The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘earth’

Attn: Ellen (2/6/19)

Front

 

ellen385a

Back (apologies for my handwriting!)

 

ellen385b

The text of the postcard is

Dear Ellen,

No silly joke today. Just excited about the day my son is old enough to go out and listen to the Earth’s poetry like the kid on this postcard.

Sincerely,
DumbFunnery.com OR @DumbFunnery

Why am I doing this?

 

What If You Look From This Angle?

One day I was happy to go and give a talk about math-y/science-y/space-y stuff to my nephew’s fourth grade class. It was a lot of fun for me to talk about nerdy things and
feel smart. The kids, I think, enjoyed it and seemed engaged and they asked questions.
One of the questions I got was – and I have to admit this surprised me – if the moon landing was fake.
I answered without any scientific proof or any deep dive into conspiracy theories and debunking them, not just because I don’t know anything about that so I lacked the knowledge,
but also because I think my counter argument is pretty good and it doesn’t rely on intelligence.
I asked if he had ever tried to keep a secret. He nodded yes. And then, was it tough to keep that secret? He nodded yes. Do you think, if everyone in your school had to keep the
same secret, could they do it? He shook his head emphatically no.
The odds that any one of the SIX times astronauts have been to the moon was fake and that ALL OF THE INVOLVED EMPLOYEES managed to keep it a secret? Pft. Not a chance.
Now, let’s take a jump to a different topic.
If you went to a doctor and that doctor said, ‘you’re good’ and you said ‘phew’ but you continued to notice things that seem funny or different, you’d probably get a second
opinion because it’s your body and that is pretty important to you staying alive.
Let’s say you are a skeptic, and insanely wealthy, and a bit of a masochist, and you have a lot of free time on your hands and so you go to one hundred doctors. (See what I mean
about a masochist?)
If 97 of those 100 said – yeah, somethings up
If 84 of those 100 said – yeah, something is up and you are causing it
Would you listen to the 16 and move along? Or would you think, at the very minimum, even if those 84 out of 100 folks are wrong, maybe I should take some steps here and there …
Well, friend, you just convinced yourself you oughta take climate change more seriously. The body is key to living, but the planet also plays a minor role.
*Source for those numbers.

Grandpa and the Aliens, Part II

We were close now to whatever the attraction was, because all of the aliens had circled like there was a school yard fight in the middle. We slowed down and for the first time since he woke up my grandpa seemed undecided. The aliens in front of us turned and seemed to step back reverentially. This was both good and bad: the good was that I knew an alien had not manipulated my brain to make me feel unnaturally relaxed, the bad was I was now afraid I was going to be killed or eaten.

Grandpa decided it was time to get the audience our side and opened the bag of sugar. He stuck the spoon in and held the bag out to me to the do the same, then we walked up to aliens and gestured for them to try the contents held in the spoon. The aliens somehow figured out what it was we were doing and took the sugar. I don’t know how to read the reactions of life forms I’d never encountered before but they mostly seemed pleased.

As we moved forward toward the center of the circle, toward what I considered my eventual unpleasant demise, we lifted the spirits of those around us, I guess, by handing out spoonfuls of sugar. Tentacles, digits, mouths, and telekinesis took the sugar to their mouths or what have you. What a delight to see that my grandpa and I were not the only ones with a sweet tooth.

Before we knew it we were in the middle of the circle and it had closed behind us, leaving us trapped. In front of us four aliens of, probably, different species stood waiting. While the atmosphere felt light, upbeat and excited, these four seemed intense and solemn. Oh, I thought with sarcastic aplomb, these are the ones who will be killing us.

A fifth figure who was wearing some pretty flamboyant clothes stepped into the center of the circle and gave a speech which was not only well-received, it almost made me want to cry. I looked over at my grandpa and he seemed bemused but delighted about it.

The MC gestured to my grandpa and I and stepped back to join those in a ring around the circle. I looked around for the first time since being in the circle to see that a number of aliens were hovering or flying so that they could see us. Stadium seating with no fuss.

A device was handed to me along with a nod, of sorts. I looked around, hoping for more clues but none came. Not wanting to deprive the crowd of entertainment, I hit the button on the device. Music started.

One of the four solemn aliens stepped into the middle and began a war dance. I guessed, in its culture, this is what they do before maiming a lesser creature. I studied it for weakness and noticed that intentional or not, it was really good at something not unlike the cabbage patch. After about a minute of flailing and such, the alien stepped back and another took its place, this one had perfected the white chocolate.

I looked at my grandpa who was tapping his foot, I couldn’t blame him, the song had a good beat.

Then, like that time I didn’t realize that girl liked me until she was in the middle of kissing me, it occurred to me. I’m a part of an intergalactic dance off. The next thought was a collection of about forty thoughts at once but it could be summarized as: neat.

I pulled out all of my best moves: the razzle dazzle (where I do jazz hands while also doing karate kicks), the Bambi (this thing where I pretend I’m a baby deer just learning to walk but it’s kinda to a beat), I did a really bad version of a ballerina spinning except I’ve never done any ballet so I almost fell down but I think I made it look intentional because then I went directly into this staggering around thing sort of like when you knock out the first guy in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, and finally I wrapped it up with some Footloose inspired angry dancing where every body part is trying to move as aggressively as possible.

I felt pretty good about my showing, and I think the aliens liked my moves, but just then our neighbor, the one I had lied about having cut off one of his limbs, showed up and unlike my grandpa and I he had a rather large gun. He was running toward my grandpa, pointing the gun angrily at aliens as he yelled he was coming to rescue us.

I decided to calm things down by turning up the volume (wait, how did I do that?) and hitting for the next track (talk about good user interface, I just guessed at where these buttons would be and I was dead on). Then I attempted to demonstrably prove the power of the Fraggle Rock philosophy on life: dancing ones cares away (thusly saving them for another day).

This did the trick of stopping my neighbor, but he still seemed unsure. I went to the circle and held out my hand, an appendage, I hope, was held out and we danced together for a brief moment. I went to another alien and pulled it into the dance circle in the same manner and soon enough the whole crowd was dancing.

If I may be so bold, this was an even better sight than crowd of alien ships flocking toward our backyard for a dance fight.

As the song drew to a close the aliens all began making noises, raising their voices to the sky in a celebratory cacophony of peed-pants inducing gibberish.

My body felt light and suddenly I was inside a spaceship. My grandpa was beside me, slightly less calm than before because this time he breathed in deeply and exhaled audibly. This was the same noise you’d hear if dinner time was delayed an hour. I was still riding the high of my dance fight, but I had to agree with grandpa, I was ready to be in a more comfortable environment.

Unfortunately some aliens arrived to show us to a window where we saw them destroy Earth. This was upsetting because I didn’t know if it was punishment for bad dancing or a prize for good dancing. Is it that I danced so poorly that they felt the Earth should be destroyed? Or did I dance so well, have such a party, that they felt the Earth had peaked and was no longer needed? Also I was upset because the Earth had been destroyed. That’s where I had kept all my stuff, and my family, and other people who were nice too, I suppose.

An alien nodded at me with what might be considered a grin, so I figured I’d danced well, and then the alien left.

“Hey grandpa?,” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

“Hm,” grandpa responded, with a tone that seemed to indicate irritation.

“Um, I forgot.” This was a lie, I wanted to apologize but I didn’t have the words.

We made the same decision silently and began to explore the ship a bit in search of the alien equivalent of corn on the cob and a nap-worthy chair. It’s a noble pursuit.

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