WHAT TIME IS IT, MISTER WOLF??
I dunno, but it’s gonna be two days late – again.
There I was, peacefully napping at my computer, when somebody said Y!
Why,? I responded. Because I’m dozy.
NO! Y, as in A To Z Challenge – the letter Y!
Oh, is that this month? Like Pa Kettle used to say, “Gotta fix that – one of these days.”
Stop back again on Wednesday, and Yogi Bear, Yasmine Bleeth and I will have a semi-coherent post ready for you.
😎
If you’re having second thoughts….
….you’re already two ahead of many people.
I am not a poser….
….I just pretend to be one.
Springing forward really ticks me off….
….I’m losing sleep about it.
At Christmas, I wanted to deck the halls….
….but that wouldn’t be neighborly.
I recently saw an Arabic Elvis impersonator….
….His name was Amal Shookup.
Tried to teach my dog to fetch….
….but he just doesn’t get it.
I went to a pub quiz in a really tough neighborhood….
….The first question was, “What are you looking at?”
I just bought Clue: Swingers Edition….
….Turns out they all did it – in every room.
If there’s one place I can’t stand….
….It’s an ice rink.
I just had an MRI….
….to see if I am claustrophobic.
Me, driving at night….
….I hope this is the road.
Sometimes I talk to myself….
….and then we both laugh and laugh.
Bought a book today titled, “Overcoming Kleptomania.”….
….Well, I say ‘bought.’
My son was on eBay all day….
….If he’s still there tomorrow, I’ll lower the price.
I’ve asked a lot of people what LGBTQ stands for….
….So far no-one has given me a straight answer.
Science reveals that women have cleaner minds than men….
….because they change them every ten minutes.
I’m not going outside….
….until the temperature equals my age.
I hate being bi-polar….
….It’s awesome.
People who eat bacon are….
….less likely to blow themselves up in the name of Allah.
I doubt that vodka is the answer….
….but it’s worth a shot.
My apathy is at an all-time….
….whatever.
It cannot be found in the scriptures, but one story has it that upon his resurrection, the Lord appeared to a certain fisherman.
“I am Jesus – My death has saved all who do or will believe, and I am returned to show the Father’s love and power.“
“No, you’re not Jesus, so bug off, you’re scaring all the fish,” answered the old fisherman.
“I see thou are full of doubt. What would thou have me do to show who I am?“ replied the Christ.
“Walk across the river,” he tells Jesus.
So Jesus starts walking across the river. Next thing, he sinks and disappears under the water. After he swims back to shore, the old man says to him, “There you are, see, you’re not Jesus, you can’t walk across water!“
Jesus responds, “Well, I used to be able to do it until I got these darned holes in my feet!“
***
I remembered to spring forward….
….but I think I pulled a muscle, doing it.
***
A group of Americans were touring Ireland. One woman in the group was constantly grumbling: The bus seats are uncomfortable. The food is terrible. It’s too hot. It’s too cold. The accommodations are awful.
The group reached the site of the famous Blarney Stone. “Kissing the Blarney Stone brings good luck all your life,” the guide explained. “Unfortunately, it’s being cleaned today, so no one can kiss it. Maybe we can return tomorrow.”
“We can’t be here tomorrow,” the cantankerous woman snapped. “We have another dull tour to attend. So, I guess we can’t kiss that silly stone.”
“Well,” the guide replied, “it’s said that if you kiss someone who has kissed the stone, you’ll receive the same good fortune.”
“I suppose you’ve kissed the stone,” the woman scoffed.
“No, ma’am,” the exasperated guide responded, “but I’ve sat on it.”
***
I caught my great-grandson chewing electrical cords, so I had to ground him. He’s doing better currently though, and conducting himself better.
***
Everything happens for a reason.
Sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid, and make bad decisions.
***
Instead of a swear jar, I have a negativity jar.
Every time I have pessimistic thoughts, I put a dollar in.
It’s currently half empty…
Pensitivity101’s short edition, just questions to lie your socks off to.
6. What is a candy striper? – The cake decorator who puts the special script on the icing.
7. What is an IV? – Four PM on a sundial.
I’ve heard that the Government wants to ban Roman numerals….
….Not on my watch!
8. What is a call button? – A clickable screen icon for when you are playing online poker.
9. Why is everything white? – Because you’re having a near-death experience. Don’t worry! Both Heaven and Hell have rejected you. You’re about to get a cold reboot, (Thanx to a handy defibrillator) and things will soon be normal again.
10. Why don’t they have biscuits on the tea trolley? – It must be a supply-chain problem, and nothing to do with the fact that I got a job in the kitchen.
Please return tomorrow at this time, for another exciting episode of
Lassie Pushes Timmy Into A Well – AGAIN!
A Little Song
A Little Dance
A Little Seltzer
Down Your Pants
And apologies for last year’s comment-less display
Here is the annotated list of books that I read this past year.
Peter Clines – 14
Combination Sci-Fi and Horror, about an LA apartment building that’s also a machine built by Tesla, sealing a rift into a world of monsters and demons.
Jennifer Macaire – A Crown In Time – A Remedy In Time
Murray Leinster – A Thousand Degrees Below Zero
Previously unread, vintage Sci-Fi. 1909’s version of Mister Freeze
A candidate for Published before I was born.
Lawrence Krauss – A Universe From Nothing
A book from an astrophysicist which shows how the Universe may have come into existence without a God – but with an unfortunate, poorly chosen title which seems to show Christian Apologists to be right.
Lee Child – Better Off Dead
Child continues to pump out wildly successful Jack Reacher books each year.
Gregg Hurwitz – Dark Horse – Into The Fire – Prodigal Son
Guns and knives and explosives – just some quiet, peaceful men’s-action reading to pass the time.
Mike Maden – Tom Clancy’s Firing Point
Tom Clancy may be dead, but the franchise lives on with hero, Jack Ryan Jr.
Scott Gier – In The Shadow Of The Moon
Good, contemporary Sci-Fi.
Andrew Grant – Invisible – Too Close To Home
Andrew Grant – also known as Andrew Child – takes older brother Lee Child’s story framework, and inserts his own do-gooder, social justice warrior, working as a janitor in a courthouse. Interesting concept, and the quality is about as good.
James S. A. Corey – Leviathan Falls
Finally, the end of a massive series! It’s been a ride.
Nicole Gallande – Master Of The Revels
Time travel from a woman’s point of view. Like the Terminator movies – you arrive naked.
Mark Greaney – Mission Critical
When, like Mike Maden, he isn’t writing for Tom Clancy, he free-lances novels under his own name.
William Gibson – Neuromancer
Prophetic book from 1986, showing the birth of the Internet, and hacking.
Steve Perry – Past Prologue
Social, political, and religious reasons for action and adventure around the world.
Mark Cameron – Tom Clancy’s Shadow Of The Dragon
They’d be just another excuse to get you to buy a book – if they weren’t so damned enjoyable.
Crawford Kilian – The Fall Of The Republic
Modern time-travel Sci-Fi.
Fritz Leiber – The Big Time
A re-read. 1950’s time-travel Sci-Fi. There seems to be a theme here.
Nick Petrie – The Breaker – The Wild One
A war-vet hero, with PTSD and claustrophobia. It’s hard to run into the burning building to save a kid.
K. D. Wentworth/Eric Flint – The Course Of Empire – The Crucible Of Empire
Steve Berry – The Malta Exchange – The Warsaw Protocol
Urban fantasy/adventure – if you can fantasize being able to afford to go to Malta or Warsaw for adventure.
Gregg Loomis – The Poison Secret
The secret is, it was an enjoyable way to pass the time.
Raymond Khoury – The Sanctuary – the Sign
The Sign was interesting. Trying to use a giant hologram to brainwash and control society.
D. J. Harrison – The Secret Of The Scroll
Alternate Christian history – how The Church really began.
Allen Appel –Time After Time
Time travel by believing hard enough, and wishing yourself back into history.
Tom Hammond – What Time Is Purple
See my book review, if you haven’t already.
A Bit Of Orange – Answering Atheism – Proof Of God
As above, See my book review
Thanx for helping me renew my library card.
THAT is MY BRAIN!
At least that’s what the office told me when they gave me the disk of pictures. I have no other pictures of my brain with which to compare, and I’ve never seen my brain in person so as to recognize it from these hazy black and white pictures which I’m told came from a big magnet. It remains entirely possible that the pictures on that disk are pictures of somebody else’s brain.
Or that this is a Xerox image of something made entirely of playdough.(sic) I can’t prove that it’s not.
It may not be my brain on the disk, and in fact may not be pictures of anybody’s head at all but may be computer-generated. It’s not impossible. Maybe the people with problems that require a brain-scan are the only ones who have brains.
In modern America VERY few people have even seen the inside of ANY mammal skull so as to see that there is a brain inside, let alone any human heads. The number of medical and scientific personnel who claim to have seen inside a human head is a VAST minority of the total. They except(sic) that we have sent what three or four rovers all the way to Mars and yet they don’t believe in God.
Atheists say that they have never seen God and that I have never seen God and they demand evidence. They believe electrons exist, having never seen one. They believe the wind exists having never seen it. They believe gravity exists having never seen it. They believe in all kinds of things they have never seen. You know why? Because they’re not really skeptics. There are just some things they don’t want to believe, so they pretend that they are skeptics, when in fact, they are just rebellious sinners.
Except…. that the correct word is accept. I would think that you would be familiar with one of the most important words of your faith system, considering the number of things that you are expected to blindly accept. Perhaps you have never seen it in print, and are just taking someone else’s word for it.
Every med student in every medical college in the USA, Canada, and probably around the world, must assist in the dissection of a human cadaver. The skull is sawed open. The brain is removed and examined. The same is true for most veterinary students, with a dog or cat. This alone consists of tens of thousands of people each year. And then there are abattoirs and meat-packing plants….
We can also include pathologists, and coroners and their assistants, and police officers and paramedics, who, too often, get to see human brains that didn’t need MRIs. Until one of them finds a skull with no brain in it, I’m going to assume they all do, with the possible exception of yours. They are a minority – but hardly a VAST one – totalling several million people.
While actually seeing God would be a good start to accepting His existence, not all evidence need be visual. Do Christians have Faith that electrons exist? Atheists accept that they do because they can see the actions they cause; televisions glow, cell phones communicate with each other, and ovens get hot.
Atheists (and everyone else) can feel the wind blow, and see its effects, from tornadoes, to kids’ kites flying, to wind turbines. We don’t need to see the wind to know that it exists. I can see gravity working every time I drop something. It will accelerate toward the center of the Earth (or any other celestial body).
On Earth, its speed of fall will increase by 9.8 meters/second/squared. It has done so each and every observed and measured time. Only when a dropped pen starts drifting upward will I doubt the existence of gravity. You can tell me that God makes my light bulbs shine or that angels hold my feet (and every other object) to the ground. I will rely on reasonable expectations based on a history of testable and repeatable actions.
I will believe the hypotheses of reputable scientists, who have shown their work, rather than the far less coherent and parsimonious claims that Christians make. I will believe in space/time curvature rather than angels. Atheists often say that they have not been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence, but evidence is information which convinces, or tends to convince, regarding any given matter. If it does not convince to some degree, it is not ‘evidence,’ it is just another unverified claim.
I want to believe the most true things, and the fewest false things as possible. Despite your desperate attempt at mind-reading and fortune-telling, I am not a rebellious sinner! After 2000 years of asking Christians for evidence, the best they seem to be able to come up with is, ‘You just have to have faith, and you won’t know until you die.’ That is unacceptable to me – no sin involved. 👿
Part one:
In another day and age, girls in public school might be separated to learn sewing and cooking in home economics class, while boys went to shop class to learn carpentry and mechanics skills. Dead languages were taught to understand live ones. Learning how to take proper notes, develop neat handwriting, read sweep-hand clocks and how to actually spell words are among the other weird things formerly taught in schools.
Schools for the most part no longer veni, vidi, vici the classical languages, Latin and Ancient Greek. True, you can’t use them in your day-to-day conversation but their loss is also our loss. Studying Latin helps us better understand the grammar and vocabulary of other languages, such as English. And many professions have vocabulary steeped in Latin, including law and medicine.
In the era of keyboard, cursive writing classes are on the way out or gone at many schools. But not all educators are happy about this.
There’s a myth that in the era of computers we don’t need handwriting. That’s not what our research is showing,” says a University of Washington professor who has co-authored studies on the topic and followed the same children every year for five years to track their development. “What we found was that children until about grade six were writing more words, writing faster and expressing more ideas if they could use handwriting—printing or cursive—than if they used the keyboard.”
In times past, it was common for boys to take shop classes and for girls to do home economics, where they would learn to cook, fold sheets and so on, so they could become proficient homemakers. Well, presumptions about gender roles have changed and home economics is fast becoming a creaky relic of the past. That said, teaching both girls and boys practical life skills, like how to boil an egg or do their own laundry, might be a good thing.
No, shop class wasn’t learning how to become a more proficient shopper. It taught, boys mostly, basic carpentry and mechanics skills. Liability issues, using machines that can lop off digits or ruin eyes, may be one reason that shop and the industrial arts are increasingly falling off the school map.
But a school in North Carolina makes the case: “Shop classes offer students with their hands. They let students test their inclinations toward possible careers in engineering, carpentry, or architecture.”
As with handwriting, typing is being whited out in schools, with the belief that kids today are born with keyboards in their hands and screens before their eyes. So, gone are the days where students have their fingers poised over typewriter keyboards, with the teacher intoning, “D-d-d, space.” However, even though self-taught youngsters may be reasonably proficient, they would have a great work advantage if they learned to keyboard at full speed.
The Dewey Decimal System, first introduced in the 1800s, is a numerical system used by libraries to classify their book holdings into subjects and subcategories. Kids needed to get lessons from librarians to learn how to use it, thumbing their way through card catalogues, so they could research school papers and other projects. With the internet, Dewey Decimal is now skipping class. Even librarians are questioning the need to teach it.
Dodgeball used to be a standard gym class activity, with two teams lining up facing each other and then hurling balls at each other in a contest of elimination. Because some kids have better throwing arms—and accuracy—than others, injuries happened and now schools are increasingly banning the game.
Before using calculators in math class, we had slide rules to make basic calculations, especially multiplication and division. The rulers, with a central sliding slip marked with logarithmic scales date back to the 17th century. They fell out of use in the 1970s when mass-produced pocket calculators became widely available. The last slide rule was manufactured on July 11, 1976.
Elementary school students used to be taught that when the small hand was at three and the big hand at six that it was 3:30 and perhaps time to go home. A new generation raised on digital readouts, have trouble dealing with analog time-telling. So much so that some schools have actually removed analog clocks because mystified kids were turning up late for classes and exams.
Etiquette hasn’t been part of school curricula for a long time. However, some experts believe it would do kids good to get lessons in class to supplement what they are learning, or not learning, at home. How to do a proper handshake, tie a tie, and address your elders, are good things to know.
We’ll have some more nostalgia later.
I have a gripe with English. It is said that a man with a watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. For a word with one meaning, or even several established meanings, I know what is meant. For words which keep adding, subtracting, and modifying meanings, I am less and less sure what is meant.
The word ‘grip’ originally meant, a grasp, a grab, a hold, by a person’s hand. Recently, technology has included machines. Once upon an archaic, the words ‘grip’ and ‘gripe’ meant the same thing. (Don’t ask me why. I can’t get a hold on it.) Now grip can mean a small suitcase with a handle, which can be grasped and carried by one hand. Gripe can be a nagging complaint by someone who may not have a firm grip on reality.
At one time, ‘grippe’, which is pronounced grip, but which is neither grip nor gripe, was the word to identify influenza, the ordinary, seasonal, gastro-intestinal ‘flu,’ a kinder, gentler, distant relative to COVID. “Grippe” could cause abdominal cramps, especially among babies and young children.
To alleviate these symptoms, “Grippe Water” was developed and marketed. My mother dosed me with it several times. The original formula contained alcohol and sugar in addition to sodium bicarbonate and dill oil – a couple of stomach calmers, some calories to replace what might have been lost to the illness, and a mild sedative to aid with sleeping. It was once said that the best remedy for a colicky baby, was a good, thick, oak door.
Then the All-Or-Nothing, Save Us From Ourselves, Snowflakes got a grip on it, and removed all the “bad” ingredients, so present-day products do not contain alcohol or sugar, but may contain fennel, ginger, chamomile, cardamom, licorice, cinnamon, clove, dill, lemon balm or peppermint, depending on the formula.
‘Grippe’ was what caused the cramping, but ‘gripe’ is the term for the actual clutching, grasping intestinal pain. Since the formula was changed, the name has also been changed. ‘Grippe Water’ is no more, and the new product is ‘Gripe Water.’ That’s only one of the English terms that I have a gripe about. 😯
Every time I ask what time it is….
….I get a different answer
I tried to come up with a joke about social distancing….
….This is as close as I could get.
Before they invented drawing boards….
….What did they go back to?
I crossed an alligator with a homing pigeon….
….That will come back to bite me
I hate it when the voices in my head go silent….
….I never know what those fuckers are planning
I was going to have wine and cheese for dinner….
….but I remembered that I can’t have cheese. Cheers!
I was sitting in traffic the other day….
….That’s probably why I got run over.
My favorite word is “Drool.”….
….It just rolls of the tongue.
My family tree is a cactus….
….There’s a bunch of pricks
They say that laughter is the best medicine…
….but sometimes, a good sleep is better for you
When does a Dad joke become a Dad joke?….
….When it becomes apparent.
How many Optometrists does it take to change a light bulb?….
….Is it one or two?? One….or two?
This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind….
….said the patient to the brain surgeon
Yesterday I changed a light bulb, crossed the street, and walked into a bar….
….My life is a joke
I have an inferiority complex….
….but it’s not a very good one.
I’m trying this new, all-sugar diet….
….It’s pretty sweet
I went on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation….
….Never again
Did you hear about the guy who broke his leg tap dancing?….
….He fell off the sink.
I picked up a hitchhiker….
….You have to if you hit them.
I bought a dog from a locksmith today….
….As soon as I got it home, it made a bolt for the door.
Did you hear about the mathematician who’s afraid of negative numbers?….
….He’ll stop at nothing to avoid them
A minister, a priest, and a rabbit walk into a blood bank….
….The rabbit says, “I think I might be a Type-O.”
What do you call a fly with no wings?….
….A walk.
Guess who I bumped into on my way to get my glasses fixed….
….Everybody!
My boss hates it when I shorten his name to Dick….
….Especially since his name is Steve.
No matter how cynical you become….
….It’s never enough to keep up.
My neighbors listen to some really wild music….
….They have to.
Always give 110%….
….unless you’re a statistician
Archon's Den 