Infinite Cassette

Millions of songs have been written since the dawn of time. Some of these songs have been committed to vinyl and CD, even the digital MP3 format. There is such a vast collection that I'll never hear them all. Not even a 10,000th of it. Let me fill you in:

• I can't get hold of them all

Sure we can all download songs from the internet, thinking we're cool and syncing them to our shiny iPods or whatever, but that is a crime. Apart from the fact that no one seems to care that it's illegal, you'd have to have a pretty serious unlimited data contract with your ISP to get hold of every song ever written, if they have even all been converted to mp3s. If I were to go the legal route then I would need a rather large amount of money. Thinking about all the vinyls, cassette tapes and whatnot, even if I bought them all second hand, I'd run up a pretty large bill.

I'll probably never hear a song by The Sex Machineguns

• Time is precious

Taking the average length of a song to be 3 and a half minutes, that means I can listen to about 410 songs in a day. If we take the average length for a human male living in England to be about 80 years, that means I have 42,048,000 minutes to listen to songs in my entire life, that's if I listened every night, every day constantly for my whole life. 

That's time drifting away into oblivion

After a few sums, this works out at 12,013,714 songs with the aforementioned length. As we all know not every song is the same length and I can't listen to songs in my sleep. So, overall, that's a pretty pathetic percentage of all the songs ever composed.

• What if I like a song?

So yeah, I've listened to a few songs in my time. But obviously if I like a song, I'm going to listen to it again. I currently have 624 songs on my mobile phone, each of which I have probably listened to about 5 times at least. So that's taken a massive chunk of possible listening time away already. But what would be the point in listening to a song if I never got to listen to it again? If I could only ever hear it once then I could never build up an appreciation for a song and sing a long with friends. Kind of seems like a pointless endeavour. I can't imagine going to a club and hearing 100% new songs each and every time so that excludes me from one of my favourite pastimes.

No Britney! I don't have time for your inane mumblings!

• Songs are released faster than I can listen to them

If we take into account even just one sub genre of music, a quick look on Amazon shows how many CDs are released each month. "Pop RnB" (possibly one of the worst genres) has 101 releases in the last 30 days. Take that on average 15 tracks per CD. That's 161 tracks of 3 and a half minutes. That's almost 10 hours of solid music just in one category of music. What about Rock? Drum and Bass? Hip Hop? What about all the underground artists yet to be discovered who are recording tunes left right and centre?

So it comes to be obvious, if it wasn't from the very start, that I am doomed to listen to a tiny corner of the musical world. Luckily I really enjoy the music I have so that's OK. I just wish maybe one day I could listen to some North Korean rock or something.

No

Intergalactic Rendezvous

Space is a big thing for me. I don't see why we should be limited to the gravity of our own planet and people who say that space exploration is a waste of time are fools. As we've already established that I'm never going interstellar for myself, maybe I can get the experience by a part of space coming to me instead. Imagine if, instead of that fool Mulder, I was Scully's partner. I'd make sure to gather some goddamn evidence and prove that we aren't alone in the Universe.This way we can all learn from them and share our knowledge too. One of my aims in life is to be the first to talk to a real inter galactic being, and make friends too.

Hopefully it won't be this traumatising if I ever
did happen to meet an extra terrestrial...

It seems, however, that I am never going to have the chance to meet an alien face to face, swap anecdotes and have a go in their rocket ship. Why not? Read on:

• Government paranoia

Area 51 is miles from anywhere in the middle of a desert. Why is this? Because the American government do not want anyone to see what they're up to. If they already have aliens there, they're certainly not going to admit it openly. If aliens did happen upon our planet and land be it through a crash or otherwise, the people that decide how our countries are run would most certainly decide how an extraterrestrial encounter would go down. They wouldn't let a member of the public within 5 miles of the crash/landing site. So if I were to meet an alien, I'd most likely be swarmed by a large group of heavily armed soldiers, helicopters and tanks. They love to bring tanks.

• Man meat

As these aliens have travelled a rather long way to end up here they're probably pretty hungry right now. There I am, stood still, mouth agape as they open their spaceship's hatch, just a big bag of warm meat ready to be skewered and roasted over a plasma barbecue.

Google results for "eating people" were a little too disturbing to include

I wouldn't stand a chance of running away after the shock of initially seeing a giant alien craft land, then clocking the fact that they are actually real genuine aliens, then realising that they want to make me their next meal. I'd be frozen to the spot stiffer than a paving slab. If I'm being digested inside their stomachs (or the alien equivalent thereof) then there's not much chance of me befriending them.

• Language barrier

Right so let's say I catch them after they've just had Sunday lunch. They roll up into my neck of the woods, somewhere miles from any government interference and I'm the only person for a long way in any direction. They calmly exit their space vehicle, approach me in an orderly fashion and out stretch whatever appendage they have in a form of greeting. It looks rather slimey and moist but I offer my hand too, we shake firmly and I smile. Of course, the natural progression from here is "Hello" Here is where we encounter a problem. How do I know this won't be offensive in their native tongue? What if it means "I want to kill you and drink your mother's spinal fluid"? There's a slight language barrier, several million light years wide. For all I know, they might not even have a way of detecting sound, so anything I say will fall on deaf ears (will they have ears, who know's) In fact, thinking about it, how do I know that I was even supposed to touch them in the first place? Maybe that was the greatest insult possible to their race. So yeah, I probably won't be able to communicate, never mind actually make friends with these beasts.

"Alien Translator Futurama" yielded some worryingly x-rated
results from Google video search.
Lots and lots of tentacles... 

It seems a respectable citizen can't even make friends with an alien these days. What has the world come to? I bet back in the day if an alien were to turn up we'd show it a grand old time, picnics in the park, ride a rollercoaster then back home for a nice steak pie. Not any more.

Disappointing

Skeleton Heist

During the early years of my life, I was absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs. Jurassic Park was like heaven for me. Real dinosaurs come to life, galloping around, roaring and terrorising that poor guy on the toilet. Genius. I used to have books and toys of dinosaurs, big ones, small ones, herbivore, carnivore, red, green, alive, fossilised it didn't matter. They all fascinated me. One thing I would like to know though, how do they know the T-Rex's vision is based on movement? I mean Dr Grant stakes not only his life but the life of an innocent teenage girl on that fact. HOW?

Shit's about to get real!

Of all the ancient reptilian creatures though, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was my favourite. I had a big toy one which made stomping noises and roared like the one in the film, but as a foolish child will, I took it into the bath with me. From then on the "roar" sounded more like someone gargling custard. Not like this magnificent beast:

Having matured (slightly) beyond the point of playing with plastic toys, I thought it would be cool to get part of a real dinosaur. Imagine this; you are invited to a party, a little unsure, you decide to go anyway. The first thing to greet you as you enter is a 5 foot long T Rex skull. You would be instantly blown away. It's the perfect ice breaker. Alas, it's not a realistic possibility.

Let me explain:

• There aren't many around

As we all know, despite what some of those religious types like to claim, dinosaurs were alive many millions of years ago. Now if we think about everything that's happened to Earth since the last T-Rex died we can start to realise why getting hold of one might be difficult. There have been ice ages, meteorites, volcanoes, filthy humans even the very fabric that makes up the Earth has shifted many miles. All of these would contribute to the erosion and destruction of fossilised skeletons. That means there are very few known examples of a T Rex skeleton still in existence. 

One of the most complete skeletons up for sale

The exact figure for skeletons varies depending on your definition. Obviously you can't really class one toe bone as a skeleton so the estimate for how many have been discovered varies between 10 and 30. Some of these are in museums, some in private collections so if I wanted one I'd have to offer these people an exorbitant sum of cash money, if they were even for sale at all. One did recently go up for sale in Las Vegas at an auction. Check out the crazy estimate prices here.

• Museums would hate me

Well, if I did manage to find one of these beasts fossilised, or buy one from a dodgy backstreet "taxidermist" imagine how hard it would be to keep that purchase secret. If ever the palaeontology community got hold of my whereabouts I imagine a rather stern visit from Dr Ross Geller Ph.D would be in order. There would be an outcry from museums and researchers worldwide as I stashed this skeleton for my own personal gratification. Being a man of science, I'd feel pretty guilty about this situation and probably end up giving the skeleton away.

• The issue of storage

So say I come into a spot of luck and manage to acquire a pristine skeletal example of the finest predator that ever roamed the land. The lorry pulls up to my house despite the ridiculous incline, the driver cursing the narrow lane. I'm bubbling with anticipation as they lower the freight lift with an enormous cargo box marked"fragile" aboard. A team of delivery men haul the container up the steps and towards the front door when they spot a small problem. The door is too narrow for the box to fit through. Not a problem, they simply take the skull out of the box and through the doorway into the hall then they leave for their next delivery. I am now left with a five foot long skull in my hall. Major problem. Where the hell am I supposed to put this grand investment, this masterpiece of natural art?

So there we have it ladies and gentlefolk, there really is no way for me to own one of these beasts, if only they were still around today. That way I could just go out with a large calibre rifle and claim one for my own. If they weren't on some kind of endangered species list. Which they probably would be. Godamnit. So again I must resign myself to failure.

Pathetic