Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Wanna “Make a Difference”?

Every time I read or hear someone say “I want to make a difference in the world” with no real qualifier denoting WHAT they want to affect and HOW, I feel an urge to toss my cookies.

HITLER “made a difference in the world,” So did STALIN, and POL POT, and RACHEL CARSON and MOHAMMED — mass murderers one and all.

What KIND of difference do you want to make to WHAT set of conditions? If those bare parameters aren’t defined, then please just stay home and sit on your butt. That way, the “difference” you make will at least not actively harm others.

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Has It Been THAT Long?

Yes, it has.

I put a new enameled steel roof on TWC Central six years ago, just a year after a neighbor two doors down had a new asphalt shingle roof put on. Our new rood has proven to be a Good Thing: improved energy use, DRY (really solidly improved weather resistance), and–a surprise to us–quieter than the old roof (maybe the insulating gap helps there? *shrugs*).

Oh, and the neighbor with a seven-year-old asphalt shingle roof? Had it replaced this week.

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“Irk Me” #7,356

I am currently reading a book by an otherwise fairly competent and literate writer who regularly and consistently misuses “utilize” for “use.” The two words are not the same. *sigh*

Sadly, the writer also has no clue what the differences are between “bring” and “take,” so not as competent and literate as I had assumed.

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Formal Literacy: A Moving Target

Yet another example of why formal literacy is an always moving target, something one can strive for for a lifetime but only approach: I just discovered “Noctes Atticae” — “Attic Nights” — (“Attic” here referring to the nature of the tales contained in the 2nd Century volume of fables, since they were or were based on old Grecian folk tales, fables, and myths). It’s a good example of the “holes and gaps, lacks and losses, absences, silences, impalpabilities and the like” in my own literacy. Specifically, I was reminded last night of the fable of “Androcles and the Lion” (similar in plot and moral to Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse”), but I did not know until I reviewed the fable today that the first known statement of the fable was in Aulus Gellius’s “Noctes Atticus.”

Now, I feel a need to read Gellius’s collection to see that else I have missed. Unfortunately, since I only have the little Latin I have gleaned through other readings and via interpolations from other languages largely derived from Latin, I’ll be best served to read one of the available translations. *shrugs* I don’t think I can effectively manage to shoehorn Latin lessons into my “scattergun” autodidact program, now.

I’ll never have read enough to achieve formal literacy that satisfies me. . . or, it seems, closely approximates the literacy of some I have known.

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More “News” in category: “Inventions for the Lazy, Stupid, and Incompetent”

Special lil pot holders to fit over the handles of pans, because using an ordinary pot holder is tooooo haaarrrd!

As a special invention for stupid, incompetent, and lazy people, it’s right on up there with special lil tools for cracking eggs and special-deshul tools to prevent “onion tears.”

These kinds of things are for people who were voted off the short bus for being too stupid.

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Flawed Test

Our state’s mandated standardized test for school kids is called the MAP Test. I submit that it is fatally flawed. As far as I can determine, there are NO orienteering questions on the test at all.

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Food Fun

I’ve been enjoying making meals for my Wonder Woman while I abstain from food for a short while — short 3 day fast. A “keto” regimen really ameliorates any food cravings. extra fun: cleaning out and reorganizing the food pantry and reorganizing the kitchen stores, as well. *heh* I’ve not even been tempted to plan meals from the pantry items.

Not eating meals, snacking, etc., has also freed up time to do more things like working on the food pantry. Another thing about doing this coming off a keto regimen is that I have no “sugar lows” and activity–like some exercise in addition to climbing up and down a stepladder to rearrange dry goods and canned goods *heh*–levels remain easy to maintain. . . so far (a little over halfway through my selected time frame). In fact, the keto regimen has apparently been really helpful in moderating my blood sugar levels (at least according to both my last labs and amelioration — more like elimination, actually — of symptoms such as occasional dizziness, headaches, or unusual tiredness after going without food for a while). Regarding blood sugar issues: a couple of years ago, my doctor expressed concern about elevated levels of fasting blood sugar — not diabetic levels, sort of pre-pre-diabetic levels. The keto regimen is one of the things I adopted to deal with that issue (on my own; I represented it to my doctor as “eliminating bread, potatoes, etc. from my diet. *heh* I know the bias my doctor has expressed about dietary fats — another story where my choices have born results that contradict “received wisdom” *heh*).

Anywho. . . Enjoying the time being “foodless” a lot more than in past times I chose to do this.

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Experimental Foodery

Tonight, I’m springing an experimental meal on my Wonder Woman. I know she’ll at least like the leftover “Amish Salad,” but time will tell how the rest of the meal will go down. . .

No amounts, mostly, just ingredients:

Smoked sausage, nicely browned, served over
Riced cauliflower prepared with ghee, turmeric, roasted garlic powder, and a packet of beef-flavored bouillon powder (I’ve tried the cauliflower and like it; we’ll see who else does) Combined with
Sweet red pepper, chopped and sauteed in ghee
Onion, also chopped and sauteed in ghee.

“Amish Salad” for a side.

Hits my “Ooo, so good!” buttons, but we’ll just have to see if it makes the cut, won’t we?

Well, it still hit my “Ooo, so good!” buttons, but just my Wonder Woman’s “It’s OK,” resulting in a complaint that “I may have eaten too much,” but not a request to save the recipe. *shrugs* Maybe next time with a curry sauce. . .

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Drive-By Food Post

Our oldest cat, something like 17-18 years old (a very young cat when he showed up and demanded to be let in to become a part of our household) has become more and more finicky about what he eats, lately. I’ve finally found an expensive dry cat food (he’s even been known to turn his nose up at canned cat food he previously ate with relish) that is clamed to have no grains, etc, etc., that he finds irresistible. Each time I dish some out for him, I am tempted to try some. Yes. It does smell delicious.

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Autocorrect

Was out and about earlier this AM, and at one point needed to navigate on foot past a guy using a leaf blower, so pulled out my ear plugs, inserted them, and walked on by. I noticed as I passed that the 30-something leaf blower dude was wearing absolutely no hearing protection whatsoever. Damaging his own hearing much? “Well, that problem won’t last long,” I thought to myself.