14Jan / 2011

The life-changing implications of the recent astrological correction

You have no doubt heard about the recent correction of the zodiac. If not, dates were changed and a sign was added – Ophiuchus, the man wrestling with a snake.

This of course has many implications. My first thought was, tattoo artists are going to have a busy year fixing tattoos.

Here are the dates:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
Pisces: March 11-April 18.
Aries: April 18-May 13.
Taurus: May 13-June 21.
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

(Dates copied from the discussion at metafilter, which is very entertaining.)

Hearing this led me to devise a hypothesis, which I tested this afternoon at the local supermarket.

(Hang on, be right back.)

(Okay, I’m back.)

This was my hypothesis. Even if you don’t believe in astrology, at some point you learn your sign and read a list of personality traits associated with that sign. Either they fit or they don’t. If they fit, they reinforce those traits. If they don’t, the misalignment creates tension. You try to act in accordance with those traits. Or you act in accordance with them, but the discord makes you unhappy. And so on.

My hypothesis is, for those of us who find ourselves with a different sign as a result of the changed dates above, acting in accordance with the new, more accurate personality traits will make us happier.

I tried this at the store on my lunch break.

My old sign and traits: Taurus – dependable, loyal, persistent, generous, patient; stubborn, lazy, possessive, materialistic, self-indulgent.

My new sign and traits: Aries – independent, generous, optimistic, enthusiastic, courageous; moody, short-tempered, self-involved, impulsive, impatient.

All my life, for example, I’ve been telling myself I was patient because Taureans are patient, while I am in fact the least patient person I know. So at the store today, when some dozy lady blocked the aisle with her cart while deciding which yogurt she needed, I barged around her instead of making myself wait.

And it felt so right!

The scales fell from my eyes.

My hypothesis requires further testing, of course. Generous appears in both lists, yet I am stingy and selfish. At the same time, the negative attributes of both signs are equally accurate. However, I am optimistic about this idea (optimistic! That’s an Aries trait!). Taurus is an earth sign. When I was a kid I thought I should like pottery and gardening. I sucked at pottery, though. I made a lizard once that didn’t look much like a lizard. And gardening! You should see my yard. I hate gardening! Now I can say it! My apple tree is in dire need of pruning, and I haven’t trimmed my shrubs in years. I say it’s so the hedgehogs have a nice place to hang out, but I’m just a lazy gardener (not because I’m a lazy Taurean, but because gardening never appealed to me!). And Aries is a fire sign, and I’m a huge pyromaniac. Huge.

So I have a good feeling about this one.

Permalink 9 Comments

11Dec / 2010

The interpretation of dreams

1. I am in the living room, Gamma is beside me on the sofa. The cat is going mad with a drinking straw, clawing the underside of the sofa. I slap the back of the sofa and tell the cat she’s making it hard to concentrate on ‘Inception’ which we are trying to watch.

2. No, wait, that’s reality, the top stopped spinning and fell over.

3. Alpha and I were at Gamma’s school. Despite her forgery tendency, all her teachers like her, except maybe the boring one who doesn’t like anything, and her grades are okay.

4. No, wait, the top stopped spinning again.

5. A dark-haired woman in a white dress was kind to me. We had a nice, long conversation.

6. My daughter was stuck in a house with lion and I had a plan to get it out, the lion.

7. Physicists were flying around with jetpacks. Which looked like barstools, and were very quick and maneuverable.

8. I played two recognizeable (to me) songs on the saw (Red River Valley and You Are My Sunshine – my dad used to sing them all the time. It was his birthday recently.). No, wait, the top…

9. Something else I can’t recall. My eyes hurt, I’m going to bed. But I’ll drive the van into the river first, just to be sure.

Permalink 1 Comment

09Dec / 2010

Julian Assange, interviewed by Sigmund Freud on the most awesome things of 2010

Sigmund Freud: So, Mr. Assange, you are ze most awesome sing of 2010, I have been told.

Julian Assange: Well, in fact…

Freud: Vell, not you literally, I mean WikiLeaks, your brainchild, is ze most awesome sing.

Assange: Well, yes, but WikiLeaks actually originated in 2006. So to what extent it is a *thing* of 2010 might be debatable.

Freud: You have authority issues, no?

Assange: Do you want to go there, Dr. Freud? After all, who invented the fetish, you or I?

Freud [chuckles]: And ver would ze Internet be vissout fetishes?

Assange: My vote for most awesome thing of 2010 would have to be either Janelle Monáe or the headscratcher.

Freud: Headscratcher?

Assange: That springy metal thing that looks like a cross between a spider and a tiara. God.

Freud: Of course.

Assange: Seriously. Give it a go.

Freud: I have my pipe.

Assange: A headscratcher is better.

Freud: Even wiss an oral fixation?

Assange: Hands down. Here we are. Here’s a picture:

Permalink 2 Comments

14Oct / 2010

The smallest man in the world

The smallest man in the world is twenty-nine inches and a little bit.

The smallest man in the world wasn’t always the smallest man in the world. He woke up one morning and suddenly was, because the other smallest man in the world passed away.

Also the smallest man in the world wasn’t always small. He was a normal kid. He was six feet tall, once, as an adult. But then, one day, he woke up noticeably smaller.

Perceptibly smaller, as opposed to imperceptibly smaller. He woke up about a percent smaller. If you’re six feet tall, that’s over half an inch. He woke up five eleven and almost a half. Still an okay height, you think, but enough of a difference to feel it.

The next day, another percent. He was only five eleven, or just under.

The doctors told him he had retrograde enhancement syndrome. He said it sounded like a spam header. The smallest man in the world said, why don’t they just call it “shrinking”?

The specialists said, because “shrinking” isn’t in the book, so the insurance companies don’t cover it. But RES is in the book. Count your blessings.

What was happening was, everything dissolved while he slept, bones and stuff, and then gelled again before he woke up. It was an entropic process, so a little was lost each time. About one percent. Not sleeping didn’t help, either, he tried that. The only difference was he was tired and shrinking.

And now here he was, in specially tailored clothes, twenty nine inches and a little, walking down the street. Otherwise he looked about the same. A little flatter. Kind of pale. Black hair. Sometimes he thought, put on red lipstick and he’d look like Robert Blake in that David Lynch movie.

It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves were golden, there were no dogs or leaf blowers. Just sunshine and blue sky.

Sunshine and blue sky.

The smallest man in the world was also going deaf. He was trying to learn a Marcello sonata for cello before he went deaf or got too small to play the miniature cello he played.

It was kind of a race.

The smallest man in the world figured everyone was in a race of one kind or another.

But at that moment, he was digging the golden leaves, and the blue sky.

Permalink

29Sep / 2010

The red wire, or the blue wire?

The scene: a villain’s hide out. One wall is covered with monitors (salvaged b/w TV sets dating from the late 1960s/early 1970s) showing things going haywire around the globe. One wall is made of glass, beyond which hammerhead sharks circle in a tank of saltwater. A shoe containing a foot rests in the sand on the floor of the tank.

Villain: [running around looking flustered] OMG. Where’s that panic button? Is this the panic button, or the self-destruct button? OMG.

[Sound effect: a ringing telephone]

Villain: Hello?

Girl: Hi, dad.

Villain: Hi, kid.

Girl: How do I plug in the microphone?

Villain: Wut?

Girl: I want to play around with your new microphone. I’m sitting here at home in the cellar with the speaker, the mixer (I have the mic plugged in already) and all these cords and cables.

[Sound effect: klaxon signalling security breach, or re-entry of warheads, or both]

Villain: Eh, what?

Girl: No sound is coming out. What do I need to do? I’m just going to plug stuff in at random until it works, then I’ll know I got it right.

Villain: Er. That’s not so good. If you short something out, that would be bad, because I have a theremin performance tomorrow and need some of that gear.

[Sound effects: explosions, small-arms fire]

Villain: Listen. The mixer and the speaker must be plugged into a power source. Their cords are in a white plastic bag in a black cloth bag beside the speaker. Got it?

Girl: There’s only a blue bag.

[Sound effects: henchmen falling into shark tank, splash, snap]

Villain: Listen, okay, blue bag. Full of a mess of cables. The speaker cord is in there. The mixer cord is either in there or loose in the black bag.

Girl: What’s it look like?

Villain: Heavy small black cube with cords coming out two sides. One has a round end that plugs into the back of the mixer,the other end is a normal electrical plug.

Computer voice: Lair will self-destruct in four minutes.

Villain: Sorry if I’m short, honey, I’m a little distracted right now.

Girl: Okay.

Villain: After you get the power sources hooked up, you then need to connect the mixer output to the speaker input.

Girl: I have a cable in the speaker already. Which hole does it go into in the mixer?

Computer voice: Self-destruct in three minutes, thirty seconds.

Villain: Um, what do they say? They should be labeled. Not control room or headphones. Output or line out or something.

[Sound effects: Lasers. Pew-pew-pew!]

[Sound effects: cutting torch]

Girl: Main out?

Villain: Yes, sounds good. L or R should both work for the mic.

Girl: Okay, thanks, dad!

Villain: Have fun, honey. Bye.

[Sound effect: Dial tone.]

Computer voice: Self-destruct in two minutes, thirty seconds.

Villain: [Slaps forehead] Gah! I forgot to tell her to turn on the speaker. She’ll figure that out, right?

Permalink

31Dec / 2005

Arf

Happy year of Sandy.
It will be good to us, to some of us at least, about this I have a certain feeling.
Punjab, what, he’s already in the hot seat, ain’t he, for spying, illegal spying? I’m assuming the seat is hot. It was hot when Nixon was in it, at least, right? That’s a good way to start the year. What’s up with Daddy Warbucks, any idea?
Good new year to all of you. Drink lots of water with your booze, take an aspirin before bed unless otherwise advised by your doctor, plus I take no responsibility for any health-related advice I may appear to be giving, this is all intended purely humorously, not really as life-help. I’m only saying.
And remind me to tell you about my ski trip.

Permalink

22Dec / 2005

Messages from the lost continent

is complete. Thanks, Horst, it was a lot of fun.

Permalink

Newer posts →

Metamorphosism

Category Archives: ferner liefen

The life-changing implications of the recent astrological correction

The interpretation of dreams

Julian Assange, interviewed by Sigmund Freud on the most awesome things of 2010

The smallest man in the world

The red wire, or the blue wire?

Arf

Messages from the lost continent