Life

We’ll Meet Again

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For those of you who rely upon me for your Doomsday Clock news, be aware that, as of this morning, it has been moved up to 85 seconds until midnight, once again setting a new record we should so proud of.

Frankly, listening to the explanation for the move in the annual announcement, I’m surprised they didn’t move it even more.

The one hope they held out was that somehow the entire population of the world would band together to make their singular voice of concern heard. I will be calling the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with a great offer for them to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, how does this affect our day-to-day lives. I’m not sure. Should I buy travel insurance? Probably not, The insurance companies probably include a clause denying coverage in the event of the end of humanity (The cockroaches will, as always, survive.).

You probably don’t want to buy the seven-minute ab workout video suggested by the serial-killing hitchhiker in There’s Something About Mary. Maybe the seven second version instead.

I, the eternal optimist, am not going to change my plans for next week, and I actually have a bunch of them, only one of which involves a possible end-of-mankind scenario. So, mostly upbeat stuff you’ll hear about from me.

I understand that Survivor 50 premieres next month. Perhaps it will contain some helpful hints. In the meantime, as Stanley Kubrick told us in 1964, we’ll meet again.

Night Crawlers

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When I started writing this blog in 2018 I did some homework (that was a first) and discovered a recommendation that posts of at least 300 words were more likely to enhance search engine optimization, which sounded like good thing.

Early on, that was one of my goals and I largely achieved it in the first two years. Over time, however, and with some causation related to the pandemic, my default state of apathy crept in and my blog lengths became much more random.

This month, however, something has gone berserk. My blog already has received almost as many nonsubscriber visits as it did in all of 2024, even though I’ve posted only one new item (things will be picking up soon).

Apparently, the bots have found me, each online night crawler (not the great Jake Gyllenhaal movie)  jumping around my site like Olympic acrobots, though, I must note, I still have never had a viewing from anyone in Botswana.

Should I be worried? How did this version of botulism arise in the Petri dish we call the Internet? What attracted them to me? Is it chemical? Has my vocabularic syntax generated some sort of pheromones? (which sounds like a horse in the Kentucky Derby or a minor character in a Shakespearean play).

Whatever the cause, it has inspired me to think bigger, ergo Bots: The Musical, using songs to be developed through the miracle of generative AI, once all the copyright lawsuits have been settled.

In the meantime, bottoms up.

What’s Past is Prologue

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I have now completed 8 years of blogging. Phew! Whose idea was this anyway?

In that time I have posted 592 pieces of my mind (who knew I had that many?), for an average of 74 per year, while attempting to avoid redundancy and trying to augment my cerebral remnants by doing Wordl, Connections, Spelling Bee and the NYT Crossword every day, not to mention, but I will, reading the daily missives from Merriam-Webster and Word Smarts.

Over those years I have had 4006 non-subscriber visitors to the site, from 59 countries (out of 195), including the U.S. (which does not yet include Greenland), one special administrative region and one organized, unincorporated territory.

I have written 160,045 words, which sounds like a lot, but they weren’t all different, and the total is still far less than that of Moby Dick, so consider yourselves lucky.

Writer’s block is a constant concern, so I’m thinking about joining a writers’ bloc for support.

I may need to expand the focus of my work as I run out of theatrical productions, concerts, museum exhibits, author events, and Lego projects to write about. Suggestions are welcome, though not necessarily taken seriously.

Goodbye 2025

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When sports announcers start giving viewers the odds on one thing or another, I turn off the sound on the television. But I’ve finally found something worth betting on – the end of the world.

According to the Online Betting Guide (olbg.com), there is, as of a few weeks ago, an 80% chance that, in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will move the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than its current 89 seconds before the hour, which is the closest it’s ever been since first being instituted in 1947, when it was set at 11:53.

I don’t know, having not laid down any money to join a betting site, whether there are any incremental wagers that can be made on this topic. Can you bet on the amount of time the Clock might be moved closer, not just that it will be moved closer, and receive different odds?

You can, instead, not bet, but rather go to a prediction market (wink, wink) and, for example, on one site, vote yes or no, as to whether the Clock will be moved to 60 seconds or less to midnight.

Contemplating this led me to wonder whether a big move like that, akin to the 30 second moves forward in 2017 and 2018 (hmm, what do those years have in common with each other and 2025?) might lead to the world going all the way to its bitter end, a self-fulfilling prophesy. And, if it does, how does one collect on one’s bet, or prediction?

And, finally, what is the effect on the Clock of the recent 4.8 microsecond drift reported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology? Perhaps I’ll look for answers by drifting off to the nearest microbrewery. In the meantime, Happy New Year?

Paranormal Activity – Shakespeare Theater – Closed Nov. 2, 2025

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Things are a little slow right now, so here’s something I didn’t do.

Paranormal Activity was promoted as being very scary, which was not an incentive to go for me, but compared to what? Is it possible for it to have been scarier than reality, or the ubiquitous AI version of it, where no reservations are required, though I have many?

Instead of going to the play I wound up watching something more frightening – a Bears game.

The warning that came with the show said it had loud noises. Big deal. I hear blaring sirens all day long, with the added threat of having to dodge the emergency vehicles puncturing my eardrums.

The warning said the show had sudden darkness. Big deal. That happened after we turned back the clocks.

The warning said there was stage blood. As long as it’s not my blood, and I’m not asked to drink it, I don’t care.

The play was universally highly-recommended (17 out of 17 reviews). That sounds pretty suspicious to me. Everyone loved it? In this day and age? According to a 2024 Gallup poll, 80% of U.S. adults believe Americans are greatly divided on the most important values. Can’t even universally agree that we don’t agree. And don’t get me started on the Oxford comma.

Forever Young – August 13, 2025

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I still remember the first time someone called me sir. It was a high school student. I was only 19 at the time, but must have exuded an aura of maturity beyond my years.

Today I experienced the other end of the spectrum when an apparently down-and-out guy at a street corner called me old-timer. Ouch!

I’ve heard boss, chief, captain and various other sobriquets in these situations, none of which led me to reach into my pocket for cash I don’t carry, but what could he possibly have been thinking by using the OT moniker that is normally reserved for long-known contemporaries?

Nonetheless, it got me thinking. Should I call Wayne Newton for a referral; go to the dermatologist for a full range of treatments, including dermal fillers, chemical peels, laser resurfacing, microneedling and dermabrasion; and start shopping for clothes at Forever 21 (or perhaps Forever 50, if there is one, as a less startling change)?

Double knee replacement might increase my speed, though I should point out that I already outpace anyone who is simultaneously walking two dogs, pushing a baby cart and talking on the phone, which represents a surprisingly large number of people in my neighborhood.

In lieu of surgery I might opt for a t-shirt that says “My parachute didn’t open but I survived the fall,” which would not only be an excuse for any lack of speed, but also a great conversation starter.

One thing I know for sure, I’m not walking past that corner any more.

On Second Thought

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In 1965 the Doomsday Clock (not to be confused with the Doomsday Machine from Dr. Strangelove) was set at 12 minutes to midnight by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which seemed precarious when you considered that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old, give or take a few million years – something to do with the Lambda CDM (not a music storage device) and the Hubble constant, a measure of cosmic expansion.

That same year Hedgehoppers Anonymous released a song entitled It’s Good News Week, which, of course, it wasn’t, though everything’s relative, a theory that eventually led to the Hubble constant.

Today, the Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds (less time than it takes for me to whip up some instant oatmeal) to midnight — the closest to that hour it has ever been. We should be so proud.

According to a Bulletin spokesman: “We set the clock closer to midnight [only by one second from where it was] because we do not see sufficient, positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technologies.” This is much the same as they said last year, when they did not move the clock. I wonder what changed.

Since there are 31,556,952,000,000,000 (that’s 31.55 quadrillion for those of you wondering) seconds in a billion years, that one second seems rather infinitesimal, particularly when you compare it to the five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes that helped Rent win the Tony for best original score in 1996.

Take a second and think about it.

And Now a Message from Our Sponsor

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In line with the growing trend among other social media giants, I have decided to abandon third-party fact checking for my blog in favor of, not some sort of community decision making, but rather a dart board with True and False targets, although I’m still considering adding an ask a person on the street backup for those instances when the dart falls harmlessly to the floor and for when the time comes for Tommy John surgery necessitated by too many 100 mph pointed projectiles.

In case you’re wondering, and even if you weren’t, I also considered trying to get my hands on an EMERAC, like the one used in Desk Set, but don’t have the room for it. AI was suggested to me, but I don’t know what a three-toed sloth found in the tropical rain forests of South American could possibly due for me.

Part of the problem with the community approach is that I don’t allow any comments, other than my own, to be posted, for several reasons – 1) There are a lot of crazy people out there; 2) I have no interest in taking the time to read what would undoubtedly be a surfeit of corrections; and 3) Why do I care what others think anyway? – let them start their own blogs.

All that said, rest assured that I will continue to do the kind of thorough (read boring) research I was born to do, or fell into for lack of any other skills, without regard to the dangers of clicking on unknown websites, so that I can bring a plethora of minutiae to the attention of all three of my readers.

2024 Year-end Review

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I won’t bother recapping all the things I already wrote about – please look back on your own for anything you may have missed and in order to jack up my hits in case I try to sell the blog to an off-kilter billionaire.

Things I didn’t do:

Break any bones or tear any soft tissue (to my knowledge).

Read a book that wasn’t an electronic (but a lot of those).

Play the piano for anyone other than my piano teacher (and possibly a spider on the window sill).

Go to a movie theater (except the one that has been converted into a bank, and then only to steal a pen).

Set my bedside alarm.

Open a window.

Order more than 150 items from Amazon.

Play golf outside – I love playing on a simulator indoors – it’s a short walk from home; it takes less than an hour and a half to play 18 holes; I can choose from at least one hundred different courses around the world (and I think one on a moon of Jupiter); food and beverage service is never more than fifty feet away (more like fifteen for special customers like someone I know); it’s never too hot, too cold, too windy (unless you want it to be by adjusting the program), or raining; the ground is flat (no uneven places from which to take an elderly nosedive); no searching for wayward balls, or losing them; no one hitting into your group; no slow players in front of you; and much closer to the nearest emergency room, just in case.

I can hardly wait to see what things I can avoid doing in 2025! (like using too many exclamation points).

Blommer Chocolate Company Factory Visitation – April 9, 2024

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In celebration of the fact that I didn’t blind myself staring at the solar eclipse yesterday, I decided to visit, for the first time, the soon-to-close Blommer Chocolate Company Factory (RIP) and purchase some souvenir bites (as in something to be immediately consumed, not put on a shelf with inedible memorabilia).

Alas, although the factory doesn’t officially close until the end of May, and there was still a delicious aroma in its environs, the store that was there already has shut down operations, or so the security guard told me after I spent 15 minutes pounding on the door, though I thought I detected a small chocolate smudge near his mouth.

Unsated and downtrodden, I was only a half mile into the long, lonely trek home when I serendipitously happened across the home of the Doughnut Vault, where I was told that all they had left that day was EXACTLY what I wanted (and needed)!

Strengthened by this fortuity, I now have started making plans for viewing the August 23, 2044 solar eclipse, which may require a sojourn in Great Falls, Montana if I want the full experience.

In the meantime, the new Blommer R&D Center is scheduled to open in the fall.