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Hume Improvement
A Small Tail Tale
Peaceful Postal Protest
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Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal


Hume Improvement

Journal Entry entered: 2001-10-11 - 6:35 a.m.

I got this little thing in e-mail this morning. I'm a member of the Dr. Science mailing list ("Dr. Science: he knows more than you do, he's got a master's degree... in science!") For those of you who may not be familiar with Dr. Science, he's a character created by Duck's Breath Radio Productions. On various public radio stations around the country they would sometimes play his 60 - 90 second bits where he would answer questions posed to him, usually in a silly manner. The e-mail list I'm on sends me a text version of one these bits every day.

Anyway, here's the one I got this morning (imagine Dr. Science's voice as a resonant and sarcastic baritone):
Dear Doctor Science,
if you were redesigning the human body, what improvements would you make?
-- Compuserve Junkie from St. Louis

First of all, I'd get rid of the bellybutton and all body hair. I find it offensive. Secondly, I'd double or triple the number of oil glands. Shiny people look good to me. They remind me of a freshly waxed car. Lastly, I think I'd put velcro on the palms of the hands and attach wheels on rotating casters to the bottom of the feet, much like the ones used in shopping carts. That way you could turn on a dime and skates and bicycles would become obsolete.

I found it somewhat amusing and it struck me also that I might respond to Dr. Science's answer myself. Being an outsider merely trapped on this planet, I have a slightly different perspective than the monkeys might have.

  • Removal of bellybutton: this is a tricky call. Bellybuttons can be sort of cute, and they tend to be a minor focal point for intimate moments between people. But they are a sort of weird scar and they can cause socialization problems ("Ewww! You have an outie! Gross!!!" ... but I'm not bitter...)
  • Removal of body hair: this could be left largely up to the individual, with printed guidelines and suggestions on a pamphlet handed out at puberty: "Back hair or excessive chest hair is often a turn off to potential partners." or "Mullets are universally condemned by people who think they should be able to style your hair for you." and so on.
  • Increased oil glands: Hmm, this one sort of requires a more forceful enforcement of the previous item. Having everyone be very well oiled would make intimate contact a bit more tricky: "Hey hon, let me give you a hug..." >spoit!<
  • Casters on the feet: they already have done this using those sports shoes that have the skate wheels in them.
  • Velcro on the hands: not sure what the point of this is unless it's for some kinky bondage thing.

Anyway, I may try to come up with a list of things I'd change at some time in the future. It's an entertaining past time. One guideline I would give to other potential Hume Improvers... always consider how the change might affect relations between mating partners...if the change will cause problems with the mechanics or aesthetics of breeding or intimacy they are not a good idea ... unless you desire the species to stop breeding.

That's it for now, I guess. More later, perhaps. -- Warren


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Three years! - 2010-04-27

School choices... - 2007-10-03

Virginia Johnson - 2007-09-05

Tau Trivia update! - 2006-12-15

Been a while, now vote! - 2006-10-03



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Warren's list of words that monkeys use to annoy him by misspelling, misusing, or mispronouncing them (the list will most assuredly grow)

Misspellings
  • COMING (typically mispelled "comming")
  • TONGUE (typically mispelled "tounge")
Confused spellings
  • HERE vs. HEAR (the former is a place word; the latter is what you do when a sound hits your ear)
  • IT'S vs. ITS (the former is a contracted form of IT IS; the latter is a possessive form of the impersonal pronoun IT)
  • LOSING vs. LOOSING (the former is what you are doing if you are not winning; the latter is what you are doing when you let the lions out of the lion pen at the zoo, you are "loosing them" or "setting them loose").
  • POUR vs. PORE vs. POOR (the first is what you do to get milk from the carton into the glass; the second is a small opening in a surface, such as those in your skin that sweat comes out of (... don't write poetry if you don't know your English, you just look sad). The third, a state of having little or no money, is rarely confused with the other two).
  • ROGUE vs. ROUGE (The former is a person who might also be described as a rascal, scoundrel or cad; the latter is make-up that one uses to add a bit of a blush to one's cheeks.)
  • THEY'RE vs. THEIR vs. THERE (the first is a contraction of THEY ARE; the next is a possessive form of THEY; the last denotes place or location)
  • TO vs. TOO vs. TWO (the first is a function word indicating movement, direction, proximity, intention, addition: "I'm going to the store" or "Add this to the pile" or "How close is the house to the road"; the second one sort of adds quantity, often of the excessive sort, to a concept: "Too many reptiles" or "I'm coming, too"; the last represents the number 2.)
  • WHERE vs. WEAR vs. -WARE vs. WERE- (the first references place or location; the second is either a verb, noun, or suffix relating to clothing or other adornments [example: wearing footwear] OR a noun or verb relating to the effect of exposure or useage or corrosion [wear and tear]; the third is a suffix that indicates that something is a class of some sort [hardware, software, flatware, wetware]; the fourth is a prefix used to attach the disease of Lycanthropy to a person or animal, i.e: werewolf, wererat, weretiger. Finally, although pronounced differently, "WERE" is also a past tense of are or to be.)
  • YOU'RE vs. YOUR vs. YORE (the former is a contraction of YOU ARE, the middle is a possessive form of YOU, and the latter is a reference to another, undefined era in the past: "Days of yore.)
Mispronunciations
  • ASK [ask'] ("axe" is something used for chopping wood or the action of chopping something with an axe).
  • CAN [kahn] (it should not be pronounced as [kehn]). Thanks, Ken.
  • CAVALRY [kah'-val-ree] ("Calvary" is a mountain that is prominant {pun intended} in the Bible, not a military unit that rides on horses... or these days on tanks and Hum-Vees).
  • DONDER [don'-der] ("Donner" was the name of a party of travellers that got stuck in the mountains and ate each other, not the name of one of Santa's eight little reindeer).
  • ESCAPE [es-kayp'] ("excape" simply sounds dumb).
  • ESPRESSO [es-pres'-oh] (it is NOT "eXpresso," pinheads. Thanks, Mischief.
  • HUNDRED [hun'-dred] (it's not "hun'-erd" nor "hun'-red"). Thanks, Rachel.
  • INSURANCE [in-sure'-ense] (it is NOT "in'-sure-ense"! In English, the second to last syllable is the one that gets the emphasis except when asking a question, when the LAST syllable is accented... never the third to last!!!)
  • JEWELRY [jew'-el-ree] (it's not "joo-lah-ree" or "joo-luh-ree", stoner!) Thanks, again Rachel.
  • LIBRARY [lie-brayr'-ee] (there's no such thing as a "lie-berry", people!)
  • NUCLEAR [new-klee'-er] ("nuke-yuh-ler" is incorrect, Homer! Same goes for you, Dubya!!!)
  • OFTEN [aw'-fen] (the pretentious will insist on saying "awf'-Ten" but that is an archaic form and no more appropriate than saying "thee" and "thou" in colloquial English)
  • RIPON [rih'-pin] (so very many people pronounce this "rih-pon' " or "ripe'-on" that it gets on the nerves of anyone who has ever lived or gone to school there! Thanks Rachel K.
  • VIOLA [vi-o'-la] (the musical instrument is pronounced "vee-ola" but the flower and the woman's name is pronounced with an "eye", not an "ee")Thanks, Viola.