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Word of the Every So Often

sett(noun)  a badger’s burrow; the particular pattern of stripes on a tartan that identifies just which Scottish clan you belong to.  The cete was hanging out in their sett.

The Almost Daily

April 23 is Movie Theatre Day, and typical of a lot of these holidays, today really has nothing to do with movie theatres.  For instance, the first movie theatre that did nothing but show films, the Vitascope, was opened on July 26, 1896, in New Orleans.  And, of course, you already know that the vitascope was one of the earliest motion picture projectors.  And, of course, it was invented by Thomas Edison, who was born on February 11, 1847, and burned out on October 18, 1931.  Edison opened his own Vitascope theatre in Buffalo, New York, in October of 1896.  And that was followed by the first public movie theatre, which opened in Pittsburg on June 19, 1905.  It was called the Nickelodeon – “Nickel” after the price, and “odeon” after Greek word for “theatre.”  In 1930 the Regal Twins, in Manchester, England, became the world’s first multiplex. And in 1962 the Parkway Twin, in Kansas City, became the first multiplex in the US.  Which is all really cool, but it has nothing to do with today.  But what the hell?  Let’s leave work early and go to the movies!  I’m sure there’s something really good showing somewhere…

Cartoon of the Week

31 Pollution.jpg

“That joint’s so polluted that even the pollution’s polluted.” 

Stuff

Time and Temperature

 

It came as an epiphany.

The bank’s time and temperature wasn’t wrong.

It was actually telling what the temperature

was going to be

tomorrow at 6:17 p.m.

It was a window into the future.

Perfectly useless for most aspects of life,

except maybe planning a picnic,

but nevertheless,

a chance to see what had not yet happened,

what was going to happen

28 hours and 16 minutes from now,

any now.

 

So instead of going to work one day,

I just sat in the bank’s lot

and watched as it cooled off tomorrow evening,

down to an overnight low of 63,

before it started to warm up again at sunrise,

day after tomorrow.

 

It was only after I’d been there for over a day

that I noticed the parking lot was full of other cars

with their occupants doing nothing else

than watching that digital readout.

One guy here,

two guys there,

even entire families

sitting in rapture

over what tomorrow’s weather was going to be.

 

I think it was finally hunger

that made me abandon my spot,

which was quickly filled by one of the cars

circling the lot,

hoping for someplace to land.

 

At times I’m tempted to go back,

just to see,

just to know.

But that intersection has become so congested

that it would add a full thirty minutes

onto my commute,

and I don’t want to leave any earlier,

and I can’t afford to be late.

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