Month: December 2017

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Let It Snow!

So, front porch thermometer said 25°F. Car reported 24°F. Aaaaand (as usual) the report from the rural electric temp display in the bottoms (less than a mile away) was 15°F. Occasional flecks of “angel dandruff” in the air.

Checking on *meh*-start on my Wonder Woman’s car. Less than 2-year-old battery. Required wearing proper gear for weather and battery check, so t-shirt and old BDU blouse, nitrile gloves. *heh* “Sealed” battery had several cells low. Topped up with distiled water (thankful for clean turkey baster 😉 ). Attached trickle charger. We’ll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlJRjXSGY

Despite some of the *cough* “unique” *cough* construction choices made when this house was built, one choice has stood us in good stead: the routing of the HVAC ducting and the water lines. As long as our heating unit is working, we are pretty darned safe from freezing water lines. . . inside the house. Oh, there is one area that is unheated: a storage area under the house directly below the laundry room. But, the storage area is enclosed and has power, so I have a small, thermostat-controlled, electric heater plugged in down there which has kept those pipes from experiencing freezing temps for several years (it’s the successor to earlier iterations). Still, even 10 years ago in the aftermath of a severe ice storm that left power out throughout the county for about a month, we’ve never had problems (knocks on head as closest wood *heh*) with frozen water lines in this house. *shrugs*

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Wannabe (Usually 20-Something) Writers Are almost Cute, Sometimes

It’s almost cute how some wannabe writers try to emulate literacy. It usually shows up in more than a few misused words that are homophones (or close homophones) with whatever word they are groping for or other word misuses indicating a lack of familiarity with well-written text. . . or a dictionary, for that matter. Oh, here’re a couple: using “appraise” for “apprise” or “reign” for “rein” (usually in “free rein” or some such). Kiddy writers who have heard (or THINK they have) a word but have apparently never read the correct word used in a proper context.

One can also just head on over to any list of misused words on the Internet and count on seeing them misused in some self-pub books written (and “edited”) by subliterate kids who’ve been awarded participation trophies all their lives (most likely including their attendance certificates called “diplomas”).

Oh, and comma splices and apostrophe abuses seem to be particular favs of 20-something subliterate kiddy “writers.”

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Rakin’ in the Goodies

Two fav Xmas gifts that have come my way this year:

In addition to my “rescue kitty,” my Wonder Woman found a 1946 printing of the 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking for me. *heh* It’s actually in better condition than the well worn 1970s era copy [someone] gave us as a wedding present.

Then, of course, Son&Heir gave me a knife. ALWAYS welcome. I can already tell it will be one of my EDC knives. 🙂

Lovely Daughter and Estimable Son-in-Law are coming to share a meal with us Dec. 26, and I can hardly wait to see how Estimable Son-in-Law likes the gifts designed to fit into his latest “thing.”

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Xmas Season Re-post from 2012

From NOVEMBER 30, 2012:

…almost all my Grolsch swingtops that I used in putting up the “Xmas Tree” pictured below are in use (that’s “filled with beer”), so I won’t be assembling the lil “Xmas Tree” we had in 2010 this year but will decorate using the materials we used last year.

Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to live with having a few gallons of homebrew this year.

🙂

Once again, I have brew–hard apple cider–aging a bit in these (and more) bottles, so it’s just out lil 2′ artificial with LED lights, etc. this year.

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“Net Neutrality” Advocates Are Either Morons or Liars

Is it wrong to experience a sort of “zloradstvo”1 when evil experiences a setback, no matter how small? Let me introduce the “poster children” for so-called “Net Neutrality.”

Top 10 Internet-censored countries

And if you think that’s an extreme argument, then let me remind you of Lord Acton’s pithy adage, Parkinson’s Law, Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy, and the Eight Most Dreaded Words in the English Language:

“I’m from the government. I’m here to help.”

I don’t really want to crack a smile at the puling whines of “net neutrality” advocates, but I just can’t help myself. . . (OK, I could suppress it, but I don’t. 😉 )

[“Net Neutrality” is nothing more than a “bureaucrappic” scheme to place a 5,000-pound government thumb on the scale to determine market winners/losers, thus improving the market for. . . graft, and worse. h.t. to Perri Nelson for the clarification that genuine net neutrality is different to the bureaucrappic scheme Title II enabled.]

1Russian. An order of magnitude beyond the German “schadenfreude,” as only Russians can do. . .

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Just One of Those Things

Completely unrelated. . .

Shoelaces are something of a “thing” for me. I had searched for years for just the right way to tie them that would

a. prevent them coming untied and yet
b. was quick and easy to tie and untie.

For the past seven years, I have used a method that has accomplished that for me, and have added lacing techniques that allow me to also “custom fit” shoes when foot problems of various kinds temporarily arise, as well.

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STOP THE PRESSES! WATER IS WET! (Who knew?)

Gee. . . Kurt Schlichter commenting on the fact that the Sun rose in the East again this morning, or some such. *psst* Kurt: the FBI has been a disgrace for DECADES in its over-reach and selective persecution of citizens. What’s “news” is that some folks are just now noticing.

“Liberals Have Turned the FBI Into a Disgrace”

Kurt (and other pseudo-conservatives) have only noticed it now that their own ox is being gored.

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*sigh* Really? A Xmas Song? OK, Just Barely

This is one of those songs that, although I associated it with Xmas when I was a young child, I have become less and less pleased with over the years. Oh, and I’ve heard and seen folks call it a “traditional cowboy song” (yes, “traditional” and “cowboy” *sigh*), because. . . well, Gene Autry. #gag

So, the third verse hints at a genuine Xmas theme, and the fourth verse actually quotes a snippet of scripture relating to the Nativity, but that is it.

Oh, and “Santy CLaus.”

Gene Autry has a lot to answer for. . . 😉
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Continue reading “*sigh* Really? A Xmas Song? OK, Just Barely”

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TOO MUCH STUFF!!!

*sigh*

Purging. And not just household items. Data.

Several years after my first computer, I went “big” for a 5MB hard drive on a 486. I ended up, in the long run, “purging” (well, discarding) most of the data I had on 5.25 floppies, tape (even audio cassette tapes *heh*), etc. I may never get around to sorting and purging the boxes (and boxes) of CDRs that are slowly decaying, although I do have quite a bit of original work I saved to 3.5” floppies transferred to other media/stored in several different archives. *shrugs* Useful mainly for review of how my views have changed/remained the same after dealing with new information. Apart from that? Destined for destruction when I’m gone.

The other day, I actually found an external 500GB drive I thought I had scrubbed; it’d been stuck in a (wrong) box during some house changes. Never missed it, since the data was all elsewhere, anyway.

I have way too much stuff, including just junk sitting around on various drives. Some of it is the result of a habit of saving web pages/sites for offline reading or even reference archiving, something I do for things that are more interesting/immediate than would fit in my 1,000s of bookmarks (also need purging, though I do that now and then with an app).

The flood back on the last day of April was good for purging stuff, but we need to go much, much farther, and are doing so. It just seems to go so slowly. . . *sigh*

It’s a daunting task, but must it be done.

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Perspective

Living the 1970s dream: A lesson in critical thinking

This is an excellent exercise. I spent my childhood in the 50s, teens in the 60s. Nowadays, even most on “welfare” live in more creature comfort, with many more convenience factors and just flat-out luxuries than we could even have imagined. Whenever I feel a yen for more (of whatever), I still try to ask myself just how much what I desire is really necessary. *shrugs* I still succumb all too often to the siren call of “more,” but recalling just how satisfied I once was with much, much less helps keep things a wee tad more restrained.