Near Train Misses

Okay this is a little a - how you say - Danse Macrabre - but I assure you that no one gets hurt and it is completely stunning. Here are videos of people narrowly escaping a train.

I start with the worst one. As I said, no one gets hurt. Really



This video shows the reason why you should stop and look before crossing railroad tracks



Even if you're walking



This one is so close it catches the guy's shoe



Drinking and trains don't mix



Last one - this just gives me chills



See - no one got hurt. But I hope we all learned a lesson about trains

My solution to Creationism

Many schools are having a difficult time explaining the science of creationism. I think I've found the perfect solution. I suggest this statement be placed in every science book:


The Universe is at least 6,000 years old. At least one god may or may not have created, dreamed, hatched, cried, whipped up, smashed down, molded, gave birth to and/or spitted out the Universe. The Universe took at least 6 days to form.

In the beginning of Earth's formation there were no animals. After at least four days there were animals on the Earth. After at least five days there were humans on the Earth. 6,000 years ago there were gardens. At least one man and one woman probably lived in a garden and there were most likely animals there as well. At this time (6,000 years ago) dinosaurs did not pose a threat to humans. Snakes can be dangerous. People should not eat plants they're unfamiliar with. Sometimes men and women get tired of living in a garden and leave.

Humans have remained genetically same and have not evolved for at least 6,000 years. Soil contains carbon and other bio material. The same chemicals and compounds in soil can be found in humans. When soil dries out it can be considered by some to be dust. Therefore the same material that makes a human is also in dust.

Men sleep and sometimes they hurt one of their ribs while they're asleep. Sometimes the injury is so bad that the rib must be removed . Sometimes women need a bone marrow transplant and it's theoretically possible that the marrow from the damaged rib could be used to give life to the woman. Then they would have some of the same stuff in common. This could cause an emotional bond to form and the man and woman could get married.

See, it's all better now.

Source Story: "The Universe Could Soon Be 6,000 Years Old in Texas"

Great Wedding Day

If all weddings were like this I would go.



Source - Huffingtonpost

What Happened to Us?

Today - July 16, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. On this day, Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr left the Earth and flew to the moon. On July 20th, Armstrong announced those now famous words, "The eagle has landed."

After Armstrong descended the ladder of the landing module and he took his first step on the lunar surface he said, ""That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"



I was five years old and I barely remember the event, but the influence of the flight lasted a life time. Or so I thought.

What happened to us? Since that historic journey, things have gotten worse. We wrecked the environment. There are more wars and more children starving. With all the new technology we can't even seem to leave orbit. My God, there are even more people who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Okay, there's the Internet. I guess that cool. And there's WoW and gastric bands for when you get too fat from playing WoW. There is HDTV and computers. And the first black president. But really the spirit of adventure has died.

My first scifi novel was "A Wrinkle in Time". I didn't really identify with Meg, but that was okay, the whole premise was fantastic. Next, I got hooked on the Heinlein adolescence series. Stories like, "Starman Jones" and "Have Space Suit will Travel". This was a time when everything was possible. There would be a base on the moon and then to Mars and then to Jupiter and then My God it's full of stars ...

But slowly and incrementally I slipped into cyberpunk. In the 80's I lost all those dreams and descended into the decay of society. I was into "Neuromancer", "Armor", "The Forever War", "When Gravity Fails" and "A Scanner Darkly".

And then came acceptance that we totally screwed ourselves and I started reading organic science fiction like "Ender's Game" and "The Dispossessed".

Forty years have passed and we are still no closser to leaving the orbit of this planet. We are at least ten more years away from getting back to the moon and maybe fifty years away from going to Mars.

What happened to us?

Boston.com has a great selection of photo's from the historic mission
NASA's Apollo 11 page.

Bastille Day

I took two semesters of French in college so here it goes ...

Le jour heureux de bastille!!

On this day in 1789 the prison / fortress Bastille was stormed by angry French peasants, marking the beginning of the French revolution and the end to French royalty. It also marked the beginning of the separation of head and body. Thank you Mr. Guillotine.

In tribute of the French revolution, which we Americans caused by our revolution - Not by our independent ideals, but because of the tremendous debt France incurred by supporting us - here is a little tribute to you.



Vive la France!

**Special thanks to Polly-Vous Francais for setting me straight on Viva vs. Vive**

Sour - Tone of everyday

Beautiful music video by Sour

Dances with Squirrels

My introduction to performance art.

Many years ago, when station wagons roamed the land, my parents took my brother and me on vacation to Lake Tahoe. This was before DVD players or for that matter before VHS. Nope, it was just my brother and me beating the crap out of each other for ten straight hours and my Jewish mother screaming at us from the front; my father white-knuckling the steering wheel.

Except for the occasional burning car, dead coyote or the creepy purple glow from the nuke test range, the space between Vegas and Tahoe is an empty wasteland.

My dad stopped at Tonopah to get gas and we got out to search for a snake or lizard to scare my mother with. I lifted a rock and was stung by a scorpion. My middle finger swelled up like a German sausage. My mother wrapped it in ice and for five hundred miles I got to flip off every passing vehicle.

In Tahoe, my dad rented a very rustic cabin and for the first ten minutes it was a kid's paradise. The rest of the 9 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes were complete boredom. Except for the last twenty minutes. Those last twenty minutes were the greatest time of my entire life.

With nothing really productive to do, we decided to become the great white hunters. Our first quarry was deer. We discovered that deer run very fast and were bigger than us. We lowered our expectations to squirrels.

I designed an ingenious trap. It consisted of a shoe box held up by a stick and some Cheese Whiz squished on a string attached to the stick. See, the plan was a squirrel would see the cheese, go into the box, pull the string that would drop the stick and the box, which would capture the varmint.

Every day we set up the trap and every night the wind blew it over. You could imagine our delight each morning, when we found the box down. I crept up and gently lifted up the box with a long stick. My brother held a large rock to stun the poor creature.

Well after the seventh time with nothing in the box, we set the trap and forgot all about it.

Now it was the tenth day and time to leave. As my dad pulled out of the dirt driveway he noticed the box. "What is that?" he asked.

"Oh, that's our squirrel trap," I replied.

"Well pick that crap up and throw it away." I kicked my brother out of the car, he stumbled over to the box and casually lifted it up. Now there are few moments in one's life that are so beautiful and perfect that you get a feeling you are one with the universe. This was such a moment for me.

Three days before, one of the dumbest squirrels in Lake Tahoe, saw the cheese, pulled the string and was trapped by the box. And for three days this squirrel sat in the dark. When my brother lifted the box, the squirrel - half insane from thirst and hunger and blinded by the sun confused my brother for a red headed tree and jumped on his chest. The squirrel dug in his little furry claws and was never letting go.

I remember my bother jumping back in fright, noticed the squirrel locked onto his chest and did something akin to an Irish jig. His feet were flinging back and forth, his arms waving in the air and he was shouting something in Gaelic. Then he ran full speed into the forest and vanished like smoke in the wind.

My parents sat there a moment in complete stunned silence. Then my dad slowly got out of the car, slammed the door, grabbed my mother's toiletry bag from the trunk and ran into the forest. I got out as quickly as a could and ran after them.

About fifty yards in, there was a small clearing, rays of golden sunlight streamed through the trees and upon the nettled covered ground, my father was trying to remove the squirrel by beating living hell out of my brother with the battered toiletry bag.

I still get a little teary eyed thinking about that scene.

**No squirrels were harmed in the creating of this story**

To the Fray

A few months ago, I published a short story in Fray. It was called, "Hosing Down the Prostitutes" I included a link to the story .. Here and HERE. Anyway, they're set to publish another story of mine and so far they're the only ones who think I'm funny. If you could find it in your heart to subscribe I would be most appreciative.

Maybe, I will even include my "Dances with Squirrels" story.

Monster or Fish Food?

My brother Roger clued me into this disturbing and terrifying video. Apparently, the creatures were captured on a snake camera in a North Carolina sewer. Is it real? Is it alien? Who knows?



Although, a viable answer is this a common type of fish food.