Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
Posted on

What’s in YOUR EDC bag?

Soup. Save the ketchup packages from fast food meals and include them (along with jerky, and other long-term foods) in your EDC bag. Ketchup + (real) cream powder + lil bit of water + jerky; boil (in your EDC cup over EDC camp stove made from tuna tins, if you wish): nice lil soup. Pre-soak some dried corn or wasabi peas to add. Get creative. (More fun than just cracking open an MRE, for sure.)

And – of course! – your combo knife-fork-spoon (I like my Coleman version) is already in one of 16 or so pockets in your ADC (All Day Carry) vest, along with your Emergency Sandwich and your Backup Emergency Sandwich. . . *heh*

Posted on

Needed More Fiber

This is the largest fossilized human turd ever found

“The hefty deposit, measuring 8? x 2? (20 cm by 5 cm), was found beneath the site of the famous bank [Lloyds]in 1972. . .”

Hefty? *meh* Maybe by weight, since it’s fossilized. (warning: may be TMI) 8”x2” isn’t much at all. Mine are regularly 12” (or longer) “floaters” of a diameter easily 50% larger than 2”. Maybe I should “fossilize” a personal “floater” and put it up for auction. . .

Posted on

It’s Only Words. . .

During my childhood and youth, the family dictionary was a two-volume set of 8”×10”×3.5” small print books absolutely full of fascinating reading.

And so I read them voraciously. I still read dictionaries for fun, although some of my collection of dictionaries may be closer to encyclopedias (like my 20-volume set of Groves).

And yet. . . I sometimes find myself lacking the words to describe the depth and breadth of stupidity I see. . . everywhere. . . including, at times, in the mirror.

Posted on

Post Hoc Fallacy? Not Exactly

I injured my left hand ~10 months ago. Recovery is slow (and may never be complete *shrugs*). Still only have ~80% grip strength – on a good day – and fingers still swollen (wedding ring still does not comfortably fit ring finger), but. . . after massaging some salicylic acid solution and DMSO into hand, better pain relief and a wee tad less swelling. Maybe the pain relief is just in my head, though. Placebo effect can be strong, I suppose.

Still keeping the hand exercises up and wearing the compression glove, but this seems to have effected more progress than all the other nine months’ measures have. We;ll see.

Posted on

Semi-Good News

There are kids’ writers who have some pretty decent books out, still. Surprising? IKR? *heh*

I recently read the first two books in a juvie (“YA”-ish) semi-hard sci-fi and feel I can recommend them for my Wonder Woman’s libraries (though they’re only available in ebook and paperback *sigh* Both formats have school library problems). They’re about the level of the Tom Swift, Jr. sci-fi in terms of actual hard science, IOW, more hand-waving than _actual_ science, and the kind of fudging of science foundations that had me sometimes rolling my eyes in 4th grade, but still better written and with a much more “civilized” world view than many YA books nowadays. (Yes, I still submitted word usage errors for correction, but not as many as I have come to expect in even tradpub books nowadays.)

The series begins with Awakening by Randal Sloan.

Six books in the series, but I think 2 will do it for me. As with most juvies, the plots and characters are just too predictable – a net positive for YA/juvie books, IMO, but less so for most adult readers.

Another series I am even more sold on is the City Spies series by James Ponti. Yes, the characters and plots are pretty standard (with some interesting variations), but the books are just so very well-written (and pretty darned well edited!) that the first chapter of book 1 (read at a school librarians conference) sold me on the series. And yes, my Wonder Woman reports that her students are rightly as appreciative of the books as I am. 🙂

Posted on

“Sweet Dreams Are(n’t) Made of This”

*sigh*

No, not that ? .

Had a dream that woke me this A.M. My Wonder Woman picked me up at a huge shopping mall. She was driving her tricked out I.H. truck w/custom camper. (An award for some unspecified cool thing she did in the dream. TOTALLY deserved!) Liked it. But. My immediate thought was, “Now we have to pay the taxes on this thing.” Yep. Form 1040-ES Payment Voucher #2 is indeed due next week. *sigh*

Fairtax, please.

Posted on

It Ain’t Prep If You Ain’t Got Fire

Sure, I carry at least two means of making fire (well, three once I don my ADC vest) in my ADC (all day carry) load on my person, but just a means of making a flame isn’t enough, so in my Zippo belt pouch, I also carry a bit of tinder, ‘cos why not? 😉

Posted on

Memory Hole?

Intercollegiate Studies Institute performed an annual “Civics Literacy” survey for six or seven years in a row, tracking trends in the general population with isolation of various demographics. While all demographics showed levels of civics literacy that would not be able to pass the dumbed down quiz prospective naturalized citizens are required to take, two things stood out to me:

1. High School seniors consistently out-performed college seniors, and
2. The lowest scoring demographic was. . . elected officials.

Posted on

“Exterminate! Exterminate” ~ Every Dalek Ever

On the subject of the destruction – nay! extermination! – of meaningful communication, this sidebar:

More and more often I find myself baffled by the precipitous pejoration of “decimate” used to imply utter and complete destruction instead of the former pejoration implying destruction of a large part of [whatever]. What useful purpose does it serve to utterly destroy a formerly useful sense of a word? It’s almost as bad as Dhimmicraps harping on “democracy” when they mean “tyranny by means of vote fraud.”

Posted on

Not Sure If I Should “Yelp” This Weekend or Not. . .

Weekend and on into tomorrow, stayed (am still staying) at a once well-known resort in the Ozarks. Future stays here? A tossup, at best. *sigh*

Advertises stables and horseback riding o web site. Horses “on vacation.” (Markdown)
Confirmed reservation. Complied with check-in times. More than five hour wait for room. (Markdown)
Room: OK, special rate for conference (Markup) So-so accommodations and substandard details, REALLY noisy. Remote from all resort amenities, with one Post Polio person (they knew this) and LOTS of hills. (Markdown x 3)
Workers: pleasant and helpful (for the most part) (Markup) but institutionally hamstrung at times (Markdown)
Said the room was noisy? REALLY noisy “music” imposed on everyone in public areas making communication difficult and speech LOUD. (Markdown)
Super hokey décor mandated by new owners. (Markdown) Seems designed to appeal to low-brow, nekulturny rednecks (not the good kind of redneck; trust me on that. Markdown)

Still, it’s a conference for my Wonder Woman’s librarian association. Lots of fun folks, but the especially good thing is that I’ve gotten to spend more time with her than usual, even with her meetings and different lecture sessions.

Weekend as a whole: Mark WAY up even with the accommodation negatives. Would do it again (even at the overcharged, IMO – given the accommodation flaws – special rate), even if it were here. But NEXT time, there had better be horses!

Oh, I should add that while the bed was made by a prankster, the sheets themselves were almost as nice as on our bed at home. The pillows sucked, though.

Workers were uniformly as helpful as circumstances and resources allowed.