July 18, 2004

Ejection Seats.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 1:26 pm

Ejection Seat.jpg
Lex, a Navy flyer, shares some information about ejection seats. Here is a sample:

Roughly half of people who eject get knocked out when the chute opens. The other half can’t be sure.

If you eject from high altitude, you’ll free-fall in the seat for what I’m told feels like forever. There’s an altimeter in the seat, to ensure the chute doesn’t open too soon. There are at least three reasons why you don’t want a chute to open right away at altitude: 1) You’d freeze to death on the way down, 2) If you didn’t freeze, you’d probably suffocate after the oxygen in your seat pan ran out, and 3) The thinness of the air at altitude means you’re falling pretty quickly in absolute terms – the opening shock might tear your legs and arms off.

These are all bad things, for those of you keeping score at home. Read it all.

Sort of puts “a hard day at the office” into perspective, methinks.

Via Tammi.

July 17, 2004

Saturday Sun and Fun. (Update 7/18/04)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 1:33 pm

Usual Suspects Small.jpg
After several days of monsoon-like rain, we have caught another beautiful Saturday. That can only mean another day on The Deck with the Usual Suspects.

We will be trying out this vodka. I have no idea how the vodka tastes, but the company certainly knows how to promote. Take a look at the model dipped in chocolate. Yowza! This will be the beer of the day, which always looks great buried in ice on a hot day, and it tastes even better than it looks.

We’re also brining over a two CD set, which contains the soundtrack of “The Big Chill” on one disc, while the second disc contains “Songs Inspired by the Big Chill.” I think even Original Bill will be happy with that.

Frankly, I’d rather hear him bitch.

Later.

Update: The CDs were a big hit. Even Original Bill liked them, dammit! As for the vodka, it turns out that there were so many vodka offerings, several of which were already opened, by the time we got to the Svedka, gutter water would have been fine. There is plenty left for the next time when everyone’s taste is just a tad more discriminating.

Ken, the Anal Cruise Director, and I lost yet another game of horseshoes, this time to “Da Chef of da Future” and “Cigar Bill” (a/k/a Tall Bill and Bill the Ham). Like the honorable men we are – men who would never think of gloating over a win – we agreed in advance that this game would be “off the record,” because we were pretty well by the time we got around to playing. Da Chef of da Future kept his word – almost. His regular partner, the Ever-Hilarious Artie, could not play, as he is still home recovering from heart surgery. Some guys will do anything to avoid an asskicking at horseshoes.

Later in the evening we actually ended up talking about looking for a piece of real estate on which we could create something like a Usual Suspects Compound. Hell, the next thing you know, we’ll be out on the streets selling love beads.

July 16, 2004

Kool-Aid.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 10:37 pm

Kool-Aid.jpgEver since 1978 when the “Reverend” Jim Jones convinced 900 of his followers to commit mass suicide by drinking a cyanide laced – powdered soft drink mix, the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” has come to mean the act of becoming “a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly.” It is a bit of an historical oddity that “Kool-Aid” took the rap for the Jonestown deaths, when the powdered drink mix that was whipped up and consumed at “Reverend” Jones’s afternoon party was actually an imitation of Kool-Aid called “Flavor-Aid.”

The current derogatory usage of the term “Kool-Aid,” which we surely will hear tossed back and forth, ad nauseam, between now and November 2nd, got me to thinking about the real Kool-Aid.

It turns out that the stuff that originally started out in approximately 1920 as a liquid fruit-flavored concentrate called “Fruit Smack” (a name that would not work very well today, methinks) was turned into a powder in 1927 and called “Kool-Ade” by Edwin Perkins in Nebraska. (He later changed the name to “Kool-Aid.”) The drink mix became so successful that Perkins moved the business in Chicago in 1931. See the History of Kool-Aid.

In 1953, Perkins sold the company to General Foods, and Kool-Aid became the product that I knew as a boy. Back then it was unsweetened, and making it required a “healthy” helping of sugar and lots of stirring, unless your mother was slick and made it with warm water to dissolve the sugar and then chilled it.

My friends and I would take turns pestering our respective mothers to buy the stuff and make it so that we could flex our entrepreneurial muscles by setting up Kool-Aid stands during the long, hot summer months. As I recall, we sold a small glass for a penny, a medium glass for three cents, and a large one was a whole nickel. I believe that we actually used three real glasses – no paper cups, and I hate to admit that I do not recall how (or even if) we washed the glasses between customers. However, more often than not, we would become bored with the whole thing and drink up our entire inventory, split our meager “profits,” and head off to the playground.

I got to wondering whether one can still buy Kool-Aid, and I quickly discovered that Kool-Aid is very much alive and well. (I guess you can tell that I don’t watch kids’ tv these days.) There are at least fifteen kinds of Kool-Aid drink mixes in all sorts of flavors, and they come pre-sweetened and unsweetened.

In addition, Kool-Aid is not just limited to drink mixes. There are a host of other Kool-Aid products such as: Bursts, Gel Snacks, Jammers, Twists, Magic Twists, and Mad Scientwists. You may also be interested to know that Kool-Aid is now available in the U.K. (I’m sure that Tony Blair has heard the term, even if he has not tried the drink.)

People dye fibers with the Kool-Aid (protein fibers only, please) and use it in recipes. Finally and nor surprisingly, there are people who collect Kool-Aid Packages and other Kool-Aid Stuff. Here is an interesting site that contains a photo archive of Kool-Aid packages, along with a display of Kool-Aid “Klones” and trader information.

I wonder if it still tastes the same as it did during those hot, New Jersey summers when we would drink up the inventory one three cent glass at a time.**


**We used to get served a powdered fruit mix in the Army that we called “Bug Juice,” but I doubt that it was really Kool-Aid. It was probably the kind of stuff that the Jonestown folks drank, only without the cyanide
.

July 15, 2004

Jersey Bloggers.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 7:02 pm

Because I find myself without anything interesting or humorous to write about, I thought this would be a good opportunity to mention three Jersey Bloggers who do have interesting things to say:

The Bad Hair Blog. What a great name for a Blog! It sorta makes me want to change the name of my Blog to “The Great Farookin’ Hair Blog,” but that would make me a stinko copycat. Anyway, please check out Fausta’s blog, which contains interesting observations about things Jersey and elsewhere. Oh, and if you happen to be bi-lingual, Fausta sometimes writes in Spanish. Very cool.

Shamrocketship. Lynne is fairly new to the blogging thing, and she is off to a good start. She writes well about life’s passing parade. She blogs from “Down the Shore,” more properly pronounced as one word “Downahshore.” Of course, she bristles at those of us from Northern Jersey referring to her part of the state as “Down the Shore,” but she doesn’t understand that going “Down the Shore” may or may not involve a trip to “the Beach.” Take a look. As I said, she writes well and has a good sense of humor.

The Jersey Side. John Shabe, the blog’s author, is sort of an “official blogger” at www.nj.com. He focuses on life in the Garden State, which lately includes a daily dose of political scandal. Good reading.

July 14, 2004

Another Jersey Political Fund-Raiser in the Soup.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 8:36 pm

Charles Kushner, who was identified by the New York Post as Governor McGreevey’s “top fund-raiser,” was arrested on charges of obstructing the ongoing federal investigation into some of his activities, which include alleged tax fraud and the making of illegal campaign contributions.

More specifically, Mr. Kushner is charged with hiring a prostitute to have sex with a witness against him in the federal investigation and with using the surreptitiously taped sexual encounter as “leverage” against the witness. The videotape was ultimately sent to the witness’s spouse, who turned it over to federal authorities.

The witness on the videotape turns out to be Kushner’s brother-in-law, and the witness’s spouse, who was sent the videotape, is Kushner’s sister.

New Jersey politics – a seemingly bottomless cesspool.

Dax Montana.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 8:57 am

Dax is back!

MT Blacklist Skullduggery.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 12:31 am

Jacob, at Another Recurrence, warns of us yet another nefarious scheme being perpetuated by the Pieces of Shit of the World comment spammers.

Apparently, the Creeps have taken to including the targeted blogger’s URL among the “Penis Enlargement” and “Refinancing” URLs that appear in their scumbag comments. If you have a knee-jerk reaction to these things (as I do), and immediately instruct MT Blacklist to smoke the spammer and his cyber-droppings, you will end up Blacklisting your own site and deleting all of your own recent comments.

Jacob describes the latest antics of these “Wastes of Oxygen” as follows:

Among the advertising URLs, he included a link to my own website. Not reading closely, I added the links en masse to my blacklist, unwittingly adding www.jacobgrier.com to my own list of banned sites! Fortunately, I caught the addition just before running a scan and delete of my archives. Had I not, I would have deleted all of my own comments from recent entries.

Even I, a non-Geek speaker, can see that it is a good idea to carefully check out all the URLs that appear in comment spam in order to be sure that I don’t end up blocking my own comments.

Rat bastards.

July 12, 2004

I Am A Shitty Golfer.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 7:23 pm

Golf Ball.jpgI know quite a few people who claim to be shitty golfers, but generally they are just golfers who are full of shit. They almost always are pretty farookin’ good golfers, who just claim to be shitty golfers. Well, that’s not me. I really am a shitty golfer.

Having said that, perhaps I am not a shitty golfer in some cosmic sense, but rather it may be more accurate to say that, because I play golf about once every eighteen months, I am doomed to be a perpetual beginner.

Here’s the thing about golf. Growing up where I did, I spent thousands and thousands of hours hitting balls of all types, with bats of various kinds. We played baseball morning till night in the summers and stickball damned near year-round. I could hit fast pitches, curves, or sinkers – never a problem. Toss a ball in my direction, and I would hit it virtually 100% of the time. Boiled down to its essentials, it means that I, along with every kid I grew up with, could effortlessly hit a moving object with a cylindrical-type stick and do so damned near every time.

Therefore, golf should be a no brainer. After all, the ball JUST SITS THERE. No one throws a golf ball at you to hit. No. The damned thing just sits there. Do you have to hit it with a round stick?? No. You get to hit it with a flat-faced object that is damned near three times the size of the ball. It would be as if someone tossed a baseball at you and you could hit it with a snow shovel. Snap City, right?

WRONG!

Here’s how it goes, when I “play” golf.

Jimbo: OK, Ball. You’re just sitting there and you’re not moving at all. Even better, you’re sitting up there on a tee, just waiting to get slugged. I figure you’re screwed.

Ball: Yeah? You think so? Take your best shot, Dipshit.

Jimbo: Don’t call me a dipshit, you pockmarked turd. I am going to smack the shit out of you.

Ball: Sure you are, Jerkface. Run your mouth. Let’s see what you got. Let’s see your stance.

Jimbo: You mean that you want me to “address the ball?”

Ball: Yeah. Let’s see your stuff.

Jimbo: Helooooooooo, Ball.

Ball: JESUS CHRIST! I don’t believe it. Every jerk who has seen that “Honeymooners” episode does the same joke. Gimme a break.

Jimbo: I was just trying to lighten the moment here, Ball. And, now, you’re really going to get it.

Ball: Yeah, sure, Asswipe. We’re on the first tee, and you’ve got a dozen people watching you, and they’re all just waiting for you to make an ass of yourself. No pressure here. Ha ha ha ha ha. Let’s go, Dork Puss.

Jimbo: OK. That’s it. … My feet are right. … I am the right distance from the ball. … I’ve lined up the shot. … Nice easy back swing. … Keep my eye on the little Bastard (even though it is not moving). … Here we go. … Nice and easy. … Make sure that you see the club actually hit the ball. … Not too hard. … Let the club do the work …. SWING

Ball: (Ten feet from the tee) You lifted your head, didn’t you, Putz Boy?

Jimbo: I hope you’re the first of the day to go into the drink.

Farookin’ golf. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor.

July 10, 2004

The Deck. (Updated)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 12:26 pm

It’s a beautiful day here in the Garden State, so I am off to spend it on The Deck with the Usual Suspects. Vodka, hot dogs and other treats, lots of great music, bobbing about in the pool and just generally enjoying a slice of Life 101.

Later.

Update 7/11/04: It was yet another great day (and evening) on The Deck. Ken, the always-attentive, anal cruise director, had purchased a more space-efficient and easier-to-manage cooler to hold ice on the bar and added a stainless steel scoop, all of which made making drinks easier and, more importantly, faster. What a guy.

Original Bill and Mrs. Original Bill, the Quietly Sinister Linda, arrived late, having spent the earlier part of the day in Ocean County Down the Shore at a family birthday party. They arrived during the live, extra LONG version of “Southern Man,” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Of course, Bill hated it, which provided him with ample opportunity to pitch a bitch about the music — “You can’t dance to this shit.” We love it. His bitching is even better than the music.

The Other Bill (Bill the Ham) showed up with some excellent cigars for the boys and then spent the balance of the evening making “berrytinis” for him and several of the women Usual Suspects. (Skyy Berry vodka, cranberry juice, and a splash of lemon soda – shaken and served up in a chilled martini glass).

Shelley, our Jewish Usual Suspect, insisted that she doesn’t have a Jewish accent, but only a Jersey accent, to which I respond that she clearly is meshugeh. She pronounces the last name of the singer Billy Joel as “Joe-Well.”

I farookin’ love it.

July 9, 2004

Bridal Shop, Redux…Redux.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 8:26 pm

The Bridal shop that I walk past in the mornings, and which I have previously described here and here, is at it again. This morning I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at a new, hand-lettered sign in the window (to the bemusement of a person waiting for a bus). The sign read:

VIEL’S $49.99
Viel’s???

I wondered, “What is it that belongs to Mr. Viel (or Ms. Viel?) that is being sold for just shy of fifty bucks? Is it everything he or she owns? Or, could it be that his/her belongings are being sold piecemeal? Might he/she have failed to pay for a Bridesmate, or for five individual purchases of shoe? Does Mr. (or Ms.?) Viel know this is happening?”

Voice Inside my Head: Yo, Jimbo.

Me: WHAT!!! Can’t you see that I’m busy blogging here?

Voice Inside my Head: Jimbo, this is just silly.

Me: What the hell are you talking about? This is a real store. This is a real sign. I saw it this morning!

Voice Inside my Head: Jimbo, everyone knows that the shopkeeper, who obviously does not speak English very well, was selling VEILS. All this “Mr. Viel” stuff is just way too silly.

Me: Screw you, Voice.

So, that’s what the new sign said. Gotta go.

« Previous PageNext Page »

Powered by WordPress