Saturday - November 23, 2019

is it fixed this much?

Just a test to see if Hosting Matters really REALLY fixed things by setting my blog to use PHP 5.6. It sure would be nice to make regular individual posts again. I’m not holding my breath though.


What? It worked? Horry Clap. GASP. Swoon. Faint.

Happy Dance time !!1!!!!11!!!

Posted by Drew458     on 11/23/2019 at 08:46 AM   
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   Friday - August 26, 2016

fair use

Once in a while having a clearer understanding of the Fair Use Doctrine can come in handy.



What it is: LINK 1



Here’s a checklist: LINK 2



Here’s a nice graphical flowchart: LINK 3

( source )

Remember, at BMEWS it is always our intent to educate our readers in a non-profit manner.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/26/2016 at 12:35 AM   
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   Wednesday - August 24, 2016

And now for something completely different..

At Haymarket Park: Trump by a Bobblehead

It was the battle of the bobbleheads.

Five hundred plastic, blue-pantsuit-wearing Hillary Clintons stood on tables across from 500 “Make America Great Again” red hat-wearing Donald Trumps—a stare down, but with plastered smiles on their bobblehead faces. Tuesday night marked the third Bobble Election at Haymarket Park, held in honor of the upcoming presidential election.

Saltdogs’ fans cast their votes by choosing a free bobblehead before settling down for a game. Whichever of the 500 bobbleheads ran out first was the winner.

Charlie Meyer, president and general manager of the Lincoln Saltdogs, said the poll wasn’t about politically dividing baseball fans but having fun and satisfying curiosity: Will Trump or Clinton be the last man or woman standing?

“It’s been a heated race, and I think it will get much more heated once we get closer to November,” Meyer said. “But this is a fun deal.”

Besides entertainment, Meyer said they hoped to raise awareness by reminding people who haven’t registered to vote to go do so.

It’s 6am, home after a long day (night? Gotta love 3rd shift) at work, and I miiiiiight have made that bourbon & Coke a little stronger than anticipated (Wild Turkey 101, was finishing off the bottle)
This story made me smile. 

Posted by Severa     on 08/24/2016 at 05:58 AM   
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   Monday - July 25, 2016

Desiderata, and the Road Back

I know I’ve been away from posting. If I’m honest, the events of the last month or so have been overwhelming. Just when one revelation of Hillary’s true colors comes, more police blood flows through the streets. Then comes a Jihad attack, speeches at the RNC, and yet more.  To follow them is one thing, that is my duty; but to try detailing at them all and post has been quite another.

But right now I am sitting on a bed in the home of one of my uncles, about to leave the paternal family with his

DESIDERATA

GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & HASTE & REMEMBER WHAT PEACE THERE MAY BE IN SILENCE. AS FAR AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideas; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all acidity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is un-folding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be Happy.

I suppose this is what I really needed after all this time, and it did speak to me a lot given where I am now. In all the many ways. For those who are interested, Desiderata is Latin for “Things Desired”, and I suppose it is fitting for it.

The poster claims it was found in a Church in 1692. As it turns out, that is about as accurate as Madame Clinton claiming she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary for his climbing of Everest. In short, it’s a bit off. If 250~ years is a bit.

It was actually written in 1927 by a guy named Max Ehrmann, who really does strike me as one of those great cases of unexamined brilliance. He’s well work checking out; ditto for his other works.

But as for me now? I think I’ve caught my bearings and am prepared to carry on.

It’s good to be back.

Posted by Turtler     on 07/25/2016 at 12:46 PM   
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coffee time

And I’m off to work, coffee and banana in hand.

Thank goodness it’s raining. We need it, and it breaks the heat wave a bit.

And again, I was awake way before the alarm clock. Maybe that’s because I went to bed early. Which could have something to do with the nice G&T I made myself after dinner. Maybe.

Right. Grab the cat bag (pan scoops) and the stinky garbage (shrimp shells PU) and out the door.

L8ter.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/25/2016 at 05:53 AM   
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   Friday - July 15, 2016

Bastille Day terror attack leaves dozens dead in Nice

CNN.com

The sun rose Friday morning over the Mediterranean city of Nice, devastated by what appears to be the latest, horrifying terror attack on French soil. At least 84 people have been reported dead after a truck careened through crowds on a seafront street, according to French media.

Hundreds, if not thousands, were out on the streets, celebrating Bastille Day, France’s answer to July 4th, with fireworks and a beachfront concert.

It was here, just after the last firework had fizzled out, that an apparent single driver in a large white truck first opened fire into the crowd before plowing through terrified tourists and residents, who had packed the famous Promenade des Anglais, one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

Amongst the dead, several children. At least 18 people remain in critical condition. Although the road was cordoned off, the driver managed to go more than a mile along the packed waterfront before being shot by police.

At the very least French President Francois Hollande said in an address to the nation that it was without a doubt a terrorist attack (noshitSherlock) A lot more than the current occupant of the White House would do, that’s for damn sure....

Posted by Severa     on 07/15/2016 at 04:26 AM   
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   Thursday - July 14, 2016

I hate working at work

I hate having to work at work in my early morning job. As far as I’m concerned, they pay me to drink coffee.

Worse, I even had to stay late an extra 45 minutes.

It was another one of those mornings when the highway jammed up and traffic backed up all the way to Pennsylvania. And then they all tried to take a shortcut / detour down my private road. Um, no.

So it’s not bad enough that it’s a typical sweltering NJ summer morning, with humidity in the upper 90 percents. Now let’s add 50,000 commuters to the mix, all of them in a mad hurry to get somewhere, anywhere, as fast as they possibly can. Now bring traffic to a halt, because miles to the east of us there has been a truck accident. Which caught fire. And now the entire highway is closed. Shut. No way from Point A to Point B.

Unless.

Unless they can get to the bypass road. Which they can’t get to from the highway. Only from the local roads.

And our part of the world is confusing to most GPS maps, which can’t handle one road actually being 3 other roads at the same time. Mostly. Except for where it isn’t any of them. Then it’s just one. But then it becomes 3 roads, and then just 2.

Right. So stress is maximized, tempers are flaring, and people are losing it? And, oh by the way no big trucks are allowed on these streets, so the 3 big rigs in front of you now all have to do U turns on a 2 lane road before you can get to your shortcut corner. Cranked out much yet? Here, have some more coffee.

Eventually I took a whiteboard and a marker and wrote up a detour plan with a rough map. Maybe I’ll get a few hundred printed up. Having all this anger directed at me gets tiring. Even the local cops agree with that. One stopped by ... “yeah, we’re all the biggest assholes on the planet, and all this is our fault, including the accident 3 towns over!”
“I know it. I’m even worse, because Tom-Tom (aka any GPS) says this private road is actually state highway. And the nerve we have putting up a Private Road sign!” [ People were driving their SUVs across the lawn this morning to go around my little choke point, uppity bastard that I am. Crivens. ]

An overturned tractor trailer that caught fire after hitting an overpass support led to the closure of both directions of Route 78 on Thursday morning in Hunterdon County.

Route 78 was closed in both directions around 7:15 a.m. near the exit for exit No. 23 in Tewksbury after the tractor trailer struck the Route 523 overpass and caught fire from the impact, according to New Jersey State Police spokesman Lt. Brian Polite.

It appears from a preliminary investigation the truck was the only vehicle involved, according to Polite, who said the driver of the truck died. His identity was not disclosed.

The overpass struck by the truck is also being inspected.

As of 10:15 a.m., traffic was getting by on the shoulder. All westbound lanes were reopened around 9:30 a.m.

“There’s no real alternate eastbound around the closure point,” according to New Jersey Fast Traffic’s Bob Williams.

On top of that, all lanes on Route 22 eastbound West of Route 523 in Readington Township were closed for a time but have since been reopened.

Uh oh. They closed the bypass road too? East of where my detour put them? Oh, that’s really gonna piss ‘em off. 

Posted by Drew458     on 07/14/2016 at 09:25 AM   
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   Monday - July 11, 2016

A Common Awareness?

I’ve seen several political cartoons like these since the ambush shooting of police down in Texas. Sadly, my only response is “Gee, what took you so damn long to figure out what the rest of us realized back in 2007?”

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2016 at 05:50 AM   
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   Tuesday - July 05, 2016

just yuk

And on top of all this ... I saw this week’s Sports Illustrated, special, Olympics Issue: “Montreal, 40 years ago”, and now as back then, they’ve got Jenner on the cover. Except that this time he’s Kaitlyn.

Go the fuck away, and leave me alone. You are a phony. Most of you. It’s just the latest attention getting scam, and another chance for young people to be annoying. Brucey baby, until Dr. Strange snips off your all bits, you’re just a fame whore.

I’m just so sick of it.

I don’t buy into it. Got gender confusion? Take off your clothes and go look in a mirror. Solved, for all but the smallest handful of people.

Still don’t know whether you’re attracted to girls or boys? We don’t fucking care. Just go somewhere private, use lube and protection, and don’t do anything that both of you aren’t eager to do. And then keep it to yourself, because we don’t want to hear about it. Shit, we were doing freaky before you were even born. It’s not like you invented anything. You’ve maybe just pushed the goalposts around a bit.

We’ve got the Side Show at summer bowling league. We needed a 4th, so they found us a kid. Fine, great. He’s 19. A frail little boy. He has pink hair. With blonde highlights. And now he has a ruby lip stud. His “fiance” must weigh 400 pounds. She is literally round as a ball. Their friend, part of the entourage that arrives with him every week, is ‘becoming”, in a very in-your-face way. An ugly fat girl “becoming” an ugly fat guy. The better to get with “their’ ugly little sourpuss redhead girlfriend. She merely dresses oddly, head to foot in white lace. And black army boots. White lace that hasn’t seen the washtub in half a year or so. More like yellow and brown lace. Maybe they’ll make friends with the attenuated fellow on the other team, an amazingly tall guy with arms so long he can bend halfway forward from the waist and the bowling ball in his hand contacts the floor. I swear his arms are 4 feet long. And I bet he doesn’t weigh 150. “I lost 200 pounds last year” he says. “I was taking 1600mg of [can’t remember the name] herbal supplement from GNC.” Gee whiz, I almost miss Goth at this point.

The entire wold has gone nuts.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2016 at 11:45 PM   
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   Sunday - July 03, 2016

lazy sunday

Just kickin back today.







Yep. An excellent day for a nap. Leave the work until Tuesday.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2016 at 12:25 PM   
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   Tuesday - June 28, 2016

still kickin

Just very busy the past few days.

Replanted most of the common area garden. I dug in the front row and put in a couple trays of petunias, then mulched most of the area after a serious watering. We hadn’t had any rain in weeks, so things were super dry. Naturally, two days later and now it’s raining like mad.

I’ve got a window job or two coming up soon. Just condos. Still, it’s pretty quick money, $50 to $75 for an hour or two of light work. I’ll take that, thanks!

Here come the next Ice Ages : the sun is sunspot free again; this is the weakest sunspot cycle in over 100 years. It’s also an indication that we are at or near the bottom of the cycle, so expect activity to increase in the next few years. Cycles last 11 years IIRC.

And Europe continues to go mad over Brexit. Must be a good thing then.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/28/2016 at 11:04 PM   
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   Sunday - June 26, 2016

family ties

Been helping my mom car shop for the past few days. After her old car bit the dust ...  ... she’s been without a vehicle for several months. Though her old car was 18, it was a true Granny’s Special, a total cream puff in showroom perfect condition with all the options and only 15,000 miles on the odometer. Seriously, her Bonneville wasn’t even dirty in the engine compartment.

So we looked at this one, looked at that one, checked out a minivan and a limo. Little cars, big cars. Figured out that maybe a small SUV / Crossover might be better this time around. Laughed ourselves silly test driving a CR-V with a CVT transmission, trying to pass a Caddy on an steep uphill highway as the little engine just sat there screaming. Really. If you can imagine the sound of a sewing machine being molested, you’d be close. No thanks.

Found the Mazda CX-5 to be a better fit, and with the gorgeous two tone leather in the top trim level plus all the options, it gives her back quite a bit of the luxury she had before. Plus she can get all that awesome digital safety stuff for avoiding collisions. With AWD it’s a perfect height for either of us to just slide into. No climbing up, no squatting down, no bending and twisting to get under a low slung roof. Yup, it’s a real Goldilocks. Just right. And it’s a Mazda, “Zoom Zoom”; the bigger engine adds another 35hp and more low end torque. And it still gets better mpg than my Saturn!!

I think she’s going to shop some more, but maybe not. Ford’s Fusion is a sweet ride, but you have to get the Titanium package to get all the good stuff. Which raises the price to the same tight bracket range as every other regular vehicle when tricked out. It’s crazy. An Impala costs the same as a CR-V which costs the same as a loaded CX-5, a loaded Mazda6, a loaded Mazda3, which costs the same as an swanky Avalon, which costs the same as a midsize pickup.  It’s tiring work, and I’ve done it 2 weekends in a row already. Maybe my brother can take her to the next dealership.

Me? Looks like I’ll be keeping the old Satrun going for a few more months. The car I want doesn’t seem to exist, so I’ll have to order it as a 2017, assuming it’s still made.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/26/2016 at 08:47 AM   
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   Friday - June 24, 2016

EU referendum: BBC forecasts UK vote to leave

BBC News

The UK has voted by 52% to 48% to leave the European Union after 43 years in an historic referendum, a BBC forecast suggests.
London and Scotland voted strongly to stay in the EU but the remain vote has been undermined by poor results in the north of England.
Voters in Wales and the English shires have backed Brexit in large numbers.
The pound fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985 as the markets reacted to the results.

Watching this from across the pond, I’m not going to even PRETEND I have a clue what’s going on here.
Was this expected to pass? If so, was it expected to pass by a lot or a little?
What does this mean, exactly, in the eyes of my Brit friends? 

Posted by Severa     on 06/24/2016 at 12:03 AM   
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   Tuesday - May 31, 2016

federally approved, with better signage

You got it. Another hot and sunny day, so I’m back out on the roads again painting speed bumps.

Oh joy.

I’ve got my big gallon of old school Rustoleum, the old time oil based stuff with extra crispy VOCs. Use it outdoors, preferably on a really windy day, or else. And it comes in OSHA mandated Safety Yellow. Shade 7543-402 to be exact.

I will give OSHA some credit here - this is one brilliant, bleeding eyeballs yellow. I swear it glows in the dark. I also think it’s just about the exact same color as my wife’s Sentra. Just in case I need vast amounts of touch up paint some day.

Right. So gather the tools ... plastic bags, mineral spirits, bottled water, hat, roller, signage. Drywall screws. Screwdriver!

Oh yeah, signage. Well, it seems the Derps here can’t understand what “Wet Paint” means, so I had to figure out some additions to help them. Now it will be “Wet Paint ... this side only ... Please drive around --->“ on a big white plasti-board panel. Safety cones? No. We ain’t got no safety cones. That would be too easy.

Remind me to make a sardonic post about safety cones, the plastic rulers of the western world. It’s true!! We obey them without thought or question. They are our little orange angels, sent down to save us from danger, disaster, and minor inconvenience. All hail Safety Cone! Save us! Lead us! Rule us!!

Hmm, absolute obedience huh? And that tapered cone shape. Gives me an idea ...

Posted by Drew458     on 05/31/2016 at 09:17 AM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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