Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Harking Back. . .

. . .to decades past, we’ve decided to go a different direction this year than we’ve gone for Xmas decos for, oh, maybe 12 years or so. For a bit more than a deco, we’ve not had any sort of traditional Xmas tree, not even the artificial tree we purchased about 30-*mumble* years ago, One year we just decided to pull a lil 2′ tall artificial tree w/LED lights out from behind the TV where it generally serves as backlight, and then shove it back behind the TV for the rest of the year. That’s worked well for ~ a decade or so.

This year,

It’s a start, anyway. we have created a feeling of more room by eliminating a bit of furniture, so it was pretty easy to add an artificial tree back into the mix. *shrugs* Yeh, it lacks the presence of a real tree, but it’s less messy and doesn’t create yet more wood waste to process with out chipper-shredder. It also packs more compactly than our old artificial tree.

I need to donate old artificial tree to the local thrift shop. with a lil TLC, I imagine someone might benefit.

And no. Before you e ven ask or comment, it is not too early to put up decos inside. Outside is a different matter, but I think we’ll limit that to just a nice wreath on the door.

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Proposal for a Sane Society

Code duello: we need to bring it back. The trick would be to ensure one is the challenged party, in order to be able to specify the weapons used. There is a range of weapons I would not mind being able to specify, including pillows on one end of the range. “Death by pillow fight” would be a great thing to have put in a deserving fellow’s obituary.

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Words: They Do Not Mean What You Think They Mean. . .

. . .IF you are a lazy, subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand.”

Read a book where a lazy, subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” writer committed a LOT (No, more than what you think of as “a lot,” MUCH more) of usage errors, on top of other basic grammar and orthography errors, including using “squib” (yes, with a “b”) to refer to a couple of retired Navy characters. No. I tired of typing,

“#GAGAMAGGOT!!!! SQUID, you subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” moron, SQUID!” and so intend to include something like this in an Amazon review (though I’ll include other examples of evidence that no literate eye gave a glance at the book before it was published):

“squib:
noun

a small firework consisting of a tube filled with powder that makes a hissing noise when it is lit”

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/squib

Also, re: firearms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squib_load

“A squib load, also known as a squib round, pop and no kick, or just a squib, is a firearm malfunction in which a fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck.”

SQUID, OTOH,

What Is A Navy Squid? 11 Slang Nicknames For Navy Sailors

“A term used in the old Navy (not the store), Squid is what other branches
(especially Marines) generally called sailors.”

Writers who do not care enough about their craft and who have no respect whatsoever for those they expect to pay for their “work,” and who therefore see no need to become literate are just wannabe thieves, seeking to steal $$ from readers for NOT doing their work, and to steal time better used to read or do other things. Note to wannabe writers: unless you can at least pass an “English as a second language” course, just write in your native tongue (for those who grew up in an English speaking milieu, that might well be gibberish. Very well, write your gibberish openly so that literate folks can more easily avoid it. Thankfully, many subliterate self-pubs write their own book blurbs. . . ).

I don’t want to be mean, but. . . “He MADE me do it!” *heh*

Another example, this one a whole sentence, illustrates a different frustration I experience with “Dunnig-Krugerite” writers.

“The palace is more than a thousand years old, [and was] once a stop for traders from the Silk Road.”

So, it was once a caravansaral (caravanari, caravanserai, caravansary). Would have been easier to just use the right word, viz., “. . .once a caravansaral on the Silk Road.” Oh, but wait. That would assume that both the writer and his intended audience had a working vocabulary larger than the typical fifth grader.

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Why I Sneer When Writers Bloviate About “Sniper Rifles”

Simo Häyhä. Yeh, he used a everyday garden variety M28/30 Mosin-Nagant with iron sights. “Terminally serviced” 500+ Germans during Finland’s defense against the Nazis in WWII.

My Granddaddy’s Model 1895 30-30 was more of a “sniper rifle” than what Simo Häyhä used. ANY rifle is a “sniper rifle” if that’s what it is used for.

Oh, he also carried a Suomi KP/-31 9×19 Parabellum (handgun cartridge) submachine gun for close defense, juuuust in case. Again: not what contemporary writers describe when writing about “sniper rifles.”

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DEFINITIVE PROOF!

That the Hunter Biden emails are false. STOLEN from a FarceBook comment thread

The laptop had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremmie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the “up” end of the grammeters.

Thus, the emails are false.

So, there you have it. THE definitive proof from an Internet IT Genius. (Well, Internet Satire Master)

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Car Tips Edition

Helpful Hints from Hairy Helpful

  • Handy-Dandy lil Tip: Eschew “power” windows and always have a sharp knife clipped in a handy place and those specialty “automobile escape tools” become redundant, completely unneeded.
  • Power Tip: Don’t trap yourself in a car wreck to begin with. Drive smart and keep your head on a swivel. 😉
  • Pro Tip: Don’t trust cops. There are easily at least as many corrupt cops are there are a$$h*les in the general population. Have TWO (minimum) car cams and use them. (You have–at the very least–a first amendment right to record cops in the performance of their duty. You may not have had  your due process rights infringed on in your location, so you may be able to legally record them at other times, as well.)
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“Once more into the breach. . . “

I blame Pete Townsend and legions of subliterates who have been “misunderedumacated” in “gummint” schools (A.K.A. “prisons for kids”) for the disgusting spread of “alright” in place of the useful and perfectly good “all right.” Yeh, yeh, so James Joyce wrote “alright” ONCE, as against dozens of uses of “all right.” Big deal. Even if Joyce’s usage had been flipped the other way, he wrote Suckitudinous Fiction that only appeals to sophomoric idiots who feign intellectual pursuits. (Yes, I am completely serious in that assertion.)

Heck, eve with Pete Townsend’s endorsement for the stupid, “alright” only gained any traction at all with the advent of massive “democratic” stupidity inflicted on English by “mass-man” (see Ortega) via the Internet. And even with the promulgation of subliterate stupidity via subliterate writing, editing, and self-publishing, one can be thankful the use of “all right” still VASTLY outweighs the deplorable infliction of “alright” on the English language.

So, if you insist on being a Philistine, a nekulturny subliterate (A.K.A. “trailer trash,” etc.), go ahead and use “alright” in private emails where you might be safe doing so, or in a public form where you can be raucously mocked. No skin off my nose either way. But if you (assuming a reader who wants to be a published writer and expects to be paid for wordsmithery) want to avoid a raucous mocking in, say, an Amazon review, get it right, mmmK?

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Rainy Days and. . . Tuesdays?

Nah, don’t always get me down.

Lil P0106 error code on Son&Heir’s 2010 Jetta (pretty nice car, that) that cleared when new PCV valve installed recurred with a P2178 (idle rich) added. MAF sensor/throttle body problem? MAF sensor connector was cracked. Cleaned out oil after removing, cleaning, checking throttle body, sealed MAF sensor connection after Deoxit cleaning of connectors. So far, no errors, but we’ll see. May need to replace a bit of electrical harness/connectors and MAF sensor, if it recurs. *shrugs* And then, of course, there’s always *tum-dum-tum-DUM!* taking it to the mechanic. *heh*

Methinks I’ll check things under the hood on my Wonder Woman’s 2010 Jetta, too, when I change the oil. *shrugs* Who knows? Maybe at least Deoxit* a few electrical connections there, too.

*I love the various Caig Deoxit products. Solved quite a few problems over the years using them. Their dielectric grease is apparently head and shoulders above similar products, going by the results I have had eliminating household electrical problems using it (solutions implemented a decade ago have held up). Computer and electronic woes dealt with, sound quality improvement from sound equipment. Vehicle woes wiped out. Improved network connections. Nice products, IMO.

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“Why doest thou plague me so?”

I have thought about just why such things as comma splices committed by writers who expect to be paid for their writing irk me so. It all comes down to their sheer laziness and lack of respect for their readers. They appear to be either too lazy to either use a semi-colon or a conjunction (or, in many cases the better option, a simple period followed by a new sentence), or they are and have been too lazy to learn rather simple standards of orthography. Either way, it shows a lack of respect for any reader with at least a fifth grade reading level. *shrugs* Is it too much to expect someone who wants to be paid for his work to take the trouble to do it right?

And yeh, this holds for the lazy, disrespectful habits of some wannabe writers (and, admittedly, some well-established writers *sigh*) who have never bothered to become literate enough to know they are misusing words/terms, committing asinine grammar errors, irredeemably stupid failures to do their research on facts (or the math on their “research” or whatever), and all sorts of other completely unnecessary stupidities that distract from whatever they are attempting to convey, whether that is a research paper, a “news” story, an opinion piece, or a novel. If they want to be paid for their work, they should actually do the work.

Sterling #gagamaggot example from. . . just now: a writer with a character whose first person narrative presents him as exceptionally literate, former English teacher, Deep Thinker, always spouting “erudite” quotations, etc. CONSTANTLY committing egregious grammar errors, misusing words, and more. Kills suspension of disbelief.