11232296.1College memories. Awhile back I wrote a little about the Road to Pullman. Found it:
It's hard to describe the road to Pullman. Think of those movies set in the west, 1930's, with an arrow-straight road shooting off into the nothingness. That's the best I can do, plus sagebrush. During the several times a year when there is a mass student migration, drivers generally treat it like two lanes of a four-lane freeway, so you do not want to be traveling in opposing traffic. About 80% of the way over you zip through the town of Dusty, WA. It has a B&B, and that is where they (this was about some friends traveling to WSU for a game) plan to stay. I'm not kidding; no one could make up the fact that Dusty now has a B&B.
I bring it up tonight because of this:
a Google Earth image of Dusty, WA. Small, but completely clear and viewable to anyone on the planet who might be interested. Now look at this image:
Without the label, who would guess that this is Pullman Washington and the Washington State University? Very dear to me, obviously, but literally, deliberately and callously left off the map. To make it even worse ..
How could such a thing happen, and continue to happen? My own theory is that more than a few people at the competing Big City institution across our state, THE GRANDE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, have their fingers in the computer. You might remember Jim and Malvin from the UW computer department in the movie, Wargames. Well, they're still there and are a lot smarter than they were in 1983. Still sneaky too.
I looked all over the Internet for an explanation. The only mention of it was some kid who noticed WSU was "fuzzy" and wondered why. His entry in a forum about fuzzy things went unanswered. That was years ago. So, I guess the truth is that the folks at WSU are still blissfully oblivious about their position on the earth and pretty much everything else except the next kegger, same as when I was there. Rick Macherat
11232295.1A candy issue. Readers who have been coming to this space for a long time are aware that I am reluctant to take a position, slow to anger, loath to make a fuss .. We get it, wtf happened now? It's the chocolate, Cadbury. I don't even especially like chocolate all that much and besides, I have a nasty cut on the end of my right typing finger. (Another kitchen mishap; see many previous posts on subject.) But I'm going to type this tonight anyway for all those chocolate lovers who are too devastated to do so themselves. They all have blogs too, you know. You can spot them by looking for hearts, smileys and other pretty and lacy things mainly in these colors:
I borrowed the logo from Cadbury to illustrate. Folks, when someone has a hankering for chocolate, specifically Cadbury, this phrase would never be heard, "Oh my. That looks delicious, but it is far too expensive." Never. Wouldn't happen. They will pay, okay? Anything. Whatever you want to charge. Nothing else matters. Who hasn't knows a Chocko Wacko? So why, why I have to ask, would the geniuses at the firm offload to manufacture of chocolate to CHINA, CHINA of all places, just to save money? Why!? Didn't they know that they Chinese put all kinds of crap in products whenever they believe they can get away with it? They do it to babies, for fergodssake!
First we have the economy going tits up, then this. What's next already, an alien invasion?Rick Macherat
11232294.1What noise. While rinsing a few dishes, I opened up the window above the kitchen sink to take in some wonderful late summer freshness and listen to the gentle sounds of dusk. They were somewhat muted for the moment because of the Boeing 747 taking off, but the roar eventually tapered off and before another one departed I could hear a fire engine screaming out of one of the three stations near my house. Four if you count the airport fire department. The siren grew louder and for a few moments drowned out the roar which rises from the 12-lanes of Interstate 5 freeway just over the lip of the hill. I am generally unaware of that white-noise sound unless there is a major wreck which stops traffic in both directions. Then it's spooky. Spooky because the shrill air raid scream of the little girl who lives across the street can come all the way around the house to the back side where the kitchen is, and I can hear her and all the other illegal immigrant noises which emanate from her household of seventeen persons and thirteen cars. This little girl has been at the 4-year-old point where a scream lingers just at the frequency of pain for three years now. She begins as early at 6am and can continue on Friday nights during the fiesta or whatever the hell they are doing over there until as late as three in the morning.
Although the extended illegal family has a lot of cars, it is the other family of mysterious origin, mainly Asian and scary, which has the loud ones. I believe these vehicles are secondhand funny cars which have had no maintenance whatever since they were stolen. As soon as these neighbors finally get their cars started, they try to get them up to 100 mph before reaching the stop sign at the end of our street. One of the people living in this house, and we have no idea how many there are, works. Not only does he work, but he ride-shares, and his ride arrives at 12:30am. That guy then honks the horn of his wreck of a car until his partner wakes up and comes out. Everyone else within a block is awake by then too. Except me of course.
The family directly across from us is pretty regular. They have a grown son who works some, but I have to mention his two 7,000-watt audio systems, one in the car and one in his house. When the parents aren't home he runs both and medicates. I'm not worried about that situation lasting much longer as he will soon retire from the present with a permanent case of Jellybrain.
The "family" on the other side of them makes no noise at all. Dead still 24/7. That is because they are immigrant smugglers.
Did I mention the dogs? Every single house in every direction for as far as the ear can hear has one. And every one of them leaves the dog out all day. About half leave the dog out all night. Every one of those dogs is neurotic and lonely, but the kids are inside playing video games. So the dogs bark. All the time. Sometimes I bark back and they all stop. That's a little weird.
The construction project has actually muffled a lot of this while it has been going on, at least in the daytime starting at 6:59am. Especially the jackhammers and pile drivers. They are building three five-story condo buildings with 96 units right behind the houses across the street. Yes, the backs of those buildings and half the units will look right down into the yards of the noisy neighbors, approximately 35 feet away. Under current market conditions, I figure people will be grabbing up those non-view condos for ~$325,000 each, and on the morning of the first day in their new homes they will hear. Unless they move in on a Friday when they won't be going to sleep in the first place.
You sound like all this awful noise doesn't really bother you. What?Rick Macherat
11232293.1Some bricks fell down. We're very proud of our scores here in Seattle: High in livability, sophistication, worldliness, money (which we are far too classy to discuss,) brilliance, breeding, caring .. should I go on? Low in poverty, mobile homes, tawdry crime (we make the distinction since we are Very High in skilled mass murder,) Republicans, provincialism.
So, it was a joy to watch the fuss made over a wall which semi-collapsed in the "International District." That's what we call Chinatown now that other Asians besides Chinese live there. The wall was on a very old building, and when it fell down the city had to evacuate the inhabitants, the youngest of whom was probably in her eighties. All were white-haired and stooped, of course, and carried massive loads of belongings. For three days, the news covered the story: endless pictures of bricks on the sidewalk, endless tape of old people trudging up or down the hill. Endless interviews with people who heard it, just missed being hit by it as they walked by just yesterday or even that morning, were driving by, knew someone who died and thankfully missed this tragedy, and on and on and on. Point is, we are provincial and will always be, thank goodness, when the attention of an entire region of four million people can stay riveted for the better part of a week on a wall that fell down and sounded/looked/smelled/seemed like an earthquake.
You can actually do this: drive North on West Snoqualmie River Parkway Southeast, then head East on North Lake Sammamish Boulevard Southwest,
and if you find that then you can continue on to the open house for this magnificent estate which is available for just under $5,000,000.00. It's only grotesque in the daylight, so no problem with lots of company and entertaining - just have them come over at night.
I watched a commercial where a young man was checking out a young woman; both were gorgeous, a little beyond human actually. He followed her from club to club, their cars racing through the rain slicked streets. Her beguiling looks, his dazzling teeth, her lips, all the glam, the dancers, the mileage. The whole thing virtually carried me aw .. the mileage ? Yeah, it was a car commercial. Getting good mileage is everything these days, no matter how debonair one might be.
Washington Mutual failed this week. It has taken me two whole days to get where I can type about it, and even now it has to be squeezed in the middle of some other rambling. I am one of those "other" concerned, a stockholder, and I lost more money than I ever thought I would have. Meaning that when I was your age, imagining forward to when I was my age, how much money I might have actually accumulated by then, now. The television news always shows a guy who has walked down to the bank to check on his paycheck or passbook savings, like it is actually in there. I had very snobby feelings and thoughts when I saw him, so I probably deserve to lose all those electrons. But to be completely, 100% honest and candid with you, I'm having trouble caring about it at all, and that's a little scary too.
The debates. I figured it out and it isn't pretty. Have you noticed how unbalanced our entire society has become, leading up to these three nights of talking? How everyone was scared to death that the annihilation of the world economy might delay them? How not only was it on 17 channels live, they re-ran it tonight on about 12 of them? And all of that doesn't even mention the Spin Cycle which went on all day and evening and still goes on as I type. It's a frenzy, bigger than any .. any .. any .. and then it hit me, any reality show. That's exactly what we've descended to, a mortal addiction to American Campaign. Come this January, I understand they're going to release Campaign 2012 which can be mainlined right into your veins. Rick Macherat
11232292.1Much better now, thanks. So anyway, about the terminal cancer patient who was abandoned by his paid caregivers and was partially consumed by feral puppies as he lay on the floor ... he died. Authorities were moving to investigate whether the poor soul died of cancer or as a result of the dog attacks. In the meantime, the caregivers have been arrested on suspicion of "criminal mistreatment and obstruction of justice." Possible sentence there: 3-6 months. There was also a large amount of missing medication. So much for any relief from the cancer pain or being eaten alive.
I don't believe in Hell, unfortunately. But I would be in favor of our looking into building one, you know, should anticipated revenues, permits and all of that make it possible.Rick Macherat
11232291.1It's safe now. The title was going to be Depressives, don't read this blog today, then I was going to continue and type about some of the more gruesome recent local crimes. Fortunately or unfortunately, I took my meds and am no longer able to do that. Instead, all I feel like doing is telling you how wonderful everything is. Don't worry, I won't. And I'll be back to normal by tonight.
Seattle is very Liberal, as you know. I'm not, as you probably also know. (Maybe a little bit, about trees, small critters and a few other notions, but I keep it low-key.) Seattleites have a cute little telephone or meeting signature that is injected up front like, "Not like Bush, thankfully," or "Things will be very different come January, won't they, once Bush is out of there." I've been surprised to hear it literally within ten seconds of first contact and in no context at all, like right after, "My those apples look good, don't they?" in the grocery store. After they do their Bush, I try and come back appropriately, "Indeed. And Jesus will sure be glad when a new administration takes office."
I actually quit caring about three years ago when I realized that this will never end, certainly not on January 20, 2009. It will just switch sides.Rick Macherat
11232290.1Are we there yet? I'd gotten a little behind on my newspaper reading, what with all the excitement, so I just got to Monday's morning edition last night. Not a mention of the crisis in the Business section, not one word. So, it must have exploded on Tuesday and was all done by Friday. Not bad. This must mean that tomorrow can be devoted entirely to hours and hours of pointing fingers and directing blame, most on George Bush of course, then by Monday morning we can go back to missing blondes. Right? Don't forget about the election. Dang. The election. You know, regardless of who wins, the other half of the country is going to be pissed and stay pissed for eight years. Before I decide I need to figure out which side will be less obnoxious to live with in my declining years, then vote for the other guy.
Politics and the Economy are both ultimately boring and soul-destroying, so it will be good to be typing about something else soon. Rick Macherat
11232289.1Numb. I've been sitting here for awhile this morning, numb, listening to a couple of blondes on one of the cable channels explain derivatives to me. They've finished that and are moving to bailouts. Talk about uncharted territory. At least we common folk were spared the insider look back in '29, and many of the perpetrators had the good manners to jump from upper floors. No such luck today.
In case you're concerned about the $8,621 per taxpayer that this is going to cost .. don't worry. We usually end up making money in the long run on these mishaps, then the government takes the cash and throws it on the conflagration of deficit in an attempt to put it out.
Oh, in case you're concerned about the National Debt, don't worry. A little patch of sturdy inflation and we'll be able to pay it off in a fiscal year.
So, you're saying we don't really have to worry about anything? Not if you don't want to. Rick Macherat
11232288.1Is it the worst of times?. Heck no. Those are coming. There is a picture on the front page of our business section showing a couple of Lehman Bros employees in London. He is consoling her with a kiss on the head. What is it with those Euroes and the head-kissing? The same type of photo circulated around here for weeks after that girl-next-door local college coed got involved in a murder in Italy - boyfriend kissing her on the head while he rubbed her shoulder. Then they went to jail. Still in there, by the way; I guess in Italy they don't have cowboy bail bondsmen who need publicity.
I couldn't help notice that the blonde in the London photo is wearing about a six-carat diamond ring and her consoler has on what appears to be a ~$4,000 fine English suit. So, it's a relief knowing that they will be able to get by for awhile.
In case it doesn't show, I am totally Mme. DuFarge on all of this. They can keep their heads, but they had better figuring on hocking everything else. Think of our latest financial outrage as a game of musical chairs. Everybody knew what was going on and that eventually the music would stop.
Incidentally, if you're wondering what happened to all of the money .. the people in the chairs get to keep it. Rick Macherat posted by Rick at 9:23 PM
11232287.1Paranoid view of the economy meltdown. "Paranoid" always sounds like such a crazy word, doesn't it? Trouble is, there ain't no other way to describe this mess. If you are listening to The Gang all talk at the same time on the business channels, you might be picking out a lot of words like assets, liquidity, bond ratings... Don't worry about that stuff. It's all just electrons, and they really have no idea what they're talking about.
Could this fall apart, just like 1929? You bet it could, and a lot faster this time. Back then, they at least had an idea what was in all their filing cabinets, but now we trust the humming gray boxes. Keep in mind that the people in those tall buildings do not care about you, and the gray boxes don't care about anything.
You're scaring us Unca Rick. Good.
[Note to new visitor. Yes, I had a visitor! Chris, I don't know how to get old posts to come up aside from doing a search for something. Try typing "indians" in search and you'll see some ancient posts where I actually had comments.]Rick Macherat posted by Rick at 11:08 AM
Monday, September 15, 2008
11232286.1And in politics today. The College Humor site caught Lindsay Lohan out shopping:
I just mention this because it can only help amplify her endorsement of Barack Obama which was announced today. Miz Lohan had particular criticism for Republican VP nominee, narrow minded-media obsessed-homophobe Sarah Palin, with a special piece of advice, "Don't pose for anymore tabloid covers, you're not a celebrity." Wow, that's telling her. She then tripped over a trash can and punched a photographer whom she believed was at fault. Rick Macherat
11232285.1wankstaz. Just a brief announcement that I now know what it is. This was accomplished indirectly, since I was actually researching high-end condominium projects. Long story. Ordinarily, I might be concerned with copyright issues when control-C control-V'ing something off a webpage, but in this case I feel pretty safe. From "Prophet of 50 Cent" ..
Angst kills mo' people every day Probably cuz dem wankstaz neva had a lay Embracin' da darkness and blight Dat shit ain't right Da girls get skinny and da boys get whiny At dis point dey so emo dey think da sun be too shiny Livin' in dey rooms wit' da windows blocked out by da drapes Dem emos be makin' da human race regress to nuthin' but apes
Even someone as far out of it as I am can tell that the writer of this jewel is white. Not only white, but suburban white, up north white, having both original parents still white, huge allowance and late model car white. But that's okay. Idealizing the black gangster culture is a notion I don't quite get, but it's most likely a natural counter-rebellion to the rebellion of the 80's generation rebelling against their 60's rebellious parents. I mean, if you're a kid these days, where the heck are you supposed to go anyway? The future looks crap, daily life is pure hypocrisy and it is still almost impossible to get a good lay. Oh, bad lays are ubiquitous, so there's that, but they're no better off in the good lay department than their great-grandfathers. So, poetry .. way non-emo.Rick Macherat
11232284.1"Sarah Connor" "Sarah Palin" Just curious as to just how many people have been thinking about these two names together, or at least thinking about them enough to take the time for typing on the Internet. 24,100 so far. Make that 24,101.
We had another rampage mass murder. You wouldn't have heard about it because of the hurricane that flopped and the convention. Bad one, real bad. It just made me think how many we have in this state (Washington.) Has to be the weather. Currently, we have one case post-sentence in the usual endless final appeals. He killed 15 women, and he's scheduled to go this month. Won't happen. Another one just finished sentencing, but he will be paraded around the west for years being tried for additional murders. I think most of the players hope he will be killed by other inmates in one of the jails since his rampage was so terrible. Children. We can always hope. Still another, the "Cousin It" killer hasn't gone anywhere yet. She is still hiding behind her hair and playing psycho. Fat girl, unhappy, killed her whole family. Christmas. There are more. It's Lawyer Heaven here.Rick Macherat
11232283.1Notes. John Edwards used the word falsities when he was making one of his final brief television appearances on this earth. I thought at the time, "How stupid is that, anyway? Falsities isn't a word." It is. Middle English c. 1225-75 AD. Means just what you think it does.
The City of Olympia, Washington, our state capital, has voted to emancipate itself from being a nuclear-free zone. No one had noticed either way, and I'm sure the U.S. Navy had gone right ahead hauling whatever nukes it wanted right through town.
The Biography Channel ran a retrospective of the 30th anniversary of Animal House. I didn't watch it.
In a related thought, the channels all around MTV seem to do a lot of programming using human debasement for entertainment and humor. Do you suppose there is anything that people won't do either for money or to get on tee-vee?
During our recent one-day heat wave, a massive fire was started out in the boonies somewhere incinerating what looked like several years' worth of collected urban yard waste. All that work .. collecting, squashing, bagging, hauling. For the environment, you know, instead of just plowing it back into the yard like I do. All that, just burned up. On the positive side, since the fire occurred during a heat inversion layer, that colossal cloud of pollution was recycled through the lungs of greater Seattle's human population. So there's that.
Business headline c. 2036: Ringtones, Inc to join Dow 30 industrials.
Names - have you noticed that a lot of peculiar names are cropping up? I remember most of the names of people I knew during my growing-up years, and these were not among them: the Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers is named Fuld. There is a professional golfer named Furyk. One of the players on our Olympic volleyball team is Reid Priddy; great serve, btw. I saw a guy named Dan Quandt with the sound down. MSNBC had a Tuna Amobi on, reporting on something. That's one reason why I will never appear on TV - I have one of those names and, no, I'll probably never tell where it came from. You wouldn't believe it anyway. Besides, I wouldn't want some dingbat television intern typing my thing on the screen: Disagreeable old man complains about .. whatever.Rick Macherat
11232282.1Hiltons. Senator Obama gives every impression of being a decent man, and I'm sure that he is. However, it certainly does not help the cause to have the great "out there" supporting him. That would include Hollywood, partygoers, fabulously rich and other assorted dregs. An example, Perez Hilton spews,
She may be a homophobe and an anti-feminist, but…. John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was a hottie back in the day. She was probably a slut too! Can't wait ’till all the skeletons start tumbling out of her closet! How many dudes have done her up the butt and taped it???
That's pretty hardcore, literally, but there are millions of votes there - if they vote.Rick Macherat
