'“Russia has always respected the bravery and heroism of the Polish people, soldiers, and officers, who stood up first against Nazism in 1939," Mr. Putin said in a meeting with the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, in the Baltic Sea resort town of Sopot'

And what about the bravery and heroism of the Polish people, soldiers, and officers who stood up first against the Soviets in 1939? What a lark.

(A great way to start would be reccing this entry. Then, maybe you can post about what ability you might have to contribute. Perhaps somebody will take notice if enough of us start talking about it?)

I love summer. The warm air, the lush greenery, the noxious air quality – all of it sings in my heart of the happy days of yore, in which, as children, I and my compatriots would lounge about in the sun for hours, not a care in the world. So, in an effort to recreate these happy days long past, I decided this summer I’d try and shift my daily commute to my bicycle (I know, a poor substitute for the bucolic days of childhood, but I had no better idea and places to be) . Unfortunately, this turned out to be a rather hectic affair.

I only have to travel about 10 kilometres (6.2137 miles) each way most days, so I figured that distance would be well within my capabilities without any prior conditioning. I am, after all, a fairly fit Xangan – I sometimes glance in the windows of the gym as I pass it by on the way to the shops, after all.

Note: Not Me

So, the first day I prepare my bicycle, helmet, and other accoutrement, and set out. I’m not familiar with the route, but lucky me, my (self-proclaimedly) bicycle-friendly city has no bike lines going where I need to go. I am not to be deterred, however – I forge ahead, dodging vehicles operated by the worst drivers in the region, and pedestrians with a certain flair for getting in the way (something all auto-operators already know pedestrians excel at).

Uphill, downhill, and with snow six feet deep, I finally arrive at my destination, panting slightly, but, I don’t think I’m being too bold in suggesting, looking none too worse for the wear. In fact, it’s only been 30 minutes! Hah, I think to myself. That’s practically the same amount of time it takes to drive when accounting for traffic and the futzing around that takes place at both ends. I can do this, I think to myself, as I casually stuff my helmet under one arm, and stroll inside.

Unfortunately, as the weeks pass my thighs seem to only grow weaker. Cycling, I have discovered, is painful (uphill both ways, forcing me to slow down), dangerous (drivers who feel I’m going too slow seem to think I’m worth a particularly high number of points, driving me onto the sidewalk for safety…), and frustrating (police men then proceed to give me tickets for riding on the sidewalk).

Now, I’ve mentioned to you before just how fond I am of Mother Nature, but at this point I’m thinking of flipping her the bird when she calls. Luckily, the snowy season is starting in a few weeks, (months? who can tell with this global warming thing) and I’ll be able to give up the bike and bring out the skis. That should make for a pleasant and relaxing commute that’ll help bring back those happy days of yore, in which, as children, I and my compatriots would frolic about in the snow for hours, not a care in the world.

As a lot of you are probably aware, bed bugs, creatures once thought to have been banished to the realm of childhood bed-time phrases and glimpses of less savoury times of life, are back. Driven nearly to extinction by the widespread use of DDT in the 1950s, the banning of that chemical in 1972 (thanks in large part to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring) has seen bed-bug numbers slowly return to their pre-expulsion levels. Places like New York are reportedly crawling with the insects, which, unlike roaches and rats, offer less physical harm, but perhaps do more psychological damage. Unfortunately, it seems that the spread of the pest continues unabated, due, in part, to a lack of concerted effort, but also because of the extreme cost and effort involved in excising them using steam-cleaning and localised poison methods.

Carson

And yet, there isn’t any really discussion of a return to a chemical that proved effective enough to nearly eradicate the pests in only a few years. While the toxic nature of DDT is obvious, a significant portion of its harm was imparted through widespread usage in the wilderness (indiscriminate spraying of fields, etc) which would then damage entire ecosystems.

DDT and the Cheerful Workers who Sprayed It

However, it seems to me that apartment buildings might offer the perfect opportunity to use DDT safely and effectively. As a relatively closed system, exposing an apartment building to the chemical would surely kill off fewer bald eagles than bombing half the country with noxious gas did. So, one could achieve the desired results without the collateral damage that made DDT usage in open spaces so unpalatable.

Certainly, some effective solution is required. The insects spread quickly, and can survive for a year and a half between feedings. Removing them from buildings using current methods (involving sniffing dogs, super-heated water and spot chemical usage) is both extremely expensive, and of limited effect. DDT, on the other hand, has in the past proven its abilities against the pest.

Now, I’m no scientist, but I’m no tree-hugging hippie either. (Most promising sentence ever for the start of a logical and balanced paragraph!) I don’t want to kill anything that exists as a balanced part of a natural environment, whether or not that directly affects me. However, the inner cities are not a natural environment, and the continued existence of bed-bugs is not required to maintain a delicate balance as would otherwise be present. The insects feed off human blood, are physically damaging, psychologically traumatising, and incur significant expense on society.

There's the Fiend Now!

Do you think that, should it prove effective, DDT or other similar chemicals should be allowed to be used within the city to remove this scourge, or do you believe we should revert to nigh cave-man status, living in filth and squalor, reduced to swatting helplessly at the myriad of insects that prey upon our flesh unbidden?

Wowee! Take a look at those! (image.gif)

But in all seriousness, I've been playing with the layout of nikbv. I thought it might be nice to have three columns, decreasing in size from left to right. The farthest left one would be the blog. The middle one would have the pulse and other internal links, and the farthest right one would be my profile information, followed by external links like my facebook and twitter accounts, as well as recommended xanga blogs.

The following is a link to the page as it currently exists: link

My hope is that, with more content visible than simply the main blog, visitors who stop by but are not interested in reading an entire blog entry for whatever reason don't have to root around for an hour to find something else of interest. The pulse, and various links are right there.

These are some screen shots (click to enlarge, if you're really that interested)

On the other hand, if you do come for the blog alone, I wanted to make it simple and easy for you to click on the blog and have that fill the entire screen for ease of reading (which would appear basically as the blog is now). While the weblog feature (and blog link at the top) doesn't seem to work at the moment (not sure why) when you see the page you can click on an entry (by reading it all on the main page and then clicking on comments, or quickly and easily clicking on the 'View Comments' link at the top next to the title, and all the pulse and other stuff will disappear, and the weblog (or pulse or archive or whatever you clicked on) will then be able to take up the entire width of the page.

My hope is that this will increase the fun and exciting content available to all on nikbv. However, I'm aware that many people don't like what is essentially a magazine or newspaper style of presentation (even if roughly done), so I'm not going to go forward with any changes that the majority of my readers won't like.

Because themes seem too inflexible to allow three columns on the main page and only two on any speciality page like /weblogs and /pulse (though I'm waiting on xanga to get back to me on that) I've constructed the current page through the old skins page, which allows some more flexibility. However, there's still a lot of work to do to get things actually working, if I am going to continue to proceed along this path.

Thus, I have  a poll.

Please vote now, and let your opinion be heard!

P.S. There never were any titanium tatas. Sorry.

We're all used to seeing pictures of hulking human blimps prancing around shirtless, flexing their guns. Unfortunately for them, their many hours in the gym seem to avail them not at all in multi-species strong-man contests. Apparently, the average chimpanzee is at least five times stronger than the average human. Take a look at these photos of an eleven year old female named Cinder (who has a condition called alopecia universalis that causes her hairlessness). I wonder how many hours she spends pumping iron?

Many of you have no doubt been waiting quite eagerly for this, so here is part two of the much-lauded Story of Bob (find part one here)

Billy! Bob! I yelled their names there clear an’ loud, but it didn’ seem to do much good for me, so I gave up after a few minutes o’ trying. I thought ta myself, I needs me a strategy! Sure, I done got my gun an’ my fryin’ pan, but that Bob’s got a head thicker than them calluses on my feet, an’ there ain’t no one in this here town who’ll tell ya that ain’t sayin’ some’n’.

‘Course, I figured a good whack or two’d do it, but only if I was nice and sure I aimed for his weak spots. Ain’t a child alive who don’t know ol’ Bob’s got a glass jaw on ‘im, an’ Billy can’t see straight too good if you shoot a slug in his eye! Alls I gotta do is make sure I go an work within them there parameters, I figured, an’ things’ll work just fine for me.

So, I sauntered out the front door (or what remained of it, after I gave it the ol’ cow-chucking shoulder), all natural-like. That way, I figured, I wouldn’t arouse no suspicion from no dang snooping neighbours. Sure, the next farmhouse was a good hour away by bronco, but that darn Whilma was awfully ‘noxious, an’ she’s always tryin’ to catch some’n’ excitin’ going on here, on account o’ the fact that ‘er farm ain’t been nearly as exciting as mine since she done gone away with her Frank.

As I was a walkin’ I had to make sure I didn’t accidentally shoot my darn gun again. After I nearly shoot Billy in the barn, an’ then fired half a dozen odd slugs into the air before startin’ out (though that was accountable like, on account o’ my excitability) I only had a few bullets left. ‘Course, my frying pan had always been there when I needed to do a murder before, but I hadn’t killed nobody since my cousin Charlie a few months ago, an’ I didn’t want to take no chances that my killin’ arm might be a mite outta practise. As me Pa used to say, yous got ta use it or yous gonna go an lose it. Course, Pa was an awful redneck, so I don’t pay much attention to him anymore, but back then he wasn’t quite so burnt back there.

Anyway, look at me, all prattlin’ on an’ whatnot, when yous been wantin’ to hear ‘bout my actions on that there killin’ front! I got to keep my focus! It ain’t been so easy since that donkey backfired his there hind leg at me while I was tryin’ to milk ‘him, but I’ll try my darndest for yall!

So ‘course I figured out which way them two guys had headed no problem, on account o’ the fact that I could smell a coward a mile away, an’ that there Bob was one o’ the biggest cowards in the county. ‘Course, Billy weren’t no slack neither, so I got plenty of smell to lay a track for my nose. All I had to do was follow it, I figured, an’ I would be able to sneak right up on ‘em, and finish ‘em off! If only I had known what I was gonna find, though, I might not have been so eager to finish the job! Oh well. As I told ya before, I ain’t thought so good since that damn ass had its way with me, so you’ll havta excuse it all.

After havin’ been a walkin’ for a good twenty minutes or so, I suddenly heard some’n’! My ears ain’t so good as my nose, but they won me a blue ribbon at the fair when I was a young’in, so they ain’t nothing to scoff at neither. It was Billy’s voice! An’ whack me silly with a pumpkin if he weren’t talkin’ all nice like to Bob!

Now, Bob an’ I’d been married a fair while now. I figure it’s been at least 30 years, on account o’ the fact that we’re both nearly 40 now. Sure, we were both single for longer’n any o’ our parents would’a liked, but since we had the same grandpa an’ grandma, they figured it wouldn’t hurt us to wait a bit longer than most, ‘cause we were sure we wouldn’t halfin’ run out on each other with Pa’s shotgun  pointed so straightlike at our faces half our life.

Nevertheless, though, I ain’t never really taken no time to figure out what Bob liked and didn’t in life. See, our marriage was more one o’ convenience than anything. My Ma told us we gots a proud family line to continue, an’ if we didn’t get together right and soon when we were young, we wouldn’t be able to support Ma and Pa, an’ all our brothers and sisters, as well as Aunt Sally, and Uncle John, and Cousins Robert, Billy Junior, Elizabeth,  William, Catherine, Christopher, Deborah, Bobby, Richard, Donald, Joseph, Katherine, Matthew, Michael, Steven, Bobby Junior, Thomas, William, Cheyenne, Destiny, Billy, Candy, Mindy, Billy-Bob, Charlene, Jaelyn, Leanne, Chet, Boomer, Billy Bob Junior, Rosco, Bo, Cletis, Hank, Jack, Hank Junior, Billy, Bobby, Orville, Clayton, Todd, Payn , Colton, and Dalton, all o’ whom lived in our house. ‘Course, we didn’t all share a room most days – that’d be wrong! Today, they were all out on riding poor Bobby-Jim, our horse, ‘round the pond out back, so wouldn’t likely be back for hours.

So, while Bob an’ I lived together, an’ made at least a dozen or so more young’ns when we got that time, we ain’t never really talked ‘bout nothing. What made him go boo in the mornin’ before he ate breakfast? Danged if I know! Why’d he always smack ‘is head before he ate beef? I ain’t got no idea!

An’ now, I had another real brain-scratcher! Why were him an’ Billy sittin’ there in the grass without their pants on talkin’ all fancy like?! Smack my face an’ call me a rooster if I could tell!

There! I ain’t run outta words yet, but I think I gotta take a break from writin’ all this now! Too much thinkin’ clear makes my head get hot, an’ then all them flies got angry  like an’ try to take off, an’ then the buzzin’ nearly goes an’ drives me half crazy ‘til they settle down again.

This was one of my first ever blogs here on Xanga. The original is linked over on the right of my main page, but it dates back from before I had any readers (or... more than maybe two, at any rate), so I don't think very many of you have seen it. Talk about vintage.

Over the years, many a super-hero have risen and fallen,
trying to protect the darkened streets of Gotham
city. Each has had his time, and then, like a candle in the wind, each has been
extinguished. But the desperate citizens of this once-glorious city need not
worry. For a new hero approaches, out of the darkness and the gloom; one who
does not fear evil, one who knows what must be done to save this fair city.
Yes, I am referring to the infamous man known simply as… the Middle Manager

Our hero sits at his desk, late into the night, working on
complex theorems on his high-tech mechanical interface device, an astounding
piece of technology that can connect with the world through a screen, and sits
on a particle-board desk. On the wall of his cubicle flash dozens of brilliant
emerald lights, each representing a section of the city, or as he refers to
them as, his “projects”.

Suddenly, one changes to a deep orange, and then, a bright
red, shining out of the sea of green like a chasm to hell in a fair farmer’s field.
A look of bloodcurdling concentration washes across the face of our hero; he
spins his chair to look out and up, out the window, and up at the night sky.
There, silhouetted against the dark, troubled clouds, are the symbols of his
office, imprinted on the top of the world; the ball-point pen and the clip-on
tie.

A red phone on his desk begins to ring incessantly; the
Middle Manager swivels ‘round once again to pick it up. One word greets his
inquisitive ear, “help”. A plead from the very mayor of the city himself, a
desperate sign of the city’s lugubriosity.

Grabbing his pen and clip-on tie off his desk, he attaches
one to his collar, slips the other into his breast pocket, all while finishing
the cold dregs of a stale cup of coffee he had left on his desk. He rushes out
in front of an awed crowd of on-lookers and colleagues. Our hero goes to risk
his life once again, desperately flinging himself into situations most mortal
men would cringe to think of, but such is simply a day’s work for the Middle
Manager.