Monday - 2008-0526-0500 - Rain - Yellow Umbrella; "Minority" and "I Wanna Be Sedated"; Galicia; Road and Bridge Privilege Tax and Vehicle License Tags; WalMart Money Card; "MOST FUCKING STUPID PERSONAL ACTIONS!"

Rain - Yellow Umbrella Larger Image A most unusual image in which an umbrella looks like a magnificent yellow lily. The original can be found at umbrella-rain, a part of //o^_^o\\, which appears to be an Italian blog.

The yellow umbrella is part of an Italian blog, a part of //o^_^o\\. The site contains the lyrics to two songs that are "new" to me: "Minority" by Green Day and "I Wanna Be Sedated" by Ramones. I must admit that the lines " I Wanna Be Sedated" hold a certain appeal.

Again, the serendipity of the web introduces me to info that I would never have heard of otherwise.

I scribble notes on index cars that after a few days lose all meaning or reference. None the less, "Galicia" was written in large letters on one. Now strangely, Galicia refers to two area: "Galicia (Spain)" - "an autonomous community of Spain, made up of the provinces of A Coruņa, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra."

It also denotes "Galicia (Central" Europe) - "a historical region in East Central Europe, currently divided between Poland and Ukraine, named after Ukraninan city of Halych."

My semi-illiterate guess is that the term appeared in a Spanish blog that I encountered.

Once a year, the state of Mississippi requires that you render unto them an ad valorem tax based of the appraised value of your street-worthy vehicle. It cycles according to the month you registered your car. Mine is the merry month of may.

The Motor Vehicle Licensing (MVL) offers everything from a plain, ordinary tag to a dizzying assortment of specialty tags. ("Vanity tags" are also available that usually say something like "Miss Ebony" or "Rob VIII." Since the tags have to be unique, the latter indicates that seven people beat Rob to the option. The one tag that I've seen that I wished I owned was one that said "Shalom".)

Given this panoply, I opted for "I Care for Animals". most appropriate, I thought.

I do have a couple of vanity tags rumbling around in the back of my mind. "Coexist" to match my bumper sticker. (Odd, but I've not had a single person ask about the tag.)

The other is much more esoteric. "Cogito" or "Ergo Sum." Both based on phrase by Rene Descartes - 16th/17th "philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer."

Descarte's phrase was "Cogito ergo sum - Latin for "I Think, Therefore I Am". "The simple meaning of the phrase is that if someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist." I'm not about to begin to attempt an explanation of the philosophical implications of the phrase.

On the way back from the grocery, I noticed that my petrol level was low, and the soft glow of the fuel indicator light would waver on from time to time. (Why the fuck is the light pink? Should it not be bright red?)

I passed a couple of places, and the cost of regular was $3.70+ per gallon. Jesus! I'd noticed that the station at WalMart indicated you could get 3 cents off per gallon with a WalMart card. I moseyed inside to Customer Service and learned that the card was $8.95, but I figured you also got a discount on merchandise. The recent I was not sure was that the packet I got was in Spanish.

I went back to the pumps, but the devices did not recognize my card. I struck me that I'd not activated it. I tried to read the numbers on the card and use my cell. But the lettering was in a micro-font: the kind of thing you'd find on the last page of the car rental statement. So I wound up having to use my debit card: 9.051 gallons at $3.559 per for a total of $32.21! Holy fuck!!!

In the evening, I used a magnifying class and typed in the web address. Then I answered page after page of questions. (I could have gotten a job at the CIA as an Arabic translator in less time. ) I also realized that I was now part of the semi-secret super database of WalMart. See " Wal-Mart's Plans For Its 4-Petabyte Database". Also see Petabytes!!! "A petabyte (derived from the SI prefix peta- ) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quadrillion bytes, or 1000 terabytes - 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes." You could figure out the gene structure of a Pterodactyl with less storage!

But verily, the story does not end here. Buried in the intense "Wal-Mart MoneyCard(sm) Cardholder Agreement by GE Money Bank" is a note about a $4.94 monthly maintenance fee. And under the so-called "Privacy Policy," it indicates that information gathered can be shared with any and all sources including the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.

I fear this transaction must go under my l list of "MOST FUCKING STUPID PERSONAL ACTIONS!"

(In Monday - 2008-0526-0500 / Out - 2008-0526-1830) This entry was written in multiple settings.

Pax! Erin go braugh! Je accuse...