A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #31

I have asked the question before, why is it that vampire hunters always arrive at the crypt just as the sun is going down and no one says, ‘I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t we go home and have garlic soup and try this again tomorrow morning?’ 

Another question is brandishing the cross: what if the vampire is Jewish?

A montage of vampires just for you.

My favorite vampire book is Salem’s Lot, but the movie sucked.

the Ol’Buzzard

WOE IS I

There are many rules of writing and grammar that i think are bullshit.   One of them that constantly bugs me is capitalizing the letter I when referring to myself.    This seems to me conceited and self-absorbed and feels like i am trying to bring attention to myself – and it means i have to hold down the shift key in the middle of a sentence.

  

It is all right to begin a sentence with a capital, even if it is an I, as that denotes a new thought, just as a period or other punctuation denotes a completion of that thought.

Writing, like speaking, should be personalized to the individual.   We are not clones.  We don’t speak the same, we don’t think the same; so why should we write the same?  We write to transmit what we are thinking to someone else, and as long as it serves that function it is good writing.  

 God damn i - Why do i still feel i need to capitalize my name or avatar. 

the Ol'Buzzard

DID I RUN and AM I TIRED?

In 1963, in a very remote section of western Maine, my friend and I found an old trappers cabin.   The roof was partially caved in, the window was gone and there was structural damage.   That summer we backpacked in carpentry tools and supplies and made repairs.    For a number of years afterward we used the cabin as a hunting camp.   

The cabin was one room, about sixteen by twenty-five feet.   The door to the cabin was only five and a half feet tall, so I believe the man who built it was small.  There was also a large bed, some homemade wooden toys, an old rusted cook stove and some things that makes me think he had his wife and child with him.   When we cleaned the cabin out I found a stack of old magazines, mouse eaten and water damaged, dating from 1901 to 1903 which dated the cabin, but also proved he was literate.

On the back wall was tacked a piece of birch bark with writing that said:

DID I RUN and

AM I TIRED?

During the following winters I would take off from the cabin deer hunting and be gone all day; when I returned near dark, tired and cold, I would duck down to enter through the small door and when I stood back up I was faced with the birch bark telling me ‘Did I Run and Am I Tired?

Around 1977 the winter took the cabin.   My friend and I snowshoed in to see what we could salvage.   I took the birch bark off the back wall, pressed it between pages of a log book and brought it home. 

At that time the birch bark was over 75 years old, now it is over one hundred.

  

That piece of birch bark has always hung on the wall of my den everywhere I have lived, and the older I get the more it defines me.

 

My friend, my best friend/adopted brother, died in a car crash in 1979

The memories of the times we hunted, canoed, fished, camped and got drunk together are still vivid every time I walk through the door of my den, look up and am reminded, ‘Did I Run and Am I Tired?’

DID I RUN and

AM I TIRED?

the Ol’Buzzard

FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS SEASON – AND A COST

Maine just ended one of the mildest winters in recorded weather history.   On January first I took my motorcycle out for a run, just to be able to say I have done it.    This winter I uses only a half tank of fuel oil and no more than one cord of wood for heat, saving me a grunch of money. 

But there is a price yet to be paid.  

Usually deep snow and zero and below temperatures kill off bug eggs and larva that were laid in the fall, somewhat moderating the spring hatch of midges, black flies, mosquitoes and now ticks (ticks are a new insect pest that have moved into Maine over the last thirty years.)

Even the normal bug season is a trial of endurance for anyone working or living in or near the woods.   But, this mild winter heralds a bug season of fearful proportion. 

 

An old Maine joke:   Two mosquitoes are carrying off a moose and one turns to the other and says ‘let’s not carry him into the woods or the big ones will take him.’

I have live in the southern swamps and in the arctic, and I can testify that the farther north you go the worse and more numerous the blood sucking bugs become. 

Henry David Thoreau visited Maine and wrote a book entitled The Maine Woods.   It is said he had to cut his trip short because of the ravenous Maine insects in the woods during the summer time. 

Dave Mallett (Maine’s folk singer) recently put out an album called Fable Truth, where he reads excerpts from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods – placing it to music.

Here is a selection called Camping.

There is a bug here in Maine we call a no-see-um.   It is often mistakenly classified as a midge.   They are so small they can come through a screen.   When you do see them they appear as a speck of ash floating in the air.   They are small but venomous little bastards - I have had bites from no-see-us swelled up like a hornet sting.  I swear if no-see-ums were the size of bumble bees the human race would be extinct in the north country.

I dedicate this post to No-see-ums.
the Ol'Buzzard

FOR DEBRA

This is for Debra who helped me downloading videos from YouTube to my blog; and who helping Yellowdog Granny straighten out her blog.   

And this is in honor of her Viking tattoo. 

thank you
the Ol'Buzzard

WILLIAM OCCAM - 14 CENTURY – THE GRANDFATHER OF SCIENCE AND LOGIC

William Occam was a 14^th century Franciscan monk that defied Pope John XXII by proclaiming ecclesiastical poverty was dictated by the Bible.   He also argued that religious beliefs and doctrines could not displace logic and science.   His outspoken beliefs resulted in charges of heresy and he was imprisoned and tortured until he recanted.  

William Occam was one of the most pivotal people responsible for moving the world from the Dark Ages of Christian imposed ignorance into an era of science and logic resulting in the technological advances of civilization to date. 

He is perhaps best known for Occam’s Razor stating: Entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied -  or – the simplest explanation from known facts is the best. 

William Occam was presented as the Sherlock Holmes of the 14 century in the novel The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.   

The American novel is a translation from Italian.   This is one of the cases where the movie, starring Sean Connery is an excellent substitute.

The Name of the Rose is a riveting murder mystery taking place in a 14^th century monastery and intertwined with the drama of religious inquisition. 

THINGS I THINK ABOUT:

1.   In the year 1800 the world population was about one billion – one hundred years later (around 1927) the earth population reached two billion.   Today the earth population is above seven billion, and by twenty-fifty the population in projected to be nearing ten billion.   

POPULATION CLOCK LINK

With these population numbers it is obvious that land area in finite and land usage critical.  Isn’t it about time to get rid of cemeteries and golf courses?

2.   Any sentence starting with the words ‘I think’ totally discredits what you are about to say.

3.   Prostitution, like marijuana, should be legal.   Legalizing it would undermine the violent underground trade of drug dealers and pimps.   Legalization would regulate the industries, create taxable income for the states, and allow you to identify fundamentalist Christians on sight - running around with their hair on fire.    Besides that, having sex is legal and selling is legal, so logically selling sex should be legal?

4.   When do you think was the last time Queen Elizabeth gave Prince Philip a blow job?

5.   The international space station was launched in 1998 and has housed mainly men for almost twenty years.   Men have remained on station from three months to a year.    Now, men can’t go without sex without masturbating for a year (more likely a week.)  So what happens to the ejaculate?   If you shined a black light on the walls would they light up.   This could work as a bio-energy saving system. 

6.   Clock time is not actual sun time.   When a stick is stuck in the ground the shortest shadow represents 12 noon.   This is why time zones were established – as little as fifteen miles east west distance can create a one-minute difference in actual time.   Before time zones it would be two o’clock in one town and one hundred miles west the time would be one-fifty-four – this wreaked havoc with train schedules.

7.   It is three thousand miles from the east coast to the west coast and a three-hour time difference.  If you departed the east coast at 2 pm and flew west at one thousand miles an hour, you should be able to pull the stem on your watch and it would be 2 pm wherever your flight happened to be at the moment – you should be able to arrive at the same time you departed.  

I am just sharing

the Ol'Buzzard

MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10

Back in December I upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 and have been very happy with it.   It is a powerful and convenient tool, especially Cortana – You type in (or ask) a question and get an immediate answer without having to browse through a load of links.  

But yesterday I was unable to open some of the tiles on the Windows 10 desktop, so I called the toll free number and talked to someone in the Philippians who didn’t seem to know the answer but kept trying to sell me one-year tech support for $150.00.

Later last night I found a link called ‘Contact Support’ in the ‘all apps' menu.  I went on line, and after about five-minute I was linked to a technician.   He took control of the computer and trouble shot it, found the corrupted files, downloaded a new updated version of Windows 10 and efficiently fixed the problem.   The fix took about two hours but the technician was friendly, communicative and professional.   The fix cost nothing. 

Today everything is working fine as usual.

I would never tell someone to switch to Windows 10, but I like it – and the tech support is good – better on line than on the phone.

the Ol’Buzzard

ANOTHER DARWIN AWARD IN THE MAKING

U.S. student arrested in North Korea for stealing a propaganda poster gets fifteen years’ hard labor. 

This is another Darwin intervention.   The actual reason the man visited Korea has not been published, but he stated he stole the poster to hang in a church.  

Fundamentalist Christians have been traveling to many third-world and hostile countries as ‘Christian ambassadors’ and I suspect this is the case. 

However, traveling to a country that hates and vilifies American – a country that has draconian rule and laws, and while there stealing a state propaganda poster does not place you high on the Darwinian survival scale.

A prime candidate for a Darwin Award.

IT ALL GOES BACK TO THE HOKEY POKEY.

I started this blog asking the question, ‘Is the hokey pokey really what it is all about?’

The one thing I have discovered in my seventy-plus years is, as expressed in the Life of Brian, the meaning of life is - there is no meaning of life.

Many physicists have defined the human race as an accidental anomaly occurring on a small planet rotating around an unimpressive star in a galaxy of billions of stars, in a universe of billions of galaxies.

And then there is my 4 a.m. thinking from a physics background:

Our solar system looks amazingly similar to our conception of an atom; in which case we would be occupying an electron that we call earth rotating around a nucleus we call the sun.

  

Now our atom (solar system) is one of billions of atoms rotating a nucleus (black hole) forming a molecule we call the galaxy. 

That molecule is one of billions of molecules that make up a pustule on the ass of a half drunk female in leathers sitting on a bar stool in a biker bar in another dimension, comparing her tats with the bartender.

We, the human race of Earth, might call her God.

Now she in turn is sitting on an electron making up an atom that is part of a molecule …

And it’s turtles all the way down. 

 

These thoughts keep me awake early in the morning. 

the Ol'Buzzard

CATS REPRESENT MENTAL ILLNESS?

WHY?

If you bring up Google Chrome, click on Images, and type in Schizophrenic art - you get numerous pictures of cats (no dogs.) 

Why are cat pictures synonymous with Schizophrenia?

Just curious

the Ol'Buzzard

WHEN DOES AN ASSEMBLY BECOME A MOB

GROUP PERSONALITIES 

In the military I was a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) instructor, and as part of our program we studied how individual prisoners and prisoners as a group behaved in captivity – this included interviewing our own U.S. prisoners of war that had escaped or were released in Vietnam.

This characterizing of people vs group behavior can carry over to any assembly of people.   As individuals people are restrained, but as they become a part of an assembly or group, individuals tend to take on the character of the group personality.  

The seventy-two-year-old man that punched the young black man at the Trump rally would never have considered doing that if he and the young man were in a room by themselves.   The man was not acting as an individual, he was acting as a bonded part of a larger personality – the personality of the Trump assembly at that venue.

Groups of people, assemblies, mobs or whatever you would like to call them, unify to take on the persona of a single personality; and if you can identify the characteristics of the group personality, you can understand its personality traits, and even manipulate it.

But, unlike more stable people, most mobs are Schizophrenic: capable of abnormal social behavior and failure to understand reality.  This volatile group personality easily buys into false beliefs and unclear or confused thinking of situations. 

The group personality of the Trump rallies is a low intelligent, angry, zealous, bigoted group personality that is easy manipulated by a charismatic leader;

 but, one capable of losing self-control and become a mindless mob without direction.

There are other people at the Trump rallies with more reserve, but they are marginalized because of the temperament created by Trump.  If the extremist were decried by their leader the more reasonable   personality could assert itself, though the overall characteristics of the group would not have change.

Maybe I am over thinking this: what we all need is a glass of wine, a good fuck and a nap.

Words of wisdom from 

the Ol'Buzzard   

  

EUGENICS

Eugenics (NOUN): science dealing with improvement of hereditary qualities.

Just as the Republican party is responsible for the advent of Donald Trump on the Republican political stage; the Democratic party is responsible for the dumbing down of the Tea Party base of the of the Republican electorate.

It is well known that Republican men have this creepy fascination with what happens inside the vagina of young women – and especially with impregnation and zygote development; but they don’t give a Flanders damn about what happens outside the vagina - the birth of a child and its subsequent health and welfare. 

It is the Democratic Party that champions the health and welfare of children and adults.    Democrats have enacted laws that make food safe and available for those that can’t feed themselves, to improve medical facilities and medical procedures, to support drug development to fight disease, to have special education a requirement for schools, to protect coal miners and people working in hazardous industries, and to require safety belts and helmets and air bags for people on the move.   

The problem is that with all their well-meaning, Democrats have thwarted the natural selection of eugenics.   

 The human race survived up to this point because nature thinned out the stupid, reckless, sick and fucktards of the human race leaving those most adaptable to adjusting to change to carry on the gene pool.

 

When Ugg dropped his loin cloth and mooned a Tyrannosaurus Rex, nature made sure that his bloodline would end; 

but when Winston III drops his pants in the middle of the freeway to moon an oncoming Lexus full of his friends, the automatic collision avoidance and the anit-lock brakes engage to insure that young Winston will live to produce progeny with the same lack of common sense and survival response.

To correct this, we need to let the Republicans dismantle all safety and support regulations.

911 should have a policy that when someone calls that the bungee cord broke and young Jake is at the bottom of the canyon under the bridge the operator should switch to a recording that says, ‘your call is important to us but we must respond to calls of non-self-inflicted emergencies first, so enjoy this elevator music while I place you on hold.’

When Marcus reports to the emergency room with six gerbils stuck in his ass the hospital should charge him $500 and send him home with a coat hanger.

When Billy Bob accidentally shoots his kid the 911 operator should transfer his call to the NRA.

When Chuck drives his motorcycle off the road and hits a tree at 70 miles per hour.    His parents should have to pay to have his decapitated body taken to the morgue.

And let’s not forget the octomom who should be denied all welfare until she has eaten at least six of her children. 

This may sound drastic, but the world is overpopulated with stupid people, and the majority of them in this country make up the Republican base. 

If the American political system is ever going to regroup again and prevent America from devolving into a third world cluster fuck, then natural selection should be allowed to work as intended, eventually erasing the idiot base that vote in the Republican Party and allowing government to function efficiently.

It is simply Science.

the Ol’BUzzard