Happy Holo-Days
Sadly, Christmas technology just isn’t there yet.
We’re still celebrating in the old old-fashioned way. The wheel. Analog travel. And at what cost? Jet lag. Transportation risks. Fights over sounds and smells. Great expense.
In the far future we’ll step into the transporter room, say “energize,” and all meet instantly at uncle Joe’s place in the Bavarian alps.
Assuming most of us won’t be around for the 23rd century, what the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime?
My idea for a short-term interim solution is the hologram Christmas. Imagine it. You finish the last season of your favorite show on Netflix, have a seat in the imagine chamber and voila, you’re magically in the living room sitting around the hearth with the rest of the fam.
Fa la la la la la la!
No mess. No fuss. No road rage. No dodging other drivers brandishing weapons. No worries about snow in the pass. It’s just a good as being there. Better, even.
The technology is almost there. We just need some holo imagers, holo emitters, contact lenses embedded with Google Glass, and sufficient bandwidth. I’ll bet clever programmers can even come up with realistic holo versions of our current level of tablet and phone technology, so we can all lose our faces in devices just like we already do. That’s authenticity.
Happy holo-days to you and yours and everyone you’re willing to interface with.
Societal death spasms
Neighbor kills neighbor. Don’t worry, though. They will pay for what they’ve done. Especially if they hate the inconvenience of annoying paperwork, attending a couple of hearings and paying a fine. That’s more than sufficient punishment for killing a fellow human being, right?
What is a society? My definition is a system where people make decisions that impact the safety of others. More and more it seems like that’s the only definition that matters.
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Registering Alarm
We recently renewed the contract for another year on the house we rent. We politely inquired directly with the owner about cutting the property management company out of the deal because they’re stark raving assholes and don’t do jack shit, but she said no. I figured it would have been a good deal for her since she wouldn’t have to pay them for doing nothing.
They only handled one issue from us all year and that was a broken 35-year-old hot water heater. In our defense we do need hot water several times a year.
The owner felt she “didn’t have time” to manage the property herself. Eh? Wazzup?
Then the other night came a very alarming sequence of events.
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Fireworks Cleanup Post #photography
We consider ourselves fairly typical Americans. It was a few nights before the Fourth of July, decidedly my least favorite night of the year. We were in our living room, sitting on our asses and watching TV. Like I said, typical.
Suddenly there was a boom. I looked out the front window and billowing smoke rose from our front yard garden. It had begun.
“Those fireworks are close,” I said. “Damn close.” The shit was literally raining down right on top of us.
On July 4th itself I went outside to see what the hell was going on. I saw one of those colorful bursts like you’d see in any major fireworks display except it was directly over my house. It went off about 20-30 feet over our roof. Two things were immediately obvious: Why don’t they do this shit above their own houses? They’re too good for that! And, wow, they are really good shots. We were being targeted.
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Firewater Fireworks
In general, the lower the IQ the greater the thrill from fireworks and twinkly noisy thingies.
Word from the western front arrived early. It was going to be a “heat advisory” kind of a day. We hunkered in our bunkers and prepared for the worst. I put on a pair of clean tighty whities. Because:
To brine thine own self be true.
–Tom B. Taker
I was already looking forward to the salt water sores in my private areas. You know what they say. “Fight ’em over there or in your underwear.” Like always I choose the latter.
Day 1
Sunday night the neighbor set up a table saw in his front yard. He ran that sucker until 11:36 pm. On a work night. I kid you not. I believe this is the exact storyline of the movie Saw.
Day 2
Even more table saw. It was all squee … squee … squee … when the hours were wee.
What every happened to politeness? Basic manners? Please and thank you? All as dead as my peace of mind and peace and quiet.
Two nights of noise in a row. The urge to fling poo was becoming unbearable. Somehow, though, I was able to hold on.
But, little did I know it at the time, those two nights were merely flanking feints. The best was still yet to come.
Boom Shack-A-Lak!
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Outside
Next time on Biography…
I’m on the outside
Lookin’ in
Oh I’m an outsider outside of everything
Oh I’m an outsider outside of everything
Oh I’m an outsider outside of everything
Everything you know
Everything you know
It disturbs me so
It’s trendy these days, or so it seems to me, for some among us to run around having conniptions of kittens because some law might apply to them and … gasp of horrors … they never had the opportunity to sign off on it first.
Well, la dee frickin’ dah! Who the fuck are you? Apparently I forgot that any one of me is worth a hundred of you. You’re special. You’re important. Me? I’m the official spokesperson for The Rest Of Us. Also known as the Wretched Refuse, the tired, poor huddled masses of the homeless, tempest-tost. I’m the elected leader of those not worthy to be ground to mush to fill the empty spaces in the waffle treads of your Nike footwear.
I’m the stranger in a strange land. As I look around and apply logic to what I see, the message comes in loud and clear. I do not belong.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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