Saturday, October 31, 2015

Paper Cut


Usually perfection can’t be attained.  Bare minimum for me:  An adequate result.

I snail-mailed the last paper edition of my zine.  Why?  Not the computer but the printer.

This Windows-compatible  printer is the third one I’ve owned.  All three were crap.  This one started to print faint copies.  I tried the usual fixes.  Nothing.  I searched via Google for other fixes.  They didn’t work.  Two hours wasted.

I had to take my PDF file to a print shop.   Text was OK but the images were muddy.  A problem I could’ve fixed with the file if my printer had been working.  The file was uneditable so it couldn’t be properly fixed at the print shop.

Online the images look great, in color, not B&W as with print.

Since 1994 I’ve been cranking out my paperzine The Ray X X-Rayer.  No more.  I don’t want to waste money on another crap printer or take the option of trying to get adequate copies at a print shop.

Online writing and editing can be a pain but not like producing hardcopy.   Paper jams, dried out ink cartridges, smeary copies – no more.  Stapling, folding, envelopes, stamps – forget it.

There are holdouts in meatspace who are paper only.  I respect that but if they want to read my stuff they’ll have to do it online at this blog or at http://www.tinyletter.com/RayX .

Good riddance to paper.

Time and money saved.  One stressful activity gone.

I’ll save my energy for more reasonable pursuits.  Like capturing a UFO.


Monday, October 26, 2015

Forget Waldo - Where's Nick Pope?



Are you in there Nick?  I can hear you… 


Good interview, crap video.

I click the remote control to watch another segment included in the DVD “Aliens, Abductions, & Extraordinary Sightings.”  This one is entitled “The U.K. UFO Sightings.”

This segment jumps right into a sit down interview without IDing the interviewee.  I recognize UFO Researcher Nick Pope from photographs seen online and in magazines.  For those viewers unfamiliar with him, tough luck.  You’ll have to look for clues in the interview.

Nick discusses his experience working for the U.K. Ministry of Defence’s UFO Project.  Unlike some UFO personalities Nick is rational, neither a true believer nor diehard skeptic.  It’s the first time I’m seen a video interview with him.

Unfortunately whoever edited this interview decided the average viewer suffers from limited attention.  The attention of such a viewer will wander unless you draw him back in with some visual tricks.


Gesundheit!  (Better see the doc about that nosebleed.

I don’t mind if a talking head segment runs on for a while.  Now if someone wants to show a photo or newspaper article to break up the generally static visual of the interviewee sitting in a chair, OK, no problem.  But I don’t want to be distracted by LSD inspired visuals, especially when they obliterate the interviewee’s presence.

The editor on this project was itching to use his new EFX program.  Suddenly some gooey gold stuff flows over the screen, an image that has nothing to do with the subject matter.  At another point Nick keeps gallantly talking on in the background while spreading red spots dominate the foreground.  (Space measles?)   And if that isn’t impressive, satellites fly over Nick’s face, hellfire obscures his image  -- enough, I can’t go on.

My advice: Watch the interview with the visual turned off.  It works much better as radio.

Hey, kids!  The interviewer is Alley Oop. (Oop, Oop, Oop..)


“You got peanut butter in my Nick Pope.”
“And you got Nick Pope in my peanut butter!”


Suffering from the burning itch of hemorrhoids?  Try Tucks medicated pads.

Doomsday 0 Ray X ?


© Ray X  10/25/15

I never got the memo.  The world was supposed to end on October 7th.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve survived Doomsday.

Previously in “The Ultimate Deadline” [1] I discussed another doomsday prophecy from last month involving the blood moon and asteroids destroying the earth.  The lunar eclipse happened with no incident and I don’t recall a massive meteor storm that spoiled everyone’s picnic.

Now we have another group, E Bible Fellowship, claiming the 2011 End Day prediction (another no show)) of the late great preacher Harold Camping was going to come true [2].  This group is based in Pennsylvania, an indication that the Keystone State cut too deep into its mental health services. 

At the E Bible website there’s a post entitled “October 8th” [3] that attempts to explain away why the world didn’t crap out, the usual backpedaling hyperlogic.  (The E must stand for evasive.)

Responding to the question “Did We lie?” E Bible says it had qualified its Doomsday prediction with the phrase “strong likelihood.”  That means there was a “small likelihood” that it wouldn’t occur.  So E Bible is left open to make as many failed predictions of Judgment Day with the “likelihood” escape clause.  QED as in Quite Easily Done.

And there was this answer to the question “Plan B (what will E Bible Fellowship do next?):”

“Some times people ask: what’s your back up plan? What are you going to do now that the world did not end on October 7th?

“Our answer has always been: we intend to keep reading and studying the Bible! Going back to the Word of God seeking truth is plan b, c, d, e, and every other option as well.”


Apparently Plan A involved the E Bible group ensconcing its collective head in its collective A.

Usually I avoid snarkism with fringe beliefs but this pessimistic religiosity is too annoying.  These Doomsayers should wake up and realize the world will end like a trickster in the night.

For those keeping score Doomsday remains stuck with a cyclopean corpulent cipher.


[1]  http://xrayer.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-ultimate-deadline.html 

[2]  http://xrayer.blogspot.com/2011/05/will-you-survive-camping-trip-mark-your.html 

[3]   http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/archives/2015/10/08/october-8th/