Personal Musings category archive

I don’t like this new-fangled algebraic chess notation.

Give me the kind I grew up with, darnit.

Grumble grumble grumble.

(I’m trying to get my chess legs back and enjoying playing with someone on a whole nother continent via PMs at LQ. Fortunately for me, he also favors the old style.)

I received a call from a telephone solicitor yestoday on behalf of an organization which I wholeheartedly support and to which I contribute when I can. Because I support said organization, I answered the phone.

When the caller started her spiel, I interrupted and told her that I preferred to do my supporting by mail. She informed me that she could mark my file “Do Not Call” and I asked her to please do so. Then she said, “Please understand, I’m just doing my job.”

I said, “I know, and I’m not upset with you at all. At least you did not tell me that the warranty on my 18-year-old pick-up truck is about to expire.”

That’s when she laughed.

Aside:

It was rather a treat to answer a call and find that a real live human being was on the other end.

. . . try putting the overweight beasts little darlings on a diet.

I have encountered this phrase many times in fiction and literature, but, until I heard it in an episode of an OTR Sherlock Holmes radio show last night, I had not twigged to how coldly sexist, how manipulative, how dehumanizing to women it is.

(My eyes may open slowly, but they can sometimes open.)

I recently watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in which Odo, played by Rene Auberjonois, mentioned Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer in the same sentence.

I found this deeply offensive.

Raymond Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe, was a writer.

Mickey Spillane, creator of Mike Hammer, was a hack.

I read a Mike Hammer novel once. Nothing made any sense, then Mike got drunk and knew whodunnit. I’ve read all of the Philip Marlowe novels, and they all made sense.

On the other hand, the Mike Hammer TV shows starring Stacy Keach (who has his own problems) are quite well done, much better than the books.

Stacy Keach is a jerk and a predator, but the television series (there were two of them; the earlier one was the better of the two) were quite well done.

And, yes, I think we can appreciate the work while disdaining the worker.

Aside:

I did not watch DS9 when it was new; there were too many kids in my house for me to be spending lots of time staring at a box.

DS9 is an excellent show; you can watch it on Netflix, and likely on other services.

As I walked across the parking lot with my bag of groceries, my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a Youtube coming from the “smart” phone held by a–er–mature woman heading for the grocery store.

It occurs to me that one of the side effects of always being connected has been to train us that we have a right always to be passively entertained.

And we are forgetting how to entertain ourselves, let alone how to actively engage with reality.

Who the hell comes up with these ideas?

My father was antifa.

He fought against Hitler.

Like most persons who actually see combat, he almost never talked about his experiences. I remember only two comments he made about it in my hearing, and both of them were spontaneous unintentional outbursts in response to scenes on television.

I recall that Bill Mauldin had a term for persons who might talk about combat. He called them “garritroopers” and described them as “too far forward to wear dress uniforms and and too far back to be shot at.”

Afterthought:

Every American should be proudly antifa. Being “fa” is antithetical to being American.

When television bright lights end a series’s season with a cliffhanger, are they seriously expecting the audience to remember it week later, let alone breathlessly obsess over it all summer?

Furrfu.

(The last NCIS episode of the season is the proximate cause of this question, but it goes for all of those that do this.)

The Bat, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. If you would rather read the story, you can find the print version at Project Gutenberg.

Some think that this novel helped inspire the comic book hero, Batman.

Afterthought:

When I was a young ‘un, my mother would patronize a local fabric shop run by a lady named Gin Walker, who also was a milliner. Mrs. Walker, being no dummy, had several boxes of comic books for her customers’ kids to read while their mothers browsed.

As my mother selected fabrics for sewing, my brother and I would sit under the display tables which held the fabrics and read the comic books.

That’s where I first met Batman.

Many years ago, I played chess. Then I discovered contract bridge, and my days of chess playing ended.

Recently, as I realized that the likelihood that I will ever again sit around a card table with three other persons had become remote, I decided to take up chess again. Plus chess is something that you don’t need an opponent to enjoy; there are puzzles and collections of classic games that you can work through on your own.

I found a couple of books on chess at Project Gutenberg (one by Lasker and one one by Capablanca, two legendary Master), got purchased a boot of simple puzzles, and started to try to get my hand in again. In fact, I’m even playing a game with someone on another continent via DMs at a geeky forum that I frequent.

That’s all in the way of a rambling lead in to this: we found the chess set in a Crusades style in house and neither of us knows where it came from. It is quite eye-catching.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, episodes S3 E11 and S3 E12.

They’re not science fiction. They’re prophecy.

You can view them on Netflix, and likely other services also.

I mailed my state and federal tax payments today, certified return receipt because I want to know that they got there.

The clerk at the post office was most affable. Indeed, I had to admonish her, “Why are you having so much fun on the job? Don’t you think there is a reason they call it ‘work’?”

As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., once said, “I like paying taxes. They buy me civilization.”