The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
harridan: (noun) a strict, bossy, belligerent, or generally unpleasant old woman. The only thing that kept Angela from being a harridan was that she wasn’t old enough. And, no, there is not a masculine counterpart to “harridan”... until now: Himadan.
Everyday History
Quick refresher: A meteoroid is a small hunk of rock traveling on its merry way through outer space. It’s the type of thing you’d want to avoid if you were in a spaceship.
A meteor, often called a falling star, is that small hunk of whatever that enters the earth’s atmosphere and burns up.
A meteorite is a meteor that makes it all the way to the earth, hopefully not smashing into the rear end of your 1980 Chevy Malibu, which is exactly what happened to 17 year old Michelle Knapp on October 9, 1992. Her car was sitting in the driveway in Peekskill, New York, minding its own business, when a 28 pound meteorite the size of bowling ball pretty much totaled it.
Michelle had just purchased the car for $300, which is cheap no matter how you adjust it for inflation, but she ended up making out on the deal. A guy named Al Lang who collected meteorites bought the car for $25,000, and she sold the meteorite for $50,000. Since then the car has been on display at various museums throughout the world. Kind of makes me wish a meteorite would hit my car.
So here’s the thing: This isn’t that uncommon. It is estimated that 17 meteorites hit the earth every day, which is over 6,000 a year. Just because the earth is mostly oceans, and there are a lot of deserts and places like the Arctic and Antarctic, most of the meteorites fall pretty much unnoticed. In fact, the Antarctic is the best place to find meteorites because they stand out.
Of course, there are bigger meteorites. For instance, there was the Tunguska Event. And you know anything that’s called an “event” can’t be minor. The meteorite hit Siberia in June of 1908 with the force of a fairly large nuclear bomb. Luckily it was in the middle of now here, and there were only three recorded deaths. They weren’t killed by getting hit from the meteorite itself, but the shockwave, which was felt as far away as Washington, DC. That was the largest meteorite in recorded history. If you want to go back further, back to unrecorded history, there was the one that wiped out the dinosaurs and much of the life on the planet. And it was small compared to others that have hit the earth before there was really any life to wipe out.
The folks at NASA assure us that the chances of getting hit by a meteorite are incredibly low, so low that you don’t have to hide in your house. Not that it would help. Take Ann Hodges, a lady in Alabama, who is the only recorded case of somebody getting hit by a meteorite and surviving.
She was severely bruised when a meteor crashed into her home back in 1954. The only person killed by being hit by a meteorite – that we know of – happened in 1888 in Iraq.
Cartoon of the Week
“’Amazing Navigational Skills’ my ass! Admit it. We’re lost."
Stuff
History of the Future: Tagging
It was on December 4th, 2028, that Seattle shop owner Felix MacGoogan, tired of the nightly “tagging” of his business’s outer walls by rival street gangs, just left cans of spray paint outside for them to use. Said MacGoogan, “What’s the point of even trying? I paint over their graffiti in the morning so they can put graffiti over my paint at night. Besides, what do I care what colour it’s painted? Paint is paint. And this way, I don’t have to do it anymore.”
Soon neighboring businesses joined MacGoogan and left paint out as well. Shortly thereafter, the entire city stopped trying. Seeing shop owners set out paint cans at closing became a common sight during the winter of 2029. It wasn’t long, though, before the gangs couldn’t tell their graffiti from even their own. Said one gang member, “It never really made much sense, anyway, but this is ridiculous.” The only way they found to stake out their territory was to completely paint the businesses in solid colours with tastefully coordinated trim. The practice quickly spread, and before long every gang in the city spent their evenings painting local businesses.
Said a former shop owner, “You never knew what colour the shop was going to be each morning. Sometimes it would be red, sometimes blue. You never knew. But they always cleaned up after themselves.” Indeed, it became a sign of power to have the best looking blocks. Soon roving bands of youth were brazenly planting shrubberies along the sidewalks. The sound of a weed eater was common at night.
In the spring of 2030 officials from other cities began arriving, trying to recruit Seattle’s gangs to come to their towns and wreck all the havoc they wished. Chicago and Indianapolis had limited success, but it never quite caught on.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Said one gang member, “Hell, that’s work.” It wasn’t long afterwards that the city fell into disrepair. Having gotten used to not having to do any maintenance on their property, nobody did. Pleas were made to the city gangs, who had all moved to the suburbs and bought homes of their own. Perhaps DJ Weeder, the head of the Toro gang summed it up best, “Man, nobody wants to hang out in the city. That place is a dump. Besides, who’s got time? I’ve got a yard to mow.”
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