Oct

20

Joke.

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They called it puppy love…
But how was I to know the bitch was underage?

Oct

19

Square hectare.

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Conversion between the arcane English system of weights and measures to the sensible metric system is fun and funny. Especially since the English system has so many humorous names, like “hogshead” and “barleycorn.”

My friend Jeff suggested I find out the conversion rate from hogsheads to “square” hectares. I set about to do precisely that, until realizing that a hectare is a unit of area–hence two-dimensional–while a hogshead is a unit of volume–hence three-dimensional. Which means even if there were a standard definition of precisely how large a hogshead is (it depends upon the fluid in question), the conversion just plain wouldn’t work. A “square” hectare would be a four-dimensional concept. Think of it as a space 100 meters long, wide and deep that lasts for 100 meters of time. Which doesn’t make any sense.

But, just for fun, I thought I’d convert a hogshead of ale into cubic meters. And the result? There are approximately 4.89 hogsheads in a cubic meter. Isn’t that neat?

Oct

11

Gollum.

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I think I just realized why “Gollum” (the Tolkien character) is so named. In Jewish mythology, there is this creature called a “golem” made out of clay (or stone) that is animated by a piece of paper in his head that says, “G-d is truth.” [I think that is right. I'm a little rusty on my Jewish mythology.] Gollum, while he retains a bit of Sméagol, is basically a shell, animated only by the power of the ring; he is a twisted golem, given life by Sauron rather than G-d, but a sort of golem nevertheless.

And for my next trick, I’ll bite the head of this chicken and take a bow.