Irrelevant Cheetah

You’ve probably read the statistics: Every year, the average person eats an average of six spiders. Or maybe you haven’t read the reports, and I just ruined your breakfast. At any rate, there it is: annually, half a dozen arachnids fall victim to you and your gaping maw, you spider-killer, you.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

It leads one to wonder, though. Exactly how are these spiders being eaten? And how are these averages calculated?

Okay, first things first. I, for one, am not going around popping spiders in my mouth. For that matter, I’m not sure anyone (over the age of two, that is) does. I’ve heard of chocolate-covered ants, and sautéed grasshoppers, but I’ve never heard of spiders as a culinary temptation, though one of those bird spiders the size of a dinner plate would probably make a nice, hairy omelet.

So if they’re not eaten deliberately, they must be eaten accidentally, and aside from spider infestations in my Cheerios, which I’d rather not think about, I’m guessing they fall into your mouth when you’re sleeping. This, folks, is evolution at work, because the only spider that’s going to fall into your mouth is a clumsy spider. You probably never realized it was possible to trip while you’re walking on the ceiling, but it doubtless happens, and the spider-chewing results are helping to eliminate the clumsiness gene from your local arachnid population. There’s something to put on my resume: “Helping spider evolution to progress in my house – May 2001 to present.”

The other question this statistic brings up is averages. How is this average calculated? You see, going back to the whole clumsy-spider hypothesis, someone who sleeps (and snores) with their mouth wide open is bound to catch more Daddy Klutzylegs than someone who sleeps quietly on their side, never uttering a peep. This skews the averages towards those with sleep apnea and big mouths, doesn’t it? And what if there are people, perhaps in some remote part of the world, who eat spider-kabobs on a regular basis? Because their annual spider intake may be on the order of tens or hundreds of hairy, eight-legged corpses, once again it skews the averages significantly. Maybe us non-spider-eaters don’t actually eat six spiders a year, it’s just that around 36 billion spiders are eaten worldwide every year, and so we all have to share the blame equally.

I also find myself wondering, if this is the case, how those 36 billion spiders are prepared. Spider cakes? Fried, salted and buttered? Someone needs to contact either Rachael Ray or Emeril and ask for recipes. I sense an untapped market here.

We were standing in line at the grocery store when I noticed the latest cover of that bastion of journalistic integrity, The Enquirer. “William Renounces Throne,” I read out loud. “Prince chooses love over monarchy.” I snorted. “Yeah, sure. Like he’s gonna give up being King so he can marry Kate whatshername.”

My wife sensed an opening and went for it. “Are you telling me,” she asked, “that if you were heir to the monarchy and we were dating, you wouldn’t give up the throne for me?”

I didn’t miss a beat. “Of course I would, dear. In a heartbeat. But not all guys are like me.” Sidestep, pirouette and bow.

And that, my friends, is how you dance.

Reaching one hundred blog posts seems to be some sort of milestone in the blogosphere, and it appears that I have reached it. I suppose posting one hundred times shows that you’re dedicated, you’re in this for the long haul, and you have completely lost any sense of dignity you may have once possessed.

In celebration of this milestone, I contacted my old friend, Dr. Horace Werberjensen. He’s Swedish, if you hadn’t guessed, and he’s the guy I go to with my serious scientific questions when I need a reliable source, especially now that the restraining order has expired. I wanted to do a Serious Scientific Investigation into the following pressing problem:

What exactly makes a picture “cute?” In other words, what’s with this lolcats phenomenon?

After looking at such websites as Cuteoverload and DailyDoseofCute, sometimes for as long as twenty minutes at a time, we determined that along with a curious lack of spaces in their domain names, cute pictures shared the following characteristics:

The subject of the photograph must be furry, as per this example:

The subject of the photograph must have large, dark eyes, as per this example:

The smaller the subject, the better, and if babies are involved, much more cuteness is exuded:

More than one subject is better than only one subject:

With all of these factors in mind, Dr. Werberjensen and I set out to do a serious experiment. The goal? To see if we could artificially create such a picture in the lab, under carefully controlled conditions. Ideally, the subject of this picture would be yours truly, thus increasing my photogenic qualities and making me extra cute. Also, all of the above rules would be followed, in order to obtain Maximum Cuteness.

Thus, we retired to the shed lab, and after I moved the snow tires and bicycles, we got down to business. It was difficult to tear ourselves away to eat, and we subsisted solely on beer and pizza while we worked feverishly on this experiment. I’ll never forget the flashes of light and the smell of burnt earwax as we worked through the night, only stopping when nature called or when an episode of “Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Tryouts” was on TV.

Finally, we emerged victorious. Dr. Werberjensen and I have, at great personal cost to both our wallets and our earwax, done the impossible. We have created a picture that is so Incredibly Cute that I fear that posting it here might be tantamount to second-degree assault, as several of my readers may become comatose in diabetic shock. Not only that, but my wife may be forced to beat off hordes of female admirers with a stick, since we managed to make me, your humble blogger, the subject of the picture.

Nevertheless, true science requires sacrifice. Perhaps, in this case, more from you than from me. Dear reader, I hereby offer you the Cutest Picture on the Internet:

I know, I know: if you’re still conscious and reading this, you’re speechless. I understand. It takes a little while to sink in. Feel free to sit back and let the Cuteness wash over you, taking your troubles and cares with it. And you’re welcome.

*Author’s note #1: No kittens were harmed in the making of this picture.
*Author’s note #2: In all seriousness, thanks to all of you for reading and commenting on my stuff. There’s more to come, I promise.

There are two keys on my key ring that are unknown to me.

Normally, when you go through your keys (a procedure I recommend following every few years or so) you find one or two keys that you know you don’t need anymore. This key goes to the car you sold to Uncle Ernie, and that key goes to the A/V room at your high school. This one goes to the filing cabinet you threw away, and that one goes to your old gym locker.

But the last time I sorted my keys, I found two that I don’t recognize at all. I don’t remember buying them, I don’t remember putting them on my key ring, and I damn sure don’t remember using them. For all I know, they could be keys #1 and #2 to open up Ft. Knox.

Which, of course, is the reason that they’re still there, taking up valuable pocket space. Since I don’t know what they’re for, I don’t know if I need them. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the day after I threw them away I discovered their purpose.

“Mr. Donat? It seems that a rich great-uncle you’ve never heard of has passed away and left you a large fortune. He wrote in his will that you have the key to his safety deposit box located at Wewanchurmoney Savings and Loan, and in the deposit box is the paperwork you’ll need to file to take possession of his finances.”
“Um, well, gee… Funny story, there…”
“Oh, you no longer own the key? I’m sorry, then. His will is quite specific. In the event you no longer own the key, all his worldly possessions go to his pet skunk, Fluffy.”

I have done some elementary detective work, of course. One looks like a really small padlock key, though it doesn’t say “Master” or anything similar on it. This is the sort of key that would open a box. Perhaps a box that looks like it holds cigars, but really contains millions of dollars worth of smuggled diamonds under a false bottom.

The other looks like a cheap filing cabinet key. This is the sort of key that would open a filing cabinet containing sensitive documents about top government officials. The kind of documents that could topple a regime.

Or I suppose they could open up an old filing cabinet that I threw away four years ago and a small padlock that kept my comic books out of my sister’s hands when I was six. But I doubt it.

I don’t know if every ESC (Evil Soul-sucking Corporation) has a Safety Officer. I know that the two ESCs I have worked for thus far have had at least one, if not two, or even a squadron of them. At any rate, I just got out of this month’s Safety Meeting, given by our illustrious Safety Officer, and now I know all about earthquakes and what not to do in ‘em.

Which is not the point of this missive. Rather, as I was listening to the SO drone on about the items that should be in your Earthquake Preparedness Kit (you do have one of these, don’t you? Because if you don’t, you are a poor excuse for a responsible human being and should be promptly tossed to the wolves) it struck me exactly where I would want to be should the ground begin to shimmy and shake. It struck me as I heard him say “I have my fifteen bottles of Emergency Water in a bomb-proof Tupperware tub in the garage.”

I would want to be at the SO’s house.

Think about it: he’s been trained to be safe/prepared, to the point that he makes your typical Boy Scout look like a lost kitten in a thunderstorm. He’s been so thoroughly trained that he’s been hired by an ESC to keep its individual drones safe and healthily profitable. He’s probably not only got fifteen bottles of Emergency Water, but also anti-radiation tablets, Twinkies and zombie repellent.  

So for my homework for the next disaster, I’m not putting together a disaster kit. I’m not taking CPR classes, or learning how to jumpstart an abandoned mini-van with a paperclip and a pencil eraser. Instead, I’m studying the corporate database, figuring out exactly where he lives, and plotting the straightest route to his house with Google Earth. I only hope he has an extra chainsaw for any zombie-beheading that needs to be done.

What am I thinking? He probably has two backups in case the first one fails.

I guess it’s time to redesign the ol’ website. Not this one – rather, my actual site. You know, with words and pictures and stuff.

I’ve been heading more and more into the unknown territory of writing articles and stories for “professional” publications, both online and in print. I’ve also been bidding on (and possibly winning) a few graphic design jobs on the side. The problem with my site is that though I think it does a pretty good job of portraying me, it does not do a good job of portraying my professionalism.

Did I hear a snicker there in the back?

Moving on… So I need to start looking at designs and templates and all that fun stuff. I haven’t updated the main site in, like, forever, either, so this’ll be a good thing. I’ve also come across a few designs/interfaces for displaying photos that look really nifty. (I think by using the word ‘nifty’ I just cemented my place in geekdom. I’m sorry you had to read that.) I really have no ideas, so this might take a while.

I’d also like to redesign this blog, but there are issues with that. It’s a WordPress template that comes with my hosting package, but in order to change it, there’s some serious tinkering under the hood required that I just don’t have the time for. Plus, I’m afraid I’d lose some or all of the content in the move. So I’m afraid that you (and I) are stuck looking at this one. I can change the look and feel a bit, so maybe that’ll have to do. Just don’t run when you see the new facade, ok?

Social engineering has always intrigued me, and not just the mind-control aspects of it. Rather, I am interested in what people do collectively. Wikipedia, for instance. I mean, come on: a user-edited encyclopedia? Brilliant! And yet idiotic at the same time!

I stumbled across Stixy the other day, and I really liked the concept. You can create a virtual bulletin board on the internet and share it with your friends, family, or whoever else you like. So I thought I’d try something. I started a board for anyone who visits this blog. It’s here. The password to get in is, appropriately enough, “cheetah.”

If you read this post, I think it’d be cool if you’d visit the board and add something of your own. I don’t care what it is, just something of yours. It’ll only take a second, and you don’t even have to sign up or log in to contribute. The site’s pretty self-explanatory, but basically there are ‘widgets’ on the bottom of the page. Just click and drag the one you want to use onto the main part of the page, and then add to it as you see fit. You can add a sticky note, a document, a ‘to-do’ item, or a photo. You can also edit anything else that’s already been posted.

So please feel free to add something. I got everything started, of course, but I’d like to see if this goes anywhere, or if it ends up being more like a thirteen-car pileup on I-10. Either way, it’ll be interesting, I think.

Update: I just noticed that you can’t edit ‘to-do’ widget dates unless you’re signed in. Luckily, accounts are free.

Update to the update: As you’ll see from his sticky, Jonas from Stixy contacted me to tell me he’s fixed the bug. Now your ‘to-do’ doesn’t have to end at midnight.  

Saturday’s Odd Feeling: I was talking on the phone with somebody, and I was eating at the same time. (Don’t look at me like that – I know you’ve done it too.) However, I didn’t want the other person to know that I was eating. (Once again – shush.) It always seems rude somehow to be eating while talking on the phone. Of course, I wasn’t eating something quiet, like oatmeal. Instead, I was enjoying some salted, roasted, noisy peanuts. Rather difficult to eat surreptitiously.

So instead of utilizing the incredibly handy, technologically-savvy ‘mute’ button on the phone to mask my chewing and swallowing noises, I simply rotated the phone receiver away from my mouth until it was 180 degrees away from normal. In case you’re having difficulties picturing it, let me simply say that the mouthpiece of the phone was roughly even with the top of my head, while the earpiece was still firmly pressed to my ear. Very slick, thought I, and I continued to munch on my peanuts while listening to the other person speak, apparently completely oblivious to my culinary indiscretion.

So here’s the Odd Feeling: I was suddenly struck by the extremely odd notion that because the phone speaker was upside down, the sound should be upside down as well. Of course, physics promptly thrust itself into the forefront of my brain and firmly asserted that there is no such thing as upside down noise, but I couldn’t shake the concept that if you turn a speaker upside down, the resulting noise should be sheer gibberish. If you turn the written word upside down, it’s unintelligible; why doesn’t it work that way with the spoken word?

Author’s note: I was, sadly, completely sober during this episode.

I probably shouldn’t do it. I have no business doing it. I have enough other things on my plate, my head hurts and I have a hangnail.

But the registration for NaNoWriMo has begun, and I’m seriously considering trying it.

A year ago I never would have known what you were talking about, had you come up and suggested that I sign up for NaNoWriMo. I probably would have heard “nano-rhino” and had all sorts of questions for you about microscopic African safaris and whether or not mini-lions were dangerous.

So. 50,000 words in a month. Whether or not I succeed, I think the effort will help me break through this block that has kept me from actually starting the current Novel in Progress. Oh, I’ve got notes and scenes and settings galore, but not a single, solitary word on paper screen.

On a side note, it’s a curious coincidence that registration for NaNoWriMo begins during Banned Books Week. Perhaps because 99% of the books completed this November should never be read, and not because of any controversial subjects? Sean Lindsay is probably all over this one.