One year ago today: February 20, 2014, Mallard animation described.
Five years ago today: February 20, 2010, reads like a Craigslist Rant & Rave.
MORNING
If you don’t hear from me after tomorrow, send condolences. I am about to take a dangerous ride in a machine involved in thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of deaths. The most recent fatal crash at the same location was less than a week ago. It is also the opportunity of a lifetime for me, so I would have wanted to go that way. This involves a trip to Miami, I’d go today but for the cold, but they say tomorrow will be seasonal. Return for that news. If I make it, that is. Normally, except for the department of young, pretty women, I’m not the thrill-seeking type.
When the battery is replaced, it enables the hourly beep, which the maker says is a “chime”. But, but a chime is not totally annoying. It becomes a major task to turn that stupid thing off. Worse, the method is slightly different for each specific model, yet the instruction manual is generic.
I’ll give you the all-purpose instructions. After that, you are on your own. At least read this, because it took all morning to figure it out. Press both the left-side and right-side (not the center) buttons at the same time. This puts you into “alarm” mode, which displays the setting whether or not the alarm is turned on. Now quickly press and release the right-side button until the button itself does not cause a beep. Forget what is displayed, you want the audible beep to go away. You may notice all the little bars along the top of the display also have to be off. It takes an hour to discover if you've been successful.
That solution required three cups of coffee. I’m wide awake now.
NOON
“God don't make no mistakes--that's how he got to be God.” --Archie Bunker*
I told you how the neighbor bought a quadcopter that will lift 30 lbs. He proceeds to mount a paint ball “machine gun” on the thing and indulge in aerial combat with some other nitwit. They manage to plaster an unmarked squad car parked in the background. Eight rounds of green paint. This is the same dude who managed the $1200 fine last year for flying too near Ft. Lauderdale International. Lucky for him, this [time the] fine was paying for the car wash. (The US "internal security" forces later confiscated his paint-ball gun, but not the drone.)
Next, the fat little French girl next door is not my new girlfriend. She’s not my type. I detest the unmarried overweight oldest daughter still living at home pushing 28—even if it only seems that way. Look at her, guys. Not if I had the ebola and she was the only cure. She will never in a million years ever get a guy like me. I’ve never dated anything that dweeby-looking. (I think there must be a picture missing about here.)
But if you guys are desperate, go ahead. Just don’t tell me about it afterward. You don’t so much marry an old girl as you do take them off their parent’s hands. Don’t tell me she is single because of her career. If she had one, she wouldn’t have time to wander around in her cut-offs all afternoon in the middle of the week. And other reasons.
More sad news about my old professor. He described his experience with the morphine they gave for his back pain. This man’s aversion to addiction is as strong as mine but he says he still remained dependent for twenty years afterward. His description matched what happened to me over that dislocated shoulder. Withdrawal when I was barely minutes late taking the next pill. He said they injected drugs right into his spine.
This guy is no dope-head. He knew the time was slipping by and along with it, his life. He knew the chemicals were taking hold of his system and that his own resistance was building. When they took him off the regimen, he reports it took him years to beat the dependency. He did, but now says he hates to even go outside his own house because that’s where the temptations are. He has an aversion to park benches and a constant mild headache since 2003.
Yes, I have his permission to tell you this.
*[Author's note: These quotations are transcribed from Morse code. This one nearly gave me a hard time. These Generation X and Y types treat punctuation like it is a bothersome extra. So that is how they transmit code. They never learn. Listen up, morons of the universe, there are no spaces around both sides of any punctuation mark. One side maybe, but never both. Not paying attention to punctuation is not a spelling mistake, your problem is goes far deeper than that. I don't care about your problems, but I think you ought to know.]
AFTERNOON
Hmmm. On February 5, 2015 I published that item on the gas cap arrow and around the same time that trivia that you cannot grow apples by planting ordinary apple seeds. I believe these were topics I encountered during widely separated searches. In the last couple of days, the e-mail newsletter "Now I Know" has posted articles in the identical subjects. Coincidence, my eye. Two people finding the same topics? I'm watching now.
I’m not saying you outright copy anything, but if you are using my posts toin any way, you could at least send some traffic my way. I put in just as many hours as you do, but you repetitively ask your readers for money. The moment money is involved, you should not just help yourself.
EVENING
Plus, I think I know the street they took this picture. It’s in Everett, but really, it is so typical that it could be anywhere out there. These are the houses I missed buying for $40k that are now selling for ten times that. Sigh.
ADDENDUM
My day off, so here are some musings. It says here Disneyworld prices are topping the $100 mark. That’s a heap big fee to get into an exorbitant shopping mall. What, you thought there were rides and shows? You must be thinking of Disneyland, that’s way on the other side of the country. Speaking of rip-offs, I stand by my conviction that car rentals are a racket. You don’t need my 35 years cost accounting experience to know it does not cost $100+ per day to operate a car.
Yet the Miami Airport reports car rentals topped $555.7 million last year. The most “profitable” segment of the airport. What does that tell you? Another thing a lot people don’t know about is frost. I know frost and let me explain something to the masses. It is not frost that kills oranges and people, but when the frost melts. You’d think inhabitants of sub-zero climates would understand this, but no. What’s more, you city-slickers, frost does not form unless there is no wind. So quit with your crazy stories to that effect.
My quip last day about “inner emotional peace” is already drawing flak. If you want to become Buddhists and achieve Nirvana, that’s okay by me. I merely stated that when one has obsessions, it is nearly impossible to pay attention long enough to close a tight mental fist on difficult or complicated learning tasks. Nor did I mean myself as an example. I’ve been an avid learner of incredibly Byzantine subjects my entire life. Being preoccupied with personal problems slows that process to a crawl. I speak with authority.
I meant that others would benefit more from five minutes of introspection than from hours of their best study effort. I’ve watched how Theresa with her repressed memories and Wallace with his hooker fixation last less than a minute before their maniacal psycho-strangulation takes over. People like that cannot possibly have absorbed any new or important topic since the moment they sunk to that level. Patsie, dammit, that’s pronounced “men-EYE-uh-kul”.
I’ll say it again. People who read what they want instead of what is written don’t really belong in a blog like this. This blog requires that the reader be able to think and absorb. I’ve already put in my time listening to average types make their AM-radio talk points. This blog is very IQ-conscious even if some of you are not.
And didn’t I warn you about Germany and Greece? There 's a perfect instance of mental haves and have-nots. This is why Germany was against the admission of Greece to start with. Southern Europe has a different work ethic. The Greeks are complaining they don’t have the same medical standards as the rest of Europe, but they never had them before, either. The news says Greece has just cost every German $850 in bailout money. That’s one way to make enemies, works every damn time.
Last Laugh
This picture is pro-bacon.
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