"The literary equivalent of an acid trip." -jedi_raptor07

Friday, June 30, 2006

Quick Nonsense

To Carissa: ToddD. That's the monkey's name. Also, I made a cheat for those perceptive enough to find it. Points to whoever can find it.

To Everyone Else: It is WEIRD! It just is! I mean, isn't it? What's not weird about it? And...ew! It's so disgusting, too! Yeah...I'll tell you later when I know what I'm talking about. So, my costume fell apart. I had to dress up as a supervillain, so I dressed up in aluminum foil...and then it fell apart TEN SECONDS before I entered my camp. I was very mad. So...yeah. Turkey. Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national symbol. Go watch 1776. And...um...Sky's still missing. If you know what I'm talking about, it makes sense. I know! Let's make a game in the comments section. Here's the rules: You can only post once. Hm. Nevermind. I was going to say each person said 7 words and we could see the huge story we came up with, but you can easily change your identity in this. So, nevermind. You know, there comes a time in life when you realize rambling about confusing random subjects will easily make you crazy. If that makes sense. If it does, I haven't done my job. No, the lightbulbs made of Rocket J. Squirrel's fur do not light up the way for our dim-witted friend, Bullwinkle J. Moose. Neither do the shoes fly in the sky, with large rubies enlaced inside their adamant casings of titanium. Why is titanium inside a red lolipop, you ask? For the same reason that I was awarded an award for awarding the awards. The cruely cruel twisted world of which its twistedly cruel twist of fate twisted the cruel event into a cruely twisted twist of cruel fate. Say that five times fast!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Back

And, here's the newest post. Sort of. It's actually a test. Sort of.
Here's a clue, you answer the clue, add the numbers "301" after the word (no space) and the write .blogspot.com to get to the next clue. So, if the clue was something like "What's the color of the sky?" you would write in the address bar "http://blue301.blogspot.com" and that would get you to the next site. So, here's the first clue!!!

What is made from, essentially, moldy milk?

Monday, June 19, 2006

Away from Home

Not here. Must make this quick before...no! The Daleks! AHH! *outside voices* Exterminate! Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!!!!

AKA, not here, no new posts for a while, blah blah blah, I died to the Daleks.

Friday, June 09, 2006

The Metric System

(Ch)okay. Ruling out the ice caps melting, the metoers becoming crashed into us, the ozone layer leaving us, and the sun exploding, we are definitely going to blow ourselves up. That is a(n almost) direct quote from the flash animation "The End of the World". Alaska can come, too.

So, I googled "English system of measurement". This is what I got, from wikipedia, with a little editing of boring junk:

"Length

poppyseed
¼ of a barleycorn
barleycorn
Basic Anglo-Saxon unit, the length of a corn of barley. The unit survived after 1066, redefined as 1/3 inch. Note the relation to the grain unit of weight.
digit
¾ inch
finger
7/8 inch
ynch, inch
Anglo Saxon inch, 3 barleycorns. Based on the Roman uncia from 1066.
nail
3 digits = 2¼ inches = 1/16 yard
palm
3 inches
hand
4 inches
shaftment
Width of the hand and outstretched thumb, 6½ ynches before 1066, 6 inches thereafter
span
Width of the outstretched hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, 3 palms = 9 inches
foot
Usually 13 ynches but also other variants. Shortened by basing it on the Roman pes from 1066.
cubit
Forearm, 18 inches
yard
Introduced after 1066, 3 feet = 36 inches.
ell
Elbow, 20 nails = 1¼ yard or 45 inches. Mostly for measuring clothing
fathom
From one fingertip to the other, 6 feet
rod
Saxon gyrd measuring stick, might have been from 20 "natural feet". Retained its length but redefined as 16 ½ Roman feet after 1066.
chain
four linear rods. Named after the length of surveyor's chain used to measure distances until quite recently. Any of several actual chains used for land surveying and divided in links. Gunter's chain, introduced in the 17th century, is 66 feet.
furlong
"One plough's furrow long" (Saxon furrow is furh), the distance a plough team could be driven without rest. This varied from region to region depending on soil type and local habit. In modern context, it is deemed to be 660 feet, 40 rods or ten chains.
mile
Introduced after 1066, originally the Roman mile at 5000 feet, in 1592 it was extended to 5280 feet to make it an even number of furlongs, i.e. 8.
league
Usually three miles. Intended to be an hour's walk.

[edit]

Area

perch
one rod, when referring to length; one square rod when referring to area; one rod by one foot by a foot and a half when referring to volume (usually specifically for masonry stonework)
acre
area of land one chain (four rods) in width by one furlong in length. As the traditional furlong could vary in length from country to country, so did the acre. In England an acre was 4,840 square yards, in Scotland 6,150 square yards and in Ireland 7,840 square yards. It is a Saxon unit, meaning field. Probably meant to be "as much area as could be plowed in one day".
rood
one quarter of an acre, confusingly sometimes called an acre itself in many ancient contexts. One furlong in length by one rod in width, or 40 square rods.
carucate
an area equal to that which can be ploughed by one eight-oxen team in a single year (also called a plough or carve). Approximately 120 roods.
bovate
the amount of land one ox can plough in a single year (also called an oxgate). Approximately 15 roods or one eighth of a carucate.
virgate
the amount of land a pair of oxen can plough in a single year. Approximately 30 roods (also called yard land).

[edit]

Administrative units

hide
four to eight bovates. A unit of yield, rather than area, it measured the amount of land able to support a single household for agricultural and taxation purposes.
knight's Fee
five hides. A knight's fee was expected to produce one fully equipped soldier for a knight's retinue in times of war.
hundred
or wapentake - 100 hides grouped for administrative purposes.

[edit]

Volume
[edit]

General

In both Britain and America, in addition to perch as a measure of length, there is also the perch which refers to the volume measurement of stone; one perch is equal to 16.5 ft × 1.5 ft × 1 ft = 24.75 cu. ft. of dry stone. The relationship to the unit of length (one perch = 16.5 feet) should be obvious.

Units of volume included:

Mouthful = about ½ Ounce

Jigger = Mouthful X 2

Jack or Jackpot = Jigger X 2

Jill or Gill = Jack X 2

Cup = Jill X 2

Pint = Cup X 2 (and a "Pint's a pound the world around" or in Britain, "A pint of water's a pound and a quarter")

Quart = Pint X 2

Pottle or Half Gallon = Quart X 2

Gallon = Pottle X 2

Peck = Gallon X 2

Half Bushel = Peck X 2

Bushel = Half bushel X 2

Cask, Strike, or Coomb = Bushel X 2

Barrel = Cask X 2

Hogshead = Barrel X 2

Butt or Pipe = hogshead X 2

Tun = Butt X 2 (A tun is a ton)

A Tun would actually be about 2,048 lb. but is a pretty close estimate given that you could derive the weight and volume all from mouthfulls of water.

Weight

The Avoirdupois, Troy and Apothecary systems of weights all shared the same finest unit, the grain, however they differ as to the number of grains there are in a dram, ounce and pound. Originally, this grain was the weight of a grain seed from the middle of an ear of barley. There also was a smaller wheat grain, said to be ¾ (barley) grains or about 48.6 milligrams.
[edit]

Avoirdupois

grain (gr)
≈ 65 mg
dram/drachm (dr)
27.34375 gr (sixteenth of an ounce) (possibly originated as the weight of silver in ancient Greek coin drachma)
ounce (oz)
16 dr = 437.5 grains ≈ 28 g
pound (lb)
16 oz = 7000 grains ≈ 454 g
quarter
¼ cwt
hundredweight (cwt)
112 lb (long) or 100 lb (short)
ton
20 cwt

Additions:

nail
1/16 cwt = 7 lb
clove
7 lb (wool)
stone (st)
2 cloves = 14 lb (an Anglo-Saxon unit changed to fit in)
tod
2 st = ¼ cwt (long)
Troy

grain (gr)
≈ 65 mg
pennyweight (dwt)
24 gr ≈ 1.56 g
ounce (oz t)
20 dwt = 480 gr ≈ 31.1 g
pound (lb t)
12 oz t = 5760 gr ≈ 373 g
mark
8 oz t

[edit]

Tower

tower ounce
18¾ dwt = 450 gr ≈ 29 g
tower pound
12 oz T = 225 dwt = 5400 gr ≈ 350 g

[edit]

Apothecary

grain (gr)
≈ 65 mg
scruple (s ap)
20 gr
dram (dr ap)
3 s ap = 60 gr
ounce (oz ap)
8 dr ap = 480 gr
pound (lb ap)
5760 gr = 1 lb t

[edit]

Others

Merchants/Mercantile pound
15 oz tower = 6750 gr ≈ 437.4 g
London/Mercantile pound
15 oz troy = 16 oz tower = 7200 gr ≈ 466.6 g
Mercantile stone
12 lb L ≈ 5.6 kg
Tron pound (Edinburgh/Scots)
16 oz Tron ≈ 623.5 g
Butcher's stone
8 lb ≈ 3,63 kg
Sack
26 st = 364 lb ≈ 165 kg"

Now, tell me this. How much of that did you know, if you bothered to read all of it? Alright, now tell me how logical that seemed. Very good, none is the correct answer!

After looking at that, I realized that this world needed a new measuring system. I took it upon myself to create this (c)uniform (is a type of ancient language) system of measurement. I call it..."the blueberry project". I shall start with length.

Length: The schnorgle.
The square root of the size of a large egg divided by pi.
Zata-, Danga-, Chista-, Janga-
Prefixes meaning, respectiviley backwards, times forty, times ninety nine, times fifteen point six, and times 0.000000000342.

As you can see, The Blueberry Project has only one length of measurement. Much easier than learning "Feet" to "Yards" to "Inches", etc. Now, onward!

Area: The sq-schnorgle. (Pronounced SKWAH-schnorgle)
A schnorgle squared. No, on second thought...sq-schnorgle = schnorgle^2 + 16(tri-schnorgle) all over 16 1/2.

Volume: The tri-schnorgle.
A schnorgle^3.1415926... divided by 24(42) - 12(21).

Weight/mass: The gazenda.
The mass of several large watermelons minus the weight of lots of potato chips. Same prefixes as before.

That about covers it, don't it? Alright, I'll leave off with my favorite quote from this Thursday.

"A one day old mouse is only one day old, for one day."

I wish I could get a tape of that...

Kudos to anyone who bothered to read any of this post. 2 points for you!

Monday, June 05, 2006

An Editorial Misjudgment

I forgot that you guys have a limited amount of interest in the contests, so I made some changes to today's post:

First, using my Holmes-esque intuitive, deducive (it's a word if I want it to be)intelligence, I realized that each reader has his or her own attention span and comprehension level. For this reason, there will be three versions of my post, each catering to a different demographic. Second, it's fun to insult the reader's intelligence, as we found out in issue #1 of our series (still-semi-pending-on-completion-as-in-we'll-get-to-it-in-the-next-four-years), "Suing a Company." So, buckle up!

Version #1 (For monkeys [ToddD not included], people reading this between 2:00 and 4:00 AM, and those who write book reports like Lucy):

I like my old shoes. New shoes are not fun to get. I got them. It was not fun. I like my old shoes.

Version #2 (For you averages Joes and Janes, and those too lazy to get out the thesaurus for Version #3):

Getting new sneakers is a pain. Have you ever heard the saying, "Comfortable as an old pair of shoes"? Today I rediscovered how true that phrase is. My grandmother took me to Sneaker World because my four-year-old holy (in both senses of the word, in my opinion) sneakers embarrassed her. First of all, the shoe guy measured my feet and found that they are size 3 kids. Apparently, they shrunk. I then proceeded to try on about seven pairs of sneakers, all of which were uncomfortable. You didn't have to be particularly attuned to realize that both my grandmother and the shoe guy were angry with me at this point. It's a good thing Shoe Man's evil eye reflected off the brilliant white sneakers I was trying on and then off his bald head, and then harmlessly into the carpet. Those things can be dangerous! Finally, I found a pair that didn't threaten to eat my feet while I wasn't looking, and the whole business was put to an end. I don't think I ever appreciated how nicely (-Nicely) my own sneakers fit on my feet until this afternoon. It didn't help that my grandmother told me even the Salvation Army wouldn't want them. Poor little guys.

Version #3 (For the gutsy Honors student, ToddD, and people who are just reading through all of the versions for kicks):

This part of the post has been pulled because I didn't feel like writing it. So there.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Sir Elton Hercules John

I don't want to ramble on about him, but his name rocks. He rocks too, but that's his job, and also beside the point. The point is, "It comes in pints?! I'm getting one!"

But on a slightly more serious note, there will be yet another contest to boost support of our blog. No codes this time, you will be happy to know. No, no, lovely readers -- this time it's a scavenger hunt!

Rules are as follows:
1) There is a list of random facts, etc. to hunt for
2) So hunt for them
3) The two people to e-mail one of us with the most correct answers (in order, please) within the next week get the usual prize -- a combined post on our blog.

And without further ado, the scavenger hunt list:
Well, maybe just a little bit of ado...
Now the list!

1) What is Billy Joel's middle name?
2) Why do small birds bombard birds of prey?
3) In the equation "e=mc^2", what do each of the variables stand for?
4) Give the address of a website where I could buy a taxidermied ferret.
5) What does a real estate novelist do?
6) What year was prepackaged jello first sold?
7) List three materials that wood glue can hold together (besides wood)
8) Describe one escape attempt by a prisoner from Alcatraz.
9) What is the nationality of Harry Houdini?
10) Does a duck's quack echo?

Bonus! What parts did Jeff and I get in Guys and Dolls?

Crack those encyclopedias!