Carlsbad Cardiac Conscious Rodents?

On Sunday evening, I noticed 3 twigs of chrysanthemum plant leaves laying haphazardly on the ground in my backyard, near my grill.  "How did those get there?" I thought, as they were a good 10 to 15 feet away from the LARGE potted chrysanthemum plant Dr Desert Flower has near the outdoor fireplace in the backyard.  I picked them up, examined the stems closely, and it looked distinctly as if a rodent had chewed them off, dragged them away... and then got distracted or detected or possibly had to evade being eaten by an owl or something else, and just dropped them in front of the grill.  So I set them over onto a raised planter near the grill, and made a mental note:  "On Monday, take these to the green trash can", since it was dusk and we've got an abundance of orb web weaving spiders and I really Really REALLY dislike walking into any spider web and getting it on my face, with or without a spider on the web.

To my surprise, this morning (Monday morning, 31 August as I write this), I went out into the backyard in full day light, to fetch the chewed off branches.  They Were Gone.  Only thing left was a sad, trodden, tiny fragment of one of the 3 branches.  I was perplexed.  Where did these large, sandal sized branches go?  Then I remembered, we've got "citrus rats" (AKA Southern California rats that enjoy eating citrus... sounds better that way) and California Ground Squirrels.  Both are about the size of a men's size 12 sneaker, and are large enough to set off wildlife cameras in the yard.  The sadly squished single remanent was not much bigger than a sprig of parsley you might get at a restaurant, and obviously was not worth dragging away by the large nocturnal rodent who had gnawed off the other 3 branches.

Today, I tried to search for "chrysanthemum lined rat nests" and "+chrysanthemum rodent toxicity" and "+chrysanthemum +rat +nest".  I have known that chrysanthemums are used in natural "green" pesticides along with rosemary and peppermint, as many insects abhor and avoid these plants for the scents and toxins carried within them.  One time when we lived in South Carolina, I watched a Japanese beetle land on a marigold plant next to the driveway, take one bite, and fall over dead, instantly.  A few weeks later, I saw the same thing happen to another beetle who landed on a chrysanthemum plant, chomped it, and rolled over onto the ground on its back, legs in the air, twitching momentarily, and then died.  Granted, these were tiny insects, and dosage matters, so the rats (or perhaps squirrels?) won't die from nesting with chrysanthemum... but do they know the holistic benefits of having chrysanthemum lined nests to dissuade fleas and ticks from feeding on their children?  "My momma taught me, when I was a little rat, to always line the nest with chrysanthemum, yes she did!"

Or were these rats voracious readers of Chinese studies of the effects of concentrated chrysanthemum extract on myocardial fibrosis in rats with renovascular hypertension? 

link here:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32186102/   and link here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf062088r  (Absorption and Excretion of Luteolin and Apigenin in Rats after Oral Administration of Chrysanthemum morifolium Extract)

I don't know for sure.  There are so damn many H1B visa holders in Southern California that the rodents in my yard might have been participants in the aforementioned scientific studies for all I know? (taking away jobs and resources from Umerikun rodents!  "Make 'Merica rat infested again!" [makes as much sense as Drumpf's inane con-man slogans that only the most gullible of American citizens embrace, hook, line, and sinker]).  

All along the Southern side of my property there's a 6 ft high wall that separates my yard from the neighbor's, and it is covered in jasmine and mandevilla vines.  My hypothesis is that there's a rat family living in the thick vines on top of the wall, and they wanted to help discourage parasites from living in their nest... or they're cardiac research scientist rats who are squatting without paying rent.  Not sure - and no, I'm not the president of the USA in Idiocracy.  

Rage, Against Vanessa Carlton

 My buddy Joe M sent me this link this morning, and it really brightened an otherwise depressing start to my day.  First day back to work following my son's death, funeral, wake, cremation, flight home, and zoom wake for relatives yesterday.  I listened to this, and thought several things simultaneously:

- It is brilliantly done

- It's perfect for introducing Rage Against The Machine to generations of people who may have never heard them before, or think they're too hard to listen to, or that "rock is roll is not my kind of music" listeners

- It can be listened to by teenage tik-tok trolls who love music like Vanessa Carlton, and perhaps it can open their eyes and ears and hearts to the message within

- My son would have enjoyed this

- I need to share this with a wide-of-an-audience as possible

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did, wether you live in Kenosha, Portland, Washington DC, Charlottesville, Charleston, San Diego, Orange County, or wherever closed minded, anachronistic, 1950s-nostalgic, Confederate apologists, Nationalists, Alt Right, Q-anon, pathetic nazis, and white supremacists keep raising their ugly, delusional filled, willfully ignorant little heads.

Link: https://youtu.be/6kYco2Zt-cM

An Empty LA

The new video by Maynard of Tool, on his side project Puscifer, published Apocalyptical yesterday.  (thanks to my buddy Ryan for the head's up).  It shows a completely empty Los Angeles.  I've been to the Staples Center.  It's in a very busy section of the city.   https://youtu.be/Hj_bTbfAEsc


A skateboarder in a level 4 haz mat suit, drone footage of streets, parking lots, beaches, all devoid of human life in frame after frame.  Granted, these might have been taken near dawn on a cloudy day (so you can't see shadows) but it is eerie how empty the streets are in America's 2nd largest city.

Those Southern states who are opening back up with little or no restrictions, I wish your health care systems and morticians all the best, as your elderly, cancer patients, diabetics, hypertensives, morbidly obese, immuno-compromised, the weakest of "the herd" say their good byes to their families (if they still have any) through FaceTime or panes of glass before they expire.  No, Covid-19 is not a hoax.  It's not some conspiracy created by hospitals to get more Medicare money. It's a global pandemic.

If you read this, and can't help yourself in angrily (or snarkily) responding to me, your comments will be published and mocked.

Marketing Failure As Success

Fareed Zakaria's GPS program this morning said it best.
Link here: https://www.arcamax.com/politics/fromtheleft/fareedzakaria/s-2084130
"Trump's true talent is marketing failure as success"

I really cannot add anything more than Fareed's succinct summary here.

Why Umerikuns fall for this immoral, misogynistic, sophomoric, bombastic, uncurious, ignorant, narcissistic, illiterate, con man's rhetoric, is beyond my comprehension.

Please, Let This Be The LAST Jedi

We went as a family this afternoon to see "Episode VIII The Last Jedi" at the San Marcos Regal Theater.  I'd hoped it would be better than Episodes I, II, and III... and it was, for the most part.  The Original Star Wars (Episode IV) still remains the best, most impactful, memorable Lucas Film of the series, in my humble opinion.  This Last Jedi could probably have been much shorter, included fewer meaningless plot dead-ends, and flowed better than it actually did in the film we just saw... but that's probably the grumpy old man in me commenting openly ("back in my day, you cut people in half with light sabers; you didn't stab them!").

Sure, it was a western / space opera with multiple themes introduced, but it was not the tour de force that the lonnnnng intro & ramp up led the movie-goer to believe.  Hamil goes out far better than Ford went out, in Episode VII, and some of Fisher's appearances look almost computer generated, in the varied lighting she is depicted compared to those with whom she is speaking to or interacting with.  Admiral Ackbar, sadly, is no more.

Several issues I had with the film that still stick in my craw are:
- in space, you don't need bombers (there's only microgravity, or no gravity)
- furry penguins should be delicious, or comical, but not both
- tasting white crystals form the ground, is stupid & potentially deadly (could have been anything more toxic than just salt)
- since when are dueling weapons strong enough to withstand a light saber blade? (in IV-VI there was nothing stronger than a light saber blade)
- if the evil emperor is so knowing and omniscient, why would he be so careless to leave Luke's lightsaber on an oversized arm rest next to him?
- if a ship can be piloted into light speed directly in the path of enemy ships to obliterate through them, why wait until 80% of your fleet is blasted into nothing before making that last spectacular jump?
- if a casino full of the top 1% of the 1% of war profiteers is so opulent, why do they have only 5 cloaked foot guards and 2 little flying police cars?  (ever been to Monaco? I have...)
- if a rebel fleet is trying to run away on regular engines, and are running out of fuel, why doesn't the Imperial fleet just just into hyperspace ahead of the fleeing ship, surround it, tractor beam it, and obliterate it (or force it to surrender)?

Much of the film, depressingly, appears to be made to introduce more toys, more marketing, more character "bling" and accessories that I, as an adult man, could not give a care about.  ALL the previews leading up to the film (we got there 25 minutes early to get good seats) were for inane movies and products that I could not care less about seeing, buying, or mentioning here... but obviously idiocracy seems to be crazy about them.  There were no less than 3 major motion pictures previewed that are coming out that were video game extensions of concepts or movies that I consider irrelevant.  Just because making a CGI model is possible, doesn't mean it Should Be Made, every time.

If you're a HUGE Star Wars fan...  enjoy.  It's not that bad.  I just hope it's the Last Star Wars film I see now that all of the original characters, expect the droid and Chewbacca are gone (and Carrie Fisher is gone in the real world).

Trump Family's Arrested Development

Dr Desert Flower and I have been catching up on old seasons of Arrested Development on Netflix while her shoulder (post-surgery) and my left elbow (compressed bursa) recover and heal.  With the recent Russian emails that have been revealed that clearly show collusion between the Trump family during the presidential campaign in July of 2016, and the Russian governments and government surrogates, DDF and I came to the revelation that the Trump family and the Bluth family are remarkably analogous.  If you're a fan of Arrested Development, read on, you may enjoy this post and could possibly provide comments to make it even better.  If you're no fan of Arrested Development, or have never watched the show, I recommend reading no further, as this post will probably just seem byzantine, trivial, and over-extended in its comparison.

From left to right: Buster, Maeby, George Michael, Lucille, George Sr, Lindsey, Tobias, and G.O.B. (pronounced "Jobe")

The characters in Arrested Development and their Trump analogues are as follows:

George Sr = 45 Himself; enriching his family by buying cheap desert acreage that the federal government will build a wall upon, running a fake university, repeatedly bankrupting the family business, a chronic philanderer who cannot keep it in his pants, throughout his whole life, multiple shady business associates.  George Sr is Far More Intelligent, conniving, devious, wily, and successful than 45 in myriad ways... but as the head of the family, there's similarities. (a 70% match)

Lucille = Ivanka; looking out for herself and her own financial gain, sleeps with George Sr, hyper-focused on appearances, is cut-throat and evil to the core. (a 80% match)

G.O.B. = Donald Jr; oldest son, incompetent, buffoonish, clueless, talentless, sycophantic son who ardently longs for his distant father's approval, full of hubris, arrogant douche bag without the intelligence or talent to back up such arrogance, causes the family intense pain, embarrassment, and catastrophic failure, repeatedly. (a 98% match... G.O.B. is much funnier, and less of a douche)

Buster = Barron; Overly attached to his mother, immature, youngest son (a 60% match)

Tobias = Eric; goof, no-value-added (a 40% match, since Tobias is a flawed character we know, and Eric is just a rich frat boy douche who hunts endangered species like Elephants in Africa)

Lindsey = Tiffany; adopted, clueless, left out of the picture (a 40% match)

Michael = Jared; boyish, has some clues but not enough, son-of-a-formerly-rich-father-who's-gone-to-jail, In WAY Over His Head, doomed to failure (an 80% match)

Maeby = 45's grand children we don't know about yet ( < 50% match)

{Late addition}
Kitty (George Sr's mentally unstable secretary) = Kellyanne Conway; both mentally tenuous, extremely dangerous, and both have "the crazy" in their eyes, but Kellyanne weaves lies much more effectively.)  (a 90% match)

{Late addition}
Ann = Sarah Huckabee Sanders; both come from narrow minded fundamentalist families, though Ann is far sweeter and more attractive than her press-secretary-wanna-bee-mean-girl-who-wants-your-lunch-money Huckabee Sanders.  Both have a mean streak inside them (Ann going off with Steve Holt... Sarah being herself)  {Thanks Jen H for these observations and suggestions!}

Stan Sitwell = Hillary Rodham Clinton, with hair; consistently the foil against the 45 administration, consistently has tried to defeat them but has not been successful in vanquishing them.

George Michael = ?  No equivalent in the 45 administration observed, yet... but stay tuned

Barry Zuckerkorn (played by Henry Winkler, the Bluth family lawyer) = Marc E. Kasowitz; incompetent, shady, does what he's told badly. (a 85% match)

Pence, Spicer, Massive-Foreheaded Stephen Miller, Christie, Gingrich, and Bannon don't have direct Arrested Development analogues that I can think of... at this time.

All readers' comments and suggestions are welcome.  This post will be updated as 2017 progresses and new information is revealed.  DDF and I thought it was pretty funny that there's so many similarities.

Waking Up to a Non Fact Based World

On Tuesday night, November 8th, I was very disappointed by the preliminary national election results coming in that I went to bed hopeful.  Hopeful that I'd wake up to a new brighter November 9th, along with my other fact-based fellow US citizens.

Instead, I woke up to the realization that the White Walkers (aka the Walking Ignorant) have chosen not only the most unqualified candidate for POTUS in the history of our democracy, but also a majority (54 of 100) Republican senators who
- will approve SCOTUS nominations be more like Thomas and Scalia
- deny climate change exists
- believe that women should make 76 cents on the dollar that a man makes
- like pre-existing conditions and denied health care, when they'll finally repeal the Affordable Care Act
- want the United States to look more like the failed state of Kansas than the flourishing Republic of California
- want their wives and daughters to be 9s or 10s and that it's fine to "grab them by the pussy" when they have celebrity status
and...
- who do not care about actual facts. Facts, verified and authenticated, not Brietbarted, not trumped up, not delusional and paranoid fabrications.

The Down Jones has plummeted 750 points in less than a day as I write this last posting.  There's no sense or use in worrying or hand wringing.  All I, my family, and my friends who live in a fact based world can do now is endure the next 2 years, and then the next 2 after that.

I'll be advocating that the Republic of California build a wall on our Eastern Border, to stop the influx of non-fact based immigrants who embraced Breitbart and Infowars over Politifact and Snopes (and The Guardian, and The Economist, and every reputable media outlet and fact checking source on the planet).

And since history has proven that fascist regimens and the masses who support them are unkind to journalists, intellectuals, and others who live in a fact based world, this will be my last JustJoeP posting of the year.  Perhaps the last one ever, as there's really no sense to shouting into a hurricane's wind anymore.  The vast majority reject the facts I present, and it just makes my voice hoarse over time.  Mike Judge's prescient film Idiocracy and Scott Adams' predictions almost a year ago were more accurate than any logical, fact-based citizen of the world were willing to believe.  Heck, even Michael Moore - who is often incredible hyperbolic - was accurate in his Trumpland predictions.

The White Walkers have won for a generation.  Winter's not coming... Winter is here, already.  It arrived November 9th, 2016.  America, you had a pretty good run... 240 years.  Now, it's the Chinese's turn I guess.  Commenting further here will only damage my and my family's best interests, so with a heavy heart, I say good bye to blogging and social media.  My real friends, those who live in a fact based world, still know how to reach me.

Adieu.

Scott Adams's Prediction Scares The Hell Out of Me

Back in 2015, Scott Adams - the Dilbert creator and trained hypnotist - predicted that Donald J Drumpf would win the 2016 United States general election for President "in a landslide".  I was not aware of this, until I watched Real Time with Bill Maher last night on DVR.


And after this interview,  I decided I will begin stock piling ammunition, lumber, batteries, canned food, fuel, potable water, and the essentials to make it through a post-apocalyptic hellscape that America will become after Donald J Drumpf starts a war with some aggravated country who he thinks he can "negotiate with".  I don't know if it will be Pakistan, or North Korea, or a consortium of the BRIC countries... but Donald will inevitably Tweet or Broadcast or inflame some nation that will then launch an EMP device, or relate a biological agent or contaminate the drinking water or breathable air, and much of America, if not all of it, will be caught up in the conflagration.

I visited shooting ranges in Arizona and California during the Obama administration, and sure there were many posters for "Obama, the greatest gun sales man ever" put up by ignorant fear mongers who questioned the President's citizenship, thought he was a secret Muslim, and that he was going to destroy America.  How did that work out for y'all, dumbasses?  All you did was drive up the price of ammo for yourselves, fools. The demise of America these hyperbolic & myopic nationalists predicted Never came to fruition, and won't come to fruition, while there is an intelligent, educated, thoughtful, rational resident of The White House.  American will be fine until at least the first week of November 2016.  After that, if Scott Adams is right, and Donald J Drumpf wins in a land slide as predicted, leveraging his persuasive marketing techniques on a gullible and stupid populace, all bets are off.  President Camacho from Idiocracy would be a better leader than Donald J. Drumpf.

I hope it doesn't come to that...

For President Camacho's State of The Union Address, go here:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA

So Many Idiotic Hoosiers

As a native Hoosier, having lived the first 2 decades of my life there... being born there... getting my college education there... filing my taxes there for many years... having owned a home in Monroe County there for more than 7 years... I am astonished at how many gullible, misinformed, base-ball-cap-wearing, fake-Oakley-wearing, inarticulate, moronic, passionate Trump supporters there are in Indiana.

I have yet to meet a single, articulate, intelligent Trump supporter who can explain to me, logically, without hatred or bigotry or easily-debunked-psuedo-facts, why they are a Trump supporter, and why other Americans should become Trump supporters.  Trump is so often wrong, and always inflammatory, that no normal, logical, fact-based-thinking individual can actually justify, calmly, and without vitriol, why they support him.  I understand why Bernie won Indiana... I would have voted for him if I was still a Hoosier, as he is the under-dog outsider who is anti-establishment, self-funded, and not beholden to corporate or billionaire interests.  But Trump is an empty suit, a vacuous loud-mouth who easily dupes the misinformed and willfully uninformed to flock to his support in the primaries.

Wilmore Trump

I wish I was not registered as an Independent in California, as that makes it much harder to vote in the Democrat or Republican primaries... but... that's what having to travel to Asia for 2 weeks for business in April during primary registration season does for a permanently "vote by mail" citizen. Oh well.

Make America Great, Again?

Make America Great, Again?

I am trying to understand, I mean Really Understand, what is meant by the slogan “Make America Great, Again” used by the “billionaire” front runner, Donald Trump (“billionaire” is in quotes, because so far, Trump refuses to release his tax returns… so his claim of being a lavishly wealthy billionaire are unsubstantiated, just as his claims of giving proceeds of events to veterans groups have never been proven to be factual).

How is America not already the greatest, most prosperous, most upwardly mobile, most tolerant, most multi-cultural, wealthiest Western Democracy with the most freedom (of movement, of religion, of speech, etc) in the entire world?  How will Donald Trump (thrice divorced, thrice bankrupt, outsourcing both his brides and his Trump brand manufacturing to foreign countries, never held elected office ever in his life) make it “great again”?  I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind this nationalist slogan, and I cannot come up with a cogent argument in favor of it.

Some people would say that Trump wants to reform campaign financing, since he is self funded and not “beholden to special interests”, but that’s Bernie Sanders whose been saying that.  Trump just lambasts his Republican primary “opponents” as representing special interests, but he has not proposed any plan to roll back or repeal the Citizens United decision

link:  http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trump-and-citizens-united-a-modest-proposal

In fact, Trump has been intentionally vague on any details about his plans, be it Citizens United, getting Mexico to finance his fantasy border wall, how he’d round up 12 million undocumented immigrants, or how he’d get the US Armed Forces to intentionally bomb civilians in Syria and Iraq in violation of the Geneva Convention.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/28/former-cia-director-military-may-refuse-to-follow-trumps-orders-if-he-becomes-president/

If an intelligent person can make a rational argument as to 

1) why America is not great now

and

2) how Donald Trump will make it “great again”

… I would be very happy to have a civil dialogue with that intelligent person, so I can understand better what I am missing about this jingoistic, vocal bully, who appears to be America’s version Jean-Marie & Marine Le Pen, combined.  

link:  http://www.economist.com/topics/jean-marie-le-pen

I am really not looking for trolls or rhetoric, or some profanity or obscenity filled emotional rant by a devout Trump supporter who is caught up in the moment, and who just likes Donald Trump because “he’s strong” or because “he doesn’t take crap from anyone.”  Those arguments don’t hold up for what qualifications are necessary to be POTUS, or to lead the strongest & wealthiest democracy on the planet.  I AM looking for a cohesive, intelligent, logic argument as to why Donald Trump would “Make America Great Again”. And, why is not still great, now?   It was great when my father came here in the 50s.  It was great when my great grand parents on my mother’s side came here before the Depression.  Why is it not great now, and how will Donald Trump & the policies and proposals he’s articulated make it “great again”?  

I promise to post any comments that are not profanity or obscenity laced, whether they make a cohesive argument or even if they just reinforce my point that there is no logical argument to be made and voters in primary states are coming out in droves because of an irrational emotional response, voting for a candidate who makes them feel good, but they can’t articulate why he makes them feel good.

I really hope someone can help me understand this.  I’ve been troubled with trying to wrap by head around the fervent embrace of Donald Trump by 100s of thousands of US voters for the last month… and cannot comprehend what they see in him, logically and rationally.

Lackluster Alaska Air

In the last month, I've had the misfortune to fly Alaska Air four times.  I say "misfortune" because I had previously held Alaska Air in rather high esteem when they were a partner with Northwest Airlines, and I was a NW Airlines Platinum member.  "Membership has its priviledges"... indeed.  Lemme 'splain.

The day after Halloween, I had to go to Hong Kong for a business trip.  I booked the trip with Alaska Air on the US domestic legs, continuing onto their PARTNER Delta Airlines for the international legs.  It was supposed to be all one big ticket, and supposed to be San Diego to Seattle, and then Seattle to Hong Kong DIRECT, Non-stop, so I could sleep on the flight and arrive Well Rested to talk to the customers I needed to talk to the day after I landed, 14 time zones away. The multi-national corporation no longer allows business class travel anywhere, so this was going to be 15 hours in a coach seat, hoping to not get deep vein thrombosis from the cramped inactivity of being a human sardine / steerage / valued-slightly-less-than-cheap-cargo-under-the-plane.  I booked the ticket..  and then... my corporate travel agent Split the Alaskan ticket and the Delta, then Delta cancelled the direct flight, routing me through Tokyo Narita.  Well, for an airline with useful IT support and adaptive ticketing, this should not have been a problem.  Unfortunately, Alaska Airlines has terrible IT support - very nice & friendly staff who interface with customers in the airports and on the phone, but abysmal computer infrastructure and inter-connectivity.

When I attempted, on Halloween morning, to check-in online, all I kept getting was an error message online "There has been an error, please contact customer service".  4 times I entered my information, four times I was foiled.  I called a customer service person... they manually checked me in, and then told me "we cannot check you into the Delta flights, our system doesn't talk to theirs. You'll need to check in at the airport with them when you get to Seattle."  WTF??? (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...)  My $2000 flight over 15,000 miles of this planet, is checked in only from San Diego to Seattle? Seriously?  Great.

So I take off out of San Diego Lindberg field 45 minutes late, land in Seattle with barely enough time to SPRINT from the N to the S gates (along with a snail's pace tram ride, since both the N and S gates are not connected to the rest of the airport, and the underground tram is the Only way to get there = lame), wolf down a Wendy's Baconator without bread or cheese, arrive at the Delta gate to Tokyo, with no boarding pass (since Alaska Air's system doesn't talk to Delta's) and I am told by the gate agent that "I'm sorry, you not checked in"  Exasperated, I told her I was checked in, I'd spent two hours checking in the day before, I'd talked to both Delta and Alaska Air on the phone, and I do have a seat back in row 18.  Another passenger from San Diego who was also going to Hong Kong, had the same conversation with the next agent over at the gate desk... so it wasn't just me.  They printed up my Seattle to Tokyo and Tokyo to Hong Kong passes, and I was literally the 2nd to last person on the Airbus 330 (the other SD passenger was the last), squeezing my luggage into the already over-burdened over-head racks, and sitting down hot & sweaty & itchy in my coach seat.  Awesome.

8 hours later, when I get to Tokyo, and I get security scanned like all the passengers, since Seattle security screening is obviously incompetent and inferior to the Tokyo security screeners - and I am finally queued up to get into the next plane to go to Hong Kong...  Again, my boarding pass is invalid, and I am told that I need to step aside and let the other passengers board.  Incredible, and ridiculous.  Because Alaska's system could not communicate with Delta's system, I am being stopped at every boarding and being told I am not checked in.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr....

On the way back, the same thing happened... every time I tried to board, I was told that my boarding pass was invalid.  Maddening.  My frequent flyer miles didn't post, and I had to waste 30 minutes on the phone with Delta to get them to post when I got home.

Trying to be the eternal optimist, I booked a last minute flight to Portland and back through Seattle via Alaska Air because they had direct flights, it was last minute for a business emergency, and I didn't want to have connections on the busiest travel day of the year, minimizing my chances of being stranded at some connection city too far to drive back to California.  I thought to myself "Alaska used to be very good...  top awards...  excellent safety record... they'll do better the 2nd time."  Plus the fact that they were not part of a 2 airline trip, so at least one variable was being eliminated with the "our system doesn't talk to theirs" excuse.

This Pre-Thanksgiving trip BEGAN very nicely... I was TSA pre-check, bumped up to First Class (because I am now Gold on Delta), got a big comfy seat, used glass glassware, steel knives and forks, and was offered copious amounts of cognac, which I had to refuse after the first one since I needed to drive once I got to Portland.  Getting to Portland was not a problem.  4 days later, when I attempted to fly home, was when the Alaska Airlines fun began.

You see, my incompetent corporate travel agent cancelled my ticket, and re-booked it, for a fare that was $120 cheaper.   This COMPLETELY discombobulated Alaska Airlines.  I was not allowed to check in (again) on my phone the night before.  I DID have a seat... but could not get a boarding pass.    The fourth day of my emergency trip ended 5 hours earlier than expected, so I headed to the airport hoping to get not he 3:50pm flight instead of the 6:50 flight (I got to the airport at 12:30, far in advance).  The Alaska Air desk agent before security worked for a full 20 minutes to get a boarding pass to print for me.  In her words "4000 key strokes later, it worked!"  Pathetic programming.  Completely non-robust.  Any change upsets the fragile software architecture and crashes on the traveller.  Sickening.

The ever-friendly gate agent tells me "we don't wait list passengers.  The 3:50 flight is showing full, but you CAN go to the departure gate and ask the agent there if anyone has not checked in."  Okey-dokey.  I can do that.. I have 3 hours to spare!   I go to the gate...   and the very polite agent there tells me "we are solidly checked in, but you can check again 30 minutes prior to the door closing."  OK...  I hover around... charge my phone... text my friends...  and then I notice the off-duty Alaska Air pilots wearing their hats and leather jackets, but not flying the plane... OHHHHHH!!!  They're the ones who get the last unclaimed seats...  3 of them!  Me, the paying passenger, I am no-body.  Personae non gratis.  The smirking, smug, elderly Alaska Air pilots laugh as I hover, and I hear one of them say "poor bastard thinks he'll get on" and nods in my direction.  Grrrrrrr  (again)

So now I am standing at my 6:50pm Departure gate, adjacent to an Anchorage Alaska departure gate, with a bunch of Alaskans and Alaska visitors all around me, as I rant about how I will never be flying Alaska Air again.  I don't care if they are the cheapest or the most direct, my behind will not be in another Alaska Air seat again.  Their IT system programming is walled off from American and Delta (the friendly gate agents told me "we have the same problem with American...  no one's system talks to ours"), they don't wait-list travelers, and they cater to their own off-duty pilots for the last unclaimed seats, as opposed to paying, ticketed passengers.  I am wasting an extra 3 hours of my life in Seattle because of Lackluster Alaskan Airline's non-customer-centric policies, pathetic IT programming, smug off-duty pilots, and my corporate travel agent's misguided metrics of "cost is more important than the traveler".

It will be good to finally decompress when I get home at 11 or 1130 pm this evening, after working 14 hour days the last 4 days through he weekend, and not give a damn about much of anything.  The Packers can smear the Bears by 40 points tomorrow, and I won't be surprised or sad by it, because I will just not be giving a damn at all this holiday weekend.

Rant over...  now I feel better.   = )

If you fly Alaska Airlines, and you like it, you're probably a Gold or Platinum frequent flyer.  Or, you're one of their smug pilots.

How Many People Did Jade Helm Round Up?

The answer is simple: ZERO.
The right wing conspiracy machine was in full "crazy mode" to claim that the US military, Walmart, and President Obama were planning on declaring marshal law and taking over Texas & Utah.  Ridiculous and insane, but given full credit & weight by MANY Republican presidential candidates who want to play to the extreme right primary base who come out to vote like fire ants whose nest has been stepped on by a black booted Federal government thug.

If you don't know what "Jade Helm" is, the CS Monitor back in May laid it out nicely. (link here)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2015/0505/What-is-Jade-Helm-15-and-should-Chuck-Norris-be-worried-video

If you don't remember how Cruz and Paul and most of the Republican field reacted back in May, the internet does.  (link here).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/the-pentagons-response-to_b_7251254.html

"J.E.Dyer" foretold of terrible things to come at "Liberty Unyielding".  Fool.

If you'd like to see a Map of "Operation Jade Helm" I've included one below.

To see how many people have been rounded up, and how many Counties and States have had marshal law imposed on them (staring today, July 15th, of course) read here (link).
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/national/wire/civilians-begin-shadowing-jade-helm-war-exercise-in-texas/article_f3e54fa9-4b0d-5dbc-94e4-2ac1de1a6b0e.html

Yeah, "I've got some concerns" and "questions remain" ...  yes, like "how did you ever get elected, Ted?"

I am so glad I don't live in a backwards, regressive, insane Red State Dumbphukistan anymore.

November Movie Reviews

On November 8th, I flew from Bangalore to Paris, taking off from Bengaluru airport at 2:45am, after working most of the week  in Bangalore and part of it in Dubai.  I should have been extremely tired, but due to the fact that a Delta Airlines frequent flyer card Does NOT allow you to pick your seat on an Air France (Flying Blue) flight, even though they are both "Skyteam", I was stuck in an aisle seat, 23G on an Air France 777-200.  The aisle seat afforded me frequent bumping by the service cart, crying from the 1 year old sitting one row behind me, and inconsiderate brushes and bumping by any passenger headed to the rest room.  Over the Arabian Sea, I took off the futile sleep mask I'd donned, requested a double cognac, and began watching movies on the little screen embedded in the back of the headrest in row 22G, figuring I'd pass out from exhaustion and get at least a few hours of sleep.  Slumber never arrived.

First, I watched Lucy with Scarlett Johansson (link here).  It was pretty good, but not awesome.  The premise was interesting, the special effects were good, and it's always a pleasure to watch Johansson on-screen.  Morgan Freeman was subdued, while Amr Waked played a fine role.  Pilou Asbæk - who reminds me of Ewan McGregor's older & creepier brother played an intense and abbreviated role at the beginning of the film (enough said).  There were too many meaningless car chases…  too much gratuitious violence that could have been better wrapped up / better executed with less strings left hanging… and the ending was a little bit "silly" for my analytical mind.  But all-in-all, I'd give Lucy a thumb's up and recommend it if you're bored, or stuck, sleepless on a plane.

Next, before reaching Iranian Airspace, I watched Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise and the lovely Emily Blunt link here).  I can't recommend this film, and I have no idea why it has 4 out of 5 stars on IMDB.  Tom Cruise played himself.  Emily Blunt plays a jaded, angry, cynical warrior who hacks up aliens… and who comes to understand Tom Cruise's character.  What I did not like most about this

film, was the ridiculousness of the plot where Cruise keeps going back - like Groundhog Day - to have the day reset, and then learning from those mistakes he made that day in the next regeneration, only to then run into yet another road block.  The Groundhog Day theme MIGHT be plausible when they throw in the alien explanation… ok…  I could take a leap of faith on that and suspend disbelief for a while.  But, the stupid combat simulator that keeps mortally injuring Cruise as he learns to fight, is meaningless and non-representative of what he faces on the battle field later.  After he's mortally injured, he is Frequently shot in the head by Blunt, so much so that almost 1/4 of the scenes end with her cocking a .38 and pointing it at Cruise's head.  Wouldn't a sergeant be courtmartialed for summarily executing another wounded soldier in training?  And if the alien "Omega" can see into the future and reset time to an earlier date to learn from its failures, why couldn't it see that Cruise and Blunt were about to kill it when they find it under a (cliché) pyramid, and roll back the clock to before Cruise tries to kill it?  If you're going to present a premise in a science fiction movie, then be consistent and stick with it.  Paradox time loops, flash-backs, hallucinations, military legal code, physics…  these things need to be obeyed.  One thumb's down.

Crossing over Iran, still wide away, I watched Grand Budapest Hotel. (link here)  Dr Desert Flower had rented this on Netflix some time back in September when we were flying to my little brother's wedding in Chicago, and watched it on her iPad.  My beloved 1/2 deaf wife offered to give me one ear phone so I could watch it too, crammed into the middle seat beside her in a SouthWest Airlines coach seat [she always wants the aisle, I detest the aisle, and really just want a window seat that affords a bulkhead upon which I can lean against and sleep (see earlier postings this month here)].  I declined, tucked in my elbows, and read Voltaire's "Treatise on Tolerance".  Sleepless over pre-dawn Iran, and still disgusted by the Doug Liman hackery I just endured, I watched Wes Anderson's romp through Eastern Europe Vague-a-stan with multi-cameo appearances by many many many actors - The Society of the Crossed Keys, Ha!  It was a somewhat heart warming story, but rather silly, and again, with meaningless chase scenes and needless violence (sleds? shoot outs? beheadings? really…   necessary?) Over-all, it was not unenjoyable, and I did snicker a few times.  Can't say I loved it, but it was not bad.

Crossing from Iran to Turkey, and avoiding Syrian, Pakistani, Ukrainian, Afghani, and Chechnyan airspace, I still was strangely awake - albeit glad to not be shot down by any surface to air missiles.  I saw that Divergent (link here) was on the movie list, so I queued it up, request another double cognac, and settled into 139 minutes of teenage pablum.  Maybe if I was a 12 or 13 year old girl I would have liked it much better, but I didn't care about the characters, the hole-filled-plot, or the "filmed on a tiny budget indoors" cinematography.  I didn't think anyone was "dreamy" or any of the acting believable.  Massive thumbs down.  Ew.  2 hours of my life I will never get back.

When Divergent ended, we were transitioning from Hungary to Austria, and then breakfast was served over Germany.  Air France "Premier Economy" was not 1/2 as nice as I remembered it being in 2012 when I last flew on AIr France, and instead of "bolting on" Premier Economy to the back side of Business Class and treating it like business class, Air France has changed their model, and now treats Premier Economy like it is "slightly bigger coach", with no seat reclining, no business class food, and much-more-absentee service than I recall from 2 years ago.  It was very slightly better than coach in that the arm rest was wider than 2 inches, and there was a tiny metallic foot rest that folded down from the row in front of you… but I would not say it was truly worth a 40% higher air fare than economy  / coach (thigh still less than the 4X multiplier difference from coach to business class).

After we landed in Paris, I got a lobster wrap and a 1/2 bottle of wine, and slept well from Paris to Newfoundland, before waking up to do some email, eat lunch, and get ready to land.  Atlanta to OC, I got a nice window seat (here).

On the way TO Dubai and India, I couldn't sleep so well in the aforementioned uncomfortable Premier Economy Air France seat, so I watched Guardians of the Galaxy (link here) upon Jon Stewart's recommendation.  It was OK.  Not great, not that enjoyable.  Very not believable.  Very hoaky.  Perhaps I would have enjoyed it if I was taking a small child or a grand kid to the movies to see it…  I dunno.  I had No Idea that both Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper were in it as a walking tree and a raccoon - a stretch for both pretty boys to pull off successfully.  I still have no idea why SO Many People LOVE Chris Pratt - he's a goof, and he played himself in Guardians.   Sadly predictable that they're going to make a Guardians 2 sequel.  Ugh.

Last weekend, Dr Desert Flower agreed to go see Fury with me (link here).  She told em she wanted to go.  She said she wanted to see it.  I took her.  She hated it.  We were not even home and she was IM-ing people telling them how she hated it.  I should have followed my retired neighbor Bob's advice and gone to see it in the afternoon while she was at work.  Graphically violent, with a very-unbelievable ending (as in "cannot be believed", not "unbelievably awesome!")… I would have enjoyed the film more had I gone to see it by myself (or seen it on a plane, over Iran).  I still think that the older Brad Pitt gets, the more he begins to resemble my younger brother…  or at least, in the make-up for Fury, they made him look like my little brother.  

The next night, we went to see Rosewater (link here) at the same theater - nice leather seats with arm

rests, a wine bar, and table service in the theater if you really want it (they were delivering pizzas and entrées to movie goers who ordered before the credits.  Rosewater was good.  I wanted it to be great.  Parts of it were heart-moving, wrenching, inspiring.  Parts of it were silly, and very Jersey-esque.  Filmed in Jordan while Jon Stewart took a sabbatical from "The Daily Show", it was very believable.  I recommend anyone who geopolitically aware, go to see this movie, regardless of your politics - right, left, green, centrist, it doesn't matter… it has a message for everyone.  And it is amazing that cinema can take a Dane interrogating a Mexican in a Jordanian room, and make you think they're all Iranians in an Iranian prison.  The Iranian women in the film were actually Iranian actresses, refreshingly.  And DDF liked it much more than Fury, of course.  

OC Lifeguard Dispatch

If you see some brain dead tweens repeatedly trying to throw trash from the South end of Strand Beach, into The Headlands Nature Preserve - like say water bottles full of sand - and the bottles keep bouncing off the cliff face but the determined & testosterone driven "hey watch this!" moronic tweens keep trying, call the OC Lifeguard Dispatch number:

1-949-276-5050

And the dispatcher will send over a friendly life guard if one is available to talk with the tweens, and keep them busy until the Orange County Sheriff can arrive and write them (and their parents) a ticket.  Littering in the Headlands, or trespassing off path are violations that carry heavy fines ($1000) and are ticketed by the OC Sheriff.

I was having a very enjoyable beach walk on Monday afternoon when I finished work, that was rudely interrupted by three 12 or 13 year olds in wet suits, rolled down to their wastes, at the SOuth end of Strand Beach in Dana Point, each trying to "out do" the other kid in throwing trash up the cliff and into the cliff top bushes - the same bushes where I've seen active hummingbird nests and swarms of hatchling rufous hummingbirds.  Idiots.  I looked for a parent sitting beside 3 surf boards or body boards, but found none.  I photographed my Anna's Hummingbird buddy guarding his territory on the Strand 'zig zag' and then headed back up Strand Beach towards Salt Creek, where I found 2 life guards and they gave me the dispatch number.

Did I ever do stupid things as a teenager? (like throw grapes from one moving car on I-94 towards another car, to see if we could get them in our friend's mouth, as two cars drove along at 55 mph next to each other)  Yes, I did.  Did I get caught doing it, surrounded by 4 Indiana state trooper squad cars and pulled over, given a warning, and sent on our merry way to the beach?  Yes, I did.  Did I expect a bevy of angry truckers to report a 1970s Honda CVCC and a 1980 Volvo V70 wagon slowing down two lanes of evening rush hour traffic to be upset enough to call in the smokies en masse?  No, but I learned from that experience.  If you're going to do dumb things, don't do them where they affect or inconvenience other people, and don't break any laws while doing so.

The Headlands Cliff is over 100 feet tall (morons not pictured, to the left)

These kids and tourists who defile the beaches with litter and graffiti and lower my quality of life are unpleasant.  I will do my part, as a grumpy old man of Orange County, to try and positively influence their behavior whenever possible, just as my personal anti graffiti campaign in Western Phoenix was very successful during my 5 years there.

On a positive side, I ddi see one older woman in her late 50s or early 60s walking along the beach where waves' edge met sand, picking up arm loads of trash.  Bottles, caps, empty bags... she had her hands (and one arm) full of retrieved trash, and that helped to restore my faith in my fellow citizenry.  If I had any pockets into which I could have put my camera and car key, I would have picked up trash with her - next time I will take a trash bag with me and collect along the way, enjoying both the beauty of the beach and enhancing it with fastidious attention to detail (which I am prone to do, by my nature).

[one of the reasons for posting this OC Dispatch number is so that I can remember it, even when I am without a cell phone, in the future]

Storm - Scientifically Explained

I'd never seen this before...   but it is awesome:
Storm, by Tim Minchin  link here

Well worth the 10 minutes.

Greed Zombies

Yes, the creation of fictional wealth, out of derivatives, collateral default swaps, modeled future behaviour, mergers & acquisitions, as well as the legalistic BS, political BS, and promotional marketing that surrounds these imaginary concepts are all far more important than making actual, real, quality products.  Far more important than teaching our young people how to learn to build and fix and improve real things.  Far more important than helping other citizens to improve their lives.   The pursuit of infinite wealth, gained from imaginary & conflated concepts, without any trace of humanity or scruples, has taken over not just the US, but on a global scale.

I used to worry that someday my grand children will inherit a polluted environment, ruled by greedy bastards, who have corrupted the world.  But I've stopped worrying about that, and I've begun to come to grips with the realization that maybe I won't have any grand children at all - a thought that used to depress me, but now one which is perhaps the least sad out-come.

Not Just A Bright Dot In The Sky

This evening, the international space station will be orbiting over Southern California: (from SpotTheStation)

"Time: Wed Feb 27 6:22 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 72 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: SE"

Frankly, I look forward to each time the station will be passing over-head and the night sky is cloudless.  While some people may think "what's the big deal, it's just a bright spot in the sky?" I see it as much more fascinating, impressive, and noteworthy.  Why?

Well, wether it is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court predicting an eclipse, or Ash Williams in The Army Of Darkness's "boom stick", chain saw and Oldsmobile, or NASA predicting the near-Earth fly-by of an asteroid... these are applications of science and technology that show that some humans actually use their neurons and firing synapses for useful purposes - to gain favor with the king and the fair maiden (Bing), to preserve one's life (Ash), or to avert a possible planetary threat (NASA).  Each time scientists and engineers get it right, it is a victory for the thinking class, the anti-Kardashians, the geeks who otherwise go un-appreciated and often-mocked / ridiculed / pigeon-holed / devalued & who are frequently ostracized, and a rebuke to those who do not value (or "believe") science.

To say confidently "at this time, and this place, you're going to see this man made object that is 230 miles above you, hurtling at roughly 17,250 mph, along a trajectory path from HERE to THERE that will last 6 minutes" ... and that object has scientists in it, who are doing experiments that may change the way materials are manufactured on Earth, how diseases are fought, or alter what we know about the condition of this tiny blue sphere on which we all live... well, that is pretty damn amazing to me.

Yes, it LOOKS like just a little bright white dot in the sky, not much brighter than Venus or Jupiter, moving in a straight line, but it is something that humans - collaborating, working together - created, tested, launched, maintain, and inhabit.  It's not some natural occurring phenomenon over which humans have no control.  Looking up and seeing it is one of the purest manifestations of the evidence that "science matters".  If we all believed that the Earth was 6000 years old, and the Ptolemaic Earth was at the center of the universe, and that eating of a creature that was not of cloven hoof & chewing cud was an abomination, there Would Be No international space station.  We'd be bleeding patients to get their humours corrected and relying upon astrology and alchemists as we tried to kill off or subjugate the rival neighbor tribes for the differences in their beliefs and appearance.

Each time I see this manifestation of successful technology, doing something very impressive, and very useful for all of humanity, it gives me hope.  It helps to remind me that life is not a series of pathetic of reality TV shows, bad news, innocuous fluff producing teen bands, marketing of products we don't need to buy, and mystical beliefs of invisible beings in the sky who randomly wreak random havoc on their terrestrial follows.  No, there's an actual space station, made of steel, titanium, plastic, and aluminum, full of scientists, engineers, and pilots from many different countries, safely flying more than 24X faster than  I've ever flown (an Air France 777 flight I was on once clocked in at 705 mph at 40K feet) at an altitude 32X higher than I've ever been, AND there are humans so smart that they can predict where it's going to be, automatically email me the information to let me know where that will be, so that I can also gaze upon the beauty of that manifestation and appreciate it.

It's something I'll never be able to explain to a tea bagger who wants to cut ALL government spending - without government expenditures, the international space station never would have been built.  It's not something that a quick creationist will ever understand, as they cannot separate the miracles that they believe their deity created from the modern marvels that science and engineering can create.  It's not something that I could explain to an uneducated manual laborer who has worked their butt off since the age of 6 and never even graduated from 8th grade (as my departed grand parents were) because they were too busy trying to stay alive and keep their family fed...  but it IS a thing of beauty that I appreciate.

I'll get off my soap box now.

The Walking Dud

Back in the Fall of 2010, I was eager to watch AMC's new series, The Walking Dead.  Then, in February of 2012, my interest sadly began to wane.  Now, this season, each episode bounces between
- poorly written
- laughably dumb
- idiotic choices, made by
- unlikable / un-relatable / unsympathetic characters
I am not saying that writing for a apocalyptic zombie series is easy, but the producers and writers of The Walking Dead have got to stop listening to their focus groups (which lead them to kill off the unlikeable Lori last season) and start writing more logical, believable dialogues, plot lines, and characters.

The awesome Tumblr Ilovecharts once said:

But now the magenta bar has grown to fill more than 3/4rds of each episode.  Dr Desert Flower refuses to watch it with me, as it is medically & scientifically impossible and the characters' speeches are inane.  I Fast-Forward through every scene with 'The Governor' and Andrea, as I could not care less.  Andrew Lincoln's British take on a delusional rural Georgian Sheriff has become strained at best, and when he tries to "dumb down" his accent in an 'I don't know' chain-link fence conversation with the patronly vet  Herschel he comes across as developmentally disabled, instead of borderline psychotic.

One bright spot is Norman Reedus as Darly Dixon, who is surprisingly one of the few redeeming characters in the whole show.  Michael Rooker's Merle just needs to be bitten, and taken out, as does the entire population of Woodbury.  Danai Gurira's Michonne character is being squandered in a deluge of sulking and silence, when (I've heard from my friends who have read them) she plays a MUCH BIGGER role in the comic books on which the series is based.

Leave Lori dead (and eaten, thank you).  If her widow Rick wants to run after psychotic hallucinations of her, have him get bitten and killed.  If 'The Governor' and his band of "deadly marksmen against the national guard, but inept against prison inhabiting civilians" show up, have them be consistent.  They either kill everyone, or they all get killed.  Dodge Ram pickup truck doors can't stop M4 full metal jacketed rounds.  If you're gonna beat the hell out of Steven Yeun, and give him a severe concussion, he needs to act concussed.   While Herschel's amputated leg LOOKS authentically shorter, Merle's hand-in-a-metal-sheath prosthesis isn't fooling anyone.

In season one, the very first zombie Sheriff Rick ever kills, he does so with a face shield (proper PPE) and a base ball bat.   Now, everyone is stompin, punchin, kicking, bludgeoning zombies one after another without any regard to how bone fragments can cut you, how decomp splatter can get in your eyes, mouth, or nose (or Any open wound you've sustained), and every single episode is a cross-contamination farce.

I had high hopes, but they're dashed.  I can watch an episode now on DVR in about 15 minutes.  Oh well.  But like any train wreck...  I want to see how it "ends", so I'll keep fast forwarding until they conclude the series.  Hopefully, with all the main characters getting eaten.

Congressional Republicans On Science

It's a good thing that these elected representatives aren't on anything like the Science & Technology House committee.

Oh wait...  they are.  =( 
Isn't that sort of like Libya or Syria being on the Human Right's Commission at the UN?  Or Mike Tyson lecturing on string theory?  Or the Saudi's chairing a symposium on women's rights?  They each cause equal amounts of cognitive dissonance. 

Walmart Contagion After 50 Years

While some corporate leaders would see this map as a "great success", I see it as a 50 year progression of a slide towards lower quality, mediocrity, idiocracy, a "throw away society".  Think about the coffee makers, the blenders, the consumer goods that you used to have when you were much younger, in your parents' home, and the significantly lower quality junk that Walmart sells today, if you disagree with my point.

Dumbing down to the lowest common denominator.  It's also very sad that Walmart hands out Medicaid & Food Stamp (WIC) applications to new hires, as they know that they don't pay a living wage.  And like most large corporations (CVS, Target, Walgreens, etc) they keep the majority of their hourly employees below 39.5 hours a week, so that they don't have to book keep them as "full time" employees.

It's been 4 years since I walked into a Walmart, and that was only because they were the only place open in the middle of the night.  It's been almost 15 years sine I intentionally shopped at a Walmart.  I use my wallet and my personal spending discretion to fight this contagion.

Kudos to all those communities around the world who are fighting the opening of Walmart stores in their neighborhood.  "Brought to you by Carl's Jr.  Brought to you by Carl's Jr".