cunning linguists

laptop keyboards, although crowded and not exactly ergonomic, teach us important lessons about grammar.
one such important lesson involves contractions. not childbirth contractions. literary contractions. can't you get your mind out of the gutter for a single second? i guess it really is me with my mind in the gutter to assume that you were thinking aah nevermind let us move on, shall we?
today my flat, featureless jerk of a laptop keyboard proved that i need to avoid contractions at all costs. every time i try to write 'don't' or 'can't' i end up hitting the enter key instead of the apostrophe (because they are butt buddies on keyboards) and i end the phrase prematurely. on regular keyboards this isn't an issue because each key is well defined in its own little private zone of finger touching. even the keys on my phone are designed well enough to allow touch typing with few errors. not on a macbook pro. this mistake causes confusion for the person i am conversing with, and agonizing frustration on my end as i try to hit the correct key and simultaneously explain my idiot mistake. maybe i am just completely haphazard with my typing, but no. mario was a great teacher, between all those trails through oregon. a doctor contracting dysentery was an 80s child's first delicious taste of irony.
i learned two important things today.
one is that you should just write out the words instead of shortening everything with apostrophes, because it keeps the flow of your typing at a much more satisfactory pace.
the second thing i learned is that maybe you should not be so damn negative all the time.
most contractions involve the word 'not' and there are only a few outside of that paradigm, such as 'let us' and "i am".
go look it up. no, in a real book. do you think wikipedia is fool-proof?

funundrum

onomatopoeia.
this is one of the longest, most vowel-dense words in the english language, especially of the words that describe the workings of the language itself.
an onomatopoeia is any word that describes a sound or action, such as bang or crash or meow. i find in interesting that this twelve letter word describes a large majority of the shorter english words we subconsciously use every day. you probably thought of a few just now while reading this.
boom.
i guess poop could technically be considered an onomatopoeia depending on you location while you take the kids to the pool. or take the browns to the superbowl. or drop a deuce. whatever you want to call it.
anyone else find it amusing that the onomatopoeia we associate with canine communication is also the word for the part of trees that dogs urinate on?

selfish and blind

michael hofreiter of the max planck institute for evolutionary anthropology in germany was not involved in the recent study of the woolly mammoth's decoded genome, but he seems to possess the most intelligence regarding the matter.
while other scientists are busying themselves planning the artificial insemination of elephants with mammoth dna and wetting themselves at the possibility of an ice age themed exhibit worthy of michael crichton, hofreiter is a welcome voice of reason:
"the tons of money you would need to resurrect a mammoth would probably be better spend saving endangered species."
yes! thank you!
if there were more scientists like this guy, the world would be a much better place. I know, that's a typical statement but hear me out. well you're still reading this so I assume you are willing and able.
a scientist who was involved in this study was quoted talking about making the leap to cloning humans and that his new clone basketball team would be unbeatable. let's ignore the possibly stereotypical undertones and focus on his idea as a whole. bringing woolly mammoths back into our global ecosystem is a terrible idea, both for humans and mammoths, not to mention the almost infinite number of other species on our planet. yes, we find new species every month. so stop dredging the ocean floor for appetizers, because you're killing animals before we can ever discover them. earth cannot support mammoths because the climate they need does not exist anymore. that is why they went extinct. oh, we'll just replicate the environment in a controlled area, you say? you read how well that worked out in jurassic park. or saw how well it worked out in speilberg's film adaptation. or both, if you find dinosaurs as fascinating as i do. sidebar: many of the principal dinosaurs featured in the crichton novel were not alive during the jurassic period, but i guess 'cretaceous park' doesn't have the same ring to it. i recall reading an entire book about why the major ideas of jurassic park would not work at all, and i'm actually very happy about that. on a side note, the 'executive bathroom' in the most recent family guy episode was one of the funniest parodies i've ever seen.
tangent alert! retreat! retreat! run away!
ah yes, the funny scientist. i applaud his attempt at humor, but I don't think his backers are paying him to joke around. you don't buy microsoft windows to play minesweeper.
we need to focus our efforts on the species we are wiping out, not species that were naturally killed off. hey, if researching mammoths will help with stabilizing elephant populations, I'm all about it. but it's not even necessary if we can simple curb the poaching appetites of so many cultures. i understand if hunting is a ritual for a society, but i think if such activities cause an entire species to dip low enough in number that their reproduction rate cannot match our murder rate, we need to put up a firm stop sign.
the funds being put into cloning (especially for cloning humans; there are enough of those smelly creatures milling about) experiments need to be refocused into research that will help stabilize species pushed to extinction by our own selfish faults.
seals killed by oil spills is not natural selection (oil spills, don't even get me started on oil spills).
birds relocated and starved by deforestation is not natural selection.
rhinos hunted to the edge of oblivion for the psychosomatic sexual effects of their horns is not natural selection.
maybe human dominance is the way nature intended it, you counter. maybe we are supposed to eliminate these species for the good of the globe. well to that i say, no. just, no...
speaking of oil spills, isn't the entire concept of an 'oil spill' enough evidence that this viscous substance should not be our major fuel source? we are working on a few viable replacements for petroleum products, and one or two are definitely promising, but diverting prime edible crops to fuel companies is definitely not one I support. corn-based ethanol is almost as wasteful as traditional oil. any natural materials that result from millions of years of underground pressure and heat are, by definition, limited in supply. unfortunately demand still rules our economy, so go buy the newest hummer. it's the most fuel efficient hummer yet.
this is the part where i'm obligated to make some pretentious, caustic analogy regarding that painfully common car company oxymoron, but I think i'll let it speak for itself.

refrigerator grammar

when you're limited on vowels, you must scour, substitute and sacrifice. or just follow popular internet trends and omit chunks of words completely in favor of comically illiterate innocence.
for the record, i made healthy contributions to this fridge doctrine, and i stand by the results.

idiot savant, sans savant

today's dismally idiotic mental blunder involved a clashing of high-tech and low-tech.
enter a 21st century wash room and you're greeted with the latest in motion sensing electronics. toilets, sinks and hand dryers all bow to your warm-blooded will as you go through the motions of semi-antiseptic bathroom activities. by 1900 on the clock on a monday the higher brain functions have all but vanished and we are left with the scantest traces of decision-making power. bring a half-eaten pizza pie and a book into the watercloset with you and it's a whole new game.
where do you put the pizza box during the quick end-of-the-day bladder draining?
not on the floor, that's gross.
no fold out table for changing babies. not even an option. (how unfriendly to new parents!)
hold the pizza while you urinate? hardly sanitary, and high level of difficulty. plus a terrible level of failure if dropped.
the sink!
the flat metal plateau looks dry and perfect. praise modernism.
but now the automatic sink has failed you as it showers your perfect pizza protector with an icy waterfall. horror races through your nerves as you instinctively search for the faucet with which to stop the evil cascade. where is the knob? where is the handle? where is any semblance of mechanical control over this devilish chrome monster? oh yea it's automatic. the pizza box is tripping the sensor, ruining your food vessel with every passing attosecond. by this time 50% of the cardboard is a dark mushy mess, unfit for its duty. it's only been 6 seconds! grab the pizza! snatch it away from the downpour but it's already far too late.
your frown hurts almost as much as your stupidity. how many times have you been in this bathroom? deep sigh of helpless regret. balance the laughable excuse for leftovers across two sinks.
never a more sheepish pee in my life.