Recent Updates Page 80 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:43 pm on November 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , knockout games,   

    Knockout Games: Sign of the times, just like “Clockwork…” 

    My increasing concern for the future of the human race (not the ‘planet’, mind you) is not based on Biblical revelations, millennial madness or general eschatological malaise. It’s based on a sober evaluation of the times in which we live. No matter how I crunch the numbers the outlook is bleak. And while my major concerns may be either cause or effect of global warming, general environmental degradation or population pressures, the current “Knockout Games” certainly give it a more personal, intimate horror and almost lends credence to the Biblical spin that Tea Partiers like to attach to our current era and their litany of Obamanations.

      (More …)

     
    • kc's avatar

      kc 9:06 pm on November 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      wow, the knockout ‘games’ are highly disturbing. i am much more interested in this type phenomena than anything going on politically but maybe it is all related……o- i will miss the polar bears, altho not yet extinct i bet they will be soon. hopefully the kids playing the knockout games will become extinct or morph into decent humans. thanks for this, your big brain continually amazes.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:35 pm on November 15, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Haiyan, Philippines, typhoon, Yolanda   

    Perfect Storm Typhoon Haiyan Gets a Sex Change 

    I only found out yesterday that Typhoon Haiyan is called ‘Yolanda’ in the Philippines.  I wonder if that’s standard procedure to give them female and/or Philippine names, or only if it’s a Chinese name that needs to be rejected.  

    In Indonesia Chinese letters and numbers (same thing) are illegal, so of course I had to wear my newly purchased Hong Kong T-shirt reading 香港 in the Jakarta airport 20 years ago.  Sure enough a policeman informed me that I was breaking the law.  I almost laughed in his face, but not quite.  I guess the ‘Year of Living Dangerously’ and the slaughter of thousands of resident Chinese in the name of anti-Communism was fresh on their minds, but still…  

    Maybe  a female name makes a storm seem more benevolent, Mother Nature and all, just a hissy fit or maybe that time of the month…

    BTW China pledge to increase the $100,000 is has pledged for disaster aid to the Philippines, nice guys, definitely hear more about that at treaty time…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:33 pm on October 17, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , GOP, , shutdown,   

    Reflections on Tea Party victory; reading the leaves… 

    The Real Tea Party

    The Real Tea Party

    “Victory?” you’re thinking.  Somebody’s smoking the good stuff… or got cut off by TWC… or is now reporting from another dimension.  No, really, I’m serious.  There is no reason for Democrats to be celebrating right now, any more than there is reason for Tea-baggers to be crying in their… tea?  They’ll be back, and we all know it, and sooner than later.  They win by default; by definition.  All they have to do is sow confusion (wreak havoc, mix metaphors, etc.) and they win.  Markets hate that sh*t.  They like us fat and happy, freshly f*cked and sassy, the better to market their products to.

    This should not be depressing.  This should be inspiring.  This should be inspiring us ersatz-Dems to follow their lead.  What happened to Earth First!?  And what about the Monkey Wrench Gang?  Democrats have gotten complacent on their fat technocratic asses, assuming that FaceBook and Twitcher will save the world for them.  Yeah, right.

    After all, the Tea Party has done nothing illegal, not much anyway, though they’ve certainly pissed all over the concept of democracy.  But we should be able to do better than that.  Are they better radicals then us flower-children-of-the-60’s types?  Gross!  That’s disgusting!  What do they pass around the group at parties, lemonade?  And what books do they read, Ayn Rand or Adam Smith?  What happened to Chairman Mao’s Little Red One? (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:07 pm on September 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Meditating on Seinfeld 

    I find that the greatest obstacles to effective meditation are old Seinfeld episodes.  Remember George’s inadvertent mid-air ketchup squirt in the diner?  About the time I get into a good meditative groove, that image will re-surface every time, guaranteed.

    You know, if you watch enough, you’ll see hidden connections between the different episodes, what I call the ‘Kabbala of Seinfeld.’  For instance, check out the one where George parks his car in the parking lot; you know, the one where pragmatic young ladies are doing their nasty business in the back seats of cars (hint: they’re not pooping).  Look at the lot manager’s face.  Now look at the little booth where he’s standing.

    Now look at the episode where Kramer is doing his ‘Peterman Reality Tours’ and has to take Elaine’s muffin stumps to dump them out in the Garden State somewhere.  Look at the dump manager at the first dump to refuse Elaine’s muffin stumps.  Look familiar?  Now look at the little booth he’s standing by.  That’s right.  The dump is the parking lot, which is really a sound stage up in Burbank.  The way Seinfeld scripts are woven elaborately together is really a thing of beauty… unless you’re trying to meditate.  Ommmmm…..

     
    • Sven's avatar

      Sven 8:48 am on September 28, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      I like your new house! Great! Our next will be similar, same size but my wife want it to be built totally in bamboo. No steel, no concrete. Fits my budget.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:37 pm on September 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

    Isn’t it funny how, when an Arab or Muslim kills a crowd, and maybe himself, too, he’s a terrorist, fanatic, and brain-washed; but when an American kills a crowd, and maybe himself, too, he’s mentally ill, deranged, and “needs help”? No, that’s not funny, is it…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:09 am on September 15, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

    Is it my imagination or is there an inverse relationship between technology and intelligence? It seems like all the iPhones in the world couldn’t help some people pass a basic sixth-grade test in spelling… math… science… or history. I hope I’m wrong…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:33 pm on September 13, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

    How can silly love songs make me sad when I don’t even understand the words? That’s what I’d like to know. Something about minor keys and ROYGBV’s, I think. They’ve got our frequencies. They’ve cracked the code. They’ve reduced us to wave-lengths and LCD’s, liquid crystal displays and lowest common denominators, random probabilities and tendencies to react certain ways under certain conditions. Cool.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:46 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Random Acts of Kindness 

    The Little Old Lady (LOL for short; wait a minute…) was barely halfway across the street, when the light turned green, she teetering and tottering and hanging on for dear life, walking stick in one hand, rolling luggage in the other, a look of chemical fear spreading across her face while I looked on from the distant shore of her destination.  She reminded me of Hetty from NCIS-LA, aka Linda Hunt, long past her gender-ambiguous days as Billy Kwan in ‘Year of Living Dangerously,’ and now just the LOL that she is, naked and afraid like a deer caught in the headlights.  Hetty’s tough, but is it enough?  It’s still LA; am I to be her LL Cool J?  She’s hanging in there; good thing, too, because the car in the lane she’s just now cleared is hot to trot, got his motor running, heading out on the highway, looking for adventure, etc.  The car in the lane she’s still in is holding still at the traffic light.  He sees me watching him.  

    I’m tempted to just step out, grab her under the arms, lift her up, and carry her over to the near shore,, but… that might scare her more than the traffic.  I don’t want to startle her… or insult her either, for that matter.  So I start inching my way out, as if approaching a dog whose masticatory habits I’m unfamiliar with, then reach out my hand to take the luggage.  She hands it to me.  I place it on the curb.  We’re good.  Then I reach out again, to take her hand and steady her while she steps up on to the curb.  She’s somebody’s mother, after all, and obviously not homeless.  Why is she out here on the streets alone?  “Are you okay?” I ask.  “Oh, thank you so much!” she exults.  “Well, you’re welcome so much.  It’s nothing,” I respond.  And it wasn’t.  What I did for her was negligible.  But what she did for me was priceless. 

     
    • kc's avatar

      kc 1:38 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      for some reason, “no good deed goes unpunished,” so look for some rainy skies coming your way

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:44 pm on August 21, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    In Defense of White Anglo-Saxon American Protestant Women (and the Continuing Search for the Difference Gene) 

    A few days ago, while doing my weekly power walk down Sunset Blvd in search of ground provisions and other forms of sustenance, there in front of the 99c store loomed ahead of me a young lady hogging the center lane, and sauntering a bit wobbly.  I was unable to determine her exact trajectory so stayed right behind her until the last moment, when I suddenly swerved left to attempt to overtake on the inside lane, at which time she swung wide to let me pass, while simultaneously giving me a long once-over—which I apparently passed—then flashed me a big sh*t-faced grin and a big two-fingered peace sign (one finger bad, two fingers good; got it).  Well, I don’t get that every day, so bounced the big smile back, but keeping all my fingers right where they were, afraid of a catastrophic miscount.

    Then I started thinking: what just happened?  I’ve been grinned up and chatted up more in the last thirty days than the last thirty years put together.  What does it mean?  Am I radiating something?  Do spray-tans really work?  (After a near-eviction, I’ve been swimming for exercise instead of my usual rowdy calisthenics, hence the seasonal rosy glow).  I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities: 1) I slipped into a space-time discontinuity, and am now reporting to you from a parallel universe called Zandorf; or 2) the young lady not only approved of my increasing beardliness, but assumed it represented something larger, and more of the hippie sort than the Islamic; or 3) she was an out-of-stater, looking for a little tea and sympathy, and perhaps something stronger; or 4) all of the above; or 5) none of the above. (More …)

     
    • Sven's avatar

      Sven 9:06 am on September 28, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      Hi Hardie, I just started reading your stuff/blog…

      I have a friend making a blog that I have been following for years.
      http://mobithailand.com/

      It might not be that interesting his last blogs but check his “Creative writing” in the right hand side! Very good stories! Especially th e one about his life!
      Good guy, going through a lot.

      I will start checking your blog now!

      Sven

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:25 am on August 6, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Future of the Internet: It’s Chinatown, Jake… 

    And I’m not talking about the mock-up tourist-trap Chinatowns of a thousand modern Western cities, graced by a red-tile roof in up-turned smile and filled with Mom-and-Pop trinket shops specializing in red lanterns and fat-bellied Buddhas and calligraphy that says whatever you want.  Nor am I talking about the Chinatown of the Polanski film/Towne script/Nicholson fame depicting 30’s LA, though that comes closer.

    No, I’m talking about the Chinatown of a thousand forgotten real Asian neighborhoods where street signs compete for sight-lines and taxi-girls hustle for ten-dollar fares and old market ladies who haven’t seen sunlight in years huddle in dark dingy stalls, their only sensory stimulation the olfactory interplay between pungent chilies pricking and bathroom odors wafting, may the strongest smell win…  The market always wins. (More …)

     

← Older posts

Newer posts →

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel