spacematic.net

Where was the Twenty-First century I was promised? Somewhere along the line, things went woefully out of control. Now, the circumstances under which we currently live resemble the wet dream of a mid-1980’s pork-belly profiteer. We were supposed to be attacking environmental problems head-on, saving the future for generations of human beings to follow without the risk of poisoning, polluting and destroying. We were supposed to be more enlightened and we were supposed to have a greater sense of personal responsibility.
Instead of more efficient, more sane methods of transportation, we dug our heels in and gouged the dwindling oil market with the largest, most destructive vehicles that can possibly be made without pre-mounted weapons. Our corporate executives dry hump the profits of their productive workforce and then pay themselves more for the gift of robbing us blind. If we look back on the greed of the 1980’s with disgust, then the future will look at the first decade of the twenty-first century as the most unnecessary backslide on the ethical, technological and political march of progress. We’ll be lucky if we’re not too disgusting to be a mere mention. Hell, I’m ashamed of myself for being here at this point in time. The world we live in today is grossly self-interested, self-medicated and parasitically destructive. What happened to the dissatisfaction of Generation X in the 1990’s? Weren’t we supposed to do something positive with all that angst?
Well, something happened today that mede me feel a little better. The goofy little Spaceship One made its second successful flight to space today, marking the beginning of commercially-driven space tourism and (eventual) exploration. Now I’m suddenly inspired again. Now I have hope for the future. Maybe we’re not so disgustingly self-interested and entranced by pop culture that we can look on this with a modicum of the wild-eyed innocence our parents and grandparents viewed the fledgling Mercury missions. Maybe this silly little spaceplane is big enough to distract society from its hedonism and languid, barstool hypnosis and remind us that “HEY! We’re living in the 21st freakin’ century here! Let’s light this thing up and meet it head on!” Melt down the Navigators and Escalades! Spaceships for everyone!!! –Mike

Yesterday, Mike McGarrity invited me to meet him for lunch. I thought it was a bit in bad taste to meet at “Bahama Breeze,” especially given the approaching storm. Whatever.
When I woke up this morning, the first pictures coming in were places that I remembered vividly and even fondly from last year, but now they were mangled and different. I guess I picked the right year to live at the beach. 2003 saw nothing like this. Nonetheless, extreme and violent weather on the coast is frequent, and no laughing matter. Even when there is no hurricane activity in the Gulf, tropical storms and tornadoes barrel through the flat expanse of the panhandle like a fat man at a buffet table. Lightning is also spectacular on the Gulf of Mexico. Branches flash and stretch across the sky, sometimes with such frequency as to light your way as you walk or drive. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend walking around on the beach in a lightning storm. Always seek the shelter of a lone, tall tree… and be sure to wear conductive metal mesh undergarments. A CB antenna strapped to your head can serve as an extra taunt to the gods. Damnit, people. Just don’t go outside.
I interviewed for a job in Fort Walton Beach last year. The manager had a tale of bravado and delivered it with a combination of zeal and solemnity. He said that during Opal, he didn’t evacuate. Rather, he opened the doors and windows and greeted the onslaught. A lone, tiny man, armchaired and steeled against the wrath of God like the guy in the Maxxell commercial of years gone by. Many of the potential recruits sat around the table and gawked in awe at this brave soul. I, on the other hand, dug my tongue into my cheek and held back from belting “IDIOT!” Like the famous last words of the redneck are “watch this,” the guy was going to stare down a hurricane so he could tell the buddies.
I decided not to take the job when only five minutes later he said he was recovering from gunshot wounds received by drug dealers while hunting. I never learned what he was hunting for. Any man who puts himself in that much danger wantonly is dangerous himself, and where I’d be his friend if circumstances were different, I’d never want him to be my boss. Fool. –Mike

Perhaps one of the most persistent fans to spacematic.net, Glenn Robinson has been urging me to post every day by at least three or four in the afternoon so he can have a blog-fix. As stated in previous entries, I’ve had a bit of a writer’s block/emotional recession lately. Glenn takes no such sissy introspection as a legitimate excuse, nor does he brake for fruity navel-gazing and concept development. To prove that he’s had enough of my farting around, he submitted this blog entry “for me” today. I hope you enjoy it! –Mike
It���s a Hoax!
For all of its��� stunning scenery, brilliant cinematography and well-developed characters, I���m offended by some who have taken to the ridiculous notion that the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is more fact than fiction. These individuals (who can generally be found hanging out back behind the comic book show playing Magic the Gathering and smoking pipes in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Anthony Daniels before he is whisked away after his obligatory appearance) have really shown their ignorance in the recent months. They claim that the basis for Tolkien���s anthology of Middle Earth is founded in historical fact and can be supported with carbon dating and witchcraft. The truth is���..
Traditionally, Hobbits were lazy people whose development was stunted by the consumption of undercooked food resulting in the swelling of the feet, more commonly known as gout. Their entire race was all but wiped out by the Moors prior to the invasion of Spain. Their most significant contribution to world history lay in the ruins of the Cathedral at Stonehenge which was later mistaken for an ancient timepiece. Those that have survived do what they can to obtain meaningful employment in Hollywood, staring in such mega hits like “Time Bandits”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “Leprechaun(s)” I, II and “Leprechaun III: In the Hood”, not to mention the more recent cult reality show The Midget Batchelor. In other words, it would be all but impossible for a Hobbit to exhibit such courage in the face of danger as Tolkien would suggest. Not to mention, the Dwarves. One would think that Tolkien would have done some research prior to filling his book with historical nonsense. Here is proof again that some people will forsake the truth in search of the elusive but almighty dollar. Had he done his research, he would realize that Dwarves never were inhabitants of so called Middle Earth and were in fact indigenous to North America, specifically the areas surrounding Rock City and Ruby Falls in Northern Georgia where their likeness can still be found. (See pic)
And don���t be fooled, the Elves were not cunning archers as they were represented in the movie. Had they been, they would not have been ensnared so easily by slave traders from the north, bought and sold and forever condemned to sweat and toil, to be known for the remainder of their days as ���Santa���s Bitches,��� breaking for only weeks at a time to parade around the malls of North America in costumes that mock at their noble lineage. Exiled to the far reaches of the North Pole��� Speak not to me of Legolas. Furthermore, everyone knows that Wizards just flat out don���t exist. How gay��ω��
And so I would say to those who would seek to follow the teachings of Randolph and the Hobbit Frodo. Do not go easily into that good night. Oh what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive���.Shame on you Tolkien, it never happened, never will and I for one don���t believe a word of it!
The Lord of the Rings = Fiction (Believe It!)
Next week, The Truth behind Harry Potter
–Glenn

Randolph??
Oh, Hell! Gandalf! Get your history straight, Mr. Robinson. The Noble Prize-winning wizerd can and will come from over the Western ocean to kick supernatural ass on you like the puny goblin you are! You should be lucky to clean the Warg stalls, if he doesn’t turn you into a tur-frog first! Gandalf will never die!!! EVAR!!! He’s my favret!
Seriously, (if that can be attempted now) Glenn has had a personal beef with me ever since I made him watch the Terry Gilliam classic “Time Bandits.” He and Jo both sat, fixed on the screen as a horde of little folks cartooned and lampooned about with a twelve-year-old boy. As the credits rolled and George Harrison crooned a wicked tune, Glenn stared daggers at me and said “WTF was that s*@t?? Mike, I’m never trusting you again.”
Since then, Glenn has treated me to such classics as “The Blood On Satan’s Claw” and “Shark Attack Three: Megalodon.” Be careful what you recommend to your friends. There are some things they just don’t ever get over. Ever. –Mike

For the first two months of this blog, I was happily but reservedly adding posts on a pretty regular basis. Then June came along – and like a bolt out of the blue, the entries were fast, entertaining and plentiful. As soon as July rolled around, things stopped being normal and timely here at spacematic.net. I wish I could tell you why. I think about this site all the time, but when it comes to sitting down and adding an entry, I draw blanks. Constantly. This sort of thing is more than distressing, it’s depressing. I love playing around here. I love adding my opinion to the web so that strangers searching for important things can be diverted and annoyed. But I just can’t seem to do it, lately. That said, I’m not notifying technorati or blo.gs on today’s update. It’s hardly worth it. I have no more excuses. I just feel — uninspired. Don’t know why. Can’t really figure it out. I’ve been watching and reading news like a madman, friends are feeding me sources and quips for entertaining pieces and others still email me, asking why the hell I haven’t given them their free entertainment.
I think the news can overload you. Naive little me has learned of late that the function of news is not to inspire. Its function is to overload. Chatty know-it-alls bobble in and out of existence with point-counterpoint shotgun rapidity like a Brady Bunch lead-in designed to induce seizure, or head-splosion. Don’t forget to throw in a graph and some stats. Then give me a changing headline. Finish it all off with a ticker that revels in its inability to convey. Like a mosquito in your ear, you don’t want to pay attention, but you know it’s there and it won’t go away. Death, blood, wind and rain on over 100 channels. REM’s “Bad Day” video does such a great job of giving us the parody.
I’ve always known I could become de-sensitized to a story or a particular thread, but little did I know that I could be made weary of input in general. Information now seems disgustingly vanilla.
This entry was supposed to be about a conversation that I had with a friend regarding spirituality, transhumanism and society’s pathological obsession with consumerism, youth and immortality. Meaty stuff, but I’m over it for now. Things often work themselves out for the best, and if I can’t remember how we even concluded the conversation, I’m not going to bring it up here. The entry would just get long, preachy and circular. I don’t feel like being profound, deep, witty or succinct. I just want silly, wide-eyed optimism that spontaneously gives way to inconsequential humor. Who is the muse of moot silliness? Your invocation is long overdue.
I think I know what’s wrong now. I need to get outside, away from the computer and away from the evil wide-beam cathode-ray gun. Bad for the blog, good for me! –Mike

Mad Pundit columnist Greg Russ likes to get cute on occasion and nitpick absurdities to the delight of his readers. Case in point, an article of late regards Dippin Dots’ fraudulent claim that it is the “Ice Cream Of The Future.” Quite to the contrary, it was created many years ago by microbiologist Curt Jones who speculated ice cream could be made even more fun through cryogenic flash freezing. The little beads that resulted from this secretive and complex process came to be known as the Dippin’ Dots we all love and enjoy today. Russ’ logic isn’t misplaced here. Dippin’ Dots was truly developed in the past at some strangely undisclosed date in the late 1980’s, according to the official company history. That makes Dippin’ Dots more accurately the “Ice Cream Of The Eighties.” Now when we were living it, we really did think that the Eighties WAS the future. Then came the Nineties to set us all straight. We learned that ladies’ bangs teased into poofy forehead claws, zipper jackets, legwarmers, tight-cuffed jeans, Jams and formula glam rock would be a horrible perpetual legacy. Therefore, we’re now happy to call the Eighties “The Past.” Still, Dippin’ Dots sticks to its claim that it belongs to the future. DD would have you believe that it is some temporal outcast, being manufactured for heathens who have no appreciation for the torment it suffered (on purpose or by accident) breaking the laws of physics so it can be enjoyed as a trivial, tasty novelty.
Wait a second… where’s my point in all this? Greg Russ may have something here. Pardon me while I get back on topic.

(Breathe)

Okay. My point was going to be that we writers commit to such silly exercises when we don’t have much else to write about. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for years. My earliest recollection of such inane time wasting was when I was all of thirteen years old and penned an investigative report to discover the secret process of “Martinizing.” Later in life, I wrote a joint letter (with my then girlfriend) to the good people at “P.J.’s Gummy Bears” detailing our distress at finding gummy fruit in our shared package of bears, especially when the box clearly stated that “P.J.’s Gummy Bears” featured “P.J.” himself. Corrective action was taken, and to this day, “P.J.’s Gummy Bears” actually features multi-colored, multi-flavored bears instead of lame orange wedges, bananas and watermelons.
So, my point is that any creative writer who commits to exercises such as these do so largely for self-entertainment or for the entertainment of his less-spontaneous, less-imaginative readers. On that note, I have to complain to Mr. Russ: If you did a thorough search on the website, I think your fraud argument would have quickly given way to the abhorrent Flash game “Dots In Outer Space.”
This precious piece of Web-waste is just one of countless examples where the Flash developer certainly has his/her scripting grammar down pat, but somehow has never bothered to master English. According to Princeton University’s WordNet, the first bothersome word, “intergallactic” can be spelled with either one “L” or two. Bullwash! GALAXY has one “L.” The suffix should then be “-ACTIC and not LACTIC, lest some poor immigrant think that you could extrapolate such filth into a verb, i.e. GALLACTATE. When galxies are forming, does that mean the universe is Gallactating? Gross! Of course, you could bring up the whole “Milky Way” argument, but that’s just stupid.
What caught my eye and struck my funnybone, however, was the last sentence. That’s what motivated me to play the game. I caught many Dippin’ Dots and eventually lost. But at no time did I hear a Dippin’ Dot “allude” to me. They made no references – benign nor snide. Of course, they could have been making inferences about my character behind my back or beyond my range of hearing, but then that would be unfair to what I presume is the intended ‘human’ player. Alas, the true challenge was far less intriguing than what was promised. I was supposed to go as far as I could without letting three Dippin’ Dots ELUDE me. Not nearly as much fun as possibly hearing what those damn Dippin’ Dots might say about me. They don’t know me!
This isn’t a criticism of Greg Russ or his writing style. It’s simply an example of me falling back-asswards into the trap of my own observation. I don’t have much to write about today.
I could write a long-winded and falsely-tender recollection about how life changed for all of us on 9/11. I won’t. I think the media says enough. They say that America’s strength lies in its refusal to change or bend to the whims of our attackers. They say that the vigilance of our people, the persistence of our workers, the indomitable courage of our vacationers and the deliciousness of our pizza are what keep us strong. To that, I heartily agree. –Mike

My friends Chet and Melanie invited me over for dinner the other night. Melanie’s Indian, but she’s from Trinidad. I was really looking forward to determining if I could detect the influences of her upbringing in her cuisine. I know a fair piece about Indian food, but I know next to nothing about Trinidad. In order to complete our ingredient list for the evening’s meal, we had to go to a grocery store on Buford Highway. Whenever I hear that word, it always brings to mind the mile-a-minute patter in every language but English that ended with “Bienvenidos a Booford Hahway Freamarket!” Buford Highway is an interesting place, and I grew up with it but a stone’s throw from my house. As I grew and changed, it changed – like a lifelong friend. If that friend changed race, language and tendency toward festivity or violence about ten times, in differing proportions. Its latest incarnation reminded me of just how much time passed since I drove down the southbound stretch of Buford. It had to be at least two years. This rapid change certainly wouldn’t and couldn’t happen on Peachtree, a similar road that parallels Buford’s path into town. On Peachtree, you would have to tear down a dozen buildings and build condominiums. If you’re lucky, you may get a Chick-Fil-A in the deal, but these days it’s all about living space and the necessarily adjacent CVSes and Starbuckses. The processes demolitions to rebuilding is hard and time-consuming. There is no need for such craziness on Buford Highway. Just move in! Nobody cares what the hell the building used to be. An old (and I mean OLD) Arby’s can be magically and convincingly transformed into a Tofu House. Looking on the stretch of Buford where Buckhead roughly would be on Peachtree, I spied an old Taco Bell which had once been a hair salon. It now advertised, in great white letters, ABOGADOS. Hmm… lawyers, eh? “Injured? Out of work? Call the Law Offices of Taco, Burrito and Enchilada, where the spicy sauce of justice satisfies all!”
Some people from outside the area may think this trend of re-use looks junky. I say it’s quaint, funny and even smart. Think about it. Take over a lease on property that’s no longer good for a franchise opportunity, knock out a few walls, get rid of the grease traps and kitchen appliances and SNAP! Insta-office! That’s the American Dream��� at work, people.
There’s many more of these “parallel universe” roads in Atlanta, but for now, only one more comes to mind. South Cobb Drive. For a ways, it parallels Cobb Parkway, then everything starts to get a little wonky. For instance, there’s funeral home that used to be a bank. It still has the drive-through window and everything. Of course, Cobb Parkway has the Big Chicken, and there’s nothing tackier than that. But it doesn’t count, since it’s a deliberate work of eyesoremanship. And okay, it’s a lovable eyesore.
Nay, the conscious monstrosities of advertising have nothing on the spontaneous and lively nature of businesses taking overother business’ husks. The construction modification alone denotes a creativity that left the blood of birthright Americans generations ago. True, I’m having great fun with this. But it’s equally true that I have a certain measure of respect for the people with the drive and determination to get things off the ground, regardless of appearances. That takes balls, and a forward-looking pride that says “things won’t always be like this.” Maybe they won’t. But it’s gonna be a lot of fun to show the kids that your Fortune 500 business started in an old Hardee’s. –Mike