How I Spend My Freetime, and why I need a life: The History of the Guinea Pig

The Guinea Pig, nature’s WTF*.  It was first introduced to European society as a luxury (go figure), because when Spain brutally brought about the destruction of South American culture, it led to these little guys running around stray with no home, and aren’t they just adorable?

Well, I guess with all the bird eating spiders and blood sacrifices around, THIS and only this seemed cute.

But it begs the question, why on earth was this thing domesticated to begin with?  This is where my research began.   The Inca, who were a convoluted people to begin with, were the first to domesticate the Guinea Pig, but not for cuddliness and fur color, but rather meat flavor.   This is honestly why I’ll always go to Peruvian owned pet stores.   It can still be served as the main entrée in parts of Peru, in fact, so be advised. 

 

However, they were not just food sources in the apparently lacking ancient South American diet, these little bastards were sacrifices to the gods.  (I’m not really recommending that you share that with your children.)

Now, I’m not an expert in Incan mythology, but I do know that the story of Abraham and his sons becomes a lot more adorable (and creepier) if you replace them with Guinea Pigs.  Afterall, let’s face it, Sarah was well past her child-baring years.

*No native inhabitant of Australia was, nor should be, considered in defining Nature. 

Hump Day--Not What I Signed Up For. . .

Gather ‘round kiddies, it’s time for another fun filled story about the ways of the world.  Some people think that Mondays are undoubtedly the worst days.  Let’s look at the facts: you’re groggy, possibly still hungover from the weekend.  The memories of that glorious free 48 hours you had are as fresh in your mind as the cup of coffee that can’t seem to do its job.

 Loser!

On top of all of that, you’ve got 5 days, 40 plus work hours, and that ungodly work in front of you.  It’s almost like there’s no end to the misery, and the day’s just begun.  And adding more happiness your way, your groggy ass just spilled your own coffee!

 Fucking loser!

But that’s not the worst to come.  The worst to come is actually 48 hours away, the day that I hate the most and in a few paragraphs you’ll see why.  Wednesday.

Send it back to the Gates of Hell from whence it came!

Here’s the breakdown:

MONDAY – You’re back to fucking work, there’s nothing you can do about it.  At least you know what you’re up against.  It’s like being on death row; it sucks, but you know a work week is ahead of you.

TUESDAY—It’s the Purgatory of days.  Nothing good nor bad happens on Tuesday.  But it’s got something like two in it, which puts it in second place, I guess.  And like my uncle always said, “second is first to lose,” though it was always after his second bottle. . .

WEDNESDAY—We’ll get here.

THURSDAY—Thursday leaves most with a euphoric feeling.  The weekend is almost here; the next day is Friday; everything is winding down and you can start making exciting plans without anything being too much of a commitment at this point.  It’s overall a good day.  And if you’re a student, it typically means you don’t have to see these professors for four glorious days of procrastination.

FRIDAY—It’s a great day, a day that ends in a stumbling, ironically unforgettable night of partying and shenanigans.  Or just sitting on the couch in your underwear with your best friend, Mr. Daniel’s.

The choice is yours.

UPDATE: Regrettably, this day has suffered severe trauma from a Rebecca Black single.  Friday is soon to testify regarding this heinous assault and then be put in the custody of the Witness Protection Program.

WEEKEND—Yay!

Yay!

Wednesday

Wednesday, my hell have a special place for her, is named for the Norse god, Odin. 

He’s been pissed about it ever since. 

The Germans, actually, had such a problem referring to this suck-fest of a day after a kick-ass god that they changed their word to Mittwoch, meaning mid-week.  And that’s all that it is!  It's not even near the prophesied "hump day" I've long awaited.

Bummer...

Seriously, middle of the week is all that it is.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the world's worst week of your life or the best.  The news of hearing/realizing it’s halfway over is …

I was going for indescribable…

Imagine you could go back in time and tell someone in 1942 that World War II is halfway over.  Go on, I’ll wait.  Was their reaction glee?

HELL NO, because war sucks, and sure, that it’s halfway over seems like great news, but you still have to get through the other half!

That went well, by the way.

But enough on the negative; what about the positive?  It’s the best week of your life.  You’re in love, you got that kickass promotion/job/car/house/puppy—it’s just awesome!  Everything about this week takes every other week of your life and just shits all over them.

Bummer.

…Well, that week is halfway over.  Now it’s negative again.

Ya see what I’m saying here?  There’s nothing good about Wednesday.  Even just looking at the word fills me with rage.  I challenge my audience to find me another word in the English language with a silent D!

You know what to do here.
Also add 'Silent D' to the list of rapper/porn-star names

I’m perfectly happy to be wrong, but at least unlike the other days of the week, I loathed having to sound out Wednesday as wed-nes-day, when I was learning to spell last week.  It was just wrodng.

The only bright side: it’s not Friday.

In Honor of the World's Biggest Badass

Attila the Hun, as called any other name will forever be known as the Scourge of God.   Let us take a minute to reflect upon this title, and notice who has yet to be dubbed such.

Mussolini

Hitler

Mao Zedong

 He was handsome before he turned into Jabba the Hutt...

Genghis Khan

 You know what to do...

Saladin

Martha Stewart

The Dark Side of the Force surrounds this woman

I’m almost positive that there were actually no heretics nor witches described as such!  Surely, to have the sole title in history as the Scourge of God by the Catholic Church is impressive in its own right.  But let’s take a look at Hunny-Bear’s life.

Attilla was born into a society of warrior nomads on the steppes of Asia—a land known for extreme climates, lack of tree cover, abundance of horses, and being mind-numbingly expansive.

 You can wander for days and notice no difference

The Huns, it is theorized terrorized China first and foremost.  And it is also theorized that the most sophisticated technology at the time is what stopped their attacks.

 Note: this was the most sophisticated piece of technology at the time.

Saddened by his defeat, Attila scribbled in a journal later to be blatantly plagiarized by Roger Waters.

So the Huns packed up and went west, with a song in their heart, rage in their eyes and all kinds of implements of destruction, namely Attila’s massive cod and fire.

So Atti, as his friends called him, eventually reached Eastern Europe, travelling across the terrain which would eventually become famous for stopping Napoleon and Adolf Hitler in their tracks and costing them their entire campaign.

 I’m really thinking he held off Russian weather by sheer will alone.

It was at this point Attila considered settling down and starting a family of little Hunlets somewhere in the Ukraine; however, in this historian's opinion he saw one look at the Romans and Byzantines in their fancy togas and tunics, and being under the impression they were all pussies, decided to destroy everything.  It is here we can see a resemblance between the Mafia and the Huns.  These foreigners come in, they get no respect because they speak funny, have strange weapons, and smell like Asia.

 Europe didn’t smell like this until the 1800’s!

So Atti and his cronies had to rough up the joint, get some street cred, ya feel?

He then proceeds to do something that didn’t happen again until Martin Luther took his 95 Theses 1100 years later and nailed them to a door using only his penis.  Attila made the Pope—the motherfucking Pope (he doesn’t really do that)—but il “dio bastardo” Papa!—an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“I am sick of these motherfucking Huns, from that motherfucking plain!”

The offer went something like this: the Pope (and Rome) give some land to the Huns along with some money, or they burn the city down.  Let me put history to you all this way: THIS IS SOMETHING BATMAN VILLIANS DO!

Miért olyan súlyos?

Alas, Rome had no dark knight, and had to concede.  (Here’s a hint, their land’s still got Hun in the name!)

Unfortunately, Attila would not die a hero’s death.  It’s said he choked.  Literally.  A man who did so much, and was unstoppable by Rome (albeit, Western Rome was collapsing) was taken out by food.  (Maybe anorexics are right…)

The moral of the story, if we must find a moral, is don’t get hungry in Hungary—that shit’ll kill you!

 People's exhibit A

 

A Tale In Two Sagas PT 2

So Said and I met up and first grabbed some local cuisine, which was to die for!  Not to mention some premium tobacco worth dying for.  Now Said said he had some plans, but could meet me at his home later, and after giving me his address went off.  I wandered around a bit until I met a man who could understand English quite well and invited me back to his place for some tea, which sounded great.

He looked something like this guy!

Readers let me tell you, this place was amazing!  It was practically a palace, and this guy had to be a very prestigious man, since he had some guards watching his home.   I was thoroughly impressed and he could see it.

I complimented him on his beautiful home and asked what it was he did for a living.  He mumbled something about being in politics, maybe...—to be frank, his accent was as thick as jam.  When he asked me about my profession, I told him I was a writer, and asked him if he’d heard of my blog, Jelly versus Jam.  It took him a minute, then he chuckled, and speaking to a friend of his in the house, he made a gesture shoving one hand through another.  His friend died laughing.  I laughed out of awkwardness—I had no clue what they were saying.  He then told me he’d never heard of my blog, and I sipped at my lonely cup of tea.

 The loneliest cup of tea in the world...

Finally the night before my departure came, and I wanted to wish my new friend goodbye, maybe even offer to help write about his political campaigns.  So I went to his home, where I was made to wait for his approval to enter.  I kind of expected this, man of politics in a volatile area of the world and all.  He invited me in for one last evening of tea, and even offered me a ride to the airport in the morning.  I graciously accepted and we all settled down for the night.  Then all of a sudden there arose such a ruckus…

I sprang from my bunk to see what was the fuss was.

 ‘The fuck is that noise?’ I shouted and yelled

When down from the roof, armed forces propelled.

‘O shit, it’s the end,’ I cried like an infant

As shots rang out in less than an instant.

My Muslim friend prayed, as though it would help

So I kicked his spleen and he whimpered a yelp.

‘Fuck are you doing you crazy old man?

‘We gotta get outta here—fast as we can!’

‘What good would it do?’ he cried more than I did,

‘Look all ‘round, they have us surrounded!’

This guy is useless, I thought to myself

So I scanned the room, then ran to the shelves.

There must be a gun or something more… O…

To my dismay: only lots of porno.

IslamaBad Girls and Burqa Babes 4

But unfortunately, no guns were in store.

I said ‘fuck this noise!’ and gathered my things,

And ran like a pussy, with feet made of springs!

…into a man, who looked like Darth Vader,

Helmet and all, but not a lightsaber,

A very large gun was right in my face

‘PLEASE DON’T SHOOT!’ and my pants filled with waste.

He saw I was strange, and didn’t fit in

But just on the safe side, he shot my shin. (bastard)

I was taken for questions and to their chagrin,

I was ‘only some idiot,’ ‘not some king pin’

Crated back stateside, I was in a flash

With a fair warning:

‘Come back to Pakistan,

and your ass will be grass’

And so I was banned from Pakistan…  Weird place, can you believe they finally found bin Laden there?!?  Found that out when I got back, and he was apparently somewhere in Said’s town!  Go figure.

A Tale In Two Sagas

THE LESSON:

You may remember the mentioning of my vacation to the sub-continent of India.  It was a remarkable trip!  I finally got to see so many of the places that I’ve only studied about—including witnessing an actual Tibetan monk debate in Dharmsala.  I met all kinds of gurus and travelers like myself, who were simply trying to find a larger meaning to life.  

Overall, those whom I spoke to seemed to be right.  Go away, is the most remarkable piece of spiritual advice I’ve ever heard.  Whenever a problem gets to me, I now just go away.  Just look at all the practical applications:

Nothing on TV: 

 go away

Bad restaurant service: 

 just go away

Mortgage/rent/paper due: 

go away

Boss is yelling: 

go away

Screaming child: 

again go away

Man on fire:

OH GOD HE'S ACTUALLY GOING AWAY!!!

Nevertheless, these were not the points worth writing home about.  I remembered my friend Said was not far in neighboring Pakistan.  And more than a month and a half in India is more than enough.  So I decided, what the hell, I’ll give him a call and we’ll meet up somewhere and I can tack off another country in my book.  He was more than willing to meet up and show me some sights in his region of Hazara, just on the border of India and Kashmir.  

More to follow.

The Triumphant Return

Well, here we go, back in business after a rather lengthy hiatus.  You may be wondering what could keep such an up and coming blog from updating, and the answer, which is most certainly not whiskey related (unlike my first marriage), is vacation.  I decided to go on a rather lengthy trip to the Indian sub-continent to find myself and to once and for all find the difference between jelly and jam.  But more on that later.

The problems that arose from this trip are numerous.  My editor and Chief of Staff, who was responsible for Jelly v. Jam in my absence suffered from writers block.

Partially due to a lacking of fingers, and mostly due to spending his time with Kitty porn.  The shit I have found in my search history is ridiculous.  I had no idea there was such a site as 2cats1dish.ca--and I never wanted to know.  Though some of the Japanese stuff he found was decent... good work, Paws!

More to come, stay tuned!

Re: Turtles

Sorry for the hiatus, but as previously stated, I have no clue what I'm doing here...  The story shall be elaborated on in comical fashion in... maybe three posts...

This comes from a buddy of mine who wanted me to put this up.  It's about how I relate to turtles.

Ya see, it started all with this:  ... or rather descriptions of this:

Or maybe not really that terrifying...  As it was described to me, the real Mario was a fat plumber, ass showing and all, stomping on a turtle.  (Which is how I described it...)  So I guess it was more like this:

Yup, far less terrifying, but just as inhumane.

Anyhow, my buddy said to me that was terrible, and that he liked turtles.  And so do I.  They're awesome just for one, but two, I do identify with the turtle.

It is a small almost insignificant creature, frail, and slow moving, but covered in a hard shell--it is not unlike an M&M.  And most of all, it is a creature that when turned over on its back finds it hard to get back up.  This is not unlike me when I'm inebriated.  But of course, most things seem to work against me when I'm inebriated... phones, keyboards, cars--especially cars--, cups and even can openers.  That one resulted in about 13 stitches.  Therefore, I posit, my soul is that of a turtle.  Noble, hard shelled, and almost entirely pointless.  And had heavy things that move faster than 30 mph been created sooner, my kind would have been wiped out eons ago...