Not Sure If I Should “Yelp” This Weekend or Not. . .

Weekend and on into tomorrow, stayed (am still staying) at a once well-known resort in the Ozarks. Future stays here? A tossup, at best. *sigh*

Advertises stables and horseback riding o web site. Horses “on vacation.” (Markdown)
Confirmed reservation. Complied with check-in times. More than five hour wait for room. (Markdown)
Room: OK, special rate for conference (Markup) So-so accommodations and substandard details, REALLY noisy. Remote from all resort amenities, with one Post Polio person (they knew this) and LOTS of hills. (Markdown x 3)
Workers: pleasant and helpful (for the most part) (Markup) but institutionally hamstrung at times (Markdown)
Said the room was noisy? REALLY noisy “music” imposed on everyone in public areas making communication difficult and speech LOUD. (Markdown)
Super hokey décor mandated by new owners. (Markdown) Seems designed to appeal to low-brow, nekulturny rednecks (not the good kind of redneck; trust me on that. Markdown)

Still, it’s a conference for my Wonder Woman’s librarian association. Lots of fun folks, but the especially good thing is that I’ve gotten to spend more time with her than usual, even with her meetings and different lecture sessions.

Weekend as a whole: Mark WAY up even with the accommodation negatives. Would do it again (even at the overcharged, IMO – given the accommodation flaws – special rate), even if it were here. But NEXT time, there had better be horses!

Oh, I should add that while the bed was made by a prankster, the sheets themselves were almost as nice as on our bed at home. The pillows sucked, though.

Workers were uniformly as helpful as circumstances and resources allowed.

How to Survive the Coming Zombie Apocalypse

Note that when I use the term “zombie” I am referring to auto-lobotomized “mass-man,” the kind of person for whom the DummieBowl, celebrity shenanigans, and “news” from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind are MUCH more important than. . . reality.

So, how to survive?

Embrace the “prepper” lifestyle.
Condition Yellow: constant.
OODA Loop your daily life, and aim to stay inside “the enemy’s” OODA Loop.
And most importantly, learn how to really pray. (The catch is committing to being on GOD’S side, not trying to manipulate Him into being on your side.)

The way things are going, it’s the way to bet.

People. *sigh*

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think they count, and those who can do the math. . . and thereby know that those who think they count, don’t.

Keep a Civil Tongue!

When one finds civilized responses in the oddest places. . . *thug looks at recipient of a “Karen’s” rants — then at “Karen” and back again* “Do what you will, but just remember I’ve got a fine place for the body.”

Ah! If only society in general were that polite! Sadly, nope. One cannot dispose of “Karens” so easily. . .

Trials of the Season. . .

Oh, goodie! It’s time for me to break out some noise-canceling earbuds and crank up some decent Xmas music to drown out the disgusting crap that tone deaf, tasteless, auto-lobotomized producers slap into the Hallmark Xmas shows that a *cough* much-beloved someone *cough* likes to watch.

Layers and Layers of the Onion

Putting a tall fence around one’s house gives potential intruders a way to hide from third party observers, but it also gives you a way to hide your “capsaicin claymores” from potential intruders, so. . . Command or sensor detonation is the obvious decision tree. Switchable by remote?

Also working on a way to make a capsaicin fogger from my fog machine, and way to sensor trigger it (including safing it for yard use, & other controls). BTW, “capsaicin claymores”? #3 food can, CO2 cartridge, tripwire, Ghost Pepper powder, etc. When combined with things like Osage Orange as an ornamental face for a fence/wall, blinding strobes, etc., yeh, can have a tall fence/wall and be relatively safe from home intruders. Relatively. (A moat with gators would be nice, though.)

OTOH, Can live in a hardened bunker and not be safe from militarized law enFARCEment thugs.

Don’t Trust, But DO Verify (or Falsify) Anyway

I’m told that the reason phishing “attacks” work is that the phishing email/phone call seems to come from a “trusted source” like a CC company, insurance company (that one does business with), or government office/agency. Really? I mean seriously, to begin with, who trusts ANY of those sources, even when they are determined to be genuine? That alone, quite apart from all the other reasons to hang up/report SPAM, report to authorities, etc., anyone who trusts ANY call/email contact, formulated as a typical phishing contact or not, without AT LEAST verifying the source simply deserves to get what they have comin’ to ’em. *smh*

Culture Tip

“Ducktail beard.” How a subliterate grup who is also culturally illiterate regarding anything more than 15 minutes old describes a particularly poorly-trimmed Van Dyke.

Just one of those “never-to-be realized” passing fancies. . .

In addition to drinking from the skulls of one’s enemies and listening to the lamentations of their women (Paul need not fear Nancy lamenting his hammerfest, of course), a nifty “bomber jacket” made of their skin would be quite the fashion statement, eh?

(The above, of course, is just a thought experiment to pass off to a Hollywood Writer Guy acquaintance whose career has majored in the bizarre. Hey! If he bites and can sell the idea as part of a project, maybe I can get a bit part. As the jacket.)

Book Blurb Sadness

It’s a bit. . . weird, or weirdly sad (or sadly weird?) I suppose is the word, when a book blub has to include “Note: This book does not contain any coarse language, harem elements or sexual situations.” *smh*

Of the three, at least two serve no useful purpose, unless, I suppose, prurience is the end sought. OTOH, “coarse language” does have legitimate, though limited, uses, but it’s almost never _necessary_ to further a plot or “enrich” a characterization – more effective, IMO, to “coarsen” a character via action. But. . . yeh, verbiage is easier. *shrugs*

Of course, the definition of “coarse language” varies from the merely (usefully and appropriately!) vulgar, which is primarily objectionable to subliterate Neo-Victorian Bowlderiizing “Karens,” to the obscene and even actually profane. So, “coarse language” is a particularly squishy term, and not really useful at all, at all. It’s just a way of saying, “I avoid words that offend some people,” and that road leads to blank pages.