saint_monkey

so... they came in to our house this friday and took some of our stuff. kids, i guess, looking for things to steal and sell quick. not a lot of things, just our cds (every last one of them, except for 5 or so that were scattered around the house) and our dvd player and our vcr. they left a lot of things, which makes us think they were interrupted. one of my friends thinks that since they have succeeded once, and seen all our stuff, that they will be back for more.

they came in through our bedroom window, which had a 5 inch chink in our armor (our sliding windows and doors have 2 inch diameter dowels in thier tracks, making them unopenable, even by a gorilla, but the one in the bedroom was a few inches short, so that we could open the window on hot summer nights.) It was just enough for an intrepid thief to sneak an arm in, and with a short flexible dowel rod pulled from my own herb garden, dislodge the dowel in the window. a new, longer dowel has made that impossible now.

one of the real kickers is the fact that they entered via our patio door. we had it padlocked at one time, which made it an impassible 6 foot barrier blocking quick access and exit, plus anything you are hauling would have to be tossed or handed over in the middle of your quick escape. But the landlord and the cable folks (whose cable access port is in our patio) hassled us every month until we took the padlock off. (without it we are at the mercy of a cheesy door lock, like you might find on an interior bathroom or bedroom.) i can't help but think that the lock alone would have made us less of a target, had it been in place. But we've got it on the door now. The cable folks can suffer, unless they want to buy us another DVD player.

but first, before we venture into our tale, a little online auction abuse.rubylou posted this rather risque pic of an aussie man's teapot.

But i digress. Yesterday, as I was about to foray into coffee777's informative expose of the new Big Brother cast's shortcomings, my lovely wife Mystery (yes, that is her real name) called to tell me that the car wouldn't start, and all attempts to "jump start" the automobile were fruitless. Rembering the "Ignition Triangle" from numerous episodes of "Car Talk," (Imagine if you will, three capital "F's" arranged in a circle. A car will start if it has Fuel, Fire, and Oxygen. (Well, re-imagine the triangle as 2 "F's" and one "O.") The Fuel is misted with Oxygen to make vapor, and it is Ignighted by the Spark plug's "Fire," causing a rather massive explosion. (One Gallon of gasoline has one fifth the explosive power of a stick of TNT.) this explosion is contained within a stong metal container, and it's energy is used to force a piston upward within this containert, which in turn causes a cam to turn slightly, converting the up and down motion of the piston into a circular motion, transmitted along the vehicle's drive shaft, but I digress. ) As the vehicle is Fuel Injected, the "O" portion of the triangle, controlled normally by the Carb, absent on fuel injected vehicles, wasn't likely unless the computer was gone, and seeing as Mystery had filled the vehicle with Fuel just recently, we must therefore deduce that the culprit is Fire. Since all of the spark plugs couldn't go bad simultaneously, the starter wasn't "kicking" at all, but the lights did work, the Alternater couldn't be the issue. At this point, I could only think that the situation required a new battery, (even though the existing battery was a NAPA Superstart 35, A Consumer Reports "Best Buy," and guaranteed for 5 years (and currently less than a year old,)) So I rushed off to my neighbor, patty puke, to borrow her automobile, rush off to NAPA, purchase a newer, assumingly less defective battery before the establishment's closure, and drive out to Mystery's place of employment to install said device and act as heroic rescuer. Needless to say, by the time I arranged the aforementioned transportation, the NAPA store in question had ceased it's business day, and I had to ambulate about until I encountered a "Shucks" of ill repute just off of Denny, where I was able to make the required purchase. Oddly, I passed three stalled automobiles along the way, two of which involved the presence of Jumper cables. When entering the Shucks, I had to wait behind three other troubled citizens, all purchasing Car Batteries. I was afraid that they would not hasve the battery in question, but I need not be alarmed. The requested battery was in stock, and easily purchased, but for $60. So then, armed with this 35 AMP marvel, I then proceeded to 3901 6th Street S, (Where my beleagured vehicle and lovely spouse awaited,) and installed the battery. Afterwards, when the vehicle would not start, even equipped with a new battery, we were forced to the conclusion that the initial diagnosis of a faulty battery was not the problem entire. So, recalling that the cabin lighting on my poor Ford Escort had just a few days before, crapped out, I assumed that the problem could be either the fuses or the complete electrical system. Since fuses are easily replaced, I opted to attempt to replace the "Engine" "Drive" and "Ignition" fuses with new fuses, all of which proved fruitless. Since at this point, all of my options were exhausted, I called my Insurance Agency, to attempt to use my promised "Roadside Assistance" insurance, which the agent on the phone, "Could not promise" that they would cover. (At this point, I began to think "And why the fuck do I pay you ~$80 per month then?" (Pardon my French.)) But I restrained this Francophillic statement. An hour later, a delightful Russian tow truck driver from "ZZ Towing" (Any company that places it's name to be last in the phone book is OK by Mr. Steffan Ziegler,) arrived, courtesy of my uncertain Insurance provider (State Farm, whom I am thinking of dropping,) and he quickly and agilely hooked my vehicle up and towed it to my garage of choice, University Ford. This operation cost me ~$80. (Making me wonder, once again, why I exactly the fuck I am paying my insurance provider the same amount.) In the morning, as I learned of a "Glacial Outburst" on Mount Ranier (Several thousand gallons of melted glacier burst free of it's retaining crust, and rushed into the Willamet River, I also learned that the vehicle's difficulties were caused by a second set of fuses (known affectionately as "Engine Fuses") one of which had expired, causing the cabin lighting woes, as well as the vehicle's ignition trouble.

Mystery expressed the concern that the "Glacial Outburst" was related to her high stress levels lately, and I can't help but wonder if the high heat is somehow increasing a charge in the air, and causing everyone's engine fuses to blow out.

i've tried to quit coca-cola like other people have tried to quit smoking.

once i stopped drinking coke for a whole year, it was the first time i went to korea. (I actually stopped drinking anything carbonated, didn't eat anything that derived more than 20% of it's calories from fat, and ran a mile and a half every other day.) i must say that it was kicking the coke that was extremely hard, even when i allowed myself coffee and espresso. after a while i was over it, but i still dreamed about it. (i'm jesus, greetings my son, you've done a man's job, well done and welcome to heaven, oh yeah,,, have a coke.) then when i went home on a visit, my mom packed the trunk of my car with a whole case of the stuff. i was pretty poor at the time, living n the dorm after my recent divorce. depressed. alone. thirsty. it's water or perhaps one of those cokes. (you've done well, my son... have a coke.)

after a few years, i met mystery. then i went to korea a second time, i quit eating all red meat, and cut my chicken intake to about one item every two months or so. when i came home from korea and moved in with mystery, i quit coke again for about 6 months, (we also quit tv at that time) and then i got a job at Microsoft working real early hours on the Cusotmer Service telephone lines. You couldn't leave the chair except for scheduled breaks, they had this software that could tell if you were off the phones for more than 3 minutes. And it also knew if you were taking calls and padding them to last longer than three minutes. Living hell. The only upside was all the free coke you could drink. I'd go into the break room, and be just beat, and coffee wouldn't do it for me, no. i wanted one of those shiney red cokes, just sitting in the fridge all happy. just like a bomb. (You've done well, my son...)

now i drink a liter of coke a day (at least) we would save $60 a month (minimum) if i could stop, plus, each coke is about 500 empty calories that turn right into FAT. i'd hate to think about the possibility of type 2 diabetes. (Diabetes results from the body's inability to create insulin to metabolize glucose. it can be genetic (type 1, aka "juvenile onset diabetes) or it can be a situation caused by abuse of the system, (type 2) the body craps out and just can't handle all the sugar you pump in, it finally says no more insulin for you, asshole. Probably one of the largest factors in whether you'll get type 2 (aside from eating a buttload of sugar) is heredity. Some folks have bodies that can handle lots of sugars, some don't.) My uncle died from type 2 diabetes, as did my great uncle, and yet every day i send this flood of glucose right into my blood. The carbonation leaches the calcium from my bones, my kidneys are taxed. Phosphoric acid will etch a penny in a day, i've seen it. coke is loaded with the stuff, enough to act as a battery. the kidney can take a lot of abuse, just one kidney, operating at 20% efficiency, can filter your entire bloodstream easily for about ten years. but 3/4 of every heartbeat goes to the kidney, all fluids taken in are filtered there. it can process the equivalent of a double-tall latte every minute. you want to kill somebody, stab them in the kidney, they'll bleed out before they can clot. so we've established, target the kidney = death. that's what coke is doing best, taxing the kidney, first on the processing side, then on the blood sugar front. excess glucose in the blood leads to degredation of the retinas and the kidney.

coke is bad. very bad.

and i've got one in the fridge right now. chillin.

i gotta go.

"Saint Monkey" I mean. Everything seems to be synchronous lately, and all of my friends are involved in monkeys or elephants in some way, but I promise that i'm not just on the popularity train here, the name has a history for me.

For a long time, I made a vain attempt to be religious for my grandfather's sake. It would have broken his heart to tell him that I did not believe in God, so I never did. In a way, "God" to me was my grandfather.

When he died, I felt freed to truly abandon the concept of God, and as a way of coming to grips with that, I wrote little poems for about a year, dealing with God, (pissed at him,or his followers mostly.)
One day, while looking into research on rhesus monkeys for a project, I became just positively monumentally depressed over the evil that man perpetrates on nature in the name of the progression of man. (Not necessarily the preservation of nature, or even conscious stewardship of nature.) Earlier in the year, I had just read a wonderful book about "Washoe," a chimp raised to be human by a california couple. They taught her sign language. Washoe uses language as language, and she expresses herself eloquently and coherently. It is a very beautiful thing. For the first time, humans have encountered and communicated with intelligent life outside of their experience. It should be listed as an earth-changing event.

Anyhow, I started thinking about all of those rhesus monkeys in their cages, wired to machines, and I couple that with the thought that they may be coherent intelligences, capable of constructing their own religions, their own mythologies. Perhaps even communicating them orally, far more subtly than we have thought to look. Some research scientists want to discount Washoe, saying that she is simply "mimicking" and her attempts to construct new words for her surroundings are simply random babble, interpreted by her handlers. They don't want to face the idea that Washoe, and other research subjects are capable of cognition, because it may spell the end of their research.

Thinking about this, the idea that religions, the foundation of hopeless hope, could exist in some limited way among these monkeys, and we as the devils in their hell, want to deny them even the right to exist in order to further our own needs (and for what? Jesus Christ, cosmetics? ridiculous.) Thinking about that, I started to cry. (don't figure me as someone who cries a lot. I almost never cry, not even when my grandfather died.) Where was the "saint monkey" that would come free them from their cages?

That's when I knew for sure that God was dead, and he wasn't my grandfather, because he would never permit such a thing.