August 30, 2006
A secret California Lake
California has these little lakes here and there.
They serve as watering holes for wildlife. They are also traps for
unwary animals who are ambushed by predators while trying to obtain water.
This one has a heron on an old tree branch in the center.
August 29, 2006
Magic...or Illusion?
Here
is an interesting card trick, try as I might, I did not see how he did this. I know it is
not magic, but is a simple matter of misdirection or manipulation, but it is done so well
and is a very clever trick indeed.
But on this trick, he edited the video. Right at the 1:21 count there is a
small error that shows the video was doctored, spliced, edited etc. This unfortunately
ruins the effect of the trick, whether it is how he performed the trick, or is a simple
glitch, it makes it seem as though it was faked (like a Reuter's fauxtograph).
And how to shrink a human on video. It starts out innocuous enough, but has a
surprise ending. Again, there is a trick to this, and after watching it the second time I
saw it. (hint: Too bad they weren't both wearing the same style watch as the third guy).
Again Marco regales us with
his video phone. This time he appears to shrink an umbrella. But we know that is not
the case, the umbrella actually stays the same (it is impossible to shink an umbrella). He
actually is very good at misdirection, and while you were busy watching the umbrella, he
had the people in the surroundings replaced with giant-sized versions of themselves. A
very difficult feat to be sure, but those New York Theatre people are masters of
manipulation.
Keep the 'magic' tricks coming folks, it's better to challenge the mind
than to burn people.
August 28, 2006
Murals and More!
It is a pleasure to see the beautiful public artwork on display in
California in the form of murals. This is an old and treasured tradition that is said to
have originated in the Roman/Greek times and has since opened like a blossom and been used
by cultures the world over.
A mural at the intersection of Fairfax and Beverly in Los Angeles.
You can see some more photos of murals from Lompoc at our site at Lompoc's Murals
Other Mural Pages
Mural Art ,
This page is full of great links to many other sites about public murals
Garage Mural Art is a page that showcases murals made on garage doors.
Outdoor Murals and the Essence of our Community is a fine site with
tons of links to mural sites!
WOW! Murals
in Europe is the largest murals site I have ever seen. Europe continues to surprise us
with their experimentation in the Arts, and no wonder, they were doing murals back in the
days of the Caesars. And Msr. Lionel Gripon has collected over 9000 photos of European
murals in one huge site that like a great European museum might take days to adequately
explore. Do go visit, and tell your friends of it.
Lake Placid/Avon Park Florida has also embarked upon an ambitious
town-mural project. Their town has many murals of fine caliber.
Metro
Murals is a site with the most extensive set of links to mural pages I have ever seen.
This is indeed a 'must see'!
Click here to go to Our Murals thumbnails page
August 27, 2006
La Purisima Mission
There was an event yesterday at the local Mission in Lompoc. The
Mission is properly called Misión La Purísima Concepción De María Santísima (Mission
of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary), but that is too much of a mouthful, so we
all shorten it to 'La Purisima Mission. As the best restored of all the California
Missions, it is also one of the most historical things to see in California, and a true
treasure to have in our own backyard. A fine history and photo gallery of the Mission can
be found at Athanasius
Schaefer's site.
The official La Purisima website is at La Purisima Mission.Org
The Santa Barbara Film Commission has a photo montage exhorting the
benefits of shooting film at La Purisima at Shoot Locations; La Purisima
Many of the local people serve as 'Docents' at the mission. This
means that they dress in period costumes and do things so that people can see a little bit
about how life was lived on the old missions. This local mission had some 950 local
Indians from the Chumash tribe living there. The place was run by two Padres from the
Catholic Church, one was an administrator and ran the books and day-to-day operations. The
other one served to 'save souls'. There were usually some six Soldados (soldires) who's
mission was to keep the Indians under control, and help to organize defenses against bear
or other attacks.
The architecture of the missions is very interesting. They were
built of adobe from the local soil. The ground there is a hard clay soil that makes good
bricks. So the sun dried bricks were stacked into thick walls that make for a nice cool
building. Any day that is hot, it is a relief to walk into the thick walled compounds and
rooms of the mission.
The mission has two churches, one is larger than the other. The
larger one is used for occasional services to this day.
Below are some photos of some of the docents showing how the people
of that time lived.
A Padre walks the tiled floors of the Mission. 
A woman working with wool shows how people did things in the old days. 
Two women are getting the old stone and brick oven warmed to bake bread
as in the olden days. 
Mr. Rocha is a docent at La Purissima. He shows people the everyday
life of a 'Soldado' (soldier). The clothes are all wool, itchy and hot, but he's glad to
have them in the winter, but in summer it is not comfortable. The rifle is a smoothbore
musket called a Brown Bess of .75 caliber. It shoots a 1.75 oz slug. He shot it for us, it
was nice to smell the powder burn. Flintlocks like this are very interesting weapons to
fire. It is so odd to pull the trigger, see the flint spark on the pan, the powder burns
for a second on the pan, then it charges the powder in the barrel, finally it all explodes
with the force you expect and gets the round (ball) on it's way. Not anything at all like
the new smokeless powders in the modern efficient rifles we all know and love. 
Art is another docent who wears the clothes of the Old Spanish
Soldados. He also fires the cannon (which they did not have out this day). He is a brother
to a best friends best friend, which makes him a friend to us.
Here he is explaining the day-to-day living of life on the old missions to a visiting
tourist from Japan (Art always gets all the girls). Many films were partially or wholly
shot at La Purisima Mission, including Anima. Some parts of Seabiscuit were also shot here.
The Mission at Lompoc is indeed a great place to spend a day
visiting, I encourage all to see this most excellent of California treats.
We've made a screensaver of our trip to the Mission showcasing the
architecture of the Old Spanish Mission at La Purisima, near Lompoc California. You can
see it at La Purisima Mission screensaver
August 26, 2006
Building a Mystery
Building a Mystery
lyrics by
~Sarah McLachlan~
You woke up screaming aloud
A prayer from your secret god
You feed off our fears
And hold back your tears, oh
Give us a tantrum
And a know it all grin
Just when we need one
When the evening's thin
Ooh you're working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding it in
Yeah you're working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully
I've met many people who spent some time in Iran. They had diverging
opinions about the culture and people. But today I stumbled upon the website of the
deposed Princess of Iran. Her
name is Empress Farah Pahlavi.
Looking the site over made me think about the problems that have
developed in that country the last few decades. About how many people are hungry there
now, while the government gives money to Hezb'Allah so that they can give it in turn to
the people of Lebanon to shore up affections there. The people of Iran are under an
oppressive yoke set upon them by their mullah masters. There are protests against their
regime as evidenced by the websites such as Spirit of Man. But you are not likely to hear of these protests in the
media. Instead we will hear the speeches by the madman who runs the country, and he will
be willingly vetted by our own newscasters who will gladly grovel before him in
appeasement.
Where would Iran be today if the Shah had not been deposed? Would
the women of that country have more rights than they had in the seventies? They would
certainly have more rights than they do now. The economy would probably be better with the
country's oil riches perhaps more evenly distributed among the people. I must admit that I
am no geo-politician, just a humble tiller of the earth and a driver of vehicles. But I
desire stability and economy and trade like most people do. And looking over the photos of
the beautiful princess made me sad for her and her family in exile, just as my mother's
family was exiled from Hungary. I know the feeling of banishment, and sympathize with her
and her plight.
August 24, 2006
Foie Gras
Fois Gras, the delicacy of Europe. My mother's family used to raise
Foie Gras in Hungary and Germany. It is a (supposed) delicacy made by force-feeding ducks
and geese until they are overstuffed. Then you do it again later in the day, each day for
weeks. After this amount of time the animals' liver becomes diseased and inflamed. This is
supposed to be a huge delicacy, and the 'best' Foie Gras is reputed to be raised in
Hungary and France.
It is seen nowadays as a really cruel way to raise animals, and I
myself cannot condone such maltreatment of God's creatures. There is now a small movement
creeping across the world in which the ways farmers raise their animals are seen as
integral to the life of the person taking in the sustenance of the animal. Many standards
of treatment which were accepted decades ago are now being questioned by many people.
These include stall-raised veal wherein the calf is not allowed to walk around, it is kept
in a small stall in the dark from birth and raised only on milk. This means the muscles
never get used and atrophy resulting in a super-tender little steak. Cage raised chickens
are another example of maltreatment. These 'factory-farming' methods are efficient insofar
as they result in massive amounts of protein for little human expenditure of labor and
space requirements. But what is the cost to society for the way we mistreat animals? Are
we not better than the animals, and able to treat them humanely?
I have been to 'Third-World' countries where I saw horrendous
treatment of animals. Even the crueler methods we use here are tame compared to the
treatment some animals get in other countries. I suppose when the value of human life is
seen as so small in these other countries, it is harder still to place a high value on an
animals' life and feelings.
There a formula I have been developing for years now, that one can
see the value a person or a society will place on other people, by the way they treat
their animals.
And now I see there is a town that has outlawed Foie
Gras.
August 23, 2006
Global Warming....or 'Galloping Glaciers'???
The history books tell us that the Vikings left the Northern wastes
centuries ago during a warming period that allowed their population to soar due to high
crop yields. Their settlements in Greenland prospered for some time, but then slowly faded
away due to the return of colder weather and reduced crops etc.
What does this say about the climate? Perhaps that modulations in
climate have happened for millennia, and that animals and humans prosper or wither like
crops when the seasons change. I am becoming more convinced the climate is getting warmer.
This will help the farmers and societies in cool agrarian areas such as Canada and
Siberia. It will be disastrous to low lying areas such as Micronesia. But is it a human
caused phenomena? Or might it (mostly) be a natural fluctuation in weather?
Whatever the cause, we should wake up to the reality, although I do
believe that most people will not see a huge difference in their lives. But I am not
convinced that it is caused by human activity. Here
is an article on the glaciers that have been melting in Greenland for over one hundred
years (a bit before mass use of automobiles).
August 20, 2006
The "No-No' Boys
From the script of the movie
' Come See the Paradise'
Answer yes or no. Number 27: Are you willing to serve in the armed
forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?
Number 28: Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of
America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or
domestic forces...and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese
Emperor, or to any other foreign government, power or organization? Answer yes or no.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Some decades ago, during the trauma of a very frightful war, the
odds sometimes seemed against us. We were beset by a ruthless enemy bent on acquisition of
territory to feed the appetite of the 'Land of the Rising Sun'. The rape of Nanking, the
subjugation of numerous countries and lands, and the inexorable tide of oppression allied
with a German National Socialism and Italian Fascism in Europe caused us to even ally
ourselves with the natural enemy of Capitalism, the indomitable Stalinist Russia.
In the rush and frenzy to acquire comfort and security from the
enemy, we looked at the people who were living in the USA and were related to those
selfsame Japanese across the ocean. Fears of spies among us, and split or corrupted
loyalties caused the peoples of that time to acquiesce to allowing (causing) the Japanese
Americans living on the West Coast to being interred in camps where they could be watched
and monitored to prevent sabotage and other acts that would help the Japanese government.
In my youth I grew up in this area with the tales of this
unrighteous forced internment, and the personal tales of those who lived through this.
There were a couple of local families that owned farms here, and were taken off en-masse
to Manzanar. They were
told to sell all they could, as the government would not hold their personal belongings.
The neighboring farm families were understanding, and bought the farms for one dollar to
satisfy the records people at the county. They maintained the farms for the few years the
families were gone, and kept the houses in order, and when the families returned they
transferred the title to the owning families, and gave them the money for the crops they
had grown, minus the expenses they had incurred maintaining the farms.
That is what this country is all about; people helping their hard
working neighbors when they need a hand. It is not a tale of endless victimization. If you
look at only the bad this country has done you will blind yourself to the great good we do
in the world. Overall, this country has been an overwhelming force for good in the world.
An older friend of mine who lived in that time, told me several
times about the 'No-No' Boys, who wrote 'No' to both of the questions listed at the head
of this article. He says they would walk around with the 'Rising Sun' emblem on a
headband. They were actual rebels committed to Japan and actively engaged in open hatred
of the USA. He never told me what happened to those fellows, the movie I watched today ' Come See the Paradise'
mentioned that many of them were exchanged for American servicemen who had been captured
by the Japanese. It seems a fitting thing to expulse anyone with open allegiance to
another country, and is committed to bring our country down. It matters not whether that
allegiance is natural and long lived, or recent due to unhappiness with American policy
(such as the character 'Charlie' in the movie).
We are now engaged in another war, one that will likely have even
more casualties in the end than the last World War (fifty million acknowledged deaths).
The American people are not big into war, regardless of what the world thinks of us. We
would rather sell you cars and carrots than pay to have bombs dropped on your head. But
when the day comes that we get homicide-bombers blowing themselves up in malls, when more
airplanes drop from the sky, and when a nuclear device goes off in a major city, we will
at that time wake up and realize that we are in a long lasting war with an intractable
enemy. This is the essence of the 'rabid-dog' philosophy I espouse. That one hates to kill
a dog, but must when it threatens your family.
Recent events have caused me to realize what our ancestors went
through so many decades ago, when they worried about the allegiance of their neighbors,
and decided to 'deport them' to a small place to be watched over. I grew up not
understanding, but now...try as I might not to....it is dawning on me what they worried
about. I only wish the Muslims in America would have melted into the big pot a bit better
than did the Japanese. They stand out as more aloof, they separate themselves willingly,
and they refuse to demonstrate to show their allegiance to this country. They refuse to
publicly renounce terrorism in a manner that meets my expectation (and the expectation of
the majority of the populace). Instead we see actual acts of terrorism contemplated by
members of their 'community'. We see their people rounded up for planning
attacks, and when this happens their 'spokesmen' roundly criticize the efforts of
the police and critique it as merely 'racist actions'.
Note the phrase 'Islamic Fascism', how that ignites tempers. Well,
it is a way to describe this particular brand of fascism. When I mentioned 'Italian
Fascism', and ‘German National Socialism’ above did that cause the alarm bells
to go off like the new term 'Islamic Fascism' does? We need to be able to accurately
describe what we are fighting against. It is Islamic Fascism, not terrorism. Terrorism is
the weapon they use. We do not say that our enemies in WWII were tanks and bombers and
V-One missiles, our enemies were the German government and the people who supported that
government. In the end we needed to destroy that people to get them to reduce their
commitment to the government. It took a nuclear strike (two times) against Japan before
they decided that they were through fighting, and in the end, that big loss of hundreds of
thousands may have saved the lives of millions more.
There will be a time when we will be seriously contemplating the
same thing that happened in WWII which I all my life disagreed with. But it seems to me,
that we have more grounds for worry than did the people of that time against the Japanese
Americans.
Muslims, do be vocal in your words and actions against the
terrorists. And when you have rallies, keep the Palestinian and Hezb'Allah flags put away.
Don't go parading around with your faces covered and expressing sympathy with our enemies,
that makes you appear as if you might be an enemy....are you?
Don't just tell me you are not, show me by parading with American
flags, and showing a commitment to our principles and turn in the radicals in your midst.
You are the ones with the power right now to do this, if you refuse, in time, when the sky
is dark indeed, we will take the power from you… and you will not regain it until
this is all over. And I fear that this war will still be ongoing long after most of us are
gone.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The photos below were taken by a person in San Francisco who goes by the
Nom de Guerre Zombie. Zombie was gracious enough to let us use the photos he/she took.
You can see Zombie's most excellent works at his/her blog at Zombie's Blog
Note that ALL of the photos zombie took were taken in San Francisco at pro Hezb'Allah, pro
Palestinian, and Pro Hamas rallies in that most unusual of American cities.
Thanks for the use of the photos Zombie, you do great undercover work!
A Hezb'Allah flag waving in the USA. 
A Palestinian and Hamas flag waving in the USA. 
A Hamas flag waving in the USA. 
The flags of many states (or wanna'be states) who are sworn to kill the
American people waving in the USA.
(This means they are self-professed enemies).
Also included is a poster of the ‘ever delightful’ Nasrallah, the leader of
Hezb’Allah 
A Palestinian supporter masked with a kaffiyeh waves his banner. 
Many Palestinian supporters wave their banners.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
What I worry about if the Mosques and government don't start acting
right, is people will begin to do their own 'profiling'. This is perhaps beginning to
happen as witnessed on British Airways Flight 613 (follow-up story here) in
which a dozen passengers got off the plane because two men of (perhaps) Arabic speech gave
suspicions due to "their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long
hair". It may seem like an irrational response to leave, but it is perhaps reasonable
when you think of the fact that the security people likely will not give these guys any
special looking-over since they will not want to appear racist. This is just the beginning
of what we will see in the next few years unless the mosques and Muslim people do their
own policing.
I understand both sides of this debate. I have a 'scruffy, rough,
appearance and long hair'. I have been refused service in restaurants due to my looks. I
was once told when I walked into a church that "we don't think this is the right
church for you". I used to ride a Harley chopper some decades ago before it was a
popular and fashionable thing to do. I have been pulled over and searched because
"the sun was glancing off your license tags, and we weren't sure your tags were
current". People often move over in a grocery store aisle to get away from me because
they think I am scary (and crazy looking). When I went to the Santa Barbara Airport one
time on a super hot day, I sat in the shade on the grass waiting for a flight to arrive. I
took my sweaty hat off of my hot head and placed it by my crossed legs, people started
putting money in it!! I am profiled, but I understand the reaction of people and police.
Luckily Bikers in the eighties started the 'Toy Runs' and other 'good neighbor' projects,
and policing their own people a bit and took some of the stigma off of Harley riding (and
raised the price of new motorcycles to boot). People in the mosques need to realize that
the actions of those ‘1 percenters’ will reflect on the group as a whole. And
you will soon be feeling the hot breath of the people down your neck. Wise up brothers,
now… before it gets any further along.
August 19, 2006
Elephant Polo Anyone?
Wow, talk about a stretch of imagination to come up with Elephant Polo.
Who'da' trunk?
Human imagination has no limits it seems. And if Rivenrock Gardens
ever gets big enough to sponsor sports teams, the American Elephant Polo Team will be
proudly sponsored by us! Heck, we'll even house the elephant during the off season, I'm
sure all the hiking around these hills, and a few hundred pounds a day of cactus will get
that behemoth in fine shape for the competitions!
August 18, 2006
So Long Brookers, but not Goodbye!
Passion and creativity, how vital are they to human existence? How
important to our society and civilization as a whole are the blend of these attributes?
On YouTube.com one can see a compendium of interesting videos put up
by amateurs, but some of these amateurs have a creativity rarely matched by the base of
society as a whole.
To sit and watch the imaginative and creative videos is a delight,
and one that Vickie and I have been tracking for a few weeks is a young girl named
'Brookers'. From the first time I saw her I thought she had a definite streak of
delightful imagination that made it a pleasure to watch (most) of her videos. I've thought
from the first that she is definitely one person that will make it to television or
movies. And now we find out that she is accepted for a show on MTV. Now on this latest of
her videos she makes an impassioned 'Goodbye' speech, and tells the viewing audience how
happy she is for the support she has gotten from the YouTube community.
Do watch Brookers on her goodbye Speech
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
And I heard on the news this morning that the American
Naturalization and Immigration Department was established today in 1894. Hmm, I wonder
when they're gonna start regulating immigration?
August 17, 2006
We are at war with a very determined group of very
determined....folks
Ah think Prez Bush is a raht fart smeller, I mean smart feller. But
he shore duz talk raht funny. He has a raht hard tahm talking like a regler people.
I actually lahk listenin to the feller cause he's
kinda funny to listen to. If you want to hear a discushun on the Scarborough Country Show
discussing whether he is smart or not, go to Is President Bush an
Idiot?
August 16, 2006
Beslan Revisited
Beslan, the Tragedy. Human shields, horrors and the depravity of
terrorists.
Never forget what monsters will do willingly and happily to children
to further their political goals.
August 14, 2006
Yo soy Californio
Ich bin Kalifornian
Californication
by
~Red Hot Chili Peppers~
Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind's elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication
It's the edge of the world
And all of western civilization
The sun may rise in the East
At least it settles in the final location
It's understood that Hollywood
sells Californication
Space may be the final frontier
But it's made in a Hollywood basement
Cobain can you hear the spheres
Singing songs off station to station
And Alderon's not far away
It's Californication
Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication
Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest
There is no test
But this is what you're craving
Californication, the word that send shivers up the spines of
Oregonians. Yet it also means the opening of vistas, and the acceptance of new things. And
to some it can mean the exploitation of all, the perversion of mankind and the beginning
of the end of morality.
California is such a mix of old and new, good and bad. It is a
microcosm of life on Earth. We hold onto our Old Spanish ways, architecture and place
names, while we look toward the opening of space and exploration of the mind and
cyberspace.
We hold onto values and ethics while we reach for perversion and
falsification. What happens in the world is likely to begin here, and what reaches to here
from other places is likely to be twisted and annealed into an amalgam of things
Californian. In the end they will hardly resemble the original.
We take a movie set and make a moon landing, we take a sound stage
and make videos. We take a bare hillside and launch rockets. The base and perverse are
turned into mass media for acceptance by the world. And the nothingness of space is turned
into a staging area for GPS relay units and ‘Eye in the Sky’ satellites launched
from the west Coast Space Command.
California is the place I call home. I roam these coastlines and
hills. I know the people, I am Californian.
To see the video by The Red Hot Chili Peppers you can go to Californication video.
August 12, 2006
Stevie Nicks
Sometimes it's a Bitch
by
~Stevie Nicks~
Well I've run through rainbows and castles of candy
I cried a river of tears from the pain
I try to dance with what life has to hand me
My partner's been pleasure...my partner's been pain
There are days when I swear I could fly like an eagle
And dark desperate hours that nobody sees
My arms stretched triumphant on top of the mountain
My head in my hands...down on my knees
I am an admitted Stevie Nicks fan, and I have permission from my
wife to admire Stevie from afar. Browsing YouTube.com I came upon a few of her videos with
which I can indulge my 'Nicks Fix' since MTV stopped playing music videos many years ago
and I have nowhere else to go to see this 'Vixen of Video' prance her stuff onstage.
'Sometimes it's A Bitch, Sometimes It's A Breeze' is a fine music video
that comes across as a video montage of all things Stevie, definitely worth a look.
'Stand Back' is a video set in the waning days of the American Civil
War (and the Europeans say we've never had war in the USA). It is a well done video,
dreamy. A look back at a lost Aristocracy through a lens of romance that was never there
for 99% of the southern population. Interestingly in this video Stevie rides a horse
sidesaddle, they never show her getting astride the horse.
August 11, 2006
Waning Moon, Nipomo California
The waning moon lowers itself in a gentle glide down the sides of
the sky, to settle into the branches of our pines as the sun begins yet another ascent
into the sky to bring that liquid sunshine that lets life continue another day.
August 10, 2006
Freeform Housing
I am a fan of 'alternative building materials'. These can range from
houses made from straw bales, to cordwood and indeed many more materials you might not
imagine.
A very interesting site I found recently is Elephante. It is a freeform house
made of many materials melded into an organic structure that seems more akin to a worm
burrow. Very 'down to earth'.
August 09, 2006
All Gave Some, Some Gave All
Photos of the National Cemetery in Los Angeles, right off the 405
and by UCLA.
I've been in so many military graveyards, and each time I enter one,
I am struck by the enormity of what each of these men did for us. Nothing more need be
said other than...
All gave some, some gave all
August 04, 2006
I've got the Blues this mornin', and the Blues all day today
Driving down Sunset Blvd Friday morning (trying to sell cactus
leaves to fancy restaurants) I saw this dilapidated shack that looks more like it should
be in our canyon than in West Hollywood (West Hollywood is not ANYTHING like where I come
from).
When I saw it was 'The House of
Blues' I knew I had to take a photo of this most musical landmark.
August 03, 2006
You might be a Redneck if..."you watch America's Most Wanted' to see your
relatives on TV"
I was showing a friend the Lompoc Police Department website (Lompoc's
Most Wanted) that profiles the local scofflaws and brigands of our fair city.
And scrolling down I uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing a
fellow I used to know in High school listed with a $500.00 bail. It was a bit of a
surprise, and I quickly revised my history with him from "this is an old friend"
to "this is a dude I went to a couple of classes with ".
Then today I found a listing of California's
Most Wanted. This is interesting to browse through some of the different towns and
cities I drive through. I looked at the offenses committed by these people, most of whom I
imagine I would never have the occasion to run across.
Vickie and I chuckled at the offense listed as "annoying"
someone (minors I presume). But if annoying is in itself a crime, wouldn't most any
married couple be guilty of annoying each other?
You have two choices in life in regards to romance,
You can remain alone…and be lonely
or you can get married...and be often annoyed
August 02, 2006
Food Good... Fire Bad
I do know that for the sympathy of one living being,
I would make peace with all.
I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine.
And rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one, I will demonically indulge the other.
That choice is yours.
You're the one who set this in motion, Frankenstein.
~Frankenstein’s monster to Victor Frankenstein~
Vickie and I were watching Mary Shelly’s
Frankenstein when she remarked how similar to Robert De Niro the monster looked. We
both laughed about De Niro taking on that role. And later we were surprised to see that
she had seen it right, De Niro did play the monster (and did a remarkable job of it).
In this version the monster has the brain of a brilliant scientist
who was against such research. He quickly relearns how to read and speak on his own.
I’ll not spoil the end for you, but suffice to say it is a well
done movie that we both enjoyed.
August 01, 2006
I came upon a very interesting Facial recognition software site.
It will scan your photo you send it using bio-metrics. It will then
compare your facial features to it's database of over 3,500 well known people to isolate
people with the similar features.
I found it to be a very interesting exercise in evaluation of
features.
John most resembled:
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Edward Elgar
English Composer
It says I have a 68% resemblance to him.
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Bobby Charlton
the British Soccer hero
credits me with a 65% resemblance.
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Maxim Gorky
the Soviet Writer
(Pinko)
accused of a 60% resemblance.
|
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Vickie most closely resembled:
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Jacqueline Bisset
British Super-Hot actress/model
It says she has a 65% resemblance to her.
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Sonia Gandhi
Italian-Indian politician
Hot enough to marry a Head-of-State
54% resemblance.
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Brigitte Bardot
Super-Hot French actress/model
'you know those Frenchies'
52% resemblance.
|
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Now, the observing person might well notice something about this,
namely that Vickie's photo was picked out to match some of the Major-League 'Hot Babes' of
all time.
While John is said to more closely resemble...well...
Well, let's just say....John is no Brad Pitt.
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