Climate Expert Speaks

Oggy Crafts

 I can't let this dog attack ruin my productivity. I'm compelled to reproduce this chrome emblem in punch pin thread.

 Last year I learned some hard lessons about making designs with cracked tile and this year I learn similar lessons about outlining letters with three strands of thread. If the words are too small then you won't be able to read what it says since the outlines blend together. SUPER VAN becomes SUPAN VAM . But if I make it bigger then it'll be the strangest patch ever and will cover the entire back of my overalls. 15 hours of threading needles makes my back feel like a Singapore sweatshop worker.

I promised someone a winter hat but I forgot how to make them.

 
So I have to relearn how to crochet by making a replacement for my beloved black wool hat I lost somewhere along the way. This is Bamboo/Silk/Nova Scotia Wool and it's going to weigh three pounds when I'm finished and have $35 worth of yarn on it. This raises the question of cost efficiency. I can buy a comparable nylon hat for $2. The next hat will be easier. Patience! Maybe next year will be colder but don't count on it as this was the 4th warmest winter in history. Also I'm making two place mats from scrap wool and cotton. The burlap alone cost more than two Chinese made place mats at Big Lots. So, the argument is that I don't want to pay less money for the ready made place mats because there's no conceivably reasonable way that two place mats were manufactured in China and shipped to America for less than I can make my own place mat. The math doesn't add up so something is wrong and rather than scratch my ass and do the Obama status quo shuffle I'm going to look for alternatives. Of course the bamboo yarn also comes from China and costs more than a bamboo yarn hat which means it actually loses value when it's touched by human hands.

Testing L

I need to test my hands for typing and also if this letter L works now. I spent the last two hours fixing this keyboard after I spilled some blood on the letter L. Llllllll Lisa's lips locked low. Lessons learned allow losers liberal licks. Limited liability learns lightly on laser laps. Listen look learn lean left. lie. lips. lurk. loose. lies. Loser. loose. lose. live. lewd. loquacious. liberal.

foolish.

well, it seems to be working a little bit better. I swear when you lose a letter like L and type 90wpm then you'll be about five words past the point that you don't have an L in the word before you realize it and you can actually delete everything you typed and type it again faster than you can reach and get the mouse and skip back over those words to highlight the exact spot where the L is missing. And because my brain thinks purely in terms of vocabulary I prefer to type the same words again over and over like Jack Nicholson typing "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. that only has 5 ls. oh! it missed one. all play dull all play dull all play dull dull play all dull play dull dull dull dull dull duld uolld ulddl dulld ulld ulld dull dull dull dulld play play play play play play play play play play paay play play play play play pay play play play play lay lay lay lay lay du ll dull dull all alla lla lall alla lall alla llal alall lall lall lla all all allla llaa laall aallah allah laah llahh laahl laholla holla holla holla holla holla holahloos holla
dog bites lips locked loosely on arm. saliva. loquacious.

rabid?

goddamn i shoulda ashkerd if that fuckin dog had its shots for tyhe rabies because this arm aint feeliun good. cant hardly polish the bishop this evening. lawd it wont be long. you get that double bed ready fo me and my guitar. and i done run out of needlepoint thread and must bicycle 15 miles to the craft store. oh! but the arm! i gott a get bit by a dog in the poor part of town. my luck sucks junkie lips. hopw can i finish my santa cruz manifesto with one hand? where's my Russian bride?

Heroes of Our Time

I don't want to be a snob. I prefer Duke Ellington and Burt Bacharach but when I hear something modern that has some muscle I'll pass it along. Dragonforce is like a dream come true for every aspiring 15 year old shred guitarist. And that's enough because no one buys more merchandise with dragons on it than 15 year old boys. The name itself seems like it was picked by a teenager. "And I want two incendiary guitarists and a singer with a voice like a demon." Ok.
Where Lamb of God dominates the percussion side of metal, Dragonforce has no equal on the six (12) strings. These are sick sick solos. Herman Li is the long haired guitarist using something called a hot hand wah filter (that black ring of power on his picking hand) Look close to see what effect he gets from it like a magician coaxing screams from his instrument without picking a string. I almost want to get one.
I swear these lyrics read like they were assembled randomly from a fortune cookie factory in Hell's Chinese restaurant. Or maybe they went through Metallica's shredded garbage and pieced a song together.

"Across the endless sands,
Through the fields of our despair,
Dream for all eternity, we stand, yeah,"

Yeah? Yeah, what? Dream for all eternity? What does that mean? Endless sands? Fields of our despair? This isn't even good enough to pass as a B-side song by Boston or Queen. None of the lyrics mean anything except as vague metaphors to teenage boys. Again, in heavy metal, that's enough. Stairway to heaven is no different. It's junk food for the guitar hero generation and I like it. Rock n roll demons and fly through falling stars, ride on flaming meteors of your ego.

Here are the lyrics since I couldn't understand anything the singer said. Be warned, if you want poetic expression of Yeats or Kipling then keep looking...this is the stuff of dreamy teenagers scribbling lyrics in lined notebooks as tattoos for paper dragons and plastic demons:

Lost in a dream, finally it seems,
Emptiness and everlasting madness,
See the sadness grow, watching as we know,
Blinded for our journey for the world,
Call for us, the power in all of us,
So far beyond the blackened sky tonight...
Glorious, forever more in us,
We are victorious, and so alive.

(Chorus)
We'll all find our sacrifice tomorrow,
Our journey on towards a brighter day,
Silent tears we left behind, still so far away,
Across the endless sands,
Through the fields of our despair,
Dream for all eternity, we stand, yeah,
Rise above the universe tonight,
Starchaser...

Fly towards the storm, see the world reborn,
Feel the pain inside, the voice, the sorrow,
Across the distant shores, find the open door,
Stand alone, in judgment for tomorrow.

Years of pain still haunt us all, we saw the last sunrise,
Take me home, in freedom, for a lifetime...
Praying on for the silence, and the last tears will blind,
So glorious, this fight inside, united we stand.

(Chorus)
And we'll all find our sacrifice tomorrow,
Our journey on towards a brighter day,
Silent tears we left behind, still so far away,
Across the endless sands,
Through the fields of our despair,
Dream for all eternity, we stand, yeah,
Rise above the universe tonight,
Starchaser...

Free from this world, here for the last time,
Oceans collide inside of us all,
Believe who we are,
The phoenix will guide us,
Freedom will rise once again.

Solos!!

Save us tonight, the last hope for all of us,
Light-years gone by, we're still holding on,
Save us tonight, a star shines in all of us,
Far beyond our lives, still our glory lives on.

(Chorus)
And we'll all find our sacrifice tomorrow,
Our journey on towards a brighter day,
Silent tears we left behind, still so far away,
Across the endless sands,
Through the fields of our despair,
Dream for all eternity, we stand, yeah,
Rise above the universe tonight,
Starchaser...Starchaser...

Our kingdom come, we stand as one,
And we will live for always evermore...