Damaged goods..

I just got through the final show of Damages last night.. I knew it would be about the end of June when I would see it and hoping it wouldn't be so hot that I would be running every fan to try to stay cool.. But here is the gist of how it all shook out.. Trust me the show had many meanings that were some very deep while if you watched it as just the show, and that is how I did watch it until the final season.. But the parallels were there..  Ellen and Patty seemed closer to sisters than partners in crime.. That crime being lawyers.. There were times when I felt like this was more of a episode of the Twilight Zone than the show it was.. And I am not a huge fan of seeing the final episodes of shows, Fringe being the exception, it ended almost exactly the way I thought it would except that the married lead characters remained that way.. What  I thought was they would end up meeting in the very first episode when the sprung Walter out of the mental hospital and there would be that moment in the show where there is a slight ... dip in the lighting or whatever it was that made that deja vu thing from watching it the first time make you think you had seen it before.. Making the show perpetual.. That's how I would have ended it.. Damages ended quite different than I thought it might.. The use of sepia video effect to show "this scene is important" but it was.. so different... Very worth the time and last nights two show binge watch to the final.. Other shows that ended well but over all disappointing, One Tree Hill.. How do you end a show like that??  More to the point, how do you continue a show like that.. It was a period piece on high school life.. I will start that show Friday Night Lights shortly to see what that is like.. There are other shows I have started to watch only to give up on.. The best shows are the ones that are simply one and done.. Documentary type, comedy specials.. movies... You know, the ones where the old attention span doesn't get over taxed..


Forth of July season.. Ah the old story I always go to.. But not this year.. There was another time.. And so here are some snipits from when I was growing up.. You ever notice how when you were growing up that there just never seemed like there was enough fireworks.. Like Christmas morning there were never enough gifts. and fireworks there was just never enough.. We used to get an allowance back in the day and we would always blow it of fireworks at this time of year.. I always liked the fireworks time of summer but it always seemed like it meant school was about to start back up.. That isn't true of course, it does however mark the midway point of summer, with the second half being the hotter part.. Why is that??  I always wondered why it was hotter from July to October than it was April through to July.. Shouldn't it balance out in some way??  Anyway one time.. Fireworks, or better than that firecrackers.. The very lifeblood of the season.. these were those little firecrackers or what they referred to as ladyfingers (where that term came from... I don't know) but thankfully they weren't the big guys.. These were little firecrackers, and as we were going down to pick some fireworks up for the nephew I was thinking of some of the really cool  stupid things we did.. I had a can of kickstart (mountain dew energy drink) and I was thinking we used to put a firecracker in a can and hold it.. That's right we would hold it ethin... while it exploded.. Back then we had tin cans that were more than toilet paper thin (single ply) yes they were thicker by quite a bit.. But it still hurt.. I can't imagine doing that now, the cans are single ply TP.. I can't imagine how much that would hurt.. Then there was using pop bottles with the same idea, light the firecracker and let it fall in and hold it.. "I've seen bottles break doing things like that.."  Sure, these firecrackers wouldn't hurt an ant.. Speaking of ants, they might not get killed but rearanging the hill a bit was fun.. Then there was wars.. We would use toys, light a firecracker and then roll it towards a "friend" and hope it blew up next to them, because if it didn't they would send it back to sender, or send it is someone else direction.. Ah the good old days..

Then there was this time me and a friend swindled a friend who was firecracker stupid.. And we had like four real packs of firecrackers and then had other packs made with cardboard.. .. Being that firecracker stupid cost him a dollar or two.. Which brings me to this.. I remember when firecrackers were fifteen cents.. A quarter bought you twice as many.. Punks cost half a penny, you had to buy two..  

Then there was the assorted package.. My dad bought the smallest for the longest time, then one year he surprised us by getting the next size up.. WOW THANKS DAD.. But it was never enough.. But we never got the big gargantuan box and it was just as well.. Now I can see where there just is never enough.. NEVER ENOUGH... We got a fifteen dollar set for the boo and he set them off as soon as we got home.. There really is nothing like seeing fireworks be set off at five in the evening.. He has that itch, as soon as he gets them he wants to shoot them off damn the torpedoes so what if the sun is still shining.. I told him, that is ok, it's dark somewhere in the world...


Badge Henry

Quarter to three

Why yes I'd love to sit outside on the deck.. But first.. Let me get the bug repellent, wear the long sleeve shirts, tuck my pants into my socks, get my bee mask on, light the smoke sticks..  Oh, you don't want to wait that long.. NEITHER DO I...  Seriously the fucking bugs are... worse than they have ever been.. I don't remember them ever being this bad.. They fly up your nose, in your ears.. in your mouth... My diet now consists of bugs.. Hey it's protein.. it counts.. 

We got this letter from Verizon.. The cellphone company we belong to.. Turns out they figured out how to shut one of our old.. OLD phones off.. See we were just gonna use them until they stopped working.. I use mine to call people, not to text, not view videos (it never could watch videos, or pictures either).. And so we get this letter telling us it will be shut off from 90% of what it was designed for.. Except the calling part which we have been told still means it won't work.. Guess we'll see in September.. But here's the ticker.. Mom's phone  is older by like two years, maybe three.. And she, like me, rarely use the phone, but what I don't get is the phone I use (I call it mine but it actually the secondary phone of moms) is newer but will be turned off.. Like I was thinking her phone with the stone wheels will get to keep working, and mine with the wooden wheels will turned off.. Mine is slightly more modern.. WHAT GIVES...  Oh well.. And you would think I would be thinking oh great, I'll get a new modern phone.. That isn't my way.. When this phone is gone I won't care, I almost never use it.. Almost never use it.. ALMOST.. No that's not true, I use it regularly.. I look at the clock on it whenever we are wherever.. But as far as using the phone.. I could give a shit..  I'm of the old school thinking, if you can't get a hold of me I think of that as a good thing..  Plus looking at the internet wherever you are, do you know how stupid that looks??  People walking around with their heads down looking these fucking things.. They could just as well be retarded because it's the same thing... ZOMBIES....


Channel 9 out of Denver has their internet channel on the Roku now.. And not just the Nowhereman version, they are on with a true channel.. So now we can see the internet version of the news on the roku, and it is expanded a bit with stories on VOD.. So that means now we have KNOP out of North Platte, and 10-11 out of Grand Island/Hastings/Omaha...  Kinda cool to have two Nebraska and the Denver "leader" in news and sports on there.. They also have the channel out of Cheyenne but I stopped watching it..

Using the potting mix to start the grass seed is the magic "bullet" to getting that to grow.. Finally, and truth be told almost too late.. There are three places that need reseeding and it has to be done in the first week of July, the Thursday after the forth.. Hoping it will grow fast enough to get several cuttings before the end of the season in October, knowing it slows growth several times during the summer.. 

We got RAIN last night.. Got a shitload of wind too... But as the storm was approaching I was looking at the internet and the radar and what was heading our way was hail filled and fun looking.. As it approached I kept thinking well here's what I will lose, and going through the list of everything.. What will I do when it is gone?? Well the gas meter area tomatoe plants will be tilled and that area returned to grass, although hard to get grass to grow there when established, might be hard to get it to grow back in July, but I'd give it a try.. The pumpkins would likely just be tilled and tilled like I was planning to do to try to control the weeds... The Earth box would be the only tomatoes that I would try to grow back.. And that is a maybe.. Remember when I never planted anything, and didn't care about the weather at all??? I don't remember that day.. It was.. quite a while ago..


Badge Henry

...and then came the last days of May...

Is it dry enough for you??? Suddenly and without warning, it seems to have sneaked up on people.. I drove around town lat .. yesterday and the number of lawns in trouble amazed me..  Honestly I didn't even know the sprinkler worked up until ten days ago..  and I'm still trying to remember how I watered everything.. Every time it rained I checked the rain gauge and did the figuring on it.. Ok after April and May we had around 15 inches total rain and we could count on getting rain almost every other day, and if you had anything planned it was going to rain that day.. Turn the calendar and June has seen the  water valve turned to the off position.. We last got rain of two tenths on the week of Memorial day.. Still in May.. and I was watching the font yard, the area that determined weather I should water or not. A couple days later it rained but under this big tree it was dry.. It has to rain a lot for it to make it to the ground there.. So that was the second spot that needed rain, with the first being in back under the clothesline.. And at that not a heavy watering..  Then two days later I started the keep up watering cycle.. I hate the catch up cycle watering, it seems to never happen where the grass is starting to burn up and catching up seems like a long way away. Truth is we are all three to four days away from having a burning up lawn.. Every lawn needs about an inch of water a week. To me, and I have a sprinkler I call the atomizer which simply put, sends a very mist like water droplets out.. I was after the closets thing to a sprinkler head, an automatic sprinkler head.. I tried this this a few years back, thought it wasn't very good then shelved it.. Later I tried it again and thought it was the best sprinkler I had ever used, and have sworn by it ever since even going as far as buying another one two years ago to replace it assuming it would eventually break or whatever..  Last week it did break, I was unclogging it and upon replacing the spray nozzle twisted it too hard and it snapped.. It was old, with the sun causing a lot of the age as with everything that is outside like that.. The biggest problem with this sprinkler is the water pattern.. It is circle as they all are, very anologue when you  think of it, there is no perfect sprinkler that I know of.. This is very wind driven.. Which is to say any wind will place water droplets ANYWHERE..  Sadly that means anywhere.. So when the wind doesn't blow it goes where I want it.. And when the wind blows I can water an even bigger area.. That can be good, but also not very good.. I have what I call a three head sprinkler that waters a very small area but waters it very thoroughly, so I usually spot water with it.. Yesterday I found the old drip irrigation system head to water a small area.. What I like about these heads is the water is only  a foot high, the wind doesn't effect the water nearly at all..

The lawn, and what the hell:   Ok so our lawn might not be nearly as perfect as I want it to be.. From a distance it's hard to visualize that it has weeds in the area that I fixed two years ago and then again last year.. One thing I have learned from this experience is to NOT til a very big area.. And in fact don't til at all.. Early in the spring, or rather the mowing season I scalped an area under the clothes line to seed and try that way.. It worked.. sort of.. Then another idea came along, try to spot seed.. And more to the point take the shovel and dig out the weeds and replace that with potting mix.. This idea will be employed the rest of the summer in both the front and back where the weeds are heaviest.. But not have them be any bigger than my hand, using bare spot grass seed to fill those spots in.. The grass this year... From reading various grass care sites, grass planting and care.. The lawn should all be set to grow as tall as the highest level the mower will mow.. Every other year that I tried this I was disappointed in the results.. Well this year I will mow at the highest level, mostly so the watering won't have to be as much.. I'd love to only have to water twice  a week rather than every day. I need to measure watering amounts.. I have a timer and that would make it so simple to keep under control..

How does your garden grow...::  Well my garden is limited. I decided, with prodding, to grow pumpkins in the pumpkin patch again, and in one other part of the garden to try pumpkins there too.. The main reason, I was going to til it every other week.. Was gonna be every Tuesday (til Tuesday, get it??  if you are very young ask your mother about that one). But then I got talked into doing pumpkins, all the while kinda thinking that the weather would do the selective process.. So far we have had no hail, but we also have had no rain..   Tomatoes planted in the new gas meter section.. I wanted to try something there since all that were growing there were weeds anyway.. I thought as many as four plants could go there.. There are three, with two being the roma and one other being the grape.. Everything is growing quite well.. The big find this year was the Caspian Pink variety tomato plant.. These can be huge fruits although extremely odd in shape, they aren't the perfect tomato for your sandwiches, they are perfect for eating. They taste fantastic..

Badge Henry

UC,FF,GC,IE,PM, S you know what I mean

Boy.. Howdy.. ok, well what does those letters mean in the subject line there?? They are short for browsers I have used all along.. Well... Not really.. In the case of S is Safari which is the Apple browser.. I rarely used it and wish I could have gotten it to the way that Firefox worked.. Or not.. The FF is for Firefox and this browser has been the go to for quite some time. It was the browser I stated with.. Yes I heard the bad vibe that the IE (Internet Explorer) got even before ever getting on the internet..   I tried many times to use IE, and really wanted it to be the browser I used.. But in the end it was really only good to be used for getting something better to use.. I really only know of two people who use IE, my older brother who works with people who have special needs and so I decided he has more patience than even I do...  GC is Google Chrome and I loved that browser until it shit the bed those many years ago.. That and it wasn't very stable, crashing on certain sites and not opening others up completely.. PM is Pale Moon which is  a browser built around the Firefox browser.. Which is good for that.. I used Opera as well but it isn't very good on the computer I have.. It worked quite well on the tablet I got for mom for Christmas.. The one that shit the bed ten days later.. The computer mom has now has Chrome browser on it and works extremely well..  As do most browsers.. The tablet I got for mom ran the Android Kit Kat OS, and I really liked that..  But the browser I currently am using is the UC..  which is short for... UC..  And what I like about the browser is it doesn't crash, freeze up, or in general be a piece of shit.. I made the comment on Facebook  recently that Firefox was trying to replace IE, and that included running just like IE.. Because it is identical a piece of shit to IE.. in my opinion..


Watching some shows recently on the Netflix.. I watched the entire fifteen show sampler of Storage wars.. And while I liked the show to start with it started to get old with the sniping that was going on.. The same can be said about Shipping Wars..   Certain things on that show, that Jennifer shipping livestock was stupid, she said after the first time never again.. Got a second load of something, same thing, never gonna do that again.. Never lasted until the next episode.. Certain logic goes out the window on that show..  Particle Fever is a documentary about that attempt  to find a new particle..   Um, it was ok.. How I didn't nap through this movie is beyond me.. I loved how they got all excited when they turned it on and they got a beam to go through there, they busted out the champagne as if they just landed a man on the moon.. Truth is it was just a bunch of egg heads that got excited as if they gt a date or something..  

I must be into documentary type shows as of late, as well as the A&E  shows I watched Intervention.. This show is nothing but depressing.. Last night I watched this girl was a heroin addict and I just couldn't see it, she was just so nice looking, when she cleaned up she was the next thing closest to beautiful.. But she can't stay clean.. Another one was this guy and he was a coke addict..  before that there was a kid who loved beer.. Loved to be drunk on beer.. all I could think was Beer, really???  Beer???  I mean if you want to get drunk there are better things to drink than beer.. Truth be told everyone was freaking because he was drinking beer and all I could think was beer drinkers are more pretend alcoholics, I mean yeah, you can get drunk on it.. they tell me.. I've never gotten drunk on beer, i can't stand the taste.. It tastes like what a skunk might taste like to kiss one.. I've never liked beer.. I have drunk maybe twenty four in my entire life..  Now Bourbon on the other hand...  That is the best.. Vodka as well..

Badge Henry

What a show...

On what would eventually be one of their last tours opening for anyone EVER. This tour was in support of Black Sabbath.. 

KISS - "Providence 1975"
Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island
August 3rd, 1975
Good to Very Good Audience Recording

Gene Simmons - bass, vocals
Ace Frehley - lead guitar
Peter Criss - drums, vocals
Paul Stanley - guitar, vocals

01 Deuce
02 Strutter
03 Hotter Than Hell
04 Firehouse
05 She
06 C'Mon And Love Me
07 100,000 Years
08 Black Diamond
09 Cold Gin
10 Rock And Roll All Nite

‘DRESSED TO KILL TOUR 75/76' KISS:
 As opening act KISS was not getting much respect. The headlining tour and the staff always tried to harm them.  The KISS show was technically advanced for groups at that time. The bands felt intimidated by the sheer magnitude of what they were doing, while KISS was an opening act gave literally explosive shows. What happened is that KISS crushed everyone on stage, and this caused them big problems. They had many problems as an opening act for this show was much better and stronger.
 Black Sabbath were very pushy and mean with KISS, ”You can not do this, and you can do that.” They said, ”You have forty minutes, not a second more, or cut off the lights and sound” and if we were moving, they did, remembered former KISS Road Crew member Mike McGurl.
 KISS had a confrontation in Providence, Rhode Island on August 8, 1975 with the Sabbath . Black Sabbath set up their stage and had not left enough space for KISS's battery lift platform or space for the band was one foot in front. Sabbath had room to pull back but did not want to. KISS's Manager Bill Aucoin addressed the KISS road crew,” they will not recede for us so we will not touch anything. Gather the team and stick it in the truck, get out of here.” So I put everything in the truck and when I was putting the lock on the back of the truck, Bill came out, gave everyone a ticket for $ 50 and said , ‘Return to play : they gave in.” So they reassembled the team and played the concert.



BLACK SABBATH - "Megalomania"
Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island
August 3rd, 1975
Very Good Master Audience Recording taped by Dan Lampinski

Ozzy Osbourne - vocals
Tony Iommi - guitar
Bill Ward - drums
Geezer Butler - bass guitar

CD1
01 Intro
02 Killing Yourself To Live
03 Hole In The Sky
04 Snowblind
05 Symptom Of The Universe
06 War Pigs
07 Megalomania

CD2
01 Sabra Cadabra
02 Jam
03 Sometimes I'm Happy
04 Drums
05 Supernaut
06 Iron Man
07 Jam
08 Black Sabbath (spliced)
09 Spiral Architect
10 Embryo/Children Of The Grave
11 E: Paranoid



Master audience recording taped by Dan Lampinski
 Dan Lampinski recorded over 100 concerts in the Providence/Boston area, mostly between 1974 and 1978. His earliest recordings were made with an internal microphone deck, and though they are somewhat lo-fi compared to his later work, some very great moments in rock history were captured for posterity. In late 1974 he bought a Sony TC-152SD tape recorder, a Sony ECM-99 stereo microphone, and began using Maxell cassettes. He was also fortunate enough to have a friend who provided excellent taping seats for many shows, resulting in high quality recordings. In 1977, he switched over to a Nakamichi 550 tape recorder, two  Nakamichi CM-300 microphones, and continued using Maxell cassettes.
He recorded many of the major 70's bands: Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, ELP, Kiss, Black Sabbath, The Who, Al Stewart, Alice Cooper, Jeff Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Supertramp, Jean-Luc Ponty, Moody Blues, Neil Young, The Faces, Rush, Rick Wakeman, Kansas, as well as several "under the radar" acts.
 Since Dan never traded copies of his recordings, they are all essentially uncirculated. Some copies were made for friends, but these releases are the first time most of these recordings have ever seen the light of day, and are direct from his master cassettes. No EQ'ing has been done to any of the transfers. Feel free to EQ, matrix, patch, etc and re-post if you like, just give Dan credit for the original recording.
 Dan was very meticulous about taking good care of his tapes and is very pleased that these recordings will now circulate among the trading community

Badge Henry

In Wyoming

Not that this movie was that great but I must have been in the right frame of mind to watch it Saturday night..

Something about aliens and the possibility of this actually happening.. It seems more and more likely that the day is coming with all the gadgets that everyone has that there will no longer be dispute about this happening.. Same with UFO's in general.. I've always said get video and then post it as soon as you can.. This movie was just a lot of fun to watch.. Anytime a movie makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.. That's a good movie.. And I liked how it ended.. *SPOILER ALERT*  ... as I was watching the movie and I could hear the birds starting to chirp like they do in the summer as the sun comes up, I could tell the sky should be getting lighter signifying the dawn of a new day.. and they see the lights of the town in the valley, start climbing down there, get onto the highway and a police car is headed in their direction.. They are safe, the police are there.. And then... not so much.. What a great twist, I would never see that one coming..

Saturday morning saw this one be watched ..::

"Print the legend" about the amazing world of 3D printing.. And it is totally amazing except for one thing *SPOILER ALERT*  .. Well spoiler alert if you can't see it coming a mile away, as with just about everything computer and internet related there is nothing and everything to this.. They start out small, get patents rolling in and then all hell breaks lose.. With money and fame comes back stabbing and out right greed..  And when the guy gets everything his way he sells out.. And they finally get the printers to ship but they suck.. And then they recall and build and...  Very predictable behaviour by these people..

Finally...  Have you tried shutting it off and turning it on again???

The IT Crowd, simply put it is like a cross between Monty Python and just about anything Douglas Adams has ever put out.. Yes it is THAT good.. But extremely short, it series run is 4 seasons and that means around forty episodes all together.. So far they have all been extremely funny..

other shows include Shipping wars, storage wars and American pickers.. I have also started watching Vietnam in HD the documentary put together to try to equal the great world war II in HD epic, but where you know we won world war II, the Vietnam war was  a struggle at best.. At the very best, and the way we measured how we were winning wasn't by territory we were taking but rather by how many people we were killing.. The body count, as long as we were killing more we were winning.. That is just such a fucked way of determining that we were winning but it remains the same measure that we use now..  

Badge Henry

Tide turning like a stomach on a roller coaster..

Alright.. I'm gonna say something that most people where I live would strongly disagree with.. We had one of the wetter April/May spring months we have had in a while.. That makes what i'm about to say as sounding like a joke statement.. It's not that wet out there.. Seriously even though we have had nearly eight inches of rain in the past two months (nearly 16 total) and how can I make such a stupid statement?? There is this webcam that is associated with the states 511 road system that shows road conditions, webcams that show road conditions and this one shows a field just up over there.. And it was flooded, and gets flooded when it rains really hard.. This time it was as full as I've seen it and thought alright let's see how long this lasts.. Four days later it was dry.. Not dry likely but the water visual wasn't there anymore.. It was still very muddy sure, but not standing water.. And here is another indicator.. I had turned the soil over in the garden area(s) this past last day or so of April with the idea that I was going to do til Tuesday through May.. Tilling the soil every Tuesday until Memorial weekend when I would plant everything.. That was a bust as it rained every Tuesday and almost every other day as well in May, I was only able to get things going this past Saturday.. Here's the thing as well.. we got a fairly good rain on the Wednesday before that Saturday so I went into the old pumpkin patch with the tiller thinking this might be a mistake, it's going to be too wet.. IT WASN'T.. So I turned all three planting sites over, then let them sit idle over night.. Should have waited until today with the rain we got Monday night settled the soil down, but we got plants that I wanted in the ground nearly a week later than I usually like to plant them..   The soil was relatively moist but not dry or muddy.. The soil didn't collect on the tines of the tiller which is really good.. Getting everything planted and testing the irrigation system, part of the fun of gardening to me is setting up the irrigation system.. I use drip irrigation with those smaller soaking  hose things mostly because while those little sprinklers are fine to water from above, the little soaking tube things deliver the goods right where I want it and leave the rest of the garden dry.. That helps to keep the weeds from growing supposedly, and why do I say supposedly??  Because in the years I have tried to do it this way the weeds still love to grow, in dry arid  conditions or wet.. This year unlike any other year, I have a mower with a grass catcher and that produces grass clippings that I will use to help keep the weeds down a bit (I hope) and also trap water from being evaporated.. I try to stay more Organic where possible, I mean I know the tomato plants are more than likely GMO.. Nothing I can do about that..  

This year my tomato variety is as follows.. : 2 Containers choice planted in the Earth box planter
                                                                       2 la Roma planted in the section next to the gas meter
                                                                        1 Krim planted directly in back of the bench in back
                                                                       1 Sioux variety, much like the Krim in look and flavour..

The reason there are two each of the Containers choice and the Roma planted relatively close together is to hopefully stop cross pollination, something that with the Earthbox happens because of the close proximity to one another.. That never used to bother me and truth be told if I would have had just two tomato plants I would have had two different variety in there it wouldn't have been a big deal.. Except that I wanted to see if I could prevent cross pollination just to see what they would be like.. Same with the roma, they are down by the gas meter some fifty or more feet away from the Earthbox planter.. They however are close to the other two variety, they might be ten feet away.. And in the pumpkin patch will hopefully be pumpkins again this year.. I got a package of seeds (the giant variety again) and planted too many AGAIN.. Thin them down??  Maybe, but maybe let them grow a little then dig them out and give them to someone else. Might be a plan.. Also planted sunflowers this year.. A variety pack.. Not those mammoth ones.. They didn't grow worth a crap last year anyway.. So .. There you have it.. A busy two days.. And now we cross our fingers..

Badge Henry