Farewell Juneuary. Oh how I loved you.

This has to be one of the best weather summers ever. Normally my onions in the garden are getting burnt by this time of year. I'm agitated by all the pollen from the trees. If I could just count on one really good rain storm like this every summer - life would be really awesome.

It is making my body think it's fall though. So I've been hanging out playing a lot Bioshock. Dream time Mr B.

Making it rain?

On Sunday we went to our local county faire. Even though I was pretty sure I was running a fever. It wasn't that hot of a day, but I was sweating in weird places. Like under my eyes - and no where else. Just the bottom lid/top of the cheekbone part. I'd never had that happen before.

I'd originally wanted to go because I was going to try the fried ants. But I never got back to that area.

There wasn't really anything of interest - except when we went into one of the out buildings which had a man made waterfall with a reflecting pool. As we crossed the bridge to get to the waterfall you could see people had been tossing coins into the pool. Which is what people do. However.... people had also been tossing singles into the pond. I'd never seen that before and everyone who crossed the bridge was fascinated by it.



I spent more time here than at the whole faire. It's really hard to get shots of money under moving water.

At one point I spotted what at the time looked like a hundy. Which really made me fascinated. One of the guys on the bridge and I were discussing it, and I swear I saw the gears turn in his head. If the place would have been empty, he would have jumped into the pond and gotten that bill.



Once we got home though and was able to view the photos - it's looks to be a fake bill. I do wonder how it was resisting the water damage.

Titleless.

Woke up late on Saturday and mumbled to Mr S - lets just stay in bed all day.

Everything has been stressing me out. Paisley is close to nine years old, so all her needs, need to be met immediately. The economy. I don't know if that Greece thing is going to cave today or two years from now - but it will cave, and damage our economy. My never ending cold seems to be coming back.

So you see... there were many reasons just to block out the world.

Instead we spent all day working on our sprinkler brains which went belly up about a month ago. I've been having to water my new lawn by hand which sucks up a lot of time.

So now I have a new sprinkler system. Yeah. Aren't you glad you read today?

Poof.

That is basically what my brain feels today.

I spent the whole day trying to outsmart rabbits. Who prove time and time again, are smarter than me. It's unbelievable what having nothing but time does for your brain abilities.

About a month ago we found an abscess on Paisleys foot. A problem I never actually thought I'd have to deal with, because my bunnies are middle class. And she lives on woobies. Feet problems were for outside bunnies. But as we've grown to dread, velveteen lops probably have the least hair of any breed. Especially on their feet.

So, I've got a foot problem.

Just on a whim the vet cultured the absess and found she was antibiotic resistant to Baytril. Which I also found was hallucinogenic in humans. Which has nothing to do with the story. But I kind of found out that way too.

Anyway, we had a drain in her. Because these things can spiral quickly. That has been out for a while. This morning I thought I was just going to have a simple recheck. And it was, but we literally spent 45 minutes trying to engineer a footie for her. Some design she tolerate for an undetermined amount of time. With a doughnut.

The vets could do a simple wrap. But get a few geeky bunny owners together and you have a science project. They apparently weren't busy today.

Then she's been starting to reject her new antibiotic which I have to go to a special pharmacy to get. Back to the vet for more engineering. Flavor this time.

Ate up half my day. I thought I was going to have a quick in and out, and planned my day for that.

And we weren't even able to solve the flavoring problem. So I've still got that. Plus my ADD is off the chart.

Is it weird that I started following someone with my real name on twitter - just to see if they were anything like me?

When the future rips me off.

You guys know I pay to get into 98% of the events I go to. So I can feel free to give my unvarnished opinion without feeling like I have to play nice for my masters. Even the ones I don't pay to get into, sometimes don't fare very well. But, I always feel guilty because they let me in for free.

The Nextgen Science Faire I went to this weekend has to be hands down one of the worst events I have ever attended. And I've been to some colossal failures. This event however was the first one that has so completely oversold itself, I was shocked.

First, it was 25 bucks to get in. As much as it cost to get into Maker Faire which is a giant festival. You can see from the pictures above this venue was maybe the size of a large conference room. That wasn't the most irritating part though.

Smack dab in the middle of this room of maybe 100 people was a guy doing a presentation on microphone. People trying to hear what each booth representative was trying say had to lean in like you were having a private conversation. As you can see in this video.



It was more than that though. Half the things they said would be there - weren't. Which was surprising because they were touting the Nissan Leaf, and you can get those cars to show basically anywhere. Not that I care about seeing it anyway. No heads up display booths like they claimed. No vertical farming. No Google Xprize.

If you've been reading this blog long enough, you probably guess I was in it for the HUDs.

This is their website. So I was quite shocked when there were only about 10 booths. What did it matter though? You couldn't hear them very well anyway. The booths they did have were more on the "high school project" side of things. Which brings me back to the entry fee. 25 bucks. 50 bucks for a couple.





I mean - seriously? An LED light pad placed under a t-shirt?! Oh, you can control it with your phone though to make unique messages.





One thing I thought might be interesting was this apparel which held your devices from Alphyn Industries. But they put me off so hard with their douchey group-think literature. These shirts will protect you from harmful electromagnetic frequency radiation you know!



I've also been watching the sorts of technology that Neurosky was presenting. Where you control objects with your mind. But it was so hard to get to the front of the booths. The way the booths were set up - 10 people could close you completely out.

Roll that boulder up the hill boys. They are gonna try to close this market flat. Everything is fine. Just fine.

That has got to make you feel good.

Misery Index.

"We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting," Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be "more persistent than we thought."

Oh for shits sakes. Really?

People know they can't get access to credit to do the things they need. So they have been saving and saving and saving - so they have money to go forward. That is why corporations have record money on the balance sheet. It's also why they aren't spending it.

Investors are scared shitless. If they aren't - I question their sanity.

And our Fed is completely confused as to what is going on. That makes everyone with money feel soothed I'm sure.

Hopefully the Fed will be right on that pesky inflation. I mean... he has been with everything else so far. Right? Seniors are counting on it.

As someone who would buy the shittiest house anywhere and make it livable - if someone gave me a million dollars and said spend it, I would not buy some houses. And it's something I love to do. Just the hassle alone. Getting it in and out of escrow.

You figure to turn a house these days, you probably need at several years. Even in an advancing market. If one were to ever present itself. Why would anyone right now put up that kind of capital? The hassle of dealing with contractors for rehab, and then the banks. It's too much.

Fair photos.

I don't really get the pigs as pets thing. They are so stubbly. Like an old mans beard. Still for a second with these small pigs, I kind of got it. For a second. They are ridiculously smart. I still like them better as bacon. Yeah - I said it!

This one?

All of these shots were taken with Mr S's camera - mint berry crunch. We gave it that name because of the sound it made when you started it up. It was a nikon coolpix 8100.

However the first mint berry crunch died from sand in it's vagina. I mean gears. Now we are running on a Panasonic DMC-ZS10. Much better camera. Shutter speed is faster. You can view photos without extending the lens. Which enables less dust to get inside the body.

What's missing?

MEN!

I have road rage issues.

Cruising by the Banksy.

Banksy.

I think I can make you say "what the hell" in three pictures.

Watching Nabro from space.

Last week, one of the weather blogs I read kept talking about this volcanic eruption in Africa. They actually called the eruption a full day before anyone confirmed it.

They accidentally saw the first images of the eruption because they were watching for storms rolling off of Africa. These can turn into hurricanes. The plume showed up in the vapor loops.

The area is so remote, the only way to view right now is NASA. Image above from Earthquake Report.

This is also where I ran across this video of that lake covered in ash from the Chili volcano. A guy is trying to dive into the lake. Which I imagine will die soon. I recommend you watch it, because I guarantee you've never seen anything like it.

If fax machines could talk, they'd say - lose my number. Part 2.

Oh. You didn't know there would be a part 2?

Me neither!

Mr S. got into a little bit of a lather about the fax machine thing. Not because I had to slave over a hot fax machine for hours. But, because he knows this is something they could put out a software patch for.

He fired off some bad feedback. Which got pushed down the support loop, resulting in a call from HP this morning. I think their support just wanted to make him "feel" better. But it actually resulted in some interesting information.

None of the new HP fax machines are capable of faxing multiple documents from the glass. They must go through the document feed. Their old machines used to have this capability - but it was buggy. So instead of fixing it - they just dropped the feature.

Which is funny because it isn't really a feature - it's what all fax machines used to do. Additionally it's a feature that home offices probably use a lot. Home businesses are always faxing receipts. Which may not be the case in a corporate environment where pages are perfect and uniform.

The rep went on to say that the problem existed with driver and Windows 8. Which wasn't flying with Mr S. This would have nothing to do with win8. If it didn't work, it was because it was buggy to begin with, he said.

Part one of the story here.

It feels nothing like 2008. Oh wait. It kinda does. Market in free fall. That isn't going to be good for President Money Bags.

If fax machines could talk, they'd say - lose my number. Stat.

Right around tax time - my printer died. So, we went to buy one.

We wound up settling on a fax/printer combo. Mainly because the ink on the fax machine was killing me. And when I say killing me - I mean pissing me off. It was one of those machines that needed separate color cartridges. Even though it was only a fax machine. And I only sent faxes. Rarely received. But, every time you started the machine up - it would go through a cleaning cycle and use up all the colored ink.

Fast forward to yesterday. I needed to do some billing, and needed to fax a ton of stuff.

This is where I found out that my new HP fax/printer combo will not allow you to fax multiple documents from the glass bed, you could only fax multiple pages through the document feed slot. No big deal. Right?

Well the stuff I'm faxing (receipts) don't fare well going through the document feed slot. So I wound up having to send individual faxes. Around 20 of them. I only needed to send three faxes. Each of those faxes included five pages. The other five were resends.

This morning I woke up to the sound of the company I sent them to calling me. Three calls in fact, and an email. I wind up calling them and profusely apologising. And explaining why I was being such a retard.

Since I had waited to bill on the second of the last day I was able - I had to send another string of 30 individual faxes. Where I am sure that someone at that company promptly lost their minds. It's the last day of billing, so they are probably a wreck today. And I'm having to be a complete fup.

Something that should have taken me an hour max, took me 4 hours. And, I'm not happy about it.

30% of my brain is in conspiracy mode. They just want me to copy all these documents, so they will go through the feed. They just want me to buy more ink!

A funny thing about newly copied things. The paper is new, and so they don't easily go through the document feed either. The pages just all stick together.

Irritating. I would have used my old fax machine. I was trying to squeeze out all it's usefulness. It was out of magenta. I still think I might take a hammer to my old machine. Cause that shit pisses me off. Magenta, People!

I couldn't send a fax because of the color magenta.

Anyone?

Maybe things don't work the way I think they do. Can anyone on earth tell me why the LIBOR keeps falling week after week.

I'd think with Greece defaulting, banks wouldn't be so calm about lending to each other.

It used to be weather was a "small talk" subject. Now it's all anyone can talk about.

My brain is starting to believe I live in this mild climate. I even think I'm getting a little lazy.

In news of the utterly mundane.

I had house stuff to do People.

A tiny palm tree totally kicked my ass. Well, just the stump. Palm trees are the devil. You can't grind them out. It was the smallest little thing. A volunteer of about 6 inches around. Still it made me unreasonably tired.

So, I'm playing Bioshock the rest of the day. The games that came out at E3 made me think we are coming out of the game dead zone.

That's all I've got.

El Panda Cowbre.

It started months ago.

Me - Hey, Mr B - did you know there were panda cows?

Him - How do you know they just aren't cows with spots.

Me, Excitedly - Because the middle fur looks completely different than the fur at the ends. Like they have two different kinds of fur on them.

Him - Hey.... I think I saw one of those!

And so the quest began to get a picture of the elusive Panda Cow. Little did we know just HOW elusive. Mr S originally saw the cow in a pasture he passes every day to and from work. And yet in the days that followed, no Panda Cow. It has taken months and months but we got this shot tonight. At dusk. And those cows seemed skittish. So of course I got one of those blurry big foot style photos of them.

You can see the video of some guy with a panda cow here.

Watching the video again, I guess these cows don't have marks on the eyes, but one of the bulls in the pasture had more of that marking.

The wind is a giant asshole.

For the love of gawd - you have to watch this video. OMG. This is suppose to be an eHarmony video. Full here.

Men... RUN!

Killing the industrial revolution piece by piece.

"COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — American Electric Power Co. Inc. warned Thursday that it would have to shut down five plants and reduce operations at six others, at a cost of 600 jobs, to comply with new rules for coal-fired power plants proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Strict regulations being considered by the EPA to limit emissions of mercury, lead and other toxins from coal-fired plants could take effect in 3 1/2 years, a timeline AEP called "unrealistic." In order to meet the rules in time, the company said, it would have to close plants in Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia by the end of 2014 and retire generating units at plants in five states as soon as by the end of 2012."

Read more here.

I guess eventually we will have to live in tents. I hear there are a bunch of good ones beside rivers. The call them "cities".

Lotus Evora in the wild.

Mr S. got an Evora in the wild yesterday. Usually you only see them at car shows. I don't think I am crazy about the color. But it certainly makes it less noticeable.

We will fix it with the healing power of laughter.

I'd say it's time for another crisis. Californians have slipped back into full complacency mode. I am often shocked at how many people tell me they feel positive about the economy. Then go right on to say..... but, we need more union jobs.

Which honestly makes a large nuclear explosion go off in my head. My response usually is - well, that just means people will pay more for everything. Right? They usually come back with - oh, I'm willing to pay more.

In my mind I categorise them as dishonest. Because that is what they are. Lairs. Echo chamber flunkies.

They echo the mantra of the time. We need more manufacturing jobs here in America. When I tell them the environmental rules are so harsh, we can't do manufacturing here anymore - they just look at me like I am crazy.

Yet, environmental groups in S. California are suing to stop fireworks shows because they ruin the earth and maybe kill fish. Maybe. Here.

You mean to tell me, we can't have fireworks - but manufacturing is just a-okay?

And while I'm at it! Even if the enviro regs weren't so strict - we need power! Can anyone tell me why advanced nations are trying to erase the industrial revolution by cutting all of our power resources? Germany is cutting all nuclear. Even if it means their citizens suffer through back outs. Japan is obviously thinking that same thing. And President Money Bags, he is right behind them.

California went though rolling back outs for a couple of years, and it is for shit. You never knew if you were going to loose everything in your fridge or not. And that can be a lot of money Yo.

Still the echo chamber rolls on. Just think positive. Good for you.

Locked inside a video wall.

I don't know why I like this photo. I think it just leaves me with a big question mark.

Pictures I should have posted.

What... no hopium speach today?

It is a little hard to get excited about what is going on right now. We all knew these days would come. We just didn't know when. So we kept riding the bus with a toe propping open the door. Just in case the place caught fire you could get out quickly.

You know - when this recession first started, many people said consumers would never go back to their old spending habits. At the time I thought that was preposterous. People love to spend money.

At this end of the recession though, I understand why people will never go back.

In 2008, if you had six months of cash to cover your expenses if you lost a job - you were doing fanfuckingtastic.

Three years later - you don't know how much money you are going to need. You don't know when the government is going to quit fucking up the economy. You don't know when you are going to have your next chance to make money. You don't know when the next country is going to go all revolution. Need 3 billion dollars, and basically cave their own economy.

I mean, only the government would go on a hiring spree for three years when their revenues were falling. All the while telling their adoring fans that spending all this money is going to make money. An argument I assert is what all poor people believe. No. Really. They do. Ask any homeless person on the street and I swear they will agree with this premise.

So, you just wait - for the inevitable.

Career limiting moves.

Update - How did they let Howard Stern's Benji into the news conference for this?! He was the one at the end who comically asked Weiner if he would support Arnolds' love child.

I've been trying to not pay attention to the Weiner thing - because I mostly don't care. If he would have just shut up, this whole thing would have blown over.

But seriously - sending shirtless photo's with family pictures in the background. Priceless! Here.

No wonder that guy spun out so hard when the peen shot came out. Which BTW looks to be socked up.

Hey - is that one photo over his left shoulder a picture of him and Clinton?

Update - even funnier? Hearing CNN proclaim they couldn't be sure if the photo was of Weiner because the face had been cropped. Yet they say the picture didn't show signs of being manipulated. And there are all those pictures in the background that look like Weiner!

The swirl.

There's a pretty interesting feature on the West Coast right now. At least I think so.

The storm we are getting is stalled, and will actually retrograde soon. So, it's just sitting there spinning. And it is sucking up dry air. Which is all that stuff that looks orangish. This is causing the storm to look like a hurricane on satellite. You can watch it here for probably a day or two.

See how it looks like it has an eye? Dry air has just wrapped around and eventually gotten into the center of the storm.

Bad news though, is that all these storms are eating the dry air spots that impede hurricanes. Dry air can completely kill a hurricane. And after all - this storm is heading East. So, that is going to suck for them.

The spin-outs were many.

No need to move to Seattle, I guess.

Dear Greece - do you know what tourists have that you need? Money. Stop chasing them away. In other words, get a job.

Focused like a laser beam.

Maybe President Money Bags doesn't quite know how lasers work.

If solar panels were TV's - we'd all be able to afford them by now.

But since the government is propping up all the prices - no clean energy for you. Even worse - a lot of these companies might not live the year. After all that taxpayer money we plowed into this sector.

Motech of Taiwan Expects Zero Solar-Industry Growth This Year, Times Says

I thought the headline was catchy enough, but - if you want to read the story.

I am trying to get out all the stories that are pissing me off - so I can get back to entertaining you.

Enviros say kill people. Not fish.

"The U.S. Forest Service is weighing tighter restrictions on aerial fire retardant drops as part of a long-running legal battle over the environmental effects of pouring millions of gallons of the chemical mixture on Western wildlands every year.

Retardant use has soared in recent decades as wildfires have grown larger and more houses have been built on the wildland edge. Nationally, federal and state agencies apply an average of more than 28 million gallons a year, the vast majority of it in the West and much of that in California." Latimes.

Maybe they use so much of this stuff because Californians are batshit crazy about letting any tree be trimmed. They can't clear out the forests of fuel. People won't trim their trees for defensible space.

Now they want to limit the use of retardant - which will basically just risk lives of firefighters.

Just go belly up already.

"Nurserymen’s Exchange, one of Half Moon Bay’s largest employers, has filed for bankruptcy.

The wholesaler of edible, blooming and specialty plants including blueberries, roses and ivy owes creditors nearly $25 million and is selling its land and operations."
Read more.

Who cares. Right? This is only notable because Half Moon Bay was already on the brink. Because their government is the biggest fucktards to rule this earth. Little background.

A developer bought some land in Half Moon Bay a few years ago. He was going to put up some condos or something. The city of Half Moon Bay said he couldn't use that land because of some freckled horse frog. Which doesn't exists. I just made it up. It could have been unicorns on that land, or nothing. Same result.

He sued the city and won. This effectively bankrupted the city. No big whoop though! They would just sell some bonds to cover the 18 million.

Well, now their biggest employer is going belly up. It doesn't matter though, because Half Moon Bay doesn't need any revenue. Apparently. At least that was my take a couple of weeks ago where I had to sit through two hours of traffic one way to get out of the Half Moon Bay Air show.

I just steamed the whole time I sat in traffic. You know - if this was my city I said, I would have one guy that fucking just came out every event and switched the timing of the lights to get people in and out of this town.

I was going to stop and have dinner in Half Moon Bay, but didn't because I was stuck in traffic so long. I figure most people have that same feeling. They would spend a little more time in town if they weren't forced to sit there waiting to get out of it.

Who cares though? Money just falls from the sky in California. A tourist town doesn't really need tourists. Now does it?

Here is a fun little detail about the city settlement. Half Moon Bay has a August deadline to pay the developer for which they tried to steal his land.

"If the city is unable to get money from the state, it will seek to purchase bonds that would cost the city $1.3 million per year for 30 years to pay back, or about 12 percent of the city's general fund, said Michael Dolder, interim city manager. He said legal advisers have told city officials that they probably would not qualify for bankruptcy protection.

And, if Half Moon Bay misses the August deadline, it would owe back interest on the settlement of 6 percent dating from 2007. Half Moon Bay laid off 19 workers in March to put it in a better financial position to seek and pay for a bond, Dolder said." From sfgate.

I am so over Juneuary. It's a monsoon.

I'm sure I saw this ending in a movie once.

"ALAMEDA -- A 57-year-old man drowned Monday afternoon after walking fully clothed into the surf at an Alameda beach and wading in the chilly bay water for nearly an hour, authorities said.

Witnesses said the Alameda man, whose name was not released pending notification of relatives, paced back and forth for several minutes, then walked out into the waves around 11:30 a.m. at a stretch of beach along Shoreline Drive near the Willow Street intersection, raising his arms in the air in chest-deep water for nearly an hour and eventually floating out to about 150 yards from the coast." Source.

Except emergency personnel didn't watch while the guy died. The movie simply ended. What the eff with that?

I am sort of conflicted here. I think if you want to tap out of life - it is your choice. Just don't take anyone with you. Still, I think it is the moral responsibility, that if other people see you trying to tap out, that they try to save you. You just don't leave people dying by the side of the road. It's part of what makes us a civilised society.

As a side note on how everything is fine, just fine. A few days ago I was marveling at how the news was chirping about how violent crime still continues to decline. Especially murder. Without looking into any of the data, I'm betting they are shoving a lot of the "murder" I see into "murder suicide". Or just suicide.

It used to be fairly uncommon to read about suicide. Now, I swear I read about it several times a week. On a consistent basis. Hell, this year my sleepy suburb has had two really dramatic suicides. A few months ago a guy took a cab to an overpass and jumped off. Then, two days ago a guy tried to blow his head off on a freeway on-ramp. Some guy found him and took him in his own car to the emergency. I don't know what happened to him.

Then there is that girl who just jumped off the GG bridge. She was from the city I was in this weekend at that car show.