Garlic

This floor of my office building has the subtle smell of garlic; as if someone cooked a microwave Italian meal and then decided there wasn't enough garlic so they added a clove or two of their own.

It's actually strong enough that my eyes are watering.

I think there are some people who work here who have no sense of smell, or maybe a very weak one. It seems that in order to appreciate the flavors of foods they have to be super charged and over powering. About once a month this olfactory-disabled person has fish for lunch. One year it was so bad that the Commissioner actually sent out a letter banning fish. But that has passed into oblivion and now the fish are returning. Let us hope that our nose-lite person does not get it in his/her head that s/he wants garlic fish.

Zombies

How does a zombie know at what point to stop eating it's victim?

Here are the facts:

Indisputable Fact 1. You never see two zombies attacking each other. They can attack the living alone or in groups. But whenever they are in groups they are unified in their march toward the living. They never stop and say, "Hey, I'll attack this dead thing next to me."

Conclusion: Zombies do not like to eat zombies. Why? Is dead flesh somehow harmful to the undead? No one knows.

Indisputable Fact 2. A person who has been bitten or scratched by a zombie will eventually become a zombie, assuming there is enough of said person left to be a zombie.

Conclusion 2: If a zombie does not eat quickly his meal will become his companion.

So how does a zombie know when to stop eating his victim?

Seriously. If you know, I'm interested.



Person cum Zombie: Help! Help! Zombies! Everyone run!

Zombie: Uuuugh. Brains. Flesh. moan

Person cum Zombie: Oh my! Though they are slow and stupid I cannot seem to outrun them. Oh, for some reason I am running back towards the zombies. Oh, now I've fallen down.

Zombie: Uuuuhg. Flesh. Brains. groan

Person cum Zombie: Oh, I'm being eaten! It hurts. Ouch. He has eaten my arm and torn my new blouse. Oh my. Huge chunks of my hair are being pulled out. Now his teeth are crushing my skull. That really smarts.

Zombie: Uuuugh. Yum. gobble

Person cum Zombie: Uuuuugh. Hey, you're eating me. And I, like you, am a zombie.

Zombie: Uuuugh. Oh, how very rude of me. I beg your pardon. Zombie flesh is gross. moan

Time and Year

I've decided that I no longer wish to refer to the date and time by the overly simplistic human metrics. Hence will I refer to the time by the Age of the Universe. And my unit of measurement will be completed Universal Cycles.

The current time is 0.

Oh Ten, and the NAGG thought police

Ok, officially I don’t care. At least I didn’t.

I’d never have cared if you chose to say “Two thousand ten” or “Twenty-ten.” As far as reasonable and intelligible ways of pronouncing the year 2010 I think two thousand ten and twenty-ten are both acceptable.

And I would have continued to feel that way had someone not had the gumption to tell me that “you have to pronounce it twenty-ten.”

First of all, I don’t like anyone telling me what I have to do. I have a hard enough time stomaching when someone tells me I’ve spelled a word wrong, or made a grammatical error – even when they are right. Those things are at least provable one way or the other. But telling me that I have to pronounce a number this way instead of that is just down-right asinine; especially when your reasoning is that “it doesn’t sound good.”

So who really cares how you say it anyway?

Well, apparently the NAGG cares; the National Association of Good Grammar. If that sounds like a made up association that’s because it is. It’s just some douche and his friends who like to point out when they think people have made a grammatical error. And they have arbitrarily decided that “two thousand ten” sounds bad.

The NAGG’s founder, Tom Torriglia, has argued that the reason you don’t say “two thousand ten” is because you didn’t say “one thousand nine hundred ninety nine” before two thousand.

Well, so the f* what? I did say “two thousand nine” all last year. And “two thousand eight” the year before that. And I have heard people say, “nineteen hundred ninety nine.” Though it did sound somewhat arcane, it was intelligible. And I’d never have dared to tell them that they were pronouncing the year wrong.

And since when does how you pronounce words have anything to do with grammar. Since never. Which, incidentally, is pronounced “neh-vrr.” Or you could go with “not-hundred and ever.”

I was going to make the argument that in a country with free speech no one should ever tell me what I can and cannot say. But then I realized that I would be telling someone what they could not say. Which would be ironic.

So, Mr. Torriglia, and your NAGG ilk, bitch all you want about me pronouncing 2010 as “two thousand ten”

It sounds good to me.