pseudo-sonnet of sand

drag a stick through the grains,
trace a pattern in the sand.
a deft twist, a looping whorl,
it all makes sense in the sand.

what if, what if, we could eat
all of this? all this sand?
it's perfect, don't you see?
loaves and cakes all made of sand.

crunchy and healthy it would be
if people could digest sand.
it'll pass on through your duodenum
and scrub you clean, it would, this sand.

squeeze it out in dollops or coils,
looks the same coming out, just like sand.
but covered in mucus and other good stuff
giving it the appearance of stickier sand.

mold it, shape it, roll yourself a ball.
with it you can make a castle of sand.
crenellations and merlons galore!
maybe even a portcullis of sand.

drag a stick 'round yon castle.
dig a deep moat in the sand.
that which was dug out be the food
for widows and kids yearning for sand.

subjugate your sphincter

"Civilization rests on two things," said Hitzig; "the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?"
"Fermentation is undoubtedly science," said Gyllenborg; "but voluntary inhibition must be psychology, and if anybody suggests that psychology is a science I shall scream."
"No, no; you are on my ground now," said Stromwell; "inhibition of defecation is in essence a theological matter, and unquestionably one of the effects of the Fall of Man. And that, as everybody now recognizes, means the dawn of personal consciousness, the separation of the individual from the tribe, or mass. Animals have no such power of inhibition, as every stage manager who has to get a horse on and off stage without a mishap will assure you. Animals know themselves but dimly - even more dimly than we, the masters of the world. When Man ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge he became aware of himself as something other than a portion of his surroundings, and he dropped his last, carefree turd, as he, with wandering steps and slow, from Eden took his solitary way. After that he had, literally, to mind his step, not to speak of his Ps and Qs."

- Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels (1981)

go, go gadget-goggles

normally i spend a lot of time with my head up, looking about. movement here, sparkly-something there. and that's fine and dandy. now and then i check up on what's going on under the surface, and truth be told, it's often more interesting, albeit murkier. lately i've spent a little more time observing the underwater life with the help of my goggles, which cuts the murk and blocks annoying particulates from irritating my eyes. things are getting busy.

meowth used thief!

i've been trying for awhile to appropriate a thick club for my marowak with my sticky pawed meowth. the annoying thing is that FireRed/LeafGreen doesn't have pokemon that learn thief naturally available, so i had to waste the TM.
oh, for those unfamiliar with what i'm talking about:
pokemon are allowed to hold one item each. the move 'thief' allows the user to steal the held item of the opposing pokemon if the user is not carrying anything. it also deals some damage (very little really).
some items are rare and can only be found held by wild pokemon. there are two ways to go about taking this item. a) thief and b) capture said pokemon. now i can't be bothered to fill my pc boxes with failed attempts, not to mention that each pokeball costs $200+.
thick clubs are one of those special pokemon-specific items. it DOUBLEs the attack of the CUBONE, or the evolved form MAROWAK, that is holding it. needless to say, that is generally a good thing. thick clubs appear only on a small percentage of wild cubone/marowak. there is also no indicator on the screen to show whether a wild pokemon is holding an item or not. thus it gets tedious. in addition, the only locations i have access to cubones or marowaks have them appear very infrequently.
compounded to this is meowth's pickup ability, allowing it to 'pick up' items while walking around. sometimes if i'm not paying attention and a marowak shows up, i try to switch to meowth only to find her holding an item already. this can be easily rectified by letting meowth evolve into a PERSIAN, who no longer has the pickup ability. but pickup has its uses and i'm too stingy to catch another meowth.

in other news, i caught a chansey (very rare!) in LeafGreen on the first foray into the Safari Zone, with only 1 safari ball (very lucky!). on top of that, it was carrying a LUCKY PUNCH (raises chance for critical hits by chansey)!! pokemon players reading this will curse me liberally for my good fortune. just like they cursed and revered that guy who caught MEWTWO without battling and with just a GREAT BALL or the guy that caught a chansey without trying on the first safari ball carrying a LUCKY EGG (doubles gained experience points)!!!!!!!!.

"Pujols has to be the worst name ever. might as well be named Anus." - Herman, on Albert Pujols' terrible last name.

Superman's Dead

oh why-e-i-e-i-e, is Superman dead?

Click title for the article.

phraseology

today we'll be looking at the phrase "half-assed".

let's start be disassembling the phrase into it's constituent words, courtesy of dictionary.com
half (hf, häf)
n. pl. halves (hvz, hävz)
1. One of two equal parts that together constitute a whole.
2. One part approximately equal to the remaining part.
[Middle English, from Old English healf. See skel- in Indo-European Roots.]


half is a fractional term: in dividing something into two identical portions, each portion is considered a half.

ass (s)
n. pl. ass·es (sz)
1. Any of several hoofed mammals of the genus Equus, resembling and closely related to the horses but having a smaller build and longer ears, and including the domesticated donkey.
2. A vain, self-important, silly, or aggressively stupid person.
[Middle English asse, from Old English assa, perhaps of Celtic origin, ultimately from Latin asinus.]

ass is the general blanket term for a group of animals mainly used in agricultural times as beasts of burden.

coined in the late 20th century, 'half-assed' is usually used to connotate a lack of effort. thus if one were to guage an unsatisfactory performance that fell short of the apparent potential of the performer, one would say, "that was half-assed."

back in said agricultural times, when the ass was a beast of burden, it came to represent effort. from that came this phrase to express that a hypothetical bar of effort, or ass, was only partially filled. now why wasn't the phrase 'part-assed' instead? well, the 'half' half of the phrase was a cheeky reference to the ulterior slang meaning of ass - that being the buttocks, or the glutamus maximus. as you may well know, the buttocks are divided into halves by a muscular fissure so as not to impede the movement of individual legs.

expect to see this phrase evolve in the future to encompass zero-effort performances.
"dude, that was so assless."
"no ass whatsoever."
likewise, for the full-efforted:
"i am impressed. it was very whole-assed."
"wow, total-ass!"
"good job. you were all-assed."
or even, "that was assed!"

MISSING: this tact of mine

a few weeks ago i lost my mouth filter. i don't know where it went.
not as limber as i used to be, i can't even put my foot in my mouth.
my knack for finding the most off-colour, most bohemian, and really
the most insensitive comments are now being vocalized glibly.
enjoy it while it lasts. it will be mostly boring once i find it again.