bageled

My ears perked up. The highway patrol constable was speaking an entirely different series of words than he usually does. My attorney strongly recommends that I not tell you the normal sequence of words, being as they are likely "building evidence of an anti-social pattern of behaviour," but he's not here. You know what? You seem cool, I'll tell you the new words that this mountie told me.

"Hot air balloons are the new thing, man. If you don't get rid of your car and switch to this, you'll be left behind forever."

Not wanting to argue with the mounted policeman too much, I still gently push back. Hot air balloons aren't for me, man. I like to do my own driving. Go where I want.

"Listen, pal. If it doesn't go where you want the first time, you can just take off again and see if it works then. It's so much less work than driving. I barely have a job, now, with all the hot air balloonists overhead." He points to a series of dirigible-adjacent aircraft, repeatedly bumping into each other. At least half of them are the ugliest fucking thing I'd ever seen. None of them seemed to be going anywhere, honestly.

"And the emissions? We can only get more helium from the moon. We shouldn't be just burning it in order to maybe travel to the Kay Bee Toys."

That did it. I had stated enough words of a certain pattern to be billed as an adversary in this officer's mind. An intricate crystalline structure of indisputable scofflaw behaviour had been constructed in the very air between us. I was now an "IA hater" – one who opposes the inevitable dominance of inflatable aircraft. There was nothing to do but to engage in a high speed chase about it.

i

A victim literally escaped Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment naked with a hole drilled in his head and unable to speak but police let Dahmer take him back to his apartment like everything was ok!

And I guess he doesn’t count as a serial killer but Eric Harris had already been making threats and harrassing students to an extreme degree before Columbine- police literally had a search warrant but they just never acted on it. If they had, they would have found the guns and pipe bombs and the shooting could have been easily prevented. They even tried to cover this up afterwards.

How many people on the streets have you seen hauling everything they own in a shopping cart? How many people do you know who see one coming and cross the road to avoid it? How would they react to this, a beautiful and priceless work of art of the same shape and form but far more precious craftsmanship, carrying prettier possessions in a much more tasteful way? Ignoring that all the features which give it status and respectability are both unnecessary and fragile, stripping it of its original context and purpose?

How many ugly and unsightly everyday objects are made avant-garde by reducing their function for the sake of heightening exclusivity? Marble bathtubs, geode sinks, gold-plated toilets- things made for a function which are forcibly divorced from that function to earn respect and regard

Why does worsening an item in specific ways signal improvement or status? The fragility and impracticality screams, "I don't actually need this" while sneering in derision, "can you imagine if I needed this?"

Like pretending to blow your nose into a bedazzled tissue

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-