Make It So

I won't deny I'm a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

But I have a list of questions I'd dearly love the answers to. The only couple of times Brigitte got stuck watching it with me (It's really good! I'd say, No explosions and great plots!) I drove her nuts with my questions.

I will now share them with you!

How come there is not a sheet of paper anywhere in existence on the U.S.S. Enterprise? What do you do when you have to make a trip to the commissary to get stuff for dinner? Laser the list on the back of your hand? Oh, I forgot -- there IS no commissary because one cooks any more.

(When they're not fighting the Borg they're "replicating" dinner. Now would you eat a replicated Kraft Dinner? Oh, I'm having a senior moment -- when we buy them in those boxes, they've already been replicated once, d'oh.)

Why is everyone sitting around on the bridge doing nothing? The captain seemingly wanders to his ready room for the pettiest reason and when he comes back to sit down in the captain's chair, Riker, Troi and The Guest Star follow him in a delicately choreographed dance in which they all end up sitting down at the same time. As if, uh . . . they've rehearsed it.

Captain Picard and Commander Riker, on that spacious Bridge that looks like a Vegas ballroom, often hang out uncomfortably close to each other for the sake of the camera, sometimes shoulders almost touching, just to have a conversation.

Sometimes at the end of the show you get a shot of the whole cast just standing around on the bridge, but very carefully, so no one blocks anyone else from the camera.

The Holodeck, if it can do what they always show it's capable of doing, would be booked months in advance and every "holo-simulation" would be Four-Xd rated marathon orgies.

 I could go on (this is where Brigitte broke) . . . where are any waste baskets? How come we never see the cleaning lady? What if someone rang your doorbell and you didn't say "Come?" Could they just come in anyway?

Where are the MPs? Those drinks in Ten-Forward are not all Virgin Marys and lattechinos. How come no one seems to pay for their drinks? There must be restaurants on a ship that big. Where are they?

How come no one just beams himself into a crew-woman's cabin to watch her take a shower? The technology is there.

How come we never see children wandering down the aisles like all the other "filler" crew members? We know they're there.

Why does every single thing you do require a beep of some kind?

And last but not least, WHY DOES EVERYTHING ALWAYS COME OUT RIGHT IN THE END?????

Have your answers replicated on my desk tomorrow morning.

My Birthday and All Sorts of Fun Things

Chapter I

It was my birthday yesterday, Flock! I was one day older than I had been the day before! However, almost every restaurant being closed on a Monday, we made a filet-mignon dinner instead.

This photo comes nowhere near to doing it justice, but there was juicy medium-rare filet mignon, cast-iron fried "dice" (I call them that because they're potatoes cut to almost the same dimensions as dice), wild mushroom Mercy sauce (because it's so good that it's torture when it's gone) and corn. Odd combination, maybe, but your mouth would heartily disagree.


If I had been , say, fourteen years old on my birthday and wondering what dinner I would be having fifty years hence, I wouldn't have been able to imagine that I would some day have the power to create a meal of such decadence. That was the kind kind of food . . . uh . . . old people ate.

Chapter II


I was roughly roused by Brigitte at 6:30 this morning because I had to make a phone call to Japan. It was 8:30 p.m. there.

In this phone call I was informed by my ex-wife that there was "no possibility" of her letting me pick up my son for Christmas because of a letter I was forced to send (she has no landline and can't receive long distance calls and no Internet, so everything has to be done through her parents, who quite frankly wish I'd tumble under a bus, the sooner the better) with a mild threat of legal intervention if she didn't let me talk to him at least once a week;  thus, after all these years of supposedly amicable communication, she has gone and done the official deed of kidnapping him. Stay tuned, folks -- this could get Mel Gibsony.

(Japan, a so-called first-world nation, is the only so-called first-world nation that does not observe the Hague convention regarding custody of children. Thus even if my ex-wife was a drug addict who beat my son every day and had multiple boyfriends, there is no court there that would allow me even to appear before it to plead for custody. In 99% of cases, regardless of circumstance, the custody reverts to the mother. Now you know why I wrote the post directly preceding this one.)

Chapter III

Filet mignon sandwiches for dinner!!!!!!

New Rankings

As you know, I've kind of loosely kept a list of Whos' On Top in the world as far as being the worst race/ideology/record of abuse and, for reasons known only to me at the moment, Japan LEAPS into the lead with at least a head ahead of the rest to take the lead.

This time it's about the general Japanese mindset. My conclusion is: "They're all so fucked up that using psychiatry would be like putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound to the head."

Midwinter Doldrums

Yeah, I know it's not even the beginning of winter. But I feel so blah that, as you've noticed, I haven't posted a thing in weeks. Sorry, Flock.

You deserve a rant at least once a week but I'm afraid I don't even have the energy for that. For no apparent reason my appetite has been nil in recent weeks. I can survive on some potato chips for a midday snack and then two or three bites of whatever's for dinner. I'm almost never hungry.

I sleep badly. Helped by sleeping pills, it's mostly a mire of dream after dream. The weather is sameness . . . to me, a sunny day is extra-depressing. I prefer the rain/snowy doldrums.

A lot of it is caused by a unilateral lack of communication with my son in Japan. It's pretty much boiled down to they (the triumvirate: my ex and her parents) have decided communication between father and son is no longer "necessary." And I can't do a fucking thing about it, aside from flying over there unannounced and show up at their doorstep.

I have one bright spot to report -- when I ordered a Kindle, I accidentally ordered two by mistake. Disgusted because it had no backlight, I sent one back, but then the other one arrived. I reluctantly embraced it and haven't regretted it. I've downloaded about seven books at maybe a cost of $30 and have a lot of reading to do -- as long as there is light.

Oh, and Monday I turn the non-age of 54.

Your First Mac?

I was reading an article about when people got their first Macs. Well, I got mine in around 1986, but I think the question should be, what was the first truly cool thing you did with a Mac?

I think this illustration is. I think I did it in 1994. Pretty cool, eh?

Getting Away With It

Do you know how easy it would be to get away with murder? I read about some helicopter crash where some "Ant-drug Czar" is eliminated Now they're pinning this on sub-par weather conditions. Oh sure, a narco-traficante was nowhere in sight.

I remember (with regret, but it was a sign of the times) that when we lived in Kinshasa, Zaire in the early 70s, we briefly discussed the idea that if we went out at random, on a random night very late at night, when no one was around (that was most nights) we could, if we'd had a gun, have just gone up to a stranger and shot him to death.

No one would EVER have suspected us.

My point is not that I ever wanted to get away with a murder; my point is that MOST PEOPLE get away with a murder. The more gangster-like and organized they are, they can get away with countless DOZENS of murders. Chances are that ever single one of those that pulled the trigger will die a quiet death surrounded by friends and family at a late age.

Pity our poor cops and justice system . . . even though they're supposedly the best in the world, I could still get up (at 2:11 a.m.) in nondescript blue jeans with an ordinary coat that people wear every day, walk to the nearest bus stop and wait for that FUCKING CROWD OF TEENAGE IDIOTS WHO'VE JUST LEFT THE BARS, as they do ever Saturday night, and make one of them an inch smaller, permanently.

Hmm . . now where IS that Colt 45 my dad left me . . . .

Happy 11/11/11 11:11:11 p.m.

Even though the time doesn't show it, this glass of champagne was poured at 11:11:11 p.m. Damn good champagne it is, too.

The Power of One

Yes, Flock, today is 11/11/11. You have two chances today to celebrate, as this won't come around again until you're, oh, 150 years old. Break out the champagne at 11 minutes and 11 seconds past 11 a.m. and you will be celebrating 11/11/11, 11:11:11 a.m. Conversely, do it at 11:11:11 p.m. tonight. Or do both! (you can also have a mini-celebration at 1:11 p.m)

Remember, there can only be one date like this -- all the rest will have to be things like 12/12/12, which isn't at all the same.

Say it out loud to a Japanese! He'll think you've got rabies! (Dogs in Japan go "Wan Wan!") Go to your local maternity ward and substitute a Talking Betsy doll for a newborn born at exactly 11:11!

Bad Guys Fighting Evil?

Anonymous hides behind Guy Fawkes masks

That seems to be the case. In case you've been exploring 1,000 foot caves in Popocataptl for the past three years, there's a vicious group of bloodthirsty murderers in Mexico who call themselves Zetas. Their pleasant exploits include regularly chain-sawing the heads off men, women and children and just about shooting anyone who so much as looks at them.

These are bad, bad people, flock -- they make the Einsatzgruppen look like a bunch of kindly young soldiers off to have a Sunday afternoon plink at a few Jews in nearby woods, with schnapps to follow.

Recently however, up has popped another group of not-so-bad guys, who call themselves Anonymous. They seem to be a motley crew of hackers dedicated to, well, doing whatever they want to do. Quote: "We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need — just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society."

Well, that can be bad or it can be good, depending on to whom you're speaking. I myself think that it's about time.

Recently, apparently, they've decided to take on the Zetas. (I know, sounds like an L. Ron Hubbard novel, doesn't it? All we need is a few Engrams. (Boss Anonymous to be played by John Travolta.) I don't know how it all started, but apparently a member of Anonymous was kidnapped by the Zetas. The Zetas responded by threatening to post the names, addresses and home phone numbers of every corrupt cop, taxi driver, military officer etc. known to be aiding and abetting the Zetas (well, you can pretty much infer that the entire town of Juarez is just a suburb of Zetaville -- they should issue passports!)

So apparently the release of this information so has the Zetas' knickers in a twist that they released their Anonymous guy. But now Anonymous have upped the stakes.

They just don't like the Zetas, they inform us in this clever video, and they're threatening to do it anyway, just to see how many "law-enforcement" officers swoop in and arrest all the Zeta co-thugs.

And the Zetas are promising to kill ten people for every name exposed. Christ, if Anonymous exposed every name on the list, Mexico would suddenly become a very empty place . . . If there were a place to send donations to help Anonymous in this admirable quest, I'd leave ten dollars in the bank and give the rest to them.

Bad Guys Fighting Evil?

That seems to be the case. In case you've been exploring 1,000 foot caves in Popocataptl for the past three years, there's a vicious group of bloodthirsty murderers in Mexico who call themselves Zetas. Their pleasant exploits include regularly chain-sawing the heads off off men, women and children and just about shooting anyone who so much as looks at them.

These are bad, bad people, flock -- they make the Einsatzgruppen look like a bunch of kindly young soldiers off to have a Sunday afternoon plink at a few Jews in nearby woods, with schnapps to follow.

Recently however, up has popped another group of not-so-bad guys, who call themselves Anonymous. They seem to be a motley crew of hackers dedicated to, well, doing whatever they want to do. Quote: "We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need — just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society."


Well, that can be bad or it can be good, depending on to whom you're speaking. I myself think that it's about time.


Recently, apparently, they've decided to take on the Zetas. (I know, sounds like an L. Ron Hubbard novel, doesn't it? All we need is a few Engrams. (Boss Anonymous to be played by John Travolta.) I don't know how it all started, but apparently a member of Anonymous was kidnapped by the Zetas. The Zetas responded by threatening to post the names, addresses and home phone numbers of every corrupt cop, taxi driver, military officer etc. known to be aiding and abetting the Zetas (well, you can pretty much infer that the entire town of Juarez is just a suburb of Zetaville -- they should issue passports!)


So apparently the release of this information so has the Zetas' knickers in a twist that they released their Anonymous guy. But now Anonymous have upped the stakes.


They just don't like the Zetas, they inform us in this clever video, and they're threatening to do it anyway, just to see how many "law-enforcement" officers swoop in and arrest all the Zeta co-thugs.


And the Zetas are promising to kill ten people for every name exposed. Christ, if Anonymous exposed every name on the list, Mexico would suddenly become a very empty place . . . If there were a place to send donations to help Anonymous in this admirable quest, I'd leave ten dollars in the bank and give the rest to them.

Occupy: Misdirected?

Yes, I can imagine being a 22-year old college student in some urban area of America or Canada. What are you doing? Majoring in sociology? History? One of the traditional "comfy" majors that all North Americans have done since our grandfathers can remember? What, Drama? No, tell me no. An Arts major? Worst of all, an ENGLISH MAJOR? MARINE BIOLOGY????

Well guess what, Miss Priss or Mr. Rockne, you AREN'T going to be one of the so-called "One percent." Don't even go there in your mind. Settle into buying lottery tickets, working at the A&W till you're through school, and then LOOK AT THE $120,000 STUDENT LOAN doing a colostomy up your ass. I heard a rumour that these student-loan people -- a nation of zombies, if you ask me -- can't declare bankruptcy. If this is true, your WHOLE LIFE IS FUCKED before you even get a chance to begin it. See, life does not begin when you're born. If life is gauged at a 70-year expectancy, then you actually only have about FIFTY YEARS TO LIVE, TWENTY of which will probably end up in you not being so very "productive."

So in fact, you only have THIRTY YEARS to make that "One Percent." Which leads me to believe that:

The One Percent have won the lottery. Yes, you read me right. Ten thousand things that could have gone wrong on their ascent to the One went right. They had the right parents. They lived in the right place. Their one talent was happily recognized early. They took every advantage of that one talent. They mowed others down to succeed and didn't care about it. They broke rules that didn't suit them -- and got away with it.

They BARGED THEIR WAY THROUGH LIFE at the expense of everyone and anyone, including themselves.

You name me just ONE ONE-PERCENTER who does not fit my formula.

Ya wanna be a One-Percenter, huh, Occupy kids? Or, more easily, you want to bring them down?

Your sheer naïveté astounds me.

Oh and a passing shot: to a five-year old kid living in Papua New Guinea, YOU'RE THE ONE PERCENTER.

Fuck Occupy.

But get this: some guy's alarm clock goes off at 6:30 a.m. He wakes with a hilarious hangover, shaves, gets dressed and then heads out to his Mercedes.

Shows up at the office fifteen minutes late. Maybe snorts some coke. Then gets on the floor. Negotiates $15.9M worth of deals.

Calls his "wife" and tells her he'll be home late.

Goes out drinking, gets smashed with his colleagues, maybe negotiates a "deal" with a female coworker.

Camps out at her house till two, drives home one-eyed and plomps into bed with his wife.

Repeat.

THIS is why the Occupy dorks occupy.

Welcome to America. The land of the free.