Post #2447.Just back from Facebook. According to .. something I read somewhere in a business section, Facebook may be well on the way to overtaking Google, which is well on its way to overtaking Microsoft. My initial reaction would be disbelief, but I do have friends over there who are having a blast, a "blast" that I will never get. For military brats like myself and other who have had many, many addresses, the number of friends and friends-of-friends can really add up. One friend twice-removed died, so I had to do a reply (What do you say?) I typed something bland in the Conditional II Progressive.
On a cable channel the other day someone entered in the scroll below a piece on the Conehead Killer, "Exposing Ft. Hood: whether his acts prove extremism." Good God, when are we going to get serious about fighting a war?! Of course I know the answer to that, we're not going to. We're loath to go all-out and get aggressive in the fight, (like you're supposed to) because it might make people sad. And sad people don't buy stuff. Sadly, it's as simple as that.
There was a young black girl on television for something unfortunate. I forget what it was, mother in jail or something. Her name was Kymydyia. So, which awful way are you supposed to fathom that one, huh? Think of the seventy or eighty more years she has to live with it. Right up there with Kymydyia is the girl whose mother possibly wanted to go with "Prunella," but instead Purina Pang got registered. Oooo, bad break there, as Kramer might say. Rick Macherat
Post #2446.Rain. If the search feature still worked, we could look up how many times I've typed about rain. No apologies - this is Seattle, after all, and we think about rain. A lot. A total of 5.13 inches of rain fell today in Hamma Hamma, WA. And yes, that is another location in our state which is a mystery even to the people who live here. I do remember it being a subject of a tawdry joke way back when. Either Hamma Hamma or Walla Walla, WA work for that joke, though I'm told that alternating usage is best. I wouldn't know, of course. Another mystery town, Pe Ell, we've discussed before. I mention Pe Ell tonight because they had a wind gust of 75 mph. No word if if blew anything down. Well, Pe Ell also gets mentioned because they had a serious crime: one resident shot another with a crossbow, then he stabbed him several times in the abdomen, face, hands and chest. After turning himself in, he said, I never meant to hurt him. I just wanted to scare him. The winds hit 125 mph at Crystal Mountain, our main ski resort, but I doubt if anyone was up there - El Nino year, you know, lots of rain, late snow.
The sister-in-law worries about my gutters. According to her, and she is very, very most likely correct, water can get up under there and ruin your roof. All I know is that I'm inadvertently being "green." Instead of going into clean gutters and then to a downspout and the storm drains and eventually the ocean, I reckon, mine just spills out in all directions and is soaked up by the trees, grass and weeds. She worries about my weeds too. I don't worry about any of it too much, much less than I should probably. Somehow, nature always manages to straighten it out.See Joyce Marie Casten - you out there, Joycie? Rick Macherat
Post #2445.Hewlett-Packard. Just a brief reminder that Hewlett-Packard remains the most evil corporate entity on the planet. It is rotten, malevolent and loathsome from top to bottom and should be characterized as an Ongoing Criminal Enterprise instead of a business.
This photo
is just a piece of evidence from my most recent frustrating evening. No need to explain it - we have All Been There.
And yes, good eye! That IS indeed a Formica™ countertop. A 1958 variety, increasingly rare, in Fresh Pink. You will not see that in many houses still standing. Matt Ragland, Reid Umstattd Rick Macherat
Post #2444.From an ancient blog ~1580. When Michel de Montaigne first wrote,
The man who is happy is not he who is believed to be so but he who believes he is so,
in high school, he got his paper back with a big red "AWK!" written next to his attempt at the "Write an Aphorism" assignment. Years later, he dragged it out and got it published during the flowering of a time when worthy thinkers were seeking new truths. You young writers, keep that in mind.Rick Macherat
Post #2443.Nicks. Back in the 90's, Ken Griffey installed nicknames for his Seattle Mariners teammates, and most of them have stuck: Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez, Randy "Big Unit" Johnson, Jay "Bone" Buhner. A theme? We'll never know; what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse. Fast forward to 2009, A-Rod is having "Millennial Moments" in the World Series, and a news report indicates he has not one, but TWO, paintings of himself as a Centaur hanging above his bed.
So, remember youngsters, you can have absolutely everything you prayed for and dreamed about and still end up a prick. Rick Macherat
Post #2442.The auspicious day arrives. I'd better type fast or this machine will make it November 2, and no amount of powers known to me would be able to change it. I'm starting to get real, real nervous about machines, and watching a Discovery Channel program about how very, very hard the mad scientists are working to create nanobots .. well, that only made it worse. Haven't those guys ever heard of Wesley Crusher?
The auspiciousness about today is the fact that two of my three most major moves were made on this day, November 1, 1959 to Japan and November 1, 1978 to Hawaii. Crossed a lot of water on those two dates, and in the process I LOST both of them. The first was because of the International Date Line, and the second was a result of the World's Absolute Worst Hangover. I partied the night before until 3:30am, then went home and packed, slept about 43 minutes and just made the flight. Because of all the auspiciousness, new job and all, I had purchased a First Class ticket. However, I passed out the instant my head hit the seat back and slept all the way to Hawaii, awakening with a not-exactly-first-class drool and completely missing all the first-classness of the experience. I know, I told you all this before, but since "Archives" and "Search" don't work, you can't see any posts before #2241 Danged if he didn't do it again. Rick Macherat
