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*)

The Day I Became A RAT (Yesterday)

I found out yesterday, January 18, 2012, a day that will live in inflamy, that I became a member of a small elite online group call RATs without applying or even knowing that RATs eXisted. It stands for:

The Radical Abstract Thinkers of cyberspace

The leader of the group is named Robo Z Tobor of Wales. He liked some of my work on figuring out how to remove lifetime paint from human skin, blue paint in particular that was part of his space alien costume.

This is what Robo wrote: (blue text) (I am the person "Mr ESB" in his text)

The Radical Abstract Thinkers of cyberspace

As almost none of you know or wish to know or care about some time ago I started the small elitist cyberspace group called The Radical Abstract Thinkers (RATs). A group who I feel have that slightly quirky way of thinking that leads us to look at the world in a slightly different way. So far there are three of us Myself because it is my gang NA NA NA NA NA NA NA, then Miss Lilly and then Mr H..... I will get some links here when I have a bit more time, right now I am in the middle of Car Mechanics at school and we have just hot wired the headmasters car.

Anyway I have decided to add a new member to the group. He has no choice in the matter once you're in you're in until I say you're not in, then you are out. So our new member is Mr ESB I feel his logic on lifetime paint shows great promise and so there you go Mr ESB but remember we need to see this new logic reflected in your own blogs so no more sensible stuff or else.

Response from lily at Jan 18, 2012 05:33 AM

Aww Rob Z, you put the first smile on my face today. Honoured that I'm still a member of 'RATS,' especiallly along with the wonderful Mr.H.

May I be the first...well second because you've already welcomed him first, therefore rendering the, 'may I be the first,' part of this particular sentence rather redundant, Mr Esbboston to this illustrious group, that no one else knows about.

Right I'm off, got people to do and things to see...I think that's right. :)

My Response at Jan 18, 2012 07:30 AM

Well, I ... Am just ... so hum bled, which is a fractured form of humbled to be included in your group, to be the Fourth. So that is the Ringo Starr of numbers, right?

My Second Response at Jan 18, 2012 07:38 AM

If its any help in the 'proof' department of strange ideas and logic, I am offering wikipedia service for the English language while wikipedia has decided to turn itself off for 24 hours. I can be global like that. It reminds me of the time as a chemist when I certified all the 80 Octane Fuel for my company which then sold that fuel as a knock engine calibration to all the other companies in the world that did that sort of thing. I believe the time period was about seven years. So my superhero name would be IC8NC7 Man. Or you can call me 'Ringo', as I know how to get by with a little help from my friends.

My Third Response at Jan 18, 2012 07:59 AM

I just realized that you could have palindromes for names if you changed your middle name to an O word giving 'Rob O Tobor' or if you like your Z name and wish to go to four legal names like I have, ESBB, then you could add 'Ot' as a second name which would the produce Rob Ot Z Tobor. As the word 'robot' is from the Czech word for 'work' or 'worker', I would say this works for me. Unless having a backwards robot undoes the work of the forward robot, we could ask Will Smith the actor.

This Is Not About Wyoming

Today is a very good day to pile lotza things on top of you so that certain other things don't escape (as easily), things like heat.

I shall assist this thermodynamic process by doing an activity I call eat.

I like right-ing silly poetry that is so -sweat-.

(Perhaps I am retaining too much heat, that was s'pposed to be 'sweet' not 'sweat')

(If you accidentally pronounced -sweat- in the third line as sweet with a long e sound, you should seek medical help soon, as you are being heavily influenced by rhyming patterns and this could seriously and dangerously affect your life, such as improper use of recipes, driving heavy machinery, or playing with babies.)

I Will Be Your Wikkedpedia For A Day

I noticed this announcement at Wikipedia this morning:

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate — that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.

My Response: In order to help everyone I have made a backup copy of the EntirE Wikipedia database, so if you need an answer to a question, just send me your question and I will look it up and give you an answer. Just as there is no guarantee that anything in Wikipedia is correct, I would put VeRY little faith in the veRacity of the answer I will give you.

Update:

While saving an article for each letter of the alphabet, I saved "Igloo" for the letter "I". This of course caused me to write a dumb joke. So the dumb joke for today is a riddle:

What do you call a dirty bathroom of an eskimo?

.

.

.

.

Answer: An icky igloo loo

Update: More Details ..... By saving all of wikipedia I mean that for every letter of the alphabet I have saved one article. So I have 26 complete articles, A to Z, saved on my computer. Then if you ask me a question about some subject matter that begins with the letter P, for example Pennsylvania, I will go to my "P" article (which isn't Pennsylvania) and see if I can find a suitable answer from my "P" article. I won't automatically tell you what my P article is, and you can try to guess if you want to. I picked a mixture of some very common things AND some not quite so common things for each of the 26 articles. So if you are interested in playing along just ask me a question in a comment, and I will try to respond. As always, try to keep things G rated! I will try to make my answers amusing.

Update: I just tried wikipedia and its turned off BUT only in the English language version.

BUT interestingly enough there is a language called Simple English that is NOT turned off!!!

So I will give you a link that goes to the English Language article in Wikipedia using Simple English.

THEN if you type a request in the entry box near the top right, it will search in the Simple English database.

Link to Simple English

Update: Time 15:47  - I just now noticed that I forgot to close the window down for my "K" word, so I might be the only person in the entire universe right now that can read about K@ngr**s on Wikipedia in the regular English language version! Oh, wait, here's another open window from Wikipedia as well, this one about physicist St%ph%n H@wk!ng.

New Camera?

My memory card is all filled up.

[*sigh*]

I guess its time to buy a new camera.

I did figure out how to fix my broken Sony camera. There is a window covering the lens that has two pieces that open diagonally. Only in my case about 10 percent of the time it only opens about 30 percent of the way.

Die-aged-all-ly

No, I said 'diagonally', oh, my mind is getting all cute-sy, rhyme-y. Ignore it like the rest of me currently is doing.

How did I fix my camera? A slight tap. The window covering will then continue on its way.

I will get out another camera and take a picture of the failure mode and fix mechanics.

Some time soon, hopefully I remember.

It was cool to fix something just by tapping it. It is a temporary fix. It still messes up every once in a while. But the tap works every time. Sometimes two taps are needed.

I know this isn't earth shattering, BUT ITS 1:12 AM and that is all I've got.

Update: 7AM - The Hidden Who What Why

I just noticed my recent blog readers of the last couple hours:

 9 - United States

 1 - Germany

 1 - United Kingdom

 1 - Indonesia

 1 - Russia

 1 - Taiwan

But notice the alphabetical order of the "1" countries: GUIRT

I think I have this fingered out, that Google sorts by a hidden name but displays by my English dialect. How complicated. The Germany name in German is a D word Deutschland, which I think I spelled correctly, and the United Kingdom is E for England. So the behind the scenes alphabetical order is DEIRT.

Update: 11 AM - I Was Halfway Wrong

After gathering more data that included France, I now believe that United Kingdom is really a secret G word Great Britain.

 3 - France

 3 - United Kingdom

 3 - Mexico

 3 - Taiwan

Update: 2012.01.20 12:00

Hmm, it appears that Algeria may have a non-A secret name!

 1 - Bulgaria

 1 - Algeria <- ????

 1 - Hungary

Checking the wikipedia article on Algeria: It appears that there is a D name for Algeria, and its popular too. "Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria" That fits between the B and H of Bulgaria and Hungary. Another official name for Algeria is "People's Democratic Republic of Algeria", but that doesn't fit between B & H.

Child (In The) Hood Memories

I was reading a friend's blog just now about several of her childhood memories and one of them happened at age seven and a half. It wasn't her memory or that particular age that jogged my memory of something, but her use of a fraction, the "half" part in her year. 

I had a blast raising my children and tried to spend a great deal of time with them when they were very young. I would hug them often and tell them that I loved them. As a scientist my children were my greatest experiment! So imagine my surprise when my children claimed, as teenagers, that they have no childhood memories, bizarre. Teenagers.

My younger son was the more comical of the two for most of their lives until recently they have started to become and sound similar, to the point that now in their mid twenties I think I have twins (almost). So to "help" my younger son I made up several totally fictitious memories using the following procedure. I would create these artificial memories for him totally impromptu with a sweet kind nostalgic voice, "remembering" the good old days. I remember doing this about ten years ago during his teenage years.  

(Please forgive me, I realize all this remembering sounds very confusing.)

A + B + C + D + E => Artificial Memory Session

A : Preamble - I would always begin these artificial memories with a random strange compound fraction, such as, "I remember when you were 4 and 3/4 and ..." and of course the number had little bearing on story. Sometimes the later events of a story were impossible for someone who was four years old, for instance, to drive an automobile, hunt elephants or pilot an airplane.

B : Part One - The first part of the memory would be something mundane that a child may or may not have been able to do, such as ski, operate a railroad locomotive or perform open heart surgery. The location would be somewhat exotic, Africa, Bolivia, China, or maybe just Fritch Texas.

C: Part Two - The "really wild part" - the internal punchline - would be some act of crime, heroism, or great physical feat of superhuman capability. There might be episodes where the child had become invisible, all his fingers fell off, or simply made burnt toast.

D : Ending - After finishing the second part of the memory I would have a grand strategic pause, and then say these exact words awash with great paternal pride:

" ... and you were so cute." 

At this point my son would laugh or not laugh and do his part, -adolescent groan exhale- knowing that I was finished building him a memory.

E : Response - My son would vehemently respond that the memory didn't happen and usually ask me to stop. There would sometimes be a rebuttal, like, he claimed he had never been to North Korea, he still had all his original fingers or that he had absolutely no interest in ball room dancing. Sometimes he would beg his mother to ask me to stop. There was laughter. Some laughter. Usually more from me, it would just depend on the content, reaction and rebuttal.

I do not remember ANY of the eXact details of any one complete fictitious memory, but I remember the grand design, implementation and inventiveness. It was great fun and "we" played this silly memory game-slash-conversation probably three sessions, maybe more, that part I don't remember.

The next time I am with my son it will be interesting to ask him if he remembers any of this ABCDE Build-A-Memory game. Both children very clearly remember the time I tried to make my disastrous horribly tasting version of Heinz 57 Steak Sauce. Bad sauce is most likely stronger than fake formulaic memories. That reminds me that I need to check on my BBQ meat cooking on the stove right now before I forget and burn it!

Another one of our word games, this one from my son's college years: 

The Strange, Change and Rearrange Sentence Game

Sub No Way

I was looking forward to finally getting to go to the brand new Subway restaurant in our town, the only one we have, after the old one had been deactivated, torn down to make way for a gigantic pharmacy. The inactive bowling alley was destroyed too in the long overdue renovation at that very busy intersection of Borger, near the very center of the entire Texas panhandle.

But when I entered the sparkly fresh restaurant anxious for my Bacon Chicken Ranch on Something Random Picked Bread after at least four months without one, I was met with bizarre loud rock music and a line long of humans waiting. Plus that line now went from right to left instead of left to right, so I left the building after just a few seconds, maybe twelve, certainly less than thirty, hungry and irritated. The thought of eating in their environment glassed-in-box-on-display watching cars zoom by at this new vehicular busy location that used to be another glass smaller box ATM suddenly seemed totally bizarre and unnatural. I don't know which of those factors bothered me the most, or if they just quickly summed up as unacceptable, crossing a threshold, a virtual pressure relief valve, or rupture disc. Leave! Now! Go!

It was bad enough that I had just been to McDonald's and they didn't have any more McRibs or that my favorite local diner was closed on that day. No grilled chicken sandwich with bacon misery. There is always that horrible seasonal moment when you discover that McD suddenly rips away your favorite item, no, not just your favorite, your ONLY reason to ever go there, McRibs. Taste bud abuse. I hate you again McD, you evil giant food monster. Isn't that what God s'pposedly used to make woman in the Garden of Eden (?), no that was just a borrowed rib, not a barbequed rib; no bread, sauce, meat, dill pickle and onions. If he would have used a McRib then maybe women would suddenly, and magically, disappear and reappear at totally random times. Interesting thought.

It was a rare moment when I was hungry and I had absolutely no desire to cook anything plus the thought of creating dirty dishes annoyed me even farther. I think I finished the day with a bowl of breakfast cereal or a simple sandwich at home, I don't remember now what I had, just nothing fancy, with a side order of despair, sad taste buds that wanted to file for divorce from the rest of my body, and emptiness.

Violins On The Radio

Elders listening to the news on the radio.
A-"They say a man shot himself in error."
B-"He shot himself in the EAR?"
A-"No, he shot himself - it was his error."
B-"He shot himself in his hair?"
A-"No,no, he shot by ER-ROR"
B-"Arrow? How did he manage to do that?"
A- pauses, thinking, fuming
A-"Yes, that's right, he shot himself in his ear and his hair with an arrow"
B-"That is amazing. That reminds me of an article I read in the paper yesterday 'bout a guy who shot himself in error."

(That was fiction)

This is the real news story:

CNN Headline: Man Shot Self In Error

Man misses crows, but shoots himself

Web Produced by: Jill Drury

SPRINGFIELD TWP., Ohio (WDTN) - A Springfield Township man shot himself Thursday while trying to target crows.

Deputies say the victim pulled the trigger of his rifle, but it didn't discharge until he set it down in his house. A bullet struck him in the chest.

The 31-year-old man was rushed to Miami Valley Hospital by Careflight.

Deputies say he was conscious, but badly wounded.

They tell 2 News he was able to call 911 after the gun went off.

It is legal to shoot animals like crows in the township, but deputies say the victim made a big mistake when he set the gun down with it aimed in his direction.

No word on his condition. 

Link to CNN

86,325

What's really sad are those days when you yawn just right and the day then seems like its only 86,399 seconds long instead of 86,400.

Bummer.

Then you accidentally discover that the government picked that day to be only 86,399 seconds long anyway. So that means the day really only felt like it was 86,398 seconds long.

Bummer.

Then you realize you've just wasted 73 seconds reading somebody's Yawn Plus Atomic Clock Government Conspiracy Theory Nonsense, so that whittles it down to 86,325.

Bummer.

Of course when you are an eternal being like myself none of this really matters at all.

(Thank you Flux Capacitor for the inspirational saying)

Update:

While walking in the park this afternoon I came up with this interesting option: If you could sleep 18 hours a day, be awake for 6, and this would allow you to live for 200 years in relatively good health, would you do it?

Grandson of Champion

As I was in the process of trying and not trying to wake up, I hear a cartoon character on teleBision say, "Oh, you're just saying that because you're my dog".

I think, "I can relate to that."

This boy slowly begins the laundry process without the help of caffeine.

Mistake.

Now correcting mistake before I attempt doing dishes. Its too early, its dark outside and inside.

Ah, a handful of cashews. Breakfast of champions. Or in this case, descendant of Champion.

If you need something bizarre to read, I might suggest the following article from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke

David Icke is proof that they no longer have insane asylums in his country OR the places are all filled up and they have no more room to keep him.

In the process of getting off the couch to attend to the clothes dryer which is now buzzing "Next!!!", I realize my utter failure today: my coffee cup has only been consumed about 25 percent.

It's cold and icky and has that stuff floating on top from the coffee creamer.

What a terrible waste.

Sad.

Update: My day is ending by listening to the band "Blind Pilot" on The David Letterman Show

(Actually I cheated and put the "Update" in at the same time that I published the other stuff that I wrote from much earlier in the day.)

I love going to the back door after hearing Cooper scratch on the door to get in, and asking loudly, "Who's there?", with a hint of IMNOTDIIDKWYA (I Might Not Open The Door If I Don't Know Who You Are) in my voice. Especially when its dark and cold outside. That'll teach the dog to not learn how to open the sliding glass door. Too bad no one hasn't invented a small hole you can put in the door with a weather-tight flap that the animal could pass through on his own desire and time frame.

I have already fixed three strange typographicals errors in this short post, so all bets are off that this is read-able, especially errors allphabetical.

Oh, and I love the new kayak.com teleBision commercial, "I'll Take Twelve Kilos of Rice Flour, Please".

Update: (a real update this time)

Oooh, I just learned something useful: The tongue of a giraffe is prehensile.

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Answer: One, if you're a giraffe.

Thanks But No Thanks!!!

I just found out that my AdSense account for blog advertising has been disabled for suspicious click activity! A couple weeks ago someone clicked a bunch of my ad buttons and generated around fifteen dollars in revenue for my account IN ONE DAY, after my account had only earned a couple dollars in the time frame of more than four years! And then a few days ago there were some more clicks, but no increase in potential payments, and today my account is disabled.

SO a BIG sarcastic thank you to whoever screwed up my account and now it appears that I have lost all of my earnings through NO fault of my own.

Back Again

Someone took one of my best friends away from me four and a half years ago. 

It has been very sad without her. She had been my friend for sixteen years. She was kind of like a daughter to me.

Now she is back in my life, I am very happy! What a way to start a new year ....

&^)