Harrumph File #099 12.25.2011_Christmas 2011

            Well, today is Christmas.  And, as I sit back and enjoy 24 hours of “A Christmas Story,” an occasional “Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” (the original cartoon starring Boris Karloff as the voice of The Grinch, not that monstrosity with Jim Carrey.) and as the minions and henchmen open their evil gifts consisting of various holly jolly weapons and tools of the “taking over the world” trade; I, H.A. Rrumph, would like to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a very happy new year… under the boot of HARRUMPH!!!  Muahahahahaha!!!!!!!!  Harrumph…

Harrumph File #098 12.18.2011_That’s It, The End Times Are Here.

     Elephants have figured out how to use boxes to get food too high to reach on their own.  Alligators are cooperating in fishing for meals.  Monkeys are using virtual reality to distinguish between different textures.  Frogs are growing teeth.  Wasps transport ants away from food sources.  Cats imitate monkey calls in the forest.  Goats are walking up the sides of dams in Italy.  Rocks are moving on their own in Death Valley.  And on top of all this, zombie ants have been found in the jungle and scientists are creating zombie caterpillars in the lab!  That’s it folks.  Game over.  You may just dismiss these events as strange and weird articles to be found in National Geographic online but I say they’re signs of the end.  Time to board up the windows, clear the fields of fire around your house, stack rifle magazines at your sandbagged, upper story window, and wait for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.  This is the end.

     Ok, ok, I can see that some of these stories are just natural outcomes of normal evolution.  So I can see how margays in the Amazon jungle imitating monkey calls to draw in food and alligators lining up at bottlenecks in rivers to feast on fish passing through can be seen as normal development; the cats have seen how making baby monkey calls will lure in a curious adult monkey (George, perhaps?) and maybe they can make a quick meal of it.  And, alligators gathering where there’s plenty of fish to eat… oh well, just nature taking its course.  But how do you explain an elephant trying to reach some tasty fruit just out of reach of his trunk, walking over to and then pushing a large box over to the out-of-reach branch, and then stepping on said box to reach the tasty morsels?  This is problem-solving intelligence, not just “food there, go to food” instinct.  And, as I’ve pointed out in previous harrumphs, elephants in India will go into villages and murder people who have offended them in some way (like trying to kill them or chase them out of the area) by knocking on their doors and then dragging them off into the jungle when the foolish person answers the door.  This is the end… beautiful friend, the end.

     Wasps have been seen picking up ants that are swarming over a food item that they crave, flying a distance away with the ants, and them dropping them back to the ground, unharmed, and then flying back to the food, repeating this as necessary, until they’ve got the food to themselves.  It’s not like the wasp gets in there and fights it out with ants, like they did on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, back the 60’s.  It’s almost as if they’ve discovered that ants are an integral part of the food chain and they’re just pushing them aside, with no ill effects, to maintain the balance of nature.  Smart wasps?  This is the end… my only friend, the end.

     Now, as for the next few things, I just have no clue.  Frogs growing teeth?  Oh come on, don’t you think we’ll have enough trouble with the wasps and elephants?  Now we have to worry about frogs attacking us?  Brings a whole new meaning to frog gigging when the frogs can fight back.  I’m sure it wont be long before they discover a 500 pound, six foot long frog with saber-tooth like tusks in the swamps.  And what the hell are goats doing walking up near vertical dam faces for?  Just so that we can put them on the “watch list” too?  Damn goats (or is it “dam” goats?  Whatever…) And monkeys playing with computers and virtual reality?  C'mon scientists, knock it off! Oh yeah, better watch out for those moving rocks in Death Valley too.  It’s not enough that we have to face off against the animal kingdom at like 10 trillion to one odds, now we have to include rocks?  Oh well, 10 bazillion to one.  This is the end… of our elaborate plans, the end.

     Ants in the jungle are being taken over by a fungus that turns them into zombies.  They are “digested” by the fungus, wander off and eventually die, after which the fungus sprouts from their heads, ready to attack a new host.  Well, this might be nature at work but deliberately infecting caterpillars with a zombie virus in the lab at Penn State is just going too far.  You know what’s coming next folks; the virus “jumps” to one of the scientists late at night, the reports from Pennsylvania (interestingly, where the original “Night of the Living Dead” movie was supposed to have taken place,) of weird attacks where victims have been bitten by other people in strange trances, and in some cases, unbelievable reports of cannibalism or people being devoured on city streets by their attackers; hospitals being overwhelmed; the National Guard, then the entire Army being mobilized; worldwide epidemic; borders closed (finally!); tanks in the streets; napalmed cities… and then the inevitable silence from the emergency broadcast system.  Haven’t we learned anything from George Romero (besides knowing when you’ve finally “jumped the shark” in zombie movies?)  This is the end… of everything that stands, the end.

Goodbye Mr. Bear...

            And finally, have you seen the videos of these bears waving at people?  I’m not talking about the usual “bear waves, bear gets food treat” ones, I’m talking about the ones where they’re waving but not getting any food snacks.  It’s like they’re enjoying waving.  Enjoying waving at us.  Waving goodbye to us.  This is the end… Harrumph…

Harrumph File #097 12.11.2011_The Aliens Are Coming! The Aliens Are Coming!

     So scientists have discovered an “object” near Mercury.  Specifically, a planet-sized object that no one has ever seen before.  They first saw this object as a solar flare swept over the barren planet in the first week of December.  Many internet bloggers are speculating that it is, indeed, an alien spacecraft; a “mother-ship,” if you will that, utilizing a clocking device, has remained hidden from our prying eyes until the natural world upset their nefarious scheme with a solar flare.  Scientists have come up with a usual pointy-headed explanation that is, quite frankly, beyond belief.  I intend, right here in the harrumph files, to prove the bloggers right and the pointy-headed scientists wrong.

     First of all, the scientists say that the object is actually the planet Mercury itself.  HA!  I laugh at that explanation for several reasons, primary among them being the simple fact that the planet Mercury cannot be in two different places at the same time!  HA HA!  Take that, scientists!  Physics right back in your face!  These so-called scientists claim that what we see in the footage is Mercury’s wake, “where the planet was on the previous day.”  What a load of crap!  There are no “wakes” in space.  What do they take us for, a bunch of know-nothing clowns that think that we’ll buy their explanation because we know that ships on the ocean cause wakes and that since we call our rockets “spaceships” that we’ll then accept “space wakes?”  HA!

     Besides, we all know from watching movies that scientists are always the ones that forget to round up pi, or put the decimal point in the wrong spot, or forgot to close the screen door on his transmogrifying machine, and therefore mess everything up and boom!  We’ve got a bunch of zombies or some weird new half-octopus, half-goat, half-spider gigantic mega-monster, or some brand new super-virus with a 99.99% (or is that 9.99%?) death rate and it’s always some construction worker or some obnoxious kid that’s got to do the actual world saving.  Besides, you can never trust scientists because every ten years they reverse all their findings from the previous decade:  “the planet isn’t cooling, it’s heating.”  Having a glass of wine is now good for you.  Eggs were bad for you in the 80’s & 90’s, now they’re good for you.  Jeeze, at this rate I’m gonna take up smoking just for the future health benefits.  Scientists, bah (hand waves dramatically)!

I've got a bad feeling about this!

     So, if the pointy-headed scientists are wrong (obviously!) then by default the object is, in fact, an alien spaceship (without a wake) that’s orbiting Mercury.  But wait!  Here’s further proof!  So, if you were an alien and you wanted to hide out in our solar system to spy on us and find out all our strengths & weaknesses, where would you hide?  Of course, you’d hide with the sun at your back, just like how the Nazi and Jap…p…panese planes used to dive on our bombers from out of the sun back in WWII.   And, you would send out your own spies to mislead and misdirect human defenses.  When you were a kid did your mom ever tell you to never look at the sun?  Well, well, I wonder why?  I guess we now know.  Yes, the long standing old wives tale of having your retinas burnt out if you look at the sun is just an evil alien plot to get us to watch in the wrong direction!

            But, do not give up!  Do not think that we will become the inevitable “first course” in an alien cookbook!  For, what else have the movies taught us?  That for every evil alien plan to take over our world we have a counter attack!  Either we will find some way to render their force fields inoperative, or microorganisms will infect and kill them, or just good old-fashioned Marine Corps firepower will blow those extra-terrestrial turkeys back to the pathetic planet they came from!  Remember, the aliens have made a mistake.  They’ve let themselves be seen!  Yes, they are not infallible!  They can be defeated!  We don’t need scientists!  We don’t need viruses or microorganisms to do our fighting!  We have the troops!  We have the firepower!  What we need to do is deploy that force now, when they’re off balance!  Attack now!  Use everything at our disposal, and then some!  Tactical smart missiles, phased-plasma pulse rifles, RPG's, independently targeting particle-beam phalanxes, nukes, knives, sharp sticks!  And if that “object” does turn out to be Mercury and we blow it completely away?  Who cares?  No one seemed to notice when the “scientists” got rid of Pluto!  Harrumph…

Harrumph File #096 12.04.2011_It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

     The most wonderful time of the year.  Everyone’s happy and laughing; singing songs and wishing complete strangers a “merry Christmas” (or simply “happy holidays” if you live in an extremely PC area of the country.)  And I ask myself, why?  Unless you live in the southern hemisphere (where only tranks, lobos and zipheads live) it’s damn cold outside!  What the heck is there to be so happy about when you’ve got to shovel 360 cubic feet of snow out of the way every day just to get your car out of your driveway?

     “Oh, but it’s a magical time; Santa Claus; goodwill; cheer; eggnog.”  Baaah!  Actually it’s a time that we suspend all the normal operating practices of everyday life.  It’s a time that we tell our children “go ahead and sit on that stranger’s lap and tell him about all the goodies you want him to give you.”  Any other time of the year we’d be telling our kids to stay away from that ho-ho-ho-hoing predator.  And certainly don’t take a lollipop from him; you don’t know where that thing has been!  Oh yeah, it’s ok if you see him in your house late at night going through your stockings too.  And even if he’s kissing your mom, that’s ok too.  WTF?  This is after how many years of teaching your kids to shoot a double-tap to the chest followed up by one to the head for home invaders?  Baaah, just throw all that training out for some crappy wooden toys made by elf slave labor (all legal of course since there are no labor laws that govern the north pole.)  And eggnog?  Just what the heck is that anyway?  Elf barf?

     And then you have to deal with all the gift planning.  “What does Grandpa Fred want this year?”  Well, we can’t afford to get him a replacement portable oxygen tank so maybe he would like a tin of those Danish butter cookies.  You know, the ones that were made 25 years ago and are hard as cement?  Baaah, just put a Santa hat on him and wheel him into the corner where he won’t frighten the kids.  Then there’s the whole “re-gifting” thing.  The fear that whoever’s gift you’re re-gifting will find out about it from whomever you gave it to.  If you just follow a few simple rules about re-gifting you can get away with it easily.  Number one being don’t re-gift to a mutual friend, duh?  And, don’t re-gift obvious items.  You know, there’s only been one fruitcake ever produced.  It’s been getting re-gifted all around the world since 1937.

     Then there’s all the Christmas specials that you have to watch.  Now, I’m not talking about the cool ones I’m talking about the lame ones.  I don’t want to go into Regis’s house and spend the holidays with his family.  I don’t want to spend Christmas with Oprah & the Obamas in Hawaii.  And I certainly don’t want to go to Uncle Joe Biden’s workshop at the North Pole.  Baaah!

     The cool shows are ok though.  In fact, they’re about the only thing that I look forward to during this time of year.  24 hours of “A Christmas Story” on TBS followed by “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  And not that monstrosity starring Jim Carry either.  The only thing the Oscar it won for best makeup is good for is to konk Carry over the head with.  No, I’m talking about the original cartoon narrated by Boris Karloff.  Haha, what a grinchy Grinch.  I like his dog.

Never trust a banjo-playing snowman...never!

     And what about snowmen?  Everyone’s building snowmen this time of year.  People, don’t you know that snowmen are evil?  Don’t let that jolly, happy Frosty fool you either. He took all the kids in town and “He led them down the streets of town right to the traffic cop.  And he only paused a moment when he heard him holler “Stop!”  So he’s teaching children that they don’t have to listen to the police?  And how about the original snowman played by Burl Ives in “Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer?”  That’s one evil snowman if you ask me.  Laughing about how all the other reindeer make fun of Rudolf & his red nose.  Now, I know red-nosed reindeer aren’t a protected class under law, but it’s still bullying and we shouldn’t promote it.

            So the next time someone you don’t know says “merry Christmas” to you as you’re walking down the street; or the next time your neighbor asks you if you’re taking your kids to see Santa down at the mall, wave your hand and throw out a “Baaah!” and let’s all bring this Christmas cheer thing back to reality.  Harrumph…