Month: May 2016

Investigating Mermaids … Do they exist?

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A mermaid is an aquatic creature which has the upper body of a beautiful female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids exist in different cultures worldwide regardless of location.

According to legends; mermaids are rumoured to sit on rocks and lure sailors to their deaths by singing irresistable songs that make sailors jump ship and drown or crash into rocks.

“It was all a misconception….”

Imagine the sailors of the time the first mermaids were presumably seen. Sailors used to sail for 11 months; crossing vast seas and oceans with no land to set their foot upon and certainly no women. This caused a similar phenomena like mirages. Having missed the sight of a beautiful woman for so long, sailors began seeing seals and walrus as women, and not being able to hold onto themselves they tried to reach them, resulting in a lot of sailors jumping ship and drowning, trying to reach the beautiful women that their minds showed them. As for the beautiful voice and songs of the mermaids, that was seal and walrus sounds combined with the sound of strong winds hitting the sails. If the first sailors that claimed to have seen mermaids, had been all women, the legend would have favored “mermen” or men with fish tails and we would have a “The giant merman” story instead of “The little mermaid”.

“The proof that mermaids don’t exist!”

  1. They don’t seem to have reproductory organs since they are fish from waist down, which means they are unable to reproduce unless they lay eggs like fish. Considering how caviar is pricy, fish eggs, the size of baby mermaids would have been on the market long ago as we are greedy and would have found them and hunted them down (See: elephant tusks).
  2. Their upper body parts would freeze for being in water all the time or they would at least have very wrinkly skins. No wrinkly skinned mermaids reported so far.
  3. Mammals are warm-blooded while fish are cold-blooded and this makes them an impossible breed.
  4. We can presume that mermaids have lungs, not gills because of their humanly upper bits. This means that they need to breathe and most probably live on land. No mermaid settlement on land has been found, yet.

Why I am obsessed with time travel… and why you should be, too

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Being an avid reader/writer of cool science fiction stories, admiring traveling and having very little money most of the time could very well be used to describe some of my traits. I know I sound like a broke geek with the above description but I assure you I have a lot of other non-geeky qualities and likes, such as;….errr…..hmmm…..well….fantasizing about historical events.

Ok, now you can see how  my traits and time traveling meet up at a common point. Here’s why I can’t seem to keep myself away from thinking or writing about it:

  • I’ve always been a time-traveller, right from my birth to my current age. Although, I’ve only managed to travel forward in time in this period, it’s still a thing I’ve been doing so well for so long. And guess what? You’re just like me! (unless you are Benjamin Button)
  • There are endless possibilities in time travel and a whole, massive history of interesting times and events you can visit. You can run along dinosaurs, be on the Titanic when it sank, witness your grandpa hitting on your grannie or simply watch a good football match that you’ve missed,…live….
  • Paradoxes! Who doesn’t love a good time-travel paradox? Imagine, what would happen if you went back in time and shot Hitler before he rose into power? Hmmm…since you changed history by killing him, he wouldn’t have risen to power and we wouldn’t have heard about him in our time in the first place so that you couldn’t have gone back in time to kill him….Nice, right? What if you accidentally killed one of your ancestors? It’s good thought practice. Isn’t it?
  • You can read or write without paying attention to grammar as the statement “I’ll see you yesterday” would still be technically correct.
  • Believe me, there is always a good story in time travel. and tragedy. and mystery. and humor. and… every kind of emotion that you want to experience.
  • The best thing is that when you (read or write about) time travel, you won’t be spending a single penny. It’s indeed the cheapest way of vagabonding.

Can’t time-travel? Then, live your life to the fullest, make excellent memories, make love, take selfies (not necessarily in that order) and revisit your memories, thinking about all when you get older.

Rip your jeans now or simply buy a pair of professionally ripped ones

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The photo shows my newest pair of jeans, professionally ripped in the most disturbing places just for my taste. The part sticking out of the ajar opening is the elegant looking inner lining of the right pocket. Thanks to the latest technology in design, the more you put stuff in your pocket, the more it bulges out, making the inner right pocket inflatable to your choice, making sure every eye out in the street is envying you.

Seriously….Why do you think I bought them?

Honestly, it’s not becaıse I couldn’t resist the temptation of owning the latest craze of fashion… and I wasn’t persuaded by the magical words of the lovely shop assistant, either. It was just because I needed to buy a pair of jeans fast (Don’t ask why!) and the ones in the shop(s) were all like this, though they were ripped or slashed in various places:

The ones missing huge chunks of coverage in the knees weren’t really for me as once my knee slipped out of the hole, it became a challenge to get it back in my pants and I didn’t have the sexiest knee caps…

The ones with tiny holes in the crotch area….the tiny holes were extendable once you stretched them. They were the jeans of my dreams. However, it wasn’t my lucky day! The shop didn’t have my size left, so with watery eyes I went on to try the jeans slashed so vigorously that they were missing the complete coverage of a single leg, yet they were not shorts. Strips of denim peeling off and sweeping the floor wasn’t to my liking.

In the end, I bought the ones in the pic just for double the price of normal, unripped jeans …and with empty pockets, it doesn’t look too bad while walking.

I would suggest Katja Vandl’s song “Fashion Victim” playing in the background while you’re reading this entry.

 

 

Paraskevidekatriaphobia and 13

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Since today is Friday the thirteenth, I’ll write about Friday the thirteenth and fear of the number 13 in general.

The long word in the title starting with “Paraskev. …” (Yay copy-paste!) is a less known phobia which is the fear of this date-day combination. But, what is the origin of this unlucky/scary day?

Rumor says it all started with the Knights Templar when Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of them on 13 October 1307, which was as you guessed: a Friday. Had he done this a day earlier, like Thursday the 12th, this date would have never become a popular date ( no Michael Myers) let alone a meaningless phobia. 13 is the key number here, the pure evil number that dates far back in history or fiction like the fable of the sleeping beauty where the thirteenth witch placed a curse on our heroine.

Some hotels in America still don’t have a room 13 and room 14 follows room 12. Perhaps the phobia is based on this number 13 being unlucky as how on earth the last working day of the week can be considered to be unlucky?

My thesis is supported by the fact that there’s a completely different phobia solely of number 13 which has a scientific name of its own: “triskaidekaphobia”.

Scroll down for a little test to see if you have “triskaidekaphobia”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Are you still on the page?

Eye like. ..

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This is a close up of my left eye. And below is me trying to understand…

When have we become so obsessed with taking meaningless selfies/close-ups to connect with others? What has changed so much that we try to mingle digitally? Why has making duck faces become more alluring than a simple, sincere smile? Is Uncle Scrooge becoming the next sex idol?
What’s next?

Molecular (The story of tears)

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This is the story of a molecule; a molecule in a tear drop. Tiny, yet powerful when amassed with its millions of fellows, like an angry mob acting in a disharmony of unison. You, I, the eye creates it when emotions go wild and out of control. It’s joined by others instantly upon its creation and altogether they begin their downfall journey, gradually flowing through the salt mines until they reach a tiny opening which they could barely squeeze through. And the excitement begins, sliding down at an increasing pace with the help of gravity; going over hills and through the burnt bushes on the cliff edge. The free fall begins for the remaining few not subdued on the way. It’s sweet while it lasts but the impact is hard and they splash away from each other and leak into the soft ground beneath. They are shaken but they have survived, providing life force to a blooming flower, proving life still goes on.