MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 9 – Ice, Ice, Baby

Posted on by Posted in Contraptions
…make ice for years !

Maybe, just maybe we’ve been going about this whole climate change / global warming issue the wrong way. Stay with me here. Society has tried pulling back on carbon emissions by the complete elimination of the incandescent light bulb, speeding up electric car adoption, even looking into the running of vehicles on everything from grease, to garbage, to sewage, and still the planet keeps warming.

Just this week there was new report about the melting Ice Caps and the fact that they are melting far faster than previously thought. The report stated that by the year 2100, the oceans will rise by 6 inches worldwide due to the amount that will be lost from the Ice Caps by that time.

So, what if we turned our best technological minds to re-creating the ice we are losing? I mean we already create snow for the olympics all the time! We have people working full-time on ways to desalinate ocean water. AirBNB and other time-sharing services are hurting the hotel industry. Let’s put a whole bunch of out of work motel commercial ice makers on the receiving end of the output of those water producers and make ice for years!

Ok, sure there won’t be anyone around to scoop and throw the ice about the Ice Caps, but this is just a rough idea-prototype mind you. The real idiot-idea circles back to the snow/ice makers throwing newly made ice/snow into new mountains of water turned to snow/ice! WAH-LAH!

No? Maybe? Not?

MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 8 – Rain-X = Savant

Posted on by Posted in Contraptions
Am I missing something here?

For me, it really takes a bad movie to outwardly criticize it. Even then, I reserve the right to recognize that other people could definitely feel otherwise and that’s great. However, I suffered through, for me, the WORST pile of movie garbage I have forcibly pushed myself through in a LONG, LONG time this past week and a 1/2. No, it wasn’t last night, or Thursday, it took almost a week to plow through this epic pile of crap.

I hate doing negative reviews but here goes. l love apocalyptic movies. I have my reasons. Anyway, this was a long-awaited follow-up to a movie from years ago starring Harrison Ford. Those of you who liked the original already know of what I speak. For the record, I never saw the original “Bladerunner” and based on “Bladerunner 2049” I never will. Harrison was in this one as was one of “The Ryan’s” as I like to call Ryan Gosling who I really like and loved in “The Place Beyond the Pines”.

I’ll save you any plot details or spoilers and just say that SURPRISE, it takes place in the year 2049 and the movie is, wait for it, 2 hours and 45 minutes long!

Being that far into the future, there is a great deal of futuristic technology such as really cool flying cars. They zip around like it’s nothing. Seemed pretty acceptable. However, as I was suffering through mid-hour 2, I noticed it was raining as Ryan Gosling’s character was driving his flying car and it was using regular old 20th century WINDSHIELD WIPERS.

Wait, what? Flying cars, the year 2049, and they are still using windshield wipers? Come on! At least put some Rain-X wipers on that bad-boy and you’d never even have to turn the wipers on let alone have wipers!

Am I missing something here? I’m not a futuristic movie maker, but PUL-LEASE! Even I use Rain-X on my jalopy of a used truck and feel like a savant. DUH!

MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 7 – You be the judge

Posted on by Posted in Hail Retail
Deal of the Century!

Now, I know things like this have happened to me. The only difference here is that I have chosen to keep such hiccups to myself, mostly. In today’s online-ordering-world, this is a common trap one can easily fall into from time to time. We browse for need, often in a hurry, click buy, and end up with success or failure.

However, this instance is one in which we should all take to heart and make ourselves READ THE FINE PRINT. Now, I’m not saying we should read privacy agreements with cell phone companies which are like 15 pages long or something, but THIS is an example when taking a couple of minutes would, in fact, be worth one’s time.

Dateline, Leeds, United Kingdom. A caring mother was attempting to find a simple wading pool for her children when their pool needed to be replaced. She found one online for a VERY good price. Now, in addition to reading the fine print, one should always remember the age-old-saying of “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. See, this wading pool, in England it’s known as a “paddling pool”, was being sold for only 1 pound (£1). Now in my world this equals about $1.32. Seem to good to be true OR has she found the Deal of the Century?

You be the judge. No, she’s not a giant.

MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 6 – We’re OFF THE HOOK!

Posted on by Posted in Contraptions
…this one’s not on us!

This week NASA had BIG NEWS! It was teased for days, until finally on June 7th the scientists at NASA announced that their rover on Mars, Curiosity, had discovered the building blocks of life in an ancient lakebed on Mars.

Specifically, the overly excited “Big Bang Theory” types revealed that Curiosity had located “organic molecules in rocks from an ancient lakebed”. This ancient lakebed and the rock were dated from about 3 BILLION years ago, give or take a decade or two I suppose.

This has everyone excited because these building blocks along with the recurring methane gas being identified on Mars could indicate previous life on Mars. I get excited because I feel a small insignificant weight being lifted off of my anxious societal shoulders. See, with these life building blocks being 3 BILLION years old, there is NO WAY we evil-oil-loving-Earth-gas-guzzling humans had ANYTHING to do with this planet’s life extinction event. NONE. Zero. Nada. TAH-DAH!

At least, this one’s not on us!

Or, maybe this BIG announcement about a 3 billion year old rock and some methane gas was really just NASA’s way of getting us ready for the real announcement in another month. What if there is in fact life on Mars, and they have captured Curiosity, re-engineered it into a planet killing death star and we have 30 days before it destroys Earth?

Whelp, we’ll just have to wait for NASA’s next announcement I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 5 – Nice try? Good effort?

Posted on by Posted in Signage
…this couldn’t be better !

I do almost feel bad about this slight mishap. Here you have an institution of higher learning trying to provide a fancier than normal bike rack and that is good. Certainly, there are so many reasons to promote cycling in today’s society. Moreover, anytime that can be accomplished with some added art and flair then all the better!

However, sometimes the best laid plans can unfortunately backfire in some ways or in the eyes of some beholders, i.e. like yours truly. I for one, think this couldn’t be better! I LOVE IT.

Apparently the idea was to incorporate the building name’s acronym with the activity of “parking” your bike. If you stand on one end, you get that effect, “PARC — the acronym for Prairie Acre Ribbon Classroom.” But, from the other end….you get CRAP.

I don’t know, maybe I like it most because it happened on the campus of the University of Kansas. They could always use a little ribbing in my opinion. Yeah, I’m still a little sore about a certain head basketball coach from a certain University that occasionally plays for National Championships, not every other year like KU. Oh well.

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