Resort

Aleenta Hua Hin Resort, Thailand
Jigsaw Puzzle

Old

Parking Garage Ticket Machine

They changed the payment system in the parking garage we use in downtown Portland. Used to be the machine would hand you a thin little card with magic numbers on it when you drove in and when you were ready to leave you would insert this little card into another machine and which would demand money before it would let you go.

Now instead of a thin little card, you get a piece of paper much like a credit card receipt. When we are leaving, I am standing in line with all the other sheep, waiting for my turn at the altar of mammon. The people at the front are taking a really long time to complete their offering, must have been at least a minute. Wretched philistines. They finally move off and now the line has accelerated from a dead stop to crawling along, so I think I should probably get my ducks in a row. I pull out my wallet and start looking for the thin card that the entrance machine usually gives me, but I can't find it. All I find is a whole sheaf of credit card receipts. Bah, double bah and humbug. I am taking so long, I let the next person go in front of me. My wife steps in and helps me identify the correct nasty gram.

I step up to the machine and instead of inserting the card, you simply show the machine the magic squiggle that is printed on the nasty gram. Now, of course, it want's money. There is a snout protruding from the machine and I think it's for the credit card. It's not. There's another slot for for the card. Get that sorted, collect the receipt from the snout and we're clear.

Now we drive to the exit and show the exit machine the nasty gram and wait for a response. We don't get one. It just repeats its innocuous greeting. Only after I have been fussing with this machine for a minute or two do I realize that the gate is open. Geez, I must be slipping.

Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson

Holmes & Watson

Saw this hilarious play at Portland Center Stage yesterday afternoon. Holmes is a manic pixie, Watson is her foil. The dialog bounces all over the cosmos and drags in any number of cultural touch stones. It was great! 

RC Aircraft Crosses the Atlantic Ocean

Can an RC-PLANE cross the ATLANTIC?
Captain Joe

This happened in 2003. Progressive Engineer has a story about Maynard Hill, the man who designed and built the RC airplane that made this flight.

Via IAman

Just Rolled In

Customer States Compilation (The Best of 2022) | Just Rolled In
Just Rolled In
Watching this video, the idea that not everyone is a car guy forces its way into my brain. I have been taking care of cars since forever. Knowing how they work is my second nature, so anytime I see things like this I am dumbfounded that people can be that clueless. Then I remember that my wife can't tell one brand of car from another. I suspect that only about ten percent of the population has the mechanical aptitude for working on cars. I live in a world of aliens. Oh, wait a minute, maybe I am the alien.

Via Ross

When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin When the Levee Breaks (music video)
Matthew Fuggi
I picked up a copy of Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson at Powell's yesterday. It opens with a few lines from the song When the Levee Breaks, which is as good an excuse as any to post Led Zeppelin's version of it.

When the Levee Breaks Lyrics

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break

And the water gonnna come in and we'll have no place to stay

I works on the levee, mama, both night and day

I works on the levee, mama, both night and day

I works so hard, to keep the water away

- Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie 

The song dates from 1929.

The first chapter is all about Texas and the feral hog and fire ant problems they have down there, not to mention the flooding in Houston every time it rains.

P.S. I've posted Zepparella's cover of this tune a couple of times, not because it was better (nothing can match Led Zeppelin's version) but because I was shocked that girls would even like Led Zeppelin that much. It was an alien concept.

Comanches

The Gruesome History of the Comanche Tribe - Joe Rogan
The Sigma Life
Stopped by Powell's this afternoon. I was disappointed that they only had one book by Peter Watts (Blindsight) and I've already read it, so I went and looked at Neal Stephenson. There are a couple of shelves of his books including one I hadn't read - Termination Shock. The story opens in Waco, Texas, and one of the lead characters (Rufus, I believe) has some relation to the Comanches, and Comanches, Neal tells us, got a leg up on the other inhabitants of the region by being early adopters of the horse. And then this video pops up so I gotta share.