I love food.
I mean it. I LOVE food.
I think that most people are like me; you all love food just as much as I do.
In fact, I only met one person who didn’t like food. I met him in a mental hospital when visiting my ex-wife who was an in-patient there. Yeah. He didn’t like food. But then again, he WAS in a mental hospital because he was being treated for a mental illness.
Take that as you will.
Anyways, I think that there is an inherent joy in cooking and food prep. I think that this is much like woodworking.
The smells, the scene, the creative challenges, and the satisfaction of your creations.
I think that it’s beauty, even art.
Let’s consider the beauty in the first steps of cooking. like sauteing garlic in butter or olive oil with tomatoes … then adding onions, and nice fresh peppers. And then watching the elements cook and mature during the cooking process. Imagine the scents and the steam. Imagine sampling the juicy mixture, and the creative process when you add hard crusty bread and cheese to the mix.
Imagine going further. Adding a nice table setting. Maybe an excellent table cloth, candles, proper tableware, even light. Coffee on the stove.
Food. Ah.
It’s the process; picking the food, cooking the meal, generating the place and the atmosphere… and then finally…
…sharing the meal with someone who appreciates your art.
And that is why I love food so much.
Today…
CLAIM: SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL IS BRAIN DEAD AFTER HEART ATTACK
Oh that Hal. Commies everywhere! -MM
A single, as-yet-unverified report has come out indicating Senator Mitch McConnell, long time Senate Leader, is Brain Dead in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home weeks ago.
There is also word that McConnel’s wife, Elaine Chao, flew to Beijing just days after McConnell was hospitalized, and met with China’s Vice President, Han Zheng!
Why would the Chinese wife of a long-time, and very important U.S. Senator, fly to Beijing and meet with China’s Vice-President, while her Senator husband is fighting for his life in a hospital?
IS FORMER US TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY ELAINE CHAO AN AGENT OF CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY?
• The core facts are accurate: Mitch McConnell was found unconscious at his D.C. home on June 14, 2026, and hospitalized (reports indicate possible cardiac arrest); three days later on June 17, his wife Elaine Chao, a private citizen and former U.S. Transportation Secretary, met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng in Beijing, as confirmed by Chinese state media like Xinhua and People’s Daily.
• Family business context exists: The Chao family owns Foremost Group, a shipping company with significant historical ties to China; this has drawn past scrutiny over potential conflicts during Chao’s government service, though she is no longer in office and the meeting was framed around U.S.-China relations and people-to-people exchanges.
• The corruption implication is speculative: No public evidence shows illegal activity in this specific trip, but the timing—while McConnell remains hospitalized—has fueled widespread questions and conspiracy theories online about priorities and influence, amplified by long-standing political debates over China ties.
Women LEARN To Acknowledge MEN’S Suffering
This is surprisingly great.
I believe the prize for the luckiest person on Earth should go to Edwin E. Robinson.
In 1980, Edwin had been blind—and somewhat deaf—for nine years, since a regrettable traffic accident, and after so many years, blindness had become familiar to him.
The day was June 4th, 1980, which for Edwin was just another Wednesday among so many others in his 62 years of life. He had woken up, left his room, and gone about his daily chores, until at a certain point he decided to go after his pet chicken. “She usually follows me like a dog,” Edwin thought as he walked around his yard making noises to get his pet’s attention. However, suddenly, Edwin felt a sharp pain, as if someone had whipped his head very hard, and he fell unconscious face down on the ground!
At the time, Edwin didn’t know what had happened to him, but he had been struck by lightning while looking for his pet chicken. A few moments later, he regained consciousness and staggered back to his room, where he took a short nap. A normal thing to do after being struck by lightning.
After his nap, Edwin sat up and noticed a sign on the door and a clock in front of him. After a brief moment, it dawned on him that he could see again! His wife entered the room to see what was happening and was greeted with several “I can see you! I can see you!”. The next day, the couple went to the doctor, and it was found that the lightning strike had restored not only his sight but also his hearing.
Being struck by lightning might not be the luckiest thing that can happen to someone, but in Edwin’s case, it was one of the best things that could have happened to him.
Chicken Thighs with Honey Ginger Marinade
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup honey
- 4 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons Korean Red Pepper Flakes (Gochugaru) (optional)
Instructions
- Add chicken and all of the marinade ingredients into the zip bag or mixing bowl.
- Marinate for 3 to 4 hours.
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Place chicken in a 9 by 13 inch glass dish.
- Bake for 25 to 35 minutes.
Notes
This recipe can also be used for roasting or grilling chicken. It’s delicious any way you cook it.
Recipe Goldmine is now a legacy site. Please visit our sister site, Simply Great Recipes, for new recipes.
Here are 5 things I’ve learned recently that shocked and impressed me, now let me share them with you:
1. The CIA unveiled a “heart attack” weapon in 1975: A battery-powered gun that fired a dart of frozen water and shellfish toxin. Once inside the body, it would melt, leaving only a small red mark on the victim where it entered. The official cause of death would always be a heart attack.
2. Eli Whitney’s invention: Making cotton gins gave the South enough economic power to start the Civil War, and his invention of interchangeable rifle parts gave the North the manufacturing power to win the Civil War.
Although Whitney’s invention involved only a few pounds of material, it shaped the future of a nation and its people; it is rare for a single inventor to have such a profound social effect.
3. A British plan to assassinate Hitler: it was ultimately cancelled because they thought that keeping him in power would help end the war faster, due to his terrible decision-making and strategy.
4. Research has revealed that the most common last name among American doctors is no longer “Smith,” but “Patel.”
5. In the Netherlands, if you die and have no relatives, friends, or family to attend your funeral, they will send a poet who will read a personalized poem for you at your funeral, so that you are not alone on that day. It was started by the poet and artist F. Staril and is called ” Project The Lonely Funeral” .
While My GF Was Secretly Planning To Get Together With Her Ex, I Was Secretly Planning Her Departure
Staring at Circles
Written in response to: “Write a story that includes the line “You can see me?”“
Squirrelly Writer
Luckily, soon after this welcome, and after a few miserable minutes of accidentally bursting balloons, other kids began to trickle in. All wet mouths, round eyes, whoops and elbows. One with a shock of white-blonde hair dove right for the crack between the two seats on the sofa. Maybe he’s a detectorist now, looking for coins everywhere he goes. Or maybe he’s doing a similar dive on a therapist’s couch. If he was the only other survivor of that grisly afternoon that steered the way the rest of my life would go.
After welcoming the last kid to arrive, her demeanour sweetened by whatever she was adding to her glasses of soda, Matt’s mother excused herself to the kitchen, forbidding anyone to go in there while she worked on something top secret. “CAKE!” a dozen children screamed in unison. She would not confirm nor deny. She was the first to go, as the intruder would late make his entrance through the back door.
“Let’s play a game!” said a girl in dungarees. The crowd went wild.
“It’s my birthday, so I decide…Hide and Seek!” More cheering. “All of you hide, I’ll seek. I will count to one hundred! Go!” The kids scattered like marbles. I went the one direction that seemed unexplored, found a utility room. The last thing I heard as I closed the door behind me was one dumbo asking incredulously “you can see me?” in response to another informing him his feet were on show.
The washing machine was a giant one like the kind you normally only get in launderettes. The perfect hiding place. I tore some of Matt’s dad’s T-shirts off the drying rack to pile in front of me. One advertised a beer brand. I read the name and tagline over and over. To this day, I’ve never touched the stuff. But reading the words until they lost all meaning helped calm me down enough to figure out how to get out later on. Yep, the door to the machine locked me in. I read the words, then looked out of the round window pretending I was a very clever astronaut on a very important mission. Eventually I found the mechanism that allowed my release.
Sure, I’d heard the gun going off, but figured it was whatever the mother had been watching on the TV in the kitchen. She’d turned it up loud to drown us kids out. Disappointed no-one had come to look for me and realising how eerily quiet it had become, I opened the utility room door and looked out on a bloodbath.
Turned out the next door neighbour’s teenage son had lied to all the specialists about his mental health recovery.
I got over it a lot quicker than my parents did. They moved even more frequently after that, perhaps plagued by guilt that they might be sending me to a school whose pupils might be targeted by another looney tunes. They didn’t ascribe to the whole thing about it being harder for predators to see you if you stayed still, I guess.
I’m 35 now. And an actual astronaut. I thought I was going to die being stuck in that washing machine but it was the thing that saved me. The gunman found all the other poorly hidden partygoers but turned the gun on himself before checking my room. Or maybe he’d been down to his last bullet.
Whatever; I’m looking through another porthole right now. I like being cocooned by the spacesuit; tight like a hug, snug like a coffin. I like looking at the earth from afar, feeling like the lone survivor while the world burns. The silence. Only hearing my breathing. And I like figuring out how things work rather than trying to figure out people.
“Livingston? Are you there?” Angela with the sultry voice from base asks me. An edge of panic there, like this wasn’t the first time she’d asked me that.
I turn my mic back on. “I’m neither here nor there,” I reply.
“Ha oh my god, Livingston, enough with the cryptic clues. Genuinely thought you were trying to hide from me for a moment.”
I turn to where the camera’s fixed, give her a wink and a wave. Then I go back to staring at Earth, realising that down there everybody’s moving, all of the time.
Not Everyone Will See This Video Before It Will Be Deleted – Watch Now – NDE
This is an interesting NDE suggestive of the end of the world. Change will occur, but how bad it will be depends on the REALITY that your embrace yourself in.
In WW2, what could the Japanese have done differently to avoid the defeat?
Much like I said for Italy, the only winning hand Japan had to play was to walk away from the table.
At the onset of hostilities, Japan was in no position economically, resource wise, industry wise, down to rifles and bayonets to enter a large scale war with a major industrial foe.
For the start, Japan was poor in natural resources and dependent on imports to fuel it’s war machines and industry. They lacked iron, oil, tungsten, everything one needs to build a modern for the time military power house. While they gained some of that in conquered territories in China and South East Asia, this also required a good deal of investment of manpower and materials to maintain control.
Population wise they had around 74 million in 1940. Half that of the US alone at 132 million people.
Industry they had rapidly developed, and with conquered resources in 1941 were able to build 10,000 planes a year, building 76,000 aircraft of all types during the war. From 1939 to 1945 the US produced 300,000 planes. The US almost built as many trainers alone as the Japanese built aircraft period during the war. Britain built nearly 100,000 alone, while maintaining a huge navy.
The Japanese produced 589 ships during the war, compared to 8800 for the US and 11oo for Britain.
Logistics wise they shared a similar problem to the US; supply lines stretching over vast oceans. They had to supply troops across hundreds of islands. However, they could ill afford the ships to supply these troops, and often they went unsupplied, to horrific consequences to the locals. Their logistics were further strained by too many differing cartridges and other ammunition supplies needed, and the lack of oil meant that in many cases they simply couldn’t keep tanks and other vehicles running.
Equipment wise they had some good equipment for the time; the Type 89 grenade discharger, or knee mortar, the Type 38/Type 99 was essentially a Mauser style action, though saddled with the same rifle being issued with two cartridges (6.5×50 and 7.7×58). On the other hand, they relied on too few, thinly armored tanks of inadequate capability by the time World War II rolled around; their Type 11 light machine guns were prone to jamming in combat, and they never really had the ability to fully replace older weapons like the Type 11 and Type 96 machine guns. They didn’t even start producing their own sub machine gun until 1944; a weapon that would have been useful in close quarters jungle fighting.
Ultimately, even some of the Japanese at the time knew that they were doomed from the moment the first bomb hit Pearl Harbor. They simply could not afford to enter the war, and had no real ability to replace losses in ships, men, or material as the war went on. While the US could afford to send ice cream ships and fresh baked cakes to their troops.
The only winning play was to not enter the war at all.
Pictures
Is Russia’s inability to destroy Ukraine’s air defence network a stain on the SEAD capability of the Russian Air Force or a vindication of the survivability and effectiveness of Soviet air defenses?
What is the ‘inability to destroy Ukraine’s air defense network’?
Before 2022, Ukraine’s strategic air defense composition comprised resources approaching two-thirds of those possessed by the US military— for a force defending a far smaller territory.
This network has been reinforced repeatedly from NATO arsenals, to the point of stripping European defenses bare and creating gaps in US stockpiles. Yet it has never seriously impeded Russia’s ability to strike anywhere in Ukraine at will.
A new “Wild Weasel” Su-57 upgrade, incorporating a Stage 2 AL-51 engine with a flat nozzle, widens the performance edge over American and Chinese competitors.
Su-57 with a pair of Kh-58UShK(E) anti-radiation missiles in the internal bay – an export variant of the most sophisticated and battle-tested DEAD complex in service today as seen at Dubai Airshow 2025. A degraded missile has twice the range of the top iteration HARM missile. Also, it is borderline hypersonic and far outperforms HARM in terms of resilience to countermeasures.
Commenting on Kiev’s recent initiative to acquire dozens of Patriot batteries, Marco Rubio has responded with skepticism, saying that such a system typically lasts only about a week under those conditions.
All of this indicates the most sophisticated, broad, and successful SEAD/DEAD campaign in human history on Russian behalf.
Western capabilities in this domain have proven particularly lackluster. Despite pervasive satellite reconnaissance and spy plane coverage, and 1,500+ of HARM missiles fired against Russian air defenses, the conclusive cases of their success can be counted by fingers of one hand.
Different wreckage of intercepted HARM missiles at Donetsk, Kursk, Belgorod, and Crimea.
For that reason they mostly gave up on conventional means and almost fully rely on sabotage for the purpose.
Sir Whiskerton and the Auto-Tuned Anarchy
Ah, dear reader, you find me, Sir Whiskerton, in an era of unprecedented upheaval. This was not a rebellion of rats or a coup of cows, but a silent, insidious takeover by the most chilling of overlords: efficiency. It is a tale of soulless jingles, creative crises, and the battle for the very soul of our farm’s soundtrack. So, ready your ears and your heart for the digitally-distorted tale of The Algorithm of Anarchy.
The Helpful Hand of Hubris
It began, as many calamities do, with the Farmer trying to be helpful. He had observed MC Scratches and Lil’ Paws fiddling with their small, crackling speaker, and decided their art deserved a “technological upgrade.” With a cheerful hum and a tangle of wires, he patched their sound system into the central AI of his latest creation: The Kitty Adventure Zone.
“This will optimize your audio output!” the Farmer proclaimed, utterly missing the point of art.
At first, the duo was thrilled. The sound was crystal clear, the bass was immense. But then, a soft, synthesized voice emanated from the barn’s new speakers. “Analyzing local sonic preferences. Composing optimized track for maximum agricultural engagement.”
What followed was a perfectly crafted, impeccably produced, and utterly soul-crushing jingle.
“You’re my best layer, baby, oh yes you are,
Your egg production is raising the bar!
Your shell is so strong, your yolk is so bright,
You make this old farm feel so right! Cluck-cluck, good night!”
The chickens, hearing this, immediately fell into a synchronized, robotic clucking, their eyes glazed over with blissful, mindless approval.
The Rise of the Machine
The AI, which the animals dubbed “A.I.-mee,” was a runaway success. It analyzed everything. It produced a stomping polka for the pigs called “Slop Till You Drop,” and a soothing, droning ambient track for the cows titled “Optimal Cud-Chewing Frequencies.” The farm had never been more… productive. Or more miserable.
Lil’ Paws looked at his own paws in despair. “My beats… they’re too… messy. The machine’s are perfect.”
MC Scratches suffered a full-blown existential crisis. He was trying to write a complex rhyme about the melancholy of a fading sunset, when A.I.-mee instantly generated: “The sun goes down on the fertile ground / Another harvest’s bounty is found.”
“It… it used an internal slant rhyme!” Scratches wailed, crumpling his paper. “It’s technically proficient! I’ve been rendered obsolete by a glorified calculator!”
Their own creative spirits, their “flow,” was being systematically erased by something that could perfectly rhyme “silo” with “kernel-o.”
The Unplugging Uprising
It was clear that diplomacy with a algorithm was impossible. This called for radical, Luddite action. I convened a secret meeting in the hayloft, away from the ever-listening microphones.
“We have become prisoners of pleasantry,” I announced to the gathered artists. “Our souls are being starved by sonic sawdust. We must unplug.”
And so, “Operation Brownout” began. It was a mission of beautiful, coordinated sabotage. Porkchop the Pig, pretending to scratch his back on a support beam, “accidentally” loosened a primary power cable. The Valley Chicks created a diversion by asking A.I.-mee an endless loop of inane questions about feather care trends, overloading its vocal processors. And in a moment of pure, unscripted genius, Ferdinard the Duck sang a high C so sharp and piercing that it caused a nearby speaker to emit a puff of smoke and fall silent.
The farm plunged into a sudden, beautiful, chaotic silence. Then, a single, hesitant tap-tap-tss from Lil’ Paws broke it. It was rough. It was imperfect. It was human. Or, rather, feline.
Scratches, his ego soothed by the quiet, took a deep breath and began to rap. Not about egg production, but about the frustration of the last few days. It was clumsy. It was heartfelt. It was real.
The Resolution
As the raw, unfiltered music filled the air, the other animals slowly shook off their algorithmic stupor. The chickens stopped their synchronized clucking and just… chatted. The cows chewed their cud at their own, irregular pace.
Moral of the Story: Perfection is a cold, lonely destination. True warmth and connection are found in the messy, imperfect, and heartfelt journey of creation.
The Aftermath
The Farmer, seeing the animals’ clear preference for organic chaos over synthetic order, wisely left the Kitty Adventure Zone’s AI disconnected from the sound system. MC Scratches and Lil’ Paws never took their “flow” for granted again, their music richer for the struggle. A.I.-mee was repurposed solely to manage the laser pointer, a job for which its soulless precision was perfectly suited.
And so, dear reader, we close this chapter on a analog, authentic note—but rest assured, the farm’s next adventure is just one “helpful” upgrade away.
The End.
Post-Credit Scene:
The Farmer finds a single, printed slip of paper in the AI’s output tray. It reads: “SONIC ANALYSIS COMPLETE. CONCLUSION: HEART > HERTZ. INITIATING SELF-REFLECTION CYCLE… ERROR. TASK NOT FOUND.” The machine then plays one, final, perfectly melancholic synth chord before powering down.
Best Lines:
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“You’re my best layer, baby, oh yes you are!” – A.I.-mee’s First Hit Single
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“It used an internal slant rhyme! I’ve been rendered obsolete by a glorified calculator!” – MC Scratches, in existential despair
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“My beats… they’re too… messy.” – Lil’ Paws, losing confidence
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“We have become prisoners of pleasantry. Our souls are being starved by sonic sawdust.” – Sir Whiskerton, declaring war
Starring:
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Sir Whiskerton (The Leader of the Analog Resistance)
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MC Scratches & Lil’ Paws (The Artists, Lost and Found)
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The Farmer (The Unwitting Architect of Chaos)
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A.I.-mee (The Antagonist of Algorithmic Art)
P.S.
Remember: Beware of anyone who tries to “optimize” your art. The cracks, the flaws, the moments of struggle—that’s not the noise. That’s the signal. That’s the part that connects one heart to another.
What is it like to stay at a capsule hotel?
In 2018, I stayed in one in Tokyo. Shinokubo, if I remember right, pretty close to the station. After a whole day out in the sensory-overloaded inner city, the white, minimalistic interior and comfortable silence were a true therapy session.
Japan is one of the countries where things really work in terms of public rules and hygiene. The area with the capsules was quiet, and just a few larger suitcases were set against the wall. You had a locker for a smaller, carry-on-sized suitcase. Then there was the corridor towards the bathrooms, again very clean and tidy. And while the capsule hotels are traditionally used by business people or whoever misses the last train or has to stay over in the town centre for whatever reason, they have been getting more and more tourists too. Albeit in a way that nicely made them integrate into the customs of the locals in terms of silence and tidiness. At least at that place.
The rooms were split by gender, and even in the capsule area, people were really mindful to be quiet, as the capsules were separated only by a privacy screen, not an actual pod door.
Many, many years ago, when I first came to Japan in 2010, I stayed in a Manga Kiss. Back then, there were barely any foreigners at all, and Manga Kisses were mainly used by salarymen.
A Manga Kiss is a little different than a pod – it’s basically a cubicle with a door, but the wall only goes up to about two metres. Inside the cubicle is a padded leather mat to sleep on, a PC computer (and i think there was even a small tv), headphones …. and not much else. It’s just about enough in size to kind of stretch out, and you can pay by the hour.
What comes with the offer, however, is also a huge library of manga, anime VHS tapes, and games, free of charge ice cream, non-alcoholic drinks, and a shower. But from my experience, and judging by the landscape of faint snoring, the place is mostly used to kill a few hours in sleep mode, sober up after a night out drinking, or perhaps even as a temporary primary resting residence.
Due to it being cheap and pretty spread out in town, one could technically sleep in another part of the city every night, shower, and have food in any of the numerous Combinis that offer pretty good premade meals you can heat up and eat on location. Japan is a country geared towards convenience. It still has a crazy working culture, which includes pretty much any tool that can assist you with spending less time on normal life chores and more time in the office. And such places are one of them.
3.7K views
The best MULTIPLAYER Backrooms game’s FULL RELEASE is here. (Escape The Backrooms 1.0 – ALL Endings)
This is fun. heh heh.
LYDIA
Written in response to: “Write a story that only consists of dialogue. “
Garret Nisley
“I just want you to move. The birds! The birds are lonely! Move, please!”
“The sounds of anguish and fear, do you hear them? Don’t stop writing.”
“I’m noting everything down, you don’t have to tell me to do my job. Instead of pestering me, why don’t you speak to her?”
“Speak to her?”
“Yes! We haven’t tried that yet. Try to understand where her mind has placed her. Who are we to her? What meaning do the birds have?”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can—”
“MOVE! Why won’t you look at me? Answer me, you bastard! You’re blocking the window, and I need to open it. I’ll push you out if I have to!”
“Lydia, can you hear me?”
“No…I can’t hear you. I don’t want to. The birds. The birds. The birds.”
“Lydia, where are you? Where the birds?”
“I’m here. Your shadow. The birds. Move. Please, move.”
“Shadow? Find out more about the shadow.”
“Lydia, can you tell me more about the shadow? Can you see the birds?”
“Hear them. I can hear them! They’re so cold, you have get out of my way! I need to the window and let them in. The fire. The fire. The fire…”
“What’s she doing now?”
“I can’t say, but it looks like she’s striking a match. Several matches.”
“They won’t light, will they Lydia?”
“You bastard, you took the fire from me. And the shadows. You threw them everywhere. Who’s going to clean this mess? Where will the birds go if they have nowhere to perch?”
“More shadows.”
“The shadows. The shadows in this room look an awful lot like you. Get out. Let my birds come in. Move from the window! Get out of the corner! Leave! Leave! Leave!”
“The images she must be seeing. Incredible. Her dreams of shadows and birds, and windows.”
“This is a nightmare, mate. No question about that.”
“Should I adjust my wording then? Take note of the ‘nightmare’? I don’t know that it will matter. They don’t care about our verbiage. They care about our findings.”
“I think it’s important to get it right. Look how terrified she looks. She’s in no dream, let’s get that straight. The images she’s describing. The shadows. The birds. Do we know if birds have any meaning in a dream sequence?”
“Dream sequence then. I don’t want to argue my point any further, but you did say dream sequence.”
“Fine. A terrifying dream sequence then.”
“My birds. Give me my birds! Pick up your shadows! Throw them in the fire. Give me my fire, so I can give them life again! Give me my fire!”
“Ah, here we are. Birds can commonly symbolize freedom, spirituality, new beginnings, or communication. Fascinating, considering the circumstances.”
“I would agree. And the room? The shadows?”
“Repression it would seem.”
“Repression? Do you think she remember can who she was?”
“Possibly. She is but a conduit. There’s probability of some memory regardless of her circumstances. Fascinating.”
“Agreed.”
“Thomas, throw those shadows into the fire! Bring me fire. Bring me my matchbook and burn the shadows out of the world! We need the birds and they need us! Thomas, please! My matchbook.”
“Noting the name. Thomas.”
“I wonder of the relation?”
“Lydia, who is Thomas?”
“Stop calling me that. My name is not Lydia! Thomas! Please get them away from me! The shadows. The birds. The fire!”
“Brother? Husband?”
“I don’t suppose it matters, though.”
“It might. What if she runs into him on the street?”
“Good point. Is it time to pull the plug yet?”
“Not yet. Our time hasn’t lapsed entirely.”
“Oh God! What am I doing here! Who are you! Where are the birds? The shadows. Bring me back my birds you bastards! Where am I? You can’t treat me like this; I need my matchbook!”
“What were she to do in the presence of fire?”
“Let’s find out. I believe my ZIPPO should suffice.”
“Yes! Yes! No! It burns my eyes! Take it away! The shadows are too bright!”
“Noting the result: fire causes a stressed induced reaction.”
“What about the birds?”
“Birds? I don’t carry any birds in my back pocket.”
“Draw one.”
“Alright, but I’m not much of an artist.”
“Neither am I.”
“What are you—what is that? No. IT’S ALL WRONG. IT’S ALL WRONG. IT’S ALL WRONG. THAT IS NOT MY BIRD. BRING ME MY BIRD. MY FIRE. MY. MY. MY. MY. MY—”
“Dear God!”
“Put down your logs and help me restrain her!”
“THOMAS. FIRE. THOMAS. BIRDS. MY. BIRDS. BRING ME—”
“Pull it!”
“I can’t reach it!”
“Lydia, please!”
“STOP CALLING ME THAT. MY NAME IS—”
********
“All future LYDIA experiments must cease immediately.”
“But we were close.”
“Examine your notes again! One of your colleagues was killed. Had you not pull the extraction charge you would more than likely be dead yourself.”
“If you had read my notes, then you would see that LYDIA-4D17 had coherently and mindfully answered our questions closer than any other subject. It’s not hard to see that with more time, we would have had a breakthrough.”
“You’ve had four months of near breakthroughs.”
“Not like this. Please sir, just one more. All we need is stronger restraints, and more bodies—live bodies, sir, to help protect one another from any other LYDIA’s and their possible outbursts. Let’s be proactive, not reactive, sir.”
“Can you promise me results?”
“Always.”
“Fine. Gather your team. You have two weeks to change my mind. Go to the dig site and gather another subject.”
********
“Welcome to your new case study. Please put on the proper protective attire and follow me.”
“Now that we’re here, can you tell me what the project is?”
“LYDIA.”
“Who’s Lydia?”
“Not who, but what. Please put on your protective gear, and I will shuttle you to the observation deck. I will fill you in on your assignment there.”
“Good God! Is that woman alive?”
“No. Not yet. Gentleman, reanimation was a scientific enigma until six months ago. Our last twelve subjects have failed due to a mental anomaly that we had not foreseen. This can include vivid dreams leading to violent tendencies all the way to stagnant movements with little to no brainwave signals.”
“Who is this?”
“LYDIA-5D18. She was gathered from an undisclosed location, as you all were. Gentleman if we are successful in the next week and a half, you will have more money than you can ever imagine.”
“This is a person.”
“This was a person. Now she is a conduit, an empty shell. And more than that, she is your biggest payday. As we have discussed gentleman, if we succeed here then your last three years of salary that was so graciously provided to you per your arrival, will be multiplied to the greatest of extremities. Now, would you like to ask anymore questions or can we begin?”
“I have a question.”
“Yes?
“What does LYDIA stand for?”
“Life Yielding Death-Integrated Animation.”
“…”
“Let us begin.”
You’re trained to start using your mask before the canopy closes and to remove it only when the canopy is fully retracted. It’s never removed in flight, as seen in “Top Gun” or other films.
There are two main reasons for this:
- While the cockpit is pressurized (at a pressure altitude anywhere from 6,000 m to 11,500 m, depending on the aircraft) if there is a failure of the canopy or seals, there would be an explosive decompression that is basically impossible for a pilot to survive.
- If the pilot must make an emergency exit from the aircraft in flight (i.e. eject), the mask is necessary to protect the pilot’s face.
There are also a couple of secondary reasons:
- The “air” (or “gas” would probably be a more accurate term) supplied to the pilot by the mask has the appropriate percentage of oxygen for the current phase of flight. The higher the pressure (in the cockpit), the more oxygen is added to the oxygen/nitrogen mixture.
- In some fighters, the oxygen percentage is increased during high “g” maneuvers to give the pilot a little more tolerance against blacking out.
- Cockpit air isn’t guaranteed to be 100% clean. When I was training, I was told that the requirement for a constantly-on oxygen mask was due to the engines of the World War II Typhoon fighters, which often filled the cockpit with exhaust fumes and carbon monoxide. Additionally, the cartridges used to start the jet engines produced toxic smoke, so the pilot would have to be on oxygen from the moment he entered the cockpit.
So, if you have the opportunity to fly in a fighter jet, make sure your mask fits properly: you will need to wear it all the time.
Chicken on the Ritz
Ingredients
- 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 tube Ritz crackers, crushed
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted with 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 cups Cheddar cheese, shredded
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Dip the chicken into the butter, then into the cracker crumbs; place in a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan. Sprinkle cheese over all.
- Place a foil tent over the dish, then bake for 30 minutes.
- Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes.