The Daze of The Weak

I have decided that I wiLL begin teaching Cooper the days of the week.

It isn't so much a teaching eXercise as it just means I wiLL begin including it, naturaLLy, in our conversations.

He is seven now so he should be able to handle the concept.

I had to be away earlier today, so I eXplained my absence because I am almost always home on early SATURDAY mornings.

Update: Saturday evening is a semi-duplicate of Friday evening. Same restaurant, slightly different meal, but the same movie 'Iron Man'. My wife asked me to restart the movie where she feLL asleep last night, so I tried. But now she has faLLen asleep again, only a little ways farther before sn00zing.

My waiter was the same guy from last night. He gave me a very strange smiley face on the back of my ticket. So I put it on the front of my refrigerator with a magnet.

Three Percent Nothing

While studying the chemical element boron, I came across this sentence in Wikipedia:

Borosilicate glass, which is typically 12–15% B₂O₃, 80% SiO₂, and 2% Al₂O₃, has a low coefficient of thermal expansion giving it a good resistance to thermal shock.

I noticed that the best you can get to with 15+80+2=97 percent.

So the only reasonable eXplanation is that it is 3 percent Nothing.

So the neXt time your chemistry lab partner makes a remark like, "Gee, your beakers are reaLLy shiny." - just say, "That's because they're at least 3 percent nothing! ... maybe as high as 6 percent nothing!"

Interesting Headlines from the WSJ

From the Wall Street Journal:

   Iranians Squawk At Chicken Prices

   Costa Rica Addresses Its Lack of Street Names

   Flood Insurance Premiums May Rise

   Best Buy's Founder Weighs Buyout

   Yogurt Boom Leaves Farmers Behind

   Cajun Towns Feud About Sausage With Links To The Past

   Coca-Cola Pours Into India

Google, That's Not What I Asked For ...

I typed 'physics' in a Google search, and this was the first page of results. I reaLLy enjoyed seeing what NON-physics thing showed up in the very first entry.

Happy Birthday Paul !!!!!!!!

Yesterday ... A Beatle turned seventy.

I feel older now.

I haven't quite made it to when I'm sixty-four.

At The Same Laugh-i-tude

So I am in Dreamscape.

I am inventing martial art fighting techniques.

I developed this reaLLy cool movement where I am doing, then perfecting, the timing of a galloping approach to an imaginary opponent whereby I am moving faster than normal, but the sound of my bare feet landing simultaneously on the grass appears to be slower than a normal pace, to confuse the opponent. I am a blended combination of Bruce Lee, Henry Rollins and me.

Everything is fairly quiet.

I am alone.

Suddenly my friend comes out of what is s'pposed to be a house but it is located in the town I finished high school and the building is the drug store on Main Street that is reaLLy a restaurant/cafe now, and stiLL caLLed The Drug Store.

I am in the street to the northeast of the house/drug store/cafe and he is yeLLing at me. "Why were you not inside watching me sleep? I need you to watch me sleep so that you wiLL know how to sleep and learn to sleep better! Why weren't you watching me?"

I respond, "I know how to sleep"

He continues yeLLing, never reaLLy slowing down so you thought it looked like that because you thought he asked a question and then paused for me to give an answer but there never was a pause only two voices, "... You need to watch me very closely ... No, you don't know how to sleep, I know, but you don't know, you just think you know."

His yeLLing noise goes on for a long time. He yeLLs the same thing four different ways repeatedly, ad noise-ium.

In Realscape it is Father's Day 2012 and there is no yeLLing or martial arts. There was pizza. The dog was eXtra grumbly, a very mild form of canine yeLLing, because the pizza was delivered slightly late. But of course it needed to be delivered late because you have to aLLow them eXtra time to OVERcook your pizza, which of course I did not desire OR ask for .... ... .. .

One son is far away but strangely he is almost slightly closer than normal by being at the same latitude as me for several weeks. He normaLLy lives much farther north. He is forced to be telephoneless by his employer for several days while camping. It sounds strange but he has a strange job, even stranger employer who I hate. I hate The Isolation. I am pretty sure I wiLL not get a phone caLL from him today. A few days ago I discovered the same-latitude thing about my son, and I asked my wife if that was any comfort to her knowing that her son was straight west of us. A strange look of semi-confusion developed on her face. Her answer was no.

As a math project I might calculate how many miles closer he is than normal.

This is my first year to have my step-father gone on Father's Day. I caLLed my mother today. We had a better chat, happier than yesterday's chat. I told her that the state of Texas didn't mangle my name on my new driver's license like they did seven years ago when I legaLLy added my fourth name. Then we talked about several things before she accidentaLLy caLLed me by my step-father's name as we were trying to say goodbye, and then sadly flustered with a laugh, she next mistakenly caLLed me by my brother's name who lives close to her, and then she reaLLy laughed, and I laughed. But then she suddenly remembered something.

She told me that my brother greets her on the telePhone at the beginning of conversations with almost the eXact same phrasing that I do, taken from the title of a children's book, "Are You My Mother?", and then she very carefuLLy slowly said goodbye using aLL four of my legal names.

Dessert Boy Gets An Extra Helping of Scam-nesia

There are several things wrong.

I wiLL teLL you about three wr0ng things in reverse order, the order that I discovered them.

The latest fashion trend (?) that I saw on teleBision is caLLed Trendy Top. It is like a giant tight cloth tube that women can wear over the top of the pants and covering their middle section, so that their body doesn't show when they bend over. I applaud the inventors, but it reaLLy has the wrong name. It is located on the MIDDLE of the person, so it should be caLLed the Trendy Middle, not Trendy Top.

The second thing that is wr0ng is this news story about the Forest Boy of Germany. I just found out about him AFTER they discovered he was a hoax. That was strange. But I am making preparations to now do the same thing. WeLL, not eXactly the same thing. I have grown tired of my current life and so I am running away. All this blogging, seLLing shoes, and re-tired-ment has gotten to me. We don't get much rain here, we make up for it with wind, so those two multiplied together mean No Forest Near Here, so I can't be a Forest Boy. So I am thinking I could probably wander off to New Mexico and become 'Desert Boy'. So sometime neXt year you can eXpect me to show up in Albuquerque, but I'm not sure eXactly what fake story I wiLL claim.

The third thing that is wr0ng is that I didn't know Oklahoma City had a professional basketbaLL team, the ones who used to be in Seattle. I wonder how I missed this? What is even worse, for those who know my meat favorites, the team has a mascot of a BUFFALO. And everyone knows how crazy I am about everything that is Bison bison. I even have multiple friends in Seattle who probably mentioned the Supersonics leaving their city! (The Supersonics became the OKC Thunder) But I reaLLy pay no attention to sports, I have absolutely no idea who has won any Super Bowl in the last ten years. I stopped watching basketbaLL when Michael quit. Soccer? Hah.(Just in case you need clarification, I meant Michael Jordan)

So maybe when I show up neXt year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I wiLL try to mix a little scam-nesia with buffalo-ness wearing a Trendy Top under my buffalo robe speaking only very bad Portuguese that authorities wiLL mistake for Spanish and maybe try to deport me "back" to old Mexico. Dessert Boy. All the other hobos wiLL be jealous of my ESL lessons and food stamps. If I spout off enough nuclear physics nonsense maybe they'll think I am an escapee from a lab in nearby Los Alamos?

(hahaha - I just saw I had a great typo, I caLLed myself Dessert Boy instead of Desert Boy. You should just be glad I speLLed 'Albuquerque' correctly.)

I like my new word: scam-nesia

My Song Is Exactly 16 Times Better Than Toby Keith's Song

The title of my song is Red Solo Gallon.

ActuaLLy the song was wrote by some-four else. I tried to use the word someone, but there were four people instead of one. A pair of Beavers' and a pair of Warren's.

Second ActuaLLy: At this moment I only have a song title, very few lyric fragments. I wiLL most likely rewrite their complete song, and possibly use Elmer Fudd's voice to sing it, like my other smash internationaLLy renowned hit, "You Waise Me Up (So I Can Hunt Duh Wabbits)"

Link to You Waise Me Up (So I Can Hunt Duh Wabbits)

Th Wal Stre Journ in Slo Mo & No

I have an oops on my iPad.

For some reason the app for viewing The Wall Street Journal is broken. It appears for a few seconds and then crashes. It reveals no error message.

I have tried to contact the WSJ about this, but so far they have been unresponsive.

AND they charge me $18.43 a month for this service.

At least I can read about 6 seconds at a time, before the screen disappears. But ONLY the very first screen of the issue, which is not even close to being the fuLL front page of a paper issue. And considering that it takes about 12 seconds just to load the screen before you can read, it means I am getting to read maybe one fourth of one percent of the entire newspaper at one third speed, for fuLL price.

I am not sure how to do the math for figuring how eXpensive it is adjusting for one fourth of one percent, because that is just an approximate guess. Not every story seems to be new every day in every issue when it is working normaLLy.

But let's try this: 18.43 x 100 percent x 4 = 7,372 dollars a month.

I am sure I am missing some cool stuff a-happenin' in the world as weLL.

Meanwhile it is thundering outside keeping me awake at 4 something AM.

I hope it is just thunder. Cooper is complaining because I think he is afraid of the noise. Or maybe he just wants me to go to bed and turn off the kitchen light.

UPDATE: 2012.06.12 23:45

Semi-triumph: I figured out how to read the front page easier. Just as soon as the page loads, I can take a snap-shot of the screen by hitting the buttons on the opposite sides of the iPad. Then I can just 'read' the picture.

So ... I went to see the WSJ picture and when the Photo system showed the most recent photos, I accidentaLLy took another photo of aLL the photos on the page, 33 of them. I cracked up laughing, because THEN I opened that photo and took another photo, this time of the zoomed-zoomed WSJ. I hope this makes sense, be-ca-use it just barely does to me, yawn, Sleepy-Boy wanna go night-night beddy-bye.

Sweet dreams to me. HopefuLLy better than last night's dreams that involved cars traveling down veRy muddy roads, doing veRy dangerous things. Nobody was getting stuck. Zooooom

UPDATE: 2012.06.13 11:30

I finaLLy got it fixed. I had to delete the app from my iPad, then reinstaLL. The WSJ technical folks finaLLy started responding several times with suggestions by e-mail. It even reloaded the previous week's worth of issues into my iPad, so now I can get caught back up on aLL there is to know that's worth knowing, and thinking veto-ishly, aLL there is to no that's worth no-ing.

I have to deliver a dryer that I repaired, then its GCSwB Time!

He Disappeared!!!

When I was at the diner the other day, yesterday I believe (?), I found out that Jesus was gone!

I heard he moved to Plano.

So I was sad that I didn't get to say good-bye.

He was one of my favorite people to talk to at the diner. He is a very good waiter.

Jesus: Hope you get a great job in Plano!

If you read this Jesus, please remember to let me know when you are coming back to Borger.

I heard you were in recently town for a wedding.

Oh, one other thing I almost forgot to teLL you: I no longer drink Dr Pepper, I have switched to very weak tea.

I've Looked For Clouds On Both Sides Now

Strange morning.

It is raining ever so slightly by my house.

On the west side, yes. The ground is wet and muddy.

On the east side, no, not reaLLy very much at aLL. The pavement is dry.

It is almost 8 oh clock.

We should be ate-ing, but someone is a laZy bum this morning, sleeping her little life away.

I asked Cooper to go get her out of bed when he complained about food, but he didn't seem to want to venture away from me in the living room.

I even made a pot of coffee like she had asked, but that was almost too long ago now to be considered *fresh* coffee.

Ah, there is no orange juice in the house either, but I know there is some V-8.

Cooper and I inspected the grape vines, they are looking better. I believe I was under watering them, but I have increased the irrigation rate over about the last ten days. I had to go beyond just stored rain water.

My indoors praying mantis of the year is missing. I may have to try to find another one. I even have one tiny little okra plant for it to wander on besides the orchid. I should probably start a new purple onion. I have not grown one of those in about a year. They are eXtremely easy. They make flowers.

I need to take the pineapple plants outside, I am five days later than normal. They live outdoors June through August.

I am not growing any tomatoes this year.

My major number one goal of the day is to get a letter sent off to my friend in prison. It is already in my computer, I just need to get it wrote into a greeting card.

Here was yesterday's blessing: I am sitting in the diner that my prison friend owns having my usual grilled chicken sandwich. Her mother is at the cash register talking to someone. Suddenly I "hear" my friend in prison's voice, only it isn't reaLLy her. I don't know the lady talking, but I approach and asked the mother of my prison friend, and I find out it is another daughter of hers that I have never met.

I told the other daughter that she sounded just eXactly like her sister, and that reaLLy made me happy to hear "her". She thought it was truly wonderful, and hugged my shoulder.

I believe my prison friend is getting out much earlier than originaLLy planned, I had heard October instead of December, so that makes me happy.

It is a sad time here. My step-father passed away recently. He was very wonderful for my mother for about twenty years. He wiLL be missed greatly. They had been friends since high school.

Okay, it is now 8 oh clock completely so Cooper and I just need to make enough disturbing noises to get our breakfast maker going this morning.

Link: My little friend, Polly The Staying Praying Mantis

Update Later:

Yes, I got my letter finished and in the mail to my friend. I wrote it while I was in her diner, and so when I got ready to seal the envelope, I used a small amount of water condensate from the side of my glass of iced tea in order to wet the glue to seal it. So a few molecules of water from her diner wiLL visit her from afar.

I am ending today listening to the Queen's musical celebration. With London being about six hours ahead of me, I am pretty sure this is recorded.

ActuaLLy I may end the day with coffee.

Here is something sadly strange that I saw today. Someone sold a house to a possible future client of mine. It appears that the former owner cut out aLL the wires on the inside of the air conditioning unit. Bizarre! ... So I have a puzzle to diagnose.