Interesting Hanging Out With Kirika

No-nonsense military policeman at Fort Bliss by day: comic book convention enthusiast by night.

It's Our Party, We Can Do What We Want

Hope To Install A Walter White Descanso Tomorrow

Over by the Nazi compound....

[UPDATE: it's getting attention]

Marq and Ed's Breaking Bad Finale Party In Albuquerque

Michael Flowers put this video together. My nephew Aaron and my sisters Marra and Michelle are featured here.

What an amazing amount of work by Marq Smith and Ed Candelaria, to put this most-amazing party together! It's the best-organized, most-well-thought-out party I've ever seen in my entire life!

I started working on creating an almanac of Breaking Bad locations in May, 2010. At first, when I visited Albuquerque, I saw little evidence of fan organization. I chalked it up to insufficient time to develop. That was correct. Ed and Marq's Facebook group, Miguel Jaramillo's Twitter group, and an entire constellation of smaller formal and informal groups in Albuquerque, Los Lunas, El Paso, Romania (!) and elsewhere evolved in the last three years. It's been a pleasure to watch the growth!

Even more gratifying has been to experience just how grateful people are for the support I offered. Ed and Marq state that they would never would have been able to do what they did without my help. They offered unreserved thanks at both the meet-and-greet dinner on Saturday and the Finale party on Sunday. They even allowed me to bring my family, three guests, when everyone else was limited to one. Everywhere I go, people are expressing thanks, and making efforts to know me better. Even from the AMC Locations people, I sense respect and an impish pleasure at my work. They've done an amazing job too, finding these places and winnowing them out, and who better to appreciate their hard work than someone like me?

It's been a bumpy road at times, but the payoff for all the hard work is now....

Update To Recall Reunion

Fellow Historical Figures!:

Jayson Haedrich is continuing to work on the possibility of a second screening for his movie. He has been in contact with Kim Nalder, an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and the director of the Project for Informed Electorate at California State University in Sacramento. She is interested in trying to put together a panel discussion reviewing the 2003 Recall election. Provided we can make this event happen, former candidates would be most welcome too. We don’t have dates or times yet, but in the event you can’t come to the October 12th reunion, there is the possibility of a different, second event, where we can get together.

Marc Valdez

Homeless Man Does Breaking Bad Impressions For Food

Via LiveLeak.

New Mexico Hiatus

Off to Albuq-twerk-que!

Home Stuff Today

Clean out the sewage line (I particularly liked the part where the wet rooter cable sprayed sewage all about). Check!

Finish cleaning gutters!

Mow lawn!

Sweep leaves!

Do aerobics!

Beat to death!

NONONO - Pumpin Blood

Been hearing this on the radio. Glad to associate the song with a band. The rabbit in the video is a bonus.

"Disney's 'The Little Mermaid'" - DMTC YPT

Headpiece with a porpoise.

Getting hair ideas.

Cooper J.J. with adoring fans.

Both Cooper J.J. as The Little Mermaid and Ana C. as the Water Witch were fantastic! Peter deBello excelled as the Prince Eric and Jenna Karoly as Sebastian as well.

Beautiful set decoration.

Fishies in the sea.

Just So Much Top-Notch Stuff Out There Regarding "Breaking Bad" Lately

Can't possibly keep up with it all. Here's from a review of "Granite State":

I loved the character for a number of reasons, primarily because every slow boat to Hades needs a greedy Charon. But also because his continued presence — and the cost of that presence — was a cutting reminder of the limits of wealth. Throughout the 75 minutes, Walter kept insisting that all of his money was for his family. But as Flynn loudly established, they don't want it. (Flynn especially has every reason to reject his awful inheritance. Walt using his son's beloved Aunt Marie as bait was proof that the cancer still hasn't managed to penetrate his monstrous ego.) The barrel of blood money can buy almost anything, it seems: silence, loyalty, DIY chemotherapy, and an hour's worth of company. But it can't buy back what it cost Walt to earn it in the first place.

Still Not Sure What To Think About The Colorado Rains

People are aghast how much rain fell in Colorado. Some are prone to use the event as a demonstration why global climate change is here.

Nevertheless, the weather pattern that contributed most to the rains (large summertime trough to the west, with a secondary, nearly-cutoff low to the southwest) doesn't strike me as THAT unusual. I'm wondering if we just haven't seen the full range of possible weather outcomes in our brief sojourn as a civilization in the West.

Wall Street Crashing Around In Energy Markets Again

Then again, it's ethanol. Then again, EPA is administering it. Enough room for all sorts of mischief:

It was supposed to help clean the air, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster agriculture. But a little known market in ethanol credits has also become a hot new game on Wall Street.

The federal government created the market in special credits tied to ethanol eight years ago when it required refiners to mix ethanol into gasoline or buy credits from companies that do so. The idea was to push refiners to use the cleaner, renewable fuel, or force them to buy the credits.

A few worried that Wall Street would set out to exploit this young market, fears the government dismissed. But many people believe that is what happened this year when the price of the ethanol credits skyrocketed 20-fold in just six months, according to an analysis of regulatory documents and interviews with more than 40 people involved in the market, including industry executives, brokers, traders and analysts.

Traders for big banks and other financial institutions, these people say, amassed millions of the credits just as refiners were looking to buy more of them to meet an expanding federal requirement. Industry executives familiar with JPMorgan Chase’s activities, for example, told The Times that the bank offered to sell them hundreds of millions of the credits earlier this summer. When asked how the bank had amassed such a stake, the executives said they were told by the bank that it had stockpiled the credits.

Shaggy Feat. Ravon - In The Summer Time

There's No There There

It'll be a big surprise Sunday evening:

Series creator Gilligan said the show’s concluding episode would be postponed indefinitely after he and his team hit a creative brick wall.

Although they had been confidently pretending that the last episode had been completed and was ‘intense’, the writing team never got beyond writing ‘Walt’ and ‘Jesse’ on a flip chart.

Gilligan said: “We’ve got nothing. Nothing. I’m very sorry.

“We kind of assumed it would get cancelled after two seasons, if we were lucky. So we never really planned ahead, the plot just grew organically, like a wild shrub.

“I had a vague thought involving a machine gun but that didn’t work out, for various reasons I can’t be bothered to go into.

“The we asked everyone working on the show to write an idea on a Post-It note but they came out with stuff like ‘Skyler gets eaten by a wolf’, ‘Walt’s not ill, he’s pregnant’, and ‘Everyone sorts it out over a nice hot drink’.”

He continued: “Even writing a single episode is incredibly draining. There’s all these characters running around doing different things, it’s like maths.

“Now we’ve missed the deadline and they’re going to put an old episode of The A-Team on in our time slot.

“The good news though is that it’s the one where they get trapped in a warehouse and fight back with modified toy planes. Probably the best A-Team ever made.”

Miley Cyrus Twerk & Robin Thicke MTV VMA 2013

People are getting agitated about Miley Cyrus' comments comparing the reception of Breaking Bad to her VMA performance. She didn't have to pick specifically on Breaking Bad, but I do agree with her general point, and others have made the same point before. I liked her VMA performance. It's not so different from what I do in hip-hop class:

"America is just so weird in what they think is right and wrong. Like, I was watching Breaking Bad the other day, and they were cooking meth. I could literally cook meth because of that show. It's a how-to. And then they bleeped out the word 'f*ck.' And I'm like, really? They killed a guy, and disintegrated his body in acid, but you're not allowed to say 'f*ck'? It's like when they bleeped 'molly' at the VMAs. Look what I'm doing up here right now, and you're going to bleep out 'molly'? Whatever."

The piece de resistance, of course, was the reaction of the Will Smith family to the performance. In Hollywood, success comes no sweeter than this!:

The Drought Jeopardizes Everything

Jerry sent this. Despite the recent rains, it's likely the drought will continue, because nothing big has shifted with regards to El Nino, etc.

Much has changed in NM already. Acequias are inefficient, but that's their charm. Wildlife thrives on the inefficiency:

Across the state, a historic drought has reduced the water to a shallow stream in some acequias, a trickle in others. Some channels are parched. Some people, even elders leery of change, are asking whether it's time to try more modern methods of irrigating the land.

Such an idea was once unthinkable. For Boney and other old families of New Mexico, a land where the past seems ever present, the water crisis threatens not just livelihoods but also the connection they feel to their Spanish ancestors.

...This year was different. Townspeople began talking about the water shortage and their fears the drought would worsen. Newscasters led nightly broadcasts with reports of a statewide water crisis. New Mexico was the driest state in the nation, the reporters declared.

"Really? Us?" Boney said to herself. Most who draw from the acequias (pronounced ah-SEH-kee-ahs) are small farmers who grow food just for themselves. Others, such as Boney, sell their fruits and vegetables but consume some of the harvest.

...Slowly, she became convinced.

Her husband, John, the mayordomo of the acequia at their farm, was also reluctant at first. By May, friends with the acequia association persuaded the Boneys to set aside a test plot — 100 feet long and 70 feet wide — and install drip irrigation to grow lettuce, chard and other vegetables. It's the first time such irrigation is being considered for wide use in the county.

Last Week's Drought Monitor Shows Considerable Easing

Looking forward to this week's report.

Vince Gilligan Gives A Shout-Out To Albuquerque At The 2013 Emmys

September Precipitation In Albuquerque Is Already Record-Breaking

The weather in Albuquerque has been SO erratic! Even though we still have a week to go, with Saturday's frontal-passage rain total of 0.58" (which exceeded the 0.49" we got here at Sacramento Executive Airport when the same front went through), Albuquerque has had 3.97" of rain for the month, which easily exceeds the next-highest amount for September, 3.31" in September, 1929. There were two days that broke records for the days:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ALBUQUERQUE NM
231 AM MDT WED SEP 11 2013

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT ALBUQUERQUE NM...

A RECORD RAINFALL OF 0.85 INCHES WAS SET AT ALBUQUERQUE NM
YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 0.84 SET IN 1942.

237 AM MDT SUN SEP 15 2013

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT ALBUQUERQUE NM...

A RECORD RAINFALL OF 1.22 INCHES WAS SET AT ALBUQUERQUE NM
YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 0.65 SET IN 1996.

John sent this fun helicopter video of the recent flooding in the Rio Grande Valley. I'm familiar with that arroyo by Cottonwood Mall. It's so strange to see it like this!

How Jesse Momentarily Escaped

Posted by Christian Diaz de Bedoya.

America's Dictator

Good ol' Ted Cruz of Texas:

So this is Cruz’s position: When Republicans ram an ultimatum through the House on a 53-percent party-line roll call, using the threat of a shutdown to gut a bill they lack the votes to repeal, that’s unity and courage. When Democrats threaten to use their 54-percent majority in the Senate to restore Obamacare to the resolution—which could then be voted up or down, or filibustered by the GOP—that’s abuse of power.

Every politician fibs now and then. Some do it better, more often, or more passionately than others. Even among the elite of his profession, Cruz stands out for the sincerity and deep feeling with which he can tell you one thing on Friday and the exact opposite on Sunday. He’s a national treasure. I can’t wait to see what he’ll say next.

Bad

Jetta Aims Videos At The Howard Stern Crowd

What Could Possibly, Go Wrong, Go Wrong, Go Wrong?

Just words:

EDMONTON - Coca-Cola has cancelled a Canadian promotion that paired randomly generated English and French words inside bottle caps after an Edmonton woman got one that said "You Retard."

..."Both my husband and I were pretty shocked. We couldn't actually believe what we were seeing," Loates said. "We thought maybe it was a joke or that maybe a rogue employee got a hold of the lid machine and wrote it."

...Shannon Denny, director of brand communications with Coca-Cola Refreshments Canada, said consumers were supposed to collect the caps to combine words into humorous sentences.

Anglophones would use the English words and Francophones would use the French ones, she explained.

Denny said the problem was the word lists for each language were approved separately and that in French, "retard" simply means late.

"Some words that were on the list, such as the one we were contacted about, have a completely innocuous meaning in French and are used regularly within French conversations," Denny said.

"But when you look at that word from an English standpoint, it takes on a much different, offensive meaning. And that was an oversight on our part during that review process."

Denny said the complaint from Edmonton wasn't the only gaffe. One consumer contacted the company after finding a cap with the word "douche" printed on it.

"It's the French word for shower," Denny explained.

Something To Wear To A Squirrel's Wedding

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago for Karina, but forgot to post it myself. It's graffiti on a dumpster behind Midtown's Spaghetti Factory.

Sequel

The Recall Election Ten Years Later

A few months ago, San Francisco Chronicle Reporter Joe Garofoli tracked down several of the Gubernatorial candidates and interviewed them about the Recall Election and its effects, a decade later.

From his piece about Mary Carey:

Carey was only 23 when she moved to Los Angeles in April 2003. The fledgling theater major dropped out of Florida Atlantic University, where she had taken classes for three years, to seek her fame in LA’s adult film world. When she filed her candidacy papers for governor, she still had Florida license plates on her car.

She signed with a smaller company whose owner Mark Kulkis promised to make “me a household name in a year.”

One day, he asked her a question: You want to run for governor? “Well, I didn’t graduate from college,” Carey recalled telling him. “I dropped out.”

No, no don’t worry about it. You just have to be 18 and have no felonies.

So Kulkis, the president of Kick Ass Productions, much like any other campaign operative, began prepping Carey on everything from the state’s budget deficit to its tax structure.

“I’m really good with coming up with funny answers and being witty,” Carey said. “Because I was kind of goofy, people mistake my playing dumb for really being dumb…. realistically, if I was dumb, I wouldn’t have been able to get through these interviews and come up with funny answers.”

Saw "Spamalot" On Sunday

I liked how creative and new DMTC's "Spamalot" was, despite starting from the well-watched (and thus no longer quite so new) "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

Cast List For "Oliver!" Up

Down and out in London town.

Life Beginning To Get Rough For Holly

Rush Limbaugh's Worst Nightmare - Where Is He When You Need Him?

Icona Pop - All Night

Pop expression of 'Ballroom' drag culture!

I Haven't Seen These Yet, But They're Only A Mile Away, Or So, So I Will

Ick!:

A well-established and reproducing population of brown marmorated stink bugs (BSMB) has been found in a Midtown Sacramento neighborhood, reported Chuck Ingels, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for Sacramento County. The infestation seems to be centered around 13th St., south of Capital Park. This is the first reproducing population in California outside Los Angeles County.

...“This is the worst invasive pest we’ve ever had in California, but there is no funding to attempt to eradicate it, nor is there a mandate to do so,” Ingels said.

Brown marmorated stink bug affects many different crops and is a serious residential problem. It moves around easily, so can be expected to spread. It can fly up to a half mile at a time and also travels long distances by hitching rides in vehicles or inside furniture or other articles when they are moved, often during winter months. As a result, most new infestations are found in urban areas.

Brown marmorated stink bugs are native to China, Japan and Korea. They were first documented in the United States in Pennsylvania in 2001, but was likely established there several years earlier. ... The pest has been present in Los Angeles County for 6 years.

BMSB feeds on dozens of California crops, including apples, pears, cherries, peaches, melons, corn, tomatoes, berries and grapes. Feeding on fruit creates pock marks and distortions that make the fruit unmarketable.

...In addition to the damage caused by the BMSB feeding, the “true bug” can cause disturbing problems for homeowners in the winter. When the weather cools down, bugs migrate in droves to sheltered areas, including inside homes and buildings.

...“Because they are strong fliers, it’s just a matter of time before they reach farms,” Ingels said.

The pest can be distinguished from ordinary brown stink bugs by its larger size, marble-like coloring on its shield and white markings on the extended edge of the abdomen. BSMB also has distinctive white bands on the antennae and legs.

Mercy Attack

E.: MMMAAAARRRRCCCC! One more time!

M.: (no, no, please, no....)

E.:

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin eyes.

M.: What's this in the news?:

Police in South Carolina arrested a North Charleston woman Monday night after she allegedly stabbed her roommate multiple times for refusing to stop playing music by the classic rock band The Eagles.

According to the official report, Vernett Bader, 54, became irritated with her 64-year-old roommate (and one-time boyfriend) after he rejected her pleas to turn off the Eagles and told her to "shut up."

Bader then entered the kitchen and grabbed a serrated knife, which she subsequently used to stab her roommate several times in the arm, hand, and elbow.

The roommate and his brother managed to wrestle the knife away from Bader, but she quickly retrieved another from the kitchen.

All three were intoxicated at the time, per the report.

It's unclear which of the band's songs drove Bader over the edge, but police have narrowed down the possible suspects to "Witchy Woman," "Take It Easy," "Peaceful Easy Feeling," "Take It to the Limit," "One of These Nights," "Tequila Sunrise," and "Hotel California" on repeat.

Worried About The Folks In Tampa

I'm very uneasy about this. The weather forecast has been waffling a lot, sometimes indicating a hurricane, sometimes not. Nevertheless, the National Hurricane Center thinks the chances of development of the storm system as it moves from the Yucatan over the western Gulf of Mexico are quite good. If that happens, and the system gets caught by the trough currently over the western U.S., as also seems likely, it will move right for you. The forecast currently suggests a direct hurricane strike on Tampa Monday morning. Hope that doesn't happen, but it might be wise now to clear the social calendar for this weekend, because you might need time to pack.

Best Show, Evah!

Allen St. John at Forbes thinks "Breaking Bad" is the best TV show ever. Whom am I to disagree?:

Twenty three minutes into Episode 514, entitled “Ozymandias” after a Shelley poem, Breaking Bad made television history. Except that most fans didn’t notice. They were instead ready to cry, scream, vomit, or hurl a waffle iron at the plasma TV, or some combination of the above.

Sometime around that first commercial break, Breaking Bad broke away from the pack and staked its claim to the title of television’s Best Show Ever.

Over the course of five years, Vince Gilligan and his friends have constructed a world piece by piece, with attention to detail worthy of a Faberge egg. They created a compelling protagonist, a deeply flawed yet charismatic genius. They built a business at which he had savant-like skills, and depicted the family that often drove him crazy. Then blurred lines between the two. And in that way created a life for Walter White that many of us can relate to.

But other great and groundbreaking TV dramas had done something similar, most notably David Chase’s The Sopranos, David Simon’s The Wire, and David Milch’s Deadwood.

But Breaking Bad did something those iconic shows didn’t do. Showrunner Vince Gilligan set his protagonist in motion. Television had always been about a kind of inertia. After every episode of M*A*S*H or The Rockford Files there’d be a cosmic reset button that would allow the characters to return to exactly where they started at the beginning of the episode. That’s how you can make the Korean War last eleven years.

And as that first generation of shows from television’s post-millennial Golden Era threw off so many of the shackles of convention inherent in the medium, they kept this one.

Tony Soprano was a man who didn’t change, couldn’t change. Jimmy McNulty, Stringer Bell and other characters of The Wire fought hard for change—changing themselves and changing the system—but Simon’s message was that the drug/cop/court/prison/politics system in a fictionalized Baltimore was, tragically, too big and too strong to be taken down by a few angry men and women.

Vince Gilligan started Breaking Bad with no such constraints. Whereas Tony Soprano spent seven seasons running errands around North Jersey, Walter White embarked on an epic journey, tracing an arc reserved for iconic characters of literature and cinema like Jay Gatsby and Michael Corleone.

As he morphed Mr. Chips into Scarface, Gilligan wrote his own version of The Great American Novel. On Steroids.

Star Gazers Making The Rounds

Ha! Ha! Reminded of the recent Ignobel awards, for researchers showing that dung beetles use the Milky Way for navigation. I wonder what Walter White uses?

This Ig Nobel winning study by Marie Dacke and colleagues showed that dung beetles use the milky way for navigational orientation. Previously it was believed they use the moon, but this study reveals it’s not just that.

Praying Mantis Entranced By The Moving Shadows

It was time for the annual task of trimming the smaller branches from the tree branch that hangs over my house. That entails climbing onto the very pinnacle of the house, which is close to three stories up, and extending the branch-clipper pole into the tree's canopy.

I've written before how I felt using my branch-clipper: like a solitary crab waving its claw around in the current. This time, though, I had company: a praying mantis. The mantis was entranced by the leaves swaying in the wind. It's head swayed back and forth in amazed wonderment at all the shadows.

I lost track of the praying mantis: I hope I didn't inadvertently hurt it. It's nice to think of them as eternal.

"Breaking Bad" - 'Ozymandias'

Large audience! 6.4 million viewers!

I'm strangely-reminded of the death journey of Joe Gideon (which I've posted on before). Bob Fosse conceived of his alter-ego Joe Gideon as a sort of Walter White of Broadway, employing the crystal-blue of great choreography to great effect. Features Ann Reinking, with the most spectacular legs the world has yet beheld:

10th-Anniversary Reunion of the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election Candidates

Left: In anticipation of appearing later that evening on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, Candidate Mike P. McCarthy from San Luis Obispo arrives at Johnny Carson Park, Burbank, CA, for the Candidates' Forum, September 22, 2003.

Date: Saturday, October 12, 2013
Place: Committee Room 126 in the California State Capitol Building
Time: 1:00 – 3:30 p.m. (2 and ½ hours)

The candidate reunion is open to all who wish to attend. Room 126 can house a large group.

The first hour will be meet-and-greet. At 2 p.m., the Main Event starts: a screening of Jayson Haedrich’s 90-minute documentary of our various activities on the campaign trail. As Jayson relates:

It features 5 main characters:

Cheryl Bly-Chester
Mike McCarthy
Bill Wyatt
Georgy Russell
Mary Carey

The coalition of candidates is the biggest part of the story and the bus ride you guys took following Arnold becomes the big story in the end- but there are definitely other characters

Short Synopisis: “Born to Run AKA Gubernatorious”:

It was once said that politics is the art of the possible - and in California for eight short weeks in 2003, 130 Americans without a lick of political experience ran for Governor hoping to defy that statement. This comedy about democracy follows 5 first-time candidates in their quests to be heard as they vie for attention in an electorate gone mad. When an opportunity from an odd political loophole arises that allows any citizen of the state easy access to a place on the ballot, the would-be candidates came out of the woodwork. Quacks, dreamers & opportunists -ahem... Americans - all scramble to put together first-time campaigns with the hope of becoming the leader of one of the largest economies in the country. Coming up with a platform and an issue or two is one thing but having people listen to you once you do is a whole other animal. Join the struggle to be heard as a Soccer Mom, a Used Car Salesman, a Radical with a MiniVan, a Young College Grad, and a Porn Star all compete to capture a few precious seconds of the public's attention. Discover truths about electioneering, the media and what gets votes in this unique American political comedy.

Food and drink are not permitted in the Committee Room. If some are willing, we will go out to eat afterwards at one of several nearby eating establishments.

I have recently published a book regarding the campaign, called "Carpe Diem! - A Memoir of the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election":

"Marc Valdez, one of the 135 official and 28 write-in candidates in the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election, relates the (sometimes) heartwarming political tale of how, when faced with media scorn, the multitude of obscure candidates for governor banded together to enhance their visibility and advance each other's candidacies, despite vast differences in party, ideology, outlook and temperament."

I will bring a bunch of owner's discount copies, and autograph them. I’ll charge $7.00 each for them (but no money can change hands within the walls of the State Capitol itself, since that is expressly banned). Copies are also for sale on-line for $20.00 here:

Amazon and Kindle.


Best wishes,
Marc Valdez

Ritz and Triscuit - Triscuit's Obsession

Just discovered this duo, whom I'm acquainted via health club contacts, also like to do Comedy videos. Cute! Sacramento talent!

Albuquerque Gets Hammered by Rain Saturday Night

1.13 inches at the airport. Jeepers! Tonight, Mother Nature showered ABQ with some of that special Colorado love. I mean, this never happens, especially these dessicated days. It's probably rained more this week than the previous year. What happened?

Compared to the semi-tropics (like AU) the rainfall amounts are modest, but like many desert places, NM soils have a caliche layer just below the surface that inhibits absorption (e.g., in Breaking Bad terms, in the pit Walt and Jesse dig for Saul, you can actually see the whitish caliche layer). So, heavy rain runs off sooner than it would, say, in Florida, or the UK. They have been getting some flooding (e.g., San Felipe Pueblo area, near the wooded area where Walt shoots Mike). On the other hand, those woods REQUIRE flooding in order to reseed. With the brutal drought, I'm amazed the trees are still alive. They desperately need exactly this calamity to survive. So, on balance, I love it. Even if NM gets to be Colorado Jr., let it fall!

Krystle Gets Interviewed At The Comedy Spot

It was surprising how little of Krystle's hip-hop interview got used in the follow-up improv comedy. The questioning was somewhat opaque, so the troupe didn't have much to work with, and thus fell back on staples (e.g., fart jokes, sex jokes, etc.)

Give It 2 U - Robin Thicke and 2 Chainz

The Undisputed Truth "Smiling Faces Sometimes" (1971)

A favorite song from the terrible days of our move to San Diego in 1971.

Heisenberg Hats

Everyone in Manhattan wants the chapeaux:

Mr. Percoco had taken the day off work at Rutgers University so he could ensure he was at the front of a line of about 40 customers waiting outside the Goorin Bros. Hat Shop on Bleecker Street in the West Village on Thursday, when the hat went on sale for the first time in New York.

...Goorin Bros. has produced only 1,895 Heisenbergs....  The company has made this number because its business began in 1895 ,when craftsman Cassel Goorin started creating custom-made hats in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Heisenberg, which retails for $212, was first released during the Comic-Con event in San Diego in July and sold out immediately.

...Marc Rosenzweig, 49, from Long Island, said he had tried to buy the Heisenberg online several times when it was available earlier this year, but the Goorin Bros. website kept crashing due to the high demand.

“I’ve been waiting for this hat for months,” said Mr. Rosenzweig, who runs a pet hotel in Deer Park, N.Y., and had been waiting since 9:30a.m.

“I bought a cheap knock-off from a street vendor a year ago, but it’s felt. This will be a nice wool hat for fall, and I’ll wear it for Yom Kippur,” he said.

King Tommy Au-Yeung, 33, from Astoria, purchased the Heisenberg, the Captain Cook knit hat and another hat inspired by “Breaking Bad,” a baseball cap for $30.

“I’m all about ‘Breaking Bad,’ I’m completely obsessed with the show,” said Mr. Au-Yeung, who compared the narrative to an American classic such as J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.”

“I own 12 ‘Breaking Bad’ t-shirts, some mugs and the DVDs on Blu-Ray,” he said.

...On Friday morning, there were three Heisenbergs left at the West Village store after Thursday night’s rain saw the queue disperse, said Goorin Bros. shopkeeper Alex Mroz.

“This is the one and only time we’ll have them, it’s a brief love affair with these Heisenbergs,” said Mr. Mroz.

People In NM Getting Agitated About The Flooding

Rain totals:

2:56 p.m. — The National Weather Service has released new rainfall totals from across the state, and they show that the wet weather system that moved into New Mexico a few days ago still packs some punch.

Here are some of the more noteworthy totals of rainfall collected in the last 62 hours:
•Pecos at 7″
•Tijeras at 3.84″
•Roswell at 5.46″
•Bonito Lake at 5.27″
•Los Alamos at 6.1″
•Tucumcari at 4.04″
•Farmington at 3.24″
•Jemez Springs at 3.39″
•Rio Rancho (Idalia and Rainbows) at 2.17″
•Socorro at 4.59″

Also, in Albuquerque:
•Montgomery and Moon at 2.24″
•Indian School and Wyoming at 2.21″
•Aztec and San Mateo at 1.99″
•Sage and 98th Street at 1.63″
•Zuni and San Mateo at 1.63″
•Constitution and Girard at 1.43″
•Central and Coors at 1.28″

More on the details:

Much of Albuquerque was preparing Friday evening for the impact of floodwaters headed down the Rio Grande. The flood was raging past dams at levels rarely seen since the 1960s.

The river was expected to flow into the bosque and potentially reach Albuquerque levees, officials said at a late afternoon news conference. But the flow was not expected to rise above any levees, according to Mike Hamman of the Bureau of Reclamation.

...The flooding continued Friday in the San Felipe Pueblo, where flood waters inundated areas along the river and tributaries. Water levels rival those of the late 1930s and early 1940s, according to the National Weather Service.

Homes near the rivers are being flooded, and other structures in the “old pueblo” are also in danger. Flooding of the magnitude in that stretch of the Rio Grande have reached 17,400 cubic feet per second, the highest observed since 1955.

...Dams that usually divert water from La Union, south of Las Cruces, burst yesterday, leaving many roads completely washed out and homes flooded with dirt and water. A water tank that sits atop a mesa southwest of the town was also damaged, adding drinking water to the deluge, residents said.

“We’ve been the ones who have been shoveling since yesterday,” said resident Irene Ortiz, who rushed home yesterday from her job in El Paso to find access limited and widespread damage. “We’ve just been out there getting wet.”

...Between 100 and 200 people are stranded on the west bank of the Animas and Las Palomas creeks in Sierra County, and they’re under voluntary evacuation.

...At Santa Clara Pueblo, a voluntary evacuation is under way for residents who live in the west side housing area, according to Pueblo Gov. J. Bruce Tafoya. He said about 12-14 homes are affected.

...Tafoya also said he’s asking Los Alamos National Laboratory workers to bypass N.M. 30 today because of fears that the surging waters from Santa Clara Creek might endanger the bridge passing over it.

Also, the Frijoles Canyon section of Bandelier National Monument was closed today because of anticipated flooding, according toa recorded message at the visitor’s center there.

Both Santa Clara and Bandelier are affected by rapid water runoff from land scarred by fires in recent years.

Meanwhile, flood warnings on the Rio Grande:

THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE RIO GRANDE AT ALBUQUERQUE.

...

* AT 7:15 PM FRIDAY THE STAGE WAS 5.2 FEET.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 8.0 FEET.
* FORECAST...RISE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE BY EARLY SATURDAY TO NEAR 8.1 FEET
SATURDAY MORNING. THE RIVER WILL FALL BELOW FLOOD STAGE BY SATURDAY
AFTERNOON.
* IMPACT...AT 8.0 FEET...DIKES AND LEVEES CONSTRUCTED AFTER THE FLOODS
OF 1942 PROTECT DEVELOPED AND PERSONAL PROPERTY NEAR THE RIVER IN
THE ALBUQUERQUE METROPOLITAN AREA. LEVEE HEIGHTS RANGE FROM 8 TO 12
FEET. FURTHER UPRIVER AND DOWNRIVER FROM THE DIKES AND LEVEES...
WATER IS FLOWING OVER NATURAL BANKS FLOODING AGRICULTURAL AND
GRAZING LOWLANDS. SUSTAINED FLOWS OF 8000 TO 10,000 CUBIC FEET PER
SECOND OVER A PERIOD OF 24 HOURS WOULD LIKELY RESULT IN SOME
BANK EROSION OUTSIDE OF LEVEE PROTECTED AREAS.
* FLOOD HISTORY...THIS CREST COMPARES TO A PREVIOUS CREST OF 7.9 FEET
ON JUN 10 1983.
...

* THERE WILL BE A SIGNIFICANT RISE OF WATER ON THE RIO GRANDE
RIVER THROUGH ALBUQUERQUE...AND POINTS SOUTH TO BERNARDO.
THE WAVE OF WATER WILL REACH A PEAK IN ALBUQUERQUE LATER
TONIGHT INTO SATURDAY MORNING...AND POINTS FARTHER SOUTH
LATER SATURDAY INTO SATURDAY NIGHT. DURING THIS TIME LOW-LYING
AREAS ALONG AND NEAR THE RIVER MAY EXPERIENCE SOME FLOODING.
THIS WOULD INCLUDE WATER FLOWING OVER NATURAL BANKS...FLOODING
AGRICULTURAL AND GRAZING LOWLANDS.

Richard Vission vs Luciana - PRIMITIVE!

The Pussycat Dolls - Bottle Pop

As I mentioned to Michael, we live in a Golden Age.

Friday The 13th Train

Earlene The Nurse Welcomes Josh Back To Work

90th Anniversary Of The Great Kanto Earthquake Of 1923

Frank was telling me today of a Japanese documentary he recently watched, discussing memories of the Great Earthquake in Tokyo, 90 years ago this month. One particular event stood out for him:

Some fires developed into firestorms that swept across cities. Many people died when their feet became stuck in melting tarmac. The single greatest loss of life was caused by a firestorm-induced fire whirl that engulfed open space at the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho (formerly the Army Clothing Depot) in downtown Tokyo, where about 38,000 people were incinerated after taking shelter there following the earthquake.

Basically, an entire open urban square crowded with tens of thousands of people was subjected to repeated fire tornadoes that swept burning people off the ground and pitched them into the sky. A prospect too horrible to contemplate!

Here is a little video about those bygone days:

Retrieving Some Blue Jeans With Joe The Plumber

J.: You want some chips? Corn chips, tortilla chips, potato chips: whatever you need.

M.: I'll take them all. (Hi Bella!) Too bad we can't find those blue jeans.

J.: Maybe I gave them away. I give everything away.

M.: Makes you a better person.

Spokesperson For "Shittens"

Videoed a fake ad for a fake product that seems to be the favorite of the Howard Stern crowd. With any luck, my face will brand the product.

Living The Life

Bin O' Panties

I'm on a roll! Second week in a row on B3ta's "Best Answers" page for "Question of the Week"!

The question this week was:

Lurid Work Stories

"I know a railwayman of 40-odd years' service," says Juan Quar, "and he tells me a new gruesome yarn each time we meet. Last week's was of checking the time on the wristwatch of a severed arm he'd just collected after a track fatality."

Tell us the horrible stories you tease the new hires with, or that you've been told.
(NB By definition, these are probably all made up. Roll with it)

My story:

Bin O' Panties

Way, way back in the day, I was a part-time janitor in a women's clothing store. Inventory Day came, and I was given the job of counting all the panties in the "Bin O' Panties".

At first, it was delightful fun, but after an hour, I realized I had basically made no progress. So, I began counting handfuls of panties - about ten panties per grab.

Hours later, little progress. Panties compact small, so removing the weight of panties from the bin just allowed the others below to expand into their place. No one had any earthly idea how many panties were in the bin.

My memory is that I never finished. No one had ever succeeded in completely-counting the panties, and I just joined their number.

Big Sinkhole Opens Up On I-40 Near To'hajiilee

Ooooweeeeoooo!

Meanwhile, In Boulder

(Photo by Aly Nicklas)

Tropical Storm Ingrid

They now have a name for the storm - Ingrid - but current thinking is that it's going to dive into the Mexican coast before it poses much of a hazard. Which is good, because as long as it exists it is a threat to the US.

Rains Continue Falling In NM

Good.... Good.... 0.60 inches in ABQ yesterday, where it never rains.

It's raining more elsewhere, though, and there's some flooding. The Berrendo River near Roswell is flooding. But at least it's not as bad as Colorado, where this same moisture is going, and causing no end of problems.

New Mexico is getting most of its annual rainfall in just a few days. Lunge for it! Rain, rain, rain, while we can get it....

"Joking Bad" - Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

The GIFs are amazing too!

Joe South - Walk a Mile In My Shoes

This was one of my favorite songs, back in 1969.

California Cow Singing Swagger Jagger in the Shower

Lots Of Nice Rain In New Mexico Yesterday

More rain is forecast in various parts of the state today, and Thursday as well. Wonderful!

The weather station at the Albuquerque Sunport (which storms seem to dodge and dance around, so it seems to rain there last and least) logged 0.85 inches of rain. Excellent!

They had trouble with some street flooding and road closures. C'est la vie.

The storm went directly up the Rio Grande River Valley, then fanned northeast - precisely the driest areas of the state, the places hit the very hardest by the unrelenting drought. It was like the storm was expertly designed to relieve the most stress.

Reminds me of the freakish rain that arrived second week in October, a couple of years ago, when I was there. Maybe these tropically-derived rains are a monsoonal feature of very-late summer. Wish they'd happen more often and were more reliable.

As far as relieving the drought is concerned, it's a start.

Getting Nervous About The Potential For A Gulf Of Mexico Hurricane

Forecast still shows development of Bay of Campeche storm over weekend, which then stalls just off the Vera Cruz, Mexico coast. The storm doesn't exist yet, but forecasters are now discussing the possibility. That's a dangerous scenario, if it happens, because it's upwind of Tampa, and the storm may eventually move towards Florida.

It's one of the quietest storm seasons since 1966. Would like to keep that.

Nevertheless, the very latest forecast suggests a northward trajectory, coming into the Texas coast at a shallow angle near Corpus Christi, which is almost guaranteed to cause maximum damage there. Wherever it goes, it won't be pretty.

Will keep watching.

Fireball XL5

For a time in the early Sixties, this was my favorite TV show. My memory is that it got canceled just as I was really getting into it. (The cartoon is 1962, but I really didn't get into Space until 1965, or so).

Domo Picks Up a Guitar

Fierce Four Class

Representin' the top row.

(Photo by Jennifer Lang)

Death Of Another White Woman

As they slowly fade away into the sunset:

On the night of May 23, 2012, which turned out to be the last of her life, Crystal Wilson baby-sat her infant granddaughter, Kelly. It was how she would have preferred to spend every night.

...She is one of a demographic—white women who don’t graduate from high school—whose life expectancy has declined dramatically over the past 18 years. These women can now expect to die five years earlier than the generation before them. It is an unheard-of drop for a wealthy country in the age of modern medicine.

...White men without high-school diplomas had lost three years of life expectancy, but it was the decline for women like Crystal that made the study news.

...The last time researchers found a change of this magnitude, Russian men had lost seven years after the fall of the Soviet Union, when they began drinking more and taking on other risky behaviors. Although women generally outlive men in the U.S., such a large decline in the average age of death, from almost 79 to a little more than 73, suggests that an increasing number of women are dying in their twenties, thirties, and forties. “We actually don’t know the exact reasons why it’s happened,” Olshansky says. “I wish we did.”

...Another mystery emerged from the lifespan study: Black women without a high-school diploma are now outliving their white counterparts.

...Something less tangible, it seems, is shaping the lives of white women in the South, beyond what science can measure. Surely these forces weigh on black women, too, but perhaps they are more likely to have stronger networks of other women. Perhaps after centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, black women are more likely to feel like they’re on an upward trajectory. Perhaps they have more control relative to the men in their communities. In low-income white communities of the South, it is still women who are responsible for the home and for raising children, but increasingly they are also raising their husbands. A husband is a burden and an occasional heartache rather than a helpmate, but one women are told they cannot do without. More and more, data show that poor women are working the hardest and earning the most in their families but can’t take the credit for being the breadwinners. Women do the emotional work for their families, while men reap the most benefits from marriage. The rural South is a place that often wants to remain unchanged from the 1950s and 1960s, and its women are now dying as if they lived in that era, too.

...In the final months of her life, Crystal complained of chest aches, but when she went to the emergency room, the doctors assured her it wasn’t a heart attack. She said that she felt like she had the flu or allergies. In hindsight, it was after Terry’s death—he died a week after Kelly was born—when Crystal really began to suffer.

...Julie knows a lot of young women who will never break the cycle. She has her own thoughts about what might be dragging down their life expectancy. “Desperation,” she says. “You look at the poverty level in this county—I love this place. It’s where I’m from. I don’t want you to think I’m being negative about it.” But she gestures toward the highway and notes how little is there: a few convenience stores, a grocery, and a nursing home. You have to drive north to the county seat in Ash Flat for a Walmart, or you can negotiate traffic in Batesville, where you might get a job at the chicken plant or a fast-food restaurant. “If you are a woman, and you are a poorly educated woman, opportunities for you are next to nothing. You get married and you have kids. You can’t necessarily provide as well as you’d like to for those kids. Oftentimes, the way things are, you’re better off if you’re not working. You get more help. You get better care for your kids if you’re not working. It’s a horrible cycle.

“You don’t even hear about women’s lib, because that’s come and gone. But you hear about glass ceilings, and I think girls, most especially girls, have to be taught that just because they’re girls doesn’t mean they can’t do something.

¡COLORES! Episode 1927: Brian Cranston & The End Of "Breaking Bad"

Winner Of The David Lynch 'Good Day Today' Contest

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Diplomacy

Beats concentrating on the details of the sausage-making:

The Russians immediately jumped on the impromptu proposal, calling Kerry to check if he was serious before going live with their proposal to lean on Syria. An hour later, they trotted out Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Mouallem, who said he too was down with the proposal, which was a strange way to get the Syrians to finally admit they even had chemical weapons to begin with. Before long, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, the English, and the French were all on board, too.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the White House was just as surprised as anyone. Asked if this was a White House plan that Kerry had served up in London, Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken was unequivocal. "No, no, no," he said. "We literally just heard about this as you did some hours ago."

So that's good. At least everyone's on the same page.

Worrisome Gulf of Mexico Forecast

The long-range forecast looks disturbing. The NVG model is showing the possibility of a hurricane forming in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche over the weekend, then crossing the Gulf of Mexico, with landfall around Tallahassee a week from now.

The long-range outlooks are often very wrong, so this could be a false alarm. The best interpretation is that IF a storm develops around southern Mexico over the weekend, it will pose a big hazard to Tampa next week. But that is IF! So, keep an ear open for any news.

Sudden Surge Of Moisture Into New Mexico

From the south. Rare, and unexpected, and likely productive.

Amtrak Accident Near San Onofre

Leighton was aboard the Amtrak train when this happened, which delayed his arrival in San Diego:

One person was killed Sunday night after an Amtrak train plowed into a vehicle that veered off Interstate 5 and onto train tracks in the North County near San Onofre.

Officials say the fatal collision happened just after 9 p.m. and involved a sedan that was driving on southbound I-5 at speeds in excess of 100 mph.

CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt said witnesses reported the vehicle weaving in and out of traffic. As the driver attempted to switch lanes at the same time as another vehicle, he veered off the roadway and down an embankment.

Bettencourt said the vehicle wound up on the train tracks below.

Seconds thereafter, an Amtrak train traveling southbound on the tracks plowed into the vehicle, killing the driver of the car instantly.

Bettencourt said no one else was injured in the crash, including passengers aboard the Amtrak train.

Weird Al Understands True Love

"Breaking Bad" writer George Mastras:

"You’re not really playing with a full deck if you have a crush on Lydia."

Well, society may not approve, and the UBBFT may not approve, but when Lydia comes into the room, something tingly happens all up inside me (something about the Christian Louboutins, or something). Our love will live on, and endure (well, at least until Episode 516, or so).

From Weird Al's Song "Albuquerque" and the craziest Breaking Bad mashup video ever:

I ran out into the street
With these flesh-eating weasels all over my face
Wavin' my arms all around and just runnin'
Runnin', runnin', runnin' like a constipated wiener dog
And as luck would have it
That's exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams
Her name was Zelda
She was a caligraphy enthusiast
With a slight overbite
And hair the color of strained peaches
I'll never forget the very first thing she said to me
She said, Hey, you've got weasels on your face

That's when I knew it was true love
We were inseparable after that
Aw, we ate together
We bathed together
We even shared the same piece
Of mint-flavored dental floss
The world was our burrito
So we got married
And we bought us a house
And had two beautiful children, Nathaniel and Superfly
Oh we were so very, very, very happy, oh yeah.
But then, one fateful night, Zelda said to me
She said, Sweetie pumpkin?
Do you wanna join the Columbia Record Club?
I said, Woah!
Hold on now, baby!
I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment!

So we broke up, and I never saw her again
But that's just the way things go

In Albuquerque!
Albuquerque!

The 12-Year-Olds Said His Name Was "Domo"

I bought this cap last Christmas at 'Hot Topic' in Sunrise Mall. I liked the look. I didn't know what valence the character had in popular culture. No idea at all. I figured it wasn't need-to-know information, similar to the 'Boyfriend Challenged' bumper sticker that someone slapped on my car, apropos of nothing. Not everything in this universe needs explanation.

At Celebrate Natomas, two 12-year-old girls standing in one of the food lines pointed at my forehead and informed me the character is named "Domo". Still don't know who the character is, but at least I have a starting place....

The three of us nodded together and agreed that they have cool stuff at 'Hot Topic'.

Next Week - Ozymandias!

Fierce Four Fitness Flagellates A Flabby Follower

The picture looks promising, no?

Pepper Von and Janis Saffell, introducing the Fierce Four Fitness concept for the first time west of Colorado.

What's not to like?

I was a bit woozy after being in the heat all afternoon over at Celebrate Natomas, so I was leery about even taking the class.  Nevertheless, I left the class feeling stronger than when I started.

Because I understood Pepper's standard syllabus, I had little trouble there, but I had never taken anything from his kick-boxing teaching partner, Janis, and so I was lost in a swimming sea of flop-sweat for awhile.

Janis Saffell, Pepper Von, and Jenn.

Steph wins a raffle prize.

Celebrate Natomas 2013

Annual Sierra Research Dinner

Cardboard Pavilion

Building a cardboard pavilion at 20th & J St. for the Launch Music Festival.

More Trains

Iggy Azalea - Work

Continuing on the Australian theme, it's interesting how some Aussies have a philo-American streak so strong that they feel they were simply born in the wrong place. So, they come to the States.

Iggy Azalea comes from Mullumbimby, New South Wales, but wanted to rap with serious people so bad she came to Miami, alone, at sixteen, and spent five years learning her craft in the South:

The lyrics hark back to Australia:

Two feet in the red dirt, school skirt
Sugar cane, back lanes
Three jobs, took years to save
But I got a ticket on that plane
People got a lot to say
But don't know shit about where I was made
Or how many floors that I had to scrub
Just to make it past where I am from