An unedited quote directly from today’s edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The future is here, peaches:
Georgia Tech researchers found a new way to convert irregular biomechanical energy into electricity. They put a tiny jacket, attached to nanogenerators, on a hamster and harvested energy as the hamster ran and scratched itself.
Look. I know. I know. You’re freaking out. You were worried about all the wind farms soon to be cluttering our open spaces, but now you’re suddenly worrying about tripping over all the zillions and zillions of hamster wheels that will soon overwhelm our country’s landscape. I understand. I do. It’s hard to imagine that our future may involve being Hamster Overlords on a mind-boggling scale, but I think we need to think this through. That’s what I’m here for. So let’s just take a breath and analyze the pros and cons of the advent of rodent energy.
~ Well, okay. I imagine you can forget about that furnace in your basement. It’s now a dinosaur. The future in energy is rodents and you need to get on board, Crackie. Hamster Power Activate!! and all that jazz. Soon, your basement will become like a old-timey ship’s galley: Hordes of Ben-Hur hamsters chained to their wheels, running their teeny little feet off so you can watch CSI: Miami, dropping dead at an alarming rate, needing to be replaced hourly. On the upside, you can yell at them all you want and whip them relentlessly with some noodles or string. They won’t moan or cry out or rise up against you. They’re hamsters, pippa! They’ll just run and run and run until they don’t anymore.
~ In addition to our coming omnipotence over our rodent minions, there’s this: Our economy needs help, jobs, life support. Think of all the new jobs sure to be created from the need for billions of those tiny hamster jackets. Someone will need to make all the tiny hamster jackets. Maybe even you, if you’re lucky and the jobs aren’t outsourced. You’ll sit at your sewing machine, cutting eensy little pattern pieces, endlessly pinning them on your stuffed hamster model, sewing til you’re cross-eyed, trying to reach your quota of a million jackets a day. The American Dream will be yours!
More rodent energy jobs available:
Hamster Galley Manager: Although, let’s be honest: Getting them to sign the form whenever they’re written up for slacking or having sex with each other will be a real pain in the fanny, man.
Hamster Chain Supplier: Look. It’s up to you, of course, if you want to keep your hamsters free range, but it will be a lot harder to get them to concentrate on making our lives possible. I recommend chains to keep them focused and in place. Luckily, you will be able to purchase them from your local hamster chain supplier. If you can’t afford chains for the thousands of hamsters now slaving in the dark of your basement, you can have your little Johnny fashion them out of foil.
Hamster Sensitivity Trainer: We can’t have hamster harassers on the job demoralizing other hamsters. I mean, that will be our job. WE, the humans, will be the bosses, the harangue-ers, the harassers, because, after all, we will be the Hamster Overlords. Certain pervy hamsters will have to be taught not to comment on how another hamster’s bottom looks as it “works that wheel” or how much they want “just three seconds, three seconds with that” and etc. I think we can all agree that our future depends on hard-working sensitive rodent slaves.
Hamster Union Leader: Frustrating, though. A real trial to get them to hold the “STRIKE” signs. But just wait. This job is sadly inevitable. Some crusading Norma Rae hamster will come along and ruin everything for the rest of us just trying to get an honest day’s work from our lazy malingering rodents.
“Hamster Bull” Energy Drink Sales: Uhm, duh. Everyone will need to keep their galley hamsters hopped up on the stuff. I mean, this is obvious, right?
Hamster Dentist: Yes. I understand this seems obscure, but those little buggers like to gnaw, don’t they? We can’t have them escaping their chains or gnawing the walls desperate to find fresh air. No. Upstarts will not be tolerated. A toothless hamster is a productive hamster; therefore, in our near and glorious future, all galley hamsters will need nothin’ but gums.
For that matter …
Hamster Dental Equipment Manufacturer: Um, again, I know I’m being so boring and obvious here, but them whippersnappers is LIDDLE. Their teeth, aka undesirable tools of potential freedom: LIH-DUL. So, naturally, any Hamster Dentist will need special equipment to render all plague carriers toothless.
Oh! For that matter …
Hamster Blinder Manufacturer: Or HBM, for short, because, lordy, that is just too hard to say. But you know the blinds horses wear when they’re racing? Well, we’re gonna need itty bitty versions of those for all our galley hamsters. Eyes on the wheel, vermin, eyes on the wheel. We don’t want distracted hamsters. Looking around at other hamsters is bad for morale. Distracted hamsters become slow and lustful.
Oh! For that matter ….
Hamster Sex Facilitator: Hamster sex will be necessary, of course. Our ability to text message and use our iPods will ultimately depend on hamster sex and procreation. No power, no battery charging, right? But we don’t want our rodent slaves whoring it up on the job. No one needs that free-for-all. No, their lust must be contained. Plus, they like to eat their babies which would seriously lessen the hamster population which, in turn, would seriously lessen our quality of life. So Hamster Sex Facilitators will be necessary to discourage hamster orgies and separate hamsters throughout the day for productive trysts — or “lovemaking” should individual hamsters prefer to call it that.
Hamster Grave Digger: No upper body strength necessary! Teaspoon provided.
Now, this is really just a smattering of ideas, pippa. I’m sure I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of all the potential rodent energy jobs. All the shiny new possibilities make my heart go pitterpat with joy.
Hope and Change and Hamsters!
Let us move forward and embrace our future as Hamster Overlords.
Si, Se Puede!!
YES, WE CAN!!
Of course the need for wheels will increase, so there will have to be additional jobs in hamster wheel manufacturing.
YES WE CAN!
I’m thinking that someone will have to dream up all the new and brilliantly-colored configurations for hamster tube housing… [waving my hand frantically]
I’m more worried about some Hamster Neo rising up to free rodentkind.
(On a downside, it turns out that hamsters are not particularly social – they WILL kill intruders over their territories. This may not be a feasible option. Guinea pigs, on the other hand…)
I have a lot of awfully fidgety students. I wonder if this would work with them.
(Not to be all pointy and serious but – I do worry that they might upsize this for humans and someone get the crackpot idea that they can solve the Energy Crisis and the Obesity Crisis by enlisting all the fatties like me to run on treadmills to generate electricity. What happens when we either get unsafely thin from excessive exercise, or drop dead of heart attacks, I don’t know.)
Tracy, Been reading for a while, and I really like your blog. I’m de-lurking because I don’t understand peoples’ comments here. I read this and this post made me crack up! I really don’t get it, why can’t people just say that?
It takes all kinds, Chris. A lot of us like to join in the fun. But if you have been reading for a while, I have to ask, how did you not notice that so many regular commenters shoot jokes back and forth at each other in these comment threads?
Speaking only for my part, “Hamster Neo” and the suggestion that guinea pigs may be a superior option are meant as further jokes springing from the original humor. I may just be a lot less funny than I think… 😉
I have noticed that, nightfly, but I’ve also noticed that a lot of readers kind of seem to ignore it if Tracy’s written a good or funny post. They don’t really say that’s funny or that’s good. They have to add t what she wrote instead of saying what she wrote is or was good. I don’t know how to say it maybe, like it’s taken for granted that her posts are good and it doesnt get said. And some comments can turn something funny into kind of a downer. I’m sorry, Tracy. I shouldn’t have de-lurked, probably. Its none of my business, but I do like your writing and your blog.
Chris — No, it’s okay. I do appreciate that you’re trying to stick up for me, but please understand that if people haven’t seen you around before, it may be a little hard to digest comments that are initially a bit critical. I’m always happy when someone delurks and I see what you’re trying to say, but now I feel bad that you might regret delurking. You fell on your sword a bit for me, but I don’t want you to go slinking away or anything. You’re entitled to your perspective.
Chris –
//like it’s taken for granted that her posts are good and it doesnt get said.//
I kind of love you for that comment! Very generous outlook you have.
Humor is really tough on the internet (at least I’ve found that to be true), and am grateful I have a core group of people who show up on my site every day and just flat out have the same sense of humor I do. I won’t say they “get it”, because that implies that if you don’t think I’m funny you just don’t “get it” – and that’s not the case … it’s just that you know, you sync up with some people, comedically … the same things make you laugh … and it is useless to try to explain it to someone who looks at you like, “Huh? What’s so funny?”
So much of in-person conversation is about body language, and give and take and nonverbal messages … and a lot of times I have found people to be way more LITERAL on the web than they are in real life. Like I’ll make some absurd joke involving hyperbole and someone will show up and say, “That’s really funny, but you do know that such and such is actually a huge problem, and 98% of all people who experience such and such feel this way … and let me provide you a couple of links to show you what a big problem it is …”
Uhm, yeah. I was kidding.
And Chris, if you feel the way you do, that Tracey’s posts aren’t acknowledged properly – or that the response to them leaves something to be desired (not saying I agree or not, just saying: if that’s how you feel) – sometimes it’s best to just de-lurk, and add your voice to the chorus!
Praise like that, I am sure, would always be welcome!
Whoa – don’t go away on my account! It’s not my blog either. I’m not trying to come down on anyone. I just ask to understand, that’s all. We’re all friends here. There’s always room for more friends.
My experience is that friends often show their appreciation and compliments by laughing together and talking together; not that we don’t ever say “Great post” when we think so, but we don’t always say it so plainly. Maybe we should… but I think over time a lot of the regular readers have grown into friends of Tracey’s, and think of her as our friend as well – so it’s less of a “reader/writer” relationship than some other blogs, less formal. That shouldn’t stop you from reading or complimenting or what have you!
Maybe Chris is right and we don’t say it enough. So Tracey…you’re wonderful. This post was hilarious!
Nightfly…you are as funny as you think. Carry on.
Chris, don’t relurk. If you’re sticking up for Tracey, you must be a good person.
And it’s true, too, like Nightfly says, that a group of regular commenters on a blog can operate in the same way that a group of friends in “real life” do … where there’s a certain amount of shorthand, (and, perhaps, taking others for granted).
Anyway, I, for one, am glad for the reminder to, you know, acknowledge people straight out if I think something they wrote is funny, touching, memorable. I know I don’t do it enough!!
This should be all over the internet- I was crying laughing at your ‘Modest Proposal’.
Just visualizing the hamster jackets with the necessary little plug-ins is killin’ me.
The Home of the Future:
“Mo-o-om! Jason won’t go down and change out the hamsters!”
“It’s not my turn!”
“It is too!”
“Nuh-uh, I traded you my turn so you could play MarioKart with Zack.”
“That was last week.”
“So?”
“So?”
“Shut up, both of you and get down there before-”
(House plunges into darkness.)
Nightfly – I am laughing now remembering the only time I met you – and you showed up at my show (so nice) and you were like, “Hi, I’m [your real name]” … and there was a blank moment between us, like: I have no idea who you are … and then you said, “Nightfly!”
hahaha I was like, “NIGHTFLY! Oh my gosh!” and then – to your sweet date (now wife) – “And so is this Ladybug????”
So funny: the internet meeting the real world. Loved that moment.
I think all of you just said it better than I did. Didn’t mean to offend anyone. I don’t blog, but I read a few and I just feel like sometimes a lot of effort goes unnoticed out in blogland. I guess that’s what I should have said before.
Man, I would have to sign my cat up for Hamster Non-Eating Training so we wouldn’t lose power all the time!
(Hamster Bull Energy Drinks!? Hee! That just tickled me for some reason.)
Chris — /I just feel like sometimes a lot of effort goes unnoticed out in blogland./
That’s true, I think. Or potentially true. Everyone likes to be appreciated or noticed or encouraged. We’re human! So I think you’ve hit on something important, really. Essential to all of us, if we’re honest.
I think you develop a comfort level on the blogs you frequent. It is perhaps best for us to remember to thank our hosts every once and a while. Especially when we’re provided such excellent content as Tracey provides (and Sheila and ‘fly, etc. for that matter).
All I can think of is that if they’re doing this with hamsters what’s going to happen when they put that jacket on an animal with more nervous energy, say, a Chihuahua? Canine fusion is our future.
“Canine fusion,” heh. But my dog already runs my life!
Sheila – I remember! Good times. It was too bad everyone had to work the next morning; we would have loved the chance to chat for a while afterward. And the show was excellent!
Sal, I’m howling at the Home of the Future.
“The dishwasher stopped. Go check on Snuggles.”
I don’t know about powering the future through hamsters, but they sparked a great little conversation here, didn’t they? It’s good to be reminded how important our friends are to us. I raise my morning coffee to all of you out there.
Kate P — /Hamster Non-Eating Training./ Hahahaha.
Cullen — I would love nothing more than to round up all the Chihuahuas and get them on this. Horrible little rat dogs need to do something more than shiver in Paris’ purse.