Category: FWIW

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Confessions of a Pop Drinker

Yeh, yeh, I drink pop. Soda. Whatever. Not so much as I used to, but I drink the stuff. At least I no longer drink Pepsi, long my preferred cola (never really did develop a taste for Coca-Cola; it always came across as too sweet to me, for one thing). I stopped drinking sugar and corn syrup sweetened pops long ago, and in fact even went off carbonated soft drinks entirely for a while, since artificial sweeteners just didn’t make the grade for me, although I’d partaken of them for some time under a mistaken impression they’d help me control my middle age spread (they didn’t seem to).

A couple of years ago, though, I discovered a cola that’s not only sugar free but tastes better to my palate than my old fav, Pepsi: Continue reading “Confessions of a Pop Drinker”

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Compy Dreams

With the advent of Wintel tablets approaching, the tablet for factor may actually start to appeal to me for doing things other than just media/info-consuming. Sure, I’ve seen–and tried out–some of the office-type productivity app attempts on various tablets, and I’ve shuddered at Garage Band being touted on the iPhad (Garage Band and its ilk are represented as music content creation applications; they are “music content creation” apps as garbage collection–not even disposal–is to yard waste: a way to get the junk collected in one location). *meh* At best such things are kludgy. Of course, no tablet that come w/o included physical keyboards would be worth much to me for anything but media/info-consumption, either.

Yeh: might as well just look for a convertible touch screen notebook for me.

Unless… (and until) voice (and music) recognition advances would allow reasonable data input w/o a keyboard/mouse (or touchpad/screen) combo. Ideally, a wearable computer with a system that allowed projection of a virtual screen (while I continued to wear my prescription lenses) and could reliably translate subvocalized commands/data input into actions/content. Oh, yeh, music recognition capability that’d allow vocal or instrumental input and transcribe music played/sung with reasonable accuracy (as is now only reasonably done via direct midi input, although folks are working on decent transcription from live input). And an OS that allowed me to continue to use a music transcription software that can perfectly read my archives of scores already written. Combined w/decent ear buds and perhaps some motion-sensor gloves or wrist bands, such a system would be pretty much ideal for a portable computer for someone like me.

*sigh* Maybe such a system will be available before I’m too feeble-minded to be able to use it. (Some may say it’s too late for that already. *heh*)

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Details Add Verisimilitude… or Not

In fiction, the less descriptive details detract from creating suspension of disbelief, the less they might drag a reader out of the story to say, “Nuh-uh! No way! Not so!” and so getting the little things right can make a difference in verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief, let alone simple enjoyment of a story well told.

Let me offer a very small example (one of, sadly, more than a few from a book now in hand):

Speaking about an event in Atilla’s life tied to a specific town in Italy in 452 A.D., a learned gentleman intones,

“The town was founded in the first century, so it was already three hundred years old when Atilla arrived.”

Really? Any (and I do mean ANY) literate person knows that the first century A.D. began with year 1 and went through 100 A.D. 452 A.D. was squarely in the middle of the FIFTH century. It would have made sense to have said, “The town was founded in the first century, so it was already FOUR hundred years old when Atilla arrived.”

When a novel that relies heavily on historical citations (and legends tied to history) begins to pile up errors like that, it starts to seriously detract from the story.

No, before you ask, it’s not a book by Dan Brown. It’s not within several orders of magnitude of being THAT bad. In fact, apart from niggling little things like the one noted above, and quite contra a Dan Brown prose atrocity, it’s actually pretty good reading, which is what makes these niggling little problems… problems.

Continue reading “Details Add Verisimilitude… or Not”

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Eureka!

[N.B. Added link to one example–of many, many examples–of behaviors in support of my thesis below. ;-)]

The Zero has been an open book enigma, wrapped in a con man’s smile, covered by a flack industry’s hand-waving distractions and outright lies.

All this stuff we’ve been seeing from The Zero, his fellow travelers and cronies–the gutting of the economy and building of “golden Solyndrachutes” for the Crony Class, the bowing and scraping and (at least metaphorical) bending of knee to all sorts of foreign potentates and outright enemies of the US, the shredding of constitutional guarantees of fundamental human rights, and on and on and on: it’s all about Moochele’s campaign to combat her childhood nemesis. Yep, her childhood obesity is driving all this.

Oh, I have no picture of her as a fat child, but her psychological derangement is blatantly apparent, and its most likely cause is her own self-image, formed growing up as a fat kid.

And how does this explain The Zero’s (and his fellow travelers, etc.) behaviors? Think about if for a nano-second (that’s about all it takes, of course, to understand so simple a set of minds).

  • That Moochele drags Barry around firmly by the one ball she has let him keep is pretty much a given, taking even a brief glance at their respective public behaviors. One shudders to think what that emasculated quasi-male suffers in private (but then, considering who and what it is, notsomuch with the shuddering, ya know?)
  • That EVERYTHING Barry (and etc.) has done is aimed squarely at enfeebling the US is obvious to anyone with active brain cells numbering greater than that found in the average used Kleenex.
  • That this enfeebling of America has resulted and continues to progressively result in a cancelation of the “super-size” menu plan for Americans is also obvious. Just take a look at that package of bacon you’ve been buying for years. It doesn’t cost a LOT more (in increasingly worthless fiat dollars) now than when the Zero took office, true, but have you stopped to look closely at why that is? Yep. It’s now 12 ounces instead of 16. That package of cookies that’s only a “little more expensive” than in 2009? Yep. Smaller.
  • And as “the little people” have less and less to spend on smaller and smaller portions, Moochele’s dream from her childhood will come to pass. It’s almost biblical in scope. Or Greek god-like in petty, childish arrogance. (Those columns: whose idea were they really? Hmmm?)

And so it goes. Genius! It’s all about slowly weaning Americans from food entirely!

Continue reading “Eureka!”

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Brownies?

Maybe. Who knows?

Weirded out a bit ago. Stuck inside all day working on various projects. Just went outside a bit ago and… my front lawn appears freshly mown. No kidding. Sure, I heard a neighbor on his riding mower earlier, but aside from a time more than 10 years ago when a different neighbor volunteered his riding mower when he saw me out working my push mower while wearing a knee brace and using a cane (real), nothing like this has ever happened before.

Stranger thing: I had just looked at the lawn last night and mentally scheduled to mow it come Friday evening.

Now, I can just skip on back to the back yard and do chores there. *heh*

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A Persistent Problem of Anti-liberal Faux “Liberalism”

As seen over and over again in the actual text of DNC speeches and delegates’ comments and Mass MEdia Podpeople “reports” (but I repeat myself *heh*), it’s difficult for people to reject the obvious lies their bigotry embraces and admit the facts staring them in the face demonstrate the wrongness of their positions.

Of course, it’s a problem for anyone–admitting one has been wrong because of bigotry, a fundamental bias against any particular really reality-based truth, and instead an embrace of “reality-based” fantasy–but I suppose it’s just that faux “liberals” are so very blatant about their bigotry, as seen in the brazenly racist motto so openly displayed at the DNC:

S’all right, y’all. You can come on over from the Dark Side. We’ll forgive you.

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Could This Be Part of the Reason…

…that “Choom” Obama-Soetoro seems rather… dim? “57 states (so far)” “Austrian language” “corpse man” and on and on and on: examples of why maybe Cwazy Unka Joe seems to him to be a fitting running mate? Could “Choom” Obama-Soetoro’s obvious dimness be related to his doper habits as an adolescent?

“Cannabis smoking ‘permanently lowers IQ'”

“Researchers found persistent users of the drug [marijuana], who started smoking it at school, had lower IQ scores as adults.

“They were also significantly more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life, than their peers who abstained.

“Furthermore, those who started as teenagers and used it heavily, but quit as adults, did not regain their full mental powers, found academics at King’s College London and Duke University in the US.”

I’ve had problems for several years–well, since 2007, at least–understanding or believing the assertions of The Zero’s brilliance, because of the observable evidence of his words and deeds. Frankly, apologies in advance to those I’m about to insult, I’ve met smarter parrots. (See? There I go insulting parrots *sigh* When will I ever learn?)

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FB Rumors and Scaremongering

Deer season approaches, and here in the Ozarks that’s a VERY BIG DEAL. Saw/heard some FB scaremongering about the Bluetongue Virus (“BTV”) in deer–folks worried about what that might mean and/or warning people about it: safe to hunt, eat venison? What?

*feh* I felt like saying, “See that search bar in your browser? USE IT!!! (Well, actually, my thoughts were a bit more derogatory *heh*)

http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/FastFacts/pdfs/bluetongue_F.pdf

(Note that I posted the link in the clear to give you fair warning that it’s a pdf file. Don’t use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it, mmmK? Oh, I scanned the file and it’s OK, but not all pdfs are, and AAR is notoriously full of security holes for malicious folks to exploit.)

Check with the CDC and the USDA as well, if you doubt Iowa State University… though the pdf was linked by the USDA. *heh*

The takeaway, for folks who

    a. are willing to trust me to be honest with my sources
    b. have read this far

From the linked pdf:

Can I get bluetongue?
No. Bluetongue is not a significant
threat to human health.

and, from a USDA page,

“Humans do not play a role in the transmission of the bluetongue virus, either as mechanical or biological vectors. The exception to this is via poor management practices such as using contaminated needles or equipment.”

That is, don’t inject infected blood into your own bloodstream, and don’t cut yourself while processing an infected carcass and get its blood in your wound. *duh* Those are just commonsense behaviors, period. Heck, most sources, from the University of Vermont to te Brtish health services to the University of Queensland–resources all over the world–simply say it’s NOT A PROBLEM FOR HUMANS.

Infection via meat products? Notaproblem. HEAT KILLS THE VIRUS, silly scaremongers.Blood-to-blood–and a susceptible host! (which most sources say MUST be ruminants–bovine or ovine: in those families somewhere) seems to be the only possible way it can be transmitted (which is how the animals are infected: midge bites from midges already carrying infected blood from another animal. Those midges are sooooo messy in their food habits… although none of the sources I have read have indicated humans can also be infected by those same midges. *shrugs* I’d still wear an unscented insect repellent).

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It Takes All Kinds…

He does this frequently–butting his head up against some stationary object & dozing off. It’s the head-butt thing that strikes me.

*shrugs* Oh, well. He’s a cat, and cats rarely need any kind of reason for anything they do.

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Rubber

No, get your mind outa the gutter. LC Aggie Sith recommended Rubber as a movie that’s “so bad it’s good,” so… I watched it. Mini-spoilers, perhaps, follow:

Little things give it a “fail” in the supposed American ambiance the director was going for. Example: kid, when asked “Don’t you have some homework to do?” responded, “I’m on holiday”–not typical Americanism (which would’ve been “vacation” not “holiday”). It’s replete with other failures of detail (“Sheriff” morphing to “Lieutenant” etc.) that would probably pass with a European audience but any semi-conscious American viewer with more than two active brain cells would immediately recognize this as the product of a foreign mindset.

Still, as an attempt at absurdity, it’s almost successful. Enjoyed it somewhat. I loved the scene where the “sheriff” removed a tire from his vehicle and… the wheel was magically gone; only the tire remained. There are so very many of these minor little things that the primary disconnect from a rational world seems trivial by comparison.

If you’re in the mood for some senseless gore, it’ll do the trick for you. You’ll likely recognize at least one B Movie actor (there are a couple or three *heh*) in the whole flick, and no he doesn’t play “Robert”. *heh*

Continue reading “Rubber”