Bits & Pieces (Thursday Night Open Mic)

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Kevin S. Willis

The class divisions of Occupy Wall Street:

“Would you share your iPad with those shiftless hobos down in bumtown?”
“No,” he says, without missing a beat. “But I think everybody should have access to technology.” He then goes on to clarify: “This is a personal possession. I’m against private property. This is personal property.” Ah, I see the difference!

The big decisions about OWS are being made in the atrium of the Deutsche Bank. Irony!

Joe Biden’s Transparency Meeting closed to public and press. Now, that might be hypocrisy.

Ace of Spades continues to Bash Herman Caine, and notes that even Dennis Miller is off the Cain Train.

So, Google finally rolled out Google Music. Control your disappointment. I installed Spotify and immediately started having fun discovering and re-discovering all sorts of cool music for free. I’m not remotely excited by Google Music. I do hope they get better. But if I’m shopping for music, I’m still going to buy it from iTunes. If I want to discover music? Spotify.

More exciting than Solyndra, more likely to pay back it’s investors, too, it’s Shapeways 3D printing. I see a point, in about 15 years, where 3D printing is available to individuals for a reasonable price, and within a decade where actual 3d printing takes the place of manufacturing in many cases, making limited runs or easy customization possible for all sorts of products at low price points.

None of this will help me with my bath tub. There’s a crack in it, it leaks. My wife won’t let me patch it with epoxy (my solution to everything) and put a tub mat over it, but several calls to professional tub repair people results in bitter disappointment. It’s just not possible to patch and refinish cultured marble, at least without much time and expense, and nobody in town does it. I’ve got one option—replace the tub! Or stop taking baths. In a bathroom that I’m betting had the tub installed before the sheetrock was hung. I don’t see, otherwise, how the tub would fit through the door. Yay!

I hope all your days were better. Got a dozen things that need attention as the house falls apart, and it’s giving me migraines. But, all first world problems, so I suspect I shouldn’t complain. Have a great night!

— KW

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18 Responses

  1. Michigoose, on November 17, 2011 at 11:04 pm said:

    Joe Biden's Transparency Meeting closed to public and press. Now, that might be hypocrisy.But does it meet George Carlin's definition of irony?

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  2. lmsinca, on November 17, 2011 at 11:20 pm said:

    KevinI hate to tell you but when we replaced a tub in our rental house we had to tear out part of a wall to do it, after that it was quite simple. When we replaced one here we bought a little smaller one than we wanted so it would fit through the door, lol. And that was after cutting the first one in half to get it out.

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  4. bsimon, on November 18, 2011 at 12:04 am said:

    Sounds like a stealth visit from the epoxy fairy is in order.

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  5. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 1:52 am said:

    I don't know if anyone's been following the guy who took a few shots at the White House. I've heard a few different speculations, that he was part of OWS, that he was a right winger, that he's probably crazy (likely closer to the truth) but it's too bad it happened at all of course.His mother says he doesn't have a history of mental health issues but that seems unlikely when you read some of the other comments. In Idaho Falls, where Ortega is from, a computer consultant told The Associated Press that the two met July 8 after Ortega asked for help editing a 30-minute infomercial. Monte McCall said that during the meeting at Ortega’s family’s Mexican restaurant, Ortega pulled out worn sheets of yellow paper with handwritten notes and started to talk about his predictions that the world would end in 2012.“He said, ‘Well, you know the president is getting ready to make an announcement that they’re going to put GPS chips in all the children, so they’re safe,’” McCall said. “… And then he said, ‘That’s just what the Antichrist is going to do to mark everybody.’”Kimberly Allen, the mother of Ortega’s former fiancée, said he had been well-mannered and kind in the four years she had known him. But he recently began making statements to her daughter that were out of character, including that he believed he was Jesus. Allen said the family was worried when he went to Utah recently, where he said he had business, and didn’t come back. Ortega’s family reported him missing Oct. 31.Allen said they were flabbergasted to hear he was wanted in Washington.“I believe that the boy needs help,” said Allen, of Shelley, Idaho.

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  6. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 2:02 am said:

    Isn't he in his 20s, lms? If I remember right, that's the typical age for schizophrenia to start manifesting.

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  7. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 2:07 am said:

    Yeah, I think he's 21 and we were just talking about that possibility. My husband and I each have friends with brothers who are schizophrenic and the timing is about the same in a lot of cases. Poor kid, he'll probably be institutionalized for the rest of his life. Scary though.

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  8. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 2:12 am said:

    Oooops, I forgot the link for the above story.

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  9. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 2:32 am said:

    Here's the story on my husbands friends brother. His best friend married his high school sweetheart, also a friend of my husbands, before going to Vietnam. He was a platoon leader in the infantry and was ordered across a field that he suspected was mined and wouldn't let his men cross until he went first. He triggered a mine and lived to tell the tale although much worse for wear obviously. Anyway, they shipped him home to recover and eventually he made it back to his wife and young son. At about the same time his wife's brother began having some problems and they were trying to get him evaluated and keeping him close to home until they figured it out. One day he called Henry (the Vet) and against his better judgment he went over there where the brother was home alone and lifting weights. No one really knows what exactly transpired but Henry ended up dead with his head bashed in by a bar bell. Of course the brother has been institutionalized ever since as a schizophrenic. Families don't always get help immediately or recognize the symptoms which can come on very fast. There's a comment from the piece above where the kid's mother said just because he says crazy things doesn't mean he's crazy. He's just different I guess.

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  10. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 2:52 am said:

    Wow, lms! Words fail me. . . scary stuff!

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  11. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 3:15 am said:

    I know, it really is. And I think some families are just slow to admit something's wrong and don't seek help early enough. I did a little research and work in the abnormal psych field when I was in college and while it's a very interesting field, it's also very frightening. I admire shrink for working with the criminally insane, it's not something many people could or would do. I'll stick to my part-time, volunteer grief counseling thank-you very much. My clients are easy to love.

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  12. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 3:26 am said:

    I've got a minor in psychology, so I had to take a couple of quarters of abnormal psych. I agree with you about shrink. My minor is in a type of psychology that I define as "How to Manipulate People." As opposed to "How to Get Into Peoples' Heads and Help Them," which is much the nicer kind of psych! :-)The other thing about taking abnormal psych is that all of us started to self-diagnose–I'm pretty sure I was convinced that I was schizophrenic at one point. 🙂

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  13. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 3:51 am said:

    "The other thing about taking abnormal psych is that all of us started to self-diagnose–I'm pretty sure I was convinced that I was schizophrenic at one point. :-)"Oh God, I remember those days. Too funny. I did a term paper once on the off chance that my professor would think I was brilliant for writing poetry. It was all from the perspective of a disturbed mind and he bought it. I was a procrastinator when it came to term papers.

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  14. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 3:55 am said:

    LOL, lms! I wasn't ever that clever–I was Quite Too Serious to do anything like that. Believe it or not, it was the Army that gave me the ability to laugh at myself. I credit the Drill Sergeants, who to a man were brilliantly funny. I'm convinced that DI School makes them all do stand up in order to pass.

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  15. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 4:07 am said:

    I just happen to live with someone who easily could have done stand up so we do a lot of laughing around here. I wish more of it would rub off on me but our oldest daughter got the funny bone anyway. I think I've had it for tonight, the zygote thread wore me out and I was only reading since this morning. We started out with survivor benefits and ended up debating when life begins…………I'm exhausted and scott hasn't gotten everyone to concede every single point yet so it's probably not over………..lol.G'night all.

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  16. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 4:11 am said:

    I tried to get him to quit and come over here, lms, I really did.BTW, at okie's suggestion I'm now on the updated version of blogger–cool stuff!You have a good night, and I'm going to try to get a couple of posts drafted tomorrow (boss is out of town, so mice can play) so that I can just polish them up a bit in coming days in order to have posts ready to go up when needed. Especially if we need to get new discussions started. Probably going to need them as holidays approach. . .

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  17. lmsinca, on November 18, 2011 at 4:15 am said:

    I haven't tried the updated version yet, maybe tomorrow. Love the idea of new posts too that are ready to go when we need them…………..Holidays and all. :)manana

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  18. Michigoose, on November 18, 2011 at 4:17 am said:

    Hasta la vista, baby! 🙂

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Be kind, show respect, and all will be right with the world.