RIP Molly Moo, aka Boodles

I admit that last post was a piece of crap, it’s been a busy week. Haven’t even had time to finish setting up the new super computer. I seem to require at least one of every cable type known to man…S-video, RF, RCA, CAT 5, VGA, USB, co-axial…and of course adapters from one to the other.

I was going to make up for it, with several promising ideas and not much else on tonight…only to arrive home to find my little one in tears over a dead cat. According to the neighbor they held a pigeon race nearby and the area was inundated by pigeons with poor navigation skills. Our young Molly spied some pigeons arguing over a map and decided to take a shot. She was flattened by a soccer mom in a ford explorer chatting on a phone while passing the baby a bottle and simultaneously smacking it’s older brother.

Interesting thing is the neighbor who witnessed the incident said “I was meaning to go pick it up before school let out, but you know”. Yeah, I know. You’re too fucking stupid to remove a dead cat from your own front lawn. ‘Course you are. Just leave it there all day so my eight-year-old can trip over it on the way home from school. Tra-la-la, happy day…oh there’s my dead mangled kitten.

So then a funeral and burial had to be hastily arranged, the garden fence repaired so the dogs don’t dig the damn thing up, a grave marker decorated and planted. I believe a prayer was said. This leaves us with one cat, Stumpy the grumpy Manx.

My wife and child then went to gymnastics. They returned home two hours later with my other daughter, dinner and…another fucking cat (Polly, no Princess, no Polly, no Holly). So now my daughter is alternating between periods of joy and silliness with a new kitten, and episodes of pure naked anguish over the ex-Molly, now 2½ feet under. These moods alternate at about ten minute intervals. But she’s a tough kid and she’ll be ok. And if all else fails, anything fart-related cracks her right up, so we just feed her beans until she gets over it.

Fragment

I just noticed Tool and Pink Floyd have a lot in common. I think I always knew that, but just got around to processing it.

They are calling for snow in the hills just back of here for the weekend. Snow, or chance thereof, is substantial news in a slow week, with the local radio and TV giving us updates regularly. Last time it snowed, they got an inch or so, and closed the roads. At first I thought they were just being silly chooks, getting all worked up about a little snow. Then I realized just because I can drive in the snow, doesn’t mean the guy in the oncoming semi-truck - who left Darwin in tropical heat two days ago with a snoot-full of speed, bald tires, no sleep, and zero snow experience - is up to the job. So yes, maybe better to just go ahead and close that old road, eh? Wait it out. Have a meat pie and some speed.

Of course Pink Floyd never sang about the irony of “shit, blood and cum on my hands”. But I still think there’s a strong influence.

Body Shop

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the world’s first triple transplant operation has just been performed. Sounds like it needs a punch line, but it’s true. A woman got a new liver, pancreas and kidney in one go, all from one donor, making a matched set. This has cured her of liver disease and related kidney damage. Apparently they like to transplant livers with the pancreas still stuck to it, so she now has a second pancreas - neatly curing her of diabetes in the bargain. At least that’s how I understood it. Perhaps one of you lab monkeys could explain it for us.

The newspaper called it a “one-off” operation. What does that mean? That they’re just not that into doing anymore? Or does it mean it was a custom job…you know, a limited edition operation. Maybe the next person gets a liver with a lung attached instead.

Tonight on American Transplant

Billy Jnr: I wanted to do something special with this operation in honor of the veterans of the wars and stuff. So I was thinking I might, like, take a gunshot victim and like maybe a stabbing victim and like see if I can like meld them, you know? Like just sort of mix up the working parts to like show there's like always hope and shit, you know?

Bill Snr: Jesus (beep) Christ have you got that (beep) left lung attached yet? You got the (beep) heart fibrillating all over the gawd damn place, when are you gonna (beep) fix that shit?

Billy Jnr: Awww, get off my back. It’ll get done in time, keep your (beep) shirt on. There look, it stopped fibrillating…oh shit

Bill Snr: You see? That’s the shit I’m talkin’ about, but you don’t (beep) listen do you? (storms away in disgust, slams door)

Frodo-A-Gogo

Well what a fine time we’ve had, eh? 18 comments generated in the great "Is Frodo Gay?" debate so far, with some lively debate and witty repartee. None of the comments actually had anything to do with the posts to which they were attached, but that’s fine. We can talk about anything y’all want. As posts go they were fair-to-crappy anyway.

I feel bad for young frodo/Tyler who has clearly bitten off more than he can chew, although I think his heart is in the right place. He has some strong convictions that he tried to defend and if he was a bit clumsy in his defense I put it down to inexperience and a faulty spell-checker. Unfortunately the cuteness wears off Tyler, and if you keep up this shrill approach with people, you might find it gets worse, not better. By shrill, I mean taking things too seriously… a bit like Millhouse on The Simpsons when he gets worked up.

For example: Tyler claimed he called his friend’s blog “gay” in jest, and when I made the original comment that’s exactly what I thought he was doing and I assumed by “gay” he meant lame, poor quality, silly – I threw out a quick comment because I thought it was ironic and I find irony amusing. I had hoped he would too, and perhaps make some sort of jokey reply.

But the young man was offended and instead of just saying nothing at all, or at least continuing the argument on his own blog where the initial (mine) comment was made, he came over to my blog and left his comment there. And it was a comment that rather begged to be boxed in the ear. He should-na outta done that, George (that’s a reference to Steinbeck and Bugs Bunny, frodo). He was in trouble from the start because I really really enjoy a proper argument being both a logic-junky and a smart-ass. So I was all for pushing some buttons, but now that we know frodo is indeed only 17 (was it?), well that’s different. At that age things can seem mean when they are not meant so.

So with all that in mind I hope frodo or Tyler now understands that nobody meant to offend his sensibilities and that if he couldn’t see the funny side of it, probably the best thing would have been to just leave it be. So no hard feelings I hope, and come back and visit if you like.

SJ

Oh Happy Day

Its coming today, he-he, ha-ha. For seven months I have been saving up my pocket money for this machine. I went to visit it during The Build last week…there it was, proud silver beast sitting on the technician’s bench, left side laid exposed as it allowed him to tinker with its precious workings. One, two, three matt black hard drives like stacked obelisks of data – 480 gigabytes, can you imagine? Two matched 500mb ddr ram chips, with room for two more. The graphics card…oh the graphics card. The graphics card has more memory alone than this computer I am using now. This computer with it’s Celeron chip and it’s 64mb onboard graphics. By this afternoon I shall be experiencing 256mb of PCI-e graphics. Pardon me while I shudder in anticipation. Did I mention 8.1 channel sound? What are the extra 3 channels? Hell if I know! Dual monitor, dual TV-out, dual layer DVD. Multiple video inputs. All powered by the respectable AMD 64 3200 processor. This is the 939 chipset which allows me to upgrade to a dual core if need be.

The missus has the car so it’s time to call in a favor from big Daz and arrange transport. Oh happy day, tra-la-la.

….jeez, that frodo dude may be right. (comments, yesterday’s post)

United States Invades Canada, Confused By Metric System

I had a nightmare recently where I had to go back to high school…apparently I had forgotten to take grade 11. Somewhere along the line I realized that I was a grown up type person now and I did not have to go to school if I did not so desire, so I quit dream school and got a dream job.

In real high school, grade 12, I missed 58 days of school. Somewhere around October the vice principle called me in and said “Do you realize you’ve missed 15 days of school in two months?”. I admitted I hadn’t realized, hadn’t even been keeping count really. He said this was a serious matter and gave me a three day suspension. I didn’t point out the irony for fear he’d change his mind.

I did, however, graduate at the end of the year with the final tally of 58 days absent. I was outdone only by Billy Lindley, with 63 days missed. But he got a 10 day suspension for mooning a female PE teacher, which I don’t think should count. When I went up to receive my diploma the very same vice principle shook my hand, handed me a piece of paper and said “Glad you could make it.”

The piece of paper read:

Congratulations Graduate,.
You will receive your diploma by mail in 4-6 weeks.

Dept. of Education.

Sordid Lies

Oh now what’s this?

These rumors of a harem have gone too far.
Hypnosis indeed, that’s not incense burning in those urns.

and what the hell is that guy on the left doing?

The Great Pretender(s)

I had forgotten all about The Pretenders…remember them, with Chrissy Hynde? We’ll get back to them in a second…

I got a boss who loves to preface any criticism with the phrase “Now, don’t get me wrong, but…” He thinks that by making this disclaimer up front he is then free to go ahead and rag the shit out of someone (ragging v. to run down verbally). It has become a running joke among the staff who now say things to each other like “Don’t get me wrong, Bill…but you’re a fuckhead.” One of these days he’ll overhear and that should be interesting to see, but I digress.

Of course Don’t Get Me Wrong was a hit for The Pretenders back in the eighties. I prefer their earlier stuff, but that’s not the point. This constant exposure to that phrase made me remember I used to like The Pretenders. So I walked around the internet for a while, and there was a copy of their greatest hits just lying there on the floor…

I went in to work this fine Saturday to try and catch up on some office work, since they have laid-off half my staff and I’m now needed in the factory a lot more during the week. My boss walked in 5 minutes after me and started right in…

“Now, don’t get me wrong” he said, waving a little book around. “The apprentice has started using the order book like I asked him, but you see here? He’s taken up two lines. If he had written smaller he could have got it on one line…”

And there followed a 20 minute running complaint about NOTHING, all the while I’m conscious of the fact I promised myself I was doing 4 hours today and not one second more. So this is chewing into my time but there’s nothing you can do but stand there and listen. Then when you think he’s done you say “Yeah, I see your point” or something equally vague and try to edge yourself away. Usually he’ll start following you, keeping up his running diuretic diatribe until you can lose him in a turn.

But now I’m home, with the good medicine in me, The Pretenders on the mp3 – (I’m not the kind I used to be/ I gotta get a .33, baby.) Later I’m going to paint the bathroom. My bathroom in my house that I own…my house where it’s ok to write on two lines if you want, fuck take the whole book, if you like it so much.

That was a lot of work, trying to segue those two themes. Maybe a little nap before painting…

Plug and Play

Windows: Ahh, Hello Skookum I see you have a new plug and play device. Would you like me to do you a favor and get the drivers for you?
Me: No. I have the disc.
Windows:…’cause I could look on the net for you. Please?
Me: No. I have the disc.
Windows: Would you like me to check the other drives as well…and maybe the net. Just in case?
Me: It is an obscure monitor with a booklet in badly translated Cantonese. You won’t find any fucking drivers…except the ones on THIS DISC.
Windows: (petulantly) Fine. Just uncheck the boxes for everything you DON’T want me to do, I’m going to run the hard drive for no apparent reason, maybe go on the net for an update…
Me: Stop it! (locks firewall)
Windows: Ok, there are 8 files on the disc in two obscurely labeled folders. Which one do you want…Driver Boy?
Me: I don’t know what the hell a Chinese driver file looks like. Can’t you find it?
Windows: Oh, I could. I did offer you know. But noooooooo, you wanted to pick from your own precious disc. So go on pick, smart-guy.
Me: Oh yeah? Well I did pretty good in deductive logic. Let's see, not that read-me file, and that one appears to be a .gif image, and the last two I don’t know. I’ll take that last one, thanks Chuck.
Windows: You sure?
Me: Yes.
Windows: OK?
Me: Ok.
Windows: Wait……………………sucker, that wasn’t it.
Me: Damn. Ok give me the other one.
Windows: You sure?
Me: YES
Windows: OK?
Me: OK.
Windows: Wait………………..wait………ok, wait.....do you want to restart?
Me: Have you got my driver?
Windows: Ahh,ahh,ahh…gotta restart to find out Chief.
Me: Fine, restart.
Windows: You sure?

Me: Fuck off.
Windows: (after world’s slowest restart)…hang on just loading some unnecessary shit to run constantly in the background…won’t be a tick. Ok done, now let’s see…Ahhh Skookum I see you have a new plug and play device. Would you like me to do you a favor and get the drivers for you?

Thursday's Just Got Jokier

Being Thursday, Big Daz usually stops in on his way home from work to tell me a joke. But today we found Big Daz pulled over on the side of the road, sitting patiently in the rain in his racy Ford Festiva. Of course we stopped to see what’s what and turns out Daz was playing lets-see-how-far-we-can-go-without-putting-extremely-costly-fuel-in-this-piece-of-shit, and lost. He said “I figured I’d just sit here a bit and wait till either you come by, or it stopped raining". It had, in fact, stopped raining so technically I was free to go, but since we’d already stopped…anyway we bought a cupful of gasoline, got the Festiva sputtering back to life, and came back here to the command center where I received today’s joke (I shall paraphrase for brevity):

A man went in to register his camel.
“Does your camel have one hump or two?”, asked the clerk
The man turned and looked out the window “Two” he surmised.
“Two”, wrote the clerk, “and is it male or female?”
Again the man looked out the window but the camel happened to be standing behind a potted palm and the gender was not apparent. The man thought and thought and finally declared “It’s female.”
“How can you be sure?”, asked the oddly suspicious clerk.
“Because”, said the man, “when I rode into town everyone pointed and said look at that cunt on the camel ”

*Daz is a cabinet maker by trade, a Scorpio, loves holding hands, collecting driftwood, and knitting competitively. He is married, although I have never actually heard the woman of the house confirm this.

Zen As Applied To The Long Weekend

We went to Katoomba which is a swanky little mountain town filled with backpackers and boutiques and 427 coffee shops. We stayed in an old and semi-posh hotel where we took our breakfasts in the dining room like civilized people. On the second night I discovered a nook at the end of the hall from our second floor room. A door led out to a small balcony on which was a small metal table and a metal chair and a clean ashtray. The balcony overlooked the main street with a view of the backpacker's hostel across the street and the police station next to it, with a bakery on the other side. This, I thought, is much more convenient than going downstairs to smoke.

I carried with me at the time a small vitamin bottle in which I kept a small pipe and a small quantity of marijuana. As night fell I sat against the wall sipping espresso, smoking and watching - and reading The Art of War, which I had picked up in a second hand bookstore that afternoon. I was reading the section dealing with concealing your form. There was a cold wind.

At one point I heard the door behind me open. Two people, a man and woman each dressed in soft clothes, peered out. As I slipped the pipe into my pocket, I turned and said "Hello!" with an overly cheerful grin. They looked at my book, at my cigarette, at me and smiled shyly, saying "we wondered where this door went".

"It is a smoking area." I said happily.

"It is a smoking area." they repeated, somehow reassured. They left with the expressions of people who have seen a small wonder, like a really good card trick, or a dog with only two legs that gets around on a little skateboard.

I bet if you asked them, they would not be able to describe me. For even though I was in plain sight I didn't let them see me. I concealed my form.

Then again, maybe they just didn’t give a fuck.

Subterranean Network Blues

The cool little 8” touch screen to go with the new electronic tabulator was delivered by the ebay fairy yesterday and I’m pleased to report it works as advertised. I got a little scare when suddenly ebay declared them no longer a registered user…two days after I transferred $240 to Hong Kong. But my email enquiry was answered the same day with a shipping date and tracking number, and the unit showed up the day after that. I’m not positive, but I think this means I’ve won one.

I need to go under the house now and string the network cable. It is not fun under there. Here is a photo of under there.

This is under the sundeck, under the house is much
more darker-er. Like a scene from Videodrome isn't it?

Nothing like a four pound cobweb wrapped twice around your entire head. Luckily the webs are that strong if you are quick you can stop before breaking it. If you are not quick you will feel it stretttttttch, and SNAP - you’re wearing a spider-silk turban, with little embalmed insects for jewels and the former owner scuttling down the back of your neck.

But I’ll be alright, I’ll send the dogs in first to scare off the little ones. And I’ve found if you jab a fiery torch at the bigger ones and throw them, say, half a pig – they generally leave you alone. Still, if you don’t hear from me for a while…


well... I suppose you’ll just go on with your lives, won’t you. (beat) Good for you! Soldier on, that’s the boy/girl.

If I Were Irish

Assaulted With Puppy

A woman in Missouri beat a dog breeder with a dead puppy. The woman, who’s puppy had died, tried to break into the breeder’s home to steal another. When the female dog breeder tried to stop her, the woman beat the breeder about the head with the dead chihuahua, then drove off waving the puppy from the sunroof of her car.

She was later apprehended and returned to the scene where she was scolded “Did you do this? NAUGHTY!”, and smacked in the face with a rolled up telephone book.

The breeder was quoted as saying “This isn’t the first time…[that’s] why I only sell little dogs now.”

1999

in scarcity i flew south
and things could not follow
across that water
the southern ocean that talks
moans
and shrieks
whispers
refuses
to say anything at all.

that bastard water. just waits there.
bouncing off the coast and coming back for more.

and more

wherever and whatever coast,
if you walk in,
wade in,
crawl in,
cry in,
if you
feel like a fucking dip,
that damn sea pushes you back;
waves never running from the shore

i was born on an island
but never gave a shit
about any of that water
lapping and licking and fucking and dying and calling
and all as close as cowichan bay

i once saw an amazing thing.
but i had seen it all my life
or variations of it and completely missed it
when a girl i came later to realize
was absolutely too perfect for me,
saw it everywhere.

Rest Stop

The Professional

Gadzooks, look what the missus brought home in her left rear tire. Appears to be ¼ inch threaded rod. Either she picked it up driving through the Road-Works-That-Are-Never-Finished on her way to work, or it’s a warning from the Russian mafia. But I’m pretty sure the Russian mafia prefer 3/8” rod for tire work. She discovered it when she went to leave work this morning. The tire was still fully inflated so she drove home with it like that. A forty minute drive, on the freeway, at 110km/h (70mph). I did explain to her this was not a wise choice but she assured me her colleague (who is 60 and looks like Granny from Tweety-Bird) followed her home to make sure. It didn’t occur to them the rod might fly out and kill someone. But as witnessed above, the rod stayed put and the tire did not go flat. Hoorah!, said the crowd.

Interesting though…she’s been nagging me that she needs new tires. She doesn't, but once she gets it in her head she needs something, it’s hard to dissuade her…

“This is how we did it during the war, dear” said Granny as she shanked the tire, “You’ll make it home, but that tire’s fucked luv. You’ll have to get new ones now.”

Live - Breaking News

Last Exit

My kid is in a walk-a-thon. Basically another school-sanctioned extortion scheme. All to raise money for some silly thing or other, like fire extinguishers or internal walls. I’m giving her 20 cents per lap of the school field. She bores easily, shouldn’t cost me more than $2. You think I’m cheap? Kid’s got more cash than me. She doesn’t earn much, but she has low overhead.

I was in a walk-a-thon once. Ten miles when I was ten years old. The route twisted over hill and hill and at about mile 7 it happened to pass directly past my own house. I would have to walk three miles to finish, then three miles home again. Even then I realized that to purposely walk three miles from where I wanted to be, just to turn around and walk back again was fundamentally wrong. Who were these walk-a-thon people telling me to keep walking? March or die, was that it? The weaker ones shot by the side of the road, peasants staring blankly as we pass by…that kind of thing?

No sir. It was time to stand up and stop walking! Or, ok, stop walking and stand there…or sit if you wanted…the point is I was thirsty and cartoons were on so I went home.

Comments on what you would have done?

Party of 4 lost in big shower, hope diminishing

Well, you’ll be pleased to know the new shower is in. On time, on budget. Bigger and taller it is, I don’t have to duck under the door head. Now it’s a shower chamber. A two tone tile, steaming echo chamber with snazzy herringbone etched glass. At least I imagine it is. Can’t actually use it yet as the sealants must properly cure (sealant heal thyself).

There is however a downside, a drawback, a new problem to consider. This gleaming behemoth of advanced cleanliness, this tribute to modern showerology and the concept some naked people should appear blurry - makes the rest of the bathroom look like shit painted blue. But the 3 planets of budget, time and inclination must all align in precise orbits for change to occur, and that just happened. Hard to say when it’ll happen again.

Jack 'n Jess

Here we see my dog Jessie spin drying her head. She is a golden labrador and registered, which means you get the head spinning feature. We didn’t register her, don’t be daft, she was given to us that way. Somebody bought a purebred dog, registered it, then had it fixed and finally, gave it away.

In the background you see my other dog Jack. He is some sort of hound-cross we got from the pound. He has issues. You would too if someone dumped you in the bush where you got covered in ticks and almost starved, then strangers picked you up, put a micro-chip in you, gave you a shot and removed your testicles. He still had the stitches when we got him, poor bugger. He tolerates cats but has a deep distrust of birds and people who turn suddenly. Jessie loves to tease Jack and he pretends to get angry, all snarly and gruff, but if you look closely he has a little grin showing.

If this was your blog, you'd be home by now.

Jeez I can’t look at that stupid picture (Aussie Sheila) anymore. Sadly there really are women like that out here. Not white trash but white middle-class trash – queens of suburbia. Is the series Kath & Kim shown outside Australia? Well, that shit’s not far wrong.

Mr. Jutra is back from his holiday. Go say hello.

My computer mouse, she’s loco. The pointer keeps trying to escape off the top of the screen. I re-installed the drivers, did multiple virus scans, and bashed it on the desk – the limit of my technical knowledge. If anyone knows what might ail my mouse please let me know. Do not say “Give it some cheese”. Please, just don’t.

I am supposed to be tiling the bathroom. We are getting a new, bigger, shower enclosure. I’ll let you know if it’s any different than a regular sized shower. By the way, would anyone like to buy my house? I’m quite serious. I was planning to move to Tasmania in a few years, but this job is sucking out the very core of my soul, and eating it. I think I want to go now, please.

(above is a photo of the local area. The blue thing at the top is the Tasman Sea, nice beaches, good surfing, not many sharks)

More Aussie Slang

You may notice I sometimes refer to the missus as “the missus”. In Australia any female partner can be called the missus. It’s usage is common and does not cause offence. Do NOT, on the other hand, call an Australian woman a “Sheila” unless you want to receive a full-on torrent of abuse (see above). Other Dos and Don’ts:

-Don’t call anyone “Son” (not even in the Jerry Reed, Smokey and the Bandit way). “Pal” is not popular either (too American, apparently).

-Anyone may be called “mate” but using “matey” is slightly aggressive. (“Is that your car blocking me in, matey?”)

-It’s OK to call an Aboriginal person a Blackfella. Just as a white person can be called a Whitefella. British people may be called whinging poms, fishbellies or anything else you like. They have no rights here.

- Referring to a person or thing as “mongrel” can be a high insult, especially to older Aussies.

-Unless at McDonalds, ask for Tomato Sauce, not Ketchup, or you will receive a blank stare. If you ask for Tomato Sauce at McDonalds you will receive a similar, somewhat perkier, blank stare.

-“Mickey Mouse” means neat or well done, opposite to the Canadian meaning.

-Fish is fish, everything else is meat. What’s in a meat pie? Meat.

-“Root” is slang for fornicate. Saying you “root for the home team” gets you into games for free.

New, the Real Life Channel

Well, ESPN finally decided to show a hockey game in Australia this year. Not one bloody game all season, and I'd given up checking the schedule, when suddenly yesterday afternoon there it is. I'm flicking channels and there's game three of the Stanley Cup Final. The final, not the semi-finals or quarter-finals, The Final - and game three to boot. As you know Edmonton scored on a not-very-pretty goal with about 2 minutes left to win, making the series 2-1 for Carolina...I think.

I suppose I could just go to NHL.com and find out...but that's not the point. I paid good money for a man and his idiot helper to come over and put a little satellite dish on my roof specifically so I could watch hockey. I had to lock in to a 50 year contract - with both kids and one of the dogs as collateral. For this I get three (3) channels devoted entirely to Australian Rugby League, one entirely to Australian Rules football, and ESPN. Oh, and you can't get ESPN without getting the other four channels in the Premium Sports Package. We used to get ESPN2 as well, but they cancelled it when they added the fourth football channel. Alas, ESPN1 will show me 16 consecutive hours of the Eastern European Lawn Bowling qualifying rounds, but not one hockey game.

I asked the missus to cancel our service but when she got off the phone she said something about a contract, and suddenly we have five (5) extra movie channels plus the Fashion Channel (I hear thin leather ties are coming back!).

They increased their rates when they added digital broadcast capability...which makes no difference to my analogue TV except now I can push a button and get local weather after navigating through 28 screens, entering my postal code and waiting about 10 minutes for it to load. Handy, I use it all the time. No I don't, instead I use this other device whereby I get accurate, up-to-the-minute, weather information by pulling a cord, raising the blinds and looking out the fucking window.

Clearly this is madness. Let us all raise our collective blinds, go outside in the weather and play some hockey. Go on, it'll do you good.

But The Money Was Good

Most dangerous place I ever worked was the XXXX veneer plant in Vancouver. This huge complex manufactures engineered laminated beams by shredding veneer into strips and then pressing them under extreme heat and pressure through a mold. The result is a wooden beam which is comparable in strength to a steel beam, the advantages being wood is lighter, easier to cut and drill.

There were four massive veneer dryers operating 24/7 and we had fires daily, mostly just the smoldering type. We were all required to take 8 hours of fire training but I only had to actually unroll hoses once. During training we were 4 stories up, on the roof, pretending to fight a fire when my colleague said what we were all thinking “Man, if this roof catches fire, I’m not bloody coming up here. I’m going home. They can call the fire department.”

There were overhead pipes carrying super-heated oil. We were told if these pipes ruptured, contact with the air would cause the oil to instantly ignite. There was a room, above the glue-dipping system, where the air was fogged with a vapor of formaldehyde based glue. You held your breath if you went in there.

Biggest fright I got was when I was repairing a machine which grinds up waste with great spinning hammers. I was in it up to my shoulder when I realized I had forgotten to ‘lock out’ the machine – literally place a padlock on the control switch. A switch which was on the other side of the factory and could be easily activated by any number of people in the course of their duties. I had to sit down for a minute, in a cold sweat…then run like hell to lock it out before someone activated the disassembled machine.

Part of the press system used microwaves to cure the glue as the beam was being formed - 80,000 watts of microwave power provided by four magnetrons. Once, 4 men were down in the press conducting repairs when they realized one of the four magnetrons was still running and the men were being hit with 20,000 watts of microwave radiation. I don’t know what frequency they operated at but the men were relatively unharmed, though rather flushed looking. But the company was diligent and safety was paramount. The following day there was a notice posted:

How To Tell The Effects Of Microwave Radiation Exposure

1) You may begin to feel warm.
2) Slight headache…

…if you feel you may have [possibly, allegedly] been exposed to microwave radiation, inform your supervisor immediately.

It's Just A Hobby

Just A Hobby

Lovely Parting Gift

Part of my job is making sure the people under my supervision don’t kill themselves. One of our apprentices is accident prone. In the past year, between work and home on the farm, this guy has:

-dropped a chisel down the back of his leg – 14 stitches
-broke his thumb – something to do with a sheep (!)
-dislocated his shoulder – fell off a roof
-ran a razor knife across his thumb – sliced right through the nail
-opened up his jeans with a chainsaw – just knicked his kneecap*
-thumb again – ran the tip through a router, squared it off.


And as part of his apprenticeship I have to train him to operate one of these:

This is the Altendorf F-45 elmo CNC controlled sliding panel saw. This machine has two counter rotating blades. The small one rises only 3mm above the table and is hard to see. It will chew your hand up pretty good, but worse still, it will then thrust your hand into the main blade. The main blade is a 350mm carbide-tipped, alternating 96 tooth blade with a 3mm kerf, turning at 4000 rpm, on a 7hp 3-phase motor. This means, in layman’s terms, it will separate your hand from your body if you let it. Then your hand will be neatly sucked up, sent down some pipes, through a big impellor and into the sawdust bin, ready for you to pick up on your way out. Thanks for coming. Next.

*shudddder - can you imagine a chainsaw through the kneecap? He’s still got two years to go, so I think we’ll just put off the panel-saw training for a while yet, see if he survives.

What do you mean that's not what it means?

When I were a nipper in the doldrums of the late seventies it was something of a fad to get a custom T-shirt made. Malls had T-shirt shops, like tattoo establishments, walls covered in sample graphics. You picked out your transfer, maybe your favorite car or sports team. There were lots of funny ones and some rather racy ones…

My father repairs industrial machinery like excavators and front end loaders for a living and is rather good at it. I was proud of him as a boy and wanted to get him something for his birthday with the money I had earned working after school. I decided on a T-shirt. I spent about an hour one Saturday down at the T-shirt shop, while the surly attendant watched me over his magazine, choosing just the right transfer for old dad, the excellent mechanic. Here’s what I came up with:

Mechanics Have Hot Rods

Let me just say that at ten years old I had no concept of the double entendre, and tended to take things literally. Anyway, to me it seemed a perfectly reasonable statement, ignoring the fact my father did not own a hot-rod automobile, but he rode motorcycles which was better. So I was a bit perplexed when he seemed reluctant to wear it out for his birthday lunch. As a matter of fact I never saw that shirt again.

The next year I got him a clock and that went much better. He's received about 15 now.

Nope, this one's not going anywhere...abandon post.

Here is the first in my twenty-six part series of minimalist writings...


A



Thank you so much. I'd like to thank my editor Mrs. Penny from grade one and, especially, the Romans (love the letters, not so much the numbers...hard to do long division). I put a lot of work into that piece and to finally see it up there on the internet it's, well...I'm sorry, I need a minute.



cripes, that's the lamest post yet.

See What's Left

Here is a short video about a baby in China with two left arms. It’s from Reuters news, not gross or anything. They managed to hack one of them off ok and are hopeful the child will gain full use of what's left, if you follow me. Just think….

He could:

- Masturbate while driving.
- Be a champion shoplifter
- Excel at chin-ups
- Open gifts quickly
- Make really good shadow puppets
- Wipe his ass without putting down the newspaper.

But then again there’s…

- Being called “Lefty” in Chinese (左撇子)
- Always being asked to open jars
- Exclusion from games of tag (leads to isolation and feelings of deep inner rage, which exhibit at age 45 when he starts wearing women’s undies and complaining to the council about the damn teenagers.)
- Extra arm may become evil
- Unable to use excuse “I’ve only got two hands, damn it!” (我只得到二只手, 该死!)

mmm, I feel like stir-fry

Funding For Supercomputer Approved

The new super-computer I ordered for tabulating the baboon experiments – or ‘The Monkey Sessions’ as I like to call them – will be arriving soon. Should make short work of that pile of double-helixes building up in the corner. I had a word with my IT guy*, Daren, on the weekend and we decided to go ahead with The Build…

I bought my first computer when I was 14. I think the Apple II was just out then, and was considered the machine to beat…check it out, floppy disk drive! But I couldn’t afford one of those. I could afford half a computer by a company called Interac, from Anne Arbor. My friend and I put our money together and ordered it from an ad in the back of Popular Electronics. My share was $400 and what we got was not bad for it’s time…not as good as the Apple II, but better than most of what was available. Here are the specs for the Interac personal computer:

Memory: 16kb (yes kilo-bytes, less than an email)
Drive: cassette drive (yes, like you used to play in the car)
Monitor: connects to TV
O/S: no such thing. Just programming in BASIC and a few simple games.

It had a keyboard with square push-buttons for keys that you had to push really hard and an annoying ‘boop boop boop’ sound when you “typed”. It was no Apple II but I had a lot of fun learning programming with it. The new machine, though, is actually a little better than the Apple II:

AMD 64 Dual core
2GB RAM
256MB PCI-e graphics
580GB storage, on three SATA drives.
Dual monitor - 19” and 8” touch screen (control panel)
Multiple TV out
DVI with multiple recording
8.1 sound
XP Media Center

Sure, you could build a better machine, but I don’t need a better machine. I practice saying that while I wonder if that dental plan we got the kids is really worth it...what if we just made them brush 8 times a day?

*by IT guy I mean a guy I know, who knows IT, you know?

Negotiated Peace

They’re back. The cold weather means all sorts of critters are trying to move in with us. Two years ago we had a plague of mice. Got to the point where they no longer feared humans…running about in the day time, hardly bothering to scurry, openly holding meetings. Bastards got inside the washing machine and shorted out the circuit board…it’s a front loader and it would get reved up to about 42,000 RPM and BANG, slam itself into reverse. Then it would regain consciousness, piss water all over the floor and shut itself off. $360 for a new circuit board.

I could hear things in the roof at night, so I threw some poison baits up there. I swear they began playing with them. All night you’d hear the bait packet hit the ceiling, then tiny scurrying feet running after it, then THOOK the packet hitting somewhere else and the little feet running after it.

(artist's conception of me with trebuchet)

Once I made this clever little mouse trap that I was going to combine with a trebuchet I built…the idea being the little fella would enter the trap, receive some peanut butter and then be flung unceremoniously over the back fence. But early tests of the trebuchet drew rather unwanted attention from the neighbors after several golf balls overshot and pranged off the side of their house. So I had to dismantle it…I believe there is now a bylaw prohibiting siege engines in town limits.

This year I’ve been around and under the house, pulled out all the appliances and sealed up any holes. No pet food left out, doors kept closed and I thought I was ready. The missus woke me up at 3-o-clock the other morning. There was a sound coming from the kitchen that sounded like someone dragging a chain across a wheelbarrow. In the kitchen both cats are staring at the wall next to the sliding glass doors. On the other side of the glass both dogs are staring at their side of the wall. From inside the wall comes the sound. Whatever was in there was chewing on something which was touching the back side of the metal door frame causing the sound to reverberate loudly. I banged on the wall and it stopped. We, all six of us, stared at the wall until we were satisfied. One by one we drifted back to bed…the missus went first, I waited until the cats were sure, and the dogs waited for me. Of course once I’m back in bed it started again.

That’s it. There’s no dicking around this year. I got up, went back into the kitchen, grabbed a pair of sewing scissors from the jar of pens on the window sill, knelt, and drove the point through the gyprock at the base of the wall. I gave the scissors a twist to open up the hole and pulled them free. I hunted around and found a can of fly spray and blasted it through the hole in the gyprock. There were no further sounds that night.

This morning the missus said she thought she heard that sound in the kitchen again last night...

Fine. Just stay out of the damn washing machine.

"This sucks, I'm leaving", I declared.

That’s a shame. Some nice Canadian boys mixed up in all that terror business. Probably gave themselves away, having 3 tons of ammonium nitrate delivered to a Mississauga apartment building. I’ve been to Mississauga, if a bomb went off you wouldn’t know the difference. But what caught my attention was this quote from Mike McDonnell, assistant commissioner of the RCMP:

"They represent the broad strata of our community. Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed."

The cop defined the “broad strata of [the] community” by whether they had a job, or an excuse not to have a job. When I left Canada it was common for young men to greet each other by asking “are you working?”. My two stints in university were mainly because I could live better on a student loan than I could working. And because I had no clear focus, I now have a mish-mash of university credits which do not a degree make.

There was nothing for it but to run away to Australia to seek my fortune…

Here's An Idea...

Sex offender Richard Thompson of Nebraska doesn’t have to go to jail because he’s only 5’1” tall. Ironically the judge believed Thompson himself was at risk of sexual assault in the prison system. Thompson was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls, daughters of his fiancé, and could have received ten years in jail. Instead the judge, stating Thompson would probably not survive in jail due to his stature, gave the pedophile ten years probation and barred him from being near minors or dating women with minor children. What the hell's up with that?

Thompson avoided jail because he was not equally matched. So why doesn’t the US penal system start grouping prisoners by height and weight? Hell why not train them to fight too. Then they could have live gladiatorial games, hosted by a hologram of Kirk Douglas, where you at home can vote by SMS. “…press 3111 for Thumbs Up, or 3112 for Thumbs Down - VOTE NOW!”. And at 75 cents per vote, the system would pay for itself - with money left over to build even more prisons, making room for more celebrities, which would in turn increase ratings. It’s perfect.

We’ve got a great match for you tonight, Richard Thompson of Nebraska, a pedophile and unusually short man (booooo!) vs. Michelle Rodriguez of TV’s Lost (hooraaaaay!). Although equally matched in weight, Michelle towers over Richard and is reported to hate men with cheesy mustaches. Tonight we’re doing our Tribute To Star Trek and Michelle looks stunning as an alien warrior princess. For weaponry she’s chosen the Romulan Battle Blade, Klingon Impaling Rod and a set of garden sheers for close-in work.

Thompson will be playing the evil Captain Kirk and has been given six inches of wet yarn with which to defend himself. Ladies and gentlemen, this word just in…the President has turned off the No Castration sign…castration will be allowed in tonight’s match…and we’re ready to begin!

If I Had A Hammer Drill

Persuasion is better than force. I don’t mean that in a moral way, that persuasion is honorable while force is not. No, I’ve got nothing against force, but persuasion WORKS better. You force a change, then by definition there is resistance to that change. That means if you ever let off on the force, you’re fucked. This is costly, keeping force applied.

If you can persuade a change it is, again by definition, voluntary. This means it is self-perpetuating and requires hardly any maintenance. Want a dog to jump in the cold lake? Give him a reason, throw a stick.

My boss is incredibly manic and fussy, coming to you every five minutes –someone left an empty box on the floor, somebody didn’t coil up the air hose properly (clockwise is correct), somebody nailed his stool to the floor – never ends. This is because I’m now doing his job, and although that’s what he wants, he is afraid everyone is laughing behind his back, thinking him a redundant old fool, not to be listened to or worse, to be dissmised entirely...

(This is amazing… he just phoned me this minute at 7:03 on a Friday night, as I struggled over the above paragraph, to ask me if I’d told the young guy we didn’t need him on Saturday after all. No joke. Jeez it scares the shit out of me when he does that. I always think it must be something major to call me at home…)

I can’t force him to pull his head in, but I can keep him informed, look appropriately grave and keep everything clockwise. It does not matter whether he deserves his chair nailed to the floor, nor whether he actually has a point. I cannot force him, so if I want the result (off my back) I have to allow him to let go while saving face. A trapped animal is unpredictable and dangerous, but given a safe way out it begins to relax.

But then again, we shouldn’t rule out force entirely. There's something to be said for lobotomies, they used to be all the rage...why, you could call it an "industrial accident"...sure you could.

It Came From The End Of The Hall (in 3D)

The older one came out of her lair for a bowl of ice cream.

Bit cold for ice cream, I said.
Mmmm, not really.
I almost had a bowl yesterday, but then I didn’t.
Mmmm.
See you tomorrow, I said as she went back to headquarters.
Mmm-mmm

We don’t know what goes on in there, but the bed’s always made, folded laundry appears now and then, and she gets awards in school. We think she may be one of those new super humans the Scientists are always talking about. We're trying to stay on her good side just in case.