TUESDAY

Today: incorrect stewardesses, and a serious proposal to SHUT DOWN VEGAS.

Now? Encased in the gazebo with the screens up – they don’t keep out all the skeeters, just the weak and stupid ones. Hardy, crafty skeeters get in, and then I kill them. Thus do the weak breed and create a new crop of stupid mosquitoes. There are two bunnies on the yard standing very still, the time-honored way of defeating predators. In a moment I will stand up so they can run away, because I imagine it gets nervewracking just standing there –

Ah. They ran off in zigzag patterns. Never seen two fleeing bunnies run into each other. You’d think it would happen eventually, but you’re never there to see it. Same thing with squirrels leaping from branch to branch; they always make it. They practice at night so they don’t look foolish when someone might be watching.

This is a vacation week – or will be, eventually; Friday we have off, but that means all the week’s deadlines come earlier, and when you add that to another big job that means something suffers. What suffers? All together now: non-paying work! But there will be something here every morn. Good thing I had an emergency unused interface sitting around.

The picture is from West Seventh in St. Paul – a guy sitting by an abandoned brewery complete with post-apocalyptic shredded add. You can tell it’s beer, because it says “taste” and “tradition,” two things American beers like to tout. They have one or the other, usually.

Then there’s the miracle of Stereo in the Sky, thanks to the headphones – don’t know if they were actual headphones, or those crappy little plastic tubes that piped thin hollow music into your ears. 

I’d like to say the comic is airplane-related, but it’s just Wendy the Friendly Little Witch and a few other Harvey characters. Harvey! The comics Grandma bought, because she still thinks you’re six. Uh – thanks, Gran, but I have like facial hair and everything now. Maybe some Millie the Model next time.

Anyway – I truly have a hideous amount of work to do, so this is it – except for a new comic.

Better than nothing, right?

Oh, and to answer the question a few emailers posed: (G)Nat loved Wall-E. He was cute and it was funny.

I can’t resist this, since it’s from Harry Reid, the Senator from the Great State of Nevada:

“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don't see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

This made me realize that we really must change our ways, since we’re obviously not going to get any more power from coal or oil, because we’re sick and ruined. Not completely ruined; the process of ruining is ongoing, but ruined we will be. And so we should stop using fossil fuels. Not reduce, but STOP. Thus spake our leaders.

There’s only one sensible response: we have to shut down Las Vegas.  Yes, I know, they get their power from hydro, but juice is fungible; the power that goes to light up Vegas could be used to take oil-fired plants off the grid. Closing down Vegas would reduce Nevada’s carbon footprint in other ways: a quarter of all tourists come from California, and I’d wager they drive. (Or drive to wager.) Thirty-six million visit Vegas each year – at least three million people a month arrive and depart from the airport on pollution-spewing fossil-fuel consuming planes.

There is no practical reason for Vegas to exist. Surely this is a luxury we can do without; surely Nevada can find other sources of revenue to fund the government. If Las Vegas does not voluntarily cease operations, I call upon the Senate to either ban flights entirely, or impose a luxury surcharge equal to 110% of the ticket price, because Las Vegas and the waste it represents is ruining the world.

The world can’t wait for Vegas to crumble on its own.

To be fair, Sen. Reid is in favor of renewable sources of energy, and even had a conference on the matter. In Vegas. His arguments? Devlishly subtle.

Once again, just to be clear: when it comes to producing energy, I am opposed to nothing except doing nothing. Do something with everything.