UNHINGED (formerly in the skinner box): December 2007

Dec 31, 2007

Don't Fall Down! and cheaper than a New HIP!

My sister, in slippery Massachuessettes swears these are better than chains on snow tires!

that is a great price, I have checked, and they seem to be AARP / ELDER endorsed. Cheaper than a New Hip!

Dec 30, 2007

Hey hey I'm a million miles away HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Seventeen Again === Eurythmics

click play a few times!

Title: Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams lyrics

Artist: Eurythmics

Yay though we venture through
The Valley of the stars
You and all your jewelry
And my bleeding heart

Who couldn't be together
And who could not be apart

We should’ve jumped out
Of that airplane after all
Flying skyways overhead
It wasn’t hard to fall

And I had so many crashes
That I couldn't feel
At all...

And it feels like
I’m 17 Again
Feels like I’m 17

Times might break you
God forsake you
Leave you burned and bruised
Innocence will teach you
What it feels like to be used

Thought that you’d done everything
You didn’t have a clue

And it feels like
I’m 17 Again
Feels like I’m 17
Again

Looking from the outside in
Some things never change

Hey hey I'm a million miles away
Funny how it seems like yesterday ...

All those fake celebrities
And all those viscous queens
All the stupid papers
And the stupid magazines

Sweet dreams are made of anything
That gets you in the scene

And it feels like
I’m 17 Again
Feels like I’m 17
Again

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Yea

These lyrics were found at ActioNext.com.

++++
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world
And the seven seas--
Everybody’s looking for something.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.

Dec 29, 2007

Related in a series of e-mails . . . new book

from The London Telegraph, 12/29/07
(Toby Clements reviews the latest lad lit)

Welcome to the Working Week by Paul Vlitos

Related in a series of e-mails, this novel tells the story of Martin Sargent, a 20-something office worker with a disastrous personal life, and his small gang of friends as they begin to settle down with one another, or not.

Stripped of any description, it ought to be pure plot, but the atmosphere is familiar and each character becomes a sort of platonic ideal: an office worker in a creased suit; a playwright with a nascent beard; a self-obsessed blogger; a mentally underpowered DJ who can pull the girls but then doesn't know what to say to them afterwards.

There are a few loose ends and a baffling running gag about a pint of milk, but Paul Vlitos is a witty writer and this, his first novel, is curiously gripping.

__
sounds kind of fun?

Dec 28, 2007

Recent and Current Reading:

Amazon.com Widgets

Anjou Pear, that mustard-like color in the Living room

Anjou Pear by SHERWIN WILLIAMS, SW-6381
click the photo twice for a larger version, backup back to the Skinner box:

(and my bedroom, but rarely noted)

you can play with the color here

http://sherlink.sherwin.com/swapp/color_visualizer/index.jsp?colorNo=6381

Dec 26, 2007

Tour of the House in Akron, Ohio

Paul’s and John’s Home

333 Kimberly Road
Akron, OH
44313
TEL: 330 864 0684

Some Pictures of the House
We have lived here since mid-September (about 3 ½ months)
The area is beautiful, I can hear the train whistle several miles away (very cheerful, very thought provoking), minutes from the grocery store, a good Chinese place, a Macy’s and more . . . .

The Main Entry Hall:

+

The Living Room:

The Dining Room:

Stairway to 2nd level:

Guest Bedroom:

John's Bedroom:

Guest Bath:

Stairway to 3rd level:

Paul's bedroom:

Family room (we have skipped the bonus room above Paul's room, fled down past 2, then past one, to the lower level):

Its better to look out a kitchen window than around on the Yucca Flats inside, no animals or birds, kind of rare:

There are a few unPictured rooms (kitchen, den, bonus room) for assorted reasons.

Thats our home after nearly four months, most of the rooms are painted bright energizing colors, this and that has been done here and there.

2008: the year of the yard!

-john

Dec 25, 2007

new word: Mall Hangover -- post christmas epidemic?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mall+hangover&defid=2758823

MALL HANGOVER

from Urban Word of the Day

the headache, tiredness and sometimes nausea one gets after going to the mall.

I was at the mall for like five hours and when I got home I had a major mall hangover.

+++ page down, double clicking on pic will generate BIG PICTURES (most of the time)++++

Dec 23, 2007

Moon Shadows over a Snow Dusted Lawn

you may recall my infactuation with the shadows on the snow the other day at sunset - the sun itself is thrilling these days , this pic:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2qs0e0RZmkgSuFTw4mKSIklFSglRsQUKczGXZssja02fc1-KUy1XDdqVvxVHuj34DYmAOpEIwjvBCV2w-Vy0wTegVF1MlhZQp9t_QK8A6nxPI3PHrPey1r2oKgmcKsyc5SjO-3A/s1600-h/17dec07-sunat4fifteen.jpg ; well now there were shadows BY the light of the silvery MOON! the 2nd picture is the majestic tree I love so much, the one from the sun picture above - see the neighbor's lights from the den window; the first is out my bedroom window. A moon that bright is sure to bring Santa!

Perhaps a tree naming contest?

NITE NITE, maybe even silent on this eve of Christmas Eve!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Akron, shopping, candy, ornaments and WIND (ier than chicago)

This is GIANT EABLE, the nearest grocery store. Its a GIANT store, ever been to a RALPH'S GIANT (gone I bet) in LA? well this is huge,the produce section is the size of my Chicago Grocery store. SO its taking longer to establish a rapport with the staff at this monster.

This is a Chocolate shop, based in CLEVELAND (a large nearby earth city) a few minutes away. Fine candy, lots of chocolate figures (Terminal Tower in Cleveland, frogs . . . )

This is a lovely ornament my sister Kim sent us for Christmas (along with cookies and other delights)

This is an older Santa that Paul found somewhere. Gives us that DICKENS feel.

This morning it was 55, now hours later its 31, with light snow falling, and wind gusts.

HERE is a wind gust, give it a look, volume up, give it a listen too!

if you were a squirrel would you want this to be your home, your leafy haven in the skys? (unless you were a Baron in the Trees)?

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS EVE!

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Expect birth of first human clone soon, says UNU report

HAPPY DAY ONE of 2008! PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF YOUR CLONE!!

now for the upcomeing year.... Community, Identity, Stability

first a bit from BRAVE NEW WORLD (cloning would seem to be the ultimate managerial Republican dream, yet its so opposed....?)

Image the work force? the mindless protest free work force, from BRAVE NEW WORLD:

Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small
factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The
voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are. For
the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto. "Community, Identity,
Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole
problem would be solved."

Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions
of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.
from: http://www.huxley.net/bnw/index.html

+++ now the movie folks! and with the luck of the solar system it will look just like me (after my UFO abduction last August from the Macy's parking lot its very possible!)::

_____

Expect birth of firsthuman clone soon,says UNU report

http://update.unu.edu/issue47_15.htm

update.unu.edu

ISSUE47: SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2007
The newsletter of United Nations University and its international network of research and training centres/programmes.

The world community quickly needs to reach a compromise that outlaws reproductive cloning or prepare to protect the rights of cloned individuals from potential abuse, prejudice and discrimination, according to authors of a new policy analysis by UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS).

A legally-binding global ban on work to create a human clone, coupled with freedom for nations to permit strictly controlled therapeutic research, has the greatest political viability of options available to the international community, says the report: Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance. link: http://www.ias.unu.edu/resource_centre/Cloning_9.20B.pdf

Virtually every nation opposes human cloning and more than 50 have made such efforts illegal. However, negotiation of an international accord foundered at the UN in 2005 due to disagreement over research (or therapeutic) cloning.

"Human reproductive cloning could profoundly impact humanity," says UNU Rector Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of UNU. "This report offers a plain language analysis of the opportunities, challenges and options before us – a firm and thoughtful base from which the international community can revisit the issue before science overtakes policy."

DOWNLOAD REPORT here: http://www.ias.unu.edu/resource_centre/Cloning_9.20B.pdf

Without an international prohibition, human reproductive cloning accomplished in certain countries could be judged perfectly legal by the International Court of Justice, warn UNU-IAS co-authors Brendan Tobin, Chamundeeswari Kuppuswamy, Darryl Macer, Mihaela Serbulea.
“Failure to outlaw reproductive cloning means it is just a matter of time until cloned individuals share the planet,” says barrister Mr. Tobin of the Irish Center for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway. “If failure to compromise continues, the world community must accept responsibility and ensure that any cloned individual receives full human rights protection. It will also need to embark on an extensive awareness building and sensitivity program to ensure that the wider society treats clones with respect and ensure they are protected against prejudice, abuse or discrimination.”

There is almost universal international consensus on the desirability of banning reproductive cloning based in part on religious and moral grounds, but mostly on concerns about underdeveloped technologies producing clones with serious deformities or degenerative diseases, Mr. Tobin adds. As technologies advance and possibilities of success increase, the current consensus is likely to erode and with it the possibility of securing a ban on reproductive cloning.

According to the UNU report, the widest international consensus would be achieved around an agreement that prevents progress towards full reproductive cloning but authorizes strictly controlled therapeutic cloning to prevent the uncontrolled production and destruction of embryos.

Failure to deal with the cloning issue reflects on "the credibility of the UN institution itself and its capacity to respond to society’s need for competent leadership," says the report.

Proponents of research cloning for regenerative medicine say it offers great hope of producing replacement tissue without the fear of rejection, that it offers a potential cure for millions of people suffering common diseases of the industrialized world – diabetes, stroke, spinal injury, and neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

Opponents view research cloning as the unethical production and destruction of living embryos to produce stem cells upon which such therapies are based. The clash of positions led to a compromise non-binding UN Declaration on Cloning.

There have been no substantiated claims of cloned human embryos grown into fetal stages and beyond but such an historic event is not far off, most experts agree.

Clones have been achieved with mice, sheep, pigs, cows and dogs and U.S. researchers last summer accomplished the first cloning of a primate – a rhesus monkey embryo cloned from adult cells and then grown to generate stem cells.

++++++++++++

whad ya thinks of that?

end

or new beginning, ALDOUS where are you?

Dec 22, 2007

just what is a skinner box, and who TOOK JOHN'S CHEESE?

A Skinner Box is a self contained device that, after proper conditioning, an animal within, responding to outside stimulus (a sound, light bulb going on, etc.) would perform a trained behavior to get a reward. My first experience with Skinner boxes came when I was very young and visiting the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. Back in the '50's, for a penny, you could watch a trained chicken throw basketballs in a hoop, dance around or perform other human oriented behavior. I would imagine that they were banned on the basis of cruelty to animals. ( http://www.k9care.com/Tip-Home%20is%20not%20a%20Skinner%20Box.htm )

SKINNER BOX:

Dec 19, 2007

THE HAUNTED CHRISTMAS TREE AT NIGHT, a TOUR FROM THE INSIDE

Last night I made a few short videos of the Christmas Tree illuminated by Christmas Tree Lights. Rather haunting, I call it Elmer the Dwarf’s trip into the Tree.

Near the end of the first clip there was an interuption, listen for our OVERSTATED DOORBELL and a pounding at the door – the UPS man. The last chime of the doorbell is missing, so fill in the musical blank.

find the department store ornaments, have a laugh, volume up, double click the play button!

background from the same play, "marley was dead . . . "

in case you are sill with me - a hello kitty ornament can be seen here!

=

for more of Dickens: http://scroogeschristmas.blogspot.com/

like:
``Christmas a humbug, uncle!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``You don't mean that, I am sure.''
``I do,'' said Scrooge. ``Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.''`
`Come, then,'' returned the nephew gaily. ``What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.''Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, ``Bah!'' again; and followed it up with ``Humbug.''
``Don't be cross, uncle,'' said the nephew.
``What else can I be,'' returned the uncle, ``when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,'' said Scrooge indignantly, ``every idiot who goes about with ``Merry Christmas'' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!''
``Uncle!'' pleaded the nephew.

++ENJOY THE CLIPS, MORE in a few days +++++

Dec 17, 2007

picture re-post - it would not double click, it should get big - actual size

Double click the image.....

Then the school bus went by . . . if I had had a drink I says the seasons of the year, the seasons of life, the dusk of day . . .

THE DRIVEWAY COMMENTS:
one of my brothers said its going up to 40 tomorrow why shovel?? I don't shovel, and when people ask me why not I say "that's what 4 wheel drive is for"

another brother said shovelling snow is the #1 cause of heart attacks (where is that baby aspirin) then he added, "you can probably go door to door and get 20 or 30 bucks to shovel"

leave the snow advised a friend, local kids will come and offer to shovel (well a guy came, from west akron, no teeth, rang the bell before the snow had started to fall and wanted 20 to shovel the dusting of the early hours -- saying he needed money for gas as his wife was driving around looking for driveways in need of snow removal. why didn't she just stay home and save the gas...

DOUBLE click the picture, hope it doubles in size, the one below would not. arrogant JPeG!

the SUN appeared in AKRON! the last thing I expected to see

AKRON TODAY:
Dec 17, 2007 sunrise: 7:45 AM sunset: 4:59 PM

SUNSET SURPRISE:
in about 40 minutes; after the morning, the lead colored weekend, this is wonderful, isn't it?
DOUBLE CLICK FOR BIGGER PRETTIER IMAGE:

at about 4:15 it showed up, in one of my favorite trees. You can see a shadow in the snow - something else I can't remember seeing. Then the school bus went by . . . if I had had a drink I says the seasons of the year, the seasons of life, the dusk of day . . . Perephone, I salute you.

Page down for the snow and tree:

AKRON WINTER, Christmas Trees and Driveways

We got a live tree at homepot, and a special stand: you use your foot to tighten the supports instead of turning 3 screws one by one and hoping - cursing, praying, - it worked, one person can stand a tree! a tree stand made in Bavaria . . .

AND PAUL DECORATED!! - behind the tree is the tree outside with the birdfeeder!

Then Paul peeked out the window at the driveway! ever see SUNSET BOULEVARD, that opening where Norma is looking out the window? WELCOME TO AKRON!

Oh, that looks nasty, he thought. and gave me my first x-mas gift: A SHOVEL!

He woke up and it looked as bad, so off I went, after dropping some x-mas cards in the mailbox...

I shovelled and shovelled. and shovelled some more . . .Now it looks like this (best I could see on the street).

I came in and popped a baby aspirin de pronto, and applied a pound and half of SUPERSTRENGHT EXTRA POWER BENGAY to my lower back (long long time since I have held a shovel.... 20 years, no more than 25.....)

I wonder what I'll find under the tree? A beautiful tree and a clear drive! COME ON OVER!!

HOPE YOU ARE WARM AND WELL!

===

Dec 15, 2007

Books in my library by Author rank

this is my librarything author cloud, by the size of the author you can tell how many books relative to the other authors I have...

the full catalog:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jbeckhamlat

by size, so A lot by Burgess, Spark, Pelevin, but few by Bill Clinton (but that ONE is signed)

User jbeckhamlat : author cloud (tags sized by frequency)

UNHINGED (formerly in the skinner box)