27Jan 2012 by R&O No Comments

Glen fades gracefully

Celebrities, Entertainment, Music, Of Interest, People
Glen Campbell has alzheimer's and is slowly fading away. But he's fading away gracefully. A case in point is his last album Ghost on the Canvas, released in September of 2011. It's a masterwork of modern studio-conceived pop songs with enough twangy bits to keep the country fans interested. Some of the tracks are intertwined with hints and vague references to his past hits which makes you feel like you're listening to music you know. This album is probably his last as his memory is fading quickly, so much so that he can't remember visiting the doctors that are treating him or even recording the album. A sad ending to a troubled artist who's had his issues with alcohol, drugs, marriage and the law. To be clear, I don't like…
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27Jan 2012 by R&O No Comments
80 + 80

80 + 80

Education, Observations, People
I was at my bank today, waiting in the ubiquitious ATM lineup while two teenage girls completed their banking transaction. These were two upper middle-class girls in the 15-17 age range, well dressed and wearing the latest in fashion and accessories. One was pressing the buttons while the other injected various comments and instructions during the complex process of withdrawing funds from a bank account (with a balance of $540.00, this relevation revealed by the button-pusher to everyone in the lineup). During the transaction the button-pusher asked the wingman (wing-BFF?) "What's 80 plus 80"? The friend stared back blankly as the gears meshed and their brains tried to comprehend this staggering calculation. Neither could come up with an answer. I'm serious. Neither could add 80 and 80 together and come…
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19Dec 2011 by R&O 1 Comment

Vietnam = Animal Torture

Animals, The World, Travel
Vietnam is insane. You read it here first. We're talking about a country that believes that holding living, breathing, sentient beings in small cages and draining their bile is a reasonable thing to do. Bile is a digestive juice produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder and these bizarre fucks believe it holds mystical powers of some sort as an active ingredient in 14th century, archaic, cave-dwelling asian 'medicine'. It's been used in traditional 'medicine' in Vietnam, China and Japan for thousands of years and it has been claimed that it cures everything from hangovers, liver cirrhosis to cancer. Idiots! So these low-life pieces of shit hold Asiatic black bears (also called Moon Bears) in tiny cages, extracting their bile twice a day through an implanted tube…
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16Nov 2011 by R&O No Comments
What’s Up in the Gobi?

What’s Up in the Gobi?

Of Interest, Politics, The World
What's going on in China's Gobi Desert? There's been much speculation about the recent Google Map satellite pictures showing strange and mysterious structures, some containing burned out vehicles and planes sitting in the sands of the largest desert in Asia. Internet sites are abuzz about the reason for the odd installations, who built them and what they do. Although not a top-of-news event (although it appeared briefly on an unnamed local newspaper site but was relegated to bottom billing after pictures of Robert Redford shooting a movie in Vancouver appeared. Who's interested in Robert fucking Redford anyway? Hey newspaper website...'The Way We Were' is over. Time to move on). With winter temperature of -40 C and summertime heat up to + 50 C, it's a strange place to build anything…
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