Author: David

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

Monkey Business

Yeh, confluence of events. . .

The usual suspects are trying to create another PANIC!™, this time about a virus that’s statistically MUCH less harmful than the common cold. . .

*sigh*

Then, after exposure to one of these scaremongers, I was (hand) washing our lunch dishes when I was reminded of Stupid Counsel™ about hand washing during the Covid-19 PANIC!™ You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure: 20 seconds of handwashing and the virus is magically banished!

Horse Pockeyhuck. During the PANIC!™ of 2020 (et seq.), I was unable to find any serious research papers about handwashing/Coronavirus-19, but there were already quite a few studies available on handwashing vs other viruses with similar lipid capsulation. They generally agreed that dissociation of the virus (one cannot kill something that is not alive) was effected by a soap and water handwashing of TWO MINUTES or GREATER duration.

I do not expect information about the Monkeypox PANIC!™ and procedures for dealing with it to be any better (placebo masking and other measures included) than the largely stupid measures effected during the 2020 PANIC! (et seq.).

But at least my greasy dishes got clean with soap, hot water, and vigorous scrubbing. . .

Posted on

Another Lil Bit of Tightwaddery — “Cross-scaling” Tossables

You’ve seen “upscaling” DIY projects. Imagine this as cross-scaling. 😉

I have an indulgence I from which have managed to partially salvage a wee bit of tightwaddery. My breakfast, of late (say, the past few months) has consisted of a cuppa “keto coffee” supplemented with some “glucose control” protein powder (crème brûlée! *heh*). I justify the expense as supporting my nutritional needs hic et nunc, as it were.

But. Yeh, the expense kinda nags at me. So. . . the powder comes in a really nice, thick, resealable Mylar™-lined bag. Hate throwing such a thing away, so. . . wash and dry. Reuse for those long term storage items Mylar™ bags are recommended for, but which I’d otherwise simply store in vacuum sealed bags. Food item in bag (w/oxygen absorber), zip-seal started but not completed, bag in vacuum seal plastic bag, vacuum sealer run, zip-seal finished. Double-bagged Mylar™/vacuum-sealed for long term storage.

Feel less like a wastrel. In this case, less is more. *heh*

Posted on

And the Beat Goes On. . .

Have you ever put a novel down at night and gone immediately to sleep? Then, the story continues in dreamland. . .

What’s frustrating is that, when this happens with me, all too frequently, when I resume reading the book, the writer gets it wrong. *heh*

Posted on

It’s All Lagniappe

Given my youth (what the ‘rents and sibs never knew didn’t hurt ’em *heh*), I had no expectations of reaching 40, and once I did, I had NO idea what I’d do with the extra years. . . Everything—all the decades since—past then has been a gift.

Then I awoke to the reality: it’s ALL been a gift. All of it. I wake every day knowing I have not deserved or earned the blessing of life I now have. At my current age, paying the physical price of some of my youthful, *urm-cough*, misadventures, mishaps, and outright “oopsies” is a daily thing, but a price well worth paying if only for a cuddle with my Wonder Woman.

It’s 0830 and I’m still waiting, Holy Brew in hand, for my joints to wake up, though I have gotten a wee bit of yard work in anyway. Small price the aches, pains, and [innumerable other] just to be able to sit a few minutes and be blessed by The Holy Brew.

Posted on

Faux-Literacy Example #8,759,356

“Paper mâché” #gagamaggot. Seriously, if one uses a French term adopted into English, use it correctly, not butchered half-anglicized and just wrong. Papier-mâché. Heck, if one is going to get the accent marks correct and flub the rest, why even use the term at all?

Posted on

Change the Terms but Keep the Substance

IOW, lie. That is what the forces occupying our communities under the cover of government do day in and day out.

Sovereign immunity? Qualified immunity? Anathema to the Founders and Framers.

Among the “long train of abuses” cited in the Declaration of Independence, one stands as a model for our INjustice system’s practices of both Sovereign Immunity and Qualified Immunity, that all too often protect government actors from the consequences of their crimes. The Declaration cites the king’s acts:

“. . . protecting them [occupying troops, similar n almost every regard to LEOs, persecutors, urm, prosecutors, judges, bureaucraps and the like “occupying” our communities] by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States . . ”

And then there is the fact that BOTH the federal system AND the states are barred from creating classes of nobility, so what do they do instead? They create privileged classes that are in no substantial way different to nobility, in that they have protections from the laws they more and more often use to suppress and oppress citizens.

Our contemporary law enFARCEment and INjustice systems (along with just about every government bureaucrappy) can be held accountable for their persecutions of citizens (and in many cases, more and more often nowadays, actual encouragement of real criminal behavior) only with great difficulty, and with barely any effect on the lives of bad actors in government. At most? Maybe a slap on the wrist. More usual? “Attaboys” and promotions.

Thus, for example, the murderer, Lom Horiuchi, stands as a “hero” and inspiration to law enFACEment and other government bad actors everywhere. BATF’s (and other agencies’) brutal murder of children at Waco? *meh* No consequences (except for the BATF agents killed by “friendly fire”–a minor karmic justice).

And then there are those fake “protectors” training sheeple in serfdom. I would modify the George Bernard Shaw quote, “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he will always declare that it is his duty,” for today’s Thugs Standing Around (TSA and all such security Kabuki personnel operating under cover of law), because most such persons have no sense of shame, nowadays, and no sense of right and wrong, either. They seem proud of doing things that any reasonable and decent person would be ashamed of.

Posted on

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

At most, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice can make “perfect,” and that ain’t gonna happen this side of the Jordan. . .

Still, practicing a musical piece. . . so many different methods, and choices/successes depend largely on skill level and preferences, but I always preferred reading through a piece and listening to it “between my ears” as much as possible before setting hand (and mouth, depending on instrument) or voice to the music. *shrugs* During a quick read-through, I could generally identify places that might need special attention, and could often iron them out, at least a bit during the scan. Then it was mostly discerning and effecting the teleos of the piece, as I inferred it from the leading of the tune and harmonies, as well as the composer’s directions on the page (notes and signs and etc.). When leading a group through a sight–reading. I came to appreciate the STARS method for young/inexperienced/amateur performers. For a group with more developed music literacy, just walking through a piece and noting to the group where I thought the different sections (or the group or the piece or both) might require a bit of attention. That was usually enough to get that attention paid during the first sigh reading session. Usually. *heh*

With volunteer choral groups, I preferred handing out an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, with bullet points derived from my much more detailed outline for each piece in the schedule for that rehearsal. Kept things moving and saved time. Of course, I had to remain flexible and touch on unanticipated issues though those were usually rare. A fav book on choral conducting informed the time I spent doing that. . . I occasionally had voices like those referred to below, and I celebrated their inclusion:

“I have never paid much attention to the ‘quality’ of a choral candidate’s voice. I am much more influenced by the extent of his desire to sing, and by his interest in music. . . May I offer an extreme example of this indifference to vocal endowment. I once had, as members of a chorus, two monotones. It would be impossible to exaggerate the delight they experienced in having a part in the rehearsal of great music, and had I denied them one of the real resources of life, I should always have regretted it. They were not the least sensitive over their deficiency and made no protest at being seated together a little apart from the chorus. Fortunately, their voices were not strong ones. They sang, without deleterious effect, not less than four major choral works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its conductor.” —
_Choral Conducting_, Archibald T. Davison ©1940, sixth edition: 1950,pp. 27-28.

Posted on

Unnecessary Duplication

I used to subscribe to “news” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, but I realized that subscribing to “CACA* Accolyte News” for opposition research wasn’t necessary, since CACA* dogma is endemnic in Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind propaganda, so. . .
__________________________

*CACA = Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism; also, just plain old everyday caca.

Posted on

Ortega’s “Mass-Man” Leading the Way to. . .

Even just a glance at the passing scene leads one to observe that the Internet’s empowerment of Ortega’s “mass-man” and the attendant massive explosion of the growth and influence of “Dunning-Krugerands,” has only exacerbated the downward spiral toward Kornbluth’s “Marching Morons.”

The Marching Morons

Setting: Far future (less far, now, by a LOT, if today’s society is any indication). “The human population is now 3 million highbred elite and 5 billion morons, and the “average” IQ is 45 (whereas today an IQ score of 100 is average, by definition).” (? Wikipedia)

Posted on

So, Musk Wants Governments and Businesses to Pay for Twitter Use?

This is a Good Idea. Of course. And, also of course, companies and governments (and agents of governments), including such leftard-cowed/pwned Hivemind sources as PC Mag (which has already published multiple denigrations of and dire warnings about the Musk-Twitter takeover) are. . . uncomfortable with paying for a bully pulpit. Screw ’em with a rusty chainsaw.

Charge Companies, Governments to Use Twitter? It is long since past time to do so.