Thursday, September 30, 2004

Southern Exposure Exposed!

Hurrah, Hurrah, But So What?

Being impatient, as usual, I am releasing Southern Exposure #012 a day early. I anxiously wanted the new one to be "out there" since it was so long overdue. The Link to it is located in the sidebar to the right, under the group title "Suspicious Links".

Today's Southern Exposure may have some proofreading errors, but my web sites usually do. I correct any that I know about, even long after anyone is likely to read one. Anyone who spots a mistake may inform me of it without fear of retribution. Maybe you'll save some other reader from trying to figure out what the hell I meant. I'm used to committing errors. Endless errors. But the world's not used to me.

Further Elusive Three-Dollar Hat Details

Some of you may recall how back on July 21 I cried overmuch about “The Elusive Three-Dollar Hat”. I couldn’t find any new ones at Wal-Mart in the cheap-ass style to which I've grown accustomed. I finally got around to buying a $1.22 can of spray starch so that I could wash the oldest of the two light-colored hats and see how it'd work. I starched it, ironed it, and though it doesn’t quite look new, it does look very good.

Maybe it'll look better when I've learned how to iron a hat better and a little faster. But this one's clean, most of the wrinkles gone, presentable in society. Well, low society, anyway. I wasn’t expecting to be dressed in a tux and go to a Fundraiser any time soon. Now I can wash the other one and give it the same treatment. Being newer, it may fare even better. But in this case, I'm going to be nicer—give it a hand wash instead of a machine wash. I’ll be ever so gentle, except for a small shot of bleach in the mix to make it easier getting that yellow stain out of the headband area.

Hopefully these hats will last until I can find some other kind I like. But what a lot of trouble for the care and feeding of a damn $3 hat! Think I should get a $4 hat next time? Or should I just get a brown hat that would never look dirty? Decisions, decisions...

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Other Egotistical People's Opinions

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Southern Exposure Flag Ready To Fly

I'm likely to just cruise along and not write any substantial posts for this blog for a few days. I am making good progress with the Southern Exposure web site and may be able to finish it soon if I let other things ride a little. Southern Exposure may be ready by October 1 to let its freak flag fly!

You know how it works. Total exhilaration the first day. Total letdown the day after.

Monday, September 27, 2004

New Issue Of Southern Exposure Soon

This isn't much of a post, but I've decided that I will publish at least one more issue of Southern Exposure. No decision reached beyond that, but I will publish an issue #12 in October, probably during the first half of the month. Mostly, there's a lot of proof-reading left to do. Ready to be bowled over, Nobius? Well, maybe just pleased...

Only one of you have voted on the Southern Exposure question so far, but let's be frank—I could give a rat's ass! I have a mind of my own. It's small and it's weak and it's slow, but I have one. So I'll make up my own mind!

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Moen's Silent Screw

Listening To Somebody Else's Sex Again

My roommate Jim Moen's girlfriend (later his wife) used to get in the sack with him pretty often under strange circumstances when she stayed the night with him. A third roommate George, Jim, and I all lived in different corners of the cheap one-room apartment we shared back in the seventies, each on a mattress on the floor. It was weird how George and I could hardly ever detect them having sex. All that silent fucking! Jesus, I never heard a thing, and couldn't imagine how they did it. Not a sound—they could have been corpses—and yet clearly they were fornicating their brains out. I even asked Jim once, just to make sure!

"You are fucking over there at night, aren't you? "

"Sure," he grinned.

I nodded and looked amazed. It gave me an answer, but it didn't explain anything about how they managed not to make any noise! How could they be so utterly quiet! I know I should have, but I asked for no further details. I was too astonished.

Even Hippies Had Inhibitions

I never really thought that Jim would yell, "Oh, baby, give it to me, give it to me, you're such a sweet hot slippery #$*@!"

Ugh! I knew he was too inhibited for that. So was I, for that matter. And his tall slinky girlfriend Patricia with her indeterminate facial features and her slim model's figure, definitely was inhibited. If she'd thought he was discussing her habits in bed, she'd have had a hissy fit and cut him off. I didn't want to ruin his sex life for him, so I let it be.

I'd Still Like To Know That Trick

Still I insist it would have made a lot more sense, would have seemed a little more normal, if we'd just heard a few grunts, wheezes, or squeaks out of those two from time to time, some carnal groans or sloshy thrusts or throaty moans or squishy-fleshed squeezes—hell, it wouldn't have mattered what, just anything! Just a few little animal sounds, wet or dry, would have made everything far more explicable! It's not as if we were in prison or fucking with our parents in the room next door! We were all friends!

I could have slept better if I'd known. I could certainly have slept sooner than when I lay awake trying to detect their slightest sounds. Hell, I'd still like to know that trick! Was he so—? Or was she so—? Ah, I guess I shouldn't be such a busybody.


Saturday, September 25, 2004

Hey, UPS, “Brown” Is Not A Pleasant Name!

Stupid TV Commercials

Some people, no matter how highly-placed, just do really stupid things. Like, how much sense does it make that UPS keeps trying to change it’s perfectly good (and more importantly, well-known) name to their silly nickname, Brown. I keep wanting to holler at them, yeah, I know what’s brown, dummies, and most of it is crap. Crap is brown, you corporate executive dumbshits! Like the guys who changed the taste of Coke, these corporate bozos at UPS are determined to enforce their haphazard wills on the general public and throw away their good name in the process. They must be complete morons, and I'm sick of hearing about it!

No big deal, let's just kill them. What's wrong with that, I ask you?

Friday, September 24, 2004

My Cousin

Thinking About Dumping Southern Exposure AND My Cousin

My cousin JW thinks I should write a post every day and pesters me about it from time to time. I'm uncertain how he arrived at this notion. It's hard—in fact, impossible at times—to write a post every day. I cheat, I fudge, I post something insignificant very late in the day. Some days I just refuse to do it. I have something good in the works that I had been thinking was meant for Southern Exposure, but I'm tending more and more toward the notion of just letting that web site lapse. So, I can't decide where to publish it at present.

Glancing at the code for Southern Exposure just now, it sure does seem like a lot of trouble and it requires tricks that it's hard for me to remember how I did them! I find I'm not much interested any more in any of those features except for the articles and some of the poems. It was challenging at first, now it's work. I would really rather write than decorate. As aggravating as Blogger is, it's less trouble to work here, as long as I'm not trying to be fancy.

Well, I confuse myself. You can vote on it in my comments or via email, as long as you keep in mind that your vote doesn't count for much. There aren't many of you, so there's not much liklihood of an overwhelming majority of any sort.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Despise Thy Neighbor

Nice People Got No Reason To Live

I hate new neighbors. I don’t care what anyone says. It isn’t nice of me, but there it is. I’ll admit they’re nice people. Everyone says, “They’re so nice”. Especially at church, where evidently their official title is “The Nice People”. Jeez. I’ve never felt comfortable around people who are overly or famously “nice”. It gets my goat. It makes me nervous and gives me goose bumps. I become a menagerie of ticks and other animal recoils.

Some Neighbors Are Not Creepy

I’ve had neighbors, even in this same neighborhood, ones who are still here, and they’ve never driven me to distraction and poisoned every conversation with wanting to be helpful. Offering cookies, soup, favors, tools, services, and an insulting amount of advice about things I generally know enough about—I’m just too lazy to do them yet. Yes, I’ve had helpful neighbors before, but they kept their damn hat on about it. They’d wait until they saw you struggling with something before they offered help, and then they’d generously offer to help. And they’d back off if you declined the help. They kept their distance. They did not keep encroaching. That’s the way I like it!

Unbearable Do-Gooders

I find that “nice people” perpetually on the lookout for good deeds to perform give me the feeling that they’re constantly butting into my business. Oh, they’re polite. But I can’t see where being polite cancels out being a buttinsky. I can never decide if they’re genuinely innocent Pollyannas or clones of Christ Incarnate that they can’t get it through their heads to back off. Get out of my yard, don’t stand on my toes, get outta my face!

Have they never lived next door to someone who didn’t want to be sucked up to, buttered up, or befriended? Is it possible that I am a man of too great subtlety to them? Have you ever found me to be a man of subtlety? I think not!

Good Fences Make What?

Maybe they’re just that critical of my housekeeping and yard care skills. Such subtlety on their part, however, is beginning to surpass all forbearance on my part. I wouldn’t mind them looking down their noses on my upkeep of the property, but I don’t want to talk about it to them, not even in this indirect manner. I wish they’d shove a wolverine up their ass and twist its tail rather than to keep reminding me of it under the pretense of being Helpful Fella and Helpful Missy, the goody two-shoes twins! Blech! I’m fed up with it. Maybe it’s time to put up a fence. But then they’ll probably offer to paint it!

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Here, look at this set of Bob Dylan lyrics. I considered printing them here instead of giving the link, but I find it so difficult to write many short posts that I'm doing it this way. Technically this is a short post. Unless your read the song lyrics.

It's odd, after all these years, I still don't know what a lot of these images refer to. Clearly, it's saturated with references to drugs and the low life. Back then, it seemed like a fult-tilt vitriolic attack on the Establishment. I guess it was.

Monday, September 20, 2004

What's That Beauty For?

Artwork, Labels, and Libraries

Pass me those Cheerios. I think they're Cheerios—if you could see the whole word, it looks like it'd spell out Cheerios! I think. Let me get the magnifying glass and look at the bottom of the box—oh, yeah, it's Cheerios, all right!

From breakfast cereal boxes to magazine covers, covering up the cover art with price tags and bar codes and various promotional text is de rigueur these days. So much work spent on ornamenting the containers, then Whap, slap the cartoon-lettering of price tags and labels reading "New!" and "Special!" right over 'em! What's the reasoning there? Why pay the commercial artists, I wonder, if the art don't count for squat? I realize it's not Rembrandt, but what is even that beauty for if not to be seen?

Due Date Stickered

They do the same sort of thing at the library, though. These "price" stickers used nowadays to show the Due Dates are slapped over the book covers willy-nilly and books pushed in your direction like the butcher shoves you a paper-wrapped soup bone. Next! Lord, you almost forget where you are!

Library personnel are nowadays armed with ever-present sticker guns at the desk—they don't mind shooting labels right in the midst of some attractive picture or painting on the cover. That's the first irritation. But neither do they mind sticking Due Date labels right over the title or the name of the author. If they do that sort of thing at a bookstore, you can shrug and read the title and author names on the spine of the book. At a systematic library, however, all you may find on the spine is that the library notations and Dewey decimal system numbers have been taped across all the text information there and You Can't See It! WHO wrote the book and WHAT'S it called—fuck if I know, I can't see it!

If it's not a large enough book to bear the burden of it's stickers gracefully, sometimes you just have to pull it down from the shelf, open it and start reading until you find out what it's called. Perhaps it's part of the plan to break us of Browsing the shelves. But in that case, why haven't they issued me a personal scanner yet? If I had a good one, I guess I could look it up on the computer catalog, close my eyes, and search for the right book by Braille and Beep! Hell, it might work...

Schizoid Packaging And Sticker Madness

I could understand the product container situation in the commercial world if there were two schools of thought about the matter. But what there is amounts to a set of people at each company who believe BOTH in artful packaging AND in obscuring the image. We scrawl across anything, anywhere, any time in pursuit of a last minute chance to sell, Sell, SELL! Produce and obscure, dance and defile!

I can just imagine the scene in various corporate boardrooms. The art department brings in the beautiful paintings or photos of Coca-Cola or Campbell's Soup or Frosty's Cornflakes and the executives crow over them. Oh, lord, it's so beautiful, don't change a thing about it, it's gorgeous! Then it goes on down the line to the pricers and the packagers and the shippers and the last-minute salesmen in the grocery stores and it gets stickered to death. Nothing is sacred, nor was meant to be. SCREW BEAUTY, we're sellin' STUFF here!

Hell, I never asked 'em to decorate everything on the planet. I just felt like they were being inconsistent. Doesn't anybody want to be consistent any more?

Simple Simon Sez…

Then it dawned on me: those images aren't decorations at all, they're pictograms for people who can't read or who can't read the language of product origin! The illiterate, the dislocated, and the disoriented can recognize a commercial product anywhere on the planet! It was so simple; as usual, I was over-complicating everything. "They" don't care, because all they care about is The Sale. Duh...

Now, if only I could comprehend what those people at the public library are up to. I can see where it was easier to afford the stickers than the ray guns and scanner stuff it requires to read them on book spines from 30 paces, so that's my guess at present. Just don't write in and tell me the eventual plan is to insert microchips in our foreheads and make us the scanners. I faint easily.
"Exit, pursued by a bear."—William Shakespeare (Stage direction in "The Winter's Tale")

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Sergeant Friday Doesn’t Live Here Any More

What Makes Sense?

It makes sense, I guess, that sooner or later I’d be reading “King Rat”, the book that I added a couple of days ago to my “Currently Taking Forever To Finish” list. I haven’t read it before, though I do remember vaguely seeing and liking the movie in 1965 or so. I now see that I’ve forgotten all but the most basic outline of the story, so the novel will more or less be “fresh” to me. I note that the author, James Clavell, is the author of Shogun, a book that became a TV movie that I could never stomach. Maybe it was the lead actor who put me off of that, I don’t know. In any case, I’m not put off of King Rat yet. It seems to be written quite well enough. Maybe Shogun is well written, too, and I just need to stay away from that actor.

Rats Here, Rats There

Anyway, my thought is that King Rat must’ve assured some initial book sales by its title alone. I can imagine some people buying it for that reason alone—some people are big fans of Oddity. I think some people have the same initial attraction toward my blog; they just want to see what it is, even if it turns out not to be any good. I’ve seen a lot of one-time hits on the counter that I suspect were just Lost Travelers.

Next Blog Feature

The Next Blog feature added recently at the top of Blogger’s sites is fun, I guess, introducing a “randomness” factor that’s interesting, but it does rob me of my perspective that Stranger hits were attracted to the blog title. Now, I can no longer presume that. Strangers arrive at my doorstep because they pressed the “randomness” button, not because they were attracted to my blog title on a list. I can only imagine how disorienting it may be for the Random traveler to find me. No more so, perhaps, than I experience when I run across sites apparently devoted to Baby Talk or Intelligent Prostitution or Antique Confederate Belts or Knitting Forever (not real site names, unless by accident). Of course, those sites do seem to stick to a theme. I have not yet mastered that. I’m not certain I’ve even mastered making sense. The suggestion has been made to the contrary, and I feel like I prove it pretty often.

Stay Tuned For The Unconscionable

Anyway, I’ll let you know if the unconscionable concentration camp con man known as King Rat turns into a good guy or if it turns out that he always was a good guy in disguise. The latter doesn’t seem likely, but all things are possible in a story. That’s why I tell you so many stories. I want to see if I can inform you of anything true. I’ve led you to believe that some of the stories are true; but why would I tell you any true stories? Better yet, how could I tell you any true stories? My memory’s too faulty and, besides, Sergeant Friday doesn’t live here any more.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

A Bitter Note

How To Bitch And Bear It

Sometimes I don't much care who I offend. In some regards, I would be glad to know there was anyone left to offend. I admit my nerves have been rattled lately, but these are the thoughts that pass through a rattled mind.

I have less and less patience with my friends, old or new, who express too little interest in my blog. I don't know if they are utterly puzzled about my web sites or what, but most of my friends and near acquaintances apparently have no very great curiosity about it. It seems unlikely I have failed to make it clear that I put a lot of effort into my web sites. I am pushy and obnoxious, after all, and the blog is Me. Don't I make enough noise? Sometimes when I ask if they ever look at it, they say "Sure, I do." They don't seem to have registered the fact, though, that it's possible for me to recognize their hit (or lack of it) on the Site Meter counter. I know a website hit can be disguised, but most of the people I'm thinking of don't know how.

How Much Does It Pay?

I keep wondering how is it possible that I know people after all these years who still can't imagine taking an opportunity to write, much less doing it often. I guess it bores them. They especially can't imagine when I tell them how much it pays. I much prefer anyone who says, "Sounds like it'd be fun for you" or anything at all like it, something polite, tolerant, positive, something indicating they know what I'm like. If I could make any money out of it, I would probably have mentioned it already, knowing how the world values these things. I wouldn't make anyone ask! I might not tell how much, but I'd admit it if there were at least some money involved! There is not. I realize that there's the new "Adsense" offer where bloggers make money if readers click on their ads, but I doubt that my readers are shoppers. I'm certainly not.

I believe that if the world were occupied only by these unimaginative friends of mine, humankind would never have invented anything more exciting or useful than the Lopsided Rock wheel. Or maybe the Chunk Of Wood axle. We'd all be bumping along on irregularly shaped wheels, going whump-bump bump-whump, whump-bump bump-whump from cradle to grave! Maybe that's the true etymology of "bumpkin". I'm just guessing, I could be wrong. If friends or acquaintances read this, I guess they could get insulted. Join the club, I'll teach you how to bellyache about it.

You're Still Doing That, Huh?

I guess you can tell that I hate it when long-term, even lifelong, friends pay little or no attention to my web sites. What's the scripture about Jesus, that a prophet has no honor in his own country? Of course, that sounds as if something important is going on, and that's just not true. I have a cousin who reads my Internet crap very regularly, but of my other relations and old friends there is little evidence that more than a couple of them have trifled with it more than a couple of times, and that's no encouragement to me. Guess it wasn't their job to encourage me.

Ageing Lout

It's a good thing my feelings aren't involved in this, isn't it? I wouldn't want to argue with these old friends and I presume they wouldn't want to argue with me, but I have been and remain astonished at the lack of interest and comment. Some haven't looked at "The Rat Squeaks" even once, or if they did, they never informed me of the happy event. Perhaps my friends are just dropping away rapidly like dead skin cells? Perhaps it isnt rapid; perhaps it's just cumulative and I intermittently cry out. I guess I've become a lout in my old age and they know it and aren't ashamed to show it. That's my thought, mere speculation, of course.

Set Your Chickens Free!

My friends may not be consciously "paying me back" for anything, though I have ignored many people in my life, including my friends. It may be my bad karma being brought to bear, my chickens coming home to roost. All these things seem quite the same to me. Whatever it is, like bad breath or a pulsing hemorrhoid or a big red zit on my nose, I've got it, Bubba—or it's got me.

Depending On The Kindness Of Strangers

Only you perfect (I mean complete) strangers buoy me up out here on the iffy Internet, and lately I suspect you're starting to hold your breath and slide back and look the other way, too. I wouldn't blame you. I have no mirror here except the one on the Counter and in Comments and Emails. I often conclude that all my strangers are going to be even stranger strangers.

I'm always adding someone to the "Intelligent Blogs" list who doesn't last long. Folks quarrel or take things wrong and one or both of us just decide to shut up. It's an awful thing, I guess, to be so un-steadfast, so unstable, so sensitive, but it's motion and therefore it's useful and necessary. I'd rather give you a hotfoot than to pretend I'm your daddy or your priest; I'd just bore you to death. I try to be interesting, but I'm probably not as interested as I should be in others. It's my major fault, I've been told, an ugly cross to bear. Did I say "sensitive" earlier? Shouldn't I have said "insensitive"?

I Am The Porcupine, Goo Goo Goo Joob!

I'm irascible and sometimes insufferable. And other Bloggers are too at times, and sometimes it all butts heads, like a multi-car pile-up on a major California highway. I am surprised each time it happens, not because I am innocent of blame, but because it's hard to think we can be serious about such nonsense as this. How do we take total strangers at all seriously? I find it very confusing at times. You see, over and over again, I'm just insensitive. I'm serious when others are not, flippant when others are not. Is "bad timing" a synaptic dysfunction? Or just an old-fashioned stubbornness?

Don't Suffer Me

I had hoped to make a fool of the Universe just a little bit longer on the Web, but alas, I feel time slipping away. No one mistakes a porcupine for a puppy, do they? Not for long. So, if you start to see me misbehave or to be intolerant or intolerable, don't tolerate it, don't hold still for it, don't call me names, don't stay! As Monty Python used to advise, "Run away, run away!"

If it ain't funny or useful, let go of it. You can easily find someone else to amuse and who will amuse you. And I may even be able to find someone else to amuse or abuse. But if not, I'll quit.

"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." — Joseph Baretti


Thursday, September 16, 2004

Bleesh Bloosh Blish Blush

Waiting for the masters of Invention. Can I borrow your pillow? (Like Scarlett O'Hara said, "I'll worry about making sense tomorrow.")

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream


The Scream

"There's feces in the Reese's
And meeses in the DNA of the species,
And a strange man following behind me on the bridge
Who's counting crinkle-edged pieces, but nobody cares,
And that's why I'm so annoyed with all of you!
Don't any of you have any self-control?"

"Not much," I heard
From within and without.

rcs.


"I ain’t got no heart to give away." Frank von Zappa

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Poem About Forms Of Fire


READ THIS,
FIRE WITH FIRE,
a 5000-word story, somewhat comic, somewhat not, located in
DOGGER GATSBY'S BLUES,
a short story blog for all the Lost And Found of this world.


Monday, September 13, 2004

Self-Satisfaction


This is like being one day behind all the time. But what do I care? Nobody's sending me kisses, accolades, or dollar bills for these poems. Therefore, I do it in the road for self-satisfaction.
Read a poem about light-hearted perversity
called
CONVERSATION PIECE
in
JUDY GARLAND BLUES,
my septic poetry blog for new & used poems


Sunday, September 12, 2004

Blogger's Lament

"Love me, love my dog,"
That's the cry of every blog.

"Whether I am pretty or perverse,
Or hateful, bland, or kind,

You found me thus and like some sick child's nurse
Must love me still as if you're deaf and blind."

rcs.



Friday, September 10, 2004

Bright Red Hair


Barely coming in under the wire to be today's post. But I made it.
Read a poem about bright red hair called
MORE

in
JUDY GARLAND BLUES,
my salacious, seldom-nude blog for new & used poems

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Early Morning Zen Movement


A Vignette, Not A Short Story

He preferred to get up early in the morning because he didn't like to get up early. Actually he didn't like to get up, early or otherwise. He seldom slept well any more and, besides, if he got up before everyone else, he didn't have to meet the cheery world and its cheery denizens (like his wife) while he was still completely achy and grumpy. So he dragged out of bed in a minor agony and made it to the bathroom. He didn't even turn on the light, just closed the door behind him and sat down. He liked to call it his own personal Zen Moment. The great black nothingness. Or, sometimes, for variety, and because it lasted rather longer than a moment, he called it his Zen Movement. Later, having bathed the night before, he got dressed, went into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while he took several of his medications with room-temperature tap water. Cold water might make the pills catch in his throat. He never used to choke—he used to be able to eat glass, more or less—but that was then.

"Blech!"

He could only choke down so many of these different-shaped and different-sized pills at a time. There were others to take later in the day. It wasn't as if the pills made him feel particularly better; they just kept him from feeling like hell.

He went outside to get the newspaper, dragging his moccasin-style house shoes through the dust the last few steps between the edge of his lawn and the mailbox. Back in the kitchen, he fidgeted with his coffee cup, almost blindly putting water in it and chunking spoonfuls of instant coffee at the liquid. Most of it went into the cup. He sat at the kitchen table and read the front-page headlines while his coffee nuked. When the microwave beeped, he got the cup and sat down with it, grimacing at the bitter unreal taste. If he could come awake quickly enough, he would never drink instant coffee. Later in the morning or in the afternoon, he'd use the coffee maker, but this was all he could handle at present.

He settled in to read his paper, usually paying more attention to the local news, since TV would tell him the national and world news repeatedly through the day. He was not surprised to see the debacle still going on about how operations of the local civic center was still draining the local coffers at a rate exceeded only by the amount of indebtedness already incurred by its construction.

"Goddamn county commissioners," he grumbled. "I wonder if they were born morons!"

Forgetting for a moment that he was in the house and not working in the yard, he wanted to spit, but caught himself. He swallowed hard and washed it down with the last half-gulp of tepid coffee.

"Life is so beautiful when you're retired," he muttered as he stood up. He waited a few moments for his back to adjust itself a little before he ventured once again in the direction of the bathroom.

"I'm going to put a TV in there," he thought, not for the first time.


Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The Truth About The Dolt And The Bear

It occurs to me that I should be more forthcoming about that dolt thing. Though I have no proof, it has been my observation that Google's image searches are sometimes extremely misleading. I have surmised that the only reason many photos are associated with a search word is because the word occurs Somewhere in the same web site, possibly completely unrelated to the photo they've located. That's pretty lame, but that seems to be how it works.

The truth is that I've seen equal and greater inaccuracies many times in both Google image search and the Yahoo image search. If one looks up "bear", you'll mostly get photos of some kind of bear. But you'll also get photos unrelated to Mr. Bear! You'll get dogs named Bear and boats named Bear and half-hits like that. And you'll get those completely inaccurate hits, like in a site about a man retiring from his job, you'll get his photo because he says, "This is a good thing, I don't think I could bear another year!"

Therefore, Miss Not-A-Dolt, I confess, I knew it all the time. The system is dysfunctional and so am I, so I milked the situation for all it was worth.

It was fun; I may do it again.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Politics and crime—it's the same thing." Michael Corleone, Godfather Movie, Part III

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

A Dolt And A Bear

While searching Google Images for "dolt", I came across strange things, including the expected photo of George Bush, but there was also this, which at a glance seemed unkind. I guess it's hard to defend the intelligence of a stranger in a photograph, but she looks okay to me. Doesn't she look okay to you?

Of course, even if she is a dolt, how in the world did she get listed on the Internet that way? We are become a mericless society, I guess. Maybe she's in on the joke? Otherwise, I'd like to send her a small teddy bear like this one my niece just got last week. Here, cheer up; I stored a big hug in this bear.


Saturday, September 04, 2004

Politics Is Poopadoodle


I probably don’t have anything to say below that you have not heard somewhere before. I just have to say it here and then we’ll be through.



Not Very Regular



As a blogger, I am not very often topical, either about World News or my own piddling undramatic life. Neither am I very regular. I’m not talking about laxatives, even if in fact I should talk about it. I’m not consistent, that’s what I really mean. I don’t stick to a theme, unless myself is the theme. But myself isn’t really the theme or you’d know more about me. If I’d ever given a satisfactory answer to anything, you wouldn’t still wonder why I share so few details, despite the fact that I talk, talk, talk. Perhaps my blabber—did I write "bladder"; no, no, I said blabber—is about my view of things. Could that be it? Doesn’t seem to be—but here’s a couple of things to consider that are not unlike things I’ve said before.

A Couple Of Things

You may not even know if I hate George Bush. Christ, how could I not? I consider it fair warfare to DETEST stupid people who become world leaders!

You may not know if I wonder WHY John Kerry acts as if he’s been paid to lose. Lord, how could anyone not wonder about that? Like Bush, he’s as boring as a small-town barber. One has to take it on faith that either Kerry or the barber possesses an ounce of originality. Bush, however, has a propaganda team that makes him look like Sir Galahad instead of a barber. And that in my opinion is a real magic trick!

Liberal And Conservative

When did Liberal come to mean Libertine? When did conservative come to mean conservancy and control of the whole world? Must have been so gradual that I somehow missed it. Maybe I should just become a Republican and save money on Pepto-Bismol. They have all the smart strategists, while the Democrats have begun to have trouble convincing American voters that they can button their pants or that they’re even Americans. Everything’s upside-down. The man who foolishly bragged of serving his country is portrayed as “actually” a coward and traitor, and the man who stayed home during the war, polished his shoes, and drank good whiskey is portrayed as a noble hero. An "actual" hero? And neither can yet convince a definite majority of the country that they’re very different from one another. I doubt they will.

Dysfunctional Politics Make Me Spit

Both sides are dysfunctional. Traditionally, what part of the public funds isn’t stolen by Republicans (this time around by redirecting it to Halliburton and other corporate coffers) will instead be pissed away by the Democrats’ incompetence. The reason we can’t decide which is worse is because they’re both so utterly fucked up. I’m sorry; I’m in no mood to be polite about it.

What does all this have to do with my blog? I dunno. I am a perpetual complainer and faultfinder. I don’t like anybody, and I dislike politicians and their parties of self-conceit even more. While there’s so little difference between them and while neither has done anything for decades that wasn’t “politically motivated” or a “political stunt”, what should we think of them? Do you suppose we should think well of them? I don’t want to ever again hear either party accuse the other of “playing politics” about something. That’s the game both sides play. Both would play politics with their grandmother’s funeral. How can anyone believe one to be better than the other, I wonder? They make me want to spit—or worse.

Democrats and Republicans continue to be completely self-serving while whistling patriotic tunes and telling the public that there’s no such thing as “pork” in the political system. Or, if there is pork, it’s the other guy’s pork, MY CANDIDATE certainly wouldn’t insist on costly new unneeded facilities in his district while money was desperately needed to feed children, fight terrorists, maintain health care, or keep both public and higher educational systems afloat.

Tweedledee And Tweedledum, Never Unemployed

If Candidate A wins, he’ll be advised by one set of self-serving corporations. If Candidate B wins, his administration will be advised by another set of corporations just as un-virtuous and unconcerned about health care or the cost of prescription medicine. Both will pay holy-moly lip service to “capitalism” and descry nearly all efforts to lend support to “the people” out of consideration for the rich. Cheap prescriptions in America will starve the drug companies and the world will end. The rich say that the world will crumble without their creative output and their greedy intake. The rich must have their outrageous share—more than mere blue-collar workers, more than all others put together.

Whom shall we choose to lead us during war, this current war with Iraq that Bush so favors that he’ll stretch any truth to the breaking point to sell it, the same war Kerry apparently plans to continue with a more solemn than solemn patriotic expression. Kerry will end up as another Nixon, who got elected bamming the drum and slamming the desk drawers about “an honorable peace” in Viet Nam, then took forever to get the hell out of there with our honorable helicopters being shoved off the decks of air carriers at the rate of millions of dollars per minute.

Rob Me, I Don't Mind

Yes sir, it’s the same old crap and claptrap. They’re all Robber Barons in modern dress. My guy is straight and honest and true; your guy is a crooked, vulgar, venomous snake. Your guy would eat live babies or dead rats for a handful of votes! My guy could eat even more babies and rats, so there!

Oops, I didn’t mean to speak that frankly… This is why I stay away from politics—I end up wanting to kill everyone. Still, I’m not certain what’s so wrong about killing robber barons.

Goddamn The Party Line

You know, I really wish that everyone wasn’t so loyal to their own side. I’d like to see someone other than John McCain vote his conscience instead of the Party line. What was that old song about “goddamn the Pusher Man”? I say, “goddamn the Party line!” Maybe it’s true that some of us have so little influence that we can’t be blamed for the badness of the world, but is it true that none of us can be blamed? If so, let’s at least save some big money; instead of a lengthy campaign, let the candidates meet on live TV for five minutes and shoot dice for it. One throw. Winner take all, even if the public loses. Same process, just quicker and cheaper.

The public never really wins, anyway.


Friday, September 03, 2004

Little Boys Need Their Spankings

"I say you could all use a good spanking and I don't care what you say!" Bettie Page said.

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Octopussy

No, not really. No James Bond here. For those of you who might wonder about a book called "The Octopus" over there in the sidebar, it's actually about a greedy 1900's railroad company and their conflicts with California farmers. More or less; since I haven't finished it, how would I know what it's about? There's a romance in it, except that his girlfriend has been dead for 20 years, and that's creepy. He's partly a psychic cowboy. Don't worry about me reviewing this book, though; this is probably the most you'll ever hear about it out of me. Unless I like it a lot.

You may leave comments here, even if only about your head cold this week or how your shoes don't fit or why your girlfriend has been accusing you of being dead from the waist down for months now.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

"Genghis Khan
He could not keep
All his kings
Supplied with sleep
We'll climb that hill no matter how steep
When we get up to it
Whoo-ee! Ride me high
Tomorrow's the day
My bride's gonna come
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair!" -- Spud Zimmerman


Full lyrics, approximately