Lago Atitlan

Forlorn Oggy looks back at the van

I don't have much to say about this famous lake. It's certainly unusual, but again, like all of Guatemala, it's the kind of place one should take a bus to. Let someone else suffer the trials of the road. The obstacles driving El Conquistador there are a test of all my facilities and detract from any kind of enjoyment of the landscape. Even in this picture I'm looking back at the ridiculous grade I need to climb in order to get out of the lake area. On the drive back to Xela a truck full of concrete blocks tipped over and blocked 3 of 4 lanes with construction debris. Another car hit the side of the mountain and caused major problems. Many many vehicles were blocking the road at one point or another due to malfunctions. If one does not focus on the task then the vehicle is either going over a cliff or will run over a 2 foot pile of broken concrete blocks or over a person drunk and sleeping in the middle of the road, or possibly into a ditch or huge pot hole. There is no moment the vehicle is moving that it's a good idea to look around and enjoy the scenery. Lago Atitlan was especially dangerous to reach. Take a bus. Hell, I almost abandoned the van there and took the bus back to Xela. But my fate is tied to the van so I got back in and spent about $10 for every mile of the 50% grade I had to climb. Dogs died in the road, children fled. It's exhausting in every sense but was unavoidable for me to keep my van in Guatemala without being deported.

Artificial Intelligence?

I'm avoiding ice cream after some recent dental scares

Computers are pretty cool. They are artificial intelligence, right? I mean, technically? You input information and then they will sort that information depending on parameters or questions you ask. That's intelligent, right? It's more than I'm capable of on most days. Well, sometimes we have artificial so intelligent that we have to outsmart it to prove that we are not also artificial intelligence. Isn't that odd? It's like Skynet. You only have to do these word scrambles if you want to comment using a google approved identity. But I have an option you can comment anonymously and I think it works ok. I want honesty most of all and I feel I can delete anything without any loss of communication because you know you typed it and I had to read it in order to delete it so the point was made. But I felt it no longer belonged in the internet, but it's still in my head and that counts for something in this fucked up world.
I want to apologize to anyone who has to answer this kind of matching game: select all ice cream> What the fuck is this? to make a comment I have to prove I'm human and I'm going to do that by comparing pictures of food and other things and determine which are ice cream and which are cakes or platters of fruit? This really irked me but I have no control over it as the spam filter is automatic. Is every fucking thing I do going to involve jumping through hoops to prove I'm human?

Funk IS Back

great lyrics from Mark Ronson
"Ride to Harlem, Hollywood, Jackson, Mississippi
If we show up, we gon’ show out
Smoother than a fresh jar of skippy

I’m too hot (hot damn)
Called a police and a fireman
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire man"


When I first heard this Uptown Funk tune I thought to myself, "Did someone really cover Le Freak by Chic?"

Yes and No.

Because Funk is and will always be awesome artists are hoping a ride back to 1978 with rearrangements of classic funk tunes from Marvin Gaye and Chic. The performance by Bruno Mars also returns to mid career Michael Jackson, but I dig it. The same way The Rolling Stones modified Mississippi blues to their own devices, Bruno Mars is modernizing traditional funk. The modern arrangement is very good. I prefer it to the original because the horns in the modern version replaced the strings of the original and it's good.
I merely want to point out that recently the team who produced Blurred Lines got sued by Marvin Gaye's family for as much copyright infringement that is now being overlooked in the comparison of Uptown Funk and Le Freak. The producers actually reached a settlement with The Gap Band oversimilarities, but Uptown Funk is really a blending of several songs, layered on top of one another. It's an original rearrangement with cool lyrics. A song like this would have to be split so many ways that you might as well say it's the price of being in the music business, that whatever you do today may be rearranged down the line with much more success.
Even though Mars and crew still objectify women in the video when the lyrics aren't really related to objectifying women, I wish him well.

Love & Mercy

View From Crumbling Rooftop

Looking East?

Bureaucratic lunacy has once again thrown Oggy's life into turmoil. I simply want to eat tacos and play guitar until my congenital heart disease finally kicks in, but this will not be my fate because I am periodically forced into action. The latest issue is my personal and vehicle visa, which is kind of joke considering the army of undocumented minor immigrants Guatemala sends to The United States. Like they can't take ONE undocumented political refugee from California*? No, I'm going to try to keep my political paperwork legal, like it matters in the bleak future.

Screenshot Trivia #6

a failure so epic that it was good

I know I'm meandering toward the grave when I almost watch the whole 80 minutes of this 1985 film. Made 30 years ago and I thought I had seen everything. No, this movie slipped under the radar and it's so abominable that it's amusing. Actually, a movie that transcends quality like this almost succeeds in creating its own universe because it defies all laws of film and physics and convention. It is the kind of movie where everyone is wearing a watch. And why are wizards always riding horses. That makes no sense.
Take a guess at the movie?