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Imaginations

Who was it that dreamed of this modern life?

Years ago we laid back in the pasture looking at the clouds and we would imagine them as something we knew about whether vaguely or not.

It was so quiet that when the wind blew, the rustling pine needles shocked us for some period that could only be described as “nano-momentarily.” But the quiet itself wasn’t alarming, rather it was expected. You might hear an airplane fly over but it was seldom.

The sounds of a chainsaw felling timber somewhere nearby in the Pineywoods of East Texas, as well as the blast from a shotgun that some hunter fired in some different direction, were not so much marvels as they were expressions of work.

This “computer” contraption I had heard of for many years but it would be way past my “wonder years” when I would finally see one, and into a new decade when I might much less use one.

We would wait patiently, or perhaps not so much, for the three old ladies on our “party line” to get off the phone so that we could make a call. We made fun of those ladies after listening quietly in on their conversations about grape jam and the use of fresh okra.

Perhaps the minds who created modern technology: the Internet and Facebooks of the world had much more imagination than most of us. Those who enlarged the boundaries of medicine that help so many could not have all thought only of the amount of money their inventions would produce.

Likewise, those who made the manned and unmanned weapons of, well, some size of destruction, surely did not do so strictly because they hate their fellow man and woman.

Or so we hope, anyhow.

What does that big cloud in the middle of the sky resemble? A peace symbol? A jet fighter? Or perhaps it reminds us of home and what we did at a different time in life.

You got me there, Bubba!

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A new low speed in political spin

If you are a real fan of politics you might just have a change of temperature when seeing what Florida gubernatorial candidates are squawking over.

A debate between GOP Gov. Rick Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor, started about 7 minutes late. But it wasn’t due to a technical glitch. No Scott refused to come about because Crist had a fan blowing on him from below his lectern.

The fan was no stranger to Crist. He wrote in a biography that he had used the cooling appliance for years. As many Floridians probably know, it gets hot there sometimes. After all, its nickname is “The Sunshine State.” And when you are wearing a suit and tie below hot stage lights or in a church that has only a ceiling fan for air conditioner, you might have the tendency to break that famous rule of campaigning: “Never let them see you sweat.”

A Florida TV anchor moderating the debate finally explained the Scott rules for the debate that there should be no fan on the stage. That led to boos from the audience. Then, Crist began mocking such riders.

“Are we really going to debate about a fan or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state? I mean, really,” Crist responded.

This is what the state of politics passes for these days. It seems like the audience would need a fan of gigantic proportions, more so than the politicians, for all the hot air coming from the candidates.

Of course, the follow-up had the candidates’ flacks spinning faster than the former governor’s fan. Around and around and around we go and where we stop? Well, in this case I suppose it is the Florida statehouse.

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Here I use math to prove prevaricating pooches

Have you ever wondered whether dogs lie? I mean, yes they lie, as in down. But I mean dogs flat out telling a fib, or rather, communicating such an untruth in whatever manner a dog would use.

Now I imagine we have always known a dog or two that would cut a big foul-smelling fart. Big in volume where (4/3) pi r1 r2 r3.

In other words, where we have a big gas-filled ellipsoid. And the ellipsoid of funk — maybe we will even name it the Mighty Ellipsoid of Funk — floats silently but deadly across the room until it his you POW! right smack in the schnoz.

There is no one in the room excepting me. That is, no other human in the room. So our, mine, eyes turn quickly toward the dog. Yes, our loveable canine friend is the top suspect for the stinky ellipsoid so why don’t we just call the dog, the Mighty Ellipsoid of Funk, or MOEF, MOEF being sort of equivalent to the noise the dog makes while barking.

But the ellipsoid hangs all over the room and the dog smells it too. So what does MOEF do? Denies, denies, denies. No sir, nothing that vile could come from such a pure soul as mine, says MOEF dog. Of course, dogs do not talk or so it has been said. Is that a stupid f***ing sentence or what?

But MOEF looks outside and sees a butterfly and “MOEF, MOEF, MOEF.”

No, I am not buying it at all. The damned dog has just tried to divert my attention away from the ellipsoid but by the time this psychodrama settles down so does the ellipsoid.

Lying bastard dog!

See there. With the use of a formula for a fart-filled ellipsoid did I expose the dog for what it really is.  A lying $#@%$&&^% and  (#&&#**#! as well. Just *$(& it!

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Gore and darkness awaits one on the movie screen

Lately I have become a devotee of the Redbox. It is not any red box, but rather the Redbox standing so prominently outside local grocery stores and pharmacies and the like. I don’t know why, but I never watched movies on my laptop computer much before. Since I bought a new laptop I have begun to play the discs on my computer screen.

I haven’t watched movies, relatively new ones at least, very much in the past several years. I am not big in going to the theater unless someone goes with me. And I have kind of been a loner in the majority of the last decade with a couple of exceptions when I was dating. So most of the movies I have watched were on TV, either cable or otherwise.

There are a couple of down sides of watching these movie-in-a-box rentals. First, the DVDs aren’t always in the best condition. I got a couple of discs a week ago that I couldn’t watch because it wouldn’t play, or it would play and stop for long periods of time. Redbox did, to their credit, give me a couple of promotional codes for free movies in the future.

And, I don’t know if it is just me, but some movies have become way too gory for me to enjoy or are either too dark. I will give a couple of examples.

I should have expected a pic with Arnold Schwarzenegger to be filled with a lot of action and a certain amount of blood. But I wanted to see one of “Ahnold’s” films since he left the California statehouse for another run at Hollywood. The movie “Sabotage” is one of his recent flicks.

The story is about an elite DEA team that finds itself being depopulated one-by-one after stealing millions of dollars in a cartel cache. Now I will spare you some of the ways the rogue agents are taken out. That is not only to spare one from scenes being spoiled. Also, some of the manners in which the agents are killed are just simply full of more gore than most folks need.

A movie I also watched with some cringe factor at work was a South By Southwest premiere last year by the title of “Cheap Thrills.” The E.L. Katz directed work is listed as a ‘black comedy”but its darkness far exceeds its comedic factor.

The show’s plot is about a working-class Joe and would-be writer who finds himself, his wife and kid in financial straits and about to be thrown out of their rental into the street. The character, Craig, finds out he is laid off just after pulling an eviction notice from his front door. Like every good man in the deep doo of financial ruin, Craig goes to a bar. While there Craig runs into a buddy he hadn’t seen in five years.

At his core, Craig is an upright — and a bit uptight — guy who loves his wife. But his foundation gets shakier and shakier as the film goes on. The two old buds runs into a seemingly rich and definitely twisted couple in the bar who are supposedly out celebrating the wife’s birthday. That celebration gets higher on the Perverse o’ Meter in each frame.  I will just give a tame for instance. The rich guy says he will give one of the old friends $200 to say something to a good-looking lady that will get one of them slapped. And believe me that is as tame and injury free as it gets from there.

I have never been much enchanted with gory slasher-style movies. For some reason though, lots of graphic shit bothers me. Even one of my favorite TV shows, NCIS, has scenes that I will have to turn my head away from especially when a body is on the coroner’s table burned to a crisp. No doubt, my head turning in that case isn’t surprising because such instances in real life as a firefighter and as a reporter revealed similar scenes of what we would call in our own dark humor “crispy critters.”

I don’t have nightmares about some of the repulsive stuff I saw in real life, at least that I know of, who knows what all there is lurking in the deep recesses of our beans.

One thing is for certain though, if I am to continue my movie watching, I think I will have to watch the ratings more carefully. When they say bloody, or scenes too graphic, maybe I will just leave the disc be. After all, what’s $1.20 for a movie disc when it comes to your sanity?

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‘Weather’ or not you like it, a change is going to come

The first “cold” front of the Fall has just passed through after a rainy afternoon with some nice thunder to accompany it. It is technically a cold front because of cooler air. But in reality it is a cool front. The cooler weather makes that abundantly clear.

I took some movies back to the Redbox at a local Walgreen’s and when I got out wearing a polo and shorts, it felt definitely more chilly than it has been for several months now. The wind helped make it so. From what I can tell, the temperature is in the upper 60s. I expect the temps should fall to the lower 50s tonight or the upper 40s at its lowest. It is just a nice little “cool spell” that usually makes it down south here in Beaumont, Texas, at this time of the year.

A respite from the summer heat is usually welcome by this time. It hasn’t been one of those super hot summers that sometime creep into late September or early October. We don’t normally have too much variation in weather in these parts though it isn’t a place which has no variation in climate as I’ve hear some people complain.

Those who know me and/or have read this blog over the years will know I am a warm weather person. But I enjoy a little change in the season. Actually, if I had my “druthers” I would prefer a constant temperature in the daytime because I am not a person given to dressing in “layers.” I know that particular style is something that one probably does not think much about if they reside in a place where layer dressing is just a fact of life.

Of course, I am not particularly fond of it being really cold outside and then having to go inside where it is stifling hot. Then again, the weather is what the weather will be and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it except complain or praise it.

The truth be told I am usually up, by the time it normally comes, for one of those “blue norther” cold fronts where the temperature goes shooting down at a really drastic manner. I have seen the temperature over time drop 40 or more degrees in a short period of time.

Change is just one of those little things we deal with in life. We may like it, dislike it, or not care but the weather isn’t one of those parts of life which complaining about it will do any good. As the saying that has found it’s way to the land of sports cliches during the last few years, it is what is. I might add, it isn’t what it’s not. I’d go on but I am worried someone might want to hit me on the head with something and that would be something that is what it is but isn’t what it should.