10 Strategies for your Lottery winnings or super powers

At this writing the Powerball, which has become the national lottery with all but a few of the states taking part, has grown itself to the mind numbing sum of 1.5 billion dollars.  Those of you in the future that read about this and think to yourselves 'that doesn't seem like THAT much' just remember, a starter home is in the 150k range and median salaries ballpark at 50k.  So to us it isn't just a life changing amount of money, it's so much money that it can only cause trouble.  Like the Genie that puts you in a room full of water when you ask for a drink, this kind of money is probably too much of a good thing.  I've mentioned  in previous blogs that money is the only super power that we can really have on this earth.  So here are my 10 handy tips to refer to just in case you win the lottery or get super powers.

- Don't tell ANYONE - Short of your spouse, NOBODY should know about your new windfall.  The reasons are many and mostly obvious.  Swear your spouse to secrecy and start making your plans. The first thing you want to do when you have super powers is the last thing you should do which is tell your friends.  The reasons are obvious.  Just remember, the reason your friends are your friends is because you share some common interests or background.  Once they realize you have super powers, the likelihood is that they will distance themselves from you because you don't have anything in common anymore, or they will use you for your powers because they aren't THAT good a friend.  For whatever reason, when you have super powers, you need to be able to use them under secret cover, it just makes things easier.  Mask, Costume, LLC, it's all about the same.

- Go back to school - What?!?  What in the world for??  Because now you are doing it for you.  There is no reason to go to class except to better yourself.  Before you probably went to school for the wrong reasons.  To get a way to earn a lot of money.  Why is that the wrong reason?  Look at the richest people.  They didn't need school to get there.  School is there to broaden your world view.  It's there to force you to think.  Now that you don't have any need for security, you can go about the business of bettering yourself and once you have bettered yourself, you can better the world because you have super powers.

- Don't worry about investing - I've talked lottery fantasy with many people.  It usually ends with something about mutual funds and 6% returns and other stuff they know nothing about.  The lottery offers you 2 options.  Lump sum (Government takes just about 1/2 of your money because for some reason they think they deserve it.  sure you already paid taxes by participating, but you should pay more now because of your immense good fortune.)  or Annuity where you get X amount of dollars over 30 years equal to the total of the lottery.  Turns out the Annuity is a pretty good deal because you wont be taxed on the money UNTIL you get it.  Apparently there are a few other benefits, the least of which will be that no matter HOW stupid you are, you'll get another bunch of money the next year.  Not to shabby.

- Make your own job - Some people say they will keep working.  That is probably true, but it won't be at their current job, and they really won't work for anyone else but themselves.  You simply tell your current job that you've got a better offer, air any grievances you have about management and give your 2 weeks.  If you wanna be a jerk, just do the full mic drop and leave.  Then go rent or buy yourself a lovely small office building, just a 1 floor affair with a few phones etc.  This is where you can go during the day.  Call it your club house.  You may even want to get a regular job of some sort doing what you really have always wanted to do.  I would probably open a candy store, because I like candy and retail business.  Or in the case of super powers, your job at the daily planet.

- Move - By move I mean get yourself another house.  Keep your current one, but get another one.  Something upscale and away.  This is where you will put all the expensive toys that you want to get but are afraid your neighbors will catch on.  This all really depends on where your friends are and where you want to be.  You will likely want to keep your old house if for no other reason to keep up appearances until you have a natural transition to moving.  Then you can tell your friends that you are moving because your new job or maybe that you lost your current one either of which is true.  The same holds true for super powers.  You need to have that fortress of solitude, but you can't be obvious about it.

- Hire helpers - Don't even THINK about not getting yourself a lawyer and a tax accountant.  You don't want to have to deal with THOSE headaches.  Then you will want to hire a separate lawyer and a separate tax accountant to check the work of the other 2.  While you are at it, if you weren't so good at that whole secret thing.  Just like with super powers, a lot of money requires a fair amount of maintenance.  How do I know this?  Am I rich you might ask yourself?  On a global scale, yes, yes I am rich.  I'm a top 99% guy.  If I break it down to just the USA then I fall quite a bit from that percentage.  Once you have a bit more money than most a lot of people think that somehow they should have it, you will need some helpers to help you keep it.  Just remember, a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) is required by law to treat your finances in your best interests in the same way a doctor is charged to 'Do no harm'.  So find a good one and let them at it.  Even super powered people need a side kick.

- TRAVEL - Find some friends that you want to be part of your entourage and Go places.  Have experiences. These are the things that make life good.  Money can, in fact, buy happiness, you just have to know what to buy.  Adventure and memory is what make a rich life.  By default, I am a shut in.  I don't get out much and when I do it's very quick and to the point.  I do go on vacation every year and when you go on vacation, you are forced to meet people of all stripes.  This is what makes you happy.  If I look back on my life, 90% of my happy memories are involved with travel.  If you have super powers, you'll be traveling by default because people will be chasing you and your freak powers out of their towns.  Super powered people travel all the time, since there are super problems to solve everywhere.

- Find new hobbies - Now that you are rich, you have taken away a lot of the reason you get up in the morning.  This does NOT apply to super powers.  But you will need a new hobby.  Take up an art or a skill.  Get good at painting, wood working, something.  That education I was talking about earlier?  They will have LOTS of ideas for your new hobby.

- Become a Philanthropist - Eventually you will realize that you have nothing left to spend your money on.  if you start a new company for this idea you've had that you think would be successful, you are already doing good in the world because you are hiring employees.  otherwise, you should seriously think about the things you would like to help.  MOST people say that they would give most of the money away if they won.  Very nice.  Except for we all know that you are just trying to get Karma on your side.  Once you have the money, THEN we'll see just how kind you really are.  Super powered people that use their powers for good are doing all the philanthropy they can handle already.

- Get me something nice - Hey, speaking of philanthropy, I usually write this blog twice a month.  TWICE!  I put everything I've got into it.  As long as by 'everything' you know it means just whatever has been floating around in my head, but that's beside the point.  You Mr or Mrs Lottery winner are fabulously wealthy, I will find no shame in accepting your generosity as a token of your appreciation for my aimless ramblings.  Maybe I'll be so moved by your kind donation, I'll stop writing entirely.  Ok, ok I wouldn't do that.  So get me a nice snow globe.  Those are fun.  If you have super powers, don't bother, you are probably poor enough already.









hey for the rest of you working stiffs, I'll be back in 15 or so maybe more.  Now that I'm done with this post, 3 people have won the largest lottery pot in US history.  Good for them.  I hope they read this blog.  But the other good thing about this post is there is ALWAYS another lottery coming.

10 Upsides to the Apocalypse

End of days.  End of times.  End of the world.  it's all pretty much the same.  Every so often someone claims that some harbinger of fate is coming to fruition and the end of it all is starting soon.  Well, it's not all doom an gloom.

- Party time! - If there was information that the earth-killing meteor was hurtling towards us and we will definitely be mostly dead, after the initial crazy panic and looting because ANYTHING happens and looting is the natural response.  It's time for a party!  Or more specifically, time to do whatever you want.  Now that's going to be a touch of a problem since EVERYONE will be in the same situation so all the services we take for granted will not be available.  So no last Disneyland or even movie at the local nickelodeon.

- You're not alone - It's actually pretty comforting knowing that you aren't leaving anyone behind.  Death normally is a journey we all take alone and our final thoughts will be with those we leave behind.  In this case you won't have to worry, everyone will be dead.

- we'll find out if God has a sense of humor - It's possible that God didn't intend for this all to be so all fired serious.  In fact the only way to really know the will of God is for him to tell you.  Better yet to write a message for you.  If something like 'suckers!' is the writing is on the wall, then you'd have a pretty good idea if this is all one big joke or not.

- Worth it just to see the Lawyers - Apocalypse means so much liability.  Think of all the lawsuits!  Hell for Lawyers no court to argue in.  But what do you do with all of your attention to precedent and detail?  Gnash your teeth I guess.

- Debt?  What debt! - Well this one is obvious but it also underlines why there might not be as much looting as people may initially think.  Sure at first there will be some, but after a bit, what is the point?  The down side of course is you won't have that debt free feeling for long.  That old greedy bumper sticker 'He who dies with the most toys wins' was never true and now will bear it out.

- The older you are, the better it is - You've lived the biggest percentage of your life and are at the point where pieces just start falling off the cart.  No better time to have a mass check out.  The elderly will be looking forward to this more than most and will be scarcely able to hide their glee.  The idea that the internet won't be up for those last days just adds to their overall joy.  Once computers are down they will probably ask you to do long division just so they can say 'see!'.

- Just remember, we're ALL sinners - For the religious folks it seems that the end of times is consistently a good headline to get backsides in the pews (Is that why they are called pews?). But when the rubber meets the road aren't we all sinners?  Who can go to the great judgement bar without some misgivings?  Nobody.  So everyone will be in roughly the same boat.  So maybe it won't be so bad.

- Sometimes not existing is better than the alternative - existence is a hassle.  Here you are self aware and aware of your surroundings.  The more you look at the world around you, the more disappointed you become.  Self awareness can only lead to depression.  So the end really isn't that big a deal.  The non sentient beings around you constantly wonder what the big deal is.

- No more work! - Well I guess this is obvious, but if you have the end of the world, that's the end of any real obligation.  That means when work says they would like you to come in early or on the weekend or at all, you can tell them to stuff it.  Of course nobody will be going to work except those people that feel compelled to work and of course the religious clergy who will have to run away quickly because they will have more work than they know what to do with.




- No matter who is right, most of us will be wrong - When you are talking religion, just believing in an afterlife is in no way good enough to get you into heaven.  You have to have bet on the right horse theologically speaking.  If you are in the wrong church, and the wrong religion is the winner, that can be worse than being in no church at all.  This isn't God's fault, it's just how humans are.






Obviously I haven't kept up with my timing on these blogs, but the truth is, I'm running out of gas.  See ya when I see ya.

10 Do's and Don'ts for Company Parties

Company parties are a strange animal that happens with companies great and small.  They are strange bits of society that live within the beating heart of the corporate body.  Once people work together long enough it seems the owner will designate some kind of party to show they aren't all work but are in fact some play, thereby alleviating Jack of the burden of being a dull boy.  I wanted to post this when we were a good enough distance away from holiday parties that my thoughts might be considered for the next party.  If you are in charge of putting together the company party, or are going to attend one here are some observations...

- Work talk?  Are you kidding?? - Don't Talk shop - If you are going to the company party, it should be a rule that anyone talking about work should be deemed unfit for the party and thrown out on his or her brown nose.  If you are among the curmudgeons that think that parties are a waste of time and not to be indulged in, I've got news for you Oscar...People actually are more productive with fun breaks like that.  If you are going to have a party, have a party.  That includes upper management palling around together talking semi business in hushed tones.  Gives people the creeps.

- Sit at the Presidents Table - He's more afraid of you than you are of him.  Company parties should be the great equalizer between the royalty and the subjects.  If your company CEO will deign to sit with his subjects, then this is a really good time to get noticed by the boss.  This of course is NOT the time to play your rendition of Beethoven's Sonata for Armpit.  Then again, it can't hurt.  He is not going to pay much more attention to you than to make polite chitchat and give you the dumb animal look.  If you don't know what that is, just remember that phrase then next time you are talking to your dog, then quickly look in the mirror.  THERE, that's the look.  yeah, he's totally giving you that look.

- Bring your kids?!?  Are you INSANE? - Don't bring kids Don't invite kids.  I understand that in many cases finding a sitter is hard etc.  But do not bring your kids.  If you are organizing a party remember, every outing into the wild with children is just a fresh slice of Hell for the parents.  They have lost all hope of enjoying themselves, and only hope to survive.  You want them to show up?  Well, maybe you should have a different sitting service that will provide fun and games in a safe environment for the kids.  This of course includes the CEO's kids.  With all due respect sir, we don't want to see your little jewel give her rendition of the Hallelujah chorus for the tenor tuba.

- Start Drinkin - DON'T get sloshed.  Better yet, stay away from the sauce.  Drinking is for doing around people that don't mind you with your guard down.  People that don't know you that well, don't WANT to know you that well.  Save the drinking for home or the bar.  If you are a company that still offers an open bar, well that's surprising first and second, check to see if your insurance will cover that.

- Best foot forward - No arguing with your spouse.  Spouse, no sitting and moping or shooting eye daggers at your other half.  Since you are all there together, it's time to act like a team.  Yes I'm sure he/she doesn't deserve it, but you will reap the benefits of looking like a cohesive unit in front of other people.  This gives your employed spouse an aura of stability no matter what you really know about them.  This is assuming that spouses are invited.  If they aren't, then bully for you.  Company parties suck anyway.

- Hey wait, is this the 3rd degree? - If someone is telling an amusing anecdote about work or about home, don't call them on the facts.  If you know some detail about their story couldn't possibly be correct, then you need to just keep your know-it-all trap shut.  Let them tell their story.  Asking for all of the corroborating evidence as to the voracity of someones otherwise lighthearted story is a real buzzkill.

- Worlds Colliding!  -  Ultimately you shouldn't invite spouses to a company party.  It's not that we don't like spouses, but they just don't know much about what is going on at work and all of the conversation will be about strange things that happen at work.  With spouses, conversation is reduced to 'I've heard a lot about you'  and 'Is he/she always like this at home too?'.  Ugh.

- Time to PARTY! - Don't make your employees take ANOTHER piece of their time and give it to you.  do it during work. If you are organizing a company party, make it on company time.  I know this really sounds revolutionary, but there is no reason to make people take MORE time out of their busy schedule so you can tell them how well the company has done or how much you appreciate them.  It's much better to appreciate them on YOUR time.

- Pot luck = Bad luck - There should be more laws about this.  There aren't.  I'm sure the only law that makes sense at this point is Darwin's.  There is no reason to invite everyone to bring some covered dish of something.  If things are strained at the office, there is no telling what's in that crock pot.

- Talent show Oh no. - Yes people have talents.  Most of the time when you think of talent, you are thinking of Singing or Playing an instrument (80% piano, 15% violin, 5% something horrible).  Talent shows with people you know are similar to just asking them to take off their clothes for everyone to look at.  Don't do this.









So It looks like I've poo poo'ed all possible company party ideas right?  Wrong.  This is the one true company party.  The catered lunch.  Possible white elephants purchased by company issued gift certificates in advance by all attending the party.  Everyone gets to have fun and eat and go home with something goofy they will probably remember.  You don't have to worry about doing something wrong and you will likely get the rest of the day off.  Sure this is done during Christmas normally, but who said it has to happen then?  Maybe you have a Christmas in July party and don't have ANY party for the holidays thereby giving your employees their time that is probably already spoken for.

10 Things if we invent a teleporter

Technology is wonderful,  It makes hard things easy and impossible things commonplace.  At this point we have cellphones that can take pictures at a greater resolution than the human eye can see.  We have cars that can drive themselves and people are launching drones that fly around and see the world for us.  Everything we have is fine, but it depends on us going places and doing things.  Well, eventually technology may figure out how to make a genuine teleportation device.  Once that happens we have trouble.  BIG trouble.

- Privacy?  WHAT PRIVACY? - You think you've got troubles with privacy now, imagine if people can teleport wherever they like?  Teleportation would mean that your mother could pop in any time night or day.  In fact people would be able to come and go anywhere at any time.  So your home is your castle?  Not any more.  There would be no such thing as guarding a building or keeping people from it.  If it exists.  people are teleporting there.

- Government just got a LOT bigger - With teleportation just imagine what the government could do.  Police could now actually be everywhere in an instant.  yay.  Of course they will be constrained by something like 'displacement enforcement act of 2035'  Where people that had very little understanding of the technology made rules defining behavior within the technology to the benefit of large corporations and the detriment of the regular people.  We will decide that it can only be used by government and along with that we will need huge cadre's of people to enforce the new governments attempts at making our lives livable.  Also if we get teleportation, we won't really have any use for sovereign nations anymore.  Everyone will be able to go anywhere.  There will be one world government.  The problem is, who is running it?

-

Goodbye Travel - Obviously the entire travel industry is upended.  Cars, Trains, Boats, Planes, they are all out of business.  The strange thing is the first things to go will be the trucks, tankers, and trains because they mostly ship cargo.  Cargo isn't alive so it won't be a risk, but once people are comfortable with teleporting goods wherever it needs to go, then people wont be far behind.  Then the travel industry as we know it will be dead.  That's a lot of jobs gone.  Buses and cars of course will still be there, but in a different capacity.  We will still want these devices so we can drive the countryside and see the sights or go on tours of historic areas.

- Immortality...maybe - Depending on how the teleportation is effected, we will immediately have the ability to become immortal.  This is based on us using some kind of transmission of the pattern of physical matter.  Like StarTrek.  If we are using a computer to store your body's pattern and then re-create it at the destination, then every time we teleport, a computer will have a 'backup' of our bodies.  If we get off of the transporter and die because we didn't watch our step on that cliff, we can simply re-materialize our bodies from the point that we left the origination point.  We will know that we died because the time will be different and if you wanted to think about it enough, you would know exactly when you died.  Instead your friends/family will stop by the teleporter to re constitute you.  The real problem there is if you are re-materializing somewhere else, what do we do with the original version of you that we just copied to send there?  We have to disintegrate you.  So you are kind of immortal, and yet you are getting killed regularly.  My problem would be how can I know if my consciousness will move with my newly materialized body?  What if my new body gets created but it's not really me?  I know,  deep thoughts.

- Home Sweet Home - One of the great problems with travel anywhere is not only how much time and money it takes to get there, but where you sleep once you are there.  Well worry no more.  Now you can visit the Grand Canyon for a lunch outing.  Stand on the edge of the precipice and look down at the canyon then zip back home for the rest of your day.  Travel anywhere will be based from your own home.

- Disneyland just raised their prices - If you have no travel barrier to anything, you now have reduced a large barrier to visiting any place on earth.  Well that includes the happiest place on earth.  Disneyland will of course have some kind of transporter blocking technology that will allow them to charge money to visit.  but since you don't have the cost of travel or even lodging (you just teleport back home and sleep in your own bed at night), Disneyland will raise their prices quite a bit because part of the price is based on limiting how many people will be in the park on any given day.  Well if the world can suddenly show up to the Magic Kingdom, you can bet Mickey will raise the prices.

- Being a person just changed - Once we have transporters, we will no longer have any need for potty training.  The next time we transport somewhere our waste is not transported with us, and we are scanned for all known diseases and troubles.  We will have forgotten what it's like to have bowel control and we will be constantly scanned for waste that is discreetly removed from us.  Houses will no longer have bathrooms.  Gas will still be a problem, but after a few generations we won't know why we have it, but it will still be funny.

- Space Travel - Local travel has changed, but long term space travel changes as well. The mechanics are of course different depending on what kind of technology we use, if it's transmitted travel, we just have to get probes out to places we want to visit that will be able to get our signal and then we pop over there.  If it's thrown teleportation where no actual receiver is necessary but we just show up in a place we might be able to get to far away places without worrying about much more than where we materialize.  Kind of like hyperspace I guess.

- Everybody gets everything - Well I discussed before that we can move anything anywhere.  That's great.  Once again, if we are using the atoms around us to recreate matter that was transmitted from somewhere else, what's to stop us from just making copies of things we want?  Nothing.  At that point there will be NO scarcity and no need.  The more interesting thing happens with things like cooking.  Lets say that you have found the best Doughnut in the world.  You scan it for transport before you try it and after eating it you find it's the best one you have ever tasted.  You want your brother across the world to get a taste of this doughnut, so you beam it over to him.  Now that there is a pattern of a hot doughnut, it's immediately available to everyone in the world that would like to teleport your doughnut to them.  They just pick it and eat the doughnut.  then they rate it.  A year later, nobody is making any new donuts and the top 5 donuts as rated by the world are the only ones being copied.  All recipes for all food will find their superlatives in teleportation.  We will only ever have the best of all hot foot and it will never need to be cooked because the heat gets teleported too.  Of course people will always want to tinker with the recipes adding a dash of this and a shot of that, but they will be able to do that virtually and just print the result to try it.  All the restaurants will close and we will all be eating the exact SAME package of Oreos.  Oh yeah, packaging goes away too, since that's made for shipping and advertising since everything would be free at that point not much point in advertising more than word of mouth and we've already discussed shipping.  You won't save any leftovers for later either because what's the point?  You'll just dump it and get fresh food whenever you like it.  Since you need molecules to create new things from our teleporters all of our waste material will suddenly have new use.  Our landfills will be empty because we are using the garbage molecules to make new stuff.

- Teleport Trolls -  When the internet came into being we thought it would be the ultimate in information sharing for the betterment of mankind.  We would all join hands and sing Kum by yah and watch as the world emerges from it's cold war chrysalis and forms into a new free butterfly.  Then we saw the Internet trolls come and rip the wings off of that butterfly.  They just like causing trouble online with unwelcome comments and stupid fights. Not because it benefits them but because it messes things up and they like that.  Well add teleporters to the mix and I think we can see what happens next.  Most downsides to everything involve people.









There it is,  I hope you liked it.  Thanks for reading.  See ya later.

10 Things the dead might be doing.

Lets assume for a moment, like many of us do, that there is in fact an afterlife.  This afterlife has been explained to us by various religions and beliefs, and each religions version of the afterlife have 2 things in common.  1.  You are alive after you die, just somewhere else.  2.  The afterlife has only ever been verified by people that haven't died yet and are telling you about it.  Now the 2nd one seems a bit snarky, but that's not my intent.  My intent is to say that my ideas about what's going on in the next life is every bit as valid as anyone else's.  If you want to call me on it, you'll have to do it on the other side where you can say 'See Mark I KNEW you were wrong'.  But until then, these ideas all have different takes on what it means to exist in a next life and may have some basis in other belief systems.  In your mind preface each one with a 'Maybe'

- Swapping dead stories - There you are.  Dead.  Along with all the other dead people.  There are lots of them.  I mean really lots of them.  So what do people do?  Talk about common experiences.  The only common experience you will likely have on the other side is the fact that you died before you got there.  Most people will have cancer.  There might be some confusion when some mention consumption and others feel tuberculosis is a more apt description.  Choking and starving alternatively will have pretty high populations.  The really unique deaths will involve plane crashes, electrocutions, nearly perfect sky diving and a little too thrilling thrill rides.

- Trying to remember what it was like to be hungry - Lots of belief systems have you living in an immortal state in the next life.  If you are immortal, it means you aren't going to die naturally.  Pretty simple.  But if we look at a lot of the things in life that affect us, they affect us BECAUSE we are mortal.  We get hungry because our brain tells us that we need energy in order to survive and the only way we get that energy is through consumption of calories.  If you don't you will die.  Well If you are not going to die.  Eventually your brain will skip the whole hunger thing since it doesn't serve much of a purpose.  Once you don't have hunger, you don't really have a reason to like food.  So maybe that's how you can tell the freshly dead on the other side is by the fact that they are eating and they crave food.  The long timers like Winston Churchill and Socrates just chuckle and say 'I can't even remember what it was like to want food'.

- Waiting in line for the next ride - What is reincarnation?  Well it's your consciousness coming back to occupy a new shell.  Every one is a specific life and when you are done, you are judged on what you did and you either go up or down on your next roll, but you do get a next roll.  Well you are going to have to wait for your next best incarnation so you sit around and talk about your last life in your non corporeal form waiting for your next host to become available.  I'm kind of hoping for a house-cat on the next round, they seem to have it made.

- Singing in a vacuum - At one point the thought of the next life was to praise a supreme being.  The only thing you knew about the next life was the visitors that came from there to here.  Well they were singing angels accompanied by a band of angels.  We assume they are immortal.  As I mentioned before, if you are immortal you don't need a lot of things that you would need otherwise.  Like air.  What's the point?  You don't breathe it's ok.  you just don't breathe.  But if you don't breathe you can't sing?  So maybe there is air in the next life so you can sing.  Alternatively you are singing in a vacuum and the supreme being just appreciates the effort.  After having heard several less than heavenly choruses it strikes me that airless is probably the safer option.

- Watching us - There is precious little description about the day to day activities of the deceased.  So little in fact that it makes me wonder if there is anything to do there at all.  Surely you would like entertainment like we like it here within our mortal coil.  Well, maybe there just isn't much to do.  When you are immortal, concepts like DEAD LINES are laughable if not ironic.  So maybe it's more entertaining to watch us struggle through the throes of mortality.  Our petty arguments, our silly grabs for temporary power.  We really are quite a show.

- Living their own lives - alternatively, maybe there is just a life very similar to ours.  So similar in fact that they are too busy living it to spend a lot of time ruminating about the prior one.  They are just caught up in the day to day existence of wherever they are.  They have next world things to worry about.  Probably exploration of some sort.

- Trying to figure out how to keep things private - a common description of the afterlife is a time when 'all truth shall be made evident'  evident or obvious.  no secrets.  at all.  so your brain and your thoughts are instantly open for everyone to see or hear.  That's got to be particularly annoying.  It would probably be a lot like everyone running for president at the same time.  Everyone being simultaneously ashamed and offended.

- Wondering about THEIR next life - Ok, so what if the next life is exactly that.  A next life.  Different planet, different format, maybe everyone is cat people because that's how it shook out.  You die, you get there and you realize that everyone there is consumed with what happens in THEIR afterlife.  Nothing at all has changed, except you traded one existence for another, but you have many of the same worries because you are very mortal again, just different.

- Hoping they got a high score - So in some versions of theology we are in our own discreet existences.  That really follows nicely to the thought that we are just in an elaborate video game.  It's so advanced that it has granular detail for anything you look at.  You live your life and then you die and that's when you see a score.  You never really died because you were never really alive, you were just the avatar for your controller.  It does explain why you do things you never thought you would do.  It's because the person controlling you is searching for hidden power ups.

- Looking forward to Dead holidays - Maybe the dead are hanging around doing whatever they do and they see that memorial day is coming around.  They debate with each other about if anyone will be visiting their grave and should they go check.  it's kind of a drag but they figure if you've gone to the effort they should probably show up.  But then things get kind of hectic and there are plenty of projects to work on so who really needs to visit the last place you left your body?  Well, they can't HEAR you anyway no matter how much you yell, so really why bother.  Besides, you can visit ANY time you like, you don't have to fight through the crowds of the other dead that are there.  Once you have been dead long enough you don't have to worry about it.  That's a relief.  On the other hand, Mexico is doing that day of the dead thing, that seems like a LOT more fun.

There it is.  and I'm publishing this one early because I've been late plenty lately.