And Now For Something Completely Different

Going back over the posts (and voluminous comments!) from yesterday, I noticed the general emotional overtones seemed to be doom, despair, agony on me...(please tell me one of you out there in the Real World gets that reference - having to explain it would eviscerate all the humor from something that isn't that funny to start)

Wow - did I just use 'eviscerate'? Talk about a mood killer. Anyhoo, so some of the recent posts and comments are a little dark. American's, however, have never been a people to wallow in self-pity. Back in the late 1950s, we were trying (with the help of the formerly Nazi scientists we 'rescued') to get a space program up and running, but progress was slow. And then out of the blue, on October 4, 1957, America got caught with her proverbial pants down by our friendly Communists across the pond (the big pond to the west, not the little one to our east). While we were still at the drawing board stage, Sputnik 1 orbited the Earth, catching the Americans by surprise.

So we ramped up our own space program - and got some of the funniest launch bloopers you could hope for! Check out YouTube sometime and search for rocket launch failure, or something similar. Click on the US launches for some hearty laughs!

We were making fools of ourselves. The Soviets even beat us again by putting a man into orbit - Yuri Gagarin - in 1961. About a month later, we launched our own guy into orbit - oh wait, sorry, we didn't make it that far up. Alan Shepard made a 15 minute sub-orbital flight. Wow, that is really cool compared to Gagarin's 108 minute flight that actually orbited the Earth - plus, Gagarin ejected himself from the Vostok capsule at an altitude of nearly 4.5 miles and parachuted the rest of the way down. Our guy just stayed inside his capsule after his 15 minute suborbital flight and waited to splash down in the ocean.

So the Soviets just kept beating us at every turn. Did America just sigh and give up? Hell no! We kicked our space program into higher gear, put American ingenuity to work (coupled with helpful Nazi knowhow from our German scientist friends, who we thought were smarter than the German scientists grabbed by the Soviets) and in 8 short years from Gagarin's first launch, America was putting Neil Armstrong's size 12 footprints on the surface of the Moon.

Actually, I have no idea what Armstrong's show size is - I'll leave that quest for you to find out yourself.

My point is, when things were bleak, when the going was tough, America rolled up her sleeves and just built herself one bodacious spacecraft and went to the Moon. And did it stop there? Well, yes, it kinda did, at least as far as manned spaceflight goes. After Apollo, we decided it was more fun to just launch people into Earth orbit and circle around in Skylab, or the Space Shuttle (and those didn't always make it to orbit - or make it down!), or in the boondoggle we call the International Space Station. My point is this - when we're properly motivated by the Soviets, we can accomplish anything, until we accomplish it and decide to stop 'cuz nobody's playing with us anymore.

Uhh, okay, I have gotten more offtrack than a derailed Amtrack passenger train (rimshot, please?)

Cut to the point - instead of focusing on the doom and gloom of America's upcoming transformation into the United Socialist States of Amerika, instead we can sit back and have a laugh or two. In that spirit, here are some of my favorite YouTube vids that will always give me a chuckle or two (and perhaps even a guffaw)





The funny part of this one is when the pup pushes the apple down the stairs and looks at the camera like "Now what?"





Holy Smokes! That is SOOOOO COOL!!!


This one is my favorite - no matter how many times I watch it, I can't help but laugh with the news anchors.



Oh LAWD! These things done fell outta the bag! LAWD, have mercy!


And finally: Don't talk back to Darth Vader, he'll getcha!


Now we can contemplate the very likely end of the America as we know it, and still laugh as the US circles the drain. Woo Hoo, it's gonna be a hell of a ride!