web analytics

Friday, March 23

rest20070323.jpg

March 23, 2007 — 10:06 pm
Comments: 3

Meet my stuff

foldingknife.jpg

This is one of my favorite objects in the whole wild world (no, no…not the dime. Well, yes, actually…mercury dimes are nice, too).

In the late seventies, my mother bought a piece of property way back in the woods. There was a wobbly old barn and the foundation of an even older house. As she stepped onto the foundation the first time, her foot kicked loose this tiny pocket knife.

Possibly you must hold this thing in your hand to grok how cool it is. It was made with the most basic hand tools — there are clear file scrapes and hammer marks — apparently out of scraps of waste metal. The lack of polish and the hesitation around some of the cut marks suggests its creator was an amateur. The handle is horse hoof, I think. It looks, in short, like it was beaten together out of found junk.

It is, however, beautifully conceived and beautifully made. The lines are perfect. The mechanism is simple — that metal tab lifts and slips into a notch in the spine, lifting the backstrap and unlocking the blade — but it’s smooth and sure, even now. It is crude and it is amazingly elegant.

The two brass bands are an ornamental touch not repeated on the other side. Did he decide he didn’t like the look? Was he interrupted before he finished? How old is it, anyway? It is a puzzling artifact. I want to hold it in my hands and shout at it. “Cough it up! Tell me the story, goddamn you!”

I ran across it again today rummaging around for a stamp. This is a humbling object. It was, in all likelihood, hammered together out of crap by an ignorant farm hand in his spare time.

I can’t shake the feeling he’s worth three of me.

— 4:58 pm
Comments: 14

Watch for falling cats

Hey, look what I found in a forgotten corner of my hard drive (I clean my hard drive to relax; I’ve had a molten asshole of a day).

This was the very first placeholder graphic on my very first corner of the Web — that free meg of space ISP’s gave you. I figured out early on I could cram in much more art per byte by sticking with monochrome. Small file sizes were, of course, seriously important then.

“Then” would’ve been, maybe, 1994? I think that’s the year I first saw the Web. I had read Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web concept paper via Usenet in 1990 and thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. People creating content for free, and letting other people link to it? Pff! Stupid hippies!

But then, a few years later, a friend showed me the Web in action, and then I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Seriously, the early Web was lame-o, lame-o. Until there was a certain critical mass of content, it wasn’t good for much at all. It wasn’t even that fun. And it was ugly.

Except for Find the Spam (lovingly reproduced with historic exactitude here). I thought Find the Spam was the most hysterical thing I’d ever seen in my life ever. Like, ever. Odd, though…when I laughed, dilithium crystals shot out of my nose.

Anyhow, I wish I could remember where this drawing is. I think it’s much better than it looks in this grievously squoze-down version. The odd part is…how did I get it in the computer? Monitors of the era were capable of much better graphics than you usually saw on them, because there was no way to get pictures in. It was way before digital still cameras (we had a video camera that could frame-grab; the whole setup cost around a hundred grand). I think it was before those horrible little hand scanners (remember those?). Maybe we had desktop scanners at work by then.

Cat blogging. I been doing it a long, long time.

March 22, 2007 — 5:33 pm
Comments: 4

The Summer of Disemboweled Chickens

Going moonbat all over my own comments section reminded me of one glorious Walt Disney Summer on the farm. I guess I was 15, stuck by myself out in the middle of nowhere, bored silly.

We kept a small flock of Araucana chickens for the eggs. Well, probably not genuine Auraucanas, which are quite rare, but a mongrel breed more properly called Easter Egg Chickens. Ours were white and laid blue and green eggs. I wonder why they’re called Easter Egg Chickens.

At some point, my mother decided we needed a rooster. Being a good hippie, Mother believed all animals had to have lots of sex to be happy, so she bought our hens a little Rhode Island Red rooster. He was half the size of the hens. Mother called him a “banty rooster” — which I suppose is a corruption of “bantam.” She called obnoxious little men “banty roosters” too.

And he sure was an obnoxious little fucker. He screwed those hens halfway to perdition. After a month, not a one of them had any feathers on her back. They sure didn’t look happy to me — whenever a chicken saw him strutting nearby, she plopped down in the grass in a frantic effort to deny him snootch. When he took his afternoon constitutional, you could see them pop up and down like fluffy white mushrooms all over the lawn.

He had a crap sense of timing, too. Used to crow at three in the morning. My room was actually a little trailer on the opposite side of the chicken house from the main house (a trailer! Let the banjo jokes commence!), so I bore the brunt of all that cocka-doodle-doo shit. God, I hated that bird.

Once, I leaned out my back door and pitched an entire box of miniature Gideon New Testaments at him, one by one, trying to shut him up. The question is, what was I doing with an entire box of miniature Gideon New Testaments? This I do not know.

But one morning, it wasn’t crowing, but a weak, fluttery cackling that woke me. I found him lying in the hen yard, disemboweled. If the hens were just a leeetle bit brighter, I might’ve suspected them, but this had possum written all over it. Possums chew out the soft bits and leave the rest.

Oh, dear god. He was still breathing.

I went back in and got a .22 target pistol. The chicken yard was fenced in, overhead and all (another reason not to blame a dog, but something sneaky like a possum). The only access was through a window in the henhouse, so I couldn’t get all that close to him. It was a crap pistol and I was (quite frankly) a pretty crap shot. I steadied the barrel against the chicken wire and squeezed the trigger.

He hopped up like Lazarus and ran, trailing extremely important parts of himself. Shit. Now I’ve got a running target. Every time he slowed down, I took a shot, which didn’t give him much but a renewed vigor. All hail the mighty chicken torturer! I finally ran out of ‘mo, and he fell over, whether dead or exhausted, I don’t know. I was too rattled to check for sure. Anyway, he’d be better off dying his way than having me continue to shoot bits off him.

Sure enough, I was walking across the yard a few days (and another disemboweled chicken) later and saw a possum bumbling through the grass. He did the standard thing when I walked over. Have you ever seen one play possum? It’s eerie. Even if you know they’re faking, you don’t quite believe it. I kicked him over with my toe and then went in for a gun. He was gone by the time I got back. My stepfather was furious with me, but what was I going to do? Crush his ickle skull?

Mother let the chickens roam free after that, thinking they’d be safer roosting in the trees. They really do come home to roost, you know. But still they kept disappearing, one every few days. Now it probably was a neighbor’s dog; now there was nothing left but a dusting of white feathers.

I wanted to redeem myself. I took a flashlight and taped it to the barrel of my grandfather’s old .22 rifle. As tactical assault weapons go, it was better than fluffy knuckles or ninja throwing kittens.

And finally, late one night — I think we were down to our last chicken — I woke to a squawk. It was a nasty damp, hot August night, like being snuggled in Satan’s armpit, and I burst out the back door in nothing but my underpants and plinking rifle. Shoes would’ve been so sweet right about then.

My flashlight picked up a clump of white feathers. Too late? No, no…it was a trail. I followed dollops of white across the front yard and around the side. It was black as india ink and all I could see was a bouncing ring of grass under the flashlight and that eerie white dotted line disappearing into the black. When I got out onto the long, sloping field out back, the thing stopped and turned to face me, and this is exactly what I saw:

houndeyes.gif

My stepfather was positive it was the neighbor’s german shepherd. Me, I’m pretty sure that there is the Devil’s slavering flame-eyed sulphurous spectral soul-sucking weasel hound from hell. Whatever. With my marksmanship, I sure wasn’t taking a shot at it.

What if I missed?

What if I didn’t?

March 21, 2007 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 3

Roseanne Barr: nuttier than a twelve-pack of shit-house rats with a side order of squirrel rectums

I idly followed a Drudge link to a NY Post article today about Roseanne Barr and thence to Roseanne’s own site. Oooohhhh…she’s been refining the crazy in those aluminum centrifuge thingies, this one.

Where Did They Go?
nobody is that interested in what happened to the busloads of refugees from Katrina…where did they go? I called my synagogue to say:” Do you know they are taking people away on trucks and buses, just like the Germans did when they “relocated” the entire Jewish population of Germany?”…but no one cared there either, and gave me that crazy old lady brush off that everyone gives you. The Rot is spreading downward more everyday. No one cares that this country is being dismantled and sold to the highest bidder piece by piece.

She brings up the idea that Katrina’s blacks were disappeared more than once. She worries about blacks a lot. Except Oprah. She doesn’t think much of Oprah. Or Romney. Mormons figure large for her.


Can We Talk About Child Abuse?

in the dream…ken mehlman is a gay jew who masterminded the anti-gay (evangelical) Christian movement. The evangelicals are headed by gay christian pedophiles. They are directly linked(through karl rove’s Utah contacts to mormon pedophiles(polygamists))…let’s start talking about child abuse folks, for real!

I don’t know if that’s a sleeping dream, or what. There was a forum. I was afraid to go there, and it eventually had to be euthanized, apparently. The link doesn’t appear on later posts.

Energy Vampires

The way a person chooses to introduce themselves is very telling in RW cyberspace. Anyone who is into calling themselves a healer, or a witch or something occult-like, I have found, (through the ten years I have had a site) is usually in fact letting it be known that they are an energy vampire, and their intention is to muffle the message I want to put forth on my site.

I am banning anyone who wants to muddle or attack my message… they need to go elsewhere. I always have put forth a certain and specific message, and despite the armies of people who have been sent by dark forces to come against the power of that message, I vow to continue, as I promised I would, at age three, when my life was saved by The Holy.

But this is not mere moonbattery. This is genuine crazy. Ye shall know it by its inconsistency. Examine these three takes on Bush, in chronological order:

Letter to Bush

Today is the first day I have ever emailed a President of the US and signed my name. I said I want him to listen to the americfan people and demand he not escalate but de escalte. His cowboy shit don’t work outside of texas. Go back to texas on your billion dollar slice of the pie. Retire and get ready to meet jesus, he is here! Hail you Jesus! You are the King Mohammed! Buddha is cute too!!! and at least he is fat!!!! My god is fat!!!! and he is a she!!!! big mama has decided to come out of the house, and onto her porch. She tells me to tell you that you better figure out a way to get along or you are all going to perish. She is pissed off like only a grandmother can get over the bickering of her brood!!!!!!!!!!!!! dagnabbit!!!


What If???
What if bush is right? What if he knows that the entire western world is at risk and only superior military force will save us?


Praying for President Bush

I wish he was right, I wish democracy would come to the world too. Democracy means peaceful co-existence. Bush wants these things, I know it, I touched his hand at one time, and I can feel everything about a person when I touch their hands, and that is why I no longer shake hands with people. I have felt ugly horrific things at times from them. But, President Bush’s hand was the hand of a man who means well. I pray that the Highest Light comes to him, that he realizes that the fate of the world actually does rest on his shoulders, and that freedom and democracy, and not hatred and endless war are the legacy of the evangelicals/zionists …. (I hope bush will let god into his heart). (I hope he knows that capitalism is not the same concept as democracy).

Those three appear in fairly rapid succession. The blog only dates back to September, 2006, though she speaks of having a site for many years. Maybe the non-blog parts predate that.

She’s into the Kabbalah, but her version seems to have chakras and Jesus and goddesses in it. She believes we have created “chickens that have no heads, and only are egg producing ovary bags hooked to egg retrieving machines in the biological pharming industries.” She believes Jimmy Carter is the greatest president, ever. She believes Republican leaders are all closeted gays and that WWWIII will be the War over Water (mark my words, water is going to be the next big lefty cause when Global Whotsit finally bites the dust). She has moments of towering messianic hyperego and moments of humility.

If you’re a connoiseur of teh crazy, you’re going to love this thing. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll…oh, just hit the link.

March 20, 2007 — 5:04 pm
Comments: 20

Things are looking Monday all over

Hello, imaginary people who live in my computer. How are you today? You’re like those damn sea monkeys, aren’t you? If I don’t feed you…well, the less said about those damn sea monkeys the better, hm? Okay!

St Paddy’s day eve, I got up in the night to drain the weasel and somehow slipped and fell. Falling down under the influence of strong drink is a painful thing. Landing asswards on a ceramic tile floor, more painful still. Perhaps most painful of all, however, comes the following morning, twisting and craning to view a sad, middle-aged left butt-cheek in the medicine cabinet mirror.

Is it visibly bruised? Begorrah, it is not.

Oh, hell. I’m not even Irish.

So I needed a new mop head. Yes, I’m changing the subject. This has nothing to do with my buttcheek or my drinking problem or anything. When I got to the supermarket, I was blindsided; there were like a dozen different kinds! What brand and size is mine? I have no idea. There’s no writing on my mop at all. It’s got two sticky-outy things where the head goes, and that’s all I know.

Damn you mop makers and your confusing mop monopolies!

I almost bought a whole new mop, but I had a feeling I’d done that before. I had a feeling a lot of people do that and the whole stupid issue might be quite deliberate, and that pissed me right off. So I bought a mop head and a roll of duct tape.

Yes I did.

And, no, it didn’t fit (the two sticky-outy things were about a millimeter too far apart and too short), but the duct tape worked fine. Remember, the tape doesn’t have to stick to a wet mop; it only has to stick to itself. And there’s nothing tape sticks to better than itself.

While I was in the supermarket, I spotted a woman buying something that looked like a cyprus knee.

“How the heck do you cook that?” I said, because I’m one of those annoying people who strikes up a conversation with anyone, anywhere.

She looked at me blankly a moment and said, “No speak English.”

Look, I won’t go into the whole immigration thing just now. But, would you immigration officers or social workers or whoever primes newcomers before releasing them into the wild do me a big fat favor? Teach them to say, “I don’t speak English.” Okay? It’s just one more syllable than “no speak English,” and it at least gives the impression they’re trying to understand how complete sentences work in their new home.

So (changing the subject again) somebody in my area got fired this afternoon. Not the good kind of fired, where you get severance pay and a letter of recommendation and a cake in the break room. The bad kind of fired, where you show up in the morning with your Dunkin’ Donuts medium light no sugar, and leave in the afternoon with all your stuff in a box, escorted by Security. All’s we know is, he did Something Bad with the network.

And I’m, like, “something bad like…oh, I dunno…blogging?”

Nobody knows. Just…Something Bad. So, until I find out more, it’s early mornings or late evenings for me.

And I swear to god, if I find you guys floating around on the top of this blog not moving, I’m not going to cry this time. I’m just not.

March 19, 2007 — 5:17 pm
Comments: 7

Friday, March 16

rest20070316.jpg

March 16, 2007 — 3:17 pm
Comments: 7

We’re naming the next one Mr Whiskers







Question: How do you make an authentic Texas chili?

Answer: There’s no doubt that the quality of the beef is an issue, whether ground beef or steak is used. First, brown the meat thoroughly in very hot bacon grease and pour off the excess fat.

Most importantly, however, before you begin cutting up the peppers and onions, make sure you rub the surface of your cutting board vigorously with a cat’s rectum.

— 1:45 pm
Comments: 3

I got nothin’

I drew my least favorite sort of a job today — I have to build a multimedia dingus for a trade show on a tight deadline. It has all the elements I like least in a job: work, labor, toil, effort…all areas in which I’m constitutionally disadvantaged to excel.

Plus, it’s a trade show. Those bastards are never willing to move dates to accomodate me. Blow a trade show, and I might as well rent a bulletin board to announce “I am SO fucking fired!”

So I didn’t get much time today to visit with you, my imaginary friends who live in the computer. Please, share my supper with me.

I love shrimp. But I hate peeling them. I always look down at the chitinous exoskeleton and all the little legs and think, “sweet mustache of Jesus! I’m eating bugs!!!”

March 15, 2007 — 6:49 pm
Comments: 3

Nineteen white, fuzzy cat bellies

It felt like Spring yesterday, which compelled Charlotte to leap out the back door, fall to the ground and wave her stuff around in the air. This is the tragic consequence of teaching your cat that her white, fuzzy belly is the most beautiful object in the whole wide world.

 

catbellies2.gif

This was not at all the image I was originally going for. I was headed for a straight-up montage of cat belly photographs. But because she’s black and white, Charlotte is an especially strange and wonderful object to play with in Photoshop.

When you ctrl-click on an image layer, Photoshop automatically selects the brightest portions of the layer. So I did that and made a mask of the white parts and saved it, then I inverted the image and made a mask of the black parts and saved it. This theoretically gave me a combined mask that would cut around the outlines of Charlotte and save me the trouble of manually erasing or blending the backgrounds (on account of, I am lazy), since the background is largely gray. But, of course, the darkest part of the white fur and the lightest part of the black fur are gray, too, so when I subtracted the mask from the photo, this was what I got. Well, after some fussing.

It looks like one of those old masters drawings. The ones on gray paper with the ink and chalk. I tried adding a paper texture, which looked cool but not cool enough to justify tripling the file size. To be economical, .gif files rely on large areas of totally solid color.

Please enjoy my cat’s white, fuzzy belly nineteen different ways. She would want you to.

March 14, 2007 — 8:09 am
Comments: 3