The bragging Diary of Know-It-All

[Sweetcherrie]

March 4, 2006

 

Today I decided that I would keep a diary. I have no idea why I decided this, just because, I guess. It’s not even that I had a very brilliant day today, so there isn’t a specific reason that I went into that shop and bought me this little gem, I just did. Possibly because I think that by leaving my words behind for the next generation they might learn from me.

 

The thing itself is beautiful btw. It has this nice black leather cover, and the pages have a golden layer over them so if you keep the book closed it’s just as if there’s only gold in between the leather cover. On the front it has golden lettering saying, “Diary”. I guess the people that designed it had in mind to create something very special. Of course I would’ve changed things slightly, the way they had put things together was very clumsy, and although they had a good overall package they lacked on the details.

 

Together with the book (which I’m now starting to think wasn’t that good after all) I got myself a pen. The pen is I have to say one of the best inventions of men. Of course they should never have started out with feathers, and fool would’ve know that wood would have been much, much better. And I have to add, I am against using feathers. Those poor birds wouldn’t have known what the hell was happening to them.

 

I mean, can you imagine? Here you are being a nice goose for example, and there comes along this human, who simply pulls out one of your tail feathers for the sole purpose of flicking ink on an animal skin. No, if I would’ve invented the pen, and I swear until this day that if that Hungarian journalist, Biro, hadn’t thought of using newspaper ink, I would’ve. Not that I’m that old, I’m just saying that I could’ve invented it myself.

 

In fact, when I was smaller still I even did invent the pen almost. My parents were not surprised; I had always been a smart kid. I could walk when I was only 6 months old. And now I can hear you think, ‘Nobody walks when they are only 6 months old.” Well, I did.

 

But back to how I invented the ball point pen. When I was about 2 years old I had seen enough of the reading world to have the idea to start writing myself. I mean, of course I could read for a few months already by then, but writing is a lot harder, and there it’s not the brains that hold you back, but your physical abilities; a child’s hand is simply not steady enough to write letters. And I can know, because I remember how my muscles pulled my hands all over the paper, and no matter what I told my brain, the hands simply didn’t want to listen.

 

But when I was about 2 years old I figured that I had enough control over my muscles to make them do what I want. Now there was only one problem left, my parents always kept pens away from me, I guess they thought I would eat them, the silly people, but it did make it quite difficult to get into the top drawer if you’re simply not tall enough.

 

So I thought about how I could invent my own style of pen. And when I saw my dad painting the fence on day I knew enough. I found a pvc tube, flicked one of my marbles in the end, and started filling it with the paint my dad was using. It was a rather bic, err….big pen, but with my limited control over my muscular system, and the fact that they didn’t allow me paper either, a pen this size was only easier to control when I would write my very first words on the wall (hey, I know what you’re thinking, but yes, I did it consciously, and yes, I knew that writing on the wall is not the best thing to do, but I found that I had to express myself).

 

So there I went, and took my newly invented ball point pen back inside the house, trying not to drip my ink everywhere, and wrote my very first poetry on the wall of my parents’ living room.

 

“To be, or not to be.”

 

Yah yah yah, I know what you’re thinking, but I swear that guy stole it from me.

 

Oh well, I guess I should better stop for the night, (I don’t want to overfeed your minds, after all we can't all be geniuses) and go to bed. Tomorrow I will tell you how it was I who invented the safety pin.

[Sweetcherrie]

March 8, 2006

 

I know, I know, I promised to tell you about how I invented the safety pin, but I have to tell you all about something else first. Today I was reading the newspaper, and some children's doctor somewhere in Holland claims that children would be less susceptible for allergies when they've been vaccinated against tuberculosis. (Don't worry, I've already made a note in my agenda to call him, and tell him not to steal my ideas).

 

But this whole idea reminds me of when I invented antibiotics. This when I was about fifteen years old, and I was sitting under an apple tree. Let me take you back to what happened.

 

The sun shone brightly through the leaves and dappled the ground with bright green spots. A bee was lazily zooming around my head, and I was half-dozing. Me and my mate Newton had been looking at some milkmaids, when suddenly a bird lighted on one of the branches above me. Apparently the bird had chosen its spot badly because as he landed on that branch he managed to loosen an apple, and this apple landed right on my head.

 

"You know, it must have been gravity that made that apple fall," I said to my friend, Newton, as the apple hit my head, "rather funny how everything always falls down, isn't it?"

 

This is also how I discovered the idea of gravity, but it turns out that I couldn't very much trust my friend, and later on he took all the credits for the idea. But back to how I discovered antibiotics.

 

As I said, we had been looking at those milkmaids, and even though they were quite pretty, I would never marry one of them. Because of their work with the cows they always had such rough hands, and frankly I like a woman with soft caressing hands. A woman that can give me massages without my back turning to blisters, so to speak. A woman who can caress a child without having to be afraid that the child's face would be scarred for life. A woman....enfin, a woman with soft hands.

 

Thing is, the black death was going round again, and had taken quite some victims down with him already, but these milkmaids were as blushingly healthy as they had always been. And with that apple popping down I had a revelation.

 

Here I have to tell something about this. I had of course been thinking about this theory for a while already, and somehow in my head I was convinced of the fact that working with cows had something to do with those antibiotics. Somehow they must have gotten a sort of mini-plague from those cows, and therefore have gotten resistant to the real thing.

 

What if those raw hands had something to do with it? What if milking all those cows, and stinking like a cow, helped against the plague? What if? I decided that it would be worth a try, and walked over to one of the milkmaids.

 

"Good day, my beautiful lady."

 

The milkmaid was immediately impressed with my muscled appearance, and my handsome looks, and smiled back at me.

 

"It is indeed a beautiful day m'lord."

 

I decided to make it even more obvious, and compliment her further on her appearance, after all I had to do this in the name of science.

 

"The day is only half as beautiful as you milady."

 

She giggled, and I cringed. I hoped she was smarter than she seemed at first sight, but hey a man can't have everything, and as I said, this was in the name of science, and sacrifices might have to be made. I advanced a bit, stroked my hand past hers, and had to suppress a shudder, but she apparently liked it because she made no objections.

 

"You know, me and my friend here," I gestured towards Newton, who was still sitting under the apple tree looking puzzled at the apple that had hit my head, "have been looking at you for a while now, and I were saying to each other how beautiful you were. Would you care to go for a walk with me?"

 

She looked slightly taken aback because of my offer, and objected that she still had to milk ten more cows. Her country girl accent made that I had to suppress another shudder, but anything for science I told myself.

 

"I'm sure your cows won't mind waiting just a bit longer."

 

I took her hand in mine, and gently guided her out of sight of my friend Newton. We walked hand in hand to the other side of the hill, and there I offered her my coat to sit on. She giggled, and I hoped that I would be able to get the stench out of my coat again. I sat down next to her, and stroked with a finger past her cheek.

I don't want to go into details here, but it was rough, and it was hard. I knew that science required sacrifices from a man, but I never knew it would be this well, I shouldn't exaggerate. The poor girl did her best, and after all, what would she know of satisfying a man of my standards.

 

Newton came running over the hill just about the moment that the milkmaid was rearranging her skirts again.

"Hey, I think you were right about that gravity thing."

 

I only sighed at this comment, and buckled my trousers back up.

 

Of course you all know the rest of the story. It turned out that I was right, and that afternoon with nothing else than my cunning brain and the help of a milkmaid I discovered antibiotics.

 

I hope that you guys and gals have all learned something from this story, but if you'll excuse me, I have to go call that doctor in Holland, and discuss with him about how we can best patent my idea to vaccinate all kids with tuberculosis and keep them free from allergies.

 

Back to the real world for a moment:

 

The first mathematical formulation of gravity was Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation, published in his 1687 work Principia Mathematica. Professor William Whewell of Cambridge University, author of History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) stated:

"The law of gravitation is indisputably and incomparably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at the advance which it involved, the extent of the truth disclosed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth." [in A Treasury of Science ed. Harlow Shapley et al, Harper & Bros. NY: 1946]

 

Source: Wikipedia

Many ancient cultures, including the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese, already used moulds and other plants to treat infection. This worked because some moulds produce antibiotic substances. However, they couldn't distinguish or distill the active component in the moulds.

Modern research on antibiotics began with the discovery of Penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Penicillin was originally isolated from the Penicillium chrysogenum (formerly Penicillium notatum) mould. The antibiotic effect was originally discovered by French medical student Ernest Duchesne studying Penicillium glaucum in 1896, but his discovery was ignored by the Institut Pasteur. Another Institut Pasteur scientist, Costa Rican Clodomiro Picado Twight was the first to record the antibiotic effect of Penicillium in 1923.

 

Source: Wikipedia

[Sweetcherrie]

Appy said that it wasn't entirely clear what the milkmaids and the cows had to do with the antibiotics part...

 

Added in the red part, hope that makes it slightly better

[Appy]

*nod* much clearer now, interesting reads, reminds me of several persons at once too