Ok, so we continue on with my 2010 rocket ride metaphor. It's October. The outside of the rocket has been built, yea team, but it's not so pretty. There are ugly welds to grind and parts to be massaged and paint to be liberally applied in gobs. So we have moved on to the engine - a fire breathing beast with the power to incinerate! Stand back! Or so we hope. I know what you're thinking: This is rocket science! Is he smart enough to pull this off? Unfortunately, that's a trade secret that I'll take with me to the grave, which hopefully won't be caused by my fire breathing rocket failing to breathe fire and my ride ending, you know, badly, scattering stuff, me, all over the firmament, the tarmac, the good green Earth.... Good lord. Where was I?
October 2, 2010
Is there anything worse than a condescending, know it all sales dude at a retail tech store where within 60 seconds you know he knows you don't know he knows how much you know. No wait. Where he knows that you know more than you know he knows...no. Where you know he knows you know, and in that very knowingness- Anyway, is there anything worse? All right, all right, there's cancer and being in a natural disaster and stuff, but I didn't say any of those things because I knew you knew that. You know?
October 3, 2010
Here's something. I was going through some old notes and found an account reference for an anti-virus product that had automatic renewal set for it. Uh oh. I logged into the account and sure enough we had been getting charged year by year for a product on a computer that is no longer in use. Multiple e-mails later, the account has been cancelled, our money returned and my mind whirling about whether I have automatic renewal set for any other products. The ironic thing is, one sets up automatic renewal so one doesn't have to be reminded. Double edged sword, eh.
-- You and your UFOs. Everything's a UFO to you. I'm bored. I want out of this bathtub.
-- I'm serious! I think it's a UFO! Look, will you.
-- Look-schmook. You're driving me crazy. Can't you see how bored I am? I'm soooo bored. When do we get to eat again?
-- (She gasps.) There's 10 of them!
-- Sure there are, little Miss Histrionic. Everything's a panic to you. Me, I'm bored silly and could eat a- hey, you think the photographer's got any food? Hey you, buddy, you got any candy?
October 5, 2010
Because everything has consciousness, I particularly like my mechanical equipment to be healthy; truck, tractor, computer, brush saw, etc. I think of these conveyances and tools as beings in their own right. I'm serious. My world has a certain feel to it. They're part of that feel. What?
October 6, 2010
Something happened that would normally make me boiling mad and seeking revenge through elaborate, mind bending, ingenious plots of retribution, even if only in my head, but none of that has transpired. This thing happened, it was deliberate, it was nefarious, it was worthy of punishment, but it hasn't been a bother. I'm not sure why, but I've already moved on. Pretty darned advanced, huh? Puff puff.
October 7, 2010
This is a beautiful mathematical form. The Fibonacci spiral. Go on, ogle.
I'm one of those rare consumers who has gotten the best of Microsoft operating systems. My first computer was a CP/M machine that I used for so long it allowed me to completely bypass all of DOS. My next computer was Windows 95, bypassed Millennium, new computer at XP, bypassed Vista, and on to the current Win 7 configuration. ...Yikes, I'm the Octopus Paul of operating systems.
October 9, 2010
I'm not saying what I mean lately. What comes out of my mouth is not what I really mean, but rather something else, something interesting of course (haw), it just isn't what I'm thinking. It's more confusing to me than whomever I'm talking to, because I'm doing it, but I don't know why I'm doing it - heck, I'm even thinking about why I'm doing it as I'm doing it, yet I continue doing it. The truth? I think aliens have taken over my body and are trying to match thoughts with speech only they're a little bit off, so I'm missing, and saying stuff I don't mean, while being conscious of doing it while I'm doing it, because they're trying to learn. You think? Or not.
This is the Singing Ringing Tree. A functional art piece whose tuned pipes emit a haunting choral in the wind. It was built in protest by a druid boy scout troop to call attention to the infamous 1019 'Harmonica Proclamation', whereby the chief druid outlawed mouth harps primarily because of his unnatural dislike for Willie Nelson's harmonica playing. When asked if he hated all country and western music, the boss druid replied, "No, just Willie Nelson." Legend has it that when the wind is right, the Tree will play Whiskey River.
October 11, 2010
Ahem, about wayward health: Preserving the unhealthy or unbalanced aspects of one's life is the result of not examining the source producing these behaviors. And the reason you do the things you do is completely thought driven. Our bodies are intelligent, they are doing their darndest to accurately mirror your thoughts about yourself. If you keep telling yourself lies, at what point do you start believing them? Stop lying to yourself and your body will reflect that. Get me?
No? Ok, for instance, you're overweight. It's not that you're fat, that is merely your body's reflection of your compensation efforts. You get fat by eating too much. WHY you are eating too much is the source of your issue. If you say, Oh, it's glandular, you're lying to yourself and you will continue to eat too much. If you focus on a diet and say, I must lose weight!, but don't focus on the source, well that's a path to recidivism. But if you look at why you're compensating yourself with too much food, you'll see the source for the behavior, and THEN you'll have the power to tell yourself something else, to believe something else, to allow your fully intelligent body to become something else. Get me?
October 12, 2010
If you polled a bunch of 90 year olds and asked them at what point in their life were they most happy, how many would say that that current moment is their best; how many would say it was some long ago figment from their youth; how many would say they've never been happy, have lived 90 years of misery, and a lifetime of suffering - and now I have to endure you and your invasive questions?! Will my pain never end! (Tee hee. I made the last part up because polling can be really boring and I wanted to inject some pathos. You know, for dramatic flair. Job well done, eh.)
Landing light was the only way to thwart the squirrel-proof birdfeeder. Because this genius squirrel did not see the Tom Cruise movie, this is Mensa worthy dontcha think?
October 14, 2010
Someone said that I was too smart for my own good. I wish.
October 15, 2010
Hey, do you guys ever go back and reread older KeithSpeaks? What you're missing! Look, I'm not much for bragging, but brag this, or this, or this. Good stuff, eh?
The beautiful curves, the perfect rivets, the weight above, the reflection, the quiet. Click.
October 17, 2010
Briefly saw an old buddy I used to play ball with. We were long past those long weekends in the Canadian Rockies playing in softball tournaments where the whole team camped as one and lived the sporting life to excess with mates we liked. It was good seeing him again.
October 19, 2010
You'll notice that the today and tomorrow dates are out of order. That's because tomorrow's post, which is really yesterday's, and is now today's, was too close to the picture above and made both posts harder to read. So I am inserting this long winded explanation to tell you why the today and tomorrow dates are out of order. What? You forgot? Already? Again, so as to create some breathing room on the page between the two clashing photos and make the posts a bit easier to read, silly. All right then, I think that's enough stretch and blather. All better. See.
October 18, 2010
Which is more authentically gothic, the roof or the girl?
Would it be better to have been a one hit wonder known all your life for something you did a long time ago, or better to have lived your existence in quiet anonymity and known for nothing outside your personal life? If you had a choice.
October 22, 2010
I've been dating my first smartphone. It's been a bit bumpy; I've been both impressed and highly pissed off at this sexy little device. Does it do everything including world peace? Yes, yes it does. Has it already been replaced once because it was defective and acting like it was possessed? Yes, yes it was. Do I like it? Oh, I do. It has big potential. I'm keen on that. So things look promising. Ooh la la.
The dash mounted radar gun blinked 162 miles per hour. The Ferrari was a red blur long gone. Taking another bite of his cruller he turned to his partner with a look of resignation that verily said, These budget cuts are killing us!, but what came out of his mouth was, "You gonna eat the one with the blue sprinkles?"
October 24, 2010
Upon meeting me, people have said all sorts of things (to my face, behind my back), but never has someone said what this woman said: "Why, don't you look just like Jesus Christ! if he had brown curly hair which he didn't, and was as built as you which he wasn't."
Say what?
"What do you do?" she continued.
"I'm a carpenter", I smiled, knowing that would send her into a tizzy. It was good fun for a minute or two, but hold on, later I heard her go up to a woman and exclaim how she looked like Jesus, you know, if Jesus was a woman which he wasn't. (Personally, I thought she looked nothing like Jesus.) Anyway, come on, really, that sort of thing ever happen to you?
Look at us! We are these wonderful walking, talking, thinking creations, all these elements and cells and consciousness, I mean, this just has to be about the greatest thing ever, eh? Compared to the cosmos we look so small and insignificant, but we are made of the cosmos. It's just incredible, really.
October 28, 2010
It's not even Halloween yet but last night was pretty darned spooky. About 2:30AM I hear something that wakes me up. I assume it's one of the dogs that wants outside so I go check on them and find that all 3 are fast asleep. It takes me a few moments to realize that the noise I hear is the washing machine. What? I go downstairs and sure enough, the washer has started, with nothing in it. Now I'm the only one home because Susan is away visiting her family, so how does a washing machine start itself? I figured it was a short or something so I left the lid up, knowing that the machine can't run without the lid being closed and I went back to bed. When I went downstairs this morning the first thing I noticed was the lid was closed. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
October 29, 2010
Ew, this was gruesome. I was walking up our driveway and saw a hawk make a strike on a female pheasant. The hawk came screaming out of nowhere, landed on the pheasant and started thrashing her. The blood, the feathers, the noise - it was awesome and awful, spectacular and horrifying. For everything on Earth, food is the dirty little secret of living a life (or losing one).
October 30, 2010
As another set of elections near, the rhetoric grows to preposterous, ignorance morphs to righteousness, the desperate get increasingly stupid, and the common man is left to wondering which is the lesser of two evils between the current spate of jokers, charlatans and fools. I've said it before and I'll say it again, in this digital age where communications can be instant and everybody can have a voice, the idea that one person is elected to represent millions is archaic and rust laden. Wake up, people, take back this escalating political nonsense, govern yourselves.
October 31, 2010
Once again I've bought candy for kids that will never show up on our dark, deserted, rural road on Halloween. It's like this year after year, but I know that the year I don't have candy, will be the year some costumed troupe will arrive to demand some. It was Einstein who said the definition of insanity is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Dude probably didn't even like candy.
