Tag Archives: misc

A Filler for Bad Texas Weather

Posted on March 20, 2012 by | 12 comments

Good morning everyone, Jeanne here.  Jules and I discussed the possibility that the horrendous weather he’s been having down there in the hill country might inhibit his going online for a day or two, so I’m putting up a couple items that I was going to save for a future Ask Old Jules entry. As always, if you have a question yourself that  you’d like to see answered in a future post, you can put it in the comments on either site. 

Old Jules, my partner and I  have asked spirits/orbs/ghosts into our home so that we can take photos of them. We have some good orb pics. The thing that have really noticed is that within a minute of my partner sensing something in the room, I often smell an incredibly strong smell of rotten eggs/rotten flesh. This has happened about 3 times whilst asking for beings to be photographed. The other night after taking pics I suddenly smelt it in my bedroom, like it was following me (and I was undressing). My partner seems to sense beings,  but I don’t.  I smell them, but he can’t.
So my main question is whether this smell is of bad spirits/demons?

Sounds as though you might need to try the NOSE (Neotronics Olfactory Sensing Equipment; Neotronics). It’s likely to be the rage in the next generation of marketing ghost-chasing equipment to television watching ghost busters.

Paranormality’s grand
Electro-magnetically scanned;
Ghost-chasing adventures
And captitalist ventures
Finally go hand-in-hand.

Old Jules, what’s the best strategy to play blackjack online?

The best strategy is to not play online. Would you play blackjack at a casino where they took the cards into the backroom to shuffle them, where everything important happened outside your range of vision, where the whole thing, beginning to end, was done in a dark room illegally and you’d have no recourse in the unimaginable event you could prove you’d been cheated?

Online gambling from the US just about fits that description. The online casino strangers you play with provide the games because they have a vested interest in winning. If Lady Luck doesn’t offer up the profits there’s nothing at all to keep them from helping her along.

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Posted in Adventure

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Dancing With Roosters

Posted on March 16, 2012 by | 8 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you made a swing by here.  I’m going to do my best to give you something to have read by the time you leave if the Coincidence Coordinators and the commie phone line will sit still for it.

I’ve about decided I’m going to have peace and harmony around here, and I don’t care who I have to kill to do it.  The roosters are driving me nuts with their sneaky non-harmonizing ways.

The Great Speckled Bird surprised me by surviving the winter, feeling better most ways than he has in a longish time.  But more crippled up than ever.  Not much use of the one leg anymore, one wing weak or useless.  So when he falls, the usual ritual is to lie on his back waving his legs around.  Struggling for a shift in reality to get into a position where the one foot can get a hold on something.

But even so, he’s out there ranging with the hens, doing what roosters are supposed to do as often as he can see his way clear to do it and he can find a willing hen.

But meanwhile I keep my bachelor roosters penned most of the day.  Mainly because they’re of a mind that if I’m not looking it’s okay to open up a can of whoopass on TGSB.  They can knock him down and peck the bejesus out of him in less time than it takes to tell it.

But I’ve digressed.  I was going to tell you about dancing with roosters, which is the only way a person can establish harmonious society with them.  A rooster isn’t long on understanding the ways of a human being, but he does understand who’s the cock of the walk.  And if he doesn’t understand, or he forgets, he’s forever trying to reassure himself about whether he’s boss, or someone else is.

A rooster has two main dances.  One he does for the hens, which I’ll describe some other time, though it’s important to know how to do it so’s to keep him and the hens on their toes.  But the one used to communicate “I’m a contender,” and “You want some of this?  Come get it!” is an absolute necessity.

The last couple of days when the bachelor roosters and TGSB were out concurrently I’ve had to do a lot of dancing around stiff-legged, acting like I was pecking the ground watching them out of the corner of my eye and flapping my arms threateningly.  Reminding them if they want to mess with TGSB they’ve got to go through the bull-goose-looney to get there.

I think where I slipped up was when the warm weather started I quit wearing my red stocking cap they considered a comb, and forgot I’m a rooster too.  Got thinking they could each be a contender.

Old Jules

The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

The Liar: The Great Speckled Bird, Part 2

News from the Middle of Nowhere

October Quietude, Dead Bugs and Old Roosters

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, Animals, Chickens, Communication, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Nature, Poultry, Relationships, Senior Citizens

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Battlestar Gallinica, the US Space Program, and Fluid Reality

Posted on March 12, 2012 by | 10 comments

White Trash Repairs: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

In some ways we’re a lot like the US Government out here.  Particularly when it’s manifested in the ‘May-your-flock-increase’ syndrome. 

It couldn’t have been more than three, maybe four years ago I was building Battlestar Gallinica, letting those silky hens crank out chicks and doing it on autopilot.  Never stopping to consider that I already had a flock of chickens more numerous than my needs.  Never stopping to wonder just how big a flock of chickens needed to be. 

Oblivious to the fact that forces of history were at work, driving up the future cost of chicken feed, unravelling the warp and weave of whatever blanket I must have thought was wrapped around the coming years.

I suppose my habits of thinking were just too pleasurable to allow seemingly obvious factors to slow me down.  Somewhat like the US Super-Power habit of thinking and all the militarism of the Cold War when the Rooskies packed up their tents, went home and the Berlin Wall went down.

The obvious thing to do was let things settle a bit to make sure it wasn’t an illusion, then bring all that military and equipment home, mothball it, and reduce, downsize, try to let the nightmare of the 20th Century fade into history where it belonged.

But I had a growing flock to keep me occupied, and the US Super-Power had a huge military lying around needed something to occupy it.  The only alternative the US Government had was to indulge in an endless series of military adventures to justify continuing bankrupting itself keeping on keeping on.

Whereas, I had silky hens brightening my day every time I turned around, hatching out chicks to watch survive and mature, beginning and ending on this piece of land.

What I needed was some heavy thinking in my agenda, taking into account that nothing lasts forever and that a flock of chickens is as much a responsibility in my reality as the health, jobs, production and manufacturing, and generally peaceful well-being of the country was to the people in it when the Cold War ended.

So here I am with a lot of chickens dear to me I’ve got to figure out how to deal with, Battlestar Gallinica sitting out there idle, and a half-built woodshed that’s nothing more than a reminder of my own unclear vision of reality.

And here’s the country I live in, sacrificed everything, a leading edge Space Program, a thriving economy of employed people, industry, innovation, hope, in favor of bankrupting itself for cheap and easy coincident with the pride of remaining the strongest military power on earth.

Battlestar Gallinica can be manufactured a lot more easily and cheaply in China if it’s needed.  So long as we can keep those boys and girls wearing Nazi helmets and cammy occupying foreign soil somewhere, we’re still good.

Maybe it still isn’t too late to take a second look at the ‘may your flock increase’ habit of thinking.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:   Roots of the Civil War?

Old Jules, what were the true roots of the Civil war?

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Posted in America, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens

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One Toke Over the Line Sweet Jesus

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | 25 comments

 

Hi readers.  Some of you evidently come to this blog for the humor, but my brand of humor frequently falls flat for a lot of other readers.  So for those of you unable to appreciate my dry, subtle, sometimes off-target attempts at humor I offer perhaps the funniest scene ever to appear on television.

Note the squeeze-box player attempting to keep a straight face while introducing the song.  Afterward, the followup by famous wit Lawrence Welk caps the entire performance as he expresses his appreciation for “modern gospel music” performances by young people.

Unlike so many young performers of the time, these already had perfect teeth.

 

Meanwhile, the songwriters, Brewer and Shipley, were awarded a position on President Nixon’s ‘Enemy List’ and enjoyed honorable mention by Vice President Spiro Agnew before he went down in flames.

Old Jules

25 Comments

Posted in 1970's, America, Communication, Human Behavior, Music, YouTube

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Old Sol’s Opinions about the DST Time Change

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | 16 comments

http://spaceweather.com/

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Those of us stuck with the responsibility for bringing Old Sol up mornings and helping him down evenings try to stay tuned to his moods and political opinions.  Especially the DST time changes, of which he just about has a bellyfull. 

Here’s what he had to say about this one.  You’ll have to listen closely because he recorded it 78 rpm and there’s a lot of static.  If you have trouble picking the message out of the background noise, the general summary of his thoughts is that he’s damned sick of it.

WEEKEND SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot AR1429 is still erupting this weekend. On Saturday, March 10th, it produced a powerful M8-class flare that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. During the flare, New Mexico amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded a series of radio bursts at 21 and 28 MHz:

The roaring sounds you just heard are caused by shock waves plowing through the sun’s atmosphere in the aftermath of the explosion. “There is incredible complexity in the waveforms,” notes Ashcraft. “This is a recording of one of the most turbulent events in all of Nature!”

In addition, the explosion propelled yet another CME toward Earth. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud will hit our planet’s magnetosphere on March 12th at 1803 UT (+/- 7 hr), possibly sparking a new round of geomagnetic storms.

After passing Earth, the CME will also hit the Mars Science Lab (MSL) spacecraft on March 13th followed by Mars itself on March 14th. Mars rover Curiosity onboard MSL might get some interesting readings as the cloud passes by.

Meanwhile, those of you who prefer the emotional side of things have probably been looking forward to the disgusting kissee-kissee going on between Jupiter and Venus.

http://spaceweather.com/

All I can tell you is it’s an illusion.  Jupiter and Venus don’t have enough in common to allow a lasting, meaningful relationship.  This is just cheap, physical attraction causing this.  Cheerleader Venus shamelessly wrapping herself around the arm of grotesque jockstrap Jupiter for the duration of a shared climax.

No candlelight dinners and moonlight walks for Jupiter and Venus.  They’ll each drift their own ways and be off flirting with someone else in just about the amount of time it takes to calculate it.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Learning from Nature?

Old Jules, what have you learned from nature?

 

 

16 Comments

Posted in 2012, Astronomy

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Guard Cats – In the Interest of Harmony

Posted on March 9, 2012 by | 21 comments

In the pic they’re patrolling in Placitas, New Mexico.  But it’s the same here.

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

There’s a rich-people kind of house up the hill, a quarter-mile south of me.  It sits on 90-odd acres of land, has a barn worthy of the name, and it’s been sitting vacant during all the years I’ve been here.  Vacant, but for sale.

But a couple of weeks ago a couple of strangers pulled up in front of the cabin on a four-wheeler with side-by-side seats.  It’s the first time I’ve ever had an unexpected visitor here except Gale or Gale and Kay.  Naturally I scrambled out to find out what they wanted.

Turned out he’d just bought the place and wanted to introduce himself to his nearest neighbor.  That done, he left saying they’d be moving in soon.  Friendly exchange.

Then yesterday I went up to Gale’s and he was there.  They’d just done their moving into their new home.  He and Gale were discussing things and I sat down for a quick cup of coffee before going on about my business.

“I’m hoping you won’t shoot my dog.”

“Is it a chicken killer?”  Thinking whatever danger there was to his dog probably came in the form of dead chickens.

“It’s never been around chickens.  It’s a mutt, a rescued dog, part lab, part herder, part pit-bull.  What killing it’s done was cats.  I had a lot of feral cats on the last place I lived.”  He paused.  “I know you have cats down there.”

That gave me pause for thought.  While I was thinking, he added, “If you see him, he’s gun shy.  Just fire into the air and he’ll run away.”

I’m a man who has a huge respect for how badly neighbor problems can intrude and make life a hell for both neighbors.  But I’m also aware that animals can cause neighbor problems lightning-fast.  Quicker than almost anything else.  For instance, there’s almost nothing that will piss a man off worse than killing his dog, no matter what the dog was doing at the time of demise.

“Tell you what.  I’ll make sure my cats don’t come up here killing your dog if you’ll make sure your dog doesn’t come down here killing my cats.”  Seemed a fair enough proposition to me.  I pretty much figure if my cats go up there attacking his dog, anything on his place, he’s welcome to shoot them, but it would be more fitting if he came down here and put a bullet between my eyes.

He expressed a concern that his dog might mistake me for a cat, saying that since I’m around them I’d have their scent on me, but I assured him that wasn’t a concern.  I’ve never met a dog I couldn’t stand off.  And I shouldn’t have any reason to be around this one.  During my years here I’ve only set foot on that place a couple of times.  Once because of cows, and once challenging some people who were up there loading things into a truck.  I just politely asked if they had permission, and noted the license number of the vehicle.

The man’s 74 years old, seems a nice guy.  Ex-pilot.  And if we need to talk we  probably will enjoy most things we might discuss.

I surely hope my cats don’t go up there attacking his dog, though, because I’d expect him to shoot them. 

Old Jules

 

21 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior

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CME Impact Sound and Fury

Posted on March 7, 2012 by | 18 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

A nice little coronal mass ejection hit the earth magnetic field last night.  I might have heard it hit the roof, but it was probably just a big tree limb, or one of the sheet-metal roof panels blowing off.  The high wind during the night had more going on around here than I could keep track of and I decided to wait for daybreak to go out and make sense of it.

CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth’s magnetic field on March 7th at approximately 0400 UT. The impact was not a strong one, but it could stir up polar geomagnetic storms anyway

http://spaceweather.com/

I let my curiosity carry away my good sense just now and went out there with a flashlight.  Turns out it was nothing amiss.  Just a big tree limb.  No big chunks of shattered magnetism lying around messing up my waning-anyway-and-somewhat-neglected magnetic field experiments.  Most of that’s located out east of the cabin where there are no trees to fall on it, but one piece of it’s strung out across the meadow.  I was needing to guy up the post over there and hadn’t.  That might be on the ground.

But it’s time I was winding down on all that anyway because I’m figuring it’s part of what I won’t be following through.

Lots of noise from the Rooster Containment Center, though, when I went out.  They’re probably remembering and regretting what a nuisance they made of themselves last night when I was trying to get them and the Commie Americauna penned up before dark.

I’m thinking today might be a busy one.  That wind was doing a lot of bragging in the dark.  But you can’t tell about winds, that way.  They’ll stomp around, boast, make little things sound big and big things sound bigger, then you find it was all just a lot of bluster.

Maybe more later if there’s anything worth mentioning.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Chickens, Country Life

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Bad News for Psychiatrists

Posted on March 6, 2012 by | 20 comments

 

The bottom oven-mitten is your brain if you’re not on drugs.  The top oven mitten is your brain if you are on drugs.

A cheap antibiotic normally prescribed to teenagers for acne is to be tested as a treatment to alleviate the symptoms of psychosis in patients with schizophrenia, in a trial that could advance scientific understanding of the causes of mental illness.

Scientists believe that schizophrenia and other mental illnesses including depression and Alzheimer’s disease may result from inflammatory processes in the brain. Minocycline has anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects which they believe could account for the positive findings.

The first account of minocycline’s effects appeared in 2007 when a 23-year-old Japanese man was admitted to hospital suffering from persecutory delusions and paranoid ideas. He had no previous psychiatric history but became agitated and suffered auditory hallucinations, anxiety and insomnia.

Blood tests and brain scans showed no abnormality and he was started on the powerful anti-psychotic drug halperidol. The treatment had no effect and he was still suffering from psychotic symptoms a week later when he developed severe pneumonia.

He was prescribed minocycline to treat the pneumonia and within two weeks the infection was cleared and the psychosis resolved. Minocycline was stopped and his psychiatric symptoms worsened. Treatment with the drug was resumed and within three days he was better again. Halperidol was reduced but he remained on minocycline. Two years after his psychotic episode, he was still well.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-shocked-to-find-antibiotics-alleviate-symptoms-of-schizophrenia-7469121.html

The article describes at length how and where the tests on patients are going on all over the world. 

But Mad Scientists, meanwhile, have another alternative.  If you’ve been noticing you are crazy, you can order some of the stuff online from India.  A lot cheaper than if a Medico wrote it down on a slip and you trucked to a drugstore for a bottle.  And do your own scientific testing.

Or you could just make up some colloidal silver and take an eyedropper-full of it every day.  Which is how I keep me and the cats and chickens free of insanity.  

 

Old Jules

 

Today on Ask Old Jules: Advantages of the Civil War?

Old Jules, what were the advantages of the Civil War?

 

20 Comments

Posted in 2012, America

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“Science” Bringing Order Out of the Chaos

Posted on March 5, 2012 by | 16 comments

Scientists proposed the device as a way to control meetings, ensuring people take turns to speak.  

Scientists create ‘gun’ that disrupts speech

 

Japanese scientists with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology claimed this week that they have developed a novel new weapon by combining two specialized technologies in such a way that they are now capable of rendering someone unable to speak.

While it’s not technically a weapon, their “portable speech-jamming gun” could certainly be used as one, especially against political leaders or others who speak to large audiences for a living.

Combining a directional microphone and a directional speaker, the “Speechjammer” records and quickly plays back whatever words someone is uttering, making it very difficult for the speaker to focus on what words come next. The effect is called “artificial stuttering.”

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/552G4W/www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/01/scientists-create-gun-that-disrupts-speech/

Golly gee!  A new sponsor for the Ditto Rush Syndrome played fast forward and backward.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in America, Communication, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Politics, Science

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Edna Milton Chadwell – RIP – Shadow of an Era Fades

Posted on March 5, 2012 by | 9 comments

I never knew the lady well, but I was briefly acquainted with her when I was writing the piece for Men In Adventure Magazine, Vietcong Seductress, et al.  She was a lot more understanding about the slant the editors put on the piece than Sheriff Jim Flournoy.   But that was before the Texas news jumped onto the bandwagon.

Edna Milton Chadwell, Last Madam of ‘Chicken Ranch’ Bordello, Dies at 84

. 

Edna Milton Chadwell, the last madam of the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel, died last week at the age of 84. The Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, was the house of ill repute that inspired the Broadway musical, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” It later became a hit movie.

Chadwell’s passing inspired a surge of interest in the 1982 film starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. The flick was an enormous success, taking in nearly $70 million. It was one of the biggest musical hits of the decade, despite mixed reviews. 

After the Chicken Ranch’s demise, Chadwell moved to Arizona where she met her husband and remained for the rest of her life. Her obituary from the Associated Pressquotes her nephew, Robert Kleffman.

“She was a hard-nosed lady. She was very straightforward, didn’t put up with no monkey business, no nonsense,” he said. “Hard-nosed. But with a spine of steel and a heart of gold.” Kleffman added that his aunt didn’t like to talk about her time in La Grange, but she also wasn’t ashamed of it.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/edna-milton-chadwell-last-madam-chicken-ranch-bordello-185916723.html

Here’s wishing her the best in whatever she decides to do next.

Old Jules

 

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Current Issues, Hack Writing, Senior Citizens, Texas

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