Nasty Orgasm

I went into the city this weekend, as a relative who's been in the hospital for 2 months now was finally released. He's very much the worse for wear, and frankly looked to be in that terminal stage old folks get when they've lost the will to live. Or at least, he looked that way the past few times I've driven in to see him.

He is now in a nursing home, since he still requires professional assistance, and will for some time to come, too. Still, he looked very awake, lucid, and happy. He interacted with us quite a bit, too, managing to hold his own conversationally. His speech center was affected by what initially ailed him, which is why his mostly successful attempts at communicating were so gratifying.

But that's not what this post is about.

While visiting him at the nursing home he'd been taken to the day before, to make sure it was a good place and that he'd be okay, I was privy to something which I'll now share.

First off, there's a lot of crazy old coots, and most of them end up in nursing homes. One fellow was sitting quietly in a corner, examining his hands as if he'd never seen them before, didn't approve of them and honestly had trouble with the very idea of hands, much less with actually having a pair. Then he gave a huge bellow, fit to wake the dead (trust me, I know what's needed to wake them), and wrapped it up with a sotto voce "pom po pom po pom po" which sounded like someone imitating a band drum. I soon learned this was a regular thing. He kept it up every 2 minutes, exactly, the whole time I was there.

Another old coot started hollering in Spanish for someone to assist him. You could tell that only one of the nurses was even remotely Latina, most being black with one Hindu thrown in for good measure. They tried to calm him down but he wouldn't hear of it. He had an appointment elsewhere and was going to be late, and could they please get him out of this wheelchair now!!! All in an Argentine-accented Spanish which none of the nurses understood.

But they're not what I wanted to write about...

There was an old lady sitting at one of the tables, in a wheelchair, too. Couldn't have been a day younger than 80. When I arrived she was slumped forward so you couldn't see her face. At some point she either woke or straightened up, either one, and started jumping up and down, making a weird little noise. She kept on pushing herself up a few inches into the air and falling back down to the chair for a long time. After some minutes of this, she started rocking sideways in her chair. Her mouth slowly opened into one huge, shit eating grin which showcased her one remaining tooth. Both the inside of her mouth and her eyes glistened as she arched her back a bit and had one hell of an orgasm. She then slumped back in her chair and didn't move again the whole time I was there.

And that's what I wanted to write about....

Wake

Drove a hell of a way yesterday to attend a colleague's father's viewing. I've always felt that you got to stick by the people that allow you to be rated as highly on the job as I usually am. I'm a manager, and one of the few who'll readily admit that we don't do a whole lot as regards real work. But we do know who can do it and we engage and motivate them to perform as required. That's what a good manager does. And a great part of that is just being there when the employee needs you. I deemed that yesterday was such a case.

And judging by the reactions I got, I was right on the money. Pity I seem to be in a minority in this company when it comes to 'good' management.

Taxes...

As usual, I'm doing my taxes. I always start as soon as I get the stupid W-2 forms. For the life of me I cannot understand why most people put it off till April rolls around. I always try to do mine as soon as possible in order to get the refund back quicker. This year's refund is going to be a hell of a lot more meager than the past couple of years. You see, this is the first year I haven't had huge moving costs or done creative stock selling in order to create a loss on paper that I could balance off against taxes due.

I'm still looking at some money, but not the huge payback I've been used to these past years. Unfortunately. I could use a new wing on the mansion.

Homeland (In)Security Revisited

Today's events in California just prove the point I was trying to make in yesterday's post, you just can't beat stupid. To recap, a suicidal moron parked his car on the train tracks, hoping to die by train. At some point he decided against it, and left the vehicle, instead of driving away in it, for whatever reason. A train ended up colliding with his vehicle, slamming into another train, killing ten and injuring a couple of hundred.

And people expect the government to protect them against every conceivable threat somehow! No one can protect against crazy, and no one can defend against stupid. And that's the real threat, right there, and the reason why I advocate annihilation for the so called 'terrorists'. You cannot protect yourself against a person who has an alien train of thought since by that fact alone, you cannot predict or foresee his every possible action. Only way to protect yourself is by wiping that other person out.

At least that will do away with the active threat, that coming from a person or group whose goal in life is to destroy our way of life. We still won't be able to protect against the odd crazy like the one responsible for today's incident, but at least that's not due to concerted action against us.

Homeland (In)Security

A homeless person in Manhattan allegedly managed to shut down a complete Subway line for the next 5 years, according to MTA officials. 5 frigging years. F-I-V-E years, let's say it together now... FIVE!!!!

The mind boggles, and the flabber is thoroughly gasted. What moron does the MTA have in charge of their infrastructure, and has he or she ever heard of contingency planning and disaster recovery? How can damage to one cabinet take 5 years to repair or recover from? I'd be hardpressed to understand why it would take 6 months, and that only if you had to specially produce the parts required.

Then let's look at what sort of circus passes for security in the NY Subway system. Why can homeless people descend into the depths hauling supermarket carts? I've seen cops giving people the eye if their laptop bag is bigger than what's considered normal these days, but a supermarket cart they have no issues with?

Anyway, this highlights a pet peeve I have around Homeland Security. I hear people crying out all over, urging the government to spend money making everything 100% safe. The latest madness is an initiative to equip passenger planes with anti-missile technology at some ungodly cost equal to almost triple the yearly national budget for Homeland Security.

People, you cannot make everything safe. Once you make something safe from one particular threat, you leave it open to another one, or better yet, the bad guys will shift from targeting planes to something else that's not protected, like the stupid NY Subway system!!! No need for high technology, why, a run of the mill towelhead with a shopping cart can cripple the MTA, it seems.

This is just another symptom of the growing belief among Westerners in general and Americans in particular, that life has to be made safe for them from any possible threat that could conceivably be prevented, no matter what the cost. And especially, no matter who has to foot that cost.

Life is a dangerous endeavor, folks, and it always ends in death. At least for everybody you're likely to know. You cannot spend all your lives and all your resources trying to prevent particular ways of dying because even if through some unforeseen eventuality you managed it, then, you morons, you'd have spent all your lives trying to prevent any dangers and not a minute actually enjoying life! So, you might as well go out and jump off a building and have done with it!

Here's a thought, you want to make the world (and by that we Americans mean us, not the actual world, nor by any means any of its people besides Americans) safe from terrorists? It's an easier solution, then, to do that by making the world more dangerous for terrorists. In other words, to carry the attack to them in no uncertain terms. Once you kill the last terrorist, or dissuade him from targeting you, you've no further need for all these 'defenses' that people seem to want so badly.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this time paraphrasing from one of my favorite Zelazny novels, I think it's time for the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat to bend above the Arab's temples.

It's simple, really. So far the horror, the ruthlessness, the unrelenting hate have all been targeted at us (Americans, again) and we've, for the most, been trying to do things the right way. Let's be ruthless and unrelenting for a change, and see how that goes. I remember back in school when I faced down a bully. He was ruthless and unrelenting, too, besides being way bigger than I was. Once I introduced him to my friend, the brick, I not only hurt him worse than he'd ever been hurt before, but I convinced him that I could be far more ruthless than he was. He ended up in the hospital, and I managed to convince him that the next time I'd make sure even the hospital couldn't repair the damage. End of problem.

And that's the way to go. Make it too expensive and painful to the enemy, and they'll back down. Worst case, they don't back down, you continue till they're all dead. In the meantime, for those folks not actively participating in the conflict, there's a war out there. It's rough, and people die. And some of the people who die are civilians. And one of them could be you. Not a happy scenario, but a real one, nonetheless. Deal with it.

Trust me, the alternative, giving in to the terrorists and anyone else who's prepared to threaten us, would be an even worse situation.

That's My Bush!

And to think there were a lot of folks worried that fundamental Christians had taken over the White House...

Nothing further from the truth. Hail Satan!

Snow

It's snowing awesomely. I was despairing that this winter had been a fizzle so far, but this weekend's more than making up for it. I hope it's only the start of a proper season, and not a single occurrence.

This morning we had to respond for a medical call. Old geezer had a heart attack. Nothing to be done. Despite heroic efforts by the EMT team, it looked as if he was a bagger from the start. On the upside, I did get to drive the ambulance to the hospital, since the EMT crew on it were all busy in the back trying to revive the patient. First time I've ever driven a response vehicle with lights and siren on, and going at whatever speed I wanted to. Felt great. My buddies from the Fire Dept. picked me up then, since my car had remained behind at the station. It's weird to count on people without having to tell them what you want done. I've become used to not relying on anyone but myself, and now these folks are becoming family, with something like what military folks call esprit de corps. While it is nice to count on people, I'm not sure I can ever do it unconsciously, nor, much less, too certain that that would be a good thing. It's one thing to rely on them during a situation, where you know training kicks in, and something quite different to rely on them in any other scenario.

Body Worlds is going to do Chicago next month. I've decided to go see it there. I've been wanting to catch it since I heard about it, but have just not had the chance so far. Unpardonable, given that I am what I am.

In their Element

Luckily, I worked from home yesterday. It allows me to get all my actual work done, plus eat decent food, plus take a break at any time I'm that way inclined. But that has nothing to do with luck. The luck comes into play from what I learned only today.

Looks like there was a plumbing problem in the office complex we work out of. The whole place was literally festooned with turds and other fine examples of raw sewage, and the smell was supposed to have been horrifying. Despite that, my client made all their employees work their normal shifts, since product must be delivered in a timely manner.

Swimming in shit... Management must have felt completely in their element for once...

Long Live Bush

Four more years... LOL Stupid, whiny Libs deserve it...

There's not one, by the way, who wasn't so sure of Bush being defeated that they swore to leave for Canada, or wherever, should he win. I still see them here, though. Maybe they were waiting for the Inauguration and they'll be heading out by tomorrow?

Ghosts will play at being ghosts...

I had the weirdest dream the other night. Now, my dreams are for the most either of the profound, enlightening kind, designed to further my education in whatever the Gods feel is lacking that day, or, if the Gods deem that nothing is lacking at that particular point in time, then they'll be of the very entertaining, full of blood and guts, as well as titties and cabooses variety. Sort of like TV++, since they're in full technicolor, 3-dimensional and completely interactive.

The other night's doesn't fit easily in either category. I don't think I learned anything I hadn't known, for one, and while there was a gorgeous femme in it, her clothes never came off, nor did anyone die. Oh. And she was dead, anyway, not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Oh, come on! Don't look at me like that! Don't knock necrophilia until you've tried it...

Still she wasn't a corpse, she was a ghost, as was everyone else involved in that oniric scene except yours truly. The house we were in was obviously a haunted house, as it was chock full of ghosts, which I could see clearly, and they could see me. For some reason, they were convinced I was a ghost, too, a misperception I did not attempt to correct.

Now, the gorgeous ghost was plainly in love with me, besotted completely, and her immense sadness was probably based on the fact that we were on different planes. At one point I remember wandering into the kitchen and discovering a succulent slab of prime beef, which I proceeded to grill for myself, being slightly peckish. I could see all the ghosts looking at me and wondering why I was cooking food. I could also sense that the gorgeous ghost, being the only one cognizant of my still embodied status, wanted to keep it that way, and for some reason was not eager for the rest of the ghosts to see the truth.

Now, I didn't sense that this was because of any threat to myself, but rather because it would scare them. It was sort of like the ghosts would be scared of me if they saw I was still alive and not scared of them. Sort of like the ghosts in a particularly good novel by one Christopher Stasheff called "The Warlock In Spite of Himself", where the hero discovers ghosts produce fear by use of subsonics, and that it takes at least 3 ghosts ululating in unison to produce the necessary harmonics. Once he uses the proper ear plugs, he no longer feels that fear, and the ghosts are suddenly wary of him. It's a shame that Stasheff decided, as many authors have, to continue adding sequel upon sequel, and a prequel or two, to that novel, which stood perfectly well on its own and whose story has been rather devalued by all the later, and nowhere near as good, additions.

Anyway, that was the impression I got of it all, through no overt means, I just 'had' the knowledge. So, the dream continued on for a while, with nothing significant happening, other than that I enjoyed a particularly good meal, ogled the beautiful ghost, and contemplated whether I should scare the ghosts out of a year's worth of non-growth or not.

If there was any meaning or lesson in all that, I confess it escapes me.

Reason for Frequent Outages

There's an internal system we use for requesting, approving and tracking purchases. The system is not only one of the most inefficient ones I've ever had the misfortune of suffering under (as I've complained about before), but it's also prone to frequent failures and outages.

The most recent outage, which my company advises everyone of by sending a mass email similar to those advertising penis enlargement devices, prompted a reply from a manager who, on the face of his email alone, must be very new to the company.

In his email he asks the person who notifies of these outages why there seem to be so many of them, so frequently.

My fingers were itching to respond to the poor, benighted fool. The only thing that prevented me from doing so is that I got completely lost just trying to figure out where to start. There's so many things wrong with my company and the way it bumbles through business that picking a starting point isn't an easy thing.

Poor newbie. He'll learn.

In the thick of things...

We had a very nasty call last night. Someone at a nearby plant had caught his hand in an industrial roller. Almost managed to amputate it. The bones were poking out of his hand all over the place, and it was very badly mangled. To top it off, the guy was allergic to the painkiller we carry. It really sucked to be him.

Fortunately, the ambulance crew arrived pretty quick and took over for us. I'm hoping they had something handy that he wasn't allergic to. The guy was a good sport, conscious the whole time and not even a whimper. The only outward sign of his pain was that his legs were trembling something awful. I first thought he was in shock and couldn't feel a thing, but when someone asked him how bad the pain was he gave a pretty good description of hell.

Then this morning, returning from a meeting at one of my clients, I was perfectly placed to see a huge trailer flip over and slide sideways towards me. Luckily it was in the opposing lane, and there's a concrete divider there. The trailer came to rest on the divider. I stopped to help, and I got out a seatbelt cutter I carry in the car, just in case. By the time I walked over, the driver had climbed out on his own. Another truck driver was already calling 911. I gave my Chief a call on his cell, since it was in our area of coverage. No injuries, no hazard besides 'huge trailer in the middle of the highway', so after a while I continued home. They finally paged us about 1/2 an hour later, to assist in traffic control.

And now I'm getting ready to head into NYC for the weekend. Have fun, all...

Spanish as a Second Language in Mexico

Don't you just love it in those few American movies that actually have scenes with the natives, deep within Mexico, speaking Spanish instead of English, that they nonetheless invariably speak Spanish with a gringo accent? Where do they get those people? You'd think if they were going for authenticity, which I guess they are, since they took the trouble of scripting the one scene in Spanish, that they'd use someone who speaks Spanish with a Mexican accent, no?

I have "Fools Rush In", I think is the title, as TV Muzak on right now. Gods, Salma is hot... Anyway, it just struck me as curious when her grandmother, a really old lady living deep in Central Mexico, is advising her, that she most definitely speaks Spanish as if she'd learned it in Brooklyn. And then I recall that it's not the first time by far that I've seen this happen.

Funny.

Was that wrong?

The following is from a particularly great Seinfeld episode, where George is discovered to have been screwing the cleaning lady, on his desk, of all places:

Boss: I'm going to get right to the point. It has come to my attention that you and the cleaning woman have engaged in sexual intercourse on the desk in your office. Is that correct?

George: Who said that?

Boss: She did.

George: Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.

I've got to say my reaction is about the same as George's when confronted with the latest escapade of Britain's ruling family. It seems young Harry dressed up as a Nazi for some costume party or other. Was that wrong? Should he not have done that?

From all the uproar and commotion caused by it, you'd think he'd reopened the Concentration Camps and gassed a Jew or two. Sure, the Holocaust was a terrible thing. It might have been less terrible if the rest of the world had tried to do something about it before it got to that point, but, hey, hindsight is always 20/20. I don't understand why it's such a big deal to everyone that he chose such a costume. I imagine he didn't have it made special for the occasion, so he must have bought or rented it somewhere, proving there's a demand. Also, he was trying to have fun at a frigging party, not espousing the views held by the Nazis during their heyday.

There's currently Neo-Nazi groups based out of most cities in Europe, and they're not circumspect in their ways, or hidden at all. They're right up there in your face, kill-all-the-Jews-and-foreigners type of folks. I guess it's easier (and safer) for all those people complaining and making a fuss to gang up against dumb, stupid Harry who has to apologize for PR reasons or there'll be hell to pay, as opposed to stepping up to some big, hairy, white supremacist type and telling him to his face that you don't approve of his beliefs.

I swear, people have their heads so far up their asses nowadays that you can safely bet that the majority will always gravitate towards the stupidest cause available to them, given any choice.

God forbid he wear a Darth Vader costume or all the lame, wannabe Jedi fans would probably have insisted on his head.

Morons.

An Eye for an Eye

Reading through Colombia's main newspaper today, as I do about once every two weeks, just to see what they're up to down there, I noticed a very amusing story. It turns out the Colombian government had a guerrilla leader, who had an arrest warrant on valid charges, kidnapped in neighboring Venezuela by, I guess, bounty hunters, who then smuggled him across the border and into the Colombian city of Cucuta. There, they handed him over to Colombian security forces who 'arrested' him and took him into custody, where he languishes today.

The story is written in a very concerned and even deeply offended tone by one Daniel Samper Pizano (more about him further on in this post). The premise is one that will be immediately familiar to some of the bleeding heart liberals in this country. It seems that despite the Colombian guerrilla's favorite modus operandi being to kidnap people and hold them for ransom, often for years at a time, it's the height of bad manners for the Colombian government to have had one of them kidnapped for the purpose of bringing him to justice.

Hello? Knock. Knock. Is there anybody in there??? Way I see it, if you engage in activities deemed to be against basic Human Rights, then you are automatically relinquishing those same rights as applied to you. I, for one, wish we'd extend this principle into our current conflict in a systematized way. But I digress...

Anyway, the mentality of the people arguing that every courtesy be extended to the enemies of society, regardless of how they behave against the rest of us, is sheer idiocy. And even worse is the way they insist on comparing these events as equal.

The guerrilla kidnaps people for ransom and holds them for years. That's a fact. The Colombian government paid someone to capture (call it kidnap if you want) a wanted man and bring him within the reach of the law. Not the same.

The fundamentalist Islamic terrorists kidnap our people and videotape some towelheaded moron cutting their heads off with a blade. Another fact easy to verify. Some misguided U.S. soldiers doing guard duty in a prison take cute pictures of prisoners in embarrassing scenarios. Also not the same. But some idiots insist on treating them as such. Now, I'm not saying that it's good to take pictures of Ali in compromising situations with Mohammed and Hasan, but at least no one lost his head in the process, even if they might have given head during it.

Lastly, the funniest thing about the article by Samper is knowing that he is the brother of erstwhile Colombian President Ernesto Samper Pizano, a very folkloric character who had so many problems with the law because of his shady dealings that he spent almost all of his presidency in court defending himself. I didn't see his brother write any articles in concerned tones about that particular event.

North American Recipes

Man, these look scrumptious. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out...

Roast Beaver
One 8-10 lb. beaver
bread crumbs
salt and pepper
1 tsp. thyme and rosemary
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup currant jelly

Stuff the beaver and salt and pepper it all over. Place beaver in uncovered roasting pan and bake for 15 minutes in 450 degree oven. Add wine, water, jelly and herbs. Cover and continue roasting at 325 degrees for 3.5 hours. As the beaver bakes, skin the fat from time to time.
from The L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook by Cameron and Jones

Raccoon Roast
1 raccoon, including liver
bouquet of parsley, chopped
2 onions, sliced
sprig of thyme and rosemary
2 tbsp. butter

Wash carcass with hot water and lemon juice. Slit along the belly and remove intestines. Sautee parsley, onions and liver in butter. Stuff contents into carcass and roast for two hours, basting frequently with butter or bacon fat. Salt and pepper to taste.
from Fowl and Game Cookery by James Beard

Muskrat in Cream
2 young muskrat
1/2 pint cream
cooking oil
juice of two lemons
salt and pepper

Cut the dressed muskrat into serving-size pieces. Sprinkle with lemon and refrigerate overnight. Rinse the meat and sprinkle salt and pepper. Cover with flour and brown the meat in the skillet. Transfer to casserole dish, add cream and bake for 25 minutes.
from Complete Fish & Game Cookbook by A.D. Livingston

Stewed Possum
1 young, fat opossum
8 sweet potatoes
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. sugar
salt

Wash possum thoroughly. Freeze overnight. Boil peeled potatoes with sugar, butter and salt. Stew the possum until tender in a tightly covered pan. Arrange the taters around the possum, sprinkle with thyme or marjoram, or pepper, and brown in the oven. Baste often with the drippings.
from North Carolina State Wild Game Recipes

And all the above I copied from this article, which is really a great read.

People's Choice Awards

While channel surfing this weekend, I happened to catch a couple of minutes of the People's Choice Awards Ceremony, which I take it is yet another award set up for movies, like the Oscar. As fate would have it, I tuned in when they were awarding the prize for best movie. To the best of my recollection, the nominees were Fahrenheit 911, Spiderman 2, and Shrek 2. The winner, to my absolute surprise was Fahrenheit 911, as egregious a pack of lies as has been put to celluloid since... Hmmm... Since the start of time, now that I ponder it.

Anyway, Michael Moore stepped up to claim his kewpie doll, and to my utmost surprise was not dressed as if he had just stepped out of a homeless shelter in the Bronx, but actually had a decent looking suit on. Sure, it had enough cloth to cover a whale, but at least it was decently tailored, and he didn't have his stupid baseball cap on.

His speech was the kicker, though. He went on to thank the People for having chosen him. I burst out laughing. Gods know what people it is that choose the winners for this particular award, but if you want to talk about People's Choices, those were held last November, and to the best of my knowledge the people chose Bush, which I'd think would sort of preclude the same people choosing Moore's lying propagandistic bullshit as best anything. Maybe the people who vote for these awards are the French people?

The Spirit

Goddamn it, I just found out that Will Eisner passed away this week. He brought me countless hours of joy, and will always remain one of my favorite artists. Back in the day when the only comicbooks I read were the usual crop of angst-ridden Marvel superhero titles, I started a side business importing comicbooks into a 3rd world country. I suspected, accurately, that the ex-pat community would be a pretty good market for such things. I was right, too, but that's another story. Business didn't last too long, since as soon as an established bookstore with deep pockets saw how good a market it was, they took it over. I moved on to other things.

Anyway, I used to only bring in on my own the more popular titles, but I would also bring in anything else by special order, provided the customer would pay up front. One such customer, a guy in his late 40's, started asking whether I could get The Spirit for him. I'd never heard of it, but I said I'd ask my distributor. Turns out it was still being published, but only as reprints of the original stories. No matter, said my client, I want them. So I started bringing in a copy of The Spirit each month, or every two months, I forget what its frequency was back then. Since he waxed so poetically about it, and I hadn't a lot on my plate in those days, I started reading them before passing them on to him. I only did that a few times, after which I started ordering it for myself.

The Spirit was a creation of Will Eisner, and was originally published around WWII and a decade or two after. I might be off with the dates, and I'm too lazy to check on the web, but it was thereabouts. The Spirit had no powers, other than his wits and being a great brawler, and he usually got the upper hand against his enemies by equal parts intelligence, luck and help from his friends. Most of his adventures are hilarious, as are his crop of arch-enemies. He got beat up quite badly every now and then, and it was refreshing to see a hero drawn with black eyes, bruises, cuts and on the verge of collapse. The women around him were almost always gorgeous, and drawn in such a voluptuous way as to set the juices flowing. Also, it was definitely not a politically correct tale Eisner spun, for example, The Spirit's sidekick was a young negro, drawn in a very, shall we say, ethnic way. Yet there was no racism in it, and many a tale had young Ebony Black, which was his name, as the central figure.

I quickly learned to recognize and appreciate the trademarks Eisner used, one being the splash page before each story, which incorporated the words "The Spirit" into the general drawing in particularly inventive and apt ways. The other trademark Eisner characteristic was how he'd push the envelope always. He was never content with merely drawing a story, and letting the drawings and the word balloons tell the tale. He often experimented, sometimes in ways that worked out very well, and which the then current comicbooks, which had at least 20 years on the Spirit, had yet to even approach, much less equal. And to top it all off, the stories were sensational. They were interesting, engaging, humorous and the artwork was fantastic. But don't go by me, the complete run of The Spirit is being republished in book format, by DC. Go pick up a volume or 10, I've made the following link which should bring up the books I mean. Word of warning, though, the best stories are those drawn and scripted by Eisner, and he was drafted during WWII, so there's a hiatus during which The Spirit was drawn and scripted by others. Eisner's stories go up to Volume 2, then continue when he took the reins back after the war around Volume 11:



Eisner also invented what is now known as the Graphic Novel with the 1978 "A Contract With God", which shows yet another way in which he was willing to experiment and put his name and finances on the line for what he believed in. He was critical to turning the comicbook industry from a juvenile-oriented enterprise into the general market construct it is today.

Eisner will be sorely missed, and I'm sure somewhere The Spirit, young Ebony Black, Ellen, the Chief, and the rest of the cast are standing with heads bowed, and a tear in their eye. I know I am.

One after the other

Stayed home today, on account of the weather, but working nonetheless. Around noonish I got the first alarm on the pager, for fallen wires. Nothing much we could do on that one except close down the stretch of road, which we did. It's still closed 5 hours later. Power Company isn't ever quick to respond to that sort of thing.

After that call, we didn't even make it back to the station before we were paged with another one. And then another one. We went for lunch and I barely had time to wolf down a couple of slices of pizza before we had to run for our cars and get back to the station. It went something like this...

- Wire down, responded to that, but I was in 2nd truck which never made it because..
- Another page for another wire down, so we responded to that one, and closed the road around the two wires, tried to get to the station but paged with a...
- Tree down, which we had to cut up with a power saw and get out of the road.
- In the process of doing that, another tree fell beside us, so clear that one, too.
- Then another one, but it fell right across the line which ends our township and starts the next one, so we let the fire company in charge of that section know. We still ended up helping them, though.
- Lunch at a pizza place, after stowing our gear back at the station.
- Call for a boulder down on the road, different section, so close that one, too.

And that brings us to now. We'll probably be called out again any minute now, it's just one of those days...

And I love every minute of it... LOL

DVDization of it all

It's amazing how the powers that be finally realized the goldmine they were sitting on with all those cancelled series which have been rerun for years, some for decades.

I've been wondering for years when the owners of shows like Seinfeld, Star Trek, Cheers, Taxi, All in the Family and the like would finally wise up, get every episode on DVD and start selling them. After all, if there's still a market for them as reruns, with whole cable channels dedicated to nothing but, then why wouldn't you make them available on disc? Somebody's been sleeping at the helm for years...

I've been wondering, yeah, and dreading... Now I've got to start spending money on a few must-haves. Seinfeld tops the list, but only when they deliver every last episode. It's only the first 3 seasons so far.

Lethal

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, so it's mere chance that I resolved to do something around the same time as the calendar year changed.

For a long time I'd known in the core of my being that there would come a time when I'd be compelled to become as lethal as humanly possible. I've always carried extra baggage around the waist, and it's never bothered me. As my sensei says, it just gives you extra mass to hit someone with, if you know how to move and apply it. At the same time, I recognize that a little of that may be a lot, and that I'm carrying more than I optimally should.

I've never before felt the urge to exercise merely for weight reduction purposes, until now.

There Shall Be No Law Beyond Do As Thou Wilt. I've always known how to listen to my Will, my true Will, which differentiates me from the run of the mill Thelemites who take Crowley's injunction to be a free ride to anarchy and pleasure-seeking.

I am now therefore compelled. I only hope whatever conflict I'm being prepared for will have both gore and glory.

Norwegian Wood(head)

A stupid Norwegian (I am tempted here to ask whether there's any other kind, but I also have to admit I haven't run into all that many Norwegians. The fact that every one I've seen has been spouting nonsense might be due an imbalance in the Force or something) went on record saying that the U.S. isn't generous enough when it comes to helping out in disasters, such as the recent Tsunami. Stingy is the word this moronic U.N. functionary used.

This immediately reminded me of a 'desechable' (Colombian term for the homeless, which means, literally, 'disposable') who asked me for spare change once in Bogota. He looked extremely fit, healthy and alert, so I had no qualms in telling him that I had no change to spare and kept on walking. The homeless guy said, as I walked away, "That's why we have to steal from you people, cause you don't give on your own". I turned around, stuck my hand in my pocket, and removed a wad totaling about a million pesos (approx. $500 US at the time) and showed it to him. I put it back in my pocket and said, "Come steal it off me you sorry son of a bitch". It must've been the look on my face, but he just kept on walking, muttering insults. I wouldn't have wasted any time fighting fair, either. He'd have had something broken within the first couple of seconds. I've never considered streetfighting to be a game.

When did charity become mandatory? While I would never even think of trying to punish the Asians hit by the tsunami due to this idiot's remarks, someone should nevertheless explain to the U.N., and the world at large, that America is already shouldering more than our fair share of the world's ills. And we are doing so without expecting any thanks (luckily, as all we get nowadays is the usual crop of Anti-America rants).

The rest of the world is sounding more and more like some clueless adolescent, fighting Dad every step of the way, but never failing to stick his hand out once a week to request his allowance. Maybe we should kick the kid out of the house for good. I mean, really, what use is the U.N. these days? A den of corruption is all it's become, and we certainly don't need more of that on our shores. We have enough of our homegrown variety without importing fancy brands from abroad. The U.N. ceased being effective years ago, let's cut the crap and send it to France, or wherever else they're willing to take it in. Norway, maybe? They're not stingy, are they?

In other, unrelated news, one of my favorite artists has died, may he rest in peace. Freas illustrated many of my favorite SciFi novels, as well as Mad Magazine and my particular favorite, the cover for the Queen album, News of the World.

2005

This year feels the same as the last one. Weird. I am starting to suspect that the Gods are simply recycling time. Very ecological, I'm sure, but we are paying for the real thing.

Somebody ought to complain...