Thursday, March 29, 2007

Conflict levels off slightly

There have been a few set-backs in the water-rocket program. Bits keep flying off during pressure testing. One time the air fitting at the bottom shot out, bounced off three walls and just missed Daz’s head. I think I need to aim a little more left next time. Anyway I have come up with an even better design, one that should allow me to launch water-satellites into space, but will require another trip to the plumbing supply store. Meantime that’s not helping the doctor who, despite saying she is indeed undercover, is being held by the impostor baboon army at their headquarters in Wisconsin, which is a Chippewa word for cheese-eater.

So to plan B. We’ll have to go to Wisconsin to get the doctor and since Mrs Joe was needing the Camry, I have purchased this Fast Urban Combat Unit (FUC-U) from a retired gentleman up the coast. It still has that old man smell. There was a package of mints in the glove box.



The FUC-U is a 4x4 turbo diesel which I will need to cross the pacific ocean and later in Wisconsin where I hear the roads are paved with cows imbedded in cheese. There is a back seat for the doctor to rest up and a canopy on the back in case the doctor has luggage or a small dog. The radio has separate Tone and Volume controls feeding into the original 2” dashboard speakers. There is an old man sun visor on the windshield in case we find ourselves in the arctic circle travelling south at midnight on the summer solstice. Just look at that fucker, it’s like driving in a cave. There is also an oil leak which may be from the water pump. This should act as a deterent should any of the impostor army try to follow as Wisconsinites are against most forms of lubrication.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Conflict escalates:

Work on the water rocket continues. The world record height for a water rocket is several thousand feet. I anticipate mine will actually be capable of inter-continental flight due to my innovative nozzle design and because I painted speed stripes on it. And because mom always said I was very clever, so I didn’t need friends.

The rocket has a hollow nose-cone which I plan to pack with propaganda leaflets to be released in an air-burst over Wisconsin, home of the impostor baboon army which may have, probably, kidnapped the Doctor.


YOU! IMPOSTER BABOON COMMANDER! YOU CANNOT WIN. RELEASE THE DOCTOR. WISCONSIN SUCKS, ALTHOUGH I ADMIT I HAVE NO PROOF OF THIS.



PS. DO YOU KNOW ANY GOOD WAYS TO GET BABOON PISS OUT OF CARPET?

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Baboon Conflict Looms:

Acid and base, matter and anti-matter, beer and ice-cream. Some things have natural opposites and I have discovered my anti-blog, my arch-blog, dwelling in that suburban cyber-mall that is MySpace. White background, spiritual world music, inspirational poems and cute cartoons…and something called The Baboon Liberation Army . It’s not even mutant! As a matter of fact this site is against mutating all together. I mean really, what’s the point if you can’t mutate them?

I must step up my work. Build numbers, implant GPS units, teach them weapons, tactics and how to ‘blend in’. Then send them to infiltrate this den of do-gooders, this pit of empathy, this freaking beacon of hope in a hopelessly ironic and farcical universe. They must not be allowed to spread their filthy cheer and goodwill any further.

Wait! What if they are already here? That would explain that lurker from Wisconsin. Holy crapola, what if they’ve got the Doctor? She hasn’t checked in and her blog is unattended. Those scoundrels! They could be filling her head with deadly optimism right now!

Ahhh! But the Doc was crafty. She’s probably double-agenting their pastel-hued asses. That’s it Dr, lure them ever closer with your deadly medicine and amusing anecdotes…

I expect any comunication from her will be in some sort of Dr code, so we'll probably never know, but if I do hear anything I'll let you know.

More good news from the people who brought you Science

This is a small radio market. Middle of the road market, pop crap mostly, and recent graduates of broadcast school. We have a girl who sounds about 12, with the voice of a pre-pubescent chipmunk, and PUUUts EXXXXtra EMMMMphasis at the STAAAAARt of EEEEEAch WORRRRRd, like she’s taking a shit.

She told me the other morning, in what is sometimes like a newscast, that The Scientists have discovered a shit-load of water on Mars. Polar caps much bigger than they suspected, enough water to cover the surface 11 metres deep if melted.

A thirty-odd foot deep ocean. Well what fucking good is that? The ‘lawyers-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea’ joke wouldn’t work anymore for one thing. They could just swim up. And if you weighed them down you could probably still see them there, waving on the bottom like kelp, which would be a bit a of a downer. Might as well chuck em in a swimming pool. See? It just loses all appeal.

Probably Martian Space Lawyers would have the ability to breath under water too.


Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Child wriggles out of situation, technology blamed.

P4 asks why the letter “a” looks ‘all weird’. I suspect she has managed to change the language setting to Cherokee or something but no, she is in trusty old Ariel 12 point English and looking at a perfectly reasonable lower case “a”.

I ask her what makes this letter “a” weird, exactly. She is puzzled by the question. I re-phrase “By weird I assume you mean different, what is different about it?". The answer is squeezed out after a mighty screwing up of the face “it’s not how I make them.” There was a small hrumph for emphasis.

“This is what we mean when we say you have bad handwriting.”

“I don’t.”

“Sorry, you do. You saw a pathologist about it. She told you to practice drawing circles and things. But you did not do that, hence your handwriting, although improved, is still pretty bad.”

Dejected “Oh.” Then, brightening, “When I do it on the computer it’s neat. And I don’t need to spell, it fixes it for you.”

yeah.

Monday, March 19, 2007

How could you not?

If a woman gives me a full frontal hug, whether from love or sympathy, I cannot help but notice that there are breasts being pushed against me. This does not apply to relatives, thank christ. My old boss, whom I disliked with great zeal, gave me a hug at a staff party and the thoughts “get away from me” and “breasts are touching me” collided in my head so violently that all I could do was pat her stiffly on the back and stand up straight so she had to let go. This should be done slowly though, for if the hugger has interlocked their fingers behind your neck and you straighten too quickly, you may find them dangling from you, legs kicking, finger joints popping.

I always wondered if women, who hug each other with abandon, ever think the same thing. I know if I had breasts and those breasts pushed up against other breasts…well I’d sure notice something like that. Every single time.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Real News

For Canadians one of the few benefits of bordering the US, besides access to cheap government cheese and alcohol at 7am, is Public Television, home of Sesame Street, Front Line, and that freaky Bob Ross the painter guy – like Richard Simons on muscle-relaxants and vodka. They have something similar here called SBS which I am watching at the moment. SBS 2 actually, which shows nothing but foreign newscasts – Arabic, French, Polish, Malaysian and, right now, the US.

Holy crap what’s happened over at PBS? The McNeil/Lehrer News Hour is just the Jim Lehrer News Hour, and he’s turned into a black woman. And on top of that, here I am approximately 26,000 miles away, depending on your route, and they still have the gall to go to a pledge break. SBS sensibly did not go to a pledge break and the black woman, who seemed a little thrown by this, finally said “uh…for those affiliates…uh…not going to a pledge break…uh…the News Hour…uh….continues.” And it did. Those pledge-breakers are missing out. That’s when they put the real news on.

Well that’s done. Australian world news now. Oh look, Zimbabwe is having a cease-fire. Good for them! Oh, seems machetes aren’t covered, there is no cease-hacking. Oh well, at least they're trying.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Vancouver Island


Alright you bastards, here’s another post. I am simultaneously angry and nostalgic today so there’s no telling what will come out. I’m watching a documentary on the cougars of Vancouver Island, where I am told I was born. All the evidence points that way, earliest memories etc, so I’m going to go with it. Says there on Vancouver Island they have more cougar attacks than anywhere else. Cougars are also called Pumas or Mountain Lions in other places. But the proper word is cougar. You say mountain lion in Canada and somebody will slap you. Well, I’d slap you.

At the same time I am re-boxing the wireless router I bought on Saturday, which works as well at transmitting and receiving data as many other wireless things I own like ashtrays and socks but, unlike those things, has no other use like extinguishing cigarettes or clothing one’s feet. I suppose you could put out a cigarette on the router if you had to but it’s plastic so, you know, that shit’s bad for you.

Well the cougar show is over and nobody even got killed in all these “attacks”. More of a swatting than an attack. No ruptured jugulars or crushed windpipes, which is the cat way. Not like a bear which will start gnawing on you any old place (little secret, all that “play dead” stuff is for the tourists, if a bear is chewing on you my advice is to run away) . One little girl would have copped one, but she was wearing a life jacket which conveniently protected her neck. Also cougars are afraid of the colour orange, nobody knows why so don’t question it.


But I did see my childhood home on the show, in the background of one shot. It looked smaller than I remember and needed a coat of paint. One of the shutters was crooked and for a moment I thought….Nah, I didn’t see my fucking house, you tool. Fuck you’re gullible.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Sucky Post Destroys Mankind

That last one was about the dumbest thing ever written. Fucking drivel. I’d delete it but I don’t want it to live on as a martyr. The future people would wonder “ohhh, what was in the missing post? What could it be?”. Cults would form and fight for dominance in the minds of the people “Join the true Missing Postists and get free phone credits!”. Eventually they would destroy themselves. Leaving a planet run not by apes, but by escaped mutant baboons, and unusually tall ones at that. They would dress as men and hold violent exhibitions…



Eventually the baboons would realize they needn’t fight and would settle down in peace, smoking pot and urinating on things, becoming sedentary. And that’s when the ants would wipe them out.

So anyway, I won’t delete that last post…but it still sucked.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

I never met a Mongolian tax accountant I didn't like

Excellent news! One of the designers in our branch office and I get along pretty well, she was hired only a couple months before me and was new to the industry so we share info and help each other out where we can. I can show her ways to cut cost in her designs (bigger commission for her) and she returns the favour by having all that shit worked out for me ahead of time, making my life a lot simpler. She’s pretty cool and I like her, and I don’t like many people, or more accurately couldn’t give a shit one way or the other about most.

TURNS OUT SHE IS MARRIED TO THE MANAGER OF THE STORE WHERE I BOUGHT MY DISHWASHER.

Now most yobbos would have already marched down to the shop and demanded their money back, raised a big stink and probably eventually got their way. And I admit after the third breakage I was getting close to doing so, but once again patience and considered action has delivered the answer. This is so much better. This way I get my dishwasher fixed, strengthen my work relationship and can probably get a good price on a plasma screen when I’m ready to buy one. Going around demanding things may get you justice and a hollow sense of rightness in the world, maybe, but it sure as shit won’t get you a plasma screen TV for wholesale.

In other news P4 spent ten minutes explaining why she preferred the book version of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe over the movie version - in clear, well thought-out statements, strung together in a coherent line. Glory be, there’s a light in there!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Well, I guess we just can't have nice things

Nothing at all funny has happened this week. Here it is Wednesday and still nothing worth writing about has presented itself. The knob broke off the new-ish dishwasher again, I could write about that…some scathing sarcastic thing about stupid design…but actually it’s just disappointing. They’ve already been out twice to fix it and I knew it would just break again but the guy said “we sell lots of these and nobody else has this problem”, now he’ll think we did it on purpose just to prove him wrong.

It’s just a stupid plastic knob, you turn it to set the dial to whatever cycle you want, then pull it out to turn it on. I bought that type, instead of digital push-buttons, SPECIFICALLY for it’s simple design - the circuit board on the last one went once and it cost $300 to fix and they had to send away for a German fella to come replace it.

The plastic knob has a brass, threaded, insert set into the stem and just winds onto the shaft. Works great as long as you don’t try to use it to turn the dial. Go counter clockwise and it just unscrews itself right back off. Turn it the other way and it winds up tight until it just twists the brass piece right off the plastic part. But hey, at least it’s easy to replace. Maybe I’ll just buy a whole big box of them.

Or maybe tomorrow I’ll go down to the shop and have the guy try and make his display model work. And when it twists off in his hand I shall tell him we are home most days after 4pm and he may come then to take the fucking thing away and install a new, different model at no charge to myself.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Stupid Music Quiz #4

Winner of last week’s quiz was Amanda.


1) Due to copyright laws this band appeared one time only as The Knobs. Led Zepplin

2) Les Paul, often called the Grandfather of the electric guitar, is real-life grandad to this Joker. Steve Miller - Exxy

3) This band takes it’s name from a steam-powered sex toy which featured in William S. Boroughs’ novel Naked Lunch. Steely Dan - Amanda

4) One of Buddy Holly’s original Crickets, this country legend went on to narrate the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard for which he wrote and performed the theme song. Waylon Jennings

5) There is a statue in the town of “Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shore” honouring this song. Smoke On The Water - Amanda

6) In 1976 London City councillor Bernard Brook Partridge declared that this band “…would be vastly improved by sudden death . . .” He was referring to? The Sex Pistols - Citizen 146

7) She was known as Christine Perfect before she married bassist Mac. Christine McVie

8) Former backing musicians for Linda Ronstadt, this band imploded after its members got into a brawl following their 1980 concert in Long Beach, Ca. They reunited in 1994. The Eagles

9) The title of the film Risky Business comes from the lyrics to what Talking Heads song (which also appears on the soundtrack)? This question is no longer in play. After further checking I find there are 11 songs on the Risky Business soundtrack, NONE by Talking Heads. My appologies and a curse upon Wikapedia and the stupid fan site which both said it was Swamp.

10) In 1985 the parents of 20 year old James Vance claimed their son committed suicide after listening to “subliminal” messages supposedly contained in songs by this band…? Judas Priest

It's Rocket Science


Early Steam Rocket. Production was discontinued after it was discovered there is no coal on the moon.

I have a small but esteemed readership of an eclectic nature including, but not limited to, Weasels in the forests of Maine, Ghetto Fighters in LA, Irish Mad Scientists in Toronto, Las Vegas Megalomaniacs Looking For Love. Ok that’s step one, COMPLIMENT, then it says here…oh yeah…step two GET TO THE POINT…perhaps one of them could help me with the following.

It is a physics problem…where are you going? Come back! I’ll post the music quiz later today…I’ll let you win!

Obviously rockets are traditionally long and pointy-like, but they use rapidly expanding gasses from burning fuel. A water rocket works from air pressure (like a compressed spring) in the top of the rocket, forcing out water (which does not compress) in the bottom of the rocket. The force of the water leaving pushes the rocket in the opposite direction.

I need water under pressure to escape a vessel with maximum velocity. A narrow opening will increase velocity of course, and a long narrow opening will allow the water to reach maximum speed before escaping. All good there.

Q: Does it make a difference what shape the reservoir (rocket body) is? A fat, dumpy tank so we have a big surface area pushing on the water? Long and narrow so we have possibly more sustained pressure? Tapered for ease of flow? Or does it not make a difference?

Don’t worry about aerodynamics for now, just pressure, flow and velocity. I’ll post video if we can get it going. The benchmark is: It has to fly further than I could throw it. Thanks.

SJ

Music quiz later today.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Pets On Notice

We’ve had a lot of rain lately which, combined with temperatures in the 30’s, has made my garden go into mass-bloom. It has also done wonders for the mouse population (“hey it’s raining, let’s fuck”) and though I hadn’t seen any yet, the neighbours were reporting problems. Then my dishwasher quit, the cord was chewed where it runs under the cabinets. Bastards, that dishwasher was 4 months old. But there were no droppings and I still hadn’t seen any other signs so I plugged the hole where the hoses pass through at the back, spread some good old poison under the house and put the dog food away.

Tonight Mrs. Joe let out a yell as a “rat the size of a kitten” ran across her foot and under the dishwasher. Our real kitten happened to be sitting there and I tried to mentally fit it under the dishwasher and I discovered on crouching down there is indeed a kitten sized gap under the door which I take to be for ventilation.

“Ok, was it really kitten-size ‘cause I sort of need to know?”

“It was HUGE!”

“Because rats are sort of dangerous, they bite and have plague and those freaky tails and the same eyes as crows, whereas mice can simply be stepped upon.”

But “huge-ish” was all she would concede so I grabbed a broom and started pulling out the dishwasher. A small rat, about six inches including tail, did indeed run out, over my foot and under the fridge. This was his undoing.

The fridge is on wheels and is easy to pull out and as the real kitten was watching all this with only mild interest, I called in Jack and Jessie. They freak out simply for being allowed to come inside and once they got a whiff under the fridge I had their full attention.

Out came the fridge, out came the rat, Jack lunged, Jessie remained oblivious, Jack got hold, there was a SQUEAK, the kitten fled…and Jack, the stiff-legged, fat, old, grumpy, marvellous bastard, lost his footing on the hard floor and lost it. Jessie did a little spinning dance.

The rat pretended to run out the sliding door but I wasn’t fooled, I knew he was behind the water cooler. I got the dogs re-grouped but as we were now near the door they figured they were supposed to go out so they did… and refused to come back in (“not while you’re swinging that broom, buddy”).

I pulled the water cooler away and there he was clinging to the back like Tom Cruise. I smashed him on the head with the edge of the broom and he hit the floor and took off toward the door, slid to a stop when he saw the slavering dogs in the doorway, turned back, got broom-whacked again, plucked up his ratty-courage and rushed the dogs. Jessie never saw it but Jack got it on the way out, SQUEAK!, and he dropped it again. Then it disappeared. It landed on bare concrete and disappeared. It was six feet from anything, and then it was gone.

I went back in and it turned out the kitten had gone to summon Stumpy and the pair of them were now discussing the situation over by the dishwasher. Stumpy, in a bid to save face, meowed that there may be a mouse back there, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone and looked away sheepishly (for a cat).

These pets better get their shit together or there will be no more bones from the butcher or tuna-juice from the can. Dry food and water until I see some dead mice. Check your contracts.

Friday, March 02, 2007

I (should have) Did It My Way



Been down to Sydney, to Mossman actually which is one of those area’s where average run-of-the-mill tiny little lots sell for 1.1 million…for that you get an average house and a spectacular view across the harbour to the city. You can’t quite see the opera house from there though, that costs more like ten million.

W e went to tour yet another factory and it has become clear my boss is going to keep this up until SOMEBODY says they do things the way he’s convinced we should….because so far everybody has been saying what I’ve been saying, but what do I know. They didn’t listen to me at my last place either and I respected that, it is their business after all, but since I didn’t want to be a puppet manager of a crashing business, I quit. They went under four months later.

There’s nothing worse* than doing it somebody else’s way and then getting blamed when it doesn’t work. I like to be 100% responsible for my fuck-ups.

When you take bad advice, it’s still YOUR name on the job, YOU chose to take the advice and if it goes wrong what can you do? Either take the heat yet not be able to explain the thinking behind it (because it wasn’t yours) or throw the blame back on the other guy thus making both of you look stupid and further giving you a reputation for shirking responsibility.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t take good advice (and give credit where due), but if in doubt, do it your way every time.

That’s how you get a view of the Opera House.

*there are probaly several things worse, it's a figure of speech you ultra-literally minded Aussies. This is why you don't listen, too caught up in the minutia.