Oogamagook on Organization

Oogamagook lived in ancient Hastings, and occasionally had dealings with the Picts. Most of it was just trade, but when the Picts thought they had been cheated out of something, they got extremely angry. They had been known to kill traders just because they got something teal when they had asked for it in blue-green. These guys were not particularly nice guys, and everyone who traded with them wanted protection. So, Oogamagook got together with a whole bunch of other neanderthals and put together a group to trade with the Picts. So, now the Picts didn't pick fights with the troglodytes, and they got all their trading done quickly, and everybody lived happily ever after, because they organized.

Joke#3

What do you get when you throw a grenade in a french kitchen?
Linoleum Blownaparte

Joke#2

So, there's this string, and he walks into a bar. The barman, however, tells him, "Hey, we don't serve your kind here," and throws him out on the street. The string goes back into the bar, and immediately gets thrown out again. The string, being an emotional string, sits on the curb for a few moments and cries. Then he has an idea. He ties himself into a bow and unravels his ends. He marches back into the bar. The barman looks at him very closely and inquires, "Are you the string?" "No, I'm a frayed knot"

Joke#1

New Feature: Occasional jokes. Today's is: Life is like a sewer. what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. -Tom Leher

The Guthrie

The summer before fifth grade, I decided to audition for A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater. I went to the audition, and did rather well. I got called back, which was a good sign, however, I was still surprised when I actually got the part of Tiny Tim. It was a rather small role (I only had eight lines throughout the play), so it was easy for me to memorize my lines. I was onstage a lot, though, and it was an extremely good experience. It was a large cast (42 people) and there were twelve children. Everybody involved was extremely kind, which, in retrospect, isn't too surprising. There aren't any jerks in theater. They wouldn't survive. Actors spend several hours a day with each other, crowded in backstage, wearing sweaty costumes, for several months. Actors have to be able to get along with each other.
Later that year, I was in All My Sons. It was a smaller cast, and there were only two kids, and we had the same roll, alternating performances. I had more lines, but I wasn't onstage for very long.
The next year, I auditioned for Christmas Carol again, and got the part of Tiny Tim again. It was just as fun, except for the guy who played Scrooge. He kept (only half jokingly) complaining about how much I weighed, because he had to pick me up at the end of every show.

Kered The Manraf

Hello. I am Kered the Manraf. If you couldn't tell from the previous posts (and you probably couldn't) I am a self-described intellectual. That means that I live in the world of the mind, which means that I would rather trust the evidence of my Mind than the evidence presented to me by my material senses. It also means that I am always mulling over the big questions in my mind. I am always thinking about concepts beyond the edge of my little world, but often not paying attention to the things underneath my nose.
I have been this way for even longer than I can remember, which is quite a long time. When I was only one and a half, my parents tell me, I spoke my first word. Most people's first words are something simple and easy to pronounce, like dada or mama. Mine was "moon." It was late in the evening, and the moon was almost full. My grandparents were visiting, and they kept pointing out the moon to me. My dad come home, and I pulled him over towards the window, pointing at the moon. I was saying the whole time, "Moon! Moon!" It is interesting that my first word was the name of one of the furthest visible objects in this world.
I have also always been rather philosophical. One of my earliest memories, from when I was about two or three, is of feeding the geese at the lake. It was in the afternoon, and I had been having lots of fun that day. I had had ice cream (with sprinkles), I had played in the park, and now I got to feed the geese. What funny creatures these geese were. They were almost as large, if not larger than me! I was tossing bread crumbs, as happy as could be, when one of the larger geese walked right up to me and bit me on the nose! It didn't really hurt, so after I got over the initial amazement, I just went on tossing bread. Later, when we were getting in the car, I told Mom what happened, and she laughed.
P.S. For those who were wondering, Oogamagook may very well continue to be a feature in this blog, if he is needed to help explore any strange concepts.

Oogamagook on Class

Oogamagook is a barbarian. Thus, he has poor tastes in music. (See the logic there?) And he hates librarians. He can't understand why on earth anyone would want to stick something in his ear, just to have it yell at him. And he can't understand why anyone would want some old lady to tell him what kind of book he wants to read. He likes to listen to soft music like something by the Neanderthal equivalent of Paul Simon, or just the brook burbling outside his cave. And, heck, he can't even understand why anyone would want to read a book. Oogamagook is not a very cultured troglodyte, but then again, is anybody? And, just because he isn't classy doesn't mean that he isn't happy. In fact, he rather enjoys being rude, crude ,and socially unacceptable, thank you very much!

Oogamagook on Innovation

Oogamagook, the Neanderthal had, hanging on his wall, a great big square thing made of solid stone, and in the middle of it was a hole. One day, he had to go from his cave in Hastings to his uncle's cave in Bath. That's quite a large distance for the modern troglodyte to take on foot, and he was dreading the trip, not to mention the fact that his uncle was an utter bore. As he was packing, he found himself lost in thought (a strange place for him), staring at the great big square thing. He suddenly lept up, exclaiming, "Eureka! All I have to do is round off those corners and buy a set of tires, and, hey, that's a wheel!" Oogamagook was a happy barbarian that day, as, not only did he not have to make the entire trip on foot, he had missed his appointment with his uncle because it's hard work to carve a wheel out of solid stone.

Oogamagook: Neanderthal, barbarian, and general, over-all Troglodyte

Sometimes, when exploring complex concepts, it helps to make them simple enough for a neanderthal such as Oogamagook to understand. One can do this through use of analagies, simple cause and effect, or humor, not to mention various other strategies. Many people throughout history have done this, including philosophers like Plato, religious personages like the man called Jesus, and even astrophysicists like Stephen Hawking. Perhaps the name Oogamagook is strange to the untrained eye, but one has to realize that he can be quite useful for exploring the world.