More in what-reading-the-local-news-makes-for-entertainment department:
And last but not least, a kid’s perspective (which reminds me, my wife liked the film “John Carter” better than the film “Hunger Games”; at the least the first one was quasioriginal, as opposed to the hackjob hodgepodge of the second (“Running Man” meets “The Truman Show” meets “Survivor” meets…)):
Your list of friends should take all shapes and sizes:
A book of jokes, an Apple iPad 2 and an Android programming book share a bed together.
Punchline: Fruits and nuts make salad days more fun!
In an all-luring story that has rocked the boat of the sports fishing industry, federal investigators, after years of infiltrating the deepest pockets of the business, were caught in a dragnet of controversy.
After spending millions of pounds/yuan/dollars in coordinating with international police authorities, our national team of crack crimestoppers, unwilling to let any criminal activity go unpunished, no matter how insignificant its effect on our general economy, finally revealed the information that freedom fighters have been requesting for decades.
Apparently, sponsors of major fishing tournament winners have long been paying locals to catch, raise and fatten prize fish, then releasing them just in time into secret spots that sponsors then suggested to their celebrity sports fishermen to call their own, thus ensuring their sponsorship money was not wasted and their winners won.
The shock that has rippled through the stream of the sport has turned many of the most diehard fans into temporary doubters, wondering if all that talk about the best bait and the most expensive, yet successful, fishing gear — including boats, sonar equipment, beer kegs and excuses to get away from family in order to catch edible foodstuff — has been in vain.
County, state and federal subcommittees have been called into emergency session to question fish and wildlife employees about fishery and hatchery practices. Have they been reporting dead fish that were actually sold to locals? Are they eating fish they killed and claimed as losses? Are the stuffed and mounted fish on their trophy walls victims of “spoilage” reports filed in dusty government storage boxes? How far up the government ladder does this go? Did this cause the housing crisis in some obscure way that gets financial investment companies off the hook?
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Quote for the day:
I hate to break it to you, but your $2,000 designer dog is a mutt. Puppy stores and breeders have created these cute names like Morkipoos and Puggles, and now people are paying $2,000 for a dog they couldn’t give away at the pound ten years ago. Whoever started the trend is a marketing genius.” — Dennis Leon, DVM (courtesy of Readers Digest, May 2012 issue)
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Bonus puzzle of the day: I have a fellow secondary school alumnus who is a local state representative. I have a fellow secondary schoolmate, an employee of a local newspaper, who endorsed a rival candidate running against the state representative. One, should that affect my mental thought set about the two of them as friends/classmates? Two, should newspaper (or any mass media) employees publicly endorse political candidates and if so, should they have to make it clear they speak for themselves and not the mass media company that employs them?
A cougar growls in 1981 technicolour
Putting aside the issue of nontraditional gender roles, on a basic level of two genders in our species, here’s some interesting data to crunch for today:
The title is the pronunciation of a dish at a Mexican restaurant — doesn’t look as appealing as Pollo Loco, does it? 🙂
My fourth trip. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, able to travel from Earth to Mars and back as a pilot and host for lifelong experiences.
How many science fiction novels and short stories I read before I turned six and entered Genius School!
Here I am, in my prime at 21, ferrying my fourth group of travelers, some who’ll expand the major settlement, New Hope, some who’ll choose to open new outposts, and a few dignitaries who are making the trip simply as a goodwill gesture, reaching out a hand to show unity between our two biggest planetary settlements, Earth and Mars.
Doesn’t seem that long ago when one of the Martian exploratory teams discovered a large deposit of a rare radioactive material and declared it belonged to the people of Mars, not the financiers and governments of Earth.
The debates on Earth of sending a military enforcement team to quell the “upstarts” went on for a few years before it was decided to let Mars start its own independent governing body and fall on their faces from failure, hopefully.
Little did the Earthians expect to see independently-minded wealthy families send a mass exodus of their offspring to increase the population and supplies on Mars, staking claims in remote regions as longterm investments which have paid off for many of them.
Ferrying refined ore to Martian moons was the first step in establishing a reliable transportation hub where the ore was used as input for autonomous 3D printers that evaluated the input of humans and created the most efficient landing-and-launch system ever devised.
Ferrying people and ore is pretty much the same, the only difference simply the conversion of life support system equipment space to extra storage for ore/supply transport.
I look forward to a few months of R-n-R fun, setting up observation posts for a company on Earth that’s interested in selling holiday packages to Martian workers. The freedom to pick where I want to set up the posts will allow me to choose whomever I wish to accompany me on my forays across Martian plains, mountains and valleys.
Of course, there are the inevitable conflicts with globalised Martian corridors that are offlimits to settlement, cordoned off for uncommercialised access channels to outposts settled and claimed. I know I’ll run into illegal settlers who’ve squatted on the most picturesque settings which would serve as perfect observation posts.
I can usually bargain with these types, though, because they inevitably need one thing or another to keep their hidden settlement going, including extra hands and 3D printer parts (sometimes a combination of the two).
Eccentricity is the rule, rather than the exception here. Everyone is an expert and the greatest authority on the subject of some obscure facet of Mars.
Well, it’s time to get out of Martian orbit — our travelers have seen enough of the surface from up here, I surmise — and head toward a moon spaceport.
Which port shall I choose this trip? Ahh…a mental ping from a former observation post companion, waiting for me on Phobos.
Phobos, it is. “Fellow passengers, nothing to fear — we’re turning this boat toward Phobos. Hang on!”
Saw the first one and it reminded me of a catalog I received in the mail from the second one:
If it weren’t for the battery life I’d keep using the resistive screen of the 7-inch Sylvania Android 2.31 tablet, which meets my basic needs for checking email, listening to Internet radio, looking at some of my favourite websites (as well as a few random ones for edification) and maintaining a daily blog.
That sums up the life of one mortal human being tied to the electronic social network as defined/updated by us in this moment together.
I believe we have arrived back at a blog entry in which the storyline we’d left where the reluctant leader steps back into the picture and tells us how things are going on the Committee, don’t you?
Either that, or release random ASCII character sequences that represent the latest cracked password of a heavily-guarded secret location and let the world of script kiddies have fun for a day.
Sold by Jennifer Nye — independent consultant — the wax of a block of Amber Road ™ Scentsy wax melts in a bowl atop a Morocco warmer which sits in the place where a spider web/dropping covered book by Paul D. Ackerman used to collect dust.
As the room fills with the hints of smells of an exotic bazaar, let us step into the shoes of the reluctant leader and see what’s going on…
Hi there! Reluctant Leader here again! Just the other day I was nibbling samples at a shoppe called Nothing Bundt Cake, remembering the scene in some Greek-themed film where a character tries to pronounce the word “bundt.” In front of me, an eager man watched my every move.
You know the type, always gauging the customer’s desires, trying to meet the character’s needs, catering to the curmudgeon’s every whim, no matter how surly he may be while stroking his curly, unkempt beard.
That was me, the Reluctant Leader, in ordinary disguise, acting upon my urge to Manage By Walking Around.
You see, the Committee is back in crisis mode (is there ever a moment we’re not?).
As you’re fully aware, we coordinate the activities of people you would say are aligned with major political public business entities called nations.
It’s our policy to leave pretty much well alone the individual decisions of those who feel they have been destined to reach the highest offices of their politically-oriented business paths.
For instance, we could predict when the leaders have to use toilet facilities very easily but we’ve learned it’s best to let the leaders think they’ve decided on their own, unpredictably, when they feel the urge, regularly or irregularly (in fact, it was one of my predecessors who won a wager because he accurately predicted when and where George Bush deposited his meal in the lap of another dignitary).
Do you consider yourself one of those average citizens who is mentally engaged in silent conversations with or makes extemporaneous, expository speeches to the people around you about the goings-on of the elected or appointed officials in your geopolitical zone, and get emotionally involved in the actions of officials outside your geopolitical zone?
Chances are you will, if you don’t.
In addition to herding all seven billion of us toward establishing offworld colonies, I have the assigned goal of keeping you believing that world leaders are not actively talking to each other about the apparent rogue actions they take.
Some of you know better.
The Committee is composed of direct representatives of major trends in motion, including the most common sociopolitical movements about to change your life forever.
Because trends range in age from a few fleeting milliseconds to many centuries, the Committee membership varies accordingly.
Just the other day, I found an ancient-looking mummy propped up into a dark corner of the Committee Conference Center (sounds formal, but the room is really just an old cave in, at this time, an undisclosed location near some of you).
I started to ask if any of the Committee members knew where the mummy had come from when it spoke. Turns out the mummy is an old member of a line of Celtic leaders who’d hope to take over the world a dozen or so centuries ago, but when the vote came up, the mummy had fallen asleep and did not awaken until I started poking around in his pockets for spare change.
He gave me some wisdom that I’ll share with you as soon as I translate the curse words he had for me into something more family-friendly.
Always trust your Mummy to tell you the honest truth about yourself!
Anyway, it’s getting close to lunchtime and I’ve got a few errands to run. Afterward, I’ll sketch out the plots, subplots and false trails we’re planning to place in the popular news media to keep you clenching your teeth or nodding your head in your belief that subpopulations are out to get you or out to support you, depending on your mood we’ve set at the time.
It’s seems silly spending so much of my time making sure your idle moments are filled with what we want you to think, but if it gets us closer to permanent settlements on other celestial bodies, I’m game.
Does that mean I have to stop calling myself the Reluctant Leader? It’s not like I completely relish all the fine details of putting subcommittees in action to plant ideas in blogs, tweets and street protests which inspire editors and producers to send their reporters out to fill columns and video screens with the news we want you to use and spread…
But I’m just a character in a blog and that’s my only choice, isn’t it?
treetrunkdings 