Land of Oz

Priorities?

After lunch today I was listening to the hourly national news blurbs. The headlines were Obama in Denver to sign $782 billion bill, hauling away bodies from last week's plane crash, the plunging stock market, jobs and oil prices, and then Alex Rodriquiz and his steroids. Does some guy sticking a needle in his butt, really rank with the other problems going on today? Why should we care? He's being paid to entertain crowds of people, so who cares what he does to entertain them?  As if the rest of professional sports is squeeky clean.

Labels: crime, misc

Weird Dreams

This holiday has been pretty stressed out in many ways. The other night I had a pretty odd dream. As in most of my dreams, it goes in short, semi-related episodes. Here's what I can remember.

It started on a space station of some kind. There was a breech in one of the windows and my space suit was several rooms away contrary to SOP. I could feel the panic of not knowing if I could get to me suit before I suffocated. I did manage to get into a suit before the air was gone, but I don't think it was mine.

I was being interviewed for a job and the question of religion came up. I answered that I wasn't very religious and didn't believe in god. After the interview was over, I stayed worried that perhaps I would lose my job over these negative religious feelings.

Somehow I knew that earth had been surreptitiously invaded and "they" were among us. They being canine-people. (For some reason, dog never came to mind in this dream, only canine.) At one time, when I was in my office, one of them came in and leaned on my desk with dog paws believing I was in the know as to who they really were. It seemed they could mask themselves as human. One other time I was in a store when someone walked in. As soon as the stranger walked in all the other people in the store began to act like crazy dogs. I'm not quite sure why some times they would mask themselves as dogs and at other times as humans.

It turned out the religion question had been to determine my possible status as one who could be trusted to work with them. Making me a quisling of a sorts, I guess. The idea being that if I didn't believe in god, I wouldn't have quite too much trouble dealing with leadership who were doglike pagans, instead of human.

When I look at all the little bits, it seems that we were in space at this time and there was a secret invasion of canine appearing aliens who could mask themselves as humans and needed humans to do their work. It seemed I had no problem accepting that - which I suppose is good and bad - and became one of their loyal minions.

I can see some of the stress with the past weeks in this. Job security, new leadership of the country, religious holidays, emergency response and management, and noisy next door dogs all blend into this mess.

Labels: misc, religion

UFC

Here's something on TV I discovered since getting my digital converter box. And to tell you the truth, I'm a bit embarrassed to be watching it. UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is just one minor step removed from the Roman gladiator bread and circuses fights. In one of the matches I watched a couple of weeks ago, the blood ran so freely, the fighters were literally fighting in a puddle of it.

First, let me say, the I realize these are mostly superbly trained and conditioned fighters. Six pack abs and bulging biceps are the norm and there is without doubt highly trained combat moves going on during a fight. It looks like several minutes of free-form mayhem, but you can see the skills there. They may squirm and tussle about on the mat for several minutes and all of a sudden one guy is tapping the other guy because he's in a hold he can't escape.

Secondly, however, I'm a little ashamed I'm enjoying this. Many of these guys have bizarre haircuts and tattoos ranging from mom on a shoulder to practically full body artwork. At the end of a fight, they are often blood spattered and the loser is often barely able to get up. I've seen cuts over their eyes so large, they look like an extra mouth. It makes you wonder just how bizarre people will behave to make a few bucks. It's actually pretty shameful that we are willing to pay to watch events like this.

The only thing we're missing is a thumbs down signal from the emperor watching in his private suite for the winning gladiator to finish his opponent off with a trident. I can see in a year or so, when the UFC seems everyday and is losing their audience, that they'll go to the next level and have them fight until the loser is unconscious. And then how long before they have a celebrity sitting in a box suite giving the thumbs up or down for the losing fighter.

Labels: gripes, misc

Stuff

Crime

This week a black car drove by a house in town three times over a couple of hours shooting a different kid on each drive-by. One lady in the area was on the news complaining about the violence and how her kid was shot and killed just last year. Police have no leads because no one will cooperate. Lady; as long people follow that stupid no snitch crap, your kids and neighbors will keep getting shot.

Sales

I stopped at my local Home Depot to pick up some gutter downspout material. After first checking to see they had some (there were five stacked and I need four) I returned after work to pick them up. Four of those were broken so I could only pick up one.

Hummingbirds

In the last couple of weeks I've finally seen hummingbirds in the wild - on our deck. I watched a male buzz and sip at our hummingbird feeder and then watched the female ignore the feeder for some lavendar flowers my wife had planted. They are the coolest birds ever.

Frogs

Two nights ago as I was watching a DVD from Netflix, while taking a break from cooking beans. I happened to look out the window and saw a rather large frog clinging to the screen - strange. Did I mention all the tiny toads that scatter every time I open our garden shed?

Hoppin' John

Our company recently had a July 4th shindig and I volunteered to bring in some Hoppin' John (see the recipe here). That morning I put it in the back of my car and navigated 11.3 miles of the 11.4 to work of neighborhood roads, four-lane highways, and a shopping street stretch of stoplights and potholes. As I braked into my parking spot at work, the slow cooker rolled over and spilled beans and rice all over the trunk.

Mosquitos

Ye gads and little tadpoles! There are a bunch of shin loving mosquitoes running rampant around our little country home. I read where Chicago has five times their normal allotment and water-logged Iowa has hundreds of times more. Here in wet Michigan, all I know is that they are hungry.

Manual Lawn Mowers

No - not as in gas powered, but pushed. But as no gas or electric. I have a Scott reel lawn mower (bought a few years ago) I use on our lawn (under .24 acres). With the amount of grass we have to cut it takes me just under an hour to do the front and back. The only drawbacks are it doesn't do well with wet grass, and it doesn't do well with long grass. Best advantages? It's very quiet and doesn't smell of gas and oil, oh, and people keep stopping me to ask about it, as in, "Wow, I haven't seen one of those since..."

Labels: michigan, misc

Marketing

If I said I had a nest of mice in the backyard, most folks would probably be telling me to get an exterminator. And how many folks would spend their own money to put out food for rats?

So why is it when I tell people I finally spotted a chipmunk in the backyard, everyone thinks it's cute. And the fact that I put cobs of corn out there for the squirrels is at worst, seen as a bit over indulgent.

But really, what's the difference between rats, squirrels, chipmunks and mice? I'll tell you what it is. chipmunks and squirrels are actually mice and rats with marketing by Apple.

Labels: apple, misc

Science

A recent BBC article talked about how sloths actually sleep less in the wild than scientists thought after observing them in captivity. It seems they caught the sloths, hooked them up to a machine that monitored their brain waves and released them. After a few days, they recaptured them and checked the brain wave monitor. Their conclusion was that the sloths slept less in the wild.

Here's another conclusion. Sloths sleep less after being captured and hooked up to a brain wave monitoring machine. I know I would.

Labels: misc, tech

Too Much Money

You know you have too much money when you can spend US$1 million on a violin (does calling it a fiddle make is sound cheap?). And then you spend another US$120,000 to fix it after you fall on it.

From
the BBC:
"Virtuoso musician David Garrett smashed a $1 million (£540,000) violin when he fell over after a concert in London over Christmas, he has revealed.
"I fell down a flight of stairs and landed on my violin case," he told the BBC. "When I opened it up, it was a total mess."

The 230-year-old instrument will spend the next eight months in a workshop, with a repair bill of around £60,000.

"I think it's worth the money," said Garrett.

You really have to wonder about our race when people are making US$1 a day and starving while at the same time some guy can spend US$120,000 to fix his fiddle. And nothing against Mr. Garrett personally. At least you can do something with a fiddle. How about people who spend $20 million on a painting or some three thousand year old broken statue?

I guess it's a matter of priorities. To me spending US$1 million on a violin is pretty stupid; for that matter so is spending a million on a house. However, I find that spending the million on a house is infinitely more sensible than spending the same amount on a violin, which in turn is better than spending that one million on some old painting.

I guess it's also a matter of how much a person's worth. To me, spending $45 on a set of drill bits that is also available for $15 makes sense because the $45 set is built better. However, if I couldn't afford the extra $30, I'd probably make do. The same goes for other people. For some folks spending $1 million on a house actually takes a smaller percentage of their worth, than it does for me spending $200,000 on a house. I figured out one time, when Michael Jordon was taking flack for betting $5,000 on golf, that his bet of $5,000 was roughly equivalent to me betting five or six dollars when taken as a percentage of income.

Labels: gripes, misc

Sports Fans

Let me be the first to admit, that I'm not much of a sports fan. I like to watch pro football and soccer and know enough about most sports to at least follow a conversation between others about it. I know what an eagle and bogie are, what a screen pass is, that you have to hit a red ball before a numbered ball, the significance of "180!" and "full pull" and why you do a burnout prior to a quarter-mile run.

On the other hand, I don't quite know what the infield fly or dropped third strike rules are, why a drop kick is or isn't used, why hockey players are allowed to fight, or when is touching a foul in basketball and when isn't it.

Given that, I find the extremes of many sport fans had to believe. We have a few die-hard baseball fans in our office. The state team, the Detroit Tigers, is 2 and 10 as of today. From what I've read, they've spent obscene amounts of cash on super baseball players (the second highest payroll in the overinflated salary world of MLB) and were selected by Sports Illustrated (the magazine with the annual babes in bikinis issue) as winning it all. So far, even to my unexpert eye, they've sucked. But there's always fans who never say die, like the one blogger who said about the Tigers, "The good news is they are 2 of their last 5." And this line is what inspired this entry in the first place.

I guess that's why the only difference between fans and fanatics is what's in their attic.

Labels: misc

Haves and Have Nots

Here's an interesting pair of pictures that were displayed on BBC a week or so ago. They were sequential on the site, but couldn't be farther apart in life.

Labels: misc

What?

Am I conservative or liberal, if I:

support gays using assault guns to shoot people who spray paint anti-Muslim sayings on synagogues.

want my body donated to science or put in a Hefty bag with the trash.

save energy by shoveling my snow and using a manual lawn mower only to relax in a scalding hot tub of water later.

enjoy veggie pizzas and rare steaks.

drink imported beer from Europe and prefer water from the tap.

patiently wait for several minutes at a railroad crossing but spout epitaphs when someone spends 4.56 seconds before moving at a green light.

like to listen to classical music while reading Guns and Ammo.

donates to ACLU and NRA.

thinks rabbits are cuddly and tasty.

loves to watch kittens and puppies frolic, but feel little remorse when their owners allow them to get run over. Remorse about the puppy, I feel nothing but contempt about the owners.

Labels: gripes, misc

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 3/24/2008 05:42:00 PM

Coffee, Tea or Dead Body

There was some deal on an American Airlines flight - the details are being contested - that ended up with a dead passenger.

Desir was pronounced dead by one of the doctors, Joel Shulkin, and the flight continued to John F. Kennedy International Airport, without stopping in Miami. The woman's body was moved to the floor of the first-class section and covered with a blanket, Oliver said.

Sometimes, crowded coach isn't that bad after all.

Labels: misc