I hear things

Rumbling noise in the sky (Victoria)

Posted in the Victoria Forum
cessna turbo prop

Port Coquitlam, Canada
#73 Aug 18, 2011

Theres been a plane flying over port coquitlam and coquitlam area for several months now. When it gets dark out the plane does not turn on its navagation red and green lights or its strobe light. Its pitch black out and its 12: 17 am now and its still going in circles.It usually flys in circles for six or seven hours every day or second day. The people at the airports say its government surveilance and they cant talk about it.I phoned two different airports.I think it might be time to move out of populated areas if this is going on in so many cities.It cant be just for grow ops.The plane is a cessna 182 turbo prop.You would think its kind of unsafe flying with no warning lights on. Its an accident waiting to happen.

I hear things.

I hear hums. I hear buzzes. I hear pulsating things.

Whatever they are.

I can almost block it out. If I'm concentrating on something else, it almost goes away. But not quite.

Right now, this minute, at 2:58 p.m. on February 13, 2017, I hear something.

It's a low, monotone, hummy, buzzy - but no, not hummy OR buzzy, though it is on one note all the time, like the tone that would not stop resounding in Robert Schumann's head and eventually drove him insane.

I hear this same  monotone very late at night, only louder. And it has a different variation. It's definitely the grindy low noise of an aircraft, which at first I assumed was a helicopter because it got louder and softer, and,  just when you thought it was gone, louder again. I honestly did not think a plane could do that. They fly over, don't they? So it must be something else.

But it doesn't have the budda-budda-budda sound of a helicopter. It's a low, grinding engine-buzz. Really, it's like a plane out of the 1940s, or something from the TV series Sky King. Earrrrrrooooooo! But that doesn't describe it either.

When I finally dared to poke around the internet about this subject, I mainly got those end-of-the-world trumpet-blast videos. This isn't that. At all. This has a low, grindy, even doom-y mechanized sound.

My cat hates this. The other night, when he was all moon-eyed and lit up with cat-somnia, he jumped up on the windowsill and looked at me. There was panic in his eyes. "Do something," he seemed to be saying.

Oops, right now, this minute, I hear a plane, and I tell you it is NOTHING LIKE what I hear at night. This plane swoops in tone - in music, it would be a glissando - from high to low. What I hear is always monotone.

It sounds like hell.

It sounds like death.

"It's probably the police looking for drug dealers," my husband said. "Or criminals in general."

"But how would you SEE a drug dealer or a criminal from the air, and in the middle of the night? Why do they circle around and around for seemingly hours?"

"I don't know, but they do." He is a scientist and has an answer for everything, usually the opposite of my terrified, panic-stricken, paranoia-drenched explanation.

Someone. Is. Flying. Over. My. House. Late at night, like 12:30 a.m. And it goes on and on and makes the house vibrate. Ummmmmm. Eeeeeeeeeeemmm. Buzzzzzz. But none of these come close to describing the actual sound.

It sounds like death. It sounds like doom, it really does. It's a much louder version of the CONSTANT noise I hear during the day. The endless, almost fuzzy-edged, monotone boomy thrum in the background.

Woaaahhhhwwww. Woaaahhhwwww. Woaaahhhhwwww.

I can hear it right now, but I cannot begin to describe it. It's sort of a soft-edged, solid sound. It has a shape. It throbs, but only slightly. If I go outside, it's harder to hear because of all the ambient noise.

At night in our neighborhood, noise comes alive. We hear coyotes out there trilling and barking, and barred owls who scream so loud they sound like apes. Raccoons crash around, tipping things over to rummage for goodies. But these are the wild sounds.

This other. These are human sounds, or rather man-made, machine sounds. Someone is IN that plane, UP there, FLYING it! I keep seeing some Russian spy or someone like that.

I can't think of it as being anything friendly. I just can't. 

I have lived with this for, - how long? I tune it out. I really try to.

Someone is watching, and it is not comfortable. And it makes a hellish noise.

OK. Now I've got it! It's like THIS sound!:

It seems to go on most of the night. I might even be hearing it now.

Valentine's Day: bet you never thought of this

This is one of those why-didn't-I-think-of-that-anyway (cuz-I-don't-have-the-innovative-skills-in-the-kitchen-and-moreover-I-don't-know-who-comes-up-with-these-way-cool-videos-anyway-but-there-must-be-teams-of-workers-slaving-in-kitchens-all-over-the-world-to-supply-such-crazy-cool-ideas-for-making-heart-shaped-food) videos. I may even try one of them to spring on my man. I'm giving you one day's notice. 

Bootleg fireworks fail

There's a lesson in this.

Staying Conscious Fail

Pinkwashed: why it pisses me off

Today I found this in my message file, and was about to delete it as trash until I realized it was a real message from a real Facebook friend:

Hi darling can you put a on your FB wall, without comment, only a heart, then send this message to your chick contacts. This is for women to remember its the week of breast cancer prevention! Check your boobies!!

Hold your finger down on the message and hit forward.

I don't like tricksy little FB gimmicks at the best of times, but I have to tell you, I hate being "darlinged" by someone I don't even know. It's cheap and cloying. I especially hate "chick contacts" (who or what is that??), using "its" rather than "it's", and (most repellent to me) "Check your boobies!!"

Why must breast cancer stuff be so annoying and crass? They rake in many times the amount of other diseases, and have given the public the idea that it's the leading cause of death in women. It's not even close. The leading cause of death in women is heart disease. But who cares if a bunch of old ladies have a heart attack in a nursing home? Bouncing your boobies around in a pink tshirt is so much more alluring.

Isn't it?

Stop, already. Enough, already. It's in poor taste, vulgar, and empty-headed. In fact, it cheapens a worthy cause. I don't want to hang out with "chick" friends who express themselves that way. They would irritate the shit out of me even if I had them. Whatever happened to dignity and sincerity? Why must it be "chicks" and "boobies"? Is this to make cancer cool, or show how unstigmatized it now is, or how we're OK with it, we really are, we're not scared of it any more cuz we're cancer warriors? Or did some publicity mill decide this was the best thing to do to squeeze the maximum dollars out of people by fostering ignorance and distortion of the truth?

The breast cancer industry is a mill, and someone besides patients is reaping most of the rewards. Think of all the $$ it takes to make those hideous pink buttons, the tshirts, pencils, mugs, etc. (and especially things like water bottles that are full of cancer-causing agents) which are so crucial to saving women's lives. It's a game of follow the bouncing boob.

This-here infographic thingie tells the story. On the left side is the amount of money raised for a disease; on the right is number of deaths from that same disease. Since the print is too small to read, I made it easy for you, dear reader, with a little infographic of my own. Match the colour to the disease. It's that simple.

 A quick comparison will show the disparate sizes of these various planets, and how human attention (and funding) has been drawn to certain diseases with slick advertising and celebrity endorsement.

I am not "against" funding breast cancer research, if that is what is going on. But I am also "for" funding mental health concerns, which look to be pretty much ignored. I am "for" funding heart disease research, which apparently isn't sexy enough to warrant much attention. And the others? When I was transcribing these names, I did not even SEE diabetes, almost passed it over entirely because the "money raised" dot was so small as to be nearly invisible. But compare that dot to the ominous-looking green planet on the right-hand side.

Have I made my point? I am SO, so sick of silly, ill-timed, usually crass or downright rude or embarrassing messages being forced on me. I hate chain letters, always have, always will, and am NOT willing to pass ANYTHING mindlessly on because, on the internet, you never know whether the thing is bogus or not. It may in fact be clickbait, a way for advertisers to get information from you about your likes and dislikes so that they may exploit you ever more ruthlessly.

Sounds familiar. Doesn't it? The following infographic of a pink soup can and a pink bucket of (likely) hormone-laced fried chicken are a case in point.

I found it a little hard to believe this particular person would forward something like that. I answered her message by telling her it wasn't breast cancer awareness week or month or ANYTHING, and that I did not like getting this empty-headed "hey, girlfriend! Squeeze your boobies!" shit. I didn't use those words, of course. I tried to be polite. Ironically, the person who supposedly sent me this thing was an editor I used to try to impress with novel queries, in another lifetime.

I can't quite wrap my head around the irony of the fact that, in a completely anonymous note that might have started with some truck driver in Minneapolis, she addresses me as "darling".

POST-BLOG QUOTE: I'm posting a link to an article which, in my mind, hits it right on the head: it expresses exactly why I feel so offended by the glibness and vulgarity of these "booby" messages that are so ubiquitous, and forced on us even by the most unlikely people. This is just a small excerpt. 

Pink ribbon promotions often degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing women’s breasts and bodies. From “save the boobies” to “save the ta-tas” to “save second base,” campaigns like these demean and insult women—and distract from the true focus of saving women’s lives. They highlight narrow standards of beauty (thin, white, able-bodied, and young), depict women as coy sex-objects and too often promote the fantasy of “perfect” breasts. These sexy/cute campaigns hide the lived experiences of women in all their diversity and complexity. NASCAR, for example, is selling breast cancer awareness t-shirts that say “Check Your Headlights” which degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing women’s breasts and bodies.

We must honor women’s rich complexity and full diversity, rather than obsess over narrowly defined body parts as the focus of breast cancer campaigns.

http://bcaction.org/2014/09/30/think-before-you-pink-stop-the-distraction/

In other words, gals, it ISN'T all about the boobs. We do NOT need to "save the hooters". We need to save human lives. That's what it is all about.

Why isn't anybody getting it?

POST-BLOG. I did hear back from my former editor, who said she passed the message along because it was from a good friend. She also said "it might be bogus" - meaning she didn't question it, just forwarded it to all her "chick contacts".  This alarmed me. I have already received some pretty absurd shit in the name of breast cancer "awareness" (and by now, who ISN'T aware of breast cancer? Is it a huge shock to most women that they should get mammograms and do periodic self-examinations?). And a lot of it DID turn out to be bogus, but in at least one case the friend refused to admit it.

Breast Cancer Awareness: HOAX!

(From a women's health page):

Wondering why your Facebook feed is suddenly covered in little heart emojis? Unless you have a number of extra-affectionate friends, it likely has something to do breast cancer awareness.

This isn't the first time we've seen this trend. It's actually resurfaced a few times over the years, but generally during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. The concept is as follows: Post a heart on your female friends' Facebook walls, then send a private message explaining that the heart is a subtle reminder to get their breasts checked for lumps. Then, the goal is to cause a ripple effect—your friends posts hearts on their friends' walls, their friends posts on other friends' walls, and so on. They're also supposed to post the heart on the same woman who sent them the message. But, the catch is, if any guys ask what the emojis are all about, the recipient is supposed to stay silent, since the game is meant only for women.

The trend has been stirring up some controversy. Critics on social media find the whole concept offensive, concerned it’s turning breast cancer into a game. Others say the cryptic message is too opaque to do any good, and argue it's counterproductive to try spreading awareness about a condition by staying silent. Rather than use this subtle tactic, some suggest it would be more effective to post something more direct, like a simple "Check your breasts."

(A pissed-off P. S.: why is the game "meant only for women"? Guys get breast cancer too.  I know a guy who has it. This just adds to the stigma men feel by excluding them from "breast cancer awareness". Come to that, the secretiveness of this coy little game stigmatizes women with breast cancer, too, by rendering it "unmentionable". FAIL - all around!)

The Ubersquirrel

Then act like one!

Watching the rescues!

Oh deer

 

Reporter turns ghetto in 3 seconds

This video vies with the leprechaun sighting in Alabama (below) as one of my all-time-favorite YouTubes. This is a real guy - a real reporter, not some guy pretending to be a reporter, which is what makes it so freakin' funny. I just laugh myself teary-eyed every time I see it, which is usually really late at night so I have to be quiet. Apparently, the TV station never aired the clip! Amazing, isn't it? But someone pirated it, put it on YouTube (back in 2008, when YouTube had about seven videos on it) and it quickly spread like a communicable disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isiah_Carey

Twenty seconds of Superman

Unlike 90% of the gifs that appear on this blog, I didn't make this one. It's a "share" (so it's OK, I'm not ransacking anyone's gif files). It's the longest gif I've ever seen, maybe because it's a stop-motion type thing, but the effect is still there.

Actually, no. I just timed it at 20 seconds, and I used to be able to make 30-second ones (easily!) when Gifsforum was still in operation. Later on, before it completely malfunctioned, Makeagif would make at least a 20-second one. I can still do longer ones on Imgur, but they're far too big to post. All my attempts to shrink them down make them look like crap.

So it's nice to get an unusually-long one like this. The animation works just fine with only a few frames per second. Damn sight better than mine, anyways. And whatever DID happen to Gifsforum?? If I google it, it tells me it's still in operation, but believe me when I say, there is NOTHING there.

Running out of time? God will give you more

I recently found a trove of  "As Seen on TV" videos on YouTube, the kind you will never see on TV (or, at least, I haven't). There's even a Facebook page with a daily video. Oh joy! Some of these are just weird enough to appeal to me. I didn't think anyone was religious enough to want a talking clock that spews scriptural verses at you, but then again -. Here it is.

Bentley is behind my computer screen

Bentley does NOT like the vacuum cleaner. He likes the carpet cleaner even less. It's rare to see him hide anywhere - he's usually not a fraidy-cat. But here he averages it out: halfway hiding, just peeking over the edge. I wish the light were better here. He doesn't stay long behind it, anyway.

Entrance of the Catholic Idiots

This thing is absolutely inexplicable. It's some sort of cheesy Italian Catholic circus-thingammy, with out-of-tune music that cuts in and out, and so-called acrobats who look like they've been scraped off the streets of Rome. If this IS Rome, which it's not, I'm sure (in fact, I think it's somewhere in Brazil). I don't know what Novena Solena is, but I've found a few more of these videos which are along the same lines. There is one involving acrobatic angels with fur wings and crimplene gowns, and another one featuring little kids carting around bowls with live goldfish in them.

Exceptionally cheesy. All the comments (with a sample below) are indignant and blame Vatican II, whatever THAT is. You know that expression "so bad it's good'? This is so bad, it's bad.

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Fruit of Vatican II....people ignoring Fatima this is what we get. God have mercy on mankind!

Que grosería

Totally inappropriate and scandalous to say the least. All organizers and "priest" to be excommunicated asap .

This is total carnival of heresy.

Unreal. I really hope this was not a Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholics doing this.

 Just Evil.

Anh?

I want to freaking puke!! Why was I born post vat 2??? I can see why the orthodox do not want to unite with us!

yep, this makes me want to go bacK u__u

This is sick.

How horrible.

They were thinking Vatican ll with the liberal modernist evils.

Sinful and shameful. THIS IS VATICAN ll. Forgive them Father they know not what they do.

CAN NOT BELIEVED THIS IS TRUE, MAY BE A GRAPHIC DESIGN TRICK OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

Is this supposed to be Catholic or something? It looked and felt 100% pagan.

CHE SCHIFO, VERGOGNATEVI

El espanto.....

Why?? God, why??

Que coisa mais ridícula, abominável! Aonde vamos parar? Isso é missa ou é circo? 

Aparecida clowns!

What r u doing? Brazil Stahp!

This one will have even non-traditionalist Catholics face-palming? What were they thinking?

Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

I have to tell you this.

I remember these things from, oh, probably my late teens (when, by the way, I was already married). But they did not die. They went on and on.

Not only did my kids watch Schoolhouse Rock videos (they were called cartoons then) in the early '80s, my GRANDKIDS were fairly recently subjected to them in school. I couldn't believe it - budget restraints, or what?

They couldn't believe it when I began to sing along with them, "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" and "Anyplace that you can go, and anything that you can know/You know they're nouns/You know they're nouns". (For some reason I keep thinking of the Statue of Liberty part.)

These aren't particularly good, but they're nostalgic, and this one is nicely restored by somebody-or-other. It comes from one of those ubiquitous Facebook nostalgia pages that I increasingly spend my time on, wanting to distract myself from the impending Armageddon which will surely come if that evil prick in the White House isn't impeached within a year.

"I took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. . . "

Triumph of the Will: as seen by Busby Berkeley

Come out, come out, come out and get your lovin'
Now don't you keep me in suspense
Come on, come on, we'll do our turtledovin'
Sittin' on a backyard fence

Come on, come on,
The little stars are peekin'
They're waiting for you to commence
Uh-huh, uh-huh, I kind of thought I'd weaken
Sittin' on a backyard fence

It may be just another little backyard alley
Off the avenue
But I can see a willow tree, a moonlit valley
In the dreams I share with you

Meow, meow, the kitty cat is cooin'
He shows a lot of common sense
He knows, he knows, there's always something doin'
Sittin' on a backyard fence!

This is only one of my favorite numbers from Footlight Parade, a classic Busby Berkeley musical from 1933. Pre-code, obviously, though this number is extremely mild compared to the hilariously charming Honeymoon Hotel, in which almost every line is full of double-entendres. But the tune is so lighthearted and the players so delightfully comedic that they get away with it. I can't find a whole version of HH, so can't post it here, and lyrics alone don't begin to get it. This little cat number, much simpler than the other three Berkeley blockbusters in this film, is a sort of warmup for the orgasmic bliss of the movie's last half-hour. And believe me, it IS orgasmic, even though I've had a few revelations about Berkeley lately that have opened my eyes.

I've seen his choreography, of course - anyone who likes old movies has, and my impression of it was always "classy kitsch". But then I couldn't help but notice the grace and precision of his dancers as they played phony violins or pianos in exact unison, or performed water ballet so perfectly synchronized it was a little bit frightening.

It IS a little bit frightening to see all this intentional, mass uniformity, and it fascinated me to find out a bit about Berkeley's background. He wasn't a dancer or a choreographer at all, wasn't even in show business. He was a drill sergeant in the army during World War I, an expert at forming precise military patterns with human bodies. This was some sort of mad genius drill sergeant, of course, and some of his visions are much darker than I realized.

I've just sent away to Amazon for a boxed set with some of his best-known stuff in it, but the one I'm looking forward to the most is Gold Diggers of 1935. His version of Lullaby of Broadway is so spooky that it's hard to see it as part of a musical at all. It's almost like a horror movie, with the singer's face starting as a tiny white dot in the middle of total blackness. Then like some toxic death-lily it gradually blooms and blooms until it dominates the screen in a way that is nothing short of macabre.

The dancing in this number is not like normal dancing, believe me. This isn't tap. I don't know what it is, but it includes aggressive arm-thrusting movements that at first look weird, then violent, then - like something out of the Third Reich. I am not exaggerating.

Hitler was well on his way by 1935, as was Leni Riefenstahl, chronichler of Hitler's rise in the infamous propoganda film, Triumph of the Will. But I was astonished to learn that, fascist as his choreography looked, it was not Berkeley who was influenced by Riefenstahl.

It was the other way around. Riefenstahl idolized American film, and American musicals in particular. She could not have failed to be dazzled by a choreographer who could get a couple hundred identical human beings to move around a stage in exact unison.

Berkeley didn't have a happy life. He married and divorced six times, killed three people in a drunken car accident, and at least once tried to commit suicide. For all that, he lived to be 80 years old. Such longevity is not always a great blessing in a person like that.

But he left these weird artifacts with their disturbing overtones. This little backyard fence number is nothing - except for a dwarf running around in a bizarre rat costume, and the inexplicably weird "thing" that Ruby Keeler rises out of and  dances around, a leering, winking, open-mouthed something that might be the moon, or something else.

KILL THEM!

I wanted to make an animation with that horrible little symbol on the "kill them!" notice that I keep getting. Though I've had it explained to me over and over, I still do not understand what "kill them" means. Do they mean "delete"? Why not SAY "delete"? If a page is unresponsive, WHY delete it in the first place? So I assumed "kill them" meant to nuke them absolutely, to wipe them off the face of the earth as if they had never existed. I could see a miniature mushroom cloud rising from my Facebook page and my blog (nurtured along for SEVEN years now!). I would be left with nothing but blankness, a terrible void. And I didn't even DO anything.

Well, what else COULD "kill them" mean? It had to mean wiping them out completely, or they would not call it that. And why, when the page's only crime was being "unresponsive"? I've gone on various sites that supposedly explained the "kill them" notice, and all they do is repeat, "if it's unresponsive, kill the page". There is software that keeps the notice from coming up that you can buy. But if you hit the wrong button - 

What happens??

As with almost everything else to do with computers, you're supposed to already know.They talk over your head in glib jargon that makes you feel like a pile of ignorant shit in seconds.

I am still convinced that if you hit the wrong button, you are screwed. You will no longer have any trace of existence on Facebook, your blog or anywhere else. You will have "killed" the page or pages. 

OK then, if it isn't that, explain it to me! In English! Don't just say, "well then, kill the file", expecting me to KNOW what it means, and whether or not I can bring it back from the dead!
But dead means dead. Doesn't it?

My animation is the usual jumping-up-and-down-on-each-other thing, but it's hard to do anything else with such a hideous malformation. When I first saw this notice, I literally gasped. It was EVIL and seemed to come out of nowhere. No one else I knew had ever even heard of it. The little symbol on it scared the living hell out of me. It was a whole new definition of ugly, and menacing.

Why would would I WANT to kill my pages? Why? And if I do, can they ever be resurrected?

I don't see what else this command could mean but total and permanent annihilation. You can't just kill something or someone for a little while. Killing is forever.

Bentley's abandonment issues

Bentley is the opposite, When we're going out, he dives into his carrier and looks out at us beseechingly, as if to say, "Take me with you!" All right, not beseechingly. He just looks out at us.

Scientology: living the nightmare

Bentley hates the vacuum cleaner!

Warning: this will scare the shit out of you

This is a sound you know, but you don't know that you know it. After this, you will wish you had never heard it at all.

Bentley and bird tracks

Bentley has enough trouble figuring out snow. But what are these teeny-weeny tracks? Perhaps we have been visited by small dinosaurs.

Bentley has a very nice closeup in this one. He specializes in the sombre, liquid-eyed, enigmatic closeup.

Two pussies in love

My latest animation. Disney it ain't - I don't know how to do 24 frames per second. This is more like stop-motion. But it took me long enough!

Mission Impossible Squirrel

Cats I have known