Fishing, it is not for everybody, or maybe anybody.

Saturday, round two, us against the fish. And we answered the bell. Armed with a PDF map of the reservoir, a youtube video explaining the optimal knot for attaching a lure, and the hopes and dreams of untold generations of ancestors. Ancestors who braved the elements to provide sustenance for their family. Ancestors who carried a cooler with a couple of ice cold bottles of water, Dasani or Aqua Fina, our ancestors would never settle for store brands. On top of the bottled water was blue ice, pioneered by hard working ancestors to keep their bottled water cold, ingenious people our ancestors.

Of course, no fishing trip would be complete without some snacks on top of the magical blue ice and its mystical properties of coolness. We took Gold Fish crackers, just to spite the fish, and of course a small bag of bite sized Oreo's, for dessert, dessert is so important.

After carefully choosing our starting spot, we parked the car, (after driving through a mud puddle, which is fine, I have four wheel drive vehicle, it was kind of an accident, I picked out a car with the features I wanted (blue tooth, so I don't have to listen to the radio, or plug in my phone) and it happened to be four wheel drive, so mud puddles don't scare me, very much) and hiked down to the shore, which was a lot closer than it should have been.  Due to the above average rainfall the lake was at an above average height, or depth, or however it is said.  We fished for a while but there was little room for casting, standing or us.

We hopped in the car, locked in the 4 wheel drive (just kidding, we were right by the highway) and moved on to the next place. It was near a bridge, and it looked promising. It had a wide bay on one side of the bridge, the shore was lined with giant rocks, to prevent erosion. Which should make excellent cover for fish, who want to hide, dart out grab a quick bite and duck back undercover (kind of like people who have spent the evening drinking and want a burrito before going home).  At least that was my theory, and since it was the only theory we had it seemed wise.

Unfortunately, the bay was wide and to keep people safe, even people with 4 wheel drive, the road was lined with a guard rail, and parking was waaaayyyy down at the end. But, that never stopped our hungry, determined ancestors, or us. We got out, grabbed our poles, tackle and cooler and we were off.  There was a narrow path through what appeared to be an ancient rain forest, filled with ticks carrying terrible, potentially lethal illness, so we opted to walk the miles down the side of the road back to the rocks.

Once there, after about 2 hours, we scrambled down the rocks, which is as close to death as I ever want to get. We stood there, under the withering rays of the sun, baking, casting, retrieving, sweating, and cursing the enemy, the fish. Oh, they were out there, we saw them jumping, and heard their insults. "Hey, mammal, you look warm, and sweaty, and kind of stupid."

We fished and we had fun and we some cold water and we will be back, fish. Next time will be different, we will have some cans of pop, or soda, or cola, (you choose) with our water, and you will not be so lucky.

Life Explained, Explains Rats, and Other Things.

Last night we, here at Life Explained, were researching rats in American cities.  We were doing this by watching Monster Quest, one of our favorite tools in the pursuit of knowledge.  Turns out the common rat is the Norway Rat (Rattus Norvegicus).  Norway is a unitary Monarchy whose territory comprises the western most portion of the Scandinavian peninsula.  It seems to be either a very productive location, or a completely hostile place, for rats.

Also, according to Monster Quest, rats used to be much larger.  At some point, for some reason, the average rat size became what we consider to be an average sized rat.  Unless you happen to see one, by chance, in public, then it is a "giant, man eating rat."  But, according to Monster Quest, these are insignificant, miniscule rodents, when compared to earlier version of rats, and it seemed that it was not "Jurassic Rat" they were talking about either, these rats may have lived as recently as...

Due to technical difficulties, our wife came home and refused to watch a television show about rats, we did not get to discover when these giant rats lived, or what made rats become smaller. It might have been the fitness craze that swept the nation, or smarter eating habits.  Nor what would drive the increase to a more historically proportioned rat.    It might be a better class of garbage, maybe there are dietary supplements in the waste, or maybe they have been watching too many Under Armour commercials.

Fortunately for everybody, we had the foresight to record the episode and will watch the rest as soon as the television police go grocery shopping.

It is not without parallel, though.  Think back to the arc of the cell phone, at first big, blocky, heavy contraptions, many of which came with a big bag of equipment.  But, the rapid pace of technical innovation compressed, and compacted the phone, until it would fit comfortably on the head of a pin. If you had a phone so small it was difficult to find in your pocket you had "arrived."

After the discovery of YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, people noticed that it was almost impossible to watch a video of somebody doing something humiliating, or painful on a screen the size of a postage stamp.  Soon phones were expanding exponentially.  People were clamoring for bigger screens, more "pixels" more memory, more processing power.  It requires a bag to to carry the phone around and it is almost impossible to hold it to up long enough to have a decent conversation.  But, a phone the size of a television is the ultimate symbol of success.

Absolute Proof, it is a chart, right?

Evolution is funny that way.  Things change, and sometimes it make sense, but most times life seems random, capricious, and occasionally cruel, no matter how big your smart phone.  But, stay tuned, we are making great strides in understanding the vagaries of existence, and the absurdity of life.  When we can use the remote, anyway.

A brief update, we have been making great progress in Life Explained the Movie.  So far we have a star, and a walk on signed to participate.  And we are, kind of, learning how to use the app.  Make sure to keep some popcorn handy, you won't want to miss this, it will answer a lot of questions, or at least the question of "what are you going to do with an app that costs that much?"

New Technology, New Cars.

Apple and Google are locked in a battle for market share.  It can be heated, at least among the users of the respective products.  It is unclear if the companies are as venomously opposed as the fans, but there is plenty of vitriol to go around.  With billions of consumer dollars at stake the gigantic, monolithic corporations are pushing the boundaries of innovation, and creating the barely believable as part of the routine.

From tablets to smart phones to "wearables" (little computers you wear, watches, and bracelets, mostly, that will alert you to incoming calls, emails, text messages and Hellfire missiles, not really, actually I don't know what they do, and I have thought about this a lot, way more than is probably healthy, what can you actually accomplish on a touch screen the size of a watch?  Type out an email, or a text message, watch a YouTube video, read an ebook?  Probably, you could do any of these things, but it would be a terribly restricted experience.

What's the point, just walking around saying "I have a smart watch"

"What time is it?"

"Time?  Oh, time of day time, here let me access that function, just a simple swipe, a little tap, Oh, dammit, maybe if I sweep, no, maybe a sweeping motion, shoot, it's about 11:00.  Want to watch this cat video?  I think it's a cat, it might be a bear, or a car."...  Oops, sorry about that, wearables are the next wave of technology, and are a viable computational device with limitless potential).

Anyway, back to the point of this, I heard that Apple was developing a "Smart Automobile Technology."  Google has been working feverishly, and noisily on their car, and the competition is fierce.  It is a mad dash to driverless cars.

Apple, and Google both imagine a day when people will be free to set behind the wheel of an automobile, and goof around with their phone, enjoy a cup of coffee, or even a donut, or breakfast sandwich on the way to work.   A day when commuters are free to cruise along the freeway with little or no concern for traffic laws, common sense, or the safety of other drivers.

Wait a minute, that already happens, all over the place.  Maybe these companies aren't so innovative after all.  Here is a a video I took while undercover for big oil, and large insurance conglomerates, who would like to keep everybody blind to the realities of monopoly, and wriggling to pay their bills, and terrified of what would happen when...  Oops sorry, that was not supposed to slip.

Don't forget to check out my new blog, as soon as it is written, that is.  It will be about history, a subject that is a lot more interesting than you might imagine.  Plus, there is so much of it, I will never run out of material.

I have a problem.

I have become addicted to the "#App of the Week" @theappstore, on Twitter.  Particularly when apps to assist in the making of movies are involved.  If it ends with "matic" (Cinamatic, Kinomatic) it ends up on my phone.  Though, it doesn't really need to end with that suffix, it just seems to be a recent convention, and it adds an appeal, almost like putting "Spielberg," "Welles," or "Coppola" in the title.  It is a little frightening to think how quickly I will download the app with "Oscar Winner" in the title.

Honestly, though, to date the one I have used the most is called "Splice" and it is great.  It is very flexible, and easy to use.  "Splice" offers several ways to add a little flair to your "artwork" and is just a fun app to play with.  The biggest problem with "Splice" is the end, it lacks in ways to share your creation.  But, it was one of the first apps I got, so it is ancient in technology years. Still, it has been a good friend, and a man my age should not abandon things because they are a little older.

Anyway, it is with great anticipation that we enter the next stage of our "creative process."  Movie making here we come.

Here is the downside, for you, loyal members of the Life Explained Universe, there are going to be a lot more video posts on this blog.  It will start out a little rough, and then probably go downhill, rapidly gaining speed, careering off boulders, trees, railings, and pedestrians, crashing in an inglorious, anonymous pile of barely recognizable garbage at the bottom of a cliff.  But, those who have read this blog for a while know that won't stop me.  Onward through the smoke filled rubbish, that is my motto.

If you get irritated at this latest turn of events you can blame +Mike Raven who writes the hilarious and entertaining Blog Of Thog.  He has a YouTube channel, and is a very talented videographer, (plus, he has a remarkable idea for a "travelling book" that might might help all of us understand we are not so different, maybe he should pitch the idea at the UN, if they could stop bickering long enough to listen) and I have decided to compete with him in a Death Match of Video Production.  Please feel free to visit his blog, and leave a few snarky comments, I have heard, and I don't know if this is true, that he drives on the wrong side of the road.  I would post a link to his YouTube channel, but I can't find it at the moment, stupid technology, anyway.

So, to start my new career, here is the Introductory Video, Dr. Dawg For President.

Luck be a youtube video tonight.

Life is difficult to understand, and often it seems the chances for success and opportunities for happiness are distributed disproportionately among jerks, that wealth and power are becoming the new version of royalty in the world, either you are born into it, or you learn to do without.  Scraping by on subsistence wages, and hoping to break even before you give up the ghost.  Or as Ian Anderson sang so prophetically;

"And you place your final burden

On your hard pressed next of kin;

Send the chamber pot back down the line

To be filled up again."

Occasionally, though, you find the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow, the golden ticket, the goose that lays the golden egg.  If you are lucky.  Or, ingratiate your self with someone who might get wealthy, and powerful, which is the path I chose.

Fellow blogger, +Mike Raven who writes the very funny Blog of Thog has decided to pursue a career in performance art, and here is his latest masterpiece.

Wow, Is That Powerful, Or What?!?!

I am not sure how many views it takes to make "viral" but this video has at least enough to be "bacterial." which is a good start.  Plus, it is about Clash of Clans, a gaming sensation that is sweeping the nation, and a good thing, too.  This nation could use a good sweeping.

This guy is headed for the big time, and has asked me to manage his first world tour. 

Mike is not an old man, but, he is not too young (like a certain train wreck teen idol whose name we will not mention) he is what we call, in the entertainment biz, "just old enough to make me rich and not need a full time babysitter."

So, buy your tickets to the "Song of Thog."  Get your "Thog" tshirts, and baseball caps, and sun visors, and videos, and action figures, and bumper stickers, and CDs.  Plus, as an added bonus for you old timers, and as tribute to stars from days gone by, we are going to release the first album on 8 track tape, too.

In an unrelated question, which gated community for filthy rich entertainment moguls is rated highest?  I was just wondering.

Technology Explained

It has been several weeks since technology landed here and life was altered by the addition of an iPhone.  It has been a whirlwind of activity.  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all waiting.  It was a fresh beginning.  Smart phones are a blessing, sent from the heavens to reward us for living so long with a phone that was tethered to a wall.  Today we will discuss the time saving, multi-tasking abilities of the iPhone.

Everyday you see countless people driving, robot like, both hands on the wheel, both eyes on the road, machines, scanning the traffic ahead and judiciously using the mirrors to watch behind.  Cautiously looking for potential problems.  Think of all that down time, wasted.  Fools!

Smart phone users, on the other hand, are answering emails, sending text messages, scheduling appointments.  Using all of that wasted time driving to get things done.

Just this morning, on the way to work, I surfed the net for a recipe for dinner tonight (found one using cheese and ground beef patties, might be good), updated my Facebook status, "driving to work, 75 mph, passing doofus in Festiva, flipped him off."  And I liked it, too.  Took a few pictures and posted them to Instagram, titled, "Nice day for a drive, enjoying the scenery"  Answered an email from some guy that has a time share plan that will make me rich.  "Not interested, still waiting on a big fat check from Nigeria" (I was tempted, but how much money can one person use?).  All while rocking and rolling to the Jim Carroll Band performing "People Who Died."

Plus, somehow, during the spasm of productivity that my commute has become with the addition of "SMART" phone technology, I managed to top my high score on "Angry Birds, On the Road, Again"

Not only that, but I am typing and posting this right on the 5th Avenue curve, the maelstrom that has taken so many careless souls over the years.  In case my wife reads this, that was just a joke, I am not really writing this while driving our car, at 75 miles an hour, on the 5th Avenue curve.  It was just a joke.

Anyway, I am here, time to go make coffee.  Have a nice day, and stay connected, it is what separates us from the animals.  Please tune in next week when we cover minor home surgery thanks to YouTube tutorials, in a post titled "Thanks to the iPhone, you don't need to be a physician to heal thyself!"  Or, "Go ahead and try this at home."