Thinking hurts

or rather, remembering does. My afternoon was awful... they (students) were generally ruddy awful! Wow! It makes me think or rethink ...

What am I doing?

Fixing problems with lawsuits

1. Make substantial penalty for frivolous lawsuits.
....a. must be paid by filing attorney / firm
....b. if filed by prisoner, costs incurred by filing will be taken from
.........1. any money obtained from working while in prison or
.........2. any assets that may be liquidated or
.........3. any privileges amounting to a figure half to equal to filing costs
2. Any firm or attorney having already made a frivolous lawsuit will be charged the same standard charge with the coefficient of applications
….a. therefore an frivolous lawsuit filed increases the multiplier to one higher level also
….b. court records of frivolous lawsuits filed by said person will be made available and entered into record
3. the penalty should be all court costs, filing fees and man hours associated with filing & a standard charge
….a. not less than $10,000 and up to the initial requested damage and suing amount
………1. a lawyer filing a suit of damages of $5 million could face a fine of $10,000 to $5 million dollars on top of the court fess
4. Determination of frivolous nature of case based on initial lemon test
….a. fails to meet criteria for reasonable dollar amount or dollar amount is completely ambiguous
……….1. such as prisoner filing damages of millions for hypothermia acquired from failing to wear proper clothing as an act of defiance to guards and prison personnel.
…..b. fails to provide accurate, reliable, valid data and evidence not dependant on deliberate destruction of evidence by defendant.
…..c.. plaintiff has history of such filings; falling back on investigation of lawyer and / or firm of client
…..d. act or inaction must be relevant and attributable to defendant
…..e. suit filed cannot be filed by person accused of criminal act resulting in situation facilitating suit
……….1. bugler or robber who injures self during commission of felon or flight
……….2. same person injured by home owners or personnel defending the establishment, domicile, articles, property, persons, or animals in their care
……………..A. persons injured while committing crimes (misdemeanors or felonies) share forfeit all rights to sue their victims. Filing damages against their victims, they must pay restitution to the victims for harassment and a countersuit (paid by the criminal) shall be instantly filed for the victims’ benefit, whereupon all costs will be paid by the criminal, the settlement to be no less than $10,000 and no greater than the initial suit’s damage value
5. Upon finding that the person filing has no such assets to pay off the frivolous lawsuit costs, the person shall be required to do community service equaling the value of the court costs. If said person is in prison and no family member will compensate the state for the costs, the prison shall forfeit wages earned in prison up to the court costs. If this isn’t met, suspension of privileges shall be imposed until the value of the court costs have been made.

++++
anyway, it's a start ... an idea

Dave, beer conesuer

Strnge enough that I can say that since often he's drinking Miller light or Bud light. Nonetheless I believe he has tried more beers that I have. I will try to remember some of the brands.

Meat-eating days

I didn't always find the smell of cooking pork, beef, and chicken gross, but at some time, years ago (lat 90s), I did. I do remember, for whatever reason tonight, times when Scott, Monkeyjack, (sometimes) MR and I would grab some quick, cheap coney dogs -- 6 for $3 or something. The "dogs" were narrow, short, and packed with oils as was the coney sauce. The onions and everything always gurgled my stomach followed by the vaporous apparations of ghosts of fast food. These are the only ghosts I have known -- smelly, foul reminders of fast food and the bad call to eat it anyway.
+++
When I was about 11, I remember going to Char King and being a bit peckish for dinner said, "I'm not very hungry tonight. I think I'll have half a chicken." I did indeed eat the entire meal. Now, this sounds boastful, until you actually remember being a teen or have been around hungry teens. Keep your hands away from their mouths at all times.

Darren McGavin

It's sad to see him go. In Christmas Story, he reminded me of my father. I like some of his other work too. It was my understanding that his wife proceeded him in death by many years. I would have to say that I will keep in my mind his comic talents. Thanks good buddy!

raft race pictures

first photo unrelated to the mentioned raft race, but shows what the bridges were like, with balloon droppers.

picture from library archive: circa 1974

Actually ... these were borrowed. I still haven't found the one, but I'm looking.

waterblogged

How can I explain it? I take it frame by frame it. The raft race of old ... a tradition in my hometown during an annual festival. The festival survives, the race is no longer, but having been in it a few times, I will explain or sum up. The race was cancelled years ago due to lack of effective sponsorship.
--background on the river--
The river -- dirty from the many northern towns and cities enters my city and it then mixed into 2 other rivers. The primary pollutants are metal toxins and toxins used in metal working. Mixed in with that are detergents and fertilizer. The addition of fecal matter doesn't make it any deadlier, just grosser. The race starts where there is a dam, set mid to low level during the summers. Generally speaking the rivers tend to be low at this time. The sandy rocky bottom is replaced by debris shortly after the dam. A few radio stations would put in the largest dough to make it happen -- prize money and permits. The racers were to put together a craft of their own design, good, bad, tacky or great. No canoes were allowed. Understandably they disallowed alcohol on any craft. They also disallowed the following weapons, which never made sense: water balloons, water cannons, water guns. Considering environmentally, plastic from water balloons I would understand, but the others -- no, sir. The theory was that the racers weren't supposed to get the crowd wet, but the crowd could drop water and water balloons on them. Crazy, nonsensical. In the early days of its inception there was the theory of a race, being that the early entrants had a weak advantage over the later ones. There were $250 and $500 prizes for winning the race; 2nd place, most creative; best use of radio station call letters; and a couple of other categories. In the mid or early 80s, the event stopped being a race and was reduced to an event, but still with prize money awarded for the above. In the early 90s, they stopped awarding prize money, but it was fun to enter into the event. Here' are some of my memories... (dates and years are all mixed within)The craft was plywood on plywood nailed to 2x4s with barrels strung onto the bottom. It weighed about 9 million pounds; I hardly believed that it floated. It was my first experience in the race and it was typically summer, 94 degrees, humid and mixed between dragon breath wind and airlessness. Getting the thing down the embankment, along the narrow strip of rocks and sand, dodging the other craft already moored as it were, to the first open spot. There are many bends in the river, so you really have no idea of the length that you'll travel. Our crew of six was outfitted with required preservers that made paddling difficult. This craft wasn't fancy, it was -- a raft, pieced together a little better than Cuban flotillas. We packed on the raft... bottoming it out. The race began with a PA announcement that we didn't hear. We saw other craft going, so we went through the thickly packed mess of the start. It was like alpha bits in milk ... congested, when one moved three others replaced it. I believe that there were 111 craft that year packed into a pharmacy parking lot space. When we finally got deep enough we noticed that the splash boards or "paddles" were only modestly better than our hands for paddling. Our goal was in the direction of the river with hundreds ahead of us. Here we could see the more sophisticated models -- space shuttle, radio van, heavy metal black box raft, frilly pink girly raft, PT-109 looking raft, and others. Not having seats, we sat on our legs, our knees painfully bent. [stroke] and within 20 minutes we have traveled 20 feet. [stroke] We were under a bridge in 40 some minutes with passersby splashing us, taunting us and the crowd cheering us all. [stroke]. A crystalline line, cone, wave, like a snake flew over our heads. Someone on the land was firing at us. [stroke] [splat] My sister got it! [stroke] It was an hour and we were all ready to quit. The thrill had nearly passed over us when, bombs away!
* "They're using artillery on us!"
Water balloons directly ahead of us, coming from the bridge, from the land, from other boats and rafts. Most didn't break. [Splash! Splash! Splash!] Splashing was coming from not only the balloons, but also the paddles and oars of other rafts ... [splash!]

(switching times) I remember here, our castle raft was faltering. We had put together a great colossus of a raft. It could hold twelve people, and out front it had an island where the working drawbridge would drop. The river made the moat. It was great, but it was leaking. From the pace of our sinking at least two barrels were taking water, one had half filled. The raft wasn’t going to make the entire trip. With a small pout, I jumped into the still busy start of the race.
Abandon ship! We leapt off like rats, leaving only Scott and Greg, who were doing something we couldn’t understand. I would like to say we hijacked the raft with painted handprints, operated by the girls, but they obliged us in our plight. This was actually a ruse to ditch theirs. They had spotted “guys” on another raft and left theirs for that one, so that they didn’t have to paddle anymore. It was an awkward win-win scenario.
They were wise enough to have paddles. We saw Greg finally leave the raft then head toward a shore. Scott had since then joined us on the raft and was non-too-pleased to be exiled. He took it in stride. About another hour later, Greg launched himself from a shore and swam to our raft.
He had removed the numbers indicating the entry – no number, no identity. We had conspired to sabotage our own river – shameful. We felt no shame as the city then had the equipment to haul the bugger from the drink. It went to the front end of the bridge and stayed there for about a week.
We were now on the river making progress, time in: 2.25 hours and we had 45 minutes until we would be done. We were quite tired. As there were no restroom spots and being soaked, then drinking water gives nature a call, you put yourself into the river to assist you. At this episode we had to walk the raft, as the water was low on the side. Here Scott got a mouthful of the crud. Later that day he would develop an illness that I think lasted a week. As a testament to this foulness, dead carp were on the surface in some areas. If carp die – people would too.
MR found a camera on the raft. We later had to keep it from falling into the river. We put it in the cooler on the raft. Sadly, it too was filled with water. That was shameful!
At the end we saw the girls there. They somewhat remembered us and that we had their raft. Hauling the waterlogged, raft from the river after hours of rowing, was like pushing a shopping mall, because it was a little off center from the foundation. No one, and I mean no one smelled anything other than foul! Cerpicio’s father, I think, helped us load it onto a truck, expecting ours, but ours was elsewhere.
Each participant had to wear the raft race shirt. Each shirt, after being soaked in the river water was never again white. Yummy! Thankfully the city has an effective water cleaning system.

Monkeyjack has a picture somewhere of our raft … on board one trip were Cerpicio, Monkeyjack, Scott, MR, TS, ISJ, Greg, Bob, Rob, (another person) and myself…. I think that was it.

On a different trip, I was thrown a beer. While tempted, I didn’t drink it, later passing it off to someone on the land. I was warned by the police boat to not be swimming – yea. What fun! Swimming with a preserver in a toxic river – gosh, why can’t I go swimming here? Doofus!

Lemonwheel

LemonWheel reaches "the Age of the Fish" (Paleozoic Era)

Last night was the start of achieving one of my dreams: to have a band that entertains the people, makes them want to stay out of their seats and dance. Through the years I have watched PopNFresh and observed the masses and from my first dance-band influence CandyBomber of years ago, to a more recent party band influence - 10DazeLate, to my current influence TheFlyingToasters..... last night, LemonWheel achieved the start of what I've been longing for.....Here is my recollection of our show last night at The Blind Pig in Greenwood.
The Blind Pig is a homey bar with 3 adjacent rooms, one directly in the stage area, one in the bar area and the furthest from the band, a room with some pool tables. We started our night at 9:30pm with a half full bar, mostly our friends in the band area (Kim, Scott, Kevin, Frank, Diane, Jeremy and Mike running sound, many other friends of Vic, Nancy, Bruce and John, of whom I apologize for not knowing their names). We started with a few good listening tunes and then tempted them with some dance music. It was challenging to get them started on the dance floor, but they were dancing in their chairs or "polishing their seats" as I told them "ok, when you are done polishing your seats, come on up here to the dance floor".......thanks to Kim and Jeremy for breaking the ice and from there on we had a handful of people up and down during the remainder of the set, tossing Mardi Gras beads to them and playing one long set until nearly 11pm. People started filling the bar toward the end of this set and during our break. During the break, I ran around getting many sourpuss photos and handing out more Mardi Gras beads. Many new faces had come in so I did get some strange looks from people wondering why I was trying to stick a lemon and camera in their face, but some "bit" anyway....
We started up our second set around 11:25pm with 2 listening songs and then started back up on the dance music, from that point forward, the crowd stayed with us, by that time the bar was reaching capacity (no empty seats) between the band room and bar room, still with a few that I could see in the pool room. The liquor had set in and people were ready to party...... the dance floor was packed. We're not so polished at keeping the songs back to back, so of course people would sit when we stopped, but this crowd was pretty good to go take a drink and get right back on the floor. We had a couple of faithful dancers who started staying up there, even when we stopped (maybe because their seats were way in the back), realizing we'd continue with the dance music, to whom I later rewarded with flinging to them a LemonWheel thong during "You Can Leave Your Hat On". We even had a packed dance floor - 3 slow songs in a row, they packed it for the first one, we missed keeping the music going, so most sat down and then came back up with some new dancers for the second one and cheers to Nancy for noticing a couple who came up at the end of the 2nd song and looked disappointed that they'd missed their opportunity and she broke straight into "I Can't Make You Love Me" and packed the floor for a 3rd one. Then we went back into the "fast dance" music and achieved what I'd call a "Toaster" moment where we did play at least 5 songs back to back and the floor was packed continuously between songs. The next thing I know, I glance at my watch on our last song of the set and it's nearly 1pm, we were officially done at 1:30pm and so while Bruce sang Some Kind of Wonderful I snuck back by Nancy to see what she thought... she concurred we should keep going but thought the band needed a brief potty break, so fearing the crowd would leave if we took a break, I announced that the band was there until 1:30, we were taking a 5 minute potty break and would be right back so "don't go anywhere." Mike threw on some dance music and to my surprise the floor packed with people and no one left the bar. We played again to a packed house and dance floor until 1:45am. At some point during the last hour I noticed that there were no longer any people playing in the pool room, all seats were filled in the bar and band rooms, all eyes were on us......... this was one of the best, if not the funnest gigs I have played thus far.
I want to express my gratitude to all those people who have been so supportive of me over the last several years in my endeavors to make this dream happen. First and foremost, my current bandmates - Bruce, John, Nancy and Vicsta, for whom we could not have achieved this, and to Mike for doing a wonderful job of running sound and being supportive, to Jeremy for all his love and support, to Bill for his encouragement and acting as a sounding board, to Rhonda for continuing to help me find my voice, and to all the other people who are receiving this, you have in some way, whether it be playing with me in a past band and helping me to grow, to those who've helped to book the band, to those coming to our shows and dancing, or just your general moral support (including those keeping it lighthearted and suggesting I switch to Macrame' as a hobby in my down moments), I want you to know how much it's appreciated. I hope this is the first of many fun shows to come......
Welcome to the start of the Age of LemonWheel. Rock-on.

+++++++

Congratulations!!!!

Freddy Freaker

I'm not the only one who remembers!

--- from the site ---

Freak phone
They played this on MTV a lot in '86 or '87. There was a weird puppet (Freddy Freaker) dancing, and I still don't know what the phone line was all about. But I still remember the jingle (although I don't know what order the verses go in). "1-900-490-FREAK. Freddy Freaker, the dancin' new sensation headin' up the nation, doin' the freak. Call Now 1-900-490-FREAK. Join the party, the fast and easy way, to hear what's jammin' from New York to L.A. Call now. 1-900-490-FREAK. What's happenin' what's jammin', party 'til you drop. Dial and hear the action, what's hot and what's not. Call Now. 1-900-490-FREAK. Two dollars a call, grrrr."

...

Sad to say that it still makes me old

What I wanted to be

Hong Kong Phooey

Why? He can walk upright on his fingers, do a lot of impossible moves and has the voice of Scatman Crothers.

GWB clearer

President Bush giving the camera the finger.

Smiles & more

It's great to see you smile! When things are frustrating, show it!

These pictures, of course, were "sampled"

I follow directions

I got a strange package of _______ matter, with the note, "and die!"

the ______ didn't smell like anything I'd eat, didn't look like anything I'd eat and that's as far as I got. I couldn't ______ ______ and die, for I didn't try it. If any of you are interested in ______, I have some that you might have. It was nice of the person to offer it to me, but I decline.

masive remakes

Beverly Hillbillies
Green Acres -- think not? Hilton & Ritchee
Dukes of Hazzard
How about Courtship of Eddie's Father ... sans sexual situations
They did Little Rascals

How about Happy Days before jumping the shark?

Hey! Look at that, over there!

from an audio self guided tour in Michigan. Too funny! What the? Where? I missed it? I can't see you pointing and I can't ask you questions ... what a stupid, truly stupid prompt!
"This fork has only two tines. Next we have ..."

What the?
Why mention it if you have no secondary or informative commentary? That's just plain silly!

bad candidates for 2008

Pat Buchanan and Hillary Clinton*
* nuts and bolts

where you should go for fairly good info
http://www.lwv.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
-- no belly-aching about it, this site is good ... dismiss your sexist viewpoint and get read data at lwv

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm
an old, but current site with "both sides", doesn't claim to be fair and balanced, because when you read, you'll know

...
locally there is a strip club bartender who always runs ... by golly he's gonna pull it off one time, but I'll be happy knowing that I voted against him, if by no other means, write in....
personal note: 2000 Presidential election, I wrote in myself, which is a constitutional right -- I didn't win

My town / city has far too many strip clubs in prime districts. I know there is a "need" for them, but in shopping areas and heavy traffic areas, I disagree with them being there ... also, in my city is a Hooters within a "spitting" distance -- next door to strip club. This would be bad, but it's own a main and busy road. I wouldn't want my kids feasting on Long John Silver's, but if they weren, I wouldn't want them exposed to drunk horny jerks from either hooters or the strip club next door.

I would say that they were evil and go on a pedaetal about that, save that I too-frequented them for ages 21-22; 18 months. I could not then write credibly that they are hell-spawn evil and should be smited from the planet. The "dancers" there were happy to get my money for nothing, as they pranced about in undies -- rude, sexist, risque and peverted, granted.

I am quite over my late-teen hormone fix stage. I am ... for all occasion, an old man by most person's standards. In the standard workplace I am like an ME computer ... replacable and, not really worhty of updating or keeping. Male white 30+ has no real purpose in the workplace unless he offers a uniqueness ... otherwise there are others there to replace the guy with culturally-improved persons (Affirmative Action '70s standards) dictate demographics).

Now, if the workplace were, say ... bigot-free, less successful than cigarette bans, then that would be worthless. I know that bigotry still exists, because ignorance is easier, favorable and security, especially when you know no different. It's hard to talk about equality with white persons when they know no one other than white persons or have a very sparse non-white friend base. Friends here could be as broad as invitations to sporatic parties, more important than mere co-workeres, about whom you could care very little.

I find it sinful that there is a "party" lever where you could ignorantly vote Blue or Red, not knowning blank about a candidate. Some states disallow or illegalized the "party" lever. Do you know the underscretary of the second treasurer of your state? How would their party affiliation play ANY part in their job?

I don't look at party, which is rich parties putting forth those who "qualify" and win the primaries. I look at persons, who, ultimately must make decissions. Do I want a person who views themselves as Replubican or Democrat first and person second or just do their job regardless of election and re-election. I vote disband the parties and forget the left, right, mod, conserv. liberal, dem, repub, green, liber, etc.

Would you want a person who acts on reason, intellect and evidence or a party-follower who obeys the orders of a person with an agenda? Disband the mess ... elect a peson, not an agenda ... no REASONABLE person I know agrees to all the party claims is right. I have no parry affiliation, but must claim one for primaries, which is a shame.

Disney / Touchtone mirrors

Smoke and mirrors that is. Too bad Harry Houdini isn't here to demystify the lot.

"We have an all new idea", except if you own the damned "moratorium" movies that we repackage, then resell, then remake, repackage, resell, then put on hold, then repackage, "remaster", resell, then put on moratorium. Do you see a pattern?

What can we put in this hand that you, then don't worry so much what's in the other hand.
Moreover, Disneyworld, hosting Epcot and others has taken a hit by the La Nina storms, which will hit again this year. If you think $1500 for a 4 day vacation for four is high now ... wait 4 months.
My father plays poker 25 weeks of the year. Friends of his have condos and place in FL, and announced that two situations are common now:
.... hurricane insurance is 3 or 4 times the cost now -- without exception
.... hurricane insurance in other areas is unavailable

level & inclined plane fastener ... oh, yes ... the screw

FL: insurance verboten
Lousiana: land developers with gobs of money and no scruples welcome
* more on that later

I used to work for a video store and remember the blantant lies that Touchtone and more often Disney would tout with their movies --- preservation of blah, blah, blah ... money, money, money ... newly cleaned, with new voices because the original soundtrack was altered -- doubt me, check out "Peter Pan", which now has a new Captain Hook voice. Here, I write of the original, not the Return to Neverland movie.

I would like to think that Microsoft started that, but J. P. Morgan did and others, like Disney, followed.

Village of the bored

or at least that is what I am lead to believe. Typically, M. Night Shyamalan has a movie that lasts as long as a viral infection --- days to weeks. I wasn't all that interested, but it's a Truman show with a Waco, TX feel to it, set in good ol' Puritan/Amish setting. I think I'll skip it.

butt of lardness

As I have spent way too many hours at the screen -- this week has shown my growth, as it were. I hope with the next couple of weeks with greater work that I will shed the unwanted potential energy. I got three / five assignments &/or offers for the next couple of weeks. I had to disappoint a teacher, whose charming smile brightens my day, that I was "taken" for a day that she needed me. I was sad also to tell her.

images of a stormtrooper

being blasted off the Millenium Falcon. Tonight Charlie wanted me to march the "mini" version of fixed-position trooper up onto the Falcon to be "blasted off" with the turbo laser turrets. Even funnier to him was the shaking and earthquaking of the trooper, when he pushed the sound effect of a disabled engine, whereupon the trooper shook (paint-shaker style) off the top of the Falcon. He was hard-pressed to change to a new game.

Loaded with McDonald's sundae, he stood on his head and was not inclined to rest at 10 something at night --- imagine that! Lori's soft singing, which he mimicked, put him back into a restful mood.

I watched another episode of "Lost", which was somewhat forward, but like moving the gear from Park to Drive, never touching the gas pedal.

DS9

Hey ... how fast does this thing go?
Uh ... it doesn't.

So, we're like out here, waiting for stuff to happen to us?
Yep!

Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!

Deep Space 9

I don't watch the show, but if I did: I would because of

one more

quote from Space Balls.

Did you ever see a movie that started well then fell apart, use the phrase "... going from suck to blow."
Take Hollowman for instance. I saw around 20 minutes that were good, then ... it fell completely apart into an honest effort of stink!

LOTR

"Let's shake hands on it." "Ha! Ha! I got your ring. I can't believe you fell for that one. What's with you man?!"
"Oh, here. Let me give it back to you. Uh... uh ...oh! You fell for that too?! Ha! I see that evil will always win over good, because good is dumb."

*courtesy of Space Balls

In madness I dwell

Return of the Jedi

* with dialogue from Holy Grail
[Two red guards say to themselves not to let you leave until ... then they step out]

*with lines from Back to the Future

[Speaking to "Biff", the emporer accosts him]
Emporer: "Vader, do you know what you are, a slacker."
Vader: "Yes, sir."
Emperor: "A slacker!"

[scene in emperor's chamber righter after Luke deftly jumps up onto a catwalk and tells Vader that "there is no conflict"]

Luke: "So why don't you take your emperial gaurds, make like a tree and get out of here!"
Vader: "It's make like a tree and leave! So sound like an idiot when you say it that way!"

[light saber flung at Luke, destroying the catwalk]

Empire Strikes Back

[Chewbacca in room with ringing]
ringing replaced by escpecially bad or catchy song, like Barney song or "Tip Toe Through the Tulips"

* with dialogue from Princess Bride
[on Deggobah]
"I wouldn't want to build a summer home here, but some of the trees really are quite nice."

[battle scene on catwalk right after luke looses his hand]
"I will have to fight him left handed"

New Hope

[C3PO and R2D2 are walking through a gun battle]
Terminator 2 scene arguing over going to retrieve Sarah Conner at the Mental Facility

* with dialogue from Pulp Fiction
[R2D2 has the message stuffed in himself]
"Your father had to keep this in the one place that ... wouldn't find it, his ..."

[while C3PO and R2D2 are walking in desert]
* with dialogue from Friday
"Man! You ain't got nothin' that go together! You got peanut butta, but you ain't got jelly ..."

Revenge of the Sith

[Aniken and Palpatine are sitting in a theater, instead of talking about the wise dark lord ...]
* with lines from Hunt For Red October

Palpatine: "I'm a politician, Jack. You know what that means? It means when I'm not kissing babies, I'm taking lollipops out of their mouths" "What do you think about [uranus]?" "Do you have something to add?"
Aniken: "I think [there's a] defect."
Palpatine: "I see." "I want you aboard a chopper tonight."

[possibly adding scene of Ani on cycle on Tattoonie from Attack of the Clones]

Fellowship of the Ring or Two Towers
[banging on door -- Feelowship is in the cave before the orc battle, Two Towers in Helms Deep on morn of Gandalf's arrival] dialogue from Animal House final battle during parade
[boom]
"I know you're in there!"
[boom]
"Come out!"
"I'm doing the dishes!"

Scientists demystified

http://www-ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/index1.html

Clever, from an educator's standpoint

picking on the Mighty

I'll spend some more time to pick on the "mighty" including other Presidents, some make it easier than others ... say like, Clinton. Unlike David vs Goliath, I shall not slay nor be slain here. It'ss all in fun.

Some people can't take criticism

Ouch! Hey, easy! I pick on all politicians.

from an actual taping of George, an out take of course

War!

There is no winning.

new shock TV

They've had people swim through leeches, animal blood, seamen, guts, gore and eat the same. They've had rude candid statements and hate jokes and politically incorrect humor. They've had sex innuendos, nudity and swearing. How can TV really shock anyone ... there is no shock to it. How about real shock -- none of the above. How about a show where the underlying theme isn't to offend and appall?

LOTR flash

odd ... "TO RULE THEM ALL!" well used.

Between lives, between lines, between lies, between ...

[picture removed limited licence duration expired]

Rhymes with Orange by: Hilary Price
limited use permission granted byKing Features Syndicate · North America Syndicate Permissions A UNIT OF THE HEARST CORPORATION
Thank you

I prefer to think of it as confortably divorced.
get comics: daily ink

Watch and die

If you watch, you'll know

1, 2 Tivo's coming for you

3, 4 Never leave through the door

5, 6 Get your programming fix

7, 8 Gonna stay up late

9, 10 Nexer sleep again

Madness has a name

And then he blew it up completely ... the device, the idea, the weapons, the target, the whole _____ thing!

Everything's better with fire!

Peep popped in my mail

I think Paula is holding this puffy, fluffy pillow critter

courtesy of Cerpicio. Thanks!

Unintentional humor 1

Air Force One: release the prisoner, then call out "prisoner escaping" [fire]
Omen; housekeeper falls from three stories into an ambulance, "Quick! call her an ambulance!" (quote not in the movie)

R to PG the funny way

I remember George Michael came out with I Want Your Sex. Boy did the radio channels catch flack for that and they had to reissue it packaged as "love". In consideration of that, friends and I thought of Guns and Roses putting out many songs with [EXPLICIT LYRICS] -- even before the label. Perhaps the funniest song with the dub over of "love" or "luv" would probably be It's So Easy. That being the case, there is the two versions of 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Wanna Be, Me So Horny. They released "... Appetite for love". That was even more comical than their intended candid rudeness in their original song.

I don't find lyrical works that try the shock-value card to be to my liking now. Eninem and others who can't manage to speak without guttural slurs flowing forth, make for a poor conversationalist as well as a poor character. Themes of rape, drugs, violence ... hmmm ... nothing else. If you have only hate ... then that's all you have.

Here's a great little idea ... replace the sick dialogue from South Park with a new, "clean" dialogue.

movie credits help make decissions

I saw the opening credits for a movie, then I saw ...

Music by

Bon Jovi

[click next channel]
The movie was Young Guns, which I saw when it was new. I thought it was okay at the time, but I've not seen it since. Bon Jovi I could do without.

Gouging and business as usual

AOL buys Time Warner. How is that possible? It was by using accounting practices of 2001/2 being allowed to list some losses assets. It was also by the fine judgment that such companies weren't/aren't monopolies and limitations shouldn't be applied. Moreover, if you spoke with anyone who used the system, some paid up to $26 monthly. Now the same company is offering $10 monthly. Okay, so you were gouging a customer for months or years, now the rate is less than half of what it was. Hmmm .... how might that be possible?

Comcast, in Indiana, is now battling a competitor -- Verizon. They have "evils of communications companies" ads, stating that rates will go up. That's a funny statement from a company that raises rates annually like a raise to the company. Your monthly bill was $45, now $52, next $60, to cover costs, like ... our attempts to buy Disney and other companies.

Natural gas companies claiming that, there was an electrical storm in Beijing ... therefore, we have to raise rates of natural gas pumped from Kentucky. There is a rise in consuption, there must be a rise in price. There is a drop in consuption, there must be a price hike. There is no change in the gas or consumption, the company has chosen to raise the price.

We're a restaurant that' competing for your business. Our decor is ... flashy -- cool, though unchanged for 12-15 years ... Applebees. Our menu is neat ... slightly changed, though the prices rise twice a year, unlike many salaries.

Firing Banks ... NBD, BANK1, CHASE, J P Morgan ... what next? Patrons finally get checks, cards and info with the name [your bank here], when the new bank takes over, so then you wait. How about NFL (Not For Long)

You don't have enough in your account -- there's a surcharge for that. You don't use your account often enough --- there's a surcharge for that. You transfered money from account to account ... there's a surchage for that. The bank claims that it costs money to do that? Really. There's some person behind a desk typing all of that and not a computer doing it? What's that you say ... the bank has to make money? Like that bank doesn't make money on investments abroad on your money that you have there. Right.

Lies, lies, lies ... those who covet money are forever seeking ... much like a movie that I didn't think was worth the hype, Pirates of the Carribean. Two guys who parade around get women's attention. Keira Knightley is very cute, but was not in the most alluring in the show as she was allowed to be. She might show more shoulder in the next movie.

Also gouging, the movie industry ... pay lots for a so-so movie and furthermore be subjected to previews and advertisments well before the movie and then have those same ads inappropriate for the audience. How do ads for kids toys make sense in front of Saw 3 or adult-themed ads in front of Curious George? Do people understand their audiences or anything?

* in addtion to this, I would say that a Disney movie that they hope to be a new classic, should be non-pronographic.

America's Favorite insurance scam

I predict that later the insurance agencies will pay for this show, however not advertise this fact. It would be of interest to them to find out claimants who are on this show. Should they be able to get the names and addresses of persons in the videos? Moreover, some videos win as viewer favorites. Entrants who win money, should they be penalized for insurance claims?

One. If a claimant did not fraudulently fill out any paperwork prior to the incident, should the person be considered in violation of any law?

Two. Having filed the paperwork correctly, not directly violating the terms, but causing self-inflicted injuries through recklessness and stupidity, is the the claimant entitled to the full insured value?

Three. Should the claimant be able to justly win the moneyas a contestant despite the relatively dubious account of the injuries (losses to persons or property)?

Legally, the person claiming that s/he can't fully work as previously, shouldn't benefit financially twice. As a counterpoint, there shouldn't be a Big Brother accessing everything. In the US where wire-tapping is legal to prevent terrorism. Changing limitations opens things up to new difficulties, including insurance companies having even greater power than they have now. I certainly don't want that!

Insurance companies were able to avoid paying out to family and businesses in NY, NY on Sept. 11 and during natural disasters. The government protects them, and not just this administration --- decades of protection, where money goes government is fed.

^---- Wow; no segway led up to that, eh?

Star Wars ideas

Hardware Wars, 1978

Holiday Special ... believe it or not

Grocery Wars

Thanks George Lucas for the first three, which helped define a generation and give people hope and being okay with dreaming and science fiction.

Gee Studly, I'm so sorry

Harry is so sorry to have gotten in the way of that bullet that would have naturally expertly killed that penned quail. He wept since Dick was denied access to that hunting ranch for a period of 5 years -- essentially a death sentence for the very aging and weak-health Cheney.

Prior to being shot, he was given a reminder of the rules, "You die and we all move up a rank".

Rumor has it that Dick was tired of hearing that he presented a caring and loving, nurturing role and role model. "I had to shoot that rumor down! Do you know what that would have cost me, to be regarding as a lame duck, weak? I had to shoot. If not the bird, then the guy next to me. You see that, right?"

Yeah ... no more Mr. Nice Guy!

Candid Mad TV videos

Substitute teacher, Interjection, Nouns, Junction, Fatty Fatty Fatty.

Not quite Schoolhouse Rock

Indiana stadium I don't want

The stadium could reach $687.5 million. Well, I'm not paying for it! Will it get Indiana more money ... maybe. At that cost, it will take a long while to get it back.

"You and I will come out looking like heroes!"
It was a bad call Ripley, bad call ...
Bad call ... these investments are deead Burk, dead!

various videos

Ultimate Showdown; wacky song, flash graphics.
not QVC; gun for sale

Worth a look. I'll finalize my list sometime. The classics are great!

common

It's all over the internet, but I thought it was funny.

more service stories

Service industry jobs allow you to mingle with the public. From here, I found that I really didn't like people.

There were liars and theives and cheaters and felons. I later met the less-likable non-workers. Hillcrest allowed me to see the greuling trade of hard work. If you haven't had a tough service job, do ... then think about the servers who bring you food -- on their feet 8 some hours a day carrying your mess, sometimes with snot-filled tissues, half-spit food, backwash. Talk about disgusting, and often, they are carrying those plates with their hands, not on a tray. Tip hard workers --- they deserve it.

I met a child pornographer while at a job. He had a "man purse" and offered to stop a would-be shoplifer with his registered gun. There was a much-later job with a physically abusive Dabney Coleman (Mr. Hart character) who was a sexist ego-tistical lying hypocritical biggot. This same person was ... well, a wacked out freak who probably was bi, but didn't think anyone could tell. I think I've had more hypocritical bosses than honest ones.
I got to go to court to submit papers on a criminal conversion charge of an arrested thief the night before. Our good ol' legal system didn't properly inform me that my presence was not necessary, though the officers told me it was. I got there 8 something in the morning and waited until 9 something ... most of the poeple around were those who were charged. I sat until a court clerk told me that I didn't need to be there. Lovely sleep --- missing and never to be regained.

There were cheaters who openly had "relations" with fellow employees and didn't think twice about it. One person actually remarked to me that she tended to annoy a person directly prior to or during coitis to get him angry ... making the sex more intense. That's nice! Angry rape sex. Gosh ... I'm so into you now ... NOT! Yuck, gross!

There was grotesque mismanagement -- Wal-Mart. I had many similtaneous bosses with personal agendas. "I need you to go do this." Moments later a same-level boss would pull me from there to do another project, then another boss would pull me again, then a higher boss again. None of the projects got done and I got berrated by each of them.

Office Space: "Did you know that I have eight bosses Bob? Eight! If I make an error, I have eight people who come to tell me about it."

Service jobs -- necessary, but evil.

Hillcrest

TS got a job at a bowling alley, telling MR and I that they were still hiring, we got jobs there. What a pit! Ah, the job. We had the illustrious job of "porters", which was do-whatever-menial-job-there-was. Because of a limited level law at that time, the owner Schmitt could pay us less than minimum wage because we were students. I never did read this small ruling in its entirety, but suffice to say that since we were fully time students, he could pay us 15% less. He also made it great defying the curfew rules and times allowed for enrolled and attending high school students. One some evenings, we worked until 2 a.m. or so.
Anyway ... the 70s decorated bowling alley was our workplace for some time. These workers are supported by two separate but equally important groups: the management who moneys tons of money and the butthead patrons who make their working necessary and aggrivating. These are their stories. [synthesized xylophone sounds]

"We need more beer from the back! Go bring it to Terry!" The scene was tragic, there were empties everywhere. Hundreds of super-cheap (it isn't any more expensive now) Miller, Bud, and Pabst bottles were sitting dead on tables, their lives drained out of them. There was no time for a proper investigation. This one died of consumption, that one of a fatal fall from a table.
Anyway, The trick throughout the evening was to take the moutain of empties and repack them into the cases, then take the cases of empties to the cooler and retrieve the fresh cold ones for the bar. That was simple enough until you found out that with a 2-wheel dolly, you generally could take only 6 cases at a time and you had other work -- always. One of us came up with a stacking strategy for taking 13 cases precariously stacked on the dolly. This was bad news if you dropped a full one. I don't think any of us did. As for the empties ... there were accidents.
Porters walked around gathering the mess from the pigs known as league bowlers, ashtrays were to be cleaned out, empty anything to be picked up, for the trashcan sitting 12' away was clearly inaccessable to the lazy. As well as the general mess, there were calls when someone didn't know how to use the scoring terminal or the machines were a bit flakey or there was "deadwood", a pin in the gutter.
Deadwood -- I remember several times running down the strip of plastic to get the pin ... "Do not touch the gutter. Do not touch the lanes" I followed these rules for two reasons: boss would throw tantrum and worse still ... the bowlers would "blame bad luck on the mariner". This would make the evening terrible for any violator like terrible in number of calls for nothing, exaggerated mess in area and verbal abuse.
Some nights were better than others, like Thursday night, you'd think would be better than Friday, but no. There was a late night league that loved peanuts. Seyfert's (TM) league, no, but the Planters (tm) made an unbelievable mess every week. You'd think they'd grow tired of peanuts. Not every lane had them, but three did and the gluttons greedily gobbled them, then dropped them onto the floor like then-restaurant Ground Round, or today's Lone Star or Logan's or Texas Roadhouse. If anyone would notice, those places have solid wood floors with a hard wax finish. You'd think that the floor to ceiling carpeting would be a clue there, but not to them.
They were one of the reasons that the porters had to be there late because they were pickled and could barely talk, let alone bowl. Many of the bowlers would chug the cheap beer (tap was especially profitable for the bar --- plastic cups of cheap draft). Many of the bowlers would finish bowling then go to the bar to drink more ... yes, please do. That sitting, waiting for your turn, really burned up calories.

As with any sevice job, I could write about the nastiness of perpetually cleaning. I never entered the fast food industry, which would have been even grimier. I can mention that when you mix old food, new food, greasy food, beer, soda (way old to fresh -- fountain tended to be more syrupy than from the can), cigarettes, cigars, oil, and cleaning chemicals; you get a wonderful toxic-level stench that churns anyone's stomach. It was foul, sweet, acidic ... road kill has a more tolerable odor. When the trash was loaded, then compacted (steps are repeated) until this lump of goo is in a bag, you had to trek through the alley to pitch it in the dumpster.
"Eeww! That's gross." "Get rid of that!" "Why do you have to bring that over here?" -- a few idiotic responses from the populace. After reaching the self-locking door, the trick was to prop it open, take the leaking bag to the dumpster and put it inside. The trash was collected on a Saturday, so on Friday, the dumpster had a week of grime. Several times I wore some of the charcoal gray puke-inducing liquid on my shirt, trying to push the bag on top of the dumpster. MR and I were working one night and I had my fill of much of anything. The bag was around 80 pounds and I didn't want to wear it. I angrily threw it up, but it completely missed the dumpster, splatting 5' from target. MR was holding the door -- we had 2 mintues until we could leave.
"Hey! Did you see those vandals?" "Vandals?" "Yeah! They messed up the trash!" MR got my anaalogy.
MR got the great eye-opening adventure of "someone made a mess in the stall". According to MR, it was fecal painting without direction. It was smeared throughout. I'm not sure if MR quit that day or not. If it wasn't that day, it was soon after.
Carpeting ... floor to floor, wall to wall. Why carpeting? It keeps the noise down, but also hoardes odors. If you think vaccuuming the floor will get rid of the smoke smell, you are wrong! Cheap Schmitt never replaces the air filters. So, one day, after 6 years of non-replacement, he was forced to replace them after a failed inspection. He shed tears about the price of the filters. The old ones were as sold as concrete, packed full of smoke, lint, dirt, dust, mess. The little ecosystem never knew it was going to be evicted.
That was also a time when they had cigarette machines. Does that make me old ... yes! I know that they had a vending sign indicating sales to minors, but that was if you bothered to read it. Anytime I got home from work --- despite the showering, I never felt or was ever really clean. Staying up til 2 working, then going to school -- not smart!
While there I met many a different character ... like Bonnie, who was a 30 some year old illiterate woman who wanted to molest me. I was naive, but smart enough to get out of it. Had I been wiser, I probably would have agreed. I know that she was illiterate because she read (MR do not elaborate on this name, please) a name as a month. She also read, minitures as, "mini-watch-es".
There was the bubble-headed bleach blonde than came on at five. She could tell you about being a virgin with a gleam in her eye. It's interesting that Schmitt finally died. (That job) gave me dirty laundry. BTW: I understand that Schmitt was a dealer and his son, more so. Hi son took over the business, the alley was an effective front, but the son I think was more open about it. The girl -- curvey, blonde, empty-headed, was hotly pursued by many, but was with one of the desk guys. His brother would have jumped on her if he thought he could have. This same guy, very rude ... would see a hot or reasonably attention-getting woman then make pounding noises under the desk, as though he were ____bating.
There was L Beaucheon who was a dippy guy who lived out north (see a later post)
Kristie, who was a 14 year-old naive little girl, who TS pursued and "got". Although there was only a four year difference in age -- the developemental and emtional difference was significant. MR found her immaturity to be laughable, such as an unfamiliarity with the term, "bought the farm", and a couple of other more typical phrases. She was 14 and should have been allowed to stay on the vine a bit longer.

to be continued

-- for clarification, in prior posts I mentioned that I met MR and TS in middle school.

age of arcades

Ah, when I was young, an arcade was a neat place to go, because the games there couldn't be put onto a PC or the TV. I had spent lots of money there -- to the many that I saw. One day I remember buying a $10 spot of tokkens and dumping them into a typical tokken eating machine.
By tokken eating machine, I mean a game where there was no practical way of playing for 20 minutes on one tokken. A neat multiplayer game was Xenophobe TM. The multiplayer function was neat, as it didn't require anyone to be on the same page at the same time. This meant that you could be in a (Spy vs Spy TM ) like room, shooting, killing and getting new weapons, while your fellows are being killed in anther room. It also meant that you could either help each other get the mission done fast, or ambush others. Throwing grenades endlessly was great fun.

While MR, TS, and ocassionally Monkeyjack were there, someone dropped some tokkens under the game. I reached down and tilted up the game. Under it I found around 10-12 tokkens, not all ours.

I thought about this for a few reasons.
1. It was an authentic multiplayer game (more so than Rampage TM)
2. It was a fun game with various switchable weapons, though you could posess only one weapon at a time
3. It was reasonable graphics with James Cameron Alien(R) like aliens
4. Nostalgia of my youth and of friends who are still around
5. The sad release of it as classic game makes me old, and the home version isn't the same

Examples of non-tokken munching games: Arkanoid (TM), as verified by ISJ; Mappy (TM) as verified by TS; Discs of Tron, as verified by many; etc.

Biggest offender of the tokken eating -- Gauntlet (TM)

Art festival follies

Mastodons
Moscow cows
Chicago Cows
Cow parade


I like art and those are Art,

more so than: this crap, or Chris Ofili, or Andres Serrano.

It may be said that I don't know Art, but that would be wrong. Take a good hard look at modern art and tell or write to me that it makes sense or is worth any tax dollars. I wouldn't donate to a Museum that happily hosted those things!

due course in normalcy

W T F? What do you mean you'd do anything with the egg for a dollar? I'm, uh, not buying.

How do you properly introduce yourself to a person, battle Apartheid in Africe (South Africe where union of the factions was somewhat successful, though very traumatic and painful). Okay, sit on the egg for a dollar.
[squat, splat, ew] That was flatteringly funny.
Smash one on your head.
[clench, splash] We're all wearing it. That wasn't good.

Ah, Rob ... wearing egg on his rump and face to make money for the people. What a good man! I had some disposable income and made it disgusting ... bad man me! I think later, I challenged him to Molsen Golden on the head --- thankfully clearing some of the egg from his hair.

I was never so noble.

mentionables, but not catagoried?

Why might I have notes and notations on persons without links?
a. intenionally anonymous
`````a. anon chosen or poster (me) chosen
`````b. contributor has no known link
`````c. contributor has not authorized usage of stated item/phrase
b. intentional fraud
`````a. deception to keep person safe from legal recourse
`````b. deception to keep person from archiving/research
`````c. protecting sources, as body / material supercedes gag, but transactual immuntiy applies
`````````````1. sources, forthcoming, however limited
`````````````2. source verified, but not substaniated from original source (through 2nd hand knowledge or third party)

Outright provokation of sources, daring those reading the stuff to challenge me, data, facts, or suppositions.

Embarrassing truths ('92 and '02)

Well... It helps to fill in the background.
Monkeyjack was attending IU and I have many tales about that, but before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story 1
I went down to IU, one of many occasions, and Scott was having a party. I drank lots and lots and lots and lots. Cerpicio was there with his then girlfriend, but I was loud, rude and socially unacceptable 2. I had several 32 oz glasses of beer and was in no shape to talk or walk, but that didn't stop fool-hardy me. It was near Halloween and Scott and his roommates in the Nolls had a pentagram on the wall and beer to boot. ISJ arrived as a vampire or likewise undead critter, a year previous or a year later he came with a Duke jacket and was thereby accosted. Monkeyjack had a mummy costume. I was dressed as a wino--torn jeans, torn t-shirt, trench coat. Throughout the evening I drink nearly as often as I breathed. Because of that I was ... Dare I saw... drunk I was extremely drunk, so much so that the evening was patched together with bits I remember and large and long blank spaces.
I guess my clothing was ... hot or bothersome, for I cast it over the locked fence to the pool and was becoming more and more bare as the night entered. At some point in time I woke in the evening and found a strange grey and black striped thick shirt/sweater inside-out on me and newly gray stained undies. W T F? I was hungover unlike any other time in my life where breathing was a burden, thinking a chore, and moving an impossibility. I sat up through reflex, though my head pounded like a bulged tire on a highway (thumpity, thumpity, thumpity). I gagged, for what that was worth ... I spent at least 70 minutes puking that evening, sadly, not in a row.
I do remember flashes of the mud belly-flop king who, like gladiators of Rome awaited the crowds.
"Only the cheers of the crowd to goad him on" 3. He would wait; time it; then plunge into the 4 cm mud puddle to the great cheering crowd. Not bad -- Oct 20 something, 34 degrees and mud jumping.
Not to be outdone, I guess, I eventually ran out of stripper layers and had shoes and trench coat. With this mighty Captain no-underpants, I unfurled my cape, as it was and ran around the balcony streaking to the crowds cheering and delight!
I remember being at Scott's Nolls apartment at Bloomington, then drinking, drinking, drinking from 32oz glasses as was the norm for fast food to dispense plastic reusable glasses at that time. I'm a nerd/geek ... I still have some.
I remember Cerpicio with his girlfriend, cute as a button -- meaning, youthful-looking, and remarking to him that he ought to kiss her -- stated though he forgot his hearing aid, which he doesn't' have.
Loud -- no, a thunderstorm is loud. You are are deafening like the aggregate of all documented storms and natural disasters together. You don't hide your drunkenness at all. Your slurring and British accent fallback belie any attempt at seriousness or normalcy. -- suits me to a "t"
I remember giving beer both from the cup and from my mouth to the lovely dirt that was the unkempt fall/winter courtyard of the Nolls. I remember seeing a white square beast (dryer) hauled into the courtyard for no reason.
I remember flashes now of pitch over a fence ... the items, unclear. I remember opening a door and yucking out the open door of a car.
I guess I handed the keys over to some one early one ... good thing too, as I was drunk beyond comprehension and that my pants later adorned the frozen public pool of the Nolls. Darren, I think, drove. Interesting that he later was (Monkey drunk party) filled the sofa with puke, broke it and at Ball State took up IV drugs. This, then sober, person drove my car back to the dorms. We had a bit of a hike over around the stadium. I guess I was the only one in the car who remembered how to get back.
I took a detour, that no one, at that time, understood. I directed something like, "left, right, left, go ... left. Stop" Whereupon I opened the door and I puked onto pavement, not my car. ISJ leapt out and started talking "a mile a minute" ...
"Someone's coming to come out here and say, '_hit'", only it won't be _hit, it'll be puke ..." They corralled ISJ and got him back to the car so that we could get back to the room. ISJ, when drinking goes into, "I love you man" mode, proclaiming that he's going to write a book about the lot of us.

Seeing women on the TV -- lingerie models, states loudly, "Why do thy make women like that?"
*later I will elaborate on this statement
I understand that ISJ found my undies and had me don them for everyone.
I was hating existence on that fine, sunny Sunday, fairly warm, but a 3 hour trip back, stopping in Muncie to drop off ISJ. I couldn't drive as the dehydration was so intense that my swallowing was painful and vision was still a bit off kilter.
With all of this, we survived. ISJ drove to Muncie (BSU) and he and Darren called it a weekend. I drove back to my city and tried to recover. I thankfully didn't have to work until Monday afternoon, but I was still in a world of hurt.

Streaking, IU ... sad, but done, or was it.

One decade later (10.6 years) I am at Germanfest in my town/city and Cerpicio and I are walking about getting free beer from many people, pitchers, glasses, tickets. ... we started out with a pitcher like fools, not knowing that we'd get 3.5 pitchers free. We gave out our beer as well, as we called it an evening early.

A guy approached us ... I was, say 20 pounds heavier and sporting a goatee. He asked, "are you the streaker of IU". I completely reddened, confirming his suspicion. I was dressed differently, facial hair, fatter/heavier ... how in the ____ could he pick me out of a line up let alone out of 1000 people?

Moral: be very, very, very careful in what you do at all times.



1 Thanks to Dav Pilkey
2 Thanks to Steve Martin
3 paraphrased or direct quote from Conan the Barbarian after his 3 battle; narrated by Mako

tap, tap, tap

Mr. H. Ben spit on [another child's name].
Okay, the better question is, why?

I got a chance to speak a few sentences to his mother before I left today .... she seemed none-too-amused. Go figure!

Video Pursuit and Fame

You feel it! You dance! You live!

This kid really rocks!!
---
I was looking for a couple of videos. Mostly, I found crud. I supposed that I was inspired by some channel (I think Spike TV) had a top 5 videos, including exploding whale. Now that is a great video. Ill-equipped group charged with too-large of project.

Fudge Boat

circa 1994
a colaborative idea from J Savage and myself, spawned after he returned from living in Chicago, IL. He told me he was surprised to see a billboard for a gay cruise line. I can think of no place in conservative little Indiana where that would go. From this, he coined, "Fudge Boat", which in turned spawned the following ideas:
a new TV show called "the Fudge Boat" starring;
Captain Stupid, "I don't have no fags on my boat" -- plainly in stupid deny or ready-for-politics-stupid, Doctor ____er, Yeoman-Purser Gopher Smith, who goes for anything, and let's not forget the mermaids, who would be drag queens.

In any episode, you'd have the captain in foreground talking about something, "not realizing" that the grecko-style wrestling in the background wasn't really what was happening. There would be the "life savers pumping up".

"Hey, what are they doing?"
"They're inflating the life vests ... yeah, that's what their doing."

After that ... the commentary goes beyond the scope of this blog. What was written above was rude enough.
+++++
I'm surprised too that they would advertise like that, but it makes sense. Why not have a cruise liner where people didn't have to hide or lie about it. I'd be better for everyone, as there would be no confusion. If memory serves me well, Cuba Gooding, Jr. was in a Boat Trip movie also ... though, not playing a gay patron. As AMC is airing James Bond movies, still, I saw Roger Moore. He's in the Boat Trip, playing a gay passenger. I understand that there was almost a rumor, unsubstantiated, that he was ... uh, light on his toes.

Valentine's Day Macabre

Imagine if you will, a place without time, without reason, without end. You're now entering, the Valentine's Zone. The folks were going to have a quiet little Valentine's dinner for two, when my sister called needing drivers and to drop off the folk's car she borrowed for a bit.
We picked up her car at Enterprise Car Rental (they sell their cars too). After some more paperwork, it was her's. The plan: eat someplace then pick up my neice's car at another lot as it was partially repaired. My sister DF noticed that the tank was almost empty. She was afraid that she wouldn't make it to a gas station, so she called Enterprise. The manager there was shocked that it wasn't full. So was I since she had paid for it earlier, therefore they knew it was sold. The manager drove to the restaurant, drove the car to the gas station and dropped off the keys to my sister.
Wacky! It was nice that he did that, but it's odd that it had no gas.
Anyway, I left with my sister and picked up my niece's car. It shimmied a bit at low speeds and maxed out on performance and agility at 60 mph. To get back faster, we took the highway/interstate, which there I believe is Ronald Reagan Expressway. We got back, pet the dog known as Angel and took off.

What a crazy, crazy Valentine's day. I hope the folks can get away for a dinner-for-two, sometime.

I have no girlfriend right now, so Feb. 14, 2006 was unremarkable save for the craziness of driving and defying a romantic dinner for two.

ring tones

$2 per and a $1 per month to keep them ...
let's see .. 3 tunes (10-20 seconds) at $3 per + $12 annual ... no stinky way!
My father mentioned iTunes. They are $1 each ... so, I could pay $1 for a whole song, or $2 for a clip of a song?

That's just wrong. I haven't and won't buy any. That's like premium gas. Why? What do you get out of it? The manufacturer couldn't put together a high performance, efficient engine that ran on regular? Well, skip 'em!

Drinking too much

Maybe, it's not the beer. Maybe, it's the drinking.

High School Madness (series) ep. 1

"Who is PROG11309 and PROG11286 ?"

The two guilty parties in PASCAL class were given admonishment and a penalty. What was the crime?

Mr. Frey had special guests in the building and the room to look at the VAX 3000, during which time the class was to be seen and not heard. Johnson and someone else decided that the RQ command (request bell to verify that the printer was online and active) would be funny. It would be especially funny if you did it about every 5 seconds, offsetting each other, so that it pinged lightly about every 2.3 seconds. After about 20 minutes of this, students were called aside (see above).

Study hall ... senior year, I had two back to back. You weren't allowed to leave early, and the study hall ... no sleeping, no talking, no rustling of paper, no wriring of non-school work. Thankfully I had to endure that only 3 classes before other opportunities became available.

On ocassion, TS and I were able to slip out and eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant nearby. They had the free chips and salsa, so they didn't ever get much money from us while in high school.

--- back to PASCAL ---
Those unaware of this ancient mini-computer ... meaning the forced network of terminals to a refridgerator-sized computer may not understand the relative boringness of the system. It did, however have a few neat features. Before the globalization and broader use of the internet, people had no purpose in naming their computer. Now XP expects you to name it, as it is networked, either in a building, house, or the net. Naming was a neat feature back then. We would often entertain each other or chat through name changes. It was untrackable unlike phoning or mailing each other.

I was no stranger to adolenscent humor and rudeness of names. It was mostly a little geeky white boy class. I think there were two girls and two black boys in the class. Out of 18-24, that isn't a big ratio. Anyway ... I was out of school on one day, which saved me a little lambasting.

There was a list of users on the system, listed in order of account number, such as PROG (programming class) 1100 (PASCAL) 56 (person 56 out of 2 classes).

ACCOUNT NAME LOCATION
PROG110056 RUTHLESS FWWHSFWCS

now ... when you have a bunch of guys together, you have a list of names that you can read down the center making nearly a sentence, omitting those not participating. There were a couple of students who named their computer the same thing day in and out. On the day I was missing, sniff, sniff, apparently another nosy teacher (later in this message and others) viewed the names.

SANTA
RAPES
BELGARIAN
ELVESAND
REINDEER
WITH
PLEASURE

There were a couple of others that got netted in there too. "Belgarian" was a kid who never changed his name, but was dragged into the mess because it was incorportated into the sentence.

I understand that their accounts went dead at one point, while others worked on. Carey (aformention teacher) came out and read off the account numbers. There was some stupid punishment like essay apology or something.

Carey, who required perfect Enlgish in the comment areas (areas that are for remarks and explanations only that do not affect the functionality of the program whatsoever) and would scrutinize it continually until he was happy. He had a control issue, that showed well here. He had other things to do, yet logged on, read the names and found it appalling that teen boys would act like ... uh, teen boys.

Frankly, I think Frey, our teacher, wouldn't have minded at all or cared, as long as we got our assignments done by the end of the semester.

A few words about Carey: my folks know his family, so I never really had any opinion. I did have one when I saw his ... painfully useless critique of spelling, grammar, and sentence structure when it mattered to no one. Also, more to the point, his unlike-a-teacher comments to MR and Monkeyjack, indicating that they were losers and would grew up to be losers. I'm sure that MR and Monkeyjack can explain this better.

Middle School Madness (series) ep. 2

Swinford, our P.E. teacher in middle school was a riot. His guy's only statements and approach was funny, perhaps rude.

"[MR, using his last name here]! You still all worked up about that kid cuttin' a fart?" (stated while MR was nearly rolling on the floor with laughter).

"What happens if you don't follow my directions?"
"Gonna get in trouble" (was the mumbled response from someone)
Swinford, either making fun or clearly not hearing him, "Jump ya? What do you think he is ... a kangaroo?"

"What are you doin' over there?" stated to people not participating) "Go do a couple of laps!"

insult

whoever posted this should die of spam

oh, wait ... that's me

nice Scoobys

Lori was wearing a Scooby Doo shirt, some years back, and the graphics were over her chest area. I saw the shirt, thinking nothing, and said, "nice Scoobys".

"Oh. Is that what they're calling them", was Lori's quick response.

Speaking English

I don't have a problem with "español hablado aquí". I do have a problem with people writing it off as ... well, we need to offer Spanish. Okay, why not Japanese, Madarin, Cantonese, Burmese, Sudanese, Swahili, Farsi? How many Chinese-speaking person are there in urban areas? Where I am, "city of churches", many immigrants are brought over through a church group. They are friendless, helpless, and their English is poor. How do they get help ... um ... they learn English through low-cost and no-cost ESL and English language services.
I find that many Spanish speakers are, well, dis-interested in learning English because they don't have to learn it. There are Spanish channels, books in Spanish, etc. I realize that America is butted up against Mexico, a Spanish speaking nation and is neaCentralal America, a Spanish speaking region, as well as Spanish-speaking South America and Spanish-speakinCaribbeanan islands. I understand that English isn't spoken as much down there, because it isn't a national language. Like it or not ... English is America's official language. During America's inception, there was a vote. Votes for English and German were close, within one vote, but English won.
Even though there have great demographic shifts throughout the history of the US, English is still the official language. Sadly, urban areas allow non-English by principle. I remarked on an earlier post about Urbanese being a pat substitute for English. Sadly, laziness wins over reason and Urbanese is entered into standard American usage.
Personally, I think I can go throughout my life never using: bling, "g", pimp, tap, dat, thu, thugger, mack

"pimp my ride" -- really? You are going to allow others to drive your car, then charge them when they are done? Oh, you mean make it look like you are a pimp -- one who sells women and collects the money. That would make you a charming person, no doubt.
"g" I don't like the mafia. Why would I favor other gangs who can't spell?
"tap dat azz" -- I'm sure that all women secretly hope to be penetrated this way and being likened to a beer keg
"dat" -- apparently "th" (4-6 year old development) is too difficult
"ho" -- again, I'm sure that all women secretly desire to be referred to as inflatable, mindless sex toys or female beasts in estrus. Wasn't Soddom destroyed because of rape, beastiality and other deviances of nature, sex, and humanity?

I don't use the terms, because to use them, I accept the conditions of their being. I don't call women beasts or garden instruments. I won't pimp anything and prefer to use known languages not neologisms. *

* either real words with bizarre or completely different meanings, or completely self-generated words used by psychotics. That's right. You can start complaining and drawininferenceses here.

Communication turf wars

Locally, Comcast and Verizon are battling for communication to the house each now offering cable, high speed internet, and phone service. I hope that the consumer wins.

Comcast, who once tried to buy Disney, still raises its rates. Let's get that straight. A compnay, that had a ton of money, so much so, that it bid for Disney, doesn't have the money to lower rates? I think that statement doesn't even look good on paper, let alone bear out any reasonable scruntiny.

Even though Verizon is here, offering higher speed at lower costs, I haven't seen Comcast offer any better prices.
Verizon offers fiberoptic. Comcast offers coax.

A bit about Verizon:
The local phone service here is Verizon. Thankfully the wireless industry still has a number of names, though the competition is becoming smaller. If you get Verizon of lan line, like you have much choice, and them for wireless they screw you on one detail. If you call from your Verizon lan line to your Verizon Wireless phone, you get docked minutes. Am I missing something here? Doesn't the company have the same name ... same headquarters, same logo. You already have my money. Shouldn't I be able to call my cell phone without penalty or my home phone from my cell without penalty? How isn't that reasonable?
blankity blank blank money grubbers.

Comcast: from digital cable and high speed internet, monthly its around (meaning $2 less up to $30 more) $100 per month. Lets see ... for $1200 (about) annually, I get channels I'll never watch and ads on the view screen. If I'm paying $1200 annually, the company will allow me to select the channels that I will get, will deduct any and all money due to loss of signal (remember their little "done with the dish" ads). If you want to expand your selection, does a person come out to the house ... no. They change it there at Comcast. If you want to reduce your selection, there is a surcharge, other fees, taxes and a person comes to your house to "change" something.

Any phone company does something the same. If you want to expand the features on your phone, do they come out to your house ... nope. They do it at the center, free of charge. If you want fewer features, they charge you for the change. "Wellllll, (stated in song-like extended voice word that rhymes with duck) you!" *

* opening minutes of Friday, when Jehovah's Witnesses have a door slammed in their faces

Barnes & Noble

They're spammers! I'm again getting 2-3 email ads per week. The web site should be considered:
b-n.com
(ads) bar none

Spend money, spend money, rah rah rah!! We have Starbucks in our shops, but want to buy Starbucks so that we own everything.

You know what makes you a geek?

I noticed in this article, it didn't mention a family being wife, children, pets ... go figure.

Perhaps he has a Janeway (not tarzan, not Dick) complex?
Wacky? Make it so.

I suppose he was always looking for 7 of 9 instead of 6 & 9.

not taken seriously

"Look! I'm not kidding! This is my job!"*

I had three kids try to play hide-and-seek with me today instead of working with me. What is it? Did I put on the wrong hat ... the wrong badge?! You do understand that, although playtime is fun, we are at school and we are doing ... you know ... school work.

Cute kids, but I don't understand. Normally I don't get this reaction. I guess I'm not the sinister meany I think I am. I've got to work on that.


* Animal House

old Trek game

Who's the bigger geek, the geek who seeks or the keeper?
Buy it? Get it on a 5.25 disc? What are they, mad?

That's like the 12's that were as large as LPs (long play 33 rpm records for those unaware). They don't typically install 3.5's now. Who, other than a parts geek would have that? Getting XP to recognize it would, I think, take some tweaking.

Chariot Races -- long, detailed, not fast at all

Kristia brought over a game Circus Maximus. It looked like it should be fun. Unlike the pictures on the link, we used it straight out of the box and spent no extra money or effort on it. The game was interesting, until you found the amount of effort it took to identify where things went, how far, what got damaged, etc. It was a good game, if it were on a compter, with or without special graphics. You raced around the track and could battle each other on the chariots. You could fall off, be dragged off, jump onto another chariot, but time between people's turns was about 12 minutes without thinking.

Another game I remember at this same time was ascii graphics game "begins.exe", which was a Star Trek simulator. You put in the number of and types of ships that you would battle on a two-dimensional plane using phasers and torpedoes. I liked it. It was semi-turned, but the PC would make moves around every 20 so seconds. You could have a flagship and direct all the other ships to either battle independantly or to command them to do other things.

A great little quirk was to transport your entire crew from one ship to another. Scott had this game. I remember we set the self destruct on the flagship, transferred all the crew (actually exchanging crews) to another ship. "Those poor people" * had 10 seconds to live before they were atomized. Very, very funny!

* Galaxy Quest, which was a very funny movie based on a Trek-like show.

Uncle Ducky Show

Monkeyjack, Scott, perhaps even MR was there while I made that fateful call.

It was Halloween 1991 (or 1992) and we had flipped through channels to see a local access channel. Although I had never seen the show, Scott recognized this right away. The Uncle Ducky Show was airing its usual fluff, trying to be funny. They were taking phone calls. I tried to get through for a bit and finally succeeded. The rest of the conversation went something like this.

Hello. You're on the line. Who's this?
Me: Satan, from Hell (said in a deep, dark voice)
Hey, Satan. How the hell you doin'? What the devil do you want?
Me: I just want to say one thing ...
Okay, you devil!
The Uncle Ducky Show (build up) shucks! (notice I didn't quite say sucks)

Did he say shucks?!
What is he, a farmer?
He's a Hoosier!

They got to use the heckler as a joke. Wonderful! I quickly turned the channel, not to speak of it agian that night.

What not to do

Don't talk politics. This is especially true when around family and friends. Sadly, this well known tabboo was broken today. I found other things to do to not say anything about these hot topics.

Lost turn for the worse

Sheeba brought you here.
No. You see, we fell from the sky.
It was Sheeba who made you fall from the sky.
You will bring back to us Sibalinga.

later

They took their children. They stole them in the night while they were
putting out a fire.

Sound familiar? It's Lost and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Mind you, "doom" was perfect due to the relative shoddiness of the movie.

I'm waiting for Lost to talk about lost stones with diamonds in them.

observations and incantations on "Lost"

Writers and producers are:
J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Jeffrey Lieber

J.J. Abrams .... executive producer
Jack Bender .... co-executive producer
Jack Bender .... executive producer (2005-)
Bryan Burk .... executive producer
Sarah Caplan .... producer
Carlton Cuse .... executive producer
Leonard Dick .... supervising producer
David Fury .... co-executive producer (2004-2005)
Ra'uf Glasgow .... co-producer
Javier Grillo-Marxuach .... supervising producer
Jean Higgins .... producer
Adam Horowitz .... producer (partial season)
Adam Horowitz .... supervising producer (2005-)
Jennifer Johnson .... co-producer (2004-2005)
Edward Kitsis .... producer (partial season)
Edward Kitsis .... supervising producer (2005-)
Damon Lindelof .... executive producer
Lynne E. Litt .... consulting producer
Steven Maeda .... supervising producer (2005-)
Craig Wright .... supervising producer (2005-)

...
I had mis-stated myself about the show having a mess-load of writers. It instead has a messload of producers.

Darren Aronofsky as the director

It seems that 44 or 48 was chosen due to the production staff. Perhaps each one having a characature character on the show.

Still, with so many directions ... I think the show is either going in many directions or no where.

bringing the dead back to life

The boys and I played Jedis last night. When a Jedi had fallen during battle, he had to be brought back. How, one might ask:

0 - raspberry (blowing fart noise) onto a soft part -- belly usually.
0 - tickling

What a great world it would be if battles were of tickles, raspberries and hugs.

Later, they were tossing rubber animals into the air ... frog and lizard. When one would land belly up, it would be dead. Jared would revive it with kisses on its belly.

Charlie, patterning after me, would have the critters be sneaky and go into my shirt. Often, I would tell him a toy was sneaky and push it into his pants pocket, shrit pocket, shirt or pant leg or even a jacket pocket if he had a jacket.

His cackling really got me. It was very funny indeed!

elements of a good pizza

Sadly, many companies and establishments forget this.

Dough: does it rise, does it taste good alone? If it doesn't taste good alone -- it shouldn't be used.
Sauce: the right amount is tough, but taste is critical. If it's tomato sauce and no spice or flair ... don't use it. Sauce is very critical because you primarily taste it and the cheese.
Toppings: fresh, realistically cut pieces. I'm not going to be too harsh on Pizza Hut, but the salad and toppings prep worker may not eat these toppings, therefore have an understanding that a fist-sized tomato should really be sliced or diced, not quartered.
Cheese: mix cheese together to make a nice, tasty mix -- mozzerella, romano, parmesean.

Together, these elements make a great pizza that you'll order again.

Last night, a non-franchise pizza: great dough, nice sauce (limited, as it was a little lightly spread), good toppings and layered cheese. It was a good pizza.

East of Chicago: while okay, their veggie (a type that we limited/non-meat eating tend to order) has far too many olives ... many, many, many olives.

Pray for Sid

I love this little girl. I hope that things change and that she gets better -- now!
She has an intestinal mass and likely liver cancer. Pray that these are diagnostic errors.

She's also known as: "Siddy Soo Su"

Day at the races

Do you want to see what underwear I'm wearing?

It was a great phrase, but it's the circumstances/situation that needed work. The boys, Charlie and Jared, were getting ready to walk with Sid. Charlie just finished with the bathroom, but had trouble pulling up his pants and underwear. Later, he'll figure out to do one at a time. Anyway, I remarked that he had spiderman undies. Jared, looking for attention, asked, "do you want to see what underwear I'm wearing?" If only it had been in ... um, different circumstances and people. I could imagine a great dream of women with me and one asking me to look at her undies.

Is it okay if I walk my pet stick?

Jared found a large forked branch during out walk. He continued to walk the branch ahead of him making animal noises for it. He said, "quiet" to it to hush it. He continued to walk his pet for the remainder of the walk.

The first half of the walk with underscored with snowball after snowball thrown by the boys, many hitting my back, some my head. Jared won with the most frequent number of snowballs. Charlie won with the largest snowballs. Often he would include leaves in the mess.

Now it's just you and me.

Charlie happily said to me. He still isn't quite into sharing, but he's getting better. Having me all to himself was great! We played hide and seek with lightsabers, he always hid "well" from me. With all the rough housing, he fell asleep early.

Giving up

I understand there is a woman who, after having four children 11 - 4, is giving up all of them to not be a mother. Hey! Isn't that cool? You can begin a family and then just leave, for whatever reaon. I think that's super great for a child who has a parent, then doesn't. It's much like the sperm donors who seed a person, then leave before doing anything with the child. Sometimes they get away without ever having to pay money to help the child survive. Nice.
Another story: A mother, perportedly a pot dealer, had her son for many years, then dropped him off to the biological father who hadn't seen him in eight years. These so-called parents are persons who should be snuffed out, discarded like the many babies, whom they create, are. That sounds harsh, but easier than idly sitting back and letting the babies die.