Saturday, December 01, 2007
Do You Need A Hand With That?
At the risk of appearing to be pompous, I thought that I'd give everyone a look at the new HP computer and 22" widescreen monitor presently residing back in Pat's office.
My "Ghost of Christmas Future" hands are also seen there wandering around testing out the keyboard at the moment.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid to go out into the Garage right now because this thing is lurking around in the shadows.
(don't worry, it's not done yet...I'm just waiting for a secondary application of foam to set up so I can do some more carving.)
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Friday, November 30, 2007
30 Days Has September, April, June, And November
Darn it all Ladies and Gentlemen, but I swear that most of the basic problems with the "professional media" today have to be centered upon their personal, professional, and corporate investment in the political interpretation of the cause and outcome of the "so called news story" at hand rather than the reporting of the DETAILS of what got the people involved into the situation to begin with and what we could learn from the final RESULTS of the event when it was all said and done.
(ANGRY WHITE MALE REDNECK BLOGGER NOTE...Yes, I realize that my last sentence, which was also presented as a single paragraph, according to MS Word, contains a total of 86 words--so sue me or go somewhere else on the Internet if you don't like it or otherwise can't keep up with writing aimed at people with greater than an 8th grade education.)
Now back to my original thesis...
I was sitting here working on the details of Mr. Ghost Puppet's Skeletal Head while The Weather Channel was droning on in the background, and they managed to get my attention with THEIR OWN VERSION OF THE LIBERAL MEDIAS' REVISIONISTIC STORY ABOUT THE PAST SIX OR SEVEN MONTHS WE'VE LIVED THROUGH HERE ON OUR LITTLE ISLAND...
Let me remind my regular readers that I CHOOSE to live within less than two miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Let me tell my driveby readers that I can walk outside right now and smell the adjacent salt marsh and hear the surf breaking when we have north east winds.
That said...Get ready...
Sit Down...I'm gonna blow...
Ready?
(Gasp)
Today is the last day of the 2007 Hurricane season.
Hurray.
I insensitively say "Hurray" because no one died here in the Continental US as a result of a landfalling Hurricane this year, but I also recognise that a whole bunch of poor people died and/or were displaced from their homes in Mexico and Central America as a result of two giant category five storms.
I also pray that the media and the liberals and the local foreign governments will rapidly move toward making the same improvements to their own infrastructures that we've enjoyed here in the Gulf Coastal areas of the United By-God States of America.
Instead of bitching and complaining and blaming people and administrations, I'd rather see progress based on using the same technology which the American taxpayer has already bought and paid for.
Regardless of the outcome, the TV faces over at the Weather Channel were blabbering on and on about how the Hurricane Season was really still a bad thing and that we shouldn't get complacent because Katrina II was coming back to jump into our bedrooms next year...the weather gods just chose to give the Republicans a break and attack somewhere else because ...just because...
What really jerks my chain is that the National Hurricane Center, a supposed bastion of science, has even resorted to going to what I call "Instant Replay" mode
They've decided that Hurricane Karen --previously only identified as a
So there was actually one more Hurricane this season that didn't make a damn to me or Allstate Insurance company...whoop te doo.
(Taking another big breath and collecting my thoughts...)
Bottom line is...I believe that the lamestream media can't stand this situation.
It doesn't fit their "template"
This because the slums and public housing projects haven't been rebuilt in New Orleans--so why waste a perfectly good
Just change the words and results to fit your agenda and toss it out there for public
When I think about it, all I have to say is that I guess that the mean old Republicans got their money's worth out of the efforts of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Carl Rove.
New Hands Clapping
I made a hasty visit to the theater for a couple of hours yesterday to do some work, and I took my new giant hands along with me to let them get used to the venue they'd be working in starting next Tuesday and to meet the theater staff.
In addition to putting a few finishing touches on the set, while we were there I also took the opportunity to introduce my giant hands to their new arms and spine.
Everyone got along just fabulously, although they came back home with me last night in order to help me with their giant skull head which is still in fabrication mode.
Currently this morning I'm glancing at my wristwatch every few minutes and tapping my foot on the floor (and drumming my giant wood and latex fingers on the table) while we're waiting on the second casting of Great Stuff expandable foam (four cans worth) to cure around the internal plywood support bracket so I can release my monstrosity from the 18" x 18" x 16" high cardboard box it currently resides within.
Today is a big day in the two week construction window with the fabrication of the separate copper toothed jaw in the morning and the carving and finishing of the balance of the skeletal head with a latex resin and fiber mesh material that arrived via UPS from New York City yesterday.
Then there is the final assembly of the electrical system with things like soldering of wires, heat shrink tubing, rechargable batteries, switches, strobe controller cirucits, and problems as yet to be discovered that always pop up at the last minute while trying to do good deeds.
You'll have to excuse me, because I've got to go check what's going on with my my head now (something that many readers have been saying that I should do for a few years.)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
My Observations On The Clinton News Network CNN YouBOOB YouTube Republican Debate
Sorry, but I managed to miss most of last night's live broadcast of the big Republican debate because I was lying on the sofa with my eyes closed while recovering from dinner, but I caught most of it early this morning on the reruns.
Just Damn...
Besides seeing Fred Thompson still asleep at the Helm, I guess I finally agree that Ron Paul is a whacko, McCain's still angry about being a POW in Vietnam, Rudy's fading a bit, and Mitt Romney and Huckabee seem to be hitting their stride going into Iowa.
CNN, as usual, filled part of the event with bullshit loaded questions while hiding behind the "YouTube" Crowd...questions that they would have never, ever, Ever, EVER thrown at sHrillary, Obama, and the Democratic Presidential wannabees.
Things like "what would Jesus do" in reference to the Death Penalty, "Do you believe EVERYTHING in this book" (showing a King James Bible), and some moron with a Confederate Flag that everyone on the panel refused to address directly.
What a totally rediculous low blow--letting some idiot toss the confederate flag into the ring in 2007. I've had my confederate flags folded up and hidden in the root cellar since about 1990--but CNN apparently still thinks that with the retirement of Trent Lott that there has to be some KKK alumni out there still running for president.
The Coup de Gras, in my opinion, was CNN letting one of sHrillary Rodham--Clinton's campaign officials ask a question on YouTube.
I knew that the question was loaded as soon as it hit the airwaves--I just didn't know that the guy was a Clinton campaign guy doing the asking.
Of course CNN claims that they didn't know that retired US Army Colonel Keith Kerr was actually a member of Senator sHrillary Clinton's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Americans For Hillary Steering Committee.
He's also part of a film production crew trying overturn the US Military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (a product of the Bill Clinton--Clinton Administration.)
All I know is that these #@%*!ing morons over at CNN obviously don't give a damn that they're going to get caught doing crap like this, and further, even if they do get called out, enough of the American voting population doesn't read my blog and don't follow the news closely enough to understand the bias and unfairness of the process.
I swear people, I'm ready to move to Costa Rica or Belize if the Republicans do another debate with CNN, and I'm going to take the Fred Thompson Ad off of this blog if the man doesn't wake up and start running a legitimate campaign.
DAMMIT...
UPDATE: 6:22 AM
I was still wincing at CNN on TV while working on the Skeleton hands when their own news broadcast reminded me that not only did they let Colonel Kerr ask the YouTube pre-recorded question, but they also had him live during the debate in the audience to follow up with his admission that he was GAY and had served in the military for forty odd years without any problems (read that getting his ass kicked by his fellow solders.)
Don't get me wrong here because a) I'm not really anti-Gay, b) I haven't been in the military since the late 1970's and c) I really don't give a damn what kind of rules the government (read that Congress) issues as long as the bullets and bombs we use hit their intended targets every single time someone pulls a trigger or pushes a button.
If you have a hairy chest and want to wear a bra while sitting in a Foxhole or have your Mr. Pee Pee cut off and replaced with God knows what other body part (perhaps another knee or elbow?) just keep your clothes on and keep your hands off my butt and the butts of your fellow soldiers who or whom are not of like mind and everything will be just hunky dory.
But... (or maybe I should say BUTT in this instance...sorry..I couldn't resist the inuendo)
CNN had to know who the heck Keith Kerr was because The New Republic has this link to the transcript of his appearance on a CNN broadcast entitled "Gays In The Military: 10 Years Of Unfair Policies" aired on December 11, 2003.
When it's all said and done, all I want to know is how much longer are YOU going to put up with crap like this from your so called independent professional media?
I Almost Forgot
That would be my version of this Paella Recipe. In addition to a cup of rice and a pinch of
Saffron, mine had Sausage, Chicken, and Shrimp; but I left out the Clams because Pat is still afraid of a lot of seafood.
It was simple to make, and good to eat--You should try cooking it sometime.
Time to go fool with my skeleton hands again...
Hands Take Shape
Here's a look at the goings on on my kitchen table recently (the remote control laying there is over 8" long):
(click on the photo for a bigger view)
The hand in the foreground has a couple of coats of gauze and liquid latex already in place, and the one in the background gives you a glimpse of the 20 pieces of wooden dowel ranging in diameter from 3/8" to 7/8" that makes up the wired together "skeleton."
I've already got the head half cast out of expandable urethane foam and the electrical components (red strobe eyes and blue lighting for the inside of the mouth) are mocked up and working.
This thing is going to cause some kids to pee their pants if we're not careful.
I guess that I'm just a baaaaaaaaaddddddDDDDDD man.
I believe that I'll wear that description with honor.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The Dumbass Of The Day
Some guy from Georgia tried to open a bank account in South Carolina using a $1,000,000.00 bill as his deposit.
The employee refused to open the account and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, Frank said.
And you wonder why many of us here in the south can't keep the rest of the planet from thinking we're STUPID?
And another thing...If you're gonna break the law, at least listen to your mother and be polite while you're doing the crime.
The Religion's Name Which Shall Not Be Spoken
I just learned this morning that some people described by the ASSociated Press only as "Minority Youth" are running around burning buildings and cars and shooting at French police officers again over the past few days in the suburbs of Paris France.
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Youths rampaged for a third night in the tough suburbs north of Paris and violence spread to a southern city late Tuesday as police struggled to contain rioters who have burned cars and buildings and — in an ominous turn — shot at officers.
A senior police union official warned that "urban guerrillas" had joined the unrest, saying the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used.
Bands of young people set more cars on fire in and around Villiers-le-Bel, the Paris suburb where the latest trouble first erupted, and 22 youths were taken into custody, the regional government said. In the southern city of Toulouse, 20 cars were set ablaze, and fires at two libraries were quickly brought under control, police said.
Despite the renewed violence, France's prime minister said the situation was calmer than the two previous nights. About 1,000 officers patrolled trouble spots in and around Villiers-le-Bel on Tuesday, he said.
The government was striving to keep violence from spreading in what was shaping up as a stern test for new President Nicolas Sarkozy. The unrest showed anger still smolders in France's poor neighborhoods, where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities [emphasis mine-vrr] live largely isolated from the rest of society.
The trigger was the deaths Sunday of two minority teens when their motorscooter collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town on Paris' northern edge.
Residents claimed the officers left without helping the teens. Prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry denied that, saying police stayed on the scene until firefighters arrived.
But wait a minute...I thought that Europe was a model of tolerance, and I thought that France specifically had solved most of societies' problems with 30 hour work weeks and other liberal government supplied benefits?
Further...where's New York Al "torch the place and kill your White Oppressor" Sharpton when the disenfranchised Parisian suburbanites need him for Public Relations?
Sorry folks, but this is all simply a replay or continuation of the rioting and disorder that happened in 2005 when primarily young immigrant citizens of France--primarily of Black Muslim descent from Northern Africa--staged mass protests and burned thousands of cars and did millions of dollars of damage to private property of innocent bystanders and the public buildings in and around the cities of France.
I did a little further checking around on the News websites and English. Aljazeera, The LA Times, and the BBC Website all elect to mention the nationality of the criminals only in passing.
How long before we see the same kind of "unrest" here at home in North America on a daily basis, and how soon are we going to be forbidden from pointing out the true source--the radical segment of the religion of Islam--as the problem?
Yeah...I thought so...
Dickens Set Complete
Well, the good news is that I'm basically done with the sawdust phase of my Christmas set construction effort this year.
That is, of course, because the current project represents the simplest version of the three productions of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" that I've supported at Brunswick's Ritz Theater thus far.
Heather wanted a really simple backdrop this year because there are 29 kids and 1 adult in the cast and complex sets and gaggles of children generally don't mix in the theater business--particularly when the kids are all under the age of 12 years old.
My air compressor, pneumatic brad gun, and stapler made quick work of the thin plywood panels and wooden trim installation, and now I'm down to finish casting and detailing the foam Ghost Puppet of Christmas Future's head and wiring together it's giant dowel segmented hands.
Of course there is the little detail of installing the electrical wiring for the red strobe light eyes and green strobes in the mouth, but those are just last minute details that I have until the weekend to work out.
Tomorrow will see the foam casting process completed, followed by some shopping for final supplies as we begin the mad rush toward opening night on December 4th.
Then there has to be some Christmas shopping thrown in for good measure, but I've pretty well got the list figured out and it's just a matter of getting it into boxes and out on a UPS truck.
Hope y'all are all having as much fun as I'm having these days...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Media Mental Malaise?
I don't know about you, but right now it would be very easy for me to just turn off the TV, stop buying the newspaper, and disconnect my Internet connection from news sources and just smile my way through the balance of 2007.
I feel like I have it coming this holiday season.
I don't give a crap what the retailers think of the money I didn't spend at the Mall last Friday because I stayed home.
I don't give a crap what Fred Thompson thinks about FOX News' potential bias against his lackluster campaign.
And I definitely don't care that some liberal bleeding heart moron thinks that natural disasters have increased four fold in the past twenty years.
I'm so lazy this morning, I don't even care to give you the links to those stories--so I guess that you'll have to do your own Google search if you want to read about what I don't care about.
I've got a giant head and two skeletal hands to build, and with any luck I have a couple thousand dollars of windows showing up in town from Virginia for my construction effort-- so I hope you understand if I'm a bit short of words here on the blog this week.
Other than that...everything's just Peachy down here in paradise.
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
I'm A Theater Scab
It hadn't even occurred to me until reading the Internet News this morning that I might be accidentally breaking some kind of "Union Rules" via my involvement with the set construction over at the Ritz Theater this past week.
Should I be looking over my shoulder in downtown Brunswick for some of the "Stage Hands Union Thugs" skulking around in the shadows?
After all, I'm not a Union Member.
I'm not much of a fan of Unions either.
I understand why Unions have existed through history, but I also think that today most unions and most fervent union members
Gone are the days when unions fought child labor abuses and deadly workplace conditions--now they want two months of paid "family leave" and six figure income for stock boys working at Wal Mart.
I've never been in a union and to me union mentality is the equivalent of college Fraternity mentality--mindless group think--with the emphasis being on "mental" and the underlying concept being the support of a bunch of otherwise useless and weak morons that can't hold a job and justify their pay without the threat from some outside force or "workplace action."
These latest strikes by the Screen Writers Guild and the Stage Hands crowd is a perfect example. What a bunch of useless overpaid losers. I guess that the Patchouli Vendors Association and the Cannabis Clothing and Furniture Covering Vendors of America Local #666 can't be far behind on the walk out list--then we're in real trouble
Way back in the early 1980's I had the pleasure of working as a the lead non-union employee for my manufacturing company doing the start up of a custom compressed air dryer installed in a paper mill in New Bern North Carolina.
New Bern was a beautiful idyllic town on the river tributary Atlantic coast region near the southern end of North Carolina's outer banks and Ocracoke island. I ended up spending several weeks there and the location was awesome to behold.
BUT...
the Weyerhauser Paper mill was staffed with inbred, slack jawed, mouth breathing UNION MEMBERS that couldn't get over the bad feelings that still lingered there from an extended strike which was finally broken by management in the mid 1970's.
They had separate bathrooms and break rooms for union and non-union employees.
They had pay phones and coke machines that you couldn't use unless you had a Union Card in you wallet.
All of this Bullshit from LIBERALS...DEMOCRATS by and large...the one in the same people that today criticise conservatives for being divisive and closed minded.
So any way, these highly paid UNION ASSHOLES couldn't understand why myself and my co-worker should be allowed to enter what they considered to be "Their Paper Mill" (although it was actually owned by the stockholders of Weyerhauser corporation) and be allowed to do electrical work and millwright work in support of our non-union Georgia employer.
Warranty work included in the base price of the equipment. Something like one hundred thousand dollars at the time.
I'm lucky to be here today writing this blog posting, because if it were up to at least one of the lovely UNION EMPLOYEES at that Weyerhauser Mill, I would be dead today because the individual thought it would be funny to reactivate the dedicated 480 volt three phase high amperage circuit breaker powering our equipment while we were away from the plant and if I hadn't elected to check the breaker before beginning work I would be dead Dead DEAD right now.
Of course this coincided with the Union writing a formal complaint stating that we were't electrical union members and therefore presented a hazard and were unsafe to work in the plant.
All I have to say is..."Screw those UNION ASSHOLES", because this home boy had enough sense to buy a couple of padlocks and change the circuit breaker at my company's expense in order to lock and tag off the power supply in order to prevent
All of that crap over "employment issues"
Imagine that?
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