Daniel Puckett's Pulp

Working in Ottawa today -To meme or not to meme

2015-11-05T09:16:00.001-05:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

To meme or not to meme that is the question. Any meme of yours is a meme of mine? I left my meme in San Francisco? We will meme you.

Bah.. I may have reached the point of boycotting all social media as the meme waves are just so damn boring and an insult to my brain.

Um.. Uncle Daniel what are you going off on? And what is a meme?

More bah! Meme is a term originally described in Biologist Richard Dawson's book The Selfish Gene. In that '76 book he defined a meme as a cultural unit of transmission, imitation or replication such as a catchphrase, melody, fashion, and other learned items of culture.

Enter.. The Internet. Memes on the Internet and in Social media are all of the copycat drivel of both format and content.

Any video involving twerking; posts that claim the post itself is under attack; any email, tweet, post, message that asks the reader to repost -if they have the guts.

You likely have read infinite counts of FaceBook posts where the author claims.. "Be sure to Share this right away, Facebook is trying to take this down!" But of course Facebook doesn't even care about whatever Bif was sharing. Meme.

Or the picture of some random child patient with a bald head, "Only the heartless will ignore, comment 'Amen' if you care." As if any supreme giant invisible man/woman in the sky is so petty and trivial that he/she would only help the child if 1000 Facebook users comment? Absurd and offensive, what about the child whose photo is not posted, does that child get to simply die? Meme.

The "People say that a quadriplegic crossing guard/soldier in uniform/priest with a tattoo can't get 9999 likes, If you have the courage, 'like' this, 99% of you won't have the guts." Nice attempt at social manipulation, who exactly are these people that say this? Does this ever work Sparky? Meme.

The latest to get my goat, was the "This is Canada and we say Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings". Really folks, NO ONE CARES if you say Merry Christmas. I have never been told by anyone ever not to wish anyone Merry Christmas or that we should not call it a Christmas tree. Pure fiction, people just trying to create a cause where there is no cause. Christianity is not under attack by Holiday Tree salesmen wearing turbans. Meme.

Speaking of goats.. videos of goats. Oh wait, no. Those I like. Young goats bounce around like they are made of springs wound too tight, and goats of all ages will answer you, often in unison, if you "bah" at them. "Bah?". "Bah bah bah bah bah". Hilarious. Meme.

Have a great day. Please be original.

Working in Montréal today --How to convert Barleycorns to Gunther's Chains

2015-10-29T09:01:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

I haven't travelled in the last two weeks, maybe three, so am a bit out of practice in the Pulp department.

I was driving to the airport this morning and it is fairly typical for me to rely on Waze to give me the heads up on the best route to drive from home to airport -it's always straight down Eglington to Renforth and then up Silver Dart Drive, but I use Waze just in case some morning an A320 incorrectly lands on Eglington Ave and blocks all traffic.

Scratch that, there is likely no way to correctly land an A320 on Eglington Ave.

Waze is a Smart Phone app that utilizes the location and direction and driving velocity of its users to assist all other users in picking the best route from point A to B. But this is not a Pulp extolling the virtues of Waze. Just go get it, 'nough said.

No, an A320 did not land on Eglington Ave this morning. The drive was fairly non eventful. But Waze did direct me to an alternate route actually heading south for a bit before resuming a general North-East heading using the highway. I am generally unaware what it was navigating me around although to satisfy my own curiosity I did check the arrival boards at the air, and none said gate: Eglington Ave.

I will mention is that after installing Waze, I left it set to Imperial measure, did not change it to Metric. So I get instructions like "proceed for 1.1 miles and then turn left".

This got me thinking this morning.. Canada is a Metric measure country, as is just about every country on the planet other than Burma, Liberia and the Good Ol' USA. But we didn't finish the job. In 1970 when I was in grade school, then PM Pierre Trudeau passed legislation to convert us to Metric. 10 years later, when US pres Ronny 'Ray Gunz' Reagan reaffirmed that the US would stay Imperial, then PM Brian 'Irish Eyes' Mulroney halted the Canadian effort. Actually that is not quite right, since it was already a law to convert to Metric, Reagan simply cut all funding to the process as did Mulroney. So technically the US and Canada are still in the process of converting, there is simply no progress.

As I mentioned, I was in grade school when Canada changed from Imperial to Metric and I must say it was with huge relief. With Metric one must only remember a few things.. for all practical purposes micro (1/1,000,000), milli, centi, deci, 1, deka, hecto, kilo, mega (1,000,000) and then a few base measure systems that are interrelated using water, meter, litre, gram and one heat scale based on water state changes. Simple. Whereas with the Imperial in order to successfully drive a car one must consider how many Sheep Heads of fuel are consumed per Furlong of travel and what time of year you need to convert from Sheep Heads to Rusty Gates squared.

A brief guide to distance in America. There are 4 Poppyseeds in a Barleycorn. 3 Barleycorns in an Inch. 12 Inches in a Foot. 5280 feet in Mile except at sea where there is 6080 feet in a Mile and of course 3 nautical miles in a League. So if you were keeping track, there are 760,320 Poppyseeds per Mile. On land.

You can divide a Land Mile into 8 Furlongs or 80 Gunter's Chains or 880 Fathoms or 8.8 Cables or .88 Nautical Miles but if you ask me how many Roman miles in a Land Mile I get confused as I would need to first reduce the Land Mile to 5280 Feet then multiply by 2 to Shaftments then divide by 5 to Paces then 2 to Grade Steps then by 4 to Ropes then by 5 to Ramsden's Chains then by 50 to reach a Roman Mile..

HEY!! That's it: 1 x 5280 x 2 / 5 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 50 = 1.056 Roman Miles in a Land Mile.

Folks, you are one of a very select set of people on this planet that know this number and how it's calculated :)

Wait a second Uncle Daniel, I read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, how could Captain Nemo take the Nautilus what you say would be 60,000 miles deep, the earth is only 6,400 kilometers to the center so .. what .. 3,900 miles to the centre of the core? And the deepest part of the Pacific at the Mariana Trench is only 1,580 miles deep.

Yeah.. It wasn't 20,000 leagues deep under the sea. They travelled 60,000 miles or about 2 and a half times around the earth while in a submarine.. under the sea.

Now since Canada didn't finish the job of converting, but did get a lot further than the U.S., there some items we continue to measure in Imperial.

This is not a definitive list, but here goes. Almost anything to do with the human body. Height, weight waist, inseam, shoe size, bra size but not watchband size. Pool temp stayed in F. but strangely not air temp in the same sentence. It was only 19 outside but we cranked the pool to 88! Spirits outside of the bottle but not inside. I poured an ounce of Scotch into a glass from a 750 ml bottle.

Most building materials. All structural lumber, plywood width and length but not thickness, fence boards, doors, drywall sheets, copper and plastic plumbing pipes, even toilet flange placement (12" to the flange centre from the finished wall). Window width, but oddly not the glass thickness, that's in mm if I recall.

Car tires are a wacky mixture. The inside diameter is in inches, the tread width in mm, the pressure in kilopascal and the sidewall height in a percentage of the tread width. Inflate that 17x60R235 to 220. Oh yes, the R is for Radial.

I think everything you put in the oven is now in Metric, except the oven temp is still in F, whereas the refrigerator makers just gave up and gave us a setting from 1 to 10. Oh, almost forgot TV and computers computer screens are in inches diagonal, and harddisk form factors in inches wide.

Perhaps Justin can put some effort into finishing off one of his father's legacies while he is restoring the Constitution, another one of his father's legacies.

Have a great day!

Working in Montréal today --Puppy Love

2015-09-17T09:05:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

So I had a bit of a harrowing morning making my flight. All my fault, as I actually hadn't checked in and didn't realize this until about 30 minutes before the flight. Of course the flight closes 45 minutes before the flight and they give away all of the unclaimed seats. Mine included. However, the Air Canada SE Concierge saved the day for me and I am comfortably sitting in seat 15F. I just hope the fellow sitting more comfortably in my 1D seat appreciates his good luck.

So staying on the Air Flight topic. I read this AM about an Air Canada flight that was diverted from its Tel Aviv to Toronto route to make an unscheduled and reportedly a bit costly landing in Frankfurt, Germany to transfer a French Bulldog to another flight.

The $10,000 exercise was due to a heater in the cargo hold malfunctioning. Without the heater the cargo hold would get pretty cold, certainly in the sub zeros as the air outside the aircraft at 40,000 feet is around -60 C. It is pretty much certain that if the flight was not diverted there would have been a frozen bull dog landing at YYZ.

So that's all fine but for $10,000 I have imagined a slightly different solution and my first screenplay.

The plane just hits cruising altitude having lifted off on time out of Tel Aviv when the captain played by Peter Graves, who played opposite Leslie Nielsen in the 1980 movie Airplane, bursts of out the flight deck door and says..

"Folks, we have a problem." .. removes aviator sunglasses .. "Down in the cargo hold is a little dog, and that little dog will die unless we can find a brave man to do the impossible!" .. "Sure, we could spend $10,000 and delay you fine folks for 75 minutes, or we can be bold and save that little doggie and not miss our connections too." .. "What do you say people, who can I count on?"

And then it happens. Slowly, out of his seat, the unlikely hero rises, played by Kurt Russell reprising his Army Specialist role of the 1996 movie Executive Decision. Inexplicably he is wearing the same tuxedo. "Now I'm not much of a hero, and I don't think you folks want me, but I don't want to have a frozen Popsicle of a pooch on my conscience either."

Now some of you are expecting Halle Berry to make an appearance as a flight attendant, but frankly, I hear she a bit of a gem to work with, so not on my film thank you very much! No I am thinking about Jennifer Garner as the by the book flight attendant that only likes cats, that is actually a undercover CIA operative.

Captain Graves explains "Okay hotshot, it really isn't that dangerous, one access panel down through the floor in the galley and then through a somewhat narrow but manageable passage and through a rubberized canvas zippered panel and you can grab onto that dog carrier. Don't drop it, hang on for all you're worth and pass it back up through that access panel" .. "Can you do this man, do you have what it takes?"

Kurt reassures Captain Graves, "I'll try not to let you down Cappy"

Dropping down into the cramped passage below, the camera close up shows his breath fogging in the cold. A few deliberate steps and he's at the zippered panel. The zipper is jammed!! The music volume increases.. heavy on the base drums, another camera on a thermometer showing the mercury plunging fast. Will it be too late?

Where is Agent Garner? At the hatch! With a pair of fingernail clippers, special CIA fingernail clippers with built in anti-zipper jamming technology, she tosses them down to Kurt, "Use the clippers Kurt, unjam that zipper!"

Success! Kurt slips effortlessly through the opening in the panel where he sees the dog carrier. the camera pans back to Agent Garner, the tears well up in her eyes.. too late. The violins play a soft minor E melody, the passenger exchange pained glances for the camera.

"Bark"

What was that? Up from the cargo hold Kurt emerges with the rescued doggy, Kurt and Agent Garner fall into each other's arms and as the camera pulls back the familiar singing voice of Mr. Paul Anka carries us out with..

And they called it puppy love

Oh, I guess they'll never know

How a young heart really feels

And why I love her so

And they called it puppy love

Just because we're in our teens

Tell them all it isn't fair

To take away my only dream

I cry each night my tears for you

My tears are all in vain

I'll hope and I'll pray that maybe someday

You'll be back in my arms once again

Someone, help me, help me, help me please

Is the answer up above

How can I, how can I tell them

This is not a puppy love

Have a great day!

Working in Ottawa today --The gods hate trailer parks

2015-09-10T08:56:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

Do the gods hate trailer parks? Last night after racquetball at the pub the conversation turned to weather anomalies. It was right about then that I remembered where I was in the afternoon of July 31 1987.

Damn. Okay, gotta change topics for a second. Why are all of these parents protesting the new Ontario sex Ed curriculum without having read it? I read it over briefly and it doesn't have all of the evils that the protesters say it does. There is no teaching of oral sex to kids in grade 3. In grade 1 yes there is a 'name that genitalia' lesson, but shouldn't little Billy know that his appendage is called a penis? He knows what his foot is called, why not his John Thomas? This knowledge will not curve his spine nor cause hair growth on the back of his hands. Even the kindergarten kids in Kindergarden Cop knew what penises and vaginas are.

In grade 3 they should know about same sex marriages, and that's why Mary has two moms and it's perfectly normal. Give me a reason that they shouldn't know this. In grade 7 the curriculum calls for education in understanding sexual relationships and that maybe they should wait until they are older be it digital, oral, genital, anal contact. Seems reasonable to me, and the talk that parents should have with children, but a huge number do not. Interesting, I bet it is the same parents keeping their children out of the school that fail to have those chats with their children.

Reporter, "have you read the curriculum?" Woman, "why would I read that filth?" Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil. -Plato, hanging out in Greece around 370 BCE (yes, well before the debt crisis).

Okay, back to weather anomalies. The afternoon of July 31 1987 found both myself and my friend Andy K. both of us up at U of A in Edmonton for some courses on labour relations and that fine Friday afternoon heading back to Lethbridge in my green pickup. Yes, a fine Alberta lad.

As we made our way to highway 2 south, I believe when we were on 51 ave nw, the sky became extremely upset with all those mortals on the ground. The sky's turned not black but a strange dark grey with blue and purplish hues and then it unleashed a torrent of hail upon our persons and vehicles. The noise of the hail on my truck's roof and hood was absolutely defeating. I decided, that then was a great time to pull off the road under a gas station canopy and fill my tank.

While standing there filling my truck with very combustible liquid a bolt of lightening damn near blinded me when it struct a tall metal pole on the side of the gas station lot and eradicated what looked like a perfectly good air-raid siren. The horn crashed to the ground with a trail of sparks and debris.

Air-raid siren? Yeah, they used to be scattered all over left over from the the nuke scares of the 50s and 60s. I don't spot them around much, but there are still some.

So as my vision restored from tunnel panic, I noticed that the fuel pump had shut down. And then restarted. At Zero! Whoohoo, free fuel! The celebration short lived though, when I went in to pay the attendant, he had both receipts waiting. Oh well.

And off Andy and I went. Now as we made our way the several more blocks to highway 2 the man on the radio was explaining that Edmonton was being struck by tornados and you would think that would stop a few Alberta boys from heading to the highway. Nope.

The wind was buffeting us around quite a bit, several unexpected lane changes, but continue we did. Now I was relying on Andy to navigate, but what And was speaking was not directions. Oh no.

No, instead Andy was rattling on about the path of righteousness is beset by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men, and blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children!

Um.. Andy, Am I that shepherd? I am doing the driving, or are we the weak? Then Andy headed off into the Lord testing the righteous and raining snares, fire and brimstone upon them. I think Andy finished up with the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the earth being cast into a lake of fire.

(Yes I know that I didn't quote Ezekiel, Psalms and Revelations correctly, but cut me some slack, I'm at 27,000 feet and don't have King James with me)

It was a surreal experience driving through what really looked like the end of days to the voice over of Andy giving a great sermon. Yes, Andy knows his bible and exactly when to liven up a conversation!

That tornado attack on Edmonton took 28 lives, and ended its one hour rip through the city shortly after it demolished the Evergreen Mobile Home park.

I saw Andy a year or so ago, had dropped in to Lethbridge and had dinner with him and another friend from there. We recounted the drive but I don't think I remembered to ask him, but I figured the gods don't like trailer parks.

Have a great day. Watch out for the weather.

Working in Montréal today --Line Girl and Staci

2015-09-03T09:15:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today,

"Me and Staci have a special friendship, it's an ionic bond." 'scuse me? The girl in the security line seemed to be speaking to me but I had no idea who Staci was nor why they had an 'ionic' bond.

I also don't know if Staci spells her name that way, but I figured the ending with the 'i' was fitting for the odd conversation. Line Girl ignored my query and carried on blindly speaking with someone behind her. That or she was speaking to me and she simply ignored my question.

Yes, I also was irked by the poor grammar. Staci and I have a special friendship. You can quickly determine when to use I and when to use me, by removing the second party. I have a special.. Me have a special... See, it's easy.

She continued, "We've been friends forever, there's not nothing we wouldn't do for each other." I thought, perhaps she meant they share a covalent bond? This friendship of double negatives that she has had since the earth cooled.

I mean, why would she choose the weakest of the atomic bondings to characterize her friendship?

Okay quick break, there are three types of bonding, covalent, ionic and metallic. Covalent is the bonding of two non metals where the atoms bond by sharing at least one electron. Is a strong bond and has a high boiling point. Ionic bonds are between one metal and a non metal and as the non metal is generally stronger it robs an electron from the metal and the two maintain a bonding that is the result of electrostatic attraction, a +/- thing. It is a weaker bond than covalent and has a low boiling point. Metallic bonding occurs between two metals and is the electrostatic attraction between positively charged ions and the valence electrons which are delocalized -not associated with any particular atom. The greater the sea of delocalized electrons and cation ions (more protons than electrons) the higher the bond, the higher the melting point.

Sodium Chloride (metal - non metal; is ionic and easily broken)
Carbon dioxide (non metal - non metal; is covalent and hard to break)
Brass (metallic; alloy -the bonding of metals zinc and copper)
Staci and Line Girl (ionic -low boiling point)

And we're back.

This may trouble me the rest of the day. Maybe she meant Ironic or Iconic. I wear a Rob Ford for PM Tshirt, but I only wear it ironically. I am not sure what an Ironic friendship would be, Staci thinks they are BFFs but Line Girl is plotting Staci's demise? Iconically like Ren & Stimpy? Line Girl is now as famous as anyone else ever mentioned in a Pulp, so maybe this will be the start of their icon status.

Line Girl and Staci! Has a catchy feel, no?

Maybe it was Isometrical -their friendship for each other exerting and having an equal quality of measure? Or Insular -they both share a disinterest in expanding their understanding of cultures, ideas, philosophy or vocabulary?

Bah, nowhere else to go with this. But I may resurrect Line Girl and Staci in some future Pulp.

Right about now Brent from Racquetball is fuming, he has read through this Pulp wondering where the Hell his shout-out is. It was somewhat promised. Not by me, but by Brian. Yes the same Brian from the Pulp -I was wrong, Brian was right -from a few years back.

Brent is a man with a few extremely specific skills. He has a good serve in the court and he knows the population of Switzerland. It is an odd specific set, Oh! and he knows coffee. I must warn you though, given the opportunity he will swing the conversation, or will enlist a shill to swing the conversation, to Switzerland, when he will triumphantly explain that the population of Switzerland is 8.081 million.

Watching a Blue Jays' game a few Sundays ago at the pub.

Brent: "So Jose Bautista is from Dominican Republic right?"

Me: "Why, yes Brent he is."

Brent: "A lot of players come from the DM don't they, what do you suppose the population is of the DM?"

Me: "Oh, about 10 million, why do you ask?"

Brent: "Well, I am just wondering with Switzerland having 8.081 million people, why isn't there at least 80% as many players coming from Switzerland?"

Me: "That's a good question Brent, you're a worldly knowledgable guy."

John U sitting at the same bar table: "What the F*** are you guys talking about?!"

Heather our favorite bartender: "You guys are weird."

Have a great day and choose your words carefully.

Working in Ottawa today --Local and Global Convergence

2015-08-27T09:04:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

In life and everything (yes, it is not too early in the AM for sweeping generalizations!) a convergence of balance and harmony is required.

Is this a planetary thing Uncle Daniel?

No. But yes. but no. That which you are referring to is no doubt the Harmonic Convergence which occurred on August 16 1987 when there was the world's first synchronized meditation event that coincided with a grand trine of alignment of the Sun, Moon and six of the eight planets. Or is that nine? Is Pluto back in good graces?

No.

Is it an economic thing?

Sure, but no.

That would be the economic theory of global convergence which theorizes that poorer economies will grow at a faster rate than wealthier economies and after sufficient time all economies should converge to a common level of per capita income. I think that was from the only class I attended in Macro Economics. That or from The Wealth of Nations -Adam Smith.

A math thing?

Ah.. Closer. There is that Local Convergent thing in numerical analysis where by an iterative method successive approximations result in a convergence on the solution. Like yesterday when I was asked to make a donation to a charity for the social committee with cash they raised. I figured sure, but it would be unfair for me to benefit from the tax credit. So I should donate a grossed up amount to shed the tax credit back to the charity, Doh! That creates another tax credit. So it too would need to be donated.. Repeat ad nauseam.. the answer is .. assuming a .46 nominal tax rate and assuming that you already have at least $200 in charitable contributions so that you qualify for the best tax credit. For each $100 raised and handed to me, I need to contribute $185. So that only the charity benefits from the fund raiser.

But still no.

Well.. You are flying today (right now actually), is it a plane thing?

Yes and no.

It is not a plane centre of gravity thing. A quick note on that. A plane has three axis. The normal axis, running through the fuselage from tail to nose; the vertical axis running exactly that, vertical through the fuselage right at the centre of gravity from to back and side to side; and lastly , the horizontal axis running approximately wing tip to wing tip also through the fuselage. That sweet spot is certainly the convergence of balance of these three axis on the plane, but not quite the subject of today's Pulp.

No.

When I boarded the aircraft, my colleague Mark was already sitting in his seat, 2C and on seeing me he stated that he was not sure what it meant when he arrived and saw some other traveller sitting in seat 1D.

Huh?

Folks.. seat 1D is my favorite seat on the short haul flight from Toronto to Ottawa or Toronto to Montréal and the return flights. Most people don't like it as sure, it's in biz class, but it is right behind the galley bulkhead so it's just a little inconvenient for traveling with a bag (which I rarely do) and a little hard to reach the TV screen, but it has one distinct benefit. You get served first. On a short flight a few minutes is the difference between eating quickly and not getting a chance to enjoy your coffee and having time to languish in opulence and an enjoyable cup of coffee.

So others that I travel with regularly know, Daniel is in seat 1D. It's his signature move.

But not today. When I booked, someone else already had my spot!

Marked expressed concern.. "This will set the whole day off wrong.. Is the plane safe?" Ha, just a mocking question in jest, sure, I laughed it off, but secretly the anxiety level was already raised. The perspiration already running down my brow, the tingling spidey sensation on the back of my neck. I needed to be prepared for the worst.

What might happen, everything will be wrong by an offset of 4 seats! And then it happened.

I received my tray. Fruit plate, yogurt, a slice of a sweet loaf and my coffee. And...

My fruit had a bug!

Someone clearly had a special order breakfast and I got theirs! Guy in 1D was enjoying my bug free plate, my cup of coffee, folks.. he was using my linen napkin!!

Oh wait..

It's a seed. It just looked like a bug.

Alright, disaster averted, and.. I still do have time to drink my coffee, albeit a bit rushed.

So Uncle Daniel do we understand this correctly, you just wrote a Pulp on the calamity of you not getting your favorite seat in business class of a flight today and a bug that wasn't even a bug but a seed? Such a first world problem.

Well.. Sure.. when you put it like that.. Yes I did. But there is no time to write a new one. The Pulp must be published, Our wheels are only 50 feet from the runway. No time!

Have a great day, I hope that your problems today are all minor as well.

Working in Montréal today --Exodus 20:12

2015-08-20T09:37:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

I worked late last night, got home and answered the day's emails extending the day well past midnight. So this morning I dug up a Pulp idea that I had tucked away for a tired morning.

The original impetus was a Huffington Post blog titled something like "6 Things I wish I never told my children". I no longer have a link to the original blog but it was along the lines of telling junior that he is special can create a false sense for Johnny that the sun rises and sets in his derrière.

But what my mind quickly raced to was to certain infamous Johnnies and Janes and things their parents may have said.. and regretted.

Without much further ado here is my quick list.

Nero my boy, find a nice girl, settle down, why you could even become Emperor. just please, don't get involved in scandal, it would just kill me. - Agrippina

Lyle, Erik, your mother and I are loaded and we're leaving everything to you in our wills. - Jose Menendez

Lizzie, I found your hatchet in the back garden and left it on the kitchen table for you. - Abbie Borden

Oedipus, you're a fine looking young man.. and you have beautiful eyes. - Jocasta

Patty sweetheart, just find something that interests you and do it. I'll be proud of you no matter what. - William Randolph Hearst

Charles, maybe you should go to LA, maybe rent a small farm, make some friends, hang out, have some fun and just do your own thing. - William Manson

Jeffrey, eat all of your food and clean your plate and put the leftovers from the oven in the freezer. - Lionel Herbert Dahmer

Cain, be sure to keep an eye on your more handsome and talented brother. - Eve

Oh Carrie, don't be such a drama queen, go to the prom. - Margaret White.

Yeah, I know. I tossed a Stephen King character in there.

Have a great day. Please feel free to write you own!

Working in Montréal today --Worn out cassettes of The Grateful Dead

2015-08-13T09:13:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I am working in Montréal today.

Sometimes the world conspires against a good Pulp. Last night at racquetball in game 1 I experienced a 'twang' in my back, mid left, middle of the pack of the Latissimus Dorsi, like a stitch but more like a knife stabbed in almost to the lung.

This was irritating as hell, as Bob and I were down 10-2 against Tony and Larry. So played through I did. Some magic ace serves, several high arc heartbreakers, a few pinch kill shots and we tied it up 10-10. Now just so you know, play is to 11 but you need to win by 2.

We got up to 11-11, but then it just became brutal. Side out, side out, side out, side out, no points ether side, and then finally during my serve I just.. quit. I could not move another inch.

Tried hitting the stretch room, felt a bit better after 20 minutes of stretching figured I'd be able to at least drive home, sat in the steam room for another 20, went home, popped a couple Ibprophin, had a way hot Epsom Salt bath and slept.

Woke up late, hot shower and shave, had a very interesting time putting my socks on, back is still sore, but it's survivable. Left the house around the same time that most ppl on flight 402 were at the gate. Made great time on the drive, parked, tossed some seniors, small children and one guy with a walker out of my way at security and promptly went to the wrong gate.

Now in fairness to me, I did receive a text msg from a colleague that told me the flight was at gate 31 so I did not check myself, but nonetheless.. VITAL Pulp topic picking time was lost.

After a brisk walk to the correct gate, board, some banter with colleagues and here we are.

The newspaper is less than inspiring. Oil is down, election bullcrap is up, Former President Jimmy Carter has cancer and the Chinese yuan has dropped value.. again.

Yawn. Except the cancer part, sorry to hear about that Jimmy.

Oh, the Conservative ads that claim that legalizing pot will result in high use among teens, will result in addictions, and causes mental illness are all bunk.

This while the latest Conservative word is that the majority of Canadians don't want pot legalization (yes, they do, more than 60% want it), Harper will spend even more $$ in fighting pot and will seek stiffer penalties. Yeah, spending tax payer money on something the tax payers clearly don't want and turning 1 in 5 high school students into criminals.

The Toronto based International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) released a report of 11 campaign myths. Seems there is no correlative increase in mental illness despite the global rise in pot use, less than 10% of users will ever experience addiction as apposed to 20% for cocaine and 67% for tobacco, and the claim that pot today is 300% stronger than the stuff we smoked? Yeah.. No it's not. And.. In Colorado, since legalization, pot use has dropped in teens from 22% to 20%.

I can explain that last number, it might be less cool to smoke pot in the park when the seniors are grabbing all of the benches, smoking doobies and listening to worn out cassettes of The Grateful Dead.

Have a great day, practice good posture and eat healthy.

Working in Ottawa today --Don't let the bunnies get you down

2015-08-06T09:01:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

Some people ask questions in their seeking of enlightenment. Others.. not so much. This morning in an online q/a forum I read the question, "if we all are going to die, what is the point of living?".

Bah! A shitty question asked by a pseudo intellectual.

Assuming the op was sincere in his question, one may be tempted to substitute a cup of coffee for life, and re-ask the question. If the cup of coffee will be soon all drank, what is the point of having the cup in the first place?

Swap in pecan pie, a racquetball game, a walk in the park, a kiss from your sweetheart, the sun on your face, the culmination of a plan at work, a dog's wagging tail when you come home.

Maybe life and the pursuit of its meaning is to be enjoyed, else what is the point?

And that includes work. Whether you have a strong connection to society through your work and see the effect of your effort on other ppl's lives, or you flip burgers in a windowless room for ppl that you will never see, it is up to you to find the meaning and the enjoyment in what you do.

Our dog Molly has this mastered. She has assigned herself the role of Defender of the House and all things Good and Pure. This is under the theory that every visitor to the house is hell bent on murdering everyone within, starting with the little white dog.

So of course any time someone walks in front of our house, she may not bark, but she will definitely clear her throat, 'erf' a few times and get the hair on her back standing on end a bit.

I should point out that she is about 10 inches tall, so she needs all the height illusions she can get. Oh.. It need not be a person walking by either, I swear she can hear an ant fart and immediately goes into 'something is happening, I don't know what, but it is an EMERGENCY!' mode.

How does this tie back to the meaning of life and the enjoyment thereof? She has found meaning to her life, an important role and really enjoys her work. After her bark and superior attitude chases away demons, wizards, intruders, assassins and the little bunny that looks at her through the front bay window, she struts around the house with a lifted spirit, more bravado that should be able to fit into a 10 inch high dog, and a clear sense of purpose, pride and yes, enjoyment in her work. Hoo-wah!

Um.. Uncle Daniel, a bunny looks at her?

Well.. Yes, it is her nemesis. The bunny knows that Molly can't get out, so it hipity hops past the window where Molly hangs out and has been know to stop and just look at Molly while she goes into full panic mode on the other side of the glass. A short bunny yawn, and then a slow hipity hop under the pine tree. You see.. the bunny I think also enjoys his work. Being a shitdisturber.

...

Hey, we still have time, only just starting our descent into Ottawa. Do you suppose PM Harper felt a bit like Molly does when she is tormented by the bunny when this past week at the Trans Pacific Trade deal talks in Hawaii he learned that the U.S. had already brokered a secret deal with Japan to screw over Canada's automotive industry?

Yes, I see the irony, the whole TPP has been conducted in secret without any mandate from Canadians and then Harper is the victim of a secret deal. Interesting that the U.S. told Japan, yeah, don't worry the U.S.'s northern neighbours will agree to it.

More irony, Harper had asked manufacturing including automative to loudly support the TPP trade deal to drown out the complaints from hard hit groups like Canada's dairies.

Okay, out of time, on final approach. Have a great day, don't let the bunnies get you down.

Working in Ottawa today --Nauseous verbs

2015-07-30T09:06:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

I saw a commercial this AM advertising Gravol, where within, a character says, ".. feeling nauseous? Take Gravol liquid caps.." or something to that effect.

This caught my attention as my understanding has always been that nauseous meant causes nausea and that persons suffering the effects of such a nauseant were feeling nauseated or suffering with nausea. Now I figured I could be wrong, since I would expect a company like the makers of Gravol to know a thing or two about nausea as it is their raison d'état.

Oooh.. a bit of French tossed in at 8 AM, very fancy there Uncle Daniel!

Thank you gentle reader. So look into definitions of nauseous I did, and in a moment resulting in total distraction found a reference that provided two definitions. That which causes nausea; and affected with nausea.

I am not sure when nauseous came to mean both, but it may be a case of the ever evolving English language and how the meaning of words has become descriptive rather that prescriptive.

Sigh.

The distraction: the example in one online source did give an example of "She laid down as she felt nauseous".

This caused me untolds (well I guess I am telling you) of grief as I could not readily determine if the author used the correct verb.

Let me explain.

Lay is a transitive verb and it means to place something down. It requires an object.

Lie is an intransitive verb and is used for something or someone moving on their own or something or someone that's already in position.

Of course there is also the deception verb, Lie. Also intransitive if I remember correctly.

The verb principal forms of each is:

Lay, Laid, Have Laid, Laying.

Lie, Lay, Have Lain, Lying.

Lie, Lied, Have Lied, Lying.

So what did the nauseated women do?

I don't think she laid down since there is no object in that sentence, only a subject. She. I suppose she could have laid her self down, "She laid herself down as she felt nauseated.". But it sounds wrong to say, "She lay down as she felt nauseated.".

Maybe "She was lying down as she had felt nauseated." But that is past tense! What is she doing now?

"She is lying down."

Ah!

That must be it.

She told a lie about feeling nauseated just as she had lied before so that she could lay down as she had laid down before just and now was lying while she was lying about laying.

English as she is spoken.

Have a great day. Keep all of your verbs in check.

Working in Montréal today --Anouncing... The Walkerator!

2015-07-23T09:19:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

This morning in YYZ (Toronto's Pearson airport) while walking towards gate 37, or more specifically, walking towards the shoe shine guy near gate 35, I opted for the travelator, the moving sidewalk.

A young girl walking behind me with her mother's hand in firm grasp exclaimed, "look mommy, another walkerator!". Folks.. I have never heard an autopedescalator called a walkerator, and yet, it seems totally natural.

I have heard them called moving sidewalks (blegh), autowalks (more blegh), moverator (that's okay), horizontal escalator (absurd since escalate means to raise rapidly), and this girl nailed it. A quick search on the web revealed.... NO matches. However Google did present me with 10,000 pages on the deceased actor Paul Walker, well on his way to becoming Saint Paul the Divine.

The latter is a pet peeve of mine, the beatification of dead celebrities and the associated recreational mourning of the same followed by hagiographic one hour TV specials on the life and times of dead celebrity and how their life was taken all too soon with b-roll footage of crying fans putting flowers on the gate outside some other dead celebrity's house. Bah!

Okay, end of rant, back to the Walkerator. Yes, I have switched it to a capitalized trade name.

It is now a mission of my life (albeit a minor one) to spread the word. Walkerator.

I guess that's it for today.

What's that? Sorry, my producer is yammering in my earphone about something.. we still have time, we've gone to dead air.. Quick dammit write something else!

Okay, how about this, both Princeton University and Ohio State University independently studied the question of whether or not mechanized walkways result in a time savings for the partaking traveller.

Both said no. Walk instead. The problem is that you have a high degree of risk that your pathway on the Walkerator will be blocked by fellow travelers whose legs have mysteriously failed to function or are the victim of a Crazy Glue prank are are then stuck and paralyzed directly in your path.

Moreover, the studies determined when your path is not blocked and you are free to walk on the Walkerator with wind blowing in your hair, you will save an average of a mere 11 seconds when traveling the length of a football field. I should clarify, a 110 yard Canadian football field.

I will also mention that the Princeton study was purely on mathematical modeling, whereas the Ohio State study was field measurements at the Cleveland airport, and then someone yelled "road trip" so they went to the San Fransisco airport and measured there as well.

I try to minimize the risk by looking ahead on the Walkerator prior to making that committing step onto it and look for how many non-walking riders standing two abreast and in how many sets. One or two, and you can walk up behind and with a quick "excuse me" they will shuffle and scurry out of your way like rats startled by a flicked on light, but too many and they get jammed up and you will be sunk.

Yeah, I thought that was odd imagery as well.

But we successfully used up the time, up next is the lovely Candice with the weather followed by Ted with sports. This was another segment of Puckett's Pulp!

Have a great day, go for a walk.

And yes, I can write about just about anything.

Working in Ottawa today --Don't surf dumb

2015-07-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks, I will be working in Ottawa today.

Woke up this AM and read about the Calgary couple the lost $20k out of their bank account to fraudsters that used an email transfer to a bogus account.

They can't understand how this happened and they find it notable that the bank "wasn't surprised" the woman half of the couple said "I thought they would be more shocked".

No, the bank was not surprised as this is a fairly typical theft.

I works like this. Either Binky or his wife received an email (known as phishing email) from persons unknown purporting to be their bank. The email would be either very well crafted and would include branding and the look and feel of communications from his bank, or it would be a horrible attempt at branding with mixed fonts and spelling errors. Both are tailored for different types of vics.

Within the email there would be some reason why the vic needs to login into their online banking. Need to verify the last few transactions, need to reset the password because of 'suspicious activity', what ever. But for the vic's convenience a link to the bank's online portal is right there in the email, just click...

The link of course leads to a fake bank site that is there steal the vic's login credentials.

Um.. Uncle Daniel, the reason for well crafted emails and ones that suck?

Oh yes, the well crafted ones are meant to fool the more savvy yet distracted user, and the poorly crafted ones to fool the less intelligent, gullible folks. It is actually quite clever. If you as the fraudster fools someone with the poorly crafted one, then you know that you have a good chance at bilking them into the distant future. You could follow up a theft with a fake email from a gov't agency that promises that for a $100 registration fee, the monies can be recovered and additional compensation provided. Depending on the gullibility of the vic, the bilking can continue for months, eventually draining all funds, assets, from the vic. Fool someone with the well crafted one, and the perp probably wants to make one hit, and recede into the shadows.

So what can one do to protect themself?

DON'T CLICK ON LINKS IN EMAILS.

Seriously. Even if you believe the email is from your bank and you have a burning desire to log into your account. Just open your browser and log in as you normally would. Same for PayPal, eBay, CRA, FaceBook, whatev.

I have also seen phishing attempts where phone numbers were listed to call gov't agencies demanding payment for tax arrears or fines. Of course these numbers route to a call centre of fraudsters who are more than happy to take your credit card or banking information.

If you need to contact CRA, go to their website on your own and get the number.

Have a great day, surf smart.

Working in Montréal today --The gullibility edition

2015-07-09T09:11:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montreal today.

This might be the gullibility edition or the conspiracy edition of The Pulp. Not sure, let's find out. In the last few days I have had a variety of email, facebook, twitter and other social mediaesque messages that all are just.. wrong. Untruths, false conspiracies and pure wastes of time.

The first was the dire warning, that the gov's is spying on us. Well, yes they are but tell me Binky, what revelation do you have for us? That the Samsung phone battery has a secret hidden circuit wrapped around it under the label and it is used by the gov't to read everything you have in your phone, and here is a video explaining how to disable it.

Um... I wrote my Alberta friend back. The guy in the video demonstrated how to destroy the Near Field Communications antennae on his phone, and now he will be unable to share contact info, links, photos or whatev with other close at hand Samsung phones. It's not a secret, Samsung ads and instructions all explain their NFC and how great it is. Except video conspiracy dude's -his is now broken. BTW, I am not saying that NFC can't be used by someone to spy on you, depending on your settings it could happen. But the g-man would need to be hanging out pretty close to you. There are much better (read: more efficient) ways to spy on you.

Then there was the RCMP alert, please pass this on if you care about the children! There are gangs wielding guns kidnapping teenage girls off the streets in Grande Prairie and forcing the girls into prostitution. Odd I thought. For those not in the know, GP is north of Edmonton, has a population in the mid 50k and while fast growing and know for some spectacular bar fights (at least back when I was younger) is not know for gun toting gangs. A quick check revealed that a couple years back a 6 year old girl claimed that a car pulled up to the curb with a couple in it that asked her some questions like, do you live alone?, do you want some candy?, does the East Witch live nearby?, and 'implied' that they were going to steal her and sell her to Gypsies or that is what the girl 'inferred'. The RCMP are still looking for the light grey coupe. The girl is now 8 and has her own reality TV show.

And then there was the Petition. Sigh. Okay, this one is just dumb. Before I reveal the nature of the petition I will provide some back data. China has 1.34 billion people, give or take a few hundred. Canada is about 1/38th of the population and with Djibouti having less than a million people is about 1/38 the population of Canada.

in China there is a celebration of the summer solstice aka the dog-eating festival. During this festival there is perhaps 10-15,000 dogs eaten, mostly nureongi (yellow animal) along with lychees (soapberry) and grain alcohol. The latter tastes a lot like diesel fuel thinned with acetone. It hits you like a ball peen hammer in the forehead, but strangely you do desire more almost immediately.

About a week ago I was send a petition to sign to demand the Chinese celebrants halt this practice and eat something else instead, like chickens. Really? This would be a lot like Canadians receiving a petition signed by a few Djiboutans (I am guessing that what they call themselves, that or Djiboutians) asking me not to eat beef. Although there are more than 40 million cows eaten each year so it's not really a fair comparison. It is unknown how many were named Bessie by their rancher handlers, but safe to say none of the nureongi were named Spot.

I do not know how many chickens are eaten each year, but I do have concerns that there are more wings being sold than chicken feet. Should there not be the same number - where the hell are all of the chicken feet going? Please pass that question around.

I remember during the birth of the Internet as we know it, then it was easy public access to a an existing university network (yes I know, and the military industrial complex, thanks conspiracy-antiestablishment dude). As I was saying, I remember that this would usher in a new Age of Enlightenment, the free sharing of knowledge and wisdom, that it would be like the Renaissance. New development in the sciences and the arts, our children would grow up in a world of immediate access to the great works, to culture, history, leaps in medicine and human rights.

And...

We have instead, photos of Walmart fashion faux pas, Nigerian bank scams, fake news, celebrity gossip, and online surveys of who is hot, and who is not.

Yeah. Have a great day.

Working in Ottawa today --Miami's new suburb!

2015-07-02T09:01:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

Hey, Miami has a new suburb!

That's right folks, true to Obamarama's promise, the U.S. is taking some steps forward to normalizing relations with Cuba. Yesterday, in a negotiation brokered by Canada and Pope Francis, the U.S. announced that John Kerry, Secretary of State, will pay a visit to the island nation on July 20.

For an extremely short recap of history, Cuba was ruled by the U.S. backed Fulgencio Batista regime until Jan. 1, 1959 when Fidel Castro over-through Batista and nationalized the farms and hotel-resorts and after failing to gain any U.S. aid for his nation, Fidel turned to the USSR. The USSR agreed to give Cuba aid, in exchange for military installations in Cuba. The Soviets parked some nuclear missiles there in 1962 and U.S. President Kennedy implemented a naval embargo around Cuba to block further Soviet aid and Soviet military equipment. There was a tense several days while many thought the standoff would result in a first strike by the Soviets against the U.S. But.. the Soviets capitulated and agreed to removal of the nuclear missiles. Since that time, the U.S. has maintained a Cuban trade and travel embargo.

So why now?

I suggest it may have something to do with another news item from yesterday which I doubt anyone read. Yesterday, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, produced a study that singles out Russia and China as aggressive countries and a threat to US security interests.

"Russia's military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces," it says.

The study points to the alleged presence of Russian troops in Ukraine as a source of tension between Washington and Moscow.

Relations between the United States and Russia are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War in 1991, largely due to the crisis in Ukraine.

So this new spirit of cooperation by the U.S. towards Cuba could be to ward off any new strategic use of Cuba by Russia in its cat and mouse game with the U.S. and avoid Cuban Missile Crisis Part Deux, just sayin'.

Meanwhile, back in Miami, U.S. presidential contender Marco Rubio is not impressed with the Obama announcement, he does not want to restore relations with Cuba until all issues are resolved. This includes 'legal claims' for property seized when Castro nationalize property, has U.S. diplomats meet with dissidents in Cuba and secure greater freedom for the Cuban people.

Huh.. he wants this before diplomatic relations are restored? How does his believe that such discussions take place? And as for property claims, give it up guy, just not going to happen. Other people have been living in your apartment for the last 50 odd years.

Anyway, out of typing time, plane is landing.

Have a good day, Buenos Dias!

Working in Ottawa for two days --Rise of the insolent machines

2015-06-17T08:59:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

It's bad enough when we have unmannered kids, discourteous job candidates, rude drivers, now we can have condescending robots!

I read this morning in Wired Magazine that Google, the source of all things good and pure on the Internet, had received a patent for robots with personalities.

Get serious.

If there was ever a case of 'prior art' this must be it.

Even as a young viewer of Lost In Space, it was clear to me that that robot, a class M-3 model B9, had way more personality than its identical cousin Robby the Robot in the movie Forbidden Planet with his waving arms and mechanical yet foreboding, "Danger Will Robinson!".

Let's not forget that pr*ck Ash in the first Alien franchise movie, you know -before the franchise did away with the laws of physics and before Lt. Gorman named the aliens Xenomorphs in Aliens. Ash, a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2, considered humans expendable as it pursued the agenda of the parent corporation. At least Bishop brought some redemption for the robot class in Alien 3.

I also recall in 1991 or so when I developed and programmed a two stage dialing service based on calling party delivery on p-phone lines providing reverse calling (I may have invented the concept), it supported the languages English, French and Sean Connery with a bit of Scottish attitude. Although in production only the first two were available.

But the real gem of the robot / AI personality is the automated IVR and reservation system of a certain online hotel booking site. This weekend I remembered that I must book a hotel for tonight in Ottawa and first my preferred login with a well known chain would not work because my account needed to be updated. I could not think of a better place to do it than the site were I created the account, but no. I need to call in. Blah.

A quick check of favorite hotels revealed that there were no hotel rooms in the city except for the youth hostel. Nah. Keep searching. And this is when I resorted to using that certain hotel website.

It revealed one hotel other than the hostel and a Motel 6 in a different city, a hotel just across the river in Hull. So book it now I did. Maybe. The status had flashed up, contacting hotel, checking availability, checking payment, registering reservation, constructing email.........

After several minutes it timed out with a less than confidence building message that the website was unsure what happened, it lost connection to its servers, but for me to wait 15 minutes to see if the confirmation email might arrive.

I figure, no, I'll call in. The automated IVR system there explained..

"Hang on while I try to find booking associated with the phone number you are calling from.

Hmm.. I could not find a reservation associated with that number, do you have another number that it might be under, enter it now or the reservation number."

Now I know a thing or two about telecom networks, and I knew that I was out of the city at a friend's cottage, dialing an 800 number using a cellphone while roaming. There is an excellent chance that the IVR did not get my true calling partyid, but might have got a ID from a DAL or other facility. So.. I typed in my cell phone number and hit.. #.

"Hmm.. you seem to have entered the same number that you are calling from and we were already unable to find any bookings with it. If there is some other number associated..."

Attitude! The "hmm" made it worse as if the machine was trying to evaluate exactly how to call this user a knucklehead or express pity at the poor malfunctioning, ill-equipped human.

Robots with personalities indeed, I've already had enough of them.

Have a great day, don't take any crap from the machines.

Working in Montréal today --Throw-down junk food

2015-06-11T09:06:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

You may have heard the phrase "hard-core pornography is hard to define but I know it when I see it." That was written by Potter Stewart -Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, and that the movie at the center of the case, The Lovers, wasn't hard-core porn.

How about an illness that is hard to define, or a mental illness?

Do you seek out foods that are not genetically modified?

How about those that are free from pesticides?

Or herbicides?

Low on sugar, salt?

How about controlling your gluten intake for those of you with gluten intolerance?

Do you skip out on lunch with friends at KFC because you can't bear to costume the oil laden buzzard parts?

Friends, you may be suffering from Orthorexia Nervosa. It sounds way better if you cup your palms to you mouth and say it in kind of a deep echo voice. I prefer to say it using the voice of the late, great Phil Hartman, "Hi kids, you might remember me from such high school Heath Class films as I suffered from Orthorexia Nervosa, but then I had some french fries."

Um.. Uncle Daniel, you seem to be stretching this out a bit, thin on material this morning?

Yeah, a little bit, but just sat down on the plane, so we'll see if I can fill it in naturally. But really, I have found that if I can squeeze "hard-core pornography" into the first sentence or two, readership goes sky high for The Pulp, especially among my Eritrean readers, much like just mentioning Vodka and Potatoes causes my Eastern European readers to go crazy, Just sayin'.

See, now that is funny, many of you are trying to figure out if I was stereotyping or insulting anyone. You are pretty sure that I was, you're just having a hard time getting a handle on it. We'll check back later with the comments and see.

Bit now let's get back to the writing and less writing about the writing.

It was about Orthorexia Nervosa remember? Please try to stay focused on the subject matter.

I read in the Guardian that the disease was characterized as and that Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine in their diet and refuse foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives.

Ursula Philpot, chairperson of the British Dietetic Association mental health division, was quoted "I am definitely seeing significantly more orthorexics than just a few years ago. Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overweight or look normal. They are solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly pure.".

Here's one of the best, it seems that those most susceptible are middle-class, well-educated people that perform their own research into food and food quality. I am not sh*tting you, that is the characterization of the vulnerable.

So what should one do?

Well, to avoid getting diagnosed and having the straight jacket fitted and bag pulled over your head like Randal McMurphy and getting shipped off to be watched by nurse Mildred Rached, I suggest that you keep some "throw down" junk food.

Keep a bag of Cheetos! in the glovebox of your car, some high sugar, high caffeine - heart attack in a can beverage on your desk at work, and some Pogos in your freezer at home. Then when the state metal health folks pull your car over or visit you at work, Bam! you throw down and avoid all suspicion.

No need to thank me for the advice, I am here for you.

Have a great day, be healthy -but don't get caught.

Working in Ottawa today --Transformation of the Hulk

2015-06-04T09:17:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

Okay, this whole Caitlyn Jenner thing caught me by a bit of surprise initially. Not because I have deep seated transphobia (I just learned that word a few days ago), but because somehow in my mind I confused Bruce Jenner and Bruce Banner.

Bruce Banner of course was the mild mannered, socially withdrawn physicist whose alter ego was The Incredible Hulk. When I first learned that The Hulk was living with the Kardashians it caused me even more confusion. Only because I cannot for the life of me figure out why they are on TV, let alone why there are any viewers.

But back to Caitlyn. She was Bruce, now she is Caitlyn. That's pretty much it, and if she was the guy that used to work at the deli counter and now she's the gal that works at the deli counter it would not be news.

But it is. But not because of any transgenderphobia, but because Caitlyn chooses it to be. She is on the cover of Vanity Fair, holds press conferences and interviews. Good for her, she is proud of her decision and her transformation, and she wants to yell it from the podium.

Wait a sec.. wasn't David Banner the name of the Hulk? Maybe it was both, the comic was Bruce and the TV show from late 70's was David? Must have been some licensing issue. Maybe The Hulk formally known as Bruce?

Back to Caitlyn. I don't think that I have read any negativity about her decision, no ravings, no hate speech, no vulgarities. I'm not saying there isn't any, I just have not heard it or read it.

So when I did read in the Huffington Post while getting a shoe shine at Pearson this AM that St. Catharines MP (C) Rick Dykstra was in hot water over a retweet, I read on. Dykstra retweeted a tweet that included a photo of Noah Galloway, an Iraq vet who lost two limbs, but went on to run marathons and partake in CrossFit competitions. And a comment that Galloway was passed over for the ESPN Arthur Ashe Courage Award in favour of this year's recipient, Caitlyn.

The award is handed out by ESPN in recognition of athletes who show strength in the face of adversity, courage in the face of peril and the willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost.

The OP's text in the tweet and the retweet was "what a joke".

What ensued was a flood of tweets in response demanding the transphobic tweet be deleted and Blah blah blah. Folks, I don't think the tweet was transphobic at all. I think the OP and the retweeting MP were not impressed with the decision to name Caitlyn as the recipient, not that Caitlyn was no longer a dude and no longer the big green guy with attitude.

Many people are in the same situation that Bruce was in and many take the steps to realign their physical bodies with the self identity that they have and emerge as Caitlyn. Many are not athletes, some just work the deli counter. Not a lot of guys get a leg and an arm blown off by a roadside bomb and still run races.

Mr. Galloway, sir, you have my respect and I suspect that not receiving the Arthur Ashe affects you not one iota.

Ms. Banner, ma'am, I also think that you should not have been awarded the Arthur Ashe, and I am not transphobic.

In the end, it does not matter what I think, what some MP thinks, or what ESPN thinks, all that really matters for Caitlyn is what she thinks and hopefully she has the support of her family. Even if that is the Kardashians.

Have a great day.

Working in Montréal today --Free guns, lower taxes, imprison women

2015-05-28T09:01:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Now is one of those moments where I will make some statements that will have a polarizing effect on my readers, much like advocating the serving of seal meat in the Parliament Hill restaurant. Mmmm pan fried bashed head seal filet stuffed with dolphin fin served with steamed greens and artichoke.

While I expect some hate mail from some of you, just keep it civil. Not so much for me, but really for you and your own karma.

I recently received a piece of campaign filth, campaign American style where a group, the CLC -The Campaign Life Coalition, is campaigning against the Liberal party and sent out a card filled with photos of aborted fetal tissue and several statements about Justin Trudeau.

I will disclose that I am neither a Liberal party supporter nor in the Conservative camp (who keeps just enough distance from the CLC so it has plausible deniability, but the CLC's mouth piece explains that it is working hand in hand with Conservative MPs and candidates). I thought that I would make that clear, not a fan of either house. I have also become quite 'meh' over the NDP since they have moved to pursue the popular vote, in effect, a man without a party, but that is a different Pulp.

I am going to wander a bit from topic flow but will be right back. I do find it odd that it is usually proponents of less gov't, fewer laws, that are also proponents of more laws about women's bodies. "The gov't should tax me less, let me 'free range' my children, leave my guns alone, but control my wife's, daughter's and neighbour's wife's sexuality and uterus" --really Biff?

That the card strangely suggests that young Justin is responsible for abortion in Canada is beyond absurd. Way back in 1988 (Justin was 17), during the Conservative gov't of Brian Mulroney and after a few decades of slow movement away from imprisoning women for life, and forcing them to carry a fetus to full term over what ever objections they might have to the use of their bodies in this fashion, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada's abortion laws to be unconstitutional.

The highest court noted that the law "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations" and that the law "asserts that the woman's capacity to reproduce is to be subject, not to her own control, but to that of the state" were essentially a breach of the woman's right to Security of the person, which is guaranteed under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I'll let that sink in a bit. It was the Supreme Court of Canada not Parliament that freed women from the threat of imprisonment if she obtained an abortion.

The Conservative gov't then tried unsuccessfully to pass new legislation in 1989-90. Yes, the C's have a long track record of trying to replace one piece of unconstitutional legislation with more unconstitutional legislation. Although the legislation passed vote, while it was waiting to pass the upper house one young woman in Kitchener was severely injured during a botched back room abortion and a young woman in Toronto died from a self inflicted abortion. Many speculated that she was too scared to go to the hospital for fear of being arrested. The Senate ended up in a tie vote, failing to pass the legislation.

You see, the proponents of anti-abortion laws seem to always conveniently forget or ignore the fact that countries with anti-abortion laws do have something else instead. Dead young women.

In the absence of legal, safe abortions, women will take what ever steps are available to them. Lysol flooding, wire hangars, and back room improperly trained hacks. These methods result in severe infections, horrible injuries and deaths.

Think about the mindset of a young woman, perhaps in university or the mother of several other children where an additional is simply not feasible, or the incest or rape victim that does not wish to discuss or make her circumstances public, or the woman with emotional stresses or perhaps it would be a high risk because of age or genetic make up, or what ever. For as many women there are as many situations, all different. There are a myriad of situations where the burden of carrying a pregnancy to full term and creating a new child that needs to be fed, clothed and cared can be too much to cope with emotionally, economically, physically.

Who the hell is the state, who are we, to require under the threat of life imprisonment (yeah, the good old day, what a bunch of horse sh*t) that economically limited women perform this act? Safe abortion performed by well trained physicians has always been available to the wealthy and if Canada reversed itself back to the Dark Ages, then women of means will travel to any of the 75 or so countries on this planet where it is legal.

And the less than economically advantaged? Back rooms and death.

Hey, how about I list some of those 'enlightened' countries that the CLC would like Canada to emulate where a woman can die waiting for an abortion.

Angola
El Salvador
Chile
Nicaragua
Dominican Republic
Malta
Democratic Republic of Congo
Somalia
Micronesia
Laos
Iraq
Honduras
Haiti

Let's not let this become an election issue and how about Harper separate his party from the CLC and direct his candidates to disassociate from them as well? And let's knock off this American style third party soft dollar campaign bullsh*t shall we?

If we give them a foothold on this issue, next it will be the re-illegalization of birth control or being gay. It was abortion, the pill and same-sex sex that Justin's father, Pierre Trudeau, spoke of when he said in 1969 that gov't should stay out of the bedrooms of Canadians.

Have a good day.

Working in Ottawa today --The Wall of Doom

2015-05-21T09:10:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today and am hoping for a pollen free day. I managed to go a little more than 50 years without allergies but this spring has been brutal.

But enough whining and complaining let me introduce and explain.. The Wall of Doom.

Have I written about construction before? Sure, there was the squirrels that were renovating the attic a couple winters back and then the raccoon that ripped a new hatchway into the storage area under the deck, and sure the realignment of Jennifer's mailbox during End of the World part 1and part deux But I don't think that I have written previously about construction methods, practices or finishes.

And then of course there is the differences between the way that the brain lad growing up is so much different to that of a young lass. This is the intersection of those two topics.

While not from Southern Alberta originally, Lethbridge is where my brothers and I grew up. In case you have never been, there is a particular house exterior finish that I have only seen in Southern Alberta and parts of older Vancouver. The stucco finish with bits.. nay, shards of glass imbedded therein.

Shards!

Now if you don't know the particular finish I must make sure that you fully understand. This is a exterior house finish that covers all surfaces with the exception of window sills, door casing and the foundation parging. Sometimes even then. It is a mixture of portland cement troweled over wood lath with small peddles pushed into the final coat so that the pebbles all are half exposed. Can be very attractive and when applied correctly can last 100 years.

But it doesn't always stop there. In the 1930s or so, someone had the idea, hey, it would be great if it sparkled! Gosh.. how to make it sparkle? Crushed glass of course! So the industrious and Great Depression trained recyclers decided to use broken beer bottles for brown sparkly bits, broken ginger ale bottles for green sparkly bits and the elusive milk of magnesia bottles for the rarely seen but very cool blue sparkly bits. I keep typing bits, but these were pieces that stuck out a 1/4 inch or so and some were damn sharp!

So maybe this is adequately pictured in your mind. A house wrapped in the equivalent of 20 grit abrasive.

Um.. Uncle Daniel this is fascinating and all, but the difference between boys and girls?

Yes, almost there. Nope, not almost, we're there now.

For a young lad there was nothing more tempting that when walking beside such a house beside a brother or neighbourhood guy to 'nudge' the other guy into the stucco wall. It never took much, and the resultant collision between person and wall never failed to disappoint. The victim would initially attempt to retract hands, face and limbs away from the approaching Wall of Doom in hopes that will power alone could reverse the momentum and avoid the resultant ablation of skin, flesh and dignity.

It never worked. Arm, shoulder and if it was a great day, the face plant. Having been both the instigator and victim of a stucco attach, I can tell you the best defense was to never allow yourself to be between such a wall and another guy. Never. But if you end up there and the inevitable should occur, you must do everything you can to bring yourself to a stop of all lateral motion. When you come into contact with the wall it is best to come straight in and stop. Continuing in your original direction will result in long scrapes and gouges into your flesh. Yay!

And girls? Never had I ever saw a lass perform a Wall of Doom attack on another. And no guy ever did it to a girl. No sir. That would not be acceptable. But even more..

My Dad never asked, but I distinctly recall being asked by my mother, "Why, WHY, would you do such a thing to your brother?!"

I recall that I didn't understand the question.

Have a great day. Beware the Wall of Doom.

Working in Montréal today --Belle of the Ball

2015-05-06T09:02:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today, Ottawa tomorrow, Toronto on Friday, my backyard on Saturday and snoozing on the couch on Sunday afternoon.

Now a short tale of a gal and her date to the ball..

For pretty much all of Alberta's adult life she has hung out with the Conservatives, now sure back in her 'College Days' she experimented with Social Credit, just being 'adventurous' the cute Prairie Belle told her friends, after all, she was young and carefree.

But what happened last night will certainly get the attention of the other Belles of the Ball. Alberta went alternative, not that there is any wrong with that. I mean sometimes a gal has to start wearing a plaid shirt and look after herself, has to be responsible for her own Big O if you know what I mean.

Come on, you knew I meant OIL, I'm just messin' with ya.

Okay, I tried a juxtaposition of the unlikeliness of Alberta jumping the PC train for the NDP akin to a person swapping sexual orientation. It didn't really work, and now I am almost out of flight time.

But what did happen last night? It was the result of what could be arguably the worst campaign orchestration and result since the 1993 federal election where the Progressive Conservative party went from 156 seats down to 2 and ceased to be a federal party only to reborn as the Conservatives and retaking power with Damien at the helm.

Yeah, PC's

For them it was destined to be an 'interesting' election. First they broke their own 2011 law dictating fixed election dates and called the election early by a year. Albertans all enjoy a certain moral flexibility, and wholly capable of saying one thing and doing another, but they really don't like it in their elected officials. What is rather odd, is why they called it now, one usually doesn't call for a vote when you are sitting at the bottom of the popularity trough. Odd to go through the effort of passing a law through the legislature and then be the first to break it.

Oh yes, Damien, I mean Harper did the same thing. With the same law that he put in. Just federal style.

Next, and you really have to admire the absurdity, Prentice blamed Albertans themselves for the economic mess they are in with the effects of plunging oil prices and that they should look in the mirror. WTF..! The PCs have been in office for 45 years straight. Look in your own gd mirror Bozo! Then amongst the most wishy washy budgets and then budget reversals Prentice insulted (Premier elect) Rachel Notley, and perhaps all women, and perhaps all Albertans with the line, "I know math is hard."

What a pr!.

In the end, it was clear that Albertans are ready for a change, and a bit of a stampede. Congratulations Alberta Premier-elect Rachel Notley!

Hey, have a great day. It's never to late to change teams.

Working in Montréal today --Bare butt on a sunny day

2015-04-30T09:05:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

I apologize for the last few three four weeks of no Pulp. It was selfish and uncaring. Without much further ado.. one Pulp. Not my best, in fact I really just phoned it in, but it still qualifies. Hopefully this will calm the just plain mean and hostile threats.

One might have thought I would comment on the flight delays caused by a crashed app on iPads on American Airlines flights, but nah, the FAA and AA already knows how dumb it is to rely on consumer equipment for critical to the mission data. Seems the pilots were no longer carrying flight manuals nor a hard copy of their flight plans. Duh.

No, instead I thought I would chide in / chime in on the the Squamish RCMP and while we are at it, busy body neighbours. There are a few things that you can count on in on a warm sunny day, one is that somewhere on your screen some pre-schooler will strip off his or her clothes are run through a sprinkler.

In all actuality, as a parent the only thing you can really hope for is that your kids run through your sprinkler and not the neighbour guy's sprinkler, you know that guy, he smells like potatoes. You also hope that your children do develop some small amount of modesty before high school.

Modesty .. I won't say which of my daughters, but one used to pull up the hem of her sun dress over her face when embarrassed. Yeah.. showing your underwear doesn't help your situation. In her defense, she was only 3. She rarely does it anymore.

Back to the the RCMP and busy body neighbours. Young 4 year old Tyler McIlwaine was "helping" his 6 year old brother Connor wash the car in the driveway when after getting his clothes soaked, did what anyone would do. He stripped down. Now while you and I may have opted to go inside first, that is not the was a 4 year old brain works. There is a mission, do it now, right where you stand. And then he proceeded to run around bare butt naked playing in the water spray on the front lawn.

It is days like that that a parent is supposed to have fond memories of. Not of what happened next. The aforementioned busy body neighbour called the RCMP which provides policing services to Squamish, and the RCMP arrived, even though no crime was occurring, nothing abusive, no neglect. Then the RCMP made it worse in a way that officials with a badge and gun can only do.

The constables felt it necessary to spend 30 minutes warning the boy's mother, Marigta, and the boys that if they played in the front yard again with an absence of clothes, that the boys (even the dressed one) would be taken away and the RCMP would "let the courts decide".

So now we have two children that are terrified of the police, see themselves as somehow bad children, the parents now on some watch list of suspected bad, neglectful parents and one neighbour that should keep to themselves thank you very much.

Have a good day. Let children be children.

Working in Montréal today --Nationalize Pierogies Now!

2015-03-19T09:21:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

I think Peter Zeihan is short sighted. In a recent book, 'The Accidental Superpowers', Zeihan speculates on the political future of my former stompin' ground, Alberta. Zeihan considers Alberta's oil as a prime economic force that results in high net contributions from Alberta to the rest of Canada and that everyone in Alberta is young and hip compared to the old foagies in the rest of the country as a prime reason to give up on confederation and skip south to the U.S.

Now sure, the U.S. would likely embrace a new state, but of course the U.S. would likely want a name change, perhaps.. North Texas, maybe Southern Alaska. But wait .. what about Russia?

Sure, it makes sense. The U.S. will be (or so it claims) energy self sufficient sometime in 2016, so it really should not need Alberta's tar sands, and with the passing of Harper's new policy of allowing armed U.S. law enforcement officers to operate in Canada to enforce U.S. laws, the entire 49th is deemed to be irrelevant anyway.

No.. Alberta should be be being wooed by Putin!

Uncle Daniel, lost your mind?

No, I mean nyet! For the most part the world misunderstands Putin's aggression. We hear reports that it is about the ports of the Crimean Peninsula, the production of oil and transport of natural gas, restoring Russia to the territories held prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, a distraction from the Pussy Riot trial.. Nyet.

It's about the pierogi.

Alberta has Canada's largest supply of pierogies. While everyone has been focused on oil, radical Muslims, Penny's new short hair on Big Bang, and whether Justin and Thomas will just stop courting and passing each other love notes at recess and just get married, Vegreville has been secretly acquiring control of all means of production and distribution of pierogies.

The same was true of the Ukraine, that's why Putin was there, and that's why Putin should be here.

Citizens wake up! If we ignore the unrest in Alberta there could be a domino effect, first Vegreville, then the rest of Alberta, then before long, special taxes on pierogies, foreign control over the means of production, an enslavement of the workers, pierogi lines, it will be like Gorki Park but with bacon and cheese and less William Hurt.

Harper needs to move fast, the only solution I see is a National Pierogi Program. The NPP. Harper can dust off legislation from Trudeau's 1970's National Energy Program, could set up a Crown Corporation (remember those?) to take ownership of all pierogies on Canadian soil, and nationalize the production, marketing, delivery, and royalty distributions, PierogiCanada!

No need to thanks me, I'm here to help.

Have a great day. My Canada includes Vegreville.

Working in Ottawa today --And no Spitting

2015-03-11T09:04:00.001-04:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working on Ottawa today.

It's outrageous, it's egregious, it's preposterous! Hi kids, Jackie Chiles could not make it so I am sitting in.

Ever been to Taber, Alberta? Small town of perhaps 75 or 8000 people (20 times the size of my favorite employer) in Southern Alberta, 30 miles east of Lethbridge. It is either the Corn Capital or the Sugar Beet Capital, I don't recall which, but both sound right.

I once lived about 30 miles past there further east in an even smaller town, actually a hamlet, Burdett. I farmed potatoes and wheat. Was on the fire department too. And the baseball team. Yep. Not really germane to the topic, but adds some depth to the narrative and the many onion layers of me, yes?

The town of Taber has been busy passing laws lately. The latest laws, no spitting (I like that one) no yelling, no swearing, but wait there's more.. curfews! Yay.

That's right kids, in Taber the streets will be rolled up at 11 PM, means that if your summer job is at the drive in, your folks will need to come pick you up.

Wait, there is still more. The local police will now have the authority to force any crowd of 3 or more persons (yes 3) to disperse. Now I get it, when you have a small population, 3 people getting together may be enough to overthrow and seize control of the town hall, disrupt law and order, and result in the playing of rock and roll.

But that also means that any gathering of persons to protest bad laws and bad gov't can also be dispersed by the police. Local employers could also seek police assistance in breaking union meetings, and established churches could stop the formation of apposing faiths.

Oh yes. Making a movement that annoys is also now illegal. "No person shall make or cause or allow to be made or continued any noise which disturbs or annoys a person, including any loud outcry, clamour, shouting, movement, music or activity"

Clamour? Further evidence that the good townspeople of Taber resurrected a law from the 1950s.

Now I am generally annoyed by all persons: teenagers, poets, musicians, steam punks, magicians, street performers, pedestrians that stop to talk in intersections, people with tattoos on their foreheads, slow drivers, joggers, power walkers, people wearing large headphones, people wearing Che Guevara tshirts, those talking on cell phones, clowns, people talking to themselves, anyone wearing Spandex, anyone over 7 with bells on their boots, the list is longer, but it's a short flight.

Might I be able to invoke this law should I find myself in Taber? Did you notice that you will be in violation of the law should YOU allow the street poet to continue to annoy ME. The entire town is now on notice. There is a 30 foot annoyance free zone around me, govern yourself accordingly.

The good mayor of Taber, Henk De Velieger, explained, "it's like every other tool, you can use it and you can abuse it. A hammer I can use to pound a nail or it can kick in your brains."

Uh, wow Uncle Daniel, violence much?

Yeah, despite the rather screwed up sentence structure and a baffling mixed metaphor he recognized that it can kick in your brains and it sounded like he might be the one on the end of the handle.

The only thing worse than bad laws is a population that sits idly by while they are passed, enforced and kept on the books.

Taberites, Taberians --what ever they call themselves need to wake up, read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and repeal these dumb laws. Except the spitting one. Failing that, they need Kevin Bacon.

Have a great day.

Working in Montréal today --Smoke, mirrors and iron bars

2015-03-05T09:15:00.001-05:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Crime is falling in Canada. Falls each year.

Since 2009 murder has fallen from 600 and change to 505 in 2013. In fact that is the lowest rate of murders in Canada since 1966.

Yet, the Harper gov't continues to shove crime bills down our throats. The latest bill is the 'life-without-parole' bill which calls for 35 years before parole instead of the current 25, but it also includes something else. The role of Cabinet in release decisions.

Figure I would let that sink in a bit.

In 1959 Canada created the National Parole Board. It is the Board that administers, reviews, enforces, revokes and monitors parole releases and those releasees. It is non political, their mandate is public safety and offender rehabilitation. The gov't passes laws (those tend to be political) and the Judiciary applies those laws and when applicable sentences offenders to punishment. Now the gov't will get a routine second pass at individuals found guilty of crimes.

It will be a bit off for Cabinet. A few bills to discuss, lunch in the cafeteria --are they still serving seal meat? -- and an inmate gets dragged in wearing shackles for a parole hearing. What a waste of time and what a step backwards from division of powers and responsibility.

But what can we expect from Harper? I recall back in 2010 they socked the taxpayers with a large tax bill to build more prisons, yet it is not just murder that is down, crime overall is down in Canada. Back in 2010 Stockwell Day ..

Hey wait a second Uncle Daniel, wasn't there suppose to be a plebiscite or referendum to determine if Stockwell Day was to be renamed Doris Day?

Yeah, there was .. I'll need to check with Rick Mercer.

Anyway, back to 2010. Day explained that we needed more prisons because although crime was down, it was only reported crime that was down but unreported crime was up.

Huh?

Uh.. Doris, did we end up locking away any perps of unreported crimes? Do the police investigate unreported crimes? Is this a future world where three psychics lay in a tank of water and get visions of future unreported crimes?

I can't be sure but I think it was a CBC survey that found at 70% of those victims of unreported crime surveyed did not report because the crime or the impact was not important enough. I'll ask the question, if the vic doesn't care, why would society build a prison to lock the perp up?

Harper explained that this new bill is targeted at those most dangerous of offenders and rattled off a bunch of crimes that make us all shutter, but those offenders are already denied parole as a matter of routine by the Board.

No statistics of reoffenders have been provided, no stats on how this would improve anything, protect anyone. There are currently 200 convicted murders living in Canada in the community on parole. Their release is determined by the Board based on the risk the individual poses to other members of the community. The Board does not make the decision based on when an election may take place.

This is just a big PR move for Harper coming into what will likely be an October election. Waste of time, money and my attention.

Have a good day. Spring is almost here.

Working in Ottawa today --If you see Harry, tell him I said Hi

2015-02-26T09:03:00.001-05:00

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Ottawa today.

This morning started out a bit jagged. I broke tooth #46, lower right mandibular first molar. Joy. I then needed to grab a file and smooth out the sharp edges a bit using a dental mirror to see what I was doing. Spit please. The procedure went okay, but I had a hard time understanding what I was saying about holidaying in Barbados. And.. rinse and spit again please.

I will attempt to nevertheless remain my usual jubilant self.

At the gate I lost my upgrade for the flight as the scheduled A320 was swapped out for a much smaller plane with fewer bus. class seats.... Oh never mind, as I just typed that, the gate agent boarded the aircraft dragged me out of 13F and back up to the comfy seats. Wonder if she does emergency dentistry?

On with the Pulp.

Last night was a slow TV night, sometime around midnight I found myself actually watching a show about some men running around a forest looking for Big Foot. Sasquatch. In Louisiana. oh yes.

Now usually people look in the U.S. north west, just like many look for Ogopogo in B.C.'s Lake Okanagan and Nessie in Scotland's Loch Ness but I hadn't heard of anyone looking for the creature of the woods in the Gulf Coast. Had they thought he lost his way and we're going to put him on a bus back to Washington state?

Nope.

They were going to kill him.

"Dead. On a slab", the fellow with the Winchester 1200 snorted.

Now why, might you ask. Why kill a bipedal hairy hominid who by all reports keeps to himself, lives off of a diet of roots and berries and shies away from any modern appliances and Hollywood gossip?

Two reasons. The one fellow explained in the us vs. them scenario. "Are we going to wait until it breaks into someone's house and seriously hurts or kills someone?".

Well.. with that kind of logic, I have a strong desire to do the same to him before he ends up on another TV show and seriously harms more of my brain cells. I will remind all that no reports of attacks exist except 100 years ago some miners claimed that some large beast men ran them off throwing rock and growling at them. So a claim-jumping beast wanted their gold. Yeah.

And secondly, to prove the big guy exists. Sort of: to prove he is alive, they will kill him. "Those scientists want a body!" Well no, no scientist wants a dead big foot body, but rather most scientists assume that the few reports of our friend Harry are mis-identifications, confused observers, etc. All very friendly terms used in place of stating the observer is likely a loon. However, true that, show me the body, or better yet a live one and I too will become a believer.

But Uncle Daniel, isn't there one that was caught on film?

No. There is a film that was made in 1967, the Patterson-Gimlin film, shows a tall guy in a fur ape suit (Bob Heironimus, friend of Patterson confessed that it was him) lumbering around near the edge of a clearing near Bluff Creek California. Every time a show is made about Big Foot, that film is shown as "evidence".

I didn't watch the entire show, and instead opted for sleep, but I did mention to Sharlene that it will be a small miracle if one of those Louisiana boys don't end up killing one of their own. They were all in the woods at night wearing Gillie suits armed with loaded weapons.

They all looked like a throwback to early man lumbering around the forest.

Have a good day. If you see Harry, tell him I said Hi.