Why don't we get drunk and Woooooo!?

-Notes from Marina Life, Vol XIV; Saturday Night Edition


I can almost understand why 18 & 19 year old kids are intrigued by the idea of getting inebriated ... it's something new & untried. That's the superficial appeal.

But for Pete's sake. When you're 40+ years old isn't there something better to do with your time, i.e. your life, than stagger around drunk at 11:15PM with beer can in hand, yelling "Wooooooo!"?

Riled-up, or not?

Don't laugh, but I was a big wrestling fan when I was a kid.

With PPV TV wrestling being what it is now this may sound strange, but I remember being ringside on more than a couple of occasions when thousands of screaming folks were on their feet ... and things seemed seriously ready to get out of hand.

Here's an account from Wikipedia:

"After working in Stampede for a while The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics.

"On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. [Remember this happened in New York City, not Belton]

"After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed."

Doesn't that seem amazing ... since everybody knows wrestling is "fake"?

Of course, now days crowds are too "sophisticated" & "experienced" to get that excited ... about almost anything.

SD zen

-this post began as an email to a friend

Ba'as, what went wrong with SD cards? I mean,

1. Nobody's ever designed a really sex-e looking SD card (i.e. one that's either transparent, or glows neon-disco while operating)
2. Nobody carries SD cards around on their key rings
3. Nobody seems eager to show you their new SD card: 8 GB? Who cares?
4. Nobody offers to lend or share data from their SD card ... not even if it's in plain view
5. The hottest-sounding name for today's LnG* SD card is SDHC
In comparison, USB flash drives get groovy marketing tags like "DataTraveler" and "Crucial Gizmo!"

All told, it just seems like the poor SD card is, I dunno, kinda square.


* Latest and Greatest

Sacks Spiral; Beyond the Infinite

Note: Like a hurried frog trying to traverse a pond by haphazardly leaping from lily pad to lily pad until it finally misjudges the distance and falls short in water far over its head, too much googling can be a bad thing: after jumping around Wikipedia I landed on Sacks Spiral and promptly went Splash! over my head.
-- -- --

-from Wikipedia:

"The Ulam spiral, or prime spiral (in other languages also called the Ulam cloth) is a simple method of graphing the prime numbers that reveals a pattern which has never been fully explained. It was discovered by the mathematician Stanisław Ulam in 1963, while doodling on scratch paper at a scientific meeting. Ulam, bored that day, wrote down a regular grid of numbers, starting with 1 at the center, and spiraling out:

He then circled all of the prime numbers and he got the following picture:

To his surprise, the circled numbers tended to line up along diagonal lines."

-Then I clicked on Wiki's Sack's Spiral link:

"It differs from Ulam's in three ways: it places points on an Archimedean spiral rather than the square spiral used by Ulam, it places zero in the center of the spiral, and it makes a full rotation for each perfect square while the Ulam spiral places two squares per rotation. Certain curves originating from the origin appear to be unusually dense in prime numbers [...] The extent to which the number spiral's curves are predictive of large primes and composites remains unknown."


I don't understand anything of what they're talking about ... it's just that the Stargate effect in the "Beyond the Infinite" segment of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey kinda resembles Sack's Spiral, doesn't it?

Whatcha readin'?

Death by Black Hole: And other Cosmic Quandaries
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science
-Richard Preston

Moral Authority and "Leadership"

Just got back from dieseling up Black Thunder. Grab a seat, and run these numbers along with me:

21.2346 gallons x $4.659 =
The $98.93 Fill-up


Whoa. Still, fuel is cheap compared to what we're facing ahead.

--
Don't blame the oil companies, politicians (and think that an election will lower oil prices) or the speculator gnomes. And don't point fingers at India, China or anybody else.

Since World War II Americans have expected, or demanded, an extravagant standard of consumption that would be ecologically unsustainable if adopted by the rest of the world. Because we're "the greatest nation on earth and deserve it."

Now that Americans are facing the reality of a free market system that allows new players a seat at the pricing table, is it just coincidence that we're the ones hollering the loudest about the need for Conservation?

In other words, now we want the rest of the world (i.e. the developing nations we perceive as ruining our cheap gas holiday) to do what we never could make ourselves do ... stop consuming so much of the planet's resources.

Otherwise, Americans might not have gas at all for their boat and SUVs.

---
What's the best way to do get the world on board with conservation? US politicians argue we can "use our leadership to teach the world how to conserve." Wow. Talk about arrogance and bold-faced hubris.

If you lived in any other country besides the US, what country would you like assuming the self-appointed mantel of conservation Leadership? Brazil, maybe?

Nope; no matter what country you live in, you don't want any other country butting in and interfering with your internal affairs. Seems like we woulda learned that by now, doesn't it?

Doesn't it?

---
That our politicians would have the gall to suggest the US should appoint itself a "Leadership role" in Conservation is indicative that the same self-deluding mentality that's kept our consumption engine firing on all 12 cylinders for the last 50 years is still alive & remains integral to the national character.

Never mind that an election is just around the corner. Get Out and Vote- for cheap gas!

-- --
Americans like thinking of ourselves as Leaders because Leaders are #1. Leaders are smarter, brighter and more perceptive than the rest of the dummies, right? Doesn't everyone except us want to be led by Team America? Wasn't everyone else born to be followers?

So why do the followers seem to have so much trouble following our Leadership? What's wrong with those foreign guys, anyway? Go Team Go!

Just don't go broke going to the gas pump in the meantime.

-- --
Maybe having just a hint of familiarity and experience with the subject, as well as sharing the consequences of our decisions, would put a few more moral gallons of authority in our leadership tank.

In the meantime, we shouldn't be surprised if the rest of the world ignores us ... or just keeps on laughing.

Hey, gas is cheap!

Look what it costs in Europe:

Germany $8.55 (regular)

Great Britain $8.25

-source

Now think about this: a little while from now, as gasoline inches close to $7 a gallon, we'll look back fondly on the salad days ... when it seemed dirt cheap at just $3.86 a gallon.

Stiltsville

"Your cabin in the sea ..."

Can you imagine standing on the shore on Lake Hartwell, looking to the middle of a tiny inlet and nodding, "That's where I'm putting my house"?

My, how times have changed ... because in Miami during the 1930s, more than a few people did exactly the incredible, and began building houses on pilings along Biscayne Channel. Without having to consult bothersome building codes, zoning ordinances, or anything of the sort.


(above- Miami Springs Power Boat Club, 1950s)

Sadly, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew left just seven of the remaining fourteen houses standing.

Sources
Save Old Stiltsville
Stiltsville

Know Your Dog's (DNA) Pawprint

-from DoggieDNAprint.com

"The public availability of the dog genome has provided the basis for the development of cutting-edge tools and techniques for understanding canine genealogy. We can assess your dog's ancestry population (it's relationship to four ancient ancestral breeds) and display it's characteristics in comparison to a database of existing reference-breed dogs.

"We provide you a fifteen-digit proprietary score that allows you to compare your dog's score to our continually updated database of purebred and mixed breeds allowing increasingly accurate breed identification."

--
Hmmm, wonder how long before a similar service is available for cat owners?

thinking outside the pizza box

I couldn't believe this when I saw it: a 75mm recoilless rifle mounted to an Italian Vespa scooter.

It's for real, too. Roughly 800 AMCA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 5s were used by French Airborne Forces in Algeria and Indochina (Viet Nam).

-from Wikipedia

ps. That sure looks like a sub sandwich up front, doesn't it?

How does 2 million miles per gallon sound?

Today's "Live from Mars" Department

-from cnet.com:

"Come Sunday evening, NASA will have placed some new hardware on Mars. Whether the Phoenix spacecraft lands in one piece or ends up in a number of charred remnants remains to be seen.

"The Phoenix Mars Lander is the latest embodiment of humankind's quest to learn whether life might once have been sustainable on the Red Planet and to prepare for eventual human exploration there.

"In its approach to Mars, Phoenix has been traveling at about 12,750 miles per hour, or about 500 miles in 2 minutes and 22 seconds. Upon landing, it will be about 170 million miles from Earth--after having traveled about 422 million miles through space.

"Brent Shockley joked in his blog about the spacecraft's energy efficiency. "At a time when gas prices are soaring," he wrote, "Phoenix is getting good fuel economy at about 2 million miles per gallon."

--

Tonight's landing will be broadcast live tonight on the Science Channel 7-9 PM.

... meanwhile, in New York

(newser) – New York City officials warned people today to avoid a toad venom-based aphrodisiac that recently killed a man, the AP reports. The illegal love drug, often sold as Jamaican Stone or Chinese Rock, is harmful whether ingested or applied to the skin. "There is no definitely safe way to use it,” one official said. Similar drugs have killed at least five New Yorkers since the early 1990s.

Can you imagine what the headline woulda been if this had happened in Iva?

Psychosoulmatic

"Psychosomatic" doesn't mean the illness you're experiencing is "just all in your head."

Psychosomatic means involving both the mind and the body, or symptoms caused by mental or emotional disturbance. Psychosomatic illnesses are very real ... and often life-threatening as well.

-- --

"Still holding grudges? Check your pulse: research suggests that harboring feelings of betrayal may be linked to high blood pressure which can ultimately lead to stroke, kidney or heart failure, or even death."

That comes from an article, Forgive to Live. Let go of that grudge for your own well-being: The link between forgiveness and longevity in Psychology Today.

"A new study from Duke University Medical Center demonstrates that among people who have chronic back pain, those who have forgiven others experience lower levels of pain and less associated psychological problems like anger and depression than those who have not forgiven.

"Forgiveness in this context is understood as a person's act of deliberately giving up anger and resentment felt toward an offender, and fostering qualities of love, understanding, and compassion in their place." -Medical News Today

-- --
"In your anger do not sin" : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry"
-Ephesians 4:26

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."
-Ephesians 4:31

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord." -Romans 12:19

Who knew this?

-from dictionary.com

aright \uh-RYT\, adverb:
Rightly; correctly; properly; in a right way or manner.

Manimony

-from CNN.com

(LifeWire) -- When Susan Harris divorced her husband of five and a half years last December, she got the apartment, extra closet space and the covers all to herself.

Her ex? He got $37,440.

That money is being doled out in 48 monthly alimony payments. Or, as it's called in some circles, "manimony."

Over the course of the couple's marriage, Harris, 31, who makes more than $100,000 working in ad sales in Alameda, California, brought in more than two-thirds of the household income, while her ex-husband (who declined to comment for this article) worked toward becoming a credentialed teacher.

The couple had no children or joint property other than a rental apartment. When things started getting rocky in the relationship around year two, Harris was loath to end things, partially because she was concerned that she'd be obligated to continue supporting him financially, even though he was employed.

Her concerns were well founded. Legally - under state laws - both women and men are entitled to alimony if there's a large discrepancy in spousal income.

However, that doesn't mean men seek alimony.

"Thirty-three percent of higher-earning spouses are women, but fewer than four percent of alimony payers are women," says Ned Holstein, president of Fathers & Families, a family-court reform organization in Boston, citing U.S. Census Bureau data.

'I'm a man! I can take care of myself'

Some husbands have settled for increased custody instead of going to the mat for money, says Holstein.

"I hear a lot of men say, 'She earns way more than I do, but I wasn't going to ask for alimony because I get the kids 40 percent of the time and I don't want to rock the boat.' Then there are a lot of men who are just ashamed to ask for it."

Changing times, changing attitudes

Not all women resent paying money to their exes -- and not all men feel uncomfortable being on the receiving end. As the number of alimony cases increases, attitudes are gradually beginning to change.

Zzzz ... UPDATED with F1 video link

Tried going to sleep too early tonight ... and woke up a little after midnight feeling like I'd just taken a nap.

So instead of counting sheep to fall back asleep, I started trying to decide which kind of athlete I'd rather be:

1. Downhill Skier
The idea of riding two plastic boards down a mountainside at 80mph with no steering wheel always had a certain appeal. But then, the appeal of unbroken bones and skull fracture avoidance is far greater.

2. Jai alai pelotare
Eh, this one deserves an entire post to itself. Maybe another time. (see Joey warming up)

3. Formula 1 Race Car Driver
Driving 160mph through downtown Monte Carlo this coming Sunday must be exhilarating. But surely not so much as this.

Religious debate

- from Contagion

"The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721

Despite the promise that inoculation seemed to hold for controlling smallpox, the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 is known for the passionate controversy over inoculation that erupted in the city, most visibly between Reverend Cotton Mather and Boston physician William Douglass.


The religious debate was also important. Mather, who had lost his wife and three youngest children in a measles epidemic, argued that inoculation was a gift from God. Those opposed to inoculation argued that epidemic diseases afflicted the people for a divine reason, and that to attempt to prevent them was to oppose God’s will. Others argued that inoculation, with its roots in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, was a heathen practice not suitable for Christians."

Local News

"Here is Information for Actors

POSTED: 6:03 pm EDT May 19, 2008

UPDATED: 6:37 pm EDT May 19, 2008

ANDERSON, S.C. -- Fincannon & Associates, the Emmy Award-winning casting company announced Monday that they are on a search to discover talent and extras to be in a new FX Pilot called "Lake Hartwell." An open casting call will be conducted on Thursday, May 22, 2008 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The open call will take place at the Anderson County Arts Center in Anderson, S.C.The tenor of the show is one of a reality/slice of life. They are looking for people with a Southern or Rural quality about them; anything from bikini clad girls to local bass fisherman and everything in between the ages of 18-30 years old. No experience is necessary.If you are interested in being a part of "Lake Hartwell" please call ..."

http://www.foxcarolina.com/news/16332433/detail.html

Bass fishermen? There have to be bass fishermen?

Apply as necessary

a Blue Book re-run from Friday, June 29, 2007 ...


Fatigue is an enemy

"Fatigue makes cowards of us all."

Here's the dig:

"It is not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get up."

"Dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

Fatigue can turn tiny inconveniences and annoyances into what feels like overwhelming burdens. "I'm too tired," "I'm not excited any more," "I've already done my part," "I'm not sure that's really important" and "What are you telling me for?" are all symptoms.

We might even feel too fatigued to notice it's happening.

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."

So long as we're feeling good and the dice are rolling our way we feel capable of facing and handling impossible challenges.

"Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing- the result."

"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."

We won't be defeated by obstacles or adversaries; we'll be defeated when we accept I Feel Tired as an excuse, and lose track of the most irreplaceable, precious thing we've got: time.

"We didn't lose the game. We just ran out of time."

If that's what we allow to happen, and let fatigue distract us or "modify" our goals toward what's easy, convenient and certain.

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection then we can catch excellence."

And isn't that worth working for?

-all quotes from Vince Lombardi, professional football coach

It's only one bull that fights the lions

National Geographic Channel "Battle at Kruger"
-Moral: Don't just accept what you see

Preparation K

"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."
-Bobby Knight

3 great words

Pernicious- causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful

Perspicacious- having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning

Pervicacious- extremely willful; obstinate; stubborn

When shore's safety finally seems in sight ...

"Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord." -Craig Groeschel

2 for Thursday

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former." - Matthew 23:23


"To do what is right and just
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice." - Psalm 21:3



4 would be even better:

"For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." - Matthew 25:29

"Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." - Galatians 5:25-26

Insomnia Pt. 5

"Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." - Acts 15:10-11

More than a Sound Bite

"With God, life is simple: Everything is possible."

-South African game ranger, after surviving simultaneous attack by two lions