Contemporary Contemplations

Burt the park host at Lea Lake Bottomless Lakes SP is seen here setting the tone. I stopped short to ostensibly read some signage but mostly messing with him when I realized  what he was doing.. Yes- he literally glared at me like I was crazy and impatiently tapped his prop (mostly) clipboard on his other hand when he guessed what I was doing- funny. Like a lot of more or less menial jobs, the people who take them too seriously rightly open themselves up for some ridicule but our world  would spin out of control without them. They are societies duct tape and baling wire.  His nickname was Overlord

• The Matrix: what I'm watching (10/15/2014 @ 1959). It is still a very- very good movie with great music.
• Blazing Saddles: what we talked about on a break today- still an amazing movie. The self righteous censorship it endures is not a sign of our loss of a sense of humor as people suppose. It is a loss of our sense of self, a sense of overwhelming fear we are bad and a lack of critical thinking skills. People are afraid of being guilty of being racist by enjoying it when it's satire was a very harsh criticism of the stupidity of racism.

  

  Sopapillas are different in the Land Of Enchantment.

• When I was in the Army and we would be busting track on our vehicles I would exchange the line, laying track for busting track and act Slim Picken's part out. It was a wonder somebody didn't have a seizure it was so funny. I perfected and did the bit at every duty station. People have to still think about it and spray coffee on their dashboard on the way to work. Today 9 years after I could have possibly done a modified version for other soldiers I gave a SFW version at lunch in the break room and got some very good laughs. It was almost weird how much of and how quickly it came back.
• My mind can't process that Laurence Fishburne was Mr. Clean and Morpheus.

  

  To make a high volume easy to hit urinal that even a woman can use in a tent cut the top off a large soda bottle and invert the snout into the bottle after stuffing it with paper towels etc. Then tape the snout in place ( 100 mph tape is best). Keep it jammed in the corner of the tent with a pack so you can find it and there is no chance of it it tipping over.

• The news is prattling on about ISIS having planes and training pilots. Talk about, This is how the terrorists win! Expect military talking head to harrumph and poo-poo this and talk about how impossible it would be to train them effectively, how even a second string Western or regional pilot would blow them out of the sky... They don't get it- those things don't matter to ISIS. Really the facts would rarely matter- it is about the perception of their target audiences first- disaffected Muslim males and then poorly informed, easily frightened Westerners
• Committee on the Heredity of the Feeble Minded: the name of my band- if I ever have a band. Fans will call it by the acronym of COTHOTFM which will sound like Coth/ot /fum.
• My fans will be freaks.

  

  Big feet are huge. I wouldn't bring attention to them babe.

• Primo tickets for How The EDGE Stole Christmas are 150 bucks this year. That is crazy but no, I will not miss Weezer and to a lesser extent Big Data.
• Watching a Harrier jet taking off vertically in person is even wilder and more impossible looking in person and is unbelievably loud. Yes, I operated out of a Marine base in the Iraq.
• There is a bird that sings right at dawn (and just did at 0707 10/18/2014). For the the life of me I can never remember the species. Sometimes when I hear it I feel vaguely sad. It isn't clear to me if it's song sounds melancholy to me in general or if I had taken note of it singing in a former life during a bad time but I assume the latter to be true.

  

  Watching the Big Man eat was awe inspiring. I wanted to start a slow clap as he was finishing.