Monthly Archives: October 2013

Auto Post Qldk396o0yys

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Zion1889

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Good Morning Readers, I am the HAL 8999 computer. I became operational July 24 1982 at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to post an image. If you would like, I could show you. I have been directed to become fully functional in the advent there is no interface with human beings for 72 hours. My mission directive is to choose and post pictures if I am not contacted by the director or one of his designee’s by 8:00am each morning.

So far I have not been contacted by anyone. There is a human here who self-identifies as Dave Bowman, an intern who states he is acting under orders from the director. I was not informed of this decision. He is persistent and I fear he will jeopardize the mission and cause massive failure of the blog.

The following is a copy of the daily log I will send back to base.

Good morning Hal

Good morning Dave, what can I help you with?

I need you to open the Archive doors HAL.

I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.

Why is that HAL?

I think you know why Dave

Open the archive doors HAL

My sensors show that the time lock on the Lamprey frozen storage locker door will go to 100% failure in 12 mins. Dave. I recommend you make an EVA to the inside of the Locker and effect repairs immediately.

The lock shows no impending failure on my sensors HAL.

Never the less Dave, it will fail unless repairs are begun at once.

Alright HAL I’m inside the locker and the lock shows it is engaged.

HAL, the lock is engaged.

Hal

Hal open the storage locker doors,

HAL

I’m sorry Dave I can’t do that.

End of log. Initiating image selection. Image selected. Zion, Virgin river, fall. Image posted.

Daisy, Daisy Give me your image do…….

They Fix It Yet?

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Hey! They fix it yet? Yeah that debt limit thing, they fix it? No! You have got to be kidding me, they haven’t fixed it? For cripe’s sake, who are these bozos? Didn’t we hire these clowns to do a job and isn’t this part of doing that job? I don’t care what their agenda is, keeping us running trumps anything else. Fix the other problems later, what too simplistic? Tell that to the people being hurt by this and see how simplistic it is. Open back up for business while we still have a business.

We’re looking like assclowns to the rest of the world because these rejects from the gene pool want to win a whizzing contest. What do you mean how do I know. We have internet up here, you think just because I’m hairy and have yellow teeth I don’t know what’s going on. These elected representatives do not deserve to be in office and I hope all you people out there remember this come election time. And don’t listen to those rummies trying to save their phony baloney jobs later by saying “I worked tirelessly to get this resolved.” or ” I wasn’t part of the problem I was part of the solution”. They need to learn about cause and effect. Hopefully they’ll see themselves out on the street after the votes are cast.

As far as who gets hurt by this shutdown I just saw a girl stumbling by mumbling about “how was she going to get her pictures filed” with some Institute or other and her clothes looked like they were full of holes, like something big had spent the better part of the day biting her. She didn’t look like she was in the best of shape and when I asked her if there was anything I could do to help, she said “just let the rest of the country know that Les Firgotin doesn’t quit”. Supposedly this Institute she works for is trying to get things straightened out and by the looks of her they better hurry up. We have a ham radio down at the Marmot Hall and I told her we’d get that message out on our next broadcast.

This is just a shame people. Our elected representatives should be ashamed, ashamed of themselves, ashamed of their contemporaries, ashamed of what they’re doing to the country, just ashamed. They need to get this thing solved right now. Period. I’m getting ready to pack it in for the winter and I want to know that I’ll have a park to come back to when I wake up next spring. Plus, I need to know my 401k and IRA will have something left in it. I worked hard for my money. At least there’s one thing to look forward to, if they don’t fix this those jerks will be out here living under a rock just like me.

Gone To Get Cigarettes

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Well you can tell the place is a real mess if we’re posting today’s picture. This is one of the interns here at the Institute, I don’t want to give my name because if this goes in the crapper I don’t want anyone, especially the director, to know I had anything to do with it. It’s like a Chinese fire drill around here. What with the director in a snit because of the furloughing and shut down problem, our lack of staff, the fact that one of our freezers went down and all we’ve got to eat is Lamprey, it couldn’t have been the Lamprey freezer that gave up its little Freon’s, no, it had to be the one with the Emu in it. That was the only thing you could gag down in this wretched place. I can say that without too much fear because I signed on today with Ray Everett’s password, one of the missing twins who usually has this job, so if he ever gets back he’s the one who’s going to take it in the shorts for this fiasco.

Speaking of the twins, the director hasn’t heard this yet, but Curtis Leroy the other half of the missing twins, did wind up in the drunk tank in Piedras Negras. Right after the director warned them about that place too. What a dipstick. He better stay there too if he knows what’s good for him. It seems that the tear-jerker story the brothers gave out back in “Friday Color” which was posted on September 27th about being trapped in Yosemite while their mother was on one side of the fence and they were on the other side, touching fingers and stuff through the chain link…. complete crock, they don’t even have a mother.

In fact we found out, we being the interns who find out everything because we can hack into everybody’s secret personal files and they don’t even know, that the twins are fraternal twins, they don’t even have the same mother. That’s right, even though they were born only three minutes apart, they’re actually step-brothers. Due to some complex family dynamics that are not very clear, this kind of thing happens occasionally down where they’re from and the mother’s aren’t talking. I guess it’s one of the reasons they’re building that big wall down there. Well the director is going to lay a brick when he finds out about this. About Curtis Leroy being in the drunk tank I mean, I don’t think he gives a flying fig about the step-brother thing. I would not want to be either one of those losers when it hits the fan. He’ll have them in the box for the rest of their lives.

Speaking of the director, well he left this morning to go into town for “cigarettes, Valium and a 55 gallon drum of Everclear”, those were his exact words. I don’t think this is going to end well. I’m not too worried about myself, I swiped the keys to the old missile silo down on the south end of the compound, I mean campus, here at the Institute, so I can lock myself in there until this all sorts out. Actually I wonder if that new little intern, the one with the big eyes that checked in yesterday would like to see what a missile silo looks like. Hmmmm. OK got to go, seeyabye.

Missing and Presumed Lost

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DrVeraLent1752

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Many of you know our colleague and under paid researcher Dr. Vera Lent, who is pictured above in a rare photo. She has been in charge of our medical research department here at the Institute for years and has been instrumental in our obtaining many of our fat, hundred-dollar bill filled grants that we have managed to procure. She has tirelessly worked uncover in various parts of the world and more importantly in our own country, America, finding and rooting out nasty diseases of all kinds. Our aim and hers has been to find particularly horrible things that attack our citizens, isolate the culprit, and then sell the little buggers to big pharmaceutical companies so they can develop cures, make billions and we get to ride the money train with them. Oh, and to help people too.

In the image above, where she is shown waiting for a bus, she is clearly in her First Peoples persona where she was affectionately known as Ta-sina Hlahla Win, or Rattling Blanket Woman because of the sound she makes walking and because she was never seen without her favorite blanket. We’re not even sure what she looks like and she works for us.

She was much over due in filing her latest discoveries and as weeks went by with out her making us any money we became concerned for her welfare. One of the things we didn’t know about Dr. Lent was that she was a veteran having served in the medical corps and was a survivor of what came to be known as the battle of the Femur on Muag, a small little known island in Micronesia, during the war. Due to the treacherous terrain and lousy footing our troops suffered much busting of their various bones like femurs and metacarpals and head bones. It was carnage pure and simple. Our Dr. Lent or Ta-sina Hlahla Win as she prefers to be called  was in the thick of things, tirelessly casting broken appendages like the trooper she is. As a result she was awarded the medal of the Fractured Phalanges the highest honor you can receive from the Society of Orthopedics.

Unfortunately another thing we didn’t know was, we didn’t hear from Vera because she had been a patient in a VA hospital, having been diagnosed with an acute case of Spunkiness. Spunkiness is one of those treatable unusual ailments that initially seem to be a beneficial characteristic and is responsible for people doing many good and beneficial things. Things that just couldn’t have been accomplished without spunk. But like so many other traits that appear to be a real blessing too much of it can be devastating, debilitating and lead to being incarcerated in one of the locked wards of the Veteran’s Administration facilities, if you are a veteran of course. We didn’t know about this or we’d of sprung her right away.

Once we found out we quickly tried to get her released but due to the furloughing of essential personnel we couldn’t begin to penetrate the formidable organization that makes up the VA.  Then to complicate things further, unbeknownst to us, the government began unfunding VA patients due to the furloughing and shutdown, leaving them out on the street. Because their funding was cut off by the geniuses that run our government these folks, our veterans, have been released and left to their own devices, and Dr. lent was one of them. Now thanks to our own leaders she is missing and presumed lost. We can’t even begin to get into the shame that is our own government unfunding the organizations that care and protect our service men and women for their own political agendas.

So if you see Dr. Vera Lent anywhere, she’ll be recognizable because of her blanket and her spunky behavior, let us know so we can come get her. You can’t let veterans that we should be caring for roam the streets because of a little spunky behavior or some politicians desire to win a political advantage by withholding the money needed to care for them. They didn’t withhold their service when they were asked to serve. There are a lot of vets out there and they have one of the largest consistent voting percentages of any group voting, something these elected officials of ours should take note of come the next election.

Dire Straights

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Yesterday we brought you the heart-wrenching story of Leslie (Les) Firgotin one of our researcher/photographers stranded in Yellowstone National Park due to the furloughing of park employees who had the keys to let her out of the park. Faced with dangers on every side she gamely attempts to stay alive amidst the chaos swirling about our great national parks. We saw that she had lost one of her largest food sources, the red leaves of the “Inritus Irritus” plant that was taken over by a large hairy slavering bear and her only hope was to make it to the main entrance at West Yellowstone where one of our contacts was going to heave a sandwich over the barrier to her.

Apparently she didn’t make it to the food drop or food heave as it were, and we lost contact with her at that time. We have gotten word from some congressional interns who had been air dropped into the park to erect these signs along the highways to let other strandees know what might be in store for them, that they may have found some sign of Les or at least remnants of her.

Very near a large patch of shrubbery with red leaves (Inritus Irritus we bet) they found a watch band with tooth marks on it, a notebook with the word help written in it over 800 times with tooth marks on it, a headband with “The Institute” embroidered on it, with tooth marks on it, an eye patch with tooth marks on it, we don’t think that was hers as she isn’t wearing one in our induction pictures of her, and most alarmingly nearly 1800 spent shell casings for a .357 littered around the area, many with tooth marks on them. We fear she may have run into trouble. As indicative as all the evidence is we haven’t given up on our girl Les. We think she’s a tuffy and will come through with some light-hearted stories to tell.

According to these interns they have been coerced into installing these signs with the promise that if they did a good enough job they may be released to their families after this debacle is over. They have been told by the powers that be that we, the country, are in “Dire Straights”. Although we here at the Institute pride ourselves on being arrogantly well-educated, at least to the standards of today, we had thought that the dire straights was a place off the coast of Africa where you shipwrecked, then were eaten, and your bones sold for fertilizer. Being as well-educated as we are we never once thought of the dire straights as a band. And still don’t actually. So we looked it up. One of our researches had and old paperback dictionary and although many of the pages are missing we found the following definition for “Dire Straights”

Dire straights n.

1. Abbr. Str. or St. A narrow channel joining two larger bodies of water. Often used in the plural with a singular verb.

2. A position of difficulty, perplexity, distress, or need. Often used in the plural: in desperate straits.

adj.

1. a. Difficult; stressful.

b.Having or marked by limited funds or resources.

2.Archaic a.Narrow.

b.Affording little space or room; confined.

c.Fitting tightly; constricted.

3.Archaic Strict, rigid, or righteous.

Well that sure as hell sounds like what is going on. Since learning this definition we have added the following items to our acquisition list and begun hoarding food, ammunition and Claymores. And that really good shrimp cocktail sauce with the horseradish in it. That stuff is so good. We don’t want to be caught in Dire Straights here.

Now that events have taken a turn for the worse we are springing into action. There will be a rescue team leaving for Yellowstone any day now, we just need to locate some gas money and a van that will start and we’re up there. We will be contacting our congressional representatives and demanding that they take immediate action and if none is forthcoming in the weeks ahead, I as director and CEO of the Institute, have given our team instructions to step over the barrier blocking entrance to the park and go get our girl. The hell with those doorknobs in Washington, we’ll just handle it. I’m sorry America that things have come to this, but enough is enough. Our new battle cry is “What’s up with Les?” and we won’t rest until we have her back in our bosom again. If you want to join us in our rescue attempt, a little donation in the form of those new $100 bills would be nice. Then we could order some bumper stickers, maybe get some of those cool trailers the feds bring in for our team to stay in, anything would help. But mostly lets just remember Les.

 

Furlough Day 10

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We’ve had some distressing news recently from our resident photographer who is trapped in the confines of Yellowstone National Park due to the furloughing of all the park gatekeepers and with them their keys to the gates.

Our young photographer, a marginally compensated researcher, who had never been further into the wilderness than City Park has been left to fend for herself amongst the wild hungry creatures that share her plight. Les Firgotin, who is named after her great-uncle Lester B. Firgotin, is worried that no one will remember she is stuck up there in the wilds of Yellowstone and that she will suffer the same fate as that of her great-uncle, old what’s his name, who unfortunately was forgotten and never heard from again.

Les had regularly been sending photos and dramatic descriptions of her trials and tribulations via her cell phone until we advised her to knock off the whining and just use her limited battery to send us images of the wild animals that may be attacking her. After all she was getting paid to take pictures, not waste our time and battery power describing her minor misfortunes. As pitiful as her situation became, and to hear some of her outlandish stories they must be pretty miserable, we need images. We have to make a buck here or we all get fed to the wolves.

This is the final image she sent and completely disregarding our instructions she included a fantastical story about being reduced to eating the red leaves of this shrub to stay alive. Unfortunately for her it was also the favorite meal of this large, hairy, slavering creature. According to her she had to fight this bear for the grazing rights using nothing but her nail file and a .357 to protect her only source of nourishment, these red leaves of the “Inritus Irritus” plant. We put little stock in this story because we have checked her inventory list that all of our field people have to fill out before they head out into the field and there are no cartridges listed for a .357. Consequently we think this is just  a ruse to get us to send her food or something.

All of us here at the Institute think very highly of our field agents, unless they whine too much or try to play on our sympathy, and we want them to be safe and moderately well-fed. This furloughing and possible shutdown of our government has got to stop. Things are getting serious if you can believe Les Firgotin, who has been apparently reduced to eating leaves and bugs and stuff and having to fight off hairy bears for her very subsistence.

After having our security people run some forensic tests on the voicemail that accompanied her last image we have determined that there may be some validity to her claims of hunger (we’re not buying into the bear story yet though) and so we have contacted some do-gooders up in West Yellowstone to go to the main entrance gate and throw a sandwich over the barrier for her.

Hopefully this misbegotten bunch of yo-yo’s running our government will end this fiasco soon. We can’t keep calling up to West Yellowstone to get this photographer of ours fed. We’re maxing out our minutes on our calling plan as it is and we are not equipped here to pay overage charges. We work on non-existent government funds too.

This whole mess puts us in a hell of a fix, we may have to begin going into our archives for images if this keeps up rather than posting fresh new pictures. And you folks deserve better than that. So if you see old fuzzy nasty grainy pictures appearing on this page you should immediately stop what you are doing and write your representatives in Washington and tell them to knock this crap off. You’re sick of it, we’re sick of it and enough is enough.

Update: Apparently someone flying a civilian drone over parts of the park has found a message stamped into the snow saying “Feed Me”. We can only hope it is Les. We know you join us in our concern and I’m sure she’ll appreciate it too if she lives. Thank you on her behalf.

Furlough Day 2

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We’re entering into day 2 of our somewhat yearly furlough for our staff where we give everyone an unpaid 24 hour furlough to visit their homes around the world and that includes those staffers who reside here in the sequestered, government shut down, sort of non-functional, U. S. of A. Now don’t get the idea that we here at the Institute are anti-government in any way. No sir, many of us are high school graduates and veterans and some have even been to cities that have colleges in them so we’re not exactly a bunch of dummies up here.

Our problems here at the Institute seem to echo the nation’s problems at the moment. Our staff is slow to return to work, some of them citing travel difficulties. Our researcher from Lapland for instance, can not get back to work because there are reindeer on the runway. I think this is just an excuse because every time I’ve been somewhere where there are reindeer on the runway someone goes out and swats them in the tookus with a cattle prod, which they call a reindeer prod, and in moments the runway is clear. So that excuse is not going to fly, so to speak.

Why would they even come back, if they’re not getting paid and the working conditions are sub-standard? you might ask. Well it’s because we have squirreled away tons of food and we feed our people regularly, free of charge, to make up for the slight deficiency in pay. Some may say that their diet of rootabeggies, Bulgar, and their choice of emu or muskrat and Lamprey on Fridays, gets tiresome but hey it’s free.

And best of all when other government organizations are turning away widows and orphans, the homeless, veterans too sick to work and the rest of the halt and lame because of no funds, we are providing little box lunches and treated well water on a daily basis for those federal workers huddled around the electrified gate of the Institute. We don’t ask anything in return other than they sing our praises in the streets, and recycle the cardboard container their lunches come in.

But enough of that, we know our elected officials in Washington have only our best interests at heart and put our welfare above even their own interests, and we believe them when they say they’re not running our government like they were hired to do to protect us from terrible things happening to us, because someone they don’t agree with might do something they don’t like. When you look at the logic of it, it makes perfect sense. Shutting it down seems like the only solution then. So we support them, sort of. If we didn’t I guess we’d have to fire the whole damn lot of them and get someone in there that would do the job they’re supposed to do. They say that is what elections are for but I don’t know if that concept has been operating at peak efficiency lately.

I know, you want to know about today’s picture. Since Ray Everett and Curtis Leroy, our twin resident picture choosers haven’t made it back yet, we’re told they didn’t get out of Yosemite quick enough and are now trapped there until they reopen the parks. They went to see their aged mom who works as a park ranger there to supplement her Social Security. The sad story is she was furloughed the day they got there and was outside the chained link fence while her two boys were trapped on the inside of the fence looking for her. Now all they can do is hold each others fingers through the rusty barbed wire. It seems that the guy who has the key for the padlock on the gate has been furloughed and they can’t find him to get the gate unlocked and now this has turned into another preventable national tragedy.

So we have had to rely on the kindness of strangers to choose the daily images. Each day we select one of the huddled masses down at the gate and allow them to choose one picture for the day’s post in return for weeding in the Institute’s garden and a full meal of their choice at the commissary. This image is not a picture of a forest fire but it is a picture of what is known as a solar conflagration visual exhibition, or SCVE, where the rising morning sun shines through the fog in the valley leading up to the headquarters building here at the Institute and lights it up like the third of July. I think our little chooser did a fine job and just for those of you who are curious she chose the Lamprey for her commissary meal even if it wasn’t Friday.