mylanta
05-07-2002, 04:43 PM
I was flipping channels this weekend, and for a while I settled on a show about the lions of Africa's Serengeti. I don't remember, it might have been Lion King, or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, or a Discovery Channel, or Animal Planet, or Nick's Thornberry's, or what not. It showed how all the migrating zebras or aardavarks or gazelles, or what not, would go long distances trailed by these lions. Every now and then the lion would get hungry, and would wait until the migrating animals were like crossing a difficult place, like a river, or a lake, or a ravine, or what not. The lions would watch 100, 1000, 10000, maybe 100000 animals make the crossing safely, with every succeeding animal looking like the preceeding animal. But then! Then with lightning quick moves, the lion would have picked a gazelle out and pounced on it! The gazelle must have had some weakness that we couldn't see, but its defect meant that it was the lion's next meal. Run, run, pounch, claw, bite, devour, dead.
While I was watching this educational show, it came to me that this behaviour in the animal kingdom, was the exact same as we have here in the HVAC-talk world. I will be reading the same threads as everyone else, and they all appear innocent enough, and when out of the clear blue ethernet comes James3528 pouncing on some weak poster, and before I could barely understand what was going on, James3528 would have ripped off the only leg that the poster had to stand on and would have shoved that ripped off leg down the weak poster's mouth. It is obvious that James3528 is exhibiting the exact same behaviour as those lions of the Serengeti! James3528 must be the king of HVAC jungle!
And then I did some goggle-research about James3528 and lions and Serengeti and HVAC and came across this remarkable story.
It seems that our lion king James3528 was one day out walking in his HVAC jungle, surveying everything that he was the ruler on. And lo and behold he comes across this skinny newbie lion who is lying off the path, crying. So James3528 stops and asks the newbie lion why he is crying. The newbie lion explains how he was out hunting, was not having any luck in reading the gazelle droppings, tried hunting in a new area, and got hopelessly lost. The kind side of James3528 comes out and he takes pity on this newbie lion and offers to help. Our lion king explains how he will teach the newbie lion how to hunt so that he can feed himself. So James3528 dilligently works with the newbie, teaching him to jump forward, to jump sideways, to creep up, to lie in wait for the right moment, to recognize danger, to avoid the elephants, to pounce, to roar, etc, etc. After a while this newbie lion is full of confidence and ability and is ready to hunt on its own. So the newbie lion declares that the first thing he is going to do is to eat James3528! And he makes a mighty jump toward our hero! But instead of catching James3528, he lands short because James3528 has jumped backwards! And immediatedly James3528 jumps toward the newbie lion, rips off all his legs, shakes him by the throat, and waits for him to die of suffocation. With his last dying breath the newbie lion croaks out "But you never taught me to jump backwards!". And James3528 laughs a mighty lion roar and says "What kind of stupid, ugly, idiot of low moral inbreeding, are you? I'm not going to teach you everything I know! You're a pathetic waste of my time." And with that James3528, our lion hero king, eats the newbie lion.
So the morale of this story? Be careful where you post, because James3528 is out there waiting for you to make a teensy, wheensy, but fatal mistake. You can't see him, but he is there watching and waiting. And just when you think it is safe - wham, bam, you're dead, maam.
While I was watching this educational show, it came to me that this behaviour in the animal kingdom, was the exact same as we have here in the HVAC-talk world. I will be reading the same threads as everyone else, and they all appear innocent enough, and when out of the clear blue ethernet comes James3528 pouncing on some weak poster, and before I could barely understand what was going on, James3528 would have ripped off the only leg that the poster had to stand on and would have shoved that ripped off leg down the weak poster's mouth. It is obvious that James3528 is exhibiting the exact same behaviour as those lions of the Serengeti! James3528 must be the king of HVAC jungle!
And then I did some goggle-research about James3528 and lions and Serengeti and HVAC and came across this remarkable story.
It seems that our lion king James3528 was one day out walking in his HVAC jungle, surveying everything that he was the ruler on. And lo and behold he comes across this skinny newbie lion who is lying off the path, crying. So James3528 stops and asks the newbie lion why he is crying. The newbie lion explains how he was out hunting, was not having any luck in reading the gazelle droppings, tried hunting in a new area, and got hopelessly lost. The kind side of James3528 comes out and he takes pity on this newbie lion and offers to help. Our lion king explains how he will teach the newbie lion how to hunt so that he can feed himself. So James3528 dilligently works with the newbie, teaching him to jump forward, to jump sideways, to creep up, to lie in wait for the right moment, to recognize danger, to avoid the elephants, to pounce, to roar, etc, etc. After a while this newbie lion is full of confidence and ability and is ready to hunt on its own. So the newbie lion declares that the first thing he is going to do is to eat James3528! And he makes a mighty jump toward our hero! But instead of catching James3528, he lands short because James3528 has jumped backwards! And immediatedly James3528 jumps toward the newbie lion, rips off all his legs, shakes him by the throat, and waits for him to die of suffocation. With his last dying breath the newbie lion croaks out "But you never taught me to jump backwards!". And James3528 laughs a mighty lion roar and says "What kind of stupid, ugly, idiot of low moral inbreeding, are you? I'm not going to teach you everything I know! You're a pathetic waste of my time." And with that James3528, our lion hero king, eats the newbie lion.
So the morale of this story? Be careful where you post, because James3528 is out there waiting for you to make a teensy, wheensy, but fatal mistake. You can't see him, but he is there watching and waiting. And just when you think it is safe - wham, bam, you're dead, maam.