Worst Phonetic Alphabet

Please let me know if you can think of worse examples.

• Ate
• Bait
• Call
• Date
• Eight
• Four
• Gnome
• High
• Idiom
• Jake
• Knife
• Loofa
• Moon
• Noon
• One
• Phone
• Qatar
• Right
• Sea
• Tsing
• Uno
• Vex
• Wright
• Xerxes
• Yam
• Zander

Computers be funny peoples.

In my current post I talk to quite a few computer owners. On the fringes of owners I find you have the people who bought the lowest cost system they could and are expecting it to run every software out there at blazing speed. Counterpose that with older e-mail only user who buys a high end loaded system that has way too many features that they will never use.

Case in point. My buddy Shoo is what you would easily classify as a 'High End' computer user. Lord High Programing guru lord of the Dance kinda guy. He has multiple systems and one of which sounds pretty high end. Loaded with features that Shoo could easily take advantage of. However having the added complexity isnt always bestest. His Sound card appears to be capabable of doing many wonderful things. Shoo, really hasnt done much more then just let it run under whatever settings it had from the get go.

With our using VOIP for playing games his sound is doing some odd things. some very annoying. There is a complex number of settings and trying to configure it for both the game and VOIP can be a challange.

Last night he jumped on his older system and that sound works great for the VOIP. Probably a less sophisticated card as well, it works as expected.

Did you know?

85% of all statistics are fabricated?

good ole fashion war.

It must be really tough for a military leader now when a war has to be fought with great restraint. Putting your own mens welfare after the 'enemies'.

It did not used to be that way. Once upon a time it was two different leaders or governments have a disagreement and have people fight for them. The winner was the one left standing and they would then take the other leaders people and lands adding them to thier own. or they would decimate the others holdings making the value nil. Brutal and simple, Romans were good at this, Carthage anyone?

No real simple answer to the question are wars bad? Depends on the war, which depends on the winner, which depends on what the war was about.

'Wars are bad cuz people die', is a really bad criteria for defining wars badness.

I think the worst idea is to have a political body run a war.

Truth - a vanishing breed

Was thinking on my walk into work today. That truth and honesty appear to be laking. The TV news is agenda biased and would make Goebbels quite proud.

Newspapers have the same issues, probably cuz of AP. Science used to be about theory and proofs, until something becomes political like Global Warming or Stem Cell research.

Then its only enough 'fact' to prove your point. Recently I had someone tell me that lies and decet are a good thing as long as they motivate people to do conform to certain behaviour.

Pretty scary stuff. Very elitest as well. Be wary when someone says "You should listen to me and do what I say because I know better then you"

Trivia Answers for yaz!

Patrick "Eel" O'brian - Plastic Man

Ralph Digby - The Elongated Man

Monkey D Luffy - Manga "One Piece"

Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastick

The commonality is they are all shape shifters of the 'rubber man' variety.

memrys o durwood

Shoo and Rob both have younger brothers. Shoo has two, the youngest is Darren, pictured to the left in front of a much younger myself. (note: the stylish suspenders).

So once upon a time, we are at Shoos gaming, either Risk or early D&D. In the background is playing Queens album, A Night at the Opera. One of the more interesting tracks"The Prophet's Song" is a series of chants Brian May put together.

Darren at that time was in his playpen and after the song ended we heard this lone little voice chanting "now I know' over and over just like in the song.

Trivia Questions for yaz!

What is the commonality?:

• Patrick O'Brian
• Ralph Dibny
• Monkey D. Luffy
• Reed Richards

psyco

Not saying I ever would be so inclined. However, every so often. Usually after a particularly trying experience or dealing with a particularly trying individual. The kind of experience\individual that really tests your patients, resolve and endurance.

When times like this occur, particularly after a long day at work, I can somwhat start to understand, in some small mote in my mind, the incentive behind getting a high powered rifle and climbing up to a high perch.

Not sayign I would be so inclined.

Manager Spin

The company I work for tends to spin bad news as if it was good news.

Example: No no no, your not getting an enema, your getting a COLONIC!!! woohoo! its a good thing!!

They did a salary restructuring where everyone was 'leveled' to the same base wage before comission. This means that someone working there for two months got a big ole raise, while the people there for four years got a nickle or so more. This was a 'good thing' because everyone gets more money.

To me it wasnt a good thing because it devalued my knowledge and contributions in the past.

institutionalized

My friend Shoo's mom worked at a State Mental hospital. This was an mysterious set of buildings with a high fence and a large greenbelt (and golf course) between the fence and the campus. I went there once to help Shoo with a boy scout project and I recall being very ill at ease with the people there. I have some guilt around my feelings towards them, in retrospect, at the same time it was my first encounter with the 'mentally challanged' and I really did not have any idea what to expect.

I did learn that you needed to remove the cupcake papers before passing out the cupcakes and you can expect to get hugged.

I wonder if there was some social paradigm that certain people needed to be isolated or removed from view or if that concept came after the idea of having a ' safe place' for 'those' people.

Tina's works in a classroom with challanged kids and they have them participate in the various classrooms as much as they can. So you have a school full of kids that are accepting of certain truths of life. Seperation and isolation leads to lack of tolerance, and is caused by lack of understanding.

Environmentalism Jihad

Islamists and Environmentalists have provided serious perception issues for the masses.

Giants in our time.

Back in the non-pc days of the 60's our boy scout meetings used to end with a full contact game of capture the flag or british bulldogs.

For one reason or another Shoo (see link to the right) and I were masters of Bulldogs.

The game consisted of running from one side of a field to the other side without being tackled by the person who was 'it'.

I could stop Shoo solo and he could stop me solo. But, that was about it. More times then I can remember it would boil down to the two of us being the final and similerly being drug down by multiple people and even dragging them across the field as well.

My favorite story involved a particularly game where me and shoo would run side by side as a juggernaut. Shoo realized they were going to use this against us next run so we opted to seperate and moved to opposit ends of the line. At the call I started to run and broke right and was slammed and slammed hard. I lost my footing and wondered who the heck had hit me that hard. looking around I did not see my attacker however, about where the impact took place, laying on the ground was Shoo. We had blindsided each other. Of course per the rules neither of us where out, I gasped out an explination something like "Shoo, get up, your not out... It was me"... He Popped to his feet and we survived a couple more runs. I kinda wish my folks had let me play football on defensive line next to Shoo.
We coulda be Giants in our time.

Motorbike and me

Once upon a time I borrowed a friends motorbike. It was fun and it was transportation and it was something I did not want my folks to know about.

I was over 18 and... well... stupid, quite frankly.

My dad rode motor bikes, he probably would have been fine with it and mom would have begrudgingly accepted the idea after some discussion (banter). However, I sidestepped and paid a price obliquely.

I was heading up harbor blvd. and I ended up rear ending an LTD station wagon. I do not recall the impact, not even if I was on the ground or not. Directly afterwards I knew enough to get out of the middle of the road so I kind of scrambled to the sidewalk. Around the time I made it there I realized that I couldnt breathe, so I slowly sank to the ground figuring I was going to pass out then die. Looking up, from my prone position I saw a police officer, oblivious to my plight at the front of the light. Also, a car load of girls next to me, looking and possibly screaming at the cop.

Then I inhaled. Elapsed time, maybe 30 seconds total. The cops where there, the bike was moved to an ex-taco bell parking lot. The Ambulance showed up with a male and female EMT, the female had a tough time and damn near dropped me at the hospital.

Results. a wrecked friends bike, A bruise where the helmet hit my upper chest (full face helmet), twin bruses across my upper thigh (handlebars), missing the naughty bits by a couple centimeters. Finally I got a unique looking five horizontal evenly spaced scars across my kneecap courtesy of the cooling fins.

It was late and I did not feel that getting chewed out by my parents, even deservedly so, would be anything that could 'cheer me up'. So after release I called up Robert G. (link on the right). And interuppted his dial up connection to a BBS enough that he hung up the phone and I could catch a ride.

I recall getting into his car and it being a rather quiet ride home. Still it allowed me to save face till the wee hours of the morning. Then it hit the fan.

Thanks for the ride Rob. Sorry for being stupid mom and pop.

Oh, you should note that since that time no other young person has ever done anything stupid....

Mom .vs. Army part deux!

With my brothers tour of duty comming to an end there was much anticipation of Kraig comming back home. My mom was worried dispite him being in one of the more safer places during 'Nam.

Then a letter arrived. Due to a shortage of man power the relief for his base had been delayed so he would be there for an additional two to four months.

This prompted my mother to again pull out her pen and paper and send off a missive to the powers that be. "You took my son and that was fine, he has served his time and now I want him home. If you do not have enough people then draft more, my son has served and he is NOT going to stay one more day past his time" (paraphrased)

My brother was called into the CO's office and asked to take a seat. As one might guess he had an idea it had something to do with mom... The CO sat for a bit in uncomfortable slience.

"I am not quite sure who your Mom is or who she knows. but, somehow she has been able to do in two weeks Something I have been tryign to do for six months, get relief assigned here."

With that he informed my brother he would be going home on time and asked Kraig to PLEASE, inform his mother.

Personally, I would love to get my hands on moms letters to the army.

Skating

I have the ability to skate and to skate well. This, to me, means I am just as comfortable on my skates as I am on me feet. While I am by no stretch of the imagination one of those half-pipe, grinding, back-flipping, eXtreme skater. Still I am accomplished.

I have Mad Skillz.

I had a group of friends, associated with my Catholic Young Adults group who decided that adult skate night would be fun. I went along even though at the age of 19 I could not skate... at all..

As time passed none of them were skating, yet I was, then I started working at the rink. I bought a sweet pair of quads, stainless steel with a upgraded jump bar (that I still broke). My buddy Eric got me into a roller hockey team and I found out that Quads have no protection against hockey sticks.

So I got some hockey stakes. My last pair are really nice thick and tight but on occasion I will bruise one of my toes while skating. I think I need a pad or something above the little gap in the hard shell of the toe.

A couple weeks back I took Connor to a possible b-day party at the rink. Connor is athletic and over the two hours his ability and confidence grew remarkably. He really had a good time.

So Sundays they have a Parents go free with child. Diana and Trevor where in tow and again we had wheels meet wood. Connor continued to improve. Even would let go of my hand for a few seconds at a time.

The few laps I could do solo did bring back alot of good feelings that have been dormant for quite some time. Gotta go back again.

US Army vs my mom

Kraig, my brother was drafted into the army during the Vietnam war. He served in Okinawa, never saw any combat and learned all about real Humidity. During his tour he would regularly correspond with my mom. This was the pencil and paper with Envelope and stamp kinda missive. No Internet or cell phone or any such. Keeping in touch is much easier now by quite a leap.

I am not quite sure how it came about but I believe that in one of his letters he mentioned his feet were getting tore up because his boots did not fit well. Kraig had very narrow feet.

My mom wrote off to either our senator or someone in power and with poison pen in hand ranted on that here they took her boy across the ocean and despite all the tax dollars could not get him shoes that fit. This was unknown to my bro, of course.

A short time later the CO (commanding officer) called Kraig into his office. Wondering what was going on he was asked to sit down. The CO then took the new pair of Army Issue boots that were on his desk and asked my brother to put them on. Kraig complied, still not quite sure what to make of the situation. The CO asked him to walk around the office and see if they fit well. They did.

Then continuing in the same level voice the CO asked "Are you are satisfied with the fit of these boots?" He was, "Could you please... Inform you Mother that the US Army has now provided you with proper gear?"

To which Kraig replied with an embarrassed affirmative.

Lesson? Never mess with a Mom where her kids are concerned.