The Circus Monkey Reports - [LEAKED]

[SlapshotLegion 903]

THE ADVANCED MONKEY PROJECT

Transcribed from the journal of Red Deer Polytechnic researcher Marco Paolo

 

Day 1 of the AMP: This has been one of the weirdest projects of my life. I honestly don’t even know where to start. For some reason, Dr. Thatcher has kicked off a project in which we develop methods to make monkeys talk and have cognitive ability similar to humans. A process that hypothetically took us millenia of evolution is being asked of us in the span of two years. This type of research and experimental project isn’t exactly common for this place either. I don’t even know what to make of it. It’s been a long semester and this doesn’t exactly help it get any better… Whatever, at least it’s time for the VHL final. It’s currently 2-2 right now but I’ve got my money that Helsinki will take the easy win and be crowned as champions! They better win because I bet my scholarship money on this.

 

Day 2 of the AMP: We are actually making staggering progress. It’s kinda scary. We’ve somehow gotten the monkey to learn how to write the alphabet. We gave him a cute little outfit and a cute hat so he looks like one of them circus monkeys. Dr. Thatcher insisted we dress him up like the civilized animal he is. Granted, the monkey isn’t able to form or comprehend the idea of human words yet but if we’re able to get this far on day one, I can only imagine it gets better from here. Still, why are we so adamant on getting this done? I hate to be that guy but isn’t this a little unethical? We’re not hurting the monkey or anything, just some injections and some training here and there but surely there is something objectionable to trying to force a monkey to think like us? Would he rebel against us? Let’s hope not. Otherwise, some people might be in for a rough time. P.S. Quebec City won again. It’s okay, I believe the Titans can come back and get the job done in 6 and force game 7. My scholarship money depends on it.

 

Day 3 of the AMP: I forgot to note this yesterday because I thought it was irrelevant before but because of what happened today, I think some context is needed. While I was pirating game 5 on my phone two days ago, the monkey seemed to enjoy watching as well. He was peering at my shoulder the entire time. At some point today, Dr. Thatcher put on hockey highlights for us to watch while we were on break but the monkey expressed a ton of interest in what was being shown, even “cheering” through hooting and hollering. Because of this, Dr. Thatcher has ordered a pair of custom monkey sized skates. He even cut a hockey stick for the monkey to use. For now, we’ll start him off with a plastic puck but maybe one day he could use a real one. Imagine if this leads to a monkey playing pro hockey! Hah! That’s never gonna happen. 

 

Day 4 of the AMP: The monkey is actually a natural at hockey! Sure, he might be a little rough around the edges in terms of stickhandling but he seemed to pick up skating right away. He’s currently being taught how to do a crossover by Dr. Thatcher. He’s got a surprisingly hard shot- so much so that we switched out the plastic pucks for real ones already. He seems to love shooting the puck; we taught him the wrister which he was able to do after about an hour and the slap shot seems to be the most fun for him. I was a little doubtful at first but man, who knew that this would be a possibility? Maybe we need to get him some custom monkey hockey gear and actually see if we could play a game with him? I don’t know but this is fun. We might be investing a lot of our funds into this custom gear but hey, if he enjoys it, he enjoys it. I still don’t know what this has to do with anything and it doesn’t explain why we’re doing all of this but it’s fun so I won’t complain. On a slightly less fun note, game 6 happens tomorrow. I really need Helsinki to lock in and pull through. I can’t afford to lose any more money.

 

Day 5 of the AMP: Oh my goodness, the monkey can pull off the Michigan. That is actually one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. I mean, it was super slow and definitely would be called a high stick in competitive play but it was a Michigan nonetheless. Took the monkey about 243 tries… I can’t believe he was that persistent. It seems he’s satisfied with one though and has gone back to ripping slapshots. His accuracy might suck but the shots are hard and even the goalie we brought in to test his ability to find a way to score is noting that they are particularly strong. Stickhandling is progressing alright, though, I think the monkey enjoys blasting it more. Still, Dr. Thatcher insists that we have him do stickhandling drills, so we set up the cones and even use markers to draw where he’s going on the ice. Strangely enough, this has also helped the monkey learn how to talk. He’s finally able to string words together, albeit not in perfect sentences. He told us, “Goal score I”. It’s definitely a start. This is why I think Dr. Thatcher is a genius. Somehow, by hyperfocusing on hockey and getting the monkey to learn how to play, the monkey is also developing cognitive function in the ways we wanted him to in the first place. The first word he ever wrote was the word “Hockey”! I don’t know why Dr. Thatcher is doing all of this but I am a lot more excited to see where we go from here. Plus, game 6 is happening tonight. C’mon Helsinki, it’s all or nothing here.

 

The rest of the pages were ripped or drenched in blood to the point where it was undecipherable. Marco Paolo reportedly survived but according to locals has since disappeared after losing the scholarship money. The fate of Dr. Thatcher is unknown but he is likely dead. For legal reasons, we cannot share what our thoughts are on this topic.

 

– THIS ARTICLE IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED; THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE HAS SINCE BEEN FIRED –