Post  #2340.   Energy.    This has happened before. I'm wide awake and tearing around at one in the morning. Is that the other "pole?" Don't know, don't really care. Point is, I'm getting a LOT done. Brother is asleep. Everyone I know or am related to in this time zone is either asleep or passed out. Same for the other 22 time zones with people in them that I may still know or are still alive. All asleep. Great time to get things done. No one will bother me. As if.

I put on the oldies station, loud. Yeah, this is polar alright. At least I don't dance to them. Clearing out a drawer in my room so I can put away shirts that have been hanging to dry in the clothes-hanging bathroom for ... months? Washing some more. Dusting. There's that Troy Shondell song, This Time. That was Linda Shipley's song. She loved it. We danced to it then. That was a century ago; how did I remember it when I don't remember whether I? Linda, if you surf, I still think of you often. Busting up boxes for recycling. I truly enjoy that for some reason, taking rubbish which occupies a great deal of space and reducing it nearly to zero.

Just in case there ever is a question,


there was indeed a White Christmas in Seattle in 2008. Interestingly enough, when Brother and I compared notes, even considering the awesome snow places we have lived, this was the first White Christmas either of us has ever had. Okay snow, you can stop anytime now.Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 11:44 PM

Post  #2339.   Digging out.    We're going to resume normal living tomorrow, try to anyway for the three days of this week. Then we lose four more, and after that come taxes and rain. Proper gloom and misery will finally return to our town. Of the many pictures taken over this several weeks of white, this is one I liked a lot. Seasun made the photograph, but I call it We don't waste any space around here.


One nice thing about getting old, I recently discovered, is that while I worry about a lot of things I used not to, other issues no longer concern me at all. Like the mail. Eleven days, newspapers too. Didn't miss any of it. And while I'm not what you would call "green," it was disturbing to see that huge pile of former trees sacrificed in a failed attempt to interest me.

Maybe I shouldn't see it as a matter of age, as this story about my dear neighbor might show. She is from Snow Country originally, Minnesota, and while she is very energetic generally for her age, 81, SNOW propels her to a whole new level. First, the fact that we got our mail and papers at all after only 11 days was because she brought them to us at the end of her snow hike. Technically, her driveway is considerably less steep than ours, but still .. it seemed a little weird when she called and told us she had left a little surprise on the porch. Her husband, 83, seems similarly afflicted. He shovels the walk and driveway fergodssakes. Nobody in Seattle shovels. In fact, they are the only people I've ever known here who even own a snow shovel. So, the other morning I saw him out shoveling, and a bit letter I heard this clumping sound at the north end of our house. Ah, now he's loading up logs for the fireplace, I thought, remembering that is where they're stored. Later on, I gave her a call and remarked, "There's just no stopping the old boy, is there." "Nope," says she, "I let him do whatever he wants." Unsaid: We've had 63 years. I added, "I heard him busting up wood after he finished the driveway." Pause. "He didn't bring in any wood today." So, I asked her what that thumping noise was at the end of our house. "Oh, that was me. I was clearing snow off the roof."

Clearing snow off the roof at age 81. Imagine. I was really impressed by that as I headed down the hall for my nap.

Okay, one more from Seasun. The pickup driver managed to clobber the only two cars


in sight as she challenged this hill. Note the glare of ice and the angle of the apartments to the left. Possibly not passable, but she went for it anyway. Rule #231 from Seattle Driving School: When entering an intersection and all you can see over the hood of your car is blue sky, and it has snowed, best not to proceed.
Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 9:51 PM

Post  #2338.   Poll.    I was called for a major poll. This was the second time for me, the last being about twenty years ago. I won't tell you which one it was, just that it was major and I was a good boy. Looking at the sample size on the released version and the population of the U.S., I figure I represented about 205,172 of you. If you noticed a bit of a sproing from the usual trend of our cultural spiral, that was probably me. Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 11:17 PM

Post  #2337.   Trying to contact Ivory.    I haven't given up on my quest to find pure, original Ivory soap. The scent of that new stuff is so awful that I feel like lathering my hands in dirt instead, then rinsing them off. Also, it feels really stupid using dishwashing liquid in the shower.

I decided to write them. Oh sure, they offshore all their customer communications just like Albertsons, well, former Albertsons, with whom I had a lot of contact before they forgot how to do groceries and sold the company ... anyway, they send all the writing to places like India where people with zero authority to do anything type up an answer for you. They are awfully nice and write far better in English than we do. Don't bother getting a back-and-forth going, for you will never get a reply from the original fake name again.

So, I went to Proctor & Gamble. Yes, it still exists, but who knows where, Belgium most likely. They give you a form, but FIRST you must navigate a field of 90-some FAQ's so they can limit your question to the least bothersome topic possible. Then, you fill out an FBI interrogation with your life history and information. Once you've passed all these checkpoints, you get this - may have to enlarge to read it:


and the punchline: it never takes. That screen has been on my computer in its own window for three days now, in "pressed down," waiting mode. I know it will never go; I'm just waiting to see if it has a timeout somewhere beyond 72 hours.

I wish there was a way to contact P&G's research department, assuming they still even have one. Somebody seriously needs to get, buy, steal or duplicate that unearthly scent stuff the Chinese put in the Ivory Soap to make it not stink quite so bad. Especially at times like Christmas Day when your whole house could use a good dose of it. It's a tossup: a roses tossed in cesspool smell of Ivory, or the original and ubiquitous Scent of China on everything else. Rick Macherat
posted by Rick at 11:33 PM

Post  #2336.   Real.    One of our best local photographers made this one today:


and it truly captures My Seattle. Soon as I'm finished typing here, I'm going over to check out the rest of his photobucket. Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:10 PM

Post  #2335.   Happiness. (Nevermind about that disaster thing)    I used to live in Hawaii, and the weather there makes people happy. So does the first week of snow in Seattle. Last night, everyone was happy - you could feel it everywhere, people just loved everything and everybody.

No worry about jaywalking tickets tonight. Seattle police are usually very fussy about jaywalking. But they stay indoors when it snows, allowing everyone to be 12 years old again. I actually saw this today: a white-haired lady driver looking completely placid as her little car did several slow 360's coming down a very steep hill. The car came to rest facing forward at the bottom of the hill, whereupon she put on her turn signal, waited for the light and proceeded to make the left turn and drive away. My feeling was that she had done this before.

Tomorrow is Monday. Whole Nuther Thing. Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:18 PM

Post  #2334.   Disaster Update.    Snowing now. Wind has picked up as well. The End cannot be far off now. I've spoken on the phone to all my local significant others. No one at long distance, however, no point in worrying them needlessly if .. somehow it isn't as epic as we're being warned. Well, we were warned in nonstop, continuous coverage on all local channels since sometime yesterday until 7pm when all of local tv seems to have realized it was Saturday night. Time for everybody to go out so we can complain tomorrow about all the insane people who were out in this stuff. If we didn't go out then we wouldn't know just how many nutcases there were out there tonight. Driving, can you believe it? People doing 45 like there wasn't a sheet of ice under that snow. And drinking, can you believe it, people drinking like it wasn't 18 degrees out? Unreal. Can you even believe it? No way. Of course, I got 4WD and only have two beers usually. This was one of the better events of the day,


though there were a lot of them. As I've mentioned before, Seattle does snow like nobody else. Also traffic. I wonder if they've figured out yet just why those two buses (would have been three, but locals stopped the last one,) thought that Thomas Street went through to the bus station instead of ending abruptly at the freeway. There are no through streets in Seattle, just 45 degree concrete slopes that end urgently. Must have been out-of-towners, a ski-jumping bus circus or something like that.

Just so we don't lose power, that's what everyone is hopRick Macherat


posted by Rick at 9:00 PM

Post  #2333.   Snow XXVII.    Yeah, I've written a few about snow. Type "snow" in the search box (above) and they'll all appear, even entries from the archives which are otherwise unrecoverable. I love it, even more now that I don't have to go anywhere unless I have a stroke or worse. Just sit back and watch the human hilarity of Seattle Drivers in Snow. People here don't even try with the old, "Well, I drive on snow just fine, it's all those other people who don't know what they're doing." Zero Seattle drivers have any idea what they are doing in snow and are not reluctant to admit it. They even tell the television reporters what they were doing before the car did ... well, just pan over there to see the unbelievable results.

This was the type of day where I had swirly flurries with a bit of sun, alternating with the blackest sky you've ever seen - while the television showed Redmond with gigantic, fat flakes so thick you could scarcely see five feet. I love both of those. In fact I love every one of the 999 types of snow. I went to high school on a remote air base in Japan where we had "lake effect" snow from Kamchatka. Epic. I took driver's ed with chains on, though it wasn't much use for later skills since we drove on the left. I have a 4WD which turns out to have been a waste of money since I haven't even driven to the bottom of our hill to pick up mail for six days now. You suppose the mailman might think I'm dead or something? Naw. That would require inquisitiveness at the very least.

Speaking of Redmond, only one guy made it to work at Microsoft. Can't say what effect that may have had on the electrons of information worldwide. I saw him on television too, riding his bicycle, all the way from Woodinville. That would have been about an eight hour car drive today had anyone completed it.

And mindful of the coming financial catastrophe, note how few people absolutely, no excuse, positively had to make it into work today. Very, very few in our mainly service and electron economy. Something to think about.Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:40 PM

Post  #2332.   IVORY Soap. Why ........?!!.    It's true. I can even visualize the corporate session room where a slick thirtysomething wooed and wowed the suits with the knockout presentation. A full twenty-nine per cent of our product's sales are to nursing homes where the users only experience it on Bath Day and, gentlemen, he roared, You do not want a visualization of bath day! This point was emphasized every bit as greasily as the Shamwow Guy - just try and imagine Vince in a suit and an M.B.A. and maybe being a woman. He continued, And those old folks are going to die soon, and then who will buy our shit? Huh? Who exactly? We hope young people, don't we? Young people who believe shit better smell good, that's who!

I'm down to my last bar, folks. It's from the emergency kit in the car. After that, I don't know. The ivory.com site even shows a partial picture of the old bar, as if they even still made it, but just try and find it anywhere. Even ebay. Yes, I looked. Oh it SAYS traditional Ivory, but the accompanying picture is all



Un parfum subtile. Yeah, "subtile" like my last cab ride in Paris.

So, what gives? If you ever buy a bar of this stuff again, by accident like I did only three twelve packs in my usual buy tons of everything at one time habit, you'll notice two things: (1) it has a very slight rose scent which will gradually nauseate you a bit more each day until you run screaming from your bathroom and (2) it isn't 99 44/100 pure anymore.

So, why all this you might ask. China, of course. All they put on the bar is "Imported." Cute. "Imported" means "MADE IN CHINA" from any ingredient they can root up out of the barnyard or off the factory floor plus a wide assortment of various industrial waste products and Lord Only Knows What Else with the brilliant part being a mild scent added from their most notorious scientific facility which completely masks the deathly odor of the entire concoction. Rick Macherat Proctor Gamble scented unscented grandmother fresh clean it floats


posted by Rick at 11:28 PM

Post  #2331.   A HA!    A little buddy of mine just landed the scoop of the millennium. Okay, scoop of the week at least. If you live up here and have been sick to death of what those filthy French get away with decade after decade well, then, it's nice to see some merde pointed out, that's all. Sorry for getting so agitated, but it's just nice to have been right. (Boeing 787 Lessons Learnt Airbus Head of Engineering Intelligence Burkhard Domke 20 October 2008 BOEING PROPRIETARY design weight engine certification production and schedule issues Dreamliner - just for searchers)

You mean they have people inside? Well, hayell yes they have people inside. Have had forever. Imagine you're French. Got it? Now, would you have someone inside? I rest my case. Rick Macherat Jon Ostrower "Jon Ostrower"


posted by Rick at 10:54 PM

Post  #2330.   Try this one.    For Sandy, Utah schoolperson. Check out this picture:


In the process of researching this one, I discovered that Amazon's book previews are text-searchable. Is that new? In any event, it sure opens up a lot of additional stuff to look for. And to spend time on the computer with. Which is just what I need, another site to look into historical meanings of things they're for no other reason other than there their. Like "Station in the sun." Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 9:34 PM

Post  #2329.   Searching.    Someone who may have been a youngster came to my page today. He used this search phrase:

Reading-Comprehension Test 10th Form. Unit 2 Martti Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize

It would have been okay, except my site was the only return he received. Uh-oh. It disturbs me to think that someone went forth with the notion that my place is the focus of any sort of logic or fact. In fact, I've often gone out of my way to make it unintelligible. So kid, if you come back, and he was from Russia to make it even worse, kid .. I was only kidding about Martti Ahtisaari. Really, he is very high up on the peace charts, the Not-Bush Prize Notwithstanding.

I've been getting more cynical every day (new subject) about our tawdry infatuation with celebrity. Every day brings something new - take Anderson Cooper. Please. I didn't watch that Celebraganza thing on Heroes he did on CNN, but I did catch the peculiar bit on 60 Minutes with Michael Phelps where he accomplished several of his current whimsicalities at once: insinuating himself yet again on a program previously associated with journalistic integrity, performing a mini-outing of Phelps while raising his own titillation level and exposing another tease of his own shirtlessness. Then there's Noah Wylie and the sad polar bears. Did you know a tragedy is unfolding in the world today?

CNN had a story (another subject) following up on the Mumbai attacks. "The leader of the state which includes Mumbai resigned today." Sorry. That just irritated me on a cross morning. It's okay to say Maharashtra; if the viewer doesn't know where that is, well too bad. He can change the channel to MTV or something. Ditto with "West African nation of Gabon." Even The Newshour adds the modifier. Sorry again, like I said, it was a cross morning. Speaking of Mumbai, Jon Stewart seriously stepped across a line last night by making the attack/massacre the subject of a riotously hilarious comedy bit. I really wasn't all that surprised, since there were mercifully few English and American casualties, the majority being .. just Indians. How long before 9-11 gets to be funny and the War on Terror becomes a sitcom? Note: today's 7th graders have no memory of it and will be regular SNL viewers in about three years. Think about that.

Oh well. Tomorrow at least will be worse more than likely. Plaxico Burress may accidentally shoot himself in the leg or something crazy like that. 52 women will name their babies Plaxico.Rick Macherat Kate Beckinsale Parminder Nagra Cyber Monday Jeff Richmond Gina Carano


posted by Rick at 9:50 PM