Category: FYI

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Some of My Favorite Things/Cutting Remarks

I’m not much of a “gun guy,” though I like ’em and even have open and conceal-carried handguns, and gone for lovely “walks in the deer woods” with a Model 1895 Winchester, etc. No, I find myself more drawn to knives, and in fact, I don’t really know exactly how many knives I own. . .

I usually walk around with something like five to eight knives on my person, depending on where I’m heading and what I plan for my day. All of them serve slightly different purposes, though some do overlap a bit. Right now, the number is nine, because I just noticed an old K-Bar pen knife sitting in a coffee cup (with a bunch of other small folders) just within reach of my right hand. Now, I don’t find much need for a pen knife (I don’t do a lot of writing with a quill pen, and I usually use other knives to trim/sharpen carpenter and other pencils, etc.), picked it up and appreciated its feel in my hand, so. . .

Yeh, now and again, I dig through my collection for some of my favs. In front of me, above the keyboard drawer on my desk proper, for example is a 65-year-old Schreade-Walden H-15 “pilot’s survival knife” a great uncle of mine used as a hunting knife for about 35 years, before it was passed to me. Nice knife, shaped along the lines of a K-Bar my Estimable Son-in-Law gave me a few years ago, just a couple of inches shorter. And yes, that K-Bar is another fav knife, as is another gift from him, a sweet, very small Spyderco Elmax “Squeak Sprint”. VERY nice lil knife! Exquisitely engineered down to the finest detail of ergonomics, fitting my hand just perfectly. Very well thought out finger and thumb choils for example.

Ah, but I could go on all day cataloging “favorites,” because so many are, for different reasons. The three everyday carry knives from Son&Heir that are on my person right now, for example, are favs and find daily use, as does the belt folder from my Wonder Woman that now sits on my belt at my left side and the Swiss Army knife in my righthand pocket that is also from her (its scissors “blade” is its most-used feature), and on and on and on. . .

And then there are my “car knives” which collection includes a fancy-schmancy multi-tool. . .

Yeh, I like–and use!–knives a lot. Such nifty, multi-multi-multi-purpose tools.

Continue reading “Some of My Favorite Things/Cutting Remarks”

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Asked and Answered. Move on.

I wear a scanable medalert bracelet with online med info that includes my allergies. Listed FIRST under “allergies” is my serious adverse reaction to being asked the same question more than once. When asked the same question a second (or third or. . . ) time, I tend to answer, “Asked and answered,” and let ’em look it up. I have no patience with lazy, arrogant, insulting asshats with nothing better to do than waste my time.

I answer cops the same way when asked the same question more than once: “Asked and answered. Move on.” (Last time I did so it was the local chief of police. He had illegitimately stopped me for a traffic infraction I had not committed. I don’t take their crap. I declined his offer of a ticket and moved him along. Seriously. Coincidentally, he resigned two weeks later. . . Yeh, seriously.)

I am too old to take crap from anyone. Period.

Forget “civil disobedience.” Such disrespectful behavior from people who think of themselves as authorities calls for less than civil disobedience. Outright disrespect returned for disrespect from people who are NOT one’s “betters.”

But maybe that’s just me. And maybe I should work on that. . . but I doubt I will.

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Ani-mules

Current situation with :ani-mules” here at twc central is not ideal, but it’s liveable. My Wonder Woman and I do not currently have a dog, but we have access to Son&Heir’s Wonderpup for canine companionship. We do have three cats, now, all via different processes.

Olde Fella (not his name) was “encouraged” into our family well over a decade ago by Lovely Daughter, who argued that the stray kitten who wandered up onto our front porch deserved a good home. With us. OK. He’s a bit cranky from time to time now, but he’s the one who’s also a real lap cat, and he’s otherwise very, very well-behaved, so win for him and win for us.

The Olde Fella has always kinda sought out my lap/company, and so my Wonder Woman felt a need for a cat of her own. Found one in a litter being offered by one of her students. Purty cat. LOVES my lap, too… but only when I’m sitting on the toilet. Otherwise, she’s very, very attached to my Wonder woman.

Latest addition, Pixel, was featured here recently. She’s a peach, but NOT a lap cat. Loves being petted ONLY on her own terms. Generally finds a place to nap/groom about 1/2 way between my Wonder Woman and me. *heh* Given the circumstances whereby she entered our lives, we have more intense investment in a short time with her than with the others, though the long term investment is, of course, less. So far.

Ideally, we’d have room/land for a few dogs, horses, small livestock, etc., but we’ll make do with these three, I imagine.

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On “To Trust or Not to Trust?”

On the Trust/Don’t Trust Scale, one thing to weigh is whether a person

1. Doesn’t like animals and
2. Whether animals dislike that person.

Usually, they are one and the same. Especially watch out for people who do not like dogs. They have no heart. People who do not like cats are often (usually, in my experience) control freaks and manipulators.

People who don’t like horses are usually just ignorant. *heh* If they refuse to learn better, they are willfully ignorant, and willful ignorance is elective stupidity. Such persons should only be trusted with small things. Very small things. 😉

Etc.

(Frankly, I even have problems with folks who don’t like skunks. 😉 )

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Globull Warmening Redux

Got up late this A.M., so it was already hotter ‘n fire on our front porch. -3°F. Means it’s probably somewhere around 10°F colder in the bottoms, if the usual pattern holds Not driving (yeh, driving, not walking) a mile in these conditions (and my conditioning *heh*) to find out, either. Refrozen streets unfunny, what with the 30° hill with hairpin turn just to get off our street (although I do expect the similar incline/hairpin at the light on the highway to be clear, since it was yesterday).

Globull Warmening.

And yes, I do know the differences between “weather” and “climate,” but since the CACAs (acolytes of the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism) misuse weather events ALL the time as arguments (as stupid as they may be–“Cold weather means more Globull Warmening!” #gagamaggot), what’s good for the goose and all that.

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This Is Rich

[With a tip o’ the tam to Ori Pomerantz, via John Lambshead]

Soldier Decapitates ISIS Thug with Spade in Afganistan

This is rich on so many levels. The primary story, sure: prevailing against odds with whatever weapon is to hand: great. But. . .

Calling a spade an “espada,” so to speak, and making it so: really rich.

spade?espada I like the etymology, too: [Gr] spatha? [L] spathan? [Sp] espada, especially since “spade” itself also shares some of those roots (pre-grecian). Using a spade as a [Middle Dutch] “spade” (sword) seems particularly fitting for a British subject, since the House of Hanover has roots in nationalities where “spade” also once meant “sword.”

Then again, root words for “spade” also meant “spoon” or “paddle” at times, in different languages, so “paddling” the ISIS thug to death with a “spoon” also makes me smile.

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Missed It? Here.

Interesting lil tidbit that comes up every “supermoon” (a term I had never read until 2017, strangely enough) is “perigee-syzygy” (a particular alignment of three celestial bodies–a term I had read/heard long ago). It refers to the particular Earth-Moon system condition that results in what is apparently called a “supermoon.” *shrugs* I find “perigee-syzygy” more congenial and felicitous as a term.

BTW, you can try again on the 31st, if that’s a thing for you.

Continue reading “Missed It? Here.”

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Writers Who. . . Shouldn’t

Writers who have not bothered to become literate and who are too cheap, stupid, or stuck on the lefthand side of the Dunning-Kruger Curve to obtain the services of a literate editorial staff just should not write. No, seriously. Wading through knee-high sewage to get to the occasional flower worth plucking gets old.

Oh, the signs are Legion, but I’m sure you know them well. Here are but a few:

1. execrable grammar and punctuation

  •  inability to use tenses properly
  •  apostrophe abuses/neglect
  •  comma splices
  •  misuse of objective case/subjective case pronouns
  •  etc.

2. basic vocabulary failures:

  •  using words of which they wot not the meaning (and I don’t just mean inexplicable misuses of prepositions *sigh*)
  •  utter incomprehension of when to use/not use compound words1
  •  confusion of homophonic words with disparate meanings
  •  etc.

I could go on, but won’t. *sigh* Someone(s) needs t tell these people to JUST STOP. They are polluting the English language with their illiterate, childish crayon scrawls. That was once the gatekeeping function of traditional publishing houses, and while I’m sure it resulted in some worthy manuscripts being dumped in the reject pile, at least it did not so frequently result in utter crap being published as is all too frequently the case with the self-pub democritization of publishing nowadays.

Folks who write books without bothering to become literate, with no serious intention of even submitting their work to literate proofreaders before publication, are insulting their readers. And this issue is quite apart from the issue of folks writing “authoritatively” on subjects they quite obviously know NOTHING about. That is another rant entirely.

DO NOTE: I have read some VERY well-written and edited self-pub books, however that minority represents less than 10% of the self-pub books I have tried to read. *sigh*

Continue reading “Writers Who. . . Shouldn’t”

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Let It Snow!

So, front porch thermometer said 25°F. Car reported 24°F. Aaaaand (as usual) the report from the rural electric temp display in the bottoms (less than a mile away) was 15°F. Occasional flecks of “angel dandruff” in the air.

Checking on *meh*-start on my Wonder Woman’s car. Less than 2-year-old battery. Required wearing proper gear for weather and battery check, so t-shirt and old BDU blouse, nitrile gloves. *heh* “Sealed” battery had several cells low. Topped up with distiled water (thankful for clean turkey baster 😉 ). Attached trickle charger. We’ll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlJRjXSGY

Despite some of the *cough* “unique” *cough* construction choices made when this house was built, one choice has stood us in good stead: the routing of the HVAC ducting and the water lines. As long as our heating unit is working, we are pretty darned safe from freezing water lines. . . inside the house. Oh, there is one area that is unheated: a storage area under the house directly below the laundry room. But, the storage area is enclosed and has power, so I have a small, thermostat-controlled, electric heater plugged in down there which has kept those pipes from experiencing freezing temps for several years (it’s the successor to earlier iterations). Still, even 10 years ago in the aftermath of a severe ice storm that left power out throughout the county for about a month, we’ve never had problems (knocks on head as closest wood *heh*) with frozen water lines in this house. *shrugs*

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Wannabe (Usually 20-Something) Writers Are almost Cute, Sometimes

It’s almost cute how some wannabe writers try to emulate literacy. It usually shows up in more than a few misused words that are homophones (or close homophones) with whatever word they are groping for or other word misuses indicating a lack of familiarity with well-written text. . . or a dictionary, for that matter. Oh, here’re a couple: using “appraise” for “apprise” or “reign” for “rein” (usually in “free rein” or some such). Kiddy writers who have heard (or THINK they have) a word but have apparently never read the correct word used in a proper context.

One can also just head on over to any list of misused words on the Internet and count on seeing them misused in some self-pub books written (and “edited”) by subliterate kids who’ve been awarded participation trophies all their lives (most likely including their attendance certificates called “diplomas”).

Oh, and comma splices and apostrophe abuses seem to be particular favs of 20-something subliterate kiddy “writers.”