It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

...yeah, yeah….I know it’s been MONTHS since I last posted something, but, well, things got just a bit beyond crazy-busy and I simply had not time to write. But fear not, I’ve a number of wonderful musings and things should be back to “normal” once I figure out exactly what normal actually is…

Obviously, the past week is a rather somber one…the anniversary of the death of Johnny Cash (last Friday), and of course, today marking 4 years since the world lost Johnny Ramone. With that in mind, in a roundabout way, “death” will be the overall topic this time around…

Sometimes, it simply baffles me just how stupid people can be. OK, let’s be fair, it ALWAYS baffles me with just how stupid people can be. Horrible driving and deplorable taste in music aside, we still live in a society where people will latch onto nearly any trend or mindset. A majority of people would rather someone else do the thinking for them. Don’t believe it? Then explain how Limp Biscuit and Britney Spears CONTINUE to outsell John Coltrane, The Rolling Stones, and Pearl Jam on a weekly basis. (that’s fact…check out the soundscan charts)

Perhaps this “want” is no more clear (read as “amusing”) then when it comes to so called “doomsday cults.” Whether we’re talking Hale-Bopp (‘member them? Wait…you want me to cut off WHAT???) or the yahoo’s on the streets of every major city (movie set), these “Doomsday” theorists are among the best salesmen the world has ever seen. The usual line of reasoning tends to be something along the lines of, “Well, this random civilization said such and such thousands of years ago…it must be true!”

Off the top of my head, I believe the world was supposed to end on 1999/12/31 (great concert), 2002/09/11 (decent birthday), and 2006/06/06 (lotta goth kids got married) to name a few. Hold on, lemme go check……….


…nope, we’re still here….the world didn’t end.


Now we’ve got this amusing “2012” armageddon theory which seems to be a little less researched and trustworthy than your average Wikipedia entry. I mean really, is someone letting Jayson Blair have access to the general public again? (Oooh! That’s a deep reference!) Seriously, the reasoning behind most of these doomsday cults is only surpassed in hilarity by the general demeanor of their followers.

In short, by using an ancient Mayan calendar, the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012. Now hold on…I want to get this straight…the main reasoning behind this theory is that, since this ancient calendar ends on what is translated into that date, the world must end? Well, what about OTHER civilizations? I mean, how about those silly Greeks and Romans? I know that as civilizations, they didn’t really give much to society as a whole, but they did come up with this interesting thing called a perpetual calendar.

I mean, really…as a worldwide society, we can’t even agree on what YEAR it is! Some cultures have the current year closer to 6012 than 2012. As the great Douglas Adams wrote, “Time, is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.”

…just one last thought….my “day planner” only runs through August 4 of 2009….does than mean the world will end that day? OH NO!!!

On an even more recent note, there was (and still is) a worldwide freakout in anticipation of the activation and usage of the Large Hadron Collider. (If you don’t know what it is, go google it and get a clue!) People are basically claiming that this machine will create a black hole and suck the entire Earth inside.

Now, I am not saying they’re wrong…I am just saying that I am going to go out on a limb and have faith (or man, did I just use that word?) in the scientists behind the project.

Oh, and if the black hole theorists are correct, they should have just enough time to say “told ya so” before being sucked into an endless vacuum of nothingness!

As a side note, am I the only one who finds it pee-in-your-pants funny that people think that a bunker and a months supply of baked beans will save them when the world ends? I mean, that’s about as funny as duct tape on the windows to protect you from chemical bomb fallout!


So, what’s the point, right? Come on Joel! Did you seriously just waste my time to make no point at all?

If I said “yes,” would you hate me? Really? You would? Fine! I’ll come up with a point…gimme a second…………………….



OK, got one!


So, we’ve got all of these wonderfully insane people who truly believe that the world is going to end on a VERY specific day for a very specific reason. (We’ll no longer question the validity of said reason…just so we can wrap this up…)

Then, the question begs, exactly what difference does it make? It seems to me that if you’re so sure that the world is going to end sometime in the next thousand days, there’s a plethora of things to do that are more worthwhile than running around spouting off “warnings” to others.

It’s the age old question, “If you had 2 years left to live, what would you do?” Apparently, most of these people share the same answer: “I’d be Henny Penny.”