The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘dance’

My Honeymoon, by the Numbers

My wife (holy crap! I’m MARRIED!?!) and I will soon be going on our honeymoon. We are going to India. In preparation for the trip we have both read some books about India (she has read about 5 times more books about India than I have). In the TWO I have read (one fiction, A Fine Balance which is amazing and the other a travel journal sort of affair called Holy Cow) they have both mentioned the country being quite populated. Let’s talk about that.

One of the cities we are getting to visit is Mumbai. Our current home is in Houston, Texas.

Population Density:

  • Houston: 2,197 people per square kilometer (I rounded) (Source)
  • Mumbai: 29,650 people per square kilometer (I rounded) (Source)

FYI: There are 3,280.84 feet per kilometer.

Let’s say every person, standing up, is 2 feet for length (shoulder to shoulder) and 1 foot wide (the end of your belly to the end of your tush).

Given a square that is 3,280.84 feet by 3,280.84 feet … If everyone, measuring 2×1 feet, stood next to each other in this square kilometer then you have, essentially, 3,280.84 rows and 1,640.42 columns. Or, 3,280.84 people 1,640.42 times which is … 5,381,956 people!

column 1 (2 feet)                column 2                     …                     column 1,640.42

row 1 (1 foot)
row 2
row 3

row 3,281

 

In other words, 5,381,956 people would fit in if you were completely crammed. With that in mind, we’ve got some wiggle room!

I like to dance, and I have long limbs, so I’m going to need a bit of space for my flailing dance moves. Let’s figure out the amount of crazy dancing I can do. For this, each person will have their own block within that square kilometer. In Houston, we would have 2,197 blocks per square km, in Mumbai, there would be 29,650 blocks per square km. So each square in Mumbai will be much smaller – but what are the exact dimensions?

The area for a square kilometer is 10,763,911 feet. If you divide that, it means:

  • Houston: 4,899.368 feet to work with or a square that is approximately 70 feet by 70 feet. That’s some good dancin’.
  • Mumbai: 363.0324 feet to work with or a square that is approximately 19 feet by 19 feet. Plenty of space for dancing.

 

That’s all well and good. The dance check comes out with a green light. Now, what else? Oh right, the matter of public defecation. Both books have talked about that, and a friend telling us about his first trip to India mentioned seeing that happening right after leaving the airport.

I’ll just leave this chart here for you …

When in Rome …

 

 

Grandpa and the Aliens, Part II

We were close now to whatever the attraction was, because all of the aliens had circled like there was a school yard fight in the middle. We slowed down and for the first time since he woke up my grandpa seemed undecided. The aliens in front of us turned and seemed to step back reverentially. This was both good and bad: the good was that I knew an alien had not manipulated my brain to make me feel unnaturally relaxed, the bad was I was now afraid I was going to be killed or eaten.

Grandpa decided it was time to get the audience our side and opened the bag of sugar. He stuck the spoon in and held the bag out to me to the do the same, then we walked up to aliens and gestured for them to try the contents held in the spoon. The aliens somehow figured out what it was we were doing and took the sugar. I don’t know how to read the reactions of life forms I’d never encountered before but they mostly seemed pleased.

As we moved forward toward the center of the circle, toward what I considered my eventual unpleasant demise, we lifted the spirits of those around us, I guess, by handing out spoonfuls of sugar. Tentacles, digits, mouths, and telekinesis took the sugar to their mouths or what have you. What a delight to see that my grandpa and I were not the only ones with a sweet tooth.

Before we knew it we were in the middle of the circle and it had closed behind us, leaving us trapped. In front of us four aliens of, probably, different species stood waiting. While the atmosphere felt light, upbeat and excited, these four seemed intense and solemn. Oh, I thought with sarcastic aplomb, these are the ones who will be killing us.

A fifth figure who was wearing some pretty flamboyant clothes stepped into the center of the circle and gave a speech which was not only well-received, it almost made me want to cry. I looked over at my grandpa and he seemed bemused but delighted about it.

The MC gestured to my grandpa and I and stepped back to join those in a ring around the circle. I looked around for the first time since being in the circle to see that a number of aliens were hovering or flying so that they could see us. Stadium seating with no fuss.

A device was handed to me along with a nod, of sorts. I looked around, hoping for more clues but none came. Not wanting to deprive the crowd of entertainment, I hit the button on the device. Music started.

One of the four solemn aliens stepped into the middle and began a war dance. I guessed, in its culture, this is what they do before maiming a lesser creature. I studied it for weakness and noticed that intentional or not, it was really good at something not unlike the cabbage patch. After about a minute of flailing and such, the alien stepped back and another took its place, this one had perfected the white chocolate.

I looked at my grandpa who was tapping his foot, I couldn’t blame him, the song had a good beat.

Then, like that time I didn’t realize that girl liked me until she was in the middle of kissing me, it occurred to me. I’m a part of an intergalactic dance off. The next thought was a collection of about forty thoughts at once but it could be summarized as: neat.

I pulled out all of my best moves: the razzle dazzle (where I do jazz hands while also doing karate kicks), the Bambi (this thing where I pretend I’m a baby deer just learning to walk but it’s kinda to a beat), I did a really bad version of a ballerina spinning except I’ve never done any ballet so I almost fell down but I think I made it look intentional because then I went directly into this staggering around thing sort of like when you knock out the first guy in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, and finally I wrapped it up with some Footloose inspired angry dancing where every body part is trying to move as aggressively as possible.

I felt pretty good about my showing, and I think the aliens liked my moves, but just then our neighbor, the one I had lied about having cut off one of his limbs, showed up and unlike my grandpa and I he had a rather large gun. He was running toward my grandpa, pointing the gun angrily at aliens as he yelled he was coming to rescue us.

I decided to calm things down by turning up the volume (wait, how did I do that?) and hitting for the next track (talk about good user interface, I just guessed at where these buttons would be and I was dead on). Then I attempted to demonstrably prove the power of the Fraggle Rock philosophy on life: dancing ones cares away (thusly saving them for another day).

This did the trick of stopping my neighbor, but he still seemed unsure. I went to the circle and held out my hand, an appendage, I hope, was held out and we danced together for a brief moment. I went to another alien and pulled it into the dance circle in the same manner and soon enough the whole crowd was dancing.

If I may be so bold, this was an even better sight than crowd of alien ships flocking toward our backyard for a dance fight.

As the song drew to a close the aliens all began making noises, raising their voices to the sky in a celebratory cacophony of peed-pants inducing gibberish.

My body felt light and suddenly I was inside a spaceship. My grandpa was beside me, slightly less calm than before because this time he breathed in deeply and exhaled audibly. This was the same noise you’d hear if dinner time was delayed an hour. I was still riding the high of my dance fight, but I had to agree with grandpa, I was ready to be in a more comfortable environment.

Unfortunately some aliens arrived to show us to a window where we saw them destroy Earth. This was upsetting because I didn’t know if it was punishment for bad dancing or a prize for good dancing. Is it that I danced so poorly that they felt the Earth should be destroyed? Or did I dance so well, have such a party, that they felt the Earth had peaked and was no longer needed? Also I was upset because the Earth had been destroyed. That’s where I had kept all my stuff, and my family, and other people who were nice too, I suppose.

An alien nodded at me with what might be considered a grin, so I figured I’d danced well, and then the alien left.

“Hey grandpa?,” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

“Hm,” grandpa responded, with a tone that seemed to indicate irritation.

“Um, I forgot.” This was a lie, I wanted to apologize but I didn’t have the words.

We made the same decision silently and began to explore the ship a bit in search of the alien equivalent of corn on the cob and a nap-worthy chair. It’s a noble pursuit.

Dance Off vs Nature

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