Teeth and other things

Other things being a hollyhock, apparently. I really need to do something about the current scarcity of pictures on my nerdstick.

Ah well, it says there right in the blog subheading that the photos are supposed to be pointless.

Before I complain about teeth (yes, seriously. Teeth. All this time on my hands to think of a post and I'm going to complain about teeth), I thought I'd better let you in on a something that'll be happening on the blog in the next few days. There will be actual words here and everything.

Old words, though.

Let me explain.

Oh yes. Please do.

Here's the thing. When I started the old blog it was on a whim, but then I found a use of sorts for it. Er... this was before the whole thing became pointless, of course. I started using it to store some stories that I use for campground shows and planetarium programs.

Yeah. I get paid to tell stories, believe it or not.

Anyway, it became kind of handy to refer other staff to the blog instead of just rewriting things every time someone needed to reference a bit of mythology, so typing out those stories turned out to be a decent idea.

The problem is that I'm here on this blog now, and the stories are on that blog.

Easy fix, though.

For the next little while you're going to see some reprinting of old posts. They're mostly star stories with a couple of tales from Blackfoot mythology thrown in just to completely confuse things. They're good stories, I think, and if they're of use to anyone you're welcome to them.

I wouldn't be putting them on a blog otherwise, would I?




Well, I might. I'm a little weird that way.

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Now, teeth. Teeth are starting to bug me, but not in a way you might expect. I'm not talking about my own teeth or the teeth of those around me. I'm not even talking about real teeth, come down to it.

No, the teeth that are annoying me are the teeth on the animated animals that are showing up on commercials.

Let's take those cell phone beavers, first off. No, I'm not going to identify them further. They don't need free advertising from me. I'm not even going to make a judgement on the annoyance factor of the commercials themselves (my father hates them, but that's not important now). The reality is that the only thing I get out of that whole series of commercials is that the TEETH ARE WRONG.

Let me tell you something about beavers, boys and girls.

There is no beaver in the world with white front teeth.

Beaver teeth -- the incisors anyway -- are ORANGE. Orange-y brown, I suppose, if you want to be picky. Rodent enamel isn't white. See?

And yes, I know that nine tenths of the people who see those damned beavers on television couldn't give a rat's bum about rodent enamel, but I do.

It's not just because I'm a mammalogist by training, either.

Ok, it's mostly that. But there's also the idea that when I'm trying to teach kids about beavers, one of my favourite things to point out is those orange teeth and the fact that the orange is only on the very front. Hard enamel on the front, and softer dentin on the back. It's how a beaver can maintain chisel-sharp teeth even while using them regularly to chew down trees. It's neat.

But now the kids are more interested in being squicked out by the real colour of beaver teeth than hearing the whys for it. And for that I blame television.

May as well. It's convenient.

And now let's move on to deer. Hey, restaurant-that-I-refuse-to-name-whose-current-spokesmen-are-two-CGI-mounted-animal-heads (and how off-putting is that, by the way? Would you really want to eat at a restaurant where the ambiance is created by stuffed dead things on the walls?). DEER DON'T HAVE TOP INCISORS. No top front teeth at all, no. They just don't.

And while it may be more aesthetically pleasing to have your animated deer heads showing pretty, white, human smiles while they banter pleasantly about enjoying life (or death, as it were) nailed to a wall while watching people scarf down various chunks of barbecued meat, I think you should be forced to a little bit of truth in your advertising.

How about it, everyone? Wouldn't a big, toothless grin on a stuffed deer do just as well at selling pork ribs?





I think you can see that I have a problem with the entire concept in the case of those commercials. I kind of mentally file them under wtf, to be honest.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll likely be back later to start moving some stories in.

It just looks far, far too empty here at the moment. I feel like I need to buy some furniture or something.