Next Weekend

I really thought someone would like at least one of the game links I provided. They are all free. For free games, they are not bad.

Lets see here - what else? OH YEA! Columbus Day is approaching. Now for most people Columbus Day is a bullshit holiday. Nothing more than writing on your desk calendar. Kind of like "Flag Day". You still have to be at work. I do not think school lets out.

NOTE - the local government here says Columbus Day is in fact a paid holiday. I think that some other branches of the government may also be the same way.

But whatever - in South Florida Columbus Day means one thing - the Columbus Day Regatta.

The regatta itself is boring. Watching a sailboat race is about as exciting as watching a garden snail marathon. The only people that care about the regatta are the ones actually in the race.

For everyone else who does not own a sloop or a restored America's Cup race boat, Columbus Day means this.

HUGE floating party.

Now in this photo you only see SOME of the madness.This is only a sample of what you see if you are there. The National Park where the floating party is expects 2,000 boats and maybe more. It really is chaos on the high seas.

I plan to be somewhere in the mess. Maybe. I am getting the boat ready now. I just need to finish installing the wash down pump. The wash down pump is important because I can use it to squirt people. There will be people out there in need of a serious squirting. Many of them will be nude. Columbus Day on the water features a lot of nude people.

This is good and bad. The good part is that whenever there are chicks and alcohol and boats, there will be nude chicks. The cops really can not do anything about it because:

A) you are not on a beach or public property - so therefore you can not be charged for being indecent on a public beach or other public property.

B) if the cops started to bust nude chicks, everyone would throw bottles at the cops and/or attack the police boats and pull the drain plug out of the transom - which would sink the police boat and then everyone would laugh.

C) there are too many naked people, and not nearly enough cops. Which is good.

The bad part is that for some reason there are ALWAYS old people that like to let it all hang out. And I do not mean "old", I mean OLD. Like sagging to the knees old. Wrinkled as a prune old. Went to High School with Moses old. Once owned a pet saber tooth tiger old. Really old. And they are out here, showing off to the world that not just the hair on your head turns gray. As if we really wanted to know.

And then there are the naked dudes. But you have to wonder about the dingies filled with 3 or 4 or more naked dudes and not one chick in sight. OK - if that is your thing guys! It is a free Country.

There is one rule that the cops DO enforce. You can not touch yourself, or anyone else - unless you are out of sight. There are some other rules as well, but the "no touching yourself" rule is one of them.

If I go I will bring the camera. Hopefully one of the boats I may raft up with will have a tower so I can get an elevated place to get some shots from.

Piss Away Your Weekend!

It seems that the weekend is here. Unless you work on the "weekends" and have crazy days like Wednesday and Thursday off.

But assuming this is in fact your weekend, and also assuming you have nothing else better to do - here are some games you can play. For FREE!

Rome decays. Her people are drunk, violent, and perverse. A new Emperor has arisen. He is Rome incarnate. His destiny is to unite the people.....against him.

No I am not talking about George Bush. I am talking about Caligula. And the new game VIVA CALIGULA! You are Caligula. You start off with a simple dagger. Your goal is to collect the other 25 weapons scattered throughout Rome. Oh yea - and kill as many people as possible. Can't forget about that.

Each letter of the alphabet becomes a weapon. You start off with a dagger, so the attack key is D. As you find other weapons you unlock more letters. Some of my favorite weapons are Z, O, N, F, and M. Z is this musical instrument that causes people to kill each other - ignoring you. O hypnotizes rats. F is a torch that sets people on fire. N is necromancy - dead people come back to life as skeletons and attack anything that is not you. M is manhood - you show yourself off and it stuns people so you can hit them with an axe or whatever.

There are also combos. Like if you kill someone with the torch (weapon F) and then use necromancy (N) to make them a skeleton zombie - the skeletons will be on fire and will set other people on fire. Use N a few times and you have a whole lot of flaming skeletons doing all the killing for you so you can just look for objects.

You can also go into RAMPAGE MODE where one attack with any weapon kills most anybody. In an extra graphic way.

Once you get all the weapons, you can enter the temple and........something. Use your manhood weapons a lot.

A LOT of fun! I already finished this one.

Next....ORPHAN FEAST! It is Victorian England. You are in London. Except you are not rich. So life pretty much sucks. And then you get an idea! Or actually your employer, Oliver Twisted, gets an idea. Why not collect all the orphans off the street, make pies out of them, sell them to people, and get rich?!

So you are to find orphans, and stuff them into a sack. Once you get 10 orphans in your sack you deposit them in your lair. Once you collect enough you go to the next level. Watch out for cops, whores, and other street people who seem to think it is wrong to make food out of orphans.

Now I know what you are thinking. THESE ARE TERRIBLE GAMES! Don't you have any more wholesome games?

Well.....yes and no. How about a Bible based game? OK? Sounds good?? Well how about "Mortal Kombat" meets the Bible. That is the best I can do for you.

In Bible Fight, you get to fight as one of 6 Biblical figures. Eve, Mary, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Satan (of course). Each figure has special attacks - for example Eve can throw apples. Noah can summon a dove of death to peck out eyes. And so on. Each character has three unique special attacks. Not really my style of game, I can never remember what the special attacks are. I was never much good at the Mortal Kombat types of games. I guess the trick here is to pick one figure and learn the special attacks. No one character is really stronger or weaker than the others. It is all about your game play here.

Now you are probably thinking "this is REALLY bad! Bible Fight??!? Are you serious?? Mary VS Eve in a battle royal? Yup. Pretty bad there.

But I also know that this next game people will like. We have ALL got the dreaded memo or email. You have to attend a MEETING in 5 minutes. Signed, the boss. OH GREAT! Now you have to spend the rest of the day in some dippy meeting where the topic is "how to properly kiss my ass". You would rather do ANYTHING than go to that meeting.

Well how about kill yourself? In 5 minutes To Kill Yourself this is exactly what you do. Or try to do. It is harder than you think.

So how do you kill yourself at work? Well there are your coworkers. You can say rude things to them and hope they beat you up. And then there is the paper shredder. You can stick your head in that. You can also bludgeon yourself with the photocopier. Or staple yourself. And then there is the paper cutter - you can use that on your arm! There is the office microwave oven. And then there are objects your coworkers have - like a cigarette lighter and a can of some sort of spray. You can set yourself on fire! And then there are other things as well. But you only have 5 minutes till you have to be at the meeting! So be quick about it. Take too long and you have to go to......MEETING HELL!!!!

There are other games too, based on Adult Swim shows. Like Stoker and Hoop's "Money$hot" . Or "Headkicker II" from The Brak Show. Or a personal favorite, Mooninite Marauders, based on Space Invaders and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. And lets not forget about "Look Alive" from Home Movies where you get to kick soccer balls in an effort to totally bean other kids. Remember, any idiot can score a goal in soccer - what you want to to is hurt anyone who gets in your way.

So there. Now you have something to do on your weekend. If you have nothing else to do.

5 Jours Puis Le Déluge

Five days, then the deluge. And what deluge am I talking about? Got me. I just wanted to rip off a quote from the time of King Louis XV of France. Someone said "après moi le deluge" or "after me, the flood" or "after me, the deluge" depending on who translates it. Webster says it is attributed to King Louis XV. King Louis XVI lost his head.

But really, I got 5 days and then (ba ba bAAAAAAA) the interview. These are always fun. You never know what exactly to expect.

But I have seen the salmon swimming upstream. Only they were not salmon, they were trout. And I was in the Carolinas and not the Pacific Northwest. I have actually never been to the Pacific Northwest. But whatever - I have seen some sort of fish swimming against a rather strong current.

Now have you ever tried to swim against a current? Well I have. It SUCKS! It is like trying to walk down the street - pulling about 600 pounds on a wheel cart behind you. And that is not even a strong current! Even a weak current is hard to swim against. A strong current causes people to panic. I have been caught in them before so I know. Only I did not panic. I read the cover of the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

So what do you do if you find yourself in a rip current? Relax. Let it take you out. As soon as you are past the sandbar, the current will get really weak and then just stop. Now you swim back to shore at a 45 degree angle measured from where you were to where you end up. Trying to swim straight back to shore will only get you in the current again. An alternative is to swim parallel to shore till you are out of the current and then back to shore.

But I digress - you CAN NOT fight it. So what does this have to do with anything?

EVERYTHING! That is what. There are just some things you can not fight. Like "the interview". It is going to happen. People will either like you and you get the job or they do not like you and you do not get the job. It is really that simple. So what is the point in getting all worked up about something? You are just swimming against the current.

So I plan to show up. That is about it. There will be questions. I will give answers. People will either like or not like the answers. No bullshit is needed. I have the required amount of knowledge and experience.

But whatever the case, I will not fight the current. I will let the current take me where it wants to go. And once I get there, I will make the best of it - or start swimming back to shore at a 45 degree angle. Whatever.

You get much further if you drift with the current than if you try to paddle against it. So if I get an offer then I will drift with the current at the new job. No point in fighting anything. Just do what I am asked to do - in a timely manner. Pretty simple.

Trout and salmon are dumb.

I Remember Things Now

Good news! I remembered my dentist appointment. They scraped teeth with the metal pointy hook thing, then used the spinny polishing device. That is it.

But I have to wonder about some things. Like why do they have the bag full of devices that look like they belong in a Bush approved secret CIA torture prison illegally operating somewhere in Europe? They only used one of the tools, but there had to be two dozen or so in the bag. Am I that weak that I talk after only the first tool? Come on now! I should be able to at least make it to tool 5 before I crack.

Now I do not know what kind of autoclave they have at that place. It could be heat, it could be chemical, it could be UV, it could be something else - or it could be a multiple step process consisting of one or more of the above.

Now if I had one favorite tool that I used more than anything else, why not just put that thing in a bag, and then all the other stuff I do not use frequently in another bag? This way someone would spend less time using "the machine" on tools. Instead of having to autoclave 20 things, there would only be one thing.

So what the hell are the other tools for? If they only use the mirror on a stick thing and the one pointy hook scraping tool - what is the reason for opening the bag then dumping a bunch of things out of a bag making this noise on the stainless steel tray? Is that their way of saying "better sit still and not complain and pay in full OR ELSE I will use ALL of these things on your ass". Well not your ass, more like your mouth.

Anyhow it was not too bad. The cleaning was over in not too much time and with minimal blood loss. In and out. The gum pockets are gone.

I will not be losing any teeth anytime soon.

Post For Emma

So, you mentioned in a comment that you are thinking of getting a telescope as a Christmas gift. GREAT IDEA! Really. It will get the kids outside...at night...in December when it is freezing outside......and now that I put it that way I have to question your sanity.

But there is always the summer! And outdoors stuff is always fun. Telescopes are educational. There is a lot, and I do mean A LOT, of stuff to look at in the sky.

But first you need to know how to buy a telescope. The good ones are good - the cheap ones are garbage. You do not want to waste money on garbage. The garbage scopes will be hard to use, and will not work very well. Image quality will suck. It will be a big disappointment to everyone involved, and interest will quickly die.

So what do you look for? The most important thing is aperture. This is the size of the main lens or primary mirror. It is measured in either inches or millimeters. More is always better. Magnification is NOT AT ALL important! If the scope advertises magnification, it is probably junk. Sure, the 525x power looks impressive written on the box - but you are buying a telescope NOT a microscope. Even the best Earth based amateur scopes have trouble above 250 or 300x power - and these scopes can cost thousands. The reason is that the Earth is surrounded in air. This is good for us. The air distorts images, refracts light, contains pollution, and is different temperatures at different altitudes. Push your scope to 500x power and all you see is the turbulence in the atmosphere.

So you want to pay attention to the aperture. Magnification will take care of itself. For higher power you need larger aperture, or else all you get is a faint impossible to see image.

The second most important thing is the focal length. This is always measured in millimeters. Longer focal length scopes can get you higher power - but the images tend to be darker. As the focal length gets longer, you need more and more aperture.

Remember - a telescope is supposed to gather light (so you can see faint images) and not magnify stuff.

And here is how power, focal length, and aperture are all related. The power of a scope depends on the eyepiece. Eyepieces are measured in millimeters. A 20mm eyepiece has a larger opening than a 5mm eyepiece so more light can pass into the eye, resulting in a brighter image. And the 20mm eyepiece also gives a wider field of view. Power is calculated by taking the focal length and dividing it by the eyepiece focal length. So if you have a 2000mm focal length and a 20mm eyepiece, the magnification is 100x. Change to a 10mm eyepiece and you have 200x power. The telescope aperture has to be large enough to gather enough light to make the image bright enough for higher powers. I think that for scopes with apertures less than 6 inches, eyepieces under 10mm are not so great. The images are just too dim unless you are looking at the moon.

For viewing the moon, Jupiter and the 4 moons you can see with a backyard telescope, the rings of Saturn, Mars, and other bright objects a 60mm - 70mm (around 3 inches) scope is fine. For fainter images like nebulas and star clusters and such then you want to step up to 100mm - 120mm (4 - 4.5 inches). Above that and things get expensive fast.

Remember, larger apertures will allow you to "push" more magnification. And do not expect to see stuff like this.

This photo was taken by a space craft costing hundreds of millions of dollars. To your backyard scope, Jupiter will look much smaller. You can make out some bands and you will see the same moons Galileo saw. You can see that Saturn has rings - but you will not see NASA quality images.

This is another famous image. You are looking at the Cat's Eye Nebula. This photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope - a very large and very expensive telescope orbiting the planet. You can see the Cat's Eye with a backyard scope, but you will not see anything this detailed. Your eye is not as sensitive to light as film. Photographs are taken with long exposures so a lot of light is recorded. Your eye does not work this way. A lot of what you will see are faint blobs.

But there is still A LOT of stuff to see! So do not get discouraged. Just because you do not have something like the Hubble Telescope or the Galileo Space Probe does not mean you will not see anything.

Now you have the basics. Aperture is king, you know what focal length is, and you know what the numbers on the eyepiece means.

So where do you get a good scope from? I like these two places. I have bought stuff from each one. You can call their 800 number and people will be able to help you. They know the stuff they sell. Try that at a Wal-Mart!

Orion Telescopes and Binoculars and www.telescopes.com. Orion's website is www.telescope.com but it is NOT the same company as telescopes.com!

And finally, there is one more thing to consider. Ease of use. Can you find stuff in the sky? Well can you? The moon and sun do not count. Do you know what is in the sky to look at tonight? Can you see Jupiter? Saturn? How about the "beehive" star cluster?

If you do not know, then you should consider a computerized scope. They are not as expensive as you think they may be. Once a computerized scope is lined up - it can find AND TRACK stuff for you. Tracking is important because everything is moving. Look at a planet under 150x power and you will see it zip through the field of view. You can see the Earth rotate! Cool huh?

So here are some of my picks for a good, quality, scope for kids who you think will really get into the astronomy thing!

This is a good 70mm scope that can be used day or night. You need to buy another thing for it for daytime use, or else the image will be upside down. You can use it to "sweep" the sky looking for things. It is not computerized. The lenses are glass - not plastic. It is a lot better than a cheapo department store scope. The tripod is stable enough. The whole thing is lightweight.

This 3 inch reflecting telescope works with two mirrors and requires periodic alignment. It has an EQ mount, which is harder to set up - but allows for easier tracking. EQ mounts move a scope in the same way the Earth rotates and are not good for daytime use at all. The mount can be motorized - but that is extra. You can also get the 70mm scope above on this mount.

To be honest, these two scopes are OK but not the best thing in the world. They are under $150 however - and for that price they are a good value. But for just a little bit more you can get so much more.

Like this Meade ETX-80. This is an 80mm scope (aperture is getting larger!) that is super easy to set up, comes with a great tripod, and is computerized! Once you tell it where it is, what day it is, and where north is the scope does the rest. It picks two stars and points at them. You fine tune it by centering the star in the highest power eyepiece you have. After that it is set. Whatever is in the sky the scope can find. On its own. But this is not a "toy scope". It is a good quality instrument. At $300 still a good value for what you are getting, but perhaps a better idea as a second scope if the kids really like the first one.

But this - not this could be a winner! The Meade NGC-70TC. This 70mm scope has enough aperture for a beginner to see a lot of stuff, and is not too large to be difficult to set up. It is computerized. You can use it in the daytime for looking at far away stuff or birds and wildlife. At $200 it is not insane expensive. It is a good scope. The lenses are good, the coatings are good, and it will be a lot nicer to use than a cheap toy scope at a department store.

There is also the Meade NGC-60TC, which has 10mm less aperture than the 70TC - and has a manual goto computer. You pick the object from the controller, and the thing tells you which direction to move the scope to find the object. This scope is under $100 - because there are no motors to move the scope. Of course, this means there is no tracking. You will have to constantly adjust the telescope to keep objects in view. At higher powers, the objects will only remain in view for less than a minute. But the price is really good. To make the price lower, they have to cut corners. Like a more flimsy tripod. Or less quality optics.

You may also find other things on the telescopes.com website. Orion makes good stuff, Meade makes good stuff, and Celestron makes good stuff. Avoid Tasco. It is TRASHco.

I hope this is not all too much. If it is, there is still time to sort it out. Feel free to email any questions. Astronomy is a great hobby that really can last a lifetime. The night sky is vast, with thousands of objects visible from Earth. Once you get into astronomy, the night sky never looks the same again. You actually notice it. I find myself looking up all the time. I can pick out constellations. I can look at a bright "star" and know it is really Jupiter. I can even tell Saturn from Jupiter without a scope just by the color. Saturn is more "yellow" than Jupiter. I can pick out stars I know the name of.

The End Of The World As I Know It....I Feel Fine.

What a dull weekend! Seriously.

But things should pick up soon. I hope. I am kind of looking forward to the interview that is going down next week. I have to remember to wear pants. It is very important. I could use the change of pace, so I do not want to bomb this. That would suck. Really.

But there could be consequences! Like for example having to give up my night shift lifestyle. I have got used to my night shift life. The night time is the right time. I see the moon more than the sun. I like the moon better than the sun. The sun hurts your eyes and can cause eye damage if you look at it. But the moon - oh no! The moon is cool. You can look at it all you want. Even through a telescope. No problem. Try that with the sun. Actually - don't. You will suffer major eye damage unless the telescope has special solar filters installed.

I also like the night sky. There are stars and star clusters and planetary nebulas and galaxies and all manners of stuff to look at - if you know where to look. But the daytime sky just has boring clouds. Yawn.

And my weekends may not translate into reality very well. My "weekends" will probably end up being what you would call a "weekday".

Of course I really do not know! I am guessing. So enough of that. But really, all this is just speculation. Wild and possibly crazy speculation. What I know can fit in a thimble, and there will still be room left over.

So I do not really know. But guessing is fun.

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

Hardee Har Har

This is classic.

Saturday something arrived in the mail. A 2008 calendar. From the Alzheimer's Association. I think they are reading my blog.

I do not remember ever sending these people money. But I must have. The calendar is pretty nice. It contains prints of paintings by famous artists (Van Gogh, Monet, Henri Martin, and others). The prints and calendar pages are each a little larger than an 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

Anyway, I thought it was funny in light of my previous posts. And I really do not ever remember sending these people any money. Strange.

Who Remembers WCIX TV?

So, you think you are a real Miami resident huh? Well maybe not. You may live in Pennsylvania and not claim to be a Florida resident at all. But whatever.

If you do claim to be a South Florida resident, but you do NOT remember any of the following TV clips - guess what? You are a transplant. Please go back to wherever you came from. Reduce the traffic I have to deal with.



WOW! Only $9.97 for a remote control A Team Van! Sweet! Give me 100 of them. I could probably sell them on E-Bay for $100 a pop!



Only $11,998 for a new custom conversion van? SWEET!But $250 for a microwave?? Come on! That is a rip off! And pay attention to the Publix commercial. The S&H green stamps logo is in there. Remember green stamps? I do. And how about that primitive looking Service Merchandise "Fuzzbuster" radar detector?



Do people really harass supermarket employees about which plastic wrap clings best? I guess so. It was an 80s thing. And is the Presidential Physical Fitness program still active? I remember that. But back then, video games consisted of "Pong" or if you were cool you had an Atari 2400 in all its 8 bit glory. If it even had that many bits. So us kids played outside more than kids today do.



Uhhhh...I think it is too late to enter the contest. And who remembered that there was a C3PO cereal? I had forgot about that.



Snipets? Can I be serious here? Well - yes. They used to show Snipets during afternoon cartoon shows. While kids were watching the TV eating junk food. WOODSY THE OWL! I remember Woodsy The Owl! I give a hoot - I do not pollute. Except for the sxcessice amounts of CO2 my truck produces. Lets not even talk about the boat! That thing is horrible. I might get 4 miles per gallon out of it, but probably not. If I get 3 miles per gallon that would still be "good". In reality, I get 1 - 2 miles per gallon out of it. And then it burns oil. Sorry Woodsy! The boat is here to stay.



More Snipets. And why does a tennis player need good grades? Please. Tennis players only need to know how to make a bong out of a tennis ball can.



Did you catch that? Right after the creepy giant raccoon riding the school bus, and before the annoying little girl telling us how to make granola, there is a brief segment with someone talking. Did you recognize the voice? Yup. Larry King. He used to be on the TV and radio here.

My Schedule

So how bad is my memory? You really want to know? It is so bad that I am posting some upcoming IMPORTANT events here so I might not forget.

1. I have a dentist appointment next Wednesday as 10 or 11 AM. I forgot the exact time. I HAD a dentist appointment on International Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19) at 2 PM but I forgot about it. They are being nice and not charging me for the missed visit. I think. They do say that they CAN charge for missed appointments. And they do have my credit card info on file. So they could charge it. But of they do then I will pull out my ace and do the whole "remove this charge or you loose a patient" shit. It may work. But I kind of like this dentist. So I do not want to go somewhere else.

2. I got a job interview on October 2, at 10:30 or 10:45 or something. Maybe 10:15. I forgot the exact time. Yea I know - this is BAD. One should never ever forget important things like this. But I did. This is OK, I ALWAYS show up to these things early. I plan to be there before 10 AM. I will probably show up at 9 AM so I can chill out somewhere and have some coffee and relax and meditate and so on. Breathe in.........breath out.........do some shots of Cuban Coffee. It helps me hone my fine powers of concentration and zen. Also if some asshole pissed me off in traffic (HIGHLY probable given this is Miami) I will be able to forget about it as I relax and breathe and stuff for a half hour or so before the big event. Also I will not have to sit in my truck getting more and more and more upset because the traffic is sofa king horrible and I am going to be late and this jerk in front of me better hang up that cell phone before I shove it up his ass so far the doctors have to extract it out of their throat. Being late to an interview is new job suicide. Looks REALLY bad. Awful. Terrible. El stinko.Of all the bad things to do at an interview, being late is the worst. Forgetting to wear pants is second worse. So I always make every effort to be early. And showered. And clean shaven. I done got my hair cut Sunday, so I will not have the "just got a haircut" look. It will be like I am ALWAYS well groomed and never get lazy and put off going to the barber. I keep a spare pair of pants in tje truck in case of emergencies. And so on.

3. On the 25th I have to go out for more boat training - at night. I have not forgotten this yet. But there is always time! Stranger things have happened. Night boat operations are a lot different from daytime operations. You can not really see anything. You just have to use the force and somehow "know" where you are, and that you are not going to hit anything. The crazy thing is that this works.

4. Columbus Day is October 8. So I HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO find the time to finish the boat project. The boat needs the 70 PSI 5.3 gallons per minute wash down pump installed. I might get drunk and puke then have to wash the puke off the deck. Or someone else might get drunk and puke. Hopefully it will be overboard. But the REAL use of the wash down pump is to soak people. Squirt me with a water gun huh? Cute. But I have a HOSE! Hose beats water gun every time. Also I want to re-plumb the floor lockers / fish box to bump overboard as opposed to the bilge. I will take care of the fish boxes this weekend. I need to try to find two fittings, some hose, and some stainless steel ring clamps. I can find all this at the boat store. The people at the boat store know me. I am there twice a week to instruct / assist with a boating safety class. I walk in and they are all like "HEY! Look at this table full of clearance items!". Bastards. They know my one weakness. I think they read this blog.

5. I totally forgot I took a beer out of the fridge. I am just remembering now. I am wondering why I am thirsty, and then I realize that the beer is on the table. I think it is unopened. Yes, it is unopened. I remember now. I got it out of the fridge, then went to look for a bottle opener and forgot I was looking for a bottle opener. I noticed the cats were out of water, and bugging me for food. So I took care of that. And then my fried eggs were done, and the toasted hamburger bun was done. So I make the fried egg sandwich, and eat it. Without the beer. So now the beer is still on the table, unopened (I hope) and warm. Or at least room temperature. I can swap it out for a cold one still in the fridge.

THIS JUST IN FROM CNN! I swear I am not making this up.

OJ flew economy class from LAS to FLL, and slept through the flight. THIS IS NEWS?!?!?!?! Are you people serious or just making a joke? It is national news when someone flies economy class? Do I really care? NO! Not in the slightest. I will never be able to end my news strike.

None of this is news. GOT THAT CNN?!?!?! NONE OF THIS IS NEWS! If you are going to claim to be a news network, you have to learn the difference in bullshit and news. You can hire me for a million or two and give me a tazer and I will be your news editor. Every time someone on the air starts to report on bullshit like it is news, I will run out in my 1970s Spiderman "Electro" costume and zap them. I will even show up to the interview early, and with my own tazer.

I remember "Electro" from the 1970s Spiderman cartoons. I even remember the channel they used to come on, and the time. WCIX channel 6, at 0700. I used to watch this cartoon before school back in the second grade. At 0730 The Great Space Coaster came on. And school started at 0830, so the TV went off at 8 AM and it was time to really get ready for school. I can remember that, but not a dentist appointment. Even AFTER they call me the day before to remind me and I say "oh yea, Ill be there! No problem!".

My brain is broken.

Need Memory Pills

Man I am slacking. I think my brain is shrinking. Really. Old timers disease is setting in early for me. By the time I am 50 I will be drooling on myself and unable to remember how to close my mouth.

You see - I totally spaced September 19 and International Talk Like A Pirate Day. The day when wenches are curvy and dogs all have scurvy. For shame. To think, I missed a chance to post like a pirate. I could have typed such things as "yar" and "arrrg" and "scurvy dog" and "bilge rat" and "scurvy bilge rat" and "shiver me timbers" and "AVAST!" and "pantaloons" and other stuff. I could have even employed the PANTS PIRATE MESSENGER to say something.

But I messed up. It is not International Talk Like A Pirate Day anymore. That was yesterday. CRAP! Now I have to wait another year. Great. How will I pass the time till then? That is like....a year away! A long time. Will I remember? Who knows. My money is on NO, I will space it again.

So instead, to make up for my total lack of memory, I give you Squirrel Power, by The Nutz. The Nutz is a punk squirrel band from Nutting Hill, UK.

But, the stupid embed code will not work. So you have to CLICK HERE. It is the best I can do.

And in other news....OJ was arrested. For armed robbery and other stuff. In Las Vegas. I am sure you have not heard this yet.

Oh yea, and the local Publix has a new beer. Flying Dog. So far I have had the Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale and the Flying Dog "Snake Dog" India Pale Ale. Both are good. The IPA has a stronger hops kick, but that was to be expected. Both are excellent. I like hops. But in this case, I have to say the Classic Pale Ale is the better of the two. Normally I lean to the IPA, but the Classic Pale Ale is really good. At least I think it is good. If you do not like a hoppy beer then you will hate both brews. To each his own!

Fish Master!

A few people commented about the aquarium photo I posted yesterday. That is not a tank I own. It is just a photo of an Aquapod 12 gallon cube. There are a few companies that make these cubes. Oceanic makes the Bio Cubes, JBJ makes Nano Cubes, Currnet USA makes the Aquapods, and Red Sea makes the Max. They all have a few things in common. They are all in one units. The filters are hidden behind a false back. Most of them feature an overflow that skims the surface water, which then goes through mechanical, chemical, and biological filters - then the water is returned to the display tank. You can hide all the equipment you add behind the false back. So nothing is in the tank.

They are all good for saltwater or freshwater setups. For freshwater the cubes are good to go out of the box. Plenty of light for anything you might want to do. For saltwater you may have to go with an upgraded aquarium from nanocustoms.com or nanotuners.com. Both of these places upgrade the lighting (even adding HQI halide lights), adding additional controls so that each light can be turned on or off independently, fixes so that the LED night lights can be put on timers, chillers in case the heat from additional lights cause problems, and so on.

But you do not need any of that stuff if you are not going to get into high light requirement livestock - like stony corals, "giant clams", sea anemones, and so on. If you do not plan to keep any of those things, then the stock light is fine.

I am looking at the 8 - 12 gallon cubes. Maybe. I just do not know yet. It is tempting, but no. Maybe later. Not now.

Are they easy to maintain? Yes and no. The important thing with aquariums is to go SSSSSLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWW. Most problems are from people trying to cut corners. For saltwater this goes double. So here is my short "how to" guide for freshwater and saltwater.

SALTWATER:
1. Start off by buying your salt water from a fish store. If you mix your own start with reverse osmosis / deionized and/or distilled water. DO NOT collect ocean water from the beach. If you collect your own water, you need to go far enough offshore to get beyond the land pollution and go deep. I would not bother collecting any water from less than 200 - 400 feet deep.
2. Decide what you want to keep. This will determine what kind of lights you need.
3. Dump the bio balls that come with the tanks in the garbage. Live rock and a deep sand bed (at least 4 inches) is your bio filter. You should have at least 1 pound of rock per gallon of aquarium.
4. Go with oolitic sand for the sand bed. Seed it with live sand from a fish store, or from an online source. NEVER clean your deep sand bed. Stuff that lives in the sand will take care of that for you.
5. Once you add the water, the deep sand bed, and the live rocks - you have to cycle the tank. This takes some time. You will be testing your water. Your starting water should have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate. Within a few hours of adding the live rock you should start to test positive for ammonia. If more than 24 hours passes with no ammonia, you need to throw in a half of a frozen shrimp - finely diced. That should create an ammonia spike. Then test the water daily. You will see the ammonia spike, then drop rapidly. As the ammonia drops, nitrite will spike. Once that spikes, you will start to see nitrates.
6. At this point is when the fun begins. If you let the tank continue, eventually the nitrate will drop on its own - if your sand bed is deep enough. Of not then you may want to add a refugium - but this is more advanced. You can also just do a water change to bring the nitrate down. You want to keep nitrate as close to 0 as possible. Ammonia and nitrite HAS TO BE 0 at all times.
7. Water quality is maintained by water changes, a protein skimmer, a refugium - or a combination of any of the three. You really have to keep on top of this.

That is about it. Once your ammonia and nitrite have spiked and dropped to zero, you can start stocking AFTER a water change. But you can not just buy a bunch of stuff. The general rule for saltwater is one inch of fish for every 5 gallons of WATER. Keep in mind that rocks and sand displace water, so your 55 gallon aquarium does not really contain 55 gallons of water. This means you should not stock 11 inches of fish into a 55 gallon tank. And you have to keep compatibility in mine. Some fish may be small, but they require a large space. So you really have to do your research.

And you have to go slow. It could take a year for a saltwater tank to become fully established.

FRESHWATER SETUP:
1. Start with good quality water. This means reverse osmosis deionized and/or distilled water. It is worth the extra expense to do this. If you start off with distilled water, you can make the PH any value you want and you can make the water hard or soft. Different fish like different conditions. For example, angelfish and discus like slightly acidic water.
2. If you want plants, get a good substrate made for plants. I am using the Seachem Flourish aquarium gravel now. It is loaded with cleated iron which plants love. You can also do other stuff that involves multiple layers of stuff (clay, peat moss, black dirt, different grades of gravel, and sand), but this is complicated and can go wrong if you are not careful.
3. You still have to cycle the tank to get the biological filter going. You do this the same way you do for a saltwater tank. Put a little chunk of something organic in the water and let it decompose. Or put in a little white non sudsy ammonia in, to the point where your water tests 2 - 4 parts per million. Not very much - only a drop or two per gallon. Or less.
4. Even for freshwater, your bio filter is probably going to be the gravel. If you have aquarium save porous rocks (rocks that will NOT change PH or other water parameters) then they will be a good place for a bio filter too. Otherwise, you may need some bio balls.
5. Once you are cycled, stock slowly. The slower the better. One fish at a time.

Freshwater tanks only take a few months to establish.

If you have tried to keep sea monkeys (brine shrimp) and are wondering what happened, it is probably a few things. First off, you should not use tap water. You should use distilled water. Second you have to buffer the water for a stable PH. You need to adjust salinity properly. You have to have some kind of biological filter established. You need A LOT of oxygen dissolved in the water - usually done with a simple air pump and air stone. You should have gentle water flow - accomplished with the air stone. And you need a heater to keep the temperature stable.

If all this is too much - you are trying to go too fast. There are tons of books that contain great info. The hobby really is not that hard - you just have to plan everything out and go slow. You have to know what you want to keep, what conditions the things you want to keep require, and if everything you want to keep is compatible. Then carefully set up the tank, and take it slowly.

You can also get a fish store to maintain your saltwater tanks for you. They will set it up, and maintain it. They will send people to do the water changes. And so on.

The Worthless Item

A while ago I found this nifty looking device. It appeared to be some sort of sandwich making thing. Now this device has no instructions, but I figured it could not be that complicated. It is a clam shell "George Foreman Grill" type thing but for sandwiches. From what I see it can make two sandwiches at a time. I have no idea where it came from, it is just here.

So today I butter up four slices of bread, bust out some cheese, and warm up the device, put the bread in the thing so the butter side is touching the hot parts, and close it. Cool. Grilled cheese sandwiches! This is a nifty device indeed.

But to fully close the device I have to apply some pressure. And now some of the butter is leaking out. No big deal, it was just a little bit of butter.

The fun begins when I open the thing to check on the progress. The bread has stuck to the grill, despite the butter. And the cheese has melted and is all over the place. The sandwich seems to be grilled, so I unplug it. But the bread is stuck to the grill. I use a fork to get it unstuck and the cheese is now going everywhere. Burning onto the still hot grill surface.

So I conclude that the grill sucks ass. I am going to toss it. I do not want to clean it. It sucks. From now on I will just use a frying pan like a normal person.

I want to get an Aquapod 12. Or maybe a Bio Cube 8. I think one will make me feel better. I also want to revive my empty 55 gallon aquarium as a planted angelfish or discus tank. I could get it drilled and put a true overflow type device in it, with a sump. This is not usually done with freshwater, but I do not see why not. In the sump could go the heater, the filters, and stuff. I have another empty aquarium (30 gallon long) that I could turn into a sump easy.

Or I could set up the 55 gallon as a salt water fish and live rock tank. No corals. That way I would not need fancy expensive lights.

This is the Aquapod 12 gallon cube.

Things That Piss Me Off

I am going to try a new posting schedule. Steal time in the afternoon to post. So far it seems to be working. Of course, this is only day 1. I predict that in a few short days I will be back to my old ways.

And now on to things that piss me off part I lost count. Really, I lost count. There are that many parts.

Misplacing the remote control. I know where the DVD player remote control is, and the remote for the satellite TV thing - but not for the actual TV. So now I have to get up to turn the TV on and off, and adjust the volume and stuff. So what is my solution? Don't watch that shit. Keep it off. Who needs it anyway.

People who install equipment that is CLEARLY not street legal, and cops who do nothing about it. Oh yea the porkers are there to hide behind a tree to catch you violating a temporary sign you did not notice because you have been turning at the intersection of Bird Road and SW 107 Ave for centuries and the sign was never there before - but that is about all they are good for.

Meanwhile, the asshole with purple headlights never gets stopped. Neither does the asshat with the lifted truck. Hell the asshat with the lifted truck is probably a cop himself. One time I was at a mall, and there were a bunch of County cops around one of these lifted trucks. The front bumper was at least 4 or 5 feet off the ground. Now measure the height of your car from the ground to the top of your trunk. Now imagine some asshole in a monster truck running into you at 50 mph. Where is that bumper going to hit?

Anyway, the cops were swarming the truck. So I think "GOOD! I hope they confiscate that asshole's license plate and have the truck towed off". Then I get closer. The driver is wearing a police shirt. The other cops are hanging out with him drinking coffee. They are all buddies. Hey, nice truck! Did you just get it!

They ALL should have been FIRED. Every single last one of them. Fired. Kicked off the force. Pensions revoked. Insurance revoked. Not a single one of them deserved to protect or serve the public. They were just a bunch of pigs, wallowing in their own slop. Not serving any purpose, other than to illegally park and partially block the flow of mall traffic. If that asshole pig driving the lifted truck rear ends a normal car - the driver is going to be dead. The truck was high enough to drive right over a car, crushing it and the person inside. As a fictional spider would say, "some pig".

And such lifted trucks are common in Miami. I see them often enough. They are a hazard to everyone on the road. But do the cops do anything about it? Hell no. If they did, you would not see these vehicles because they would get stopped and license plates would be revoked. You can own a lifted truck, but you can not drive it on the street. You register it as a swamp buggy and get a special off road plate and pay lower taxes on it. Then you buy another truck with a flat bed trailer and TOW the thing to the swamp to drive it. Keep your friggin swamp buggy OFF roads that are for CARS, and I will keep my CAR out of the swamp. Not that I have a car per say, I have a truck. But it is not lifted and my front and rear bumpers are well within the legal limits. I think I have 18 inches of bumper clearance - the State says I can have 24 inches. I looked it up.

The assholes with the purple headlights can be seen miles away at night. You can spot them by the purple light. And then there are the penis breath people who get HID upgrade kits and install them in vehicles that did not come with HID lights. So what is the problem here? The non-HID reflectors do not have the light cut off devices that HID reflectors have. So you get blinded. A non-HID vehicle with HID upgrades looks like a regular vehicle with brights on to oncoming traffic. Up to a point anyway. The closer you get the less glare there is. But still - a whole lot of people get these kits. IF the pigs were doing their job, these assholes would be stopped and given equipment violation tickets. If the drivers failed to fix the problem, they would get more and more and more tickets till eventually their license would get suspended and then they would go to jail. And nobody would install these illegal kits.

But noooooo. This is too much work! Why then the cops would have to actually pay attention to stuff other than hot chicks in other cars.

Oh yea, I got slapped with court costs for my "illegal lane change" ticket. Friggin lawyers. What a bunch of worthless leaches they are. A POX ON ALL TRAFFIC LAWYERS! And who even knew that in Dade County it is possible to make an illegal lane change? From what I have observed, the lines on the roads are just suggestions. People are turning left from the far right lane, crossing over solid white lines, passing in no passing zones, and all sorts of madness. And I get a ticket for illegal lane change? Well fine. Whatever. Maybe Ill just move to Aruba and they can kiss my ass if they want the $120. Or I will go to the bank and pull out the amount of the fine in nickels, then take that to the court and pay the fine in person. They can not say "we do not accept nickels" because nickels are legal tender! If they do not accept nickels, then that must mean they do not accept any legal form of payment - and therefore I can not possibly pay them because I do not possess any illegal forms of currency (drugs, phony money, etc). And if I can not pay the courts because they will not accept my money, then a judge HAS TO throw out my fine! It is only fair after all.

The bank will gladly accept my nickels - no matter how many I lug in.

Profile Reminder

I hope I have convinced anyone who is OCD enough to view this blog on a regular basis that Robot Chicken is possibly THE BEST TV show ever and that you should all watch it. It comes on late at night so you may need to tape it. Do people still "tape" crap anymore? They used to, I think now everyone has a DVR or Tivo service or whatever. So Tivo it. The show is only 15 minutes and there are no commercials, so it does not take long to watch. And it is funny.

Someone dropped a very interesting comment the other day. They said I should watch Plan 9 From Outer Space - which is famous for being the worst movie ever made. It is daytime, then nighttime, then daytime again - all in the same scene. There is the police car that is a Ford, then a Chevy, then a Dodge, then a Ford again - all in the same scene. There is the airplane cockpit with the flight controls that look a whole lot like pie tins painted black. You can see the strings holding up the UFOs. There are pointless voice overs. Bela Lugosi dies during the filming of this movie, so they get some guy to put on a black Bela style cape and run around with the cape covering up most of his face so you do not notice it is someone else. The announcer guy tries just a little too hard to emote. It really is the greatest of all the bad movies.

And how do I know this? I own a copy of the movie on DVD. See, there was this Playstation 2 game called "Destroy All Humans". You are this alien guy sent to Earth to...well....destroy all humans. You have to collect human DNA for some reason. and how do you do this? By using your super alien mind control powers to cause brains and brain stems to pop out of people. Then you collect them. And for fun (or if people are shooting at you) you have the alien death ray. If you just want to be a prick there is the super atomic mega anal probe of death.

The game is very loosely based on the movie. Supposedly. I say "supposedly" because the movie was about alien body snatchers who wanted to create zombies for some reason. Not collect DNA. But whatever.

Anyone who pre-ordered the game got a free copy of the movie. Of course I did not do this, but when I went to Game Stop to buy the game I mentioned that I should have pre-ordered it just to get the move. They had extra copies (few people wanted to take this gem of a movie with the game) so they gave me a copy.

The people working at the store thought that the movie was a joke. Something made for the game, just to drum up some fake hype and sell more copies. They had no idea what they even had! Morons. But I got my free copy.

Also Plan 9 From Outer Space is the only movie listed in my profile under "favorite movies". So yea, I think I have seen it already :)

My favorite book as listed in my profile is "Navigation Rules, Inland and International". Fun reading there! Did you know that if you see a green light and a white light you are looking at the starboard side of a power vessel underway at night? Well you are. And if you see ONLY a green light you are looking at the starboard side of a SAILBOAT under wind power at night. If you see only see a white light you are either looking at the stern of a vessel (you are overtaking) or you are looking at something that is at anchor. A red light over a white light means a commercial fishing boat is engaging in operations and is limited in its ability to maneuver. Three short blasts on the horn means "astern propulsion". A short blast then a long blast, followed by three short blasts, then three more short blasts then four short blasts then three long blasts followed by one short one long 2 shorts then one short blast means someone just called you an asshole using morse code. .- ... ... .... --- .-.. .

Pretty cool huh? There are more sound signals, light signals, and even day shape signals. I could list them here, but then that would be a lot of technical writing and I am far too lazy. So you just have to buy your own copy of the navigation.

Pirate Pete says "Ye scurvy bilge rats can be downloadin a PDF file of all thar rules for free".

I went by the Castle Harbor sailing school place today because I just happened to be at the marina where the school operates out of today. I got their propaganda and checked out the 20 footers that they start people out on. I am going to do this. I decided there that for some reason, I have to learn the valuable skill of sailing. It is for some reason "very important". I do not know why, it just is. So once things are just a little more stable and I save up a few bucks, I am going to go for it. And I am also going to challenge their twin engine power boat handling test.

Video For Saur

I do not have much time today. Got stuff to do. I should already be sleeping.

So here is another Robot Chicken clip for Saur. And everyone else. Enjoy!

I know nothing.

This And That

You know what I hate? Ill tell you anyway.

I hate it when I am on the laptop in the middle of the night and the only light in the room is from the laptop screen and a moth is buzzing around the screen. So then I mush the moth and now there is a smudge on the screen. Great! Got to get up for a paper towel or something. And while I am up I might as well get my pre-sleep beer. Or maybe my second pre-sleep beer. After the third pre-sleep beer you are not going to be sleeping for long - you will need to get up to take a leak. So two pre-sleep beers is the limit.

My Iguana Music list needs updating. Manic Monday by The Bangles no longer works. The link is dead. And I kind of still want to bang The Bangles. At least I used to. Back in the 80s. Don't really know about now though. That was a long time ago, my standards were lower, and the band was a lot hotter. Back then anything that had boobs and moved was fair game. Not that I really knew what to do with boobs, all I had to go by was late night shows on Cinemax (SKINamax).

Anyway, the point is that if you notice any Iguana Music links not working, let me know. I will attempt to rectify the situation.

MOVIE REVIEWS!

Glen or Glenda. This is legendary film maker Ed Wood's first film. And why is Ed legendary? He made the worst movies ever. See all he wanted to do is tell a story. That is it. Just tell a story. So he did not care about sets or acting or stuff like that. The story was what was important. He never did retakes - the actors had one shot and that is it. So all Ed' movie reviews will use the "bad movie" scale - where 1 tail whip is just a bad movie and 5 tail whips is a bad movie that is so bad it is a classic.

Anyhow Glen Or Glenda has the feel of a 1950's "educational" film. You know, like how your life would be better with an automatic dish washer. Ed was a cross dresser is real life (a big problem in the 50s). This film attempts to explain why this is not a big deal. Nobody is really hurt by it after all. So what if some guy wants to wear angora sweaters? Ed's girlfriend, who was in the movie cast as Glen/Glenda's girlfriend should have taken a hint here. It is sad when you think that it is Ed's plea for acceptance from society - something he never would get. All he wanted to do was put on women's clothing and hang around in bars. Like this guy.

Was that so wrong? Anyway three tail whips. Bela Lugosi saying "PULL THE STRINGS" made this movie. Classic. You have probably seen this part of it. PULL THE STRINGS! if this line sounds familiar, you now know where it came from.

LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - a newly graduated medical student from Scotland goes to Uganda to do some good. But he ends up as the evil dictator President's personal doctor. The young doctor realizes that his employer is a class A asshole, and evil. So he tries to get out of the situation. The movie President is based on a real guy who really killed an estimated 300,000 Ugandans, and likely much more. I think the doctor character might have been based on a real guy too. Three tail whips. A good movie, but it could have been better.

PS - I also know The Ocean by Led Zeppelin, Desperate But Not Serous by Adam Ant, Ray Of Light by Madonna, Drive by The Cars, and Substitute by The Who do not work anymore. I really have to fix my Iguana Music links.

Lost Day

It seems I missed a day of posting. Not that anyone noticed. I could have been abducted by aliens and given a butt probe and nobody would have noticed.

And this brings up another question. Why would aliens from another solar system tens or hundreds or thousands of light years away come to such a primitive backwards planet just to give furless apes anal probes? You would figure that with technology to travel at or above the speed of light they could do stuff without having to probe primitive life forms.

But I was not abducted by aliens, or given any probes or whatever.

In other news, it seems there are a few sailing schools around me. I have narrowed the choice down to three places.

1. Biscayne Bay Sailing School. These guys offer American Sailing Association certification, and I would get time on a Hunter 306 sailboat. This is a fine 30 footer live aboard. The cost is $500 for the basic class. At that point I will have basic keelboat certification from the ASA. This seems to be a good program.

2. Castle Harbor Sailing Club. This outfit offers different certification (US Sailing) but it is pretty much the same thing. I have to check about the length of the class - it seems that Biscayne Bay Sailing School has a longer program. But Castle Harbor rents sailboats. And if I go through them I can join the club and get a discount on future classes and boat rentals. I could even get checked out on their 17 foot powerboat and be able to rent a 25 foot twin engine powerboat for some real offshore trips. But I do not want a shortened program. I would rather go to a better program to learn, then get checked out on a Castle Harbor 20 footer and then join them for the boat rental discount. The intro class is 2 days (probably 16 hours) for $395 and the basic keelboard certification is another $195.

3. Shake-A-Leg Miami. The intro class is $335 for 16 hours of instruction, and then another $525 for a 20 hour US Sailing basic keelboat certification. Shake-A-Leg Miami does a lot of charity work with kids - mostly kids with disabilities. They also offer hourly boat rentals.

Tropical depression #8 is churning away. I am slightly concerned about this one. You see, it is going to stay to the north of Puerto Rico. And it is projected to get stronger.

Now here is why this one is concerning. IF the Bermuda High holds, then the storm will be steered at or very close to Florida. Now "Florida" means the keys to Jacksonville - a pretty big area.

But the Bermuda High could give and allow upper level winds to dip south. If this happens then a nice path will be formed - with the Bermuda High to the east and upper level winds to the west. This would keep the storm away from FL but could pose problems for The Bahamas - unless the storm is steered away from The Bahamas too.

Or it could dissipate, or hit some other land mass which weakens it. Who knows. It is far too soon to make any real predictions. Nobody knows what the jet stream will do, or how the high pressure over Bermuda will hold up.

But this is the first storm this season that stands a chance of hitting Florida. Exactly what the chance is nobody knows, but it is safe to assume it is either 0% or 100% (it will either make landfall in Florida or not). I will be watching this one for the next few days to see how it goes.

The Post That Will Never Be

So I had this great rant written, as well as a comment for another blog. I like to read other blogs and comment while I am writing stuff here. Do not ask why, nobody knows. Not even me.

Anyway, I click "publish post" and..........Blogger was updating something. The comment and post were both lost. Oh well. It has happened before, and will probably happen again.

If this were not bad enough, I totally forgot what I had typed. Short term memory loss. I can remember things like Great Slave Lake somewhere in Canada (in the Northwest Territories) is the deepest lake in North America - but not by much. It is less than 100 feet deeper than Crater Lake. See I can remember useless crap like that - for it is firmly in long term memory. But other stuff that is more important is forgotten as quickly as I can spend money at a boat show. Really fast.

What was that chick's name again? Lisa? Linda? I think it was a L name. Or was it a M name? CRAP! No that is not is, I am sure her name is not "crap".

Everyone should just wear a name tag all the time. It would make things easier.

------------------------------------------------

I got some cool outriggers for my kayak. They are foam floats on metal poles that strap on the hull. The floats have a considerable amount of flotation and should add a decent amount of stability. Maybe this weekend I will put the kayak in the water and attempt to use the sail. This will be a good test for its stability. And if they work - great! I have something I can learn how to sail in. Once I get good with sailing the kayak, I may sign up for sailing school and get into a 25 - 40 foot sailboat. Not to buy it, unless I really am crazy enough to just live on a sailboat. I have it figured out already. I could join the Miami Yacht Club, and then just find a spot in the free anchorage. I could keep the truck at the yacht club for a mere $100 a month. When I need to go on land, just take a dingy to the club and beach it. No problem. The yacht club has showers and stuff.

And what about electricity? Solar and wind. I would have to live off the grid. Dock space with shore power is costly. Very costly. But the sun and wind is free.

Am I nutty enough to do this? Can I still get satellite TV on the boat? Will I have enough electricity generation power? Will I go insane without AC in the summer? And what about internet access? Will people still find ways to knock on my door to share the good news that they are handing out some kind of propaganda? Who knows.

But I am crazy enough to learn how to sail a decent size boat. And then I can rent a sailboat for a weekend when I want to. The sailing schools will rent you stuff once they know you are not going to run their boat into something. A weekend on a 25 - 30 foot sailboat every few months would be cool.

And it all starts with my 16 foot kayak and its small sail.

OSIM

It seems to be Monday. Again.

The weekend is over. I still have to post the one photo I took Saturday of my boat tied up to a dock. I think I need another digital camera. The one I have is great - but lacks one important feature. It does not like to get wet. My digital camera HATES water. This is a problem, as I must keep it dry on a small boat.

But there are a few waterproof digital cameras I am looking at. I just need to put together a few pennies and maybe a nickel or two. I kind of like the Sealife DC-600. It is a 6.1 MP digital camera that is rated for 200 feet without a bulky housing. And you can get external flashes for it. External flash units are important - the wimpy flash built into cameras will not cut it underwater. You need big mega flashes. Water absorbs color - by 10 feet underwater there is no more red. You need a good flash to bring out the colors.

Anyway - one of these days. I just need to start collecting that spare change. Sooner or later I will collect enough. Maybe Ill find some pirate treasure or something. Who knows. And then I can post cool photos of fish and stuff. Maybe some corals. Maybe a Biscayne Bay speed bump. The problem with photos of the speed bumps is that it is illegal to "harass" them. And the water is cold when they show up. So it is better to photograph them from inside the boat. If you jump the water with them, you can be considered to be "harassing" them. And the water will be cold.

If you can not figure out what OSIM is all about, check out the post label below.

Wet Weekend

The boat mission went over well. I did not forget the drain plug. Forgetting the drain plug is a great way to have a BAD TIME. When you forget the plug, there is a hole in your boat below the water line. Water, being a pain in the ass, finds its way into that hole. Then your boat fills up with water and sinks. Not good.

But preventing this from happening is easy. Do not forget to put the plug in. My boat has two plugs made of brass. I keep the plugs in the engine splash well so it is hard to leave them behind.

The ramps were empty today. Sort of. I got to them really late. It was almost noon before the boat was wet. The people that went along got here late, and then there was the having to go to the supermarket for food and shit. By the time I got there the parking lot was full, but there was a lot of room at the overflow lot.

And there was a member of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary there. I thought maybe he was doing vessel safety checks, but he did not ask me if I wanted one. So who knows what he was doing there. Except for maybe stating the obvious.

See the ramps were empty when I got there. Most of the time you have to wait in a line for someone else to launch or get out. But not today. I just pulled up to an empty ramp. And here is this guy "helpfully" pointing to an open spot. There are something like 10 ramp slips there and two were in use. Finding an open ramp was not really hard.

And then before I backed the boat trailer into the water, I got out of the truck and PUT THE DRAIN PLUGS IN and untied the Bimini top and got my dock lines ready and raised the engine and so on. Usually I get this done while waiting in line. But there was no line to wait in today.

So the guy says to be "you should do this before you get to the ramp. We get very busy here". So I looked around at all the nothingness and empty ramps, and then said "normally I do this stuff while I am waiting in line, but today there seems to be no line to wait in. Also, I like to give my trailer wheel hubs a little time to cool off before I dunk em".

Why give the hubs a little time to cool? The wheel hubs get hot from towing. There is grease in the bearing hubs. The grease turns into a liquid when it gets hot. The heat also causes pressure yo build up in the hubs. Now if you dunk em in the colder water, the temperature drops along with the pressure. As the pressure drops salt water can get in. This will rust the shit out of your bearings, which accounts for most trailer breakdowns. Let the wheels cool a little before dunking them and this problem is not really a problem.

I know that the guy was just being helpful, and it is great he was there doing the safety checks. Safety checks are important. Most people are clueless when it comes to what you are supposed to have on board. So the safety checks run you through the exact same checklist that the cops will use if they stop you. If you are missing flares, or they are expired - and the auxiliary catches it during a safety check - no problem. You are told that the flares are expired and they need to be replaced. That is it. No ticket. No fines. You know what you have, what you do not have, what you are supposed to have, and what you need to buy or replace. Very useful. Should you ever need this stuff you want it to work! And the auxiliary will never ever give you a ticket or fine or anything else you do not want.

Let the cops find you without the required equipment and you get a ticket. And you may even be ordered back to port. Not good. The police and the enlisted USCG guys do not play games with required safety equipment. Required means you must have it. You will get a ticket, and you will probably be ordered back to port. Your day is over.

But come on! How the heck can I get everything ready before I get to the ramp if there is no wait to get to the ramp? Think man! That is what your brain is for! I intend to get in the water as soon as I can. If anyone wanted to launch they could use one of the remaining 8 open slips.

I did get a complement about my genius dock line system. My system is so perfect, and ANYONE can help me get the boat off the trailer. I take one long line and tie one end to the bow cleat and the other and to the stern cleat. Now I take a shorter line and tie a knot that makes a temporary loop around the longer line. So now the shorter line can freely slide along the longer line - which is tied off to the bow and stern cleat. I hand someone on the dock the short line, back the trailer in, and push the boat off. Now the dock person can control both ends of the boat with one line. And all they have to to do secure it to the pier is put the loop over some piles. No problem. Nobody has to know how to tie a single knot. Just drop the long line over something. Now I can pull the trailer off and park the truck, without having to secure my boat to anything first. Slick as owl shit.

Today I get to go out on another boat. A larger boat. For on the water training. I will learn how to assist with a vessel tow. And other cool things. Practical useful things. Fun and cool things. Things that will make future trips out in the boat more fun because I will possess more skills and stuff. I will be able to handle more situations that I may encounter. In theory.

Don't Forget The Drain Plug

It seems to be a done deal. I am going out in the boat today. People are going to be here at or around 9 AM. From here everyone goes to the boat ramp, and then off into the water. Who knows where. Probably North Biscayne Bay. North Bay means north of the Key Biscayne causeway.

Ill have the camera with me, but as usual I do not know if I will take many pictures.

Boat Intensive Weekend

I am kind of surprised that I only got one comment about my movie review. The Seventh Seal is supposedly one of the best films ever made. Also on that list is Citizen Cane and some others. It seems most of them are black and white.

But whatever. The next movie I think I will get is one of the WORST films ever made. Want to know what that might be? Google "Ed Wood" or "Edward Wood Jr". The guy is a legend because of "how bad" his movies were.

This weekend is shaping up to be fairly nutty. Saturday I may be out in the boat. The "friends" who crapped out last weekend may be available for a mission this week. Go figure. And I may be able to scare up someone who was going to go out last weekend, but was not feeling well. So that will be 4 people out.

And I figured out the secret to the boat mission. Here is how it works. NEVER tell anyone what ramp you are using. Tell them "just meet me at my house at 8 AM" or whatever. So they show up at your house. Then you say "hey just ride in the truck because then you do not have to pay the parking". Now the people are in your vehicle and you have them hostage!

Then after that, you tow the boat to the ramp and get it in the water. Then after the day is over everyone loads back up in the truck.

Now this is where the plan comes together. You stop at the gas station to fill the tanks back up. See, I keep the fuel tanks full all the time. Right now the boat is on the trailer, with tanks full of stabilized gas. So whatever I use to fill up at the end of the day is the amount of fuel used that day.

Now you got em! Gas, grass, or ass - NOBODY rides free. Except due to the whole "having to pee in a cup" thing the grass is out. Well due to the pee in a cup thing and it is illegal. So gas or ass - nobody rides free. And the ass option is only available if you happen to be a chick that I deem to be of acceptable quality.

If you tell people "meet me at boat ramp X" then this is what they do. And at the end of the day you leave in one vehicle with the boat, and everyone else leaves in their vehicle. Leaving you the only person at the evil gas station.

Then when you get home, you have slaves to help clean the boat. But I really do not need anyone to help clean the boat. I can do this myself. I kind of like doing this myself really.

And Sunday I am going out on another boat that is not mine. A 32 footer with twin engines. I will learn the proper way to tow another boat. From a long tow, to a short tow, and then to a side tow. The government pays the fuel bill. I may also have to do other drills like "recover the man overboard" and "drop the anchor" and "stand as a lookout" and stuff.

Just A Movie Review

MOVIE REVIEW! The Seventh Seal. This is an early movie by famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. It is a little rough around the edges, but that could have just been because I watched the movie with the English sound track. The original film is in Swedish. So the translation may have lost some of the effect and could account for the "rough around the edges" feel to the movie.

Anyway, a knight in the crusades returns home to Sweden just in time for the height of the black plague. He ends up engaging death in a game of chess. Death obliges the request because death seems to really like chess.

There is way more to the film than this of course. The knight doubts his faith. There is the plague. Lots of characters in the film question the existence of God. And then there is another reason the knight challenges death to the chess match. He has something to do, and is in fact stalling death to get it done.

All in all, a good film. A little rough on the edges, but still a good film. For as old as it is, and a foreign film, to be dubbed in English and released on DVD it has to not suck. If it was horrible, it would never have been restored and released. 4 tail whips.

Nothin else on the plate for today. I got a case of the blahs. Nothing AT ALL going on. Being bored actually sounds like fun.

No New Inductees

I noticed how nobody responded about the ancient and venerable order of the Knights Of Siam. One reader was already a member - but there are no new inductees.

So get out in your front yard and chant the mantra while your neighbors all watch. Concentrate on the meaning of the mantra. It will come to you when you reach the proper level of inner peace and harmony.

Now onto bizarre E-Bay auctions! Here is an auction for some ho's used diary. I do not know if it is true, but supposedly the guy discovered his girlfriend sucking on parts of his brother's body. Ill let you figure out what part. Use your imagination.

Anyhow he delivered all her stuff to his brother's home, where his brother's wife then discovered what was going on. But he kept her diary and is auctioning it off. If she wants it, she has to bid for it. Pretty slick - if it is true. The whole story could be BS, and he is getting at least $300 (current bid) for what amounts to a work of fiction.

Now if it were me, I would probably just upload whatever drunken nude photos I happen to have. If I had any. This is one reason why it is usually a bad idea to allow yourself to be photographed naked. Someone might get pissed off later and upload them - then email the web site address to everyone you work with.

Even better would be to just give the cheating hos diary to the ex-wife's divorce lawyer. The proof of a rather long period of cheating is in there.

If any of this is true. Who is stupid enough to cheat and then write about it in a diary? And who keeps diaries these days anyway? Paperless people! Blogger is free.

So being the skeptic, I question the authenticity of this E-Bay item.

The boat got extra super nasty the last time it was used. So I still have to get in it and scrub the deck with some heavy duty cleaner and a hand scrub brush. No big deal, there are only a few spots that need this to be done. A more pressing situation is the floor lockers. They are currently plumbed to dump into the bilge. I do not want this. I want them to empty overboard. The fittings are already there - I just need to reconnect them. But to do this I have to remove the locker hatches and then pull out the inserts. Then while I am in there I have to install the wash down pump. Happy happy joy joy.

The wash down pump HAS TO BE installed in time for Columbus Day. I can use it to squirt people. This is very important.

The Ancient And Venerable Order Of The Knights Of Siam

Time I let you all in on a secret. I am a member of the ancient and venerable order of The Knights Of Siam. And you too can join this order. But first you must meditate on the meaning of the order's mantra. So here it goes.

It helps if you get on your knees in front of the computer. For proper meditation effect, the screen should be displaying this blog. Now, raise both your hands up in the air. While you chant each phrase of the mantra, bend down so the palms of your hands touch the floor. Do this while you are in front of the computer and the screen is displaying this blog.

Now for the Order's meditation mantra.

O-WHAA.
TA-NA.
SIAM.

The O is long, the As are short except for the A in SIAM.

When you think you know what the mantra means, leave a comment and if you are correct you will be inducted into this ancient and venerable order. Start saying the chant out loud slowly at first, then if the meaning does not come to you say it a little faster. Remember to be on your knees with your hands up and bend over so your hands touch the ground after each part of the chant.

If that does not work, do it in your front yard. The fresh air and sunshine will help sharpen your concentration. Your neighbors silently watching you also helps you reach inner oneness so the meaning will become clear to you.

The day out on the water was great. There were a lot of boats out. The boat ramps were all busy. There were hundreds of boats hanging out at each hang out place. The sandbar by Stiltsville was packed, the sandbar at Sands Key was packed (as usual), and the anchorage by Elliot Key that is most famous for the floating Columbus Day party had a bunch of boats at it - but not as many as on Columbus Day.

By the way, Columbus Day is the last big party of the summer for the South Florida boating community. Labor Day is just a dry run for the big day. I hope to be out on Columbus Day (assuming there is no work to get stuck at) so I can tie up with some friends and watch the madness. If I go out for Columbus Day then I am going to want to camp overnight on the boat, and I will bring my kayak somehow so that I can get around in that. Once you are anchored and tied up to other boats, it is hard to move. But the kayak can get anywhere. I even have navigation lights for it so that I can use the kayak at night. The cops will bot be able to harass me because I will have the "proper" lights. I say "proper" because according to the rules that the USCG set forth a paddle craft, as well as "sit on top" day sailboats only need to carry a flashlight at night. When you see another boat, all you do is show that boat a white light or shine it at your sails. A single white light means "vessel at anchor, keep clear". Red and/or green lights means "vessel underway by sail" The green means you are looking at the starboard side of the boat and you are the "stand on" vessel. The red means you are looking at the port side and are the "give way" vessel. A power boat will have the red/green lights at the bow, AND a white light visible from 360 degrees.

Anyway with my alkaline battery powered navigation lights I will be harass proof.

This is Sands Key. There is a sandbar here. The water under my boat was only about 3 1/2 - 4 feet. It gets shallower, but there were too many boats and people in the water to get there. The water depth was perfect where I was anyway. There were a lot of boats here. Click the photo to make it larger. I had to carefully maneuver my boat in the crowd so I did not run anyone over or hit any boats. Then I had to drop the anchor, letting out just enough line to get a good hold of the bottom - but not any more because the number of boats in the area meant I could not afford to drift back too far (some asshole would run over my anchor line and I could loose the anchor and chain) or if the wind shifted I did not want to hit any other boats. Not enough line out and I would drag anchor, and possibly hit someone.

Once the boat was anchored it was time to swim, bust out with the BBQ and grill up some lunch, and generally hang out.

Columbus Day is even more wild. The cops and National Park service must hate it - but too bad for them. I really want to be out for that. But I do not yet know if I will be able to go. It depends on a few factors.

Sofa King Tired.

Boat day went well. I was in the water shortly after 0700 and I pulled the boat out of the water at around 1900. That is a long ass day.

There were tons of boats out. Got some photos of the evidence. I have no idea what they look like, it is hard to take good photos on the boat.

That is all for now. Too tired to post more. I forgot what sleep is. When I go out, I will be OUT.

Drift Away

I got the boat tunes installed. Half assed. There is no good place to put the stereo. I could mount it on the side of the center console, but that will look retarded. The place where there was a radio installed is no good because I was thinking the thing may get in the way. I have too many electronic instruments already mounted on the helm, so that will not work either.

So what I did was just left the stereo unit inside the center console. By the 2 cycle oil tank. Where I keep all sorts of other crap like extra life jackets and towels and other stuff. I use this space for dry storage also.

Anyway, that is where the stereo is. It is not connected to any antenna, but I also put in a satellite radio car kit thing. The satellite radio receiver transmits on the FM radio dial, and the signal is strong enough for the stereo to pick it up. So that is how it works. I may connect it to some sort of antenna cable that is in the boat from the original stereo (that was destroyed when a kid was playing with the wash down hose and soaked the unit with sea water) just to see if that thing is still connected to something. But I do not need to.

It sounds great. The 4 speakers are not that big (6.5 inch two way speakers) but the mostly empty and hollow center console makes for a good resonating chamber. I really wish I had 8 or 10 inch two ways in there. Or 6x9s. Or better yet, four 6x9s on a 4x100 channel amp, and then two 12 inch speakers on a 2x200 amp. That would create ripples on the water around the boat, and probably vibrate the engine bolts off. One day maybe.

Buy seriously, it sounds pretty darn good now for not having an amp. The other boat had only two speakers. Now I have 4. Big difference.

I have to decide if I am really going to put up a T-Top. If so, then I can install the stereo in the T-Top electronics box. If not, then I have to find a better place for it. Right now it is not secured to anything, and not really in a good place to control it. So I have to shit or get off the pot here. I may have to end up getting a new unit so that I can flush mount the control head and remote mount the control unit somewhere else out of the way. The stereo I have now is older and more like a standard car stereo. I can not remote mount the guts from the head. That is what I get for ordering a clearance marine stereo for $25. I can sell the thing on E-Bay and get my $25 back.

Anyway - everything seems to be in order for the outing. The boat is hitched up to the truck, the trailer lights work, stuff is loaded on the boat, the stereo is installed so I have rockin boat tunes, and so on.

I want to be floating by 0700. I calculate that most of the idiots who get boats but never bother how to properly use them will not be there that early. Of course they will be out there later, but as long as I am not using the ramp at the same time they are it is all good.

Ill try to remember the camera. I want some photos of the boat in the water. If I can get them without too much risk to the digital camera. Dropping my camera in the salt water (or any water for that matter) would seriously bum me out.

Lots O Things To Do

Well not really. More like a little bit of stuff to do.

But first - clearance items are going to kill me. Well not exactly kill me - more like make me broke. I was at the evil boat stuff store to help instruct a basic navigation class. No big deal. But there is a clearance item table. And on that table I found a rail mount radar reflector holder. For $5! I saved $15 plus shipping!

Of course now I have to buy a $40 radar reflector to put on the $5 rail mount radar reflector holder.

See I "need" one of these things because my boat is mostly invisible to radar. But with this thing I will show up as a blip. In theory, someone running at night using radar will see me and the blip I create and not run me over. In theory. I would not put much money on that theory.

But really, what I have to do - HAVE TO DO - is get un lazy and finish the stereo install that I started the week I got the boat. That, by the way, was right before Memorial Day. I got the 4 speakers in. The speakers that came with the boat were cheap and shot. So I pulled the good speakers out of the old boat, swapped em for the crappy shot speakers, then got 2 more just like them. 4 in total. I put em in a while ago.

Anyhow, all I need to do is the following:

1. Wire the speakers.
2. Install the stereo.
3. Wire the speakers to the stereo.
4. Run power to the stereo.
5. Install the satellite radio receiver.

The hard part is going to be number 2. There is no good place to put the darn stereo. This is probably why it is not installed yet. There is just not any good place to put the darn thing! Seriously. There is no room on the "dashboard" because that space is occupied by the marine VHF radio, the sonar unit (fish finder) and the GPS chartplotter. Oh yea and the compass. Who uses those things anyway? This is the 21st century.

So I am thinking that I can maybe mount the radio on the side of the center console. Or under the center console. Or somewhere else. But it needs to get done today.

Because Sunday I might go hang with some peeps at the Stiltsville sandbar. Where is this? Find Stiltsville marker "1A" and follow the finger channel EAST. You will see the sandbar. And a few boats. I am the one in the 19 foot power catamaran that has "Seagull" written on the side of the hull near the stern. Seagull boats are not very common, so chances are very good I will have the only one there. The boat has a teal blue Bimini top. And what else??? OH YEA! A new Stereo with 4 speakers and Sirius satellite radio service. And a GPS chartplotter. And maybe even some beer. Most certainly some beer.

For a lot of you, this is the "last weekend of summer". But not here. I still have some more summer. But this is the last three day weekend of the summer. So everyone will be out. The ramps will be busy. So I have to leave early to beat the morons.

And I have to install the stereo and satellite radio thingie, because I want it for the sandbar. It will be cool.