Thursday, April 17, 2008

Some musings

It's been far too long....

So, yesterday over on Kael'thas, I was talking with my new guildie, who I suspect is a Hordie in disguise (BBB's guild is Alliance). What tipped me off is that he seemed more comfortable fighting as an Undead Night Elf Warrior vs. a live one. I tried to tell him that he couldn't equip his sword as a wisp and so, couldn't Sunder Armor, but my advice fell on deaf ears.

And since I had deaf ears not listening to me, I decided to "help" him out by implying that he had a problem to which his solution involved The cat, a rollercoaster, and a medicine ball. I tried to help him by pointing out that The cat wouldn't meet the minimum height requirements for the rollercoaster AND that the average housecat can in no way swallow a medicine ball.

An aside, I did say that I had read reports of domesticated felines being able to swallow a billiard ball and one unconfirmed article of a cat swallowing a basketball, but none being able to choke down a medicine ball.

Anyways, while preparing dinner, I realized that a simple solution to his problem would be cat stilts. "But, what about the ban?" you might ask. First of all, it's a moratorium, not a ban, and secondly, it was the UN that put that out. And everyone knows that UN resolutions are non-binding.

After I had communicated that to my best buddy from Europe, the afore mentioned undead NE warrior who's name I will not devulge (See Ashhi, I CAN be descreet!), seemed a bit overwhelmed by my simple solution, so I presented an alternate: Kitty blindfolds. I'm still not sure if my message got through the language barrier, as I only spoke in Mandarin.

But back to the cat stilts. I'd like to expand on this riveting subject and explore the history of how the UN came to stick their nose into the national industry of Sri Lanka.

The origin of cat stilts is still debated, but the early renditions are well known. Pugnacious "Yarp" Boonswaggle was arguably the first person to make a crude set of "kitty elevators", as they first were known. Unfortunately for him, the 4X4 beams that he nailed the cats' feet to were too heavy for the felines to effectively use. So, while the cats gained 6 feet of "elevation", they could not use the stilts for their intended purpose. And the idea seemed to die.

With the advent of welding, puss extenders became one of the first applications of the new technology. Researchers quickly determined that welding the actual paw to the 4X4 was a recipe for disaster, and soon began looking for shoes or "boots" that could be used instead. Hence, we get the phrase, "Bob's your Uncle!" But, once again, even with the feet firmly, and humanely, attached, the cats were unable to properly use the stilts.

After this, cat stilt research entered a dark era that included steroids, DNA manipulation, and live sacrifices. Due to the icky part of this field of study, many researchers left for greener pastures in the mold industry, however, despite many different approaches, the 4X4's could not be made any lighter or the cat's more beefy. But all was not lost, as many useful products resulted from the 3 million cats who sacrificed their all; the list of products include Velcro, Super Glue, and the letter P.

Enter Rufus "Batman" Cage. Batman is credited with saving the industry from itself (and them dang regulators) with his revolutionary idea of using 2X4's instead of 4X4's. The cats still did not have the strength to use the new stilts, but this line of thinking caused researchers to continue trying new and different material for the stilts. It would only be after extensive research into 1X4's, 1/2X4's, 1/4thX4's, and on down to 1/256thX4's that the next breakthrough would be realized. As an aside, the next iteration (1/512thX4's) would have sliced through those kitties' paws like a hot knife through butter, and the researchers had run out of cats to complete a full study.

That breakthrough was balsa wood, and the rest, as they say, is history.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm alive!
Wait.. am I?