the Hurricane Bunker

hi folks

man, what a hurricane. that was a really big hurricane. a bunch of stuff got smashed! man.

i was talking to margaret last night about my idea for a hurricane bunker. i got the idea a few years ago. back then, it was just a concrete bomb shelter installed on a beach. the idea has been much improved since then. as i described it to her, it got more and more sophisticated. i thought i should make a public proposal for construction of a hurricane bunker, so if any one out there wants me to build one, they should send me about a million dollars right now.

okay, so, basically it would just be a small, bathroom sized bunker, maybe just big enough for one person, maybe two. it would probably be round, shaped sort of like a flying saucer or an Advil. it would have to be watertight and reinforced against impact, and it would have to be bouyed so it couldn't sink. also, it would be a bunker, not a boat, and i wouldn't want to be washed out to sea, so it would be attached to the ground by a set of retractable, tensioned, spring loaded cables. this way, it could float on the surges of water, but it couldn't float away, and it wouldn't sink either.

of course, it would have to have big, thick viewing windows. also, the top of the bunker would be decked with armored, caged floodlamps. man, you could even put a rudder on the thing and try to maintain control through the storm, but it would probably just be a big violent ride. at any rate, it might be nice to put those tensioned cables under some sort of control, so you could tighten one up or loosen it if you didn't like your position or your attitude. if it could be constructed light enough, it would be like flying yourself in a kite; with good aerodynamic design maybe you could do some flying in those 150mph winds!

inside would basically be a cockpit, with padded walls and a pilot's chair built into the main construction of the bunker. you'd have to be strapped in, of course. it would probably be a good idea to put the inner cockpit in some sort of suspension with shock absorbers and everything, otherwise all the slamming and crashing around might kill you or break your neck.

considering that this thing is so small, and that it's able to fly and ride on storm surges, it should be small enough to fit on the back of a big truck. so, you could go out to meet hurricanes head on, installing yourself on beaches wherever you thought the roughest part was going to land. one problem would be grounding the cables; how could you reliably attach the thing to the ground? i'm sure there would be a ton of crazy forces on the thing, twisting it around, snapping it back and forth, etc., and i wouldn't want my cables to break loose, or to snap, or something.

this is my idea. i think it's a great idea. margaret says maybe crazy rich people would buy hurricane bunkers (maybe they should be called hurricane cockpits, or hurricane cockpit bunkers; HCB's. i don't know.). just like how people have hot air balloon hobbies, there could be hurricane riders, storm surge afficianados. it just seems like a terrible waste to run away from such great storms. i love storms.

Saturday Haiku

Trying to be light,
Hey, maybe write a haiku,
Such a bad morning.

Revised Haiku for the Space Shuttle

March? Not until March?
Give someone else the money,
It's not working out.

Haiku for the space shuttle

Space Shuttle! You're back!
I love you, and, I hate you-
Let's share this coffee.

the murf has inspired me to post midi songs i have made (the first of these also has a nautical theme, you see):

I could turn them into MP3s so I could guarantee the sound reproduction, but I think most sound cards have the same midi synthesizers now, so I guess it's okay. I would just worry about the balance, like whether all the tracks can be heard in the right proportions. They are all very noisy and repetitive, that is my fault, because I like things that way.

This one is has been around for a couple of years maybe, but the arrangement is new. Banjo, clavichord, and electric piano. It's the best of the three because it's very short and also very complete.

This one was made last week. I like it, but it's not complete at all, it just sort of repeats and builds and then suddenly stops because i couldn't think of what to do next.

This one is like five years old! It's a new arrangement, so it's fair to put it here. I made it when living in Andy Holt big tall building. It's sort of long and maybe boring, but i like it and it's in 5/4 time. Also, the melody is played by a midi bagpipe! Turn down the volume, watch out!

okay.

we've gotten wider

This is a jumping spider. Jumping spiders are everywhere. They are very small. This photograph is artificially enlarged, so do not worry. They are smarter than every other spider. This one got a 98 on an IQ test, which is very good for a spider. If you catch a jumping spider be careful, because they know what your nose is and they are able to get there by jumping through the air.

That's strange. I must have dreamed last night that I posted a long, complicated, probably meaningless post on this thing. Now I go to look, and I see my previous post having to do with my frustration that no one seems interested in talking with me about what a year looks like. I tell you, that's what it's like for me in the real world, too. No one wants to talk about what a year looks like. Sometimes I wonder if it makes me sad.

fine, then

everyone can claim that they don't see the year as a flattened ring laid on a flat, black, invisible surface. but i know it isn't true. i know that they see it.

hmm... nothing else.

I just ate a candy bar,
I just drank some coffee-
Where could I get some
Peanuts?

You see, I can't think of anything worth writing publicly about. So, I offer poetry to the world, poetry ripped from the darkest corners of my most innermost being.

So, tomorrow James (supposedly) and I drive about 860 miles to Texas. That's a long drive! But, luckily, it's not as long as the drive to Reno, since Reno's in Nevada, and Nevada is sort of on the other side of Texas. I mean, it's sort of on the other side, and sort of above it. I think. You see, I have sort of this map in my mind, and I see Nevada, which is where Reno is, being somewhere up and to the left of Texas. But, you know, we're sort of going down and left to get to Texas, so maybe it would be a straight shot to Reno. I could check but it wouldn't be worth it.

You may not believe it, but this entire post is a palindrome. That's right, it's exactly the same from forwards to backwards, and not just letter-by-letter, but also word-by-word! I didn't even have to think too hard about it, it all came very naturally. Even as I'm writing this, I can insert random phrases like 'this is a very nice handbag', and yet this entire post is still a palindrome. It's hard to believe, I know, but sometimes you just have to have faith that things are the way someone tells you they are, even if deep down you know that they aren't. Faith is very important, especially in the contruction of palindromic website posts. This morning I bought two pieces of black felt, for just 30 cents!

evidence

Sadly, Andrew has been eaten by all the papers he leaves lying around his office space. He may be missed.

Evidence is attached:

office

computer

desk

desk1

desk2

floor

screw embedding all that in html, i say. it wasn't worth it.

what would this alternate universe be like?

It's amazing.

At Symbolic Milepost, Bush to Hold News Conference Tonight By RICHARD W. STEVENSON 5:27 PM ETThe president will make his case for revamping Social Security and reassert himself at a moment when he is under pressure on a variety of fronts.• Live Video at 8 PM ET• Congress Reaches Deal on 2006 Budget• Frist Stands Firm on Filibuster DemandsIraq's Assembly Overwhelmingly Approves New Government By ROBERT F. WORTH 2:22 PM ETIraq's national assembly voted to approve a Shiite-led cabinet today, creating the first elected government in Iraqi history.• Audio Slide Show: John F. Burns of The Times• Complete Coverage: The Reach of WarNew Data Offer More Signs That Economy Is Weakening By JENNIFER BAYOT 3:10 PM ETThe U.S. economy slowed during the first quarter to its weakest pace in two years, the government reported today.• Text: Advance GDP Report (bea.gov)• Stocks Fall on Economic WorriesWoodpecker Thought to Be Extinct Is Sighted in Arkansas By JAMES GORMAN 12:18 PM ETThe ivory-billed woodpecker has been sighted in the watery tupelo swampland of a wildlife refuge in Arkansas.• Video: Footage of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Like I said, it's amazing.

how does everyone like my new mustache?
i have to confess, I sort of copied it from this other famous guy. i used Photoshop! he's dead though, that other guy i forget his name, so i don't think anyone should mind.

bowl of cereal
coffee, some tomato soup
bite of macaroon

at this moment i'm gathering energy for a car ride to Bowling Green Kentucky! i'm going to drive there, in my recently slightly repaired blue Toyota car of nearly 7 years (and of seven modifiers! no, eight! no, nine! no...), to drop off a proposal which might allow me to get paid again for another year!

the topic of the proposal is behavioral testing of potential perceptual and cognitive modes of common household appliances, specifically toasters. the null hypothesis is that there will turn out to be no perceptual or cognitive modes whatsoever for toasters, though i don't know if there will be enough external validity to extend those findings to other appliances.

but, we never know what will happen. science can reveal wonderful things to us, if we listen closely to it, and try to estimate whether or not it has cognitive or perceptual modes which would serve as a substrate for the admittedly anthropomorphic property of revalatory capacity. this doesn't mean anything at all. i am an idiot.

now i have to drive! drive drive drive! drive!

What a boring font.

I can't believe that the doodly-do poem got more discussion, however indirect, than the toaster-being proposal. Maybe I should try to merge the two:

A toaster doesn't know
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
It doesn't see me frying scrambled eggs

The toaster doesn't think
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
The toaster doesn't know that I have legs

My toaster doesn't love me
but it's okay, oaster, oaster
It doesn't like to listen to music, either.

This was not written by me: (though it was typed by me)

"We do,
doodly do, doodly do, doodly do,
What we must,
muddily must, muddily must, muddily must,
Muddily do,
muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust,
bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust."

I have occasionally been thinking, over the past two or three days, about what it must be like to be a toaster. I don't know why I decided to use 'toaster' as my object, and I haven't actually thought of anything definite about, or decided on, what it must be like to be a toaster. But, still:

I figure that for most of the time, for a toaster, it's just the same as most of the other time; that is, things don't change much, from moment to moment, for a toaster. A toaster can't look around at different things, or think about different things, or remember different things. But, at a given moment, which for a toaster is much like most other given moments, it must be lots of different things to be a toaster. It's metal, and plastic, and some electricity, and probably a lot of bread crumbs, and other things.

Now I feel like I'm getting somewhere. Because, while it may be one thing to be a piece of metal, or a bread crumb, it is definitely something different to be a toaster. I will call this, here, 'toaster-being'.

But, maybe, the reason for picking a toaster was something to some degree explicit in my own brain, because there's such an obvious point to make: lucky toasters get a minute of excitement every day! Or more! So, for a toaster, it's mostly just toaster-being, but then, at some point in the day (we don't have to assume that toasters have days for this to be valid syntax), there's sudden spring-loaded tension, tension, electricity coursing, heat, radiation of light, and then sudden tension release! It sounds exciting. I think this is why I picked 'toaster'.

Other suggestions on potential variations, or further specifications, on the general realm of toaster-being? I'm sure they exist. I might not think of them, though.

Hereafter, this shall be my icon,
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.