“They say that Virginia is the mother of Texas. We never knew who the father was, but we kinda suspected Tennessee.”–Tex Ritter (so don’t blame me, OK?)
*heh*
Too Kind by Far
The kindest I’d have been in his place would have been, “Urm, dude, your pants are on fire.”
Next time, take the mittens off, mmK? Bare knuckles would be fine with me.
“More? You want MORE?”
OK. The debate, summarized by Jim Treacher, with metacomment by moi:
0bambi vs. Godzilla
http://youtu.be/ZpBkc2jK-6w
Aaaannd, Tweet of the Night:
“Some people eat when they get depressed. I hope Michelle put Bo outside for the night.”
*snerk*
(No, I don’t know who made the graphic. It appeared on FB and I’m just too butt lazy to spend the time and effort tracking it down. If someone sees this and says, “Hey! That’s mine!” then fine, you’ll get the credit. Until someone else says the same thing. *heh*)
Confessions of a Pop Drinker
Yeh, yeh, I drink pop. Soda. Whatever. Not so much as I used to, but I drink the stuff. At least I no longer drink Pepsi, long my preferred cola (never really did develop a taste for Coca-Cola; it always came across as too sweet to me, for one thing). I stopped drinking sugar and corn syrup sweetened pops long ago, and in fact even went off carbonated soft drinks entirely for a while, since artificial sweeteners just didn’t make the grade for me, although I’d partaken of them for some time under a mistaken impression they’d help me control my middle age spread (they didn’t seem to).
A couple of years ago, though, I discovered a cola that’s not only sugar free but tastes better to my palate than my old fav, Pepsi: Continue reading “Confessions of a Pop Drinker”
I’ll Never Tell…
(Say it sing-song style. Go ahead. I’ll never tell. *heh*)
For all the (One? Maybe) Democrat reader of this blog (if one there be):
Oh, Why Not? Let’s Just Finish the Job and Get It Over With
*sigh*
Yeh, finish the job of turning the US into a third world country hell hole run by a kleptocratic kakistocracy building their own “golden Solyndrachutes” off the blood and toil and sweat and tears of the slaves on the “gummint plantation”–slaves who were once citizens, now in chains. Yep. By all means, let’s just finish that job with The Zero.
Not.
Compy Dreams
With the advent of Wintel tablets approaching, the tablet for factor may actually start to appeal to me for doing things other than just media/info-consuming. Sure, I’ve seen–and tried out–some of the office-type productivity app attempts on various tablets, and I’ve shuddered at Garage Band being touted on the iPhad (Garage Band and its ilk are represented as music content creation applications; they are “music content creation” apps as garbage collection–not even disposal–is to yard waste: a way to get the junk collected in one location). *meh* At best such things are kludgy. Of course, no tablet that come w/o included physical keyboards would be worth much to me for anything but media/info-consumption, either.
Yeh: might as well just look for a convertible touch screen notebook for me.
Unless… (and until) voice (and music) recognition advances would allow reasonable data input w/o a keyboard/mouse (or touchpad/screen) combo. Ideally, a wearable computer with a system that allowed projection of a virtual screen (while I continued to wear my prescription lenses) and could reliably translate subvocalized commands/data input into actions/content. Oh, yeh, music recognition capability that’d allow vocal or instrumental input and transcribe music played/sung with reasonable accuracy (as is now only reasonably done via direct midi input, although folks are working on decent transcription from live input). And an OS that allowed me to continue to use a music transcription software that can perfectly read my archives of scores already written. Combined w/decent ear buds and perhaps some motion-sensor gloves or wrist bands, such a system would be pretty much ideal for a portable computer for someone like me.
*sigh* Maybe such a system will be available before I’m too feeble-minded to be able to use it. (Some may say it’s too late for that already. *heh*)
Details Add Verisimilitude… or Not
In fiction, the less descriptive details detract from creating suspension of disbelief, the less they might drag a reader out of the story to say, “Nuh-uh! No way! Not so!” and so getting the little things right can make a difference in verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief, let alone simple enjoyment of a story well told.
Let me offer a very small example (one of, sadly, more than a few from a book now in hand):
Speaking about an event in Atilla’s life tied to a specific town in Italy in 452 A.D., a learned gentleman intones,
“The town was founded in the first century, so it was already three hundred years old when Atilla arrived.”
Really? Any (and I do mean ANY) literate person knows that the first century A.D. began with year 1 and went through 100 A.D. 452 A.D. was squarely in the middle of the FIFTH century. It would have made sense to have said, “The town was founded in the first century, so it was already FOUR hundred years old when Atilla arrived.”
When a novel that relies heavily on historical citations (and legends tied to history) begins to pile up errors like that, it starts to seriously detract from the story.
No, before you ask, it’s not a book by Dan Brown. It’s not within several orders of magnitude of being THAT bad. In fact, apart from niggling little things like the one noted above, and quite contra a Dan Brown prose atrocity, it’s actually pretty good reading, which is what makes these niggling little problems… problems.
Eureka!
[N.B. Added link to one example–of many, many examples–of behaviors in support of my thesis below. ;-)]
The Zero has been an open book enigma, wrapped in a con man’s smile, covered by a flack industry’s hand-waving distractions and outright lies.
All this stuff we’ve been seeing from The Zero, his fellow travelers and cronies–the gutting of the economy and building of “golden Solyndrachutes” for the Crony Class, the bowing and scraping and (at least metaphorical) bending of knee to all sorts of foreign potentates and outright enemies of the US, the shredding of constitutional guarantees of fundamental human rights, and on and on and on: it’s all about Moochele’s campaign to combat her childhood nemesis. Yep, her childhood obesity is driving all this.
Oh, I have no picture of her as a fat child, but her psychological derangement is blatantly apparent, and its most likely cause is her own self-image, formed growing up as a fat kid.
And how does this explain The Zero’s (and his fellow travelers, etc.) behaviors? Think about if for a nano-second (that’s about all it takes, of course, to understand so simple a set of minds).
- That Moochele drags Barry around firmly by the one ball she has let him keep is pretty much a given, taking even a brief glance at their respective public behaviors. One shudders to think what that emasculated quasi-male suffers in private (but then, considering who and what it is, notsomuch with the shuddering, ya know?)
- That EVERYTHING Barry (and etc.) has done is aimed squarely at enfeebling the US is obvious to anyone with active brain cells numbering greater than that found in the average used Kleenex.
- That this enfeebling of America has resulted and continues to progressively result in a cancelation of the “super-size” menu plan for Americans is also obvious. Just take a look at that package of bacon you’ve been buying for years. It doesn’t cost a LOT more (in increasingly worthless fiat dollars) now than when the Zero took office, true, but have you stopped to look closely at why that is? Yep. It’s now 12 ounces instead of 16. That package of cookies that’s only a “little more expensive” than in 2009? Yep. Smaller.
- And as “the little people” have less and less to spend on smaller and smaller portions, Moochele’s dream from her childhood will come to pass. It’s almost biblical in scope. Or Greek god-like in petty, childish arrogance. (Those columns: whose idea were they really? Hmmm?)
And so it goes. Genius! It’s all about slowly weaning Americans from food entirely!
Zero Movie
When the movie about The Zero’s reign is made (and, oh, it will be!) themes and titles need to be ready. What would you propose?
Perspective
Now that a coupla days have passed since folks began bemoaning the effects of the “replacement refs'” advent on their beloved [Whatevers], perhaps an observation from Ring Lardner’s days as a sports reporter in Chicago would be fitting:
“Hero-worship is the national disease that does most to keep the grandstands full and the playgrounds empty.”
As couch potatoes and the never-weres of the sports fields everywhere thrash and moan about the horrible officiating ruining “their” teams’ games, maybe, to borrow a Jonah Goldberg quip, they need to get out and get a tan.
Meanwhile, those of us who were never all that impressed by circuses would like a little less bitchin’ and moanin’ about replacement refs and other inanities. Professional sports for the enstupiation of those with too much time on their hands and no thoughts nor even any worthwhile hobbies to occupy that time? DGARA.