Raw Milk Sleepwalk Dream Post

I have no memory of writing this, but found these inane rantings saved on a random Notepad doc. I think I was sleep-walking one night and wrote this:

- The dairy industry wants raw milk stories buried because they want all people drinking only homogenized, pasteurized milk, of which they hold the monopoly. Raw milk is a far-healthier competitor, and the raw milk farms bring a lot of attention to the dangers, and nutritional worthlessness, or pasteurized milk. Lactose intolerant people, from what I've read, can consume raw milk. But this is something the big dairy industry wouldn't want getting into the mainstream, so bury bury bury...

- the big pharmeseutical industries would like this story buried as well, because they are often the ones responsible for adding drugs like rBGH into milk, a drug that makes the cows produce much more milk - while at the same time putting this drug into the milk for public consumption (and often causing difficulties like mastitis in cows.) Raw milk farmers don't use rBGH, so it's more money lost.

- The food industries that buy up all of the big milk industry milk wouldn't approve of this story as well, seeing how they need these big, mass-produced pasteurized farms for their milk. If a raw milk farm made headlines and got more attention as people's health started to improve from raw milk, that could mean more trouble with the public wanting them to use raw milk instead (for foods involving dairy: ice cream and what not, or even other food companies that incorporate creams into dinner entrees and what not.) Raw milk could make their operating costs more expensive.

- And of course, the Big Government would disaprove of raw milk news stories, since it could mean more cost for dairy for government workers, public school lunches, military meals, etc, etc...

I'm sure all of these industries are pals, and their big-wigs have council meetings to decide what to tell the AP to include in the news. Visualize a big round table with the following:

- Big Dairy industry executives
- Big pharmaseutical executives
- Big Food industry executives
- Government agents from the FDA
- AP agent that decides what stories to run

"Gentlemen, let us make sure that this raw milk story is buried. Someone contact Lindsay Lohan's agent and give him $50,000 in return for encouraging Lindsay to doing something stupid, dangerous and news-worthy! Oh, and be sure that the LAPD somehow connect this raw milk farmer with the fringe 'sovereignty' movement, so that law enforcement will crack down on him hard!"

For what it's worth, I'm not a raw milk drinker - but simply for the reason that I can't find it anywhere local. It's nearly impossible to come by. There's a farm a couple hours from here, but - and another reason I don't drink it - it runs like $10 a gallon. Which is a shame: I've tried it, and it's delicious. It's a shame that the government won't lessen the restrictions on the availability of raw milk, but then again, I don't expect things to change any time soon. The Powers that Be have seen to that.

From The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter

Rosie Thomas - Songbird

Hidden Beatles Faces in Avengers Alliance!

I have discovered the super-secretive Beatles faces in the Avengers Alliance Facebook life-draining game. Having just beaten some baddies in a bank, I couldn't help but notice that bags of money to the upper right look exactly like three of the Beatles heads! (wonder what the connection could be between the Beatles and massive bags of money?)

Anyhow, here... decide for yourself!

Texas

I love Texas, and yeah, there are some crazy things in this state sometimes. Consider...



If the shinola ever hits the fan, so to speak, and the power went out for a year, or the UN took over, I know that I'm embedded in one of the most secure places in the US (and that's just talking about my own subdivision). If marshall law was ever declared, I sure as heck wouldn't want to be in California, or New England, or some soppy, overtaxed liberal haven. Give me the heavily-armed neighbors any day of the week (everyone on my little Texas street makes no secret about their state of armament. It's amazing. I don't even own a gun, yet they've encouraged me to look into it. I don't know if I'm ready for that. I think I'd prefer a funkadelic bop gun...)

Texas is just awesome. Sure, it has it's septic parts, but you have to love a state that once was it's own country. With tough-as-nails characters like Sam Houston and Davy Crockett that make up our history... I mean, can places like Rhode Island even boast anything as remotely cool as the Alamo stand-off? Bah, the rest of the country cowers at the awesomeness that is Texas.

Cyclops Level 9

"Hey Rational, wasting a lot of time on that stupid Avengers Alliance game, eh?"
"Bah, don't bother me, cuz' Cyclops just hit level 9!"

Oh yeah, level 9. Bad guys are gonna pay for messin' with the mutants!


"Come on, generic thugs... you're no match for Cyclops level 9!"

"Get ready for Cyclops action!" ZAARKKK!!!



Dangit, I've got other stuff I should be working on...

LastFm turning into Pandora...

Looks like LastFm, my favorite internet radio for discovering new and interesting music, is now going the same crummy path as Pandora, and limiting the number of times you can skip tracks. Blah - it never used to be like that before, and now suddenly you can apparently only skip 6 tracks and hour. I'm used to skipping FAR MORE than that in an hour...

Why can’t I skip more than six times in an hour?
When you listen to Last.fm radio, there is a limit on the number of times you can skip tracks on each station. It’s a requirement of our licensing agreements that allow us to stream music legally.

If you ban a track, this also counts as a skip, because the banned track is skipped. If you ban a track when you have already reached your skip limit, the track will be banned as normal, but it will continue playing to the end.

If you find that you’re skipping a lot of tracks, you might want to try re-tuning to a different station, or try a multi artist or multi tag station.

Blah, I say. So now I have to use the Pandora method of having about 100 existing stations and when I burn out one station with 6 skips, move on to another. It works, but it's an obnoxious work-around. LastFm, believe it or not, there is actually a LOT OF BAD MUSIC out there that rightly deserves to be banned/skipped. Just listen to the 'chillwave' station for any amount of time and figure this out. Or the 'Neighborhood' option, which seems to pick the most strange and bizarre selections (for some reason the other day, LastFm fed me a death metal track called 'I'm proud of my demon'... Oh yeah, that fits with my music preferences...)

LastFm is far from perfect. The comments alone, and racy avatars, are enough to make this qualify for the K9 internet filter, plus users have no ability to block any of that. Same with radio selections: I'd be happy if there was a way to block any new music that contained the f-bomb anywhere in the title/album, but instead, if you go exploring new and different music there's no telling what you'll get.

Spotify has some potential, although the feed of new, random music isn't as good as LastFm. I like Spotify in that you can listen to the entirety of some very good albums, and just have to sit through a couple idiotic commericals. If LastFm makes more crummy changes like this, I'm going to give Spotify a lot more listening.

Frustrations with Avengers Alliance

Blasted Facebook has me hooked on the awful Avengers Alliance game. It's quite entertaining, if not perfect. Here are a few frustrating details of the game I've observed so far, that I'm going to vent about to myself:

The lousy gift-giving
Why can you only give one gift at a time per person? This used to be considerably higher, and now you can only give one gift at a time? Bah, me no like.

Freebie gold earning that doesn't work
Most of the things I try to sign up for, like surveys or email distributions, that supposedly offer free gold, either don't work, or they tell me I'm ineligible in my area. Bah!

The ridiculously-overpriced characters
I suppose this is part of the "sales and marketing" department, but making Captain America and Spiderman the most ridiculously overpriced characters is frustrating, when if you play as a freeloader like me and you don't waste the money buying gold, then you're left with cheapie characters are "Sue Storm." Bah.

Pointless prizes when visiting other friend's maps
You can add friends in the game and visit their cities, but when you click on various buildings for prizes, many of them are completely lame like "30 silver coins", which, when you're near level 30 in the game, is mostly worthless when most of your expenses are in the tens of thousands of silver coins. Suggestion: upgrade the prizes when visiting friend's screens when your character has leveled up.

Language and Innuendo
Come on Marvel, you're owned by Disney now. Keep the language clean in the between-battle dialog. Nick Fury is a grizzled old vet, I know, but you can mind his language a little.

It's also telling to me that Marvel has to capitalize on the more virtuous of the heroes for a game like this. For instance, where are the 'X-Statix' characters? Oh yeah, that book was awful, and all of the characters morally debase, so they get left out in place of more lovably characters like "Nightcrawler" who, although he sounds like an earth worm, at least was a character with more virtue than the Punisher (another Marvel character left out of this game.)

If you are looking for a good time-wasting avenue that requires wasting time that should be used for more productive endeavors, then check out Avengers Alliance. Yeah, it can be played well as a free-loader, but you will only be able to play for limited windows of time at once (limited energy) which is probably better, or I'd waste the whole day playing...

Ridiculous Policies at the County Animal Control

No one will bother reading this - just giving avenue to a vent. Went to the county animal control office today to look at cats, and here's what I can't figure out. They've got this ludicrous policy that if you want to adopt a cat, you shovel out nearly $40 (presumably paying for a set of shots or something? But what if you want the cat given shots and checks by your OWN vet?)

Here's my beef: this animal control office gets over 50 drop-offs of strays a day, and likely has to destroy a good number of these animals. So why wouldn't they offer casual, FREE adoptions to good homes? Just get the person to sign a document saying, "I promise to take good care of this kitty and make sure it get's the shots it needs and whatever." Versus cages packed with animals that people don't want to pay for, or can't afford, and then the animal control office has to waste the money on drugs to kill the unwanted animals, and has to pay for the cost to destroy the animal remains, as well as the massive waves of guilt that must naturally come from putting down unvolved animals. Seems utterly stupid that they would make it difficult for people to just pop in for free, casual adoptions.

Yeah, yeah, I'm probably missing something obvious, but if it's an old black cat sitting in a cage, and no one wants it, and I want it, but I don't want to pay them for it, why don't they just give it away, knowing that black cats are generally unpopular to begin with, that the adoption prospects are slim... and that with a constant influx of animals, they should do everything in their power to get cats and dogs out the door to people who want them, without charging ridiculous fees.

Whatever. Let them charge, let them make the process more difficult, and let them continue to pay to destroy animals. Stupid bureaucracy makes for the stupid destruction of animals that might otherwise find homes.

"Rational, you sayin' you too cheap to pay $40 for an old cat?"
"Yep, that's what I'm saying. I'd take it for free, give it a good home, lots of love, clean litter, shelter, shots - but don't make me pay you for a cat no one else wants. I'm saving YOU money by taking it off your hands. I'm doing you a favor, animal control. Review your policy. It's dumb."

Bob Ross Remixed