In order to thank the blue jay (that I've been Tweeting about, appropriately enough) for hanging around my side yard and trying to chase away the squirrels that have been living in my roof, I attempted to re-hang some of the bird-feeders.

I wanted one right about where the jay has been, and I had the dandy idea to tie a length of fishing line to a spark plug and then whing the sucker over a branch. Only took two tries to get it up there! After that, I tied some twine to the line and pulled the twine up over the branch. I tied one end to the top of a full bird-feeder, then wrapped a branch around the other end and started to haul the bird-feeder up into position (far away from any squirrel-access branches), until it was up enough that I could tie off the branch-wrapping end to the fence.

Worked, up until the bird-feeder got about a foot off the ground. That's when the twine gave way. Yes, I tested first to make sure the twine was stronger than the fishing line.

So, it's currently hanging in a spot that the squirrels will figure out how to reach before too long, but my next plan is to take a number of the bicycle brake-lines we have around and weld/splice/whatever them into one twenty foot long (or so) cable and then do the same thing, but with the twine now pulling up the steel cable, and hopefully nothing snapping in the process.

Wouldn't it be a kick in the pants if the branch broke?

PS: Post title origin?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz6WRiNwujQ

Dear Windows Live customer,

We're contacting you because we are making a change to the Windows Live alerts feature for Microsoft Hotmail, Microsoft SkyDrive and Windows Live Messenger.

You might be using the alerts feature to have text messages sent to your phone when a new mail, Messenger social or SkyDrive comment arrives. The Windows Live mobile alert feature is being discontinued as of May 31st. This means you will not receive text messages on your phone when a new mail, Messenger social or SkyDrive comment arrives.

Grr!! There's a few things, like FourSquare, who aren't very good about notifying me via my phone about things, so I managed a workaround by having them E-Mail me and then have filters that make those particular E-Mails trigger a text message.

Apparently, those halcyon days are soon to pass. You'd think Gmail could do it, but I was poking around this afternoon and couldn't find anything similar. Anyone have an idea about this (other than 'get a darn smartphone, Will')?

A while ago, I'd read of the cardiovascular virtues of sleeping with one's feet elevated. What with the occasional odd heart stuff (which hasn't gotten any worse, and still comes and goes, and never turns up on any examinations so it might just be me going insane), I though it worth trying out.

Initially, I tried folding up some spare blankets at the foot of the bed, under the sheets. No clue about it having any cardio-benefits, but it certainly did a smashing job at hyper-extending my ankles, so I'd hobble around like I'd tripped in a gopher-hole the day before.

Remembering someone talking about inheriting a bed from their grandfather, who had sawed a few inches off of the headboard-legs of his bed, I tried propping up the footboard-legs. So it wouldn't suddenly throw me for a loop, I made a point of starting with one 1" block under each leg, then another block a couple of weeks later, then yet another one. Didn't seem so bad, other than the majority of folks getting in or out of my bed stubbing their toes on the blocks.

Just last night I was checking for something under my bed (PS: Nope! No monsters found) and realized that my mattress isn't actually supported by the frame. See, it seems it's on a really basic metal frame with wheels, and that is set into the wooden bed-frame (with the headboard and footboard and all). So the reason why it didn't seem that much of a change to jack the bed up was that it wasn't actually jacking anything up, except for the frame around my bed.

With a little work, I managed to hoist up the thing the mattress is on and jam blocks under the wheeled legs, so I should have more to report in the future.

PS: My auto-sphygmomanometer seems to be feeling out of sorts, so no BP/Pulse Mood entry, this time.

Around town, there are little placards put up on cement slabs by... someone. I bet it's the Bangor Historical Society. There's one down along the Kenduskeag near West Market Square that talks about the narrowing of the docks, there's another by the Hannibal Hamlin statue that talks about the pre-1911 Post Office, and there's one by what used to be the Morse Covered Bridge that talks about local stream-critters... (dramatic pause)

...until the other day, when it was replaced by this Onion-type information.

ARTIFACTS OF A MYSTERIOUS AND HIDDEN CULTURE



Within the past decade a growing number of artifacts have appeared
along this stretch of the Kenduskeag Stream. From these researchers
have become convinced of the existence of a hidden and possible
ancient culture existing within close proximity to this location.
Although very little is known about this society, researchers have
determined through careful study that they are a gentle, benevolent
people that strive to exist in harmonious balance with theliving local
ecosystem.

CLAY FIGURINES



A large number of clay figurines have appeared on and around bridge footings. These resemble human
forms, are typically several inches in length and are often found in groups of 50 to 200. Analysis of the
clay reveals that it orignates from far away sources. In spite of the great lenghts taken to bring this
material here, it does not appear that any effort whatsoever has been made to harden or preserve the
clay. Examples pictured are rare, pristine specimines; the vast majority of these are usually
be found in various states of decomposition. Frequently, the figurines are accompanied by piles of seed.
It is theorized that the figures with seed may be a form of offering to local wildlife.

OX TURN TABLETS



Along with the clay figurines, tablets have been found bearing strange inscriptions.
As of yet researchers have been unable to determine the language or nature of the
text. Interestingly enough, the text appears to change direction with each successive
line. This is an archaic writing convention that scholars term 'Boustrophedon.' The
term derives from the greek words for 'ox' and 'turn'. It is a reference to the way in which
directions after the end of each row of ploughing in a field. Other languages written
in a similar style include Ancient Greek, Sabaean (of Ancient Yemen), and Rongorongo
(of Easter Island). While these inscriptions bear some resemblance to known ancient
languages, researchers have been unable to conclusively establish any verifiable
connections. The odd and archaic nature of this writing makes its recent appearance
all the more interesting!

BALANCED ROCKS



Precariously balanced stones have been observed in this area. The stream is tidal
here and the stones are always below the high water mark. Each high tide
topples the temporary monuments from the repeated appearance of these features
it is concluded tha the culture is active and persists (although for the most part unseen)
in this area. Furthermore, given that no apparent efforts have been made by these people
to make either the clay figurines, or these stone monuments more permanent, it is inferred
that the culture embraces the dynamic and changing character of natural systems.

I'll be adding to this as I get the missing details in future photographs. For now, here's the shots of the text that I took (and transcribed this from).

Earlier today, someone was talking on Facebook about the potential health benefits of drinking apple cider vinegar on a fairly regular basis.

Obviously, that ended up unresolved (since for every hippie website that says that it's the nectar of the gods, there's a breadhead website that points out folks killing themselves from over-vinegaring), but it led to talking about kombucha, which led to my considering the idea of apple cider kombucha.

I'd toyed with a peach kombucha (by way of a tea with dried peach bits in it) and a raspberry-blueberry kombucha (by way of boiling the heck out of said aforementioned berries and tossing them into the initial tea mix), but not with just plain juice. In doing a bit of checking concerning the sugar content of your standard apple cider, it seems that it has about 416 grams of sugar per gallon. The way I currently make kombucha, it only has around 200 grams of sugar (IE: a cup of standard 'table sugar') per gallon, so that should actually work quite dandilly!

I'll probably try it with straight apple cider (boiled to heck and back first, so there aren't any wild yeasts creeping in) initially, with some teabags steeped in the cider, and then see if it turns out too sweet -- if so, I can just water down the cider.

There seems to be no end to the dubious ideas promoted in the name of rapid weight loss. From July 10 you may begin to notice more, both your own self and the community in order to deduce what is working for the benefit of all and what is to be replaced with a new idea. Unlike capital loss limitations, tax preparer jobs with theft losses subtract only $100 and then take a tax deduction for the amount that exceeds 10 percent of taxpayer adjusted gross income. [URL=http://lopolikuminr.com ]sympathising[/URL] However what if you are at work? As for my experience, I can say that I am convinced it helps me concentrate.

Thunderstricken?!

PS: This wasn't an E-Mailed junk mail, but a junk comment on a LJ post. I just really liked the subject, and how it shifts from diet pills, to tax, to pep pills or something.

Seems one of our two cats (sisters) just died.

According to my Aunt, she (the cat) was at sleeping the foot of my Aunt & Uncle's bed and one of her (the cat's) legs started to flail, not unlike a dog getting scratched. That stopped after a bit, and the cat looked very surprised about it for a while. She went back to sleep, they started to go back to sleep, and then the entire cat started to flail. That kept up for a bit, and then nothing.

They waited a bit, called to her, poked her with a foot, then went to check her pulse and breathing. Nope.

We're guessing a stroke (which, for those wondering, gets its name from the idea that one was struck by an invisible weapon by a passing fairy. Stroke is short for "elf stroke". The more you know!), currently. Before putting her in a box and taking her downstairs to the basement, I opened her mouth and popped her tongue back in, since the tip was sticking out a bit; just because one is a dead cat, one doesn't really have to go to the grave looking like an idiot who can't keep her tongue in her mouth.

Excerpt from Chapter 12 of Declare, by Tim Powers.

There was no blood on the flat board of the saddle; only, caught in the folds of the blanket and on the saddlebag flap buckles, a scatter of jewelry. Hale stepped from the camel's neck onto the small Oman saddle, and he knelt swayingly up there as he scraped and picked up a handful of the jewelry.

It was tiny sticks, some curved and some straight, made of glass and bone and bright gold; and not until he found a knobby round piece of gold as big as a marble and held it up to the light, and he saw that it was a tiny scale model of a human skull, did he realize that the sticks were probably miniature sculptures of human bones.

He had heard Salim bin Jalawi's footsteps approaching, and now bin Jalawi was up on the saddle of another of the returned camels, and Hale glanced over to see that he too was gathering up scattered jewelry.

"La-ila-il-l'Allah!" bin Jalawi exclaimed abruptly, flinging the handful of gold and glass and bone slivers away from him in the dawn sunlight, "Drop them, bin Sikkah!"

The man's response had startled Hale so badly that he not only scattered the miniature bones but jumped right off the saddle too. He landed unbalanced on his feet and sat down hard in the cold sand, the slung carbine barrel cracking him painfully over the ear. "What the hell?" he said irritably in English, getting quickly to his feet to dispel any impression of panic.

Bin Jalawi had climbed down with more dignity, but he was breathing fast as he led the camel forward toward the camp in the basin. "Djinn," he panted, "duplicate things. If they ponder a thing, sometimes a copy of that thing appears, made of whatever is at hand. In the desert the copies are generally made of glass, which is melted sand, or gold, which is in the sand. Somewhere up near the Um al-Hadid wells I know there is a stretch of sand that is not cold. And hot bare bones, too, though they will have shaved some to make their models of others."

Hale was leading the camel he had jumped off of, and the two others were following placidly. "In miniature," he said.

"In all sizes, bin Sikkah! Djinn cannot comprehend differences in size, only shapes. These small copies stayed on the saddles, caught in folds -- but by the Um al-Hadid wells there are now certainly bones as big as cannon barrels, made of glass -- aye, and skulls as big as chairs, made of gold. We are lucky these camels weren't crushed."

It starts off as a seemingly fairly standard WWII spy story, but then starts jumping back and forth between what's going on in the 1940s and what's going on in the 1960s. And then the djinn start to play into things.

In other news, I saw "Let the Right One In" tonight. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that although the default setting was '...with horrible English overdubbing' and that with a bit of menu navigation beforehand, we could have seen the proper 'In Swedish, with English subtitles' version. Surprisingly, a few fairly major bits of the book were removed and (much like the Fall of Angels from the Old Testament) not very cleanly removed, at that (Frex: Eli asks "What if I wasn't a girl?" and just leaves it at that, in the film).

Mycotopia.net

~325 BC, Pictland (The lands north of the Forth-Clyde valley) The Greek explorer Phytheas referred to the Picts as the "Priteni", the ancient Irish called them "Cruthni". Both mean "The People of the Designs". Pictish design is a rich and wonderful style of art, and can still be seen in the standing stones and cross-slabs of Scotland to this day. The Picts were a Celtic tribal race who defended their land from Roman, Saxon, Briton and Viking invasions. The Picts were also known to be accomplished brewers, the Scottish Dictionary quotes "The Picts brewed some awful grand drink they ca't heather ale from heather and some unknown kind of fog". One legend recorded by Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a Scots king who, after killing all the Picts in battle, wished for the famous heather ale. He found two survivors by a cliff, a Pictish chief and his son, and began to torture them to gain the secret recipe, the Pict agreed to tell if they would kill his son quickly. After the boy's body was thrown from the cliff, the Pictish chief faced the King and said "But now in vain is the torture, fire shall never avail, here dies in my bosom the secret of the heather ale" he then threw himself at the King and they both fell from the cliff.

...which led to Mr.Williams, in Ireland...

Wikipedia.org

The company history goes back to 1829 when the Tullamore Distillery was founded to produce Irish whiskey. In the mid-1940s Desmond E. Williams began the search for an alternative yet related product. The search ended with the discovery of Irish Mist. Its roots can be traced back to an ancient recipe for heather wine which originated over 1000 years ago.

The chieftains and nobles of Ireland’s ancient clans throughout the centuries had drunk heather wine, a spirit combined with honey, spices and herbs. However, the secret of this legendary drink disappeared with the last great exodus of the Irish Earls in 1691, an event that has passed into Irish History as "The Flight of the Wild Geese". The recipe was thought to have been lost forever until a traveller from Europe arrived, quite fortuitously, with an old manuscript he had found. Desmond Williams recognized it as the ancient recipe for heather wine and transformed it into Irish Mist, setting up the Irish Mist Liqueur Company.

IrelandWhiskeyTrail.com

In 1954, the decision was made to cease whiskey distillation at Tullamore and to focus all the company’s effort on the production of Irish Mist. In 1963, the company was running out of whisky from the old distillery for their production of Irish Mist and as the decision was taken that it would be too costly to start up the old distillery again, an agreement was reached with the Powers Distillery . Powers acquired the brand name Tullamore Dew, and started producing the brand from their John's Lane Distillery in Dublin and in exchange, they supplied the D.E. Williams company with whisky for the production of Irish Mist. Powers became part of the Irish Distillers Group and all production was transferred to the new Midleton Distillery in 1975, which is where Tullamore Dew is still distilled today. Tullamore Dew is now owned by C&C International, and it is now once again one of Ireland’s most successful Irish Whiskey brands.

...meanwhile, Mr.Williams in Scotland...

AncientSites.com

While likely there was many a recipe for that proud beverage, heather ale, the renaissance for this semi-lost and legendary brew began in 1986. A Gaelic-speaking informant passed on an old family recipe to a Glasgow shopkeep. Intrigued, the latter began to experiment, developing a remarkable and contemporary heather ale, and named it in Gaelic, Fraoch Leann, based on the information of old.

The rest, as they say, is history, or not exactly, since today you can find a couple notable distilleries of Heather Ale.

Brewers make this ale using flowers from the ubiquitous heather of Scotland, alongside malt. The finished brew is fully malted, comes with a heather-like floral aroma, and a finish similar to that of a dry wine. The old recipe that has been adapted for current-day production also contains both ginger and myrtle (gale), although the latter has been dropped in commercial preparations due to its somewhat medicinal taste. The old recipe also used ocean water, dropped in the favor of fresh. Inland Picts and Scots no doubt used fresh water anyway. Today's commercial product also contains a small amount of hops, which is not a part of the original.

WilliamsBrosBrew.com

A lady of Gaelic descent came into the Williams owned homebrew shop in Partick, bearing a translation of a 17th century recipe for 'Leanne Fraoch' (Heather Ale), Inherited from her Gaelic family. It was her goal to try to recreate recipe made famous by the old legend of the Pictish king who supposedly threw himself off a cliff after the 'Scot' king captured & tortured his son in an attempt to coax the recipe from the Pict King. This translated recipe was developed in homebrew size quantities by shop owner Bruce Williams to the recipe that is used today.

The company started life in 1988 with Bruce brewing our flagship beer Heather Ale, in a tiny brewery in Taynult, where we could producing no more 5 barrels per batch, just enough to supply 5 pubs across Scotland; 2 in Edinburgh, 2 in Glasgow & The Clachaig Inn in Glencoe. As demand grew the project expanded & a bigger brewery was needed to brew the larger quantities required. So the recipe was taken to the old Maclay's brewery in the traditional Scottish brew town of Alloa.

Now, I'm betting that over a thousand or two years, with a translation from Pictish to English somewhere in there, "Heather Ale" and "Heather Wine" are really talking about the same thing. I'm betting the beer-type brew is largely what's used as the mash for the liquor-type brew, or something along those lines. Alas, this is a case of someone finding an ancient recipe of historical note, deciding to recreate it, and then fiddling with it since making it taste 'not weird' seems more important than accuracy.

I'm unsure if one would then get the closest recreation of the fairy brew by drinking a boilermaker of Fraoch + Irish Mist (which is made from Tullamore Dew), or to call Fraoch a good start (moreso if it's the purist kind that has myrtle and no hops) and distill it down into something more whiskoid.

In other news, I have a new trenchcoat. No pictures yet, since Katrinka totally forgot to take any, tonight (CAVEAT: this could be because I forgot to ask her to).

Subj: Hi
From: sunny_aw@finconsultingms.com
Sent: Thu 11/17/11 4:01 AM

Hello
I saw your profile on a dating site, you're a very attractive man. I
know that usually the first step to introducing a man does, but I
decided that we should get to know and so I write to you herself. I am
a long time could not bring myself to write you, but I wrote and I
hope you are not disturbed. i'm Annie and I live in the UK, in a small
town Maidstone, near London, I'm 31 yars old. I'm looking for friend
for good communication, but I'll be happy if it would help me to find
a true love, because now I am alone. I work a lot and it's hard to
find friends in real life. But i'm very much would like to find a
friend with whom I communicate, talk on the phone and meet for cup of
cofee. I am interested only in dating in UK. I was warned that online
dating is a lot of fake profiles, so I hope that you are not fake and
resident of my country, if not, then please delete my post and not
respond. It was a very pity if you do not live in the UK, because I
really like you. I'll wait for your response and hope that it will be
a pleasant acquaintance and we will spend fun time together in future.

Annie.
UK, Maidstone.

Did y'all see the Bangor Daily News Pigeon article?

Here's the full Q&A I was asked (and answered) concerning it.

Questions:
When did you first encounter Pigeon's work, and what initially drew you to it? What did you react to?
When you told friends, in person or online, about it, what kinds of reactions did you get? Positive? Negative? What prompted you to begin posting pictures on FB?
What do you think Pigeon says about Bangor?
What kind of impact do you think it might have on future artists or creative people in downtown?

Answers:
Around early July was when I first noticed the two pairs of wheatpasted gulls, and at the time I presumed they were an art installation that the people who maintain that little alley-garden on Central street had commissioned. But then Gibran Graham of BangPop posted a picture of one of the "I <3 BGR" pigeons a week or two later, which prompted me to try to find it, which led to me noticing a few more of them around town: the yarmulke-wearing one in front of Bagel Central, the sombrero-wearing one in front of Coco Loco, the one in front of the Court building on Hammond, et cetera. This seemed like a pretty good hint that it wasn't a commissioned work, since the owners of many of those establishments seemed to be surprised and pleased with them being there. Although I've seen a fair amount of graffiti around downtown, it had pretty much always just been standard impromptu spraypaint with the rare instance of planned stenciled work (when I moved here in 1990, the most obvious was the "USA out of El Salvador" stencil that was all around). This was the first time I'd actually encountered wheat-paste, and only barely knew about it existing. I have always liked the idea of street-art, but agreed that not everyone would want someone else's expression semi-permanently emblazoned on their property, so the idea of an intentionally temporary art form really seemed new and exciting.

In first telling folks about it, most of them also apparently hadn't encountered wheat-paste before, and had to have it explained to them even with an example right in front of them. Only a few artists that I talked with already knew of the concept, but even they were rather thrilled about someone doing it around Bangor. The only negative reactions I've heard directly from people so far are when it's done on a monument or work of art (I have yet to really work out exactly what would or wouldn't bother them, hypothetically speaking, to see what someone would find so offensive about the one on the Hannibal Hamlin statue, for example). Indirect negative reactions can inferred from property owners removing pigeons from their property upon discovery, but that has mostly seemed limited to when the pigeon was placed in a location that someone going in or out of the establishment couldn't miss (which I could see some property owners worrying about it being taken as a sort of tacit approval).

I started to photograph and post them online mainly to preserve the works, as well as to work out which ones had and hadn't been found (a mix of a useful service and personal bragging rights), and also in the hopes of working out the mystery of who was pasting them up.

The fact that Pigeon is putting up such a "big city" art style around town quite honestly makes me feel like Bangor is a little more metropolitan than one might normally presume. Usually, one gets that from highly politically charged things (the Occupy Bangor movement, for instance) or some distinctly negative indicator (the recent rise in bath salts problems), but Pigeon's works are mostly things that can be appreciated purely for art's sake on its own.

Obviously, I'm personally hoping folks' awareness of the Pigeon postings will lead to similar temporary street-art forms, like yarn-bombing (where you basically make little sweaters for trees and telephone poles) or moss-graffiti. Unfortunately, this could easily lead to folks thinking anything street-art-like is permissible, and deluging walls with rather standard spraypaint graffiti tags, much like copy-cat crimes. But if a few artists were to do planned announcements of public works in the temporary art styles, in cooperation with the owners of the properties, that could easily help deter random permanent scribbling.

SOURCE: http://twitter.com/#!/ThaWolfie/status/131838311949021185



Can anyone confirm this? For those unfamiliar with the term "bath salts", he's not talking about actual bath salts; it's a street-name for a recently common local drug, also known as monkey dust.

If it's true (which I doubt), then it would be the first recorded instance of it happening, as far as I know.

Nobody has ever legitimately reported evidence of folks handing out poisoned/drugged candy on Halloween. Ever. There are three things that were close to it, but none of them lived up to the rumor.

1) Crazy parents didn't want their kid to go trick or treating, so while the kid was out, they laced Pixie Stix with rat-poison or Comet or something. When the kid returned, they mixed in the toxic candies in with the actual ones on the sly, and then claimed the kid must have gotten them from some crazy down the road (when it was actually the crazies in the house).

2) Kid with his uncle on Halloween. Kid got into the uncle's heroin (or something like that) stash. Uncle didn't want to get busted, so he tried to make it look like the kid had picked up heroin-laced Snickers while trick or treating.

3) Woman got sick and tired of stupid drunk college kids doing half-assed trick or treating, so she had a standard bowl of candy for the little kids, and a bowl of junk for the college kids. The junk included things like corks, mousetraps, etc... and those ant-traps things that are basically toxic wax in a Carmex-sized container (that you can't get into without tin snips and blatantly say RAID ANT-BAIT or suchlike on them, with pictures of cartoon dead ants). She was busted for handing out poison, on a technicality. (PS: This woman is my hero. Nothing against college kids, but I like the idea of junk treats for annoying folks)

Initially, Monday-into-Tuesday's dream started as an immersive VR video game. Rather standard war-type shoot-em-up in a jungle sort of forest. I believe it was the demo walk-through of a beta test, since I had someone explaining the details of the game to me. For example, the voice-over referred to "rounds" and "cartridges" as things one could shoot; the "rounds" only came in three or so types and were fairly standard actual rounds, while the "cartridges" were smaller caliber and tended to be special effect rounds (EG: incindiary, tracer, et cetera) of about a half-dozen types. I noticed that the "What is this thing?" feature (a bit like Navi from Ocarina of Time) was missing some data while testing out how various aircraft worked, so I started to add to that and fill in blank fields.

Somehow, this led to my working on an encyclopedia of everything, which looked like a bound humming mass of glowing transluscent plastic pages, with the 11th and 10th Doctors (yes, from Doctor Who) helping. Each time it was boosted (I guess it was the encyclopedia compiling the data or something?) the glowing shifted a few notches up the spectrum. When it hit red-to-purple, the hum would go up in pitch (sort of like it was showing the octave of the spectrum?) before it continued through the color wrap-around. We had to stop at one point, because enough stuff was going on in reality (no clue if this encyclopedia was for the game's virtual reality or for the actual factual universe itself) that the encyclopedia couldn't catch up with what was happening: an information singularity, as it were. I seem to recall that we had the choice to keep adding data (which would pre-determine future events), or just let it auto-update on its own from there on out. The three of us (me, the Doctor, and the Doctor) went with the latter option, so I went back to the game.

In there, there was a family in the [something. In my notes, it looks like I wrote 'wildleaf'] of the game, hunting snakes. The patriarch of the family had taken to skinning snakes and making animate gloves out of them, with multiple heads from one type of snake attached to a single body of the same type of snake, per finger -- imagine a taxidermed animate rattlesnake hydra on one finger, taxidermed animate asp hydra on another, et cetera. A very very large black snake ("v.v.large" to the tune of "about as big around as a VW Bug") apparently took umbrage with this fashion choice and started to attack us, eating some of the family. There was a school nearby, possibly based around Badger Road Elementary School (where I went from Kindergarten to 4th grade), that I took refuge in. The ends of the building were the admin offices, like anchor stores in a mall, and could be closed off far easier than the classroom halls could, so I tried to fortify & snake-proof the building from one end, until the mega-snake had trashed enough that I had to dash across the building and continue fending off the seige from the other end.

If you would say you're rather familiar with the Beatles, but by no means an obsessive fan of the Beatles, take the time to listen to this song for a bit.



...ring any bells?

That's not a rhetorical question, actually. I'd like Yes/No answers (and this should propagate from LJ to Twitter, FB, and Tumblr, so it should hit a fairly large audience).

In talking with folks about the Aimee Mann & Michael Penn cover of this song, I've been rather surprised at the number of folks who had no clue what song I was talking about, and the smaller (but still oddly, to me, common) number of folks who heard the cover itself and didn't know immediately that it was a Beatles song.

If it was "I Dig a Pony" or "You Know My Name; Look Up My Number", I could understand. But this?

Person 1: "Funny as in, 'ha ha'?"
Person 2: [sobbing] Oh God, I wish it was. I... I didn't know rabbits could make that noise. Over and over again...

The other week I was down by the Bangor waterfront and was walking around the funky retractable docks they have set out for boats. Along each corner of the gangplanks were caged bulbs, that they apparently leave on all night long. This obviously led to a slew of entrepreneurial spiders setting up shop, so as to snag bugs lured in by the lights (as one often sees around, oh... my porch?)

Before too long, I got to wondering if anyone has tried to scope out what effects the industrial age (or more importantly, the "Us keeping artificial lights on all night long" age) has had on spiders. I mean, before we started setting up little lights all over the place, with things that'd keep photophillic bugs from just taking a kamikaze dive, spiders must have been hard-pressed to snag things after dark; most light-attracted bugs would just make a bee-line (well, a moth-line) for the moon, the reflection of the moon on water, or the rare forest fire, none of which are really things a spider can set up webbing around (unless they're from Leng).

I'd think a century or so of shielded gaslights, lights behind glass windows, and bulb-type lights would be enough time for some sort of change, however minor, to start to crop up, in population-count or behavior, at least.

Anyone out there really really familiar with Gimp?



A thing that I occasionally wish I could do, by way of some Script-Fu Add-On sort of affair, is to select a particular region, then click a thing that makes it select everything of the color(s) that's in that region.

This way, let's say I have a picture of a field of roses and I want to do something funky with the flower blossoms. Instead of continually selecting this color, plus that color, plus this other color, et cetera, of the various blooms, I can "just" select one flower and then... *click* ...have it select everything of those various shades of red.

Is there such a thing out there, or do I have to stick with doing it 'long-hand'?

In the last few months, there have been a number of instances of someone (someones?) wheatpasting up pigeons around downtown. If you've been following me on Facebook or Google+, you've been hearing about this at least once a week, but for those who haven't, here's an album of them (that I update and mark on the Gmap as I find them).



Late July, a reporter from the Bangor Daily News contacted me on Facebook to see what I had to say about them (since before the person started their own FB page, I seemed to be the primary documenting person on them):

Around early July was when I first noticed the two pairs of wheatpasted gulls, and at the time I presumed they were an art installation that the people who maintain that little alley-garden on Central street had commissioned. But then Gibran Graham of BangPop posted a picture of one of the "I <3 BGR" pigeons a week or two later, which prompted me to try to find it, which led to me noticing a few of them around town: the yarmulke-wearing one in front of Bagel Central, the sombrero-wearing one in front of Coco Loco, the one in front of the Court building on Hammond, et cetera. This seemed like a pretty good hint that it wasn't a commissioned work, since the owners of many of those establishments seemed to be surprised and pleased with them being there. There's even been requests for them, with someone at KahBang wanting one by their office headquarters.

So far, I've only heard folks say either positive things about them, or fairly neutral things about them (generally with those folks wondering why someone would go to the effort). As far as I know, the only wheatpasted pigeon that's been removed so far was the one in front of the Youth Correctional Offices on Franklin; my guess is that they probably found that one a little too blatant, since it was right in the doorway.

I consider it a very charming sort of street art since, if done correctly like in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec's street posters, it doesn't damage the surface it was applied to, can be easily removed, and will eventually biodegrade on its own. Charming enough that I thought I'd publicly show support by posting a message in The Edge. I've even heard other folks show indirect support by talking about similar projects like yarn-bombing and Toynbee tiles.

If I had any concerns about this, it would be similar to how one is more likely to have a rock thrown through a window in an abandoned building, if a window was already broken. Just like how this wheatpasting can lead to other folks doing similar creative street art projects, I do believe it could also lead some to spraypaint inane scrawls randomly, leading to street-art just being given a bad name. But much like how any representation of superheros in mass media will lead to a small number of misguided viewers jumping off roofs with bath-towels tied around their necks as impromptu capes in attempts to fly, I think it's an acceptable risk in the name of progressive art.

Market Café
4 Free Street
Old Town, Maine
04489


Good day,

I realize that this must sound very strange, but it’s about the least-strange way I could work out. The other week (probably the 5th or 6th of this month), I was in The Big Easy (in downtown Bangor, connected to the Charles Inn) and someone else who was there said she was quite sure she recognized me. She also looked vaguely familiar to me, but neither of us could work out how. In trying to sort it out, I mentioned that I worked at the Luna Bar & Grill, and she replied that her father had mixed reviews of the place based on personal experience. She mentioned that she had lived in New York for quite a while, and I mentioned that I had been there, but it was for less than a week and was years ago.

In thinking about it later on, I realized that this mystery person may have waited on I and a friend of mine when we went to the Market Café a couple of months ago. Obviously, I can’t be sure, but this long-shot was about the only guess I had.

Thank you for your time and patience,


William D. Young

42 Winter Street
Bangor, ME
04401

It's almost like the original encounter was designed to haunt me until I worked it out.

Last night's dream partially involved me walking through the woods. I heard a sound and/or smelled a smell that let me know that something horrible was in the nearby area, so I was carefully looking through the trees.

Up on a hillside, this beast came into view (a beast that I has earlier recognized the sound or smell of). It basically looked like a black Standard Poodle (what with the wooly fur and all), but with little to no head, and all the joints in the legs seemed to be full-rotation ball & socket joints. I don't know how large it was supposed to be, but my dream memories told me that, "This is a species of animal that, on the food chain, is a predator to bears". Around the time that I saw it, it saw me and started to circle down the hillside towards some concealing foliage.

Really wish I remembered how it turned out.

Something that comes up somewhat often in time-travel works of speculative fiction is the whole "changing the past" thing. Recently, in Doctor Who, the whole predestination paradox (or as I like to call it, 'circular causality') thing has been cropping up quite a bit. Technically, it happens just about any time anyone goes back and tries to make sure history works out the way they remember it to be -- they're operating on memories of the corrected past, even though at the time, the non-corrected past is the subjectively 'proper' past.

Recently, in watching Rocky & Bullwinkle on Hulu, this even comes up in Mr. Peabody's Improbable History. In the first episode, Peabody and his boy go back in time and realize it's not very fun, since they can't change anything. So, they pop back to the present and re-adjust the Wayback Machine so instead of taking them to the past that was (and thus, immutable), it takes them to the past that could have been (which is a pretty cool way to introduce the Everett Many-Worlds Theory to folks).

Which, of course could lead to the fun of someone from a different time-line hopping to the 'proper' time-line and trying to make sure things work out the way they remember them to be.


Yes, it was this that prompted me making this Userpic

Odd sight on my way home from work, tonight.










...about six of them, with consecutive temporary license plates, lined up in the YMCA parking lot (facing Court Street).

No clue.

Last night's dream partially involved the Beatles all getting together for the first time in a long time, and considering a reunion tour sort of thing.

They were all there: John*, Paul, George**, Janet & Chrissy***.


* Surprisingly alive.
** Also surprisingly alive.
*** Surprisingly, two folks who actually are characters from Three's Company. No, it wasn't Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers; it was Janet and Chrissy. Sorry, Ringo.

Dear Amazon -

Downloading the They Might Be Giants pre-release EP would be a whole lot easier if you either allowed one to download the whole thing at once, and/or if you hadn't accidentally named multiple different tracks with the same name. You are made of suck and fail.

Dear iTunes -

You requiring me to open iTunes to change the ID3 tags on the tracks once I've worked out which song is which isn't making life any easier, either. Hate hate hate.


PS: AOL keeps shuffling which album that above linked-link will take you to. Scroll through the album covers until you see the green claw on the white background.

At 4:30 PM, Sunday the 17th, my phone buzzed. I mis-assumed it was my 5:00 "You really should go to work" alarm, so I just opened and closed the phone. Alas, I realized a split-second too late that it was actually an incoming phone call, from 326-2438 (a number that I have no clue about, but apparently their area code, 401, is Rhode Island).

Today, they called back via text message.

[them] 8:20 PM - Hey

[me] 8:33 - Hey. You called the other day, but I thought it was my alarm, so I just opened & closed my phone. Eh, whoops!

[them] 8:33 - I called u

[them] 8:33 - ???

[them] 8:37 - Wats up

[me] 8:38 - Very little! At work.

[them] 8:39 - Ooo u have a job

[me] 8:44 - Yep; Luna Bar & Grill. Been here about eleven years, from when it was the New Moon Café.

[them] 8:45 - Haha neat I do the paper rout, I deliver papers

[them] 8:47 - That's not ver far of where I live

[me] 9:00 - Behind-ish Bangor City Hall, off of where East Market Square was in the late 19th century.

[them] 9:03 - Yep

I still have no clue who this is.