Secondly... Suck it, Mayans! Yeah, you heard me. Nice try. We'll see you again in another 5,200 years. And by the way - Faktun??? That's what you call this big important cycle? I'd spend a few hours explaining just how objectively hilarious that word sounds but I don't swing at soft pitches.
And third, let's all just take a moment and appreciate how little the stupid factor actually got ratcheted up on Friday. I remember watching that wretched Roland Emmerich flick about the Apocalypse (there was nothing else on Redbox that night, don't judge me) and just envisioning a sea of hillbillies descending pell-mell on the local Walmart on, like, December the 19th or whatever, just destroying the place in a mad search for batteries, bottles of Mountain Dew and Hungry Man Fried Chicken dinners. (You know, because they're hillbillies. They're not going to drink bottled water - I've seen The Learning Channel.) Anyway, none of that stuff happened. So, uh, good work guys.
Anyway, something pretty amazing did happen on 12/21/12. My book Infernal Machines came out on Amazon and made the Top 20 Hot New Release list within the 1st 24 hours. For those of you who helped put it there, you have my eternal gratitude. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, here's a couple of links that'll help.
Anyway, enough about the book stuff for now. Today I'd like to talk about another couple of subjects that are near and dear to my heart:
Beer
& Dogs
And also how utterly fucking awesome New Zealanders are. Like a lot of industrialized nations, New Zealand is dealing with a dog surplus problem. There's a lot of stray dogs and abandoned dogs and dogs that need to be rescued and stuff, and to that end just like here in the U.S. they've got dog shelters. However, apparently New Zealand does not suffer from the same surplus of lawyers as we do here in the States, because that's really the only way I could see one shelter in particular being able to pull off what they did...
...They taught a bunch of dogs how to drive.
As in, cars. As in, there are dogs in New Zealand that can actually drive cars now.
If you click on the above article you can actually watch the video of the trainers working with the dogs. The point of teaching them this trick, aside from just general sheer awesomeness, was to demonstrate that rescue dogs are every bit as capable of learning how to live in your home as, say raising a puppy from birth. The driving dogs were all adult rescues, thus finally disproving the adage about old dogs and new tricks.
In all seriousness, I love this story for so many reasons. First of all, my older dog is a rescue, and I got him when he was already a couple off years old, and horribly abused. He's one of the gentlest sweetest things you've ever seen and... Wait, wait - I know I'm bordering on just grossing some of you out with all of this sappy stuff, but you haven't heard my idea yet...
Train your dog to be your designated driver.
Just think how great it would be, no matter how skunked you got at your favorite watering hole, afterwards just stumble outside, squeeze into your car and mumble "Home, Rex..."
No more taxis, no more debating with your drinking buddies over whose turn it is, and besides, if your dogs are anything like mine, the only thing they like better than roadtrips is a nice brand new piece of furniture to chew on.
Yes sir, there's a new year on the horizon, fraught with brand new possibilities. So thank you, you crazy Kiwi dog-rescuing sons of bitches, for making the world just a little more wonderful.
Spanky would doze off behind the wheel; better have your female dog drive. (I don't know lemon-lips' name.)
ReplyDeleteHeh - that'd be Gizmo. She's deaf though. I'd probably try to train them to drive in tandem, like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor did in "See No Evil, Hear No Evil"
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