Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Drone on, Elon Musk

Elon Musk is plenty rich and plenty smart. He's also plenty weird and obnoxious. And interesting.

I read that he's estranged from his father, but his mother probably likes him. Maybe his kids like him, too, although we'll need to ask his son X AE A-XII what he thinks about being named X AE A-XII once X AE A-XII reaches the age of reason. With a surname like Musk, you should probably stick to first names like John and Jane.

I probably wouldn't like him. Nothing against being rich, smart, weird, obnoxious, and interesting. Some of my best friends...(although the rich ones aren't Elon Musk rich; they're just sort of Rollo the Rich Kid from old-school, unfunny Nancy and Sluggo comics rich). But I think in the case of Elon Musk, the weird and obnoxious would just weigh me down. And I likely wouldn't like him.

Not that I'm ever going to get the opportunity to like or dislike Elon Musk IRL. And in IUnRL, if he flexes his pecs as a Twitter part owner/new board member and forces the company to let Trump start destroying the country one tweet at a time again, I really, really, and truly, truly won't like him. [Update: after quite an outcry from employees and tweeters alike, Musk was unasked to be on the Twitter board. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's now no limit on the amount of shares he can own. He may still end up destroying Twitter and democracy as we know it.]

But I have to give him props for being interesting. And I know about some of those interesting things because if there's one thing Musk excels at is attracting publicity. 

As he did to celebrate Giga Texas, a new factory in Austin - bigger than the Pentagon, which is hella big. That's where Tesla is going to build Cybertrucks, which are tricked-out half truck-half sports cars that go for about $50K (which probably isn't that much to pay for a tricked out half truck-half sports car). 

Anyway, when money is no object - Musk is worth nearly $300B - and you want to celebrate good times, you get to throw big parties for 15,000 folks. And get to wear a big black cowboy hat to the party, and call it a "cyber rodeo." 
The “cyber rodeo” featured art installations including a Tesla coil, multiple stages and a sea of Texas-made Model Y sport utility vehicles, arranged to look like the Texas state flag... The event kicked off with hundreds of drones flying in formation against the night sky, aligning to form shapes including the cybertruck and a Shiba Inu dog. (Source: Irish Times)
Plus fireworks bursting in air to the tune of Beethoven's 5th. Da-Da-Da-DUM to you, too, Elon. Harrison Ford was there for some reason. As was Musk's mother. (Told you she probably likes him.)

Forget about fireworks, though. Fireworks I can see on New Year's Eve if I sit on my front steps. And out my living room window on the Glorious Fourth.

But I really wouldn't mind seeing hundreds of drones flying in formation, even if the shape they were shifting into was the Tesla cybertruck or a Shiba Inu. (This must be a shout out to crypto currency company DogeCoin, which uses a Shiba Inu as its mascot/logo/whatever. Or is it a shout out to the Shiba Inu bitcoin, which is a competitor to Doge? This crypto world. It just be so crazy!)

As a kid, I used to love seeing an occasional blimp drifting by. 

I still enjoy a blimp sighting, but, however rich, smart, weird, and obnoxious Elon Musk is, I wouldn't mind if he decided to drone on over my house. Drone formation, please. Now that would be interesting. 

I might even start to like you.

On second thought, nah...

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