Category: FWIW

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Transitions: Strange Decos

Until we purchase paint tomorrow, and then do the painting, our living room will look a bit. . . weird, at least to my eye.

The new flooring is fine–looks great–but we still have the “Amaryllis Yellow” (over plaster) on three walls, with a “Stadium Red” accent wall (muted by a black glaze sponge treatment) behind the bookcases/entertainment center. It all looked well pulled together with the blond flooring we had before, but just doesn’t work with the new “bronzed acacia wood” flooring. Besides, I just put up our new drapes (anticipating the paint to come; they’ll come down easily during the paint job), and while they are a really pleasant blue, the blue-yellow-red combo is just too, too Hobbit-ish. *heh*

The new wall color will be better: a dove gray on all four walls, with a black sponge glaze treatment on the book/ec wall over the dove gray.

Still need to add the trim back–and add a bit more–as well as a new valence for the drapes. Methinks the trim will be a nice oyster color. *shrugs* Probably. Oh, but speaking of drapes, hung them on dual rods, so we can add sheers later. The new drapes are “blackout” drapes, and with sheers added, that will give us a lot of flexibility in window treatment. I do need to repair my faux “stained glass” treatment of the bay window where the cats have worn out a viewport. Maybe I’ll make a “porthole” for them; maybe not. 😉

A nice lil fillip: dove gray will pickup the mottled gray 1’x2′ tile at the entry door.

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Rights: Whence Come They?

Sidebar: I avoid terms like “gun rights,” because the real issue is the inherent right of every individual to defend one’s own life and limb against an aggressor (individual or group) doing or threatening to do harm, and to defend his loved ones and the otherwise defenseless innocent from the same. Guns are just one of many tools (excellent and effective tools, indeed often the best of tools, but one of many) for effecting legitimate self-defense.

I also do not like the terms “constitutional rights” or “2nd Amendment right” for similar reasons, but expanding to include the fact that those rights which arementioned in the constitution are mentioned only to prevent infringement of those rights by the federal government.

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The De-evolution of Man

From “How to Cook with Hot Peppers Without Getting Burned”

“The Risk of Jalapeno Hands

“While the heat produced by the capsaicin in hot peppers is actually enjoyable for many in food (in moderation, of course), it is not so pleasant when it comes into contact with the skin, eyes, or ears when preparing the peppers for cooking. Home cooks are especially at risk for “jalapeno hands,” or the prolonged stinging and burning of the skin after it comes into contact with the capsaicin-rich oils of the pepper when slicing or chopping fresh hot peppers. The “jalapeno hands” effect can last for hours as the oil containing the capsaicin is not easily washed away. But this risk should not be a deterrent from cooking with these peppers, you just need to be prepared.”

I’d just bet this guy also gets humongous bruises from sleeping on a pea hidden under 10 or 20 mattresses, too.

Sure, capsaicin on one’s hands transferred to one’s eyes can sting a wee tad, but it causes no damage, and the pain–what there is of it–abates after a while. But “burned” skin elsewhere, in much less sensitive areas (well, much less sensitive on normal humans who’ve evolved, we are told to have skin that will protect them from such minor insults), indicates a genetic flaw that The Darwin Effect should be allowed to eliminate. Please. *heh*

Wear gloves when prepping capsaicin-loaded peppers? Nah. I’drather lick my fingers and then wash them. If I fail to wash well enough and end up with capsaicin transferred to my eyes or other *cough* “sensitive” *cough* areas, no problem. My genetics don’t belong to what very well ought to be (if it isn’t for sure) an evolutionary dead end.

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From the Bard to the Beegees*. . .

Whenever someone says something like, “It’s just an argument about terms/meanings/definitions/semantics” I want to dope slap ’em. “Now there abide these three: phonemes, syntax and semantics; and the greatest of these is semantics.”

Meanings of words (terms, whatever) is the very POINT of language. Clarifying and making terms as nailed down and unambiguous, as full of MEANING, as possible is not something that is “just” anything. Without such, any interlocution is just “Sound and fury, signifying nothing,” or at least nothing useful.1

*From the Bard to the Beegees:

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read.

*heh*

Beegees: It’s only words,and words are all I have to take your heart away.

1Ah, reminds one of most contemporary “music,” the babblings of Mass MEdia Hivemind Podpeople, and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, doesn’t it?

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The Federal Government Has NO “Rights”

I am so very tired of unthinking people parroting lies from tyrannical statists concerning the “rights” of the federal government.The federal government has no rights. It has specific duties and responsibilities denoted in the Constitution, all aimed at protecting the rights of citizens from infringement. The People also allow the Constitution to empower the federal government with powers derived from themselves to effect the protection of the rights of the People from infringement.

The Constitution also specifically limits the federal government in specific ways (ways most often dishonored in the breach1 nowadays) to forbid it power to infringe on individuals’ rights. One of those limits, noted in the Second amendment, is getting a lot of lying press from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, recently. All of the lies being told by the Hivemind are in service to the goals of tyrannical statists who are in favor of removing the People’s final check on a tyrannical government, as well as robbing individuals of an effective means to project their right of self-defense against any bad actors (including government bad actors, at all levels).

Just keep in mind that the Hivemind isnow, has been, and will continue to lie about so-called “gun control.” The truth about “gun control” is quite different in many ways than the Hivemind presents, but one critical way is that we, the People, are meant to be a check on tyranny instituted by government. The Founders viewed ALL of the People, save government officials, as part of the militia meant to protect against government infringement of individual rights. That alone would end “gun control” talk, if truth were told both about the primary purpose the Framers added the Second Amendment and the “long train of abuses” of individual rights that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the federal government against citizens.

1

Apologies to The Bard for mangling his words. The original “more honor’d in the breach” referred to breaking with bad custom. Instead, I refer to the dishonorable behavior of the federal government in ignoring its constitutionally-specified duties and exceeding its constitutionally limited powers.

Horatio:
What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet:
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring up-spring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Is it a custom?

Hamlet:
Ay, marry, is’t,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance,

Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 7–16

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It’s the Little Things #8,492

#sigh

*heh*

OK, now that that is out of my system. . .

Some of the absolutely stupid things some writers do baffle me, but at least I have found a way to be amused by them.

Recent “Dan Brown wannabe” book where the writer apparently felt even less desire to get anything right about any of his premises than Brown typically does went Brown even further by finding… unique ways to misuse plain English ( for example, misused “infallible” when groping for “unflappable”), have an “expert pilot” grab the “steering column”. . . on a helicopter whose propellers were making enough noise to keep the writer from thinking, “Maybe I ought to do my homework on helicopters before making a fool of myself in print.”

Hilarious.

Another? How about a fun-filled romp through a zombie apocalypse book filled with things like super-competent, manly-man hero filling up a late-model vehicle with gas and then “topping it off” after the pump clicks off. “Manly-men” know that can harm the vehicle’s evap system, cause the vehicle to run poorly, and even lead to hard starting or failure to start. In today’s world, it’s an easy fix (though sometimes complicated) to repair an evap system. . . IF one can narrow down the part or parts damaged by topping off, and costs can range from $10-$200, depending on several factors. In a zombie apocalypse scenario, having to repair the evap system on one’s go-to vehicle is sub-optimal.

But that’s OK, cos the book was chock full of this kind of stupid stuff, so reading it as a farce (OK, OK, skimming it, cos it wasn’t really worth reading *heh*) was. . . OK.

The problem with all these hilariously stupid books–not bad or “suckitudinous” books, just stupidly executed–is that the errors of logic, fact, grammar, punctuation, and usage they embody are just reinforced in whatever uncritical readers glom onto them. *sigh* There were once literate editorial staffs at tradpub houses to correct some of these problems, but even there, the quality of literacy in tradpub editorial staffs has waned.

Oh, well. At least I can laugh at and mock such things, and such amusement is worth something as the world generally goes to hell in a handbasket.