Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Man – the Last 10,000 Years

The year two thousand oh-nine is an auspicious one, and accordingly it seems fitting that it should be chosen as the year in which to review man’s accomplishments of the past ten millennia. These twelve months will indeed be momentous, featuring nothing less than the inauguration of America’s first black President, the inauguration of America's first Christian President that half the nation thinks is Muslim, and the publication of a seminal history of the past ten thousand years.

Let us then join hands in a creepy born-again Christian way, and journey back…

Ca. 8,000 BCE – Significant quantities of ice make domesticating animals and crops difficult. Man takes succor from promise of imminent global warming and delights in mass extinctions as fauna fails to adapt to warmer climes. Even at this early stage, man is such a bastard.

Ca. 7,400 BCE - Man successfully kills off his foe, the wooly mammoth. The role of largest hairy land mammal is assumed by primitive Armenians.

Ca. 7,000 BCE – Man domesticates plants and animals thereby developing agriculture. His invention of the tractor and narrow country lanes infuriates non-farming man for the rest of human history.

Ca. 6,311 BCE – Invention of written language makes early caveman think history is accelerating. Throg of Lower Boulderia first coins ‘synergy’ and ‘paradigm shift’. Man nostalgic for wooly mammoth.

5,081 BCE – Man invents wheel.

5,080 BCE – Man invents intellectual property law. Suicide invented by creator of wheel.

Ca. 2,500 BCE – Pyramids of Giza represent great achievement in architecture by early man until later man discovers they were constructed by digging away the desert around them.

Ca. 1,000 BCE – Book of Genesis written, demonstrating man has evolved sufficient intelligence to draw entirely the wrong conclusion as to his origins.

490 BCE – Athenian Pheidippides runs 26 miles to Athens after Battle of Marathon to announce Greek victory over Persia and dies on the spot. Recreational runners confident the 150 miles he ran over the previous two days were more likely to have killed him.

216 BCE - Hannibal of Carthage leads army across Alps with aid of elephants to crush Roman forces at Cannae. Romans in particular miss the wooly mammoth.


0 – ‘BCE’ becomes ‘BC’ for the next 2,000 years or so, until it is finally reunited with ‘E’, to the great jubilation of some.

Ca. 400 – St. Augustine of Hippo becomes pre-eminent scholar in Christendom after divining the doctrine of Original Sin out of what looked like thin air to everyone else, but which he guaranteed was actually divine revelation. He goes on to discover the vagina, but is largely unimpressed.

1000 – Inhabitants of the developed world run riot as Y1K bug strikes, wiping out crops and resetting sundials. The Jews are blamed.

1099 – Europe introduces itself to Muslimdom via 'faith enforcement action'. Eight crusades later and Vatican abandons policy of armed antagonism with hastily scrawled note reading ‘just kidding!

1220s – Genghis Khan subdues all of Asia before his empire quickly collapses back into Mongolian obscurity, rivaling only Alexander the Great and his native Macedonia for anti-climatic conquests.

1405 – Chinese navigator Zheng He comprehensively sails the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa. He does this without testicles.


Ca. 1450 – Man invents early firearms hundreds of years after Chinese man invents gunpowder to eventual dismay of the latter. Fashionistas rue the decline of shiny suits of armor. Military chic eventually makes a return in the 20th Century when Michigan Militia begins selling range of camouflage maternity wear.

1453 – Muslimdom introduces itself to Europe, which belatedly discovers the rest of the world does not share its sense of humor.

1506 – Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa and his lack of talent is mistaken for artistic genius when he fails to paint a woman-like woman. Critics debate the issue for nearly five centuries until a wildly popular novel convinces them never to mention it again. Ever.

1513 – Italian political theorist and self-help guru Machiavelli writes early piece of political satire. He spends the rest of his career wishing he hadn’t.

1536 – King Henry VIII reads St. Augustine’s opinion on vaginas and makes himself an unpleasant husband to several women.

1642 – English man throws off the shackles of monarchy in the English Civil War.

1660 – English man changes his mind, apologizes, and promises never to do it again.

1687 – Man discovers gravity. Subsequent generations think ‘no fucking kidding.

1744 – Historians discover the past tense. They did not think much of it.

1789 – French Revolution sees man willing to die for liberté, equalité, fraternité and bestialité. Rest of Europe convinced it’s ‘just a phase’ from nation famous for fops and dandies. Rest of Europe soon conquered by Napoleon. French jokes invented by conquered rest of Europe in retaliation.

1825 – John Quincy Adams voted United States’ 6th President setting unfortunate precedent of electing former Presidents’ sons to nation’s highest office.

1860 – Forced labor enthusiasts naively instigate war against industrialized countrymen and lose, despite fetching uniforms and charming accents.

1920 –  Vaginas enter mainstream when they entitle certain persons to vote in the United States.

1937 – Man thinks he has invented the hobbit. He would later prove incorrect, and learn a valuable lesson in hubris in the process.

1939 – Man empowered by goofy moustache to conquer much of Europe.



1941 – United States collectively realizes ‘oh yeah, there’s a war on…

1945 – Man betrayed by goofy moustache.

1973 – ‘Golden Age’ of pornography determines Augustine to be wrong in his estimation of the vagina. Found by critics to be ‘really, really awesome’.

1984 – Apple Computers releases the landmark Macintosh personal computer. Sales of the device soar thanks to wide range of accessories, including mice, printers and the wildly popular slouch.

1993 Jurassic Park proves cinema has plateaued, with all subsequently released films being unoriginally derivative: King Kong is Jurassic Park with a giant ape; The Day After Tomorrow is Jurassic Park with  a terrible plot; The Shawshank Redemption is Jurassic Park with a prison.

1995 – Starbucks moves coffee into the mainstream and deceives 1-in-3 customers into thinking he can be a successful writer.

2001 – Wikipedia launches and adds exciting new element of uncertainty to learning process. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.[28]

2004 – Google becomes first search engine to eponymously verb itself.

2006 – Publication of The God Delusion causes ripples in the literate world. Man accused of making himself god by theists, and temporarily disappears from existence when atheists profess lack of belief in him.

2008 – First black man voted President of United States only 13 years after first black man votes. Leaders of undeveloped, corrupt African nations wonder what the big deal is.

2009 – Man wonders how history can be accelerating when later centuries take much longer to read through. Man hopes to breed wooly mammoth from reonstructed DNA, but scientists skeptical it will be much more than Jurassic Park with M. primigenius.

18 comments:

Ashley Joseph said...

History is awesome :D

Anonymous said...

Probably your best ever. A+, learned a lot.

Mostly, horrified to realise you weren't kidding about the camou maternity wear as evidenced below (I don't know how to put in links properly):

http://www.stellamaternity.com/camo.html

and for the naughty mummy:
http://www.babiesnbellies.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=963

Quantum_Flux said...

Yeah, dude, I give you an A on this assignment....plus my quantum of solace that I extend to ye.

Anonymous said...

Sweet blog! First history lesson that didnt put me to sleep! Strange how your blog came up when I put in a search for "hairy people". I was writing an article about that. haha.

Anonymous said...

Hairy people blog:
http://seafoodpunch.com/?p=1161

FrodoSaves said...

Thanks all!

I'd dearly love to take the credit, but as you know, history writes itself. The secret is in the interpretation!

FrodoSaves said...

D,

Thanks! Is that Sea Food Punch blog yours? I'm constantly amused by the keywords that bring people to Frodology. I've got a few hits from people searching for various things about the Kraken in past weeks.

Dani' El said...

1945 BFD – Man betrayed by goofy moustache.

Oh my Bama!
Is that Roy Cozy?

BFD= Before Frodo died.

Please tell me you don't really believe that Dabama is a Christian. Please!!

He's not a muslim either, but I guarantee you he is no christian.

2Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Th 2:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

I guess you think Britney Spears is a chrisian too, because she said so?

FrodoSaves said...

Please tell me you don't really believe that Dabama is a Christian. Please!!

I half-suspect that he's actually an atheist and is using religion as a politically convenient tool. But anyway, it's not generally my job to adjudicate who is or is not what. If someone wants to call themselves by a label which I don't share, that's largely their prerogative. Did you get the Britney Spears reference? :P

Seriously though, I feel people who call themselves 'Christian' can duke it out between themselves whether or not they 'really' are. As such, it's beyond my remit. I just commit the blasmockery.

That doesn't stop me from thinking she's a tart and a floozy though. Hah, fun word!

UNRR said...

This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 1/23/2009, at The Unreligious Right

FrodoSaves said...

Marvelous!

Thankee.

Dani' El said...

Congrats Frodo. :)

Rachel E. Bailey said...

Man takes succor from promise of imminent global warming and delights in mass extinctions as fauna fails to adapt to warmer climes. Even at this early stage, man is such a bastard.

ROTFLMAO!

Ca. 7,400 BCE - Man successfully kills off his foe, the wooly mammoth. The role of largest hairy land mammal is assumed by primitive Armenians.

So . . . freakin . . . wrong. . . .

That said, I agree completely :D

Ca. 1,000 BCE – Book of Genesis written, demonstrating man has evolved sufficient intelligence to draw entirely the wrong conclusion as to his origins.

Well-said!

Balls. . . .

That's my new catchphrase.

1000 – Inhabitants of the developed world run riot as Y1K bug strikes, wiping out crops and resetting sundials. The Jews are blamed.

Which means there's no excuse for the lack of foresight concerning Y2K, with this kind of millennial precedent.

So much for learning from the mistakes of the past!

1405 – Chinese navigator Zheng He comprehensively sails the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa. He does this without testicles.

When it comes to navigating seas, I didn't realize that testicles were considered as necessary as, say, a compass or a map. History is fascinating. Especially with its recurring theme being "balls" :)

1506 – Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa and his lack of talent is mistaken for artistic genius when he fails to paint a woman-like woman. Critics debate the issue for nearly five centuries until a wildly popular novel convinces them never to mention it again. Ever.

Yeah, forget da Vinci, let's talk about how all the "women" on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and in some of Michelangelo's other works look a little on the . . . Eastern European side, what with all the muscles and five o'clock shadow, and prominent groinal bulges.

1687 – Man discovers gravity. Subsequent generations think ‘no fucking kidding.’

Hey, to a guy who'd just gotten his brains scrambled by falling fruit, I'm sure "fall down, go boom" was a pretty huge breakthrough.

1939 – Man empowered by goofy moustache to conquer much of Europe.

1941 – United States collectively realizes ‘oh yeah, there’s a war on…’

1945 – Man betrayed by goofy moustache.


And then the UN un-Nazied the world forever. . . .

1993 – Jurassic Park proves cinema has plateaued, with all subsequently released films being unoriginally derivative: King Kong is Jurassic Park with a giant ape; The Day After Tomorrow is Jurassic Park with a terrible plot; The Shawshank Redemption is Jurassic Park with a prison.

ROTFLMAO--but dude! I liked The Day After Tomorrow! Currently, they're the only people having a worse and snowier winter than me!

2006 – Publication of The God Delusion causes ripples in the literate world. Man accused of making himself god by theists, and temporarily disappears from existence when atheists profess lack of belief in him.

Bravo, sir!

2009 – Man wonders how history can be accelerating when later centuries take much longer to read through. Man hopes to breed wooly mammoth from reonstructed DNA, but scientists skeptical it will be much more than Jurassic Park with M. primigenius.

Only with an important fail-safe: woolly mammoths won't be able to turn doorknobs.

Check, and mate, M. primigenius! Booya!
::endzone dance::elewe

FrodoSaves said...

ROTFLMAO--but dude! I liked The Day After Tomorrow! Currently, they're the only people having a worse and snowier winter than me

To be honest, I couldn't watch the whole thing. I loved the part where LA got ripped apart by tornadoes (do I hear Dani'El salivating?) and I think i stopped it sometime after a group of them got stranded in Grand Central. In any case, when you've got Jurassic Park, why bother even considering any other films? Christians take the same approach to the Bible, so I think it's fair.

Only with an important fail-safe: woolly mammoths won't be able to turn doorknobs.

Velociraptors didn't have opposable thumbs either, but look what happened! Breed them and we shall see, that's what I say.

Well-said!

I actually wrote the entire post so I could somehow work in the 'man has evolved sufficient intelligence to draw entirely the wrong conclusion as to his origins' thing. It really amused me for some reason.

Anyway, glad you liked it Vittles! Makes the huge amounts of time I spend on this damn thing worthwhile when I know people are enjoying it.

Frodo be with you.

Dani' El said...

I actually wrote the entire post so I could somehow work in the 'man has evolved sufficient intelligence to draw entirely the wrong conclusion as to his origins' thing. It really amused me for some reason.

That is funny. Lol.
I missed that.

Profound too.
I wonder if you pray to the benevolent god of Natural Selection, She will be able to create a new wing in your brain to achieve the proper knowledge that she does not exist. What?

PhillyChief said...

Well this is certainly bookmark-worthy. Who needs wikipedia?

zilch said...

Very funny, Frodo.

cheers from chilly Vienna, zilch

FrodoSaves said...

Thanks fellas!