Ashes to...uhm... Britain, apparently.

Who hasn't yet heard about the infamous ash cloud? No, I'm not going to tell you yet another story about a weird friend. I'm refering to the great, big cloud of ash that was created by the vulcanic eruption in Iceland.

All the experts agreed that the thing was headed our way. There were news bulletins on the latest developments several times a day. It would be here on Monday, they said. It was huge, they said. It might hover for months, they said. It was filled with glass particles, they said.

Or as my mother once put it: glass articles. I was all set to stand outside on the lawn with my arms out, hoping for new coffee cups.

Monday came and went, and there was no sign of the ash cloud. I sat in the window all day, waiting, staring at the different clouds to see if any of them looked like it might have ash in it. I did see one that looked exactly like Kermit the Frog and one that almost resembled a cow, but no enormous, hovering vulcanic cloud. Turns out the thing decided to go bother someone else.

I feel a bit cheated, to be honest. I've never seen an ash cloud. And it had been a really slow week. Oh well, maybe next time..

Nuff said

The Post-Poop Euphoria

A754YR3NRKMG

What exactly is the road to happiness? If you were to ask Pooch,she would tell you that it was all about doing a number two right on top of a large pile of snow.

There’s been an obscene amount of snow piling down over the past few weeks. We completely ran out of room for the stuff around Christmas time. Now it’s all about stacking it in our gardens to the best of our abilities and every garden in every neighbourhood features enormous towers of snow.

Pooch considers it the epitome of happiness to climb to the top of our tower and poop on it. The problem is, that I can’t really scale the thing myself to bag her creations. See, there’s a certain weight difference between myself and Pooch. Just a teeny tiny one. Big enough so that she can crawl around on the tower but I would most likely be swallowed like a BigMac in front of Kirstie Alley.

So there’s poop on top of snow on top of poop on top of snow. Like natures very own perverted sandwich. Won’t that be terrific when it melts? Oh, the fun we’ll have.

Also, once Pooch has…uhm…finished her little mountain expedition, she goes into what I like to call the Post-Poop Euphoria. What happens is that once she’s done her business, Pooch will experience a fit of joy that is impossible for the poor thing to contain. There’s a lot of bouncing and spinning and running at max speed involved. Ever seen a dog bounce and spin while running as fast as it can? You have? Ever seen one try to do it up a flight of stairs? It’s not pretty.

The other day I came home with a big bag of pork chops. Pooch saw them and got so excited she immediately had to go outside right there and then to poop herself. Then she was certifiably insane for about ten minutes.

Strange dog, that.

And for those of you who were wondering about the kindle last time, we did a post on e-readers over at unbound a little while ago. Here it is: http://hagelrat.blogspot.com/2010/01/e-reader-triple-threat-smackdown.html

Aaand then I had an Ally McBeal moment and felt I needed a theme song for today (plus I was bored):

P-p-philosophy

Every now and then a girl needs a new toy. Something shiny and, above all, pretty. So last month I decided to buy myself the Amazon Kindle2. It only took me about 2 ½ minutes to justify why I clearly needed one. I'd become more well-read, for one. And then there's the benefit of not having to haul a massive weight of books around everytime I move. Not to mention all the trees I'd be saving. Saving trees is very politically correct, you know. I figure I'm racking up good karma to make up for all the other not-so-politically-correct stunts I may or may not have pulled already.

Not that anyone can prove anything.

I impatiently watched as the shipment bounced from America to Germany to Sweden to Coastal Bible Belt, where I am currently living. And then it arrived. But owning an ereader isn't enough in and by itself. You need to fill it with books, of course. I mean, what would you do with it otherwise? Use it as a coaster? Don't be silly!

So I started downloading a selection of my favorite books into it. Some of these books might be considered unusual reading. Like Plato's Republic. But I find it interesting. The old dude was completely off his rocker politically. I also quite like 'On crime and punishment' by Cesare Beccaria. He lived in the 1700s and had all sorts of thoughts about how punisments should fit the crime they're meant to punish, which were highly unusual in those days. They still are in some places. Like, say, Texas.

I also got myself the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe and Khalil Gibran, just for the hell of it. In addition to that, I purchased more conventional things like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman ect, ect.

Well, at any rate, Amazon chose to completely ignore my more conventional choices when it created my recommendation. It insists that I would have great joy reading the works of various long-dead greeks with names that sound like terminal illnesses. At least I should pick up a copy of The Bible, they think.

Then again, if I take them up on that and carry The Bible around in my kindle, maybe that'll make up for all the not-so-politically-correct stunts that I may or may not pull in the future.

Not that anyone'll be able to prove anything, of course.

Napoleon or whatever

Added: And then, once I woke up properly, I realized that I've written Haiti half of the time and then Tahiti the other half. See, this is why I don't get up early. Sometimes I kinda feel like I should. It's a bit like having breakfast - I don't want to, really, but I feel obligated to from time to time because that's what society seems to expect. But I don't like it and it makes me do strange things. But hey, if Tahiti ever has an earthquake or makes a deal with the devil (whatever happens first), I'll just change it back to Tahiti and re-post. And I promise to never again wake up at 5am, think to myself: "Oh my, I can't sleep. What shall I do? I know! I'll blog some!" Anyways, do read. It should be perfectly safe now.

I was determined NOT to write anything about Haiti, because that’s what everyone’s been doing lately, and I want to be unique, dammit.

But I can’t seem to restrain myself any longer. By now we all know how reverend Pat Robertson has been buzzing around in the media, talking about how Haiti brought this earthquake upon themselves because back in the day they had all gotten together and made a deal with the devil. See, they wanted to get out from under the heel of the French (“Napoleon the third, or whatever.”) They all all got together and asked Satan to get the French off their backs and Satan said “Yeah, okay.” Then the Haitians revolted and kicked the French out, all because Satan believed in them.

I’m curious, though… How did they all “get together,” exactly? I mean, it’s hard enough to set up a lunch appointment with the girls. Our boss has been trying to arrange a staff meeting for weeks, with no luck what so ever. And we’re only five people working there. There’s around 200000 people in Haiti. Not sure how many they were under French occupation, but I’m pretty sure there were more then five. Did they have unusually large football stadiums back then? How did they plan this extraordinary meeting? It’s not like they could fire off a txt message to everyone saying: “Meeting with that Satan dude at the freakishly big football stadium at 8:00pm, Tuesday. Be there or be a Frenchman's pony!”

I believe in keeping an open mind when it comes to philosophy and religion and mathematics and stuff, but not to the point where your brain falls out of your head and goes rolling down the street. Just sayin’

Tuna & Thesis

.I have never been a breakfast person. My stomach wakes up around noon, completely independent of when the rest of me wrangles itself out of bed. Every once in a while I do make an exception. This is mostly because I feel like I should. I've had my head piped full of “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and stuff like that, ever since I was a kid.

The other day was a forced exception. My step-sister came over for breakfast. Technically, I suppose it was more of an early lunch, but my stomach wasn’t awake yet at any rate. I sat down at the kitchen table and started making a tuna sandwich.

“mayo…adding tuna…one, two, three slices of pickle…” I said, carefully documenting everything, not because I didn’t know how to build a tuna sandwich, but because I’m not all that accustomed to preparing breakfast and so it took a bit of concentration. I realized that I didn't have to narrate the entire birth of my sandwich, but I was on a funny sort of an auto pilot.

At some point The Step-Sister asked about The Thesis (of doom) and I gave out my standard reply, all the while intensely focused on the collection of bread, salads and whatnots on my plate. Then she and The Step-Mum chattered on for a bit, before she turned back to me and asked “are you nearing the end of it soon?”

I carefully examined my sandwich and responded: “yeah, just about done now. It just needs a bit more lettuce.”

Lesson learned: drink more coffee before breakfast.

Get out of the car!

This is supposedly a true account recorded in the Police Logs of Sarasota, Florida.

A Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four men in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to shout at the top of her lungs: “I have a gun and I know how to use it. Get out of the car!”

The four men didn’t wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get the key into the ignition.

She tried and tried, and then she realized why. It was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12-packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces further down.

She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story could not stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

Moral of the story? If you’re gonna have a senior moment, make it memorable!

Toothbrush thoughts

I was sitting here in the sofa, wondering what I would do for my very first blogpost this year. Lots of people are writing about their New Year’s resolutions, I thought. Maybe I could do that? But then I’d have to come up with at least one New Year’s resolution and my brain is far too sluggish after three weeks of eating 24/7 to do that.

So I’m going to tell you about my new toothbrush.

It was a Christmas present. It came in a large box. Alright, it was a medium sized box. But it was nice and square. I like presents that are nice and square. They’re more interesting than the oddly shaped ones.

My toothbrush is a magical toothbrush.

Well…no, it’s not –really- magical, but it’s very fancy smancy. It has a control panel and a space ship. Okay, perhaps it’s not an actual spaceship, but the travel case that came with it looks slightly spaceship-ish.

Said control panel went up on the bathroom wall, where it carefully monitors my toothbrushing progress. If I do exactly as I’m told – brushing-wise – for two minutes, it will display a smiley face and all will be well with the world. The thing is, when I unwrapped it, the little face WINKED at me. It hasn’t winked since and I’m very curious as to what I have to do in order for it to do it again. I’ve done some experimenting, and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I may have to get all dressed up, like I was when I opened the present.

Besides, it seems like an awful lot of work to get all dolled up before I brush my teeth at night in order to get a toothbrush to wink at me. I’m not that starved for attention, thank you very much. I mean, I haven’t quite given up on men yet and I haven’t even –considered- becoming a lesbian yet.

Or maybe it’s mad at me. The first night I had it, I ate cookies at night after I’d brushed my teeth. Maybe it knew. Maybe it looked inside my mouth the next morning and thought “This crumb wasn’t here last night!” Maybe I should be more careful, unless I want my head electrocuted.

I’m going to have to give this some more thought.

Once upon a time there was a lamp that smelled of sheit

Because I have expensive habits that I refuse to give up, such as eating and accumulating belongings, I have taken a job in a shop by the town square. I sell lamps. Big lamps, small lamps, round lamps, square lamps, tall lamps, short lamps… I sell them all, I’m not half bad at it, if I must say so myself.

And you know I must.

However, I’ve been handed a bit of a challenge. It’s a perversion of a lamp. Sure, it looked pretty enough when it was still inside the box. On the picture it looked great. All tall and elegant and whatnot.

So we started putting the pieces together. It’s a big, fancy lamp with swirly-looking bits on it. It was a job for two people. But it didn’t take long before realisation struck that what we were building wasn’t quiiite the same thing as in the picture on the box. For one thing, OUR lamp was crooked. Actually, that’s an understatement worthy of a government cover-up. The more we built on it, the more crooked it became.

It was worse than the annual ‘is the christmas tree straight’ dialogue. Only there was no earthly way to straighten this particular Christmas tree.

There was also another odd thing about the lamp. It smelled bad. To be blunt, it smelled like…well…like something that came out of someone’s colon. That’s right, it smelled like shit. And after we’d touched it, WE smelled like shit. Not only that but after we then touched the counter, IT smelled like shit.

It had to be scrubbed down. The counter, that is. The lamp was beyond help.

Every once in a while, a customer will ask us if we have any merchandise other then what is displayed in the store. This has always struck me as a very silly question. As if we’d have a secret lamp-room hidden away in the back, the way that some bars have secret rooms for high-stake poker games. At times I have played with the idea of asking “do you know the secret handshake?” when someone offered that particular question.

Now we have the Sheit Lamp. The frightening monstrosity of glass and warped metal, hidden away in the darkest corner of the storage room. So the next time someone asks me for secret merchandise, I’ll show them that. No doubt their screams will be heard all the way across the town square.

Trials, tribulations and Santa Claus

And so the madness begins… How the content of a red nose can make you doubt your own sanity:

Yesterday I had two hours free before work, so I decided to run some errands. When I say errands, I of course mean ‘mad shopping frenzy’. It started off as a perfectly respectable errand, though. I was simply going to do some Christmas shopping. But then I remembered that I could do with a pair of slippers and the snowball started rolling. Snowballs’ll do that. It’s snowball nature.

Amongst the things I bought, were a pair of very silly slippers, made to look like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Aren’t they purdy?

After work I sat down and made a playlist of sugary sweet Christmas songs, all while wearing my new slippers. I was right in the middle of a scary Christmas-spirit attack. They usually start around 1/3^rd into December. At that point, I will turn into the Franz Mesmer of Xmas spirit.

There I was, slipping into a Bing Crosby induced holiday-trance, when something happened. I heard a voice. It was male and robotic and I was pretty sure it wasn’t coming from inside my head. “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!” The Voice said.

I sat straight in my chair, eyes wide, convinced that it had finally happened – at long last I had lost my grasp on reality.

Then my friend suddenly said “maybe it’s the shoes.”

“Nah,” I said. “They’re not that advanced.” Still, I did a quick examination of the Rudolph’s noses and surely enough, inside one of them, I found a hard knob. I gave it a little squease and it shouted “Ho, ho, ho! Meeeerry Christmas!”

It was quite a relief, let me tell you. I honestly thought I’d gone bonkers there, for a second. I was all ready to run straight to the local hospital and have them stick my head in the MRI machine. But now I can just stay in. Yay me.

Yeah, I should be too good for this. But I'm not.

So have a horribly inappropriate joke:

So I'm at work yesterday and the mailclerk starts handing out letters from upper management. At this point, I'm thinking "Oh crap, how am I gonna tell my family I got laid off?" Fortunately, I'm only 30 years old. You'll understand when you read the letter.

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of economy,Management has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be eligible for theSHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination). Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED can only get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).
Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by Management.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management has always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring to the attention of your Manager. They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can get.

Great, as if I didn't get enough shit already....

And last, but not least, here's my new favorite song (although it's likely been replaced by something else by the time you get here):

I can't brain today, I have the dumb!

We all have our weaknesses, right? Superman got all distracted around kryptonite, Tony Stark got a wee bit diverted in the presence of booze and there are certain members of the church that seem to have a hard time focusing around altar boys. I get sidetracked by the world in general. It really doesn’t take much, especially when I’m supposed to be doing something grown up and responsible.

I know that I theoretically have the ability to concentrate. I never seem to lose track of my facebook applications; the potatoes growing on that little farm never spoils, that little restaurant is doing splendidly. The sims 3 can hold my attention for hours on end. I can sit through an episode of Judge Judy just fine. Actually, the latter is a strange sort of an exception. You see, I’ll plop down in front of the television and then suddenly it’s an hour later and I can’t really remember what the judge was going on about. Then again, I can’t really remember anything else that may or may not have happened around me either, so I’m assuming that I was very concentrated on the show and then became the victim of sudden amnesia, or something.

I was going to be all responsible and do some proof reading today, but I was completely unable to direct my attention onto that little Microsoft Word document. Things had to change. I immediately googled “how to concentrate”. Out of the 31 100 000 results, my favourite one was the one that stated that any mental achievement had to be preceded by total relaxation. You need to unwind before going into battle, it said.

So I decided to play the sims.

There is a certain chance that I need a new attack plan for my next battle.


pretty picture: The confused by Kylamay for deviantart. http://kylamay.deviantart.com/art/The-Confused-24558778

Tootie the Zombie Brain

First off, I would like you all to know that I am typing all of this with an Irish accent. It’s just one of those days.

The other day was another one of those days. Of the zombie brain variety, not the Irish accent kind. These are the days when the sane, logical part of my brain (Bergerac) goes off somewhere, leaving the not so sane, completely illogical part of my brain (Tootie) behind the wheel, which in turn brings on the condition I call Zombie Brain.

For the most part, my chromosomes have combined beautifully (hey, if I don’t toot my own horn, who’s gonna do it for me, eh?), but Zombie Brain will be the end of me one day.

There I was, in the kitchen, fixing myself a cup of coffee. At least that’s what I would have done, had I had enough brain activity in my head to put coffee in the machine. I was watching the clear liquid fill in the pot, all the while feeling like something was a bit off. I poured it into my cup. I added sweetener, cream and stirred it with a little teaspoon. I didn’t notice my mistake until after I’d taken the first sip…

I then decided to get some work done on my nemesis: The Thesis. I turned my computer on and then Tootie decided to just switch all the systems off. It was the mother of all space-outs. Suddenly an hour had passed and I swear I had done nothing but stare into space.

Maybe I should try wearing an ice bag on my head while I work, or something.

Why I may set myself on fire just for the hell of it

Those of you who have been paying attention know that I am in the final stages of mumbling obscenities at my thesis. Or as some people call it; finishing it.

Oh, I do expect you all to pay attention, by the way. There will be a pop quiz eventually.

Aanyways…

I’m working on my very last (and millionth) draft. At this point I’m so sick of the damn thing the idea of working on it makes me want to set myself on fire and run around screaming like a banshee. I blame IT for me being completely hooked on every ridiculous facebook application there is. Clearly I have to take some steps to maximise my work efficiency. So I decided to clean up my desk. As you can see from the picture below, it’s going SWIMMINGLY.

Notice that evil glow eminating from my computer screen? That, ladies and gentlemen, is The Thesis. See what I mean?

The flailing of the cellphone

I have a new cellphone. It’s white and red and oh so purdy. It’s my firstest ever walkman phone. I remember my first walkman. It was pink and not a phone at all. I listened to Alice Cooper on it. The other kids liked Bonnie Tyler and A-ha. They thought I was weird, even though I listened to A-ah too. I even had a George Michael poster from his funky-sunglasses-and-leather-jacket period on my wall and every now and then I would give it a little kiss. That was before my gaydar kicked in. Then again, who had proper gaydar in the 80s, anyways?

But I digress.

There is a certain chance that I may have been weird for other reasons, of course. I suppose I might still be slightly tinged with weirdness. But normalcy is so…boring. Who notices normal people, really?

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. My new phone. I had to stuff it full of music right away, of course, and test it. There’s a little, shiny button on the side of it and music starts playing when you push it. Then, if I hold the shiny in and move the phone upwards through the air, the volume gets louder. If I move it downwards, it gets lower. If I move it to the right, it plays the next track and if I move it to the left, it plays the previous track.

How’s that for fancy-pants?

The downside is that it doesn’t really respond well to subtle movements. These days, for instance, I can be seen waiting for the bus while flailing my phone like a madwoman. But like I said: nobody notices normal people.

Have a little something from my pink walkman days:

30 going on 13

Those of you who have been paying attention, may have discovered that I recently moved in with my mums (lesbians) since I’m wrapping up the last parts of my thesis (gaaah!) and have yet to find a job (moneymoneymoney).

Tonight I watched “13 going on 30,” which is a rather silly movie about a 13 year old girl who suddenly wakes up one morning to find that she’s been turned into a 30 year old woman. I’m doing that in reverse. One day I’m living the grown-up life in my own place, the next day I wake up here and it’s like I’ve reverted back to my teens. Cause your parents will never, ever stop parenting you, see. It doesn’t matter if you’re 80 and they’re 110, bedridden and can’t speak – they’ll still use handsignals to tell you that you’re not eating enough and that you should put on a jacket if you’re going outside.

One freakish fact of science or physics, or whatever, is that women who live together adopt the same cycle. If you’re sitting there, wondering what I just said, you should have paid more attention in health class, you lazy bum. Anyways, my mum had a hysterectomy ages ago, so she’s out of the running, but my step-mum turned to me the other day and said: “are we having our period soon?”

I want a job.

Now listen to the pretty song:

http://www.stumbleaudio.com/share/mevmusic/12

The day digression got the better of me

As I have mentioned countless times, Pooch has a squeaky toy named Pigface and it is the love of her life. That and tinfoil. And me, of course, but Pooch’s feelings towards me go more towards total awe, really. “Oooh, you make food appear out of the kitchen wall! You are a GOD!”

In fact, Pooch’s number one purpose in life is to follow me around in the hope that I’ll make food appear out of something-or-other.

But I digress.

Unfortunately Pigface went into a box somewhere during the moving process and hasn’t been seen since. Fortunately this doesn’t seem to bring Pooch’s mood down as much as I had feared. She now loves Burger.

Actually, its called Urger. I discovered that if I asked her to fetch Burger, all I could get out was “B..” and she’d be off searching for her ball. Pooch is one of those gals who get by on her looks.

Uhm...

I have a confession to make.

I have completely forgotten where I was going with this post. Here, watch this (and notice how the singy dude keeps poking himself in the privates):

Hell, yeah!

Actually, I don't like wine. Trying to get me to drink wine, would probably just piss me off more. So yeah, you're all screwed.

The great divide

All my life I have believed strongly in that line between exercise and masochism that should not be crossed by yours truly, under any circumstances. Despite this belief, I have a dark past as an exercise nut. At my worst, I would work out two hours a day, every day, seven days a week and I spent more time contemplating protein sources than I care to think about.

But I got better. Or maybe I just got lazy. Yeah, I think that’s probably it. Hiking with Pooch doesn’t count as exercise. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t.

So then the step-mum suggests that we start going to the gym together. Circuit training. It started regularly enough, with work-outs a couple of times a week followed by ice cream. So far so good.

I suppose I should also mention that this gym is…odd. They periodically like to play insane music like YMCA and Bee Gees. There are different categories of people in my gym.

First, there are the rich, fat people. They will come in with their friends, STAND on the treadmill and chatter for a bit before they say “oh, my legs are so tired” and move on to the next thing, and so on and so forth. After an hour of this, they will grab their MOSS water bottles, jump into their sports cars and no doubt feel very good about themselves for having spent a whole hour working out.

Second, there are the regular people. The sane ones that go 2-3 times a week and put in a moderate effort and then go out and buy an ice cream afterwards, or something.

The third type is the gym bunny. They’re the slim, perfectly toned people who look like they’ve never eaten a snack in their lifes, and they are always there, no matter what time of the day you decide to stop by. Most likely, they were all built in secret, underground laboratories. Some of them are models, all of them are annoying.

The gym bunnies never speak to anyone other than other gym bunnies. The other two categories are just slightly smelly air to them. Personally, I’ve been planted firmly in the regular people group. Then about three weeks ago, I started to notice a…shift. Slowly but surely I began to enjoy the process of using the gym equipment to inflict pain upon myself. I suffered and I liked it. And like any drug, you eventually need to move on to bigger doses and then even bigger ones.

So there I was the other day, buring through the exercise machines at breakneck speeds. Then a gym bunny enters, looks around with empty gym bunny eyes at all the free machines, before getting on the one right next to me. At first I thought that perhaps she simply didn’t notice me there, seeing how I’m a category two dose of slightly smelly air. The thought had no sooner formed in my brain, before the gym bunny made eye contact, smiled and said “hello” and drifted into whatever thought-dimension gym bunnies go to while they’re working out.

Mommy, I’m scared…

Science and such

On Friday I have a meeting with my thesis advisor to wrap up my big, fascinating research project. Now, it may not have been the most thrilling project on earth. It’s not going to fuel a Hollywood blockbuster anytime soon. The world would have to go through some fairly extreme changes for that to happen.

Then again, there are weirder science projects out there.

Like, for example, the one conducted at Wayne state- and Auburn university in 1992 which examined the effect of country music on suicide. That was odd.

Not quite as strange as “Love and sex with robots” by D. Levy at the university of Maastricht in 2007. He predicted that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriage with robots. “At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, but once you have a story like ‘I had sex with a robot and it was great!’ appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” Levy said.

Personally, there a few people I’d rather jump on than a damn robot.

Granted, that project is very odd. But there are even stranger ones out there. Like the “rectal foreign bodies: case reports and a comprehensive review of the world’s literature” by Busch and Starling in 1986. The citations include reports of, among other items: seven light bulbs; a knife sharpener; two flashlights; a wire spring; a snuff box; an oil can with potato stopper; eleven different forms of fruits, vegatables and other foodstuffs; a jeweler’s saw; a frozen pig’s tail; a tin cup; a beer glass; and one patient’s remarkable ensemble collection consisting of spectacles, a suitcase key, a tobacco pouch and a magazine.

The world has literature on rectal foreign bodies. Who knew?

Then there’s the “safe and painless manipulation of penile zipper entrapment.” I swear I’m not making any of these things up. Most of them are online, even. Then there’s “pressures produced when penguins poo – calculations on avian defecation” by Breno Meyer-Rochow and J. Gal at the international university of Bremen and Lorand Eotvos University of Hungary in 2005.

Last but not least, there’s “Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread” by Dr. M. Sidoli in Washington DC, 1998. According to it's author, "this paper describes some features of the behaviour of a severely disturbed adopted latency boy. Peter was born premature, suffered several early hospitalizations and surgical operations, and at 2 months of age was removed from his mother's care by Social Services for neglect and abandonment. When feeling endangered, Peter had developed a defensive olfactive container using his bodily smell and farts to envelop himself in a protective cloud of familiarity against the dread of falling apart, and to hold his personality together."

MY project is nothing like either one of those.