Category: Blame it on the voices in my head–I do

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Signs of Subliteracy

Here’s one. When folks either misuse a word entirely (“effect” for “affect” for but one of many examples) or spell words phonetically (or nearly), it’s a pretty good sign that their literacy skills are pretty thin.

For example, I saw “amuck” used by someone whose verbal vocabulary exceeds his literacy. The word he was groping for, of course, was “amok.” (It’s a fascinating word.) I’m willing to give folks credit for trying, but I’d really rather folks used words they actually KNOW (as a result of good literacy) than spout off with words they really don’t know at all.

Actually, I’d be more charitable had the fellow typed, “amuk,” since that’s an early 17th Century variant spelling. Both spellings derived, of course, from “amuco.”

Oh, and yes I do know that some contemporary folks are arguing for “amuck,” but that’s really just because they’re too lazy to learn how to spell and use words well.

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Danger! Danger!

Back when I was a lad, I used to have some seriously dangerous thoughts. For example, driving “into town,” as I thought of it, in my ’53 Chevy, there was a place in the road where the road curved to the left and ascended a wee bit. To the right, just over the curb and a wee bit of verge was an arroyo. Every now and then I wondered what it would be like to just keep going straight and launch myself off the roadway. Oh, these weren’t serious thoughts, and I was in no way (consciously) suicidal, but every now and then. . .

This morning, I had another such “dangerous thought” as I reached into the fridge to get the cream for our coffees. I almost picked up the buttermilk thinking, “I wonder what buttermilk in coffee would taste like?”

DANGER! DANGER!

*heh*

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Just a question

In our near-1984-style surveillance society, how many folks physically block their device’s cameras/microphones when not using them for specific tasks?

*raises hand*

Well, that’s one of us. . .

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Lessons Learned

*sigh* Signed up for a writer’s email list in order to get a free “prequel” to a giveaway novel. That’s two freebies–coulda been pretty sweet, but. . . Read the prequel. *meh* So-so. Too many places where it was skimmed by incompetent (or no) editing, after having been written by a Dunning-Kruger-ite who thought he knew what too many words meant that he did NOT know the meanings of (well, either that or he was just intentionally writing gibberish in those places).

Got my first list emails. Yeh, incompetent writer goes on and on about how he’s trying to “change the world” with books that “mean something” (whatever THAT means). Yeh, didn’t read the freebie novel. The freebie novella was enough to convince me, but a fiction writer who isn’t FIRST concerned with being a good storyteller and writer is only, at best, going to change the world for the worse if his writing succeeds at anything at all.

Takeaway: sometimes “freebies” are more costly than they at first seem. I’ll never have back the time I spent on the novella or reading two of this writer’s emails.

Shoulda known, though. He refers to himself as “Author [So-and-so]”–an almost sure sign of an unconscious insecurity (based on REAL incompetence) covered over with a casually assumed expression of self-importance.

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Law Enfarcement in America’s Third World County™

Just another *cough* typical *cough* interaction with putative “law enforcement” in America’s Third World County™. . .

[Phone rings]

Me: Hello.
Caller: This is [some redneck] with the [Third World County™] Sheriff’s Department. What can I do for you?
Me: You called _me_. What do you want?
Caller: Dispatch gave me your name and number and told me you requested a call.
Me: What name?
Caller: Junior [Redacted].
Me: Junior [Redacted] lives two miles from me. What number did dispatch give you?
Caller: [recites my landline number]
Me: That’s not Junior [Redacted]’s number.
Caller: Sorry.
Me: *click*

I should have asked if dispatched was referring to Junior [Redacted] or Junior [Redacted] Junior, his son, although they live (lived? Is Junior [Redacted] still among the “quick”?) in “manufactured homes” catty-cornered from each other. . . (and Junior [Redacted] Junior now runs the family business).

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“Solutions” for all the sturm und drang in the passing scene?

For “the passing scene,” I got nuthin’.

My “solution” to the passing societal scene (politics, media, wacko people all around) is to take care of my own business, and, when interfered with by a “gummint” busybody, do whatever I can to distract, befuddle, redirect, frustrate, bar (yeh, even to relying on a junkyard dog of a lawyer, if necessary, the meanest one around), etc., them from messing in my stuff that’s none of their business. If TEOTWAWKI does come about in my lifetime, I want to have plenty of (well-preserved and protected from marauders) “popcorn and beer” and a (relatively) safe (well, well-defended and as secure as can be effected with my resources) place from which to watch the show.

Of course I’ll do whatever low-key things I can to ameliorate problems on a local and neighborhood level, but I’m pretty much limited to everyday politics and prayer (though that’s unlimited *heh*) when it comes to affecting things further afield than that, so just making as sure as I can that “me ‘n’ mine” are as well-provided for as possible seems. . . prudent.

OTOH, being “a voice in the wilderness” crying out, “Repent sinners! Make way for the return of the Lord!” seems like something to do, too, eh?

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*meh* What Do I Know, Anyway?

Confession: I saw “It’s a Wonderful Life” once, when I was 18. Didn’t like it. I found it to be too artificially manipulative and full of stereotypes. The plot was also dissatisfying.

It’s a lousy Christmas movie.

*shrugs* What do I know, anyway. . .

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Stupid Book Blurbs (for Stupid Books?) Level: Grandmaster

Here’s one that starts badly with the first word and goes downhill from there.

“Shalthazar the dark wizard came to Llars seeking power beyond imagining, and got more than he ever imagined.”

*doh*

I’m almost sorry I missed this book. (But, I wasn’t really aiming, anyway.)

I’m also unimpressed by blurbs that mention an “affirmative action” award–you know, one reserved for some ethnicity or whatever “disadvantaged” multi-culti “lit-ur-airy” Balkan state group author who can’t write well enough to win a legitimate award.

Oh, heck. ANY award not decided strictly by everyday, ordinary readers of the book is bogus. In that vein, book awards should be based on (actual, real, legitimate) sales, and, in fact, the only awards that really count are those that go into the writer’s pocket.

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Ah! Those Dumb, Cheesy 80s Shows. . .

Sadly, even the naive cheesiness of most 80s TV shows is revealed today as simple “dumbitudinousness.”

McGyvver’s ingenious “inventions” are just as unworkable and stupid today as they were then. For me, McGyver was always moderately enjoyable as an exercise of my “suspension of disbelief muscle.” Things really, really do NOT work “that” way (whatever way most of his improvisational devices were supposed to work). . . *heh*

Star Trek TNG is still as dumb as it was then, though it lacks even the appeal of any serious cheesiness.

Etc.

The one 80s show that holds up even today is The Greatest American Hero. It’s just as dumb and cheesy today as it was then. Culp at least gave it a wee bit of (cheesy, of course) campiness. Oh, and it did have the picturesque (though lackluster acting of) Connie Selleca. There’s that. G-rated pinup girl for The Greatest American Hero.

But. . . there’s not much else that I find appealing about 80s shows today. In that, they share my evaluation of almost all contemporary TV shows: Stupid, without even the appeal of mockable cheesiness.

Too bad the Rockford Files stopped in 1980. If it had not, I’d have an 80s show to watch for something other than mockable stupidity or cheesiness.

Maybe I should only watch movies on our TV. Oh, wait. Stupid movies, too.

Oh, well. Perhaps I’m not meant to own a TV? No, wait. There are still good movies to watch, just not many made nowadays. Some Bruce Campbell “B” (or “C”) movies for camp. Archived copies of “Matilda,” “Johnny English,” etc. IOW, real classics. *heh*