Carpe Porcus

Seize the pork, or something close to that—as the nearest to Latin I have ever mastered was Pig Latin, which inadvertently makes too much sense in that statement.

The pork I am referring to, if you haven't had any mass media influx lately, Swine Flu. It is the latest round of pandemic potential influenza, getting every network fired and riled up with Chicken Little ferocity. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, as if there weren't enough things out there just waiting to take us to meet our own politic of worms, just pin the pig right on the top of it.

My initial thought is we are fairly screwed if a super-bug comes along. With the unknown damage vaccinations and processed food chemicals have wreaked, environmental toxins, bleaching and hand-sanitizing more than a obsessive compulsive germaphobe... I wonder if our immune systems are any better suited to handle a true outbreak than they were in 1890.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-vaccination by any means. I'm just not so certain that is the best tactic to fight some of these diseases. I liken it to computer viruses, you know they are out there, you take precautions to prevent infecting yourself by safe-surfing practices, and anti-virus software. The thing about anti-virus software though, is an exploit must be entered into the particular program's database in order for it to see it. You could have four different products running and still one Trojan horse could sneak past the wall. What would be more beneficial is if there was a method to create a super-immune system. Rather than taxing and compromising already bombarded immunities by giving it a little infection so it knows how to fight it, wouldn't it be better to train the machine to memorize what belongs, and eradicate immediately what doesn't? (Either that or as S.O. keeps telling me, we should all become Apples.)

It is amazing that science and technology have come so far, but is still swaddled in infancy. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know anything.

Now that we're in glacial retreat...

Do you think that Gabrielle's holiday banner will come down this year? We had a pool running to see who could guess when it would come off the wall by the Asian Grocery last year, but it never happened. Must be one of those things where it has been there so long you don't notice that it is there.

Sweet, I got dislike mail!

Way back when, I was forced to make a gmail account in order to sign up for the blog, but it isn't a primary, secondary, tertiary or octoplanary (I made that up) address, so I have rarely logged in.

I accidentally stumbled across that inbox on my home portal last evening, and to my surprise there were a few messages from months and months ago. Awesome that someone felt passionate enough about being forced to read my blather to actually write a note asking me why I bother. The answer being, obviously from my sporadic posting, I really don't bother. I could respond with a "why lame writers write even when their writing is lame" solilique, but that's been overdone as much as a forensic science series on cable.

The other flame mail was more entertaining. Apparently, I'm a male chauvanist. I didn't realize that my sarcastic/sardonic id portrayed that. That title is purely laughable if only you knew past the serifs on the screen, besides, I practice Equal Opportunity Vexation. It doesn't matter the shell, the idiotic are idiotic.

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On other things of interest, the kidlings and I have been enjoying watching the construction on the new Police Station. Those were some pretty tall footings they had to pound down through the gravel. The machine made it look like they were just shoving toothpicks in the mud, but significantly louder. Passing by a few times I've caught a glimpse of the Chief at a crawl in the other direction checking out the progress. It must be so exciting for him to see something finally happening after all of the work it took to get to that point.

The new pool building is coming along nicely too, that green sealing stuff they have on it is such a perfect horrible hue - so bad it is awesome. It will get covered up eventually, but we need more obnoxious purple and... wait, we already have a purple building, I forgot.

Well, back to the grindstone, happy that I finally don't have to be out shoveling snow.

We're the ones that made you.

Well, I can't say that rap as a genre makes it to the top of my internal playlist. (Unless we are reminiscing Young MC or Sir Mix-A-Lot... got to love those buttermilk biscuits.) I do have respect for the creatively exploitative though. Case in point, Eminem - Slim Shady's newest video We Made You. It features Bret Michaels, Kim Kardashian's butt, a Vulcan, Polar Bears and a bikini-clad Palindrone.

I find it perplexing that the rest of the U.S. is still remotely intrigued by our own Arctic Vanilla Ice. The point was that we made these caricatures of people as they are displayed in the media. Just by mentioning names it adds another blip into the subliminal pixels that keep getting dropped in the midst of things that hold slightly more importance.

What those things are of course I choose not to dwell on. I'm as infected as the next person, somehow, I want to know that the Paps flashes tripped out Madge's horse, or that Matthew likes to canoe skate with an unleashed dog. I am not proud of this, and wish I could turn it off...

Do you think there is a twelve step program?

You're on Notice

Get your own: http://www.shipbrook.com/onnotice/

So I see on NOAA's weather website Kodiak has turned orange. This means it is a blizzard watch, Friday a.m. to Friday evening. So to honor the great Steven Colbert, (and because I'm sick as fu** of f***ing snow), SNOW... You're on Notice. Also on notice... anything to do with snow, blizzards, snow removal. You get it.

ALSO ON NOTICE:

I try and flip channels when commercials come on, and have perfected the skill of multiple channel viewing, however, every time I switch the station lately, I'm on the same Yaz commercial, birth control that helps alleviate Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. I am tired of thinking of women completely freaking out with hormonal imbalances, it is bringing up repressed memories of one of my friends mothers who had the power to desimate you in one bark. I still step lightly.

Adam Lambert annoys me. But then I'm not really a fan of much musical theater outside of Rocky Horror or Little Shop. He is a good singer if you like the whole screaming high pitched Aerosmith crap... but there is something slightly black-polished-nails-on-a-chalkboard about it. I've had to forceably swipe the remote a few times to escape the AI torture.

Headline News, or any of the news channels for that matter, for media hyping the President's security and showing on the cool map thingy all the locations where he would be, and when he was arriving there. Is it me, or is that poor security handling? It is no different when they are having Olympics or something and saying how secure it is, and how no terrorists can get in to deploy a bomb. Just draw a red X and say hey terrorist, if you haven't thought of it before we mentioned it... attack here.

So those are my on notices for the day. I left the Bears there for Steven, they don't really bother me so much.... except for the fact we still don't have any dumpsters in our neighborhood.