The Lament of the Village Fool

Observations

We all like to make observations, don't we? Like, for example, I observe daily that an oyster differs from a cactus in several crucial ways. Additionally, I observe that typically, it tends to get light around morning, and dark around evening. This of course is great unknown knowledge of our time.


Several observations have I made in the past few weeks that I find important to share with you.


For example, I have observed that a college semester develops from awesome to filled with doom in less than 8 hours. 

Wonder you may: What sort of other amazing observations has the author of Cheese Plus Elephant made? In fact, I have been investigating the relationship between electrons, cows, and vegetarians.

Allow me to explain.

Vegetarians are generally viewed as being warm, animal-loving types who are loathe to see ducky turned into a turducken. This is quite admirable. Ducks should never be eaten. However, amidst the rallies I have seen convincing people of the evils of meat-eaters, I have begun to think more deeply about the harm done to other living things on our fair planet. Perhaps this diagram will help:

Now, this is a very interesting paradox. After all, plants have feelings too. Maybe we are completely misunderstanding the plight of our green friends? Consider their circumstances: born by genetic experimentation, these poor souls grow up in the dark and the dirt, never knowing their parents. Left to be rained on, eaten by scary insects, and potentially have their seeds stolen by bees, it is a wonder that these plants make it into young adulthood. Alas, when they do, it is only to be subjugated to the terrible stereotypes promoted about green beings in the media: you must be an alien. After having come to terms with their identity, they are separated from all of their friends and sold into death in one of two terrible ways: if they have nice colors or scents, they are sold in pots to young college students who will kill them within  a week. If they produce food, they are immediately beheaded, dissected, and possibly cremated.  How could we do this to life that evolved way before we did?

Speaking of science, there is another interesting observation that I have made. While perusing my chemistry notes at around 1am I came upon an entity called a "lone electron radical." Now, for those of you who don't know, a lone electron radical may be depicted like this:

Here we have the Carbon atom surrounded by three bonds it has made with three Hydrogen atoms, depicted by the three lines.  The dot represents an electron. Electrons in chemical bonds usually appear in pairs, known as lone electron pairs, and are shown as two dots. Thus, this single dot is a lone electron radical. 

However, to my very tired mind, a lone electron radical seemed like a much more sinister being than a black dot. I imagined something more like this:

Then, I got thinking even more. Lone electron radicals were clearly evil and hell-bent on destroying the world as we knew it. Was it possible that cows were somehow also involved? After all I had once read in a very reputable part of the newspaper (the comics) that the world was run by the council of cows. I considered this, in the light of what I had learned about our dear green friends, and I discovered something very disturbing. Our society is not, in fact, controlled by a happy fat penguin with a top hat. Instead, we are ruled, unbeknownst to us, by this most terrible of associations: 

Cabal: A conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers.

 What can we do about this? Well for starts, certainly never extend your hand to a lone electron radical. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to tell you. Perhaps you have some suggestions? Until we overthrow this heinous cabal, all we may know is this:

P.S. This post is entirely fictional. I do not hate vegetarians or think that they are bad in any way. I fully support the vegetarian way of life. In fact, I date a vegetarian.

P.P.S The part about cows running the world is true.

Various Ways To Impress People With Your Awesomeness

Or:
Insert Yourself [Here].

You're probably wondering: what sort of amazing magic is she speaking of? 

Unfortunately, it may not be as exciting as you had hoped. For example, I am not speaking of awesome pills, which are totally awesome.

No refunds.

Nor am I speaking of adopting a pet platypus, having your video go viral on the internet, or writing an SAT Prep Book (everybody loves those guys). Instead, I am offering you the best thing since toast. (And let me tell you, toast is really, really awesome.)

Here's how it works: 

Imagine you are working in a new office, say, one that manufactures stuffed porcupines with helmets and bicycles (every self-respecting porcupine has a bicycle. Don't tell me you didn't know.) While trying to impress your officemates with your finesse at handling porcupines, you get stabbed by twenty angry porcupines from the Porcupines' Labor Union. Now you are in quite a pickle. How do you redeem yourself in front of your office and retain your job? Well, sir/ma'am, do I have the answer for you! Just insert yourself and your job title into this lovely template, and the next time anyone needs a favor, send them this picture, to let them know that you've got this. 

It's fairly easy. All you've got to do is insert your info, and you can go from lame to astronomical sorts of awesomeness in mere seconds:

Let's imagine another scenario. 

Mayhap it comes to be that you and your friends with whom you swore you would never never part and with whom you made blood pacts about how you would be crazy aunts/uncles to each other's children and whose faces you decorated with pickles and M&Ms when they were the first to pass out have for some reason lost contact over the years.

Mayhap this occurs.

What are you going to do about it? There are, I suppose, several ways to reconnect with old friends. You could call them. You could email them. You could send them a hand-written letter. You could make a heartfelt video about your time together. You could physically visit them. However, you know I'm here to help you out. And truthfully, the best way to reconnect with anyone is to upload this picture to your facebook page and tag them in it. Works every time.

Because, in their heart of hearts, who doesn't want to be depicted as a piece of cheese?

Now obviously this can be edited to your heart's desire: maybe you have just a single friend with whom you need to reconnect, or maybe there are six of you. In any case, this wonderful template is guaranteed to touch the hearts of your long lost friends, or your money back (that is, monopoly money).

A third scenario: 

I find it quite effective, when you want to make a point, to find striking photos of animals on the internet and then manipulate them using one or two word tag lines. For example:

To this owl's fierce portrait you may add anything that is irritating you, and it makes it look 100% awesome and scary. If Fredbob has been pushing your buttons at work, go ahead and add his name at the bottom and make it your profile picture. It's sure to get anyone's attention. 

Fredbob won't be messing with you anytime soon.

Another example of inserting yourself into animals photographs is much tamer. You may have seen this type of photo manipulation in wonderful publication such as Grandma's Dead: Breaking Bad News With Baby Animals. It's really quite simple. First, find an adorable picture that you love. Then, use it around the office to express yourself. For example, use a baby elephant to ask for a raise. And for when your boss does give you that raise, upload this onto Fredbob's monitor background:

Rub it in his face. Just a bit.

Finally, let us explore our capacity for romantic love.

Always around the holidays people are scrambling for ways to tell that special someone that they love them. How is this best done? If seeing them in person and serenading them with a song you've been working on for seven years is not possible, the next best thing is probably to find a pretty picture online and adapt it to your needs. A landscape photo might be your best shot in this instance. You might choose any one of these pictures to be the messenger for your great love. 

Once you have found the appropriate one, go ahead and add any sort of message you like, from song lyrics, to poetry, to a personal letter. Refer below for inspiring ideas.

                                          From the poem How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

                                                            These lyrics are from the Owl City album, Ocean Eyes.


And so now you have it! The best ways to insert yourself into awesomeness with as little time spent as possible. I hope you utilize these photos to the best of your ability (and then link it back to me!) This is probably the truest answer we'll ever get for this question:

Why Cauliflower Needs To Go

I'm a nice sort of person. Really, I am. I adore people and animals and plants and try to help them on their merry way in life. I don't usually come across books that I dislike or movies that are disagreeable (save, maybe Killer Klowns From Outer Space, which is truly a disturbing cinematic disaster, but you should probably see it anyway, because it's hilarious.) However, I have in my time experienced the awful, sinister, seditious, and terrible presence of one singular malicious vegetable. And it goes by the name of Cauliflower.

The Culprit

Now let me tell you about this heinous miscreant. His parents were honest, hardworking types, the sort of folks you'd love to have over for Sunday brunch. They paid for Cauliflower's way through three schools, where he drank and partied to his rotten heart's content. When school number four threw him out, his mother begged him to get a job.

"Cauliflower," she pleaded. "Please, please do something good with your life. Make us proud."

Cauliflower winked at her and pecked her on the cheek. "Don't worry Ma," he said, chewing a wad of tobacco. "I'm on the level."

Cauliflower did not go out in search of work, but instead floated through casinos and alleyways, always looking for a buck, always looking for someone to swindle.


Elsewhere in the world, another young vegetable grew up.

This vegetable was different.

This vegetable's name was Broccoli, and from a young age he was always there to help his parents out. They fell on hard times, and Broccoli had to drop his nearly completed dreams of becoming an astrophysicist and instead became a piano teacher for underprivileged children. Broccoli was the apple of everyone's eye, and his parents had no limit of happiness from him. He was the envy of the town, and everyone loved him dearly.


Cauliflower was jealous. He wanted to be loved, but he didn't want to work for it. So he set out to commit the most terrible of his crimes. He tried to be like Broccoli. He knew that he didn't taste like anything, but he figured that if he looked similar enough to Broccoli people would eat him anyway. 

You, dear reader, can help. You can help eliminate this menace. I hope you take up arms with me against this criminal. I hope you give speeches and organize rallies. Here I've drawn you this helpful diagram.

Please, don't let this impostor walk the streets of our good society for one more moment. Put an end to his reign. And maybe, when the terror is over, we will all see the light, and understand:

Are You A Creeper?

> If You Got Mostly A's If You Got Mostly B's If You Got Mostly C's

How To Lose All Your Friends

Sometimes people ask me for my sage advice on how to rid themselves of pesky nuisances, like asteroids falling from the sky at inconvenient times, having your pencils stolen by a rabid penguin, and friends. Friends really are the bane of everyone's existence; you need to hang out with them, and spend time with them, and buy them presents, and tell them secrets, etc. Without friends we would probably have time to learn five different languages and become famous saxophone players. And to that end, I've definitely discovered a sure-fire way to rid yourselves of your friends.

So I'll tell you, it's like this: one night I was surfing the internet, completely unaware that mysterious hooded figures were out in the rain plotting against me. Alas, when I logged on to facebook, my profile picture had been changed from this:

To this:

 No joke, my friend hacked into my account, and that was my profile picture for several hours.  So of course I could not just let this stand. You can't let someone transform your profile picture from a lovely young paint drawing to a very fat old man without retaliation. So I hacked into her account and changed her profile picture to this lovely drawing I drew of her: 

Personally I thought this was a pretty accurate drawing and also that it was a very lenient way to retaliate. However, she disliked my drawing, so I decided on a new course of action. I hacked into her account once again and changed her name from Sally Sallyson to Snuzzelcheese. She really did not like this. I thought it was hilarious, compounded by the fact that she had no idea how to change her name back. So she remained Snuzzlecheese for a good half hour. I took pictures. It's totally rewarding to see that "Snuzzelcheese has commented on your wall post."

Her friends were all confused. I was cracking up. Eventually I took pity on her and changed her name back. But I promise you, this is most certainly the way to lose as many friends as possible. 

Leave behind those days of changing your friend's profile picture on facebook and tagging them in photos of Elmo, and move on to the new way of friend repelling, guaranteed, or your money back. 
So on that note, what do you think of this?

Studying Is No Fun

I'll tell you, I was walking along, minding my business, when all of the sudden-- BAM.

Real life came out of nowhere and was like, "tee hee, just kidding! You need to do stuff now." So then came upon me a terrible time in my life-- exam period. I drew a picture to accurately portray my stress. 

People were fascinated by this picture I had drawn. So realistic, they said in awe. So full of truth and childish innocence. And I thought to myself, these poor people have never used Microsoft Paint. So I set out to teach the world about the beauty of Microsoft Paint, and on the way explain the significance of the Snuzzlecheese, the meaning of life, and why cauliflower is such an unfortunate vegetable. 

And thus was the birth of CheesePlusElephant. This I believe is a key question in the journey of our lives: what is the answer to cheese plus elephant?

Mayhap this is not the answer. And mayhap... it is? Next time we shall attempt a new answer.