RPM’s Neighbors

Exxon Mobil Record Profits and Local Stations

nobody@vox.com(Kenya) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:15:09 -0500

Originally published at Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words.

Exxon Mobil Record Profits: Are the Local Stations Getting Any Of It?

Mobile post sent by KenyaOA using Utterz.Â

Replies.Â Â mp3

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It's Independence Day!

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:56:20 -0500

Stars

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Stupidest raccoon(s?) in the world + More Late Breaking Stupidity!!!

nobody@vox.com(Redzilla) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:02:57 -0500

You'll notice that this was posted at the bizarre hour of 4:00 am. Normally I would be asleep at this hour, but about 30 minutes ago, I was woken by a strange thumping noise. I rolled over, felt around myself and found both the cats sleeping. Not a cat. I got up and checked on Teeny Bun. To my relief I found him asleep, having eaten his fill of the Redzilla Guest House Salad Bar--fresh picked dandelion greens, clover, and lettuce. So I walked the house for a while until I heard a suspicious scuttling, scraping sound outside my office window.

Suddenly I remembered a possible source for the thumping: the brick I had placed on top of the sump pump well cover to block the raccoon-made hole and to weight it down. I grabbed a flashlight and ran outside. Around back, at the east* sump pump, what did I find?

A fucking raccoon, trying to get the cover off the sump pump well. Yes, a raccoon who wanted to make the eleven foot fall to NOTHING but the bottom of a pit. Grendel's mother? Another daredevil moron? Or the same? No way to know.

At any rate, I yelled at her and after a few moments of hesitation, she darted up the stairwell roof, over the garage, and away. I put the cover more firmly on the sump well and piled two big limestone rocks on top of it.

Jumping Christ on a Pogo Stick, what the fuck do those raccoons think is in the bottom of my sump well? There is, as far as I know, and according to my plumber, nothing at the bottom of the well except mud, a ceramic tile, a brand new sump pump, and about three inches of water. Did Grendel's grandpa leave a treasure map showing where all the loot from his days of banditry is buried and it's under my sump well? Did Grendel's mother accidentally drop her wedding ring down there? Does the sump well contain an entrance to Raccoon Paradise?

All I know is--I'm done. This weekend I am building an elaborate, heavy, critter-proof cover for my sump pump wells, possibly with a raccoon trap/alarm/deterrent that is not a rudely awakened me, shouting and waving a flashlight. Because I've had it with that shit. Another raccoon falls into my sump pump well and I'm going to go all Tony Montana on his ass.

Raccoon_solution

*Welcome to eastern Kansas. I have three sump pumps: east, west, and south.

Late Breaking Stupidity!!

Just as I was trying to go back to sleep, my phone rang, incoming text message. There was an off-chance it was Hubbicula, so I got up and checked it. It was an official "Campus Alert" from the university, telling me to use caution on campus, because a university student had been found dead...off campus. It also gave the name of the suspect in the case: Adolfo Garcia. Because that's the kind of shit I want to be notified of at 4:30 in the morning, after I've been out frolicking around fighting evil raccoons. Plus, I'm sorry, but this has all gone toooo far. Sure, in the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, where shootings were reported on campus, these cell phone alert systems are good.

They're not good when they're used to report on a single murder that happened off campus. They're not good when used to panic people at 4:30 in the morning. Hello! I was already using caution by trying to be safely asleep in bed! Really, what could possibly be the benefit of this particular alert? Thousands of university students, faculty, and staff woken from sleep to what purpose? Lie awake and worry? Check that their guns are loaded? (Ha! Not in cuddly, liberal Lawrence.) Check that their doors are locked?

There's no indication this is anything but a single murder. No suggestion that this guy is on a killing spree. Certainly no likelihood that he's on campus menacing students, who aren't even on campus at 4:30 in the morning, on a freaking national holiday. So, there you have it: university administrators as stupid as my raccoons.

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Oneness and Love

nobody@vox.com(lightandstorm) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:49:33 -0500

"And then the second one which is pretty much like the first, as he says, is 'love others as yourself.' Because once you see there is only one self, they are your self. So you're actually meeting yourself in another form, in the separateness. Now I suspect people here have had that experience. And it's one of love isn't it? When you meet yourself through the separateness in another form, it's love. Because love is how oneness feels. When you love someone, or when you love a place or thing or anything, it's because you're not separate from it."

-Tim Freke, from this video.

And the great thing is, being not separate from it doesn't seem to have anything to do with physical location...although it helps. I can be 2500 miles away from someone I love and yet talking on the phone with him, feeling the same things, we can feel completely united, as if there's nothing to separate us. The Kabbalists call this "equivalency of form", the idea that two things are united/the same not based on physical location but on the fact that they extend from the same spirit and invoke the same feelings. It's something I've felt many many times, especially while talking on the phone right after this very talk. :)

And it makes me feel incredibly happy and full of love. As if my heart is fluttering about in my chest. Because love is how oneness and complete unity feel. And I never want it to end.

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Music QotW: Song for America

nobody@vox.com(GinBaby) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:51:30 -0500

What's your favorite song with "America" or "USA" in the title? Bonus points if you share it with us.

I don't know if this is my absolute favorite, but what the hell? It has all the qualities you could want in a great 4th of July ditty: Love, violence, rhymes, defense of the purity of our native wimminz. All of it.

I was going to post an mp3, but this page is way too awesome not to link to. Enjoy! You have to, like, click there to find the actual answer to the QotW, mmmkay?

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now

nobody@vox.com(Abject) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:29:38 -0500

It's beautiful, it's fast and it lives with me now!

Now

RSV1000R

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Tweets For Today

nobody@vox.com((Fish)) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:10:38 -0500

21:19 Do I have bars? The power seems to be out all over the city #
09:08 I NEEEEED an In-n-Out Burger right now. Too bad the closest one is too far to justify the drive. Um...dare I say: I can haz cheezburger? #
11:35 Mmmm. Nothing tastes better than red Kool-Aide #
14:40 Making Ginger Simple Syrup to make Ginger Mojitos later. #
16:57 I swear I just spent the last 3 hours standing. Prepping and making mijitio pops and stuff for mojitos tonight. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

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Update to our motorcycle updates!

nobody@vox.com(Deborah) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:35:02 -0500

My "baby" the 125 red vino was loaded into a van and driven off to live in Monterey. :::waves:::
Whee... $4600 toward by NEW baby! I made the call for Ben's bike as he was just to anxious too leave the bike at the dealer any longer. That's when Greg told me they knew where my BIKE was. OMG. It is at an Aprilia storage facility. They are going there on their day off (4th of JULY) to pick up my bike! I had to ask the pressing question that's been plaguing me. "Is the seat cream color or black?" The one I saw online was cream and I fell in love with it. I did not want black, but I would have taken it. He said, " it's CREAM!" Happy dance! So we went down and got HIS new bike and paid for mine. I go in on SATURDAY and get my new sweet ride!

I've been looking at new helmets (and jackets) and am shifting toward the scorpion dahila products.

Jacket_dahlia

Helmet

I LOVE the tattoo flower look.. I think it would go good with the bike. Soon... soon... soon....

2008_Aprilia_Scarabeo_500IE

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They See Me Rollin’…

nobody@vox.com(Kirk) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:33:41 -0500

I woke up this morning and realized I had finally lost enough hair and gained the appropriate amount of wrinkles and self-loathing to qualify as being eligible for a full-blown mid-life crisis. Not knowing how else to deal with it, I did the only thing I’d ever been told to do when faced with the dilemma of impending old age…

…so, what do you peeps think of my new wheels? It’s a Lotus, baby!

Portrait of a Midlife Crisis

No. I didn't actually go out and spend $67,000 on a glorified go-kart. And if I did decide to buy myself a shiny new racecar, I certainly wouldn't have chosen one that was lemon-drop yellow.

But I did get to take a ride in this glossy beauty last week and while I definitely had a blast finding out what a Lotus Exige S capable of, I can’t really see why anyone would actually purchase one. It’s not that I don’t like sports cars or that I think it’s a bad idea to make a car out of plastic and aluminum; it’s just that for that kind of money, I would want something that didn’t feel like it might fly apart at any moment.

See, the manufacturer wanted the car to be as light as possible because it only holds a 4-cylinder engine. In order to get a four-banger to go from zero-to-sixty in four seconds, they needed to do some serious skimping somewhere. And since it is every bit as important for the car to be outwardly pretty as it is for it to haul ass, the interior is what ends up suffering the most. In other words, what the Lotus Exige S boasts in external beauty, it makes up for with a serious lack of anything resembling luxury on the inside*. Even things like personal comfort and painless entry/exit were thrown out the window in favor of getting the car down to its optimal racing weight.

It was an immensely satisfying drive, though. The seats may have been thin and cushionless and the engine may have been situated directly behind our heads, but that’s all fine when you’re rolling in such a sexy car. But as we were flying down I-5, I suddenly became acutely aware that we were being closely watched. By everyone. I chalked all the attention up to our ludicrous speed at first, but the stares didn’t stop even after we left the interstate and were just tooling along city streets. Fact is, everyone loves to look at an exotic car. It’s really unfortunate that most men who own such fine automobiles eventually convince themselves the looks are actually for them. But I digress.

What I want to impart to you with this post is that if you ever get a chance to roll in an exotic sports car, do take it, because someone paid an obscene amount of money for that ride and it just makes economical sense to take advantage of someone else’s ridiculous spending habits (and grab yourself a wicked adrenalin rush to boot), especially when Mr. Moneybags is outright asking you to.

Just don’t kid yourself. A sexy Lotus only makes you look attractive if you’ve already got it going on. If you’re 41 and balding like me, it just makes you look insecure and ripe for armed robbery.

*Not entirely true. They do come with a pretty nice Alpine stereo system.

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Bonne fête/Happy Birthday, Québec!

nobody@vox.com(brownamazon) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:15:10 -0500

Today was the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain.

Tens of thousands--tourists and locals--are whooping it up in this beautiful city tonight. And the party is going to go on all summer long. It's about a 5-6 hour drive from here; but Mr BA and I are going to try to get up there one weekend. It's one of the most beautiful cities in North America.

Quebec City

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