When I Become Supreme Ruler Of The Universe…..

O.K., since no one has asked for it here’s my (not so short) list of things that need doing which is now ready to go, so I can sort of hit the ground running. Here’s a sneak-peak look at my list:

1. To drive in the car pool lanes there will have to be two or more licensed drivers in the car. Driving kids around will not qualify as a car-pool, as you’re not removing a car from the freeway, but adding one in place of a school bus. Also, car pool lanes will exist only on regular work days, during “rush hours”, and only in the direction that any traffic will be “rushing” in. Furthermore, those yellow carpool lane sticker passes for single passenger vehicles will be taken away. Crap, they’re already getting a major sales push from the price of gas hitting the ceiling, no one needs any more incentive to buy one of those cockroach looking fuel saver cars.

2. Dog breeders will be neutered without the use of an anesthetic and made to wear a huge plastic funnel around their neck.

3. No one will be allowed to buy a pickup truck unless they can prove they have a business related need for it, and even more proof will be needed for trucks with dual rear wheels.

4. Anyone found parking in a handicapped only parking spot with a mirror hanging permit (or special car plates) that are not in their name, unless the named person is also in the car at that moment will be arrested. On the spot, violators  will have their legs broken, thereby making their parking spot usage valid. Doctors found to have given paperwork to get a handicapped parking permit to a person not actually needing one will be ground up and mixed with cement to make colorful parking lot slow down bumps.

5. No one shall take any political office that is able to declare war, unless they have served in active combat, or have children in the military that could be shipped off to a war zone. This almost non-existent group of eligible candidates will exclude anyone who was jumped into a peacetime reserve unit by the pulling of strings by, oh let’s say their politically connected father, or anyone who may have thought even for a moment that Marrion Morrison  (aka John Wayne) saw any gunfire other than blanks fired on a stage at Republic Pictures (or a similar location).

6. Not only will it be legal to shoot grafitti “artists” when caught defacing public property, I’m thinking a significant cash bounty might be in order. The amount of cash will be based on the size of the defacement, the number of incorrectly spelled words,  usage of gang colors, etc….

7. People living in the United States of America will no longer be known as “…….”-Americans, but rather as Americans of ” …….” ancestry or native origin. By putting the “American” in front, we will go a long way towards ending prejudicial treatment as a way of life, since after all is said and done, in this manner we’re all “Americans” first, with less emphasis placed on the individual’s differentiating ancestry. For example, a graffiti artist (see #6 above) might say: “I’m a American of Mexican origin”, and not, “I’m a Mexican-American”. (As always, feel free to add on any of your own ideas…..)

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as everyone knows, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..  

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

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Who insures us from the insurance companies?

Somehow overlooked in the blowup last week about an insurance company that had requested doctors to rat out their patients, was the timing that the insurance companies would have to make use of this information.

Will they cancel the insured right then and there? Or would they keep quiet and continue with the insured’s policy to keep those monthly payments coming in to them until a reimbursement for a provided medical solution was sought, and then drop the client and refuse payment on the basis of a preexisting condition, or claim that the ill person had made false statement or had not fully disclosed the problem when they signed on?

I’ve always believed that the latter seems to be the method the conservatives use to hold onto power, they have photos and other dirt on most anyone of power in the country and will not hesitate to use it to blackmail any true threat to their domain.

And no, I don’t wear a tinfoil hat.

But if you choose to talk about conspiracy, try to shoot at a target about 50 feet from you that’s the size of an average watermellon and is being pulled along by a friend pulling a rope at about 5 miles per hour. To make it more relevant, see if you can hit it twice out of three shots in less than twenty seconds. Oh yeah, you’ll need to be shooting with an old Mannlicher-Carcano bolt action rifle and remember to allow for a strong cross wind. Once you can do that, try it at about 100 yards and make the target a little bigger than a CD, and hit it (or even just fire the rifle) three times in seven seconds, hitting that CD at least twice.

Hav-ah-na, Ba-nah-na!

With the in-the-near-future resignation / retirement / assuming ambient temperature of Fidel Castro, will we now see a mass movement of Cubans moving back to their promised ancestral homeland?

Shortest answer?  N.F.W., they have it far too good here to go back.

I’ve always been amazed that in all these years with so many (To paraphrase Lucy Ricardo) hot headed Latin guys running around in the South East U.S. making noise about their never-ending plans to re-take their country, no one has made much of an invasion that worked, or managed to even get close to bumping off a leader that, from all the photos I’ve seen, goes around walking through the crowds and in the past played baseball without an armored bubble over him.

Unless you count that (maybe photoshopped in) helmet.

I think I was about 10 or 11 years old when Castro took over, and since then I’ve grown up (well, more or less) listening to a one sided flow of official crap from our government about what a hellhole the place is, with no food, no economy, etc.

Somehow left out of the equasion is the part about how we have kept a blockade in place around the island and made it off limits to American tourists, blocking dollars from entering the economy. Also not talked about is the almost 100 percent literacy rate, which sure proves that the Bush family never spent much time there.

I sure wish I could remember where I was going with this when I started, but with the constant interruptions from the assistant director of the film I’m working on, I hardly have time to open my powerbook, much less crank out more of this cranky screed.

So it goes…….

It’s out of this world……

…..For a little while longer.
There seems to be a big push on from the top to revive the ghost of the S.D.I. program, by trying to shoot down the failing satellite.

This begs the question:

Why not just hook up some sort of a low tech, low cost tow cable from the Space Shuttle to this accident looking for a place to happen, and give it an outward bound tug to send it straight into the sun?

Perhaps because Halliburton doesn’t have 80 million dollar tow cables for sale?

Instead, we have the endangering of people on earth with another half ass scheme pushed along by the moron wannabe cowboy master of wrong ideas who for a little while longer can be found in the white house.

State of the art, third world version!

So, what happens if the missile misses, and the bus sized spacecraft explodes when it crashes still more or less intact in a place where the residents don’t hate America or Americans (if there still is such a place after 7+ years of Bush), and kills a crowd of kids?

Crap, it’s not like there are a lot of those friendly kind of places still left to lose!

Imagine John McCain as a dog, and…….

…..George Bush as a stinking pair of underwear.

When I saw the photo below, I was amazed that the look on the dog’s face could represent so exactly the feelings that Mr. McCain must have felt about Bush’s offer of support for his run for the presidency.

Imagine you’re stuck in the middle of the ocean and trying to keep afloat, and someone tries to help you survive by handing you an anchor. Yeah, it’s like that……

Signature Files At My Cost (For Free)

Since jumping on the 14.4 modem driven ‘net with my roaring 286 ibm machine (After my Kaypro, before making the leap to the Mac platform), I’ve been collecting and using signature files at the end of my e-mails. Some have the credits they had when I’ve found them, which may or may not be correct. You’ll find that some are political, some are funny, and most often cross that line with spikes. Oh yeah, many of them relate to dogs, but if you know the meaning of “Bosko” as in Boskolives, you’ll get it.

Here’s a short list of some of my favorites, feel free to copy and paste (sounds a bit nicer than “Steal” ) them if they work for you.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, -go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
– Samuel Adams

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“Nothing happens in contradiction to nature,
only in contradiction to what we know of it.”
-X Files

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“You can’t steal home with your foot on third base.”

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“If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching television by candlelight.”
-George Gobel
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” An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.”
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“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
-Groucho Marx
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“Men go to a store to buy something,
women go to a store to shop.”
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Optimist: “Glass half-full”
Pessimist: “Glass half-empty”
Zen: “Glass full: half water, half air”
Me: “Glass twice as big as it needs to be”
*******************
“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.”
-Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
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“Lots of bad blogs are better than a beautiful obituary.”
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“Opportunity knocks but once, but Karma will hunt you down.”

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“More than at any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. ”

-Woody Allen

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“You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.”

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” There are three kinds of people — those who can count and those who can’t.”
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“Light travels much faster than sound.
This is why some people will appear
bright until you hear them speak.”

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“To his dog, every man is Napoleon;
hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
-Aldous Huxley
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“Follow those who seek the truth, but flee from those who find it.”
-Lessing

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“While a fool will learn nothing from a wise answer,
the wise man learns much from a foolish question.”
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“Absence vitalizes true emotions and diminishes the weak,
as a wind will breathe life into a fire and extinguish a flicker”

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I find television very educational.
Every time someone switches it on,
I go into another room and read a good book.
-Groucho Marx

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” I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs or insanity
for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me. ”
-Hunter S. Thompson
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“Really I think our visual system
is basically designed to detect
predators, food, and sex partners.
This explains Hollywood films…”
*******************

“The Six Phases of Film Production
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honors for the Non-Participants”

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“Your dog is your friend, your partner, your defender.
You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours,
faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart.
You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.”
*******************
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not
bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
-Mark Twain

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“When you come to the edge of all the light you have known
and are about to step out into darkness….
Faith is knowing one of two things will happen.
There will be something to stand on,
or you will be taught how to fly.”
*******************
“If your ex-wife and her lawyer were drowning,
and you had to choose, would you go to lunch,
or to a movie?”

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I’ve been wrestling with reality for 35 years
and I’m happy, doctor; I’ve finally won out over it.”
–(Jimmy Stewart – From the film “Harvey” ca 1950)
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“No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact
that all your knowledge is about the past, and all your
decisions are about the future.”
*******************
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”
*******************
“A mathematician is a person who says
that when 3 people are supposed to be
in a room, but 5 come out, 2 must go in
to return the room to an empty state.”

*******************

“When all you have is a hammer,
everything begins to look like a nail.”
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“No battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy”.
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A sad but true sports confession, with no steroids involved

It’s seldom that I know when the superbowl is going to take place, but this year I can just feel it in the air. And on signs almost everywhere. And on a ton of blurbs on tv and the radio.

I even know where it’s going to take place, but that’s due to catching a my return flight in Phoenix from a video shoot in Sedona, Arizona a few days ago.

I don’t know or care who’s playing, or at this late hour who won it if it’s over, but I’m sure some pinhead will corner me tomorrow asking if I won any money on the game.

So, here’s the fitting analogy of me and sports:

In more than a few old war movies about WWII there’s a scene where some GI’s are returning from a night mission and some sentry at their base will say “Halt, who goes there?”. The reply is usually something like “We’re Americans!”, and is met with the challenge “Well, if you’re Americans, who won the World Series in 1937?”.

O.K., if it had been me, I’d still be stuck out there in the jungle.

I can tell you most of the line up of the Detroit Tigers in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, but that’s about the time I fell (some might say I was pushed) off the sports wagon.

And I’m o.k. with that, but if it was a life or death question put to me to name any one player on any sports team right now, only blind luck in blurting out some name might save me.

I sorta remember Briggs Stadium a little, along with Rocky Colavito, Al Kaline, Harvey Kuen, Norm Cash and all the others that I would insult by trying and failing to spell their names correctly, but that’s it.

So it goes…….

More addictive than crack?

It seems that I’ve got a new monkey on my back, it’s called Google Image Labeler.  It’s proving to be more addictive than crack, and harder (so I hear) to walk away from.

You’ll find the link for it on the google image search page, and once you sign in and create a screen name for yourself (or use the generic “guest” if you so choose), you’re on the road to forgotten appointments, forgotten tv shows you planned to watch, forgotten dates with a loved one or spouse (maybe both if you’re a lucky one). My screen name is boskolives, should you happen to give this a try, just see if you can keep up.

The game, since you can call a long term battle for points a game, is played out as you’re assigned an unknown partner to team up with, and without seeing their guesses, try to match up a word choice with them for each of several photos you’re shown in a two minute game. There is with some of the photos a list of words on display for that photo that are off limits to use, labeled, believe it or not, “off limits”. I found this list to be helpful in an unexpected way, because of my slow as crap internet service provider. To avoid any possible legal considerations, I’ll just say the name of my provider is one  you can easily yodel and have it sound like the name of a chocolate drink. You’d sure have to  be some kind of yahoo to miss that clue.

Often, my partner will have two or three of their guesses up before I even get an image to look at, so by using the off limits list as a guide to what the photo might be, I speculate a bit. For example, if they flash up a photo of a ballerina and the clock starts running, even though I can’t see it yet, off limit words will give me a clue. The ballerina photo might have “dancer”, “tutu”, or “tiara” as off limits, so I’ll guess it has something to do with dance and I’ll put up some type of dance connected colors like white or black, or fabrics like silk or something that might be associated with ballet. Then when the photo finally shows up I’ll fire off as many words as I can that might be chosen by my partner, and when one of my guesses matches one of his or hers, we get points that show up for each of us on our running scores.

The down side to this is that I’ll start to play for a while when the 6 o’clock news comes on and just a few minutes later David Letterman is doing his top ten list. The up side is that I’ve become a much faster typist, overall that’s not a bad trade-off for my lost sleep and uh…. life.

You’ve been warned!