21st Century hitchhikers

Hitchhiking was common when I was young

Ran out of money when leaving the pub

Get back home with just a thumb

We did it often as a necessity

Group hitchhiking was more difficult

We put the cute girl at the side of the road

While the rest of us hid in the bushes

I never had a problem hitching a ride

People took pity on poor students

You could hitchhike all over Europe

Meeting interesting people along the way

Somehow hitchhiking became less popular

Maybe it was due to safety concerns

Or the fact that minor roads were replaced with freeways

I suspect the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie is to blame

America responded in typical reactionary fashion

Making it illegal to hitch a ride

Europeans are much more pragmatic

They made public transport more accessible

Low cost student rail passes across Europe

A better and more secure way to travel for students

Fast forward to today and look at the road

There are still young people looking for a ride

But they are holding a smartphone waiting for an Uber

Perhaps all the hitchhikers become Uber drivers

With so much traffic on the roads we need to change

Most cars have just a single occupant

Imagine a new version of hitchhiking

With an App to hitch a free ride

You build up points as a car driver

Picking up folks on the App looking for a free ride

You earn more points by picking up multiple riders

Spend your points by taking a free ride

Less cars on the road and lowers carbon footprint

Somebody probably just invented all this before I reached this line

I might hitch a ride home tomorrow

If you see an aging hippy please pull over

I am not a chainsaw murderer

Hopefully you are not a murdering driver

Cheeky Monkey Hitchhiking rules!

From burned sausages to Ninja nuclear chicken

Its a right of passage for every man

Firing up the charcoal grill to cook a meal

I remember so well my first efforts

Struggling to light damp coals

Putting the sausages on before the grill was hot

Walking away and leaving them unattended

Returning to see dripping grease well ablaze

Serving my family the charred sausage remains 

Their look of horror still haunts me

But they had waited so long for dinner that they ate it anyway

I eventually mastered the art of lighting the coals

Planning well ahead to allow time for the coals to get hot

And learned when to put the food on the grill

Keeping a spray bottle of water to extinguish grease flare ups

We enjoyed many a fine meal from those grilling days

I always dreaded to next day cleanup

Especially if the ashes had been rained on

The metal grill was such a pain to scrub clean

Remnants of food stubbornly welded in place

I began to grow tired of the entire process

It was just too time consuming

We grilled less often

Then I discovered the joys of gas grilling

No more messy charcoal and instant self lighting heat

Grilling was welcomed back into our cuisine

Al fresco cooking and dining is so much fun

Then we moved to a high rise condo

No open flame grilling permitted

Everything had to be cooked in the kitchen

The magical days of grilling outside were gone

Disillusioned and depressed I sought counseling 

My grilling mentor introduced me to modern electric grilling

I was fearful of cooking directly over a heating element

Visions of food dripping onto the element filled me with dread

But fear ye not with a modern Ninja electric grill

A cast iron griddle sits above the electric heating element

That drains grease away into a collecting tray

Cleanup is easy every time

An electric smoke box to burn wood pellets

Multi function electrical controls

To grill, bake, smoke, broil or air fry

Temperature probes monitoring food while cooking

All hooked up to your phone via bluetooth

Science has taken all the guesswork out of grilling

Dial in your cooking times and walk away

The App tells you when the food is ready

My days of high carbon footprint grilling are over

My Ninja grill is powered by clean electricity

Which is partly generated by renewables 

I like to think that my electricity comes exclusively from atomic power stations

So I can serve my guests the most delicious perfectly cooked dish

NINJA NUCLEAR CHICKEN!

Save the planet, eat carbs and put cemeteries in space

Its that time of year

The festivities are over

Put away the Christmas tree

Eat the last of the chocolate gifts

Step on the scales and gasp

Riddle yourself with guilt and remorse

Get back on the diet again

Dust off the exercise machine

Sign up for that gym yet again

Why not make some more resolutions

Do something to save the planet

Reduce your carbon footprint

While you reduce your expanded waistline

But wait there is a huge problem here

A sedentary person breathes out 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day

Vigorous exercise increases this eight fold

Diet and exercise can explode your carbon footprint

If everybody on the planet exercised continuously

It would release 98 Billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually

Best we all stay at home and eat more carbs

Become a responsible citizen and store carbon in your body

Sit on the couch and exhale less often

But what about when you die

Where will all your stored carbon go

Cremation sends it into the atmosphere

Burial is probably a slow release back into the earth

Best you get launched into space

If each rocket has a payload of say 150,000 pounds

That could propel 1,000 dead carbon storage people into space

We will need 56,000 rocket launches a year to keep up with death rate

Hopefully they will have low carbon footprint rocket launchers by then