The nice old man from the third floor died on Monday. I don't know what he died from but he's gone.

I liked Mike. I mostly saw him in the elevator. He wasn't a quiet elevator companion. He was one of those old guys who'd talk to you about stuff. I always assumed he'd been around the block a few times and had some stories to tell.

I'll never know.

Talk now, people. Death doesn't do free long distance.

The fleet came in today for SeaFair. Well, we got three ships from a battle group and three more from our Canadian friends. We used to have a carrier anchored off shore from which all sorts of airborne things would fly and land and entertain.

But those guys are fighting Gorge Bush's war so we - and their families - won't be seeing them this year.

The ships come into Elliott Bay about mid-bay and they head south, looping to the north and running right along the ends of the central waterfront piers. My colleague, myself and Summer Help were checking a problem out in one of the offices on my pier when everyone started talking excitedly about the fleet so we went out and stood on the end of the pier to watch them pass.

It's awfully nice to see the three ships from Canada. They fly the US Flag under theirs and I thinks it's just nice that they extend us that courtesy.

There's a lot of fake brotherhood with Canada here in Seattle, being as close to Canada as we are.

Personally, I'll never forget that Canada took in all of those international flights after our airspace was closed on 9/11 without being able to know whether there was a threat to herself.

I'll also never forget how wonderfully they treated my countrymen who were stranded in Canada in the days after the attack.

Lastly, I'll never forget seeing thousands of Canadians with tears staining their faces at the memorial they held outside of their Parliament. They did for us what brothers do when things suddenly go very bad. They took us in, took care of us and cried with us.

So it's always good to see her navy in our waters. Unless they're trying to take the San Juans back... :)

The Blue Angels are due in town tomorrow and I should get several good glimpses of them as they practice and do their landmarking fro the shows on Saturday and Sunday at SeaFair.

Along with starting the Suicide Diet on Friday, the one where you eat and drink whatever the hell you want to and die happy, I've decided that the streets offer me the kind of freedom and independence that I long for now that I'm older.

I figure I can get enough sex out there if I buy enough cigarettes to trade now while I still have some money.

Food isn't hard to come by as lunch is free at several missions downtown. Food Stamps should cover the rest (recall that I'm on the Suicide Diet so Doritos and Hershey's syrup chased with twenty ounces of warm Icehouse beer contain both of the food groups: Alcohol and Food).

Sleep I can have all day if gang bangers don't set me on fire. Big Sleep if they do.

Recreation? Man, it's ALL recreation! Bums get away with the most outrageous behavior! I can basically say and do anything I want to! Won't that be fun!

Yeah, baby. Street life. Here I come.

So this was the big, end-of-season weekend here in Seattle: SeaFair!

The Blue Angels were in town. The hydroplanes were in town. The fleet was in town. That guy who stands at 2nd and Jackson and debates politics with a stuffed poodle name Mr. Solifticott was in town (OK, he never left). We, us were out of town.

We decided to drive up to the beautiful town of Snoqualmie where they were celebrating Railroad Days.

What Panzo got from the Tully's there was not the vanilla latte that he asked for but a cup of vanilla-flavored foam! That pic was taken after I'd used my finger to scoop out what I thought would be the foam on top of the hot milk. But the foam kept going and going and going...

Residents were big sad that they'd not have their fire horn nooner any longer after the fire station was torn down so the owner of the store saved the horn and had it installed atop her store.

Not having the automatic thingie to fire (heh) the horn off with, she has to pull its chain herself every day at noon.

I could have taken a ride on a train but, to tell you the truth the cars are a bit banged up and scary (they're still working on the outdoor museum kinda thing - they have several dozen cars in various stages of decay, just sitting around up there).

It wasn't that spectacular of a weekend but at least we got out and did something!

We've lost the war for the souls of our children. The corporations have won. We're fucked now.

Anything in a McDonald's wrapper tastes better, kids say

Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.

The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand or unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

I had to use our 12-foot ladder this morning to change a lamp in the parking garage. Being non-conductively made from Fiberglas®, the ladder is heavy and being 12-feet long (when carried), it's as unwieldy as a pocketful of nipples.

So.

What I normally do is Bungee cord the bitch to a rolling plastic truck and push the lot about.

The Bungee cords that I use are in my trunk.

Mounted on the rear of my trunk is my rear license plate.

Attached to my rear license plate is a month sticker and a year sticker which show the expiration date of my vehicle's registration.

While obtaining the Bungees from my trunk, I happened to glance at my rear license plate and the date stickers thereupon and noticed that they were a 5 and a 2007.

May. 2007.

This is 8 and 2007 or as I like to call it, August 2007.

My registration expired, like, three frigging months ago!

Complain all you might about Washington state but we are Internet savvy here. I was able to pay for new "tabs" as we call them here and with almost no hassle and pick them up an hour later from an independent licensing agent close to my home.

So there's another $81 on the credit card I'm trying to pay down.

What sucks the most is that I don't remember ever getting the renewal notice in the mail. I haven't driven on an expired registration since I got this car. I was doing really well with renewing before expiration. Grrrr!

Sure, we know that the Army always tells the truth (ask the Tillman family) and that by not making the results of its investigation public and silencing the writer in question, the Army has even less credibility.

We also know that the Weekly Standard supports the liars who lied us into Iraq by lying in the first place and that the liars who lied us into Iraq by lying aren't above paying "journalists" to write stories that favor their failed policies.

There's also a chance that the New Republic is full of shit although the results of their investigation were, at least, made known.

But really, does America care anyway?

As a local columnist said the other day (paraphrasing), one-percent of Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq and ninety-nine percent of Americans are ignoring that fact.

Iraq | Army: Chilling Iraq stories untrue

An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers.

Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true.

...

After the pieces were questioned, the magazine said it extensively re-reported his account, contacting dozens of people, including former soldiers, forensic experts, war reporters and Army public-affairs officers.

The Associated Press has been unable to reach Beauchamp, and the Army said details of the investigation were not expected to be released.

Summer Help will be leaving in one more working week.

Hallelujah! Praise Jeebus!!

No more 9:30 - 2:00 8-hour shifts! No more half-assed work followed by complaints of being bored! No more girlfriends sleeping in his car (I kid you not)!

Yesterday I had to reinstall two lamps he changed in a fairly precarious place because they weren't working. My Colleague tells me that SH mis-installed many lamps at another building, always followed with, "Must be the ballast." It's like he heard the word "ballast" once and so now a bad one of those is immediately the cause of a non-lighting lamp. Something like "Installer Error" doesn't even exist.

But I won't complain anymore (I'm lying of course) because Ding! Dong! SH is gone!

I'm going in for a wee bitty overtime tomorrow. At least I hope it's a wee bitty. I have to install an automatic faucet in one of my tenant's bathrooms.

I felt kinda sick yesterday. Mother Panzo would call it "sickishfied". It might be from the doubled dose of Lovastatin the Doc has me taking now. I'll have to keep an eye on myself today and knock the dose back if it bothers me, then call the Doc on Monday (he's off on Fridays).

Right now, I'm really damn tired and that's one of the symptoms of adverse reaction. But then, that could be from Miss Significantly Other having the television on all damn night, too. I went to bed around 8:30 and the idiot box woke me up at midnight with MSNBC flashing more of yesterday's news across the bottom of the screen and calling it BREAKING NOW!!!!!!1.

I mean, if they can't tell the truth about the status of a news story (it was known for hours and hours that the mine rescue people had lowered a mic into the pocket where we all hope the miners are, alive), how are we supposed to trust the information in the story?

Anywho, I've strayed from the gist of the title so I'm going to leave you now, both of you.

Well, it's good for this.

It started out with some awesomely cool photos that I found on my daily traipsing, of an awesomely cool place.

That led to the site that the pictures are from You click the snake-eating-its-tail thingie to get in but listen to the chant first. Cool, yeah?.

The site is in Russian only so that led me to babelfish (remember them?) so that I could understand the name of the place. But the name I got from babelfishing wasn't it so I plugged in the name of the web site and - violin! Por-Bajin means something!

I found this site with more pictures.

Then I found the Wikipedia entry for the person probably responsible for its being built which is also fascinating!

This is what the web is really good at!

This and naked nipples.

The Exclusive Blog at Panzo.org would like to welcome a new sponsor to the Panzoland Family: Akishawa Eye Center.

Muji Akishawa is a board-certified eye surgeon and Renshi Roku Dan level in Karate.

For a limited time, Akishawa is offering a special $49.99 per eye deal to all Panzolandians who'd like to try the new laser-like eye procedure pioneered by Akishawa called "Katana Surgery".

Blindingly quick and often painless, Katana Surgery is like laser eye surgery but not quite. And you can't beat the price!

Panzolandians who are tired of seeing things the old way are urged to call Renshi Akishawa today for a free preliminary eye exam and discussion of the Katana Suergery method.

Monkey apparently picks lock, escapes

A monkey that freed himself two weeks ago from a Mississippi zoo has escaped again, zoo officials said. Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo Manager Kirk Nemecheck and other employees noticed the white-faced capuchin's cage open and lock on the ground around 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Oliver and another capuchin named Baby were found wandering nearby. Workers easily captured Baby, but Oliver fled the park headed in the direction of the Tupelo Country Club, Nemecheck said.

Headed for the country club?!

Say...

You don't suppose...

If you know that the outcome of a certain action will cause disaster for your country and you follow through on that action, it's called treason

It's time to talk impeachment.

An interesting point was raised by Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee New Jersey...uh..no. I mean commentor LWHoll.

Whatever it was he said, it made me think to let both of my readers know a little bit about me.

First, I'm not a Democrat. I'm also not a Republican. I'm also neither completely Liberal nor completely Conservative. I'm no Moderate either as I have actual opinions.

I believe that murder should be punished with the death penalty but only in those cases where there is irrefutable DNA evidence and at least two appeals. I believe that rape should be punished in a similar manner. Rape takes a life as surely as does a gun or knife or blunt instrument.

I believe that abortion is wrong but until we as a society can honestly embrace our sexuality and stop telling our children to "think of Jesus instead" and until we can ensure that the unaborted can be adopted and that the mothers won't face hardship for carrying to term, we're, uh, fucked.

I've seen co-workers fired after being injured by unsafe machines that were taken off line just before OSHA inspections. I've been injured by same. I've heard all of the stories of over-regulation as well and I've been in a union. I believe that only the government can adequately serve as a brake on the naturally exploitive nature of business but, cut me a fucking break!

My job brings me into contact with homeless people every day. Most of that contact is unpleasant. I've seen people eating out garbage cans and drinking the dregs of the cups and bottles that you toss out. I've bought them coffee and given them food and donated money and cleaned up their feces and kicked them off my properties. I've seen crazy street people who can't be reached by normal means. I believe we should make the hard-core homeless comfortable but concentrate on saving the people who are willing to seek help.

I voted for Bush yet currently despise his administration and what it has done to my country.

I wanted blood after 9/11. I wanted the invasion of Iraq. I felt betrayed after we found no WMD and dismayed when I found that Cheney and the boys were hoping for a 9/11 to bring along the American sheeple to their view of America as world bully. That has made me extremely suspicious concerning what we knew about 9/11, when we knew it and what we did about it.

I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. I believe that the chance bad people will misuse that right to shoot me is a cost of freedom.

I believe that the president has no right to order warrantless wiretaps of anyone. I believe that the freedom to be free from warrantless searches and seizures is worth the cost of potentially being killed in a terrorist attack. I believe that freedom isn't free but that the cost should not only be borne by our men and women in uniform.

I believe that American culture should be beaten with a stick until its dead.

So there's a quick snapshot of the complex beliefs of Panzo. In essence, I believe in compassionate pragmatism.

Malaysia to export monkeys for research

Malaysia has defended its decision to allow the export of macaque monkeys for meat and scientific research purposes, saying it will help curb their booming population in cities where they attack people and raid homes for food.

...

Azmi could not say how many macaques the ministry would allow to be exported or how it would control the trade, saying the details still have to be fine-tuned. He also could not say how the government will make sure the monkeys are not caught from forests but from cities where they are a nuisance.

I tell you, I won't eat no city monkey meat! Man, you just don't know what they been eatin'! Could be French fries. Could be PayDays. Might be drinkin' muscatel and eatin' boogers off the street!

Them city monkeys be so tough and stringy from all that work they gotta do looking for tossed out pieces of popcorn an' almos' empty Starbucks cups.

Gimme a fat ol' country monkey any day, brother!

Anti-immigration group hit with bottles, balloons

"We say no human being is illegal and everybody - just by working here - automatically has the right to live here," said Jorge Torres, a counter-protester.

Uhhhh...no.

The first group of protesters wear/are nuts. The second group pf protesters were/are nutser.

You are illegal - illegally in this country - if you circumvent our laws in order to reside here and you should be deported.

I'm very sorry but it's not our fault that your own country sucks.

Texans, dealing with rain and flooding, brace for Category 4 Hurricane Dean

Texans battled rain and flooding Saturday from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin as Gulf Coast residents cast a wary eye toward Hurricane Dean, which strengthened to a Category 4 storm as it charged through the Caribbean.

At least six people died this week because of Erin's thunderstorms. One person remained missing.

Beloved, God told me that this long string of natural catastrophes that have been visited upon the Lone Star state are in fact His divine judgment upon Texas for tolerating altogether too many Baptists.

While the PAP is sleeping off his kava binge and nursing several strange bite wounds on his stumpy li'l tail, I'm wresting control of the Exclusive Blah Blah Blah at Panzo.org.

To tell you what?

Well...um... Ah! Yesterday, I caulked rotted wood! Isn't that special?

I caulked over a six-by-four foot section of tongue and groove board whose old caulk had split or separated or fell off or was dug out by the Pernicious Pygmy Caulk Weevil (I. Eatumupus Caulki).

Minus the caulk, water had seeped between the tongues and grooves of the tongue and groove board (due to its being elderly to begin with and poorly caulked to compund it all) and rotted the boards.

My task was to implement a "Value Engineered" solution which was presented to me as directions to the nearest Home Depot and the whispered word, "Caulk."

Currently, the only thing holding those god damned boards together is four tubes of clear acrylic caulk with silicone ("applies white, dries to clear").

Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate-hate-hate to do half-assed stuff like that so you can imagine how I felt yesterday. Sure, I did my best but I wasn't happy doing it.

Let's see... Today I answered a major emergency when the Teriyaki Babe lost her Ladies Room key. I rushed right down to Teriyaki Babe and gave her a new key and, boy, was she happy (I bet she was holding it for a darn long time).

Ahhh...The Teriyaki Babe. What a sweetie. Korean. Very pretty. I could spend all day just barbecuing her cat because she refuses to love me. Married. Alas.

Now here's a tangent that's worthy of me: ugly women. Many guys have heard that many women have big, mental problems with their looks (their own looks, not guys' looks).

Supposedly, women spend inordinate amounts of time wishing their chins were...so, or that their noses were like...so, or that their butts were more...you know, or that their legs had less...you know, and so on.

Yet I see beautiful women all day every day. I mean, every second woman I see is pretty and I'd beat a baby seal just to earn a hard kick in the crotch from every third woman I see if it meant that I could be close to them for a nanosecond.

So what gives?

Not that I want to deluged by uggums but, where are the homely chicks?

Okay, dwell on that. I have to go. The Plastic Action Poodle is talking in his sleep and I have to listen to find if he says anything about where he put my collection of Rick Springfield CDs.

Seniors having more sex than you might think, survey finds

"Most people assume that people stop doing it after some vague age," said sex researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.

However, more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75- to 85-year-olds.

I suppose that you pay for your Medicare doughnut hole however you can.

Now comes word that, fresh from Google-fying Earth, Google is Google-fying space.

Called (what else?) Google Sky, the everysearch engine is offering shots from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as the Alice Cramden Moon Observatory.

So what's next for Google? What lurks in the shadows for the giant be-all corporation?

Well just click the little pics, my pretty, and you shall see...

Tripper Woman, Tripper Woman
No wonder you're alone
You missed the thick pink water hose
and the double orange cones

Tripper Woman, Tripper Woman
I know you're on vacay
But try to keep your wits about you
and try to stay that way

Don't walk it with your head held high
with your guard all in arrears
You're not too god damned special not to
Go a'tripping on the pier

Tripper Woman, Tripper Woman
Did you enjoy your stay?
I hope you didn't catch a fish in the head
Or fall into the bay

[edit: even better fish flip]

Astronomers find a hole in the universe

Rare view shows big changes for Uranus

In the future, sporty types will be able to play without leaving the comfort of their lumbar-supported captain's chairs or their SuperSwallow-sized drink holders. whether it's plinking tin cans, hiking timber stands or paddling down pristine mountain streams, the autos of the future will not only take you there - they'll live your life with you!

In the future - automobiles will be even cooler. I can't wait!

Terror screening leads to few arrests

David Sobel, senior counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy organization, said the numbers "suggest a staggeringly high rate of false positives with respect to the identification of supposed terrorists."

"There are many potentially dangerous individuals who fly beneath the radar of enforceable actions and who are every bit as sinister as those we intercept," he said.

Yeah, you really gotta watch those dangerous and sinister people who don't break the law.

As both of you surely know by now, my company rotates we building engineers through a week of on-callitude.

I've been on call since Wednesday evening and will come off of it this coming Wednesday morning.

So far, it's been pretty quiet. Wait.

OK, back. My pager went off and I had to go to the 1856 Building to reset a Freznel Diaphram in pump #2 on Main Boiler 4.

Other than that and a call to go to one of my own buildings to fart with an air handler that was leaking again. Shit.

OK, just got back from Persimmon Hill. A delivery person got stuck in Elevator 3 with brunch for Salmon Associates. She was fine but several other businesses in on a Sunday called because apparently there's an air intake located in the elevator shaft and the heat pump was delivering the odor of crab bisque throughout the building. Once I got her out, the other tenants ordered lunch.

Anyway, besides these things and that air handler that went down a few months ago (I got the call from the on-call engineer who was "too far away" to respond so I went down). THis time it was leaking from...damnit!

All right. Quentin's restaurant called the answering service to scream crazily about smoke in the kitchen. Their hood fan was off because Junior Mendosa hit the power switch with a baguette he was twirling. I reset it and now all is fine.

So the air handler is leaking in a different spot. I blew out the drain line with a can of compressed air and hooked the line back up to the fitting but the unit is still leaking. Get this though: it only leaks when it cycles off. While it's running, no drips. I couldn't figure it out and I'm no HVAC tech so I had to line up a bunch of buckets under the ceiling access panel and just let it drip until we can get a tech in on Monday.

So, how is your...crap.

OK. That was the Scotch Ridge Building. Stupid idiot called to demand I let him into his unit. Fourteen phone calls later I find out that he lives in The Scottsbridge Building. "Well, they sound the same!" Yeah, right.

Mondays suck because they're sunny after two weekend days of rain.

Mondays suck because they follow a Sunday that started with a scratchy chest, boiled into a barking cough, slopped into a wheezing phlemfest that kept me awake until 2AM and slammed into Miss Significantly Other, abed after working her recently acquired job as late-night computer game player and message board poster, waking me up and making me think I have a service call only to start telling me something she should know, after ten god damned years, that I can't hear without my hearing aids in and which turned out to be that I was "moaning" in my sleep.

Of course I was. I'M SICK! Sorry for disturbing your late-night TV watching and thank you for your concern.

Mondays suck because there are builders coming early this morning at one of my buildings and I have to meet them on three hours sleep.

Mondays suck because I should be cleaning up after that all-weekend leak from the air handler unit right now.

Mondays suck because all weekend, my morning buildings have been trampled and littered and ice-creamed and peed upon and I have 17 things to do along with cleaning up after all of that.

And I'm sick.

I like the screams, yes, yes, when you are caught between extremes
In a crowded square or outdoor bazaar
If we can fit a truck or car
The bomb goes bang, a little gift from Allah's gang

Well you should know what you will find
If you come along with me, infidel
On my tragic carpet ride
Yeah you should know what we can see
Allah killing senselessly
At the hand of Shia and Sunni
Close your mind now
Heaven you'll find now
May our Allah be praised

Last night inside of Allah's camp
The head mullah found a dove
Well, before the dove could make a coo
The head mullah showed it Allah's love
He killed it slow; just for us he made a show

Well you should know what you will find
If you come along with me, infidel
On my tragic carpet ride
Yeah you should know what we can see
Allah killing senselessly
At the hand of Shia and Sunni
Close your mind now
Heaven you'll find now
May our Allah be praised

No, it's not the latest tape from "Hooked On Histrionics". It isn't another Church Of Californian Thought™ calming mantra. It isn't even the sound you hear when you push Michael Moore down the stairs.

It's me being happy that I'm no longer on call!

It's just so stressful to never know when the phone is going to ring and I'll have to face someone who isn't really sure what they're talking about. It's like getting a donation call from the Giuliani For President people.

I've also been sick the last few days. Sunday night's episode is a little farther down the page here. Monday night was pretty stable and I thought I was almost better. Yesterday and last night, my nose got into the act and I was sneezing and honking and dripping (as Larry says, it was like the prom all over again).

Right now the stuffiness seems to wander from one side of my sinuses to the other at will and I'm still drippy.

But I'm not on call!

And that makes me feel so much better!

While I was cleaning up outside of Starbucks this morning, a blond pulled up to the curb in a white BMW coupe. She unfolded herself from the driver's seat and, clutching her Accessory Pug, flounced into 'buckies. She flounced out soon thereafter, Accessory Pug in one hand and hot coffee bev in the other. She awkwardly transferred the hot coffee bev to the AP hand as she fumbled the keys and got in. As she drove off, doffing sunglasses with lenses large enough to shade two small children, I thought three things.

First, I thought that pugs went out as Accessory Pets at least four years ago.

Second, I thought that if all you're driving is a BMW, you're not rich enough yet to own an Accessory Pet.

Third, I thought that if you're well-off enough to be driving a BMW yet feel that you have to emulate cunts even richer than you who carry pets as accessories, you're a giant, weeping rectum.

While I was cleaning up a bit further down our property line this morning an elderly, toothless yahoo wearing a red and black checkered cap and overalls stopped mid-stroll and mid-waterfront gawk to ask me, "Where can I get a breakfast that won't cost me an arm and leg?"

I could have kissed this elderly toothless yahoo who was wearing a red and black checkered cap and overalls. This chap was unabashedly and unashamedly 100% cow shit and dungarees. Besides that, he was sent by God.

After seeing Miss Accessory Pet fifteen minutes prior, I was feeling pretty low concerning the state of society and the general race to the bottom being run by American humankind.

There. at the bottom of the bucket where rich bitches wear live animals for status, God Hisself sent me a sweet, unassuming yahoo to show me that there were still real people in the world who didn't give a good Him dam about what anyone thought of what they looked like or how they dressed.

"Well," I replied, pointing south along the Way, "there's a McDonalds just down the street..."

Yahoo looked at me in wonder and exclaimed, "There is?!"

"Yup," said me. "You can just make out the golden arches from here. It's down at the ferry terminal. That would probably be your best bet."

"Well I guess it would be," Yahoo said like I'd just imparted some iron bound truth.

Then he looked me in the eye and said, with plain-faced honesty, "Thank you very much!"

Authenticity matters. And some days, when I find it, it makes me feel real good.