The fact that I'm a modern, suburban, Australian male does make it difficult for me to sometimes convert the empirical measurements in these ancient texts to the modern metric standards. A while ago I sought help with this and downloaded a free app that instantly converted empirical measurements to metric (and vice-versa).
It worked perfectly well. The only problem I encountered was that the free app featured sponsored advertising taking up roughly 40 per cent of the screen space. I found the sexy women beckoning me from a myriad of online dating sites to be distracting, so I decided to spend 99 cents and upgrade to the full version. The adds were gone and I was able to continue making my gastronomic creations without any undue outside influences.
I noted that there would occasionally be updates in the online store and I dutifully downloaded these as they became available. At first I carefully noted what was new about each update, but after a while I just updated the app without looking. Rarely did I notice any change in the interface or any extra features - one time there was a small graphic of a scale that would tip when you pressed the 'convert' button, but this was merely 'nifty' rather than genuinely useful.
Then, a couple of days ago I became excited by an update that seemed to completely revamp the app with a startling yet staggeringly simple solution to all future measurement problems. The app now simply featured two buttons - a 'blue' and a 'red'.
After briefly scanning the instructions, I discovered that the blue button opened a time-portal that could transfer the user 50 years in the past to a time when there was no such thing as metric measurement. Conversely, the red button, when pressed, transferred the user 50 years into the future where all measurements are apparently uniformly metric.
I wasted no time, grabbed as many cook books as I could carry and pressed the blue button. Initially I was dismayed that nothing seemed to happen, but then I noticed that my phone had switched to 'camera' mode. Sweeping the camera around the room I noticed that a huge swirling vortex had appeared in the floor in the center of the room. Without the phone's camera the vortex was not visible - I considered this to be a bit of a safety oversight. I stood on the precipice and felt the familiar vertigo as if standing on a cliff top, yet curiously the blackness of the void gave no sense of any depth. I closed my eyes and leapt.
I must have passed out as a result of the time travel, but when I awoke, I was not where I expected to be. Above me I could make out a canopy of fern-like leaves rather than a ceiling. There was also heavy mist in the air and a sweet smell of decay. My mind tried to penetrate the haze, but I couldn't escape the nagging thought that I had awoken in a primitive version of the earth. After a few minutes I became almost certain this landscape wasn't part of the dawn of the Swingin' Sixties but rather the Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
As I shakily tried to make it to my feet I suddenly noticed that tiny droplets of water were falling from the canopy above. Was this just the effects of the time travel? I could have sworn the earth was shaking.
My questions was answered momentarily. I stood aghast as a giant T-Rex loomed into view. I knew it was a T-Rex because it was identical to the dinosaurs in my daughter's book 'A Children's Guide to Dinosaurs' - it was even flouresent pink! I suppose there was no way that paleontologists could have known this. Somehow, amid my frozen fear, I made a mental note to report this fact - should I ever return to civilization!
I stood as still as a statue as the giant beast sniffed above my head. His eyes seemed to sense that there was a tasty meal quite nearby. Luckily, I had shaved that morning and used Lynx aftershave which not only masked my smell, but visibly seemed to repulse the beast. He skulked away with a confused yet defeated look on his face.
I finally was able to breath a sigh of relief. I checked the app on my phone and noticed that in the instructions there was a warning not to use the 'blue' button as it may be faulty. The programmers suggested there would be an update in about a week. I made a mental note to always read the instructions in future. As there was no World Wide Web available in prehistoric earth, I reluctantly became resigned to spending the rest of my life 85 million years in the past rather than a mere 50.
I couldn't help but think the giant T-Rex I saw must have weighed seven metric tons. I couldn't tell you what that was in empirical tonnes, as that function on the app seemed to be no longer available.
I made a decision to encase my phone in amber once the battery died so that it might be preserved and hopefully discovered by future generations. There would be only one simple message for the app programmers in the voice memo section...
"I want my money back"
