Author: David

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

Unsolicited, Unpaid Endorsement

As regular readers may recall, back in March I injured my right knee’s ACL. It’s been a decent recovery so far, but I’ve continued to use a cane, in addition to two elastic bandages and one knee brace, to support myself when walking.

And it is support, not merely for stability and balance which is why I’ve been using the cane on my right side: to take weight off the knee when walking, in order to abate the pain, and use fewer pain meds.

But today, I bought a pair of these:

and for the first time in months I could walk without a cane, without pain. Yes, walk. Without pain. Full weight on the leg. Immediately. I simply set the cane aside and walked to give it a try (well, “set the cane aside”=”held the cane just in case” but there was an immediate difference). And yes, I had tried doing w/o the cane’s support earlier, and it was like stabbing my knee with an ice pick.

Of course, I’m still wearing the elastic supports and knee brace for stability (balance is fine, TYVM), but walking. Without pain.

Wonderful.

I like these Skechers Shape Ups. Lots! Time will tell if the claims made by the manufacturer pan out for me, but the simple fact that I can walk, without the cane supporting a large part of my weight, without pain is a BIG DEAL to me.

Good Stuff, Maynard.

Posted on

The Purpose of the System…

“The purpose of the school system is to protect teachers regardless of competence. The purpose of government is to collect taxes and pay them to government workers. It may be that some teachers and some government workers do something useful, but that is not the purpose of the system. The Iron Law* prevails.” — Jerry Pournelle

Posted on

At The End of a Wasted Life…

The best that Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro will be able to claim as his real epitaph might generously be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo

Sadly, as it appears now, he will likely not qualify for such high praise.

Posted on

When the Chips Are Down…

…and things look bleak for genuine human rights and the rule of law, here’s a motto to remember:

“[T]he only use I have for the moral high ground is a place to put my artillery.”

Remember the Founders, the price they paid for liberty from an oppressive government, and ponder the moral high ground.

Posted on

Locusts* Gone…

…I feel as though they’ve stripped me bare, though. But while I’ve been “gone”, it seems the words of Qohelet have been validated once again.

“There is nothing new under the sun.”

The Dhimmicraps and Repugnican’ts are still useless, toxic oxygen sinks. The Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind still has the majority of the electorate–illiterate/subliterate, lazy, self-enstupiated American Sheeple–under its sway. “Atlas” still sleeps. And so it goes.

I’m just glad I have such an optimistic outlook on life.

*No, for the literally-minded, not these actual critters. It just seemed that way.

Posted on

Free At Last!

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”*

(*twc central mortgage is paid off)

Posted on

More Locusts

Well, posting is going to be sparse again for the next couple of weeks. Booked to the gills, so don’t think I’ve simply stopped blogging.

More: totally waxed, right now, so this is all there is to this post. Check out my blogroll for some good reads.

Posted on

The Real Problem? I Discovered the OED at an Early Age

Seriously. As a child I enjoyed little more than reading dictionaries and encyclopedias, and when I discovered the OED (and in my tender young manhood, Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and its exhaustive treatment of Koine Greek *sigh*), well, I was in hog heaven.

So, understand that when I read some illiterate blurb in an email come-on to an online article such as the sentence below, I am a bit disturbed:

“It’s not the cheapest set out there, but it’s chalk full of features.”

It’s not that the author of the blurb is necessarily functionally illiterate (he did, after all, manage to spell his misused word correctly *heh*), but that he apparently has no idea that “chalk full” is nonsense reveals that he’s actually read very little. Any even passably semi-literate person such as myself knows full well that the phrase is “chock-full” or a close variant, and dictionary addicts such as I know why (hint *cough*: the majority opinion leans toward the first word in the term deriving from the Middle English “chokken“–meaning to cram or pack tightly, and NO opinion of any literate person even considers “chalk” to be in the same room as “chock” for the expression :-)).

Then blurb was written, more than likely, by some subliterate college graduate who’s heard the expression but never read it… and never even considered that looking up an expression he’s heard but not read might be a Good Thing before putting it in print.

Dumbass.

And, as my Wonder Woman pointed out to me, the writer of that excrescence is apparently an illiterate, uncultured savage whose only exposure to coffee has been limited to the crap sold by Starbucks and other boutique gathering places of the illiterati. Otherwise, he might have heard of, seen or even imbibed some of this:

(OK, OK, my Wonder Woman was too kind to characterize this savage as what he–oh! dread! it could be a “she”! *heh*–obviously is. I added the “illiterate, uncultured savage” and the comment on the crap that’s sold as coffee by Starbucks. Doesn’t make my editorializing incorrect, though.)