Need the answer to that question that perplexes you so? Whether it be life, love, metaphysical, spiritual, sexual or fanciful Trev can shed light on that mystery for you.
Today we have another question from Shannon in Pendle Hill:
‘When you have a Vicks VapoDrop lozenge, where does the mucus in your nose go? It just disappears!’
Seems so innocent and helpful…
Well Shannon I must say, in this day and age of Pandemics, its nice to see someone still thinking about the common cold.
Before we continue, I must state right now DO NOT USE THOSE DROPS! EVER!
Now let me tell you why….
In the era of information gathering, everyone is worried about it happening online. Social Media outlets monitoring your posts to find out about your work and family. Search Engines watching what you look for so they can target advertising right at your weaknesses. Beware the Cookies!
But forget online – it doesn’t matter. It’s the bastion of nerds, stalkers and of course the incredibly intelligent, good looking people who read this blog. No, you need to worry about what is happening in reality, and what one company is after – your genetic template.
‘We are coming for your goo’
That’s right, Vicks isn’t interested in curing your cold! They are however interested in your mucus. Because if they get your mucus they get your DNA. And if they have your DNA, then they can clone you. And if they can clone you, then they can murder you, put their clone in your place and then they have yet another operative out there in society doing their malevolent bidding! You had savings? That money now belongs to the Vicks company. You had a job? Now your clone works there, subtly furthering the Vicks agenda. You had kids? They are now your clone’s kids and being raised in the Vicks ideology.
See this guy? He’s now sticking it to your wife.
Those Vapodrops are not designed to cure your mucus problems. They are to signal the company that there is snot to be harvested! When you suck the pill and it dissolves, a tiny radioactive marker is released. You don’t notice it as you are sick and already feel like shit anyway. That radioactive marker is then picked up on by one of the multitude of Vicks controlled satellites orbiting the earth and your location immediately relayed to the nearest infiltration team. Then, as you sleep, the team silently enters your home and, using a mini turkey-baster, sucks all of the mucus out of your nose. Then they hightail it with a vial-full of your precious DNA. This is happening in thousands of homes across the world each night!
Shit – they’ve gone international!
So Shannon, that is where your mucus goes when you pop a Vicks Vapodrop lollie. It goes to a secret underground bunker where scientists analyse it and begin preparations to make a Shannon-clone, soon to become one of the ever-growing army of snot-spawned operatives that each day bring us towards a total Vicks-controlled populace and the annihilation of society as we know it!
Shaped just like a lozenge – no coincidence
So next time mate, do us all a favour and just use a hanky eh 😉
Dear Big Farmer Trev, I had been warned about this with Silkies and it’s happened. I have a broody hen. I spent all weekend watching her trying to figure out why she is so grumpy. She’s been laying an egg every day and getting mad as hell when I collect them. Then she started walking about shouting and sulking and now she is mostly staying in her coop looking very upset. I checked her over trying to figure out what on earth is wrong with her. Physically she is in tip top condition. My mate just walked outside and said ‘maybe she’s broody’ Then he said ‘I don’t actually know what that means, is that a thing?’ Pretty sure he is right. So now I need your wisdom. How do I ‘break’ a broody hen? Or should I get her some chicks and shove them under her at night time? Help! Love Mads
‘I wanna be a mum!’
Yup, she sure sounds broody to me! You have 3 options:
1: Let it run its course, after several weeks she will get over it.
2: Lock her out of her coop during the day so it forces her to scratch about rather than sitting inside looking grumpy. This sometimes helps decrease the duration of the broodiness by a day or two.
3: Get some fertilized eggs and put under her. Do NOT get some chicks already born, she will know they are not hers and won’t look after them. However if you get some fertilized eggs and put them in her nest, when they hatch she will think she is their mum and will act as such.
Today we have another chook question from Maddy in Melbourne:
Dear Big Farmer Trev.
Firstly I would like to acknowledge and thank you for being instrumental in this city kids foray into pseudo ‘country life’. Ok I’m over stating things, into suburban hen keeping.
The little silkies did prove a complex hen to care for and I subsequently found myself down from two to one.
The bird vet said ‘they are very poor egg layers, you can’t get them wet, they’re very broody , have a myriad of health problems…’ whereby I asked him if that was his professional way of saying ‘why the fuck would anyone ever want to keep silkies?’ He laughed. A lot. Which I took for a ‘yes, yes that is what I was getting at’
In any case one of the adorable little munchkins made it but was desperate for companionship and I have managed to assimilate a new hen into my flock.
All is mostly going swimmingly.
The newest girl is a Welsummer.
She’s not just the prettiest bird I have ever brought home, she is the smartest.
She was first put in with the Silkie who was thrilled to have a new roost pal. Problem being Silkies roost low and are very poor flyers and jumpers and . . . all that other stuff the bird vet said about silkies and more.
Anyway I built a new coop, and trained the little silkie how to navigate my complex hen ladder system to get into the higher coop.
She’s done well the adorable little munchkin.
So anyway..here comes my question.
The Welsummer (Penny) is still not happy at all with the coop.
Every evening right on dusk the other two happily put themselves to bed and Penny paces about looking for (even) higher digs.
As a keeper of many birds I am hoping you can help me to understand where does she actually want to sleep?!
In a tree?
Over the neighbours fence?
Is there a coop I could get built for her that would be appropriate for her discerning specifications or is she just being a dick?
I’d love to let her freerange at dusk to see where she actually wanted to sleep but I fear she may end up over the fence.
Someone suggested clipping her wings first.
I’ve never done that to any of my hens. I am remiss to fuck with their abilities like that in case it disables them in a possible escape from a predator scenario.
Historically I have just taught them that shit is so good here they don’t need to fuck off. It’s worked so far, but Pen really really wants a higher night time roost.
Or that’s what I assume she wants when she paces about considering her options and winds up on my shoulder or on the roof of her coop.
I’d rather figure out how to accomodate her needs than fuck with her body.
Do different breeds have different innate desires or is this a quirk of Penny herself?
Have you had hens that protested their accomodation and how did you address it if they did.?
Yours in good faith,
NOT a farmer by any stretch of the imagination but semi fluent in chook.
Mads.
Hey Mads,
Most birds roost according to their inherent nature and it’s damn hard to get any animal to go against it. In the photo’s you’ve sent I see you’ve got those little chook houses that I’ve also got a couple of. When I first introduced my Frizzles to their houses I kept them locked up in the little coops every night for a full week so they would come to see them as their homes.
This worked – to a degree. The chickens would go inside their houses to lay eggs and often go inside them if the weather was foul. However at dusk, most evenings the birds would fly up as best they could (Frizzles are not god flyers, yet still a cut above Silkies) and get up onto the highest part of the houses of a night to roost there. I tried to change this but ended up giving up, it’s what they wanted to do, and they were still pretty safe due to the high fences I had installed.
However behavior can be changed. After we moved state and brought all our poultry with us, for about 9 months my Frizzles had to share a pen with my Muscovy ducks. Now Muscovy’s are about the only duck breed that like to roost rather than settle on the ground, and they found the tops of the chooks houses perfect. Being about 3 times the size of the chooks and outnumbering them greatly, the ducks easily won this battle and the chooks took to roosting on the little perches inside their houses rather than on top.
After 9 months I had finally built a very large pen for the ducks and chooks and moved everyone and their accomodations inside. As part of this new set up I had built big perches strong enough to accommodate the Muscovy’s and they quickly took to them. However the chickens, even a year later, have opted to remain inside their coop of a night, despite the tops of their little houses now being vacant. Where I was unable to train my chickens, the ducks succeeded.
From what I know of Welsummers, they are medium perchers. As in they like to be up at a decent height but don’t feel the need to be up massively high in a tree like some chooks do
So my advice is either:
A: Just accept you are going to have to physically pop her in and lock her into the little coop houses each night, which she may not particularly like but will keep her safe, and hope she will eventually acclimatize to it
or
B: Build some taller perches inside your enclosure at heights of 5 and 6 feet. Then she can sleep up higher and be happier. The downside is she will be more exposed to the elements and won’t keep your Silkie company of a night. Considering your pen has a ceiling of 7 feet, I don’t think you need to go any higher.
Of course you could do as others suggested and clip her wings, but I understand why you don’t and to be honest I’ve always adopted the same thinking myself. I don’t want my birds to think they can escape a predator by flying away, only to find when they try that some bastard human has taken that ability away and they are now feral-cat food.
Anyway Madds, hope that is of some help.
Got any other advice for Maddy? Pop it in the comments section below!
Your initial FB post about capturing goats was never enough of the story for me and I feel quite pleased to now have the full account.
I wish you good fortune on your future goat capturing endeavours.
So anyway as you may know I have overcome the little city kid heartbreak of losing ‘livestock’* (*pets) and have decided that contrary to what a teenage boyfriend once declared to me (I wish I had never fallen in love with you so I didn’t have to feel this heartbreak at having lost you) I can in fact go on to love again. I’ve recently acquired two new hens and did a great deal of research on breeds and temperaments and so on and so forth.
My last girl standing from my last flock is a wee little thing and has become quite dependent on me in her dotage.
Cut to the chase she has two new pals who are little silkies. They’re much younger than my last posse of backyard hens and seem to actually despise me. They’ve only known a small cage prior to coming to Casa Del Madsy but seem entirely perturbed about that whereas my last girls felt this palatial new digs was simply glorious.
Everything I read about silkies is that they’re lovely friendly hens who will tolerate children and sit on your lap and follow you about.
They have blue ears and extra toes and I’ve ruled out the idea I may have accidentally bought bunny rabbits so why do they hate me?
Will they ever come round?
They grumble at me like old men who’ve been woken from a nap in their favourite chair and the greyish one even pecks me when I put treats in their little run. I have them separated from Ponny still but she seems to be happier just knowing they’re there.
So anyway that’s my question: why do my silkies hate me and will they eventually warm to me?
Is there any more I can do to convince them I’m very nice to animals,
Thanking you in advance,
Subruban Madsy.
Thanks for all the chicken questions Maddy, keep’em coming!
In regards to why your chickens hate you – they don’t hate you. They hate humans.
‘What are you staring at you damn dirty hairless apes?’
Think about it, they have been locked in a small cage their entire lives. Pretty horrible way to spend your existence. And who put them there? Were they locked in by other chickens for crimes against poultrykind? Did they voluntarily lock themselves in the cage due to some kind of chicken-agoraphobia, fearing the idea of the outside world? Were they involved in some kind of bizarre sado-masochistic erotic chook game (involving feathers no doubt) and simply lost the key to their private sex dungeon?
Nope. Humans locked them in there. Filthy stinkin’ humans.
So despite them being usually a very friendly breed, these chookies are probably a bit traumatized. It’s going to take a while for them to adjust and even longer to trust. It’s not like when Apartheid ended that every black person in South Africa suddenly started trusting white people. Nope, it’s a long road that that country is still bravely travelling along towards a brighter future. And so it may be with your new chooks.
My advice?
Spend as much time as you can as possible in your yard with them, but without interacting. Take a chair and a book and just sit near their enclosure. This way they will slowly get used to your presence without feeling threatened or that they are about to be shoved back in a tiny cage at any moment. We have many wombats on our farm and there is a big old bugger at the moment who has taken to feasting in our front and backyards. At first every time he saw us he bolted. Now he couldn’t give a crap if we are there or not as we have never bothered him. In fact just last night he wandered to within a few meters of our dog, who was lying there idly watching him chew. We don’t bother him and in return we get a free organic lawnmower!
After the Silkies have gotten used to your presence and seem relatively unfazed by you being around as it has become part of the norm of their lives, then you can try interacting a bit. Chickens are like children – wary of adults until that adult busts out their favourite treats. Experiment with a few different things to see what your Silkies like best. Our ducklings are somewhat wary of us, until we come out with sliced watermelon and then we are likely to trampled in a stampede of webbed feet! There will be something that your Silkies can’t resist, be it a type of grain, fruit, worms or snails or even just breadcrumbs. When you find out what that special something is, throw a little of it to them from a distance each day, and each day shrink that distance by a few inches. In no time at all you will have them pecking around your feet without a care in the world.
Will your chookies ever warm to you to the point they want to sit in your lap? Hard to say. If they are young enough they may learn new behavioural patterns but if the distrust of humans is ingrained in them it may be the best you can hope for is them clucking around your feet as you potter in the backyard. Our Frizzle rooster likes us well enough that sometimes he even sneaks in the porch door, but he never wants to be picked up (unless he’s gotten into a fight with the drake that is, then he will sit in my lap sulkily for an hour while I console him on his loss and tend to his boo-boos). So don’t take it too much to heart if they never become lap-chooks, though with how fluffy Silkies are I know ya just wanna cuddle’em.
Like a poodle mated with a marshmallow
I hope this advice helps Madds. Remember:
A: Get them used to your presence
B: Find out their favourite treat
C: Slowly lure them a bit closer to you each day until they are comfortable
D: Do not mention Apartheid or eat KFC in their presence and…
E: Remember chickens are like people – sometimes you encounter some grumpy, unsociable bastards where it doesn’t matter what you do.
‘What? I’m funny to you? I make you laugh? Come closer and lets see how much you smile then’
Good luck! Let us know how things work out in the coming weeks.
Got any other advice for Maddy? Pop it in the comments section below!
No vets in Melbourne know anything about hens. Except for one who is two hours away and deals with prize winning pedigrees and expects you will want to spend lots of money doing anything you can to save a crook chook.
The online forums offer some basic advice but it’s so difficult to know what’s wrong with a sad hen.
There seems to be a fairly common theme of ‘cull her’ amongst the more rural hen keepers.
I don’t want to spend a mint taking a vet to the other side of the city for the best bird care in Melbourne but I’m not a ‘better just let her slowly die while I stand about not caring’ kind of chook owner.
So my question is : how do I find the happy medium between livestock and pets when it comes to my backyard hens?
Thanks, Maddy.
Well Maddy first off let me say how sorry I am to hear that you’ve been having trouble with the health of your dear Chookies. I know the extent you go to provide them with excellent shelters, fresh food and medicine so I can confidently say it’s certainly not a lack of effort and caring on your part that this seems to be happening.
A great little pen for a suburban backyard
As you’ve pointed out, in big cities vets hardly work with poultry so don’t know how to deal with them. Whilst a growing number of people keep a few hens in their backyard, in capital cities it’s primarily cats and dogs the vets deal with and that’s what they train in. In the country vets tend to know a bit more about chickens, but as you also point out, there tends to be a ‘cull them’ mentality. Chickens in the country are not birds people generally make emotional attachments to, and given they are not very expensive to replace most farmers will simply kill a crook chook and get rid of it before it has a chance to infect any other of the flock.
So if country vets are out and city vets are out, what does that leave us with? The specialist vets like the one you have mentioned which is a two-hour drive away. And indeed yes they deal with the ‘speciality breeds’ that people have mainly for shows. I was amazed when attending a poultry auction in Bathurst a few months ago how much 3 small Silkies went for – more than I think I’ve spent on my entire flock combined! In these cases vets feel free to charge a mint as there is a significant financial loss to the owner if they lose a bird. What help is this to the backyard chook enthusiast? None.
Online forums can be tricky. I mean, how do you know if the person who wrote what you are reading has any real idea what they are talking about? Most loonies and know-it-alls end up on the net these days and will happily preach about that which they know little.
So back to your main question: how do I find the happy medium between livestock and pets when it comes to my backyard hens?
Ya can’t help but get at least a bit attached to such lovely creatures
It’s really finding the balance that works well for you. You obviously have great affection for your chookies but not the same kind of love you would have for say a cat or dog. I relate completely. And anyone who thinks people don’t get attached to birds at all should have seen how upset my 5-year old son was when a wedge-tailed eagle nearly killed our Frizzle Rooster, poor little bloke was in tears and insisted on sitting with me in the pen while I tended to the rooster and, thankfully, was able to fix it up. But if we had lost the Rooster, it would not be the same as losing our beloved Burmese Cat or Shetland Sheepdog.
If I may make a recommendation, I would stick with the most common and generic breeds of chicken. They are usually not expensive, and it also means there is a wealth of information out there regarding any issues that may arise with them. Also look for hardy breeds, in a big city like Melbourne chickens have to deal with a lot more noise and air pollution than they do in a rural setting and can be subject to greater amounts of stress than they would pecking around on a farm. Don’t go for the biggest chooks, they wont do well in a small yard. Don’t go for the most prolific layers unless you want to treat them completely as livestock, as they tend to have shorter lifespans. Don’t go for the fancy breeds unless you want to treat them completely as pets, they tend to be fragile and require a high level of maintenance. For a happy medium between pet and livestock – common and hardy – that’s the ticket! This will also stop you suffering too much of a financial loss if a chicken is lost.
By getting breeds that fit these two categories, it will mean you can have a few lovely chookies in your yard that shouldn’t get too sick too often, and you should be able to find information on them fairly easily. Perhaps invest in a book or two about whatever breeds you select. If sickness occurs you can always try ringing around various vets – you may at least be able to get some advice and some vets will actually give you a syringe of whatever elixir is needed to take home to treat your poultry yourself. If no vets are helpful and you need to turn to the net, be selective about what sites you visit and see if several different reputable sites will have a consensus about what might be wrong. Avoid the chat forums – that’s where all the self-professed experts (i.e. nutters) reside.
And sadly, to live in that happy medium between livestock and pets one has to realize that sometimes you will lose a bird no matter what you do. We’ve lost chickens to heatwaves and hawks, and likewise lost ducks to travel-stress and foxes. It’s always sad but it’s an inevitable fact of poultry ownership – sometimes the feathery buggers check out no matter what you do. Between the dangers I just listed your chooks also have to deal with dogs, cats, eagles, lice, mites, fleas, ticks, intestinal worms, diseases and sometimes even each other. Sometimes I wonder how they survive at all!
I hope this advice is of some help to you Maddy, and I hope your dear chookies get well soon.
Got any other advice for Maddy? Pop it in the comments section below.
Today we have another question from Lucille, all the way in South Africa!
Big Angry Trev, how do you plan a romantic fun treasure hunt for your other half’s bday?
Well Lucille, a fun treasure hunt usually involves items hidden all over town.
A romantic treasure hunt usually involves items hidden all over your body.
So how to combine the two?
Easy! Don’t use your body.
The face of romance
If one follows scavenging animals for long enough, one will usually come across a corpse. Could be a homeless bum who froze to death, could be a junkie that shot up one time too many. Heck, could even be someone who saw how much a damn coffee costs these days and had a heart attack! The point is, search and ye shall find.
Now when you hide items all over town they can be pretty much any size. When you hide items on your body, they usually need to be tiny in order to hide under the fall of a breast, cleft of a buttock or behind the meaty curtain of your average scrotum. By following the method outlined below, you should be able to meld these two concepts into something both romantic and fun!
Items Required:
*Treasure Hunt items (none bigger than say a fish bowl)
*Several corpses located in different parts of town
*A scalpel
*Needle and twine
*Hand sanitizer
*A treasure map
Step 1: Load up your sack full of the different items you want your other half to find.
Step 2: Wander around town until you find your first corpse. Mark on your map where it is located.
Step 3: Using your scalpel, cut an incision in the corpse. Where you do this will depend on what you are planting there. If jewellery, just behind the spleen or even the lung cavity are perfect spots. If something larger like a new teapot or a DVD Box Set, then I suggest the gut. If the person is fat enough, you can even hollow out a buttock cavity and pop a toaster in there.
So many fun places to hide a fancy bottle of wine!
Step 4: Sew the corpse back up.
Step 5: Continue to do this with every corpse you find, making sure to mark them on your map.
Step 6: When defiling your last corpse (I suggest at least half a dozen), the most special gift should go in there. Usually plane tickets for a romantic trip are the most appropriate, as well as getting you out of town for a while in case the police take interest in your activities.
Then on the day you give your significant other their surprise (in Summer I suggest as soon as possible, in Winter you have a while before the dead begin to really smell) meet them at their house dressed in your loveliest clothes. Present them with the map, the scalpel, the hand santizer (otherwise the whole exercise would just be yucky), the sack and tell them to get searching!
Follow along and watch the surprise and delight your romantic fun treasure hunt gives your loved one as they rummage through intestines and bladders to find their special gifts! Then wing your way to take a well-deserved holiday, all while the police search in vain for whoever has been committing these foul deeds.
I hope this works for you Lucille. Given it’s my 10-year wedding anniversary in a few months, I might just be doing the same for my lovely bride!
Once again, we have a question from a long time reader – Madds in Melbourne.
When the polar ice caps melt, and release an apocalyptic gas cloud from the arctic tundra / or when Trumples and Kimbo wage nuclear Armageddon what is your post apocalyptic action plan?
Like when planning against the Zombie Apocalypse, I live on a remote farm (not the same one) that is well inland hours away from the ocean. Even with the ice caps melting the seas will not rise enough to cross the Blue Mountains to reach our local and since we are now much further north, the apocalyptic gas cloud should only affect the more southern part of this continent, thereby rendering us relatively safe from this eventuality.
However when Trumples and Kimbo wage Nuclear Armageddon is another matter.
‘Radiation Burns? Na na, it’s just an STD I swear!’
They’ve been having recent chats but I am not hopeful. Kimbo is likely to turn around and launch a missile on a whim and, given how rude he was recently to the Queen of England, Trumples is antagonistic enough that if he doesn’t start a Nuclear War with North Korea, he is going to eventually start a war with someone.
So what is my action plan then?
Well as I said we are well situated. About half way between Sydney and Canberra we lie outside any blast zones or radiation fallout areas. Whilst millions in the region will die, we will be fine.
We will look to our sustainability first off. We have rainwater tanks as well as our own creek with a water purification system, so will maintain a reserve of clean water well after others have run out. We have a solar panels and a diesel generator, so as long as the sun shines and we can scavenge fuel for a while we will have power. We have goats, chooks and ducks so we will have access to eggs and meat on top of having fruit & nut trees and vegetable & herb gardens for sustenance. We will be OK. Worst comes to worst there are enough Kangaroos on our land to eat heartily for decades!
Which puts us in a position of power!
Like in the old world, in the new world order power will be paramount. But now as a permacultralist who has fresh food, water and also electricity, we will have the power! We will lord it over all the bankers, lawyers and politicians who currently earn 20 times more than I do. And they will come begging.
Eating hearty while they all die of radiation poisoning – not that I’m smug about it or anything
I will strengthen the fences of our farm and patrol our lands. Anyone looking for fresh food and water need to be able to negotiate for entry. Either with resources of their own in tow, or useful skills such as medicine or mechanical repairs will be required to join us. As our numbers grow, we will attract more people with a wider diversity of skills. Carpenters, midwives, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers – all will wish to join my our community and soon a working village will establish itself, with folks able to support each other with goods and services, even after all resources able to be scavenged from beyond our borders have been depleted.
But what of those that wish to undermine the new order?
Tracking the spoor of an intruder
Easily fixed. All newcomers to our community, once properly vetted, will be branded with a hot iron on the back of their left shoulder blade with a mark resembling my benevolent visage and a hand giving the thumbs up underneath. Any pretending to be part of our community who are not will be fed to the pigs – human flesh being of considerable dietary benefit to the porkers. This ensures security and loyalty amongst my flock.
But what of raiders?
Whereas with the Zombie Apocalpse, where zombies will be the biggest worry regarding transgressors, it will be Mad Max-like bands of marauders roaming the land that will be of major concern. These groups will have regressed back to the ‘might-makes-right’ mindset, with the biggest, burliest and nastiest forming gangs around themselves. Though a mixture of violence and fear they will control their followers and scour the land, refusing to create but rather steal the toil of others. Their main goals beyond destruction? Obtaining fuel, food and women.
Luckily we also will be prepared for this. Even man in my new order will be trained in marksmanship with a scoped rifle, able to knock the gnat off a rabbits dick from 500 yards. All womenfolk will be trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat, as well as the proficient use handheld weapons – particularly knives.
Not only does this empower women within my new world order community to know that on a one-to-one basis they can beat the living crap out of or even kill any man who tries to get overly fresh with them, it will surprise the hell out of raiders!
Imagine a scavenging road gang, having breached our gates, coming into the main compound ready for combat. Now any man they would see they would immediately kill on the spot. Not women. Women is what they are after. They see a few dozen apparently unguarded ladies with smiling and somewhat lascivious smiles on the faces. These raiders will think they have reached the promised land!
Leading by example, I will of course also offer myself as irresistible bait
Of course, as they dismount from their motorcycles and dune buggies and approach these fair maidens, hidden snipers from every conceivable angle will take them out. Any left standing will be sliced from scrotum to sternum by the women of our clan, relishing the feeling of spilling the guts of their would-be aggressors onto the soil below. These pricks wont stand a chance!
As the years progress, I will retire slowly from the community, becoming more of a holy figure amongst the people as my offspring continue to command the rabble and expand our territory, annexing new towns and hamlets by the score. By the time some of the radiation from the capital cities has receded, I will be lying on my death bed, surrounded by my loved ones with the palace-like-homestead I inhabit beset by thousands of worshipers crying in lament, me content in the knowledge that I have set humanity upon a path to redemption and that statues in my likeness proclaiming me as the true messiah will stand for generations to come, my will controlling the fate of the human race long after my passing.
‘The Church of Trev’ – as long as ya worship me ya can sin as much as ya friggin like!
Of course, humanity one day will recover enough to bring back the sciences of the past and improve upon them. It is with a satisfied certainty I know that when, in about a thousand years when humanity gets close to destroying itself for a second time, these technologies will be used to revive me to the land of the living to save civilization once again, and thus take my rightful place as overlord of the new age of man, extending my influence to the stars and beyond. I will through inspiration, charisma and my natural musky scent, lead us all to conquer the heavens above and I will live forever as Big Angry Trev the 1st – Grand Space Emperor Supreme! All will love me and despair – or I’ll have their balls chopped off!
How do you avoid spoilers for major movies/comics/stories etc in the age of the internet? What is an appropriate time delay before spoilers are OK in a public forum? What should be done (if anything) to those who spoil things for others?
Ah spoilers, people do tend to forget that the major word within that is ‘spoil’ don’t they eh! That by giving away the plot and/or ending they are spoiling that potential experience for someone else.
So how to avoid spoilers in the age of the internet?
The problem with major movies is that half the time the trailer IS the spoiler – they are that desperate to get you to see their flick instead of the other thousand other competing movies that come out that month, that they put in clips of all the best parts, which usually includes images of the climax of the movie! It’s a pain in the arse is what it is! So what hope have you of avoiding spoilers when even the trailers can spoil movies for you? And comics and stories aren’t much better.
So to avoid spoilers from the internet, I suggest the following:
See no spoilers. Hear no spoilers.
*Step 1: Announce to the world via social media that you will be logging off for the foreseeable future and that A: you are not dead, just uncontactable, and B: You will hurt anyone that tries to break your embargo.
*Step 2: Unplug your computer
*Step 3: Smash your smart phone
*Step 4: Fake an illness and get a month’s leave from work
*Step 5: Erect a barricade made out of old furniture and razor wire on your front lawn, leaving a small hidden Hogan’s Heroes-esque tunnel so that your kids can still go to school and your wife can still bring home food.
*Step 6: Go into the basement
*Step 7: Apply a blindfold and earplugs
*Step 8: Get your wife to feed you and empty your potty until the day of the movie/comic/story release, then get her to lead you, still in a state of sensory deprivation, to the cinema/comic/bookstore.
*Step 9: Wait until you are seated with the book in your hand or the movie is starting (NOT while the trailers for other flicks are still running) then with a prearranged signal from your spouse, remove earplugs and blindfold and enjoy your spoiler-free experience.
And the beauty is, you will probably smell so much by then that most people will want to stay the hell away, which lessens the risk of spoilers in the future.
What is an appropriate time delay before spoilers are OK in a public forum?
Six months. That’s the golden rule – six months. Unless it’s me and it’s a movie and then it’s a solid two years because that’s how long it takes me to get around to watching a flick (unless it’s Deadpool or Transformers in which case I’m there front row centre!).
What should be done (if anything) to those who spoil things for others?
They should be turned from their homes. They should be stripped naked and paraded through the streets where they can be jeered and pelted with rotted fruit by the populace at large. They should be marched up the steps of the nearest town hall where, via the medium of a car battery and a wet towel, their genitalia is repeatedly fried again and again so that they can not produce another generation that cant keep their damn traps shut!
I wish you luck Michael, in this day and age avoiding spoilers is almost an impossible feat, but with the love (and potty emptying skills) of a good woman I’m sure you will manage it somehow.
Got any other advice for Michael? Add it in the comments section below!
‘Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?’
One would assume it would be the 100 duck-sized horses that would pose the most danger. Horses have been known to kill humans plenty of times in the past. A horses kick can take your head right off and a horses bite can remove the flesh from your arm down to the bone! Fight a hundred of those little buggers and you could be in big trouble! They en’masse kick your shins to splinters and when you fall to the ground they bite and trample and use their tiny hooves to cave your skull in. A hundred tiny horses could really f*ck you up!
But if you have ever owned ducks, you know this question is not so cut and dried.
You see ducks at river-fronting parks, swimming about happily awaiting thrown pieces of bread, or waddling around with what is truly one of the most amusing walks in the animal kingdom. Ducks are non-threatening and cute…
…usually.
We’ve had Muscovy ducks for years and I’ll tell ya what, they are not always super-cute! The ducks are the perfect evidence of where the origins of ‘Pecking Order’ comes from. I’ve seen the older Ducks strip the feathers from a younger one every day until by the end of the week her poor wings were just flesh and bones. And as for the Drakes, they can be big vicious brutes! We’ve given up on having more than one Drake at a time as whichever one becomes dominant beats the living shit out of the other on a daily basis. And they will attack humans – both my kids when they were pre-3 copped a savaging because they harassed the ducks too much, and our current drake can certainly put the wind up my wife when he is in a bad mood.
So a horse-sized duck could be far more of a threat to be reckoned with than one would think, especially if it is a drake. Ours has had our rooster on its back and stood on top of him, using his beak to bash the roosters head in! Imagine what a horse-sized version of that could do to a human if it got its gander up! With a combination of its talons, a hard blunt beak and a lot of aggression behind its weight, you will be begging for mercy and promising to never buy orange sauce again!
So getting to the question which would I rather fight?
The Pros & Cons:
Numbers: One huge duck to concentrate your attacks on is far easier than trying to fend off and destroy a hundred smaller targets.
I’d fight the duck.
Height Advantage: Horses can jump high relative to their height but at duck-size and with hooves, all you have to do is climb something of sufficient height and they can’t get near you. A huge duck however has the aerial advantage and can swoop down to literally crush you from a great height.
I’d fight the horses.
Bites vs Pecks: A horses mouth will be pretty small at duck-sized, but anyone who has been bitten by a small creature knows it can still hurt like hell and cause a fair bit of damage. Whereas a ducks bill when used offensively is more like a club due to it being rounded rather than pointy like a chooks beak. A huge ducks bill may crack a few ribs, but it wont rend the flesh from your bones.
I’d fight the duck.
Weight advantage:
A duck-sized horse has gotta weigh at least half a ton. Your best punch aint gonna do squat. Whereas tiny horses you could pick up in one hand and use your other to snap their spindly little legs off.
I’d fight the horses.
Natural Aggression: Both are domesticated creatures… until you piss them off then they will try to kill your dopey human arse.
A draw.
So in the end, which would I rather fight?
That’s easy. Horse-meat has piss-poor flavour. So I’d fight the giant duck, win, light a big fire then literally feast upon 500 kilos of my worthy opponent. Finger lickin’ good!
Today we have not one but two questions, from an old mate of mine – Greg in Bendigo.
Question 1: ‘Where do babies come from? I heard a stork or something or do they come from cabbage patches? I heard that rumour as well’
‘Oo-Ar, I plants me humans next to me zucchini to discourage moths!’
Forget storks. Forget cabbage patches. The actual answer is – the fear of death my friend, THE FEAR OF DEATH!
You know what a hassle it is to have bloody kids? A massive one mate! Ya can’t go out with ya buddies drinking all night anymore. Ya can’t go over to ya hippy friends’ houses to eat their special cookies and giggle at how rectangular the doorframes are. No sleep, no sex, no money – and chances are when they get older they will say all their emotional problems are your fault and stick you in an old farts home; they spending your life savings while you spend your remaining days soiling yourself and watching the orderlies steal your medication to sell to street kids. Having babies sucks!
But – THE FEAR OF DEATH!
‘Am I dying or am I having a baby? I’ve heard both are rather unpleasant’
That’s right, that’s where babies come from. The biological imperative to pass on ones genes to the next generation so that at least some of your DNA will survive your passing. So when you are gone there is still some living, breathing, tangible evidence that you ever existed in the first place. It’s also why when those babies grow up into adults, their parents then pressure them to have subsequent babies, so you get to see yet a further generation carry your DNA on. This way your genes may still be surviving a good 70 years after you are deep in the cold damp ground, the wormies turning you into compost inside a ludicrously expensive box. Having descendants is really the only life-after-death one gets, no matter what the priests of various religions may tell you, using fear of your own mortality to get their coffers filled.
Of course, there are great-grandkids as well, but no one really gives a crap about them. Your DNA is too watered down by that point and chances are you are probably too senile to understand who the hell they are anyway.
Question 2:‘Where’s Wally?’
Wally’s dead. Died fighting in Syria. No DNA legacy for him!
Any other info Greg might find helpful? Pop it in the comments section below!
