I love the word sesquicentennial. It’s a shame that it doesn’t get used much.
Thank goodness for my state’s urban blight and rural renewal program.
Every week since its establishment two centuries ago, a new village or town was established.
Which means there’s plenty of sesquicentennial celebrations to be had.
Bicentennial celebrations, however, are a rarity, since all population centers are razed and resettled after 150 years.
It’s meant to ensure legacy sewer, power, and road infrastructure are replaced with technologically efficient innovations in the new locations, but I think people just like to watch stuff implode, crumble and burn.
Tag: dystopia
Sarcasm
We were watching the Super Bowl, and a television commercial for a bank came on.
I read the fine print:
SUBSTANTIAL PENALTY FOR EARLY WITHDRAWAL.
I made a joke: “What do they do, cut your head off?”
Everybody in the room went silent.
And the red alarm dot on the television began to flash.
“Oh, shit… the sarcasm detector,” said the host. “They heard him.”
“They? Who?” I asked.
The screen went black, and outside… the sound of an approaching helicopter.
Oh great. The Sarcasm Police. Just what I need.
The red dot on top of the television flashed brighter.
Medicinal Music
Studies with burn patients showed that engaging the patient with music helped reduce the need for pain medications during bandage changes, and the patients recovered faster.
As a result, the hospital needed less medication and nurses to deliver it and monitor patient progress, which led to significant cost-savings.
That was until the RIAA had talks with the drug companies and the nurse’s union.
Lobbyists got Congress to require a prescription for purchasing music.
Apple and Amazon were delighted to raise prices for downloads and cloud-streaming.
This isn’t a piano. It’s a fancy bar table.
See? No hammers.
Totally legal, man.
Your Mission
After listening to the tape describe a nightmare Doomsday scenario facing the world, Jim listened to his mission, and then pondered whether he should accept it or not.
Before the tape had self-destructed in a whiff of smoke, Jim had made his decision:
No.
Instead, he went fishing, and caught a pair of trout that grilled up nicely.
Finishing his beer, he turned on the television to watch the news.
Just a tone and a test pattern.
It was on every channel.
Jim figured the new regime would probably hire him.
He hoped that his retirement plan would roll over.
Test Drive
One of the drawbacks to owning an electric car is that you can’t leave it running in a closed garage to suffocate yourself.
However, you can still drive it off of a cliff, assuming there’s any cliffs around. Or ram it into a tree without wearing a seat belt, assuming that you have a control or switch that will disable the airbags.
I’m not sure that you can drive it into a lake to drown. Does it float? I’m not sure. Perhaps you could add some cinderblocks to the trunk.
So, want to take it for a test drive now?
Alive!
After our daughter died, the neighbors came by to express their condolences.
And they brought a large number of covered dishes.
So many so, that I sketched up a few plans, converted the basement to an elaborate and functional mad scientist’s lab to bring all this tuna noodle casserole to life.
Sure enough, the moment my wife threw the switch, the noodle-creature rose up and moaned: “Mommy! Daddy!”
The neighbors heard about our experiment, and arrived at the door with torches and pitchforks.
“Please stop playing God,” they said. “And we want our Corningware back if you’re done with it.”
The Voices In Sally’s Head
Sally hears voices in her head.
But instead of telling her to go wild, set fires and kill people, they tell her to go straight home and clean her room.
They even help her with her Chemistry homework.
“Boyle’s Law is pressure times volume equals a constant,” says a voice. “It’s Charles’ Law that involves temperature.”
Sally smiles, puts down the Chemistry book, and moves over to Physics.
Oh, sure… eventually they told her to burn down the school and kill her classmates.
Then they told her to go home and clean her room.
The cops didn’t find any evidence.
RGB
If you take the red pill, it’s poison.
If you take the green pill, it’s poison.
And if you take the blue pill, it’s poison.
But if you take all three at the same time, yeah, it’s a really wild trip.
RGB’s the newest drug to hit the streets.
But nobody sells the pills together.
For that reason, the courts can’t convict a Red Dealer, a Blue Dealer, or Green Dealer.
You’ve got to get busted with all three, or with two trying to make the third.
So, the cops were screwed.
Until they started manufacturing and distributing genuine-looking placebos.
A Bunch Of Babies
Our country’s compulsory military service begins at birth.
The infantry is literally made up of infants.
And the air force’s recruits spend their days fed by spoon while drill sergeants shout HERE COMES THE AIRPLANE INTO THE HANGAR! ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Oh, and the navy spends its time in the wading pool on the lawn, splashing around and squealing.
Sure, they have issues marching and holding rifles and maintaining advanced radar-jamming equipment, and then there’s the discipline issues with “the terrible twos,” but all in all, they’re a good bunch.
Oh, and our large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. Those help too.
Vulge
All you could ever hope to learn is contained beneath the robes of Professor Vulge of Crimson University.
Vulge’s shroud, opaque veil, black gloves and socks are legendary.
Not even Vulge’s grad students, who call themselves minions, remember ever seeing Vulge… or hearing him.
Vulge just listens, and either points to the next student to present, or…
Oh, that dreaded, deadly gesture to the door!
Failure! Rejection!
It isn’t a semester without news of one… two… sometimes all of Vulge’s students hurling themselves to their deaths!
The administration is aware of this.
And made tuition payable in advance, and non-refundable.