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Freak Speak

It’s easier to read Spanish than it is to read Shakespeare! Here’s the proof.

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Post #157 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

Okay, our English class in in the middle of reading HAMLET. It’s by William Shakespeare, of course, and our teacher says HAMLET is generally considered to be the greatest work of literature in the English language.

Say wha-a-a-a-!!

Shouldn’t the greatest work of literature at least be understandable? And I’m not talking about for kids like me; I’m talking about for adults. I’ll show you what I’m talking about in a minute. Get your brain ready for some torture. In the meantime, I’ve written this little story for you. It will look kind of foreign, but do your best to figure out its main storyline.

Here it is. Don’t give up. Give it a couple of minutes.

Un elefante es un animal interesante y differente. Es fabuloso, pero LOCO. Un elefante conduce su carro como un maníaco, rápido y furioso. Pero este elefante es estúpido. Sufre un accidente, un accidente terrible. El carro es destruido, pero el elefante está bien. ¡Qué afortunado es este elefante!

Yes, I know it’s in a foreign language. It’s Spanish! But I bet you can still understand most of it even though IT’S NOT IN ENGLISH! If I tell you that the word “pero” means “but,” you might get almost every bit of it.

Here’s the exact translation:
An elephant is an interesting and different animal. It is fabulous, but CRAZY. An elephant is driving his car like a maniac, fast and furious. But this elephant is stupid. He suffers an accident, a terrible accident. The car is destroyed, but the elephant is okay. How fortunate is this elephant!

How’d you do? Pretty well, I bet, and remember you’re reading it in SPANISH.

Now try this passage from HAMLET. (It’s much longer, but hey it’s in ENGLISH – right? — so it shouldn’t be that bad. I’ll give you the setup: Hamlet has been kind of flirting with Ophelia, so here’s his advice to her. See how much you can figure out about what he’s saying. And please don’t give up. Remember, it IS in English!

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will, but you must fear.
His greatness weighed, his will is not his own,
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The safety and health of this whole state.
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head…

(If this isn’t enough for you, Laertes explains himself further, 20 more lines worth, with quite easily understood language like this:)

…Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed, which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia. Fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed.
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary, then. Best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

So???? How much of that did you get? I’ll give you the essential summary:
MAYBE HE LOVES YOU NOW, BUT BE CAREFUL, OPHELIA.

That’s about the sum of it. And yes, our teacher told us that “his will is not his own” means he’s going to be the King of Denmark so whatever decision he makes will affect the whole country, and a bunch of other stuff, but I didn’t get any of her extra explanations from reading it, only from her telling us. And even now, I can’t really explain like 80 or 90% of it.

Honestly, how much did YOU get? Hey, I bet you didn’t even read it all!! Too hard, wasn’t it? Which automatically makes it boring after a minute or two (for most of us anyway).

SO WHAT I’VE PROVEN TODAY IS THAT IT’S EASIER TO READ IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE THAN IT IS TO READ SOME OF THE STUFF THEY’RE GIVING MIDDLE SCHOOLERS NOWADAYS.

HELP!!

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
To whom disaster does befall
When he hears Shakespeare’s call,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Speliing Duzn’t Mattr

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Post #156 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

All of you know about the National Spelling Bee. You know, where dorky kids who are way up there in the brains department spell words you’ve never even heard of, much less know how to spell. Over and over. Kind of scary smart, but it still makes you sick. Well, Dr. Crankenfuss is here to tell you that being a great speller ain’t so great after all. Take this challenge and you’ll see why “Speliing Duzn’t Mattr.”

So here’s the test. And it’s one that will make you feel good about yourself. Get out a stopwatch or some timing device and see how fast you can read the next paragraph — which I’ve put in CAPITAL BLUE LETTERS — as fast as you can. When you first see it, you’ll think it’s really hard. BUT IT WON’T BE. After you’re done, post your time. You’ll see how right I am in my title.

 IH YAM HIER TWO TEL U AH TROOTH YU PRBELBY HAF KNOT THUOGT UV BEEFOR. SPELING IZ NUT TAHT INPERTANT. YESC, EVRIBUDY TELZ U ET IZ — YUR TEECHARS, YUR PERANTS, EVIN U PRALBLY BELEEV ET. BT YU KAN REED THEZ PRTTY FST EVUN THO EVRY WURD IZ RONG. OW EZ THEZ POSBL? BEKUZ YUR BRANE WURKS BETR THN U THOGHT.

So how long did it take you? An hour?? Dude, that is NOT GOOD! Now c’mon, be honest, you had to do better than that. Anyway, next time someone gets after you for your bad spelling (like I do with people sometimes), tell those people like me, “Lay off, Bobo. You can understand this just fine.” It might just shut us up.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Who thinks kids should never fail
Just because they can’t spell,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Here’s how to make some real bucks. For real!

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Humor Post #22 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I can’t promise you a whole lot today. As you can see from my picture, I’ll still recovering from my recent encounter with Mr. Locker, a fight which left me injured and dazed. (I guess that’s why they call this daily grind we have to go through “School Dazed.”) But I’ll be okay. Ol’ Crankenfuss promises you that. You can never keep a good crank down, that’s what I like to say. But come to think of it, I’m always down so I guess it should be You can never keep a good crank up.

Oh, never mind.

Anyway, I found out something cool yesterday. After that terrifying locker incident, I was complaining to my friend Max — yes, I do have friends — that I should sue the school for a million bucks, something like that, and I started wondering why we call money bucks. So I googled bucks money origin when I got home and I found out that in olden times, like 200 years ago, pioneers would use deer skins to trade for things. (Except they called them buckskins since a male deer is called a buck.) It was a kind of money, see? For instance what if you were a pioneer in some town and you went to the General Store and saw this nice trail bike for sale? Well, okay, they couldn’t have had trail bikes back then, so let’s say you needed supplies and you saw a big bag of flour and a big bag of nails that you needed. (Work with me, okay?) You’d go up to the guy behind the counter and say, “Hey, podner, what say I trade you this buck here for them there bags o’ flour and nails?” and you’d haul out this big deer skin from your back pack (or whatever they’d call it back then). And the store guy would probably say yes cause that sounded like a good deal to him. (And it would be too.) So now we still say bucks instead of money.

But what I also found out is you can still make real bucks, that is, buckskins. You know there are always like a million pages listed under every subject at Google so I checked out this site called TwoWolves.org and they have a course that’ll teach you how to make buckskins. They’re in New Jersey, for gosh sakes! And it looks like I’d qualify to take the course. Here’s the requirements:

Simply, there are no minimum requirements or skill-levels. Whether you have never even touched a raw skin before, or have a few hides under your belt, you will benefit from a deeper exploration of this art, and taking your skills to the next level. All you need is a willingness to learn and work hard.

Well, that fits me to a C. This looked kind of interesting. So here’s more of what they said.

• Each apprenticeship program is in essence a “one-on-one” course. (Wow, individual tutoring. It doesn’t get better than that!)
• Course meetings will convene at our home facility in New Jersey. Meetings at the student’s residence will require compensation of travel expenses. (Uh-oh! Well, maybe my mom would agree to the extra expense. I mean, to be able to make real buckskins? Even she’d have to admit that was pretty cool.)
• During the duration of the program, students will be free to use all our tanning related gear (excluding chemicals, brains, and hides), to work on their projects. (Huh? Whose brains can’t I use? Theirs or mine? Without brains, this could be harder to figure out. Well, let’s go a little further.)
• All materials are included in the tuition cost, which is $1450. (Wha-a-a-a?)

Well, there goes that idea. But then I saw the picture of one of the guys at that place in his buckskin outfit.Here’s someone who made some REAL bucks!

Whew! I know we’re into Freaky Dudes here at FDB, but we might have to make an exception for this boy. But hey, you gotta give him props for his self-esteem.

So it looks like the old Crankoid won’t be making real bucks after all. But he did learn something in the meantime and he may even have taught you something. Hey, that head injury I suffered might have changed me after all. I actually did something nice for somebody.

Man, I gotta think about this. Maybe I’m one of those split-personality types. Oh, no! That locker may have literally split my personality in two.

Sorry, gotta go.

From Dr. C

Freak Speak

School lockers are dangerous, especially if you have a head

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Humor Post #21 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I was ready today to turn over a new page. “I’m going to be positive for once,” I said to myself. (Note: Yes, I talk to myself. But don’t you go there! I don’t do it out loud, for gosh sake.) So I was thinking real hard about what I could write today. Maybe something about liking school. N-A-A-H-H! No way! Or how about how scrumptious the school food is. Well, the fact that I chipped a tooth on one of their hot dogs kind of eliminated that one for a post. But I was going to come up with something. I knew I could.

Then I went to my locker and all my good intentions got beaten and bloodied, all because of my locker, that big bum! (In case you didn’t notice, check out those bandages on my head. Hey, it looked way worse before the nurse cleaned me up.) Here’s a picture of the type of lockers we have in our school. (I took this shot last summer when we had an orientation session for all the new sixth graders. Good thing, too, cause they look pretty nice, not all crunked up like they are now.)Now this isn’t my locker exactly but you get the picture. I have one of the lower ones. Big enough to cram in about half of what I need to. Low enough to get kneed and kicked by anyone nearby who is clumsy enough (or mean enough) to run into me. But that isn’t what happened either.

I think you can get a big clue from that open locker door in the photo. See that lower right corner of the door sticking out? The sharp metal corner? The corner that tried to enter my brain when I stood up the wrong way? The corner that didn’t try to help at all while I was staggering around holding my head while some people tried to help me and others laughed?

So much for positive thinking!

I guess I’ll live. I mean I haven’t noticed any post traumatic stress or anything from the accident yet (except the stress that typing this has caused, since this post doesn’t exactly paint me as Mr. Coordination, does it?) But the school is lucky. I could have maybe stood up so fast that the locker door could have gone clear through my head down to my neck and then I would have been standing there with the two sides of my head hanging down. Now THAT would have been painful! Nobody would have been laughing then. Yeah, I think me and my mom could have collected a bunch in court after that.

Hey, I do have something positive to say. I’m positive my school (and any others with the same lockers) should have lockers that don’t open halfway down to the ground. That way you’ll have a lot fewer accidents and students won’t be threatening their looks just to get a few books.

See, once again Dr. Crankenfuss, the coolest middle school blogger out there, has come up with a plan to help students everywhere. No thanks is necessary. (But money would be nice.)

from Dr. Crankenfuss, brightening up your life with humor and awesomeness

Freak Speak

This chick done laid a brick

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Humor Post #20 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Freaky Dudes come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. They’re individuals and don’t like to be told what to do. Now of course you all know that I’m an awesome freaky dude and okay, I’ll give him his props: Daniel (the guy who runs this site) is sort of a freaky dude too (in his sad, old guy kind of way). But take a good look at this guy about to enter your consciousness.

Bo Muller Moore from Vermont (photo from The New York Times)

Now that, dear reader, is a true honest-to-goodness FREAKY DUDE! I mean how ’bout those green shades? I wouldn’t want to be in front of him when he was driving. Or next to him either, for that matter. But I have to admit the guy is way cool. And look what he’s been through lately.

How could this innocent vegetable feel threatening to anyone?

All he wants to do is make t-shirts that say, “Eat More Kale.” Like that one he’s wearing.

How could this sweet vegetable threaten anyone?

“So what’s the matter with that?” you may ask. And I may answer, “Nothing, that’s what. If he wants to make t-shirts, be my guest.” Kale doesn’t seem to be hurting anybody. (You can see at the right that it doesn’t look too dangerous.)

Ah, but that isn’t what Chick-fil-A thinks. You know, that big chicken restaurant that makes those (rather delicious, I must admit) chicken sandwiches? (Hey, their waffle fries ain’t bad either.) They’re like “Ooooooh, we’re really frightened of that guy Bob way up in Vermont. He might ruin our business.” They say that Freaky Dude Bob’s t-shirts sound too much like “Eat Mor Chikin,” the slogan they use in all their ads. They say people will get the Bob’s Kale t-shirt mixed up with Chick-fil-A stuff and that would be a dagger in the old heart for them.

Say what?? Is Chick-fil-A like on drugs or something? Here’s an article from The New York Times that talks about the whole thing. (That’s also where we got the photo above.)

And if you don’t believe the NYT, here’s another article by a “stay-at-home mom” who’s blogging about the same thing.

Now let me get this straight. If I’m sitting at the dinner table and I’ve only eaten a spoonful of my spinach and my mom gets all huffy and orders, “Hey Doofledork, eat more spinach,” does that mean I might think she’s ordering me to eat more chicken? (BTW, she doesn’t really call me Doofledork. I kind of exaggerate sometimes.) Will Chick-fil-A send the cops to our house and try to arrest her for trademark infringement?

This is very serious stuff, people, if it weren’t so laughable. So read those articles and learn something. (Hey, I learned that pro bono means for free. I always thought it meant you like U2.) Then go to those Facebook pages and exercise your constitutional right to free speech to let Freaky Dude Bob know that you support him even if you don’t want to eat any kale. And then tell Chick-fil-A to leave that Vermont guy alone.

As my title says, “This chick done laid a brick.”

And always know you can mozy on down to the ol’ Crankster’s blog any time you want to know what’s really going on in the world.

From your cranky correspondent (but defender of Freaky Dudes from the mean old establishment),

Dr. Crankenfuss