The Lair

It’s called Katrina. And no, this isn’t the sharp nosed harridan who dislikes Pound Puppies either. The weather warning from the link above reads like an apocalyptic disaster movie. Only, this is real life and not special effects.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED [ … ] HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW POSSIBLY TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE [ … ] AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES [ … ] POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS [ … ] WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED

That’s not some sensationalist news broadcaster, that’s the freakin’ NOAA. Wow. And in case the news broadcasts have passed you by, the entire city of New Orleans has been evacuated, this is termed as a once in a lifetime event and things look extremely bleak. And unlike some other natural disasters, this is one that people can see heading their way, but are powerless to stop.

Satellite images. Most of the webcam sites are overloaded, for obvious reasons. Some are already out of service. The city of New Orleans has more than a million people. Even if … say 90% got out in time, that leaves an awful lot of people in the path of a Category 5 (is it 4 now ?) storm. I don’t know why, but this has lots of stark reminders (for me) of the aftermath of December 26th 2004.

Earlier in the week (nay, a scant two days ago), I said this….

There aren’t many people whom I’d arbitrarily like to shut down or flag as asshat or eejit. In fact, I can only think of one person. So why aren’t I planting multiple mighty flags of “-1 inflammatory idiot” on this person and his spiel on blogspot ?

To all four of you who’ve contacted me in one way or the other and asked questions along the lines of “Were you referring to me, perchance?“, I have a single, and I would have thought obvious, answer. No, you were not the target of my unkind and possibly (although I can’t tell for sure) uncalled-for jibe. I know of and read literally dozens of blogs that are hosted on blogspot. I rarely agree with all the content I see there. I don’t get all hot and bothered about this fact at all. Out of all of those blogs, there is a single person whom I feel has crossed some invisible line of conduct that I’ve decided is my stand on acceptable online behaviour. Just one. (And no, spam blogs really don’t fall into that category at all). What on earth would possess anyone to think that they were that single person ? It staggers me, it really does.

As for the person in question, I’ve flipped the bozo bit on him already. To quote from that article:

In regard to random people in the world at large, it might be a positive sometimes, since life is too short to interact with everyone in the world anyway… However, even there, SetTheBozoBit is often drawing a hasty incorrect conclusion, and certainly is just taking an easy way out. But it doesn’t always matter that one is harshly miscategorizing people. It happens.

Finis ? I certainly hope so.

Sometimes it seems like the many headed serpentine creature of lore is a frequently recurring theme. This isn’t solely because my hayfever allergy has kicked in and my eyes are swimming; mind you. Bear with me while I speculate, whine, rant and generally display a par-for-the-course amount of skeptism and negativity about everybody’s favourite, Google and their multifarious ventures.

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It’s the weekend of the Elvington Air Show in these parts; and as is customary for yours truly, I only remember these things when I hear the jet engines in the skies. So, no air show visit this year - but I’ve already pencilled in (metaphorically speaking) a reminder for tickets next year.

The programme for the air show tells me that the usual suspects will be displayed - along with one other noteable addition, the Eurofighter Typhoon. Yes, the same fighter which scored a PR coup by gunning a couple of F-15s. The F-15, incidentally, has been the air superiority fighter of choice for the USAF in the last 30 years or so. Not that this means anything in a world that has a F22 - but interesting none the less. I also saw the Red Arrows flying overhead today (nearly ending my miserable existence plastered on the windscreen of an oncoming car in the process) and I’m not sure; but I may have actually seen the Eurofighter come up to land on the airfield a few miles away. Didn’t recognize the silhouette of the plane I saw, at any rate. Unfortunately, I have yet to see my favourite portion of the air show here: the WW2 era fighters and bombers. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely will see it up close and personal next year. If I remember to book the tickets in time, that is.

In other, slightly less exciting news, it seems that emoticons are passe. The new in thing (or not) is saying it with pictures. Or even better (if you’re not the most photogenic), having Eric say it for you. Sadly, the site uses *gasp* frames (oh, the heresy), so I can’t bookmark or link to individual emotions-pics. Oh, wait. I can.. I have lots of favourites here, but road rage, who’s your daddy, visiting EmotionEric for the first time, kill and panic are all good. In fact, just idly click on them all. I did.

And in yet another proof of a religion that is reaching out to teens and impressionable adults everywhere, the Catholic church has released their latest recruitment poster. No, it’s probably not a joke. I think it’s rather cool, actually. Just - uh - don’t wait for a Harry Potter poster to follow.

In the words of Groucho Marx, applicable in this case as well as elsewhere, “I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member“.

It’s been said (well, if it hasn’t, I just said it) that if one stares at a series of random numbers - or events or anything, really; an apparent pattern emerges. Or to put it another way, given a lack of rules for discerning a pattern, even completely random numbers appear to have some embedded meaning. Given one or more of adequate study, sufficient hallucinogens and/or lack of sleep.

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A good war is better than a bad peace

Pliny the Elder, 79 AD

There was never a good war or a bad peace

Benjamin Franklin, 1770 AD

From the most recent Slashdot poll, an interesting question. Where do I live ? Actually, it’s interesting because I’ve rented or been in accommodation other than my parental residence for a couple of years now - and I’m beginning to understand why people say .. don’t pay your landlord’s mortgage, but start paying your own. Well, sonny, it requires a huge chunk of cash upfront, see ? Unless dealing drugs or selling guns is your long term career choice, finding that kind of cash at this age is … well, difficult.

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In Sesame Street, a staple of my childhood (and even slightly later years), they used to have a letter of the alphabet and/or a number sponsor the episode. Obviously discriminatory, since I never did hear the niche minority letters like X, K and Q being given equal air time compared to their more popular cohorts. Still, in keeping with that theme, this post is brought to you by the number Five. 5 the numeral, not to be confused with the TV channel or the now defunct boy band. So, the theme for this post (since I’m in the mood for a themed post of sorts). Five pieces of 5 news.

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In a lapse to the utterly mundane, I’m going to blog about my supermarket visit. Yes, to such depths have we plummetted.

I try to avoid visiting the supermarket for large scale shopping, usually. This is usually because the lugging of said large scale shopping is painful or requires umpteen hours of waiting for hired transport or some other inconvenience. Now, I could order like .. enough food for a 1960s Yorkshire winter at one go and have the obliging supermarket deliver straight home, but I seriously doubt that the fridge could cope with that much food. So, there you go.. I’m forced to make fortnightly sprints to the supermarket to buy stuff. All normal so far ? Good.

I inspected my shopping bag this time around and discovered that in my trance like Supermarket Sweep frenzy; I had purchased the following. Note that this is probably normal fare, just that I’ve never before seen such compelling evidence of my primacy in the food chain, nor such stark evidence of my gluttony nor indeed, such indication of my complete and utter disregard for plaque coating levels in my arteries. Be still my heart and all that sort of thing.

I had bought.. for the purpose of consumption over two weeks … 2kg of bacon, 1.5kg of chicken, 2kg (almost) of sausages and 15 eggs. Yes, I’d eat all of that over 14 days. Just me. Any wonder that I’m reminded of Feargal Sharkey ? And in a completely cookery related post (hahahaha!) I am buoyed by my success at making Mandarin chicken with cashew recently and thus, am tempted to try out this recipe which is much the same.

I’ve been amusing myself playing Literati recently. Literati, in case you’re not familiar with it, is a word game played on a board. It’s a almost-identical-but-not-quite version of Scrabble.

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