Samizdat .

Forwarded to me by a pal from Richmond IPMS:


Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years; It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok....."

There's a meme going 'round over at Facebook,'25 Random Things About Me'; a colleague and pal tagged me, so I am "it" . Needing content for the blog because any rabbiting away at the confuser I do is for my employer, I am including my tedious reply of details from my boring life. Yes it is that way Over Here now.

1. I wish I had more time. I asked the dr. after my heart attacks how long? and he said 10-20 yrs. It's been 10 now. Yeah, more time would be nice.
2. Irregardless of swimming lessons at Whitman's Pond, I cannot swim.
3. The fastest I have ever been in an car is 120, on a crappy NE street, not the highway, in a Sunbeam 8. You want to talk of ass clenching fear.....
4. I wore an ascot in 9th grade. Ass. I could easily be a dandy (but never a fop).
5. I have fired many rounds, from .22 short to 105mm main gun. Loved it.
6. I love classical music and instrumental jazz; I am too familiar with Pat Boone's work.
7. I dislike practical jokes.
8. I have seen the Aurora Borealis.
9. The highest award I have received was being asked to go pick up my boss's and a colleagues' children.
10. I jus' loves a good explosion.
11. I would have liked to have a couple daughters to help me at the recycling center, etc.
12. I grew up in the best time to be a kid.
13. I can kick your ass at Jeopardy.
14. I am having a hard time deciding retirement projects:
I.Raising the meanest rodeo bulls in Christendom.
II.Owning a theater in a college town that shows really cool films .
III.Owning a laundromat.
IV.Getting that greeter job at the recycling center so I get first dibs on the giveaway pile.....
15. Movies in a one screen small town theater, well kept: heaven.
16. I miss my brother. Lots.
17. But not MA: now, it is a nice place to visit....
18. I was the oldest man (31) in my Basic Training Company.
19. The high tolerance for exercise PT gave me probably saved my life in 1998.
20. My brother fishes; I do not. Used to hunt with my brother, not any more.
21. I own a shitload of books.
22. I have run over 7 automobiles while driving a tank. My TC ordered me too.
23. Best years of my life: 1984-1990.
24. I reallyreally like working with smart creative people.
25. I want to recreate the banana breakfast from Gravity's Rainbow, the greatest 20th cent. American novel.

"You go now. You been here four hour": Tales of the Buffet life.

First rule of buffet: "Don't be a hero. Pace yourself".

I don't know about your grid square, here in the Yellow Tavern Quadrant we have several "Super" or "King" or even "Golden" Chinese buffets. Henrico county has a Brazilian buffet; meat eater's paradise I'd imagine. The clever boys have taken food and mass production techniques and slapped 'em right down on my streets.Always a decent trencherman, I investigate so others may be spared the tedium or calories. Swell. Let's eat.

Sorry,chowhounds: the best hot and sour soup on the planet may be found at Little Hunan, a Mom and Uncle place in Ashland, 'Center of the Universe'. They don't need no stinkin' buffet there.

My fa-vo-rite in the Richmond area is the "Super King Buffet" on West Broad. The place has a quarter mile of food, and is pleasantly decorated. It is America's bounty boomeranged, with a Chinese return address. Step across the bridge over the stream, look down on the carp. On the other side of the bridge there is a great "v" of food, steam rising; on the side the Sushi guys are rolling and cutting.The always busy Mongolian barbecue sizzles in the back . "Heaven on the half shell".The night I took my brother,down on a rare visit,they had frog's legs and Alaskan King Crab legs.If you want to avoid fried stuff, there is always a roasted or grilled whole fish available. Vivid green Chinese vegetables in all kinds of sauces abound. The waitresses seem right out of the container:they know just enough English to work there, start making the transportation nut. I bet it is a beaut.

The Missus and I attended my youngest niece's wedding in Snow Hill, NC, this past weekend. Sunday,on our return up the road to Richmond, we stumbled across Ruth's, a Barbecue (NC style: pulled, slowcooked to fallin' off the bone pork with a vinegar based sauce.There is a shhhhhhhh now,softly, ketchup based school,considered heretical thereabouts; I am sure people have been shot over this topic) buffet. The pig was ok, with a nice sauce; another item,the fried chicken, was sublime.The coating was light and well seasoned,while strong enough to hold in the moisture, the pieces perfectly fried. We had to get a movin', so my leisurely pace of an afternoon at the buffet will have to wait for a revisit.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

I'm an unemployment statistic if my boss reads this, but I will not have access to a computer for a while and wanted to put this into the slipstream.

My father's birthday is approaching; though he is gone now, I still think of him. My father was a machinist, a gear cutter, back when gears used to be cut in America. He was a veteran of WWII, serving in the Army Air Force. He 'flew The Hump' in the CBI, amongst other things.I did not find that out until I was in college.I mentioned I might like to go to India. His reaction was immediate and surprising: a loud 'no' with a long and vivid list of reasons why I should stay away from there. I think the war killed any wanderlust Dad may have had, along with eating certain vegetables. Apparently once canned carrots was all there was to eat where he was stationed, and he made a Vow, I guess. When the machine trade dried up, he took a job as a custodian at a trucking company, the place that eventually killed him.

We had some great battles when I was growing up; he wanted me to go to college, and I wanted to be a machinist. He won that one. He was being like every other father who wants something better for their children. He was also not like the fathers of
people I knew. One pal of mine's Dad would stop at the local bar every night on the way home. Not Dad: he would have a drink or two at a party (single malt only), but I don't think I ever heard of him stopping at the Local. Seeing my brother and I were both interested in mechanical things and mechanically inclined, he took us to places like the American Precision Museum and my personal favorite, the Higgins Armory Museum. A machinist colleague had a part time job as a projectionist at The Cameo (back when it was just one screen, not two shoehorned in), the local movie theater , and gave Dad passes, and my brother and I reaped that benefit. What an education: we saw every Roger Corman Poe film in luscious Technicolor with Vincent Price chewing the scenery; all the 'surf' movies, things like "Jason and the Argonauts', Hercules movies, and strange horror flicks. Those experiences, fodder for another screed, inculcated my interest in sitting in the dark watching a story unfold.

When the plant closed down, Dad got a job at the trucking company I had worked at to pay for college. He seemed to like it; he was not as stressed as the precision jobs made him, and things were swell. My mother died, and Dad, lost, married a woman he met. One day, while backing a forklift out of a trailer, he did not realize the driver had not checked the box when he pulled the chocks away and pulled the trailer. The forklift crushed my father against the loading dock. It would have killed a smaller man, and probably should have killed him outright. It did not. He had to use a walker afterward, but there were circulatory issues and that was what killed him. When a new doctor interviews me and asks what he died of there is always a one measure hesitation when I tell them the first cause of death on his death certificate: gangrene. That is a long and terrible story, which I will not get into here.

Before he died, my father wrote a book, and he lived long enough to see it in print. He was an antique firearms dealer, and had a life long interest in Vermont gunmakers. Like so many authors, he had looked for a source and could not find one to satisfy him, so he wrote it.

Sometimes, when I am tinkering in the garage and come up against a problem, I think "O, I'll call Dad, he'll give me the business but he'll tell me how to do it right". Then I have to stop and remind myself I cannot do that anymore. Dammit.
Happy Birthday, Dad.

AB: "Long time no viddy".

A Dispatch from the “Open mouth, disengage brain” department: spotting someone I had not seen in a while on the transfer from the 747 chicken-bus to the terminal, I blurted “Long time no viddy, old droog”. The man seated next to me spun his head so fast it should have hurt. “Anthony Burgess? Clockwork Orange”? You betcha, right in one.

I discovered AB through the film version of that novel. Even back then, I read the credits. Intrigued, I read his other works, and found an author who continued to please, to intrigue, and to make me laugh until the end of his life. A bit of biblio-trivia: the novel, when published in the US, was truncated by one chapter. It had 21 chapters (21: age of adulthood, gedditgeddit?) when published in England; AB’s American editors, to lighten the ending of the novel they said, lopped off the last chapter. AB was furious, and when Kubrick filmed the novel from the American edition, Burgess washed his hands of the project.

The early American edition, truncation notwithstanding, did a very sneaky thing. There was no glossary for the NADSAT slang (read: Russian) so those words (droog, tolchock, kal, grachny brachny, etc.) wormed their way into our vocabulary through context and a bit of slow going in the early stages. My droogs and I had a slang our parents had no clue about. For someone like me, at that age getting caught in the web of words, it was a frabjous day indeed. The modern editions seen do have the glossary, making it ‘easier’ for the reader. I know it is fiction and all, but gee, the reader has to do some sort of work beyond just reading the novel.

AB took pleasure in pointing out the absurdities of daily life (“All illiterates will report to Room 2 for reading instruction” read the note on the Company bulletin board at his duty station on Gibraltar, relayed in the first volume of his autobiography, Little Wilson and Big God), always a good feature in a novelist. I miss him.