Has Algore come on board yet with those idiots blaming the Icelandic eruption on Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change Whatever? If not, maybe it’s just because he’s blowing too much hot air of his own to pay attention to this latest “proof” of his epic myth.
Twilight Zone Stuff
Today, I finally got my desk cleaned off. Well, almost. Four times today I’ve had my keyboard drawer cleaned off down to the keyboard and mouse.
Four times.
It’s not cleaned off now.
I swear–seriously!–my desk abhors a vacuum. Clean it off? “Stuff” creeps out from some space in some interstice between universes and plops itself on my desk. Really. Today, I found some pictures–just sitting out in the open on my desk–that I HAVE NOT SEEN FOR 12 YEARS. Pictures of me that I had been SURE I’d thrown out (because, like every picture I ever had taken for a yearbook–these as a teacher–they were ugly as sin, that is, looked exactly like me. *heh*). My Wonder Woman asked me to give her one of them, because she’d never seen them before (and has the typical perceptual problem of Good Women: she is unable to see just how ugly I am :-)).
Cue Rod Serling.
As Ought to Be?
My first wind instrument, not counting of course the recorder I played as an even younger child, was a trombone. In fact, it remained my primary musical instrument–apart from voice–for many years. Hence my chuckle when I read the following in a contemporary Holmesian short story, The Adventure of the Lost World by Dominic Green
“…I consider it normal to see a man’s life taken from him by another for the pursuit of criminal gain, Watson; but it is rare indeed for him to be eaten afterwards.”
Even I, who have been in Afghanistan, was appalled. “Surely not.”
“Just so, Watson. In the past seven days, on Hampstead Heath, there have been seven attacks upon street musicians, each the player of a trombone of some description, and each attacked, if those who heard the attacks are to be believed, whilst executing the closing bars of Gustav Holst’s Thaxted [see below the fold–ed.]. In each case, the victim appears to have been attacked from above, the flesh crushed and cut, the bones splintered, the capital extremity entirely missing in many cases. Each victim’s body was also notable for the stench of corruption which hung about it, like gas gangrene.”
“Accidental death has been ruled out, then? A recurrent trombone malfunction of some order—”
“—has already been checked for… [emphasis added-ed.]
*heh* “A recurrent trombone malfunction of some order… ” There were times… (Ah, the memories!)
“No, no, Watson! Blowing one’s head off from excessive back pressure developed while playing ones instrument is much more common among oboe players!”
*ROFLKASTMAFO*
Later, when I’d given up trombone for other instruments, other musical pursuits, when I taught budding musicians, I noted that the flute players were always the most cooperative, compliant and studious of instrumentalists, while the trombone players (and drummers–not to be confused with percussionists*) were generally the clowns and “martini lifters” (and the trumpet players the “weight lifters”–the “jocks” of the band). Again, there were times… *heh*
Responding to Disingenuous “Debate”
Not apropos of anything in particular. Just a comment on the passing scene.
C.S.Lewis, commenting on the Martin Marprelate Tracts, enunciates my own view toward those who would stifle legitimate debate in the public forum today:
“Those who refuse to let their opponents dispute have no right to complain if they hear instead lewd catcalls in the streets; in a sense, it is what they have chosen.”*
And so, if I sometimes resort to “lewd catcalls” and mockery of those who would stifle debate–or even worse, corrupt discourse with deception and outright lies–I have the eminent company of such personages as “Martin Marprelate”.
This n That
Just a few things from the last couple of days…
I was in a store, standing in line to make some purchases, and as usual was interacting with folks waiting in line as I was. An elderly (and when I say “elderly”… )woman was commenting on her expired DL license and the hugenormous hoops we now have to jump through to renew IDs, because of all the identity theft–mostly by illegal aliens. The checker got offended. “Those people are just like you and me; all they want to do is provide for their families!” Now, I know her employer pretty well, so I had no difficulty at all expressing myself, “Don’t lay that f***n lie on me! They may be like you, but I do not disrespect the country I live in with every breath I take, and that’s exactly what these line-jumping outlaws do!” Paid for my goods and left.
Idiot. Too stupid to ever be persuaded by argument; the only thing to do with such people is to shut them up… And find out who the illegals they associate with are, just in case the political climate changes enough to make it worthwhile.
I still haven’t found a completely satisfactory media center solution for this computer on either the Windows 7 side or the Ubuntu side. Windows Media Center sucks dead bunnies through a straw, as far as I’m concerned; MediaPortal is OK, but its rough edges and quirkiness are disatisfying. Hauppaugge’s WinTV app is OK for TV only… sort of. That does it for the Windows apps that actually work to one degree or another. On the Linux side, I have yet to get satisfactory TV from ANY of the offerings. Some really poorly-rendered TV from time to time, but not actually good enough to watch. The rest of the media stuff works pretty well, except when system updates screw everything up all over again. *sigh*
Oh, well. Perhaps this summer I will actually build a special purpose HTPC from the ground up for this sort of thing and be happy with it. If I don’t need to replace one of the cars or pay for a wedding, that is. *heh*
I hate it when I buy a bag full of new books (new to me–this last bag full was from a used book store) and misplace them when I get home. Yeh, the problem is too many books, period. Should never have taken them from the bag… and not put them where I could readily pick them out.
Planning on being out of pocket for a couple of days next week. My dad left for Armenia today with a music group. My mom leaves next Wednesday to meet up with him in Israel. I plan on visiting with her just before she leaves. Just a quick 500 mi. round trip while my Wonder Woman is off at a librarians’ conference. (A bibliophile married to a librarian. A match made in heaven.)
*phew!* I really (no, REALLY) need to clean up in my office again! I just can’t seem to stay ahead of this monster. Ahhh! The books! *heh*
My, oh my, how the leftards wet their collective (it’s always collective with the Hivemind) panties over the tax day TEA Parties! Napolitano must have her minions going over video of all the events she had informants at, collecting faces of all the “right wing extremists” to identify. *feh*
Just had a taste of the stout I brewed up a couple of weeks ago. Let my Wonder Woman sample a sip. We agree: Good Stuff! Great body; almost chocolatey-black color; really complex, rich flavor; nice head and lacing, heady aroma. I put a bottle in the fridge to chill so Son&Heir could give his opinion when he gets home. He’s a stout fan, so his opinion will carry a bit more weight than mine or my Wonder Woman’s–simply because he’s tried more different stouts than we have. I’ll have an “Oktoberfest”-style dark lager (pretty much my fav) with dinner (a rich, nutmeggy, mock stroganoff).
*heh* After my post earlier today on the knife-sharpening tip, I’ve sharpened about every knife that came to hand, including a couple I keep in the car (a skinning knife and a filet/boning knife–rarely use them for their designed purposes, but they’re both handy knives)… using a coffee mug left there earlier in the week.
Need to clean the car out, don’t I?
And speaking of cars, seen this?
Under $10K, ~55mpg in city driving. DOT and EPA approved. Tuk Tuk USA. Get with the Obamanomics plan: drive like the third world!
Who’d-a Thunk It?
There’s a kind of hush all over twc today. The unthinkable has occurred. A decade and more has passed since the last such “once in a blue moon” event has come to pass.
I have a doctor’s appointment.
*yawn*
Yeh, yeh, I’m too lazy and impatient (and easily bored) to manage my blood pressure consistently with (regular) exercise and slow breathing exercises, though the slow breathing exercises alone pretty reliably bring my blood pressure to within normal range. Have a mole that’s undergone a dramatic change this week. Really ought to get a PSA done. (Old–and I do mean old: a year older than I–college roomie has pressured me to do this ever since his prostate cancer, so all right already, Dave! Yeh, go figure. Roomies with the same name. We had answering the phone down pat. “Speaking.” *heh*)
Little things add up, I guess. I can put up with a knee killing me when I walk regularly. Missing sleep I can work around. All the other aches and pains of encroaching age are just background noise–kinda like my tinnitus. But my laziness and impatience are incurable, so it’s off to the doctor I go to tell ’em to gimme some pills, etc.
Putting a crimp in my day, though. *grumble, grumble, gripe, complain*
Oh, well.
Hey, maybe I can get the doc to take a look at my cat who’s losing weight at the same time, you think? 😉
Lost Post…
I sat down here a couple of hours ago to do an extemp post on something that flashed through my head. Got a phone call. Off the reservation for a couple of hours and… I have NO idea what it was I was going to post.
It was probably going to be my best post ever. *heh*
Upcoming in the Road Ahead series: “Truth, Justice and The American Way” briefly discussed. Paring it down in bits n pieces of time.
Stealing 15-30 minutes here and there (w/o adversely affecting my schedule), adding up to about 2 hours’ time, I was able to save at least $100 today by doing five lil jobs on my lil econocar instead of having my mechanic do ’em. Of course, I still have to take it off stands tomorrow a.m. (Because I ran out of short bits I could rob from my day before it got too chill for my old bones and my light went. Yeh, I have artificial lighting available, but no I do NOT want to do it in the cold and with artificial lighting. 5 mins in the a.m. should do it.) The $100 savings is a conservative estimate. Glad to pay my mechanic for jobs I don’t have the tools for or can’t steal the time for (or can’t figure out or don’t have good enough wiring diagrams to deal with or… :-)), but why do it if I don’t have to?
Micro-mini-update: took ~15 minutes because…
1. Coffee-deprived brain didn’t reinstall serpentine belt. Almost seven minutes, mainly because I tried to use the wrong 14mm wrench on the tensioner pulley. Picked up the right one and it was a 30-second job. Oh. Well. Putting away ramp(s), jackstands, spacer 2″X8″X3′ board (used to make floor jack easier to use on the rough concrete of the driveway) and sundry tools n accessories (including two perfectly-shaped rocks i regularly use as chocks) < 5 mins. Wheel stuff < 5 mins. Still worth my time and effort, mainly because I KNOW I used the best parts available and paid detailed attention to doing the best possible job. Then there's the inestimable benefit of satisfaction from having done it myself. Always a plus (unless it’s something like balancing four Stromberg-Carlson carbs on a 12-cylinder engine–whatawasteoftime. How often does one need a skill set like that?).
Early sample of the “apple wine” is not bad at all. Nothing to write home about, but then I added two cans of concentrate to the secondary fermenter before I racked the brew into it, so I expect a lil more robust apple flavor in the finished product.
Even as the best revenge is living well, so I believe the best way to deal with the commies now coming into power in D.C. is to rise above their interference in our daily lives. They may steal my wallet, but they’ll have a hard(er) time stealing my ability to barter, build needed items from castoff junk or grow my own food. Just sayin’.
Thanksgiving is approaching. Of course, MY “Thanksgiving” celebration begins in June (6-4), is accented (BIG time) in October (10-4) and celebrated every year on 11-24, regardless what day the national holiday is celebrated. I’ll clarify that a bit more as The Day approaches.
Had an “extra” 12-oz or so (actually a lil more) of the molasses beer to bottle condition the other day, so bottled it in a 12oz bottle (of course). It’s not really had time to condition properly, but chilled it anyway and had a taste. Pretty good stuff. The rest should be ready to start refrigerating in a few days.
Hmmm, my comp isn’t recognizing the memory stick from my camera. Guess I need to see to that. *sigh* My Winder Woman has the one USB cable that works with our cameras (the one that’s left–*heh*) at work, so it’d be nice to transfer straight from the camera’s stick. Ahhh *thumps head* insert properly, deadhead… Works just fine. Hey, Perri, here’re the “kitty litter” fermenters:
Just basic fermenting buckets with different approaches to airlocks.
Time to take an early break for the company of the rack monster, I think.
The Bell Curve
No, not that one (although there are strong corelations); I’m talking about the reality bell curve, where the left-hand side indicates propensity toward fantasy unrelated to reality (or “reality-based fantasy” among its most rational inhabitants) and the right-hand side indicates a propensity toward a connection with “real” reality in ones thinking. Or think of such a bell curve as left-hand side: arational; right-hand side: rational.
In such a model, the political Left/Right divide begins to make sense…
Those of us stuck in the middle can only fantasize about politics driven by reason.
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Palin for Veep Choice
I have to admit, as distracted as I’ve been lately (and as distasteful as a Juan Mexicain candidacy is for me), this one came in on me out of the sun.
Looking at Sarah Palin’s record and public statements thus far on the issues, all but two areas seem pretty strong. Environment? She’s been hoodwinked by the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming to a degree, although, unlike Juan Mexicain, she strongly supports ANWR drilling.
On what may be the critical issue of the next four (to twenty) years, illegal aliens, she’s almost mute. I say “almost” only because I’ve run across references to her having commented, but I cannot find the actual comments.
Still, from what I’ve seen so far, if Palin and Juan Mexicain were to be elected, I’d not be excessively uncomfortable were Juan to have a stroke on or about January 21, 2009 (God forbid).
UPDATE: She was a flute player in high school/college. For those of y’all who’ve directed instrumental groups that included woodwinds, that brings up a whole buncha stereotypes (that are generally true to life; after all, that’s how stereotypes come about: they are decent shorthand for real things).
UPDATE II: I was waiting for this one:
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.
Now, that’s one dumbass spkesman. All that does is highlight the fact that if The Obamassiah were elected, we’d have someone with no foreign policy experience as President and a plagiarist who can’t even parrot others’ ideas w/o getting caught “a heartbeat away from the presidency”. This is an improvement? An empty suit with another empty suit waiting in the wings? Nice one, Burton. What a maroon.
*heh*
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It’s Wednesday; Do You Know Where Your Summer’s Going?
Yeh, and what does Wednesday have to do with anything, anyway? I dunno, but the voices in my head told me to say that. 😉
The other day, I read the most hilarious “guest editorial” in a paper from a couple of countues north of America’s Third World County. The author accused averyone in politics except himself of being biased in viewpoint and speech. Now, by “bias” one can safely infer from the tone of this guy’s article that he means something very much like, “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment” or “an instance of… prejudice,” but the hilarious thing is that the guy never even sees the huge, honking beam in his own eye.
Silly puppy.
*Tearing hair out* OK, so strangely enough, one of this curmudgeon’s fav movies of all time is Matilda. If you’ve not seen it, just do. It’s one of the very, very few movies of the last 25 years or so I feel is worth watching more than once.
So why the *Tearing hair out*? New comp. Decided to watch a bit of Matilda. No joy. Errors reading the DVD. *sigh* Check on regular old everyday DVD player. S’all right. Is it the drive(s)? If so, another $60 (or less) should fix that, but then I’d be moving over my target “Mr. Tightwad” budget for this thing.
Oh. Well. Some tests today (OK, much later today) should tell the tale.
What’s with the Obamassiah? Why are so many “idjits” under this snake oil salesman’s spell? Oh. Answered my own question, didn’t I? What I simply cannot get, in any way, shape, fashion or form, is why this stublebum speaker has the reputation as a powerful public speaker. His delivery alone (let’s not even count his almost complete lack of content) would earn him low “C’s” in my high school speech classes lo these many years ago, and I’ve heard better public speaking from some of the worst preachers I’ve heard over more than half a century. So why do folks think Obamassiah’s public speaking is the bomb?
Again, idjits. Very nearly absolutely illiterate bums and oafs and dummies making the assessment of Obamassiah’s speaking ability.
What marrons.
Then again there are the maroons on the other side of the disappearing “aisle” who have given the Repugnican’t nomination to Juan Mexicain. Brush up on your Mexican Spanish, folks, cos Juan Mexicain wants to surrender the U.S. to Mexico. Oh, and isn’t it sweet that he wants to drill for oil offshore? Of course, readily accessible sites with loads of infrastructure available for moving oil pumped to the surface? No to ANWAR (among others). Go ahead and gimme my $0.18/gallon forgiveness of “feddle gummint” extortion, Juan, but don’t expect me to see you as serious about energy and the environment until you simply say, “Drill Here, Drill Now” and “build those 200 nuclear power plants” and STOP saying silly and stupid things about CO2 and Anthropogenic Global Warming.
What a maroon.
Gee, supposed to hot up today in America’s Third World County. Had to use a light blanket with the windows open last night, though. Sleeping with a blanket in UNair conditioned space oward the end of June. In America’s Third World County. Never thought I’d do that. Must be global warming.
Speaking of…
The Goracle needs to have someone read that to him… slowly.
The other day, in comments, Perri Nelson expressed a wee tad of surprise that I’m regularly getting better than 40mpg on my lil 11-year-old Saturn. Actually, he knows better. 🙂 Apart from simply not driving at all, the single greatest boost to fuelk economy one can make is to drive a stick. Manual transmission. No automatic tranny (unless one is talking about some of the new CVT trannies–they’re hard to beat) can approach offering the fuel economy of active intelligence applied to a manual transmission vehicle.
Note the qualifier: folks who are dumber than a bag of hammers (easily 80-90% of the drivers on the roads today) need not attempt this fuel saving measure. It does take an active, intelligent, constantly monitored approach to ALL driving conditions.
So if you are unable to chew gum and refute the dogma of the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming at the same time, you should just pass this lil tip by…
OK, a couple more things I miss using Ubuntu/Linux (w/nice GUI) on a daily basis:
–middle mouse button/scroll wheel behavior in my browser of choice. In Windoze I can “CLICK” the thing and set a scroll speed and just let it scroll away. Nice for reading ebooks hands off.
–RIGHT-CLICK on desktop context menu is sorely lacking in options. Heck, RIGHT-CLICK context menu options in general are kinda thin
–I seriously need to find a better file browser than the built-in crippledware GUI file browser. Less than genuinely useful.
HAdn’t really missed those things in earlier uses of Ubuntu, cos my previous usage was more limited.
Apart from those things (and the probably hardware-related DVD issue mentioned above) and a couple of lil niggling things like HIBERNATION *heh*, Ubuntu is proving to be all I had come to expect of it: about halfway between Win98 and WINXP in ease-of-use. At least an order of magnitude more stable. Quicker than any Windows version (and yeh, I am discounting some for speed of newer hardware, since I’ve experienced the nimble footedness of Linux GUI distros for years on old, OLD hardware). As nice an experience, overall, as any Windows upgrade I’ve done in the past, save for perhaps Windows 2000 Pro (now there was a nice, stable Windows. Still a resopurce hog, but solid in my experience. When it did come apart, though… *sheesh!*).
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