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Three seconds of my life

CRANKY
OLD FART

#230

leftovers
& links

 
Monday,
Nov. 14, 2022

Yesterday I was at the transit center, waiting for a bus not due for another ten minutes, and thinking my ordinary bonehead thoughts.

I was enjoying the view of the homeless, who always congregate at the transit centers. There were a dozen of them, mostly asleep, a few walking around. The awake ones are probably waiting for a bus, like the rest of us. The sleepers and drunks are just waiting to die, also like the rest of us.

Bang! A shot rang out, from where I know not, but instantly a hundred pigeons took flight. Usually you don't even notice the pigeons, but they're always there, and when startled they all go airborne at once.

And I was standing where they were flying. The pigeons flew right past me, some to my left, some to my right, and some over my head. Some came very, very close as they whizzed past me, within a yard or less. A few flew directly at my head, swerving to one side or the other only at the very last moment. They were so close, I could hear their wings flapping.

For three seconds of my life, I was in the middle of a pigeon stampede, and it was thrilling.

Do you ever notice the pigeons? I don't. They're basically fat rats with feathers, and they shit everywhere and probably carry disease, but they're also marvelous animals. Like the rest of us, I guess.

This very brief film, someone told me, explains the beauty and joy of Burning Man.

I am not convinced. The video is beautiful, sure, but it's still only a bunch of people with money to burn, burning it together, and I still don't see the allure.

And now, the news you need,
whether you know it or not

Seattle needs a new airport.
No one wants it near them.
 

This is the beginning of a bullshit multi-billion-dollar boondoggle. Seattle emphatically does not need a new airport.

Exact opposite: Seattle (and every other big city) needs to start long-term planning for the dismantlement of their current airports' several square miles of concrete and asphalt, and fewer and fewer passenger air flights.

Does anyone seriously think folks will be flying all over the world once climate change makes weather disasters commonplace, sinks the global economy, and tires start melting into the concrete? Air travel will be one of the first 'modern luxuries' to go. Passenger air flights will be in decline soon, and in a very few years, only for the oligarchs.

Crypto.com accidentally sent $400-million to a competitor 

Solar roofs are now required on all parking lots with more than 80 spaces in France 

Wingnut "Religious Freedom" amendment fails in Alabama, 50.4% – 49.6% 

Eight-billion of us stinky fuckers 

Climate change puts Cuba’s agriculture under threat 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops...

Chicago police misconduct investigations averaging 3.8 years to reach board for discipline 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops... 

Links I liked 

J Edgar Hoover was a son of a bitch. 

Which is old news, of course, but some people still haven't heard.

Bar in a tree 

Explore the world's abandoned amusement parks 

Apple's business model made Chinese oppression inevitable 

Overbearing parents 

Stubbins Ffirth 

Mary Toft 

Mystery links
"Like life itself, there's no
knowing where you're going"

click 

click 

♫♬  Mix tape of my mind  ♫

• "Moon River" by Emilie 

• "These Boots are Made for Walking" by Eileen

The End

Lois Curtis 

Katherine Duncan-Jones 

Budd Friedman 

Mehran Karimi Nasseri

It's not surprising that The Terminal (which I thankfully never saw) changed almost everything about his life.

11/14/2022     
 
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  
 
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks. 
 
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...


4 comments:

  1. I was reading on CNN that Billionaire philanthropist MacKenszie Scott (Jeff Bezos' former squeeze) donated a couple billion more to charitable organizations. That's too much money for me to imagine, so instead I was thinking what would have happened had she married Scott McKenzie instead of Bezos. Hell, she married Bezos when he was a Wall Street computer guy making a wage. Scott would have been a little old for her, but that's not so unusual these days. She kept part of her birth name for Bezos; she might not have for McKenzie, whose career had been sidetracked by the time she was available and who needed all the help he could get.

    She would have been marrying into the, admittedly, rather slim residuals from "San Francisco", but Scott McKenzie didn't write that one, or not all of it: John Phillips gets half or all (depending on source) of the writing credit. However, Scott McKenzie wrote a better song, "What's the Difference" that loses a little meaning in generational translation, but I still like.

    No reason for you to ponder the lost life of MacKenzie McKenzie, but there's a small reason to figure out how to get to the quasi-linked YouTube site to enjoy a lo-fi 45 RPM version of "What's the Difference".

    Yeah, I need to get out more. . . .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZoz_oBLogI

    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, man, I don't think I knew he was dead. Also didn't know he'd been a MamaPapa, and didn't know he'd co-written Kokomo, which was, I believe, the last hit for the Beach Boys.

      If MacKenzie Scott had married Scott McKenzie, she might've been MacKenzie Scott McKenzie, but more likely would've kept her birth name, so they'd have been Scott McKenzie and MacKenzie Scott.

      My wife kept her birth name, and when she finally met my mom, mom kept asking her why why why...

      they would've been

      Delete
    2. Doug, you've talked a little bit about the character of your lovely wife. Your mom is tough, and was probably tougher then, but I'd never bet against Stephanie.

      I married two women who both kept their birth names. On official documents and credit cards it's sort of a pain in the ass but we do it because we respect women and it's the right thing to do (if that's what the wife prefers) and otherwise they'd kick our ass. I want to stress that the marriages were sequential, not simultaneous. Simultaneous would make it even trickier.

      My parents wondered why, but were loving enough to not ask why.

      John

      Delete
    3. "Loving enough to not ask why." That's the catch. My mom wasn't that loving. She'd changed her name, her mom had changed her name, and she couldn't understand and wouldn't shut up about it.

      Glad you stressed that your marriages were sequential, not simultaneous. For a moment there, I thought you were more progressive than me.

      I never gave the last-name thing more than a moment's thought, but it's obviously nutty to expect women to change their very names at marriage. Marriage itself is kinda nutty, but in a good way if you marry the right person.

      Delete

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