Theories of the Universe based on a futon, relatively speaking
"The NSA would like to remind everyone to call their mothers this Sunday. They need to calibrate their system."----Bruce Schneier
And so, yup… it’s raining. It’s raining a lot actually.
I am sure that my friends yandros and lemurtanis are wishing they had already made good their escape to Southern California. But, what they don’t know is that while it may not rain there, you can’t really go swimming because the water is full of millions of man-eating squid!
Of course, they could always adopt this this clever disguise and thereby swim safely… ‘cept of course, for the sharks that feed on the squid.
Now, my dear friend mudita4 with whom I escaped the clutches of California many years ago... has a better solution to the weather. She’s building a boat… a very nice cedar strip canoe actually, pity it wont be done for a while.
But really, this rain has not impacted me anywhere near as much as it would normally. For you see, I have been sick. Normally, when I get a cold, it’s not much, a day or two of sniffles and perhaps a slight fever… I seem to have a very robust immune system.
But, whatever this is has really knocked me for a loop. Marti got it first…missed a few days of work, couldn’t really get out of bed for 2-3 days…etc. etc; then of course, I picked it up…. and it wouldn’t leave.
Now, usually I welcome colds, even bad ones; a cold is the universes way of telling me to “Slow down asswhole!” So I usually look upon a cold as nothing more than a chance to read. But not so this time, every time I picked up a book, I would get a massive headache and nausea within a page or two.
So, for the past 3 days, I have pretty much just been lying on the sofa, drinking honey/ginger tea and existing in a very spacey/fuzzy altered state. This had been interesting actually, as I have had the television on. Normally, I don’t watch TV that much, it usually does nothing but irritate me. But, when one can’t move around much or read...TV seemed like a good option.
I think I am going to have to rename the Discovery Channel, the Disaster Channel. I would be fading in and out of consciousness, and when ever I was coherent enough to understand my surroundings...I would see the TV blaring out “A giant meteor will eventually hit earth, and this is what it will look like!” or “The mega volcano beneath Yellowstone is overdue to erupt and wipe out all life in North America, an this is what it will look like!” or “Hawaii will fall into the ocean and create a mega-tsunami, and this is what it will look like!”
Funny, the mega tsunami looked to me an awful lot like the tsunami that wiped out Bande-Ache...but with a voice over saying “This is tiny, compared to what a real mega-tsunami would look like!”
So, tired of that, I turned to the History Channel. There, every time I swam my way to coherence, I would see things like “The prophets say that the World will end in Pestilence! When the Bird Flu Pandemic hits, this is what it will be like!” Yeah, that’s just what I need to hear when I am this sick. I knew them damn warblers were out to get me... tell me something I don’t know.
But, that was not the end; the history channel...which I think I will rename the Hysteria channel, continued on… “Small Pox had been wiped out; until it was discovered the Former Soviet Union has 13,000 tons of the stuff stockpiled! This is what a Small Pox pandemic would look like!” or “Scientists have recently, through genetic manipulation, resurrected the Spanish Flu!”
This is another reason I am happy I moved out of Boston, as all those diseases...genetically altered Ebola, Spanish Flue, Small Pox...will be located right in Boston, just waiting for an accident, like this one in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinberg, Russia) in 1979.
So, wondering why the end of the world was on everybody’s mind... I looked to Hollywood… and sure enough, a new Omen movie is coming out. I have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the latest Blockbuster coming out of Hollywood, and the programming choices on the so-called Educational channels. When Gladiator came out; the Hysteria and Disaster Channels ran program after program on Spartacus and ancient Rome.
When the movie Scorpion King came out…same thing on ancient Egypt and the “real” scorpion king. So, now that the Omen retread is headed our way...its End of the World stuff. Next will be more giant wave and/or ship disaster stuff, because of the Poseidon re-hash; then will be Pirate stuff, in anticipation of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
So, disgusted, I turned the tele off… as its not even fit for human consumption by an adle-brained muzzy headed human, or at least, not this one.
And once there was silence, except of course for the falling rain… after many hours of in and out fuzzy headedness… I solved one of the major questions of our age. And that question is weather we live in a universe that expands and contracts... renewing itself in a series of Big Bangs, or weather we live in a one shot universe that was born in the Big Bang, and will continue to expand outward forever.
Based on my careful observations, I am sure we live in a universe that expands and contracts. And how have I come to this conclusion you may well ask? Easy, Observation of a smaller model. See, the universe is made up of patterns, and these patterns repeat. (If they didn’t repeat, they wouldn’t be patterns, now would they?)
So, as I lay on my futon, the cats would come to try and comfort me by lying next to me. I tried to teach them to make tea, but that did not work out so well. So, I would be lying there alone; and first one cat would jump up on the couch and burrow into my comforter with me. After a while, another cat would jump up and do the same, and then a third. At about the fourth cat, things start to get dicey. Our cats are all ex-feral/rescues etc… so, they are all very independent creatures, who like their space. So, once three cats were on the futon with me, the room was pretty limited.
When fourth cat would jump up and try to comfort me by laying next to me…inevitably he would get too close to one of the other cats, and a low growl would come from somewhere under the covers. Then, I realized that these were no longer cats surrounding me, but furry land mines. There would be a bit of growling, perhaps a hiss or two, but eventually the fourth cat would find the one remaining spot that was close enough to me, yet not too close to any other cat, and settle in.
And then the fifth would try to jump up onto the futon to comfort me, and inevitably land on one of the other cats/furry land mines. The result was of course, a Cataclysm. There would be hissing, screaming, yowling, flying paws and claws and large clumps of fur in the air. After this brief Catastrophe, all the cats would of course flee to the far corners of the house to lick their wounds… just like galaxies after the Big Bang flee at high speed away from the source. I of course, would muzzily stumble to the bathroom and apply several bandages… the futon would be empty.
Then I would return, with much cursing, a few band-aids and a new cup of tea and settle in under the comforter. Eventually, one of the cats would creep into the room, and jump on the futon to comfort me. After a while, a second cat would jump up on the futon and do the same… you see the pattern emerging here.
So, based upon my (distinctly uncomfortable) observations of the Cat/Futon phenomena, I can say with certainly that we live in a universe that expands, and then contracts back in on itself, only to expand again.
Aren’t cold meds wonderful!
And so, yup… it’s raining. It’s raining a lot actually.
I am sure that my friends yandros and lemurtanis are wishing they had already made good their escape to Southern California. But, what they don’t know is that while it may not rain there, you can’t really go swimming because the water is full of millions of man-eating squid!
Of course, they could always adopt this this clever disguise and thereby swim safely… ‘cept of course, for the sharks that feed on the squid.
Now, my dear friend mudita4 with whom I escaped the clutches of California many years ago... has a better solution to the weather. She’s building a boat… a very nice cedar strip canoe actually, pity it wont be done for a while.
But really, this rain has not impacted me anywhere near as much as it would normally. For you see, I have been sick. Normally, when I get a cold, it’s not much, a day or two of sniffles and perhaps a slight fever… I seem to have a very robust immune system.
But, whatever this is has really knocked me for a loop. Marti got it first…missed a few days of work, couldn’t really get out of bed for 2-3 days…etc. etc; then of course, I picked it up…. and it wouldn’t leave.
Now, usually I welcome colds, even bad ones; a cold is the universes way of telling me to “Slow down asswhole!” So I usually look upon a cold as nothing more than a chance to read. But not so this time, every time I picked up a book, I would get a massive headache and nausea within a page or two.
So, for the past 3 days, I have pretty much just been lying on the sofa, drinking honey/ginger tea and existing in a very spacey/fuzzy altered state. This had been interesting actually, as I have had the television on. Normally, I don’t watch TV that much, it usually does nothing but irritate me. But, when one can’t move around much or read...TV seemed like a good option.
I think I am going to have to rename the Discovery Channel, the Disaster Channel. I would be fading in and out of consciousness, and when ever I was coherent enough to understand my surroundings...I would see the TV blaring out “A giant meteor will eventually hit earth, and this is what it will look like!” or “The mega volcano beneath Yellowstone is overdue to erupt and wipe out all life in North America, an this is what it will look like!” or “Hawaii will fall into the ocean and create a mega-tsunami, and this is what it will look like!”
Funny, the mega tsunami looked to me an awful lot like the tsunami that wiped out Bande-Ache...but with a voice over saying “This is tiny, compared to what a real mega-tsunami would look like!”
So, tired of that, I turned to the History Channel. There, every time I swam my way to coherence, I would see things like “The prophets say that the World will end in Pestilence! When the Bird Flu Pandemic hits, this is what it will be like!” Yeah, that’s just what I need to hear when I am this sick. I knew them damn warblers were out to get me... tell me something I don’t know.
But, that was not the end; the history channel...which I think I will rename the Hysteria channel, continued on… “Small Pox had been wiped out; until it was discovered the Former Soviet Union has 13,000 tons of the stuff stockpiled! This is what a Small Pox pandemic would look like!” or “Scientists have recently, through genetic manipulation, resurrected the Spanish Flu!”
This is another reason I am happy I moved out of Boston, as all those diseases...genetically altered Ebola, Spanish Flue, Small Pox...will be located right in Boston, just waiting for an accident, like this one in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinberg, Russia) in 1979.
So, wondering why the end of the world was on everybody’s mind... I looked to Hollywood… and sure enough, a new Omen movie is coming out. I have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the latest Blockbuster coming out of Hollywood, and the programming choices on the so-called Educational channels. When Gladiator came out; the Hysteria and Disaster Channels ran program after program on Spartacus and ancient Rome.
When the movie Scorpion King came out…same thing on ancient Egypt and the “real” scorpion king. So, now that the Omen retread is headed our way...its End of the World stuff. Next will be more giant wave and/or ship disaster stuff, because of the Poseidon re-hash; then will be Pirate stuff, in anticipation of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
So, disgusted, I turned the tele off… as its not even fit for human consumption by an adle-brained muzzy headed human, or at least, not this one.
And once there was silence, except of course for the falling rain… after many hours of in and out fuzzy headedness… I solved one of the major questions of our age. And that question is weather we live in a universe that expands and contracts... renewing itself in a series of Big Bangs, or weather we live in a one shot universe that was born in the Big Bang, and will continue to expand outward forever.
Based on my careful observations, I am sure we live in a universe that expands and contracts. And how have I come to this conclusion you may well ask? Easy, Observation of a smaller model. See, the universe is made up of patterns, and these patterns repeat. (If they didn’t repeat, they wouldn’t be patterns, now would they?)
So, as I lay on my futon, the cats would come to try and comfort me by lying next to me. I tried to teach them to make tea, but that did not work out so well. So, I would be lying there alone; and first one cat would jump up on the couch and burrow into my comforter with me. After a while, another cat would jump up and do the same, and then a third. At about the fourth cat, things start to get dicey. Our cats are all ex-feral/rescues etc… so, they are all very independent creatures, who like their space. So, once three cats were on the futon with me, the room was pretty limited.
When fourth cat would jump up and try to comfort me by laying next to me…inevitably he would get too close to one of the other cats, and a low growl would come from somewhere under the covers. Then, I realized that these were no longer cats surrounding me, but furry land mines. There would be a bit of growling, perhaps a hiss or two, but eventually the fourth cat would find the one remaining spot that was close enough to me, yet not too close to any other cat, and settle in.
And then the fifth would try to jump up onto the futon to comfort me, and inevitably land on one of the other cats/furry land mines. The result was of course, a Cataclysm. There would be hissing, screaming, yowling, flying paws and claws and large clumps of fur in the air. After this brief Catastrophe, all the cats would of course flee to the far corners of the house to lick their wounds… just like galaxies after the Big Bang flee at high speed away from the source. I of course, would muzzily stumble to the bathroom and apply several bandages… the futon would be empty.
Then I would return, with much cursing, a few band-aids and a new cup of tea and settle in under the comforter. Eventually, one of the cats would creep into the room, and jump on the futon to comfort me. After a while, a second cat would jump up on the futon and do the same… you see the pattern emerging here.
So, based upon my (distinctly uncomfortable) observations of the Cat/Futon phenomena, I can say with certainly that we live in a universe that expands, and then contracts back in on itself, only to expand again.
Aren’t cold meds wonderful!