<Mark> Saw a bumper sticker today, made me think. The bumper sticker read "If you can read this, Thank an Educator".
And I started thinking - How old was I when I could have read that? Problably before I ever had the misfortune of dealing with an educator. My first grade teacher thought I couldn't read because I hadn't been to a "state approved" kindergarten school. (She was, by the way, the first of many, many teachers in my twelve years or so of school who thought I was stupid.) It was later found that I was in the top ten of my class as far as reading skills went. Not because dear Mrs. Gibson turned me around, but because I had two parents who read all the time, and like most small children I tried to do the same. So, to the fat lady in the little Honda Civic, I don't thank educators for anything except for sucking twelve years out of my life, and making me write repetitive, boring, mind wasting assignments over and over again. I thank them for *attempting* to bring me down to the level of the rest of the class. I also thank them for all the information that I learned that has not done me one iota of good in the real live non-classroom world.
"All I really need to know I learned on my own"
-Mark </Mark> <!--12:47-->
<Mark> Well well... just when I thought things couldn't get a whole lot stupider...
...I read that some guy in Sapulpa, OK got a Life Sentence.
What for, you may ask?
Did he rape?
Did he kill?
Did he even raise a fist?
No. He spit on a police officer. And now he is in jail for the rest of his life, which since he is 35 will be a sod of a long time. For spitting on someone who, being a police officer in a small-ish town in Oklahoma, problably deserved it. And of course nothing in the article about the cop or what he/she said or did. Why, if we knew the whole story, we might think of the pig as something other than a victim.
So when you get pulled over, please remember - don't spit on the cop, even if they're begging for it. You might be in jail FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!
-Mark </Mark> <!--21:30-->
<Mark> Well I found an interesting little tidbit in the news today. It would seem the Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
A foreign city? That sounds well and good for our soldiers, who might want to know about that carload of gun toting nuts that are about to head down their street.
But what about those of us here in the US of A, the free-est country on earth? (at least that's what I've been told...) If these cameras will work in a foreign city that is a bare minimum of 1,000 miles away, then why won't they work down the street in Tulsa, OK?
In the news article I read, it said the system could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. Well at least someone had the balls to go out and say it.
The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face. So we have a computer program that will recognize my car, and recognize the long haired guy driving it, and do it every time the aforementioned car goes past a camera?
There is also mention of developing "Software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide to predict terrorist attacks and creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches." So no matter what you do, you're on record. Who exactly is the terrorist now? Whatever happened to privacy?
They say the cameras would cost about $400 apiece, and would send to a normal personal computer which runs maybe $1000. How many cameras can the taxpayers buy for $400 a pop? Plenty enough to watch each and every single person. I know I pay more than $400 in taxes every year. So our taxes could pay for a nice little "Telescreen" in our very own home. A very sad prospect, indeed.
But I know one thing. This thing is something that does make me feel patriotic, but not the patriotism that "they" want. I know that most americans have that little engineering gene, that little something that makes them come up with great ideas from the stuff in their backyards, or their garages, or wherever. I know that a police state that relies on a system of cameras cannot survive with a people as ingenious as we are. There is a balance, a beautiful thing really: "As technology advances, the technology to outsmart it advances too"
-Mark </Mark> <!--05:45-->
<Mark> It would seem someone is backing a ban on gay marriages. And although I'm not gay, I ask myself... Who cares? If a couple of poofs want to tie the knot, who the hell are we to tell them they can't?
Iam supporting a ban on all marriages. That's right, I think that it's obscene that the government and the church should stick their noses into anybody's personal relationship(s). if two consenting adults who work together want to go home on a friday and bang like a screen door in a hurricane, who's business is that but their own?
-Mark </Mark> <!--02:00-->
<Mark> In the news today, Eminem dangled a baby doll over a balcony.
And, for some reason, this matters. People getting killed don't make the news. But Slim Shady picking on Michael Jackson does. Too bad no crazy man with a .50 caliber sniper rifle and a 24x scope saw it, then we might have gotten rid of some of the worst music ever.
Actually, no, wait. THAT would be in the news, on TV, for a year. Just like Princess Di(e). I'd have to hear his crap even more then. I don't much care for rap or pop music but his stuff is bad even compared to other rap or pop.
-Mark </Mark> <!--14:31-->
<Mark> You know... I post a lot of stuff about stuff that makes me mad, or that I think isn't right... I think with this post, I'll discuss something that makes me feel on top of my world. Something that some people are tired of hearing about, except that not many of you who may read this have to listen to me ramble *all the time*.
What is this thing that makes me happy? A secret girl? A sports car? A video game?
No, friends. It's a motorcycle.
I'm sure everybody out there knows somebody who rides a motorcycle, and wouldn't trade it for the world have to pry it from their cold dead fingers, et cetera. And chances are, it's something like a Harley, or a Honda Goldwing, or an insanity-on-two-wheels crotch rocket. I'm taken with dirt bikes myself. I'd much rather ride down a dusty gravel road, or a nice narrow trail in the shade, a deep mudhole, dry creekbed, whatever odd bits of terrain I come across. I can go pretty much anywhere I want to, I can ride up just about any hill up to something almost vertical. And it doesn't matter whether I am riding along in second gear looking at the scenery, or if I'm blasting down a straight section with the bike wound out, I'm completely at peace. Nothing matters.
Now I'm not the only one like that. I ride with a guy from work usually. There are a couple of places around here, one of our favorites is below the Hudson lake dam. Problably 30 miles of trails of varying difficulty. Every time we go ride there is at least four more people, usually on four wheel ATV's. Very rarely you see someone else on a dirt bike, and when you do it's one of the Big 4: Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha.
Not me though. I've got a 1977 Husqvarna. 220 Lbs of magnesium, steel, rubber, and power. It was sitting in the back of the cycle shop, a forgotten relic looking for a home. Even the guys running the shop didn't quite know what it was. I happened to see it and have some money, I bought it for a few hundred dollars and took it home. For the next year I might have ridden it three times, before the ignition coil went bad. And at that point, I realized what it meant to have a motorcycle of obscure make that is olde than I am. I searched for 10 months for that one silly part. It's a Motoplat ignition coil, one of the first solid state ignition coils. So I had to have *that part* I couldn't just wire up another coil. I finally found a very old man who said he had about 30 of them left over from when he was a dealer. I bought one, ecstatic that I could ride my bike again. After a little bit of tinkering and foul language I had it running again, and for the next couple of months I rode it every day, and worked my way through all it's little odd quirks. I now have a 26 year old dirt bike that starts on one kick, and will outrun just about anything else on the trail so long as I don't have to go around a corner. I have to take a couple of tools with me on the trail, but that's common sense more than anything.
The best thing about the bike is the attention. Anytime I stop it to fill it up, or to get a drink, or to take a break, people flock around to look at the bike. When it's in the back of the truck and we stop somewhere, people will ignore a brand new harley to look at the museum peice under all the mud. They want to hear it run. They ask how old it is, if I'm going to restore it, and a lot of times people ask me:
"Will you sell it?"
No, I will not. After being offered a lot of money for my $300 investment, I have decided that being without a filthy barn-rat of a dirt bike is more than I could stand, and if I bought another bike... I'd be trying to get it straightened out for a year before it worked as good as the one I have now. Be nice to find a woman who could appreciate the need some people have for an old dirt bike. Nothing can take it's place, not a ten thousand dollar KTM, not a screaming Kawasaki, and certainly not some nice quiet "safe" 4 wheeler. Even if I don't ride it every day anymore, it's nice to have it there sitting on it's upturned 5 gallon bucket, when I get bored, or the world is too much.
Specs:
1977 Husqvarna WR250 cross-country
249 cc air cooled 2 stroke engine
5 speed gearbox
~213 pounds dry weight
</Mark> <!--18:14-->
<Mark> Man... you write one weblog post... and there the next day you have people jumping mad all over you. Sometimes I have too much fun with this thing.
Let me explain something to the world, or rather, to those women in the world who break a guy's heart and then want to be friends. Because this is too difficult for them to understand:
We don't want to be your friend. Why not? Because ex girlfriends turn out to be one kind of friend. And that's the kind that only shows up when they want something.
Which I, for one, have too many of.
-Mark </Mark> <!--10:03-->
<Mark> I happen to know this girl. She's crazy. She was my girlfriend for I am not sure how long, off and on. There was just something about her, and I couldn't figure it out. It wasn't her looks. (although she is very pretty) It wasn't her voice, although she can sing very well. It wasn't her personality, which could swing from hoplessly in love with me to hating the way I dress and think in seconds. I puzzled over her for a long time, trying to figure out exactly what it was that made me go back to a girl who said she loved me, but at the same time hated almost everything that was me. Until now.
I got it, like a stroke of lightning, bringing daylight to the dead of night for a split second.
She was honest with me. She was also straightforward with me. Didn't beat around the bush, so to speak. She didn't try to hide her distaste at my bad habits, she would tell me if I did something she didn't like. If she said she wanted me around, she really did want me around. She is the only woman I've ever met, anywhere, any age, any race or religion, who I can say that about. Funny because all the women in the world say they want an honest man, that honesty is most important to them, but they seem to forget that honesty goes both ways.
The sad thing is, the blonde haired brown eyed girl I write this about will problably never see these words, they'll never be reflected off her black rimmed glasses. But it's not to her. She's the one who, despite being hard to get along with some of the time, is doing things right.
-Mark </Mark> <!--04:55-->
<Mark> Hello, all you people out there in bored internet land. You'll all be happy to know, that for the very first time, I've managed to come completely off my motorcycle while riding it, without prior planning. (Short version - I wiped out.) After having off and on owned motorcycles since I was 19, and having my present Husqvarna 250 for about a year, and being told that I'd be dead in a month of motorcycle riding, I have actually managed to fall off the bike. I'm sure you're all very happy. However, much to your dismay, I have been totally right in that I got back up, picked the bike up, and proceeded to ride off with only bruised pride.
So you can kiss my ass right through my muddy jeans.
Now then, to the insulting part of today's ranting.
You'll notice if you see the Yahoo! news headlines, that the Man in Charge is asserting that chemical/nuclear weapons WILL be found in Iraq. Ri-ight. Either they don't exist, or your dopes are looking under the wrong rocks. But I'm sure you won't find anything. Just had to have an excuse to take over another government, and the fact that they were torturing/killing/stealing from a bunch of their subjects wasn't enough justifiction. You had to say they had weapons that could change things so that you couldn't go on torturing/killing/stealing from your subjects.
Question is... who is against who...
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H.L. Mencken]
-Mark </Mark> <!--03:37-->
<Mark> I see in Yahoo! news today, that Bush and Blair are getting some heat over the Iraq weapons claims. I'm not suprised. I'd like to know, however, where are the people were who were telling me I was an idiot, when I said that this would happen? Where are you now? Much like the people who thought Y2K was going to be the end, they've quietly gone into embarassed hiding. One line got my attention from the article:
"So many false claims have been made in the past, it can only be politically driven. Responsible governments take time to investigate"
Ouch.
-Mark </Mark> <!--20:23-->
<Mark> I was in town with my kid earlier today, had to make a stop by the hardware store. He's a real popular person everywhere he goes.
I also had to make a stop by a gas station, my car finally ran low on gas again. It's not very fast... but I'm not funding international terrorism as much as somebody in a big honking SUV.
I got out of the car, opened the bent fuel door, unscrewed the dented gas cap, and I noticed something.
There was a f@#$ing screen, about 15 inches by 12 inches, over the gas pump. Showing commercials. Sound and all. I looked for a way to turn it off. And there WAS none! Here I am, STUCK by a TV screen, and I can't shut it off or even turn the sound down! Talk about your 1984-esque stuff. I can't even get gas without being propaganda-ed to death. I told the clerk at the gas station that I'd not be coming back for gas until the screens were either removed or fitted with a switch so they could be turned off. I'm also sending an email to the Git 'n Go main office telling them the same thing.
Have we delved so low that we have to have screens shouting ads at us from everywhere?
-Mark </Mark> <!--18:47-->
<Mark> Well hello all... In the news today, It seems some lawyer is pushing to make Oreo cookies illegal for children in California.
I'm not kidding. Oreo Cookies. Has California got the biggest collection of whack jobs or what? They're dangerous because of some kind of trans-fat thing. I've not heard of anybody's kid dying from an Oreo OD, but I'm sure some kids eat too much at once and get sick... if you eat too much anything at once you'll get sick.
Oreo Cookies of all things! And lets not be forgetful. What does any kid (or any grownup, for that matter) do when told they can't have something? They try all the harder to get it! And do you think for one second that any shopkeeper anywhere is going to deny a kid with money some cookies? Are we going to card people for Oreo Cookies? Will we have 18-year-olds buying boxes of Oreos for their 17 year old buddies outside? Will there be police busts, finding 10 year olds stockpiling Oreo cookies? Will the price of the Oreo in California get up to $10 a cookie, and will they start pushing to make them illegal everywhere else because it's too easy for a California kid to ride his Huffy bicycle over to Nevada and legally buy Oreos there?
Do I seem crazy yet?
Not as crazy as outlawing the Oreo Cookie...
-Mark </Mark> <!--04:19-->
<Mark> I've just come across the "Friday Five". How interesting. The questions for this Friday are:
1. What was the last TV show you watched?
That's a hard one. I don't watch TV that much. Problably The Simpsons.
2. What was the last thing you complained about?
Last thing I complained about... Have you EVER tried to find PARTS for a Husqvarna motorcyle? You'd think that there was only one 1976 Husqvarna WR250 left! What? You've never heard of a Husky WR250? Well... that's problably because I've got the only one left.
3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
That's another hard one. I don't compliment too many people. It was problably my girlfriend, and it was problably about her hair or eyes or mouth, her 3 best features. And if she reads this she will be somehow offended at the idea that I found some part of her pretty. Or the wrong part. Or something.
4. What was the last thing you threw away?
Hmm... Don't throw ANYTHING out. See above note about Husqvarna motorcycle. Never know what I might need. Seriously, I think I threw away a soda bottle last.
5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
That's another hard one. Either Yahoo! or This twisted little site or maybe Huskyclub.com where you will find information and pictures and even some parts for old and new Husqvarna dirt bikes.
-Mark
</Mark> <!--22:11-->
<Mark> I happened to be reading Mom's weblog earlier, she was discussing music in the first part of her article, how certain collections of classical aren't very good, (for the "Posers" of classical music?) or how some orchestral music wasn't really classical. An "Elitist", however that may be spelled. (On a side note, I have weird spelling problems. I can't spell Elitist, Titleist, or Orchestral, but for some reason I can spell Magnetohydrodynamic, Husqvarna, Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannibinol, and Para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde.) Well... why does someone have to like classical to be one of the musical elite? I can name more Metal, Rock, and Alternative music in the first 3 notes than most people even know the name of. For that matter, I can tell the difference between Metal, Rock, and Alternative. (And between Southern Rock, Industrial, Techno, Death metal, Goth...) But I'm not elite... Don't want be, really. But I can still kill time and soak up bandwith on servers I don't own while talking about music, SO....
...That's just what I'll do!
Got told by a girl once that the music that I listen to (Which, by the way, ranges from 3 Dog Night to Phish to Marilyn Manson to Mushroomhead to bands that make Manson look like a pretty respectable guy.) doesn't have "Meaning". I'd have been offended, but this particular girl also thought it was fashionable to have only enough brains to keep from drooling. Songs that she thought had meaning were really sappy and sad sorry country songs "sung" by women or by womanly men in cowboy hats. They all had the same meaning. Wife/Husband/Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Mother/Daughter that they loved so much died/left forever, and they're so sad but they keep going on hoping they'll come back... Usually stuff that had me grating my teeth within 30 seconds or so. Sounds like a turbocharger with a bad bearing: WEEE WEEEEEEEE SQUAAAAAAAAALL.
So called "Modern Rock" is scarcely better. Kinda a sick mix between rap and rock, it dominates the once good radio stations, so SOMEbody must be able to tolerate it, but I can't for the life of me think of anyone. I'd like to start my own radio station someday, Hire my friend Nick as one of the DJ's: "Hey, dudes... this is Nick... and I have like no idea what time of day it is or where I'm at... But I've got all this wicked music and an ounce, I can at least play the music for you..." And of course, someone would call whining about the fact that we would dare play Fear Factory on a station that they could turn to and how they were scared because they were afraid that they'd like it. That would be my morning show. I'd take calls from people who were trying to get all religious with me and play them on the air as I was picking on them and tormenting them without mercy. I'd report actual events happening in the middle east and the War Against World Freedom, not what the media wants you to see.
I figure it would be about a month before the whole station was shut down and anybody associated with it was arrested. Can't have any dissidents, can we?
Maybe THAT'S why I can't hear any good music when I turn on the radio...
-Mark </Mark> <!--21:53-->
<Mark> Hello all... What shall be the subject of today's rambling? I don't know if I've mentioned anything or blogged anything like this or about this. I'm sure everybody reading this remembers being in school. And everybody reading this has problably noticed that there was one guy, almost always a guy, who got messed with by everybody. He couldn't do anything right, how could he be so stupid, even the faculty didn't like having him around. And what made it so much worse for that poor bastard, is he was quite a bit smarter than anyone else. Bad grades always, but always knew the answers. Remember that guy? Might have had glasses, might not. Dressed different, didn't try very hard to dress nice or dress in the current *style*. And you graduated from school thinking in your narrow minds that he would be some loser always, who didn't have any friends.
How could you be so... stupid.
Because when that person got out into the "Real World", he instantly became the most useful person to be found. Everybody who made fun, who told the jokes, who thought they were better because they were like everyone else, they are the ones who get stuck in the dead ends, the low paying cubicle jobs with their "superior" education and their $140 a week paycheck, always terrified of the layoff. Meanwhile, in some factory, some office, some wharehouse, some military base, some place somewhere, the person you made fun of, or someone like him, is solving the problems, thinking of new ways to do old things. Always a hard worker, always at work... because his friends are at work, those who admire them are those that work with him. He still doesn't dress like everyone else, he still thinks different. And he still dies laughing inside, when he sees all of the lemmings around him, doing the same thing, dressing the same way, thinking the same thoughts.
All because he was different. He looked at things, and couldn't just accept the way they were. He wanted to know WHY they were that way, and if they could work another way. He learned the most important lesson, one never taught in any school anywhere in the world:
"When someone says something can't be done, that usually just means they can't figure out how to do it."
-Mark </Mark> <!--21:22-->
/archives