dog days

contrary to popular opinion, the hot and sultry days of august were not named thusly because animals of the canine persuasion rolled around on their backs and stuck their tongues out.. from what wikipedia tells me, it was coined by the Romans for the period of summer when my zodiac sign Sirius (aka Dog-Star) is directly overhead, coinciding with the period of summer when it is hottest and humidest (can i get away with using that word?) in the northern hemisphere..

if this conjures up images in your head of lying at the beach, or on the patio overlooking a lake, with a colorful drink sporting a tiny umbrella in your hand, while music wafts by on the still air.. then good for you. this luxury seems preserved for those of you still lucky enough to be in college, or else having made your millions, are able to afford taking a vacation at this most unholy time for the beverage production industry..

the end of august also spells the end of summer.. which is a shame, because pretty women every where will soon think of packing away all the itsy-bitsy tops, the teeny-weeny skirts, the yellow polka-dot bikinis.. thus depriving the general viewing (and in some cases, paying) public the small joys of life.. after this the only time you will get to see a fine pair of legs is if when autumn blows around a young lady's skirt and generously billows it up and about a la Marilyn Monroe

and finally, the end of august also means time for school to resume. for most students, it's back to school after a summer.. in my case it means back to college after an almost two-year hiatus. yes you heard it here first, i am headed back to grad school! it's not like i suffer from particularly masochistic tendencies, but this move is the right way ahead for my career. i will still be working, this is all part-time.. though i wish i could go back to full-time college with the money i have now.. heh, that would be real trouble then!

econo-mix

so a book on Project Management actually costs around $144/- and a 12-month Playboy subscription with a free gift costs all of $12/-.. exactly one-twelfth!!

if there ever was a reason to get your kid to become a writer and not a porn star then this has gotta be it!

surprisingly enough though, this flagrant disparity can be easily explained by economics, and the theories of supply and demand

making a few very general assumptions that the supply of paper is consistent for both publications, and that there is just one basic demand curve for buyers of both erotica and textbookotica.. then you can see that the price of the Playboy is driven down by the sheer numbers of people who buy it, as opposed to the masochistic few who choose to inflict personal mental pain by purchasing and then actually perusing (as opposed to using as a paperweight) the textbook shown above.. and their small numbers then proceed to bump up the price of the book..

lesson for the day? let your kids choose to be either writers or porn stars, eventually they will make the same amount of moolah.. what you really want them to become is analysts and consultants, people who make money by telling you what to do with your money.

PS - they could become lawyers as well, but wouldn't you like them to have at least a shred of dignity?

here's a "huh?!" moment

so your girl gives you a hard time cos you stare at some babe's plump rear end for too long when she's prancing on tv, or cos you spent way too much time with last month's Playboy in the bathroom..

yet with her girlfriends she'll be giggling away about who has a yummy butt and which friend's boyfriend she would just love to make out with?

well, wtf?

o canada!

i like canadians.. in general. not just cos of how they speak, but because of their casual and easygoing outlook on life, and also because of their love for hockey.. of course!

and then there are the women.. ahh, canadian girls, what can i say.. the combination of the brisk winds blowing down from the arctic, the good clean-tasting beers, and i don't know what magical factor makes canadian hotties a sight for sore eyes.. all these hot canadian bloggers - sassy, gus greeper, binsk, heather, hella.. these are the ones i know.. you might know of more!

witness this litany of actresses, both mainstream and x-rated, heh! Pamela Anderson, Neve Campbell, Jennifer Tilly, Natasha Henstridge, Rachel Blanchard, Fay Wray, Cobie Smulders, Lisa Ray, Sunny Leone, Jesse Capelli, Nikki Benz..

and then you have to credit the canadians for bringing the cameltosis phenomenon to the Miss Universe stage.. hehe!

what was that.. don't know what a cameltoe is? well, here's some help for you.. and some visual aids too!

small town psychos?

the thing with living in middle america is that this small town more than any other seems to have more than its fair share of hobos, weirdos, alckies, dopies and other assorted "one banana short of a dozen" people.. and of course, most of them love to hang out at the small excuse for a train stop we have!

Ayer, MA is only a tiny town, barely six thousand odd people in it, a three-block main street flanked on both sides by the only two bars in town.. it's the kind of place where you live for a year and you know almost everyone and everyone knows you..

the part that i don't get is just the sheer numbers of oddballs here.. i know at least ten by sight.. must be another hundred lurking about under the eaves of the old houses, and another hundred skulking about behind the gas station.. don't get me wrong, i don't have anything against deadbeats and people shunned by society - they often make great company waiting for the train.. it's the sheer numbers for a small town this size that gets me.

for the most part they seem to be non-violent, but the cops have been cracking down on them the last couple of weeks.. hope things work out for Stumblin' Eddie and 'Buy Me A Beer' Beth, and all their friends!

sweat, glass fiber and mosquitos

my hands and arms are taking a real beating.. the combination of knurled wrenches, crushed PET, gooey grease, heated metal, harsh solvents and grit soap is giving me the calloused hands of a grizzled cowboy.. and the little nicks and cuts hurt like little electrical shocks

the weather has been incredibly inclement, the humidity and heat together make for a very hot and sweaty production floor.. a lot of the electrics on the machines are getting whacked, and it's a non-stop job trying to keep everything running at optimum speed yet cool enough so that pieces of circuitry are not melting off.. earlier this week the compressor room hit a record 165F (74C), it was difficult to do intricate stuff like rewiring a molten panel for longer than a minute at a time, not with that hot blast of air tinged with ammonia fumes making you dizzy

was reinstalling a heater blower motor for a shrink wrapper yesterday, and the ducting coming off it was wrapped in the insulation cladding.. this cladding was made of glass fiber, which has a nasty habit of sticking to skin, poking and prickling it like you're stroking a hedgehog.. the stuff does flake off and settles on any exposed skin, and all you wanna do is scratch scratch scratch like a dog in a flea forest

and then of course are the effing mosquitoes, who are a byproduct of the summer rains and countryside vegetation.. so any breaks outside the plant in the fetid night air is a slap-battle with a platoon of ravenous bloodsuckers. often you just give up and hope that only one or two will get you while you finish your smoke or fill your lungs with relatively fresher and cooler air before you have to head back to the production floor

this combo of sweat rashes, glass fibers and mosquito bites have left my arms a super-sensitive, red-blotched martian landscape.. only the calamine lotion is keeping me from scratching the death out of them!!

breakfast of champions

the term 'breakfast of champions' has been variously used and abused since it was first coined by the late author Kurt Vonnegut who died earlier this year.. Vonnegut in his prime was a creative satyrist, and that was the title of his 1973 novel.. but the phrase is more often used to describe any sort of a pick-me-up in the morning - cocaine and champagne (a martini glass filled with champagne and cocaine on the rim of the glass, like salt on a margarita glass - famous in the late '80s); burgers and nicotine (as popularised by Dire Straits in 'Heavy Fuel'); or any sort of alcohol and inhalant with a traditional breakfast (as my breakfast choices were dubbed by the brownie boys)

it's funny, i had actually driven past Vonnegut's house in Cape Cod and hadn't given it a second thought.. until the Wizard of Odd introduced me to '1 Giant Leap', a compilation multimedia project on which he spoke. (Side note - you must watch this video and listen to the CD if you ever get a chance - it has a track - 'The Way You Dream' done by REM frontman Michael Stipe & Indian crooner Asha Bhosle).. anyways, this post is not about the 1 Giant Leap project, or about the writer Kurt Vonnegut..

back when i was trying to finish my thesis and struggling with an on-campus job, i splurged on weekends and that was my breakfast of champions, see earlier post.. what's funny now is that it's still pretty much the same, only that it's the rare sunday where i didn't have to go into work to troubleshoot something or the other, and as a result i am up and awake at 7 am on a sunshiny sunday morn, making a slightly modified version of that old breakfast, only this one has no orange juice and coffee, which have been replaced by gatorade and beer..

getting hammered early on sunday morning and going to bed is fast becoming my new favorite thing to do over the weekend.. heh!