Big Stick Physics

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AutoZone changes with the times.

October 27, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Just returned from a trip to AutoZone and it was some kind of sign of the times.

The cashier looked to be about 17 years-old, and was pierced in all the normal abnormal places.  When I asked her to look up the oil filter for my truck, she was attentive and competent. She did say “fuck” much more than one would expect from a cashier.   She was new to the job, so asked her colleague to help her with the oil special I wanted.  

The colleague had the same 110 lb, 17 year-old girl look, but sported a hipster cap with some kind of band name.  The way they interacted, she seemed like a skate punk who got her girlfriend a job. 

While the cashier was fetching the oil filter, the colleague explained how the specials worked at AutoZone and how often they changed.  What oil filter goes with what kind of oil, that kind of relevant and useful info.

As I was leaving, the cashier said, “Have a nice day.”  Being the chatty type, I responded with a laconic, “I’m changing the oil, how much fun am I going to have?”   She said, “Well, at least you aren’t doing tires or brakes.” 

That was a nice, knowledgeable and optimistic response.

It got me thinking that if alternative girls are the future for AutoZone, that’s okay with me.  They were as competent and personable as you’d want.

Barbie is 7.5/10 for being a movie with an indecipherable message.

October 26, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Because it was talked about so much when it came out, I decided to watch Barbie to see for myself.

It’s an easy watch.  Margot Robbie, as Barbie, is gorgeous, dresses cute and doesn’t say anything objectionable.  Almost everything she says is vacuous.  Ryan Gosling, as Ken, is fun and dumb.  It isn’t clear why Michael Cera, as Allen, is even in the movie.  He pops up occasionally and does stuff, but if Ken is a fantasy man and Barbie is a fantasy woman, what is Allen?  An incell?  Gay?  I don’t know.

The important humans are a mom and her daughter.  America Ferrera is the mom and self-described as weird and dark and crazy.  Ariana Greenblatt is the daughter and is a marxist eco-feminist.  She is exceedingly tedious to be around.  Nothing she says makes any sense.

If Barbie is a message movie, the idea is so muddled, it doesn’t feel like preaching.  I expected it to be a girl-boss movie, like everything coming out of Disney.  It isn’t that.  If anything, it’s a feminist parody. 

At the start of the movie, Barbieland is like purgatory.  Kens are treated like appliances designed to fuel Barbie’s ego.  Barbies all have self-esteem titles like president, doctor and Nobel Prize winner, without having accomplished anything.  It is so superficial, it’s like an island of fembots and appliances.  This dystopia argues for not letting women be in charge of anything.

The real world refutes the entire idea of a patriarchy.  Ken reads leftist books thinking that he can be or do anything because he is a man, but nothing works like that in the real world.  For Ken, being treated like a human, rather than an appliance, is so gratifying, he goes back to Barbieland and turns that into a patriarchy. 

The Patriarchy Land is actually engaging and fun for everyone.  Barbies and Kens are having a good time flirting and partying with each other.  Crazy Mom and Margot Barbie hate this happy world.

Crazy Mom gives a speech about how pathetic and incompetent she is, and motivates a couple of oddballs in Patriarchy Land to help brainwash Barbies back to the vacuous life.

When the Barbies get brainwashed, the Kens are kind, attentive and helpful to the Barbies who are acting helpless.  When the Barbies and Kens are apparently getting along, the Barbies emotionally manipulate the Kens into going to war with each other.  That distraction will allow the Barbies to take back the fantasy land.

The message seems to be that women can’t accomplish anything by themselves, but need shady manipulation to get men to do what they want.

After the Kens tussle, Barbies take back everything, and the movie completely lost focus.  It was like  Lincoln freed the slaves and the Civil War was settled by a dance number.  Barbies didn’t want Barbieland to go back to the way it was, but weren’t prepared to grant Kens full citizenship and representation.  Kens weren’t sure who they were now that they weren’t appliances anymore.  Like freeing the slaves and then telling them to compete in a free market economy with no transition phase. 

They didn’t seem to know how to end the movie, so Barbie became a real woman.  Everything up to this point made it seem like women in the real world lived with impossible expectations.  Based on the logic of the movie, the only reason Barbie would want to be a real woman is because she looked like Margot Robbie.

It’s a fun movie and each viewer can make up and support any message they want.  7.5/10.

Hollow Log Fire

October 25, 2023 / / 0 Comments

At East Harbor State Park, we tried a chimney log fire. 

Three hollow logs were stacked to make the chimney.  I had cut a hole in the bottom log so we could start and feed the fire.  Once it got going, firewood was dropped in the top.  The fire got hotter and bigger pretty quick.  It lasted for about an hour before it collapsed.

Here’s a creepy one for Halloween.

WaPo: Many States are Suing Facebook

October 25, 2023 / / 0 Comments

WaPo: States Sue Facebook

This is one of those stupid issues that could be resolved without legislation or legal action if people cared about kids.  Anyone want to argue that social media is not detrimental to children?  Parents, please explain why you give your children smart phones instead of dumb flip phones.

Somehow, without legislation or any overt action, parents everywhere are convinced that it isn’t safe for any child younger than 13 or 14, to walk to the end of the block.  How did that happen.  Do the same thing for smart phones.  Let’s make it a tradition for parents to make the first smart phone, a graduation gift.  

Sparky almost lost a friend.

October 24, 2023 / / 0 Comments

The Future Looks Bright

An hour before this picture, Sparky wasn’t so optimistic.

Sparky shows his affection for Mr. Moose by trying to eviscerate him.  Last Monday, he succeeded.  Mr. Moose’s chest was torn open and his squeaker was laid out like one of those Wes Craven movies.  When Sparky was tethered outside, taking a shit, I tossed out the carcass.  

I’d seen this coming, so had a Mr. Raccoon stashed away.  I went with the raccoon because Sparky loved a raccoon tail he’d found and Mr. Raccoon isn’t the same color as all of the fallen leaves in the backyard. 

For my sake, Sparky tried to play with Mr. Raccoon, but it was half-hearted.  We just went camping, and on the trip, Sparky was off his game.  Sure, he pissed on all the trees at East Harbor, but hanging out around the campground seemed to irritate him.  In the camper, his lassitude was uncharacteristic.

When we got home, Sparky was still moody.  He’s a stoic fella, so he’d come around, but it got me thinking.  I fished Mr. Moose out of the trash.  He was covered in coffee grounds and that slimy stuff from banana peels, but that just makes him more attractive to Sparky.  Being a human, I’m not living with a garbage moose and I still needed to sew him up.

While I was sewing up Mr. Moose, Sparky couldn’t hide his concern and anxiety.  It might have been frustrated enthusiasm, I don’t know.  I had to stitch him up by hand, and that material is spun mithril or something tougher.  Sparky was trying to help by attempting to jump into my lap or snatch Mr. Moose while I was trying to force the needle through the fabric.

Eventually, he just laid down to wait it out.  It got pretty tense.

Here’s Sparky getting reintroduced to Mr. Moose.

Dogs have thinking brains.  They aren’t wired up like ours, but they are wired up.  Sparky knew that Mr. Moose was gone.  He’d mourn Mr. Moose for a while, but he’d get through it.  He wasn’t going to be fooled by a stupid raccoon.

It’s good to see him smiling again.

East Harbor State Park 9/10

October 23, 2023 / / 0 Comments

We spent four days at East Harbor State Park.  We arrived on Wednesday in October, so that meant that for the first few days, the park was pretty empty.  On the downside, the weather was mostly rain.  East Harbor is North of Sandusky and South of Put-in-Bay. 

With a Golden Buckeye card, it was about $40 per day for an electrical hookup.  No sites have water, so it helps to fill up before leaving home.

There was plenty of paths through the woods to take Sparky.  There were also a bunch of bike paths, and like everywhere, Frisbee Golf.

The best part was being on Lake Erie.  It may not look like much of a beach, but Sparky could run around on the sand bars without me worrying that he’d run off into the woods.  He wasn’t interested in chasing seagulls, but he quite liked smelling the wide variety of scat and dead things.

We didn’t bring any RC vehicles, but the area has a lot of possibilities. 

It would be risky, but it would be worth investigating those little islands with the tug boat.  Breaking through the little waves would be worth a go.

The X-Maxx would be great for skimming along the shallow water on the sand bars and for chasing seagulls.

A good portion of the beach was hard-packed sand.  Not picturesque, but plenty of potential.

Beach racing the Rustler would be worth a try.

Even the crusty part of the coast would be fun.

 

Navigating the Defender through this rock field on FPV would be a nice challenge.

Obviously the RC possibilities and a good place to walk Sparky are my highest priorities, but there are many attractions off of park grounds.  We went to Gideon Owen Winery, and had a great lunch and several glasses of tasty wine.  The Vidal Blanc was my favorite.

The only difficulty with East Harbor State Park is the lack of a water at the sites.  That’s a small issue, so I’d give it 9/10.

The New Yorker: Idle Black People

October 23, 2023 / / 0 Comments

The New Yorker: Black People at Rest

It’s not clear what to make of this article and art exhibit showing Black women resting (h/t Althouse)

If you can’t be arsed to click over, the article talks about a photography exhibit at N.Y.U. and illustrates it with three photos of Black women idle in bed and one getting her hair washed.  The article tries to make it sound like a broad social movement.

Perhaps the portrayal of Black idleness will always be, if not haunted, then framed by a broader context that makes it seem like an act of resistance rather than a simple fact of life.

Continue reading

Don’t leave your leaves.

October 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Washington Post: Leave leaves

This article leans to heavy on the word “experts”, but people who read a column called “Climate Solutions” probably still work for the greater good as defined by experts.

To best support wildlife and soil health, experts say leaves should be left where they fall.

The soil may be healthy, but it won’t support grass growth.  Leaves block sunlight and acidify the soil.  Your lawn will resemble a forest floor, with no grass, mostly dirt with sparse vegetation.

“The fallen leaf layer is actually really important wildlife habitat,” said David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit conservation organization. “All sorts of creatures rely on that for their survival as a place where they can find food and cover, and in many cases even complete their life cycle.”

Who wants a wildlife habitat for a lawn?  Squirrels in the trees are great, chipmunks are okay, but they seem to be up to something.  Mice and voles are vermin who can live in the wood with the raccoons, coyotes, opossums and the rest of the wildlife menagerie.

Bagging up your leaves and sending them to a landfill “is by far the worst thing” to do, Mizejewski said. In 2018, landfills received about 10.5 million tons of yard trimmings, which includes leaves, or just over 7 percent of all waste thrown away, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

This does make sense.  It always seemed unreasonable to put organic waste like leaves and grass clippings in plastic bags to be buried in a landfill.

While a light scattering of leaves on a lawn could also be beneficial to your grass, too thick of a layer could smother the turf, experts said. Mizejewski added that the fallen foliage might also harbor pests, such as ticks, so it’s important to follow best practices to protect yourself.

Still, he and other experts said removing all the leaves isn’t the answer.

“You don’t have to keep them on your lawn where they fall, but what we want you to do is keep them on property,” he said. “Don’t get rid of them.”

Ticks are a big problem here because there is so much forest. 

Any lot size above a half-acre or so, has room for a mulch box.  Grass clippings and leaves will break down by next year.  Bagging yard waste makes no sense.  It doesn’t make much sense for the city to send a truck around to vacuum up leaves in the Fall.

Don’t give away your carbon.  I mulch my grass and the errant leaves early in the season.  When the trees start dropping in earnest, I blow the leaves into the woods.  The ticks and voles can go nuts as long as they stay over there.

CNN: Israel will clear the Gaza Strip.

October 14, 2023 / / 0 Comments

CNN: Gaza Strip

What was Hamas hoping to achieve with their gruesome blitz into Israel?  They did demonstrate their ability to plan and execute a massive strike.  Hamas was media savvy enough to broadcast their atrocities.

Israel may feel free to evacuate and slag the narrow strip of beach front property.  What’s to stop them?  The actions of Hamas were so brutal, it will take weeks for international supporters of the Palestinians to gain any traction.  The UN has been condemning Israel for decades, so the UN is irrelevant.  President Trump convinced the wealthy Arab countries to sign the Abraham Accords, so they won’t see a reason to intervene.

By the time any support for Hamas builds, Israel will have resolved the problem.

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