Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Tiny Bullet Train to My Fridge

wired

"Someday, a tiny subway will deliver your groceries. Won't that be nice? http://bit.ly/YVYfn"

I CLICK on the link in the Wired tweet and I read that a tiny subway will deliver my groceries. I am picturing little underground bullet trains that zap me my milk that I am always running out of because Killdozer and Teddy Bear are baby cows. Would it be delivered to a nice mail box or would it go right to my front door or even right into my house!!! I know it's asking a lot to have it put in my fridge for me, but what the heck.

There is a link in the article to the Urban Mole and I CLICK on it. Of course I do. Urban Mole? An underground package delivery system that runs through the sewers. I'm picturing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles patrolling to keep it safe.

I CLICK on the link to the Prague Pneumatic Post. Of course. My self control is less than a 2-year-old at the candy store or a 5-year-old in the cereal aisle. Basically nonexistent. Well, that sends me to Wikipedia.
I don't know about you, but when I read that kind of phrase, I stop and think. A Pneumatic Post. You mean like those whooshy tubes you use at the drive-up teller window? I picture an endless spaghetti-like system of pneumatic tubes all over the country sending stuff back and forth.

I CLICK on Google and YouTube to find out about this because Wikipedia is always just a jumping off point. Do you know YouTube has a song on it called "Sub Rosa Subway?" By Klaatu. And it's about an American inventor (I love that phrase) Alfred Ely Beach who invented the Beach Pneumatic Transit, New York's first subway, but which through corruption and bureaucracy gets nixed...in the 1870s. The more things change, the more they stay the same.



But I still don't have any pictures or videos of Prague's Pneumatic Post. What is it? Is it still around? I really want to see it.

Uh oh. How did I get here?



4 comments:

@eloh said...

If I had my 'druthers' I'd rather go back 100 years then forward 100 years.

All the choices going on in this country and around the world were so black and white, right and wrong. The slower pace and easy choices to do the right thing all the time.

This push button society scares us old folks. I don't want an underground train to my house bringing me my bread and milk...they might be underwear thieves in disguise.

Happy Hour...Somewhere said...

That is what was so amazing about the Prague Pneumatic Post..it was going strong in the late 1800s~! A slower pace would be nice though. And doing the right thing would be wonderful.

The one thing I do love about the current push button world is the ability to look into things myself and learn how to tell when bullshit is being shoveled my way. I am not terribly good at it yet having a congenital flaw of thinking people want to do the right thing (even if they are assholes).

I read some interesting financial blogs and have for years and they tell one story and the MSM tell another. Who is telling the correct poop? Well, so far if you go by track record, the financial blogs have been right on and CNN, Fox, CNBC, MSNBC, ad nauseum have been incorrect and sometimes frighteningly so.

How about an underground train bringing dessert? And if an underwear thief wants my granny panties...well, I'm not sure there is enough help in the world for him.

@eloh said...

I wrote something the other day, then decided against posting it.

I saw an ad about making $5500. a month for an hours work a day on the computer...for google...who runs our blogs...henceforth my decision to nix the post.

There was a picture that lead you to believe it was the "said" woman. Gave her name and town she lived in........google dropped the ball on this one....let's just say I'm VERY familiar with this VERY VERY VERY small community...there is no such person.

So what is the message? I take it that all that google ad stuff is crap.

Happy Hour...Somewhere said...

Ah, that would have made a great post though. I guess you would have to back up your blog first...just in case. I wonder if anything would happen? Hey, we could start a conspiracy.

But you make my point beautifully...you know it is probably crap but how does someone out here know? Sigh. I hate the idea of having to check everything with minimal trust in people. $5500 a month? Dang, I bet they get people right and left to click on it.

Hold on, my tinfoil hat is squooshing my brains. *adjust* Much better. (Just in case, you know, they're listening.)