Been in my new house six or seven weeks now. The days rush by in a whirl of work — the kind I do and get paid for, the kind I do and don’t get paid for (except in satisfaction and sweat equity) and the kind of work I have to pay other people to do. Can you guess that the latter is outstripping the former right now? Ouch. Still, nothing to be done about it. I’m at that stage of things where I have to pay contractors to do some fairly heavy lifting. Some jobs I simply can’t do…
Category: Miscellaneous
On yesterday’s mystery goop,, here (and you’re not gonna like it) is the solution. Thank you guys who knew and either refrained from answering or merely dropped sly hints. FWIW, my guesses would have been of the taffy/soft-serve strawberry ice cream sort, along with a lot of you. Or perhaps I’d have guessed it was a joke — something designed to look as if it came out of Barney the purple dinosaur’s rear end — which, come to think of it, isn’t that far from the reality of the stuff. Eeeeew.
Okay, let’s have some guesses. What do you think it is? And if you’ve seen this photo before and know what it is, please refrain from revealing the truth. Be more entertaining to hear first what folks think it might be.
I don’t usually go around wondering, “What would Ayn Rand think …?” But that notion stayed with me the whole time I was reading this odd property-rights story. Wonder what Ayn Rand would’ve thought of this guy — “the buzzard of the backcountry”? Paul Rosenberg continues his series on basic computer privacy with “What is PGP and why you need to know.” It’s too bad so many people find email encryption so daunting. With the feds seeking backdoors for all encryption that’s done by third-party providers, having our own encryption could become even more crucial in the not-too-distant future. Don’t…
Good CounterPunch op-ed on why the “peace” president, the “openness” president, and the “dissent is patriotic” president is sending the FBI to terrorize anti-war organizers, calling the peace activists terrorist supporters. Hm. Barry Ritholtz is just discovering that the left-right political divide is bogus. He now sez it’s us vs corporations. Getting closer to the truth there, Barry. But still missing the point. Question (and A Clue) for ya: What’s the biggest corporate body in the whole, entire world? How come, in all the many articles about the CIA’s drone war in Afghanistan, nobody ever, ever, ever, ever, ever asks…
Having gotten the living room of my new (old) house to the point where I can sit in it without itching to paint something, I’m now tearing into the kitchen — a much bigger, more serious job. And a job on which I could use some advice from you more experienced wood-workers. Although the house is more than 100 years old, it had its last remodel somewhere in the late 1950s. Since then, all anybody has done is paint over the 50s stuff. I’ve decided to keep the 50s look, partly because it makes me laugh and partly because it’s…
The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship is DONE! Well, except for the afterword, which I’m going to redo and turn in next week. Other than that — it’s done and submitted to Paladin Press. Just looked to see when the first email arrived from Donna at Paladin proposing the project.A month ago today. From zero to completed manuscript (about 2/5 new material, 3/5 compiled columns — but even those had to be edited and updated, so still quite a project) in exactly one month. Whew! (Ulp. I also just realized, in re-reading Donna’s first message, that I didn’t really…
Fueled by coffee (which I rarely drink, being a tea wuss), I just spent the evening not working on the Paladin book and am now about to get back to those almost-final polishings. Meantime I enjoyed an excellent noir thriller which is as much a meditation on love, loss, regret, memory, and obsession as it is a murder mystery. The Secret in Their Eyes. It won this year’s Best Foreign-Language Picture Oscar — one of the few times I think I might agree with the Academy voters on a foreign film (they usually vote too politically correct or two just-plain-sappy…
The Paladin book is going into final edit before going off to the publisher and a S.W.A.T. magazine deadline looms this week. So the brain is a bit crowded right now (and that’s without … well, other stuff going on that involves three driven-to-distraction dogs and an overwhelmed but surprisingly calm guest kitty; more on that later). But, with a little help from my friends, here’s a bit of blogitude: Via Sam (thank you): What happens when an American traveler calmly refuses to answer questions upon his reentry into the “homeland.” Bold blogger, that guy. Larken Rose, who last time…
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Friday was Constitution Day. But I didn’t blog about it. Given the current state of things, it’s clear which day is the more important one.