Tag: doom

Drug Addiction

  1. Yesterday I ran out of milk. This is a “can’t happen” in my household because I put milk in my coffee. Without milk there is no coffee, and a day without coffee is like night. When I staggered into the kitchen I realized how screwed I was. I knew I had some chocolate covered espresso beans in the fridge, but that wouldn’t be a complete solution. From experience, I knew that nothing but liquid coffee would do.

    In the carafe was yesterday’s leftover coffee. It was tepid and slightly burnt from going the whole two hours before the heat element switched off. There was about a pint of it. I poured it into a pint beer glass, chugged it (blrughggl), and chased it with two of the beans so that the chocolate would sweeten the acrid taste of room temperature slightly burnt coffee.

    Then I realized it. This was the morning that so many alcoholics had described. Bad liquor with no ice, chased with something else, because without the hair of the dog the DTs would start. With the bitter rancid taste of dead coffee on my lips I started to laugh at myself.

  2. I’m taking Vicodin right now for torticollis and focal dystonia of shoulder muscles. I don’t take painkillers, haven’t since I was 14. I’m always interested in risk, so I read up on the stuff. Obviously one shouldn’t take more than what’s prescribed, and it’s not a long-term solution to anything. And it’s well known that mixing the stuff with alcohol is dangerous.

    Of course this stuff is widely abused because doctors and dentists give it out freely and people share and trade and sell it. And the abuse is sometimes just taking many at once, and sometimes washing it down with alcohol. This is clearly risky behavior because of the synergistic effects and the possible coma/breathing problems/brain damage/death.

    But there’s something else about Vicodin. It’s what used to be called “Tylenol #3,” and it’s a blend of codeine and acetaminophen (Tylenol). It’s recently been noted that Tylenol is a liver toxin in large amounts. For example, people do a suicide gesture with a bottle of the stuff and later feel fine, and then drop dead a week later because their liver has been killed.

    And as you can imagine, Tylenol and alcohol is a very bad mix. Because drunks get a lot of headaches, they sometimes eat handfuls of Tylenol or painkillers that contain it, worsening their liver damage tremendously.

    Since the last 20 years has seen a huge rise in abuse of drugs like Vicodin, particularly mixed with alcohol, one has to wonder: what kind of liver disease wave are we going to see starting in about ten years? Do any of these people know that they’re not only rolling the dice with coma, but destroying their livers so fast that it’s not so much dice as just suicide?

nothingbutsilicongrommets.com

Google gave me $10 to sign up for their Checkout service. When I was done, they presented me with a list of suggested stores, including quite a few useful ones, and then many, many dotcom failure stores. Examples below. I think I’ll just get some cat toys, which is what I did in ’98 or so when pets.com gave me $10.

http://www.holepunch.info/
http://shop.beautysurg.com/
http://www.alpacadirect.com/
http://furhatworld.com/
http://www.grabbarspecialists.com/
http://www.nuttybug.com/
http://www.fogdog.com/home/index.jsp
http://www.handdryer.com/
http://www.findtape.com/
http://www.stacksandstacks.com/

Ow my globalization: Chinese Dodge

Summary from Automotive Digest:

Situation

  • Chrysler Group to import small Dodge car from China’s Chery automaker, beginning in 2008
  • Deal confirmed by DC, 1st such pact w/ Chinese automaker by any major Western producer
  • Tentatively named Dodge Hornet, ‘B-car’ subcompact will be smaller than Dodge Caliber
  • Chrysler turns to China because cost of building domestic B-car all but wipes out profit
  • Deal pressures UAW on carmaking costs
  • Holding prospect of small SUVs, compacts also farmed out to China

Significance

  • Chery already exports cars to about 20 countries in SE Asia, Africa, Middle East
  • Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda praises Chery’s manufacturing record
  • Says it’s “good fit” w/ domestic automaker’s engineering, design staffs
  • Chery deal still to be ratified by DC supervisory board, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger is member
  • Chery-Chrysler liaison began after Chinese automaker broke off agreement w/ US dealer group working w/ Malcolm Bricklin

Detroit Freep news article has more

Orange County Catastrophe Day

  1. Pedestrian struck, killed on I-405 in Westminster
    Northbound lanes shut down more than 4 hours while crews cleaned up.
    By KIMBERLY EDDS
    The Orange County Register

    WESTMINSTER – A man dressed in black was killed early this morning after being run over by a car and a big-rig as he walked across the San Diego (I-405) Freeway. The man, who has not been identified, was in the fast lane of the northbound I-405 near Beach Boulevard when he was hit by a Honda Civic and then a big-rig at about 1:17 a.m., CHP dispatcher Dave Clark said.

    The freeway was shut down at 1:27 and remained largely closed down for more than four hours as biohazard crews cleaned up lanes, Clark said.

    The drivers of the Honda and the big-rig pulled to the side of the freeway and called police, Clark said. No one has been cited in the crash. The investigation is ongoing.

    The pedestrian is described as a black man wearing a black hooded sweat shirt, dark jeans, black tennis shoes and a black baseball cap.

  2. Santa Ana man arrested in Upland deaths

    UPLAND – A 75-foot power pole being moved into place smashed through a car, killing the driver and a construction worker and critically injuring a woman passenger, police said.

    The crane operator, Joseph Dimaano, 31, of Santa Ana was arrested for investigation of involuntary manslaughter after the accident because the pole was moved onto the street without warning, police said.

    The pole was being installed at a corner shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday and was dangling from a crane when it was moved out into traffic, where it went through the windshield of a car, police said.

    The driver, an 81-year-old Montclair man, was killed on impact. His identity was withheld pending notification of relatives, the San Bernardino County coroner’s office said Thursday.

    The passenger, an 80-year-old Montclair woman, was taken to a hospital in critical condition. There was no word on her condition Thursday.

    After the pole’s bottom end hit the car, the top end struck a worker on the ground who was guiding the pole. David Jenkins, 29, of Lake Elsinore died about an hour later at a hospital, Sgt. Greg Doyle said.

RIAA, 1700

This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the present day would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work published a few months before the death of Charles the Second, the flying coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the subject of special commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish pace of the continental posts. But with boasts like these was mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The interests of large classes had been unfavourably affected by the establishment of the new diligences; and, as usual, many persons were, from mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the innovation, simply because it was an innovation. It was vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London up to Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which mounted travellers had been in the habit of stopping, would be deserted, and would no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages were too hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible to get breakfast. On these grounds it was gravely recommended that no public coach should be permitted to have more than four horses, to start oftener than once a week, or to go more than thirty miles a day. It was hoped that, if this regulation were adopted, all except the sick and the lame would return to the old mode of travelling. Petitions embodying such opinions as these were presented to the King in council from several companies of the City of London, from several provincial towns, and from the justices of several counties. We Smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants, when they read the history of the opposition offered by cupidity and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth century, may smile in their turn. — The History of England from the Accession of James II

The writing on the mirror

Either the bro dudes have noticed that the housing boom and their easy money days are ending, or someone just dumped a lot of cheap cocaine on the market around here. I have seen more coked-out 25-40 year old mortgage bro guys this week than in the six months previously. I mean really fucking HIGH AS A KITE, flying, twitchy and loud, eyeballs making Ren & Stimpy noises, inappropriate affect, sweating, jaw clenching, everything.

The last one I saw tonight was standing on Newport Blvd near 17th with a couple of other guys. He had that overly-tanned and haggard skin, sunglasses pushed up on hiss spiked hair, a coating of sweat on his face, and office dress shirt and pants. As I waited at the stoplight he suddenly tugged sharply on his shirt so that he seemed to rip a couple of buttons off, exposing the top part of his chest. Then he yelled at them: “Revenue. Revenue, revenue. REVENUE!” And then the light turned green and I drove away.