Thanks to Border Town Notes for this meme.
Interviews were conducted attempting to locate anyone who may have sold a .22 caliber revolver to either the wife or the boyfriend, who may have seen them together prior to the homicide, or who may have heard them brag about the homicide afterward (another few-dozen people).
The investigation had already taken over 18 months, dozens of full-time investigators, rooms full of boxes of documents, and hundreds of gigabytes of electronic data (on floppy disks). I was required to supervise the investigators, be familiar with the over-all investigation and act more as an administrator than an investigator.
Beginning tonight—20 April—the Lyrid Meteor Showers will be visible to most of the Northern Hemisphere. The Lyrids are caused by the Earth passing through the dusty tail of Comet Thatcher, a non-periodic comet, named (in modern-times) in 1861, although it has been dip-zipping around the sun for a millennium or twenty-six.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. — Mark Twain
Over at SpaceWeather they explain all about our current 'solar minimum' (relating to the current lack of sunspots, which have been on-the-decrease for the last five years). Last year had the least number of sunspots since 1913. This year may have even less; already 88% of 2009-days have been spotless.
digital rendering by veach st glines — 2009
Cameron from Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons poses this (I paraphrase from his last post):I'm thinking about the quote: 'You have your whole life ahead of you,' and the manner in which it is generally offered as advice.
Generally, a person is at a crossroads...there is one option that represents an opportunity which provides some level of security, such as a steady job. Accordingly, there is a second (or third, fourth, etc...) option which represents some level of risk or unsteadiness, such as traveling or pursuing an art of some kind without realistic expectations of lengthy sustainability.
1. At what age, or at what percent of one's life, is one's whole life no longer ahead of one?
2. Indeed, what would a life look like if one were to operate with this concept in mind at all times?
3. What would a life look like if one acted as if one's entire life was perpetually ahead of them?
4. Would they always choose with their heart, ignoring external influences and pressures?
5. Eventually, would the initial secure option (which was, at the time, ignored) arise as one that now speaks to the heart as the better option?
I am a god-fearing–fearing¹ person. This multi-hyphenated word concisely captures my true feelings about the uncountable mass of tera–terra-idiots. ‘Tera,’ as in: the uncountable quantity of every dead, living, and yet-to-be-conceived bag of H20 and minerals who once crabbed, is crabbing, or will crab about on the planet; and ‘terra-idiots’ are those who: once claimed/now claim/or will claim, to believe in an invisible omniscient-omnipresent-omnipotent entity who created, controls, or will destroy, this ball of H20 and minerals currently crawling through space at 134K mph² (relative to the space of our universe) 486K mph (relative to the Milky Way Galaxy) and 67K mph (relative to Sol).
I believe that those who claim to believe in an invisible-magic-sky-entity have questionable rationality and live a self-deceit-packed life filled with hypocrisy and bigotry³. I point out that, ‘they claim to believe’ because within the uncountable tera–terra-idiot mass, there are many uncountable giga–terra-fools who (once/are/will) claim to believe in a vengeful/loving-being-who-patiently-listens-to-their-every-murmur solely because of societal, familial, political, or cultural pressures....but they never actually believe (they just don’t want to be excommunicated, stoned, banished, disowned, disinherited, shunned, or ostracized).
All belief-systems preach that their followers are clever, altruistic, kind, generous, honest, and noble people. And they all preach to their followers that the other belief-systems are filled with foolish, self-centered, stingy, deceptive and corrupt people. Every religion and church teaches hatred and distrust of others. Even the most open minded and ‘liberal’ religions sell themselves to their parishioners by pointing out the less open minded qualities of other religions.
Being afraid of people who claim to have faith in things that do not exist is merely a good defense mechanism—like being afraid of the insane. The actions of god-fearing and insane people are equally unpredictable, unfettered by common sense, and not grounded in reality.
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church—after eight hundred years—gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain. — Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere (1923)
more:
digital rendering by veach st glines — 2009
As I am still February-ing with my cough and sniffles (and whenthefuck am I going to be able to expunge this flu?). . . and today is the first day of Spring. I am not writing. I am not creating. But I am passing along a chuckle with this animation.
When riding the bed solo (yowza, that doesn't read right. Bed-ridden. Being rode by a bed...to riding...whatever) I try to find a silver lining because otherwize I'm just a cranky little bitch in need of his blanky. Here is my cold's silver lining:
Not one person is sledding on their belly. Not a single, solitary sole was laying down on their sled and riding face-first down the slope. I watched more. He'd just called attention to another obvious flaw in the Anozirian-way of downhill sledding. Almost all were turning around after their sledding-run and walking straight back up the slope. Acting like they were the only person on the hill, walking straight into sledding traffic, then either jumping out of the way or getting run over...which made for some funny things to watch. It explained why, with the huge expanse of available slope to sled, so many people were waiting at the top. Because they were waiting for a point when there were less people walking in their path.
I honestly despise every bit and byte of the most recent revelations from the sunset stained stucco-and-concrete hued neurons in y...
