Will Not Work For What?

So the CNN headline today reads that North Korea will stop nuclear testing activities in eXchange for food. Brilliant. Have we heard this before?

What I reaLLy want to see though is a homeless person put that message on a cardboard sign, and there are several homeless people who beg for money just a few miles down the road from the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, the final assembly point for all nuclear weapons in the USofA, about forty miles south of my house.

"Will Stop Testing Nuclear Weapons for Food/$$$"

Then I just remembered that I had nothing else better to do this afternoon than take a nap.

Hmmm, sounds interesting.

Deaf I Sit, Spending

So I spend 20 minutes looking for my stamps that are always kept in an eXact spot.

If my time is worth 70 dollars an hour, then lets say that was $23.33 wasted.

In the middle of searching for maybe 4 to 6 dollars worth of stamps I accidentally knock half of a container of premium paper towels off the table because I moved them onto an unstable hill of laundry which them fell onto the floor. If I lived in California where mudslides happen I might have known better. But I have obviously not spent enough time in the Golden State. The paper towels were still in their container so they would have still been sanitary if they would have landed in any other 99.25% of the house, but no, they had to land on top of and then capsize the dog's water bowl. Big size dog, big size bowl, recently filled, big size mess.

I love my dog.

Dog water goes everywhere just enough so that all five and half dollars worth of paper towels are contaminated. The dog bowl is completely upside down. So is my mood. The dog retreats to the other side of the house. I sweet-talk the dog, he comes back. I clean up the water. I refill his bowl.

So I decide to go to my vehicle to use my phone which I had left out there because I had come home to make a quick dash in for a certain bill to mail and the all important stamp. I call the wife. Yes, my stamps are in her purse!

I mailed my letter using money at the postage store. Then I drowned my sorrows in a Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Baked Potato, and semi-flat Dr. Pepper. At least it was cold and wet to help me try to make it through the rest of the dust bowl dry day we are having. Um, didn't it rain yesterday?!?!? I remember writing an unpublished blog story that had rain in it.

I was just kidding about my time being worth 70 dollars an hour. Its probably only 67 and change. Deflation, I'm now a bargain!

Ooo Ooo Ooo, there's a new Gweenbrick! I must go ....

How To Make Coffee The Fork Way & Spin Babies

When I first saw my wife's new Keurig coffee maker a year ago, and how easy it worked, I was pleased. BUT when I went to buy replacement refills of coffee containers I was shocked at how eXpensive they were per cup. About the best deal I can find is the largest volume size of 80 cups for a little more than 30 dollars. And I don't even like strong coffee or the taste of any coffee yet in any prepackaged Keurig container. I don't like using their reusable device that allows you to use your own brand of coffee. It leaks too much, and its too messy for just one cup of coffee.

For awhile I was reusing my wife's Keurig containers, passing a second blast of hot water through them. But I still longed for the taste of Folger's Classic Roast. AND spending less money on coffee.

So about 2 months ago I figured out how to make coffee without using a coffee maker. I put a small amount of coffee grounds in the middle of a pair of coffee filters, and then bunch the filter top together held in place by the middle tines of a fork to encapsulate the coffee grounds properly. Meanwhile I have already heated up a cup of water in the microwave oven that already has my sugar in it. Then I put my "coffee bag" in the near boiling water and swish it around until it has the right strength. When it gets a little strong on coffee flavor toward the final part of the cup, I pull out the coffee bag and reheat more water and sugar, then put the coffee bag back in the second round of hot water. 

I have also learned to very slowly rotate the moist coffee bag while standing by the microwave oven waiting for the second cup of water to heat up. If you hold the coffee bag still or don't rotate it fast enough, then it drips. I usually rotate it over the trash can just to avoid any mess, holding in all that precious coffee goodness for my second cup. I also realized there may be other soggy things that wouldn't leak as easily if they are gently rotated. The first thing that came to mind was an infant with a wet diaper. I am not recommending this! It was just the first thing that popped into my siLLy liTTle brain.

I did see a small nearly 3 year old boy last night at the restaurant who is absolutely adorable. I asked him if he got his cute backpack at Gander Mountain (it was camouflage) and he told that it came from "nowhere". I have known his family for a very long time, and I just now remembered that when I was getting married the 3 year old's father attended my wedding. Of course, he was on the inside of his mother at that time. His older sister and I figured that out at work one day when we were calculating that she had been an infant at my wedding.

My coffee expense has been drastically reduced, and I am back to my favorite flavor of coffee. The world is a better place, and I may possibly have enough money to retire on now.

There  were  no  infants  harmed  in  the  making  of  this  blog  post  (honest).

What Am I Doing Right Now?

Right now I am watching the movie "Next" starring Nicolas Cage. Well, at this eXact moment there is a commercial, but the movie will return shortly, according to a micro burst interruption in the commercials. It is a bit science fictiony, and then I checked its creator and discovered it was by Philip K. Dick, oooh, he is good. He died almost thirty years ago on March 2nd.

So what siLLy thing am I reaLLy doing? I am sitting here trying to guess what the next line of dialogue is going to be, one of my favorite things to do, while watching a movie about a guy who can see into the future, but only two minutes. But part of the problem with the presentation of the movie on my teleBision is that every once in a while during the commercials it shows very brief pieces of video of future events of the movie, SO I already know the main character gets captured .... (?) .... Why did they do that?!?!?

Oh, here is something ironic in the movie: Part of the plot involves a nuclear weapon terrorist act and there is a s'pposedly randomly picked movie playing in the background on the teleBision, "Dr. Srangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb" in one of the scenes.

Oh, this is cool: The movie is now just over and the credits are scrolling in the opposite direction.

Oh, sorry I began three paragraphs in a row with the word "Oh" including this one. That was uncalled for and I didn't see it coming.

That was a fun movie.

So .... What's next? The movie 'The Help' on Blu-Ray.

YEA!!! Something Exciting Enough To Wake Up My Wife In The Middle Of The Night

I let the Cooper outside at 11 PM at the back door.

I just happened to look down inside my nearest pineapple plant, and instead of more leaves, there is a pineapple growing! Actually, I think it is a bloom at this point. This will be the f1rst time that I have had a plant try to produce a fruit, so far they have just been giving me leaves.

So I rushed to the bedroom and woke up my wife so she could also come to see it. Pineapple Plant Party Time!!! She was only about 10% as e_Xcited as me. She asked me, "how can it grow a pineapple in just that little bucket of dirt?" It is currently growing in a Folger's Coffee plastic coffee container, the 33.9 oz size, and that is only 2/3's filled with soil.

In all my eXcitement trying to take a photograph I completely forgot about the dog being outside! I think Tamie must have let him back inside, yeppa, he is in the other room. I managed to damage only two orchid blooms while trying to shoot this pineapple plant, going through three different lens on my Sony Alpha 350 before I found the right one to work properly in the dark with the camera flash. I will try to get another picture in the morning with natural light and a tripod.

Link to Wikipedia Article for Pineapple

Update 2012.03.02: Photograph

Update: 2012.03.08 - Approx 2 weeks - Pineapple is now about an inch across and high.
Photo by iPhone 4 S

Pineapple at 5 weeks and 4 inches tall

Does Baskin Robbins Have Pectinariidae Flavor?

Today I just learned (15 minutes ago) that there is a worm called the "Ice Cream Cone Worm".

From Wikipedia: Pectinariidae

Pectinariidae, or the trumpet worms or ice cream cone worms, are a family of marine polychaete worms that build sand tubes roughly resembling ice cream cones up to two inches long.

Pectinaria koreni (with and without tube)

Head is on the right side

© Hans Hillewaert / CC-BY-SA-3.0

To think that someone invented the ice cream cone without a proper name several years ago and then later a committee was sitting around thinking, what should we call this new dessert treat container? Then one of them with a biology background said, "I know, there is a worm called the ice cream cone worm, the Pectinariidae, that builds a sand tube that resembles our new cold food invention." And that is how the ice cream cone was not named.

The more you no.

Update: Someone told me that I was a "terrible and disgusting person for showing this picture. Now I have to wait several months before I have a cone." I thought about their comment for quite awhile and came to the conclusion that the picture is straight from wikipedia. Its just a worm that is part of the many things that live in the ocean. I didn't create the name for the animal, someone else did that. All I did was write a silly piece of humor where I twisted the order of events, a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" story punchline. But, "terrible and disgusting person" ? I am not sure about that one. I think I read and see far far worse material than this on other blogs on an almost daily basis.

It is never my intent to be terrible and disgusting. Dear Reader: I hope you recover in several weeks instead of several months.

I think I just created a diet. I think the sand tube looks more like a deep fried burrito or pie. There, maybe that makes me more terrible and disgusting, (???), not sure. That picture kind of reminds of sushi, but I never eat sushi, so I am not an eXpert. The second part of the picture also looks like several things you might see during a stroll down the meat market at my grocery store, lotza strange bizarre things there.

This reminds me of the latest advertising slogan of the Red Lobster Restaurant, "I See Food Differently".

I Just Improved V-8 Juice !!!

I started drinking a severely humongous amount of V-8 Hot & Spicy Juice several weeks ago. But then I realized that the bottles of regular V-8 juice are much cheaper in my store, so I bought them instead and I have eXperimented with varying amounts of Tabasco Sauce. Then I added Worcestershire Sauce as well, and that had been my standard for quite awhile. Today's new discovery is a small amount of sugar !!!

Mmm ... Wonderful, y-e-s!!!

I am home from a day trip, shot a few photos. One is a great "Wash Your Hands" photo, and then another is a series of panoramics that I will try to blend together. I used a circular light pole for my 'try'-pod. I put the flat part of my camera on the light pole then repositioned slightly counter-clockwise, pausing to take several photos about every 15 degrees of rotation. I am going to try to also take all of the automobiles out of the finished photo by carefully selected where the overlaps begin-end. Sneaky! It is an important part of a former trip's storyline, which I will eventually publish as a separate blog post.

Link to "Wash Your Hands" photo

Ernest Shepherd

I have learned several things about my dog.

He likes me to be where HE wants me to be.

I tried reading in the kitchen at the bar with my coffee while waiting for some dishes to soak. He positioned himself on the carpet at the edge of the living room soft carpet, staring at me, smiling, indicating "want", but not begging, not asking for food, just staring at me trying to make and maintain eye contact.

"Yes? You want something?"

He just sits there on the soft floor warmed by himself, not wishing to venture onto my cold hard floor.

"Do you want me to come into the living room to read so you can chew on a rawhide bone?"

Bigger smile now and tail begins to wag but he doesn't move the rest of his body until I begin to move towards the living room.

Dishes can wait.

I get on the couch to write this and read my friends blogs. He gets on the soft carpeting at my feet and begins working a rawhide bone. But then he stops and stares at the teleBision that is playing music on cable channel 62.818 - Adult Alternative music: Jack Johnson, My Morning Jacket, The Fray, Good Old War, The Hold Steady ....

He is quiet.

Suddenly after fifteen minutes of music he has enough of this and positions himself in the hallway towards the bedroom. At first he doesn't say anything, he just stares. Finally I make eye contact. Then he makes "subtle request noises".

I tell him that I don't want to go back to bed.

He becomes progressively louder.

I stand my ground and don't move.

He gets much closer and louder with his complaining.

I tell him no, repeating my previous words.

He quiets and lays on the floor, although not quite as close as before.

I realize I have to be ready to go downtown to meet plumbers to have them fix something in about an hour.

No, let me rephrase that in the language Plumber Nonsense-ese. I have to wait all day for their phone call so that I can go to the other place for them to work when they get ready. 8 AM just happens to be the earliest that they could possibly call. I s'ppose I should check to make sure my phone is charged and get cleaned up for the day. The dishes can wait and soak a little longer. I need to soak me for awhile. I need more coffee, "two".

Time to find a new music channel on the teleBision as well.

I hear strange noises and turn down the teleBision music.

Cooper is now snoring.

Then a second disturbing animal noise.

I hear a cat suddenly scream right outside my window.

Sleeping dog doesn't move.

I don't investigate the neighbor's cat.

Someday soon I will tell/show you how I make coffee. No coffee pot required, just a microwave oven and a fork. That's right: A Fork

The Best $75,000 Dollars I Ever Spent

I devised an ingenius evil plan that has paid back wonderfully on my $75,000 investment.

Plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery, you say?!?!?

Yes, plastic surgery.

I waited until Bill Gates had created his billions AND quit working, then I had myself turned into an almost eXact duplicate of William Henry Gates III.

I refer to myself as Bill Gates, version 3.1

Then I secretly kidnapped the real Bill Gates AND had him surgically enhanced El Plastico, with a minor lobotomy, and he is now a pig farmer in rural southern Idaho.

Hold it, you now say, who is this Ernest Boston that lives in Borger Texas and writes this blog and has a dog Cooper .... its a virtual me.

Bwah hahah-aha-ha ha ha !!!

Update: 2012.02.18 12:45

I just googled the words "Bill Gates Plastic Surgery" and I made it to spot #19 out of 741,000 search results. But when I tried it on a PC to get the "out of number" because my iPad mysteriously doesn't give me that info, then I noticed that I don't show up in the search results, at least not in the top 630, which is the limit that Google will display on my PC. Now you can start your own conspiracy theory about that disappearance!

Ah, I added to the Google search: "Bill Gates Plastic Surgery Pig Farmer", now I am in spots 1 and 2, out of 57,300 results, cool!

Oh, this cool: When I went back and did the search for "Bill Gates Plastic Surgery" sans Pig Farmer after putting that conspiracy theory paragraph online several minutes ago, my blog is now at spot #7 out of 741,000 results, now this is a wild ride.

Blogger: Learn LESS

Blogger has reached a new level of stupdity in the last 24 hours. Their new word verification system for comments displays visual garbage that is very difficult to read. So I went to the settings section of the blog configuration to see if there were any options that could help. This is what I find:

[Copied from Screen:]
This will require people leaving comments on your blog to complete a word verification step, which will help reduce comment spam. Learn more

Blog authors will not see word verification for comments.
[End of Copy]

Okay, see that [ Learn more ] ? It was a hyperlink, but when I clicked it, I get an ERROR message, there is NO help! There is NO-thing else to "learn". Sounds familiar.


[Copied from Screen:]
We're sorry, but the information you've requested cannot be found. Please try searching or browsing the Help Center.
[End of Copy]

It appears that Blogger has hired some of the same programming and design idiots that have recently i_rnpr^ov_ecl Facebook.

Example of a Very Bad Word Verification

Update: I turned off the Word Verification for comments, but left the approval step in place. NOW the system has this error: The next comment that was left for my blog showed up twice. So I have to approve one and then manually delete the second one!


Update: NOW about one day later I have had to turn Word Verification back ON for comments because I am getting flooded with robotic spam messages filling up my inbox on my email as well as showing up in the Is This Spam inbox of Blogger.

There Is No Hostage Situation

While sitting on my couch in the living room it sounded like there was someone nearby outside talking through a bullhorn, like in a police stand-off. I immediately thought there must be another hostage situation going on. So I went to the back door and opened it a bit. But it was just one particular neighbor's dog barking very strangely out of all the other dogs, maybe a dozen or so sporadically barking at and after each other, ad museum. I did have the proper spelling 'ad nauseum' already in place, but I just wanted to see if you were awake.

Its not like we have hostage situations very often.

Anyway, happy valentines day. Yes, I wrote that in lower case h-v-d, I am just not that eXcited enough to go to the effort of doing the whole H-V-D uppercase letter thingie today. I did manage to make Uncle Ern's World Famous Soup for lunch. I think I improved the recipe by only using half a can of tomato sauce instead of none or one. Much earlier I also put a photo blog post online as well. I reaLLy need to go groc shopping as well. I must have cherry cheesecake soon, very very soon. It has been a few days since I have had a slice. Mmm, cherries! Okay, the cherry thoughts are beginning to eXcite me.

Oh! I just now realized that I left the oregano out of my soup! I am always amazed at how your mind can suddenly remember something that you forgot to do hours before, something you have done hundreds of times in your life. [YES] I have made my soup many times. I will add some oregano before I eat the second half of it, if I remember!

My Mondays are now completely different. I am now watching The Voice, and Smash. I love Katharine McPhee's voice. But I miss Whitney very much and that is the main point of sadness in my life right now, her passing.

Feb 14th, 2012 - Photos: My Bud-get Plan Is Working - orchid blooms - on my photo story blog

Don't Say This, Please!

I just heard an Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson (D) from the 48th District say a very strange, very poor choice of words when arguing about state legislation concerning when life starts.

"We have bigger eggs to fry"

No, please don't say this again.

Where Here When Now

The right half of my head hurts with a self inflicted gum shot wound.

I bite my tongue way too often, mainly on the right side.

I was awake way too many hours last night.

Mainly because I ate one too many suppers.

The second very late supper was on the road and unfamiliar things. Hurtful things.

Yesterday was a good day in one aspect that I got to hear my son's voice very far away while he "gets" paid for camping in the cold outdoors. I miss his laughter. He didn't do any laughing yesterday with me.

I need to get moving. My stomach now hurts several hours later the opposite way, it is hungry.

I am debating when to eat my diner based grilled chicken sandwich. They are closed tomorrow, Sunday. I am hungry for it right now, but if I eat it now, say 1:30 PM on Saturday, that will make it be a longer time period before I could have another on Monday, AND due to someone else's plans for me it will be later on Monday, unless I decide to have one for breakfast. Decisions, decisions. Grilled Chicken Sandwich Delay Angst.

I was a good boy and helped someone maintain their secret identity. I can't tell you anymore than that, other than to say that I later jokingly attempted to blackmail that person for $1,000 to keep quiet. Hahahahehehehohoho-y, I am such a silly silly boy sometimes!

I have just been reading blogs and listening to the fan in my room. No news, no wikipedia, no enlightenment.

Oh, I just remembered that I am getting Shrimp and Crawfish Etouffee on Monday, never mind about the Grilled Chicken Sandwich of The Future, that will be more than enough to fill me up for the entire day, a huge portion of Cajun in Amarillo.

I have a sudden fascination with raccoons. I blame PBS for this.

How to get rich being a doctor: I read yesterday how an Englishman helped an African king heal from a stab wound. The grateful king gave him a coastal piece of property of 3,000 square miles.

I would like to stab the oral surgeon who messed up my mouth twenty years ago. I don't have 3,000 square miles of property to give away to hire an assassin. I am also not a king so I probably couldn't get away with it. It also probably violates my basic code of attempting to be the nicest person in the universe.

Now rotating my body 90 degrees to attain verticality and movement and nourishment. The dog just sneezed. He is now awake and will soon demand something soon. I need a pet raccoon that will feed itself. Or better yet, grill me a chicken sandwich. But I am not sure how well raccoons share food. That is probably not a likely scenario for at least another thousand to ten thousand years to have a docile raccoon who speaks sign language and is handy in the kitchen. It would probably be easier to achieve with a gorilla. I need a pet gorilla with grilling skills.

I suddenly realized and remembered two very important things: I will have to learn sign language AND raccoons do not have opposable thumbs.

My Review of the Book 'Eeeee Eee Eeee' by Tao Lin

I looked at a sample of the book Eeeee Eee Eeee, by Tao Lin, online, and bought the Kindle version. I have read several pages (laughing a few times) and here is my initial review:

There is a theory called the Infinite Monkey Theory that states that if you let a monkey bang away randomly on a typewriter for an infinite period of time he will eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare. From this theory I have derived the Quarter Monkey Theory that states that a monkey using only one hand instead of two and using only half of infinity instead of all of it, could write the book Eeeee Eee Eeee.

[For those weak in mathematics, one half times one half equals one quarter.] Do keep in mind I mean this as a compliment to the author.

After I read the complete book I will make a recommendation.

Warning: The book contains some naughty words.

Update: This has nothing to do with the book. I semi-randomly read an article on the Korean alphabet named Hangul, and now I think it a very wonderful way of writing. The shape of the letters has to do with the shape of the mouth while speaking, and syllables are a collection of sounds that are wrote as separate groups. Of course I say that only knowing about the language, not actually using it or learning it. But its adoption by the Korean people for a written language instead of using Chinese characters made it easier to have a higher literacy rate, especially among the poor people. I will give you a separate review of my attempts at learning Korean. But I can tell you this much: I studied it an hour or so ago and I still remember how to write 'ganada' in Korean. That is the equivalent of English for ABC, the first three letters of the alphabet.

The Hangul arrangement is called the ganada order, (가나다 순) which is basically an alphabetical order named after the first three letters (g, n, d) affixed to the first vowel (a). The letters were named by Choe Sejin in 1527.

Link to the Korean Alphabet

Update: Friday morning pre-chicken sandwich - I have made it eXactly halfway through the book Eeeee Eee Eeee. What shall I compare it to? In some ways it is like every snowman I have ever built-made-gave life to that is now just a puddle somewhere or a drop in the ocean, and a perceptive child walks by and looks at his reflection in the puddle, and forces his mother to stop as he points, and she says, "What is it?" and the child smiles and says, "It's a snowman!". Or it could be like a shark that was swimming through a drop of the ex-snowman and he suddenly thinks, "That bit of ocean was a little colder and less salty than normal".

I got to the very middle of the book and imagined being on a Bell Curve, eXactly halfway, like you were done climbing up the side of the curve ready for an easy ride down, but then you notice that the curve has suddenly inverted and you NOW have to make the same climb back out of a Bell Curve shaped hole. Ugh.

On my way through the book I get the idea to make a list of all the naughty words, and then make a frequency diagram, maybe color coding each naughty word. I am not sure just yet what kind of graph it will be.

The writing is eXcruciatingly random to the point of slowly nearly inducing pain, but then just as you think a tiny piece of pain is going to happen within you, suddenly you laugh, and say out loud, I can't believe people pay money for this. Or else you fall asleep and think you read something, but it was reaLLy just a dream.

I am off to feed the dog and then myself in that order.

Update: Monday morning with headache - I decided to read the second half of the book backwards, sentence by sentence. I figured it would probably make just as much sense to do it that way as to go forward. So here is my review of the entire book: I believe that most anyone could write a book very similar to Eeeee Eee Eeee by following these steps.

 A) Find someone who would agree to take LSD and be interviewed
 B) Prompt the someone with questions about bears, dolphins, girlfriends, hampsters, Obama, pizza and space aliens
 C) Follow the someone around recording everything they say and do
 D) Ask the someone questions if they stop speaking
 E) Stop when you have 211 pages of material

Would I recommend reading this book? No, but I am going to scan it again so I can create an accurate chart of naughty words. I certainly would not recommend that anyone read this book while taking LSD or while confined to a psychiatric ward.

Note: I have no personal eXperience with illegal drugs. I have just seen the effects on others and heard a lot of stories. And I'm a chemist.

My iPadhone & Point 500

I had spent about ten years emailing to a pen pal (a best friend from childhood) with content that I now do on my blog, so this coming July marks 5 years blogging, so altogether roughly 15 years of blog-equivalency.

I am quiet on Facebook for now, discouraged with their interface, eXcept that I check my e-mail twice a week or so. So I am fairly happy with my blog collection of stories. I am at about 500 blog posts in my writing, but that doesn't include my minor blogs which may have about 100 entries for art, cartoons, recipes, game instruction, Portuguese translations of writings, and stories that focus mainly around a photograph, a more visual blog. After being a computer scientist for nearly 32 years, it is phenomenal how far we have come, sitting here typing this on my iPad that I just Skype-ified yesterday.

Thats right, I now have an iPadhone. I use a "simple" iPad with no 3G hardware, combined with a variety of internet routers at home, business, and a portable 3G-4G hotspot. The Skype charges are about 8 to 9 dollars a month, unlimited calling in the US and Canada, as well as free computer-to-computer around the globe.

Good-bye AT&T cell phone.

Funniest Headline Ever

From CNN: Obese Pets Are A Growing Problem

Now my lil brain wants to make a hyaku with 'much' 'munch' 'mutt' and 'lunch'.

I tend to write rather dan-ger-ous poetry in the dark AM's.

Obese pets are a

Growing problem tend to be

Eating all they see

My mutt munched muchly

How longingly at his lunches

Now belly bunches

After cleaning all

The food from his bowl complete

Demands dental treat

Every night at nine

There is an insistent "please!"

For a slice of cheese

Groundhog Day After

At a few minutes after midnight during the day February 3rd (just now) I found out that I missed Groundhog Day!!!

Earlier at the groc store people kept telling me that it smelled like it was going to rain. I am not so sure what that smells like. We missed so much rain last year, so ANY rain is eXciting. So its now at midnight just after its been raining, even heard some thunder. Cooper got wet. He went outside. Twice. Then he came inside and decided to shake off his eXcess rain water onto ME.

Whoa! I just accidentally paid attention to a teleBision commercial and discovered a breakfast cereal called Kellogg's Cru_nc_hy N_ut. So I will go to the store later today and find some. I will give you my opinion later.

Link to Kellogg's Crunchy Nut

BUT their advertising slogan is, "So delicious, you won't want to wait until morning"

I notice things. The most recent thing I noticed is there seems to be a defect in the SuperDoppler radar system on Channel 10. There is a storm passing through Claude TX right now and there is a strange very straight very narrow diagonal line near just southwest of that city that doesn't seem to be getting any severe weather as a storm passes through. But I could be wrong. Maybe its just a magical place of NO severe weather! I want to move there.

There was a very good stand up comedian on teleBision a few minutes ago. I will try to find his name. I missed it, sorry. [His name is Mark Forward]

I have a sudden desire to take karate lessons. Not this very moment, but later.

Oh-Oh-Oh!!! I just figured out something great for my dog. He likes it when I use his body for a percussion instrument, and sometimes I tap on him rhymically to the music. The commercial a few minutes ago was for a local home manufacturer, so the jingle goes "A-1 is number one" which I changed to "Coo-per is num-ber one!" so now when he hears the commercial he will think they are singing about him.

I have decided that I am going to start training for the teleBision show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

The A-1 commercial came on again, so I sang the jingle with his name instead of A-1, but he was busy this time on the floor working on a chew bone, so he didn't care, as evidenced that he didn't wag his tail.

Wooooo, tornado warning with that earlier storm now by the city of Canadian. (its several minutes later while I am writing this initially AND watching teleBision.

I just noticed that there was a commercial for a medicine that used very similar music that I originally heard in an internet provider commercial! I wonder if I just uncovered a musical crime?!?!?

Okay, its a few more minutes and there is no longer a tornado warning.

NOW, its time to play the Quiz Show Game, "What Is Today?"

The answer is, its Grilled Chicken Sandwich Day, mainly cause I didn't have one yesterday. So in approximately 10 hours I will be hopefully eating my favorite sandwich.

BUT more important than that, well, almost as important as a chicken sandwich, I hope to get to visit my friend Teresa who moved back to town. She was one of my most favorite people to chat with at my former job, and I saw her briefly at my favorite chicken sandwich restaurant two days ago. Yea!!!! I think we have been friends for twenty plus years.

It is almost 2 AM and I was hoping to be asleep by now. Nope. Not e-v-e-n close.

Update at 9:44 AM - I wake up after the most amazing dream almosta ever. I reaLLy want to go back to sleep. It is almost as amazingly vivid as the one where I was married to two out of three of the Dixie Chicks. I just noticed that I wrote "It is" at the beginning of that last sentence instead of "It was". I want to leave my dream in the present tense and not the past.

I found a good reason to be aWake: the first of a buncha buds on my orchid plant began to open up today! I am having tremendously good luck with this plant, I have lost track how long I have had it or how many bloom sessions. I s'ppose I could wander back through old photo directories and see some dates. We have lived in this house for about three and a half years, so a little less than that would be my first guess.

I think I have figured out the best way to re-pot an orchid plant: Don't do it! The one time I tried it with this plant it almost died. So from now on I am just going to add a little bit of new orchid bedding mix on top of the old and recycle dead branches and fallen blooms.

Forty minutes. It is now forty minutes until eleven o'clock, so that means sandwich time very very soon. I also plan to go walking in the rain or semi-non rain aftermath at the park. For now it is quiet time with puppy, coffee, and you.

Update: 10:15 PM - There was confirmed damage from that tornado, info from the newscast just now.

Later Today I Might Accidentally Become The Smartest Person In The World

"No !!!!"

There is something that my wife absolutely hates.

"No-OOOOoooo !!!!"

There is a teleBision commercial for J. C. Penney's that has a single word, either alone or repeated, the word "no". It has been playing eXtremely often for about the last week. The commercial consists of several scenes where people are completely traumatized by Sale signs, discount sale signs with an overwhelming number of percentages, and coupons flooding out of mail boxes, etc. People are screaming the word NO singularly or repeating it in so many different ways. It ends with the words enough.is.enough on a plain white background, which also has a pair of no's in it! (eNOugh) Well, it's about 2 AM and s'pposedly SOMETHING special is happening at J.C. Penney's later today on Feb 1st, something BIG. I have no idea, maybe a sale?!?!?

I also have stated a few days ago that if this commercial was on an endless loop it would make a great torture device.

"No !!!!"

Well, one of the things I like to do is study commercials AND make predictions. I suddenly came up with a brilliant idea for a commercial. Flip it. This horrendous negative 'people are sad' NO!!!! commercial should be followed up with a positive spin commercial where the SAME people in the negative NO scenes are now in positive YES!!! scenes where they are eXcited about the items that they are purchasing AND more importantly, flaunting their savings, screaming, crying. These commercials would have the people eXclaiming YES!!!! in a huge variety of ways.

"No !!!! No !!!! No !!!! No !!!!"

My wife looked at me kinda strangely from across the living room, begging something to the effect, "oh no, I hope you're not right, I hope I don't have to endure this all over again!" So I told her that if I am correct and there is a YES commercial (like what are the odds? One in a million?) then she has to go to work and tell her sister that she (my wife) is married to the most intelligent person in the world.

NO!!!!!!

(of course, my sister-in-law already knows this)

Ha^hahaha_hahah^ahahahaha^hahaha_hahaha

(But I do think it would make a great commercial, maybe not Super Bowl great, but it would be a logical follow up series of commercials.)

Extra: my favorite No!!!! scene is the first segment, it has the words on an overhead sign "65% off yesterday"

No-No-No-No-No-No

I hope all the interspersed No Lines in my blog post weren't too anNOying, you NOw have a taste of what I have been enduring for the last week.

River Wars (Things Get Messy)

On 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' last night there was a question about a U.S. city named Cairo, asking which river it touched. I wasn't sure, I was torn between the Missouri and Ohio, but my gut instinct leaned towards Ohio, and I got it correct. So this led me to check some location info to see how close the Missouri River was located. Then I noticed something odd.

The beginning line for the Wikipedia article on the Missouri River said it was the longest river in North America. Length 2,341 miles. Hmmm, I thought. I thought that the Mississippi River was the longest(?). So then I checked the Mississippi River article and it has "largest river system of North America", length 2,530.

Excuse me, I thought the number 2,530 was bigger than 2,341 ?!?!? Let me check on my calculator. Yeppa, it is, but let's put them in an Excel spreadsheet as well just to be sure. The winner is of course Mis2sis5sip3pi0.

But I am confused by their nuanced wording, longest and largest, plus the additional word 'system'.

The Missouri is the large river of my childhood, so there was an infantile wish part of me hoping it would be the winner. I didn't pass over the Mississippi until I was in my twenties and that time high in a jet a few times. It would be about another decade in my thirties before I drove over it on a bridge.

But while I was sitting here just now on my couch I realized that the Missouri River is actually getting cheated out of being the longest river. It s'pposedly 'joins' the Mississippi River near the city of St Louis, and contributes to the Mississippi River as a tributary. But hold on a second, at this point in measuring the Missouri as 'finished', it has gone the 2,341 miles, and it is a long ways to the Gulf of Mexico. Why does the river get to be called the Mississippi instead of being named the Missouri?

Let's put it in the perspective of a journey by boat.

If you logically got in a canoe at the headwaters of the Missouri, desired the shortest continuous water path possible on the longest river and followed it downstream to the ocean, not knowing anything about maps or names, just going with the flow, that would be the longest water journey possible (without backtracking), i.e. longest river.

I asked Google how far the distance was from St Louis to the Gulf of Mexico, and got an answer of 1,495 miles. BUT doing a very rough distance calculation with Google Earth gave a much much shorter answer, so I very carefully followed The River using the ruler tool plotting a course around ALL the bends in the river from the St Louis junction point to the Gulf of Mexico. I placed the pointer in the middle of the stream and luckily there were few clouds on the satellite photos. The answer I got was 1,135. So adding 1,135 to 2,341, that gives 3,476 miles as the longest river in North America.

I also decided to give it a new name since I had straightened out this mess. My fourth favorite form of water is soup, so combining them altogether, Mess+Is+Soup+I, our new name for the longest river in North America is drum-roll-please comma-comma Messissoupi. The egotistical part of me likes the 'me' at the beginning as well, AND I managed to make the new name sound and look like a combination of the two words Missouri and Mississippi.

Oh, checking the length of the Nile: nope, the Messissoupi is shorter than the Nile.

A Long Goodbye

My current sadness has found bounds.

I am losing a friend for a long time, a definite time, soon. Just how soon, I don't know, I just know the length. Ten months. The owner of the diner that makes my wonderful grilled chicken sandwiches with bacon and always greets me by name out loudly, in a Cheers teleBision show "Norm!" sort of way, is going away to prison.

From the local Borger newspaper:

Shannon Nicole Washer, 36, Borger, went before U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson on January 24, 2012.

Walker was owner of Shannon's Restaurant in Borger. According to documents, Washer passed $440 in counterfeit currency at Buttons, Bows, and Balloons in Panhandle on August 9, 2011. Then, on August 12, 2011, she passed $180 in counterfeit currency at Allsups in Dumas. Also, she attempted to pass a $100 counterfeit note at the Valero South and Pak-a-Sak in Dumas. On the same day,Aug. 12 ,she attempted to make a $151 purchase at Hobby Lobby in Amarillo using counterfeit notes. The investigation revealed that she had also passed a counterfeit note at a Sonic in Amarillo. When taken into custody, she was carrying extra counterfeit notes and a search of her vehicle revealed more counterfeit notes and some sheets of paper that appeared to have counterfeit notes cut from them. She was also in possession of several $20 bills and two $1 bills. As officers looked at the denomination of the bills, it was determined that the $20s all had the same serial number and the $1 bills had the same serial number. Police reports state, there were 23 counterfeit $100s, 13 counterfeit $20s, and 13 counterfeit $10s all in total at that time. Washer was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison after she plead guilty in October 2011 to one count of dealing in counterfeit currency. The case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris L. Drake, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Amarillo, was in charge of the prosecution.

Update: 2012.02.05 - I don't know why Shannon isn't in prison yet, but a few days ago she brought my food to the table at the diner. I told her, "It's nice that while Shannon is in prison she has been replaced with an eXact duplicate, but I'm not sure if she is a human or a robot." She just smiled and giggled. Later I indicated that I didn't need more coffee when she came to the table with the pot, because I was fixing to leave. She just ignored me and kept right on filling up my cup. This time she responded with, "I know what you really need."

Guess My Noisy Food

I am in a restaurant eating right this moment. The main course is very noisy. See if you can guess what it is. In 24 hours or so I will post a picture.

Clue: The noise decreases over time.

Second Clue: Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral (?) - its not a vegetable.

Eyes Cubes Melt Very Fast

A Friend Asked This Question: I wonder where your eyeballs look when you're sleeping??

My Response: The ball of your eye, roughly spherical, slowly turns into a cube shape and the eight corners that then make up the cubic structure lock the eye firmly in place. The transformation from sphere to cube occurs slowly over time but when you wake up and begin to blink your eyelids open the atmospheric pressure relaxs the cubic shaped eyes and they almost instantly convert back to spherical configuration. I hope you enjoyed this eXplanation.

My Second Response: The consumption of alcohol speeds up the sphere to cube conversion process causing the points of the cubes to dig deeply into the eye socket. This is a leading cause of hangovers.

My Third Response: Those first two comments [responses] are not true.

Here DARPA DARPA DARPA !

[Early Saturday Morning]

It's one of thoze dayz. Even the ringtone on my phone which actz az my morning alarm clock zeemz to be playing a little bit zlower than normal. And itz even a Zaturday, who could have thought that waz pozzible. I am not zure if that lazt zentence waz a queztion or not zo I left off the queztion mark indicator but you were behind and you know I alwayz turn left at thiz particular interzection zo were cool. No blinker. Now I'm just waiting for the green arrow to illuminate to continue. Waiting.

Author rubs sleep from eyes unsuccessfully

Oh, I just missed something in the ads in Facebooq just as I punched the keyboard and the screen flashed to the new page. I could have swore there was an ad for something like "The Serial Killer Whisperer" and now there is a strange rumble in my brain of what was that?!?!? Oh defective selective detective advertising, what is your objective on this cold dark morning? Never mind, I'm leaving for the other more quiet end of the house, the neighbor has just started his car for the 10 minute rumble warm up outside my window. Time to kill a bowl of cereal and get away from the whimpering. The Cereal Killer Whimperer.

The opening notes to Coldplay's 'Clocks' fires off in my head as I see on this screen its 10 minutes later and the neighbor's auto non-go kart is still rumbling outside.

My right knee doesn't want to cooperate. It thinks it has veto power. That is why my stomach and taste buds overrode its veto and bought it a knee-brace. I'm outta tomato juice. Need tomato juice. Now. Or rather, yesternow. The noisy neighbor leaves for the second time. That is why I am glad my truck has an engine block heater. It fundamentally makes me a nicer neighbor to other ears. And I have a muffler that works.

On my way to the groc store I noticed that someone had dumped an imperfectly good 3 outta 4 leg plastic lawn chair on the side of the road. It was upside down. North side of the street where Union Street and Wilson Street eXchange names for the same piece of asphalt. I wonder if it will confuse the deer who are quite numerous in that part of town. I hope not. I do not like it when deer are confused by used misplaced lawn furniture.

Message from my Facebooq Friend: I like how all the 's' are 'z'. Then on your post with "Facebooq" I thought all the 'k' will be 'q'. I saw 'dark' and knew you didn't do the same. I was a little disappointed since I have come to expect those kind of things from you. ;) I hope you are doing well!

Message Back to My Facebooq Friend: I'mmm,,,,,sowwy. (Actually Facebooq is usually the only thing that I give a k->q 'Iraqification' treatment on a regular basis. I have decided on another new word recently: reaLLy) I am doing marvel-ous, but I spend more time in the blog world than Facebooq over the last three months, several new friends from all over the world, but now several of us 'run' together, commenting a bunch. A very interesting friend situation on several continents, mainly Europe, Asia and Australia. Writing a bunch, lotza silliness for the most part.

Facebooq is getting more morose and gross: ad for "Death Wish Coffee Company" - WHAT is going on? Or should I say 'off'?

[Afternoon]

I may seek a DARPA government research request to fund a project with a severe problem in the space time continuum. It seems that it takes twice as long for hot water to initially reach my kitchen versus the bathroom, even though the bathroom is about twice as far away from the hot water heater. My$tery.

[Very Near the End of the Day]

My wife and I were not watching the teleBision show "Alcatraz" when I suddenly realized that while neither one of us has actually been to the island, I have been slightly closer.

[Slightly Past the End of the Day]

Cooper must be having a reaLLy wild dream, most likely chasing a cat-like creature. He is in the other room and his barking during his dreams is usually a high pitched and low volume, but today it is much louder, overpowering the teleBision noise. Hope he doesn't wake Tamie. His ears are hurting him, so he is going to the vet next week.

Small Strange Children Befriend & Befuddle Me

2012.01.19

I go for a walk at my park that is about 442 feet away from me according to Google Earth. That is the nearest point of the ovalesque asphalt track that is one quarter of a mile long in relationship to where I am sitting while typing these words. It is a very new track, with very little debris, mainly because my left foot has whisked away most of the rocks, twigs and human microtrash faster than it can accumulate over the last several weeks.

On yesterday's walk of three miles there were two small children that I did not know who came towards me on my first lap. They were probably ages 6 and 4, girl and boy, most likely sister and brother by the way she most holding him tightly around his shoulder with her right arm, being about a head taller. With her left hand she gave me an elevated wave and said "Hi" simply, and then we took a few more steps closer and she said, "We are just walking so we can get skinnier". I could not contain my laughter one hundred percent but I kept most of it bottled up as these two children were bean poles.  Any skinnier and they would be classified anorexic.

Before I tell you what my question to her was, remember I have no idea who these children are, total strangers. So I ask her, "Do you think I am getting skinnier?" Now bear in mind it has been decades since I would have been classified as skinny, nor do I remember if she has ever seen me before in order to truly make a comparison. 

She quickly answered, "Yes, (micro hesitation, her eyes squint) a little bit skinnier".

Good Answer!

Today I go back to the same park, but it is a little colder and I only want to walk a half mile and I just stop there in my truck on the way home instead of coming from the house on foot. My right knee is a bit sore, probably from yesterday.

Just as I start my walk I hear a strange noise coming from a little girl far away in the park. After a few moments I determine, yes, she is trying to make a chicken noise, or maybe whatever noise they teach city children is The Noise of The Chicken. There was clucking. Little girl clucking. Loudly.

So on the first lap there is a little boy that I notice is sneaking up behind me on the path se-mi-qui-et-ly, but when I turn around, he smiles, yells in fake fright and dashes away! 

I giggle. I no longer notice the cool air.

So then I notice that a little girl is farther down the path, the cluck cluck girl, only quiet with a smile, I think. She is at a distance that it is hard to see her expression. I resume my journey and complete the first lap.

One third of the way around the track the boy and girl are hiding behind trees and doing a poor job of it. They start off being ahead of me, but then slowly cautiously circle back behind me, giggling at their inventiveness, trying to be unseen by me. Every once in a while, though, I turn around suddenly and they see me and scatter, joyfully screaming. At the halfway mark I not only turn around but stand on one foot with the other foot quite a ways off the ground more than normal. They try to imitate but don't have my sense of balance, and almost topple. They don't know I have spent hours of my life standing on one foot. I resume my walk. 

I soon hear giggles behind me that sound different. I turn around to see them behind a trash can. First the boy's head pops out the north side, then a girl over the top, and then suddenly a third girl pops out the right side. Someone new has joined the peek-a-boo party at the park. I wave and they scatter back behind the trash can and one of them runs back to the trees.

I resume my walk, but they become more daring sneaking down the line of evergreen trees that line the inside west side of the ovalesque path. They are getting closer, but they soon run out of trees. I wave goodbye as I finish lap two. It's off to my truck and on to my home.

UPDATE: 2012.01.20 18:45

My fame has spread. Today there was a 33.33 percent increase in the number of strange children following me at the park, 4 instead of 3.

By Chemical Design: The Walrus Extinction Factor

By chemical design I ask Google this question:

Are walruses extinct

The result was 440,000 hits

Which lead me to ask Goooooooogle the next question:

Is there a wall in Russia that stinks

The result was 11,800,000 hits

So do the math: 11,800,000 divided by 440,000

I'm waiting ...

You aren't going to give me an answer? Fine, I'll do the math myslef: 

1.18 percent of a a a billion divided by the square of

663.324958 is 

11 800 000 / 440 000 = 26.8181818

So it appears there are almost 3 cubed (27) times more people worried about stinky walls in Russia than there are about walruses going eXtinct.

If I was a walrus right now I would be very concerned. 

Very.

Well, a walrus that reaLLy knew about Google and people. Let's ask Google 

"how many walruses there are that are worried about people"

The reslut is 4,350,000

Wow, that iz a little (bit) higher than I imagined it would be. I eXpected the resLut to be 35.

So 4,350,000 divided by 35 is 124,285

So I here by declare that the number 124,285 from this day forward shall be forever known as the  

WALRUS EXTINCTION SURPRISE FACTOR

ErNest takes a sip of coffee. It is surprisiNgly at just the correct temperature aNd sugar conteNt. Amazing. Zing. Ing. G.

So the amount of time that it takes to get a cup of water to reach boiling in a microwave oven and then cool down to just the right temperature after introducing a bundle of coffee in a coffee filter constrained between the tines of a fork is how long it took me to write this blog post minus the amount of time (tik tok) it took to write this final paragraph and make sublime typographical error corrections,   a "righting" process.

PeaCe

Oh, now I remember, this was s'pposed to be about Japan harvesting whales, whales being sentient beings, and the country of Wales going eXtinct. Next time. Maybe. Not walruses. Never mInd.

(Editorial Note: The WYSIWYG editor in Blogger is not so perfect so the colors and fonts in the final displayed product on the blog ARE NOT what I eXpected or desired. *sigh*)