Personal Musings category archive
Stray Thought 0
It’s rather amazing how pleasant a Sunday one can have when one does not waste it on big-time football.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Allan Miller laments the digital diatribe. A bit:
The targets of this digital abuse may vary from the author to the commentators themselves insulting one another with sophomoric responses. “Sophomoric” is the operative word because many of these comments resemble the stuff that one finds splattered on restroom walls, public buildings and park benches.
I suspect that immediacy is part of this. Back in the olden days, emotion could dissipate while one searched for a pen or rolled paper into a typewriter. One wonders how many hateful commenters would dissipate in the time required to get a keyboard out of the drawer and attach it to one’s electronic computing device.
Geeking Out 0
Listening to KCEA on Qmmp in a VM of PC-BSD in Slackware –Current while reading a Phryne Fisher mystery.
It’s almost enough to help me forget that Virginia Beach will be under water in 50 years.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Never would I have predicted that the leading candidate for word of the year would be “schlonged.”
“Just Get Her Drunk” 0
If you question the existence of “rape culture,” I commend your attention to an advertisement, which I see before me as I write this, for a new brand of rum* featuring the advertising slogan,
Seduction in a bottle.
No, I won’t name the brand.
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*The world needs a new brand of rum like it needs flavored vodka.
Snobs 0
First wine snobs.
Then beer snobs.
Give me a break.
Afterthought:
I have nothing against quality, but I expect a reasonable ROI.
Some years ago in the very early days of my time on the railroad, a couple of us went on a business trip to a regional office. At dinner one night, our host, the head of said regional office, ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon (and later stuck my coworker with the tab, but that’s another story). As he surveyed the bill for the evening, my coworker said, “I don’t care what’s on the label. No booze is worth $35.00* a glass.”
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*1980 dollars.
I’m in Luck 0
It even comes conveniently in the mail.
Despite the story, though, I suspect that the death rate will remain constant: one per person.
A Chimney Too Far 0
An Italian village is up in arms because a local priest spilled the beans:
(snip)
“Sooner or later all children bitterly discover that Father Christmas doesn’t exist and that gifts aren’t bought by a magic sleigh pulled by reindeer but by mum and dad,” a parent told La Stampa.
I find the quotation in the second paragraph to be rather interesting. I don’t remember any bitter discoveries, nor do I remember any kids going around gleefully bursting other kids’ bubbles back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un.
When I was little, the closest I came to a “bitter discovery” was my older cousin’s replying, when I asked him what Santa Claus brought him, “I’m too old now. Santa doesn’t visit me any more.” I puzzled at the statement at the time, and then one day it made sense. When you reach the right age, somehow you just know.
In my own family, the youngest is fully nine years younger than his siblings. The older ones freely and wordlessly united to preserve the myth for their brother. If “bitterly discovering” were somehow a rite of Christmas passage, I rather doubt that they would have done so.
Indeed, if “bitterly discovering” were part of the package, the myth would have died long ago.
Aside:
Follow the link: there seem to be other, more compelling reasons to put this priest out to pasture.
A. “Wellness” Costs Twice as Much 0
Q. What’s the difference between “health” and “wellness”?
Stray Thought 0
You do not have to look into someone’s heart to know what he or she is like.
If a person’s actions are full of hate, so too is that person’s heart, regardless of what that person may say about his or her motives.
God, Grits, and Guns 0
Ron Littlepage is taken aback. Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest.
The outstanding quote of last week has to go to state Rep. Matt Gaetz.
He’s pushing a bill that would allow the 1.4 million Floridians who have concealed carry gun permits to openly carry their firearms.
During a House committee debate on the legislation, Gaetz had this to say, according to Politico Florida:
The bill restores a right “granted not by government but by God.” Say what?
As someone who was raised in the Baptist church and who graduated from a Baptist university, Baylor, I’ve read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations more than once.
But I must have missed the part about God coming out in favor of open carry.
Jeez Louise, you can’t make this stuff up.
As a Southerner, I often find myself resenting the way white Southerners* are portrayed as dumbass hicks. Even when I was a kid, I couldn’t stand the Beverly Hillsillies.
It’s been a theme since the earliest days of film and, later, broadcast media (we won’t even talk about print). Find any old radio or television comedy show with a character from the South, you will find a dumbass hick. Heck, Tennessee Ernie Ford made a fortune playing dumbass hicks. Even Andy Griffith achieved his first great success as a dumbass hick in No Time for Sergeants. And don’t forget Jim Nabors and George Lindsey.
But, honest to Pete, as long as a great lot of white Southerners continue act like dumbass hicks, I have to concede that they are asking for it.
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*The portrayal of black Southerners is another, much more evil story.
Nagomatic 0
Reg Henry has a Fitbit fit.
He has a point. Fitbit and the like are stupid tech. Ditch the nagomatic and go for a bicycle ride.
Late Night Thought 0
I have seen posts on various blogs wishing folks a “Happy Veterans’ Day.”
I don’t get it. What can possibly be “happy” about Veterans’ Day?
Where is the happiness in honoring folks who willingly or unwillingly (remember the draft? I can still remember my lottery number) put themselves in danger on behalf of their country, whether for good cause or ill? I put out my flag today, but it was not about happiness; it was about respect.
My Daddy was a veteran of World War II. Mostly he didn’t want to talk about it.
Sad, somber, serious, reflective, thankful, grateful, respectful, all those I could get. But “happy”?
Give me a break.
The Sad Truth Lurking behind the Republican Candidates 0
The Republican candidates, including “The Smart One,” and their whole damn party are nuts, and dangerously nuts at that. For example.
I understand that the next Republican debate will be moderated by Robbie the Robot, assisted by a Tribble, and broadcast on XFN (the X-Files Network).
Stray Thought 0
I’m so old that I can remember when all automobiles did not look alike.
Intermediaries 0
Have you ever noticed that persons who claim that God has spoken to them always hear exactly what they want to hear?
LOL 0
I have been an unabashed mystery buff since I read my first Pocket Books Perry Mason story at age 13. (It cost 35 cents at Thalhimers* Department Store in Richmond, Va. When we accompanied my father on business trips to Richmond and toured Talhimers and Miller and Rhoads while he was in meetings at the Virginia Department of Agriculture, my mother would give me a dollar and a dime and I would agonize over what three Pocket Books to buy.)
I can go on for hours about my favorite mystery writers, my favorite OTR mystery shows, and my favorite TV mystery shows. (I have also been a Sherlockian since I first read the Canon, which I started reading the evening of the day on which I had two wisdom teeth pulled when I was about 15.)
Rarely does a mystery story cause me to laugh out loud, but this one did, and I’m just starting chapter two.
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*I much preferred Thalhimers to Miller and Rhoads.
Full Geek 0
I consider the coolest thing I did all day was to print a text file from the command line with the lp command.
See man lp for more.
Addendum:
I printed a file with lp over ssh today, Friday.
Use Linux. It just works.