet malfunction.
You might believe that my #3 is a bit too high on the list, but I beg to differ. Down here, if your toilet backs up, you always have the option of going up to the local gas station, or borrowing a neighbor's, or in extremis sneaking out to the back yard.
You can't do any of those when you're in a spacecraft. Stepping out for a leak isn't just bad form, it's fatal.
Bearing that in mind, you can easily imagine why this item is of such urgent alarm to NASA.
"Ah, Houston, we've got a problem ... The can's broke." Yeah, it's not quite as urgent as the problem on Apollo 13 was, but as far as crew morale goes, it's still a biggie. Having to do your business into a Ziploc baggie after getting used to the high life of having a more or less real toilet is probably a spirit-breaker.
The good news is that NASA has a quick-turnaround fix. If all goes well, Discovery will take flight this afternoon with a Japanese laboratory module, and just as eagerly anticipated (at least for the crew), spare parts to fix the toilet. Spacemen won't let their brothers go without a working toilet if they can help it.
Well, American spacemen won't, anyway ... If it were the Russians in charge, they might tell 'em to man it up and deal. They're a bit hard-core that way.
[Addendum, 4Jun08: Operation House Call is a success! The new parts have been installed, and everyone's very, very happy ... Oh yeah, and the new lab's been installed, too.]
(1) A collision with another spacecraft,
(2) A fire or explosion on board the spacecraft, and
(3) A major toilet malfunction.
You might believe that my #3 is a bit too high on the list, but I beg to differ. Down here, if your toilet backs up, you always have the option of going up to the local gas station, or borrowing a neighbor's, or in extremis sneaking out to the back yard.
You can't do any of those when you're in a spacecraft. Stepping out for a leak isn't just bad form, it's fatal.
Bearing that in mind, you can easily imagine why this item is of such urgent alarm to NASA.
"Ah, Houston, we've got a problem ... The can's broke." Yeah, it's not quite as urgent as the problem on Apollo 13 was, but as far as crew morale goes, it's still a biggie. Having to do your business into a Ziploc baggie after getting used to the high life of having a more or less real toilet is probably a spirit-breaker.
The good news is that NASA has a quick-turnaround fix. If all goes well, Discovery will take flight this afternoon with a Japanese laboratory module, and just as eagerly anticipated (at least for the crew), spare parts to fix the toilet. Spacemen won't let their brothers go without a working toilet if they can help it.
Well, American spacemen won't, anyway ... If it were the Russians in charge, they might tell 'em to man it up and deal. They're a bit hard-core that way.
[Addendum, 4Jun08: Operation House Call is a success! The new parts have been installed, and everyone's very, very happy ... Oh yeah, and the new lab's been installed, too.]
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Whooooooo!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day 2008
From the Lay of Horatius, by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
XXI.
- But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low,
- And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
- "Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
- And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
XXVII.
- Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
- "To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
- And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
- For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,
XXVIII.
- And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
- And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
- And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
- To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
XXIX.
- Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
- I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
- In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
- Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?'
Oh, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry.
Oh, they've got no use for praises loudly sung.
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.
Shines the name, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
To the everlasting glory of the Infantry.
Lives the story of Private Rodger Young.
Caught in ambush lay a company of riflemen
Just grenades against machine guns in the gloom.
Caught in ambush till this one of twenty riflemen
Volunteered, volunteered to meet his doom.
Volunteered, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
In the everlasting annals of the Infantry
Glows the last deed of Private Rodger Young.
It was he who drew the fire of the enemy
That a company of men might live to fight.
And before the deadly fire of the enemy
Stood the man, stood the man we hail tonight.
On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons
Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell.
That beneath the silent coral of the Solomons
Sleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well.
Sleeps a man, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
In the everlasting spirit of the Infantry
Breathes the spirit of Private Rodger Young.
No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry.
No, they've got no use for praises loudly sung.
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.
Shines the name, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
To the everlasting glory of the Infantry
Lives the story of Private Rodger Young.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots." We are free today because every generation of Americans has faithfully taken their turn to water that tree. They will not be forgotten.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Video Del Fuego, Part VI
Those of you who enjoy good crash footage will love this entry. I don't want to give it away, except to say that no sentients were harmed in the making of this film. So, without further ado, here's today's Video Del Fuego entry:
"The Not-So-Irresistable Force Meets the Mostly Immovable Object", or
"I Fought The Wall, And The Wall Won".
"The Not-So-Irresistable Force Meets the Mostly Immovable Object", or
"I Fought The Wall, And The Wall Won".
Friday, May 09, 2008
I Like Monkeys
Editor's Note: I did not write this piece, nor do I know exactly who did. I first saw it about fifteen years ago on the public forum area of a local BBS. If you're in the right frame of mind (well, some might say the wrong frame of mind) it's very funny. I ran across it a few weeks ago by doing a Google search, and am saving it here for posterity.
I LIKE MONKEYS
I like monkeys.
The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.
I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.
I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.
Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.
I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.
I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.
I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.
I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.
I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.
I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.
I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.
I tried throwing them away but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.
I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.
I like monkeys.
I LIKE MONKEYS
I like monkeys.
The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.
I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.
I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.
Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.
I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.
I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.
I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.
I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.
I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.
I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.
I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.
I tried throwing them away but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.
I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.
I like monkeys.
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