Day: February 29, 2012

Take it from Snee: Lent Edition

If you’re of the Catholic persuasion, then you know that we are one week deep into Lent.

For everyone else: every year, shortly after Valentine’s Day, the Almighty decides that he’s tired of putting in all the work into this relationship — including that freaky four-way with his son and a ghost we asked for. After Mardis Gras, God sobers up and turns into the princess from A Knight’s Tale and asks us to prove our love by giving up something we love for 40 days.

I, for instance, gave up the slide whistle this year, which means 40 days of stern erections: a price my wife will just have to pay. In prior years, I’ve given up monologuing in the shower, checking my tissues for productive noseblowings and Chalupas because

  1. It has to be something difficult to live without. (I ate nothing but Gorditos in 1998 to keep to my non-Chalupa agreement.)
  2. It can’t be a repeat.

But, you don’t have to be Catholic to participate. In fact, Muslims have their own version, Ramadan, while Evangelical Protestants swear off of gay sex for their entire lives — which often leads to failure for extending it beyond the Lent season.

It is in this Christian spirit that I’ve prescribed some Lent suggestions to others. Who knows? Maybe it will change their lives permanently for the better. Continue reading Take it from Snee: Lent Edition

Japan REALLY looking toward the future

Japanese construction company Obayashi is planning the construction of a space elevator which would carry passengers to a station about a tenth the distance to the moon. According to the company, the project could be completed as early as 2050.

Made of super-strong carbon nanotubes, the elevator would stretch some 60,000 miles from its anchor point, which would be built on an ocean’s floor. The opposite end of the building would dangle in space serving the role of a counterweight. Powered by magnetic linear motors, elevator pods would move at a speed of roughly 125mph, meaning it would take about one week for passenger to reach the top. The design would allow for up to 30 people to travel simultaneously. Acrophobics need not apply.

While at the moment it is difficult to estimate the total cost of the venture (we guess it’ll be many, many moon-dollars), it’s presumed that space elevators would, in the long run, be significantly more affordable than rocket launches, but significantly less (or would it be even more so) phallic looking in design.

Get personal with your food

Today most of us no longer know the satisfaction of hunting down, killing and eating our food. It’s a sense of satisfaction in both sustaining oneself and doing one’s part in the War on Animals that so few get to feel. Germany’s tried to reverse the trend a bit.

At Meine Kleine Farm (or in English My Kleine Farm), customers can enjoy sausage, but they can take it to a new level by picking out the pig to be slaughtered and made into the sausage. There’s even a picture of the pig. It’s like a dating service, but for food.