3586 Strange brains

August 2, 2012

When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children,

endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority,

for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

-- Bertrand Russell --

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The following is a 10-minute video about a guy with Tourette's, Luke, who just wants a girlfriend.  Unfortunately, he's one of the 10% who has the problem with uncontrollable swearing.

[http://youtu.be/qZRgmFvYPrA]

The brain is a mysterious thing.   The Tourette's part of Luke's brain knows exactly which words are forbidden and will get the worst reaction and that's what it generates.  So I can't help wondering - if Luke had been raised in a society of anorexic, diabetic, truck drivers, would he be shouting "Cheesecake!", and "Sugar!" instead of "F--k you!" and "Bitch!"?

It reminds me a bit of Jay, when his brain decided to throw away the left side of the world, to the point where he was blind to the first half of double words.

I knew a guy with Tourette's once.  He didn't have the swearing thing, though.  He just twitched a lot and yipped and barked.  He and his wife were in Mensa.  We all liked him.  He was sweet.  We all strongly disliked his wife.  They'd got married just before they moved to the Poughkeepsie area and became active in the local group.  She was more than a bit of a slut, wandering off all the time with guys, and she'd yell at him, "You're barking again!  Stop it!" like she had no understanding of the syndrome or didn't care about how difficult it was for him to control it.  She eventually wandered off, within the first year, I think.  After she left, since he couldn't drive because of the twitching, one of us would pick him up for the dinners and games nights.

One evening I gave him a ride home after a dinner, and he started talking.  I'd never heard anything like it.  Words poured out of him.  What he was saying made sense in and of itself, but it just poured out so fast and had nothing to do with anything and segued into different topics at warp speed.  In spates between the deluge, he said that when he starts talking uncontrollably it means a seizure is coming on and if it did while he was in the car I shouldn't panic but just let it go, wait it out, and he's sorry if it scares me.  I responded that my late husband had seizures, and they don't bother me a bit.  When we arrived outside his apartment, I offered to sit with him until whatever happened had passed, but he said no, he was used to it and would be ok.

I never saw him again.  I often wondered what happened to him.
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3585 Reading

Monday, July 30, 2012

Most people can work with any insanity, as long as it is consistent and predictable insanity.

--  Silk  --

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In the past few months I have read (not listed in order):

1. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Alborn
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Tales of the Jazz Age - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. What Your Childhood Memories Say About You ... and What You Can Do About It - Kevin Leman
4. How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children:  Meeting the Five Critical Needs of Children - Gerald Newmark
5. Madame Bovary - Gustav Flaubert
6. Monday Mornings: A Novel - Sanjay Gupta
7. Sisters - Kathleen Thompson Norris
8. Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know - ?
9. A few other books I started and not only didn't finish, they were so bad I deleted them from the Kindle.

I am now reading God is an Englishman, R. Delderfield.

All were either free or $.99 to $1.99 for the Kindle.

I have accepted that as a warning for the future.  Sometimes a deal too good to pass up should be passed up.

An advantage of paper books is that you can leaf through and scan here and there to get some idea as to whether it's worth reading.  Can't really do that with an electronic book.  Well, you can, but it's a pain and you have to commit to acquiring it first.

#1 was good as a story of a man and his life.  I don't understand what all the fuss was about when it first came out, though.  I see no real lesson to be learned, as some people had described it.  I can't believe some people, after reading it, went about trying to identify the five they'd be likely to encounter.  I mean, if there was any lesson at all, it was exactly that you CAN'T anticipate that.

#2 leaves me wondering why Fitzgerald was so celebrated.  What a pile of dross.

#3 and #4 are typical of those books that could have said everything they had to say in 20 paragraphs, but proceed to take 200 pages to say it.  I didn't get more than halfway through either before I tired of the repetition.

#5 was not at all what I expected, but would have been a fairly good read *IF* I had not started out with much higher expectations.  Frankly, it looks to me like it was written as a romance novel for the women of the time specifically to teach a lesson - that women must avoid romantic fantasies and accept their lot in life, or suffer the consequences.  Hmmm.

#6 was more like an outline.  The author may have had some good tales to tell, but character development and situations were skimpy.  It seems like it was actually just an idea for a television series, which might have been a pretty good show, and this was a demo piece.

#7 was depressing.  I wanted to wade into the novel and slap them all upside the head.

#8 a waste.  Not the stories I knew...

Again, I had high hopes for God Is an Englishman.  It starts out rip-snorting, but about 1/4 of the way through it's starting to bog down.  I find myself frowning a lot.

Yeah, gentlewomen of the time were sheltered, and not all that well educated, but not so much that they didn't see animals "doing it", and weren't so stupid that they couldn't figure it out.  Being taught that sex is unladylike and to be "endured" is not the same as being totally ignorant of what is involved.

And after his trip through the countryside, Adam knows he wants to run his carting business in those spaces not served by the railroads, I think it was the unsullied northeastern part of the isles (don't remember, didn't pay attention, and with the Kindle it's not all that easy to leaf through and find that part - one more way that paper is better than bytes) where he would cart materials from the producers to the nearest railroad - so why on earth has he set his headquarters in London, environs already fully served by rails?  Waggons (yeah, two "g"s), horses, and drivers all stabled in London, when their territory would be many many miles away?  Seems like he should have his stables in the centers of the territories he wants to serve, in multiple locations. But, maybe I'm getting ahead of him.

This book is making me look up a lot of stuff on the internet, like mentions of Chat Moss.  It turns out Chat Moss is a huge peat bog that presented a challenge to the railroad, ingeniously solved by "floating" the rail bed across it.  I also had to look up the movers and shakers of the time, Cleveland bay horses, skewbald, the well at Cawnpore, the Crimean war, various bits of military attire and accoutrements and a bunch of other things.  Leaves me wondering how much I used to miss or gloss over when reading books before the internet.

I'll probably finish "God Is...", but I doubt that I'll want to read the following two parts of the trilogy.

I have high hopes for several other books on the Kindle, and recently I have purchased on paper the latest Stephen King, and a non-fiction book by journalist Michael J. Totten, and a novel by Leonard Pitts that I'm sure will be good, and a few others.

Sheesh.  I've got to stop buying books.
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3584 More things to share

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

If two people always agree on everything, then one of them is superfluous.

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Kites!  I didn't know you could do stuff like this with kites!

[http://youtu.be/8q5I5svj7F8]

iQuad performing at the Southern Oregon Kite Festival at Port of Brookings Harbor 7-21-12.

In the comments, JPurvis explains:

"For those who are scratching their heads, the kites that they are flying in the video are quad line kites known as Revolution Kites aka(Rev's). They are flown with 4 lines that are connected to 2 handles. The flyer can control the speed and direction of the kite by using the handles to change the pitch of the kite itself. The lines don't get tangled because they are braided really smooth and slide against each other without causing too much friction."

...and the operators are careful to unwrap after maneuvers that wrap them.

And then of course there are those commenters, the future saviors of the planet, who are yelling "Fake!  You can see the strings!"  Several of them.  Sigh.  Very depressing.  Never never never read YouTube comments.   Lose all hope ye who tread there.

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This, http://184.172.211.159/~gzdocs/documents/statements/audio_interview_0229_3.mp3, is an audio file of police deconstructing the 911 call from George Zimmerman, step by step, with Zimmerman.  Very interesting.

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I have a very long to-do list.  Yesterday I "wasted" a few hours watching a South Korean movie on YouTube, and I'm not at all sorry I did.  It all started with a chance mention of the Korean island of Silmido and some kind of secret mission there.

From the Wikipedia entry on Silmido:

Silmido became historically significant when it was used as the training ground (January 21, 1968 to August 23, 1971) for Unit 684, a South Korean group meant to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in revenge for The Blue House Raid assassination attempt against Park Chung-hee. Traces of the training facilities can still be seen. Under circumstances that have still not been fully brought to light, the members of the group mutinied and went to Seoul in 1971, where they were killed or committed suicide.

This led me to the NY Times article on the incident and the movie, and then I found the complete movie on YouTube, with subtitles.

Of course, I couldn't not watch it.

Unit 648, composed of "expendable" men drawn from prisons and the streets endured horrific and often sadistic training to become just about the best and tightest fighting force in Korea..  South Korea has still not admitted much of anything, but a few trainers and guards survived to tell the tale.  The movie starts and ends with the basic facts, but the details of the men's relationships and motives and what happened on the island had to be invented.

The movie says the men mutinied because they found out they were to be killed because they were dangerous and knew too much - a political and social liability.  The official story is that they figured they would be kept on the island indefinitely and it was more like a prison break.  My opinion is that if they mutinied because of despair, they would have dispersed and gone into hiding when they reached the mainland.  Instead, they attacked the government.

The movie is ... I don't know what to say.  It's awful and wonderful.  Technically it's a masterpiece.  A word of advice, though - when you see the fire with the irons in it, and the trainer is speaking of torture, skip ahead about a minute.  I don't know if that scene was that bad, but I didn't stick around to find out.

I don't know why I'd never heard of this before.

Here it is.  It's 2 hours, but you don't have to watch it all at once.  I watched it in 20-minute pieces over the day. Larger screen is better.  If you don't have time now, bookmark it on YouTube.



[http://youtu.be/IaaF_94oBiM]

3583 Sharing

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Jay, during our very wet trip to England in 1995:

"The reason the Brits never had a space program is that they've never seen the sky."

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This little French film is amazing.  Don't worry about the length.  The last third is credits.  I found it on Roba's blog, "And Far Away" (link over there on the right).  To quote Roba, "This French short film, Le Miroir (The Mirror) manages to tug at the heart strings. Directed by Ramon and Pedro, it takes you through the entire life of a boy in that bathroom mirror."

[http://vimeo.com/45135870]

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Anybody looking for a way to make some money? Take a look at this woman's stuff on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/104322901/magic-shoes?ref=sr_gallery_9&ga_search_query=magic+shoes&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=ZZ&ga_min=0&ga_max=0&ga_search_type=all.

The shoes at the link were featured on Regretsy.com. You supply a pair of shoes, and for a mere $2850.00 she'll cover them (badly, sloppily, look at the photos) with duct tape for you. (If the link to the shoes is dead, her shop is at http://www.etsy.com/shop/LindsayRickman?ref=pr_shop_more.)

I wandered around her shop, and she has some very, um, interesting, um, stuff for pipe dream prices.  On the other hand, may as well try.  You can always drop the price if nothing sells.

I wonder if she ever actually sells anything? On the other hand, there are people who will find her work truly interesting, and will pay for a unique piece of art. It's probably a small niche, but then again, there are people who will happily plant 30 pink flamingos in their yard.

But really, I figure she should at least learn to sew....

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Speaking of sewing, I had mentioned a simple little dress that Nugget wore one day.  I figured I could easily copy it.  The (blurry) photos below are of my learning piece.  I found out that the armholes needed to be a little deeper than my tracing showed (I had to deepen them by hand), and it could be a bit shorter.  Also, I need a sewing machine that does buttonholes.  (Until I get a one-o'-them I'm going back to bound buttonholes.  They're easier and they always look good.)


It's reversible to pink seersucker.  The next version will not be reversible (makes it unnecessarily complicated), and will have embroidery or appliques.
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3582 Priorities

Monday, July 23, 2012

Reality is merely a consensus.

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Um, let's see. 

12 dead from shooting in movie theater in Colorado.  Remaining 59 injured likely to survive.  24-hour news coverage.  Flags all over US go to half-mast.

13 dead in truck accident in Texas.  Remaining 10 injured not likely to live.  Brief stories on news.  Everyone shrugs and makes comments about clown cars.  No mention of flags.

I don't understand.

By the way, there are places in the world where things like the theater shootings happen every day.  Many more places where they happen weekly.  We have no concept.
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3581 Fireflies

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Guidelines for politics, in the workplace or government:

Sow in secret; reap when everyone’s looking.

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There something odd going on with the fireflies (lightning bugs) tonight.

Normally, they flash and then the light quickly dies down, usually within three seconds   Tonight they are flashing, and then the flash dies down very slowly, like someone is turning down a dimmer switch.  It's taking like six seconds or more to go dark.  (Count it off - it's actually a long time.)  Sometimes they flash again before the previous flash is even half gone.  I've never seen that before.

It's about 77 degrees F out there, so I doubt that it's due to heat.
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3580 The flock

Sunday, July 22, 2012

When your hand is in the tiger's mouth, you have to pet the head.

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Becs asked for a photo of the flamingos.  There are only a few standing here at the new house, and those few were arranged by a 15-month old toddler, so no photos yet.  But here is the flock from 2008, at the old house, in an unmowed section of the side yard.  There are 30 of them.

3579 Flamingo!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Touching an idol tarnishes the gilt.

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This evening the Nugget discovered the garbage can full of flamingos in the back yard, and she seemed to know exactly what we're supposed to do with them.  One already had legs, and she planted that one herself.  After that, she selected a body, her mommy added the legs, and then Nugget carried them to me at the end of the yard, where several pairs are now nestled among the Japanese knotweed.

A pair of flamingos in the yard is tacky.  Thirty of them in tall weeds is pure camp.
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3578 Progress

Saturday, July 21, 2012

If we really believed in recycling, we'd sign our Christmas cards in pencil.

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The heat wave finally broke with a terrific thunderstorm mid-week.  Today it's in the 70s, so I'm taking advantage of the coolth (yeah, I made that up, like warmth, but cool) to rig up the pulley system  through the upstairs attic hatch so I can get stuff to the attic without having to carry heavy awkward boxes and containers up the little drop-down ladder.  I don't like ladders.

First I had to sweep the attic.  The floor up there is covered with the builder's debris.  Even though it's in the mid-70s outside, the attic is in full sun, and it has to be in the 90s up there.  I was a little worried that the heat would get to me and I'd collapse and wouldn't be found until I was desiccated (dessicated?  I looked it up and still don't know which to use), but amazingly I was fine.  I sweated a lot, but that was all. No dizziness or anything.  In fact, I sorta liked it.

Soon as I get some more money built up, I want to get an attic fan installed.  They really do help.  Until then I guess I have to be careful what I put in the attic.  If it's that hot up there today, what was it like when it was really hot?

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The day of the thunderstorm (Wednesday?  Thursday?  I forget) we lost power for a few hours.  Losing power at the country house is a big deal, because without power there's no cooking (electric stove), and no water (electric well pump).  That means not only no water at the tap, but no toilets!  So it was a pleasure to still have water here, and to be able to still use the stove by lighting the burner with a match.

With no computer, radio, sewing machine, or TV I decided to read, but because of the dark clouds, pouring rain, and wind, it was dark in the house.  There are at least seven pairs of candlesticks, four oil lamps, and two Coleman lanterns and a camp stove at the country house (when the power goes out there, it's out for days, so that stuff is important), but I haven't brought any of them down here yet.  I do have some tall candles, so I stuck one to a saucer in a pool of melted wax and put it on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.  When I decided to go to the bathroom I was worried about it maybe falling on the counter, so I set the saucer on the ceramic tile floor where if the candle fell it would do no damage.

Oops.

Jasper knows that a dish on the floor means a special snack for him.  He was somewhere else in the house, but I guess the sound of a plate touching the floor is like a can opener to other cats.  As I was rounding the corner leaving the kitchen, I saw him run over and sniff the saucer.  I yelled and dove for him just as he raised his head and sniffed the flame.

He seems to be ok.  Lost some whiskers, but I don't think he got burned.

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The hair.  It was a 6-12 shampoo tint, in "pale ash blond".  After the sixth shampoo, it has gone from brass doorknob to brilliant yellow goldenrod.   Daughter says if I wear a caftan with gold embroidery and chunky gold jewelry "It doesn't look so bad".  Especially if I walk with a flamboyant swish.

Oh dear.

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There's a Civil War cemetery in Hudson, NY.  A group had put flags on the graves.  The flags disappeared, a few one night, more the next night.  By the end of the week, 75 flags were missing.  Big mystery.  The police set up three cameras to catch the culprit.

It was a woodchuck (or groundhog, or marmot, depending on where you're from).

The police put a camera-on-a-snake down a woodchuck hole and found remnants of the flags.

Love it!

[Story, but not much more than I already said, at http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/07/09/news/doc4ffa1213d9e33828160370.txt]

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3577 Hey, this is NJ, not FL!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

There are better ways to get to the top of a tree than by sitting on an acorn.

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2pm.  103 degrees F.

There IS such a thing as too hot to put the top down.
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3576 Wednesday

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Huston Smith, on faith: "We may do things we think are wrong,

but we cannot believe things we think are false."

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It's 7 am and it's already 82 F outside and steamy.  It's going to be a hot day.   I was under the impression that living so close to the water we'd have cool refreshing breezes.

Nope.  Just steam.

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From a Meetup invitation: "Sorry, no pets are aloud to join the party." 

Maybe it means I can bring a boa constrictor?  They're quiet.

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From a weather advisory for the country house:  "Severe thunderstorms, hail up to one inch in diameter or larger."

Do they know what "up to" means?

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I had a hair accident Monday.

My natural color these days is not white or gray.  It's a very pale yellow.  Pale blond, which is pretty much what it had been when I was a baby.  In the winter it's a bit darker, and in the summer, especially since I drive with the top down a lot, it gets bleached to white in the sunlight, although still pale blond indoors.

So, since I like it blond, in the summer I shampoo in a temporary (6-12 shampoos) ash blond tint.   The stuff I use has no bleaching ingredients, so my scattered brown hairs still show through here and there.

Monday I screwed up.  The stuff is supposed to be on your hair 20 minutes.  I usually leave it on 15 minutes.  I had received an email that I wanted to respond to, and started the response after putting the tint on.  I got to thinking about what I was writing, and next thing I knew, 40 minutes had gone by.

I ran to the bathroom, jumped into the shower, lathered it  up, rinsed it off, toweled it dry, looked in the mirror, and ... my hair is the same color as the bathroom door's brass doorknob.  The EXACT same color.  I could see the doorknob in the mirror, next to my hair.  I am not exaggerating.

My hair has been washed four times in the past day and a half, and it's still flaming brass.  A long time ago I'd read that to remove temporary hair color, you should use oil, so my hair has been mayonnaised and olive oiled.  (I thought the mayonnaise would work well because it also has vinegar.)  I've been wearing scarves wrapped around my head, or hats, when I have to go out in public.

I am unhappy.
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3575 Correction

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence,

for the evidence is sure to come to light.

-- Bertrand Russell --

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I erred yesterday in calling that section of Pennsylvania God-forsaken.  It's not.  In many ways it's blessed, exemplifying my idea of where God lives.  The correct term is man-forsaken.

I have corrected it.
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3574 The 648th

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Everyone takes the limits of their own vision for the limits of the world.

-- Schopenhauer --

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This post will be of interest mainly to my sister.  I'm posting here rather than writing her an email so I can keep the links handy for myself, too.

A while ago another blogger mentioned the "Endless Mountains" in northeastern Pennsylvania.  I was in high school in that area when the contest was run to name the mountains (which are not mountains at all, but an eroded plateau).  I searched the internet to see if I could get any information on why that was the winning entry (we all thought it was a stupid and arrogant choice), but the contest isn't mentioned anywhere.

However, I did stumble on a lot of info on the 648th Radar Squadron, Benton AFS.  Seems like a lot of alumni of the base want to remember the place - unbelievable, but true.

(For those reading this who are not my sister and don't already know, the base was on top of Red Rock mountain, next door to Ricketts Glen State Park, in a deserted and man-forsaken section of northeastern  Pennsylvania.  That's where I lived through high school.  It's isolated with a capital "I", with some of the worst weather anywhere.  We actually had an Independence Day picnic cancelled one year because it snowed.)

What I've found:

Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benton_Air_Force_Station.

Unit page (sorta like "classmates.com"), 20 members, plus me - I joined so I could see the roster and read the notes.  Nobody there I remember.  There's an email address in the notes for some guy who is looking for information on commanders, history, etc. http://unitpages.military.com/unitpages/unit.do?id=712468.  If you have info, Sister, maybe you could contact him?

Wilkes Barre "Times Leader" article on the history.  http://www.radomes.org/museum/documents/BentonAFSPAlookingback.html

The most interesting pages: http://www.radomes.org/museum/showsite.php?site=Benton+AFS,+PA
Has links to photos (snork!  I've got better ones!  Maybe if I can locate them, I'll send them.) and all kinds of info, including a roster of 80 people who had been stationed there (including email addresses for most).    80 isn't many, considering that at any one time there were at least 200 men stationed there, and they rotated in and out every two to four years for twenty-five years.  The list does not include:
Lt. Burchard (on whom I had the worst crush)
Sgt Joe Prevost
Sgt Giddens
Sgt Obie Philpot
Maj Warren Munson
Airman Tom Nichols
Our father, who was head radar honcho and commander for most of that period!  He was the first radar officer when the base opened in 1951, and was off and on associated with the base for the next umpteen years, including as commander.  But nobody remembers him?**


There are a lot more missing whose names I can't recall, but if I saw them on the list I'd recognize the names.  There's a button for adding names, but I hesitate to add any because I'm not sure of dates, first names, functions, ranks, and so on.  I think people have been adding themselves and their friends.

By the way, I'm pretty sure it was Daddy who designed that early emblem with the bat.  The really ugly one that embarrassingly displays no understanding whatsoever of a bat's anatomy. 

So, Sister, do you remember anyone else who was there and is not on the list?  Are there any on the list you'd like to contact?  Know a guy named Dave Schwartz whose father was stationed there (his email can be found at http://www.radomes.org/museum/guestbook.php?guestfile=2005/guest200507.txt)?

I also found this bit of special interest at http://www.ufoinfo.com/filer/1999/ff9936.shtml.  It's a bit more detailed than the item you, Sister, had sent me about the same topic.  Since few people follow links, I'm incorporating it verbatim:

PENNSYLVANIA ABDUCTION FROM AIR FORCE BASE

BENTON AIR FORCE STATION --I retired from the Air Force in 1990 as a Chief Master Sergeant. I was on the SAC Nuclear Disablement Team for many years. We would respond to any incidents/accidents or problems with nuclear weapons. I know of an incident that occurred on March 5, 1965, at Benton Air Force Station, Red Rock, Pennsylvania. Benton was part of the Air Defense Command Interior Radar Defense Zone. Two radar technicians (one being my brother) were repairing the height finder radar antenna located northeast of the 648th Radar Squadron site. An "object" described by my brother as being a small saucer shaped object landed nearby. The two technicians decided to investigate. As they approached the saucer, a beam of light came out and struck both technicians. That was the last they could remember, and they failed to report to their command post. Air Policeman went to search for the two technicians, but they could not be found. All their tools and equipment were located near the antenna they were fixing. The Pennsylvania State Police were alerted and a search of the area began. Sixteen hours later, a state trooper found the two technicians walking on Route 487 about 10 miles from the site south of Lopez. The two technicians seemed dazed and were transported to a hospital in Williamsport. They were examined and found to be dehydrated and confused. No alcohol or drugs were found in their system. They were later transferred to an Air Force Hospital at Stewart AFB, NY. Trace amounts of alpha radiation were found on their clothing and strange marks were discovered on their necks.
Special Agents from the Office of Special Investigations interviewed the technicians. They related their story up to the point of the beam of light. They could not remember anything after that. A psychiatrist wrote in the report that each technician experienced something they could not fully explain! They both spent two weeks in the hospital and were released back to their unit. My brother was reexamined at the Air Force Psychiatric Center, Sheppard AFB, TX in 1966. During a session with an Air Force psychiatrist, the doctor asked him if he thought he was abducted by extraterrestrial visitors! That was the first time anyone ever mentioned a UFO connection to my brother. My brother thought the Air Force knew. He told me years after the incident, he had nightmares about creatures poking instruments into his eyes, ears, and mouth. My brother served out his tour and was honorably discharged. He went onto college and worked for Boeing Aircraft Corporation until he retired in 1994. He won't speak about the incident. Thanks to CMSgt. Walter.

You do know that Daddy had been working on Project Blue Book during that period he was at Wright-Patterson?

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**Actually, I did meet someone once who did remember Daddy.  When Jay and I went to Daughter's graduation from Penn State, we stayed at a B&B in Bellefonte.  The host asked where we were from, and when I said I had grown up on Red Rock, we learned that we both had been there at the same time.  He'd been an airman.  When I told him who my father was, his face darkened, and he said, "I hope you don't mind, but I have to say, your father was a tough SOB.  A royal bastard."  I said, "Yeah.  I know.  I can show you scars."
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3573 Sense

Friday, July 13 (Eek! Friday the thirteenth!), 2012

"Realistic" and "afraid of failing" do not mean the same thing.

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Wow.  Really think about that green quote.  It can be interpreted and applied several different ways, all instructive.

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I'm reading a book of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which includes "The  Curious Case of Benjamin Button".  In that story, I found the following sentence:  "In addition, Benjamin discovered that he was becoming more and more attracted by the gay side of life."

I can't help wondering what today's youth make of that.

Fitzgerald uses the word "gay" at lot, in the 1930s "carefree fun" sense.  It has completely lost that meaning now.  Also, I wonder what younger folks make of the expression "social intercourse".  Do they think it means friends with benefits?

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Hal, the BMW, "threw a code" the other day.  Ever since they put computers and sensors in cars, my cars have "thrown codes" with scary indicator lights which required a trip to a service bay, pretty regularly, it seems.  They tell us that the purpose of the sensors is to warn us of problems before they get big enough to damage the cars.

Yeah.  Uh-huh.

I'm ready to yell "BULL POOPY!" to that.  It seems to me that the sole purpose is to create service business, because not once, ever, has the sensor indicated a real problem!  In every single case, without exception, it has been diagnosed as a "bad sensor", which gets replaced.

I think we're getting ripped off.  You'd think that if the sensors were doing any good, in the past twenty years they'd have come up with better ones that didn't crap out and cry wolf all the time. 
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3572 Rant on a very scary platform

Thursday, July 12, 2012

What you think, you become.

-- Buddha --

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I know a few people who are worried about Sharia law creeping into US courts.  Well, if that worries you, don't look at your Muslim neighbors - look at Texan Republicans.  The Christian Taliban is here, and it's centered in Texas.

The Texas Republican Platform is downright scary.  It hates everybody, especially gays and people of non-northwestern-European extraction.  It wants a very high national sales tax (something like 25%?) instead of an income tax.  (Note that rich people spend a much smaller percentage of their income on taxable goods than poor people, so that the burden of a high sales tax falls most heavily on those who can least afford it.) If you can't afford health care, and can't manage to keep a full-time job with a company that provides it, then you obviously don't deserve to live.  It guts education budgets.  Lots of scary stuff. 

From the platform (the link is mine, and the red is my emphasis):

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification)[Silk note - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_order_thinking_skills], critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority"

{Note - since the furor, they have claimed the "critical thinking" part is an error - note that it's still there - but they stand by the "challenging the student's fixed beliefs (a buzz word for indoctrination?) and undermining parental authority" part.}

They want to stick to teaching only rote facts, and their approved "facts" only.  They want to raise a generation of children who cannot think logically and critically, who have actively been taught not to think for themselves.  Well, of course.  People who are taught to obey authority and not think logically and critically for themselves are much easier to control.

Fiendishly clever.  Dumb down the populace, discourage critical thinking, teach them to believe what they are told by the authorities (while your own children go to private schools in Switzerland or even Canada), then you can control them, and they will like it!  They'll even think you're taking care of them.

Turn them all into sheeple. Good little sheeple.

Louisiana school textbooks are also in the news.   They have been reducing school budgets, too.  They really want to change from public schools to all private (read that as conservative Christian) schools, run on a voucher system.  Yeah, Christian, and ideally only Christian religious schools.  Jewish and non-sectarian schools are finding it difficult to get approved for the vouchers, let alone Muslim schools. (An aside - is that even constitutional?  Vouchers is still tax money.)

There are three publishers of textbooks approved for those schools, and those books are ridiculous.  For example, one of the books teaches that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. Another claims that the Loch Ness Monster is real, and has been proven to be a pleisosaur (even the Scots are laughing at that).  Therefore, since man and dinosaurs are currently coexisting, this conclusively disproves evolution.

What!?

Do they even know what the theory of evolution says? Do they have any concept of what it means to "prove" or "disprove"? Are they aware that there are many living dinosaurs, near-dinosaurs, and dinosaur-era flora and fauna all over the place? Like the coelacanth? Alligators and crocodiles? Cockroaches? Ginko trees? Ferns? Bacteria? Oh, foo. I forgot - we're not allowed any logic or critical thinking.

I almost wish the south would just secede again.  You know, I think the north would just let them go this time.

There's commentary on the topics of the Texas Republican Platform and Louisiana textbooks all over the internet.  The weekend's coming.  Take some time to do some reading.  The US is becoming the laughingstock of the world.

Something to think about: What other countries oppress people's thought processes and allow ingorance to continue, with the approval and support of the government? 

The answer is frightening.

--------------------------

It's best if you look up stuff yourself, but if you're unfamiliar with the use of search engines, here's a start:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/louisiana-students-loch-ness-monster-disprove-evolution_n_1624643.html#slide=more219313

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/07/01/texas-gop-platform/2/

http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2010RPTFinalPlatform.pdf
.

3571 Throwing out books

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Everything we ever buy is either an investment or a liability.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Every time I go to the country house I am overwhelmed by stuff, like, oh, say, the books.  I have literally thousands of books.    It has to be close to or over 5,000 books.  I am absolutely not bringing them all down here.  Maybe a few hundred of the best - the valuable ones, the ones I want to read again, the ones I haven't read yet, and a few of the reference books (like the Black's law dictionary, oriental rug and vintage jewelry guides, the encyclopedia of needlework, etc. - ones that address stuff the internet isn't as good at).   But I was stumped as to what to do with the rest.  There's just so many, and I couldn't bear the thought of throwing them out.

Then I read this:  http://magnificentnose.com/2011/05/16/i-can%E2%80%99t-believe-you%E2%80%99re-throwing-out-books/.   She's a librarian.  She throws out books.  At the link she describes why they are no good for donation, and her criteria.

She has given me reasons and courage.  I'll pick out what I want to keep, a few sets and modern bestsellers I'll sell, then open the rest to vultures.  Anything left over after vultures have picked through I think I can throw out without too much pain.  Hey, vultures didn't even want them.
.

3570 Being evil

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Some people are energized by conflict.  If you aren’t, you will always lose if you play by their rules.

---------------------------------------------------

Search hits:

I've got four posts (out of several thousand) that get repeated search hits.  In the fall and winter, the one on  how to pronounce Ashokan gets several hits per week, sometimes several a day.  Why fall and winter?  I don't know.  In the spring and early summer it's the one about tiny ants, again multiple hits per week, lately several per day.  Why spring and summer is obvious.  Year-round it's the one about the odd error message, maybe two hits a week.

The only other one that shows noticeable activity is the brain cancer timeline.

No one ever leaves a comment on any of them.  "Gee, thanks for the info" would be nice. 

Now I'm chuckling evilly to myself, because future searches for those terms will land them here, where I say nothing about those topics. Notice I didn't include links.  Snork.

--------------------------

A "game" I never understood:

Telephone.  Where someone starts a sentence or two and it's whispered from person to person around the circle, and at the end it's very different.  The times I've participated it was presented as "an illustration of how gossip gets distorted in the telling".

Bull poopy.  The times I was in the circle it did not illustrate how gossip was honestly distorted.  It was an illustration of how people will perversely TRY to distort information.  They cheat.  Always, in every case, the person who whispered it to me purposely mumbled, spoke super quickly, and ran words together at an unnecessarily low and breathless volume.  It pissed me off because it was obvious that they were trying to make sure I didn't hear it. 

It would be more illustrative of the purpose if everyone in the circle could honestly say they'd tried to pass it clearly.  Then it would be a surprise that it still got distorted.

-----------------------------

Word confusions:

Along with loose/lose, sight/site, and all those others, add wander/wonder and in tact/intact.

At least four times in the past few days I've come across "professional" writers describing people as "wondering around" when they are walking aimlessly.  Hey, they aren't even pronounced the same.

I'm getting tired of people describing something which is unbroken as being in tact.  I should be grateful it's not "in tacked" I guess.

The telephone game is nothing.  Soon people won't understand each other at all.  Or worse, THINK they do when they don't.

----------------------------------

How childhood misunderstandings get stuck:

I was washing dishes and stacking the rinsed dishes in the drainer to air dry.  I was less than 8 years old - not sure how old, really.  My mother noticed I was rinsing them with cold water.  She got angry at me and said, "Cold water!  They'll NEVER dry!" and grabbed a dishtowel and started to dry them, slamming things around angrily.

That stuck.

It's stuck in my head now that if things get wet with cold water, they'll never dry.  Of course I know better now, but logic doesn't count. I think of it every time I wash dishes, rinse clothes, step in a puddle, get splashed by the garden hose, take a bathing suit off.  I'm still afraid they'll never dry, and there's a faint residual fear of mold.
.

3569 Kindle Battery Fix.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Don't wait. Patience isn't a virtue, it's a plague.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

There seems to be a common problem with Kindle batteries.  They die.

When I first started using my Kindle, the battery lasted a very long time, like for weeks, even if I didn't turn it off but just let it go to sleep between uses.  Over the past few months, it's been getting very bad.  Now I have to charge it morning and night, and it's useless to take it with me anywhere I'll be waiting, because it will likely die in the waiting room.

Worse, if the device decides there's not enough power for WiFi (which eats the battery, so I keep it off) it won't start WiFi when you want it, which means you can't download any new books.  Even while mine is ON THE CHARGER! the WiFi won't start.

I searched both online and the info book that came on the Kindle.  It seems to be a common complaint.  The cure is Home->Menu->Settings->Restart.

Surprise.  My Kindle doesn't have a Restart under Settings. I bought it new for like 1/3 the regular price when the next upgrade was coming out, so I guess it's pre-"Restart" button.

I finally found a brief mention somewhere of an alternate restart procedure.  Turn it on, then hold the on/off switch to the right for at least 20 seconds, just like when you turn it off, but a minimum of 20 seconds.  When you next start it, it'll reload, and POW!  No more battery problems.

Mine is now acting just like new.
.

3568 Fabric

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Do what you want, not what is expected of you. Otherwise you will hate your life.

-------------------------------------------------

Whatever was wrong yesterday seems to have righted itself.  I was already feeling better by late afternoon.

I had been trying to find a local fabric store, with little success.  The closest one, a JoAnn, is a good 25 minutes south, so I went there yesterday.  I want to buy some fabric for some things for the Nugget, and maybe for some some curtains.  (I have always made all drapery and curtains for every house I've lived in.  I bought sheers and cafes for this house because --- I couldn't find a fabric store!)

I went to the JoAnn's yesterday evening, and I think I've found out why fabric stores are dying.  It's likely that no one is sewing much these days.  Not because nobody has the skills, but because the fabric prices are completely ridiculous! 

Think about a plain old simple lightweight woven cotton.  One yard.  Maybe with a print on it.  Woven by machine, yards and yards of it shooting out of the loom and into the print rollers, then out to a machine that rolls it around a slab of cardboard.  What is it about that fabric that makes it worth $12 to $16 a yard?

That's utterly ridiculous.  

That's almost $24 for enough to make an outfit for the Nugget (allowing for pattern matching and including waste).  $48 because the outfit I have in mind is reversible.  An outfit that we could buy anywhere for less than $15.

At one time in my life I made almost all my clothes.  There's no way I could do it now.  I couldn't afford to.

Greed has killed the market.

I guess these days sewing and fabric stores are just for unique things, like costumes, or special outfits that may as well be costumes.  Something that cannot be found in a department store, and that you are willing to take out a loan to pay for.

---------------------------------

I still don't understand English.  Singular is "wife".  Plural is "wives".  So why, if we changed the "f" to a "v", do we still add an "s"?  Same with "life", and "knife".

Is it because "wive" is a verb (as in to go a-wiving in Padua)?  But, but, but, why not "wifes" and "lifes" and "knifes" as the plural?  (Well, "knifes is different".  That is itself a verb, but "knive" is not.  Which is also confusing.)

Compare to "fife", and "strife".  There's NO RULE!

Why is English so arbitrary?
.

3567 Something's wrong

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Being good at taking tests won't get you very far in life.

----------------------------------------------

(Snork.  There are a lot of Mensans who need to read the green quote above.  More than a few seem to think that high scores alone should somehow get them acclaim - even though they have accomplished little else in their lives.  In fact, too many are a burden.)

I'm feeling a little like April 2 of 2011, when I ended up in a White Plains hospital for four days, with a nasty kidney. 

I've still got the stone in the left kidney.  It can't be zapped because of my fragile capillaries.  But a plethora of tests over the past year has said it isn't moving and hasn't grown.  That doesn't mean I can't throw another stone, though, or that the right kidney is immune.

I've got that "something's off" feeling.
[But that could be the heat and oppressive humidity.]

I've got a pain in my lower back, in pretty much the same place as in April 2011.
[But I often have pain in my lower back, that's normal.  And it does seem to be sensitive to posture, which in theory the kidney wouldn't be.]

I keep feeling like I have to piddle and poop, just like in April 2011.
[But I ate a quinoa mix late Thursday that's given me all kinds of problems ever since.  Probably the dried onions in it.  It's been pretty obvious that my body wants to get rid of every trace of it.  The flatulence has been incredible, like an enormous blast every 15 minutes yesterday.]

I don't have any blatant nausea or fever, but my stomach does feel off.  For one thing, it's hanging out and I can't hold it in.  I don't want anything around my waist - not even panty elastic.  It feels like there's a rock inside, just above the navel.  And I'm not interested in food.  I feel like I've got a lump in my throat and a tiny touch of acid reflux.
[Well, ice cream sounds good.  Maybe it IS the heat and humidity, and the remaining effects of the quinoa.]

I feel blah, and I'm hoping it has nothing to do with the kidney. I'm hoping it all goes away pretty soon.
.

3566 Letter to Laura

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Don't try to fix anyone.  It never works and can break you.

------------------------------------------

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, she knows that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.  This letter to Laura has been floating around the internet.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus,
Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia
.

3565 Flip of the lip

Saturday, July 7, 2012

When life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.

------------------------------------

Verizon "news" has an article today about the recent propensity of politicians to use previously objectionable words, even when they know the microphone is on.  They give two examples of elected officials using the word "ass----".

Then it was Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's turn on Thursday at a news conference at which he discussed a shooting a few blocks from the center of the city's July Fourth celebration. He said he wasn't going to let the city's image be harmed by "some little ass---- 16-year-old."

I am confused by the placement of the "----".  When did "hole" become the naughty part, and and "ass" become acceptable?

I don't understand.
.

3564 Bits

Friday, July 6, 2012

If you don't know, it doesn't hurt to ask. It does hurt if you don't.

----------------------------------------------------------

The Supreme Court recently ruled that life sentences (which some states mandate for certain crimes) for young offenders (below 18, I believe) is unconstitutional, being "cruel and unusual punishment", on the theory that someone that young is heavily externally influenced.  They may have had rotten upbringing, terrible adult models, a life of hopelessness, bad peer pressure which they are too young to resist, and so on, which must be taken into consideration.

Yeah, ok, I can see where they're going with it.  And yes, a lot of kids who did heinous things can still grow up into responsible adults with the right positive influence.

However, the ruling scares me because some of those kids are unredeemable.  They're already broken well past any chance of repair.  The thought of their being turned loose scares me.

I'm thinking of kids like those two in their early teens who kidnapped a toddler from a mall in England, and tortured him in multiple creative ways before finally killing him.

Who could torture a toddler?  There's something more wrong with those kids than just bad influences.

I do hope that all the Court shot down was state mandates, not judges' discretion. 

---------------------------------

Similar topic, some guy (18 when he committed the crimes, so the above doesn't apply) has been sentenced to an aggregate 130 (or maybe 135?) years after being found guilty of a series (7, I think) of armed robberies.  His buddies in crime took the plea-bargain and testified against him.  They each got much shorter sentences.

The guy thinks it's very unfair, because, after all, "it's his first offense!" Even his idiot lawyer is saying that.

Uh, no, you committed at least seven armed robberies (who knows how many more), discharging the gun at least twice, and were found guilty of all of them.  I figure that's at least seven offenses.

It's just the first time you got caught.

---------------------------------

 I don't know if everyone sees the same thing when they watch videos on YouTube.  On my screen, I see a column of videos on the right that seem to be related to the one I'm watching - same topic, same creator, same keywords, whatever.  The top video in that list is a "paid distribution" video.  Someone paid a bunch of money to get prime position on the recommended list.  It's not related in any way to the one I'm watching.

For the past very long time, it's been Mormon videos.

Someone is paying a truckload of money to get me (us?) comfortable with Mormons.

I wonder why.

---------------------------------

Well, it's summer, and we're getting news stories about kids and hikers lost in the woods/desert/mountains.   Some kids have been lost for days, with hundreds of searchers looking for them.

(An interesting aside - a little girl had wandered away from her family's campsite.  Hordes of searchers, all male.  Two women wanted to join the search, but were told no, that they wanted only trained search parties familiar with the terrain, so the women simply set out on their own.  The child was found by the women.


Why?  Because the child had heard the men calling her name, but hid when she heard them because she had been taught to be afraid of strange men.  She was afraid of being abducted.  She responded to the women.


Story from the "Free Range Kids" website.)

Here's what I don't understand.  Howcome they don't use tracking dogs?  Tracking dogs are used to locate criminals all the time.  Seems like finding a kid in the woods should be a snap.  Just start from the kid's bed or wherever they were last seen, and go.  But you almost never hear of that.

Yeah, ok, there aren't a lot of dogs trained for it (although almost any dog can do it once they know what you want so I don't know why there aren't a lot), so one would have to be flown/helicoptered in.  But hey, a lost kid! 

Here's a story of how a dog can follow a trail for miles in intense heat, picking out the one trail from hundreds of overlapping trails, with the least sniff of the target scent.  Amazing.

If my Nugget ever gets lost, I want a dog on the case!
.

3563 Water and Fire

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Men are much more willing to compromise their health and sanity to make more money, women are more willing to compromise their financial status in order to have a more fulfilled, balanced life.

-- Kandralla --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's dose of politics.  I had noticed that the conservatives seem to do a much better job of swaying opinion, destroying the credibility of ideas they don't like, appealing to the lowest denominator, and mobilizing people.  This explains how they do it, and the reason the liberals can't seem to get organized:  http://www.alternet.org/story/156084/it_is_no_mystery:_the_real_reason_conservatives_keep_winning?akid=9008.227416.8411ip&rd=1&t=8.

--------------------------------

Hercules' mother (let's call her HM) has been visiting Daughter and Hercules.  She arrived  Saturday and left yesterday morning.  Daughter was very uptight about her visit.  I pretty much didn't cross the street while she was here.  The woman flat-out drives me crazy.

Daughter is one of those people who needs alone time often.  We all know that when she's "in a mood" you don't prod her and absolutely don't touch her.  She came over here at one point and said, "Mom, I keep telling her I need some quiet time, and she keeps touching me!  She keeps putting her arm around me and asking what's wrong!  How do I make her leave me alone!?"

On Sunday, Hercules crossed the street to say hello, with the Nugget in the wagon.  He said as soon as HM changed her clothes, they were going to the beach at the end of the block.  I noticed that the Nugget was wearing a swimming diaper.  Daughter's car was gone.  I got an ominous feeling.

Ok, you need to know about "the beach".  It's not like the Jersey shore beaches.  Those are on the ocean.  This is a stretch of mixed sand and broken glass on a curve of Raritan Bay.  The Raritan River, the Hudson River, and The East River dump into Raritan Bay.  (Ever watch Sienfeld?  Remember Kramer swimming in the East River?  Raritan Bay is where that water goes.)  The bay water is murky.  About the only thing that lives in it is horseshoe crabs, and they have the constitution of cockroaches.  The crabs are the only reason the "beach" hasn't been paved over - it's where they lay their eggs every spring.

The last time we had the Nugget on that beach, she splashed water in her face, and Daughter got upset.

I got a little worried and asked if I could go along.

This was from when we first arrived:

Yup.  HM fully intended to take the Nugget into the water, to "get her comfortable" in water.   She carried her out into the waves, up to HM's chest.  Waves hit the Nugget in the face.  She got water in her ears, eyes, mouth, and I stood there wondering what pathogens and parasites might be in that water.  Hercules long ago gave up his cocoanuts to HM.  I was freaking out, but I kept my mouth shut.

It was a good thing I was there.  The two of them frequently got distracted, they'd be standing there looking at something with their backs to the Nugget (and the Nugget never stands still), and she'd be running off up the beach or into the water and they didn't notice until I'd yell "Grab her!"

There were horseshoe crabs in the water.  At one point Hercules was trying to herd a mating pair into shallower water and HM was trying to get a picture, and neither of them had any idea where the Nugget was.

I was glad when I looked up the seawall and saw Daughter arriving.

---------------------------------

Hercules gets cluster headaches.  He'll go weeks or even a few months without, and then he'll get slammed.  The weekend HM was visiting, he had several.  When Daughter arrived at the beach, a bad one hit, so he left.  By the time we got back to the house, he had gone to bed.

I wonder if there was a connection.

---------------------------------

Fireworks out there.  It's 10 pm and there's no point in going to bed.  Somebody on the next street behind me sounds like they're dynamiting their house.  I didn't go to the seawall to watch any.  You can see a lot of NYC, Staten Island, and up and down the NJ shoreline from there.  Don't know why, but I'm just not interested.

Someplace to the north just over the water had a huge show last night, maybe somewhere on Staten Island.  It went on for almost an hour, and there were never fewer than five huge double chrysanthemums in the air at any instant.  I could just see it from my dining room window.  It was amazing, but all I could think about was the expense.  What municipality around here has that kind of excess in their budget?  What could all that money have been used for instead?  Oh, maybe like repairing bridges, or water mains?  Soup kitchens and shelters?  I think it left me a little disgusted.

"Hey, we've got an extra $800,000 here!  Lets BURN it!!!"

---------------------------------

Oh, almost forgot.  Nugget was slapping at her right ear yesterday.   Thanks for the gifts, HM.
.

3562 A HOTW Confession

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.

-------------------------------------------------

If you stop at a traffic light, and people in the cars ahead of you, to the side of you, and behind you are all bopping their heads and singing as loudly as they can, quickly tune your radio to the local music station.  They're playing American Pie.

-------------------------------

"Back in the day", most females my age thought Paul was the handsome Beatle.  A few thought John was good-looking.  Nobody ever mentioned a crush on George or Ringo.

Well, I'm finally coming clean.

I thought Paul was cute, but not at all sexy.  John was mysterious, but I didn't find him sexy.  In fact, just the opposite.  He sorta turned me off.  Ringo, let's face it, although he's turned out to be the most level-headed and possibly nicest, was just plain funny looking.   Looks have not always been my first criteria (look at some of my picks for HOTW (Honey of the Week)), but Ringo had been something of a clown, too, and didn't come across as all that smart.

I liked George.  He was quiet and had the strongest, most masculine, face of the four.  If you watched his eyes when the group was doing an interview, he was absorbing, reacting, and separating himself from the others.  I really liked him, without "knowing" him at all.

I was never able to say that in public back then without getting strange looks, snorts, and an argument.

I'm saying it now.


[http://youtu.be/8eEQ4J6Lnrs]


[http://youtu.be/a48gIt84AZc]

---------------------------------

I wasn't a big Beatles fan anyway.  They had some good stuff (mostly in the "Rubber Soul" era), but it wasn't like I would seek them out.  When I wasn't listening to folk singers, I was a Stoner.  "Paint It Black", "Goin' Home", "Satisfaction", "Angie".....  Yeah.  Of course, the Rolling Stones weren't much to look at.  None of them.

The music of the late '50s to the late'70s was pretty incredible.  People wrote real songs then.  People sang (well, except for Dylan, but we forgave him).  People played real instruments with real skill.

Video killed popular music.  Now it's all flash and appearance.  You have to have "the look".  Innovation and talent are secondary.

Pooh.
.

3561 Cammo

Monday, July 2, 2012

To touch a rock is to touch the past.

To touch a flower is to touch the present.

To touch a child is to touch the future get fired.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I seem to have suddenly gained 10 pounds, distributed from my collar bones to my knees.  I don't know how.  But for the past two months, nothing fits.  Even my bras are choking me.

I was worried that maybe it had something to do with the kidney, but it doesn't seem to be edema.  My extremities are not affected.  It's flat-out fat.

Back to counting calories I guess.  I bet it was ice cream that did it.

Given that nothing fits, I'm almost lucky that there's heat.   I prefer loose clothing when it's hot anyway.  Easier to put on, allows air flow, blah blah.  There's a reason they wear mu'u mu'us in Hawaii.

I've been wearing some mu'u mu'us I bought in Hawaii, and caftans from the Smithsonian catalog and from African importers.  I really like them.  I'd wear them all year, except that it's hard to wear a coat over a caftan.

One day I slipped a caftan on to go downstairs to answer the door when the bell rang as I was getting out of the shower.  I didn't have any underwear on, and, surprise, I discovered I don't need panties with caftans or mu'u mu'us.  Nobody's going to see anything.  Nothing "touches" anything.  Air flow is very much increased.

Being me, I wondered if I ought to put something on.  A bra is sort of necessary to prevent movement, and embarrassment in a cool draft, but panties?  That got me thinking about thongs (not the shoes... thongs used to be shoes, you know).  I've never understood thongs.  They are definitely not comfortable.  That thin part up the back is incredibly annoying.  It rubs sensitive spots.  They don't protect outer clothing.  All they "cover" is a triangle of fur in the front (and mine is blond), so why bother?

Anybody want to explain why anyone voluntarily wears thongs to me?  I mean as a regular thing, during the day.  I can see their value in intimate encounters....
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3560 Necrophelia?**

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Communication is the key to getting along.

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 (**Title misspelled just enough to push the post further down in search results, but still convey the idea.)

Memory foam mattresses are popular.  We are supposed to believe that you sleep well on them because there are no pressure points.  I don't know why people believe that.  I guess because ads tell you to believe that.

I bought one last year because it was a Woot-off of a "name" brand, at a very good price, and I thought that because it is flexible, it would be easier to get the mattress into and out of an enclosed Chinese bed.

I hate it.  It's very hard on my back, because I need those pressure points to keep me changing position while I sleep, so without them I don't move enough, and when I wake up my spine is frozen in whatever position I slept in all night.  Which means that if I fell asleep with my face in a book, which often happens, I could be in real trouble in the morning.

You know, the first time I saw the commercial for the things, saw the hand sinking in, I knew that there was one particular use of a mattress for which these mattresses would be extremely badly suited.

For "playing", you need firmness and a certain degree of REBOUND.  The folks at the store when I bought the mattress for the sleigh bed were laughing at me, because I was bouncing on all the mattresses.  

Memory foam has zero rebound.  It's dead.  You have to work twice as hard.  Worse, the more weight in a spot, the deeper you sink.  So when you have double the weight in a spot, the sinkage on the bottom is extreme, and it becomes difficult to move at all.  Certainly any quick side-to-side movement is impossible.  Also, body heat softens the foam, so the more interesting things get, the deeper you sink.

What amazes me is that although they've been around for years, we are only now hearing those complaints, and only verbally, on TV talk shows, or in conversation, or at group dinners.  You read reviews online or in ratings magazines, and no one ever mentions that little problem.

Why?  Have people forgotten how springs feel?

("Sleep like the dead", eh?  Who wants to make love like the dead?)

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3559 Get off my lawn! #3

Sunday, July 1, 2012

"There's no sense beating a dead horse.  But if you've reached the point where you even seriously consider that abusing a dead animal might improve your lot in life, I say go ahead and give it a shot."

-- Anthony Myers --

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Thursday, at the country house, I was debating staying another night, and then visiting someplace nice on Friday morning.  Like maybe go to Poet's Walk, or to the Rhinecliff Hotel to have breakfast on the patio and watch the ships on the Hudson, or to the Ulster Town Park to dabble in the water and feed the fish, or to North and South Lakes and check out the view over the escarpment, or to Rhinebeck to do some window shopping, or to visit any of a dozen waterfalls, or to climb the tower at Mohonk (there's a picture here, for more search for "Mohonk Fire Tower"), or I could even wander around Woodstock, get a tarot reading, buy some special incense.

I ultimately decided not to stay another night, but thinking about all the places I missed made me realize that here, at the city house, there's no place around here that I want to go.  There are a few quaint places, but they're crowded and difficult to get to.  There's the shore, and beaches, but they are crowded and too developed.  There are wooded parks, but they are too tamed and manicured and lifeless.  Nothing I've found around here so far is soothing to the soul.

At the country house, even the simple drive to interesting places is beautiful and relaxing. Not so, here.  Even if you find a wonderful spot, by the time you've fought traffic to get there and find a safe place to leave the car, you're ready to bite the head off any (obviously lost) rabbit that crosses your path.
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3558 Get off my lawn! #2

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Given that on the internet you can be anything you want,

it's strange that so many people choose to be stupid.

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I don't understand English.  Lie, lies, lied.  So far, so good.  But one who lies is a liar.  Why not lier?  Where'd that "a" come from?


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The city of Kingston, NY, looks pretty sad.  (Well, to be technical, it's not Kingston, it's Ulster.)  Piper had told me that a lot of businesses were failing, and the number of jumpers off the bridges and other suicides had skyrocketed.  I don't know that for a fact, that's just what he said. 

Anyway, I went to the big local shopping strip, you know, Talbots, Coldwater Creek, Pier 1, a bunch of big box and chain craft, furniture, food, book, hardware, etc. stores along the highway, where everyone for a 30-mile radius shops, on Wednesday about 3 pm, looking for fans.

The parking lots everywhere were practically empty.  The few people I saw in the lots and stores were ancient.  Ancient enough that they were all bent over and moving very slowly.  Where was everyone else?  Not shopping, that's for sure.

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Remember when I said back during the Egyptian uprising that I was suspicious of the "help" of the Egyptian army?

Uh huh.  I told you so.

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The Republican party will have their convention in Florida.  They have banned water pistols, paintball guns, anything that will shoot liquids regardless of their degree of similarity to real guns, on the streets anywhere within x distance of the hall.

Um, they have not banned REAL guns, concealed or otherwise.  Details here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/water-guns-banned-handguns-allowed-at-gop-convention/

Duh?  I guess it makes as much sense as anything else these days.

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The Chinese seem to be mostly very sensible people.  But they screwed up royally with the "one child per couple" policy.  Yeah, it did what it was supposed to do to slow explosive population growth.  But now the chickens are coming home to roost.  The parents under that policy are getting older.  It is traditional that the children support the parents in their old age.  With five children, each adult child shouldered 1/5 of the burden.  But now each young couple has four elderly people to support, all by themselves, and they're having difficulty doing it.

Somebody didn't think ahead.

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I rarely watch team sports on TV.  Baseball was on in the background the other day.  I walked past, noticed, stopped, and watched for a while.  Huh?  I thought about that for a minute.  Why am I watching this?

The behinds.  Baseball players have pretty behinds.  I was watching their behinds, not the game.
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