Introducing Sets of Fields

'Sets of Fields' is a concept that fears them young 'un assembler programmers as this is what happens when IBM gets creative.  If you run out of places to put stuff then you can take something known and make it mean more things.  That's where sets of fields become important.  Now you can look at a variable and it will start with a number that tells you how many pieces of information are in it.  IBM did this all over the place and it was brilliant as it was a mechanism for downward compatibility and it was incredibly effective.

So what's the point of any good idea?

(Ed:  steal it?)

Right you are.

The pondering is over whether it will be necessary to handle a painting being in multiple shows.  I'm thinking it's inevitable.  It hasn't been mentioned but I know that's true already.  What I don't know is whether it's important.

I believe I've already made up my mind to write it but I review for a bit the value of it.  Correcting the problem with the show displays turned into Godzilla versus the Smog Monster but the code ended up the better for it ... so ... screw it up with yet another change.


Programmers may scoff and say, pfft, that's just an array.  I can program that in one line of code.  Yes, of course you can, precious little snowflake, but let's see you do it with two index registers and an accumulator (Motorola 6502).  If that's too much then let's try IBM as you'll get (gasp) sixteen registers now.  Even though to the juniors assembly language programming is like computer paleontology, it still has merit and, what's more, these dinosaurs are still alive and today they are bigger than they ever were.

The DR-880 Continues to Plague Me

Even though the DR-880 bugs the living hell out of me, it's good news to report as the only way to get it is to have been playing.

But it does plague me.  I can't get the bitch to do pad recording, that's where you tell it just to keep collecting drum hits from you until you're satisfied with the groove.  But it only records one hit.  You have got to KNOW I know how to read computer manuals and I followed meticulously ... but it still doesn't work.

You can watch video tutorials on YouTube but one of them is so bad that someone who viewed it said he saw it as a reason not to get one!  There's a guy who keeps pushing buttons but they don't work and he says each time, well, it's like that, you just have to keep doing it.  After a while it becomes a joke!

And after a while I reached the Screw This point and pulled out a stock Reggae beat that turned into Chocolate Monkeys on a Trapeze.  That's good but I don't know if Monkeys really like Reggae that much.

(Ed:  it sounds like you liked it)

Good point.

In most cases it's tragic if someone falls off a trapeze but in this case you can eat them.

I could tell you of the old guy travails in playing but, man, you seriously don't want to know.  What I know for sure is my fingers are the strongest part of me.  It's odd to me as I can get wobbly but my fingers sound decisive in the playing and that feels very good.  I do intend to try a gig on Thursday.

The Proof of the CIA Stomach Virus Theory

News just arrived that Maestro Michi must cancel today's show because ... you know already ... the dreaded CIA Stomach Virus.  (Documented in a previous article:  Vapor Chemtrails from Aircraft - Finally the Answer)

Cat is only now starting to recover from it and the same thing destroyed me for a week or two not so long before her.  How much more evidence do you need before you see the CIA conspiracy against the Circus.

Further proof the CIA is responsible is that the virus crossed international boundaries, it even crossed the Atlantic Ocean.  That's impossible so the only other mechanism is, as suggested in the previous article, the CIA's use of the Jet Stream for delivery of the virus.

This is not second-hand information but rather these are incidents I have witnessed and know to be true.  Thus I conclude the conspiracy is real and the next time you get a stomach virus, know who gave it to you.

"Falling"

It would be so easy just to snap,
to just go falling down,
but I'm not Michael Douglas
and I don't want to drown.

The drowning would be easy,
it's the fall that breaks your heart
as finding you're the demon,
learning you're the nightmare,
discovering you're the problem,
confounds my blackest art
in my imaginary part
and that sets to whirling motion
a cyclonic roar of butterflies
that never feel a thing.

They're the butterflies of blues
and you've heard them roar before
you listen for them sneezing
until it blows shut the door.

I envy them their flying,
and the bliss they seem to find
until one's eaten by a Raven
and the others fly right by.

Why are they not affected
when the wind roars such a storm
but the sun shines bright upon them
and it keeps them softly warm.

The Most Corrupt States in the Country

No doubt it's a huge surprise to discover most of the states on this list are red ones.  (Forbes:  The 10 most corrupt states in the U.S.)

1. Mississippi - Noted as the worst in every measure of American statehood.
2. Louisiana - Bobby Jindal
3. Tennessee - Where the KKK was invented
4. Illinois - Headquarters for crooked liberals
5. Pennsylvania - More crooked liberals
6. Alabama - Someone who can't read
7. Alaska - Sarah Palin
8. South Dakota - Who cares
9. Kentucky - Mitch McConnell
10. Florida - Marc Rubio and Jeb Bush

The amazement is Texas is not on the list.  The only two GOP pretenders it missed were Perry and McCain.

Maybe you wonder why the GOP harvests its candidates from the most corrupt states in the union but, after they have been doing it for so many years, the question isn't even important anymore.  Of course that's what they do.

How the Koch Brothers Planned and Broke the Teamsters Union

The Teamsters are mostly or only long-haul truck drivers and they were one of the most powerful unions in the country.  Naturally, this meant the GOP made the Teamsters the sole object of its hatred until they cracked and, as you see today, they aren't much more than a social club.  When the GOP hates just about everything except the GOP, achieving that level of focus was extraordinary.

The question is how they did it and if Republicans applied this kind of ingenuity to solving problems rather than creating them, it's a marvel what the country might be.

But they don't.

The Koch Brothers have been in it from the beginning as has Karl Rove and they dreamed up the best way to fight the Teamsters ... was not to fight them at all.  (RID:  How the GOP Broke the Teamsters)

In analyzing the situation, the Koch Brothers saw they could set up schools for big-rig truckers and they could do this for very small money, much less than a straight-up attack to break the union as they did with PATCO when Reagan was their stooge.  That was expensive, particularly in paying off Reagan as he always thought he was a better actor than he really was.

Their reasoning was they can't fight the Teamsters so let's get the truckers to fight each other.  And so they set up the schools which you may have noticed have been increasingly common in recent decades.  The purpose of these schools was to train or at least partially-train thousands of independent truckers.

You see the result.  When was the last time you heard of a Teamsters strike.  The Koch Brothers brought Wal-Mart to Interstate truckers.

Hat Tip to Yevette

When I said I would go ripshit on the kitchen, I really did.  She was out of town for some days so that gave me time as I can't do the Ironman stuff but I can definitely do determination.  She was very cool about it as a lot of stuff moved but she saw the gains.  There's a whole lot more to this that I'm not even going to think about telling you but this was important stuff and I feel good about doing it.

I also hunted down the rats.

(Ed:  Rats?  I thought they got wiped out in the Great Fort Worth Rat Safari?)

They did but no-one could figure where they could possibly have been hiding.  Every house has a drawer, shelf, closet or some such that isn't used very much.  Maybe it's got the party supplies for when they elect an honest politician and it's way in the back as you know it will never be used.

Which makes a perfect segue to finding rats as I found the hiding place and bleached all living hell out of it.  They didn't come back to it or anything as it would have to be one hell of a super rat to get past the cats.  Those little rotters are stupid but they are incredibly fast.  So now after that bleach I know even if one does manage to get back inside, there's no good place to hide.

I really did feel good about it as rats carry a whole lot of things that will kill you and more so in the Southwest.  You'll hear every so often about bubonic plague, hanta virus, and variations on those themes all of which trace back to dirt from rats.  Texas is one of the highest for hanta virus.  So now the place really is healthier and I fookin' did it and, yep, I feel good about that too.


While the show search mechanism for Valerie's site is frustrating, it's an interesting challenge and it doesn't have to be technical to describe it.  When the images are displayed sequentially, it's the same as looking in a folder on your own computer.  Open it and list the names, sorted alphabetically.  However, when I'm going through the paintings by show, that uses the information file and that is sorted by the year the piece was painted and it's not alphabetic.  So they problem is going through two different lists in two different orders to correlate the information needed to figure out just what the hell is the next picture to display.

While twisted exercises may not seem entertaining, a favorite of programmers is considering the ultimate solution to elevator placement.  What is the best floor on which to leave an empty elevator as it waits for the next call.

I feel good about the site.  I feel like the Artist is becoming.  She sees I'll put anything on the site she wants or take it off, that's why I pulled out the Twitter displays and put that only on a News page.  For me it is fulfillment to see it become fulfillment for her.  I never had kids so this is a very cool buzz.


"Shooting Through a Star" plays just now and I have listened to it maybe a dozen times.  Picking mistakes is easy but I don't hate myself so much as to throw it out on that basis.  There will be stinkers sometimes as I don't know where these things will go and I explore.  It's like reaching for the garam masala as you know it will do something cool to the dish but you won't really know for sure what it is until you do it.

The playing sounds confident and I suppose the bumout is that it needs a band for that kind of crankage.  That's the kind of groove that's gets handed back and forth while some red-headed chick singer in leather blows out some trippin' on the mike.  Girl, I don't care if you can sing.  Do whatever you do but let it rip.  You're a red-head, you can do it!

I do feel good about the tune as, for me, there's some fairly creditable guitar playing in it ... but ... it also weighs heavy how much damn cooler it would be with a band.  I can play the different parts myself but that's not a band.

That's the focus part.

Blowing the focus is the cacophony from people who just will not stop shooting each other and they won't stop making more guns so even more people can do it.  As to restoring focus, engaging in any kind of Facebook 'debate' with anyone is pointless as no-one's mind will be changed by it.  That kind of stuff isn't even masturbation as at least you get some tingle out of the latter whereas the 'debate' is a complete and total waste of time.

My position is clear and it has been.  Stop the killing or don't for a moment expect me to consider you a human being.  So they call that arrogant and hate me.

Best to stay the fuck away from them.

Altogether now ...

SHUT UP AND PLAY

About More Guitar Playing

Focus is shot all to hell.  There is no loss of focus in making the Web site for my niece.  That's good work and it is, the way I look at things, also music insofar as the way things flow; there are choruses, verses, and they repeat with a coda to exit.  The similarities go much deeper than that but that's intellectualizing and you want loud.

The killing is overwhelming me.  It's not so much the fact of it but the lack of remorse.  Everywhere, guns, guns, guns.  They throw concussion grenades at a granny and break down doors when they aren't even sure they have the right address and it goes on and on and on.

They roll .50 cal machine guns to cops and I don't know if anywhere in American history or even world history that anyone ever used such a weapon to commit a crime.

America has been stolen by the GOP frontmen and tell me that's hype the next time you see them rolling an armored vehicle to Barney Fife's sheriff's office in Bumfuck, Iowa.  In fact, they sent these malevolent devices all over the place and have turned the U.S. police force into the Waffen SS and it gets to the point at which they'll dispatch these thick-skulled monsters to bust people for parking tickets.

There isn't a single one of you who can tell me why this is happening but I can damn sure ask why the hell you don't stop it.  Rep Hank Johnson has shown the balls to submit a bill to stop militarization of the police force but even that permits them to be packing .50 cal machine guns.  And that's with limitations!  What the hell have they got already?

I protest and I will as I damn sure will not sit by silently and watch this endless carnage.  The Republican response is to shred it as, in my life, I have never seen GOP remorse over killing anything.  Not once.

Bush commits the most egregious offense imaginable and I get nothing but GOP excuses.  No. 1: Well, Democrats supported him.  Yah, he was lying through his teeth to them.  No. 2: the CIA made it all up and Bush never knew.  This is believable because no-one ever lifted a finger to prosecute and these are the same people who wanted to put Clinton in front of the World Court for sticking a cigar in Monica Lewinsky's lady parts.  There is just never-ending bullshit and excuses regarding the deaths of possibly as many as a million people in Iraq.

I see the lack of remorse in them and it just stomps my  heart into the ground.  How can they not care about it even a little bit.  Why wouldn't they fix it just to bring respect back to their own party ... but they don't do that ... instead they attack everything around if anything even faintly besmirches the bullshit fantasy they concocted.

I'm sick of being hated and I don't like isolation but so it goes.  It has become fairly difficult to play as it wears me out so fast.  It's odd as Sasquatch can yak like mad for a video but if I start doing anything it will run me down.  That means definitely keep doing things or I run down faster but this is the part about old age ain't for wimps.

The music is there somewhere but it's like a lost orphan in a city with no lights and how can it possibly be found when there are howling hurricanes of hatred ... whatever the problem just fucking kill it and then it won't come back.  Sooner or later they will kill the kid.

Getting Back to Work

We know the news is nothing but bullshit and that's why I make up bullshit stories here.  The plan now is to put links to 'resources' that will substantiate whatever insane claim I am making and that's the Candy Crush Saga.  If you click the link then I own you as you are proven conspiracy bait.

So, what game will we play today.

This game would not be fun if I just sucker-punched as most of the links I use are real ... but ... the new and improved plan is to put sliders in there once in a while just to see if anyone will click them.

There's something funny that can come of this.  I'm not sure what yet but somethin'.


Irrelevant side-note:  Silas on the Reverend Sasquatch Defends Religious Freedom and Colanders was a hit with Yevette.  She saw I recognize I'm in the State of Texas and I understand it's important to tip your colander to a lady.  (NSFW language in the video ... so unbecoming for a preacher)

Mein Gott, Ich Bin Verrückt / My God, I Am Crazy

Fuck it.  This was a response to Facebook which was pointless from the start.  Going to Facebook is becoming a bigger liability with every passing day.  Nothing comes from it but wasted time.

Vapor Chemtrails from Aircraft - Finally the Answer

For years, the CIA has been working in concert with DARPA to develop chemical and biological agents that would be effective in immobilizing or at least slowing an offensive threat.  At one time they even tried to weaponize LSD ... until they realized half the U.S. troops are trippin' already.  I don't know what goes now but I know what I saw then ... a whole lot of trippin', even more, actually, than I had done before the military.

The problem with weaponizing LSD is that it takes a while before there is any effect, probably an hour on average to get started.  However, our CIA guys, as usual, didn't think this through as just what the fuck do you think happens when you give LSD to someone with a .50 cal machine that fires tracers (i.e. you can see the bullets at night).  I'll tell you what you've got:  Jimi Hendrix "Machine Gun" in glorious living color.  Fortunately, most of the stuff they would try to shoot isn't really there ... but that's a problem if you happen to be wherever our trippin' gunner thinks the orange dinosaur with the flaming eyes is standing.





So our military geniuses turned their thoughts toward biological agents and the greatest tactical value isn't so much killing some number of the enemy troops but rather wounding or weakening them as that takes another soldier out of combat to take care of the one who is down.  They reviewed all manner of medical maladies and finally decided the best and most destructive biological weapon they could create would be one to create a stomach virus.  (RT: CIA Plan to Weaponize Stomach Virus Revealed by Edward Snowden)

Perhaps you think that's not serious enough for a military application but consider there is at least one soldier needed to care for the sick one as you're too weak to move from a stomach virus.  Even better, from a tactical standpoint, is the sick soldier will monopolize the lah-trine and that will affect the entire platoon.

Satisfied with the efficacy of the stomach virus biological agent, the next problem facing the Love Brothers of the CIA and DARPA was how to use it.  There was some consideration of an explosive but the range would be limited and thus the overall strategic impact would be limited.  Thus they settled on using aircraft but not for bombing, the contrails make a perfect cover for delivery and dispersal is as wide as the aircraft can fly only limited by the quantity of the agent it can carry but that is not a serious limitation for the military version of the Boeing 747.

When people get a stomach virus, it's almost always attributed to 'something I ate' but this, naturally, is what they want you to think and this is exactly what makes it such a perfect weapon.  The enemy can be attacked without any realization the attack took place.  Rather than putting girly sanctions on Russia, fly a 747 over Moscow and start releasing the agent into the contrails.  Russians wouldn't be able to fight as they would all be in the toilet.  Suddenly Vladimir Putin is riding a whole different horse and he has no idea why.

Obama banned use of the weapon during the current situation and that is yet another reason he should be impeached.  His decision was based on the negotiations in Poland to expand a kielbasa franchise as Obama wants to put more American military in Poland in case Russia ever expands beyond its borders.  It's never happened but Obama doesn't want to screw things up for Biden who is doing the negotiation and who loves kielbasa sausage, although, admittedly, not as much as Sean Hannity loves kielbasa ... but only when it's Rick Perry's kielbasa.  (Fox News: Sean Hannity Tearfully Confesses to Being Gay on Live TV)

We observe the effect of what the CIA and DARPA have done as there are random outbreaks of a stomach virus that affect a great many people and totally immobilizes them for one to two weeks.  This is due entirely because they haven't perfected the mechanism and some of the agent was accidentally released into the Jet Stream years ago and periodically comes to ground level based on random atmospheric events.

Many have accused the CIA of responsibility for AIDS / HIV but that was just a cover for what they were really doing with stomach viruses and ...

Excuse me, I'll be right back.

The Silas Texas Burger

There was never a Silas Texas Burger before now because I really don't like burgers all that much.  If I'm going to go to the trouble of cooking then I want something good like Indian or Chinese.

(Ed:  are you seriously saving you have never fried a burger before?)

Dat's a fack, Jack.

Here's another newsflash:  I've never fried a steak either.  I figured, what the hell, you can get a steak anywhere.  Besides, on this budget it's not a problem anyway.  There won't be a steak fry (sob) anytime soon.

I looked up the basic burger mix as I knew about the egg in a pound of burger but what else.  It also said you need 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  OK, got that.  Pepper is always good.  Then it wants 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  That ain't happening.  Salt is only for people who don't want to taste the food.  The kicker was that it said I need a 1/4 cup of bread crumbs.

There are no bread crumbs here.  It's a treat that there is even the burger meat.

So then I thought, hmm, what works like bread crumbs.  Then I found an old bag of cheese and garlic croutons.  Close enough, yes?  Right you are and I ground them up.  Presto, bread crumbs ... sort of.

Tip:  when you're poor, food expiration dates don't stay quite as interesting as they once were.  If it's there and it doesn't smell like it's gone off then you can eat it.  That worked fine for caveman ... although, admittedly, not so well for Neandertals.  Eventually this became a law in Leviticus so now no-one pays attention to it.

But this mix will only make a burger which tastes like all the other burgers which I know already are total suck sandwiches (unless they come from Kincaid's or Johnny Rocket's).

So.

A tablespoon of dried, shredded onion.  Yep, can't go wrong with onion.

But onion isn't enough without it's One True Love:  garlic.  So I figured half a teaspoon or so of minced garlic.

It didn't occur to me to use the Wooster sauce (it's spelled Worcestershire but English say 'wooster').  That could have given it a savory lift and a bit of Cholula hot sauce would have been a good addition as well.

Even so, not a bad burger.  My record still stands at only one meal I cooked that was so bad I wouldn't eat it.  (Admittedly, my standards are very low.)

The final test is I couldn't finish it as I don't hold all that much these days so the other half went to Tobey the Dog.  If he doesn't die then I'll pronounce it fit to eat and then I'll go on to find what Texans think of it.

(Brief pause to see if Tobey the Dog has his paws in the air outside.)

I can cheerfully report Tobey the Dog remains a non-deceased canine and he did eat all of it.  Either it will take longer to kill him ... and me ... or the burger mix is pronounced healthy.  Tobey the Dog's standards for culinary excellence are about the same as mine (i.e. low) so we share lots of meals and have about equal enthusiasm for them.