Post  #2500.   Mary Don't Ask.      The don't ask don't tell thing appears settled. I say "appears." Jay Leno mentioned it tonight, and his crowd cheered. I wondered why. Leno doesn't exactly draw lots of gays, so those people must have been happy because it's right. Okay, I'll agree with that. Many, many gay people have served with distinction over the years, and many others have been thrown out of the service unnecessarily and to the probable detriment of that service. So, that's one part ..

The other is: what happens now? We've talked about the foxhole and the showers. I'm not too worried about that. Somebody will misunderstand, or more problematic, understand, and there will be trouble and blood and bruises and courts martial and all, but the military always straightens itself out eventually. Bullets flying will do that. It's the non-shooting time that will cause the big problems. For instance, at the formal Commander's Dining-In, do you ask the major's date for a dance if he's a hairy biker wearing seatless leathers? For that matter, how about the seatlessness and dress standards to begin with? Senior officer's wives used to handle that. And how did the major ever get promoted past captain? "Unconventional" officers usually retire at 45 or so in that grade. Moving on, which latrine do the trannies use? And what constitutes "fraternization? Ironically, much the homoerotic behavior which goes on presently, and a lot of it is Very Homo, is going to be viewed differently from now on. A shame, really, since it was innocently enjoyed and un-analyzed by just about everyone and was not at all what it might have looked like to an observer. All that ass-grabbing and sweaty clutching is not queer. Whole 'nother phenomenon. Really.

Mark my words, this has just begun. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:16 AM

Post #2499. Mortality.     Another visit by the googlebot reminded me that this place has had very scant output lately. Busy, nothing to say, bummed .. the usual .. however,

Like most people and especially people who deny it, I google my name occasionally and am always surprised how what I have typed over the years manages to leak out and travel. People grab pages of thoughts or comments which include mine, repost and, well, you know what I mean since you do it too. We spread. So, I ran across a peculiar entry which didn't mean anything until I clicked on a few of the URL's. That helped me figure it out. I had placed a question about weblog indexing on a help site back in early 2007 and forgotten about it. Some time later, a guy named Rat addressed my question directly and answered it with a thoughtful explanation. With the Holidays upon us and all, I thought it would be nice to go to his page and thank him. So I did, and this is what I found

Tue 6-20-2010. I've only now gotten the computer back in the house after many weeks. I've been sick a couple of months and it's bad. Pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, both inoperable, untreatable, impenetrable. In hospital a few weeks, out of it now, a few weeks, in hospice now at home and totally weak. Don't know how much time is left, but it could be short. I suppose i'll be a bad writer from now on and a worse speller...

That was his last post. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:06 PM

Post  #2498.   David Vachon Shirtless.      For some reason it just occurred to me that Dave might be just lingering on the cusp of fame and still searching himself from time to time.

Considering all of the ways that wars end - peace conferences, surrender, annihilation, on ships, in palaces - is it possible this one will end with a wave of indignation? Not that unthinkable, just look at how this anti-screening attitude is spreading. Personally, I have no concerns at all about being personalated, what with my girth and flatulence and all.

I had a genuine personal conflict over the weekend, and I think some other people did as well. I am very strongly against animal abuse, can't even watch that commercial without getting all, you know, but on the other hand it was great seeing Michael Vick account himself so well against the Redskins. Of course, I'm strongly pro Native-American too. Except for the fishing part. And the casinos. And when they're blonde-blue, fat and named Schmidt. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:07 AM

Post  #2497.   Escape.      You would think at least the alumni magazine would be safe from the current relentless assault upon incivility. But noooo, they have to devote almost an entire issue to it. I just couldn't take any more of that right now when I sat down to read, so I decided to type instead. It's a good time to put-head-in-sand generally. I have another cartoon going: picture one of those third world out-of-control buses flying down a mountain road, maybe one or two wheels touching, chickens and luggage flying off, and place whomever works for you at the wheel with an insane expression, Pelosi, Boehner, Obama, Palin, Bernanke .. it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I used 3 and 2 examples to tip off my own persuasion.

There was a long article locally about how a bunch of street kids killed one of their own. Quite brutal actually, a lot like Bully or Kids. I was led to the story via a post by a virtual acquaintance, and the tone of his comment was disturbed; it got to him. When I read it, however, I came away with completely the opposite reaction. Three down (the vic, and two perps who have been charged,)and quite a few yet to go. Hardhearted? Yeah. Most of us aren't at the place where, as a society, we just haven't the time or resources to play namby-pamby with the mistakes. Most of the "comments" which accompanied the article made some reference to "getting help" or "mental health resources." Please. Those are just synonyms for make it go away somewhere where I don't have to be upset.

There was a man recently, you probably know who it was, I can't remember, who announced that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme! Really? What sensible person is surprised to learn this? I told you about Maisy Poe, the little lady who my grandmother took down to the Social Security office and got signed up in 1940. Maisy, bless her heart, lived to 102. The people who designed Social Security knew that couples would stop having 10-12 children as the country moved from agriculture to manufacturing and they wouldn't need them for support in their old age. They knew life spans would increase. They also knew they'd be long gone when all this happened.

Gen-X and the Millennials have been hearing about the Boomers since the day they were born, and there is a lot of out in the snow and off the cliff in their wicked and self-absorbed little souls. It'll get solved. Always does. Sometimes it's ugly though.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:22 AM

Post  #2496.   USAF screw-up assignments; other.     

VD Control Officer at Thule AB
FOD Report Compiler at Palooka ANGB (Arkansas) no runway
Golf Pro at Shemya AFB (Renamed Eareckson Air Station in 1993

This post will have to get a new title because I wanted to include a Margaret Cho haiku, spoken but not written down after her visit to Calcutta. It goes, A man in a suit taking a dump in the street. It wasn't on the Internet anywhere and for some reason I thought it should be and yes I know it doesn't qualify as a haiku (does if you translate it.)

I took Econ 201 back in 1965 and one of the things I remember Mr. Smith saying was that the price of salt was probably the best gauge of inflation in the economy. So, I just bought some for Safeway delivery next Tuesday, one of the greatest advances in the history of civilization, by the way, online grocery shopping, and the price was 99 cents. That would indicate there's been very little inflation, according to Mr. Smith. It has taken 45 years, but I think he may have been wrong on that one. Another teacher, Mr. Grover, (Amer Gov class, 1961, high school) was worried to death about the federal budget deficit and where it was going. Especially the interest that would be eating us alive if current trends continued. I looked it up: interest on the National Debt was $9.2 billion in 1960, and the total debt amounted to $1,572 for every person in the United States. Oh my. To have numbers like that again. And Mr. Grover must be apoplectic by now.

And second to last for today, on a timely and stupid subject: Only three days before the election, terror incident grips nation. We're talking about the mail bombs here, the ones placed aboard cargo jets bound from Yemen to Chicago where they were to be delivered to Jewish synagogues. Am I not seeing something, or are the people involved in all of this (both sides) auditioning for a Saturday Night Live Skit? Any one of us could write it, down to where the the Synagogue mail lady rushes into the Rabbi's office with the package, excitedly asking if she can open it, All the way from Yemen! Imagine that. What could it be?

Also perhaps stupid, another ship was seized by pirates off the coast of East Africa. Again, what am I missing? You have the combined fleets of most of the world's mightiest countries out there, satellites, drones, helicopters, Mach 2 fighters and other magic stuff we don't know about, and still they can't stop those stoned teenagers from grabbing gigantic ships with their tiny boats. Amazing. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:36 AM

Post  #2495.   My favorite.      Just today, we were both reminded .. well, here it is anyway. So Seattle. He's a little lumpy, she's lovely and smitten. It's raining, and who cares.


This photograph was taken by Seasun. He takes a lot of them, and they're all here. You'll want to click on this one to enlarge it.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:41 AM

Post  #2494.   Dress Code.     In a really high-end restaurant, be on the safe side and dress as you would for the funeral of a close elderly relative. Also, anytime you attend an event in a location noted for its soaring, world-class, cutting-edge, awe-inspiring, New York Times-impressing architecture, you might want to wear something, say, dignified. Unless it's in Seattle, of course.

Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 1:41 AM

Post  #2493.   A little planning ahead.     We're going into the city. Don't do that much anymore. What used to be trips for partying, cavorting and sometimes even shopping have become lawyering and doctoring. Ugh. So I'm thinking over what we need to take for a busy day of apppointments and traveling around. Oh yes, a thermos of coffee. Don't want to get stuck without cof ... oh good grief, how could I forget? We're going downtown. Downtown Seattle perpetessake. Jeez.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:32 PM

Post  #2492.   I rest my case.     Can you imagine the guffaws from say, back in 1957, if a lovely new car girl raised her arm and stepped aside as the curtain went up and the music swelled and right there slowly rotating in the middle of a shiny stage sat


this thing? Dave observed, "Golly Lar, do you realize we could drive all the way around the world for about $13.00 in gas money?" "More like $131.00," replied Larry, who was better at math, "but it would have to be done entirely at night so no one would see us ferchrissakes!" Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:31 PM

Post  #2491.    The most awful thing I've ever said.   Sardonic? That's maybe what it was. Judge for yourself. My other brother died a little more than two weeks ago. He was married to the Sister-in-law about three wives and four husbands back, or the other way round. Hence our relationship of forty-plus years. Think that's confusing, consider all those poor kids. Good grief! Half of them don't know who the hell they are. At least they're all legitimate. Most of the relatives think Sister-in-law and I should have been married. Maybe so, what with the level of psychological combat over the last half-century and what-not.

I told her. Had to eventually, so I just said it, malignant/stage-four blah-blah, explained the whole medical shitstorm. It was really, really tough on her, I knew it. Especially coming Right After my brother's untimely death. The rest of the afternoon eventually relaxed. We've been through it all, so things got on to practicalities, discussing Brother, Other Brother (the dead one,) as well as My Condition. At one point she asked, "Did you get the death certificate yet?"

How could I resist? Really? I replied, "No. I have to die before they'll issue one."

If there's a place in hell for that sort of thing, well, I probably just bought myself in. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:45 PM

Post  #2490.    Notes from the real Twilight Zone.    My entries may be short for awhile, only because for the first time in decades I am busy. Seems that news of my CANCER has spread to people who thought I'd been dead for years. I have to confess, dealing is tough. The cancer too.

The PET-CT scan is fairly new, and I am to have one. So far, I find people in the PET-CT scan business to be a bit huffy. Since I am sometimes .. direct, this might get ugly. I've promised that I'll really try to tone it down. Those people could put me in that cyclotron of theirs and fry me into a lump of coal, and no one could ever prove foul play. And they'd do it too if you pissed them off enough. Which I could quite innocently do. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:12 AM

Post  #2489.    Some bad news.      It's hard to come up with an appropriate email subject when the content is going to seriously mess up the recipient, but it became necessary to write several this afternoon. Ugh. The news I got today was that I have Stage 4 Malignant Melanoma, and that's not all. The rest of the numbers/letters, measurements and qualifications that go along with the diagnosis are all at the top of their respective ranges as well. Except for survivability of course.

So, there we are. I made a point of stopping by a mirror on the way over to the computer to look at myself and say out loud something to the effect of wow I really am going to die. Soon. And Badly. I almost added a little more, like "Holy Shit!" but decided against it. No sense in overly annoying Anyone Upstairs at this point, y'know? Oh jeez, this isn't going to turn into one of those DEATH BLOGS is it? Actually, I think not. You've probably noticed I'm not that brave melancholy, redemption, nice sunset kind of writer. Besides, it's pretty much been done to death, don't you think?Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 1:02 AM

Post  #2488.   Nine years.      Young people don't ordinarily interest me, but they are on my mind today, nine-eleven. A lot of them are writing about "that day in third grade" or "while we were watching cartoons on television." Sure, the world changed forever that day, but they'll never get the chance to know what it was like Before. And that is very sad. I don't even try to tell them about it anymore because they just look at you like the kindly befuddled old man telling fairy tales.

Did you know that there was never a better time to Invest In Gold? That's what the ad says, pointing out that the price of gold has gone up by almost four times in the past ten years. And people will go for it it, never realizing that the best time to buy gold was maybe ten years ago and the ad is being run by people who figure now is the time to unload it?

Pierce Brosnan is in that movie, Mamma Mia!. I caught a little of it last night, just enough to realize that as an actor you do not want to anger the cinematographer! It's clear the Pierce must have done or said something to the guy, maybe dissed him in some kind of regal Hollywood way, because his facelift scar in all its glory is shown about eleven feet high in a shot looking past his ear. Additional note: those things do not tan, so keep that in mind when you go in for your lift. Scarves, think scarves.

There was a program on the World is Ending Channel the other night. They pointed out how the warm current would be disrupted and Europe would enter a new Ice Age if Greenland's 91 billion cubic feet of ice were to melt. Again with the numbers. Do it for yourself: a cubic mile contains 147,197,952,000 cubic feet, and Greenland covers many thousands of miles (836,109 actually) with very deep ice. This is why so many of us reactionaries get frosty about climate change. Numbers. Always the numbers. The original FACT happens to be true: if Greenland melts, the climate changes. Then, they put in a nonsense number and the argument evaporates.

Oh, we're going to get climate change all right, but so long as there are concerned people with credentials who need paychecks, there will always "be time if we act now!" Truth is, there ain't a danged thing we can do about it anymore, so stop worrying and get on with life. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:05 AM

Post  #2486.   My late night Zenny encounter with a very sickly bug.     First off, I don't really understand what Zen is, just know it when I see it. Second, it was very late at night when you're closer to God. By that I mean even if you've little or no religion, after you have said your prayers and fallen asleep, only God can protect you (and only if He wants to, keep that in mind.) What's gotten into you with all this God stuff?. Nothing out of the ordinary. It's just that at 1:59am in the bathroom and you see a Ladybug in very bad shape, you don't squash her just because she's in your space and because you can. There is no point in going to sleep having just committed a senseless murder. Earlier in the day when things were noisier and your thoughts and emotions were quite a bit more diffuse, you wouldn't have given it a second thought: splat, flush. Anyway, this is the third or fourth Ladybug-looking insect that I've seen in the house recently, and they've been all-black and moving at the tiniest creeping speed. They look like woeful survivors of some awful industrial or nuclear accident. I almost stepped on her, so I used a Kleenex to pick her up and set her on the edge of the bathtub. Well, that probably made the situation, whatever it was, worse. She wandered around aimlessly on what must have seemed like some weird cold porcelain desert, so I tried to put her back where she was to begin with. But I dropped her and was certain that I killed her since the fall had to be 200 feet in human scale. I watched for a few minutes until she finally began to move a bit. Good .. only stunned.

This whole episode had consumed about 10-25 minutes of potential sleep time and having done what I considered my best, I left the bug to work the rest of it out on her own. For readers who may have done something dorky like this themselves, no, I didn't supply a piece of lettuce. Doing so would have meant going all the way upstairs, turning on lights all the way and opening up a bag of prepared salad. I'm sure she'll be fine. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 1:05 AM

Post  #2485.   I know this is blogdeath.      Boring people by relating dreams, that is, but this one was unusual. Yeah, yeah. They all are. No really. See, I was one of the Bug People, and we had landed on earth after learning there was a gathering of the enemy on this planet. Sure enough, our enormous force ran across an even larger army of enemy soldiers in a fortified encampment. Shelling and sporadic engagements ensued. Then, we discovered that the Rocks on this planet were made of materials which enhanced our weapons by orders of magnitude. Almost immediately, our stronger weapons began to cut down the enemy in huge numbers. Before long, the barrage stopped and we looked over a battlefield littered with the innumerable smoking corpses of our enemy.

As we drew closer, I realized what the dream was all about. All those bodies, ripped to pieces, smoking, burning, stinking .. They were Shrimp People! Yummm!!
Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:40 PM

Post  #2484.   True.     In the middle of an epic time-wasting session on the computer, I decided to take a look at the glossiest place on earth on Google Maps. Selecting at random 42nd Street in Manhattan, my cursor landed a block off, on 41st. No problem, I zoomed in with Street View. Here is my very first street view, the glossiest place on earth:


Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:14 PM

Post  #2483.   What should have been a lazy summer afternoon.      I've just been watching Bonfire of the Vanities, the part where Tom Hanks runs the gamut of our justice system. As they close the jail cell door behind him, the scene begins to glow red - is the Hell? I had that same thought today ..

Woke up from a below-average nap, below average because it was hot and my bed is uncomfortable. Also, there's my "growth," a non-metastasizing (I hope) cancerous thing on my back, the almost completely unreachable part. Lately, and this is why I have an appointment in three weeks to have it removed finally, it bleeds. Mainly within five minutes of taking aspirin or when my blood pressure rises upon leaving the bed. Somehow, I've gotten into a routine of managing this ghastly event, thanks to a huge supply of paper towels and some other contrivances. Oh, and by "bleed," I don't mean like your finger or an ordinary cut. I mean a gusher that only stops by applying steady pressure for a few minutes, not an easy feat with the most remote part of the body. Anyway, I had it at least contained enough to try and take a pee which I believe was what woke me up in the first place. That was going well enough, one hand crooked around to my back, applying pressure as much as was awkardly possible, the other hand, well, peeing, when suddenly the smoke detector went off.

No fire, not even smoke. Maybe the thing reacts to blood. The scene became totally Rainman at that point, I'm sorry to have to admit, because as it turned out this was a fucking TEN-YEAR SMOKE DETECTOR which is not designed to have the battery removed, as I discovered but not before completely demolishing my bedroom. It's still in there, beeping like mad under a huge stack of dirty clothes, sheets and blankets. About the time I got it covered up, the phone rang.

If this was a movie, I would have answered it and moved on to Scene Three: a friend, the sister-in-law, a boiler room? Any one of these people could have participated with me in an bizarre and manic telephone conversation which might have been interesting to relate later. But these days I rarely answer the phone at all after finally realizing that when you don't people just figure you're not home and move on to the next person to annoy. Big deal. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:29 PM

Post  #2482.   The Sister-in-law.      It's been awhile, I know. This is how it usually goes when someone abandons blogging, though I'm not really sure if that is what's happening. We'll see. Anyway,

She complained for a few weeks about the boyfriend thinking he needed an HDTV (I supported him, of course) and how that was just too far down the list of priorities for spending money. Uh-huh. Then she came over and saw my new one. Their HDTV arrives tomorrow, an LG: That's Chinese, you know. I know. (She didn't.)

She and I are doing Big Brother this summer. Pretty ridiculous at our age, but it's still fun. I watch some of the Showtime late night and she reads the forums, then we compare notes. Did I ever imagine this, in my sixties? No. What's worse, those people embody just about everything I don't care for in today's world: fitness, sensible diet, instant intimacy .. oh, a lot more.

I guess any one of these typings could be the last, you never know. Most blogs just quit. This one won't do that. Well, unless that is, indeed, that. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:45 PM

Post  #2481.   Dear Googlebot.      I will be typing something new soon. Promise.

I asked her to tell four-year-old Colin not to yell and interrupt when she is on the phone with ex-step-great-great-uncle-in-law-thrice-removed Rick, but she wouldn't do it. Nor would she give the phone to him so I could. Of course, once word got around that I said that kid will be stealing cars before you know it, well, now they're all upset.

My niece, or more accurately my ex-step-great-niece-in-law-thrice-removed, Colin's mother, had a friend die this week. Suicide. The family is evidently not hushing it up as is usually done; the obituary suggests donations to the Teen Suicide Prevention Thing. Facebook and some other online places that I'm distantly familiar with are handling the memories and expressions. There will be a memorial which no one will dress for. Being summer, that means flip-flops, halter tops, jeans and shorts. Except for the minister, if there is one. Maybe he's online too. One thing there will be a lot of is hugs.

Hugs and high-fives. You know how hard it is to move about in this world and avoid them? It's hard.

I did learn something new and interesting. For some time I've wondered how the Universe expanded out to ... wherever, 14 billion light years or so, in 14 billion years, and then the light from the farthest reaches has taken another 14 billion years to reach us. Wouldn't that make the age of the Universe 28 billion years, not 14? No, it seems not, and Planck time explains it. If you want to calculate some Planck time, use this:



Note the c to the fifth part. Planck time is boggling indeed. Kind of like a Googleplex only less. I feel a lot better now. Of course, I'll be typing it PLANK TIME just to drive the smart kids bonkers. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:15 PM

Post  #2480.   The System.      A man in our town was arrested on four counts of assault and mischief but was released on May 10 by posting a small portion of his bail. After that, he failed to check in, return calls or appear in court at all. A month later he was arrested again and charged with assault and child rape. He made bail by posting $9,000 and agreeing to make payments. He made no payments. In November, he was charged with assault and child rape again and made another bail arrangement, this time with Jail Sucks Bail Bonds.

Shortly after getting out of jail this time, he shot and killed four police officers in cold blood as they sat in a coffee shop. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:06 AM

Post  #2479.   Phthalate.      More on this soon.

What is a Singularity?
I don't know.
That is correct.

Rick Macherat
posted by Rick at 11:08 PM

Post  #2478.   Rerun: What noise?     While rinsing a few dishes, I opened up the window above the kitchen sink to take in some wonderful late spring 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 thunderous reverberation 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 shriek 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. Oh, and as of last Easter, they have a rooster. A very loud, horny, maladjusted rooster.

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 Jell-O-brain.

The "family" on the other side of them makes no noise at all. Dead still, 24/7. That is because they are immigrant smugglers. I can't prove that, of course, except for the fact that blacked-out vans arrive frequently, (not long after after the Manila, Taipei and Seoul flights) and drive around to the back yard. In the middle of the night, the vans return, go to the back yard again, then leave. Probably nothing.

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 those houses 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 their new neghborhood. Unless they moved in on a Friday when they wouldn't have slept a wink in the first place.

You sound like all this awful noise doesn't really bother you. What? Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:11 PM

Post  #2477.   RE: God.     

God didn't create the universe and everything in it for us.
There was no us.
He created it for Himself.
He didn't create it perfect either,
Because perfect can be pretty boring.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:55 AM

Post  #2476.   Do I feel old or whut?      So, I'm working, fixing something or trying to and the great-grandson is here and we're talking,

Me: I was watching this special on rock-and-roll, and they're giving the history of Louie Louie.
Great-grandson: Uh-huh.
Me: There was so much controversy over the song that the F.B.I. was even brought in to investigate whether the lyrics were too crude for the public. It turned out that the words were, indeed, unintelligible and harmless, and that made it "official."
Great-grandson: Unintelligible?
Me: That means no one could understand them.
Great-grandson: Oh.
Me: Turns out, according to his brother, Louie Louie was the first song that Jimi Hendrix learned to play. Imagine that!
Great-grandson: Who's Jimi Hendrix?

Sigh .. well, as Linda Ellerbee used to say, and so it goes.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:28 PM

Post  #2475.   Astronomical News.      My e-mail program directed me to a piece of breaking news about the discovery of a new star by scientists using the Herschel space telescope. I love this kind of stuff, so I clicked on the link which led me to the article which reported, in part,

Get out of the way, Hollywood. This star will be brighter than every celeb on the planet combined. Scientists’ European-built Herschel space telescope is their version of Tinseltown’s paparazzi, which caught on tape the beginning of a big star. And we mean really, really big. So enormous, it would block out the sun. Not to mention Angelina Jolie.

Is this what we've come to? Hip Valleygirlese reporting on space and technology news? Lord help us.

Oh, and when you have a moment, scroll down to the lowest posts on this page. Some of them are pretty short but kind of funny, I thought anyway. They will soon fall out of time and go to the ARCHIVES, a place I have been unable to find or access in any way. If anyone knows what code to put in this thing to make ARCHIVES work, let me know, please. There are 2,417 posts of mine in there somewhere.
Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:31 PM

Post  #2474.   座って私の顔に.      Sure, playing around with the Google Translator is fun, but not nearly as fun as it would have been back in junior high. It can get pretty humorous translating something, say, from English to Urdu to Japanese then back. No wonder there have been so many wars. However, some things are important enough that they retain their meaning precisely through numerous translations. 座って私の顔に。Try it sometime. Really, it will seem like being back there in study hall, grade 8. Almost anyway.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:43 PM

Post  #2473.   I'm having a **** moment.      Waiting for Saturday Night Live to start. Betty White evidently survived since we watch Saturday Night Pre-recorded out west, and we would have heard if she didn't make it. While waiting, I studied a half-finished and surely stale bag of Reasonable-Salt Lay's Potato Chips. Gosh but I'd love to eat one. But you can't, of course, and what's more there is no need whatsoever to try at this hour of the night. A brief moment of pleasure for some unnecessary fat? Arguments raged over the few moments this urge lasted. I resisted in the end.

Whatever satisfaction I may have had with that win over weakness is offset by the **** above, the word I can't think of which would have made this a decent post. Okay, here we go: THREE HOURS AGO FROM NEW YAWK, IT'S ...

Oh, and have a wonderful Mother's Day or 8th of May, whichever is appropriate or if you still can.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:24 PM

Post  #2472.   Just musing while watching the bomb thing on CNN.      This quote is pretty famous, a good one to drop into a graduation speech; Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism:

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.

I used it myself many, many years ago - back when mom's who had been to rigorous schools did for you what Google search does now. Incidentally, Pieria was a region of ancient Macedonia, the location of Mount Olympus, believed to be the home and the seat of worship of Orpheus and the Muses, the deities of the arts and sciences. The spring is believed to be a fountain of knowledge that inspires whoever drinks from it. Seriously, before television and "search", people actually knew this stuff.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:03 PM

Post #2471. Working.      GEORGE MAHARIS SHIRTLESS JOHN OSTROWER SHIRTLESS ROBERT WAGNER SHIRTLESS PERRY KING SHIRTLESS JIM HUTTON SHIRTLESS DIRK BENEDICT SHIRTLESS RICHARD ANDERSON SHIRTLESS DENNIS DAY SHIRTLESS LEE MAJORS SHIRTLESS LIBERACE SHIRTLESS FABIAN SHIRTLESS JOHNNY WEISMULLER SHIRTLESS CARLTON CARPENTER SHIRTLESS RAPHAEL CAMPOS SHIRTLESS GEORGE NADER SHIRTLESS MARLON BRANDO SHIRTLESS WALLY COX SHIRTLESS JOHN PHILLIP LAW SHIRTLESS GUY MADISON SHIRTLESS RICHARD GERE SHIRTLESS JOE DALLESANDRO SHIRTLESS JOHNNY CRAWFORD SHIRTLESS NORMAN FELL SHIRTLESS TONY BILL SHIRTLESS PETER FONDA SHIRTLESS FARLEY GRANGER SHIRTLESS PERNELL ROBERTS SHIRTLESS ANDREW STEVENS SHIRTLESS MICHAEL BLODGETT SHIRTLESS JAMES DEAN SHIRTLESS HORST BUCHOLTZ SHIRTLESS JOHN TRAVOLTA SHIRTLESS CHRISTOPHER ATKINS SHIRTLESS TONY CURTIS SHIRTLESS DON "RED" BARRY SHIRTLESS TYRONE POWER SHIRTLESS ERROL FLYNN SHIRTLESS KEITH CARRADINE SHIRTLESS BOBBY CARRADINE SHIRTLESS ROCK HUDSON SHIRTLESS YUL BRYNNER SHIRTLESS JIM NABORS SHIRTLESS PATRICK WAYNE SHIRTLESS DAVID CASSIDY SHIRTLESS BURT REYNOLDS SHIRTLESS PAUL LYNDE SHIRTLESS CHARLES NELSON REILLY SHIRTLESS MICHAEL MULLINS SHIRTLESS SHAUN CASSIDY SHIRTLESS RICHARD THOMAS SHIRTLESS ROBERT CONRAD SHIRTLESS STUART WHITMAN SHIRTLESS MARTIN SHEEN SHIRTLESS GILBERT ROLAND SHIRTLESS LEIGH McCLOSKY SHIRTLESS RICHARD HATCH SHIRTLESS RAY STRICKLYN SHIRTLESS ROBERT "LOCKE" LORRAINE SHIRTLESS RAYMOND STSHIRTLESS JACQUES SHIRTLESS STUART ROBINSON SHIRTLESS ROBBIE BENSON SHIRTLESS BRAD DAVIS SHIRTLESS MATT DILLON SHIRTLESS GARY GRIMES SHIRTLESS WESLEY EURE SHIRTLESS JEFF CONAWAY SHIRTLESS HIRAM KELLER SHIRTLESS BURGESS MEREDITH SHIRTLESS ALAIN DELON SHIRTLESS ROBERT EVANS SHIRTLESS TOM JONES SHIRTLESS ROBERT MORLEY SHIRTLESS PAUL PETERSON SHIRTLESS MERV GRIFFIN SHIRTLESS RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN SHIRTLESS CHAD EVERETT SHIRTLESS BEN COOPER SHIRTLESS ROBERT WALKER SHIRTLESS HARDY KRUGER SHIRTLESS RICHARD JAECKEL SHIRTLESS JACQUES D'AMBOISE SHIRTLESS PAUL NEWMAN SHIRTLESS VALENTINO SHIRTLESS JACK SERNAS SHIRTLESS RORY CALHOUN SHIRTLESS TOM RETTIG SHIRTLESS MICHAEL PARKS SHIRTLESS BEN MURPHY SHIRTLESS GARY LOCKWOOD SHIRTLESS ROBERT LOGAN SHIRTLESS JOHN SMITH SHIRTLESS MICHAEL LANDON SHIRTLESS DAVID BOWIE SHIRTLESS MICK JAGGER SHIRTLESS CHUCK CONNORS SHIRTLESS TERRY THOMAS SHIRTLESS KEITH RICHARDS SHIRTLESS BART MATTSON SHIRTLESS TONY PERKINS SHIRTLESS GEORGE HAMILTON SHIRTLESS EARL HOLLIMAN SHIRTLESS TAB HUNTER SHIRTLESS RAMON NOVARRO SHIRTLESS TOMMY KIRK SHIRTLESS RODDY McDOWALL SHIRTLESS TOM BERRINGER SHIRTLESS DENNIS HOPPER SHIRTLESS CHRISTOPHER JONES SHIRTLESS HARRY BELAFONTE SHIRTLESS CHARLES BRONSON SHIRTLESS MONTGOMERY CLIFT SHIRTLESS FRANKIE AVALON SHIRTLESS RICHARD DAVALOS SHIRTLESS JACK BENNY SHIRTLESS BURT LANCASTER SHIRTLESS BRODERICK CRAWFORD SHIRTLESS VAN JOHNSON SHIRTLESS MICHAEL GRAY SHIRTLESS DAN DAILY SHIRTLESS WILLIAM KATT SHIRTLESS DEWEY MARTIN SHIRTLESS CLIFTON WEBB SHIRTLESS DACK RAMBO SHIRTLESS JAN-MICHAEL VINCENT SHIRTLESS AUDIE MURPHY SHIRTLESS VINCENT PRICE SHIRTLESS MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV SHIRTLESS BOBBY DRISCOLL SHIRTLESS BRANDON de WILDE SHIRTLESS PETER USTINOV SHIRTLESS ELTON JOHN SHIRTLESS DENNIS CHRISTOPHER SHIRTLESS BURT BACHARACH SHIRTLESS JOHN SCHNEIDER SHIRTLESS GLENN CAMPBELL SHIRTLESS RICK NELSON SHIRTLESS SAL MINEO SHIRTLESS CHARLES LAUGHTON SHIRTLESS MALCOLM McDOWALL SHIRTLESS SYLVESTER STALLONE SHIRTLESS ROD McKUEN SHIRTLESS TOMMY SANDS SHIRTLESS FRED STUTHMAN SHIRTLESS LARRY PARKS SHIRTLESS DAVID ESSEX SHIRTLESS DEAN STOCKWELL SHIRTLESS CESAR ROMERO SHIRTLESS FREDDIE PRINZE SHIRTLESS ELVIS PRESLEY SHIRTLESS JAMES COCO SHIRTLESS WALT DISNEY SHIRTLESS JEFFREY HUNTER SHIRTLESS VIC MORROW SHIRTLESS TONY DOW SHIRTLESS AL PACINO SHIRTLESS JEFF BRIDGES SHIRTLESS SUNSET CARSON SHIRTLESS STEVE MCQUEEN SHIRTLESS TERENCE STAMP SHIRTLESS KEIR DULLEA SHIRTLESS Brad Pitt Shirtless George Clooney Shirtless Colin Farrell Shirtless Johnny Depp Shirtless Clive Owen Shirtless Leonardo DiCaprio Shirtless David Beckham Shirtless Russell Crowe Shirtless Tom Cruise Shirtless Robbie Williams Shirtless Orlando Bloom Shirtless Justin Timberlake Shirtless Duncan James Shirtless Jude Law Shirtless Nigel Harman Shirtless Gavin Henson Shirtless Jonny Wilkinson Shirtless Jamie Foxx Shirtless Rob Lowe Shirtless David Walliams Shirtless Will Smith Shirtless Jamie Oliver Shirtless Mel Gibson Shirtless Vernon Kay Shirtless Andrew Flintoff Shirtless Matt McConaughey Shirtless Antonio Banderas Shirtless Keanu Reeves Shirtless Bruce Willis Shirtless Goran Visnjic Shirtless Christian Bale Shirtless Ashton Kutcher Shirtless Matthew Fox Shirtless Viggo Mortensen Shirtless Pierce Brosnan Shirtless Tom Welling Shirtless Simon Cowell Shirtless Matt Damon Shirtless Jared Leto Shirtless Hugh Grant Shirtless Julian McMahon Shirtless Jim Carrey Shirtless Enrique Iglesias Shirtless Eric Bana Shirtless Chris Martin Shirtless Richard Gere Shirtless Owen Wilson Shirtless Hugh Jackman Shirtless Harrison Ford Shirtless Ewan McGregor Shirtless Daniel Craig Shirtless Colin Firth Shirtless Ben Affleck Shirtless Dermot O'Leary Shirtless Prince William Shirtless Jesse Metcalfe Shirtless Andre Agassi Shirtless Jon Rhys Meyers Shirtless Heath Ledger Shirtless Frank Lampard Shirtless Hayd Christensen Shirtless Prince Harry Shirtless James McAvoy Shirtless Craig Doyle Shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal Shirtless Ant & Dec Shirtless Travis Fimmel Shirtless Steve Jones Shirtless Jenson Button Shirtless Ioan Gruffudd Shirtless Paul Bettany Shirtless Andy Murray Shirtless Ben Shephard Shirtless Ralph Fiennes Shirtless James Blunt Shirtless Olivier Martinez Shirtless Ross Kemp Shirtless Joaquin Phoenix Shirtless Jamie Redknapp Shirtless David Boreanaz Shirtless Matt Dillon Shirtless Gordon Ramsay Shirtless David Duchovny Shirtless Jose Mourinho Shirtless Tobey Maguire Shirtless Joseph Fiennes Shirtless Josh Hartnett Shirtless Robert Carlyle Shirtless Jon Bon Jovi Shirtless Vince Vaughn Shirtless Freddie Ljungberg Shirtless Noah Wyle Shirtless Paul Walker Shirtless Chris Evans Shirtless Ben Fogle Shirtless Al Pacino Shirtless Ryan Phillippe Shirtless Denzel Washington Shirtless Billy Zane Shirtless Matt LeBlanc Shirtless Fortunately, this thing lets you save until you come up with something sensible. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:53 AM

Post  #2470.   Sorry about that.      I'm at the point in the relentless spiral into abject senility where it's still embarrassing to get into a mental confluction. Just today in a series of emails and telephone calls with various people .. well, hopefully they've all have moved on in their busy lives and it straightened itself out. Before too long I won't remember anything about it.

Maybe because of Breaking Bad, I don't know, I sort of picked a fight with the sister-in-law on the telephone the other night. Usually that's good for about a two-week pout, but she called me all cheerful two days later as if I hadn't been a complete asshole and unreasonable too. Maybe her phone list is shrinking. Hope to God not, but people do seem to be dropping like flies. Probably not the best way to put it, with all the sensitivities and whatnot.

Mentally added a few items to the Things I haven't Done List that I surely will never get around to starting. I've never seen a Rocky movie or any of the Freddy or Friday the 13th's either. I mention that because Jackie Earle Haley is the new Freddy Krueger. He played the homely skinny kid in Breaking Away. I clearly remember thinking at the time that there must be a very limited range of roles for somebody that awful-looking. Turns out he delivered pizza for a few years, then got re-discovered and has a terrific career going now, too much work to handle. The other thing I brought from the story is that no matter how ghastly or beautiful were our looks in our teens and twenties, we all end up looking pretty much the same. Unless you're a Matthew Broderick, one of many people who shouldn't go on HDTV, and you've obviously had a lot of work done to be 48 and trying to look 18. Then you just look embalmed.

Seattle folks are uncomplicated. They keep to themselves, are relentlessly polite, and don't fuss unless new people move here or someone tries to build something where they can see it. Now, when they post Craigslist ads for personal items and let prospective buyers come to their homes, they get robbed and murdered.

The most recent Powerball winner.


So much could be typed about this, kind and unkind. I'd go with kind and pretty much not type anything at all. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:56 PM

Post  #2469.   Oldies.      The music channels on cable sound better than any of my old playing devices did, even if they were real and not digital. Don't get me started. Saturday night is a good time to tune in Channel 924 and enjoy oldies. Who would have imagined there really would be nine hundred and twenty-four channels one day? And that's not "oldies" from the 1980's .. how ridiculous .. I'm talking about 50's-60's, true oldies. The visuals on the oldies channels show pictures of the vocalists and groups. I had no idea that many were black. There generally weren't any photo's on 45 record sleeves, and I think the music industry kept it low key. Would it have mattered back then, or would kids have still liked the music? Heck yes, of course we would. Not only that, had the voting age been lowered about 5-6 years earlier than it was, we would quite possibly have elected the first black President way back then. That would be about 50% because we believed we were so progressive and felt it was time, 25% because it would be so cool and 25% to freak out our parents totally. Pretty much like 2008.

In Seattle in those days, the same music was blasting from every window, lawn/beach chair and car radio, all tuned to KJR Seattle, Channel Ninety-five. And who was sending all those tunes out? None other than Pat O'Day, His Powerfulness, the Ultimate Decider of what is Cool, In, Happenin'. And so mellow about it .. amazing.

Oh, how things have changed. Now I see people walking around with wires plugged in their ears, texting. Always texting. I still don't get texting and it's pretty certain I never will. Typing away and listening to their lists, thousands of songs, categorized into the 500 "genres." Those I don't get either.

As for Pat O'Day. He's still around, doing television commercials for a substance recovery place. Looks about ninety-five years old, not that far ahead of the rest of us. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:15 PM

Post  #2468.   Easy for you maybe.      I remember when Daniel Tammet learned enough Icelandic in one week to appear on television in an interview. Reading about Eyjafjallajokull this week reminded me just how incredible that was. Can any regular person, that is, one who is not either Icelandic or an impossibly high high-functioning autistic savant enjoying monumentally vivid and complex synesthesia even pronounce that place/hill/glacier/volcano's name? Nobody I know, that's for sure. I can't recall a situation quite like this one with so many (important) people stuck out of position. How do you get the leader of Norway back to Norway anyway? Guess he'll have to start by flying the other way. Such a tiny country, Iceland, and so much trouble lately.

Had an argument with the sister-in-law today. She will pout for a week or two, so I'll have that much respite from the telephone at least. I kept thinking, "Chris Rock, you are so right!" as I struggled to extract some slight inkling of sense from the experience. It's amazing that women feel no need at all even to recognize the concept of logic when arguing. I've tried to go there myself, but I can't do it. It's like making up a publishable fairy tale on the fly.

The other amazing thing about women is that they feel no guilt or shame about anything they say or do when they're drunk. It's not as if they don't remember, they do, but they're like, "I got me a free pass for all that," only they don't even bother saying it. Unreal. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:05 PM

Post #2467.     The Searches.     Sometimes I'll take a look at my searchers and try to guess what they would have thought if they'd actually made it to my page. Like the young lady from Smith College who searched for Bear Grills Shirtless. I was a little surprised at that one. Why is that? Well, back when I would have supposed about a Smith girl, she would more likely have searched for a Candace Bergen or Henry Kissinger.

Then there was this one: "Humma Humma Walla." Kind of funny. See, this person was probably thinking about, and confusing, the words Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (the Hawaiian fish) and Hamma Hamma and Walla Walla (some places and rivers in Washington state.)

You're just putting in all those highlighted words to attract more searches. Is it that obvious? Duh .. yeah.

Anyway, the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa do not go swimming by in either the Hamma Hamma or Walla Walla rivers. And speaking of ... no, I usually don't use a discussion about rivers to rant about salmon, but I will just this time. The Walla Walla is one of many rivers which has lost its salmon run, however

A comprehensive program is being implemented which includes removal or laddering of diversion structures, screening of irrigation canals, irrigation ditch consolidation and conservation, instream flow enhancement, stream habitat enhancement and hatchery actions. The program will benefit spring chinook salmon, and ESA-listed summer steelhead and bull trout.

Structural fish passage improvements have included the removal of Marie Dorian Dam on the upper mainstem Walla Walla River and Maiden Dam on the lower Touchet River. New fish ladders and screens at Burlingame and Little Walla Walla diversions and a new ladder at Nursery Bridge Dam have recently been completed.

In addition, fish passage improvements at Hofer Dam on the Touchet River are scheduled in the near future. Bonneville Power Administration has provided most funding for passage improvements.

Well, isn't that just super! Coincidentally, I just got a notice that my power rate is going up .. that's power as from the Bonneville Power Administration. I would be fine with all this salmon-loving if ordinary people (like me) could actually afford to consume salmon or maybe even have one for a pet.

Article in the paper Just today pointed out blah ditty blah blah costs 17 kabillion dollars to raise one salmon only to get it probably eaten by a sea lion which it's illegal to even get rid of and oh screw it,
You'll be happy to know that I spent quite a bit of time researching and typing one of my periodic salmon rants, then I deleted it. It's still there; he just colored the font. Highlight it and see a salmon nutcase in action.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:06 PM

Post  #2466.   Where no one has gone before.      It's very late, and there is a blonde on the television right now. She is reporting on the breaking news from Space, the fact that our Discovery shuttle is about to dock with the International Space Station.

I first became aware of "space" and the idea of building a space station and actually going there by about age 10 and was a space/science nerd from then on. That happened to be during the I.G.Y. (If you're old, you know what that was. If not, look it up,) an incredibly exciting time when the whole world changed. Sputnik had a hand in that as well. Fast forward about fifty-five years: We're "there," sort of. It hasn't gone exactly as I imagined. She, the blonde cable news reporter, is half reading, half winging, her explanation of what's happening up there. I suspect her knowledge of the thing amounts to how some really smart men shot something really shiny up in the sky and it stayed up and we can go there to visit it sometimes, like now and here are some pictures. Fortunately, it is still very late and, hopefully, none of our space neighbors are listening to us right now. Otherwise, this would be a little embarrassing.

I had hoped .. well, we did go to the moon. Then we just quit going. Okay, we were broke because of the war and all. For most of the past fifty-five years, I've been keen on the space station. Like the Hubble Space Telescope, you had to plan on living a long time to see these things through.

Yeah, I knew we were going to quit the space station too, as soon as we got it built, but maybe the blonde doesn't kn ... She knows. We're going to fly away from the shiny thing and leave it to the Russians and Chinese. Oh well. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:52 AM

Post  #2465.   I had to share this with you.      You all know that I spent my working career in the hotel business. I've probably cleaned a thousand rooms, inspected many thousands, remodeled who knows how many and, in fact, lived in hotels for about eight years. So, the sister-in-law goes to the warmer realms for a few days and sends me a whole multi-megabyte file of pictures, all of the same thing:


her hotel room. Well, a few of them were pictures out the window - of her hotel room. This is how she thinks, that I would appreciate the fabulousness of the hotel. But I do love her anyway.

Earlier to day I was explaining to Brother how Social Security and Medicare are really just colossal Ponzi schemes and that it took America 40 to 70 years to discover it, and the new Health Care Fix is more of the same and .. I noticed he was staring intently at my shirt pocket. I paused the monologue for a moment and asked him if he was listening and what was he looking at. He replied, "Look how your cell phone is all crooked and makes a pokey-out of your pocket. It's funny. And yes, something about ponzo-things." But I love him too anyway.

There was a movie on the other night, Take Her, She's Mine, starring James Stewart and Sandra Dee. Back in 1963, lightweight, lighthearted romantic comedies like this one actually went into theaters (lots of drive-ins) and people paid to watch them, instead of straight-to-video, then cable. I noticed it was rated TV-PG (S-some sexual situations, D=some suggestive dialogue.) Can you believe it? Compare that with some of the stuff that gets snuck into tv sitcoms these days. My grandmother is gone now, so I don't have to worry watching television with her and having her ask, "Why are they laughing? What was funny about that?" and then trying to make up something real quick to avoid getting into anal adventures, female self-gratification or whatnot.

Want to see something amazing? This lady ..


climbed to the top of our tallest building to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's an annual event. She is EIGHTY YEARS OLD. I'm speechless. Here is a picture of the building:



and, yes, it looks every bit that tall in person, though the race to the top "only" used 69 of the 76 floors. By the way, in today's paper, the people who own the building fell behind on their mortgage. There are all sorts of ironic things one could type about that .. big shots missing a few payments on a $380,000,000.00 loan vs. Mr and Mrs America with the same problem, but I won't.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:31 PM

Post  #2464.   GEPlugin what is it? What is GE Plugin?      Several people have asked. Look further down the list of Googles and you'll find some way better answers than mine. Like I would have any earthly idea. However, if you want to know how I feel about the GEPlugin by Google GE Plugin, scroll down to my Entry #2461. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:53 PM

Post  #2463.   2012.      I finally saw it. Let me back up first. Brother just happened to mention the movie, and I asked him if he'd like to see it. He replied that he sure wished we could get it. Now, our mother really instilled him with thrift, and he almost never asks for stuff. So, I jumped at the opportunity and told him to go over, log onto Amazon and buy it. Really? he exclaimed. I replied, Of course. That's what it's for. In about three clicks and one password type-in, he had it. And he was totally stoked for the rest of the day. So worth the 18 bucks, and it arrived in less than 48 hours! According to "My Account," I've placed 108 orders with Amazon since 1998. I should really buy some of their stock.

To the movie. He watched it first, so I had a chance to quiz him on a few things: Any bratty kids? Divorced co-stars with continuing issues? Child disobeying and putting self in danger at worse moment? Any utterly improbable elements just to justify cool a special effect? No .. no .. no, he fibbed. Didn't want to spoil it for me (he knows me sooo well.)

I watched it on my regular tv, remember the ones before digital, with square screens? Bratty kids, divorce, disobeying, improbable .. all there. Even at that the effects were cool and, honestly, the story and believability issues weren't that bad. I didn't throw anything at the set. Even a 25,000 foot tidal wave was okay, letting go with the physics and geology of it. The best thing of all, it was only a John Cusack vehicle instead of a Will Smith, thank God. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:31 PM

Post  #2462.   Existence (I know, needs work)      As you might remember my mentioning before, I don't care for the takeover by Machines and especially the aggressive move toward digital everything. Anybody who thinks about it for a bit can see that digitization is nothing more than accommodating the machines, making things easier for them. And someone ought to ask, why should we? Unbelievable - we type meaningless, unnatural code into a little box just to make it more convenient for them! Digital insists there are just TWO. Two of everything. On or off, that's it. So much for unlimited depth of art, music, reason or anything else that makes us ... not machines. What appears to be there is truly all that there is, take it or leave it. I'm not happy with any of this and assert that the very foundation of a Digital Universe is flawed. Consider this,

There is nothing here. STATE
There is something here, (but nothing is happening.) STATE
The thing that is here turns on. EVENT
The thing that is here remains on. STATE
The thing that is here turns off. EVENT
There is still something here, (but nothing is happening any longer.) STATE
There is nothing here anymore. STATE

That's at least seven, not two. And people who have taken medication will be able to find many, many more. So, what will the machines make of that, I wonder? Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:15 PM

Post #2461.     More searching fun.     I just found a news article which claims that I scored two points and committed one foul in a basketball game played in a sweaty gymnasium in Tokyo almost forty-nine years ago to the day. The sweaty part I remember.

GOOGLE has a new popup - it wants to add GEPlugin. What to do? Microsoft is quick to warn you with that infuriating blinking yellow line. So naturally, you do a GOOGLE search, look up GEPlugin and this is what it says:

The GEPlugin is the Google Earth Plug-in's main object, and this is the object that is returned to the JavaScript application when you first create a plug-in instance. GEPlugin provides factory methods for ructing other objects (placemarks, and so on), and is also used to retrieve the root document objects.

Ructing? What-the-ruct is ructing!? As for the little google turd who wrote that and then went all high-fivey and nerdy with his google geek gang, I'd like to do something really rude to him. Like sneeze a teeming nose and mouthful of Jell-O all over his keyboard. Something like that. Ruct that, you twerp.

Of course I never would. Violence never solves anything. Wait, what am I saying? Violence generally solves just about everything if properly applied. Still wouldn't do a Jell-O sneeze over something as mundane as a popup. Besides, after reading the first paragraph, realistically, how many visitors to this site are going to get this far into it? None? That's about right. Old people are irrelevant. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:07 PM

Post  #2460.   I'm having mental problems today.      I don't know if it's me, or the world. Realistically, when one goes insane, does one know which it is? Of course not.

Just today, the phrase, "Redistributing Health" came to me. Ah, clever topic for a blog typing session, I thought. Just in case, I checked Google to see if anyone else had used those words, a play on "Redistributing Wealth." Yeah, we got it. Over two million entries!! I'll tell you, that caused me some serious self-re-evaluation. I even went so far as to remove the URL to a site where I have typed for over two years, annoying people to distraction I now realize. They'll think you died. Good

I'll be 65 tomorrow. That's the real problem .. not happy about it. I discovered something about old people now that I'm about to become one. They do still think the same way they always did; they're (we're) simply unable to turn those thoughts into words or actions. Hard to explain. You'll see. Just keep it in mind next time you encounter some ancient wrinkled slowpoke. Inside, there is the same goofball that existed maybe fifty years ago who would dearly love to jump in your car and take off on a wild joyride (if the vehicle wasn't so ridiculously fugly - which he would tell you if he felt there was any chance of comprehension.) Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:35 AM

Post  #2459.   Sorry. Been busy.      Of course you know better than that. More like lazy. The reason I wanted to write this evening is that I just checked on Google and it seems my house is 2,052 feet away from the Green River Killer's house. Not miles, FEET. No particular reason for mentioning that, aside for the sinking in of it.

Ozzy Osbourne was completely amazed and grossed out by the fan who asked him to autograph his colostomy bag, and he refused to do it. I guess that is a sinking-in-oid as well.

And while we're sort of in an area of topics off the usual trek of this blog, take a look at a picture of Bear Grylls



without-a-shirt-on (you can't type *****less because of all the people who search for Bear Grylls *****less, as well as Anderson Cooper *****less, the latter I can't fathom why.) Anyway, take a look at Bear and just wonder for a moment about his breath. Oh heck, Bear Grills shirtless.

Finally, what can sometimes happen on the weekend at the real estate office when the temp takes a shot at the listings: (click on it to expand)



I had to snatch it off the website in a hurry as I reckon it won't be there long. This was cute too: MacAdam Road is actually Macadam Road. Nice that she gave credit to the Scottish engineer who invented the process. Rick Macherat Bear Grylls shirtless

posted by Rick at 12:27 AM

Post  #2458.   Clippings.      You probably heard about the little climate change mixup - how the 500,000 square kilometers of Himalayan glaciers are supposed to be effectively melted away by 2035. Numbers. No one caught it. It's always amazing how even very learned people can read numbers and fail to have them sink in. Even as I type this, I know most readers are saying, Huh? Think about it. 500,000 square kilometers? Know how much area that is? And 2035? You'd need an average temperature of about 195 degrees to accomplish that much melting. And that might even be Celsius as far as I would know.

An insane killer escaped from a State Hospital field trip to the state fair in Eastern Washington. The killer, ruled insane and hospitalized after murdering an old woman and burying her in her flower garden, soaked in gasoline to throw off the dogs, had a history of escape. Just a peek at Washington crime and punishment. Field trips to the state fair. Keep an eye on your kids.

A man connected with our notorious horse-sex case awhile back has been charged with having sex with dogs, ponies and larger horses back in Tennessee. At least he survived, unlike his former friend here in Washington who took on a bit more than he could handle. We subsequently passed a law against that sort of thing, so that should put an end to it.

The ongoing $50,000,000,000.00 project to clean up the Atomic Works at Hanford, Washington got a big boost with an additional $2,000,000,000.00 appropriation. This project, which includes a man on a bulldozer and several thousand people in offices, has been going on for many decades and will continue for many more. No one knows if anything has actually ever been cleaned up.

Lastly, Comcast Cable is going to change their name to .. XFinity. No, I'm not kidding. Just a reminder for investors, companies do this sort of stupid thing when their CEO's have no fracking clue about running the business. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:40 AM

Post #2457. This sounds familiar somehow ..    Starting last Sunday, this has been running in our paper. Since it is the only paper left, just about everyone heard about,

Sunday - Crisis in state adult family homes
Monday - Horror stories from adult family homes
Tuesday - They "fell through the cracks," says state about adult family homes
Wednesday - Families say, "We care so you don't have to," pitch Not True
Thursday - Records show money, felons and other unsavory issues involved
Friday - Governor forms Commmission to study adult family homes
Tuesday - Paper wins award for adult family homes report

Help, will somebody let me out of this hellhole!Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:11 PM

Post  #2456.   Snip.      All of this fuss over Microsoft by the EU doesn't have anything to do with Windows or even business for that matter. The Euroes are just afraid Bill is going to circumcise them.Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 11:18 PM

Post  #2455.   We're so lucky.      Steve Ringman filmed this for the Seattle Times. See why we love it here so much? And speaking of great photographers, Jonathan and Angela Scott were in Antarctica when these people stopped and made a little guy feel like the most important Emperor Penguin in the whole wide world.


At the utter opposite end of the photography universe is a documentary called Candy in the Eye. Since I'll watch just about anything, I did watch a few minutes of this: "A portrait of photographer David LaChapelle, filmed over FOUR YEARS by German [natch] filmmaker Hilka Sinning. LaChapelle is seen at the filming of an ad for a Malibu Cafe, in his studio, at the launch of an exhibition in Milan, in his studio and during private moments." If you want to decide what to watch for your absolute last television experience before abandoning the medium completely and moving to a bottomless cave, watch this. A special note: after the photo shoot setup, which rivaled a major motion picture in its complexity, and there is no way to describe fully the daylong task which culminated with the two woman in a sado-masochistic kiss with tiny coffee cups on their tongues, in glorious color, the cafe owners actually rejected the photograph. American conceited, egoistic, egoistical, egomaniacal, egotistic, egotistical, individualist, individualistic, megalomaniac, narcissistic, pompous, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-concerned, self-indulgent, self-interested, self-loving, self-serving, selfish, stuck-up, vainglorious, wrapped up in oneself .. -ness can do a number on Italian .. uh, the same stuff, anytime if we really work on it. Which they did. *sniff* Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:07 PM

Post #2454. Could things be more awful? That's one of the reasons it has been difficult to write. The other day I was talking with a pleasant woman at AT&T, checking if had been long enough to get a new free phone yet (it hasn't,) and in the course of the conversation she asked me if I texted. (It's a verb now.) Instead of simply saying "No," since she already knew I was old (I told her we had been with AT&T since 1924, not the 1995 or whenever it merged with .... whatever this cell phone company was before,) I told her all about my belief that Texting is the Beginning of the End of Civilization as We Know It. To her very impressive credit, she went right on with, "Well, if you ever change your mind do consider the Whatever Phone." Anyway, to the point, there is a woman trapped in the rubble in Haiti who is evidently texting regularly on her cell phone. See what I mean?

Another reporter explained the extremes of Haiti, where the people are So poor, So without resources and government, So black .. whoops.

Brian Williams took the day off. Just curious, what does one do ..?

The young people on my Facebook page are furious at Pat Robertson - evidently he said something about the Devil and the people of Haiti. Seriously, can you even get mad at somebody who actually believes in the Devil?

My other nephew, the real one, "Tagged" me with that list of the 100 greatest books, where you are supposed to "X" the ones you've read and pass it on. To people you want to impress, I guess. He had 13. I have 0. That's right, zero. But to get even, after he said that his favorite author was some Japanese guy who wrote some romantic novel, I wrote back (he knows I lived in Japan) that he definitely should read it in the Japanese version to get the subtle humor. And just to make the post special, I cut/pasted some Japanese characters with a smiley after them. I know. But you have to believe in the devil, don't you?

Finally, I looked up an old friend, a successful one, from my one Honors class in high school. (An accident, long story.) Under his (now) professor status, he had posted this

In Linguist List 3.964, Garry Sdigh (GSDIG@WSU.BITNET) discusses some
peculiarities of the term 'wannabe', and states:

> "I would also speculate that the singular is back-formed from the plural,
> given the morphology (*a Chomsky wantsabe)."

I think that he is correct to draw the conclusion that the absence of the
-s- means that this can't be derived from the 3rd sing. form, but wrong in
his speculation that the plural is its source. I have an intuition that
the true source is actually the 1st sing. form, and envisage a
prototypical scenario of the following sort:

Setting: X and Y just attended a rock concert by Z, and now are walking
down the sidewalk.

X says: "I wanna be Z."
X then strikes a pose typical of Z, and starts playing air-guitar.
W approaches, and looks quizically at X.
Y explains to W, "He's a Z-wannabe."

This puts the absolute minimum possible load on Y's lexicon, since all Y
adds is "He's a ..." and the format.

Does anyone else out there share my intuitions about this?

Can't wait til we get together at the reunion.Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 1:10 AM

Post  #2453.   Bits.      It was like rolling your motorized wheelchair with its almost-dead battery into the burning trailer, saving the puppies and afterward having no mem ... Burning Man is Weed days and X nights ... Strangely enough, the Mohawk haircut pulled just enough of one's eye away from his bland face and improbable nose to leave the impression of a rather attractive man ... having the type setting on Overtype instead of The Other Thing and not noti ... nuclear something something more dead, deader something something conventional explos ... her exquisite skin something something haughty something unexpectedly something competent hand job ... the sister-in-law on her conversation with the evil brother on his and the shrewife's plan for getting a new house, "Do you know if Rick and Mike have done their Wills yet?" ...

You've used the something something bit before. No I haven't.
Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:38 PM

Post  #2452.   01-01-10 and R.I.P.      I lost two close friends this week. One died, after a long battle with himself. The other guy joined one of those unfathomable New Age "churches." Did NOT see that one coming. He may as well be dead too - they never come back, you know. Sad.

The machines love dates like 01-01-10. It will probably be one of their holidays when they take over. Speaking of ... the Social Security and Medicare machines clearly do not know they are approaching oblivion. I'm getting all sorts of thoughtful welcoming mail from them as I near the magic age. Also this,


and I can only wonder what it cost to send it to forty-five million people, 11.3 million of whom will call to ask what it means. I would usually be one of them, but this time I was able to figure it out on my own.

And remember folks, four million more members of the baby boomer cohort start becoming eligible for Social Security TODAY, 01-01-2010. Seventy-some million more of them to go.

Just in case you weren't already pulling your hair out over things you pay for and over which you have no control whatsoever, consider this: Ten years ago, only ten salmon were counted passing through the last counting point to reach the upper Columbia River. This year there were 19,905. And it only cost $2,000,000.00, just a wee bit over a hundred dollars per fish. I love salmon stories. Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:26 PM