A Quiet Week in the Hills

A quiet week in the hills

Found another arrowhead while picking up trash that was blowing around in the wind. Can’t tell what type it is because it is triangular, but is very pretty white quartz with rose tinges and finely worked. It is translucent if you hold it up to the light. I found a type that is a fair match called Matamoros but they are normally found in Texas and Mexico so could be wrong.

For those in need of a day off with no vacation days left, we are often left with the only choice of calling in sick and using up a sick day. However if you are not really sick, it is not always easy to dream up some sickness that could have come on so suddenly (as in since you left work last) and could clear up in time for you to get to work the next day. So I came up with a list of some of the more common ridiculous diseases, with their proper medical names.

Thermocanis digitii (The fearful Hot Dog Fingers syndrome)

Coproliquidus vehemens (Violent explosive diarrhea)

Rufus Puga (the horrifying Red Ass disease, often the result of a bad week at work though also common among the prison community)

Vomitoeructo evomopulta (Projectile vomit)

Ebreitus crapula (hangover)

Temelentus vinolentus (too drunk to come in to work, often leads to Ebreitus crapula)

Desipio fatuus (acting the ass)

Exanimis clunis (dead ass syndrome, often seen among fellow workers)

Fulvus suffuscus nasutum (the awful Brown Nose disease, also frequently seen in the workplace)

Gryllus guinis (crotch crickets)

Inguen pruriginis (crotch itch)

Inflolabiosii (balloon lips)

Poplitis manii(ham hands)

Podus huperdasus (hairy palms, or hairy flat of the feet* had to use Greek as the Latin was too easy to figure out in English)

Dormito inertis (to lazy to get out of bed)

Piscatus febrisis (fishing fever)

Venationis febrisis (hunting fever)

Aurum febrisis (gold fever, particularly incurable disease of prospectors and treasure hunters, also known as Delirium Aurum)

Emacatis amentis (shopping crazy, also known as Mall Fever)

There are many more, but this list should suffice; however a warning is in order here – be sure that the boss and no one in the personnel department knows Latin or Greek before using any of these excuses. In some cases like hunting or fishing if you are caught you could claim that you were being honest, just using the correct medical terminology! I accept no responsibility for your being fired, demoted or docked in pay so you’re on your own!

More tools for Big Brother in the works

A brief news item from the New Scientist magazine tells of the exciting advances made in mind reading by machine, quote”

Tapping into vision, thoughts and dreams

Your mind's eye may soon be offering more than just private viewings - are you ready to see your dream on the screen, asks New Scientist

Premium

* 04 May 2006

* Douglas Fox

* Magazine issue 2550

BLEE-blee-bleeping saturates my earplugs. I cannot speak or shift my head a millimetre. I am not even supposed to move my eyes.

Lying here in a narrow tube, I am isolated except for a mirror tilted above my face. Reflected in it I see a computer screen with a grid of criss-crossing lines. That screen is my link to the researchers in the next room, who are gawking at pixelated slices of my brain as a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner yanks them out of my head, 14 per second.

I work hard for those researchers, block out the noise from the machine, fasten my eyeballs to those lines and hold steady as tears well up. Focusing my attention on one set of lines at a time - left-leaning lines, right-leaning lines, then back to the left-leaning ones - I remind myself to blink and breathe.” End quote

Read the full thing online at: (for a fee of course)

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19025501.500?DCMP=NLC-ezine&nsref=mg19025501.500

The announcement made reference to being able to view your dreams on a TV screen while you sip coffee. My inner cynic however sees this will not be used for some new form of public entertainment (the sheer cost alone precludes this) but will likely be used first by government agencies against people suspected of crimes or worse, political enemies, followed by employers in order to spy on employees with an eye to discover pilferers and embezzlers. Privacy? What was that, some kind of arcane, obsolete idea?

There has been an old saying, that we are “..going to hell in a handbasket” well folks did you bring the marshmallows? For we have arrived, it is only a matter of time now for people to awaken to the reality of the state of the republic. While we went about our daily struggle to keep ahead of the bill collectors our democracy was taken, our standard of living fell and our individual rights stolen. Few care, and if you speak up about this state of affairs you are instantly suspect of being some kind of fanatic or worse, a terrorist. So get comfy in our third-world police-state nation, and hope you don’t have any skeletons in your closets. The thought police are getting tools ready to get to work…

Roy

“We must find a way, or we will make one.” –Hannibal Barca