Boo! Facebook (again)

Starting today, Facebook is no longer allowing the connection of the Facebook notes section to blogs to automatically push new blog posts to Facebook. So much for being social and playing nice, huh?

Bad Facebook, bad - I would swat you with a newspaper if I could.

Tom Lehrer on the Electric Company

Adverbs



Silent E



Snore, Sniff, and Sneeze

New Blogger Templates Offer Something a Little Different

Blogger has released what they call Dynamic Views. It allows the viewer of the website to switch between views and experience the blog in different ways.

Live examples:

• Undopaste.com (current) (mosaic)
• Fathades.com (current) (flipcard) (snapshot)

The only real drag is that you have to change your basic template to one of the set.If you have done serious HTML and CSS design edits to your Blogger site you're going to lose them. However, they mention that they will "be adding more ways to customize Dynamic Views int he coming weeks."

The current option list is:

• Classic (Gmail): A modern twist on a traditional template, with infinite scrolling and images that load as you go
• Flipcard (M loves M) - Your photos are tiled across the page and flip to reveal the post title
• Magazine (Advanced Style) - A clean, elegant editorial style layout 
• Mosaic (Crosby’s Kitchen) - A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
• Sidebar (Blogger Buzz Blog) - An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
• Snapshot (Canelle et Vanille) - An interactive pinboard of your posts 
• Timeslide (The Bleary-Eyed Father) - A horizontal view of your posts by time period

Read all about it on Blogger Buzz: Dynamic Views: seven new ways to share your blog with the world

Google's Ngram Viewer

Recently watched the following TED talk: "What we learned from 5 million books"


Neat!
So I did a few searches, and these are my results:

• fact vs. fiction: fact occurs much more often, but has taken a decidedly sharp down turn since the early 1970s. Also, fiction is on the rise.
• happy vs. sad: happy is on a serious decline. It bottomed out in the mid-late 1980s (a little cold war scare anyone?), but does seem to be on the rise again. Sad rose to a height in the late 1860s, but has been on the decline, except for a small rise in the late 1920s, ever since.
• ain't vs. isn't: these two words have an interesting relationship. there was a time just before 1900 that ain't was more prevalent. Then rightfully so isn't was used more often. Then just after 1940 they both enjoyed a wild spike in usage and both shared a huge dip in usage in the early 1960s. Also ain't remains in print, isn't has spiked beyond its 1940 era boom - thankfully.
• yes vs. no: is a most interesting graph. It seems that yes has never had much ground, and no was very famous. However no has been steadly decreasing since a peak around 1840.
• pencil vs. pen: it looks that the pen has had the upper hand for two hundred years, but both are in a steady decline.
• disco vs. funk: beginning in 1970 funk began in the lead and then there was a crutial tipping point in 1976 and disco soared while funk stagnated. However, funk enjoyed a resurgance in the 1990s, but by the time 1999 rolled around it was on the down beat again.

And contentious for grammarians is it email or e-mail ?? From 1980 - 2000 there has been a steady increase in the use of email!! yea, I win!

The homepage is http://books.google.com/ngrams/ - go explore.

Claymation Humor

These were posted by YouTube member scuzzbopper. Visit that channel for lots more. I love the rabbit in the second one.

Etymology of Mausoleum

In ancient times there was a little kingdom called Caria in the Persian Empire on the edge of the growing Greek influence.

Mausolus ruled Caria with his wife Artemisia from 377-353 BC. Mausolus became the official ruler (at the time called a satrap) when his father Tissaphernes died in approximately 395 BC. Mausolus was a fan of Hellenic culture. He moved the capital of Caria to Halicarnassus and began building it in a grand Greek fashion. (Mausolus, n.d.) He built up a fleet of warriors and and conquered several of the surrounding kingdoms. He exacted heavy taxes from his subjects in order to pay for his grand building scheme.

He died in 353 BC. After the ceremony, his widow Artemisia began the construction of a massive tomb for his body in Halicarnassus, the capital coastal city (Google map of the location) now known as Bodrum, Turkey.

Artemisia died two years after her brother-husband. Did I mention that they were siblings? It wasn't uncommon in those times for elite siblings to marry in order to keep wealth and power in the family. During those two years of loneliness, she became renowned for two things: cunningly crushing a rebellion by the previously conquered the Greek island city-state of Rhodes thereby returning them to Caria rule, and her immense grief over the death of Mausolus.

She was so stricken with grief that she was rumored to have mixed some of his ashes with her wine. Also she paid celebrated orators to give speeches in his honor (King, 1901).

When Artemisia died it was said that grief was the cause; she was entombed with her brother-husband.

The tomb was made entirely of white marble and combined Egyptian, Greek, and Persian styles. It was completed in 350 BC (three years after his death and one year after hers). According to authors Woods and Woods, it was truly massive. “It measured 120 by 100 feet at its base and rose to a height of 140 feet. It contained a polished stone burial chamber topped by statues and a pyramid-shaped roof. At the very top of the roof…were statues of King Mausolus and his queen, riding in a chariot pulled by four horses.” (2000)

In the Wikipeda article there is a reference to Pliny the Elder, the historian, who wrote that even though the patron of the tomb (Artemisia, I'm assuming) died before it was completed, the artisans stayed and completed the work. They believed that it was a display of their artistic skills as well as a king's tomb.

There are some arguments as to if it was possible to complete and decorate the tomb in three years. According to the fifth reference (Attributed to Howard Colvin) to the Wikipedia article, some think that it was begun before Mausolus' death (Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, n.d.).

This is a scale model:


The mausoleum at Halicarnassus stood for approximately 1800 years as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world until it was likely destroyed by an earthquake sometime in the 14th century AD.

If you Google search for Mausolus you will often come across an image of the statue in the British Museum.

However, according to the British Museum (page The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus/Statue), “The statue represents a heroised member of the Hekatomnid dynasty. There is no reason to identify him specifically with Maussollos.”

Also, Maussollos seems to be an alternate spelling of Mausolus - as well as, Halikarnassos for Halicarnassus.

Two bits of knowledge to take away from this:

• If you construct a 'Wonder of the World' it gets associated with your name. And I guess having your name be synonymous with a giant ornate tomb is better than nothing...
• There is nothing quite like the love between a brother-husband and sister-wife...
  

A nice synopsis read by Pierce Brosnan. The video and audio get a little out of sync, but worth watching. But it's better than the no-videos that the History Channel has available online for this subject. And while we're on the subject of the History Channel (please keep their name in mind) the only real information that I found on the mausoleum at Halicarnassus was two paragraphs (attributed to Britannica.com) and no videos or photos. No really, look for yourself http://www.history.com/topics/mausoleum-of-halicarnassus. On the other hand the History Channel does have plenty of content on Ice Road Truckers and Swamp Loggers!! Disappointing, very disappointing. Just as wrong as wrestling on the SyFy Channel.

Any way, watch the video, learn something, and enjoy real history.

---

References:

British Museum - The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus/Statue - Retrieved from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=460572&partid=1&searchText=mausolus&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=2 

King, W. C., (1901) Woman: Her Position, Influence, and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Her Biography. Her History. The King-Richardson Co., San Jose. Chicago. Indianapolis. Retrieved from: http://www.archive.org/stream/womanherpositio00kinggoog/womanherpositio00kinggoog_djvu.txt

Wikipedia (n.d.) Mausolus. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausolus

Wikipedia (n.d.) Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Halicarnassus

Woods, M. & Woods, M. B., (2000) Ancient Construction: From Tents to Towers. p. 31. Retrieved from Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=Z0dNB0ijOGwC&pg=PA31&sig=65mldoc6-7dxB7rv0dU6aNcW7fI&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false



Additional Resources:

A detailed description of what is known about the appearance and construction of the tomb by bill Thayer:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Turkey/_Periods/Greek/_Texts/LETGKB/Mausoleum*.html

A collection of photos of the known remnants of the tomb (although the British Museum contests that there is no proof that the next to the last photo and the one before it are truly Mausolus): http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/halicarnassus/halicarnassus_mausoleum.html

Not News: Students misrepresent thier use and IM-ing in class is bad

Not a lot of news here, but it's nice when research backs up your intuition. When asked if they used an instant messaging app in class, 40% of those who had texted in class lied about it. Also IM-ing in class is more disruptive to learning than just surfing off-topic pages.
Read the whole article here:
What They Are Really Typing
May 18, 2011
by Steve Kolowich

Man walks away from lightning strike! TWICE! -- NOT!

Watch this video:

Pretty convincing huh?
Now look at these screen captures of the two strikes. They are in order.

1st strike problems:
The man is near the front of the van and yet the shadow of the van cast by the bolt goes many feet in front of the van-all of the way to the next van. For a light source to cast a long shadow like that it must be behind the van. Clearly not the bolt.
Also, look at the trees just beyond the second van on the left, they are barely illuminated at all, in relation to the others. Wouldn't they also be brightly lit if a bolt of lightning struck so closely?
Click on image for larger version.

2nd strike problems:
The illumination cast by the second strike is almost identical to the first, despite it occurring in a different location. How's that happen? The first van is casting a shadow toward the light source; that simply can't happen. The trees closest to the camera on the right side would have more shadow because of the location of the light source, and the trees in front of and on the left of the second van would certainly be lit up by the second bolt.
Click on image for larger version. 

Nice try, but nay.

Generational Gap Identification

Soon we'll need new calipers to measure the generational gaps...

I am of an age where I still remember what I thought when I was young even though I myself am no longer young. I now have the experience to know that some of what my elders told me was true, and some was just there way of misrepresenting the facts to shape my thoughts in a way that they wanted me to think.
The age before TCI (thought connected Internet).

I remember when I first really felt like an adult. I had just started my first job with insurance and health care. I felt comfortable cursing in front of my parents, as long as it was appropriate. I was married, and my life was starting a new chapter.
The age before Blu-ray.

I remember when it was not that I didn't trust anyone over 30, it was just that they had no relevance to my life - they didn't like what I liked, they didn't do what I did, they didn't go where I went. I thought I knew what was the best in music, movies, activities, beverages, et cetera.
The age before DVDs.

I remember when I had no responsibilities other than avoiding mud, when it was possible. I didn't have a job, buy groceries, or clean my own room. My permanent teeth had almost all arrived, and I could read books that weren't written for children.
The age before CDs.

Will the process reverse?

Will I not trust anyone under fifty because they haven't been around long enough to know how the world really works?

Will I constantly deride contemporary entertainment in favor of the old stuff, the classics: Galaga, Mario Bros., World of Warcraft, Angry Birds...

Will I move into a house owned by someone else? Not buy my own groceries? Worry about teeth and not being able to read the thoughts projected inside my head...

Reflections on "How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet" by Douglas Adams

Adultery Does Not Mean What You Think by Scott Horlbeck

An interesting exaimination of the meaning of adultry using some bibilical references. I haven't watched all of his videos yet. But I can across this one and found it to be particularly insightful in how he juxtaposes some of the colloquial Christian belief about sex and what the text of the bible says.

Scott Horlbeck's YouTube channel.

If someone helps you, say thanks

I arrived early at the mechanic this morning to drop off my car, and the door was locked. While standing outside I noticed a car stopped in the turn lane of the intersection. It emergency flashers were on a woman flagged me over. As I was crossing the street, another man saw what was going on and stopped to help.
It was obvious that we should push it into the parking lot of the mechanic's business. We had to wait for the light to change before we went.
 He and I started pushing, her daughter was inside steering. The other man was on my right, and I was positioned in the middle of the trunk to give her room to help. That apparently wasn't necessary-as she judged it-because she was talking on her cell while walking next to me. Because she was otherwise engaged, she did not help direct traffic around us either, as we had to cross two lanes of traffic to get to a parking lot. The other man and I managed to do that as well after someone zoomed by us seemingly unaware of what we were doing.
After we arrived in the parking lot, she hung up the phone and began to tell me what she had recently gotten fixed on the car, and began complaining about what's wrong now.
She did not thank us for helping. The other man and I walked away. He was in a hurry to resume his day; I thanked the other man for helping me.
And lady, you're welcome.

Hans Rosling and the Magic Washing Machine

On the surface, by the title, I wondered why this was on TED. But as usual, Mr. Rosling brings a unique POV to the topic and evokes deep thought.
There are four major devisions in the world's population of 7 billion. The people of fire, bulb, wash, and air. And their energy requirements will only increase as they shift up the scale.

There are some environmentalists that proudly do not drive cars, but how many of them do not use a washing machine?

What's the real gift of the washing machine? The time to read books.

Full Moon 14% Bigger on March 19th

The moon, like the planets and other moons, orbits in an ellipse. When it is close to the earth in that ellipse it is called perigee. When the perigee and a full moon coincide, the moon will be 14% larger than it normally appears. This interesting occurrence happens about every 18 years.

The perigee in March 1993 was four hours off of the full moon, pretty close. However, this year's will be only one hour from perfection. So get your best cameras ready!

Even though NASA chose the title of "Super Full Moon", I didn't like the connotation.
Their write up is here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/

NASA ScienceCast video

Partly Cloudy - A Pixar Short Animation

So that's where I came from...

A Monkey Wears a Woman Mask in Resturant

This doesn't quite trigger my automatonophobia, but it's really creepy!

Utopia vs. Dystopia

"Utopias are where we want to live; dystopias are what we want to read about."
-me

Brain Anatomy and Functions Simply Explained

Brainstem by Pinky and The Brain





And a Tongue Twister to help you use that big beautiful brain!

Bass vs. Banjo

Compare and contrast!

Edgar Allan Poe "A Dream Within A Dream" Poem animation

Animation by Jim Clark

Hans Rosling makes Statistics Interesting

This is an excerpt from "The Joy of Stats" on BBC channel Four
Hans Rosling takes 200 Countries through 200 Years in 4 Minutes by animating data points - neat!
He might be the world's most optimistic person!

At the end he shows that he can break out individual provinces of China. I'd like to see him take us through individual countries and break it down into wealth vs. percentage of population vs. lifespan. I know he was using averages from each country, but still and all. Does that mean that one rich 80yr-old balances against four poor 20yr-olds? I didn't do very well in stats class...

Denis Dutton discusses his Theory of Darwinian Beauty

Denis Dutton proposes some compelling ideas about how and why we define beauty as we (modern Humans) do. He's looking for a definition that explains the frequently universal appreciation of certain forms of beauty that trancend cultures, countries, and time. He attempts to do so using a Darwinian approach.

"Beauty is an adaptive effect which we extend and intensify in the creation and enjoyment of works of art and entertainment." - Dutton

Evolution has two general arms: natural selection (environmental) and sexual selection (reproductive preference).

Most of Dutton's Darwinian Beauty argument stems from the sexual selection side. He mentions the proof of reproductive fitness argument for the reason Peacocks have such large and colorful rear-end plumage. I think everyone can buy that, in the bird world, as you know, the male must attract and woo the female. There are several ways of accomplishing this, building ornate nests, complicated dances, collecting blue items, and of course singing, but the most common is dazzling the ladies with colorful plumage.
The drawback is that this makes the male much more obvious to predators and lowers his overall chances for reproducing - and raises his chances of being a pretty garnish for lunch.
"Waiter, there are feathers in my soup!"

I appreciate his goal - he wants to get near a definition of the human experience of beauty. Why one thing is and the other isn't, even though he doesn't really address what isn't. He also is looking at the question from a place that is beyond Plato and Aristotle. That is refreshing and a little uneasy for me - I am most comfortable with the old Greek mindset. But philosophical comfort is boring and too close to religion, so watch the embedded video and below it let's consider a couple of points from the lecture.


Watch the video on the TED.com site

One of his more provocative statements, "The experience of beauty is one of  the ways that evolution has of arousing and sustaining interest or fascination, even obsession in order to encourage us toward making the most adapted decision for survival and reproduction." He then sums up this statement a bit more succently by saying, "Beauty is Nature's way of acting at a distance." (I'm assuming the capital "N" there.)

I'm not comfortable with the idea that evolution is a driving force unto itself. I prefer to think of it as a survival  tool of DNA, chromosomes, and genes. Evolution is a way for our reproduction to continually adapt to the changing environment. There is no ultimate, perfect creature that evolution is driving us forward to; there is no ideal form at the end of the evolutionary tunnel. Living things change from generation to generation sometimes randomly (usually doesn't work out), but more often in a reactionary, adaptive way to the environment in which they live. The environment changes, living things change in order to continue to live in the new environment; it's really kinda simple.
Life begins and ends with reproduction, right? It's the reason for life and the result of life. I'm willing to examine misstatements about the motives of evolution further, but not in this post.

On the idea of representative beauty. Dutton brings up the idea that there is a universal beauty to a certain style of landscape (at 6:57min into video) because it is the vista that all of our ancient ancestors saw when they were first becoming Humans in Africa. It is a open grassy area, with hills, a few trees, water, and a path that goes into the distance.

I think that the perfect landscape is a result of artistic sensibilities related to interesting focal points and subject matter. Artists seem to have an innate sense of beauty, but consider that they study their craft closely (well, if they're any good they do). Imagine that you want to paint a landscape. You could start with a straight line, but hills are more interesting. Then a few trees and maybe a water feature. They are just adding in as many different elements as they can, so long as they make sense. Some mountains in the distance and maybe a path that let the view place themselves in the scene. An ancient collective memory of our first 'happy place' seems difficult to believe. Humans have lived in every environmental situation on the planet for thousands of years - desert, savanna, forest, mountains. Maybe it's because the scene contains at least one element from most environments, and that is the familiar thing that everyone reacts to.

Beauty has a close relation to visually perceived symmetry. Consider the human face; we think we like a certain color of hair or eyes, or a particularly shaped nose, but what we are really reacting to is the symmetry of the face. The closer the face is to perfect vertical symmetry [Rhodes, G] and the one-third ratio rule (of eyebrows to chin -[Reynolds, R] I will try to find a better reference for this) the more beautiful it is perceived to be. This could be related to our assessment of reproductive fitness, as long as health is related to symmetry. 

Back to the idea of reproductive fitness and beauty. Dutton mentions (at 9:40min into the video) finely carved (actually chipped using the break and flake method) leaf-shaped Acheulean handaxes (an image of one) that were produced millions of years ago (some have been dated as old as 3 millions years ago). He thinks that some (thousands) were only made as examples - as objects of art. The quality of these handaxes were to show the hunting prowess of the creator and therefore demonstrating a personal fitness and a superior ability to provide food and care.
He gives four reasons:

• because they show "no sign of wear on their delicate blade edges"
• that so many [thousands] have been found unused
• some found were simple too heavy and large to be useful
• that visually the symmetry, quality of workmanship, and shape of a tear-drop leaf are unlike any other tools of the same period

I'm not convinced that these reasons denote that these axe heads were purely objet d'art. If we are literally considering objects 2.5million years old,

• has anyone found cut or gouge marks on fossilized bones of that time period that correspond to similar tools?
• maybe the unused ones were 'backups'. Consider the situation, you would want to keep several backups on hand because siliceous rocks are brittle and would break frequently and depending on the break could be instantly useless. So you'd want to have more than one at all times.
• the large and heavy ones could have been for taking the meat to, or even for cutting extra large kills. The weight of the handaxe could aid in the cutting force.
• perhaps the visual appearance was a result of experience - what works best (a pointy end for stabbing and a rounded end for skinning - I'm just guessing here) or what fits in the hand the best.

My point is that there are explanations for his points that don't necessarily back up his theory. So maybe we should just call it a hypothesis.

---

References:
Reynolds, R., How to Sketch a Human Face
Rhodes, G., Facial symmetry and the perception of beauty

Flickr Slideshow

This is not new, but I like it, and I thought I'd show it off.
So here's a slideshow of my public Flickr images.
You can grab the code by going to your photostream and clicking on the Slideshow link just under the search box. Once in your slideshow, click on on Share in the top right and grab the code. Easy-peasy.





Would you like to see this in a window by itself? Click on Slideshow in New Window then why don't you?

Blackboard 9.1 Designs

I can make Blackboard do this...
This is a module page with custom backgrounds and a transparent menu -

This is a container with a custom background and five folders each with a custom icons - 

This is an item where the words on the bag, "Home, Poetry, Blog, About Me, Fiction, Art 4 Sale, and Free Wallpapers" are all hyperlinks to other sites and pages, and the page has a custom background color.

Suck on that Blackboard.

Nuggets of Insight from a Microsoft Insider on the Way Out

Philip Su leaves Microsoft after 12 years and dishes up some sweet nuggets of insight from the email sent out to his fellow Microsoft employees. Full post here: http://worldofsu.com/philipsu/?page_id=193
The nuggets I pulled:

"Use Occam’s Razor in interpersonal relations:  look for the simplest, most straightforward explanation that assumes the best of everybody.  Stay away from people who always have a conspiracy theory involving twisted office politics, unfulfilled Machiavellian ambitions, and unspoken agendas."

"Listen to understand.  Speak to be understood."

"Good ideas are a dime a dozen.  Great ideas are usually laughed at.  Neither sees the light of day without you taking action.  Do the work to prove your idea, or stop talking about it."

"In a company as large as Microsoft, I guarantee you’ll find someone higher level than you who you think is worse than you.  Don’t get stuck in this mental trap – it won’t motivate you to be your best.  Look instead towards the person you admire most at your level.  What can you learn from them?  What unique strengths might you have which they don’t have?"

"A person is either passionate or they’re not.  People who expect their manager to make their jobs fun and interesting won’t get far."

"Do you practice specific skills with repetition and intent? Athletes do drills. Musicians hone difficult passages. What do you do?"

"Follow great people. Work for great people."

"One day, a sign appeared on a soda fridge in RedWest saying something to the effect of, 'Did you know that drinks cost Microsoft millions of dollars a year? Sodas are your perk at work.  Don’t bring them home.'  This depressed me on too many levels to enumerate, but I’ll toss out a few:

1. Someone had enough time to get these signs professionally printed and affixed to our fridges.
2. It was someone’s salaried, 40-hour-a-week job to do things like this.
3. Someone thought soda smuggling was a big enough 'problem' at Microsoft to draw attention to it.

How much soda can a person steal? How much does that same person cost the company per hour in salary and benefits?  Our most interesting profits will come from capitalizing on huge opportunities, not from micromanaging costs.  I’m sure some finance person will lambast me for this, which would only further depress me. Believe in our upside. Focus on our upside."

"Individuals are the sole cause of anything that’s ever happened."

--------

He says some good stuff there (I don't really agree with that last one - unless "cause" equals "impetus").
I particularly like, "Listen to understand.  Speak to be understood."

My dad said, "You can't learn when you're talking."

His quote about the soda stealing hits home. That was a small decision that can really take the wind out of the sails of the people who actually do the work. Note to all managers: you should actually cater to the ones who do the work instead of those who manage them. Never forget the power of good moral.

So basically, don't let the bastards get you down; only compare yourself to your best work, and you haven't done your best work yet.

Blue Oyster Cult - And Then Came the Last Days of May

More BOC awesomeness!

Blue Oyster Cult - Veteran of the Psychic Wars (live)

One of my all time favorite bands! Don't Fear the Reaper - yes. Godzilla - yes. But they also made more and better music that never gets played!

"...all the stars are on the inside."

Things I have learned about people from managing rent houses

For the past several years I have managed a couple of rent houses for a family member. For most of the year it's an easy task-collect the rent and deposit it.

However, when people leave without notice:

You see how people treat things that aren't theirs - badly - no matter what is stipulated in the lease. How hard is it to change an air filter for the blower that sucks in air for the heating/air conditioning units? Super easy. It takes on the order of less than a minute to remove the cover, pull out the old one and put it in the trash, put in a new one, and replace the cover. How often do tenants change the air filters, even when they are supplied? Never.
Midsummer, I was called about the air conditioner not working well. I specifically asked if the filter had been changed recently. The tenant said yes - he lied. When I arrived to let in the repairman, we discovered the filter was so clogged that the system had sucked a hole through it. The stress of that plus the non-filtered air had ruined the unit. $700 to replace.

People really will convert an inch into a mile. We let a couple with five kids and a dog move into a three bedroom house. First two months were uneventful, but by the third month they were late on rent. They had stopped mowing the lawn. I accepted the first sob story.
 I should have known better in the first place not to rent to a couple where the husband was an unemployed graduate student in Philosophy (this was before the economic troubles of 2009-2010, there was plenty of work available if you were willing). Second, third, fourth sob stories got us into nearly three months late on rent. I told them they had to leave and that we were getting a lawyer.
Still they did not leave - our state has insane renters' rights laws, but the property owner can do very little. I'm sure they knew this; it felt like they'd done this before.
It took their electricity getting shut off in mid July before they left - and oh the mess they left.
Every square inch was dotted with fly shit. I had to take down every light fixture and soak them in soapy water to be able to scrub the dried fly shit dots - same with every door knob. Just nasty - I hope they are proud of the example they set for their children.

Suddenly, it is okay to be filthy bastards and let the dogs pee on the carpet. Forget shampooing the carpets; that's a waste of time. Before you spend the money to replace the carpet, you'll need to rip it out all and the padding down to bare concrete. Then you'll need to get a chemical spray tank and spray every inch of the concrete with a 5-10% bleach+water solution. You may have to do that twice to get the pee smell out of the concrete. That was a fun day. I've had to do that in two different houses so far...

Just leave what you don't want, someone else will clean it up. Here's an incomplete list of messes that I have cleaned up:

• A quarter inch of dried blood on fridge floor
• A quart of mint chocolate chip ice cream that melted in the freezer when the electricity was shut off and ran down the back of the inside of the refrigerator
• A rotten bag of potatoes that turned to liquid and filled the bottom of the cabinets attracting a swarm of fruit flies
• Fly shit everywhere. We painted the walls and ceiling and had to scrub everything else...everything
• A bag of garbage that sat in a hot garage for at least two weeks. There was a slurry of white goo that ate through the bag and had to be swept, mopped, and bleached up
• A microwave that looked like a can of spaghetti-ohs exploded, then grew green and blue hair
• I've pitchforked at least 6 square bales of rotten hay out of a backyard that was there for no apparent reason - they didn't have a lama
• I've not even mentioned the bathrooms...

People can be filthy, nasty liars that have no respect for themselves or anyone else. What's it like in the head of a person like that?

Do they really not feel bad?

More Flea Market Photos

Not your normal rabbit holding a carrot. My precious.

World's crappiest tourist trap souvenir. Poorly spray painted star fish exoskeleton, glued down plastic flamingo and palm tree, and shellacked sea shells all embedded in some color swirled sandy resin base. Really, who bought this the first time?

Does it remind you of the beach or some dust collecting crap where spiders live?

Five dollar freaking scary doll. Hair plugs and Jack Nicholson eyebrows; all she's missing is an axe and the reek of booze.

Lloyd: What will you be drinking, sir?

Jack Torrance: Hair of the dog that bit me, Lloyd.

Puzzle Games - Part 2

More Addicting Puzzle Games:

Fantastic Contraption:
build machines out of supplies to move an object to a goal -
http://www.fantasticcontraption.com/

Colliderix:
manipulate the balls to touch and cancel out each other without leaving or losing one - 
http://www.addictinggames.com/colliderix-game.html

On The Edge:
similar in looks to Bloxorz (see June 6, 2008 post)
http://armorgames.com/play/4458/on-the-edge

Power Up:
Link together machine parts to connect the circuit and power up -
http://armorgames.com/play/5973/power-up

Approaching Storm

Approaching Storm, originally uploaded by Fat Hades.

Shot with iPhone video, U of A parking deck as storm approached.