this week i

published my fourteenth, our twenty-sixth survey of employer-sponsored insurance with health affairs and headlines.  we added pricssa too

 

bought convey-r.org.  guilherme wouldn't let me buy convextbook.com.  meanwhile hannes promoting duckplyr this takes exactly zero seconds

helped sell out the california honeydrops at the 9:30 club after vegetables at the 2nd floor izakaya nearby.  two drummers now, like the grateful dead

read fear and loathing in las vegas: a savage journey to the heart of the american dream by hunter s. thompson

the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level..i was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood

i shrugged and gave him a bill.  this garish, deep-orion carpeted lobby of the desert inn seemed an inappropriate place to be haggling about nickle/dime bribes for the parking lot attendant.  this was bob hope's turf, frank sinatra's.  spiro agnew's.  the lobby fairly reeked of high-grade formica and plastic palm trees

"where's the ether?" said my attorney.  "this mescaline isn't working"

the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early irish novel . . . total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue - severance of all connection between the body and the brain.  which is interesting, because the brain continues to function more or less normally . . . you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it

hallucinations are bad enough.  but after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth.  most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing

lucy!  be cool, goddamnit!

that evil little fuck is so guilty that i should probably kill him myself, on general principles

maybe just a fresh adrenalin gland to chew on

and every one of them stark naked, except for the weapons

waitress: hey lou, you know where the american dream is?

after west point and the priesthood, lsd must have seemed entirely logical

failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the acid culture: the desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending that light at the end of the tunnel

psychedelics are almost irrelevant in a town where you can wander into a casino any time of the day or night and witness the crucifixion of a gorilla - on a flaming neon cross that suddenly turns into a pinwheel, spinning the beast around in wild circles above the crowded gambling action

just another fucked-up cleric

 

10/10

this week i

reply: if you like johnny cash then i like you.  johnny waugh sent unused postcard.  in seventh grade english class, mrs. young told us secret to life success: appear busy.  halloween costume: i'm still undecided btw free hugs cactus, or interstellar skull hurtling through space as memento meteori

 

nearly split this oak

 

read hannes and mark on database acid tests: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.  all within the safety of a transaction

read birds of uganda by quentin meunier and sherry mckelvie.  yet i remain sullenly unilluminated on the evolutionary advantage of a wattle

 that prehistoric ballerina the shoebill stork

grey heron: as with all herons, it flies with its neck s-shaped, as opposed to storks and cranes which extend their necks

african spoonbill: spatola africana (ita)

african harrier-hawk: when hunting or excited, its normally bright yellow face will turn a vivid pink

 lizard buzzard: a vertical black line down its throat differentiates it from any other raptor

grey crowned crane: uganda's national emblem

kori bustard: the heaviest bird that actually flies

common ostrich: ostriches are not commonly seen in uganda

black-winged stilt: the longest legs pro rata to body size in the bird kingdom

wood sandpiper: a palearctic migrant

water thick-knee: common but shy bird with a permanently surprised look

eastern grey plantain-eater: if you wake up in uganda to the sound of loud maniacal laughter, you are probably listening to this bird!

black-and-white cuckoo (jacobin cuckoo): crested cuckoo..males distract the host while females lay their eggs, which are coloured to match the host's - they could be white, or they could even be bright turquoise

woodland kingfisher: senegalliest (ger)

european bee-eater: as with other bee-eaters, when the prey is a stinging insect, they will beat it on a branch to get rid of the sting

abyssinian roller: 'roller' comes from the barrel rolls they sometimes do in flight

pied hornbill: this one regularly visits the author's house in kampala to peck bugs off the windows

brown-throated wattle-eye: sometimes nicknamed the 'arpeggio bird' due to its call of clear descending notes

red-faced crombec: a small bird with no tail

white-crested helmet-shrike: "punk-like"

lesser masked weaver: the only pale-eyed weaver to have a mask that extends up onto its forehead

 

10/3