His Name Was Death, And He Rode A Pale Wombat
There seems to be a whole meme just now about the world ending in 2012 (December 21st, apparently), because the Mayan Long Count calendar ends then. I have no idea if their calendar really does end there, but it’s still a stupid meme.
And it’s generating really stupid media. I watched (off and on) some show about the end of everything, and it was all “If a gamma ray burster went off right next door, and we were caught in the stream on 12/21/12, then, yeah, we’d be screwed. Same thing if Yosemite decided to blow that day.”
I watched the coming attractions for the movie 2012, and it was both hysterical and offensive. The hero - the only person in California to live - has a plane waiting. He drives his family along steady, unmoving roads while earthquake-proof buildings collapse all around him. All of California is falling into a really big really deep sinkhole, as though there were a mile-deep bubble under the entire state, with the edge of the sinkhole always ten feet behind this guy. When he gets into the plane, the edge keeps right up with him. He drives the car through a collapsing building - in one window and out another - which luckily has not a stick of furniture or a cubical in it, and later they fly the plane through another. It’s laughable - until you realize that you’re being offered the desperate, horrifying deaths of everyone on the west coast as entertainment.
So - the Long Count calendar. The real problem with this meme is that we know why the Mayans stopped there. (firynze, back me up here) They ran out of paper. They could have gone out and bought some more, of course, but it was getting late, and it sort of looked like rain, and they were worried that if they went out and bought paper, they’d come home with Fritos as well, so they said the hell with it, 2500 years was enough for now. Always get your facts straight, and you won’t fall victim to fads, memes, and lazy thinking. Though you might miss out on the Fritos as well.
And it’s generating really stupid media. I watched (off and on) some show about the end of everything, and it was all “If a gamma ray burster went off right next door, and we were caught in the stream on 12/21/12, then, yeah, we’d be screwed. Same thing if Yosemite decided to blow that day.”
I watched the coming attractions for the movie 2012, and it was both hysterical and offensive. The hero - the only person in California to live - has a plane waiting. He drives his family along steady, unmoving roads while earthquake-proof buildings collapse all around him. All of California is falling into a really big really deep sinkhole, as though there were a mile-deep bubble under the entire state, with the edge of the sinkhole always ten feet behind this guy. When he gets into the plane, the edge keeps right up with him. He drives the car through a collapsing building - in one window and out another - which luckily has not a stick of furniture or a cubical in it, and later they fly the plane through another. It’s laughable - until you realize that you’re being offered the desperate, horrifying deaths of everyone on the west coast as entertainment.
So - the Long Count calendar. The real problem with this meme is that we know why the Mayans stopped there. (firynze, back me up here) They ran out of paper. They could have gone out and bought some more, of course, but it was getting late, and it sort of looked like rain, and they were worried that if they went out and bought paper, they’d come home with Fritos as well, so they said the hell with it, 2500 years was enough for now. Always get your facts straight, and you won’t fall victim to fads, memes, and lazy thinking. Though you might miss out on the Fritos as well.