Elvin is Evil rearranged and with an extra "n"

If you're tired of my annual warnings about the extreme danger posed to all of us by Santa Clause explained here and here; you will be glad to know that I'm posting about something else this year, namely his evil minions the elves. In some ways, I guess I'm not varying too far from the usual holiday warning, since Krampus aka Santa, aka Santa Klause, aka Santa Clause, aka Chris Kringle is also aka "Jolly Old Elf."


One of the oldest English language references to elves puts them in the same category as demons and monsters (and the original killer Cain) line 112 of Beowulf clearly spells out the nature of elves:

metod for þy mane, mancynne fram. þanon untydras ealle onwocon,  eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas, swylce gigantas, þa wið gode wunnon lange þrage; he him ðæs lean forgeald. 

Or, if you are old English challenged (roughly):

He was of a race of monsters exiled from mankind by God--He was of the race of Cain, that man punished for murdering his brother.From that family comesall evil beings--monsters, elves, zombies.Also the giants who fought with God and got repaid with the flood.

This is the crew that the terrifying Santa creature is using to make toys for your children. Monsters cut from the same cloth as the Grendel, evil to the core. 


Only much later in Germanic lore does the concept of "light" elves versus "dark" elves start getting some play, clearly in an attempt to rehabilitate the image of these dark forces toiling tirelessly at the north pole where the sun does not shine AT ALL this time of year. These creatures which magically create toys for all of the children of the world, imbuing them with the essence of their dark heritage. 


If you are inclined to believe that there was a great rift in elf-kind and there really are dark and light elves, guess which ones live in Álfheimr (Elfhame) versus here on earth? In the 12th century,  Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda explains where each clan ended up:

That which is called Álfheim is one, where dwell the peoples called Light elves [Ljósálfar]; but the Dark-elves [dökkálfar] dwell down in the earth, and they are unlike in appearance, but by far more unlike in nature. The Light-elves are fairer to look upon than the sun, but the Dark-elves are blacker than pitch.

So, since the north pole (where all of these things live apparently) is on earth, the assumption should be that they are in the category "dark elves." All of the credible literature points to the fact that Santa is employing the most evil magical creatures he can find to make billions of toys and other gifts each year, which he then forcibly distributes to the children of the world. 


I don't know about you, but the very thought of it gives me the chills. Santa is dangerous in his own right as a disease vector, projectile and forcible entry specialist, but the dark supernatural spin he's apparently putting on the objects he's tossing under your tree should give each of you pause. 


If you still doubt me in this, take a look at that sweater "from your aunt Maude." Your aunt may have her quirks, but nowhere in her is the level of unbridled hatred, evil and rage required to send you a scratchy wool sweater in those colors, with reindeer appliques on it. No, that requires the diabolical intervention of a creature so heinous that it can only work in the 24 hour darkness of the winter north pole. A creature so evil that we have for centuries felt the need to chronicle it's nature in texts  nearly lost to the ravages of time.


Then again, maybe your Aunt Maude is in league with an elf...

Santa will kill us all

If you've read anything I've written about Santa / Krampus / Osama Bin Cringle, you know that his illegal antics each December tend to terrify me. The energy requirements for visiting millions of homes on Dec 25th would indicate that he's packing something like anti-matter while he's eating your cookies and milk (his alien physiology likely can't deal with the cookies and milk by the way. He's probably feeding them into some kind of matter to energy converter disguised as reindeer.) Today's timely warning isn't about any of those issues though. Today is about the fact that Santa will some day surely kill all of us, and by "us" I mean humans.

Just as the cold of winter is really getting started, this entity that's been observed "laying a finger aside of his nose" and then touching presents, glasses of milk, plates of cookies, the fireplace hearth, stockings even candy for goodness sake. Then, while his alien mucous is likely dripping from his fingers - he proceeds to provide a vector into a huge segment of the population of the world. Based on his travels alone, I think we can attribute 90% of the winter flu infections across the world to the Jolly Old Disease Vector. Those of you with children, imagine that instead of the classmates your kid usually hangs out with, we expand the pool by hundreds of millions and you have some idea of what Santa's bringing into your home each Christmas.

Some day, this guy that flies downwind of reindeer poop all night, touches warm milk that's been sitting out on the counter (maybe drinks it) and fiddles with his nose all of the time (Google it, he's got a nose thing) - someday he's going to spread a really bad one and since it will hit us all at the same time, we won't have time to develop a vaccine.

He's a threat to the viability of the human race, a hazard to flight, a B&E specialist and a poor example for obese children the world over. As a threat, it's hard to over-estimate his potential and yet the authorities spend no time at all working on bringing him to justice. Are they blind to the world spanning scope of his criminal organization and the threat to our way of life? How can they not see the coming Santapocalypse?

This year, as usual - I'll spend Christmas eve in the hidden safe room, cradling a 12 guage & wearing a surgical mask. According to the Mayo Clinic, I should be able to get out and bleach the house by the 28th or so in time for new years parties. That is if anyone else survives that long.

The Lateness (more about my calendar)

I’m almost never very late to an appointment, and rarely late at all. Being late bothers me, as my mind is filled with what I would be saying about my lateness, were I the other person and it’s not complimentary. My imagined 3rd person internalized harangue from the person I’m going to be speaking to soon is most decidedly negative in nature. (Note: Imagined internal monologues of others in response to my lack of planning are always performed in disgusted tones, while glancing at their watch, mumbling under their breath about how this meeting was a bad idea in the first place.) When I am late, it’s typically because of traffic or parking.

Traffic delays seem to present an almost insurmountable mathematical problem. There’s the somewhat challenging, but solvable non-equilibrium statistical mechanics models, say using the Boltzmann equation. I can’t really do that kind of math in my head while I’m driving, and I don’t really trust Outlook to solve it either before I leave the office. No, the truly unsolvable traffic delay calculation seems to be the seeming inability of many drivers to grasp the butterfly effect when it comes to the consequences of their own actions while driving.

Essentially, deciding to slow down by 5 mph to watch some poor sap get a ticket for driving under the influence of scrapple (no link, look it up) you affect thousands of people who have the bad fortune of being behind you. Big deal, everyone slows down by 5 mph right? Wrong. The people immediately behind slow by 7 mph, because the have no idea what the idiot up ahead is doing. The folks behind them weren’t paying attention, so hit their brakes just in time – coming to a near stop. While they get their adrenalin levels back to near normal, the people behind them actually stop in awe of the near accident that they just witnessed. The full stop ripples back as far as the fluid density is great enough to support the compression wave – maybe 4 or 5 miles. In heavy traffic, that’s maybe 8000 people on a 6 lane road – 1/2 hour delay for each so 4000 man hours of productivity, around 2.5 man years your rubbernecking just cost society. In the mean time, you’ve made me unpredictably late for my meeting.

Bumper Sadness

I really have to comment (rant) a bit on the sad postings I see from time to time - mostly on some forlorn soul's bumper, but occasionally on their computer  case or even a shirt. The clear expression of woe is one that I'm sure you have all seen, and one that is nearly impossible to ignore, once  the implications are clear. The fact that so many people find themselves in need of expressing such an extreme and unfortunate fact of their life would be cause for contemplation even without the additional context. The fact that the condition (which I can only describe as heart rending sad) is so common in our society that one can purchase stickers which express the shocking truth -- indicates to me that our society has failed, and not just the unfortunate few who are OK with expressing these torrents of grief, but each of us who should have been there for them; each of us who may also feel the same; each of us who participate in a world, a society, a community where these expressions happen and do nothing to alleviate the obvious pain.

I speak, of course, of the folks expressing the thought "I'd rather be knitting" or "I'd rather be shining my Ford Mustang" or even "I'd rather be petting my poison dart frog." Really, you can pretty much fill in the blank of the thing they would rather be doing, it's all the same sad commentary on their life. If it's not obvious to some of you more insensitive clods, I'll spell out what these people are really saying. They are saying that no matter what wondrous life affirming experience they may be having at the moment you are reading their sticker, they would rather be doing the mundane thing on the sticker. They could be taking their son or daughter to the airport to fly to Stockholm to accept the Nobel prize for physics, and according to their deliberately placed mass market expression of their innermost desires - they would rather be beekeeping.

How can we live with the concept that there are people out there who have given up on what life has to offer to the degree where they can with some confidence (these stickers do no come off easily) explain to the world that they have determined that no other experience which they will ever participate in will be better than the well known activity which someone mass printed and sold as bumper stickers? Can't we help these people somehow? Explain to them that they should not just give up on life because the best thing they have ever done so far is play Bocci?

If you are reading this and have such a sticker, please reconsider your approach to the rest of your life and believe that is is possible that you may have moments in the future where you would not rather be bird watching. There's nothing wrong with bird watching, especially if you are somewhere in Peru trying to catch a glimpse of an Andean Condor carting off the remains of a capybara or maybe the leg of a chupacabra. Please consider that the best thing to happen to you may still be to come, and may not be an activity which is so common in in your society that your affiliation with it can be found expressed in truck stops and curio shops for $3.95 plus tax. Your life is NOT over -- please do not express the rage, sadness and hopelessness you feel in a permanent way on your bumper, locker or laptop case.

On that note, I'll let you all contemplate the shocking horror of our abandonment of these unfortunates. Have we created self-help groups for them? Crisis lines? Maybe an awareness campaign? No, I can say that we have done none of these things and people that I talk to about their obvious plea for help uniformly turn me away. How can any of you, knowing what's going on - not reach out to the person parked next to you at the grocery store who would "rather be ice fishing" and try to ease their pain? I'm sick of the complacency and sick of fighting this battle alone. All in all, I think I'd rather be digging holes.

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

Which star is this which I see more than some

Of these stars set round me in constellation

I know this point of light, with me from my beginning

Sometimes shining brightly near, sometimes far away but clear

This star I think is part of me

What star could show me clearly without shadow

Each step in life portrayed in clear example

I know this aid I follow, rarely well, often poorly

A brilliant gleam or glowing ember never more than needed

This star I hope is part of me

What star might purpose be my self

Such clarity does show my path and more

I know that light which falls upon us, not all is of our choosing

That this was not of mine, no lesser my devotion

This star both guide and path provider

What star fades before the dawn

A treachery of time and entropy is our fate

I know each star cannot sustain forever

The light around me wanes, but closed my eyes still see

This star in absence guides my memories

Surrounded by giant metal cows

It seems that I can't take a drive in the countryside without encountering gigantic bovine metallic creations which are clearly hibernating, waiting for the instruction to rise and smite the humans. Sure, they may be made to look nurturing, but they are LARGE and made of METAL. How could they NOT be bent on subjugating humankind under their steely (or irony) hooves?

While I'd been avoiding Bothell (Bot Hell, not a very clever place to hide cow-bot masters of the universe) just in case the activation signal came, I now find that they have invaded an area near the seat of power for the state of Washington. Imagine my further horror to discover that they are the SAME COWS, which have apparently been active long enough to cover the distance from Woodinville/Bothell to Olympia. Nobody seems to know how they transport took place, but I imagine a very large metal "cowboy" somewhere in the mix.

Pretty clearly aliens with somewhat faulty conceptions of what cows really look like and how they behave created these creatures & placed them in fields thinking that we wouldn't notice. There they sit, silently waiting for the opportune time to wreak their terrible plan of metal cow destruction upon us all.

There's really no proof that creations like this one were NOT responsible for the 1876 Kentucky Meat Shower. On March 3rd of that year, chunks of meat fell from the sky to cover 5000 square yards with smallish chunks of meat, later shown to be lung tissue, cartilage and muscle, but 1876 science being what it was, no final determination of the animal(s) from which the meat came from. Apparently folks in Kentucky are inclined to taste meat which falls from the sky and some thought it was like venison or mutton. The best theory of the time is that a huge flock of buzzards flying overhead all puked at once (This is a protective insinct, shared among some animals. If you see your neighbor puke, your body decides to empty itself too, in case you were eating from the same carrion. Oddly, buzzards can eat disease ridden rotten meat without ill effect, so if this is what happened I don't want to know what they ate...)

Personally, I think that the Kentucky Meat Shower was PEOPLE. The aliens controlling the various giant cows across America think it was funny to have cows eat people for a change, but having no real digestive tracts (they aren't real cows), they thought it would also be funny to have them disgorge the remains onto Kentucky (and I have to agree there.) About the only way I can see this coming out OK for the human race is that we are rescued by giant sheep. Everyone knows that the giant sheep scattered around the country are the ancient extra-galactic foes of the giant cow builders, but they seem to be a dying race, with few representatives left here on Earth.

So, I urge you all to race to the nearest home improvement store and buy all of the rebar and cement you can afford, to build the largest sheep you can in your back yard. I'm hoping that if we make them feel welcome, the sheep builders will return to this galaxy and help protect us from the Others. Just don't be surprised when your giant sheep creations animate and proceed to the final battle for the fate of Earth - "Oklahoma, the Sheep Farmer and the Cowman can NEVER be Friends" It's either that, or we need to start buying meat capable umbrellas.

Post radioactive mutant cleanup nearly complete

Another visitation from Cinter Claus, Krampus or Santa (depending on your viewpoint) and I managed to escape the effects of his near light speed transit of my chimney and home, but my decontamination procedure turned up something disturbing while I was making a sweep of the second floor - unhealthy levels of radiation. My detector just registers the energetic particles, not what type, so I have no idea what I'm being exposed to.

Why would I even be monitoring for radiation, you ask (those of you that don't know me anyway?) Well, apparently this Clause character travels with the aid of mutant ungulates which have the ability to fly (which I have no explanation for) and one of which apparently glows in the visible spectrum with a light strong enough to act as a useful fog light while traveling over the earth at several thousand miles per hour. Now, the brightness needed from a fog light is directly proportional to the expected travel speed, in order to give you a chance to see an object and then react, so the light from this glowing mutant reindeer nose would need to be about 80 trillion candlepower. I don't know any normal bioluminescence on earth that can create that much light, so we're forced to contemplate power sources which could possibly suffice, namely it's a radioactive mutant reindeer.

Can you imagine the horrible toll such a creature took on his herd in the early days? All of the other reindeer would be calling you names like, "bringer of death" and "he who kills all that he comes near." Santa must have found some really decent shielding to be able to put him out front and not have reindeer hair falling out in clumps all around him as he flys. Still, it seems pretty irresponsible to be landing on rooftops all over the world with something that deadly irradiating all of your packages, the rooftops and seed clouds overhead. The eventual radioactive snow alone could doom us all.

So, the clean-up continues with me in my lead suit and hasmat protocols. I can't seem to find a source for lead roofing tiles, and automated anti-aircraft emplacements aren't fast enough to track and destroy something moving fast enough to visit every household on earth in one night, so I'm kind of stumped regarding how to mitigate the threat. I think I'll go check to see if PetCo has sold out of lead pooper scoopers for radioactive mutant reindeer droppings.

Crystalized Dihydrous Oxide

Yeah yeah, the dihydrous oxide gag has been done to death, but I'm really really tired of it in it's current, flake form. It's killing people all over the world, and the abundance in the local region is starting to make my feet cold (a known side effect of exposure to crystalized dihydrous oxide.) I live in the PACIFIC Nothwest because of the MILD CLIMATE. If I wanted to live where the temperature hovered in ranges that can freeze dihydrous oxide, I would have moved to CANADA or SIBERIA or maybe Ganymede (it's a moon, look it up.) No, I chose to come here because 1) A nice billionaire asked me to and b) Its not supposed to be 20 or 30 degrees colder than the inside of my refrigerator outside for more than a day or two each year.

Right now there's maybe about 5 to 6 tons of crystalized dihydrous oxide in my front yard, and maybe a trillion tons of it coating the city making it hazardous to drive, walk and breath. The city has crews out 24 hours a day trying to abate this menace, but it's a fight with nature which they cannot win. So, as my part of an effort to increase global warming until my current home is a tropical paradise, I'm going to start throwing the plastic caps from my soda bottles into the trash rather than recycling. The mayor can't even send the recycling police after me, since the cap itself doesn't have the symbol on it. In fact, there is some question about this item actually being recyclable at all, but that's really my point. I don't want to tip the scales fully over and destroy the planet (by global warming anyway.) I just need to nudge it a little bit so that I don't have to buy special equipment to deal with this horror of weather.

I really just need one or two of you reading this to also stop recycling plastic screw-tops, and I can go plant palm trees.

Get In Line

I'm special. OK, I said it. You all know I was thinking it, but now I've just gone right out and stated it as fact. How do I know this true? Endless observation of natural phenomena which all support my theory that I am special. The universe has allotted a place for me, unique from any other and reinforces this universal constant every day in a hundred different ways.

Unfortunately for me, all of those ways involve inserting new and unique times and reasons for me to wait in line. If you consider driving as also being part of a queue, the universes assertion that I wait becomes even more clear. I'm not talking about ordinary hanging about in line while people in front of you perform ordinary tasks nearly identical to what you are queued up for. No, this is about being in line at Safeway when the person in front of you decides to use the checkout stand to launch a hostile takeover of the chain, and has coupons for it. Unbeknownst to many of us, there's an item on the shelf of each Safeway (near the dog toys) called "Controlling Interest in SWY" Only $345,000,000 with your Safeway card! The person in front of me always seems to buy this item, along with their cigarettes (which the checker must then leave the checkstand, walk to the font of the store and retrieve using iris scanning technology from the cigarette fortress) their inexplicable 32 packages of Peanut butter Cups and 3 cotton swabs. Oh, and they will be paying by check, which they will not start making out until the SEC has approved the stock transaction.

Why don't I just move to another line you ask? You may as well ask why I don't just set Planck's Constant to a nice round number, like 10, or maybe change gravity so that attraction of objects is not from center of mass, but randomly at 5 degrees off of center in some direction. I've tried ALL of these things (remember the Seattle earthquake of 2001?) but universal constants are annoyingly stubborn. Switching line in Safeway guarantees that the person in front of me, with $737.34 in groceries already rung up will a) dispute the pricing of the bananas b) claim that there is a gravity anomaly directly under the produce scale causing a 3% overcharge and c) decide that they really did want the can of spray pancakes and run to the back of the store to get it - mid transaction. They don't realize of course that the gravity anomaly under the scale is actually an escaped micro-black hole (thanks Hadron Collider, for NOTHING) which will follow them to the spray pancake batter aisle and transport them to the spray pancake universe via wormhole. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting in line to buy cleaning products which I am most certainly NOT planning to use other than in accordance with their labeling.

The grocery store is just one example, but this sort of thing happens to me all of the time. Ferry waiting lines (the person in front is a pirate and would like them to waive the over-height fee since they will be taking command of the vessel anyway), toll booths (the person in front is Native American and would like to take this moment to assert their right to cross, using the traditional $80 million suspension bridge their ancestors have used for hundreds of years without paying a toll) or perhaps the feed store (person in front of me would like 700 lbs of fertilizer and 200 gallons of diesel fuel -- on credit, please just dump it all in the big vat, thanks.)

So, I wait in line, knowing that any lane changes or abrupt modifications to my own behavior will only result in unimaginable forces being mobilized to maintain some sort of balance in the world. Speaking of balance, why is everyone else in line leaning randomly 5 degrees off center?

Spring birth

Scheduled chaos reins
A summer wind stirs pages
Another tome born

Turkey, Mashed Potato and Baked bean McFlurry

I invented a road-game a few years back called "Invent the most disgusting McFlurry Flavor" which, for some reason doesn't seem to have caught-on farther than my group of friends. Sure sure, I couldn't do the board game version of it without permission from McDonalds, but you would still expect to overhear people playing it on the bus or in line at McDonalds.

The rules are simple and somewhat flexible and there are two variations:

Variation One: Invent the most disgusting sounding McFlurry flavor using only ingredients found on the menu at McDonalds. This game is best with more than two players, as there is no scoring, just a vote. Multiple entries are encouraged, and players may pick the best of their own inventions for the final vote.

1. McFlurry flavors already on the menu, while possibly disgusting, are not typically considered fair game.
2. Entries that cause other players to actually retch automatically win that round.
3. Always remember that the flavors mentioned will be blended into the base soft ice-cream.
4. All items from the McDonalds menu past and present are available ingredients (e.g. McRibs and McPattyMelt)
5. A minor variation to Variation One is to allow both items from the McDonalds menu and things you suspect are also in the kitchen.

Variation Two: All of the same rules from Variation One, excepting that any food item eaten in the last 3 months by any player may be used. Variation Two is not generally considered a sporting version of the game, and will doubtless not be considered for the Olympic approved version of this game.

My original entry of "Sausage Biscuit with Cheese McFlurry" still stands out as a classic, but MANY entries using minor variation #5 have propelled players to fame and glory (e.g. greasy fry-cook hair and McEgg McFlurry, from the Bainbridge games in '04)

I think you can all see where this is going. I expect that McDonalds and Hasbro have held back out of courtesy to my copyright, so I've decided that Christmas 2007 will be the last one in which children everywhere are not given the opportunity to make their parents ill by just playing a simple game. I'm officially and publicly placing the McFlurry game into the public domain so that people everywhere can savor the thrill of competition, the joy of victory over hale and hardy opponents as each of you describe the most horrifying ice-cream and McCrud you can imagine. Your imagination is only limited by the glowing reader board at your nearest McDonalds!

In addition, I'm establishing a fund to pay real money to the first person to get their game winning entry added to the real McDonalds menu. It can't be any worse than what's already on there.

Scheduled criminal visitation

Inexorably the calendar sits in sinister silent witness and I am again assaulted by the certain knowledge that a foreign person unknown to me will at some time during the night be entering my home, bypassing my security system on the doors and windows, leaving objects who's contents are purposefully hidden from me and then leaving as fast as his mutant ungulates can carry him, to serially perform these criminal trespass and possibly terroristic acts all over my neighborhood and much of the world.

I speak of course of the annual visitation of Kris Kringle AKA Santa Clause, Santa, Saint Nick, Jolly Old Elf, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas and other aliases too numerous to mention spanning the globe and many cultures. In terms of sheer volume, Mr Kringle is likely the most prolific criminal in history, breaking into millions of homes every year for hundreds, or possible thousands of years - depending on which origins one chooses to believe.

One of the stories most in line with commonly held beliefs regarding Kringle is one originating with early Germanic tribes who said that Krampus, a horrible monster, would slither down chimneys in Southern Austria and alternatively slaughter children, eating them on the spot or stuff them into a sack for a later snack. Later stories, clearly invented to calm the terrified populace, depict Saint Nicholas taming the beast and (this is the truly frightening part) then sending it BACK INTO THE SAME HOMES to provide candy and gifts to traumatized siblings - presumably after the gore was cleaned up from previous visits. While children may really like candy, I can't imagine that the sudden appearance of the horrible monster that disemboweled your brother or sister, only this time delivering candy, would be at all calming.

No, from the various tales told it seems likely that the Kringle entity is non-human in origin, likely possessed of some pretty serious alien technology. Most of us have seen the back of the napkin calculations on required speed, sleigh carrying capacity and visits per second required for the Christmas break-ins to happen the night of December 25th. Needless to say, those aren't really reindeer moving at 650 miles per second, carrying around 320,000 tons and "landing" on your rooftop. If he's not using some sort of anti-gravity, I'm pretty darn sure that my own roof would collapse under the weight.

His in-transit activities aren't really that concerning to me though. I figure anyone out flying in a conventional aircraft on a night when we KNOW there's someone moving at 3000 times the speed of sound, with no filed flight plan in the air with you gets what's coming. The good news is that if there's a collision, it will be over VERY quickly. No, the problem I have is that for the Klaus criminal to enter each home, drop the suspicious packages and get on with the crime spree, he has to move that fast inside my home. While I can sympathize with the folks that try and slow him down a bit with milk and cookies, it's really just causing a bit of a ricochet effect for the in-house path. Your best bet is to park the Christmas tree directly in front of the fireplace, minimizing the time and distance a Santa sized projectile is moving through the house at about 1000 times faster than a high powered sniper bullet.

From experiments with magnesium and sodium metal in the fireplace, I can tell you that he's impervious to heat. Nothing you do to the fireplace or fire will be sufficient to keep him out, the technology he has access to is beyond our ability to protect against. Truly, anything you could do to proof your home against the rampage would be too dangerous to you and your family to really consider. No, the only thing you can do on December 24th is barricade yourself into the basement or bedroom and hope that the entity will not take interest in your entrails or decide to leave something truly nasty in one of the concealing boxes. If all goes well, he's only in the house for about 1/1000 of a second and then off to terrorize the neighbors. There's no way to know his schedule, so it's best to wait in your safe room with your family until daylight on the 25th before venturing out. If you have children, try not to share your justified terror with them, but be realistic about their chances of survival if caught out near the tree with a 260 lb bearded home invader moving about with enough kinetic energy to instantly incinerate the whole block if he impacted with something.

Regarding the packages, you can't rely on the bomb squad as you ordinarily would for this situation. Remember, he's broken into most of the homes in your city, and it's likely the mayor is the only one with enough clout to get the bomb disposal robot into his house today. No, you might as well just hug your children and/or spouse and then carefully unwrap each of them being careful to identify tripwires and oxygen sensitive ignitors. It's good practice for the kids, in case they are ever in politics or possibly just make a lot of enemies. For the most part, the packages are benign, merely delivered to inspire terror, but occasionally the threat has to be real, or it ceases to have any effect.

Sometimes, it's a hand knit sweater from a relative that you can't just avoid for the rest of your life.

I want what he's looking at...

People who know me might have the impression that I don't enjoy shopping. While I understand how they reach that conclusion, it's not strictly true. I'm OK with shopping, and if it's stuff I'm interested in, I could even enjoy shopping - if we could just get everyone else to leave the store while I do it. Perfectly good shopping trips are ruined by sales associates, other shoppers and checkout people who all conspire to ruin the experience.

As a part of a series on HOW these people turn a simple transaction into Dante's 4.2th circle of hell (that's a 40% discount!) I'd like to take a moment to contemplate the people who seem to have no will of their own, and wander aimlessly throughout the store until I happen to stop and look at something, whereby they immediately must closely examine that same item.

I've given some thought to what's wrong with these folks (yes, I know - you're not surprised) and I think it's really a list of genetic, social and mental deficiencies that produce them.

Genetic:
Long ago in the evolution of our species it was quite useful to stop and show interest in the water buffalo that I'd just killed with my fancy new flint tipped spear. As long as I didn't decide to use the fancy new spear to add you to my entree for the evening, you might end up with some part of the water buffalo that I wasn't interested in, like the spleen. Mmmm, spleen.

Those days are long past though, and I can virtually guarantee that whatever carcass I'm currently contemplating at Fry's, they have at least 3 or 4 more of, and I'm NOT going to share even the spleen with any fellow shoppers. I'm even reasonably certain that barometric pressure activated switches don't even HAVE spleens. I need all of you in this category to evolve. Concentrate on the scaphoid bone in your hand, envision your thumb touching a fingertip. Imagine walking upright. Visualize seeing me picking up a fancy new ceramic tipped spear, and yourself sensibly running away. Visualize.

Social:
Some of you clearly feel self-conscious about approaching a retail item without someone else already showing clear interest. If you are in that category, I would like you to keep in mind that most of the stuff I'm interested in looking at more closely has some sort of sharp edge or other battle advantage. I'm not looking at the new thumb-drive that will make you more popular with all of the other social amputees that you hang out with. No, I'm gazing at things that will get you hauled off to Guantanamo if combined with 3 or 4 other household items and attached to your congressman's SUV. Back carefully away from the guy with the odd looking electrical components and walk over to the thumb-drive isle.

Mental:
Imitation is not the most sincere form of flattery, cash is more sincere. If you find yourself unable to resist the charismatic draw of my intense examination of the 12 mile range walkie talkies, don't pick one up yourself and pretend you are considering a purchase. Instead, just give me whatever cash you walked into the store with, along with your credit cards and checkbook and then go home. If you walk around buying stuff just because someone else seems interested in it, I'm afraid you shouldn't be granted access to your own money. Oh yeah, when you get home, tear up your voters registration card too.

Now, I have to go back to Fry's. I think I forgot 3 or 4 other household items.

Moby English

From time to time "people" ask me what horrible thing occurred in my life to result in the pile of ripe prose before you. While I'm sure it's the accumulation of many things, mostly unrelated to winding mazes of twisty passages or evil HVAC systems. No, most of what drove me to start putting these "thoughts" to paper was wrapped up in my "education." (Promise, I'm done with quotes for this post. I only do that when I haven't been using my right pinky finger much...)

Included below is a sample transcript from my infallible memory regarding a conversation I had in 7th grade or so. This transcript is about as exact as I can make it, though my thoughts about this teacher may have softened a bit over the years and may be remembering that he was nicer than was strictly true. For example, the blood mentioned below is assumed to be my own blood, but could in-fact be from multiple donors and/or animals. How much blood does it take to soak a yeardstick end-to-end to the point where it obscures the numbers? Those of you that quickly answered, please read my Wal-eyed blog entry, and remember my shopping habits.

Begin Transcript ----------------------------------------------------------------

English teacher: So, Mr. Simon, what have you decided to bother me about today?

Me: I humbly beg your valuable time and incalculable wisdom in
explaining a basic principal of good writing that I cannot seem to
grasp, no doubt due to my native and profound stupidity.

English teacher: Yes, your stupidity IS profound, and I despair of
teaching you anything, but since I'm paid to talk to all of you
morons, you may continue to blather.

Me: Thank you kind educator, I am most grateful for your kindness in
this matter.

English teacher: Get on with it, or I'll hit you with this stick.

Me: Since I see the dried blood from last time I was slow to learn,
I'll get right to it. One of the items that you so rightly mark and
subtract points for on my papers is that I use long sentences. You
tell me that this creates poor lexical density.

English teacher: Yes, that's true. Good writers use short sentences
which are easily diagrammed. You occasionally use twelve to fifteen
word sentences, which a) I expect that you plagiarize and b) are just
poor writing.

Me: So, there is no possible situation in which regularly using longer
sentences would be considered good writing?

English teacher: No, and in your case you should stick to sentences of
three to six words, so you can understand them.

Me: So you are telling me that this never ending pile of slag called
Moby Dick, which you've forced us all to read is really REALLY crappy
writing, since Herman Mellville frequently uses fifty to eighty word
sentences, such as this one from chapter 2:

"With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver, --So,wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south --wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular."

English teacher: Please step a little closer boy, my stick is only 3 feet long.

End Transcription-------------------------------------------------

For the next few years I ignored the content of the obviously substandard texts that teachers felt compelled to have me and my fellows read, and used the analysis taught in the very same classes to evaluate Homer, Melville, Swift and the like. In most cases, they received the grade of D or F but I cut some of them slack due to the problem of multiple translations and thousand years or so of writing via the telephone game.

You might think that immediately applying what I learned in these classes to the assigned texts would have won the hearts of each educator that I encountered, but for some reason it did not. So, I've learned to keep my distance from english teachers (about 3.5 feet) and am forced to practice here - safely out of reach, with the occasional 29 word sentence.

Speed Enforced by 50 quintillion watt radar

A recent road trip caused me to read many signs regarding how local law enforcement were planning to deal with my potential speeding, and I am now quite afraid of the massive radar arrays that these folks appear to have installed. Specifically, I'm referring to the signs which say "Speed Enforced by Radar."

Enforcement is a strong word with a short definition "Compel obedience to." In states and counties where the speed is merely "checked" by radar, I assume that they are using the normal radar guns which bounce a beam off of my car and use the Doppler shift to register my rate of travel, allowing the officer to see that I am safely under the limit and turn his/her attention to some other potential law breaker and NOT SEARCH MY TRUNK FOR MARMOSETS, SINCE I DON'T HAVE ANY IN THERE.

No, the folks that actually plan to compel my obedience to the speed limit using radar are the scary ones. To do that, you would need to use something called "radiation pressure" which is a minuscule force, even when you are measuring the output of something who's radiation you can feel as warmth, like the sun. As an example, if we were at a place where the energy flux from the sun were about the boiling point of water (373.15 Kelvin) the radiation pressure would be about 2 lbs of force per square mile. Slowing down a speeding car by 5 or 10 miles per hour is going to take a heck of a lot more energy than 2 lbs / square mile.

I don't want to do the energy calculations for the requirements of a radar gun capable of enforcing speed limits, but I'm reasonably sure that it would require a captive black hole and a pretty serious array of antennas, likely electromagnetically focused (or a shaped gravity lens -- if you have a captive black hole already, why not?) In any event, the resulting EM beam would almost certainly vaporize the car, the occupant and any marmosets that you then couldn't prove were ever in my trunk. It would also vaporize anything in it's path until it cleared the horizon, and small chunks of the moon if it happened to be in the way.

Where are podunk counties in Northern California getting this kind of technology? Why aren't we seeing huge swaths of the countryside charred to pure carbon by their speed enforcement technology? I expect everyone is as frightened by the threat of radar enforced speed as I am, and don't dare speed in these places.

You may note that I've not addressed the signs saying "Speed Enforced by Aircraft" which are really scary too, but pretty obvious as to their method. It seems wasteful to destroy a whole airplane that way every time you want someone to slow down, but at least it doesn't burn holes in the moon.

Paul McCartney hates everything.

Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but I believe I can prove that he "doesn't care too much" for anything, so maybe "Paul McCartney doesn't care too much for anything" would be a more accurate title, but if you've read this blog, you know it's not about accuracy (or style, definitely not content or structure... I guess I could tell you what it's about, but then I'd have to shoot me.)

Back to my point. If you listen to the lyrics for "Can't Buy Me Love" written by Paul and John, you'll hear this:

"....I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love"

The clear implication here is that the author/singer doesn't care too much for anything that can't buy him love. Since most will agree that nothing can buy love; clearly Paul and/or John is saying here that they don't really like anything. Paul later recanted, but not in a way that would warm your heart. He decided, based on his experience and success that indeed money can buy him love. This strikes me as even more cynical than his original position, that he doesn't much like anything, and not reflective of his thinking at the time of writing.

John Lennon later followed this up with the lyrics to "Imagine" which I'll excerpt here:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

John embraced his inner dislike of everything and imagined a utopia when all of those things ceased to exist. Paul on the other hand seems to have repressed his true feelings about everything not himself and gone on to write/perform several songs that at the very least explain that he likes cannabis. Actions speak louder than words though and Paul clearly showed his dislike for both his fans and the rest of the world by recording two songs with Michael Jackson.

Cynical as I must sound like from time to time, clearly Paul and John have me beat here. I've never claimed to hate everything. Everything is a really long list and I can think of several exceptions to it right off the bat. For example, I don't hate gold striped cats named "Westley" or most cheese (brie isn't cheese, it's spoiled milk with a rind.)

I'm also OK with money, even though it can't buy me love. So Paul - you can send me a check (Google knows how to find me) to get rid of some of the stuff you don't care for. I'm afraid I can't help much with the rest of it.

Wall Eyed

There’s some sort of weird experiment going on at WallMart and it’s not the one you are thinking of. No, this one seems to have something to do with mind control (no, not the one you are thinking of now either.) What I’ve noticed is that as I walk around WallMart, looking for some elusive item, like a machete or a razor sharp double bitted axe, I see the following behavior repeated time after time. A stationary shopper, who’s body is oriented in direction A whose head is turned in direction B will suddenly and without warning begin to move in direction C, which space I am currently occupying.

First, I’m almost 6 feet tall, and large enough to do these shoppers serious damage if I planted my feet, stuck out my elbows and then checked them like I thought they had the puck and the referee wasn’t looking - but I would never consider doing that. My point is that since I’m large, wearing a bright red cap with reindeer horns and playing the bagpipes while I do my shopping it shouldn’t seem like a good idea to back into me. If I’ve already found the machete or axe, I would say that goes double.

So, what explains these people countering millions of years of instinctive fear of blundering into tar pits, sleeping lions and bear traps someone put under a pile of leaves that I raked? Walking in a direction you aren’t looking is sketchy even when you are in a safe place, in a wildly hostile environment like WallMart, it’s an evolutionary dead-end behavior. The only realistic explanation is that the aliens that own WallMart have decided to exterminate the human race by somehow encouraging this dangerous behavior through mind control. Remember, it’s not just backing into me, these victims specifically confuse the issue by pointing their body towards the expired cashews, looking at the demo-sized soap isle and then making a feral plunge to their 7:00.

Fortunately, the affected population is easily identified, even outside of the WallMart environment. Look for the ones with axe marks on their demo-sized soap container and tar on their shoes.

Anarchy shouldn't have it's own symbol

I've now seen the circle with an A in it on bumber stickers, window clings and as a non-spinning weighted hubcap cover on a minivan, and I'm confused by the whole concept. Not the concept of anarchy, anyone that has seen my office knows that anarchy and I have a close working relationship. No, the concept that I'm not quite fully understanding is how a concept which by its nature implies - a state of society without government or law - can have a symbol that is accepted by anarchists as the symbol. Who, exactly, is laying down the bucks to do a graphic design suitable for a bumper sticker / hubcap cover? If someone DID pay for a nice graphic design, did they copyright it or did they license it from whomever owns the trademark on representations of the circle A? Are there anarchist board meetings that discuss how distressed the swooshy brush strokes of the A will be, or how far outside the lines of the inverted V the cross stroke shall be? Can I get in trouble with some Anarchist governing body if I start using one with a perfect circle and a helvetica A in the exact center with no distressing or brush stroke stuff? Since nearly all of the representations I see are identical, I have to assume that like most organizations there is someone in charge of the ID, and enforcing conformance to acceptable versions. Can someone please send me the EPS scalable version of this thing?

Somehow related to all of that is the uniforms checked out to the students of the Art Institute of Seattle. If you drive by the Institute from time to time, getting onto the Alaskan Way soon-to-be-another-100,000-cars-each-day-on-surface-streets Viaduct, you know what I mean. Black shirt/blouse, black pants/leggings, black head thing (hat, scarf, headband, tatoo), black shoes, birkenstocks, Doc Martins and at least three items of flair which MUST include a stylized flame tatoo, a silver studded piercing and a "free item" which can be chosen by the art student. Does the Institute have a uniform shop where they sell these, or is it more like getting your boy scout uniform from regulated multiple suppliers? Do they have problems with rebels wearing yellow rain jackets or shameless gold piercings from time to time and have to crack down hard with the dress code?

All of these people are giving anarchy and rebellion a bad name. I think I'll go clean my office.

Economics of mystery shows

Just so you all know, this is a rant. I want to distinguish it from my usual postings, which are typically ramblings verging on tirades. I'm starting to hate the fact that you can always tell who the criminal/saboteur/evil mastermind is the second they walk on-screen by seeing that they are a recognizable B list actor. Almost any mystery series or show of any kind that tries to hide the identity of the antagonist has this problem, but I'll use Law and Order as an example, since they are one of the worst. If I recognize someone that just walked on screen from their appearances in other television dramas, there's about a 97% chance that they are the killer/rapist/fraudster for the episode.

One exception is when they bring in a A list actor, in which case you can depend on them being the villain only in the second or third part of a multi-part episode. Occasionally, an A lister will be the villain in only a single episode, but they will be really really evil. Like when Law & Order SVU brought in Martin Short as an evil psychic - Evil, evil, evil.

It pretty much ruins the show for me when you know whodunit 10 seconds after the bad guy walks on screen. I understand that these are the actors that are making their bread and butter on these shows, and for it to be worthwhile for them, it has to be a larger part, not just the grieving widow or estranged scion. I say give them a large part, and choose the killer from the extras list every once in a while.

What's the net effect? Well, since everyone I recognize on these shows are the bad guys, I'm only truly comfortable in the company of strangers these days. It's not that I can't separate reality from fiction (OK, but you have to admit it really LOOKED like a giant walking killer ham.) it's that I'm being conditioned to see the familiar as threatening by these shows. For those of you that know me, I've got my eye on you. For all of you total strangers, the key to my knife collection is in the adckuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

My AMAZING ABILITY

Not many people know, but I have an amazing 6th sense, which I believe I inherited from my father. Some people make interesting claims about mind reading or telekinesis, but those are all pretty much old-hat as far as I'm concerned. I've talked to a lot of you out there, and believe me - I don't want to read your mind. Sheesh, half of the time I can barely bring myself to listen to what you are saying out loud (...blah blah speed limit blah blah blah flock of turkeys blah hazmat team blah blah...) it's always the same old stuff. However, back to my ability; I can predict the future - but only in a really specific way. I can almost always tell when something annoying is about to happen, especially if I'm the one that's going to cause it to happen.

Yup, I know - you're wondering why all of the national labs aren't knocking on my door, asking for permission to study this ability. No no no, when they come knocking it's always about the "seismographic disturbances" or the "folded space" problem in my back yard - never about the cool 6th sense thing.

I remember clearly seeing my father demonstrate this ability when I was a child. He was working on a car, trying to get a nut to break loose with a cresent wrench. Pull as hard as he might, the nut was not budging and then it happened. He muttered to himself "if I pull on that one more time, the wrench is going to slip off and hit me" he pulled, it hit. I watched him pull on the wrench for 20 minutes before he said those fateful words, then smack, wrench sandwich.

While my Dad never again used his power in front of me, I soon found that I had inherited the gift. While lifting my breakfast plate I might suddenly be possessed by the thought "That newly buttered toast is going to fall off of the plate and land butter-side down on my new suede shoes, forcing me to jerk my foot away, thus spilling the orange juice on my homework, causing the citric acid to lift the ink right off the page, leaving me with a title and a blank page that smells like Florida. 10 seconds later, I'd be planning to skip first period to re-write my treatise on the chilling effect of high school on developing intellects, part IX.

Now, I take it all in stride. Yesterday, I looked at my shoelaces and immediately mentally added 5 minutes onto my exit for work, just microseconds before the lace snapped in my hand. I look in my rear-view mirror and signal a lane change, not because I'm about to change lanes, but because I want the person in the lane next to me to speed up and get out of my blind spot. What I can't figure out is why I still pull on the wrench, even though I KNOW it's going cause swearing and consternation. I guess I can't change the future, just be pre-annoyed by it.

Gah, I'm going to hit publish and then decide it's not worth re-opening this post to correct the spelling errors.

More Uncertainty

I usually don't stay on a single topic for more than one post here, but with a total of what - three entries you can't say that ANYTHING would be considered out of character, right?

One interpretation of quantum superpositioning and the observationally rendered wave function collapse is that for each and every possibility, all of the available options are realized, resulting in an astounding number of alternate universes, each precipitated by the observed resolution of (at the atomic end of the scale) an electron into a dicernable particle. If we consider that our actions at the macro level (e.g. choosing to hrrumph instead of snort as you read this) are precipitated by an extremely large number of events at the atomic level - we can imagine that for each of our actions, there are universes full of us that chose a near infinite number of alternate actions (assuming there are a finite number of quanta in the observable universe.)

If you're still reading, take a moment and consider what decisions in your life made that happen, and how you might influence things to produce better outcomes in the future, where you would be reading page 17 of your cellular phone manual instead.

So, if a few quadrillion versions of myself are spawning off new universes several times per second, manifesting all possible outcomes from each decision I make, that means a simple good versus evil choice that I make, like choosing the fajita versus the fish taco for lunch actually happens in equal measure by inumerable mes for every variant of each combination. So, while the me that's typing this has invariably chosen good (i.e. fajitas) over evil (clearly - fish tacos) there are JUST AS MANY mes that are out there ordering some horrific halibut with cheese and lettuce thing. So, while I'd like to think that I am generally a positive force in the universe, there's just as many mes out there wearing disco pants to the grocery store and voting republican.

Dedicated to our beloved Coda, still snoring on the couch in several quadrillion alternate universes, snoring evilly in about half of them.

Schrödinger's Outlook Calendar Entry

It has come to my attention that for periods of time, certain of my Outlook calendar entries are in a state of super quantum superposition, in that they are both scheduled and unscheduled at the same time. The state comes about when I've sent off several messages to people that I'm planning to meet with at some time in the near future (lets say within the week) and since I'm dealing with a finite resource (my schedulable hours this week), many of my announced available times overlap between meeting invitees. So, any specific entry may be:

1. Unscheduled (no invitee has decided to take this spot)
2. Claimed by one or more of several invitees (hence super quantum superposition)

Before I am able to get to my email and read the various responses, this means that the unobserved calendar entry is both unallocated, allocated and super allocated (everybody wanted Wednesday at 10:00.) According to the Copenhagen interpretation, My simple observational act of reading my email will coincide with the collapse of the wave function and resolve my schedule into something Microsoft Office can express. (That is unless you prefer to believe that non-conscious observers - in this case Microsoft Office - alter the quantum state of the observed phenomenon. If that's true, Microsoft Office is changing our reality at the quantum level millions of times per second. Try not to think about it.)

Now you know my problem. If I miss a meeting with you, it's because I was simultaneously also scheduled to be having tea with the Society for the Elimination of Annoying Car Sqeaky Sounds and saving a cat in a box with a radiation source nearby from certain doom. It's NOT because my scheduling habits are disorganized.

NOTE: The "laws" of "physics" portrayed in this note should have almost no resemblance to Schrödinger's "Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik." Precisely, the similarities are:

• Use of the verb "know" although not in the same context.
• Reference to a cat, though mine was strictly to try and gain the reader's sympathy in the case where I stood/stand the reader up for a meeting (and attend it.)
  
• Improper use of comma splices.

Since I don't look at my blog logs, the entire planet has read and not read this entry. I'm VERY popular and ignored.

Titanium Spork as alternative lifestyle

So, along with the usual 4' hunting blowguns, lemur skulls, fish fossils and dried frog carcass-as-cell-phone-cozy that everyone I know received for Christmas this year, I also received a titanium spork. Much like the various versions of my TiVo thinks I'm gay out there, I begin to wonder what the gift of a titanium spork indicates that my good friends think of me.

I pretty much doubt that the people that bought me the spork have ever seen me eating with a spork. Hands, pocket knives, toothpicks, gravity and the occasional bendy-straw, but not a spork. So the focus is potentially on the hardy, will-survive-apocalypse nature of a titanium instrument, which holds more promise since they probably do know about the extensive system of underground tunnels under my house (and several neighbors houses if you want to get technical - see "hole digging") and the 3 years supply of food, water and silly putty stashed away just in case.

So, I'm thinking that they have thoughtfully provided me with an indestructible combination spoon/fork utensil on the off chance that Seattle will be destroyed by a combination of the Juan de Fuca Plate Tsunami / radioactive creature attack and spontaneous devolution of the Seattle city council and mayor into CHUD (their mothers would almost certainly notice the difference.) If that happens, I'll be packing around a very light weight single eating utensil while all of you are dishing up your rats and squirrels with your bare hands. You'll be all like: "Rarrrrgh aaarrgh, Spork man civilized" and I'll be all: "Quite true. Please pass the salt, this mutant opossum-squid is a bit gamey."

I'm glad folks are looking out for me. Oh, and for the record, my TiVo thinks I'm a llama.

Chitinous Gravy

So, as you are eating this holiday (or any other time of your choosing) you might want to point out to everyone (especially impressionable children) that the cell walls of mushrooms are made of the same material (chitin) that insect exoskeletons are made of, only since it's 95% of the mushroom's mass, it's like you're eating an insect with a 1/8 inch thick shell, or maybe the equivalent of a whole handful of beetles. Then, tell the kids that some cooks sneak mushrooms into all kinds of stuff like casserole, gravy, stuffing and lasagna. Feel free to add items that kids like to the list, though they might question you on soda-pop and ice cream - although "mushroom ice cream" does yeild 212 entries from Google.

My friend Mark points out that Jones Turkey + Gravy flavored soda would be the perfect beverage to accompany dung-beetle flavored food, and I have to agree. I would also like to suggest the following flavors to Jones, as they would complement much of the food we eat by bringing out the subtle flavors:

• Dr. Hamburger
• Bacon (root) beer
• Salmon Cola

Clearly, these would be big sellers with people that like meat flavored beverages, and who doesn't? For the truly adventurous, they might even consider sushi beverages - maybe an unagi Italian Creme (eels are good with creme) or a squid & chocolate soda, but we may have some hurdles when it comes to packaging raw fish in a soda bottle for distribution. Sushi beverages may have to be a fresh beverage only product for a while.

I'm sooooo looking forward to Christmas dinner now.

Hole digging

So, I've dug maybe 426 holes in my life, which I expect is about average for a shovel weilding non-gardener. Keep in mind that these holes have ranged across five or six states, and I've used most of the commonly available digging tools. The holes range in size from small ones to plant a mustard seed in through shallow graves for dead things that I had NO HAND IN KILLING to septic tank sized holes which certainly were for septic tanks and NOT dead things that I HAD NO HAND IN KILLING.

So, with this grand variation and variety of hole purposes, I'm wondering how it's possible that each hole was filled with 62% rock, one of which was 50% of the total hole volume and offset, such that the only way to extract it was to dig it out leaving a hole 75% too large. (For the purposes of this diatribe, I'm not particularly considering the other non-dirt contents of each hole, which include 2% roots, 1.3% glass and .05% cd wrapper plastic.)

When they show someone disinterring some hapless body that they had NO HAND IN KILLING in a movie or on television, it's pure dirt. They just remove shovel after shovel full of dark fluffy loam. In fact, if they are digging up a treasure chest of coffin, they suddenly know they've reached it when they go to lift out another shovelfull, and it goes "clink" or whatever that foley sound is. If I was near a treasure chest or coffin every time my shovel went "clink" I'd be up to the rafters in bodies and/or treasure....

And I'm not.

Really.