Bonco Speaks Your Language...Sorta (4 of 3 or so)

*From the Bonco Gift Giving Archives and #4 of 3...yes, you read that right*

Digression can be at times, creative. In a warped kind of way.

While doing some research on which retar...researcher was spending US tax dollars on trying to determine why a penguin would look up at a passing aircraft, until the penguin fell over backwards, I came across a note about a recent online IgNobel Prize winner in technology: the Bow-Lingual, a dog-to-human translating devise released by Takara Co. Ltd, of Japan. Apparently the Bow-Lingual allows a dog to communicate up to six emotions with ruffly 200 words to their master, as the device records and interprets their barks, whines and growls, sending the tranlated expressions to the owner's digital display "emotion pager".

I reckoned that sales on this would eventually go through the woof; at the same time, some curious misfiring synapse in my thrice-concussed brain found itself pondering about the "unintended" consequences of such a device in the evolutionary scheme of things.

The answer wasn't long in coming: among various reviews of the product, I found some rather poignant ones that made it clear that cats were royally pissed. So were pet rodents. Fish were pissed, not that it'd show except with piranha. Birds, snakes, ferrets, pot-bellied pigs...all ditto. Manatees were indifferent, but that would change when some animal-rights-activist lawyer gets the word out. Countless hundreds of thousands of animal species will be pissed about this 'exclusion'.

And it won't stop just there: insects, plants, any viably living thing that learns of this development will be demanding their own 'voice'. Their own opportunity to tell humankind what kind of arrogant, ignorant, pompous, slave-driving, big-footed, species-racist boneheads we are.

I'm sure my pet rock would love that opportunity with me, too, but I digress.

In spite of rare spurts of better judgement I'm known to lack in abundance, I made a jesting comment on this scenario to the technicians at Bonco, UnInc.

Weasel crap.

Thus...coming soon from the labs* of Bonco, UnInc, the makers of the ABDOMINATION-IZER and PHFFFT ASURE ... The ALL-IN-ONE-UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR!

Ever wonder what your pets were thinking? Ever wonder what they were trying to tell you? For that matter, have you ever wondered what your plants, trees, the insects thereon, et al, would say to you if they could? Did you ever wish to communicate with Nature in a way only the Beast Master, Tarzan or Mr. Spock did**? Well, wish no more with Bonco's ALL-IN-ONE-UNIVERSAL-TRANSLATOR! Now you can know not only what your pets think and feel, you can know what ALL LIVING THINGS WITHIN YOUR IMMEDIATE VICINITY think and feel***!

Through shared**** technology from Japan, and the extensive research projects and grants of thousands of current and former government and private entities for various and sundry communications forms across the living spectrum*****, Bonco has married the two -- language and technology -- into a 'one translates all' device!

Just set up the reasonably compact****** AIOUT in immediate proximity of whatever you wish to communicate with -- from your family pet to the lowest living life form on the planet*******, speak into the portable hand transmitter, and wha la: your words are translated into a form that your intended communicatee will receive and understand********.

And they (or it) will be able to likewise respond in a manner that you'll understand*********.

And all for the one-time, incredible price of only $995,000 (shipping not included). Operators are desperate for something to do until you call them at 1-999-TRNSLAT, since the No-Call List has interrupted their interrupting you!

Don't miss out on this incredulous offer! CALL NOW**********!

* or retrievers, setters, whatever

** without the need of sword play, vine-swinging or mind melds

*** See Disclaimer

**** Without their knowledge, but what's a patent violation against the greater good?

***** More or less...see Disclaimer

****** All vacuously defined in Disclaimer

******* Bonco felt that even lawyers needed a translation CD in this deal

******** Or so it is hoped...see Disclaimer

********* It is really incumbent you read the Disclaimer

********** DISCLAIMER: Bonco's ALL-IN-ONE-UNIVERSAL-TRANSLATOR comes completely assembled, though the loading into the memory of the 5 million language conversion CDs is up to the purchaser. Bonco is required to tell purchasers that a weather-proof, solid-foundationed, level surface is required to set up the one-piece AIOUT, which is roughly the size and weight of a Kenworth. An industrial size forklift is recommended for moving and positioning the AIOUT (not included). Bonco guarantees that once all 5 million language conversion CDs are properly installed, the AIOUT will allow the user to attempt to communicate with anything covered on the 5 million language conversion CDs, using the handy hand-held transmitter/receiver with a range of up to 1,000' from the AIOUT. Bonco, however, is NOT LIABLE for any potential misunderstandings or misinterpretations of language or cultural faux pas, as some of the language research on plants, insects and animals -- notably carnivores -- is at best, untested theory, but was vouched for by some tree-hugging ELF arsonist in an unsigned affidavit on file with the Sierra Club, which we're still waiting for a copy of. Thus and for example, if you get set upon by a flower bed of angry hibiscus, armed with thistles, after an attempt at communications -- because you said something untoward about their mothers or ancestral roots -- Bonco will refer what's left of you or your next of kin to the Sierra Club with the grievance. Bonco, UnInc., is a profit-oriented, thoroughly unscrupulous and inept Fortune -10,000 Company, but never needed an unscrupulous accounting firm or Barney Fwank to get that way. This is a nonsense advertisement that is 100% dolphin-free. When/if you get your AIOUT up and running, just ask one for confirmation. You'll probably get a dolphanic "WTF?" in response. FTC Disclaimer: no money changed hands/fins/paws/leaves/pinchers/antenna/flippers/et al during this parodious product endorsement, and no spotted owls, whales, dolphins or yetis were harmed during the posting of same, unless a minaturized version of one of the aforementioned was on the seat of my computer chair when my fat backside landed there.