Final Post.

Final post of 2007 that is. It seems that this is the LAST DAY of the year, unless you are on the future side of the International Date Line in which case it is already tomorrow for you.

I got no plans. Nothing. Not a darn thing. It is possible something will pop up, but for now I got nothing going on. Pretty boring. I should kick over some rocks and see what I find. There has to be something going on somewhere.

But whatever. I do not care too much. The traffic is horrible anyway. And the cops are out - and since they have to work they are in a pissy mood and are looking for someone to arrest. Party poopers. Hey if you can not have any fun, might as well spread the misery! NOBODY CAN HAVE FUN! Oh well.

So what I intend to do with this post is wrap up a few loose ends. Like the poster I told Avery I would post, before I forgot about it. Something about a video game convention or some such madness. Here is my rule about conventions.


This reminds me of the one convention I did go to. I was not 21 yet, and it was a Star Trek convention. A friend of mine really wanted to go and so I did. It was amusing at first, with all the people dressed up like TV characters and speaking Klingon and shit. But after an hour or so, the amusement turned into sorrow when I realized that without Star Trek, 90% of the people there had no reason to live.

So now whenever I feel like a loser, I just remember that convention. Then I feel better about myself. At least I am not watching old TV shows thinking green chicks are hot, or trying to learn a made up alien language. Or worse yet - I am not like the guy in the poster who thinks he is a robot that can transform into a big rig. Ill bet he gets all the chicks that are into transformers. All NONE of them.

Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "Lazy, you seem to think you are a pirate! Whats up with that? How can you make fun of people who think they are Klingons and Optimus Prime"?

Well maybe I AM a pirate! Except instead of pieces-o-eight I have MP3s. But hell, I would rather be a fake pretend pirate than Optimus Prime. Or a ninja. You know why?


Thats right! When was the last time you saw a ninja with wenches? Or a Transformer with wenches? Or a video game character with wenches?

I thought so.

But NONE of this stuff has anything to do with the end of the year. This does

LAZY IGUANA'S NEW YEARS EVE TIPS!!!!!

Buy some Alka-Seltzer Morning Relief. NOW. Thank me later. This stuff is 500 mg aspirin with 60 mg caffeine. Perfect for....uhhhh...over indulgence relief. For some reason this stuff is hard to find. I think that production needs to be stepped up.

So if you can not find it - here is what you do. I have done this before, so I know it works. It tastes horrible - but sometimes you do not have any sick days and you have to go to work.

So you need....GOODY'S EXTRA STRENGTH HEADACHE POWDER! This stuff is cheap and effective. Each packet contains 520 mg aspirin, 260 mg acetaminophen, and 32.5 mg caffeine. This stuff WORKS.

If all else fails, then you can follow this emergency procedure. Take your standard aspirin pills (I recommend a 500 mg dose unless there is a reason you take less) and crush them. You can do this with two spoons. Place the pills in one spoon, then crush them with the other spoon. Then get some Cuban Coffee - which is also known as Espresso. Put the powdered aspirin in your mouth, then chase it with a shot of espresso.

The caffeine and aspirin work together to help the morning after. I do not fully understand the chemistry involved, I just know it works.

TIP 2 - DRINK WATER. This helps. Drink enough water and you will not need anything else.

Get Literate With Lazy Iguana

And of course by "literate" I mean learn something from a book. Oh yea you can just read for the sake of reading. Pick up a good fiction novel and go to town. Plenty of people do this and I ain't going to knock it. It keeps the mind sharp, unless what you are reading is crap. Like those awful romance novels. And then there are the books that pose a threat to humanity, like Dianetics or any other book by Hubbard. Books like that should be burned.

But today's book feature is not a threat to humanity, nor is it a shitty novel. It is a book of practical arts. The almost lost art of marlinspike. Or in other terms, the art of rope work. Knot tying. Fancy decorative stuff.

Pretty much, this is man weaving. Chicks knit - men work rope. But you know what? It is the same shit. Only instead of a sweater or socks or whatever, I end up with a manly rope floor mat. Or a manly rope covering for a wooden post or rail or something. Or some manly rope fenders. Or a manly monkey fist know which I can use to heave a line. Or a manly "star knot" with which I can beat the tar out of someone with. Or at least have a cool looking knot at the end of a line which will keep the rope from unraveling. Or something similar.

The book is a little hard to follow. There are not always step by step instructions. But I have a starting point for which to attempt to learn how to man knit.

I have other books too. Creative Ropecraft and another one that will show up on Monday. Between the three I should be able to figure out something.

Anyone got some old rope? I could use at least 100 feet or so. Any diameter will do. Three strand is preferred - but braided or double braided will work too.

New Phone, Skipper's Nuts, Medical Record Mishaps, And Other Things

It seems that I have figured out how to use the Opera browser in the new phone to view this blog! The secret it to resize the page to 75%. This way it looks right, and I can zoom in on important things. Namely the comments. I know what the posts say because I write them.

Oh yea, and I CAN log on and write new posts! I can also leave comments, and look at other blogs and shit. So now - no matter where I am - I post stuff providing there is a wireless signal. Pretty cool.

I will not get the IPhone. It is cool, but so is what I have now. I may get the Ipod Touch later. Even if my phone is also a MP3 player. And unlike the IPhone, my phone is compatible with stereo bluetooth head phones! The IPhone - NOT. I can also tether my phone to the laptop to use it as a modem. The IPhone? NOT! My phone is on the 3G network - the IPhone uses the older, slower, EDGE network. And so on.

Skipper is still nutless. I do not think he has figured this out yet. He was a bit wobbly when I got him home after the snipping, but he is recovered now. Well almost recovered. He is an ounce or two lighter. But he seems to be acting the same. He still harasses the other cats. But he will not spray anything, and if he gets out he will not go out Tom Catting and get into a fight and get his cat ass kicked.

He is not very big. He would get his ass kicked. Big time. And that would be costly.

The funny part is that the neutering went on Sake's vet record. So now Sake - a girl cat - is neutered. And spayed. She got it both. I wonder if the same thing happens to human medical records? Ill bet it does.

In other news, I got bored and checked for State jobs. I got a wild hair to work for Marine Fisheries - but because I did not flunk out in High School and become a cop there is not a good chance of this happening. I kind of sort of meet the requirements for an investigator, but the "4 year college degree" can be substituted for "work experience".

Now some people here may not be familiar with public sector jobs. So Ill break it down for you. In the PRIVATE sector, when they say "4 year degree required - work experience can count for education" they mean "we really want someone with a degree, but if you have 15 years of experience in the field then we may consider you".

In the PUBLIC sector this means "we would rather hire a goon, who probably flunked High School math".

Now what does this mean? Why do the cops ALWAYS know who has the drugs? BECAUSE THE COPS ALL DID DRUGS! You know the guys who were always hanging out in the locker room, wearing letter jackets, taking as many gym electives as possible, and flunking basic math and language arts? Well guess who became the cops! Ill give you a hint - NOT the top 10% of the class.

But I saw another job posting for the Florida DOT. A toll booth manager.

Now this got me to thinking. How hard is it to manage a toll booth? There is a device that counts cars and calculates tolls - so if an attendant is skimming off the top it will be easy to bust them. And is anyone going to complain about bad service? Maybe - but who gives a shit? I can just tell them "Why don't you just go buy a SUN PASS transponder and use the electronic collection lanes? Now buzz off, I have important things to do. My phone gets the internet you know".

Really - how hard could it be? I could do that! I want to manage the toll booth for Alligator Alley. That would rule. Out there by the edge of the Everglades - with the frogs and alligators and insects that bite. Perfect.

So I filled out a profile thing, and they send me postings I may match for. And guess what one posting sent was? Toll Booth Manager. Could it be fate?

The reality is that there is little chance of getting it. The State posts shit to the public - but the reality is that they will take someone who is a toll collector now and promote them. They do not have to be competent, this is the State of Florida we are talking about! Anyone will do.

I got other irons in other fires anyway. Sooner or later something will stick to the wall. In theory.

What Lies At 25 Degrees 41.412 Minutes North And 080 Degrees 05.455 Minutes West?

"And we sail and we sail and we never see land, just the rum in the bottle and the pipe in my hand."

So what lies at the location in the post title? Don't bother with Google Maps. Here is the map now.

View Larger Map
That land mass you see labeled "Key Biscayne" is in fact Key Biscayne. Google Maps are fairly accurate. The smaller land mass attached to Key Biscayne by the road is Virginia Key. To the west of Key Biscayne is Biscayne Bay, and to the east you see the arrow pointing to a spot about 3 miles off the beach.

So what is there?
This is what lies there. Well not exactly. What you see is a conception drawing of what could be there. If the plan works out. And what is the plan?

The first underwater cemetery in the USA and possibly the world. It will be called The Neptune Memorial Reef. The master plan calls for an area 16 acres large, with placements for 125,000 people. The Neptune Society is behind it.

The way it works is first you die. This is an important step. Then after you kick the bucket, you are cremated. Then your ashes are mixed into concrete and cast into one of three shapes - a starfish, a coral head, or a shell. A brass plate is attached to the cast form. Then the form is places somewhere on the reef. Depending on where you want to be placed, prices range from around $2 grand to $6 grand.

Phase 1 is already complete. Phase 1 includes the gates, two bronze lions guarding the gate, a welcome center, and some other structure. You can watch a 6 minute underwater video HERE (20 meg quicktime download) or a 60 second 3 meg video HERE.

"Me, they can sew up in me hammock, with a 9 pound shot at me feet, and the last stick through me nose."

The design is that of a spoked wheel, themed to resemble the "lost city of Atlantis".

The depth will range from 30 feet to about 50 feet. Shallow. The water there is clear. The structure will quickly become encrusted with marine growth. Already schools of fish have set up shop. Before anything was placed there the area was just a sand bottom, with few fish.

I think this is a pretty cool idea. Next time I get out on the water I may take a run out there, moor up to a buoy, and jump over the side. Just to see what is there now.

Adventure In The ATT Wireless Store

Cause I do.

The day after Christmas was somewhat eventful here. As usual, I started the day off by sleeping in late. From there it only got better.

I took my Best Buy gift card I won in a contest to Best Buy. The laptop CD drive is dead, so I needed an external drive. I picked out the LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter. I had my eye on this before Christmas, but it was on sale today. It reads CDs and DVDs (of course) and it will write to any CD media (R and RW) as well as any DVD media (single and dual layer R and RW). Pretty sweet. I also picked up 20 blank DVDs that support LightScribe.

Oh yea, the drive supports LightScribe. So after I burn a CD/DVD I can flip it over and burn a label. This is really cool, but there is one drawback. The blank DVD has to support LightScribe.

I also got something for the boat! I have a satellite radio receiver for the truck, and another one that is for use outside the truck. It works fine, but there is one drawback. The FM transmitter in the receiver is weak, and there are no real open frequencies here. Too many shitty low power pirate stations, with a few higher power pirates mixed in for good measure. To compound issues even more, the boat GPS also causes interference. So I got this thing that will send a FM signal directly to the boat stereo using a hard wired connection. This should take care of the interference.

This took care of the gift card.

Next stop was the AT&T wireless store. I wanted another bluetooth phone. I walked in and signed up on the waiting form. Then I went next door to the wine store to get a drink. Having to deal with the ATT store drives me to drink. The wine store had.....CHIMAY BLUE LABEL in 11.5 ounce bottles!! Not this Chimay Blue Label is not messing around, it is 9%. So drinking one is like drinking two effect wise. JUST WHAT I NEEDED!

Inside the place I scoped out the ATT Tilt and the Apple Iphone. Some JACKASS was playing with the demo phone for a long time, watching some bullshit on You Tube. So I had to wait...and wait...but I got to mess with the demo.

Now the Iphone is pretty cool. I like the Safari web browser. But I went with the ATT Tilt because it uses the 3G data network. The problem is it runs Windows Mobile. I already put the Opera mobile browser on it, which instantly makes it better. Internet Explorer mobile version totally sucks.

I went with the Tilt over the Iphone because the Iphone has only internal memory, the Tilt uses mini SD and internal memory. Also I can change out the battery on the Tilt, the Iphone has no way to get to the battery.

I may still return the Tilt and pick up the Iphone - because even with Opera the web browser is not as nice as the Iphone. My page will not load properly. Oh well. But the Tilt has a keyboard that does not involve the touch screen. So I do not know yet.

SKIPPER goes in today for nut removal. The big snip. No food or water for him till after the snip.

Post Christmas Post

HAPPY BOXING DAY if you are Canadian! I do not exactly know what "Boxing Day" is or what happens - but I know it exists. In the USA it means the day we box up things we do not want or need to return to the store for some reason. I am sure that in Canada it has a more meaningful significance.

My haul was fairly light. I had already got my main gift - the waterproof Olympus digital camera. See I needed it before Christmas. For the boat parade. And the night fishing trip. The photo of the Christmas Shark did not come out very good at all. I should have had the guy snap more than one picture but I wanted to get the Christmas Shark back into the water as soon as possible. Sharks are happier in the water than out of it. So as it is, this is the only known photo of said shark. This photo is not cropped at all.
Other than that, I got some E-Gifts!

From Daisy - a cat stroller. Manly men do not push cats in strollers. Plus my cats would freak out and poop in my shoes later for revenge.

From Yippieskip - a bike. Cool. Maybe I can modify it into a recumbent bike?

Emma sent me an AR-15 fully decked out.

"Amazon Woman" sent a dune buggy. This is funny because I am going to get a jet ski soon. A jet ski is the on the water equivalent of a dune buggy.

Lisa sent a car. Pretty sweet. I wonder if I can get a hitch for it and use it to pull the jet ski?

Seriously got me a fruit cake, which I sent to Emma

Doozie sent some perfume. I need to shower more often.

Krok sent a Christmas Sweater. But I can not wear it till next year because Christmas is over.

IdiotDrivers sent me a Road Rage video game. So now I can play at home AND out on the road! Emma's gift of the AR-15 will come in handy after all!

Dusty - the left wing nut job - sent an ELEPHANT chia pet. Elephant?

Ed Abbey sent...another fruit cake! I hereby give it to Dusty :)

"Bobby Bowden" gave me virginity. Not sure what is up with that.

CM sent an Ipod for the Iguana Music. This is good because the Iguana Music list is almost full.

"gfjgj" sent some sort of Victoria's Secret type thing. I suspect this is a gift that "gfjgj" wanted for himself but was too embarrassed / ashamed to buy because he is in denial. So it was sent here in hopes I give it back - that way he can keep it himself. I suggest that in the future, come up with a better fake name and do not be ashamed of who you are.

"Malcom X" who I suspect of being someone from Tampa / North Carolina sent more perfume.

The Dentist sent dentures. At least with these there will be no more cavities.

Pyzam.com sent cash. Still waiting to get that Pyzam.com!!

And finally "Santa" whom I suspect is a reddish witch sent me...AN ENTIRE BREWERY! WOO HOO! Always wanted one of those. Now I can fulfill my wish to be a brewmaster - whose task it is to roam the brewery every day and drink small samples from the various tanks. Ill hire a manager and CEO and crap to do all the boring "run the business" things.

Today I take my various gift card (I only got one) to Best Buy to get the external CD/DVD burner with Light Scribe. See the laptop CD drive has decided to not work. So I need to replace it. Finding the same internal CD drive for a laptop will be difficult, and probably cost more than the external. So....external it is!

I also ordered some books from Amazon. I wanted some knot tying books, and I did not get any. So I bought some. I want books that concentrate more on fancy rope work, as opposed to practical knots. I already know enough practical knots for a power boater. When I take the sailing class I will need to learn more knots as sailboats are very rope intensive. The books will cover all the sailing knots I need to know - and then some.

The fancy rope work will include me making my very own rope mat, rope fenders, decorative knots, and splices. It will be cool to learn all this stuff. Fancy rope work is becoming a lost art.

Nobody got me the stainless steel anchor. I am not surprised. They are expensive and I do not really need one. It is just that they are so shiny, and on the current boat the anchor is always out in the open where it can be seen. But a stainless steel anchor creates all sorts of problems. I would also need some stainless steel BBB windlass chain. Can't have a shiny anchor with dull chain!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day. Even if "Christmas Day" was just December 25th to you - I still hope the day was good.

Christmas

I hope everyone has a great Christmas Day!

I was going to send out cards and e-cards and stuff, but I got lazy and kept putting it off and all. Sooooo......

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Watch out for falling Christmas Coconuts.

Twas The Day Before Christmas

And I caught a shark.

No really, I caught a shark! A real actual shark. And because I am so cool, I did it with very lightweight tackle.

OK so the shark was only 2 feet long. If that. But still - A SHARK!!!! Holy crap.

See there was a plan to go night fishing. So what the heck! So I go out and buy some bait and stuff, hook the boat up to the truck, and so on.

The mission was almost scrubbed, but at the last moment it pulled together. So around 10:00 PM I was in the water and underway.

The first fish landed was the shark. I caught it. I have a photo of it, but the photo was really bad. It was not framed well at all. Oh well. I am a little let down by that, but there will be other sharks.

I also caught a blue runner. But it was small. After that - nothing. The other people that went caught nothing too. Well there was one small barracuda landed - but everything was thrown back. Nothing was worth keeping.

But there will be other fishing trips! And more stuff to catch. And better photos.

The Christmas Shark is still out there. Lurking in the deep sea. Plotting. Planning. I really do not want to ever encounter that same shark again.

I Got Banned

So I tried a Google experiment - but it WORKED!!. The plan was to post something a bunch of times so that this post would come up in a Google search. And what was the link?

The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE

NOTE - The experiment works now, so I repeated the link a few times just to keep it working! Google bombing so rules. I thought it did not work, but then it did! Awesome.

See I was banned from a boating forum. Not that it is a big deal. I found another forum to go to. Life goes on. My boat still floats. The engine still runs. All without being a member of the other forum.

The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE


And what did I do to get banned? Who knows. I think I mentioned other banned users. Yea I know - big major crime there.

The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE

And my Google index experiment did work!!! The power of the internet lives!! One person CAN take on "the man".

The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE
The Hull Truth - banned members can be found HERE


Speaking of Google tricks, who here has linked to my friend's startup photography business website? NOBODY!?!?!?! Come on - hook a brother up here! You know how hard it is to start up a business? So please, just link to Bock Imagery at www.bockimagery.com. If you have gone to this website, please realize it is NOT complete yet. But my friend has two other jobs, and is pretty new to the whole HTML thing. In the next week or two there will be more content there. Right now the goal is simply to get Google to pick it up if someone searches for "Bock Imagery". first things first after all.

So put up the link. It will take you all of a few minutes. And the more links, the higher Google will rate the site. I have a few web pages I need to put the link up on myself. All the pages on my lazyiguana.org site. If I can do that - then you can put up one link on your site. You do not have to keep it there forever, just for a week or two.

I expect traffic here to slack off as Christmas Day draws closer. But whatever you do - DO NOT MISS MY YEAR IN REVIEW POST! When will this be? I don't know. It will be posted on or before December 31. This is all I know.

Sadistic Health Care Practitioners.

I made it to the dentist this morning. Like a manly man I just lie in the chair and take whatever punishment they can unleash. The hygienist used the metal hook thing to scrape off what little plaque built up. There was not much to scrape off. I told her not to use that numbing gel crap - because it tastes awful. And I do not need it. Pick away. Make me bleed. What the heck do I care? Besides, this way I can look like a tough guy in front of the staff - some of whom are hot. The others are either dudes are really NOT hot. I do not care about them. They even have the words "pain tolerant" written on my records.

The reality is that the numbing gel does not work. Its effects are very short lived. So you are better off without it.

Anyway after the cleaning and scraping and polishing and stuff, it was time to measure the gum pockets! The two I had are gone. The medicine powder that was injected worked. But there was a new gum pocket - 5mm deep. That is pretty deep. It was in my upper teeth, and supposedly not there last time. But they gave me another powder injection which should take care of that. No problem.

And then the cleaning was done. So there was only one more thing left to do before I could leave. The actual dentist had to come and poke at my teeth with a hook.

Now keep in mind I am "pain tolerant" and opted out of the numbing gel crap.

So the dude comes in and starts poking around, looking for soft spots in teeth that could be a cavity. On my lower left molars I have some fillings. But they are old. The dentist looks at them, and picks at them. Now I can feel this. It does not feel good. That area is sensitive. So the dentist says "put a watch on teeth number (whatever)". Then he pokes around more.

So I let out a slight very short grunt. As in "hey you fuck head, knock that off before I sneeze on you and infect you with my Christmas Funk". So he says "Oh, is that sensitive"?

Uhhhh...YES. You asshole. It is. I would very much like it if you just jot that down somewhere and STOP POKING IT.

So he keeps picking at the area. What the hell? I already told you that there is some sensitivity there - and here I am Mr. Pain Tolerant and all. So you keep poking at the sensitive area with a sharp stainless steel hook???

Why??? Really - WHY?? Do you get off on that sort of thing?

So apparently, my old fillings have worn down and need to be replaced. This will be done in a few weeks. I will be OK till then.

Now this is depressing. I HATE THE DRILL!!! The drill is horrible. I hate the sound. I hate the heat it creates. I hate smelling the stench of tooth enamel getting ground down. I hate everything about the drill.

"Pain tolerant" or not - I will get the happy gas. I want the happy gas. They can bill me for the happy gas. Whatever - I want the happy gas. I will even bring a balloon with me, so I can fill that up with happy gas for the drive home.

I promise I will only breathe it in at red lights.

After I am sufficiently happy enough, then I guess I will get the Novocaine shot. But even then, the tooth nerve is sometimes difficult to numb. So I better be really happy. Otherwise, I may have to shove my dental records up someones ass so far that another doctor will have to reach down that person's throat to extract them.

AND IN OTHER HAPPIER NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, my bout of the Christmas Funk had a change of heart. Why try to ruin my holiday? So the mung went away. Sometime last night after I went to sleep, it departed.

So I am no longer the Horseman of the Apocalypse whose job it is to spread pestilence. This is good because I do not really have a horse. Riding a horse is OK for a short time, but I would hate to have to go everywhere on horseback. That would suck. Horses do not come with air conditioning. And if it rains you get wet. Therefore I conclude that being a horseman is overrated.

I had the funk for two days. Not too bad. So I guess my immune system is not so bad after all. Lesser men would have been down for longer. But not me. I did not even take any drugs.

So once again my crazy theories panned out. Let the disease run its course - and you either live or you die. Either way, there is no need for drugs. This time I lived.

Things are slowly returning to normal. The funk is gone. I feel better. I can use my nose to breathe with again. I do not have the constant snot drip going on. I do not need the gross dried up snot encrusted disease ridden towel that should be burned in the backyard for the good of humanity anymore. I was able to enjoy a few beers today.

But not my SPECIAL BEER. The special beer is still in the fridge. I have to be in peak physical condition to open it. I want to be able to take in the full special beer experience. I have to be able to smell and taste properly. I still have a slight residual funkiness going on, so I want that to be gone.

The special beer is called Sampson Lager, a fine Pilsner from the Czech Republic.

And yes, it says "Budweiser Bier". See my fellow Americans - REAL BUDWEISER comes from The Czech Republic - not America. Long before America was a Country, there was Budweiser in the Czech Republic. Anheuser Busch stole the name, and got the copyright for it here in America. And thanks to those assholes - for many years a lot of Czech beer could not be sold here, due to "copyright infringement".

Yea right. Like anyone would mistake a fine imported pilsner for the shit that you find in a can of Budweiser. According to Anheuser Busch, Budweiser has been brewed since 1876. Well guess what? The town of Ceske Budejovice was founded in 1055 - over 800 years before Anheuser Busch and over 700 years before America was an independent nation. And they have been making "beer from Budweis" or "Budweiser Beer" for centuries. So there. Take that.

Christmas Funk Update

I feel marginally better. Not that much better, but not as bad as yesterday. Yesterday all I could do was sneeze and drip snot on everything and cough and disturb Fat Fred which would cause him to bite me which caused me to kick his fat ass out of the room. This went on most of the night. I had to sleep with my head on a towel to keep the snot off the pillow. Needless to say, I got one funky nasty disease ridden crusty towel. If I had any enemies I would give them the towel for Christmas.

Germ Warfare - it is not just for the axis of evil.

This reminds me of when I would work as a substitute teacher for extra money. I would carry latex gloves and hand sanitizer with me. Why? Because more often than not, the person I was filling in for was deathly ill. And I had to sit at their desk. Touching their things. GROSS! Gloves were in order. Hey - I may be dumb but I ain't stupid.

I would also try to do the teachers a favor - by "loaning" things out to students who gave me trouble. Can't do your work because you do not have a pen that cost a quarter but you have a $300 portable game system? HERE! Use this one. And then I would look for the writing item most likely to be infected and loan that out.

Germ Warfare - not always evil. I figure that if my evil plan worked, I was doing the teacher a favor. They will probably return to work not feeling great - so how nice is it to see that that kid who gives you problems is not there? HOORAY! All thanks to me.

Of course I have no evidence any of this worked. But Ill tell you what - working in the public schools I know I was exposed to all manners of funk and disease. Lord knows when the last time the AC was disinfected! Probably never. Judging from the black mold and grossness stuck to the AC box - I would say it should be taken away by the CDC as a possible terror suspect. Really, I had thought about calling the FBI on some equipment I would see. You just know that it was blowing disease all over the room.

Oddly enough - I would not get sick. Nor did I get sick working at the airport - another public place crawling with all manners of disease. The constant attack kept my immune system running at peak efficiency. I was like Super Disease Proof Man! SARS! HA! Bring it on flight from Asia! Ill send you back home crying like a bitch that just got pimp slapped.

But now, in my seclusion, I have grown weak. Unable to fight off a simple funk attack. My super powers have been taken away from me. I feel vulnerable. It is not a good feeling, what with the whole "not really having health insurance again" thing and all. If I need drugs, I just have to resort to my street connections and possibly get arrested and become a criminal. And for what? Antibiotics? Holy fuck what Country is this?!?!?!

But antibiotics will not help me anyway, for I suspect I have a viral funk. It will just have to run its course. All natural. See I believe in the all natural method of disease fighting. I am probably running some sort of fever. But will I take aspirin? Hell no. Yea it would bring the fever down, and yes I may feel better.

But this will only prolong the funk. See a fever is your body's natural reaction to disease. Your body heats up, which speeds up the life cycle of the funk - and enables your body's white blood cells to become super ninjas. I can hear all the kung-fu sounds going on now. My white blood cells are in there, kicking ass.

So I let them be. No drugs. Drugs just make you weak, and should only be taken if you have a good reason. like you could die without them, or you have to go to work and resemble a human being for the day. For these occasions, drugs are fine. But if you can just sit in the dark and deal with it - that is the best way.

But I am being proactive. I am drinking a lot of water, mixed with this vitamin powder shit.
Now I have no evidence this helps. But likewise I have no evidence it does not help. It SEEMS to help, and that is good enough for me. 32 mineral complexes and 8 vitamins! TAKE THAT FUNK! If you can.

Back when I felt like a human being I kept a box of this at my desk, and would have one per day. But now - well what is the point? So I only go for it when I notice the box, or when I feel shitty. Like now.

On the agenda for today, I have the following events.

1. Get my teeth scraped at the dentist office - possibly spread disease and pestilence if they fuck up the bill again and try to charge me extra because of the way the bill is coded.

2. Go to the store, for I am running out of Purina Bachelor Chow, and spread more pestilence upon the world.

3. And if I feel better - leave the cave and venture into the word of the living, to have a beer with some friends. IF I do this then the disease is over. You always know the funk is over when you feel like having a beer.

I am the rider on the black horse. I feel like unleashing my punishment on all the retards of the world who make life difficult for everyone else. I should be sneezing on car door handles.

Full Of Christmas Cheer

Yes I am full of Christmas cheer. Hell I am so full of Christmas Cheer that I am overflowing with it. It is leaking out of every pore in my body.

Of course by "Christmas cheer" I really mean "Christmas snot" and by "every pore on my body " I mean "my nose".

Yes, I have contracted some mystery Christmas funk. I do not know how this happened. I have pretty much secluded myself from the general public. But I did go to Barnes and Noble the other day to look for a book I could read before signing up for the sailing class. And then I went to Best Buy to look for a XD card reader. Then I went to the supermarket to buy food and beer and shit. So I could have picked up the Christmas Funk from any of these places.

In other news, you may notice my Iguana Links to the left. One of those links is Bock Imagery. If you can, link to it on your site. A good friend of mine is attempting to start some photography business. So the more links the site gets, the faster Google will index it.

Anyway, I found some books at Barnes and Noble - but did not buy any. I found the XD card reader at Best Buy. The retards employees pointed me to the external readers that require a USB cable. I explained that I have a laptop, and if I am going to connect anything to the computer with a cable it will be the camera. They told me that was all they had, and then I found a PCMCIA 6 in 1 reader that fits into the card slot on my laptop and reads XD cards, memory stick, and SD cards. Perfect.

I should have known something funky was going on in the Publix. See I usually use the express lane. Normally I buy 10 items or less. This is why I like to by my emergency food (boxed macaroni and cheese) in 6 packs. The 6 packages are wrapped together counting as one item.

Anyway there were no 6 packs. So I bought 4 boxes. And then I bought some cans of food. And some of those "instant noodles" things. And some organic "happy cow" whole milk. And some organic "happy cow" half-and-half. And of course, beer. So I had way more than 10 items.

But I get in the express line anyway. I do not realize I have more than 10 items till it is too late. so now I look like an idiot in front of the Publix checkout chick. Great. At that point I knew something was going on.

This morning the funk was in force. I spent the day moping around, feeling mostly bad. I also managed to lock myself out of the bathroom. I tried to open the door using a wire hanger - but that did not work. Now there is another shitter here so I could just use that. But all my shower stuff was in the locked bathroom. So I removed the door knob. Had I been noticing things, I would have seen that what I needed to open the door was a simple flat head screwdriver. But did I notice that? Hell no. So I had to destroy the door knob to get the door open. Now it is held shut by a screwdriver jammed in where the knob used to be. Darn Christmas Funk!

Now for some photos! A post about Christmas Funk is just not right. So here we go! Photos from my great Broward ICW adventure on December 15th!

This is not from my adventure. This is the "always on tap" beer menu from Titanic Brewery. I was playing with some camera settings. If you are into beer you may want to click the image to see it in full size so you can read it.

This is my boat, at the docks of the Southport Raw Bar located at 15th street and Cordova. It is a pretty good place.

This is another view of the boat at the docks of the Southport Raw Bar. I had the fish and chips, and 3 or 4 Guinness "pub draft" bottles.

This is a photo of a cruise ship at Port Everglades - the Holland America "Zuiderdam". It must be a high end ship, because it sails from Florida to Europe, 6 - 16 day Caribbean cruises, and Panama Canal cruises.

This is a view of Port Everglades while passing under the 17th street bridge. Click it and you can see several cruise ships.

And this is a small mega yacht. In fact, this may be the tender from a larger yacht that was too big to make it into the ICW.

That about does it!

Winter Weekend

The boat parade thing went pretty well. It was a long day, but I got to cruise the waterways of Fort Lauderdale. This area has over 300 miles of waterway - so no wonder it is called "the Venice of the United States". By the way, those 300+ miles are all deep enough for decent size boats. I am not talking a shallow canal here.

I was not really expecting what I saw. There were more mega yachts than I have ever seen before. Mega yachts were everywhere. If your boat is less than 100 feet, it really does not stand out much. I have found sources that claim 80% of the world's mega yachts are sold from Fort Lauderdale. I know that the world's largest in water boat show is in Fort Lauderdale. The Miami Boat Show is larger, but the Ft. Lauderdale show features more large yachts.

Another cool thing is Port Everglades. Due to Homeland Security restrictions, the Port Of Miami is closed most of the time. At least the Government Cut side is. The cruise ships are there, and if more than one cruise ship is in port the cut is closed.

Port Everglades is on the intra-coastal waterway (ICW). The ICW can not be closed down, so you can still motor through Port Everglades. The exclusion zone for cruise ships is a lot smaller. It has to be. So you can still get pretty close to them. Close enough to see all the rust anyway. People get on those things?

I think there are more cruise ships at Port Everglades than the Port Of Miami.

The photos of the boat parade itself did not turn out so well. They were blury. The new camera is cool because it is waterproof - but it is also crappy because not all the features can be used all the time. If I go to "anti-shake" mode then I can not select the ISO. I can also not select shutter speed. I think the older Sony camera would have taken better photos but I did not bring that camera.

Lets see...what else?? Should I have some photos? OK fine. Here you go!

This is the helm of the boat. You can see part of the steering wheel and the throttle control. On the "dashboard" there is (from left to right) a magnetic compass, a GPS chartplotter, a Humminbird depth sounder, a Sirius satellite radio receiver, and my marine VHF radio. If you click the photo you can see the GPS and sonar unit display, which will tell you my exact location, speed, course over ground, and other stuff. The sonar will tell you the water depth. Through the windshield you can see some ships in Port Everglades.

And then there is this. I created this image for use one some forums as part of a signature line.

Ill have more photos later, as I get them ready. And by "ready" I mean resized, cropped, and uploaded from the camera.

Open Letter

To the DRIVETARD who decided to pull out in front of me today.

Thank you for pulling out in front of me! Really, I thank you for this great service you did today. I just love converting the kinetic energy of my truck into heat by using the brakes.

You even went so far as to pull out in front of me knowing that there was a very large empty space behind me. There was nobody behind me for a good distance, due to the timing of a traffic light. But you saw to it that I had to convert some kinetic energy into heat anyway.

Drivetard, people like you make Miami what it is. A festering sewer of filth and disease. You just HAD TO get in front of me huh? Well you did. Do you feel better now?

You see drivetard, gas is expensive. And because I haul stuff around sometimes, and I can not afford multiple vehicles, I got a pick up truck. It only has a V-6 engine, as I did not need the V-8, but I do not get the greatest MPG out of it. This is why I drive slow.

This may confuse you, with you being a drivetard and all, so let me break it down to you. You maximize your gas mileage is you accelerate slowly, and maintain a constant speed when you are going as fast as you need to. In my case 40 mph works. This is the speed limit after all. But when drivetards like you feel the need to pull out in front of me for no reason (remember there was this HUGE space behind me with nobody back there) it means I have to slow down. Then means I have to speed back up again. And this wastes gas. Which is $3.15 a gallon now, in case you did not notice.

I hope you get the crabs, and the itching drives you insane. I also hope you never get laid again, because everyone knows you as "that guy/woman with crabs that went insane from the itching". Since nobody would want your super public lice - everyone would just avoid that region of you. Forever.

Wishing you get the clap,
Lazy Iguana.


And thus concludes the open letter. Shit like this happens all the time. People can wait 10 seconds for you to pass and then pull out - but no. They are far more important than you, and can not wait this obscene amount of time! Why, someone will die if they have to wait 10 seconds for you to pass! They MUST pull out in front of you. In whatever lane you are in.

One of these days, I am going to floor it, pass the drivetard, pull in front of them, and hit the brakes. HARD. They will smash into the rear and of the truck, and I will laugh. I will likely be able to drive away - but their car will be done. And it will be their fault, as I would be rear ended.

I will pick someone with a nice new car that cost at least $50,000. I figure they have good insurance.

Got More Stuff Done

Tomorrow is the boat parade thing. I guess I have everything ready.

So Sunday there will be....WINTERFEST BOAT PARADE PHOTOS! Hooray. Now this is not just any old boat parade. OH NO! This is a boat parade for people with huge ass boats that want to show off and get on TV. Yes there are some crazy people in non-motorized boats. This means kayaks and canoes and shit - because the waterway that the parade is on is not wide enough to allow a sailboat under sail to navigate. There will also be small motor boats. I could have had my boat in the parade. but then I would need to put lights and shit on it and that is just not going to happen. 120 volts in a small open boat is just asking for electrocution. The power inverter would probably trip before I died, but I would still get a nasty zap. Plus I am too lazy to put lights and shit on my boat. Screw that.

But there will be photos of large boats all decked out with lights and other crap. IF it does not rain. Which it may. There is a front on the way down. So when it pushes through, it may get a little wet. The greatest chance of rain will be after 10 PM Saturday. Hopefully I will be out of the water by then. Driving home in the rain will be better than being in the boat in the rain, or trying to get the boat back on the trailer in the rain. I have done the whole get the boat back on the trailer in the rain thing before and it sucks.

And here, once again, is the boat. On the trailer. At night. You may notice that the red navigation light is on. The red light is shown on the port side of the boat. This is easy to remember, as port wine is red. Front navigation lights are red or green. If I see a boat's red light, that means the other boat sees my green light. The other boat is the "stand on" vessel and I am the "give way" vessel. This is easy to remember because red lights means stop. Green means go. In the daytime I just have to know that a boat approaching from my starboard side is the stand on vessel and I should give way, and boats approaching from the port side are the give way vessel and I should maintain my course and speed.
But a lot of people have no idea what the hell the lights mean. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother checking to see if they still work.

In other news, I got a very nice Christmas card in the mail Thursday. Something about a contest I won. Anyhow it was very nice and I already know what I am going to get with the gift card.

I will get a USB XD card reader so I do not have to hook the camera up to the computer to get photos off the card anymore! Sweet.

Got Some Stuff Done

I impressed myself. I got some stuff done.

The first thing done was to get this thing that was on sale. Did I need it? Sort of. Not really. But it will make life easier. No, I did not "need" it. I have been doing without it for a long time now. But it was on sale for $20. Well shit for $20 I needed it. For $60 I did not need it. It is all about the economics. $20 - sure Ill buy this. $30? Maybe. $40? Getting less likely. $60? Oh hell no.


What the hell is this? It is a hitch for the truck. Now I can adjust the height of the ball from an 8 inch rise to an 11 inch drop. That is sexy.

I still have things to do. I may or may not get them all done before Saturday. It does not really matter - the important crap is done. Pretty much the thing left undone is the waxing of the boat hull. I expect there to be a lot of scuzz in the water this weekend. The waters I will be in have a lot of traffic, but the waterway is confined. So whatever gets in the water can not get flushed out with the tide. Waxing the hull will make it easier to get the scuzz off. One side of the boat is waxed, but there is still the other side - and then the inside of the tunnel. I have a power catamaran, so there are 4 surfaces that need to be waxed, as opposed to only two.

It Ain't Over Till The Fat Lady Sings

And that fat lady has a name. Olga. I really hate to say this because I do not know who reads this blog and I once knew a hot chick who was named Olga, but to me Olga is a "fat" name.

But in this case, Olga is not a person. Olga is a "thing".

Yes, another December Tropical Storm. It has a 10% chance of being a hurricane in 72 hours. But most likely it will dissipate, or remain a tropical storm. The water is warm enough for development, but the air currents are not favorable for this to happen.

But not to worry! There is no evidence at all of climate change. Al Gore made it all up. The climate scientists are in on the scam too, getting all sorts of kickbacks from the clean energy industry.

OH WAIT! There is no real "clean energy" industry, and therefore no kickbacks. Never mind that.

The storm will remain to the south. It will not deviate greatly from the forecast path. At least I do not think it will. The air currents are just not going to let it go north. A high pressure front is sweeping into Florida. Ahhhh....nice cool air. Got to love it.

But it is all and well that it will remain south. See the boat parade thing is supposedly not canceled because of weather. And it would totally SUCK to have to be on my open boat for that.

More good news is that the thing will probably loose strength, so it has done its worst already. But it went over the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Haiti is dirt poor, and the Dominican Republic is not exactly a wealthy nation either. I am sure that even just the minimal tropical storm conditions messed some people up. And there is no FEMA in Haiti - for better or worse. But when it gets to Mexico, it will just be crappy weather. Nothing too bad, except for some rain.
Some people that read this blog from the frozen north who may or may not have planned a cruise leaving from Ft. Lauderdale should be happy that Olga did not show up around the time that some big boat is scheduled to set sail with them on board.

Last hurricane season saw the Greek alphabet used. There was even a late season "sub tropical" named storm (sub tropical storms have a "cold core", whatever the hell that means).

This season saw a named storm early - before the season was supposed to begin (another of those "cold core" sub tropical storms). The rest of the season was fairly normal - actually slightly above normal, but well within previous observations. There is strong evidence that active hurricane seasons run in cycles. There were 2 major (cat 5) storms. The ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) index however was well below predictions. The storms that did form were weak and mostly short lived. Even with the two category 5 storms, the ACE index was low.

But screwy stuff is going on. And Olga is your proof. In two years, this is the third named storm formed in the tropics OUT of hurricane season.

There Was This Crazy Person Who Lived In A Zoo

Who says you have to be rich to live in a zoo? Anyone can have their own private zoo. Just leave food outside. Really, that is all you have to do. Leave food outside. In no time you will have a zoo.

So what do I have at my zoo? Glad you asked. I just happen to have a new waterproof camera.

This is Gigi. She is the oldest cat. When I got her, she was a sick little kitten who was also wild. She had goopy cat eye disease, so every morning I had to open up her eyes (they would get glued shut overnight from the eye goop) and as soon as she could see me......she would start hissing. Then I would have to give her eye medicine and ear mite medicine and probably other stuff. She is nicer now. Sort of. She will jump up on you when she feels like IF you are sitting in the right chair - but if you touch her too much then she gets pissed off and attacks your hand. Gigi hates all the other cats.

The next oldest cat is Sake.

Sake was rescued from a box of kittens in front of the supermarket. Someone was there giving them away. She is the only cat known to be born to a house cat. She was not wild. But she acts wild. In this photo she is eating. You can not touch the cat or her food while she is eating, or else she growls and smacks you with her paw. She likes to growl and hiss and generally act like a bitch, but she never bites. Sake hardly ever wants to hang out with anyone. You pet her and she gets mad. You pick her up and she gets mad. Try to hold her and all she does is growl. Only when she is in a rare mood will she allow human contact. The glowing eyes are how they really look. It was not caused by the camera flash.

Next up is Fred!

Fred has a slight weight problem. But what does he care? He has no testicles. Therefore he has no desire to impress any girl cats. So why not be fat? I am surprised he has not lost all his fur or developed a bald spot. Fred will bite the shit out of you if you piss him off. And how do you piss off Fred? Hold him against his will. Or you can rub his belly. You can also try to move him when he is comfortable and/or sleeping. Fred likes to sleep with people, so he is known to want to hang out with me at night. But once he is where he wants to be - I am not allowed to move. If Skipper is already hanging out with me Fred will jump up, see Skipper, hiss and growl and get into a squabble - then jump down and go somewhere else.

After Fred came Cleo.

Cleo was semi-wild when I found her. I was looking for another cat that just vanished without a trace, but what I found was Cleo. She was a sick little kitten. She had liquid poop disease. Some sort of allergy or something. I had to give her these little pink pills and after a while the liquid poop just went away. Now she is OK. She is very nice when she wants to be. If I pick her up she does not like it. But she will jump up to hang out with me - if there are no other cats nearby. Skipper loves to chase her around the place, but Cleo does not like it very much.

Skipper is the youngest cat. He was in yesterdays post.

But that is not all! Oh hell no.

This is Max The Lizard. Max is a Savanna Monitor. He likes to eat rats. He will also eat eggs, canned cat food, canned tuna, and pretty much anything made from animal protein that I put in his cage. Max never bites me, but he does puff up and hiss and he tries to whip me with his tail sometimes. I can put Max on a lizard leash - but really he does not care for that too much.

There are also some fish which are currently un-photographed.

Weekend Update WITHOUT Dennis Miller

Time for a weekend update! I had a lot of stuff to do. I was going to get the boat ready for the Winterfest boat parade control boat thing. I was going to wax the hull (I expect to get a ring of two cycle oil on the boat, the wax makes it easier to clean), weld together an orange flashing light holder thing, affix the banners, install a second (temporary) radio, find my extra anchor (I need a stern anchor), make up some more lines, and check my navigation lights to see if they still work.

I got none of that stuff done. But I did make a spy mission to Broward! I am going to launch from the 15th Street Boat Basin. There are only two ramps there, but they are good deep water ramps. Not a lot of parking spaces there either.

Broward County has the shittiest boat ramps I have ever seen. Truly shitty ramps. I am glad I made the spy mission, the park I had picked has TERRIBLE ramps. The ramps are not steep enough and do not get into deep enough water for me to float the boat off without getting the truck wet. I want to avoid dunking the truck into the water. Trucks hate salt water. The 15th Street Boat Basin has steeper ramps, in better condition, that drop off into deeper water than the other place I was going to use.

I also....got a new digital camera! Yes Christmas came early. I now have an Olympus Stylus 790 SW. The SW stands for "shockproof" and "waterproof". This little 7.1 megapixel camera is waterproof to 10 feet for 1 hour. Perfect for boat use. My other Sony camera has a better lens and takes better photos (even if it is only 5 megapixels - megapixels really do not mean very much to be honest - it is all about the optics) - but the Sony is about as waterproof as a towel. One drop in the right place and it is done. I can jump in the water with this Olympus. And it is small (unlike the Sony) so I can carry it around easier. I plan to get the waterproof housing for the thing later. The housing is waterproof to 160 feet. Right now I can use the camera snorkeling but with the housing I can take it diving.

This is a photo of Skipper taken with the new camera. Skipper is on top of Max The Lizard's temporary winter house (a 55 gallon Aquarium). You can see the lizard "heat lamps" in the background, along with some paper towels. Max is not in his inside cage, it is currently warm enough for him to chill in the backyard cage. He likes the backyard cage better than the indoor cage.

The full size photo of Skipper is a little over 3 megs. This is the full resolution of the camera. The photo seems slightly out of focus, but I have not really read the instructions yet. There may be a setting the thing has that takes sharper photos.

What Is Larger Than The Moon?

It seems I promised Scarlet a link. Well I lied. I was going to post a link, and then I found this.

This is even better than a link! Had I just posted a link, you would have to click it and then a window would pop up and you would have to download some MP3 file and then it would play. But this way the link is embedded in the post! Much better.

The You tube thing was inspired by something about the empiricist camp VS the rationalist camp. Rene Descartes was mentioned, and so of course I instantly thought of the Monty Python Drunk Philosopher Song. Rene Descartes was a drunken fart "I drink; therefore I am".

This is how my brain works. I can take anything and reduce it to a silly song and/or some other kind of tom foolery.

Like this little snippet of tom foolery. Did I ever mention I hate that "who wants to be a millionaire" show? Well I just mentioned it if I forgot to do so before. I can not stand idiots. What makes it even worse is when you have to hear some idiot's thought process. You know that they are a friggin moron. You know they do not know their ass from a hole in the ground. Yet, you are forced to listen to them reason shit out and no matter how much you yell at the TV it does no good. They just keep digging that hole.
Yes, elephants are larger than the moon. Seriously I hope this moron left the show with nothing. But she probably made it to the $250,000 question and left with at least that much. America likes idiots. Some people, mostly my mom, keeps saying "but don't you feel sorry for them?".

HELL NO. No way. If you are an idiot and you are dumb enough to think you are smart and get on a TV quiz show and you think elephants are larger than the moon - you deserve whatever you get. As long as that is not $250,000. You deserve pain and humiliation. You deserve years of ridicule. You deserve to be forced to sit through 2nd grade again, because clearly you were smoking pot the first time around.

You know who I feel sorry for? ME! Thats who. Am I on that show? Hell no. The "fastest thumb" questions are usually something retarded, like "which order did celebrities enter the Academy Awards Show?" or something stupid and unimportant.

I SHIT ON THE ACADEMY AWARDS. There. I said it. I shit on the Academy Awards. I do not care who wins, or how many times someone wins. Not in the slightest.

But if I ever did get on a quiz show, they would ask me some sports / celebrity question that I would not know the answer to. The ironic thing is that the average idiot would know these things.

This is why America is doomed - people know who is currently married to who, but nobody knows how many tentacles a squid has (10 by the way). But if you ask me, a squid is far more important than any movie star. I would much rather see a live giant squid than spend a day with ANY celebrity. And you know why? Because the giant squid will not say something stupid that pisses me off. Like "yes I care about the starving people in Africa" while eating a $5,000 dinner flown in from London or "we should all do our part to stop using so much" while making fun of people who fly commercial because that is for poor people who are not important. Or better yet, sporting around in yachts that get 10 gallons per mile. Giant squids would never do any of those things.

And what would I do if I won a million bucks on one of these shows? Probably something stupid. Like getting a larger boat. Something with a cuddy cabin, diesel engines, a generator, and what the hell AC for the cabin. It would have a decent size fresh water tank for showering and a water heater because cold showers suck and so on. And with diesel at the marina approaching $4 a gallon - I would need that million bucks.

Location Is Everything

Good news! I found my missing wallet. It was not where I usually leave it. So I must have put it there and then forgot where it was. This is why I do not panic when I notice something missing. I usually know when I have lost LOST something. But if it is just misplaced - it turns up eventually.

A also found the mother load of motivational and anti-motivational posters! I have shared two already, but there are soooooo many more. Like this one.


How true. Flexibility is almost never, ever over rated. This poster is more of a wisdom poster than an anti-motivational poster. And there are many many many more where this came from. M@ will get a kick out of this one, seeing as how he has discovered that yoga can be porn. Leave it to M@.

In other news - I found some awesome stupid Florida laws! Here they are, with commentary from me.

The state constitution allows for freedom of speech, a trial by jury, and pregnant pigs to not be confined in cages.

It is true. I remember voting for this. It is against the Florida Constitution to keep a pregnant pig confined in a cage. But once it has given birth, it is bacon.

One may not commit any "unnatural acts" with another person.

And who are you to say what is "unnatural"? You know what I think is unnatural? Getting into a metal box that goes 100 mph every morning, just so you can sit in that box for an hour (or more) because all the other metal boxes with people in them prevent you from going any faster than 8 mph, then working under artificial lights for at least 8 hours then getting back into the metal box to go home and watch TV. That shit is unnatural.

Unmarried couples may not commit "lewd acts" and live together in the same residence.

OH COME ON! Are you serious? So where am I supposed to commit lewd acts? The public park? No, that would also be illegal. Living with the person you are committing lewd acts with is the most convenient arrangement. Easy accessibility. Also rent is expensive. But not living together is also good - because it keeps fights down to a minimum. So maybe this is not such a bad law after all? Who knows. But at least if you live together first, you know what you are getting yourself into! Otherwise there could be some ugly surprises.

Corrupting the public morals is defined as a nuisance, and is declared a misdemeanor offense.

OK I get it. Me being drunk in public corrupts the public morals, but some wasting millions of dollars of public money on "consultants" is perfectly OK!??!!? What a bunch of shit. Miami-Dade County has spent millions on worthless consultants. Like the $500,000 spent to study and improve traffic flow. The consultants suggested changing the timing on some traffic lights on Bird Road - which fucked up traffic flow even worse. $500,000 was spent to FUCK THINGS UP MORE than they were already fucked up. So when are we going to lock up some elected officials for "corrupting the public morals"? Huh? I am waiting.
Doors of all public buildings must open outwards.

Now this one is not really dumb. All doors on public buildings open out in case there is a fire. When mobs of people rush at the doors, they will burst open outwards. If they opened inwards, then people would crowd them preventing anyone from opening the door. So they all open out. Pretty slick.

It is illegal to sell your children.

So then what good are they? How is one supposed to turn a profit here? I can sell my car. I can sell my boat. If I had a horse then I could sell that thing too. But I can't sell my children???! What sort of communist bullshit is this?

Women may be fined for falling asleep under a hair dryer, as can the salon owner.

I agree with this stupid law. The smell of burning hair makes me ill. Also, that is the one place on a chick there it does not corrupt the public morals to have hair. So if it burns off - that is just wrong.

A special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday or she shall risk arrest, fine, and/or jailing.

Well no shit. Cant have any unmarried chicks having a parachute accident on Sunday. But once they are married - whatever. The sky is the limit - and then once you are in that sky just bail out of the plane.

If an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle.

Who the fuck has an elephant? And if you have an elephant, who the fuck would leave it tied to a parking meter? What do you do, ride the thing around town like it is a horse or something? See if you or I smoke pot we are lawbreakers and need to be in jail. But when LAW MAKERS smoke pot, they decide that elephant owners have to pay the parking meters just like if they had a car.

It is illegal to sing in a public place while attired in a swimsuit.

I guess this is why there is no poolside karaoke anywhere. I knew there had to be some reason. Next time I catch someone singing in a swimsuit I will bust out with the taser and make a citizens arrest.

Men may not be seen publicly in any kind of strapless gown.

Does this include priests? Yes, I went there. I went there, took pictures, bought a t-shirt, and came back. Also - does this include judges? Those guys are really into fashion.

Having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal.

Did someone try to do this? Seriously if I saw someone about to do this I would not interfere. Love is love after all. Plus it would be funny. I think the porcupine can take care of itself.

When having sex, only the missionary position is legal.

Uhhhhhh......ok.....If you say so.

Oral sex is illegal.

Uhhhhhhh...OK.....If you say so.

You may not fart in a public place after 6 PM.

So do all your farting before 6 PM! Or else, hold it till midnight. I hope that public buildings open after 6 PM stop serving beans at 5:30 PM.

Nothing Has A Place

I finished a motivational poster! Only I am not sure what motivation it is supposed to create. So really it is more like an informational poster. Or better yet - a poster that points out something we all already know.
Now how true is this? Very true. Feel free to steal this poster, I did not really create it. I stole it from somewhere else. I have a ton more that I will use as I see fit.

In other news - not a whole lot going on here. This weekend I have to get the boat ready for Winterfest. I need to figure out how I will attach the signs and banners to the boat. I may also try to make a thing to attach the orange flashing light to. I am thinking I can weld something together that fits into the rod holders at the stern. This will keep the orange flashing light out of my eyes.

I have some sort of holiday party to go to today. It will be OK, but not great. This means only a cash bar. And here I got used to cool parties with open bars where everything is free. Oh well. Better luck next year I suppose.

I have no idea where the hell my wallet is. I had it yesterday. But today???? Who knows. All I know is that it is somewhere. Nobody used any of the credit cards in it and God knows there was no cash at all in it - so I am fairly sure it is not in danger. It is just misplaced. I have to look around for it more tomorrow. I need it because there is some ID in it that will be useful tomorrow. And I may need to liberate some cash from the electronic bank machine so I can partake in some cheer at the cash bar.

My best guess is that I need to check the truck better, or that one of the cats batted the wallet off the table it usually hands out on and under some object. Or I put the wallet down somewhere and then put something else on top of it - obscuring it from view.

This happens all the time. Just last week I had to use my spare truck keys because I "lost" my primary set of keys. They were located under a pile of towels. It seems I dumped a load of clean towels on a little coffee table, right on top of the keys. Out of sight out of mind!

I need to be better organized. But this is just NOT going to happen. People like to say "everything has its place". Well I call bullshit on this. Everything does NOT have its place.

If everything has its place - then where the hell is my place?

Getting Closer

As you all may or may not know, I have been on a quest. A quest to generate hate mail. So far, no hate mail.

So that means I am not trying hard enough! It is not like my secret email address is a secret or anything.

But I have generated some hate comments! Here is a segment of a comment from THIS blog.

"In closing..
You're about as funny as screen door on a submarine.
As far as old goes, I bench press 300 lbs and am ranked 7th in the south pacific Chinese Kempo championship, so blow me !"

So there we go. According to someone even more anonymous than me (this person is using a non-blogger ID and does not leave a link to anything) I am about as funny as a screen door on a submarine.

By the way. I think this was the punch line to a joke I last heard in the third grade. Awesome sit down comedy here! And what is the difference in stand up and sit down comedy? Sit down comedy is not worth standing up for. Jokes I heard in the third grade qualify for this distinction.

Anyhow the old punchline is not why I cross posted this. It is the second part. See I may have accused the guy of being "old" and I may have also given the helpful advice to not get his blood pressure up too high or else he could blow a gasket.

So to "prove" he is not old he had to add that he can "bench press 300 pounds". My ass. Why do people even try to pull this? EVERYONE on the internet can bench large amounts of weight, run 4 marathons a week, free dive at least 500 feet, and has placed in the top 5 riders in the Tour de France.

The "I am a kung-fu" master addition is also typical.

So yea, this guy can bench 300 pounds, is a kung-fu world champion, was some kind of Don Juan during the Kennedy Administration, and can probably leg press more than Pat Robertson.

Why, I better be careful! This ninja master may come over here and bench press the outboard engine off my boat! Then he can leg press the hull, because it only weighs 1900 pounds without the engine (which is already bench pressed off the transom).

This brings up another interesting point. There are no fat bald ugly people on the internet either. EVERYONE is hot. All the hot people are on My Space, sending pictures of themselves to other hot people. Meanwhile, what do I see when I go out? More ugly people than hot people. Clearly because the hot people are all on the internet, and not out in public.

So no - I am not at all impressed by people who make grand claims on the internet. Nor am I intimidated. OHHHH SCARY!

In other. FAR MORE IMPORTANT news - I have my control boat orders for the Winterfest Boat Parade. I am in. No backing out now. I am Control Boat EE (echo echo) and I am to be stationed in the ICW near the Las Olas bridge. I got an orange flashing light! This means I am special. If you have an orange flashing light you are not just some creep off the street! No - you have authority.

Giving someone an orange flashing light is like giving someone a clipboard. You have to be REALLY CAREFUL. I have seen ordinary people turn into Super Supervisor Man when they were handed a clipboard. Did they have any real authority over me? No. Did they think that someone promoted to them to God? Oh yea. Suddenly they had the clipboard and they would be barking orders at others who had the same job title as they had. And there was NO WAY they would put that clipboard down! Oh hell no. They would never hand it off to anyone else either. Not even to go take a leak. The clipboard was power. I found this to be highly amusing.

So yea, I have an orange flashing light. And I have signs and stuff that clearly mark my boat as part of the parade control boat fleet. Get that? FLEET!!! I am part of a FLEET! I have never had this distinction before. I am going to like being in a FLEET. It sounds very naval. I might even pipe some calls - as I have a boatswain's whistle. I need more practice with it however. But the captain (that is me) does not pipe calls. The boatswain (pronounced "bo-son") pipes the calls. So that kind of ruins that. I wonder if they will allow me to carry some 25 pound cannon? You know - for pirates. Problem is the 25 pound cannon would weigh as much or more than my boat, which would probably effect the stability of the vessel.

But I shall not abuse the power of the orange flashing light. The power of the orange flashing light is too powerful to abuse. If allowed to fall into the wrong hands, the fate of the entire universe could be in peril. I must be responsible with my power, and only use it for good.

Really my job is pretty simple. Get to my station early, drop anchor where I think I should drop anchor, and then keep anyone from anchoring beyond my spot. The big boats in the parade need the ICW to be clear, and so I have to hold the line so to speak.

Other duties include NOT drinking a beer till the event is over.

I just hope no ninja masters come by and bench press my outboard engine! I am going to need that thing.

Très Passionnant

Well Tuesday was boring as all hell. I was able to make it by Bass Pro to get some fenders, but that was it. I sort of needed the fenders anyway. So now I have em. They look like the fender pictured here. I have two of them. I have both them on one piece of line, which can run the entire length of the boat. I would like to get two more. The two fenders I already had can now be used as walking fenders. Something like that anyway.

Really the boat was lacking fenders. I would still like to get two more. Then I will have 4 good fenders, and two older smaller fenders I can use as walking fenders. Then I will be good. 19 feet of boat and 6 fenders means one fender for every 3.16 feet of boat - if I only need to fender off one side. If I have to fender off the port and starboard side, there is 38 feet of boat - but even then this is one fender for every 6 1/3 feet.

See now that is exciting! Well not really. But it was the most excitement I got all day. BORING! boring days just drag on and on and on and on and never seem like they are going to end. It is like everything is running at half speed - except you. One hour seems like two or three. You just look at the clock, thinking to yourself "tick faster you piece of shit!!". But it never ticks any faster. It just keeps going on at super slow speed.

But today will be different. Not really. I get to drive to Ft Lauderdale to go to some meeting. The meeting is mandatory and therefore can not be weaseled out of. Even the best weasel could not weasel out of it. I dislike driving to Broward County, unless chicks are somehow involved. See I am a Dade County person. Dade County people do not venture into Broward County, and Broward County people do not venture into Dade. I do not know how the roads in Broward work. If you say "take Andrews Ave to whatever street" that does not help me at all. Where is Andrews? And does it run north/south or east/west? Where is it in relation to other roads? If the road runs north/south then where do I find it - does it run through central Broward, east Broward, west Broward? Beats the shit out of me. I have no idea. It is a mystery.

So I avoid the place. Contrast this to Dade, where if you say "NW 79 ST" I know exactly where that is. No problem.

The meeting that can not be weaseled out of is for the Winterfest Boat Parade. It seems I get to be a control boat for this thing this year. I have no idea what that will involve. But it should be fun. I get to watch an ass load of large expensive (a million bucks is chump change to drop on a real yacht) boats all decorated with Christmas lights and shit float down the ICW. My job is to.....uhhhhh.....I do not know what my job is yet. This is why I have to go to the meeting. They will tell me what I have to do at the meeting.

The fun part is that I have NEVER taken my boat into Broward County waters. Never. But it will be easy to navigate, the ICW in Broward is pretty much a man made canal. Deep and somewhat wide and no obstructions or shallow spots and stuff. No problem.

As this is my first year - it will likely be something easy. Easy is good. Easy means less work. Easy means more time to watch the parade and less things to do. Less things to do means less time with the engine running which also means less gas consumed. Ill pack a camera so I can take some photos of stuff I see. If I can find my digital camera. I put it somewhere - and now I can not find the stupid thing. This sucks. So I may have to borrow one.

This is why I needed to get the fenders today. If I am going to be in congested waters with boats a whole lot more expensive than mine - I want lots and lots of fenders. I do not want to deal with some jackass who thinks I scratched their boat gel coat finish. I do not need that drama.

But at least I will finally see the boat parade. It is somewhat famous. You may even be able to watch it on the TV. It is broadcast world wide. Why - I have no idea. Really it is just a bunch of boats with Christmas lights floating down a saltwater canal. I have never gone out to see the thing, nor have I ever watched it on TV. I will see it this year however.

Artsty Fartsy

There is some sort of art event going on here. I may go check it out. It has to do with Dadaism - better known as strange art films. It was a whole movement back in the early part of the 20th century. That is about all I know of it.

The feature of the event is a piece called "Ballet Mecanique". Here is the soundtrack to the film.

What you see are 16 player pianos, 4 xylophones, a siren, a gong, some alarm bells, and a bunch of industrial fans - all played by robots. The original score called for player pianos - but as there were no plater xylophones some humans were needed. The problem was that there was no way to coordinate all the pianos properly.

So the person who wrote this piece never heard it performed properly. And neither will we, as the original score called for airplane propellers. But at least there are computers now that can synchronize all the other things.

In another twist, the soundtrack is twice as long as the film. It seems that the film maker never told the composer how long to make the music last. And I think that the film was made before "talkies" so I have no idea how the whole thing was supposed to work in the first place.

But somehow I think this was the point of Dadaism.

And how about the film? Well I found this on You Tube. I do not know if this is the whole film or not. It is silent.



So it is in town till December 11. This means I have to go see it when I can - for the exhibition will not be here forever. This is a good thing, because if it was not going to be a limited time thing I would just say "hey that is cool - but Ill go some other time". I would keep saying this forever and probably never go.

Like the Winterfest Boat Parade. I have lived in South Florida all my life and have never gone to the stupid boat parade. This could be due to my total lack of interest in it. Also I know it is here every year - so I always think "Ill just go next year" and of course I never go. I also do not want to put up with the traffic and idiots and all, just to see a bunch of boats with Christmas lights on them. Yawn. Don't care.

But this year will be different. I might be a control boat for the event. If this is the case I can watch the event from the water while doing something "official" for the event. Whatever this is.

Blog Blackmail

No Sunday post till I get more comments for the Saturday post.