OTRSS/Log/2003h

Journals: 2003(9)

^{by Ric Carter}

NOTES: transcribed
November Nada-ness
Guatemala Distraction
December Decrepitude
Holidaze in Joisy
Ongoing To-Do List

FINDINGS: thoughts

LISTINGS: stuff

ACCOUNTS

Go2: Odd Moves

(Note: click all images)

FINDINGS
Bush.In.30.Seconds

[montage of appropriate images]
* Couldn't get a job on his own
* Deserted from military service
* Drank himself into oblivion
* Claims to have been Born Again
* Corruptly given the last election
* Raped the economy & environment & Constitution
* Surrounded by ideological and religious maniacs
* Launched an illegal and endless war
* Promotes isolation, terror, hatred
[image on aircraft carrier]
* Mission Accomplished
[patriotic music]

LISTINGS

Rediscover: 10cc, Cage, Yoko, RadioHead, Tuba, Baroque Beatles' Book, Soft Machine, Webern, Koto, Barry Smith
Reload: MP3s, MIDI, tools...
Reinterpret: mythic images
Reinvent: time, space, sound, vision, thought
Relinquish: ego, thought, hope, fear; meat, pride, space, beer; sound, scent, time, tears

Wednesday 1 November, at home

Nothing much happens in November. Not that I remember, anyway. Nothing much happens in November. So phew phat memories to dismember. So much time to surrender. No more books by Wallace Stegner. Nothing much happens in November. Just a mild case of distemper. And another monumental bender. Here and there a crumpled fender. Nothing much happens in November. Mix it up in the blender. Mix it up in the blender. Blame it all on sticky fingers. Nothing much happens in November. ChaChaCha.

Saturday 8 November 2003, at home

Ain't done no dictating nor writing lately, although I have been online on a couple forums — but I just haven't felt like doing HTML or transcriptions or journaling or that sorta stuff. Anyway, last week, not this week but the preceding week, on Tuesday we're running around in shorts complaining about the heat of late October and a couple days the ground was covered with hail, then snow. Fairly heavy snow. It lasted the weekend, then the sun and rain ever since have melted most of it away.

During the week I tried burning DVDs from our old personal videotapes. But both the camcorders are now officially ShotToShit. Have to get new ones temporarily to do the dubbing.

Other than that, this week there were a couple days of the usual down in Jackson, interspersed with long scenic rides home - via Ione, Lake Pardee, side roads on the adjacent ridges. But mostly we're attempting recovery from earlier rigors and preparing for upcoming rigors. Difficulty after difficulty.

For every solution there are one or more difficulties, but not necessarily vice-versa. —Anon.

YESTERDAY in Jackson we tried to get some cash at an ATM, but got an unpleasant message that we're overdrawn which didn't seem financially possible. This morning we went online to resolve our accounts and found a glaring discrepancy. Somebody had make a $1500 or so CHARGE against our debit account! So we spent the whole day tracking down our money, rather than doing anything useful or pleasurable or relaxing.

Turns out that somebody had charged that amount for GAMES! From a place called GameStop.Com in Dallas TX. So I got in touch with GameStop and after various tedious exertions I got the charges and overdraft charges resolved and removed, bounced checks taken care of. Because what was impacted was our credit-checking-ATM account, our daily operating expenses. Maureen had to drive all the way to Jackson to get some cash before our cards were cancelled, coordinating by phone as I transferred funds between accounts and monitored the action online from home. Bother.

And then we have the source of this fraudulent order, dialed in on the Web from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates! Like they don't have enough money of their own so they have to take ours!

The folks at GameStop were very helpful. They said they get many large orders, all of which are reviewed by humans, and most of these turn out to be fraudulent. I surmise that the miscreants generate random credit-card numbers and expiration dates, place orders (with random gobbledegook in the name and address fields), then wait to see what sticks to the wall. Or maybe not, quien sabe? [Discussion of authorization mechanisms deleted.] Assuming that some small fraction of such fraudulent orders do manage to slip thru the screening, where does the merchandise go?

The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran,
And he said: 'Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man.' —Kipling

CURRENTLY: We have determined that we're not going anywhere anytime soon. We're still awaiting word from Kaiser and CuzGary's. We missed the Death Valley 49er Encampment, it's happening RIGHT NOW. So we might go out to the desert for the end of November, the start of Decdember, or we might not. I just don't focking know right now. Oh well, this'll give me a little more time to sell off some extraneous electronics on eBay and exercise the new printer a bit and maybe dub some videotapes.

At home, I am in my office. I am sitting in this small high-ceilinged room with walls laden with shelves laden with books. Atop the shelves are objects and prints, some old prints, some new prints; and plastic dinosaurs and various other artifacts. Other shelves are laden with videotapes, audiotapes, CDs, more books, etc. And I am otherwise surrounded by electronics, ranging from ancient (like that old AM radio crystal set of several generations past) to very modern. And not everything is even geologically layered.

TONIGHT is a FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE. Some of the NewAgers say there's a Harmonic Concordance with major planets forming a Mogen David in the sky. And people's minds will be changed. Uh huh. Just like in the Harmonic Convergence. And the Jupiter Effect. Right.

Well, stepped out after dark to view the eclipse, saw Luna with a chunk missing before the clouds moved in. But nothing profound enough to alter the paradigms by which we live.

I work out regularly on the mandolin. Besides SURF CITY (twang) I'm working on WALK DON'T RUN and APACHE. Yes I *WILL* be the King of the Surf Mandolin before long.

Guatemala Distraction

And what else is there to do? I've been processing pictures, better print some soon. And burn the archive discs, next batch will be the Guatemala pictures, just gotta find 400+ megs of something to fill out the 3rd CD - hey, maybe it's time to digitize those Guatemalan cassettes! Si! Turn all our Guatemalan music into MP3s!

GUATEMALA is in the news, the presidential election is tomorrow, that vile old dictator Rios-Montt will probably come in third, won't make the runoff, and his supporters will probably be busily beating and shooting people again. I'm really concerned about what'll happen there, I really love Guatemala - the country, the people, it's a great place. I hate to see this happening. I hate to think what our new Guatemalan relatives could be going thru. The only consolation is that at least they're not Iraqi. In Iraq. Being there.

Sunday 9 November 2003, at home

Violence in electoral Guatemala, no results yet. I'm reading online, see Ira Glass say that he as a Semiotics major at university. Do any of the dictionaries on my shelves contain the word Semiotics? No. Too old. What does this mean?

Monday 10 November 2003, at home

Very early morning. I just found the Mobility power supply! It was in its box! Now I have no excuse for not posting excess electronics to eBay! So much work, so little money! Damn!

Guatemala: Rios-Montt loses by a landslide! See the news!

Monday 1 December, at home.

Did anything happen these last 3 weeks? Will anything happen the next couple weeks? Anything worth mentioning?

Kill winter with your cannon,
Hold back Orion with your bayonets,
And crush the spring leaf with your armies.'
—Richard Aldington

Wednesday 3 December 2003, Jackson CA

If you don't record it, it didn't happen. I haven't been recording anything lately, so nothing's happened. Nothing except my birthday, the Thanksgiving party, our car blowing up (the engine), selling a heavy leather coat on eBay and getting ready to sell a pile of electronics. None of that happened.

Nothing happened because what we really want to do is get away, and we can't. Once we got the medical stuff taken of, or pretty much, we've got some appointments next week, but other than that we're ready to go to Tahoe or Reno for a few days. And then the Explorer engine blew up. Manufacturing defect. So we're just in town today to talk about what to do - replace it - or put in a new (or old or remanufactured) engine. That'll only cost $3500-4000. Ha. And I thought the problem was just the muffler.

Until we get the Explorer back we're borrowing vehicles from Las Abuelitas, which means we don't get to go too far away because we don't want to put too much wear on them. So nothing's happening. Bother.

I've got my own web domain, Klaxo.Net - a klaxonette is a small klaxon, of course. I'll put all the DESERT RAT and other Western archives there, THE CHURCH OF THE OTTERS archives, the BARBARA HAMBLY stuff will go there pretty soon. The domain name is $6 a year, the 500 megabyte storage space is free for three years, as a promotion. So now I have a bigger web presence. But we're still stuck here, so nothing happened.

The keyboard on Goliath, the big Toshiba laptop, broke. I'm still checking on the warranty, to get a new keyboard. But nothing happened.

Transcribed Notes: No Chance of Escape	<< BACK << (( INDEX )) >> NEXT >> CONTENTS NOTES: transcribed November Nada-ness Guatemala Distraction December Decrepitude Holidaze in Joisy Ongoing To-Do List FINDINGS: thoughts LISTINGS: stuff ACCOUNTS JOURNALS index Guatemala Journal Eat It! Food News Go2: Odd Moves SkeptiLog: Sightings Ridge Rat News River Rat News Desert Rat News (Note: click all images) FINDINGS Bush.In.30.Seconds [montage of appropriate images] * Couldn't get a job on his own * Deserted from military service * Drank himself into oblivion * Claims to have been Born Again * Corruptly given the last election * Raped the economy & environment & Constitution * Surrounded by ideological and religious maniacs * Launched an illegal and endless war * Promotes isolation, terror, hatred [image on aircraft carrier] * Mission Accomplished [patriotic music] LISTINGS Rediscover: 10cc, Cage, Yoko, RadioHead, Tuba, Baroque Beatles' Book, Soft Machine, Webern, Koto, Barry Smith Reload: MP3s, MIDI, tools... Reinterpret: mythic images Reinvent: time, space, sound, vision, thought Relinquish: ego, thought, hope, fear; meat, pride, space, beer; sound, scent, time, tears
November Nada-ness Wednesday 1 November, at home Nothing much happens in November. Not that I remember, anyway. Nothing much happens in November. So phew phat memories to dismember. So much time to surrender. No more books by Wallace Stegner. Nothing much happens in November. Just a mild case of distemper. And another monumental bender. Here and there a crumpled fender. Nothing much happens in November. Mix it up in the blender. Mix it up in the blender. Blame it all on sticky fingers. Nothing much happens in November. ChaChaCha. Saturday 8 November 2003, at home Ain't done no dictating nor writing lately, although I have been online on a couple forums — but I just haven't felt like doing HTML or transcriptions or journaling or that sorta stuff. Anyway, last week, not this week but the preceding week, on Tuesday we're running around in shorts complaining about the heat of late October and a couple days the ground was covered with hail, then snow. Fairly heavy snow. It lasted the weekend, then the sun and rain ever since have melted most of it away. During the week I tried burning DVDs from our old personal videotapes. But both the camcorders are now officially ShotToShit. Have to get new ones temporarily to do the dubbing. Other than that, this week there were a couple days of the usual down in Jackson, interspersed with long scenic rides home - via Ione, Lake Pardee, side roads on the adjacent ridges. But mostly we're attempting recovery from earlier rigors and preparing for upcoming rigors. Difficulty after difficulty. For every solution there are one or more difficulties, but not necessarily vice-versa. —Anon. YESTERDAY in Jackson we tried to get some cash at an ATM, but got an unpleasant message that we're overdrawn which didn't seem financially possible. This morning we went online to resolve our accounts and found a glaring discrepancy. Somebody had make a $1500 or so CHARGE against our debit account! So we spent the whole day tracking down our money, rather than doing anything useful or pleasurable or relaxing. Turns out that somebody had charged that amount for GAMES! From a place called GameStop.Com in Dallas TX. So I got in touch with GameStop and after various tedious exertions I got the charges and overdraft charges resolved and removed, bounced checks taken care of. Because what was impacted was our credit-checking-ATM account, our daily operating expenses. Maureen had to drive all the way to Jackson to get some cash before our cards were cancelled, coordinating by phone as I transferred funds between accounts and monitored the action online from home. Bother. And then we have the source of this fraudulent order, dialed in on the Web from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates! Like they don't have enough money of their own so they have to take ours! The folks at GameStop were very helpful. They said they get many large orders, all of which are reviewed by humans, and most of these turn out to be fraudulent. I surmise that the miscreants generate random credit-card numbers and expiration dates, place orders (with random gobbledegook in the name and address fields), then wait to see what sticks to the wall. Or maybe not, quien sabe? [Discussion of authorization mechanisms deleted.] Assuming that some small fraction of such fraudulent orders do manage to slip thru the screening, where does the merchandise go? The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: 'Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man.' —Kipling CURRENTLY: We have determined that we're not going anywhere anytime soon. We're still awaiting word from Kaiser and CuzGary's. We missed the Death Valley 49er Encampment, it's happening RIGHT NOW. So we might go out to the desert for the end of November, the start of Decdember, or we might not. I just don't focking know right now. Oh well, this'll give me a little more time to sell off some extraneous electronics on eBay and exercise the new printer a bit and maybe dub some videotapes. At home, I am in my office. I am sitting in this small high-ceilinged room with walls laden with shelves laden with books. Atop the shelves are objects and prints, some old prints, some new prints; and plastic dinosaurs and various other artifacts. Other shelves are laden with videotapes, audiotapes, CDs, more books, etc. And I am otherwise surrounded by electronics, ranging from ancient (like that old AM radio crystal set of several generations past) to very modern. And not everything is even geologically layered. TONIGHT is a FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE. Some of the NewAgers say there's a Harmonic Concordance with major planets forming a Mogen David in the sky. And people's minds will be changed. Uh huh. Just like in the Harmonic Convergence. And the Jupiter Effect. Right. Well, stepped out after dark to view the eclipse, saw Luna with a chunk missing before the clouds moved in. But nothing profound enough to alter the paradigms by which we live. I work out regularly on the mandolin. Besides SURF CITY (twang) I'm working on WALK DON'T RUN and APACHE. Yes I WILL be the King of the Surf Mandolin before long. Guatemala Distraction And what else is there to do? I've been processing pictures, better print some soon. And burn the archive discs, next batch will be the Guatemala pictures, just gotta find 400+ megs of something to fill out the 3rd CD - hey, maybe it's time to digitize those Guatemalan cassettes! Si! Turn all our Guatemalan music into MP3s! GUATEMALA is in the news, the presidential election is tomorrow, that vile old dictator Rios-Montt will probably come in third, won't make the runoff, and his supporters will probably be busily beating and shooting people again. I'm really concerned about what'll happen there, I really love Guatemala - the country, the people, it's a great place. I hate to see this happening. I hate to think what our new Guatemalan relatives could be going thru. The only consolation is that at least they're not Iraqi. In Iraq. Being there. Sunday 9 November 2003, at home Violence in electoral Guatemala, no results yet. I'm reading online, see Ira Glass say that he as a Semiotics major at university. Do any of the dictionaries on my shelves contain the word Semiotics? No. Too old. What does this mean? Monday 10 November 2003, at home Very early morning. I just found the Mobility power supply! It was in its box! Now I have no excuse for not posting excess electronics to eBay! So much work, so little money! Damn! Guatemala: Rios-Montt loses by a landslide! See the news!
December Decrepitude Monday 1 December, at home. Did anything happen these last 3 weeks? Will anything happen the next couple weeks? Anything worth mentioning? Kill winter with your cannon, Hold back Orion with your bayonets, And crush the spring leaf with your armies.' —Richard Aldington Wednesday 3 December 2003, Jackson CA If you don't record it, it didn't happen. I haven't been recording anything lately, so nothing's happened. Nothing except my birthday, the Thanksgiving party, our car blowing up (the engine), selling a heavy leather coat on eBay and getting ready to sell a pile of electronics. None of that happened. Nothing happened because what we really want to do is get away, and we can't. Once we got the medical stuff taken of, or pretty much, we've got some appointments next week, but other than that we're ready to go to Tahoe or Reno for a few days. And then the Explorer engine blew up. Manufacturing defect. So we're just in town today to talk about what to do - replace it - or put in a new (or old or remanufactured) engine. That'll only cost $3500-4000. Ha. And I thought the problem was just the muffler. Until we get the Explorer back we're borrowing vehicles from Las Abuelitas, which means we don't get to go too far away because we don't want to put too much wear on them. So nothing's happening. Bother. I've got my own web domain, Klaxo.Net - a klaxonette is a small klaxon, of course. I'll put all the DESERT RAT and other Western archives there, THE CHURCH OF THE OTTERS archives, the BARBARA HAMBLY stuff will go there pretty soon. The domain name is $6 a year, the 500 megabyte storage space is free for three years, as a promotion. So now I have a bigger web presence. But we're still stuck here, so nothing happened. The keyboard on Goliath, the big Toshiba laptop, broke. I'm still checking on the warranty, to get a new keyboard. But nothing happened. HOLIDAZE IN JOISY: click here
More Stuff I Still Ain't Done Yet Ongoing To-Do List Look for one-ear headsets for our AudioVox walky-talkies. Research musical chorusers for voice and guitars. A pickup for the mandolin? Put network card in Monorail, integrate into network, connect MIDI iface. Replace scanner. Order shelf cabinets from Ikea. Find online granola supplier. Plus everything else I ain't done yet. Print some Guatemala pictures. Check web for a powered antenna for the Ericsson cellphone. And get a hearing aid. Get bicycles ready; setup TV & audio in the media room; find the passive antenna tuner. Arrange remaining gear & power supplies for the (probable January) extended trip and beyond; gather all manuals & hookups, make sure it all works.

Journals: 2003(9)

Transcribed Notes: No Chance of Escape

CONTENTS

ACCOUNTS

November Nada-ness

Wednesday 1 November, at home

Saturday 8 November 2003, at home

Guatemala Distraction

Sunday 9 November 2003, at home

Monday 10 November 2003, at home

December Decrepitude

Monday 1 December, at home.

Wednesday 3 December 2003, Jackson CA

HOLIDAZE IN JOISY: click here

More Stuff I Still Ain't Done Yet

Ongoing To-Do List