Miscellany

October 20, 2007 to January 4, 2008. In that span of time, not one article was posted on Missile Test. The previous three months leading up to that hiatus had been prolific ones in the life of the site. Seventeen articles posted from July 18 to October 20, an average of more than one a week. In 2006, my output for the site was dismal. Only sixteen articles. Using that as my guide, during the summer I made a decision to step up production, with the goal of posting a minimum of fifty-two articles a year. For me, that was an ambitious goal. In the life of the site, there had never been a year that maintained enough consistency to guarantee that many postings, but I had seemed to hit a stride in the last few months. Quality was as uneven as ever. After all, I am working without an editorial staff to slap me when I’m being foolish, but that’s neither here nor there. Continue reading “Death of a Journalist”

The reverberations from the Mitchell Report released last month will be felt for some time in professional baseball. One of the most prolific offensive eras in baseball history, one in which personal performance soared and the records associated with it fell, has now been tainted. In a sport that maintains a direct connection to its century-long history through its statistics, its holy numbers, anything which could damage the validity of those numbers threatens the very integrity of the sport. The report contained few surprises, but it set forth in writing just how widespread the use of performance-enhancing drugs had become in the major leagues. Most compellingly, the report named names. Continue reading “Sports Do Not Matter”

A rat died in the DeKalb Avenue station on the L line about a week and a half ago. I know this because its corpse is still laying on the track bed, in the space in the middle, the one people dive into to save their lives if they’re on the tracks and a train is barreling down on them. Didn’t help the rat any. Continue reading “In the City, Subway Circle of Life”

The beeping had gone on for days. Once every minute. Loud. It hadn’t bothered me at first. I noticed it during lunch. Later that day the beeping was still there, and I left the living room, retreated to my bedroom. It was strange. The only time I could remember when my bedroom was more peaceful than my living room. I’m not being a pig. Swear. My bedroom faces the street. The living room is nestled in the middle of my apartment. It’s a sanctuary, a place of peace from the noise of the street, a great buffer of contentment, and rarely was there disturbance. But that damn beeping. It was regular, dependable, and loud, in every negative and annoying way a sound could be. But after that first night, I forgot it. Parked in front of the machine, the living room took a back seat. Less living there than there should have been. But that’s the way in the age of technology, right? Continue reading “In the City, the New Immigrants”

I thought I was being polite. There was a woman sitting to my left. So I turned my head to the right when I sneezed. For some reason I hadn’t noticed the man sitting to my right. He very calmly wiped my spit and snot from the side of his face. I buried myself back in my book, and sped off the train at the next stop. It wasn’t my stop. Continue reading “In the City, in the Subway”

Today, the X Prize Foundation announced its latest competition, the Google Lunar X Prize. In a follow-up to 2004’s Ansari X Prize, which was awarded to a team that successfully launched a privately funded suborbital manned flight, the foundation would seem to be raising the bar. The finish line in this latest competition is the moon itself, the conditions calling for a robotic rover, similar in concept to those exploring Mars today, to land on the moon, travel more than 500 meters, and transmit high definition video and images back to earth. No easy task. The $25 million prize more than likely will not cover the cost of development and execution of a successful mission, but it has never been the goal of the X Prize to make money for the competitors. Instead, the competitions are meant to foster innovation and development, leading to the betterment of mankind. That being said, the Google Lunar X Prize does none of this. Continue reading “One Giant Leap Backwards”

St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery was completed and consecrated in 1799. It is one of those old buildings you come across all the time in the city. More prominent than most, its architecture and the skewed angle in which it sits next to Second Avenue ensures it will not ever fade into the background. In a city that boasts thousands of buildings competing for the eye’s attention, anything that busts through the mold has an instant leg up on the competition. Continue reading “Danny, We Hardly Knew Ye”

We pulled into Union Square and the doors slid open. Two-thirds of the passengers all swarmed the doors. There was no mad rush, however. How could there be? No room. But there was a press. An inexorable shove. Anxiety grew with every half second still stuck in the car. Every one of these ticks was one closer until the conductor would hit the switch, and the barnyard door would try to snap shut, about a hundred pounds of torque on anyone who hadn’t quite made it through. One second, two seconds, three, and any progress towards the waiting platform is impeded by the asshole with the book and the iPod blocking half the doorway. Continue reading “Morning Ritual”

When I was young, I didn’t care for the west. Actually, I hated it. It seemed to me the land of the dead. The desert was dry, dirty, devoid of anything other than the most prickly of life. And it was hot. Unbelievably hot. I was nine when I stepped off a plane in Phoenix for the first time. There was a jetway, but there was a small gap between the jetway and the aircraft door. As I moved from plane to jetway, my eyes opened wide and my mouth gaped. I uttered a childish ‘whoop!’ as I was blasted by a stream of superheated air. I had never felt something so hot before in my life. It was akin to a supercharged hair dryer. I couldn’t understand why the Phoenix airport felt it necessary to blow hot air on passengers as they left the plane. What devilish art was this? Why was it done? Were they trying to blow dust off the plane, or something else? I had no idea. Until I was led out of the concourse and into the parking lot towards my uncle’s car. Of course the hot air wasn’t the machinations of man, it was merely Arizona in August. Continue reading “Nothing in the West”

The sun blazes down white hot on this place even in April. The salt flats are baked, the Russian thistle thrives, the rattlesnakes lie in wait. The pipes, cables, and squat buildings all add to the layer of rust bringing on their inevitable demise. But this is the desert, so decay is slow. These remains, these corpses of the greatest power mankind has ever wielded, could last long enough to be witnessed by our grandchildren’s grandchildren, as they should. As they must. It’s the craters, however, that are the great testament to what went on here. Continue reading “Junkyard of Power”