Every time I begin to get just a little bit down about things in PDX......





.....I go up to Seattle and realise just HOW lucky I am.





First off......WELL DONE, BEAVERS!!!





Secondly, read a few interesting AP-Wire pieces in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (not a GREAT paper at all, but not horrible.....shit, unlike the tripe that comes out of The bOregonian, at lease they have a CHOICE up here) over brekker Saturday Morning at the Five Point Cafe (a place I hadn't been to in some number of years and really isn't the same at all since the smoking ban as now you really miss something in the atmosphere when you used to not be able to see across the bar through the thick, blue haze......still, though, Bukowski would hang out here)...



















...and I saw something I thought was a piece out of The Onion.....


WHAT do you call that, again???


I mean, Goddamm.....that to me sounds like getting the living hell shocked outta you!!! Nothing exciting about THAT!

And WHAT did the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office call it again......"Excited Delirium" or something absolutely bizarre like that??????

No, getting abused by Pigs with a Taser is NOT what I'd call "Excited Delirium"!!!

I mean, after really good sex......or when I hit, like, $700 on a slot machine....or when I find a Geocache....or we win the pub quiz.......or some shit like that, THAT is "Excited Delirium"!!

Oh, and I don't know for certain if it's this way in the State of Oklahoma, but in Oregon, there have been conflict of interest questions in the results and findings of pig-induced Tasering deaths of civilians! Uhhhh.....it would appear that the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office (who investigates Taser killings) receives most of its funding from the Oregon State Pig Department.......(Errrmmm.......WHY aren't these little facts publicised to a greater extent then they are now?).......



....interesting....



I'm NOT trying to excuse the irrational (and sometimes downright scary) behavior of some of these people who get Tasered, but Jesus, can you really keep the Taser on the list of "non-lethal alternatives"??

As an interesting sort of P.S./aside, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union both have determined "Excited Delirium" to be a make-believe condition designed to protect the police departments and Taser International, Inc.



Second piece (another national AP-Wire piece) was a study on sexual statistics which was done in total privacy (to help ensure confidentially and thus, more accurate disclosure from study participants) that was really interesting. What kinda bothered me were two things - the first is the line in the second paragraff that states "...the federal government says it has authoritative statistics...."!

Is how many times people have sex something that we really want the Federal Government having "authoritative statistics" on? Don't they keep tabs on us enough already, what, with the Patriot Act an' shit??

Secondly, if you look carefully at breakdowns of certain types of behavior by gender or race, this reeeaaaalllly reflects negatively upon certain groups of people and also reinforces some really negative racial and gender based stereotypes.


Is this really a good side-effect all in the name of scientific research......?


Just wondering.......


-E-

Wow......I GOTTA see how they make this lost income up!!

One of my five astute readers of this drivel (ALL of my readers are astute, but I only have about five [known] readers of this drivel) stated the following regarding my Monday, May 14th, 2007 post -

Oh man you missed the boat on this one. R.I.P. to smoking in bars in Oregon effective January 1, 2009.I'm so happy the government is my nanny, looking out for me in placed of vice where only adults congregate and do so voluntarily. I can't wait until they start taxing fast food to protect me from obesity! Oh, wait, the Oregon legislature is owned by the restaurant lobby. Never mind.

WOW..talk about shooting yourself in the ass.....

Naw, not really. The Oregon Restaurant Association doesn't always get it's way. Actually, the restaurant lobby DID want to kill Sports Action (because you DO play Video Crack in a restaurant or tavern, and you DID NOT play Sports Action there), but that lobby did NOT want a smoking ban!

So, to make it simple here, I will state the eight facts under the "....therefore, it follows that...." school of logic:

1) - Oregon instituted a smoking ban in bars.

2) - The majority of bars have the Video Crack (Oregon Lottery electronic slot machines).

3) - It HAS been proven statistically, and empirically, that the majority of people who plant twenty after twenty into these things (Video Crack machines) ARE indeed smokers.

4) - When you got the Gamblin' Jones on something fierce, and you're up $175.00 so far for the night, you are NOT going to want to go and take a break and go outside in mid-January to a 25 degree raining Oregon evening to enjoy a cigarette. Only to come back to someone else who jumped in on your machine whilst you were outside enjoying said cigarette.

5) - Thus, IT FOLLOWS that bars will see a drop off in revenue on both, beverage and food sales in addition to their cut from the video crack, as smokers will choose to stay home or go to tribal casinos, where you CAN smoke.

6) - Thus, IT FOLLOWS that (and this is the number some economists have come up with) the State Legislature, the body that ultimately oversees the Oregon Lottery, stands to lose $100 Million-plus from the said smokers mentioned above in fact #5 staying home or going to tribal casinos in Oregon and Washington State.

7) - It is also a known fact that legislators CANNOT STAND the idea of losing pork-barrel funds, especially from a ca$h-cow like Oregon Lottery's Video Crack when these smokers go elsewhere! Soooooo.......now, HOW are they going to make up that Hundred Mill??

8) - Oooooh, right: It takes like a hyper-majority to increase taxes or create new ones in Oregon......OH! OH! OH!! Wait a sec......Right, but, you CAN have your State Agencies *ahem* "adjust fees".......yeah.......Errrmmmm-hummm.....

So, that $68 per two-year car registration (registration is required by state law, so payment is guaranteed)??? Uhhhhhh.......wow, it might just well go up to $122 in 2009!

Errrmmm, that DEQ Emissions Test at $22 (also required by state statute)?? Try $40 in 2009!

MARK my words - NO new taxes, but some really clever , ahhhhh, "adjustments" in "fees" and "user costs"! This will partially make up the losses from the smokers staying home or going to see the Injuins when they hafta get their Gamblin' and Smokin' Joneses on!!

Now, the State Legislature will do this to protect THEIR losses from the smoking ban......

.....uhhhh, WHO'S gonna help take care of the Mom & Pop small pub owners from the drop in revenue that THEY incur from this smoking ban.......?

......anybody......anybody......Bueller....Bueller.....???

Thought not......

Hypocrisy....not even Oregon is immune from it.......

-E-

What the MAWF?????



I love the Mass Media in the United States!! It never ceases to keep me from laffing......




Heeeeere we go again. All over the U.S. every year, thousands of African-American, Latino, obese, fugly individuals and others vanish without a trace and are often later found dead.

....and so???

"And so?" exactly.



Yet again, we recently had another occurrence of MissingAttractiveWhiteFemale.















Now, I adore MAWF strikes.....'cause I git to see major media corporate conglomerates just totally trip all over themselves and act like four-year-olds!! I mean, it's become sooooo predictable, I can fucking script it myself!!



First, Bill Gates will tag-team up with General Electrique to actually break the story first (don't ask why....it just usually happens that way......can't explain it) through their MSNBC tentacle. This is usually around 12am, about nine hours after the MAWF fails to return from a trip to Nine West.



Around this time, NewsCorp and its minister of information, Dr. Goebbels-Murdoch, will become infuriated that their arch-enemies have broken this story first! Therefore, if they can't be first, you better Goddamm bet that FOXNews WILL be the longest and most thorough in getting YOU, the viewer, all of the critical details that you NEED to know! They WILL locate the MAWF's fifth-grade teacher from 1993 and get them to speak on camera for YOU, the viewer! FOXNews will somehow obtain for YOU (unbeknownst to the MAWF's grieving family), baby fotograffs of the MAWF when she was 11 months old!! They will find out what the MAWF had for breakfast, and whether she prefers Wii over PlayStation3!



They'll talk about that road trip that the MAWF took last week in a convertible with her girlfriends just after graduation.....and the stories about what happened on that road trip will be told in a tone of voice as if Greta Van Susteren herself was in the back seat doing wine cooler shots on that trip with the MAWF.



The big boys (CBS, NBC and ABC) will not interrupt anything to bring you this story, but will spend about 10 minutes of their 6:30pm National newscasts on the MAWF, and ABC may even possibly make the MAWF the subject of it's 11:30PM Nightline show, and bring in both, John Walsh and the head of the N.M.B.L.A. as guests on the show, or some shit like that.



CNN will PRETEND to rise above the fray.....but on their HeadlineNews every 30 minutes segments, the MAWF will score about five minutes of airtime.



Then, they'll unearth the MAWF's body, and FOX will literally fucking ram the camera into the crying, wailing mother's face, as though that is really what she needs right now!!! About three hours later, the police will announce an arrest, then they'll trot out some poor bloke on a perp walk who has that scary, fucked-up, deranged-in-the-head look and who also looks quite literally like he got the shit kicked outta him one too many times in high school. They'll run some story on this guy like how he used to like to bite the heads off of live bats because he saw Ozzy Osbourne do it once, or some bizarre shit like that......

......and eight hours later, that'll be a wrap, everyone will pack up and leave (PICK ONE: Kansas - Utah - Florida - New Jersey) and go back to L.A.



Neat, eh?



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

........and who says that Developers lack a sense of humour??



My co-worker got assigned this casefile for some townhomes. Upon careful examination of the plans, she just broke out laffing. She showed this to me and I had to post it! Click on the picture for a close-up.


























Have multiple fotograffs and videos from the last two weekends, and possibly a life-altering event coming up.....I'll post them and tell you all about things on Wednesday!!



-E-