Apocalypse Wow

I Bet That's Been Used Before
I could have gone with "Apocalypse How?" although the effect I'm going for is a mixture of surprise and concern at how popular yesterday's post was, seeing that it mostly consisted of ways your our planet might end up getting scragged, and how you we might thus get exterminated, in a major way.
     Here an aside.  The "Oldham Times" has stopped printing the "Battleships" puzzle, which was the main reason I bought it.  They now have 8 pages of puzzles, none of which are Battleships.  I feel cheated.

Your scribe - DENIED!

     I think I liked the puzzle because it's the remorseless application of logic to a set of minimal cues and rules.  Sorry, a 'Giant Crossword' just doesn't cut it.
     Anyway, back to global destruction.  I ticked off a few of the possibilities yesterday, although there are more.  Shall we?
     6)  Supervolcanic eruption.  This one refers to the gigantic dormant supervolcano that resides beneath Yellowstone Park, in South Canada.  It last went off 600,000 years ago and might do so again if enough magma builds up beneath it.  Any supervolcanic eruption would doom whichever hemisphere it occurs in, and there are 20 such pumped-up SV's around the world, which erupt once every 100,000 years.  On average.  You'd get warning signs of it being imminent - but where would you run to?

Game over.

     7)  Peripatetic Black Hole.  There are possibly millions of black holes in our galaxy alone, a certain percentage of which are roaming around the cosmos, looking for cheap parking.  It isn't very likely that one would come wandering through our solar system, but again there is a statistical possibility.  Nor would it even have to come close, as it's passage would alter the orbits of the planets; say hello to eternal dark as Earth is thrown out into deep space, or fry as we circle in towards the Sun.  Again, we'd get some warning, and, again, so what?

Yes, there is a black hole in there somewhere.*

     8)  Nanotechnology runs riot.  This is the infamous "Grey goo" scenario, where endlessly replicating nanobots consume everything in their path, in order to make even more nanobots, which also continue to consume like a glutton at MacDonalds, until they eat the entire planet.  In a matter of days.  Of course it's science fiction now, and the only microbots extant are hand-crafted by patient scientists, but just give it 50 years and get back to me on what's possible then.

                 Bad                                                     Good
     9)  Bad Bugs.  Biological warfare is a risky undertaking, because bacteria and viruses do not recognise national borders - see the flashback scenes in "The Omega Man" for a demonstration of how biological warfare between the Sinisters and the Populous Dictatorship kills off everybody.  Eventually, some witless terror group will gene-splice together Bacillus Pestis, Anthrax and Cholera and loose it on the The Great Satan - and everyone else.  An epitaph of "Ooops!  Our bad!" will not satisfy.

Er - Doctor - about your bedside manner ...

     10)  Strangelets.  No, not the offspring of Doctor Strange.  These would be a new form of matter created by the seething energies of the Large Hadron Collider, as it smashes atoms together at incredible speed, creating strangelet atoms.  Which instantly convert any atoms they touch into other strangelet atoms, which instantly - you get the idea.  As the amount of strangelet atoms increase, so does the speed of their replication, until the entire planet is - strange.

Yes, laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy!**

     I think that's enough grim fandango for one afternoon.  Let us now look upon bright and cheerful things!

I'm sorry - Art has trouble understanding 'nice'

Bright And Cheerful Things
Let's try again, shall we?  As you may be aware, your humble scribe went into the office on Wednesday to show people he was still alive, or at least not very dead, and also to see the ever-delightful Laura, an effervescent lady who hails from Italy and who is an ambassador for her country.  Art?

Tah-dah!

     And here is a little something she got me for my birthday - salt and pepper shakers in the apt form of ice-cream cones, since I love ice cream yet can no longer gorge on it for breakfast <sad face>.  How thoughtful of Laura; this guarantees she and her descendants will not be sent to the uranium mines, organ banks or enslavement camps.

Well, I think we've experienced the highs and lows of the human condition, so it's now time to put lead boots on the motley and see if it can outrun a steamroller!

Finally -

Ending on bright and cheerful

*  I lied.  Hope you didn't waste time looking.
**  A classic line from Buckaroo Banzai.