Words Fail Me...

Two movie trailers and yes, they are real:

The mind boggles.

A Hail of a Night

It was another restless night, but at least this time the weather was overtly causing it. Around 1:30 AM a hail storm hit the house and hit loudly. You know the comic book sound effect “SPANG!”? I heard that quite a few times.

This morning revealed dents on the car hood, which just adds to the expense of getting it repainted. Hopefully, we will finally get it into the shop on Friday if it can be lined up. Also taking damage was a junk locust tree by the mailbox. One of its limbs broke and partially fell in the driveway entrance.

I dragged it around as much as I could, since it is still attached and far too out of reach to saw. Not that I am up for sawing something that thick! It was all I could do to cut the four and two inch diameter branches off to keep them from being run over.

WCA Phone Spam

For the last month or two I have been getting prerecorded messages from an outfit calling themselves WCA on an unlisted MagicJack phone number I have. The outfit is fraudulent and seems to be phishing for information, so do not press any numbers or call them back. The messages are often different, with variation including: debt collection, credit card offer, class action lawsuit settlement, assistance for the elderly, contest winnings, and free gift cards. It seems like this kind of scam is getting more common or am I mistaken?

I had not paid too much attention to the calls, since I thought it was some kind of service aimed at the disabled and elderly from what little I heard before hanging up. But after some of my recent experiences, I started listening to more of the messages and discovered they varied a great deal.

I will note this phone number has never been used on an Internet form or site and I assume it is the result of an autodialer. It is possible they were harvested off of an acquaintance’s smart phone or PIM on their computer, but it is highly unlikely.

Oddly, this reminds me of roofing and asphalting scammers I saw operating in Indianapolis back in the 1980s. The world probably has had con artists scamming people since the early days of civilization. I suspect they would survive being nuked just like the cockroaches they resemble.

Survived Another Holiday

I do not know when holidays changed from things to anticipate eagerly to things that strike dread in my heart. It probably was a few years into CFS that the demands of such days became apparent to me. Yes, I stubbornly believed back then that somehow, someway I would get better.

Then there was Labor Day, a federal holiday I always thought was pointless. I’m not a fan of holidays except to mark important events or to honor military service. It also seemed unnecessary with Thanksgiving not to far away and Christmas a mere month later. To me, it was inconsequential and gave it little thought.

So of course this year I completely forgot it was coming despite many announcements about the ward picnic. Postponed plans to go to the range to make some very badly needed zeroing in for a couple of rifles meant that yesterday morning was a must do. Then at noon the picnic would have to be gotten to. Oh hey, a phone call from a friend getting the online gaming group together for steak later that afternoon made things even more complicated.

I really wondered if I would survive Labor Day.

Health 9-3-2012

Going cold turkey on H202 to prepare for a full cleanse in September has not gone well. So I am now forced into restarting the maintenance regime and postponing the full. Such is life.

I am finding online multiplayer gaming to be more physically draining than I expected. It tires me greatly if it goes more than a couple of hours. That is one of the most annoying things about CFS, it does not care if real physical activity is involved and will be set off by anything I do no matter how trivial.

New week, new challenges to overcome. The first is Labor Day…

Mitt Romney Can Speak

Well, that was a surprise. His acceptance speech was in turns emotional, powerful, and presidential. Honestly, I did not expect this out of him, but it looks like Ryan’s pushing him to be himself has paid off.

I did not plan to watch any of the convention live, but my father wanted to check it out and PBS had it live. It was the testimonials by people who knew Romney when he was a bishop that changed the mood of the entire convention. Extraordinarily emotional and given by everyday people rather than politicians, the bored and barely polite delegates got teary eyed. For the first time, Mitt the real man was revealed to the surprise of the people.

Reaction on the conservative and libertarian side of the Net followed the same pattern. The whole night of speakers were very effective at conveying the Mitt Romney they know and included a liberal Democrat who served in his administration in Massachusetts. Her heartfelt endorsement of Mitt’s authenticity and goodness really was a special moment.

The Olympic medalists were a surprise and quite good too. It was good to see Scott Hamilton up there.

Clint Eastwood channeled a mix of Don Rickles and Bob Newhart in a devastating comic routine involving talking to Obama in an empty chair. Strange at first, it turned into something amazing by the end.

Rubio was smooth and impressive introducing Romney. I can see why great things are expected for him.

But it was Mitt’s make or break moment and he was incredible. Where has this man been the whole campaign? Absolutely tremendous speech and hard hitting on Obama’s short comings made even more impressive by the fact he writes his own speeches.
I think this is the real beginning of the campaign.

Bleach Ep. 18: Reclaim! The Power of the Shinigami!

That classic trope of shounen anime has arrived: the dreaded training story arc. But do not expect the normal kind of training, for the mysterious Urahara has rather… unorthodox methods. Stripped of his spiritual power, can Ichigo get it back in time to rescue Rukia from Soul Society?

Few episodes in Bleach veer so radically between comedy and seriousness as this one. There were times I felt I was suffering mental whiplash, but it certainly is not a boring entry in the series. With Ichigo accepting the offer from Urahara to get his powers back at the end of the last episode, it was pretty obvious we would get a mini-arc with a power up at the end of it. Oh how I dreaded it when first watching the show -- for they are the most boring things in anime to me.

Returning to school for the first time since Rukia was taken back to Soul Society, Ichigo broods constantly about her absence. Nobody else remembers her at all, which compounds the pain he feels. She haunts him to the point he visualizes her fading away like a ghost, which manages to inject some poignancy into the midst of the slapstick comedy involving his classmates.