Stars and stripes waving in London

The USA women’s soccer team, together, waving the flag of the United States in London as they beat Japan 2-1.. I’m actually tearing up in all out pride .. Amazing game. Hope my VHS tape worked..

USA DEFEATS JAPAN IN SOCCER!!!

Gold medal in London!! USA beat Japan.. Japan denied the gold by the amazing women’s soccer team from the United States!!!

My own 20th century technology meets the London Olympics

The USA vs Japan in women’s soccer today .. I am desperately trying to find a tape to tape the game—and it hit me! It’s not the 2000 Olympics. This is the modern era, baby! I don’t T-vo it? I don’t digitally record it!? No! I have the old tape style.. and a VCR that kind of works. And while I’m getting myself completely stuck in the 20th century, I came to look into my closet just the other day and see that I have a life’s worth of tapes collected. Home videos, movies.. TV shows.. old Late Night with David Letterman recordings. All on VHS. I guess it’s time to stop being kind, I should not rewind, and I should work on converting these to the new world order of movie watching. 

Hot and heavy Olympic flame burning

The television version of the Olympics is tame. The most risky of things broadcast so far during Olympics coverage on NBC was probably Al Roker’s awful red pants that he sported on the TODAY show. But what really goes on behind the scenes?
You know.
Come on, you know.
Sex. And a lot of it.

Olympics athletes all seem to agree on what is happening when the bright glare of cameras fades: Parties and sexual intercourse. Hope Solo even said the down and dirty athletes often take part in intercourse right out in the open. 150,000 condoms later, the Olympics teams from around the world get to know each other better than perhaps they ever thought they would.

CNN’s report featured a quote from a former gold medalist, not named:

"They know, the officials know, even the media. It’s not a secret, everyone knows!

"(Sex) is all part of the Olympic spirit. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) wouldn’t say that, but it is, you can’t shy away from it. Why do you think they give away so many condoms?"

Smile! Or you can be arrested

More Olympics insanity.

A spectator was arrested for not smiling at the games. Really.
And a a swarm of bugs invaded Olympics stadium. 
Who would smile at that?

It's the end of the world as we know it.. and I feel.... like it's not true!

Anyone in the Nibiru camp knows who John Moore is. Moore has been talking about Navy maps and all the like for decades. Planet X, or as I like to call it, Planet X-y Sexy, is coming in for a landing soon, so says The Liberty Man Moore.

In recent weeks, the internet has lit up into a frenzy of activity yet again, as now Moore has predicted DATES of x-y Sexy’s arrival: It may be as soon as August 17, he said. This year! Like in a few days! 

Here is a link if you’d like to read more of the theory.. And it’s interesting that even the conspiracy-minded folks over at Godlike Productions are questioning the doom and gloom logic of the Liberty Man.

But tonight, George Noory’s Coast to Coast AM (don’t you wish Art Bell was still the voice of late night???) is going to take us for a wild ride into the land of Nibiru as well. Not sure if he will mention John Moore’s latest predictions of doom, but he will host a show with  ”archeo-astronomers” and “researchers” about planet X. 

I just sigh at the thoughts of this one. I love conspiracies. And yes, I even love hearing things about the famed planet x. Not that I believe it.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the 200 MPH winds will tear me to shreds—if of course the 200 foot tidal wave doesn’t get me first. Or maybe the pole shift will melt my brain.. or maybe the comets will cause nuclear explosions across the planet when the New Madrid fault blows.. or Yellowstone goes.. or…

I’m just tired.

Goodnight.

Maybe I’ll wake up at 1AM EDT to hear if George Noory’s blabbering about planet X and Nibiru. 

Though I still miss Art Bell.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgoVDTwPaA0?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

Congrats to my nephew Shawn Jr. You were sworn into the USMC today. The world will rely on you and your fellow comrades in the future. 
It wasn’t too long ago that you painted Easter Eggs with your sister and was excited by ‘Ho ho’ on Christmas.. Or when you were learning to ride a bike.. I recall it all. I think you may too.And you may have been late for school, forgot your homework, and forgot to tuck your shirt in. Those days have quickly passed by. You’re an adult now. And with it comes great responsibilities. 
You enter a world of war—but one of skies of blue and clouds of white, bright blessed days, and dark sacred nights..  And you’ll see heartache below those bright skies .. you’ll see tears and warfare within the dark of night.
You may be called to protect a nation. And I have confidence you’ll be a force to reckon with, and one to rely on. 
Congrats on fulfilling a dream —and now good luck with the rest of it.
The prayers of your Uncle Bryan are with you. 

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

AND IF THE BIG FLARE HITS, THERE WOULD BE NO PLACE TO RUN

AND IF THE BIG FLARE HITS, THERE WOULD BE NO PLACE TO RUN

Ask anyone who knows me. I get paranoid about solar activity. Really, I monitor SpaceWeather.com like it’s my son’s baby monitor while he sleeps. 

And when that big flare hits?? Yes, like you I won’t be ready. And just like you I’ll hope for the best. Although from all the doomsayers that I read on a regular basis, the best may not occur should a massive flare actually hit this planet head on.

And here is the latest example: A scientist is warning of dangers to the power grid over the next year as the solar cycle hits its ten year max.  Mike Hapgood is the scientist quoted. And he has credentials, as he specializes is Spaceweather amongst other prestigious things.. Then again, all these folks who say doom is only a flare away have credentials. According to most, we are overdue.
And we are overdue for a major quake in the New Madrid and Yellowstone.
And the Canary Islands.
And while we’re at it, John Moore is on his radio show predicting doom and gloom with a planet X Nibiru on August 17 or so.. Coast to Coast AM will tackle the planet X subject later this week, wonder if Noory will allow dates to be mentioned on his show as much as Moore has allowed on his from the Missouri Ozarks?

Doomsayers have always existed, though. And doom never seems to come.
But solar storms have. 
In South Africa. Russia. And probably many other places before we had the benefit of power grids and electricity.

I picture a sky somewhere in caveman lure, lit up with Northern Lights all the way to the Southern reaches of the Northern Hemisphere.

Northern Lights are beautiful. Power outages on a widespread scale may not be. 
Of course we will take what we get, as really when talk about the sun, there is no choice BUT to take what you get. Solar storms burst out like big burps from our star. 

Would we be back to the stone age? I don’t know.
But for a while a while we’d learn how modern life can be crippled by something that is much too much beyond the control of all of our combined egos in this egocentric world

Print is dead. Here is proof.

I recall when I was a young teenage kid. I had subscriptions to US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, TIME MAGAZINE, AND NEWSWEEK. It was exciting to get them in the mail.. Read them.. know the news.

And yes, I repeat, when I was a teenage kid.

There are two points of curiosity, perhaps, for you. First off, it may be strange for a teenage kid to enjoy getting news magazines in the mail, and secondly, based on today’s news, it’s strange to get news magazines in the mail at all!

As a matter of fact, magazine sales at US newsstands are stale.
SNOOZEWEEK. LIME MAG. US SNOOZE (already gone).. and lots more leaving us by the day.
Magazine was once the king. Print was in. And now it’s thin.. going by the wayside in the age of the digital culture, where nothing is on paper but.. most people still print it anyway!

So what magazines are doing worst? Well, pretty much every one of them.
Here is the full list. If you’re in the print biz you’ll read and weep—and maybe tweet ..
COSMO is doing pretty awful.. Almost 16% drop since ‘11.
WOMAN’S WORLD.. not read..
People? No people read it..
FAMILY CIRCLE? A circle jerk ..
Even the NATIONAL ENQUIRER down.. maybe people are shopping less?

MEN’S HEALTH.. WEIGHT WATCHERS.. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. Read it and sleep.

VOGUE, VANITY FAIR.. And SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE—you know, the magazine that kids used to pick up for some raunchy sex tips for teens. Now kids can see it all online, no holds barred. All bare skin from screen to screen. And touchscreen to WIFI and back again.

Yes, I was certainly a boring kid, reading those old print magazine. Relics of the past. The 20th century is dead. Print is dead.

But what else dies with it?

Covers like this, from 1999:

Where is James Vanderbeek now!?

Some doctor’s office or dentist office in Des Moines, collecting dust as time passes by ever so quickly.

And the US wins the Dust Bowl!

A victory so hot you can taste it.. cut it with a knife, serve it with corn, drizzle it was sweat.
Yes, indeed, the NOAA is telling us now that July, 2012, was the hottest month ever. On record. Period.

Now, ‘ever’ a long time, and certainly since the NOAA didn’t exist forever, the ‘ever’ is a little limited by ‘in recorded history’ of the NOAA. But it’s worth noting, as the NOAA did, that this year has now surpassed the hottest period of time during the famed 1936 Dust Bowl. It goes without saying that this year, the dust bowl has returned. Corn crops and other farmland is drying up, becoming brittle. Rivers are drying and fish are dying. Riverbeds are just muddy as water levels drop to new lows. And the great and mighty Mississippi is ever-so-quickly becoming wimpy and weak.

So what does the hottest month on record mean to you?  If you’re like me, it meant lots of air conditioner use, light headed feelings during noontime walks, damp clothing after a day of sweating. It was almost unbearable. And at times it was unbearable for many. People have died during this heat wave, along with those crops and animals. Also dead are the hopes of a nice yield during the harvest time. It was supposed to be a great crop this year. Those hopes quickly dried as quickly as rivers and streams. The harvest moon coming later this year may be a bad moon rising.

The other quotable notable from the NOAA report is this point from Jake Crouch, a scientist at NOAA’s National Climate Data Center:

Dry soils in the summer tend to drive up daytime temperatures, and because dry soils prevailed over so much of the United States, that helped make things hotter over a wide area, Crouch said by telephone.

"The hotter it gets, the drier it gets, the hotter it gets," Crouch said.

What made this year different from the Dust Bowl summer of 1936 was nighttime temperatures, he said. In the Dust Bowl years, the warmth was largely driven by daytime highs. This July, the record heat was also pushed by warm nighttime temperatures — the overnight lows weren’t that low.

Lots of people may have let out an extended sigh of relief when Hollywood Video closed.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t good at all to see that part of our modern American life turn into a scrap heap of shredded videotape—we will probably look back in years and lament the death of video stores just like generations grew melancholy over the lack of drive ins.  And it sure wasn’t nice at all to see the thousands of people who lost jobs as stores all over closed down.

But regular customers of Hollywood would ‘bring home the entertainment’—and have the late fees to prove it. Remember those days when people rented videos fromstores!? Remind the fees if you didn’t rewind, you were not kind—and got socked with a couple bucks extra of money?

When Hollywood closed, it was clearly apparent that the Netflix, internet, and RedBox era had finally taken over. By this point my own personal late fees had been paid (something I maybe would not have done were I to know the store would be closing!) But lots of other folks who didn’t pay late fees thought, ‘Phew! don’t have to worry about those now!’

Not so fast, skippy.

Today, you can read the RED TAPE CHRONICLES ON NBCNEWS.COM, and be alarmed like I was: Hollywood Video debt collectors are harraassing past customers of Hollywood Video, assessing fees that maybe aren’t true, threatening to ruin peoples’ credit scores, and plain out bullying consumers who answer the phone.

The NBC report named Universal Fidelity as one of the debt firms trying to rake in late fees that were never paid to Hollywood Video when it was alive. NBC reports this:

The drumbeat became so loud that Hollywood Video’s bankruptcy trustee,First Lien Term Lenders Liquidating Trust, reached a settlement with all 50 states’ attorneys general under which it would drastically alter its collection tactics. It promised to remove any credit blemishes it had placed on consumers’ reports and never to threaten consumers’ credit reports in the future. It also turned to a set of new collection agencies, including Houston-based Universal Fidelity, which promised to clean up the process.

But within the past two months, a pile of fresh complaints has arrived from around the country, raising new questions about the collections process. In Houston, 430 of the roughly 1,000 complaints filed against Universal in the last 12 months have arrived since June 1.

In some instances, when former customers of Hollywood say they paid their bills before the store closed, the debt collector is insisting that unless a receipt is produced, the bill is still owed.

Really, a receipt?

So if you were not kind, did not rewind, you’re credit score can be ruined unless you produce a receipt that the $2 fee was paid?

Of course you can also reach out to governmental agencies and lawyers that may be able to assist you in fighting off the threats of intimidation.
All for late fees.
Interesting stuff.

And with one statement, a new conspiracy theory may be born

NASA’s Curiosity is rolling across the red planet and snapping photos as it goes, all for us to enjoy. But one comment from a project scientist may create a whole new batch of conspiracy theories:

"You would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a fast one on you and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and took a picture,” project scientist John Grotzinger said.

The images are amazing. The red planet looks like the pale blue dot.

A full color high resolution photo is expected by the end of the week.
Can’t wait.

By now you know.. But the weekend ended bloody in Wisconsin

But yet again, another violent weekend bloodbath, this time at a Sikh temple, another shooter’s neighborhood in lockdown, and more debate coming up this week about violence, guns, conspiracies, and all that. Yes indeed, the times are never good, especially the ones we live in.. Thoughts go out tonight for those dead. Questions fill my mind about the shooter, who is reportedly a white male in his 30s..

Heads in the cloud

You may have heard a lot of cloud computing recently. And if you did, your opinion may have been formed depending on which computer geek you spoke to. I myself like to arm myself with opposing geek positions and then I form my conclusion based on the geekiest and scariest of arguments.

And concerning the Cloud: It freaks me out.
You trust your data to be there when you want it and need it. You trust that no one will hack it. And you trust it all so much that you don’t retain a copy for yourself but just store it on the ‘Cloud,’ reaching up from time to time when you want to grab a hold of something important.

In theory it sounds in part like it could work. Why worry about storing your data on your own hard drive, which when corrupted, can’t operate. You may lose everything. All those photos.. songs.. everything.

That is when the cloud get tempting.

But …. and here is the big big but, you really can’t say you own it anymore. You sign away things through legal terms of agreements that you don’t understand. And just in case you believe me to be a prognosticator of doom, here is a story from Agence France-Presse about Steve Wozniak, the man who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs.  The quote:

“I really worry about everything going to the cloud,” he said. “I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years.”

He added: “With the cloud, you don’t own anything. You already signed it away” through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to.

“I want to feel that I own things,” Wozniak said. “A lot of people feel, ‘Oh, everything is really on my computer,’ but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.”

There are some computer nerds that are friends of mine whom I trust. And they have a problem with the cloud..
But I think all nerds, geeks, experts, and coders will agree: If Steve Wozniak is worried about the cloud and who owns the data, I think all of should be.

An idea to get more stuff done around the house

Let NBC’S Olympics coverage play in the background. The majestic music they use as bumpers will lead to you think even the most mundane of house chores have suddenly become heroic feats of valor victory.

STORMAPALOOZA: LALLAPALOOZA EVACUATED AFTER STORM THREAT

STORMAPALOOZA: LALLAPALOOZA EVACUATED AFTER STORM THREAT

If anyone is interested in getting me an early birthday present, here is a thought: Ice Cream Chews.

I loved these candies as a kid, until one tragic event occurred when I was about 12 or 13: I ate so many of them in one night that I vomited everything inside of my body out onto myself in bed when I was trying to sleep. I guess that’s one of those horrible things that all kids have to get through.

But now, over 15 years later, and I think I’d ready to get them again.. maybe

Friday night freak out

Captain Trips does not exist. But Ebola does. And the World Health Organization is assuring the planet that the Ebola breakout on the African continent is under control..
While the WHO attempts to calm worldly nerves, this news broke today: A prisoner with Ebola symptoms has escaped and is on the loose in Uganda..
It may sound like the plot of THE STAND so far but I sure don’t hope it ends that way..

The last laugh. As he becomes the greatest..

The last laugh. As he becomes the greatest..

FOR ALL THOSE WHO COUNTED OUT MICHAEL PHELPS…

TAKE THIS!!

 

FULL MOON RISING:

THIS ONE FULL, THE NEXT ONE BLUE

The world is about to see two full moons this month—the first coming tonight. The second will be the final day of August..

The second full moon of this month earns the title of ‘blue moon,’ which his unusual but it happens..

Perhaps it will be a good night to open the mini blinds, and tune in to Coast to Coast AM as George Noory interviews John Hogue about prophecies for 2012.

And guaranteed by the end you’ll wish Art Bell was back on radio..