dog presentation

As a child, I was pretty much like every other kid. I wanted a pony, and a bike, and eventually, a dog. Our bus driver was fostering six beagle mix puppies. She was looking to give them away, after they had been vet-checked vaccinated.

A normal kid would go about asking for one of these puppies like this:

However, I was smart enough to know that this would never work out in my family. The children of architects have great spacial reasoning and structure. The children of professors have a great love for academia. My parents had worked for years in businesses. In my family, if you wanted a raise in your allowance or planned to tackle a large-scale project, you made a presentation. With charts and graphs. And at the very least, a clearly outlined budget.

My brother and I also used to get our allowance twice a year in a large, bi-yearly sum. We had to spend it over six months in accordance with the budgets we had made.

Feeling that asking for a dog ought to be done professionally, I set about formulating my presentation for a dog.

While some matters, such as how much a dog would cost and what the budget would look like, were straightforward. Other matters, such as why we should have a dog in the first place, were not.

My presentation, therefore, started out strong and then quickly went downhill:

Although my parents thought my dog presentation was good, they saw it as an opportunity for a lesson: just because you make a presentation doesn't it will yield positive results.

We did not get a dog. Later, however, I managed to get a cat through more traditional means.

THAT was the day that I learned the effectiveness of good visual aids.

endangered animals

I feel weird about endangered animals. On one hand, we are supposed to save them. On the other hand, a real one could eat us, and most likely did in pre-modern times.

As weird as I feel about this, I am sure that the endangered animals feel much weirder. After all, they were once our predators and could still destroy most of us in a fair fight. And yet now, they rely on us to save them from extinction.

Although I am sure that the animals appreciate our efforts to preserve their species, I am also sure we come off as a little patronizing. I mean, imagine if creature we currently prey on were suddenly so powerful that we relied on its mercy for our survival. Like if a lab accident created a form of intelligent, giant cow that grazed on houses and fast food restaurants, completely demolishing civilization as we knew it. And if a faction of those house-destroying giant cows decided they wanted to preserve our species by rebuilding mediocre houses in a poorly conceived fashion.

If that happened, we'd be all, "Man, I wish I didn't have to be grateful to those giant cows. Wasn't there a time when we ATE those cows?"

Guess what? That's probably how endangered animals feel. Awkwardly grateful. Belittled but thankful. Someday, when they finally out-populate humans and can again prey on us, they will be fully happy. But for now, they will have to content themselves with grumbling about us behind our backs.

reasons for a 20-something to have a cat

Most twenty-somethings without pets claim that having a cat is lame. I find that especially dudes tend to argue that, if you have a cat, you are basically on your way to being a cat lady.

However, I think there are some very good reasons for twenty-somethings to get a cat. Such as:

1) You can't afford to pay for heat

2) You need to renovate your apartment

3) You want to be better with kids
See this post.

However, the reason that guys should keep in mind when their lady-friends wish to acquire a feline is this:

A cat will turn nearby men into firemen.

Like fires, cats cannot be easily controlled. Like fires, an unruly cat is controlled by applying water.

And in the most basic sense, your boyfriend will be like a fireman because he will retrieve your kitty from high places, like firemen always do in movies and cartoons.

In other words...

Turn your boyfriend and other friends into a firemen with a cat!

duck boat

Whoever made the duck boat had a great idea.

As a tourist on a duck boat, I would like to imagine myself riding an actual duck.

Duck boats are great. But perhaps not appropriately named. Because a duck boat, if it is really like a duck, should also fly.

This means that a real duck boat should be more than a combination boat/car. It should be a boat/car/plane!

When compared to the REAL duck boat (pictured above), current duck boats just seem inadequate. In fact, I would like it if we re-named the current duck boats to something that more accurately describes its function. Here are some suggestions.

Therefore, please join me in suggesting to duck boat companies that they rename their franchise Turtle Boat, or Swimmer Guy Boat.

Although despite any name changes, I don't think they could rival the boat concept I like to call "best boat ever":

dolphin disillusionment

When I was a kid, I had the unique opportunity to go swim with the dolphins. I was really excited, because what seven year old girl doesn't like dolphins? Dolphins are so singularly revered by seven-year-olds that if there were some religion, centering around dolphins as deities with unicorns and rainbows to complete the holy trinity, it would be entirely populated seven-year-old girls.

My friends had prepared me for swimming with the dolphins. There would be no other experience as amazing in my life. I figured no photograph or video or trip to sea world could ever prepare me for being in a pool with a real dolphin.

Upon meeting the dolphins, however, I came to an important realization. Dolphins, while really cool, did not have the magical quality given to them by seven-year-olds. They looked a lot like they did in pictures. They were interesting, rubbery, grey, and had a charming laugh. But they were not empirically magical.

As I grew up, I realized that it wasn't only seven-year-olds who were amazed by dolphins. Dolphins are revered by many of my scientific-minded peers for their high intelligence. It's true-- they are awesomely smart. Not only do they possess the ability to repeat behaviors on command (much like a dog), they also show higher intelligence through creativity and teamwork in creating their own, new tricks, alone or with other dolphins. In our discussions about dolphins, we speculate that they probably have a secret dolphin language that has not yet been deciphered.

During these discussions, I remember my experiences with dolphin disillusionment. I warn my friends about the dangers of expecting too much from dolphins. What would we gain, for example, from speaking to the dolphins? Another conversational partner, perhaps. But perhaps not all that we expect. Many people think talking to dolphins will be like this:

But in fact, the cultural barriers between us and dolphins would be incredibly high, nearly insurmountable at first. A dolphin can't understand where we come from as humans with a human society. Dolphins live under the sea with fish.

A conversation would more likely go like this:

Forget trying to talk to dolphins about any human-created subject. Also, forget trying to make jokes with dolphins. We don't get their humor at all.

Dolphins are jerks when they think you are stupid. Luckily, we don't get their insults, either.

pet optimization does not work

I enjoy optimization, but I am not good at accounting for all of the variables. A hilarious exhibition of my non-optimal optimization skills occurred last year, when it was suggested that I get an animal for my one bedroom apartment.

It was hard to choose a pet. When animals are easy to take care of, they are not very entertaining. When they are hard to take care of, they are much more fun, but also more stressful. If you don't have unlimited time, it's hard to get a fun animal.

The relationship indicated by this scatter plot is shown in the best fit line below:

Cuttlefish, an outlier, has been eliminated.

If no other reason, I liked cats because they were very close to the origin of this graph, optimizing enjoyability and ease of care.

I decided to get a cat.

After further research about the different breeds of cats, I realized that felines have many variables that can be optimized to one's lifestyle. At the time, I decided that the primary three were level of shedding (light vs. heavy), coat length (short vs. long) and playfulness (calm vs. active). Here are what I considered to be optimal cat traits for my lifestyle.

I settled on a Devon Rex cat, which had a good deal of playfulness and moderate fluffiness, along with a nice, low-shedding coat.

The Devon Rex is a semi-hairless cat. Although their coat length can be similar to that of a normal cat, they do not have the same kind of long, obtrusive guard hairs that most cats shed when you pet them. Instead, they have a downy coat of soft under-hairs. They are intelligent and playful throughout their lifetimes. A Devon Rex kitten, I thought, would be much easier to care for than other kittens.

Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the "wild card" factor of cats. Cats cannot be optimized. Cats cannot be controlled. They seem to have an uncanny connection to the karmic element of the universe. Attempt to control a cat, and they lash out to destroy your well-laid plans. I tried to obtain a cat, because cats are fairly low maintenance. This is partially because I enjoy sleeping, and had been told repeatedly that cats also enjoy sleeping.

Unfortunately, my cat enjoys the following instead:

This is apparently pretty typical of some cats but not others. This disruptive feline behavior has rendered my pet optimization ineffective. There are too many variables in cats and other animals. From now on, I will stick to optimizing equations.