1. Do not operate your vehicle without your cell phone held firmly to your ear. Driving without a cell phone in this configuration is highly dangerous; it could result in missing important updates from friends and family, such as: “Take a left on Tenth Street,” “So anyways I says to my baby momma…” or “I’m right here, girl! Where YOU at?” Do not be concerned about the alarmist “scientists” claiming this will cause you to murder innocent pedestrians, cyclists, drivers of smaller vehicles, or your own children in the back seat. First of all, it would probably be manslaughter, not murder. Second, anyone with a cell phone knows that its use *heightens* your attentional focus. Without a cell phone conversation–no matter how unimportant– to keep you alert, you might become so bored while driving that you drive right into a theater full of nuns, children and kittens. Do you want that on your conscience? I didn’t think so. A phone conversation while you have passengers hones your focus to an even sharper point. Texting while driving practically makes you a fighter pilot on Adderall. Plus, if you do happen to make one of the astronomically rare mistakes people are alleged to occasionally make while talking/texting/websurfing and driving, your phone is right there so you can call a lawyer about those bogus manslaughter charges.

2. Drive a really big truck, no matter what. As we all learned in school, farmers and ranchers make up 90% of the American population, they are the best people on earth, and everyone should want to be like them. Therefore, we all need to drive their vehicles, to show our solidarity with this agricultural majority. It is also a well-known fact that, in a collision between a large truck and a small car, those in the latter vehicle are more likely to die. Do you want YOUR children to die? Then you need a big truck, so someone else’s children will die. If they’re in one of those fuel-efficient deathtraps, they’re probably from out of state, anyway. No biggie. But wait, you say, my own children don’t all fit in the cab of an F-350. No problem! Some big cars are called “SUVs,” embodying all the fuel inefficiency and homicidal potential of big trucks, with none of their ruggedness. These are an acceptable substitute for a true truck. As another alternative, remember that seatbelt laws and “children in the bed of your truck at 70mph” laws are not the kind of laws honest people need to worry about (see rule #4), leaving you multiple options for fitting your children in your pickup. Some people will tell you that we increase our dependence on foreign oil and multinational corporations by driving fuel-inefficient vehicles. Nothing could be farther from the truth! If we burn enough oil, those foreign terrorist-type nations will eventually run out, and then they will go broke and pose no threat to our way of life. And corporations? Please! Corporations are our friends, and we exist in a happy symbiosis with them that can only be disturbed if we question their ability to make us buy their products. So, every time you see an angry look on the driver of a freedom-hating, fuel-sipping weenie car as you park your huge truck diagonally across three spots at the grocery store, remember that terrorist lovers like that person don’t deserve to live.

3. Avoid use of turn signals. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “turn signal” refers both to the little wand sticking out of the left side of your vehicle’s steering column and to the flashing light effect it produces on the exterior of the vehicle when it is moved up or down. Turn signals are an archaic leftover from the ignorant days of our great-grandparents, like castor oil, phrenology, or civic responsibility. In the bad old days, it was sometimes desirable to let other drivers know which direction you were about to turn, to save them some time and frustration or to avoid killing innocent people. In the modern world, however, turn signals serve no useful purpose. You’ve seen how insanely people drive; science proves that they really are trying to kill you. Do you want them to know what your next move is going to be? Unpredictability is one of your most potent weapons in the battle of daily driving.

4. Ignore optional laws. The US legislature and, shockingly, nearly every state legislature has passed a whole herd of laws related to you and your vehicle, because the government is evil and has goal except to make your life miserable. Luckily, grassroots organizations have managed to get the least important laws classified as optional. These laws include seatbelt regulations, reckless driving statutes, and the ever-baffling speeding laws. Of course no police officer or congressperson will tell you these laws are optional–their position requires them to give you a lecture about public safety or civic duty–but it’s pretty obvious. Look at the penalties. Failing to wear your seatbelt doesn’t get you sent to jail; you just have to pay a fine. Likewise with running so-called “stop” signs or passing vehicles that are merely doing the “speed limit” in town when there’s a solid yellow line in the road. These are clearly activities that pose no real threat to others, and “laws” regarding them represent a contemptible encroachment of private behavior by Big Government. Thanks to wise citizens’ groups, legislators have created “punishments” for these “infractions” proportionate to their potential harm. A good example is speeding. I think we can all agree that serious crimes such as armed robbery, illegally entering the United States looking for work, or public urination pose a clear danger to the very lives of Americans, and these crimes should be punished with mindlessly brutal justice. But if speeding posed that kind of danger to anyone, would states like Texas or Arizona be content with *fines* for speeders? Do armed robbers get a ticket and pay a fine? Do judges recommend that repeat border-jumpers be sent to remedial “classes” for their behavior? Do chronic pot users get away with nothing more than some points on their license? I think not. Therefore, speeding is not really a crime. In fact, the faster you drive, the more likely you are to escape the murderous impulses of the psychopaths in the other vehicles on the road.

5. Your vehicle is your manhood; behave accordingly. This rule applies mostly to men. Never forget that your vehicle is the physical embodiment of your masculinity. That is why you hang those rubber bull-sized testicles from the bumper of your Very Large Truck. What kind of man would want a small, weak masculinity, like a sedan or hybrid vehicle? A pathetic sissy-man. All real men demonstrate their virility and strength through the appearance and management of their vehicles. Yes, it’s popular these days to claim that manliness is somehow tied to things like responsibility, maturity, wisdom, or caring for loved ones. The people who say these things are not man enough to own big trucks. If your truck would have difficulty killing an entire family of six in a head-on collision with said family’s minivan, then you might as well just start wearing pink lace and high heels, Mr. Girly Girl. There is a school of thought asserting that insufficient masculinity can be compensated for with a small vehicle (e.g., VW Golf, Honda Civic, Suzuki Katana or, in truly desperate situations, a Dodge Neon) that has been modified at great personal expense to look very cool, go very fast, and ride so close to the ground that stray pennies would tear off its muffler. I concede that some missing masculinity can perhaps be reclaimed by driving such a vehicle at unsafe speeds on the expressway in a way that has a high probability of hurting at least a few innocent bystanders, but even such a semi-male vehicle owner would feel up to a 30% boost in basal testosterone levels by saving up for a decent truck.

6. Bicyclists have no rights. That’s pretty much all there is to say about this one. If bicyclists are stupid enough to believe the obviously-satirical Texas “law” about not riding on the sidewalk, then they need to learn to look behind them every few seconds and dodge your truck. And they should know that those lanes with diamonds and little pictures of bicycles in them only belong to the cyclists if you feel like allowing their use. For example, if you don’t feel like waiting in the turn lane at a traffic light, or if you see the clear necessity of passing someone in an unpatriotic small car on the right instead of the left, cyclists just need to get out of your way.

I shot these pics yesterday while kayaking on an arroyo near (in?) Los Fresnos. I have no idea what any of these birds are, except the cormorant. The rest are pretty much just awesomebirds. Maybe I should learn about birds.

… and her little brother:

Courtesy of my backyard. Happily, they do not seem to be living there. Just passing through.

check me out!

In today’s episode: A goat. It’s not a great picture, but it’s a goat :) Isn’t he (or she?) awesome?

It seems to be a “thing” to reminisce about the past year. I have found that certain outfits are all ga-ga over listing things we (as a people, I guess) did not know last year. Sure, they’re great and all — science and nature and the world around us and such — but really, what do they have to do with me?

Here are some things *I* did not know last year. They are numbered, but they are in no particular order.

Continue reading →

that reflection makes your butt look big

I still don’t know what these birds are called. I’ll figure it out someday.

I know it’s not a turkey. It’s a great-tailed grackle. I don’t have any pictures of turkeys, even though wild ones apparently live in theseabouts. Since it’s a holiday, today I shall do no work. Probably. I did bring home a huge stack of tests that need grading, but I may just ignore them. In honor of turkey day, I have shamelessly ripped off the following from www.shoeboxblog.com :

Where Would We Be Without The Pilgrims?
An Essay by Dan

Jammed into England like sardines with bad teeth.

The End

Does he realize how poignant he is?

Another photo from the fun little carnival a couple of weeks ago. I now have one of those moody patriotic pictures. Actually, I probably have a few more somewhere. Despite my deep cynicism and fundamental insistence that patriotism isn’t (or should not be) exactly the animal it’s made out to be by certain groups here in the US… I am deeply patriotic, and sometimes get choked up over patriotic symbolism. I don’t consider that to be a bad thing.

After the cut: The Avenue of Poignant and Symbolic Flags with a Menacing Symbol of Capitalist Amusement Lurking at its Obscure Terminus!

Continue reading →

If the above YouTube link doesn’t work, you can try clicking here to download the 50MB (or so) wmv file. I don’t know why you’d want to, but… OK, 1/3 of this blog’s regular viewing audience would probably want to. She is mildly obsessed with kitties. So I put myself into videos with kitties. Sneaky, eh?

So I was at this metal bar last weekend. It is so much fun to say things like that. Especially at church. A former student, Sergio, is in a metal band called Sovereign Wrath, and they had a gig last Saturday. After a year or two of promising (and failing) to go see his band, I finally did it. Sadly, there are no pictures of SW, because my camera battery died during the opening act, named (you know it) Hank of the Destruction Moose. Yes, the extra “of” is actually part of the name. Also, I bought a t-shirt. SW was more interesting, musically, however. Of course, they were both… metal. I’m not a huge fan of the modern hardcore metal genre (if that’s even what it’s called), but once again I have found that listening, in person, to commited, passionate, talented people making music is enjoyable no matter the genre.

The bar was a dual-purpose club in Harlingen, TX, named “Rock Stars.” One half was the metal bar, and the other was filled with equally merciless and frightening peppy dance tunes. Strangely, there seemed to be no noticeable music bleed-over between the two halves. And if you could have felt the impact in your chest from the dual kick bass drums, amplified with equipment usually reserved for large stadiums, you would understand why that’s surprising. And that brings me to an important point: Metal types likes their tunes somewhat loud. I wore earplugs, and my head was still buzzing by the end of the night. When the first band (HOTDM) started playing, the beats were seriously making my eyeballs unfocus, slightly. I got used to it. It was a fun sensation. It was also fun to watch, with much lower noise saturation, how the people who were enveloped in the brick outhouse of sound were behaving.

Which brings me to the people, which were the whole reason this was an awesome outing (adventure, adventure… metal bar, adventure…). The people were pretty cool. They look scary, of course (I was a little afraid to photograph any of the seriously scary not-on-stage people), but they all seemed to be either friends, acquaintances, or strangers and nice to each other. Maybe I only saw a small cross-section, but that’s the experience I had. Of course, I also knew Sergio, and he introduced me to a few people. I am left wondering: was the friendliness a metal thing, or a Valley thing? People down here are pretty friendly, and often very tight-knit, socially.

HOTDM was impressive. Their synchronization was tight, the lyrics (unintelligible in all cases) were matched rhythmically, and they really put on a good show. Like SW, their set was sort of a full-frontal, all-out sensory assault on the audience, who ate it up like puppies with their chow. It was a lot of fun to watch the stage performance, which was clearly heavily influenced by themes of aggression and (or so it seemed) laypersons’ views of mental illness. Then, the band would break for a few seconds, and the singer would (often in his scary singing voice, but not always) make the standard chitchat: hello Harlingen. Your town rocks. Man, the mosquitoes are bad down here. HOTDM was from El Paso, btw.

Visually, SW was not as impressive as HOTDM, but that would have been hard. Hank seemed to have some serious work put into their floor show (as it were). SW, however, was every bit as musically tight. Plus, they had a more variegated sound. This was due partly to their occasional forays into non-metallic genres (only briefly, though), partly the Great Wall of Drum Kit (seriously; you just had to see this thing packed onto that stage), and partly to the fact that they had a keyboard player. Yes, keyboards. A skinny kid who looked like he belonged in a Depeche Mode tribute band was playing a double-rack, with riffs that alternated between bouncy power chords that would have been at home on Van Halen’s 1984, and creepy riffs that were much more Trent Reznor. But more the former, interestingly.

Metal seems to have its forms, like any other genre. The singer must sing with a psycho, throat-rending growl/snarl. The guitarists must Get Down into a Stance, and from time to time everyone must seriously bang their heads. Sometimes in unison, which produces a more powerful effect. Fans must mosh (though there was a good deal of checking to see if the guy you just slammed was OK if you hit him too hard… cute). And the F-word is very, very important. If the F-bomb frequency drops below about 8.5 per minute, I suspect your metal cred begins to suffer, no matter how righteously you can dish out the pain.

All in all, it was a most enjoyable evening. The drive over was pleasant, the drive back was lovely, and cruising around the streets of Harlingen looking for the club reminded me of previous weekend-evening excursions to that town, and the way the teens and young adults seem to have evolved loitering into a fine art. Seriously. Almost every block seems to have a group of people, with their cars, parked in a lot of some kind, standing around and talking, drinking, and/or seriously inspecting each other’s subwoofers and cylinder bores (both literally and figuratively, from what I could tell). It was eerie, like a scene from The Outsiders, but also interesting. This Valley is not such a bad place.

So Good!

• I <3 South Texas anyway, but now it’s GREEN (no, seriously green and even a bit lush)
• Apartment not washed away in hurricane. Also not even moistened on the inside.
• Office still there and not destroyed
• Grackles!
• Netflix waiting for me when I got home

No Good!

• No Alex
• No food (cleaned out fridge before leaving for summer)
• No car (battery seems to have not liked 3 months with no use, in 100-degree-plus temperatures)
• Messy house
• Messy office
• No phone or internet until end of week
• Lots of standing water –> Lots of mosquitoes :(