THE PERFECT BABY SITTER

Normal readers may look somewhat askance at my frequent mentions of pipe smoking and fine tobaccos. In fact, normal readers might even fear that I will lead their children and puppy dogs astray, and teach them all about my evil habits.

In truth, I would like nothing better.

Introduce me to them.


It is my fond hope that each new generation throw up a few pipe smokers, as otherwise there will be nobody to wheel me to the designated smoking spot when I am old and knackered.

I doubt that the nurses at the retirement home for disreputable geezers will, as there are probably rats in the overflowing dump five blocks away that will have been designated a municipal non-smoke-free zone.
Along with discarded needles and politicians.


There are, however, some things that I do not wish them to ever be familiar with, or know about, those darling kiddie-winkies and doggie-woggies.
Because I am civilized, and a considerate and humane person.
And there are heresies that even I won't touch.


CULT - BLOOD RED MOON

"This dark, decadent blend combines fire-cured Cavendish, bright Virginias and Burleys with the delicious aromas of natural Royal Ann cherry and dark chocolate. A bit sweet, extremely rich, and unquestionably smooth."
[See: Tobacco Reviews.]

The best that can be said about this product is that there isn't too much goo. Which is relative. If you are used to goo bubbling away at the bottom of your bowl, this isn't for you. But it does have a powerful cherry reek, with hints of chocolate, pepto, and vomit.

It will appeal ONLY to lovers of cherry tobacco.
Who are ALL frightful effing perverts.
Except Miss Walters.


I have never understood the popularity of cherry tobaccos, but suspect that these appeal to people with steampunk goth tendencies. Especially if they love creepy sh*t, which Miss Walters does.
She also likes Molto Dolce.

So far no one has had any luck persuading her to only smoke nice discreet stuff. She and her husband constantly dabble in tobaccos that taste like Halloween candy or overly fermented pumpkins. Probably a rebellious thing. Brash childhoods transformed into daring adulthood, pushing envelopes, and going where none have gone before.

I am jealous of their stamina; I couldn't hack it.

The chocolate is more prominent near the end.

Amazingly, there also seems to be vanilla in it.


What this means is that the new crop of pipe smokers must be caught while young, BEFORE they develop queer tastes. A regimen of Latakia blends and Perique mixtures is recommended, after accustoming them to pale blonde blander products to begin with. As their tastes develop, they will seek out Turkish leaves and matured flakes, possibly pairing them with straight coffee rather than the overly sweet frappuchony crap they usually drink, or mango passion fruit iced bubble tea.

Plus good literature; that's important!
Stretch their little minds.


Perhaps even at some time Lakeland Flake and Fanny Hill for laughs.
Or 'Life in a Girls' Reformatory', and Black Rope.
Anything but cherry.

TOBACCO INDEX


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

SOME PEOPLE'S SPIRIT ANIMAL IS THE HAGFISH

There's a video on Facebook of a strangely dressed woman making animal sounds while drumming. It is stated that she is interpreting for her spirit animals (plural), and that somehow this is all deeply meaningful, and if you don't have a spirit animal you are in likely all ways lacking, deficient, and altogether too bourgeois.

The only reason why people keep reposting it is because she is young, shapely, and blonde. And nearly naked. No, I shan't post that video here, because some things do NOT need to be shared. But I will observe that for someone who represents an entire menagerie of wild and possibly rabid animals, she is remarkably clean.
No beasts that roll around in mud.
Or play with their food.
After it's dead.


I'm not sure, but I assume that she is full of chakras, drinks only fair trade coffee and kombucha, recycles religiously, and will vote for Jill Stein.
It is very likely that she is either vegan or gluten-intolerant.


This is the height of the tourist season in San Francisco, and many of our visitors, if they have spirit animals at all, are guided by the mighty beached whale.

Proud, noble, immense, and slightly whiff.
Radiating their bloated goodness.
That, too, is meaningful.


THE WELL-COOKED SPIRIT ANIMAL

When faced with a choice of where to eat yesterday, I picked the place a block and a half way from "Tourist Mob Fustercludge Crossing" (Grant Avenue and Washington Street), and ended up enjoying the peace and quiet of a restaurant filled with Cantonese people. No offense to white people, of whom I am proudly one also, but Caucasians are often loud and unbearable in groups. Or weirdly obsessive, and possibly paranoid.
Some of them dress funny, smell bad, and eat too much.
Not so the local Cantonese folks.
They are refreshing.

Plus, being so white I glow in the dark, I can listen in on their conversations while looking totally oblivious, and none of them will know the difference.

[To clarify: Yes, I do speak Cantonese. Toishanwaa, not so much.]

Unlike me, Cantonese people seldom talk about white people.
Nor do they talk about mundane trivialities.
What they talk about is food.


I seriously doubt that Cantonese folks have spiritual animals. That, plus auras, karma, getting in touch with nature, shamanism, the Amazon rainforest, crystal-healing, special diets, juice-cleansing, and regular appointments for high-colonics, must be a total white person thing.

Bellyaching about white people also seems to be a white person thing.
Which probably means that I am perfect at being white.
I should concentrate on meaningfulness.
Or interpretive dance.



AFTERWORD

You don't get to choose your spirit animal. It chooses you. If you don't like the animal, you must cleanse yourself with an all-organic fruit juice cure, for several days, meditate, and do yoga. Eventually the hagfish will leave your body through the anus and you will become Vani Hari or Vandana Shiva.
Both of whom are spirit animals that only white people can have.

[There's also Deepak Chopra, who has: "epistemic humility, reverence for existence, (and) value(s) transcendence". No, no one knows what the bloody hoohers that means.]

Don't forget to tell everyone you know all about it.
Because spirituality is meaningful.
And, like, important.
Only yours.


My spirit animal eats bacon.



This blogpost was fuelled by strong coffee; I am totally jazzed right now.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

MOST FRIGHTENING ACCESSORY

What is totally totemic, and brings a smile to the haggard face of every cigar-smoking middle-aged dingus? What, in fact, tells them that all is well with the world, and even though their wife left them because they are dreary sexist spread-gut pigs with body odour and a lack of tact, they have made some good decisions in life?

If I had to hazard a guess, it would be seeing a dashing middle-aged pipe-smoker happily shouldering a lovely Hello Kitty backpack filled with pipes, tobacco, pipe cleaners, tampers, and wooden stick matches pilfered from a place where one may light up.

Plenty goodies!

To the best of my knowledge there is only one such person in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, which is where that scene may be most likely observed.

I like bringing joy to shrivelled little hearts.


A few years ago I purchased the accessory detailed above, because there is no reason why a backpack should not radiate hostility toward potential thieves at bus stops or in coffee shops. "Take me", it seems to say, "and you will be marked for life". Or at least for the next two or three hours, while the legitimate owner hunts you down and kills you.

It's very useful on working days.


PINK GOTH PSYCHO FURBALL TYKE

There is only ONE other person I have seen with the exact same backpack. She's about three feet tall at best, of Cantonese extraction, and wanders up Sacramento Street in Chinatown with her mommy and her little brother when school is out.

No, I'm never going to introduce myself, nor explain to her that my own backpack is exactly the same as hers. Primarily because little girls need to feel unique. It might inspire her to stupendous rage and ultra-violence if she found out that an adult owned a backpack featuring Hello Kitty.
And, precisely like hers, stylishly white, pink, and black.
Those colours speak of dark things, secret things.
Things a grown-up should not know.

Like half a dozen fine briar pipes, two or three fine tobacco choices, pipe cleaners, etcetera.

And probably too much social exposure to cigar smokers.

See description above.

I also own a soft leather pipe-carrying case with room for several items as well as a pouch, but I rarely, almost never, use it. Reason being that it seems too femmy, like a man-purse.

On days off, when I head into C'town for snackies and milk tea, there will be pipes along with tobacco in my coat, and a little tube containing fluffy cleaners and a tamper jutting out of the top right hand pocket.


I flatter myself by assuming that Hello Kitty would never associate with cigar smokers, but would share a fondness for snackies and milk tea.
Though probably not the same pipe tobacco.
Maybe something Latakia instead.
Possibly Bengal Slices.
Balkan funk.

TOBACCO INDEX


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

GREAT PROLETARIAN STRIDES

Apparently, Chinese consumers have been slow to accept at least one Western consumer product, despite its staggering popularity in Europe and the United States. Largely due to ignorance about it, its usefulness, and in fact how to use it or even why, the lowly tampon is so little appreciated that till now there has not been a locally manufactured brand.

Like you, I am surprised. I would have thought the Chinese would have actually invented it, like so many other things we take for granted. Here in the United States we're already experimenting with Marijuana tampons, about which I shall have little to say, but over in the mainland most women (and men, probably) are entirely unaware of the item itself.
There are a small number of aficionados in Guangdong (Canton), of course, where people are more aware of Western consumables, and probably heard about it from their Hong Kong relatives.


"...Puff House, a Guangdong-based online store that sells Tampax and Kotex brands from the United States ..... "


Puff house?!? Okay, I like that name. Puff House.

I cannot imagine the initial conversation in which a Hong Kong cousin explains the object to her Mainland cousins. It may have been fraught and staggering.

But the dialogue is moving to the next level.
This is detailed in USA Today: China launches tampon
All quotes here are from that article.

"Ye Deliang, 51, an electrical engineer from central Henan province, plans to launch Danbishuang tampons this month with a social media campaign that stresses their health benefits."

Ye Deliang is of course a man. Because only a male tech whiz is capable of sensibly discussing feminine hygiene.

"When Ye graduated from college in 1986, the government assigned him a job in a factory producing medical cotton supplies, like maternity pads and vaginal swabs. He was initially embarrassed about the gynecological nature of his work, but 30 years later, he is comfortable talking about tampons."

There is poetry in this field; the name of Mr. Ye's brand is beautiful.
Danbishuang (丹碧爽) suggests harmony and comfort, as well as something precious that could be gifted, possibly in a presentation container or a lovely handmade casket.


丹碧爽

Let us analyze: 丹 means cinnabar or vermilion, and is much used for pills and medical herb pellets, dating back to alchemists attempting to make the elixir of immortality; 碧 is a jade disc, blue or blueish green, sometimes a cloudy white, and one of the totemic items representing perfection and the female principle; 爽 means pleasurable, cool, refreshed, or invigorated, with connotations of straightforwardness, brightness, and crispness.

A tampon is described in Chinese as a yuechingmianshuan (月經棉栓), meaning a menstrual cotton peg, plug, rod, stick, or, in this case, contextually a cigarette or cigar shaped object made out of absorbent material.

It strikes me that while I have been quite aware of tampons for several years, I have never much discussed them, especially not with my female friends and acquaintances. Not that I would feel uncomfortable doing so, but the subject comes up so rarely that I doubt that that will change. This is the most I've considered it, its methods, materials, and even construction, in my entire life.


But the tampon is well worth thinking about.


---   ---   ---   ---   ---


Please note: the pronunciation of Chinese characters shown above is in Mandarin, instead of the Cantonese which I would normally use. That is because discussing such things is not something I shall engage upon with anyone locally.

I will not be surprised if male readers tuned out after the forty fourth word.

The word 'tampon' derives from Mediaeval French 'tampion' (tompion), which like many people I first encountered in a passage by Roald Dahl discussing hibernating bears.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

AN UNPLEASANT REEK OF RANCID VANILLIN

Badger puttered around with pipes and cigars today, much like he does three other days of the week while at work. And got zipped to the eyebrows on Pu-Erh tea. Which is also a regular occurrence.
Work involves fine cheroots, pipe restoration, and a selection of choice smokeables. There were no degenerate Habsburgs in the vicinity, and the man with an imaginary wife and fifteen year old daughter was also absent.
I suspect that he will be avoiding us rather much for a while.
Someone asked him questions about his "family".
A person who has known him for years.
And never knew of those two.
This upset him.

Consequently, he's off his game.


THE PHANTASMATIST

He's harmless, but a bit of a burden. In his slightly over forty years on this planet he's been a marine, a jet fighter pilot, a green beret, a doctor of comparative religion, a podiatrist, a brain surgeon, a nuclear physicist, a research chemist, a computer engineer, a martial artist, a neurologist, a prize winning photographer, and several other highly impressive things.
It is only in the last half year that he has started mentioning his darling wife and teenage daughter.

The sad thing is that those two entirely imaginary people obviously love him very much.

There are times when I envy him his rich inner life.


TEA, BLONDE LEAF, AND CHEAP CANDY

Badger had several cups of tea throughout the day, and also discovered the bowl of cheap chocolates. Selectively raiding said bowl provided a nice boost of sugar and theobromine. Plus, one might argue, valuable anti-oxidants. So it was a healthy time, despite the nicotine and caffeine coursing through the system.
Badger only smoked three pipes, however, rather than the four he had planned.

Badger considers that he might wander around Nob Hill after dinner enjoying the fog which rolled in, while having a final bowl.
Perhaps there will be raccoons.


The Badger enjoys clean tobacco, not the horrid stuff popularly known as Hobbit Weed, which consists of two parts BCA, one part Lane's Very Cherry, and one part Sutliff 1M. Both the first and the last of those components are Vanilla concoctions, so you can imagine how it smells, and also what Mr. Badger thinks of such an abysmal cocktail.

Sutliff's 1M is made from Virginia, Burley, and Green River Black Cavendish (which is a cooked Burley tobacco), with the addition of what is unbelievably described as a "subtle hint" of Vanilla.

There's nothing subtle about it.


Mr. Badger's present favourite blend consists of Virginias and a little air-cured leaf etcetera, discretely jazzed up with a dose of Perique, quite unsuitable for Hobbits; it lacks 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde.

An old-fashioned blend, no added goop.
With a natural room note.
And good taste.


Tolkien, in case you were wondering, smoked mostly Capstan Medium Navy Cut (a flake, now made by MacBaren's, and though no longer the same, it is an altogether respectable product), sometimes Ogden's Gold Block (Virginia with a minor amount of Burley, and a mildly perfumy top-dressing, pressed together), possibly Dutch-style Burley broken flakes, possibly Three Nuns (spun-cut mostly Virginia discs with a little Perique, now also made by MacBaren's, but without any Perique as far as I can tell), and probably quite a few other things as the mood struck. Almost any decent medium flake would have been plenty Tolkienesque. What he did NOT smoke was Black Cavendish Aromatic, or any of the tooty frooty spagnum that appeals to Hobbit and Gandalf wannabees.

Why DO so many people smoke ghastly perfumed dreck?
Is it just stupidity and bad taste?
Or perversion?

TOBACCO INDEX


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

ASTOUNDING APPETITES

Yesterday was hectic. Today should be somewhat calmer by half. And tomorrow is a day of rest. Unfortunately, rest means getting up relatively early to do laundry, so that one may mingle among the civilized people.

Sometimes on does not wish to mingle. And civilized is purely a matter of definition.

In some regards I am still the rebellious teenager I was when younger.

I owe it all to caffeine.


The day always starts with two cups of coffee in lieu of an actual breakfast, followed by a calm smoke. Unlike what women do, this is followed by a shave and a shower.

My apartment mate does none of that. Cantonese American women are sometimes very strange. She is presently eating ice cream and watching trash teevee. Her comfort zone includes televised white people acting tacky and loud, the entitled brutes.

I find it far too early for badly behaved Wasps.

Given my work, I see enough of that already.

And I actually find it a dreary spectacle.


Many Cantonese people find whitey fascinating, in a clinical sort of way. We act with such abandon that they cannot help goggle-eyeing at our antics.

It is too early in the day for me to antic. But canned white people on cable are twenty four seven.

Ice cream, chocolate chip, good lord.

Not lactose intolerant, that one.

How can she be so awake?


Dawn in SF is cold and grim.
Normally people notice that.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

BURKINI BAN NOT A GOOD IDEA!

Various French communes are considering Burkini bans. But have they actually thought it out? The reason I ask is because the Burkini seems like a very good thing to me. Many women need to consider wearing a Burkini.
It is the polite thing to do.

All men beyond a certain age should wear one too.

I will ask just ONE question to prove my point.


Would you rather see Trump in a Burkini, OR a Speedo?


See? If your eyes just crawled, you proved my point. Burkinis should be mandatory for certain people in public.

I have often been irritated by bicyclists pedalling past wearing tight form-fitting wattle-separating shiny spandex costumes while walking from the bus stop in Marin. Good lord, that is not what I want to see! And none of you lot are fast enough that aerodynamics and possible wind-resistance enter into it, so why ARE you showing off all of your wattle-flobbly goodness?
Sheer exhibitionistic joy? Entitlement and self-expression?
Because you are all unique individuals?
Good grief.

Now I need more caffeine, and a drink, just to get over the trauma. You don't see ME wandering around in that embarassing get-up, do you?
For modesty's sake, wear a Burkini!

It's civilized.




This post brought to you by a food-sensitivity moment.

I woke up with an uncomfortable physical reaction I usually associate with shellfish a little past its prime. Which is why I do not eat shellfish a little past its prime just before going to bed anymore.
I should still be sleeping right now.
But I'm thinking of Burkinis.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

WHEN BREAKFAST AND LUNCH ARE ACTUALLY DINNER

Two drumsticks, toasted peasant bread, peanut sauce, and chili sauce. Plus strong coffee. Yes, this grumpy old cooz is feeling a lot better. Didn't have lunch today because the only time it was possible was way too early. Early lunches make the rest of the day drag on impossibly long.
Especially when one isn't hungry at the time.
Oh, and I was enjoying a pipe.
Too good to put down.

I suppose I should've cooked some vegetables to accompany my meal. But peanut sauce is a vegetable, right? And chili-paste is just loaded with fibre and vitamin C, so it's practically the holy mother of Jayzus among the vegetable host.

The English went all the way to Canton for rhubarb, because it makes one regular and alleviates blockage. They also ended up addicted to strong tea and marmalades due to much similar effect. Americans have an entire aisle of pink liquids, purple pills, metamucil, and various other nostrums, for the same reason. Plus prunes, for crap's sake!

It's because of their horrible eating habits.

Fried stuff, starch, and grease.


Being the severe puritan that I am, I maintain that what the poor plugged bastards really need is chili peppers and ginger.
Lots of chili peppers and ginger.

It's good for you.

Regularly.


Some of you people also need cold showers, but that's because of your frighteningly unclean minds.


I am a pipesmoker of upstanding habits, and also substantially Dutch.
So I am not afflicted like Englishmen and many Americans.
And I am very clean-minded, too.



Hmmm, there's still some bacon in the refrigerator.
Bacon dipped in Sriracha is stupendous.
I'm going back to the kitchen.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

WOOF, ALL OF YOU, WOOF!

Mark Twain once said "The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog". An admirable and wise man, Twain. The problem is that irrespective of effort you cannot get much conversation out of a dog. Indeed, canines are quite affectionate -- insensibly so -- and usually very accepting -- except for the paranoid little dachshund I see occasionally at work -- but they don't seem to have much to say.
And their input is often either apathetic acceptance of head-rubbies, OR slobbering and jumping. Or, like Pino (the aforementioned paranoid little dachshund), a retreat to a safe zone underneath furniture, from where he can observe and make subdued growling sounds.

Nowadays I often avoid social environments, preferring instead to lurk beyond the periphery merely observing, or at best listening in. Not, you understand, that I am content to let everybody else make every single thing all about them, but being a bit Aspergerish, I often feel that I fail to adequately communicate, and I no longer have overmuch enthusiasm for striving to do so.

I think I've reached a point where I am much less patient, though far more tolerant of other people, than before.


Sometimes, when you realize that you aren't getting the approval of your peers, it is best that you understand that maybe they are far less your peers than they seemed to be.


At times they're actually more like the Borg.


I seriously admire that paranoid little dachshund. He has looked at the creatures nearby, and decided that on the whole trying to interact with them may not sufficiently reward the effort.
This shows strength of mind.
And great clarity.



Woof.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

KINDLY STOP POUTING

This blogger admits to being a stubborn old fart, and is fine, just fine, with the fact that he is not really a lovable sort. Just fine!
It's okay. I like being what I am.

The other day someone asked me why, in the years since the relationship with Savage Kitten and myself ended, I had not dated anyone. Was I, he guessed, afraid of rejection? Or was it because of some unmentionably queer fetish about which he could only speculate?

Whips, chains, and leather?


"I'm looking for someone with two belly buttons!"


That was not the response he was hoping for. Especially after I followed that by questioning him regarding his obsession with big butchazoid black men.
Which, I remarked, seemed a very southern thing to me, either Texan or Mississippian. Texans often have the same thing for Latinos.

All of which is mighty queer indeed.

Whereas I am absolutely normal.

Just extremely closed minded.


Women I will not date:

Non-readers.
Weepy types.
Women with tattoos.
Women who always wear nail-polish and eye-shadow.
Women who claim to be very spiritual beings.
Overly emotional cuteness queens.
Mentally unstable women.
Controlling women.
Artistic types.
Clingy people.
Women who lack skepticism entirely.
Women who lack a sense of irony.
Women who can't 'sarcasm'.
Women who can't spell.
Women who disrespect pipes, milk-tea, dead authors, cats, ethnicities, foreign languages, history, hot sauce, porcelain, other people's property, small children, waitstaff in restaurants, mailmen, streetcleaners, the poor, fine food, noodle soup, or condiments; I can't stand people like that!
Women with handbag and shoe fetishes.
Women who worship "culture".
Conspiracy theorists.
Heavy drinkers.
Exhibitionists.
Drug addicts.
Old souls.
Hysterics.
Wiccans.
Tobacco haters.
Reincarnated Mayan princesses.
The faithful, and true believers (of any creed).
Dietarily self-limited specimens (including but not limited to: vegetarians, vegans, psychosomatically allergic types, special diet claimants, gluten-phobes, and health-food berserkers).
Anti-vaxers.
Crazy women who forward inspirational crap, stuff about angels, sappy verses about babies and butterflies and kittens, snurfle about love and beauty and kindness and Jezus and sh*t.
Women who are stubborn but far too often wrong.
Women that aren't sufficiently stubborn.
Petulant or spoiled types.
Status queens.
Harpies.

Gigglers, screamers, and anyone who constantly says "OMG".


Furthermore, anyone who is too feminine ("femmy-wemmy"), or cannot comprehend science in the slightest, is also right out.
For every Barbie there is a Ken.
I am not Ken.


Neurotic and anti-social is okay.
Sarcastic bitches are fine.
So are nerds.


I'm afraid that if I had explained all that to him, his beady little eyes would have glazed over. And anyway, I see no reason to go into details, as the list is self-explanatory.

Unfortunately this list also eliminates almost all women.

Some of my best friends are cats and dogs.

I like giving head scritchies.


The answer that he was probably expecting would've been an admission of homosexual tendencies -- he has hinted as much in the past, and holds the belief that all men are somewhere on the gay spectrum, often further than they are ever willing to concede -- but that ain't gonna happen.
This blogger actually likes women, oh my heavens yes.
Despite that long but incomplete list.
Women can be special.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

YOU SHOULD COME OVER, TONIGHT'S PIPE NIGHT!

In one episode of Seinfeld, his neighbor (Cosmo Kramer) hospitably opens his apartment as a sanctuary for all the cast-out smokers, turning it into a cigar lounge of sorts.
This proves popular, as you would expect, and the overflow fills the hallway. Kramer is an engaging fellow, and smokers of all ages like him.

Actually, smokers easily appreciate anyone who not only tolerates them but warmly invites them in. We're tired of being shoved out into the cold at the curb near the garbage.

Yes, we understand that most people who will do that are businessmen who don't really love us, but are keen to steal our kidneys once we lower our shields and gaze distractedly elsewhere.

But often we're lonesome; we'll tolerate the sharks because.


Kramer represents the milk of human kindness.


LOOK AWAY, I'M ..., I'M HIDEOUS!


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofsljUAUdlc.]


If you live in California, you have started hearing about Proposition 56, which is yet another manifestation by obsessed puritans, much like so many other hateful propositions on past ballots. By raising the tax on tobacco products it intends to unfairly impose an additional financial burden on the poorest segments of the population, who can least afford to support the sneering sense of "we know better than you" by bourgeois do-gooders and busybodies, and it will lead to an increase in e-commerce and crime, with a concomitant loss of local jobs and revenue.

Personally, I begrudge local, state, and federal government every penny that their tax-burdening of tobacco sucks out of us, and cannot conceive of a single moral objection to smuggling, law breaking, and the black market.

[Why should smokers respect the law when the law does not respect them? The well-functioning of society is better served by reasonable compromise than by rigid enforcement of one single interpretation of orthodoxy.]


Please note that several lower tobacco tax states may see an economic improvement; Missouri, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, et autres.
That's money which will NOT be recirculated in California.
Don't spend where it isn't appreciated.


On a very closely related matter, I shall vote against legalizing marijuana (prop. 64), and wish to assert that even its alleged "therapeutic" use is little more than self-serving horse pucky by a bunch of smarmy pot heads.
If anyone huffs weed around others, they should be dissuaded.
With a baseball bat.



It is far better that your children be exposed to tobacco than that they ever have a joint.

TOBACCO INDEX


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

EVERYTHING SOUTH OF TEXAS

Looking at my blogstats what stands out is that most of my readers can be presumed to speak English. Specifically, non-Desi English. The two second largest groups communicate in Russian computer code, and Mandarin Chinese. There are virtually no readers in India, Africa, South America, and Oceania. And absolutely zilch in Antartica; no penguins either.
South of the Texas-Mexico border, it's all white.
Probably south of Oklahoma too.
Texans don't read.

Why is that?

Actually, it closely matches my own reading preferences. Rather than looking up data or news on the Ashante or the Yanomami, I tend to search for articles about Zhou Dynasty bronzes, Hong Kong Milk Tea, Steamed Pork Hash, and streetnames in Hong Kong. In addition to fascinating stuff about Dutch sailing vessels, matters Judeo-linguistic or Sino-linguistic, and differing underwear styles throughout the ages.

I do have minor interest in The Golden Stool, Thai Kingdoms, and Tamilakam, but mostly my interests are in the Northern Hemisphere, temperate zone, with some sparkling in the former Dutch colonial realms, especially Insulinde and Surinam.


Africa is a dark continent where people speak Akan, Amharic, Arabic, Berber, Chewa, Fulani, Gikuyu, Hausa, Igbo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Lingala, Malagasy, Mõõré, Oromo, Sesotho, Shilha, Shona, Somali, Swahili, Tigrinya, Tshiluba, Umbundu, Yoruba, Xhosa, Zulu, and several hundred other tongues. About which I know nothing.

There is some wonderful food there.
I really should investigate.

It is unlike Texas.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

THE EPITOME OF INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY AND HONESTY

An old joke has an educated fellow and a common person arguing about the benefits of schooling, especially when it comes to expressing oneself and coming off as having class. To demonstrate, the educated fellow asks his comrade "here come two bow-legged men; now how would you comment?"

The near-illiterate says "here's dese two bow-legged men".

"That has no eloquence; it's not Shakespeare worthy."

"So? How would you say it?"


"What ho what manner of men are these, that wear their balls in parentheses!?!"


And, with that in mind, let me bring you a song:

IT IS PLANGENT, AND PIQUANT!

'I want a bowlegged woman', by Bull Moose Jackson and his Buffalo Bearcats, 1947.

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JOgtGxJSMM.]

A pipe-smoking friend on Facebook alerted me to this tune. And it speaks to me. As an intellectual concept, it has a certain charm.
And the music is all right too.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

UNSTABLE MEGALOMANIAC FOR PRESIDENT

The other day a friend asked how the heck we had gotten to this stage. What he meant was the Trump candidacy. How did a gibbering toupeed psychopath become the candidate of the Republican Party?
What on earth were the war-profiteers thinking?

Given the comparatively large number of irrational people on the right, to me it seemed merely a natural development. Much like syphilis left untreated.


Today in Florida Trump made his most absurd assertion yet.


"In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama. He’s the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder. He founded ISIS. I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton."


According to Wikipedia:
"The group has had various names since it was founded in 1999 by Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād (lit. "The Organisation of Monotheism and Jihad"). When in October 2004 al-Zarqawi swore loyalty to Osama bin Laden, he renamed the group Tanẓīm Qāʻidat al-Jihād fī Bilād al-Rāfidayn (lit. "The Organisation of Jihad's Base in Mesopotamia"), commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI. Although the group never called itself al-Qaeda in Iraq, this remained its informal name for many years.

In January 2006, AQI merged with several other Sunni insurgent groups to form the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC). After al-Zarqawi was killed in June 2006, the MSC merged in October 2006 with several more insurgent factions to form a new group, ad-Dawlah al-ʻIraq al-Islāmiyah, which translates as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The ISI was led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who were killed in a US–Iraqi operation in April 2010, after which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the group's new leader."
End cite.


The dates alone mentioned above should serve to deflate Trump's berserk theory, but we know that Teaparty boobies are not constrained by any shade of reality. Nor, seemingly, ever even influenced by it.

Trump and his supporters are not sane.

They are utterly delusional.

And dangerous.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

RACING THE SKOOCHIES

In fabulous sporting news, today is the first day of competition in the Lemmer Bay. Fourteen of these magnificent creatures compete.
It promises to be an immensely exciting event.

To quote from the Telegraaf:

"Sneek staat nog steeds bovenaan in het klassement, al vormt Earnewâld meer en meer een groot gevaar. Maandag nog won dat skûtsje met overmacht en werd Sneek derde.
Gisteren hadden de skûtsjes een rustdag."


To translate that passage:

"Sneek is still at the top of the class, although Earnewâld forms an ever greater threat. Monday that skûtsje triumphed, and Sneek was third.
Yesterday the skûtsjes rested."

[SOURCE: First race in Lemster, De Telegraaf, August 10, 2016.]

By any standard, this is far more thrilling than ninety nine percent of the Olympics. Other than Yuri van Gelder being a drunken beast and getting banned, there just isn't much there.

The skoochie, skoocher, or skoochah, is an elegant sailing vessel used on the coastal waters and lakes of Friesland province for generations. Racing the skoocher is a manifestation of traditional skillsets and local pride.
No performance enhancing drugs are involved.


Length: 12 - 20 metres. Beam: 3 - 4 metres.
Draught: 1¼ metres.

Per Wikipedy: "Skûtsjes binne boud fan de 18e iuw ôf oant likernôch 1930. De lingte bedroech 12 oan 20 m. De breedte hie ferbân mei de ôfmjittings fan brêgen en slûzen yn it fargebiet en wie trochstrings 3.5 m, maksimaal in meter as fjouwer. De boaten wienen boud om te silen en hienen oarspronklik gjin motor."

And: "Ofhinklik fan it seizoen waard meastal dong, terpierde, ierdappels en oar bulkguod laden."

Because of bridges and locks in the region where they were used, their dimensions were necesarily limited.


Essentially, a skûtsje is a type of tsjalk. Other variants of this boat are: Beurttsjalk, Boltsjalk, Dektsjalk, Fryske tsjalk, Grinslanner, Hektsjalk, Hollânske tjalk, Iseltsjalk, Koftjalk, Paviljoentjalk, Skûte ("scootie").
And the a-typical Súd-Hollânske tsjalk.

Nowadays ('tsjintwurdich') such vessels are no longer the workhorses of commerce and long distance hauling. But they are fondly remembered.



By the way: Spellcheck did NOT like this post.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

THE MOST EDUCATIONAL VIDEO ON THE INTERNET

Courtesy of a bunch of British Johnnies, this blogger wishes to present an informative film for the benefit of Creationists, Duck Dynasty Fans, and Michele Bachman.

It may change their rancid little minds.
Stranger things have happened.
To mushy pea brains.

Speaking of which, I have never understood the appeal of Duck Dynasty. Other than perhaps the thrill of sitting back and being aghast at the antics of an entire clan of inbred Jed living in a swamp, who cannot see any other purpose in life than stalking the wily aquatic bird and wooing it with sex calls. Perhaps that attracts some people in America's urban zones, where residents yearn for a simpler life when all there was consisted of hunting, shooting, dysentery, and calling upon your big imaginary sky-friend to smite people of other religions and dermatic pigmentations, much like many creationists and Michele Bachman still do today, but surely they could've simply watched the Assault Weapons Channel or Fox News instead?

I can grasp why yokels like it, though.
Cavepaintings come to life.
Interliptual!


THE FRIGHTENING TRUTH!


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InPHe6xJ8EY.]


Just sit back with a big bowl of fried chicken and RandyMan Beef Jerkey (™), and feast your eyes on an entertaining and educational overview of the Triassic. Which happened aeons before the imaginary sky-friend even existed.

Yes, you may thank me. Profusely is fine. I am always keen to provide mind-expanding educamatainerments.


"global warming -- It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum ... "

------An utter moron [MPR, Capitol View, 2008.]


Michele Bachman, good lord. I am sure that most of the great state of Minnesota is still bewailing the brick-fer-brains voters in the Sixth District who sent that dingo to congress.

Dinosaurs, tell you what.

Ya sure.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

RAIDING THE GEEK KIBBLE FOR BREAKFAST

My apartment mate is a geek. That is the only possible conclusion. Whereas I am perfectly normal. This is what I deduce after looking at the space in between our two computers on the table in the teevee room.


Here is what I found:

One bag of cookies (geek kibble, hers).
Half a bag of bbq chips closed with a binder clip (ours).
One box of chocolate covered marshmallows (geek kibble, hers).
Two small Japanese saucers; antique (mine).
A pottery item with a wrinkle-skin glaze (mine).
A pottery item with a pale blue powder glaze (mine).
A pottery item with a subtly spotty iron oxide glaze (mine).
A pottery item with a glaze showing fascinating variances (mine).
A translucent rubber egg-ball with a "yolk" inside (mine).
And a can of 'Man-Power' anti-bacterial deodorant, by Old Spice, that dates to the late sixties, which she came upon when cleaning out her mom's apartment a few years ago and promptly decided had either curiosity value or a practical application (hers).

[The deodorant was not the only thing she found, because old-country Cantonese women hold on to stuff way past any rational use-by date, and never throw anything away.
My apartment mate decided the selection of noodles and the five gallon can of soy sauce (cheaper that way!) were past their prime, and threw those out. But the medicated liniment with the smiling dark person on the label, the herbal digestive pills from a company in Foochow, and the Man-Power, among one or two other things, came home with her.]

Actually, almost everything in the teevee toom is mine. Books, ceramics, antiquities, and a large amount of pipe tobacco. But for a middle-aged white dude, that is almost certainly normal. Within the realm of normality.
Part of a broad and flexible definition of normalcy.
The quintessence of normalitude.

Middle-aged white dudes read, collect things, and smoke pipes.

There's a lacquered cock for pinang on a bookshelf, and a bird-shaped copper box for betel requisites on top of the television set, towering over a wooden sado-nurse xmas tree-ball we've never actually hung. That may not be quite normal. Betel is a habit that has fallen substantially by the wayside in the modern world. Once universally used as part of the South East Asian social setting, shared among princes and commoners, and even permitted to the clergy, the betel chewing habit is now seldom found in an urban environment except among one's very old female relatives from the hinterland.
Who expectorate crimson into handheld spittoons.
And smile with pitch black teeth.


I haven't a clue what normal women in their forties -- my apartment mate is of that age -- might stuff into a teevee room or collect. Many of them don't smoke pipes, I realize, nor have wayang puppets in the corner. Or go for pottery with interesting glazes. Many, probably most of them, no longer read much, unlike my apartment mate.
When I come home from Marin she's often in her room with a book.
Surrounded by stuffed animals with quirky personalities.
Reading - that's what geek females do.
It's kind of charming.



I am living with an eccentric.



PS: Marshmallows are nasty. Even with chocolate.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

A WORLD UNTO THEMSELVES

Over the past week, well over six dozen people read one post on this blog, and then read further in the hopes of discovering more details.
A key part of the search criteria that drew them here in the first place was the word "cut". As in 'French cut', or 'high cut'.
Indeed, there is a post about the difference between French cut and High cut. It was written during a brief phase when I coddled the sartorially-minded.

I suspect that if I were to describe 'boxers' (loose male underwear that resembles soccer shorts) versus 'tidy whities' (a masculine constrictive garment that cuts off circulation to a part of the anatomy), far fewer people would come here on such a search.


One has to wonder at people who don't use youtube or google image search. Heck, even Wikipedia provides volumes of useful information about nether garments.

[By the way: I just learned that using image search for 'longjohns' is not safe for work. Better go to Wikipedia for an informative and neutral overview of that garment. But an image search for 'French cut' will automatically show you Salman Khan.
Who is totally safe for work.]


People who roam the internet looking for texts about underwear are special.

They are probably fascinating conversationalists.
You should invite them to your next party.
To flabberghast your relatives.


You probably already do precisely that, don't you?


I really must wonder why you want to invite them to your parties.
I never get invited to parties, and there are several folks who have had birthdays or marital engagements in the past few months. What are you thinking? And why should I even encourage you to do so?

There is no reason underwear freaks should have all the fun.

I'm guessing it's because I am not special. Pipe-smoking opinionated middle-aged Dutchmen are probably a dime a dozen, and totally unremarkable. You probably know several.

Weirdoes.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================