Buzz Off

I've mentioned a few times the benefits of having a deaf spouse. They can't pick up on the mutterings under your breath and then divorce you for being a jerk and of course sign language is useful for communicating through windows and at a distance when phones are not practical. Another advantage to sign language is that solicitors, beggars and hippies wanting signatures give up when they see someone using ASL (see here) because yeah, they want to save the Earth but not bad enough to learn how to communicate with a large percentage of the population.

There are several devices for the deaf we use to make life a little bit easier. Gizmos that flash lights when there is someone at the door, a camera connected to a monitor for telephone relays from deaf-to-deaf or deaf-to-hearing people and a few smart phone applications. Text messages is one of the greatest aids that exists for the deaf. From the caveman days of the TTY and expensive typing pagers to the ease of modern versions on cellphones it is texting that will probably be the primary and easiest form of communicating over a distance for the deaf. Texting is an equalizer (though many deaf I know dislike lowering themselves to the hearing standard). Video applications like Face Time has proven valuable and so has a similar application from Sorenson VRS that works on the computer and smartphone. Sorenson company supplies the high-speed internet-enabled cam-phone in our home and it works great.

Sorenson also have made available some flash cards for the phone for use when dealing with the non-signing public called Buzz Cards. Basically you show the Buzz Card to a cashier or cab driver or whomever to communicate your needs. They read it and then get your request wrong just like with all their hearing and speaking customers. I made some of my own in the past (right here) that where a bit artistic or practical for the spouse to use but I have to say the Buzz Cards are pretty handy. The basic set in the app comes with a few slides ready to go but the best thing about them is that they are fully customizable and the user can add new ones as they see fit.

As you can imagine that allows many shenanigans. Here are some examples (with shocking words pixelated for the faint of heart):

Yes, as much as I don't like jack-booted authoritarians I hate hippies even more. So the majority of what I have termed Buzz Off Cards (see what I did there?) are intended for them. When I'm at the mall and some girl pauses in texting her BFF (omg!!! hez sooo cute!) long enough to attempt to get my signature on a clipboard I have a choice of several images to show her. But they are not intended only for people who are trying to make the world a better place by standing around in shopping malls doing nothing! No, sir. Teens or older people begging for change at the stoplight can get an eyeful, too. You hold a sign up to my car window and I'll respond in kind with a Buzz Off Card.

So thank you, Sorenson. I express in all sincerity that by creating your application and making it available you have made people's lives better. The deaf can communicate with the hearing public a bit easier. My wife can order a coffee, find a restroom or successfully use a drive-thru through (especially at night after the dining area is closed or in areas she doesn't feel comfortable getting out of the car) thanks to you. I know it really improved my visits to the mall and made those uncomfortable meetings at traffic intersections a little less awkward.

And now, a pretty lady signing to The Sound of Sunshine...

The day FRANK avoided his BOSS

FRANKLAZY BASTARD

World of Mystery #4 (Dec 1956).

Tow Away Zone

Dealing with vehicle issues this week so featured is a few car-related entries today.

Hey, Mom, can I borrow the car?
One of my worst fears has come to pass. Free Car finally died and the costs of repairs, with little guarantee that it would not fail again within a few weeks if not days are prohibitive. I am left with no choice but to purchase another car. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem except for the lingering fallout from my time in Stupidlandia still doesn't enable me to get a reasonable loan. A few months ago the car breaking down would have been a disaster that would have left three people unemployed. Currently we are at a point where it is less an emergency and more of an annoyance. I know a guy who knows a guy so I should have a really good car for cheap by the end of the week.

Canyonero!

Because Calvin urinating on a cat attacking his groin would have been weird.
Check out the tow truck decal I printed out and stuck to the rear of my friend's Jaguar next to that symbol of a leaping cat. I think it is funny because his Jag is always in the shop. He doesn't see the humor.

Still better than the Stephen King novel.
Here is one of the truly scary scenes from the 1966 film The Bubble. The movie tells the story of the few people left self aware when they wander into a town that is covered by an invisible dome. Aliens are studying humans though how effective the test could be are in doubt since the captors have zombie-fied the townspeople, surely skewing the results. The aliens also hate broken down vehicles littering the scenic roads because they tractor field out of the dome any car with engine trouble. If the video looks a little blurry it is because it is presented in 3-D. Put on your red and blue specs for the entire experience!

There is another scene in The Bubble similar to this one featuring a woman trapped in a truck but that would have meant actually watching The Bubble to find it.

Are we sure it's tobacco she's smoking?

Not making the news the other day is that the Old Gold Tobacco-Lovin' USO Hostess also had her day before a judge, appearing in court immediately after Julian Assange made his famous showing. Since cameras were not allowed in the courtroom a sketch artist was present to record the events. While Julian was sketched variously as being dignified or about to power-up and beat an invading alien superman to death, Old Goldie should have requested a different artist. Based on the art provided that faithfully carried over her advertising persona she is clearly in for a rough time convincing a jury of her peers she hasn't done anything wrong.

You can't be too careful

Following with interest the news that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been issued a warrant for his arrest by Swedish authorities. I'm not ready to state whether he has been framed, set up, or is guilty but I am going to pay attention to the story. There are only a few people who know what really happened and we have to wait for the evidence to determine who is guilty and who is innocent.

This story has international implications. Assange is notoriously difficult to locate as he is reported to never stay in the same place more than one night. Dangerous men have dangerous enemies and I'm sure the various threats against Assange are very real. There is no telling what region he may visit in his travels. He is a ghost. He could very well be hiding in a motel in New York, Britain, Berlin, Hong Kong or even San Diego.

So just to be on the safe side I'm going to wear a t-shirt with the slogan NOT JULIAN ASSANGE on it whenever I venture out of my home. I'd hate to get tasered by cops when on the way to the mall mistakenly identifying me as Mr. Assange. This is something everyone should be concerned about. Furthermore, my wife is visiting relatives in hated Maryland soon so I have to be ready when I go to the airport to see her off. The t-shirt will divert suspicion from me being Mr. Assange and ensure that there will not occur a case of mistaken identity when I escort my wife to the TSA checkpoint. Look what happened to Frank Morris. If he was wearing one of these T-shirts he'd still be a free man today.

True Love Stories

You know it happened!

Here's the original: Lovers #76 (March 1956).

The Arrogant Narcissist

Read The Arrogant Narcissist every Sunday!

Jenny vs. The Crime Empire

As mentioned in a previous post, Futura - Chapter 12, there are some recurring creative cliches that irk the heck out of me and ruin my reading or viewing enjoyment. Author Lewis Shiner addresses many of them in his work and I have referenced it previously myself. This entry in My First Book of Noir shtick Jenny vs. The Crime Empire pokes fun at two of the most common and irksome cliches in any action fiction; that of the "Lucky Break" and "The Hostage With Access To Weapons (Who Doesn't Use Them)".

Breaking those tropes is why I found page five of Chapter 12's Futura story so pleasing. Brought into the command center before the tyrant of space, Futura proceeds to beat him near to death with her bare hands. The scene in the fictional Chapter 5 of Jenny vs. The Crime Empire was directly inspired by how I envisioned the initial conference room meeting between captive Rachel Weisz and the evil corporate executive in the film Chain Reaction should have really gone down.

A few pages from the story Jenny vs. The Crime Empire. Originally published in My First Book of Noir (1953).

My First Book of Noir

"He had been called "Sweat Weasel" for so long he had nearly forgotten his true name."

A page from the story Sweat Weasel in Big Town. Originally published in My First Book of Noir (1953).

I don't think I'll ever be over Macho Grande

Took you blokes long enough

Perhaps I've watched the Village of the Damned too many times but I really find British children to be scary as hell. When I first saw the classic science fiction film based upon the novel The Midwich Cuckoos I didn't know the kids were soul-less mutants. I just thought they were normal private school kids.

From the weirdly misplaced English girl in that United States farm belt town in Superman 2 pleading with Kryptonian criminals for her father to be spared (I mean, why was she there? What awful mission was she undertaking? Couldn't she leave her evil in Britain where it belonged?) and the Empty Child in Doctor Who, popular culture is full of references to inherently evil children from the UK. It says something about a society when all the mainstream entertainment depicts the parents as terrified of their progeny. Maybe being proficient in Latin and having good pronunciation opens the soul to terrible forces that are only exorcised after puberty.

There are rare exceptions of course. Hayley Mills is so darned adorable at any age she has remained pure and untouched by evil.

Hmm....Perhaps she is the reason why all those Brit Kiddies never managed to destroy humanity? A look at the Hayley Mills time line reveals certain facts. While it is difficult and extremely unpleasant to imagine a time before Hayley existed what is clear is that British youngsters have been around causing misery for at least 300 years. Look at the facts: Before Hayley was born there were Nazis, war and famine. After she was born there was no European conflict to speak of, the Reich was in ruins and there were a lot more puppies and flowers around. It all makes perfect and adorable sense.

Dry those tears, I'm gonna be rich!

Cool panel from a story found in My Own Romance #9 (October 1949). I cleaned up the panel, added fresh color and threw in some Benday dots for that nifty pop art effect. I think it came out pretty sweet. The original artist probably got something like less than $15 a page for the entire job. Yet like Lichtenstein, I am prepared to sell a print of this for hundreds, maybe thousands of times what the original artist was paid for the original work.

Art is cool.

Dell published some oddities back in the day

Probably about as NSFW as I'll ever get, original found at the GCB.

Big Red's gone troppo, driving and other things

Item! The family and I went out to celebrate my son going to college by eating at one of those silly family theme restaurants the other night. I thought this coaster from the restaurant featuring some kangaroos apparently hopping away in terror from one of their zombie, cannibalistic mates wielding a fork and knife amusing.

The restaurant, as you know, offers authentic Australian cuisine. My meal consisted of: Large white grubs found under a rock, snake, frog and a heady beverage of fermented saliva served in an ostrich egg.

Item! On the drive home it was rush hour and I was paused at the on-ramp to I-805 from I-8. Being used to the area at this time frame I kept glancing up at my rear-view mirror. It paid off. A car was approaching from behind at high speed. Obviously the driver was inattentive and not at all prepared for all the cars on the highway to have gone from 65 to zero in the span of a few hundred feet. The driver slammed on his brakes and with tires squealing, went into a skid aimed right at the back of my car.

After a quick visual check of the car in front of me revealed no signs of containing babies or children (I'm that kind of guy), I calmly turned the wheel and gently rolled off onto the paved shoulder by the on-ramp and forwards a few feet. The car behind me came to a shuddering halt with the front bumper even with my rear passenger door. If I had remained in place on the highway I would have been struck pretty hard by the other vehicle. After a few moments traffic started moving again and I pulled back onto the road, the formerly inattentive driver now alert and keeping a good distance from other cars.

This is the second time I have had to perform a similar maneuver at that particular ramp. The last incident was a few years ago in nearly the same location. Makes me question how many accidents occur regularly in this area.

Item! I'm not one of those people who name their cars. The most of a moniker any vehicle I own gets is New Car or Old Car or something similar. Much of the terseness comes from communicating with the wife via sign language. Just signing using simple gestures saves wear and tear on the fingers, not to mention time. The last two cars we owned were just called Red Car and Blue Car. Those I sold when leaving for California and the car I have now we just call Free Car.

It isn't pretty but it costs nearly nothing to drive. I did however recently notice a little while ago that the car I've been driving for a year has a promotional Too Fast Too Furious 2 cover on the steering-wheel. When people talk of bad sequels they usually mention something from the Matrix Trilogy, Electric Boogaloo 2 or Elektra. But I nominate 2F2F2 as the worst sequel of all time. I can only think the family member didn't care what they used to grip the wheel and that the cover was free or under a dollar but maybe I should rethink my relationship with that one person. Hopefully he wasn't a fan of the film. More proof that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Item! I haven't thanked Bully's pal, John DiBello enough but he helped pull me through a crappy year by his gifts of books and graphic novels. While he never asked for anything in return I know I've been remiss in reviewing them because to do so would require I give careful attention and thought to them. Since my head was mainly focused on getting to the end of the day, this would do a disservice to John and his kindness. As anyone who cares to check my archives is aware, I don't really apply any careful thought to what I post. I'm in a position now that I can give the materials he sent the consideration they deserve.

Thanks again, John and Bully!



Item! Because you can't get enough SCHATZI!

I'm using Speedpass in the carpool lane