Frêsh Fish

Wednesday, November 26, 2008


Happy Thanksgiving – 2008


Let us all be thankful for the wonder of it all.

This is a snap of an angel I have on my dining room table.

Standing With An Open Heart Before The Wonder Of It All


A few days ago I heard a sound that is near and dear to me.

“In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”
The Bells – EAP – published Oct. 1849


It was a bell tinkling for The Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Christmas Campaign. Of all the charitable organization I think The Salvation Army is the best. Each year, every time I hear the tinkling of the bell, I give a dollar or two. I encourage all and any to donate to The Salvation Army over the holiday season.

Recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, most of us still have way more than we need. I am always thankful that I have something to give.

Just do it. It will make you feel good.

© 2008 big box industries

Saturday, November 22, 2008


Merry Christmas


Even though I am not getting carried away with Christmas presents this year I am still going to ring the bell loud and be proud. I and all I know have lots to be thankful for.

I already put a few Christmas decorations out yesterday. I took the scarecrow down from around the mailbox area and replaced it with a metal Santa display and also replaced the applique outside flags.

There are a few tricks for displaying applique outside flags. You have to always use a clip of some sort to secure the flag to the pole or the wind will snatch it away. Also when you are putting the flag on the pole you have to put it on backward or like in this picture, the lettering will come out wrong.


We have five different applique Christmas flags.

Is It Oh Oh Oh or Ho Ho Ho?


T’is the season to do lots of stuff. Make sure you do.

© 2008 big box industries

Friday, November 21, 2008


The Plunge Protection Team


It is out there and it is working for you. The Plunge Protection Team is a quasi-secret US government task force that directly intervenes in the stock market when things get bad. For more detailed information do your thing here.

The stock market has now become a casino.  Better than Vegas.

We Are Now Flushing The Greed Out of the System


The Plunge Protection Team’s mission statement is to protect US citizens from The Bear.

The Plunge Protection has tried a few times to lift the market but has gotten creamed.

Beware The Bear is Still Hungry


After hitting a double bottom on the DOW yesterday it looks like The Plunge Protection Team is in there today.

The Plunge Protection hides out as a hedge fund.  A good candidate is Capital Research Global Investors.

Only Known Photo of a Member of The Plunge Protection Team


Nobody knows exactly how The Plunge Protection Team operates. They probably hide out as a hedge fund. If I had to guess I would say Capital Research Global Investors. No one seems to know who they are or where they get their money. But if you take a look at their balance sheet they sure do own a lot of stuff.

© 2008 big box industries

Thursday, November 20, 2008


Venus in November


Pretty damn good day. Started with a bad to bone egg sandwich. Did some good outside work. And now for those that know how to beckon the splendor, Venus is shinning proud for all to see in the Western sky.


I am doing a hot shower and a D's Pizza after this.

Hail Holy Light


All this and heaven too and I love it.

Actually it gets better but I will leave that story for another day.

© 2008 big box industries


Outside Doing The Day


I spent about 3 hours outside doing a beautiful day. I could give you all the details but who would care?

One of my ultimate fantasies is that the price of leaves would go up to $25 a trash bag.

Where Is The Leaf Fairy?


Can you tell I pruned the butterfly plant?

Hard To Tell The Difference


You know there is some serious shit going on when 2 red wheel barrels show up.

When I was like 5 years old, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel was my favorite book.

Mike Mulligan Would Be Jealous


© 2008 big box industries


They Eat The Eggs of Others


This is probably not the best egg sandwich I have ever made because I needed a better bread, but it was damn good.

There are a million things about egg sandwiches that I still haven’t discovered but I am working on it. Still not sure what heat to put the burner on when melting the butter and then when you actually put the eggs in the pan. I also can’t do all those one handed egg breaking tricks.

If you want to please me all you have to do is cheese me.

Cheese Me Please


Do note though that I do have that cool little pink pig that keeps the eggs from rolling off on their own. Also if you compare snap 1 with snap 2, the more observant will note that the Nice’n Cheesy was put away as soon as it was used.

McDonald's can bite my ass.

You Have To Break A Few Eggs To Do A Lot Of Things


I can live without pepper on my eggs but I thought it would enhance the photo.

I wanted better focus on the yolks.  I should have used a tripod.

The Incredibly Edible


Another discovery that awaits me is actually getting the stuff out of the pan in a less haphazard fashion.

Wish I had had some better bread.

Messy But Great


Considering all of the above, the egg sandwich with a glass of milk was the bomb.

© 2008 big box industries


All Asunder All Aglow


It is 6 AM and I am up and rallying the troops for an assault on the day. As always there is lots and lots to do and if I get just a fraction of some of this lots and lots done I will claim victory over the day.

In Feb. of this year I read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. I was especially taken by two aspects of this work.

First it was originally written in Italian. I am not sure who gets the kudos here. Either Eco wrote so well that his work is easily translated into English. Or as I suspect, the translator did an exceptional job. Umberto is not a see Dick run kind of writer. The Rose was penned in a high, think academic, way. For the translator to be able to render the original in such a way that the unsuspecting would never suspect is quite a feat. (I hate the use of suspect twice in this paragraph but no alternative quickly came to mind.)

The other aspect of The Rose that I was enamored with was Eco’s confession later that the way he wrote this book was that he first, in meticulous detailed, mapped out the terrain of the book. Every inch, every nook and cranny of the abbey and its surroundings were detailed first, an architectural diagram. Left, right, up, down – all the dimensions were accounted for. He built the setting in his mind. I do not have a very good pictorial sense. I do not see pictures of things in my mind. Eco’s visual recall seems to be exceptional.

The benefit of Eco’s pictorial trick is that once the setting is established, then as characters are added their behavior is constrained. They can only move about in certain ways. All Eco had to do once his vision was in place was to add the characters and let them flaner.

There is a correspondence of Eco’s predetermined setting to the comments made in Poe’s, The Philosophy of Composition. In The Philosophy, Poe postulates that it is best to consider the ending of one’s writing first. Then with the end in mind everything else that comes next will point in that direction. This ability to first envision the end is one that I have yet to acquire in any detail.

However, I can appreciate the concept of constraining one’s writing and having some structure for one’s creative energy. I like to use pictures. You take a picture and then you make up a story about it.

(It is now 6:32 AM. The above took me 30 mins to write.)

I am multi tasking at the moment. I am thinking of many things, typing this, and doing the dishes in the dish washer. We have recently discovered that of all the yuck out there to assist one in cleaning dishes that Electrasol, with the little red ball in the middle, is the best for getting glasses out of the dish washer without those irritating spots and blotches.

I am one of the few people who uses an alt tag with their snaps.

Squeaky Clean



I recently brought up my exerciser from the basement and put it beside my bed in hopes of using it more frequently, employing the out of sight – out of mind antithesis. I don’t wear sneakers when I pump, pump, pump,it up, but the Nikes were just there and I thought they would add to the gym motif.

I actually wear size 9 1/2 shoes but the Nikes were on sale for five bucks.

The Sneaks Are Size 11



It has been getting down into the 20’s for the last day or so and we have electric heaters out everywhere.

Just counted and we have 6 electric heaters in the house in addition to central heating.

Witch's Tits



“Out of the worry of doing and into the bliss of Donne.” – John Donne.

(It is now 6:45 AM. The above in total took me 45 mins. to draft.)

Conclusion - Structure enhances accomplishment.

© 2008 big box industries

Wednesday, November 19, 2008


Red November


Another of our Holiday Cacti doing its thing.

We put our cacti outside during the good weather and now they are kicking butt.

Red Holiday Cactus


It hangs by the window in the far corner of the dining room.

Posterization is cool but you don't want to get carried away with it.

Posterized


© 2008 big box industries

Tuesday, November 18, 2008


Life is Good


I am working on something good where I even invent a new word and get to use the phrase dead fuck, but the distractions of the day are beckoning and hopefully when I return I will still be inspired enough to finish the work with a new word and such.

Until then a quickie.

I did a shower and since it is a bit nip, nip, nippy outside, this caused the bathroom window to fog up. Shame not to use it.


The trick here is to not fog up the lense.

Do Good Things


© 2008 big box industries

Monday, November 17, 2008




Candide


The above is a short novel by Voltaire that I read in high school. At least for me, one of the most memorable, in the sense that I still remember the name, characters in literature is found within the pages of Francois Marie Arouet's little ditty, the best of all possible worlds', Dr. Pangloss.

It wasn’t until just recently that I came across the information that Dr. Pangloss was allegedly a caricature of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and philosopher I have some knowledge of via my interest in the Newton vs. Leibniz debate in who discovered the calculus.

The gist of Candide is that most of the strut and fret that we clamor for is a ruse, a canard, an illusion, pandering to the seven deadly sins - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Each transitory and none to be sated.

Better to – “Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre
jardin.”

And to this end I offer one of the fruits of our labor. Our Thanksgiving Cacti are doing extremely well this year after spending their time outside in the sun.

Still need to work on focus and metering.

Thanksgiving Cactus


© 2008 big box industries




Too Big


I still don’t think it is appreciated that the root cause of all of today’s problems is that everything is too big. The country is too big, the government is too big, mutual funds are too big, the players in the mortgage market are too big, the auto makers are too big, … just take your pick.

Perhaps Karl Marx was right. Capitalism contains the seeds of its own demise. Any capitalistic system will implode because as it develops and gets bigger, eventually you will manifest entities that are too big to be sustained by the rest of the system.

In Marx’s story, as the economy develops, becoming larger and larger, it becomes feasible to introduce larger and larger economies of scale, these larger economies of scale enable more to be produced with less. Since more can be produced with less, more and more workers lose their jobs and the number of workers unemployed start to increase. Eventually this sea of unemployed revolt and a new economic system emerges.

What Marx’s couldn’t envision in his wildest dreams was the evolution of credit on an unprecedented scale. Buying now and perhaps paying later has allowed capitalism to persist.

I could have done better with the above making it sound as scholarly as you like but why worry be happy. The key to above is that you now know the answer to any financial or economic question. Whatever the question the answer is a simple – Too big. Why is this happening or why is that happening? Too big. Will this happen or that happen? Too big.

I usually like to have a snap to accompany my entries. I was looking for a too big snap and really didn’t have anything to offer.

Too big.

Why Worry - Be Happy


Why worry be happy. This is a snap of a statue I have prominently displayed on the floor. The buddha was about 5 feet away in low light. I shot it with flash at 12x optical zoom. Really not too big but why worry be happy.

I promise I am not going to use the gold paint thing in another snap for awhile.

© 2008 big box industries

Sunday, November 16, 2008


Whatever Is Seen To Be Sentient is Nevertheless Composed of Atoms That Are Insentient


And on hands and knees he asked for guidance and was told by a voice both sonorous and soothing –

“Do good things.”

Do good things.

And From The Clay It Came Pondering


He reflected on this advice for some time and finally in deep meditation asked of his Muse once again –

“But how will I know if I have done good things?”

To this query the reframe was –

“Do many things. Some of them will be good.”

More so now then before, I am interested in the creative process, the way things come about. Reflection suggestions that in most cases the creative process is haphazard with things coming and going all the time and it is only what we can catch that we can claim as our own. Even this concept of “our own” is called into question because where are the better ideas coming from. If we know it later how come we didn’t know it then. As an example – as I now write this I am not sure in exactly what form my idea will manifest, which words will follow which, but I just have the feeling that if I continue, I will be doing good things.

© 2008 big box industries




Historical Continuity and Doctrinal Consistency


The time has come once again for the outside to come inside. With freeze warnings about I had to take my indoor plants that had spent the Spring and Summer and part of the Fall outside and bring them all inside.

One such is my spider plants.

Taken 11/8 with the golden hue of autumn flowing through the blinds.

Creepy Crawly


As these links Spiddy, Fairy With Spiders and Shadows attest to, I have had these warriors of time and space for quite awhile. Their entire history has been forgotten but they are part of me and my hope is that they will be with me forever.

In reviewing the prior links I was shocked to see how overexposed the snaps were. At the time I posted them I must have thought they were satisfactory. What you process and post is a function of the monitor you have at the time and the white balance on my monitor must have been set too high.

© 2008 big box industries

Monday, November 10, 2008




Al – Qaeda in Dahlonega


I visited the north Georgia town of Dahlonega last Thursday. While there, thoroughly enjoying the day, I had the rare opportunity to clandestinely photography two known Al-Qaeda operatives. I was astounded by how brazen these infidels were, they just strutted about as if they owned the town.

Taken 11/6 - Mom and The Little One.  There is gold in them there hills.

Al-Qaeda in Dahlonega


Well I knew that the United States was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fight the Al – Qaeda, and like the boogie man, the Al – Qaeda are everywhere, but I never suspected that the Al – Qaeda was in Dahlonega.

I asked a rather well informed friend of mine the other day how many Al-Qaeda he thought there were given that the United States is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fight the Boogie Man. He quickly ventured a guess of 100,000 strong.

Out of curiosity, I decided to do a Google search to determine the approximate number of Al – Qaeda that are thought to be hanging out. I can find out just about anything on the internet, but the actual number of Al – Qaeda seems to be a state secret.

Amazingly enough, when I had been able to find information on the number of Al-Qaeda in the past, which now seems to be suppressed, the number of actual Al-Qaeda was never more than a few thousand. The media would have you believe that the number is much, much, more.

To add additional insult to the madness of it all, we trained Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan from 1982 – 1992 and any and all funds given to the Al-Qaeda has been US oil money. It is sort of like how we trained and armed Saddam Hussein to fight Iran in the 1980’s.

All of the United States’ problems today can be directly traced to the United States’ ineptness in the past.

So the next time you are in a room all abuzz with the Al-Qaeda and terrorist and the Boogie Man and such, never ever ask the most logical of questions – “Just how many Al-Qaeda are there?”

© 2008 big box industries



Sons of God – Daughters of Men


The Bible is replete with inconsistencies. One can turn to almost any story in the Bible and be confronted by a gnawing doubt – “If God is all knowing and all powerful then how can that which is related to us in The Bible be correct?”

One such non sequitur is the inclusion in Genesis – Chapter 6 of the story of the
sons of God and the Daughters of Men.

Taken 11/8 with the golden hue of autumn flowing through the blinds.

Sons of God and Daughters of Men


“1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8 “
King James Version

It certainly didn’t take God long to mess everything up. I am not even going to go into the never mentioned before genesis of “the sons of God” and their ability to mate with “the Daughters of Men”.

I have a key though that resolves much of the paradox in The Bible. The reoccurring paradox being how can things continually go astray when their creator, God, is all knowing and all powerful? The obvious answer is that perhaps the creator, God, is not all knowing and all powerful. God’s power is great and his knowledge abundant but He too errors often. This is much like discerning the paths of the planets around the Sun are not perfect circles but ellipses.

© 2008 big box industries


Saturday, November 01, 2008


The Phat Man


Leslie Weinstein, dba – Leslie West – aka – The Phat Man was and is the lead guitarist and singer for the legendary hard rock band Mountain. Joined by Felix Pappalardi (bass) who hung with Eric in Cream, and Corky Laing (drums). Mountain is best remembered for the legendary hard rocker Mississippi Queen.

Taken outside while I was planting daffodils.

And From Raw Clay It Does Rise


First there is the cow bell. The drummer, Corky Laing, whacks it with a precision that would make a metronome envious. Interspersed with Corky’s incessant whacking, at the end of the first two measures, one hears the squalling of some preternatural creature. Then there is the best dual double pump snare drum in all of rock. And finally the floor falls out and a mountain of sound swells up from the void. Mountain – Mississippi Queen.

Thanks to the video game Guitar Hero, Mountain is making a comeback because Mississippi Queen is on the play list.

I have seen The Phat Man three times.

1. Outside under the stars – Stegemen Field – University of Georgia – circa 1970.
2. Small pub off Buford Highway – mid 70’s.
3. New Year’s Eve – circa 2002 – 14th Street Playhouse.

Due to the resurrection of Mountain via Guitar Hero, The Phat Man and Corky Laing are on tour again. Unfortunately, I just found out that the boys were in town 10/26 at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.

© 2008 big box industries