Painted Eyes

July 7, 1962
Your crooked smile reveals teeth whitened by the photographer with paint.
Tie was jet black but he added white dots to make it stand out.
Handkerchief folded before the shutter clicked while friends made fun of you in the background
Would vote republican and join the ROTC
Volunteered for Vietnam but went to officer's school in California
Never saw action
Met future wife at a social dance to raise money for war orphans
Trained interpreters.
Fathered two girls
This photograph was in the garage of your father's house when he died.
Your wife asked you if you wanted it.
"What for?"
So it went to the Goodwill in a nice frame ($4) that ended up on another wall
What to do with your picture of a you that is gone?

Bootleg Software Guy Cries Foul

Steve Bragg is a technical consultant of a local school system by day but in the evening he sells bootleg software.
"It's a side project," Steve explains. "Hustle money to put away for my new kid."
For several years Steve would crack security codes on Adobe, Microsoft Office and Quickbooks so he could sell the software.
"Adobe was the easiest and the most lucrative because Creative Suite costs something like $900 brand new and I could find buyers at $150. It was a win win [situation]"
That was until other software hacks began driving the price down.
"They killed the golden goose," exclaimed Steve. "Now I see the same Rosetta Stone software that I would steal and then resell for $100 going for $25 or less. How am I going to make money off this stolen software when guys like me are stealing it and selling it cheaper? They're taking food out of my mouth!"
BRagg said that if things keep going like this in the stolen software market he was going to have to move to Russia to take footage of early release movies to turn into dvds to sell in the Philippines.
"I'll do what I have to to overcome the obstacles set up by these bootleg software hacks who are more conniving than I am."

Acidification of Oceans

Has anyone checked out the story on the acidification of the oceans? It's a couple pages long and not nearly as interesting as Hog Hunters or Storage Wars or performances by teenagers covering songs from 1970. Yep, it's a real yawner. But Joe Romm is the writer who is putting out more content than anyone on the condition of the climate so that's why he's tops on my blog roll. It's mostly doom and gloom and "sky is falling" stuff that would make any sane person drink a bottle of Southern Comfort. Especially when time scales like 180 million years are being tossed around and make the Mayan calendar read like a school lunch menu. It's also safe to say that one person can not affect any change in something as vast as the ocean. Yes, mankind chose to pollute it by default and no change is on the horizon as long as it's easier to dump waste into the ocean than not create it in the first place. Of course you could quote the part in the article that claims 96% of marine life already was wiped out 250 million years ago by some volcanoes erupting in Asia. So, who cares if the same effect is caused by iPod manufacturing and long rides to Target to save money on toilet paper? Well, some people care, some people have no idea it's happening and some people are indifferent.

The oceans are acidifying? I am...

The full article .

Mayan Prophecy

I was getting my affairs in order for the end of the Mayan calendar when I came upon some details I want to share.

The Mayans didn't really look at time in year to year cycles but they had a calendar that was 1.872 million days long. That's 5125 years.

The contents of Oggy's Brain as represented by Mayan Artists

So, the end of that cycle of time ends in 9 months. We should be honored to be alive at such a time. Really, of the trillions of people who lived since 3000 B.C. you'll get to see what happens. There aren't many Mayans around to celebrate this so I want to go to Guatemala in solidarity. It's like new years day multiplied five thousand times. So that's a big hangover.

In light of this I'd like to make my own Oggy prediction for the true end of the world. My calendar really began 21,000 years ago. My calendar lasts 88,000 years. So on March 2nd in the year 67,000 AD the cycle starts over again. Mark the calendar now!

Crude

2009

January $33.07 July $56.16
February $31.04 August $62.80
March $40.13/$39.88 September $60.98
April $42.45/$42.20 October $67.43
May $51.27/$51.02 November $69.43
June $61.71/$61.46 December $66.33
2009 Average $53.56/$53.48



2008

January $84.70 July $126.16
February $86.64 August $108.46
March $96.87 September $96.13
April $104.31 October $68.50
May $117.40 November $49.29
June $126.33 December $32.94
2008 Average $91.48






As recently as 1998 crude oil was $12 a barrel. TOday it's $128 a barrel. What other commodity increased ten times in value in 14 years?

I want to cry foul but there were many years of prosperity in there and many more years to come. I remember the last time oil cost $127 a barrel in Jully 2008 and for the first time in 4 years in Los Angeles I saw busses that were full and people on bicycles and people walking. It was amazing. I moved into my van at that time and delayed my trip to Mexico until the gas prices went down from $4.25 to something like $3.50. Lasting change didn't take place but I think a small step was taken toward change. If we could live forever we could see the changes like when someone took video footage of the memorial bridge in Portsmouth dropping the center span at slack tide. It took hours and hours so if you watch it in real time nothing seems to be happening. But if you speed up the video then the bridge drops the barges move into place and the center span is carried away. I think human history is something like that but for each incremental change a whole family is born and buried so no one person gets to see anything very dramatic happen like Los Angeles going from a city of 60 million cars to a city that has full buses and light rail. There are abandoned light rail tracks that were a curse to my small motorcycle. The tracks were the archaeological evidence of an era when you could take a train from downtown to Venice. Those days are no more but before I left there was some movement toward rebuilding the light rail. Of course the tire companies and car companies were major opponents since they were the ones who monopolized and then dismantled the light rail to begin with, but this time they will lose.