Category: FYI

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*shrugs* Sometimes — OK, Rarely — BrE Just Makes More Sense

For example, the Standard British English pronunciation of “echidna” is much more mellifluous than the Standard American English pronunciation.

Offhand, that’s about all I can think of that makes more sense in BrE. *heh*

(OK, OK, I suppose one could argue that the BrE silliness of calling a kitchen oven a “cooker” makes at least some sort of sense. . . in a rather vulgar sense — and I do mean “vulgar” in the nontechnical linguistic sense of “language of a lower order,” not in the vulgar, actually degraded, and flat-out wrong contemporary sense of “profanity” — which is also most often used in a degraded, and flat-out wrong sense nowadays. *sigh*)

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RIP, Olde Pharte Tom

Well, Jaxson (Max’s son, hence the spelling) has departed this vale of tears for The Land of Catnip and Sunshine Snoozes. Good cat. Known a lot of cats, and I can think of no more cuddly tom or one with a more engaging personality. It has been almost a decade since he last felt like playing fetch, but the memories of his lap massages and vocalizations are a comfort. We made his last days as comfortable and filled with care as he allowed, and he went gently into that good night.

‘Bye, buddy.

Jaxson-2010
Jaxson, 2010
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Olde Pharte Stuff. . .

. . .only THIS time Olde Pharte Tomcat stuff. Old guy (going on 19 years) has developed a skin condition. Petting him (while he was in his Demand Position, my lap) resulted in well-urined jeans, so. . . a soothing bath was in order. For him. Yeh, soothed his skin condition (for now; will require followups), but means, shucky darns *heh*, he’s avoiding my lap, now. Yeh, what a burden to bear: having non-cat-blocked access to my lil laptop.

He’s parked right in front of a heater vent, smartycat.

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*yawn*

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*

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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*

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?