March 26, 2008 | Issue 44•13
NEW YORK—In an announcement with far-reaching implications for the fate of human civilization, a time-traveling man from the 22nd century revealed Monday that, in the future, earth's inhabitants consume Dippin' Dots rather than traditional ice cream.
"People of the 21st century, the future holds great and wonderful things," said the man, who only identified himself as "Wolcott," during an address televised in all of the world's countries. "One hundred years from now, dessert items are made by flash-freezing beads of cream with liquid nitrogen, then storing them in subzero conditions. People enjoy these treats with great regularity, and often remark upon how delicious they taste."
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'Put down your crude melting desserts of churned animal's milk and embrace the glorious world of high-tech flash-frozen treats.' –The Future Man
"We call this ubiquitous dessert of the future 'Dippin' Dots,'" the man added.
Wolcott, a self-described physicist and adventurer who traveled back in time from 2147 New York City, expressed disbelief that cryogenic encapsulation was not yet humanity's primary dessert-making technique, and called present-day dessert options "confusing."
"What is this primitive 'iced cream' you people consume?" Wolcott asked as he cautiously handled a two-scoop chocolate ice-cream cone and examined it with curiousity. "Today, I saw human beings putting cold dairy products into their mouths—products of an odd, thick consistency and bland monochromatic color. Why would people eat this syrupy gruel when they could eat hundreds of individually frozen orbs? In my time, when a meal is completed, we all eat bowls of Dippin' Dots. I cannot conceive of any other way of life."
As ice cream melted and dripped onto his hand, Wolcott shrieked, threw the cone to the ground, and stamped on it repeatedly with his foot.
Pressed to explain what life is like in his time, Wolcott described a fantastical world in which grocers' freezers are stocked exclusively with Dippin' Dots, birthdays are celebrated with hot-fudge Dippin' Dots sundaes, and, in the summertime, children run excitedly through the streets following the familiar jingle of a Dippin' Dots truck. The Dippin' Dots man then distributes cups of Dippin' Dots to the children, who rejoice heartily. Dippin' Dots, the future man said, are a world-famous treat and a staple of Americana.
"As soon as I arrived in your era, I entered a dining establishment and asked to see the dessert menu, as I had a not-unusual craving for Dippin' Dots," Wolcott said. "Yet my eyes encountered a series of words and pictures completely foreign to me, and I began to weep, for I realized that I am a stranger in a strange land where Dippin' Dots are not a popular and universally beloved dessert."
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The soon-to-be ubiquitous delight.
According to Wolcott, technological advances in microbiology and cold storage will make it possible to mass-produce Dippin' Dots and distribute them worldwide, allowing mankind to abandon its archaic system of slowly churning fresh dairy ingredients into a rich, velvety cream.
"It seems the legends of 21st-century man's crude ice cream–eating habits are all true," Wolcott said. "I see the way you consume these dripping concoctions with protruding tongues, the way the dark cream dribbles down your chins, the way your workers must dig tirelessly with spherical metal 'scooping' devices to even obtain this product."
"Barbarians!" Wolcott added. "Dippin' Dots can be poured effortlessly into cups. They do not melt or make a mess, and plus they are very fun to eat."
Wolcott revealed that, a century from now, standard flavors such as chocolate and vanilla will be replaced by more innovative Dippin' Dots flavors like Cherry Berry Ice, Tropical Tie-Dye, and Candy Bar Crunch. He also cryptically foretold of something called the "dotwich," a mysterious confection he only described as "a combination of Dippin' Dots and fudge placed between two cookies."
The prevailing reaction among U.S. citizens has been one of dismay. "No ice cream?" said Deborah Cirillo, 42, of Montville, NJ. "Boo."
"I must go now, for I grow tired and I hunger for Dippin' Dots," said Wolcott, concluding the address. "I only hope that your culture survives long enough to experience an era in which the delicious and unique Dippin' Dots–brand frozen dairy dessert that I enjoy so freely is fully embraced and widely available. Good luck, and godspeed."
Before he left, Wolcott also mentioned that, in the future, 99 percent of the world's population has AIDS and we are all slaves to the machines.
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March 26, 2008 | Issue 44•13
SANDWICH, MA—Sources who just saw you do that are now reporting that, oh man, area little brother Ryan, 5, has made definitive plans to tell and, in addition, is so going to tell as soon as Mom gets back. Despite a number of attempts to diffuse the tense situation with leftover Easter candy and offers to play with him, preliminary reports suggest that you are so busted and you knew you weren't permitted to be in here and there is every indication that, oooh, you're going to get in trou-ble. While it appears you could potentially be grounded for the rest of forever, you have been strongly advised to turn over all of your ow, quit pinching quit pinching quit pinching.
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By Paul LaBradford
March 26, 2008 | Issue 44•13
Take a look around at the state of our schools, the violence on TV, and the drugs on our streets, and you'll see why so many of our children are struggling for a better life. These kids need someone on their side. They need a powerful force to set them on the right trajectory and keep them out of prison, or worse, the morgue. They need pole-vaulting.
That's why I'm donating $11.5 million to start the Paul LaBradford Foundation for Pole- Vaulting—because no child should grow up without access to the world's greatest sport that involves propelling oneself over a horizontal bar.
See, growing up on the hardscrabble streets of Chicago's South Side, I learned firsthand how dirty life can get. I saw friends taken out by addiction, and friends taken out by bullets. My mother was too drunk to buy us food—never mind drive me 25 miles to the nearest pole-vaulting center to distract me from the alluring call of gang life.
But I got out. I went on to Emory University where I majored in microbiology, and then got my MBA at Georgetown before starting an extremely successful private investment fund, Voyage Capital, which now manages more than $1.2 billion in assets in 11 different countries. I don't want to see the children of Chicago struggle to achieve my level of success without an essential foundation in pole-vaulting.
The statistics are sobering. Studies have shown that less than 5 percent of the poorest urban youth have adequate pole-vaulting facilities. Sadly enough, many schoolchildren have never even pole-vaulted at all, and less than 1 percent go on to pursue a career in pole-vaulting after leaving school. By comparison, 9 percent of American college students have received some exposure to the valuable character-building experience that sprinting full speed, stopping suddenly, and then elevating many feet into the air due to altered angular momentum around a fulcrum can be.
Let's make pole-vaulting a right, not a privilege.
For millions of kids, there is no hope of practicing pole-vaulting in a well-maintained, modern facility. Most scrape by with outdated, nonregulation poles and cardboard shoes. Some must rely on broomsticks nailed hastily together, or a rusted length of pipe. These poor forgotten youngsters are often forced to land on an old blood- and urine-soaked mattress or some garbage bags filled with broken glass.
We can change all that. One pole at a time.
I want to make sure that every child living in a squalid, one-bedroom tenement with no heat or hot water has access to the finest high-impact collapsible mats that money can buy. Even if they can't count on a steady father figure or even their next meal, I want them to have one place they can go for high-grade hand chalk and those special spiked sneakers pole-vaulters need to wear when they're pole-vaulting. I want these kids, hardened by grim realities of the 'hood, to trade in their guns for 11-foot fiberglass poles.
When our foundation is in place, no park or schoolyard or juvenile detention center will go without a 131.2-foot runway again. We'll hold midnight pole-vaulting events for teens. Our Head Start program will outfit preschools with miniature pole-vaulting tracks. And we'll even include our nation's at-risk seniors who are young at heart, and provide extra padding in the landing pits for their brittle, brittle bones.
But pole-vaulting is not just a way out of impossibly futile circumstances. It's also a great metaphor: The runway is like life. It's flat, and you have to run over it, planting your hands and your feet carefully at just the right moment. The bar is an event in your life, and the pole is the support of your family and God. Hitting the bar is like not succeeding, but clearing it is like overcoming obstacles. And falling to the mat is like falling onto a huge blue mat. You keep raising the bar, pushing yourself until you've reached the highest heights and there is nothing left to accomplish, no challenge to meet. Then you start a pole-vaulting foundation for underprivileged youths.
Won't you please donate today? Then we can get to work on providing shuffleboards to developing nations.
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Guitar maker Gibson is suing MTV Networks and Electronic Arts, stating that the company has not been paid for a patent it owns for virtual guitar playing. What do you think?
Cassie Binnis,
Systems Analyst
"Finally, the name Gibson will be synonymous with fake guitars."
Tim Bradley,
Janitor
"Now that I think of it, Capcom never paid me a dime for the patent I hold for virtual street fighting."
Bruce LaSaard,
Elevator Installer
"Excuse me, but after last week's championship game at Ray's Creekside Tavern, I believe it is I who owns Guitar Hero."
Anyway, this is his post and I was particularly interested in these pictures:
