Tag Archives: mad science

Usual Rubbish

There’s this baby, see?

2000 Years to Christmas

So what the what? And is that really the way it ends? God damn it. Six bucks down the drain. And in THESE hard times! All right … time for Planet of the Apes.

Oh, hi. We’re just endeavoring to entertain ourselves here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our COVID-19 quarantine site in this time of pestilence and putrid infection. What better way than to make use of Netflix or some other streaming service, eh? Except … well, we don’t have anything like that, as we are as poor as church mice … except that even THEY have the run of the donation basket and the leftover sandwiches from the parish volunteer society luncheons. In other words, we’re poorer than church mice. Just think of us as Mill Rats, scrounging for crusts and little fragments of entertainment. (Call me crazy, but when the mouth sits idle, the eyes need to work overtime.)

Well, fortunately, we have our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant). I asked him this week if he could engineer some kind of hack that would allow us to watch Netflix movies for free. He retreated to his laboratory, then came up with a kind of solution. Actually, it was like those old rabbit ear antennae they used to put on old-school television sets … except much, much bigger. Fifteen feet tall, actually. A little intimidating, to tell the God’s honest truth. Anyway, Mitch planted it on top of our borrowed walnut console TV and hooked it up to the coax. He messed around with the array a little bit, squinting at the static-choked screen as he worked. Suddenly, a stable image appeared. It was the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. We hooted a bit, congratulating Mitch, but he quickly explained that this was not, in fact, Netflix, but actually the reverberations of ancient transmissions of movies that have been bouncing around the solar system for the past fifty years. Hey … potato, po-tah-to, right? What the hell difference does it make, so long as there’s something to occupy our down time.

Still kinda fuzzy. Try the vertical hold, Marvin.

So, we’re watching 2001, and it brings back memories of when it ran in theaters locally during my childhood. I went to see it with my dad, as I recall, who provided a running commentary about features of the moon and astronomical facts (many of which a father in the seats next to us repeated to his offspring). My sister, I believe, talked about seeing it and some dude was explaining the strange end to the movie to his companion, starting with the phrase, “There’s this baby, see? And that baby … is God, see?” Why am I thinking of this while watching this antiquated and quite strange movie? Well …. because it’s kind of freaking boring, and besides, the reception of television signals bounced off the Kuiper Belt is a little fuzzy to say the least. Yeah, I’m letting my wits wander. As long as they don’t get lost, it’s okay.

Well, that took care of Friday. What do we do with ourselves next week? Suggestions? Send them our way. (Play music, perhaps?)

Usual Rubbish

Light minutes.

Okay, so what if it doesn’t come back? What happens to your little experiment then, Einstein? What the … PUT THE STICK DOWN!

Oh, hi. Yes, things get a little contentious at times around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. I was just having a conversation with our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who is doing some tests on a new propulsion system he’s developing. Suffice to say it’s the kind of propulsion system we would need to carry us to the far-flung interstellar venues that have been added to our upcoming tour in recent days. We haven’t secured transport yet, owing to our lack of resources, so Mitch has taken it upon himself to custom design a deep-space conveyance that will meet our needs … and then some.

Trouble is, he is … well …. a crazy-ass mofo, and because of that simple fact, he can’t just use existing technology to build his spacecraft. Oh, no … he has to innovate an entirely new form of propulsion. Don’t ask me the particulars – it has something to do with curved space-time. I don’t know much about that, except that I don’t have enough space-time in my life these days, curved or straight. Anyway … Mitch built a model of his rocket booster and has claimed that it will travel many, many times the speed of light. And to prove his thesis, he’s going to send the little gizmo several light minutes away and back, timing its journey on his old-school pocket watch. Of course, he gets all worked up when he does this sort of thing, so it’s best to avoid Mitch. Like, spend the day in another room. Or on another continent.

Well, all right, then.

So, yeah, we’ve added a couple of stops to the itinerary, which now looks like this:

  • May 12, Neptune
  • May 15, Proxima system
  • May 20, Barnard’s Star system
  • May 27, Procyon system
  • May 30, Epsilon Indi
  • June 2, Sirius
  • June 5, Jupiter, red spot
  • June 8, Small Magellanic Cloud

That last one is going to be a ball-buster. We may need cryogenic chambers to cover that ride, particularly if Mitch’s propulsion scheme doesn’t pan out. But, again … I will leave the science to the mad scientist and concentrate on what really matters: the Tuesday night garbage pick up. I mean, the music! May 12 is coming up fast, so …. better work up some numbers, am I right? Back to the studio!

Usual Rubbish

Magma cum laude.

Some people count to ten when they’re angry. Others resort to a punching bag or maybe a mattress stood up against the wall. I’ve known people to shut themselves in a closet and scream bloody murder. But THIS … THIS is outrageous.

Remind me, next time I start a band, don’t … repeat, don’t have a mad science advisor. Sure, they can help you out in a pinch, like that time we needed to get to that gig on Neptune and our van had broken down. Or that other time when I needed a personal robot assistant. Thing is, they are so freaking mercurial. (In Mitch Macaphee’s case, I think the reason for that may be that he just spent way too much time on the planet Mercury.) And when the act out, it can have profound consequences.

I’ve never even come close to being a scientist, but when I was a kid – like most American kids – I built a plaster volcano. Pretty sure Mitch did so when he was young, only his little ‘cano burned down his elementary school and his mates had to spend the rest of the semester attending class in a cornfield. Well … Mitch is at it again, apparently THIS time setting his sites on the Big Island in Hawaii. How do I know he’s the cause of the recent eruptions? Just have a feeling, that’s all. He’s been spending an awful lot of time in that lab of his. And I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling just lately.

I always get a little nervous when Mitch starts messing around with plate tectonics. It recalls to my mind the protagonist in Matt’s song “Why Not Call It George?” – himself a kind of mad scientist, tinkering with the inner workings of our unruly little planet:

Is that thing loaded?Continental drift can be reversed
Great tumblers shift
And Pangaea can be reclaimed
After me it can be renamed
Why not call it George?
Call it George, after me

While we don’t have a lot of tectonic activity in our neighborhood, it does get a little shaky once in a long while. And with Mitch Macaphee still pissed off about those NASA shots of Jupiter, I wouldn’t be surprised if those tremors get a little closer together. We might even wake up to aggravated volcanism, and I don’t mean the plaster variety. (Note to self: order those fireproof goulashes.)