Walmart....The evil empire? or corporate godsend.

Today I needed to locate some salt tablets for the water softener. As much as I hated to it was Walmart which I chose to do my shopping for this. Conveniently on the way home and yes, nearly half the price as the closest out of the way competitor. Morton salt right? Not the sweatshop clothing, not the environmental holocaust packaging of toys from the east that need to make sure the pony's mane is held just perfect for marketing. No, I just went for the salt. This is not to say I haven't been to the evil empire for that sweatshop clothing etc. I just try to limit it.

But then something hit me. Wow, maybe walmart isn't so evil after all. If it weren't for the sweatshops providing us with all those good things that we "think" we need then what use would there be to breed all those new little workers? Maybe it's better to give them 3 cents a day to survive on rather than the alternative, nothing. If the sweatshops went away then we'd have that many more starving little slave, (pardon, working), children running around the developing world with no direction, eating each others ligaments for sustenance. On the other hand if the sweatshops became legitimate and had to raise their prices then they might become less competitive in the world marketplace and have to shut down. Again, releasing all the little laborers back into the world to fend for themselves and subsequently eating each other that much quicker. The remaining farmland would disappear as all the tent cities took their place. More babies would have be born at an even quicker pace to keep up with the growing demand for sustenance. The earths concentration of methane gas would compound at an alaming rate because of the flatulence created by eating each other. The planet would heat up at an exponentially dangerous pace. The remaining atmosphere would burn away and we would all suffocate on the solar radiation.

Yes, maybe walmart is a wonderful thing! bringing us all that over packaged, cheap, disposable crap that we think we need. You know, all the stuff that we never needed before walmart came along and offered it. Sweatshops have a place in the world. Sweatshops are humane in the sense that they are helping to save our planet from destruction by allowing overpopulation to thrive without having to resort to cannibalism and all the peripheral dangerous environmental effects that come with it.

Buy a petroleum based plastic toy packaged in plastic and bagged in plastic to do your part in saving a child and the world. Today!

TT


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Not enough Microbes

No way in hell was that a nap. I mean it was just gone. Time. When I walked back into the house um, an hour? Minutes? ago, the front yard gate was not broken and now it was. My bedroom window is right outside the gate. Whatever tore it up would have been heard by me, the plunge plant would have some record, under the forslight might have entered. Any number of things but not MISSED altogether.After that the end would bring day again to them. The gate was splintered. It's almost like it was splintered. The oth was only left over Matt. I fear a great hand, paw, or something to through my bedroom window sat until me. Elst left it.

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I'll get back to this

I shall watch my back.
The surgeons say that the newly installed eyes in the back of my head will require minimal maintenance other than to keep the hair shaved from around them. The back of my hat is going to need some alteration and there is the possibility of tripping a little more while I get adjusted to them. It will definitely make for more varietal ergonomics. Wow, maybe it could become vogue. Fashion would take on whole new life if they could become a trend. The red light underground would introduce it to the privacy of the masses. A book would come out, then a movie; About an old drunk cop who met a femme fatale only once. She had the eyes. They watched each other as they walked away.

TT


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smoking bans

I have never smoked a ban. Never really even had any desire to smoke a ban. If I don't know what it is then I wouldn't smoke it even if I did smoke. Maybe I do want to smoke a ban? "Wowww this is one heavy ban man." Is a smoking ban a big bunch of stuff the government doesn't allow us to do piled up under some wet spruce twigs and set to smolder? I guess that might be defined as a 'smoking' ban. "Hey, look over there! Isn't that a smoking ban?" or, "Shouldn't someone put that ban out before going to bed? It's still smoking for christs sake!"

Maybe a ban is some living thing?
"Honey would you put the ban outside I think it's smoking again."
"What dear?" I didn't hear ya."
" I said one of the bans is smoking."
"What dear?"
"It's a smoking Ban!"
" Oooh ! would you put it out please?"
sigh

Definitely during the summer months we might want to think twice about a smoking ban as it happens to be the fire season here in Alaska. Therefore I suggest that we take all the smoking bans and put them inside during times of heightened fire awareness.

I was walking around downtown Anchorage today looking for a store I know to exist but wasn't quite sure where it was. It was a nice day and tourists can be pretty funny looking so I thought I might make a time of it and just walk around while casually looking for the place. I took a very distinct notice of the new scent around town. They must have put all the smoking bans out on their ears today from the bars and restaurants. One would suggest that after seeing all the great plumes rising around the exteriors of these establishments I would know what a ban is. But I couldn't see it very clearly given all the large groups of people huddled together looking at it. I surmised that the ban must sit somewhere in the middle of each grouping of people. This deduction taken because of the great halo of smoke surrounding each group.
Sometimes the interest in these smoking bans was so great that I had to nearly walk off the sidewalk and into the street to get around the ban viewers.

I think it might have been a bad idea this smoking ban. Not everyone cares about it but now it gets in everyones way whether you want it to or not. It used to be that anyone who wanted to go see the smoking bans could enter their own favorite establishments to watch them smolder. If someone didn't like the way a certain ban smoldered they could always go elsewhere for a more appropriate smolder or to someplace where the bans aren't allowed to smolder at all. In time the free market system would have determined which place should and which place shouldn't install smoke bans.
And then everyone would have 'freedom of ban' in the matter.

That's right!

BAN FREEDOM for all !!!!!!!

[wait a minute..........hmmmm?.....]

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So there I was.........

....Just sitting there contemplating the next edition of this blog thing. Not wanting to get political, too controversial, too pissed, or even to fantastical and BOOM!!! The damned huge leathery winged thing materialized, plucked me right out of the chair and took me aloft for another enigmatically insightful journey.

The sun faded to a deep deep orange and the clouds appeared to close around us as with a sentient intent.The winged thing grew a tail. The tail grew greater and turned, spinning and weaving. It reminded me of a vine growing but in mere seconds. The tip came swift but then smoothly pass my eyes. It slid down my back and around me, and then flinging me to the sky above. My ascension slowed gradually as I watched the huge thing drift down and away. I started looking about, it felt like forever those 3 seconds before I started my descent. It still felt that way a minute later when I had yet to fall. I found myself not quite floating but rather suspended. I looked above me for a sign of my savior for still I did not fall. The chill went away, replaced with warmer, damp, stale air. I craned my neck around and up. surprisingly, I could. As an Owl I turned my head and still saw no reason in the surrounding skys for what held me aloft. Looking down again an Old worn wooden plank floor had materialized below my feet. I stepped down onto the floor. Looking up and around I found the sky was gone. replaced by a cave or tunnel. Dark behind me, A light ahead. The abysmal pit or a train? One at each end and it seemed there was no other alternative.

I started searching beside and around me. I would claw my fingers raw into the rock and earth to escape rather than face either the train or the abyss. Something flickered ahead at the light source. Something was moving back and forth across the light. It was the end of the tunnel! It was not a train! I saw something flying back and forth in front of the opening. A deep note or howl intermingled with a desperate cacophony of fading shrieks came from behind me out of the dark. Some of the shrieks would seem to grasp for me,leaving black and purple spots of frostbite wherever they touched before being dragged into the black. I ran toward the daylight. The dark behind me expanding. The light from ahead getting closer. I reached the cave entrance. A cliff! My body scraped, cut, and bruised itself as it clawed and skidded searching for a hold which would save me from the fall. I was able to stop myself at the edge of the opening, legs outstretched into the air as my now bloodied hands desperately dragged my body fully back inside the cave.

I crept back to the edge to view a sheer vertical face thousands of feet down, the bottom shrouded in mist or altogether nonexistent, I knew not which. Above, an ominous formulation of darkening clouds sank lower, shrouding the fading orange sun. I'd thought I was already saved from an imminent fall when my feet first found this floor. Fear takes me but somehow again I stave off panic. I have no choice. I pull myself up and fall back a few steps into the darkness. I scream in agony and feel a weakness growing as the shrieks seem to hungrily draw something from some essence deep within me. In a defiant sprint, I ran straight out the opening. Into the sky to fall again. Hundreds of the huge leathery winged creatures appeared from the clouds to fly erratic circles throughout the sky around me far and near. The only tailed one swoops in and grabs me, pulling me in with the tail as it grows shorter. As the tail whips around I am forced to grab for the neck or risk falling as the creature turns to fly downward toward yet more unknown.

The g-forces worked aggressively against me as my fingers nearly loosed their grip to hang on. But I did hold on. Above and behind me I see the final tendrils of darkness retreating back into the cave opening. The shrieks and howls they made as they were denied me echoed in my head and shivered my already stressed nerves. The ground came fast. Smooth and swift we lighted atop the house. My fingers finally let go of themselves and I slid to it's feet. I was beaten and tired in mind and body. I lay there looking up at the huge leathery winged thing. It's eyes burned with an expectant intensity into my own, It stepped back then with one talon like foot and a surprising gentleness it moved me aside and scratched a sign in the ground; A sign unlike it's prior leaving. It looked at me again. The great wings spread, It's head hailed upward. With a silent scream then a great downward rush of wind it was gone. Again, it disappeared into the sky long before it should have vanished from sight.

There was an uneasy similarity to my First Experience tho the scene itself seemed unrelated for the most part. There must be a message, or maybe a warning? for which I will seek clues as I feel that whatever the huge leathery winged creature needs me to understand may be much greater than myself.
I will remain vigilant.

Tormen Tagain

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