Journal Interrobang's Journal: Things That Go Blimp In the Night 3
Yes, I'm indirigible. Anyway, if this doesn't make you laugh until you cry, I don't know what will...this, maybe? (In order to find the second link funny, you must have also seen this first.) Ok, please go read at least the first link now, because if you don't, what I'm about to put down here won't make any sense at all.
Eloquence -- And the Master's Gilded Dirigible
short fiction by David M. Razler
Ever wonder why Ben Franklin was able to conjure lightning - and could do the same on a *clear* day? the electric potential between earth and say half a mile up is, er, well, --ruffle, ruffle, ruffle-- big. Very big.
OK, follow me here. One, get yourself 3000 metres of wire, probably stainless steel, 'cause it has to hold its own weight and the weight of a couple of radio-controlled switches along the way (to keep the wire from becoming a working electric wire too soon) and a tiny bauble on the end containing an x-10 spy video camera and transmitter for targeting.
Two, find a televangelist. They make the best targets.
As the televangelist is giving an outdoor speech, let's say at the graduation of some Divine Right College in Lynchberg, Tenn., you send the blimp up and out on its run-silent motors and begin lowering the weight/eye on the Magic Wire until it is above his head. When he gets to a good part, maybe about the Lord striking him dead if he's wrong, you run out the wire until it touches his varnished wig, throw the switches on the Magic Wire and instantaneously all the electrons, billyuns and billyuns of the little critters that have been hanging around waiting for a chance to become famous, leap from sky to ground (or is that ground to sky? - it doesn't matter).
All the public will remember is a cosmic ZOT! of light followed by a thunderburst in clear-blue sky, vaporizing the Swaggarting Roberts-baron, along with the TV camera, wire (stainless steel burns real purty in such conditions) and the aluminized micro-Hindenburg in the sky.
Meanwhile, we strange yankees bid a slow retreat, stopping at a distant city to return the hydrogen tank to the welding shop we rented it from (otherwise, someone would be concerned about something folks rent and return every day) and drop the radio control into a convenient car sitting in line to be crushed, then tune the TV to watch the replays on the "news" and await the strokes of creative genius of America's headline writers.
"Work of Satan" they'll call it, and whether they mean the "fallen angel" or the Cosmic DA, they'll be right.
(c) Copyright 1999, 2003 by David M. Razler with an earlier trail of rights dating back to '76.
Eloquence -- And the Master's Gilded Dirigible
short fiction by David M. Razler
Ever wonder why Ben Franklin was able to conjure lightning - and could do the same on a *clear* day? the electric potential between earth and say half a mile up is, er, well, --ruffle, ruffle, ruffle-- big. Very big.
OK, follow me here. One, get yourself 3000 metres of wire, probably stainless steel, 'cause it has to hold its own weight and the weight of a couple of radio-controlled switches along the way (to keep the wire from becoming a working electric wire too soon) and a tiny bauble on the end containing an x-10 spy video camera and transmitter for targeting.
Two, find a televangelist. They make the best targets.
As the televangelist is giving an outdoor speech, let's say at the graduation of some Divine Right College in Lynchberg, Tenn., you send the blimp up and out on its run-silent motors and begin lowering the weight/eye on the Magic Wire until it is above his head. When he gets to a good part, maybe about the Lord striking him dead if he's wrong, you run out the wire until it touches his varnished wig, throw the switches on the Magic Wire and instantaneously all the electrons, billyuns and billyuns of the little critters that have been hanging around waiting for a chance to become famous, leap from sky to ground (or is that ground to sky? - it doesn't matter).
All the public will remember is a cosmic ZOT! of light followed by a thunderburst in clear-blue sky, vaporizing the Swaggarting Roberts-baron, along with the TV camera, wire (stainless steel burns real purty in such conditions) and the aluminized micro-Hindenburg in the sky.
Meanwhile, we strange yankees bid a slow retreat, stopping at a distant city to return the hydrogen tank to the welding shop we rented it from (otherwise, someone would be concerned about something folks rent and return every day) and drop the radio control into a convenient car sitting in line to be crushed, then tune the TV to watch the replays on the "news" and await the strokes of creative genius of America's headline writers.
"Work of Satan" they'll call it, and whether they mean the "fallen angel" or the Cosmic DA, they'll be right.
(c) Copyright 1999, 2003 by David M. Razler with an earlier trail of rights dating back to '76.
ROFL. (Score:2)
Re:ROFL. (Score:2)
I hope you weren't at work when you read that... Trying to keep in that much laughter all at once could cause you to herniate yourself. Unless of course you work in one of those cool workplaces where chortling over something you found on break is usually greeted by a chorus of responses (from the boss, et al) to "Share!"
Re:ROFL. (Score:2)
But, yes, I got some weird looks from the smirk on my face as I went to retrieve my lunch from the breakroom after reading the blimp thing.