Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Gakdar (floofinition) – A system of instincts and senses used to spot an animal’s vomit before it is stepped in. Origins: circa 1960s, United States slang.
In Use: “His gakdar failing, Michael walked right into a small, wet present from one of his floofs.”
In Use: “Many people living with a pet for the first time soon learn that good gakdar is a necessity.
Mood: Saterbabbling
It’s fun to hear inflections and dialects as folks address the days. Someone the other night sounded like there were saying ‘Saterday’ instead of ‘Saturday’. I mentioned it to my wife. She frowned and asked, “Is this a difference?” To me, yes, I heard a difference but I could be crazy.
Well, it’s Saterday, December 7, 2024, the anniversay of a day which will live in infamy, as they say. I wonder if younger people are still taught about the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or do they just pick up knowledge about it from books, movies, and TV?
A white brick of a sky overlays our valley. Sunshine is trying to chisel through but it’s a listless effort. We’re cooking along at 36 F now, ready to storm up to 49 F. The threat of light rain is dangling over us. Not bad as far as an autumn winter day goes.
Cycling through news stories I read up on police officers illegally selling guns. Not just a few but in twenty-three states. They’re usually senior law enforcement personnel. Leading by example.
Then there was the gem about using private school vouchers to pay for horseback riding lessons. Marvelous. *snark*
Finally, the GOP is creeping out with earnest statements about cutting social security. Do recall how they insisted that President Biden was lying when he mentioned they had those plans? Classic bait and switch GOP, luring MAGA supporters in with one lie and then giving them something else.
Looking forward to when MAGA awakens to how they’re being screwed.
BTW, I shared the CBS news story about the police illegally selling guns on my Facebook feed. It’s something I rarely do these days but I thought peopl should know this is happening. FB removed it. Said it ‘violated their community standards’. Which, using the transitive property, means that truthful news stories violate Facebook’s standards. They called it ‘spam’; yes, the truth is spam for FB. Sounds kinda Orwellian. That’s the bottom line for that sinking enterprise.
Reading of the election results and other things being ‘explained’, I couldn’t help but think that a lot of it is just babbling. Pundit babbling for the most part, with some strategists thrown in for flavoring. Responding, The Neurons plugged “Psychobabble” by the Alan Parsons Project into the morning mental music stream (Trademark unravelling). The song’s last line seems fitting: “I don’t care, it’s all psychobabble rap.”
Let’s get positive, lean forward and move forward. Coffee has been re-introduced to my biosystem. All systems are go. Here’s the music.
Cheers
Nothing like unwittingly stepping — barefoot — into floof gack to change the morning’s trajectory.
Unwittingly is not superfluous there, either. On the one hand, what fool would wittingly step into floof gack? Are there people out there who cry with glee, “Look, floof gack,” and step in it? Perhaps; this world has some unusual individuals in it.
But it was unwittingly because I didn’t know anyone had gacked. So the gackdar was down. No warning at all until my recovering foot found the wet squishyness under it, forcing me to keep it up off the floor while I hopped-hobbled to the bathroom to rinse it off.
At least it was on the hardwood floor, and it wasn’t a major gack, just a category one. Easy clean up, you know?
DFZ: Deflooferized Zone (floofinition) – Space or location where an animal’s presence is discouraged. Origins: Late 1950s, United States.
In Use: “Many people who share a space with a floof attempts to create DFZs, like beds, sofas, and counter tops. But modern video surveillance systems inform them that once they leave the house, DMZs become comfort zones.”
So…someone murdered the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
I don’t applaud it. Violence doesn’t resolve anything. It generally incites more and greater violence. How is that helpful?
But I understand it. I understand the person’s frustration, even though I don’t know their particulars. The murdered man, Brian Thompson, led a healthcare corporation. Tales of despair and frustration circulate about the sick and injured lamenting how they’re treated by those corporations. Brian Thompson’s company had installed AI to help them deny benefits. For those companies, denying claims is how they protect their bottom line, decrease costs, increase profits, push up stock prices, and gain greater wealth. The killer inscribed on a found round, “Deny, defend, depose,” words well known to too many people dealing with the healthcare industry.
My bottom line is, I’m sorry he was murdered. But also, he reaped what he sowed. And, I’m not surprised. I’ve read and heard multiple people vent anger, despair, and frustration with those companies. As a recent example, Anthem BCBS announced in November a controversial decision about paying for anesthesia. It angered anesthesiologists enough that they issued statements decrying what they perceived as a money grab. Last week, in the wake of the shooting. Anthem BCBS announced they’d reversed the new policy.
The shooting wasn’t a complete surprise. In America, where a gun culture prevails and disagreements come to a head with people deciding to shoot others to resolve matters, it was simply a matter of time before something like this happened.
Thoughts and prayers, you know? Sigh.
Mood: Decemberspect
It’s December 5, 2024. Thursday. Someone has taken a roller brush and painted the sky with thin smoky gray and white. It’s poor mixing, with tendrils of the gray sometimes thickened into a rich vein. Patching blue shows through. I take an eastern blister of white as the sun.
Morose is the word for that scene. It’s 38 F locally, 40 to 42 in other town zones. We’ll see high temperatures in the low to mid fifties.
First, happy birthday to my little sister. Point of order, she is a grandmother. Mom’s life disrupted sis’s life but sis survived and reformed herself as an intelligent, caring, forthright individual. She’s a strong person and I admire her for so many facets of who she is.
I read Jan Ressenger’s post, “Trump’s Threatened Immigration Deportations Would Traumatize Students and Disrupt Public Schools”, this morning. She writes about the impact on children and school systems, and how school systems step up to help their studencts embroiled in the mess. As one superintendent summarized it, ‘We went into kind of a Mom and Dad mode and just cared for kids.’
Our fear-based right wing so disappoints me. Many of our right-wingers profess to be good Christians. Naturally, I ponder what our nation’s founders would think of the right wing’s myopic attacks on immigrants. Yes, what would Jesus do? Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas. The right wing is slowly emerging as a darkly evil and inhumane force.
Away from that. WhenI looked out and spied the mostly white sky, the morning mental music stream (Trademark seceded) churned with “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. The Neurons thought, white, and went with it.
Get positive, be strong, have coffee. Coffee and I just renewed our vows once again. Keeps our relationship fresh. Here’s the music.
Cheers
10:45 AM today. My wife and I were in the home office, chatting about news. Both of our phones interrupted with multiple chimes and dings. As we both reached for them, she wondered, “What in the world is that noise,” and I said at the same times, “Something has happened, because we’re both getting alerts.”
A USGS Shakealert had been issued. Roughly, ‘Major earthquake detected. Duck and cover. Hold on.’
We’d not felt anything. My wife leaped up and looked out the window. I flipped into search mode on my computer. Email? Nothing. Nextdoor? Nothing.
We turned on the television and searched local news channels and went onto the local radio and television online news sites. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Facebook had a thread. Someone showed the alert and said, “Do anyone else get this message? Did anyone feel anything?”
Comments began coming in. Where people were, what they’d felt.
I went to the USGS Shakealert site. It was there that I learned about a 7.2 magnitude earthquake off the NorCal coast at 10:44 AM. Aftershocks were felt in some parts of southern Oregon and northern California. A tsunami warning was issued for that affected coastline.
So now we wait to see what happens. We’re not near the affected regions. Fingers crossed, and hopes and prayers.
I was in Gmail checking ethingies, scrolling throug the many daily appeals inundating my inbox. These appeals come from every and any organization I’ve belonged to, or expressed an interest in. They weary me with the need to unsubscribe, delete, etc., every damn day.
But the one today which had me shaking my head was the recurring one from Google to download and install Chrome. Because I was using Gmail on Chrome, as I almost always do. That, to me, is demonstrative of the empty approach that corporations take these days. It seems like their bottom line is, just puke some shit out via email onto consumers. Sooner or later, someone will take the bait. Happens with streaming recommendations, purchase suggestions…downaloads. Meanwhile, my resentment of all these corporations and organizations and their begging grows hotter and deeper, and the urge to bail on them increases.
And BTW, one of those other companies dumping multiple times a day on me urging to buy their products and services is Experian. I will fucking guarantee that I will never buy anything from that predatory organization. Take that to the bank.
Mood: Reinvigorated
It’s Woundsday, December 4, 2024. The stagnant air seemed to have shifted a little, as the chill has abated. Although Ashlandia is claimed to be foggy, my perch’s view was fog free. Sunshine enriched blue skies took the vision field from end to end. Now, 11 AM, my personal weather sys says it’s 46 F outside. Alexa claimed it’ll be 67 F today but I don’t trust it. Other forecasts say 57 F today, which seems reasonable.
It’s Woundsday because I’ve been busy this morning licking my wound. Eww. Gross. Figuratively licking my wounds. The wound is the surgery site to repair my ankle. Much better today, thanks. Now I’m practicing my walk, trying to rid myself of my limp, regain some grace, and speed up my stride.
We’ve been following several news stories. One is that another Trump nominee has withdrawn. I’m not celebrating as I’m sure he’ll find a horrid replacement. My wife then regaled me with a few Buzzfeed anecdotes about people realizing what their support of Trump means to what goes on in their world. Trump nominees are surprising them. Examples include a business women who was planning equipment purchases being taught what the tariffs will do. Then there are parents with a child in Headstart just learning that Trump intends to shut down Headstart and now wonder what will happen to their child. In other words, they’re gettin’ woke by their vote.
Also following a story in Pennsylvania about a woman who fell into a sinkhole while looking for her cat in Tuesday morning’s cold, dark hours. I’m from that area and have family still living in the region, so it’s one of those six degrees of separation things. I hope they find her alive and well but I’m sadly doubtful at this point.
Today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark okay) is “Feelin’ Alright”. I posted this song back in 2016. I wrote then: “I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.” Still standing with that declaration. It’s my song for Woundsday because I’m going to have beers with my friends tonight. It’s our usual Wednesday setup. I haven’t attended for seven weeks. Haven’t had a beer in that period, too. I did have wine and rum with mulled cider on T-Day, though. Beyond that, I’m walking well and experiencing minimal discomfort and pain.
I woke from a dream this morning and remembered open lines from a Dylan Thomas poem.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The dream had been about reinventing myself and reinventing the world, so I can understand the connection with the poem. It’s one of my top five poems.
Hope you have a superb Wednesday, and the days beyond today are also superb as we count down the last of 2024. Coffee and I have rekindled our relationship once again. We’re good to the last drop. Here’s the music. Cheers
Kitfloof (floofinition) Animal who always arrives in the kitchen to beg for a treat when someone goes in to get food. Origins: Circa 2020, Oregon via Internet.
In Use: “A reliable kitfloof, Tucker always roused himself when Michael entered the kitchen, slow trotting in to see what he could beg off his floofman; perhaps a few pieces of chicken (his favorite), a small cheese offering, or the chance to like the dishes after. Michael rarely failed to give him something.”
Michael Seidel, writer 