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Sunday 31 August 2025 12:15:54 PM CST

Sunday 31 August 2025 12:19:42 PM CST

I believe that may be the first official release of a live set after Rob rejoined the group and Ripper went on to pursue other interests. There are some good videos on Youtube or wherever that may be earlier and some are pretty good. Perhaps the choice of titles and recording venues was because they first got really noticed about the time of Unleashed in the East from 1979 as both were recorded in Tokyo. This was 2005 so about 25 years or so later. Great setlist with my favorite opening of The Hellion segueing into Electric Eye. The encores of Hell Bent for Leather, Living After Midnight and You've Got Another Thing Comin' are a perfect finish. (I like the way the Clay and Buck show still comes back from breaks with YGATC as Rush did for many years). Lot of good stuff there, naturally Beyond the Realms of Death and Turbo Lover but sadly neither The Sentinel or Nightcrawler are included. With fifty years of material you can only get so much into a two hour show.

Okey-dokey, last day of August I believe, lemme check, the thirty days are still hath by just September, April, June and November. Alright let's go space trucking. That's your high-dollar remaster which I don't have. Got Dream Theater's cover and but this one has some extra tracks so I need to add it. Most of the songs on MIJ are the best ever recorded. For the younger folks it used to be that stuff from Japan had a little sticker or stamp or something on it that read "Made in Japan". Nowadays it just sez Japan or Honduras or Korea or more likely China. No "Made in" any more.

In other news still hot. Weather predictors say it's gonna be for another month which is encouraging since they have no idea. Worst can happen if they're right. At least the grass isn't growing. Bought a couple of cheap weedwackers at Amazon and they're pretty decent at 50 bucks. After I got the first one I ordered another so I got two of everything - batteries (2 each actually) and two chargers and blade changing tools and all. Something breaks or gets lost I got a spare. Went to get two more and they're out which means they probably won't be in again. Chinese stuff is like that. Found another one that uses the same battery and ordered two of them. Battery life seems better than my high-dollar Black and Decker - OK medium dollar - 40 volt and it's a lot heavier. Still don't know if I'll be able to wield the pole saw once the leaves are off. That thing is big and heavy. I can walk a quarter mile down to the south end of the place carrying one of those and clean up around the little trees. Never seen so many pecan trees coming up as this year. Groups of a half dozen or more all over. A few can be left where they are but most will have to be moved. Easy as it is to grow straight pecan trees I'll never plant another oak.

Right knee kinda banged up and had to see the doc. There's a couple or three fancy new clinics here and it seems they've taken a bit of the old clinics' business. Less waiting time now, in fact I got there a half hour early and the only customer waiting wasn't waiting for my doc. He's pretty good, probably in his fifties judging from the age of his smokeshow daughter. Had a doctor-in-training - dunno that that means but maybe she's in med school and doing medical training in summer or something - who is about as far from any kind of hot smokin' or otherwise. Not ugly mind you but.... anyway I could have done without the nose ring. Wish people dealing with customers could do without them when they're working.

Whiskey of the day is Dickel white label with the '12' on it. Whether that means it's twelve years old - I doubt it - or like Old Charter which used to be aged eight years but now is just two or so. Now the funny thing is Old Charter taste about the same way it did forty years ago. As someone who has been drinking it almost as long as I have suspects:

Like that new car smell that they sell in bottles there's probably a whiskey flavor that like the Coke formula is a closely guarded secret. But I wonder how many people can identify whiskey if they don't see the bottle it came out of. I can some like Charter and Evan Williams and Beam and Jack but that's from years of exposure.

Alex@MyndCryme

I generally have a couple of jugs of the black and white Dickel stuff and some people like it, including me. No more Charter or Ancient Age - it's in plastic bottles now and not gonna do it. I realize that someday there will be no whiskey in glass bottles but I'll probably be dead by then.

Cigar status unchanged except for only doing one a day most of the time.

Classic movie of the day is the original Death Wish from around 1974 or so. I confess to having skipped the 2018 remake and may or may not get around to watching it someday. Remakes especially these last four lustrum or so have been pretty bad and it annoys me. Probably I first started noticing it with that dreadful remake of The Getaway with Kim Basinger and I almost had to google to remember that Alex Baldwin was the other lead perpetrator. After the director that is. That's about forty years so there we are. The original was about 1972 so in that same golden age. Charlie would go on to make four more DW movies, after the first sequel each was a little less in the spirit of the original but still good silly fun. He was doing mostly stuff like that Murphy's Law and 10 to Midnight and the final two DW movies. I notice that Bruce Willis was in that remake so will probably watch it just because Bruce Willis.

Classic book is Fred Saberhagen's 20th century Dracula book A Sharpness on the Neck. Actually I remembered that I had started reading it years ago and for some reason never got very far. Fred wrote a bunch of these from around 1980 to 2000 and he makes Vlad a pretty decent fellow in his current incarnation. I can hardly blame the real Vlad for his treatment of his enemies as those were pretty rough times and the Ottomans deserved every thing he gave them. He shows up in London in time to help Sherlock Holmes avert a major disaster for the people of London while taking care of some personal business. They books aren't in chronological order so that is the second book. In the first one he visits descendants of Mina Harker in Chicago and mixes it up with some bad vampires which is what he generally does.

In this one he finds himself in Paris during the French Revolution with one of Benjamin Franlin's illegitimate sons (not a real one) and people like Napoleon and the Marquis de Sade and another fictional character from A Tale of Two Cities and of course serious nastiness with bad vampires.

Probably as well to read them in the order in which they were published. Hammer Films resurrected Dracula (still as a bad guy) in the 1970s for a couple of flicks with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. The first one was pretty decent and could be a movie of some day or other. I haven't watched them in a good while now.

Martha looked over at Sam as they passed the sign.

"Damnation Alley?"

Sam grinned.

"The Stormers have their own brand of humor," he replied. "They clown around a lot, but they're deadly serious at work."

"Storm Wolves. Who makes up these names?"

"Beats me," Sam replied. "A lot of these outfits are a mixed bag. Bound to be a few smart-asses."

"What is our wolf like?" she asked.

"Eccentric, naturally. Brilliant. Those seem to go together."

"How dangerous is he?"

"On a scale of one to ten," Sam replied, "about a one. Unless he sees you as a threat. Then he's as dangerous as any of these folks, if not more so."

A few miles after passing the sign Sam turned onto an unpaved road. It was clay gravel, but smooth and free of holes or ruts. Small rocks struck the underside of the truck constantly.

"On a scale of one to ten, how irritated is he likely to be?" she asked.

"Eleven," replied Sam, grinning.

"Nice."

"He said come on out," Sam said. "So he should be relatively hospitable."

"You ever met him?"

"Nope. Know him by reputation, impressive if half of it's true."

"You think he's going to work for us?"

"I figure he will. When he finds out why we want him."

Balance of Power (2022)

Little Wynne news since that's close to my primary undisclosed location these days. That's the undisclosed location that's these days - Wynne has always been there. The local paper website reported a plane crash over around Augusta but not much details except it was near the Augusta country club. On Highway 64 west of Wynne a good ways. Used to drive through there a good bit going to Little Rock or other places around there. It was in Forrest City where some workers got electrocuted non-fatally while building a new gas station in Forrest City. Surprised anything new is being built in Forrest City they way the population is declining. And one of the prom night killers is supposed to be going to prison now. Wasn't very clear why he's going away for 40 years if he ain't been tried for the prom night killings yet. Sez he was on probation but not what for.

In other nearby news the doctor in Blytheville that did naughty stuff with patients got his license revoked by the state medical board. No word lately on the one in Forrest City a while back. The allegations against him were somewhat more serious but no word his status except he was suspended by the state medical board when it happened. Here's the KAIT story and another one.

Some shootings in Jonestown covered here and here and here. Amongst the three they should have gotten most of what was available. Apparently some people are concerned enough to have some more reporting on it. All were non-fatal but it seems two happened at the same place and were unrelated and not at the same time. Some parts of Jonestown are like that.

Lot of illegals working in child care? It worries me more that they are there than that the people in that business might have to start paying more. ~ I guess keeping the coal for when the windmills and solar farms aren't getting the job done will cost us billions? Europe is going through that now and we don't want it here. ~ Illegals saying it's crowded and they hungry. They can leave anytime they want if they go back where they came from. Or anywhere but here. ~ Is America breaking the global economy? If by no longer rolling over being run over breaks the economy in Asia or Europe or whatever I don't mind if ours is getting fixed. And it is and that's why the globalists are clutching their pearls. ~ The PBS assured us for years that then didn't need the taxpayer money and could get on fine without it. So they shut down. ~ Apparently fewer black baseball players than in the past. Baseball is the most diverse - isn't that a good thing? - of all sports. Black, white, brown, Asian, whateverall. Maybe fewer black people wanting to play these days? Beats me. Not a bean counter on stuff like that. ~ Can't LGBTQ+QWERTY people use the same crisis assistance as other people? I don't get it. ~ And yeah, everybody kissing up to the U.S.A. and not just other nations. Tim Cook slobbering all over PRESIDENT TRUMP the other day was priceless. And shameless but I'll take the win.

The road entered a forest, apparently composed entirely of pine trees. Big ones. There was a narrow and shallow ditch along either side of the road, which was had a light cover of pine needles.

"Old tree farm," Sam said. "Lumber company."

About a quarter mile later they entered a large clearing, a large circle about three to four hundred yards across, bordered by a high fence. The gate ahead was open and Sam continued through, stopping near a cluster of buildings.

Martha activated her commpad and looked at it, tapping and swiping occasionally. Sam killed the engine and sat, looking the place over.

"Looks deserted," she remarked.

"He's usually the only one here," Sam replied, "except for a few security personnel. And they're well hidden. He knows we're here, so let's get out and see if he's inclined to greet us."

Exiting the truck they walked towards the nearest building, one of several large mostly featureless structures.

This one did have a pair of large glass doors in the center, and she noticed a row of windows on what was apparently a second floor, given the height.

"APMEX Engineering. What's that?"

"Probably nothing relevant to an outsider," Sam replied. "And it may be meaningless to insiders, except as an identifier of a location. I suppose..."

"Glad you could make it."

They hadn't heard the owner of the voice approach.

"Turn around slowly," Sam said to Martha. "Keep your hands away from your sides."

Balance of Power (2022)

The other TV station that ain't available on DirecTV any more has Covid news that someone may pay attention to. I do still see somebody wearing a mask occasionally so there some strange folks out there. What's the latest booster anyway? Chris? Anyway it just sez it's the new fall booster. Okey-dokey. They also report that a million illegals have self-deported so far. Actually that's as of a month or more ago so looking good. A little less than 800K gets a congressional seat if they all in one state. If California could lose a couple million that would help a lot.

Other editorial stuff - from the Jonestown paper - is this one about how our health is gone south under the Trump administration. For my money the more erosion of democracy there is the better since we don't live in a democracy. Erosion of the Republic is what concerns me and that is being stopped and even reversed a bit now. This is from that outfit that also doesn't like the Republic. And most of the writing is tenth-grade level on a good day.

Dunno if I saw this with it being over two years ago. Over at Newport and don't hear much about stuff over there. Used to drive across the edge going up to Batesville but ain't been up there in a while. Victim was 19 and the youngest perp was 21 and the oldest was 33. A rap concert apparently. Way it's written it took two years for the police to identify them so I guess that would explain why justice is only now being dispensed.

What, Chris?

No, I was asking what booster number we on.

In Memphis news a guy shot his wife and took her to the hospital but stopped on the way to get beer. The link sez he kilt her but he was charged with attempted second-degree murder so apparently he didn't kill her. He drove her to the hospital so them as pays for their insurance won't have to pay for an ambulance ride. There do seem to be more people using private transportation to get to the hospital after they shoot each other. The usual power outages after some wind and lead in the water at the schools. And they don't want xAI to use their backup generators.

The Jonestown paper is pretty much lefty even if they do have a token conservative piece now and then. The problem with commie cartoonists is they aren't funny because to be funny there has to be at least a little bit of truth. I can laugh at President Trump if he says something goofy but it has to actually be goofy, not just what some butthurt malcontent thinks is. Requiring Medicaid, SNAP, HUD and other handouts to prove they actually need it or that they actually exist makes sense since there is so much fraud. Reducing obstacles to corporations that pay most of the taxes to pay for welfare and allowing them to make more money makes sense too with thirty-whatever trillion in debt. I don't know if any more people than do now would read the paper if they had balanced opinion - say Branco and Garrison once in a while - but it wouldn't hurt to try.

A man about Sam's age was holding a short black carbine in one hand, the barrel pointed at the ground. A large pistol was in a belt holster on his right side. He was wearing soft moccasins, but it bothered Sam that he hadn't heard him approach. The nearest cover was several yards away.

Something about this place. We were just standing here for a minute or so.

"You get around pretty quiet," Sam said.

"I'm part Indian," the man replied.

"Martha, this here is Myles Hickman. Part Indian, presumably why he's good at sneaking up on people."

"How do we know it's him?" Martha asked. "He looks like the photos, but if you've never met him..."

"If it's not him we're in big trouble," Sam replied. "What does your little friend say?"

Martha had taken a small commpad out of her pocket and was looking down at the screen.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Hickman. Do you mind if I..."

"Not at all."

She moved to one side of and behind him, took a small wand from her pocket and passed it over his shoulders, then looked down at the pad.

"How much more stuff you got in there?" Sam asked.

Martha smiled and put the wand and the pad away.

"Not much. I suppose not too many men meeting his description have two pieces of metal in their back, left side, about six inches apart. The one towards the center slightly lower."
Balance of Power (2022)

OK, Jonestown crime pretty much the usual. Somebody shot somebody non-fatally. Good thing these people aren't very good shots or there would be a lot more dead bodies. Someone thought mailing drugs to themselves was a good idea. Or manufacturing them. this involved a Dodge Charger. I see some Ford police vehicles lately that look like Tauri or whatever but Ford don't seem to be making anything like that. Just Exploders and trucks, F-150s I guess. Shootin' in Woodruff County (that's where Augusta is and where the airplane crashed) but the guy shot by the police ain't dead so probably a big hospital bill that somebody will have to take care of.

That short fat woman that's the mayor sayin' how she made them leave. They left when the job was done and they'll be back if necessary. ~ I guess the King family would object even if what's in there was already well known. ~ More Covid news if you believe anything the CDC says. I guess they might be a little more reliable under the new management. ~ Somewhere Ronald Reagan is smiling. Goverment "news" media is gone and the Department of Education has been stripped of power. ~ When did Superman become controversial? In the Christopher Reeve era and it only got worse but the moviefication of comic books ruins it. When I was ten or so reading 12-cent comics you knew it was just fantasy and I liked the creativity of the worlds and creatures and stuff they created. Probably I never liked any of the few movies I saw. ~ A hundred year event isn't an outlier? Then what is it? Oh yeah, climate change and all that. ~ Israel sends in enough food to feed everybody in Gaza twice and their Hamas masters grab it and let them starve. Evil. ~ Wnat bout queer men? And what to queer as they call them have different medical needs? ~ I guess they never figured on being sent back.

Both were relatively young, Martha guessed mid to late twenties, and were wearing the near ubiquitous uniform of rebels everywhere - khaki trousers and shirt, long sleeves and two flapped pockets, a military-style web belt and in this case black combat boots.

She looked for the telltale clues that might or not be there, depending on the situation.

There. Left lapel, round turquoise pin, about a half inch. Nothing more.

"All set," the one on the left reported. "Will there be anything else?"

"Just secure the outside area," Hickman replied, "and stay here. What's the setup?"

"We've got the Blue squad deployed here, with Red and Green encircling us."

"Excellent. We'll be a while, but we'll leave before dark."

"Very good, sir."

"This way," Hickman said, leading them to the right hand corridor.

It was long and the he opened a door near the end. It was large and the only furnishings were a large conference table with a dozen chairs and a large sideboard. Both the table and chairs resembled those found in the businesses that spent a lot of money on image, and seemed out of place in the bare room with concrete block walls and a bare concrete floor.

"Grab a seat and we'll make medicine," Hickman said, "unless you want a snort of medicine first."

"Thought you'd never ask," Sam said. "I'm partial to Wild Turkey myself, but ain't picky."

"How about you, Martha? Sam didn't bother to introduce you, but I'm guessing he used your right name."

"Excuse my manners," Sam said. "This here is Special Agent Martha McElroy."

Balance of Power (2022)

I guess he means that decapitating the Department of Miseducation takes away somebody's academic freedom? No, it gives freedom. The DOE was about leftist indoctrination - well, money for teachers and school administation people first but miseducating as many kids as possible was the idea. There's more school choice in some states but not in others and some states will continue to miseducate their kids as much as possible.

Taking a final look at Wynne for a while we see somebody publicly drugged and an illegally armed guy on a bicycle and a police officer from Parkin arrested in Wynne.

The NEA Report said a Paragould man done this deed but KAIT says that a Mississippi man in Paragould done it. Wherever he came from he needs to be locked up for a while if he done that. Between Arkansas and Mississippi there probably won't be much difference in punishment. Maybe worse because we got enough sick people here already withot them coming in from other places.

This recently deceased rapper isn't on the Wickedpedia article yet but he got hisself kilt in Memphis on Sunday. Or Monday since he got it after midnight. Acccording to earwitnesses "the gunfire lasted minutes" and "there were from 60 to 100 shots". Sez the deceased was described in a GoFundMe setup as "having a strong passion for his music and his children."

Okey-dokey muchachos, time to go do something else useless. Catchalater.