NOT!!!
Lately I’ve been wondering if different sized, aged, and speeds of animals have different perceptions of time. Not just different perceptions, as the broad meaning of the term goes, but if they actually visually perceive things at different speeds. Take an ant for instance. They don’t live very long and they move extremely fast, so fast I can’t even see what they’re really doing. It’s all super twitchy to me like they’re in a strobe light. They move so fast I can only see half of what they’re doing. They must be able to see really fast too. Next, take a Galapagos tortoise for comparison: super big, super slow, they live for 200 years. My brother and I were not that impressed when we saw them in the wild, which wasn’t really the wild at all, but a 2-acre fenced in area in the woods with a 2 foot tall wall. Any animal that can’t climb a 2 foot wall probably deserves to be turned into soup. At first glance they were definitely cool, just being that big and old was something to consider. But after a while I realized they were just too slow to be awe-inspiring–just like ants don’t really care about us because we’re too big and slow for their high speed, high anxiety, go-go-go High Rev. Mocha lifestyles where deadlines for that June expense report need to be met or else Johnson will be over your ass like a rabid orangoutang and you’ll have to work Saturday to get it finished and miss the one weekend a month that you have with the kids and your Ex, Margaret, will be really riled because she was using this weekend to visit some college friends on the east coast that she hadn’t seen in 12 years and now that she’ll have to cancel her trip because you have to work this weekend or get fired, she’ll talk even more trash about you to the kids behind your back–all while her boyfriend, Darner (what the hell kind of name is that you wonder?), that lives with your kids moves in on your family and your youngest girl, Cynthia, has even started calling him Daddy–all this could be avoided though if the damn High Rev. Mocha machine at the Circle K had been working–then you wouldn’t have bonked on your last big ride on Sunday and would have come into work the next day on Monday with enough energy to get the week going right and finish up that June expense report on time before the weekend but now it’s too late since it’s 7:58pm on Friday and you’re not even half way done yet and your computer just froze.
So the tortoises…they move slow and live a long time. Their perception of time must be slow too. Opposite of ants. So if they were to watch a fungus grow, to them it would appear to us like a time-lapse shot, moving and changing, bending around and getting larger right before their very eyes. Think of how strange it would be to have to continually divert your direction while walking because trees kept magically sprouting up right in your path. Another point is this: do an ant and a tortoise accomplish the same amount in their lifetimes? An ant living 6 months and a tortoise 180 years? The same distance covered even?
I’ve been covering some ground lately. Not necessarily huge miles or hours, but some hard workouts. The day before yesterday I did my first daily double workout in a long time. V02 intervals in the morning and 1 minute intervals in the evening. It was a super hard day. You can’t really describe how much pain a day like that is with words, so tomorrow, when I plan to do a similar day of intervals, I’m going to tape my camera on backwards to my handlebars and document some good old fashioned cat-fishing. Cat fishing (the term attributed to the facial expression made when a rider is in a great amount of pain due to oxygen depravation) is a long standing Peterson tradition. The exercise doesn’t have to even be that painful to carry out a good catfish or grimace, my dad has been witnessed to produce amazing facial torque even when lifting non-heavy objects that he thinks will be heavy but really aren’t.
But of course the best cat fishing is done while on a bike during a race or intervals. It can serve three purposes: the most common and important being 1) to maximize oxygen flow as imminent blowing up is about to happen or, 2) to intimidate opponent with loud, ragid breathing or, 3) to trick opponent into thinking you’re about to blow up when in fact you still have an extra gear–fooling them into going harder and trying to drop you, only for you to come around them and attack once they sit up a bit.
I’ve written about the catfish face before, but in case you forgot or didn’t hear about it: imagine a catfish out of water, desperately trying to gulp in air–but failing of course since catfish don’t have lungs. The trick to it is that a catfish can survive out of water for hours, and while it appears they might be just about to die, once you throw em back in the water their fine. Same goes for the concealed catfishing face–that number (3) on the list of purposes a catfish face serves. If you know how to suffer properly you can catfish for hours on end and still take the sprint by surprise by at the end.
Speaking of fish, if I had to chose three foods to live off of for the rest of my life I would choose bananas, peanut butter, and kippered herring. I think the combination would actually make a great pre-race meal. If I had to choose only one food to live on for the rest of my life it would definitely be kippered herring (Kippered Snacks to be more specific). If you haven’t tried them, you’re an idiot. And if you tried them and don’t like them you’re an idiot that deserves to be shot. They’re everything you could want in a canned fish. Pungent fishy oder, salty after-taste, slight crunch of bone, oily, and simply mouth watering. I’m salivating just thinking about them!! They come in three flavors that I know of: regular, lemon-pepper, and tomato. I’ve never had tomato before because I like the regular and lemon-pepper flavors so much. I’m always on the look out for a good Kippered Snacks deal whenever I’m at the store. It’s quite often the first aisle I go down. The problem is, they’re usually not on sale. And when they aren’t on sale they’re like a $1.45 a can, which is a god damn rip off because it’s just a tiny piece of fish in a can! It should be cheaper than fresh fish but it isn’t, because it has “added value” from processing, just like potatoes that have been fried in cheap oil and turned into potato chips. The mark up on added value consumables is ridiculous and we’re all a herd of stupid sheep for going along with it and paying $4 for a box of cereal that’s only made up of corn, corn oil, and corn sugar. So that’s why I’m going on a Kippered Herring strike. I refuse to pay more than a dollar per can and I won’t be purchasing any Kippered Herring until I see a drastic drop in price all across the board–not just at Win-Co. Please join me in picketing outside the Fred Meyers tomorrow morning and we can display how inefficient efficient Democracy in a Capitalist-run world really is!
No photographer has ever been able to capture an image of an unopened can of Kippered Snacks. Their deliciousness is too overwhelming and immediate consumption must be pursued.
Also of importance in my life events (and I say this not to be crude, immature, or silly, but out of pure seriousness, integrity, and mind-baffling awe of the human body): last night I farted for 45 seconds straight. I shit you not. And I wasn’t estimating either, I was watching a ticking clock. Sadly this is nowhere near the world recored, which I looked up after completing the great feat. The world record is 2 minutes and 42 seconds.
KENNETT PETERSON 