Sunday, May 27, 2007

More Test Photo's and Post

You know, there is one advantage in not believing in god, you no longer have to beleive in the devil either which kind makes us all a lot more responsible for our actions and how we treat each other.

The edit continues....

This is Shanzi and I in a rare moment of public affection. I like this picture. That's all.


 
This is a peice that my friend Drew and I did together. It is truely strange and I love it. Posted by Picasa





Shanzi after one of our goofy painting times...ain't she cute?

The Five Levels of Madness

Level 1. Coincidence: you start to NOTICE synchronicities around you. Around 4-6 a day. For example, you're in a chat room and listening to music at the same time. In the song you're listening to, someone says the words "Why not?" and a second later, or at exactly the same time, the words "Why Not?" appear on your screen as part of a conversation. Or else, you are thinking of onions for some reason and the radio is on and at that moment someone mentions onions on the radio. *Most* people do not notice these things. This is in the realm of AWARENESS.

Level 2: Significance: These coincidences start to happen more and more and each time they do you FEEL an eerie significance even though you can't say what the significance is. This is akin to Richard Dreyfuss saying "This is important, this means something" while pointing to a pile of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This is in the realm of FEELING

Level 3: Ideas: You start to get ideas about the 'significant coincidences'. These ideas, are actually not correct or at least not in sync with consensus reality. For example, you notice that the light outside the door of the door of your particular apartment, the light in the hallway is a LITTLE bit brighter than the other lights in the hallway. You get the IDEA that this is because someone has replaced it with a cancer-causing radiation emitter. Probably someone in the government. But you don't BELIEVE this...this is in the realm of a THOUGHT.

Level 4: Connection: If the thoughts are persistent, each of the significant coincidences that you notice and have thoughts about start to relate to each other, in a way that are meaningful to you. For example, you may hear a hum come through your apartment and get the persistent idea that it is from members of the government, that have taken up residence in an adjacent apartment, sending cancer causing rays toward you. Combined with the other idea of the light, and further ideas, more and more 'evidence' is being accumulated. These 'meaningful connections' usually have a grandiose, religious, or sinister bent to them.
In other words, each of these moments/ideas are like stars in a constellation 'forming' in your mind the outline of a giant scorpion in the sky (or a boat or a donkey or whatever else is culturally (read: personally) significant). Every time you look at the constellation you MAY BELIEVE you see a giant scorpion. This is in the realm of BELIEF.

Level 5: Disconnection: You disconnect from reality, or at least consensus reality. Not only do you see a scorpion in the sky but the scorpion comes down and talks to you. It also imports to you, possibly, knowledge that you might not have any business knowing, or otherwise not know. This is the realm of the shaman and the collective unconsciousness. Strange events occur. You can 'see into the future', have remote viewing or out of body experiences, ghosts tap the back of your chair, etc. This, debatably, at least from the Western point of view, is known as 'your mind playing major tricks on you'.
Notes: This process can be likened to a person jumping from a dock onto a boat leaving the dock. He leaves the dock because the crowd on it makes him nervous and wants to get away from them. As he has one foot on the boat, one foot on the dock, he has three choices: 1.) stay on the dock, 2.) jump on the boat (go mad), or 3.) Fall in the water. Once you have reached level 5 you are 'on the boat'.
The 'dock' is consensus reality. The 'water' down below is the realm of the mental patient in Western society. Medications and mental health interventions are analogous here to 'life preservers'.
Some countries and cultures do not have the technology or wherewithal for medications and services and so forth. For the people in the water, they either drown or are taken care of by people who jump in and buoy them. Other countries deal with this by making the 'boat riders' as holy people and revere them.
However, in Western culture, being 'on the boat' (unless you are a Hopi elder living on an Indian reservation and have people taking care of you) is not compatible with 'activities of daily living', things like going grocery shopping, paying rent and bills on time, having a social life, etc. People in the water and certainly on the boat are 'stigmatized', as weak and dangerous to the 'flock' on the 'dock'. The 'boat rider' or 'water dweller' or 'those that cannot tolerate the dock' (for reasons of the same sensitivities to irrelevant stimulus that leads to level 1) and all the rest of it requires intervention.
Again, in other cultures, going on 'boat trips' can be a valuable service to the community, as if a ship captain has gone out and brought back fish, or treasures from other lands in the form of art, messages from beyond, pognostications, etc.
Getting 'lost at sea' is also a possibility.

"Creativity is a bloody nuisance and an evil curse that will see to it that you die from stress and alcohol abuse at a very early age, that you piss off all your friends, break appointments, show up late, and have this strange bohemian urge (you know that decadent laid-back pimp-style way of life). The truly creative people I know all live lousy lives, never have time to see you, don't take care of themselves properly, have weird tastes in women and behave badly. They don't wash and they eat disgusting stuff, they are mentally unstable and are absolutely brilliant."
Toke Nygaard
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Pics From Rant Ramble and Repeat 3

These are some pics from the parent blog R3. I have some new photo software I am trying to master so I used them as a test, plus I wanted to transfer them to here anyway.







Just some old pics from Athens



Ort.

The "Beach" here is not what I am used to from The Gulf of Mexico

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Saturday, May 26, 2007

Link

Follow this link http://www.defconamerica.org/creationmuseum/ to the Defence of the American Constitution's web page about the "Creation Museum". A 27 million dollar pro Creative Design (Ugh) facility dedicated to teaching children and those with child-like minds a gigantic load of Anti-Science hogwash.

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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Happy Birthday Max

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Jerry Fawell is Dead

Jerry Falwell is dead. I’ve decided to call a spade a spade, even in death. My only personal story about the man comes from my Aunt Eleanor (Maxham) via my deceased Mother. In brief it goes as thus:My Aunt attended one of Falwells sermons once (She lives in his home base city of Lynchberg Virginia…beautiful place as are most Southern locations) and during the sermon her infant daughter, my cousin Mincy, started to cry. My Aunt tried to leave as so not to disturb anyone and to attend to her child but found the doors locked and was told no one was allowed to leave in the middle of one of Fawell's diatribes (Probably not the term used at the time)My Aunt had to essentialy FORCE her way out. Needless to say it was the one and only time she took part in anything Fawell. Frankly I am surprised she even went once as she is very intellegent (She is Phd holder...side note; so is the rest of that family circle, Mincy, brother Chip and my Uncle David. Psychology, Anthropology, Meteorology and Physics in that order…smart lot those Maxhams)

He was a hateful person who did not serve to inspire the better nature of America, Christians or anyone. Instead, he used religion to propagate hate and discrimination for as long we anyone can remember. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

The Carpetbagger Report has a compilation; http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10806.html,
of Jerry Falwell’s most famous digressions from morality, ethics, and the law. Here is a classic from 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

I remember, in the wake of great tragedy, Falwell making this statement. I’m happy to call attention to it today so people who give commentary on his life see that it was filled with hate. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

Howie Klein, at Down With Tyranny goes a little farther than I would, but shows he is well versed in literature. Howie’s post actually reminds me of the book “The Dante Club” by Matthew Pearl. You can read about it here;
http://www.matthewpearl.com/dante/thebook.html.

If you’re already familiar with the book, then you’ll know that a “man of God” who does not follow the spirit of the Word is reserved a particularly painful punishment in Dante’s Inferno. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

American for Separation of Church and State show how Falwell illegally transferred money from tax exempt institutions to pay for partisan political activities. This was $6.7 million dollars that regular people gave to him for his Ministry. Instead, he transferred it to political committees. He showed no regard for the law or the spirit in which that money was given. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

So, he hated women, blacks, gays, Jews, liberals, progressives, atheists, agnostics, foreigners, and anybody else who disagreed with him. He broke the law. He established a university that institutionalized everything he was about. I hope it all goes with him. The brand of conservative hate he represented has no place in what this country should stand for. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Laundry and Boredom in Suburbia

Okay, I have never seen or heard of a Laundromat named “Wash’By’Gosh, the Laundromat across the street from our townhouse is actually named “Westport Cleaners and Coin Laundry”. It doubles as a business with “Westport Hair” and has at least two apartment units above it. Something in me suspects that the real name is a funnier one than the name I pulled out of my tookus. Neither is as funny as “Piggly Wiggly”.

I don’t like to take too much creative license in my essays normally. That, in my opinion, is too close to writing fiction for which I have no talent. On this occasion I make an exception to that rule but only with the name. The rest of my little reflection laid out below is all taken from my life.

I really hope there is a “Wash’By’Gosh somewhere. The world would seem a little sadder without one.




Once again here I am, damn near broke and bored stupid. Therefore, I take the last of the loose change on hand and go to the Laundromat. The washer is acting stranger than a reality show celebrity on crack so I decide to not risk doing the wash at home; besides, I want to get out for a bit.

It seems like I’m constantly doing laundry. At home and abroad I am forever washing clothes. I am constantly washing basket after basket of stinking wrinkled thread worn shirts, sweaters and pants but not socks. There are no socks in my laundry. There are no socks because I no longer even bother with socks anymore. I just wear them until they become to stiff and gruesome to put on my feet or until they crawl away to follow hopes and dreams of their own. When I run out I simply buy new ones. They are a replaceable commodity in my life not unlike toilet paper or employment. Socks aside, I feel like an undue amount of time in my life is spent doing laundry. I know that I did three loads less than a week ago, now I got three more loads to do. I can’t blame it on anyone else, Shanzi washes her own clothes and when she feels industrious, brave or both she also washes some of mine. That is if I let her. I am responsible for this high maintence wardrobe. Christ! How can one person wear that much clothing in so short a span of time? Who?!? I don’t think I own that much goddamn clothing.

I load up my tiny economy car and head the 25 or so yards down the street to the Laundromat. I realize it is a short distance to justify driving when I constantly carry on about conservation and eviromentalism but who the Hell wants to make six round trips down the street and mind you, there is no sidewalk, carrying smelly overburdened laundry baskets? The Earth will survive this minor assault and in any case my guilt over this should be nullified by the fact I I recycle and practice reasonable amounts of conservation on a daily basis. In fact the car Shanzi and I share is an excellent example of the personal ecologicaly sound practices I apply everyday in my life. The car itself has an inbuilt environmentale consciousness. You see, there are times it chooses not to run at all so as to cut down on pollution and reduce the fuel burden . It is also such a gamble to drive it long distances that most of the time I simply take public transit or walk rather than drive. A car sitting cold and unused outside your apartment doesn’t consume ANY fuel (Fossil or otherwise) or emit green house gases in any quantity. You just don’t get more eco-friendly than that! Ralph Nader and Clarke Howard would both be proud of me. I am saving both the environment and money with my car.

Tic Toc, Tic Toc.

I load up the car with dirty clothes and make my way to the "Wash'by'Gosh" laundromat. As i enter the building I take in my suroundings and the suroundee's. The folks in that lot consisted of several different stereo-types. There are two loudish women in their early twenties(?) discusing sex toys and pet grooming, a faimly of wary Latin Americans, an angry looking grand-mother type and three white males who depite bearing of varying ages all shared a singular "mad fishermen" sensibility. Luckily for the Suspension of disbelief of this narrative there were no surly teens or looming black men, and sadly, no laundromat vixens (Like those portrayed in jean advertisements) present. Having met the players, I settle in for the long haul at “Wash’By’Gosh” and commence with the dull task at hand. I have with me an ipod and a cache of Cigarettes to make being here just about a passable event. A bottle of carefully camouflaged whiskey also plays a key role. I resort to the camouflage tactics with the booze not out of respect for laundromat rules or a sense of public sensibility but because I don’t want to share.

I finally get through all three loads and just when I think I’m done I realize I have to wash my sports jacket* too because, while it doesn’t look too bad** it smells a little whiffie. I have a job interview tomorrow and I will want...no need this my favorite coat. I wish to look presentable and stay warm and do both if possiable. That can be trickey here in Washington even in the high summer and this is January I'm dealing with now. This is the Pacific Northwest Coast. It’s always wet and cold. This is a temperate rainforest on the Canadian Border after all. The jacket is of course “dry clean only” but I have neither the time nor the cash for that option.
In any case or this particular case actually, I’ll want the jacket and I’ll want it clean.

I am going to have to wash it too.

Maybe, I reason, if I use the gentle cycle and only tumble dry it on a low heat this should work. I have to get the smell of four different colognes, two different perfumes, one cat and uncounted volumes of carcinogenic smoke out of it. With care there should be no problem, maybe even that odd stain next to the collar I always hide with a scarf will come clean.

One last load.

Shit, fine then.

I put in all but one of the two bucks worth of quarters the washing Nazis require for a load and as I try to put in the last, my last, quarter into the washer the damn machine won't accept it. Upon closer examination, I realize the Queen of England is on the damn thing. The quarter that is, not the washing machine. It’s a fucking goddamn Canadian quarter but I've already put the soap and my jacket in the machine so I’m screwed. I try to bum a quarter from one of the other winners in the Laundromat The change machine they have here in “Wash’By’Gosh” is only giving out nickels and dimes as change and the washing machines and dryers don’t accept anything but quarters…American quarters. Here again the Universe bites me in the ass as no one will bum me a quarter or they don’t speak English. At least they pretend to not speak English maybe I should have been more generous with my whiskey earlier.

I have to go to the 7-11 or Chevron or whatever the hell P.O.S. convenience store it is next door and I have to buy a “Green” slurpee. What the hell flavor is “Green”? I have to buy a green slurpee because they are out of “Coke” and “Blue” flavor. More importunately however, I have to by a green slurpee because the 7-11 doesn’t give change without a purchase.

I head back to the Wash’By’Gosh, green slurpee in hand where I sit there smelling the fumes of soap and fabric softener which is actually kind of nice but unfortunately it also mixed with the body odor from my fellow washers. Keep in mind when I say washers I mean washers of clothes not washers of themselves. I don’t think some of these folks have personal hygiene habits any better than those of my socks if their fragrance is any indication. At least my socks have the courtesy to go missing when they get whiffie. I start the machine and take a huge pull off my watery unnaturally colored drink and wish it was cut with some chemical agent stronger than green dye # 7.

The Laundromat itself, unlike Washington State summers, is hot, and humid. It’s also furnished with cracked plastic uncomfortable chairs with only AARP and Field & Stream magazines to read. They have a T.V. with cable here but it is always either on a sports event that I don’t give a shit about, usually NASCAR, or on “Telemundo”. Don’t get me wrong, Telemundo looks like some pretty entreating stuff, especially when compared to NASCAR but I don’t speak Spanish. I do watch it on occasion but only when they have on Latin Americas funniest home Videos or those peculiar children’s shows with those barely dressed “Hee-Haw Hot” women on them. It’s when I watch the latter that I really wish I understood Spanish so I could figure out why porn stars are showing up in children’s shows. I am becoming increasingly restless and dangerously sober not to mention the temperature is becoming very uncomfortable. While I appreciate the climate change I have had enough of this place so I decide to for-go the dryer and just let my jacket air dry overnight. Here on the coast it won’t matter if it’s a little damp with our climate here a “little damp” is a lot dryer than most things including the clothes on my back. I can see my building out the window and it is now become more appealing to go home and be bored than stay here and be bored.

I finally get home where I just collapse on the bed for half an hour. Sleep proves as elusive as hot ass at closing time down at our local bar the Knotty Pine. The cable is full of programs more dull than my life presently and Shanzi is gone to her Dads for a few days so I try to come up with a productive way to ignore the rising pointless feeling growing in me. I try to first paint then draw then write but the muse fails me. Nothing comes. The “muse” is off somewhere else. Probably off fucking “talent”. Neither of the two is present now so maybe they are off together somewhere, right?

Lacking anything else to do until morning, I get on the computer and download porno off the internet just to kill three or four hours. It's just all crap there too. Every two hundred photos there is something somewhat interesting or at least something I have not seen before. Eventually even porn fails to entertain, so I think "I'll go to McDonald's” Westport lacks even that but there is one in neighboring Hoquiam. “I'll go to McDonald's and that will kill some time. I'll go to McDonald's and buy a milkshake and fries."

I then drive to McDonald's (After a stop at the ATM to get out a twenty I was saving for the rent or food) and they're closed. They’re fucking CLOSED at 10pm and I just sit there in the parking lot wondering what to do with myself. I think, "I'll just drive around aimlessly, that's what I'll do, I'll drive around aimlessly, I'll explore the city that I live in" but you know what? It's all just closed strip malls and 7-11's and gas stations and shoe stores.

I then think about crashing into the underpass wall of the freeway but I don't want to do that because it will probably just hurt like Hell, not actually do something as productive as kill me. In any case, it will fuck up my insurance rates, which are already fucked up as is. Therefore, I just go home and wish I had some drugs or booze to do, just to relieve the horrible awful boredom of it all. Then I think "I should clean up the apartment, I should be responsible", but I just want to lay there in bed and stare at the ceiling. Later I think that maybe I’m hallucinating all this. Probably not though, if I were hallucinating it would be INTERESTING but it isn't so this must be real. Then after a while I just give up. I head upstairs and I take my useless antidepressants and some Tylenol PM, curl up and as the Tylenol kicks in and I begin to drift off into blessed unconsciousness an “off” smell catches my attention. It’s then I realize that my sheets are dirty because I forgot to take them to the Laundromat.



*I will not comment on the Who plays sports in a Sports Jacket cliche
**The beauty of black and khaki houndstooth patterns becomes obvious when examined from a stain-concealment point of view

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Head On Apply Directly To the Pen1s...

Out here in the Northwest we have a product advertised as "Head - On". It is a topical treatment for headaches. That is to say a treatment that one applies directly to the skin of the for-head to relieve headache pain. The company that brings us this relief also brings a number of other conditions, all of which are treated topically …i.e. by directly touching the ill part…
Their commercials are all an obnoxious set of repeating phrases along the line of Apply directly to the forehead…on and on etc…
In this same vein of cure all I offer the following:

For Erectile Dysfunction (Slack Dick) "Hard On" Apply directly to the penis

For premature ejaculation …"Hold On" Apply directly to the penis

5 Apples

Five apples ... sourse available
This is a good argument against myth and religion…

This is what my life is like. I have four apples. At least I’m pretty sure there are only four, I only bought four, I can only see four and there is no reason to suppose I have any more. There could be five I suppose, but I see no reason to think so. The trouble is, everyone else thinks there are five. I ask people for evidence that there are five apples. I ask them what reason they have to suppose there are five, or to show me how they counted five, and these are the replies I get:
1. What do you mean, “count the apples”?
2. Have you studied agriculture? If not, how do you know there aren’t five apples?
3. The majority of people in the world know there are five apples. Are you saying they are all wrong?
4. It’s closed-minded to think there aren't five apples.
5. There is plenty of evidence to prove that there are five apples, go and look for it, I’m not counting them for you.
6. Apples can’t be “counted” by science, so there are five apples.
7. Can you prove there isn’t a fifth apple somewhere?
8. Scientists counted only three apples in the past and now they admit there are four, so there are five now.
9. The ancient Chinese knew there were five apples; modern science still has not yet caught up.
10. They laughed at Galileo when he said there were five bananas, and he was right, so there are five apples.
11. Science can’t yet see all the apples. You can’t see radio waves, but they existed before we developed ways to measure them, so why can’t there be a fifth invisible apple now that we just haven’t developed the technology to see?
12. Quantum mechanics proves there are five apples.
13. I just know the fifth apple is there.
14. It’s a government conspiracy to cover up the existence of the fifth apple.
15. You’re not keeping up with the latest research. It has now been proven that there are five apples (although I can’t actually remember where this research is written up).
Here’s the thing: I actually have four apples and an orange. These people are so busy making up stories about a fifth apple, they’ll never realize the orange even exists.

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Friday, May 4, 2007

Saint Tuesday is Funny, Jokes

Alright kids I have a few "jokes" for you here:
1.A Buddhist monk walks into a catholic confessional both and says:
"Forgive me Father for I have Zen'd"
2.What is better, Complete happiness in life or a ham sandwich?
Answer: A ham sandwich.
]Why?
Because nothing is better than complete happiness in life AND a ham sandwich is better than NOTHING.
Hoo Hoo I slay me.
3. I can prove that a cow has 9 legs…No cow has 5 legs…A cow has 4 more legs than No cow thus; 5+4=9…get it?
Ba Da Da Dum

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Hitler Day

Okay this is just peev entry but I have been watching the history Channel this morning and so far everything they have aired has had something to do with Hitler. What is it …Hitler Day? I don't care if it is close to his birthday .I know there are those who would say that the History Channel would be better named "The World War II Channel but that aside today has been a real pounding of Nazi documentaries…the Nazi Occult connection, Rockets of the SS, Hitler's Chef, Hitler's shot glass collection etc…blah blah blah.
While I am on the subject of documentaries here is a short list of Documentary topics I have had enough of and need no more:
1.Anything to do with The Knights Templar or free masons.
2.The Devinci Code…enough with the Jesus conspiracies.
3.Mars
4.Killer Asteroids
5.The mega volcano under Yellowstone.
6.For that matter ALL end of the world disaster crap
7.U.F.O.'s Why the Hell are channels like the History Channel and the Science channel covering this shit anyway?
8.In that same vein…Canada's Roswell, England's Roswell, Russia's Roswell, Hitler's Roswell…Jeeez!

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Radio Days

For anyone who is interested I will be on the Air on KMUN where I am a volunteer programmer Friday nights from 10pm to 3am(?) starting the week of May 25th. I am on sporadically until then but if you want to hear me (How could you resist? Ha ha…uncomfortable silence)tune in Tuesdays late in the afternoon (After 4).
I don't have a set format at the moment but I am working on getting the green light on two programs.
1."What the Pop?"- Independent, unsigned and regional pop/rock/folk/jazz music.
2."Keeping it Peel" a show dedicated to John Peel of BBC Radio 1 and his famous Peel Sessions.
Wish me luck and bty the way you can listen on the web by following my Coast Community Radio link to KMUN's site where you can listen on streaming audio.

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Daisy and Shanzi


baby Daisy and Shanzi doing what they do best...being cute.

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Republican Monkey Business

I don't have the time I once did to compose the kind of outraged rants I would like to produce but I just have to comment on something I saw on CNN this morning. It was a small segment covering a debate that took place last night between Republican candidates for the presidential race during which a question of belief in evolution was put to Senator John McCain. It was simply "do you believe in evolution?"
He answered "Yes…"
Good for him. Any one up for the job of leader of the free west should have a firm belief in FACT.It is kind of funny to note that right after he had to add that when he saw the majesty of the setting Sun over the Grand Canyon he also saw the work of the hand of god…oh well…he is a politician after all.
Then the question was then asked of ALL the candidates, about nine of them and three of them expressed by a show of hands that they did not believe in evolution. That is just sad even for Republicans. Aren’t these people supposed to be intelligent and at least semi-educated? Guess those requirements are a little looser than I am comfortable with.
I also wanted to state that I have little to know what banner Ad's appear in the Ad-Sense banner at the very top of this blog. I whated to say this because I have noticed a lot of pro-intelligent design and pro-religious things popping up there. GRRRRRR.
I AM PRO-EVOLUTION AND ANTI-RELIGION (IN PRETTY MUCH ANY FORM YOU WANT TO FRAME THAT KIND OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY).
If these revolting ad's keep appearing instead of the ones more in tune with my belief system I will remove that banner place holder from my template and use my Ad space in some other more positive way.

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