Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Merkan Measures, or Take Me to Your Liter

Okay, here’s a little rant I’ve been saving up for a while, and since tomorrow is applications deadline day and I’ll be basically booked solid from then till October, this is a good time to let loose: If US opinion is relevant at all to the world-wide acceptance of metric standards, the metric system is as dead as Gabriel Mouton, the Gallic vicar who invented it in the 17th century.  We, as a nation, reject metricosity, despite having the world’s first decimal currency system, and it’s for a very simple reason: we don’t like French stuff.  From Citroens to citrons, from champagne to Catherine DeNeuve, we’ve had a crawful of their Ypres and hors de combat and all that French stuff they’re always going on about.  We make our own wine and cheese, thank you.  Julia Child kicked their asses au cuisine, and this great country is itching to reject anything with a frenchy name out of hand. 

Of course, this attitude is shortsighted and silly.  I mean, DeNeuve was a total hottie.  And as for metric measures, it’s easier to divide and multiply by (um, carry the three and add the remainder) TEN, than it is to do the “times twelve is feet, times three is yards, times whatever is a mile and don’t get me started on ounces...” stuff we go through.  I sort of wish that foreign speedometers didn’t freak me out with the suggestion I’m going 1.6 times faster than I thought I was.  Also, there are enough things that are sold in grams that it might make sense to remove the taint of drug sale terminology from that word.  It’s all about global harmony, people - despite our inbred distrust of what’s left of Charlemagne’s crib.  And in the interest of shrinking our rancid angry world so we can hate each other that much more conveniently, I have put my powerful brains to work on solving the US inertia on that whole metric deal.

The problem, of course, is that the words are all too, well, European.  Meter (or, more damningly, “metre")?  Litre?  Hectare?  What the hectare do they expect of us?  In the past we have accepted, reluctantly, French words like fuselage, chauffeur and ordurv, but I think that’s about our limit.  They snuck those in when we were sleeping off that fine, fine California Zinfandel binge.  Now that we’re not only awake but seriously hung over, we are not going to let any more eurospeak inveigle its way into the purity of the American tongue. 

So, if this country is going to embrace the rest of the world’s measurement system, I think the only solution is to treat it as if we invented it - much as Russia did with basketball, or the Mayans with chocolate and tearing out people’s hearts.  If we like the sound of the terminology we invent for it, we’ll use it gladly and ignore the confusion.  If we’re stuck with goofball stuff like “centigrade” or “Celsius,” we’ll just revert to whatever we’re most used to. 

SO: I have, at no small expense (that is to say, no expense at all), invented ‘Merkan names for units of metric measurement. I demand that these be promulgated and utilized nationwide, preferably before lunch.  If necessary, lunch can be postponed for this purpose. 

First, the Metric system is the wrong name.  It’s the Merkan system of measurement, as in, ‘U-nited Statesuh Merka.” Got it?  Okay.

Now, the first challenge was the most basic unit of measurement.  Meter/re just reeks of low-quality eurodiesel and unshaved armpits.  And don’t give me that crap about how “meter” is based on the Greek word “metron.” If we’re blowing off the French, why do you think we’d make special allowance for Greeks?  Other than providing handy geographic nicknames for some of the more popular sexual variations, what have either of them done for us lately?  Meter just don’t cut it.  So what’s a more acceptable, Merkan alternative?  It’s so obvious - nothing is more Merkan than an eagle.  So, instead of meters, the basic unit of linear measurement would be an Eagle.  This then gives us the following taxonomy:

* Meter: Eagle
* Centimeter: Beetle (smaller but can still fly)
* Millimeter: Mite
* Kilometer: Condor

Taking this as a pattern, we can reform liquid measure as follows:

* Liter: Tuna
* Centiliter: Bass
* Millimeter: Guppy
* Kiloliter: Shamu

Weights are, of course, subject to similar treatment.  In this country, “gram” means a cracker that stops self-abuse.  This is inappropriate and offensive to those who wish merely to weigh things without invoking prurient excesses.  (I’m sure such people are out there.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.) So, what is a more suitable category of terms than the name of those dirty, dirty crackers?  Firearms and ordnance, naturally.  That’s a wholesome Merkan subject all right.  So that gives us:

* Gram: Cartridge
* Centigram: Pellet
* Milligram: Shot
* Kilogram: Bandolier (yeah, that one’s sort of viva-Zapata Mexican, but I think we can still get away with it under NAFTA)

Temperatures are pretty simple.  There’s only one word for them: centigrade, or Celsius, which is two words, and isn’t that just French?  Let’s cut it down to something that all Merkans can relate to: NOTCHES.  It’s two Notches below zero.  It’s gonna get up to 15 Notches today.  (If things are really hot, we might want to adjust it to “Nachos.” Maybe with jalapenos.)

One of the real benefits of the Merkan system is that you can just add a syllable to any basic unit of measurement to make it a power of ten bigger or smaller.  However, instead of relying blindly on the Latinate prefixes that have dogged the metric system since at least earlier today, I suggest getting rid of all the “millis,” “centis,” “decis” and such.  And don’t give me any crap about replacing Millis with Vanillis.  Go and love the ‘80s on your own time.  Instead, let’s use these modifiers:

* 10 of anything: a Buncha
* 100 of anything: a Bucka
* 1000 of anything: a _____ Large
* 1/10th of anything: a Dima
* 1/100th of anything: a Centa (not the Frenchy version – it’s from the penny, or cent)
* 1/1000th: A Mini

Finally, there are two last measures that require Merkanization - ones we don’t use as often but that are nonetheless very important.  Land area is now measured here in acres or square feet, which is a pretty confusing way to describe it.  Metric-heads describe land area in terms of “hectares,” which to my ear is not much better.  I suggest changing it to “Arbuckles.” It’s a nice friendly word with the subtlest suggestion of landmass. 

And of course, there’s the infamous Newton - not a measure of figs, but of force.  A Newton is the amount of force needed to move a 1 Bandolier weight a distance of one Eagle per second squared (see how this stuff just flows like melted butter off a hot beret?).  This terminology is not quite as tainted as most metric names, because Isaac Newton was English and we have less trouble with them, even though they tend to add superfluous “u"s everywhere and Isaac Newton himself was a paranoid alchemist who died a virgin.  I don’t need that mess in my physics, so let’s sever the euro-ties here too.  What is the best name for a unit of force, such that all Merkans would be not only proud to use it but would go out of their way to fit it into conversation?  Only one answer comes close, and it’s a surefire winner: the BAUER.  Use it henceforth or the terrorists will have already won. 

Class dismissed. 

Monday, January 29, 2007

Good Morning, Already

It’s a really low-key monday morning home with a slightly feverish zach, who’s getting much more than his RDA of video this morning in an effort to keep him resting quietly.  Meantime I don’t think I can do a half-hour of Clifford without a lot more bourbon and since I technically have to go to work by 1 today I think I’ll just take this moment to offer up a few random portions of pasta fazul:

I noticed in the Seattle airport about a month ago, the recorded message they kept repeating for us: “Unattended baggage may be subject to search, inspection, damage and removal.” I kept hoping I’d see it happen: a portmanteau abandoned at the gate, surrounded by TSA officials in their kevlar mumus, first searching it - looking at it very carefully, inside and out; then inspecting it, which is different how exactly?; then damaging it, hopefully with extreme prejudice; and then, with stony faces and somber ceremony, removing it.  I will have to route more travel through SeaTac so that I can try to catch the floor show someday.

When I last went out to buy clothes, I tried on something that Old Navy was calling “painter’s pants.” These were blue jeans with some arrangement of pockets or other, and they hung a bit loosely on me, but the thing I couldn’t help but notice was how they crept up my crevasse.  As soon as I took a step in any direction, these pants were Melvining me in a vigorously intimate way.  From this I deduce that Painter’s Pants are pants that are designed, for some reason, to ride up my butt.  I anticipate with dread the introduction of Plumber’s Pants. 

Upon watching V for Vendetta with Kelly a few weeks ago:
me: “People who were really into the graphic novel apparently resented the love-interest aspect.”
kel: “People who were really into the graphic novel probably resent love.”

And finally, because Clifford will be ending so terribly soon: The translation of this poem is faithfully transcribed as inscribed on the pagoda pavillion on the island in Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park:
Two sister cities were made, side by side and hand in hand, is people’s well-being thus made.
Residing in this wide world, cooperating closely from our hearts, the universal brotherhood is thus made.
A scenic spot in USA for ascending remained, easterly coming culture, a real friend can not be wanting in this wide world.
A great ocean on ROC for crossing lain, westerly looking from Golden Gate, the world although so wide becomes as near as the neighborhood.
Mayor of Taipei ROC; Speaker of Taipai City Council ROC

Have a good monday.  a real friend can not be wanting in this wide world. 

Friday, January 26, 2007

Nuggets and Cootfarts

I’ve wanted to get another post up for days – that last one was only supposed to be #1 for a day or so.  Now it’s Friday and I’m scrambling to get a weekend-friendly nugget in place for your discriminating delectation.  And what I’ve got, really, is just a few weirdo bits of thought shrapnel that I am having trouble getting control over.  I actually wrote them down yesterday but I can’t figure out where now.  It was, like, four things worth wasting your time making you read.  Damned if I know what they were anymore. 

So instead I’m going to try a little exercise.  There’s this incident that was so funny when it happened that I sort of blacked out a little with laughter, and so did Kel, who’s usually more phlegmatic about such matters.  Since then we’ve both mentioned it to each other several times with unbounded hilarity.  But it’s not the kind of story you can easily tell someone.  Kel tried a few weeks ago, she says, but it sort of flopped.  So here’s my challenge: can I make this story even partly as funny in words as it was in life?

We were out by a nice lake in the park, one with long lazy lawns leading down to sculpted concrete banks.  Zach was chasing geese up the hill, and I had wandered down a few feet closer to the water.  Before me by the lakeside dawdled a few random ducks, a widgeon or two, and a desultory coot, one of those little mini-ducks all in black with a scrawny white beak.  They have feet that are not so much webbed as just kind of flattened out, and they tend to waddle right up behind their larger waterfowl brethren to scam the odd morsel of pondscum or whatever it is they eat. 

So that’s the set-up: me on a bucolic sloping lawn, with Kel and Zach playing a few yards up the hill from me, and more lawn and the lake in front of me.  I gazed over the rippled water, my mind blissfully empty.  A coot strolled up onto the grass near the lake, settling in on a spot directly in line with Kelly and me.  I serenely let the bird’s presence enter my consciousness.  It lethargically opened its beak, and then it sounded off with a very wet, rattly, rasping buzz of a quack.  It sounded, as Big Rodney once famously described, like somebody stepped on a duck.  More than that, it sounded wretchedly biological, a bilgebog honking that blasted loudly and rudely through the idyllic calm of the afternoon.

Horrified, I looked up the hill to Kelly – who immediately turned to face me, shocked.  I stood, gaping silently, on the grass.  I was between Kelly and the coot; she couldn’t even see it.  It didn’t sound like the kind of noise that would come out of a coot anyway.  It sounded a lot more like human posterior demethanization.  I stood accused, and, per ancient rime, I could not deny.  I could only helplessly turn and point desperately with both hands to the inoffensive little coot that sat on the lawn behind me, insensible to my discomfiture, silent as deadliness. 

Kel wasn’t buying it and smirked skeptically at me.  I turned back to the coot and mentally implored it to do something – anything - to vindicate my deflection of responsibility for that fabulously flatulent sound.  The coot looked at me with the cool detachment of a native watching a tourist get lost, and then, mercifully, it pulled back its head and quacked again – another low floppy noise, digestive and echoless.  I turned again to Kel – she surveyed the coot with surprise and amusement.  She looked back to me; I visibly hove a sigh of relief.  Then we both cracked up.  The coot didn’t seem to get the joke. 

And that’s the cootfart story.  I hope it conveys some little bit of how goddamn funny it was when it happened.  Or maybe you just had to be there.  Regardless, it was fun to try to write it up.  And in the meantime I found my notes from yesterday, so here are the points I wanted to raise:

1) I wrote a post a few weeks ago about all the spam I got in one weekend at work.  I’m now getting spam comments on that post.  I am inclined to leave them there for ironic purposes, though I usually clear such garbage out as quick as I find it.  My question to you, MultiNet InterWob: Do I run any risk leaving it there?

2) Strange career paths: Watching 24, it seems incredible to me that Hamri Al Assad, the erstwhile-evil terrorist mastermind now brokering peace at the cusp of nuclear catastrophe, started his career as the medical officer on the Deep Space 9 station?  Doesn’t that blow your mind?  Similarly, did everyone else already know that when Moses appears on South Park, it’s TRON ? 

3) (cootfart)

4) Finally, after centuries of the Wankel Rotary Engine and pornographic colorforms and caffeinated donuts, science has finally produced something useful: an actual ray gun!  I am thrilled to death, or to the point that I feel I am about to burst into flames spontaneously.  This initial model is a tad bigger than the ones I remember from the comix.  However, if you’re going to try to disperse a street full of angry protesters, you might want to have a nice big truck to stand on when you irradiate them.  There’s no reason to sink to their level while you turn them into screaming, weapon-dropping weaklings.  Democracy can and will prevail – especially now that it’s being promulgated by truck-mounted ray guns!

Okay, so that’s enough goodies for you.  I don’t want to spoil your weekend.  Coming up later, here on the Chucklehut: made-up names, presidio ghosts, and the rude boy on the bus.  Don’t miss a single installment!