THE
ADDRESSING OF THE ISSUE OF THE FAILINGS OF BLOOD BANKS, DRIVES AND
DONATIONS WITH TOPICAL AND CONSIDERED SUGGESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MIGHT BE
DONE TO REMEDY THIS SERIOUS SITUATION WITH THE INCLUSION OF
SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED NOTATIONS FOR THE SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED OF
BRAIN.
|
INTRODUCTION:
It's
that time again and around my city the call has gone out.
“We
need blood!" they cry and "Give blood today!”
When
that doesn't work they switch to more pleading tones “Have you got
blood? Because we need it" or even
"Just
give us the red stuff and you will be instrumental in saving lives”
Before
finally falling back on that old favorite, the guilt trip.
“Remember
that the life you save might well be your own." [1]
It won't tell me when I have messages or missed calls except when it
cuts me off in the middle of a call to tell me that there are
messages waiting.
It
has an alarm which works, erratically (1).
But
I mean you've got to have a cellphone these days because, well just
because. Or do you? It might be that there are alternatives to
cellphones which have not being looked at in enough depth.
Alternatives, I might add, that are not only good for the environment
but also good for humanity in general (2).
/OPTION ONE –
BIRDS:
Now
when I say birds I'm really talking about pigeons and you might think
I mean of the homing variety but I'm not. The pigeons I'm talking
about are the ones that gather in the city squares and are also known
as flying rats. PRO: Good at surviving
Know
their way around the cities of the world.
CON:
Not
exactly the smartest of birds. (3) Or are they? The fact
that this bird has managed to survive and thrive in the brutal worlds
of nature and also in the concrete jungle strikes me as suspicious.
What are they hiding? What's their agenda? Clearly the pigeon can
not be trusted.
“But
what about other kinds of birds?” I hear you ask through the
specialized and expensive software that lurks in the depths of this
blog. “There are more kinds than Pigeons you know” Well I do
know and have considered different types of avian but even there we
seem to run into problems.
Obviously
we can't use anything from the Corvus branch – crows, ravens
magpies etc. Not because they've already been proven to be rather
high up on the intelligence scale but more because it would mean that
everyone would look like Highschool Goths (4) and any messages
sent would look like
“When
the black inky night spills into the depths of my soul. I look into
the face of the monster and say 'what's the point of it all and can
you pick up some milk on the way home tonight?' Luv Mum”
Perhaps
then, each country should use their national birds as their own
message carriers? (5) This too has it's
drawbacks as the American Bald Eagle clearly wouldn't deliver
messages that it felt weren't patriotic enough which means that any
message sent would look like
“America
Woo! Man I tell you, I love living in this, the greatest and best
country in the world. Any who doesn't like us is gonna have to deal
with me! There's a real raging fire in my heart for this great state
of ours and there's a real raging fire in this state of ours. Could
you come and put it out? Yours in truth, justice and the American
way forever”
Our
own national bird is the Kiwi. A type of bird that doesn't fly, only
comes out at night and might deliver some sort of garbled message in
a couple of days if it doesn't find something more interesting to do
(6).
As stated above: Our Avian brothers are clearly
not the answer.
/OPTION 2 – ROCK:
Rocks
are everywhere in this world, they're everywhere in outer space as
well which explains why Boybands and that Justin Bieber chick are
having such a hard time breaking into the cosmic market. (7).
But
how exactly can we use mere rock to pass on messages? Why it's
simplicity itself
STEP
1: Locate rock of sufficient size
STEP
2: Write message on rock of sufficient size.
STEP
3: Whilst carrying rock of sufficient size, now loaded with message.
Find person with whom you wish to communicate STEP 4: Throw rock
of sufficient size at person with whom you wish to communicate STEP
5: Await reply. STEP 6: Ouch STEP 7: Return to Step 1 until
conversation is concluded.
Now if the movies have taught me
anything it's that once people stop playing a sport they generally
live their lives in an alcoholic haze until they are called upon to
coach a ragtag team of underdogs (8) . But what we have
here is an opportunity. Since throwing rocks is the new form of
communication the retired baseball pitcher or cricket bowler could
easily get a job that allows them to transmit messages across the
country for long distance communications. This ensures that, when
they eventually return to the sport that they love so much, this is
going to be translated into bowling of bat shattering speeds
(9)
For obvious reasons this excludes Australians.
Feburary 1 1981:: Never Forget!
/OPTION
3 - NAMES:All right. From now on everyone gets a different
name. There is only one Tom, Tim, Istvaan, Oswold, Micky, Micheal,
Mike, etc in the entire world and on the basis that sooner or later
everyone knows everyone else (10) all anyone has to do is
pass on a message which will eventually get to the right person. How
do they know it's the right person? Because there's only one “Tim”
on the planet and someone knows him.(11)
Of
course we'll run into problems with this scheme as well since legally
changing your name is already a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork
and red tape and if you don't move quickly enough then you could be
stuck with a name that you don't want or worse, a name that you did
want, back when you were thirteen (12) Another issue is
that this effectively makes the messaging system an elaborate and
global version of Chinese Whispers which guarantees that when your
message reaches “Tim” it's either so very garbled as not to make
sense or has been changed entirely,
/NOTES:
and occasionally vomits pea soup while spinning round and shouting
“Your mother sews socks in heck!” but to be fair I did download that particular app.
Also for humanity in Specific. A country that, I'll remind you, is
nowhere near New Zealand, but shout out to my Specifican brothers!
You guys don't get no respect!
I know what you're thinking and no we can't monkey around with their
genetic structure. Didn't Charlton Hestons time among those damned
dirty apes teach you anything?
The worst kind!
I mean why else would we have them?
Like laundry.
Heartfelt thanks to Pink Floyd and David Bowie. They've guaranteed
that at least one aspect of the final frontier will be awesome.
Who may or may not also be depressed/disabled/girls or a gestalt
combination of all three
Because that's what India needs. More fast bowlers.
In the same way that Wikipedia insists that everyone knows
everything although if that is true then explain Student Loans.
“Oh yeah, he's the one that suggested throwing rocks at eagles. I
hate that guy!”
Remember
the type of stuff you were into when you were thirteen? Do you
really want your taxes done by Conan Thundercat Prime, the
invincible hero of the universe?
Before
I begin I'd just like to state that, while I don't have children I
did stand in a supermarket queue behind a mother who did and,
according to the internet, this now qualifies me as an expert on
parenting in general and children in specific (1)
That
being said I feel that I must point out that Babies cry. Babies cry,
alot. It appears to be one of the joys of parenting that they've
conveniently left out of the brochures. The thing of it is that
we've been around for a long time now and babies have been around
almost as long. You'd think that at some point in our history
someone would have come up with an idea or two to address the
problems of crying babies.
Anyone?
Looks
like it's up to me then.
PROBLEM 1: LOST IN TRANSLATION
The
problem as I see it is that their crying only serves the purpose of
getting them noticed and "Wah wah" covers such a wide range
of topics that its difficult to know whether they're saying "I'm
tired" or “Actually I'm rather concerned with the political
situation in the Middle East (2)"
Namby
Pamby Politically correct Solution:
Endeavor
to understand the body language of your child. Spend time with them
and show them the joy of the spoken word.
Jabberwockery
Solution:
Take
a stand from day one! They say you've got to speak your babies
language, well I ask you who brought them into this world? Who's
the one paying the bills until their eighteen? "If there's any
languages spoken in this household it'll be mine boyo!"
As
a last resort you could teach them charades but only if you need to
teach them the difference between "Get mummy a coffee" and
"Maybe you should start mopping the floor instead of just
sitting there"
Basic semaphore is also acceptable but only
if you live in the tropics and cant afford a punkahwallah
PROBLEM 2: IT'S ALL IN THE TONE
The
big problem is that when Baby A is crying and encounters Baby B this
will invariably start Baby B off as well and as the pair attempt to
outdo each other the number of babies grows exponentially until there
are no more babies in the world that aren't crying and you're getting
nasty phone calls from Russian parents who had only just managed to
put their little goulash factory to sleep.
Of course the
interesting thing about all of this is that no two babies actually
manage to hit the same note at the same time, or indeed at any time
(3).
Namby
Pamby Politically Correct Solution:
Children crying is just a fact
of life and one that everyone will go through. Eventually they grow
out of it but you might want to look up from the chardonnay from time
to time and perhaps get a secretary to deal with the deluge of angry
Russians (4)
Jabberwockery
Solution:
Right,
if we can't stop the noise then the least we can do is adjust the
problem and here at Jabberwockery we're all about adjusting the
problem (5)
Since
babies are going to cry anyway the thing to do is to teach them to do
it in harmony with each other. It'll be a difficult thing to
accomplish and will most likely involve a squad of music tutors
breaking down doors, confronting expectant mothers and demanding
impromptu duets
At
the very least we'll need to have lecture halls and studios added to
each hospital nursery. Sheet music will be provided on request (6).
PROBLEM 3: PROBLEM 2 REVISITED
Of
course no solution is free of further problems and I predict that the
mixing of musical styles may just lead us back to the problems of
babies crying at cross purposes but rather than being a global clash
of discordant voices this time it'll come off more like an 80's hair
metal (7) battle of the bands which nobody wants to listen to at
three in the morning.
Namby Pamby Politically Correct
Solution:
Babies making music are babies that are learning, This
is a proven scientific fact. You might invest in a set of earplugs
and disconnect your phone for a while but perhaps a better solution
is to engage your child and challenge them musically. Eventually
you'll be able to relax to the vocal style of your favorite artist
and your infant will receive all the attention that they want.
Jabberwockery
Solution:
Since we've got musical babies the only possible
solution is to produce a global baby orchestra where, through the use
of carefully tuned pointed sticks the babies are made to cry at
specific times in order to create something that might be called
music.
| NOTES:
in New Zealand actually. Look at a map and you'll see that we're
nowhere near Specifica.
”...perhaps
we might sit down and discuss it like two rational human beings?
What? Oh you're putting me to bed. Don't think I won't remember
this mother! You'll rue this day! Rue it I say!"
Just as interestingly when wolves howl at the moon they do the same
thing. It is a lupine faux pas to howl at the moon in the same key
as your neighbor. I don't know why this is because this week I'm an
expert on the Genus Babius Crawlus Messyus and not Lupus
Socialus Musicalus or indeed Mortisium Languigius: Latinium
Grammaticus
You can rabbit on about the political ins and
outs all day but this is how the cold war really got started. Learn
from history or be prepared to repeat it.
You'll note that I didn't say providing solutions because that's just
crazy talk.
But will be looked down on by children of the terminally hip.
There is a saying “violence never solves
anything” and it's often brought out after it's been proved wrong.This is generally because anybody who is old
enough to have the authority to say it isn't going to be present when the fight
actually starts.Ever.
It might have crossed your mind to wonder
exactly why a post on wildlife conservation opens with such a strange paragraph
[1]
Usually the literature from the “save the
planet” people launch with some statistic or fact about humans which is meant
to wake you up to the reality that humanity is very evil and takes a cartoonish
delight in destroying the planet.
If you read on further about how everyone is
killing everything it's easy to see that, were it not for the maxim of violence
not solving anything, all the other species of the world would have banded
together and put a stop to humanity long ago.
If you manage to make it through to the end
the final page is devoted to letting you know that by giving them money they
can help to save the Pandas.
I don't want anyone out there in the land of
Internet thinking that I'm picking on Greenpeace, The World Wildlife Fund or any
other such group because these organizations do an amazing job of keeping
things honest.
All that being said we can't go past the
fact that I grew up hearing
“Save the pandas! Save the pandas!” [2]
So why is it that 90% of the panda news is
yet another story about how the zookeepers are having trouble getting the giant
pandas to breed? [3]
It's easy enough to see why the panda gets
so much attention.they're cute, fluffy
and have apparently been in danger of dying out since forever ago, in other
words the perfect mascots.Now that I'm
older and being approached by people who are still after me to save them I
think it might be time to acknowledge that what we want from the Pandas is a
little bit of effort and perhaps a return on the investment. [4]
A few days ago my car
was very nearly involved in an encounter at an intersection. Nobody was hurt but the other driver was in
the wrong but simply sped away with his middle finger raised proudly
[1]
By the time I got home I had cooled down enough to stop swearing at him and settled down for a good hard think about road safety, the vehicles that we all use and how I can make it safer for everyone. [2]
I got into a rather philosophical discussion about gold recently (1)
The question was “If
you had a bar of pure gold. Could you destroy it so that it was
utterly gone? And you're not allowed to throw it into a black hole”
The black hole solution
is a pretty common solution for solving debates round our way but
this one occasion I'd forgotten to pack it.
Every suggestion I had
was shot down by David saying “but you could reconstitute it on the
atomic level” and then looking smug because he thought that he'd
finally been able to stump me. But fear not loyal readers because
I've been thinking about this a bit (2) and have, in fact, devised
three surefire methods for getting rid of gold when you've forgotten
to bring your handy dandy black hole.
Now because David is
going to be reading this I'd like to assure him that I have put quite
a bit of thought into each of these theories before posting them.
After all you can't just slap together a bunch of loony statements
and call it a day! (3)
Theory One:
Change
the language. A rose may small as sweet by any other name but it
does change the surface of the problem, chiefly that you're supposed
to be getting rid of this stuff you've gotten hold of is merely
Grundlewort rock (4).
The metal in question
has ceased to be gold and thus been gotten rid of although the
problem of removing the word gold from every language in the world
will no doubt require a tardis, some Daleks (5)
and a willing partner
to distract the Doctor by saying “hey Look over there!” whenever
he starts to wonder where the big blue box has gotten to.
But I would like to
point out, no black hole.
Theory Two:
As it seems that the
Tardis has manage to elude us and I'm not crazy enough to try and
pinch the one that belongs to the master we are forced to take a
different approach.
Now it seems that back
in the days of yore the ultimate dream of any alchemist worth his
alembeck was to turning of base metals into noble ones. To whit,
lead into gold, This would lead to them being rich, powerful and
suddenly extremely handsome.
Pictured: Typical Alchemist
Due to the technology
of the time none of them suceeded, or if they did then they kept it
well under their hat. However if we were to use modern technology
then it is possible that we could very well discover that formula
which so eluded them.
Now you might very well
be saying “Hang on. All he's doing is making more of the horrible
stuff. I want to get rid of it!”
This statement has
indeed hit the nail on the head, but here's something that you might
not have considered. There are positive and negative versions of
everything and if there's a formula for changing lead into gold then
it follows that there must be one to change gold back into lead.
The next step is to put
yourself in a hypnotic state and deliberately command yourself to
forget the equation. Thus leaving you with a lump of lead and that
annoying feeling you get when you've forgotten something important
(6)
A Post hypnotic trigger will ensure that, should you be
captured by certain parties who demand the formula, all you will be
able to give them is a complex formula that ultimately does nothing
more than turn them into the fluffier kind of duckling. At which
point I guarantee they will suddenly have more pressing concerns than
all the gold in the world.
Theory three:
This is the one theory
that David didn't like, mainly because it managed to stand on its own
despite his many, many attempts to riddle it with more holes than the
montage at the end of The Godfather.
Step 1: Turn the gold
into guitar strings of various sizes and thickness
Step 2: Sell these
strings to musicians the world over and donate the proceeds to
charity (7)
Conclusion: The gold is
now destroyed, over time the strings will snap, be replaced and
eventually thrown away, while there might be a lingering urban myth
about golden strings it isn't one that anyone will ever take
seriously.
Thus if they are at the
local landfill or toxic waste dump and happen to see a guitar string
hanging from the bonnet of an old car their first thought isn't going to be “I
wonder if that's one of the golden guitar strings I've heard about”
followed by them frantic digging through the dumps of the world in
order to track down the rest of the fabled strings (8)
-
The more you know!
The chemical that you
really want to use is callled Aqua Regia (Royal water) which is a
highly corrosive mixture of acids that will dissolve gold and even
platinum. It is not recommended that you test this out on your
grandmothers wedding ring.
Afterthought:
This post details the how but it doesn't address the why. Exactly what dark and insane purpose could there be in wanting to destroy something utterly? We can only look to the skies in the vain and futile hope that there might be salvation to be found.
Notes:
If you knew David
then you'd know that this is pretty much par for the course
It's not even real
grundlwort, That's fools grundlwort you've got there
Because everythings
better with Daleks
You know that song
you can't remember? The one that goes “Da da de dum something
something loved her” That. For the rest of your life
Since it could be
argued that the money you've made from the selling of the gold is an
aspect of the gold remaining. I'm just covering all the bases here.
Unless it's a Saturday morning cartoon but I think that's rather outside my
jurisdiction.
