Satyrdaz Theme Music
Yes, it’s Satyrda, July 19, 2025. I’m about as amazed as you. It’s gonna be a cool one here, just 90 F as our high, up from the current realm ruled by the low 70s. Clouds have abandoned the blue sky and the sun rules.Although fourteen fires are being addressed in our southwestern Oregon region, we’re fairly smoke free. Wind patterns, I guess. Air quality is good.
I glanced at the news but it’s Satyrda. Not much churn going on at this point. Trump is suing Murdoch over the WSJ’s Epstein story. It’ll be interesting if Murdoch backs down. That’s the usual Trump MO. Sue and force the others to back down. Rarely seems to be about truth; more about pressure and money. In this case, with MAGALand clamoring for the Epstein files to be released, Murdoch might have the upper hand. Will he press it?
Today’s music is “While You See A Chance” by Steven Winwood. I heard the1982 song on television last night and The Neurons are not letting it go. They’re focusing on the lines, “When some cold tomorrow finds you, when some sad old dream reminds you, how the endless road unwinds you. While you see a chance, take it. Find romance, fake it. Because it’s all on you.” And this might also be dream related, now that I think about it a little.
Hope this Satyrdaz find you doing well and taking care of business. Off we go, one more time. Cheerz
Do You Want to Connect
Life before the net. Do I remember those dark, soulless days? Oh, yeah. I remember those days, just as I recall life without the world wide web, life without cable and DVDs, life without CDs, eight-track and cassette tapes, life without microwaves, and life without cell phones and more than three networks. I remember life without remote controls, which my wife calls, the clicker.
Yes, I remember buying my first personal computer. I remember using the first one at home. Then I recall signing us up for Compuserve and Mindnet. I remember getting my first email address and having no one to email. That soon changed. Viagra offers quickly found my inbox. With it came an understanding of something non-meaty called ‘Spam’ and wealthy Nigerians in need of money.
Yes, I remember pre-net life. Primarily because our TV schedule was fixed according to the cable schedule. Cheers on Thursday, for example. But when the net came into its full flowering, I was able to find a huge variety of things to stream from around the world, watching them when I wanted, instead of waiting for their schedule. Long as I was willing to pay for it.
With the net, the days of going to the front door and looking for the daily newspaper disappeared. There was no need for all that inked paper to stack up and get put out for the trash. Now the news was right there online. I didn’t need to wait until 6 PM to check to see what was happening. Of course, information about what was happening locally soon began fading. We could no longer just pick up the paper and turn to the police log to see what the hell the sirens were all about the other day. No, that faded. Now, there are sometimes stories on Facebook or Nextdoor. Some others are struggling to bring the local news back to us. It’s a challenge. Many efforts arise and fall.
Freedom came with online ordering, too. I no longer needed to prowl through brick and mortar stores, making comparisons, trying to figure out what to buy. Boom, the net was heavy with choices. It was still onerous in the early days to compare things but then came Amazon… Suddenly, whoa. It was a desperate consumer’s dream.
Do you know what it was like to travel in pre-net days? Calling the airlines to get price checks, listening to them look up schedules for you, explaining options? Same with hotels. Expedia and the like made it easier…for a while. But wherever money and humans are involved with money transactions and information, others are there to scam us for their share of the pie.
Yes, I remember life before the net. It was simpler and harder, easier, and more problematic. That’s how it always is with progress. Each step unfolds with new and surprising insights, and the things we used to do begin to fade.
Just think: one day, people will be asking, do you remember life before AI?
And someone will reply, I remember the days before cars. And then we’ll all wonder, what was that like, and turn to AI for the answer.
PINs & Passwords
PINs and passwords are integral to first world life. Friends and I discussed how we manage our passwords and PINs. All that caused me to think and smile.
There’s an article out there about ‘things our children wouldn’t know about’ because whatever it was is now obsolete. Telephone party lines, rolodexes, TV ‘rabbit ears’ and outdoor antennas, carbon copy or carbon paper, and those sort of things. I was thinking of the reverse mode, and how astonished our children might be that we had no PINs and passwords when I was growing up in the 1950s to mid-1970s. We never had to figure out and remember a magical combination of letters, numbers and ‘special characters’ to get in and out of our online accounts. Number one, we didn’t have online accounts. We lacked the Internet and home computers. Now, there’s a PIN to learn to use a bathroom. Another PIN to access my voice mail. A different PIN to use my credit card, depending on the card reader, and to withdraw money.
I wonder, though, how many years it’ll be until the next generation is amused with our tales of PINs & Passwords and our explanations for how they were used.
Munda’s Theme Music
Cold spring night ended with sunshine breaking apart the clouds like Jesus taking on the money changers. Blue sky smile down on us. Sunshine is tasked with warming us to 68 F, up from 46.
Papi likes having the pet door back on. He’s resumed his unique style. A paw is inserted into the space betwixt the flap and its flame. He pulls the flap toward him to enlarge a space. Then he sticks his head through. Creeps on in. Seeing me watching, he pauses. Confirms who I am. Greetings are exchanged. He comes on for some pets, treats, and cat nip. A little later, he reverses course. Heads for the sunny backyard.
But. A but always crops up. In this but, Papi still beats on the back door. Even though the pet door is open. I have applied some erratic noodling to it. I believe that the beating is his communication system. Like drums or smoke signals.
Papi sending smoke signals. Alarm inducing idea.
Papi was telling me that he wanted his water dish refilled and outside. I’ve pulled it in at night. Don’t want to encourage other wildlife to hang around. I’ve set up a water bowl for them in another area of the yard, around in the front, away from the doors. Papi detests drinking water in the house. Likes drinking it outside. We all have our foibles.
On to politics. Ugh. No. Full coffee saturation is required before I go there today.
All kinds of music occupy the morning mental music stream. Like rock concert going on in there. First up in heavy rotation was the Animals with “House of the Rising Sun.” Brought on by seeing the sunshine rising, brightening, filing the world, including our house. Then there was Chris Isaak. “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing”. That was in response to some news article I read. Next came Aerosmith. “Walk This Way.” That came after my wife returned from her exercise class. I was reading, thinking, gaming. Wasting away the hours that make up a slow day. I finally said, “I got to get moving but my get up and go seems to have got up and went.”
So here is my morning mental music stream. Brought to you by The Neurons. The Neurons: when you don’t know what to think.
I enjoyed watching and listening to this video of The Animals. It brought back elements of another time and delivered smiles to me. Hope you find it the same, seeing those young individuals and the more primitive conditions of television and pop culture.
Listening to Chris Isaak has been tarnished by a “Friends” episode that featured Isaak as a guy dating Phoebe. He sings a few high notes. She starts laughing.
Coffee is at hand. Time to coffee up and go be me. You go be you. Let’s do the best we can. Come on, let’s walk this way. Cheers
The Learning Dream
My wife and I were at a pool. I somehow got involved in a swimming class. Others were doing it. There was a white cloth or panel on the pool’s bottom. Our guidance was to take a deep breath, dive to the bottom, get the item, swim to the other side of the pool and surfaced.
My wife laughed. “He’s a really strong swimmer. He’ll do that without trying.”
I did. I’m not a strong swimmer but I’m good at holding my breath.
After doing that on the first attempt, they set me loose in free-practice to keep getting better.
Next, we moved inside. Now I was helping with some kind of television or streaming shopping channel. I was to write on a piece of cardboard and then slid the info forward so some announcer could see it. The info was being given to me by another person, and I was to keep writing the new price as it came in and show it.
Well, I screwed it up the first two times. I did well the third time, and then the people told me to keep practicing. I did for a while and then someone came by and told me I had a new assignment. This involved reading textbooks. The assignment confused me. “I’m just supposed to read them all? Will there be tests?” Yes, I’m to read them all, astounding me. A large range of topics were included. Stacks of books awaited my eyes. And yes, I would be tested.
I began that assignment and was startled about how fast I discovered I could read and learn. After four of five books, I was just fanning the pages. Witnessing this, my wife chastised me. “You’re supposed to be learning this.” I laughed back. “I am. Give me a book. I’ll read it and you can ask me questions, and I’ll answer them.”
She gave me a book. I read it. She asked me three questions, and I answered them all.
Another instructor arrived. I was being taken to a new class. The instructor said, “In this class, you’ll be taught how to use energy to change things.” I asked, “What kind of things will I be able to change?”
She answered, “Wait and see.”
The dream ended as a cat tapped my hand and meowed.
It was a very uplifting and energizing dream.
Frieda’s Wandering Thoughts
I’ve been using a secret weapon to amuse me the last few weeks. Two, actually. Both are throwbacks for me.
Tim Dowling is an American living in the UK. He writes a column for the Guardian. I find them hilarious. I used to regularly read him. Then The Neurons dropped him out of the rotation. I never noticed.
I regularly read news in the Guardian. I like their coverage of U.S. news. So, while reading an article a few weeks ago, I saw a reference to the latest Tim Dowling column. Clicking on that, I resumed reading him, catching up on his past columns by reading one everyday.
He’s sixty years old. Married, with three sons. They have just moved out. He also has a dog, cat, and tortoise. He plays in a band and deprecates his playing. Being an animal lover and very fond of cats, I enjoy the tales relating to his household animals the most. Today, I read his column from September of 2023.
Tim Dowling: we’re moving bedrooms – before the cat kills me
My other secret vice — Well, it’s not my only vice. I have a large list of secret vices. It depends on whose morality is used to judge me.
But this vice is watching an old British science fiction show called Red Dwarf. I recently re-discovered it playing on a live TV channel on Prime.
I began watching that show in the early 1990s. I was assigned to Onizuka Air Station then in the San Jose-San Francisco Bay Area. KQED introduced me to Red Dwarf during their science fiction fund-raising marathons.
Red Dwarf is an interstellar mining ship. It’s principally manned by Lister, Rimmer, the Cat, and Kryden. Dave Lister is the last human alive. He was in stasis as punishment for having a cat onboard the Red Dwarf. He stayed in stasis for 3,000,000 years while the radiation levels declined to safe levels.
That was needed because Arnold Rimmer had an accident. The accident resulted in a radiation link that killed all the crew members except Dave Lister. Because Lister was in stasis.
Rimmer and Lister were roomates and worked together. They do not get along. But the computer, Holly, brought Rimmer back as a holograph as a companion for Lister so Lister doesn’t go insane.
Lister isn’t happy about Holly’s decision.
The Cat is a direct descendent of the cat behind Lister’s punishment. Cats have evolved into a sort of human cat variation. He’s a vain, vapid, and selfish character who intensely dislikes Rimmer and is often Lister’s ally.
All manner of science fiction action happens to the Red Dwarf crew. Others species are encountered. Time travel happens. The mail catches up with them. Rimmer believes in order and is ambitious but inept. Lister likes to party but is intelligent and lazy. They plot against one another. Nanobots stage a revolt. All males, they are hungry for female interactions.
Yes, it’s silly. Full of all gaps, contradictions, and plot holes. But it’s fun. Watching it returns me for a bit to when I was thirty years younger and the future looked brighter.
You gotta do something to get through these days, right?
Floofevision
Floofevision (floofinition) – Television or movies either created to entertain animals, or containing stories in which animals are heavily featured. Origins: United States, Internet, 1998.
In Use: “As Youtube videos became popular, many floofvision offerings featuring birds coming to birdfeeders were made to entertain housefloofs.”
In Use: “Some very successful floofevision offerings include movies or televisions series such as Gentle Ben, Lassie, and My Friend Flicka.”
What’s On?
I honestly believe there is only one movie that I’ve watched more than five times. There aren’t any television series which I’ve watched that often.
There are many television series which I enjoy but many don’t age well as I watch them again. I know them too well and their tricks and surprises fade. Even series such as Seinfeld, The Expanse, Red Dwarf, Justified, Bosch, Deadwood, Game of Thrones, Slow Horses, and The Line of Duty, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, haven’t been watched more than three times.
As for movies, I have watched several Clint Eastwood movies several times. Like Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter, and Unforgiven. Movies such as Field of Dreams, This is Spinal Tap, Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, Elf, The Godfather, The Abyss, Predator, Alien, Romancing The Stone, and Bladerunner have been seen more than once, along with The Conversation, The French Connection, Toy Story, and Strange Brew.
As far as watching any movies more than five times, there is one. Wasn’t like my niece, though. She’s a total Titanic head. Born two years after the 1997 movie about the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, she has seen that movie 51 times. Owns a DVD of it, of course. Also a book about the movie. Or three. And a model of the RMS Titanic.
Yeah, I’ve never gone that far. I have watched A Christmas Story more than five times. I need to sort of couch that, though. I have deliberately watched it at least four times over the years, but illness one year put me over the top. Sick with the flu, I turned on the television and tuned it to TBS. They happened to be doing a 24-hour marathon showing of A Christmas Story. So I had it on as I zoned in and out of sleep.
I guess that counts.
Michael Seidel, writer 