Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’d dreamed about setting up games in a small city college, and found myself thinking about a song as a result of it after I woke up. Then, my little ginger-fur friend plagued me to come in, tapping at the window by the door while imploring me with wide eyes, “Let me in.”

Letting him in, I began singing, “You belong in the house, carpet under your feet.”

The cat responded by asking me if I had anything to eat.

I returned to streaming the original song in my head. Here’s Glenn Frey’s song, “You Belong to the City”. It was written for the Miami Vice television series way back in 1985. It was a good year for me. I spent a few months in Africa, but that’s a different story.

Mr Gander

Mr Gander rolled into the noisy sports bar, grunting and waving at others while signalling for a PBR. As Gander’s ample weight found a stool, Tilly observed that Gander seemed down.

“The wife.” Gander pointed his eyes at the TV and sampled his beer’s head.

“What ’bout ‘er?”

“Nothin’. I have little complaints ’bout ‘er. They’re so small, you could say they’re shards of complaints.”

“You ever tell ‘er ’bout ’em? Maybe that’d help.”

“Naw, man. If I tell ‘er my complaints ’bout ‘er, she’ll tell me her complaints ’bout me.” Gander sipped his beer. “Who wants to hear that crap?”

7 Things Writers Can Do No One Else Can (or Wants to)

I would add, drink prodigiously, mostly coffee, to this list…

Jacqui Murray's avatar

I’m reposting this from a few years ago. Back then, I didn’t have many readers so now, I wanted to share these pithy thoughts–including a few updates–with all my new efriends!

There are a lot of difficult parts to writing. I mean, besides the whole write-edit-revise-rewrite-market-start over thing. That cutting a vein and bleeding on the page can get touch-and-go at times. Channeling your muse often gets someone you’d prefer to avoid. And it’s well documented that trying to make a living as an author is pretty near impossible unless your last name rhymes with ‘Fancy’ or ‘Brawling’.

Despite all that, it’s a profession people flock to, spend thousands training to be, and wouldn’t give up for anything. Widely-accepted studies show 80% of us have a book we want to share–despite that industry stats show it takes five years to hone and deliver an acceptable novel.

It may–or may not–surprise…

View original post 869 more words

Feeling Dumb

I received a Costco paper thingy in the mail yesterday, one of those things with thin but glossy pages stapled together that show, “Here’s what you can buy!” 

I leafed through the leafs because I’m always looking for things to buy, when what do you think caught my eye?

Yes, that’s right, a smart toilet.

Offered by Ove, the description was pithy. They mentioned that it had memory and a remote control. I thought, WTH? Why would your toilet remember you? Does it say, this guy again, and turn on some air freshener? Or is it a matter of adjusting the toilet height and angle to suit your body for the best experience evacuating bowels? And what the heck was the remote control for?

These questions pushed me to search the net for answers. I found a promotional video so that I can share all of those things with you.

The smart toilet disappointed me in the end. While it was impressive on the surface and intrigued me about what it could do, I thought, what about a phone app for it, and voice control? Does it not interface with Siri or Alexa? I don’t know why you’d want to do any of that, but then, I’m not really sold on a remote control for my toilet.

Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised that the smart toilet has arrived. Smart dildos, smart thermostats, smart phones, and smart toothbrushes have been around for some time. Other smart inventions are arriving every day, like smart sex dolls and smart showers. Naturally, with all this smart stuff, concerns are raised about your smarts being hacked, resulting in unexpected problems. Besides someone else taking control of it, these smart devices are calling back home, reporting on what you’re doing.

It’s another reason to not get a smart appliance. Sooner or later, they’re gonna turn on you.

 

Lane Envy

Lane Envy – anxiety and desire to be in a different lane, often associated with driving and shopping.

In use: “Seeing the other lane going much faster, lane envy struck, prompting him to contemplate moving, but he knew the shopping gods were playing a cruel joke on him. As soon as he changed lanes, this one would go faster, so he stood where he was and bridled his longing to go to another cashier.”

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song splashed into my stream apropos of naught. So, I thought I’d splash it onto this page.

Coming out in the disco era, it has the disco tones that you’d expect. I was twenty and stationed in the Philippines when it hit the airways. It was a good dance tune when you were out clubbing. The dance floor always filled when the song began.

Here’s Tavares and “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” (1976).

Cheers

 

Unchanged

She’d thought about using a computer but decided that she didn’t want to. That would have been cumbersome to learn, as would changing her phone. The green wall phone with its rotary dial and long cord was sufficient.

She kept her old color console television, bought from Sears in 1969, because it still worked, so why buy a new one? She had to buy new furniture in 1969 because the old stuff fell apart, but once the gold and green brocade stuff she bought started falling apart, she kept it, even though the fabric was torn and worn, stuffing was coming out, and the frames were coming apart.

Her hair-style was unchanged from 1968, which is also when she started dying her hair brown, so she looked much the same in this century as she did the last. She loved Campbell’s tomato soup and had it almost every day for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich using Kraft American Cheese Singles, along with a Heinz dill pickle. Her breakfast was Quaker Oats followed by two cups of Maxwell House coffee that she made in her old percolator.

Days were spent reading Dick Francis, Nancy Drew mysteries, or Agatha Christie while watching Fox News. In the evenings, she watched The Family Feud and The Price is Right followed by Murder, She Wrote, The Andy Griffith Show, The Big Valley, and Perry Mason. Once in a while, she watched a movie, like The Sound of Music. For treats, she ate Little Debbie Cakes.

Not much had changed in her life, and that made her happy. Being happy, she saw no reason to change.

Floofmania

Floofmania (floofinition) – excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm for housepets.

In use: “So many Internet sites dedicated to sharing information about cats, dogs, and other housepets, one would think the floofmania grips the world.”

A Ferrari Dream

So many of my recent dreams have been like watching adventure movies. I can’t recall seeing myself in many of them.

I starred in last night’s dream, though. The dialogue was often too fast for me to hear and capture, and there weren’t any captions or replays available. But I was happy, cheerful, and, well, unstoppable, overcoming everything.

The dream took place outside in pleasant, balmy weather, and daytime. Accompanied by my wife, I was somewhere that seemed tropical, but I — we — had to get out of there. The question was, how? Other men, in suits, were trying to keep us there.

My wife and I were armed with small black devices. About the size of a television remote control (clicker, as my wife calls it), it had no buttons. Pointing it at people immobilized them. People with stronger wills could resist it, but they could be overcome by pressing the device against them. The stronger their will, the longer we had to hold it against them, but none required more than several seconds.

It was all kind of frolicky. The men in suits would say, “There they are, get them.” They’d come after that, but there’d be no rush. It was like they were going slow, trying to be clever and unobserved. But we saw them and knew what they were doing. Laughing, we pointed and stopped them without a struggle.

A stalemate delivered. We couldn’t leave, so we’re weren’t escaping, just keeping the others at bay. Along came a man and a woman. They were older than us and well-dressed. My impressions of them were they were wealthy and powerful, but also trapped. I didn’t know them, and observing their exchanges, I thought that they weren’t together but had recently met. I think she was called the duchess.

“Take the Ferrari,” the man said. He pointed.

An older white Ferrari was there. I hadn’t noticed it before. I thought the car was from the sixties. (I confirmed this after researching and finding the model. Here it is, a 1966 California 365, except my dream car was white.)

Ferrari 365 California - 1966

“I can’t take that,” I said, laughing at the audacity of it.

The man said, “Why not?” The woman said. “Yes, you can. Take us with you. Drive us out of here. You can do it.”

So we pointed and stopped the pursuit, got into the Ferrari, and I drove us up through some forest. We couldn’t get all the way out, though. “We need to stop and rest,” I said.

We did that. The dream showed us stopping and then awakening the next morning. Pursuit had caught up to us by then, but they weren’t energetic, and we had our remotes. After doing our point and incapacitate thing on those closest to us, we all got in the car. I was driving and my wife was in the passenger seat, with the other two in the back. I drove us up and out of the situation.

The end. An uplifting dream, it brings a smile to my face as I remember it.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑