Meteor!

That's right, I'm not showing my face today because I'm hiding in the basement. I'm hiding down here in the basement today because I saw It Came From Outer Space on TV yesterday. I taped it off a classic TV station two years ago and watched it again today because I like those 1950's sci-fi B movies better than the computer-generated junk you get today. So then I got scared and then I hid in the basement. I suppose you want to know why.

OK, I know that wasn't a meteor in the movie It Came From Outer Space. It was an extraterrestrial spaceship. Man, those aliens must've been dumb if they had to get to Earth by blasting their way clear across space like they were shot out of a stupid cannon. Anyway, I'm hiding because I'm a former Martian. I'm a former Martian and I'll never forget that no matter how many Hershey bars I consume or how many cups of mountain-grown roasted coffee I drink or how many slices of pizza I eat. Especially while I'm watching my favorite old sci-fi B movies. Like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, It Came From Outer Space, Invaders From Mars and Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, one of my favorites. Anyway, Martians like me were afraid of meteors. So now you know.

Of course those movies weren't as good as Forbidden Planet or The War of the Worlds or even This Island Earth but during the routine cheesy parts you can make a quick trip to the fridge for a snack and not feel that you missed anything you haven't seen before. That's the real beauty of B movies, you know. You get stupid shit that would probably never happen in real life but it scares you just the same.

But, hey, I've been rerouted again by TV. What I'm here blogging about on my old Acer PC in my basement is meteors. The hell with spaceships. The hell with comets. Comets never hit planets (OK, except Jupiter) but meteors hit them all the time. Like big-ass burning bullets from the sky. Twice in my life I saw the night sky turn bright as day from meteors as big as Buicks hitting Earth's atmosphere and then burning up and scaring the bejeezus out of me before they hit the ground somewhere and when they find them, they're only as big as a softball or maybe a football. What a sneaky trick from outer space.

So, yeah, I'm here in the basement hiding out because I think there'll be a meteor shower tonight even though there's absolutely nothing on the news about one. But, hey, I'm no fool. Meteors are just like outta control people and mad dogs. They attack when you least expect it. So, if you want my advice, take cover. Hide in your basement. Take a sandwich with you.

Meteor Update!

Scare Tactics

Living on planet Earth is a pretty scary experience. I think it's probably always been that way and no doubt it always will be a dangerous and unfriendly place for the most part. I mean, you never really know when a bomb is going to drop out the sky on you or when some crazy dictator with a big rocket might decide that today is your day. People get held up on sidewalks in most big cities these days and your local convenience store isn't so convenient anymore when you're walking in on a customer with a gun shoved into the clerk's face and no place to go but the interstate. Then his problems become your problems and you wind up on the six o'clock news either dead or sealed in duct tape awaiting your fate. So, why, I ask myself, with all these regular, scary, day-to-day happenings at their disposal, why do Earthlings have to scare the pants of themselves by making up asinine scary beliefs to have to worry about?

For example, why would anyone in their right mind fuss over whether or not it's bad luck for a black cat to cross your path? Cats are free to walk just about anyplace because, for the most part, they're not the large, territorial and often vicious carnivores that dogs are. So, if a black cat walks in front of you on the sidewalk, who gives a shit? Don't start looking over your shoulder for inevitable trouble. Just go about your business and be glad that the kitty cat is not a Great Dane that hasn't been fed recently.

And, I don't know, maybe I'm just being practical, but it seems to me that if you break a mirror you should be more concerned about cleaning up the pieces before anyone gets cut and not very interested in what terrible fate may befall you for the next seven years. Besides, it's fairly easy to prioritize your fears if the mirror you broke is not your own and especially if it belongs to someone a lot bigger than you. In that case, whether you opt for worrying about the future performance of your stock portfolio or immediately focus your attention on locating the nearest exit is pretty much a no-brainer.

And why in the hell should people make the effort to throw salt over their shoulder after spilling it in the first place? It seems to me that your luck is going to be a lot better if you only have one mess to clean up instead of two. On the other hand, not walking under a ladder makes perfect sense to me when there's a lot more space to walk in that's not under a ladder. In this case, I'm not so much concerned about the possibility that anyone who walks under a ladder might be inviting bad luck because people who walk under ladders instead of anywhere else are simply asking for the sky to fall on them anyway. But, if it did, they'd probably be stupid enough to think it was just raining.