This is turning into a nice quiet low key Christmas - just what I need. I worked a lot this past year - and I'm tired. Tired tired tired down to my bones.

I'm only buying one actual present this year - a 500 in 1 electronics kit for my grandson. All the other g'kids get cash.

Caleb's gift was the entry fee to a big music festival in Miami in the spring. My Dad gets a year of Netflix. Everyone else gets food.

I decorated the outside of the house - the neighborhood has come to expect it, but I'm not doing anything inside. I figure I'll just rest up this year and have a big blowout next year when the g'kids will be here.

I'm working on a little project now - soon to be unveiled I hope.

Now I'm wondering if baklava can be dipped in chocolate.

Finally some insight into the administration's plans for NASA:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/exclusiveobama.html

Including:

Dropping Ares I - a good thing. Ares I is underpowered, overweight and mission limited.

Building a new heavy lift vehicle - a good thing. Ares V? Or something else?

Letting the euros build a lunar lander - that's cutting close to home - at least let's keep our docking system.

Another $billion increase in the budget - meh, not the $3billion we need, but also not the cut we could have seen.

Expect a formal announcement next week (while everyone is on vacation) or in the State of the Union speech (a Kennedy moment) or no announcement at all, just a line item in the budget. I prefer the first option, but the last one is probably the best, since if Obama is for it, the loser right will rally against it.

A nice series of explosions rocked the house a few minutes ago.

A kaboom - kaboom - rumble - silence - kaboom - kaboom - boomboomboom

I looked outside to see if it was the neighbor's Harley - no.

No smoke. The news says is was a "planned implosion" of a building in Pasadena.

Let's see -

I just need to review my schedule for the next couple of weeks...


weekend
weekend
vacation
vacation
vacation
vacation
holiday
weekend
weekend
vacation
vacation
"work"
"work"
holiday
weekend
weekend

Let's review - of the next 15 days, only two of them involve work.

"Having been offered the whole of 'Buddha himself', I chose only a piece. It just felt right, more like... dancing." - :)

-

I have a riddle. . .

-

What do the parthenon and the pyramids share in common?

... looks like Uganda is the new asshole of the world.

I was listening to fresh Air last Sunday a week ago and they were talking about the old Smothers Brothers Show from the late 1960's. I was a huge fan of the show but didn't realize at the time just how ground breaking and subversive the show was. So I Netflixed a DVD from 1967.

I was surprised, but not in the way I expected. The production values are SO bad. It's hard to believe that a top rated show, viewed by more than a third of the TV watching population (remember, there were only three networks then) would have the live audience in this tiny theater sitting in gray metal folding chairs. And the lighting is so harsh - you see the shadows of the actors on the sets, which are crammed onto a tiny stage. You can see the microphones above the actors.

One of the acts was the Who - fresh from the 1st Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967. They all looked amazingly young (and gay). They played two songs. The first, "I can see for miles and miles" was painfully obviously lipped synced. The second, "My Generation" was live. At the end Pete Townsend smashed up his guitar and the bass drum was supposed to explode - it had a cannon in it. Keith Moon wanted to load the cannon, as he always did, but the stage hands wouldn't let him. During dress rehearsal the cannon didn't go off. The stage hands loaded it again, without removing the first charge, and Keith Moon added a third charge. When it went off during the real show you could tell that the explosion was much bigger than anyone expected, and they say, permanently damaged Pete Townsend's hearing.

There was also Pete Seeger - his first return to TV after being blacklisted my McCarthy in the 50's. There's Moms Mabely doing a comedy sketch about "colored" astronauts (Dick Smothers referred to them as "Negro" astronauts).

The things that didn't surprise me - the clothes were awful, the hairstyles were plastic and awful.

And the actual show - not a lot on entertainment value for your hour. A few folk songs, a couple of skits, something by Pat Paulsen, and we're done.

I can't imagine a show like this happening today, except maybe on PBS.

Guess who just got a copy of "The Thermionic Valve and Its Developments in Radiotelegraphy and Telephony", by J.A. Fleming (yes, THAT J.A. Fleming)copyright 1919???

And then roll me in baklava





This is what it looks like just before you die:



So... if you worked with me you'd be getting maple pecan baklava and coconut cream pie for lunch tomorrow.

But ... you don't.

the
bad Buddha
he's so kind,
he's so wise

listen when he says,

"Take a shortcut."

the
bad Buddha,
never ages,
never dies

he masturbates to surrealism
and orgasms reincarnation

the
bad Buddha
smiles
when you simile

he's got some blinding twinkle
in that extra eye

the
bad Buddha
he splits duality
in twain

Mark

my words

the
bad Buddha
has got the time;
he needs not the clockwork contagion
that we call watch

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
 Has a bad cold, nevertheless
 Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
 With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
 Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor.
 (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
 Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
 The lady of situations.
 Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
 And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
 Which is blank, is something that he carries on his back,
 Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
 The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
 I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
 Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
 Tell her I bring the horoscope myself;
 One must be so careful these days.


As I read this passage, masterful from Eliot, I thought about the deck of cards from which I was dealt (and am still being dealt) in this life, and really, I am grateful to be so blessed. To be given this opportunity I have been given.

I thought specifically about my wanded 5II chariot. I picked it up, thought about the people involved, me included. Thought about the nature of cards and futures, and in that very moment, of course, synchronicity strikes.

As it tends to do these days. I'm riding the skywave.

I hear the familiar sound of letters. Letters hitting the tile, delivered by the postman, right through my door and on to my floor.

A Christmas card. Unexpected.

I open it. From Mom and Dad. "Must be money," I think. Opening it, I receive something infinitely more valuable. The seventh card. The hand is complete, the game must go on.

My little sister. Graduation pictures. She's so beautiful, and I'm so proud of her accomplishments. I'm glad she's still here, even if we aren't exactly speaking. That's my fault, I was never a big talker.



Each of these cards was given to me by the universe, linked to special people and events. Each is a very complex "spell". Bits of life, emotion, motion and touches of the abstract, sometimes like a fine wine. Sometimes like mouldy cheese. Always coupled with a good story.

If you look closely, you will notice my third sole. My red rabbit foot. Well red and a bit of pink.

Also, though Buddha appears to be... gone. It's a trick.


-*-

Due to the heavy influence of some good people, I decided to take a series of photographs of when I just wake up, in the morning. Or when I'm completely stoned out of my mind. Because I'm real like that.

( 2 pics. of J. )

In other news from the reel world, I've been feeling really fallible lately, and its not even faked. I love that. The other day I cleaned, and found the first mix CD that Gil ever gave me. And... I think I found a really cool chickie to smoke with. And... Jesus took me out for sushi. And... Win. As always I'm grateful for my friends and family.


-*-

Trees are made of electric.

The a/v ports on my tv are going out. There's only 1 slot left for the red/yellow/white cables, and I have 3 devices (DVR, PS3, and 360) to use it with. And the TV weighs a ton, and said port is in the back of the TV. No way am I going to pick this 50-75# CRT monster up and turn it around every time I want to switch between consoles or watch TV.

The arrangement I had previously was that the DVR would use that slot, and one of those adapters that converts to coax would go between the consoles and the coaxial cable port on the tv, but today, that didn't work either. I tried two different coax cables, and it's made no difference. It could be the device itself, but I don't even have the money to waste trying it.

It really is time for a new tv. 720, 1080, 60Hz, 120Hz, 26" or whatever, I don't even care anymore. I have spent too much money on all these things to not have access to them.

Of course, I can't afford the TV either. Even if we didn't need to reserve it for an emergency, it would be irresponsible to take out a payday loan for $2-300 for something like this. I can't get a credit card to save my soul, regardless of how much money I spend at these places.

Even if I was getting my full 40 hours, I would still have had to save for like 2 months to come up with that kind of money, and now it isn't even possible.

FML.

Geeky kid connects his Guitar Hero to a bunch of lights.

Heh. Well, I guess you all know the answer already, don't you?

I don't talk to my RL friends about things anymore. They're my co-workers, and it's a conflict of interest. Plus, often enough, it's about them, or people they also have relationships with, so it's awkward. The money problems I'm going through are something they can't really relate to. The family issues they don't really understand. And some of them seem to lack that tactful ability to just accept it for what it is and not insist on advising me on how to change it. As if the solutions to my life are just sitting there and I'm walking around pretending I don't see them.

Granted, this always happens any time you let people into your life, but at least I don't have to see my online friends in real life for hours, several days a week. If someone's virtual advice offends me, or seems to be missing the point, I can close the browser and go do something else. IRL, I have to get snippy and force a subject change.

So, unless I'm just all around bitchy that day (read: no sleep) I generally don't sound off about my life to people I know IRL anymore. I blog it here, and if I don't get around to blogging it, it's just gone.


As for having a support network, I don't know. I can say that in the past, both my virtual and RL friends have suppoted me through all kinds of problems. And it's not that both aren't trying now. It's just that I've reached the point where thatisn't enough by itself anymore. The problems are just too big to work through on my own, or outright insurmountable. All that is left is just dealing with an unchanging situaion and putting on foot in front of the other. I don't know what more any of my frends could do or say at this point to make a difference.

I want one of these for Christmas.





Included with the Artform No. 1 is a magnetic base which can be activated and de-activated, giving the ability to posture sculpture into innumerous poses and stances.
Specifications:
Height: 17 inches / 43cm
Weight: 16 lbs / 7 kg
Number of parts: Well over 500!
Material of ARTFORM NO. 1: Bronze and Stainless Steel

Here's the link:

http://www.zohoartforms.com/index.htm

meh. i give up.