Update
1 year ago
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
October Blogmeet And Party-O-Matic Date?
It's suggestion time! What weekends are good for you? It appears I'll have other plans next Sunday but all the rest are fair game.
Happy Unbirthday Tooo Meeee!
This blog is a year old today!
--Never thought I'd have the patience. Or that folks would read it. But that, as I pointed out in my second blog entry, is your worry; me, I just write the stuff.
I believe "eyebleeds" was my first label or tag. It comes from, "staring at a blank sheet of paper or screen until your eyes bleed," a process which is, of course, the foundation of all true art.
--Never thought I'd have the patience. Or that folks would read it. But that, as I pointed out in my second blog entry, is your worry; me, I just write the stuff.
I believe "eyebleeds" was my first label or tag. It comes from, "staring at a blank sheet of paper or screen until your eyes bleed," a process which is, of course, the foundation of all true art.
Mmm-mmm Good!
Or not too bad and they make smoke come out the ears of über-sofizztickated posers, which is a whole 'nother level of good: gummi candies shaped like tractors and farm animals!
Best line in the review: "With the John Deere branding on the box, it could just as well have contained sparkplugs..." Oh, yeah. They stick to my dental work, but sign me up.
So, when do we get the version shaped like tiny AR-15s, mooseheads, tiaras, eyeglasses and maps of Alaska?
Best line in the review: "With the John Deere branding on the box, it could just as well have contained sparkplugs..." Oh, yeah. They stick to my dental work, but sign me up.
So, when do we get the version shaped like tiny AR-15s, mooseheads, tiaras, eyeglasses and maps of Alaska?
Monday, October 06, 2008
Big Plans
I'm on vacation this week, doing things like major house work, running radio antenna lines into the basement (and planning out at least one more antenna), building bookshelves and so on. But sometime this week, I wanna go here: Atterbury Range! I have not been there since the last big revamping. The place looks plush (especially the clubhouse, compared to the decrepit trailer rangemasters previously used; looks like the pistol range is much improved, too) and it's in a pretty portion of the State. Likely to be Shotgun Heaven this time of year.
Amusingly enough, you can see the range as I saw it last, here: beseems that because the place is right by Camp Atterbury (and within the WW II-era boundaries), updates to satellite pix of the area are a bit slow. (I'm having difficulty coming up with numbers but Indiana's Guard and Reserve troops are and have been deployed in a very big way and an awful lot of them pass through Atterbury).
My baby bro the reservist chaplain (no, really) points out that Indiana is bombed regularly by the USAF, mostly flying out of Virginia, hitting the South section of Camp Atterbury. Daggone it, I thought the War Between The States was over already!
Amusingly enough, you can see the range as I saw it last, here: beseems that because the place is right by Camp Atterbury (and within the WW II-era boundaries), updates to satellite pix of the area are a bit slow. (I'm having difficulty coming up with numbers but Indiana's Guard and Reserve troops are and have been deployed in a very big way and an awful lot of them pass through Atterbury).
My baby bro the reservist chaplain (no, really) points out that Indiana is bombed regularly by the USAF, mostly flying out of Virginia, hitting the South section of Camp Atterbury. Daggone it, I thought the War Between The States was over already!
Tabloid Headlines
In a supermarket checkout line the other day, I read the following three headlines on the front of the same scandal-sheet:
"OCTOBER 2008: EVERY END-OF-THE-WORLD PROPHECY COMES DUE!!!"
"TWO EGGS A DAY REDUCE CHOLESTEROL!"
"New! PHOTOS OF SARAH WITH SECRET LOVER!"
If the first one is true, why should anyone care at all about the other two? If the end of the world is arrivin' on the next bus, I'm havin' bacon and eggs for breakfast every darn day -- and I'll tar'n'feather some Congressthings after lunch!
"TWO EGGS A DAY REDUCE CHOLESTEROL!"
"New! PHOTOS OF SARAH WITH SECRET LOVER!"
If the first one is true, why should anyone care at all about the other two? If the end of the world is arrivin' on the next bus, I'm havin' bacon and eggs for breakfast every darn day -- and I'll tar'n'feather some Congressthings after lunch!
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Maybe Sunday?
I should have gone to the range Saturday morning -- I even woke up in time to meet friends there. But I didn't.
Blogging about things that are too personal is said to be unmannerly. Not done. OTOH, my readership is not large and I have no class,* so....
What I did instead was vacuum Mittens's favorite chair and put it in the basement. I just couldn't stand to walk by it, expect to see the cat and then remember. Random Numbers wasn't using it -- she has her own bed, a folded blanket on a crate in the dining room where I'm hoping to build a window seat that should be a cat-friendly spot.
I spent my teen and pre-teen years peeling my pet kitties up off the road, dead, with distressing regularity. (An "indoor cat" was a pretty rare thing back then). My own two cats are off-the-charts elderly and spend most of their time dozing on the very desk at which I am blogging. The sudden departure of a cat, epecially one so nice, is painful.
Spent the rest of the day scootering and working on various house projects. I did manage to visit Sakura Mart and remembered to pass the money using both hands; it's not so much they notice as it is they notice when you do not. (It's a perfectly wonderful Japanese grocery store -- at 5' 9" and a hundred-something pounds, I am about 1.25X overscale for the place and work at not being a cow in a china shop). Restocked my supply of Black Black gum: mint-eucalyptus strong, caffinated and spiked with niacin, what's not to like? (Update: Link goes to Black Black gum search results at J-Box, the wholesome side of J-List, which I'm told imports a vast and rather -- ahem -- wide array of items from Japan. J-Box is work-safe; past there, you're on your own. If you live in a city of much size, a trip through the Yellow Pages is likely to put you in touch with a much closer source of Japanese snacks, as little .jp grocery stores are increasingly widespread. IMO, Japan's got some of the best junk food on the planet).
...Blogging, it seems to me, is an invasion of privacy one commits on one's self.
__________________________
* Update: Technicically incorrect, as the preceding blogoglyph reports test results giving me 19% class, though it fails to specify if that is by weight or volume.
Blogging about things that are too personal is said to be unmannerly. Not done. OTOH, my readership is not large and I have no class,* so....
What I did instead was vacuum Mittens's favorite chair and put it in the basement. I just couldn't stand to walk by it, expect to see the cat and then remember. Random Numbers wasn't using it -- she has her own bed, a folded blanket on a crate in the dining room where I'm hoping to build a window seat that should be a cat-friendly spot.
I spent my teen and pre-teen years peeling my pet kitties up off the road, dead, with distressing regularity. (An "indoor cat" was a pretty rare thing back then). My own two cats are off-the-charts elderly and spend most of their time dozing on the very desk at which I am blogging. The sudden departure of a cat, epecially one so nice, is painful.
Spent the rest of the day scootering and working on various house projects. I did manage to visit Sakura Mart and remembered to pass the money using both hands; it's not so much they notice as it is they notice when you do not. (It's a perfectly wonderful Japanese grocery store -- at 5' 9" and a hundred-something pounds, I am about 1.25X overscale for the place and work at not being a cow in a china shop). Restocked my supply of Black Black gum: mint-eucalyptus strong, caffinated and spiked with niacin, what's not to like? (Update: Link goes to Black Black gum search results at J-Box, the wholesome side of J-List, which I'm told imports a vast and rather -- ahem -- wide array of items from Japan. J-Box is work-safe; past there, you're on your own. If you live in a city of much size, a trip through the Yellow Pages is likely to put you in touch with a much closer source of Japanese snacks, as little .jp grocery stores are increasingly widespread. IMO, Japan's got some of the best junk food on the planet).
...Blogging, it seems to me, is an invasion of privacy one commits on one's self.
__________________________
* Update: Technicically incorrect, as the preceding blogoglyph reports test results giving me 19% class, though it fails to specify if that is by weight or volume.
So That's Me, Then?
Your result for The Classic Dames Test...
Katharine Hepburn
You scored 14% grit, 38% wit, 38% flair, and 19% class!
You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Um, Wrong, D00d
I wonder how this guy feels now that Senator Obama's got his own satellite TV channel?
Makes Bill Ayers best pal look like Pat Boone, doesn't it? No, wait, that's not fair to Pat; it makes him look more like Lawrence Welk. Yessiree, a well-spoken and telegenic Great Leader in a clean shirt, one who won't scare the populace until it's too late, that's the ticket. Decent haircut. And gosh-darn it, none of that poetry stuff, either, it makes the ignert flyovers all uncomfy.
Y'know what? All things considered, I like Gil Scott-Heron a lot better than the Senator from Chicago. Man looks you in the eye, unequivocally tells you where he stands -- and still packages it better than anyone running for office. Politically, he and I are poles apart on everything except perhaps the lack of content in rap lyrics. Musically, a guy who can get me to sit through a fretful song about a power reactor that acted up (but didn't go kaboom and has nevertheless been a focal point of freeze-in-the-dark PSH ever since) near Detroit is doing very well indeed.
Makes Bill Ayers best pal look like Pat Boone, doesn't it? No, wait, that's not fair to Pat; it makes him look more like Lawrence Welk. Yessiree, a well-spoken and telegenic Great Leader in a clean shirt, one who won't scare the populace until it's too late, that's the ticket. Decent haircut. And gosh-darn it, none of that poetry stuff, either, it makes the ignert flyovers all uncomfy.
Y'know what? All things considered, I like Gil Scott-Heron a lot better than the Senator from Chicago. Man looks you in the eye, unequivocally tells you where he stands -- and still packages it better than anyone running for office. Politically, he and I are poles apart on everything except perhaps the lack of content in rap lyrics. Musically, a guy who can get me to sit through a fretful song about a power reactor that acted up (but didn't go kaboom and has nevertheless been a focal point of freeze-in-the-dark PSH ever since) near Detroit is doing very well indeed.
Friday, October 03, 2008
The Rubicon Again?
We cross here, so head for the water, boys, greaves[1] off an' who's got the dice?
...It seems to me that "Rubicon crossing" has become a regular feature. The last big one was the Congressional shirking of declaring war on Iraq, mostly so later they could say, "Nuuuh-unh, it wasn't us, it was those meanies in the Executive Branch," and who gave a darn if it wasn't the way the Federal Gummit was supposed to work as long as they got some wiggle room? Constitution? A meaningless piece of paper from men too male, too white and altogether dead, a thing to be cast aside by a simple vote.
Now comes Friday's Great Pork Festival, in which a bill that was wayyyyy too bloated for the House earlier has come back, crammed to the bursting point with goodies, a camel stuffed with a goat stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a hen and the whole thing stuffed right up our tax bill, dry and sideways. Oh, yum: the biggest bit of meddling since the National Recovery Administration opened shop and Garret Garet opened up his typewriter to fire salvos at it. Yessir, Mr. Garet, that Revolution Within The Form you saw is well more than half-baked now![2]
Conversely, a good many of the House members -- and I use the term with deliberate punning malice -- are as half-baked as ever. Struttin' an' preenin' afore the cameras all afternoon, as though they'd personally solved the problem forever, instead of en masse and badly for about, oh, I give it half a year, 12 months at the outside.
Congress. Rope. Big damn scaffold on the Capitol steps: some assembly required.
I don't know how much it would help, besides perhaps the hemp and jute industries. There are plenty more where they came from, most with no grasp of where the value of money is created or who Adam Smith was. Or even the sense to pour sand out of a boot, for all that many of them graduated law school. Or do I repeat myself?[3] But they look all shiny an' sincere; they smile and hand out candy, telling us we'll march into the future shoulder-to-shoulder under their benevolent guidance (except for the fat cats and/or lazy or otherwise unlikable. You gotta have a Those People, just wait and see -- and sooner or later, it's me or thee).
Yeah, you betcha. United in chum(p)ship. Then it's shearing time and a lucky few get picked to be mutton stew!
_____________________________
1. Yes, this is another word Blogger's spellcheck is plain stunned to find is a part of English as she is writ. Jeepers, what did they feed it with, the smallest dictionary they could find? ("Typing is hard," says keypunch Barbie). Shin armor, blast you for a hunk of impure code running on less-pure silicon and shiny metals.
2. His novel The Driver is available online; some (and by that phrase I mean "Justin Raimondo") see foreshadowing of Atlas Shrugged in it but me, I'm intrigued by a book written in 1921 or '22 with a chapter titled "The Funk Idol" and that includes the phrase "PEACE ON EARTH: GOOD WILL TO MEN BUT DEATH TO INTEREST BEARING BONDS" in the opening paragraphs. (Also? Block caps are a PITA). Garet has a nice ear for the language and I dl'ed a copy.
3. Many years ago, I expressed my wonderment at this freak of Nature to one of the several competent attorneys whose paths I have crossed. He pointed out that even a lawyer of only moderate talent has a pretty good thing going, a steady income at least, and only an unskilled or overly-ambituous one would look to make a career of elective office. Interestin' notion -- not that I would be endorsin' it myself, mind you, not in light of the litigous nature of modern American culture; 'tis just a thing I heard a man say, once upon a while.
...It seems to me that "Rubicon crossing" has become a regular feature. The last big one was the Congressional shirking of declaring war on Iraq, mostly so later they could say, "Nuuuh-unh, it wasn't us, it was those meanies in the Executive Branch," and who gave a darn if it wasn't the way the Federal Gummit was supposed to work as long as they got some wiggle room? Constitution? A meaningless piece of paper from men too male, too white and altogether dead, a thing to be cast aside by a simple vote.
Now comes Friday's Great Pork Festival, in which a bill that was wayyyyy too bloated for the House earlier has come back, crammed to the bursting point with goodies, a camel stuffed with a goat stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a hen and the whole thing stuffed right up our tax bill, dry and sideways. Oh, yum: the biggest bit of meddling since the National Recovery Administration opened shop and Garret Garet opened up his typewriter to fire salvos at it. Yessir, Mr. Garet, that Revolution Within The Form you saw is well more than half-baked now![2]
Conversely, a good many of the House members -- and I use the term with deliberate punning malice -- are as half-baked as ever. Struttin' an' preenin' afore the cameras all afternoon, as though they'd personally solved the problem forever, instead of en masse and badly for about, oh, I give it half a year, 12 months at the outside.
Congress. Rope. Big damn scaffold on the Capitol steps: some assembly required.
I don't know how much it would help, besides perhaps the hemp and jute industries. There are plenty more where they came from, most with no grasp of where the value of money is created or who Adam Smith was. Or even the sense to pour sand out of a boot, for all that many of them graduated law school. Or do I repeat myself?[3] But they look all shiny an' sincere; they smile and hand out candy, telling us we'll march into the future shoulder-to-shoulder under their benevolent guidance (except for the fat cats and/or lazy or otherwise unlikable. You gotta have a Those People, just wait and see -- and sooner or later, it's me or thee).
Yeah, you betcha. United in chum(p)ship. Then it's shearing time and a lucky few get picked to be mutton stew!
_____________________________
1. Yes, this is another word Blogger's spellcheck is plain stunned to find is a part of English as she is writ. Jeepers, what did they feed it with, the smallest dictionary they could find? ("Typing is hard," says keypunch Barbie). Shin armor, blast you for a hunk of impure code running on less-pure silicon and shiny metals.
2. His novel The Driver is available online; some (and by that phrase I mean "Justin Raimondo") see foreshadowing of Atlas Shrugged in it but me, I'm intrigued by a book written in 1921 or '22 with a chapter titled "The Funk Idol" and that includes the phrase "PEACE ON EARTH: GOOD WILL TO MEN BUT DEATH TO INTEREST BEARING BONDS" in the opening paragraphs. (Also? Block caps are a PITA). Garet has a nice ear for the language and I dl'ed a copy.
3. Many years ago, I expressed my wonderment at this freak of Nature to one of the several competent attorneys whose paths I have crossed. He pointed out that even a lawyer of only moderate talent has a pretty good thing going, a steady income at least, and only an unskilled or overly-ambituous one would look to make a career of elective office. Interestin' notion -- not that I would be endorsin' it myself, mind you, not in light of the litigous nature of modern American culture; 'tis just a thing I heard a man say, once upon a while.
Tick, Tick, Tick...Tic, Tic
No time as usual and too much to say -- this week has fair given me a twitch and since my efforts to make it move faster yesterday failed (people, people, we have to all agree it's Friday to make it stick: consensus is reality, just ask the global warming "experts"), I've just got to tough it out.
Spin-doctoring the debate is running full force but even the smarmy weasels that infest the morning tube have had to admit Governor Palin did all right. Faint praise but even that much is something.
Meanwhile, as y'all already know, yet another House vote on the "bailout" is likely to come up today, with both the majority leader and the minority whip sayin' they'll not bring it to vote until they are sure they will win -- making the vote itself no more than a rubberstamp. This is "unity" and "bipartisanship" in action. Count me unamused; at this point, I'm ready for it to fail. I don't want to see a recession or depression -- revenues are already down at the starship company when a month ago, we didn't have room for one more crate or bale in the holds, and that means clients are cancelling -- but the cure looks to be worse than the disease. It's time to cowboy up and take our medicine: one way or another, there's economic adjustment ahead.
Spin-doctoring the debate is running full force but even the smarmy weasels that infest the morning tube have had to admit Governor Palin did all right. Faint praise but even that much is something.
Meanwhile, as y'all already know, yet another House vote on the "bailout" is likely to come up today, with both the majority leader and the minority whip sayin' they'll not bring it to vote until they are sure they will win -- making the vote itself no more than a rubberstamp. This is "unity" and "bipartisanship" in action. Count me unamused; at this point, I'm ready for it to fail. I don't want to see a recession or depression -- revenues are already down at the starship company when a month ago, we didn't have room for one more crate or bale in the holds, and that means clients are cancelling -- but the cure looks to be worse than the disease. It's time to cowboy up and take our medicine: one way or another, there's economic adjustment ahead.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Cue Twilight Zone Music
...I just heard Democrat (and former V. P. candidate) Geraldine Ferraro speak approvingly of Sarah Palin! She was careful to point out that as a Democrat, she favored Senator Biden (okay, fair enough) -- but she was nevertheless pleased that Governor Palin "had gone toe-to-toe with a man of Joe Biden's experience and held her own."
Seems some on the Left can see past their own squick and ideology. We have at least one political type who still remembers where the high road runs.
Elsewhere on the political front, I snickered to see Obama commercials about his fascist approach to health care running during the Outdoor Channel's all-gun Wednesday. Yeah, good luck with that, bud. Us ignorant, bitter louts will never tumble to your hopes to disarm us. (Me, not so much for the high road). And on over-the-air legacy-media TV, it's all attack ads, all the time: the political advertising business-as-usual.
And, with sincere apologies to the LGB folks who read my blog, I swear the next time someone uses the old trope about gay men havin' a super-duper sense of style, I will make them go watch Congressbeing Barney Frank, a man with the class and elegance of an unmade bed. I don't care who he sleeps with but is it too much to hope for that someone in his household could learn how to iron clothes? Or at least run stuff through the dry cleaners? Perhaps he's too worried his role in making the financial mess in the first place will become more widely known to deal with such minutia but I'm pretty sure even members of the House have people for the fiddlin' details. Remember, Representative Frank, as this bollixed-up knot unravels, you're the fellow who chides, "There's no right to hypocrisy." Prolly even less so where other people's money is concerned. Also, and this may come as a shock to you, C-Span archives just hours and hours of stuff from the House and Senate.... Rose Mary Woods is gone and she wasn't on your side of the aisle anyhow.
Seems some on the Left can see past their own squick and ideology. We have at least one political type who still remembers where the high road runs.
Elsewhere on the political front, I snickered to see Obama commercials about his fascist approach to health care running during the Outdoor Channel's all-gun Wednesday. Yeah, good luck with that, bud. Us ignorant, bitter louts will never tumble to your hopes to disarm us. (Me, not so much for the high road). And on over-the-air legacy-media TV, it's all attack ads, all the time: the political advertising business-as-usual.
And, with sincere apologies to the LGB folks who read my blog, I swear the next time someone uses the old trope about gay men havin' a super-duper sense of style, I will make them go watch Congressbeing Barney Frank, a man with the class and elegance of an unmade bed. I don't care who he sleeps with but is it too much to hope for that someone in his household could learn how to iron clothes? Or at least run stuff through the dry cleaners? Perhaps he's too worried his role in making the financial mess in the first place will become more widely known to deal with such minutia but I'm pretty sure even members of the House have people for the fiddlin' details. Remember, Representative Frank, as this bollixed-up knot unravels, you're the fellow who chides, "There's no right to hypocrisy." Prolly even less so where other people's money is concerned. Also, and this may come as a shock to you, C-Span archives just hours and hours of stuff from the House and Senate.... Rose Mary Woods is gone and she wasn't on your side of the aisle anyhow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
