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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gauguin who wrote (36434)	8/28/1999 8:14:00 PM
From: Ish	Respond to of 71178

Jeez Gaugs, did you spend all day on that post or do speed? <<(Nothing worse than unraveling when you are at the end of your rope already.)>> The end of an anchor rope is called the bitter end. That big bug may have been a 17 year locust. I have them all over the yard this year. So how are you feeling? Need anymore hip stuff done? Head stuff? ;^)

To: Gauguin who wrote (36434)	8/28/1999 10:07:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

A story about bugs: When I was in the Peace Corps I lived in an area where there was no electricity (at that time) for many miles. There was a road, rice fields for a mile or so on either side, and beyond that forest and swamp, the forest mostly dense second-growth stuff that had grown back after the original forest was cut, maybe 20-30 years before. About the time I arrived a foreign-funded irrigation project was approved in the area, and a bunch of young engineers built a compound outside of town. They put in a big generator, and to further their recreational ambitions, they put in a lighted tennis court. They didn't know much about tennis, and built the light-posts way too close to the court, which made for some interesting incidents, but that is another story. On the day it was all done they threw a big party, quite an event: first electric lights to be seen in the area. When darkness descended, they fired up the generator, and the light of technology shone over the jungle. The jungle loved it. Every moth, beetle, flying ant, and god knows what other sort of creature within 5 miles was around those lights within minutes. Moths like sheets of newspaper, horned beetles the size of your fist. More insects than I've ever imagined could possibly exist. You couldn't step without crunching. Pretty soon the bats showed up for the feast, and the frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, and every other kind of bug-eating bugger. It was a pretty surreal scene. We never did play much tennis at night, though the engineers, being practical, built a fishpond beside the court and turned the lights on in the evening to feed the fish. Used to lose balls in there regularly. I knew a guy who was in the Marines and was bitten on the hand by a horrendously poisonous snake, on Okinawa. He was playing tennis, and trying to retrieve a ball from the bushes. Another story.

To: Gauguin who wrote (36434)	8/30/1999 11:41:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

So I was dreaming one of my third-person dreams, I was an extremely powerful male gladiator-hero type, fighting a practice match with someone who was weaker than me, but I knew actually wanted to kill me, even though we were supposed to be just practicing, and I was keeping my eye on the treacherous bastard, circling around with him in the practice arena, when the power went off and everything electrical in the house shut down at once with a sigh and a thump. I realized at once that the power line had been cut by some moronic construction workers building more McMansions in what used to be the woods just west of here, because at about 6:30 a.m. I heard the dozers turn on, maybe a quarter mile away. I rolled over in bed, and looked at my clock, and told myself they wouldn't start in earnest until 8:00 a.m., it's a violation of county noise ordinances, they were probably just moving the dozers so they could do something or other. And went back to sleep, sleeping very fitfully until the power line was cut. Sometimes I coax myself back to sleep by thinking of something it would be interesting to dream about. I thought of Bill Murray, and imagined him in a Revolutionary War outfit, or maybe it was just some outfit from that time period, possibly this idea was the result of reading Mansfield Park until 2:00 a.m., so I told myself to dream of Bill Murray in knee pants and a frock coat, but I don't know what happened to that dream, or how it turned into gladiators. So when I woke up the second time, I thought to myself, this is sorta what I imagine Y2K will be like, if there is a power failure, am I ready? Let's see. No computer. Yikes. No TV. What will the kids do? No computer games, no video games. They'll go mad. I need coffee. Electric coffee pot. Where's the Melitta drip pot? I haven't seen it in months. No idea where it is. Electric can opener. Where's the manual can opener? Luckily there's a cup and a half still in the Mr. Coffee pot, and I can warm it on the stove because the gas still works. At least the gas works. We're moving to a house with an electric stove. At least the water works. At least the phone works. I don't think I'm ready for Y2K. Shit. I don't want to have to get ready for Y2K. This is nuts. Think of no water, no gas, no electricity, no phone, all because of some dumb computer programmers. Those bastards better lie low. Electricity's back on, obviously. Kids still asleep.