This Day in History Entry #156

February 7th, 2012 by Wordsman

The steel plow farmers did depend on
Was this crafty inventor’s great spawn
Now his enemies jeer:
“Nothing runs like a Deere
But so, too, nothing smells like a John!”

Event: Birth of John Deere, inventor of the steel plow and founder of Deere & Company
Year: 1804
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Deere_%28inventor%29

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Know Your Picture Characters Entry #90

February 6th, 2012 by Wordsman

A. 傷ついた心 B. こむら返り C. 尺骨神経 D. 書痙 E. 脳の凍結

F. 喉仏

Learning lessons from one’s mistakes is very important.  Unfortunately, we are only able to do this if we assume consistency.  This policy is generally a bad one when dealing with kanji.  All this is just a lead-up to my pointing out that Theoman will probably be distressed to learn that I did in fact include “Brain Freeze,” (E) which is the newest edition to the game of Operation.  Never having played (or at least, never having competently played) Operation as a child, I felt less loyalty to the assortment of pieces present there in my youth.  The logic behind his decision to avoid bones seemed sound enough, but the Funny Bone isn’t really a bone, now is it?  It’s the ulnar nerve (C).  So, better luck next time, Theoman.  Still, it’s not a total loss.  Half your guesses are on here somewhere, and you spotted the Broken Heart (A) quickly enough.  But really, what KYPC player wouldn’t?

Shirley would probably appreciate it if we made things easier on her by not introducing contexts in which she would be inclined to mention her knee surgery.  We’ll work on that for next week, but for now let’s take a look at her responses.  It seems that Shirley may be a fine doctor after all, for she looks beyond the condition to the root cause itself.  Can excessive co-pay fees lead to a Broken Heart?  It seems possible.  Can really bad health care legislation be responsible for a Charley Horse (B)?  Uhh . . . maybe if it makes you hopping mad, haha . . . Perhaps a well-tickled Funny Bone, causing an exorbitant amount of shaking of sides, might be a reason for kne-uh-hip surgery.  And perhaps the writing of a great number of letters in an attempt to find relief for those kne-uh-hip surgery patients is the source of your Writer’s Cramp (D).  Can’t remember the Hippocratic Oath?  Must be Brain Freeze.  Lacking patience (or patients)?  Clearly, it’s something to do with . . . your . . . Adam’s Apple (F).  Or, as it is known in Japanese, the “throat Buddha.”  Because, as we all know, Buddha was an impulsive, reckless sort of guy.  Right?

You know what’s not going to win Best Picture?  That movie I watched in high school once where Keanu Reeves played Buddha.  And you thought I wouldn’t be able to make that transition.

Yesterday was the Super Bowl.  Did you watch it?  Well, I did, and I was disappointed.  Super Bowl.  Hah!  Nothing “super” about it.  So I set out to find things more deserving of the title “Super.”  Did I succeed?  You be the judge.  Sort through this pile of balls, conductors, heroes, sonics, and Tuesdays and tell me what should really be super.  I’ll even throw that bowl in there, just for good measure.

A. 英雄 B. 音速 C. 火曜日 D. 玉 E. 導体 F. 配管工兄弟 G. 椀

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The Mission Part 5

February 3rd, 2012 by Wordsman

Officer Escobar was not having a great day.  Started too early.  Not enough donuts at the station (and those that were there were of criminally poor quality).  Too many actual crimes.  Not enough down time.  Too much heat.  Not enough fans.

Officer Escobar was not having a great day, but he was willing to admit the possibility that other people were having worse ones.  Take Officer Tang, for example.  She had burst into the precinct mid-morning demanding assistance in arresting someone.  That was astonishing in and of itself, for Tang never asked for anybody’s help for anything, but then when she started describing the situation, it got downright ludicrous.  A person that physically could not be moved from the scene of the crime?  Come on.  No one believed her, but that wasn’t about to stop her.  She tried to convince anyone and everyone she could find—sergeants, lieutenants, the captain, the coroner, homicide detectives, ballistics specialists.

Escobar, luckily, was lowly enough to escape her notice, so he spent much of the morning watching her running around the building yelling at people.  Last he heard she had gone off to the courthouse to try to get the judge to order her arrestee to be removed.

Then there was this kid.  Escobar had taken him into an interrogation room—not because he wanted to scare him, but just because that was where there was space—sat him down, and asked him to explain himself.  Finally Peter was in a position where he felt he had to tell the whole truth.  And I mean the whole truth.  He told him about pouring coffee in his cereal, the muted wrath of Mr. Abrahamson, accidentally stumbling on a couple of sites that may have been pornographic when searching the term “earworm,” being silently mocked by Sourdough for the decay of his musical talent, and stealing a nickel from a saxophone player.  Officer Escobar had heard of bad days before; he had participated in a number himself.  But this one stretched the boundaries of the imagination.

And yet he believed every word.  When the boy mentioned the old woman in the subway station, on the outside, Escobar simply nodded.  On the inside, he jumped out of his shoes.  He had kept his vow to avoid Simon Park Station all those months, but he had never truly forgotten the old woman.  So she had found her champion.  He looked like kind of a mess.  Escobar, in one of his more philosophical moments, supposed that real champions often do.

Even more shockingly, Officer Tang’s story all of a sudden made perfect sense.  In her frantic ravings, she had somehow neglected to mention the age, gender, or location of the person she was trying to apprehend.  If she had, she might have secured assistance sooner.

Escobar wanted to find out more about the woman, for the bits of information he picked up from Tang and the kid really raised more questions than they answered.  And he wanted to let the kid go.  He hadn’t done anything seriously wrong.  But there were some crimes that even Officer Escobar could not overlook.  If you did something to a fellow citizen, he might glance the other way—hey, maybe that person deserved it.  But if you did that same thing to the police, then you would be introduced to justice of the biblical variety.

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