Today I want to talk about a very important thing.  Looking smart.
Of course it is widely known that, unlike the European, every young American wants to “look smart.”  Nobody currently knows why but everyone wants to look smart.  As any high school nerd, respected mid-

Someone who quite clearly, looks smart.

level liberal arts college professor, or Pulitzer prize winner can tell you it certainly doesn’t help you with the opposite sex.  If you need any proof just watch Gilligan’s Island.  The Professor, who although clearly the only PhD on the island and the only male who did not physically appear to be a Looney Toons reject, never once got in any episode as much attention from Mary Anne or Ginger as Gilligan got.  And I am certain it wasn’t just because Gilligan was the main character!
But still we all want to “look smart.”
And I certainly want to “look smart.”  That is the only reason I am doing this blog! That and Eric makes me…
But my weapons are limited.  True I like to pretend to care about stuff and get a thrill out of talking about old bands other people haven’t heard of.  But I am not going to wear tweed and glasses or start sipping Merlot, or cut my hair.  Also I refuse to agree so wholeheartedly with a group’s consensus that it appears that I had already come to their conclusion long ago and am now incredulous at the fact everyone else is only now agreeing with me!
That really only leaves me one avenue to “look smart”; the Drop.  You know when you use an oblique cultural reference or obscure word that most people you are speaking to do not immediately recognize and are unwilling to admit ignorance of, but that you present in a manner that assumes people already know what you are talking about, usually in the form of a question?  It is really powerful if you use it right.  And to do that requires planning ahead.
So here we go!
Words and phrases I intend to drop into conversation this week to make me “look smart”:
recidivism
Albigensian
laconic
sophistry
holistic
Asperger’s syndrome
Gene Simmons
diagonal
quiescence
wu xai
deleterious
funktastic
verisimilitude
gin
peanuts
Manaecheanism
mandala
je ne sais quoi

And BAM! instant “Looking Smart!”  See!  Not an attractive woman for miles around!  Works like a charm.

-Bob

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I have decided that naming stuff has to be one of the hardest (or at least most bothersome) things people have to do.  Most people have to name something pretty darn important, like a band or a boat or maybe a little human, at least every few years.  This wouldn’t be that bad and could be kind of fun if so much did not depend on naming amateurs getting the name exactly right.   If they do come up with a good name then their boat might be thought to not be owned by a jerk or their band might actually make it or their child might become a titan of industry and an overall success.  If they do not come up with the right name then their boat will surely become nothing more than a floating monument to social climbing, the band will never get any buzz because no one will want to say the name of a bunch of poseurs and their child will suffer endless taunting from his peers and sidelong views from adults who think that they are the perpetually stoned offspring of even more wasted hippies.
And yet we are routinely called upon to find an abstract series of sounds that not only recalls certain abstract ideas to mind by fitting the pattern of sounds we already associate with other abstract ideas and so emotionally resonates with the listener but also, in many cases, has not already been taken.
Maybe things weren’t so hard for Adam when he first had to title all the critters out there if only because he didn’t have to compete with anyone, but I doubt it. If anything I’ll bet our poor progenitor did what so many people do when they have a task they cannot see the end of and just went with whatever came to him next that sounded different. I am pretty sure this is how Lenny Kravitz was named.
That is probably the reason why so many people name their kids exactly the same name as everyone else having a baby that year. They all think they are being clever but really they are just at the exact same place in the search for a “different” name as everyone else when they get tired of looking. Same for bands. This is why there are currently fifty million twenty-something Jasons, Christophers, and Kevins walking around today and probably at least fifty christian bands named Testimonious or some such nonsense.
So to help everyone out I have compiled a partial list of names for any and all naming occasions. Whether you need to christen a boat or a child, name a band or town, title a screenplay or novel, market position a new product or business, or even create a credible pseudonym for yourself in order to publish your anti-government rants anonymously, this list should serve your needs. I have added in the parenthesis the most likely uses of these names, but do not think that those uses are binding.

Jove (Child, Pet, Deity)
I Know Superman (Novel, Song, Band, Horse, Casino)
His Orangey Fate (Child, Band, Nation, or Junior High Hazing)
The Flurvian Sea (Desert, Dessert)
The Precotions (Band, Family, Cartoon Series About Heroic Robots, Legislative Body)
Noteripitous (Child, County, Ecumenical See, International Award)
Gary (Royal Household)
Fligningham (Computer Software, Pretentious Sub-Development, )
les Petit Plaisires (Den Of Vice Found In Nevada, Song, a Christian Single Parent’s Ministry)
Fortanbraugh (Child, Family, Clan, Cheap Paperback Novel Written by Failed English Major)
The H Archonion 2000 Series d.s.7 (Fraternity, Ink Cartridge Prototype, Soft Drink)
Ammmmmmmarnad (Fantasy Character, Child of Trendy Parents, CIA Code Name)
Vramsl (Car, Castle, Coffee, Colonic)
Hoagy (Great American Songwriter, Sandwich, Doorstops)
Koronautious (World Boss, Canoe)

Boy! Even getting those fifteen practically proved my point! This is hard stuff. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you all give it a shot.
I’m just going to go grab a The H Archonion 2000 Series d.s.7 to quench my thirst and I’ll see about adding some more after wards.

-Bob

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We have to find a use for vermin!
Seriously. We have to find a use for vermin! I am sick of them, Sick of every last one of them. And I have killed so many of them I do not know how many more I can kill. I have crushed the skulls and snapped the necks of every one of them I can get my hands on! And any of them I couldn’t get a hold of I have poisoned or trapped and starved to death! And I mean all of them! All of them, the rats, mice, roaches, snakes, wombats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, and every other stinking animal pestilence that has ever been sent to carry disease into our homes. The stupid little vermin!
They try to get into my house all of the freaking time and I can’t stand it any longer. I am going to bait and lay so many freaking traps that there isn’t going to be a roach that doesn’t set off a rat trap! Unless I can find a way to start making these monsters do my bidding or at least find a use for them.
And it isn’t like they can help it. Stupid little, disgusting, parasitical, parasite ridden, property destroying monsters… They just want to nest in my walls for protection from the elements and feed off of my food, which is basically what I am doing myself. And if they are basically doing what I do in one respect, why can’t they do what I do in other respects, like be forced to turn a profit?
See so much of the problem is that killing these buggers just seems like such a waste. I mean, why kill something and dispose of its carcass when I could enslave it and use it‘s energies for my own profit? So much waste. And wherever there is waste there can be profit. If only I could find a use for the vermin why I could be rich.
But this isn’t just about money (although that SHOULD be good enough for anyone.) This is about reminding Mother Nature yet again who is in charge here! Here we have billions of organisms that we have been in contact with since creation and the best thing we have been able to conceive of doing with these foul things is to destroy them. What kind of masters and rulers over nature would we be if we could not bend every piece of our dominion to our will? And isn’t that what science is supposed to be used for, bending nature to our will?!
That’s it. We can find a use for vermin. NO!!! We MUST find a use for vermin! And not just as science experiments or the basis for cartoon characters anymore! Real, day-in-day-out, profitable, marketable, easily understood by a mass audience uses. Do you here me Science! We need our best minds on this today so I can claim royalties from the idea tomorrow!
Flibberdeegibbets! I’ll bet that all of the best Scientists are reading this now and are going to come up with all sorts of uses for vermin and take all of the credit for their hard work and my idea.
So lets see here…
Uses for vermin…
Uses…
Uses…
DANGABIT!! Se me next week!

-Bob

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