All of a sudden, inflation is back in the news — the price of gas, lumber, and food has increased quickly and, in most cases, significantly, over the last few months.
This week’s verses have nothing to do with that, however — although the source for one of the rhymes referenced herein is the Wall Street Journal.
The inflation I’m talkin’ ‘bout, Willis, refers to inflated claims, such as being consumed whole by a sea creature, or how the latest advance in technology will change. your. life. — if you can afford it…
Getting Over the Humpback (June 16, 2021)
A lobster diver (for the uninformed: this is someone who actually goes underwater to retrieve lobsters by hand, rather than hauling them in via traps) said he was swallowed, and shortly thereafter spit out, by a humpback whale off the coast of Provincetown, MA:
In something truly biblical, [diver Michael] Packard was swallowed whole by a humpback whale.
“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled Friday afternoon following his release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis…
Outfitted with scuba gear, he struggled and the whale began shaking its head so that Packard could tell he didn’t like it. He estimated he was in the whale for 30 to 40 seconds before the whale finally surfaced.
[Read more here: https://bit.ly/3vLZOaI]
The post-regurgitation debate was over whether a whale could actually “swallow” a person. The consensus was a resounding “No!” since the esophagus of most whales, including the humpback, is far too small for a human to pass through. The reality is that this whale could have held the diver, gear and all, inside of its mouth — but upon realizing he was not an actual meal, the whale would choose to expel the interloper.
If you’ve ever tried to give your dog or cat a pill, you know the difference between swallowing and pretending-to-ingest.
Puncture Juncture (June 18, 2021)
Long before the days of GPS-based navigation, I managed to miss an exit during a drive from Greenville, SC to Tarpon Springs, FL. Approaching Atlanta, I somehow paid never no mind to the big signs for Route 75 South, and instead continued along my merry way on Route 85 for quite some distance before recognizing I did not know where the hell in Georgia I was.
I checked the map and *thought* I’d identified a highway that would get me back to where I wanted to be, but several hours later I was still lost. By then it had gotten dark, and I’d been on the road much longer than the normal length of the trip, so I decided to check into a motel and get a fresh start in the morning after mapping out the correct route.
I hopped back into the car the next day, exited the hotel parking lot, merged onto the highway — and promptly heard and felt the floppy rumble of a flat tire. I managed to limp to the next exit and pull into a gas station parking lot. There I encountered a gentleman eating a breakfast burrito who earned his livelihood by driving up and back a section of the road in a truck loaded with various tire sizes, exactly what someone in my predicament would thank the Lord for.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any tires in my size in his vehicle and so had to retrieve one from his shop. “I’ll be right back, amigo!” he told me — and he was, three hours later. My 9-hour drive ended up taking 24 hours to complete.
If only there had been tires back then that could predict when a flat was imminent:
Goodyear’s new technology, announced Wednesday, is called SightLine and includes a sensor and proprietary machine-learning algorithms that can predict flat tires or other issues days ahead of time, by measuring tire wear, pressure, road-surface conditions and many other factors…
Helping detect tire-related problems before they happen can lead to fewer breakdowns, less traffic congestion and increased safety…
Tire manufacturers are investing more heavily in the field of telematics, which refers to the use of technology to collect and monitor data relating to a vehicle or parts of a vehicle, he said.
Telematics is expected to become an important part of electric vehicles and self-driving cars in the future, to get more information about a vehicle’s maintenance status, emissions and safety at any given point in time, [Gartner’s VP of Research Bart De Muynck] said.
[Read more here: https://on.wsj.com/3zFzIZS]
On top of being lost — and because my destination was Florida, for cripes’ sake — if my car had told me, “Hey, you’re gonna get a flat next Tuesday,” I would have just stayed home. Have you ever been to Tarpon Springs? I mean, the baklava is good — but not 24-hours-to-get-there good.
Construction update: sheetrocking has commenced. The relentless pounding of hammers has been replaced by the ear-splitting screech of an oscillating drywall saw.
Until next week,
JB