Sunday, February 21, 2010

S ! C ! I ! E ! N ! C ! E ! SCIENCE!! YAAAYYY!!

Ladies and gentlemen, once again the world of science has finally begun to catch up with one of the idle-moment outputs of my mighty brain. I remember some twenty-five years ago, living in a noxious, ugly flat in the Fairfield river-flatland area of Brisbane. I recall lying awake at night, sweating like five pigs in a one-man sauna as Brisbane worked its summery magic on my stifling, stuffy little bedroom. I remember opening the windows, in the vain hope of catching some sort of leaden, humid, corpse-breath breeze from the stinking, turgid river...

... and then I remember the whining. The terrible, shrill, vicious whining of the clouds of Brisbane summer mosquitoes charging into my bedroom, sharpening their goddam nano-tipped bloodsucking probes, and diving straight for my fucking earholes. FUCKERS! FUCKERS!

In the end, I recall I pulled the sheet all the way over myself, leaving only my nose exposed so I could breathe. And of course, periodically one of the little bastards would have a crack at spelunking, and I'd get mosquito up the nostril, whereupon there followed much sneezing and snorting and swearing, and very little sleep. Christ on a flaming jet-propelled crutch, I hated those little bastards.

In the quieter moments of that night, I dreamed up a device. I designed it in my head. I dwelled on it at length, envisioning exactly how it would work. It would have three lasers, at least. Little things. Not too powerful. But they would be controlled by a computer, and a couple of high-resolution, motion-sensitive cameras. And whenever the cameras picked up the movement of a mosquito, ALL THREE GODDAM LASERS WOULD HOME IN ON IT -- and there, in the crossfire, the intensity of the three or four beams at once would be enough to ANNIHILATE THE FILTHY LITTLE BASTARD IN A BLAST OF SUPERHEATED LASER-DRIVEN MOSQUITO VAPOUR!

It was a Fine Dream. It made me happy. And I took it to bed with me on many long, sticky, filthy, vermin-ridden nights in South-East Queensland... at least until I could afford a proper mosquito net.

And now, ladies and gentleman, it is with the greatest of delight that I can tell you that Science has finally understood my needs, and come out swinging. Check it out: http://www.physorg.com/news185463943.html

There's even mosquito-zapping footage up on the website. Oh, and the scientists in question reckon they might be able to bring the per-unit cost down to maybe $50.

It's just a shame there are bugger-all mosquitoes here where I live. But if they build one that will take out those awful little fucking flies that you bastards breed on the mainland and send across the Strait with the northerlies every summer, I will buy at least one for every room in the house. In the meantime: YAAAAAYYYY SCIENCE!