As novelty goes the WWW cannot be beaten, but for many, the metaphor of interlinked pages that create a “spiders web” of information, now only accessible by the most sophisticated search engines, is a bewildering array of challenges. The least of which is that todays’ information society lacks any formal structure. Surfing the rough and diving into uncharted territory only to go down a rabbit hole is all part of the fun, but surely there is a better way?  A way out of the disoganised library whose subject catalogue is designed by a cacophony of disparate view-points and not the uniform logic of librarians. Where then is the meta-catalogue, the civilised index of all the information on the Internet?

One solution is a return to the gopher protocol. At least this would be the starting point on any discussion about developing a better method of accessing information. Imagine what gopher could look like if it were updated with the tango icon set? Can Ubuntu bring a new logic to the gopher protocol?

GOPHER is a network protocol that enables multiple servers to create a single, uniform filesystem that transcends system architecure and operating systems (GOPHERSPACE). With GOPHER, information holds the most value. Since presentation is uniform across GOPHERSPACE, the user does not encounter any challenges in ‘learning’ a new site. Because of its simplicity and its emphasis on the importance of informational texts, GOPHER is ideal for those who are visually impared

For those who want to see what gopher is all about, you can install gopher in your terminal, or try Forg a new graphical browser for gopher written in python. Forg will let you browse the world-wide gopherspace and handles various types of media, including HTML and video. While the programme still needs a bit of spit and polish, and lacks a proxy option, its good to see some gopher applications being written.

sudo apt-get install forg

Many people think the http protocol has deprecated gopher, but that just isn’t true. Where do you think GOPHERs live? underground.

When you build your GOPHERSPACE on SDF, you are contributing to an underground network of systems that still believe in the gopher protocol. There is no commercialism, no banner ads, no spam, no pop-up ads. GOPHER gives you what you want: information and files (in any form) without the silliness of HTML and clumsiness of websites. No HTML development is needed to contribute to GOPHERSPACE.. since sites are uniform, all you need to do is upload or create your files

There are also various plugins for Firefox which turn the browser into a gopher client:

http://gopher.floodgap.com/overbite/

And a jump-off point for the gopher underground.

http://gopher.quux.org:70/

Besides the obvious illegal formation by the mascot team and horrible blocking by his teammates, Goldy makes an impressive run.  He had to run over and stiff arm 5 defenders.

The Bears O Line is slightly better than these mascots, so Goldy should have to engage fewer defenders on his own.  Despite the fact that Goldy dominated 13 year olds, we here at StateStreetSports would still give him at least a practice squad spot.

This is a series of photos my daughter took of a father/daughter fishing excursion.  I’m not sure how many fish they caught, how long they spent trying to reel in a big one, but I do know she always speaks fondly of fishing with her dad.  It isn’t love of the ‘sport’, but time and moments they have together that mean so much to her.  Little things turn into big memories.  That is what is most important. – photo copyright MyOpus

“The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Internet Inventions, Bob is a true Silicon Valley entrepreneur, raconteur and original. Bob has combined his technical ingenuity, entrepreneurial ability and team building skills to found successful companies time and again over the past 20 years.” (Silicon Valley Business Television)

Bob Evans always has ideas. Ideas to make his work, and the work of others, more useful and efficient, as well as easier. We first met Bob when he asked if it was “OK” he develop a route server for our young Internet Exchange Point (Any2 Exchange), which would allow the small to medium Internet access and content provider community to find Internet peering easier, and help with introductions within the community that would make Internet interconnections a utility – rather than a high priced value-added service. That little utility now drives one of the largest Internet Exchange Points in the world.

We met Bob this week as he was giving a data center tour and professional advice to a delegation from Ramallah, which came to Bob for mentoring based on his extensive background in all things network and Internet.

For the entire audio interview – click HERE

Pacific-Tier: Bob, please tell us a little about yourself, your background, and how you got into this business.

Bob Evans: Well, it was a long time ago, when there was no world wide web. I ran one of the first Veronica Gopher servers. I was teaching grandmothers how to do email, so they could email their kids in college.

At that time colleges had the first ARP connections, TCP/IP started working right, and that was way back when… That’s how I got started.

I’ve got a high school education, dropped out of college, so generally every time I start a business and build it up, sell it to somebody with lots of money and VCs, they (eventually) ask me to leave because I don’t have a degree. Then they usually do quite well. I’ve been doing this a long time.

But when I started the Fiber Internet Center, what happened was, people kind of thought I was crazy, because I had just had a very successful, one of the first cable modem companies in the US, and by starting the Fiber Internet Center/FIC at a time when the “Dot Bomb” occurred everybody thought, you know, “how are you going to make a living doing that?”

The real key was making the deals. Because all of the (network) providers, and the people with fiber and stuff like that, didn’t really have a lot of customers. So, they were willing to listen to me and cut me some deals. So that’s how I got started with the Fiber Internet Center.

Pacific-Tier: Tell us a little about the FIC. What is the vision, or what is the mission of FIC?

Bob Evans: Well. Its primarily,… like you find colo (colocation) facilities that are “carrier neutral,…” I like to look at us as a network company that is carrier neutral. Although we do sell circuits and services like IP transit (Internet network access), it is kind of a necessary evil, because we only have about 8 or 9 other ISPs (Internet Service Providers) currently serving our market.

So they use our network in the market place to service their customers. So we’ll build a network within our network to service other companies.

Pacific-Tier: So the FIC is present in Northern California, the San Francisco, San Jose, the bay area, as well as Los Angeles. What value does the FIC, or a company like the FIC bring to a market like California that is not available through another carrier like Level 3, an XO Communications, an AT&T, or that scale of carrier?

Bob Evans: Well, most of those companies will go ahead and install their circuit in the basement of a building, or in the MPOE (main point of entry), and then only allow you to use their IP (Internet network access).

For example, Level 3 isn’t about to go ahead and market the fact that I could have VLANs in that building like I would have and connect them to ISPs. That’s the real advantage. A customer could buy a circuit from us, then they can buy Internet transit from us too, then they’ll turn around and say “gee, you are over at the PAIX (Palo Alto Internet Exchange), over at places like Market Post Tower, One Wilshire and everything,…”

Then they’ll say “there’s this other company we’re working with, and we’d like a connection direct to their office. They’re using Cogent bandwidth (or something like that), could you make that come in here on another port?”

And we’ll do it. Most (other) companies will say “no.” But that’s actually part of our business strategy.

Pacific-Tier: Well, that’s a great utility, for both the enterprises and other carriers within your area. Where does the FIC go from here? What is in the future of FIC?

Bob Evans: Lately it’s become one of the discovery that most of these business now feel a critical need to not have their mail server, or other types of critical databases remain on their campus. Or they want to have a backup of it someplace else. So we’re now creating a service in other data centers where you get a circuit from us, then we’ll give you another port that gives you a layer 2 connection back to your rack or your server in those facilities, or one of our facilities.

This gives you the added benefit of having your own private network to the back side of your server, then it gives you the advantage of maybe having your server connected to other Internet providers in one of those other colo facilities, or maybe you could even carry that Internet back to your place and have two Internet providers.

So I think the advantage is, if you get a circuit from us you get the flexibility.

Pacific-Tier: Well that’s great. I think it is a great utility for the community. The final question is, you’re an entrepreneur, in tough economic times, with lots of graduates hitting the street, what advice do you have for people who are considering starting their own companies, or emerging entrepreneurs?

Bob Evans: Well, that’s a very good question.

During bad economic time I always find that not to discourage me, and I wouldn’t let anybody discourage them either. The reason is because in the midst of chaos, there’s usually always opportunity. And as soon as you explain that opportunity to somebody else who’s got money or can help you, or needs a service that you have, it’s actually easier to make business deals.

Pacific-Tier: That’s great advice.

Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to visit the FIC again, and thanks for your time.

Bob Evans: You’re welcome – thank you

The moist soil after some much needed rain in California, has brought out the moles and gophers in droves. There is sometimes confusion as to whether your garden has been invaded by gophers (a rodent that eats plants and roots) or by moles that tunnel along the surface, upsetting topsoil and toppling seedlings. It is essential identify the culprit when trying to rid your garden of these little pests.http://durak.org/px/golden-gate-gopher

Gophers tunnel deep in the earth, leaving mounds (usually “U” shaped) of fine, powdery soil at the surface. See picture above. Their nests and food chamber can be 6 feet deep. Gophers are herbivores, preferring herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. If a shrub dies overnight, it is usually a sign that a gopher has eaten the roots. Trapping and applying poison deep in the tunnel are the common methods of ridding your garden of gophers. A wire basket surrounding a newly planted tree or shrub will protect the roots from these pests. A ”pest note” with information on gophers and the treatment can be accessed at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu./PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7433.html. or call your local Master Gardeners desk to have a hard copy sent to you.

Moles are insect-eating mammals that tunnel along the surface of the earth and leave round (not “U” shaped) mounds of soil as they excavate their tunnels. The soil in the mound of a mole has clumps of dirt in it rather than powdery soil as in the mound of the gopher. They sometimes eat the roots of tender plants but are most commonly a problem when they disrupt flower and vegetable beds and burrow through lawns. Mole traps can be used but keep in mind that mole traps differ from gopher traps. Check out the “Pest Note” at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74115.html for information on mole control. The picture below is of a mole making an escape. The picture was originally uploaded by rightee on Flickr.

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An apple-picking friend of mine from Way Back When grows some awesomely fine garlic. Her name’s Rebecca and she lives back East in Burlington, Vermont, which is where I spent the coldest winter of my life. One day the temperature with the wind chill factor was, I swear to you, 90 below zero. That’s 90. Below zero. The wind whips across the huge and frozen Lake Champlain and if you are there, you know bitter cold. Anyway…it was my great fortune this year to be a recipient of a sampling of Rebecca’s superb product. That cold but beautiful place makes for some fine, hot garlic, some of which I’m turning around and putting into our Illinois soil to, hopefully, carry on her good stuff and have lots more to devour in future times.

So, we’ve cleared out some of the tomato bed, which is petering out in this cold weather anyway. I put the green tomatoes in paper bags ala my father’s instructions. He sez they’ll ripen. We shall see. Erin and I began forking the bed, but Andrew did a lot more, then JP finished it off and worked in some compost. Today I planted the seed cloves from the 4 varieties Becky sent. JP helped with the first variety, Nootka Rose. The other 3 are Georgian Fire, N.Y. White and German Porcelain, the latter of which is HUGE, but NOT elephant garlic, which Rebecca said is the Red Delicious of the garlic world. You don’t have to be an old apple picker to know that that is tantamount to saying that elephant garlic is hardly worth eating, though, actually, La Casan Jacob would argue this point as he somehow is convinced that Red Delicious apples have some redeeming value. My heart aches for the dear boy. The German Porcelain garlic, indeed, is nice and strong, tons of flavor.

Now here’s a little story which is true:

I farmed garlic in Washington State for about a year and a half. I knew an elderly couple, the Webbers, who had formerly grown garlic organically. I thought the organic aspect was impressive as they had farmed many years before, far ahead of the current organic heyday and even far ahead of the beginning surge in the early 80’s. They were in their 90’s when I knew them back in the 90’s. Anyway, they let me and some friends of mine plant their field which was a nice field with an excellent view of Mt. Stuart.  We did garlic and a lot of potatoes, too. One thing, though, their field had gophers. Not only did their field have gophers, but that field had more gophers than I knew could live in one field and what’s more is that these particular gophers had to taste every single garlic bulb to be absolutely sure that they didn’t like garlic. Also, the field had bindweed. It had extra strength bindweed that could bring down a rototiller in an astonishingly short amount of time, but which did not, apparently get in the way of gophers. Ever since, I can hardly believe it when I see packets of morning glory seeds for sale. I want to tell people not to ever plant it, that it comes from the devil. The DEVIL! And irrigation was, as I recall, quite tricky in that field. Al (Mr. Webber) made constant improvements to his “system”, though it never seemed become less tricky to me, and I think, quite possibly, more so. I do recall one great leap in the irrigation technology where the involvement of PVC pipes boosted our watering capabilities, but only for a day or so. Really, all those gopher holes led to one mother tunnel which emptied out not into the field at all, but, oh, down there, off the side of the hill. I thought perhaps it would at least have the benefit of washing the gophers away (or drowning the motherf*ckers), but it seemed to not impinge on them at all and what does not kill them makes them stronger. Pretty sure about that. If anything it seemed to have softened the soil up for them quite nicely. (It may have been about this time in my life that the murder of certain animals [being various rodentia] began to seem maybe not quite so abhorrent as I once thought. My dogs proved to be superior diggers, but insufficient gopher catchers. That’s a big help, as you can imagine.) Oh, and there was the wind. I wouldn’t want to neglect giving due mention to the wind which allowed for no hats, would throw dirt in your eyes, which once knocked me clean over and whose relentless blast caused me to cry and curse the wind god. (I only did that last thing once because the wind picked up noticeably when I did it.) Nonetheless, regardless and despite all we had a lot of fun and we all had garlic and spuds to last and it sure made the Webbers happy. I do not believe I would want to do it for a living, though. Not in that particular field, anyway.

Garlic chomping gopher. Say that 3 times fast.

Bindweed (Morning Glory)

Well, there’s been another tiger attack on someone who jumped into a tiger enclosure at a zoo.

Two men at the Calgary Zoo jumped over a metre high fence and ended up badly injured after the tiger swiped at his arms.

Lots of people visit the zoo in Calgary every year, and manage to safely observe the animals from a distance. Here are their stories:

A peacock attacked Kawaiguy at the Calgary Zoo, but he was OK

The Zoo was awesome, they had tons of funny animals. I had a freakin’ peacock jump at me, and had to endure some really stinky primate-areas, but overall it was a blast just to watch Mia May point and the animals and try to name/imitate them. TOO cute. – Kawaiguy

Milski thought the Melbourne Zoo was better...

I always like the Canadian wildlife section, as you get to see local animals that are fairly elusive in the wild (such as mountain goats and moose). Most of the exhibits aren’t as impressive as the Melbourne zoo, but I guess it’s got to be hard to simulate the habitats of many species when it’s freezing and snowing much of the year! - Milski

C.reynolds saw a timber wolf at the Calgary Zoo

The zoo is one of Calgary’s main visitor attractions and it is easy to see why, it is well laid out, reasonable and has a strong emphasis on education and conservation. – C.reynolds

Soul Eater’ı her bölümden sonra bir ay bekliyoruz; lakin o bekleyişe değiyor… Bir savaş toplamda bir bölümde başlayıp o bölümün sonunda bitiyor ve aynı bölüm içerisinde de bir sürü olay ile karşılaşıyoruz. Hikayenin bir kısmı hep son bulup bir kısmıda şekillenip gelişiyor. Bizi hiç boşlamıyor. Savaşlarda bol şekerli, tadına doyulmaz oluyor.

Kaç gündür Soul Eater’ın geçenlerde okuduğum 65. bölümüne bir yorum yazmak istiyordum; lakin bir türlü olmuyordu. İşte sonunda zaman bulabildim.

Öncelikle bölüm boyunca Gopher’ın beni delirten o bakışını sizlerle paylaşmama izin verin;

Bölüm boyunca sürekli karşılaştığımız bu bakış, bu kıskançlık, bir arzunun bu şekilde yansıtılması mükemmeldi doğrusu. Gopher karakterinin bölüm boyunca Maka ve Soul’a yaşattığı zorlu anlar ve sonuçtaki darbesi görmeye değerdi. Özellikle de Gopher’ın sevgili Noah’ının Gopher’a davranış biçimi… Onu ezmesi ve bir çöpmüş gibi bir kenara atması…

Şöyle biraz geriye gidelim ve koca bölümde neler yaşadığımıza bir bakalım;

Beyaz ve Siyah kanatların çarpışmasını, artık bir Ölüm Orağı olan Soul’un şovunu izledik bölüm boyunca… Maka, Soul’un üzerinde hem süzüldü, hem onu kullanarak savaştı.

Animesi gerçek konudan sapmadan devam etseydi bizi mest etmeye devam edecekti. Bir Hellsing gibi üç ayda bir bölüm izlemeye bile rağzıydım o gereksiz, saçma sapan filler sonu izlemektense…

Gökyüzündeki çılgın savaşın ilerleyen dakikalarında Cadı Avcısı açıldı ve hiç bir değeri olmayan Gopher Maka’dan ilk darbeyi yediğinde onu, belkide kendisini sorgulamaya başladı. Kendisi her zaman Noah’ın koleksiyonunun bir parçası olmak isterken Maka neden istemiyordu ki?

Gopher o sorgulama anında deliliği ile sahneye yeniden çıktı ve bedenini dairesel olarak açan bir saldırı ile Maka’yı hedefledi. Belli ki o anda Maka’yı Noah’a götürmek gibi bir arzusu yoktu, tek isteği kendi kıskançlığı ile onu yok etmekti.

Nitekim bir Ölüm Orağı olan Soul ve onun biricik partneri Maka’nın yepyeni saldırılarını açması çok uzun sürmedi. Warlock Avcısı ve onun bizleri büyüleyen ihtişamı ile Gopher yerle bir oldu.

Maka yenilmiş, kaderine o anda teslim olmuş Gopher’ı, Shinigami’nin listesinde olmadığı gerekçesini ileri sürerek öldürmedi.

Normal bir Shounen’de “Aha yine aynı olay, bak yine öldürmedi,” diyerek karşılayacağım bu olayı Soul Eater normal bir Shounen olmadığı için o şekilde karşılamıyorum. Kimler geldi, kimler geçti…

Bir tür kart ile mekandan kaçan Gopher kendisini bir anda Noah’ın huzurunda buldu. İşte o anda Noah’ın küçümseyici bakışları ile ezildide ezildi… Noah, sadece kendi adını, şanını düşman karşısında küçümsemekten başka bir şey yapmadığı gerekçesi ile Gopher’ı aşağıladı. Zaten değersiz bir varlık olduğunu belirtmekten de geriye kalmadı.

Noah’ın huzurundan kovulan Gopher aynı surat ifadesi ile, göz yaşladı içerisinde kaçtı.

Ama işte o anda… Noah’ın kendisinden nefret etmesinin yükünü kaldıramayan ve bir suçlu arayan Gopher kendisini zindanda ki Kid’in yanında buldu ve Kid’in arkadaşı Maka’nın zaferi karşısında Gopher ile alay etmesinin de etkisiyle Kid’in işkence dolu anları katlanarak devam etti.

Ve işte bölümün bombasına geliyorum! Hazır mısınız? Son ikisayfada Arachne’den aldığı yeni bedeni ile huzurlarımıza çıkan Medusa bir kapıyı açtı ve “Zaman geldi Chrona!” diyerek vektörleri ile dışarıyı işaret etti.

Chrona’nın kendini kaybetmiş haykırışı ile bölüm sona erdi…

This past weekend I went to Philadelphia (aka Dehli) for band rehearsal. This is where the drummer for my main band lives with his wife and kids and two cats and grasshoppers. The bass player and I live in NY. It might seem kind of strange to you that we are in a band with someone who lives two hours away (with good Traffic starring Michael Douglas). If we were in a band with a drummer in NY we would probably rehearse 2 or 3 times a week for a couple hours. The rehearsal space we would use costs $20 an hour so that would come to $80 or $120 a week split 3 ways. I’ll just say that the average would be about $30 that each one of us would spend a week on a rehearsal space. The reality of rehearsal spaces/practice rooms is that you are strictly in a time is money situation. That’s not a very good situation to be especially when you’re trying to be “creative” and connecting with other people on a musical level. (I hope that wasn’t too “deep” for you.) You’re also not playing on the equipment and instruments (if you’re a drummer) that you usually play with.
So…for us to drive to Philly it costs about $40 in gas and tolls roundtrip, which is split between the two NY people. We stay at the drummer’s house and generally eat all of our meals there. I’d say we’re looking at about $20 that we’re each spending a week so that we can rehearse. Plus, we rehearse in the basement of the house whenever we want between 10am and 10pm for as long as we want. Since we wind up rehearsing a good amount in the weekends that we’re there we only make this trip every 2 or 3 weeks. We don’t have to worry about clearing out for the next band or fiddling with equipment that isn’t ours. We can play and write at our own pace without constantly thinking about the money we are paying to rehearse. I think what’s most important is that we can and do spend a lot of time just “hanging out”, watching movies, throwing kids around and just doing like um whatever. I know that with some of the other bands that I’m in we rarely ever socialize outside of rehearsals and shows. Hopefully, you can see that our situation isn’t that strange and maybe even preferable. Also, can you see the sailboat?

A schooner IS a sailboat stupid head!

We don’t have a show until late October which is nice since we’ve been playing a show or two a month. We’re taking the opportunity to work on some new songs without having to make sure that we’re ready with older material for a show. We’ve got some songs coming together that I’m really excited about. Besides writing and rehearsing we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary over the weekend. This time we watched Street Trash and enjoyed the crap out of it. They hadn’t seen it before and I had forgotten how many great lines are in it. Maybe I’ll do a proper review/rant on this movie down the road even though where we’re going we don’t need roads.

I’m playing a few shows in Chicago over the weekend so I should have some sort of mildly interesting anecdotes and photos up here in the coming week.

I’m alright / Nobody worry ’bout me / Why you got to gimme a fight? / Can’t you just let it be?

Caddyshack is quite easily one of the most seminal movies from my childhood.  In addition it has all the prereqs to be a great Flick of the Week: 1.) Titties, 2.) Awesome 80s fashion, 3.) Poop humor, and 4.) a dancing animatronic gopher!  What more could you really want out of a movie?  Seriously, I shouldn’t have to do anymore convincing.  Download this now for your own health!

TORRENT:  Caddyshack.1980.DVDRip

I told you not to eat the strawberries

I was going to try to write this post as a proper structured essay with paragraphs and complete sentences, but I think it will be easier just to make it into a list of the bizarre, wonderful and not so wonderful things that happen in the Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan

Crazy notes
There is a lady who lives in Regina who hands out hand-written notes on the backs of postcards, posters, anything else she finds lying around. On Saturday she handed one to Glenna. It read (we think).

“Phone Government Collect. 6pm Train”

Although, it might say a bunch of other things. I think she had the same handwriting teacher as me.

I wanted to take off on a ‘Da Vinci Code’ style mystery tour which would commence when I figured out which Government department to call collect (maybe only the right one would accept the call), but Kim burst my bubble by telling me that she does this all the time and she used to collect them with the intention of turning them into a display, or something. But surprisingly enough it’s not happened yet.

Rodents take note; irrigation pipes do NOT make good accommodation.

Every spring Wayne cleans out the irrigation pipes to remove debris accumulated over the winter. And every Spring he also flushes out a selection of rodent nests, rodents and rodent parts. Mice sometimes get mangled in the pipes and while most of their remains flush away, their intestines get stuck in the irrigation risers (the vertical bits through which the water is emitted) and inflate like balloons.

Gophers can almost fit through the risers, except for their behinds which get jammed. The resulting image is a mixture of comical and morbid. They don’t survive the experience of course but they do need to be removed… in pieces.  And needless to say, it’s a really unpleasant task.

Any animal rights activists please don’t get over excited. Gophers are less endangered than farmers. In fact they are thriving and making farmers lives hell. So please advocate on behalf of the cute fluffy little farmers who the mean gophers are traumatizing by gumming up their pipes with their entrails.

Thank you.

p.s. To any offended gophers, please take off to Alberta where, if they catch you they will stuff you, dress you up and display you in the gopher hole museum. Now that’s undignified.

More Crazed Animals

Kim has an ongoing battle with a squirrel who insists that the cabin in the woods is his home and should not be occupied by any Wwoofers, guests etc. His territory seems to include the path to the Yurt since he sat on a branch and chattered aggressively at Tegan when she passed by. With Kim his approach was more direct. He threw a corn cob at her head.

Stupid People

When I was at Muenster I was told many stories of people from the community coming in and helping themselves to stuff from the gardens. I assumed that this was because it was a Monastery and the local people felt some kind of sense of ownership.

However, it seems that anything left in a field is considered fair game for the hicks of this world. I use the word hicks as it is the politest term I can come up with for anyone who would steal from a farmer. A car you might have a hope of getting back. A TV or Gameboy you likely have insurance for, but potatoes?

Apparently it is a relatively common occurrence to find people who claim to want to U-Pic strawberries en route to the potato or cucumber field complete with shovel and large containers. Now I ask you, what kind of person wakes up in the morning, loads up the car and drives 20 minutes to a farm with the singular goal of stealing spuds?

We discussed the possibility that they were so darned stupid that they thought that they just grew wild, or maybe that they were ’spare’ and no-one else was going to pick them, but I think that most likely these people are just hicks with an attitude problem.

Kim caught one local business owner (not some poor starving homeless person) loading up on cucumbers and patiently explained to her that this was theft. Apparently the lady was defensive so Kim asked her if she wouldn’t mind her coming over to the store and helping herself to inventory that wasn’t being used.

The attitude seems to be, if it’s indoors it belongs to someone, but if it’s outdoors it’s fair game. Maybe I should go steal some turf, a hosepipe or maybe an ornamental plant or two from the people on this street just to see how outraged they would be.

Last winter I was reading a study into which varieties of broccoli and cabbages performed best in Atlantic Canada, but the results were inconclusive because someone stole them all.

At St Peter’s, one Monk had the last laugh. He caught someone loading up on corn and told them to go to one of the other fields where the corn was much bigger. They obediently went over there and stuffed their pails with cattle corn. I hope they enjoyed it.

More stupid people

When I arrived at Lincoln Gardens Wayne was out repairing irrigation pipes that had been damaged by ATV drivers intentionally driving over them.

During the winter Snowmobilers had smashed a load of the risers by driving right over the top of them. It probably made the ride more fun. I’m so very happy for them.

The words ‘Man-trap’ spring to mind.

Really, really stupid people

Lincoln Gardens Vegetable Emporium

I’ve worked retail on and off since I was a kid. Helping out with selling the plums by the road, progressing to working in a Pharmacy, then a Stationers and finally the Farmers’ Markets. You get to meet all kinds of people, most of them perfectly nice, but some of them beyond comprehension.

Kim is in charge of the retail end of Lincoln Gardens so she gets to experience humanity up close, personal and expecting service on a daily basis.

Today there was a lady in the store wearing a thong. Not the shoes, the underwear. With no pants, skirt or anything else to cover her decency. She was also sporting a T-Shirt that she had tucked into the top of her thong, just to be sure that she didn’t accidentally cover herself up. Sarah tried to take a photograph but wasn’t sneaky enough. Had the lady been a young nymphet perhaps some members of the population might have appreciated her overexposure, but she was a little longer in the tooth. Now why someone would go to purchase vegetables wearing only their underwear, I have no idea. There is a beach community about a 20 minute drive away so perhaps she was lying on the beach in said attire and suddenly had an overwhelming urge to buy some broccoli. And forgot to get dressed. I don’t know, I’m just speculating.

Some appropriately dressed people at the farm store

Also, there was a grotesquely obese man wearing shorts and an unbuttoned shirt who was stuffing his face with peas right over the pea bin and spitting  the shells back into the bin. That’s both theft and disgusting. I have to question whether there was any thought process there or whether he just saw the peas and could not help but chow down.

Oh, and then there was a child who licked a plum and then was about to put it back in the container. Kim made her mother buy it.

And the grandmother who asked Kim to give her grandchild some free blackberries ‘because she’d never tried them before’. ‘So buy her some’ Kim replied. Well quite.

I am trying really hard to see the best in all people, look at things from their perspectives and keep my mind wide open. But sometimes, some people just suck.

The last customer that pissed Kim off

Perplexed Wwoofers

This afternoon Wayne took Tegan and I out to the Pepper patch and left us with instructions to pick 2 large boxes of Rams Horns, 1 of Sweet Banana Peppers and 1 of Hot Banana Peppers, one small box of cayenne… or was that jalapeno… and how many sweet yellow peppers was that?

We were led on a twisting trail through the pepper patch which no doubt Wayne knew like the back of his hand, but we didn’t. And it has to be said that most pepper plants look pretty darned similar.

We suggested that he wrote it down for us but he confidently told us that we’d be fine then drove off to find the Mexicans saying he’d be back in an hour. Tegan and I stared at each other in a state of panic. We reviewed what he had told up then decided to do our best but, really, if we screwed this one up it definitely was not our fault.

Wayne, seriously, we're nowhere near as smart as you think

It started off OK, though sometimes identifying which of the peppers were at the right stage for harvest was a bit challenging. I tend to go by smoothness; riper peppers have smoother skins. Wayne also used firmness and colour as indicators, but we could only really see the colour properly after we had picked them and they were no longer shaded by the leaves of the pepper bush. Once again, just 5 minutes of supervision would have made the world of difference.

Pickin' a Peck of Peppers

We thought things were going OK until we got to the Banana Peppers. The Sweet Banana Peppers and the Hot Banana Peppers are totally visually indistinct, but while one is mild, juicy and sweet the other blows the top of your head off. I started off picking what I thought were the hot peppers (based on Wayne’s directions) but after finishing the first two rows I sampled one and found it really sweet and not at all hot. Maybe I’d misunderstood and there were only two rows of each and not 4. Then, based on the fact that there were a few basil plants mixed in with the peppers plus one random red cabbage, I wondered if the plants had got mixed up. Certainly the 2nd row seemed to contain both sweet and hot peppers.

So I started sampling at random, muttering things like

“Mmm, that one’s really sweet”

“Hmm, I think that one might be a hot pepper, there’s a bit of warmth there” and

“Jesus, that burns!” while frantically spitting it out.

In the end we found another 4 rows of banana peppers that were most definitely sweet, so concluded that my initial 4 rows were in fact all hot, just at different stages of ripeness.

My tongue politely requests that next time we have a map so as to avoid that particular tastebud test, as entertaining as it was.

No taste testing needed here, thankfully

People who shouldn’t leave home without supervision

At the end of the day someone ran over Kim’s dog. Right over the top of it pinning the poor thing underneath their car. Kim is considering installing some kind of automated intelligence test at the farm gate to try to filter out some of the more ‘challenged’ members of society.

Kohlrabi for Brains

Article by Matt Oliver Read his entire article here:

Matt Oliver is General Manager at Agricultural Pest Control Services, Inc., a company that specializes in controlling vertebrate pest problems

Article provided by ProGardenBiz. ProGardenBiz online magazine provides how-to advice on starting and running a landscape contracting or maintenance business. Get start-up guidance, business ideas and inspiration at ProGardenBiz.com.

Pocket gophers (Tomomys spp.), so named for their fur lined cheek pouches located outside the mouth on each side of the face, are burrowing rodents.

They destroy vegetation, damage machinery (such as mowers), damage irrigation systems and underground wiring, and lower the aesthetic value of the landscape. In addition, their burrowing activity on slopes causes erosion and can be a major factor in slope weakening and instability that may ultimately lead to a slope failure.

Any gopher population can be controlled and in many situations even eliminated. Successful programs in large scale situations generally require an initial clean-out of intensified treatment to bring the existing population to a maintainable level (90% or better). Once control is achieved a continuous maintenance program will most often be required to prevent reinfestation problems from developing as a result of migration from heavily infested surrounding areas.

Although I was a skee ball fiend myself at Chuck E Cheese’s and anywhere else arcade and midway/statefair like…I did enjoy the game Whack a Mole. The fun and principle continue with Whack a Bear and Whack a Mascot apps for the iPhone. 99 cents can get you satisfaction of hitting your schools arch rival and hopefully hexing or sending bad vibes to affect a rivals’ mojo!

The list goes on and on for college and pro teams!
• Whack-a-Badger • Whack a Wolverine • Whack a Bruin • Whack-a-Bear • Whack a Bearcat• Whack-a-Beaver • Whack a Blue Devil • Whack a Boilermaker • Whack a Bronco • Whack a Buffalo• Whack a Bull • Whack a Bulldog • Whack an Aggie • Whack an Aztec • Whack a TarHeel • Whack a Trojan • Whack a Hoosier • Whack a Cyclone • Whack a Deacon • Whack a Duck • Whack an Eagle• Whack a Tide • Whack a Pirate • Whack a Falcon • Whack a Gator • Whack a Golden Bear • Whack a Golden Eagle • Whack a Golden Flash • Whack a Gopher • Whack a Hawkeye • Whack a Hokie • Whack a Hurricane • Whack a Husky • Whack a Jayhawk • Whack an Illini • Whack an Irish • Whack a Redhawk • Whack a Cavalier • Whack a Commodore • Whack a Cornhusker • Whack a Cougar • Whack a Cowboy• Whack a Lion • Whack a Longhorn • Whack a Miner • Whack a Mountaineer • Whack a Mustang • Whack an Orangeman • Whack an Owl • Whack a Panther • Whack a Ram • Whack a Razorback• Whack a Rebel • Whack a Red Raider • Whack a Red Wolf • Whack a Seminole • Whack a Sooner • Whack a Spartan • Whack a Sun Devil • Whack a Tiger • Whack a Wildcat • Whack a Yellow Jacket • Whack a Terrapin • Whack a Volunteer • Whack a Wolf

Walk On The Wild Side is a new BBC series. Great writing.
Don’t have the volume too loud for this first one.

Via Jess.

Ne olacak?

İki bölümdür yine klasik shounen eğitim sahnelerini okuduğumuz Soul Eater’ın geçtiğimiz günlerde yayınlanan 64. bölümü ile birlikte eğitime ara verdik…

Maka, artık bir Ölüm Orağı olan Soul ile birlikte mutlu mesut eğitim uçuşu yapar ve ara ara klasik kavgalarını da ederken bir anda güçlü, güçlü olduğu kadarda öldürücü bir ruh tınlaması hissetti. Tam bundan öncede cadı arkadaşı ve onun silahını “Siz artık gidebilirsiniz,” muhabbetleri ile uğurlamıştı.

Derken rakipleri belirdi…

Noah’ın önceki bölüm sonunda Maka’nın peşine taktığı Gopher’ın bu bölümde Maka’yı öldürmek ya da ruhunu ele geçirmek konusunda serbest olduğunu gördük. İlginç birde düelloya tanıklık ettik. Doğrusu büyk zevkle sayfaları çevirdim ve bu bölümde ki Maka, Soul VS Gopher karşılaşmasını animede de keşke görebilseydim diye yakınmadım değil…

Neyse, savaş mükemmeldi; savaş bir yana savaş sonunda Maka’nın silahı Soul’a karşı isyanı ise daha da güzeldi.

“Böyle ufacık kanatlarla nasıl savaşabilirim ki?”

Ruh Tınlaması yapıldığında artık o Soul’da görmeye alıştığımız eski, klasik Ruh Tınlaması yoktu karşımızda… Artık bir Ölüm Orağı olan Soul’un ve Maka’nın birlikteliği ile oluşan Ruh Tınlaması vardı karşımızda…

Maka ve Soul uçarken ne yapacaklar? Manga-ka son iki bölüm boyunca Maka ve Soul’u uçurmaya çalıştı ve amacına da ulaştı; ama bu uçma yetisi iki karakterimize ne gibi bir getiri sağlayacak, onları nasıl güçlendirecek bilemiyorum doğrusu. En iyisi bekleyip görmek…

Yeah, this can pretty much sum up my week

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

En el día que se escribe este artículo, 20 de julio de 2009, se celebra el 40 aniversario del viaje espacial que cambió el mundo. Aquella noticia en su día sólo pudo contar con la radio y la TV para transmitirlo en directo. La noticia de hoy es una mezcla de como se transmitió en su día la información y del futuro del objeto. Por una parte nos están explicando como se difundió el acontecimiento y por otra información de que se hará en la Luna en el futuro. Muchos, todavía hoy, dudan de aquel acontecimiento, seguramente un pensamiento basado en parte por la falta de información. En su día no estaba latente esta sociedad en la que nos movemos, basada en información y comunicación. No había Internet, no había color en la TV de casa, era un mundo casi ciego, el de la comunicación en una sola línea, sin participación del espectador y conociendo muy poco a los actores del evento. Un mundo donde nos teníamos que fiar de lo que nos contaban, en realidad tener fé de que aquello que nos explicaban era realmente cierto. Pero así se mueve las civilizaciones en ocasiones, teniendo fé de cosas que no ven.  La religión en la vida. ¿Os imagináis hoy llegar a la Luna? Lo seguiriamos en directo y sabríamos de todo antes incluso que el propio alunizaje.  Podéis por ejemplo ver esta simulación en www.wechoosethemoon.org

¿E internet?…¿que le ha pasado en estos 40 años?. Pues simplemente nació…y hoy forma parte de nuestras vidas, pero como el primer viaje de la Luna, parece que se estanca… Es una opinión personal, pues tengo la impresión a menudo de revivir lo que ya conocí hace algunos años. Por ejemplo, llevo tiempo escuchando muchos “gurús” hablar de la 2.0, pero es un poco cansino y siempre mirando para atrás.

Tengo la suerte de que mi primer trabajo, de becario, fue en una prestigiosa universidad americana y para la NASA, donde me dedicaba a programar algoritmos de software de anti-encriptación. Suena aburrido, pero fue apasionante, Estudié telecos y me apasionaba todo lo espacial. Conocí los cimientos de lo que sería el SETI y por aquellos días aun no habia nacido el Internet Explorer!. Apenas Internet era un bebé, algo novedoso, no lo teníamos en casa y el Mosaic, primer navegador visual entraba en las universidades. Nos relacionábamos con Gopher, con chat,con los primeros emails, pero en realidad..hoy en día las redes sociales son casi iguales a esos recursos en su día tan innovadores. Evidentemente hoy Internet llega a todo el mundo, ahí está la clave, pero a los que tuvimos la suerte de conocerla desde que nació, pocas cosas a nivel macróscopico han cambiado.

Como la Luna, con su lado oscuro y apenas visitado (sólo 12 personas), Internet y todo su potencial creemos que aun está por desarrollar y llegar a ser completamente transparente. Integrarlo de verdad con la TV, con el hogar, y llegar a una fase 3.0, donde después de la fiebre ecommerce, las pequeñas empresas le saquen el partido y nos ayude a generar beneficios. A nivel personal Internet ha cambiado nuestras vidas, pero a nivel empresarial hay mucho por hacer.

¿Quien fuera astronauta, verdad?

Jabo0ody Dubs is seriously like, the best party ever. Also, Billy Mays > Everyone.

Enjoy.

Shock G of Digital Underground sent me some more photos of him catching more rodents. This guy is the hip-hop version of the Croc Hunter. Shock recently caught a Gopher Snake in his yard. Check out the pictures.

- Andrew Bess