Once, Quint was sleepless. So I held him in my lap, and we watched TV together until the sign-off message came. The national anthem played, the Iwo Jima flag raising statue was shown, and Quint drifted off to sleep not long after. I did the same thing with Cathy a few times. The Star-Spangled Banner seemed to comfort them both. Alexandra spoke with me one time after one of these incidents.
“When we talk, I’m usually the one asking the questions. What questions do you have for me?”
“When we first met, you were dressed as a hippie. Are you?”
“No, in fact, my father served in the Army in WW2, just like yours. I was raised in a conservative, patriotic home. That’s why my parents sent me to Catholic school. I told you that the first night we spent together.”
“Oh right, I forgot. Sorry. My life has been a long, strange journey and I forget important details sometimes.”
“Clearly. Keep talking.”
“What do you believe about politics and religion?”
“I’m skeptical of organized religion in general and anything else that seeks to demean women. For similar reasons, in politics, I favor the liberal side.”
“What’s so great about them? The first state to give women the right to vote was Wyoming. It was also the first place in the world to give women the right to vote. That place is hardly a liberal Mecca. Cowboys can be surprisingly progressive.”
“I did not know any of that. Tell me more.”
“Wyoming is the center of my spiritual universe. I love that place. Great scenery, friendly people, and plenty of space if you just want to be left alone. I passed through there a few times.”
“Do you like living in a city like DC?”
“It’s OK. There are advantages to living here. I prefer to be wild and free. I got used to that in the jungle.”
“It seems like you miss the jungle, as you call it.”
“Yeah. It was the time of my life where I felt like I was doing something important, something special.”
“You’re doing important things now; by being my husband and a father to our children.”
“I tell myself that life is a special operation. It helps me carry on.”
“Keep carrying on. Don’t give up, soldier. Ever thought about going on a new adventure? It could be good for you.”
“Maybe years from now, when our kids don’t need me to take care of them. I’d like to build a boat and sail around the world. Or maybe walk to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America from here.”
“Running with the bulls in Pamplona would be safer, cheaper, and take less time.”
“Good point. That’s also the reason I have no desire to climb Mt Everest.”
“You could go on a river cruise through Europe. We only visited three cities there on our honeymoon.”
“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to see the sunrise in Istanbul. A trip like that wouldn’t take long. It would also be safe and cheap. The Oriental Express is another option for that. I like trains. Get on at Paris, pass through a dozen countries or so, and get off in Istanbul.”
“That’s a great idea. Plan out that trip. I can come with you when the time is right. I’d like to see more of the world.”
“In the meantime, I’ll focus on my writing. It’s a cheap hobby. I’m reminded of the guy who wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy. Writing was therapy for him, so he wrote his own encyclopedia filled with whatever he thought was interesting.”
“I think whatever book you end up writing will sell well.”
So that was the genesis of the idea. The entelechy of it unfolded gradually. The word was coined by Aristotle. Entelechy is garbled Greek for actuality. It’s a good look I continued to study Greek long after my interest in dinosaurs waned. There was always something interesting to be discovered. The words lactose and galaxy both come from the Greek word for milk. Saying the Milky Way Galaxy is like saying the Milky Way Milky. Though my single favorite bit of Greek trivia is that the words potion, poison, potable, and symposium all come from the Greek word that means drink. Symposium literally means “drinking-together-place”. Having been invited to speak at a few conferences, I can assure that the booze flows freely during happy hour.
The Anatomy of Melancholy merits a digression. It’s a remarkable book that touches on many subjects, and so is basically a miniature encyclopedia. The author, Robert Burton, defines melancholy as:
Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or in habit. In disposition, is that transitory Melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causes anguish, dulness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing forwardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy, that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy dispositions no man living is free, no Stoic, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself; so well-composed, but more or less, some time or other, he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality… This Melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, a serious ailment, a settled humour, as Aurelianus and others call it, not errant, but fixed: and as it was long increasing, so, now being (pleasant or painful) grown to a habit, it will hardly be removed.
He also wrote “I write of Melancholy by being busy to avoid Melancholy.” That’s something I can relate to.
Behold the penultimate installment. I’ll probably end up posting Hired Raygun in 7 installments, perhaps interspersed with standalone satire articles.
The plastic flipflops they gave me in jail were made in Vietnam. Seems like we could have skipped the war and gone straight to the import-export phase.
Vietnam vets from both sides meet to bury the hatchet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xjCliYHTnA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNLHQC47OSM
I didn’t need to see a McRib Christmas commercial.
I don’t need to see living with schizophrenia commercials, but I get them. Sometimes 4 or 5 times per day.
In your head or is the TV on ?
Ouch!
lol Dayum.
YouTube ads for living with schizophrenia, though sometimes they are paired with ads for joining the Navy.
Point of order- if you listen to any IHEARTMEDIA (formerly ClearChannel until they got sued) station after every 12-17 minutes of airplay you get at least 7-9 minutes of the same commercials.
Its a valid question.
I don’t listen to IANUSMEDIA.
To be fair, every television channel I watch is this too.
The mix varies slightly by network but not much.
Tinnitus is the friend that’s always there for you.
Consider those Greek, linguistic trivia bits stolen. Or imparted. That first one, though, I won’t ever be using. What an asshole word that is.
A much nicer context, but I actively miss my Korean slippers, about $2 at every 7/11. Plenty rugged enough to wear outdoors and a handy clean pair for the apartment. I was foolish not to stow several pairs when I easily could’ve.
Wait until Derpy tries to claim “kimono” comes from Greek too.
I learned the word entelechy from reading one of SugarFree’s tales about The Jacket.
Almost nd of two and 4:0 vs the Islanders 🤞
5:0
6-1
Nice finish and way to dodge the loser bullet!
Now for a winning streak…
Islanders went to empty net with 8 minutes to go lolwut
10!
https://x.com/spittinchiclets/status/1871389228669788631
LOL holy shit
Yeah, flipping around
Wild are trying to stop sucking. 4 game losing streak after leading the league a couple weeks ago.
Sabres are still helping Chicago to prop up the league – long way to go….
82 game season is absurd. Whoever manages to not succumb to injuries will win.
Jets are kicking ass though.
It is so ridiculous. Individual games are meaningless. I miss a dozen and who cares.
Marchand lol:
https://x.com/smclaughlin9/status/1871396145924288934
Marchy is hilarious.
And a good sport https://youtu.be/bxOlCfTiZTI
Guess I’m drinking alone tonight 😞
When you’re schizophrenic, you’re never really alone.
We are too alone!
#metoo
I wish I could. Family ’round far too much to have a casual, opinionated conversation. Still riding high on being the one to teach 4yo nephew how to play catch. He..actually has a good arm, as long as he actually *looks* where he’s throwing, which he does perhaps 20% of the time. Toddler steps…
I was there twice and no one else was.
I have no transcription to do. Also, I have been working my ass off the last week and now am tired. Also, my butt hurts because my office chair sucks.
We need a Glibs news you can use reviews tag.
I have two office chairs and they both suck in different, slightly annoying ways. And as a product with effectively no upper price boundary, it’s hard to find the right one.
It is perfect in every way EXCEPT the seat front slopes downward just the slightest bit. Some ergonomic something or other that forces you to keep a certain posture with your feet onthe floor to keep you from sliding off. So, I put a folded towel on the front edge of the seat. I can slowly slide out of my chair or I can sit on my sciatic nerve.
On the bright side I’m collecting examples of boneheaded design decisions that I know to avoid in the future.
George Thorogood & The Destroyers – I Drink Alone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpzqQst-Sg8
Boiled eggs for deviled eggs
Cubed white bread for stuffing
My girlfriend made the stuffing
Made chimichurri sauce
Made horseradish sauce
Made smoked whitefish pate
Slice cheese for the charcootchie board.
Tomorrow:
Slice the raclette cheese
Parboil potatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli
Slice french bread
Gotta salt and pepper the ribeye roast.
Gotta salt and pepper the crown roast of pork
Make funeral potatoes
Make the deviled eggs
Make the cinnamon rolls
Make pot de creme
I just put the fudge in the fridge to cool
Apple Cherry and Pumpkin pie
And instead of going to a Chinese buffet, I’m making a Chinese spread here at home
Sweet and sour chimkin
Flied Lice
Spicy Pho’
And a vega table egga roll
Not Chinese but hey… Asians all look alike.
/ducks from Sensei
https://giphy.com/gifs/horse-soup-horseradish-NczMjLqz0gMnuB6xmA
I spent far too long trying to make a poetic cadence to that. Sounds delicious, but doesn’t rhyme…
We are witnessing the de-wokening of America, and it all reached it’s climax with the election of Trump. There’s just this resigned resignation on the left at this point. They know they fucked up, pushed too far. Groomed one too many children.
I mean, you have the fucking NYT’s calling Hollywood’s “diversity era” “awkward.” This shit is dead. This is the most resounding culture war victory you will probably see in your lifetime. It’s like the drunken skank waking up the next morning and doing her disheveled
walk of shame out the door.
This did not start (or at least coalesce) until Elon bought Twitter and let people loose. The dewokified had no one to talk to.
I am slowly and even slightly grudgingly accepting that his decision to purchase Twitter at twice what anyone else claimed to want it for was fucking genius and totally worth it.
I had no idea what an impact it was going to have.
Everybody here should, by now, know how I feel about it.
@Mo: Word up. Your phrasing it as an act of charity helped look at it a different way. He legit bought it just to throw a massive wrench into the Media Machine (and more). He’s following up on it, obviously believing in this shit.
Uh. Damn. Hats off, man. You can be my H̵u̵c̵k̵l̵e̵b̵e̵r̵r̵y̵ Tony Stark.
The next few years are going to be interesting to say the least.
The left still controls everything with the exception of the most important social media platform. Donald is still a narcissistic wild card but hopefully not as gullible as last time around. He got the precious if meaningless “popular vote” to shut up the Dems but honestly I’m kind of surprised they caved so easily. It has me worried that they’re plotting something nefarious for January.
One could easily write an entire book on the rise and fall of wokism. But it’s been such a disastrous failure, the left has been such a disastrous failure for the better part of 16 years going back to Obama that there’s nothing left even for the true believers. Covid lies have been exposed to the point where those who bought into it now just ask that we all move on and forget. Bidenonomics after Obama’s shitty economy. Being lied to by the media and party about the mental state of Biden for the last 4 years.
There apparently is a limit to the amount of delusion most human minds will accept.
I’ll be the eyes and ears on the ground from a loony-tunes college town.
I’ll report any signs that the radicals are slipping. No signs as of yet.
He put his money where his convictions are.
He gave the disenfranchised a voice, which killed mainstream media, and created a mechanism by which propaganda could be refuted immediately and succinctly and disseminated widely (community notes). He got the censored wrongthinkers uncensored. He enabled a base that nobody knew was there to be able to find one another.
HE did not get Trump elected and HE did not get that CR bill killed, but he made it possible for the disenfranchised to communicate.
He built the killdozer for the disenfranchised to fuel.
It was pointed out that Elon paid way over the next interested buyer due to needing to be an independent person for his business style and the people who buy his shtick. The left would have loved to bend him backwards and make him toe the line of woke, which would kill his operating style and what he is selling: a independent visionary, not a woke toady.
It was a savvy investment.
Oh, and this is why Bluesky will fail. The left and it’s warriors don’t want to talk to each other, they want to lord it over the right. And they can’t do that on BLSKY. They loved it when TWTR was throttled, as it looked to everyone that they were winning. And when it came out that they were only winning due to cheating, then they left.
And yet they were only, what, 2-3 million voters (out of 160 million) away from pulling it off? They may be licking their wounds, but will be back in 2026 with their hordes of loyal minions and the GOP better be prepared with great candidates.
This is where “X” can come in with some truth bombs. They, uh, won in 2020 with massive censorship and gaslighting. That is gone now.
This is were The Electoral Collage comes in.
And why the left hates it so much.
Hat tip to [whoever, sorry I forget] for linking this: How Barack Obama Built an Omniscient Thought-Machine and how It Was Destroyed: https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment
Goes into how Axelrod into Obama used the social media landscape to artificially create its Machine. Very well-done, but indeed, daaaaaamn British and wordy with its construction. Dude’s born in Brooklyn. (I research my enemies.) The power of Musk unleashing TwiXter is legit ‘revolutionary,’ in the sense of giving speech and Power back to The People. It’s hilarious, shocking, and kinda perfect Trump is who he is, when he is. I am not expecting the universe from this term, but X and folks’ bitter SLAP to Wokism was direly needed. Thanks, Elon. Also, dude, our signatures are shockingly similar.
Home Alone 2. That’s what it took. Born 87, I only ‘knew’ him from that flick. I guess I vaguely knew of him representing New York and money. Thirty years later and.. here we are. This will be curious as fuck. I don’t want to guess the odds of him being successfully assassinated. No idea how he’s logistically be protecting himself now and in the future. Jeeeze-la-weezus. I’d love to know how that ‘works.’
I linked it & it got me really understanding what Elon has achieved with X. Among other perceptive analysis-bits of the Obama phenomenon.
Weirdly, as a onetime soi-disant “New Yorker” for 25 years (I expected to retire there and shit), I knew next to nothing about Trump. I never saw him in anything or gave him a second thought.
I’m rewatching a fun German period melodrama and there’s a great line from one of the Stasi apparatchiks about Reagan being a dumb actor. I didn’t really appreciate Reagan’s style at the time – I was school-raised to hate him, after all – but Trump is the 2nd coming of that, if a bit less artful.
Evan, you’re the best son money can buy. 😉
(or was that “finest son”?)
This made me LOL:
https://x.com/weirddalle/status/1871103460214538707
That is all.
Legit LOL. Would watch.
Also LOL
Or did you, in fact, torrent the wrong movie?
Costco is quite an experience tonight.
Welp. I honestly don’t know for whom I am supposed to be rooting, but it’s the 4th quarter and it doesn’t look like my participation is necessary.
Yeah, I wanted to like this game because I don’t hate either participant but sheesh. I think it’s time to pop in a DVD.
Well, that’s 6% of the season ‘wasted’ for true fans. And the naysayers complained the 82-game NHL season was too *long.* Pros of the 162-game MLB regular season: 1. All of it, including the Cons: Having a shitty team and a reaaaaally “Dagnabbity!” sportsball summer.
I agree the best NFL thing for injuries is to remove the helmets, make ’em tackle like rugby.
There is a reason baseball is called a “pastime” – you need a lot of time to dedicate to it.
Well… a lot of shit you see in football is not legal in rugby and its cousins like Aussie Rules which I adore but that is a totally different game.
You can’t have the violence that we seem to enjoy without the helmets.
I’m totally fine with it the way it is. My broader point is regarding “safety.” If the NFL ‘cares,’ which they don’t, they’d remove the helmets and stop lying to people. That’s what riles me. I only casually watch when it’s the only sport on (and to learn pop culture, mildly helpful in all of my careers so far). It’s fine just the way it is. I’m positive I’d also happily watch gladiatorial fights and more. I’d like to think I’d not watch mass executions (nasty enemies, probably), but whaddya know.
Ha I probably would too – if it was their choice.
And the rules made sense. One of the reasons I prefer Aussie Rules over ‘Merican is the rules are delightfully simple. Gladiators I think just beat the shit out of each other so that would probably be delightfully simple too.
It’s snowing here.
Good morning, Ted’S.! It’s 43 proper degrees and cloudy here in SW OH. I have to work until noon, then get ready for my sisters and BIL to invade our home tomorrow. (Luckily, knowing their standards of housekeeping, I don’t have to get the place all that clean or tidy. 😄)
Good morning and a dose of Christmas cheer!
🎄😃☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFLExwIQKto
🎶🎶
Good morning, Sean!
Young Gwen Stefani is always welcome even if she did see seem to be the genesis of the pursed lips duckface pose.
Merry Christmas Eve to all!
Very quiet in the woods.
Hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday.
Good morning and Merry Christmas Eve, 4(20)!
Morning