Moronical Musical Monkeys

As much as it pains me to do so, I must basically reject Ursula’s father’s dowry such that I can move on with my life and my mission of saving the Earth. As you may or may not recall from my previous post, the original and basically laughable dowry offered by Ursula’s father, Yuri, consisted of an old dishwasher, blue bowling ball, a bunch of coconuts, and an angry cat. Obviously, this does not recognize my greatness, so I accepted this feeble offering and requested additional gifts to be given in accordance with my dowry supplementation protocol (DSP) such that I could basically accept it. As you may or may not know, my favourite musical act of all time is Milli Vanilli, and I’m also quite fond of monkeys. Basically, my DSP included acquiring a band of native Paraguayan monkeys that, with assorted yet appropriate instruments, attempt to replicate the greatness of Rob and Fab such that I may enjoy the aforementioned sounds whilst saving the Earth and/or receiving foot massages. I thought this would basically be a small thing to ask since he’s a renowned collector of the World’s rarest monkeys.

Do you have any idea what that ignorant son of a goat herder gave me? A band on primates that play Milli Vanilli’s soothing sounds and infectious grooves yet are not native to Paraguay!!! The costumes don’t fool me Yuri, I’m a freaking biologist!

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!? What nerve. Milli Vanilli doesn’t even have acoustic instruments or a saxophone player! So needless to say, obviously, the deal is off. Good riddance Ursula, and I want that owl-monkey-testicle-laden ring back for the next lucky lady that might actually be committed to helping me singlehandedly save the Earth.

Welcome to HEWOdome

Basically, as my loyal followers you can all understand the time commitment that is field research! So basically, let me start by stating the obvious, the final round of technician testing has already been completed! I would have updated my blog immediately following the HEWOdome battles, but I became swamped with responsibility. Also, as you may or may not know, the weather was awfully wet and I was forced to delay the “HEWOdome” battles for several weeks due to an issue I had with the original location of the dome. Basically, my original battlefield was swept away by a landslide caused by the explosion of some ordinance that was dropped from a Mig fighter during the all-terrain race. Apparently, a local villager found a missile half buried in the mud near his hut and didn’t tell anyone about it! What an idiot! Well, Carl just happened to be cruising around some muddy fields near this villagers house trying to get a good cell phone signal with the XF3 satellite dish on my Hummer when he basically ran over what he thought was a sleeping/dead/drunk/incapacitated cow. To Carl’s astonishment, it was a bomb. Basically, he came running home and told me about it, but I figured that if it was on this villager’s property then it wasn’t my problem, so I went about my business. Basically, two hours later I hear a boom and a rumble and the next thing I know, the side of the mountain is sliding over my newly constructed arena of death. ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME!?! So, basically, obviously, I had but one choice . . . build another even better arena of death! The problem was that the best spot other than the one I already had was over an old local cemetery. So, I had to do some more bargaining with the locals and explain to them the situation and how important it was for me to have the “HEWOdome” where I wanted it. I made sure to explain to them how much extra work I would have to do if they didn’t appease me and how inconvenient it would be for me to build the dome somewhere else. I think they eventually grew tired of me talking to them and they settled for a rickshaw with one wheel, my broken A/C unit, and my Martha Stewart Self-Bunionator.

I know what you’re thinking, but I was basically comfortable parting with my Self-Bunionator because I now have Wang et al. to massage my feet. So, I put all of my technicians to work building the “HEWOdome” and had Mitzi order the weaponry. I must say, this was the only time everything went according to plan. The dome was completed in 2 days and Mitzi ordered some very exciting weapons. I also allowed groups to bring 3 weapons of their choosing to make things a bit more challenging and exciting. Basically, the weapons Mitzi bought included a mace, a ballista, a blunderbuss, leg-hold traps, a panzerfaust, a tazer with hooks, an atlatl, a lightsaber, and a rabid owl monkey with a blunderbuss.

The group weapon selection was as follows:
Chinese: Lead-based paint, chopsticks, fortune cookies
Japanese: Samurai sword, Sumo tighty-whities, a camcorder with fannypack
Russians: AK-47, vodka-based Molotov cocktails, a portrait of Vladimir Putin
Mongolians: Recurved bows, fur hats, dried fish

Obviously, basically, this was the bloodiest battle to ever grace Paraguay. The battle began immediately after I gathered all of the potential technicians in the HEWOdome and I was comfortably seated in my elevated, air-conditioned, viewing platform with a Zima in one hand and a genetically modified Zima-basted chicken leg in the other. I can write all day about the ten hour battle royale, but I have a life outside of my research! So, I’ll give you the best highlights I can.
The Chinese and Mongolians seemed particularly aggressive toward one another. The Chinese were throwing cans of lead-based paint at the Mongolians while the Mongols were shooting the Chinese with arrows, which I must say they are very accurate with. There were several Chinese left and they began trying to build some sort of long wall between them and the Mongols, but the Russians, in an attempt to fight off the Japanese, released the rabid owl monkey with its blunderbuss.

Unfortunately for the Chinese, the monkey was insanely accurate with the blunderbuss and wiped them out before they could finish the wall. The Russians, realizing the threat the rabid creature posed to them, bludgeoned it to death with their Putin portrait and then set it on fire with a Molotov cocktail. While the Russians were busy trying to kill the rabid primate, the Japanese were running around in their sumo undies pulling out their camcorders and video-taping themselves destroying the Mongols with samurai swords and tazers. The Mongols did not go lightly though, as they were basically firing the ballista all over the place, destroying most of the dome and several nearby villages. Unfortunately, there was so much smoke that no one could see. We began hearing these horrible screams and explosions coming from what was left of my HEWOdome. Panzerfaust rounds, dried fish, leg-hold traps, and Mongolian yaks were flying everywhere. When the dust settled the only person left standing was Ivanov, a Russian vagabond. In fact, there was no one else even in the dome. It was an awe-inspiring moment, as I realized then that I potentially had one of the greatest HEWO technicians ever created. This period of joy was short lived however, because as I was preparing to present Ivanov with his HEWOdome trophy, a beam from the dome fell down and basically decapitated him like a turkey. Basically, as you could imagine, I was upset for a short while that I was unable to secure such a premium technician, but then I recalled the pleasure of witnessing the battles and was quickly back to sipping Zimas and eating chicken.

Basically, I will be postponing any further technician competitions, as there will be a hiatus in my fieldwork due to my teaching a class at the University of Paraguay. I plan on keeping all of you updated on my professorial progress as I attempt to basically teach a "band of apes" how to pull our precious Earth from the brink of certain destruction. Basically, keep it real my minions. . .

Publishing hassles

Basically, publishing is such a hassle. You have to deal with a plethora of weak-minded fools who fail to appreciate your brilliance, and are such a stickler for supposed "conventions" that people typically follow when they publish, like using citations or reading other papers. Recently I have been trying to get my work into a very high-profile journal (Woodpeckers at some Paraguayan sites [WASPS]) but have been burdened with constant unnecessary red tape that stands in my way.

For example, everyone at WASPS is such a stickler for citations on statements verifying such and such has been published and where such and such got published. Can't they just realize I know what I'm talking about? Last week I wrote a great paper on the woodpeckers that pound on my house when I try to nap that I was going to send to Ornithologica Paraguayae, but before I could save it, the power went off. I cited it in the WASPS paper anyway. I wrote it, and it had some totally good stuff in there, so I just wrote it up as a citation. I can't be bothered to make sure all of my publications are "real". I can see how that is necessary for lesser biologists who may not be smart enough to think for themselves, but I shouldn't really need facts to backup my statements, they're just obviously correct because I know what I'm talking about. Citations are so worthless. That goes for THE Citations too, man they annoy me.



In fact, why should I be forced to read lesser papers? Why do I even need to cite other people's work, it's basically pointless when I already know everything. I abhor reading, and when someone sends me an email, I generally don't read it. What could they possibly have to tell me that I don't already know? Besides, reading is boring and tiring, if you really want to communicate something to me, you should just send me a picture. So why on earth would I read some crap that somebody else wrote? When I write a paper, I generally, to supplement the citations of real and hypothetical papers that I have written/may have written/will never write/could write if I cared, just skim the titles of papers that others have written, and include those if they seem potentially relevant. That's basically good enough to appease the so called "citation police". After all, reading other people's work is just a waste of time when you're the kind of person who has been immortalized with a statue.