Rincon Water is the Devil's Water

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The first in a series of reviews of the utilities and services of Escondido, CA.

The good news about Rincon Water is that it is actually named for the real name of Escondido, the hidden name, Rincon del Diablo ... place of the devil.

That is the last good thing I will say about this service.

At this point in American history, how anyone could think a private corporation could manage a monopoly like this is beyond me.

The price is never less than $40/month. It may be more but it is never less. There are no programs for the poor, as far as they are concerned, you pay or you die. If you are one month late, they cut you off, no notice, just fuck you asshole, and put an $80 fee for restoral. No negotations, fuck you.

If there was ever a reason for nationalizing the water monopoly, other than maybe Flint, MI, this is it.

It will be a pleasure not to have to give money to these fuck heads ever again.]

Now I have to find Yelp or something like that to make this more public.

Placeholders for Blog Posts on this Dreary and Horrible Day

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This is a reminder to myself to write four posts for this blog. I am so discouraged and overwhelmed by the events of my life and I have such a short attention span, that it is better, even necessary, for me to write down short notes and hope that I get to them later.

The lance memorial.

The offensive way the anti-male inquisition is being handled

What it means when you watch john wick and john reacher movies

One other at least

Maybe another too

That is what my memory is like today on this wretched day after thanks giving.

The Travel Plans for the Next Year

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I am leaving where I am living and presumably leaving S. California on or about the first of the year. Its a little complicated to explain what is going on, where I am going, why this is all so vague, etc. But none of it is secret, and it isnt really that complicated.

I really do not like ambiguity about where I live. If it were up to me, I would own a modest 2 story, 12 room house in Providence, RI or a classic 6 overlooking the river in Manhattan, put my library and computers there, and then travel the world. The point is, I really like to know where I am living and know that there is a place to go to where I can rest my head. When I dont know that, I am at sea.

For a variety of reasons, I have come into a very modest amount of money and for the first time since I went into computer animation, which obviously was a mistake on my part, have a small but steady income. This is not enough to buy a house and pay a mortgage, but it is enough to pay rent outside of a major metropolitan area, or travel if I do not pay rent.

In an effort to get up to date on technology, and maybe do new work, and maybe get some respect, I am trying to go back to graduate school. If nothing else, it is always fun to be around a university and learn new things, so why not. The applications go in now for a possible start next fall. I do not expect to get into a PhD program so I am also applying to masters programs as a fallback.

This means that between now and next September, I can do whatever I want as long as I am very frugal and modest. If I had a driver's license, another long story which I am trying to fix now that I have modest funds, I would spend more time at the national parks. Since I dont, or probably won't in this time frame, I will probably, if I can figure it out, spend 6 or months in Europe on various tourist visas.

For example, in one scenario I would spend 3 months in Italy, an hour or two outside Rome where I could possibly afford a room, and then 3 months in the United Kingdom an hour or two outside London. But the way short term rentals work, you can not rent them until you are ready to move in (or a week or two in advance). And I am not ready to do that yet.

Some time in this 9 month period, I will know which school or program I got into, if any, and will know which city I am living in for a while.

So it is all up in the air. If you have a cabin in the woods, or a room in the city, or wherever, that you want to rent out, let me know.

I will probably stay in touch via my blog and Facebook in this period.

The Mid-November Packing Report

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These are my notes from mid November about the process of packing the house and the other things that need to happen, more or less right now.

I could imagine someone doing a short film about the drama and emotional complications of packing up a house, to leave forever, and to move anything important to storage. The end of the film would be the protagonist closing the door on the storage area, closing the door to the house and driving away in his car packed with a few belongings and driving away forever.

I have no idea how close I am to packing up the house and to get ready to leave.

Although we have processed a tremendous amount of paper and processed most that I know about. But its not done, and what is left has mostly been processed once already and that means that they are the papers that have emotional content or need to be filed in an intelligent way so they can be found again.

I know I have to spend a week or two now on various applications due the middle of December or so. I know I have to engage a lawyer to try and get my driver's license back. I know that I have to get my car smog checked, find the car title and try to get the damn thing registered and then insured. I know I have to finish the math review, which is unexpectedly entertaining, and take my GRE.

I also have to spend not less than two days attending the memorial service for Lance Williams. One of the artifacts of being poor is that it is not at all clear that I have what I need to attend a formal service of this type.

I guess that has to happen around the beginning of December.

Ideally I would have this done by mid December and be out of here by December 31. Right now that doesnt look very plausible.

We are definitely making progress however and if at some point I need to cut and run, then hiring a moving company to put the boxes downstairs and a little scrambing and at least the house would be packed.

Note on Thor Ragnarok

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I went to the local premiere of Thor Ragnarok. The screening that was most convenient was IMAX so I saw the film in that format, which I regret.

There are spoilers here for the movie.

I watched all available trailers before seeing the film but the filmmakers had reserved enough plot points from the trailers that I did not really know what was going to happen.

As expected, the movie was very funny and good humored. But it turns out that there are some reasonable character development points and even some very dark themes, but you do have to pay attention.

First, Loki's actions to usurp Odin's throne not only was an act of tremendous disloyalty to his step-father, it results in the return of Hela, the banished daughter and step-sister to Loki, and ultimately the destruction of Asgard and most of its citizens.

Second, the remaining citizens of Asgard are now homeless refugees. Take note you haughty, this might be you in the future.

But the final dark theme is also the most important. Hela reveals that Asgard, and Odin, as positive and noble people are living a fraud. They have covered up the conquest of the 9 realms by Odin, and the violence and wars that this entailed. As part of the cover up, Hela, Odin's first born, is banished and forgotten. But she returns and knows where the bodies are buried, literally.

By far the best moment of the movie is when all this is revealed and Hela, in the throne room, asks Thor “where he thinks all this gold came from?”

Technically, it is very good, well-art directed and the art and science of computer generated green rage monsters continues to advance.

The whole time I was watching this IMAX presentation, I thought I was watching some sort of cheap uprez with a sharpening filter. For a while there, the audio was too loud to tolerate but it got better, thank Odin!

And yes, for those who really want to know, our remaining Valkyrie is either gay or bisexual, it is not entirely clear.

The cast of Thor did a live spoof at an early screening of the movie in Los Angeles at the Grove theatres. It is a little goofy but good spirited and fun,.  You can see it on youtube here.

For more information about green people in our society and how they are marginalized, please see here.

What is this New IMAX?

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[Apparently many of the digital IMAX if not all project at 4K.  That is good news!]

Once upon a time, IMAX (tm) used to stand for something. It stood for a presentation format that had extraordinary resolution, clarity and presence. The format was only available at a few theatres, usually associated with Science Theatres, such as planetariums or aquariums.

The experience that came from seeing an IMAX film came from a very specific technical quality, which was its film and sound format, as well as the size of the screen in relation to the audience. The most important of these was the film format as IMAX was originated on 15-perf 65 mm negative and presented on 15-perf 70 mm print stock (the other 5 mm being the audio track).

As is so often the case in this world, IMAX the company wanted more. They did not want to be relegated to the fabulous ghetto of science theatres and wanted to be fully within the glamourous and rewarding motion picture industry.

So when the digital era came, and film was gone, they created some sort of Digital IMAX and achieved their goal, now major motion pictures would be released in IMAX as a premium format and at a premium price.

And I saw this new exciting format in the context of the premiere of Thor: Ragnarok and I can tell you that it is not only a complete yawn, but that I would not want to repeat the experience again. The whole time I was watching I felt like I was seeing some sort of cheesy uprez with a sharpening filter thrown on top. Combined with an overloud sound system and some very amateurish self-promotion videos.

It made me want to go back and see Thor: Ragnarok in normal old digital to see what it was really like.

The new IMAX is a classic example where digital is far inferior to the film original.

<insert images of 15 perf 65 vs 4 perf 35>

<insert link to a more complete discussion of the original IMAX format>

Thor: Ragnarok on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501632/

Inventory for Living on the Road 10/31/2017

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The plan is to live on the road for the next year, either out of my car in the case of the CONUS and out of suitcases when overseas or away from the car. Planning and organization are the keys to doing this successfully as we all know who have done this before. Whether one uses shopping and garbage bags with everything jumbled together or assemble things in kits is personal preference. I prefer the latter.

As mentioned above, we have two use cases. The first is living out of my car (essentially car camping even if I rent an Airbnb to have a bed and a shower). The second case is much more difficult and presumes that there is air travel and other transit in a foreign country and must be greatly reduced.

Out of Car Inventory

1 carry-on bag of clothes, medical and toiletry

1 check-in bag of clothes and misc

1 std. bin of cooking and kitchen related gear including propane, water containers, etc

1 ice chest of food (possibly without ice)

1 tent with ground cloth

1 sleeping bag with pad (*)

1 camping stove with propane

1 std bin of camping accessories (LED lights, extra stakes, radio (*), portable shower)

1 Mac Airbook with travel bag

1 Linux development laptop with travel bag (*)

1 bag misc computer accessories including disk backup, extra batteries for smartphone, etc

1 std. bin of books

1 travel kit of essential papers

1 toolkit
1 box garbage bags for dirty clothes and etc
1 road bike and car rack (*) with bag of accessories (helmet, gloves, etc)

Out of Plane Inventory

1 carry-on bag as above

1 check-in bag as above (but maybe acquire a larger one) (*)

2 laptops as above in their bags (possibly combined into a single larger carry on bag)

1 travel kit of essential papers stuffed into check in bag

1 secure holder for passport, etc (*)
1 kit relevant power adapters (*)
1 box garbage bags for dirty clothes and etc

* Needs to be acquired

What I Have Learned About Stuff

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As my readers probably know, I am moving out of here at the end of the year. Almost everything will go into storage downstairs, and by everything I mean my books, my papers, my photographic negative, proof sheets and equipment, various computer parts and some furniture. The way this usually works, I never see this stuff again, but there is some possibility that one day I will have a stable place somewhere and will send a moving truck for it all.

This is not entirely true.  I will keep with me one car's worth of camping gear, books and hopefully my bicycle.  At least one laptop and maybe two.  But everything else needs to be thrown away or put into storage. 

I feel that I have learned my lesson and I hope you will learn and profit from my mistakes. The moral of the story is: “Buy less stuff”. In particular, unless you are in control of your living space, and know where your library will be and/or can afford to pay professionals to move things when that time comes, do yourself a favor and buy less stuff.

Second, when you have stuff that you do not absolutely need, throw it out now before you have to deal with it one future day.

Do yourself a favor and heed my words.

I Always Regret Blocking Friends on Facebook

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I always regret when I feel as though I have to block someone on FB that I respect and want to like.

Here is the situation from my point of view, and lets be quite sure going in that my friend would disagree with this, I think.

The timeline goes something like this. I write a FB post about the release of the CIA JFK files by #45. My friend disagrees with me and says that my post is a rant that hurts the agenda of rational people to impeach #45. He basically wants me to agree with him. I do not agree with him. He tries again. Again I do not agree. He keeps trying and at this point I dont see what we are arguing about. Neither of us is going to change our mind, so why does he keep bothering me.

Ultimately, I pull the post down from FB and put it up on my blog.

And I block my friend. He may not like what I have to say, but I do not like to be insulted and harassed, because I disagree with him.

As for the content of the CIA JFK post, I have no idea what #45 was thinking, but if he did not have an ulterior motive then this is the first time he has made a decision I am aware of that did not have one.

Trump's Motivation for Releasing the CIA Files on JFK

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One of the interesting things about the newly released CIA files on the JFK assassination is why Trump released them when no other president would.

Does this make Trump the advocate of freedom and transparency in government? No, of course not. His administration will go down in history as one of criminality and lies, the worst this country has ever seen in its entire history.

So what other motivation does Trump have?

He has two motivations and they are both very clear. First, Trump hates America and wants to destroy its institutions. By releasing the papers, he lowers the CIA's credibility as the CIA clearly executed a cover up of their failure to prevent the JFK assassination. Second, Trump hates the CIA because the CIA has said that the Russians spoofed the election and possibly threw the election to the least qualified candidate in an effort to destroy America.

So this is not about honesty and transparency. This is about Trump getting back at the CIA and his work to destroy America, hand in hand, I have to say, with his friends and financiers, the Russians.

[Note: Larry Weinberg on Facebook pointed out that Congress set the deadline for this release. Thats true, but what Congress really did was set a proposed date, the President had the power to postpone the release indefinitely. So it was really Trump's decision to release, and he had complete power to postpone. Any other president could have requested the release at any time]