I wonder if my brother has the balls for one of THESE...

So Brian has been racking up the miles with his new bike for a few weeks now, but there are still new frontiers to explore.  This thing is called a Uno Moto, from what I read I guess it works like a Segway.  Not that I've tried one of those yet so I don't know, but it's keenly attuned to balance and goes forward when the operator leans forward and the brakes work when leaning back.  I don't think I like the idea, I mean how do you not lean back just a bit when you take off?  I can't imagine taking off really fast, you'd be trying to lean forward to scoot ahead but the faster you tried to go, the more backward you'd be pulled resulting in braking.  Plus I would want the luxury of immediate brakes at my fingertips (or toes) in an emergency and not have to hope I could change my balance before slamming into something.

Still, a couple teams of several of these things would definitely make for an interesting modern form of Zoo Zither Karzay.  I think though that it's ultimately going to be looked at as more fatal than enjoyable.  Now, General Grievous had a sweet ride, that monocycle had the right physics in mind.  The gyroscope effect would keep that thing upright at even fairly slow speeds.

Not to mention that it also had four retractable legs and could run like an animal if it needed to.  Maybe some day someone will build something like this that we all could use, and without South Park's unique flavor of humor involved, remember the "it"?

Oh, wait, they did!  Seems that all a person needs is a large supply of engineering talent, a very comfortable bank account, and the luxury of immortality, given the risks involved in the experimentation phase of the project.

Now all we need is for some company to come along and take care of the testing and dying problems for us regular folk... oh wait, they did!

Ok, these only go 25 mph off a 31cc four stroke 1 1/2 hp engine, but whatever, seems like the future to me.  We gotta get people out of those gigantic monstrosities they drive around in these days.  (I know, families.  The absolute biggest non-commercial vehicle on the road should be the size of a PT Cruiser.  And commercial vehicles have to stay to the bigger roads.  Non-commercial roads should look something like Central Park in NYC.)  Lower speed limits, more fun, and Valium and Xanax available at every fast food restaurant.  And when the light goes yellow and you're in the stopping zone, your engine automatically cuts power down.  No more "I'm immune to red lights" syndrome.  Yeah.  Elect me King... I'll create a world worth living in.  So Brian, which one is next???

Huh, what?

Seems like the problem I have of people at work and even close friends not hearing a fucking word I say has expanded to include a conversation with me not even being remembered a mere 24 hours later.  It's getting really depressing seeing the brains of people I once thought of as fairly intelligent simply turning to mush.  All I needed was a phone call telling me that the plans had changed... instead, I had to assume (correctly) that I had been forgotten... so I called.  I get "We talked yesterday?"  If I had gone with my first inclination, I would have given the friend the benefit of the doubt and waited a day for a call.  Might not have even remembered ME at that point.  Chuck WHO???  Anyway on a different topic I did this drawing for the activist movement that's becoming popular here lately.  Florida's medical marijuana bill comes on the ballot in 2012, and we're doing what we can.  I have more planned... maybe I can do 12 total and have a calendar printed or something.  The news had a few interesting things today but since I'm fucking pissed off, here's some video of a guy getting his head blown off by a collar bomb.  Enjoy.

Click here for the video

But is it art?

Ok, it's an interesting "hotel room" but it's kind of creepy just sitting there on display in a museum.  As long as the exhibit is in town, people can stay overnight for 1,000 Euros ($1400) and they have the run of the museum the whole time.  I'd still feel strange as part of a museum display though.  I could see an entire hotel with rooms like these, maybe elevated on cylinders you go into at the bottom, an elevator takes you up about 100' to the room which is this, only under a clear dome.  The rotating disks the bed and tables are on would be cool in a setup like that.  Here, all you're going to see when the thing rotates is the other side of the room.  Imagine, high up in the air, at night in a raging thunderstorm... then at daylight, you look out at the ocean on one side, a jungle below, and mountains on the other side.  I should open a hotel like that.  I wonder if I could get a $10 million bank loan?  Anyway, read about this "art" by Carsten Holler here... Rotating Hotel Room

And on a sadder side of the news, this is from a few days ago.  The female version of "dead man walking".  Marisol Valles Garcia has taken over the job of police chief in a town in Mexico that's right in the middle of rival drug gangs.  She's only 20 and not even finished earning her degree in criminology.  I can't figure out why she's doing this, these drug gangs think nothing of taking out the police as well as their rivals.  They generally dismember bodies and leave the pieces piled up or scattered about.  Sometimes it's just the head delivered in a box.  The gangs have assault weapons, and the police force (of about a dozen illiterate men) has mostly shotguns, and a few pistols.  Her plan is to recruit more women to fill in the depleted force, and then go door to door educating people about the drug gangs and their effect on the community, as if it weren't already obvious.  Although I'm not part of any dead pools regarding this girl, I'm sure there are plenty.  I read about her first on the 20th.  I was predicting that she won't make it a month.