Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The Wordsmithy

...has been prohibited from fueling it's forge with coal and hardwood charcoal can't be found either, only dried dung remains to fuel my forge. Fortunately, it's in great abundance from the large herds of intellectually-castrated steer-citizens hereabouts.

Apprentice! Shovel more shit on that forge-fire and lean into that bellows! I'm trying to work this soft iron of a language into some steel-armored words which might inspire this Nation to offer adequate resistance to our cruel overseers.

Trucking Poo in Dubai

...by now you've probably seen photographs of the stunning new construction in Dubai, an Islamic Kingdom out near the Sandbox.

Now their little-known secret is exposed.

They built that city...

WITHOUT A FARGING SEWAGE SYSTEM!

Yep, each building/complex is built with a cesspool, which has to be constantly emptied. That is done by a monster fleet of huge semi-tankers, and those tankers go somewhere out in the desert where there supposedly IS a sewage treatment facility (or, more likely, a very large lake o'poo). This video shows miles and miles of tankers on a Ring Road, waiting to get to their destination and dump their poo. The video reports that some of the drivers are in those rigs for three days waiting to dump, and some of them don't wait, but go off-road and dump into ditches out in the desert, ditches that flow directly into the sea, where tourists swim at the posh resorts.

H/T to the Coyote Kid, way out in SD

Splodey Tofu - UPDATED!

No, really!

Let this be a lesson: eat meat, and cook it as little as possible. It will never explode.

My take on it, but dependent on my fact set:

She was frying the tofu, and after taking the fried tofu from the pan (the report doesn't actually say the tofu exploded), she poured the hot oil from frying down the drain, where it floated on top of the water in the sink trap. Next, she turned on the tap water to rinse the pan, and when that water got on top of the hot oil, it "tanked", directing a steam explosion upwards at the window, possibly blowing the fry pan through the window (report doesn't say where the fry pan wound up).

"Tanking" of hot oil is the worst hazard in deep-fat frying (as opposed to just sauteeing), and it burns a lot of folks every year. It is responsible for burning houses down, too, if the "tanking" occurs on a lit burner, the resulting ignition of the blast-cloud of hot oil creates a fireball of significant size.

What the reporter said: keeping Portland weird!

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UPDATE: 120111 0857 PDT: It happened exactly as I said. Grease fire in pan, airhead cook tries to extinguish same with water, has giant steam explosion, blows up kitchen, is lucky to still have all her skin and vision.

Detritus from the camera - photo potpourri

Just read out the digital camera's chip, and the old Minolta Dimage XT had some pix on it I had intended to post, but never got a roundtuit.

Remember the old Knife Meme a couple months ago? I had just bought a new knife to replace my old Almar Eagle Ultralight Talon which now graces the bottom of Portland Harbor (WAAAAAAH!). This one is not half the knife the Almar was, but it serves. It's a Gerber Paraframe, a skeletonized liner-lock folder, no assist other than the thumb stud.

It DOES have the pocket-clip from HELL though, and will never get bumped out of the pocket, like the Almar did while climbing around on the gunwale of my boat. It was on sale for $26, not a bad price for a Gerber.

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OK, all y'all can read, but be honest now, how many of you have seen motor oil in THIS form of container? Hint, they've been using plastic bottles exclusively for about 25 years now.

I don't maintain an automotive museum here, but I'll keep this can of oil, since it's unopened, and 20-weight is a decent medium-weight shop oil. I probably paid 70 cents for that can of oil when I bought it, 49 cents if it was on sale. Motor oil now is not found below $3 per quart, and the better oils run up to $6. Lemme see, am I making 9 times the salary I did back 25 years ago? Noooooooooo....

The essence of blogging...

The purity of the essence. Our pure blogging essence. Something like that, eh, "Bat"?

No, a frequent commenter, JustThisGuy, who even gives us his essence here from time to time, has evidently nailed the essence of blogging.

Blogging is emissions. He doesn't say from where, though. All emissions emanate, don't they?

So, I ask a question which needs an answer: If I blog after supper, is that a Night Emission?

Call the EPA!

Yes, Virginia, bears do, in fact, shit in the woods, and so do deer! No photos of the bears, but I did manage to shoot one of defecating Bambi:

...and deer squat, too! BTW, I was close enough to this fine skinful of deerburger to have taken her out with a Flying Ashtray from the Bulldog 44. I was 15 feet from the ag gate in the foreground, and Mrs. Bambi was 15 feet the other side of the gate.

Tame deer, though. It strolls about on a shooting range with impunity (4 months until Bambi season).

Sic Semper Ignorati

...such is the fate of idiots.

"He left the road at ninety, that's all there is to say. The Devil got the Porsche and the Jackass on that day"

Apologies to Robert Mitchum, the "Ballad of Thunder Road" is supposedly the only song he ever sung in front of the cameras in his entire career.

"Jackass TV" never occupied one second of my viewing time, but from the controversy it generated, some of which I did follow, I'm sure that the counter-culture hero (to the low class amongst us, anyway) had some following, so I guess he will be mourned, after a fashion.

Mourning, you see, involves rational and introspective thought, and I doubt that the followers of "Jackass TV" have those marbles in their collections, so it isn't real mourning. I have no doubt that some other fool will step up to replace him.

I won't miss him.

Do you feel small yet?

You should. When the nation that most values, believes in and uses ALL of man's technology can be so devastated by a natural event, what chance do WE have, in a country where political systems such as Socialism get more study, more funding and more academic respect than Engineering?

You are NOT the master of your fate, but you CAN control your approach to Fate's direction, if you reject outside influences such as intrusive religions and intrusive government, and just THINK for yourself.

The only force that can operate on equal footing with Ma Nature is human Thought, so don't fetter your thinking ability with the restraints of impotent religions or Governments.

That is all.

In other news...

Don't click this link if you are upset about humans who don't appear human. This one is about the recently-affirmed "World's Hariest Girl", an unfortunate Thai lass who suffers from a rare genetic defect.

Just one thought: how many companies which make millions selling various depiliatory schemes to women will offer a chunk of money to this girl to use their products?

Holiday travel - the goat-rope

Travel on urban freeways is usually a goat-rope anyway, but add in holiday shopping AND end of Thanksgiving weekend travel, and it gets almost to the point of gridlock.

Then you add in some goats.

Yes, dear, I am NOT cursing at those drivers, there reallly IS a goat-roping tying up this freeway...

At I-205 near Foster Road, two goats got loose on the freeway, and decided to take the off-ramp, s.l.o.w.l.y. This tied up traffic for almost an hour until the goats could be roped and removed.

I seem to recall that General Patton had an answer for a similar problem on a highway in Sardinia, back in WW2.