Just like you. But less Hideous

So I finally broke down and went to the doctor today.  (Not The Doctor, sadly, as you can tell from my not posting this from 1734) and found out that what I have is in fact a sinus infection.

Some antibiotics and waiting it out are pretty much all I can do, so I did what any rational person (or dog) would do and immediately bought the kind of cough syrup  that immediately knocks you off your ass, onto the couch and glassily staring at bad television.

Which brings me to that never ending string of 'team investigates haunted mine/house/Duvet Showroom' programs that seem to be all that basic cable makes anymore.

In many ways these have replaced our previous obsession with crime/kidnapping re-enactments.  Decide for yourself if this is progress.

What struck me, as I lay there in what must be admitted was a fairly pleasant fog, was how in such shows they frequently have the actual person who claims this crap happened to them being interviewed, interspersed with re-enactment clips of the events being described.  And this just draws attention to one undeniable truth;  'Re-enactment' you is always thinner and prettier than 'actual' you.

It's like the program makers are trying to say, 'Sure - the walls were running with blood...  but look how GREAT you'd look if you lost 50 pounds and did something with those bangs!'

Not cool, reality TV people.  Not Cool.

Great Expectorations

First off, I apologize for that title.  Apparently one side effect of the constant intake of cough syrup is a significant lowering of my pun-threshold.

As you might have picked up on in the previous sentence, for the last three weeks I've been going through more than a drop or two of cough syrup as one or both of my lungs attempts to systematically flee my body through my esophagus. 

Over that time I flatter myself that I've become something of an authority on cough syrup.  And should there ever be an episode of Bones that requires an expert witness in that field I look forward to being called, as I have a tenuous grasp on the differentiation between Television and Reality.

I began the journey using a brand that I won't mention by name in order to not get sued, which was advertised as having the flavor of 'honey', but could be more accurately described as the flavor of  'rancid ass'.  I suppose the quality time gagging and attempting to not vomit did successfully distract me from coughing.

From there I went to a brand that I'm going to go ahead and call Robitussin, as I don't plan on saying anything libelous about them.  Nice cherry flavor.  A bit on the viscous side, but that's what one gets when one drinks cough syrup.  My only real complaint is that the bottle was a bit smaller than the Bottle o' Butthole and yet was slightly more expensive.

I was however gratified that I could still get it off the shelf by myself and didn't have to go to the pharmacy with an ID and a sperm sample to purchase some.  (I'm looking at YOU, Claritin...)

After that I thought I'd save a bit of money and get the in-store generic off-brand equivalent of Robitussin, because I am occasionally cheap.  Unfortunately, due to the convention of changing the first syllable of the brand name product to the in store brand name meant that I ended up buying a bottle of 'up-tussin', which is exactly what I stopped taking the first syrup to avoid.

Vizsla Flashback - 17 Limericks about Orthography

Back on July 11th, 2013, I accidentally typed 'Limericks' when I really meant 'Haikus'

But once it was typed I felt obligated to roll with it.

This was the result

(Side note - Writing 17 Limericks takes longer than you expect it will...)

Today, because I am totally willing to discuss the subject at the drop of a hat and because I have the vaguest of feelings like I'm supposed to be celebrating something today but have forgotten what, I hereby declare today to be that most important holiday on the Vizsla calendar -

Celebration of Orthography through Limericks day!

 It's the study of the systems by which a spoken language is represented in written form, 

me laddies and lassies!  Ta loo rah loo rah loorah!

1

There once was a study of writin'

into which your teeth really could bite in

It's Ortheographic

How words move like traffic

And I for one find it delightin'

2

Poetry's long been around

As a story form it's main renown

-you can eas'ly relate

 Keeping all your facts straight

Without writing anything down

3

The Egyptians, they took some papyrus

they said 'One day all folk will admire us

Our Cuneiform 

will take off like a storm

And then spread through the world like a virus!'

4

One day the Romans invaded

Into Britain, but found themselves jaded

The Saxons could speak

But their contracts were weak

without having writing like they did.

5

For the spoken to written transition

every language must take a position

if your language's just oral

you're certain to quarrel

and have no way to take a petition

6

I can hear what you're saying, it's true

But I feel that I'm certain to rue

Without getting it written

I'm telling you, Kitten

You'll forget it by quarter to two.

7

Slavic Language is wrote in cyrillic

An alphabet not quite idylic

cause when I write a 'P'

it's an 'R' that they see

And that makes me feel like quite a pillock

8

Our alphabet's root are phoenecian

But Cyrillic's are found to be grecian

The differences lie

to be found by and by

in the width of the Caspian Sea-shin.

(I apologize for that one.  I really do.  I'm sorry you had to read that)

9

Our relationship, you must agree

Can be compared linguistically

In Voiced/Voiceless despair

of our consonant pair

I'm am clearly the P to your B

(OK - you probably have to be a huge linguistics geek to appreciate that one, but trust me - It is some funny shit.  I swear)

10

Our system of writing is Roman

But when looked at, might make you say 'Whoa, man,

The H and the T

In no way line up to be

The 'th' sound that we use it it show, man!'

(This has bothered me for some time.)

11

Contracts once were recorded on clay

To be kiln dried and stored for the day

That the terms had been gleaned

then the pot could be cleaned

and then used to store Oil of Olay

(Ok - this one is in no way true.  Outside of the fact that such clay pot contracts did, in point of fact, predate the este lauder company by some three thousand years, they simply wouldn't have done such a thing.  Fun fact though - they did actually write the contract out on two clay pots and seal one inside the other, so that if there was any accusation of it being changed they could crack open the outside pot and double check it on the inner one.  Suck it, Dan Brown!)

12

Of all of the forms of linguistics

to have fascinated fakirs and mystics

Orthographical study

Is my favorite buddy

And I'm sorry, but that sounded too sad to even continue on with a last line, even if I had come up with a second rhyme for 'Linguistics'

13

There once was a scribe from Nantucket...

uhm... never mind that one...

14

To write was once just for the priesthood

It allowed them to document feasts good (ouch... sorry about that...)

Now we're all out of joint

But there once was a point

when our high school graduates at least could.

(Note: I didn't say they were 17 good Limericks about Orthography.)

15

Fricative, labial, or glottal

They could all drive a man to the bottle

But at least I can say

at the end of the day

that I totally got away with a legitimate use of the term 'labial' a few lines ago.  

Boom.  That just happened.

16

Though it might make you say 'la di dah'

I've a keyboard fact stuck in my craw

I could sit here all day

but would still have no way

to correctly type in a nice Schwa

(it's the the upside down 'e' thing.  It's derived from a Hebrew notation and refers to the vowel sound you make when you just don't care anymore.)

17

Orthographic variations are neat

Modern language is, with them, replete

there's still much more to show

but my British fans know

that this limerick list is compleat.

(And today we learned that 17 limericks is too many to try to write on any particular topic.)

Tomorrow, one hopes, sanity returns.

A Few Retractions

In my zest to consistently bring you new and interesting fun facts to know and share, occasionally - just occasionally mind you, I may have published a statement or two that - while I wouldn't go so far to label them as 'wrong' per se, could be interpreted as enthusiastically non-verifiable.

To that point, it's come the time to print some retractions for a view of my more - shall we say - potentially actionable errors

-It appears that the role of Cindy Brady on TV's The Brady Bunch was played by Susan Olsen, and not - as previously claimed, Mimi Van Pantyhausen

-Apparently Peter Boyle never actually played Catwoman

-It turns out that Turkmenistan is a real country

-The answer was 'C', not 'D'

-Michelle Bachmann was never, it turns out, married to Hitler.  

-After further study it's been discovered that people who stop at the end of the acceleration lane actually are the anti-christ.

-It's perfectly possible to have more than one nemesis.  

-You should go to the doctor to get that looked at.

I apologize for these errors and assure the public that ever effort is made to confirm all randomly made up crap before hitting the 'Publish' button.

And I don't even like Tennessee Williams

I'm going to start by apologizing to Jef.  It's true man.  I just don't care for Mssr. Williams.  I've been trying to find a way to break it to you.  That said, I still totally respect the festival and we're still totally cool, right?  Because I might still need that kidney...

At work, in the lunchroom, there's what we call a 'Free Table'  This is a table (hence the name) where people can leave any old thing on the principle that you never know who else out there might want it if it's free.

A few months back I observed that someone had left a fairly ridiculous wooden seal on the free table, and because I am a big enthusiast of the ridiculous I picked it up and set it on top of the filing cabinet in my office.

The following day I walked into my office to find that he had been joined by a friend - A similarly carved wooden whale that was in no way in scale with the seal. 

I thought that this was odd at the time, but just rolled with it because the universe is vast and complicated and sometimes impossible things just happen - as you may have heard.

It was therefore with some additional surprise a few days later when a glass whale showed up to join them. 

And then a rhino.

Then a horse.

Then an elephant,  giraffe, and a larger metal chicken which I am taking as a direct reference to the Bloggess, in that it was holding a sign reading 'KKMF'

This is what the cabinet-based menagerie looks like at this stage-

The original Seal

The Whale Friend he invited over.

(Note - seals are not customarily twice the size of your average sperm whale.)

Beyonce-lite.  The reference to the funniest story you'll ever read on the Internet

The thing I cannot stress enough here - I have absolutely no idea where these are coming from.  I don't know if they're all from the same person, or from multiple sources, or falling through a crack in time and space or what.  Every week or so I'll notice that someone new has shown up and it reminds me that I should have paid more attention to Thidwick the Bighearted Moose.

That Otter do it. Oh God, I am so sorry for that....

Seriously.  I actively tried to prevent myself from typing that post title.  I really tried.  I'm weak. 

As part of our continuing observation of national Sea Otter Awareness weeK (n-SOAK.  You know you want to start using that acronym.) I thought that it might be germane to talk a bit about people who latch on to a particular totem animal.

Now, I'm not talking about your inadvertent animal collectors.  To quote arch-villain The Deadly Bulb (aka Pig Leg), you know how it goes - one person gives you a pig statue, and then someone else assumes you like that sort of thing and gets you another and before you know it you have no choice but to buy a hutch.

No, I'm talking about the people who actively embrace the animal in question (not literally, in the case of polar bears).  Now, on the one hand it actually makes Christmas and Birthday shopping significantly easier for these people, so it has that going for it.  On the other hand, the time necessary to set aside for dusting can be a real killer*.  And on the other hand, which is actually a foot, who are we to judge, right?  And on the other hand, which is the other foot, I personally own the entire run of Doctor Who 1963-present on both VHS and DVD (minus of course the 106 missing episodes from the mid sixties, obviously), and I actually had one further point but am out of hands and feet and everything after that gets inappropriate.

*I know... for no particular reason...

No, the real issue at hand is the relatively small number of animals that tend to get chosen. 

-Polar Bears, as mentioned - So cute you might not mind being torn up and eaten
-Penguins (as seen here having a fun adventure with pirates)
-Eagles - for your patriotic and free spirited sort
-Wolves - These are much less likely to appear in statue form, and are mainly to be found in framed artwork.
-Hippos - For some reason that I do not personally understand, because hippos are frickin' mean.
-Pigs - Which I think are meant to be some sort of ironic statement.

Other than your occasional Moose or Fox enthusiast, those are pretty much your choices.

Which is why I feel comfortable with my relatively recent otter-obsession. 

On that note - I present today's attempt at Origami Sea Otter. 

I found a different pattern, that I feel has some pluses and some minuses. 

His name is Steve.  He and Buck are friends from school. 

I use this as an excuse to once again mention that the collective noun for a group of Otters is a Romp.

Tune in tomorrow for the story of the unplanned office menagerie...

I'm sorry, they're doing what now?

I'm trying to decide is the existence of the Internet is a sign of the progress of our society, or a sign of it's imminent collapse.

It began with a blog entitled - 'Sports Balls replaced by Cats'.  Which was exactly what the name says.

Someone has taken the time to lovingly photoshop sports photos, removing the athlete's balls (easy there Shriner...) and replacing them with cats. 

Now, I don't actually have mad photoshop skills (or indeed, any, photoshop skills) so I can't say for certain what sort of time commitment that such an endeavor involves, but the fact remains.  Someone of there is spending their time doing this.

And someone else is running a blog dedicated to nothing but showing picture of men taking up too much space on the subway.  Which seems curiously specific to me.  (Apparently it recently featured some guy off of Game of Thrones, which I refuse to emotionally invest in until I get some sort of reassurance that George isn't going to die before he gets around to finishing it.)


The jury is in, people.  It's come down firmly on the side of imminent collapse.