As IF Times

link Mickelson says McIlroy-Woods spat overblown – Yahoo! News.

Well I guess there has to be some kind of buzz created in advance of the Ryder Cup.  For anyone not involved in the golf world as a player or as a fan, what passes as ‘controversy’ in the golf world is amusing at best.  For non fans, very little that happens in golf can be seen as ‘exciting’.  It always amuses me to hear superlatives used to describe performances by golfers especially by the recent cast of golf commentators.  We hear adjectives such as ‘heroic’, or daring.  Come on! It’s golf! It’s 3 dimensional shuffleboard!  How can you be daring in golf?  What’s the worst that can happen if you miss a shot? Nobody crashes into your body as would happen to a receiver in pro football.

I’ll admit golf is a game requiring adroit physical talent and keen mental skills, but to characterize the exploits as heroic is a bit of a stretch.  It is amusing therefore to read about what passes as chest thumping by star golfers in advance of the upcoming Ryder Cup matches.  Somebody wants to take on Tiger. Oooh. Somebody may have disrespected Tiger. Oooh.  Not exactly Tyson vs Spinks at the weigh-in. 

With the recent ‘calling out’ of Tiger by rising star Rory McIlroy, the golf commentators will be buzzing like mosquitoes over what was ‘actually meant’, like teenage girls gabbing about their peers.  What is he supposed to say?

“Gee maybe there’s a chance I can breathe the same air as Tiger and bask in his genius.  I’m sure I have no chance to win, but just to be on the same course as him would be a lifetime honor”  ??

No, he says what any professional would say given a chance to compete against the best in the world, ” Bring it”.  The golfing world had better find more genuine drama to try to entice viewers.  This ‘he called him a name” stuff is lame.  Thus far, this edition of the Ryder Cup seems to be lack any real buzz so they’re grasping at anything.  Maybe they can talk about Ricky Fowler’s ugly hats.

link  UN to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors – Telegraph.

This only sounds preposterous at first.  The more you think about it, the more ridiculously laughable this becomes.  Let’s put aside for a moment the possibility of extra terrestrial aliens arriving one day to contact earth.  I think we can all accept that.  Actually it’s almost preposterous to think that aliens haven’t already visited at one time or another over the centuries for a long weekend or just a curiosity stop.  But assuming that they haven’t and the first upcoming visit is novel, do we really want someone from the U.N. as our contact person?

Does it make sense to allow some U.N. goofball to intone,  ”Welcome to earth, how was your trip?”  He would be as representative of earthlings as Ru Paul would be of women.  What if they came in a huge gas guzzler? Would they be allowed to land?  What if they just needed to fill up with some fluids and decided to empty say, Lake Erie?  What if all they needed was some food, so they take some Wildebeest, some hogs and oh maybe some truckloads of Asians, since there seems to be plenty of those. 

Let’s not kid ourselves, no one is going to give a rat’s ass if aliens appear unless, a) they bring some cool souvenirs, like transmogrifiers or time travel boxes, or b) they threaten humankind, in which case, everyone’s on their own.  When the aliens offer the cliche line, ” Take me to your leader”,  it will be met with bemused stares, especially if they land in Los Angeles, in which case, they’ll be introduced to some gang guy named Chico.  Actually, landing anywhere on the coasts of the U.S. would not create a stir at all since any strangeness of appearance would blend right in with the locals.

If they land in Texas, they’ll probably get shot at since they’re funny looking foreigners.  If they happen to land in China, God help them because someone is going to try to eat them.  Meanwhile, how will this U.N. ambassador train for his role?  Will he start learning to speak in clicks and pops?  Will he learn to play music and lights as per the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind?  Where would he learn alien etiquette? Are their women good looking?  I offer an idea as to how we can impress them with our advanced civilizations.  Give them our visionary politicians as a going away gift.  Al Gore pops to mind. At least we’ll find out if they have a sense of humor.

link Please, Dont Let This Be the Future of Air Travel | Popular Science.

As if.  We know that the idea of cubbyhole hotels has been proved successful in high rent cities like New York and Tokyo.  These are bare bones accommodations which are little more than closet sized sleeping quarters for travellers on a budget.  We are accustomed to seeing Smart cars, which are essentially roller coaster cars with doors and a roof.  But unless I misread human nature entirely, the latest proposal for airplane seats will be an iffy sell.  It will give new meaning to flying ‘standby’.

As can be seen by the photo, people are expected to buy into the notion of being half perched on a saddle scrunched within inches of the next passenger.  We can see the demographic for this type of seating will be huge.  There may be a few exceptions: Anyone over 4 feet 10; Anyone over 92 pounds;  Anyone wearing a skirt; Anyone suffering from hemorrhoids. I understand that the airlines will push a marketing campaign in order to sell this method of travel.  Everyone who boards will be ink branded with a number to correspond with their perching position.  It will be like collecting hand stamps at a fair.  How fun is that! The similarity to herding cattle is purely coincidental.  Since there is no room for any tray tables, there will be two modes of drink offerings for the  passengers.  The first one will be drop down tubes from the overhead area from which riders can take liquids.  The second method will be the carts pushed by the stewards.  Long tubes will be extended to each of the riders like tentacles at a chicken farm.

No one will be able to read or work on a computer, so people will be forced to converse with their seatmates.  Since there will likely be 8 people within 3 feet of you, it will be like a dinner party.  How social!   The hours will just zip by.  And if they think that’s bad, wait until they see how the washrooms are configured.  Let’s just say, don’t wear new shoes on these types of flights.