This is one of my favorites, I’ll just get this out of the way at the start. It is 980 AD and we have a highly stylized attack on a highly stylized viking village in Newfoundland. Our native attacker, apparently there is only one, is in a first-person stabbing game it seems. He walks into a ghostly viking’s home and murders this one guy. The guy’s ghostly viking neighbors come running and find their dead friend (the native apparently having fled, I guess). Then we’ve got a viking funeral (is that taps? I think the vikings are playing taps) and the vikings leave. Their village falls prey to a time lapse and then, in the 1960s and some scientists find out that there was once a village there.
Our Norwegian scientists are Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad (as a child I heard this as “Helga and Onastina Ingsta”, but I should have known the lady would never get top billing) and their scientific work (which consisted entirely of sticking one trowel into some dirt = Fact) shows that the vikings made it to Newfoundland way before other whiteys made it to North America. Good to know.
“Do you know what I think this is?” probably shouldn’t be one of my favorite Heritage Moment quotes, but it is. Maybe it’s just because it is the only non-narrator line of dialogue in the whole piece, but I also like the universal nature of this quote. I don’t have to wait for someone to ask if someone can fly so I can reply “Fly no…” and nobody has to wait until I say my name to say “Patrick, Patrick O’Neil” with this quote. You can ask anyone if they know what you think a thing is whenever you want. Try it today.
I’m giving this highly stylized Heritage Moment Five out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It’s a little light in the educational department, but it is an interesting watch.
It’s a little suspicious that we never see the native attacker. I entertain an idea about this: Our viking victim was, in fact, murdered by his wife! See how quickly he reacts to someone barging into his home? He’s not surprised. He doesn’t hesitate. Is that how you’d react if you were… smithing or whatever, and suddenly someone barged in to do a murder at you? I think not. But suppose you’d been arguing with the viking missus and she stormed out, grabbed the native weapon she happened to have found the day before, and stormed back in intent on releasing her womanly fury. When the others arrive they find the murderer pretending to mourn, accusing some native attack and sticking to her story so strongly that even the establishing captions thought it was a native attack. Well, fictional dead lady, you almost got away with it, but you didn’t reckon on the excellent deductive reasoning of PDR. Case closed.
The other option is that between the viking colonists and the Norwegian scientists the only proper Canadian in this minute is a murderer.
Okay, since it is about the only thing I’ve got to talk about, here is the latest in Manglefinger news:
Today was the day I had to go in and get my sutures taken out (the ones that come out anyway), and I showed up way early because I expected I’d have a long wait, but I didn’t! I got in and out quickly and am now sutureless (except the ones that are still there).
The primary victory of today, though, is the fact I have finally reached the stage where I am allowed to clean and dress the wound myself. At last I can wash my damn right hand, which I have not done properly for over a week. It has been irritating. The (still kinda nasty looking) wound is now covered only by adhesive strips and I can get in there whenever I want to clean it. So nice.
I have to go back into the hospital AGAIN in two weeks for one last checkup. I’m confident I will use that trip as well for another excuse for a post.
Haiku!
What is a walrus?
why won’t anyone tell me?
I am so confused.
(That haiku is, for the most part, unrelated to my injury.)
Do you think that vikings would have developed nuclear weapons if they hadn’t been wiped out by the coming of the white man? This is my history question of the day. I need thousand word essays to answer this.
I wonder if I could ride a unicycle. I try to imagine it in my head, without ever having been on one, and I can’t really tell if it should be hard or not. Someday I’ll have to try.
Haiku!
Women with lasers
protect the moon from vikings.
We thank you, ladies.
It is International Women’s Day, I guess. I’ll just get it out into the record that even though the the Nation of PDR has a 0% female population, it supports the rights of women everywhere and we strive to maintain good relations with them. In the meantime, I bring you a classic PDR story that I honestly thought was already on the Book of PDR: The Reason Women Were Allowed To Vote.
So today was a hurricane hitting us day here in Halifax. It didn’t really amount to much of anything more than a typical storm as far as I could see. I went out for a couple of walks, one during the hurricane day and one after at night. I got soaked during the first one (which is of course the point of going for a walk in a hurricane). The second was just about as clement as weather can get. I like rain, but I’d still consider the second walk superior because of all the stars showing through.
The hurricane was named Bill. Every day of work in the few days leading up to the weekend had an article talking about Hurricane Bill and my mind always, just for a second assumed it was about how we’d be paying for the hurricane. Stupid mind.
Haiku!
If Vikings are here,
Who’s to say there ain’t Baboons?
Those types both hang out.
My ability to recognize constellations seems to be kaput. I can find Orion when he’s around (I don’t think he is at the moment) and occasionally I think I can find a Dipper, but that’s it. No wonder I haven’t been accepted into Awesome Space Guy School yet.
As of tonight, I have worked late three times in a row. That’s not cool. Granted I used to work eleven or so hours a day, but since those days have passed I want those hours to go away as well. If next week doesn’t bring me shorter shifts, I’m gonna break some ponies.
Haiku!
Viking in jungle.
He is hot and quite confused.
I hope he’s okay.
Can anyone explain to me why we don’t have giant oranges yet?
