Sea Devils, And Other Not So Random Stuffs

El rape, in Spanish, can mean a type of fish called monkfish.  I have no idea how ugly it is until I looked it up in Wikipedia.  One classmate from our Spanish class commented that monkfish is a type of anglerfish.  Curiosity or boredom, I am not sure.  But someting drove me into reading up on anglerfish.  At first glance, it is a fish that has a fishing pole attached onto its head to fish other fish.  You could say that it is solely evolution that creates weird species like anglerfish.  I look at the ugly sad face with a pole on top of its head, I am not so sure.  It is one genius design.  But that is not the only reason why I am so fascinated with anglerfish.  According to online materials, when scientists first discovered that all the sea devils – a family of deep sea anglerfish – are female, they were intrigued.  How do the sea devils reproduce?  This is where the story gets juicier.

The male sea devils are 10 time smaller then the female counterparts.  Some are born with a stunted digestive system that prevents them from feeding.  So, the male sea devils need to find the females fast, before they die a natural death.  Who would design such a system?  Nobody knows.  Once they have found the opposite sex, the male sea devil would bite onto the female’s skin with its sharp toothless jaw literally fuse itself onto the female sea devil.  This act of, I would say, love would further fuse their blood vessels.  Soon, the male sea devil becomes a parasite.  Pathologically speaking, there is an English term called atrophy.  For those who are not pathologically sound (neither am I), here is how you can envisage atrophy.  The order is important too.  First, after attaching itself to female sea devil, its brain is gone.  Then its heart, followed by its eyes.  There is a certain sense of melancholy in this sequence of graduate degeneration.  What is left are its balls, solely used as a function of reproduction.  With that, the cycle is complete.  Sea devils as a species have lived for 100 millions years and more.  It is quite an accomplishment given such a bizarre design they are bestowed upon.  Who would want to be born as a baby sea devil boy?  I so would not.

Last Sunday was my birthday.  Traditionally, I take leave on my birthday and have a good eight hours of self-reflection, doing something different.  This year, my birthday is like any other weekend, which is quite refreshing for a change.  I don’t really feel like I have gained a year.  I met my niece (and her parents of course) for lunch at East Coast Park.  She is cute as ever and was a bit moody that day.  So was I.  Cynthia and I did not dine out in the evening because I wanted to catch F1 Silverstone live on TV.

Some say F1 is getting boring this year.  Because we know which driver and which team is likely to win the championship.  In my opinion, that is besides the point.  It is what happens between the first lap and the final lap that makes most of the F1 races interesting to watch.  It is what happens between the first race and the final race that defines the season.  F1 can be full of surprises.  Who would have thought that Alonso would win this year’s F1 Silverstone?  And who would have thought that last year, after fighting all the way up from the second half of the season, Alonso was unable to win the championship?  So close he was.  So very close.

After my tiny achievement in reading a complete Spanish story – albeit how short it is – I have new found courage to read a proper novel in Spanish.  The progress has been painfully slow.  And it is not getting any easier.  At this rate, I may be able to finish reading the story in six months.  This book has a sequel too.  So, provided that I am not getting any saner than I am today, I may be able to finish both before my next birthday.  That would be quite an achievement.

Rumor has it that our band, or what is left of it, will be jamming again this coming National Day.  This give me less than a month to toughen my fingertips for my guitar, tighten my vocal, relearn my songs, and to master a new piece of recording equipment that I have bought since – I reckon – the end of last year.  And I still have this photographic travel journal that will take me at least three months to complete.  It looks as though I have just discovered what needs to be done in 2011, albeit more than half a year late.