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Scorpions of the Undead

Olaf — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:59:24 +0000

The memoir I recount thus is an attempt to purge the demons of my mind from dragging me hither unto the shadowy depths of madness. The terrors conjured up by the knowledge of this tale should bring any sane man to the brink or beyond. It is for this reason that I implore this transcript be burned should its arcane contents be exhumed from their final resting place.

So it began one day early this previous summer that I succumbed to the duties of laundering when my under garments ran short in supply. As is my custom, the articles were prepared and laundered the evening prior, though with apparent dilatory effort for a full day passed before I noted the abandonment of the chore.

It is here that the tale takes an unnatural turn of events.

The laundered items had taken on a peculiar odor from their day’s wait for my attendance. As if soured by milk, they excreted a mildly unpleasant smell. With idle curiosity, for rarely do dampened clothes turn so quickly in the wash bin, I set upon the task of correcting this error with vinegar spirits; lest the odor be everlasting. The second wash commenced and I admonished myself for the earlier failure in memory. Now ever-present of mind, I succeeded in washing and moving said items into the drier.

I was then struck with an unexpected site. There, at the bottom of my laundry, was the unmoving corpse of an arthropod of the order Scorpiones. My imagination reeled with the agony that must have been its dying thoughts as it was thrust about in a churning sea of scalding waters. Perhaps the creature found its way into the warm and moistened materials after the first wash, or perhaps it lived through the first wash only to succumb at the onslaught of yet another fearsome storm by whatever god it knows.

I gingerly lifted the arthropod at its deadly stinger to make a closer examination. A beautiful specimen – fully intact! Alas, I knew too well that its visage would strike terror into the heart of my loved ones and guessed at what courtesy I could bestow it as a death right. As I thought of this, I placed the arthropod onto a small platter to consider for another time what shall become of it. I went about my chores in that carefree way in which one does with the comforting knowledge that creatures in unsuspecting places are found dead! It is said that the venom from such a thing can cause terrible pain and oft the onslaught of illness.

I returned to the drying corpse of my intrigue only to find that it no longer lay in its resting place! What trickery have my wicked felines been up to this day to steal away with; not their quarry, but mine! As the thought occurred to me, there was also that nagging realization that I had not seen the cats all day. Upon this consideration, I lifted the platter gently to discover my unmoving scorpion below. This was an unexpected site and I presumed that in my carelessness, I must have bumped the platter previously. As I went to check the status of its mortality again, the scorpion started and scurried as if quite well alive! That venomous monster, a spawn of only the imagination of demons would conjure, exhibited multiple legged ambulation that one would associate with its living counterpart. I had heard tales of the undead, but they were merely tales read to children to scare and incite their fears. Surely these monstrosities did not exist in our world. Surely the dead’s place remained as left in the ground, or perhaps in the visage of a spectral being as has been recounted by numerous observers. But here, before me, was the very proof in the existence of the undead!

The abomination made me reel in my steps. The horror of such a thing struck terror in my very being. Catching a hold of myself, I wasted little time and recaptured the corpse in a specimen jar. Without it, what proof have I? What dangerous path do I put myself upon by keeping the creature? Perhaps, the world should not be subjected to such a horror so as to bring about hysteria in masses. So I cast about and settled upon the only solution known to my addled senses. The unliving arthropod must be cast out into nature for the natural course of things to run. Far away from anyone, so as not to come into contact with it and release upon the world a plague of undead beings. Surely, an abomination such as this will find its place, or ending, among the order of the natural world. After all, what more can I do to a thing that has been killed twice already?

And the deed was done. The creature was delivered into the shady undergrowth of the dark woods where it may find no company with man. I, left alone in my thoughts and memories, protect the secret of the paradox and stand guard against the world’s knowledge of it…to my own detriment and inevitable dying days. May they come sooner rather than later to end me of this horrible cross to bear! For the sting of the insect left its venom in my mind; although never physically puncturing the skin, it nonetheless worked its magical poisons through all defenses and deep into the recesses of my own insanity.

Tastey Nuts

Olaf — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:19:59 +0000

I’m a fan of the seed and nut family, as many can attest. I maintain a supply of them at my desk at work for the occasion of snacking, which comes regularly. There are also infinite jokes to be told that never get old:

Hello everybody. I have brought my nuts for everybody to enjoy. They’re oddly shaped, but salty and satisfying. Don’t be shy, there’s more than enough for everyone to get their hands on.

That’s not crude, that’s generous. A 27oz. container of cashews will cost me $10.00-$12.00. Anyway, the cashew caught my interest this morning. From whence did it come? Were its travels arduous? Who were its parents? How has it come to be?

From the ~~Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy~~ all-knowing Wikipedia, we read:

The cashew (Anacardium occidentale) is a tree in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The plant is native to northeastern Brazil. Its English name derives from the Portuguese name for the fruit of the cashew tree, caju, which in turn derives from the indigenous Tupi name, acajú. It is now widely grown in tropical climates for its cashew “nuts” and cashew apples.

Ann’s House of Nuts® may very well import theirs from India, which has the largest Kaju farms in the world. What interests me most if the variety of uses of the tree (especially those of a medicinal quality), as well as the parts of the fruit we do not see. The cashew apple is apparently used as a raw fruit in places where they grow, but because the skin is so fragile, it is not feasible to ship it. I had originally looked up the nut to see how it looked on the tree. I had imagined thousands of crooked, walnut-like shells dangling from a tree. The truth is even more bizarre! The cashew apple is actually a false-fruit, psuedofruit, that develops between the peduncle and the drupe. Unless you’re a botanist, there are a couple of new words for you. The cashew nut we all know actually dangles off the end of the pseudofruit, presumably until a creature eats the psuedofruit and drops the seed to ground where it can germinate. What’s even more bizarre is that the seed is actually encased within a shell containing urushiol. That’s the stuff that makes you break out in an itchy rash on poison ivy! Who in the world decided it was worthwhile to pick apart this shell to eat the small, fleshy nut inside? Why wouldn’t they have just stopped at the cashew apple and been done with it? Just another example of how one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure.

Dear Cashew Nut Harvester,
Though your spreading rash and insistent itch must be a grave burden to bear, the world appreciates the labor in your continued efforts. Like your father, and your father’s father, you pick at your nuts endlessly only to endure the torturing discomfort of its rash. I, for one, do not take these measures for granted and recognize the pain and suffering you must endure. From your hands you render great swollen nut sacks and feed salivating mouths everywhere. Thank you.

The Year is 2035…

Olaf — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:25:02 +0000

Perhaps some of you are aware of Charles Lindbergh’s other work. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, but a few years later he was able to get some time with the surgeon, Dr. Alexis Carrel to discuss some common interests. It turns out that Lindbergh believed it to be possible to build a heart valve replacement synthetically. Carrel was already in the process of studying organs outside of the human body in his own designs, but infection inevitably set in and destroyed the parts. With Carrel’s help, Lindbergh was able to build the perfusion pump by which organs could be maintained “indefintely.”

There’s a more sinister element to this story when you tie Carrel to this story. Carrel was influenced by the times leading up to World War II in Europe and believed he was working towards a common ideal of eugenics. While he might have used the word eugenics at the time, put in perspective with World War II most of us think Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, and genocide. There were some debates in the late 1990′s that give rise to the question of whether or not Carrel was involved in any inhumane practices to harvest the organs on which his experiements relied. In Carrel’s book; L’Homme, cet inconnu (Man, The Unknown), published in 1935, he advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of “inferior stock.”

It’s 2035 c.e. now and the 100th anniversary is upon us to commemorate Lindbergh’s and Carrel’s fantastic inventions based on the perfusion pump. Young adults, classrooms, and spoiled children everywhere are keen on one thing this Christmas – the Centennial Man!

In 1935 Charles Lindbergh and Alexis Carrel unveiled the perfusion pump; a thing of science fiction creativity and unimaginable medical repercussions. In its early years, the perfusion pump could maintain whole organs outside of the living anatomical system. Soon after, these pumps were perfected to maintain more complex systems for extended periods of time. Now, it seems, organic cellular metabolism has no mortality given the proper, sterile conditions of its vascular system. What was once termed “a twist of vitrified bowel oozing out of a clear glass bottle” becomes the concept for Rockefeller University’s “Centennial Man.” The Centennial Man will last 100 years with no maintenance at all and fully encapsulates the human anatomy for the entertainment and education of its controller. The Centennial Man is operated on a simple wireless controller which takes standard programmable function logic from a computer system running the Centennial Man SDK. Provided with over 140 pre-built routines, you can control Centennial Man to behave as though it were alive! Centennial Man is made entirely from natural organs encased within a cadaver for life-like simulations. While not exactly the perfusion pump of 1935, Centennial Man is based entirely* on a microscalar version of this premise – systematically reintroduced inline with the organs and vascular system of the anatomy to maintain the organic cellular functions as if it were a living body. Only this body will last 100 years through the genius of a fluid regenerative micro perfusion pump system!

Educators will enthrall their students with a complete functioning anatomical system to dissect. Impress your friends with your very own animated cadaver – program it scratch your back, rub your feet, or fold your clothes. The possibilities are endless!

* Centennial Man does not have a functioning nervous system. To replicate this function and provide programmability, the nervous system (including the brain) has been replaced with advanced micro circuitry and an AI logic core function processor. Carbon nano tubes are necessary to interface this system with the various micro perfusion pump systems and vascular control valves to maintain their viability within the system.

Centennial Man requires special food, available from most major retailers, to maintain its growth nutrient and blood supply to organs. Centennial Man also discharges an excrement approximately weekly that should be disposed of properly.

Gävlebocken (The Gävle Goat)

Olaf — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:27:39 +0000

In a small city north of Stockholm, 5,000 onlookers welcome a giant Goat as it is unveiled each year around Yule. For several decades now, the Gävle Goat has made a historical mark in Gävle history as it is either sacrificed or spared during the Winter.

In 1969 the goat was burned on New Year’s Eve.

In 1970 the first goat burned six hours after it was erected. Two heavily intoxicated youths were tied to the crime. With contributions from several donors, the goat was rebuilt, this time of reeds.

In 1971 the local merchants who had previously built the goat abandoned the project, tired of seeing it burn each year. The science association at the Vasaskolan upper secondary school took over. Their little goat was broken to pieces.

In 1972 the goat collapsed due to sabotage.

It’s a Guiness Book record holder – probably for all times, but I haven’t checked that factoid out. I love the idea of a massive, miscellaneous craft project brought to local cheers and jeers. It’s unclear to me how the whole thing got started back in 1966, but it’s town tradition now that triumphs through all manner of abuse. I mentioned to a friend of mine in Sweden that my family should start our own goat (Gradinbocken) to display at the house and arouse further suspicions that we were…off. He pointed out that anyone late to that party may not notice something as obvious as a 1,300lb straw goat either. Still, it’s a worthy venture I think! Anyone want to start a Gainesville tradition? Maybe a Godzilla-sized chicken would be more appropriate…

*@%! Road Trash

Olaf — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:25:02 +0000

I’m driving to work this morning, minding my own business, when I notice a monstrous bag skulking across the road. It’s one of those clear cellophane bags; the kind you get at the grocery store to hold your vegetables, only this one can probably hold the whole “Fresh Foods” section. Likely a furniture bag, and it looks like it’s up to no good. The bag creature deftly slips through the air, avoiding a near miss with a large truck. Oh, no, the garbage truck is not the target prey of this ruthless, inorganic spirit. I slow so as to go unnoticed by the bag creature, but too late! Just as it nearly passes over my lane entirely, it suddenly curls back in a vicious closing move to engulf my unsuspecting Mazda 3. The hatchback is no match for such a skillful killer.

What a way to start the morning! I was able to pull the bag off, which seemed mostly intact, and throw it away properly at a gas station. However, I’ve been huffing molten plastic bag fumes for about half an hour now. It smells like burning, and I can’t breath so well.

“…and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.”

Olaf — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:09:15 +0000

In Gainesville recently, I witnessed the burning bush. And behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was consumed, and the fire department put it out. I don’t even think they waited for the words of the prophecy. Related posts:Bring on the Cold, Bring on the Fire Fire Bubbles Bush Sandwich Related posts:

A Surreal Morning

Olaf — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:29:19 +0000

Monday morning I began my day like many others. It was the first day of school for many, and it was the beginning of the work week for me. I also managed to get out the door in record time (related) that morning; the sun was just creeping up above the horizon as I set out for work. As the roads were particularly empty, at least in the opposite direction to the commuter’s pilgrimage, I noted a single SUV driving opposite my direction across the median. I noted it, though it was for no reason other than my significant training in Zen Driving. Over the next 7 seconds, I would take special note of this vehicle as it careened out of control and ended up on its side in the middle of the lane.

It began as what I took for childish misuse of an SUV by brazen young kids on their way to their first day at school in the new year. There was a wild swerve into the median – a hard hit against the curb wall followed by a brief foray on a narrow median, ending in the erratic jerk back into the vehicle mainstay. This was the opening act for several more wild swings of the SUV’s rear end as it tried to come to terms with the perfectly straight road. You might say it was going through corrective maneuvers, but each swing seemed wilder than the former until the wheelbase could no longer handle the large vehicle’s centrifugal force. I witnessed the slow and labored moment where the driver-side wheels lifted off the ground and I knew the driver had lost. The truck rested on its side in the middle of two lanes; as though it had happened sometime in the night when no one was there to see it, and now it is found with the surrounding mystery of how it got there.

I pulled around at the very next median break to see how I could help. I have a cell phone, vague knowledge of CPR, and I’m 2 meters tall with great dexterity – surely that makes me useful in some ways. However, people were already running out from stores on the side of the road and other cars behind me had stopped in the road to lend their hands. In seconds, the scene was covered in people looking down into the truck’s interior. I have no idea what happened in there, but I can only imagine a few circumstances. A) There was a fight between the driver and at least one passenger. B) The driver had a seizure. C) It was intentional. All of these are pretty bizarre circumstances in my book. The oddest thing is that it has taken me three days to actually blog about this and I didn’t mention it to anybody until late Monday. The whole event seemed to have taken place in my imagination. It was difficult for me to keep the memory from being a nebulous dream in my mind.

Balthazar Comments on Commodity Foods

Olaf — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:04:34 +0000

I was just pulling out of driveway (a severe angle up to the road), and I burned the clutch a bit to keep from stalling out in reverse. Balthazar says, “Daddy, I smell chicken nuggets.”

So a burning clutch smells like a chicken nugget, or perhaps it’s more apt to say that chicken nuggets smell like a burning clutch. *Mental Note; remove fast food chicken nuggets from the boy’s diet.

Polar Cities

Olaf — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:00:07 +0000

I must prefix this post with a bit of back story…

A reader in Taiwan, Danny Bee, left a comment on an article I wrote (“Emily Yoffe Learns The Secret“). I had first assumed that the comment was spam, though the suspect spam did not follow my preconceived notions of spam. It had no sales pitch, no links, and no inappropriate words. However, it didn’t exactly fit the article on which it was submitted:

Yoffe captures my concerns about the modern inception of philosophical teachings. Not by coming out and saying it, but by a simple inference from her experiences. I’ll remind my readers that I’m not bashing these teachings, only the glossy cover and Cliff’s Notes by which so many establish their adoption.

…and Mr. Bee’s response:

Polar cities in the far distant future to house remnants of humankind
who survive the apocalypse of devastating global warming? The casual
reader might think I am an alarmist or a mere scare-monger, but I am
neither. I am a visionary.

So like a good blogger, I engaged Danny in some email communications (to verify he was a real person) and tossed out the idea that I write something up on my opinion of his comment. I did check into Polar Cities a bit. Wikipedia has a very brief explanation of them.

Polar cities are proposed sustainable polar retreats designed to house human beings in the future, in the event that global warming causes the central and middle regions of the Earth to become uninhabitable for a long period of time. Although they have not been built yet, some futurists have been giving considerable thought to the concepts involved.

High-population-density cities, to be built near the Arctic Rim with sustainable energy and transportation infrastructure, will require substantial nearby agriculture. Boreal soils are largely poor in key nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, but nitrogen-fixing plants (such as thevarious alders) with the proper symbiotic microbes and mycorrhizal fungi can likely remedy such poverty without the need for petroleum-derived fertilizers. Regional probiotic soil improvement should perhaps rank high on any polar cities priority list. James Lovelock’s notion of a widely distributed almanac of science knowledge and post-industrial survival skills also appears to have value.

As Danny says it, he’s not an alarmist nor a scare-monger, just a visionary. He didn’t rule out cuckoo, though to be fair, zealous may be more apt.

The idea of Polar Cities is in response to doomsday concepts from global warming. Should the ecosystem collapse as a result of a massive build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then this idea has only rhetorical value. As for the development and planning of Polar Cities for this foreseen eventuality, I think it either a bad plan or at least very pessimistic.

The estimated surface area of our polar land masses seems pretty high – almost 30 million km². Our population is over 6.7 billion at the moment. If you do the math on just those numbers, you get population density of around 224 persons/km². But I think that argument is far too simple. If we assume that 3/4 of the earth’s population dies due to the volatility of the environment, you’re left with 1.675 billion people looking for ocean-front property. I was also being nice by saying that we had nearly 30 million square kilometers of land mass between our two polar regions. If you look at what happens after the ice sheets melt, land rises from a release in pressure, and volcanoes blow, you’re looking at a lot less inhabitable land after all. I’ll cut it in half to 15 million km² because I’m skeptical about our building too close to volcanoes, fault lines, and other natural disasters. I also have to account for the plethora of lake and rivers that would undoubtedly remain on Antarctica – not to mention its steep mountain sides and craggy peaks. Now you’re looking at a population density of around 112 persons per square kilometer. That’s actually not that bad. There are far worse places in the world as far as population density goes.

Now that we have a workable number of people, we can start analyzing what this new homestead would be like.

I imagine a world metropolis at each pole (technically, the Arctic surrounds the pole). All nations and all diversity of people have centralized in two locations of the planet. The central lands of Earth have become desolate and hostile. You can venture out onto them, but survivability is contingent upon resources and exposure. The populations live in high-rise hotels methodically placed in a grid over the available land masses. The fringe area of decent land would be more barren of people than the central, cooler parts. Unfortunately, most people would need to be in Antarctica because of its concentration of land at the pole. Each hotel would be surrounded by land necessary to grow food and raise livestock. Everyone in the square kilometer living unit would be required to do their share of work to earn their food and living quarters. I’m not entirely sure how waste would be dealt with – perhaps pumping it into magma faults would suffice, but it may also be problematic in maintaining such a system. A refinery would probably take up too much valuable land area.

There would certainly be a militant government in place at both polar regions. I doubt anything more than a form of Feudalism would be adopted. With so many different people from different backgrounds, humans would probably resort to brute strength. With anarchy-like crime abound and tough living conditions, citizens would surely profess an allegiance to a “king” for support.

A glimpse into what living in Polar Cities might be like seems more like a good idea for a Science Fiction novel than any reality we should plan for. I can almost see an adaptation of “Firefly” applying to Earth’s new living conditions. While interesting to contemplate, I think time is better spent learning what exactly is happening to the environment, and reducing our adverse impact to it. Then again, if the environmental changes are a natural evolution in planetary cycle, then we humans are going to go through some hard times. I don’t think Darwin’s theory of natural selection comes without its pain. A species must suffer untold losses to survive with its fittest.

57% Chance of Surviving a Zombie Attack

Olaf — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:24:42 +0000

57%

It’s not particularly good, though not all together bad either. I think the quiz is rigged. It never asked me how good I was with knives.

Thanks for the meme, Spazz.