Category: FYI

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About That FarceBook Thingy

FarceBook is. . . interesting, but primarily in the “that’s an interesting train wreck” way. I find myself drawn back to watch and even react to the various inanities, stupidities, and rare–more and more extremely rare–status updates that have any usefulness (apart from just observing “The Weird”). Heck, I’m not even all that interested in my “family” FarceBook account, since the only family I’m really interested in staying up with are my wife, kids and Mother, and I have face-to-face (or in Mother’s case, phone-to-phone) contacts for that.

But. . . “The Weird” draws me back.

And then it repulses me again.

The Stupid is also very powerful on FarceBook, and its practitioners are immune to mocking (Dunning-Kruger and a “safe places” mentality). Besides, mocking self-made morons–not born that way; self-enstupiated–isn’t really good for me in the long run. It feels soooooo good, but is sooooo wrong. . . or is it? Is NOT mocking self-made morons, just ignoring their obstinate stupidities, just enabling their destructive behavior?

I dunno, and more and more I care less and less about them.

But they are fascinating. Ah! I think I have it now! FarceBook is a 21st Century freak show! Small doses may be interesting, even amusing, but a steady diet of fake interactions with family, stupid “posts” and comments by self-made morons, so-called “memes,” and suchlike is just not productive.

Methinks a weekly check-in to see how things are going in the nuthouse might be OK, but a steady diet of the Freak Show would rot my brain.

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Just How bad Is Mediacom Internet Service?

Let me offer a data point. Mediacom has a 250GB/month “data allowance.” Today is the first day of a new billing cycle, so the data allowance was supposedly cleared.

The cable “modem” was disconnected from 2200 hours 07/21 until 0815 on 07/22. Mediacom reports that at 0820, we had used 3GB of our monthly data allowance.

Yeh, by checking our email between 0815 and 0820 we used 3GB of our data allowance. Right.

No, just more Mediacom “service.”

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Warning Shots

Always fire a warning shot. There are two main camps on the subject of warning shots: in the air and into the ground. I demur. The best warning shot is center of mass. It conserves ammo and definitely gets the message across with little chance of misunderstanding. (Center of mass warning shots also minimize collateral damage.)

One should always continue offering proper warning shots until an aggressor’s off switch is fully engaged, although, if the aggressor’s off switch is not located near his center of mass, a polite tap-to-the-head warning shot might be required. Oh, be ultra polite and make it two.

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Little Things. . .

I made my two favorite cutting boards as gifts (for my grandmothers) 54 years ago, and, after 18 years in one case and 32 years in the other case, they came back to me. I use them daily–far more often than any of my other cutting boards. One I use for meats, only and the other for veggies. The system seems to work for me, and most of the time I don’t need anything larger than these.

mahogany pig

walnut-maple pig

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Well, THIS Is Gonna Be Fun

Well, for values of fun that include making finicky repairs on small electronics with arthritic fingers. *heh*

Hardware fault on the lil lappy I’ve been using for the past six years for casual Internet browsing, email, etc. while away from my primary computer (which is any time I’m sitting with my Wonder Woman and she’s on her lappy). So, backup lil lappy. And this time, when I say “lil” I mean :tiny”–a discarded netbook I rehabbed and installed Linux Mint on. Works surprisingly well, apart from

1. Cramped keyboard *feh* that makes typos almost certain, and
2. Crappy, tiny mushpad, and
3. Difficulty disabling the crappy, tiny mushpad, making typing even more of a chore–strictly “Biblical method” typing (“seek and ye shall find” *sigh*)

I will figure out that last one. . .

Meanwhile, decision time: definitively diagnose and repair the other lappy or replace it? I don’t really want to purchase a Win10 laptop, so pickings might be slim. For a casual use lapptop, Win7 works pretty well, shich is the reason I had kept that one at Win7 Pro. I like the way Linux Mint works just fine on this lil thing (apart from the obscurantist nature of disabling the touchpad–although it’s probably a simple task and I’m just missing something that’s staring me right in the face. Only one cuppa joe and all that.*heh*)

Anywho, at least most of my data from my regular ole lappy is secure elsewhere, apart from recent bookmarks and the like. The only really irksome things about replacing it with a Linux or Win8.1/10 compy would be

  1. The PITA of putting Win7 version of Freecell on one (it has a more attractive look than any other version I’ve seen out there for other OSes, and I use it for “Freecell Zen” mind-clearing)
  2. Transferring the record of nearly 10,000 to 0 win-loss would be nice, too. *heh*

Yeh, like that is such a big deal, eh? 😉

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Occasionally. . .

*sigh* Every now and then, I find myself reading five or so books at once. This is one of those times. (Plus a new Bible reading plan I’d not tried before.) I know how it happens. Books that are just barely well-written and interesting enough to continue reading, but not well-written and interesting enough to read straight through are the usual culprits. Every now and then, a book I need to put down and think about, or just absorb, for a while before continuing makes my reading list as well.

Now? One hardcopy book. A book on my “non-fiction Kindle” and another on my “fiction Kindle” plus three more in different instances of Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader. Between the six, they hold my attention. *sigh*

And then there’s that new Bible reading program. Ten chapters/day, each from a different book with specific instructions to just read them straight through without stopping to think on the text. Tried that. Can’t. So, I generally read half the day’s readings and then go do other things, while the chapters I’ve read percolate. Then, at the end of the day, I finish the readings.

In between, my daily work/chores/activities and. . . the other books.

I prefer keeping it to just one book at a time, but sometimes. . . nope. Not happening.

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Fundamentals: Ethics v. Morality

“The ethical man knows it is not right to cheat on his wife; the moral man will not.”~Ducky Mallard

Parenthetically, I’d say remaining faithful to one’s wife is easier when one loves her and is convinced God has definitely joined one with one’s wife. Nearly four decades with my Wonder Woman has deepened my understanding of her beauty and irreplaceability.

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The Joys of “Not Getting Lost”

Nah, this isn’t some think piece with the “directionally challenged”/”directionally gifted” as metaphors for anything. This is just about NSEW orienteering. 🙂

“Not getting lost” in America’s Third World County™ is more fun than not getting lost in Boston or Dallas or wherever. For the first ten years after we moved to America’s Third World County™,navigating the back roads was. . . interesting. No names apart from informal names that could (and did) change according to family or neighborhood tradition, or simply an individual’s idiosyncratic choice. The road “system” also reflects the fact that this is a geographically rugged area (Ozarks, and all the hills, valleys, streams, creeks and rivers that implies) that was settled (more or less) before the idea of section lines really took hold, so, while other rural areas in other parts of the country might give directions by section line, etc., not so here. NSEW and geographical features were the primary means of providing directions to places within the county that fell off the map of state roads.

The official county map was not a lot of help, either. Many roads didn’t even appear on the map of county-maintained roads and the roads that did had designations not acknowledged by those who lived on them. Rural postal routes were more useful as directions than the official county designations. Made my “hobby” of driving the back roads more fun.

Then, when the county began instituting a 911 system, roads started getting names (including the street in town that we had lived on for 10 years with no address), names that usually reflected longstanding tradition. Now, Gobbler’s Knob, Granny’s Branch and Pine Log Road (which Internet mapping services still often get laughably wrong, despite more than a decade having passed since it was formally named) are all easily found on a 911 map, though I know lifelong residents who have NO idea where they are located. Not their neighborhoods.

I’d like the gig of being The County Guide. *sigh* 😉

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Even Though I Celebrate It Daily. . .

November 24 marks a special celebration of my marriage to my Wonder Woman, since it’s the anniversary of the day we formally wed. (I mark our marriage’s start with the day she called me to let me know her answer to my *cough* “suggestion” *cough* that we marry — yeh, lame, but we both saw the humor in it 😉 ).

Whether it mark’s thirty-seven years since we said our vows in front of witnesses or well into our thirty-eighth year since we first pledged ourselves to each other before God alone (a day also celebrated specially), this day is a reminder of how greatly I am blessed. . . and how loving, patient, kind and forbearing my Wonder Woman is. 🙂