in the overall scheme of things, Nature has her own way of dealing with every detail and subtle nuance. Notice I said her; us guys aren't smart enough to hold down that job. But that's okay, we can do other stuff. Like wage war, maim, rape, rob, pillage, plunder and whatever else is necessary to insure the survival of the hominid species.
Blizzards and Droughts.
Weather affects everyone, everywhere, and no one can do anything about it. Blizzards beat the shit out of us in the Winter, and that devilish phenomena, El Nino, causes droughts and destroys crops worldwide. Millions starve. Civilizations go to war. Millions die. Chaos reigns. The Four Horsemen rule.
Well, it's not that bad here in Pennsylvania, but according to The Farmer's Almanac, it's going to get worse because of a much more massive El Nino, and there's nothing we can do about it. Once again. We're just along for the ride She's driving.
The ad I wrote two years ago, called Winter Over, may apply this coming Winter, as it did just before The Blizzard of 96.
Fall Weather Returns.
Finally, it's beginning to feel like Fall: less warm days and cool nights, getting lighter later in the mornings and darker earlier in the evenings, leaves starting to turn, squirrels gathering nuts. All the signs are present again, just like in the previous years. But the Fall rains just haven't quite arrived yet, the ground and air temps are still higher than they should be, and people and plants are still stressed.
I've postponed large landscape jobs until mid-October or even into November; many require large existing, established plants to be dug and moved. In the present conditions, there's no way of safely doing this. Transplanting anything is risky, even under the best of conditions. It's more prudent to wait.
The rainy, cool weather is moving through the area now with more frequency. Yesterday, we had 1" of rain in 15 minutes; most did run off into retention ponds and streams, but a good amount also soaked in. Currently at 8.5" since April, we should be at 40"+ for moisture. The farmer's crops are useless at this point. Some moisture is better than none.
Life and Death.
I heard about it Saturday night just before 10pm: former Princess Diana was whacked in a horrific car crash in a tunnel in Paris. A needlessly tragic waste of life.
While her death meant something to the world, the media coverage of it all was stifling in its intensity and duration. Akin to JFKs assassination in 63, Reagan's wounding in the 80s and OKC bombing two years ago, it was overwhack. No pun intended. First, Princess Grace of Monaco in the 70s; Princess Diana in the 90s. Both by automobile. Both involved alcohol (Grace was drinking). Both were trophy wives. Both were accompanied by men who were incompetent scumbags and unable to properly and safely care for the people in their charge. Both deaths a were terrible waste of life.
Ten bucks says the death car will go on exhibition sometime in the near to mid-future at, maybe, the Smithsonian's travelling exhibit, currently in San Jose. Some corporate sponsor will arrange that over Merceded-Benz' corporate objections. $15 a head.
People are going to be a little overly sensitive about it all now. I haven't heard any Diana jokes yet either.
Holidays And Work Ethic.
There are too many holidays in this country. We have holidays for the usual themes — Christmas, Easter, New Year — but there are too many others, such as July 4th, Labor Day, Memorial Day, MLKs birthday, President's Week, and on and on and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum until we're looking for more ways to invent more holidays.
Sure, I realize that everyone needs some time off to recharge, but so many holidays dilute the meaning of work so completely, that we're (collectively speaking) soon wanting more and more. People start looking for excuses for national holidays and get pissed off that there's only 14 so far, as compared with socialistic Europe. The stinking liberal filth amongst us have added worthless holidays over the years and have diluted America's focus on what a true holiday is supposed to mean. Time to get back to basics.
Compared to Europe, we're doing just fine with our 17 nationally recognized days off. They have 47 holidays, 30hr work-weeks, get 4-6 weeks of paid vacation per year, socialistic health care and so on. That's why Europe's ecomony is in the toilet, to the country. It's a horrible mess over there and people still want more benefits without working for them. Socialism and communism still pervade their work ethics. It will take generations to come to terms with and loose that evil mentality. The French are the worst offenders.
Japan is very much like to US; fewer holidays and strong work weeks. That's why their economy is robust — or was until a few years ago — and their citizens enjoyed a strong work ethic. They've started a decline because of non-competitive factors and a very late start in the high-tech business, which has fueled this country's economic upsurge. The Clinton moron is trying to take credit for it, but it's the hi-tech companies — the Microsofts, Netscapes, IBMs, INTELs et al — that have done it, not the criminal Clintons.
The slide and decline is coming as we add more holidays to the national repertoire, along with reduced work weeks and more soclialized worker benefits. It's happening slowly and we'll be in the morass that Europe is inextricably in and Japan is sliding further into.
Politics As Unusual.
The bums are back. Finally, after 4 long weeks of inactivity and unearned vacations, which gave witnesses either time to flee the country, destroy evidence or concoct more convoluted alibiis, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee reconvened. Their already dull wits slowed to the point of a coma-like performance, there's a lot of catching up to do before this committee's tenure ends Dec 31st. Give the them a fair trial and then hang them. — John Wayne.
They're finally starting to focus on the criminal Gore and a host of other lowlife, criminal dealmakers who traded quid pro quo money for favors. I can't wait to see some of those liberals squirm in their own juice.
And the Gore scum is already courting the criminal Teamsters-Mafia Unions for his felicitous (read laughable) bid in 2000 for the presidency. What a joke they all are: the stupid leading the dumb, followed by legions of cretins and morons. A typical liberal parade.
Next, the Gore Whore damage control idiots are backpeddaling fast, producing phony memos purporting to show the Gore felons didn't know the Buddhist Temple fundraising events was a fundraising event. Well, f*cking A, Al you idiot: didn't you hire these moron staffers? Didn't you direct them? Of course you did, you dumb redneck moron. The you're responsible for their actions on your behalf. If you're so out of the loop, as you're now saying you are, what makes you think anyone in their right mind would vote for a stupid cretin like you for president; someone who can't even discern the difference between a fundraiser and an illegal activity? I doubt the DOJ has the guts to convene a special prosecutor to investigate Gore's crimes. They caved after allowing Ken Starr to be appointed to independent prosecutor status.
We all know that Slick Willie and Hitlery are two of the biggest liars ever to come down the political pike; it's a shame that the Gore Whore is a third-rate scumbag liar as well, behind the Clintons of course.
The sleaze and crimes are both sides of the aisle. No one has a majority on virtue.
David Siegel's New Book.
Siegel's second major title Serets of Successful Web Sites, is now at Amazon Books. I'm headed down to Border's in York, PA, this weekend and will look for it. If they don't carry it, I'll order it from Amazon.
I've read and re-read Creating Killer Web Sites and have given it as a gift to 10 or 11 people so far; I'll be doing the same with his new effort. If you send it to him with a return package, he'll nicely inscribe it for you.
New Hardware.
With the cable hooked up to my Pentium 586/150-64 (1.2gb) at home and the office Pentium 586/200-96 (1.8gb) still lumbering along on a 28.8 dial-up connection, I decided to upgrade the almost filled space on both hard drives.
Maxtor 3gb drives were installed Thursday on both computers and partitioned off into 1gb drives. Each machine now has 5-7 drives; I need a scorecard now. But the luxury of fresh, virgin space is alluring.
Rapid Transit Update.
It's been 3 weeks since the 500kbps cable modem was installed. How do I like it? A better question is: how did I ever put up with a lousy 28.8 dialup connection? Ignorance truly is bliss, I guess.
I still have one of those dinosaur 28.8 dialups at the Office, so I actually look forward to getting home and using the home Pentium 586/150-64, even though the Office unit is a much more powerful machine, Pentium 586/200-96. The cable modem makes all the difference. I'm checking into 266mhz and 300mhz chips and motherboards for the office unit. I want to leave huge skidmarks all over Office97.
The future of the Net is cable modems, not ISDN or slow and frustrating shit like 33.6 or 56 dialups. The phone companies peddling that stuff will be wiped out in the medium to long run; cable TV companies will rule the bandwidth. I just hope too many people don't discover cable modems for a while and I can continue to enjoy the benefit of huge, unlimited bandwidth.
According to local industry stats, there are only a couple of dozen high-speed cable modems installed in York county so far. The prestige of having such a fast connection will wear off as they proliferate and things slow down.
This Or That?
When you think you've made a common English gramatical error, check in here.
