This Linda Picken Painting reminds me of when I was a boy of six playing
in the snow when I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. Looks just like what I
used to see when I lived in a “country” location, now long gone by development.
We had sleds like those. It’s like seeing a lost snapshot in the annals of my mind.
Pickens’ images would make great homemade Christmas cards.
I was awakened by the tickle of Whiskers (pictured at left) purring in my ear early this morning. There he was, comfortably curled up on my pillow next to my head purring into my ear. I opened my eyes to the song of cat purring. He didn’t want to move—it was like he wanted me to listen to the comforting sound of cat purring! I looked around and saw White Paws at the foot of my bed and The Little Tiger Cat high atop the cat tree—both watching me intently, hoping I’d get up to turn on the heat and feed them their favorite canned Friskies mealtime. It was bitterly cold; hard for me to get out from beneath my electric blanket. A rush of cold air hit me in my skivvies as I slid the door open to feed the stray cats outside, hunkering down on the porch with their paws buried beneath their fur to keep them warm. When I grabbed up their empty water feeder, freezing cold water spilled on my bare feet. What a way to get awake fast! The heat escapes the trailer about 20 minutes after I turn it off. This is why my heating bill is so high. The mobile home just cannot maintain warmth inside—it leaks out through the thin walls rapidly. Makes me glad I’m moving into a normal place, an apartment, again.
Well today marks the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We’ve been eating turkey and gravy for days now. The bird’s carcass is almost picked clean. I’m beginning to get sick of eating turkey now, even though it’s my favorite grub. I’m gonna get the rest of the meat off the carcass and boil it to make turkey noodle soup today. I’ve got plenty of onion and celery to go in the turkey stock, along with the meat scraps and some egg noodles.
I really need to get this book for Nevada (I already have a copy of Weird California), which highlights weird places to see in Nevada on roadtrips:
Ohmygod, look at these weird attractions to see in Nevada. And I’ve GOT to see the quirky Thunder Mountain Monument (don’t miss this link it’s got bizarre written all over it). The great travel blog to weird places, Roadside America went to Thunder Mountain. Of course there is the site of the Burning Man annual festival in the desert where weirdos converge every year, and the Extraterrestrial Highway to explore as well…
Last night Friend and I were talking about all the oddball places of Weird Nevada that I plan to see in Nevada once we get moved up there next Friday, the deadline. He never heard of The Extraterrestrial Highway (Nevada state route 375 which passes by the legendary Area 51 secret military base where rumor has it the remains of a crashed UFO are stored) or all the crumbling old west ghost towns in the sticks of that state that can be seen on road trips. The most exciting part is that we WILL see them since the price of gas continues to fall. I can travel far and wide on what it costs to fill my truck’s tank up now, coming to only $30 for a full tank! It’s likely we’ll be trucking the second load up there tomorrow or Tuesday as Friend has some money coming, a little of which will pay for the trip back here. I’m hoping and praying that we don’t get stuck in any snowstorms. I need to get all this stuff out of here by Friday to avoid paying rent on the trailer in addition to paying back my brother and sister-in-law for their getting me an apartment to move to in Reno.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer airs next Wednesday, December 3 at 8 p.m. on CBS. Here is a list of new Christmas holiday specials to be aired next month. Also see this list as well. Don’t miss the annual ABC Family Network’s 25 Days of Christmas marathon through December 25. They’ll be showing all the timeless animated Christmas classics along with movies and specials. Good, wholesome, clean fun.
Select television advisor in right pane.
Select $500-$1000 range.
Treasure.
Out of them all this one looks pretty reliable and sturdy for a few years’ use; this is from the Sony site so the prices are dealer inflated. The like set at Circuit City, Best Buy and other electronics outfits should have this one beneath $1,000. So add a half-price discount on to that by so-called struggling merchants, that sale price should bring a 40” screen to say $499-$599? Let’s see the struggling merchants pull that trick. I know I sound crazy with this hypothesis, but something tells me they’re gonna go that low in these times. It would be interesting to see it. I always liked Sony stuff. I’ve never had any problem with mine. Built to last and the picture quality never fails. Very sharp and clear all the time. There are clones I’m sure but will their picture rival the great Sony?
I was thinking what “Forbidden Planet” widescreen will look like on that Sony LCD. No black space on the top and bottom, full screen like on a mini movie theater screen. And Robby the Robot tooling around… it would be almost like watching it on a movie screen in its original format, just smaller. A 52-inch would be even better, but those are all over $1-1,999 still.
A Christmas pipe dream
well it’s smart to be up on these things just in case
Here’s some miscellaneous stuff I happened across in my Web travels that didn’t make the front page, but interesting nevertheless. Oh, and by the way… it’s strange, but my swollen foot/leg issue doesn’t hurt at all this morning when I got up, unlike yesterday morning. I can twist my foot and leg left and right and feel no pain—and I don’t have any pain killers in me. Odd the sudden release from pain… did one of you spell-casters cast a “pain begone” spell on me? If so, I kiss you.
ALSO, the move to Reno is less than a week away (next Friday is the day of final departure date from the trailer park. Hooray).
Story: Police Seeking Walmart Shoppers Who Trampled Employee—Ha-ha, good luck on that. I bet they’re expecting them to turn themselves in so they can pin the blame on them. Might as well forget that one, coppers. Simply, Walmart has to pay the employee damages for what happened as they obviously did not provide adequate security at the doors… oops! The stampede victim DIED. Now the hunt will really be on to catch the MURDERERS…
Famous Christmas card oil painting scene found: Painting that inspired iconic Christmas card is found hanging in pensioner’s home… and it’s now worth £70,000.
Obama’s security is tight, so much so that he “feels a little boxed in” according to this article with comments from one of his close friends whose nickname for Obama is “ears.”
Birth control GIFT CARDS? Planned Parenthood offers birth control as a holiday gift.
Above: A jokester’s subtle change to an advertisement posted on one of San Francisco’s MUNI cable cars. The original sign said “Been down on a submarine lately?”
Obama Cookies! Ever since word spread about the president-elect and his family’s fondness for Baby Boomers’ chocolate chunk cookies, the small downtown restaurant can’t bake them fast enough. Mmmm, they DO look good I must say… I hope my friend Alissa bakes some of her fabulous Christmas cookies this year…
How Batman Dies is a BBC article about the end of crime-fighter Batman, who has been fighting crime since 1939…
On a local news broadcast, NewEgg.com was highly recommended for online holiday shoppers. Indeed, their prices are off the wall and they have many categories of items. If you don’t buy online, at least go there to get an idea of prices of things before you go to the stores. Man, a new motherboard with a 64 bit processor looks good for me this year. For computer electronics shoppers see PC Magazine’s Ultimate Bargain Hunt and The Top 10 Black Friday Sites...
A restaurant put up a memorial plaque marking the exact spot on its bar where Jim Morrison peed in the 1960s. See Barneys Beanery...
Above: Black Friday waiters at Bass Pro Shop in Manteca, CA., fired up their grill in the bitter cold during the night. Bass Pro set up a movie (background) and offered breakfast to customers who waited all night. ALSO SEE… Black Friday business was good in the San Francisco Bay Area: No Sign Of Slump On Black Friday In Bay Area with video report.
The article, Experts: HIV Could Be Eliminated in a Decade certainly is good news. I just hope I can make it to the year 2018! A decade is a long time! What will the world be like then? Obama will have served two terms and be out of office. Will the war be over? Will the recession be over? Will our dependence on foreign oil be at an end? Will home robots be commonplace as home computers are today? How about A Robot That Cooks Bbreakfast?.
Marky Mark sneers for the dick photographers as he urinates in public.
Christ, can’t a guy take a piss without TMZ filming them? Marky Mark (aka Mark Wahlberg) marks his territory recently under the ever-present stalker eyes of the dick watchers at TMZ.com. Yeah, ok, so pissing outside is trashy. We’ve all had to do it at one time or another in our lives! How much do you wanna bet TMZ photogs scooped up Marky Mark’s piss for a celebrity keepsake?
Rosie O’Donnel’s variety show fails miserably.
MYSTERY THEME: What TV show was this perky little theme song from? Bet ya don’t have a clue.
“In the chilly hours and minutes,
Of uncertainty, I want to be,
In the warm hold of your loving mind.To feel you all around me,
And to take your hand, along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.When sundown pales the sky,
I wanna hide a while, behind your smile,
And everywhere I’d look, your eyes I’d find.For me to love you now,
Would be the sweetest thing, ‘twould make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.When rain has hung the leaves with tears,
I want you near, to kill my fears
To help me to leave all my blues behind.For standin’ in your heart,
Is where I want to be, and I long to be,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.”
Look at those words. Now that’s poetry, true song-writing. That is music. THIS is not.
The swelling has returned this afternoon. I took a couple of pictures of my legs. In picture one of my bloated right leg, cast your eyes at the arrowed areas that show the puffiness—also, with the leg turned this way, the pain was in full swing. The red arrow pointing at the area near my foot’s heel is the area where I sprained it once back in May 2001 which had me in crutches for 2 weeks back then.
In picture two below, compare the two legs, the right one being swollen to the kneecap. It’s hard to see the swelling, but if you compare the foot on the left to the one on the right you can see a little difference. This swelling isn’t as bad as it was last night. Should have taken a photo of it at the height of it’s attack. Scary.
And all this from driving for 8 hours last week. Time to start using the cruise control option.
Something weird happened to me yesterday. Remember I wrote about my driving leg hurting the day after we came back from delivering furniture to Reno, the one I use to press on the accelerator and break? Since that time that leg has been hurting, probably from strain on the muscles from pressing down for so long. I’ve been walking with a slight limp as the leg hurts in the calve area of my leg, going up to right below my knee cap. I figured this would go away. But it hasn’t. Yesterday I noticed my leg had swelled up. You should have seen it compared to the other leg. My foot was puffed out and even the lower portion of my entire leg below the knee cap. And it hurt whenever I turned it. I took a prescription-strength Tylenol which took away the pain well enough, which allowed me to turn it without getting the sharp pain that I’ve been feeling. I did a few leg exercises, mainly turning to where the pain begins and raising the leg above my heart to increase the circulation. I kept it up on some pillows last night. The swelling has gone down significantly this morning, but the pain has come back. Then I remembered it was this very leg that I sprained once way back in May 2001 when I jumped down off a fence. The pain feels similar to that, which I had to use crutches and missed a week’s work because I couldn’t drive. Through the years that same leg has ached from time to time whenever it gets cold and rainy. It feels like when I turn my foot in a certain direction the pain comes which goes to the middle muscle area of my calve. I had to sit down last night, taking breaks from doing kitchen clean up—all those pots and pans from the turkey fest. Friend helped me with the work, and was shocked to see how my foot and leg has suddenly swelled up, in sharp contrast to the normal look of my other foot and lower leg. He washed some dishes and peeled the potatoes and helped me remove the bird from the roasting pan and such, so that was nice. I finally got all the dishes and pots and pans washed good and put away, but what a job—and it took so long stopping to get off my swollen leg in between. Very weird the sudden swelling bit. Looking at it got me worried, but I figured the prescription-Tylenol would help the pain, which it did.
So that was a Thanksgiving weirdness experience, otherwise it was a dull day, with us watching the parades and sports shows on TV while the turkey baked in the oven. Caught a couple of interesting shows on Thanksgiving: Grey’s Anatomy and Lockup: Raw.
I’ve never seen “Grey’s Anatomy” before and was pleasantly surprised by the good writing and storyline. I was channel-surfing and happened across it last night. It grabbed my attention so I watched it. It’s basically about the lives of co-workers in the emergency room at a hospital. A little soap-opera-ish, but nevertheless, it was presented good. One of the workers had a very bizarre accident—while she was outside taking a break and arguing with her co-worker over some guy she’s been boning, she slipped and fell on some ice, landing flat on her back. Then, suddenly, she looked up and saw a very long icicle hanging off the roof above her break free and it impaled her in her abdomen. What a great idea that was for the story, and so sudden and unexpected. Very well done show all through. I’m surprised I actually found two new shows that were good. You can watch the episode online, it’s part 1 and part 2 of “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Here are some screen caps of the bizarre icicle impaling (it’s the big, middle icicle that broke off and impaled the doctor after she slipped). (Click to enlarge):
There was a marathon of a new prison show called Lockup: Raw on MSNBC (DirecTV channel 356) on yesterday for their Thanksgiving holiday weekend schedule. It was a very interesting show showing prison life. One show (“Prison Love”) detailed the sexual antics of prisoners with interviews of inmates telling of the sexual practices in jail, where they go and what happens to them when they get caught. There was an effeminate homosexual interviewed who kept smiling as he told the cameras of his sexual experiences with other inmates being constantly caught with dicks in his mouth in the prison church and other areas. He was so notorious in his pursuit of cocks to suck in prison they had to lock him up in his own cell and kept away from all the prisoners as they were constantly coming to him for sexual favors. He said that once you announce you’re gay in prison you become the whore, constantly pursued all the time. The way he kept smiling about it was like he enjoyed the whole thing. But I kept wondering if he’s been exposed to HIV yet, as it’s running rampant in the prison system. I think authorities need to make HIV checking in prison mandatory to quell the spread of the plague. As when the men get out and go to their women they transfer the virus to them by way of vaginal sex and it goes from there. There is another Lockup: Raw Marathon this Saturday, with more interesting episodes about prison life. I’m hoping would-be criminal viewers will think twice about committing crime after seeing this stuff. A very well done show—and you know there are not too many I like as script-writing these days on most shows is high school level in my opinion. Here is a list of Lockup: Raw shows to watch on the Internet. A clip from “Lockup: Raw.”
On the disturbing note of prison rape sex, here is an anthology book by and for gay culture featuring some 19 prison sex stories glorifying the practice. Why, I don’t know. Some people are gratified in strange ways—having fantasies about the idea. To me, the idea is repulsive; any intimate contact with a criminal, one who kills, victimizes and exploits the innocent revolts me. And the idea of having sex with them is the ultimate disgrace. As you probably know from my “Crime Does Not Pay” category memorializing crimes, I abhor criminals. They cause a lot of problems for society all around, incite fear and make life miserable. Anyway, the book contains one weird, sci-fi-ish story of note, however, “Rehab Block” mentioned on the author’s website is about a future society in which gay sex is the norm and straight sex is a crime, with those practicing heterosexual sex being sent to prison!
“Rehab Block” by Joel A. Nichols
“In a world where it is considered normal for men to have sex with other men and a crime to have sex with a women, two new prioners convicted of crimes against their sex are transferred to the rehabilitation block.”
Twisted, huh? Needless to say I’m curious about reading that short story for the sheer shock value. If het sex is outlawed, how in the hell do people in that society procreate to perpetuate the species? Strange idea, but would make for an interesting sci-fi movie I thought. Of course, porn addicts glorify prison rape on the Internet on sites such as Prison Stud. There is a blog called Sex Offending that covers this subject.
Let me put it to you this way: If I can live a normal life going without sex for some 5 years with the plague OUT OF PRISON, inmates can certainly abstain. They always say “sex is a powerful drive, I can’t help myself.” That’s just an excuse. One can abstain if they put their mind to it and focus on other things in life. That’s what I do. Yes, from time to time I feature a fine stud or an interesting porn link, but I’m not fixated on this shit. It’s not healthy for the mind to dwell on this stuff. I think this predilection for porn for most people is they have no lives. They have nothing to occupy their minds. No hobbies, no interests, no busy work schedule—so they focus on self-gratification. To some, it’s an obsession. Just not a good, wholesome, healthy way to live one’s life.
Everything’s Being Blamed on the Holidays
STUPID Christine Maggiore, AIDS Denialist, Dies of AIDS
KPAH Alien Radio in Nevada: Next Door to Area 51
Friskies Shredded Causes Shredded Nerves
Disorder in the Court Marathon Now in Progress
Screaming Billy Mays Makes Artery Clogging Convenient
Governors in 5 States SeeK $1 Trillion in Aid from Gov’t
Government Punishes Americans for Driving Less
OMFG! SUDDEN MASSIVE SNOW STORM NOW IN PROGRESS HERE!
Diagnosis: Knee Effusion (“Water on the Knee”)
Violent Wind Storm in Progress; Going to Hospital for Leg
WARNING! WEBSITE MAY GO DARK AT ANY TIME!
