Not even toothpicks help. (Eyes wanna close; head nod off.) Maybe a siesta, eh? Oh, wait. BP 102/55, pulse 65. Maybe more exercise instead. Or not. *heh*
*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.”
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*
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.
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.
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.
Books: Size Matters. . . a Bit
Nowadays, any book less than 300pp feels like an essay or a short story to me. Anything over 500pp is almost invariably poorly-edited goat gagger. Exceptions prove the rule. For example, James Burnham’s Suicide of the West is a 400p essay. 😉
Things Tend to Work Out. . .
. . .or not.
For example, as I walk, my left-right strides are about equal, despite the fact that my left leg is longer than my right leg. It kinda works out, cos my left foot is shorter–missing part of the heel, as a result of the same incident that caused my left leg to be a bit longer than my right leg.
It just kinda worked out that way. Cool.
Annoyingly Stupid Expression #4,736 Used by Writers with NO Imagination Whatsoever
“[he, she, they] turned on [his, her, their] heel[s]” Sometimes “spun” (or even more stupidly, “span“) is subbed in for “turned,” as if that makes the expression any less abysmally stupid.
THIMK!
#gagamaggot NO THEY DID NOT. NONE OF THE CHARACTERS THESE WRITERS HAVE “TURNING” ON THEIR “HEELS” ARE GINGER ROGERS, FRED ASTAIRE, OR GENE KELLY! Heck even searching for those masters of popular terpsichorean displays trying to turn up even ONE instance of any of them doing it was too tedious a task to complete, although there are youboob videos demonstrating in excruciating detail how difficult the maneuver is for even accomplished dancers. For example:
And even then, it’s no singleton action. *smh* I file this with all the other annoyingly stupid laziness writers abuse to break suspension of disbelief. So, wee lil tip to lazy writers: unless your target audience has been playing with autolobotomy kits, don’t have your characters “turn on their heels” unless they are accomplished ballroom dancers, mmmK?
Side Effect or Par for the Course?
The second, I am quite sure. *smh* Oh, what am I talking about? Old injuries–30, 40, 50, and even 60 years old: long healed. But. Nowadays, the slightest lil thing can seem to evoke reminders of broken bones, interesting wounds, torn ligaments, etc., making minor missteps into weeks long re-recoveries, at times.
*sigh* It’s not a side effect of age but simply my body “remembering” old insults far, far better than I would prefer. *heh* As long as the 59-year-old old skull fracture doesn’t start issuing updates, methinks I can weather the littler things like the lesson on watching my feet around horses. . . ?