The World Continues to Turn

I'm sure quite a lot of folks are in shock this morning. I was surprised when I heard about our new president. Surprised, but not unexpected. I wanted to share some things today.
If you are looking for perspectives that are more direct, insightful and outside MSM, these may serve you well.

Don't Panic - First, understand that the opposite of panic is not blithe acceptance of the situation -- it's clear-minded, positive, day-to-day action. Panic makes you do stupid shit or, even worse, curl up into a ball and do nothing. Don't tell me you have reason to panic. You never have reason to panic. You have reason to act.

Why it happened. Chris Hedges has insights in this post and this one:

The rise of Donald Trump is the product of the disenchantment, despair and anger caused by neoliberalism and the collapse of institutions that once offered a counterweight to the powerful. Trump gives vent to the legitimate rage and betrayal of the white underclass and working poor. (my emphasis)

John Michael Greer does well in capturing the rural vs city dynamic here.

As does Cracked: How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind.

And I think Bob Cringley is spot on with his piece and quote from Harry S. Truman:

When contemplating General Eisenhower winning the Presidential election in 1952, retiring President Harry Truman said, “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen.”

Personally, I am not a fan of globalism, and believe we need to focus more on local communities  to source our Food, Energy and Water, healthcare, goods and education. Perhaps this will be an opportunity to dive deeper into that.

And, if you are tweaked about the outcome, I have to ask: What did you do to participate in the political system and campaign and governing of our county and your local community, beyond voting?

I voted my conscience. I voted for the kind of country I want to live in.

I DO!

July 9, 2016

A splendid time was had by all.
100+ people in our house - which I never would have thought possible - and it worked. The house never ceases to amaze me.
A most wonderful experience!

If you are interested there is a short video.

House, Musical Interludes, George had CRS, Brian is (still) a Doofus

As some of you know, and was mentioned here recently, I've bought a house - with my Wife2B Donna.  

Say "Hi", Donna:

Nice.

It suits us perfectly, so perfectly, in fact, that it almost makes me believe in the whole It Was Meant To Be thing. Almost. (Too many assumptions underneath that for me to buy into it.) But this house could make me a true believer. It hit every single item on both our check lists. We looked for over a year. Zip. Nada. When you take out Pools, Power Lines, HOA and Mello-Roos (basically paying additional "taxes" to put neighbors' children through school) there's not much left.

Then we found this and fell in love with it. It's so perfect it's f-----g spooky.

Not that spooky! 

Ha! Just kidding, that's not it.

Although, it kinda looked like that over the 2 years 

they were tearing it down...

Many of you have asked for pics. Here are some of the  realtor's pics. He had a good photographer. I'll post more from the wedding.

No, that's not our furniture.

Very Cali, very modern, very open, very much Our Home. Finally. 

It better be - I've moved every 2 years for the last 30. I'm never moving again. I'll donate it all or set it on fire first.

Too obscure?

Wedding will be held at the house and while we were excited to host 60, the count has grown to 90 100 and we're a bit concerned where ppl will sit. So, while we welcome all our friends and relatives and look forward to a fun time celebrating a wonderful, magical, very special moment that I've waited all my lifetime for

Brief Musical Interlude (excuse the cheesy anime)

there are times I dread the walk to the mailbox to check for new RSVPs.

But, all jokes aside, like most everything else, it will be all too fleeting. And all of it - the intent, wish, dream, physical manifestation, levels it plays on, all playing their parts and their contribution, all is part of the beauty of the moment. 

Not that it's all sunshine all the time. At dinner the other night D and I were both somewhat cranky, but were lucky to make a joke about it: I laughingly said: "Our spheres of grumpiness cancel each other out and there's an area of sunshine right between us." Which brought a smile to all involved.

While looking for music recently for the blog this came to mind: Apple Scruffs.

George was my favorite Beatle, for sure. And this song always brings a tear and melts my heart with his compassion. It's a song he wrote for the hard-core Beatle fans - NOT groupies! they will be very clear to tell you - who used to sit by the entrance to the studio to catch a glimpse of the boys. While they were somewhat derided by the others,  George saw it differently. He held them in respect, and saw the part they played in the whole reality - sharing the magic of the time  as it was then - even to inviting them into the studio early one morning and playing it for them. As well as being his acknowledgment of Bob Dylan.

Here's his last interview and performance:

Bliss is wonderful, George, yes. 

and after 18+ hours of it the nervous system starts to burn out.

One of my favorite moments comes around 29:00 when he's trying to think of a song to play. "The only person who doesn't know his own songs." And All Things Must Pass was the last song he ever performed.

Here's a link to some truly wonderful photos. At first it was like, ya, ok, whatever but after a while the magic took hold. Enjoy. The ducks on the lake was one of my favs.

As I mentioned recently, we went to see Brian Wilson and his band perform his Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary tour.

The show was ok - vocally he and Al Jardine - the only other original member with him - don't have the vocal chops anymore. But they're in  their 70s - so fine. What was surprising and pleasing was that Al's son who tours with them can do the Beach Boys sound quite well. Brian used this to his advantage on some duets. It was still fun to see the icon perform and there is still presence and heart there. His experimental work on the 2 instrumental numbers shows he's still trying new things.  And of course he played all the favs, including "the best song ever written", according to Paul McCartney, at the time, as quoted in the 2014 movie about Brian, Love&Mercy (quite good and highly recommended).

Well-deserved standing O for God Only Knows

Was quite the doofus on stage. It was child-like and cute.

To be honest, while there are certain of his songs I like - a lot, I remain more a Beatles Fan. 

Was impressed by this recently:

Make a GREAT tattoo

All for now - lots of work still to do - wedding in a week, new seedlings to start, wedding video to finish and a new Smoker to try out on with ribs.

Take care and have a great week.

Ask for May, Settle for July, Gardens, Duplicating Shrek, Who's a Terrorist?

It's getting to be that time...a bit less than 2 weeks.

Very excited and looking forward to a fabulous day.

In the last couple weeks this has gotten real to D and all of a sudden she's a flurry of activity. This week we nailed down the canopy and DJ - so I think we are done. Except where everyone will sit. We anticipated 60 RSVPs. Last count was 90.  Oh My. Donna's friend of many decades Charles will officiate. He came down recently to meet with us and chat things over - and he asked if we are writing our own vows. No, done that, I want the traditional ones. And add Cherish and Adore. Women like and - in almost all cases - deserve to be adored. 

Donna enjoyed her shower. The groom and groomsmen are planning a little shooting party before the rehearsal dinner. Nothing like a little manly bonding!

Why does her ring cost 10x mine?

My garden did well - considering I did nothing more than throw some good dirt into smart pots, and let them grow. Need to be better about trimming the plants - the tomatoes went completely nuts.
Next grow is more restrained and better planned with succession planning a priority, as well as gathering fresh seed.
Good read on growing your own food.

How long would it take you waking up in a computer simulation, before you forgot you were in a simulation? Answer that and you're more than 1/2 way to understanding enlightenment and consciousness.


The San Diego Fair is in town and D and I went early.
Theme was Alice in Wonderland - which was cool. Lots of dress-up. My body art fit right in.

 We just went for a short time and found some fun chotckes, including  a veggie peeler that can peel tomatoes and pineapple and butternut squash.

I also got tickets to go see Brian Wilson, live, performing his Pet Sounds album. Seems like quite the opportunity.

Who's this Paul Mclartney you speak of?

Hey Brian, are those your backup singers?

Trying to find enough creativity to do a credible job of editing the Hawaiian wedding I filmed. Little things like the Pleasantville effect sounded good - lots of work, and the pink dresses don't do well with the pink hotel, but still. Also different ideas for the reception and dancing - a big splash of movement and color...for 2 hours. Cutting that into something people want to watch, that doesn't suck, isn't it easy.

Which reminds me: I happened on this display of Dreamworks animated Characters.

What the shit? 
What do you notice? Every f***ing face has the same snarky expression. It actually has a name.
Now I love Shrek, And the Penguins. But this shit is sheer laziness.
And it doesn't stop there. Here's a great post about all the shit in movies that is exactly the same, from ageless actors to characters and plots. A good post.

I recently decided to switch my iPad to an Android tablet. After going through several lower end models, I settled on a Samsung tablet and I'm very happy. Also replaced the macbook pro + apple tv with an android tv box to watch kodi: stream movies, music and surf for free. Great choice. 
While I do think the Mac experience was noticeably superior to the Android one for years, I think Android has caught up - at least.
And since  Johnny Ive' s phone, ipad and computer were basically forced on us, my interest has waned.  I *liked* the little throbbing buttons and 3d looking icons. sigh. Oh well. And, as cliche as it sounds, I handed in my Apple Fanboi card when Steve died. 

Have you heard about Kodi?
Kodi is a free peer to peer sharing service. Kodi provides the user interface and regular folks post links to hosted movies and such like TV, live sports and music. It gets live tv and sports feeds from satellites.

I use “wookie” that sets up all the channels and such.

https://seo-michael.co.uk/tutorial-how-to-install-the-wookie-wizard-for-kodi/

All free and runs on most everything and easy to setup. To get server feeds with less contention, I use Real-Debrid. I pay 16 Euros for 6 months and it makes streaming easier and faster.

Speaking of computer companies sliding, I recently tried to order a new laptop for work. The company we have to use, which starts with "L" and rhymes with "enovo" did a truly piss-poor job of communication. The Global Account mgr was so mortally embarrassed - since this is not the first time this has happened - it's chronic - she gave me a "Permanent Evaluation Unit for Life."  At first from our conversation i thought she was going to let me go shopping in the online catalog for my choice - I had a nice laptop all picked out. 

$4,000 and might not have to buy another laptop for a while.

Well, no, it wasn't that, but I still did ok and it was very nice of her to do. Not the first time I am sure. 
If it had been that laptop above, I might have considered replacing my MBP. My only complaint with the MBP is max 16GB RAM. I run a lot of VMs and 16GB is simply not enough. All other major vendors have 32GB laptops - but not Apple! And I couldn't upgrade it anyway, b/c all the components are attached to the chassis! Which brings us back to my desire to leave the apple eco-$ystem, above. I gave up my iPad. But for now I'm sticking with my iPhone. We'll see.

One interesting find is the ability to buy direct from Chinese wholesalers. One can get a state of the art android phone, competitive with Samsung, for like 1/3 the price. And you can easily use it on US phone systems using their BYOD plans.


Today's news about the massive shooting in the club in Orlando led me to this. Noam Chomsky discusses what is terrorism and who the #1 Terrorist nation is by almost any definition.

On the global war on terror:

Yeah, Reagan started it. It’s pretty interesting. I mean terror became a big issue when the Reagan Administration came in. They immediately announced [their plans] and kind of disparaged Carter’s alleged human rights programs. The main issue is state-directed international terrorism. Right at that time that big industry developed. That’s when you start getting the academic departments on terrorism. You get UN conferences trying to define terrorism. Journals, you know, big explosion of interest in terrorism. I started writing about it more at that time as did Ed Herman. But we actually had been writing about it before and we picked up after that.
But the stuff that we write can’t enter the canon for a very simple reason. We use the official definitions of terrorism. The definitions in the U.S. code, in British law, in U.S. Army manuals and so on. And if you use those definitions it follows instantly that the United States is the leading terrorist state in the world. So since you can’t have that conclusion you have to do something else. And if you look at all this academic work in the conferences and so on there’s a constant theme that terrorism is extremely hard to define and we therefore have to have a deep thinking about it. And the reason it’s hard to define is quite simple. It’s hard to find a definition that includes what they do to us but excludes what we do to them. That’s quite difficult. So it takes a global war on terrorism.
The worst terrorist crimes going on right now are the drone campaigns. But you can’t include that obviously. So you have to try to define it. I mean if Iran was carrying out an assassination campaign killing anyone around the world who Iran thought might harm them someday we’d go crazy. But that’s the drone campaign.

If you are looking for something to send me as a present for the wedding or birthday or Christmas, it's hard to go wrong with this:

The 40 lb case, obviously!

I am JUST KIDDING!

All for now - off for dance lessons so I don't do the middle school two-step-shuffle at the wedding and D and I look elegantly fabulous in our first dance. To this song, I hope.

Perfect, not Flawless; Buy the ticket, take the ride, but not in an airplane - or helicopter; Reduced IQ?

Well, a tip of the blogger hat to Bob L. who correctly predicted that once I was off the road and not hanging around in airports wearing a set of noise-cancelling headphones the size of Pluto...

What Did you Say????

...my blogging would taper off.
That and feeling foolish for blathering on about complete shit.
Anyway, the blathering continues, below...


I've long thought the Universe is Perfect, but not flawless. One more data point:
Squirrels plant new trees, just by forgetting where they put their nuts acorns.
This is a very interesting idea. Maybe even a philosophy. It certainly helped a friend recently get through some tough stuff, and she now texts me with little emoji squirrels.

Not drawn to scale

 It could even be a Zen Koan.

Warning: Vicious Tangent ahead:

I've long thought that Zen Koans were invented by guys who mostly wanted to be left alone. They made some sort of "progress" or at least manifest - or said they manifested - traits that others found desirable.
Desirelessness is popular. How does one go about desiring desirelessness?
Or destruction of ego. How does one destroy one's ego? Who's manifesting the intention? The thing that is going to be destroyed in the process?

Anyway, so these guys have some thing others want and as people are wont to do, they come around bugging these guys who mostly just want to be left the F**k alone.
So, they invented Koans as a way to give the would-be disciples something to keep them busy.

Zen Master 1: Oh! I have a new one - how about this: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
Zen Master 2: Oh that's rich! Much better than last week's: "What was your face before you were born."

Anyway, I thought the squirrel bit a nice illustration of how it all works together perfectly.
Kinda like this:

I've never had much use for dogs, being a cat person, though this may change that. 

French beer company Kronenbourg 1664 is set to open a pop-up bar staffed entirely by German Shepherds in London on Friday. The dogs will deliver the company's beer for free in custom lightweight barrels to guests who reserve two-hour sessions

Amazing Animation and illustration of best intentions and good deeds
http://www.housespecial.com/films/ -

Pilots falling asleep on the job is far more common than you might expect. In one British Airline Pilots Association’s survey of 500 commercial pilots, 56 percent admitted to having fallen asleep on the flight deck. Twenty-nine percent had woken up to find the other pilot asleep. 

Apparently, there's more to helicopters than I thought:

Hmm, This may be an intelligence test...

Definitely.

helicopter (NSFW)
When you swing your penis around in a circle and make the noise of a helicopter.

I recently saw Hunter S. Thompson's daily cocaine diet regimen:

Well, There's your problem. All that fried food.

Care for S'more?

Just because you're a criminal, doesn't mean you have to settle for second best!

Current Favorite Blog observation, from a comedic site discussing why the band Hole (and its leader Courtney Love) is so underrated, the blogger states:

A friend of mine once saw her [Courtney Love] in concert, and one of the audience members yelled out for her to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Love told him to go fuck himself, and I've respected her ever since.

/This

//Nice Guitar

One of my favorite cartoonists Mr. Fish, has some new ones.

I like time travel stories and theory and such and may write more about it here in the future. I'm currently (stalled) writing a story-screenplay on time travel. 
TheOatmeal, per usual, nails it.

I wouldn't be surprised to find there is a correlation between wearing a baseball cap backwards and lower IQ. I think the metal tab presses on a critical section of the forehead and lowers blood flow to the brain:

Now, off to San Marcos County Recorder's office.

They have marriage licenses there...

Last line of the form states: 

No refunds are given for marriage licenses purchased in error.

We could only speculate as to what problem that is intended to resolve.

Still, all went well and we left with our new marriage license!

Have a good weekend, drive safe, and take care.

Aloha from tourist-trap-central; Online Monsters; He's with Me; She's Not; Yoga for Chickens; No Manufacturing for you! Bad Drivers Explained

Last week spent a few days in Waikiki as videographer for friends. 
I have a love-hate relationship with the place. On the one hand it's over-developed, dirty, crowded and a monument to all the things wrong with tourism and the complicated issues surrounding the spoiling of Hawaii's natural beauty, culture and self-rule.

On the other hand, it's familiar and the beach is nice and I enjoy the amenities when it's not too crowded. But it's a weird place on the strip after dark, for sure.

Our hosts and friends and all were lovely and very nice and I enjoyed being videographer.

When I used to teach an online course for a local SF college I was treated to significant disrespect in comments posted by my students online, many posted publicly. I think none of them would have said those types of things to me in person. It is one reason I stopped teaching in that forum.
Which is why I found this blog post, from one of my fav tech-bloggers, all the more meaningful.




They Have To Be Monsters

There is deep truth in the old idea that people are able to say these things because they are looking at a screen full of words, not directly at the face of the person they're about to say a terrible thing to. That one level of abstraction the Internet allows, typing, which is so immensely powerful in so many other contexts …As an exercise in empathy, try to imagine saying some of the terrible things people typed to each other online to a real person sitting directly in front of you. Or don't imagine, and just watch this video.

The weight of seeing through the fear and beyond the monster to simply discover yourself is often too terrible for many people to bear. In a world of hard things, it's the hardest there is.

That's the end of my comments this week. the Rest are some - hopefully - interesting reads.
Take care and Happy Mom's Day.

What the media will never understand about Trump supporters

Donald Trump is successfully running a “He’s with me” campaign. All of the other candidates are running an “I’m with her” campaign. The difference between these two campaigns is what will make the 2016 election. The vague promises to make America great again … I will make you feel good … I express your anger … I am your vehicle .. are all Donald-isms for “He’s with me”. “He’s with me” will beat “I’m with her” every time.

Will Clinton Attempt to Bring Sanders Supporters into the Democratic Fold?

Something to keep your eye on in the lead-up to post-East Coast voting, and something that could well affect the voting after that. Will Clinton move toward Sanders’ positions, as an appeal for his supporters, or will she, as I’ve said elsewhere, insist the mountain (of his voters) come to Mohammad?

Seems the latter.

This from Josh Abramson, in a Huff Post piece called “5 Things We’ve Learned About Hillary Clinton Since She Won the New York Primary“.  here’s the fifth point (my occasional emphasis):

5. There will be no attempt whatsoever to bring Sanders supporters back into the Democratic fold.

Sanders supporters knew Clinton was angry at them for voting for Bernie — they could tell by her comment saying that she “feels sorry for” young voters too misinformed to vote for her; or by Bill Clinton saying that Sanders voters are so unsophisticated that they just want to “shoot every third banker on Wall Street”; or by David Plouffe (a Clinton ally) saying that every person who donates money to Sanders is being taken in by an obvious “fraud”; or by the unnamed Clinton staffer so certain she or he was speaking in a tone and manner consistent with the view of the Clinton campaign that she or he told Politico that the Clinton campaign “kicked Bernie’s ass” in New York and that Sanders can “go fuck himself.”

       Senator Pat Roberts Thinks Chicken Welfare is “Absolutely Ridiculous”

Here is a quote from Pat Roberts (R-KS) speaking to the North American Agricultural Journalists on Tuesday, who is, again, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee:

“What is chicken enrichment anyway? It could be yoga, that might be difficult. Video games? They do that for various animals. Sports? A gourmet meal? I think probably music is the best thing we can do to entice the chickens to come out and be happier, you know free range, roaming around. I think probably Ray Price would be the best person. Certainly not Prince. At any rate, something soothing.” 

Roberts, over the past five years, has taken more than $850,000 in donations from agribusiness.  

The Mirage of a Return to Manufacturing Greatness 

In America’s factories, jobs are inevitably disappearing, too. But despite the political rhetoric, the problem is not mainly globalization. Manufacturing jobs are on the decline in factories around the world.“The likelihood that we will get a manufacturing recovery is close to nil,” Professor Stiglitz said. “We are more likely to have a smaller share of a shrinking pie.”

Bad drivers are a good indicator of a corrupt government 

The one factor that unarguably connects corruption and driving is income. Rates of motor vehicle deaths have an inverted-U relationship with income. Poor countries have few fatalities. As they become wealthier, fatalities increase until income reaches some critical level, after which fatalities begin to decline again. One study puts that turnaround point between $10,000 and $11,000 per capita (paywall). As a result of this common connection to income, traffic deaths and corruption will always be somewhat correlated.
The authors identify several ways that corruption might influence the risk of accidents, such as by undermining infrastructure development, limiting opportunities for economic advancement, or discouraging legal enforcement. It is the last that O’Malley identifies. There are countries where police are powerless or unwilling to enforce the laws, and as a result drivers tend to ignore them.

Inky Breaks Free; Aloha Uber Alles:It's a short drop, hacking the hotel thermostat, rich-entitled s***-bags, Sex toys by aliens, Abilene Paradox

Inky the octopus didn’t even try to cover his tracks.

By the time the staff at New Zealand’s National Aquarium noticed that he was missing, telltale suction cup prints were the main clue to an easily solved mystery. Inky had said see ya to his tank-mate, slipped through a gap left by maintenance workers at the top of his enclosure and, as evidenced by the tracks, made his way across the floor to a six-inch-wide drain. 

The wife-on-the-way pointedly corrected my misunderstanding of how logic is applied, when I attempted to use her reasoning back on her.

"Logic only applies when I use it."

Thank you for clarifying that dear.

We're at a resort in Kauai for a few days before her maid-of-honor appearance at our friends wedding in Waikiki next weekend - when I play: "Kevin Smith films Prince."

Quick stop at Costco on the way in from airport to get Hawaiian coconut vodka. Made from sugar cane and filtered through lava rock - of course.

POG +Vodka

A funny moment came when we walking around the site getting acquainted with the grounds and we realized we had to return to the car to put a parking pass in it.

It was overly warm and humid as we hadn't changed out of our travel clothes yet and the wife-to-be was whining more than usual about melting.

Oh c'mon it's not *that* hot!

The W2B suggested, rather than walking all the way through the open-air resort, that we go through one of the guest rooms that was open while it was being cleaned by the maid and jump out the window and just go run out to the parking lot. 

So what? It's a short drop. 

Glad to say saner heads prevaled.

We were almost amused by the entitled matron who, when I pointed out to her that this a no cell phone area said: "I know the rules!! I live here!"  and proceeded to continue her cell phone conversation.

The sign says "please" so I don't have to comply.

I'm seeing signs around the resort they use local sourced food as well as fruits/veges grown on the resort's on-site hydroponic farm. Resort also has a huge solar array over the employees parking facility.

There are also two separate huge 12 Megawatt solar farms providing almost 10% of the electricity on the island and save over 2 million gallons of gas a year. Nice to hear as 4 years ago the locals said Kauai could be almost 100% self-sufficient but at the time was less than 3%. 

We had lunch at one of our fav local places, Tip Top in Lihue. Good local food &  experience. All the waitresses service the restaurant pushing carts around with food and setups. 

Pancakes, Wing dings and fried rice. Superb!

Tried a new place for lunch:Makai Sushi inside a local grocery store.

The Gorilla Poke bowl was excellent. As was talking with the chef who was full-bred Burmese, born and raised in Thailand and now here cutting fish for the locals and Haoles - us white folk. He correctly nailed D as Hapa - 1/2 breed.

Gorilla Bowl

Tired and hungry after a hard day ziplining

We like it COLD when we sleep (probably related to the whole melting thing), and since all hotel thermostats use IR motion sensors to disable the thermostat during the night, I reprogrammed it to maintain the temperature. Good reference should you need this in the future. W and Hyatt hotels all use this.

Her preferred 65 degrees should be cold enough for anyone.

The hotel had a space-age toilet system. One I never figured out completely.

Not quite *that* space-age

I get the whole electronic bidet thing (mostly)... 

The electric seat was the oddest part. I think the flash of light that emanated from it whenever anyone approached was a UV light to sanitize the toilet bowl. I think.

And of course the seat was heated.

We made new friends in the form of the local birds that hang around the hotel looking for handouts. 

Tab in the foreground, Ekolu in the back

At first D thought they were Hawaiian Robins, but since there is no such thing, we asked a friend familiar with the area, who said they were Hawaiian loons. The birds, not the friend, though I had my doubts.

Anyway, they're actually Kauai'n Thrushes.

They hit me up right away for snacks and told me the many "Do Not Feed The Birds" signs I see posted everywhere were only for the touristas-Hoales and I looked so much like a local that I didn't have to heed the signs. Indeed. So I told them that my fiance would never permit it. They totally understood and told me how it works here:

I'm to leave just a little food on a plate and put it on the cart to be collected and then when my fiance turns away he and his friend can eat all the food without anyone being the wiser. Win-Win - the Hawaiian way - lots of Aloha-spirit. Mahalo!

I figured it was a load of bird shit...one carelessly strewn morsel and we'd be up to our ass in feathers and beaks. Which did indeed prove to be the case.

I was telling this humorous story to some friends over drinks for entertainment value and one of them asked me - seriously - if I thought the bird was really talking to me.

What? You didn't grow up in a Disney cartoon 

where all things talk and are anthropomorphic? 

How sad for you.

Three weeks ago I wrote about furry-porn and how it was possibly the weirdest thing I've seen on the web. Well, it has been surpassed: 10 Sex Toys Designed by Aliens.

Definitely NSFW

I'll leave you to it.

Have you heard of the Abilene Paradox? It's a real thing. Even if you haven't heard of it, you have most likely participated in it.

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

I find social interactions to be odd - at least - to begin with. This kind of shit makes me completely crazy. A group of more than 3 adults can't agree on anything. When a group gets together and no one is willing to tell the truth about what they really want to do in an effort to please the person next to them, who is trying to please the person next to them, etc., etc., etc. I begin to feel like a space alien. Or more likely wish I was beamed up by a space alien.

Who knew?

Where's Inky when I need him?

All for now, off to be staff videographer at our friend's wedding in Waikiki. More on that later.

Take care.

Aloha.