Viva La Resistance

Hollywood writers are on strike and I support them. Writing is an art, and no one is willing to pay for quality art. So few quality painters, writers, and other creative artists make a good living at their craft for most of their early life. A few lucky ones get recognized shortly before they die and have a few comfortable late years.
But mostly they struggle. They don’t get the bizillions of dollars that actors and actresses make for saying lines written for them and showing a little skin. And the ones that make the big money aren’t even creative.
The CEOs in charge of the networks and production companies, even though they deal with it everyday, must just see creativity as a commodity. Art is not something you can just mine out of the ground and affix a price based on demand.
Art takes constant study so repetition and cliché can be avoided. Art is a craft that takes constant honing and there are dry spells. Writers need those extra residuals to survive the dry spells, because not everything put to paper sells or is worth selling.
So I say hold out writers, hold out until you get what’s due you. And America turn off your TVs and stop going to the movies; put the crunch on the deep pockets that deserve it.
They tried to put writers on a leash with Reality TV years ago, and to some degree it worked. We are still suffering with Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, Kid Nation, and etc. I can’t go on anymore…
I need intelligent humor and intricate plot lines or I will go back to reading books; I mean it.

Dan Dennett speaks of memes

This talk is from TED. If you do not know about TED please inform yourself here. It is a forum for the best and brightest to share ideas. I found the podcasts on iTunes, but this is the website (www.ted.com) with much, much more.

Memes are contagious ideas. Dennett's biological attack metaphor and how other cultures want to protect themselves from what we are immune to (our immunity gives us the mentality of "what's the big deal?") was very interesting to me. View for yourself and post what you think.

Dan Dennett's bio. Read that and you'll know why you should listen to what he says.

Thoughts on traffic

For all you chum-buckets driving in the left lane with your blinders on--the sign reads, "Slower Traffic Keep Right".
Get over.
This means you Mister Magoo!
I know you see me back there; I get over for people wanting to go faster than me. They'll draw the cops attention and I'll be able to slip by ticket-free.
Now move!

My Knock-off of Esher

Some days I just don't have the rant in me. Some days I feel more like a bubble on the ocean. No control of direction, an ineffectual will that no one regards as closely as they do heirloom jewerly in a sunbeam.
Plato's allegory of the cave to our perception of the world of everyday is insightful, but hard to hold onto. When everyone around you is always and constantly talking about what you see as shadows and refuse to engage you at any deeper level, you are forced by survival skills to let go of your extra dimensional concerns. Existing in shadow is a comfortable place of possessions, knowables, and vicarious living (SUVs, high ceiling houses, reality TV, and 'our team' won the game). Accept these transparent offering for complacency and ignorance. Do not try to see through to the real reality.
Do not question; do not ask; do not wonder; do not want what we do not burden you with. Zero percent financing for six month and spend the rest of your life laboring in debt. Our respected leaders helping us spend the money we have yet to make. Children truly pay for the parents follies. Slavery is flourishing in a different guise…serf on, serf on.

My Knock-off of The Scream

You know sometimes you just feel like screaming. Why did we develop consciousness if we don't get to use it to its full potential? No wonder why people believe in New Age crap like psychics. We have sent men to the moon, and yet some people don't turn on their lights on the highway and use their turn signals when it's raining. Not that they use their turn signals when it's not raining.
The things I’ve seen!
** I've seen a woman brushing her teeth and spitting in a zip-lock baggie zooming down the freeway at 70+. Here's to a fast break and cleaning your bronchial tubes! Minty!
** I've also see a guy Q-Tipping his ears on the freeway. Hear's to ya...what...what'd you say? Is that freedom rock? Well, turn it up man!
** And the most surprising to me (so far) was seeing the man with battery-powered nose hair trimmers up his nose a fair distance (more than a finger could go) and checking his progress in his rear-view mirror pass me at 75+ like it was nothing. Multi-tasking needs a new word! A sweet kiss on the rear end of the car in front of him and he could’ve given himself the lobotomy that he so sorely needs. No need to go through the eye socket anymore. Hell, that’s how the Egyptians removed the brains of a Pharaoh; a sharp thingie up the nose, scramble them up good and suck them out a nose hole. Presto! Wrap him up, I’ll take him home to the missus!

Cheese and Crackers, is everyone that wrapped up in themselves that obviously bad ideas can't get through? Plato’s Republic doesn’t have a chance; the Philosopher Kings would be watching football and clipping their toenails on the couch in no time.
All hail the self-aware ape! They can drive and text and smoke and flip me the bird all at the same time!
I’m going to go paint the wall…

My knock-off of Picasso's The Dream

Done in Flash.

Perseid meteor shower August 12-13 2007

Woke up reluctantly at 4am CST to welcome the debris tail of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. I popped a beer, and sat in the backyard for about an hour. It is difficult to look up and drink at the same time, but I managed.
I rate meteors by a count of existence. If I can count to one and it's gone, then it's a 'one count'. I saw several 'one count', a few 'two count', and three 'three count' meteors. The threes were not very colorful. I remember last year that the Leonids in November are usually colorful; greens mostly. I know that color relates to the chemical composition of the debris.
The threes I saw were from North to South. A little light started creeping over the East around 5am, and the beer was empty, and the cats were all outside with me wondering why I was outside in the dark; so I decided to call it done. Besides, I had to get back up at 630am for work.
In the past, I and a group of friends have driven out into the country and parked on a dirt road to drink hot coffee and whiskey or beer (depending on the time of year) to watch showers where we would count several per minute. The disappointingly small amount I saw this year was either due to the light pollution of the city or the lack of the double vision of times past...
I now understand nostalgia; it's always better than the present.

Read about the shower from the people who know best: The American Meteor Society
Also check out their calendar for 2007