Last Chance Cafe

It's sad to say but it's time to let my subscription to the Wall Street Journal expire the next time it comes around on the jukebox. I made the switch from print to pixels long ago, but for the last few years I rarely get past the email alerts from my inbox. Maybe it's a sign of my deteriorating attention span, but the best newspaper on the market cannot hold my interest anymore. Worse, the once awe inspiring Economist has gone from challenging to baffling.

To know what 'everybody' is talking about, Drudge writes the juiciest headlines. For gossip, Michael Jackson bashing and the general state of Brittney Spears's panties FOX is the place (and for a click through to Perez Hilton).

All that's not to say I no longer hunger for serious news, as this particular post was inspired by 'click-through,' from Insta-> to Econolog -> to The New York Times to- seriously- an article I've seen written a hundred times: The Reading Habits of C.E.O.'s (successful people, entrepreneurs, Oprah, the Muppets- whatever.)

According to the Times these important personages enjoy 'books' and have private libraries. The secret ingredient? They buy 'hardcover' and 'rare' books. According to Econolog, research finds that if you discover a person with a collection of "hardback" books it indicates a certain level of superior wealth. Shocking, I say. I was heretofore blissfully unaware that rich people could indulge their personal interests. An easier and much more rapidly deduced indicator of success may be that Bentley parked out front. (The cynic wonders if the Times is blowing smoke up their rich C.E.O. asses in a bid for advertising scrap. Ah, there is no wonder anymore.)

This hard-hitting report doesn't exactly parallel my own experience. Well over half of my book purchases are for hardcover, including not-cheap items like la Fallaci's long out of print 'If the Sun Dies' or the rare (on this side of the pond) Franz Borkenau's 'The Spanish Cockpit' (alas I could find paper only, and it is of course best read with Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia'). These purchases are not made with spare bucks in my pocket, but when I have spare thoughts rattling around my brain with a desperate need for closure.

In fact, for my last hardcover purchase I managed to pay double the average selling price because of my location, and I had to use my long suffering credit card to do so. Years ago a small batch of first editions and signed copies did come in useful, when I was hungry, and I sold them to a certain shameless nameless book purveyor in the Hollywood Hills.

But mostly my obsession with hardbacks has cost me a small fortune in moving charges. The above mentioned collection cost me more to ship from New Jersey to California than I got from selling them. I would have never spent the unconscionable amount I did shipping my crap to Central America had it not been for my books.

In other words, personal experience has been that my hardcover fetish has helped keep me poor and stupid (thank you Mr. Luskin) as opposed to propelling me up the social ladder to be profiled as a smart-rich-guy in the Times.

What's sadder still is that my current emaciated collection (I shed as much as I could bear on my last move) wouldn't be able to help me out with lunch at the moment. My Harry Potter first editions (or my special edition Lord of the Rings DVD's) are not of much interest to the Spanish speaking locals or the gringo 'social security set' in my neighborhood.

To end on a tragic note, as Panama stubbornly refuses to not be hot, there will be no legitimate opportunity to burn my babies for warmth on a cold dark day. I will thus be ultimately denied a final enhancement to my carbon footprint, and my current life's effort to make Al Gore cry will have been in vain.

No, their fate is to be sold for pennies, for charity, to neuter the town's plentiful supply of stray dogs - once removed from the vicinity of my starved (and possibly dog-chewed) corpse. Serves all of them right I suppose.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:37 AM | Permalink

My friend Johnny from Costa Rica is in town to do the visa renewal thing, and I've been waiting all morning and now well into the afternoon for him to show up. I'm guessing by now the rude bastard is out on a walking or riding tour and has blown me off. This means I get to take it out on you, gentle reader, with another essay of penetrating insight into our mutual and equally rude friends; the jihadis.

The caption to this picture reads:

The assassination of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 by Islamic militants, a key moment in the development of jihadist groups. Photograph: Makram Gad Alkareem/AFP/Getty Images

Here's the article that goes along with it from the Guardian.

A short background:

You might remember Anwar Sadat as he shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for signing a peace treaty between their respective countries. Another prize winner, former American President Carter was said to be involved.

But after that it gets a little murkier with all the peace prize winning as one of the heroes of the 'anti-peace' initiative, indeed the not unsung hero of said jihadists named above, won a peace prize in 1994 after he was recognized for 'ending' the 'intifada,' a stone throwing fest for Palestinian youth that begun somewhere around 1987, Yasser Arafat.

Six short years later, shortly after another historic 'peace' process involving yet another American President, Yasser's kids threw away their stones and began using their own bodies as bombs to initiate the so-called 'second intifada,' which seems to currently be on hiatus since the Israelis had a wall built to keep them from exploding around the women and children. Mr. Arafat has since gone onto his just rewards in the afterlife.

I reference the article and the photo above because it shows two things. First is that it shows Muslim on Muslim/ Arab on Arab violence by people upset that Sadat was making it harder for them to blame the Jews for their sorry lot in life; the second is that the anger toward Americans has always been because they have tried to make peace, not war.

The subject of the article, in keeping with our recent news theme of medical jihadis, is Sayid Imam al-Sharif:

, 57, […] the founder and first emir (commander) of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, whose supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later teamed up with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet occupation.

Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of "Dr Fadl", is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists' "bible" - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden's deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.

But the Guardian presents a man-bites-dog story here as Dr. Fadl has written a book in prison renouncing his former murdering ways, and now criticizing those of his legion followers. Isn't that special? The name of his soon to be published 100 page book is:

Advice Regarding the Conduct of Jihadist Action in Egypt and the World.

The tome is a product of a jailhouse "counter-radicalisation programme" popular with Arab regimes. Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordan all have them, and they grant special privileges to those jihadis that participate.

Before everybody in the West gets all a twitter about it all, these programs were instituted by the regimes because of domestic terrorism. In Egypt the big success is in getting written "25 volumes of revisions in a series called Tashih al-Mafahim (Corrections of Concepts)" by former members of:

the Gama'a Islamiyya (Islamic Group), once the largest jihadist organisation in the Arab world, and which mounted countless armed attacks starting in the 1980s until calling a ceasefire after massacring 62 foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997.

Diaa Rashwan, of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies claims the program is a success because "there has not been a jihadi incident in the Nile Valley since Luxor." Of course the rubes trying to make a buck out near the Red Sea may disagree with his assessment. And in Cairo.

But, as with most things in the Middle East we can only expect baby steps, and baby steps they are as these 'revisions' are basically 'opinions' of current 'interpretations' of "Islamic law." Anybody can issue opinion, as Dr. Fadl demonstrated with his original Egyptian "bible." That he's taking it back is important, but it's also important to understand why. Of the previously released 25 volumes:

Their authors are neither secular nor liberal: their self-criticism includes observations that the wrong path to jihad benefits only the Jews, the US and Egypt's Christian minority.

We wouldn't want that now, would we?

Posted by petefredbob at 03:19 PM | Permalink

One of the weird things you get used to living in a third world country is the power outage. We're on number four in the past two days, and this past week has contained at least three others. Last night I was at the bar next door eating (bad) pizza when the lights went out. It was kind of fun as I followed the bartender on duty as he ran, flashlight in hand to go start the ancient generator.

By ancient I mean he had to start it by hand cranking, while another patron worked what I think was the choke. I think- because I also think it's a diesel and I don't know how those contraptions operate. I went back to my pizza and was reflecting on events when it struck me that I didn't turn off the computer in the house. At almost the same moment the bartender pointed to the streetlights. The outage had lasted less than five minutes.

I did a quick calculation as to whether the UPS would last that long followed by a mental shrug, as there was nothing to be done about it anyway. It did bring home again how precarious my expensive electronic gear's existence is as I just two days ago regained use of this laptop by some means that continues to escape me.

I can hear the generator from next-door chugging away in the background from one window and the birds and other critters making their noises through the one closest to me. The delivery trucks pulling up to deliver stuff to the mini market seem louder as does the banter from their drivers. When the grid is down it's easier to feel where we are, in a small valley up near the top of the mountain, cut through by streams and rivers, bugs, birds and big rocks spit out by the volcano long ago.

I can hear a dog barking like crazy somewhere up the hill. I was confronted by a dog the other night while I was walking to the main supermarket in town. A few times in my life I've been surrounded by dogs. They seem all too easily to revert, even after thousands of years of domestication, to the ancient pack mentality. There are nights I've experienced in both Costa Rica and Panama where there is just a feeling in the air that the dogs are out. That feeling is also thousands of years in the making.

I felt it the other night and less than a hundred yards from my house I saw a large black dog looking up at me from a few blocks away. It was easy to change my course after one bark, and he didn't come after me. A few blocks on I imagined I saw another, though he didn't see me, and I kept on the main road. I had to cut across town to get to the market and it put me on the road in front of the firehouse, which, for some reason is devoid of streetlights.

I felt a chill before I heard the dog come skidding to a stop alongside of me. About the only thing in my experience that I've come to count on in these encounters is that they won't usually attack you from behind. They seem to need to see your face, or at least your eyes, first. With more than one it's the big dog that gets this face time, the rest spread around the sides according to pecking order, and the smallest one is relegated to the rear to nip at your heels.

I glanced sideways to check out his size and he was small enough to throw if it came down to it. I've learned to never break stride, cross my arms so as not to give them something dangling to latch onto and never look at them directly for more than a moment at a time, especially not in the eyes. It lasted about twenty seconds until I got into the light coming from the supermarket and he backed off.

Last night in the dark, while watching Luis get the generator started I was bumped from behind by the big Golden Lab that my landlord keeps along with her Rottweilers. The dog has a big solid head and he was trying to push me out of the way so he could see what was going on. Sometimes on a Saturday night after payday I'll find him tied up at the bottom of my stairs to keep the drunks on their toes.

Posted by petefredbob at 01:50 PM | Permalink

I have my say on the Harry Potter series over on Little Sheila's Book Fetish blog.

I manage to fit in Hugo Chavez, Libya, torture and rape, economics, AIDS, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife and manage to make the review all about me without touching a single plotline or character out of the entire seven book series. And I criticize the critics all in under 600 words.

How do I do it?

Posted by petefredbob at 10:12 AM | Permalink

The fabulous Phil Beecher, Mac Wizard of Boquete stopped by the house this morning as he was in the neighborhood. He asked if he could fiddle around with the laptop and having no better answer told him to go ahead. We took apart the back and reseated the ram chip and nothing seemed to happen.

There was a CD stuck in the drive and as we were yakking and pressing on various stuff that you can press on a computer he managed to make it eject. Then- the damned thing booted.

I've rebooted once, but I've yet to shut it down completely, which is the thing I did before it died. I'll save that for tonight.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:55 PM | Permalink

I can't seem to get the video link to work from FOX's website, but it has the most amusing segment on Manuel Noriega, former president and all around knucklehead of my adopted Panama.

I never quite understood the specifics of how we justified snatching him in the first place, but snatch him we did, and very few Panamanians want him back. A couple of weeks ago I was in a famous gringo bar in David and was poking fun at one of the bartenders about Noriega wanting to come home. Wrong move- as he intimated that were any number of Panamanians to get their hands on him they'd chop him in little pieces and feed him to the dogs.

My Spanish not being all that swift I caught bits of 'he killed my brother' flying around, though whether it was a friend like a brother, or his actual brother, I couldn't tell. The other day I was at Amigos discussing a local landowner (gossiping quite frankly) and he was accused of being a Noriega supporter. This is not a very well liked person. The gist of it was that were Manuel to come back to Panama everyone expects him to eventually insinuate himself back into the power structure.

Which brings me back to the FOX video. In it his current lawyer said he could "guarantee" that Noriega would do no such thing. I laughed out loud at either his naiveté or the outright whopper, as were Noriega to come 'home' to enjoy his grandchildren there exists a network of his 'death eaters' (small as it may be) ready to resume their place in the hot Panama sun. If what the bartender told me is true, there's also a group ready with machetes to make sure that doesn't happen.

Let's hope so.

Posted by petefredbob at 02:25 PM | Permalink

My Mother got exercised once when I was young when my grandfather showed me a book (or I found it and opened it) containing photos of piled bodies from the WWII death camps in Europe. It must have been the late sixties or so and Mom pitched a fit. Grandpa didn't back down though, and I can remember the look on his face as he stared into mine- he wanted me to get it, to remember.

They were black and white photos, small, the book was a paperback, and quite abstract for my young mind. But I do remember.

Writing this it comes to mind how I felt when I heard about what was going on in Rwanda. It was current at the time, happening while it was being described, and I burned at the fact that we- The United States- were doing nothing about it. I didn't understand why, and I didn't know how I could do anything about it.

There have been other similar events for me, but I came to accept that alone, I couldn't do anything about them, and I started paying attention to government and politics to try and understand these things. Later I started paying attention to the press.

The blogosphere has been an enlightenment for me. I'm not any happier, I still can't do much except spout off on my blog, but at least I can do that small part, as much as it annoys some people.

Today I learned that it is the 55th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto from Ron Coleman's blog (via Instapundit). He makes a bold statement that I sadly have to agree with:

If we knew then what we know now, about the mass killings, the gas chambers, the sick human experimentation, the crematoria — if we knew it were going on right now …

America, and the rest of the world, would not do a damned thing about it.

It's a short post, it'll take maybe a minute, and I dare you to read it.

Obama said last week that even if genocide ensued if we left Iraq before it was ready, he would be OK with it. John Kerry said last week that when we left Vietnam nothing big happened. Others have said similar things, intimating that these kinds of events- murder on a mind boggling scale- are inevitable, if they really ever happened at all. People still quote Mao, venerate Stalin as a leader.

What is mind boggling to me is that these politicians are actually supported by the same folks who would piss right down their leg if they witnessed an old growth tree being chopped down. Killing a tree gets them tremulous, but the mass slaughter of humans can't get their attention.

Where do you stand?

Posted by petefredbob at 10:26 PM | Permalink

I know I should be working or at least reading my Harry Potter book, but my public service duties intrude:

They finally figured out what to charge algore's punk kid with.

Al Gore III, 24, faces two felony counts of drug possession, two misdemeanor counts of drug possession without a prescription and one misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, the district attorney's office said in a statement. Gore also was charged with a traffic infraction for allegedly driving faster than 100 mph....

In addition to [140 pills of] Vicodin, officers found Xanax, Valium, Soma, and Adderall as well as a small amount of marijuana.

Sooo..... this was all for personal use I take it? Anyone want to guess why 'intent to distribute' wasn't amongst the charges?

Gore is the youngest of Tipper and Al Gore's four children. He now lives in Los Angeles and is an associate publisher of GOOD, a magazine about philanthropy and aimed at young people.

Remember you 'young people,' it's GOOD to give your recreational drug money to the algores. They certainly know how to put on a show.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:53 AM | Permalink

The San Francisco Court of Appeals has ordered Shell to "cease all operations" in furtherance of its offshore oil exploration north of Alaska.

Opponents contend that the Minerals Management Service approved Shell's plan without fully considering that a large spill would harm marine mammals, including bowhead and beluga whales.

Considering that only a moron would believe that Shell hasn't spent millions on environmental impact statements and filed mountains of documents to any number of government agencies, the phrase "without fully considering" must have some sort of esoteric linguistic meaning that the average mortal cannot fully comprehend.

And some people still seem to wonder why their gas bill keeps going up and why we're still dependent on foreign oil.

Hey wait! Isn't Cheney President for a day today? Hmmmm.........

Posted by petefredbob at 10:44 AM | Permalink

I got the email this morning and called the local book purveyor. Cover price only. That's 36 bucks for all you Amazon citizens paying half that. This would need to be a command decision on the spot. Do I really need this Now? If I wait it will be all over the internet and the newspapers PDQ, so the urge was definitely there.

I missed the Mexican restaurant last night by two minutes so I lit out of here shortly after seven. The ladies were in high spirits and they had guacamole. I went with pork quesadillas and went to town with the guac, sour cream and hot sauce.

I casually strolled past the bookstore where I found two balloons and a whiteboard announcing the event. There were two desultory looking customers, long faces at the thin selection and too old to be early for the "release festivities" promised in the email. I left for Amigos to wait.

The place had youngsters in tonight, girls not long out of high school with their Friday night frocks and tight jeans. The young bartender's girlfriend was there splitting her time between leaning across the bar and yakking on her cell phone. One of the old gringos caught himself a live one, even if she did come equipped with a substantially heavier friend.

The crowd washed in and out and at one point I found myself alone on one side of the patio, while the other side was borrowing chairs. I thought about shifting over but I had this strange picture in my mind that it would make the place completely out of balance and it would tilt the joint. I thought about the fact that I was altering a simple, yet frozen lemonade into a potion outside the accepted norms of standard mixology, and was jolted from my reverie by Lisa.

Lisa was on a high coming from some kind of make-it-up-as-you-go thing on stage up the road a bit at another Boquete hotspot. Apparently still in character she grabbed me by the arm and went into her bit. My brain sputtered into motion and witty repartee ensued. I think. Ultimately I risked the imbalance and dragged my chair to the other side to exercise my meager social skills.

11:30-ish rolled around and I bid my farewells to the regulars. Decision time was coming, although the fact that I had my credit card with me was pushing me in a familiar direction. I was almost a little disappointed with the crowd at the bookstore, it consisting of the two owners, three kids, and two guys the same hue of said kids standing outside the door that I took for their handlers.

That feeling disappeared pretty quickly as the young 'uns launched into vivid descriptions of the available potions available for my Potter Punch. Three small plastic containers of food coloring variously claimed to be dragon's blood, mermaid's skin and monster boogers were on offer, along with something that came in a clear glass bottle with a familiar red lable behind the counter. I went with dragon's blood.

Turns out they're Brits of Indian descent touring Central America with family. Whilst covering geography and languages and, of course, Harry Potter, with the tykes I slipped my credit card to the girl at the counter and had her run it just to be sure. It would be embarrassing to come up short at midnight and it would give me a chance to scoot home for cash, or to hide, for the unveiling. The machine spit out the receipt, so very shortly I would become uber geek, sorry, make that uber dweeb of Chiriqui Provence.

I was going to go with simple photos instead of a longish post as it turns out, but the kids all had evil red eyes in the photos and I'm sure they're not from Slythrerin house. I've just spent hours downloading photo editing software, and the .Net Framework upgrades needed to run it, and now the .Net security upgrades. I'm only on number two of six installs for the latter and it's three AM. I sorely miss my Mac and my Photoshop. Time to see if I can gulp down a chapter before I drop.

Saturday afternoon after using paint.net to get the red out:

Posted by petefredbob at 03:12 AM | Permalink

More often than the times when I wonder where my common sense goes, I wonder where our keeper's common sense resides. As long as this imbalance remains, at least in my mind, it is my excuse to write and criticize.

Today's Atlanta Journal Constitution again feeds my ego by reporting on a study that proves the obvious:

Study: Anti-smoking ads have opposite effect on teens

By ANDREA JONES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/19/07
The more exposure middle school students have to anti-smoking ads, the more likely they are to smoke, according to a new University of Georgia study.

Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor at UGA, found that many anti-smoking ad campaigns have the opposite effect on teenagers, backfiring because they actually encourage the rebellious nature of youth.

"They don't want to hear what they should do or not do," Paek said. Instead, she said, ads should focus on convincing teens their friends are heeding the anti-smoking warning because peer pressure has the most direct effect.

Paek and co-author Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined surveys from 1,700 middle school students about their exposure to anti-smoking ads and their intention to smoke. The study will be published in the August issue of the journal "Communication Research."

The study is the latest in a string of research showing that anti-smoking campaigns often have ad little to no impact on teens. In 2002, a study commissioned by an anti-smoking foundation found tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris' youth anti-smoking campaign was making students more likely to smoke.

Paek said the data showed middle school students are more like to be influenced by the perception of what their friends are doing, and that anti-smoking campaigns should be more focused on peer relations.

"Rather than saying, 'don't smoke,' it is better to say, "your friends are listening to this message and not smoking," she said. "It doesn't really matter what their peers are actually doing."

As a favorite family expression from my youth would have it, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

Of course the comments are full of the usual suspects.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:39 AM | Permalink

I managed to watch this earlier in the day and not comment on it, but I've just read some commentary on it and just for the 'education' of my liberal and Democrat friends I'm now posting the link. Twice.

I've occasionally been embarrassed by things George Bush has said, the whole looking into Putin's soul thing comes immediately to mind, but if I were a righteous person I'd get down on my knees every day and thank baby Jesus that John Kerry never fooled enough people to get into the White House.

In a nutshell the clip is a very respectful Kerry voter calling into C-SPAN and asking the 'man with the hat' whether we could "force" the Iraqi government to have another vote and include the Sunnis in a more robust manner (remember, many Sunnis boycotted the last two elections, the first more so than the second) and with the opinion that Iraqi President Maliki is not on our side and that "he needs to be replaced."

Now I won't even start to get into the mindset of the caller, who seems to be confused on a number of fronts, but in the preface to her question to Kerry at least she has the presence of mind to refer to the problems associated with us leaving Vietnam, mentions the boat people and says she'd "really hate to go off and leave our allies” [in Iraq].

But to Kerry it's a mere bag of shells, as according to Mr. Heinz:

"Everyone predicted a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There were reeducation camps, and they weren't pretty, and nobody likes that kind of outcome, but on the other hand I've met a lot of people today who were in those 'education' camps who are thriving in the Vietnam of today."

Emphasis mine, as if it needed emphasis. Remember kids, education, reeducation, it doesn't matter as long as you remember that it's only us that kill, and our enemies would thrive and live in gingerbread houses if we'd only leave them alone. Putz.

Just to be even clearer, read this award winning story from the Orange County Register for a quick review of the Vietnamese reeducation camps.

Hat tip Don Surber and Instapundit.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:32 PM | Permalink

I'm lazing around in my underwear (again) and I hear a knock at the door downstairs. I lift the shade and look down to see two semi-attractive young women at the door. The first thought is maybe they heard that I'm trying to open a place here (I've already interviewed one bartender) and are looking for work. Not motivated. Then the thought occurs, "they are semi-reasonably hot." I grab my clothes.

Poke my head out and they ask if they can talk to me, and wave a slick Watchtower type tract on glossy paper at me. Thanks but no thanks as I have my own very well thought out views on God and religion and the whole bit- and the type of organization that these chickadees belong to. I don't like scientology either. The silent one (there always seems to be the 'talker' and the 'watcher') had a look on her face which was a cross between horror and sorrow, though for me or her own self I couldn't tell. The talker kept her glazy smile throughout.

Before I even shut the door and started to piss about how they made me put on my pants for nothing, the thought occurred that 'Christ it must have cost a pretty penny to print that shit.' A whole pile of Indians could eat on that, and statistic-wise there was a 90% chance that knocking on my door, in this country, would reveal a Catholic of some stripe. They're trying to convert Catholics? I'd like to see numbers on the conversion rate for that one.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:50 AM | Permalink

I waited all day yesterday for the electric company that never came. I couldn't find much to bitch about though as laying about and not putting stress on my back seemed to be the way to go. The other morning while making coffee I coughed and my back popped. It comes in threes they say, first the flu, then the tooth and now the back. Am I bitching? Nah. It's all good, and I made a new friend this morning.

Meet Holly, pronounced oh-lee. Or the regular way, with a lengthening of the 'o', depending on the speaker's exposure to ingles.

He (she? My exposure to farm animals has been minimal, but it sure 'looked' like a 'he' during the bathroom break) is about a month old and came by to visit today. I did my best horse whispering and we bonded a bit.

I don't know why I do these things, but for those of you who can't get enough, a short clip of Holly eating some grass (which act was met with much approval from the owners. Holly's mom died during the birth).

Posted by petefredbob at 11:05 AM | Permalink

The weekend has come and gone and at the moment I'm waiting for the electric company to come and install the second line for 240 volts to the house. It was back in April, as I consult the wayback machine, that the 'first' electrician knocked holes in the wall and generally made a mess of things, but as things tend to go in America Central there were- difficulties. The primary one being that I needed another electrician to complete and fix what the first one started.

My better half took a break from her used car salesman duties and came down from San Jose for a couple of days to add her signature to a couple of documents and preside over yet another inspection, and by all appearances it is a 'go.'

Daryl and his other brothers Daryl as per par didn’t make it yesterday to continue clearing the jungle out back. They stopped by last week while I was out front doing something or other and pretty much begged for work for the three of them. After showing them the yard and explaining to them what needed to be done we started back toward the front of the house and one brother espied the sink outside the back door. He approached it as if it was something he had heard about but never seen in person before. After consulting for a moment with Daryl, he twisted the valve, observed the water magically appearing for a moment, and proceeded to sate himself. If they ever do show up I promise photos, as you just can't make this stuff up.

Speaking of photos, on Sunday the little lady and I had fun watching and listening to the die hard drunks attempting the journey home. One in particular was having issues, and he made it as far as the front of my house before he gave up. His exasperated buddy finally left him there in the gutter.

The view from my front door through the plant. You can just see the blue on the other side.

Needless to say the side of the road isn't all it's cracked up to be as a resting place, yet our trooper was there for most of the day.

Around 2 or so our subject felt the call of nature through his dreams, and got up to wander to the other side of the road to answer. It was an epic journey with many false starts, but as we don't have all that much traffic here, he made it and proceeded to spend a good five minutes watering the ground on the other side. Having spent an evening or two in an equally intoxicated state it was amusing, but not surprising, when somewhere inside his cranium the command decision was made to take another nap right where he had just relieved himself.

That concludes our personal update and cultural broadcast for the day.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Link of the day: They go fast.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Camera and car sale.

It's come down to it. You all knew the car was up for sale, but as it's taking a long time to do so the camera has to go on the block as well. The car is in San Jose, Costa Rica, has well over 20 grand in parts and labor over the past two years. As is, delivered in Costa Rica- $8,000 or best serious offer. Particulars: Loaded '84 Mercedes 500 SEC.

Sales pitch for the Mercedes: Be the new Cauldillo in the Central Valley. Park anywhere you want- just like the most arrogant Tico. Traffic lights are optional in the car that el Presidente used to pick up free hookers at the Del Rey.

For you crazy Patrick Swayze Roadhouse fans this is a dream come true (OK, his was an '89 560, but most Central Americans can't tell the difference).

The camera is here in Panama, but as I'm due for a trip back to the States soon anyway, serious offers will be considered and I'll deliver it to either the Miami or Houston airports (gotta pay in advance for those options) or pick it up in the Los Angeles area. Photos are here.

Sales pitch for camera: Trying out for junior reporter for the Daily Planet? Want a leg up on that Olsen fella? Then plunk down a couple of grand on this reporter's kit that includes reporter's vest, two camera bags, tripod, monopod, Canon 20D with extra battery and grip for extended fieldwork, wide angle lens to capture all those dirty mugs at the secret rendezvous, flash and mid-range zoom for those indoor social functions and a long 400mm for those Brittney nip-slips from across the canyon.

At $2,500 the glass alone is worth this much.

Go here for particulars of the entire package.

This concludes our daily bleg broadcast.

Update Aug. 2: Thanks to Scott the divemaster in David the camera equipment has been sold. No thanks to some jackoff in Florida who claimed he wanted my wide angle lens I got less money for the kit. When it says Craigslist/ Panama you can be reasonably assured the item is in Panama. If you want to see pictures it would serve to click the link for the damned pictures.

Anyway, Scott is soon to be off to Chile as soon as he sells off the rest of the crap from his business and I wish him luck with his new junior reporter kit. In a week or so I'll be visiting San Jose and my car (and la vieja of course). It'll be nice to drive the beast again (the car, the car) but selling it would be better. If it would only stop raining.

Posted by petefredbob at 09:38 AM | Permalink

Just another sane reason to ignore or ridicule globalic warmeningmongers such as pseudo-science teacher alGore Trout and their ilk.

Daily pint of milk 'can prevent strokes'

Over the years, we've been hoodwinked by the nutrition police into thinking all fat in food is bad fat.

I will never forgive the rat bastards that subjected me unawares to a photo of Janet Reno with a 'milk moustache.'

Posted by petefredbob at 09:26 AM | Permalink

Two resignations in two days, Bruce Bartlett and and Jeff Goldstein.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:57 AM | Permalink

Just a link to a Cold Fury rant. War-politics-defeat; if you like that kind of thing. Mike asks if he's correct in his assessment of the 'pattern.' Regrettably, I think he is.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:27 AM | Permalink

So I still have my tooth. As I no longer am experiencing pain and my body is chock-full of antibiotics and as the x-ray doesn't show a problem, we're leaving it alone for now. My jaw is still a little sore, but I managed to eat pancakes and eggs for lunch at Amigos without sending myself into a howling fit. The fact that I still have two more pills in case something goes south in the night gives me some semblance of peace of mind.

It turned out to be a nice meeting, we discussed the amount of work and money that went into fixing the tooth last year, and my two days of intense research into narcotics and whiskey as pain relief. Most dentists in the US use some form of narcotic in prescription from Tylenol 3 to Vicadin to much stronger stuff for major problems. Here in Panama they tend to shy away from that stuff, but we went through her book of available drugs from the local distributor and picked out something nice. If nothing else I might have saved some poor bastard in the future from suffering needlessly.

She doled me out some special 'sensitive' toothpaste and some kind of gel to rub on my gums and charged me ten bucks for the two visits and x-ray. I finally asked her what the extraction would have cost and she told me twenty, no more than forty if there were complications. That's my kind of dentist's bill. Which brings to mind the best chiropractor I ever had, Dr. John in Burbank.

Considering that half the town works for Disney and the other half is dedicated to keeping those employees awash in tacos and margaritas, Doctor John will take your insurance, but if you don't have any he'll take $35 cash per visit. That'll barely get you lunch at the Smokehouse or that other place at the corner of Verdugo and Olive (the name of which escapes me but I remember the steak, ummm.) Drop a comment and I'll dig up his number.

The saga continues.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:55 PM | Permalink

It's thirty minutes to extraction time and I'm suffering doubt. The tooth hasn't hurt all day so far and the temptation is to forget about it until it does. It's one of the few bad things about not remembering pain. You're forced to use logic and reason to convince yourself that by purposefully inflicting more pain, i.e., the extraction; you will suffer less pain in the long run. It's eventually got to come out, or be re-root canalled, and with our luck it will all start at the most inconvenient time. So off I go.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:40 PM | Permalink

It's not because 'anyone' believes that Live Earth is in any way shape or form going to help the environment or anything, but that 'so many' do, that has me quasi-depressed. I'm saying this as someone who for the last three days has endured a severe amount of physical pain, and as of this night has imbibed more whiskey and codeine laden pills than is normally thought of as prudent (not 'very' laden at 50 mg's each, but tonight's six Johnny Walkers have me questioning the fact that I'm blogging).

If I hadn't seen such mass delusional behavior before I might actually 'be' depressed, but as it's business as usual I am just happy to let my jaw drop where it will and pick it up when I have the time. Full disclosure: I watched about five minutes of the 'Police' on the interweb, buffering and all, and I guess you had to have been there. Jaded; maybe, stoopid; not this Jersey boy. Somebody please put that man out of his misery before he does real damage. I'll pay what I can when I'm sober.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:17 PM | Permalink

I've gone through all of my pain pills but one, which I'm eyeing at this moment. They were supposed to last me until Tuesday morning. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory is what I found on the web about them, kind of like ibuprofen, only way more expensive. Eighteen bucks for eight of them. If the doc won't give me anything stronger today I'll be wolfing down handfuls of Advil to get to sleep tonight.

I tried to remember when was the last time I'd felt pain like this, if ever, and I remembered back to the early nineties when I had a similar tooth problem. I remember walking, in some degree of heat, from near the corner of Sunset and La Brea to Crescent Heights and Third. I remember thinking that I knew the walk would eventually end, and that shortly afterward the pain would stop.

At the time I had dutifully been doing my studies of metaphysics and whatnot over at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz (I was in to the Kabala before Madonna was out of her underwear. What, she's still in her underwear? And Rabbi Berg is still a fraud? Who knew?) and I remember trying exercises in my head to try and isolate the sensation. After I got to the dentist's office and signed in I sat down I closed my eyes and imagined going to the source of the pain. I imagined traveling there and settling right into its source, and 'embracing' the pain.

It worked, and afterward I got into the big chair and had the thing yanked, and I talked the doctor into letting me have the then black and offensive item. I buried it according to some ritual I had picked up (remember my mystical state of mind) and went back to my life, albeit for a short time exploring the new hole in my jaw with my tongue. All this came back to me last night as I popped pill number six.

No Jedi mind tricks of this nature wanted to work. The only consistent experience was that when I stood up and walked around, the pain started to subside. It helped to try and think of other things as well; imaginary conversations, whatever, any kind of distraction. I found that the pain came back especially strong when I just lay down quickly, which led me to experimenting with the concept. I started a series of sitting, standing, reclining moves. I got to sleep within the hour.

While writing that last bit I took a reckless swig of warm (not hot) coffee, and as the liquid washed over my tooth it stood me up. I instinctively went right to the freezer and got an ice cube to rub on my face. It's time to try and get the doc on the phone, which should be a neat trick as it's Sunday.

Minutes later: I'm off to the pharmacy for something else I've never heard of in a 100 mg version.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:22 AM | Permalink

Well that was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. The aspirin stopped working around 2 AM. I had just finished my nightly four episodes of 24 a little after one, and I took the final three 500 mg aspirin tablets that I was hoping to save for the morning. I hate leaving the house before I've had coffee, but it was a small price to pay for sleeping through the night. The buzzing in my head had started, which meant some kind of infection was happening. It was like the noise you get when you drink too much, but not enough to pass out, only now the room wasn't spinning.

I must have rolled over on my right side, putting pressure on my cheek, and I sat bolt upright. And the pain started rotating from the top row of teeth to the bottom. I don't know about most people but for some, including me, we get ghost, or shadow pain. Meaning the problem could be with one tooth, but the pain seems to be coming from another. I was pretty sure I knew which was the offending party, but now the whole side of my face was on fire.

I was up and down twice before I stumbled upon the idea of warm salt water. I remembered from my youth that I had rinsed with that combination for one reason or another, and as I was out of aspirin and it was now around 3 AM, it was the only option that made any kind of sense. The buzzing was like a full-on industrial park now, and I was losing my hearing. I knew that because when I went to light a cigarette I barely heard the lighter. I had to concentrate to hear the hum of the refrigerator.

I heated the water, poured it into a cup with salt, mixed, and swished. That one act told me one thing, exactly which tooth was delivering the pain. I was right about which one it was. About a year ago I had my first root canal, maybe my second now that I think about it. I had always figured that if you are going to kill the tooth, and it is going to come out eventually anyway, why go through the bother? Just have it yanked. Faster, cheaper, less pain. I don't know why I agreed, but it had something to do with the dentist wanting to put a crown on it and my girlfriend's ex is a dentist. She swears by them. So I did it.

It involved going to another dentist, who took two appointments to dig out all the nerves. It was excruciating, and for some reason I never got the idea that she got all of the roots. I went back to the other doctor for the crown, and he had problems getting it on. It was too big and it wouldn't fit right. He finally got it on there, but I began to have problems at night grinding my teeth, and it always felt like it moved. Floss would get torn up when I pulled it through. The fact that I now had a problem was not in the least surprising to me.

So it went all night, sit up, wait for the pain to work its way to where it was going to be, lay my head back down, sit bolt upright. I must have passed out around six. At seven-thirty the tile guy knocked on the door asking for the key for downstairs. I could have killed him. I laid back down for about thirty seconds before it came clear that sleep was not going to work, not in the least. By eight-thirty I found out that the one dentist I had a recommendation to was out of town, but the cleaning staff told me about another one by the bakery.

Nice doctor, good looking, and she studied in Guadalajara. We talked about one of the local Mexican restaurants and the fact that the owner was also a Panamanian woman that lived for some years in that same city in Mexico. She gave me three prescriptions, two for the pain (one being an injection) and strong antibiotics, as we're going to do the extraction on Tuesday. A week and a half ago my landlady had given me an injection for the flu, and my ass still was sore. There was a clinic around the corner that would do it for $2. I bought the scrips and headed to the clinic.

I dropped trou, and waited for what seemed like five minutes for the fluid to be injected. It hurt worse than the landlady. I got to my feet and walked out to the counter to pay, and as I laid my two bucks on the counter, everything went gray. I started cursing and headed for one of the chairs. It got dimmer, and I called out to the assistant, and two of them came over and kept me from falling to the floor. I scared the shit out of one of the other patients, an older white woman who was there for an exam.

After a bit they escorted me back into the room, gave me oxygen and took my blood pressure, which was close to, I don't know, it was low. I started to feel better, then I started to feel the pain in my tooth, and was not looking forward to the rest of the day. Twenty minutes later I staggered onto the street, met two drunks who bummed smokes from me, and limped home, only occasionally reaching back to rub my ass where the shot had gone in. I'm about ready to see if I can get some shuteye, and wanted to get this out first. The pain is barely there, but the buzzing is still omnipresent. Should be fun.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:41 AM | Permalink

Did nothing today but vacuum the house. This is actually a bit more complicated than it sounds as the wood floor here is separated; meaning that the individual wood slats have space between them. I typically do this by sitting down on the floor with that long-nose nozzle thing and map out sections.

My current abode is small, and my things are many, which means I also move a lot of stuff. It also means that while I'm down there I do get into those corners and under pieces of furniture that would otherwise wait for one of those big spring-cleaning type of moves. It helps keep the spider population in check, even if they supposedly do eat the 'bad' bugs. Did you ever see spiders hatching? There seems to be thousands of the tiny little things running all around at once. I prefer them in the vacuum.

One of the reasons I'm not a very well read blogger (meaning that not a lot of people read me, not that I don't read- I think) is that I don't comment much on other blogs, which is supposed to drive traffic your way. I don't know why, I just feel funny about it. I think one of the reasons why I started blogging in the first place was my reluctance to comment. I wanted to say something, but I didn't feel right putting my opinion on somebody else's site. Or I already just agreed with them and what was I going to say? "Hey, I agree with you!" Sort of like the Limbaugh ditto-heads. So here I still am.

But I have been trying to do more commenting instead of just eating the free candy. I posted today on Jane Galt's asymmetrical information blog about my experience with laser eye surgery. I was two days late getting to her July Fourth post but I did it anyway. I left my email, which I don't think she publishes, but I didn't leave the url for this site. Again, weird, but I didn't feel like advertising my site on her dime. And yeah, I know that she provides a space for it so it's OK, but… my psycho quirk.

I like Moxie too, kind of a cute bomb thrower out of L.A. with good legs in the Anne Coulter mold. She links to me as well but I have real trouble wanting to comment there. At least part of that is the pretty girl syndrome, meaning that I don't want her to think that I'm just commenting and linking to here because I want to get somewhere (though because I am genetically male it is biologically impossible to avoid those kind if thoughts). A couple of weeks ago I decided I might call in to this 'blog talk radio' thing that she does now, mostly with Steve from Hog On Ice. They sounded like they could use some help. I got her show's Skype info from the btr site and clicked the button so as to exchange information. She never got back to me.

Though I lived for years in L.A. the only place I really met any local bloggers was at L.A. Press Club functions. I hate feeling like a suck-up, unless it's paying well, or at least paying.

But despite that I have met some of the blog kids in person. Met Kaus at some UCLA function early on, Ken Layne and Mat Welch (been to both their houses), hooked up with Glenn Reynolds on a drive through Tennessee (he may also have been with Kaus at UCLA, I forget) as well as a few other L.A. locals like Luke at LYT Rules and Advice GoddessAmy Alkon (it's all about the hair). Also spent some time with Andrew Breitbart. Cool guy. My big regret was not meeting Cathy Seipp (R.I.P.), though I have a dim recollection of being in the same room with her somewhere. I also had some small correspondence with Stephen den Beste before he gave up his fascinating site.

Last week I finally commented on my favorite Panamanian site panama after hours. It's a pretty hilarious take on the country by 'cojito,' a gambling gringo ex-pat. My luck of course is that he's back in the States for the time being so no chance of hanging out at the local dive bars, brothels and casinos for now.

So what am I going on about? I don't know, maybe feeling sorry for myself at the moment for my lack of commenters, or maybe I don't have anything else I feel like writing about and guilty about not having anything to post. I'm so bored with politics it hurts. The old lady's still in San Jose having no luck selling the car, the bar opening is delayed at least another month, I don't feel like hanging out with a bunch of Canadians at Amigos and I have a toothache- which means I'll need a dentist pdq when the aspirin stops working.

Probably all of the above, though the good news is that I've started a short story. I don't know how it's going to turn out yet, but it's about a guy named Pete who gets lost in the jungle of Panama, on purpose, and there's a woman involved. Maybe more than one. Hmmmm. Maybe that will kick start my readership.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:26 PM | Permalink

Happy Fourth of July from Panama!

Knock on the door this morning was the guy with one bad eye. He wandered by yesterday and commented on my laying of the slate tile that I reclaimed a couple of weeks ago. Roughly translated, "hey, nice job gringo, but if you pay me to do that it will be better for the both of us." Considering that laying tile, mixing cement and other masonry type skills never made it into my repertoire I had to agree with him.

That's the weird thing about Panama, everybody is a do it yourselfer, everybody has simple handyman skills that they rent out at need, kind of like political opinions. Professionals however are hard to find and tend to be expensive. Ego-wise, for a guy like that me that has a smattering of knowledge of most (other) things construction, pretty much anything I do is on a par with the locals. If your walls are plumb, square and level you are a master technician.

This time though I knew my work wouldn't survive the first real rainstorm. As I'm a curiosity around here, and the terrazzo is pretty much my welcome mat, my humbleness wasn’t all that hard to dig up in this case. Like I tell all the workers that ask for jobs I said he should come back tomorrow. The return rate runs about 10 to 1 in favor of they'd rather be somewhere else when the time comes to clock in. I figure this saves me the bother of having to fix half-assed jobs that I could do better myself.

So in a rare show of responsibility Blinky showed up today and off we went to the supply store to order up some cement and sand. Another thing you may find about Panama is that no matter what your driving habits are, with the exception perhaps of our Asian friends in Koreatown, you are likely qualified to be a driving instructor here. This was demonstrated to me once again this morning on the above-mentioned trip to get the materials.

I've been in high speed crashes and cop chases, in taxis and busses on dangerous mountain passes in the third world and the passenger of many a drunken driver, but it takes a special talent to frighten me at low speed. Blinky got it done without even trying. But, we made it back and he's got a level, a bucket and a trowel.

As the work is ongoing as we speak, I'll reserve comment on the outcome, especially as it looks like rain today, which may require a return engagement for Blinky to finish the job. I just might yet find myself learning the joys of mixing cement on the morrow.

Posted by petefredbob at 08:54 AM | Permalink