The Jesus Myth -Part 3

THERE'S A LOT MORE EVIDENCE - IF YOU STILL ARE NOT CONVINCED OF ALL THAT AND IF YOU ARE STILL INTERESTED - JUST DROP ME A LINE

The Jesus Myth - Part 2

iF YOU LOVED PART 2, YOU'LL ADORE PART 3 - BUT ADORATION IS A SIN, ISN'T IT? CLICK HERE TO SIN

I'M BAAAACK! ...AS A NEW FORM OF STORYTELLER

Hi Kids
Back to being myself, fully replenished in foodstuff and other substances lacking in the recent days and weeks, namely health , but also cultural resources not readily available in the southwest and to which I was habituated since childhood. So as of this morning I really feel like the tiger on the cereal box. I am posting this because I feel i owe you an explanation since we do spend a lot of time together, but mostly because we share a lot of common interests and means to help each other out in our
daily life.

WRITING
First that Scientific American magazine is precious (see titles on cover below) for many articles that provide answers and
suggestions. The article on writing explains how the brain responds to storytelling so well, more so when all parts are brought together. Giving emotional clues of where the characters are in a story is as important as describing a physical location. Both help the reader get a 'full brain' experience. The article will make you very proud to be readers or writers.

WORKING WITH YOUR HANDS
I dont know if 'typing' or 'using a mouse' in photoshop is considered as 'working with your hands', but one article describes the powerful satisfaction of knitting, building things, as opposed to pushing buttons. We are antique creatures that get depressed in modern times for not having to plow fields and stoke a fire to make a coffee pot. Apparently using a microwave can be debilitating unless we have a hobby with our hands to make up for it. I think Nikki and I ought to make scupltures or build a rooftop addition...or maybe just play the piano with FOUR HANDS...(hehe)

HANGING OUT WITH TEENS
The secret to longevity with fruit flies in a lab. Can add years to our life...Where do we find teens??? Then I thought In my own family there will be a bunch of teens in just a few years!

SLEEPING
How sleep solves problems...fully developed explanations. Cant wait to sleep long hours. Its just too hot here, especially with Lucille's flannel bedsheets. Why is it that Mexico is cooler than Canada?

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES
Apparently the more the merryer. Let's make a lot of mistakes.

CANCER
Was on the phone with Diane last night, my first wife in the 60's. Her 50 yr old sister had lung cancer. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy and six months later, no more tumors in her lungs, she grows fat again and happy. Last week they found 5-6 metastasis in her brain. 'No problem' the doc says. We zap them happily. You'll be confused for a few days'. I'm very impressed with the health care (free) in Canada. I am now lighting another Malboro at $8.35 a pack.

FRIENDS
I am measuring whom I should call and whom I should just drop. Talking with people is NOT my major need in life. Having you readers and commenters is a real source of satisfaction. And what has brought me a lot of contentment recently was actually on Canadian TV:

A BRAZILIAN MOVIE
A quaint gang warfare story filmed in the favelas of Rio was an astounding masterpiece of cinematography, shown on Radio-Canada 'Cine-Club'. If I coud see one of those each month I would be a happier camper. I am considering a NetFlix subscription with Nikki and Camille, getting those in the mail for one month and trading.

COMIC STRIPS
Last night in French (read 'France') TV5 that I use to have in New Mex and Louisiana but cannot get in MEX or San Diego, an amazing movie on the Belgian Comic strips of the 40's and 50's, Tintin, Blake and Mortimer, etc...I need to get back doing comic strips since I was raised on them, those wonderful adventures that gave me so much.

IMMEDIATE PROJECT
So I woke up after dreaming out my life of the next year or so: I was doing 3D Software (Bryce) renderings of buildings used in a comic strip I was designing for teenagers, full of terrrific storytelling and mystery and capable of lighting up the bulb of young boys (and girsl too). I realized first hand that my nephews and their friends just adore my 'gramophone' game and are fascinated by what I do on the computer. What motivation. Thursday night I will have dinner with Josee, Toma, Jordan and Tania + Michelle. I was working on a pirate story for Toma, but now I know what I want to create:

MORE WORDS and LESS DRAWINGS, just a few high definition pictures of key moments, done lovingly in Bryce. Toma who is just eight years old is reading books with very few pictures. The 'Life of Ghenjis Khan' is his current book and he knows the antique name for Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Mongolia. No need to do many illustrations in these stories when their imagination is wild enough to post internal pictures in tehir own brain.His little Brazilian friends that live in Oregon (the Brazil wife is back with hubby Yanick who owns a software company in Bent OR) are 'future customers' of these adventure stories. By the way, presentation could be VOICE over slow panning over a series of truly high class illustrations. This way they could really 'fly' on the Internet. More interestingly, each tableau will be Flash-based and tricked: the reader needs to unlock something moveable to go further in the story, possibly in alternate directions. Just like the gramophone puzzle seen HERE .

NEW STORYTELLING
Actually this is not so new as the very successful MYST game demonstrated almost 10 years ago. What is new is that thanks to the tools I am using (FLASH CS3 programming, etc), these stories will live on the Internet with huge viral properties. For instance, the readers will have ro resolve clues presented in the lyrics of a song played on that gramophone and fed through an MP3 format piped in without loading up the story software. The power is just too astounding for words. Texts will pe piped in through a similar side door to feed the action and orient hte reader. A combination game and adventure story cannot miss the mark, but the quality of the story will depend on this storyteller, assumedly the best in the techno-thriller vein (modesty is something I tried hard to get rid off lately and I am proud to announce my modest success)

THE YOUTH READER MARKET
The youth market of new readers has exploded thanks to Harry Potter. These kids are starving for quality material with so much crap on TV. And they want interactive, to control their stories to some extent. I was lucky enough to be raised on the BEST illustrated adventure books for boys, the Tintin series. It's certainly high time to give back...and most likely make some money in the process, a nice afterthought! These 5 boys will be teenagers in 4 years and constitute the ready-made startup base of a public for this new-style storytelling. In 4 years there will be thousands reading those VERY SPECIAL stories. Americans need something to thelp them rise above their depressing two-party political system. Kids need an alternate world with different value systems. Mine!

ARCHITECTURE
I will go see Louise as a friend, not as an architect partner. I dont know about working 'the Building Trade'. What i can do is too precious to waste on a Shell stations. I am postponing the rotating solar house for when the political situation in the US is more clear and when I have more bucks in a better economy. The only stock that keeps soaring is GAMESTOP, as if kids , my public, always seems to have money for new games. Besides I have enough photos, 'unfinished' illustrations, 3D projects in Bryce to fill a few albums of boy adventures with little to add but characters and mood.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS
That's the crucible into which we operate. The two writers Nikki and Camille have inspired me so much to get my act together. Being more disorganized is no excuse to not get it done now. It's a bloody miracle that in the span of just a few days I could be fed with all those powerful tools and messages. This goes beyond random, a kind of magic that is really hard to explain...so i'll just call it THE POWER OF LOVE for simplicity.

My friend Pierre that took me sailing Sunday has a wonderfully organized life and adventure systems, another inspiration with his fanciful and pretty wife Lisa, owner of the sailboat. (Pierre's new boat is a monster catamaran that I will show here soon). As a source of international information and classy credibility for my stories. Pierre will be cast as a hero in my first story since I can draw his face with my eyes closed. These friends are worth a lot to me.
My energetic sister Yvette was so instrumental in resetting my clock and I am still eating that gallon and a half of frozen zucchini soup she cooked for me. AHA, maybe that is the source of the clarity of my soul, that humble legume. I think I'll put her in a story as an hyperactive benevolent witch.
All others wanting to be integrated, albeit in disguised form, will need to pay me $5. PayPal and send a photo for application. Acceptance not guaranteed.

Love You All and Stay healthy
Post your comments and you might just
get a place in the stories

Getting old

Our Bodies Weathered..

All Summer Long

Patching And Haywiring..

Kept Them Together..

For Now...But

One Day Soon The Engine Will Quit..

So Thank Heaven For New Life...

Our New Kitten 'Chica'..

Le Séminaire Oblat de Marie-Immaculée

At 11 I sang solo soprano in the Seminary choir. They required me to act the role of the Virgin Mary in each and every play that called for Her. I quit the Seminary at 13 because of facial hair. Had I toughed it out through it's full 10-yr course, I would now be wearing a size 54 cassock while looking obliquely at the new nun that blushes too easily, imagining all the ceremonies we could perform together.
Instead, I wear a size 40 sweatshirt (yeah! life is hard on the outside!) and I look at all the women, imagining all the ceremonies we could perform together. But now I can't sing shit. (Thanks Maria for lending me your voice)

A Mysteriously Enchanted Evening With Dopamine Soaked Truffles

'It's the economy, stupid'!' had touted Bill Clinton as the argument for his successful 1992 presidential bid. His wife Hillary was on TV last night, sitting close to the left of Obama that she was debating, her pretty cow eyes smiling, her oxen-like hubby nowhere in sight.
I was sitting on our love seat to the left of Nikki (Nicole Beaudry), both of us watching and listening with great interest, connecting stuff and having a good time. Facing me (i.e. Jacques Poirier), a white non-smoking retiree, was the politician Barrak Obama, a black fellow that is said to hide to smoke cigarettes, always wrapped up in a clean aura of youth and dynamism . On the right, facing the smoker Beaudry sitting next to me, was Hillary, the non-smoking white woman debating Obama. At one point we had two of those quaintly wrapped truffles bought locally just a week ago. Luck of the draw, I picked a white chocolate coated one while Nikki picked a dark one. Both debaters were very professional and courteous while reciting their respective strong points. Obama had those powerful terse statements, well paced, while Hillary wiggled beautifully, covering all bases but sometimes dragging on for too long. My mate Nikki made short comments, always to the point, while I sometimes rambled my own opinions for too long, distracting her.
So I decided to have a cigarette to better contain my excitement. I quit smoking two months ago but I sometimes have a vacation where I smoke a few and then quit again fo awhile to clear my throat. Thinking about all this under our flannel sheets this morning, I had a moment of serendipity (scientese for 'good luck'), the object of this blog. So hang on...we'll get there!

'It's the MAO.b, stupid!" I now insist, the main reason why it is so hard to quit smoking. What is that all about? Let me explain: but first let's go back a few decades when people smoked in airplanes. Remember those armrest ashtrays and the blue smoke that just exploded five minutes after take-off? One little old non-smoking lady had sent a newspaper the following letter, one that struck me and that I approximately memorized:

"I'm a little old five-foot lady with a serious scoliosis of my back, a fact that has dropped my stature down to four-foot something. When I fly, I always go to the smokers section even though I don't smoke. The reason is that absolutely no one in the non smoking front part of the plane helps...or even sees me...as if I didn't exist. The moment I reach the smokers section five to ten people get up at the same time to help me put my baggage in the overhead compartment. Smokers are definitely better people".

I don't think so. People are people. But a smoker's brain performs more connections. Dopamine swamped, their neural pathways connect at twice the rate of the non-smokers lazier MOA.b inhibited brain, as shown in diagram below. This from a recent study at Brookhaven National Institute shows what happens to the level of the 'killjoy' neurotransmitter MAO,b (monoamine oxydase b) a few seconds after a happy dopamine moment, the 'well-being' neurotransmitter: it is totally recaptured by a good squirt of MOA,b , one that is absent in the 51-year old female smoker. Then the thrill is gone in the non-smoker, it's chemistry recycled for a later thrill. The smoker just goes on and on, stretching his dopamine levels like an old bubble gum, maintaining enough connectivity to relate to the little old lady, her large carrying bag, the hump on her back, the visual comparative cue of a distance to high to the overhead compartment. Meanwhile 200 non-smokers are lost in their private reverie, connecting zilch. MOA,b dismantles the dopamine chemistry so fast it has been called 'killjoy' by researchers.
This is why I had to smoke last night to better enjoy that debate. And here's what I found, synthetized neatly while still lurching under the flannel sheets this morning:

By carefully listing the boolean properties of the people and things that populated our evening as smokers/watchers/eaters/commentators , I found out the connections and listed them in the grid at the left. Check it out carefully. Gender showing an 'X' for a male and 'O' for female etc...
Then I totaled the results, parsing them under TOTAL as you can see, XOX for Obama, OXO for Clinton, OXXO for myself and XOXO for Nikki. The obvious result is the opposite 'O's' and 'X's' between Obama and Clinton, something we all noticed without even thinking about it.
Black male, white female, obvious! The fact that Nikki and I have opposites too is also well known in this household where explosive encounters occur from time to time. But wait, there is more!...much more as I decided to explore this promising vein..

No wonder I was so mysteriously excited last night after unwrapping my white chocolate truffle, having boosted my dopamine to new levels thanks to a few Malboros. Although I was not aware of it till this morning, the truffles have a metallic wrapper with the name XOX clearly printed. I quickly Googled 'XOX' this morning to the San Francisco maker, chef Jean-Marc Gorce. Then I checked out Nikki's score as XOXO, finding a clothing manufacturer by that name, one that has on its home page a model looking exactly like Nikki forty seven years ago. This number is the actual age of Barrak Obama (47). Mystified I looked at my own score, OXXO. This literally bowled me over. Dig this, OXXO is a 'tienda' situated one kilometer from our Cantamar house in Mexico, and it is THE PLACE WHERE I BOUGHT THE DAMN TRUFFLES LAST WEEK.
I went crazy and lit another Malboro. First, the idea to have a chocolate truffle last night came from seeing Obama's cute little edible brown head ( for the record, I am neither gay nor racist)
This would explain the XOX connection to Obama's score. And my own OXXO connection becomes obvious since I am the one who bought the darn OXO things. Nikki 's connection is more questionable since her lips aren't as fat as those of the twenty year old model shown here. True, the latter might have had lip enlargement, a non-existing procedure in the fifties. On the other hand, maybe Nikki's lips were fatter then. I'll certainly ask her that as I am looking at her, pretty as ever playing PacMan on her computer, unaware of my tortuous inquiries into life on earth as we know it.
Left out was Hillary's score as OXO. Piece of cake! I was musing at her brown eyes last night. OXO is a well-know cow by-product. On second thought, those tasty little beef bouillon cubes I munched on as a boy scout did not convinced me fully of the validity of that connection. And Bill Clinton is more snake-like than oxen-like, a character better given to ex-president Gerald Ford. So I did the Google thing one more time and found it, the perfect product for Hillary, a mango splitter quite popular in Mexico and made by a company named OXO. Hillary DOES split my 'mango' from time to time, and maybe yours too, right? Plus this other fact: I have girlfriend blogger named 'Mango' and I sometimes wish she would split with her boyfriend. That's it then, Hillary, the Mango-splitter! I need Mango to respond to this blog below and comment on her opinion of Hillary Clinton, stressing connections one more time. For a follow-up, I will respond to her comment...and to yours too, of course. We need to complete this flagging experiment.

As a temporary conclusion to all of this, would you agree with me that a little MAO.b squirted in the synaptic gap goes a long way in suppressing too many weak connections induced by un-recaptured dopamine? Ain't that a good reason to quit smoking? All of a sudden, I want to be like those smooth non-smoking passengers who barely glanced at the old lady with the dowager's hump. Connect nothing. Like cows in a pasture burping quietly at a passing train. My new letters are "Z"E"N", I quit smoking again and I will write short dreamy pointless blogs in the future. That's a switch from those Malboro-produced blawgs that gives me and you a 'mango-splitting' headache. No more cigarettes! Let the old lady jump for the overhead compartment, let's vote for McCain, let general Petraeus achieve victory in Iraq, what recession?...Ron Paul? Never heard of him. Let's go see my lovely Nikki and play a few rounds PacMan till dinner time.

How Old Are You Really, Blawgger?

Click here to start
Redo the test one more time with a little more candor. Compare.Send us the date of your death. We love those funeral parlor sandwiches and coffee, the controlled giggles and the conviviality.

Anyone dying after 2033, don't bother with this information! We won't be around. Check 'La Casa De Los Funerales' in Rosarito MX, Dec.12 2032. They have fish tacos with cilantro sauce. The very best. We'll be there waiting for you in our cute decorated little urns.

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!

On the 8th of February I will be officially divorced from Lauren Jane Smith-Poirier, regaining my individuality and my market value. How thrilling after 20+ years. And I did it all by myself, cut through the California bureaucracy like a knife through butter. Actually the process could be better described as a plastic spoon (or a 'spork' since the word is now accepted by the Mirriam-Webster, a plastic spoon with serrations like a fork on its front end), ...a spork in frozen peanut butter, with many waves of doubt that possibly form 721A needed to included the seven annexes describing my assets, including a letter from my employer?? stating my salary for the last 20 years. Let it be known that I am now available for matrimony, not having set a price yet. Problem is that availability will be short as we might be getting married on the high seas as our Holland-American cruise starts on the 9th. You ladies have ONE DAY ONLY to auction me off the block. That transaction is CASH only because of the state of the mortgage credit in America. But if Nikki chickens out on the high seas, my but will go back on the block at Sothebies.

COLD MUSINGS AND THE FED

It is cold in our concrete house. Whereas northern wooden houses have between their stud a fibrous mass of mineral hair, each one holding tight a few CC's of dry insulating air and thus retarding conduction of heat towards the outside, our cinder blocks with their tight little atoms just telegraph any heat to the outside at one-tenth the speed of light. Molecular agitation of air molecules, also called 'heat' , is soon sucked into a nearby wall to warm Mexico skies... while we freeze are little butts.
Of course we have an attractive cast iron stove, large enough for a lumbermen camp. Alas, iron is the sole remaining element when collapsing stars have successfully fused hydrogen into helium, followed by chlorine, phosphorus, oxygen etc...each emitting its own spectral ID until iron, too inert to glow anymore forms a dead star, still capable of transmutatuing into rare earths and their isotopes but useless as a reliable source of heat. Iron is a sad element, omnipresent in the universe and totally useless in our house. That cast iron stove stuffed with 5 logs of pure oak, a tight and highly caloric wood paid for with muchos dineros, will emit less energy than the incandescent bulb over our piano. Than faint heat is then propelled all over the house by a five-blade ceiling fan, diffusing that meager resource while making sure it disappears pronto into the vast expanse of uninsulated ceiling.
Thanks Christmas our new flannel sheets that create a thin layer of insulating air between our bodies and the cold night. We also manage to sleep with the help of Amelie's hot furry young body providing scalp protection , while Sesame's aging mass keeps our legs a little warmer too.
It would seem that the oak logs we use, tightly wound as they are, burn so slowly that the combustion products just ride the chimney to heat Mexico, no matter if I turn the damper down to 5 degrees. Unfair.
When you think that the few grams of the metal present in one peso, if allowed to fuse (change energy level to the corresponding higher atomic number metal in the Mendeleev table ) would generate enough heat to melt all the sand in Baja to pure glass, a boon for ecotourism. But we would need to compress that peso with a force of 142,000,000,000 tons (;-) I made that up. It's probably a lower number) , this to initiate a thermonuclear fusion reaction in silver, something we cannot do today for practical reasons.
But then I thought of the shrinking US dollar and it's effect on the Mexican peso. Shit the whole thing might implode soon and we might have heat at last! Heat at last! Thanks Bernanke!

The Early Morning Jog of a Needy Brain.

I need to write this morning with only the vaguest idea of where I am heading. I know it will involve dogs, our mortality, superstition, addiction and a few other topics. I want to tie stuff together, in a way, connect some dots, make little packages of wisdom or knowledge that are readily available on the shelves of my blog, something I do for myself every day while thinking pretentiously that it serves mankind.
My blog is read by a few friends and family members, my own window on ‘mankind’, but so what? We are a collaborative species, aren’t we? If you ever took a dog walking you know that they are seeking with their wet noses scents and other artifacts that could reveal a prey, something edible for the entire family of which they are. Even bees do their little song and dance to tell each other where the flowers are.
So here I am this morning with my nose wet for something revealing, fingers dancing on the keyboard.
But what exactly? Let’s ramble on until it materializes.
The topic of addiction would be a good start, said he while lighting a second cigarette after a third gulp of that great cappuccino. Whoops, I forgot the cinnamon, the only food substance that, according to recent science, is a true aphrodisiac. As opposed to false aphrodisiacs, the ‘true’ variety actually raises the level of testosterone in men. So I am going to wait a few minutes until I feel a surge of manhood in myself before I tackle anything of substance. Aha, tobacco is already getting in my brain thanks to that direct link to that immense porous lung membrane that if flattened, they say, would cover an large dining table. The neo-cortex of the brain is another one of those things that if it was stretched from its convoluted state would represent the area of a large handkerchief. Nicotine is pinging right now, boosting serotonin production in several synapses, making me excitable and certainly more talkative. Caffeine helping on with shaking the large handkerchief until of it fires on all cylinders. Pretty soon, blawgers and friends, we will have a synthesis, connections will occur and a concept will emerge, a morsel for us to savor all day.
....
I don’t know about you but I’m waiting for it. Like waiting for Godot. It doesn’t seem to be happening....! All the cigarette did was to make me want to smoke another one. All the coffee does is make me want to cook up another cup. Shucks. Remember two weeks ago I said I had quit smoking for five days then? It was true. Fell off the bandwagon on the sixth day. My brother-in-law that I am going to visit today in California was on a similar plan with a progressive decrease. I was competing with him using the ‘cold turkey’ approach. OK, I dont want to lose face so I am quitting RIGHT NOW so that when the family car reaches Carlsbad CA at around 11AM, I can safely tell him that I quit smoking.
...
Done. I just quit. I feel wonderful. All that oxygen is already seeping through the tablecloth of my lungs, rushing through the carotids to the handkerchief of my brain. I feel terribly smart and ‘promising’. Trouble is I have been ‘promising’ since my youth and have not delivered much. And still no delivery of anything substantial on the horizon, in spite of the ‘clean living’ I have subjected myself for the last five minutes. Nothing connects. It’s 4AM and the dogs are still sleeping around Nikki. Conditions are perfect for discovery, yet I discover nothing, zilch, nada, just wasting your precious time.
...
Let’s face it, I am not a Montesquieu nor even a Georges Carlin. I just don’t cut the mustard as a morning philosopher. And my own mortality makes it that fairly soon I will fizzle out into the dark soup, leaving no traces of my passage on earth. What a depressing thought.
But I did play the accordion at a wedding last week. And they are making a leather bound photo album. That document could last 100 years and end up on PBS's 'Antique Road Show'. Possibly someone would then identify me and say: there's my great great great grand uncle Jacques.
Unlikely. So let’s have another cigarette

The Power Of 'Tennessee Waltz'

After the war, the prolific Belgian author Simenon, father of famed Commissaire Maigret, was not happy with his wife nor with his editor or even with Europe. So he moved to Quebec and started writing again with Denyse Ouimet as his new secretary. As was his custom with all of them, he soon fathered a child with Denyse, keeping all his people in tow when he moved, which he did every year. So a caravan of large cars successively traveled to Connecticut, Tennessee, Arizona etc...buying a huge house at every stop until he had 33. In Reno, he got a quick divorce from his first wife and sent her packing, then started to dip into a Spanish maid. Later Denyse slowly went insane and had to be placed into a mental institution.
Then the beautiful but disturbed daughter Marie-Jo got jealous. When she was 8 years old she already knew that she was madly in love with her father. He had bought her a wedding ring then. In her letters published posthumously she admitted that the happiest moment of her short life was on a transatlantic cruise when daddy asked her for a dance as the band started to play 'Tennessee Waltz'. "He held me tight against his tweed jacket and smelled of wonderful pipe tobacco" .
Later, after having written his biography where he bragged of having had sex with 10,000 women, Mari-Jo asked him "Why not me?" He refused to make love to her even when she threatened him at gunpoint to do so, instead giving her a bottomless bank account. Simenon sent her to an insane asylum several times. She was diagnosed at that time as manic-depressive, but she was mostly depressed for long periods, having few manic attacks like the one just described. A twenty five, after writing 100 wonderful unmailed letters from her all-devouring passion for daddy, she shot herself. "Save me Daddy – I’m dying – I’m lost in the space, the silence of death" In her last message, she asked to be cremated wearing the ring he had given her.
You can read all about it here. Her ashes were spread on a Lausanne lawn where Simenon died several years later, a darkness having enveloped his later years.
I composed this audio track last night thinking about her not a little because I was also obsessed with that same song, albeit not sharing the same degree of affection for her father. The steel guitar continuum is actually a piano play modified by the software. Same for the flute and everything else actually. Hope you like it for a mood to suggest the mind of the disturbed child of an autocratic father. Bi-polar disorder is a problem solving mechanism gone awry, mostly because the problem to be solved just cannot be solved. The dear girl wanted the love of her father. He had told her, "if you love me, please please do not disturb me needlessly". She sometimes spent over a year with no contact from her father, not wanting to displease him.
On a lighter note, I just hope Amélie doesn't develop the same passion for me...but then we had her neutered. That should help.

We Were Young and Innocent in 1959 - See And Hear Kathy Young and The Innocents 48 Years Later

I fell in love with that beautiful voice through her first and only hit, 'A Thousand Stars'. I didn't know that she was only 14 when she taped it. I was a 'mature' 16 at that time. She lived in Santa Ana, CA where her father worked at the Studebaker factory. Our family owned a Studebaker. I was going to write her to tell her that.
Recently reunited with her group, 'The Innocents', for a PBS fund raiser, my heart still swells hearing that song again from her pretty mouth. Today she is a Sunkist Orange representative and a renowned marathon runner. Read about the complicated life she has had... just like our own, I suppose.

Accordion Autumn. Vivaldi Still Rocks!

For those of you lucky enough to have the smell of burning autumn leaves in your nostrils, this young man will give you his best rendition of a favorite of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Wonderful to have an 18th century Venitian priest played four centuries later by a boy in a room facing a $29.95 videocam. The libretto of this work reads aloud like colorful falling leaves.

Autumn Concerto in F Major

Allegro
"Celebra il Vilanel con balli e Canti
Del felice raccolto il bel piacere
E del liquor de Bacco accesi tanti
Finiscono col Sonno il lor godere"

Adagio molto
"Fa ch' ogn' uno tralasci e balli e canti
L' aria che temperata da piacere,
E la Staggion ch' invita tanti e tanti
D' un dolcissimo Sonno al bel godere."

Allegro
"I cacciator alla nov' alba a caccia
Con corni, Schioppi, e canni escono fuore
Fugge la belua, e Seguono la traccia;
Gia Sbigottita, e lassa al gran rumore
De' Schioppi e canni, ferita minaccia
Languida di fuggir, ma oppressa muore."

Unfortunately the translation posted
in my comment below does leaves a hurt.

Ready Or Not, Some Day It Will All Stop

There will be no more sunrises,
no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected,
whether treasured or forgotten,
will pass to someone else.

Your wealth,
fame and temporal power
will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned
or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations,
and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans,
and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses
that once seemed so important
will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from,
or on what side of the tracks you lived,
at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought,
but what you built;
not what you got,
but what you gave?

What will matter is not your success,
but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned,
but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion,
courage or sacrifice that enriched,
empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence,
but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories,
but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered,
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

Michael Josephson

Nikki's Art Exhibit Avant-Première

Nikki's pre-opening video is intended for our bloggers who are not Second Life member and, having no avatar, cannot attend the Grand Opening of her Art Exhibit. So we bought 3 bottles of champagne and three dozen sushis with the intention of giving you a quick go-around, in the case that you could not attend the REAL event.
My Gawd, that word REAL suddenly takes a strange color. Considering that Nikki's oldest paintings are over 20 yrs old, it is not difficult to see that she started her career pumping out those large canvases before kindergarten!. (The growling noise towards the very end of the sound track is the golden lab Chase getting bored for not having a ball to chase!)

A Second Life Art Gallery To Exhibit Nikki's Work

This is exciting. Nikki's Second Life's persona, Nicolasa Bonetto, her avatar visible above, is having an opening in a prestigious SL gallery. Twelve of her wall size paintings will be shown to other Second Lifers. It needs to be said that all these works are RL, or Real Life productions photographed and reissued in a virtual world. In a quaint parallel move, Nikki's Second Life art is being printed on real media, some of it woven into tapestries, all of it visible in a Real Life context. For those of you not able to access this virtual world, a movie of the gala opening will be shown here. Equally, a video of her Real Life exhibit will be shown on Second Life screen for the benefit of those who spend most of their days in Second Life. Oh I know! this is so confusing. I'm the geek that helps with the process. I dont have an avatar. I just have a blog to report all of that modern and quaint theater of the absurd.

Where Are They Now, Mambo And Samba?

Gawd I miss those critters at martini time, when they would peck at the lime slices in our empty glasses. Just a year ago in an experiment that went awry, they flew off never to come back. Actually Mambo, my favorite, came back briefly, but when he could not persuade Samba to follow suit, he went back to that distant palm tree. Both eventually disappeared, probably killed by an owl or other predator. Nikki still looks towards that distant palm from time to time. I switched to gin.

The Santa Ana Winds Blow Long, Hot and Dry

(IMPORTANT: The sound level button is at the lower left of the above Quicktime Player)
This wind can blow non stop for three days, killing kill any plant that is not native. Standing outside 5 minutes after a shower will blow dry your hair and blind you with desert dust. Yet autumn in Baja is wonderful between these episodes. YOU ARE ALL INVITED one or two at a time! This will make you appreciate the native plants, the low-water need variety like those grown by Molly.

A Gem Of An Animation Film, by Chris Lambeth

I must thank Bob (The 13th) for this link. As a Canadian, I knew nothing about either Larkin of Lambeth, although they both made the Oscars in the animation category. Nice to be educated about our own by a considerate American neighbor. This is awesome, for lack of a better descriptor.

Software for a New Century - EgoTicklerWare

Still mining the 'charity' vein, we are introducing this morning a Christmas gift solution that is valid for most of us, bloggers, Second Lifers, YouTubers, Facebookers, MySpacers and Googlers. When installed it accomplish ALL of the following goals seamlessly while you are busy doing something else on your computer.

• First EgoTicklerWare will ask you identify the TARGET, someone whose ego needs a little tickling, or a loved one in need of a boost, even yourself if you need it too. You enter the identity of that lucky person, his or her email address, avatar name, Facebook Wall, blog name etc...Add a few of that person's traits and vulnerabilities in the appropriate fields. DONT FORGET GENDER, AGE, CULTURAL ID !
  
• 'EgoTicklerWare' was written by professionnal EgoTicklers, trained in subtlety, sneakiness and suave but subdued flattery.
• The program picks at random from a database of 10,000 tested ID's. Using one of these, it then posts comments to the TARGET's blog (or email, Facebook Wall, SL messaging etc..). This is done at random for a pre-defined period of time. It is of course ajusted for time zones (i.e. 'LucianaBella' in Sao Paolo would write between 11PM and 5AM GMT).
  
• Fully stealthy, it mimicks different writing styles and even introduces random misspellings and language crossovers. The cammouflage is so perfect it will fool you, the user!
  
• It uses great opening lines from a database of 5,000 gems like: "Did you really write this!??! AWESOME! Do more please!"
  
• Return mail from the TICKLED to the TICKLER is stored and scanned within the program, feeding results to a score card that then uses advanced AI for interpretation. It then propels a series of up to ten posted sequels, culminating in tested 'chokers' like "We need to stop these exchanges. My husband is getting jealous!"
  
• The bonus pack includes 500 royalty-free photos of assorted pretty faces that cannot be identified . Just pick any that you think would fit the names proposed to you by EgoTicklerWare .
• Just think! between now and Christmas Day, if you have DSL and stay connected all of the time, you could thrill a potential of 12,656 people 145,356 times (slightly less if your system has less than 3GHtz clock speed, or if you use an older Mac).
• Buy EgoTicklerWare 1.01 now and get tickling! Just think! by promoting self-love, aren't you just opening the way for an Immense Wave of True Love!

We are actively recruiting tickle writers for our EgoTicklerWare V1.02
If you have such talent and would like to join the TickleTeam, please post a comment below containing a sample of a 'tickle' you would write. We will respond quickly if you have 'the right stuff', which I am sure you do