Wednesday 18 July 2012

I woke up the other day wondering why vampires in movies sometimes have longer teeth, sometimes shorter.    Consider, the Cullen clan from the Twilight saga have fangs that are barely longer than normal human teeth,  whereas the blood-suckers from the Underworld movies have really long canines.  Other movies continue the trend. The original Dracula?  Long fangs.  Dark Shadows?  Medium fangs. There seems to be no standard length for vampires.  Even within the movies there is variation.  In Underworld,  the lead character's rival has significantly longer teeth than she does.  There must be some explanation.  Now all these vampires share the same diet, and, considering the whiteness of the teeth, all attend to oral hygiene.  So what is the difference?  Genetics doesn't seem to offer much of a lead;  how do vampire genes even get passed along?  By bites?  Then I thought maybe there was some sort of baby-teeth/ adult-teeth thing going on,  but we never see them trying to wriggle out a loose tooth, hoping the tooth fairy will visit their coffin.  The answer did not occur to me until I saw a friend's pet gerbil.  These pets, along with many other mammals, constantly gnaw to keep their continuously-growing teeth from getting too long.  This must be the explanation for vampires.  Those canines of theirs must be constantly getting longer, and different movies catch them in various stages of growth.  Having an all-liquid diet, the vampires must be chewing on wood when humans aren't around.  This explains why so many vampires live in the forest.  It also makes sense that humans are always killing vampires with wooden stakes: there must be dozens of sharpened sticks lying about.  And perhaps that's why vampires leaves their coffins; they've chewed a hole right through it and need to find a new one.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Day 4

The continuing, and now ending, account of the Ruta de Maya race.

I lost a bet on the above sentence.  After we got back from the Ruta de Maya, I was sitting at my desk arguing about it with my teammate, Lucia.    "Jonathan," she said,  "You acted as if you had a lot more canoeing experience than you did before the start of the race, and I just think you should admit that. "
This was an accurate charge,  but I decided a counter-allegation would be better than admitting the truth.
"Well, Miss Lucia,"  I shot back,  "someone had to steer the canoe while you were busy rolling up your sleeves."  Lucia had incurred my wrath during the trip by stopping paddling to ensure that her arms tanned evenly.  "Someone had to make sure we finished the Ruta la Maya,"  I continued.
This small slip in my novice Spanish was not missed by Lucia:  "Its not Ruta la Maya, Jonathan,"  she said,  "Its Ruta de Maya."
Here I should have just admitted my mistake to her; she knows more Spanish than I do.  But sometimes I just have to be right, even when I'm wrong.
"No," I said, "Its Ruta la Maya."  The argument immediately started going back and forth, because if Lucia and I agree on one thing,  its that we like to disagree.  The debate culminated in a bet that whoever was wrong had to buy the other yogurt, which is a real treat for a volunteer on a stipend.  A quick Google search revealed my error.  "There, you see?" Lucia said, pointing at the screen,  "Now you owe me yogurt."  Although there is no arguing with Google, I continued my grousing.  But defeat was inevitable, as my opponent did not fail to point out.
It was several weeks before I had any money to make good.  Again we were sitting at our desks, and I grouchingly drew the money from my wallet and tossed it to her.  "What's this for?" she said.  "For the yogurt," I grumbled.
"No, you can't just give me money, you have to go buy it yourself and give it to me."
"Lucia, just take the money!"
This was something new to argue about.