7th Annual Christmas Monkey Caption Contest

The Annual Christmas Monkey Caption contest began here on this humble but lovable blog Dec. 22, 2009. To be honest, so far, despite a weak handful of entries, my sample captions have always been better than any submitted by a reader.

The Christmas Monkey does not care what anyone says. The Christmas Monkey seen here, since 2009, has not been replaced or upgraded. The Christmas Monkey is beyond replacing. Do not mess with Christmas Monkey.

Christmas Monkey dares you to write a good caption.

Here's a couple to get you going:

"I'm gonna make Christmas great again!!"
"What did I get for Christmas? An orange, an apple, and three brazil nuts."
"Say "egg nog' one more time."

America On Holiday - 2014

Ferguson, Missouri images via The Big Picture

Freedom

Valentine's Day Sewage Plant Tours

All the romance offered by a sewage treatment plant can be yours!

"Brooklyn, New York’s Newtown Creek sewage plant will be the center of romance this Valentine’s Day. Plant superintendent Jim Pynn will take loving couples and others on morning or afternoon tours of the facility this coming Tuesday, Feb. 14.

“New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection is bringing two things together,” Pynn told Govpro.com. “We are going to give tour attendees a lot of information on our infrastructure, and we will give them an opportunity to express their love for each other—pretty neat, huh?”

Yeah. Neato.

"One impressive part of the plant is its eight futuristic, stainless steel-clad digester eggs. Processing as much as 1.5 million gallons of sludge every day, and working like a digestion system, the eggs break down the aromatic waste into non-toxic sludge and gas. 

“Just imagine going home and saying, ‘Where did he take me on Valentine’s Day? I went to see the digester eggs in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.’”

Yes, just imagine.

Strange Moments In Thanksgiving History

Is is possible to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal using an Easy-Bake oven? I doubt it - however it has been attempted at least once. See what happens here.

Dinosaurs, Wayne Newton and Soupy Sales were featured in the 1966 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, all captured on Super8 film. Is it just me or do the people on these rickety floats look like they are about to fall down?

I learned this year that cranberry sauce and Thanksgiving got together thanks to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War.

What happens when you ask a science fiction writer to say Grace on Thanksgiving:

"We also thank you for the world and that in your wisdom you have not stopped the Earth's core from rotating, collapsing our planet's magnetic field and causing microwaves from the sun to fry whole cities, requiring a plucky band of scientists to drill down through the mantle and start the core's rotation with nuclear bombs. That seems like a lot of work, so we are pleased you've kept the Earth's core as it is.

We also thank you for once again not allowing our technology to gain sentience, to launch our own missiles at us, to send a robot back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance, to enslave us all, and finally to use our bodies as batteries. That doesn't even make sense from an energy-management point of view, Lord, and you'd think the robots would know that. But in your wisdom, you haven't made it an issue yet, so thank you."

Here's hoping your holiday is bountiful, thankful and has no strange moments.

Kids Re-enact First Thanksgiving

Some kids re-enact the first Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving In Space and On Earth

Times are a bit lean here at the Compound this fall, but not so lean to not be thankful as required by the upcoming National Holiday. I do my best to comply with such National policy.

If you live in the United States, you have much to be thankful for which the rest of the human folk on this planet still yearn to grasp for even a moment. Not to say that folks inside this nation live on unicorns and rainbows on the Eternal Happy Good Time Happy Show. Real suffering, real pain, is never as distant as we might imagine. But for the most part, just being an American puts us in a luxuriant lifestyle.

I do try and remind myself daily of how well off I am -- a tasty, hot cup of coffee in the morning, or at any time I wish to have it, is a fine and wonderful thing. An oddity of life is that sometimes not having that good cup of coffee can make me thankful for the times when I do have it. And really, I'm hardly into the massive list of good things in my life - I'm talking a beverage here. Still, for centuries past, humans had to travel half the world and back just to get one. So I try and remember that. Makes that coffee taste mighty fine.

It is easy indeed to consider our lives to be mired in hellish discontent. The trappings of our world bellow at each of us to Be or Do or Change or Act or Buy or Sell or Own or Dispose of thousands upon thousands of Somethings. And all those urges to fiddle around with our Life's Personal Settings are actually a good sign, something which shows us that we can perceive we are Here and we might do better if we were There.

Here is a small but significant item for which I am thankful on this pre-holiday day: I am glad I am not waiting for the Urine Recycler Machine to start working properly. It's the folks floating above the planet on the International Space Station waiting for that.

While I marvel still at the ISS and the efforts of human space travel, I would hate to have to be told things like:

"An attempt by astronauts to repair a new water recycler designed to convert urine into drinkable water met with mixed results Sunday aboard the International Space Station.

"A separate sweat and wastewater processor has been working more or less as expected."

When it comes to my urine and waste processing turning into drinking water, "working more or less as expected" is really not so good. Even if I heard "Hey! It works great!" I would still eye that serving of drinking water with some concern.

They also have to maintain and ensure the operations of a $250 million dollar life support system. I have to maintain my own (as do you) but it does not cost that much. (Costs may rise quickly as the current recession continues into 2009.)

Here is my hope and plan for this Thanksgiving Day 2008 - to travel safely so I can share a good meal with some of my family and friends. I truly wish each of you could experience some of that shared goodness too.