October 2004 - Same Church Different Pew
 RayzRealm (c) October, 2004

[Oct 02][Oct 11][Oct 17][Oct 22]
[Oct 31]

Saturday October 2

"Bigboote's Area51 is now RayzRealm
Same church, different pew.

After 9 years online as Bigboote's Area51, I decided to change the name when I got my broadband account set up. Hopefully now I'll stop being associated with porn sites during Google searches, "Trailer trash women with big booties, only $4.95 a month for unlimited access."

Actually the entire theme "John Bigboote's Area51" was getting to sound lame to me, so it was time to give my site a kinder, gentler name, and after running a number of names by a handful of web heads, they all agreed that RayzRealm had a nice sound to it. For now it's the same church, but a different pew with a new name. Even though a lot of the style elements on my site are controlled by style sheets, there is a lot of nickel and dime work to be done until I'm ready to have RCN pull the plug on my bigbooty dialup account.

Here's the short list for this week

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Monday October 11

The preliminary full image of RayzRealm has had some major changes made and is now online. The few people I sent notification to who have sent feedback say they like this design over all the previous ones. Now that I've been on broadband for a couple of weeks, I don't know how I got along for so many years in dialup "yes doctor I feel much better now, blood pressure's dropped and I'm not gritting my teeth as often since I turned the TV off." The TV has only been turned on once or twice since getting the "big pipe", I'm spending most of my time online and (mea culpa) and spending too much time on the IM service I signed up for. I have to admit, it's a piss poor way to meet people ( have not met any yet) and it's hard to tell the difference between real people and psycho-weenies without a decoder ring.

Saturday I spent the day in Boston as it was a beautiful day, wandering through the South End and Back bay, stopping at the Center for lunch. I picked up "Fahrenheit 911" on DVD at Newbury comics, and although I've seen it twice on the big screen, wanted a copy for my library.

You know the drill! Here's this week's harvest of mind food Ibookmarked during daily news searches, with mo mass media additives added.

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Sunday October 17

Either I'm getting lazy or efficient. I consolidated the Christian/Spirituality and 12 Step Recover pages into one page and also did the same with the Medical and Fitness pages, since the subjects fall under the same general categories. I also added some quick jump links to the top of each page to sections with that page.

I've come to the conclusion (actually did long ago) that meeting people online is a poor substitute for random meetings in public. From the observations of a relative "newbee" on the particular IM forum I joined, a lot of people in there are about 5 cans short of a six pack, either that, or they are in disparate need of getting laid, since there always seem to be sexual overtones. What would you expect from a forum who's name alludes to hunting (time to get dressed in jungle combat gear, and grab my elephant gun).

It can be interesting, lurking around in there, just reading through a lot of the personal profiles is more entertaining than watching TV, and some of the pictures? Well they're much too graphic to describe in a G rated family oriented site such as mine.

One of the major reasons I'm in there is that my friend Warrren and a pen pal are members, so it saves on phone bills just IM'ing back and forth. I did accept an offer to have dinner last night with a local who I've been chatting with online. We went out for Thai food at a popular Thai restaurant in the center of town. Ahh yes, eating at a popular Thai restaurant on a Saturday night in a mostly yuppie town. The place was filled with cell phone toting yuppies, noisy, but the food was good. After dinner we had coffee at the Starbucks across the street. As much as I don't like Starbucks and what it stands for, it was the only coffee shop open in town, also packed with cell phone zombies.

After we had coffee, my dinner companion said the food didn't agree with him, that he was not feeling well and opted to go back home after coffee. I usually take this as a polite way of someone saying "geeze, this guy is an ass hole. I have to get out of here before I puke."

Speaking of Thai, my Chicago comrade and pen pal, Doug moved back to Thailand. I got an email from him last night saying he arrived safely. Doug just didn't want to be here when the shit really hits the fan during Bush's second term.

Nothing else has been happening aside from spending way too much time lurking around on the internet since I got broadband. The TV hasn't been turned on at all except for watching a couple of videos. My blood pressure has been running 115/70 (perfect) since i turned off the TV.

I always get the flu shot every year and my employer offers a free flu clinic. After the news hit about the flu vaccine shortage, there was a notice posted that the flu clinic was cancelled. I called my doctor's office to make sure I could get one there, but the nurse told me they were only rationed 100 doses which were all gone, but gave me a hot line to call for information. Why do I have this feeling that this will be the year of the "big one" a repeat of the 1918 epidemic. With Bush most likely getting re selected next month, the tribulation will probably begin; plagues, volcanic eruptions, swarms of republican yuppie locusts devouring everything, perpetual war, famine, asteroid strikes and acts of random mayhem. Hmmm, does a planned flue vaccine shortage fit into the picture? Stay tuned.

I may have to travel to Vancouver BC for a couple of weeks in the near future for some work related training. Twenty years ago I would have been excited at the prospect, but I'm not psyched at all about having to go. It's not so much worrying about sitting next to some guy on the plane named Abdul who's wearing exploding sneakers and trimming his nails with a box cutter as it is just the general pain of traveling, filling out trip reports, etc. The last time I traveled outside the confines of New England was back in 1985. I've become somewhat of a home body in my old age

A short list of articles for the week...

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Friday October 22

Swords into ploughshares

I was talking with another born on the leading cusp Baby Boomer about growing up after the close of WWII. Of course after the Second World War was over we dove right into the Cold War and Korea, a fighting nation is a happy nation. But during the post war years and up through the early 60's any American could own a small piece of the action; war surplus stores and bargains were everywhere. You could buy anything from tins of C rations, walkie talkies, ash trays made from bomb casings, tank radios, uniforms, combat boots, neutered Army rifles, fake hand grenades, hand cranked flashlights, field radios and generators, bits and pieces of cannibalized electro-mechanical doohickies of every sort, field packs, duffle bags, snake bite and first aid kits and all sorts of really neat stuff, left over from America's last "justifiable?" war.

You could purchase "as good as new" military motorcycles, and jeeps, all crated up and packed in cosmolene jelly for a song. Of course America had pumped up America's (at the time) enormous manufacturing machine (everybody got to work for the war effort) to keep the troops supplied and the war alive during the big one, so there was a lot of excess stuff left over after we dropped the big one.

The natives in some of the places we fought in scavenged up left over equipment that we left behind. When I was on my Naval Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club cruise, we stopped in the Philipines to replenish supplies and for some R&R in fabulous, Olongopo City. Everywhere you went "jeepney's" (taxi's) were for hire, left over jeeps that were customized and painted in every day glow color under the sun. Now there's recycling at it's most imaginative.

This set me thinking, that when (or if) Bush's never ending war on terror is over, there should be lots of interesting stuff that Americans should be able to buy, like left over MRE's, computer parts, uniforms, bomb casings, body armor, night vision scopes, oil drums, and used Hummers, plus tons of whatever else was left over and had not been blown up by the local resistance.

Just think! why shell out close to 100 grand for a sissified make believe Hummer H1, when you can have the real thing, a battle seasoned, genuine, military issue Hummer, for probably pennies on the dollar. So what if they have a few bullet holes and parts blown off,a little epoxy body filler, duct tape and paint will make them look almost like new. Somewhere out there are probably one of more greed heads contemplating this very idea, profiting from the spoils of war.

Baseball prophecy.

A couple of years ago I made a prediction in the old Area51 Flight Recorder that year the Red Socks win the World Series will usher in the end of the world as we know it, some obscure Nostradamus quatrain referring to the Sox winning the series and the world ending on the following day.

I've never been a sports fan. Ever since I was a wee lad I could never see the fascination over watching grown men chasing a ball of some form or other around a playing field, while drunken fans in the stands go ape shit. Today sports has lost whatever meaning it had, it's all about money today, but what isn't. Needless to say I have never mixed in at all with the water cooler banter at work that is usually the major topic of conversation of the day following a big game.

Thursday morning I was making the usual daily web news rounds, dropping by the Boston Globe site. Needless to say Boston fans went wild after the Sox sent the NY Yankees packing and will move on to the World Series. After the game jubilant young crowds milled about in the Fenway neighborhood flipping over cars and setting fires in Kenmore Square. If this is how they react when they're overjoyed, I'd hate to see what they do when they're angry and pissed off. When you take a bunch of college age kids, mix in some testosterone and booze, then shake vigorously, that's what you usually get.

Although I have no use for big time organized sports, I DO hope the Red Socks win the series, finally breaking the Banbino's Curse. I will plan to be as far away as possible from downtown Boston if and when this occurs. So here's a tip'o the Realm ball cap, "GO SOX!" I hope this is the only October surprise we hear about before November 2. The only other good news I hope to hear in the near future will be on November 3, when Kerry is elected and the Bush Cabal get their eviction notice. The more I think about it, the Sox have a better chance of winning the Series than John Kerry has of unseating evil King George, but I can dream anyway.&

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

This week seemed as if it would never end. Of course the weekends always fly by like Superman running to make last call at the Smallville Bar and Grille. As I mentioned, since being on broadband the TV has been sitting in silent obedience in the corner of my living room. This reality TV stuff is getting way out of hand. I stumbled on a couple of new shows while channel surfing, one where a bunch of obese people are living together in some sort of Big Brother house, battling to see who's team can lost the most weight each week, while being tempted with sumptuous fatty spreads of stomach candy. The other was some reality show where smokers all battle to quit smoking, being taken to lung cancer words, etc. And the FCC and broadcast cartel expects all patriotic Americans to upgrade to digital HDTV by the end of 2006 or be doomed to an empty desolate life without the glass teat to suckle from. I'm not about to shell out all kinds of money just to see a bunch of lost generation pretty people, cat scratching and fucking their way to the jackpot at the end of the show, or chowing down on bull testicles and poodle poo. So much for TV.

I finally decided to call RCN and ask them to take my 10 year old bigbooty dialup account off life support. In a way, it's sort of sad, like a comfortable, well worn pair of shoes or Levis that you hesitate throwing away. Now that everything has been migrated to my RayzRealm account, it will be one less small bill to pay each month.

I missed my calling, butwon't quitmy day job.

People have told me I'd make a great gummint spook, so if any CIA recruiters are reading, make me an offer I can't refuse. I'm interested in human nature, people watching and performing covertbehavioral experiments. I signed up for a second paid account on the IM service I mentioned with a different screenname, slightlydiffernt profile, but basically all the same factual data. It's interestingthat a lot of people who never responded or avoided me under my primary alter ego, are flocking to the newone; Im'ing me and leaving emails. My seconday online personnais much less serious and filled with my own unique colloquialisms than my primary one. My secondary profile more closely reflects the inner me that only the small handful of people I call friends see.

In the past I've performed some interesting people experiments, playingall ends against each other,with none of the subjects having a clue what was going on beneath the surface. The pertinent observations being noted, I would slip (giggling) back into the shadows to watch the show and take notes; you plant a seed and watch it grow. Human behavior can be very predictable on a macro as well as micro level, tell a large group of people they are being attacked, that terrorists are hiding behind every shrubbery and that only you can protect them and they'll follow like obedient S&M slaves.

When you're an outsider to the mainstream, it allows you to sit back and be an educated observer, which can be dangerous, especially in the times we now live in. We see a liar as a liar and a weasel as as weasel, smell shit and exclaim, "I smell shit!". If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Sad fact of the matter is, most people don't know a duck when they see one.

Some interesting low fat food for thought.

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Sunday October 31

The Curse is broken!

Friday: I may not be a sports fan at all, but am happy that the Red Socks won the world series. The Bambino's curse that has stood for over 80 years has finally been broken. Of course the millions of die hard baseball fans are going ape shit and will be talking about this into the next century. I was reading in the local news that from 3 to 5 million people could descend on the Boston area for the celebration this weekend. I will make a point of not being within 1000 miles of downtown on Saturday. Now if only a much more evil curse can be broken next Tuesday, the world may become a better place.

Saturday: It's been pouring out all day, but still Boston's packed to the gills with Red Sox celebrations, so I planned in advance to be nowhere near the city.

About the only constructive thing I did was add a splash of color here and there to the pages of RayzRealm, a pin stripe, a rainbow, nothing special, just breaking the monochromatic look. I have watched the Eminem video at least a dozen times. It's captivating, well made, almost hypnotic. Links to the video are below.

Sunday BOO!: I was up way past my bed time knocking knuckles with the denizens in the cyber loonitorium. Warren and I probably blasted a a couple of meg worth of text messages back and forth, as the mails and IM's rolled in from horn dogs and coyote's looking to mate, or as I call them "drive by shooters" I set them on ignore and chatted with Warren way to late. It was an interactive way to kill a few brain cells on a rain filled deary night, and sure beat suckling from the glass teat all night with the remote in my lap.

Indian (sorry Native American) Summer came today. When I woke up at 5AM, the outside temperature was 67 degrees. I put a pot of coffee on and logged in to read news, with the IM running in the background.

I took a ride into town early this morning to walk around, cafe lounge and book browse. I picked up George Carlin's new book, "Whene'er Jesus Bring the Pork Chops". Gawd almighty he is a funny bugger! I broke out laughing a few times waiting for my lunch at Chili's while reading the book. It usually takes a lot to coax a giggle out of me but Carlin delivers. If worse comes to worse after Tuesday, I'll need a good laugh as the Bush brown shirts drag me out of bed at 3AM to an awaiting cattle car bound for the re-education camps.

Ahhh tonight vast hordes or suburban spawn will descent upon the neighborhood demanding candy as ransom, but I'm ready, armed with about 250 little Hershey's, Milky Way, Snickers, 3 Musketerrs and Butterfinger bars. Of course they're also candy I like, but whatever leftovers there are will probably get brought to the office tomorrow.

The end of month nooze and journals links follow.

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Shalom, Ray