The Future of the automotive industry (I hope)

Something actually worth looking into; An unfortunate technology for oil barons but somebody's got the right idea. I wouldn't be surprised if he's assassinated by our own CIA.

Shai Agassi has the right idea when it comes to alternative energy. Where as the idea of plugging your car in at home and then driving around on electrical current is romantic, it's not practical until you add the missing element. That missing element is rechargeable stations and Agassi's ideas include this.

Personally, I think we need to take the driving away from the individual by making cars that drive themselves, but until then, we can at least create new and innovative ideas for keeping our personal transports as environmentally friendly as possible. Agassi's cars seem to do just that.

Agassi thinks of clean energy we could be using to get his product's power as well. In his video his coyly suggests wind energy in combination with both bio-fuel and solar energy as well.

The batteries are 95% recyclable as well so although we can do something about that 5% we slow down our waste to much more than we are doing currently.

Don't believe me? Take a look for yourselves:

http://www.betterplace.com/solution/

Reverse Psychology

Have you ever read though a book on diversity and thought, "What a load of crap?" I know I have because that's often the way it is.

Text books show a person who's awful and seems biggoted in a story without analyzing where that person comes from, or why they say and do the things that they do. More importantly they don't ask the question, "What is this person really thinking?"

In my text book for english class, I read a story by John Cheever called Reunion. In the story a man meets up with his father after not seeing him for many years and by the end of it he walks away from his father, calling him daddy (obviously a term of endearment) and saying, "...and that was the last time I ever saw my father."

For those of you who don't know the story read it! but it sufices to say that the father is an arrogant, stuck up, rich club owning, son of a bitch. He talks in italian at a new york Italian restaurante thinking that they should all know Italian, he talks in a brittish accent and claims he's in Brittain at an english pub and the question at the end of the chapter then becomes, "How would you characterize his father's attitude toward those of other nationalities and different social classes?"

I'm not protesting that this isn't a valid question because his father is a bit classist and racist but they miss the real character deep inside this man and ignore the fact that he hasn't seen his son in three years. They ignore questions like, "do you think his acting out could be a result of his not knowing how to act in front of his son?" or "do you think he feels inadequate because he couldn't take care of his sons mother and that's why she divorced him and so he acts tough and large in front of his son out of an inferiority complex?"

The point is, these things are easy to spot if you're a reader and/or a writer, but if you're a text book author, poorly analyzing too many stories at once, you tend to miss details and the beauty of stories is lost on your overanalyzing minds or underanalyzing minds, I can't tell.

These are the people we choose to write the books that we learn from. Good job America, insensitive in your sensitivity, as always.

Disaster

In 2012, The Large Hadron Collider will finally be ready to make its first test run and when it does, it will create a black hole.

The black hole will begin to grow exponentially, which will hurt the planet and wake up the earth's natural defense system called elementals.

These elementals will stop the black hole because it's hurting the earth, but they will also consciously know that human beings created this monstrosity, so they will begin their task at exterminating human beings.

Meanwhile, the polar ice caps will melt because this is where some of the elementals will be hiding and because global warming will speed up when the black hole and greenhouse gasses rapidly destroy the ozone layer in a matter of minutes.

So, all this water will create a change in the world's current system and cause great climate change all over the world, plus tsunamis, raised ocean levels and hurricanes.

The current shift will cause us to crash into the moon, which will fortunately save us from the meteor that was going to hit earth but it will crash into the moon instead, driving the moon deeper into the earth's crust.

The new fused planet of earth and moon will be thrown off its solar axis so badly, though, that we'll all go hurling into the sun which will end up destablizing and causing a chain of events that leads to a black hole anyway. The other planets will come barelling towards the black hole and become a bunch of meteors hurling towards the earth, despite us... well... half of us being saved from the meteor by the moon. We'll all be so destroyed though that it really won't matter because We're all fucked over a million times. Go home, tell your familly the truth about yourself or your feelings about them... in fact tell everybody the truth and as always, go fuck yourself, because nobody's reading this anyway.

How to beat the Traffic

I notice that a lot of people these days suffer from road rage. I am included amongst you and it's OK because I think I may have a solution.
US Route 1 is possibly one of the most rage filled roads I've been on. Often people go way over the speed limit, switch in and out of lanes, and cut people off mercilessly. These methods of driving may gain you 2-3 minutes, tops, off of your trip. The down side to using these methods is that you endanger a number of people, including, but not limited to: yourself, other drivers on the road, possibly the people in your car if you have passengers and some guy who happens to just be a whack job walking or biking on the side of the highway.
Have faith my friends, there is something you can do that will cut time off of your trip and save all these people that you endanger by driving recklessly. It's called PAYING ATTENTION.
This may need a bit of explaining being that it took me a while to realize it and I still don't do it on certain days.
Paying attention consists of watching the traffic lights so that the second they turn green, you go from break to gas. Today, while I was driving, I got out in front of the traffic the minute the light turned green without speeding, switching lanes or cutting anybody off. The light was red so I watched it like a hawk watching a mouse hole. The rest of the drivers on the road had a 5-10 second delay because they were doing things like chatting with their passengers, talking on the cell phone, changing the radio, thinking about how pretty rain clouds are, etc. The light turned green, I pushed on the gas, and everybody else was behind me.
Step 2: Switching lanes doesn't help you. Generally, I notice people love to switch lanes, speed up and get in front of the car in front of them. eventually you're going to have to slow down, unless you have found a way to make your car invisible and are immune to speeding tickets. Stay in your lane. The people around you are going to act like nimrods and eventually you'll pass them anyway.
Step 3: Maintain your speed. People on the road these days don't pay attention so taking a quick glance at your speedometer to make sure you're going within 5 miles of the speed limit or the speed limit seems like an impossibility but it can be done I assure you. If you're an old person and you have trouble following speed laws, or want to go slower, please use the right lane, nobody wants to be stuck behind your old behind. Speed up, get in the right lane or let people pass you. Generally, they aren't passing you out of malice, they're passing you because you're doing 10 miles under the limit when you should have been paying attention and following the speed limit.
Last but not least: if someone wants to pass you get out of the way, Karma's a bitch and they'll get theirs.
To all the people in the BMW's who don't care and can pay off their speeding tickets because they have the money to, thank you for making the rest of our driving lives a living hell, go home and cry because you have no real friends.
Thank you for listening and remember reform yourselves, drive well, it's not too late to do the right thing.

My Mom's on Japanese TV

My mother's single line drawings finally made it onto television and who better for aesthetic appreciation than the Japanese?

Comedians = Essayists??

Back in school, teachers make kids write hundreds of essays every year and the smarter kids say, "It’s not that we don't want to write an essay, but that we're trying to save the Rain Forests and writing essays wastes too much paper." It's the common response of a teenager, the excuse. Most kids and adults for that matter would rather be out destroying their brain in some fashion then using it to write some vapid essay.

When we observe life, however, no matter how much you hate the organization and form of the common essay, it is just as omnipresent as god. When you're in a business, you use it to write reports; when you're the entrepreneur; you use it to write business plans; when you are the scientist, reports; the janitor, perhaps a resume. The point is: we all use the essay, no matter who we are. The specific example of this article is one that no one expects to see a good essayist partake in: comedy.

Any good comedian boasts their laziness and after watching Comedy Central stand up for the entirety of a day, you will not find any comedian who says, "I wake up every day and say, gee golly what an organized person I am!" It doesn't happen because that's not funny. In most cases that's probably the thing people are trying to escape from by watching Comedy Central but comedians do use the essay form and to be a great comedian one must see that there is structure and form to making people laugh.

Out of the 600 channels you get at home, you can watch their style and it is very obvious with some, such as new comers on "Comedy Central Presents..." and incredibly hidden with others, such as the talented veteran, Robyn Williams. Even satellite radio has realized the need for comedy in this country and put them in their arsenal as well.

The point of mentioning all these different places is that they all tend to vary in their comedic style but they all have one commonality amongst them: they all run their act in an essay form.

The essay of the comedian revolves around the punch line and that punch line becomes our thesis. Before the punch line however, you must have an introduction so a introduction with a punch line thesis might look like this:

(A very tired looking man walks out on stage and sits down in a chair)
Comedian:
You ever been to your grandparents house (pauses, looks down and holds fist in front of his mouth as he coughs out) After they've gotten really old? Well I live in a very Italian family so I got an angry granny who doesn't know my name and when my cat died, I told her first and she says, "fugghet about it."

This is the introduction and punch line but to make it an "act" we have to use that punch line again, so you have a second bit that goes on for a while about something completely different and then ends with a joke about "fugghet about it." If it went on a tangent about sports, it could end with this line:

So, you seen the Mets’ pitching this year? (Pauses and smiles at the audience with pride) it's awful! What are you clapping about? You think they'll make it to the Pennant? Maybe? Huh, huh, huh? If only the Mets could win the Pennant, I could get my daddy back! And there'll be Angels in the outfield and we can all have Danny Glover be our best friend! (Quick pause for laughter then with vicious sarcasm through a smile: "Fugghet about it."

They can have as many topics as they want mixed in there, some with, and some without the punch line incorporated but most of the time, a comedian will leave with his punch line, taking his audience for one final ride. There's never any explanation afterwards, just a sharp ending that keeps them in shock, a little like this:

So the other day I go walking down the streets of New York and I see this big burly guy walking toward me looking like Tony Soprano; he's probably got a gun somewhere in his pants because I know my kind and that guy may be lucky but he's no Peter North. He comes up to me and I say, "Are you selling flowers sir?" (Leans into the mic and cups it and says in a deep, mafia voice) "Fugghet about it."

The unintentional superhero and me, world renown shapeshifters By: Dylan Paul

He smokes a cigarette outside on his stoop and looks off into the night.

"You know what I think?" He says, "I think everybody in this entire world, should live life like an RPG (Role Playing Game)."

In the fixed mind of my superhero, he sees himself as the rogue and I can see it too. In his dreams I imagine him running up to some horrible monster and spilling its guts out with an eviserate attack, his shimmering daggers stained with the purple monster goo of freedom.

I call him the unintentional hero because sometimes, I think he can also see himself is such a quest. His stealthy gear making him look like the buccaneer from hell.

Lately, I grow more concerned because time seems to weigh heavy on our lives with the continually moving battle of age and as I look at my superhero, he seems to be never discouraged or crestfallen or worried about such things as time or money or adventure because all the adventure he needs is right within his own skull and crossbones.

Our adventures have been diverse from fighting on the fields of battle where two towns made of sticks and twine destroyed each other, to the ocean depths in a pool out back to a time when sea foxes ruled the sea and played happilly with each other as otters. Once we were racoons, another time, elves; we even managed to fly to Hollywood, in one night, and visit both Tim Burton and Stephen Spielberg and see their magnificent theme park houses and be back before first dawn. More recently though, the battles have grown bigger and more real but the war is being won.

As he sits there on his stoop and takes the last puff of his cigarette, I am reminded of how we indeed have lived our lives as an RPG. However, in my mind, we are far more than rogues or magicians (in the making of our lives there are things that seemed magical) but rather a new class, something that changes day by day, we are the shapeshifters, unintentional heroes fighting in a world that most people may never get to see. Our exploits are diverse and publish more stories than one reporter can tell in a day, or a short collumn for that matter, but as he puts out his cigarrette and says, "peace dude, I'll see you tomorrow," I can see the rogues cloak as he shuts the door; the sea fox tail wiggle as he walks away; the unintentional superhero who could exist in any person but one rose to meet the chalange. I see my best friend and someone who I can call brother walking away to fight the good fight. In reality, I hope he wins as much as the superhero that I know him to be.