Cultural Mismatches

I play this game quite a lot - Jewel Quest. It's just a cheapo puzzle game you pay $5 bucks for over the Internet. It has some cool graphics and a fun path of increasing difficulty. It uses symbols from the Aztecs, and the basic backstory is that you are an archaeologists uncovering great riches in the jungles of Central America. To such effect, the game has a soudtrack that includes some generic jungle noises in the background.

The kicker, though?

When you actually win a level, you are rewarded with the greatest jungle noise of all - the giant, triumphant blast of a bull elephant.

Yeah, I didn't know that elephants were a Central American jungle thing. Amazing! *rolls eyes*

Why a License Should be Required to Reproduce

Contrary as I am, I truly believe that there are far too many people out there who should not be allowed to reproduce without a license. Simply because they are idiots. Take for example, this recent column from Dear Prudence, Slate.com's advice columnist:

Dear Prudie,

My daughter is 5 years old and has, like most girls her age, a hamper's worth of stuffed animals. While she has her favorites, she constantly wants more and usually connives to get someone (read: her grandparents) into procuring a new one every couple of weeks. The new one immediately becomes her favorite and she must sleep with it every night and haul it around half the day. My question is: Does this behavior indicate she'll be overly promiscuous as an adult, or at least unable to commit to a single partner?

—Perhaps Overly Worried Father

Um, ok. What kind of a moron would even think to ask whether or not his five-year-old's stuffed animal habits indicate whether or not she will be a slut? I mean, even if stuffed animal sleeping habits indicated some sort of sexual habit, from the description here, at the very worst the girl would become a serial monogamist, which basically means she is just like almost everyone else.

Luckily, Prudence is an intelligent and *ahem* prudent woman, and her answer was thus:

Dear Perhaps,

Of course that's what it indicates. You'd better start thinking now about what you're going to do when she's a young woman and throws over that big, chubby guy with the annoying laugh, Barney, for the sexually ambiguous Tinky-Winky, whom she then dumps for that moron, Elmo, who every time they come over asks you to get down on the floor and tickle him.

—Prudie

Way to snark, Prudie! I hereby nominate Prudence to hand out licenses to reproduce!