Life is a raindrop
Sizzling as it skitters
Across the universal griddle.
---o0o---
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Monday, June 06, 2005
18,906 Days On Turtle Island:::::::::I Like It Here!!!
I have now lived 18,906 days; on September 5, 2005, I hit 19,000 days.
Things have changed. And nothing has changed. Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush have held the office of POTUS ('though George W. Bush is in the midst of passing through the White House alimentary canal).
The year I was born, Eddie Fisher, Tony Bennet, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Perry Como, Patty Page, and Stan Freberg were on the top of the Hit Parade. From Here To Eternity won the Oscar for Best Picture. Dragnet, The Roy Rogers Show, I Love Lucy and The Milton Berle Show were on television.
Some cool new toys were introduced that year, and they're all still with us: Mr. Potato Head, Pez, plastic army men, Silly Putty, and Legos.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was published (great book BTW), The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (who died earlier this year) came out, as did Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin, and Secret of The Andes by Ann Nolan Clark.
Bread was fifteen cents a loaf; milk was $0.94 a gallon; a new car cost about $1,800; you could buy a house for under ten thousand; eggs were $0.75 a dozen; gasoline was $0.29 a gallon; and a stamp cost you three cents. These prices sound pretty good, but the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour, and $4,700 a year was a median salary.
World War II had only been over eight years when I was born. It was a contemporary event when I was a kid! One of my friend's Dads was with Patton's 3rd Army (or was it the 5th?) as they raced through Berlin toward Hitler's Bunker. Our dads were all Over There, in Europe, Africa or The Pacific, and our mothers worked in factories (Betty Brummet riveted bombers at Boeing), or joined the service (Betty also enlisted in the Marines).
In 1953, The Depression still cast a long shadow. Our parents lived through it as children.
I am glad to Be Here Now. Of the things gone and things still here, I vote for things here. Now. Where All This Is That.
---o0o---
Things have changed. And nothing has changed. Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush have held the office of POTUS ('though George W. Bush is in the midst of passing through the White House alimentary canal).
The year I was born, Eddie Fisher, Tony Bennet, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Perry Como, Patty Page, and Stan Freberg were on the top of the Hit Parade. From Here To Eternity won the Oscar for Best Picture. Dragnet, The Roy Rogers Show, I Love Lucy and The Milton Berle Show were on television.
Some cool new toys were introduced that year, and they're all still with us: Mr. Potato Head, Pez, plastic army men, Silly Putty, and Legos.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was published (great book BTW), The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (who died earlier this year) came out, as did Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin, and Secret of The Andes by Ann Nolan Clark.
Bread was fifteen cents a loaf; milk was $0.94 a gallon; a new car cost about $1,800; you could buy a house for under ten thousand; eggs were $0.75 a dozen; gasoline was $0.29 a gallon; and a stamp cost you three cents. These prices sound pretty good, but the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour, and $4,700 a year was a median salary.
World War II had only been over eight years when I was born. It was a contemporary event when I was a kid! One of my friend's Dads was with Patton's 3rd Army (or was it the 5th?) as they raced through Berlin toward Hitler's Bunker. Our dads were all Over There, in Europe, Africa or The Pacific, and our mothers worked in factories (Betty Brummet riveted bombers at Boeing), or joined the service (Betty also enlisted in the Marines).
In 1953, The Depression still cast a long shadow. Our parents lived through it as children.
I am glad to Be Here Now. Of the things gone and things still here, I vote for things here. Now. Where All This Is That.
---o0o---
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Painting: The 28 Men Who Run The World
click to enlarge
The basis of this painting is a drawing I did last week, of 28 faces. I digitized the drawing, touched it up in Paintshop Pro 9.01, and used Harry's Photoshop Filter 3.0 to color it. I corrected the gamma, resized it, and added one of my favorite digital frames--a Mission style frame with inlays. /jack
---o0o---
Boohoo! The New York Yankees: Overpaid, Underperforming Primadonnas Get Aired Out By George "Pardon Me" Steinbrenner
Now that A-Rod has consulted several therapists and taken enough jitter meds and electroshock, he is playing ball again, after a long draught. However, it's too little, too late:::::::::: Mt. Steinbrenner has erupted.
It's fun to watch when this happens (it was especially fun in the Billy Martin years). Joe Torre is wetting his pants and Brian Cashman walks around in a Xanax haze, mumbling to himself. They've thrown millions at the problem and they're getting drubbed by teams with minuscule payrolls. There is nothing more satisfying than watching The Bronx Bombers collapse--watching Steinbrenner go medieval is the icing on the cake! /jack
By JON KRAWCZYNSKI, AP Sports Writer Sat Jun 4, 4:11 PM ET
MINNEAPOLIS - George Steinbrenner feels his Yankees are letting down New York and hinted changes could be coming unless the team starts winning.
The Yankees owner confirmed his discussion with manager Joe Torre and general manager Brian Cashman and said Saturday it was up to the two of them to solve the problem, ominously adding a "right now" to the end of his remarks.
---o0o---
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Friday, June 03, 2005
North Korea: President Bush Said The Magic Word ("Mister"). Could Peace Be At Hand? If We Really Start Shoveling It On Thick, Will They Disarm?
click to enlarge
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea gave rare praise to President Bush on Friday, welcoming his use of the honorific ``Mr.'' when referring to leader Kim Jong Il and saying the softened tone could lead to its return to nuclear arms talks.
Read the article by clicking on the title of this blog entry. The marionette rendition of Mister Kim Jong Il is from the recent film Team America by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
---o0o---
A Fractal
click to enlarge
I created this fractal with Fractint 18.2, an integer-based fractal generation program created, like much great freeware is, by a loose collective of people.
In the early 1990s, it would take many many hours to create a fractal.
I worked at hDC in 1991, where we created a fractal generator that was included with our software, as a toy, more or less. Fractals are fascinating...if you want to create your own, click on the title of this article, which will take you a site where you can download Fractint 20.0.
---o0o---
The Safe Palette For The World Wide Web
click image to enlarge the 216 color safe palette
There was a time when you could only use these colors on a web site--to ensure colors wouldn't dither (where a color is created by mixing dots, crosshatches, etc., of more than one color to create the illusion of another color). In 1996, most computers had 8-bit video cards (e.g, capable of displaying 256 colors).
The Browser-Safe Palette actually uses 216 colors (see swatches above) of the possible 256. The other 40 colors vary on Macs and PCs; not using those colors allows this palette to work cross-platform.
The woman who first identified the safe palette said:
"The browser-safe palette was developed by programmers with no design sense, I assure you. That's because a designer would have never picked these colors. Mostly, the palette contains far less light and dark colors than I wish it did, and is heavy on highly saturated colors and low on muted, tinted or toned colors. "
---o0o---
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Gee Whiz! 2
Click image to enlarge. A road crew in Washington
state collected these jugs of urine. In one year, a
single, small county in the state collected 2,666
jugs.
MSNBC SEATTLE — Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs. Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look.
"As soon as you look for it you’ll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington state's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It’s just gross."
They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full of urine tossed by truckers. . .
Click the title to link to the story on MSNBC.
---o0o---
Has The Prophet Yahweh Fallen On Hard Times? And Was It My Brother-In-Law's Posting Here That Caused It?
I saw the impressive video from a television station (it looked more or less plausible..it may have been a reakl TV station, or it could have been cooked up). A reporter, camera man, and The Prophet see freaky objects in the sky. I don't know if The Prophet Yahweh Seer of Yahweh was able to successfully summon the UFOs in Las Vegas tonight. He will be calling the spaceships until July 15. It looks like his pay video site didn't work. He mailed his press list and subscribers:
Dear Lists,
It's late now (9 PM) and starting tomorrow I will be contacting you about issuing you your refunds.
There were not a lot of people who signed up.
And the little $7.95 did not pay for the debt I incurred from people throughout the earth running up my streaming bill in my name and other bills related to the operation.
I have not spent one penny of the small amount of money I received from you.
I have let it sit up in my Pay Pal account.
I will start contacting you about your refund tommorrow.
No one who paid the $7.95 has to worry about if they will get their money back.
Because, I represent YAHWEH, and my honor and my words are all I have. And, I will not let it fail over a few $7.95 payments.
Sincerely,
Prophet YahwehSeer of Yahweh
----o0o---
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
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