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Yet again, I apologize for my recent dearth of updates.
This time I have a very specific and justified reason:
I've been, uh, busy.
I am now posting via my brand-new DSL connection, which
is quickly opening my eyes to just how good dial up connections
are at slowly sucking your soul out of your body piece
by piece and leaving a quivering mass of soulless jelly
in front of the monitor.
The Internet situation here gets ever sweeter when you
consider the wireless network I've set up in the house,
which unifies all three computers without the hassle of
threading LAN cables through hammer holes in the wall.
Now anyone with a wireless card can come to my place and
start an instant LAN party (Yes, I have actually had fantasies
of such a get-together, and yes, I realize how that lowers
my social standing another 30 points).
Shortly before setting up my network and spending all
my time inside the house, a discussion over a family dinner
raised a very pertinent point: the block that my grandparents
live on is insanely huge.
Ever since I was a little kid, I've wondered just how
big my grandparents' block was. It seemed expansive; I
had never traveled all the way around it, and due to it's
constantly curving nature, it was impossible to see where
it lead.
We used to play kick-the-can at my grandparent's house
every week. It was a game we held in very high regards
-- a sacred mental and physical challenge, passed down
through the ages from our ancestors to us. We spent entire
Sundays devising strategies and scouting new stealth routes
to prepare for the event. You didn't fuck around with
a game of kick-the-can.
There were some kids in the neighborhood we deemed worthy
to participate in our weekly tournament, and others who
wouldn't have cut it we had given them a decade to practice.
Whenever a member of the latter group asked if they could
join our game, we issued the "standard" initiation
challenge. It was simple: If they wanted to play, they
merely had to walk around the block. Generally, the foolhardy
initiate would begin the task without dispute.
After they rounded the fire hydrant on the far corner,
they were never seen with human eyes again.
Years later, estimates of the block's size have maintained
their mythic proportions. I have decided to get to the
bottom of the mystery by obtaining an aerial photograph
of the neighborhood. Thus, I am able to witness the shape
of the entire block once and for all. Below is what I
found; the green area is the block and the red area is
my grandparent's house.
As you can see, the "block" resembles a gargantuan
"L." Using this photograph, I've calculated
the total length of the sidewalk: It is 1850 yards long,
surpassing a mile by nearly 100 yards.
If you look closely, you can see the piles of dead children
who tried to join our games of kick-the-can. |
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