That Man Who Never Did Anything Twice

Once upon a time there lived a most remarkable man. He was tall, lean and muscular, with a barrel chest and rippling biceps, and thick, lustrous, wavy hair that danced sensuously with the passing breeze, and a smile that made even perfectly straight men go a little weak in the knees.

But that wasn't what made him remarkable; it was the fact that he was a man who never did anything twice.

It was a fine evening day when after a hard day's toil, our remarkable protagonist decided to put his feet up on his porch and ring in the sunset with a cold beer.

'Hey there, handsome guy. Aren't you feeling lonely there having a beer all by yourself?' At this, our hero, as befitted his otherwordly perfection, smiled, despite the fact that he had heard the same thing a million times before. He looked over at the speaker - a comely young lass she was - but, even though our polite young whippersnapper would never admit it, nowhere near the top  ten percentile of his prize collection of hitters-on.

'Hey! How's it going?'

'I'm great! But, surely you couldn't refuse some company?', the woman smiled in the most coquettish way she could.

At this seemingly innocuous statement, something within the man changed. His face began a rapid transformation through the colours of the spectrum, beginning with a virulent red and proceeding all the way to a poisonous puce. At same point, he got up, as if under a spell, walked over to the outer wall of his luxurious cottage and began to rub himself vigorously against it, eyes fierce with determination, as if trying to cut through brick with sheer will power.

Perplexed, but still hopelessly in love, the woman asked, 'Er, what are you doing?'

'I.. am.. trying.. to.. fuse with the wall, of course,' the answer comes back through gritted teeth.
'Go away!'

And so she did, the poor, comely, now very frightened lass.

On a different, perhaps even finer autumn day, with fire-red leaves falling their stately fall all around him, our remarkable hero began his daily jog uphill.

'Hey there, handsome man. Wouldn't something as dull as running be greatly improved with some company?'

'Sure, feel free to join me!', our Greek God replied without even a second glance at the questioner.

Momentarily, a vision of perfection drifted into view. With a figure wars could be waged over, hair dark and lustrous like black gold and a sinuous motion that demanded attention, if not complete hypnosis, our questioner jogged a little ahead, turning back and smiling expectanctly. Our spectacularly fair hero would never objectify women, but she was definitely an eleven on ten.

'Thanks, but are you sure you can keep up?'

'I'll try!', our impossibly perfect man responded humbly. He would never admit this, but he could probably lap the hill track four times before the seductive wench could do it once.

'What, aren't you going to retort?', the Cleopatra-esque beauty prompted flirtatiously.

To her utter shock though, at this statement, our man suddenly stopped and fell to the ground, as if struck by a sudden bout of cramp. With his face clenched in agony, he paused briefly, as if drawing strength from the heavens. He pulled out a packet of tortillas from his running shorts and proceeded to eat them slowly and carefully, completely oblivious to the world.

'Er, did I say something wrong? Aren't you going to jog anymore?'

'I cannot give you what you want. I am a man who never does anything twice! Do you understand? I can only do things, never do them again. Do you understand? I can never do what you want!', our normally unruffled hero thundered in rage.

Showing impressive self-control, perhaps driven only by lust, but impressive nonetheless, our resident Apsara mustered, 'Alright, but what does that have to do with tortillas?'

'Do you still not understand? I can only do. I can never re.. re.. redo!', the words trickled out unwillingly.
'So I can never re-tort, only tort. Tortillas are little torts, so that's all I can do.'
'I can never re-fuse, only fuse.'
'DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?'

Our fantastic heroine's charms weren't limited to the realm of the physical; she was possessed of a fine sense of sadism, like any good callipygian temptress.

'So I'm not going to get any re-spect from you then?'

If it were possible to tie up a face in knots, that was what happened to our hero. 'I don't have my spectre! I left it at home. I'm so sorry!'

'And I'm not going to get any re-spite from your whining, either.'

'I DON'T WHINE, YOU SADISTIC SPAWN OF A THREE LEGGED DONKEY THAT WAS RAPED BY A TOOTHLESS MADMAN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK IN A SMELLY DITCH WHERE EVEN PLANTS DON'T GROW!'

'Ah, that's spite, is it?'

'Yes.', our remarkable protagonist averred, now suddenly calm again and possessed of a benign smile that could annoy saints.

'So what do you do at night? I'm sure you can't rest at all.'

'On Mondays and Wednesdays, I walk on half the street; on Tuesdays and Thursdays I am half a saint, and on weekends I'm a striker for my local football team half the time.

'Wait, are you saying you don't rest, but you St.?' Our hero nodded glumly at this.

'Man, you're remarkable you know that? You're remarkable!' the anthropomorphic jogging vision of perfection grinned a tinkly laugh that felt like being showered with diamonds and caressed by the softest velvet at the same time.

'I'm not what you say, I'm just..', at this point he paused to pull out a marker pen from his cavernous running shorts and perform what could only be described as a child's scrawl on his flawless visage.
'... Markable.'

Chronicle of a Cynical Uncle #1

Let's imagine there exists a cantankerous old man who's so grouchy that he'll berate you for giving him birthday presents, and who's so cynical that the first thing that'll occur to him on seeing a cute puppy on his doorstep would be:

'What kind of scam is this?'

Let's also imagine that this irritable old geezer is your uncle and that he's just discovered a book of inspirational quotes. Naturally, his blood pressure is going to shoot through the roof at the almost physically painful optimism, and he's going to want to rectify that with a dash of vitriol. Much to the nephew's amusement, of course.

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” Theodore Roosevelt.
“But the other half takes forever.”

“We can’t help everyone but everyone can help someone.” Ronald Reagan
“That someone is usually yourself.”

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” Carl Sagan
“It will either be known and dismissed as something extraordinarily mundane, or will forever continue waiting.”

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” Vince Lombardi
“I can eat every single edible thing in the house in one hour!”

“Change your thoughts and you can change the world.”  Norman Vincent Peale
“Only if your thoughts change to - ‘the world is unchangeable!’”

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“I ate kilos and kilos of pizza, got fat, ran a marathon, and collapsed and died halfway through. This is my postcard from limbo because the Man Up There cannot decide which way to send me.”

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” Milton Berle
“Then it knocks so hard your door collapses on you and kills you.”

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” Anne Frank
“But others’ happiness makes me unhappy. Pretty little paradox eh?”

“The things that we love tell us what we are.” Thomas Aquinas
“I like sitting in a corner eating junk all day, so I must be a… dustbin.”

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” Jean de la Bruyere
“Miracles are difficulties you don’t know are difficulties yet.”

“To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.” Lao Tzu
“.. as in, gives up and passes you by.”

“What we change inwardly will change outer reality.” Plutarch
“I’m sorry, but all I can think of is spicy food and upset stomachs.”

“Try to be like the turtle - at ease in your own shell.” - Bill Copeland
“Be like the turtle, and whole world will be like the stick - trying to poke you out for no reason.”

“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” Henry David Thoreau
“The sun appears to go round the Earth, but the vice versa is reality. (Even if the world appears to turn around, it is probably just you bending over backwards.)”

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.”
“And you will be blinded and hit by a truck as you cross the street.”

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot
“Short of amputation, I think my childhood’s really lost.”

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” Bernard Williams
“Imaginary things can be infinite in dimension.”

“The glow of one warm thought to me is worth more than money.” Thomas Jefferson
“I tried to buy an apple with a tenth of a warm thought yesterday - it didn’t work. I said ‘Morning!’”

“You change your life by changing your heart.” Max Lucado
“Dr. Christiaan Barnard was after my time. It was certainly a change though - I was dead.”

“Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.” Dale Carnegie
“Makes sense because I usually dream I’m a blithering coward running away from furry cats.”

“Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout.” Morihei Ueshiba
“Alien? Aliens? Aliens vs Predator - surely not?! Just can’t place this movie, man!”

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” Amelia Barr
“Marvels lie in the eye of the beholder.”

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Thomas Paine
“Nostradamus is passe, Paine just predicted nuclear weapons here, man!”

Thanks to this website for providing lots and lots of fodder for my uncle to work out his ulcers. More to come, soon!

The Tale of Four Assignments, Three Score Sheets and Lots and Lots of Pain

Alright, the inspiration for this poem is an insanely painful experience I had recently writing down sixty pages worth of assignments in one day. (I'll probably write down the anecdote on my personal blog sometime.) So, I decided to try my hand at a poetic metre called 'iambic tetrameter' - briefly, it means that every line in the poem is comprised of four pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. Notice how it lends a sing-song quality to the lines below? Try to read the poem aloud stressing and unstressing naturally and see if you enjoy it. :)

Here's a reading of the poem. Sorry, I might have got carried away with some of the enunciations.

Oh there was once a mighty man
He’d wrestle lions to the floor
He, faster than a cheetah, ran
And had a mind as sharp as four.

But ev’n the keenest spear it’s told –
Shall meet a shield too firm and break.
And so it proved, the hero bold
“Oh God I’m great, but this – can’t take!”

“Assignments four, and sheets three score,
A day is all is giv’n myself.”
He wailed and cried for time some more
Until enraged was God himself.

“Your star is nothing save a  ball - 
Of dust, and lost to wind in flow.”
These words that stung our hero’s gall
Inspired him like a wicked blow.

His weap’n the pen, his music hard
A sheet he turned and so began
The finest penwork since the Bard.
From page to page it spanned.

But hold! Two pairs of hours passed;
And only but a fifth was done.
Appeared spent, our hero – lost –
In pain, his arm and leg as one.

A tiny rest, and crack of light
The monster, will he rise to face?
Of course, it’s only fair to right
A losing war by changing place.

Each page he filled was foes he slew
All fair was foul, as art turned scrawl
As noon emerged, he forged on true
To see a third was left in all!

And now, with victory close away
Awoke his pride, en masse, and swelled
He drank and ate and made his hay
Until the close of day was felt.

The Devil’s whisper now in ear
“Come on, it’s done, your name is made
This final battle’s nought to fear
The war is won, so let’s parade!”

He laughed and cried as ag’ny spread
From limb to limb, from flesh to brain
In time, as fell the last, he said,
(to God and Devil) “Never again!”

The Laws of Food

(Hat tip to one of my favourite funny books of all time - Arthur Bloch's 'Murphy's Law'. If there's ever been a topic that's been subject to the sadistic scrutiny of Mr. Murphy, it's that of food.)
(I feel tons more laws floating into my brain from the ethereal beyond, but I have to stop somewhere.)

The Law of Unhealthiness of Taste
If it tastes good, it isn’t good for you.

A Salad Eater’s Paradoxical Corollary to the Law of Unhealthiness of Taste
If it’s good for you, it’ll kill you to eat it.

The Unchanging Nature of Tastefulness
If you take something that tastes good and modify it as little as possible so that it becomes good for you, it ultimately would have been better to throw it out altogether and eat something else entirely.

The Law of Mediocrity
If it doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Generalization of the Law of Mediocrity
Nothing is good for you.

Proscription Against Only Eating What’s Good For You
Starvation is worse.

Proscription Against Eating Too Much Of What's Good For You
Fifteen kilos of lettuce for dinner is fatal 90% of the time.

Partial Retraction of the Generalization of the Law of Mediocrity
Nothing that you really like is good for you; things you despise are essential for your well being.

The Immorality of Taste
If it tastes good and is good for you, it probably involved many animals being tortured for it to be made.

The Law of Incomplete Knowledge
If it tastes good, looks good, is good for you, and also completely ethical, it just means the state of nutritional knowledge regarding the healthfulness of various foods isn’t up to the mark.

An Idiot’s Paraphrase of the Law of Incomplete Knowledge
If they say it’s good for ya, they just don’t know it ain’t good for ya yet!

The Law of Nutritional Economics
If it tastes good, looks good, is really good for you, and also completely ethical, it will be so expensive that you'll either a) never be able to buy it or b) buy it and immediately die after from an acute case of workaholicism.

The Axiom of Olfactory Reliability
If it smells good, it tastes good.

Clarification by An Anonymous Seafood Lover
If it smells terrible, it still tastes good.

Rebuttal on the Epitaph of an Anonymous Man’s Grave
Never drink from your perfume bottle!

The Law of Idiomatic Generalization Of Tastefulness
Everything tastes good to a hungry man.

The Perfect Dating Profile

An area man, who refused to be named, has come up with what we consider the most accurate dating profile ever conceived. There may have been a bottle of Jack Daniels, several intravenous injections of South American truth serums and one very fickle lie detector involved, but let those trivialities not take anything away from the magnitude of this invention. As somebody or the other once said - the best insights in life have nothing to do with intelligence, hard work or fortitude – but merely the choice of one’s drinking partners. Or something.

This anonymous good samaritan sacrificed a major portion of his life towards advancing the cause of Science – for without his numerous futile romantic pursuits, inspired by a common, yet widespread, misunderstanding of the notion of love, that eventually led to him becoming a pariah of society – the poor dear – we wouldn’t have been able to come up with the best prescription since Paracetamol.

So here you go. Take it and go. We will find you and we will sue you for copyright infringement, of course, but please do take it and go.

What are you looking for in a woman?

Let me start off by specifically clarifying that I’m NOT looking for love. I’m looking for that Zen like state of being where I would wake up every day without wanting to chop myself into a million little pieces due to the indescribable agony of having to wish my partner good morning once again. Are YOU that partner? (Yes, I do succinctness. Yes, you may send me your high school essays for summarization. Yes, I do charge.)

Does she have to look a certain way?

Two words – no. (Oh, I thought that phrase was idiomatic, not mathematical. Yes, I know ‘no’ is one word.)

Hair colour?

Well, a decade or two ago, I might have expressed a preference for redheads or sparkles in the eye or some such, but my requirements now are simple. A little verbose, but simple. I’m looking for a woman who has hair. The only property this hair should possess is that it should never, ever, ever, ever manifest itself on my prize pair of Woodland shoes that I (deliberately) place beside the fridge.

Weight?

 I don’t really have any preferences. I’d go for anything from the weight of my toy poodle to the weight of my SUV parked outside. Thin is in? That’s great. Thick is sick? Super. Prospective women must however note that if they care at all for a long, happy period of companionship with yours truly, they should never, ever, ever ask me if that dress makes them look fat.

Oh, my doorways are about three feet wide. Being wider than that might pose practical difficulties, so measure yourselves, ladies. I don’t consider this problem insurmountable however, as long as she attaches the abstract of a solution to this problem along with her hello message to me. I’m all for independent creativity so I won’t go into details, but this solution will have to solve the problem of er.. getting in and out of the house, and if not, an alternative mechanism to transport food, air and excrement in and out of her kennel, preferably involving drones.

Height?

Height’s cool. I’m about four foot three, so I can’t really stick to the stubborn ways of my youth and insist that only a six foot tall half-Colombian virgin would do, but even so, I’m not particularly fussed about height. There is a deal-breaker related to height though – you should never, ever, ever accidentally or otherwise knock down that white pillbox – no, the one with the glowing orange stripes – that has been carefully placed twenty two centimetres from the left corner of the top end of the mirror shelf in the bathroom. I do pre-nuptial agreements if required, but this clause stays.

What sort of personality should she have?

Sense of humour?

Doesn’t matter. But she should take any outbursts that I may produce from time to time, usually regarding matters of grave importance only – like ‘WHO MOVED THE BLOODY TUBE OF TOOTHPASE?’ with equanimity.

Maturity?

Don’t care. The immature ones can do whatever with whatever, as long as they do not ever solve the crossword (the ‘easy’) before I do. The mature ones can do nothing as usual, as long as they don’t do nothing while sitting in the custom manufactured ergonomic Eeze2Pleeze auto-reclining chair that’s purposefully arranged in the northwest corner of the drawing room.

Easygoing?

She can be if she must, but I care about my aunt’s pet rat’s behind more, i.e. not very much. I don’t have friends, so the easy going nature is pretty much wasted. She is free, of course, to have a friends circle of her own; she can party every night and puke in the bushes if she desires it, she can even have a surreptitious one night stand or three. It’s alright even if she gets knocked up during one of the aforesaid one night stands, and I have to bring up somebody else’s child – I don’t really mind kids, except that they should never, ever, ever draw the dining room blinds before I finish my two minute power meditation in the morning.

What sort of interests should she have?

Reading?

Great. She shouldn’t ever touch one of my books though. For starters, I hate other people’s fingerprints on my carefully dirtied sheepskin manuscripts, and for finishers, I hate other people crushing the spines of my books just the way I do to all my favourites. It’s perfectly alright if she doesn’t read a thing either because I have vast experience in discussing my favourite books with my favourite wall. (Psst, it’s the pink one next to my bed’s headstand.)

Travelling?

I love travelling – I can even foresee rousing myself from my Eeze2Pleeze to see the lady off on one of her sojourns and then following along on Instagram. She can do one week trips, two week trips, four year trips – it’s all cool - as long as she doesn’t ask me to pick her up from the airport when she gets back.

Politics?

Delightful. She just shouldn’t forget to leave the toilet seat up after she’s done vomiting into the bowl after a ranting session at all the evil in the world and THOSE USELESS POLITICIANS!

Any other interests?

It really doesn’t matter as long as she doesn’t make any attempt to enforce my participation with threats of the invidious variety. It actually doesn’t matter, come to think of it, even if she attempts to enlist me in her weekly game of blindfold scrabble with the neighbours, as long as I’m allowed to swig a mouthful from the Jack Daniels first, no questions asked.

Should she be a working woman?

Working women are great. People are easiest to be with when they’re not around. (That’s not wisdom – that’s fact). I would greatly enjoy being with a woman who’s off on business trips every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I’m not too demanding – I know nobody does daily business trips.

Housewives are cool too. It’s great if she’s a housewife with an angelic disposition, a heart of gold, and a drive to bring up the best children the world has ever seen or will see. It’s perfectly alright too if she’s a lazy moocher who needs a bribe to get off the bed to grab a cup of coffee. Just as long as she never, ever, ever attempts to change the channel when The Open is on. Yes, it may just be old men walking around on fake looking grass hitting balls with sticks, but she should never, ever, ever say so in so many words.

And last, but not the least (tee hee), do you have sexual preferences?

Everything works from twice a day to never. She must however satisfy two minuscule constraints. One: she should never, ever, ever question me about the compact disc kept in a vacuum sealed box in the wardrobe, the one with the topless woman on it. Two: she should never, ever, ever put her leg over mine at any point during the night.

Confirmation Bias

It was an ordinary day. Drizzly and cloudy, the occasional bursts of sunshine only served to remind everybody how gloomy everything was. Yes, an ordinary day it was.

Not for the chubby little boy who waddled his way home from school lost deep in thought; because our young prodigy had figured out a cast-iron test for one of the most important questions of all time.

Is there God?

The test was simple. He'd count to three, and if anything spectacular happened, that'd prove that God was real. He poked at his methodology from all sides, and he found it sound. An involuntary chuckle slipped out his pursed lips as he admired his own ingenuity.

One.
A droplet of rain fell on his forehead breaking apart with a near imperceptible shudder. A stray leaf fought a mighty gust, swaying this way and that. A dog began its hourly lament in the distance. A lorry driver began to toot out a masterpiece on the horn. A bored girl began to walk into view at the edge of his vision.

Two.
Another droplet of rain fell, this time on his outstretched arm. YES! This was it?! No, because a twin droplet followed the last and fell on the other arm, which wasn't quite outstretched. The dog's wailing cut off abruptly. YES! No, it started again, indistinguishable from the last. The lorry driver's toot entered the middle section, his favourite bit. The bored girl took another step. The boy sniffed.

Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.

The boy stopped counting. Why was he counting again? There had seemed to be an important reason.

BZZZT! BZZZT!

'Oh, hey mom. I'm almost home. What's for dinner?'


On another day, the chubby little boy, now a fine, young, rotund under-achiever in an air conditioned room, pondered the sudden sense of deja vu that'd overwhelmed him momentarily. God, these sudden, unexplained thoughts were the worst. Why couldn't he be like everybody else thinking about nothing all the time? God? He sighed.

He knew that he could never get back to working hard at twenty percent efficiency unless he took this thought to its logical conclusion. He sighed again. How many times had he had the same thought before? Presently, a flare of enthusiasm wiped away his weariness and he almost totally forgot about all those other times. This time would be different. He started to count.

One.
A tubelight flickered in the distance, towards the far end of the aisle. (When would they fix that?) The loud sound of open mouthed chewing came from a cubicle nearby. God, these mannerless geeks really drove him up the wall, he ruminated, as he bit loudly on his seventeenth bourbon biscuit of the day. A beep from his laptop signified that yet another email had arrived, affording him the opportunity to do more non-work by replying to it. A crumb made its way from his sloppy mouth and began an inelegant tumble to the floor at glacial pace.

Two.
The flickering tubelight continued to flicker. WAIT! Was that last flicker slightly longer than before? Probably not. The loud sound of open mouthed chewing morphed into the sound of open mouthed crunching moderated by open mouthed gulping, like the rumble of mansion sized potato chips being washed away in a thunderstorm. Coke and chips again, that geek was not only mannerless, but tasteless to boot. That crumb of bourbon biscuit slipped and slid its way down the smooth curve of a well tended belly. Another beep from his laptop. WAS THIS IT? It somehow sounded different! God was speaking to him? Oh. It was the different tone of a meeting invite.

Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.

The man stopped counting. Why was he counting again? There had seemed to be an important reason.

'PNNNNG!' 'PNNNNNG!'

< hey. ya gt da invite. join u in a bit. brb. >

On a different ordinary day, in a different place, far way, an old man squinted his eyes against the piercing afternoon sunshine. God, what would he do for a bit of rain! It was almost like he was being punished for the decades he'd spent doing nothing in an air conditioned room. Hmm.

A sudden thought crossed the old man's mind. His mind was now a fickle thing, with the boredom of retirement, but this thought seemed to strengthen and tame all the other threads into submission. In addition, this particular thought bore a familiarity which disconcerted him. It focussed his mind.

'Hey God, I haven't really ever had the cause to doubt your existence, but it's not like I have really felt your presence strongly either.' the old man mused, with a remarkable effort of concentration.

'How about you prove you're real? I'll count to three, and if there's a sudden spot of rain that cools this bloody afternoon, I'll concede that you might exist. Easy peasy right?'

One.
The noisy neighbour lady's phone began to ring. KRICKIT! That was a strong case for the existence of the devil, if anything, the old man felt. The timing was impeccably awful. A wasp began to buzz by his ear; a gnarled hand involuntarily started to swish it away. The faint sound of a slamming door reached his ears. With his hearing, it was probably next door, but darn, kids these days were so careless! Somebody should smack some sense into the little imps. Meanwhile, unnoticed, the old man's glasses began to slip off his nose.

Two.
KRICKIT! KRICKIT! KRICKIT!
'YES!' 'WHAT?' 'I DIDN'T QUITE CATCH THAT', the noisy neighbour lady barked in a rapid monotone. That proved it then, the Devil was real and he was a joker. God was still playing hide and seek though. The wasp of yore alighted casually on the old man's left ear, and naturally, the old man didn't feel a thing. A joint here twinged with pain, and a joint there sighed with pain. A car door slammed nearby.

Three.
'AAAAARGGGGH', the noisy neighbour lady screamed in agony. The old man chuckled - she'd probably dropped the phone in the bathtub or something. (He wasn't to know, but she was to die of an inexplicable heartattack in a second.) A suddenly bored wasp flew away, mysteriously enticed away from sinking its stinger into the juicy flesh of an old man's left ear. The ebb and flow of human voices, which could vaguely be resolved into the annoyed drone of a parent chastising a child for slamming doors, filtered into the old man's ear. Startled, the old man jerked in shock, and due to a happy coincidence, that pair of glasses that had damn near made up its mind to fall to the floor and shatter, righted itself on a stubby nose.
A momentary shower of water fell on the old man's thinning hair, and then, to use a well worn phrase, all hell broke loose.

The young lady upstairs was mortified. She'd just wrung the water from some of her laundry off the balcony, and right into somebody's face! She couldn't begin to explain this one; her embarrassment turned to fear when she saw who her victim was. The old man would verbally lash her to death!

'Er, sir.' she began to squeak hesitantly, only to stop in shock as she registered the pure, unadulterated joy on the old geezer's weathered mug.
He was screaming.

'I KNEW IT!'
'I KNEW YOU WERE REAL, GOD!'
'WHO ELSE COULD HAVE CHASED THAT WASP AWAY?!'
'WHO ELSE COULD HAVE SAVED MY PRIZED GLASSES FROM BREAKING?!'
'AND WHO.. ELSE... COULD... POSSIBLY.. LISTEN TO ME AND MAKE IT RAIN. EVEN IF ONLY FOR A BIT?!'

Adult Humour

... is not very adult, is it?
Bonus points for catching me contradict myself in a glorious display of irony below.

3G Connectivity, Unicorns and Quantum Physics

I have come to realize that a fundamental reality of the physical Universe - a strange, surreal reality, a reality that's so at odds with everyday experience that most are inclined to disbelieve it - is actually much more commonplace than we think. This is the reality of the Uncertainty Principle, and the commonplace manifestation I'm alluding to is the uncanny tale of the uncertainty of the third generation of mobile telecommunications technology.

That made no sense, eh? That's all right. High science-ese is not for everybody. In plain words then:

'You either see the 3G indicator on your mobile phone display, or you have 3G connectivity.'

This deceptively simple law is of profound significance. A practical example may further illuminate the ramifications of this law:  if you see the 3G ('H') indicator on your mobile phone screen 95% of the time, you do NOT have 3G connectivity 95% of the time. Don't believe me? Try watching your favourite Youtube clip when you have that 3G ('H') indicator flashing seductively on your screen.

What? Can't... what? I'm sorry - what you're saying is getting lost in all the stopping and starting and buffering. Oh.. 2G. QED.

If, at this point in time, you're hyperventilating in breathless shock, take your time to recover. (How can this be? I spend 42% of my salary on 3G connectivity?!) The blunt fact of this law will wait for you, even if time and tide won't.

Back?

So, if your cranial gears have been busy, you'll wonder if there's a way out.

'What if I do NOT see the 3G indicator 95% of the time?'
'What if I force the 2G ('E') indicator on 95% of the time? Applying the uncertainty law in reverse, doesn't that mean that I'll have 3G connectivity 95% of the time?'

Unfortunately, while this is an astute observation on your part, especially given that you're half dead from apoplexy, you've failed to account for the third principle of Mobile Phone Graphical User Interface Design:

'You do not have 3G connectivity if you do not have the 3G indicator on your mobile phone display.'

Work through the implications of both these fundamental laws, and you'll come to realize that you're - to use a little layman-speak - screwed. At this point, you'll skip through the five stages of grief rather quickly and reach acceptance, because it'll occur to you that the implications of these laws are remarkably in tune with your experience so far.

And your experience so far is that you never, ever, ever really get 3G connectivity.

Ah, well.

The Burden Of Geekhood

Me, when somebody calls himself (or herself) a self-professed geek.

Where's My Chair?

Here's the enthralling tale of the new guy in office who needed a chair. 

(For some reason, Blogger seems to be making the image smaller, so opening the image in a new tab won't make the text any clearer. Here's the original image for your perusal - don't forget to click! https://www.flickr.com/photos/52214053@N04/18491193850/sizes/o/ )

The Illusion called Nutrition

I was privileged enough to witness what will go down in history as one of the most momentous occasions in the short life that human beings have been on planet Earth; leave alone the even shorter life that nutrition has had as a field of science.

It was a press conference.

Us newspaper hacks knew nothing except that this gathering would bring together some serious heavyweights - I thought I’d retire that pun, but hey, this could be the last time I use it - there was the rotundly effete president of the Association of Health (commonly shortened to ‘Ah’. Ah.) There was the corpulently wishy-washy chairman of the multinational Nutritional Union of The States (NUTS), a body that had become the de facto substitute for the United Nations since obesity had grown to replace corporate imperialism as the greatest threat to humankind. And there were, of course, the leaders of the all the surviving nations, in their various homages to the spherical form and the ideal of inutility.

And then there were innumerable, indistinguishable men and women - a remarkable achievement, attaining indistinguishability so powerful you’re sexless - in identical suits and goggles and practiced deadpan expressions - representatives of the dominant ruling paradigm of the late twenty second century - corporatocracy. There were also, hunched fearful and rat-like in the shadows, the intellectual flag bearers from two centuries ago - men and women, consigned to the dregs of society for choosing to while their time away trying to answer irrelevant questions like how the world worked. Scientists, I believe they were called. If that lot were here, then surely everybody was, and this was going to be something big.

A loud harrumph broke the silence. Or would have, had there been silence. So it sort of half shushed the frenzied whispering.

Rows and rows of faces - both physical and electronic - looked up.

A second harrumph followed. ‘We,’ wheezed the portly figure of the President of Ah, cleverly called ‘Ah-man’.

‘We have gathered here to make an important announcement.’

A soundless sigh rustled through the room. Get on with it, Ah-man!

‘We have gathered here on this momentous day,’ Ah-man dithered, only to wince under the force of a million glares - some bleeding into the ultraviolet - and tighten his act, ‘to fold our hands in front of you and offer a heartfelt apology.’

‘We have spent many decades, centuries, aeons even, trying to convince everyone that we had the answers to the problem of happiness.’

‘Yes, it wasn’t always phrased like that but the pursuit of health, which we represented, only made sense if it was intimately tied to everyday happiness, and we worked our best to strengthen those ties.’

Looks were hastily exchanged, and there were the occasional collisions between face and monitor as a consequence. Ah-man trundled on.

‘We believed that the solution to obesity was nutrition science, and the solution to making people listen was to come up with an unchanging dogma of nutrition science. But that doesn’t quite work in the world of science, does it?’ Ah-man took off his $50,000 pair of vanity spectacles and rubbed his eyes with a certain cosmic weariness.

‘Yes, it doesn’t. One day, we would tell you to have heavy breakfasts. Studies would back this up, of course. The next, we would tell you that skipping breakfast was the key to a healthy work life balance. That too would be backed up by studies, of course, we’re methodic like that. And the day after, we’d tell you that skipping breakfast was bad, but it was equally bad to have breakfast immediately after waking up.’

‘We told you, for approximately four Gregorian centuries that more frequent, smaller meals were good. Studies had assured us - ‘ Ah-man paused, in a rare moment of self-awareness, and decided not to finish that sentence. ‘But then we started telling you that the number of meals you had didn’t really matter.’

‘We told you, for near about three score years that milk was essential for a healthy life. But we told you, for near about three - ‘ Ah-man looked askance at a raised hand in his entourage ‘ - or, as I was just corrected, four and a half score years that not drinking milk probably doubled your life span.’

'I think it's safest to not go into the gluten fiasco at all.' Agreeing titters erupted in the room.

‘We told you many things - and we told them like they were fact - and they were all wrong.’

Ah-man mopped a brow. Now there was silence, and the silence in the cavernous hall was absolute. A snoring mouse could have caused tinnitus.

‘We have now come to the conclusion that the field of nutrition science has been a well-intentioned but ultimately delusory pursuit. We have decided to relegate it to the same bookshelf as the religions of old, and various beliefs regarding black cats, mirrors, ladders and salt thrown over one’s shoulder. We have decided to retract everything we’ve told you so far, save one.’

The silence was now so sharp and the air was so heavy with tension that you could have floated an anorexic baby on an air current. I jiggled my ample belly in anticipation.

‘We have found out that the stress caused by the painstaking application required to sort through our numerous contradictory nutritional diktats would far offset any gains in health one may obtain by dutifully following said diktats.’

‘In other words, you’re likely to be far healthier and live longer, more fulfilling lives if you do not make any effort whatsoever to follow... anything.. we... say.’ Ah-man dragged himself through the last handful of words, like sprinting through treacle, and promptly burst out in a flood of tears.

Everyone else, well, corporeal or otherwise, it was said, made the twenty four hours that followed the announcement the biggest party humankind had ever seen. It was estimated that thirty three percent of everyone present suffered an aneurysm as a direct result of their ecstatic manoeuvrings. I didn’t know, as I’d promptly passed out as the result of a minor aneurysm. 

Nap Power

(Because I already have a comic called 'Power Nap' but this one really is about the power of power naps. Power Nap Power?)

Yesterday

Test Cricket

Right click -> View Image if you can't read the text. It'll be worth it, I promise. ;-)

Stalking

On the noble art of stalking.

As always, click on the image to zoom in if you can't read the text. It'll be worth it, I promise. ;-)