The balancing 36

I am late in posting this week. My apologies.  

I'm currently reading "The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack".  A steampunk novel involving Sir Richard Francis Burton. Sir Richard Francis Burton
One of my favorite true life individuals, Richard Francis Burton spoke 29 languages and at one time was the greatest swordsman in all Europe. This novel by Mark Hodder is a "what if" concept and at 125 pages into it--I believe it to be excellent...enough fact to feel real and enough fabrication to be interesting...

The following are two SF/Fantasy films i am looking forward to viewing on DVD when they hit the market from the trailers both appear excellent..

and

After failing with Iron Sky and Prometheus I need a couple of just right movies to balance things out.

Ok, ok, so millions of words have been written about the storm that just hit New Jersey and New York....terrible, terrible--yadda yadda yadda....but the New Jersey I was born into and know well--- those people are not sadden by this--right now the population is dancing in the streets...because....if you think the US Government was ripped off after Katrina by those southern redneck losers---just wait until the Scam professionals from Jersey have a go at insurance collection, free Federal disaster checks, "and don't forget, i wan onena doos free trailers, with the complimentary health lawsuit after living in dem."

My tribe (New Jerseyites) we invented scamming---the Government debt is going to quadruple by the time my people are just plain worn out from cashing government and insurance checks by the handful.....

The Post Storm Government clean up contracts, the free disposal of hidden toxic waste dumps by the storm surge..all manna from heaven to my people...just the water damage auto insurance claims alone-- yo--right now i bet there are a bunch of guys out in their front yards with garden hoses insuring that they have a new ride by next weekend.

What about the devastation at the Jersey shore you ask---Oh yeah, mortgaged to the hilt--ski ball booths made of plywood now worth million dollar insurance claims--sure...terrible, terrible. Do not worry about my people they have the ability to take care of themselves---keep your hand on your wallet---taxpayer....

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

Clemenza

Barycentric Calculus

A tough one this week---but staggered my way through it....People, as a whole, have really sucked in general lately---a cool thing has been the new rover pictures of Mars....

The 10 most personally dangerous cities in America...we'll all be on this list soon.

the most dangerous cities in America

I am done with news--so is JoJo i believe---any form of news including Internet news. I had been only reading what passes for news, so I could perform as a proper smart ass here on the blog--but i cannot even stand to do that any longer. News from any source, or in any form now is disgustingly inadequate, and owned....I can live without it, as i live without TV, newspapers, voting, and haircuts---

After months and months of waiting I received my DVD of Prometheus. Ridley I'm sorry but i didn't get it at all---I wanted to like it---I really, really did--but after watching it twice---I still don't get it.......

THE DEAD is an excellent pizza and DVD movie night candidate--filmed in Africa it is a really, really decent little, low budget Zombie movie..but it is well done and after about 10 minutes into it--you sort of get carried along. I have to give the Ford Brothers who wrote, directed, and did everything else with it credit. They turned out a great little movie.

You can judge a character's value in a television series or the popularity of an actor based simply on the cost and availability of their action figure. 

Take the Daryl Dixon action figure from the show The Walking Dead---you know, the crossbow toting redneck--my personal favorite character by the way----currently a poor quality Daryl action figure runs about $166.00 when and if, you can find one---- other cast members figures, like uh--Sheriff Rick--- hover around $ 32.00. You must admit tho---Daryl is the best character on the show.  If i was an actor with an action figure made of me---I'd be paying attention to it's value as if it was the stock market.....

My adopted hometown, Roswell New Mexico was in the news all last weekend. Just a little jump from a balloon---very cool that this occurred here....after all we are used to people dropping in from space....

Oh yeah, we're not a third world society---just because passengers were detained after an American Airlines flight from Dallas to New Orleans because of possible exposure to Typhoid Fever which may have been brought aboard by a passenger---nothing to see here--just move along..............

flying coach gets you no food but exposure to typhoid?

I was born in New Jersey--we swear for punctuation--we New Jerseyites actually invented swearing in colonial America...as in 
"whoith the Fuck isith dis guy?"
A interesting article below on women swearing at work.........

fuck-yes-you-should-swear-at-work

Let's bulldozer a Frank Lloyd Wright house down to make way for the shit that passes as an upscale home in our society today--after all who needs historic architecture, it gets in the way of 7-11's and Vietnamese nail parlor strip malls---

We know who honey boo boo is but not Frank Lloyd Wright

Is everyone out there so overcome by fear that we tazer a blind man because we think the white cane he is using is a samurai sword? Obviously the really blind guys were the cops in this incident but blinded by fear---encouraged by the stupidity of our world today. "Don't taze me Bro!"

That's some mighty good police work there Lou

If the economy is improving...why do i see parking lots full of cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, skidoo's, 4 wheelers, and RV's? Everywhere i look people have shit for sale? If things are getting better why is everyone so desperate to sell all these big ticket items that they will park them at a Kmart---which is sort of a marketing oxymoron----if you are shopping at Kmart for God's sake I don't think you are in the market for a 40,000 dollar diesel dually pickup truck...

" I've always believed in providing a good days work,

for a good week's pay"

Buffon's Needle

Buddy, one of our Boston Terriers passed away this morning. He had been showing the signs of age this past week. It was as if all his years all caught up to him at once. He came into the kitchen, as usual, to have coffee and a smoke with JoJo and I at 0400. He curled up in his little bed and died. Like all things with him, he did it with kindness to us and much consideration to be sure and to not make a fuss.
We buried him out back so that he can watch the house and keep an eye on JoJo while she gardens..which he always did so well.  

I have been sampling the cigarillo world--what with the change in my smoking protocols due to the living on retirement income test we are under.

It is actually working well--smoking less and enjoying it more as they say..the most recently ordered variety is TUSKER...looking forward to trying these when they arrive. A side benefit of smoking cigarillo's is putting to use the unique little boxes or tins that they are packaged in..and enjoying the artwork on the packaging. 

I do, I hate being right--there is a recent article in the Atlantic magazine with a map of the United States, displaying the income inequality between the rich and the rest of us in America.............a subject of which i have written on extensively and often. 

The unusual thing about this map is that it then equates the inequality of income in that particular American town or area to which third world country has the same LEVEL of income inequality between citizens....for example income inequality in NYC equals the ratio of income inequality in Swaziland! Swaziland also holds the record for the world's shortest average lifespan's but i'm sure the good ole'USA is working at winning that one too. Chicago a bit better at El Salvador levels...and so on. So much of what is believed about our country, about what is important to address, and on who we are is propaganda put out from both Fox news and the pulpit and in America now there is really no difference between the two. 
What we really are is a Swaziland filled with nukes, religious zealots, and incapable leadership----the regular world see's this and fears us as you would an 8 year old with a handgun. 

we are a third world country

50.5 miles per gallon averaged this 380 standard mile work commute week. The Prius is just short of turning 100,000 miles without a problem. Every Capitalist in the business of making huge, disposable SUV's, and any and all Oil Baron's can bite me-----------

Why the hell did i not think of this---an article on how to carry multiples of those heavy grocery store plastic bags by looping them through a large Carabiner---I am going to try this since I have a rather large supply of big carabiners and doing away with the loss of blood supply to the fingers after grocery shopping cannot help but be a good thing.....these kinds of solutions to common problems are staring us in the face---it is just hard to recognize solutions when the world around broadcasts so much noise.

this i've got to try

The link below leads to an article on the 8 most useless, does not work, pieces of exercise equipment ever made. Nothing but advertising....

A friend of mine used to say " I love my bowflex--a great place to hang clothes in the bedroom." 

why do people buy this crap?

A group in Germany(?) has built an outdoor enclosure for chimps that were released, some after 30 years, of being laboratory test animals. They were never outside before, spending their lives in 5' by 5' cages. We humans would of course become psychotic and dangerous..read about what they do on being able to go outside for the first time---
We humans are sick fucks forcing this kinda thing on animals....sick.

Lab Chimps go outside for first time in 30 years

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people

are conservatives."

John Stuart Mill