Posts

Posted on

All I want is some quiet…

earthmovers

Between the month and a half of earth movers, dumptrucks, grinding and chirping and beep beep beep noises and the people next door constantly building, sawing, hammering, and whatever coupled with their little Chihuahua who barks every single time I or one of my usually quiet dogs step out onto the deck.

I’m well beyond a point where I want to move, I’m into the planning and wondering how to make a move.

stripmine

At this point I think living next to a gravel pit, or a strip mine might actually be quieter. Perhaps a home in the inner city ghetto of Chicago, LA or New York, the gunshots would be intermittent and I wouldn’t have to worry about neighborhood improvement projects involving heavy equipment. I’d just have to worry about the occasional renovation by riot and fire. Other than that It would probably be pretty quiet.

Okay, I exaggerate. 

chihuahua

I suppose I’m a little grumpy because today is one of those really NICE breezy days. It’s not so breezy that it’s destructive or kicking up a ton of dust but just nice enough that it’s not too cool, not too warm and we’ve got intermittent clouds making it a perfect day to be out on my rear deck, writing blogs, or stories or looking for a job, or just enjoying the breeze

Problem is, if i set foot outside the rear door Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!

Then my dog decides he needs to have the last word because that little Yappy dog is barking at me, and he charges the fence line barking and the little Chihuahua who has to answer, stirs up the bigger dog in their house so that now we have three dogs barking at each other for no good reason.

Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!  BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! 

uglyfence

My dog has accidentally destroyed the raspberries that I had planted along that side of the yard, and more than once has injured himself because of that nasty ill behaved little POS.

I don’t even try to go out on the deck now. In fact I don’t even LIKE going out there to tend the plants or anything else. I’m to the point that between the awful looking fence, and the nasty little dog, I don’t go out there if I can help it at all.

It’s just way too annoying.

goodpup

I’ve been taking my dogs ON LEASH out to the front yard just so I don’t have to hear the little bitch yapping.

I’ll admit I don’t like Chihuahuas in general. When I was a young boy, the old woman next door had two or three of the things and they made any attempt to play in my back yard absolutely miserable.

That’s part of why I stayed in my room and read books so much. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the outdoors, and it wasn’t that I was a nerd, it was that I couldn’t stand incessant barking and noise even as a child.

To this day, among the first lessons my dog is taught, is barking is not a good thing and when I tell them to shut up I mean it.

dreams for the dog next door

My old dog just can’t let it go he’s 13, and a grand old man for his breed. The Chihuahua is right there barking at him, at me, and sticking her nose through the fence to do it. I honestly can’t blame him for barking back. But the cycle is never ending and I end up yelling at him to be heard, and then he’s in trouble for nothing he’s done wrong.

Of course it’s not the Chihuahua’s fault either, it’s the OWNERS! If they exercised the least bit of control and assertiveness over the animal, things would be better. But that household is two women and they don’t correct the dog, they try talking to it. I swear at this point, it’s shock collar time!

I might be inclined to step out on the deck every 10 minutes just to hear the Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!  YIPE!  

I love animals, I detest badly behaved animals.

I miss the quiet of the wind in the trees not having neighbors.

Guess I’m going to have to get a “GO AWAY! Home of Grumpy old man” doormat.

Oh I’ll have to make a recording that says “You kids get off my lawn,” too. I say recording because I’m a modern kind of guy, I won’t actually be out on the porch yelling, I’ll use a proximity sensor and MP3 player.

Posted on

“You get the Damnedest email!”

Tanya

That’s what the other half said looking over my shoulder as I was scanning my SPAM folders.

“This isn’t even half of it, you should see what the servers block,” I replied offhandedly.

In fact the servers do block a fair amount but the SPAMMERS continue to shift things around and there is always some email server in Europe with no security and is therefore open to become a conduit for SPAM.

Here’s a representative example.

I’m not on any dating sites.

The text says the girl is in Russia but the FROM is an address in Italy. The TO is going to someone in Canada.

I dig into the header and that’s where I find contact information that makes some sense. 

The actual REPLY TO address is a gmail freebie.

Other emails have been for “New Jobs”, and medications, and one young Russian woman was apparently looking for “Good Strong Cock” because her father’s didn’t satisfy her anymore.  I think there was a problem in the translation on that one, but then again it was European so God only knows what the custom is. I suppose I wouldn’t have questioned it if the email had originated in the Middle East or some other islamic country.

The other half asks, “Why do you even look at these trainwrecks?” 

Good Question.

Where I not looking for a job these would all be right in the trash bin. But if you’re applying for positions some of the legitimate responses to your applications come from the strangest places. It’s one of the problems having to be exposed on the internet and the new realities of the job market.

Rather than having 50 filters, one each for individual spam that comes in, and having that number continuously growing, I try to find the common elements between each of the messages and create a filter that takes ‘em all out in one shot.

nextstop

In this case I’m thinking I’m going to say anything coming from a server named alice.it is going to get the boot. It’s the server in common for both the Russian girls and bogus jobs.

I just hope it doesn’t stop my email from the Pope, or from wealthy friends in Naples who are sending their private jet to collect me to winter in their villa by the sea, from getting to me.

Oh well, I suppose it’s just a risk I’ll have to take.

Posted on

There’s just too much in my head

JamesCaanrollerball

There are some of you that will say there’s not enough in my head, as in I don’t have a full deck.

Well you may be right.

The past couple of days, have been days where I’ve got a ton of cool stuff running around in my head but I can’t seem to grab any one of those things and hang on.

I know I need to focus and yet the more I try to force the focus the more scattered the thoughts become.

Purgeani

I think it’s time to clear the noggin.

The question is, HOW?

It was as I was pondering this question that I flashed on Rollerball with James Caan.

Pikacho

There’s this scene where he’s letting go of all kinds of things. His best friend is brain dead, and the corporations have taken his wife away and given her to a more popular player. He’s sitting in his apartment watching recordings of happier times and decided to let it all go. He presses a button on his remote and the recording of his wife freezes then dissolves.

Which led to the question, “Do I have what I need to create animated GIF’s?” The answer to that question is the flashing text above.

I need to find that button in my brain.

I know electroshock can reset an errant brain. I think that’s probably a bit drastic.

Romanorgy

Sex can do it sometimes but the last time that worked for me required a weekend at a resort I know of, where… well, lets just say there are times when some of the classics of Rome are re-enacted, sans the killing of emperors, senators, and burning of cities.

Then I flash back to James Caan and wonder why Scott Caan wasn’t in the remake of Rollerball.

Then I’m back to the pondering of resetting my brain.

And then I realize I’ve gotten up 4 times to go get a glass of tea and keep getting lost between here and the kitchen!

I’m beginning to think my muse is having a speed run pumping all kinds of stuff into my head.

That orgy is looking better and better all the time!

Posted on

Less attractive Women of the world Unite!

BruceCaitlyn

I think Caitlyn Jenner has done a disservice to all the “plain” women in the world.

There! I said it, we’ve all been thinking it for a while, someone had to be the one to break the tension!

I was watching a documentary last night and paused the video to inspect an apparently female journalist because she looked like she might have been a man. As it turns out, maybe it was just a little too much botox, and a bone structure that looked more like John Lithgows’ in his performance as Roberta Muldoon in “The World According to Garp”.

Lithgow did a great job with the character but there was no way you could overlook that Roberta had at one time been a dude!

robertamuldoon

That’s unfortunately the way it is with Jenner.

The consequence of Jenner’s  highly publicized transition, is that every woman who’s tall, or has an overly strong jawline or higher than expected forehead, or has a touch too much botox is looked at far more critically. Before Caitlyn, we knew that there were transgendered people but we weren’t sure if we’d met one, moreover, it generally didn’t matter if we had.

After Caitlyn we’re sure that any woman that doesn’t meet an idealized version of womanhood is a transgendered person.

GladysCravitz

I felt bad that I’d paused the video and clinically examined the journalist, but with the constant Kardashian fueled drumbeat of Caitlyn’s latest antics I’m far more likely to be curious, even judgemental (I know…Me?).

It’s a case of unintended consequences, and perhaps a lesson in why it’s best to keep some aspects of your private life private.

Posted on

When I was a kid…

Childhood Forests Fall

Sept 1 was a time of mixed feelings. 

On the one hand, I’d have been in school for almost two weeks and was mourning the end of Summer. On the other hand the countdown to the holidays was running in my head.

I knew I had Labor day off.

Whew, one more long weekend before I really had to buckle down and get to work. 60 days to Halloween, 26 days after that, Thanksgiving, 30 days later Christmas, then  the long dark dry spell of Winter with nothing to look forward to until Spring, the end of school and Glorious SUMMER again.

Back then, observed holidays were, well… actually Observed! and even though the Winter months were long and dark, they were punctuated by a holiday about once a month. I was also fortunate during Junior High and High School, that I lived in a place where we got snow days at the drop of a hat we lived for snow days.

gnat swarm

I guess I’m feeling a bit nostalgic. I woke up in a great mood, have already walked the dogs much to their delight and aside from being set upon by little black flying monsters, (I have no other description, they’re tiny, they swarm & they fly at your eyes, nose, ears, and mouth), The day is a good one. It’s cool and bright with the tinge of Autumn in the sunlight. 

I can’t describe it, there’s a color to the light that signals Autumn to me. All the seasons have a characteristic color?, tint?, cast?, in the sunlight. The night sky is also different beyond the constellations, depending on the season. I’ve been aware of these differences my whole life and took them for granted until a discussion with a friend.

Autumn Central Park NY

He doesn’t see the difference at all, he just looked at me like I was insane. [I am, but that’s another discussion.] I now know what describing color to a blind person is like. There are some things which words utterly fail to describe. Color, Orgasms, Joy, Beauty that makes you cry. 

I guess I’m more tuned into the rhythms of nature than I thought I was. Until talking with my friend I assumed that everyone saw what I see. Then again, I’m a very visual creature, so maybe it’s just that I notice details more than some people.

I like this time of year, it’s a time of change and for some reason I feel more creative.  

Everyone take a moment, look up from your cities, look out over the open spaces, take a deep breath, and take time to notice the light.