Enough with the Design Already

Supid design has not been fleshed out, to my knowledge.

I can't find anything significant on the web about
irrelevant design
or inconsistent design
or incomprehensible design
or improbable design
or illicit design
or indeterminant design
or icky design

and how come nobody's talking about:

Buddha Blueprints
or
Cartoon Constructs
or
Zen Architecture

Oh, if only turkeys could talk.

U R LOL OMG POS FK @ DO ME

One of the great advances in communications is the condensation of words.
Not just in English, but everywhere, primarily due to computers and
their quick communications.

Not only can we communicate faster, we can communicate more generically using
shortcuts, emoticons, halfwords and secret language. Ooooooo!

It's no different that any generation when 'young' pipples try to act cool and do naughty things without their 'parents' knowledge.

And it succeeds until you are caught.

Who's naive?
No one.
Just differently focused.

If the baseball bats have blood stains, or the cat is suddenly missing a tail,
or the daughter takes a long unexplained vacation to a fat farm, you may have problems, but mostly, everyone, young and old is trying to be cool.

Well, let's revise that a bit. Old people finally get tired of the games, so
they say "This is the way I am, deal with it." or even more betterest,
"I'm cool, do what you want, you'll pay the price."

Old peoples' job is to stay young, young peoples' job is to not die.

If you disagree with this, then you've forgotten how to stay young.

Advice, borrow our cat.

Those Darn Liberals Bug Us Even In Death

"The Constitution did not contemplate that the Commander in Chief
of the Army and Navy will constitute him also Commander in Chief
of the country, its industries, and its inhabitants."

-- Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson,
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)

Justice Black for the majority opinion: "...the President had no power to act except in those cases expressly or impliedly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress."

9/11 was not the first nor the last horrific act by "terrorists" against the US.

So what's that got to do with President Truman trying to take over the steel industry?

Well, like someone else we know, he had several legal and reasonable avenues both legislatively and constitutionally to deal with the issue. But like all good politicians, he overthought the situation. He and his advisors looked at the various options, decided available paths would not get them where they wanted to be, so they forged their own, which turned out to be outside the consitutional limits of the authority of the president.

So, we have the smackdown of a liberal president!

And today, some think we have a president who is, at least, stretching the limitations of executive power.

George W. Bush is not a particularly large person, but I'll bet he's getting some good training and advice on how to pro-wrestle.

"Pro wrestling is a gritty world populated by heroic "babyfaces," dastardly "heels," outrageous managers and outraged fans,"
but it pales in comparison to the grittier world of Washington DC politics.

FIRED!

Well, in an unusual (but I guess not unexpected by me) move, I've been fired as an Intelligent Designer. I've been pretty sloppy, I admit it.
I mean, look at yourself!

Too many teeth for the mouth, bent spine, leftover parts like appendix, snot (it was funny when I first made it but it gets old when there it is, so much of it all the time), toe jam (what was I thinking), and sex! Good grief, have you ever seen slugs in love!

So I'm not going to cry in my soup. I'm moving on. I'm still employable. I can still pull off a few minor miracles like chocolate cherry cheesecake or smoked turkey.

I think the only really big downer to this is the instant mortality. They handed me my termination package, complete with instant mortality, and, D'OH, I stepped outside and it was raining profusely (good ol' Pacific Northwest), got it wet, so I didn't even get a few millenia of extra years, the instant mortality went POOF and now I have to watch out for California drivers and salmonella.

How to Win at Pooker

Someday you'll see me playing for the big stakes on HDTV.
And you'll wonder, how did some liberal latte slurping geezer make it that far.

Here's my secret. I don't mind telling because most of you aren't going
to play much real money poker, and those of you who try this method
will fail miserably.

The secret is to be able to hold your liquor and your mouth and be a happy but not sloppy drunk. No puking, no pinching, no wild banter, just bleary eyed concentration.

You're opponents must see you as coherent but confusing, lubricated and liberated,
and convinced that your state of mind will cause serious miscalculations in betting.

This will lead them to bet excessively, knowing your downfall must be imminent.

Never bet all in unless you have a flush or higher. Do not confuse this with
the fact that you are flushed and high.

DO NOT MIX YOUR DRINKS. Stick with bourbon or scotch. Wine and beer will not do.
Beer will make you tell everybody you've got two bitches and triple 10s.
Wine will cause you to overbet your Jacks every time.
Gin is chancy, but if you've got the stomach for it, give it a go.
Avoid tequila like the plague.

And if you're ever up against me at a poker table, look me in the eye
and say, "Dude, where's your car?" and you might have a chance.

Thinking Chronologically

I do not think chronologically. Most people do, more or less.

My little sister (see Rabid Mouse Blogger on the side there)
just posted about the death of our father in a car accident
years ago just after Christmas.

I was in Navy boot camp in Chicago. I was the sole surviving son.
I could have gotten out, not worry about the Vietnam draft, and
wandered aimlessly as a cloud, since I was not ready for college
and had no ambition or direction.

I went home for the funeral. Mom asked me to loan her some money
until she could get things in order. I remember not liking the idea
of an open casket viewing. I wanted things to go on and be over.
Then I went back to boot camp. I was away, busy, confused and
had little time to grieve.

I do not connect that unfortunate time with the holidays or time of year.
My thoughts are kept in various files that are not chronological, so
it's is unusual for me to react to a specific event anniversary
(the exception being my last blog post about the b-i-l's wine!).

This is probably why I digress so much when I talk. My brain is
shuffling through files trying to find connections, and it finds them
but not in a time series that everyone can understand.

For awhile I had a friend who interpreted what I said. Now my wife
just prompts me occasionally about what the topic was when the
conversation started and then listens amusedly to see if I can
ever get back to the point I was trying to make.

Someday I'll get back to talking about dad.

Who made the beer?

Who? I don't know. Did the bro-in-law the elder make it?
It's possible, but my brain cells are so addled I don't remember.

Addled! By what?
By his wine that I tasted years and years ago, and still
have not recovered from.
You can tell that by my fragmented sentences and ending them
with a preposition, something I never did up until then.

He took any kind of juice he could find in the house:
orange juice, grape juice, apple juice, frozen juice, gatorade,
and who knows what else, if it was liquid, in it went.

It fermented, he decanted, I came for a visit.
I tasted.

With no hyperbole, no exaggeration, I can state that it was
the foulest nauseatingest liquid in the world.
It's a wonder it didn't dissolve the glass jar it was in.
The smallest taste left me incapacitated for hours.

I have never recovered. That taste haunts me.
Occasionally you might notice me shuddering uncontrollably.
Even writing about it now causes my hands to shake and
my mouth to drool.

Today is the office Christmas lunch where the bossman takes
the peons to the Snappy Dragon. I have lost my appetite.
I am supposed to play a small concert tonight then accompany
a sing along, but I'm shaking so bad from reliving that
experience, I'll be lucky if I don't fall off the piano bench.

Ah, but that's why they invented Duct Tape.

The Other Brother

I have not made beer. It may be the other brother.
I don't remember having a brother, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
I distinctly remember an older and younger sister. They do not make beer.

But then when I consider the rest of my relatives, I get confused.

Most recently my nieces have been posting to OKCupid and MySpace (what a pit stop) and one of them on Tribe also. I may not actually be related to some of them, and it's quite difficult to keep up with their comings and goings.

Sara (is it with or without the H? I don't know anymore) is a brilliant orphaned at a young age organic chemist, who came into some money and is currently in the Australian outback with a bunch of drunken botanists and naturalists finding new species. She is tough as nails and a straight shooter, so don't piss her off.
She was a wild child but she's matured so it's about time she took down her nekkid pictures.

Willa left home at age 17 and became a professional housesitter. At 19 now she's a pretty stable mellow young woman who keeps her friend Hannah from harm.

Hannah is a petite sex maniac who has a drinking problem which is why Willa has to sit on her from time to time to keep her from doing stupid things. Alas, Hannah is currently in Baja working in and on a movie, so let's hope she doesn't cause any international incidences.

And then there's Abby, the sweetheart, almost 18 and ready to become a veterinarian or a vegetarian. Tough decision.

I'm concerned about Abby because she's getting hit on on OKCupid by a lot of old Canadian dudes, old being over 30. Of course she's cheating by saying she's 18 and tarted up her profile some. Potentially dangerous. I should talk to her parents but they always seem to be away to some event.

Meanwhile, once again H. Richard Doigt has vanished to who knows where. Probably because his agent was nagging him about finishing his next book which I think was due last month.

Samuel F. Greene is, as we speak, flying back from Argentina from some kind of secret government operation. Don't know exactly what but it may involve penguins, and not those cute ones from the movie. These I suspect are terrorist penguins.

They all make me and my known sisters look kinda boring.
Well, time to check the girls profiles and see if they've been arrested.

FLUFFY FRIDAY

There exists a very old bulletin board we call 'bb' that some clever people created at the University of Washington initially for programmers to share ideas. This was before email was so easy and common.

Time passed. The programmers eventually left the UW but bb continued. It's old code but every now and then someone creates an upgrade. A lot of people have posted to it but now it's down to a few diehard UW employees and cyberfriends from all around the country.

But it's still one of the best places to get answers to anything, and it's also populated by some really smart and entertaining people.

Then there's me. On Fridays, typically not many people log on, so I go from room to room posting lots of fluff. This infuriates some people, entertains others, and some try and ignore me. But it's not possible. Now you can easily ignore blogs. But you can't ignore fluffy friday, especially like today when it unexpectedly falls on Thursday.

So if any of you masochists out there are on a unix or linux server you can run code on, you could become part of a truly awesome group of strange people.

But most people are too spoiled these days to want to spend time on a non-graphic totally text oriented bb. Too bad because it's so much more entertaining.

For example, some people go to lots of movies and never read the books anymore. But the world needs both, and people should enjoy both. Or maybe it's like digging a hole or watching a movie of digging a hole. Two different methods and you shouldn't just limit yourself to one or the other.

Today's word is: pleonasm

Qu'est-ce que c'est? What is it that it is?

Primer on Designer

Before we get into the Great Orange Peel Theory, you need to understand how the universe is constructed by the Intelligent Designers. Yes, there's quite a few of us.

I'm in charge of this universe and two others. Why do you have a hard time understanding me? Because I am a DEsigner, de- meaning remove. Yes, I intelligently keep removing anything that might give you a sign of what's going on. Why?
Why do birds fly, why does ice cream melt, why is there air?

Yes, I'm all powerful in my universes, but even I report to a higher power.

So, here's the quickie course. Big Bang, universe expands, appears to be expanding forever, but it's not. It's like a amorphous balloon expanding out against other universes.
Eventually some of these neighboring universes will be squished to singularities, have their own Big Bang, and start pushing back on this universe.

If this universe gets squeezed by some of them, it may get split into parts.
If these parts are too small, they eventually will be absorbed by other universes.
If they are big enough, they eventually will get compressed, Big Bang again,
and off we go again.

As long as I can keep banging my universes, I'm in business. If they all get absorbed, well, I don't want to think about it.

I have limited control over how this universe interacts with others, but I can tell you this, all that missing mass that astronomers and physicists are looking for?

That's my secret weapon. Just when some pokerplaying other Intelligent Designer thinks they'll squish me and my earthy universe, I unDEsign my dark matter!

Don't tell anyone! We're all in this together.

Beer good, Beer bad, Making beer huh?

My littlest sister thinks I made beer. She is incorrect.
I have made award winning wine.

She, however, is an amazing watercoloristical painter.
And even as we do not speak, we are using recipes from
"Texas Ties" link to be provided later, for our supper!
within which she has painted pictures of innocent animals
and plants that will give their lives to our dinner.

Unfortunately, the brisket is long gone so we're alas using
the cat for the best brisket recipe ever from the book.
He's got 5 lives left so he's in on the deal, he loves, um,
fud. He wasn't too happy about being doused in soy sauce and
worcertshirtsirshoot@com@copyrighted.ubersauce.cantspell.org.nz.

But it smells good!

More later, but the ID must CP his LS, Qt.

Baby Boomers Bulbous

So the latest news, but is it news if everyone already knows it, is
baby boomers are fat hypertensive blobs.

Yes, all those hippies, flower children, peaceniks who lived free, protested for a better safer world, ate natural foods, have burned out and are bigger couch potatoes than their parents.

Progress in medicine may increase our overall lifespan, but what will be the quality of life for these blubberous baby geezers?

The good news is that by voting George the W Bush into office, more or less, his brilliant effort at creating an unbelievable deficit guarantees that the baby boomers geezers children and grand children will have an even more dreary world.

And that is the goal of parents, isn't it? To make sure their children are miserable.
Ask any kid, especially teenybloggers.

Hey, kids, what time is it?

Do you ever wake up and feel kind of fuzzy, out of it?
Do you ever feel on some days that you and the world are a bit out of synch?

Well, although Einstein's theory of relativity may not be perfect, most of it has held up pretty good so far, which means that none of us exist in the same time frame.

Consider the astronaut that flies into space at near the speed of light and comes back a month later in his time, but for us back here on Earth, years have passed.

The same is true for all of us on a smaller scale. People who take lots of airplane trips are moving faster than those who don't. Consequently they are relatively younger than those who stay on the ground and go slow.

While the amount of time difference from any one person to the next is normally extremely small, nonetheless, all of us are living in our own time frame and that slight difference from everyone else is often the cause of confusion and miscommunication.

People who live at the equator are moving much faster than people who live farther north or farther south. This means they live longer relative to those who live near the poles.

Be of good cheer. That doesn't mean they actually live more years in their lives, just longer than compared to your life years.

That's the neat thing about relativity, it's all relative and doesn't have any practical effect on your life span, only on your ability to interact with the people around you because you're all on a different plain of time.

Fuzzy time. This is more clearly evident when you understand

THE GREAT ORANGE PEEL THEORY
which clarifies the structure and nature of the universe and how space is like a trampoline.

I can tell you are all very excited about this. No?
Well, you will be when you find out that you can actually peer around time.
Alas, it is not the same as seeing the future which could make you rich,
but it is fun, as long as you are careful. After all, trampolines are dangerous.

MOCHA CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

Thought that might finally get your attention.
Yup, we make our own, right here in our house,
don't care about the feds, the narcs, the FBI,
or anything in the Patriot Act.

We're making our own and giving it away! So
the IRS can't touch us either, I don't think so anyway.

The nice thing about blogs is, there's so many of them,
nobody pays attention to any of them except for a few
famous ones, and the rest of us are just our own
little band of egomaniacal protoplasmic blobs.

Next up, CHOCOLATE CHERRY ICE CREAM.
Then 3 more varieties after that.
Now, don't you wish you were on our Christmas list!

Three more varieties, and we haven't chosen which ones.
Give us a suggestion, we might consider sending you the leftovers.

Hey, you might want to sign up on our summer list for MANGO SORBET.
It will bring you to tears it is so, yes really, awesome.

Alert! Carnivorous Squirrels Sighted

We have just read a report out of Russia that a pack of squirrels has attacked and killed a dog. Some scientists speculate that due to a paucity of pine cones, seeds and other squirrely food, the squirrels were extra squirrely and when the dog kept barking at them, they attacked.

If only life were that simple.

Here in Washington State,
there are carnivorous bunnies on San Juan Island. When Mrs. Latent and
I met the Island Ranger, before we could even say anything (yes, this is
really a true story) about how many bunnies there seemed to be on the island
(and we did not comment on how there were an awful lot of bones around their holes),
he said, "Oh, yeah, and watch out. They're carnivorous and will
run up and gnaw at your ankles until you fall down and then..."

Also, they have formed a bunny mafia! Hence when you walk through downtown
Friday Harbor most shops have bunny signs in their windows showing
they are paying out to the bunny mafia.

Now, remember Russia has had some serious nuclear disasters.
It is not at all hard to imagine squirrels (already vicious little
buggers that pee on you when you feed them) turning carnivorous.
Especially black squirrels.

For those of you who don't scare easily and are comfortable with nightmares:

www.scarysquirrel.org/

Snow Continuum

Although I could be anywhere, here I am in Seattle, where for the last 5 or more years we have not had any significant or long lasting snow.

This does not stop hysterical TV meteorologists from predicting snow and so Monday of this week dire shrieks of snow were broadcast. Nothing. Then the drums started beating and the ologists started shouting, "Thursday snow!"

And finally the snow fell. Warm snow. Large flakes. Flakes conjugating with other flakes to make veritable falling snowballs, soon pumpkin sized.

From my office window I watched a young woman get buried by a single blog of flakes.
Her companions valiantly dug her out and other than being breathless appeared to be ok.
All of them then ran quickly to the shelter of a carport and waited until the flakes became somewhat smaller.

The snow did not stick to the roads, but everyone still drove like little old ladies on Prozac. Today the ologists are predicting snow tonight but then saying it will all melt on Saturday.

What I don't understand is why they hardly ever predict when we'll be struck by meteors? I hope you all realized that recent telescopian discoveries have found thousands, yes I said thousands, of more meteors out there than previously known.

It's just a matter of time before some one of you gets squashed unless those METEORologists start forecasting better than they forecast for snow.

Avert Your Eyes Now -- Politics and Torture

Would you rather be a prisoner of the US with no rights, no representation, and subject to torture OR

a grasshopper which has been infested with parasitic hairworms which produce a brainwashing protein that drives the grasshopper to water where it drowns and the worms reproduce?

Artifacts in France indicate that modern humans and neanderthals lived in the same region at the same time, 38,000 years ago and now in Washington, DC.

A Japanese scientist says that human hands, soles of feet and the forehead produce detectable light. Hence the expression, she's very light on her feet. And the origin of using the light bulb in cartoons for brilliant ideas. As for the hands, go stand in a totally dark room. Now touch your nose with your little finger. See! How could that be possible unless there was enough light emitted from your hand so you could find your nose.

Some ideas may seem silly at first, but once you have committed yourself to something truly stupid, silliness will seem pretty smart.

Here's proof:
We recommend www.mentalsoup.com

Now get out there and prove that humanity can last another 1000 years.

Dealing with the Almighty

This will be of no comfort to you to know that even though I am the Intelligent Designer, I am not almighty powerful, omniscient, or extremely sexy.

In fact, most of you will find it discomforting to know that your universe is run by a paranoid schizophrenic. But with this knowledge, you now realize why the world is such a sort of messy operation.

There is a heaven and a hell, but the price of admission to hell is extremely steep and most people cannot afford it, and heaven, well, I just haven't had time to finish it.
So most of you will be reincarnated as turkeys or bunnies. It's ok, because when I get heaven finished it will been a turkey bunny sort of place.

You have all met me at some time, usually as a middle aged man (not 104! though) who babbles in an amusing manner and is often tipsy but never rude. Others, however, may have met me as a 22 y/o female organic chemist currently somewhere in the outback of Australia with several drunken Aussie ethnobotanists, and yet others will know me as a 20 y/o budding movie star who has made moves on your boyfriend or you!

I could appear as just anyone or anything but what's the fun in that.
Life is about setting goals and having aspirations and hope and companionship.

You are welcome to disagree with me, or mock me, or disbelieve, just as long
as you don't touch my beer. Touch my beer and I will smite you.

Well, enough of this onanistic drivel, it's time to start revealing reality.

Ha, you thought you were living in reality. Ha, I say, ha!
Do you really think in reality there could be a president like George W. Bush?
Oh, you silly turkeys and bunnnies.
Time to wake up!

Profundity vs. fecundity

Easily confused words for bloggers who are quickly using up vast quantities of disk space and outer space with their musing, babble, moanings and groanings.

The more I can get others to read this blog, the less they will be cluttering up cyberspace with their drivel, leaving more room for my mental evolution.

Yes, you've just found the INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.

But don't ask me to fix your life and do any miracles.
Yes, I am intelligent, yes, I made the design, but, alas,
I never took any classes in design, and I'm mad!

A few people already have suspected as much, and now you know.
Sleep well, my children. I will harvest your dreams.