The court blows a camel wearing a party hat

Old and feeble because of the ravages of Parkinson’s Disease? Now you have the chance to be just old. Maybe I am simple, but I think every problem – disease or otherwise – has a complete, straight-forward answer. It is just a matter of looking in the right place. Most promising of this PD treatment is the statement, "There was a profound behavioral effect of the treatment, even after it 'washed out' of the system," Dr. Eckman notes. "This shows that the treatment affects the underlying pathology." Just like a key in a lock. Very cool.

This is an interesting article. First, check the title – Massachusetts court deals blow to same-sex marriage. Gotta love headline writers. One institution blowing another institution. Sorta raises the ante for safe-sex standards: now we need an employee manual, a standing committee, and a really big condom.

But the “blow” dealt is even more interesting: the court said it is OK to let the people of Massachusetts vote on the matter of allowing same-sex marriage in their commonwealth. The tone of the article is that this development is a bad thing. Go figure.

My friend that speaks with angels sent me this site on the early Beatles. Remarkable pictures, many of which I had not seen before. I have e’d with the guy that maintains the site. Very nice. To see all of the details, you need to select a year and then hit one of the hyperlinks on the left – the descriptive text; then you can hit “next” and view dozens and dozens of pages. Hit “home” after the dates along the top, then “References and Links,” and finally drift to the bottom of the page. See the jpegs for links elsewhere? An entire day drifting through the Internet on the breeze of The Beatles. I even found sources to, um, further my bootleg research.

If I had $150, I would buy this book (look about half way down the page, red cover). Jonathan Winters is one of my heroes. I remember his comedy in the ‘60s as I grew up. In the 1970’s, I met him in New Hampshire. Saw the depth of his persona. Many people in there. He’s been beat up in his time, yet his quick wit protected him (and I hope still does). His view on life: “Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.”

This is something else that I need to do. A relative asked me to get my DNA done for our family genealogy tree. Costs about $250. After I get the book, then I’ll work my up to this. With any luck, I’ll be related to Howard Hughes. Maybe I am Warren Buffet’s love child. I could sue the Gates Foundation for a few billion. That would be fun. Maybe I could get Bill Gates’ autograph. We could do lunch whilst his attorneys chewed me up and I laugh at them as I wear my DNA chart on my head folded like a pirate hat.

“What do you want?” the negotiations would begin.
“A pirate ship!”
“A pirate ship?”
“Yes, just like Captain Jack Sparrow. I haven’t seen the new movie yet. Does he have a ship in it?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Cool, I want one just like that.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Um, a tablet PC! You make those?”
“Sorta, yes”
“OK, I want one. No, TWO! I want two.”
“Is that it?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“OK, what else?”
“Um, let me think. I want Microsoft to make an operating system that can’t be hacked into by Russian monkeys hitting keys randomly. I want customer service to be exactly that – customer first, service second, nothing third like your immediate and putrid management of costs by putting people in CS that have little training and NO product knowledge. I want Publisher to be useable without having to get an advanced degree in illogical programming. And I want the Thesaurus in Word to include more than just root words. I am sick of having to truncate my word in order to get alternatives. Can you do all of that?”
“No. We can’t. We can’t do any of that. ‘User-friendly’ is not in our charter.”
“Oh,” I sighed.
“Sorry.”
“Tzokay! You can do the pirate ship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Deal. Here’s my hat. And your signed nondisclosure form. AAARRRGHHH! That’s pirate for thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”

Need to implode a 20-story building? Or just want to for fun and profit? Here is your how-to article and here is narrative article. Both provide good details and lots of helpful pictures and cool videos. The trick seems to be causing the internal structure to fail, then lower exterior, and finally the roof. Collapse it to its footprint. I can do that. Maybe. Maybe not. But I would like to try.

Ever think you are having a bad run of luck?

Escaping from the psych ward and you find yourself in a plummeting elevator? Lie flat on the floor in the center and cover your head.

You survive the elevator only to be human-slave chained into a eunuch skirt in a harem, you then kill the harem master, collect your testicles in the jar (on the off-chance your doc can reattach then), effect your escape atop a camel and it starts galloping out of control with you on top? Pull the reins to one side and force it to run in a circle.

Your camel ran into circles for so long you find yourself in the middle of sand storm? You need a bandanna over your nose and mouth. Put a little petroleum jelly inside your nostrils to cut the drying (got none? Something oozing out of your camel should work). Get to higher ground.

Ditching your camel, you pull a gun on some dude and boost his car only to find the brakes don’t work? Don’t stop pumping the brake, put in lowest gear, and employ a bit of the emergency brake.

You don’t quite stop in time and you find yourself inside the car teetering over a cliff? Move slowly until you are at a door that opens over land, then get the hell out.

You don’t quite make it but somehow jump free of the car and into a river, only to find yourself heading over a waterfall? Go over feet first. Try to push yourself away from the waterfall just before going over. Start swimming immediately upon hitting the water and get downstream.

Downstream, you feel something nibbling at your toes and you realize that piranhas are all around you? Get to cold, fast moving water. Back upstream? Is it night? Then they are sleeping; no worries. Anyway, only the sick, diseased, and desperately hungry ones eat humans. But then again, they are eating you – bummer.

You sleep at the side of the river, and then wake and head into the woods. You are hopelessly lost. What way is north? MacGyver time. Get a stick and watch. Stick the stick (see what I mean about the Word thesaurus?) straight up in the ground so that it casts a shadow. Line up a watch (with hands on it) close to the stick. Align the shadow and hour hand so they are parallel. Halfway between that place on the watch and 12 is the direction north – if the hour hand is on 2, then north is in the direction of 1. (Don’t ask me; I don’t know how matches work.)

Escape the woods only to find yourself in a minefield? Forget what this link says. Turn around, get lost in the woods again. You went north? Follow the cloud movement – that’s usually east.

You travel east, find a clearing, and aliens abduct you. How to you foil it? You don’t. Shoot yourself before the anal probe begins.

Tired. Goodnight.