My free opinion. Just because I can.
NEW PHOTO GALLERY at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackxak.
The old one will gradually disappear.
Click on the pix to make them bigger.
There are a couple good movies about wrecks flying around the ether this week. one police force in the UK has combined forces with some students and a very good studio to produce one about the dangers of texting while driving. I suspect that most students will watch it for the excitement and horror and their parents will take it very seriously and worry twice as much. Here is a taste and other episodes can be found on You Tube. Warning: This film clip depicts highly realistic and graphic footage of an auto accident.
The Public Television people have produced a drama called COLLISION that has appeared on Masterpiece Contemporary the past two weeks, about a collision on a motorway (freeway) outside London in which every individual involved in the accident has a secret of some kind. A great mystery, good characters and an interesting accident investigation. There's a place by way of the link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/index.html where you can watch both episodes in their entirety. Neither of these is probably suitable for Christmas Eve but if it's been a dull holiday week..... Ta!
It sounds to me like a song for Christmas so I cut it out and put it here. If I feel like writing more soon, you will get more soon.
This song is dedicated to Karen Sanders, my classmates in grade school and all the Little Ladies in their Gowns.
I keep thinking about moving in a year. If I adjourn to Lakeside Apartments where the Old People live, I get round the clock security and maintenance, one giant living room plus a kitchen and bath, stunning views of the City and an extra $400 free each month in my budget. I wouldn't pay utilities. Not to mention all the old ladies I can chase. About three hundred. I may have a feagued-up knee but none of them can run very fast either. If I decide to take up residence there it wont happen until October of next year but I am getting rid of books and packing most of the rest just in case. This would be a fine excuse to get rid of about two thirds of the stuff I own and trip over every day.
It’s been a whole month since I wrote anything in here.I must have been experiencing hedonistic visions.Two weeks ago Daylight Savings Time slammed shut with a bang.I just wish they’d leave the fooking sun alone and quit changing the gears on the clocks.It also niggles because this whole thing started during World War I, presumably so that soldiers could have a couple more hours of daylight to butcher each other in the trenches of Ypres. Just when I’m getting going really solidly in my day, three in the afternoon comes and the warning bell sounds.In two more hours it’s dark and I wonder if there really was a day to begin with.Most of the leaves are in the gutters and the trees have holes in them.And the night wind is chill.
Of course, with most of the daily span less than opaque there are compensations to be had:reading mystery books; restoring old smoking pipes;cooking solid and unhealthy meals and eating, eating, eating. Tonight we had chicken tenders, slaw and sourdough bread.That was before the cookies. Watching movies on Feelyvision and sleeping just because I can are kinda’ fun in themselves.
I read on the Internet news that the Army psychiatrist who shot and killed all the soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in the name of religion, has stabilized, may no longer be able to walk and has intense pains in his hands.Sounds like karma to me.I am not an advocate of killing but I am a giant fan of law and order.Himself will presumably have plenty of time to think about the consequences of his personal jihad rolling up and down the halls of Leavenworth prison and learning about chronic hand pain.
Geez!If that’s all the news that’s fit to print, it’s a hell of a world, isn’t it?Ta!
Yes, here it is, a 1937 Bugatti of which I would like one for Christmas. Please send.
There is a guy several blocks away who had a little trouble last night when he got drunk, raced his SUV through a major intersection without stopping. He ran over the sidewalk, up the hill on the lawn, up three steps and blasted into his own house, obliterating the living room and most of the kitchen. His tomato soup is no longer sitting on the stove.
He is having bologna sandwiches today in jail. His house may have to be torn down due to structural damage. What do you imagine he may be thinking right about now? Ta!
Just a song for tonight. And a couple of thoughts. When this girl sang this song the handicapped Royal Air Force was fighting for Britain's life against the Luftwaffe, families were getting telegrams "Sorry your son's dead. But it was a heroic sacrifice." A household was eating about 3 or 4 ounces of meat a week (about the amount of one McDonald's Angus burger patty), execrable bread with not much flour in it, and whatever vegetables you could grow in your backyard. Lots of turnips, lots of cabbage, lots of the kind of stuff nobody would eat much of in the old days. Not to mention that many folks quit eating the veggies because bombs fell on their houses at night and blew them into vegetable stew. That was not an Inconvenience, that was one Big Fecking Problem. So when I'm bitchy, I'm going to talk to some really old folks and play this song (and admire Vera Lynn, Mom always told me to marry a girl like her...) and get a little teary and probably feel a lot better. How about you? Ta!
It's the first part of October and my brother is sick, my sinuses are full, it's chilly and I had a date with a girl today who never showed although I earlier had a faint intuitive hint that she wouldn't. Later she apologized saying: "Blix bozzon gingermel, uh, koochimus kozzo, uh, and, my mixer deblabna nonivor. Ex, I'm sorry but, kozzen bigervere tasio, but maybe we cag met mogether menother time."
I am another year in the journey. I celebrated with various and plentiful shrimp in green hot horseradish sauce, sushi, a trip to the Goodwill Outlet and peace of heart.
If you play the video under here you can guess how old I am! Ta!
It is a humid night in the Big City and there are little tiny flies cruising silently around the house. And an Idia moth on the kitchen wall by the coffeepot. I suspect this is the famous coffee moth, but I can't figure the tiny flies. There is nothing in the kitchen available that would attract them, no trash, no mold, just Pine-Sol and the smell of a clean army barracks.
I was in a place today with a psychiatric nurse and others and had to help restrain some lady who had gone seriously psychotic until the police got there. The psych nurse hid in the corner and I sat next to the lady wondering why everybody had their mouths hanging open. Whenever she twitched I shook my head No and told her I would break her arm. Actually she would have broken mine being in her early thirties and in her physical prime. Besides me being sixty-four and fat and having a bad leg. People who want to kill people are terribly strong! But the police came and marched her out and then we all worked on our adrenalin for a bit.
I thought it was very gracious of CBS-TV to air the season premiere of The Mentalist on the eve of my birthday. In addition, in case it bombs, I have an exciting volume on biological warfare and another concerning a murder at the G8 Conference in Scotland some time back. Possibly a new mystery will come out of the current G20 in Pittsburgh. I am eating Chinese for lunch tomorrow and probably McDonald-ese for supper later on, who knows.
My friend Theresa and I went for a picnic in Kettering. Her Bitch-and-freeze dog went with us. Name of Mimi. Chased all the ducks away, was rewarded with fried chicken. One fine dog! One fine girl!
New Albany, Indiana was a Big City when I was a kid on my bike. If you click on the pix you get big ones. Photos by Thomas Kepshire.
Top: the K&I Bridge to Louisville. Trains ran down the middle and cars and trucks in lanes at the side. It had a see-through metal grid roadway and made a funny noise under the tires when Dad drove over it. When I rode under it on my bike I could smell humid organic mud, vegetation, creosote and hot metal. I still can smell that today.
2: The tower at the New Albany end of the Bridge that controlled all the crossing gates. Two rail lines crossed thorugh the middle of a major intersection.
3. In the upper left where the silver metal signal box is, used to be a shack where a signalman sat all day and flagged down traffic on Main when the gates went down. It WAS a shack and I remember a skinny old man in greasy clothes sitting on dark greasy pillows.
4: A Monon diesel engine at the train station circa 1949. As a little kid I can remember hearing steam locomotives in the night at the station.
My dream for next spring is to save enough money to spend a week back there with no relatives, but exploring old haunts to see how they've changed.
