Month: February 2018

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Neologisms

23 February 2018

The English language is evolving as we speak. In fact, that’s one of the ways that it evolves. Some old words don’t quite fit new concepts, and some carry unnecessary baggage (see “Tselphisch Tovarisch?” for amplification.) When the need arises, we create new expressions.
Some of the following are my own invention, some are not.

Confabulation — Well, actually, I didn’t coin this word, but I thought I did, just as I thought I’d discovered the Binomial Theorem in senior juniorhigh. Turns out someone beat me to it. Anyway, the psychology types got there first and decided it’s some sort of detailed delusion. Sure. But when the “Editorial I” wanted to hype The Kree-Skrull War and wrote, “This Cosmic Confabulation has it all! Rockets! Robots! Romance! Rick Jones!” I thought it meant a story created by collaboration. So that was one attempt.

Cyberlogue — The language of IT weasels. It sounds a lot like English, the grammar and syntax, particularly, but the vocabulary is heavy with acronyms and a veritable Niagara of neologisms of their own.

Seriagraphy — Serial Pictures. “Sequential Art” says Will Eisner. “Graphic Novels” say the effete. “Comic Books” or “Panel Art” say most, and “Illustrated Stories” say some. I prefer Seriagraphy.
Serigraphy (“seh rig ruh fee” with just the one A) is silk screening.
Seriagraphy (“sear ee ah gruh fee”) would be the process. A seriagraph (“sear ee uh graph”) would be the finished product. “Comic Books” is a slur to many of us, as the medium is so much more than Richie Rich and Archie Andrews. Many “comix” are far from comical. And Graphic NOVEL? Sometimes, sure, but not always. Even Eisner’s own A Contract With God, hailed by many as [“the barrier shattering graphic novel that brought the funny pages out of the ghetto“], wasn’t a novel at all. It was an anthology with four separate (albeit thematically linked) can-stand-up-all-by-themselves stories. So nothing wrong with “graphic novel,” if it’s a novel, or “graphic anthology,” if it’s an anthology, but in general, “Seriagraph.” Practice saying it with me.

Softsmith — Programmer, a writer of software products.
“That’s just elegant!” (as The Girl in the Kaufmans’ Apartment would say.) I’m surprised no one’s beaten me to this, it just seems so obvious. A silversmith creates things out of silver, so… “Programmers” on the other hand might put together “mix tapes” for their friends, or book entertainers for cruise lines. It’s a little too broad, I think, like “Federal Agent.”

Unteamly — How I behaved at every school I ever attended and on every job I ever held. Although I may be often told that Together Everyone Accomplishes More, I know that Trite Euphemisms Are Meaningless. Of course, when I was actually engaged in a sporting activity with friends or classmates (baseball, volleyball, football, or real football), then I WAS a team player. Because we were PLAYING. If I have to be paid in order to do it, it’s not “playing.”

Swipe and hash tag — Neither of these are mine. In fact I reject them both. What idiot decided it was a good idea to encourage people to “swipe” things in a retail establishment? Sure, we all want to get paid, and submitting credit or debit data is one helpful way to get that done, but… To “swipe” means to steal, to pilfer, to kype, or to snatch. Do you really want your customers swiping stuff? Fortunately for the sane and the humane among us, the word “slide” already exists, is only one syllable, and ALREADY DESCRIBES THE ACTION! “Hash tag” is worse. “Hash tag” is an abomination. The # has existed for several decades (preceding my involvement in typography) and for all that time it has been known as the pound or the number symbol. Why invent a two syllable word to substitute for an already existing one syllable word? Who has so much extra time that doubling the work load seems like a good idea?

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Conan and the Frost Giants created by Robert E Howard. this particular presentation of Pan was earlier seen in the House of Mystery, property of Detective Comics and Warner Communications.  Kirk Douglas as Spartacus by unknown photographer.  These images are reproduced by Piracy Press for purposes of analysis and scholarship.

Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

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Salute and Thanks to Tom Woods (who still gives me WAAAAAAAY too much credit.)

September 23, 2017

Five minutes, he says, five minutes and I’m supposedly ’b logging. About an hour into this trauma and it’s still not fun.

update 170925: Into day three of my “five minute” ordeal. Obviously I can get in and edit, and probably even post, but still only through the handy e-mail portal that blue host sent me. And roundaboutly at that! However, I still cannot get in through the site itself… lower right of the screen… META… Log in… you’d think that’s where they’d take my e-dress and (ridiculously complicated) passcode…

Heavy sigh…

update 171112: Posting again… After six weeks I’ve cracked PART of the secret code; now I can get in other than accidentally, albeit through blue host’s “convenient” e-portal. Remote access is still a no go. I may have to suffer the “help” desk again. And graphics? That could be years away…

Also Tom, by explicit contextual definition, since I have not yet monetized this trauma, I remain a schmuck. (Maybe the reason “nobody ever does anything” is because “nothing ever works.”)

I hope you’re bearing with me. I have long been challenged by syntactical disciplines. It began, I am told (by parents and an older brother who were all there), with the English language. I did not speak for well past the expected period, and folks were beginning to wonder, “Is there something wrong with that boy?” As it turned out, there was. Nevertheless, one day at dinner I suddenly spewed forth both proper grammar and genteel table etiquette. (“Please pass the potatoes.”)

The painfully embarrassing cognitive debility extended to junior high French also, constituting my single scholastic failure, as well as to Les Mysteres Cybernetique.

correspondent TE (180111):
“Please understand: I want to help you. But you have to help me help you. I need an About page that is extremely straightforward. No jokes, no wit. Just plain Jane: this is what this site is. These are the opinions you can expect to find here. Otherwise, I am unable to promote your site effectively.”

update 180115: Composed and drafted an “About page” (sober complement to my “The Greigh Area…” description post), and while I sent the (implicitly) requested text and link, I still can’t figure out how to make it appear without loading “an about page” into the handy “Search” window. I suppose it doesn’t count if I don’t touch third base…
I hope this helps. It seems a little flat to me, but I’ll have to live with it for a while. I’m not sure how I’d find it again if I hadn’t recorded its address, as follows: http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/
I expect there are less cumbersome ways of going about this…

update 180119: WOW! I somehow tripped over the graphics switch, and after several hours of thumb-fingered fumbling, I now have illustrations!
I am tempted to find an unflattering photo of you, Tom, to post at the top of this rant, but I doubt that any exist.
My anger and frustration lie squarely on me. I’m sorry if I’ve allowed my careless wallowing to splash any of it out of my trough.
Oh! And look! I seem to have an “installed Plugin“. Where did that come from? Or was it always there? How did it happen? Did I trip over some new switch… ?

( from episode 1095 // 180215 — Tom’s late Valentine? )

“All right, now folks, you know that I promote websites that are created by people who listen to the show. And if they use my link to get their web hosting they get a good price on it, and they get free publicity from me and a bunch of other very very helpful bonuses that’ll get them free traffic, get them up and running quickly, get them help when they need it, they’re great bonuses, and you know you can get ‘em at Tom Woods dot com slash publicity.

Well I have to confess I do not know how to promote this particular website. I’ve tried, I’ve talked to the guy. I just don’t know how to promote it. The website is The Greigh Area dot com, but it’s spelled G R E I G H, because his name is Gene Greigh, so the Greigh Area dot com. You just have to see Gene Greigh’s writing for yourself. That’s all I can say.
If I tried to explain it to you, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it justice. The site consists of excerpts from works of fiction, published and in progress, poetry, but also, and I would say primarily, commentary on cultural matters, political, historical, even personal matters, much of it intended to be humorous. I don’t know what else to say, other than, I’m just going to have you be surprised when you go to The Greigh Area dot com.

update 180216: In fact, as far as I can tell, Professor Woods has delivered everything he’s promised. All flaws rest with this miserable troglodyte, who continues to struggle, as arcana mystify and confrontation confounds…

update 180218: So was that remorse I detected in Tom’s voice? Or consternation or exasperation or impatience or pique? Irritation? I wouldn’t blame him. I suppose we can be a bit of a trial — but he asked for it! As a consequence of his trauma he deserves every scintilla of attention we’ll offer and every milliray of mammon he can collect.
Nevertheless, I for one, remain grateful and resolve to go back to the end of episode 1095 and listen to Tom’s intro to my poor efforts, and DIGEST. EVERY. WORD.
Then go back to those intimidating tutorial videos again.
Then maybe into my time machine so I can make a better first impression.

update 180222: Bluehost has locked me out again. This is very frustrating. It’s difficult enough to learn this stuff without having chaotic cyber tricks giving me different results, even though I KEEP. DOING. THE SAME. THING.! “Five minutes,” Tom? “FIVE MINUTES?” Look, it’s been almost FIVE MONTHS, and while I’ve managed to get a little text up on the screen (the whole point of this exercise in anguish), I still don’t know how to get in and out reliably. When it permits, I get in through the portal that was provided in September, but I still have no clue as to how to get in remotely. Presumably through the “META“ function, which solicits a “user name or e-mail address, which I provide, then it asks for the ridiculously cumbersome and difficult to remember passcode blue host requires (instead of the easy convenient one that I can remember), which I provide. Instead of letting me in, it rejects my efforts. Also, it would be nice to “stick” my “about page” somewhere near the top of the file, or at least give it a recoverable label so new visitors can readily call it up.. That would be nice.
Dang! I think I’m going to actually have to talk to these people. Please let the next one actually speak English, instead of Cyberlogue, which only sounds like English I’m also going to have to wait to post this diatribe until I can get back in, so it waits on “Word” until I can wake up “wordpress.”

update 180228: Aaaaaaand back in! Just in case I am banish-ed from your in box AND you happen to glance here…
Dr Woods,
You have been very gracious. I appreciate your enormous patience. (Perhaps I am the beneficiary of your training with five daughters.)
I am pleased that you’ve seen fit to post a link to my site even though some of my vocabulary is inconsistent with your “family-friendly” philosophy (as I understand it), so thank you for the extra-contractual kindness.
As if you haven’t done enough for us, I have two additional requests (although one might be convolved enough to count as more).
Because I am a dithering fool I’ve lost the link to the twenty-five tutorials which you were kind enough to send me lo these many months ago. May we refresh the link or am I out of luck? I have managed to get a little text up on the screen, and somehow tripped over some of the secrets of graphics. But now I am locked out again (as of 2/18?), so I’m actually going to have to talk to these people. At least so I can get back in, maybe even remotely. Then to study study study…
May I know your advertising criteria? (Bucks per time increment — prerecorded v Tom’s recitation, and whether the phrase “…and I’m only saying this because he’s paying me to” would require any premium beyond the time it takes you to read it.)
I remain eager for your response, a loyal fan, and hoping that I am not damaging our relationship with my clingy neediness or embarrassing ineptitude.

update 180804:
As usual, I am a problem.

I just sent you 27 bucks for your “HappyEarner” program, and cheerfully so, wishing that I’d done so on the 23rd of September last when I first opened up this “start blogging in five minutes” nightmare.

If it measures up to the hype attached then I am going to send you another 27 bucks to squander as foolishly as you wish (even on progressive rock, if you can stand it). I am skeptical, but not necessarily of your benign intent. It is possible that I am THE most cybernetically retarded libertarian on the planet. It’s unavoidable that it be someone. Why not me? Do you know any other alleged grownups who are LESS adept at this stuff? In fact, I’d try to impose intellectual property rights on the neologism “Etard” (or “Schmuck” in Woodsian dialect), except that, as an anarcho-materialist, I have no respect for “IP.”

Anyway, I just want to express to you that despite the snark, and my own frustration with my incompetence, I have great respect and high regard for you and your good works, and am convinced that your every commercial move is honorable.

You’ve alluded to some of your own earlier frustrations, so perhaps you might consider bundling your “HappyEarner” offer with your “start blogging in five minutes” offer.

update 180922: “Outside of comedy…”? OUTSIDE? Please, Tom, we are some of the funniest people on line who don’t get paid for it. I know, some of us are a bit juvenile, and a few rather profane, but still… “Outside of comedy…”? Even an extra-bad ‘b logger such as myself, a veritable digital doofus, can feel the sting! And while we are often not as funny as we think, we are also funnier than we realize.

Licking my wound…
Gene

update 181025: Having surrendered to my debility, as painfully mature as that sounds, I’ve dropped a few more Fe’ral Reserve Digits for the special hand-holding service offered by “wordpresslive” so that I might actually pull myself out of these pitiable depths of non-monetizing schmuckitude.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. I gave those tutorials a shot, but they are so heavy with jargon that I can’t seem to start. I keep running for the glossary and more often than not find obfuscation rather than clarification. It’s now been an additional thirteen months since I tried ’b logging “in five minutes” and this is how I‘m doing. So far I’ve had at least TWO VISITORS (that I can discern, because they bothered to comment.) Maybe more but I have no way of telling, as I still don‘t know how to count “hits.”. I hope with the tender technicians’ help I might break up this cumbersome column and make the screen a little more than just text text text.

update 181107: correspondent TE claims that, “People in academia are so lost in their own jargon and lexicon, they have no idea how difficult they’re making things on the ordinary Joe.”
Perfectly apt, of course, with two caveats.
One minor: You can substitute the name of just about any other cadre for “academia” and it rings just as true.
One major: Many in their respective cadres do indeed have a very good idea of how difficult they are making things, as they are doing it on purpose. After all, language reveals, slang conceals; language includes, slang excludes.

update 181208: And at long last I have an “About” page that is NOT INVISIBLE to visitors. Assuming one can read English, now when arriving at the site one will find a menu with the actual words “an ‘About’ page” listed. This is much more convenient than entering “about” in the search window which was one’s only recourse for the last five minutes or fourteen months. The original that the “helpful” tutorials instructed me to establish remains concealed at http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/

The bizarre text at the beginning was suggested by the Standard English Obfuscators at Yeost (alleged on-line vendors) as a way of improving my site’s visibility. I’m not sure it actually works, as I’m still unable to count visitors. It just looks ugly and I rather strongly suspect that I’ve been scammed again.

update 190111: It may be for the best. I lost my identification and bank card a month or so back. It was a fairly cheaply bought valuable lesson. They may have been disappeared or destroyed, but they were not charged before I canceled them. Still, trauma remained. Called the creditors who were expecting to lean on my account based on our monthly agreements, and got them up to date so I wasn‘t risking any serious lapses.

HOWever… while the bluehost billing department was perfectly willing to update and bill me for another year of hosting, the hand-holding tutorial section of the biz was unwilling to accept the word of their own accounting department to extend my “help“ subscription, demanding that I send them a mysteriously coded e-message instead. The two or three months of expensive “assistance“ resulted in a table of contents reflecting more coherent “categories.” I guess they no longer will honor my calls or accept my dough. So be it. I‘ll continue to stagger forward on the merits of my (spotty) ability to read and understand English toward a more “WoodsWorthyWebsite“ (trade name bounty?) or ‘b log. After the recent trauma, perhaps the alleged tutorials might seem a little less jargon heavy, and maybe even comprehensible. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d be LESS clear by now.

A WordPress Tutorial Videos Revue (stream of conscious commentaries accompanying the campaign to conquer a shallow learning curve)

190129: “How to Install a Theme”
jargon dump: theme… dashboard…
Start from “dashboard“?
“click on right here” — look for “right here” key? or “One Penny”?
Wait a minute… before “here on appearance, click on themes” there was motion on the screen as cursor moved onto tab, but…?
Again with “One Penny” Who is that? Do I find it near my “dashboard” Is this the secret starter program ya’ll won’t share?
“add new” and ignore talk of “if you’ve purchased a theme”
Should see display of six pictures of “themes”?
Okeh… I watched that video several times, took careful notes and went to my “dashboard” and COULD NOT FIND either the “One Penny” key or the “Right Here” key. So I’m blocked!
Well, reviewing the video, and looking at my site (such as it is) it may all be moot. I’m not sure, but I may have already somehow “selected a theme.” I do a lot of fumbling around at this ‘b logging, largely motivated by the threat of “touch that strange button and lose files!”
It does seem I have an “appearance” key, I just have to follow a different trail to get to it! Nevertheless, the screen it delivers is rather different from the tutorial’s allegations, so still not much help…


190130: “How to Install a Plugin”
jargon dump: plugin…
Start from dashboard… “over here” “plugin” “add new“
Now I could search for or upload a plug-in, or even buy one, apparently, but I still don‘t know why I‘d want to. What is it? What does it do? In what way does it make starting easier or faster?
It feels already like the trainer who starts with, “You need to remember to do e,f, and, g, but before that you should make sure that c and d are straight, but first…” Okeh, back to our program…
“HIDE POST?” “HIDE POST?” What’s all this? Why on earth would I want to HIDE my posts? The whole point of this is so the world can SEE my posts. Oy McVey! …ahem… now then…”Hiding posts…”
Okeh, “activate…” that makes a kind of sense. If I wanted it I’d probably want to activate it. But still… Why did I want this? To hide posts?
WHOA! Someone thinks I bought a LOT of plugins! That is one monumental megalith of a list! And I still have no clue why I might want ONE let alone such a selection as shown! And this is an early tutorial? Do they get even more ridiculous and confusing after this? Or am I being scammed here?
“open” and “install now” and “activate plugin” are all straightforward instructions. Thanks at least for that!
Not quite understanding what “themes“ or “plugins“ might be, I apparently need to master those ideas BEFORE I attempt the dark arts of “Home Pages.” I guess I was naively thinking that one would START with a home page, get an idea of what I wanted to say with it, AND THEN maybe discuss the possible advantages of “themes“ or “styles“ or “motifs“ and the possible additional utility of “plugins“ or “tools“ or “napps“ or “accessories.” But that appears to be anon, as this is has been enough frustration for one day.

update 21 December 2023 — Six Years and Five Minutes later…

I may be the stupidest of Tom Woods‘ fans. I may also (but less likely) be the smartest of his fans. That is not a contradiction because those are independent phenomena; neither is the absence of the other.

Anyway, about two months ago I got hit by an unsolicited “upgrade” from WordHost or BluePress or more likely one of the cyberweasels working there. No flowers, no candy, no poetry, no lubricants, just straight brutal upgrade. I tried negotiating my way in, but they rejected my customary approach, which had theretofore worked just fine, which was probably the reason they had to sodomi– uh… “upgrade” me. I finally got through to an apparent human through “chat” and after a couple of hours of anguish, I finally wore him down enough for him to eschew the cyberlogue and to actually begin communicating in English. Obviously, I’m now back in, albeit through a newly confusing and circuitous route. But it works and I’m not fucking with it, at least not until the next unsolicited “upgrade.”

I’m not sure what’s more annoying: the arrogant condescension of the cognoscenti who’ve apparently forgotten that they too were born ignorant, or the arrogant presumption of team fans (they call themselves “sports fans,” but I’ve learned to see through that contemptible lie) who figure everybody they meet also MUST BE a team fan, too, and is therefore ready to discuss “the game” in excruciatingly mind-numbing detail.

Oy McFuckingVey!


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“SORTA” working for it?

Is it because politicians are tone-deaf and don’t realize how upsetting it is for tax victims to see their stolen money squandered? Or is it because our dear leaders realize how complacent we are that they believe they can reward failure (again) to the tune of a 17.5% salary hike for the bumbling bureaucrat who “SORTA” works for it? (“Amid problems, streetcar leader gets big raise” — Enquirer 18 February 18)

I’m gonna have to go with confident in our complacency. No one could be that tone-deaf or stupid. Except voters. After all, we keep reelecting Repucrats and Demoblicans, even though sober, rational, and viable Libertutionists and Constitarians appear on the ballot just about every election. But we can’t vote for them, because “they can’t win.” And why can’t they win? Because we only vote for Demoblicans and Repucrats, of course. It’s a tidy circle, and it is the rhetorical equivalent of the child’s “just because.”
180218

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We Are Doomed

22 November 2010 (Daily Paul)

The Federal Reserve Account Unit of Debt (aka the Federal Reserve Note fiat “dollar”) will tank. Let me repeat that. It WILL tank. The only question is: How fast, how catastrophically, and how much will it hurt?

If it continues its slow slide into oblivion, we will all be hurt, a little at a time, though the least able to afford it will be hurt the most. That’s what’s been happening for decades. In the history of fiat currencies, paper money ALWAYS disintegrates. If the decline accelerates (think Weimar Republic), the residue could be catastrophic, and tyranny will rush in through the window of opportunity.

If Dr Paul and the rest of the hard money advocates get our way, we will put the brakes on the Federal Reserve scam, restabilize the currency, and then we will be facing a mild to severe recession as misspent resources are reallocated into more rational and productive enterprises. Little people will get hurt while the dinosaurs thrash about in their death throes.

If we do nothing, then we face even greater danger (think of the immediate heirs to the Weimar Republic.)

That’s our challenge. We must try to sell immediate and certain economic discomfort as the only means to avoid greater and inevitable trauma. Promoting certain discomfort is an almost impossible political sell, but the only alternative to imminent discomfort is disaster, and the likeliest alternative to political correction is an orgy of violence not seen on this continent since the War Against the States.

I try to be optimistic and advocate for political salvation, but I’m also stocking up on gold, silver, canned goods, clean water, high test hootch, toilet paper, and ammunition.

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(Alissa Rosenbaum’s RENT)

20 February 2018

Ah RENT!
Great songs! Memorable characters!
A thoroughly loathsome premise!

[We] went out to see RENT the other night, and we had a simply wonderful time. No, we didn’t get into it with the other (likely leftie) theatre goers. We were all there just for the exuberance and the music and the joy.
Still, the “other side” must be heard…
So now I wonder, should I write this?

It is…RANDT ( –or– “Ayn Rand’s RENT” )

The valiant struggle of heroic property owners to capitalize their assets, stimulate the productive sector, and enrich all of humanity, in the face of fierce opposition by moochers, second-handers, the aesthete, and an authoritarian collective enforcing its corrupt notions of “renters’ rights.”

Plot: Ellsworth Mouch and Wesley Toohey are a progressive couple living in a rent controlled loft. She is an architectural critic writing for the New York Boast, and she is a social worker at the Dept of Family Services. They are five hundred twenty-seven thousand forty minutes (It’s a leap year!) arrears in their rent.

Building owners and business couple Howard Galt and Dominique Taggart want to evict the squatters and clear out the tent city in their adjacent lot so they can sell out to real estate brokers and business couple Frank Hedon and Dagny Francon, who intend to flip the property to GunCo, who plan on developing a manufactory and firing range.

Complications ensue when Dominique’s and Dagny’s old romance flairs up again while Ellsworth and Wesley struggle with the City to get the property declared a Homeless Sanctuary Organic Garden Child Care AIDS Clinic.

Featured numbers include:
“No A, but is A” — “Take Me or Make Me” — “La Vie Agore” —
“Today 4 I” — and — “The Tango Francon”

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It may have SEEMED obvious…

020704 — To the Diva: If being gone was the problem, how is coming home not the solution?

190719 — To the Coach:  If doing too little work was the problem, how come doing more wasn’t the solution?

210109 — To the Axis:  If telling the truth caused the problem, how come lies don’t help?

211023 — The Difference:  I try to answer darkness with light; you try to answer with darker darkness.

from Jackson Browne, 1976 —  At the moment the music began, and you heard the guitar player starting to sing.  You were filled with the beauty that ran through what you were imagining.  Dreaming of scenes from those songs of love.  I was the endless sky, and you were my Mexican dove.  Now the music that played in your ears grows a little bit fainter each day.  And you find yourself looking through tears at the love you feel slipping away.  But it’s not the kind of love you might hope to find,  if tears could release the heart from the shadows preferred by the mind.    

Like a wind that comes up in the night caressing your face while you sleep, love will fill your eyes with the sights of a world you can’t hope to keep.  Dreaming on after that moment’s gone, the light in your lover’s eyes disappears in the light of the dawn.  But the morning brings strength to your restless wings and some other lover sings to the sun’s bright corona.  I know all about these things, linda paloma.

He reliably nails me every time.
I don’t need to write any of my own poetry.
211024

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Great Expectorations

11 December 2016 — The Purpose of Junior Juniorhigh

If I were an objective, empirical person, I would conclude, based on the evidence, that the purpose of Junior Juniorhigh is to prepare us for Senior Juniorhigh, and that the purpose of Senior Juniorhigh is to prepare us for Eternal Juniorhigh. The mores, traditions, and ethics of Eternal Juniorhigh are designed to convince fading former Prom Queens and their plagues of pestiferous Princesses that they are still way cooler than the nerdy techies that they, or their (ex?)husbands, now work for.

14 September 2022

I have elected to stiff you this month. (Try to relax and don’t clench up. They say it’s easier that way.) Based on cash flow and other exigencies, I decided it would be prudent (and far safer) to pay “Kitawg‘s Main Street Automotive” instead. After discerning that I’d been putting more brake fluid into my car in the last two months than in the prior five or six years, I decided I preferred brake work in my immediate future to charges of vehicular homicide. Kitawg confirmed my suspicions about the effect of twenty winters of Cincinnatistan’s salted roads on exposed metals. It seems I’d been expressing brake fluid out of corroded brake lines at every intersection. Fortunately, the closest Texas comes to salted roads would be along the Gulf Coast, which is nowhere near me these days. I am always delighted to give money to skilled craftsmen when it makes me better off than the mere cash could, and I will be delighted to resume payments to you anon, generally believing that paying debts is the best “investment.” Meanwhile, your monthly status report:

Beginning balance: $5756.90
CPI for August 2022 reported to be 8.30% annualized.
interest: $40.82
payment: $0.00
balance remaining: $5797.72

14 October 2022

Not surprising that an heroic “woman of color” would finally get fed up with the Party of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, and elective war, and also not surprising that venal Democrats are now scorching their former “rising star” Lt Col Gabbard.

The car, and its newly rebuilt brake system, is now in safe working order, and while reparations have not yet kicked in (I’m still lingering over applying for Social “Security” as I’m taking an actuarial chance, based on relative health, family history, and lifestyle, that waiting a little more will enhance the stipend sufficiently to overcome the delay and then some.) my modest income from the local QuikkStopp allows me to resume my preferred payment schedule.
Once again, your monthly status report:

Beginning balance: $5797.72
CPI for September 2022 reported to be 8.17% annualized.
interest: $39.47
payment: $400.00
balance remaining: $5437.19

14 March 2023

Happy Pi Day AND Happy Equal Pay Day, a fitting confluence of events denoting opportunities for arrogant solons to attempt de-legislating reality.  History is amusingly replete with examples of Pi being redefined (to 22/7, typically, though I’m partial to 355/113 myself) so that it is no longer irrational (and therefore presumably an abomination unto the Lord), forgetting that real engineers and electricians never use pi (or e or phi) anyway, because no one’s paying for all that extra accuracy.  Silly Demoblicans and Repucrats also like to try to legislate away the real differences in lifelong choices made by majorities of men and women that result in their achieving different stations in the market vis a vis productivity and reward.  I expect if men also took about a decade off from their career tracks to raise children, AND if women were more inclined to risky (and therefore more handsomely compensated) behavior, there’d probably be no such gap.  This fantastical 73% or 79% comparison is evidence of the adage, “Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.”

A new low on the CPI (at least for the life of this loan) is certainly good news for me, most of the rest of humanity, as well as your own tender conscience.  (Apropos of which, have you sponsored a worthy stripper yet?)

Herewith, your (regular?) bimonthly check-free statement.

Beginning balance: $4700.15
CPI for year ending February 2023 reported to be 5.5%
interest: $21.53
payment: $0.00
balance remaining: $4721.68

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Adventures in Bad Lyrics, volume two

23 March 2018 — Endless repetition does little to improve weak lyrics.

“I’m like a bird, I want to fly away,
I don’t know where my home is.
I don’t know where my home is.”
Then repeat ad tedium.

Maybe I can rehabilitate this and illuminate the inadvertent wisdom that almost snuck in there. How’s this?
I’m like a girl, I want to talk all day.
I don’t know where my phone is.
I don’t know where my phone is.

Am I insulting women here? I expect not, I adore women, and respect many of them. “Girls,” however, are immature, untrained, and inexperienced, so they haven’t yet grasped the value of silence. (Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if leftie “womyn” took the initiative to seize offense; umbrage is their ambrosia.)

This cliché (“I want to talk all day.”) is a cliché because it is founded in our racial history, leading to the credible stereotypes of the taciturn man of few words versus the effusive back fence gossip.

Gatherers had to network, to tell each other where to find the fresh berries and to warn against spiders and snakes. It is deeply etched into their genetic natures to yammer on incessantly. Hunters were obliged to sit very still and keep their mouths shut long enough to bag their game. If they didn’t, they starved, and that’s why motormouth hunters do not dominate the gene pool.

27 March 2018 — Okeh, here‘s the set-up: “Take me to New York…”
And the delivery: “I’d love to see L.A.”
Hang on. Does that agree? I may have missed something. Until that girl learns a little geography, she’s bound for bitter disappointment.
If she were to say things like…
“Take me to the Louvre, I’d love to groove on art…”
“Take me to the zoo, I want to see the chimps…” or
“Take me back to Frisco, want to see the bay…”
She’d be making some sort of sense. Instead, she may as well ask,
“Take me to Nebraska, want to see the sea…” or
“Lock me in a dungeon so that I’ll be free…”
Furthermore, she gets demerits for constant repetition of “American boy” as well as ethical demerits for even suggesting that a girl needs an American (or any other) boy to get her out of her native village and into the big bad world. Isn’t shifting for oneself one of the hallmarks of adulthood?

“Adventures in Bad Lyrics” is sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates, c/o Gene Greigh //  401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903