My Annual Gubbermint Coinage Rant

Well, I just got my hands on one of those new nickels. You know, the ones where they replaced the design of Monticello with a design of two hands clasping each other, a crossed peace pipe and tomahawk, and some inscription about the Louisiana Purchase. I guess they've been creeping out into circulation since roughly May of this year.



Never heard of it? Me, neither. Unlike the redesign of the paper money, or the silly Golden Dollar coin, or even the quarters with the individual states on the back (collect 'em all, sure to become a valuable collector's item), it seems not much was said about this one prior to release.

And I suppose it is no big deal, but the new nickel is slightly thinner and lighter than the old nickel. Clearly made of a different alloy, it 'thuds' rather than 'clinks' when dropped on a hard surface, such as table top. And therein lies my objection, and the hinge upon which I build my rant of righteous indignation.

You see, the Gubbermint cannot seem to quit screwing around with the money. Some of it, I can understand - like more anti-counterfeiting devices embedded in the paper money. Sure, fine, whatever. But some of it I just have a big problem with.

For one thing - the size and shape of the money. Don't go screwing around with that, you gubbermint maroons! We likes our money the way it is - neither larger nor smaller than it was in the past. Everything is pretty much the right size now - there is no need to change any of it.

Biggest example of gubbermint doltishness? The dollar coin. These zipperheads can't never get this right. The dollar coin reached its apex in the Eisenhower 'cartwheel' dollar, which apparently cost too much to produce, plus some people didn't like the idea that it might replace the paper dollar - since it was so big, five or more of them would pull your pants down to your ankles.

Ever dollar coin design since then as sucked rocks. And the main reason is that gubbermint officials are complete and total idiots.

What kind of MORON thinks it is a good idea to make a dollar coin the size, shape, and color of a QUARTER? Yes, I'm talking about the Susan B. Anthony! Um, duuuuuuuuh! You got a peanut for a brain, boyo, if you think that was a good idea. It doesn't even survive a moment's scrutiny by a person of average intelligence - where in the entire HISTORY of coinage has that EVER been a good idea? Somebody should have gone to jail for the criminal waste of taxpayer money that was spent to design, create, and market those stinking flops.

OK, so then our government backs off and takes another run at it. Realizing that they've just had the entire release of the Susan B. Anthony coin inserted in their coinage slot, the brainiacs at the US Mint decide that the REAL PROBLEM with the coin was that it was the WRONG COLOR! Yes, that's it, we'll just make it a different color, and then all will be well.

So, these rocket scientists come up with the Sacagawea 'Golden Dollar' that is STILL ROUGHLY THE SAME SIZE as a stinking quarter! See, you brain surgeons, we don't want dollar coins that LOOK, FEEL, or WEIGH THE SAME as a friggin' QUARTER! How hard is that to figger out, you spotty gits?

Look, it's not hard to understand. We want our dollar coin to be bigger and heavier than our quarter or even the fifty-cent piece. This flows downwards and makes sense - the only flaw being the dime, which is smaller and lighter than even the penny. However, we've learned to live with that - and we did it in a kinder and gentler time, so we've had generations to adjust to it.

You want a dollar coin? Fine, it's not hard to figure out. Just make it bigger than a fifty-cent piece and you've pretty much got it. We don't care whose picture you put on it. We don't care if it is silver, gold, or forest green. Just make it bigger than the fifty-cent piece and you've got a winner.

Of course, the fifty-cent piece isn't doing all that great, either - but at least it's not mistaken for something else. Nobody likes it because it fills no niche that needs filling - for the same reason we don't need an 8-cent piece.

And on top of all that - here's the part that really gets my blood boiling; every time the gubbermint creates yet another foolish attempt at coinage, they pass a law requiring private businesses to support this money. That means expensive retooling and rebuilding and recalibrating of millions of vending machines and other coin-operated devices - just to take the new coin that no one will use anyway.

But, as always, THE GOVERNMENT IS EXEMPT from their own fargin' laws - so if you go to, say, the US Post Office, THERE the machines won't TAKE the new coins or even the paper money.

I went to the post office once right after the new redesigned twenty-dollar bills became commonplace - and in fact, that's all I had on me. I wanted to buy a book of stamps from the convenient machines located in the branch office. But they didn't yet TAKE the new twenties. Huh. Private businesses had to spend millions to comply with the arbitrary gubbermint designs, but THEY don't have to do jack. Lovely.

Anyway - if anyone has actually read to the end of this rant (you brave soul, you), I hereby register my opposition to the new nickels. They are lighter and thinner than the old ones, and I don't like it. No sir, I don't like it one bit.

Keep Shoutin',

Wiggy

New bird survives hungry Filipinos

Now I don't generally comment upon news stories in this here blog, but I felt compelled to speak up after reading this story about the recently-discovered flightless bird found in the Philippines.

New bird survives hungry Filipinos

August 17 2004 at 11:22AM

Manila - A new species of flightless bird has been discovered living on a tiny island in the northern Philippines where the inhabitants formerly ate them, scientists and birdwatchers said on Tuesday.

Now here's the thing. Or at least, one of the things. You see, the unfortunate bird had already been 'discovered', just not by special bird scientists. It had been discovered to be tasty by locals. Yum, yum. And a flightless bird? It just makes sense. Go for the 'low-hanging fruit', as they say.

Islanders said the bird was known as "piding" and that they had even caught it for food in the past but they were unaware it was a previously unclassified species, according to Oliveros.

"Oh," said the ignorant savages inhabiting their own island, "We didn't know you smart westerners had not yet discovered our birds. Imagine that, we were eating an unclassified bird. We're so embarrassed! From now on, we'll check with you smart types before we consume any natural resources in case you haven't gotten around to discovering them yet. By the way, could you discover our bathrooms, please? We have to go."

"Piding," by the way, means "Stupid slow-moving lunch" in the local dialect.

Oliveros said the expedition gave the bird the scientific name of Gallirallus calayanensis because they wanted its island habitat to get more attention.

No doubt what the island really needs is a group of scientist, diplomats, and tsk-tsk'ing environmentalists jetting in to tell the locals what not to eat with their chablis. Then they'll build a Safari Camp for tourists and a McDonalds, and pay the locals to live in a reproduction of their own village part-time and stop wearing those damned Laker t-shirts where the tourists can see them. And for God's sake, stop eating those rare birds!

The government's Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau said Calayan was not listed under the official protected wildlife areas but the discovery of the new bird species might help in efforts to have the area covered as well.

Yes, shocking though it is, these people failed to seek government approval before eating what they liked on their own island. We'd better have a law right away.

And here's the other thing. Flightless bird = bad design. Know why there aren't many of them? Because it's dumb, that's why! Unless you're as big as the nearest predator that finds you tasty, or as fast as the fastest cat-like creature that can run you down, FLYING is a survival mechanism that most BIRDS can't very well do without!

One might well argue that we're well off without bad designs such as these. Bon A Petit, boys! Save me a wing!


Bah!

Wigwam Jones, Gorilla-at-law

What do you do?

What do you do if your inner child is completely insane?  Just curious.

Best,

Wiggy

Raining Stuff

I was thinkin that it would be kinda fun to have a trebuchet or a full-blown catapult in my backyard.  I've got room for one (just barely) and a nice high fence that would keep the neighbors from watching the fun.

And if I were bored or had something that I really wanted to get rid of, I'd just load it on the catapult, wind it up, and away it would go.

High above the neighbor's houses, landing maybe even blocks away.  Maybe even many blocks.

And no one would have any idea where it came from or how it got there.  Like mannequins from heaven, as the Bible says.  One of those mysteries that you hear about - odd stories in the news about raining frogs or blue oxen or what-have-you.

In my case, it would be my kitchen garbage.  Or perhaps bags of kitty litter.  Things like that.  Bag 'em up tight, and away it goes!

The neighbor boys leave their toys in my front yard again - zing!  And away the toys would go, one at a time. 

"Bye, bye, Tranformers!  Bye, bye, Power Rangers!"

Or maybe...that cat that comes over and poops in my yard.  If I can catch the thing.  That would teach him.

Of course, you'd want to make sure that nothing you slung outta yer back yard was gonna land on someone's head.  That would be bad.  You don't want to be the guy who dropped an annoying neighborhood poodle on some fella's grape from several blocks away.  The cops would most likely get serious about looking for you then, anyway.

Nobody wants to hurt anyone like that - and it would suck to go to prison for it, too.

"What are you in for?  I shot seventeen people who abused small pets."

"Um, I shot a poodle on a catapult over several blocks and it landed on some lady and smooshed her."

"Come here poodle-boy, you got a purty mouth."

See, that would be no fun at all.

So I guess the catapult idea is out.

Keep Pluggin',

Wiggy

I love Perl

Milcom:

You ever notice how malicious you can be with a just a couple of lines of
Perl?

It's staggering...

Smooches,

Wigwam

### annoy.pl ###

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use lib '/export/home/wigwam/scripts/modules/libnet-1.19';
use Net::SMTP;

my $send_to="somebody\@somewhere.com";
my $ServerName = "smtp.somewhere.com";
my $MailFrom = "somebody_else@somewhere.com";
my $MailTo = "somebody\@somewhere.com";

my $smtp;
my $counter=0;
my $counter_minus_one=0;

for($counter=10; $counter>0; $counter--)
{

$smtp = Net::SMTP->new($ServerName);
die "Couldn't connect to server" unless $smtp;
$smtp->mail( $MailFrom );
$smtp->to( $MailTo );
# Start the mail
$smtp->data();
# Send the header.
$smtp->datasend("To: '\n");
$smtp->datasend("From: Somebody Else\n");
$smtp->datasend("Subject: $counter Bottles of Beer on the Wall\n");
$smtp->datasend("\n");
$counter_minus_one = $counter-1;
$smtp->datasend("$counter bottles of beer on the wall,\n");
$smtp->datasend("$counter bottles of beer.\n");
$smtp->datasend("If one of those bottles should happen to fall,\n");
$smtp->datasend("$counter_minus_one bottles of beer on the
wall.\n");
$smtp->dataend();
$smtp->quit;
}
exit 0;

Riding on the Metro - well, no. Amtrack.

This is from the text of an email to a friend recently, who will be coming to visit the Wigster via Amtrak.  Mrs. Wiggy and I have the experience of one whole overnight round trip to rely upon - from Albuquerque to Chicago and back.  So, here is the Wigster's advice...

First - there are several types of cars.  You're going to be on double-decker cars, not like the high-speed Accela rail system they have out east.  The cars are coach/business, sleeper, dinner, and observation car/snack bar, plus mail and cargo cars.  Access from car to car is via the top level - not the bottom.  So, if you're on the top level, you have people walking past you as they go from car to car.  If you're on the bottom level, not so much.  At least one of the coach cars is often the 'smoking car' as well - that's downstairs and often combined with larger bathrooms/showers.

The sleepers come in several varieties.  The only one we have experience with is the Superliner Standard Bedroom:

http://www.amtrak.com/plan/accommodations/sleeper-superliner.html

This is available on the top and bottom levels of the standard trains.  As you can see from the drawing on this page, it is pretty basic.  The top bunk you see flips up and against the wall above.  The bottom bunk splits in half and becomes two club chairs facing each other.  There is room for precisely two people to sit facing each other, you can stretch out your feet if you both take a different side to extend them.  You have armrests on either side of you - the side nearest the center of the rail car has maybe six to eight inches of space to put things on, like small luggage.  I could be under-estimating, it might be more like a foot of room.  There is a flip-down table you can put things on, like a tray table on an airliner.  We found that we could put my laptop on this table and we could both watch a DVD movie if we kinda twisted ourselves around in our chairs so we were facing the outside windows.  There was a plug in our room for electricity - we were told that it was not appropriate for laptops - but we did it anyway...hehehe.  Worked fine.  We used a 'y-splitter' for headphones from Radio Shack so we could both hear the movie without disturbing others.  I suspect you may find that you don't have room to set up both laptops unless you want to keep them on your laps, where they can sure get hot.  We watched "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."  It was a riot!  Laptops are cool.  When they can play DVD's, they're even more fun.

On one side, there will be second ledge - which can be used for storage, or can be used as a step up to get into the upper bert.  The upper berth is narrow - there is cargo webbing you clip from the bed to the ceiling to keep you from rolling out - the car does rock-n-roll through the night!  I had no trouble sleeping at all - but Mrs. Wiggy did - your milage may vary!  Whiskey works, too.  I found that the upper bunk was fine for me - and I could even stow a small bag at my feet.  However, I'm 5-10.  You may find that you're too tall to fully extend your legs.  I believe the mattress is 6 feet long with a tad bit of wiggle room past that, maybe an inch or two, tops.

The sleeper cars are split in half for the basic sleeper.  There are sleepers on either side and a walkway down the middle.  When you are in your sleeper (and there is no place else to go except for the observation deck, the snack bar, or the smoking lounge), you can have a sliding door open or closed, and there are drapes you can have open or closed (on the train side and the center-aisle side).  We often kept the sliding door open during the day, with the aisle curtains closed.  However, as people walk by and the train lurches, they can get tossed into your room, so beware!

We found that when the sliding door was closed, it was pretty much dead quiet.  There are environmental controls, lights, and even a PA system and music (sort of) in your room.

We also saw bigger sleepers - the Deluxe Bedrooms:

http://www.amtrak.com/plan/accommodations/sleeper-deluxe.html

As you can see, they're a little more posh.

In the standard sleeper, there is no bathroom.  They are all down the hall on both levels.  We found that they were pretty generally like an airline bathroom, just a bit bigger and a bit cleaner.  They get cleaned by the Porter as the trip progresses.  However, it appeared to us that some people just Do Bad Things to bathrooms - some would get 'closed' by the Porter for one reason or another.  Hmmm.  Don't wanna know.

We were told that there were some 'showers' we could take advantage of.  I didn't - I believe Mrs. Wiggy did.  I don't recall what her opinion was; I'll let her chime in here.  Our trip was only 24 hours - I can stand my own stink that long.  I don't know if others can stand my stink.

There is a dinner car.  It's actually very nice.  White tablecloths, uniformed waiters, the whole thing.  I kid you not - you'll like it.  You feel like you're really 'going to dinner' on the 'train' as things might have been a long time ago.  Very nice.  The food, we found, was pretty good too.  You get a choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The tables each hold 4 people and they are filled - always.  So, traveling by two, you get to share your meals with someone else.  It's really not too bad - a fun way to meet people.  You can withdraw to your sleeper and hide out completely, but at dinner, you're face-to-face with the Great Unwashed, like it or not.  We liked it!

You will be asked for your choice of times for three meals - each sleeper car has a Porter assigned who will cater to you.  He or she will make up your bed for sleep or break it down in the morning, bring you coffee and sodas, etc, and work with you to set your schedule.  We did not know the protocol, but we tipped our waiter and our Porter at the end of the trip - $20 each.  Don't know if that was correct or not, but they took the money, so I guess it's 'done'.

There is an Observation Deck - very nice for relaxing, chatting, looking out at the passing landscape, or just sleeping - many coach car folks sack out in the observation car.  In the evenings, they put on movies that play on TV's on each end of the observation car - usually some kid thing like "Saving Nemo."  Unless you like being rubbed with boogers and having drinks spilled on you, I'd recommend avoiding that.  If you happen to walk through a coach car at night, you'll find out why you want a sleeper.  It smells like every nasty sock in the world is having a convention in a cheese factory where the plumbing has gone bad.

There is a Snack Car downstairs from the Observation Deck, and you can get a drink (beer, hard stuff) or a Snickers bar and a Coke, perhaps a burger or a hotdog (the automat variety, not fried fresh).  It's not cheap, but it's not more expensive than your average movie theater fare; probably a bit less.  Fine for what it is - a snack.

Some folks in coach bring their meals - that mixes with the general odor wafting through coach at night that I mentioned earlier.  Some run to nearby bodegas in little whistle-stops along the way - we saw a woman running after the train in Dodge City, KS with a bag of foil-wrapped burritos.  Believe it or not, the train stopped for her (Yay!), but don't count on that.  However, in a sleeper car, you're considered a 'first class' passenger, so your meals in the dinner car are free.  Good thing too, because those prices are a bit steep.

There are several ways to get your luggage on board.  One way is to check it - however, be aware that you will have no access to it until you get to your destination and it gets unloaded - just like a plane.  There are also places to put your bags in several 4-foot by 4-foot cubes just as you get on the train.  However, that space is first come, first served.  If it is filled up, you're SOL.  And it is out in the open - there is no one guarding it, nor is it locked.  You can also put your gear in your room.  But be aware that there is not a lot of space.  We had one checked rollaboard each, and we brought my laptop backpack, a large camera bag, a small camera bag, and Mrs. Wiggy's knitting bag with us into our room - it was a tight squeeze, really.  You won't get a standard rollaboard into your room, I don't believe.  However, if you have a little lock, you can lock that puppy and put it in the storage cube on your car (each car has two of them) if you don't get paranoid about that.  Just remember - it's right next to the exit.  The train stops all the time in the middle of the night for a couple of minutes to let people on and off at tiny whistle-stop stations.  We did NOT hear of any problems, but someone could be gone in a second if they wanted to, with your bag in hand.  Even an honest mistake would suck mightily.

That's about all I can think of at the moment - but we'll add more as we think of it.  Mrs. Wiggy had the suggestion that if you get the chance, you might want to try an overnight sleeper car trip (like say to Chicago or LA) before you try the 'big one' going cross-country. 

Smooches,

Wigwam