I'm not dead

I feel a bit like it, but I am not.

I have been working on a project (project number 2 actually) for the Interior Design course I am on.

Project two was a living room, a bathroom and a kitchen for a house here in London. I present the stuff I cobbled together tomorrow (that would be thursday to those not sitting here in the room with me) at 15:40 if anyone wants to come see the show. I doubt it will be that exciting, so feel free to stay home tucked in your beds.

In other news, London is in the grips of an Arctic blast. Those of you that think Climate change is a joke should come to my flat and sit by the door for an hour. Given that London has a mild climate all year round, no one saw fit to put any sort weather stripping or insulation in the old Victorian Brick homes. The 50 mph, arctic winds are whipping through my flat like it was made of tissue paper. I think I am going to go out today and buy a roll of weather stripping of the door into the lift. I have a draught excluder excluding the draughts from under the door, but they are still coming in around the edges.

So just to recap, I am alive. I am cold and I am working hard on my schooling. With any luck, I will be back to posting once I get caught up with all my school work. Or, I will have a real job and not be able to post because I am busy making money.

I heard somewhere that it was all about the Benjamins. What making a living and being happy has to do with the captain of the Mary Celeste, I will never figure out. But, if that is what the kids are saying, then it must be true. It has to be true, right? I read it on the interwebs.

Dear America,

Grow up.

I was reading this morning on the BBC that America is minting more $1 Dollar Coins even though the American public is resistant to them. In my typical fashion, I have a way to get Americans to suck it up and start using the new dollar coins that are cheeper to produce, last way longer and just look cooler than dollar bills.

Step one. Issue a press release saying that dollar bills (the paper ones) will be no longer be accepted as real money. You can change them at your local bank for coins for the next few months, but starting on X date, they are no longer considered money. And before you get your pants in a wad, it happens here every so often when they change the notes. I found an old 20 the other day and swapped it at the bank for a proper one.

Step two. Follow through with it. Not like that dumb-ass "switch to digital" thing that cable was supposed to do. Actually stop taking the money. Full Stop.

The article quotes US Mint Director Edmund Moy saying, "We have tried every major idea that we can come up with, with limited success." Really? Have you tried telling people that dollar bills are no long going to be accepted? I didn't think so. The article goes on to say that legislation halting the use of paper dollar bills or halting the minting of the coins would not likely pass given the partisan condition of congress at the moment, and to that I say "America! Grow UP!"

Good hell, if most of the countries in the G8 (of which you are a member) have stopped circulating paper singles due to their short lifespan (just a few years versus four decades for a coin) what makes you so good that you have to keep them? Is it the massive strength of the American Economy? Is it just because America is so cool? Is it because we have Sarah Palin and she is looking out for us and representing america? If America would switch to the coin from the paper, it would save between 500 and 700 million dollars a year. That is enough to put a dent in the health care coverage cost, or if you prefer blowing shit up, buy a few new planes and maybe a tank* or two.

I will admit. There might be a potential side effect from switching to the dollar coin from the dollar bill. Someone is going to have to retro-fit all the vending machines that so many school-children get their lunch from every day. Plumbers are going to have to buy belts to hold their trousers up from the extra pocket weight. But you know what I call that? Job Creation! Sorting the vending machines out alone should knock a percent point off the unemployment rate. There are factories in Detroit just housing crack addicts, lets put them to good use! 

In closing, President Obama, Congress, and Americans at large, here is a small ladder. Please step down off of your high horse, and join the rest of the world in coinage use. Use the money you save to fund a school, or feed children, or buy Haiti, (I bet property rates there are low) or tanks, guns, bombs and bullets to take over Mexico and end the immigration dispute. I don't care what you do with it but it kills me to hear you argue about the cost of something America needs (schools, police, health care) when you are pissing away money on something you don't (dolla, dolla bills, y'all).

And while we are on the subject of growing up, can you please learn to use your Inside Voice when you are inside? If not I am going to give you a time out and you are all going to have to sit on your bed for the next ten years and think about what you have done. 

*That isn't really a tank. It is a Self-propelled artillery vehicle capable of launching 155 mm rounds 42 kilometers downrange, at a rate of 10 a minute. That means it can blow your house up from two towns away then start in on the surrounding neighborhood just for practice. Mexico, we are coming for you. 

The nice man at Apple.

Say what  you will about the Evil Apple Empire. They may throw little Chinese men that loose the secret new products out upper story windows, they might call you all idiots for holding your phone wrong, and they may come out with a brand-new, must-have product the day after you bought the old one, but they are good with the customer service.

I went into the Apple store on Regent street today and was gobsmacked by the horde of people standing in queue waiting to buy something. I got ready to be pissed off and angry at the first people I spoke to -- this stems from the fact that I was 8 minutes late to my appointment at the Genius bar because tourists don't understand what to do in London when it rains. Did you not buy the guide book? It rains here. Often. Be prepared. Sheesh! Anyway, late to my appointment, went to the wrong genius bar (because  there are two now) but the nice lady let me into  the queue anyway. Woo Hoo!

I was promptly collected from the queue by a nice man named Nick, but not before I sent off a quick pic to my little brother. (He too is an Apple Genius and works in Phoenix.*) I knew that this nice man's name was Nick because the Appleites wear little tags around their necks. Nick asked me what the problem was and I explained that the vibrate feature on my iphone has started thinking it is 1990 and it should sound like this 'WAAAAAHHH!' Instead of the nice 'Bzzzzt' that I was used to. With it wailing like that, I can't say I didn't hear it when people call me and I can't be bothered to answer. Nick looked at my phone, listened to the noise a couple times then asked me if it was okay if he gave me a new one. 

UH... Okay. If you have to give me a brand new one, I guess I can deal with that. He grabbed a new one out of the back. Swapped my SIM and asked if I was going straight home? Otherwise he would have tried to collect my data from the old phone and pass it on to the new one... As it was Stupid-Busy in the store, I said I would just go home. I signed to say I had collected the new pieces and was on my way. But not before Nick very patiently explained how I would get all my old info back onto the phone. What a trooper. 


I was so impressed with the staff at the store, that I started looking around at iphone cases. This was a bad idea as I was elbowed aside by four different people trying to be in the same spot I was standing. Given the crowd at the ipod/iphone case area, I thought I would walk over and look at the bags for my Mac Book Pro.  Somehow, the assish customers followed me to this, the least popular section of the store and again attempted to stand in my back pockets while I looked at laptop sleeves. Obviously, this is not the time or place to attempt to purchase anything, so I crowed back down the stairs to gawp at the queue waiting to pay. On the way out the door, I think I figured out what all the people were doing there. 


London is plagued blessed with a load of tourists right now. It is so bad in my area, that you can't walk down the streets at night from the mass of bodies toking up at the hookah cafes on my street and the council is so fed up that it has started clamping cars outside Harrods. What do those drivers think? That they own the place or something?  We have rules in this country and the number one rule is "No aviators in my neighborhood. Especially after dark." Personally, I think they clamped the cars because they are painted such a hideous color. I don't care if it is the livery of the Royal Family. Toothpaste Blue is not a color for a supercar. 




* Notes: Thank you Apple. Please don't shut off my accounts because I said you tossed an Asian out the window. 
If anyone is curious about my little brother and his new baby (that would be my Niece) you can track the progress of her little, cue-ball head on her own blog. She updates about half as much as I do but, to be fair, she can't really read or write and she just got teeth. But I am sure she will be driving next week. Ask her mom.  

Not Ranting Today

Okay, It has come to my attention that I have been on a bit of a tear and done nothing except rip into people, places and or things. I apologize for that. Not so much for the rants, that is kind of what I do, but for the monotony of non-stop ranting.

On to happier things. The nice men at BP have finally plugged the leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I think they finally got it stopped by doing what should have been done in the first place. Putting a new cap thing on the leaky bit. If there was ever any proof  that the company was run by men, this was it. Their approach to the leak was that of any man faced with the prospect of home improvement, no directions needed, We got this. 

I imagine all the engineers were sitting at one of their houses smoking and drinking beers with "fixes" sketched on napkins when one of their wives walked by and said, "Why don't you just go over to the B&Q (That would be Home Depot in the States) and buy a new one?" One week later, the problem is solved.
What the BP guys really should have done was called Norm Abram. He would have knocked together a new cap for them out of New England Ash with a decorative, Hickory inlay held together with some Epoxy to waterproof the wood. He loves that stuff.

I was thinking about all the oil we lost and it came to me that we aren't making any more of this stuff are we? We are pretty sure what  oil is made of right? It used to be carbon-based life forms. Dinosaurs, Plants and the like, that have been buried for a few million years and have turned into crude oil that we then refine and burn. We are taking from the source, but not putting back. Personally, I think it is high time we did, and of course I have a plan.

First we will need an empty oil well. Texas is full of these and no one is using them for anything right now. Then we will need a lot of carbon-based life forms. Namely, dead people. We will then drop the dead people down these empty oil wells, cap them off and leave a note for future generations to "Dig Here". Simple as that.

You might think that dumping dead people down a big open hole is a bad idea or callous or some other bullshit. It isn't. It is the same thing a million of you choose to do right now. I am just asking you to do it in one location and to leave out the addition of the toxic cocktail. Currently, we like to fill our dearly departed with a mix of Formaldehyde, Methanol and Ethanol to keep them fresh and shiny for all eternity. The US alone buries approx. 20 million liters of the stuff a year. That really can't be good for the environment as Formaldehyde is a Class 1 Carcinogen.

My solution eliminates the toxic burritos left all over the world, cuts carbon emissions and gives back to future generations. What could be wrong with that? Or sure, Aunt Sally won't have any where to go cry on Memorial Day. What is the difference of going to cry over a rock and going to cry over a rock that sits on top of a box that holds another box filled with toxic sludge?    

I have included my proposed idea with a wonderful graphic. Think of it as giving something back. Grandma would want it that way.

Tea (for a change)

I woke up this morning to lovely, overcast skies, puddles on the ground and smell of sweet-sweet rain in the air. Brilliant! Some of you might be thinking, "What sort of nut likes cloudy, overcast days?"
This sort. I didn't move to London for the 90 degree temps and the dust-dry gardens. If I wanted that, I would be living with my niece in Air-Conditionerville, AZ. But I don't live there. No offense to all the nuts that like it a brain-boiling, 116 degrees Fahrenheit (the projected high for Thursday, 15 July) but I prefer to go outside and not die.
Right, where was I? Oh, this morning. I woke up to lovely overcastness and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. As it was chilly in the flat and overcast, it was a perfect morning for a big mug of Lapsang Souchang. Lapsang is a bit like Sarah Palin. You either love it, or you go around the globe trying to convince others that, not only is she as stupid as a bag of hammers, she is the figurehead of everything that is WRONG about America and a vote for her is a vote for Hitler except this time it won't just be Jews. It will be a Hitler with boobs that hates brown people, animals, free speech, the environment, atheists, children, and the elderly. Okay. Maybe Lapsang is not EXACTLY like Sarah Palin. Although, I have been told she smells like a bushfire or burning tires and on that glowing endorsement, I should like her because I love Lapsang Souchong, it is amazing. Sarah, not so much.

I enjoyed my first cup of smokey tea so much, that I promptly made another then another. Then I spent a lot of time going to the loo. (My tea mug is pretty big.) Between wees, I was reading on the BBC about this Moat character that declared war on the police after shooting his ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend and a cop that was minding his business, eating a donut. I read that his family is upset that he shot himself with a shotgun. Now, let me be honest. I am sure I would be upset if someone in my family shot themselves. But if they shot themselves after they shot their ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend, a cop eating a donut, then called the cops to declare war on them... I would think to myself, what a stupid bastard. And now, now there is an inquest into the cops because they might have tasered him. Oh, come on. I suppose the Irish nutters that dropped a block of concrete on a cop and the ones that beat the hell out of the other cops with lumber, pipes, bricks and petrol bombs should get a stern talking to and given a tenner for their troubles?

This is why I am not a cop. The first time some hoodie-wearing twats took a swing at my fellow cop with a 2x4, I would have shot him. Just in the leg. Then the ones that came to help him would have gotten shot too. And unless they have already sired children, I would be doing a public service. People that stupid shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. Ugh.

And now that I sound like Sarah Palin, I am going to find something cute to look at on the interwebs. Oh, look a kitten. What is that Mr. Kitteh? I should calm down?
I think I will make another cup of smoky tea, add a dram of single malt to it and do just that. Good day to you, sir.

Blogger's Note: I realise this post was all links and no pics, and that makes Jack a dull boy. Or a very boring blog to read. I hope the kitten at the end made it all worthwhile. Oh, and I am certain that Sarah Palin is the Devil's minion. She is not smart enough to be the Devil herself. 

Old Man ranting.

I will admit it right now. I am an Old Man.

I like to be in bed early, I enjoy my tea, wearing my slippers with my pipe, kids didn't look/act like this when I was younger... the whole thing. I have been an Old Man for awhile now, but it is getting worse. It was pointed out to me when I had a friend staying over. We were talking about playing the guitar and I was listing off the things that I could play at the time. She is couple years younger than me but remarked that I only listened to Old Guy Music. Ouch. Thanks Rani. (Shortly after her comment, I exiled her to Turkey.*)

I had another moment just the other day. A person walked past me on the street wearing headphones. Now, please don't get me wrong, I have headphones. My flat is littered with them. I have a pair tucked in the pocket of every jacket I own. I wear them at the Gym, on runs, on the tube, when I hear American accents at street crossings. I am not talking about the tiny, miracle, earbuds that are on the market. The ones that pump loads of sound deep into your ear canal so others don't have to hear your music. Those don't bother me in the least. I am talking about the ridiculous people sporting the giant, John Peel mega headphones walking down the street.

You, Hipster Twits. Is the world such a bother that you need to blot it out with giant headphones plugged into your tiny MP3 players? Is that your attempt at Irony? I am aware that you are attempting to make some sort of statement. Something about how cool you are to be listening to music. We get it. This is my return statement to you:
John Peel wore those giant things on his head because he was a damn fine DJ that worked on radio. You are not. You are a pathetic, style-junkie attempting to be "Retro" because that is the current trend. I am glad that you choose to wear the giant cans because it keeps the brain-melting drivel that you play focused into your own head. Thank you, at least, for keeping Usher to yourself.

We may well be SO boring that you simply must blot out our very existence with the magic of your latest Shakira vs Lady Gaga Mash-up playing over the beat of The Killers with the all auto-tuned vocals, but here is what happens when you have your noise canceling, mega-cans stuck on your head. You get so far up your own arse that you forget that the rest of the world is actually happening. You are so deep into yourself that you begin to weave back and forth along the pavement and block my ability to walk past you and your ridiculous headgear. I am waiting for you to blindly wander out into traffic and because you can't hear the blare of horns and the squeal of rubber on asphalt, get hit by the oncoming bus thus removing yourself from the rest of humanity --yet causing a huge delay to people wearing ear buds, riding the bus, trying to listen for their stop.

I realize that anything that has to do with the rest of the world at large has no bearing on you and vintage ear cannons and that I am just a grumpy old bugger at 35 filled with contempt for you kids now days. I also realize that by wearing your giant headphones, you are labeling yourself as an anti-social dweeb, but one that is too polite to let other people hear the wonder that is your music. You must be ashamed of it on some level.

I am going to start packing a small pair of scissors with me and I am going to nip the wire on your silly headphones when I see you. After I snip the wire and pass you, if you figure out what happened. I am going to run off. And you will be stuck there with your ruined headphones and no music because you either: A) have your trousers around your knees, B) are wearing skinny-jeans so tight you can't breathe, C) have your long, Justin-Beiber-fringe hanging in your face and can't see anything D) have on platform shoes/untied trainers/sandals and socks or something else just as stupid. Your chances of catching me are nil. And if you did catch me, you would just cry because you are so Emo and your "Mum gave you those headphones for Christmas" ~Sniff~.

Wankers.

Side Note: I actually know people that own massive headphones. They are web designers that need to focus while in a noisy office atmosphere, or DJ's that actually use them to hear a song while blaring another. For a very cool Music Site, please visit a friend of mine over at Head Underwater. His name is Jimmy and we used to work together.

Oh, and I may be a grumpy old man at 35, but if you dips on the pavement can not walk any faster, move to the bloody side! Single file is not the end of the world. There is no reason you have to walk six people abreast. Noah went two-by-two, if it was good enough to save all the animals on the planet, (although we know that didn't really happen. Where did he put 2 million beetles?) then it is good enough for you damn tourists.

*My friend Rani is actually traveling around the world right now by herself. Turkey is just her first stop. How gutsy is she? 

Dear Japan.

I grew up in a land-locked state in the country that ran the Whaling game for the longest time. I should either be supportive of it, or indifferent about it, but I am still passionately against it. Odd. I am not really passionate about anything else. I guess we all need a hobby.

I was thinking this morning (in the shower. All the best ideas come to me in the shower) and I have a way that whalers can get a little support and a little less derision. The need to change their tactics. I think the reason the public (and me) gets so upset with the whole Whaling thing is the WAY that you hunt them. Waiting on the surface until they come up for air, then blasting them with an exploding harpoon? Where is the sport in that? You might as well blast them out of the water with a missile.  

Maybe it is living in England, but I have a pretty good sense of Fair Play, and to me, blasting a whale out of the water with a nuke is not very fair. The Whale has no chance at all.  BUT, if you caught them a different way, you might be able to get the public support behind you. It is the brutal method that people are really down on. Minke whales are of the Rorqual family and they eat krill as well as other smaller fish like, herring, cod, and pollock. That means they can be caught on a line like other sport fish. And not that long line crap that they use for Swordfish. I am talking Pole and Line (also known as Bait Boat*) type that they use to catch Tuna. That way you are only getting the stupid whales. 

The boat would go to the Whaling grounds, and toss a bunch of bait out, then wait until the whales are chowing down and start dropping lines over the side to attempt to get one to bite on a hook. I am sure they make a braided line that will hold 8 tons. If not, you will be creating jobs and advancing science. Once you hook into one, a brave fisherman would have to hang on for dear life until it was tired enough to get to the boat, then the whale would be weighed, and measured to make sure it was within the legal limits. Then it could be dispatched, quickly. I am sure you could employ sport fishermen that are tired of catching 1000 lb Swordfish. What is catching a half-ton sword when you could fight an 8 ton Minke Whale on a spinning rig? Even if you were too lazy to hire someone, you could buy a hydraulic system to control the drag and eventually bring the whale to the boat. 

And the best part, once you change over to the new Line-Caught Minke Whales, you could get your own series on the Discovery Channel! They had the Crab guys, and the Sword boat guys, even the Whale Wars guys that are trying to stop you. If you could get the Discovery Channel on board, get Mike Rowe to do the voice-overs, add in some scripted drama about twisted lines, health problems, financial troubles, and the like, you could turn this whole thing around. If anyone could make the public care about Whale Killers it is Mike. 

Be careful though, Minke Whales are a favorite food of my Navy. And if you harm any members of my personal Navy, Army, or Marine Corps, I will take it as an act of war and you should not be surprised when you find a pack of Hyena in your living room when you get home. We know where you live and the family dog works for us.
Speaking of my Military, I have added a new group to the Navy. A Submarine Corp consisting of sperm whales (60 + feet long, Sonar guided and able to dive 3 kilometers below the surface) for the heavy work and Manta Rays for lighter deployment. Okay. I chose the rays just because they look cool swimming in formation. If only I could get one of these...

So Japan, Give me a call. I think I can help sort this Whaling thing out. Until then, I am not buying a Toyota or Honda.

*Fishing Methods

**Thanks for the Pic