Five Hundred

A counter on the Colonel's blog dashboard tells him that, since opening this massive and egregious waste of energy, language, and valuable rod and cone time five years ago, he has posted 499 missives. That makes this one [insert kazoo fanfare here] Number 500 [insert diminishing echo here].

Not since the dawn of the algorenet, have so few readers invested some much time with so little to show for it, as have the five of you who regularly waste valuable rod and cone time perusing posts hereon. The Colonel only hopes that none of you possess no better use of your time, no so infinitely idle curiosity, nor misplaced hope for a worthwhile read amongst the incoherent trash heap of inanity and reminiscence that is this blog, that you have actually subjected yourselves to the painful photo-receptive assault on the visual cortex and read all 499 of the previous posts hereon. Such a feat would surely represent the definition of "above and beyond."

Five hundred.

The Colonel paid $500 dollars for his first car. It lasted approximately 500 days.

Five hundred.

The Roman Republic lasted about five hundred years...until its leaders began to ignore the constitutional constraints on their power and a military dictator rode back from the battlefield to "save the Republic."

Five hundred.

Five hundred years ago Charles of Gelre and Bishop Frederick of Bathe took turns capturing and recapturing Oldenzaal, Netherlands, in a war whose only consequence today is that it proves the point the Colonel made in this post's second paragraph. The five of you who regularly waste valuable rod and cone time perusing posts hereon really need to find something at least marginally more productive to do with your time.

Five hundred months ago (give or take a month or four), the Colonel entered his torturous teen age; wherein he completely lost his mind.

Five hundred weeks ago, the Colonel finally relented of all hope of regaining the mental faculties forfeited in his teens.

Five hundred days ago, the Colonel became a full-fledged, stay-at-home, grandad--an occasion which will no doubt find a prominent place in history texts five hundred fiscal quarters hence and will be celebrated as the moment 21st Century Civilization gained true Hope.

Five hundred million years from now, give or take a billion, the nuclear fires of the nondescript star, 'round which this tiny blue marble races, will gutter like a candle in a snowstorm, and our pebble will join the cosmic dust cloud awaiting the next collapse into infinity. At that time, no one will care that the five of you who regularly waste rod and cone time perusing posts hereon found nothing of more import with which to occupy yourselves.

So, while the radiation from Ol' Sol yet warms your bones and transmits information to your visual cortexes, the Colonel thanks you for your readage and wishes you a similarly unproductive New Year.