ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-30-25)
I know it seems like 2024 had nothing much going for it, and you'd just like to get rid of it without paying a termination fee, but here are the GOOD points of 2024, listed in chronological order: 1.) Water soluble. And now, here are the important stories of the year, presented in an easy-to-ignore form:
SAN FRANCISCO SELF-DRIVING CARS WON’T STOP HONKING AT EACH OTHER
Self-driving taxis belonging to Waymo, the Google pilot project, have been beeping their horns incessantly as they approach each other in their SoMa neighborhood parking lot, causing much indignation and sleeplessness as they sound off during the wee hours of the morning, when conventional cars are in their garages dreaming about less exhausting exhaust systems. Rude behavior such as this is much harder to tolerate in automated vehicles, which seemingly should know better. How long will it be before AI-generated robots start fighting each other at Waffle House?
HUMAN FOOT FOUND ON MOUNT EVEREST MAY BELONG TO MISSING MOUNTAINEER
A crew filming a documentary on Mount Everest came across a human foot inside a boot with a sock labeled, "A.C. Irvine," a mountain climber who went missing in 1924. If he did reach the top, he would be the first known person to do so. He would also have had to hop there on one foot. The discovery possibly changes the accepted history of the honor attributed to Edmund Hillary, oh, and countless members of the Sherpa people who for some reason are never counted. Mount Everest is the Earth's tallest mountain at 29,035 feet, now 29,036. I remember plenty of cold days that I just about froze my tootsies off, not really believing it was a thing. Had I known it was, I would have kept my tootsies much warmer. Other times, when my foot falls asleep during the day, I wonder what it might have been doing all night? Okay, I'm done now.
DOG SEEN ROAMING THE TOP OF EGYPT’S GREAT PYRAMID
A group of paragliders noticed an animal chasing birds at the top of 448 foot-tall Khafre, the second tallest Egyptian pyramid. One thought it was a mountain lion, even though mountain lions are not indigenous to Egypt. Humans are forbidden on top of the Great Pyramids, so it couldn't have been a person chasing birds, and it turned out to be a dog. When interviewed, the dog said, "In my defense, there are bones buried in that thing. Also, I can see down all sides in case a mountain lion ever does try to come up here." The same paraglider later spotted ME at the top of the food pyramid, where there are reported to be Reese's Take 5 bars.
SCIENTIST BELIEVES NASA LANDER MAY HAVE KILLED LIFE ON MARS
A German astrobiologist has proposed that the Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976 may have indeed found evidence of life there, had it not drowned it first. His theory is that, much like in the desert, salts can leach out water from the atmosphere, creating a possible environment for microbial organisms. The experiments that the lander performed which introduced water may have accidentally destroyed the very life forms it had sought to discover. It's only a theory, of course, but it's exactly why when someone says, "Hey, what the hell is that thing up in the sky? It looks like it's about to add water to us," I do everything in my power to avoid looking too much like a microbe. By the way, if NASA traveled all that way to find micro-organisms, they could have simply sent a probe over to my sneakers and saved my tax money for something more useful, like creating a moon rover that can carry a surfboard.
ORCAS ARE WEARING SALMON HATS AGAIN
According to the UK-based ORCA ocean conservation group, a trend that was first noticed in killer whales but soon fell out of fashion is back in style: wearing a dead salmon as a hat. A female orca was spotted wearing the faddish fish in 1987, and soon others in the pod had taken up the look. The rage was over as quickly as it had begun, until last year, when dead fish were again observed on the heads of killer whales. Scientists have been puzzled by the behavior, postulating that the whales may simply be saving the food for later. When it was noted that the salmon were often abandoned, they came to the conclusion that they might be doing it because it looks so damn good. When you've been wearing a mono-chromatic color scheme your entire life, salmon seems like a great choice. You'd have to believe that at the very least the hat would be waterproof.
OLDEST KNOWN STONE INSCRIBED WITH TEN COMMANDMENTS SOLD AT AUCTION
A stone tablet etched with the Ten Commandments dating from 300 to 800 A.D. was sold at Sotheby's in 2024. The anonymous buyer plans to donate the artifact to an Israeli museum, or perhaps he will simply keep it in his wallet as a constant reminder. After I heard that it was sold for over five million dollars, I've been writing commandments down nonstop, to update the list a little bit. "Thou shalt never hit 'reply all' before ascertainingeth that thy boss is not one of all." "Thou shall not comment on thy wife's short haircut before dinner hath been served." That type of thing. And now, whenever I hear someone at a meeting say, "Hey, it's not written in stone," I immediately write it in stone, in case it turns out to be something worth money in the coming centuries.
SCIENTISTS SAY “DARK ENERGY” MAY NOT BE WHAT IT SEEMS
Apparently, "dark energy" is a term astronomists have used to describe the low-density matter that is expanding our universe at a more recently accelerated rate. In words, if I may paraphrase, they don't really know what the hell it is. They just know that it isn't what they thought it was, which they didn't know either. What is apparent is that dark energy has much less mass than regular matter, which means it matters much more. I hope that clears things up. I had previously thought that dark energy was caused by the United States Congress, a theory which has not been disproven to my satisfaction. It WAS disproven, but I wasn't any more satisfied afterwards.
And that's last year in a nutshell, where it should have stayed. If for any reason you are dissatisfied with 2024, simply return the unused portion for a full refund. Void where prohibited.