Have a great weekend, even if you are not a real ‘Modo

The end is near. I’m speaking of the week and it is time for the weekend. It’s about damn time, I might add. It has been a rather rough one so all I can ask is:

“Are you ready for some football?”

Are you ready for some football???

No? Okay, then get ready for something: A dog show, a broadcast of some foreign parliament, an old Western with Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson, a Hootie and the Blowfish concert video, observe farm animals in their natural habitat (wherever that might be), or watch “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” then read the book, or vice versa. Be sure to see the 1939 version with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda. I’ve only seen the waning minutes or so of that version. But it’s enough to make you appreciate hot lead as a formidable weapon. I’ve also only seen the tail end of old silent version with Lon Chaney Sr. When I remember Chaney, I always think of Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London where he sang: “I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen … ” I don’t know why. Nonetheless, Laughton’s version of the deformed and half-blind bellringer is superb, even for only 10 minutes. Quasimodo as portrayed by Laughton is a rather kind-looking character and even Teddy Bear-ish, if that’s a word, or even if it isn’t. Then again, I’m sure some saw Ted Bundy that way The line ‘Modo speaks to one the gargoyles — hey nothing strange about that. I do it all the time, when I can find a gargoyle these days — is classic.

“Why can’t I be made of stone — like thee?”

You got it, you big hump! Oh, sorry, I guess that wasn’t particularly PC. Excuse my French. (You see the Notre Dame is located in Paris, which is French, you see … ) Have a great weekend everyone and be sure to buy from this week’s sponsor: Acne Pimple Cream. You’ll know when it’s Acne. (Not sold in France. May cause acne pimples and an aversion to cute little puppies. Has been known to cause “Quasimodo Syndrome. Call your doctor should your back remain erect for more than four hours. Send money should you require information as to other possible side effects.)

In the East Texas woods, something good from a bad drought and an 8-year-old international tragedy

It is a sign of the here-too-long drought that has been plaguing folks from “Texarkana to El Paso, Oklahoma down to Old Mexico and there’s Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antone,” as Charlie Daniels sang, back in the day when he was a rocking long-haired country boy and not a shill for the nut wing. Texas might “sure make you feel at home” but no doubt its rivers and lakes are gettin’ low.

I couldn’t see rivers and creeks for the dirt while I was traversing Interstate 10 last week while on my way to San Antonio from Beaumont and back. Now the disgusting drought that has expanded through this blazing hot Texas Summer and a new relic of the past has risen to the top because of that same drought. I speak of a large, spherical piece of the doomed Space Shuttle Columbia.

It isn’t so surprising that a piece of the Shuttle has surfaced, even a relatively large one, on the edge of Lake Nacogdoches which is in the heart of a sizeable chunk of East Texas over which the spacecraft broke apart while returning from space eight years ago. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know people would be finding the Space Shuttle Columbia for years. I lived in Waco at the time and drove, while on assignment as a reporter, to where another large unrecognizable part of Columbia lay on a grassy highway median just outside Palestine, Texas. That is about 110 miles from where most of the remains of the astronauts were discovered.

Interstate 45, between Dallas and Houston, in a rough geographic sense divides the prairies and savannahs of east Central Texas, and the Pineywoods of East Texas. East Texas holds the forest lands of the Lone Star State. This is the area that those who know nothing of Texas cannot comprehend due to a lack of rock-filled mountains and mesas. But this is the area where I was born and raised, and spent most of my life here. I knew those sometime thick forests would hold for years and years what was left of that ill-fated flying machine and its amazing crew of American and Israeli spacemen and women.

While the Columbia will forever remain another of the tragedies of space travel it also helps those who dream of the future of our Universe and beyond our lonely planet. How many people — that we know of — have flown in space? Not many at all when you stack them up against the number that hasn’t crossed into that magic land where fat guys like me could even feel light as a feather.

The more that is found of Columbia will help put together the tragic but very useful puzzle of what happened to that day in March 2003 over the cusp of that wooded southeastern area of the United States. I may have mentioned I once wasn’t at all into flying in a plane. Once I learned what happened in many of the airline mishaps over time and the safety innovations that came about because of those investigations made me a much comfortable and, to some extent enlightened, air passenger.

At least the whole drought isn’t a bad thing. But I think it’s now done its good deeds and I sure wish the heck that it would cease and desist.

Thanks Google, for yet another time-waster, uh 3D cheese modeler

Cheeses! Does the above remind you, at least a little bit, of a hunk of cheese? It doesn’t. Oh. You really know how to hurt a blogger’s feelings.

Well then, let’s just say the above is a piece of abstract art that I created, over the past hour, while playing with Google’s SketchUp 8. It’s a 3D modeling program that can create just about anything within the bounds of time and ability. While interfacing with Google Earth is a feature of SketchUp, it would seem that the program could create some sort of simple specialized map graphic. I say “it would seem,” because if you notice the pathetic attempt above to draw a piece of cheese above it seems like almost a dream to think I could create some kind of specialized graphic using Google Earth in concert with SketchUp.

Nonetheless, SketchUp is one of those interesting play things of the type I found on MacDraw or MacPaint, which was on my very first, very own desktop, a used Apple Macintosh. Wow, that brings back “computer memories,” which is a hard-to-believe concept for someone who remembers his family’s first TV set.

Anyway, I plan to play around some more with SketchUp to where I might actually find some use other than being a time-waster. That is not to say wasting time is a waste of time. Well it is a waste of time, but it’s … Sorry for wasting your time.

Aides “Newtloose” so where does this leave Rick and Dog on Man?

Well, it looks like advisers of Newt Gingrich took a vote of no-confidence as most of the aides walked on the former House speaker and current candidate for GOP presidential nomination. Since two of the aides have what The Texas Tribune calls “extensive links” to our good-haired Gov. Rick Perry, the star-powered non-profit Web site puts A + B together to get a capital C, which rhymes with P and that stands for Perry. (With apologies to Meredith Wilson, even though he’s been gone for quite awhile now.)

Just because Newt had a massive ship abandoning and some of those jumping are former Perry guys that adds to the “rampant speculation that Gov. Rick Perry will scoop them up to launch his own White House bid,according to a Tribune story by veteran Austin reporter Jay Root.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Jay Root, former Associated Press and Fort Worth Star-Telegram capitol reporter, is one of the best state government reporters and definitely one of the best writers covering the subject. I just think it’s a little weak to make such speculations.

Maybe Good Hair, after this and perhaps more Special Sessions of the Texas Legislature this year, will decide to throw in his hat. It just musses up that purty coiffure anyway. But I don’t think such a leap as is being made due to the Newt-fection, which Root tags as “speculation” in any event, is warranted at 4:01 p.m. CDT, June 9, 2011. Or 4:02 p.m. CDT, …

It does not take much of a hop, skip or jump to surmise that the mass defection might have had more to do with Newt being a weak, turned weakened and particularly unattractive candidate. That also is not to say Rick Perry would be a stronger or particularly appealing Republican presidential aspirant. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of two more less appealing candidates for president or even dog catcher to represent any party.

So at least for the moment, I would say the tote board shows: Gingrich defection 1, Perry probably < 1. But, I live in Beaumont and not Austin, so what do I know?

Oh, and speaking of another possible GOP hopeful — this one actually makes me feel sorry for the Republican Party — former Sen. Rick “Man on DogSantorum declared today that climate change is “junk science.” That’s not so surprising especially since Rush Limbaugh — on whose show this “great man of science Santorum” made such a proclamation, has a jihad against the scientific notion of climate change. However, GOP candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last week that he thinks the Earth is warming and as a result of human activity. I suppose the GOP has got that “big tent” thing working.

And, I take it back, I can think of an equally unappealing candidate for president as Rick Santorum. Move over Newt and Good Hair.

 

 

A question of usage and frightening colloqualisms

My mind ponders usage this afternoon. Specifically, data usage is what I have been examining.

The Verizon broadband plan I have has a 5 gigabyte limit before I incur overage charges for data usage. During the last couple of years, exceeding that limit hasn’t been a problem. But since I bought a new computer last month I cracked that invisible ceiling last month and look on track to do the same sometime between now and May 9.

Verizon does have some pretty good bells and whistles on their My Verizon site that lets you monitor your usage throughout the billing cycle. I can pinpoint when I used some live streaming music sites, for instance. But by Verizon’s own gadget for determining how much data one would need either for a smart phone or a broadband plan, the company only projects I need 3-something gigs.

The company said that probably the overages come from live updates, which get to be pretty numerous with a new computer. Whether that is the reason I don’t guess I will know until another month or so. If it continues, I predict a whole lotta bitchin’ going on, and one should have an easy guess as to its origin.

Technology. We haven’t had such fun since the hogs ate little brother.