Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
HOF: Human Opportunity Floof (floofintion) – An animal who enjoys any and all people they encounter or will beg for treats and/or attention from any person they met. Origins: Internet, first noted use in 1999.
In Use: “Quinn of the blackfoot clan, with his long silky fur and sweet face, was a true HOF, eagerly greeting people who passed by his house, letting them shower him with scratches, compliments, and back strokes.”
I witnessed a coffee house conversation that threatened to escalate into violence.
It was a mildly busy day as people gathered and socialized with pleasant autumn weather outside. Many were bent over phones, laptops, or notebooks.
One table hosted an octet of chatting women not far from me. Their age hovered around my own, which is to say sixty to seventy-five years young. They were mostly laughing and talking about books. Somehow their conversation rolled into the important question everyone wants to know, “How much paste should you put on your toothbrush?”
I haven’t read any books on the subject, and I didn’t study it in school, but I agreed with one brunette woman. She said, “Oh, I read that you just need a dab. Especially with an electric toothbrush.”
“No, no, no,” a red-haired woman erupted. “That is wrong. You need to cover the bristles from end to end with paste.”
Coffee shop conversations dropped off a cliff. Focus went to the table of women.
Other women at the table started disagreeing with paste woman. You’d think they were assaulting her grand toddler from her reaction. Voice rising into a screech, she declared, “No! No!” It was like she was channeling Khruschev addressing the United Nations. “The paste must be on all of the bristles! Anything else is wrong!”
I expected a duel to erupt. Pistols at twenty feet on the sunlit sidewalk outside.
Maybe she’d had too much caffeine. Maybe she didn’t have enough. The other women, wide-eyed with alarm, were backing down fast, trying to placate the redhead before she whipped out a sword to defend her toothpaste position.
Thank God they weren’t discussing politics.
If I were religious or ascribed to a diety, I’d say that they might be pissed after Trump’s Micky D Sunday stunt. First there was an E. Coli Outbreak, forcing them to pull quarter pounders. Next came some crashing stock.
All started with Trump’s appearance there. Just sayin’. Also, as others noted, while Trump wore an apron, he didn’t have the rest of the required gear, like hairnets. Just sayin’.
Of course, under the Trump administration and Project 2025’s goal to reduce regulations, this sort of things might happen more often. Just sayin’.
Vote blue.
Doublefloof (floofinition) – To be guarded, blocked, outmaneuvered, or coerced by two animals working in concert.
In Use: “One famous instance of being doublefloofed was shown in Jurassic Park when two velociraptors took Muldoon.”
In Use: “A woman who rescued some kittens had the field flipped on her when they double doublefloofed her.”
The signs of aging pile up,
Promising on some days to beat you up.
Hair losses, hair changes, where the hell does it go?
Why can’t I get it to look right, why won’t it look just so?
Sometimes you ponder the person you had been.
You think you see them staring back, hiding from within.
Other times you wonder, if you ever were that way?
And if you were, what can you do to look that way again?
The weight you gain, how the body thickens,
Everything sinks and sags and generally looks in ways that sicken.
Then someone tells you how great you look,
and you wonder, is that a joke?
If you think I look good today, you want to say,
you should have seen me back in the day.
I was something else.
My computer was struck by one of those scams that declare my computer was infected. Which was BS. Easy enough to spot them because they’re a phishing effort to get you to download something or call someone, and they put multiple popups up. Anyone who has dealt with a true anti-virus program and a real virus knows that’s not how these things go down.
Anyway, I use several browsers on my ‘puter. This one struck Chrome. That made it easier to get rid of. Just a quick and simple reset took care of that. Worse part of that was the time it took to reset, and it signed me out of everything. But those are small struggles compared to the annoyance of having those fake things trying to instill fear in me. See, that’s how they play: trying to make you afraid of what has happened.
Just like at a Trump rally.
Barfloofian (floofinition) – 1. An animal who seems alien or foreign to a location, or who is not accepted as belonging. Origins: 14th century Floofman.
In Use: “The kittens’ appearance in the household disturbed Samson, who seemed appalled by their smells, looks, and sounds, treating them like barfloofians whenever they got close — at first.”
2. Animals who are deemed lessor or lacking in some manner because they are different.
In Use: “Corky was a dog and understood that. He got along well with other dogs, and loved his humans, but had no interest in cats, who he thought of as rude and snotty barfloofians.”
Mood: Coffeecool
We rocked and rolled into another autumn day. Blue skies, no clouds, lots of vapor trails.
Another Tuesday. Another October — my 69th October. I’m 68 but we don’t start counting until we’ve been alive for one year and I was born in July. And ‘nother 15, as this is 10/15/2024.
As the new weather norm goes, it was chilly, in the low fifties at night. Sunshine thrust in past trees and over mountains as the Earth rotated. The thermometer began clawing its progress up the scale. Now at 62 F degrees, 72 F might be here at 4 PM. Rain is anticipated at 5 PM, and that’ll change everything.
The wind is still and the air is clear.
This is floof weather. The boys — Papi and Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) — settled into favorite sunshine-favored spots in the backyard grass. Napping followed grooming, with interruptions to head lift for disruptive noises. But all is well for them.
They — the cats — inspired The Neurons’ music choice today. I checked on them after dressing. Seeing them in their sunshine spots, The Neurons jerry-rigged a Rihanna song with new lyrics: “We found sunshine in the backyard, we found sunshine in the ba-ackyard.” This was a butchering of “We Found Love” from 2011. Calvin Harris wrote it and Rihanna had a hit with it. After using it for their purposes, The Neurons introduced the proper tune to my morning mental music stream (Trademark hopeless) for the full experience. It’s a technotune with a driving beat that soon had The Neurons jumping and bouncing, a bit disconcerting as my body’s other cells were clamoring, “Where’s the coffee, huh? Give me coffee.”
Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue. Don’t know what history will say after this election but I’d like to give our nation a longer tenure as a democratic republic. Electing Harris will bend us toward that course. Selecting Trump will divert us further off course, as we saw from his first term and his behavior since.
The body finally had its coffee prayers answered. Here’s the music. Cheers
“Donald Trump made the unusual decision to hold a campaign event in Coachella, California on Saturday — a state that he’s undoubtedly set to lose in this year’s election — and bussed supporters 5 miles into the venue to do so. Unfortunately for thousands of those who showed up, the buses seemingly didn’t return to the venue late into the night, leaving many attendees stranded.”
I added the emphasis. This story ends up symbolic of Trump and his chase to be POTUS.
First, ol’ Don Old’s campaign made a promise. Come to my rally. Park at a designated place. We’ll bus you to the remote ranch and then back to where your car is parked.
This turned out to be as much of a concept of a plan as his healthcare offering, first mentioned over eight years ago. People were left stranded long after the rally’s end as the promised Trump buses did not show.
But then, as the situation went to Trump shit normal, meaning the rally attendees were forgotten and left to fend for themselves, they naturally want to pretend that it’s not Trump’s fault. Instead, they call for an investigation.
But I give Trump supporters this: it is criminal how they keep trusting him to do as he says, and not screw them over as he so often as done. Hell, he can’t even plan a rally and they think he’s capable of running a nation?
Kind of karmic, isn’t it?
Michael Seidel, writer 