Tetherd Cow Ahead

The guys over at Patently Silly have uncovered the work of heretofore unknown beverage genius Kineo Okado. Mr Okado has filed a US patent for ‘Alcoholic beverages derived from animal extract, and methods for the production thereof‘.

Yes, that’s right sports fans, we’re talking meat alcohol. Alcoholic beverages made from meat. And when we’re talking meat, we’re talking chicken and fish as well. The sky is the limit for Mr Okada who is proposing that his concept would be applicable to any animal protein.

(I can just see him enthusiastically explaining the idea to his lab assistant: “Just think Yamada-san – alcohol made from ostriches! Alcohol made from prawns! Alcohol made from water buffalo! Mwahahaha! This will turn the tables on those barbarian gaijin who shunned my Sea Cucumber Custard!)

Examining the patent (it’s a pretty good read, but make sure you’ve some Stemetil handy) we find Okada-san buttressing his pitch with precedents:

Various techniques are well known in the art for the preparation of yeast-fermented beverages such as wine, beer, ale, sake, and the like, which may be applied to the yeast fermentation phases of the production process according to the present invention.

… in Europe and America, various processed meat products, for example fermented sausage, are consumed.

Mmmm. Next time you order the Meat Lover’s Special Pizza, you might consider an accompanying glass of Pepperoni Pinot, Bacon Beaujolais or Cabanossi Cabernet for the Complete Meat Experience.

Of the fermentation process he informs us that:

The resulting product has a distinctive flavor.

Oh, yes, I’m sure he’s right on that aspect.

Skimming through further, one may find some truly nauseating suggestions accompanying the basic concept. Consider:

Carbonated water and flavoring materials such as fruit juice and honey may be added to the resulting fermented beverage according to an aspect of the invention.

Mmmm. Honey flavoured beef schnapps! Lamb & orange vodka! And not just sweet alcoholic meat beverages, but carbonated sweet alcoholic meat beverages as well! Forget Coq au vin: bring on the Coq au Cola!

The alcoholic beverage may also be used in subsequent processes to produce composite beverages (e.g., cocktails)

Here Mr Okado opens up the entire field of mixed drinks and cocktails. What a bonanza. You want to be really careful from now on when you order a Moscow Mule, a Salty Dog or a Fluffy Duck.

The comprehensive patent is wonderfully detailed, colourful and, I’m sure, technically precise, and yet, after all is said and done there still remains one weighty and impatient question on the matter of the Alcoholic Meat Beverage:

Why?

I have this friend who was interested to know if it is possible to put a curse on someone online. This friend searched all over the internet and found that aside from one poxy and insipidly saccharine voodoo doll site, there appears to be nowhere at all where this can be done.

Oh very well, I know what you are all saying: “Who’s he kidding, we weren’t born yesterday! We are The Astute Cognoscenti of The Cow!”. Yes, I confess, it is no ‘friend’ I am talking about, it is ME!

Yesterday, after one last unprovoked prodding by some oily friend of Raymundo I decided that I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more! I am being assaulted from all sides with spam. It’s getting to be a real pain in the ass. It clogs up my email, stops my friends from leaving comments on my blog and even invades my dreams. But what to do???

Then, last night, sometime around the Witching Hour, it came to me! If the little red wagon of the spammers can’t be fixed by conventional means, then it follows that I have no option but to turn to black magic.

But dammit! What the hell is this? I can buy my groceries online, book my flights online, pay my gas bill online, watch my movies online and get ordained online but evidently there is just no way to put even a basic curse on someone via the internet.

This is a failing of apocalyptic proportions!

I did find a site that offers to sell me a voodoo doll kit via mail order. A compromise, but I guess…

The one thing that immediately struck me, though, was the caveat:

Remember to ask that the person be hurt only as much as you were, no more and no less — by using a doll fairly you are in no way breaking any Universal laws.

Now this poses a difficult ethical question: How much do these spammers hurt anyone? According to Spamhaus, a site that tracks the nefarious escapades of the web’s spammers, Public Spam Enemy #1 in the top ten is the Ukraine’s Alex Blood. Mr Blood is profiled as the operator of a ‘massive botnet and child-porn spam ring’. That’s pretty bad, right? That deserves a pretty hefty curse, right?

I opted for having his eyes put out or his hands chopped off. Or both.

I mentioned it to Nurse Myra.

“I’m a bit worried about this evil streak that’s coming out in you,” she said, in a spectacular example of the Pot Calling the Kettle Black.

“Why?” I said, “Spammers are the scum of the earth!”

“Even so, that’s rather extreme…”

“What about having his dick shrivel up and drop off?” I asked. “Painfully”.

She made a face.

“Well what would you suggest?” I asked. “A bad case of diarhhoea?”

No, this will never do! I need some serious hi-tech online voodoo to kick the butts of Alex Blood and his despicable cronies. Something that doesn’t come with prudish karmic warnings.

So, Faithful Minions of The Cow, this is your mission should you choose to accept it (when I say that, you understand I am just quoting Mission Impossible and that you have no choice, n’est ce pas?):

I want you all to go out and scour the web for online black magic. These lowlife scum must be stopped!

If, in your idle moments, you have the desire to just throw caution to the wind and experience the bizarreness of the web, there are lots of sites on the net like Uroulette that allow you to go tripping off to random destinations.

I just figured out something even better though. I call it the Birthday Image Search (BISâ„¢). Here’s how it works:

You go to Google Image search, and enter your birthdate as a string of numbers like this 110785… This will give you a whole host of result sites that are related only by this number string.

My #1 hit was this interesting montage of a Japanese woman casually, and one must presume titillatingly, exposing her underwear. Other featured sites for my birthday were:

★A site selling a sleeping bag with removable pillow

★A Santa Claus toys site

★A Newswire article about Shakira†

★A Japanese site with a picture of a very unhappy-looking Japanese man

★A Hello Kitty games site

★An online hardware shop page for a drill chuck-key

Anybody do any better?

†This is particularly intriguing because at the Apple iTunes Shop, people who bought my CD ‘Houdini’ also bought CDs by Shakira. Shakira has never been in my interest sphere until now, and from what I read about her music, it’s hard to make a link to my stuff. Is the universe telling me something?

In Australia, our risible government has just announced the genesis of a personal identification card for the citizenry, something this conservative party has been trying to instigate for over two decades. It has never been popular, but since this government seems to believe it is invincible (and indeed, I am beginning to wonder if the Australian populace has had a sudden plunge in IQ, fulfilling this belief), it has just issued an edict that the card will be so, and that, apparently, is that.

I don’t want to dwell on the implications of infringements of personal freedoms here – I’m sure the smart readers of The Cow are already aware of such perils – but instead highlight some of the continuing idiocy that seems rife when it comes to modern technology.

Specifically this claim: The card would have the Highest Levels of Security and that it would be Completely Safe.

Now. Politicians and other people who think we are still living in the 1950s hear me: NOTHING IS ‘SAFE‘ IN THE DIGITAL WORLD. NOTHING!

This pig-headed, arrogant and stupid belief is based on the supposition that all the smartest people out there are:

a: Employed by friendly government or legitimate business interests, and/or

b: Honest

This is demonstrably not so, and as we become more and more reliant on the digital world for our data storage, the risk becomes proportionately greater. At the moment things hang together because the ad hoc system is diffuse and evolving and new, and the exploiters are by and large amateurish and not organised. But slowly that’s changing, and as the recent Citibank frauds have shown the execution can be novel and simple and devastating.

If you trust your valuable data to the online world unaware of the risk, you are a fool. An incidence of massive online fraud of some kind is inevitable and imminent.

Aside from intentional criminal manipulation for actual monetary gain, the other commodity that has value in the digital world is information. I have exactly zero faith that a government like ours, which has demonstrated time and time again its complete failure to grok the online world, would have even the remotest chance of protecting valuable personal data from someone who really wanted it. Or, that once such data is accumulated, it will not be used for purposes other than those for which it was collected.

I believe a ‘Smart Card’, for that is what they are calling it, is a very dumb idea.