Do you ever want to pack it all in? Shed these mortal coils? Have an out of body experience? Do you get so bored that you fantasize foreign travel, hanging out with a group of friends who won’t pester you with questions, eating a steady diet of fresh picked food, and drinking water from a mountain stream?
My inability to do that for a whole host of reasons, well, it really gets my goat.
But I think I can honestly say that when I consider having out of body experiences, when I think of packing it in, and when I contemplate shedding these mortal coils, I can’t even approach, neigh, fathom what Thomas Thwaite did.
Part of me sees the attraction. After all, remember, I spent five years living in Switzerland. And when you climb those mountains, your heart and soul expand. You have what I dubbed Julie Andrews Moments where you want to sing with joy. I can honestly say that I’d love to go back and spend some time there in those mountains.
But there are limits to how I’d like to go. With whom I’d like to spend time. And what I would like to wear when I get there.
For example, I do not want to imitate Thomas Thwaites. He became a goat hung out on a mountainside. With a herd of goats. Eating grass.
There’s an article in the Washington Post about Thomas the Goat Man. How he developed a prosthesis that enabled him to walk like a goat. The challenges he faced. The cold. How he felt that human kind was progressing towards robotics, and he wanted to go a different way. So he became a goat.
This video, read by a robo-caller, tells the rest of the story. You can watch it and hear the story for yourself. Or you can mute it, and watch a man in weird costume eat grass. Your choice.
I can’t help wondering if the little goats used to laugh and call him names. Did they let poor Thomas play in any goatherd games?
Oh my God, this is sooooooo weird. AND he got government funding for it? I guess it is better than doing something evil. Goofy never hurt anyone, so more power to him . . . I guess. 🙂
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Fortunately, I don’t think it was our government who funded him!
Isn’t it bizarre? 😅
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We live in the g-d future, and THIS is what this guy did with technology?
Huh.
Well. Now we have our answer. Humankind isn’t worthy.
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Isn’t it bizarre?! It wouldn’t bother me as much if he hadn’t gotten funding for it. On the other hand, it was good for a laugh!
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He could be building prosthetics to, oh, I don’t know, help wounded vets or children or, hell, actual goats who lost their limbs when a robot goat man accidentally kicked them with his sci-fi leg, but noooo…. he’s building himself goat legs. You can’t make up this shit!
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Thank you for showing me THE WEIRDEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN!
I eat grass-fed beef, that’s as far as I’ll go…
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Isn’t it hilarious? Seriously — can you imagine donning a prosthesis to hang out with goats? I can see the Swiss part of it, as Switzerland is stunningly beautiful, but, ummmmmmmmmm …
So you’re welcome!
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OMG! Will be sharing this gem heavily! Someone needs to dub in goat screaming to make it complete… perhaps the goats around him screaming in protest! lol
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Frank of AFrankAngle posted a goat video that worked perfectly. If only I had known about it before I posted!
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Saw that! The comments are hilarious!
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Hi Elyse – i have a question about posting videos. I just upgraded so I would be able to add video, but when I see my post in “preview”, it just says “loading” – like forever. Do you get that?
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No. But I have trouble inserting them through the “media” button that you use to insert pictures. Instead I just insert the link to the video in the main draft text.
Let me know if that works.
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What about if it is my own video? How would I link to anything?
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I only did that once and I put it onto YouTube first. That’s fairly simple.
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That’s a good idea! Thanks!
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Sure!
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It worked! (sorry to hijack your post… but you are my role model – blogging-wise)
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Well, you were my entry into the tribe I saw your funny comment on that hilarious old guy — Don’s — blog and found my home. We bloggers reciprocate!
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As an aside Elyse, I just did a guest post over at Cordelia’s Mom’s. if you have time to drop by I would be honored. Thank You. https://cordeliasmomstill.com/2016/06/04/mikey-did-it-guest-post-by-paul-curran/comment-page-1/#comment-17358
I thought I’d left this before but I can’t find it – if it is a duplicate please accept my apologies and delete it.
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I’ll respond with a song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHkqamFRTKI
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Only you!
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Thank you … but it is very fitting.
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I just watched it again – what a hoot!
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Ummm…
Huh.
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Who can pass up a post title like that? Not me.
Nice Shakespeare nod in the first paragraph. Nice Bugs Bunny nod in the tags.
Don’t eat yellow grass.
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And the nod to pop culture with the reworking of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. You forgot that!
I rarely eat grass, and NEVER if it’s yellow. Or brown. 🐐
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Ew. Did you have to go there? I was content with a subtle reference.
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🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐💩
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I’m just curious what bathroom he’s supposed to use at Target
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I think he’s supposed to poop on the floor in the cheese section.
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Just imagine the uproar over which bathroom he would use in North Carolina…
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Oh, you actually beat Cutter to that but I saw his first!
Perhaps he just needs to clean up after himself with those doggie poo bags.
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“I visited a shaman and she said, ‘you’re an idiot.'” OMG, that was the line for me. Thanks, Elyse. Great stuff. Yes, your Julie Andrews moment is one you can easier hang your hat on for life.
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Wasn’t that great?! Although she said it when he said he wanted to be an elephant, not a goat. Being a goat may not be as idiotic, but it is way up there!
And yes, My first Julie Andrews moment was memorable. They say scent triggers recall~
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And here I thought *I* made odd life choices…
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We can all take comfort in the fact that no matter how stupidly we act, we can tell ourselves, “well, at least I didn’t dress in a goat prosthesis and join a herd.”
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Hmm. Maybe you should check the dateline of this item, Elyse. Make sure it isn’t 1 April.
But then, people can be odd. In an idle moment last week the wife and I found ourselves watching “Family Feud” on the telly. This is where groups try to guess the polling responses of a hundred or so random people to questions like, “If you went to heaven, what activity would you most like to do all the time?” The responses included, “eat”, “have sex”, and “talk to God”, but the one that really got me was, “watch TV.” Really? Yes.
“Live my life over as a goat” wasn’t one of them.
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I DID check the dateline because I couldn’t believe (1) someone could be so stupid; (2) someone else funded this stupidity; and (3) how I could get someone to fund my stupid ideas!
Spending eternity watching TV would be my idea of hell. Because there are a million channels and nothing is ever on. That might explain Family Feud!
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We, apparently, want goats. Goats are cute (in pictures). I’ve met some nasty goats. However they never pull a lawn mower and refuse to eat due to a varnished carburetor. I’m told that we’ll be getting chickens before we get goats. I have not heard any plans for us to become either chickens or goats. I wonder, can Thomas still don a straitjacket while wearing his ‘I’d rather be a goat” prostheses?
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Darla is welcome, but goats and chickens may not come for Thanksgiving. Our house is enough of a zoo as it is!
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Aside from this being one of the weirdest things I ever saw, it makes me feel extremely lazy. I struggle living my human life, let alone going to these lengths to be a goat.
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And if you WERE going to be a animal, why a goat?
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Really now … the bar was not set very high.
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Yeah. Nah. Not repeating this experiment in Australia as a koala eating eucalyptus leaves. Really bad for the digestion and koalas are boring.
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You’re no doubt right. Eucalyptus can’t double as dental floss.
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Now, but it DOES get the Koalas higher than a darn kite!!!
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High as the Alps?
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At least!
😀
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Oh good grief. You know that Swiss goatherd was just waiting for him to tumble down the mountain … !
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😆. I bet nobody will believe him when he tells the story!
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Yeah, sure, THAT’s what the goatherd was waiting for. Right.
😉
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It must get pretty boring out there, views notwithstanding!
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True, but goatherders are known for doing one thing with their flock, and laughing at them ain’t it~
😉
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I thought that was shepherds. Goats aren’t, well, sheep!
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Good point. Guess that makes me a goatist, huh?
:-\
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I guess the take home here is that sometimes, it is absolutely freeing to push the boundaries of our comfort zone. 🙂
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Well, that getup certainly would push way past my comfort zone. My back ached just looking at it!
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Two takeaways from that video. This idiocy was financed by government grant (I want a refund of my taxes). And I agree with the shaman he consulted–“You’re an idiot.”
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The thing about funding is that sometimes things that sound stupid, like the famous shrimp on a treadmill (http://www.npr.org/2011/08/23/139852035/shrimp-on-a-treadmill-the-politics-of-silly-studies )
Aren’t stupid. This one? Somehow my imagination isn’t fertile enough to see what benefit this would be!
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No, I’ve still got to go with that shaman’s assessment.
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Well, yeah!
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Thanks but no thanks. I like to experience many things but I don’t think I will try to be a goat. There are different ways to put oneself in someone’s shoes, to see from another perspective. but to be a goat, seems a bit extreme.
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It probably only works if one is a butt-head.
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But then, why be a goat when you can be a politician?
😯
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I think he would make a good Tennessee goat:
Ha!
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Wait! How about a clip of George Clooney staring at goats!
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Too funny!
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😏
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I wonder, can he make goat cheese?
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if he’s eating grass he’s gonna make cheese of some sort….
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After all that grass, I bet he can cut some cheese.
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He had no horns, so the dominant rams were probably interested in him for a different reason. Which makes me wonder if he ever considered the “ramifications” of bending over like that, around them.
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Bah da dum!
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No, b-a-a-a-a-a da dum.
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b-a-a-a-a da dum!
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No words for that. Again you take one for the rest of us…wait, he got funding for this?? Even worse.
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I know! We could use some of that money!
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I haven’t had a Julie Andrews moment in a long time!!! I want one!
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Me neither. I’m not sure if this is going to qualify, but you CAN see the ceremony for the new tunnel under the Alps: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-36428799
Weird things happen in the alps.
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Thanks, Elyse!
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I like goats, perhaps more than the next person, especially cute baby goats jumping and hopping, but I’m having a hard time “digesting” the motivation to live as one. As for being accepted into the herd…even a goat has to have enough sense to realize that a being walking around on weird stilts, wearing a bike helmet contraption and in clothing rather than goat hair trounces even the most unique goat on the Goat Diversity Scale. The fact that the government actually funded this…(shaking head and snickering…)
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If I were a goat, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t fool me. Unless I were a really old goat. Or a blind goat. Or maybe a billy goat would be fooled… or not care.
Governments fund some pretty weird stuff, and most of the time the reasons make sense once you hear the explanation (shrimp on a treadmill evaluating water pollution for example). I can’t figure out what it might be for this bozo, though!
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His shrink was right. He’s an idiot.
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A memorable one!
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Oh, my.
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That’s what you say for lions, tigers and bears!
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True. I feel so lucky to have you in my circle of blog friends. Otherwise I would miss out on this kind of stuff….
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What a nice thing to say.
I wouldn’t want you to miss out on all the weirdos in the world — but I’m pretty sure you get your fair share without me!
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Yours are more fun. 😉
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Sometimes 🐐
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People have all kinds of needs…
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Grass, fresh, mountain air, beastiality … So many options.
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Wait, it makes more sense after actually reading it… at least he wasn’t like that guy who hung out with Grizzly bears… and ended up getting killed by one…
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True. But he first wanted to be an elephant.
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The prosthetics are harder to make
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You have a goat?
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Mowing is so yesterday. 🐐
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I don’t think we are designed to digest grass… it would actually fix a lot of the world’s hunger problems…
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Until the planet was de-grassified.
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well, it grows pretty fast…
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Bwahaha! Love the line about wanting to be an elephant, consulting a shaman and she said he was an idiot. How can he eat grass when humans can’t digest grass? Besides the narrator sounds so breathless like she was announcing the greatest achievement of mankind (I expected her to announce that he had broken the speed of light and enabled interstellar travel)- and then she talks about how the goats had spurned him because he broke a goat hierarchy rule. Ha! And guess what his findings were? – it was cold. Bwahahahahahaha!
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Isn’t it a hoot? I really want to know where he got his funding! Obviously they have money to graze on!
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Oh, and I eat things I can’t digest all the time 🐐
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