At last: some fresh humor for these trying times

  

   
   

   

   

   

   

   

Do you need a few moments of plain old happy?

An essay about our likely future lives written out as a list

Ten Things That Will Likely Disappear In Our Lifetime:  

1. The Post Office

Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check

Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2022.  It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.  Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check.  This plays right into the death of the post office.  If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper

The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper.  They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition.  That may go the way of the milkman and the laundryman.  As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it.  The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance.  They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book

You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages  I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes.  I wanted my hard copy CD.  But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music.  The same thing will happen with books.  You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy.  And the price is less than half that of a real book.  And think of the convenience!  Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone

Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore.  Most people keep it simply because they've always had it.  But you are paying double charges for that extra service.  All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music

This is one of the saddest parts of the change story.  The music industry is dying a slow death.  Not just because of illegal downloading.  It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.  Greed and corruption is the problem.  The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self -destructing  Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.  Older established artists.  This is also true on the live concert circuit.  To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

7. Television Revenues

Revenues to the networks are down dramatically.  Not just because of the economy.  People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers  And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV.  Primetime shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.  Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  I say good riddance to most of it.  It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery.  Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own

Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future.  They may simply reside in "the cloud."  Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents.  Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be.  But all of that is changing.  Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services."  That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.  So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet.  If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud.  If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud.  And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.  In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or whatever from any laptop or handheld device.  That's the good news.  But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?"  Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical?  It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)

 

It's already gone in some schools that no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended)

10. Privacy

If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.  That's gone.  It's been gone for a long time anyway..  There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone.  But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View.  If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits.  "They" will try to get you to buy something else.  Again and again and again.

All we will have left which can't be changed (yet)......are our "Memories".

Too much beer?

I'm wondering if I should learn to speak Chinese

The attached video shows the Chinese bragging about putting up a tall building in hours that is earthquake-proof. However, to me the fascinating part is that there is no reinforced concrete involved. Those who follow the news know that the building collapse in Miami that killed so many was planned that way. How, you say? Well, the fact of the matter is that reinforced concrete corrodes and falls down after a while. The trick is to try to get everyone moved out just before the fall. That didn't happen.

Every tall building, particularly near saltwater, is waiting to fall and not just in Miami, but around the world. Imagine if the engineers and inspectors could point out that a building was becoming unsafe and the building could be dismantled as easily as it was put up and simply replaced. Maybe most of it could be recycled.

Who should we blame for the Chinese getting decades, maybe a lifetime, ahead of us?

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM897XuAY/ 

You have your definitions and I have mine...

BEAUTY PARLOR
A place where women curl up and dye.

CHICKENS
The only animal you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

COMMITTEE
A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

DUST
Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST
Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

HANDKERCHIEF
Cold Storage.

INFLATION
Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

MOSQUITO
An insect that makes you like flies better.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority.

RAISIN
A grape with a sunburn.

SECRET
A story you tell to one person at a time.

SKELETON
A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.

TOOTHACHE
The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOMORROW
One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.

YAWN
An honest opinion openly expressed.

WRINKLES
Something other people have....similar to my character lines.

OLD
I very quietly confided to my friend that I was having an Affair.
She turned to me and asked, "Are you having it catered?"
. . . and that, my friend, is the definition of 'OLD'!!!

Some of you living in unfree states may find this fellow interesting

We sent him to Washington to burn down democrat boondoggles and he seems to be doing his job. I say you gotta love him.

Cartoon of the day

Remarkable things

_______________________  1. The A-Frame and its floating dock, on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire   2. An origami model entitled "Assassin", created purely by folding a single square sheet.   3. The stairs on the Varosa Dam in Lamego, Portugal     4. A statue of Miao diety, Yang'asha, in Guizhou, China, that is 288 feet tall     5. A green serpentine mask uncovered at the base of a pyramid in Mexico that is 2000 years old     6. A new creative and trending hobby in Japan that involves polishing aluminum tin foil balls until they are perfectly shiny spheres   7. A statue of the largest flying animal that ever lived, the Quetzalcoatlus     8. The Australian Road Train, the world's longest truck     9. A miniature model of a motorcycle made only from popsicle sticks   10. Shadow art of a pair resting, made entirely with trash     11. A 40,000-year-old rock painting in Australia, likely one of the oldest and believed to be depicting the large flightless bird, the Genyornis     12. An aerial view of the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore     13. A dress made entirely of porcelain, by artist Li Xiaofeng     14. Helmets used during the Medieval Ages designed with mustaches     15. The Quantum Sculpture, a sculpture that disappears in front of your very eyes, created by Julian Voss-Andreae   16. Comfort Town, a color-soaked apartment complex located in Kiev     17. A 190 foot tall, 1200 tonne statue of water god Guan Hu, in Jingzhou, China   18. The tip of this pencil has the entire alphabet carved into it   19. An aerial view of UNESCO World Heritage Site, La Lippe fort, in Elvas, Portugal     20. A sculpture at Burning Man, depicting every person's trapped inner child, by Aleksandr Milov