My Stinky Left Side
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Well, it has been three weeks now since I broke my ring-finger on my right hand, and sprained a knuckle on the hand part of the same finger. I'm coming to grips with (grips? no, sorry, no grip...) how to do things with my left hand. Some things are rather difficult to do with your left hand, like wiping your b...nevermind. You get the idea. Other things are impossible to do with your left hand, like washing your left arm and arm-pit in the shower.

To help you make a real fool of yourself in any attempt to wash your left side modern Medicine has come up with some incredibly great inventions. Well, at least one anyway: the full-arm-plastic-rubber-air-tight glove for instance.

I was so pleased when my doctor gave me this (and I use the word "gave" loosely, as I know I'll be getting a bill for it... or my insurance company will anyway). "Yeah," she said. "They are completely air-tight and water-tight. You can wear it in the shower, and it even has a separate place for your thumb so you can hold your bar of soap!

Why I didn't think of it then, I cannot imagine. Perhaps it was the excitement of something completely new: I've never broken anything before (bones, that is). Or perhaps it was my doctor's own enthusiasm for this modern medicinal marvel.

Anyway: think about it! Give me a break: holding a wet bar of soap in the shower with a rubber glove?????

Yeah, that's right folks: I spend more time chasing the bar of soap around the shower.

Well, at least they've finally thought of one thing anyway: how to make the thing so that no water leaks in. Pretty ingenious, really. At least I can even TAKE a shower! But never mind trying to hang onto your bar of soap!

So, that leaves me with the question: what to do about my left side?

I've finally gotten to where I can reach into places I never dreamed of with my left hand. Sometimes I'm nervous I'm going to tie my left arm in a knot trying to reach places. But there remains the unreachable: Left Underarm!

You see, I'm no monkey. I know monkeys can scratch their arm-pits with the same hand, but humans aren't designed that way.

Well, I've thought of a couple of ways to solve the problem:

a) wash cloth: yes you can actually hold a wet and soapy wash cloth in the shower with that enormous rubber glove. At least for a while. You just have to overcome the feeling that you are no longer manly if you use a wash cloth. Yes, next thing you know I'll be wearing white gloves, and keeping lace handkerchiefs in my pockets.

b) scrub brush: yes, well sometimes my arm pits need scrubbing out with a scrub brush anyway...

Then there are other miscellaneous left-side problems: like trying to get enough strength in your few free fingers of the right hand to clip the nails on your left hand, or worse: foot.

Then there is always the retrieving things from your pocket problem. I'm trying to put things into pockets that I can get at with my left hand, but every once in a while I forget, and cause an embarrassing scene trying to fish things out of a right pocket with my left hand. The other day I think someone almost called the police on me for public indecency.

I am at least learning how to type with only three fingers on one hand (that is, if you count the thumb as a finger --- ah, what the heck, they are all thumbs on that hand anyway.

Well, enough for now.

Regards!
Basil

Has China Declared War on the United States?

Unfair, unfair. If Russia had done this we would have introduced some sort of trade embargo (the heat of Europe not withstanding).

China: the only (major) country in the world where Christians are still persecuted and killed, where blue collar workers are treated like slave labor, where it is against the law to exercise freedom of speech and to have more than one child per family... China continues to get away with it's systematic and well planned undermining of western society:

We allow their government to hack into our Pentagon network infrastructure.

We allow them to poison our animals.

We allow them to kill our children. (the latest product recalls from Matel).

And we sit here and do nothing about it at all. Instead we waste our energy on insignificant problems (or non existent problems) in order to play upon public sympathies and increase political clout.

I'm sick of stupid garbage Chinese-made products that cost less money than products made in other countries that actually WORK. These inexpensive electric pencil sharpeners, stereos, and garden sheers, may cost less money in the short run, but they only last a few months (long enough that you no longer have the original box or the receipt). Because the markets are flooded with cheap products that don't work (or for long anyway) all of the products that aren't made in China are harder and harder to find, and therefore cost a lot more money. Can I afford to pay 10 times as much for a TV that will last 10 years instead of 1 year? No, actually I can't. I need my TV today and can't wait 10 years for it, thank you.

The Chinese are not beating us by their lead-tainted toys, and their chemical-laden food products: no, they are defeating us by filling our landfills with toxic substances that continue to pollute the environment for many hundreds of years.

But, what can I do?

I think I'll go pop some popcorn in my two-month-old-and-still-working Chinese-made microwave (still ticking), and sit down and watch a movie (printed no doubt in China in a Chinese-made DVD but what the heck, I've only watched that movie 6 times now so the DVD hasn't worn out yet...)

Cheers!
Basil

Fun With A Purpose

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Do you have a moral for that story?

We got an advertisement for a highlights magazine in the mail. It says Highlights, Fun With a Purpose I believe the idea is, it's a learning magazine for children. It's fun, but it also teaches kids various skills: problem solving with puzzles, games and hidden pictures.

I always loved that sort of stuff when I was a kid, and my daughter does too.

I think as a marketing ploy the idea is: this is better than other similar magazines (are there any?) because it teaches learning skills. I think these days most kids (my daughter included) are polishing their problem solving skills, along with their quick-thinking reflexes, at computer games.

But the important thing is: there's a moral to that story.

I was reminded of the special features from last night's movie "Sleepy Hollow". Apparently the last question they asked the stars was "what's the moral to the story" - which, I think, was a dumb question, and judging by some of the answers, the stars agreed.


Michael Gambon: "Hold on to your head."
Christopher Lee: "Don't lose your head."
Johnny Depp: "When Tim Burton asks you to do a movie: Do It!"

And I'm reminded of something Vladimir Nabokov said when questioned about his controversial novel, Lolita. When asked what the moral of the story was, he indicated that he was insulted, and that he was a firm believer that for an author to get didactic ruins the story. In fact, it was one of the reasons he hated Dostoevsky and Tolstoy so much.

Well, I disagree vaguely to Nabokov. It is possible to have a good story with characters in it that THINK. Yet at the same time I can agree to a certain extent: What is the moral of any good story? To make you think!

If a story (read: movie, novel, computer game) doesn't make me think, I quickly lose interest. And, in a word, a good story need not be didactic so long as it at least makes you think. A person can discover the moral value inherent in anything when they are challenged to think.

So, more power to the children's magazines like Highlights that give kids something interesting to make the wheels churn. But all the better something like J. K. Rowling who makes the wheels churn and makes an extremely entertaining story at the same time!

Regards,
Basil

Sleepy Hollow

I never stay up to date.

And this is actually intentional.

One of the most important things a friend pointed me to in college was something C.S. Lewis said: For every new book he read, he also read an old one.

For many years I practiced that very thing, well, really I mostly only read the classics. These days I read things all over the map. Classics like Sophocles, Dante, Oscar Wilde, Stephen King all the way to the modern stuff: J. K. Rowling.

Well, so much to say: I rarely go see a movie while it is fresh. I figure if it is worth seeing today, it will be worth seeing tomorrow also. In fact, if it is worth seeing at all it will be just as worth it today as 20 years from now.

So, I've just come around to seeing Sleepy Hollow. I've been a big Johnny Depp fan since the first Pirates move came out. And now I've become a fan of his great stuff back to Edward Scissorhands and Benny and Joon. In fact, I've even come to notice little things like when he makes little references to previous movies like he did with the raisins in the last Pirates move.

Anyway, what a great movie! I love horror, but I don't think I've every seen a horror movie I liked this much: even to the point of watching all the extras on the DVD. It's got a superb all-star cast (well, I won't tell you everyone in it but check that out on IMDB if you are so inclined.)

It's really cool to see three Harry Potter stars, two great Star Wars stars, along with the impeccably artistic Mr. Depp and the gorgeously talented Christina Ricci in this, yet one more great Tim Burton classic. I highly recommend it (if you can manage horror) and as Michael Gambon says: hang onto your head!

Cheers!
Basil

Reinventing Myself

Why don't I blog more? This question taunts me constantly. Well, really the question is: why don't I write more?

I could blame my temporary impairment on the fact that I broke a finger two weeks ago, and now, in addition to my normal impairment of carpal-tunnel symptoms in my hand (sore joints, wrist, sometimes pain all the way to my elbow), well now, in addition to that problem, I've a sprained finger, a broken finger, and a third really sore finger that was nearly sprained. So, I'm typing with my hand in a cast and only three fingers (including my thumb) to type with there (right hand). Yes, I can think of excuses.

But I know what my real problem is: how to say what I really want to say without drawing negative attention to myself.

Well, I've decided to "turn over a new leaf" - I'm just going to spew it all out, and I'm going to spew it all out here in this one blog, devoted to... well, devoted to the art of spewing it all out I guess.

So, I daily have things to say, but I worry myself too much over saying them right.

Take for instance my GRIPE. I was thinking of starting a whole separate blog devoted to complaining about Microsoft. But I don't want people to get the impression that I'm a crabby old man, or that I have something personally against them. And also there's the question: what if I someday want to work for them? (Got forbid!) But being that I'm in the Software Quality Assurance industry - do I really want to burn that bridge - I mean if someone were to find me complaining constantly about Microsoft....

Well, I can't take it any longer. The idiots employ the largest workforce in the State of Washington, they rake in the money, and they can't even write a !@$#!@#$# operating system that actually works!

I find myself spending between 40 and 60% of my work time overcoming the obstacles Microsoft puts in our way to get our work done. Excel crashing when you try to really use it, hotmail breaking up links on emails making it impossible for my less-than-computer-savvy friends to click on them and get to the link (or even figure out how to split up multiple lines), the O/S keeping me from moving my files when I want to... the list simply goes on and on.

So, anyway, I'm not going to hold back any longer.

Of course there are other things I can complain about too, like the fact that firefox runs your computer out of memory and eventually crashes every time there is an update available that you've been postponing. Or the fact that NVue still has an annoying bug in it that has been there since it was called netscape composer 1.0.

Linux is not without it's problems either, but I've finally resorted to having two separate primary work computers, one linux of the Gentoo flavor, and one XP (don't give me that VISTA crap!) just so that I can always get my work done...

.. speaking of getting my work done. Got to go.

Basil

Designated Driver?

Somehow, I don't think this is what they meant when they told you to bring along a designated driver:

Woman Allows 5-year-old Son To Drive

It is a strange world.

Regards,
Basil

A tale of North America

Let us say for example that some fascist dictator down south decides to make war. He sweeps up from S. America and invades Central America all the way up to Mexico.

The Mexicans are proud and fight off this tyrant vigorously for a time, but in the end they ask for U.S support.

The U.S invades Mexico, heads south and pushes the tyrant all the way back to his homeland, where eventually he is defeated by a combination of freedom fighters from within, and armies fro sympathetic nations around.

In the aftermath Mexico has a great deal of turmoil re-establishing it's own government, and in the opts for joining with the U.S. in something of a North American Union, in which the U.S. has some controlling interest in the Mexican state.

Let's say for the next 90 years or so many U.S. citizens immigrate to Mexico, just as many Mexicans immigrate northward. Let us even go so far as to say that the U.S government creates a sponsorship program whereby U.S. citizens willing to immigrate south and start anew life in helping to rebuild Mexico are given great incentives.

So after 90 years, lets say, you have about 40% of the population of Mexico as Anglo-Saxon whites who have made this their home. The new generations of whites have never known any other home. In fact, by now even their grandparents who came here have passed on.

Let's say that the new generations of ethnically Hispanic Mexicans don't remember the war. The society they have rebuilt is far removed from any trace of the former period of captivity, except for a hand full of war memorials.

Let's say that many of the younger generation start persecuting the Anglo-Saxons (AS) who live here, because they don't feel it is right for all those people to live in their land. Let's say that the persecution also instigates back-lash fro the AS crowd who feel they've plenty of right to live there as they've lived there their whole lives.

Let's say the government now steps in: but far from stepping in so as to diffuse the situation, on the contrary makes it deliberately hard for English speakers to conduct business, and starts taking steps (which it says are in the interest of the AS crowd) to ban English in public, and so on. Business signs must be in Spanish, all business and legal documents must be in Spanish, and so on.

Lets say they also decide to remove all war memorials to U.S. soldiers who died liberating their country: why, because it shows "U.S. Aggression".

Let's say that the U.S gov protests against this move by Mexico, but that the Mexicans basically say "screw you" to the U.S. gov. We are an independent state and you cannot boss us around.

Well, leaving aside the politics for a moment between U.S. and Mexico in this scenario, let us discuss "right and wrong" - that is to say morals.

How can it possibly be "right" what the Mexicans are doing in my pretend scenario here?

And yet, I am not speaking of U.S. and Mexico here, but rather of Russia and the Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The above is precisely what has happened in the Baltic countries, and yet for some reason (I believe only because they are brainwashed by the official U.S. news media that casts everything it can in an anti-Russian slant).. for some reason my friends try to convince me that the U.S is the one who is morally wrong in the example I've provided here. Well, that is to say, they consider Russian to be in the wrong.

You see how the tables are turned when we are talking about the U.S. instead of Russia?

Clearly, it is the Baltic governments who are morally in the wrong by encouraging anti-Russian racism in their laws, and police crackdowns.

Regards!
Basil