the dream machine

a more fitting title might be the not so dreamy machine.

i bought a sony dream machine clock radio several years ago to keep next to the tv so i could easily keep track of time and hopefully not miss any program i was planning to watch. it was kind of hate at first sight with the dream machine, i had to enter the time zone, year, date etc before i could get the son of bitch to operate. apparently this was so the infernal machine could adjust the time automatically in the spring and in the fall for daylight savings time. it seemed like a waste of time.

right off the bat it drove me nuts. it had a back up battery and the time was already set, but the clock was a few minutes off and no matter what i did the son of bitch bounced back to being a few minutes off. i decided to live with it and mentally subtract a few minutes. the first few times it did make the adjustment for daylight savings time but for the last few years nothing happened and i fritzed around with it to manually adjust the time. it was a massive exercise in frustration. then i gave up and lived with being an hour out of sync for 6 months of the year. ain't life wonderful

yesterday i said fuck it and decided to buy a new clock radio. there were a few at the store but they were in the box and i wasn't able to play around and see how easy it was to change the time so i made a mental note of the models and decided to look on line and see how easy they were to operate. as luck would have it i stumbled upon a you tube video that explained how to set the time on a dream machine and son of a bitch it worked! i had read all sorts of other shit on line telling me what to do but the video did the trick:

the trick is you have to set the fucking year, month and day before going to the clock setting. i guess things get lost translating the instructions from chinese to english. god bless google and you tube. have i ever mentioned how much i love google?

i love you sons of bitches.

deadwood

how do you like these new larger fonts! after several requests from international readers who did not enjoy the luxury of having english as a first language in their youth, i have increased the font size in order ensure that my pearls of wisdom don't wash over the sluice box. a gold mine with a recovery rate of under 90% would not be tolerated so in the same vein, an international blog with a comprehension rate of under 54% must be corrected. additionally, proof reading might be in order now that the source of these pearls of wisdom is able to review the material and engage in somber second thought. lucky you.

it was overdue but last night the annual DEADWOOD marathon began its 8th (or maybe 9th, i've lost track) voyage into and around my mind. a mind is a terrible thing to waste and i can think of no greater waste than having 4 sets of DEADWOOD discs sitting idle. idle no more, westerns matter, occupy the black hills...... you get the point.

i lacked the usual enthusiasm this year after the loss of my faithful pitbull, my saintly father and my mentally defective best friend but as they say, the show must go on. once the lights were turned down and the sound system was calibrated it was time to push the play button. it took less than 60 seconds for the magic to return. many people truly think i'm nuts to watch the same series over and over again but i ask them, when you purchase a cd by your favorite artist, do only listen to it once or twice? fuck no, they listen to many, many times.

i can't over emphasize the importance of a good sound system to truly experience the genius of david milch. his dialogue is enthralling and the music is downright hypnotic. one of my motivations to begin the marathon was to test the new receiver and i'm pleased to say that it was fabulous. (probably the 2nd best $200 i've ever spent) the previous receiver was also a pioneer elite and it could rattle the windows with ease but the new receiver puts it to shame. what it does, is bring the surround and rear channels to life. the sound is completely different and i am going to enjoy every moment of the DEADWOOD experience.

and on the eighth day, god created DEADWOOD. so take a deep breath, enjoy the moment and prepare to bask in the genius of al swearengen.

this is possibly the best advice advice i've ever heard and consider it to be my guiding light when facing a wee bit of adversity. unfortunately the nogoodnik who uploaded the video disabled embedding so you'll have to

CLICK ON THIS AND BE PREPARED FOR ECSTASY.

if the above video tickles your fancy, you'll want to take the next step in worshiping at the altar of al swearengen.

i love you sons of bitches.

good bye steve

the election is over and stephen harper is no longer prime minister. what a shame

harper was an egotistical prick. back when he first became prime minister i remember reading that he was re-branding the party. it was no longer to be called the conservative government, it was to be called "the harper government." i often remarked that harper wasn't so much of a right wing ideologue as he was a complete ego maniac. his ego and arrogance wore thin with the voters and he was turfed as prime minister but retained his seat in the parliament. he resigned his leadership but so far has indicated that he will continue as an mp. so it goes.

the poor old green party continues to slip in terms of popular vote:

2004 - 4.32% popular vote

2006 - 4.48% popular vote

2008 - 6.8% popular vote

2011 - 3.91% popular vote

2015 - 3.5% popular vote

don't blame me, i continue to vote green. our stock market was up today which goes against popular thinking that a conservative government is more business friendly than a liberal government. in truth, there is little difference between the liberals and conservatives other than style. i remember how disillusioned i was as a teenager when i read the list of major political contributions and saw that the large corporations donated money to both parties. the first step in becoming a lifelong cynic.

there will be some tinkering in taxation. young justin plans on raising income tax on the rich and giving a reduction to the middle income earners and also fine tuning some social programs but overall i don't think there will be much change. the quality of rip's bowel movements will continue to have a greater impact on my life than any tinkering with taxation and social programs.

more importantly, i watched star trek "nemesis" the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it. i think "shinzon" was a better villain than khan and that it was a huge mistake to kill him off. there was no genesis planet nearby to regenerate his body so it looks like he's really gone. the main reason i watched nemesis was to give the new pioneer receiver a test and it really delivered. the room was brought to life and there's a good chance that the neighbors overheard a lot of the dialog between picard and shinzon.

i wonder how much noise i would have made as a teenager if i possessed the electronics then that i possess today. the good old days are a myth, i paid less for the equipment i have today than the stuff i bought over 40 years ago. god bless asian slave labor.

shinzon; a villain for all seasons.

i love you sons of bitches.

the battery

last week panic set in over a dead battery in the mighty hyundai. i had to get my mother to the doctor which involved driving 40 km to pick her up and another 37 km to the doctor and i didn't have much time to spare. luckily i found a neighbor kind enough to give me a quick jump start. i was on the freeway for about 90 minutes so the battery got a good charge but fear had set in and it was time to get a new battery. i'm pretty sure that it would have been deader than a door nail on the first frosty morning.

of course i couldn't find the receipt for the dead battery to figure out the purchase date and whether or not it was still under warranty so the hunt for a new battery was on. for as long as i can remember all the replacement batteries i've purchased have been sears diehard but checking on-line there were several sites that said diehard batteries had gone down in quality so i turned to the expert, BILLY C COOK. AKA, THE KING bbc is the smartest guy i know when it comes to all things mechanical and he recommended a battery made by "johnson controls" so the search was on for a battery made by johnson controls. well it's small world, it turned out that johnson controls makes some diehard batteries so i was back to diehard.

i called the shop where i had bought the battery and told them i had lost the receipt. surprise, surprise, they told me i didn't need the receipt because they had a record on the computer and the battery still had a pro rated warranty. there was a 3 year replacement deal and after that there was a 100 month pro rated warranty so i basically got the new battery for half price. this morning the battery was replaced, i be happy and the mighty hyundai has her groove back.

my buddy is a big moorcroft collector and has been telling me how beautiful they are so i dipped my toe into the water and picked up an ashtray.

in other news, our election is less than a week away so here is an inspirational message from jim lahey, supervisor of the sunny vale trailer park, a true patriotic canadian:

me, rip and new battery love you sons of bitches.

the election

we lucky canandians are having a federal election in about 2 weeks. here's the sanitized WIKIPEDIA SUMMARY OF THE CANADIAN ELECTION.

and here is my take on it:

current prime minister: steven harper-conservative party. the bad news about steve is he's basically an asshole. the good news about steve is you pretty much know what you're going to get if he wins, an asshole prime minister with a right wing agenda. i don't think he's terribly right wing, in fact i think he's been drifting towards the center over the past few years as he has been tossing goodies at the rubes to try and boost his popularity. there are a lot of canadians who think steve is the devil himself and blame him for all the problems in the world. like i said, he's an asshole but i don't consider him to be satan. one interesting thing about steve is his love of israel. he's always 100% supportive of israel. in fact some people say he's the most popular politician in israel. of course this pisses off our left wing idealists who blame israel for the world's problems.

current leader of the opposition: thomas mulcair - new democrat party. the last election was the first time that the ndp won enough seats in parliament to become the official opposition. for some funny reason the province of quebec threw most of their votes at the ndp. tom mulcair is an interesting dude. he's drifted from the left to the center left in an attempt to get the centrist votes. he also has dual citizenship, canadian and french. for a while he was leading in the polls but now some pollsters are saying he's past his expiry date and this popularity is fading. i can't understand why his dual citizenship isn't more of an issue. i guess the other 2 parties are worried about losing votes in quebec.

current leader of the liberals: JUSTIN TRUDEAU! - he's the son of one our most famous and polarizing prime ministers, pierre elliot trudeau. pierre was to canada what jfk was to the united states, a sexy playboy. young justin has taken the liberals further to the left. in fact, i think the liberals are now a wee bit further to the left than the ndp. it's quite the shocker. of 3 main party leaders, i tend to favor justin. it might be a case of me disliking him the least out of the 3 main candidates for the prime minister's job.

current leader of the green party: elizabeth may - elizabeth is the leader of the greens and actually has a seat in parliament. elizabeth is the first person to be elected as green member of parliament. there was some other guy who defected to the greens after being an independent but he wasn't elected as a green. i like dear old liz but she has a smaller chance of being prime minister than i do of winning an olympic gold medal for men's gymnastics. well, maybe not that small but it's an incredibly small chance.

the interesting thing is how the liberals have drifted to the left and the ndp have drifted to the right. i doubt there's any real philosophical reasons behind their moves, they just think it's the best way to get more votes.

it's a real close race right now with the 3 main parties pretty much tied for popular support but the headlines claim the ndp are slipping and the conservatives might be slightly ahead. of course all this can change tomorrow and it will probably bounce around until the election.

so, how is billy pilgrim going to vote?

ask yourself, how would a sea turtle, an elephant or a whale vote? yes, billy will be voting green. the greens won't get elected but i'm almost 100% certain that i've never voted for the party that won the election. for as long as i can remember i've voted green or communist. in this election we don't have a communist candidate in my riding so i'll be going green. i'm not a communist but i consider voting communist to be the ultimate protest vote. although i always vote some fringe lunatic, i can't remember ever not voting.

i love you sons of bitches.