Wiretapping Christmas

Well they let the cat out of the bag. Are you one of the many to be wiretapped? Daughter #3 did a report a few months ago for school. The subject was Afghanistan. She made a great flour and salt dough relief map on a piece of plywood. She got an A, especially for the little flags that identified unique geographical features. Through the same ISP connection the ever wonderful Ms. 8CH was in communication with the Friends Select Committee about helping find peace in the world. Uh oh, that seems like a bad combination to me. On top of this we live squarely on the Reading Prong (see No Darn Radon post). We are being infiltrated from both ends. Maybe it would be easier if I confessed right here. NSA , do you read blogs? Let me tell you, D3 (code name for daughter number 3) has no idea where Osama is hiding, but after about a week there were so many cracks in the dried dough map; it could be anywhere. In fact the map suffered in real time with the earthquakes. He could have built an underground bunker in one of the fissures. A Crack House. Osama's Crack House. It could have one of those rope bucket things spanning across the top with a squeaky pulley thing. all of his number twos (no not that, his second in commands) would communicate with him that way and send him falafel and stuff. NSA, pass this on, find the quake fissure with a squeaky pulley over it.

So Bush is angry that someone spilled the beans. Especially so close to the holidays. Why can't we all just get along? If they tap our phones we should get something in return, like coupons for fast food. It would seem like a great trade until we started using them and then the fat and bad stuff in that food would kill us and that would wrap the whole thing up for King George ( Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., called him this in an interview with The Associated Press).

Golly Good King Dubya

Good King Dubya looked out,
On the spies all scheming,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Tho' the frost was cruel,
When a tall man came in sight,
Gath'ring winter fuel.

"Hither, Dick, and stand by me,
If thou know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
In the land of Afghan."

Get me phones and get me wires
Get me earphones plenty
Someone here must know this guy
All liberals are so friendly
Tap their phones and listen in
For a word like "end it"
Follow them around the town
While I preach and defend it

Radon, Dioxin, Christo and ebay

In February I visited the Christo Gates in Central Park, about an hour from my home on the Reading Prong (see my first post). Amazing sight, amazing site, people having fun and friendly. Okay, it is Home Depot Orange but I think it is a standard colorant for PVC. Wait! PVC? Greenpeace wants this stuff banned, dioxin contamination, harmful to the environment. The PVC Industry is spending $100's of dollars to counter the claim of environmental disaster. The Gates produced seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds of orange colored PVC waste. That's three quarters of a million pounds. A company called Nicos ground the orange tubes into dust. Here is a video of it:

http://www.nicospolymers.com/gatesvideo.htm

It must have been fun to send those tubes down the chute. Great job for someone with ADD or hearing loss. Turns out that the plant that pulverized this stuff is right up the street from 8CHland, home of yours truly. What is worse, dioxin or radon? I read somewhere that the orange PVC ended up in outdoor fencing sold through Menards, Lowes and Home Depot Canada. It is white on the outside and Christo (Home Depot) orange on the inside. It is sold in 6 foot sections for $100. No one is suppose to know that this stuff is there, it would violate the art principals of Christo and Jeanne Claude. Oops, I spilled the beans. Buy the fence, cut the tubes open and expose the orange cores and sell pieces on ebay. They gave out little 2" squares of the fabric the first few days of the event. people ended up selling them on ebay within hours going for $30 each or so. Why not sell sections of the fencing with the ground up orange tubes inside? Isn't that like some kind or archeology or performance art? 6" sections would be easy to mail and I would have a "buy it now" set at $9.99.

Is it true that if you use enough popular words in a blog people will find it? Paris Hilton would buy a pocketbook made for a section of the pipe if some trend setter started selling them on Rodeo Drive. And what about Howard Stern?

P.S. Wear a face mask when you cut the tubes, you never can be too careful.

Jefferson Nickel and Willem Dafoe

We are getting arty money in America. Sort of. Not quite like Europe or some third world countries that have cool animals or popular humans in weird clothing posing in watermarks. Oh wait, we are getting some of that. Coins are always changing now. Quarters for every state. Have you noticed as the quarters are issued from first to last state they are getting more and more boring? And hard to tell what they are depicting? I hear that states fight each other for things like birds and animals and crops and bridges.

They are redoing the Jefferson Nickel. Tom will be large and sort of smirking. Where did I see that face before? Some sadistic villain in a movie. with funny sadistic teeth. yes, Willem Dafoe. William the Foe! What were they thinking? I wonder if this is some sort of in your face advertising gimmick for a movie about Jefferson with Willem as the lead. You know, the movie that tells the truth about Tommy and his slaves. TV ads don't work anymore, everyone tivos right past them.

Half a Stick of Butter

I had lunch with Bill today. Bill and I used to work together. I designed stuff and he made the tools and machines to build the stuff. We both are semi wondering (and wandering) around 5 years later. Bill won't eat anything un-American. Not even Tex-Mex, how American is that? Even Dubya probably eats Tex-Mex. So we settle for one of those bars-in-front, dining-in-the-back kind of places that have lunch specials like Cajun Chicken over Pasta. We order the Cajun Chicken over Pasta. I drowned mine in red pepper flakes and sprinkle cheese. It was the conversation that mattered. We have a company in common we are consulting for. We discuss cool ways to make an adjustable thing and lament the dearth of even semi-motiviated workers in our little corner of Manufacturing America who couldn't even put it together with a brain transplant from Peter Drucker. We discuss what medications we are on. We used to talk about women, especially those that would walk right by us at the moment. We had a rating system, we were bad. Now talking about medication is better? I'm not sure.

We part company on the corner. I go to my car and right on the edge of the brick walkway, right next to the Japanese restaurant that Bill won't eat in, right next to the open air park-for-50-cents parking area is half a stick of butter, laying on the ground, with the wrapper and all. It is one of those sticks of butter that comes 4 to a box. It is half of a quarter. Laying on the ground. It couldn't have been there long. Of course it was 15 degrees out, how do I know for sure. How did it get there? No one lives near there, the Japanese restaurant doesn't use store bought butter if they even use butter. Half a stick of butter. I stop and stare. A lady stops and sees me staring at the ground and stares too. So does a big giant policeman wearing a uniform that is way too tight. He has a big holster belt thing and a flip book for writing parking tickets. "How did that get there?" I ask out loud. I am thinking if this cop was from Law and Order we would be a half an hour closer to solving a murder.

No Darn Radon

First blog, have no idea how to work this. Have no idea what my intentions are, random, or in my case, radon musings. Just like a jillion other blogs I suppose.

Today I stuck this little black ant trap looking thing on my mantle. It will measure radon gas in my house for 3 months. I suspect everyone who lives here is being poisoned by it. Built the house 22 years ago. No basement, slab on grade. Grade is on the Reading Prong. See how serious this is:

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/rp/radon_division/PA_Radon_Story1.htm

Did a test about 21 years ago, Radon 10x safe levels. I found some holes and patched them up. Installed a vent (sort of). Decided to forget the whole matter, figuring I would die from something stupid like falling in front of a speeding truck while riding my bike. Then I see a news bulletin about radon. Seems as though they changed their minds about safe levels. Like calcium, fat and salt, everything has to get reworked. I sent away for the test kit, the little ant trap looking thing. I will keep you posted. I am wondering if what everyone ails from, sniffles, ennui, short tempers, sore necks, is this radon poisoning? I will keep you posted.