Man Martin's Blog, page 171

Just Remember I Told You So

I recently acquired a new cellphone (see My New Phone).  By "new" of course, I mean really old, only new to me, a flip-phone of a model at least two generations behind the current standards.  When I bought it, Nancy gave me a look as if I'd purchased a blanket and campfire for the purpose of sending smoke signals.

Then,though, cornsarn it, I discovered the battery wouldn't charge; I plugged it in, and when I pushed the little button on the side, nothing.  I cursed and fumed; those rascally manufacturers - as soon as the next new thing comes out, they start putting defective batteries in the old models.  What do they care about a bunch of old fogeys who can't cope with a smartphone?  Now I had to go back to Costco and exchange it, and they'd probably send it back to the manufacturer, and I'd have to wait a week or more before I had a functioning phone, assuming the battery in that one wasn't a dud, too.

The day I was going to take it back, I plugged it into the charger to give it one last try.  Just as before, the screen reported the battery was fully charged, and just as before, when I pushed the button, my efforts were rewarded with nothing.  Then I glanced more carefully at the keypad.  There's a center button that says "OK" and around it are grouped four other buttons, the lower two reading "Send" and "End."  Above the word "end" in slightly smaller letters, it says "PWR."

Uh-oh, I thought.  I believe I may have actually said, "Uh-oh."  I pushed this and sure enough, there was a brief musical interlude and the screen lit up with a design which is either a constellation, a spiderweb, or a map connecting the cities of Atlanta, Macon, and Milledgeville.  The phone also informed me I had a new message.  I opened the message, a cheery little greeting from Verizon, saying, in effect, "Hello, moron!  Welcome to the 20th Century," although in much nicer words.

The side button, which I thought was the power, turns out to be for the camera.  I took a picture of my index finger trying to turn the camera off after accidentally turning it on.

Before you get all smug and condescending oh you people out there in blog-land, with your twitter-weets and you appy-apps and your doo-dangles, just bear in mind how frighteningly fast new generations of technology are coming at us.  There was a time, and not so long ago, when a generation of technology lasted a generation.  The phone I grew up with, with its coiled rubbery extension cord and rotary dial, existed pretty much unchanged from the 1940's to the early 80's, ditto for the vinyl records we played and the cameras we used which required dropping off rolls of film at the drugstore to be developed.  Now where are we?  As soon as some gizmo is in your hand, it's probably already out of date, and whatever the new version is, the power button is cunningly concealed in an unsuspected location or like my iPod, doesn't have a power button at all!  (Curse you, Steve Jobs!)

So laugh if you want.  Ha-ha-ha.  Oh, Man Martin, you are so silly.  But just remember, I told you so.  When they open up your cryogenic coffin and press the reboot button surgically installed in your cerebellum, and you want to know why the houses don't have doorknobs and the cars don't have tires and the earphones don't have iPods, and everybody laughs at you for being so backward and behind the times, I told you so, I told you so.

10 Amazing Similarities Between Washington and Lincoln

1. George Washington never lived in Washington, DC.  Abraham Lincoln never lived in Lincoln Nebraska.

2. At age 57, Washington had all his teeth pulled out.  At 56, Lincoln was shot in the back of the head.

3. If you rearrange the letters of Abraham Lincoln, it spells "O, call Ann ham rib."  If you rearrange the letters of George Washington, it spells "Ha! Get neon wart rigs."  Or something.

4. Abraham Lincoln was born February 14.  Washington was born February 22.  We are celebrating their birthday February 18.

5. Neither Washington nor Lincoln ever tweeted, had a Facebook page, text-messaged, or used the expression, "OMG."

6. George Washington once threw a stone all the wall across the Rappahannock.  Abraham Lincoln could have dunked on your ass all afternoon.

7. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln never met; they nearly did once, when Lincoln had a layover at Laguardia, but Washington got stuck in traffic and didn't get there in time.

8. Washington was a Whig and also wore a wig.  Lincoln was a Republican, but it is not known if he ever wore a republic.

9. Daniel Day Lewis played Lincoln in Lincoln, and Jeff Daniels played Washington in The Crossing.

10. Daniel Day Lewis and Jeff Daniels never met, but they nearly did once when Lewis had a layover at Laguardia, except Daniels got stuck in traffic.

Consider the Mountain Gorilla

The Mountain Gorilla (gorilla beringei beringei - a species so nice, they named it twice!) lives in Uganda and Rwanda.  It is listed as "Critically Endangered," a distinction won by any species with fewer than 50 million individuals. In the case of the Mountain Gorilla, there are fewer than 900.

Mountain Gorillas seem to have a natural aversion to reptiles and rainy days.  Baby Mountain Gorillas, which will chase anything that moves, run away from caterpillars and lizards.  They're running away from all the wrong things.

In reality, the Mountain Gorilla is the victim of the usual suspects - ie us.  Industrialization and agriculture continue to encroach on their limited habitat, and while no one would willingly eat gorilla meat, they are often caught in traps meant for other animals, and baby gorillas are sought by people wanting an exotic pet.  (The adult male gorilla stands about five foot tall in its stocking feet and weighs in at about 430 pounds, so this is not a pet recommended for apartment dwellers.)  Ongoing civil unrest in Rwanda and Uganda also threatens the gorillas who sometimes carelessly step on landmines meant for humans.  (No one has gotten around to listing humans themselves as an endangered species even in Rwanda and Uganda.)  Being Critically Endangered itself turns out to be dangerous, because eco-tourists wanting to get a look at one while they still can, bring along microbes to which gorillas lack immunity.  (Cover your mouths when you sneeze, people!)

One last threat to the Mountain Gorilla is the Mountain Gorilla itself.  When a new silverback deposes an old one, he goes about systematically killing all his rival's babies; this, of course, ensures that only the strongest and most powerful Mountain Gorillas reproduce.  Wikipedia says - and if it's on Wikipedia, it must be true - that a Mountain Gorilla is ten times as strong as the strongest football player in America, but since their strength doesn't do them much good against humans armed with landmines and chickenpox, and since they don't have any other significant predators, and since they don't play football, the only purpose for all this brawn seems to be killing baby Mountain Gorillas.

Genetically, humans have more in common with the great apes than horses have with zebras, which should give us pause.  Like the Mountain Gorilla we have evolved massive powers - land mines, nuclear bombs, handguns - which we employ primarily against each other with Mountain Gorillas and their like being only collateral damage.  There are nearly seven billion humans on the planet, a species that invented genocide, nuclear weapons, and jihad.  And yet, between 25% and 30% of us report their greatest fear is spiders.

We're running from all the wrong things.

Dreams Ain't What They Used to Be

I used to have the most remarkable dreams.  I could regale people by the hour as their eyes glazed over and a tiny bead of drool collected on their lower lips with bizarre and incredible adventures in my sleep.

Dinosaurs and dog-skeletons, witches and sailboats, boomerang-throwing monkeys and good-old-fashioned goblins all made appearances in my dreams.  If Tim Burton had been able to see first hand one of my nightmares, he'd have thrown up his hands in despair; he just wouldn't have been able to compete.

My favorite dream was flying.  The air would become thicker and smell faintly of Elmer's Glue - as much fun to play with as it was to eat! - and I would find myself bobbing slightly off the ground, and then, by doing the breaststroke, would swim through the air.  I did not travel fast this way, but remarkably high, and I distinctly remember passing over the Sandersville Elementary flagpole as Vicki Thompson watched below in stunned admiration.

The dark counterpart to this dream was the one where I was in some public place in nothing but my whitey-tighties.  Oddly, during the dream itself, I was never particularly embarrassed by this wardrobe, nor did it cause the uproar among others one might expect; nevertheless, it did not escape comment, and people would point out to me I was wearing only underwear in the same tone of voice you might inform someone he had a little shaving cream behind his ear or his tie was crooked.  Sometimes, annoyed with people telling me what I already knew, I simply flew away from them through the thickened and glue-smelling air.  If you've never swum through the air in nothing but your Fruit-of-the-Looms, you've missed a treat, I can tell you.  (Or should it be Fruits-of-the-Loom? I'm never sure about these things.)

Nowadays, though, what I'd give for a good old naked-but-for-my-underwear dream because all I dream about is the most prosaic stuff: teaching class, working in the garden, dealing with chickens.  Dreams about my chickens are actually now pretty much the high-point of the night for me.  The other night, for example, I dreamt I was in the chicken coop with my brother Homer.  Let me say, I am frankly envious of the man's chickens.  I only have two, but he has a veritable flock.  And whereas mine have already entered henopause, when the eggs trickle down to a precious few, he has so many eggs, he leaves them in a basket on the front stoop for neighbors to help themselves.  Anyway, in my dream, Homer and I were in the coop and he was admiring my workmanship.  He actually said, "This is a great coop."  Smiling in triumph, I looked down, and lo!  There was a baby chicken!  (A chick, we call it in the trade.)  And then - at that very moment - I thought, "Wait a minute.  I can't have a baby chicken, I don't have a rooster.  This must be a dream!"

What a rip-off.  In the middle of a dream, the only remarkable aspect of which was a virgin birth among my yard fowl, my Super Ego or Subconscious or some other spoilsport, weighs in and ruins the whole thing by pointing out it's not really happening.  This never happened when I used to dream of flying.  It's like sitting through a movie with a companion who keeps talking about other movies the actors have been in, camera angles and what not, reminding you of the one thing you're trying to forget: that it's a movie.  If you can't even enjoy your own dreams, why bother?

Asteroid worth $195 Billion

An asteroid which is set to make an uncomfortably close pass by the Earth on Friday would be worth $195 billion if we could capture it and mine its resources, investors have suggested. - Michael Rundle, Huffington Post

The other day, A group of investors came to me; "So exactly what's on Asteroid 2012 D414 to make it so gosh-darn valuable," is what they wanted to know.  You should have seen Warren Buffett; he was in a regular tizzy.  "I mean, $194 billion, I could see, maybe, but $195?  That's a lot of mozallas.  I'd like a piece of that action, kid."  Warren has been watching a lot of vintage gangster movies on TCM, and lately it's been affecting his speech.

So to start with, some basic facts about Asteroid 2012 D141, or as it's sometimes nicknamed, just 'Roid 14.  'Roid 14 measures .5 FF, or one half a football field, football fields being the standard unit of measure for asteroids, just as golf balls are the standard unit for hailstones.  Like most asteroids, 'Roid 14 is mostly ice; what's unusual in this case is it's iced Starbucks Coffee, which jacks up the retail value a couple of billion right there.  The entire surface of the asteroid is covered with a thin crust of Super Bowl Tickets and iPhones, and below that are Flat Screen TVs and designer handbags.

Last year an asteroid went by, Asteroid 2011 E229, which we just called Ralph, which was pretty valuable, made up, as it was, of all those socks that have gone missing from dryers over the past century, but Ralph was nothing compared to 'Roid 14.

The trick is, getting there.  It's going to pass within 17,000 miles, and you'd think, "Piece of cake.  I commute that far every week."  But this 17,000 miles is straight up, which means, for example, you won't be able to take your Prius, which is going to add to the fuel cost.  On top of that, it'll be whipping by somewhere between 180 miles and 1260 miles a minute.  Our miners won't have long to work, so there won't be any coffee breaks.

Still.  It might be worth it.  On top of the loot I've already mentioned, scientists believe there may be Van Gogh paintings and Ming Dynasty vases and frozen thin mint Girl Scout cookies.  The cookies aren't that valuable, I admit, but I for one can never get enough of those things.  They're just delicious.  

Valentines Day

Valentine's Day.  Hoorah.

When you've been married over thirty years it gets tougher and tougher surprising your sweetie; nevertheless,  romance is all about spontaneity and surprise, and thanks to Valentine's day, you have to be spontaneous every February 14 on the dot, like clockwork.  As far as I can make out, Saint Valentine wasn't even a real person, which makes it even worse.  He's one of those made up saints that just kind of showed up in the last 2000 years when everyone's back was turned.  A church in New Jersey got a statue of a saint delivered, and the only  label on the box said "Expedite."  Now the parishioners in that church pray to St. Expedite. Supposedly he answers prayers faster than the other saints.

I don't want to grouse; I'm all in favor of romantic love.  Nancy and I are passionate, crazy-mad for each other, and spend a good two to three minutes a week showing it.  It could be worse.  I don't think the greeting card industry, which evidently is the cornerstone of the entire economy, cares much what saint we celebrate so long as it gives them a reason to sell merchandise.  Imagine instead of Valentines Day we celebrated St Ambrose Day the patron saint of bee-keepers or St Malo Day, the patron saint of pig-keepers.  The thought of a opening up a present that oinks or buzzes makes candy hearts seem sort of mild, doesn't it?

I'll admit, I have a problem with the traditional gifts: candy and flowers.  Flowers, and this is shamefully tight-fisted of me, I know, seem like a perfectly idiotic gift.  "Here's some flowers.  They cost a lot of money considering they're already dead.  I hope you enjoy them looking at them until you throw them out."  Candy is better, but not much.  At least you can eat candy.  I'd rather celebrate St George Day, the patron saint of butchers; that way instead of candy, you'd get steak.  Or Corentin of Quimper, the patron saint of seafood, that way you'd get to eat lobster.  Plus Corentin of Quimper is the coolest name ever, although I bet all his friends made fun of him, but he got the last laugh, being a saint and all.  His friends were probably all like, "Corentin of Quimper, what kind of name is that?"  Of course, their names were probably Steve of Quimper and Scott of Quimper, so they probably didn't have much room to joke about it.

I forgot where I was going with this.

So where were we?  Candy.  Flowers.  Steak.  Lobster.  Pigs.  Bees.  I don't see why candy and flowers are especially more romantic than say, a good steak or some lobster.  I admit pigs aren't romantic (unless you happen to be a pig)  But it's Valentine's Day after all, and if you start messing with tradition, the Republic will fall.

Why Am I Such a Klutz?

While working on yesterday's blog, I dropped a cup of coffee into the bag Nancy keeps her Mandarin study materials in.  Mind you, I did not spill coffee into the bag, I dropped an entire cup of coffee into the bag.

As quickly as I could, I took everything out, separating out notebooks, sheets of homework and classwork, and flash cards with pictures of cats and ducks on one side and ideograms for cat and duck on the other, all the while cursing myself for my clumsiness and carelessness.
After emptying the bag and carrying it to the sink to wash separately, I informed Nancy of this disaster.  "I know you're going to kill me, but..."  Nancy, sitting as she was on the porcelain throne, was unable to come at once, but was nonchalant and gracious.  When I told her I was spreading everything out to dry, she even said thank you.

I went back to the office, and as I continued peeling apart various pages of notes and stacks of note-cards, I realized the tremendous amount of work Nancy's Mandarin class represented, work that I'd magnificently ruined in one careless instant.  It would not matter so much, it would not matter at all, really, if I were the only victim of my klutziness; my friends Jamie and Chris like to tell the story when we were eating carry-out one time, and they briefly looked away from me and back again, and in that whisper-thin interval of time I had so doused myself with sweet-and-sour sauce, it looked as if my little white cardboard box of Chinese food had exploded.  The way Mishap and Mayhem have dogged my personal life have shaped the way I write; they are a big part of the fact I'm a humorist.  If that's as far as the damage wreaked by Wrecking-Ball-Martin went, it would be a harmless source of laughter for others and mild chagrin for myself; what stings is the harm I do to all the people at the epicenter, people I love also bear the brunt because, lord love them, they live with me.
If you saw all the work she'd done!  The little hand-made flashcards she'd produced!  The rows of carefully imitated ideograms, practiced over and over!
I feel so guilty after something like this happens.  Nancy was as kind as could be; she did not hurry to the office where I was trying to mitigate the damage, but came back leisurely, helped me peel and separate, and assured me everything was fine.  Goddamn it, though, what is wrong with me?  Am I stupid, thoughtless, just lazy?  Am I not trying?
A brief internet search told me that "hurry, worry, and stress" are the trifecta for having accidents, and this fits the bill as far as yesterday's mishap was concerned.  I was about to scan in a drawing of planaria for a blog I'd just written and needed to post before 6:45 AM when my carpool ride shows up.  (This accident occurred around 6:15.)  Another factor is my own brain.  One person in twenty-nine has a fifty percent or greater chance of having accidents than the rest of you; studies show - this can hardly come as a surprise - these people have slower reaction times, slower processing speeds, and poorer visual/spatial skills.
Okay, so maybe I should let myself off the hook a little.  But if I have these things - slower reaction time, poor spatial skills - shouldn't I compensate?  Can't I just be more careful?  Doesn't it ultimately come down to personal responsibility? I should just try to slow down in the morning, only do one thing at a time, be aware of where I'm setting down my coffee cup?  I'll try,  Except I know it won't be enough.  It's no good telling the San Andreas Fault to be more careful; it can try, but sooner or later, "Oops!" and there goes California.

And the other frightening part is that I'm only fifty-three.  From here my reaction time, my coordination, and my spatial/visual skills will only decline.  In another ten years they'll need to sheathe me head to toe in bubble wrap each morning to prevent my leaving a wasteland of wreckage in my wake.

After Nancy and I did what triage we could, spreading damp papers over every available surface in the office, I began taking pictures for this blog.  Nancy laughed.  I love her.

Consider the Planarian

The Planarian is a non-parasitic flatworm, which sounds like a good thing, being non-parasitic, and all, but when you get right down to it, you want more on your resume than what you are not.  Under "Jobs Held," you don't want Non-Parasite and nothing else.  The personnel department is apt to take one look at you and say, "As much as we're relieved you're not a parasite, it doesn't tell us what you are."  Planaria live in freshwater and range in size from 1/8 inch to an inch, although some in the tropics can be as long as 2 feet, which makes you feel kind of oogy just thinking about it even if they are non-parasitic.

Planaria can also regenerate themselves; you can slice a Planarian into as many as 279 pieces, and each piece will regenerate a whole new individual.  Apparently, though, slicing it in 280 pieces won't work.  Think of all the time someone spent slicing Planaria to make this discovery.

Some Planaria have eye spots that give them a cross-eyed appearance to humans, but Planaria can't do anything more with them than detect the intensity of light, so they don't look a bit silly to each other.  The eye-spots led to a very interesting couple of experiments.  Robert Thompson and James McConnell showed Planaria a bright light and then gave them an electric shock.  Pretty soon, the Planaria would react the same way to the bright light that they did to an electric shock.  For a Planarian, this is pretty intelligent.  So they cut the Planarian in half, and then they had two Planaria who were terrified of lights.  This is progress.

McConnell was understandably excited by these results, so he took it a step further.  He ground up some of his star pupils from earlier experiments and fed them to other Planaria.  How he came up with this idea is a mystery.  Anyway, he reported that Planaria who'd eaten a meal of chopped-up pre-trained Planaria, learned to be afraid of bright lights faster than Planaria who ate ordinary Planaria kibble.  (How much faster, I don't know, but probably not that much, considering they were Planaria.)

For a while, scientists everywhere were repeating the experiment, feeding fish-brains from trained fish to other fish, trained-mice-brains to other mice, and so forth, and there was a lot of hope this would have applications for humans.  It turned out though, McConnell's results were invalid; eating the brains of even the smartest Planarian on the planet won't raise the IQ of another Planarian one iota.  McConnell was only seeing what he wanted to see.  Why he wanted to see it is another question altogether.

When you get down to it, the difference between the brightest and the stupidest Planarian is not that great, nor between the best-looking and the ugliest.  The truth is, even the biggest fans of Planaria, and how many of those do you run across, would have enormous difficulty telling one from another.  A video in a Wikipedia article is just titled, "Unidentified Planarian."  I'm sure, however, that Planaria think very highly of themselves, and that among Planaria there are some cool ones and some that you wouldn't want to be associated with, and they all go around making restrained boasts about how they're not parasites like some other flatworms they could mention and whenever they hear gossip about some parasite, they shudder and say, "How awful!"

Recall Notice: 2013 Chimera Sedan

Due to defects in the ventilation system and on-board computer, Echidna Motors is issuing a mandatory recall of all Chimera Sedans manufactured in 2013.

A loose fan belt in the heating/air-conditioning system causes a persistent “squeaking noise.”  If not corrected in a timely manner, this noise will develop into an inexplicably mesmerizing human voice advising the driver to set fire to things or “Do something bad.  Something really, really bad.”

The on-board computer is equipped with AI (Artificial Intelligence).  At times this device may develop self-awareness and attempt to take over the car.  This may negatively impact steering and gas mileage and result in a desolate nightmare world ruled by machines with a paltry number of humans kept alive to serve as slaves to their automobile overlords.

Unauthorized technicians should not attempt to disable the on-board computer as this will trigger the AI’s self-preservation program to respond with brutal force.  This will invalidate the warranty.

What to Do

1. Should I drive my Chimera into the dealership?
No.  Walk away casually, perhaps whistling nonchalantly and remarking aloud in the car’s hearing that “It’s a nice day for a stroll.”  DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON THE CAR.  Once out of sight of the car, call the dealership from a borrowed phone, and our technicians will arrive in unmarked vehicles to disable the AI.

2. What if my Chimera’s headlights come on, and it begins to follow me down the street?
This normally occurs when owners disregard the safety precaution of not turning their backs on the car.  If this happens to you, do not be alarmed.  The Chimera is equipped with sensors to detect human fear and respond with brutal force.  Tell the Chimera you’re glad it came along and continue walking.  DO NOT GET IN CAR.  At first opportunity, find a pretext for climbing a nearby tree, such as, “Hey, I think I see a bird’s nest.”  Once in tree, call dealership from a borrowed phone.  If no phone is available, wait in tree until our roving technicians spot you from their helicopters.  At this point, it is not believed Chimeras are able to climb trees.

3. What if my Chimera climbs the tree?
Our engineers are working to resolve this problem, and those affected will be contacted as soon as possible.

4. What if when I call the dealership, I hear a squeaky voice that sounds suspiciously like the one my Chimera uses, the one that tells me to set fire to things?
This normally occurs when owners disregard the safety precaution of using a borrowed phone.  If this happens to you, play along.  Say you only called to say how wonderful your new Chimera is, and that you’re advising everyone you know to get one.  Then hang up and wait in your tree or rooftop for our roving technicians to spot you from their helicopters.

Consider the Capybara

Now here's an animal you'd think would be endangered, but isn't: the Capybara: a semi-aquatic rodent that can weigh up to 200 pounds.  They mate only in the water, and when a female is approached by a male she doesn't care for, she submerges or leaves the water.

Although they can run as fast as a horse, they rarely do so because basically why run as fast as a horse unless you need to?  Even horses don't run as fast as a horse most of the time.  They are generally unafraid of humans.  They are hunted for their pelts and meat.  Like the beaver, on which more later, Capybara meat can be eaten during Lent, because 17th Century Church fathers officially identified Capybaras as "fish."  (Ah, the mysteries of organized religion.)

So we have a large, slow-moving, unusual, edible animal, in a wetland habitat being encroached upon by industrialized man.  This would seem a recipe for disaster, survival-of-the-species-wise, but it isn't.  Oh, and did I also mention they're a nuisance to farmers?  And yet, the Capybara, unlike some species I could name - yes, I'm talking about you, Mr. Kakapo, is doing quite well, thank you, and isn't gotten even close to being on the endangered species list.  Its distant cousin, the American Beaver, another aquatic rodent, was on the endangered list a few decades ago, but now is back off again.

Maybe part of the secret is that while the Capybara is not endangered is that it has so many predators to start with - jaguar, puma, and ocelot.  Looking at a Capybara, the words wily and evasive don't spring naturally to mind, but maybe they're smarter than they look.  If you're going to keep from being eaten by pumas and jaguars for a few hundred thousand years you must be doing something right.  Another secret is the Capybara sex-life.  In spite of the fact the dominant male tries to keep their mate from fooling around on them, most of his offspring are likely to belong to someone else.  Evidently the females don't submerge or leave the water as often as their husbands might like.  Unilke the Kakapo - sorry to use you as an example again - the Capybara didn't become flightless.  Okay, the Capybara never had wings, but it didn't give up some essential survival adaptation when things got good, unlike Dodos, Kakapos, and Kiwis.

To sum up, here are some of the lessons we can take from Capybaras.  Have a good sex life.  If your ancestors had some skill, such as flight or running fast as a horse or adding up a whole bunch of numbers in their head - hold onto it and cultivate it.  You might not need it now, but it may come in handy when you least expect it.  If someone's hanging around you don't care for, submerge or just leave the water.  And don't fret the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune now and then - an occasional jaguar or ocelot in your way may not be all bad; like the Capybara, you may find anything that doesn't kill you outright makes you stronger, and if it does kill you, just think of all those good times you had back in the water.