She is very small

But she is very loud.



It's Flyleaf.

A Short Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens

An excellent summer blockbuster--with cowboys and aliens in it!  The cowboy bits are solidly western--the gruff mean old guy who turns out to be ok, the man with no name, the Indian sidekick--and the alien bits are entertainingly sci-fi-y--abductions, probing, lasers--and it all comes together surprisingly well.  The production values for the aliens and the ships are off the scale, and there are tons of good ol' single action revolvers.  Really, the worst part about it is the cognitive dissonance of seeing James Bond as a cowboy--Daniel Craig does a fine job but you just have to work through it in your brain.

The best movie I've seen in theaters all year (though that's not saying much--the others were Sucker Punch and Thor).  Well worth my $8.50 matinee ticket, and probably even worth the 11 bucks for an evening one.  I would even be willing to see it in theaters again, which is certainly saying something.

Oh, and at the end, all I could think was "I really want to see what Thomas Edison and/or Nikola Tesla are going to do with all those bits of alien technology just laying around..."

Breakfast for lunch

First fried up half an onion (from the garden!) Added a grated potato. Chopped up a sweet pepper (from the garden!) and spreaded it on top of the potato. Don't touch the potatoes until they are getting crispy on the bottom, then flip everything. Meanwhile, I was crispifying some bacon. When the potatoes are starting to look almost done, add the bacon. Scootch everything in the skillet over to one side and add a couple of [fresh] scrambled eggs--let them get halfway cooked and then mix everything together, and add a good handful of grated cheese. Let it cook until the cheese makes a nice crispy layer in there. Add spices and seasoning (I had fresh rosemary and salt and pepper).

I ate it all...

Folk Remedies

Alum on a canker sore.  Stings (what doesn't?) but works. 

When I'm king of the universe...

Drunkenly shooting off fireworks at 1:30 in the morning on a day with no holi- will get you lashed to a stake and used as a target for said fireworks. Sheesh, can't a guy get any sleep around here?

One more Dada

I'm even more impressed that these guys have been around for so long, and still keeping up the weirdness--gotta keep the dream alive!

A Short Movie Review: Prince of Persia Sands of Time

Scorpion King was better.

Sums up my feelings on the matter

I haven't really said anything on the whole Debt "Crises" thing.  Mainly because I don't think anything the yahoos in DC do will be anything but helpful, and is, in fact, simply political grandstanding.  PawPaw has a nice little saying that sums it up nicely:


"A failure to plan on your part does not make this an emergency on my part."

I don't know, maybe I should be more worried about it. But since all the numbers are coming out of the Bald and Bearded Bernanke's office, and all the press releases are coming out of the capitol building...

Left work early

The mercury termometer I keep next to my desk read 87.

Inside the building. 

It was much too hot to concentrate. I just had Slippy Toad screaming "IT'S TOO HOT! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" in the back of my head.  Over and over and over...

Wild Night

So the party I had last night was a screaming success. After work I stopped by the library to drop off one that I finished on my lunch break, and picked up another. Then I went home, and read through the new book. Then I ate an egg sandwich (with horseradish--daring!) and a root beer float. Then I tried to ignore the phone ringing at ungodly hours. Then I went to bed.

If all you easterners lived a bit closer, it would have been much more exciting--the blame lies squarely on your shoulders.  That's my story, anyway.

Got nothin'

"At the point at which the economy is melting down, who cares what the Supreme Court is going to say?" Professor Balkin said. "It's the president's duty to save the Republic."

From the NY Times, via Prof. Mondo.

If reminded me of Palpatine in Star Wars Episode II:



(Lord save me, I'm posting fan videos of people impersonating Star Wars characters...)

Oh, and while I was at it, I found this (not really but still somewhat related) video:

New Life Rule

Life Rule #6: Don't answer the phone after 10:00 pm.

It only encourages bad behavior.

Alone again

So some of my mother's Kansas family is visiting Colorado, but some of them are old and frail and not going far, so she is going to visit them. Where they are is two hours down the road, and since she was going to go up to WY to visit my brother and see his new off campus digs this weekend anyway, she's decided to just combine everything and leave a couple days early. So it looks like I've got the place to myself again.

Um, yeah, so... PARTY AT MY HOUSE! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Love it

I don't know how I missed this band till now. I mean, everyone knows the "Oh yeah" song, but there's so much more!



Like, I had no idea there was an actual band that made true, blue "Dada Music"!

Urinal etiquette: How to avoid the end of the world

Ladies, you probably won't care about this--but I thought it was a worthwhile message.



Besides, we all want to avoid the societal collapse of the world, right?

Summer Photo Randomnosity

1) Remember that houseboat that was so disgusting? It's all completely rebuilt now, and floating in Lake Powell.  How do you like the look of the new cabinets?  This picture is of the same location as the first one in the link.

2) Speaking of cabinets, here's the planer that I picked up for my uncle.  We stopped at a winery along the way because we were running a bit low; this one is my mother's favorite.

3) Even though it's almost August, the river is still running at levels we usually see as high water in June.  Crazy.

4) This was the crowd at the Otis Taylor concert last week.

5) And the corn in our garden is taller than me, now, and starting to tassel.  Probably another week and we'll be having corn on the cob every day.

Professor Elemental Vs. Some Random Canuck

Kickin' it OLD SKOOL

This is what I did today:

 Windows 95 and 5 1/4 Floppy disks, baby!  Oooooooooooh, yeah!



My boss had some data that he needed off of an old project that was on an old floppy disk--I had to tear apart three old computers (one was even new enough to have an Intel 486!) to get a drive that would work. So now I have a few more random electric things to scrounge motors of off, and a couple [really] old processors to put in my collection.

The MozART Group

These guys are pretty funny:



(BTW, sorry about the technical difficulties the first time I tried posting this. As compensation, here's another one)

How humiliating

Coming home from work today I saw a car that had been pulled over by a state patrolman in an unmarked 15-passenger van.  At least the vehicle in question wasn't some little red sports car, or else I think the driver would be expected to commit seppuku on the spot...

Books of 2011: The Hot Gate

You may have thought that I've forgotten to read, since the last little book review I did was back in May, for Hard Magic.  Rest assured, this is not the case.  It is just that I've been reading through a large series an didn't want to do a separate post for each book. But I finally got a hold of the new book in John Ringo's Troy Rising series, "The Hot Gate," from the library, and read it Saturday night (yes, pretty much all night, yes, I'm sometimes pretty stupid when it comes to things like this).  It was pretty meh.  But I sure hope that this so-called trilogy is going have another book, because otherwise this was a very weak offering.  Half a book of lecturing about South American culture clash, a love story (or perhaps a mutual respect story, it isn't made clear) that is introduced and then dropped without exploration or resolution, a saboteur that is introduced for unexplained reasons and then dropped without exploration or resolution, a massive BATTLE SCENE at the END OF THE BOOK that should be the CLIMAX OF THE STORY that is pretty much... wait for it... introduced and then DROPPED WITHOUT EXPLORATION OR RESOLUTION. 

Everything you want to read about is forced and rushed and incomplete, it hammers on the uninteresting and unnecessary South American "honor" thing for faaaaarrr too long and then suddenly drops it for no apparent reason, and after the brilliance of first book and the good solid military action of the second one,  I am more than slightly disappointed in what I was thinking would be the third book in a trilogy.  Here's hoping I'm wrong.

My score--a good solid meh/10, to be raised if there is another book or two that get back to good storytelling.

And, look, oh great, the next book in my pile as I wait for the next one in the series I'm trying to read is the next in the 1632 series.  Speaking of things that are unresolved and going in the wrong direction...

Momentary thought

If you flipped the "p" in all of those government Dept.'s, you would get a lable that is much more accurate.  Debt. of Education.  Debt. Energy.  Etc.

Dogs beat up EVERYONE

and comfort the afflicted

Sky Crane!

This just flew right over my head when we were walking the dogs.  I guess there must be a fire around here somewhere; it's all dressed up in red and has the big orange tank.

I love living in the landing zone of the airport!

Good ol' Kubota

Before:

After:

Street Corn

The sweet corn is coming on, and I saw something on a cooking show for just this situation.

What you want to do is shuck your corn and throw it on the grill. Roast it till it starts getting, um, roasty, then coat it with mayonnaise, sprinkle on a bunch of garlic powder and chili powder, and then top with some grated cheese. So good for you (figuratively).

No pictures because we ate it all too quickly. Sorry.

Long Range Errand Boy

My uncle the mechanic recently bought a big table planer/joiner thing to help him on his cabinet-making enterprise he recently started. However, all of his trucks are at this time otherwise occupied, so I get to go and pick it up for him. Since I live an hour closer to the seller anyway, and I owe many large favors to my uncle for services rendered in regard to the Great Volvo Debacle of 2011, today will be a road trip day. Maybe I should take the far back roads and make a grand circle out of it--go up through Glenwood Springs and down through Paonia where the hippies live...

A countdown of sorts

A countdown to what I cannot say. And it never seems to go below 3...



But it has some really really creepy kittens in it. Redeeming value?

Bacon and Green Beans

The first beans out of the garden are in the pot cooking with some bacon and onions.

Looking forward to dinner tonight!

Answer

Ok, I admit it, I've been drawing this out for far too long, but hey, it's been a slow week around here and I needed blog fodder.

The item in question is a RepRap made Swiss army knife-toothpick. I lost mine years ago, and mentioned it to my friend when he was getting his first 3D printer all set up, and so he made one for me.

So now I need to think of some other random things that could be made (AS IF OUT OF THIN AIR!) by this nifty little device...

Ok, one more hint

I know I'm dragging this out...

Look at this link.

Now let me say, my friend (the one who went to see the shuttle launch, just so you can get a feel for what kind of person I'm talking about) made his own RepRap machine. Then he used it to make a better RepRap machine.

Now can you guess?

Scarecrow

John Cougar (no Mellencamp)



With a few creepy pictures

Seen if you can guess it now

Not trying to be obtuse--this is just a plain old solid hint.

How specific can you get?

Otis Taylor

There was a concert last night that some friends had some extra tickets for, so we got to go along.



Pretty good blues-type stuff, if maybe a bit too bleeding heart for my taste. At the concert he had a lady with him playing some great fiddle, which fit in real nice.

Guessing Game Time!

Can you guess what this is?

A Linked List

The Adaptive Curmudgeon the other day had a nice little list on how to go "Back to the Land."


Number three seemed particularly applicable to me: "Baby skunks are the sweetest cutest little fluffballs you’ve ever seen. Shoot them; in the head."

It still smells like skunk out where I caught those two a few weeks back.

Click on the link and go read them all.  I bet you'll like them even if you aren't living on a farm.

Music Measures Time

I discovered the other day that my daily commute is almost exactly one 2112 long.



I hope you have 20 minutes to burn. This is Rush in full onslaught prog mode.

DOUBLE RAINBOW!

We just had a good gullywasher, and this is the after affect.

SO BRIGHT! SO VIVID!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!?

Today's Playlist

The Kinks, Village Green Preservation Society
Blue Öyster Cult, Cultosaurus Erectus
They Might Be Giants, The Else
U2, Boy
Dire Straits, Communiqué
Massive Attack, Mezzanine
My Morning Jacket, Circuital and Z

Now cooking supper (steak, oven potato chips, and fried green tomatoes) to
Gaelic Storm, Gaelic Storm

That, my friends, is quite a range.

A Nun Joke

From an email my Uncle sent:

A man is driving down a deserted stretch of highway
when he notices a sign out of the corner of his eye....
It reads:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
10 MILES
He thinks this is a figment of his imagination and
drives on without second thought.....

Soon he sees another sign which reads:
SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
5 MILES

Suddenly he begins to realize that these signs are
for real and drives past a third sign saying:
SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
NEXT RIGHT

His curiosity gets the best of him and he pulls into
the drive... On the far side of the parking lot is a
stone building with a small sign next to the door reading:
SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
He climbs the steps and rings the! Bell . The
door is answered by a nun in a long black
habit who asks, 'What may we do for you my son?'
He answers, 'I saw your signs along the highway
and was interested in possibly doing business.....'
'Very well my son. Please follow me.' He is led
through many winding passages and is soon quite
disoriented. The nun stops at a closed door and tells
the man, 'Please knock on this door.'

He does so and another nun in a long habit, holding
a tin cup answers the door... This nun instructs, 'Please
place $100 in the cup then go through the large
wooden door at the end of the hallway.'

He puts $100 in the cup, eagerly trots down the hall
and slips through the door pulling it shut behind him.
The door locks, and he finds himself back in the
parking lot facing another sign:
GO IN PEACE.
YOU HAVE JUST BEEN SCREWED BY THE
SISTERS OF ST.FRANCIS.

Devolution to outhouse has been narrowly avoided

So yesterday after getting home from work I decided to just try tightening thing up in the toilet in case I missed something the first time around. Tightened the flapper valve fixture--it started leaking more. Dammit. Thinking about how much easier digging a hole for an outhouse would be than dealing with household plumbing, I untightened that. Trial and error, trial and error, tightened the wing nuts that hold the tank on as tight as I could without feeling like I'm going to crack the porcelain, and... this morning the tank was still full up! The foam rubber gasket must have compressed the first day as much as it could then, but not as much as it could now. So hopefully this will work now.

Just because it's easier to dig a hole doesn't mean it's fun.

Two sets of big lungs

One full of opera and one full of hot air. But I love U2 despite it all.

I AM BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WEEDS

Three gallons is perfect to get the weeds on our nearly four acres.

Toilet Advice Needed

From any handymen/people who don't want to be handymen but have been forced into it out there.

The stupid flapper on the upstairs toilet was leaking pretty bad, so we bought new guts for it (the old guts were so old and corroded we had to resort to hack saws and such to get the fittings out--not the funnest day I've had). So new guts were installed, and it the flapper valve leaked more than before.

*headdesk*

So new guts, this time the most expensive ones we could find at Blue Big Box Home Improvement Store, were bought and installed. Now the flapper valve only leaks through one tank a day instead one tank an hour, but IT IS STILL LEAKING.

Good Lord, has the manufacturing capability of the world so degraded that nothing fits and rubber isn't a good seal anymore, or am I doing something wrong? Is there some way to make a flapper valve fit better? Some brand that works particularly well?

Because, as it is, I'm starting to feel like we'd be better off without indoor plumbing, and that is NEVER a good sign.

Rocket Man

Such a ridiculous song.

I am frightened

My brother wanted me to watch this song. I don't know why.



And now I am very very scared.

I think I'm going to go and stare at the corner and rock back and forth for a while.

*Shudder*

Happy National Ice Cream Day!

As designated by Ronald Reagan in 1984.

I'm going to celebrate with a root beer float made with root beer from one of the local microbreweries.

what to do with an abundance of kale

White bean and kale soup. I am informed that it is very Portuguese.

Two onions (one red onion from the garden, one white onion from the store). Three cloves of garlic. Fried the white onion and the garlic. Half of a (very large) carrot from the garden. Three (very large) sprigs of rosemary from my herb planter. Four+ cups of chicken broth. "Eight servings" of white beans, soaked and softened before hand. Quite a lot of kale from the garden.

Home made sourdough was toasted with cheese on top, and the soup was served over the top of it. More cheese was added.

Very simple, and very, very good.

To Do

• [try to] fix the toilet [again]

• get gas for the lawnmower

• mow the lawn

• butcher the evil chicken

• eat the evil chicken

• hang the new screen door

Chores: mocking your free time since time began

I would say it's bad enough to be below Mediocre

But it's German, so maybe that's something.

Nah. It's just bad.

I want one of these.

A lot.


A Gaelic Storm hip flask.

I'm 1% more evil than Borepatch

Borepatch was 37%.

But me, I'm

Adding Japanese pop to 80's pop doesn't make either less strange

I should know. I just listened to this song.

Screw cable...

START TREK VOYAGER IS ON NETFLIX? I know what I'm going to be doing tonight...

Cable

We are switching to cable today. Our current internet provider just has not cut it. It doesn't matter how fast your service is if the stupid stuff flickers on and off at random whim. And tech support? "It's not our problem." Uh huh.

So the cable company at least has the reputation of sending someone to your house if something isn't working, which should be a marked improvement.

Unfortunately, you save $200 in installation fees if you go whole hog and get internet, phone, and TV. So even though we hardly ever use the home phone and I fear cable with a passion, that's the way we're going (for now, at least).

So hopefully I'll be able to resist the urge to sit on the couch and change the channel every three seconds, which is what I usually do in places where 200 TV stations are available. It just seems like there ought to be something good on, somewhere. And by the time you've flipped through all 200, a half hour is up and you can start over at the beginning.

We're getting cable. May God have mercy on our souls...

This next music video is, perhaps, excessively over the top

But then, it is disco, so that is to be expected.

Oi no

Got an email from my school the other day, asking if I would like to take a survey.  I still think they may have a few wires crossed, as I, um, am in a completely different STATE, not to mention that I GRADUATED, but hey, I thought, what the heck.

The survey was from some Professional and Technical Communication student asking if I thought it would be a good idea to provide every student at the school with a supported by your tuition! free technogimmick iPad, under the pretension that it would enhance your studies.

What an absolutely abominably horrible idea.

This person obviously isn't an engineering student.  An electronic textbook would be great for classes with a lot of story-like reading--history and literature and such.  But when you use your textbooks as reference material--look at the graph on page 450 and with the number you get off of it go to the chart on page 300 to get the factor you need to insert into the equation listed on page 295--it just DOESN'T WORK in ebook form.  Then there's the unfortunate fact that an iPad is an Apple product, whereas nearly all of the software that is used for engineering runs on Windows.  Then there's the also unfortunate fact that none of said software would run on a tablet anyway.  Then there's the additional unfortunate fact that an iPad needs a real computer to plug into if you use it, which eliminates the "providing for the poor" aspect that I'm sure this bleeding heart PTC major has in mind.  And for five hundred bucks you could buy every student a licensed copy of Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Solid Works, and MATLAB. 

But never mind me, I hate to intrude on your bubble of awesomeness.

And lordy I'm glad I'm out of school, even if job prospects are grim.

Gunnish Question

Just out of curiosity, does/has anyone out there in the wide wide world of the interwebz sleep/slept with a gun under their pillow?  And why?

More Chevette-ing

And with a metaphor! But a rockin' song.



It was also my roommate's theme song.

Electrochevette

My former roommate in Montana (who drove his family's Chevette for many years before his dad took it back and made him buy his own car--what a fun car...) sent me this little tidbit about "a concept ahead of it's time!"

The ELECTROCHEVETTE!

It could get 50 MILES (!!!!!) on a SINGLE CHARGE (!!!!!!!!) and a top speed of 53 MILES PER HOUR (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Though keep in mind that the EPA range on the new Chevy Volt is a measly 35 miles (on pure batteries).

But the best part of this email was my friend's note at the bottom, which said:  "Help stop global warming and obesity. Buy an Electrovette. Zero emissions and 100% guaranteed walking after 50 miles."

Yep.  The downfall of all electric vehicles.  Unless you're an enviro-mentalist, in which case it's a feature.

Congratulations, AP

Congratulations, Associated Press and Ye Olde Local Paper, for the article this morning about the ATF and smuggling guns into Mexico that left out any mention AT ALL of Project Gunrunner.  You ability to present pure bias as a total lack of information is quite impressive.

Lonely office

My boss is out of the office today, trying to convince an Army Corp of Engineers (Motto: all of the bad stuff of a government bureaucracy with none of the benefits!) guy to see reality on a dam project he's working on.  So I have the office all to myself.  Loud music and task confusion, here I come!

Ooops.

Wrong kind of retro.



Sorry. Move along.

Let the rain put you to sleep

Jesse Cook

Quote of the day: Larry Correia

So yeah, being a bestseller is pretty sweet, but when I found out this morning that it also upsets Barack Obama, it became soooooooo much sweeter.

A slight depression

I've been making figures for The Big Report at work the past month or so.  This basically consists of taking all of the lab data that I've found over the past three summers and putting it onto charts, graphs, and drawings. 

It is somewhat depressing to see data that took a good two weeks and six different laboratory tests get condensed down to fit on one piece of paper, in a process that takes about half an hour.

Lazy Sunday or Craziness

My friend last night called me up and said "Don't worry, we're ok, we're alright, don't worry!" which of course prompted me to say "What happened?"

Turns out that across the street and two houses down, a guy walked into a house with a shotgun with then intent of stealing a car and wound up holding 4 people hostage.  The people managed to escape, but the guy holed up with pretty much every cop in the county (even from municipalities 20 miles away coming in to watch the fun) out on the doorstep.  Of course the police told my friend and his family to stay put, which they did, and while they did, observed police snipers in their backyard and SWAT guys putting on their bullet-proof vests in a hail storm (did I mention that there was a rather large thunderstorm coming through at the time?).  And every news service in town set up their cameras in my friend's driveway, so even after the hoopla was over my friend still couldn't get out.

The guy finally came out with with empty hands, lit a cigarette, turned his back to all the police, and was tasered, but not before uttering the quote of the day: "It's just been one of those days." 

Meanwhile, over here, I slept in, didn't even turn on my computer, read two books, and in the evening listened to the crazy happenings at my friend's house.  How was your weekend?

Bees!

A Band of.

I warned you.

Quiet

It's awful quiet out there in the intertubes today.  And awful quiet in carbon land.  Between my brother going back up to Wyoming, my mother out of town for a funeral, and my minecraft buddy in Florida watching the space program grind to a halt, there's not a lot to do. 

Maybe I'll go and take apart some old electronic devices for kicks and giggles.  Anyone want some scanner parts, or hard drive magnets?

Awesome

I just texted my minecraft buddy to see what he was up to today, and he said he can't come over today.

 He's in Florida.

Went for the shuttle launch.

*jealousy*

An observation

Catching a mouse doesn't leave you with the same sense of accomplishment as catching a skunk or a raccoon.

Very retro

Found after reading about the band from Prof. Mondo.

I think I may have to go and find some other music that this reminds me of...

Gad Zukes!

First Zucchini of the year!

Dipped in milk before going into a mix of flour, cornmeal, chili powder, garlic powder, a little bit of cayenne, and some salt and pepper, then fried until deliciousness occurs. 

The leftover milk and dry mix was mixed into a batter and fried up as a hush puppy facsimile.

There are plenty more out there on the plant.  Can't wait to eat them!

Best synopsis I've read on Gunwalker yet.

From Larry Corrreia, no less.

If you're reading my blog you are probably already well aware of the Actually Treasonous Federals we've got smuggling guns to Mexican drug cartels to bolster the stats for their totalitarian agenda, but if not, please go and read the link.

Come on...

...admit it. You like Owl City even if "Fireflies" was the most overplayed song of 2010.



DeLorean! Admit it! You like Owl City! I trump your dislike with a DeLorean!

WAAHHGHUH!!! A MOUSE!!!

Coming out of the shower, locking up and turning off the lights, and a mouse runs right across the counter and behind the oven. I yelped, I admit it, (I refuse to use the word shriek, as I am male) causing dogs and mother to come dashing from their bedroom.

I hate mice. Ever since I got into bed one night only to find that a little mommie mouse had thoughtfully chewed up all my sheets to make a nest IN MY BED I have hated them. If every mouse in the world was drowned in a giant aquarium I would pay money to see it.

So anyway, traps are now set inside and out, here, for racoons, skunks, random dumb cats who may wander through (don't ask), and mice. Screw 'em all.

'Puter's on a Roll!

Seriously, if you aren't reading the Gormogons, you are missing out. 'Puter is currently on a roll, and the others aren't far behind him (except maybe in the number of righteously angry posts).

Blog Roll

Bob G from Near the Salty City (FINALLY! Someone else from out west!).

I think I thought he had been on my blogroll for a long time, but it turns out I was making things up. Problem has been corrected.

As always, if you link to me and don't look to crazy (completely subjective, but there you go) I will be happy to link back.

An AMAZING Beard RECORD

THAT'S A LOT OF TOOTHPICKS!!!

Wow

Team Ghost - High Hopes from 16ar on Vimeo.

From here. Which I think I got to from a link at Walls of the City and about 45 minutes of trolling.

A highly entertaining commercial

Sorry about all the random videos today (ok, not really).  But hopefully I'm not too annoying.


Dirt Devil-The Exorcist from MrPrice2U on Vimeo.

A most hilarious magic dragon

Oh, and Penn and Teller are in there as well.

F.A.B.

I admit it. I liked Thunderbirds so much that I even saw the live action (horrible, horrible) version in theaters when it came out (and I was 16 years old, too).



*SHHHHHHOOOOM!!*

Good Morning!

(I don't know why I like to take pictures looking into the sun.  Just one of the things that makes me who I am, I guess)

The World Tree

Alternate title: Playing with my food.

What was on the plate was lasagna (made with my brother's homemade ricotta cheese) and some pickled beets picked this morning from the garden.

Then I started messing around.

Watching the "news"

At the dentist this morning, the "news" was on the TV that sits over your head while he jabs and whirs away cleaning your teeth. There was some breaking "news" story on about some jury deliberation over some lady who killed a kid or something. But--and I am not making this up--I thought I was watching a baseball game. They were rating the performance of the lawyers--"Oh yeah, I would definitely give him an 'A'," said one talking head. They were counting down to the second (!) how long the jury had been deliberating. Then--you know when there's a lull in the game and a little vital statistics screen pops up telling you how tall one of the players is?--well, a little vital statistics screen popped up rating certain jury members. I got out of the dentist's chair soon after that (with flying colors, by the way--floss regularly, boys and girls, for healthy teeth and gums), so I missed the cheerleaders come on to the field. Rats, huh?

So the short version of this post is this:

News? "News."

Quotes of the Yesterday

Kevin Baker (may his everlasting pessimism wake us from our complacency!):

That preparation started in the early years of the 20th Century. Thus today we have "politically correct" speech. With destruction of language skills comes the destruction of logic skills - if you can't read, you can't integrate ideas new to you. In fact, new ideas are gibberish - words that have no meaning. "Politically free" is a null value to someone planted in the fields of politicism. It's a weed.

A free society requires an informed and virtuous citizenry.

"Free," "informed" and "virtuous" have become null terms.

The Adaptive Curmudgeon (may his description of Americans grow to describe us all!):

And that’s how it all started. A bunch of people who wanted to be left alone and got massively pissed off when taxed. Americans still want to be left alone and we still get massively pissed at taxes. We don’t like taking shit and we’ve got balls of steel. That’s all there is to it. We’re free because we’re free on the inside. America is not a location and it is not a government.

Go out there and be free! Light fireworks with a beer in your hand. Eat huge steaks. Make bad jokes. Smoke, drink, and swear. Drive big cars. Fire guns. Make noise. Laugh in the sun. Be as playful and foolish as you wish.

Butch Cassidy (may the internet never cease to provide strange music to him!):

Today, as any other day, I will strap my G23 on my hip, slip my LCP into my pocket, toss a couple knives into various pockets, one of those knives will be a locking folder, take my kids to a parade, go to a cookout at my aunt’s house where things will be blown up and cows will be eaten, we will then head to a friend’s parents’ house for more of the same plus a beer, we will then go with them to watch the fireworks, the friend and I will touch off our own fireworks until the show begins.

And The Czar of Muscovy (may he rule long and powerfully!):

Happy 235th. We need a happier 236th, and it will be your job to get us there. And there may be some heavy lifting involved—that’s okay, because as an American, nobody lifts heavier loads than you do.

Muse-ic

The United States of Eurasia, by Muse, those crazy, drunken, conspiracy theory obsessed Brits that I love (I've got all their albums...) for some strange reason. This song is one part 1984, one part Queen, one part classical piano, and one part Obama disillusionment (or at least that's what I read into it).



You and me are the same
We don't know or care who's to blame
But we know that whoever holds the reins
Nothing will change
Our cause has gone insane

And these wars, they can't be won
And these wars, they can't be won
And do you want them to go on
And on and on
Why split these states
When there can be only one?

And must we do as we're told?
Must we do as we're told?
You and me fall in line
To be punished for unproven crimes!
And we know that there is no one we can trust;
Our ancient heroes, they are turning to dust!

And these wars, they can't be won
Does anyone know or care how they begun?
They just promise to go on
And on and on
But soon we will see
There can be only one

United States!
United States!
Of...

Eurasia!

Explosions!

Hit the deck! It sounds like we're being invaded!

...

Oh wait. It's just my fellow citizens shooting off illegal fireworks. Screw you police state! We're still here!

Changed the Header Again

GAU8 Avenger Canon.

Yum.

my mother just made a batch of strawberry rhubarb jam. I helped clean up lick off the spoons and pans.  Very good.

A simple declaration

Really, there wasn't much too it. Only one page of paper. But it was the foundation, the reason for everything that has come since. When was the last time you read the Declaration of Independence? Please, enjoy the holiday, but even more, please remember.

Everyone's probably going to remember this song today

But it's too good not to re-post for the 4th of July.

We're just coasting

Manifest destiny is still how the US rolls, but now we don't even have a theological base to it.

Puff the magic Jesus
Floats around the universe
The United States is His favorite place on the whole entire earth
So sing your songs and wave your flag
And thank the Lord for all you have
But what about them?
Did you forget about them?

We came we conquered never speak of this again life
Must go on let’s not think of them
Things are comfortable now the pioneers have settled in
A perfect blend of progress and pale skin
For our sake and those to come
We’ll rewrite the text so you can forget where you came from
Tell it in a way that will build your self esteem
Repackage the product and sell the American dream

History is best forgotten and even better rewritten
And since there’s no forgetting let’s remember it different
Commit to it so strongly till you believe it
The truth is there but you aren’t able to receive it
You need to know you’re safe here
Hide your face here cuz you found your faith here
But four walls with no windows doesn’t mean you’re it
Four walls with no windows doesn’t mean they don’t exist

What a prosperous, wondrous place
Remember to say grace before we scrape our plates
And ignore the crying outside the door sure
You’ll pray for their burdens but you don’t want to make it yours
Thin lines divide but there’s a world of difference
So crawl back into your happy existence and feel the bliss of ignorance keep you warm
Blessed are those who mourn but it’s so foreign
The more you have the less you care
The less you care the more you become unaware
And sure life’s not fair but it favors us apparently
And how are we to interpret this excess
Is it God’s favor ill-behavior or simply man’s modern progress
God bless us as we sweep this mess under the rug
Don’t want to walk barefoot on the tile and step in the mud
Out of sight out of mind and pushed to the side
Left for someone else to rationalize and justify

Three words for you...

Blade Runner. Booyah.

It's time

The new "faster stronger better" internet is, unfortunately, no more reliable, which kind of negates the point.

It is time to drop our current provider and try something else.  What we've got now isn't worth the money.

The wise man built his house upon the rock (pt. II)

And the foolish birds built their nest right on top of a 5.4 L V8.

I'm having the darndest time figuring out when they would have had enough time to build something up in there.  I mean, I've been driving the truck about every day for a couple months.

I really like this song

I have no idea why.

I just had a brilliant idea

I feel like going out and buying a real genuine coal powered steam shovel and then go and dig some big holes, just to spite these people.

And yes, I'm blogging at work. My boss hasn't come in yet and I need some direction on this next task...

Revolver things: speedstrips

I bought a package of speed strips off of The Internet the other day.

(The knife is my little Kershaw that I've had since freshmen year of college)

They're six round sized and the revolver is of course of only 5 round capacity. The gap between rounds is something I picked up on a forum somewhere, probably just internet heresy and rumors, but it does make it easier to hold the strip while loading. I still haven't decided which pocket it would be best in (there's so many pockets and so little space!).

Breakfast Wafers!

Snickerdoodles:  the healthier alternative to "Cinnamon Toast Crunch."

Mmmmmm...

Boop Beep Boop Woooeeeeeoooowwww *HORN SECTION!!!*

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUNK