Thoughts on the word MUG
As I was falling asleep the other night I began to consider the word mug. A strange word as if you really think about it, it can only be defined by context, yet it can exist in so many contexts to begin with. There is the quantity that can be held in a mug, a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of, part of the human face (`kisser' and `smiler' and `mug' are informal terms for `face' and `phiz' is British). It is a large cup with handle and usually cylindrical in shape. As an act, vis, to rob at gunpoint or with the threat of violence or to make faces at a camera. It can also be a term of endearment.
Consider this:
A mug with a mug mugged me. He hit me in the mug as he mugged for the security cameras, but the cop who saw it knew the mugs mug.
And there you have it, 7 mugs and we are still upright.
Make that 8.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Saturday, December 10, 2005
from Star Trek to Star Wars
By way of Kari's Journal
What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
Your Lightsaber is BlueBlue is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, and truth.
Take this quiz!
What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
Your Lightsaber is BlueBlue is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, and truth.
Take this quiz!
Thursday, December 8, 2005
A Star Trek Testing Type Thingy
A long time ago I was a player on the Original Star Trek Moo. I played a Tal Shiar Officer. It was interesting since you had to advance through the ranks by testing or direct promotion. Once you can get not 1 but 2 Starfleet Admirals to defect as an act of conscience, you have a tendency to move up rather quick *wink wink* Some of the tests notes about the Romulans (or more correctly the Rhiannsu) are not exactly right, but oh well.
| Romulan You scored 46 % Aggressivness, 53 % Technology, and 33 % Social Enlightenment! | ||||||||||||
| Homeworld: Romulus Distantly related to the Vulcans, the Romulan people are a secretive and arrogant race. They have advanced technology and usually claim to have invented every technological breakthrough before any other culture. Romulans rarely attack first, preferring instead for someone else to make the first move. Once attacked, however, they make a formidable enemy. Although a moral people, Romulans still believe in abandoning genetically or physically inferior infants. Most Romulans also greatly fear the Tal Shiar, the Romulan's own military service - most have horror stories about their treatment at the hands of this secret service. As a Romulan, you can be quite ruthless and difficult to get to know. You have a definite sense of right and wrong, which can make you quite small-minded and resistant to other opinions. You greatly value knowledge - not so much for its own sake, but for the power it gives you. You are a great believer of knowledge equaling power and you're not above blackmailing people to get your own way, if necessary. Your one saving grace is that you're not a naturally aggressive person and you do not needlessly put yourself in dangerous situations - you're too smart for that. Even though you would make a fierce opponent, it would take a lot for someone to make you an enemy. This also makes you extremely dangerous, as many tend to underestimate your ability. < | ||||||||||||
My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Which Star Trek Species R U Test written by MadameBoffin on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Fear of a white page
Many are those who advise on writing in any style. They give sage advice on the construction of prose beautiful and words dramatic. They inform of correct form and of function. They wield the red pens of spelling doom. They impart wisdom such as "Just write."
To those wised ones of literary Olympus I have two words: "Fuck You".
I wish I had a penny for every page of Microsoft Word I had opened and closed without one word being typed on it. Long are the total hours of frustration while it was just me staring at the white page. I offed that little paperclip prick a long time ago. I hate smartasses that don't know anything useful. I cannot abide useless people, even digital ones. Some of us must be inspired. Sorry, but that is the truth. I do not feel alone in this as I have historical precedent to back me up. One must be in thrall of the Muse some times to allow the words to flow. Other times we suffer the pains of mental constipation. Ideas and words wanting to move, yet being blocked by so much shit. Sometimes it is our fatal enemy distraction that drives the words back into our mists of thought. Just a quick email check, I'll just follow this one link, I'll just check on thusandsuch. Boom, idea dead gone, compost.
Sometimes the thought has yet to become firm, like some half set room temperature jello. It kind of wiggles and is kind of soupy at the same time. Words, not full sentences. Thoughts without that something. Incomplete ideas.
I ask myself questions like why do I write. I come up with many answers. I look at them harshly and throw many of them away as being convenient or just trite. I write to share. Not just stories but ideas and concepts. I want to make people blow milk out of their nose or noodles if milk is unavailable. I hope to make us look at each other and laugh a little bit and then laugh at ourselves even more. With laughter comes happiness and with that comes wisdom and enlightenment. I learned to tell stories from my family. We have a long tradition of storytelling and general bull ability. I think it is genetic. If you doubt that ask my friends who have met my Father and or my Grandmother. They can tell you honestly.
It's not my fault, I was born like this.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
To those wised ones of literary Olympus I have two words: "Fuck You".
I wish I had a penny for every page of Microsoft Word I had opened and closed without one word being typed on it. Long are the total hours of frustration while it was just me staring at the white page. I offed that little paperclip prick a long time ago. I hate smartasses that don't know anything useful. I cannot abide useless people, even digital ones. Some of us must be inspired. Sorry, but that is the truth. I do not feel alone in this as I have historical precedent to back me up. One must be in thrall of the Muse some times to allow the words to flow. Other times we suffer the pains of mental constipation. Ideas and words wanting to move, yet being blocked by so much shit. Sometimes it is our fatal enemy distraction that drives the words back into our mists of thought. Just a quick email check, I'll just follow this one link, I'll just check on thusandsuch. Boom, idea dead gone, compost.
Sometimes the thought has yet to become firm, like some half set room temperature jello. It kind of wiggles and is kind of soupy at the same time. Words, not full sentences. Thoughts without that something. Incomplete ideas.
I ask myself questions like why do I write. I come up with many answers. I look at them harshly and throw many of them away as being convenient or just trite. I write to share. Not just stories but ideas and concepts. I want to make people blow milk out of their nose or noodles if milk is unavailable. I hope to make us look at each other and laugh a little bit and then laugh at ourselves even more. With laughter comes happiness and with that comes wisdom and enlightenment. I learned to tell stories from my family. We have a long tradition of storytelling and general bull ability. I think it is genetic. If you doubt that ask my friends who have met my Father and or my Grandmother. They can tell you honestly.
It's not my fault, I was born like this.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Holiday drift
Holiday drift
Happy Turducken Day.
If your confused about the well wishes, just wait. It gets worse.
I was reading in my friend Barbara's Blog "Tigers and Strawberries" (Look over to the right, she has one of the honored and available for the right bribe coveted perm-a-links)about food magazines. She referred to a group of people known as "Foodies". Sometimes they come off like Fundies, but at least they will feed you much better than a fundie. Still I digress yet again. The subject was food magazines and how "Foodies" have favorites and ones they revile as crap. So, I started to consider, with my love of food and cooking; dare I ask the question "Am I a Foodie?"
I considered the question carefully. I am not a rabid follower of any cooking school or dogma. I create and I eat. I learn from others and not so much from books. I enjoy leading in the kitchen as well as following. I subscribe to no cooking magazines. I may look at a cover when I walk by, usually in the same way one looks at an accident as you drive by, even if you really do not want to. I do not find garnish to be a necessity. Yet in many senses of the word I would say I am a foodie (notice the change in capitalization?) but not a Foodie. I consider myself more like the wandering cook, wok strapped across his back with a sign that says "WILL COOK FOR RECIPIES".I prefer trying to get to the heart of a dish, not seeing what I can make with special expensive equipment. Good wok, good knife, good food. I find this more of a path inline with my nature as I seem to have problems with organized anything. Usually involves too many people saying and not enough doings. There must be doings!
Today is Thanksgiving, the incredible mutant holiday.
What you say? Someone sent us up the cranberries?
Look, at one time to have anything but turkey on thanksgiving was basically a stoning offence and do not mean Jay and Silent Bob style either. Woo Hoo, suff dat messed up steroid shootin chicken with da cronic! Catch a buz and feed the munchies at the same time, BONG!
So anyway, then the thanksgiving goose crept in slowly and was accepted. Then the venerable cured ham, provided it was wearing a pineapple hat. I think Dole is behind this one, I remember one year they suggested putting pineapple in a turkey. It didn't catch on so they went for the pig; you know all ethnic Hawaiian and stuff. Okay so now we have turkey, goose, and then ham. Not too odd, but again they were not done. Some cracker came up with the idea of cooking the turkey in a peanut oil fryer. Next year, they shove a can of beer into the poor birds nether regions and cook it. Okay, people with way too much time on their hands. Then it comes, unleashed upon America and then the world: The Turducken.
See it works something like this: take a boneless turkey, a boneless duck and a boneless chicken. Then stuff the chicken into the duck and then the two of them into the turkey. Tur-Duck-En, get it?
So here is where I begin to have problems. First of all what type of sick wierdo says "Hey, lets stuff a chicken up a ducks ass! Yea! And then we can stuff that up the ass of a turkey! Groovy!" Food should never seem to be the result of a bizare tractor trailer accident. Be thankful there was not an ostrich anywhere around when this got started. I am also excited at the exclusion of a hamster from this list.
See, this is a prime example why to not do drugs. I have yet to see anyone take a boneless goat, stuff it into a boneless pig and shove that up the backside of a boneless cow. I think there would be some serious repercussions from not only the pork lobby but remember that the majority of the beef ranchers are well armed. The reason I think there has not been a larger public outcry over this is no one knows where all these boneless animals are raised nor who is responsible for engineering
them in the first place. I mean who come out and says, "Yes, I am a boneless chicken rancher. No, we don't use horses to wrangle them, we use a Zamboni. It is much simpler..."
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Happy Turducken Day.
If your confused about the well wishes, just wait. It gets worse.
I was reading in my friend Barbara's Blog "Tigers and Strawberries" (Look over to the right, she has one of the honored and available for the right bribe coveted perm-a-links)about food magazines. She referred to a group of people known as "Foodies". Sometimes they come off like Fundies, but at least they will feed you much better than a fundie. Still I digress yet again. The subject was food magazines and how "Foodies" have favorites and ones they revile as crap. So, I started to consider, with my love of food and cooking; dare I ask the question "Am I a Foodie?"
I considered the question carefully. I am not a rabid follower of any cooking school or dogma. I create and I eat. I learn from others and not so much from books. I enjoy leading in the kitchen as well as following. I subscribe to no cooking magazines. I may look at a cover when I walk by, usually in the same way one looks at an accident as you drive by, even if you really do not want to. I do not find garnish to be a necessity. Yet in many senses of the word I would say I am a foodie (notice the change in capitalization?) but not a Foodie. I consider myself more like the wandering cook, wok strapped across his back with a sign that says "WILL COOK FOR RECIPIES".I prefer trying to get to the heart of a dish, not seeing what I can make with special expensive equipment. Good wok, good knife, good food. I find this more of a path inline with my nature as I seem to have problems with organized anything. Usually involves too many people saying and not enough doings. There must be doings!
Today is Thanksgiving, the incredible mutant holiday.
What you say? Someone sent us up the cranberries?
Look, at one time to have anything but turkey on thanksgiving was basically a stoning offence and do not mean Jay and Silent Bob style either. Woo Hoo, suff dat messed up steroid shootin chicken with da cronic! Catch a buz and feed the munchies at the same time, BONG!
So anyway, then the thanksgiving goose crept in slowly and was accepted. Then the venerable cured ham, provided it was wearing a pineapple hat. I think Dole is behind this one, I remember one year they suggested putting pineapple in a turkey. It didn't catch on so they went for the pig; you know all ethnic Hawaiian and stuff. Okay so now we have turkey, goose, and then ham. Not too odd, but again they were not done. Some cracker came up with the idea of cooking the turkey in a peanut oil fryer. Next year, they shove a can of beer into the poor birds nether regions and cook it. Okay, people with way too much time on their hands. Then it comes, unleashed upon America and then the world: The Turducken.
See it works something like this: take a boneless turkey, a boneless duck and a boneless chicken. Then stuff the chicken into the duck and then the two of them into the turkey. Tur-Duck-En, get it?
So here is where I begin to have problems. First of all what type of sick wierdo says "Hey, lets stuff a chicken up a ducks ass! Yea! And then we can stuff that up the ass of a turkey! Groovy!" Food should never seem to be the result of a bizare tractor trailer accident. Be thankful there was not an ostrich anywhere around when this got started. I am also excited at the exclusion of a hamster from this list.
See, this is a prime example why to not do drugs. I have yet to see anyone take a boneless goat, stuff it into a boneless pig and shove that up the backside of a boneless cow. I think there would be some serious repercussions from not only the pork lobby but remember that the majority of the beef ranchers are well armed. The reason I think there has not been a larger public outcry over this is no one knows where all these boneless animals are raised nor who is responsible for engineering
them in the first place. I mean who come out and says, "Yes, I am a boneless chicken rancher. No, we don't use horses to wrangle them, we use a Zamboni. It is much simpler..."
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Monday, November 7, 2005
10,000 page views
WOW!
Ten Thousand. Wicked!
So either I have offended 10,000 people, or 10 people 1000 times or 100 people 100 times or 1000 people 10 times or just 1 person 10,000 times.
Anyway you look at it 2 things are true:
1) 10,000 page views is nothing too shabby
2) Somewhere someone is pissed off by this blog.
I feel my work here is done today :)
Ten Thousand. Wicked!
So either I have offended 10,000 people, or 10 people 1000 times or 100 people 100 times or 1000 people 10 times or just 1 person 10,000 times.
Anyway you look at it 2 things are true:
1) 10,000 page views is nothing too shabby
2) Somewhere someone is pissed off by this blog.
I feel my work here is done today :)
Saturday, November 5, 2005
Hello, dis is Muttley
I thought someone aught to put me in their blogs so I did it myself since Bryian aint posted in a month. He got all depresseded about the end of Robbins Crossing so I have been havin to wrestle with him on a regular basis to keep him movin.
A little about me:
I served a short sentence at the Athens County Dog Shelter. Bryian and Judi talked to the dog warden and got me paroled. I paid my debt to society so I am moving on with my life.
I try to help around the house as well as I can by being the trained alarm clock, cat gasser, couch anchor, lap warmer and litter box cleaner. The last one they say makes my breath bad but the dont seem to notice their own when they wake up. Whew! What do dem humans eat?
Anyway Bryian says I am partially for home security since I am at least part Rottwiler. Hey, aint dat racial profiling? He says I am also part cinderblock and that is where I get my stunning intelligence. I am about 30 pounds and growing. I am also about a year old. I like linux over windows. BSD to be exact, you know, brown snouted dog.
I like walks with Bryian and Judi when they have time and I love rawhide and cheese. But not together, I like cheese...ohh..cheese.
If you would like to send donations of cheese to me just give it to Bryian and Judi. I have them trained well enough now to bring all cheese to me. I do tricks for cheese. I sit up, stand and lay down for cheese. I also do impressions of the killer sharks at Sea World sometimes, snatching cheese from unwary finger. One the smell of curd gets in the air I sometimes go into a feeding frenzy, but am usually okay after the first few pieces.
Anyway, I am going to go snoot Bryian and see if he will do anything today. He already went for his bike ride, so maybe it is nap time.
Hope to meet you all soon,
Bring me cheese
Muttley
Friday, September 16, 2005
Insurance companies, got to loathe them!
This is clipped from an actual disclaimer for life insurance, I kid you not!
Exclusions and Limitations
A critical illness benefit will not be paid for any loss caused directly or
indirectly by:
/*Other fairly resonable stuff snipped out for brevity*/
>>>>> * Engaging in hazardous activities such as but not limited to
skydiving, hang gliding, auto racing, dirt bike riding, mountain climbing,
Russian roulette, autoerotic asphyxiation, bungee jumping or using off-road
vehicles.
No single one of these acts is covered, but it says nothing about these
acts in combination.
Think about it; you know you want to.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Exclusions and Limitations
A critical illness benefit will not be paid for any loss caused directly or
indirectly by:
/*Other fairly resonable stuff snipped out for brevity*/
>>>>> * Engaging in hazardous activities such as but not limited to
skydiving, hang gliding, auto racing, dirt bike riding, mountain climbing,
Russian roulette, autoerotic asphyxiation, bungee jumping or using off-road
vehicles.
No single one of these acts is covered, but it says nothing about these
acts in combination.
Think about it; you know you want to.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Monday, September 5, 2005
Man, what a rant
First off Happy Labor Day!
ALL PRAISE AND HAPPYNESS TO THE WORKERS!
Okay, so there was the “happy” bit. Now for the bit that will most likely piss off people. Let me start with if you think that your one of those people who is likely to get pissed at what I may prefix with a warning, you may be right. Thanks for stopping by, check in later for a new update. You will be happier, trust me.
If you feel you want to be argumentative with me about what I am going to write or try to “correct” me, please take this time to go someplace else. I got a good head of steam worked up and a first class case of pissed off going on. I will eventually settle down but it may be in the majorities’ interest not to discuss this with me unless your willing to take the brunt of the possible backlash. Do not confuse what I am going to write with a discussion. There will be no question and answer session afterwards nor is there a Cliff Notes version available. Remember, you were warned. Turn back now, bridge out. No exits back onto the highway. No Outlet, no detour. Do not immerse in water, may cause cancer in lab rats. May interact with other medications; ask your Doctor or Pharmacist for more information.
You have been warned!
What the hell is going on with what seems to be a large amount of people suffering with a bad case of head up their ass????? Let me share a few examples.
Let’s start with Gasoline and the stupidest quotes:
“Oh, it is just getting in line with Europe. They pay $6.00 a gallon there...”
Yea, they do. Big fuckin deal. They eat snails and piss in the streets as well. They are also collectively not on the top 10 producers of oil in the free world. Free clue here: Ever wonder why so many Saudis are so rich? They get paid a share of the oil revenues that are generated from the natural resources of their country, but in the US the corporations do not have to do that, even when drilling on public lands. Here is a little more free information for you, did you know that there have been NO (that is ZERO, NADA, NIENTE, NIL) refineries built in the US in 30 years. So what we have is a system using processing infrastructure that has not grown to meet the production needs of the country. Here is a system that stopped growing in the 1970’s. Remember the 70’s and the whole gas shortage? How about this: it is a huge lie! A synthetic deficit to help drive up prices. If you price out a barrel of crude with all the transportation costs AND a 20% markup, guess what, it costs between $7.00 to $10.00 a barrel, not $70.00. Force the corporations to balance the system out. Show us where the money is going. Screw this different gas blend for every fucking state in the union and the summer & winter bends. We need gas, plain old simple gas. Just because something happens in Europe doesn’t mean it has to happen here. Hello! Many of our ancestors fled Europe for one simple reason: IT SUCKED! Let us not bring the Euro-suckyness here. If you like the idea so much, MOVE. Look, I have friends who are European, so it is not that I hate Euros. But then again, just cause I like Mickey Mouse doesn’t mean I want to live at Disneyland. Visit maybe, but not live there.
“It is because of the hurricane that prices are rising.”
Nope, wrong. It is because of oil speculators and bastard profiteers that the price is rising. The gas at the pumps today came out of the ground about 2 months ago. It is a really stupid way of making money, but it has made many people millionaires. Another reason for the prices rising is the Federal Government has done little to nothing in a timely manner to help stem the tide of these people who try to profit of the misery of others. We get a little upset at a 10-cent jump in prices, while in some markets like Atlanta, the price skyrocketed to almost $6.00 a gallon. I hope the bastard who did that burn in a very special hell for trying to squeeze refugees of what little money they had as they try to flee to family and friends. Yes, a special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in movie theaters. Hey Mr. President (aka Fuck-knob), how about a national price freeze to pre-hurricane prices for oil. Oh, I forgot, you own oil wells too. Sorry thought you were actually interested in helping.
“Higher prices are good as they will help spur investment in alternative energy..”
Excuse me? Right, and Elvis will help you plan out your financial future. All higher prices will do is help create a bigger gap between the haves and the “have-nots”. There are already people who are quitting their jobs because they cannot afford to go to work. Would you be willing to work 6 hours out of an 8-hour day just to pay for the gas to get to your job? Watch the welfare rolls and the unemployment numbers. Higher prices mean fewer people who can afford to work and consequently the prices for any transported good becomes higher. True, eventually there will be a point of equilibrium, but when we reach it how many will be left behind? Fewer working people means lower tax revenue and therefore smaller tax bases for cities, counties and states to use to provide public services. So, to make up for it they raise taxes and cut services. If you work, you start to pay a larger share of your paycheck out every month. And what your see/get for it is less and less. Screw higher prices.
Okay, let us move forward onto more social commentary. I just feel like getting on the giant soapbox and screaming at these people “What the fuck are you doing?!?!?!?” I feel a sense of frustration that I have not had in years. And you know what? It pisses me off.
Now I look at the news and say “What planet are these assholes from?” Yes, our fearless leader Fuck-knob and his ass-puppets. Sounds like a bad ska-punk band “Fuck-knob and The Ass Puppets.” Excuse me, bouquet of hand-grenades for the band, compliments of the audience.
“Well, they should have left when they ordered the evacuations, so it is their own fault.”
Okay, lets lay down some simple logic here. You are with this statement blaming the victims. Um, err…how the hell do you respond to such bullshit? I do know the source of a lot of this and here is another one of the “piss-people-off-warnings”.
It seems that a member of our government made this statement; a member of “Homeland Security”; a dammed Yankee. Now hold on and hear me out. I do not feel it was totally his fault. He more than likely went to good northern schools and very nice northern colleges. He had a nice simple and well-funded northern childhood with his nice well-dressed and properly educated private school friends. Can’t blame him for being born into money. I can blame him for being a dammed idiot.
See it is like this, and I will try to explain to my northern born and raised friends so you can understand. You see, for many, the war never ended because the original questions were never answered. It was not about slavery until the North made it such an issue. That part is over and done with, let it lay. Slavery happened, right or wrong, and now there is no slavery. Many southerners did not own slaves. A surprising amount of them disliked the idea of slaves as it took away jobs poor folk could be paid to do. The main issues had to do with states rights and the ability for self-determination. Southerners like to think for themselves. We rely on our good judgment and then we deal with the actions afterwards. Perhaps I should clarify a little. You see what I am speaking about is probably best described as a “Neo-Southerner”. Someone who maintains certain positive southern values but leaves behind the bigotry of the past that is based on race or religion.
Let me give you a little example:
I was living in Mobile Alabama for a little while. One day I stopped to help an older black man who had broken down along side the road. He was quite appreciative of the help and insisted I come to his home for dinner. I tried to politely refuse (as is the custom) but he insisted and said he would be “downright hurt” (translation: mortally offended) if I did not come to dinner so I could be thanked properly. So, I went. His wife made us cornbread and soup beans and fried potatoes. To many this does not sound like anything all that spectacular, but this is all they had, and they were insistent and proud to be able to share it as a thank you. Situations like this test a man and his ability to keep his composure, as the sight of it was enough to make one cry. I had dinner and stayed for chicory coffee, then said my goodbyes, never to see them again. Such is life in the real south, not the impression from the movies many like to think they know. See, this line of thinking is different for those of us who were southern raised and educated. Our world is different and we view the world that way. We would never have blamed the old man by saying “Well, if you were not driving you would never had broken down.” That is just to us silly and dammed rude.
“Well, they got what they deserved by building there in the first place.”
Okay, try this. Mosey down to the Hocking River (For those of you that are in Athens) and wade out to the middle, where it gets about ankle deep. Now, look around. This was once a navigable river with SHIPPING TRAFFIC, as in BIG BOATS carrying TONS OF CARGO.
To steal a quote from Dune “So how can this be?”
Simple, The Army Corps of Engineers. See some brilliant person thought to outsmart nature and reroute the river down a concrete sluice. The same type of brilliant planning that is silting out the Delta. See, New Orleans was not sub sea level when it was built, but the river kept rising so the levees kept getting higher to keep it in its banks and keep the old town dry. Top this with the feds cutting funding to help maintain the levees that are there because of the federal government projects up north. Can we see a trend here in things? Now you maybe can understand why New Orleans is where it is in the shape it is in.
Look I could go on for a lot longer and perhaps later I will. Right now, I’ll leave you with a little something so you might get a better glimpse of a few things in my head.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html
Now, they are saying 2 New Orleans police officers have committed suicide after working this entire time. It was just too much for them. I hope whatever god they believe in gives them the rest and peace they have earned. Soon, rescue efforts will turn to recovery. For some, there will never be recovery or closure. Then comes the part that few have even considered: The Retribution. Heads will be called for on pikes. Fingers will begin to be pointed. For the sake of the Union as it stands, let us hope that the kinder side of southern sensibility wins out. If not, I hate to speculate what may happen.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
ALL PRAISE AND HAPPYNESS TO THE WORKERS!
Okay, so there was the “happy” bit. Now for the bit that will most likely piss off people. Let me start with if you think that your one of those people who is likely to get pissed at what I may prefix with a warning, you may be right. Thanks for stopping by, check in later for a new update. You will be happier, trust me.
If you feel you want to be argumentative with me about what I am going to write or try to “correct” me, please take this time to go someplace else. I got a good head of steam worked up and a first class case of pissed off going on. I will eventually settle down but it may be in the majorities’ interest not to discuss this with me unless your willing to take the brunt of the possible backlash. Do not confuse what I am going to write with a discussion. There will be no question and answer session afterwards nor is there a Cliff Notes version available. Remember, you were warned. Turn back now, bridge out. No exits back onto the highway. No Outlet, no detour. Do not immerse in water, may cause cancer in lab rats. May interact with other medications; ask your Doctor or Pharmacist for more information.
You have been warned!
What the hell is going on with what seems to be a large amount of people suffering with a bad case of head up their ass????? Let me share a few examples.
Let’s start with Gasoline and the stupidest quotes:
“Oh, it is just getting in line with Europe. They pay $6.00 a gallon there...”
Yea, they do. Big fuckin deal. They eat snails and piss in the streets as well. They are also collectively not on the top 10 producers of oil in the free world. Free clue here: Ever wonder why so many Saudis are so rich? They get paid a share of the oil revenues that are generated from the natural resources of their country, but in the US the corporations do not have to do that, even when drilling on public lands. Here is a little more free information for you, did you know that there have been NO (that is ZERO, NADA, NIENTE, NIL) refineries built in the US in 30 years. So what we have is a system using processing infrastructure that has not grown to meet the production needs of the country. Here is a system that stopped growing in the 1970’s. Remember the 70’s and the whole gas shortage? How about this: it is a huge lie! A synthetic deficit to help drive up prices. If you price out a barrel of crude with all the transportation costs AND a 20% markup, guess what, it costs between $7.00 to $10.00 a barrel, not $70.00. Force the corporations to balance the system out. Show us where the money is going. Screw this different gas blend for every fucking state in the union and the summer & winter bends. We need gas, plain old simple gas. Just because something happens in Europe doesn’t mean it has to happen here. Hello! Many of our ancestors fled Europe for one simple reason: IT SUCKED! Let us not bring the Euro-suckyness here. If you like the idea so much, MOVE. Look, I have friends who are European, so it is not that I hate Euros. But then again, just cause I like Mickey Mouse doesn’t mean I want to live at Disneyland. Visit maybe, but not live there.
“It is because of the hurricane that prices are rising.”
Nope, wrong. It is because of oil speculators and bastard profiteers that the price is rising. The gas at the pumps today came out of the ground about 2 months ago. It is a really stupid way of making money, but it has made many people millionaires. Another reason for the prices rising is the Federal Government has done little to nothing in a timely manner to help stem the tide of these people who try to profit of the misery of others. We get a little upset at a 10-cent jump in prices, while in some markets like Atlanta, the price skyrocketed to almost $6.00 a gallon. I hope the bastard who did that burn in a very special hell for trying to squeeze refugees of what little money they had as they try to flee to family and friends. Yes, a special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in movie theaters. Hey Mr. President (aka Fuck-knob), how about a national price freeze to pre-hurricane prices for oil. Oh, I forgot, you own oil wells too. Sorry thought you were actually interested in helping.
“Higher prices are good as they will help spur investment in alternative energy..”
Excuse me? Right, and Elvis will help you plan out your financial future. All higher prices will do is help create a bigger gap between the haves and the “have-nots”. There are already people who are quitting their jobs because they cannot afford to go to work. Would you be willing to work 6 hours out of an 8-hour day just to pay for the gas to get to your job? Watch the welfare rolls and the unemployment numbers. Higher prices mean fewer people who can afford to work and consequently the prices for any transported good becomes higher. True, eventually there will be a point of equilibrium, but when we reach it how many will be left behind? Fewer working people means lower tax revenue and therefore smaller tax bases for cities, counties and states to use to provide public services. So, to make up for it they raise taxes and cut services. If you work, you start to pay a larger share of your paycheck out every month. And what your see/get for it is less and less. Screw higher prices.
Okay, let us move forward onto more social commentary. I just feel like getting on the giant soapbox and screaming at these people “What the fuck are you doing?!?!?!?” I feel a sense of frustration that I have not had in years. And you know what? It pisses me off.
Now I look at the news and say “What planet are these assholes from?” Yes, our fearless leader Fuck-knob and his ass-puppets. Sounds like a bad ska-punk band “Fuck-knob and The Ass Puppets.” Excuse me, bouquet of hand-grenades for the band, compliments of the audience.
“Well, they should have left when they ordered the evacuations, so it is their own fault.”
Okay, lets lay down some simple logic here. You are with this statement blaming the victims. Um, err…how the hell do you respond to such bullshit? I do know the source of a lot of this and here is another one of the “piss-people-off-warnings”.
It seems that a member of our government made this statement; a member of “Homeland Security”; a dammed Yankee. Now hold on and hear me out. I do not feel it was totally his fault. He more than likely went to good northern schools and very nice northern colleges. He had a nice simple and well-funded northern childhood with his nice well-dressed and properly educated private school friends. Can’t blame him for being born into money. I can blame him for being a dammed idiot.
See it is like this, and I will try to explain to my northern born and raised friends so you can understand. You see, for many, the war never ended because the original questions were never answered. It was not about slavery until the North made it such an issue. That part is over and done with, let it lay. Slavery happened, right or wrong, and now there is no slavery. Many southerners did not own slaves. A surprising amount of them disliked the idea of slaves as it took away jobs poor folk could be paid to do. The main issues had to do with states rights and the ability for self-determination. Southerners like to think for themselves. We rely on our good judgment and then we deal with the actions afterwards. Perhaps I should clarify a little. You see what I am speaking about is probably best described as a “Neo-Southerner”. Someone who maintains certain positive southern values but leaves behind the bigotry of the past that is based on race or religion.
Let me give you a little example:
I was living in Mobile Alabama for a little while. One day I stopped to help an older black man who had broken down along side the road. He was quite appreciative of the help and insisted I come to his home for dinner. I tried to politely refuse (as is the custom) but he insisted and said he would be “downright hurt” (translation: mortally offended) if I did not come to dinner so I could be thanked properly. So, I went. His wife made us cornbread and soup beans and fried potatoes. To many this does not sound like anything all that spectacular, but this is all they had, and they were insistent and proud to be able to share it as a thank you. Situations like this test a man and his ability to keep his composure, as the sight of it was enough to make one cry. I had dinner and stayed for chicory coffee, then said my goodbyes, never to see them again. Such is life in the real south, not the impression from the movies many like to think they know. See, this line of thinking is different for those of us who were southern raised and educated. Our world is different and we view the world that way. We would never have blamed the old man by saying “Well, if you were not driving you would never had broken down.” That is just to us silly and dammed rude.
“Well, they got what they deserved by building there in the first place.”
Okay, try this. Mosey down to the Hocking River (For those of you that are in Athens) and wade out to the middle, where it gets about ankle deep. Now, look around. This was once a navigable river with SHIPPING TRAFFIC, as in BIG BOATS carrying TONS OF CARGO.
To steal a quote from Dune “So how can this be?”
Simple, The Army Corps of Engineers. See some brilliant person thought to outsmart nature and reroute the river down a concrete sluice. The same type of brilliant planning that is silting out the Delta. See, New Orleans was not sub sea level when it was built, but the river kept rising so the levees kept getting higher to keep it in its banks and keep the old town dry. Top this with the feds cutting funding to help maintain the levees that are there because of the federal government projects up north. Can we see a trend here in things? Now you maybe can understand why New Orleans is where it is in the shape it is in.
Look I could go on for a lot longer and perhaps later I will. Right now, I’ll leave you with a little something so you might get a better glimpse of a few things in my head.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html
Now, they are saying 2 New Orleans police officers have committed suicide after working this entire time. It was just too much for them. I hope whatever god they believe in gives them the rest and peace they have earned. Soon, rescue efforts will turn to recovery. For some, there will never be recovery or closure. Then comes the part that few have even considered: The Retribution. Heads will be called for on pikes. Fingers will begin to be pointed. For the sake of the Union as it stands, let us hope that the kinder side of southern sensibility wins out. If not, I hate to speculate what may happen.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
Friday, September 2, 2005
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Woo Hoo! Extra medication for everyone!
| You Are 70% Weird |
 You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right? But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks! |
Monday, August 29, 2005
From The Rabid Blond herself....
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123 (assuming you're at the reading level where books you read have both words AND a page 123).
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
"According to legend, this is one of the oldest sacred sites of Buddhism, but it was raised to its present height in the 15th century."
(Talking about Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon, Burma)
From "The World of Buddhism"
Well, at least it is an update of sorts.....
2. Open the book to page 123 (assuming you're at the reading level where books you read have both words AND a page 123).
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
"According to legend, this is one of the oldest sacred sites of Buddhism, but it was raised to its present height in the 15th century."
(Talking about Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon, Burma)
From "The World of Buddhism"
Well, at least it is an update of sorts.....
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Where oh where have our updates gone?
Okay, so let me see if I can squeeze all this into a single update and somehow make it make sense.
So lets start with one of the biggies: I quit smoking. After 22 years, I finally did it. 5 weeks now. When people find out they seem to act like I had just somehow walked
on the moon. The Doctor says quit or die. What do you think I am going to do? So, I quit. Got a lot easier when it suddenly dawned on me “Hey, tough guy, you going to let your life be snuffed out by a plant?” It is easier to do when you put
it in perspective.
Other than that it has mostly been work except for the bike getting messed up. I can not post more about that here till the insurance company says I can. I can’t say the City of Athens gets the shoddiest work done by the lowest contractor to redo city streets. Nor can I mention how our upper echelon city people all drive overpriced gas sucking SUV’s, but our streets cannot support the weight of a motorcycle. I cannot say anything about being blown off by the city workers involved with the insurance, nor can I state that the insurance company, which my hard earned taxes pay for, employs talking infected rectums whose only concern is denying claims without using all the information nor having anything to do with an obscure concept we call –TRUTH-.
I would never comment on such things publicly. I will wait till later when I can express my own opinion more fully with the correct use of expletives.
Now, let me talk about last weekend. We (Judi and I) went with Dan to the Annie Oakley Days in Greenville, Ohio. There we hooked up with the Wild West Arts Club. This has to be one of the largest groups of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells I have ever seen assembled. They welcomed Judi and I with open arms. We fit right in. I have never been made to feel so welcome at any SCA event ever. I think some of the SCAdians with the giant sticks up their peegoos sideways could do well to come down off their high horses and learn from these people how to welcome newcomers. We cracked whips, threw knives and tomahawks, marched in parades, did showoff work for the audiences. It was awesome. The pushed us and they sometimes pushed us hard, but it was only to make us a little bit better than a few minutes before. It wasn’t all about hats, belts, or titles, it was about fun. And it was real fun for everyone. We will be doing this again next year. Lots learned, lots to practice. New friends made and stories to tell.
But those are for some other time. For now, this is all there is here.
Till next time,
Be mindfull and awake.
So lets start with one of the biggies: I quit smoking. After 22 years, I finally did it. 5 weeks now. When people find out they seem to act like I had just somehow walked
on the moon. The Doctor says quit or die. What do you think I am going to do? So, I quit. Got a lot easier when it suddenly dawned on me “Hey, tough guy, you going to let your life be snuffed out by a plant?” It is easier to do when you put
it in perspective.
Other than that it has mostly been work except for the bike getting messed up. I can not post more about that here till the insurance company says I can. I can’t say the City of Athens gets the shoddiest work done by the lowest contractor to redo city streets. Nor can I mention how our upper echelon city people all drive overpriced gas sucking SUV’s, but our streets cannot support the weight of a motorcycle. I cannot say anything about being blown off by the city workers involved with the insurance, nor can I state that the insurance company, which my hard earned taxes pay for, employs talking infected rectums whose only concern is denying claims without using all the information nor having anything to do with an obscure concept we call –TRUTH-.
I would never comment on such things publicly. I will wait till later when I can express my own opinion more fully with the correct use of expletives.
Now, let me talk about last weekend. We (Judi and I) went with Dan to the Annie Oakley Days in Greenville, Ohio. There we hooked up with the Wild West Arts Club. This has to be one of the largest groups of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells I have ever seen assembled. They welcomed Judi and I with open arms. We fit right in. I have never been made to feel so welcome at any SCA event ever. I think some of the SCAdians with the giant sticks up their peegoos sideways could do well to come down off their high horses and learn from these people how to welcome newcomers. We cracked whips, threw knives and tomahawks, marched in parades, did showoff work for the audiences. It was awesome. The pushed us and they sometimes pushed us hard, but it was only to make us a little bit better than a few minutes before. It wasn’t all about hats, belts, or titles, it was about fun. And it was real fun for everyone. We will be doing this again next year. Lots learned, lots to practice. New friends made and stories to tell.
But those are for some other time. For now, this is all there is here.
Till next time,
Be mindfull and awake.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Just a quick update
I loved this!
Check out The Zen of Ben Comic for today.
I can so see myself as one of the incarnations of the Doctor!
Check out The Zen of Ben Comic for today.
I can so see myself as one of the incarnations of the Doctor!
Friday, June 10, 2005
I could not let this one slide.
Fair warning, this is a long rant.
Here is an email I received recently. I took out the name and the addy to protect the innocent...?well, stupid. Please remember these words in the quoted mail are not mine nor do I ascribe to them.
>Hello Cyclone Rangers,
>I am really excited about your work and what you do to
>protect the U.S. and its citizens from those rag
>heads, those moslem terrorists. We will never forget
>the September 11th and we must fight them in their
>lands instead of ours.
>I would like to become a Cyclone Ranger or a Rough
>Riders. So what do you recommend that I do? I live in
>Athens, Ohio and there are many bull shit moslems
>around. I wish I could kill all of them at once.
>Do you have Cyclone Rangers here in Athens, Ohio
>already? How can I contact them so that we can work
>together?
>
>I am waiting for your commands.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Sxxxxx Cxxxx
And now my reply:
Dear S.C.
Terrorists come in many forms, their religious views not withstanding. There are even atheist terrorists. To judge an entire religion by a few misguided zealots is grounds for many problems you do not want. There are many followers of Islam who:
A) Do not condone the actions of these misguided few
B) Are very supportive and caring people who do their best to extol the virtues of kindness and charity, even to those who are not followers of Mohammed.
C) Are not any different than anyone else that you would say is "normal"
Let us for a moment examine a small example you might or might not be familiar with:
Consider a young man who is unemployed and sees his people being mistreated by what he considers an oppressive government. He gathers around him a tightly knit group who believes he is right and has all the answers. Then this person goes off and trashes a local religious edifice; let us say a temple. He then becomes a wanted fugitive for speaking out against the government. Would you call this person a terrorist? Some did.
Others called him Jesus.
Being a terrorist is all a matter of perspective. The founding fathers of the United States were terrorist of their time, if you asked the British. Where do you draw the lines between terrorist and freedom fighter? Is it after the struggle is over? Remember, the victors write history. Perspectives are fluid if they are well thought out and will alter, as more information is available.
You are right, the US will never forget the horrors of September 11th. Your suggestion of fighting terrorists in their land instead of ours is a sound tactic overall. But to carry out such a fight one should apply sound tactics. To quote Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, "?To know the enemy is to know yourself."? You need to understand why these people are terrorists to begin with to stop them. One way of defeating an enemy is to take away his most valuable supply, people. Many people join terrorist groups as a way to try and change the world to fit either more into their view or change their location in a social structure. Nothing recruits them faster then social inequity and poverty. So you want to fight them in their lands? Great! I suggest you start by trying to understand them as people and not as inhuman objects. Many terrorists have the view that the average American is overweight, frivolous, under educated and rich. I will assume you do not fit into such a mold. Again, global affirmatives are globally wrong. Think about it. Terrorists are people so frustrated with their lives that they are looking for someone to blame and then direct that anger at. It happens all the time. History proves me right on this point. Consider Germany post World War One. The economy was in shambles; the German mark was so worthless that people were papering their houses with it. They were starving in one of the most environmentally rich countries in Europe. So who'?s fault was it? Well, there were some who blame the Versailles Treaty and its demands for war reparations. Others blamed Kaiser Wilhelm and his government. Others blamed the Jews. So you can see how that turned out. The National Socialist Party was able to get people angry and then focus that anger on a specific group. Ever seen Nazis and The Talaban together? If you apply simple logic, you can see there is little difference. Evil, in all its forms, begets horrors on those least able to defend themselves.
You asked what you should do. Allow me to give you a few examples that may be of assistance. First, chill out. A calm mind is able to see fact from propaganda. Second, arm yourself with as much information as you can. Learn, read and ask questions. Use reliable sources, not "?he said that she said"?. When we do not ask questions about those things around us we follow blindly down a road to ruin. You need to talk to these people you are afraid of. Sit down with someone and really listen to what they have to say. Give them a fair chance, just like you would want. Almost everyone comes from immigrants in this country, remember that. Find a follower of Islam and ask politely if you could talk with them for a while, that you have some questions and need some answers. Learn not to confuse anger and outrage. The mix up of the two can be harmful not just to others but to you as well. You need to understand that we are all just passengers on this rock flying through space and no one is driving this thing. Placed in perspective such as this, you can begin to understand your place in the grand scheme of the universe.
You asked about Rangers and Rough Riders. Did you notice that there are no references to any of us following any religion? There is a reason for that. We all have our own beliefs and respect the beliefs of others. We are Christians, Pagans, Agnostics and Atheists as well as others. Myself, I am a Buddhist. One of our Rough Riders is a follower of Islam, and someone I am proud to call my friend. She embodies all the virtues one hopes to see in a follower of Mohammed. How we place ourselves in this big black void we call the universe is our own business. We should not judge others on how they believe, that is between them and whatever higher power they ascribe to.
You asked if there are Rangers in Athens, Ohio. The answer is yes as well as Rough Riders. You pass them on the street every day in almost every city in all walks of life. We do not wear a badge for all to see nor do we shout our names for everyone to hear. Many times, you will never hear of us doing anything. We are not publicity hounds and not a fraternity nor sorority. We let our good works stand as testament to our ideals. We do the right thing as best as we can and move on. Follow my suggestions and they will reveal themselves to you, it is almost impossible to track them down if they do not desire for you to find them.
I believe you have some soul searching to do as well as a lot of learning. I wish you the best of luck as you head down this road. It will not be easy nor always fun as changing ones views can be a painful experience but worth it in the long run. I know, I was there once myself.
Good luck and enjoy the trip,
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
Here is an email I received recently. I took out the name and the addy to protect the innocent...?well, stupid. Please remember these words in the quoted mail are not mine nor do I ascribe to them.
>Hello Cyclone Rangers,
>I am really excited about your work and what you do to
>protect the U.S. and its citizens from those rag
>heads, those moslem terrorists. We will never forget
>the September 11th and we must fight them in their
>lands instead of ours.
>I would like to become a Cyclone Ranger or a Rough
>Riders. So what do you recommend that I do? I live in
>Athens, Ohio and there are many bull shit moslems
>around. I wish I could kill all of them at once.
>Do you have Cyclone Rangers here in Athens, Ohio
>already? How can I contact them so that we can work
>together?
>
>I am waiting for your commands.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Sxxxxx Cxxxx
And now my reply:
Dear S.C.
Terrorists come in many forms, their religious views not withstanding. There are even atheist terrorists. To judge an entire religion by a few misguided zealots is grounds for many problems you do not want. There are many followers of Islam who:
A) Do not condone the actions of these misguided few
B) Are very supportive and caring people who do their best to extol the virtues of kindness and charity, even to those who are not followers of Mohammed.
C) Are not any different than anyone else that you would say is "normal"
Let us for a moment examine a small example you might or might not be familiar with:
Consider a young man who is unemployed and sees his people being mistreated by what he considers an oppressive government. He gathers around him a tightly knit group who believes he is right and has all the answers. Then this person goes off and trashes a local religious edifice; let us say a temple. He then becomes a wanted fugitive for speaking out against the government. Would you call this person a terrorist? Some did.
Others called him Jesus.
Being a terrorist is all a matter of perspective. The founding fathers of the United States were terrorist of their time, if you asked the British. Where do you draw the lines between terrorist and freedom fighter? Is it after the struggle is over? Remember, the victors write history. Perspectives are fluid if they are well thought out and will alter, as more information is available.
You are right, the US will never forget the horrors of September 11th. Your suggestion of fighting terrorists in their land instead of ours is a sound tactic overall. But to carry out such a fight one should apply sound tactics. To quote Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, "?To know the enemy is to know yourself."? You need to understand why these people are terrorists to begin with to stop them. One way of defeating an enemy is to take away his most valuable supply, people. Many people join terrorist groups as a way to try and change the world to fit either more into their view or change their location in a social structure. Nothing recruits them faster then social inequity and poverty. So you want to fight them in their lands? Great! I suggest you start by trying to understand them as people and not as inhuman objects. Many terrorists have the view that the average American is overweight, frivolous, under educated and rich. I will assume you do not fit into such a mold. Again, global affirmatives are globally wrong. Think about it. Terrorists are people so frustrated with their lives that they are looking for someone to blame and then direct that anger at. It happens all the time. History proves me right on this point. Consider Germany post World War One. The economy was in shambles; the German mark was so worthless that people were papering their houses with it. They were starving in one of the most environmentally rich countries in Europe. So who'?s fault was it? Well, there were some who blame the Versailles Treaty and its demands for war reparations. Others blamed Kaiser Wilhelm and his government. Others blamed the Jews. So you can see how that turned out. The National Socialist Party was able to get people angry and then focus that anger on a specific group. Ever seen Nazis and The Talaban together? If you apply simple logic, you can see there is little difference. Evil, in all its forms, begets horrors on those least able to defend themselves.
You asked what you should do. Allow me to give you a few examples that may be of assistance. First, chill out. A calm mind is able to see fact from propaganda. Second, arm yourself with as much information as you can. Learn, read and ask questions. Use reliable sources, not "?he said that she said"?. When we do not ask questions about those things around us we follow blindly down a road to ruin. You need to talk to these people you are afraid of. Sit down with someone and really listen to what they have to say. Give them a fair chance, just like you would want. Almost everyone comes from immigrants in this country, remember that. Find a follower of Islam and ask politely if you could talk with them for a while, that you have some questions and need some answers. Learn not to confuse anger and outrage. The mix up of the two can be harmful not just to others but to you as well. You need to understand that we are all just passengers on this rock flying through space and no one is driving this thing. Placed in perspective such as this, you can begin to understand your place in the grand scheme of the universe.
You asked about Rangers and Rough Riders. Did you notice that there are no references to any of us following any religion? There is a reason for that. We all have our own beliefs and respect the beliefs of others. We are Christians, Pagans, Agnostics and Atheists as well as others. Myself, I am a Buddhist. One of our Rough Riders is a follower of Islam, and someone I am proud to call my friend. She embodies all the virtues one hopes to see in a follower of Mohammed. How we place ourselves in this big black void we call the universe is our own business. We should not judge others on how they believe, that is between them and whatever higher power they ascribe to.
You asked if there are Rangers in Athens, Ohio. The answer is yes as well as Rough Riders. You pass them on the street every day in almost every city in all walks of life. We do not wear a badge for all to see nor do we shout our names for everyone to hear. Many times, you will never hear of us doing anything. We are not publicity hounds and not a fraternity nor sorority. We let our good works stand as testament to our ideals. We do the right thing as best as we can and move on. Follow my suggestions and they will reveal themselves to you, it is almost impossible to track them down if they do not desire for you to find them.
I believe you have some soul searching to do as well as a lot of learning. I wish you the best of luck as you head down this road. It will not be easy nor always fun as changing ones views can be a painful experience but worth it in the long run. I know, I was there once myself.
Good luck and enjoy the trip,
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
Saturday, June 4, 2005
Um, sorry?
Has it been that long since my last update? Well, here it is. Let us set the “way back” machine a little into the past and I’ll try to bring you up to speed.
My back did recover, as much as it will. Sore for a while but that is nothing new. I have been doing a little ridding, but never as much as I would like to. The first weekend for Robbins’s Crossing has come and gone. We spent a good bit of the weekend recovering from the floods in January. The water by all accounts was about 4.5 feet (that’s 1.37 meters for you metric types) inside the shop. Judi spent a lot of time just cleaning tools, as the water was high enough to get into our toolboxes. There was a “pow wow” that weekend as well. Nothing all that great, but we do like having people around. The trains ran as normal and we got to say hello with some friends we have not seen for a while and meet some new ones as well. It is good to be back in the shop working again. I think it helps recharge my mental batteries a bit. The walls for the shop extension are up and all the shingles are stripped off the existing shop waiting for the new roof to go up. Word is they will start on it some time in July. I’ll not hold my breath.
Spent some time working with Dan “The Fish” on improving with my bullwhip. We have successfully infected others with the enjoyment of playing with them. Remember kids: “Crack kills, but when it is a whip, Crack is fun!” Whip is fun; I need another bigger one. I must have more toys!
Oh, something else. I have now lost all faith in chiropractors. I had one I was going to and I asked him how much longer I had to keep doing the crack and crunch thing for my back. He said “For the rest of your life…” Hrrmm, something fishy here. So, I had him yet again reset the “dislocated rib” I have had so many problems with. He said I could keep having it reset, but I should go see a thoracic surgeon about having it screwed in place or removed. I was not pleased with the idea of the removal of body parts. So, since I do not like doctors for the most part, I held off going to see one. Judi did get me to promise I would go see one so eventually I did. More on that trip to the doctors office in a moment, but a small aside that you will see how it links in with all this.
I like Penn and Teller. Always have. And interestingly enough, they like me or at least my writing. They sent me an autographed picture and even spelled my name right! Anyway, they have a show on the cable network “Showtime” called B.S. Great program, nothing is sacred and they call it like it is. If they make a claim that something is crap or a lie they back it up with evidence and experts. I do not have cable, but I do have seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Got to love truth as a weapon. So, they did one episode on “Alternative Medicine.” One of the things they covered is chiropractic medicine. My “doctor” did not tell me all the things he should have such as the “adjustments” can cause paralysis, heart attacks and that ever famous side effect: DEATH. Yea, he twists you wrong and blamo, dead. They then went on to show how totally flawed the whole concept really is and that there is little to no science to back it up. It is kind of spooky. I will still say hi to him if I see him, but he will not lay a hand on me ever again. For this, I have an even better reason. Keep reading on from here.
You see it seems that the chiropractor was resetting the rib quite a distance when he popped it back into place. Not surprising considering you could see it when it was popped wrong. But here is the kicker: the problem was not a “subluxation” like they try to say everything from the common cold to Autism is caused by. No, it was a torn muscle and torn ligament in my back near the shoulder blade. My doctor spotted it in seconds. “Oh…”he said, “Here is your problem. It can’t heal at all if you set the rib all they way back in. You have to do it a little at a time over a couple of weeks so it will heal up and stretch.” Seems the chiropractor was setting up a nice little nest egg, perhaps being generous and giving him the benefit of the doubt, unknowingly. So now, I am in a lot less pain and it is healing. I can tell, as it does not hurt as bad as it did nor is distance driving painful. It was before to the point that a 15-mile (equal to 24.14 kilometers) drive would start it throbbing and hurting. I drove on Thursday 120 miles (equal to 193.12 kilometers) and not even a twinge. Things are looking up! Doctor said no fencing for at least a week, but oh well. I would rather heal then deal with this any longer. It is a small price to pay really.
So, if you are going to a chiropractor, be careful. I won’t say stop going, but run everything past your doctor and see what they have to say as well before submitting to the bone crackers ways.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
My back did recover, as much as it will. Sore for a while but that is nothing new. I have been doing a little ridding, but never as much as I would like to. The first weekend for Robbins’s Crossing has come and gone. We spent a good bit of the weekend recovering from the floods in January. The water by all accounts was about 4.5 feet (that’s 1.37 meters for you metric types) inside the shop. Judi spent a lot of time just cleaning tools, as the water was high enough to get into our toolboxes. There was a “pow wow” that weekend as well. Nothing all that great, but we do like having people around. The trains ran as normal and we got to say hello with some friends we have not seen for a while and meet some new ones as well. It is good to be back in the shop working again. I think it helps recharge my mental batteries a bit. The walls for the shop extension are up and all the shingles are stripped off the existing shop waiting for the new roof to go up. Word is they will start on it some time in July. I’ll not hold my breath.
Spent some time working with Dan “The Fish” on improving with my bullwhip. We have successfully infected others with the enjoyment of playing with them. Remember kids: “Crack kills, but when it is a whip, Crack is fun!” Whip is fun; I need another bigger one. I must have more toys!
Oh, something else. I have now lost all faith in chiropractors. I had one I was going to and I asked him how much longer I had to keep doing the crack and crunch thing for my back. He said “For the rest of your life…” Hrrmm, something fishy here. So, I had him yet again reset the “dislocated rib” I have had so many problems with. He said I could keep having it reset, but I should go see a thoracic surgeon about having it screwed in place or removed. I was not pleased with the idea of the removal of body parts. So, since I do not like doctors for the most part, I held off going to see one. Judi did get me to promise I would go see one so eventually I did. More on that trip to the doctors office in a moment, but a small aside that you will see how it links in with all this.
I like Penn and Teller. Always have. And interestingly enough, they like me or at least my writing. They sent me an autographed picture and even spelled my name right! Anyway, they have a show on the cable network “Showtime” called B.S. Great program, nothing is sacred and they call it like it is. If they make a claim that something is crap or a lie they back it up with evidence and experts. I do not have cable, but I do have seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Got to love truth as a weapon. So, they did one episode on “Alternative Medicine.” One of the things they covered is chiropractic medicine. My “doctor” did not tell me all the things he should have such as the “adjustments” can cause paralysis, heart attacks and that ever famous side effect: DEATH. Yea, he twists you wrong and blamo, dead. They then went on to show how totally flawed the whole concept really is and that there is little to no science to back it up. It is kind of spooky. I will still say hi to him if I see him, but he will not lay a hand on me ever again. For this, I have an even better reason. Keep reading on from here.
You see it seems that the chiropractor was resetting the rib quite a distance when he popped it back into place. Not surprising considering you could see it when it was popped wrong. But here is the kicker: the problem was not a “subluxation” like they try to say everything from the common cold to Autism is caused by. No, it was a torn muscle and torn ligament in my back near the shoulder blade. My doctor spotted it in seconds. “Oh…”he said, “Here is your problem. It can’t heal at all if you set the rib all they way back in. You have to do it a little at a time over a couple of weeks so it will heal up and stretch.” Seems the chiropractor was setting up a nice little nest egg, perhaps being generous and giving him the benefit of the doubt, unknowingly. So now, I am in a lot less pain and it is healing. I can tell, as it does not hurt as bad as it did nor is distance driving painful. It was before to the point that a 15-mile (equal to 24.14 kilometers) drive would start it throbbing and hurting. I drove on Thursday 120 miles (equal to 193.12 kilometers) and not even a twinge. Things are looking up! Doctor said no fencing for at least a week, but oh well. I would rather heal then deal with this any longer. It is a small price to pay really.
So, if you are going to a chiropractor, be careful. I won’t say stop going, but run everything past your doctor and see what they have to say as well before submitting to the bone crackers ways.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Monday, May 2, 2005
Arrrrgh…
So, Sunday was shaping up to be another fairly decent day. Went to the store with Karyl and then back to the house. Plan was a little yard work and then a nice ride before fencing practice. Notice I said the plan was. It changed, real quickly. After one project got out of hand (3 trips to Lowe’s) and the death of not one, but two chainsaws, I slipped in the mud beside the house. Now normally this is not a big deal, normally. IT became a big deal. Seems I wrenched my back quite severely. It hurt in one of those the whole world goes white kind of pains then settled down to just be horrific. Took my shower and was still sore, so I grabbed a few aspirin type things, something I normally do not do, and settled down for a quick nap. When Judi woke me up is when I realized something was severely wrong. I could barely move. Walking of any type was an adventure in new forms of pain and numbness. So, no ride, no fencing, no joy to be had. I played couch potato for the evening and went on the wild drug ride just to keep comfortable. I now also believe I need access to much better drugs.
Today, on the other hand, is a little better. I am walking and moving, although not at full pace. So, I plan another evening of rest and we shall see. I hope my doctor gets moved into his new offices here fairly soon. He, unlike many doctors, actually listens to me, so we shall have to see. I really do not want surgery but it may be darkly looming on the horizon for one reason or the other. I am not afraid of the idea of the surgery, but I do have a hesitancy whenever I have anyone take a knife to my person when I am asleep. Perhaps it is a fear of not waking up, or the even more frightening “OOPS”. I’ll make sure that he understand (or the surgeon) that if there is an oops involved, he should not worry about his malpractice insurance being up to date, but he may wish to look to his life insurance. I think that is fair. Warning in advance, cripple me and I will blow your head off. No malice, no meanness, just simple fact. If you do this then you are fully aware of the repercussions. Best get a full nights rest before you ever thing of putting a blade to my spine. If you cannot deal with this, then I will go somewhere else. I do not want any doctor who feels he cannot abide by my rules. If he questions his own ability even a little, I do not want him.
Anyway, on to some more things not quite as depressing or potentially violent. So I was thinking about something as I drove about yesterday. When did we loose our ability as people to “hang out”? Remember getting a group of friends together and just walking around, talking about life and the universe? Maybe a cup of coffee or something, no actual plan of anywhere to be and no schedule other than a curfew? Seems to me, as we get older we begin to isolate ourselves. The first step I can think of is one may people may never consider, learning to drive. When in a group the first one who learns to drive and has access to an automobile the group becomes a little smaller and now more mobile. The car will only carry so many. So as more learn to drive, the quantity of people begins to drop until there is usually just the driver and one other person. Makes for some interesting discussions many times but over a period, even that person goes away. So now you have us isolated in our little rolling cubes, with our music, our preferred temperature and our air fresheners, the ultimate in self contained environmental control. This usually takes place at a point in life where we have very little control of our environs, so it does make sense. Soon, jobs and extended family life begin to take the toll even further. We have meetings and seminars to take up our time. We have to hurry since we do not want to be late, heaven forbid! If we are very lucky we find someone who we can share our lives with in a very intimate manner, but even then, time keeps us isolated for one reason or another. We strive for “Quality Time” with our other half or our family or children. Point of fact, there is no quality time, there is only time. What we do with is determines quality. Perhaps we should look into de-isolation more. Maybe this is a purely American phenomenon as we are so auto-centric. I treasure the time I get to spend with Judi and my friends, perhaps more so than I should. Being one who gets affected by quality logic I think much of this has to do with a simple statement: Live every day as if it is your last, as it just may be.
Consider for a moment, if your life ended at the end of this day how many things you might list as “I wish I would have taken the time to…” Frightening list, isn’t it? So I leave you with my usual signature line, but after reading this missive you may think about it a little more than normal:
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Today, on the other hand, is a little better. I am walking and moving, although not at full pace. So, I plan another evening of rest and we shall see. I hope my doctor gets moved into his new offices here fairly soon. He, unlike many doctors, actually listens to me, so we shall have to see. I really do not want surgery but it may be darkly looming on the horizon for one reason or the other. I am not afraid of the idea of the surgery, but I do have a hesitancy whenever I have anyone take a knife to my person when I am asleep. Perhaps it is a fear of not waking up, or the even more frightening “OOPS”. I’ll make sure that he understand (or the surgeon) that if there is an oops involved, he should not worry about his malpractice insurance being up to date, but he may wish to look to his life insurance. I think that is fair. Warning in advance, cripple me and I will blow your head off. No malice, no meanness, just simple fact. If you do this then you are fully aware of the repercussions. Best get a full nights rest before you ever thing of putting a blade to my spine. If you cannot deal with this, then I will go somewhere else. I do not want any doctor who feels he cannot abide by my rules. If he questions his own ability even a little, I do not want him.
Anyway, on to some more things not quite as depressing or potentially violent. So I was thinking about something as I drove about yesterday. When did we loose our ability as people to “hang out”? Remember getting a group of friends together and just walking around, talking about life and the universe? Maybe a cup of coffee or something, no actual plan of anywhere to be and no schedule other than a curfew? Seems to me, as we get older we begin to isolate ourselves. The first step I can think of is one may people may never consider, learning to drive. When in a group the first one who learns to drive and has access to an automobile the group becomes a little smaller and now more mobile. The car will only carry so many. So as more learn to drive, the quantity of people begins to drop until there is usually just the driver and one other person. Makes for some interesting discussions many times but over a period, even that person goes away. So now you have us isolated in our little rolling cubes, with our music, our preferred temperature and our air fresheners, the ultimate in self contained environmental control. This usually takes place at a point in life where we have very little control of our environs, so it does make sense. Soon, jobs and extended family life begin to take the toll even further. We have meetings and seminars to take up our time. We have to hurry since we do not want to be late, heaven forbid! If we are very lucky we find someone who we can share our lives with in a very intimate manner, but even then, time keeps us isolated for one reason or another. We strive for “Quality Time” with our other half or our family or children. Point of fact, there is no quality time, there is only time. What we do with is determines quality. Perhaps we should look into de-isolation more. Maybe this is a purely American phenomenon as we are so auto-centric. I treasure the time I get to spend with Judi and my friends, perhaps more so than I should. Being one who gets affected by quality logic I think much of this has to do with a simple statement: Live every day as if it is your last, as it just may be.
Consider for a moment, if your life ended at the end of this day how many things you might list as “I wish I would have taken the time to…” Frightening list, isn’t it? So I leave you with my usual signature line, but after reading this missive you may think about it a little more than normal:
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Well, this was a challenge...
Okay, so here was the challenge:
Make a Serenity inspired recipe.
Now here is the catch, it can be no more than 1000 CHARICTERS (including spaces). So without further ado – Now East meets West!
Sichuan style Tofu and Beef -- "Golden Yuan Bao and Mighty Beast"
2 lbs Beef (Pork, Chicken, Goat work) Cut into thin strips.
2 lbs Tofu (Extra Firm), cubed
Broccoli, 2 lbs, preferably the flourettes
Oyster Sauce, 1 8-oz bottle
Olive Oil, ¼ cp
Water, 4 tbsp
Salt pinch
Ginger (Fresh/powdered to taste)
Chili Peppers (Fresh/Dried to taste)
Heat the oil in a wok, till hot. Add tofu a little at a time, turning till golden brown, drain, set aside. Add beef strips and chili peppers to taste. Cook until beef is browned. Drain, set aside. Remove last of oil. Add water to hot wok. Add broccoli and quickly cook. When almost ready add ginger/salt, stir well. Add beef and tofu to broccoli. Add Oyster sauce and heat till bubbling. Serve with rice or by itself. Feeds 2-3, or Jane for one meal.
We make it here at home with the various "Mighty Beasts" and it never fails to please and totally satisfy. I recommend Jasmine rice. This is my own recipe so give it a try!
Trust me, it is /real/ good!
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Make a Serenity inspired recipe.
Now here is the catch, it can be no more than 1000 CHARICTERS (including spaces). So without further ado – Now East meets West!
Sichuan style Tofu and Beef -- "Golden Yuan Bao and Mighty Beast"
2 lbs Beef (Pork, Chicken, Goat work) Cut into thin strips.
2 lbs Tofu (Extra Firm), cubed
Broccoli, 2 lbs, preferably the flourettes
Oyster Sauce, 1 8-oz bottle
Olive Oil, ¼ cp
Water, 4 tbsp
Salt pinch
Ginger (Fresh/powdered to taste)
Chili Peppers (Fresh/Dried to taste)
Heat the oil in a wok, till hot. Add tofu a little at a time, turning till golden brown, drain, set aside. Add beef strips and chili peppers to taste. Cook until beef is browned. Drain, set aside. Remove last of oil. Add water to hot wok. Add broccoli and quickly cook. When almost ready add ginger/salt, stir well. Add beef and tofu to broccoli. Add Oyster sauce and heat till bubbling. Serve with rice or by itself. Feeds 2-3, or Jane for one meal.
We make it here at home with the various "Mighty Beasts" and it never fails to please and totally satisfy. I recommend Jasmine rice. This is my own recipe so give it a try!
Trust me, it is /real/ good!
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Sunday, April 3, 2005
A little rant.
All right, I have to admit it: I am sick. I have some sort of cold and it sucks.
Now what I want to know is how do I cure this thing? To me it seems there should be some sort of cure to the common cold. I mean, we can make bombs that can kill millions of people, level cities, and lay waste to entire countries; yet, we cannot cure the common cold? This is ridiculous!
To illustrate this point I did a little research nd found this quote from the National Institute of Health:
“There is no cure for the common cold, but you can get relief from your cold symptoms by…”
(http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/cold.htm)
Ah Ha! Now follow along with me here and see if you can make the same mental jumps I did. We have so far cured Small Pox, German Measles, Polio, and Mumps. None of which are simple achievements. Why did we cure them? Simple, there is no profit in these diseases for the pharmaceutical companies. You get them once, ever. Now the common cold reoccurs, in infinite variety. Just look at your local grocery store or pharmacy (that’s the chemist for my UK readers). They have shelf after shelf of things to treat the symptoms of a cold, yet not one cure. You will see things listed on the labels as “Cold Remedies”. They lie, just read the fine print on the back of most of them. The even say that “The F.D.A. has not evaluated these statements as to their effectiveness.” In other words, “Yea, we lied, but look here, we are not liable cause we said we lied…we call it marketing.” One of the most common treatments for the symptoms of the common cold is a chemical known as Dextramathorphan Hydrogen Bromide. It is the main ingredient in things like Nyquil and Robitussen DM. It is also a major hallucinogen. So, here you go- they stone you our so you don’t care your sick. Take enough and you may even believe your getting better. Most likely you will also believe that the government has your best interests in mind, they will never lie to you and that the giant space ants in charge are really nice guys. Nyquil, -that sniffling, sneezing, how the hell did I wake up under the kitchen table medicine.
Furthering my search shows there is little funding available to research the common cold’s common cure. So here we feed into the idea there is no money in curing it, only making they symptoms go away.
Myself, I think they could combine research. Put the guys who build nukes on the case. I bet within a year we have a cure. Of course that pill would make you glow like the sun for 1/20 of a second and break wind at 250 miles per hour plus that could knock down buildings and set goats on fire at 3 miles. But what the hell, least you couldn’t be sniffling anymore!
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Now what I want to know is how do I cure this thing? To me it seems there should be some sort of cure to the common cold. I mean, we can make bombs that can kill millions of people, level cities, and lay waste to entire countries; yet, we cannot cure the common cold? This is ridiculous!
To illustrate this point I did a little research nd found this quote from the National Institute of Health:
“There is no cure for the common cold, but you can get relief from your cold symptoms by…”
(http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/cold.htm)
Ah Ha! Now follow along with me here and see if you can make the same mental jumps I did. We have so far cured Small Pox, German Measles, Polio, and Mumps. None of which are simple achievements. Why did we cure them? Simple, there is no profit in these diseases for the pharmaceutical companies. You get them once, ever. Now the common cold reoccurs, in infinite variety. Just look at your local grocery store or pharmacy (that’s the chemist for my UK readers). They have shelf after shelf of things to treat the symptoms of a cold, yet not one cure. You will see things listed on the labels as “Cold Remedies”. They lie, just read the fine print on the back of most of them. The even say that “The F.D.A. has not evaluated these statements as to their effectiveness.” In other words, “Yea, we lied, but look here, we are not liable cause we said we lied…we call it marketing.” One of the most common treatments for the symptoms of the common cold is a chemical known as Dextramathorphan Hydrogen Bromide. It is the main ingredient in things like Nyquil and Robitussen DM. It is also a major hallucinogen. So, here you go- they stone you our so you don’t care your sick. Take enough and you may even believe your getting better. Most likely you will also believe that the government has your best interests in mind, they will never lie to you and that the giant space ants in charge are really nice guys. Nyquil, -that sniffling, sneezing, how the hell did I wake up under the kitchen table medicine.
Furthering my search shows there is little funding available to research the common cold’s common cure. So here we feed into the idea there is no money in curing it, only making they symptoms go away.
Myself, I think they could combine research. Put the guys who build nukes on the case. I bet within a year we have a cure. Of course that pill would make you glow like the sun for 1/20 of a second and break wind at 250 miles per hour plus that could knock down buildings and set goats on fire at 3 miles. But what the hell, least you couldn’t be sniffling anymore!
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Does my motorcycle have a Buddha nature?
I think the correct answer is “Thump!” as my bike would say. I like that better then “Mu” in some usages.
After several hours of tinkering yesterday I went out for a ride. Wow, what a difference a few adjustments can make. Nice thump through the countryside with intermittent spurts of speed and curve leans. I know spring is not far off for one simple irrefutable reason: peepers.
While down at the local BMW bike shop (Had to show off the great green curry rocket to an old acquaintance) I notice there was a little swamp at the end of the road. Maybe 50 sickly trees, some marsh grass, and about one half an acre of water. It was quite wee in swamp terms. Remember I grew up in Florida, so swamp to me is much bigger. Swamps so big whole semi-trucks can disappear, never to be heard from again. Where things that are mean enough to try to either mate with you or eat you live. Then there is the wildlife.
Anyway, out of nowhere I heard them start. I know to some it is annoying the sound they make, but to me it is like music. So there I sat for a moment on the green monster, listening to the engine provide a modern bass back beat to them. I still remember the sounds of the bullfrogs at night on the swamp. To me it is as stirring as Mozart at his best. In one of his songs, Thomas Dolby captured it perfectly as the refrain in “I love you, goodbye”. Must be the “Coon-ass” blood in me.
It must be strange to some to hear me go on about something like this. What does it have to do with anything like I usually write?
The answer to that is simple: “Thump!”
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
After several hours of tinkering yesterday I went out for a ride. Wow, what a difference a few adjustments can make. Nice thump through the countryside with intermittent spurts of speed and curve leans. I know spring is not far off for one simple irrefutable reason: peepers.
While down at the local BMW bike shop (Had to show off the great green curry rocket to an old acquaintance) I notice there was a little swamp at the end of the road. Maybe 50 sickly trees, some marsh grass, and about one half an acre of water. It was quite wee in swamp terms. Remember I grew up in Florida, so swamp to me is much bigger. Swamps so big whole semi-trucks can disappear, never to be heard from again. Where things that are mean enough to try to either mate with you or eat you live. Then there is the wildlife.
Anyway, out of nowhere I heard them start. I know to some it is annoying the sound they make, but to me it is like music. So there I sat for a moment on the green monster, listening to the engine provide a modern bass back beat to them. I still remember the sounds of the bullfrogs at night on the swamp. To me it is as stirring as Mozart at his best. In one of his songs, Thomas Dolby captured it perfectly as the refrain in “I love you, goodbye”. Must be the “Coon-ass” blood in me.
It must be strange to some to hear me go on about something like this. What does it have to do with anything like I usually write?
The answer to that is simple: “Thump!”
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Thursday, March 17, 2005
From Tomcat's Blog (Remix)
Like this is any real surprise:
You are a Bone Gnawer!
Which Garou tribe do you belong to?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are a Ragabash!
Born on the New Moon, you are naturally tricky and
aloof. A born prankster; you attack with a
joke here and there faster than anyone can
tell. You are the trickiest of all the
Auspices.
What Auspice of Garou are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are a Bone Gnawer!
Which Garou tribe do you belong to?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are a Ragabash!
Born on the New Moon, you are naturally tricky and
aloof. A born prankster; you attack with a
joke here and there faster than anyone can
tell. You are the trickiest of all the
Auspices.
What Auspice of Garou are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Friday, March 11, 2005
Houston, we have a problem
Seems Blogger has gone off its medications and is having a few problems. Some of it is in postings, others in comments. So, yes I know, no it is not just my blog, and no I cannot fix it. Not my servers, not my problem.
So I have been thinking of late about language. Not any one in particular but language as a whole. I remembered what William S. Burroughs once said and Laurie Anderson reinforced “Language is a virus from outer space.” The more I began to think about this, the more sense it made, especially at 3:30am while in that semi dream state you are in doing the thorizine shuffle to the bathroom. I will, for both courtesy and brevity, leave certain parts of this trip out.
Now, I got on this whole thing due to an entry in my friend Barbs blog about the word authentic. I figure this is way too long and unrelated to post as a comment, so I will do it here. I recommend you stop by her blog (there is a link on the right to Tigers and Strawberries) and read before we go any further. Go ahead, I will wait here till you get back, although I may go get a cup of coffee in the mean time.
Okay, back now or did you not go and will try to figure out what her blog entry was about without actually reading it? If you fall into the latter category, you are on your own. If this hurts and you did not stop to go read you did it to yourself. I told you not to stick the fork in the wall socket so if you get burned, do not blame me for the invention of electricity!
Authentic: from the Latin “auctorizo”, meaning to confirm, approve, authenticate.
Now this just happens to be my favorite word in all the English language. Why? Because it has a great story with it.
During the Roman Classical period the greatest fad in architecture was the use of the column as a decoration to the entrance or portico of ones home. We all know of the great Roman columns in design, but here is the story you may not know. There were two different types of columns, the “auctorizo” solid column of marble and the “falsus” or fake column. Solid marble columns were quite pricey and out of the reach of many roman citizens. But someone found that certain hard waxes when mixed with stone chips and dust could make a quite presentable column at a much lower price sort of a Wallmart type of alternative. The big problem with them was they were structurally very weak. It seems wax did not have the holding power of solid stone. Go figure! Therefore the columns were of two available types and labeled as such, the “falsus” or wax based column and the solid or “auctorizo” column, literally without wax.
So this being said, I would without a doubt say:
“Yes Barb, your cooking is totally authentic. I have never known you to use wax…”
And can I have mine without the duck products? I am alergic to duck. :(
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Or
Exaro tunc vicis ,
Exsisto memor quod suscitatio.
So I have been thinking of late about language. Not any one in particular but language as a whole. I remembered what William S. Burroughs once said and Laurie Anderson reinforced “Language is a virus from outer space.” The more I began to think about this, the more sense it made, especially at 3:30am while in that semi dream state you are in doing the thorizine shuffle to the bathroom. I will, for both courtesy and brevity, leave certain parts of this trip out.
Now, I got on this whole thing due to an entry in my friend Barbs blog about the word authentic. I figure this is way too long and unrelated to post as a comment, so I will do it here. I recommend you stop by her blog (there is a link on the right to Tigers and Strawberries) and read before we go any further. Go ahead, I will wait here till you get back, although I may go get a cup of coffee in the mean time.
Okay, back now or did you not go and will try to figure out what her blog entry was about without actually reading it? If you fall into the latter category, you are on your own. If this hurts and you did not stop to go read you did it to yourself. I told you not to stick the fork in the wall socket so if you get burned, do not blame me for the invention of electricity!
Authentic: from the Latin “auctorizo”, meaning to confirm, approve, authenticate.
Now this just happens to be my favorite word in all the English language. Why? Because it has a great story with it.
During the Roman Classical period the greatest fad in architecture was the use of the column as a decoration to the entrance or portico of ones home. We all know of the great Roman columns in design, but here is the story you may not know. There were two different types of columns, the “auctorizo” solid column of marble and the “falsus” or fake column. Solid marble columns were quite pricey and out of the reach of many roman citizens. But someone found that certain hard waxes when mixed with stone chips and dust could make a quite presentable column at a much lower price sort of a Wallmart type of alternative. The big problem with them was they were structurally very weak. It seems wax did not have the holding power of solid stone. Go figure! Therefore the columns were of two available types and labeled as such, the “falsus” or wax based column and the solid or “auctorizo” column, literally without wax.
So this being said, I would without a doubt say:
“Yes Barb, your cooking is totally authentic. I have never known you to use wax…”
And can I have mine without the duck products? I am alergic to duck. :(
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
Or
Exaro tunc vicis ,
Exsisto memor quod suscitatio.
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Another change?
Yea, another change.
Seems the goldenrod color did not go over well with the majority of my readers who commented. So, here is the deal: I went "old skool" on you all!
Never worked on a greenscreen monitor? Well, you know have a general idea what all the fuss was about back in the day. The links turning yellow are in deference to the amber screens out there as well.
Don't like it? Oh well, sorry, but this one stays till I get tired of it.
Of course, with me could be three or four years or even later today, who knows? But that is part of the fun of comming here right?
Seems the goldenrod color did not go over well with the majority of my readers who commented. So, here is the deal: I went "old skool" on you all!
Never worked on a greenscreen monitor? Well, you know have a general idea what all the fuss was about back in the day. The links turning yellow are in deference to the amber screens out there as well.
Don't like it? Oh well, sorry, but this one stays till I get tired of it.
Of course, with me could be three or four years or even later today, who knows? But that is part of the fun of comming here right?
Saturday, March 5, 2005
Monday, February 21, 2005
Somewhere on an island.
I got up this morning, much like any other morning, fuzzy headed in hair and mind. Made the morning stumble to the coffee maker and drew off my first cup and headed into the living room to go through my morning mail. Usual stuff, 100 messages and only 2 worth reading. Afterwards I did my normal search of my comics to get a good mood rolling and then switched over to read CNN. I find the world is a little easier to deal with after a chuckle or two. It also lets the caffeine seep into my brain a little more. I stared at the top of the page, right hand column as usual but started reading from the bottom of the column to the top, which is unusual. I finally read the very first entry and was hit with it like a ton of bricks: Author Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide.
It struck me hard. I guess a side effect of reading a lot of Dr Gonzo makes you feel like in a way you know him personally. He, in my own opinion, never had the proverbial fourth wall between his writing and his readers. You could take his words and add his voice without a second thought, much in a way I like to think I write. His work got me to stop worrying about “accepted styles” and more about writing what I thought I needed to say. I hate to say this but I feel slightly numb over the whole thing. It is a lot like waking up from anesthetic and realizing your short a body part you were not aware of before. You may have consciously known it was there because you were told it was, but the feeling of its absence is more real that the actual presence it had. Maybe he had more of an affect on my writing than I thought, but I can only now realize it more consciously since he is no longer “here” any more.
But then again, I could be totally off. I think I’ll end this one by swiping a line or 3 from Dr Gonzo himself, commenting on Nixon’s death: “but I don’t believe that and wont, not until I gnaw on his skull with my very own teeth. The nineties weren’t the sixties but they were wild and I personally had signed on for the whole trip.” The nineties are gone and behind us. Perhaps he ascribed to the cyclical nature of time and saw us headed again into a fifties style McCarthyism. Then again, maybe he has finally been accepted into the great club of the immortals and is now kicked back on a white sand beach in a recliner, drinking a drink from some ceramic Buddha with little umbrellas shooting at passing gulls with Elvis as Jim Hendrix plays soft tunes in the background, waiting for Amelia Airheart to call them in for their fresh peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches with side orders of dodo bird. Or perhaps, it just finally got too weird for him. No matter what, it can be said he wrote the ending to his own life and did not let it be written for him.
Where ever you are Dr.Gonzo, enjoy and thank you.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
It struck me hard. I guess a side effect of reading a lot of Dr Gonzo makes you feel like in a way you know him personally. He, in my own opinion, never had the proverbial fourth wall between his writing and his readers. You could take his words and add his voice without a second thought, much in a way I like to think I write. His work got me to stop worrying about “accepted styles” and more about writing what I thought I needed to say. I hate to say this but I feel slightly numb over the whole thing. It is a lot like waking up from anesthetic and realizing your short a body part you were not aware of before. You may have consciously known it was there because you were told it was, but the feeling of its absence is more real that the actual presence it had. Maybe he had more of an affect on my writing than I thought, but I can only now realize it more consciously since he is no longer “here” any more.
But then again, I could be totally off. I think I’ll end this one by swiping a line or 3 from Dr Gonzo himself, commenting on Nixon’s death: “but I don’t believe that and wont, not until I gnaw on his skull with my very own teeth. The nineties weren’t the sixties but they were wild and I personally had signed on for the whole trip.” The nineties are gone and behind us. Perhaps he ascribed to the cyclical nature of time and saw us headed again into a fifties style McCarthyism. Then again, maybe he has finally been accepted into the great club of the immortals and is now kicked back on a white sand beach in a recliner, drinking a drink from some ceramic Buddha with little umbrellas shooting at passing gulls with Elvis as Jim Hendrix plays soft tunes in the background, waiting for Amelia Airheart to call them in for their fresh peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches with side orders of dodo bird. Or perhaps, it just finally got too weird for him. No matter what, it can be said he wrote the ending to his own life and did not let it be written for him.
Where ever you are Dr.Gonzo, enjoy and thank you.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Hit and Run
First let me post something from a recent comment I received via my blog, in it’s entirety, without any editing:
“LOL ... Those are some old buildings man, And before the floodwall was erected, That main street was under the Ohio several times. These things being considered i suppose the musty odor might be expected. As for the feelings, lol I suppose if you've heard about the place's history and the "Mothman" BEFORE you came into town, you'd either consciously or unconsciously be LOOKING for something (ANYTHING) out of the ordinary, Therefore ... You'd find it surely enough. As for the "Dread" ... WHAT? LOL I have left this place so many times only to have it welcome me back warmly, Dread as in not having a great deal of opportunity for graduates perhaps but then again as iv'e said: Iv'e been around and seen SEVERAL of towns with THAT kind of "Dread" ... Yea this place is alright and i have a hard time imagining a MALE anyway ... being afraid to walk ANYWHERE short of the Little Algiers section of New Orleans or perhaps the Hill District in Pittsburgh and places of the like ... I certainly can't imagine anyone being afraid of a little old rural town with a spook story that's around 40 years old. One last thing ... lol These are POWER plants LOL There are NO NUCLEAR plant's around here. LOL”
It was unsigned. Apparently whomever this was cannot effectively use the shift key for what ever reason and from the amount of “LOL” that has been used can not be bothered to try and make a witty comment without a cymbal crash to clue us in to the fact it was funny.
Now granted, perhaps I did have some preconceived notions before I went to Point Pleasant. I can agree to that, without hesitation, but one does not go anywhere without preconception, unless heavily medicated, as I would most likely recommend for the author of this anonymous comment.
As for questions about my masculinity, I take great offence at this. Prior to such a comment I tried to keep an open mind, but when a poltroon initiates such personal attacks, I have a tendency to loose any objectivity. I would be more than willing to address this with the person who would not even identify themselves at a time and place of their choosing, in a manner of their comfort. All I request is their card and their seconds contact information. I would wager I could call upon any of my friends to second for me, be they male or female. Also, it would be nice to know where to send the flowers when I am finished with them as I feel I would make any correction to their improper attitude most permanent. This is not a threat by any means, as those who do know me know I do not make idle threats. If you consider yourself “man” enough to utter such words, then be willing to stand by them or sulk off into the vast wastes of the net, never to return, like the coward you have shown yourself to be until this point.
And lastly, the power plants comment. I have never claimed to be an expert in the visual recognition of power plants from a moving vehicle. My observation of the plant were mostly of the twin cooling towers that are of the same visual design as many other nuclear plants. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks then to assume it is a duck is not a mental fallacy. If it turns out it is not a duck, then be gracious and admit it is not a duck. So therefore, a power plant, no matter conventional or nuclear, is not a duck.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
PS And learn to use the shift key!
“LOL ... Those are some old buildings man, And before the floodwall was erected, That main street was under the Ohio several times. These things being considered i suppose the musty odor might be expected. As for the feelings, lol I suppose if you've heard about the place's history and the "Mothman" BEFORE you came into town, you'd either consciously or unconsciously be LOOKING for something (ANYTHING) out of the ordinary, Therefore ... You'd find it surely enough. As for the "Dread" ... WHAT? LOL I have left this place so many times only to have it welcome me back warmly, Dread as in not having a great deal of opportunity for graduates perhaps but then again as iv'e said: Iv'e been around and seen SEVERAL of towns with THAT kind of "Dread" ... Yea this place is alright and i have a hard time imagining a MALE anyway ... being afraid to walk ANYWHERE short of the Little Algiers section of New Orleans or perhaps the Hill District in Pittsburgh and places of the like ... I certainly can't imagine anyone being afraid of a little old rural town with a spook story that's around 40 years old. One last thing ... lol These are POWER plants LOL There are NO NUCLEAR plant's around here. LOL”
It was unsigned. Apparently whomever this was cannot effectively use the shift key for what ever reason and from the amount of “LOL” that has been used can not be bothered to try and make a witty comment without a cymbal crash to clue us in to the fact it was funny.
Now granted, perhaps I did have some preconceived notions before I went to Point Pleasant. I can agree to that, without hesitation, but one does not go anywhere without preconception, unless heavily medicated, as I would most likely recommend for the author of this anonymous comment.
As for questions about my masculinity, I take great offence at this. Prior to such a comment I tried to keep an open mind, but when a poltroon initiates such personal attacks, I have a tendency to loose any objectivity. I would be more than willing to address this with the person who would not even identify themselves at a time and place of their choosing, in a manner of their comfort. All I request is their card and their seconds contact information. I would wager I could call upon any of my friends to second for me, be they male or female. Also, it would be nice to know where to send the flowers when I am finished with them as I feel I would make any correction to their improper attitude most permanent. This is not a threat by any means, as those who do know me know I do not make idle threats. If you consider yourself “man” enough to utter such words, then be willing to stand by them or sulk off into the vast wastes of the net, never to return, like the coward you have shown yourself to be until this point.
And lastly, the power plants comment. I have never claimed to be an expert in the visual recognition of power plants from a moving vehicle. My observation of the plant were mostly of the twin cooling towers that are of the same visual design as many other nuclear plants. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks then to assume it is a duck is not a mental fallacy. If it turns out it is not a duck, then be gracious and admit it is not a duck. So therefore, a power plant, no matter conventional or nuclear, is not a duck.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
PS And learn to use the shift key!
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Point Pleasant
Some people ask me what I do during the day. Sometimes I can give them pretty strait forward answers. Today may not be one of them.
I had a service call in Gallipolis, Ohio; which is right across the river from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I've done several ramblings about "The Mothman" and Point Pleasant, but I had never actually been there. Well, I had an hour I had to kill for lunch and considering it was less than 5 minutes away I decided "What the hell...”
So I jumped on the highway, went over a bridge, went around a turnabout and came up onto a second bridge. The second bridge is the one that put me into Point Pleasant.
The first thing I noticed, because I have a tendency to watch for the unusual; I don't know, maybe it is part of writing, maybe it's just i like to keep my wits about me, but the first thing I noticed coming across that bridge was a man.
Now, normally seeing a person walking across a bridge is not a major deal, but this person kind of set the tone for my trip into Point Pleasant. Obviously a human. Well, what else would you expect in the middle of the day around lunchtime on a weekday? But there was something odd about him and as I looked at his face I realized that almost half of it hung slack from his skull, as if some sort of birth defect or maybe an injury, maybe that part of my mind that likes to come up with the strange and unusual; a mutation. So I proceeded over that bridge and found myself heading down the main drag. It's part of a Us Highway so it is fairly easy to find. So once heading down that drag I found a McDonalds.
Now I had originally considered just going to some small little cafe in Point Pleasant to sit down and have lunch, but i decided that was not a good idea. I had a hunger for fish. Now normally fish is one of those things I can take or leave; I like it, but I do not go out of my way to find it. Then I thought i would stop and have fish at a local cafe. Well, I remember while driving down the street that we were less than five miles from a nuclear power plant on the downstream side. I thought about it and the more I thought about it the more I understood about that part of me that is there for self-preservation. I decided against the fish. I figured my best bet was a chain fast food place like a McDonalds, because their food would be shipped in from outside the area. Less chance of something strange. I know, I am being overly paranoid, but when dealing with things like this, having read the amount of things i have about dealings with Point Pleasant and The Mothman, I figured going there by myself was enough of a chance; I shouldn't set my self on fire as it were.
I got a couple of fish sandwiches from McDonalds and I pulled into the historic district. I sat the and observed down the street as I stuffed my face with the multiprocessor corporate aquatic life form. Something odd struck me about the town, but I didn't know what it was. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's not odd as in an "everything was painted in 60's psycodelic colors" or "it's odd because the buildings are all built with a right hand slant and angled windows." No, this was more of the kind of odd you pick up on in an H.P.Lovecraft novel. One of those times your senses are warning you and the hair stands up on the back of your neck kicking in that part of you that tells you "your not in the place you should be..." So I decided that was enough of a motivating factor to get out of the car.
I walked down the main drag of old Point Pleasant; the old historic district, the part of town that would have been there in the 60's when the bridge collapsed and the spotting of Mothman took place. I was overwhelmed by senses one does not usually find while standing one small block away from a major us highway at lunchtime on a week day, that runs through the center of a town between two major cities. Traffic was fairly heavy; yet, being one block away you could hear the sound of the store signs creaking in the wind overhead. The sky itself today was a little strange. It is a bluish purple. This is not that strange for wintertime in the Ohio Valley. What makes it odd is the temperature is 71 degrees, it's January 13th. This is supposed to be winter, the time of cold and snow.
I wasn't really worried about coming across the real Mothman in downtown Point Pleasant. A couple things I felt were on my side:
1: He has never been know to frequent a McDonalds
2: It was broad daylight
From all the descriptions I have ever read he has only been seen at night and from the description of how he looks, it makes sense. He's got large eyes, daylight would probably hurt him. But today is not overly bright, and sometimes, I am not either. So, I decided to take a walk. I walked about a block from the car and went by an old movie theater I saw. Now, I am one of these people who have a love/hate relationship, in a sense, with old movie theaters. I love them because of the films they have shown. the places inside are much more than the sterilized modern 64 screen megaplexes. There is something unique about each one, even when there are 2 on the same city block. but as I walked up to this one I made not of a couple of things. In the marquis where they hang the poster, where you would expect to see the poster for some second run movie. One that had already made the circuit, been on cable and regular TV, and could be leased for $20.00 to show in a theater like this. There wasn't what I expected. There wasn't "Cannonball Run II" or "Matrix Revisited", something that has come and gone everywhere it would make money, now just to be used as a honey to bring flies into some small town theater. No, in these were something a little bit different. They were vintage movie posters from the 1950's, old B movies. Three color posters; outlines; to movies I have heard of, I myself have never seen. It was strange. Inside the ticket booth was a small sign that said "Showing: Mothman 5:00PM". I wasn't going to hang out there till 5pm cause I had to be back.
I started thinking more and more and I noticed that a scent started to assail me. Not one of those scents that you catch on the wind that bypasses you and its gone. This is one of those ones that crawls up your nose lays both of its grimy little hands, hard, nails first into your sinuses. It was a smell of mold and mildew. Its the kind of smell you get when you go into a basement that hasn’t been opened in 50 year, that has been flooded and drained all on its own. Memories and pieces of time gone by, rotting. The whole city had that scent to it; it took a while. I walked about another block past a large number of closed stores. What I found interesting was every store that was closed was actually open, in a different building, a few blocks down. Nothing new, just everyone moved around. Not like they really had anywhere to go, but more the act of moving was important. It was a strange thing to see. I decided I was about to turn around and head back to the car so I would have enough time to get back to my appointment, and there, on a small side street i saw something I never thought I would see in Point Pleasant: The Mothman.
No, not the Mothman of the books or the movie, nor was it something that really should not have been there. It was a statue, someone’s impression; an artist gone wrong with an arc welder and a torch. The eyes were huge, as one would expect, and a mouth with fangs. But I never remember fangs in the descriptions nor do I remember claws, but they were there. There he was all in brushed steel. Large ovoid glass, deep amber colored and a mouth, open, bigger then my fist with fangs the size of my fingers. I looked at him and said to myself "So, this is what has happened to you. You’ve become nothing more than a tourist trap prop."
Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. But you can't tell. Strange things happen in these hills and maybe he's out there, maybe just waiting, waiting for dark on another cool night to go scare a couple other people. Or maybe he's just here to keep an eye on us. Maybe once Point Pleasant improves, he will go away. I have put together before the conclusion about the mothman existing in multiple places in the world. I took note of the times he was seen and more often that not it was when the weather was cooler. So I started to wonder, maybe he only comes to Point Pleasant during the winter time, like Canadians going to Florida and the rest of the year he lives further north, maybe, somewhere around Toronto or Ottawa, who knows? You can't tell when your dealing with Canadians. Heck, he may even be a Canadian citizen, who just happens to have a small out of the way place in Point Pleasant , West Virginia.
I had a service call in Gallipolis, Ohio; which is right across the river from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I've done several ramblings about "The Mothman" and Point Pleasant, but I had never actually been there. Well, I had an hour I had to kill for lunch and considering it was less than 5 minutes away I decided "What the hell...”
So I jumped on the highway, went over a bridge, went around a turnabout and came up onto a second bridge. The second bridge is the one that put me into Point Pleasant.
The first thing I noticed, because I have a tendency to watch for the unusual; I don't know, maybe it is part of writing, maybe it's just i like to keep my wits about me, but the first thing I noticed coming across that bridge was a man.
Now, normally seeing a person walking across a bridge is not a major deal, but this person kind of set the tone for my trip into Point Pleasant. Obviously a human. Well, what else would you expect in the middle of the day around lunchtime on a weekday? But there was something odd about him and as I looked at his face I realized that almost half of it hung slack from his skull, as if some sort of birth defect or maybe an injury, maybe that part of my mind that likes to come up with the strange and unusual; a mutation. So I proceeded over that bridge and found myself heading down the main drag. It's part of a Us Highway so it is fairly easy to find. So once heading down that drag I found a McDonalds.
Now I had originally considered just going to some small little cafe in Point Pleasant to sit down and have lunch, but i decided that was not a good idea. I had a hunger for fish. Now normally fish is one of those things I can take or leave; I like it, but I do not go out of my way to find it. Then I thought i would stop and have fish at a local cafe. Well, I remember while driving down the street that we were less than five miles from a nuclear power plant on the downstream side. I thought about it and the more I thought about it the more I understood about that part of me that is there for self-preservation. I decided against the fish. I figured my best bet was a chain fast food place like a McDonalds, because their food would be shipped in from outside the area. Less chance of something strange. I know, I am being overly paranoid, but when dealing with things like this, having read the amount of things i have about dealings with Point Pleasant and The Mothman, I figured going there by myself was enough of a chance; I shouldn't set my self on fire as it were.
I got a couple of fish sandwiches from McDonalds and I pulled into the historic district. I sat the and observed down the street as I stuffed my face with the multiprocessor corporate aquatic life form. Something odd struck me about the town, but I didn't know what it was. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's not odd as in an "everything was painted in 60's psycodelic colors" or "it's odd because the buildings are all built with a right hand slant and angled windows." No, this was more of the kind of odd you pick up on in an H.P.Lovecraft novel. One of those times your senses are warning you and the hair stands up on the back of your neck kicking in that part of you that tells you "your not in the place you should be..." So I decided that was enough of a motivating factor to get out of the car.
I walked down the main drag of old Point Pleasant; the old historic district, the part of town that would have been there in the 60's when the bridge collapsed and the spotting of Mothman took place. I was overwhelmed by senses one does not usually find while standing one small block away from a major us highway at lunchtime on a week day, that runs through the center of a town between two major cities. Traffic was fairly heavy; yet, being one block away you could hear the sound of the store signs creaking in the wind overhead. The sky itself today was a little strange. It is a bluish purple. This is not that strange for wintertime in the Ohio Valley. What makes it odd is the temperature is 71 degrees, it's January 13th. This is supposed to be winter, the time of cold and snow.
I wasn't really worried about coming across the real Mothman in downtown Point Pleasant. A couple things I felt were on my side:
1: He has never been know to frequent a McDonalds
2: It was broad daylight
From all the descriptions I have ever read he has only been seen at night and from the description of how he looks, it makes sense. He's got large eyes, daylight would probably hurt him. But today is not overly bright, and sometimes, I am not either. So, I decided to take a walk. I walked about a block from the car and went by an old movie theater I saw. Now, I am one of these people who have a love/hate relationship, in a sense, with old movie theaters. I love them because of the films they have shown. the places inside are much more than the sterilized modern 64 screen megaplexes. There is something unique about each one, even when there are 2 on the same city block. but as I walked up to this one I made not of a couple of things. In the marquis where they hang the poster, where you would expect to see the poster for some second run movie. One that had already made the circuit, been on cable and regular TV, and could be leased for $20.00 to show in a theater like this. There wasn't what I expected. There wasn't "Cannonball Run II" or "Matrix Revisited", something that has come and gone everywhere it would make money, now just to be used as a honey to bring flies into some small town theater. No, in these were something a little bit different. They were vintage movie posters from the 1950's, old B movies. Three color posters; outlines; to movies I have heard of, I myself have never seen. It was strange. Inside the ticket booth was a small sign that said "Showing: Mothman 5:00PM". I wasn't going to hang out there till 5pm cause I had to be back.
I started thinking more and more and I noticed that a scent started to assail me. Not one of those scents that you catch on the wind that bypasses you and its gone. This is one of those ones that crawls up your nose lays both of its grimy little hands, hard, nails first into your sinuses. It was a smell of mold and mildew. Its the kind of smell you get when you go into a basement that hasn’t been opened in 50 year, that has been flooded and drained all on its own. Memories and pieces of time gone by, rotting. The whole city had that scent to it; it took a while. I walked about another block past a large number of closed stores. What I found interesting was every store that was closed was actually open, in a different building, a few blocks down. Nothing new, just everyone moved around. Not like they really had anywhere to go, but more the act of moving was important. It was a strange thing to see. I decided I was about to turn around and head back to the car so I would have enough time to get back to my appointment, and there, on a small side street i saw something I never thought I would see in Point Pleasant: The Mothman.
No, not the Mothman of the books or the movie, nor was it something that really should not have been there. It was a statue, someone’s impression; an artist gone wrong with an arc welder and a torch. The eyes were huge, as one would expect, and a mouth with fangs. But I never remember fangs in the descriptions nor do I remember claws, but they were there. There he was all in brushed steel. Large ovoid glass, deep amber colored and a mouth, open, bigger then my fist with fangs the size of my fingers. I looked at him and said to myself "So, this is what has happened to you. You’ve become nothing more than a tourist trap prop."
Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. But you can't tell. Strange things happen in these hills and maybe he's out there, maybe just waiting, waiting for dark on another cool night to go scare a couple other people. Or maybe he's just here to keep an eye on us. Maybe once Point Pleasant improves, he will go away. I have put together before the conclusion about the mothman existing in multiple places in the world. I took note of the times he was seen and more often that not it was when the weather was cooler. So I started to wonder, maybe he only comes to Point Pleasant during the winter time, like Canadians going to Florida and the rest of the year he lives further north, maybe, somewhere around Toronto or Ottawa, who knows? You can't tell when your dealing with Canadians. Heck, he may even be a Canadian citizen, who just happens to have a small out of the way place in Point Pleasant , West Virginia.
Monday, January 10, 2005
A bigger update
Well, as you can see from the previous post, we have returned to Moosebase Alpha, none the worse for wear. We got back a little tired and a little drug out, but all in all it was not a bad trip.
Things have been slow of late, not in that there has not been a lot to do, but it seems that someone has damed the timestream. Days seem to crawl, till they suddenly burst forward till the pressure is released, they they slow back down. An odd thing perhaps, but only if you notice.
Work has been work, as i think it should be, but the creative side of me has been fairly limted of talte to only painting minitures. Not all that creative I'll grant you, but at least it is something.
I have found that most of my creative writing has been here in my blog, so the story about Sean Flynn has gone stagnant. I hate that, but I will not try to force writing just to write. that is what my blog is for.
I got a new bullwhip thanks to The Fish. He is our local whip-guru. Now, get your mind out of the gutter. He is a whip sportsman, for lack of a better term. Carck addick sounds just wrong cause poeple start thingking drugs, not whips.
Well, I can see I am just rambeling, so i'll let it alone for a while. Like my mom used to say:
If you keep picking at it, it will get infected...
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
Things have been slow of late, not in that there has not been a lot to do, but it seems that someone has damed the timestream. Days seem to crawl, till they suddenly burst forward till the pressure is released, they they slow back down. An odd thing perhaps, but only if you notice.
Work has been work, as i think it should be, but the creative side of me has been fairly limted of talte to only painting minitures. Not all that creative I'll grant you, but at least it is something.
I have found that most of my creative writing has been here in my blog, so the story about Sean Flynn has gone stagnant. I hate that, but I will not try to force writing just to write. that is what my blog is for.
I got a new bullwhip thanks to The Fish. He is our local whip-guru. Now, get your mind out of the gutter. He is a whip sportsman, for lack of a better term. Carck addick sounds just wrong cause poeple start thingking drugs, not whips.
Well, I can see I am just rambeling, so i'll let it alone for a while. Like my mom used to say:
If you keep picking at it, it will get infected...
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake...
Trickster, me?
From Tomcat's journal, via The Fish, via Judi, via the Appian Way....
Which Trickster Are You?
Take the Trickster Test at www.isleofdreams.net.
I dunno, does it fit?
Take the Trickster Test at www.isleofdreams.net.
I dunno, does it fit?
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