ready for a quizzard?

Feb 102013
 

Okay, so what have we learned from Winter Storm Nemo/Charlotte the most recent “STORM OF THE CENTURY”?

Let’s see …

1. The next winter storm will:
a. be named Ratatouille.
b. have thunder, lightning, rainbows and sparkle snow.
c. feature a shower of zombies.
d. be THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!

2. People measure snow because:
a.  it gives them something to do while waiting for Mr. Plow to come along.
b. size matters.
c. they are losers.
d. they want to something to lord over the heads of their grandkids someday.

3. Which elusive and possibly mythical creature did I spot in my yard on Saturday?
a. The Abominable Snowman.
b. The Wendingo.
c. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
d. My wife with a shovel in her hand.

4. Speaking of my wife, she decided to go running outside on Sunday because:
a. she is training for the New York City half marathon in March, and didn’t want to run 10 miles on our treadmill.
b. she’s crazy.
c. she hoped that she might find an open package store where she could buy wine as we were out.
d. she’s F’N crazy.

5. This picture of the road in front of our house:

a. shows our mailbox (that black square near the middle left) on Sunday afternoon, more than 30 hours after it stopped snowing.
b. shows that we “won” the “Who got the most f’n snow?” challenge.
c. shows that the city plow still hasn’t come and we’re not going anywhere any time soon.
d. shows that we screwed, and should figure out which family member we’ll be eating first (although the preliminary discussion seems to indicate that there’s a consensus that “the oldest and fattest” go first, which is not good news for me other than the rest of my family *finally* agrees on something).

6. The most entertaining thing from the blizzard was:
a. seeing my neighbor Angie shoveling off the roof of her house while her husband Gino sat in a lawnchair in the yard, drinking a few beers and taking pictures.
b. seeing tweets and texts from my friend Kate—who always mocks me for loving summer and suggests that winter is better—that included gems like, “I’ll bet you wish you were a prepper like me” followed the next day by “Wood for stove buried under 4 feet of snow, husband puking and less than a 1/8 tank of oil” and “Husband is puking and I can’t leave the babies to shovel my car out. Meanwhile, the neighbor has two plows and plowed HIS FRONT LAWN.”
c. getting giddy texts from my friend Steve (Kate’s husband) in the run-up to the storm declaring that the found a gas station that was selling 99 cent tuna grinders that they made right there in the station sink! Hmmm … probably no relation to the puking later.
d. knowing that my sons were as miserable as I was—if not more so—when we were removing the snow from the driveway with 40 mph wind gusts blowing it back in our faces.

7. The most frustrating thing from the blizzard was:
a. watching the cars going up and down the main road that we live off of, which is “only” about 100 feet away—100 feet packed with snow 3 feet high!
b. not having enough Grey Poupon on hand.
c. not having invented the totally awesome flamethrower/snowblower like I dreamed about doing while I was a kid shoveling snow.
d. having to admit that for once that the seemingly always hysterical weather forecasters weren’t overestimating potential accumulations.

8. The next time it snows, I will:
a. make sure to buy as much bread, milk, pudding mix and Coca-Cola as I can carry.
b. *NOT* stock up on 99 cent gas station tuna grinders, made in the sink or not.
c. have my flamethrower/snowblower built and ready to test out on my driveway—what could possibly go wrong?
d. turn off my phone before my sister the whore who lives in Miami can call me to tell me that it’s sunny and warm there, and she’s laying out at the beach (hopefully getting more wrinkly than Abe Vigoda’s ass).

9. True or false:
If there is a Hell, it is not hot like a tropical paradise or a pleasant sauna, but instead a miserable frozen, snow-covered wasteland like my freaking front yard.

10. Snow:
a. blows.
b. sucks.
c. is worse than being crammed in a clown car with John Wayne Gacy, Emmit Kelly and Pennywise.
d. freaking blows, sucks and is worse than being crammed in a clown car with John Wayne Gacy, Emmit Kelly and Pennywise—have I mentioned that I HATE SNOW?

 

the friday five: the voices

Feb 082013
 

(No, not the ones in my head.)

So you know how sometimes you go to look one thing up on the intrawebz and then you find yourself sucked into about 20 other things, and then as you go to close your browser, you remember that you never even looked up the first thing you meant to?

Yeah, that’s how I came up with

Five of the Greatest. Dead. Voices. Ever!

1. Karen Carpenter – This is how this whole post started—I was looking up something about drumming in regard to my son (who is taking lessons), and I remembered how during Christmas I amazed my sister and wife with this little trivia nugget: Karen Carpenter is the greatest drummer to come out of New Haven, Connecticut!

They laughed because: A. They’re not old enough to remember any actual performances by The Carpenters; and B. They had no idea that The Carpenters came from New Haven; and C. They thought I was joking.

Well, I’m not:

That aside, Karen Carpenter had one of the most haunting, mellifluous voices in music history, and one of the most distinctive—as soon as you hear it, you know it’s her and absolutely no one else. Every note seem effortless, and she possessed that remarkable bittersweet quality. If you watch the clip above, you can see she sounded as good live as she did on record. Amazing.

Although there are plenty of songs from which to choose, I’m going with “Top of the World” because it’s probably their most happy song.

2. Eva Cassidy – Not many people know of this brilliant vocalist, who sadly died of cancer in 1996 before she really hit big. She had one CD, but thankfully, someone had the presence of mind to record a bunch of her live performances, which were simply remarkable.

After she died, some of those recordings were released, including her version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which found it way onto the BBC radio’s “Top of the Pops” program in Great Britain, where it lit up the phone banks—people called in demanding that they play it again and again. It became a hit, and a few of her covers, including “Time after Time,” also received a lot of airplay in England, and then eventually here in the U.S.

If you’ve never heard her version of Sting’s “Fields of Gold, prepare yourself for a beautiful, pure voice and maybe a few goosebumps … oh, and never wanting to hear any other version again.

3. Freddie Mercury – Really, do I need to explain this? A four-octave range, operatic sensibilities and the consummate showman.

4. Johnny Cash – Again, maybe known more for his distinctive baritone and delivery than his actual vocal abilities, but ol’ J.R. could belt it out when he wanted to.

With Johnny Cash, there are hundreds of examples of how he made his voice part of the song. This is one of my favorites, not because of the subject (obviously), but the way he *sings* this song (as opposed to that sort of talk-sing thing he often did)—it was late in his life, his once-formidable voice is weakening, but you can hear how he seems to be summoning everything he has left in it to reach his Lord. Inspiring to even us atheists.

5. Elvis – Before the gyrating pelvis, screaming girls and white jumpsuit, there was a guy from Tupelo Mississippi who could really sing, brandishing an amazing voice that could be at turns raucous and tender and that had tremendous range. Power ballads, rock’n roll, blues, gospel, that crappy stuff he did for the movies—there was pretty much nothing he couldn’t sing and not make memorable.

Even at the end, when he was fat, bloated, drug-addled Elvis, that voice was still there.

Again, like Johnny Cash, there are thousands of tunes from which to choose, but I’ll go with my wedding song.

He wasn’t The King by accident!

working hard … or hardly working

Feb 062013
 

So I saw this story about how police officers in Miami were busted for faking work.

From CBS News:

The Miami Dade Police Department has fired a sergeant and two officers and suspended three others without pay in what is considered one of the worst incidents of delinquency in the department’s history, CBS Miami reports.

The accusations vary against each officer, but they include: failing to respond to emergency calls, pretending to be on calls when they weren’t and falsifying police records, according to the station.

Yeah, that’s right—in a job where there are myriad ways to be watched, from duty reports and response records to surveillance video and eyewitness accounts, those tasked with policing others thought they could ignore emergency and crime calls to sit around drinking coffee (and eat donuts, amiright?!), run personal errands, hook up with girlfriends and generally avoid their professional responsibilities.

Now look, when it comes to goofing off at work, I think very few of us are willing to throw rocks from the confines of our glass cubicles. Anyone who has ever collected a paycheck has undoubtedly had a few minutes here and there of doing things that were not exactly “work-related” while on the clock. The actions of these officers, however, seems particularly egregious—even on my worst day, I never ignored an emergency call of a 5-year-old child in medical distress.

Then again, given my skill set and general lack of any useful abilities, I’ve generally been employed at jobs where not being completely focused on the task at hand has not caused any undue injury or hardship. But there are definitely certain professions out there that demand constant attention and care while working, say like surgeon, airline pilot, hostage negotiator or roller derby queen.

But yeah, I’ve definitely *had* me some gigs (not any more, OF COURSE) where there was copious amounts of “extracurricular” activities:

• While working my way through college, I landed a between-classes job at the SCSU student center, which meant I occasionally pulled duty in the game room. Now if there was ever a job where “play” is okay during business hours, this was it—we were allowed to shoot pool for free while we manned the desk, which involved charging others for pool, giving out quarters for video games and keeping track of ping pong balls. Let’s just say by the time I graduated, I was a fairly decent (although not great) billiards player.

I also would say that occasionally looking the other way when it was time for a comely young coed to pay—which would also somehow make the usage counter go to zero (oh dang) and result in no charge—in hopes of making a new “friend,” could be termed a lapse of focus while on the job, although I would say I was completely focused. Just not on work.

Speaking of making friends: I met one of my best friends, Big Balls Bob, while playing pool—we were both rocking out to “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett while at tables across from each other. We started chatting and well, the rest (including meeting my wife) is history (for another day).

• One of my other pay-for-college jobs was working the stock room at Sears in Orange, and in a big warehouse without a lot of supervision, there was plenty of mischief for myself and a few of my buddies (Greg and Gary, in particular) to get into. One of our favorite unsanctioned activities was staging wrestling matches involving the 20-foot-high rack where they stored rugs. In front of it was usually a cushy stack of rolled rugs and rug pads, so dramatically climbing to the top of the rack and launching ourselves down on top of each others, à la Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, was something we’d do on a regular basis. How we never broke our fool necks doing this, I don’t know. But it was fun.

We also tried our hands at “the stock boy Olympics,” which involved “events” like seeing how fast we could use a sticker gun, how quickly we could handtruck a refrigerator across the loading dock and how far we could throw pieces of already-broken merchandise.

I recall one guy I worked with actually took furniture cushions and old blankets and made himself a nap nest of sorts up on top of one rack in the far back of the warehouse. You’d never find him unless you had a reason to be 25 feet up in the air in the area where the ceiling fans were stored. Now that I think of it, he actually may still be there 25 years later, slumbering away like Rip van Winkle.

I also remember we had one manager by the name of Marty who always tried to bust us while we were screwing around. (I say “bust us”; he may have gone with “make us do the work for which we were getting paid.” Semantics.) He used to have a big ring of noisy keys on his belt, so we usually heard him coming, except once when I saw him holding them and quietly stalking a pair of my co-workers who were shooting the breeze; he eventually sprung on them like a lion pouncing on hapless antelopes.

From then on, we goofed off with one eye open, so to speak.

• Before I start writing about my time working at ShopRite during the 1980s, I should probably ask about the statute of limitations on petty larceny …

Okay, let’s put it this way … I’m not saying *I* ever did this, but let’s say my friend who worked there—let’s call him “Ray”—remembers an occasion or two while working an unsupervised overnight shift during the Can Can sale that things got a little, shall we say, lax, particularly in relation to the unpaid procurement of grocery items for personal consumption. You know, like at around 3 a.m. when a bunch of hardworking college students could get hungry and decide that if they made a few sandwiches from the deli, took a few bags of chips, maybe a six-pack (or two) of beer and enjoyed an extended lunch break, it probably wouldn’t hurt anyone other than the rich millionaire owners who had gotten rich by underpaying us—er, them—in the first place, right? He’s not saying he’s proud of it, he’s just saying it might’ve happened.

He also may recall another night during the overnight shift where he started joking around with his buddy John who was stocking shelves in the next aisle over. For reasons that made sense then, they might’ve started blindly launching merchandise over the top of the racks in an effort to hit each other, an activity that ended badly when John chucked a plastic bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup that exploded upon impact—who in the name of Aunt Jemima knew a plastic bottle could shatter like that?—resulting in a horribly sticky mess that they had to scramble to try and clean up before the night supervisor caught them.

He would also say that cleaning up maple syrup is difficult under the best of circumstances, and attempting to do so quickly and quietly in an empty store at night, adds another degree of difficulty. Actually, he would say, if he had actually just had been working rather than goofing off, it would’ve been much easier.

But where’s the fun in that?

 

heavy

Feb 032013
 

Please bear with me on this—it’s been on my mind the past few days and since this is my blog, I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to write about it here. I’ve been hesitant because I don’t want to make this about me, nor do I want to be “head griever.” Like anyone else, I just am trying to work my way through something unfortunate …

So the other day, a few of you may have seen how I Tweeted and Facebooked about the sudden passing of George Mihalakos, who ran the café in the Register building where Connecticut Magazine is located.

As I said, George had the rare ability to genuinely connect with everyone in the building—one of my co-workers said “He made everyone feel like they were his favorite.” Very true. He was really the nicest guy you’d ever meet, and any time you’d walk into the café, he would greet you with such enthusiasm that even the most crappy day didn’t seem so bad. As I wrote in the Register article linked above, I never walked away from him with anything less than a smile.

He always had the radio on, usually on 99 Rock WPLR. On the day a few months ago when I had been pimping my book on the “Chaz & AJ” morning show, I went into the cafeteria later in the afternoon, and engaging in a bit of humblebragging, asked George if he’d had heard me earlier. He said he had heard the interview, but hadn’t realized it was me, and then immediately began to grill me (so to speak) about it. He then insisted—I mean, really insisted—on buying a copy of my book, which I brought in the next day. We made a trade; he got the book and I got three good lunches out of it.

I definitely came out on top in that deal, for sure.

So last Wednesday, I skipped breakfast at home, figuring I’d treat myself to one of George’s bacon-and-egg  wraps. I got to work and went directly to the café—I didn’t even have to say anything other than “Good morning,” because George knew what everyone always ordered.

“The usual, right?” he called out from behind the grill.

I was the only one there, so I called back, “Yeah, thanks!”

Usually, George makes conversation with everyone about everything—sports, politics, work, family, etc.—but he was pretty quiet that day. When he brought my wrap to the register, I was taken aback by his appearance. He was pale, perspiring and looked very pained. His face was especially gaunt—for a flash, with the shape of it and his prominent ears, he reminded me of a younger, beardless Abraham Lincoln.

I asked how he was doing because he was clearly not himself.

“My back is really bothering me,” he said, turning away and stiffly going back toward the grill. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

I told him that he should really get himself checked out. (Damn, this sounds so lame now!)

He sort of laughingly waved me off. “I don’t have time for that,” he insisted.

He was found dead on the floor by the grill less than an hour later.

When I heard, my knees went weak and I was sick to my stomach. I don’t know about the timeline of it all, but had I been the last person he saw? Did he make a final meal for me, then go in the back by the grill and … just collapse? Had I simply walked away from someone I knew was clearly suffering and just … left him to die alone? I still don’t know for sure.

I mean, I knew he wasn’t feeling well, but I thought maybe he had the flu or something. I didn’t think he was going to fall over dead any second. He was only 43! That doesn’t usually happen to someone of that age, right? Right?

Ugh.

I keep thinking about it. In retrospect and in a weird way, I was sort of looking death right in the eye, and had sort of recognized it—it reminded me of the last time I saw my grandmother before she died: that cold, sweaty, pale look. I wish it had been more of a signal to me.

Now, I’ve certainly had to deal with death—family, friends and many acquaintances—on numerous occasions, both expected and unexpected. But even though George wasn’t anyone I’d consider a close friend (I can’t even say that I ever really thought of him outside of the work place), this passing really bothers me, the suddenness of it all. He was someone I interacted with five days a week, and I was talking to him one minute, and then less than 60 minutes later, he was … gone. So hard to accept. So weird.

I guess there’s another aspect of it, too. I like to think that I’m not so callous and self-absorbed that I wouldn’t just leave someone to suffer and die, but I keep thinking that’s exactly what I did.

All right, I know that there was no way I could know how ill he was, and outside of recommending he go to the doctor, what more could I have done? I mean, we all run into people feeling under the weather all the time, and very rarely do we physically grab them by the hand and drag them to the doctor’s office—he was a grown man, and if he didn’t want to go then I probably wasn’t going to convince him.

But what if I had tried a little harder and had convinced him? Unlikely, I know, but still …

Most times when we an adult who seems sick, we see if there is anything we can do for them, and if there isn’t, we tell them to “take care of yourself” and then we go on our way and figure they’ll take care of themselves. That’s what I did. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done something differently.

But I didn’t. What’s happened can’t ever be changed. Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve …

I think about his two young daughters (like I have two young sons), and try to imagine their lives without him there. Heartbreaking.

If you’re any sort of regular visitor to this blog, you know that I’m a bit curious about (some might say obsessed) with my own eventual death. I think sometimes that I talk about it so much now because I know once I’m gone, I (probably) won’t be able to say exactly what happens after what we call “life” goes out of my body.

My friend John and I have a standing “pact” that whichever one of us goes first, the other will set the TV to a static channel and wait for an EVP-type message from the other. “Just nothing too scary,” as he says. “Something like, ‘It’s nice here and Mae West says hi.'”

Wishful thinking, I know—if there does turn out to be a heaven and a hell, I know where I’m headed, and it doesn’t involve harps and halos. As my sister Joni likes to say: “You, me, Hitler and Satan, playing poker for eternity.”

All right, I feel bad for being glib while writing about such a tragic situation, but for some reason, that’s what I’m compelled to do. We all deal with death and grief differently, and apparently, I desperately need to find some light in the dark, and my natural instinct is to try and say or write something amusing to alleviate the hurt. It’s not a matter of being disrespectful, but an attempt to make sense of what seems to be senseless. Like, if I can find a way to bring about a smile—as George did for me every day—than somehow a move can be made toward healing.

I want to end this on some sort of proper, wishful note or make some grand, uplifting philosophical comment, but what that is, I’m not quite sure. A good man is dead, and given my proximity to the situation, I desperately wish that I had done something more to prevent it. But I didn’t and now life goes on … sometimes there’s not much more you can say than that.

Thanks for listening.

the friday five: not so super

Feb 012013
 

As you might’ve heard, there’s a big football game this weekend.

I’ve already stated who I think should be part of the festivities, a performance that unfortunately doesn’t appear to be happening. Well, this year, anyway.

But regardless, they will be playing the game and a billion or so of us will be watching. And although we will (hopefully) bear witness to an exciting and competitive contest as well as dozens of expensive commercials, here are

Five Things You Won’t See During Super Bowl XLVII

(or Super Bowl 47 for those of you who didn’t have three years of Latin—thanks Mr. Kunsch!)

1. A butt fumble

(click to relive the hilarity/horror)

Man, that will haunt me to my grave.

2. Anyone daring to wear a white fur coat on the sideline, let alone making it iconic.

I also doubt anyone will be making legendary guarantees, you know, because there’s only *one* Joe Willie Namath.

3. Morganna the Kissing Bandit

Which is probably just as well as Morganna is now pushing 80 and probably those ridonculous size 60s breasticles in a cart.

4. A rocket car or sky cycle

Although would it hurt to have one to shoot off at halftime? Maybe it can be loaded with a superfluous NFL player, maybe the (soon-to-be-former) starting quarterback of the team that humiliated itself the most this year? (See No. 1)

5. A live giant squid

Okay, nerd alert! (Although as soon as you click on this site, that’s pretty much a given.) Last week, the Discovery Channel ran “Curiosity: Discovering the Giant Squid,” which chronicled the massive hunt for one of the most-elusive creatures on the planet, the giant squid. Dead giant squids and pieces of them have been found for centuries, but no one has ever seen a living one until last year—which turned out to be an ultra cool, ultra geeky experience. Watching it, it’s easy to see how they were mistaken for sea monsters—release The Kraken!

So although you’ll see enormous specimens of our species, and piles of bodies with lots of arms sticking out of it, it won’t probably haunt your nightmares like the giant squid.

On the flip side, watching a giant squid isn’t an excuse to eat nachos and quesadillas, so there’s that, too.

Enjoy the game!

 

now that’s entertainment

Jan 312013
 

I’ve never understood the hype around the Super Bowl halftime show.

I suppose people think it matters because there are about a billion or so eyeballs on the screen—careers can be made or broken with a great or bad performance. Everyone hails Prince’s terrific performance from a few years ago, and we’re all still scratching our heads over exactly what it was that the Black-Eyed Peas did two years ago. And of course, Janet Jackson’s legendary wardrobe malfunction cannot be erased from the national consciousness (despite our earnest efforts).

Last year’s performance by Madonna was generally entertaining, although the best part was Richard Simmons lookalike Andy Lewis’ amazing work on the slackline—

How many times do you think he inadvertently groined or strangled himself learning that set of skills? Yowch!

Regardless, the Super Bowl halftime show really is playing a few songs in the middle of the NFL championship game when most people are either attacking the buffet or in the bathroom purging for the second half. Putting a big famous musical act in the middle of it all just seems to be adding more noise to the biggest commercial of the year. Aside from the actual game (for me), it all just sort of blends together.

My suggestion for a performance that no one will forget?

South Africa’s Die Antwoord—

I warn you: This video is NOT SAFE FOR WORK! It also may be considered OFFENSIVE, CRUDE, LEWD AND RUDE in many parts, but … the song is catchy and the video is … well … the most entertaining thing you will see today.

Now that’s entertainment!

And can you imagine the moment after the performance is over. “Now back to our announcers Jim Nantz and Phil Simms ….”

Jim and Phil [in booth, mouths dropped open]: ….. *

A few words about Die Antwoord—think of them like Marilyn Manson, an act specifically created to shock and offend. The two singers, Ninja and Yolandi, have talked about being in character (think David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase). By the way, they are a couple and have a child together.

According to Wikipedia:

When asked if he was playing a character, Ninja said, “Ninja is, how can I say, like Superman is to Clark Kent. The only difference is, I don’t take off this fokken Superman suit.” They have described their work as “documentary fiction” and “exaggerated experience” designed for shock value.

If you wondering about the hate for Lady Gaga, apparently she asked them to open for her during her South African tour, and this video was their response. (“Uh … so I guess that’s a NO, then …”)

Check out the making of “Fatty Boom Boom,” which will allay some of your feelings about what you just saw. Bottom line: It’s all an act … and a rather entertaining one!

Now move over Beyoncé!

 

what. the. future?

Jan 282013
 

So the other day while I was working on my plan to not drop dead in front of my kids by running on the treadmill, I was flipping through the channels and came across NOVA: Rise of the Drones, which sounded sort of badass until I realized it was on PBS.

Still, it turns out that it was pretty cool as it explored advances we’ve made in the field of robotics and aviation—and by “pretty cool” I mean it’s sort of freakin’ scary.

Here’s the promo.

Some of the scary/cool stuff you see at the end—small drones that can make remarkable adjustments in milliseconds that allow them to fly though hoops tossed in the air, or ones that can distinguish a person standing motionless in the middle of a room.

In the show, one scientist discusses making a drone that could, for example, find a person trapped in a burning building and then relay that information back to rescue personnel. He also mentions his concern about someone taking his work and using it for “unintended purposes,” i.e. that same drone hunting down someone and killing them. And in the show, they do discuss how drones are, in fact, being deployed with explosives for “military applications.”

I immediately thought of Runaway, where KISS’ Gene Simmons is a madman who builds an army of killing robots, only to be thwarted by Tom Selleck, who with the help of Higgins and TC saves the day …

… Or something like that. It’s been almost 30 years since the movie came out and “Magnum P.I.” was on. I guess it all blends together.

But really, we’ve gone from almost laughable science fiction to items that have become given science fact, all in a short time. It’s remarkable to me—in that I’m going to make a remark about it—that the original Star Trek communicator pales in comparison to what my actual iPhone is capable of. Likewise lots of other “sci-fi” ideas from a few decades ago, things such as touch computer screens (Star Trek), video phone calls (“The Jetsons”) and digital billboards (Blade Runner).

I would say that I can only imagine what technologies may be available to us a century from now, but I’m not sure that I can. I mean, even the greatest minds of the early 20th century didn’t imagine things like nanotechnology being used to cure cancer or even something that seems basic to us now like GPS. How the heck can I come up with ideas that future generations will take for granted?

Well, regardless, here are a few “science ficitonal” things you may chuckle at today that may someday become science fact.

• Dream broadcast & interaction – Yeah, like Inception to the next level.

I have to think that eventually someone will figure out how to wire our brains so that we will be able to tap in and literally see what’s in our mind’s eye, both when we’re awake and unconscious. Considering that cochlear implants are already widely used for the hearing-impaired and electronic eye implants are already in clinical trials, it only stands to reason that at some point, someone will learn how to reverse the process in a sense, recording impulses from the brain rather than creating ones that go in.

If we can start tapping into our dreams while they’re happening, then the next step would be networking of brains and consciousnesses like in The Matrix. I’m just not sure we end up living our existences floating in tanks, but hey, you never know.

Whoa.

• Uploading the world’s knowledge to our brains at birth – I heard this story on NPR the other morning about how scientists have figured out how to store information on strands of DNA.

In a nutshell, rather than storing data electronically via conventional means—which is taking up more and more space and energy—information can now be encoded and loaded into DNA, making for a biological solution to the world’s electronic storage needs. Oh, and it’s mindbogglingly efficient, too.

From the story:

If you took everything human beings have ever written — an estimated 50 billion megabytes of text — and stored it in DNA, that DNA would still weigh less than a granola bar.

And that’s all at this point—imagine what happens as the process evolves.

So if you have a way to viably store information in the basic building blocks of life, then how long before someone figures out how to incorporate that DNA into the making of people? Genetic engineering has been going on for decades in vegetables and fruits, and more recently, on living creatures such as pigs, cattle, chicken and other “food-type” creatures to improve quality.

Gene and DNA research has also been ongoing in efforts designed to eventually eliminate “imperfections” in humans, such as susceptibility to certain diseases. Eye color, hair color and all sorts of other distinctive traits are also on the table for theoretical modification.

So that all being said, if some day scientists are getting into and tweaking embryos for certain characteristics, then why wouldn’t they add knowledge to the equation? Having a kid could be like ordering a computer online—just click on what programs/knowledge with which you want to preload your model, and boom! Instant total awareness at birth.

Speaking of DNA …

• Retrieval of past lives and memories – Okay, I don’t know if any research is being done in this area, but as we continue to discover the amazing amounts of information that can be stored in DNA, it may be only a matter of time before we realize that there’s more in there than we know.

We obviously get all our physical characteristics from our parents—eye and hair color, height, build, etc.—as well as many of our personality traits and other abilities. For example, if your parents were both great at math, there’s a good chance you may be predisposed to having the same mental qualities that would make you good at math, too. Not always, but there’s a chance of it.

Now, I’ve always wondered that if at the time of your conception, in addition to the genetic baby batter, there was also a possibility that all the experiences that your parents have ever had up to that very moment were somehow recorded in their DNA. I mean, the physical stuff is in there—who knows what else might be hidden? So when the pieces come together to make you, you also might get access to a portion of your parents’ lives.

But, wait—if that’s the case and you follow it back, then you would have to think that the information of their parents (your grandparents) up to the moment of their conceptions would be in there somewhere. And then your grandparents would have partial access to their parents (your great grandparents) and so on and so on, all the way back to who knows when.

(No, I’ve never smoked weed. Why?)

I’ve often wondered that visions of previous lives or flashes that we attribute to things like deja vu, might be those tiny snippets of knowledge from our ancestors somehow popping down the DNA chain. Ultimately, if it’s all somewhere in there, then as geneticists learn to extract memory-type info from DNA, it might be possible to access it, like with the aforementioned “dream access” breakthroughs.

Who knows how far back up the family tree you can go? To the birth of Man?

The ultimate joke on scientists would be going back to the Beginning and discovering it started in what appeared to be a beautiful garden, aside from one big snake who hung around this one apple tree. Or from some alien race seeding the planet.

Speaking of which …

• A hybrid cyborg-human race – The recent reboot of Battlestar Galactica sort of headed in this direction with their ideas of cylons, which were robots cloaked in human skin. What I’m thinking is that eventually we’ll start building better bodies for our brains to be put into.

We’re already working along those lines—people are constantly having worn-out or broken body parts replaced, from hips and knees to prosthetic limbs and artificial heart valves. It’s only a matter of time before complete exoskeltons are being crafted—tough, augmented, possibly indestructible outer shells that we slip on to protect our fragile, soft and fleshy bodies.

Once that happens, you know it’ll be rigged with the latest technology (the internet wired directly into our skulls, right?). And after we have a few generations who are literally wired, eventually it’ll get to the point where the technology becomes part of our DNA.

The next step, of course, would be building bodies with interchangeable and upgradable parts that would essentially render us immortal.

Scary, right? We actually become eternal “toasters,” as the cylons were called on BSG.

Then again, if we all look like Caprica 6 …

Frack me!

 

the friday five: cool cars

Jan 252013
 

Okay, I saw that the original Batmobile sold for $4.6 million the other day, which makes sense because I think that there’s no debate that it is the COOLEST. TV CAR. EVAR!

Seriously, it is. Nothing else even comes close—the paint job, the fins, the pipes, the bubble windshields, the flames coming out the back, the ejector seat … AN ICON OF COMPLETE AWESOMESAUCE, as my son has forbidden me from saying.

That nonetheless having been said, I would love to be in a financial position to own this vehicle! Oh well, I can still dream about buying it, or any of these other car that I loved growing up—

Five Coolest TV Cars of My TV Childhood (After the Original Batmobile, of course)

1. The General Lee

Okay, I’m not just a good ol’ boy never meaning no harm, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to jump my car over rivers, swamps, lakes, ditches, gullies, trucks, other cars, old shacks, trailer homes, semi-detached houses, churches, junk yards, football stadiums, the Georgia Bulldog cheerleaders …

Oh, and I’m pretty sure all I would have to do was pull up and hit the horn, and Cousin Daisy would come over and her drop her Daisy Dukes for me.

2. KITT (the original!)

Rather than explain why the ORIGINAL Knight Industries Two Thousand is so cool, I’ll just say that this Nerd clip from “Robot Chicken” comes remarkably close to the truth.

“We’d fight all my enemies … and murder them …”

3. The Munsters Koach

I’m not sure there’s really a lot of explaining I have to do with this one—bad ass all around and pretty much every seat is a cool, even in the back. Oh, and if Cousin Marilyn (from the recent “remake” that only got one episode) comes along for the ride, that’s good by me, too.

4. The Mach 5

If you think I never danced around in front of the TV singing “GO SPEED RAYCER, GO!” then this is clearly the first time you’ve ever been to this blog. Thanks for stopping by!

5. Starsky & Hutch’s Gran Torino

I’m not saying that I was an impressionable youth who learned to slide over the hoods of cars in the hopes of one day being cool enough to drive this car, but … oh wait, I *am* saying that.

Don’t give up on me baby … some day, some day …

 

oh, (cold) snap!

Jan 232013
 

If you’re anywhere along the East Coast of the United States today, no doubt you are painfully aware that IT IS FREAKIN’ COLD OUTSIDE!

How cold is it, you ask?

It’s colder than …

… the reception that Chris Rock gets when he walks into a Klan rally.

… sleeping between Bill and Hillary Clinton.

… a three-way with Manti Te’o.

… your mama offering Lay’s on the corner.

… clubbing a baby harp seal on Christmas morning.

… Frosty’s left nut.

… Bill Belichick’s heart.

… trying to sell freezers in Siberia.

… Vanilli’s singing career.

… Polar Bear Appreciation Day in downtown Point Barrow.

… Ladies Drink Free night at the national NAMBLA convention.

… being dumped by the Abominable Snow Man for Larry King.

… trying to have sex while Gilbert Gottfried reads Fifty Shades of Grey. [NSFW language]

… the North Pole on Free Snow Cone Day.

… a Lady Gaga concert at the Vatican.

… ice skating naked at Rockefeller Center while Stevie Wonder watches.

… the Hitler picture booth at the Jerusalem Winter Carnival.

… Lindsay Lohan’s Oscar chances.

But yeah, it’s cold.

my fellow americans …

Jan 202013
 

On Sunday, January 20, 2013, Barack Obama takes the oath of office for his second term as President of the United States. During the inaugural celebration, which will stretch into Monday, he will address the entire nation to celebrate the event and lay out his vision for his second term in office.

Although I’m sure he’s got qualified professionals who might have more (read: any) experience writing such oratories, I thought that this time out he might need some help, especially since the majority of Americans probably won’t remember anything he said—unless he mentions something about giving away free pizza or having Honey Boo Boo and The Human Thumb, deported to Kazakhstan—ten minutes after the speech is over.

I guarantee that if he chooses to use this speech, people will remember it.

Here we go with

The Inaugural Address That I Can Only Hope President Obama Will Deliver This Time

My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the continuing challenges before us, deeply grateful for the trust you have bestowed upon me once again. Now that I’m safely entrenched in the second term that you have granted me, I no longer have to be as concerned about how my every word and action might be twisted by political opponents to sway or mislead the voting electorate. So with those challenges behind me, I’ve decided that I’m going to talk to you in a more direct manner.

Simply: I’m done with the bullshit and I’m going to give it to you all straight.

Oh, that’s right, the current President of the United States just uttered the word “bullshit,” and guess what? Not a damned thing happened. Oh sure, some people may have gasped, a few hearts may have skipped a beat here or there, but no one was physically hurt or died from my use of that word, nor did the world come to any sort of abrupt end. Heck, no one was even psychologically damaged by this, not even the youngest of our Americans, who have most likely already heard their own parents exclaim such words—or worse—in frustration. Often repeatedly.

Sticks and stones break bones last time I checked, not the occasional naughty word.

And you see, that illustrates two of the major challenges that lie before us. Not only are our energies constantly absorbed by focusing on meaningless controversies such as being offended by a mere word that we’ve all heard and most likely have used at numerous points in our lives, but more importantly, we’re also creating a nation of insulated, self-absorbed precious snowflakes who can never hear a bad word, can never be allowed to be sad, and can never be subjected to the slightest hardship or inconvenience.

In short, we’re raising a generation of zombified wusses who live their days glued to video games and cell phones, and who are convinced that they can do no wrong. Trust me, I know this firsthand—I have two beautiful daughters of my own, Natasha and Malia, who can tell you in excruciating detail about how they can navigate a sandbox game like Minecraft, but yet are incapable of finding their way on their own to the local playground to play in a sandbox. We have allowed them to become more interested in keeping up with the Kardashians than keeping up with their algebra.

Epic fail, as they say.

Sure, my fellow parents, our intentions are noble, but by making it easier on our children now, we’re making it harder on everyone in the long run. In our zest to ensure every one of our children feels good about him or herself by giving them a trophy for just showing up, it means that often they never taste the bitter agony of defeat, and thus, have never gain a strong hunger for victory. Maybe if a child or two got left behind on occasion, they would work harder to keep up with the best and brightest.

Perhaps this is why the rest of the civilized world is kicking our collective butts in areas that are “hard” such as science, manufacturing and technology, and will continue to do so. Our kids just don’t give a damn because they know they’ll be rewarded, regardless of the outcome, as long as they—quote, unquote—try.

And that’s not how it works in the real world, is it? If you show up at work and try, that’s all fine and good, but if you don’t get the job done, you’re not going to stay employed for very long are you . . . unless of course you work in Congress.

[*wait for laughter to subside*]

All joking aside, we need to raise mentally tougher and thicker-skinned children, more rugged individuals who are not deterred at the first obstacle and will not throw up their hands when the going gets rough. No more waiting for Mommy to come along and make it all right—make it all right for yourself, or be left behind.

But before we can do that, my fellow Americans, the first step is looking at ourselves, and realizing that we need to step up our own game. That in addition to teaching our children how to make things all right for themselves, we need not only to teach ourselves how to make things all right for ourselves, but that each and every one of us is solely responsible for our own lives.

That’s right—it’s time to stop playing the blame game. It’s not the fault of big business, the government, the education system, your local planning and zoning board, the Illuminati or even the cast of the Jersey Shore that you’re living in a van down by the river. If you’re an adult and you’re not happy with where you are in your life, you have no one to blame but yourself. You—and you alone—can change it.

It’s called personal responsibility. Google it. Learn it. Live it.

And I don’t want to hear you say that you can’t do it. Despite what many may say, this is still the Land of Opportunity. Just ask my good friend from back in Kenya, Donald Trump, who on multiple opportunities squandered the fortune his father left him before finally making it bigger than his hair.

[*smile smugly and nod during the applause, then get serious again*]

Now many might suggest that the last four years in the United States have sucked—the economy has been down, retail prices are up, our political system appears to be frozen, and numerous heartbreaking tragedies have befallen our land.

But I say to each one of you, step back and compare your life here in the United States to the rest of the world.

Yes, there’s 8 percent unemployment here, but guess what? That means 92 percent employment—I guarantee you anyone in Greece or Spain, where 1 out of 4 people are jobless, would happily trade for that any day of the week. Tanks are not rumbling down Main Street America while they slaughter tens of thousands of innocent citizens, like in Syria. We’re not facing famine and disease such as in West Africa, where 150 of every 1,000 children will die before reaching age 5. You’re not eating the bark off trees to stay alive while the latest generation in a line of chubby, well-fed megalomaniacs are ranting about Best Korea and comparing the size of their rockets to everyone else.

First world problems, people.

Now that’s not to say we shouldn’t focus our energies on pushing this proud nation to reach its full potential. I think that we all agree that if we can get every American man and woman, boy and girl, to stop their whining and their bitching, to ignore the distractions that come with such negative activities, to put all our ridiculous partisan political bickering aside, and started working together, there would be no freaking  stopping us.

Sure, we have challenges, from economic woes and gun control to congressional constipation and our ever-growing national waistline, but I truly believe if we cut all the petty, self-serving crap and tried to find solutions that would help the silent majority rather than appease the obnoxiously loud few, we would once again be regarded by all as the greatest nation on Earth.

I think of the words of two young women who worked in a brewery in Milwaukee, who went from obscurity to prosperity. “Nothing’s gonna turn us back now. Straight ahead and on the track now. We’re gonna make our dreams come true. Doin’ it our way.” The American Way.

So let’s get off our butts and get to work. To paraphrase the brilliant Americans who brought us South Park, The Book of Mormon and Team America: World Police: “America … FUCK YEAH!”

Thank you, and God bless.

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