About genies

The day she turned ten, she was walking down the street with her
daddy. "I want that! It's pretty!" she said, pointing to an
ornate old bottle in a window. And since it was her birthday, and
her father loved her very much, he bought it for her. Inside the
bottle there was a genie, and like all genies, he granted her
three wishes. Her first wish was a puppy. It was small and brown
and lovely, and for a few hours the girl was completely
satisfied. Then she wished for a body of gold. The genie, who was
a very old and powerful genie, and who had granted many, many
wishes since the days of old Babylon, said to the little girl: "I
see how it will be. You will spend your last precious wish on
undoing the second, and you will be left feeling empty and
unsatisfied, forever cursing that you didn't spend your wishes in
a wiser way." So the little girl stood a while in deep thought.
Then she wished for immortality, the power to shape worlds, the
knowledge of a thousand gods and the keys to the mirror worlds.
She's been running things ever since.

The Mostly Wasted Life and Ignoble Death of Alexander Groats, Part Two

It is not true that, as has been claimed previously on these pages (or rather, on other pages bearing the same name; for has not the philosopher said that it is impossible to immerse yourself twice in the same newspaper?), that it was young Groats who solved the fundamental problem of the self-propelled automaton – that is, the weight of the fuel burdening the machine so that more fuel is required, et cetera.

How could it be? Have we not ample evidence from sources which must in this very case be considered reliable even though they are no doubt under most other circumstances lying and scheming bastards just like Groats himself – that is, his relatives, who, one would assume, would take every opportunity to glorify (one would say, vain-glorify, if there was such a word) the achievments of said Groats. But instead they claim that after a scant few years of primary education – surely another piece of evidence, if one was needed, against the ridiculous claims with which the reader is no doubt already aquainted but which will nevertheless shortly be related – he spent the rest of his dull and uneventful life within the walls of the family home (surely a rapidly disitegrating hovel!) and came nowhere near (because of the great distance merciful Geography put between that place and the one not yet named but, by the generously provided context, easily recognizable) the Institute.

It is certaily not true that Groats, or somebody claiming to be him, walked into the Institute with a slight limp, dressed in a great dark cloak and with a hat at all times covering his head and obscuring the features of his face and, in a voice somewhat lacking in vocal range and intonation but nevertheless clearly audible, dictated the solution to an astonished Third Secretary who was, by chance, having his meager breakfast on the steps to the First Floor. On my honour as a scientist, it never happened!

Professor E. C. Frankenhofer (retired)

France Is Winning, Dammit

I Almost Forgot The Week Thing Already

So.
I ordered three Cités Obscures albums this week. Well, not bad, huh? Not bad, Clocky? you might say. And well you might, because those are some mighty fine comics as far as I'm concerned.
Only, they've not been properly translated, not all of them anyway (I understand Brüsel and The Invisible Frontier have passable translations), so I got them in French. (Which, as it turns out, I can read without much trouble without having bothered to learn how — in fact despite having actively tried not to learn the Snootybastard tongue.) Mind you, the writers are Belgian, but so are all French comickers.
If you bother to read parentheses, you may already know I'm none too fond of France and its inhabitants. I used to feel that there were only three good things to come out of that wretched abyss: Verne, Dumas and Asterix. The tally is building up rapidly, however. Brotherhood of the Wolf! Mechanical Dream! And now, the Obscure Cities!
I actually think I can hear Gérard Depardieu laughing now, a deep, pleased »a-honh-honh-honh« toasting my slow defeat.


Couldn't you have written in Flemish, bastards?!

Fighting creationism

Creationists assert that the creatures of earth have been designed by a conscious force (i.e. God), rather than having evolved through the process of Darwinian natural selection. This is patently ridiculous for several reasons, but there is one fact that more than any other once and for all disproves the notion of intelligent design:

The absence of flying whales.

I mean, seriously! What kind of designer would create an entire inventory of lifeforms only not to include flying whales?

There are other compelling arguments against creationism, like the lack of hyperintelligent octopedes or the existence of Clockmaker, but I think I've made my point.

Unparable

The world was coming to an end. The gilded emperor was raging. 'This is ridiculous!', he roared at noone in particular. 'We are humans! There is no technology that is beyond our scope, no aspect of nature we can't tame. Shall we let such a puny thing as the Eschaton come in our way? We must toil ceaslessly to find a way of stopping this madness!'

The silver emperor was more laid-back. 'Relax', he said to his colleague. 'Chill! Smoke a joint! The world is ending, and there's nothing we can do about it. Might as well learn to enjoy it.'

The gilded emperor mobilized his vast empire. Every man, woman and child worked like an ant to stop the Eschaton. The silver emperor, on the other hand, did nothing. He just chilled on the balcony of his palace, sipping gin&tonic and letting one of his favourite concubines give him a back-rub.

In the end, both died. Of course they did. It was the end of the world. You can't stop the end of the world, silly!

Now, you might think the moral of this story is "Hard work doesn't pay off. Don't try to change your situation, it won't do you no good!". If you do, you're stupid. This story has no moral. It's a historical account, not some fable, you moron!

Finding Yourself

You’re in the kitchen. The cupboard next to the refridgerator, second shelf from the top. Behind the teapot.

Protection

My shampoo offers sunflower & UV protection. Do you often need to protect your hair against sunflowers? I don't recall it ever being an issue in my personal life, but I haven't met many sunflowers. They do seem like friendly chaps, though.

What Kusch read this week

In order to help jump-start the Badger, I have decided to follow the suit of Clockmaker and write at least one post a week (an auxiliary reason is to stop the Badger from drowning in Clockmaker posts).

I will save the earth-shattering insights in the nature of the universe for another week, however. This week I will provide an account of my literary sojourns these last few days. I have read a book by a fellow named Oliver Sacks - somewhat famous for books like "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" - entitled "Seeing Voices". It deals with the deaf in general and their use of language in particular, and encompasses such subjects as the history of sign language and of the education of the deaf, the horrible consequences that befall a deaf child that doesn't come in contact with any form of language he can understand as he grows up, and those grammatical and neurological aspects of sign language that make them totally unlike any spoken language.

It is this last subject that really got my imagination spinnig, and that has made me seriously consider learning (swedish) sign language. Because it's really fucking cool. If anyone believes that sign language is nothing but spoken language coded onto a set of hand gestures, they are gravely mistaken. Its spatio-visual nature provide it with many opportunities that our sound-based languages lack entirely. I feel sign language is the "final frontier" of languages, and I imagine it should be studied by anyone with an interest in the nature of human language and how it relates to human thought in general.

Oh, was that just me? Well, the rest of youseguys might wanna check out a funny Internet film-clip instead.

They don't make them like that anymore

This Betty Boop cartoon from 1932 features Cab Calloway as a ghost walrus. I thought you’d like to know.

Wales Redux

Containing also a delayed note on the Badgerversary

So we went to Wales again, and then came back. Which was good, you see, because Britain at this time of year is resplendent with greenery and suchlike, whereas Sweden, much as always, is Sweden.
We lived in Caernarfon, and we spent a day ambling through the town, mainly the castle, which is huge and well-preserved to the point where you can nearly get lost in it. Caernarfon Town itself is so small you can hardly do anything there, but the town doll's house shop is commendable in quality and there are several fine sources of palatable edible objects. Unfortunately, no Great Uncle Cornelius' Lemon Refresher.
We spent another day traversing the land on an antique-locomotive-driven railway and footpaths through sheep pens, observing mountains. They were good about it and didn't move or knock about any, and so we saw them and knew that they were good.
And. We spent nearly two days traveling. So really, avoid going to Wales by way of London no matter how great the allure of cheap airfare is. The trains will bilk that right back out.
Unusually, I wasn't harassed in customs even once during the whole trip. Hence, to compensate, the scanner people nicked my pocket knife, so that now I have none.

Things I learned, in no particular order:

• There really is no reason to live in Sweden, at all. None. Whatever. Really. I mean this in the most sincere way possible.
• The British, bizarrely, by and large seem not to know how to drink tea. What the crude interjection?
• Humans who snore will cost you sleep. Don't let your thriftiness get the better of you; let a room of your own instead of a dorm.
  
• Foolish planning may cost you or your loved ones a Pigguretto, not to mention a whoppingly whopping train ticket price.
• Quite possibly the single biggest benefit of the UK is the existence of Aero brand mint chocolate. Number two may be two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper, but the Captain refuses to back me up on this.
  
• Things unavoidably work out. Perhaps society is constructed this way, or maybe the Tao just makes good on its promises, but things kind of fall into place by accident even were you to just roll your thumbs and kind of whistle off-key.
• Sheep can and will taunt you.
  

I will reiterate most strenuously: do not go by way of London unless you plan to stay some days there first. The small bit of extra cash for flying direct to Cardiff really is worth it for the improved inland travel comfort and ditto time. Do not. Do go to Wales at all. If possible, stay there.

In closing: The Badgerversary came and went, and we were as dead as ever, but I have a birthday present, and it will appear eventually. I think. Furthermore, once during a doldrum in work on the City I resolved to write at least one piece a week, be it short or be it shite, and that worked, for me. So I use this resolution again: one Badger a week. At least. For the foreseeable future.

Pop goes Mount Doom

I have little to offer you except a quote:

"Lava's all around me
I feel it in my toes"

This song was featured in the 1994 action/adventure movie "Four Beheadings and a Furnace", sung by the popular volcano band Hot! Hot! Hot! (yes, the exclamation marks are part of the name). It was originally recorded by The Blogs in 1968.

Necrotic Pulp

It was a cold, rainy night, the kind of night that makes you wish you could bolt your windows and draw your blinds and put another log on the fire. But for me it was the best kind of night – bad weather seems to draw out all kinds of people who have problems they don’t want any of their respectable friends and neighbours to know about. The kind of weather that makes decent people stay inside and mind their own business is the kind of weather that makes them put on their warmest clothes and pull up their collars and come looking for someone like me. A fixer. A problem solver. A dentist who asks no questions.

So I left my door open and my lights on, but on nights like this I always made sure there was a well-sharpened drill in the top drawer of my desk. You can’t fill cavities the way I do for long without making some enemies, and smart dentists like to play it safe. And smart dentists are the only kind of dentists around these days. All the other kinds are dead. In the second drawer I keep a bottle of whiskey, for emergency sedation.

I was well into my second glass of sedation when my first customer for the night showed up. I could hear her approach the door – high heels on dirty linoleum, drips of water falling from her coat – then hesitate for along time before she knocked. They always do.

“It's open,” I said. She opened the door and stepped inside.

“Are you... the dentist?” Her voice was low and pleasantly hoarse, and you could almost hear the ellipsis. “I have... a toothache.”

To be continued! Don't miss the next action-packed issue of Amazing Dental Adventures!

Discovery Log: 2006-05-01

Concerning: Hard Science

Sponge cake tastes best unsliced, eaten like a tortilla or banana, gripped over the packaging. (This specimen is a bar, with a trapezoidal cut.)
It goes well with Oolong.


[Unrelated note: Two weeks precisely until the Badgerversary.]