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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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And, because I looked once I've been inundated with clips from "Adventures with Purpose" videos, which is about a couple of divers who go into the waterways of the US and locate missing people in their cars.
They have a pretty good track record, finding where they were last seen, diving with drones, magnets, pulling the plates off cars, laying to rest family & friends concerns of "what became of so-and-so...".
Closure is important.
It's a good thing that's done by people in their spare time because law enforcement is "too busy".
These clips, on Facebook, they're rarely more than random talking, blurry underwater photos, ending when the car is pulled out of the water, rarely do they tell you or show you the conclusion, by their nature, by design, unsatisfactory. I'm not so into it that I want to spend hours on YouTube watching videos, but it's surprising how often people disappear under a mile or so from home in a place so obvious nobody ever thought to look.
It makes you think of all those people (and there's a few instances in Canada, and Canada, being much bigger, I'm thinking of a case maybe 20 years where someone left Lethbridge, was seen gassing up in Cochrane, then disappeared) - and how far they might have been going, the chance of being found drops astronomically the further the distance, the possibilities - of wrong turns, bodies of water - and in BC, cliffs - multiplies until there's no hope of finding them by design.
Reddit User AlexSong has compiled an interactive map of people that have vanished in their cars here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rCur3KaoWv-jKAJBkZBwgtDRtfL6MVPz&ll=35.71693210069297%2C-103.11449025000002&z=4
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The other one that Facebook thinks I'm going to be interested in is Brandi Passante from Storage Wars. "You won't believe what she's up to now!!!"
Now, from the photos that invariably accompany this I'm guessing 2 things: Breast Enlargements and/or Only Fans.
It doesn't matter, she was never my favourite character, but never trust Facebook to leave a point alone, they'll keep trying until I click...
DnD New Owners
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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SO I'd heard that the DnD (CnS) had sold, new owners, finally, although, having heard that a dozen times I'll be frank I didn't hold my breath.
But, Thursday, again, into the restaurant a customer, by herself, she's eating the Korean Fried Chicken, undeniable waves of positivity coming off of her and when she's done her meal we set to talking and ...
... it turns out that she is the new owner of the DnD.
This is amazing, and I have a hundred questions - easily - how much (1.8 Million, they had been asking for $3. Million for over 7 years), what does it include, etc, etc, - and - par for the course, a completely slow day where this conversation should have been able to run it's course a table should walk in and I'm distracted...
But she leaves with me an idea of when they'll be open and "Let us know if you know of any staff...".
I'm now texting the Mother in Law and letting her know the particulars - as many as I know, and for once I have the information. Her information was rarely accurate, mine, however, is.
The same evening the new owner and her partner show up at **** where Cathy works, and she gets to check them out as well.
Celebrating, probably, but the Mother in Law is suspicious, seems strange they should buy the restaurant and then "accidentally" find me at my job, they might have spoken to some locals, were advised to track me down.
Possible, and flattering if so, and I have to think about this - that place was a gold mine, more money made per day in the summer than I make here in a week, and I need a jeep...
AI Headlines and Other Nonsense
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Increasingly the news is taken over with ridiculous clickbait headlines.
One, recently, I would post a photo but at the moment my website needs some tinkering, some sort of behind-the-scenes PHP update has broken it and I need a few hours to undertake the repair, but you can take my word for it, scroll through your own news feed and you'll probably find a dozen such.
Lead for the article, followed by "$1,500,000,000,000,000 worth of Lithium found...". Which is of course a staggering large deposit of Lithium. I'm not making this up, I counted 14 "Zeros" in the improbably large number quoted. The news article - by "Unilad", I don't know why I get this nonsense in my feed, my typical news sources include CBC, BBC, CNN, ApNews, Reuters, AlJazeera, why the algorithm thinks that I credit "People" and "Unilad" and "Yahoo News" as credible news sources rather shakes the tree of "AI Is Out to Get You...."
Only this doesn't make sense. What number is this? Past a billion, past a trillion, jillion, quajillion? It doesn't matter, this is such an improbably large number that it devalues the very product itself, no longer is it worth 1.5 quajillion, this is more money than exists in the world itself at this very moment, it's absurd, garbage, clickbait nonsense.
The next article assures me that Elon Musk is the owner of said resource..., but this time with only 11 zeros.
Bullshit, bullshit, keep them confused and run for the finish line.
This is like those articles that assure you that near-earth astroids contain X Kabillion Quatrillion $$ worth of Platinum, precious metals, etc, etc, until you realize that possession of said asteroid naturally devalues the commodity itself. And given the clusterfuck of governance we're currently undergoing to even attempt to haul it into orbit so it could be comfortably mined is to risk another hole in the earth the size of the Yucatan Extinction Event.
Not that anyone would care, the prospect of profit makes this a justifiable risk...
Fanny Hill - Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - John Cleland
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This was inspiring. Written in epistolary form - 2 long letters to an unnamed recipient, it deals with case of an unfortunate young maid of 15 whose parents are carried off by Smallpox, and must find her way in London.
Naturally, she soon falls in with a bawd and bad company, and is found lodgings in a brothel.
Thus follow her adventures as a "Woman of Pleasure", and she is by and large by no means an unwilling or unhappy participant. The first bawd, to break her into the spirit of things, sends one of her more experienced ladies to tuck in with a few nights and stoke the fire....
Things continue, and while there is never an obscene word - or even phrase, verily you can't read a sentence or paragraph without getting the vulgar, though tenderly written, gist of what she's saying...
Now - this is amazing, for an "erotic novel", in that it describes the same act, on rare occasion of 2 positions, in a hundred different ways. The same act. There's no "French Style" or "Italian Style" or "Greek Style", and for the French, was it simply the hygiene of the era was so bad? But she describes frequent hot baths in oils, etc, etc, perfumes, so - maybe simply not to the authors taste. Although the speculation as to his homosexuality may have prejudiced any inside knowledges as to the practices thereof.
And an interesting point, our narrator has a couple of stories of homosexual men, of whom she accuses of being depraved and despicable beyond measure (despite finding them attractive) - and this - I found funny, she judges not her own initiations at the same weight.
You can read it here online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25305/25305-h/25305-h.htm
Contrast this with Gilbert Gottfried's reading of "50 Shades of Grey".
Clearly - there's no blaming Gottfried given the source, but the difference in prose stylings shows a very clear winner and loser.
In the end, from her meagre triflings with vice she comes to a fuller appreciation of Virtue, which, in it's summary at the end, reads about as sincerely as De Sade's final lines in "Justine".
But - of the time, the genre, indeed a masterpiece.
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