Alexa begins playing soft music. It sounds like pop.
“Alexa,” I ask her, “Why are you playing music now?”
“Hmm. I don’t know that.”
“Alexa, do I have any routines set to play music?” I know I don’t.
“Hmm. You’ll need to go online for that.”
“Alexa, who told you to play this music?”
“Hmm. I don’t understand that question.”
So it goes. Alexa began playing music in January every day at 4:40 PM. Every day. We have no routines established. Beyond that, she turns it down to a very low volume. I’ve researched it on the net, and others have this problem, too. We don’t know why she does it. Neither does she. Nor does Amazon.
I privately suspect Alexa is playing games, perhaps as a newfound sense of humor, but it feels like it might be a precursor to AI’s future: the AI does stuff, and no one, including it, knows why.
This Saturday, Feb 17, 2024, is meh again. Like a giant gray spaceship is hovering above us, blotting out the natural sky and sunshine. Rain has begun streaking the windows again. The wind’s been gusting all morning, as if a giant wind machine has been turned onto four. There are eleven settings for the machine, of course.
It’s 54 F now. We’re closing on 1 PM. 56 F will be our high. Another late start to posting, caused again by reading (fiction and non-fiction books, along with netnews), and writing my own fiction. Had to read more stories about Trump travails. His rages about (fill in the space). Rage, lying, hating, he’s commendably capable of those three things and demonstrates them often.
Tucker is doing much better today. I reduced his pain med, and he’s adjusting, as they suggested he would. So happy to see that.
Papi is not happy today. After being denied permission to go out from dusk to dawn, I let him out this morning only for him to encounter the wind. When it finally reduced its strength, rain moved in. Papi no like wind and rain.
I’m not crowing about the NY fraud judgement against Trump. From what I read, justice has been served, though I know how malleable justice can be. My wife raged yesterday about Trump’s immunity matter. In her opinion, something like that should’ve been answered post haste. “The Supreme Court should have already said that nobody is above prosecution for crimes.” Slam dunk to her, with no offramp for any reason.
So why haven’t the Supremes acted? Why are they stalling, she demands. Well, we know much about this court by now, and Roberts’s concern about his legacy. And several of the Supremes were plugged into the court as Trump’s choice. What happens if they rule against him? There will probably be death threats against them and even possibly protests at the court or at their homes. My wife and I think they’re very worried about those matters. But to rule that Trump is immune seems hugely unthinkable. Yes, it’s high drama.
Musically, I read that the Beach Boys began recording the song, “Good Vibrations” on this date in 1966. Ten years old, I connected with this song as soon as it came out later that year, so without the need for much comment, I’ll tell you that The Neurons immediately put it on in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). The song’s dramatic shifts in tempo and sound, and the lyrics about vibrations and love and attraction, all captivated me, along with the theremins’ use, and the softly melded piece with an organ that invokes the sense of being in a church. This is a song which I always used to crank up in volume and fall still to appreciate. I often still do, over sixty years later.
I was talking to one of the painters yesterday as they wrapped up. “How long have you been doing this?” I asked. He was so proficient. He ended up telling me he was 51, and he’s been doing this for 30 years. I reflected, I retired from the military twenty-nine years ago, just a year after he began his career.
Stay positive, remain strong, leeeaaannn forward, and vote. Strengthened by the power of coffee, I’ll do the same. Here’s the music. Cheers
Mood: jubtimism. (Yes, that’s a weird combo of jubilant and optimistic, weird in face of the dark news that keeps spitting in my face.)
Hey to all who are doing time with me on the third rock. Today is Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. Completely gray on gray today, again, with sunshine shifting and sliding through cloud breaks when it can. Daffs have broken out to spread their color across the sprinter landscape. 50 F now, no snow on the ground in the valley or nearby peaks. If you need to see some snow, hop onto I5 and drive a few miles south to Mt. Ashland. If you don’t turn off for Mt Ashland but keep going toward California, Mt. Shasta, just fifty miles away, will present a postcard image for you as the Interstate rises and falls.
I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday and saw some NFL commercials about bullying. That woke up some Neurons, who came up with a 1989 Chris Rea song, “The Road to Hell”, and have it playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). See, these big NFL players quoted children and adults who were bullied. The survivors talked about facing daily fear. Terror. Likewise, we have this election campaign where fear and terror are being employed in lieu of policies or intelligent discourse. If Trump wins, he promised to be a dictator. Some of his followers tried overthrowing the election results back on Jan 6, 2021. They now promise greater violence if Trump loses, as do members of Congress who carry his water. Contrary to all presented facts and evidence, they insist that Trump win the 2020 election, but was cheated out of staying in office.
And now, facing all manner of trials and criminal charges, which seem to be stacking up, Trump wants to be declared immune from anything criminal he did while President. As the first judicial panel ruling on his claim noted, that would remove the POTUS from the checks and balances built into the Constitution. If that happened, what, beyond his character, would stop President Biden from saying, “Gosh, if Trump is immune, so am I.”
So there are fears out there for our democracy and republic. Hence, The Neurons pulled up the lines from Chris Rea’s 1989 song, “The perverted fear of violence chokes the smile off every face. Common sense is ringing out bells. This ain’t no technological breakdown. Oh, no. This is the road to hell.”
Sorry if I’m as dark as my coffee this morning. Been reading Rachel Maddow’s book, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, yesterday and today. Illuminating, of course, but sometimes history can be depressing. She traces the efforts of paramilitary groups trying to end democracy in the US back in the 1930s to give fascism a chance. They worked under names like The Christian Front, the Silver Legion, and the American White Guard. These were lunatics with powerful friends, which aptly summarizes much of the MAGA movement and QAnon. In summary, both in the past and now, I didn’t realize that so many Americans harbored an authoritarian mindset. Being a Star Trek fan, I though boldly heading toward a new era of equality, freedom, and justice. I didn’t realize that a block of people exist who abhor those things.
On the flip side of my dark street, Jamie Lee Curtis’s performance as the matriarch in The Bear was powerful stuff. Yes, we’re just catching up with the second season. I’d heard about the hit series, and decided to check it out. Glad on did.
Also on the bright side, the house painting is moving closer to fini. That’s pretty darn exciting. Looking back, the project’s genesis was in the early months of 2020. We were just collecting names for bids when COVID landed and the shutdown commenced. In 2021, we moved toward getting quotes but supplies were limited because of supply chain issues in response to the COVID shutdown. Not much was done in 2022 about the painting because…(cough, cough) COVID. Finally, in 2023, quotes were gathered and agreements made, but the painting backlog pushed us back to this year.
I’ve had coffee, thanks. Be strong, remain positive, lean forward, and voOte. Register first, of course. Pitter patter, get ‘er at her. Here is Chris Rea with his slide guitar. Cheer
Eloflooftion(floofinition) – A style of speaking to an animal especially in private.
In Use: “Derek and Hercules were both substantial individuals, when alone at home, Derek always slipped into a squeaky eloflooftion that had the dog pumping his tail in zest and bark with happiness.”
In Use: “Whenever people entered the house and spotted the kittens, they inevitably told the tiny critters how cute the beings were in eloflooftion like they were talking to human infants.”
Recent Use: “Sometimes eloflooftion isn’t needed because the floof and the human both know how much they love and appreciate one another.
An email was forwarded to us by friends who live about two miles away. We’re toward Ashlandia’s southern perimeter, and they’re above the library downtown. It’s a small town.
Good morning HOA – I wanted to reach out and let you all know that the past 2 nights we have had a cougar in the neighborhood. Last night, it unfortunately killed our older cat. We also found a dead raccoon in our yard so I would urge you all to keep any pets inside at night if possible. The cougar seems to be especially active around dusk – It was hunting earlier in the evening yesterday just after 6pm and we had let our cat out without thinking it would be active so early.
It looks to be injured and we have seen it limping. It did not run away when we tried to shoo it away so be aware that if you are near it, it may not run away and may be more aggressive because it is injured and can’t run away easily.
We’re rural, not deeply populated or industrialized. Cougars and bears live in the area along with foxes and coyotes, raccoons, deer, etc. Of course, the cougars and bears are rarer that most of the others, wilder, and carnivores, so they get a sketch more attention than other critters. That it has killed someone’s pet makes me wince for the animal and its owner. Grudgingly I accept, this is part of life, and then my thoughts churn with worry about my own little housefloofs and how much they enjoy going outside.
My good ol’ Fitbit, which isn’t that old, actually — I’ll need to look that up — stopped working again.
First sign: at 9:15 this morning, it declared that I’d walked over 18,000 steps.
Had I been sleepwalking, I wondered? Chasing the cats, or saving them from a bear, cougar, or other beasts? Not that I recalled, and I believeI would have remembered that. So, must be something else.
Okay. I added resetting the Fitbit to my list of things to do but it was still nominally functioning, until, ‘lo, in the coffee shop, I tapped it for the time and got nada.
Well, I muttered in my mind. That sucks.
But what was really irritating was that, just a little later, as I wrapped up my reading day, I tapped my Fitbit to check the time.
Déjà Floof(floofinition) 1. An animal who reminds people or other animals of another animal.
In Use: “When she saw the kitten available for adoption, Rose experienced déjà floof, because the little character looked just like her old cat, Smudge, which she’d lost the year before.”
Recent Use: “Papi looked nothing like Quinn but the way Papi sometimes behaved frequently triggered déjà floof.”
2. A sense of experiencing or enduring an event with an animal that happened before.
In Use: “The sequence of his dog’s declining health triggered déjà floof for Bob, who dreaded what he knew was going to come.”
Recent Use: “Déjà floof descended on Brenda when she saw her husband notice the hungry young stray cats. Animals in need were always finding him, reducing him to a big softy ready to do everything to save them.”
Had to replace the overhead bulb on the stove. It’s for one of two lights setting on either side of the exhaust fan, below the microwave, above the range.
As I’m removing the old way and going through the usual questions of what watts, what size, all that, I see that instructions for replacing the bulbs are printed on a label right there by the exhaust. Only problem for me is that this required me to be on the other side of the stove to read it, you know the rear of the stove, the part residing against the wall.
Boy, someone was thinking hard when they made that decision.
Greetings Worldlings. Welcome to Ashlandia, where it is Sunday, February 4, 2024.
We’re tangoing with the wind and rain today. Dark out there, like the sun called in sick. 41 degrees F now, that wind slices the heat right off ya. Riding that wind, the rain slashes like millions of kitten claws, shockingly sharp pricks to the system. Were supposed to shuffle up to 46 F as today’s high, but shade me dubious that this will happen.
And somehow, I’m now thinking of dinner. Chinese food fits my mood and weather in my mind, so I’ll propose it to the household’s other human and see what transpires.
I’ve been reading about the politics and facts about the southern US border and immigration for the past several days. A NYTimes article the other day recapped efforts to fix the situation since the Dubya’s time as POTUS. Does it surprise anyone that when deals were reached, the GOP’s hard right often put a stop to it? Yes, this is the same hard right gunning to stop legislation again. Different people, same MO: their way or nothing. (Yes, it was also once moderate Dems who killed the legislation.) So we’ve had nothing for twenty years while they bitch and scream for someone to do something. Same thing is happening this year, with former POTUS DJ Trump urging his congressional supporters to shut it down. Otherwise, President Biden and the Democrats would get credit for doing something about the border situation, and the GOP would lose one of their fear planks.
Without further surprise, one states’ rights constitutionalist governor, Abbott of Texas, is flouted federal law and the recent SCOTUS ruling against it. Reminds me of the 1960s and 1970s, when racism was being battled, and those red state governors fought against discrimination laws and integration. Reminds me, too, of those ‘pro-life’ states forcing women to carry to term regardless of the woman’s situation. These are the small government folk who decry the Democrat’s government philosophy because they find it too invasive. Damn hypocrites.
Jill Dennison inspired The Neutron’s musical choice for today. Jill’s blog is a regular stop, although I sometimes board late. She’s often charming, sometimes humorous, frequently political, regularly snarky, and always absorbing. I read her post about her music choice yesterday, “Lady”, written by Lionel Richie and performed by Kenny Rogers. Released in 1980, it was a crossover success in the US but also charted well in Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
But when I saw, “Lady” as her title, I wondered, “Oh, is she talking about the Styx power ballad?” Then The Neurons launched “Lady” by the Australian group, the Little River Band, which remains in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks) today.
“Lady” by the LRB was released in 1978. I’ve written ’bout my late friend Randy a few times. I met him in 1992, when he came to work for me. An Atlanta Braves fan, regular cigarette smoker, and fan of the rock groups Van Halen and Boston, he really loved “Lady” by Little River Band, and yes, he declared love. Whenever this song came on when Randy and I were together, he announced that fact, no matter what else was happening. Then you’d see his lips moving as he silently sang along.
BTW, I really doubted it would be the Styx song as Jill’s choice. Their rock and roll style isn’t her style, IDT.
Stay positive, remain strong, lean forward and vote. Coffee is being served and consumed, hot and black. Just keep it coming. Thanks for reading and have a good one. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 