Category: Uncategorized

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Dude! It’s Extreme!

Hey! Is that Eli Manning?

Friends,

Just a quick note to remind everybody that California State Highway number 74 is a place for my car to go way too fast and for me to take numerous reckless chances. It is not a place for you to ride a damn skateboard after donning a skydiving outfit with a helmet you ordered from the back of the International Dorkbot catalog. This is especially true if you feel the need to launch this adventure just as I’m careening around a blind right hand turn immediately behind you. Kick as hard as you want, you pathetic extreme sports chimp, but I might have a hard time scrubbing off enough speed in the space allotted next time and I’m not looking forward to explaining how the impression of your pointy white behind in the paper-thin metal on the hood of my tiny racecar got there.

That said, I’m willing to cut you some slack if you wear a jet pack next time.

– bob

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Just Not Very Good At Weather

 

Friends,

You’ll notice that The Idyllwild Weather Clam has settled on a temperature prediction this morning that’s pretty much in line with Accuweather (for once. -ed) and the Town Crier, but Weather Underground has chosen to stray pretty far off the reservation today. It’s difficult to know why, but they tend to march to the beat of a different drummer (that’s racist. – ed). We’ll let you know what happened tomorrow, but as for right now I think we can agree that the science is settled (you’ve all settled on wild guesses? – ed).

– bob

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Meme Alert: California is Greece

Yes, we grow them with the pimentos in, but that won't save us now.
Wait, it’s more than the climate?

Friends,

This internet meme that’s been floating around for two or three weeks is really starting to grate on my last frayed nerve. I get that California is facing a huge budget shortfall and a much larger underfunded pension system, but are we really like Greece? I guess it would be instructive to think about what would happen if either state defaulted on its crushing debt instead of Greece receiving an EU/IMF bailout package and California firing school teachers. It’s possible that Greece could have brought down the Euro as it tumbled off the cliff. Our state, on the other hand (or paw), has been looking for a handout from the Federal government to pay the bills, which to me seems a bit pathetic.

At this point, I suppose I could say that the legislature could suspend Prop 98—the initiative to tie school funding to revenues—until the budget is repaired. Maybe we could scrap our imaginary high-speed choo choo train. I’m sure Union Pacific wouldn’t mind. We could close that $20 billion hole in the General Fund pretty quickly, but we won’t. Yet.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dunk my head in a bucket of lye.

– bob

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Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It's all about the colorways.
These look comfortable.

Friends,

Today in the United States, we observe the Mexican army’s defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla in a cleverly named celebration we like to call “Cinco de Mayo” (hey, that’s pretty catchy! -ed). In this grand festival, we honor the decision made by Mexican President Benito Juarez to stop paying interest on debt owed to Mexico’s largest creditors, including France who sent their collection agency to seize the collateral for those loans—namely, the entire country. Thankfully, our modern financial system is much more sophisticated and would never be subject to ham-handed tactics like those.

But those details have been washed away over the years by Americans who were looking for an adjunct to Saint Patrick’s Day, except with tequila. No harm in that, certainly.

This year’s celebration, though, is likely to be marred by protests against Arizona’s new immigration law. I’m not sure I see what all the fuss is about, actually. Have you ever been to Arizona?

– bob

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Handwriting Recognition

No, not the sauce.
This should work out well.

Friends,

HP, the former Hewlett-Packard, has just announced their purchase of beleaguered cellphone manufacturer Palm. Some might say that this billion and a half dollar purchase is likely to go as smoothly as the Compaq merger. Others seem to think that it’s merely a patent grab so HP can build a tablet that can compete with Apple’s iPad. Personally, I think the stars have truly aligned to bless this marriage. How do I know?

Well, today is rapper Master P’s birthday. And in “H” news, it’s also the birthday of Swedish death metal band Amon Amarth’s lead singer Johann Hegg. These are signs, people.

Everything is going to be just fine.

– bob

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Facialtome Diaries: Today’s Young Youth Edition

What do we want? Our beautiful lives handed to us on a platter! When do we want it? C'mon, really? Friends,

Remember when you were a college freshman? When you had stars in your eyes? When you were going to take the world by the horns unconcerned about getting gored? Sometimes I see that people on the Facebook need some help, especially in my area of expertise. One of those people is my Facebook friend who is the daughter of my friends who has embarked on taking herself way too seriously at a liberal arts college back East.

Eventually the reality of this world will surely catch up to her and deal her the soul-crushing blow it dealt the rest of us. In the meanwhile, this exchange happened today…

Liberal Arts College Freshman: Does anyone have an old school Polaroid camera that they would love to give me? If so, I will be forever and eternally grateful.
Friend Of Freshman: ebay has some nice one for under 5 bucks. Mine was .99 cents
Your Humble Author: You can have my Polaroid 800, but this might make more sense. Just download Polardroid on your Mac and use it to modify your digital photos for totally blown-out, over-saturated pics…
http://www.poladroid.net/

Liberal Arts College Freshman: 1) I don’t have a Mac. I don’t really think Mac is an ethical company so I try not to buy from them.
2) I don’t have a digital camera because I don’t personally think digital photography is the best artist art form when it comes to photos.
3) I want a Polaroid camera because they are history and after that scare awhile back when they said they were going to stop making Polaroid film, I decided to invest.
Thanks for the suggestion though!

Apple isn’t an ethical company. Not as ethical as, say, Microsoft or HP. There’s that. But digital photography isn’t an art form compared to a Polaroid?

Ah, youth. You kids are so screwed.

– bob

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Idyllwild Weather Clam Presents The Next Ice Age

Looks like the snow plows have been busy.Friends,

On this, the 22nd of April, I have half a foot of snow in my driveway. As you can see from the webcam picture above, the county snow plow crews were hard at work pushing that snow into my driveway this morning. Too bad they didn’t actually plow the roads last night. The twisting, winding mountain roads that snake down to the Festival of Dirt. I know times are tight, but in my little town we don’t want or need too much from county government. Just patch the potholes and keep the roads clear. That’s about it. Sadly, it seems that they can’t even manage that.

But I lived (barely) to gripe about it! So that’s something…

– bob

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Tastes Just Like Grizzly

Friends,

Good news for black bears out of Sacramento today. The California State Department of Fish and Game has reversed an earlier decision to allow expanded black bear hunting after waves of protest washed over their agency.

Personally, I’m not sure why the California bear population needs to be culled in the first place, and certainly there are other targets…

 

Hunting season for black bear in California begins each fall. It ends when hunters either report up to 1,700 black bears killed or when the last Sunday in December arrives.

 

The proposal from Fish and Game staff offered various options to increase the total quota, with one option suggesting 2,500 bears be killed a year and another suggesting there be no limit set. But animal rights groups promised a state ballot measure and a legislative battle.

 

“I don’t think the bears are out of the woods yet. But this is very encouraging news. It shows that democracy works,” said Brian Vincent, with Big Wildlife, an Oregon group that fought the rules.

When does punster season open?

– bob

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World Goes Round In Circles

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the joy of pure, life-like video quality...
Nothing tape-delayed about her excitement!

Friends,

On this day in 1956, Ampex demonstrated the first videotape recorder at the NAB show in Chicago (what? not in Vegas? -ed Las Vegas hadn’t been invented yet.). Immediately following this development, people on the west coast started losing a lot of sleep. Soon after that, Apple released the iPad so people could watch movies and television shows anywhere. (um, there were some important developments in between those two inventions, weren’t there? -ed I think so, but mostly pet rocks and fuel injection. It’s all a blur.)

– bob

P.S. Yes, I know the picture isn’t of a VXR-1000. I only found one good one and I didn’t think it’d scale very easily.

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Happy Special Election Day!

Friends,

Today is a special election here in California State Senate District 37 where we select who will replace John Benoit, who replaced the late Roy Wilson on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors (ahem, no term limits). On the ballot are a couple guys who are trying to out-conservative each other, a third party nut, and some cats who seem to be representing labor.

My recommendation is pretty simple. No matter who you pick to replace Benoit, please go and vote. This is particularly true if you happen to live in my tiny (<i>and idyllic? – ed</i>) alpine village. As was reported in our paper of record last week, we may not donate much money to campaigns, but if candidates study voting patterns they see that we turn out in higher percentages than the lowlanders. This forces the serious ones to actually stop by and talk to my neighbors during elections.

Who knew that you could gain the attention of elected officials merely by voting?

Will wonders never cease?

 

– bob

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Okay, Fine, I’ll Just Do It Myself

Friends,

After hearing the news of Justice John Paul Stevens’ impending retirement, Supreme Court watchers have fired up the speculation machine again. Some of the names might not be familiar, like Solicitor General Elena Kagan, or Diane Wood. Some might be kinda familiar, like TARP Inspector General chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel Elizabeth Warren. Some lunatics have even mentioned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the job.

Each of these potential nominees has a problem or two that might prevent their confirmation in the Senate or at least lead to a nasty, bruising fight. In my opinion, the country cannot handle yet another contentious partisan political slug fest. Somebody’s gotta take this problem and turn it into an opportunity to heal this great political divide, and since nobody else has piped up, I will.

 Hell, if Mickey Kaus can run for Senate as a Democrat, I certainly have the qualifications to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, that.

– bob

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Also What Pigeons Say When They’re In Love

Care for a delicous fried round thing? Try the dip!

Friends,

Yesterday there was a government in Kyrgystan led by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Corrupt, sure. Some would even say yesterday’s government was a teensy tiny bit kleptomanical and that could be a fair assessment. Today, there’s a new government led by former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva and propped up by the military in Kyrgyzstan after protests against the old government cost the lives of at least 60. The new prime minister has agreed to continue the arrangement reached between the United States and Bakiyev for use of an air base in the country conveniently located near Iraq and Afghanistan. For now. If this doesn’t seem eerily familiar, it really should.

We’re still pals though, right?

– bob

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Happy Birthday Intelsat I!

Friends,

Today is the 45th anniversary of the launch of Intelsat I, the first commercial communications satellite. Sure, it could relay your telephone and fax transmissions in 1965, but it was also considered the world’s tallest television transmission tower providing a little over 80 hours (or in today’s terms, two weeks) of programming that year.

Happy birthday, Early Bird! Don’t hit the space station, okay?

– bob

 

P.S. Yes, I know that the picture is of Intelsat III, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Sheesh, you guys are sharp.

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Happy Easter!

Could be an albino bat…

Happy Easter from the rebirth and renewal fan club here at Jaunty Central. Many happy huevos to you and yours!

– bob