There's nothing more paradoxical than to be so close to an international event and decide instead to watch it on the television. Obviously there was no way anyone could beat ole Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, but it was fun watching how things went on the telly when in reality the race was going a mere mile from home.

A thought's been tugging at my brain cells for some time now. How (substitute adjective instead of cool) would it be to have a place in the middle of the Arctic, right between some icebergs, where a single shack would stand, by the address of "Problems,  Arctic Sea". Every letter sent to Problems would be routed to this lone brown uninhabited shack. People with all sorts of problems, anger management failures, stressing events, cataclysmic disasters, or such would write down a letter describing it, put it into a envelope, add a postage stamp or two, and stuff it down a post box. A helicopter (or a few dozen, depending on input) would fly by Problems, Arctic Sea every week, and drop the sacks of letters down near the shack. The shack would serve little purpose except for the few scientific researchers who might be interested in actually reading some of the letters. A international government fund would pay for the neccessary fees, which of course would be gladly supplied because of the instantaneous decrease in suicide rates and random rampages of anger. (Hopefully) Obviously email would not do, for it wouldn't work and would immediately flood any server actually designed for the very purpose. Plus, don't most people nowadays need to sit down at a desk and actually write a letter or two?

Written on Sunday, July 25 at 6:18 PM