Out of the Wild

I stumbled on to Discovery channel’s Out of The Wild the other day. The show takes 9 cast members, gives them 3 days of basic survival training, a pack with supplies, and then drops them in the middle of the wilderness. They are given a partial map (more map pieces are given at each checkpoint) and have to navigate back to civilization. Each cast member has a button they can push at any point to be “rescued”. During the few minutes I watched, one of the cast members, while having an emotional moment and wanting to quit, said, “ I just wish I was back in Maine right now, I just want to go home”. There is a simple solution to that, go home. You are on a TV show, what are you doing there to begin with, you didn’t somehow become stranded there, you went through a casting process and made the choice to go. I mean what could possibly go wrong with 3 days of basic survivor skill training before being left in the wilderness? If you want to go back to Maine so bad, just go, but don’t cry about it, you’re not going to die, the cameraman filming this ridiculous moment will make sure of it.

Perfect American part two

My series on how I am a perfect American continues. I wrote before about when I poured out water because it might have gone bad, showing how wasteful I can be, and thus a perfect example of an American. Well it has happened again, I found myself staring down the barrel of another proud American moment. After removing a microwaveable food item, sign number one, I tried to removed the plastic wrapper. The plastic seared my fingers, I let go. I tried again, same result, burnt fingers, food not opened. This occurred several times before I realized what was happening. I was in such a hurry to eat my microwaveable food item that I couldn’t wait 30 seconds for it to cool down enough to open it. I just burned my fingerprints away like some TV-show criminal. Once it was finally open and I ran cold water over my fingertips, I tasted it, didn’t like it, and tossed it in the trash. After throwing away perfectly good food, because it wasn’t to my liking, I turned, saluted the flag, and sang God Bless America.

Through the eye of an iPhone

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the one and only KRS One at a small club. When the man walked on stage there was a sea of pocket-sized recording devices raised overhead. They were trying to capture this moment, save it for all time, what they didn’t realize was that by trying to save the moment, they missed it. While their focus was on making sure they were clearly recording, they weren’t focusing on what was right in front of them, KRS One, he was right there, just feet away, saying “I ain’t got jewels around my neck, but I got your respect”, yet they were seeing him on a small little screen. No matter how many times they watch what they recorded it will never be the moment that was lost.

So...who wants to see the video I shot on my iPhone last night at the KRS One show?

Mr. Calm Khaki Pants

On an episode of Modern Marvels they visited several underground facilities; bunkers, labs, flood channels, etc. One of the facilities was a lab that housed a particle accelerator. They explained that particles are accelerated to 90% of the speed of light, while doing so, the process creates large amounts of radiation. One of the scientists stood in front of an accelerator bay and calmly said, “this process creates such a large amount of radiation that we will never be able to open this room again”. OK Mr. Calm Khaki Pants, I’m not buying that this is no big deal. I have seen too many movies to not know how this goes. The lab loses funding and must shut down, it’s then abandoned, after some time the materials used to build the accelerator bay begin to break down, then a crack in a wall, and now radiation in high levels is flowing out into the world. I need you to be a little less calm.

How dare you!

Recently I started watching episodes of a TV show online. On the site there are advertising banners everywhere, not only banners, but the ones that get really big when you move your cursor over them. Even when you move your cursor off they stay that big; you have to click to close them. Sometimes the same ad gets me two or three times in a row. At that point I scream some beautifully profane word at my computer, and get pissed at their nerve for having all these ads. Then it’s back to finding the link to watch a show (that airs on premium cable) for free.