I would like to see one of you “West Coast Seattle Boys (or Girls)” design a talking blog (or if it’s possible to do sound-byte posts tell me how?)….. I have lots of posts I want to make and not enough time in my day to put all of them to paper and pen, although I do know how to type (without looking at the keyboard yet! – two points for being skilled…), it’s still very time consuming (for me anyway) to get across what I want to say with the right emotion and detail….. Something I could say in less than 60 seconds audio might take an hour to write getting the phrasing and emphasis to work right on the page…. Somehow, in my case anyway, the process of translating what I would say vocally onto the page is a painful process and I usually end up doing rewrite after rewrite and it still doesn’t seem to have the same impact….. Maybe I should be a radio talk show host….. Man, I have loads of respect for writers, especially novelists….

So-o-o, let’s here the pros and cons of a “Talking Blog”….. Let’s get that “Great White North Think Tank” up and running, eh?, and tell me if I’m a Smeghead or just being lazy….. I’m getting a log-jam back-up of posts just sitting in my brain waiting to irriate someone (it’s my job) and not enough time to get them out to the public……

Maybe someone could furnish me a “Temporary Secretary” on a permanent basis?….. There would be qualifications to be met…… On second thought, my writing output might go down if that happened….

Test…. 1…. 2….. Can you hear me in the back?…. Testing….. Ouch!….. Better ground that @3x%&z mike……

Have you ever met a dumb rocket scientist?…..

People always say, “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.”…… Actually, there’s only one job where you do have to be smart as a rocket scientist — being a rocket scientist…….

One more thought it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to think: Whom do rocket scientists refer to when they want to imply that they’re not as smart as someone else?….. You don’t have to be a supervisor of rocket scientists to figure that out……

This one’s aimed at all the “Mr. Smith’s” out there….. I saw this on “Hogan’s Heroes” once when Col. Klink was swamped with paperwork….Hogan told him that when he worked in the Penagon and became bogged down in paperwork, he would just attach a note stating, “To the attention of Col. John Smith” and he was never overworked again…. Klink’s reply was,” What, send all his German paperwork to the attention of Col. John Smith at the Pentagon?”…. Hogan laughed and replied,” No, no – send it to Col. Johann Schmitt”…. Klink replied that would be stupid, but he did it anyway as soon as Hogan left the room and in the next scene Klink was humming and polishing his empty desk…. I found the orgins of this entitled:

“The Business of Stupidity and Vice Versa” (True story)

Before Charles Lamb became a successful writer, he worked as a clerk for the India Company in England…. Detesting the job, Lamb devised a clever way to arrive late each day, leave early, and still process more files than other hard-working clerks…. He took every fourth file, unopened, and attached a note, referring the matter to “Mr. Smith.” Lamb didn’t know who Mr. Smith was…. He simply assumed that in a company that large, there would be several Smiths….. The strategy worked so well that none of the Smith files were ever returned…..

The Smiths sure have a heavy burden to endure. 😉

In 1991, the Boston University commencement speaker admitted that he had copied part of his address word for word from a magazine article……. The speaker was the head of school’s Journalism Department, where student reporters and editors were taught not to plagiarize!……..

In 1999, the CIA sold off twenty-five old lap-top computers……. Then agency managers remembered that agents had forgotten to erase secret data from the hard drives before putting them up for sale…….

Nice………

This post is actually not mine….. It was came to me by way of Anon (forwarded from one of his friends) with the notation that,” It was something I might use on the Blog”…. I replied to him that he should just post it under his own name and proceeded to explain to him how to write a post and enter it without re-typing by “copy” and “paste”….. Here was his reply: “What the hell are you talking about? Dashboards are on cars. Post is at the post office. And I haven’t “pasted” since grade school.”

I think everyone should be interested in and worried about the outrageousness of the content, so I decided, with Anon’s permission to post the following:…..

Let’s hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!)…. Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs….

The person who provided this information is Sharon L. Davis, Budget Analyst, U.S. Department of Commerce out of the Washington, DC Federal offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries.

In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. The chart below speaks for itself:

Celebrex 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasec 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809%

Zithromax 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor 40 mg
Consumer price (1! 00 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone knew should know about this….. Please read the following and pass it on…. It pays to shop around…. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen’s on every corner……

Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies….. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more….. Yes,that’s not a typo…..three thousand percent!….. So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so,but,i n this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves!…..

For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills….. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are “saving” $20…. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!….

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs…. I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price….. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices…. I was appalled….. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients…. I used the generic eq! uivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS…….. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89….. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57….. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08…..

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a “membership” type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance….. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true, I went there this past Thursday and asked them)….. Pass this on for all of you lucky enough to have a Costco nearby……

“Being in politics is like being a football coach”, Senator Eugene McCarthy said. “You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”

A friend asked me for suggestions on buying a sub $1000 PC music recording system. What I suggested certainly is not the cheapest option, but it should deliver very good results.

• Steinberg Cubase SL3 — recording software

  Musician’s Friend has Cubase SL3 for $300. The main reason I like it over Sonar is that it has this nifty feature called Cycle Recording. Cycle Recording allows you to record several takes of a performance and then select the bits out of each take that you like. In the end, you get a single take that’s made of the best parts of the actual takes. That is a great feature for a hack like me. 8) Otherwise, most of the other features are comparable. Cubase requires at least an 800MHz processor. It comes with both a PC and a Mac CD, in case you move to Mac in the future.

• Echo Layla3G — recording hardware

  I looked through the last 6 or 7 Keyboard magazines, but they didn’t focus much on recording gear. I currently have an ancient Layla by Echo that has served me very well, so if the updated version is near the quality of the old one, I recommend it. It has 8 analog ins (2 that auto-sense mic, guitar, or line level), 8 analog outs, a stereo headphone out, and a variety of digital I/O. You need an available PCI slot. Musician’s Friend has the Layla3G for $500.

Does anyone have music recording gear suggestions?

Nope, no mis-spelling…… This is from the liner notes of the album that would be my answer to the old question of,”If you were stranded on a deserted island with no hope of rescue and you had your choice of only one music album to listen to, what would it be?”…..

I’d be interested in other people’s choices – BUT, there are parameters: (1) Only individual albums by a single group….. (2) Can be more than one record/disc if the album was originally issued that way, BUT, (3) No “Greatest Hits”, “Various Artists”, or compilations….. Definitely (4) No 500 song MP3 discs…. (5) You MUST like EVERY track on the album – The only way the album can be played is from start to finish – No skipping tracks….., And, (6) It must give you the same tingly, goose-bumpy, spirit-lifting feeling every time – just like the first time you ever heard it…… Makes that coconut soup taste great!….. S-o-o-o, give it a lot of thought….. Not just an “off-hand” answer, or the latest album you’ve just been listening to….. Let’s see if we can come up with a list of “Kick-Butt” music and check-out everybody’s musical tastes at the same time…..

Talkin’ ’bout the album I selected…. I was goin’ to make a guessin’ game…. Yeah, Tellin’ ’bout the album I decided….. To you I’m sure it’s all insane…
(Sung to the tune of “Midnight Rambler”, the song from which I took my user name, “MRambler”…. Before the web, BBS’s, and the internet, I used it as my “handle” on the CB…. Tellin’ my age now…)

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the album is Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones…. Please click on the link and at least read the first two spotlight reviews….. I think you will find them interesting to say the least…..

I personally have listened to this album hundreds of times and it still raises the old goose-bumps everytime and meets all the parameters I specified above….. Every song is great and there are a vast number of guest musicians including a fellow Oklahoman, Byron Berline who plays Fiddle on the countrified version of their hit “Honky Tonk Woman” which is named “Country Honk” on the album…..

According to what I heard, Byron recorded his part on a street corner and the car honking that you hear in the song was a natural occurance and was left in the recording….. Byron moved back to Oklahoma in ’95, settled in Guthrie, and now owns and runs The DoubleStop FiddleShop and Music Hall…. He most recently played the memorial concert last Friday (22APR05) for the Oklahoma City Bombing…. Check out the links, he’s played with the best and has lots of great albums available with his band….

I have an old UK Decca vinyl copy of “Let It Bleed” that I’m going to dig out and hopefully get him to autograph it for me…..

“THIS RECORD SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD” – another liner note in large bold type…….

True story – Saw it today on the news……. It seems even Penguins have to walk (waddle) through the metal detectors at airport security now……. They were removed from their cages and then required to waddle through the detectors on their own….. I must admit it was amusing to watch and I guess they had to take off their shoes too, as they were bare-footed……. No alarms were set off, so I guess they weren’t terrorists or high-jackers…….

If our security checks are getting this thorough, I’d say it’s safer than ever to fly the friendly skies…..

On a previous post entitled Military Unintelligence huskysooner and I discussed some smaller military weapons…….

Since huskysooner is the “Weather Dude” of this blog, this question is for him (or anyone who wants to chime in)…… Would a large artillery shell fired into an active tornado cause an explosion that could disrupt the air flow sufficiently enough to “kill” the tornado?……. Some of these tornadoes travel well over 50-90 miles and are on the ground many hours, plenty of time to zero-in an artillery piece…… Seems the destruction caused by the big gun would be a lot less than the destruction that is being caused by the tornado…….

Take the May 3, 1999 tornado in Oklahoma…… If this idea is/was feasible, that tornado could have been “Killed” before it hit the Moore/OKC/Midwest City area where most of the devastation took place…….

Just another crazy idea from yours truly or is it?…….

We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?…….

— Lee Iacocca, automotive business executive

I must admit that this blog is a useful entity not only as a public forum but also as a educational tool. In refrence to my thread on gas I have been enlightened as to the way that the economy works and how the energy policies and procedures are decided and implemented.
Who says that you can’t teach an old dogg [sic] new tricks.
Thanx Jek and M.R.

Why in the world do we still have samples of a deadly flu that was supposedly eliminated over forty years ago?……. It killled over 50 million people in the 1950’s….. …..And, in such quantities that they able to send them to almost every lab (over 4,000 in all) around the world (18 countries including the U.S.)!……. By a simple paperwork foul-up?……. There has to be more to this story than my favorite people (the “News Media”) are telling us……

The lab that did this just put anyone born after 1968 in grave danger in a matter of minutes……. Luckily, (maybe I hope) we have smart enough people on the receiving-end to identify and destory it as ordered……

We don’t have to worry about terrorist’s “doin’ us in”…… It looks like we are more than capable of doing it ourselves!…… Where is good old “Common Sense” when you need it…… I guess it has the flu!………

Is failure a sign of a subpar intelligence?…….

For too long people have been telling you that you’re a failure just because you fail…… Don’t let all that negativity get you down…… Failure is a humanitarian response…… If you don’t fail, someone else has to……. Each time you fail, you give them a chance to succeed……. You’re a nice guy……. Remember, if at first you don’t succeed, you may have found a lifestyle you can live with…..