The Explorers Club
No. CC - Neanderthal Man: Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis?









Two hundred episodes of "The Explorers Club," dating back almost four years to 27 November 2006! Take a trip down memory lane in the Wayback Machine & revisit the Fairey Rotodyne, retroactively numbered as episode No. I, & the humbling, laudable life of William Wilberforce, episode No. C. Raise your glass; here's to the next hundred episodes of "The Explorers Club"! Never cease exploring, treasured readers, never.

Autobahn
One day last week, whilst motoring in Lumi, I was convinced that I was not going to reach my destination without enduring a serious traffic collision. The best case scenario, as I pictured it with the small part of my brain that was not occupied with the white-knuckle driving intended to avoid such a collision, was that I would strike the roadside safety barriers, but not harm any other vehicles. I was proceeding very slowly & so I did not fear for my life, but I was all but certain that control of my vehicle was about to be lost at any moment. Luckily, I was wrong, & both Lumi & yours truly remain fully intact. The cause of my dismay was twofold: {a} the rain storm through which I was motoring & {b} the sorry state of Lumi's ever-so-essential tires & their resultant inability to cope with the rain storm. For some months, I had been piloting a car on increasingly bald rubber; or more specifically, since all tires are increasingly bald--that's a byproduct of their contact with the road, & quite inevitable--I was piloting a car on balding & ever-more-distressingly bald tires. I knew that were I not to perish over the course of the snowy & icy winter I would need fresh rubber, but was chastened by the expense, & I kept delaying the purchase. Meanwhile, Lumi's tires squealed around certain corners depending on the cant of the road. I came to dread the prospect of driving in the rain. I tried to change my driving habits so as to minimize stress on the tires, especially during braking, but this was no more than an attempt to buy time, not a solution to the problem.

So, after last week's fraught journey up I-475, I finally bit the bullet; I skipped the lecture toward which I'd been motoring & drove straight to my father's preferred tire merchant. Forty-five minutes & no small amount of the coin of the realm later, Lumi was sitting on four brand-new Michelin tires. I tell you, she's a new machine! This is the Lumi I fell in love with after the Mousemobile was betrayed & murdered behind my back, this is the Lumi I'd been slowly forgetting as the performance edge came off her previous rubber. The skies opened up last night, and rain is falling again today, but I go forth onto those rain-slicked highways & byways undaunted. On dry pavement, Lumi's got a palpable grip on the road that I find nigh intoxicating. (Looks like a perfect day to go motoring wearing a pair of driving gloves!) I'd driven on new rubber before, but never before had the state of the previous tires been so precarious as to make such a difference upon their discard. The difference is as that 'twixt night & day. My pocketbook took a substantial hit, but I am now much more favorably inclined toward my chances of surviving the coming winter.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
"Weird Al" Yankovic, "I Lost on Jeopardy!" from In 3-D (Captain Malice)

Commentary: As I sat in the terminal of Bishop International Airport awaiting my flight to Cleveland, & thence to Los Angeles, I thought I heard "I Lost on Jeopardy!" playing softly in the background, an ill portent even to the non-superstitious. A closer listen revealed that the chorus was not, "I lost on Jeopardy!," but "Our love's in jeopardy." I had never before heard the song that I later learned was "Jeopardy" by The Greg Kihn Band; I'd thought that "I Lost on Jeopardy!" was one of "Weird Al's" originals, not a parody. Simple coincidence or something altogether more spooky?

"You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game!"

And I didn't!