Blog: Articles filed under random stuff

I have discovered something extremely disturbing today, which I cannot let go unremarked and uncorrected. I have discovered that I don’t know the term for a group of groundhogs!

Wikipedia has a very nice list of animal names, which includes the collective nouns for each animal. Groundhogs, and even marmots, are noticeably absent from that list. A quick Google search reveals that I’m not the only crazy person out there. Now what do I do if I come across a ___ of mafia groundhogs who attempt to “make me an offer I can’t refuse” and barely escape with my life? How am I supposed to recount such a tale if I don’t know the correct collective noun to use?!

I mean, is it just because groundhogs are largely solitary? But they still live together in burrows. So do we call them “burrow groups”? Families? Or, if you look at the list of animal names, a group of squirrels is called a “dray” or “scurry.” Since groundhogs are marmots, and marmots are a type of ground squirrel, do these terms apply to groundhogs? Can you apply hypothetical syllogisms to collective nouns? So far it’s the best lead I’ve got.

Did I promise there would be more blogging? Silly me.

My friend Vivike came over today, and among the various things we discussed during our Frisbee tossing expedition was the “deal of the century.” The purchase of Alaska from Russia was perhaps the deal of the nineteenth century. But that was, like, so 151 years ago. It remains to be seen what the deal of the twenty-first century will be. But what, do you think, was the deal of the twentieth century?

You’re scanning a room full of people. Suddenly, there it is. Your eyes have caught those of another person, maybe someone far across the room. For a moment, you stare at each other. You wonder: is he staring at me? Am I staring at her? Which one of us started this? Then, just as quickly, you lose focus. You resume your scanning. The moment you shared collapses in on itself, and the night goes on.

In other news, Harper is suing the Liberal Party for libel. Only in Canada, eh!

We’ve got this bottle of whiteout in the drawer at the front desk of the art gallery. Regular whiteout or whatnot. I was bored one day and read the tiny printing on the back of the label. After resting my eyes from the strain of trying to read the subatomic type, I considered the implications of this warning: “Contents may catch fire.”

It’s very ambiguous. What do they mean, “contents may catch fire?” So this liquid might just decide to spontaneously combust while it’s sitting in the drawer? Or does it mean that if I expose it to a heat source then the contents might catch fire, but on the other hand, they might not. I half-expected the brand name to be Schrodinger’s Whiteout.

I could expand my reading of the label to create even more interpretations. For instance, prior to the warning about quantum flammability, it says, “Keep out of reach of children”. Let’s concatenate that. “Keep out of reach of children; contents may catch fire.” Let me get this straight: the whiteout company is implying that today’s average child is some sort of pyromaniac who will light whiteout on fire at any chance he or she gets? That’s kind of cynical. Not to mention just mean. Or are they saying that they‘ve engineered the whiteout so that if a child touches it, the whiteout will burst into flames?!

There’s a moral to be learned in all this: be careful how you label things. People might mistake them for soup cans, or thought experiments, or Danish philosophers. When you put something to text, make sure you know what you want to say, and communicate that clearly. Because sometimes a child’s life may depend on it!

Millions of years ago, a race of hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings who manifest in our dimension as white mice built the second-greatest computer ever to exist. It was called Deep Thought, and it was given the task of calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Deep Thought, after 7.5 million years of computation, discovered that it was, in fact, 42. The problem, however, was that no one really knew what the Question was, so the answer was out of context.

Of course if you‘ve read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy you already know this. If you haven‘t, then you are a worthless strag and should read it, because it’s a pretty good book.

Lately I have been meditating upon the meaning of life and why we‘re here. If you think about it, our mundane life is pretty much meaningless. Why do we go to school? To get educated so we can get a good job. Why do we get a job? So that we can make money. Why do we make money? So that we can spend money on things we need to survive. Why do we survive? Well, because it’s what all species try to do.

And that’s the thing. Thus far, all of humanity’s achievements, no matter how great, really all depend on this arbitrary worth assigned to them by humans. Everything in our society has been constructed on the basis of an arbitrary fiction, starting with the economy and ending with digital watches. It is really just a complicated system of survival, however, and does not remove us from non-sentient beings.

So what’s the point? Why are we here? Why do we live, exist? Well, to quote Dr. Stephen Hawking…

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

There you go. We are able to comprehend that there’s more out there; we are able to reach out for it, search for it. That’s why I am so enthusiastic about science fiction and actual space travel and space exploration. Some people like to complain that space exploration is a waste of money that can be better spent on decreasing crime or feeding starving mouths. But it’s not. Because there is more to life than perpetuating the mundane fiction of civilization that we have manufactured for ourselves on this planet. And it’s out there for us to discover.

That’s what we do as human beings to expand our understanding: we ruminate and philosophise. However, the universe is very, very big, and the Earth inhabits only a small, tiny, minuscule portion of it. So in order for us to better comprehend the universe, it only makes sense that we need to step out of our own backyard and take a look around.

I refuse to believe in the anthropic principle because it’s a cop-out, and because life seems a little less exciting if there isn’t any more to living than toiling away for the sake of little green pieces of paper. There is more out there, and we have to find it.

Of course…

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more bizarrely inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

So there you have it. Really, do you have anything better to do? After all, we know that the amount of good television on is inversely proportional to the number of channels you have. So with some people having upwards of 400, even 800 channels, you really have nothing to watch. Since nothing good is on TV, you might as well take some time to explore the universe!

…don’t bother asking for directions.

Muwahahaha. No, it doesn’t bother me that I spend my spare time mapping out directions to Hell using Google Maps. Or that Hell is in Michigan, only 1721 km away.

Wouldn’t it be neat to visit Hell and then when people say, “Go to Hell”, you can truthfully tell them that you’ve “been there, done that”? And for residents, it would be amazing to be able to say, “I live in Hell” or, for former residents, “I’m from Hell.”

For those more interested in Hell, you may want to check out the Wikipedia article or its fairly superior (eg; humorous) BBC counterpart.

Dear Kellogg’s:

On behalf of the People of Earth, I hereby formally surrender to you. Your evil scheme, as much as it pains me to admit it, has worked. We solemnly promise to purchase as much All-Bran cereal as you command, oh master, on the sole condition that you stop using William Shatner in your commercials. Usage of Shatner as an All-Bran spokesperson represents reckless endangerment of society, civilization, and The World As We Know It.

Thanks.

Time yourself. Three minutes only.

1. Read everything carefully before doing anything.
2. Open a new tab (or window for those of you unfortunate enough to be using Internet Explorer)
3. Go to Google
4. Think of an animal, any animal, and type it in
5. Take the first result on the second page.
6. Go to Yahoo! and type that result in.
7. Take the fourth result on the first page and write down the first word in the title on a piece of paper.
8. Below the title, write your name.
9. Circle your name.
10. Think of a number between 2 and 65.
11. Think of another number between 2 and 65.
12. Flip the paper over and add the two numbers together.
13. Go back to Google
14. Type the number into Google followed by the words “I am slowly going crazy” (in quotations)
15. If you reach this point in under three minutes, congratulations. Post a comment on this blog entry that says “I HAVE REACHED THIS STEP IN UNDER THREE MINUTES. I AM AN UBER-INTERNET USERoRZ!!!!”
16. Go to your favourite message board.
17. Randomly choose a topic title.
18. Paste the title into Google after the words “Why is this test so long?” (in quotations)
19. Write down the number of results found on the piece of paper you have.
20. Now that you have finished reading everything carefully, do only steps 1 and 2.