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It's a strange ride some times.  Strange Times we're riding in, as Cramulus told me.  That's life, that's part of the trip we're all on, one way or another, and we all know what we think of those who try to tell themselves otherwise. 

It's sucked down like koolaid with morphine and a euthanasia chaser, CNN telling you about an earthquake in botswana while the water rises outside.

It makes me want to scream like how we can drop tons of corn on Africa at the drop of a hat, but still have people freeze on street corners.  We can't smell our own shit, we like our own brand, and apparently that makes us fucking blind to the festering boil right under the chin of the body politic.  It's like one on some fat gluttonous fuck who just keeps stuffing down greasy food, pleased as a pig in a room of shit.  Religion crawled into that boil, trying to cure the sins of man, and died, now the foul puss is talking and preaching. Civil service, carried into it like blood plasma and rotted alongside. 

Bust the fucker with a pickaxe, sterilize it with fire and chemicals, stomp and squeeze it out until only patriotic blood runs clean behind it again.  A pitted scar is better than suffering the filth to be supported.   

I don't know where it's all going PD, but I'm starting to feel like I'm SANE again. 



Stupid Bloody Tuesday.

OK, sit by the fire with Richter for a bit.
Nice, isn't it?  Warm, dry, and pretty to look at when you decide you're sick of meeting my dead stare. 
Anyways, I wanted to have a quick word with you about your use of English language.  You're getting quite good at it, you can articulate ideas, and I can mostly understand what you're on about.  There's one thing that still bugging me though, your over – use of the possessive.
Sure, for your personal belongings, in cases where you need to denote that they are yours, it's fine.  You keep adding it into places where it's unnecessary though, chiming in that you OWN something, or that it's YOURS.  Why are you doing this?  Not to make derogatory assumptions, but I can't help but think it is symptom of some deeper insecurity.

Not sure of your grip on things?  (Maybe you should hold tighter.)

I'm not about to get all hippy – ish and point out that we can't really own anything.  (To be honest though, things in life are like beers, we can only ever really rent them.)

What about YOUR work?
YOUR time?
YOUR relationship with YOUR God at YOUR church?

It all starts to sound a bit silly to me.

Know what's really YOURS?  Only YOURS and no one else's, beyond any perversity of dominance or doubt?  The ideas in your head distilled from other people's ideas, or developed yourself, and your will to enact them.  What else is worth having?  What else can you be sure of having without them?

May you be rich.

Hate and Evil are two very misused and improperly viewed forces.  They can be horrible, degrading, dangerous things, but so can love, kindness, or any other spectrum of emotions or actions.  I'm a big fan of both, and actively promote their use where necessary, funny, or useful.

Try it out.  Walk through your office and think about the people there, think about them all as worthwhile, professional and hard working folks.  (This will require BLATANT self delusion.)  Think about how they could, with work and guidance, be good, valuable employees, and how you ought to help them make this possible. 
If you're like me, this will be a drag.

Now, same office same folks, look at them all and recite to yourself meaningfully: "I hate this place and everyone in it."

LIBERATING!  You now owe them nothing, because you think nothing of them.  You only have yourself to worry about.  They are uncontrollable incidentals in your life that you only need to interact with, or watch in case one tries to fuck you over.  You don't actually have to actively plan their downfall, wish or cause them harm; you just have to hold them in a constant cold contempt.  This has the extra effect of leaving you pleasantly surprised whenever one of them does something worth a damn.       

Evil is fun.  Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.  If you naturally cackle, titter, or mad scientist laugh, and like it, or appreciate schadenfreude, you've got what it takes to be evil.  Tell the truth exactly as it is.  Offer to correct people's personal flaws, offensive habits, or misdeeds in a harsh, immediate, and hopefully amusing way.  If the people around you cringe, but still want to see it anyways, you've done it right.
You can be evil, and not be a bad person.  Important distinction. 

"Oh Eibon, they say you are most evil!"
"It is just that they have no word for the greater good."
-Excerpt from the Book of Eibon

So I've got a few pounds of the stuff in the frezzer, courtesy of a well times sale.  My usual stnadby for the stuff is to sear it, then add it to a "Spanish rice" type dish, or prepare w/ veggies and mix w/ pasta.

This shit it getting old.  What else can I do with the pseudosausage? 

BEARD can neither be created or destoryed.  In event of shaving it will either regrow, or migrate to another face.  Better that BEARD be in your own possesion, that granted to some hapless fuck who cannot know it's power.

ASK ME ANYTHING.

Large numbers of people standing behind me talking while I'm at work.  Fucker may be plotting against me, trying to look inconspicuous before they strike.  Ok, so I turn around to give them a look or ask for a little quiet, and they get all offended that I broke up their little social club.  Well FUCK YOU SLAPPNUTS.  I actually WORK when I'm at my job.  I keep the personal BS off the floor.  I don't care about your mother's postulant cankers, except for the one who is currently stinking up my airspace.

People who walk ahead of me, too slowly, EXACTLY in the middle of a route too narrow to pass them in.  Seriously, what the fuck?  You've just made it a necessity for me to offend you, and I will do so with glee.  I now have to walk right up on you heels to follow you, match your speed and practically STALK you from standard distance, or brush past your slow indignant ass.  If you can't respond politely to an "Excuse me", or stay out of the way, of people who know how to MOVE, you deserve to be clubbed like a seal by anyone who can get up in your blind spot.  No, choad – graft, I DON'T want your purse.  Life free of your presence is all the treasure I want at the moment.

Other drivers.  Are you driving in front of me too slow? Tailgating?  In my blind spot matching my speed?  Directly next to me?  Taking a turn I just took?  Well asshole, then you are doing something that leads me to conclude you are FUCKING with me.  Pull over, fall to your knees and repent.  NOW.

Work took a hint and went casual dress for the foreseeable future.  Today was just the day with enough bigwigs showing up that we had to get back into business mockery clothing.  For fucksake, the whole concept of business casual may well scream "Try as little as possible".  Are the suits going to give a fuck about anyone else not in a suit?  NO.  Are they going to stop from on high and deign to speak with any of the people who actually MAKE things work on a level they pretend to have transcended?  NO.

These are people from the "Sales" world.  That magical land of constant interpersonal fellating that thinks it can step heedless through whatever boundaries are put before it.  Biff Lowman, you assholes.  You all boil down to him eventually.

If I had three licks of sense, I'd be in a good shirt w/ sleeve garters on, vest, tie, pocketwatch, slacks, fedora, and boots of +3 facefucking.

Tomorrow, they are gone, and I go back to the uniform practicality of jeans and a black tshirt.  Sandals because nothing here threatens my feet.   Real shoes and boots close at hand in case I need to be FUN.  The closest things we have to bigwigs on site are the kind who will stop to give even their temps the time of day, and they don't like dressing up either.

 
THIS IS MORE THAN DRINKING BEVERAGE.

hxxp://thesnuggiesutra.com/

(Too wordy for an "Extreme" poster, plus I'm at work.)

hxxp://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/13/arizona.immigrant.advocate/index.html

LOOK AT THIS SMUG HIPSTER FUCK.
Seriously, he thought he'd get away with this nonsense.  Well, the state, the national parks service glorious nation won't stand for that shit.  He planned this, premeditating to the degree that he actually used proper Spanish.  If he left bottles of water with "Mas Tequila", "Pendejo", or "Bano" scrawled on them this would all have ben written off as a joke.  Like all pathological criminals who want to be caught, he left a pattern.  Seriously, this guy wanted to be the Buffalo Bill of the littering world.  Sympathy for immigrants?  "No More Deaths"?  Bull.  This man can only get off when he's strewing non - biodegradable trash through the dessert.

Dude.  Grow a real beard.  Or shave.  That does not cut fashionable stubble.
Close your mouth too.  You look like a colobus monkey doing a submission hoot.

Cameras are a pain, I hate recording software, and Roger goaded me into doing something.  This is result

I'll get deep, sing, or be original later.  I'm going back to bed.

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=TWR4R9D6

(NOT a virus, AFAIK. I made it and all.)

I speak for a living.  This gives me a very deep seated attachment to the language I use, the developments, and changes in it.  There are some I can take in stride, and others that grate my fucking nerves. 


Leverage

I hear a lot more uses of "Leverage" these days.  In business, someone might say that they plan to leverage market share, holdings, etc..  Google might "leverage" their position as one of the only fucking worthwhile search engines to make more money by offering priority seating in their databank to whoever the fuck will pay.  A bank may "leverage" their loan holding by selling off the debt (Not no more skippy!  China ain't buying.).  Either way, this means you're probably being a dick, and trying to put a nice face on it.  An individual might leverage something they have access or skill in.  "I made sure I was cutting this metal right by leveraging my CAD program", was one odd sentiment I recently stumbled over.  The Apple Store may offer to let you leverage their Geniuses. 

No. 
Fucking NO. 
You are USING these things. 
They are services, products, or circumstances that you are utilizing because they are there.  You have no additional ownership, mastery, or control just because you use the name of a simple machine to describe it.  You are impressing NO ONE.  You may be trying to hide something.  I suspect you might be trying to rape me.  You may be a pretentious fuck.  Wait, no, YOU ARE. 

I certainly am, but I speak plainly. 

Fall in a hole and die.


"Bonus!"

You realize this is slang that crept down from Canada, and it's first exposure in the USA was through "For Better or For Worse", right?  If you use this pointless, puerile exclamation, this fact should fill you with shame.  Are you a fucking video game?  That's what you sound like.  That's right, you're now in the same category as people who whistle the Zelda noise and twirl whenever they pick up an item, announce constantly that they've obtained an "Achievement", or use Leetspeak around the uninitiated.

Self flagellate and take a vow of silence.

Downtown smelled like shit this morning.  It took me a second to realize it, that the high reek penetrating my car was coming from the outside.  I was all too quick to write it off as dog crap on my shoe, and continue on accordingly, but a quick roll down of the window to check the air confirmed otherwise.  The stench was everywhere.  Some unseen, unknowable force had dropped this fecal miasma over the Rt. 6 interchange, and slid off S.B.D style.  Here I was blaming myself. 

The oddness inside the brain and outside of it can be hard to separate.  You may be messed up, no questions asked. This little incident, however, highlighted, underscored and italicized the possibility that everything is fucked except you.  Where a simple observation can shift the focus it's not wasted time to take a look.

     The old man's basement was the kind of place I dream about.  A cement and fieldstone hideaway, dank from the wet New England earth and a century of supporting the house, it was crammed to the edge of functionality.  Parts, tools, stock, supplies, glassware and chemicals abounded.  File cabinets were crammed with careful records, slowly molding.  A makeshift dark room was left like he had just been absent for a month or two.  A home made lathe decorated one wall.  

    I never knew the old man, but I wish I had.  The place was a mess, but it was the kind of mess that made SENSE.  Everything had a place, and that place was where it was put down, or moved too.  Ergonomic entropy put lesser used implements more and more out of the way, and keeping the favorite and useful close at hand.  I could start to see how he'd function, the practicality behind the clutter.  His grandson didn't know him well, his mother (the fellow's daughter), not wishing to broach the topic.  They say he lived through the depression, and was in the habit of making everything for himself when he could, like his own toothpaste.  

    Boxes of cogs and gears, sorted by type fill the shelves under one bench.  A shelf is full of glass jars with carefully sorted fasteners.  Drill bits, sharpeners, and layout tools along the back wall.  Stock metal, plastic, and wood off to the sides or in drawers.  Laboratory glassware all clean and fit into the drawers of another desk.  

    The grandson, Kevin, is worried about how to get rid of the chemicals, and I agree with him.  Tempting to take some, but I can't be sure I'd get the stuff out safely.  The rest is worth a good sum as scrap, if not for the worth as tools.  The priority is getting it all out, Kevin says, absently sparking a lighter to "Check for the broken gas line."  I tell him I can help with some, and give the chemical cabinet a sound thump in reply.  (Did I mention the old gentle once made a bathtub full of nitro?)  Assured of each other's capacity for batshit insanity, we make arrangements for a few things.  

     Money isn't asked, but he doesn't say no when I offer him some.  I pack a bag and a box full with pounds of metal gears and stock for projects or smiths I know.  I take some old tools I know I'll use.  A large pair of metal dividers and a jar of cotter pins for my own father.  A few specialized measuring instruments, sharpening stones, and knives finish my haul.  I'd take the lot of it, but space, practicality and life get in the way of the lathe and drill press.  As we leave I point out what tools might be worth saving or selling, and give advice on how to help clean out the place during the estate sale.  Ten dollars for whatever fits in a 5 gallon bucket is way bellow the scrap steel price, but it will move a lot with free labor.        

    He was quite a fellow they tell me, textile chemist by trade.  Always interested in how things work, and happy to show you.  Need it?  Ask him, he can probably make it.  He was a tinkerer and a pack rat, but at some level it still worked.  I got out with a comparative minimum of his supplies, his implements, his shrapnel, and I'll keep myself from going back for more.  I've still got life enough to work on my own.   In sixty years, my own grandson may preside over some of it leaving my own house.    

Ed:  Everyone's an editor

A lot of people say outright that they hate their job.  I'm not one of them.  The work is decent, provides a challenge off and on, and pays well.  It is developing decently of its own accord should nothing better to swap over to come up.  I don't hate the people.   For the most part they're good folks.  Human certainly, but if they're playing less savory humanity, it's not at my face or trying to be sneaky at me.  I don't hate the minutia, the duties, or the bureaucracy, since they're my favorite part of the machine to grind away at.  What I hate are the Pants.  Not that I dislike khaki slacks, but it's the fact that I have to put them on 4 days out of 7 just to meet pretense at the door.  They start to symbolize having to put on a different face, one for "professional" interaction.  This face is effortless in practice, and often lapsed from, but whose stifling nature is all about making sure that people do things for other people who could never command respect to get them done otherwise.  You can be nice, just not close, affable, and just not friendly.  I'd rather just be easygoing and blunt, without this mandated sterile mockery of interaction.  I've been told outright I'm a completely different person outside of work.  I walk in the door and the face gets gray out of practice.  I get home and I just about want to tear the "Dockers" off my ass.  I can't resume normal cruising attitude and coloring with those things on.

I wonder how my job could be if we could show up, reliably in t-shirt and jeans every day.  Would we all, young adult, career professional, empty nester, and outright weirdo relax a bit more, like we were working constantly under the auspices of a casual Friday?  Could I run smoothly from waking up shooting the shit with roommates and whoever is hanging around to work and back without having to shift gears?  How would it be if I could show up in a kilt?  Or, god forbid, a bath towel if I felt that a single wrap of soft terrycloth was what suited the mood and tone of the day?  (Well, maybe not, someone else I DON'T want to look at might do it too.)  Utopian bullshit, likely, but it never hurts to remove small irritants.  When they're forced right next to use they get old fast. Sort of like how few grains of sand on bed sheets, or a rock in your shoe is intolerable, but sleeping on a sand or gravel beach is fine.

Life would be so much better without pants.     

A prudent person, going through life, can try to be smart.  They will never succeed in this though.  Every person capable of reading these words is also bound by nature to be, at some point, and idiot.  This is DUMB.  DUMB is a force of nature more unpredictable than weather, fire, or tectonics, and one we cannot escape.  Try as you might, all people will pay the tax to human nature. 
Christmas Eve will always bring one thing you still need, forcing you out into the maddened crowds.
The hottest most aggravating day of summer, you will always have to walk through the bad part of town.
You will always end up in horrific traffic jams.
You will always end up in a weird situation with yourself, or someone you can't leave to die, piss drunk and suddenly needing to accomplish something.

A prudent person can plan to avoid these, but they'll happen anyways.  You can cut down on the frequency, but never eliminate these moments of DUMB as long as you live.  You can plan against them, to make them easier to deal with, but be certain that the lack of mindfulness on someone else's part will negate, or at best hinder, your foresight. 
We are all equally fucked by this.  This is no different from any other situation, or any other day.

Oh yeah, the dumb acts like a stalking predator.  It LOVES the smell of fear and panic.

"You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts."
-Thom Yorke.

Any benefit to your life is your own fault.
Any change for the better, you had to accept.
Any revision of personal image, worldview, philosophy, spirituality, or faith, you had to accept.

Pawning this off on someone else with credit and praise won't change that.
You could have ignored, lambasted, deluded, or drugged yourself away from it, but you didn't. 
You're still thinking about it now.  It hurts, but you seem to be realizing that the pain is better than going back to your previously held views. 

Thank you for you time and good luck.
  -People appreciating your new take on reality.

ARG.  What the cockgrating hell?
Suffer Fools.  Which chickenscrewing genius came up with that idea.  Fool should be punished in a way that provides us the best ratio of amusement and convenience.

This sounds too "Us vs. Them"?  I can make it "Me vs. All you meatheads".  The ephemeral "they" is any stupid fuck who has the bad luck to get in front of me.  I AM NATURAL FORCE.  DEAL WITH IT.  YOU CAN DO THIS TOO.  ASK ME HOW.

Things currently existing are drivetrain of two very different gears. 

There is NICE.  I like NICE.  NICE is where we can behave for the most part like fucktards who remember why people in Ur got together to be "civilized" in the first place.  NICE is where we can not be tribal, get along, and play at a society because it's better than the alternative.  NICE should not have to tolerate those who don't want to play.  It should eject them.  A dog can learn not to shit on the rug.  It takes a person to understand it's to keep the place looking nice, because keeping a place nice is a pleasant thing, and there's no room for folk who can't get it or be trained.  If they always shit the rug, throw them out of the house.  Keeps it NICE in here.

The other gear is BAD.  BAD is where viciousness, malice, and selfishness are survival mechanisms.  Whatever you have someone will want, and gleefully take from you.  This includes the fine garnish your cerebellum would make for their soup.  BAD is letting your Id drive, tempered with pragmatism.  It makes the cast of every "Conan" movie look like Humphrey Bogart.  Some days, BAD seems like an awfully good idea for the short, screaming painful experience it would be.  A flip of the wrist and a slip to the red. Goodnight and good luck.

HNAAA.   POPETRAIN.

YOU
YES YOU
STAND. UP. STRAIGHT.

Are you trying to sneak around?  I saw you, so you're obviously failing at it. 
Are you getting ready to tackle someone?  I thought not! 
Fixing food or a car engine?  Still no?

Well, no excuse then.  Head up, shoulders back, look like you're alive for cheesesake!
DO you know how sickening that slouch makes you look?  Don't get me started.
You're a human being worth bitching out; hence you're a human being worth presenting properly.  You have a nose right?  Is it a BIG nose?  Mine sure as hell is.  If I slouch, it sticks forward, and I have the profile of a huge fucking bird.  I'm not yellow, so that shit just doesn't fly.  Don't walk around looking like a damn bird.  Some of us have to SEE you, when we're unfortunate, so you may as well try to be inspiring.
We sure as hell didn't survive random childhood innoculations, hordes of our screaming "peers", dubious educational systems and a fucked job market to creep around everywhere like we were trying to be ground apes.
Tighten your abs a bit, it helps.  Keeps you back from falling apart too.

You try that out, we'll address looking people in the eye next time.

http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/cornwall_news/4208730.Giant_worm_found_in_Cornwall/

Creepy, yet fascinating.

     Many of you may have seen these strange churches set up around your area in the past 10 years.  There are a few competing sects, but they are largely interchangeable, as their message is the same.  Their credo, mode and modus?  Do it yourself. 

     There are many job around the home, relating to plumbing, wiring, or roofing, that most people would summon professional aid at great expense to deal with.  These churches put forth a simple and attractive solution in doing such things by your own labor, even if expertise is lacking.  Go forth to one of their temples, confess your plight and project to one of the "Associates", (as their celebrant insist on being called), and they will aid.  Only in the most cursory way they will describe the process by which you can accomplish it, and will direct you to the needful tools and materials.  Then, simply make supplication before their exit altars by waving they card of money you have not yet made, and they will send you forth to attempt your deed.  Be wary!  The blessing of St. Villa do not fall easily to the foolhardy! 

     You may CERTAINLY feel empowered to complete your home repairs now, for these strange priests are expert at casting "Mordecai's minor false confidence".  Only by your own skill or ingenuity will these projects ACTUALLY be completed, for their aid after the initial advisory will be minimal and stunted.   

     Be wary of these places, for they will sell you a pallet full of shingles for your roof, but may fail to remind you to snap a line of chalk to ensure every row is true.  Or use them to get bits and pieces to use, abuse, or otherwise repurpose for projects you know you can pull off.  You can also watch them for the inevitable comedy.  ANY joint that will sell a cheap oxy – acetylene rig to all comers, without so much as RECOMENDING a welding mask, or asking if they know how NOT to blow themselves up, is BOUND to see some real good stuff.

For your amusement, inspiration, and education, here's stuff I've made up for one reason or another.

I've been messing around making penannular broaches out of brass rod stock for a few weeks.  The more recent version on the left has amber set into the terminals.  Mostly made for myself or for small gifts.  They all have a rougher, more "antique" look because I HATE polishing anything tarnishable if I intend to use it.



These have been posted before, the dog tags I made for my Battlestar Galactica costume.  I cut them out of a brass kickplate, shaped, weathered, and applied labels that Suu shooped up. 



The workbench.  I've set up 3, yes 3 work areas in the past year.  I keep moving around, so until I'm settled for a bit, I'm just making do with this tiny thing.  Not spacious, but handy and portable.  Plays host to such oft - moved items as much lunch case and long - suffering water bottle.

Setting: Richter's Dorm room, February 2003

It was about 6 or 7PM when I finally left the dorm for food.  I'd been asleep all afternoon, but woke horrifically to my roommate's newfound affinity for John Spencer Blues Explosion.  I slowly muddled my way back into consciousness, and the music slowly gave way to evening anime programming.  "Tenchi in Tokyo" and "Outlaw Star" being poor substitute for the previously aired excellence of "Gundam Wing", I grew disaffected with the viewing.  My appeals for more stimulating entertainment in the form of people watching at a sit – in dining hall before the crowd at 8 o'clock closing time turned them into fucking madhouses were met with indifference.

Let the fuckers suffer then, I'd take care of myself, as usual.  I made my way out of the Hotel, the nickname of our recently renovated dorm, yet to be ruined by debauch and idiocy, which had the luxury of functional AC, and onto the main drag of the dorm area of campus.  I walked along, largely ignoring crowded sidewalks, as was my habit, cutting between buildings and passing quietly through dark corners most students would avoid when alone in the name of a more direct course than meandering pedestrian ways described.   (Long ago having realized that I'm likely to be the scariest thing in the dark, and I'm not looking to accost anyone.) 

I eventually came upon "Hope", the campus dining answer to cheap take out food.  It was a deli.  A shitty, slap, wrap, and go compared to better food and a great option when apathy set in and company failed.  Scanned and in line, I ordered, and was arranging chips, drinks, fruit, and ice cream (all free for the taking) in my bag when the paranoia gland decided to discharge.  SOME OF THE FUCKERS HERE WERE MARKED.  Two, three, they seemed to steadily be pouring in, all with some sort of "t" described on their forehead in ashy black.  I kept the prosaic calm up, can't let them see I've caught on.  I curtailed my food gathering, and slipping the sustenance into my bag began moving carefully towards the door.

My legs were playing bored, disaffected exit, my brain was playing "Hunt for Red October".  Every chair I passed, Sean Connery would order a firing solution plotted:  chair to window, engines continue ahead at cruising speed, engine room stand by for reverse and full power.  These folks were enough into whatever they worshipped to go out and about MARKED.  Who knows what they might want.  Hell, they could very well round up every nonbeliever student for forced conversion or long pork roast for all I knew.

The only door out was right next to the check – in, and more of the marked folks were streaming in by the minute.  I was clear of the dual obstruction / projectile possibility of the chairs and tables; I'd either glide by before they had the numbers to act, or be caught at the choke point.  Before such tense moments were needed though, I recognized the large, overly haired, and kilted form of Kevin, a fellow cynical shithead.  He also had of the mark on, and after pleasantries, explained Ash Wednesday.  Mass had just gotten out, nothing sinister.  I got back to the dorm, and reminded my roommate, who revealed that he was going to the latter mass.  CRISIS AVERTED.

Edit: spelling / repetition / tense

No pics because I'm lazy.

- Chicken breast, cut thin / small
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 1/4 green pepper, chopped
- Auntie Arwen's Sun hot curry powder  (over meat and set for 1/2 hour to marinade)
- Auntie Arwen's "Mild" vindaloo powder (just 1/2 teaspoon, to amp up the flavor in w/ oil and other spices to caramelize onion 1st)
- Schiracha  (2 quick skeets)
- Adobo (1 hearty pour)
- Chopped garlic  (1 forkload)
- Olive oil (as needed)

This is a rarity in my cooking, in that I'm happy with the flavor and the spicyness.  It's hot, providing a good consistent burn, but still edible.

I can feel it moving...

We've been swapping around allot of ideas on how to save, scrounge and adapt to bad environments or tight situations recently, and given the economic climate (DRINK!) we're sliding into, this IS NOT A BAD THING.
(Please to be keeping paranoia to useful levels. )
DO you know about, or have articles pertaining to:

- Clever ways to get / prepare food for bad or meager situations.
- How to get by without heat / water / electricity
- What you can eat. 
- How to NOT get eaten.
- What to stock up on in case the excrement hits the air conditioning.
- How to not die outside of a house.
- How not to get poisoned or parasited by the water.
- How to not get sick. / How to get not sick again
- What kind of tools are helpful, or how to improvise them.
- Tasty  recipes for long pork.

IS SOCIETY COLLAPSING?
ARE YOU READY?
WILL YOU BE ABLE TO OPEN A DEATHMATCH VENUE BAR AND GRILL IN THE ASHES OF THE FALLEN SOCIETY BEFORE THE OTHER GUY?
If nothing else, glean a few ideas on how to make "Green", "100% Recycled" goods to sell to hipsters.  (Fashion has proven they WILL buy and wear trash.)

I hit up Trader Joe's on Saturday with Suu for more of the bowel rending curry I am growing to love so.  As we perused the cheese offerings, we see a "Celtic Cheddar".  The resulting tirade was rougly as follows:

"CELTIC?  Why not just label it ambiguous trendy marketing based off a tremendously wide ranging and diverse group of peoples?  DO you mean IRISH?  This makes me want to take that cheese, partially liquify it in a broiler Alton Brown style, find a new age "Druid", flip up his fuckign white robes, and shove it straight up his a...  Oh look, Mozzarella." 

At this point the tirade aborted as I saw a mother with small children.  Several folks sidled away.  One friendly lady advised me of the quality of the mozzarella.   

The cheese itself was OK.  An interesting midpoint between a Vermont cheddar and a good Parmesan. 
Suu got some, we ate most of it with bread.  I also sandwiched some in chicken breast with fresh basil and garlic.  Came out good.  I'd repeat, just with a bit less basil (it overrode the cheese more than I wanted.)

I'm going to say right up front that it seems I'm a bad person because I don't like having my quiet, mood, or safety disturbed by idiots.  I am fine with this.  Just let me know where I can bypass middle age and skip straight to grouchy old codgerhood.

Babies or kids at the office / retail place / fucking anywhere:  Yes, at some point I may end up with a kid and feel differently.  For the moment, every time I'm trying to get work done, pick up food, or buy a damn book, and am interrupted by some idiot child's caterwauling, my thoughts immediately go to unreasonable violence. 

People in my way:  Fuck you.  Move.  DRIVE.  Take your gonads OFF the rear view mirror, put the back where they belong, and operate your vehicle accordingly.  This is a fucking highways on ramp, and you're going to get us all killed. 
If you don't know HOW to use a self – checkout, DON'T.  Maybe if we labeled the places for people above a certain level of functionality, you'd get the hint.  NO, wait, you'd just whine about your deficiency.

Scrap booking:  Just die. 
Take up a hobby that makes a useful or pleasant result, not one that makes albums for torturing houseguests. 

The Riff – Raff:  If you act, smell, and bitch the right way, regardless of any other personal factors, I will view you as less than human.  You've got close to the right number of chromosomes, but if you're just not acting the part.  Or even fucking TRYING to act the part.  I don't see why you're worth the time. 
Oh, your cute little rude tricks?  They are a game that some might be able to play better.

Church + State:  Keep 'em apart, we've already seen what happens when the two get mixed, and how poorly people act when they thing the divine boogeyman is supporting their government's actions.  This was figured out over 207 years ago at the latest.  No, you can't have your Holy American Empire.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/12/15/will-these-vehicles-run/

ADOBO IN THE PASTA WATER!



and it was good.

http://rapidshare.com/files/49959244/Carl.Sagan.-.The.Demon.Haunted.World.-.science.as.a.candle.in.t
he.dark.pdf

Not that anyone would want such things 

It was a tragedy they died.

IF they had been reasonable, if they had said YES to the rules, the restrictions the observations and controls, they'd be alive.

That chip in the car never letting her drive above 70 mph, and the camera to watch her for falling asleep?  They'd have saved her.

Restricted sales and medical approval to make sure they were healthy enough to eat that unprocessed stuff people used to eat all the time, instead of state approved, easy to digest SMARTFOOD, that might have kept him from a heart attack and death at age 45.

A camera in the house to inform police of the intruder that killed her husband and children as they slept?  It could have made all the difference.

What a tragedy they didn't take them.
What a tragedy they died.
What a tragedy they lived with privacy, and the freedom to make their own mistakes.

It was then Saturday, and... going out of the imperial palace, attended by a crowd of Eusebian [Eusebius of Nicomedia is meant] partisans like guards, he [Arius] paraded proudly through the midst of the city, attracting the notice of all the people. As he approached the place called Constantine's Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died. The scene of this catastrophe still is shown at Constantinople, as I have said, behind the shambles in the colonnade: and by persons going by pointing the finger at the place, there is a perpetual remembrance preserved of this extraordinary kind of death.

The Dildoes of Nigel

Oft mentioned in the same regard as the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg or the Rack of the White Tower, the Dildoes of Nigel hailed from one of the Inquisition's more terrifying periods.  Mentioned only in scribbles at the back of the first edition Maleus Maleficarum, and often dismissed as a perverted scribes joke, the horrid truth is that these dildoes DID exist.

Excerpt as such:

"At such time that the nobility of ::obscured:: province began to accuse each other of heresy and witchcraft for their own profit, an Inquisitor was dispatched to discover the truth of the matter. 
     A  suspect was brought before the court and asked to confess their heretical belief and practice.  When refusing, they would be foretold that they would suffer torture to extract the truth, and the dildoes would be shown unto them.  At the merest sight of these implements both the stoic and the frail, be they woman or man, confessed, preferring flames at the stake to torment upon the dildoes.  This is moft fortunate, for in such time as elapsed since their last employment, that no agent of the inquisition knew how for to use them in the extraction of truth. 
     So terrible were they to the very mind of the  sufpect, that even a doughty old gentle, renowned for deed on the field of war and at the hunt, believed to be hearty and tough in every way, did faint dead away at their sight.  He was revived with a draught of strong vinegar,and promptly made his confession.  He met death at the stake gladly, for the sight had caused him develop a moft horrible prolapfe of the bowelf.
     it should be recorded that in dimension, thee Dildoes were a score and three ::unit of measure obscured: in length, and five ::unit ofmeasure obscured:: about the circumference.
May Lord God have mercy upon they who created and knew them!"

::Diagram obscured by varicoloredstain::

Present day United States of America society as a whole has degraded too far.  It's an easy opinion to have.  Decades of success and superpower has made us complacent and smug, self assured at the top.  Comfortable as a nation we took the laurels from our grandparent's brows, and placed them squarely beneath our fundaments.  We coasted our way to the moon, and stopped.  Pride and security in doing things for ourselves is lost.  We rely on the goods and economies of other nations, and they're coming to realize that America isn't just a power to reckon; it's a cow to be milked.  Like Romans, we're still sitting unaware with our bread at the circus, in front of a plasma TV with a "Budweiser" (now foreign owned!), while the looters approach the city gates.  Honestly, it looks grim.

There are among modern USA folks, those who do NOT fit the stereotypes listed above.  They ignore the zeitgeist's tendencies, and work with ideals that certainly serve them well.  Frugality, ingenuity, self sufficiency, and working hard to productive ends will still occur here and there.  It is easy to be jaded and live the easy "throw away", handout life, and there may be no "greater good".  However, unless people act like they want to live and thrive, likely they will not.  Sadly, the group that does realize these things is a minority, but it's a minority which may do well in the down turning times to come.

In regards to the USA as a whole, it may be time for it all to come down.  Things have been too fat for too long, and there's no other good way to sort out the useable bits from the flammable chaff.  Burn it.  Slow or fast, but let it all feel the fire for the sake of letting whatever is left work its way back up without all the bloat.  Or if nothing worthwhile is there, then the ashes will be nothing worth crying over.  One can never really appreciate food, heat and security until you've been hungry and cold with the wolves closing in. 

Those who have a mind to prevent this might, if enough time is left, and the sentiment spreads far enough.  Even if it's too late, those who would embrace better principles will only ensure that they or their descendants will be the ones left to make "American" a term worth a damn once more. 

Author's note:
That's the rantish part.  I'm not advocating sitting down and waiting for the collapse or hording canned goods and firearms (thought it never hurts in moderation).  This is more about living constructive, pragmatic ideas, acting smart where possible, and trying to get others to do so.

This is what I ended up with for dinner on Friday.

I cooked 1 lb. chicken, cut into bits, cooked over medium heat in butter, and 2 cloves garlic.  Spiced with pepper, soy sauce, ginger, cayene pepper, chilli powder and a bit of lime juice.  Added chopped green pepper, zuchinni, onion, mushroom.

It turned out as a spicy dish with a red colored sauce.  Served over rice cooked with saffron and sesame oil.

I'm going to be attempting it again tonight, any suggestions on what to do different?

Shoggoth on the Roof.  Lovecraft spoof musical.

It'd be cold if someone found the cast album. 

Link is form 4chan, files good and haven't tripped any of my virus scans yet.  Grab it while it's up.

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=DNQ3MR4G

I have one pound ( ~ 0.5 kilo) of ground beef hanging around.  I ought to eat this for dinner, but inspiration is lacking. 

What would you spags recomend? 

Courtesy of an overblown yard sale this past weekend, I acquired a slide rule for $1.  Odd thing to have, but it was functional and seemed like a curiosity, if not a useful item.  My father grew up with them, and showed me the basics of their operation over sandwiches and beer. 

Odd skill to have, being able to use these obsolete pieces, but a few things about them struck me:
-they are not electricity dependent
-they are not vulnerable to EMP
-they are more durable than most electronics.
-they are replicable with only a steady hand and small wood carving tools, as long an intact original is present to copy (survivalist mathematicians? )
-they have certain elegance to them.  After only a few days of learning, I'm quite impressed by the functions you can perform by adjusting the alignment of a few simple logarithmic scales. 
-they are not as prone to "dumb" calculations as a computer.  You have to know WHAT you are doing before you do it, keeping you more mindful of your calculations. 

Nothing I'll ditch my laptop for, but having one around the tool kit, navigation equipment, or desk doesn't seem like the worst idea.   

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/biogasoline-virent.php

Promising idea, I hope this works out.
Basically a non fossil fuel, gassoline substitute.  A good idea, given how many existing internal combusiton engines are out there.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/mgh-ssa032008.php

Well, not really.  Its hydrogen sulfide, not methane that they're using, but intersting read.

Salazorians in the mist

I see him a few times a week, our building's Salazorian janitor.  Its always when I am working late, either frantic to keep up with an influx of problems, or relaxing in the post- twilight calm, but he always goes about his own steady way, immune to the turmoil or placidity of the office.  I do not know his name.  His presence is announced long before he can be seen.  The heavy rolling, well oiled wheels of his garbage bin, and the overpowering odor (that I pray is only cologne) waft across the rows of cubicles.  I can hear the soft thumps as he collects and empties trash buckets. 

It's usually not until around 6 PM that he arrives at my desk.  We always say hello to each other, swap useless pleasantries.  His English is heavily accented, and I have no idea if he has mastery over more than the brief words we exchange.  I can only wonder what he thinks, passing to collect the refuse of my day.  "Ah, the flaccid idiot is still here, dwelling complacently at his soft capitalist job." I imagine crosses his mind.  It would not be an uncommon sentiment for any Salazorian, and not an unfair critique of my work.  (Which in the grand sense serves no great purpose.)  I could be wrong. 

Only once, in my years of passing our little pungent Salazorian have I had a glimpse into his deeper character.  It was one evening, when fuming over a client's apeshit protests; I was stomping to the bathroom to cool off.  I passed him, rolling his hamper along as always, when he suddenly stepped out of the character I had come to regard as harmless.  He jumped at me, almost a blur, producing a knife from nowhere and pressing for my neck.  I flailed backwards, my hand finding a solid object at the corner of a cubicle wall I caromed off of.  As he advanced, close enough for the kill, I pressed my makeshift weapon to his throat in return.  I was going to die here, I knew, stabbed and possibly violated by a little reeking janitor.  At least I'd do damage in return, I'd make him bleed with my.....wait, what was I holding?

The dark tableau of violence receded, and I saw I was holding a placard market "Human Resources" to the little man's throat.  He saw this too, smirking and chuckling a bit.  The Salazorian backed off, made his knife vanish, and went along collecting trash, leaving me standing their, dumbfounded, holding H.R.'s department sign.  I shook off the shock, and made it to the restroom without soiling myself.  It hit me then how small and unimportant the angry clientele and redundancy of my job really were.  That horrible man taught me a valuable lesson in this way.  While he may never be more than a janitor in our office, and I may never last a day on the streets of Salazar, he showed me a little of the grit which can carry you through life.  What did he do in Salazar, and why is he here now?  What could have made him such a hard and frightening human being?  I still pass him now and again, and he still comes by to collect my trash, both of us making no sudden movements and keeping respectful distance from each other.  Maybe one day when it is no longer worth it, one of us will scream and leap, letting one or both or our lives end in fast, bloody benediction.  We may both move on, never reaching this juncture.  Either way, I always have a knife ready now.  Either way, it is unlikely I will ever forget this figure I grudgingly respect, this Salazorian in the mist.           

http://gizmodo.com/369398/microchip+sized-solid-state-fan-actively-cools-laptops-with-no-moving-parts

This is pretty cool.  I can't help but wonder how this could be applied if it was scaled up...

WELL?

This is a simple but delicous (and horrible) recipe for what I consider that world's finest pancake.  This is not your modern jack of flapping, or you wheat and bran infused crepe immitation.  This is the cake that helped lumberjacks cut a path across North America.

They should only be eaten before a long day of hard labor or hiking with little chance to stop for lunch.  Ideally, this should be done in the winter, while camping.  If you do not begin burning calories immediately, these skillet - filling doom cakes will put you into a food coma.

To begin:  Cook 1/2 - 1 lb. of thick - cut bacon in a high - walled cast iron skillet.  Eat the bacon and rejoice.  Leave the clear fat.

Forthwith:  Put straight into the fat some pancake mix (the shake - up Bisquick kind works well).  Let it cook, and marvel as it absorbs the grease.  Flip as needed.

Repeat this until the grease is all used (3-5 pancakes depending on size.)

Eat them.  Only a little butter or syrup is needed. 

Clean up and MOVE.  Your life may depend on it.


 

   

http://gizmodo.com/353655/perepiteia-perpetual+motion-machine-may-actually-dosomething

Likely, another flop, but this one is getting some serious attention.  If nothing else, it perfects using a few effects of magnetism for acceleration.  The comments are Lail worthy too.

Here's something.
It's creative, funny, off the wall, and entirely NOT what you'd expect.
It's meta.
It's outside the box.
It's not for critics, mocking the mockery.
It's purposefully bad, simplistic, and recursive JUST to prove how good it is.
The points it makes about life and the inferences you draw from it are so deep and well hidden that only a fool would superficially denounce it. 
Too short for a holy book, to long for a meme bomb.

This anemic piece of shit, without design purpose or forethought, there's not even a punch line.
I wrote it because I'm bored caffeinated and on hold.

As Mushashi said, you can only go so far into the mountains before you come out on the other side of them.

An open letter to those who speak the English language in daily capacity:

Fool,
Prefacing any question with "Let me ask you this:", or "My question is:", serves no purpose.
If you feel you need my permission to ask a question, you don't have it.
If you think I will not be able to distinguish an interrogative statement, you are no longer worthy of my time.
If you believe in filling the air with things coming out of your mouth, I'm headed outside, it stinks in here.
If you can't be bothered to talk clearly with me, I will take sadistic pleasure in how I return the favor
There is no courtesy, etiquette, or sophistication in the extra words.

Should a person never using such phrasing be reading, please disregard this.  You at least have a chance of communicating efficiently, and I look forward to speaking English with you.

Posted in tandem to the outer wall of my Cube, PD forums, and other communication I can slip it into.

Inspired (aka: not totally ripped off) by Cram's Gong show,  other old writings. 


Once their was a youth by the name of Youngblat, who after reading a certain tome by Malcalypse the Younger, decided to undertake the way of the Erisians.  Eager to learn much about his newfound faith, spouting ,Äú23 and Fnord!,Äù, he searched out others of the way, his attention first being drawn to a regrettable book of yellow pages.  Under the entry for ,ÄúDiscordian,Äù he found the locale of a certain Llama known as Buthashi.

Youngblat went forth to Master Buthashi,Äôs retreat in the ground floor of a local house, and sat with the Master in a sparsely furnished living room hung with many odd things.

Youngblat pronounced a good many nonsensical things, to demonstrate his freedom from the restraints of sanity, but did settle down and state his business when Buthashi brandished the fire extinguisher.

,ÄúGood Master, how might the Fnord I travel better in the Discordian way?,Äù he asked.

,ÄúYou will pass through many stages,Äù said Buthashi, ,ÄúAt first you will go about as you are, and eventually the next step of the way will become apparent.  Or it won,Äôt.  In either case, that will be your way.,Äù

,ÄúIs this the way you have gone yourself?,Äù asked Youngblat.

,ÄúFucked if I know,Äù, spoke the master. ,ÄúDepending where this way takes you, we may come to speak of it.,Äù

,ÄúSurely then, there must be four more such stages to the Way!,Äù

,ÄúThe first two are the biggest.,Äù Buthashi advised, letting out a formidable clap of wind.  ,ÄúAppreciate this holy stink, and go forth.  Greet me when we next meet, and we will see how far you have come. That will be $40 please.,Äù

Youngblat cautiously, but appreciatively breathed of the Master,Äôs assuredly divine stench, paid up and left.

Soon after, he sought out the Cardinal Shithashi, who was holding office hours in a crab apple tree by a local spa.  He greeted her calmly, remembering his near misfortune with Buthashi.

,ÄúHowdy fucker.  What do you want?,Äù Asked Shithashi, as she heaved a small item off towards some folks exiting the spa.

,ÄúI seek further knowledge of the Discordian way.,Äù 

,ÄúRelax, but do not be complacent.  Questions everything, but be firm in yourself.  Do everything for a reason, and nothing out of habit.,Äù  Sayeth Shithasi.

,ÄúWow, that,Äôs good!  Fnord!,Äù said Youngblat.

,ÄúIt was a horoscope this morning.  Also, calm the hell down. That will be $40 please,Äù 

,ÄúFnord right!,Äù said Youngblat, who paid the eye rolling Shithasi and left.

As he left, many patrons of the spa were wondering aloud who would throw apples covered in cards declaring them as Pope.  Youngblat laughed aloud, and receiving many scathing looks, left.

A week latter, traipsing through the city, and generally being a nuisance, Younblat spied the Masters and several fellows entering a local house of contemplation and drink.

,Äú23 and Fnord!,Äù he hailed them ,ÄúDo you see all the lovely chaos I bring to this horribly ordered city!,Äù

So saying, he put forth a thunderous fart.  Such was his vehemence that he did shat himself a little. 

,ÄúDamn.,Äù said Shithashi, augustly summing up any sane person,Äôs reaction to the scene.

This house of contemplation and drink, being a fine and quiet locale, had bouncers who promptly put him out, keeping well clear of his newly ripe trouser and into the path of some good policefolk who took him in for suspicion of apple throwing.

Youngblat hence did learn of the Discordian ways by which one may not be an incarcerated jackass, and went forth from that day wiser and less loud.

Shithashi, Buthashi, and their fellows all went forth and enjoyed a great night of drink and argument fueled by their collected sums of $40.

Ever have a job you love?  Well, hope it works out for you. 
Any job, whether it be listening to the world's best music, or banging the prettiest supermodels will always be what the name says.  A Job.
This job will, without fail, bore you.  No matter how much of a sleazy penchant you have for the subject matter, it will be dull, dreary, and have just enough draw to keep you coming back (paycheck, occasional moment's of interest, WTF ever else). 

Let's try another tack: get a job you HATE.

We all have to work and do something unless we're wealthy already, or taking off for the woods to live (read: die soon) "with nature".  So why burn yourself out on subject matter you actually like just for the sake of the money?
I'd recommend a good cubicle farm for this little venture, (make sure it's harm free, and make sure the HR group can be counted on to strike of the gonads of those who would trample on yours.)  Do your thing.  Make the money.  Go home.

Home will suddenly be the greatest thing in your life.  Your family, friends and whatever else you have there will SHINE in the glorious light of That-Which-Is-Not-Work.  Savor and appreciate this, friend.  Leave the bitterness of work away from what you have outside.  Get your lulz wherever you can, but make your slack count by comparison with the rest of life!