Bigger whirls

7 Comments / learndorphins

From cutiepi314, Ten things that brought me joy this week (and we’re not referring to the dish soap brand).

  1. There’s this tune “Ain’t No Bugs On Me” that my kids like and often want me to sing with them. It has this clever stanza:

    Bigger bugs have little bugs
    On their backs that bite ’em
    And little bugs have littler bugs
    And so ad infinitum.

    Hey, it’s much better than, say, Led Zeppelin’s Travelling Riverside blues. Anyway, one of my customer has an interesting variant on his email signature line:

    Bigger whirls have little whirls
    that feed on their velocity
    little whirls have littler whirls
    and so on to viscosity

    I circulated this internally and one of the senior engineers pointed me to the scientific theory behind this.

  2. Global warming is a result of a decline in pirates, or the other way around. Either way, I will be blogging from my secure bunker on September 19th
  3. Slept in this morning. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. :o)
  4. Susan’s unleashed the dancing rodent upon hearing that her dentist doesn’t want to see her for four months.
  5. I found a place to rent a bike next week while I’m in Austin; they’ll let me pick it up late, after the trade show ends. They may also be able to build a set of new wheels for my bike by the end of the week.
  6. We’re sourcing for a new technical writer at work. My work-related stress is halved.
  7. R.B. is “in a family way.”
  8. The Daily Show has stopped the moving banner behind Jon Stewart. (It was making me nauseous.)
  9. My developers kick ass.
  10. A high school friend visited this week with her family. Not only did I get to cook, I also had a chance to unleash sarcastic allegory, employ dramatic irony, wield litotes, and freely exercise parody. Twice she said “you really ought to consider doing comedy.” A high compliment.

7 thoughts on “Bigger whirls”

  1. woodstock

    You mean you’re going to miss an opportunity to validly say “Serving wench! More mead!” ?!?!?! What is wrong with you, man? 😉 And litotes…I had no idea. Thanks for teaching me a new word. I wonder what it says about your expectations when “low humidity” can be counted among the things that brought you joy in a given week.

  2. Jarrett

    You may be interested to know that the bugs poem you posted comes from a proverb that reads like this:

    Big fless have little fleas upon their backs to bite them, and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

    And that Jonathan Swift wrote this in response:

    So, naturalists observe, a flea
    Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
    And these have smaller fleas to bite ’em,
    And so proceed ad infinitum.
    Thus every poet, in his kind,
    Is bit by him that comes behind.

    (It’s called ‘On Poetry’ and was published in 1733.)

    A Google search just then turned up this, which has an ending I’ve not seen before:

    Great fleas have little fleas
    upon their backs to bite ’em,
    And little fleas have lesser fleas,
    and so ad infinitum.
    And the great fleas themselves, in turn,
    have greater fleas to go on;
    While these again have greater still,
    and greater still, and so on.

    I’d forgotten completely about the ‘whirls’ poem; I know the others because I spent a grotesque amount of my childhood reading books of quotes.

    J.
    Man, that was a huge comment….

  3. Scout

    Here’s one for the kids that I learned from the husband:

    Of all the fishies in the sea,
    My favorite is the bass.
    It climbs up on the seaweed trees,
    And slides down on its (wait for it) hands and knees.

    Ha!

  4. Susan Dennis

    My hamster made your top 10??!!!! Wait until I tell her. She is going to want to unlesh her own dancing rodent who will then be so excited…

    ohmygod, I’ve caught jimcarsonitis!!!

  6. Steve

    > Global warming is a result of a decline in pirates,
    > or the other way around.

    That actually makes sense; with the decline in piracy on the high seas, more oil ships get through to their destination, resulting in greater production of greenhouse gases as more oil is burnt, with absolutely no need to invoke a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster at all. Nope, none what-so-ever. Which is good, because oily pasta upsets a lot of stomachs 🙂

  7. Terri

    What did you cook? What jokes did you make? Good to know that work stress has declined.

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