Made out of the Pubic Hair of Migratory Elephants
As Yawn has pointed out I'm a bit of a Wikipedia whore. When I'm after some basic information fast I turn straight away to that on-line encyclopedia. Can't remember which dates in 1945 when Dresden got bombed? I turn to Wikipedia. Which was the gay Teletubby? I consult the Wiki. What where the specific yo-yo tricks that Abbie Hoffman, author of Steal This Book, did during a court session in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee that deemed him being in Contempt of Court? How on Earth should I know? But Wiki definitely would.
My forays into this cyber pool of knowledge are not undertaken without a pinch of salt. Cretins are free to edit the shit out of it. Vandalism runs rife. But it is this incompleteness that attracts me to it. And so it is when I was told about one of the most frequently vandalised pages that I took a backwards step and said, 'Say what?'
Is it Nazism that is the most vandalised page? Apartheid? Christianity? Abortion? Euthanasia? Apparently not. The page that is one of THE most vandalised?
Cheese.
Poor, innocent cheese[1].
Who the frick would bother editing cheese?
In an effort to understand the situation a little better I consulted my friend Dr Pollard, Cheese Scientist. Now, unlike most people that I make up in a feeble attempt to appear more interesting, I actually do know this guy. We lunch every once in a while and discuss our favourite Simpsons episode (the Monorail one) or My Name is Earl. When I talk about him to people I say, 'Have I ever told you about Dr Pollard? He's very cultured.' Which is a cheese-related joke that seldom gets laughs. I sometimes say, '...he's matured nicely over the years.' as a substitute joke but this usually gets less laughs that the first one so I use it only when I really want to impress chicks.
He greets me outside his work. These days he's slumming it in the world of yogurt instead of cheese but he keeps abreast of new development in the cheese sciences. For instance, he introduced me to Cheddar Vision before it got famous.
Over lunch we talk aimlessly about a few things before I broach the cheese topic. 'I was watching a horrible TV quiz show last night where in one segment of the show the contestant had to name as many elements on the periodic table as possible,' I begin.
'Uh-huh,' he replies,'How many could you come up with?'
'A few.'
'How many?'
'Well, I was watching the show with Cousin Jesse so he helped me out a bit.'
'How many?' he asked persistently.
I paused before I answered. 'Zinc,' I replied, blushing slightly.
'That's it?'
'Well, there was that Simpsons episode where they...'
'The "Imagine the World without Zinc" episode you mean?'
'....yeah.'
'"Come back Zinc!"'
'Heh heh,' I laugh weakly.
'Come on man! You're better than that.'
'OK wise guy. How many elements can you name?' I ask testily.
'By atomic mass, melting point of, boiling point of, The ones that Plato knew about, the ones known by Arabian chemist Jabir ibn-Hayyan, The Robert Boyle era, by symbol, the ionisation energies, the unstable ones? You want me to list all this stuff that I keep in my head?'
'...er...yes?' I say weakly.
'Pffft. I'd know at least a half dozen!' he proclaims triumphantly. Smug bastard.
It turned out that Dr Pollard was amazed that cheese was such an interest to so many people. He'd not turned to the 'cheese' section of Wikipedia since he was an authority of the topic. We shook hands and he left to go back to work, puzzled as I was with this strange knowledge.
[1] Well, that and Nagorno-Karabakh
My forays into this cyber pool of knowledge are not undertaken without a pinch of salt. Cretins are free to edit the shit out of it. Vandalism runs rife. But it is this incompleteness that attracts me to it. And so it is when I was told about one of the most frequently vandalised pages that I took a backwards step and said, 'Say what?'
Is it Nazism that is the most vandalised page? Apartheid? Christianity? Abortion? Euthanasia? Apparently not. The page that is one of THE most vandalised?
Cheese.
Poor, innocent cheese[1].
Who the frick would bother editing cheese?
In an effort to understand the situation a little better I consulted my friend Dr Pollard, Cheese Scientist. Now, unlike most people that I make up in a feeble attempt to appear more interesting, I actually do know this guy. We lunch every once in a while and discuss our favourite Simpsons episode (the Monorail one) or My Name is Earl. When I talk about him to people I say, 'Have I ever told you about Dr Pollard? He's very cultured.' Which is a cheese-related joke that seldom gets laughs. I sometimes say, '...he's matured nicely over the years.' as a substitute joke but this usually gets less laughs that the first one so I use it only when I really want to impress chicks.
He greets me outside his work. These days he's slumming it in the world of yogurt instead of cheese but he keeps abreast of new development in the cheese sciences. For instance, he introduced me to Cheddar Vision before it got famous.
Over lunch we talk aimlessly about a few things before I broach the cheese topic. 'I was watching a horrible TV quiz show last night where in one segment of the show the contestant had to name as many elements on the periodic table as possible,' I begin.
'Uh-huh,' he replies,'How many could you come up with?'
'A few.'
'How many?'
'Well, I was watching the show with Cousin Jesse so he helped me out a bit.'
'How many?' he asked persistently.
I paused before I answered. 'Zinc,' I replied, blushing slightly.
'That's it?'
'Well, there was that Simpsons episode where they...'
'The "Imagine the World without Zinc" episode you mean?'
'....yeah.'
'"Come back Zinc!"'
'Heh heh,' I laugh weakly.
'Come on man! You're better than that.'
'OK wise guy. How many elements can you name?' I ask testily.
'By atomic mass, melting point of, boiling point of, The ones that Plato knew about, the ones known by Arabian chemist Jabir ibn-Hayyan, The Robert Boyle era, by symbol, the ionisation energies, the unstable ones? You want me to list all this stuff that I keep in my head?'
'...er...yes?' I say weakly.
'Pffft. I'd know at least a half dozen!' he proclaims triumphantly. Smug bastard.
It turned out that Dr Pollard was amazed that cheese was such an interest to so many people. He'd not turned to the 'cheese' section of Wikipedia since he was an authority of the topic. We shook hands and he left to go back to work, puzzled as I was with this strange knowledge.
[1] Well, that and Nagorno-Karabakh
posted by Fatman | 3:25 pm
6 Comments:
Fatman,
If I ever need a refresher lesson in Biology, it just has to be you & GB, innit? tee-hee!
Boobs & pubic hair and all kinds of delicious unmentionables.... :-)
What ever happened to the expression "Which one of you guys cut cheese?". Never seem to hear it these days. What's the Australian expression for "cutting cheese"?
Suzanabrams- The real reason I'll never be a doctor? I could never pass the subjects that involve cutting up dead people. Not from fainting from seeing blood but from my constant fascination with the cadaver's genitals. 'Look at the size of this guy's penis!' I'd say during class, 'and I thought mine was small. Heh heh. What a dweeb. No wonder he died.'
To which my disgusted classmates would say, 'This person decided to donate his body to the advacement of medical science and you are mocking his...my word. It is quite small.'
GB- We say 'farting'.
You & GB could both happily cut up dead people with your awesome blogs, Fatman and live to tell. tee-hee!
You'll just have to try and not fawn over...you know what....
so no more excuses!
A reason for the desecration of the 'cheese entry' (did I just invent another name for a stench trench?) could be that Judas Iscariot otherwise known as the 5th Beatle loved cheese he even sold Jesus out for 30 Diary-lee triangles. I loved the Simpsons episode in which BJ and his monkey Bear had a 3 some with Patrick Duffy, fuck I laughed and then some more.
Suzanabrams- All the jokes I know involve hookers, dead people, dead hookers or armadillos. My comedic range is fairly limited because of my inability to have complex thought. GB's blog is well-written, thoughtful and articulate. And he manages to make jokes about our obsessions of celebrity sex lives. He's like a hairy Dr.Phil, without being a d-ckhead.
Old Knudsen- I can only imagine that some wartime shrapnel that was imbedded in your brain in Ypres has affected your memory. Judas was in the Bee Gees, not Beatles.
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