I have negotiated a temporary reprieve of my sentence in dilbert and wallyland. I fly out on the redeye tonight. I'll be home till july 10. I'll still have to work, but I suspect I'll actually get more accomplished.
To use another McEwinism, I have learned that I don't perform too well close to the flagpole. If I never have another corporate job it will be too soon.

I'll post a hint it's an actual language. not a dead one but not exactly common or thriving either.

I am not a sea green cow

Oh hey and I'm offering a prize to the first three people who email me with the meaning of my blog title. you can get credit for either correct answers or answers that make me laugh hard enough to draw attention in the cubicle.

The glorious prizes will be cool postcards actually snailmailed from my current location in Santa Cruz California ish. The part of california so weird that people from San Francisco call them weird.

Nothing profound today. I left my palm in the hotel and have felt helpless all day. Since my post are mostly composed on the palm I haven't done anything here either.

Having been a devoted believer in Tom for a few years now(I actually hired him a few years ago, and I continue to believe in his talents. Frequently more than he does). I am thinking of developing a page full of McEwinisms. You know, things like:

"Well, Grady, Sometimes it's not the horse, it's the jockey"

"Never being one to be mislead by mere facts....."

That type of thing

I am looking forward to the possibility of discussing this with him over dinner this week. I am also thinking VERY seriously of getting down on one knee and begging him to update his site.

Shinybluegrasshopper posts:

Do we really need the government trying to convince us to wait until marriage? Sexuality is a part of our culture and a significant part of our identity. Sex is not evil. But it can be dangerous. We should be spending that same money on educating people on contraceptives and STD prevention -- not on abstinence-only programs.

I know a girl whose mother had a habit of going through all her kids' possessions. Backpack's, dressers, cars, you name it. She found contraceptives in This girl's car. The row that ensued was horrible.Her mother could be heard screaming outdoors. "Whore! Slut!, Jezebel!" on and on and on. Her little sister certainly learned the lesson. No contraceptives for her. Pregnant by 17.

The point of this little story is that the people who think like this aren't rational. Thinking reasoning arguments will NEVER sway them. They don't have room in their mindset for thinking about issues that they are told are faith. Unfortunately these people do VOTE at an astoundingly high percentage, and as a bloc. It is perhaps the single best example of how a democracy can be subverted by a vicious minority. The whole thing smacks of Taliban.
Kids have sex, it's what they do. I didn't have sex till after I was 18 because I was a geek and couldn't figure out how to attract any girls I wanted, not because I didn't want to. Her little sister was in fact educated about contraception, STD's and the whole works, her home environment was just so hostile to it that she chose to risk it anyway.

I don't realistically think that there is anything that we could do to rally a similar or larger bloc of voters that would turn out in the polls without fail. Without the threat of that a letter writing campaign is doomed to be ignored even when facts and statistics are on our side.
This disenfranchisement angers me. For president I have a choice of a spineless stupid coke head son of a Lying CIA chief or a spineless moneylaundering son of a corrupt former senator. I can't remember the last time I had a choice of a congress person in NY with a spine from any party. I have reached the point where I'd vote for a person with a backbone even if I disagreed with everything they believed in. But even that is not an option. When John McCain lumped Falwell in with Farrakhan as hateful racist assholes, I applauded, tears came to my eyes, but even as I heard it I in the back of my head I could hear the right wing wackos calling their Party representative And saying I want him out. When he said he would veto bills he agreed with just because there was too much pork in them, I believed him, but I could hear the executives at GM and GE and their ilk calling on the phone " I want him out"
I don't know the answer to this. I've been looking for it since I was 15. I'm going to keep looking and keep voting.

It's father's day. I am 3216 miles from my wife and kids by the GPS. I am receiving no hugs from my three beautiful boys. I am not having brunch with my sisters and brother and father and mother. I am receiving no hugs and kisses from my wife. I am not having a wonderful dinner of Grilled Anything with my wife and kids. I am not having a squirtgun fight or riding bikes with the two oldest boys. I am not feeding or burping my infant son. I am not reading the necessary three stories to them at bedtime. I am not having spectacular sex after the kids go to sleep.

Today I hate my Job

"I'm okay, Mom. And Heidi and Kim are okay, too. We're pretty freaked out. The truck is toast. But no one was hurt."

Elise, I am glad everyone is alright.

I have three boys, aged five, two and a half, and not quite six months. I tell myself that it is good to have all boys because that way I will never have a fifteen year old daughter. I fear the things a father of a fifteen year girl has to worry about. She reminds me that boys won't be much easier.

I think about the cars I wrecked when I was young. I totalled three between sixteen and eighteen. Not counting the Demolition Derby every other week all summer long. Unlike many of the other kids my age wrecking cars I wasn't drinking then. Didn't start that until I was much older, and even then I didn't mix it with driving. I wrecked them doing normal stupid testosterone laced stuff. Pushing the envelope till it broke. How far can you keep pushing the curve after the tires squeal. Can I get through this curve on the gravel road sideways. Stuff like that. I survived. I learned a great deal about taking marginal machinery to it's limits. I have never met anyone who is better at it than I am.

I do, however remember having to make that call on the phone.

"Hi Mom, I love you. First things first. Nobody was injured. I rolled the Corolla...... Yes Mom we're all OK. No I'm still at Mike's cabin. We rolled it back up, coasted it down the mountain. Mike's dad is going to run us into town to buy oil to fill the engine back up. It all drained out while we were upside down...... Yes, I have enough money. The roof is a mess, and we windshield has a nasty crack in it, but we think we'll drive it back tomorrow.... yes Mom, I love you too, I just think it might be a good Idea to get some sleep before we drive the three hours home."

My goodness three boys what was I thinking.

In case nobody notices there are now about a bazillion links on the page where you could click and send me email. I did this because I enjoy receiving email. I enjoy receiving email even from people that I don't already know. In fact some thing like that could make my whole day.
hint hint nudge

The future king of England turned 18 today. In another century that might have meant something but it just doesn't seem to now. In many ways that is disappointing to me.

I despised his mother. at least after the split. There are certain things that royalty should just understand.

You married the prince of wales. Should somebody really have to tell you that you job is to keep your mouth shut and squeeze out heirs. Is there no historical basis on which you might have already figured this out? Some kings would have you beheaded. I'm sure the queen mum thought about it.

His dad, Oh my goodness, what a spineless woussy. That would be just plain sad for him to be king. Just sad.

I should mention at this point that I am descended from the worst rulers England ever had. They were so bad that the people thought Oliver Cromwell could do a better job. I have no great love for England. When my part of the family Emigrated we were given a choice, Australia, or a homestead in the FAR FAR FAR north of Canada. But still, wouldn't it be good to have a king on the throne of england with some Class and Dignity. Maybe even Some Balls.

This Boy who will be King has a chance of that. I hope the general Screwedupness of his parents can be overcome. I wish him well. I have spent more that a few nights sleeping on crown land looking up at the northern lights and I have this little fantasy that someday that crown might mean something again.

If you haven't seen Feeling Minnesota go out and rent it tonight. It's a lovely little movie with Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Dan Ackroyd, And Courtney Love. The characters are so completely Amoral, that they hired Courtney to play the NICE girl. And it opens up with my favorite Johnny Cash song.

Not only that but she quotes from Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_. OK she is completely forgiven. He was junkie anyway.

You know I almost forgive her for offing her husband.

Almost

Oh come on! I would trust a little baby black bear with my boys before I would trust some of my cats.

That is as long as the mamabear was nowhere around.

My love, if you read this at all do check out elfgirl's site. You'll love her kids' names.

I'm an INTP. Three years ago I was an INTJ. A real hard bastard. I credit my wife for the change. She's a saint. link courtesy of elfgirl

The cable in the hotel was screwed up the other day. I couldn't get HBO. For some reason the channel that is normally cspan had the pay-per-view.

I watched Fight Club. I loved it. I thank each one of my friends who didn't ruin it for me.

However, the selective recall issues I've been having lately do make me a little uncomfortable. And there is the matter of the frequent flyer miles that I don't have stubs for.

If anyone out there has any knowledge of me organizing a globe spanning group for the purpose of destabilising our society(not including the one I disbanded in 1991),please email me

A piece I wrote six years ago dug up now for Patti the Pixie's sake.

My neighbor had a Rottweiler he bought for his kid when the kid was three. Brandon(the kid) and Bo(the dog) were attached at the hip from then on. Bo made a good dog for Brandon, he was durable and put up with all kinds of roughhousing. He was an enthusiastic but occasionally misguided bird dog. And Bo forbid any kid beat up Brandon.
When Brandon had to go to school my neighbor set up a run for Bo. 1/2 inch galvanized cable strung between two large maples about 150 feet apart, a big block to run free on it, and 5/16 proof coil chain to Bo's collar.

Our neighborhood has the misfortune of being directly between the High School and the Trailer Park. right smack in the middle of a two mile walk for the kids. And to further misfortune cutting through my neighbor's property can save them about half mile of that walk.

Most of the kids were decent enough about it. They ignored the "No trespassing" signs but didn't damage anything. But a select few saw the rottweiler and just had to throw stones at him. My neighbor tried to dissuade them of this notion at first with strong words and then with something more severe and then back to strong words after the sheriff Explained to him that while he agreed that brown rice and rock salt was less than lethal you still couldn't shoot highschool kids with it.

any how this continued for a year or two until Bo finally busted that chain and made an awful mess of the kid. It didn't kill the kid,,, quite.
Putting that dog Down really pissed me off.

in any event I don't think it's good form to go poking or throwing stones just for the sake of throwing them.

Elise posts

(my element, originally named Seaborgium after Glenn Seaborg, was originally discovered 26 years ago this month and is now referred to only as Element 106, as it was decided retroactively that it could not be named after a living person - for some reason, I dig that especially)

Some how I am reminded of a movie I halfwatched back in college. There were three characters: the movie star(a lookalike for Marilyn Monroe), the scientist(a lookalike for Albert Einstein),and The baseball player( yup you guessed it Joe Di Maggio).
I think I remember a scene in which the movie star is trying very hard to explain the theory of relativity to the baseball player, but she just can't make it dumb enough for him.
I remember really digging that scene.

I didn't really pay very much attention to the rest of the movie because I was modeling for a fine arts major and she kept yelling at me to turn back around. I don't think I ever figured out why she chose to have that particular movie on while I modeled.

This weekend I accompanied my wife to her ten year high school reunion. I blew off my own last year. There were very few people I wanted to see. Most those few were on the missing list, and most of the rest I see or hear from anyway. Mine would have been held right after the whole columbine fiasco, and I was still dealing with the complicated emotions that posed for me. All in all I just didn't feel like going.

So I didn't.

My wife didn't hate her entire high school. In fact, she even has fond memories of the time. She wanted to go. I love my wife and would walk upright through a hail of bullets to make her happy.

So I went.

My wife graduated from a small town about twenty miles north of Lockport called Barker. Her graduating class was one of their largest. 75 people.

I thought to myself,"Why would they need the whole firehall for that?" At a normal reunion less than half show up. Ooooeee was I in for a surprise.

In Barker everyone who has ever graduated is invited to come. Everyone. Think about that for a minute. They have been doing this since 1912. Everyone who has ever graduated. Around 400 alumni showed up. To the fire hall. In Barker.

They have special honor tables for 10,20,30,40,50,60 year reunion. Anyone older than that gets a special honor area. The class of 1940 had a dozen members show up.(that's 2 more than my wife's) The oldest class to come was 1924(2 members!), although a letter was sent by a member of the class of 1919 who regretted not making it this year.

They performed a beautiful ritual honoring every alumnus who died since the meeting last year.

They gave over twenty thousand dollars in scholarships away.

I was simply amazed.

Amazed

My wife accomplished her goal of being the sexiest woman there.

Her class president at 7 months pregnant and in a black dress that looked like it was spraypainted on was a very close second. I'm funny that way, though.

Oooooooh fuck!! I miss having a motorcycle some times.

Ok so two hardrives containing the distilled essence of everything our most secret nuclear lab knows are missing. Have been since the fire started. The public just finds out now. The investigation didn't start till after the fire was under control, and they still haven't interviewed everyone.
Is it just me or do other people wonder why our spooks are so damn incompetent. Say what you will about the CIA in the sixties and early seventies, but at least they did their damn job. I don't like spooks. I don't like the fact that we have to have them. I don't trust them with the power they have to have. It REALLY pisses me off that the ones we have now can't do their damn job.
Again I'm not a professional spook, but I know that when something like that goes missing you don't just let the people who are involved scatter to the winds. You lock the place down. If it's burning around you then that is the price they pay for having the opportunity to craft the deadliest weapond on the face of the planet. You don't wait weeks to look for the damn things.

So for the promised answer to Keith's question. At my wife's reunion(I am still working on that actual post, maybe tomorrow) I met one of her classmates. I respect and Envy him. He had a pretty decent academic scholarship to some school where he thought he wanted to go. After about two years he realized what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He farms. A small family farm. He married the girl down the street and has a baby about the age of my youngest. He works hard part of the year and has a part time job. He doesn't live in the boonies. He is only fifteen minutes further out of town than I am. In fact where he lives he can get a two way cablemodem, and where I live only a sorryass one way is available.

The point of all this is that he does something he loves doing, is not stranded in the middle of nowhere, and gets to spend most days with his wife and kid.

I can farm. I can even do it organically, with saved seeds. I did it growing up. On a smaller scale but still I did it. I even have experimented with traditional Iroquois agriculture.(which by the way doesn't work as well as the history books would have you believe.) I can hold down a part time job. done that for years. Why don't I just do it now?

Oh yeah, I've got a wife and kids. Sometimes they get sick. Health care is expensive. So is insurance. Insurance industry, managed care, governamental crap. Fuckers. Maybe I'll move to Ontario.

If you're interested Keith I, can recommend a good book. I read it a few years ago and am going to dig it up again when I get back home. It's by Gene Logdson, and called the Contrary Farmer.

this is all I have to say about the Microsoft decision.
If I was Bill Gates, I'd say fuck it. Split it three ways. Give me the cash, the internet business and the X-box. Cash Ballmer out for the Office crap. Then stick that piece of lukewarm dog feces Myrvhold with the OS's.
Bill gets the chance to start over as the underdog again. Ballmer can continue the status quo. And Nathan gets stuck with the lukewarm piece of canine fecal matter.
Everything in karmic balance.

glancing at my site statistics I see that one of the referrals to my page came from someone who was searching for Elise. the actual page was:
http://blogger.com/search.pyra?txtSearch=Elise&submit=go
I am not sure if I fint this weird or not.

On the plane ride from Buffalo I had to sit in a middle seat. That doesn't happen to me often. When it does, I am usually stuck between two obese, smelly, hairy businesspeople of indeterminate sex. I braced myself for the worst.

Something far worse actually happened.

On the aisle seat was the typical balding, pudgy, salesman. But oh, the window. Sitting there was a vision of stereotypical beauty. About 20. Obviously naturally blond. 5 button white blouse. Top two buttons undone. Middle of the three remaining also undone, probably unintentional. Perfectly shaped breasts in that perfect size where they don't quite fit in an A bra but B is too big and if you choose the B then the poor sixfoottwo bastard bending over to squeeze into the seat next to you has to see your perfectly shaped perky oh so faintly pinkish brown nipples. The sort of breasts that are only possible in 18-20 year old girls. That warm welcoming smile that restaurant managers pray their hostesses can fake. Only hers looked sincere. Blue eyes the color of Pennsylvania slate. If she wore any makeup it wasn't noticeable. She was reading a book.( It was a Dean Koontz book, but I read Elmore Leonard on airplanes so I have no room to criticize. At least it was a book.)

Eight years ago, if you wanted to send my already terrifying sex drive completely out of control that would have been the recipe. At this point you may actually question why I say that this is worse than being stuck between two atavistic drooling fatties? Trust me, it is. Allow me to elaborate.
This weekend I was home. Coincidentally it was my wife's ten-year high school anniversary. I mention this only briefly as there is another post coming that may take me days to make readable. I spent a fair amount of time seeing her in and out of one sexy outfit and another. "I don't want to look slutty, I just want to look better than all of them." Mission accomplished. My thirst for such things was as close to slaked as it ever can be. In fact, as I sat down, I was not more than twenty minutes from my wife's embrace. What I really did not need at the beginning of this trip is a reminder how much I am going to miss her. the real live physical hunger for her.

I have fallen into a rhythm that has allowed me to survive the ten days without hugs, snuggles and other things. Believe me I am not expecting sympathy. But understand that I have a coping mechanism. A perfectly, valid, functional system of dealing with stresses.

It is much like a train wreck. You know that you really don't want to watch it happen but you can see it coming and you just can't make yourself stop looking. parts of yourself are disgusted at other parts of yourself, but you just can't stop looking. You don't move, you don't talk. you just watch it happen.

The entire ride I try to force myself to just read my book. It fails miserably. She's absorbed in her book, but there is constant movement in my peripheral. She's actually caressing her left breast as she is reading the book. For crying out loud! I have read some Dean Koontz books and I am quite positive that they are not intended to produce this reaction.

Then it hit's me. I realize the answer. A succubus. A living breathing succubus. Sent just for the purpose of torturing me. I bet if I had followed her after the plane landed she would have vanished right into the ether. Knowing this didn't make it any easier to avert my eyes. It did make it easier to accept the torture.

Karmic retribution for my time spent as incubus in between starting college and meeting my wife. Somehow seeing karmic retribution in practice comforts me even when it is happening to me.

somebody's moving that counter beside me. this post is for whoever you are. I am leaving now for sanfrancisco to do battle with the airport gnomes. I am attempting to force myself onto a flight so i can get home in time to see my oldest's son's first ever dance recital. He's five now. When I had planned this travel I had told myself that it was ok that i only see the saturday show. I have since come to the realization that I was wrong. It is not ok. None of this is ok.

to answer keithbrown's question. Hell yes! there is a better way. I'm blowing off work tomorrow, going home, and gonna figure the answer out. And when I figure it out I'll tell you too.
in the mean time because I am going home and prefer to spend my time at home with my wife and children I probably won't post much till monday. You may get a giant post somewhere in the middle of the weekend when I hotsync and upload everything I wrote on the palm on the way. (most of my posts are written on the palm anyway) .
Now off to see my rabid wife and kids.

sunday I rec'd my first email from some one I didn't already know, about this site. Woohoo! It was from Kelly at shinybluegrasshopper. I visited her blog, and read through much of it. I like her style. She is remarkably lucid and well thought out for a hippie chick. the only problem is this. she hasn't posted a thing since then.

Is it something I said?

Does anyone know how to make blogger time stamp in 24hour time. Looking at 6:57 pm really bothers me when it's 1857. It makes me feel like I've lost 12 hours.

note to self: never click on a link that She posts when you actually have something to do.

here is a partial list of reasons that the ford contour is a shitbox and not fit for human occupancy:

The cup holders will not accomodate anything taller than a standard 12oz can of soda. This includes 16oz bottles of pop, almost anything you can buy at a drive-thru, and those really cool snapple elementals.

the speakers are unable to handle even half volume on the stereo. Even less if you turn up the bass.

the stereo itself is a nightmare of user unfriendliness. There are only five station buttons, and they are not in a straight line. Three above two below. There is no tuning control. If you want to tune by frequency you must first press the AMS button then use the seek controls. If you pause more than a few seconds you must press the AMS button again. Only mountain gorillas have longer arms than I do, and I have difficulty reaching the stereo. It must be impossible for mortal humans.

the cupholders are useless.

there is no way for a six foot two human to get the seat and steering wheel comfortable and see the gauges at the same time. Any two, but not all three.

the cupholders suck

the key only unlocks the door you put it into. Even its big brother the Taurus-shitbox lets you unlock all the doors

the performance of the high tech 4valve motor is disappointing. Fuel economy is dismal for such a cramped car. Power is not available at the right RPMs. Throttle response is not quick or nice.

the cupholders are not practical

the disc brakes are undersized and fade quickly.

they have no style.

they might as well not have cupholders

there is no closing console to quickly hide the GPS from prying eyes.

there is no place to put change and organize it.

the cupholders really piss me off

I know Exactly how you feel Patti. I had the realization the first time I bought an album(it was a cd but I still think of them that way) that had no songs on it produced in the last decade and the cute, perky, smiley young lass behind the counter said "excellent choice sir, that's a classic". I like to believe that I am not vain, but I just wasn't prepared for that. "excellent choice sir, that's a classic". I shouldn't have to take that from 17 year old girls yet. Yet.

I was buying the Sisters Of Mercy album because I had finally worn out the tape and I no longer even possess a record player. The point was driven firmly home when I got into the car and realized that the miserable rust belt town I was in that week(Cleveland I think, but it could just as easily been Detroit ot Grand rapids) had not one but two radio stations dedicated to playing the music I listened to when I was in high school. Maybe Andrew had it right.

"HEY NOW
HEY NOW N- NOW
EXPLAIN THIS CORROSION TO ME"

OK, so here is my having slept on it, read the fine print, and really tried to punch holes in it evaluation of the Sealand/Havenco Datahaven.

With the exception of Avi Freedman most of the people involved are not who I would consider first choice. Their two biggest Liabilities teamwise are the CEO who comes in with strong ties to carribean money laundering, and their Chief Logistics officer who comes from the family of nutcases that own this island.


Second, their physical security planning is very sketchy from my view. I have come up with four different ways that they could have their operation shut down with minimal outlay of cash and the action not traceable to the group who planned it. I'm not even a professional spook, they've probably got twenty or more.


In the tradition of their CEO I am posting their odds of success at 1 in 7.


If they do succeed they will have significantly lowered the bar on the operation of DataHavens. This may open up the opportunity for others to compete with them, by providing more secure locations with better management.


If they fail, It will mean that the bar is right where I have thought it was. In that case here is my proposal. an island off the coast of Costa Rica, fiber from the mainland, fiber from asia, and the redundancy of the sattelite uplink(it would probably be a good idea to actually own the satt), a serious crypto corporation, like Zero Knowledge or Counterpane or both, A company with solid credentials in network architecture, and external security handled by some very hard guys.
If anyone with money or motivation agrees with me on this, email me.

this fun little tidbit courtesy of Elise. As a young man I once constructed a device that used a perfume atomizer, a piezoelectric sparker, model airplane gas, and a selection of pvc tubing to launch golfballs at quite an astounding velocity. With practice I had reload to fire down to twice every three minutes. but 61 of them, that's quite impressive.

I also want to make it known that it really pisses me off that blogger has cooler features and doesn't have that annoying resize issue in IE. just in case anyone who can do something about it reads this.

Just for the record. I really miss Toronto sometimes.

And here is the actual company doing it. man oh man it's been along time since I have been this excited on a monday morning.

I really should be working now but I just got this in my email, and it's just too damn important. For those of you who haven't yet read cryptonomicon do it now!!! this is big very big. I have half a mind to get on a plane now. and go there. just to see if I can help out. Just to see what happens. Hot damn!!!

Ok I lied. this is the funniest thing I have read in weeks.
at least I hope it's meant to be funny. shudder.

I have never noticed Dan Savage's column in the onion. It never occured to me to look for him on the net. So i'm an idiot, no big deal. I first start reading Dan Savage during a period in my life prior to meeeting my beloved wife when I had been kidnapped by millitant lesbian vegetarians. They were a lot more militant about the vegetarian thing than the lesbian thing. Dan's column was in the rag that was put out by all the club's in Toronto, not EYE the other one, the one that doesn't suck. I wish I could remember the name of it. Funny, I can remember every detail of walking past the bouncers at the Zoo Bar as a 19 year old male with a host of valkyrie/lesbians at my side, but I can't remember the name of the darn weekly magazine. We would read dan's column aloud while we decided where to go for the weekend. I still think he is the funniest sex-columnist on the planet, I just haven't read him in years.
Those girls had a way of making me feel pretty important. So much so that I forgave them for all the rest of the shit. Never getting laid, being forced to practice cunnilingus on specially carved Mangoes, stuff like that. Oh and about the mangoes, I am pretty sure my wife appreciates it now.

This site may be the funniest thing I have read in weeks.

and this is for both sisters. may they enjoy maximum frivolity. The bad news is that the fruvest is not available in the website. I miss you both very,very much.

I was driving the FCS rental and listening to NPR when I heard the fingernails scrape across the black board.
Most of the folks who listen to NPR have heard Joki Jehu speak about thirld world debt relief. I hear her at least once per month. She drives me nuts. I couldn't figure out why. It is not her cause bothers me. I virtually never side with the robber baron's. It is not her voice either. I love listening to the tone that comes from having a bantu language as your primary language.
It finally came to me today. It's the metaphors. She uses metaphors that she doesn't have the cultural context for. The two that killed me in this speech were. "the master's tools will never destroy the master's house" and "we've put the fox in charge of the henhouse".

These are powerful images. Appropiate images. Not accurate Images. Indeed, the master's tools are the only things that can destroy the master's house, and what she is asking for is for the fox voluntarily give up stealing chickens.

Any one with any experience in this kind of thing knows that it's the master's oil and the master's lantern that sets the fire in the master's house. That's because the slaves aren't allowed to own a lantern. There are no slave's tools.

Anyone who has had the trouble of the fox stealing their chickens knows that there only two solutions. One is to make the henhouse impervious to the ministrations of the fox. This is so impossible as to make it futile. The other is to kill the friggin fox. It is not necessary to spread the fox's entrails around the borders of your farm as a message to other foxes, though there are those who advocate this. Word gets around in fox circles pretty quick and on the whole they are cowards.

There is another possibility, however. She could have the cultural context. This would mean instead of using facts to bolster her argument (which are indeed persuasive) she is trying to invoke deep set emotions like hatred and fear. This crosses the line to demogoguery. Demagoguery leads to despots. I don't like despots.

And this is for my new brother-in-law.

I am very uncomfortable with the fact that they use iggy pop to sell Cruise lines now. When I start hearing Ministry on commercials for retirement planning I'll know it's time to end it.

this post is mostly for my sister. I heard a this mortal coil tune on a commercial last night and couldn't remember the song. Curiously enough I guessed the album right.

Last weekend I was shopping with my wife, for her seventh anniversary present. While there she was also looking at outfits. Sleek, small, tight, sexy, outfits. The kind 17 year-old girls wear. I must note at this point that inspite of the fact she has borne us three sons, that she can still wear these types of outfits with credibility. It still makes my heart stop. and other things start.
The unfortunate part of this is that I am at the tail end of my twenties and I have not aged quite as well. I have hair that is noticeably thinning on top. I am not yet at the point that Tom will tell me to part my hair down the middle, but I am glad that I have friends who will tell me when it is time to do that. The gist of this is: there is nothing that can be done to make me look like a 17 year old boy.
In the midst of trying very hard not to picture her in any of these outfits she keeps assembling and holding up for me to look at, I try to explain to her that I am no longer comfortable looking like I do and travelling in the company of one who appears to be a sleek 17 year old girl. I would be uncomfortable worrying what the people watching us would think. In the end I broke down and bought her one of the outfits. She wore it to that golden anniversary party. I felt like a criminal the whole time I was seen with her.

But She looked good. My heart stopped every time I looked at her. and stuff like that.

yesterday was walt whitman's birthday, and I completely forgot about it.

moral of the story keep this stuff encrypted. PGP works well. keep the key on a floppy not on the hard drive. have a backup copy with some one you trust if not with your life at least twenty years of jail time. make sure either floppy can be destroyed on a moments notice. Or don't keep records of illegal stuff that you know about, dumbass.

This morning I had disconcerting experience of trying to figure out which goldish-grey metalflake Ford Contour-shitbox was mine. Sometime in a future post I will try to convey the magnitude of my loathing of the Ford Contour-shitbox. But this post is meant to be a more positive parable.
I have been travelling for corporate crap at least a couple years now. This is not the first time I have lost my car in a sea of identical cars. This is, however, the first time that I looked at the keychain. In the three years I have been a card carrying hertz number one gold member I have never really looked at the keychain. There on the fourth line down, in some lousy dot matrix text was the license plate of the car. Problem solved.
All this time I have been carrying the low tech equivalent of a smart card with all this useful info on it.


Checking into a hotel.
"sir would you please put the make, model, color, and license plate on the form?"

"It's four degrees above zero, not countinq the wind chill. Do I really have to?"

"Only if you still want it here in the morning"

There is useful knowledge everywhere. The trick is knowing it when you need it.