Many Things and Blue Sky

Just when I was trying to send the picture that I will then place here, I thought about those denial of service attacks on Mastercard and whatnot, supposedly in protest of the wikileaks guy being arrested. Or maybe in protest of people being pissed at him.

Some people approve, and some don't. That is not the issue I am addressing. Protests and what constitutes legitimately peaceful and what doesn't, how it relates to one's view of freedom, capitalism, totalitarianism and whatnot is the issue.

This is where many unions' tactics in the past have conditioned people to take the stand that if they believe in their cause, then all other values are suspended when dealing with the opposition.

I disagree with that approach. A cyber attack designed to crash a commercial website is not a peaceful protest. Imagine the millions who needed the service to work, who have zip to do with the wiki man or anything relating to him. It is wrong to harass strangers and disrupt innocent businesses because you don't like something. I think it is wrong to stop traffic, throw rocks, or do anything beyond letting your voice be heard and yourself be seen in protesting a decision by a company. For one thing, you do not know whose life you may screw up by doing things which impact people not connected to your issue. You may prevent a sick person from getting help in time, may cause someone down to his last dime to miss a non refundable flight to a circumstance of relief and hope--you just don't know and you do not have the right. Not morally.

It applies to the internet as well. Unless you are shutting down the IRS in this manner, you will have a hard time convincing me that attacking independent businesses in this way is peaceful protest. It is an abuse.

Other than that, the sky does exist. It is blue. Sure glad I had an ark already built. The two coyotes I had on board are already running amok, multiplying and tearing up rabbits.


Looks like one of my neighbors cut the corner on a blind curve once too often. It is pulled off to the side toward the bottom of the hill. That front tire is off the rim. Can't say this is a big surprise. Seems like that car is one of the usual ones which travels the wrong side of the road going way too fast, all the time. I'd love to race around on that hill, but I don't for just this reason.

SD State Aztecs beat Navy in the Poinsettia Bowl. I think that is the right Poin.
I took a shine to that team upon my arrival here because they always lost and seemed doomed forever, but they have a cool name and had heart. Now they are a real team and only lose weirdly--like the Chargers. When they lose it is like they are under a spell or curse because they lose in odd ways to riffraff. They must have taken my advice and conducted the proper ceremonies with the cheerleaders, as I instructed.

If they had done these rites slightly differently, we'd be having a bumper crop harvest next fall. As it is they beat the US Navy. That makes them a world super power---possibly The world's number one super power.

Need a Good Mud Wrestling Venue?

..come to Ballistic Mountain, especially up by Molly the Cat's house. He probably won't bother to fight you as the great outdoors hasn't held much appeal for him lately.

We've had non stop rain and mist for days. This may be the longest I've gone without seeing even a glimpse f the sun or even a sliver of blue sky since I arrived here.

The road up there is far narrower, with steeper hills than the unpaved road up to my place. There is more than one patch of thick gooey mud. No way you can stop on the downhill side in a couple of places. Try and you just slide.

My big concern is meeting someone coming the other way. Some complete idiots live a little past Molly's place, so if I was on the road going one way and one of them was going the other way, it is a sure bet that only one of us would be looking for traffic. In normal conditions they drive as if no one else could possibly be on the road.

There are some good people up here, and some people who are either always very drunk, naturally dimwitted to the extreme, suicidal, or brain damaged. Maybe all of the above. It's always the same ones who cut corners on the blind curves, escaping collision only by the vigilance of the other drivers.

I have made rude gestures more than once. Sometimes I forget to avoid such emotion. I hope my mean look is actually mean and scary, but I doubt it. Could be time to wave the machete out the window.

Tomorrow morning is last Molly feeding, providing his people's flight can get into the airport in all this foggy mess. It has been a hassle but kind of enjoyable. I usually hang around awhile to give him some quality time and convince him they will be back soon. He seems to appreciate it. Half the time I wonder if I got the needle in when shooting him up because other than the first time, when he tensed and had his ears back in anticipation, he has shown no notice whatsoever. I do it while he is busy eating. It's a very skinny needle.

Another Passing Thought

It makes zero sense for Subaru to advertise that if you buy a new 'ru, they will donate something like $250 to each of your five favorite charities. They call it "giving back". I call it grandstanding with my money and getting a deduction for tax purposes.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just drop the price by a thousand bucks? (they are playing on people who finance for long periods--only pennies a day more) I like the product but they sure do market to people who are not of my mindset. I do not believe that I take anything such that I need to make a scene and claim I am giving back. I do what I do. Hopefully, whether money is involved or not, my efforts are a benefit.

The best service to this community is the grocery store that is 8 instead of 11 miles or 20 miles away. Do they now need to "give back?". Their prices aren't any higher than stores in town. I think they have already "given to the community".

There are a lot of non-sensical buzz phrases going around lately. People think they are giving back if they do the civil thing and don't leave someone bleeding in a ditch by the side of the road. I mean that figuratively--and literally.

So, I have no plan to buy a new Subaru and when I do, I hope they just don't take it up front to begin with so there won't be that need to give back.

Passing Thought

While I was trying to navigate this place, I noticed that one of the links on the top of my page says, "report abuse". My first reaction was to click it so I could report the behavior of the El Cajon Highway patrol a year and a half ago, and thought maybe I coud turn someone in for abusing Workman's Comp.

I was wracking my brain for instances of abuse--against myself and others. Then I thought, "Does self abuse count?". I've been in the employ of what I consider abusive companies. Many of the people in high places where I've worked were abusive in their way. Many in low places were abusive as well. Of course, I was not the victim all the time. Usually, others were more the victim and I was an uncomfortable witness. There are times the victim prefers you stay out of it because a job may be on the line and a busy body can queer the deal.

So, I chose not to click it. If you ask me, strangers tempting you to report abuse is probably a trap. I bet that if you click on that and start shedding light on abusers that they will just abuse you for it. Like when you call the cops in Miami to report a safe in the alley behind La Carreta, across the wall from your hovel. By the time it was all over I wished I'd managed to get the thing open, or at least said nothing. They wasted my whole night, and I had far better prospects for my time, I can tell you.

That was abuse.

They may as well re-title the damned link, Pandora's Box--click this to unleash all hell on your life.

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another passing thought: if you are sending out a series of cards or letters and you don't check off the list of places to be targeted, you may end up wondering if you sent this one or that one. You won't know which ones, if any, were left out. Then again, it keeps life interesting and full of surprises when you hide the facts from yourself in this way.

It's been raining non stop for over a day in SOCAL!!

I suppose you know what this means; end days. Sky is falling, earth is sweating out its fever, new ice age, a good reason to make some extra laws and maybe levy a new tax or two, a perfect time to picket Hooters (or otherwise amuse ourselves with them)

The road up to Molly the Cat's house is even more rustic than the stretch up to my cabin. It is nice to have the subaru in such circumstances. Others have to take a running start at the muddy hill, and often have to give it a number of tries. I have no such issue.

Speaking of issues, who in their right mind would actually try to get laws enacted because they don't like a restaurant's way of doing business? If you don't like it--don't go there. I'm concerned that the NOW has caught a sort of group sickness, a contagious disorder of mind and emotion.

They want rules to ensure that people can't bring kids to Hooters. It gets old-this thing of strangers wanting to dictate the decisions of parents. Somehow I sense absolutely no sincerity in their affected concern for the tender little psyches of children.

WARNING******please blindfold your children or remove them from the room before viewing this image******



Oh, the humanity!!!
It is easy to see how these two women serving up Buffalo wings and fries could forever traumatize the youth of the nation. I think these terrible criminals hail from Tampa Florida--your town could be next!!!!



What is clear is that their basic premise is that it is wrong that some people are more attractive to most people than are others, and further, that it is a crime against humanity to in any way profit from this natural resource. If you accept that reasoning--that it is wrong for perceived beauty to be used in any way for gain or satisfaction--- then it must also be wrong for those born with intellectual talent to benefit from using their above average intelligence.

In fact, if one's natural physical advantages are off limits for exploitation in any way, then one's musical, artistic and athletic talents should also be off limits.

The case that Hooters is tacky could be made, but so could the case that many personal injury lawyers are shameless. Don't go there. Don't employ them. Or in the case of John Edwards types, get rid of judges who don't throw their cases out of court.

It appears to me that the National Organization of (alleged) Women has run out of real substantive issues and has to search for things they can twist which will give them power and notoriety while screwing with the lives of strangers. People would not work at Hooters unless they wanted the employment--some even like it. I've hardly ever gone in the place but the people I saw working there looked kind of cheerful. I'm sure that varies. Many work there because it was the best shot they had at making ends meet. All that is actually irrelevant.

Anything that acknowledges the attraction of most males toward females, and the fact that the initial draw is the way the female looks, is going to be under attack. It is simply how it works. Try as you may, I doubt you can train the "knee jerk" reaction of healthy hetero males toward good looking females out of the human race. And it has been being tried for awhile. We don't have a safer, more polite, or more moral society as a result. Just a lot more neurotic and confused.

There is a logic and simple natural inclination to what promotes attraction both of male toward female and vice versa. It is not bad. It's what it is, and often quite a thrill. No one wants to admit that females are attracted to males who project power and security. It is true. It is friggin nature and it makes sense.

Of course it pisses me off that the guy with the yacht and a billion dollars has more 20 somethings falling all over him than I ever had, but it is not all just cultural brain washing. It makes sense and I understand it. If you have wealth and power and are a fairly personable guy, of course you will do better than a nice guy who is destitute.

It's from the old days when someone had to protect against riffraff--back before tyrants cautioned against "taking the law into your own hands" concerning self defense. For the species to multiply you have to provide a safe environment for the baby machines. That is rather obvious. And you have to have some drive that induces you to set that machine into action and to keep it safe. That's why some women can take a guy's breath away just by looking so damned good. It happens. It is power.

That's not to say some women couldn't kick your butt into next week. Not too many who are 8 1/2 months pregnant would do so well at that, or want to.

I actually think what NOW is doing is far more demeaning to women than anything good looking women whose physicality helped get them the job are doing. NOW is accusing those women of being too dumb and weak to know how to take care of themselves. So they step in, not by request of those chicks, but often over their protests. Explain that.

Forcing the rest of humanity to make choices according to your mandates and prejudices is not my idea of liberation. NOW promotes oppression, as does every other outfit which seeks to curb liberty because they have decided they can run your life better than you or nature.

Pg 95 and so it goes

I wish these people would do something interesting. They're stuck in my story, which is like an ongoing dream, which means it may be best to read it while you sleep.

People in this saga end up with primo jobs and I think they all have more stuff to do than I do. At least they waste less time. Plus they are obligated to do what they do, otherwise they'd be out on their ear and back in the weeds. Maybe I could get one of them to write my story instead.

I wonder if I ought to kill anyone off after awhile. So far no one has suffered physically; only psychologically. What's the opposite of thriller? This book is a psychological [opposite of thriller]. But don't worry--it is not that convoluted or hard to follow. Not even that deep. Or deep at all.


we'll get to this later


I think I'll find an excuse for them all to join up on Mt Laguna in the Spring for some old fashioned no-holds-barred fertility rites. Not enough of that around these days. Other than some bizarre practices here and there involving stoning and dismemberment, the wildest religious practices involve a cracker and a sip of wine. Just curious, but has the FDA managed to gets sticky fingers into that yet? Wouldn't surprise me. What if the bread or cracker is not up to anti-obesity standards?

Oh well. I manage to avoid such issues in the story so far. And I have yet to do like they do in chick books--I haven't described the fabric, colors, and particular fashions people are wearing. So far no specific shoe types are discussed. Maybe I need to fix that so that someday women will like my story better. They should like it because the men are somewhat baffled and a little fearful of the A Team women in the book. Probably some of myself in there. That danged Eddie, not even the main character, got my favorite of the women. Figures. Everyone likes Eddie best. I may have to send him to jail or out to sea never to return.

I'm only writing this so the 3 or 4 people who read it will read my book when it is done.

Soon it will be 100 pages--that is a huge landmark. I doubt it will get shorter when I go back through to edit. A lot of editing will probably be to expand and some things, restate and clarify others, fix the conflicting spelling of some names, etc.

It's good to have a project to which I have committed. Commitment is not exactly my strong suit these last however many years.

When I finish, maybe someone will trade me a set of all the keys, minor major, melody maker, etc. that Lee Oskar and Seydel harmonicas make for my book. Can't blame me for wishful thinking. Well, you can, but you shouldn't, that would be bad form.

Here's the cheaper version of the Seydel, from close to $70 for the other to near $40 for this one, but REMEMBER all Keys available are the terms of the trade. Just saying. I had one of these and like it even better than Lee Oskars. I've switched to all kinds of harps and always eventually go back to Lee Oskar, even though I have some Golden Melody, special 20 big river, marine band and whatnot from Hohner, and a few Herings--bad quality control on those


So, save up for when the book is done and we can trade. You can obtain both Lee Oskars and the Seydels at coast2coastmusic.com

Wikileaks: Cuba not Healthcare Utopia

Big surprise, according to wikileaks documents Michael Moore's Sicko movie was banned in Cuba for fear of stirring resentment since few Cubans can get care in the facility he filmed.

Only the overly optimistic ever believed that Cuba has the ideal system. Talk to people in Miami who still have family there, or recent immigrants. Other than making money and becoming a very fat rich white guy by villainizing very fat rich white guys, I have no idea what Moore's motives for most of his propaganda is. He has the kind of manner that would egg a peaceful guy on to punch him. I feel that way just seeing photos. I want to punch the guy.

I think it is hilarious that his flick would be banned in Cuba because the fantasy would make the citizens upset. His site claims it wasn't banned. Well, hell, if Mike says it, I know it must be so.

People I have talked to who have seen the system there first hand did not give a glowing report. Only a few idiots in our Congress who weren't there, and maybe a few of Castro's guests (useful idiots from Hollywood), are the main people who have spread the myth outside of Mike. Cubans in Miami certainly didn't. Then those who hate everything not controlled by central bureaucracy took up the cry.

The assertion that Cuba has a wonderful universal health care system which serves all is bullshit.

Here's the link to the story in some Limey newspaper. oooh it's British. Might as well be on PBS, NPR, etc. Why is it that our public broadcasting is mostly British news sources reporting about America? Must be that thing where Americans think everyone with a Brit accent is super intelligent.

Movie Review:Artois the Goat

Once in awhile you run across a low budget flick that you never heard of, and it turns out to be better and more poignant than 99% of those that get the hype and huge production budgets.

That does me good for a couple of reasons. One is that it proves a good movie can be made simply and relatively cheaply. I forgot the other reason. Maybe that I got my movie fix without contributing to what I think is a relatively closed shop.

Artois the goat is about the love. To know what that means, I suppose you have to have been there.

I won't tell the story. It is not actually about a goat. If it were Disney, I suppose Artois would be off on an adventure, possibly in the Yukon, befriending grizzly bears, narrowly escaping an avalanche, saving the dumb ass kid from the mean oil men, then leading him home to a ticker tape parade in Mayville. OK. You saw that one, too.

This is not that.

Some of it is almost surreal. And some of the more surreal parts are way too close to real life. It has great humor, especially if you are on the outside of the controversy about making it illegal to sell fresh dairy products and such. It has great humor otherwise as well. Never a dull moment and even I could follow the story without asking my imaginary friends what was going on.

In some respects this is almost up there with El Mariachi. Totally different, but both independent low cost flicks which were stellar.

For an uplifting film, and a little reinforcement if you wonder at your tendency to travel to the beat of a different drum, this is the mojo for you.

I watched it free on HULU. Of course they play ads but that's no big deal. Many were the world's most interesting man doling out sage advice. He always has marvelous senoritas hanging about. And he is always right, I suppose. However he did not mention the movie. Sponsoring it must have been enough.

Hermit History-onics; part N to the Z

Could it be my eventual gravitation toward the Subaru brand was actually due to subliminal messages planted many years ago by tricky advertisers?



Speaking of taming that spirited one. Here's how it's done; settle her right down, and her unfortunate child as well



Wonder if this explains certain elements of my life, past present and, hopefully not, future...

don't blame me--I'm just a hapless consumer who believes everything he reads, except warnings about hot coffee and slippery when wet signs--those I leave to my attorney

Molly, Raccoons, and Other

Sunset looking toward Alpine from Ballistic Mountain

Originally, I was all hyped to write about "other", but I forgot what other was. Or is.

Now, I have to fill in the latest on Molly--The Cat. Tonight I went over for feeding lessons. I had the pleasure of shooting up the cat. I don't think he even knew it was happening, but then I am an artiste in all things. I nailed him with the needle while he was eating.

Then I find out they don't leave until Sunday. I thought it was tomorrow. I forgive them. My friends made it clear that it is not my fault if Molly dies, runs away, or turns to life of crime. These are very thoughtful people who do not want someone doing them a favor to feel on the spot.

What I had not realized previously is that Molly can go outside when he chooses. If, for example, I have fed him in the morning and he wants to go out when I leave, it is OK to let him out and leave him there until I come back. Due to the many good hiding places around the house, and Molly's wily nature, they say he'll be OK. And when you come to feed him, he is sure to be right there as you open the door.

Even so, of all the possibilities, I hope nothing unusual happens, or, at most, he turns to a life of crime. In California that could mean anything--smoking in an empty park. Growing medicinal marijuana is only a federal crime.

That brings me to a question:
Given the choice, would you pull money out of your pocket to pay the feds to raid medicinal pot facilities in California if you lived on the east coast or Texas or somewhere?
I certainly would not willingly donate money to deal with herbs grown elsewhere. Actually, not here either. I see no harm in it and find arguments relating to harm to be unfounded. Not saying it is a productive habit, but it is by far less dangerous to others than alcohol. That goof who flipped out on an airplane then blamed his medicinal pot was purely lying.

So, if Molly, the cat, goes into the medicinal pot racket while his wardens are away, no harm done, unless the feds decide to do one of their periodic muscle flexing exercises to prove they have power over the states--which is actually contrary to the Constitution in many people's minds. Especially in a case which is not denying people rights.

My raccoon is still after the garbage, but so far, he can't get the lid off. I keep the bungee cord on it at all times. He did manage to tip over the can the other night. I put on the light and threw water at him--no time to boil the water, or oil.
I must say, he is a fine looking critter and he stared at me with an inquisitive, overly innocent expression, as if to say, "Hi. You can't possibly think I did anything wrong. I'm too cute! Besides, I'm just looking at that garbage can, I have no idea how it got tipped on its side. Can I be your innocent, harmless friend?"

"No you can't, you trouble making varmint!!!", I said in raccoonese.

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Must have been last year I had the flu. Seems like much longer than that.
Here's the photo taken by flu experts at the time