- FROM THE ARCHIVE -

Okay.

Experiments are failing. Confidence is disappearing. Each dark day feels a little more desperate than the last. I am in dire need of course correction and I’ve stumbled onto an absolutely foolproof solution that will undoubtedly have me rocking the bench again very, very soon.

Drugs.

That’s right. Drugs are the answer.

And nothing weak either. Though the irony of abusing nicotine while studying lung cancer scores well, cigarettes just don’t have the kick I’m looking for. With firsthand experience attempting to pipet after guzzling a sixer, booze are out too. And you can forget pot: my lack of beard these days makes it way harder to score and after smoking up I would likely spend most of my time at the bench attempting to convert our 3L filter flask into a bong.* Oh and caffeine doesn’t count: I’ve been rocking the bean since Day One, so having it there in the background is clearly not enough for me to be obtaining results. (Man, who isn’t chasing the jittery dragon, getting their fix from the Pusher-man in the green apron on a daily basis?)

The hard questions need the hard stuff. When faced with what I’m facing, you have to up the ante: spark it, shoot it, snort it, whatever. Get the hit, get the data, get the cure, get famous.

The trick, of course, is to pair the right drug with the right job. This is the Issue At Hand, man – the salient feature – and all will be answered by the following presented below.

- – -
Subject
Chemistry: DIY people! Chemists should not be looking beyond their own lab to score. Mix and match whatever you have on hand – become one with your chemicals.

Psychology: Cocaine. Not only is it passed down from Freud himself, the inflated self confidence will help you overcome the insecurities that come from the realization that what you do is not actually science. Go with the Austrian Answer!

Physics: Mushrooms, marijuana, etc. – anything you have to go out and retrieve from nature. You people need to get back into the real world on the A-SAP. Richard Feynman played bongos – what can you do?

Forestry: Take the physics kids to the woods. Show them Nature’s bounty, then steal their wallets. Use stolen money to purchase ketamine. Mmm… horse tranquliizer.

Computer Science: Steroids. It’s the only way they’ll stop picking on you.

Biology: Chances are pretty good that you’re already smoked up, so why not sign off entirely by getting lost in the ether vapours?

Engineering: Don’t worry about taking anything yourself; you need to get the people around you high so they’ll put up with you. Seriously.

Mathematics: Speedballs = heroin + cocaine. You already know how it’s all going to end, so you might as well go out with a bang.

Task
Statistics: Nitrous oxide. Because whippit-induced giggles will ease the pain when significance can’t be found.

Scholarship/Grant applications: Methamphetamines. Or get a triple espresso and snort some Ritalin. Whichever is closer at hand.

Sitting through a regularly boring seminar/class: Any barbiturate. (Please note that use of pentobarbital suppositories might not be the best choice for a crowded lecture theatre).

Revolutionizing field of research: LSD. If you dropped acid in high school, don’t bother – the flashbacks might be enough to carry you to Stockholm. Please talk to Kary Mullis as Timothy Leary is in orbit and Novartis is apparently stingy with their stash these days. A daily does guarantees a Nobel prize.

- – -
You must choose wisely. If the recommendations above don’t at least augment your research prowess, they will help you forget the frustrations of your rigorous scientific investigation.

Look, the way I see it is this: if we treat disease with drugs, why not treat disease researchers with them as well? Bill Maher once said that while he’d never tried heroin, it sure hadn’t hurt his record collection. Doesn’t it stand to reason that this would also hold true for scientific research? It should be all about medicated medicators!

As for me… I’ve decided to hitch a ride with the peyote express. Mmm… cactus juice.

Think: “Mescaline don’t fail me now!”

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -

1
Went to the mall today. Bought some boxer briefs and an Icee. Stopped into the arcade and lost to some punk kid at Street Fighter II. It’s hard for me to push the buttons at the right time. Shuttle Remote Manipulator Prostheses (SRMP) destroyed Street Fighter machine.

2
Saw a friend’s band play, alone. I wish someone else would have come with me. People don’t always want to talk to the guy with nine hundred pounds of space steel strapped to his body.

Broke the arm of the lead singer when I gave him a high-five.

3
Laid around with my dog and read while it was raining. Flipped through an H.P. Lovecraft collection. He really isn’t so scary, but his characters have a certain lovable horror that makes them endearing. I like that.

Crushed dog with SRMP.

4
Jenny’s pool party was almost fun. Massive robotic prostheses scare most women and children. Accidentally pulled power lines into pool. Three dead.

5
Dropped my coffee mug at the coffee shop. Spilt coffee on SRMP, and short circuited it, starting a small twenty-four hour rampage. Destroyed a city block and beat up old ladies. Also, I set the local orphanage on fire.

6
Finally passed out at the bar watching VH1 around three in the afternoon. Woke-up with half of a burrito lodged between my robotic tendons, and a face full of dry beer. People were around. It was dark outside.

I reached over and put a quarter in the jukebox, forty-five feet away.

(Note that a semblance of this piece was first concieved by Gene over at Utterwonder)

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

This month’s Hot Science-y Guy really sucks. Okay, James Dyson doesn’t suck, but his inventions sure as heck do. Just ask my friend, Bob, who recently purchased the Dyson Animal Model No. I-Don’t-Know−Exactly-but-It’s-a-Lovely-Shade-of-Purple.

Oooh… a purple vacuum…

And boy-oh-boy! I sure would like one of these bad boys for myself. And this time, when I say “bad boy”, I don’t mean that in my usual way (see previous “Sparky” references). I mean I really want one of Mr. Dyson’s vacuums! Vacuuming is something I really like doing in the way of household chores. There’s a lot of bang-for-your-buck with vacuuming. It’s a mild workout, sort of like mowing the lawn indoors, and you get to see immediate results – especially if you don’t do it for a few months and eat a lot of chips and crackers and Top Ramen straight out of the package. And while the Swiffer Carpet Flick is truly a must-have (as are most things in the Swiffer line of home maintenance – trust me!), I dream of one day owning a Dyson.

I first became acquainted with this fabulous appliance at last year’s Interior Design Show. There I was on Trade Day, scarf-tossing with the best of them, when I noticed my dear friend, Bob, was missing from my side. Was he mesmerized by a supplier of indoor water features (always a big draw) or grabbing an $8.75 plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich? No! He had stopped to watch a demo at the Dyson booth. I was gobsmacked. Having just purchased a new house, Bob was supposed to be on the lookout for reasonably-priced cork flooring and closet organizers – not a vacuum cleaner. But there he was, a rapt one-man audience far away from the cork floor and closet exhibits, listening in earnest to a middle-aged Dyson Toronto Representative pouring her honey-sweet palaver into his captive earhole. I thought at first that he was just trapped into habitual politeness and was, perhaps, hoping I’d arrive to pull him away – but not so. Ms. Dyson Rep was not your usual Electrolux yammerer. Ms. Dyson Rep was into her thing! And how could she be otherwise? Dyson vacuums rock! No bags. No suction-loss. Easy disposal of sucked-up crap. Awesome hose extension. Etc., etc. Listen, you don’t need me to sell you on the fine points of an iPod or a PlayStation or a 50″ plasma television. They’re all lovely things to have and covet and steal if you can get away with it. But, me, I am so saving up for a Dyson vacuum.

And as for Mr. Dyson himself, he’s certainly not an unattractive. That finely-polished Brit accent of his is as smooth and lush as Bob’s newly-installed cherry hardwood flooring. Plus, it would seem, for all his multi-multi-millions of pounds sterling and super-engineering science-y know-how, Mr. Dyson actually helps out around the mansion with the day-to-day clean-up.

Word to Mrs. James Dyson: You lucky woman, you – you’ve got a hot one!

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

Something a little different this time, people. This month’s Hot Science-y Guy of the Month isn’t a guy (as if you need me to tell you that). But she is hot (like en fuego-y and muy caliente hot). And she’s very science-y. So in the words of the beloved rock-icon-named-after-a-comfort food, Meatloaf, two outta three ain’t bad. And when you’re Nuvia Crisol Guerra, that’s the total opposite of bad!

Nuvia Crisol Guerra. Okay, that’s just a hot name right there. Nuvia. Nuvia. Like she’s a supermodel or a sports car. I’d never heard of a Nuvia before this Nuvia. I even tried looking up the name on babynamesworld.com and there’s no listing for it. Which isn’t surprising, really. She’s definitely one-of-a-kind and her parents clearly knew what they were doing when they named her Nuvia instead of Steve or Brian.

When Nuvia isn’t going around just being all hot and science-y as a molecular biologist in San Diego, she travels all over being hot and artsy. That’s right – she’s got her feet firmly planted in the worlds of both the nerds and the flakes – but when your legs are as long as Nuvia’s, that’s easily done. (See more of Nuvia’s artwork here, here, here and here. Please note that I can neither confirm nor deny that the legs in the paintings are hand-rendered facsimiles of the painter’s.)

Oh, and here’s another thing that’s a little different this month, folks. I’ve actually met this person! I can personally vouch for her real-life hotness and science-y-ness, and she wears this really nicely-scented body cream, and she bought me the first and only authentic tamale this Toronto-girl has ever had.

So ladies, don’t hate Nuvia Crisol Guerra because she’s beautiful. But by all means feel free to hate Nuvia Crisol Guerra because she’s ultra-brainy and super-talented and funny and kind and smells good and has a super-talented wonderful boyfriend who truly adores her with every fibre of his gifted being. (He’s not so science-y, but he does do stuff like this.

Okay, so do we all feel like crap now? Well, I do. So in lieu of a big bag of chips and a hot fudge sundae for everyone, here’s a picture of Sparky, the smokin’ hot In A Fix electrician:

There now – don’t we all feel better?

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

Check this out! Canada’s own Jay Ingram’s got the posing-with-the-hand-thing going on!

Now, it’s not so rakish a pose as naughty Nikola Tesla (see last Hot Science-y Guy installment), but it’s there, oh yes! So, you know what that means?

Jay Ingram is hot, too.

Well he is. Seriously. Okay, so maybe not so much in the accompanying photo (which, I confess, I shamelessly snatched from here where [you will surely notice] Jay Ingram is the only science-y guy on the page with his hand in his headshot). So I encourage you to run along and Google™ another photo – a recent one – and you’ll see what I mean. Okay, so he’s not the jogging-on-the-beach-in-slow-motion kind of hot, but he’s just so darn likeable. Here is one guy who should run for public office. I mean, who doesn’t like Jay Ingram?

So while I am steadfastly un-curious to witness Jay Ingram doing ads for Calvin Klein boxer briefs (not like with Sparky, the In a Fix electrician – and that was only because I actually saw a picture of Sparky, the In a Fix electrician in his underwear, and no, I do not want to argue about what’s real and what’s computer-enhanced because, really, that’s so completely irrelevant to me because I love the In a Fix electrician for his mind anyway), I think Jay Ingram would be fun to have over for some beers and a movie. You’d let him pick the movie, and he’d pick a really good one, like…I don’t know, but it would be good. Witty, but not cutely clever. Maybe some early Woody Allen. Maybe even an edgy documentary. Maybe you’d grill a couple of steaks on the barbecue. Jay Ingram would tell you about eighteen amazing science news stories while he barbecued the steaks, and when he was finished, they would be perfectly cooked because he truly understands the molecular intricacies of heat and protein. You’d make baked potatoes and a salad. Maybe some asparagus. Dessert would be something light, maybe just some cheese, a buttery Cambozola, perhaps? Conversation would be effortless and spiced with Jay Ingram’s own brand of wry humour. And then Jay Ingram would help you clean up afterward and then apologize that he really has to leave early because he’d have to go home and work on some endlessly fascinating piece of science writing. You’d do a small load of laundry. And you’d know that Jay Ingram would call you the next day to say thanks for a really nice evening and thanks for the loan of your Andrea Barrett book before you’d even had a chance to read it yourself.

And as you folded your small load of laundry later that night, you’d think “Gee, that Jay Ingram is such a nice man! Too bad I just can’t help but fall for the bad boys…” And you’d pour yourself a tawny port and finish up the Cambozola and gaze out the window and picture yourself lounging around some hotel pool in Vegas with Sparky, the In a Fix electrician.

And as quickly as it had begun, it would be over. But Jay Ingram would be extra cool about things, because not only is Jay Ingram a nice Hot Science-y Guy, he’s a spooky smart Hot Science-y Guy, and so Jay Ingram would understand. You don’t believe me? Check out that photo once again, folks. See those eyes probing deep into the dark recesses of your soul?

Jay Ingram understands everything.

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

His eponymous coils aren’t the only thing that created a buzz and a sizzle! So he’s been dead since 1943. Minor detail. Nikola Tesla was one helluva hot ticket in his time and no doubt he was well aware of it, too. No matter what the fashion of the day, guys just don’t strike a pose like the one in the accompanying photo unless they know they have got it goin’ awwn.

Now don’t let that seductive, come-hither stare fool you. He’s not playing coy, no matter what you think those bedroom eyes might be suggesting, so stay in your seat and keep your hands to yourself. An unapologetic germaphobe, the last thing in the world he would have wanted was a kiss! Yuck!

But he was quite the Mr. Smarty-pants, even if a lot of his science “buddies” considered him and his ideas more than a wee bit daft (that’s a euphemism for “crackpot”). So he said he could split the Earth in two and shoot down airplanes with death rays. Who hasn’t heard the rest of the boys at the local talking themselves up with such tripe now and again? Puh-leeze! Thing is, this Tesla guy could actually do it. Go ahead and google “HAARP”. Pretty impressive, huh?

Hard to believe he had a reputation for not getting along with his contemporaries – then again, one of the Negative Nellies was none other than Thomas Edison himself – a guy who wasn’t exactly going to win any congeniality prizes of his own. Sounds a bit like sour grapes, if you ask me. Can’t imagine it would feel too great to be Mr. Big Time Inventor and have some young upstart constantly offering suggestions on how to improve your stuff (and having those suggestions turn out to be good ones; haha, in your face, Tommy!)

Nikky-boy did enjoy the good life, however, and had a regular table at the Waldorf-Astoria. So here’s this dapper dude who would take you out for a grand meal, polish your silverware about twelve times with his requisite eighteen napkins, load you up with gin cobblers and fascinating conversation, and then send you home with your virtue intact. Gentleman? or weirdo? Oh, who cares! Just relax and sip your cocktail like a good girl – especially if you have any designs on wanting to catch a glimpse of seeing his fabulous lab. And trust me, I think you do. Maybe he’ll read you one of his poems by the light of one of his plasma spheres. Yep, he liked to write in his spare time.

Just try not to get too attached. He’s not for you. Don’t take it personally. Marriage just isn’t his bag, baby. He’s the classic loner. The mad genius. And he’s lousy with money. And a workaholic who never calls…

But that just makes you want him all the more, doesn’t it?

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

Aw heck, it’s nearly Labour Day, so let’s just call this lovely man the Hot Science-y Guy of the Summer and be done with it. Now I doubt if he’s going to include that on his updated résumé, but one thing I am willing to bet on is that Kaysar Ridha would prefer not to be remembered as The Guy Who Took His Finger Off the Button on Big Brother 6 ^TM; therefore I am not even going to mention the fact that he’s the guy who…well, let’s just say the end of the season came tragically early for the feed junkies viewers who voted His Royal Decency back into the Big Brother House of Mental Freaks, only to see his fresh, juicy brain evicted for a second time before he’d even had a chance to unpack. Personally, I’m glad he and his lethal handsomosity have been shown the door on that silly show; now millions of women people can get back to their jobs and deadlines. It’s all fun and games until some poor Canadian girl (stop looking at me like that) loses an entire short-lived summer being “entertained” by caged strangers.

Oh, right. The science-y part. Here it is: Mr. Ridha’s BB6 profile says he’s currently a graphic designer, but a little web-stalking sleuthing uncovers a background in biological sciences. Here’s hoping he might just expand on that knowledge and discover what it takes to clone himself, because if he’s selling, I’m pre-ordering. The world needs more Kaysar Ridhas. Lots more. And for all the rest of you hookah-smoking, chess players out there, you can come out of the basement; you’re hotter than you think.

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -
Presenting: A week of Hot Science-y Guys

1. Sir Martin Rees

I don’t know if this guy’s straight or gay, and I don’t care. He’s got a certain polished appeal going on, and he’s the freaking Astronomer Royal for crying out loud. What does that mean, you ask? How does that make him any more special than any other astronomer besides the Royal part? Well, look, if I have to explain that, it would mean one of us would have to do some research. And I’m tired. I just got in from a party. But I do know that this guy’s been busy studying multi-universes and I like to just sit and think about those kinds of things every once in a while, usually every Friday or Saturday night, even if QEII probably doesn’t even know who he is when he shows up at her Christmas brunch or whatever she puts “her people” through every year. I mean, who doesn’t like to entertain the possibility that while we’re stuck in this one stupid world eating another boring salad without cheese and struggling to keep our skirt size in the single digits, somewhere in some other universe Bono is President, and I’m making a fantastic risotto for me and Brad Pitt and Richard Feynman.

* * *

2. Brad Pitt

Nice try, Bell, you’re thinking. Way to inappropriately segue the Bradmeister into the list. Well you just pipe down and leave me alone. The Bradmeister (as if I would ever, ever call him that, thank you very much, unless he wanted me to) is apprenticing as an actual architect (with some cat named Frank Gehry or whatever). How many other actors can you name over the age of 40 who go and try to learn something constructive during their downtime instead of buggering off and “nurturing” their other “dimensions” in C-grade rock bands and Krazy Kults (I’m looking at both of you misters, Crowe and Cruise). So does architecture qualify as a science or an artform? Look, why are you so bitter about Brad Pitt anyway? Jealous? Haha, thought so! Well just thank your lucky stars that crap movies leave the premises after a week or two. Crap buildings can stick around for a lifetime.

Good for all of us that Mr. Pitt is pursuing his dream of trying to beautify the planet through proper design engineering so he just doesn’t take all that money of his and mess up the landscape building kooky weird stuff like the above.

* * *

3. Dr. Gregory House

Okay, so technically this guy isn’t even real; he’s a TV character on a medical series that debuted this year. But damn, this guy is very hot in that quietly gorgeous British way. Oh yeah, the actor is a Brit. Remember Blackadder? Yes, that’s him – no not the Mr. Bean guy, the other one. No, I didn’t know it either until I was Googling the show, and then I gave myself a good smack on the forehead. (Hey, that’s two British guys on the Hot list and neither one of them is Prince William or Beckham.) Anyway, other than the quietly gorgeous and great-at-not-sounding-British thing that is Hugh Laurie, the character of Dr. Gregory House is hardly Patch Adams (thank heavens). He’s a drug addict, limps horribly (i.e. not going to be much help at the cottage), always has a smart-ass remark about everything, and by the looks of that beard, his hygiene is probably better studied at a distance. Still. We love the bad boys, don’t we, ladies? So he’s hot. Watch the show. It’s good, too.

* * *

4. Alton Brown

It’s nice how he explains things. Yes, his show, Good Eats, is unbearably goofy at times, and for such a smart guy, I find myself wincing with discomfort at the bad puns and contrived infotainment shenanigans. Alton, give it to us straight up and on the rocks, babe! It’s you who’s the twist, mister! Can it with the cornball and union-scale supporting cast of cheesy actors and just do your thing. This is one guy who knows what he’s doing. Yes, it happens to be cooking, and if you don’t think cooking involves a degree of scientific knowledge, then chances are you wind up having to eat out a lot or depend on others to feed you. How sad. But Alton will explain the magic of food preparation to you, my hungry friend. Using simple diagrams, and nicely suitable props, Alton will tell you exactly why you can’t get any yolk in your soon-to-be-whipped egg whites so that the next time you brag on and on about how you could probably make just as good an angel food cake as your brother if you had a recipe, you won’t be so darn careless and ruin somebody’s birthday party, you hapless fool. Anyway. Follow his simple rib eye steak methodology to the letter, and it will improve every quality of your life forever. Jeez, what more does anybody really want out of anybody?

* * *

5. Richard Feynman

Was this guy adorably sexy or what? How many Nobel laureates can you say that about? Well here’s a guess: zero. But you can say it about Professor Feynman. Too bad he’s dead, is another thing I say. He could juggle, play the bongos, and safecrack with the best of them. Students must have thrown panties at Dr. Feynman’s lectures. Or at least thought about it. But even if they did, you know he’d be so charming and cool about it and work those thrown panties into his discussions on nanotechnology, and the next thing you know, you would spend all the rest of the next week learning everything you possibly could about everything nanotechnological in the world, just so that maybe, just maybe, if you were drunk enough, but obviously not too much – you’re a hardworking student, remember? – you’d have the courage to raise your hand at the next class and hopefully, hopefully ask him an intelligent question. And he would respond by saying, “Well, really, that’s one of those things that’s best discussed over dinner.” And the class would laugh. But he would hold your gaze while you bit your lip, while you wondered whether or not he was really serious…sigh…

(Just don’t think about the fact that Alan Alda once portrayed this man in a play. Trust me. It strips all the hotness right out of the fantasy.)

* * *

Bonus Item!
Marc “Sparky” Bartolomeo

Should be Bartoromeo doncha think? Oh wait. You’re still wondering “Who the hell is this guy?” Relax, I’ll tell you. He’s the electrician on TLC’s “In a Fix”. Well, you should watch it. Yes, he’s an electrician. (Electricity. That’s science, so leave me alone, will you please?) His bio says he also enjoys cooking/baking and going to garage sales. If he had said his favourite movie is “Gone With the Wind” I would have to assume he’s probably married to someone named Jeremy or Stefan, but the bio does mention a former girlfriend (who once entered him in an underwear contest) so I’m going to assume he’s straight, okay? Which means he’s pretty much the World’s Most Perfect Man. Unless you’re gay. Which means you probably think he’s gay because all the gay men I know think everybody’s gay. Well whatever. Say what you will about whomever. I love Sparky. Let’s both love Sparky.

* * *

Did Not Make the Cut:
Bill Nye

Bill Nye – Well he is The Science Guy and all that. But the bowtie look isn’t sexy, unless you’re Brad Pitt and you’re wearing a tux. Just because you’re all science-y and stuff, you don’t have to look like you spend more money on Battlestar Gallactica trading cards than you do on hair product. Sorry, but Albert Einstein gets on this list before The Science Guy does. (And Mr. Nye’s website bugged me a LOT. Jeez. No, I don’t want to download anything, thank you. Stop making it do all that crazy stuff. Damn, that’s so annoying!)

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -

– Watch/Download the movie (~75Mb mpeg file) –

Description: A short 7 minute claymation film starring a rather busty, arguably homely (even for plasticine) woman with a shrill british accent, who takes the time to detail the biochemistry behind the light reaction of photosynthesis.

- FROM THE ARCHIVE -

Inspired by:

Cavalcanti, S.M.C. and Knowlton F.F., 1998. Evaluation of physical and behavioral traits of llamas associated with aggressiveness toward sheep-threatening canids. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 61(2): 143-158

Franklin, W.L. and Powell, K., 1993. Guard llamas. Iowa State University—University Extension Publication, Ames, IA, 12 pp.

Markham, D., 1990. Llamas Are the Ultimate: Training, Feeding, Packing, Hunting, Fishing, and Care. Snake River Llamas, Idaho Falls, ID, pp. 8–14.

Markham, D., 1993. Warning to coyotes; this sheep ranch is guarded by llamas. Rocky Mountain Livestock Journal, Dec.-Jan., 29–33.

Meadows, L.E. and Knowlton, F.F., 2000. Efficacy of guard llamas to reduce canine predation on domestic sheep. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28(3): 614-622

- – - – -

Make no mistake about it: your life is in danger. Whether it be from the crazed smack addict willing to do anything for his next hit, a rival eager to revenge a perceived slight or an urbanized harpy eagle, your survival is constantly being threatened. The only way to ensure the safety of you and your family is to take your protection into your own hands: you, my friend, need a llama.

There are a few issues to consider when purchasing a llama. Firstly one must find a suitable llama supplier. There are many sources of high quality guard llamas including your local llama farm, llama brokers, the classifieds, the internet or any llama events that you might be attending including Llama Jamboree 2006 being held in Bute, Montana. Wherever you purchase your llama it will be wise to ensure that the animal is registered with the International Federation of Guard Llamas (IFGL). This will indicate that the llama has undergone the proper training in a variety of disciplines ranging from the basic predator guarding up to the more advanced hostage negotiation. You should decide beforehand what skill set you would like your llama to possess. There is nothing worse than an overqualified llama. For instance a llama, trained in the delicate arts of diplomacy, will become depressed and distant if it is only given the task of guarding your ’86 Chevy Cavalier from any would-be vandal. Consequently, it will probably let its guard down and you will be left with a llama with very low self-esteem and an antennae-less ’86 Chevy Cavalier with the words “Wash me” scrawled onto the dirt caked rear windshield.

When selecting an appropriate llama you should be looking for alertness, leadership ability and weight. Even the strongest llama won’t be able to defend you if they can’t first perceive the threat. Therefore, steer clear of any animals that show a tendency towards myopia or a fondness for drink. Also, the larger the animal the more aggressive, so go big. But don’t go too big, an obese llama is an ineffective llama. Most importantly though, you want a llama that shows initiative when it comes to scaring off coyotes, aggressive panhandlers and other predators, but that is not overly dominant. Remember, you are the boss, if you want to watch “Gilmore Girls” you should not have to endure a shower of llama-spit to do so.

Once you have purchased your llama you will now have to care for it. Luckily llamas are great scavengers and adapt quickly to an urban setting. It will probably be enough to simply give the llama a few hours of free time a day and it will be able to feed itself whether it be by grazing in local playing fields or surgical strikes on the grocers around the corner. If your llama begins to stay out for longer and longer periods of time be wary. Recently there has been a marked increase in llama gangs. These no-goodniks prey on young llamas that are new to the city and you do not want your new guard animal falling in with a disreputable crowd. I think we can all agree that the elderly made this country what it is today and should not, in their twilight years, have to suffer the indignity of being harassed by groups of idle llamas in ill-fitting leather jackets.

It is important to remember that llama disasters can occur, particularly through heat stress and improper training. Llamas are not equipped to handle high heat and humidity. If your llama starts to drool, breathe with its mouth, stumble and/or become depressed it is most likely suffering from heat stress. There are many ways to avoid this problem most of which are common sense: provide plenty of shade and drinking water/sports drinks, do not allow the llama to consume any fescue grass, dress the animal in only those novelty sweaters that are weather-appropriate etc. There is also a danger of Berzerk Llama Syndrome, which arises when baby llamas are over-socialized. You will know a berserk llama when you see one so it is unlikely that you will purchase a llama only to find out about its incessant head butting when you get it home. However, if you are raising your llama from birth you should remember that it is not a replacement for the children you can’t have but rather a wild animal that should be treated as such.

Llamas are not only great guard animals they are also great friends. Do not be afraid to confide in your llama for they are renowned in the animal kingdom for their discretion and tact unlike the talkative moose. They are also fiercely loyal and have a keen sense of irony. As long as you treat your llama with the care and respect it deserves your life together will surely be a long and rewarding one.