Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

I never have been certain about the meaning of the Christmas tree.  Even so, it's a tradition.  Here's a video of Rhonda Vincent paper doll parts (in store) with Rhonda singing "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree":

The first effort is rather simplistic -- more of a slideshow.  No time for more complex video production this weekend. Merry Christmas! Thanks, Rhonda, for your music, Janet Shelby for the graphics, and to my wife and family for their patience.

Enjoy!

A Simple Nod to My Mother In-Law

In Honour of the Last Bataan Death March Survivor

Lest we forget the brutality of war, let us pay a leafy tribute to the men who died during the Bataan Death March, and all the millions of others who've suffered and died because of our inhumane treatment of one another, no matter how un/justified it seemed at the time or in the long reflection of history.

And don't worry, the future is the same in one form or another -

let descendants decide how to measure our progress in developing a civilised world.

As we have done for our ancestors...

Retiring the Fleet

Looking 30 years back in a last day-and-a-half flurry of descent and landing:

A Dancin' We Will Go

Who says they don't have fun on the ISS?  Here's a clear example of the ISS crew members taking their shoes off and tearing up the dance floor:

Music brought you to by the following [from: http://www.barynya.com/mp3/index.stm]:

Elina Karokhina and ensemble Barynya "Balalaika Music Album"

Balalaika virtuoso Elina Karokhina & Russian dance and music ensemble Barynya compact disk Balalaika Music Album (2011). Elina Karokhina (balalaika), Leonid Bruk (balalaika-contrabass), Mikhail Smirnov (guitar, vocals). Elina Karokhina is Russia’s top balalaika player and a musician of international renown. Her speed, grace, and fluidity on the instrument must be seen and heard to believe. She began her formal training at the Mussorgsky College of St. Petersburg and continued her training at the Rimskii-Korsakov Conservatory, which included a residency in Germany. She returned to her native St. Petersburg, where she earned her Doctorate of Music/Balalaika...

SS Atlantis ascent/docking recap

For those who missed it, here's a recap of the last U.S. Space Shuttle blastoff and docking to the ISS with some bonus shots recapping the 30-year span of space shuttle missions:

Congrats to Ireland, a nod to England

In the world of sports, there's often a Dewey moment, n'est pas?

C'est la vie.

Am I a worthy investment?

How do you hold a coalition together?

Make sure seven billion are given the opportunity to get in on the deal.

A voice not to be forgotten

Thanks to the beautiful, smiling faces of the folks at the Huntsville office of the American Red Cross today - Nyesha, Janie, Doris and Juanita.  I enjoyed watching "Open Range" during apheresis process.

A nod to Welch Allyn for the blood pressure cuff used today.

And I greatly appreciate the tumbler, window shade and umbrella that show I am a platelet donor.

Will get to be WordPress whenever it allows me to log back in and post blogs.

Silence is my friend but not absence of words.  ;)

Give a nod, too, to Chavez for his sense of humour - true satire!

Continued, To Be

Feet back on Earth, narrative back on...?

Next story starts at http://treetrunkdings.wordpress.com.

Thus Endeth This Blog

The cowboy rolls up his knapsack/pup tent combo, slings it over his shoulder and steps into his rocket boots to pursue a lifelong dream.

Where he rides, there are no sunsets.

The path he takes is a lonely one, as usual.

It's always been about you, me, us, as usual, too.

He issues a voice command and off he goes.

"Giddyup, boy, let's get this show on the road!"

Whoooooosh!!!!

Surveyed Surveillance but not Susveillance

If you want to marshall the forces for caring about and carrying the planet, look at the trash thrown off to the side of the road first, put in the refuse bin second and, finally, in the lasting recycling container last.

It's what's in the name that counts.

The labels of the manufacturers/retailers printed on the trash on the side of the road tells you most about those who appear to care/know the least about species inefficiencies.

Styrofoam cups that say anything about saving the environment, like automobile adverts that tout MPG improvements, are interesting diversions but not fully effective treatments to raising the bottom line from the bottom.

Preaching to the choir is a feel-good measure.

uncontested

News update!

Shia LeBeouf cleared up the cleared-up rumour - he discovered and created Charlie Sheen and gave new life to a forgotten, out-of-original-ideas writer/director named Spielberg, not the other way around.

China banned voice overdubbing today, requiring the acting community to get its act together and complete filming scenes on the first take.

Asphalt manufacturers have claimed no-fault insurance in their divorce from customers sitting on their faulty behinds.

Are you sure LEED is misleading?

The family of the inventor of the tomahawk has filed a lawsuit in the World Court requiring all users of the word "tomahawk" in patents, copyrights and trademarks to pay an annual user fee or face criminal mischief censorship, including inducing fear in the night of attacks by tomahawk-wielding census takers.

That's all the print that fits the news!

Now, back to your planet's regularly scheduled exposure to its gravitationally-attracted power plant called the Sun.

Chamber Made

After our builder completed the work on our house and the one-year warranty expired, meaning whatever was left on the punch list had punched out and was off the clock, I went to work on excavating the echo chamber.

To you, my house looks rundown, needs exteriour repairs and probably isn't worth the price of a pretty penny, but...

Hang on a second while I rotate the dial on the lock that holds the clasp in place over the door to the outer chamber that leads to the inner chamber and away from the chamber orchestra that is out of business ever since horror-comedy film directors employed synthetic players to perfectly perform film scores like they were written and not interpreted to be heard.

25-DA-66-DE-56-ZK-09-R-22.

There!

[creaking sound, if you please, Foley, my sound assistant]

I lean against the wall of sound as if it's nature/society/species on which I normally lean and get my sustenance.

Hmm...there's something new I haven't felt/heard before.

It's the ancient voice of time, you know, like how 24 hours of real time away from the Internet feels like 7 days of virtual time away from the Internet.

I hear Nancy and Ronny Ray-gun telling me to read my astronomical charts because many of the planets are on the other side of the Sun, which can only mean one thing...

Something's going on on Saturn!

Somewhere a chip on a windshield is spreading into a crack.

Which means only one more thing...

An unexpected event is about to occur (and, believe it or not, all events are unexpected, although possibly anticipated to near 100% accuracy).

Listen to the silence between echoes again.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, writhing, waiting, weighting, waiting, waiting, rating, waiting, raining, waiting, waiting waiting.

There it is.

No WIMP here.

We're looking in the wrong place again, although wimps certainly are valuable members of society - no matter how weak they appear, they're strong at something.

If we surround ourselves with enough stuff that we can lean on, we feel very important in our specialisation, receiving accolades and marmalade with lemonade on wry toasts from the admiring crowd.

There is one, and there are two or three, who are receiving no public recognition for their work that you should pay the most attention.

Just like the Tarot card reader who predicted that Oprah would cause maelstroms in Australia, watching later as Aussies admiringly bestowed love upon her arrival, unaware that maelstrom is a general word and would not associate the flooding directly to her visit, never assume that this generation knows what's going on.

Ten steps forward and ten steps backward.  Go fifty steps forward and you fall on your face.  The same for going backward.

Seek a balance, listening to original waveforms, echoes and the absence of echoes.

Make sure your echo chamber leaves room for the unexpected.

Don't jump to conclusions by applying labels to the unlabelable.

Lean against the unbearable.

Listen without hearing.

Albino camel crickets are part of the picture that the Picts removed from the pixels.

conquistador

Charlie Sheen cleared up a rumour - he created Spielberg, not the other way around.

Only One Reason To Break The Groovy Silence

According to the North Port Sun and Suncoast Broadcasting Corp of Sarasota?:

Did ancient canals groove the Suncoast?

 SARASOTA (WWSB) — A Central Florida man believes he has discovered what’s left of a highly advanced ancient civilization by using some new technology, and says some of the evidence is right here on the Suncoast.

   “Looking further, I begin to find the real beauty in Cortez.” John Jensen is no archaeologist. He says he’s just an amatuer researcher of what’s under the water. Well, what he says he’s observed from the sky could rewrite the history of the world. “I recognize some patterns that appear to be manmade   , or at least not natural.”

   He’s identified more than 60 sites in places like Louisiana, New Jersey and Florida as what he calls ancient channels, canals and harbors. A handful are from Tampa down to Ft. Myers, including one in Englewood and one around Cortez in Manatee County. “There’s a horseshoe with a circle in the center of it, and other lines around it that suggest that they’re not natural.”

   Jensen says the sites are now about five feet underwater, and says there are underwater   banks and edges which indicate they were built before the sea level rise six to seven thousand years ago. “That’s the result of the process of digging above water, is to dump the refuse on the bank beside it.”

   “They definitely were modifying their environment. A canal system or harbor system is not that unthinkable at all.” Jodi Pracht is the Archaeologist for Sarasota County. She says our area has some of the oldest evidence of human inhabitance in all of North America, dating back between 10,000 and 12,000 years.  

   As far as Jensen’s claims she’s not so sure. “At the years this gentleman is talking about, and the level of modification ... the science does not support that.”

   At places like the Indian Mound park in Englewood there is evidence people lived here an awfully long time ago. However Jensen says his evidence suggests it’s much bigger then we ever thought. “(The diggings) probably were not made by some folks wearing leather buckskins, breechcloths and baskets on their heads.”

   Jensen says the widths  of some of the underwater waterways are larger than the Panama Canal — something which would have required some serious innovation. “Underwater sunken systems that require technology to produce that is beyond or at least equivalent to what we have today.”

   Jensen says he has uncovered some of the sites in just the past few months; perhaps finding something experts have yet to even see, let alone attempt to explain ... at least for now. “The science is very conservative. There is probably a lot more going on out  there than as a professional you would agree with out loud,” says Pracht.

   Naturally occurring or man made? How about from something not human at all? Jensen says he doesn’t know, but perhaps the answers are just beyond the water’s edge. “Depth reading and core samples will absolutely rewrite everything we know about history.”

   Jensen says his work and his theories are catching on. His website, which he says he makes no money on, is now receiving more than 25,000 hits a month.

[NP SUN 17Feb2011]

 Furthermore, Obama was born/created on the Island of Dr. Moreau, his mother revealed, a palmist told an official subsubcommittee in a closed-circuit television interview after a séance showed that alien cities off the coast of Florida were the inspiration for Dr. Moreau.

It was the main reason that John Francis, PhD, unmuted after 17 years and returned to the world of conspicuous consumption to complete the book, "The Ragged Edge of Silence."

Ignominy is no law for the excused.

Disco Taxi

"Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, por favor."

"Okay."  Tiny disco balls drop down from the ceiling with coloured spotlights pointing at them, filling the taxi with beams of light as fog rises from the floor. Bee Gees music with a Tijuana brass flare blares from tiny, hidden speakers.  "WELCOME TO DISCO TAXI!"

"You've got to be kidding?"

"No, sir and ma'am, this is Disco Taxi!"

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"As I speed through the streets of Ciudad de México, you will be required to perform dance moves made famous by international films, including those made in Hollywood, Bollywood and our own domestic film industry."

"Sounds fantastic."

"What are your names?"

"I'm Miguel and this is my girlfriend, Stephanie."

"Are you ready to play DISCO TAXI?!"

"Sure."

"Okay, if you will push the buttons on the spots where your headrests are illegally missing, the seats will automatically fold down and form a brightly-flashing dance floor...

"Great!  Okay, there are handholds along the edge of the ceiling that you can use while your partner is trying to imitate some of the famous film scenes I will call out.  Are you ready?!"

"Sí."

"Very good.  A panel of judges who are watching this disco taxi via remote cameras will rate your dance moves.  If, at any time, one of your judging total averages drops below a 5, on a scale of 1 to 10, the side doors will open and you will be ejected onto the street, no matter how fast or slow I am going."

"Uh, I don't know about that."

"Too late!  Your verbal contract has been signed!  Let's begin!"

"Tennessee University!"

Except by sitting with my wife while she watches the television, I am taking a one-week break from viewing or scanning news headlines.

I will also take into consideration the reduction of my use of electric/electronic power.

Will I stop microwaving my oatmeal (which I perform in an effort to kill any hidden bacteria or other lifeforms flowing out of the water tap)?

Will I make "sun tea" instead of heating water electrically?

Will I return to the military/outdoorsman habit of taking short cold showers?

Will I stop blogging for seven days?

The computer programmers have their assignments.

MORTIE and other networks are running on autopilot pretty well right now.

Do I say farewell or au revoir to NASCAR and Claire for a while, spending my time observing nature and gleaning stereotype behaviour from scents in the air?

I think so.

I have deeper meditation to nurture.

Despite humourous riffs, there really are bigger pictures to paint with my thoughts.

States of energy aren't the only states in town.

Freedom of speech is also freedom not to speak.

14,310 days is not very long, let me tell you.

Is there a "You Don't Know Jack" app?  Or has "Cash Cab" taken its place?

Guppies and Angelfish

The Committee asked me to get inside the thought sets of the authorities pursuing/executing the extradition of Julian Assange.

Now that we've revealed some of the tools we use, including quantum disembowelment, a few of the Committee members want to demonstrate how to locate the living relatives of those they want to control simply by probing their thought sets.

Then, when the time is right, or even when it's not, let loose a few schizophrenic thought threads into the families and immediately turn on the spotlights connected to HD webcams that are secretly following those families in their public and private lives, both on the ground and in the air (using drones flying in silent mode, stealth zeppelins and microsatellites disguised as space junk).

Obviously, you can see the Committee members are bored, having just finished their semiannual viewing of "Flash Gordon," especially the scenes where Emperor Ming toys with planets like yo-yos, not only to entertain themselves but to instruct the 0.5 member of the Committee of 7.5.

While I put my network to work on netting in so-called authorities, I am polishing the Rosetta stone of presentations that I am to give to the Subcommittee on the Advancement of Aging.

My topic for this evening's debate: Pantaloon in the Seven Ages of Man.

With this being International Women's Month, the Committee wants the Subcommittee to observe the effects of this month on the other 11 months that must be, by inference, either Domestic Women's 11/12ths Year or One Short of a Dozen Good International Men.

What better way to scientifically categorise this month than to put pantaloons on the street and record the reactions to their behaviour in this, another of a series of so-called enlightened years?

One will stuff one's face with Turkish Delights like an angelfish let loose in an aquarium full of guppies will have a few tails sticking out of its mouth after its stomach is giddily, gluttonously jam-packed with guppies.

A friend asked me why Marion Cotillard is in charge of Australia, her being French and not all that keen on politics Down Under.  I responded that the Inuit may have a thousand different words for snow but it'll do them no good when the surf's up in the Arctic Ocean and Russians are hanging ten in competition with Hawaiian megawave riders.

Okay, class, turn to page 11,943,644 of the epic poem known as the Upanishads and repeat after me, "Mesmerism messes misters' mistresses' mattresses matted meticulously, meridian matters midlatitude, mosses miss myth musters."

Small World

Wow!  My first cousin once removed, Jennifer H, was on Onion Sportsdome tonight sporting a field hockey uniform (#2).  How cool is that?

Big news on the small screen.

Now, programming regular to your back.

Wet Noses Leave Marks On Glass

No matter how smart we are, our brains can't stop bullets, but we can outsmart them.

Don't you love watching baby animals before they learn how to fend for themselves?

I love watching a global ecosystem that doesn't know how to fend for itself.

Such innocence in its ignorance!

Nuthatches and Trillii

New spider webs in the woods. Insects in the air.

What are we to do with states of energy we don't know how to control?

We. You. Me. Us. Whomever we may be.

Nothing these two hands are going to do besides walk around and describe what the indescribable is not.

Suet. Sunflower. Millet. Insects.

Moving old birdfeeder shepherd's hook to prevent squirrel from leaping onto platform full of fresh seed.

A cagey character. Dodgy. Dodging. Feeding off of available material.

Can't remember if I'm describing the squirrel or me.

The kousa dogwoods don't care.

Give the squirrel credit for persistence.

The birds have no patience.

Feed a squirrel, feed a hawk.

Feed the imagination.

The big picture is chance enough - poker is for humans.

Never give away what you know if you can put a price on someone else's head.

The titmouse knows food, not facts or truth.

Do you soar with turkey buzzards or flying squirrels?

Play the cards you're dealt - the other table's occupied.

Clear tents in woods fog up, don't they?

Do butterflies play or play around?

What is the nongender form of leadership by our species?

Should I stop misleading us by using words?

Plant seeds now - reap harvests later.

One second to observe the transformation - is that sufficient to know what just happened?

Can you create this life from scratch?

Reworking Self-Hypnosis

Hello there.  I'm Altus Wintrix, former owner of a large number of rental homes on your home planet.  You probably never heard of me but I'm sure you or someone you know has rented one of my houses on Earth.

I looked at my empire, hearing people refer to me, even though they don't know and never knew me, as a slumlord because of the condition of homes I owned in a few rundown neighbourhoods.  They never praised me for the houses I rented to them in ritzy neighbourhoods, mainly, too, because they didn't know who I am.

After looking at my empire, I decided I no longer cared to rent houses on Earth because I had a bigger dream.

I wanted the first rental home on another solar body.

That's why I'm standing here before you, showing you this beautiful three-bedroom rental on the Moon.

It cost me the entire sale of my empire on Earth but it's worth being the first, isn't it?

For fifty million U.S. dollars a year, you can have exclusive rental rights to the first and currently one-and-only moon unit.

Richard Branson offered to buy this from me but I refused, instead offering him exclusive transportation rights to deliver renters to this home and ones to follow as I get more contracts signed.

My team of computer programmers and robotic experts are remotely managing the water extraction mining operation and hydroponic farm that feeds the rental home so don't worry about bringing your own food and water.

Of course, at this time pets are not allowed, unless you're willing to raise and live with animals that you will have to eat.

The same goes for you and your family.

After all, we believe in recycling everything.

Welcome to your future.  I'm just your humble servant here to help you make it happen.

Aun-dray-uh - flourescent light tubes like battle laser sticks with Chad V

Sinking deeper into meditation, talking with the voices that are not voices but random but not random states but not states of energy but not energy.

Pretending to miss/place commas so that blog entry re/editing can be used to communicate messages to those who need visual confirmation of clues that were already inside their swirling states of energy.

Deeper.

Listening to the absence of messages from those who have authority but no self-responsibility.

Laughing because laughing is good.

Smiling because the mask was born that way.

Listening.

Deeper.

Don't mess with the belief in virgin birth despite language translation misnomers.

Deeper.

Past the silence.

Through the eye of the storm of daily moments.

[at least as it appears from this side]

Beyond feeling.

Deeper.

Hearing others play the "let's be mysterious" game so they can pretend to have powers that don't exist.

Calm.

Beyond the fringe.

No need to entertain to distract from the mundane.


Getting what I want is not what I want because I do not exist - I do this for you, the imaginary parallel universe of a blog, because this universe is the child I would have had had I given up my selfish self to have a child.


Deeper.


Unable to describe the indescribable with words.


Humour the only solid proof that these states of energy are unique.


Deeper.


Shedding layers.


Defenseless because the species is our only hope for survival.


Unless...


Deeper.


Microorganisms.


Quantum communications.


Dark matter.


Simple, ignorant, clever cultures in denial.


Deeper.


Leave well enough alone in this blog entry.


Rise.


Higher.


Higher.


Louder.


Brighter.


Back into daylight.


Satisfied.


Ready to write fictional tales about unknown possible futures.

What Life Is All About

Know the truth and the truth shall know you.

There may be snow on this roof...

You gotta credit the Yella Fella for keepin' his product, YellaWood, what my builder called Osmose to construct muh house and front/back deck, out in the eyes and ears of customers while havin' fun talkin' about it, too.  He goes in muh book as a real person.

= = = = =

I've come to the conclusion that I don't exist and found verification through the fact that none of the characters in this parallel universe of a blog have ever talked with/to me.

Sure, I am the current leader and, by leading, I have sway over the billions of imaginary people who live on this imaginary planet with the imaginary me.

It's the writer's dilemma staring me in the face again, a mirror at the end of a deadend corner of the maze I've written myself into.

If I only have sway over the imaginary world, then what I am doing in real life?

Nothing, it seems.

I am not wholly part of virtuality or wholly part of reality.

The plot of my life is full of holes rather than wholes but don't call me holy.

I just happened to be here in this time with you - you found the wonders of life with or without me by virtue of being the states of energy we call the human condition.

When I was five, I realised I was part of the living dead.

It has been an interesting journey ever since.

All I can do is help the living find their way through this dark maze.

My time here was done a long time ago.

Back to sleep I go, back to the condition these states of energy call meditation.

It's all I know.

Why I wanted to be a hermit living in the woods.

The real nonexistent me.

Happy.

Free of the chains of modern technology.

I'm still trying to get free, aren't I, despite digging myself deeper?

WWI vets and starlets, take a look

Eye on in

After Two Days of Trial and Error

While I'm smoking this funny technology called the tablet, rep'd by the iPad, here are the apps we've downloaded/purchased so far:

• Friendly for facebook
• TWC MAX+
• Fly Delta
• Yelp
• Fandango
• XFINITY TV
• TV.com
• Star Walk
• Potshots - Love

So far, so good.  Definitely a companion, not a replacement, for my Kindle 2.

One final note: wireless dropouts, what's up with that?

When Producers Are No Longer Worth Their Weight In Risk Taking

What are you really worth?

Prove to me you fully support free speech and I'll believe you believe in the American way.  Otherwise, any company policy or personal attack on others proves to me you're lying.

So far, the producers/network behind a show I've never watched are showing me they're bigots of another sort.

Time for my network to expose the lifestyles of the producers/network execs and show you why they're afraid of a single actor.

There was a time, long ago...

...when I wanted to see my name in writing.

I forgot to tell myself to want to see my name in writing after my writing saw an editor and proofreader.

The ABNA judges were kind.  So was Publishers Weekly.

I kindly returned to the woods and wrote about words, instead.

Hermitically Sealed

Normally, I would sit in the front bedroom, look out the window at the squirrels and the crows, open my Italian leather-wrapped handmade paper journal, and write.

Instead, I waste energy on myself, listening to Bach on Pandora Internet radio playing through a set of Boston Acoustic speakers in one room, and through a surround sound system in another room at the same time, to boost my mood.

The outdoorsman is absent today.

The well-placed writer absorbs and reflects.

A result/tool of the society/sub/culture within the framework of living fractal patterns.

Trying to tune out echoes to promote something approaching originality.

Tired of living or tired of making a living?

Keeping orchids and birds of paradise alive.

Buried under the piles of virtual dust of previous lives.

Avoiding caricature of self long lost in cardboard cutouts curiously curling in corner curio cabinets.

Do you dare dare your favourite deity to show itself?

Unaware that alliteration is your deity's favourite display of delightful dervish whirling?

A hermit, digging ditches, watching a hawk miss a squirrelly meal by inches.

The Simplicity of Beauty

Tall, slender trees with tiny emerging leaves swaying in the winds of a wave of passing thunderstorms.

Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-flat major, from Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Book 1, by Johann Sebastien Bach, played by Sviatoslav Richter.

What am I in comparison?

Today, I died a happy man once again.

Once again, I will be born to live happiness all over tomorrow.

Once again, once is never enough.

To those who claim to speak for the anonymous

Casual rule: if you're going to set both sides against the middle, don't announce your plans.

You know, like groups that stake claims for terrorist acts - only the officially-approved terrorist groups are going to get credit.

Can someone take over this species for a while?  Running the parallel universe of a blog is pretentiously limiting.

You'd think that seven billion different personalities (based off a small set of personality/cultural types) would be enough to keep me entertained.

Instead, like the way I figured out how to create, using standard test forms, unique tests for every student in my classes, having fun watching students try to cheat off one another and failing because they did not know that the set and/or order of questions was different (one of my favourite tricks was putting a "not" in the middle of some students' true/false questions and not others), I have found that, creating a bunch of these parallel blogs across the Internet, with paragraphs rearranged and sentence structure/logic tailored to subcultures/languages, the pebbles in the pond are creating a stone island and artificial reefs.

Too bad the environment is too hot to produce a new tropical paradise in the tropics.  Canadian beaches are cheap and ready for reef development if you don't mind winters that are still a little cold today.

I stir the pot after computing all the possible chemical interactions, allowing for random changes due to quantum effects I don't measure.

If you're going to buy a laptop computer in which the memory (HD/SSD) has been wiped clean, don't go around asking strangers about installing your own illegal copy of an OS - you stand out like a sour gumball.

Can I talk about what you can't see or face the facts there's not a language that'll explain to our combination of states of energy what states of energy are really all about?

For outdoor use in bright sunlight. Do not use for any other purpose.

Getting out of the "broken man" mode and back into a meditative state.

Humble.

Letting the bombardment of contradictory mental images pass through these states of energy without filtering, interpreting or slowing down in any other fashion.

No role to play.

Release.

Calm.

Listening without hearing.

Nothing to say.

One of those days.

It's Always Green In Winter

Hoorah.  Sláinte!

Humour In Medicinal Cures

Lack of evidence is...well, lack of evidence.

But, don't stop believing if it keeps you going.

Have fun along the way, of course.

Earth is flat - it's curved space that makes us...uh...

Where's a good punchline when you need to be nice?

A Backward Look Forward

Today.
Yesterday.

Don't kid yourself.  The future is here and gone.

What was that, my omniscent agent?  I'm repeating what someone else has already said?

Well, then, get another client who doesn't earn you a commission but plenty of payoffs with the fixers and movers, if you know what I mean.

A Nod to Jimmy

Okay, Jimmy, I'll give you your multiple NASCAR championships in a row, with congrats to you, your crew chief and your crew.

Of course, a big YEE-HAW to the Golden One on a victory today - I wore muh Jeff Gordon jacket yesterdy and it paid off.

Time for a chug o' Pepsi and a chaw of that brownie I made fer muh wife.

Power of the Sun

Solar Energy for the Masses.

Tick Season Has Started

A train to the Moon.  It's a ride the few and proud will enjoy, and many see.

Matias half-keyboard app for tablets/smartphones

Reconstructing my childhood, not only from shared memories my parents, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins carry, but also from shared cultural images, can make one wonder why one ever thought there was one in the first place.

One no longer is one.

So few of us are left to know what growing your own food is like that our civilisation has taken the same wrong turn again.

Will we ever learn?

Will we ever stop listening to those whose vested interests clash with ours because they are willing to state bold-faced lies to get what they want?

I believe in the power of the species to find a new path, even if history is against us.

I have this belief because I know I do not exist.

At the same time, I feel weighed down with despair and hopelessness because so many billions of us are led astray so easily.

I am Example No. 1, par excellence.

Therefore, I have joined the walking dead and no longer exist.

The cycle is completed once again.

I have no death to look forward to ending this life that has not reproduced itself.

Thus, I am happy to be alive, if you see where this logic is going.

Nothing left to lose.

Nothing desired to gain.

A walk in the woods like attending worship service, with bird song, leaves sprouting in spring and sunshine preaching to the choir.

The universe is.

That's all that matters today.

The truth, or what most people don't care to know that is here in front of their imaginary personalities, can wait to be told another day.

I have a personal journey to attend to - the species can observe and/or follow if it desires - I have my imperfections to enjoy at my own leisurely pace.

States of energy, let's have some label-free fun, okay?!

What do you know about brothers who go click and clack near Gentle Store in Limrock, Alabama?

I was scraping the skunk junk off my junk sailing between Eris and Sedna on a junket to decide if Jimmy Dykes and Brad Nessler influenced the outcome of my bookie's income because of what happened to Walker in the fourth grade.

Knit 1, PEARL10.

Thanks to Josh at Hiley VW for cleaning his father's Ford Explorer Sport Trac.

Thanks to the Rite Aid pharmacist who recognised us at McCutcheon's Magnolia House Restaurant.  The owner of the restaurant told us she'd taught dance at UTK for 37 years and was sad to see the university end the dance program.  However, she was glad to be back in the house where she and her brother grew up after her grandmother died.  Honey, there ain't nothin' like good ol' fashioned Southern comfort comfort food!

The owner of Keepsakes Scrapbooking, Gifts & Antiques, who had opened the store as a "project" for her daughter, whose divorce led her to get a fulltime job and away from assisting her mother, has run the store for seven years and looks forward to the day when the economy picks up and she can sell the store for what it's really worth, having made no profit for the last two years.  Oy vey!

Meanwhile, last Saturday at UBC, a new sales record was set, with 300 more transactions than the busiest business day (not counting the ski sales).  A thanks to the ever-smiling, beautiful/handsome faces of Gail, Brittany, Pam W., Janet G., Aaron, Josh and Samantha.  Oh yes!

I don't know which made me happier today, the May 1962 copy of Boy's Life for $19.99 at Keepsakes, or the 64GB Apple iPad for $620.99 at UBC (the lesser bargain of the two correction: it was/is a better bargain).

I wonder out loud here.  If, in the past, some xx% of marriages were basically women being slaves to men and children, does that account for the fact that only 40% of people today see value in the partnership that marriage is supposed to be?

Like a friend of mine told her ex-husband and son, "I don't care where your clothes are or what you want for dinner because you don't care about the kind of day I had."

Labels are not excuses for the way we treat one another.  Rude or disrespectful behaviour is indicative of your character and not something that is allowed because of a title or role you pretend to carry around with you like a badge.

Like Steve Jobs said, one day you're going to wake up and realise that you really are going to die one day.

Today is the first day of the last days of your life together with the rest of us.

I'm exposing the emperor's new clothes from now on even if it's the nonpaid role I've assigned myself because all I'm going to do is die one day...

...because all our species is going to do is suffer another lost civilisation and if we're lucky we'll leave enough clues for the next civilisation to make better progress the next time.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In my opinion, political boundaries don't exist anymore.  Mexican military forces are said to invade our land while Chinese/Russian satellites invade our space and we do nothing in return.  Canadian spies come and go and we say nothing, too.

If a person can run a pet cremation business and make a profit, then I'm sure Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.

Janet, you repeated over and over the name of your son's agribusiness specialty of landscaping and lawn care.  Avast?  Avert?  Avant?  I can't remember.  May his Twickenham, Ledges and other neighbourhood work keep him busy, if not making a living wage - it's happening to all of us, as can been seen by empty shopping centres from here to California and back.

When your cities and towns are the gold rush that spiked and collapsed, what's next?

Stay tuned.

The Book of the Future actually has good things to say about our continuously-moving moment together.

I didn't say easy.  Good.

You'll see.

Just like Claire saw the old Chattanooga Choo-Choo train station for the very first time.  Wish I coulda been there, Claire.  Life is full of eye-opening experiences.

Could Jeff Gordon win tomorrow?

Did the guy at UBC buy the iPod Touch so he could add a Tom-Tom GPS unit and CoPilot Live?

Who has correctly predicted the cricket champ?

Will the forces of free enterprises win for the people or for the...

[Please recharge your battery at this time to continue enjoying the free Internet service we provided in exchange for promoting us]

Yes, Laurie Anderson, we are all going down together but it's going to be a glorious ride!  Buckle up!  The weather's calling your name!  Got your fishing poles and tackle box ready?

JUS2LIN

Now, again for the very first time, using phrases that, like "As Seen On TV!," lose their meaning because fewer and fewer people are watching original programming on the stationary screen (or using stationery)...

We give you [fingernail filing sound, Ms. Foley, please]

MANADEE, a cross between Xanadu and a manatee, but not a cross between Manwich and Sandra Dee.

Life is vanity and then you die.

Thanks to Robert and Beonca at Rave Motion Pictures; Tami at Beauregard's; Serge Ibaka of Oklahoma City; Amway Center in Orlando.

My father reminded me of the urban myths passed around in his childhood during the rollout of the Rural Electrification Initiative (originally authorised by executive order in my father's birth year), that when you saw plasma arcing from big power lines, it was the sign of invisible alien ships recharging.

He's 76.  He's earned the right to reminisce.

Dumbfounded = colloquial mashing of dumbstruck and confounded.

When freedom is just another word for business opportunity, I take down my American flag and replace it with the GE meatball.

Let's be honest here.  Washington and Jefferson weren't into proletarianism.  They were into the right to build your own business and determine how to redistribute your wealth the way you wanted, not the way neighbourhood thugs, poor do-gooders or despots wanted.

After all, we call it lobbying, not bribery.

After all, my wife and I built our wealth the old-fashioned way, we earned it one dollar at a time, saving at least 20% of our income and sometimes as high as 50% along the way to retirement so that when we get old, Uncle Sam is not our sole personal benefactor.  Sure, I'd like to spend our wealth now, but delayed gratification will pay off better.

Social networking is fine and good.  I enjoy virtual class reunions.  I like sending out well wishes and prayers via emails, IMs and such.

In the process of using free social networking tools, I share demographic (I almost said democratic) data in the hopes I won't notice getting pigeonholed into buying a product that I really don't need or isn't really good for me.

I eat raw oatmeal (cooked in the microwave for 2:05), bananas, and whatever is available at the local/chain restaurants where my wife wants to eat a dinner meal together with me.

I don't eat reconstituted oatmeal and oatmeal byproducts mixed with a slurry of sweeteners and other unrecognisable goo.

Call me un-American, if you will!

Trapped in the hell of processed foods and overpriced celebrity clothing lines.

The average modern lifestyle is Purgatory, is it not?

Live as an example to others, but to yourself first.

I leave you in the realm of sleight-of-hand billionaires who promise they only have your best interests at heart, if not your heart health in their best interests.

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, I'm hooked on whatever you're selling 'cause I'm easily fooled.

If we did away with everything called the public interest, are you willing to step up to the plate and bat for your team that'll have to fund its own interests?

Are there enough people out there willing to pay for pure science and abstract art, those who truly understand that science/art is the bag of seeds for tomorrow's crop of new business opportunities?

Are you willing to hire and educate marginal employees, knowing you and your team have the skills to pull the non/antisocial crowd into the Way of Profitable Living?

I just keep on keepin' on, 'cause that's all I've got left to do, my retirement nest egg at the mercy of the rest of our business interests.

I'm not trying to make fun of us for the sake of laughter - I'm making fun of us because I see what you don't see in your comfortably unhealthy lifestyles.

This civilisation is taking all us lemmings over a cliff, sooner than you think.

Sure, it's inevitable, but we can delay it a little longer this time, I believe.

Imagine you're from another planet, and you're observing our planet in hopes of learning from the dominant species how to save your planet from repetitious bloom-and-doom cycles.

Of course, the dominant species type on Earth is a microorganism.  How is a typical microorganism adjusting to the changes of global weather and local ecosystem rearrangement caused by the recent boom of growth of a minor species, Homo sapiens?

Can any one species see its interconnection with others and act when looming catastrophe is evident?

I don't need the Book of the Future to see that answer, unfortunately, because I already know how the global ecosystem is like a closed-loop system.

We still have the chance to send representatives out of this snowglobe before it's completely shaken up and our recent round of technological achievements dashed against the thin atmosphere we breathily call home.

Otherwise, we're happily repeating ourselves.

Sigh... Otherwise, we're happily repeating ourselves. [yes, I had to say it]

Mmm, this Kool-Aid is good.  Did you add something a little spicy?  Cough, cough.

Can treaties treat trauma?

Just in time for management-labour talks.

START and start again

Hey, church lady.  Is this the Satan you were talking about?

Health, the lineal frontier

Two bits, full of bytes/bites:

1. World's smallest computer?
2. Success starts with breakfast:

At Mission Terrace, Ashleigh Brilliant asked me if I had a question and I was dumbfounded at the time.  After I left, I realized the one question I wanted to ask him, "What do you eat for breakfast?"

His response, via email:

"For breakfast I usually have

• Hot cereal with milk and a banana
• Scrambled eggs and bread
• Prune juice and decaf coffee"

Green With Envy

A nod to Dr. Doug.

Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard

Or, view from inside a smoked-out white van with mirrors and antennae.

I apologise for the delay in sending out today's important message to our citizenry.

The Committee has been enbroiled, bubbling over with argumentative blocks of ergot-laden Argonaut talk.

All the contracts were signed, though, so I can happily report we have divvied up the planet's economy, with every one of us having many trillions of dollars/yuan to play with.

But, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary...

Wait, that sounds oddly familiar, as if...

Never mind.

Now that we're all officially trillionaires, the Committee wants me to change my tune, getting away from "I'm for the proletariat and I'm here to help" stuff that sells well on abandoned street corners where the unemployed will dance to any melody that drips with honey or junk.

They reminded me that I had taken the "Bob Hope Subliminal Message for the Troops Hidden in Soapy Sales Comedy" class and received an attaboy (a/k/a A+) from the instructor who promoted me up two levels because of the way I tied my shoelaces backwards (never tell a right-handed professor that she can't see how a left-handed student ties his shoes).

And the Committee is right.  I had snuck into the Bob Hope Comic Files Library and photocopied all the jokes related to visits in war zones or during times of deep crisis.

Sure enough, using the decoder ring given to my by Fred Kirby at the Tweetsie Railroad, after I explained to him the true meaning of the dopy joke he obviously told dozens of times of day without knowing why, I deciphered not only who had written the jokes for Bob but the hidden messages plainly but cleverly hidden in the exact way Bob spoke the words (in other words, you need as high a definition of high-definition video or film as you can get to truly get what Bob was saying).

Therefore, unlike what my inventor friend had shown me, her latest reinvention of the disposable toilet bowl liner that forever prevents mold and mildew buildup (or those ugly brown streaks!) and decomposes naturally in septic or sewer systems, I had another circuitous path to explore.

It started with overhearing Conan explain to his producers that, although Andy Richter did appear dead at times, there was no reason to assume he was the secret identity behind an imaginary character like Ronny Tripwell, undead correspondent.  But Conan would take into consideration paying Andy the same as he paid Ronny - a free trip through Purgatory and over the River Styx to grandmother's house he goes to feed the hungry wolf.

Or the way Trad Braveface twitches and jerks his head when severe weather strikes.  Look out for the arcing power lines!

Finally, I arrived at the message I am to impart in no cloaked humour.  We are, for your benefit, becoming trillionaires and taking away your overvalued salaries because you have demonstrated no self-control; thus, we are saving the species from itself by restricting your living expenses.

Seriously, the growing divide between rich and poor is for your own good.

Now, that's not saying that every rich person is living the right way.  But don't worry, we're taking care of them for me us you.

When you see a millionaire or billionaire die of an unexpected overdose or tragic automobile accident, or perhaps an unexplained plane crash or murder on the high seas, you know what's really going on.

But you always did, didn't you?

We want to welcome one of our own into the club - Dan Tice, CIO of Emerson-America.  He is a good kid, straightforward, honest, sticks to the rules and a real example of how to be an example to others.  I am nothing in comparison to him, but I always knew that, even if he didn't.

Also, thanks to Rainy, Chris and the cooks at Thai Garden, and Cat Shearer of Happy Tummy - you guys are the best and you know it!  I could never say a mean word about you all.  A nod to Dave Bjorne and the gang at ADS - keep on keepin' on!  And congrats to Isaac DeVaney for his swimming prowess - Lanny and Ieleen must be proud.

The Committee is now pouring over my plans, which show we only have 14,315 days to get this right.  If the Book of the Future is correct, our schedule needs a major paradigm shift.  Anyone got a trick pair of dice from Paradise Casino to help?

Pardon me while I ignore you again for a while.

What is elitism?

What I wonder but am not quite ready to worry about is the income inequality issue in this country.

Are we prepared to visualise a peasant uprising in this nation?

And peasantry is not pleasantry and it's not unpleasant, either.

Feudalism by another name, perhaps, but still the same.

I could encourage revolutions in China and Iran, knowing that the spillover into this country is inevitable, but I don't, or haven't, obviously.

I'm waiting.

Watching.

Ever vigilant.

Are the "haves" going to take social services away from the "almost have-nots," finally reducing (or returning, if you will) our class structure to the filthy rich and the filthy?

It is in the 1000-year projection at this time that a revolution will sweep over this country.

I am only the projectionist, not the film producer or director.

However, some have accused me of being writer and actor in a minor role.

We are willing to recompute the current projection if you are willing to change current sociopolitical tactics.

Otherwise, BAM!  BOOM!  Francis Scott Keysha Martinez will be writing a new national anthem before you can say what the hay happened to my side of grass-fed beef?

I miss the days of farming, living off the land, having 12 kids because half of 'em will die of diseases I can't afford to cure, little worry about global anything, except maybe the weather.

And Berlusconi thinks he has nothing to worry about?  Where's Übermensch Sarkozy when we need him?  Protecting his wife Carla from the Italian, I'm sure.

Congrats to Discovery for a beautiful liftoff.  It was a great show and we'll miss having more 1970s technology wrapping reengineering stuffing floating around the planet.

I'm a tired, middle-aged guy but I'm here to hear myself observe what's going on so I have nothing to complain about.

This parallel blog keeps me sane, if sanity is helping our ecosystem push itself to the brink of unfixable invincibility.  The pundits are taking bets on whether it'll be the roaches who eventually win.  What exactly are the meek and if they inherit the planet, what then?

Somewhere, the owners of the rights to "Wag The Dog" are asking themselves what they got themselves into themselves.

Greed and gluttony - the seven deadly sins always get you in the end.

Picking Up Where I Left Off Repeating Myself Again

So, after the family from Detroit moved into the neighbourhood, the parents introducing swinging (and I don't mean dancing, this time), I learned that talking about my friends, who others had labeled with the 'n' word because of their skin colour, tended to get me beaten up by the white guys (pretty much just the front line for our successful junior high school football team, it seems to me in retrospect).

Silence was my best friend throughout junior high and high school.

So, when college came along, I was able to get back with people of any size, shape, belief and colour, without fear of physical harm.

As I mentioned in a long-ago blog entry, the college foursome that when to Fort Myers for spring break caused a stir.

And later, when I finally moved up to supervisor, my first employee happened to have dark skin and which adults now call African-American.

At last, I was free of the negative thoughts that hung over my head for much of my childhood.

I was luckier than many.  My parents provided a home that was free of racial bias.  I watched Bill Cosby on television and listened to Richard Pryor on LP records.  But also watched Andy Griffith on TV and listened to him on LP record.  Cheech and Chong on 45 RPM record (and later, 8-track tape).  Varieties of people on PBS (television) and NPR (radio).

My life has been easy but listening to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes has not been easy.

Turn the other cheek is easier said than done but it provides resistance of another sort.

That's why I support many of the uprisings going on right now around the world because peaceful resistance wins in the long run, although it is painful to bear, including the restructuring of school districts to eliminate, as best we can, racial inequality that still exists today.

Defending oneself is different than fighting for freedom.

We are a very young species and keep learning what works better and better.

Those of us who are here to talk about it are the ones who set the example for ourselves and future generations.

Gandhi and MLKJ may have been rabblerousers of a sort, but they represented a voice that needed and wanted to be heard, just as the people of the American continent wanted to be heard but were ignored by ol' King George and British Parliament in the 1700s (they should have learned that lesson before the Indian subcontinent uprising dozens of years later, huh?).

Our species has thousands of years of cyclical changes ahead of us.  Let's set good examples now, or as many as we can, knowing that people will do what they have to do to feed their families, despite negative consequences for the species on the local/global scale.

Index Finger

While I'm working through the issues that the computer programmers don't know will be presented to them in printed reports they haven't been assigned to generate, I'll give you the following.

To the folks in the Middle East and Africa.

To the folks in North Korea, Cuba, China, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Pakistan.

To those who are under the impression they are under persecutory regimes of any kind...

This is the future: franchising.

So, I suggest to you that you get with your friends and family, pool your resources, get microloans, if you have to.

And then work with your political friends to enact laws that protect intellectual property and freedoms of expression.

Finally, after all is set up, build yourself a brand image that you can sell to others.

Sell processed food or clothing lines.

If you cannot dream up your own brand, buy into the brands that already exist.

And, if you're smart, you'll negotiate deals where your brand(s) will feed the malnourished and starving in the world.

Instead of delivering bags of rice and flour to places that don't have cooking fuel or safe drinking water, airdrop in crates of Pringles and Coca-Cola.

Make the world's greatest falafel and open Falafel Bazaar eateries all around the world.

Span the globe with spanakopitas.

Serve lamburgers with children's toys.

Stop the slaughter of endangered animals by showing that bush meat is not the ultimate free range food - your product is.

Sure, petroleum jelly is the best ointment for superficial wounds but doesn't the name Vaseline or Neosporin sound more scientifically safe?

Do you speak a 16-bit language?

Do you believe we are an ignorant species?

Do you write blog entries that invite insight in order to increase readership because you know, and your audience knows, you have only one goal in mind - to save the species from itself, but in the long, drawnout process of doing so, killing us with obesity to get us to another place in time that's better for the total population as a whole?

Would a blog supplement, "as read by the author," a podcast (or perhaps an open source sound file) be a bestseller?  Could I pull a Paul Newman and put the profits to universal improvement?

My inventor friends are begging me not to give up, that we together are building a better world, despite repetition that gives me severe migraines which block my thought patterns.  "Don't confuse yourself over the normal issues of deteriorating tissue, blood and bones," they whisper in emails.

As I say, I am here with you and thank you for sharing your time with me.  I am not perfect and sometimes it shows more obviously on days when I can't stop being a normal person with everyday aches and pains.

One of my friends recommended I look into Autodesk's free animation program for kids.  I will, I promise.

The placebo effect of a large tablet of aspirin is often the best elixir for an ol' skeptic like me (and cheaper than a six-pack which would inhibit my driving to the store to buy a box of premixed fudge brownie ingredients to surprise my wife with hot brownies for the surprises she made/bought for me).

Personal Revelation

I know part of what's bothering me.

I can find no viable means of supporting myself in the state of the world in its current condition.

I have painted myself into a corner where I believe I am 100-1000 years too early.

The personal blocks out the universal (or at least, the global).

Just because my life is easy doesn't mean I like living the easy life.

The spiral I'm on is taking a dangerously fast downward turn.

Take a deep breath, Rick, take a deep breath.  Don't worry.  All you will ever do is die, quickly forgotten.

I still don't feel any better but these words are a record of the thoughts clouding my thoughts.

After all, I am still just one person, subject to the state of the set of states of energy which is me.

Time once again to close down this blog and open a new one, I suppose.  It's the little things that make a difference sometimes.

Sometimes.

Is there a universal cause worth dying for that's not just another point on the circle of our repetitive species' history?

Not another business case?

Not another sports arena?

Not another bunch of people bickering over dwindling resources?

Not another catastrophic natural disaster?

No wonder people turn to religion to answer the unanswerable about the futility of life screaming, "SSDD!"

Crawling into the abyss is easy.  Getting out is not.

Something doesn't feel right

I know this sounds silly, 'cause I'm not one for taking myself seriously, but something doesn't feel right to me.

I wish I knew what it was/is but it is preventing me from reporting the future that I see is coming.

I apologise for the profundity, produntity or or nonprofitable proclivity but I can't express in these words what's bothering me.

It is, I'm afraid, neither worse nor better than you can imagine.

It is something else entirely new, something I haven't encountered, and it's fogging up the crystal ball and changing the combination on the lock holding down the cover on the Book of the Future.

A storm is brewing which will clear the air for me.

Until then, a little lightning and thunder will fill the air for some.

'Tis what is.

These words are not what they seem.  The metaphors are not literal.

You know what that means - you're on your own for a few more days, I'm afraid.

[or is that, "you're on your own for a few more days.  I'm afraid."?]

Making Mechanical Cards Like It's The Mid-Nineteenth Century All Over Again

I was trying to remember the three-finger rule and then it hit me.  Dark matter!  Of course, that's what it is and how to explain it to our simple species.

And why Danielle explained:

"If you purchase 4 classes at once the current series going on will be the only classes that apply for it. So if you miss a class we are not going to make it up for you in another series. If you are 'owed' any classes we will honor them during this 4 weeks but after that if you miss any classes you will need to purchase a new series to come back later.

"My best suggestion for you is if you are not positive you can come all 4 weeks then purchase the classes individually.

"If you would like to register ahead of time for a full series you can do so at http://school.alabamayouthballet.org/payments/ and be sure to include in the space provided that it's for swing classes and what level that you will be taking."

As the Great Teacher says, "The easiest explanations are the hardest to formulate.  Take a deep breath and start talkin'.  If you can't get it all out at once, it ain't worth explainin'.  And if that don't work, beat 'em over the head with a rubber chicken.  It works every time."


Don't depend on the dual-brain/symmetry metaphor when it's just a consequence of local evolutionary happenchance.  It's the spin, or the lack thereof, that makes the real difference.

Meanwhile, security levels are at their highest as intelligence sources warn that roving bands of antimatter have permeated the area.  If your loved one disappears out of thin air, report to the authorities immediately!  And students, teachers have been warned - you can't use this as an excuse for not turning in your homework!