StoryTelling

     I am fascinated by a lot of things. Movies, good television, bad television, good books, well crafted toys and collectables. Good Myths. My birds, Sam's birds, geese, birds in general. I write these chronicles so that I may share these things.

     That was the easy part of the post. Hang on, it gets bumpy. Those of you who are less interested might want unfasten your seat-belts and disembark out the window when we slow for the turn. We are going straight for the edge of the map. There be monsters ahead.

this is a female egret- you know what that means

     For those still on board, congrats on your courage and your curiosity. Those two qualities started every worthwhile endeavor, ever. I want folks like you in my world. The significance of that is that I also am starting to accept what people I can do without.

     I have walked this earth a few years, and driven it more years, and during that time, I have tried for the attention of a number of people who fascinated me, some blood relatives, some not. I tell my stories. I tell my jokes. I tell other people's jokes and stories.

     Unfortunately, often as not, I get a semi-polite period of feigned interest, while they search for a distraction. This has the effect of making me try harder. See diagram(below)

Tell story

>

(      )

<

Get ignored

     Here's the bumpy part

}}}===>I AM WORTH MORE.<==={{{

     I am worth your time, your attention, your focus. 

     Or you are not worth mine.

      The coming time marks me trying to break the cycle described and illustrated above. I need to start seeing the clay footprints left by those whose time I crave, and to accept the fact that those footprints are going to be hell to get out of the carpet. I need to focus on positive relationships rather than trying to bargain with and accommodate the assassins of my self-esteem. 

     There will come a time, not today, probably not next week, but someday, when all that is left of me are these blog posts, and whatever stories you have of me. My focus is to make memories with those who wish to remember me.

     If you are asking yourself... does this apply to me...?

     The answer is that it does, but the way it applies is up to you.

     

This is what Mr Smith wants, this is what I want. I am Mr Smith.

Four Wheeled Icons

    We can't help but love the car. It's mystique is etched deep into American culture. From the deep and reverential awe we feel for "lost roads" and the path less traveled, to the loud and exploitative car chases in film, to the downright silly ( like driving two houses down in L.A. Story). The throaty roar of a V8 draining another oil well dry is a siren song. 

     We all have a car we love, whether it's the car we learned in, or the car we remember our parents driving, that carefully maintained machine dad waxed every weekend rain or shine. For me, there is a rusty spot in my heart which holds the memory of a 1963 Ford Fairlane station wagon with sagging rear leaf springs and an appalling thirst for gasoline. I gave her up when the frame cracked, but still dream her sometimes.

This isn't her, but is what she would have looked like restored, and fully horizontal
rather than angled by the bad leaf springs.
Oh, and mine never had the passenger side mirror

    In among all these dads cars and sentimental Chevy and Toyota commercials, there are a few that imprinted deep on me, for their significance in the media I like. Some you can't miss, some you might puzzle over.

          1966 gave us a horrific bit of camp, a modified Lincoln Futura with fins and these lines:

Robin: Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed.

Batman: Roger. Ready to move out.

ma-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-BATMAN!

there is a ton of Lore on this car, but I found this page Illuminating, particularly the initial cost of the car

In 1979, we got treated to a country beat and two good ole' boys in a 1969 orange dodge charger. Over 200 Dodge Chargers became considerably rarer over a series of crazy stunts and crazier plot twists in seven seasons of "The Dukes of Hazzard". With Narration and commentary by country legend Waylon Jennings, it's worth a second or third watch. Sort of like Little House with V8s

Someday the mountain might get 'em
but the law never will

1983 saw the release of ZZTop's Eliminator Album. This hot wheels car still conjures images of Bearded men, Scantily clad women and heavy guitar music. It should be noted that the hot wheels car with this Deco differs from the actual ZZTop custom by a year, and the Eliminator did not have the open side panels for the engine

Gimme all your Lovin

1983 also gave us another beautiful red classic car, but with a far more sinister bent behind it. The book was definitely more chilling than the movie, but the movie was scary enough, Christine was a 1958 Plymouth Fury which could kill, heal herself of damage, and take over her driver, driving him to the depths of obsession 

Ain't she Sweet???

After that. we were fortunate that 1984 gave us the cure for a supernatural car...a 1959 Cadillac Ambulance that carried the Ghostbusters to their work. Ecto-1 never drove on it's own, or pulled any major stunts, but it was distinctive, and Bad-ass.

Saving the day

1985 gave us an elderly scientist defying the flow of time and "doing it with Style". Doc Browns DeLorean skimmed from 1885 to 2015 , always managing, against incredible odds, to make the quantum leap back to where it started from

Promise me we'll be Back in Time

in 2005, Black was the new Black, and tank was the new Batmobile. Christopher Nolan gave us a grittier, "real world" Batman, and a mobile arsenal rather than a classic hot rod. The Tumbler is my second favorite of all the incarnations of the Batmobile. Low and menacing, semi-unearthly, and somehow "crouched".

Evolved

Also in 2005, Classic came back, and it came back in black. Dean's "baby"with a trunk full of monster-killing weapons and two brothers, and the road so far. This model is so detailed you can see the Kansas license plate on the back, although it unfortunately lacks the spotlights mounted on the doorframes

The most important object in the universe

and as a bonus...

The Fast and the Blurrious

      IfIwerewritingthispostinBlurrsvoiceitwouldlooklikethisso I won't.

      The TFWiki says this about him:

Blurr is positively and incontrovertibly without possibility of any doubt the fastest-thinking, fastest-talking and fastest-driving data courier and messenger from the planet of Cybertron, and if you or your friend or anybody else you know or anybody else you might not know or in fact anybody at all wants to send any kind of message or dispatch or parcel or data or in fact anything at all to any base or station or out-of-the-way depot, barracks, headquarters, outpost, or post office and it is absolutely essential to deliver it immediately or at the earliest opportunity and without any delay of any kind regardless of Decepticons or obstacles or foul weather or gloom of night then Blurr's the one to pick, sir, so just give him the good word and the item in question and Blurr is off like a Cybertronic race horse, if there were such a thing as a Cybertronic race horse, and if such a beast was able to break the sound barrier on land and leave only dust clouds and lingering after-images, because Blurr leaves only dust clouds and lingering after images, but he'll be off that quickly with your message in hand, and if any hostile power or enemy or Decepticon ambush should get in the way then he'll hit them with a blast from his electro-laser which will reverse the polarity of their microcircuits and they'll be stopped. Dead.

     Voiced by the Fast-Talking Pitchman John Moschitta Blurr was a fun character in the 1986 movie and the third season of G1. here and there, he has gotten an update, and you know me...I will show you the versions I have. 

     Oh, and the title of this post was almost "Blurred Lines" lucky escape, eh?

G1 Blurr from 1985 with his original stickers intact

Animated and Generations(Classic)
Generations is a mold-mate to Drift

There is a certain graceful charm to the animated version,
but he doesn't really have a neo-G1 Aesthetic, not for my collection at least

and Generations doesn't quite click for me either

Which is why I sweated

Plotted

Agonized

and Succumbed to SXS "Overclocking"

Of Course, He looks nothing like G1 Blurr...

Not a Thing

Nothing at All

There is a thread on Seibertron with a lot of feelings on this figure... Too big, Not G1 enough, not masterpiece enough. All I know is he works for me, and looks good on my shelf

I Done Scrooowed It Up

     So my post on Defensor...I had Groove Placed wrong, upside down, and mistransformed.

this has been corrected

Get Nervous

   I deal with irrational anxiety a lot. I leave the house, leaving Tango at home, and start to fret. I convince myself, against all reason, that I left something dangerous, or left his cage open, or somehow something will happen while I am away, to take this precious life from me. I know where it comes from, but knowing does not make the thoughts any easier to banish, nor does knowing he is healthy, happy and well fed.

      This is the tip of my iceberg. I have talked before about how I can easily become convinced the car is about shot. I can also turn a brief period of no contact into a lifetime rift, complete with catastrophic conversations that l know will happen exactly as I envision them despite all evidence to follow. I have, in fact killed relationships with these freakouts. That is, I become convinced that the person is dodging me, and escalate to inappropriate responses

     This is not easy to talk about. It feels embarrassing, emasculating... it feels like shit you don't discuss, as a man. You just suppress it, grease it up with motor oil and swallow it down deep. You pack it down with bacon and move on. And you die strong and they put up a statue to your manliness somewhere... in a garage or something. with a floor drain 

     I deal... not great. I tend to comment inappropriately, crack jokes, tell stories. Make pop culture references. So much so, that it's become people's expectation, and I live to exceed expectations.

     So here is my moment of brutal confession. Read or don't, sympathize or give me the boot. This will not be the first, or the last moment of real interspersed among the toy pictures

The Best Offense...

     .....Is a good Defense. And the best defense is Defensor, clearly.

     Another in that category titled toys I never had as a kid, Defensor was a combiner formed out of the Protectobots. They were five(now six) emergency and police vehicles, as follows

• Hot Spot (fire truck)
• Streetwise (police car)
• Blades (rescue helicopter)
• Groove (police motorcycle)
• First Aid (ambulance)
• Rook (S.W.A.T. vehicle)

     Here is what the TF Wiki says about Defensor:

The combined form of the five Protectobots Defensor exists specifically to safeguard human life. In many ways he feels about the human race the way a parent would their children and he would give his life away in an instant rather than let one human come to harm. Defensor is emotionally attached to humans on a level that sometimes worries his fellow Autobots. He identifies with them the same way a sheep dog would with its flock or a puppy with its human owners. As far as Defensor is concerned the humans are his "kind." Sadly the titanic robot giant's attempts at personal interaction and friendly exchanges with humans tend to fail. We humans tend to be more wary and frightened of his alien nature and great size than Defensor can understand. Despite this, Defensor is fairly well adjusted mentally compared to almost every other contemporary gestalt

Hot Spot

Streetwise, Shafted on TFWiki

Blades

Groove

First Aid

Rook, So named due to his tendency to stand in corners and move only in straight lines
(I think it's short for "Rookie")
that makes more sense...

And All together now...

This is intended as Parroty

The Last Cage of Pompeii

     Some time ago when I bought Tangos new cage, I had no idea what I was committing, and how incredibly unsafe the cage was.

     It's only now, as I watch Tango weave his way carefully around the evershifting pattern of danger that I can admit to myself the terrible truth.

THE CAGE BARS ARE LAVA.

And the pattern keeps changing. Sometimes he will have to go all the way around the left side just to safely get to the door. Sometimes the right side is safe, but only parts of it.

     I can't see the lava. It is evidently only perceptible to the heightened senses of a conure. I know it's there by his reaction. After all, this couldn't just be some elaborate game to avoid being bored... could it?

Conurefax

     I guess this is sort of a wishful thinking post. Some stuff I wish existed. Things that would be helpful to bird people. We have Obamacare, no matter how you feel about it and which side of the issue you are on.

     What I would like to see is ObamaBird- Parrot vouchers for food, vet, housing, even purchases of another bird within reason. I would like to walk into the pet store and say..."I'd like this parrot. I will be using Obamabird vouchers to buy him."

     But that's not the really Important service... not by a long shot.


      What I would really like to see id ConureFax; Put in the band number, and get the report: It makes that used bird purchase just that much smoother. and with a little work, we can expand this to other types of parrots as well.


2011 Conure
Band: 
Species:
Body: 
Color Morph: 
Summary/History:



Prior Owner:
Diet/Junk Food: 
Vocabulary/Profanity:
Tricks/Skills:
Health Issues: 
Last Vet Check: 

Independence 2015

     How do I feel about being an American...

     I don't feel ashamed. We do some dumbass stuff, but so does everyone. There is not a country on this planet that doesn't screw up from time to time, just sometimes in a better accent.

     I guess I feel that we are always a work in progress. But this country was founded on the greatest ideals ever conceived- Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness. Not guaranteed, just the opportunity, the right to pursue your personal happiness, without infringing too much on anyone else. Freedom of expression, but try not to be 100% a dick about it.

     Last post I talked about the stars and bars, the rebel battle flag. I believe people should have the right to express themselves with the rebel battle flag, Old Glory, their state flag, a flag with the T.A.R.D.I.S. on it, the rebel flag from Star Wars OR the Imperial insignia, A rainbow flag or whatever best expresses them as an individual. The trick here, is that it's about personal freedom and personal responsibility. This nation, this grand country, this amazing experiment has room for Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, Every-ist-you-can-imagine, and it has room for those people to dialogue and hold discourse on what makes them different, what makes them the same, and what makes us all great.Whether we were lucky enough to be born here, or lucky enough to immigrate legally, or lucky enough to sneak across the border in the dead of a moonless night, what we owe America is this: Be the best you can be. Help those you can help to be the best they can be. They call America the land of opportunity, and it is. Here, you can believe it, and be it. Just remember to give back to everyone else, and don't tread on them. Remember that every right you have as an American comes with a matching responsibility. Free speech, don't be a dick with it. Second amendment...learn how to aim. And so forth.

     Go out this holiday, and every day, and just be the best American you can be. Wherever you happen to live, whatever state, or whatever country. Bring whatever is best about your country and come to the melting pot.