Thane Plambeck

Ozzie

THANE: You picked a bad cat.

GLORIA: You liked him at the shelter too.

THANE: No. I could tell he was a bad cat, even then. He had a rap sheet, and the shelter people *gave* it to you: "Jumps up on counters a lot." So, here we are, we have a cat that has a pathological counter up-jumping problem.

GLORIA: He's a good cat.

THANE: You picked a bad cat.

Harbin tigers kill a cow

Harbin tigers kill a cow, originally uploaded by thane.

entros's photo...he went to China and the tour guide provided this entertainment

Another Pessimism moment

"Don't be fair to me:  I can do without everything but the tonic of injustice."

---Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born.

[ that book, which can be browsed at Amazon, looks like a good one to add to the Pessimist's Library. I found this one in it, too: ]

"What I know at sixty, I knew at twenty.  Forty years of a long, superfluous verification."

Pessimism

I've been reading Joshua's Foa Dienstag's book, Pessimism.

Here's my favorite passage so far:

Beginning as children, the disappointment of our childish hopes forces us to use our own reason to provide for our needs.  But this sets off a dialectic of enlightenment where each accomplishment only postpones and intensifies our initial desires.  Our dissatisfaction multiplies as at each higher plateau of reason we see further and further into an ultimate emptiness.  At first, particular hopes are crushed, then ideals, then finally the ideal of hope.  As modern human beings, we both know that we are unhappy and (at last we are able to see) that there is no earthly reason to believe this will change.

1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4, originally uploaded by thane.

Baumans: This will not stand

Baumans: This will not stand, originally uploaded by David Gallagher.

Owen and his 5th grade teacher, Smita Kolhatkar

Owen and his 5th grade teacher, Smita Kolhatkar, originally uploaded by thane.

Temporal continuation of credit union robbery stories

After a credit union is robbed, it usually happens that someone is arrested.  Like the initial robbery report, the stories are highly stereotyped and it would be no problem at all to link them together in a little
follow-up story, perhaps in the setting of my (long-mothballed) Context Free Press:

Here's a typical one, again taken from today's Google Alert:

CONCORD — A man suspected of robbing a Concord bank Friday was arrested a short time later in Bay Point.

The suspect, 29-year-old Bay Point resident Donte Turner, is a parolee with a history of bank robberies, police said.

The robbery occurred about 9:35 a.m. at CD Federal Credit Union, in the 1800 block of Second Street, Concord police Lt. Darrell Graham said. The robber walked inside holding a revolver and pointed it at two tellers.

The robber demanded money, which he put into a bag that he brought inside. Afterward he ran outside and got into a 1992 Acura sedan.

"We're pretty sure he had a getaway driver, who we haven't found," Graham said.

Witnesses caught the car's license plate number as it drove away and police issued a countywide memo. The car was found soon after in Bay Point. Turner was spotted and arrested near the car, and police recovered all of the stolen money, as well as the gun and the clothes the alleged robber wore during the crime.

Credit union robberies as an automatic story generation opportunity.

Near the (presumed) peak of the "financial crisis," I decided to put some money into a local credit union. 

I got interested in how well credit unions were doing financially, and started a "Google Alert" on the words "credit union."  

I haven't learned too much about credit union solvency, but I have been treated to a series of credit union robbery stories, such as the following:

A man wearing a ball cap and a crudely fashioned mask robbed a Joplin credit-union location Friday morning.

Police said the robber about 11:45 a.m. entered the Joplin Metro Credit Union offices at 3301 S. Texas Ave. and demanded cash from the tellers. He reportedly threatened use of a gun, although no weapon was ever displayed, police said.

The robber fled on foot, headed north from the credit union toward 32nd Street and its intersection with Range Line Road.

Cindy Atteberry, president of the credit union, told the Globe that no customers were in the lobby at the time.

“Some people had just left,” Atteberry said. “He came around the building from the south and entered with his face covered.”

She said he came through the main entrance on the west side of the credit union and began yelling at two female tellers who were on duty.

“He was saying he wanted hundreds, fifties and twenties, and did not want ones,” Atteberry said. “He told the girls: ‘You got 30 seconds or I have a gun.’”

The robber was wearing what Atteberry, who was in an office off the lobby, at first thought was an orange “do-rag” over his face. But the tellers, who got a better look at him, believe it might have been a car “shammy rag” with eye holes cut out, Atteberry said.

She said he left through the same entrance but ran north through the credit union’s drive-through service area and toward the back of the Food 4 Less store. She said he was peeling the mask off as he ran through the drive-through, and a passenger in a car at the drive-through apparently got a good look at him.

Police described the robber as about 5-feet-7-inches tall with a thin build. He was wearing a white ball cap with a black rim, a gray T-shirt and khaki pants.

“We have video from surveillance tapes at the (credit union),” said Lt. Mike Hobson of the Joplin Police Department.

He said detectives were studying the tapes Friday afternoon in an effort to identify the robber. Hobson said the mask may have been fashioned from an old T-shirt or rag. He said police said investigators had no images of the robber to release as yet to the media.

It would be fun to use these to come up with a variant of my prison break story generator.

Here's the theory.

You must be a member to continue

OWEN:  In the Pirates of the Caribbean game, I need to be a member to continue.

THANE: What?

OWEN: I've done everything I can.  I'm a level 10 pirate, but all I have is a rusty scabbard.  I have the pirate money to buy lots of things, including a dagger and better swords, but I have to be a member to continue.

THANE:  So, become a member.  Oh --- they want you to pay?

OWEN: Yes.

OWEN:  "It's a little rusty, but it's got an edge."  That's how they describe my scabbard.  I could have a dagger.  I could have a sword.  I could have a fancy sword.  I could have better clothes. 

GLORIA: Ah, too bad.  We're not paying.

THANE: Yes, tragic.

OWEN: To buy a bigger ship, "You must be a member to continue."  My name is in gray --- the members names are in blue.  I've completed a bunch of quests, but I can't go any farther.

THANE:  Because you need to be a member to continue?

OWEN:  Yes, right, I need to be a member to continue.  I have money, but I can't spend it.

THANE: Pirate money?

OWEN: Yes. 

GLORIA: They want real money, not pirate money.

OWEN:  To have my name in blue, I need to be a member to continue.  To complete the quest, I need to be a member to continue.  To buy a better gun.  To get more moves with my weapons.  To have my name not be in gray.  To join other pirate's boats.  To have more pirates on my own boats.  To have more cannons on a boat.  I have to be a member to continue.

THANE: Tragic, tragic.  How much is it --- not that we're going to pay, of course.

OWEN: $4.95. 

THANE: Per month? 

OWEN:  Per six months.

THANE: Not too much.  But we're not paying.

OWEN: They show the action on a full screen .... to show you how nice it is.  But if you  don't become a member, they make it a little window.  I can't have full screen mode.  I need to be a member to continue.

THANE:  Maybe they'll shrink the screen some more...make you look through a little periscope kind of view.

OWEN: Ha ha

Aircraft I'll be flying to Halifax

San Francisco to Boston:  Airbus A320.
Boston to Halifax:  Bombardier CRJ-200.

Not *quite* the same ones in the recent crashes, so I'm good.

If this cat invited me to a party with his buddies, I'd politely decline

I can fight, originally uploaded by laohoo.photo.