Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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“As it was in the beginning/Is to-day official sinning. . . “

I keep running into folks who celebrated those “mostly peaceful” violent 2020 riots who view the “Lego Insurrection” as having been an existential threat to the nation. These are also folks who, for the most part, think there was an election, not a “fraud of monstrous size” (TY, RK), on Nov 3 last year. The graphic here represents a DOWNPLAYING of the BLM riots and still does not express the evil of a Capitol cop murdering an unarmed woman, but it’s a start. And, IMO, not NEARLY enough emphasis is given to the fact that Dhimmicrap politicians, both DC pols and nationwide, generally encouraged and enabled the violent rioters in their destruction of property and lives.

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Ditch Your Thesaurus. Read More Books Written by Literate Writers

Third rate (but aren’t they all that, at best, now?) “news” broadcast. “Communications major” (well, apparently *sigh*), blow-dried airhead talking about a storm, particularly a falling tree that “. . .narrowly avoided hitting a family. . .” as though the tree itself had some sort of agency and could of itself AVOID hitting the family, because it wasn’t just wind and gravity, no! The TREE itself could apparently affect its fall and AVOID hitting that po’ family it had previously (apparently) “aimed” itself at. #gagamaggot No, it narrowly missed hitting the family, by chance, but avoidance requires agency (even in passive voice).

But nowadays, since Hivemind audiences are almost all subliterates themselves, who really cares?

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*shrugs* I think These Things So You Don’t Have To

I kinda snicker a little bit when someone starts talking/writing about “sniper rifles.” My two word internal response is always “Simo Häyhä.” Yes, there are specialty firearms designed for extreme long-range accuracy that are frequently used primarily by snipers, but ANY rifle is a “sniper rifle” when it is in the hands of a sniper. Just say, “rifle.”

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Illinois Tightens Privacy Measures. . . a Little

Specifically,

Illinois Passes Bill to Prohibit Warrantless Data Collection from Household Electronic Devices

Headed to the governor’s desk.

While it’s good they addressed this, folks who use these massive security breach devices (Alexa, Ring, Echo, and other IoT devices) are already being spied on by others who are just as nefarious as government agencies. Perhaps not as powerful as government agencies, but just as interested in jamming folks up in their own ways. (“Oh, but you use FarceBook.” Yeh, but when I do, FarceBook thinks I am hundreds of miles or more away from my location, among [many] other obfuscation measures.)

*smh*

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If It’s Not One Thing. . .

. . .it’s another.

Olde Pharte tomcat (what? ~19 years old, now?) is having the Olde Pharte “everything tastes like crap” issue. A brand new fresh bag of kibble? He’ll nibble. . . for a while, then, nah. Can of “run to get it” canned cat food? He eats it for a while, then, “It is no longer to my taste.”

Found something that the “everything tastes like crap” issue does not apply to, though. I cook up a few rashers of bacon. Drizzle a bit of the grease over any old dry food. Yummers! Absolutely da bomb!

And yes, I know the commercial foods are designed for the average domestic cat’s “higher than canine’s” fat needs, and bacon grease really screws with those ratios, but he had been getting ghastly thin until I stumbled on this lil trickerooo. Now he’s a much happier camper and–side benefit–cleanup of cat puke is down. *shrugs* If I can make his “Lead Years” (what? you were thinking “golden”? *pfui* 😉 ) a bit more pleasureful for him, I’m OK with that.

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It’s Really Just a Slothful Willful Ignorance

Confusion about personal pronouns has abounded among the lazy and willfully ignorant (the most pernicious form of stupidity) for much longer than the current “gender fluidity” stupidity. A typical construction for someone stuck at a VERY low English fluency (let alone literacy) level, and yet I see it time and again in books, passed over by illiterate proofreaders and editors goes something like this: “We have done something bigger than you and I.” Really? Take the magic “and” as well as the other person out: “We have done something bigger than I” just looks and sounds stupid doesn’t it? It doesn’t get any less stupid looking and sounding by adding a magic “and.” Nope, “We have done something bigger than you and ME.”

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Adds to Your “Privacy Routine”

Nuke Cortana, Alexa, Siri, and any such “digital assistants” within one’s power from orbit. Report robocalls to appropriate authorities and follow up on complaints lodged. Salt the earth from whence they sprang. Lather, rinse, repeat. 😉

Oh, and “if you hear, ‘This call is being recorded for training and quality control,'” but do–eventually–get a live person on the line, tell THEM you are recording the call. . . in case you need to take legal action later. You might be surprised how many terminate the call. That’s fine. If you initiated the call, just call back and escalate your call. Firmly. The Internet is a funny critter. You can too track down and call someone in authority in a company that has irritated you. Do so. Repeatedly, if necessary, until you achieve a resolution you can live with. Make it known that you appreciate good behavior and abhor–and will appropriately “punish”–bad behavior

And, as above, lather, rinse, repeat.

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Sharing Through the Generations

Something that interested me when I was a young lad, sitting and, yeh, staring at my maternal great grandmother (she was OLD, I tell ya! *heh*), particularly as she sharpened her pen knife and used it to trim her fingernails VERY short: onychorrhexis. Nah, I didn’t know what to call it as a six-or seven-year-old lad, but that’s one of the things that interested me: the ridges on her fingernails. *huh* Same as on my maternal grandfather’s hands, and. . . mine, now. (I have one sib I have noted who has the same issue: ridged nails that split easily.) So: trimming my fingernails (yeh, and toenails, now) very short has become a thing for me. Recently, however, I’ve had a really handy tool added to the task: a nail trimming device (a small, rechargeable rotary grinding tool) soundly rejected by the dog. Works for me, though.

Oh, med resources list a lot of different causes for the issue, but only three of them seem to apply to me: heredity, aging, and arthritis. *shrugs* If I can live with joint pain, I can live with this, especially since I have naproxen sodium for the one and this neat lil grinding tool for the other.

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Delightful

I had lost track of Margaret Ball and not read anything by her for several years when I ran across A Pocketful of Stars (Applied Topology Book 1). Good stuff, Maynard. I’m now working my way through the seven book series, and, if then quality remains at the level I expect from Ball, I am NOT looking forward to finishing book seven and discovering she has not written book eight. Yet. *heh*

Oh, there’s nothing “important” about the books (although my brief spate of appreciation for advanced–or even just semi-advanced–math ~50-ish years ago and continued casual appreciation to this day does enjoy the “math talk”). They are just fun, well-told stories with amusing and interesting characters. Juuuust a wee tad Wodehousian in “fluffiness,” if Wodehouse were to have been mathematically inclined and in tune with contemporary “college kidsian” mores.

*sigh* OK, it’s taken a bit of a “bodice-ripper” turn in book 3. Oh, well. It was good while it lasted.