Africa, Cradle of Mankind

Africa is where Earthlings became Earthlings, but after that everything that was ever important to Earthlings happened somewhere else. Africa has been sitting on its laurels for thirty thousand years, easy. It is the high school football star who now works at the convenience store of continents.

It's where Earthlings evolved, and it had the Egyptians, who weren't too shabby. But lately? Nothing. I don't think they even created their own writing there (except the Egyptians).

C'mon Africa. You can do this. Remember the opposable thumb? That was huge. And nobody did walking upright and the domestication of fire like you did.

Is it because the Earthlings left you? Moved on to other continents? Are you feeling used?

Snap out of it. Not all the Earthlings left you. It's time you thought about the ones who stayed. And look at what those others have done. War and environmental degradation? Who needs them.

You think Europe is happy? It looks like a diseased penis with erectile dysfunction. And if Europe is the penis, then Asia is the butt. The butt with a vestigial tail. And all those poopy little islands around it aren't helping. Japan must have been a big fiber day.

I have no idea what North America is going for and South America looks like it's trying to look like you. And failing.

“You mean like this? Is this right?” No. Sorry South America.

Antarctica? Just look at the picture. I don't want to repeat myself.

And Australia clearly isn't trying. It's like a blob land mass fell off the creator's pallet and he didn't bother to clean it up.

Then there's you. The shape of a demon skull. The great, horned beast. Feral and feared. Get back on that horse, Africa. You're time has come again.

- Observer003 - Earthlings

Earthling Failure Desire as Indicator of Primitive Hunter/Gatherer Work Egalitarianism

Earthlings have a need for futility. They go out of their way for it. They even have special buildings and clothing just for getting futile things done. Then they stand at mirrors and admire how futile they've been. They call this whole thing “exercise”.

And they do this by taking things that used to have a point and removing it. See, they go to these places called “gyms” in order to lift up a lot of heavy things. This would make sense if they had a lot of heavy things they needed about three feet higher, but they don't. Because after they lift it, they let it back down. This seems to need a lot of practice because they don't just do it one time, they do it over and over, many times a week.

I think it came from when they used to have to hunt, and failed, mostly. Nowadays they can eat right away. It's just: Hungry? Eat. Hungry? Eat. All day long. It just doesn't feel right to them to succeed all the time. So they invented exercise.

Also, there is danger in it. Look: They take a heavy iron bar, and add a bunch of weight to it. Then they lie down under it and see how many times they can lift it up off their chest. The goal is to try it one more time than they actually can. If they risk crushing their trachea, they're doing it right. If there is no danger of this, they add more weight.

And running. Running used to be for getting somewhere, or away from somewhere, faster than walking. Now it's for getting all the way around back to where they started. They could have just stayed there and be done with it. (I've never seen one Earthling who looked like they enjoyed running. Mostly they look like their face is melting.)

And they've even invented the treadmill to make running even more futile. It makes it so they don't even move forward at all, no matter how fast they run. They can even adjust it to make sure they don't move uphill, either.

They even invented a portable single stair staircase. They get immediately to the top and have to go back down again. They make this failure by starting to go up a step but, since there isn't one, they have to put the foot back down behind them. Then they fail with the other leg.

Now, after a few generations of this, they've forgotten any of this stuff had a purpose to begin with. They're just making up the weirdest stuff they can.

“Swing your arms here, now here. Up here. Down here. Bend at the waist and palm the floor. Palm the sky. Palm the floor. Kick, kick, kick, kick. Look like a tree!”

I don't know why Earthling females need to fail. Maybe the finding of fruits and nuts is a challenge, but after that, the gathering is all downhill. It's not as easy as going to the grocery store, but it's not like they had to run down the banana. Beat it with a stick. Maybe be the female's equal need for failure indicates a more egalitarian division of work than Earthling anthropologists currently suppose. Their women hunted, too. And so developed the failure need right alongside the males.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Exodus as Big Red Flag

I've mentioned the Jews a couple of times now, so I guess I should tell you their story. The Jews lived a long time ago. They still live now, but back then they were the Israelites. Or the Hebrews. They had a funny god named Yahweh who liked them so much, he said he was going to treat them special. And if there's one thing you don't want as an Earthling, it's to be treated special by Yahweh. He had some issues. They have whole books of it.

He liked them because of this one guy, Abraham, and told him he was going to make a whole country out of how many kids he was going to have. Then he forgot about it and wandered off. And Abraham's kids moved to Egypt. They were there for a while, but the king of the Egyptians, Pharaoh, started to get nervous because the Hebrews were breeding like rabbits. So he made them work harder, thinking they'd have less time for sex. But they kept at it. So he made them work even harder. But I guess the Hebrews really liked sex. So Pharaoh said, “Well, I guess I'm going to have to kill some of them, then. Just the kids, though.”

Luckily there was one Hebrew woman who had no concept of probabilities. She put her kid in a basket and sent him floating down the river.

* * * * *

The things that could go wrong with you floating your baby down a river:

1. Basket leaks, baby drowns - likely
2. Alligators - likely
3. Death from exposure - likely
4. Just keeps floating out into the ocean and is never heard from again - likely
5. Somebody just as bad off as you will find it and raise it – really, the best that could be hoped for.
6. A rich Egyptian woman will find it and raise it – not likely at all

* * * * *

So a rich Egyptian woman did find the baby and raised him as her own. She called him Moses. And he grew up to be a big guy in Egypt until he killed another Egyptian for beating on a Hebrew. So Moses beat feet out of Egypt and hid out as a sheep raiser.

It was round about then that Yahweh remembered the Hebrews and how he was supposed to give them a big piece of land to live in. He looked around and saw they were all down in Egypt and Pharaoh was being hard on them. Yahweh took this personally because he thought it meant that Pharaoh didn't think he was much of a god and could treat his people any way he wanted.

So Yahweh looked around some more and saw Moses tending his flocks and dropped down to visit him as a burning bush.

* * * * *

Right here, this should have been a big tip off for Moses. Of all possible incarnations, Yahweh chooses this one? I can imagine him sitting in his – office? on the pot? garden? I really don't know where Yahweh did his thinking. But he's going over his list of how to appear to Moses.

1. Jackal-headed man
2. Pure, non-blinding light
3. Blemish-free white bull
4. Storm cloud (good, but might want to save that one)
5. Old, but muscular, man
6. Fawn
7. Frog (May cause confusion later)
8. Fire (hmmmm...)
9. Shrub? (Hey!)
10. Burning Shrub!!!

And Moses doesn't even question this. I think if I was out tending my flocks and a burning bush started talking to me, I'd think I'd been out tending my flocks too long. But Moses buys right in. Of course this is Yahweh, the god of my people. How else would you explain it?

* * * * *

So Yahweh goes, “Moses. Over here.”

“No, not behind the burning bush. I am the burning bush. I appear to you as a burning bush – for reasons that are my own. For who is more inscrutable that the Lord?”

“Surely no one.”

“You got that right. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. I need your help with a problem. My people are suffering down in Egypt.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just there.”

“And you're going back.”

“Eesh. Love to, but I can't. Things are a little hot for me down there right now. You see, I -”

“Yes, I know what you did. Don't worry about it. I'll protect you. I need you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go.”

“You can't do that?”

“No. It won't work if I do it.”

“How come?”

“Because I'm not going to let him let my people go.”

“Oh, okay.” Moses said. “Really? What? You're not going to let him let your people go?”

“No. Because I want to show him what a tough guy I am. I'm going to send him all these plagues and frogs so everybody learns not to mess with me.”

“Really? What about your people?”

“I'll get to them. Don't worry about them. I've go this really sweet piece of real estate picked out for them. Place literally flows with milk and honey. You're going to love it.”

“Wow. And no one else has found it yet?”

“Actually – well, we'll get to that later. First you've got to go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. I need you to get up in his face and go, 'Let my people go! Let my people go!' ”

“But you're not going to let him let your people go.”

“At first? No. But eventually. It's all in the plan.”

“Okay, but why do I have to keep going to him when you're not-”

“Jesus Christ, will you just do it? I don't have to explain everything to you. You know enough. You've just got to trust that I've got it all worked out.”

So Moses went up to Pharaoh. The first time, Moses turned his stick into a snake to put a little fear into him. And Pharaoh is like, “Whoop-di-doo. Even my guys can do that.” I don't think Yahweh even had to harden his heart on that one.

The next time, Moses turned all the water in Egypt into blood. Like something from a horror movie. But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart and he said, “No, you can't go.”

The time after that, Yahweh hit them with a plague of frogs. Frogs everywhere.

“I woke up and there” - this is Pharaoh talking now - “There was one staring me right in the eye. I freaked. I was, like, 'Blah! Blah! Get out of here!' Then I jumped out of bed and almost skidded out the window. Those things are slick. You ever step on one? Gross. And they were all over. You can't walk anywhere because you have to watch every step. I was in a meeting and one jumped up and hit a eunuch right in the face. That was funny, though. It was like a big wet slap in the face. Psshh.”

And Moses goes, “So let my people go.”

And Pharaoh starts to waver, because it's, like, frogs.

* * * * *

How do you even come up with that? In a hundred years of coming up with bad things to do to people, I would never come up with frogs. Or, if I did, I would just giggle and move on. Frogs. Jeezus.

* * * * *

But, anyway, just as he was about to give in, Yahweh hardened his heart.

“You know what? This is bad. So why don't you – no.”

“No?”

“No, you can't go.”

“But you were about to say something else.”

“Yeah, I was gonna – No.”

Moses looks up at the sky, then back at Pharaoh.

“You're sure?”

“Ah, to hell with – No.”

The time after that, I think it was locusts. They are bugs that eat everything.

And by the third time, Moses was just like, “Let my people go.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

And he started to go, but Pharaoh goes, “You know, it really doesn't seem like your heart is in this anymore.”

“Huh? Oh, no, no. I meant it. It's just that – well, I guess our god has got some issues to work out. And I need to apologize for that.”

“Oh, gods. Pshaw. Don't get me started. We've got gods with bird heads. I mean, you've heard of bird-brained? These guys have whole bird heads.”

Moses nods. “Yeah. Yeah. You know, when this whole thing is over, we should sit down and have a beer. Our god – Well, if I had known going in, I might have, well – Never the easy way with this one, I'll say that.”

“Yeah, and you know – and definitely about that beer by the way – but I'm really sorry about this whole not letting you go thing. 'Cause it's weird. Every day I wake up and say, 'I really should let these people go. I mean, I really have no reason to keep them.' But then it's like somebody flips a switch and I get all jerk about it.”

Moses just nodded and left.

“I'll call you about that beer. That's one thing I'll miss about this place. You guys brew some kick ass beer.”
 

Next came hail. Which had to be a hard threat to sell for Moses. What did Pharaoh know from frozen water? He lived in a desert. Regular water falling from the sky was rare enough, but frozen water falling from the sky? So Moses had to explain hard bits of water falling from the sky, which he had never seen himself.

“Hard water? I don't get it. Water isn't hard. Look, I can put my had right through it.”

“Right, but this is going to be water you can't put your hand through.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's hard.”

“What do you mean, 'it's hard'? Water is water. It doesn't get hard.”

“But – Look. From what I understand it's going to be almost like rock falling from the sky.”

“So rocks are going to fall from the sky.”

“No. Hard water.”

“Okay, look. Whatever. We've had water fall from the sky before. It doesn't happen often, but, to tell the truth, I kinda liked it. It's breaks up the monotony of sun, sun, sun all the time. So Yahweh can make hard water fall from the sky for forty days and forty nights for all I care. Bring it on.”

* * * * *

Really, if you're going to make a threat, you have to make sure the guy understands the threat, or else it doesn't work.

* * * * *

So this is when things really started to get dark. Yahweh told Moses to smear lamb's blood over all the Hebrews' door jambs because he's going to kill all the first born in Egypt, Earthlings and cows. (Yahweh had a thing for firstborns.) The lamb's blood would tell him which houses to skip. (I know. This from Mr. Omniscient.)

So Moses did this and Yahweh did his thing, after which he finally let Pharaoh let the Hebrews go. Oh, but with one little kicker. Yahweh told Moses to tell the Hebrews to go to their neighbors to ask to “borrow” all their gold and silver. This is going to work because Yahweh is going to soften their hearts. Like using that skill wouldn't have helped right at the beginning of all this. And the stereotype of the Hebrews being covetous of gold is one they will surely live down in time. Nice thinking ahead, brainiac.

Anyway, they packed up their stuff and headed off into the desert. And Yahweh led the way as a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire at night. Till they go to the sea of reeds. There, Moses turned around to see how they all were doing. And he saw a cloud of dust in the distance, but headed their way. He looked back at Yahweh. He looked at the dust. He looked at Yahweh. He made a gesture that seemed to say, “And just when were you going to tell me about this little part of your plan?”

Yahweh shrugged sheepishly. “Don't worry. This is going to be epic. Legendary.”

* * * * *

I'm guessing at this point Moses wished he'd gotten some credentials from the burning bush.

* * * * *

“It's Pharaoh, isn't it?

“Yup.”

“Brought the whole army, didn't he?”

“Yup.”

“We're trapped against the sea here, you know.”

“You think you're trapped against the sea here.”

“You hardened his heart again, didn't you? I don't believe it.” Moses shook his head. “Whatever. Forget it. You're going to do it anyway. Let's hear your idea.”

“No, let's see it.”

Yahweh took a huge breath, held it, then let it out, slowly but firmly, from his nostrils. He pointed at the sea, which rippled, then parted, revealing a stretch of dry land reaching all the way across. Moses was pretty amazed.

“How long can you keep this up for?”

Yahweh indicated that they should probably hurry.

So they did. All the Hebrews charged into the gap. And a short while after, Pharaoh and all his chariots charged in after them, none of them seeming to notice the weird guy on the side blowing a jet stream of air from his nose. (I wonder if any of them got any god-snot on them?) It was a pretty cliffhanger situation, because the Hebrews just made it across when Yahweh's breath ran out. The water rushed back in and crashed into Pharaoh and his men.

* * * * *

There's a lot more to this story, but I'm going to end here for now. I'll pick it up again in another report. This one was hard because I had to read a lot and think about it.

Observer003 – Earthlings

Ancient Fauna

Dinosaurs were the Earthlings before the Earthlings.

You can tell something is a dinosaur because its last name ends in -us - tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratopsus. You can make something that isn't a dinosaur a dinosaur just by adding -us to it. And if you really want to make it a dinosaur, you add an -asaurus to it. A dogasaurus would be a dinosaur dog. Like that. (A catasaurus would be stupid, because what would it do? Dinosaurs were already lazy. Add a cat to it and you have double lazy.)

Then a big space rock fell on them and they all died. It fell on them when they were all in one place at DinoCon. DinoCon was when they would all get together and talk about dinosaur stuff, like how hot it was getting. Boy, they would kill for a little more ice. And what were these new little furry things they kept seeing running around like they owned the place? And how Tyrannosauruses were jerks. They kept eating everybody. Stop that.

And they all would dress up like other dinosaurs they liked.

The only ones that survived were the birds. Maybe nobody liked them and wouldn't invite them to the DinoCon. The birds were maybe the smelly kids of dinosaurs. So maybe they made the giant space rock fall on the other dinosaurs. Birds were sociopathic, smelly kid dinosaurs. If you come here, never trust them.

The lizards also survived, but I only have hypotheses as to why.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Cultural Disachievement As Reflected In The Arts

All the art they make now is crappy. It used to be good, but not now. This is because of capitalism. Capitalism makes things cheap and plentiful. This is good for fatness, but bad for art because there are way more people who think they can make art than people who really can or should. This leads to an art glut which makes everything worse because people how go to look at art get so sick of seeing the same thing over and over that when somebody finally does something different they think it's genius.

And you have to see it over and over. Every third Earthling you meet does art. And they all want you to go to their showing. A showing is where you eat cheese, crackers and wine and comment so vaguely on the art that no one can tell if you're insulting it, which is the only defense of your sanity you can make.

I used to think it was me, that I just wasn't getting it. Then I realized that art is one of the two great ways of understanding Earthlings. (The other one is language.) Art reveals the comical extent to which they will go to maintain a delusion. I'm just not sure if the artists are in on it.

There's an guy here who makes a whole painting of just one color. Just one solid block of one color. That's it. And there's another guy who just drizzles paint all over. One big rectangle of paint drizzle.

 

And it helps if you're crazy. Crazy artists get the biggest bucks. And dead ones. But not the Napoleon kind of crazy. The bad kind. The one where it might kill you.

A Harbinger of Evolution

Okay - This is really cool. Earthlings are about to evolve. No baloney. I witnessed it myself.

See, They have this holiday were everyone give everyone else presents. All even Steven. The idea is that they all spend as much on each other as they get spent on themselves. That's the whole point. Evenness.

Normally they give each other things, like bikes, books, toys. Could be a car. It doesn't matter, as long as it's not cash. If you give someone cash, it's bad. So they never give cash. A problem comes up when they're trying to make everything come up equal. Sometimes their short, so they have to come up with something quick.

 

Enter the check card. Check cards are pieces of plastic that they say have value. (You would think that would be enough to warn them away.) They will even say right on them that they are better than money. (Warning two: There's nothing better at being money than money.) The kicker is that check cards cost more than they are worth. It even says that right on them! "This blah-dee-blah priced check card only costs blah-dee-blah-dee-blah."

This means that some of them have figured out how stupid they all are. Why would someone spend more for something than it is worth, especially when it says right on it that it isn't worth as much as they are going to pay for it? It says it right on it. But they still buy them.

This is so cool.

It's one thing when a species figures out how smart it is. They start making all kinds of cool things. It's a whole other thing when they figure out how dumb they are. Then they get more humble and stop killing each other.

Obeserver003 - Earthlings

Medical Practices - Basic First Aid

They put meat on their eyes when they get punched in them. At first I thought that it was maybe because of the cold, but there's other cold things they could put on them. Fruit. Left over spaghetti. Cheeses. Pudding. (All only if they're kept in the refrigerator prior to use. Warm, they are worse than useless.) There's plenty of leftovers they're going to throw away anyway. Why waste a steak? That's good money they're throwing away.

Steak might mold nicely to a face. And it's almost like face, only from a cow, but not from a cow's face. It's like they're saying, "See? This is meat not punched in. Be like that. I'll put it up close so you can see."

This treatment if very site specific. If they get punched in their wiener, for instance, they do not put any meat on it. Neither ice. They just put their hands on it, then try to wrap their entire body around it. There are lots of moving picture depictions of this I can send you. I think it's a Tantric healing thing as there is also a mantra involved.

Some wounds need to be sucked. (Strangely, these are not the ones they call "sucking wounds.") For instance, if they hit their finger with a hammer, they suck it. If they get stabbed, they don't suck it. Small cuts - suck. Big ones - no.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Death, The Inevitable

Here's something I just found out: When they die? They poop their pants. Seriously. They poop their pants! What the hell? I mean, can you imagine it? Don't. Just don't. I did. You shouldn't. Then, for some reason, I imagined it really slow.

Luckily, I didn't find this out the hard way.Imagine if you were under somebody when they died?

And while I'm thinking of it, I am not dieing here. I mean it. You are taking me back before I die. And I am never, ever going to be around when one of them dies.

Poop their pants. For christ's sake. Really? What kind of last memory is that to leave?

"Well, I'm out of here."

SFX: BLAAAHHRG!

Holy cow! Thanks a lot!

Maybe it's a way of helping survivors through the grief process. Like, I'm sorry you died. But now that you have, I wanna kill you!

"I'm sorry, Martha my love, but I must leave you. The good lord is calling me to heaven."

"Oh, Henry my sweet. How shall I ever go on?"

"Oh, do not grieve, for before you know it, we shall meet in..."

SFX: BLAAAHHRG!

"Darling? Henry! NOOOOOOO! WHY? Oh, why? Heavenly Father, I besea-"

Sniff.

"Oh my Lord, Henry! Did you just- Henry! Oh my Lord! How could you! This is what you leave me? To clean this up? You bastard!"

They don't just dump the body. They have a funeral. They have an elaborate ceremony to bury it, often in a bed nicer than the person ever slept in while alive. And there are Earthlings whose job it is to do all this. Prep the body and dig the hole and everything.

It's not like, "See this? Dig a hole and put this in it. Poop and all. No sense in cleaning it up. Take these sheets, too. And the mattress. Jeezus, take the whole bed. I'm never going to sleep in it again. Disgusting. Poop. Gawd."

Then every Earthling who ever knew the body, or is related to it, has to get in a line to kneel next to the body and pretend to know what to say in their mind. "Well, yup. It's a dead body. Glad it doesn't smell like poop. Is that long enough? Better kneel another minute."

And they can't go in their street clothes. They have to wear special clothes that are only for deaths and weddings. Female Earthlings always look good in these clothes. Male Earthlings always look uncomfortable. The males have a rule that their wedding or funeral clothes can't fit. They have to be too small, so they look sad and about to cry. The females don't have any problem crying. They can watch or hear a story that they know isn't even true and still cry. It's crazy.

- Observer003 - Earthlings

The Inadequacy of Current Earthling Technology in Dealing with Sanitation in even a Single Person Dwelling as Evidenced by this Guy I Know

 They have hair. It grows on them. And then it falls off. And you will never, ever get it off whatever it attaches itself to. Especially if it's moist. You can push it around. You can push it all around the thing it's become fond of. But you will never get it off. Because, if you do, it will become attached to the thing you removed it with. And you can whack that thing against the lip of the garbage pail. All. Day. Long. And you will never get it to fall in. And do not ever (ever, ever) pick it off with your fingers. Because then it will be attached to you. And you're the thing it fell off of to begin with. Then, you wanted it to stay on you. Now, you don't. And it will never let go.

And then there's crud. Don't get me started on crud. Crud is the most onomatopoeic word for something that doesn't make a sound that they have. Crud. It's moist and lives in the most inaccessible places of their homes. Crevices. Joints. Acute angles. Anywhere they don't make a tool for getting at it with. So you have to improvise some sort of twisted towel and toothbrush thing. Squirt gun. I used a squirt gun once. It worked pretty good, actually.

Now, cobwebs. Cobwebs are abandoned spider homes. Spiders are like hobos. They live in the open air and make their own hammocks to sleep and collect food in. They don't hunt for food. They wait for it to come to them. And when they think their done with a place, they just amble away. They leave their hammock where it is and go. The open life of the road for them. No attachments. Then the hammock sits there and gets dusty until it becomes a cobweb. A strand of a cobweb is like hair in that whatever t attaches itself to is stuck with it for life. They like to dangle in places your face has to go.

Observer 003 - Earthlings

World Religions - Hinduism

The Hindus are different because they have a bunch of gods, some of whom are blue. They even have one with an elephant head, which is really weird because who thought that was a good idea?

"Hey, let's take an elephant head and slap it on a person body and, bam!, we got ourselves a god! That's one more down. How many left?"

The story goes that Ganesha's mom, Parvati, took a bath, collected up the dirt and molded it into Ganesha. (Okay, first off, that's a lot of dirt. If you have that much dirt on you - I've been dirty. I've seen dirty Earthlings - If you have so much dirt on you, you can make a whole other person out of it, you need to be taking way more baths.)

Anyway, Parvati sends Ganesha out to guard the door while she finishes her bath. She wasn't even done! What the heck was she was doing that got her that dirty? That's crazy dirty.

So Ganesha is out guarding the door and Parvati's husband, Shiva, comes home and is like, "Who the heck is this guy?" So he cuts Ganesha's head off. Parvati comes out and is like, "Wah!" So Shiva's like, "Crap!" and grabs an elephant head and slaps it on there. Which makes sense as a stop gap measure. Gotta stop the bleeding. But they leave it there. Jeez mom, take another bath. Wad up another head. Go roll in the mud a little. Would it have killed her?

I don't know. Maybe Ganesha liked the new head. Maybe once you have a prehensile nose, there's no going back to the bump. I don't know. I think I'd stick with it.

Which brings up a whole other thing. Who of these Earthlings, way back ago, thought it was a good idea to evolve away from prehensile tails? Man, I would never have done that. How many times have they been wrapping presents and thought, "Man, if only I had one more hand, just to hold the tape." A prehensile tail would take care of that.

Or, they're carrying groceries in and they drop their keys and they don't want to put anything down because there's snow or it's raining? Bam. Prehensile tail saves the day.

Of all the arguments they have about evolution and intelligent design, I'm not sure where this would fall. If I had a prehensile tail, there would be no way you'd talk me into evolving away from that. I'd take the walking upright and the frontal lobe, sure. But I'd be keeping the tail. And if I had to choose? Tail.

I think a prehensile nose would be better, though.

It maybe falls on the side of intelligent design, but only if the god that made them didn't think of the tails until after he made Earthlings and was working on monkeys.

"Oh man, this is so cool. I wish I'd thought of this for people. Darn it. Oh well."

Pause.

Hey! What if I stuck this on an elephant face? And with big floppy ears. That would be funny! I am so going to do that. Hee-hee!"

Elephants are what happens when a creator god stays up too late.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Eastern Religions: Buddhism

The Buddha had curly hair that he tied up in a bun. He also had these weird, droopy ears that no one wants to talk about. You ask Earthlings about it and they just look at you funny. He also must have been pretty lazy because all the statues I've ever seen of him he's either sitting or laying down. And looks half asleep. But maybe preaching really takes it out of you, so I shouldn't judge.

But, going back to Jesus, at least that guy got around. He went to Galilee. He went to Jerusalem. He as a mover. And they didn't have the good sandals like they have now. These were cheap old ones with no arch support. That had to get old pretty quick.

So maybe Buddha was right to stay put.

So, anyway, everybody had to go to Buddha. He just sat in one spot and everyone came to him. Then he would teach them for a little while and then he'd say, "Okay, I'm going to lie down now. Go away."

By the way, Buddha had super powers. He could witness the Earth really well. (I don't know what this means, but it must be important. Earthlings have a lot of statues of it.) He can also detach himself from things, like maybe his arm or a retina, I guess.

What else, what else? Oh! He might have been gay.

That's not a super power, but when he was becoming Buddha, these three hot chicks tried to make him stop, but he wouldn't. So, I think he had the power to become gay so women couldn't tempt him.

I wish I had that. Because women are very confusing. Especially if you like them. And, if they like you, it's even worse. Because then they have the Power to Stumble You. All of a sudden words don't come out of your brain and your hands suddenly have to find something to do, but they don't know what. (Pick this up? No. Pick this up? No. Go in the pocket. Go out of the pocket. Let's arrange papers! - Like that.)

When Buddha was little, somebody told his dad that he would be either a great king or a great teacher. Since teachers don't get paid that well, his dad tried to push him toward kinging.

But Earthling kids always do the opposite of what their parents want, so he took off to become a teacher. He got so lazy that he even didn't eat for a long time. Then he thought, "this sucks." So he ate something. Then he sat under a tree, which is when the hot chicks came, until he figured it all out. Then he told everyone else how to figure it all out until he ate a bad mushroom and died.

You have to be careful with mushrooms. Some are good; some are bad; and some make you see things. (See things that aren't there, I mean.) To be safe, only eat the ones at the store. The ones you just find are iffy. And don't eat the ones your roommate at school has. Better yet, don't eat any of them. They're fungusses. Why would anybody eat a fungus?

Observer003 - Earthlings

The Arc of Earthling Civilizations

I've identified six stages - no, wait - five stages. Five. Hold on. 

Okay. I've identified four stages (I counted two of them twice, because they broke onto two lines) in the rising and collapsing of all Earthling civilizations. They go like this:

1. Our Forefathers Who Built This Great Nation

This mostly involves killing all the natives, who obviously don't appreciate how good they've got it.

2. My Great Great Grandfather Came Here With Nothing And Built This Company With His Bare Hands and/or From The Ground Up

This inv- well, it's self explanatory.

3. When I Was Your Age

An era when they didn't have to work as hard as the Forefathers, but at least they knew how to work, god damn it.

4. These Kids These Days with Their Long Hair and Crazy Music

Surely the end of this once great nation.

3 and 4 are the longest periods as they circle back on each other in a long downward spiral which ends in the Earthlings becoming natives and new Forefathers moving in.

When they look at where they went wrong, Earthlings always get hung up on blaming These Kids These Days, when it's pretty obvious that the real problem is with the Forefathers. They are work hogs. They use up all the hard work so there's none left by the time they get to Stage Four.

What they need is lazier forefathers. Look at it. By the time Abraham Lincoln died they'd already done all the building log cabins and reading by candlelight there was to do. So they had to go to electric lights and prefabs.

Each generation strip mines all the work, leaving none for the next generation. They think it will last forever. So These Kids These Days are left with rocking out and growing hair. It's the only hard work left. (I've done these two. They aren't that hard.)

Here's a partial list of all the hard work that's gone extinct:

Intercontinental Railway

Plowing The Back Forty

Crushing The Carthaginians

Boldly Going

Putting A Man On The Moon, For Christ Sake

The Alphabet

Making This Marriage Work

Interbreeding with the Neanderthals

Securing The Blessings Of Liberty

Turning Back The Nazi Tide/Defeating The Red Menace

Splitting The Atom

Evolving From Single Celled Organisms

Pizza Delivery In 30 Minutes Or Less

They are really going to have a hard time of it, if they don't get on top of this.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Earthling Sexual Habits - An Introduction

Sex is confusing because each gender is called a sex, and what they do together is also called sex. So, a noun is also a verb. They do that a lot here but you have to stay on top of this one because it can cause a lot of trouble when filling out forms. A good rule of thumb is: when in doubt, go with the noun.

They have two main noun sexes, but there's a lot of wiggle room between them. But I'm not going to talk about the wiggly one's in the middle right now, because no matter what you say, someone gets pissed.

Verb sex is when one or more Earthlings rub one or more of their primary sex parts together. This makes friction and juices. But not like good juices. Not orange juice or even apple juice or lemonade. Definitely not grapefruit juice, which is my favorite. Sex juices are more for making it easier to have babies. But mostly they don't do it to have babies. Unless they really believe in god a lot.

The whole thing is pretty complicated, so I'm going to split it into at least two parts. One for each sex. Until then, here's a basic overview of the parts involved.


Primary Sex Part - Man
Mr. Johnson
also: The Twins

Secondary Sex Parts - Man
Fingers
Fist
Mouth
The Behind (Note: if it's with other men - rarely admitted. Alcohol often involved.)
Foot, Toes
Elbow (rare)



Primary Sex Part - Woman
The Hoo-Hoo

Secondary Sex Parts - Woman
Mouth
Whole Hand
Feet
Cleavage
The Behind (usually considered a Specialty, or alcohol involved.)



Other Things
There's just really too many to go into here. Maybe in another report. Suffice it to say that it really amazes me that girls ever bother with boys anymore.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Archeology

Earthlings a long time ago hated housework. They never did it. When Earthling archeologists dig up old cities now, it's just complete slobbery. Broken pottery, cow bones, seeds, statuary. Ashes. Soot. Art supplies. Things fell and they just left them there. And when they finally got sick of stepping all over them, they just built a whole new house on top of the old house.

The Tower of Babel was just hating housework on an epic scale. They built it up so tall it just fell over. There was so much pottery everywhere the ended up having to build a whole new city. Nightmare.

But this all works out good for Earthling archeologists. They dig down into a city to to find all the layers of the city that came before. So, they can say, "See? This is Mycenaean pottery. So this is when they met the Mycenaeans."

So, slobbiness is good for the future. So, why did they start up with all the house cleaning?

It was the broom that stopped them from building house on house on house. I call it "The Broom Revolution." It was huge. (The revolution, not the broom.) Nobody ever talks about it, but it's up there. The wheel. Agriculture. The broom.

Fire was another good one. But the broom. That was huge.

"Hey honey. I'm home from scything. What's - say what's different around here?"

Honey makes a knowing smirk.

"Oh, my god! What's wrong with the floor? Where's all the stuff on the floor?

"Take a look outside."

He does.

"It's all outside. How did you get it all outside? You picked up each piece and carried it outside individually?"

"Nope"

"Well, how then?"

So she showed him. And their world was never the same.

Observer003 - Earthlings

World History - Part I

I'll start with the Egyptians even though they walked funny. Why did they do that? Sideways. Very strange. It's why they always rode in chariots and had to get the Jews to do all the heavy lifting. And when they left, everything went downhill until they got conquered by Alexander the Great, who wasn't Greek.

Anyway, Egyptians. They built pyramids at first but then they stopped. I think they gave up on it because they were like, "Jeezus, all this for one dead guy? We better not have too many dead guys if this is what we're going to do for each one. I mean, I can see doing it for somebody important. But for everybody? Jeezus. That's a lot of rock. Do the Hittites do this? Does anybody know? We gotta look into that."

Nobody really knows how they did it, but some Earthlings think it was aliens. (Not Mexicans. The aliens that come from space. Like us.) Which is nuts, because why would any of us do that? Come all the way here and build a pyramid just so they can put one dead guy in it? I mean, that's a lot of rock. Do you know any of us who would do that? Me neither. Nuts.

It's weird how much they do for dead people. Even more than they do fro alive people. I've sen dead people buried in nicer beds than most alive people get. And they say nicer things and throw nicer parties for dead people than they ever get when they are alive.

Anyway, up next: The Greeks. Or maybe the Hittites. I haven't decided.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Climate

Wind is funny because, look: when you have an area of high pressure and an area of low pressure, they have to balance out. So the extra air moves from where there's a lot, to where there's a little. This is wind.

But the funny wind is the little gusts. It's like a little clump of air that wandered off at the museum and didn't get back to the school bus on time. So it goes "Oops" and runs after the rest of itself. Gusts are like ADD air.
I know it does the same thing back home, but I always thought it was funny and wanted to say it.

Other than this the weather is pretty normal. Some places it's hot all the time. Other places it's cold all the time. Other places can't make up their minds. This is actually most of the places. So you don't know what to wear half the time.

I always wonder about the people who were wandering around, looking for a new place to live, and they stopped in one of the really cold places. I can't imagine what they were thinking. And all they get to eat is blubber. Whale blubber. Seal blubber. I don't know what other blubbers there are. But I can't believe there's any much difference in them.

"What do you say, people? All the blubber you could eat, and say good-bye to mowing the lawn! And there's so much ice we could make houses out of it. I'm serious. I bet we could really do that."
"Okay, Gamoo. How about this: You stay here and start setting up camp. We're going to scout a little further ahead just to see what's there. Promise we'll be back by nightfall."

Of course, nobody knew it, but lucky for that group, nightfall was still another 5 months away.

There's more to this. So, I'll have to revisit it at some point.


Observer003 - Earthlings

World Religions - An Overview

Jesus is the son of god. Or he isn't. It depends on where you live. See, a long time ago, there was this guy, Jesus, and he told everyone how to behave, because they were doing it wrong. This made him important because Earthlings like to be told they're being wrong. It makes the sex better.

Then he died pretty quick. This made him more important, because, here, you can't say bad things about people after they die. You have to get it in while they're alive. That's just the rule.

So he said people were doing it wrong, then he died before enough people could say bad things about him, or he could screw it up, so they made him god's son. Then they had fights about it. Because they couldn't figure out how he was god's son. I mean, did god get pregnant? Or did he just make Jesus? Or was Jesus always there? Or what?

The Jews tried to stay out of it, but, as usual, got blamed.

Then the Jesus people got it settled, so the Mohammed people popped up. They didn't believe Jesus was the son of god. So they got mad and ran around yelling with swords and camels. They mowed right over a bunch of the Jesus people. So the Jesus people got mad and mowed them back. And they've been mowing each other ever since.

And there's also Buddhists and Hindus.

Observer003 - Earthlings

On Backs, Poor Design of

They think they were designed by a god. But their backs say otherwise. There's a spot on them that they can't reach, no matter how much it itches. And it usually itches the most of any part. And it grows pimples like the dickens! I've done the contortioniest things trying to get at them. And the worst is when you can just reach the pimple, but you can't get any leverage. Gah!
Why would a god do that? (And they think he loves them.) Gods are weird in general, but this one? I read the whole book. Not the kind of guy you want to be on the bad side of. And they're always on the bad side of him. Believe me, you don't want to be the people he singles out for special attention. Promises, promises! But, man, god forbid you break your side of the deal. I mean, come on, really? Rain of frogs? Frogs! Raining on you. I'll give him credit for imagination. Rain of fire. Pestilence. Locust. I get those. But frogs? Jeezus.




And he always just wears this hospital gown, if anything at all. I guess when you've lived forever you just let yourself go.

I heard Einstein (this really smart guy) had a closet full of the same outfits. So he didn't have to think about what he was going to wear every day. Maybe it's like that. And it's not like he has anybody he has to impress. Angels? Saints? Please. He made them. He can break them. Snap of the fingers.

Anyway, back to body construction. I'll admit, bipedalism it took me a while to get used to. But, now that I have, I kinda like it. They can dance like you wouldn't believe! Kicking, jumping. And the splits! You should see it! Beautiful.

But, this back thing. Forget it. Gotta go. It's not like you can go up to even your best friend and ask him to pop a zit for you. And with women, it's got to be a fourth or fifth date thing. I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet.