Happy Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog day everyone! Yes, I’m lazy today, and I’m using a local holiday to post a half assed excuse for an article here. Sue me.

Now, I know that Terminalists are an international bunch, I should probably explain this US-centric ritual to my readers from other parts of the world. You see, each year on February 2 we commemorate a freak event in 1993 when Bill Murray got stuck in a time loop. Actually the custom is much older than that, but we forget. The ritual is simple: we pull out a random groundhog out of a hole and shake it in front of an angry crowd. This usually scares the shit out of the poor animal and prevents it from creating a stable time loop.

If you paid attention in your bio class you should know that American groundhogs are somewhat related to displacer beasts but rather than bend space they bend time – and only in February for some reason. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) due to severe inbreeding and laziness they completely lose this ability when they get scared – a bit like Fainting Goats. Yes, it seems like a useless ability – you’d expect it to be a fight of flight type response thing, but it’s not. Groundhogs are basically like natural homing missiles. Most of the year they live as peaceful herbivores, bur around February they enter their predatory stage. Damn things have been living alongside humans for so long they actually evolved to prey on us. A Groundhog will usually imprint on a nearby human, and then snare him in a time loop. Then it will remain hidden and feed on his victims emphatic energy. Being stuck in time is highly stressful, and humans tend to get restless, frantic and delusional after a while – which is exactly what the beast seem to want. We don’t know how they choose their victims (but most likely it is convenience and proximity), or how the loop can be ended (killing the animal does not seem to work as it re-spawns at each iteration of the loop). All we know is that if there is one of them things living near your house, you better scare the shit out of it in early February or else you may end up like Bill Murray. Then again Bill got lucky and managed to break out of the loop and then make a movie about it. According to his research in the area, Groundhogs lose interest with the victim once it stops struggling and finds inner peace. But it is yet to be confirmed.

Yes, it’s a silly holiday but hey – it’s practical. If you have never experienced a time loop, don’t judge us.

Oh, and if you are relatively new here, I highly recommend taking this occasion to read my Groundhog Day post from 2008. That’s the one we discuss what we would do if caught in a time loop. For example, how would you keep time? What would you do with all the free time? Would you become a superhero or super villain and etc…