Thursday, October 12, 2006

Moving Along Quickly Now...

Or, What a Pisser was Pavlov's Dog.

Dr. Ivan "Winkie" Pavlov was trained as a chemist. His famous experiment was more about the chemistry of digestion than it was about conditioned reflexes.

And here's something that most stories about Winkie and his dogs leave out: If after 'conditioning' the dogs, you stopped presenting food when you rang the bell, the dogs would quickly stop salivating at the sound of the bell. In other words, the conditioned reflex was temporary.

You're befuddled. Not about the fact that of course the dogs, after a series of bells without food, would stop salivating... Nope, what you're befuddled about is the point of me telling your this.

Because you're just as conditioned as those dogs! Yep, when it comes to reading blogs, you are. Probably with any reading. You have been conditioned. And you did it yourself, with a little help from the culture that nutured you. Your conditioned reflex is that when you choose something to read, it is ALWAYS with the expectation that there is a 'point' to what you are reading. You generally make an assumption when you chose something to read that it will "do" something for you, it will 'appeal' to some need you have.

Have you decided what my point is?

Me, either.

7 comments:

Nessa said...

Your point is that noodles don't know how to fly.

L. said...

You know what scares me? I got your point.

Bert Bananas said...

Nibbles, cite, please.

Grammie, you must be great (grate?) at getting to the truth of things!

Mary Lois said...

I read this blog expecting toilet humor. I read your comments on my blog expecting to be bludgeoned with a frat board. What's a frat board anyway?

Bert Bananas said...

Ms. Even-Handed, remember your college days and the Greek system? Fraternities, those bastions of eliteism, practiced barbaric cruelty on their Pledges. For one ignomic semester you were a Pledge, and were subject to the whims and caprices of the Brethren, the Active Brethren. Alumni did not have 'swatting' privileges.

Anyway, if a Pledge failed in some way to keep the rules, a Brother could give that Pledge a swat. And a "Frat Board" was used. Frat Boards were often grotesque and devilish in their size, design and solidity. Some had holes drilled in them to try to overcome wind resistance so that the swat would be unimpedded.

As is often the case when it comes to accepting humiliation, the life of a Pledge was made a bit more endurable by the knowledge that once completed, you'd have three years as an Active Brother to mete out humiliation to the Pledge groups that followed.

And so, a Frat Board is a paddle, designed to be applied to the hind end of those as need'em.

Nessa said...

Well, you mentioned the word "food" and I was eating noodles at the time I read this post and the title is Moving Along Quickly Now which of course refers to flying and you used the words "Not" and "Nope" which indicate the negative, ergo, Noodles can't fly. Simple.

Anonymous said...

There is not point, which is the point. So, I guess that's the point. Am I good or what?