If I ever own a nuclear power plant and on some sunny summer day I decide to close up early and hit the river, I hope I have the presence of mind to put up a sign that says “Gone Fission”.

            I’ve never understood why it’s called the Sylvan Learning Center when it isn’t even anywhere near a forest.  It really out to be called the mall-infested section of Huguenot Road Learning Center, but alas, the people who built it were either ignorant of that true meaning of the word “sylvan” or what is worse, they willfully chose to foist of a wretched pack of lies on the good people of Richmond.  I mean, I could understand if someone had just built the Sylvan Muffler Repair shop, or the Sylvan Industrial Waste and Hammerpants Reclamation Facility, but one expects more of a learning center.  Unless of course it’s just really old and was built back when Lord Elrond was still teaching study skillz in Midlothian, back in the 80s.

            The other day I was at the hardware store and saw, much to my delight, that they had musical saws for sale there.  Clearly, I thought, humanity had at last realized the potential awesomeness of mixing tools and musical instruments.  When I went across town to the music store, however, and inquired about the possibility of buying a piano that was also a drill press, the dude there just looked at me funny.  And not funny “haha” but funny “sheesh”  which is by far the worst kind of funny to be looked at like.

            I saw a poster the other day for National Child Abuse Month.  Okay, I’m all good with celebrating crazy stuff and all that, but I’m afraid I just have to draw the line at celebrating child abuse.  They even had a bunch of helpful hints for things you could say to start abusing your child with, like, “You’re worse than the New Kids on The Block” or “I should have traded you for those magic beans when I had the chance!” and my personal favorite, “If you were a President of the United States, you’d be Martin Van Buren!”  Honestly, if we let this kind of thing slide, what’s next?  National Puppy Kicking Month?

            I saw that Iran has developed a new torpedo to smite myself and other assorted infidels.  I was thoroughly pleased, however, to see that rather than calling it something predictable like, “The Fist of Allah,” or “The Moderately Buoyant Vengeful Fist of The Beloved Prophet” they have christened it “The Hoot.”  It’s just nice to know that even crazy terrorist nations can give endearing names to weapons of death and destruction once in a while (the last time this happened was back when Ayatollah Khomeini named a new surface to air missile “Pink Fluffy Bunnies” back in the 80s).

            It appears that scientists at the Institute of Someplace That I Can’t Remember Offhand have at least developed the nanomanufacturing techniques required to make tiny sunglasses for flies.  Seriously.  All I can say is that this had better have some immediate and unspeakably funky applications in the field of building giant robots and stuff, because flies are already enough trouble without us giving them a reason to think that they’re cooler than us.

            The other day, I saw a dude at the mall wearing one of those little pulse monitors.  If you have to go to the mall to get your exercise and you’re under the age of 80, then you don’t need a pulse monitor to tell you you’re out of shape.

            I saw a truck out on the road labeled “Molten Sulfur” I was really temped to follow him, just to see what it was in Richmond that was either producing, or indeed of additional molten sulfur.  Alas, I was already late for work, so I’m just going to assume that someone is building an unholy gateway to the underworld somewhere in Southside.  Or maybe a Cracker Barrel.