So 2025 is here, for a few days already, and a dentist shop down the way still, to draw in those needing a crown this Xmas, has a full-on — not a “partial” as that work would be more a business thing — display of a moving Mickey and Minnie Mouse with all those red, green and white trimmings. Thus if you get the drill, and want to view it, the holidays are still with us, just check out the northeast end of Locust Street in Hudson. See if you think Minnie looks just like Milli Mochi the music reactor. Just half the height.
But it is high time, with all these musings, for a year in review. There are so many possible and meaningful categories and sub-categories, but to pick we revisit a notable or two from above, and around, the globe, The Year in Space 2024.
Our eye is drawn to one of the latest lunar exploration luminarities, both a success and failure, as upon attempting a gymnasts-style-stick-it landing, its tripod fell over — after hitting a moon rock? — so the whole “blasted” thing toppled to the ground.
But there were of course some Musk achievements when literally rocketing in orbit, and North Korea is still trying, but it seems the best they can do is cross a bay, much less an ocean.
So we leave that to Elon, and maybe he will more fully fund NASA so astronauts can actually eat on the moon, even if regular people can’t on their kitchen table. Some can afford basic Chinese cuisine, as its (relatively) low in price, but China will not triumph, yet, unless maybe they utilize space junk, and rehab it first. But no Joe’s Garage exists above the stratosphere, and Frank Zappa has departed the scene in his featured possible role as chief mechanic/lyricist.
So I get around to the point: There have been many technology near successes, but other fails to follow up on as a writer. I start with what you’d stink would be the most easy, all that glossy and sparkly paper that was wrapped around gifts under the tree. But we’re really just foiled again.
Some of these listings will be full of brittle foil. I will explore that danger to the info length of a scientist …
I can just envision Musk standing over the top of a poor Scrooge assistant with a whip. If you got a single strand of hair, one, the kind that seem to abound everywhere, pasted under a piece of that tape for the gift being wrapped for a well-heeled client, better remove it fast. It does not look professional, when applying a sooth-their-ego nametag, and the guy knocking on the door is an auditor. We’ll all been stuck with this gift-wrapping nightmare at some point.
If the hair’s curly Q is only sticking out from the edge of the tape’s far end a half-inch … what if it was only a quarter-inch? Acceptable? No, still must try to jut and cut.
Can’t get the scissors positioned right, to snip it off, anywhere near the tape’s outermost edge. (Like if you’re trimming your beard, seeing that one strand, and are looking in a mirror with everything showing in reverse, bass ackwards.) But wait, a bit of success!! Only how did I get a small bit of hair to remain? How close is close enough, mm not cm.
So just rip off the strip of tape, being careful not to take any bit of wrapping paper with it, and then what? It just attaches to your Sticky Fingers! I’ll bet The Stones never had to deal with this, as they likely have their wrapping of presents done for them, even if on the fly for that cute babe in the second row.
So you turn your scissors sideways, no luck, then try Combing Straight On To You when applying it another time: Same method, same result, while expecting different hair. Is this the definition of madness?
And what are you still, with Christmas Past looking you in the face, still wrapping and not having given? Sketchers, sweaters, checkers.
In the first case, shoe memory foam is thickened to become brain fog.
More than the foil fails
So what of other fails, not just wrapping, of the holidays? I’ll introduce a few I saw on New Year’s Eve …
With it 16 below in Canada (Vancouver?), and not as cold here but still bitter, there were immediately seen lots of people outside sans jackets. And no little black dresses, only swatches of leather on the otherwise bare legs, often only at the upper thighs, and usually not in the form of skirts.
Once inside, this question, also on style, made me think someone should be cut off: “Is my hat (brim) on the front or back?” You mean you can’t tell? You know, with fingers?
Another fashion of the moment was the obligatory New Year’s Eve cress with numbers 2025 in the hair. One women first wore hers front and back like a dino, then switched it to the less diverse sideways. It later in the night was the only type of decoration sitting alone, by itself, on the sidewalk. The next day, the pieces of signs of the night before could be seen over long stretches on the main drag in Hudson, but oddly, more in front of less rowdy clubs than those who wander toward that direction.
Over at an outdoor ATM across the concrete from any buildings, a trio of women was risking frozen fingers to make a transaction. Houston, (see below), there was a problem. “What, I can’t find my card? It’s expired? Why can’t I find it. Where’s my card?”
Reminds me of an old ditty, not by P Diddy but from my old German upbringing, and translates literally to this: “My hat has three corners. Three corners has my hat. If it doesn’t have three corners. Then It’s not my hat.”
— Rhythms of threes? Gotta bring in the Trinitarian. I simply have to mention here the Green Maharishi with the Two Pronged Crown, (oops, thought it was three, but maybe add a hair bob to the back of the head. Two will get you three.) It was done first by Fleetwood Mac and then redone (much heavier or no?) and famously by Judas Priest. Cool for Santa, first rushing forward to save our globe for the Children of the Grave and now at home at the North Pole and chilling out. —
I think we get the main point. I also think the original songwriter had overindulged, on either beer or Adderall. Or both to make, basically, three.
This was Science Fiction Day, so beam me up Scottie.
Maybe transport me to Austin City Limits. As they have music. It was there that my niece just accepted a marriage proposal. So the now “new” couple had flown from Wisconsin all the way down to New Orleans for the moment of truth, on New Year’s Eve, braving even area tornados on the airplane be able to do it in the land of honky tonk and large hats, not polkas and lederhosen.
Back up here, a sign said it all, sort of. It read simply “Happy …” The guy must have fallen off his big ladder, but I think you can fill in the blanks. Noteworthy, the band Phil and the Blanks has played here on recent New Year’s Eves.
Looking forward
V-Day, as in Valentine’s, has now virtually arrived with the gonzo ties to gift-getting going up on all the shelves, as the just-past holiday cards become a no-no. (My friend just stayed up all night dispatching them, as her days for acceptability were ticking.) If you didn’t mail for Xmas, six of the eight slots for homegrown cards at a big local retailer were sold out, so look forward.
At a venue across the parking lot, little trees still are stocked, for a little holiday cheer to set in front of you and keep you inspired for your last jottings.
In the movie rack, Batman as a movie version is outdone by the Joker on several that are hyped, then we go back to other sci-fi themes, if staying at home for your flick watching new year. As the apocalypse nears as per your viewing, this may be your last for such ringing in.
So, prior to waiting for another holiday to transpire, a nextdoor truck-trailer still has all its lights on and aligned to their its, especially on their corners, so no semi about it, despite the fact that some large-discount-store grinches have forbidden overnight over-the-road-trucker parking.
No such problem in the Kwik Trip lot, it did not leave things go: It did its own year in review, in its online ads. It listed for you, how many visits and purchases you had made, at particular times, in the past year. (What if they had a run of them at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31? Would that back up their ability to count immediately?) Other points noted, as I am OCD about my Kwik Trip. I made 782 visits in 2024, and ate 13,961 French fries. OK, I made that up.
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