Alien Interference

ufo

The aliens are messing with our minds, man.

It’s the only explanation why people are so crazy these days. There are the usual pessimists who used to be relatively sane who now believe the rain specifically aims for them. There are the generally mystified who have become completely daft. There are also those who want to be oblivious on purpose, and now they want a badge or a bracelet to identify as clinically insane. They want to be labelled.

Even worse, we have the people in charge of our social commentary wanting to make our comments for us. Automatic social media posting. Sick!

Why would any sane individual want automatic everything? Really, they don’t. The sane, the confident, the level-headed—they want very few things in their life to be automatic. A confident person wants to do things for themself.

Speaking of automatic. There needs to be such a thing as an un-update. Every time a computer or a cell phone “updates” it breaks something. Never does an update make every aspect of the system better. Some part of a program will stop working right. Why? Did the computer programmers really intend to reduce the function? Not likely.

It’s more likely that cosmic radiation messed with the programmers’ minds.

And don’t even get me started on the political scene. Yeah, by scene, I mean obscene. There are crazy politicians alright, but worse there are the psychos who obsess over those politicians. You can’t honestly say you hate a person if you spend every moment of every day tracking their behavior. If, for instance, you follow a politician on Facebook, and you add a comment to their every prompt, you’re not in hate-mode, you’re in teenage-lust-stalker-crush-mode.

Scanning past the obvious is a function of schizophrenia. But it could also be a consequence of alien interference. Maybe, just maybe, there are these psycho crazy rays coming out of alien spacecraft, affecting the minds of otherwise intelligent people—making schizophrenics of us all.

Sure people have always been crazed and dazed, frazzled and dazzled, bungled and botched, but why does the insanity appear to have magnified sevenfold?

Aliens. The aliens are messing with our minds, man.

Clean

How to be clean:

Soap.

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Of course, good old soap. But not that new stuff. If you stack it up, you can’t tell the difference between stacked soap and stacked blocks of cheese.

soap

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Both are aromatic. Both are colorful and brick-like. That colorful square you thought was soap could actually be cheese. Be careful, and yes, “choose wisely”.

The oldest methods of making soap are best.

Why?

Lye.

It burned a little going across the skin. That was the point though, right? Burn the top layer, then rinse. Chemically changing the top layer of skin is a method of cleaning mimicked in cleaning everything from silverware to automobiles. Chemical burns are so cleansing, and yet the rinse is the important part. Don’t burn the top TWO layers.

Rinse, rinse, rinse.

How else can we be clean?

Alcohol.

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Silly, bald man.

No, not in you.

And who said this silly, bald man is drinking alcohol anyway? Did you judge him somehow? I didn’t mean to make you think he was three pints into the drink. I wanted to talk about what to do with the alcohol.

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Honestly, I think you all know what to do with the alcohol. You’ve all been buying the Purell like it was the last source of oxygen on the space station, or the best steak sandwich you’ve ever had, or a tested and proven love potion. And just like that love potion, you’re not supposed to drink it, you’re supposed to bathe in it.

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That’s right. Bathe in alcohol. It will make and keep you clean.

Just one caution. While you’re bathing in alcohol, remember the rule: No Smoking.

Is there any other way to be clean?

Yes. Shave your head.

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Shaving your head will make the very tip top of you clean.

And when you’re all tip top clean, you’ll be happy.

 

 

Concept Vehicles

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These are some of my favorite concept cars with links to where you can learn more about them.

Renault Trezor  Renault.co.uk

Okay, the Trezor has the best soundtrack in their video, no question. The best feature on this concept car is the body. It looks sleek, fast, and expensive. Looks expensive, but the reality is that this car wouldn’t be. Sure it looks stylish, but the negative features would bring the price down to suburban levels. Like many concept cars, the Trezor has an impractical door style. The entire top folds up and forward. You’d never be able to drive it in the rain—or you’d be afraid to get out unless you were in a garage. Also, because the interior is so bowl-shaped, it looks like it would collect water. Who would want to drive around while immersed in water? The red windshield looks cool in a video, but it would probably give some people a migraine to be subjected to the colored light on long trips.

Lamborghini Terzo Millenio  Lamborghini.com

This one doesn’t just look fantastic, it boasts some genius ideas. Batteries are stored in and around the base of the vehicle, to distribute the weight more evenly. Other ideas are quality, but they only seem to be ideas. Lamborghini car company wants to develop systems to capture and create and store more electricity. They’ve designed the wheels to look like generators, but from what I’ve studied on this one, the wheels don’t really generate, they just look like they could. The body is a composite (carbon fiber) that utilizes low voltages to “heal”. It’s such a low-slung car it would need that sort of talent. I could imagine cringing at every bump in the road while driving this beautiful and fanciful machine.

Audi Ai Trail  Audi.com

The simple design of the Audi Ai Trail is somewhat better than many of the fancier concept cars. I could imagine it being a little longer and able to seat more people. They’ve saved some weight by making seats out of a hammock material. Electric motors are good, but they’re not great for heavy loads, so Audi tried to shave off some weight with the seating. The design of the Ai Trail is high off the ground for rugged terrain. The one design they came up with that is debatable is the drone headlight idea. Drone headlights would be fine in open spaces, but not in forested areas. Trees, especially tall trees, would block out all the light from a drone.

Ferrari Pininfarina Modulo  Modulo on YouTube

The Ferrari Modulo is one of the first beautiful concept cars from way back in the 20th century. It is one of the first concept cars to have the open top design. Again, the open top would be no good in wet weather, though it might draw attention at car shows. This one looked super cool. The inadequate science of the times made the designers stick a V12 in the car. The V12 engine is typically too big for its own good. Heavier than it was powerful, the V12 couldn’t brag about miles per gallon, ever. You could get better gas mileage from pickup trucks of the same era. We’re talking 18 miles per gallon for trucks of that time, while the engine in the Modulo got closer to 8 miles per gallon. So basically, this concept car just looked amazing. The wheels were almost hidden to make a casual observer think the car was hovering. Overall, the shape of the Modulo might give someone the idea of sighting a UFO. If the “pilot” emerged with a green mask, no one would be surprised—shocked maybe, but not surprised.

Jeep Hurricane Hurricane on YouTube

Yeah, baby! This beauty is the king of cool. It was introduced in 2005. The articulating wheels are only the second most amazing thing about this concept vehicle. (See the video.) The low top design is the best, though it was never used in any vehicle in the Jeep lineup. Headroom in Wranglers, and Wagoneers always seems much higher than it needs to be, so the Hurricane appeared to be an advance for some of the most popular off-road vehicles ever. The box design of most Jeeps is a wind trap. It’s inefficient and consumes fuel. Borrowing from the Wrangler many of the great features, the Hurricane design introduced a button start option, front and back wheels that could articulate in perpendicular directions, and some sweet lift. It has beautiful distance from tire to body and from body to ground level. It has good distance front and rear for tire traction without body interruption, and with what looks to me like a wider stance than the standard Wrangler, which admittedly could be advantage or disadvantage depending on the shape of the climb. The engines Jeep used in the years around 2005 were adequate climbers so the Hurricane is probably an off-road dream.

Wordswirl

ornamentalcat

Recollections wreck elections. I know there are things needing to be done.

Lope to the kitchen. I watch ditches. Sink spirits like a loose cannon. Water cannon.

Cold sweat overtakes me. I know there are things needing to be done. Anxiety knew long before as it crowded my brain migraine. Ache eats into my subconscious. Need something to occupy my mine.

Resort to electronics but the terror vision is no relief. Too many nude dead love triangles to handle in one day. Too many scandals in sandals. Judgements to be made, judgements to be forgiven, and we all get flushed through the news cycle like wet herds. If I can resist the social media wagon, I can resist the negative commentary troll baggin’. I could witch mice elf out of this crazy place. Sometimes our escapes make us fools. Sometimes fools are wise as wizards.

Digital pastimes fill me with guilt because I know there are things needling to be done. Virtual comforts pass when the power goes out. Then it’s so quiet I can hear the gangs down the sloped street chuting each other. No one thinks they’re alone, and yet everyone does. Everyone gets up and goes for a ride. Everyone stops at the end of the slide.

What does it all mean? Why are we here? To do better? To make it all better? To be like Eddie Vedder? The search continues through the sinews. Learning hits me like a ten ton ruler on the back of the hand. When I feel it I remember again, and I don’t say it, ’cause there’s no need to repeat the spin.

From the Vine

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For centuries, people used grapes in amazing ways. They used grapes instead of water to quench their thirst. They used grapes as nature intended: as food straight off the vine. People even used grapes as raisins because dried fruit kept longer and could be used in the months when nothing grew on the farm except chickens and teenagers.

Then in 1873, during a heat spell in California, some knucklehead stuck a marketing flag all over the dried grape and called it a “Peruvian Delicacy”. From that simply evil prevarication came the sick ideas of sticking grapes and raisins in everything—everything that never called for it. Grapes in salad would only be good if it’s a fruit salad, and yet more knuckleheads, probably related to that first knucklehead, threw grapes and raisins in a perfectly good vegetable salad. It could be argued that eating grapes with tomatoes is healthy, but the sanity of such an act is questionable.

Grapes in a chicken salad? The chef must have been cleaning out the left-overs in the fridge.

Grapes on a tuna salad sandwich? Was the sandwich-maker drunk?

Raisins in oatmeal cookies? What other way could you destroy dessert? 

Raisins in trail mix? Sure, fine, it kind of makes sense because it goes back to the ancient way of storing food for long periods of time with little effort. The only problem I have with this idea is that it has gone too far. It has become difficult to find trail mix without raisins. It’s come to the point where I have to make my own trail mix.

Cashews? Check.

Peanuts? Check.

M&Ms? Check.

Done. No raisins needed.

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To put the raisin craze in even better perspective, did you know you could dry mushrooms? And what if some advertisement industry knucklehead portrayed mushrooms the same way they portray raisins? Would we have dried mushrooms in everything?