I was watching a show on Antarctica.  Once you get away from the ocean, there isn’t much there.  Except for scientists.  The ones that go there seem pretty happy about being there.  Good for them.  However, I can’t help wondering if they wouldn’t be happier plying their trade someplace else.

I mean, you can still be cold and yet be within 1oo miles of a hospital.  Winnipeg isn’t exactly what one would describe as balmy.  But if you break your leg in Winnipeg you aren’t in a race against time as your helicopter speeds toward Argentina.  And the Canadians have socialized medicine.  Eh?

Anyway, watching people in Antarctica taking core samples of ice got me to thinking about the nature of mankind.  Specifically, what is it that makes people so eager to go someplace they clearly aren’t meant to go?  There’s a reason El Capitan is foreboding.  Because it is extremely dangerous to climb.  That sense of foreboding is you brain’s way of telling you something.

“This is a really stupid idea,” is that thing it is trying to tell you.  “You can easily die scaling a sheer cliff face, idiot.  If you want a thrill, maybe just have a few beers and sucker punch an unsuspecting biker.  That beats a three hundred foot fall any day of the week. ”

You have to admit, the brain in this scenario is obviously correct.

Every year people die climbing mountains, or skydiving, or going to places like Antarctica.  Everyone knows this.  Yet next year a bunch more people will die doing the same things.  To be honest, while I appreciate a little adventure, I just can’t get my head around it.

I guess I look at it this way.  There are lots of ways to die.  Cancer, car crash, falling down the stairs.  You can be hit by a stray bullet.  Your neighbor’s bull can get loose and stomp you to death.  Ebola can get you.  Pneumonia.  Double pneumonia.  (Triple pneumonia if you live on Mars.  A little Total Recall joke.)  A bridge could collapse on your morning commute.  One minute you are trout fishing in Yellowstone.  The next minute a mama grizzly is passing parts of you around to its hungry cubs.

And these are all things that happen when you are in locations compatible with the human existence.  There is a reason there are no hotels on Mount Everest.  That is where the Yetis live. It is not a place for a dentist from Des Moines.  Everest is where dentists go to die.

It’s why I don’t like to fly.  I don’t have wings.  Evolution didn’t want me that way.  If it did, I would be a giant bat.  And I’d eat every damned mosquito I echolocated.

Slurp.  Slurp.  Slurpppp.  “Damned mosquitoes,” I’d squeak.  “I’ll inhale every damn one of you.”

Alas, patagium have I none.  My boots are made for walking.

And that’s just what I do.

This brings us back to Antarctica.  There are seven continents on the Earth.  But only one of them has never been truly inhabited by people.  Because people aren’t penguins.

And, god help us, we never will be.

On a side note, penguins don’t fly, either.  And you don’t see them trying.  They are content to swim and waddle and regurgitate fish to their young.  Maybe people should be penguins.

I read an article the other day that says robots will take all of our jobs.  Like soon.  The author of the article figured that truck drivers would be on the unemployment line in ten years or so.  Bad news for Lounge Lizards everywhere.  If Burt Reynolds has another Smokey and Bandit movie in him, now is the time to do it.  In 2029 the movie will be C3PO and Robocop.  This movie will assuredly have superior acting when compared to its predecessor.  Jackie Gleason should have stuck to the Hustler.

“You shoot a great game of pool, Fatman.”

“One of these days, Eddie.  To the moooooonnnn!!!”

I guess robots will be 100 times smarter than human beings in 30 years.  That’s an IQ of 10,000- for those of you short on math skills.  Which is a statement that, compared to futuristic robots, applies all of us.  This means that computer geeks will go onto the same bone pile as the truckers.  Hopefully, nothing weird happens there.  But you never know.  After all, without jobs all of us will have to improvise.

If it makes you feel any better, great minds are already working on the problem of what to do with billions of unemployed people.  The most optimistic of them see a world where the robots are state-owned and everyone lives a government dictated lifestyle.  In others words, the robots do all of the labor and the humans are fed, clothed, and housed and free to play XBox to their heart’s content.

Yes, this is the optimistic view of the future.

The MO’s view (which, given the prescience of the MO, will certainly come to pass) is a bit bleaker.  Eventually, six people own all of the robots in the world.  The rest of the people in the world live an existence plagued by the constant threat of starvation and disease.  (This does not apply to the Amish, who go on thy merry way.  At least until the rest of us break into their larder and steal all of their hard-earned food.)  Driven to desperation, the masses try to rise up against the Lords of the Robots.  But they are thwarted by the robot armies of these lords.  Robots beget robots beget robots.  After all, at 10,000 times the intelligence of human beings, no problem is insoluble.  They fix each other, create each other, do the bidding of their masters, and exterminate the vermin (us, in this scenario).

On the bright side, I will be around 80 – assuming I survive- when the robot problem begins to come to a head.  Thus, like Climate Change, it doesn’t really affect me.  Life is change, I always say.  Lest I appear callous, I will start to call my generation the “Really, Really Greatest Generation.”  That ought to pacify you youngsters.

If I get really bored, I suppose I will join the robot resistance.  Shooting at robots will probably be therapeutic.  It’s rare that one gets an opportunity to truly contribute to society during old age.

Therefore, I would like to say “thank you” to the robot legions- in advance.  After all, I won”t be able to thank them in person when they are shooting death rays at my house.

But that’s the price of progress.

You know what you don’t see much these days (pun intended)?  Peeping Toms.  Do you remember when that was a thing?  Hohohoho.  The good old days.  Before society lost its moral compass and started down the path to liberal hedonism.  Bastards.

Fox News says to bring god back into our lives.  I say, where the hell has he been?  He’s the all powerful being, not the MO.  The MO is more on the level of demi-god; sort of like Hercules but with a laptop.  No swabbing out any shitty stables for this demi-god.  Eff you, Hercules.  Swarthy, Greek SOB.  Speaking of hedonism, the Greeks thought being a homo was just fine.  There they are, right on the corner of Haight/Ashburyopolous, fornicating as pretty as you please.  Wrong kind of swordplay, Leonidas.  Abominable, one might say.

Anyway, Peeping Tom-manship is on the dwindle.  I suppose it is because of the Internet.  Why stare into your neighbor girl’s window when you can see Hot Asian Chicks any time you want?  I guess if your neighbor is a Hot Asian Chick, you might be tempted.  But what are the chances of that?  Well, pretty fair if you live in China.  But I digress.

The best Peeping Tom ever in fiction?  John Belushi in Animal House.  Hahahaha.  It was so funny when he was on that ladder watching those girls undress.  And then he fell into the bushes!  Second funniest part of Animal House?  How about when they go into the bar full of black people and joke about apes?  You just can’t find that kind of humor these days.

Because we have lost god.  I hope we can find him.  I looked in the wood pile earlier today.  Not there.  Only wood and some lethargic insects.  Winter is coming and that’s the end for those crawly fellows.  In your face!

Does a centipede really have a face?  I mean I know they have a head and a tail.  But I am not sure they have anything that qualifies as a face.  Centipedes could never be Peeping Toms no matter how hard they tried.  Though that might make a good children’s book.

“Centipedy Wants a Face.”

For the liberal crowd we could have “Wormy has a Dad and a Mom All in One (Isn’t that Fun?).”

“God is Lost.  Maria Sees Him in her Toast.”  Maybe that doesn’t qualify as a children’s book.   Though one could argue the Bible does.  If one were so inclined.  Which I am not.  This essay is about Peeping Toms.

The Nerds from Revenge of the Nerds were Peeping Toms.  Looking through the hole in the shower.  They probably got that idea from those scamps in Porky’s.  Every time I hear a wolf howl, I think of that movie.

Revenge of the Nerds also made date rape acceptable.  As long as you are wearing a Darth Vader mask.  Caveat emptor in that case.  The same rule applies if your date is wearing a Twisty the Clown mask.

Anyway, nostalgia is fun.  But the wheels of time roll ever forward.

You also can’t food fight in school these days.  Automatic expulsion.  The godless age has no need for Double Secret Probation.  The end is nigh.