The usefulness of a given sentence is inversely proportionate to the number of exclamation points that follow it!!!!

You’re probably thinking “takes a lotta nerve for dot-dot-dot-boy to critique!!!!!”...indeed. The exclamation point is a direct descendant of the heart-dot of an “i”...the swirly gush of unreadably adolescent feminine notation...or neo-grammar??!!!!

Nan-in, a Japanese master, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
He prepared tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Overheard cellphone conversation; "I hate you both...your mother's a bitch! Wait, you’re breaking up I'll call you back."

She was all cranked up about dive sites...she called and said “I’m not going if I have to go to Molasses Reef again!!!” (hah! exclamation points are cool!!!)...in the cold-front reality of 2010, water temps are 68-69f everywhere except Molasses...plus, the vis there is a clean 80ft versus 20-30 elsewhere...so I’m supposed to cave in to petulant control freakazoid nonsense from a “Grand Canyon....AGAIN!?” type whiner?? Well. Fuck That. I’d drive to fucking Mars for a fat tip, and in the endeavor to do the right thing by my passengers, I sometimes have to piss off some asshat royally...I am quite up to this task.

Out on Mo...schools of eagle rays, reef sharks, a 7ft long goliath grouper...water 73f, 80ft vis, seas 1ft....sorry I had to ruin your goddam day, hon...

Some days I have to choose who to piss off...I get actual requests like “If you won’t go to the Benwood I’m cancelling” and no shit, next person walks up and says “If you are going to the Benwood we’re not going”...I don’t fret much about it, I just do whatever I think is right on any given day and walk away. Working with the general public is so very special. Letting it get to you is not wise...those who complain about the best I can do bother me not!!!! (!)

The fine art of the “troll” taken down to the absolute bottom...strangely delightful

“anticlimactic moment”

Narcissim and healthcare reform

A half hour long, worth the time...amazing...

Fucking idiots...seriously, people, is not the greater threat from right wing asshats? Newt Gingrich...cheating on his wife (who had cancer) while spewing his contrived right wing based attacks on Clinton for, um, cheating on his wife, has the gall to jump out from under the bridge to bite Obama on the ankle...it is fun to watch this, really it is.

A “code” is gleaned from cave drawings...this always seemed a bit obvious didn’t it?

Dolphins do some pretty heinous shit...”spiritual beings” indeed.

Prohibition...the US goverment program to poison alcohol killed 10,000...at least.

One third of Texans polled believe dinosaurs and humans existed together, Flinstone-style...proud gun owners and voters, no doubt.

A series of wonderful graphics illustrating how little I know about not knowing what I don’t know

One Long Weekend...

Stories of who we were...what we did to get here and who we have become surround everything here in the trailing dots on the map below the mainland ...so much more than water and sky surround these islands. almost no one here is here without some preceding drama. This is a chosen place, a start over, a safe-zone, an illusion of tranquility surrounded by azure water and limitless sky, of treasure waiting to be found. A story 500 years old and deeply embedded in the zeitgeist of the Buffett-numbed dreamers who think living on vacation is a lifestyle...there are 2 things that bite these people right on their ass...1) Alcohol...2) Loneliness...On the former, I will not elaborate today...on the second, I offer that here in Key Largo you don’t lose your SO...you lose your turn. And a question...what do you call a scuba instructor who has lost their GF/BF? Answer; homeless.

One guy here has taken to prowling the female facebook friends of, well...moi for one...and then sending these creepimus-maximus notes with phrases like “I have seen you around Key Largo and I find you sexually attractive”...yes indeed...tis better to have loved and lost than to have a profile on match.com containing the word “soulmate”...the overwhelming issues in this tourist town are alcohol fueled loneliness followed by living on the edge of poverty so you can enjoy a life of living on the edge of poverty...there are not many here practiced in the art of spiritual stillness, release of covetous attachments, the zen-life. For those running away from something...for those running toward, the race will never end well. Florida has a long colorful history of eating your soul and leaving your bones to bleach in the relentless sun...out of place like a patch of burned turfgrass in a parking lot, silently screaming for sustenance in a world that couldn’t care less...

A wonderful zen-koan metaphor...like Dorothy’s shoes, you had the key all along

I’m On A Boat...deathmetal version

Shatner and ShitMyDadSays!? Casting is perfect.

In-fucking-variably I pick an item that is unscanable...WinnDixie Key Largo, the blackholeWalMartePeopled shithole of Florida grocery stores...I will pay whatever they charge at Publix, kind readers, for the modicum of civility provided. All over the WD shelves are prices that are crazy low IF you have the damned card...but not being a person given to shopping in this disturbing venue, I couldn’t possibly know that. And I don’t really care. There are 2 surly cashiers this busy saturday and about 25 people in line. 6-7 people in management are standing around like cops at a road blocked accident scene...they clearly don’t care because they can’t be bothered with things like transactions and customers...so I go over to the self-serve checkout and first thing I scan is my ginger root...uh oh. The screen tells me it can’t read the UPC and to look it up on the thumbnailed pictures of vegetables...hundreds of them, a dozen screens, no ginger root...I throw it into my cart and pull away from the scanner after briefly pondering stealing it right in front of the donut-eaters, clearly pissed...and I say out loud in front of the suits “I hate this fucking store!” and go stand in line. Truly...the worst grocery chain there ever was, is, or will be.

"Faith" is a fine invention

When Gentlemen can see –

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency...emily dickinson

The beginning is the key to the middle which leads naturally to an ending. Seems simple enough I suppose, but some stories don’t flow so easily in ordered sequence...but one thing you will hopefully walk away from Snappy Banter with is the importance of a title.

Flights of fancy, co-piloted by a monkey...

When controversy builds up and the talktalk heats, what do I do? Make shit up?.nah, I don’t really have to.

The topic of honesty in filling out medical releases for recreational scuba stirs the pot every time. There was a poll, and while the exact number escapes me suffice it to suggest the number of admitted liars was in the lead. “Why should I allow tank-monkeys to know my medical issues?” was an attention getter.

I know a guy who used to dive a lot...got to the point where he joined a rescue/recovery team with the fire department. One fine summer day a missing child at the beach and the dive team got a call. He found the kid in “0” vis tangled up in fishing line under a bridge. He won’t ever dive again...he’s done.

I’ve seen people who drive dive boats, crew, instructors involved in rescues that turn out badly never really recover from it. They are shattered by the experience, unprepared for the combination of clueless+scuba...and they can’t do it anymore. The stress involved with watching inexperienced parents with inexperienced children crossing the line into danger, folks out for a good time on vacation suddenly in fear for their lives is life-altering, and some of us take it all too personally, some suppress it, others just sigh and move on.

Yesterday I get a big guy...maybe pushing 375 (or more), after considerable difficulties in gearing up he splashes...and begins struggling. Can’t descend because he isn’t fully venting the air from his bcd and we can’t get him to listen because he keeps going head down 4-5ft and bouncing back up...and repeating.

Red faced, breathing hard...his buddy is off on his own now and he comes back aboard. Turns out he’s an insulin dependent diabetic...and I ponder how we could have possibly known this when he didn’t bother to say anything before. I ponder the scenario dodged; unconcious obese diabetic, full scuba...and we lift him aboard...how? Well....I have rigged a winch device for situations just like this one because I have seen situations just like this one and clearly I will see situations just like this one over and over again...

Guy calls the office and wants to know if he can bring his “assistance dog” on board...“assistance for what?”...” he is asked..well, his wife is diving and he wants to snorkel, but he needs the dog because it sniffs out impending seizures...he’s epileptic..

The dog is the issue? Awesome...he totally would have said nothing at all...NOTHING...but the dog on the boat wasn’t something he could just assume was ok.. And an epileptic person would have donned snorkel gear and gone face down in the Atlantic ocean without anyone at all having a clue about this deal-killer condition...truly, the dog saved the day.

Fucking German cig-addict couldn’t go without smoking on our no-smoking boat so he sneaks back to the stern into the head and lights up...fucker actually used the fuel fill cap on a 100 gallon gas tank as his motHERFUCKING ashtray! 

Speed Kills...Trekkies are not happy about it.

Apparently...some of you have conveniently forgotten the charming stupidity of yore. Not that reactive partisan bullshit SHOULD be regrettable or anything...

The Seafarers...1953, Kubricks’ first color film

Like a Nirvana song it starts slowly...builds, lurches from side to side bashing the guardrail of propriety, settles down, builds again. H.S. Thompson...

Climategate...an interview with some pointed questions.

Murchison meteorite...

Call on God, but row away from the rocks...greek proverb

Car crashes and near death can really adjust a person’s world. Modern cars are amazingly well adapted for survival of the occupants, but the bullet-whizzing-past-the-ear can’t be dismissed blithely with a patronizing “it could have been worse”...because the questions that arise from adrenaline panic unravel things in the most interesting way. “Interesting”, in the Chinese curse sense (IE: may your children be born in interesting times)

In less than a 4 week span of time...2 people I love dearly have been through this. And my empathy runs deep. The near-death experience is no stranger to your humble narrator...having been on pretty much all sides of it, the unraveling effect can take days, weeks, months...years to play itself out. I daresay there are some for whom healing is harder...or will simply never happen.

Having and voicing your opinion about valentines day? Pressure to provide the just-right-gift so soon after the Christmas holiday pours out of TV ads like dogfart gas...I resist the pull wordlessly. Nobody wants to hear it...My new year’s resolution to just stare more will hopefully help me avoid looking like a jerk ...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Great Lakes Freighters

As I read this, my anger at the insurance industry welled up yet again...

Somebody’s been sniffin’ the crazy glue...

The Dodge ad during the superbowl is just another of the “mywifehasstolenmysoul” pieces from the marketing demons...the wimminflok are peeeeissed. It was pretty funny, I thought. Because it resonated...on both sides. Ironic, Micheal C Hall narrates...is it misogynistic? Or is the fem-rage misandry, defined? As the VD escalation of demand/reward/punish gifting descends in all of it’s maketed evilness...Discuss...

the Disenchanted Naturalists Guide to Reality...

165 million year old spider fossil...that’s just cool.

The Setup; Liz Phair goes to a Nascar race. That is All.

neonatal icu doc blogs...amazingness ensues.

RUN Sarah, RUN! It’s high time the goobers got representation .What a great Commander in Chief she’d make...right up there with Joe Lieberman, but THAT could never happen, right? What? DOH!

Canadian Leader opts for heart surgery in the USA...WHAT? You mean my pet delusion is all wrong? So I read it...and the dude is just nutz. Move on.

Dry, academic history can be very much like inhaling dust...the story from the source nearly always delivers me to empathy.

Sea urchins...a little geekaliciousness for ya.

There is no way to choose who sits next to you. Whoever they are, however they smell, whatever their problems might be, they choose you

Reading a thread on a scuba board...”Why were you snorkeling in 6-8’ seas?” as if the very idea were as ridiculous and implausible as, say, surfing as a hurricane passed by...SIR! You BlASPheme to suggest such unsavory decisions! NewsFlash; they do just that. I see it all the time...mostly from other boats because I can be rather, <ahem>, forceful in the “are you fucking crazy?” sense. But every so often...they get warned, they sign the release, they giggle with anticipation...45 minutes later they projectile vomit all over the ladder.It isn’t ever going to stop, kind readers...ever.

On that note...winds came up and turistas came at us. My first ever from Palestine. Nice guy...his job? Defusing landmines. Somebody who knows a bit about stress...HAH! And a couple of guys from Scotland, a German, a random from another dive op who boarding passed...an instructor who comes here all the time. Seas are choppy 4’s...not bad, not good...average winter day. But here in the Behavioral Test Lab, ego and pride are the last to go...the only ones who did the first dive were the instructor and bomb defuser dude. Everyone got in the water...but we had to toss rescue balls at everybody else. All fucking hell broke loose...the briefings flew out the window as soon as they started to gear up...perceptual narrowing. all four of them did the same thing to me “what did you say? I wasn’t listening...” as I stood on the bow holding the tank valve...one tried to bum-rush off the boat with his air turned OFF...I pulled back hard. JHC...I explained it all again, patiently, concealing my alarm...each one, in a classic display of panicky behavior failed to grab the line and pull themselves down...just 3 ft below is calm, quiet...sweet, sweet immersion below the distracting surface...one guy is using his arms as propulsion, not kicking at all...DING! He’s done. Next guy is trying to steady the boat and the watery universe by holding tight to the line and creeping back toward the illusion of stability...the physics aren’t working in his favor as he gets jerked upward by the boat and now we’re rushing into trouble...all four, one at a time, quasi-freak and we get them back to the ladder...and of course, they grab it, hug it, the boat lurches...say HELLO to my little metal friend...THAT’s gonna leave a mark, homeslice...we try to coach them, remind them, “GRAB THE TAGLINE!”...but no cigar...the German becomes verbally combative, refusing to do as he is told...I hear the Johnny Winter version, slide guitar like a freight train tornado...the strange old testament Dylan lyric roaring through my mind as I write this, reliving it.

That’s how I cope...I detach, observe, reduce the complexity into a simple thing...it is a terrible, spiritually crippling conclusion to draw that people are stupid. It can be true...but the frequency of this behavior precludes it as reasonably true...it is naked, preening ego. Pride. They get themselves into some shit...and when they need help, they get angry. Not at me, I’m just the target...but most people will hold willful pride to the very end. And right at that end, when they drop it...they will either accept it and humility creeps in...or not.

Of our “quatro-non-sinkos”...one gets it right away. One beats himself up for awhile and comes around...another remains oblivious, and our ubermensch? Pride is all he has, bitches!

Shit will eventually float...the stolen goods will absolutely come up somewhere...despicable behavior, this.

FauxNews will not be showing this...because they can’t clear the schedule of all the paid lying Exxon employees and the fake stories.

This is awesome! She’s reading her bullshit right off the palm of her hand...! Put that BITCH (wait, I mean Future Prez Candidate) on “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” and put the speculation to bed...

The White House Response

I can’t really say why I feel as I do about whales...it started when I was very young. It’s just wrong to harm them in any way, shape or form, and arguing about it violates something deep inside. They represent something like Yosemite, or Grand Canyon...they are something beautiful and free, and a world without them or one that kills them is diminished and harmed. I’m just sayin...

Somebody owes a deeper bow!

All of the virtues I detest and none of the vices I admire

People that lie, well, at least they know what the fuckin’ truth is. You have to know that or else you can’t lie, right? People who just make shit up...new age healers, tarot/astrologer assholes just fake their way through with arrogant smugness that they “can’t be proven wrong”...some just make shit up. We all know the types, here...just because they said it it’s real. I fucking hate that. Let’s all leave some wiggle room for the mistaken, the misunderstanders, the ones whose convoluted path from ear to brain drops frames of importance...perception, reality, interpretation all serve to muddy the waters. There is no redeeming that crapola...give me a garden variety liar any day. At least you can figure the truth to be opposite what they say. With a bullshitter...you have no compass. Wasted time.

One pops out in my mind...she would argue over the stupidest shit, definitively smug. She made up some story about me where I would dress up like Jesus with a big cross and drag it around the boardwalk at Jacksonville Beach. The story was actually quite detailed and there really was a guy that was doing this. Ahhhhh, Jacksonville! Ground Zero for the protestant goofiness...but since the storyteller was an in-law I did the best I could to acknowledge that yes, there actually was a guy who did that and no, it was not me. She would never argue it, she would always say “I know it wasn’t you...why would you say that I did?”...and then that crazy fuckin’ bitch would do it again. She didn’t believe it...it was one of those billions of years ago a star exploded on the other end of the universe. Particles of a quantum nature flew at the speed of light through trackless space and unknowable time, until one small piece of gamma passed through her melonhead and knocked a neuron out of it’s synapse and onto another and she started talking. And the tell is the arrogance when challenged.

I feel the same way about those infested with angry religion...or Glen Beck. They just say the caaaraziest stuff as if it were true. It isn’t necessarily a lie, per se...it’s made up with the same sincerity and emotional gravitas as a UFO abductee, or a bigfoot hunter...or one of those assclowns on cable looking for fucking ghosts after they get off their shift as a plumber. The sad part of all this...is that words actually mean things, and people listen, and the emotional conviction is sufficient to weak minded individuals to serve as a substitute for fact. Birthers, for example. People who think dolphins are spiritual beings that are telepathic or some shit...Me? I’m not superstitious...I’m just a little stitious.

I stopped worrying about being perfect, failing, feeling guilty...once I realized that all “true” people are just shitheads most of the time and they do some real wonderful stuff along with acts of selfishness...life made sense. People who fancy themselves as if they were a new car without any scratches are under terrible pressure to keep up the illusion this way...I can’t imagine that anymore. What a crock of shit. Blissed out poseurs with no capacity for humility. Everybody is a bit of a slob...and the delusional pride and ego they hold so dearly? It is the master, they are the slave, and life is an obsessional effort to bully the world to see it as the opposite. That disconnect creates the falseness vibe...conflict ensues. We see right through you, Martha Stewart!

The logical conclusion to obstructive politics....America Held Hostage, Day One

An interesting point of view on sexual abuse..the book “The Trauma Myth”...read carefully, hotheads!

A real estate adjustment in the Florida Keys...is inevitable. As we live on the shores of De Nile...HA!

Oh, Courtney... why couldn't you have murd- I mean, married, Eminem instead?

Dragons...9 animals combined

The waters of oblivion surround the Rock of Love...a pervasive sense floating like a dense gas, a layer hugging the ground like a doom-fart...the slowest January ever. A silent, windless hurricane that isn’t dominating the news but is scarin’ the wimmenfolk into breathing into brown paper bags and eatin’ xanax for breakfast AND lunch...the men are selling the boats, suv’s, looking grim. I don’t scare easily. I see Spring BREAK! WOOOOO! coming down the line soon. But when movies, TV all media bangs the gong of doom...the zeitgeist/mojowire is pure Twilight Zone. May, 2004...the wind blew from the worst direction at a velocity that exceeded all hope of going out with divers...for 28 days in a row. Then starting late July, hurricane after hurricane threatened Key Largo forcing evacuations, stretches of time of a week out of the game, light trips followed by another storm approaching. I recall 4-5 of these incidents that year...but I hung on and learned a lot about tenacity...and that one can make a passable spaghetti out of ramen noodles and ketchup. All things pass, eh?

There is so much wrong with this whole thing that listing the growing number of redflags is just pointless. The extreme right wing is getting a lot of attention in the media, especially the media owned by Australian psychopaths...but then, our media is overwhelmed by other reality TV as well. Hopefully, this is just another one of those.

Chics...are weird. I’m just sayin’...this one a textbook example

Microsoft and the destruction of creativity

Sun Microsystems CEO resigns with a haiku...on twitter.

Ignorance is not knowing all the answers...stupidity is thinking there is only one for all questions

What pollutes our society's committment to marriage and family more: legalizing gay marriage between two loving people, or marrying off complete strangers as though they were show dogs on reality TV?

Some fear a future where supercomputers turn on us...I have a plan to bring them down if they ever try; install a printer. Game OVER, man!

There are more people in the United States who have a cell phone than there are people who have medical insurance. This is "progress" in precisely the same sense as marching straight along a freshly paved, downhill road to hell.

“America’s dumbest and most racist citizens finally found a cause they could all get behind that isn’t pro wrestling or NASCAR. The Lolcats of protest sign grammar, they think scare quotes actually make things scary (e.g. ‘Obama is a “communist”’). They don’t understand that they’re duped showpieces for billionaires who threaten their freedom and prosperity far more than their beloved nemesis, Big Gubmint. And their instant escalation from complacent couch potatoes to rhetorical revolutionaries just happened to coincide with the election of a black Democrat with the middle name Hussein. What are the chances?”

I know people like the above...more than a few. They don’t like me very much. Maybe my Darwinista view...the Galileo, Einstein/Hawking/Dawkins thing. My disdain for the belief in supernatural superheros from outer space...or maybe my assertive use of the word “stupid”. I’m pretty sure it’s one of those. Couldn’t be my charming, non confrontational nature. Having a rep as the “Pusillanimous Prince of Darkness” and all.. Recall that it was the Republicans that actually provided the needed support (I love irony) and votes FOR the Civil Rights Act? That those awful boll weevil dems (George Fucking Wallace!) racist horseshit permeated politics like a virus...and the worm has turned, bitches. Bill Oreilly mockingly quoting the poll’s true things sure makes him look....smart. In a really stupid way.The only thing that could possibly be better...Karl Rove. DOH! This is AWEsome...

Interesting approach to recovering damages in child-porn cases...does this go too far? Well, I don’t think so. Case law would seem to support the idea that if there is a commodity that is illegal to produce or sell or trade, say...POT for example, it is also illegal and prosecutable to have it. What’s the dif? Let us see who would oppose this...going after the consumers that drive this hideous business is a bad thing......because?

Which comes first...the chicken or the egg? Cause or symptom?

1 cubic foot...a wonderful project. E.O Wilson, of course. The man is a national treasure.

I thought it was a joke...well, it is. But I don’t think he meant it to be on himself...

Like a shiver lookin’ for a spine to crawl up...

The episode made me feel about 5ft tall...just big enough to get past the “You must be this tall to board this ride” sign...and that was the whole purpose...to get me back in line and make me wait my turn for the ride. I shrug it off after a while and move toward what may or may not be “forward”...all I really know is that moving somewhere metaphorically tricks me into thinking “forward”. Just like wearing sunglasses on a rainy day, it doesn’t make the weather change, but it’ll foolya...

I don’t like rides...so I don’t get on them anymore. Not real ones...nor their metaphorical doppelgangers

On facebook it’s doppelganger week and folks are putting up people to whom they’ve been compared. Now this isn’t something I’d normally be inclined to play...grocery shopping Sunday night about 830...the woman bagging keeps looking at me with intense scrutiny. Now I get this sometimes...my hair is pretty long and I almost never tie it in any way unless I’m at work in the wind...my normally dark brown color, peppered with gray has turned almost blond in the intense tropical sun. I assume thats it, because, well... So she says under her breath “Fabio...you look like Fabio”

OK...color me “highly amused” at that one. Never in my life have I heard such a thing. I laughed so hard...photoshopped the xraybans onto the fabFabio and whoosh! I’m in the game...my thinking is that of all the things anyone could have said to me at that time, this ironic, strange “compliment” in heavily accented english .was just exactly perfect.

On Faux! Of course!

“Regressive Rules-girl passivity: of her future husband, Staub says, "I will never find him, he'll find me. I think the right one will see me. I want old-fashioned courting." Brilliant example of why men say “they’re all crazy”

She said; “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful time...but this wasn’t it”

She was in the parking lot sucking life itself through a kill-filter...connected to the world through a paper tube filled with her DOC; nicotine. This kind of smoking is unusual, disturbing...and she was heading out to a double on the Spiegel Grove where your lung capacity and hemoglobin (which will preferentially bind to carbon monoxide over oxygen) are kinda important...nervous, agitated. After we leave the dock (!) she announces she is afraid of heights and “can’t” do a bow entry...we hit a few small bumps, 1ft waves...and she blurts out that the boat “is scaring me...I hate boats!” But WAIT! There’s MOre...she started blabbering about how difficult it was for her to fly here because she is terrified of flying etc etc etc...and I look at her...100% CarAAAAZeee! I’m thinkin’. Here it comes...this fool is gonna fuck up royally, no doubt. I check the manifest again and shittheBED! She’s an Instructor...the mate is working on her, distracting her, formulating a workaround. I’m thinking “grade a control freak, addicted and cut off from her drug...she’s freaking”...she can’t control planes...or boats...or the ocean...out on the wreck I am expecting High Drama. She sits down on the bow, rolls in...and this woman was totally transformed, in control, absolute confidence and proficiency as a diver of the highest order...Who knew?

A fruitless hunt for serenity...as if it were a rare orchid one would wade through a swamp for. Looking outward, assigning meaning to the meaningless, squeezing the juice that is, after all, non-nutritive, from all things trifling...missing the point. Bewitched by some beautiful demon who made an offer to allow you to know the when you would finally be “right” so you could fashion your world around the coming moment. But the beguiling bastard fooled you...when the realization finally dawns on you that your moment so desired and focused on is far past...it already happened. Just like that Bruce Springsteen song.

I do not have the Dalai Lama talent for accessing inner peace on demand...I find it impossible to quiet down, stop thinking...shut off the noise. On vacation, I will start to wind down about 48hrs before I have to get on the plane and go home...that kinda shit. Or after a long day on the water...turn on MSNBC and FauxNews and switch back and forth working myself into a frenzy over the CageMatch between that awful little Beck and that mean-ass Matthews pitbull...so my ProjectSnappyBanterChallenge; A monkey sockpuppet, cable news, triscuits and salsa, the sword of Damocles...make it WORK people!

Recall the post below about the cocaine? Well...I saw the owner of the laundry that washes my clothes at a meeting. I sat right next to him and told the whole story except the ending conclusion, because I didn’t think calling him out in public would have the effect I sought. So I pulled him aside afterward and told him...my thinking was he would laugh like I did, I thought since he owned the place he would already know how this kind of shit happens all the time...but he got very defensive and actually attacked my point of view: “How do I know that it wasn’t yours?” he snapped...and then walked away from me like I was trying to serve him court papers...I laughed, walked away...dropped it. THAT’s serenity, bish!.

Speaking of “right”...sometimes, being right is just empty, because that kind of right is only in your head. We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
  – The Buddha

From the dumbass files...what a crock of shit.

50 years ago today

ruh oh...

A metal foam...

The Florida Keys...it’s just chaos with better lighting

The Florida Keys are a far harder place to live than one would think...water access, even a view is extremely limited. The shorelines are private property, almost completely built. Mangroves cover the small portions not developed. You come here, stay at a resort or hotel and think “this is where I want to be” and you do whatever it takes to do that. Shopping? K-Mart. The worst K-Mart of them all, the mother of all storehouses of useless crap. A vast majority of the workers in retail, the grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, hotels...are bussed in from the mainland a world, a universe away. If your experience in the Florida Keys is limited to the hotel, and you develop a plan while sucking a straw dipped into booze as you watch the gentle blue ocean...you don’t have a clue.

And when I moved here, dreaming my start over-save your family dreams...real estate had rocketed into stratospheric levels. Average home prices over 600k$...average wage, $27,500. Those who had purchased before the rise were smug...I always felt very strongly that in a place that is as close to a National Park as you can get without actually being one, with the overwhelming majority locked out of home ownership...the highest rate of population drop in the state of Florida, the highest retail turnover (110%), the highest rate of medical, law enforcement, fire, teachers leaving the area, that a 60-70% price correction was inevitable. But when I said it out loud...everyone laughed at me.

I felt a sense that those who purchased homes at the peak were participating in an evil thing...they were cementing prices at a level no idiot would pay. The ones who had arrogantly believed that they were so smart and then borrowed on their fake equity? New tits, new car, exorbitant vacations, new kitchens, new boat...now, the prices are “plummeting” down to affordable levels. But the bills roll in. Who’s smug now, bitches?

The quality of life here can be a spiritual challenge to see after the initial flush wears off. The flatness of the coral rock that forms this island chain induces the same sort of madness that must come to those living on the prairie...and it seems particularly harsh to women. Unless you work on the water, you probably won’t actually see it very much...and since so many employers here exploit outsiders to work, the wages are indexed at a rate that is too low to live the life of fun in the sun...even on your day off (if you have one).

Life on the Rock of Love can be a harsh lesson in bitter irony. Work opportunities, limited. I work out on the water every day...captain, dive instructor, and my job is both awesome and terrible...but the sea is my office. An office where people blurt puke as they bark like goats...where terror filled newbies learn that this is not a fucking theme park...where respect is learned, or not. All that considered, I am a very fortunate man here. Having moved to the top of the field of scuba-charter captains, I see how few have managed to hang on. Most of them...nearly all fall into two distinct categories; 1) those that are brought to their knees by alcohol. 2) Those who are utterly destroyed after being left by their women who hate this place with an intensity and venom only women are capable of expressing. A very distinctive form of madness, this. And not altogether different from the spiritual malaise brought on by alcohol.

And so it goes...a place where almost everyone is paired up, or male-over 45-reluctantly single (suddenly)...one or the other, it would seem. Reality comes like a wet kiss on a hot fist under these circumstances...the dream of happy sunsets, days out on the water, a little cottage with a view...ends up for nearly all to be a point of collapse at the end...when your dreams die, too few posses the balls to make another one, to make something wonderful and new from the shards...self pity, resentment, blame all projected onto a place. A place, fer crissakes...that can be difficult, just like any other. Love will conquer anything...up to a point.

Out on the water yesterday...6 footers in sets of three, 3-4 ft in between. Wind was howling...the sun was shining, the air warm. Sloppy dive conditions, but still...beautiful. All day...literally, all day, panic...you see them coming, you know what is coming, you try to prepare them...but they couldn’t possibly know. And one has to let it happen, and deal with the consequences...where all too often, blame is assigned, amplified, justified...because the last house on the block is to truly accept responsibility for what one actually does.

The daily refrain...my experience with this goes far, far beyond what I ever imagined. And my increasingly smooth handling of it, the ability to function and take charge in the midst of chaos, fear, loathing...?

Cold comfort sometimes...the isolation of my confident nature feels like an itchy sweater today...but even so, everyone got home safely.

Hackneyed, trite by over use metaphors strike deep chords...the sky, so blue, clouds forming endless shapes...the water talks with the wind, conversing about things I understand but can’t say. Timeless never ending, oblivious to my small plight, the river flows on and on.

If your going to start holding up a cardboard sign by the side of the road, at least be original...

beat me, daddy, eight to the bar

They say revenge is a dish best served cold... I think it's best to leave it in the fridge until you don't want it any more, then throw it away...the worst is when you mistake it for a delectable treat and eat it yourself...

 A guy on the boat asks me “are there any animals here I should be worried about?”...I replied “hellya! People will fuck you up real bad...”

Will the REAL invisible superhero from outer space please stand up already???

Bill collectors calling? Opportunity knocks, people.

Let the games begin...

proposal for a 500% tax on corporate political activity.

 I’m driving through the everglades on I-75, the river of grass...people, wearing their strange neo-carapace, aggressive protective shell, a cloak of invisibility, dissolver of civility that is the “car”. Dade county has more left lane hostility than anyplace I have ever seen, both passive and aggressive...the ones who go exactly the speed limit acting like cranky enforcers as the passengers see the glares around them...young men in pimped Japanese cars flying around, sudden lane changes...like angry wasps looking for a victim. Stuck behind the leftlaners...I find tailgating pointless, and I give some distance waiting to go around them and over and over, some random asshat pulls up on my bumper 3ft away and starts flashing their lights. I don’t take it personally...no reaction from me. I refuse to engage in this horrible, sickening metaphorical game that has no winner, only losers...and then, finally out of Dade and into the incredible open sky of the glades...gators, storks, wonderful stands of cypress with orchids and bromeliads, spanish moss...incredible beauty with these strange, rage-filled people rushing through like life were some kind of 1st person driving game and the car made you invisible and no one could see you picking your fucking nose...

Along US27 I skirt the edge of an arboreal boneyard...malelluca’s killed by pesticide stripped of bark, almost white...like menacing skeletons, covering acres along the highway. At night headlights create a ghostly scene. Florida is like that. People build stuff, drain the swamps right up to the very edge of wilderness, beat back nature...but the wild never sleeps. It creeps forward even amidst golf courses and condo towers...ponds, ditches, anyplace water collects attracts gators, tilapia, peacock bass, birds of all kinds, plants that grow inches a day constantly pushing.

I think E. Wilson is maybe the most amazing geek of our time...his work with ants has produced a body of work that is just amazing.

Correspondence deserving of a wider audience

What people believe is a choice...and that causes more trouble in this world than any other thing. Circular logic...the formation of conclusions disconnected from any proof whatsoever and then rejecting anything that would challenge the belief is a plague of the mind and soul, as devastating in it’s own way as a deadly virus.

Literary scouting...from the inside

petty, pusillanimous poppycocker...or poopyhead?

I got one of those charity wristbands...this one is supposed to signify the the wearer is “against child labor”. It has “made in India” stamped on the inside and now I’m wondering about the irony of that. Made in India by captive 4 year olds...? Akin to “Free Tibet” bling “made in China”...

This is untoward! This is not toward!!

“Don’t lick your pizza” I drifted away from MTV when they drifted away from the music back in the early 90’s...Jackass originally flew right under the radar and I was clueless...until I found “the tape”. I stuck it in the camera and watched my son was skateboarding off the neighbor’s roof onto a trampoline and then into their above-ground pool (my daughter was holding the camera)...all the kids taking turns hitting each other with a thin branch marinated in dogshit and several other alarming “stunts”...at the end, the “night vision” switched on, my daughter snickering quietly as she tiptoes down the hallway...her hand appears inframe and turns the knob to enter her brother’s room...cackling, shaking a bit she approaches him as he sleeps...her arm extends toward his face as she applies lipstick in the general area of his mouth...he wakes up with a jolt, unaware of his marking and the camera shakes bit...the credits roll.

Youth is wasted on the old...

A guy on the boat talks about his wifes involvement in the teabagger movement as “community service”...she apparently is one of those women who screams at the rallies enthusiastically supporting denial of healthcare, concerned that deathpanels would be taken away from huge caring corporations and demanding the president produce a birth certificate...this attracted a great deal of attention from a group of Canadian military guys diving for fun...they are fascinated with the whole bullshit on primetime conservative whackiness...

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...he walks! He talks! He crawls on his belly like a reptile! The 8th wonder of the world! The only hole ABOVE ground...I watched it, and I too wondered about his glaring omissions, sought his point...listened to the stupid associations and gawdhelpusall...he is connecting dots between Mao Tse Tung and the President of the United States people. The man clearly assumes his audience is too stupid to be respected so naturally he is on FauxNews.

Pinning cause and effect on the stock market is...one of the most bizarre pastimes ever! Just...fucking strange.

Wow...what an asshole.

Fucknuts blows through a dive flag zone, fails to render aid...a misdemeanor?

Email...unannounced, unsolicited, sometimes double-eye-roll worthy...the terrible permanence of regrettable correspondence from over-caffeinated people clearly not well versed with spell check. One would prudently note that reading has exactness...but writing is still an art. Always step away and allow the mood to pass before sending...also, start as close to the end as possible.

“Things that SUCK more than Nancy Pelosi’s job;...Not having healthcare.”

Bad Haiku:

wonderful lady
emits a spicy belch

sense of wonder lost

But WAIT! There’s more;

Yesterday it worked
Today, it is not working

Windows is like that

The dems are vehemently against it...the repubs have huge boners for it. But wait! There’s something troubling here...look at all those donkeys! And of course, the elephants next to healthcare corps...who knew? Does this shock you out of a partisan stupor?...

So...perhaps if we lived in a world where this would elicit the same ire from the right as a gay person teaching...? Or some ire? Of any kind? Suspended with pay? Only in a right wing KKK hotbed like Jackson-fucking County, Florida....

So...have you always been a tool or are you just going for the look?

Thats the title of my newest chapter...where I expand on how I developed elaborate coping mechanisms for dealing with a cruel world. After all, writing about systemic dysfunction in an entire group of sport enthusiasts like divers (who are very well connected webwise, but terrible spellers) plus being alpha dog on a dive boat...plus that pesky tourette-esque thing I have had all my life where I say shit out loud...equals I encounter others who are likewise inclined. Ergo, the line at the top.

The book is about a guy who drives right past the sign at the Florida border that says “moving here won’t fix it either” and that the differences between those who make a raft and float here and the ones with cars that give up all to live the dream are an illusion...well, fuckinA people...the dream itself is an illusion, fer crissake.

But it isn’t the illusion itself that will bite you...it’s the faith in it. Reality isn’t something to trifle with...or turn your back on, no, no...number one on the list of 3 things I learned the hard way...number 2 being that everyone who thinks like a hooker doesn’t become one...but my narcissism is showing, eh? The story, kind reader, isn’t about me...that tidbit would be #3...

I ran across a reference to a “merkin” and googled it’ “Why do Scotsmen wear kilts?”....”because the sheep can hear the zippers”

DogWars...major WTF. If your dog is a biter, then taking them out without a leash? Fuckin’ idiots...

Tony Clifton...Zmuda/Kaufman...now just Zmuda. One of the most amazing put-ons of all time.

There is so much wrong with the points of view in this article that ranting about them is pointless....

Prostitutes in NO as convicted “sex offenders”...why not? After all, application of the law should be fair, right?..

A fabulously executed bish, PLZ face...

Reflexively defiant...gratuitously mischievous, and with the NY accent utterly devoid of any charm whatsoever. The cowardly confrontations with the office staff brand him as “chickenshit fool”. He complains that the Duane “isn’t deep enough”. 300 dives, and he isn’t learning anything...diving attracts these people in a large way. His goal is to hit the fucking mud...not to dive the wreck itself. If he could...he would charter the boat to go out into 200ft of water and then he could bounce down and make more boastful claims of max depth as if that itself were something to be proud of...ahh yes! Pride, the deadliest of the 7 deadly sins...and he is just full of it. Insulting those he deems as his inferiors...bragging about ignoring the briefings and ditching his buddies, day after day...and again, that awful nasal accent just leads one toward the unsavory “asshole from NY” place.

This type infests recreational and tech diving like ticks on a hike through the woods...it isn’t like I interrogate people or anything...they offer up all kinds of interesting and unsolicited banter clearly designed to lead me into something other than an interchange of a conversational nature. I wonder what it is he wants of me...respect? Acceptance? No...the ring of the bell isn’t happening until I scroll down to “validation”. He wants me to approve, to recognize his worth. Unfettered access to anyone with a certification card means I get this disturbing melange of thrill seekers who are incapable of listening. Mixed in with people who really love diving, water people...are those for whom diving presents metaphorical badassness. Like a fucking dumbass whose first bike is a Harley, I wonder exactly what it is they want us all to see?

A Suunto Cobra...used in a tech-training dive to 115fsw for 45 minutes. Stops as planned with a finale of 8 min at 20ft on 100%o2...simple enough, the plan. But this guy insists on following his master, the ridiculous Suunto. 2 of us look at each other and signal “Elvis...is leaving the water” and laugh as we pass this guy. He is obviously waiting for his silly piece of crap to “clear” before ascent. A square profile, planned on deco software and backed up with tables...and he is staying in the 72f water in his 3mm wetsuit to satisfy his device. How quaint!

Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings — just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Throw away whatever you think you know about DSLR...here comes EVIL (electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens)

Reworking the numbers from “conservative” estimates based on thermal expansion of the oceans and melting glaciers toward accounting for the effect of polar ice melts...the growing consensus on effect while the terminally stupid rage/rave on about cause provides us an illustration of the next real estate collapse...building and developing coastal areas that WILL be flooded before the mortgage is up? AWEsome...

He is swelling up like a fucking tick...and true to his character-defect, digging into his hosts’ flesh even deeper. Let the man say his piece...

Think before you ink...

Sea Survival

The standard refrain is “do nothing, there is no problem”. We had better do something, there is a problem.

“I know the source of your heart trouble...you don’t have one!”

FUCK yes! An underwater chainsaw...

People see what they want to see, nothing more, nothing less..hell, if it pisses these fuckers off it can’t be bad, right?.

After Pat Robertson’s informative history lesson on Haiti and their treaty with Satan, I offer this treasure trove of science blogs...turn on the lights of progress and turn off superstition.

Don’t misunderestimate me

Watching “The Wrestler” and something emerges I hadn’t noticed before...wrestling, the posing fakery, bloated steroid bodies altered and distorted, fake names, the crowd/fans clearly buying the whole bag of shit, the show so bad that it forms rich material for metaphor, the players conspiring together to plot...and stripping. The similarities have never dawned on me...wonderful movie, btw...

I like to switch back and forth from MSNBC to FauxNews...the game is to see what leads and what doesn’t. For example, Pat Robertson and Rushbo were getting some extra exposure for their sad “message of love” on the former and not a single word about the stupidity afoot on the latter. And while elsewhere the coverage of Haiti dominated...Faux broadcast some of the weirdest shit EVER. CareepyDude, and another example of how she doesn’t think fast...he keeps a diary of his dreams about her?

“people that I love and all but right now you’re in my fucking kitchen...”

Make a deal with assholes and they act like assholes and you act surprised? Google should absolutely remove all filtering and burn the agreements with China.

My deepest condolences on the loss of your priorities...

Everybody is sniveling about the weather...well. It’s winter, banterites, and the thing is that it gets chilly sometimes. Wind is at 20mph from the north and air temps are an iguana-stunning 45f...onboard, 12. They are freezing their asses off...but at the dock we heard how cold it was in Winnipeg and how cold this isn’t. Ahhh shiver, Canuckastanian! Shiver away...

I got a text; Sarah Palin is going FauxNews! She’ll be an awesome addition...bear in mind, reasonable ones, that she represents the best and brightest of her ilk...let her burn, all on her own.

I bought a blu-ray player a year ago...and discovered the scam. HDMI cables for HD hookup to the TV were over $80, some over 120$!!. I didn’t even flinch...my immediate response was “with a straight face you tell me that?”...I ordered them online...same cable. .now clearly, omitting the HD cable in a HD system smacks of fuckheadery, methinks.

I told a guy about the deal and he came back with the old “the monster cables transfer more data”...”clearly, a customer with suckers-remorse” I laughed...

Waste not...the neo-gleaner movement

“I am not a hero” she said...yes, she was.

WoOf! Conan O’Donnell and his dog

Art...is purpose a necessary part of it? Cannot something be artful...without the intent? Of course it can...

Weapons of mass destruction...and how you can fight back. Interesting what gets folks motivated to act. How about cheating/lying/thieves?

She hunts silently

with red lipstick

copulins on my sakaki

A veteran speaks out...”Those who send us to war don’t have to fight it, they have to sell it...”

The evolution of bizarre belief in supernatural solutions and answers...takes a giant leap backward. A portrait of an author of really, really bad sci-fi who bet the world was filled with stupid people...and won.

The fucking weather...

Incidentally occidental orientally? This is what happens when an economy switches from reliance on making things to moving numbers around. I’m just sayin’...

Her vocabulary was as bad as, well, whatever...

Goodbye Loran...

I was diagnosed after a long, slow decline...the doctor seemed convinced of specific cause, and ordered a series of blood tests to confirm ($500)...I have no insurance, of any kind. I have been hoping that the congress would respond to public pressure and do the right thing...to make health insurance affordable, to legislatively control the out of control drug companies that are breaking the law by stealing hundreds of millions of dollars...

The blood tests came back confirming the theory and the doc gave me a 1 month supply of the meds...I started feeling better within 3 days. A huge improvement in my ability to work and function normally. At the end of the month, he called in the prescription; $346 a month, every month

I called around for prices...same everywhere. Seems the drug had gone from 150$ in 2004 to 315-346$ today, neatly blasting past any justifiable increase. Then, I called Canadapharmacy...the drug is not available in Canada. My suspicion that something awful was afoot increased as I continued my search...it seems the drug manufacturer is being prosecuted for paying off 2 other drug companies to stop them from making a LEGAL generic that would have been priced at $45 a month. Executives at all 3 companies have refused to testify on record and have thus far defied the subpoenas...so my feeling solidified that the price would no doubt continue to spiral upward..Now, isn’t the argument supposed to be in support of “free markets”?.Yes indeed, I read the entire case on the FTC website. So...a small example of the asshole-industry you Republicans are supporting with your hateful lying angry bullshit. And the cowardly democrats have (so far) caved in (hopefully it isn’t too late). This healthcare bizness was NEVER about a “free ride”...I just want the same level, competitive playing field as a consumer/patient I might get if I was purchasing a TV. But clearly, this “industry” cannot survive a competitive market. And that Republicans have managed to do something so horribly twisted is just another example of the death of reason. To all who support these assholes, Fuck You too.

What a world...twisted, horrible stories from that “golden age” of stupidity

So I come home from work yesterday...there is something in the air besides the atmosphere. The gf is upset, I ask “what?”...she says “I found some crack cocaine in the closet”. (2-3-4...) “What?” I say...”you heard me. Crack. Cocaine. In the closet.”

As a man with a long, depraved history as an amateur pharmacist...this particular chapter is so far behind me that the idea of this ridiculous drug just totally pushes my “ick” button. How could such a thing be...and why is she lookin’ at ME like that. Analysis begins...thinkin’, postulatin’...looking deep into my eyes like I’m some kinda supermodel or some shit. 

We inventory the likely suspects...eliminating your humble narrator, of course, and we draw 2 names. One, so unlikely as to be ridiculous. The other, so improbable and removed in time as to be equally ridiculous, but stretched a bit to fit...plausible.

I work the idea, hard...I mean come on now...you don’t drink at all, no drugs ever and you find fucking CRACK?

So I’m getting ready to go see Avatar...a “clean pants” scenario and I reach into the pocket and find $40 that survived a bout with the laundromat...I usually don’t check my pockets so the girls down there love me---waitaFUCKINGMINUTE!!!!! The laundromat! Damn...Occam’s Razor, redux...

NEWSFLASH! Snorkeler unharmed and remains in critically ignorant condition unlikely to recover.

A familiar argument...scientists say “there’s a problem”...some dudes say “nuh-Unnh!” I say...there’s a fucking problem.

Looks like somebody forgot to put on his pants! Teaching tourists how to ride sharks is a “good” thing, right?

Bob Barker donates 5,000,000.000 to Sea Shepherd...

Celebrity dumbass Heidi Fleiss...fucked up people saying fucked up shit? Who woulda thunkit?

The daily cheat...like sheep, we’ve become. Cell phone deals, cable companies with the 16.95$ for 6 months then we fuck you real good because you’ll never be able to follow the restrictive rules or reach us by phone to cancel in time

Chinese drywall...

Afghanistan is a fucking mess...literacy, life expectancy...the futility

Small “c” conservative...no shouting, no racist bullshit, no insane lying idiots Cheney-sniveling...ahhh yes, the silence of substance!

The cops were just fuckin’ with this dumbass...amazing.

We kiss on the mouth...and cough up the sleeve

How they came up with their ideas...interesting

On a long enough timeline...nothing human will remain. Except for that one thing, that is....

Looking back through a lens distorted...a strange walk down bullshit lane, where things are what they say they were, nothing more, nothing less. The deified “founding fathers”...neatly ignoring a progression of constitutional inclusion of people considered not worthy of that “God Given” manifesto...women, for example. I tend to look at this fetishistic code from blabbering racists and religious fanatics as stupid. What reasonable person could go along with this obvious bullshit, I wonder...? Texans! no, no...I said “reasonable”!

He could see it now...the sacred mountain, at first set atop a sliver of lensed air on the horizon, the illusion of floating provided by the phenomenon of mirage. But this was no mirage...it was real. Projected onto the real was an image of what was wanted, desired...needed. He walked through places of deprivation, always forward. The vision twisted and turned and welded itself to an ordinary spiritual quest of sorts...when arrival finally came, then “it” would happen, clarity and satisfaction would nest and all would be well.

Through the forest the twisted trail seemed designed to make one forget what it was that drew him along, but he always felt the tug...always. The forgetting of purpose and drive is as much a part of this journey as the walk, eh?

Run away, run toward...just live in a future where all will be well by and by...climb the mountain, listen to the wind, the arrival...cue Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?” The sojourn ends with a whimper as the fireants seem to have climbed the mountain as well...

Oh HELL yeah, I got your crazy!

Fish...naturals in the water. Frogs...they’ll adapt, some slowly some fast, but encouragement will go a long way. Goats? No fukkin’ way.

There are days when the fish just seem nowhere to be found...but the Geisha? I never saw that one coming...

When you go to a laundromat, there are emergent realities I find interesting...1st, people in general are wearing pretty much the last clean clothes they own...nobody wants to be here. And nobody wants their clothes stolen, so they hang. A place where pretense doesn’t really fly. You’re here, you rent, you’re just another slob. One chic looks around, scanning for risky-weirdness, decides wtf and fiddles furtively pulling her bra out through the sleeve of her 80’s vintage Motley Crue shirt, tossing it in the washer...a dude is walking around in boxer shorts clearly under the delusion that no one can tell the difference between boxers and regular street sanctioned shorts...but the spiderman cartoon images give him away. Fascinatin’...as for me I just drop it all off and tip (a ridiculous 50-60%) upfront...I ask “are you the one who is washing it?” and then hand them a wad of cash...seriously, having your clothes done by somebody who gives a shit, who remembers your name and who covers you so you don’t have to hang around and watch the dryer spin is worth every cent.

Research will continue here at the test-lab deep inside Snappy Banter World Headquarters...some of our findings indicate that test subjects seem prone to mood-swings and a propensity toward disingenuous “reveals” of the past...this clouds the research and postponing conclusions seems prudent.

Pee and Sympathy, at long last a nurse@work blog!

Dark Star...

The convenience of memory

We were talkin’ about law and order...not the tv show. I was saying that in a country where 35 million people smoke pot, you gotta lotta folks that decide which laws they’ll follow and which they won’t. Bars right there on the highway without a sidewalk in front with “Happy Hour” signs...a sales program designed to get you to drink as much (responsibly?) in an hour as you figure you can. And then presumably...you hop in your car and drive into a very high risk situation. Now...you can bullshit as much as you want, homeslice...are you gonna try to tell me you didn’t do this within the last week? Really?

Have you ever seen a buncha off duty cops partying in a bar? Cracker puleeze!

Ahh yes, the law! A few years ago, people landed in jail for the very same graphically sexual images that millions are carrying around on their cellphones..trimming the bush another example of hard core porn intruding into daily life...the fucking law is a joke wherever personal choice and consenting adults combine, kind readers...I think that is exactly why wingnuts sound so obviously foolish. If you have a past, internet access, children under 30...if you EVER drink a second glass of wine and then drive...if you smoke a little ganja now and then...quit the puritanical horseshit. You sound like a hypocritical dumbass.

I’m not advocating drunk driving...I’m in support of logical approaches that work. As opposed to hypocritical bullshit that panders to puritans. For gods sake...if the only way to get to a place that serves alcohol is to drive there...ummm, what?

I get on the mojo wire and inquire about how this “diver” managed to get aboard without hiring a guide (company policy)...well. He lied on his release form.

Also on this trip...the guy who doesn’t answer when his name is called (he answered at the dock fer crissake!)during roll. After dive one, I count before I pull out the manifest and when I get to him he says nothing. I call him again...nothing. I call for his buddy...who tells me he’s standing right there.”then poke him to see if he’s alive, wouldja?” “Fuckin’ dumbASS!” I say at an audible level...Another guy asks “which hand do I use to hold my mask?” as he prepares to giant stride off the boat...”which foot do I move first?”...I tell him “look, I’ll coach you through this...take both of your hands and put them on your ass....good. You found it, right?” and shit-the-bed, he hops off the boat like that. 2 others come back to the boat and try to climb the bowline to get back aboard. 9ft. Up the line. 20ft from the ladder. A French-Canadian guy, an excellent and enthusiastic diver and he tips 20$!!! WTF is going on here? Has the world gone insane?

My old friend...Harvetta. Her son, a year younger than my daughter. Count your blessings, people... more here

Surrounded as I am by friends with big-issues that transcend the trivial trifling foolishness of daily life, the contrast between people pissed off that the weather doesn’t cooperate with their delusions and those facing death straight on...others with a pregnancy gone suddenly “high risk” 700 miles from home, dreams for ones children is never, ever for them to be in harms way and this opens up my own wounds, my empathy runs deep and silent...yesterday the stupidity of the general public just got to me. I’m only human.

More Snappy Banter...