Apes, wisdom, and the courage to know the difference.

If it isn’t obvious very shortly, I had to reach to pull that post-title out of my ass.

Can’t even begin to come up with them like Steamboat McGoo.  A force of nature to be reckoned with, that ability to spin the gold of post-titles from the straw of … sh*t… can’t even craft a good metaphor tonight.  On with the post then.

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From Fox News…

Apes on helium sound like opera singers, scientists discover

No no no no no!  That won’t work.  That sentence was engineered like a Yugo.  Or a brick.  It’s clunky and lacks that sleek-n-sexy feeling.  It has all the perkiness of cabbage soup with hot-dogs and slices of American cheese floating in it.

Rearrange it, using the exact same words, and if you are having a good day you end up with the same meaning, but way more fun.  Hopefully it’s like sex on a roller coaster with a half dozen scopolamine patches plastered all over your body.  NO idea what that would actually feel like but if it is vivid to the imagination it must be fun, right?  That’s what powers many a drunken dare, and that I do know from experience.

So let’s run that baby through the steps and see what it looks like when scrambled like a drunk kitten.

Scientists discover opera singers sound like apes on helium

See how much better that works?  That is something I can get behind.

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I am a huge fan of Oscar Wilde (as you can see by the recent tagline change to “A Gentleman is…”  So today here are a few (just a few) of my favorite quotes:

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.  – Oscar Wilde

How about that, eh?  I probably like that one because it strokes my geek ego.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.  – Oscar Wilde

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.  – Oscar Wilde

The idea that what you have done defines you now, but is in no way deterministic regarding the future, i.e. there is possibility of redemption, is comforting.  I may not be able to see the redeem-ability in others but the idea/ideal that it could be there is one that I like.

My favorite part about Wilde is that he saw a stark realism, and mocked it, yet you could tell he longed for his ideals.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.  – Oscar Wilde

Yes, he was a flamboyant individual with certain… tastes… which I don’t share, but I still like the guy.  I respect those who display a keen insight and an ability to craft words.

I think Wilde would agree with the notion:

We write what we are.  – Lemur King

If someone already said that then, well, damn.  But I am unaware of it being said before so I will claim it, for now.

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Thank you, FARK… I needed a third topic before moving on to the fourth one below.

A news story cannot be a good news story without an element of drama.

It was a case of show-and-tell gone wrong after a Fulton County elementary school teacher brought a poisonous spider to show her students – and one student was bitten.

Got the drama.  Check.  What about the tragedy?

It wasn’t even until later that evening that Jones realized something was wrong with her daughter. That’s when she collapsed.

All right, we got the tragedy.  Check.

Allegedly, the girl was pretty sick.  Her mother was quoted as saying:

“The doctor (said) it’s a fifty-fifty chance that she will pull through and a fifty-fifty chance she won’t,” Jones said.

So if my math/physics is right, there is a 25% chance she’ll live, a 25% chance she’ll die, and a 50% chance she’ll be in an indeterminate state between the two.  The poor girl is in a damned Schrodinger’s Box full of goddamned poisonous spiders.

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I am usually not going to link HuffPo, but the subject matter is choice.  Some people have to learn things the hard way.  Chowing down on hot peppers to steal them probably isn’t going to make an impact on this guy.

Shoplifter Marcus Banwell might have gotten away with stealing from a UK convenience store — if he hadn’t chowed down on some looted hot peppers in the store and started vomiting.

They found scotch bonnets on him, a milkshake, a clarinet, and heroin.  My guess is all of it was stolen except the heroin, which was probably legally obtained.

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